#Wattys2015 The Ghost of James Fitzpatrick

Chapter 43

Zwicki got back up on his feet as Sarah hopped her way over the grass and junk in the back yard to get back to her bicycle. On impulse, she swooped to grab the silver handle of the red box which lay in her path.

"Fuck!" is all Zwicki managed to say, "you fucking shot me, you crazy old bitch," Sarah heard him yell at the detective. Sarah did just as Detective Flores told her, and did not look back, even seconds later when she heard a second shot. POP. Who has the gun, she thought.

Sarah's body jumped at the sound, and she heard a whimper escape her own mouth. It had begun to lightly rain, the cold, spray kind that soaked her coat. She reached her bicycle and swooped it upright onto its tires.

The box at her chest held did indeed hold Sergeant Lewis' story, but it also held James' and both men were long dead. At this moment, on this particular Friday in 2015, the box was Sarah Netherby's, its self-appointed excavator and guardian until further notice.

"You know who else is gonna to be sorry?" Zwicki's voice was loud but calm somewhere behind her. "I'm going to tell your mother, Linda, how sorry I am you disappeared."

The sound of her mother's name on his lips made her sick. Sarah knew that although Detective Flores had shot Principal Zwicki, it had not been an effective shot. He was still walking and talking, and that was not a good sign.

She put the thought of the kind old detective's fate out of her mind. Sarah knew the second shot she heard from the back yard indicated it was probably not a good outcome. She felt her lungs close up to the size of golf balls, and her breath caught in her throat at the thought of the old woman dead in the dirt and weeds of Zwicki's overgrown back yard, but there was zero time for any thoughts except those which would propel her from her current situation.

Sarah forced herself to focus.

"Keep it together Netherby, keep it together," she said to herself as she clambered onto her bike

She looped the handle of the red box over her handle bars, and began pressing the pedals as hard as she could to get the tires rolling out of the wet gravel of Zwicki's endless driveway.

"Come here," Sarah heard him say. She didn't want to turn around. If he were close, it would rattle her and she was afraid to lose her composure. She heard his loafers crunch through the wet gravel behind her.

"Come here," he repeated more loudly. The pace of his footsteps increased as she began to gain the elusive traction required to move her bike. Sarah heard the "coosh coosh coosh coosh" of his footsteps in the gravel behind her, and she knew Zwicki had stopped talking and had broken into a run. She pushed the pedals through the tiny rocks and felt her tires leave his driveway and hit the smooth pavement of the little highway.

Only now did Sarah turned to look over her shoulder. Her arms shook from the cold and the fear and she saw Zwicki had already turned away from her. He was headed back into his house. A pair of headlights in the darkening night came dangerously close to her, and Sarah waved her arms to flag them down. She was met with a spray of water from the tires and decided it was best to move forward just as her father had taught her. Always be moving, he liked to say.

She turned again to look behind her as she put more distance between her and Zwicki's house and she watched him head for his sedan.

No more looking behind, Sarah decided. She thought of an old movie she'd seen as a kid called Gumball Rally and how her father had laughed when one of the drivers in a cross country car race ripped his rear view mirror from the windshield at the start of the race. It simply did not matter what was behind, only what lay ahead.

B~