Mary, Mary by B. W. Battin

Author:B. W. Battin [Battin, B. W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

“And you’re sure this was the same man who was following you, the man you confronted at the shopping center?” Flanagan said. He and Mary sat on metal-and-plastic chairs behind the customer-service counter. Tom was there, too, sitting beside her, squeezing her hand.

“Yes,” Mary replied. “I’m sure.” From where she sat she could see a detective dusting the chainsaw for fingerprints. Because she had had access to no working phones, the security patrolman had radioed his dispatcher, requesting that Tom be notified. Although he was apparently trying to remain calm for her sake, her husband looked pale and drained. Holding his hand, she could almost feel the tension in him.

“And,” Flanagan said, “you have no idea who he is or why he would want to harm you.”

“No. The first time I saw him was when he showed up pretending to be an encyclopedia salesman. Or maybe he really is an encyclopedia salesman, for all I know.”

Flanagan frowned. “I doubt it, but we’ll check and see if any encyclopedia companies have anybody working for them who matches the description.”

“Did you call Mr. Adkins?”

“Who?”

“The assistant manager.”

“Oh, yeah. He’ll be here any minute now.”

A uniformed officer stepped up to the counter, waited until Flanagan looked his way. “There’s blood smears in quite a few places back there.”

“Extensive blood loss?”

“Hard to say, Sergeant.” He was a tall young man, slender, blond hair. “There’s no puddles of it or anything like that.”

“Could any of it be yours?” Flanagan asked Mary. She shook her head. “My shoulder’s pretty sore, but that’s it.”

The detective snorted. “This guy better find another line of work. He tries to jump a girls and she sends him home bloody.”

He studied Mary’s face, apparently awaiting her reaction. She could tell by the way Tom squeezed her hand a little more tightly that he resented Flanagan’s attitude. So did Mary, but she didn’t let it show. She just looked at the detective tiredly.

Flanagan shifted his eyes to the uniformed officer. “Besides the blood, what does it look like back there?”

“There are places where things have been knocked off the shelves, and there are some things on the floor that might have been used as weapons. A weed cutter, a hatchet, the chainsaw there”—he glanced at it—“an axe, a funny-looking thing that sort of looks like some kind of a gun.”

“It’s a stud gun,” Mary said, “for shooting nails into concrete.”

“Oh.”

“Where’d you find the axe?” she asked. She shuddered; she hadn’t known the man had had one.

The patrolman glanced at Flanagan to see whether it was okay to answer. The sergeant nodded, and the young officer said, “In the far corner there.” He motioned toward the back of the store. “There’s a window lying on the floor there. It’s right next to that.”

Oh, God, Mary thought, he had it in his hands when I hit him with the glass, then clobbered him with the weight. How close did I come to dying tonight? How close? She shivered, and Tom again squeezed her hand more firmly.

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