Chapter Fifty-Nine

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin

1 Peter 4:1

Monday 3rd December: Baxter's thoughts were all over the place. He found himself musing about Trish Hartnett. He remembered the way she had been when he'd found her naked, waiting for him like some latter-day Matahari in the den. Exquisite. He shrugged the image from his mind's eye. Could she possibly be a killer? He conjured up a mental image of Trish Hartnett, Delilah-like, à la femme fatale, slipping poison into the mint julep. No it just didn't ring true.

The letter did though. He glanced back at it for the umpteenth time. On a Sumner Elementary School letterhead, the typewritten note was from the Principal and asked him to drop by the school today at 4 pm after the staff and students had gone home.

It had to be about Vicky of course. She probably wanted to tell him to lay off a girl young enough to be his daughter. So what, if you loved someone? And he did love her, in his way. Maybe her being with child was a factor. Vulnerability usually stirred Baxter's urge to dominate. But this was more than that.

Not that Baxter was a reformed character. Like most men he expected his women to be loyal to him but that was as far as it went. He felt no obligation to be loyal to Vicky at the expense of womankind. If a woman asked a man to her bed it was a sin to say no. That was Baxter Merill's philosophy.

He was thinking that way as he put on his jacket for the short stroll down from his home at 185 Longhill and across into Sumner. The Sumner Elementary School was just across the road from OLPH. The walk took less than ten minutes. More like five. It was a balmy afternoon less cold than it had been. The traffic was pretty busy, picking up for rush hour.

Baxter was stepping into the road to cross Sumner, dodging cars, when the white-hot stab of pain lanced into his left side below the ribs. He heard the echoed crack of the gunshot a millisecond later. The pain came first.

Unfortunately for Baxter he was already in the road. The searing pain stopped him in his tracks and the approaching FEDEX delivery truck couldn't brake in time. It hit him square on. On the plus side, fortunately for Baxter, it wasn't travelling that fast. He had a second or two to gather his thoughts before unconsciousness rushed in like an oncoming dark tunnel.

And he thought of Vicky.

"I must love the girl," he mouthed mutely to himself. But nobody heard him.