Disclaimer: American Gothic characters and canon belong to Shaun Cassidy and Sam Raimi; plot and any original characters belong to me. No copyright infringement intended.
"The evil that men do lives after them."
– Mark Antony from William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar"
"Where you off to, Ben?" asked Floyd the following day.
Ben paused with his hand on the station door and glanced back at the other deputy. "I'm goin' back to the boardinghouse and have another word with that Richardson fella I talked to yesterday. Somethin' about that boy just didn't sit right with me."
Lucas walked out of Gail Emory's hospital room to find himself staring into the face of Billy Peale.
"What's up, Doc?" he asked with a snicker.
"The crime rate," Billy retorted. "And surprise, surprise, nothing's been done about it."
"Speakin' of doin' nothin', just what are you doin' about Miss Emory there?" Lucas gestured toward Gail's door. "She's still in the same condition she was in when I brought her here."
"Well, you can't just tap someone's shoulder and wake them up out of a coma, Sheriff," Billy informed him. "There are cases of people being comatose for years before regaining consciousness, if they do at all. We can't do anything about her, but you're supposed to be doing something about this rapist. Do you even have any suspects?"
Lucas sighed in exasperation. Being asked that question so often wouldn't bother him nearly as much if he had a good answer. "It's under investigation," he said, tight-lipped. He turned to leave. "And if you want to help out the sheriff's department, why don't you just keep an eye out for any strangers in town, alright?" He grinned. "Maybe you can earn yourself a little junior deputy badge."
"Strangers?" Billy repeated. "What makes you think it's a stranger? Remember, ketamine impairs the memory. Who knows how many women haven't come forward or don't even know they were assaulted? This could've been going on for weeks or even months."
Lucas frowned, then said, "Months, huh? Well, if that's the case, maybe I ought to ask you your whereabouts on the nights in question."
Ben tried the door of the boardinghouse, found it open, and let himself into the building. "Miss Holt?" he said, glancing around.
"Hmm," Ben muttered when he received no response. "Miss Holt?" he called from the foot of the stairs, his hand resting on his holstered weapon.
As he started to climb the stairs, a door closed somewhere in the house. Ben's head swiveled in the direction of the noise and he bolted toward the kitchen. Once inside, he quickly surveyed the empty room and, through the screen door, spied Sam Richardson approaching Loris Holt in the back yard.
The sun reflected off the object Richardson carried and Ben realized it was a glass containing some kind of liquid.
As Richardson handed the glass to Miss Holt, Ben burst out of the house. "Hold it right there!" he ordered, gun drawn and aimed at the other man.
"You called?" a voice whispered into Ronilyn's hair.
Ronilyn nearly spit out her cappuccino and spun around on her chair at the counter of the Java Express, coughing. "Yes, I did, Lucas," she managed to say, hating that he was able to sneak up on
her and ignoring his chuckling. "What took you so long? I called the station this morning. Didn't Floyd tell you?"
"He told me," Lucas said, swinging onto the seat next to her.
She looked at him, then said, "Well, I'm honored to see I'm such an important person in your life that you take, what, about six or seven hours to get back to me. Gee, with turnaround time like that, no wonder you're not getting anywhere with that serial rapist."
"Now look," Lucas began, scowling at her. "I'm gettin' real tired of people all of a sudden thinkin' they know how to do my job better than..."
Ronilyn cut him off. "I didn't want to talk to you about that," she said, brushing that topic aside with her hand. "I want to talk to you about Caleb."
"What about him?" Lucas pulled out a drinking straw from the dispenser on the counter.
"Have you talked to him yet?"
"Yep."
"Did he tell you what was bothering him?"
Lucas twisted the straw beneath his fingers. "Sort of."
Ronilyn waited, then finally said, "Well? What is it?"
Lucas set down the mangled straw and met her gaze. "None of your business, that's what it is."
"Of course it's my business," she said, glancing around to make sure Horace wasn't close enough to hear them. "He's family and I want to know what's going on. He didn't show up at my house last night and when I called Loris Holt at the boardinghouse, she said he'd hardly eaten his supper and he was really quiet and..."
"Ronilyn, shut up," Lucas said. "You know, I'm not surprised that you've been talkin' to that Holt woman. A couple of busybody women interferin' with a man's right to raise his own son. Why don't the two of you go have your own children and leave mine alone?"
Ronilyn stared, open-mouthed, at this sudden onslaught. "I don't want to raise your son," she finally said. "But a child should have two parents."
"What makes you think he needs a mother anyway?" Lucas demanded. "That boy's done just fine without one up 'til now. So have you, for that matter," he added, referring to Sarah Huntley's committal to Juniper House when Ronilyn was a toddler.
"Yeah, so I know exactly what he's missing. He needs a woman in his life, but I'm not interested in..."
"And what makes you think you could even be a mother to him?" Lucas interrupted her. "You don't know the first thing about bein' a mother. You didn't exactly have a good role model."
Ronilyn's eyes blazed with anger. "Look," she said, grabbing him by the vest. "I don't know what the hell your problem is today, but I don't appreciate you taking it out on me. And you know what? It's not going to work." She abruptly released her grip and Lucas fell back against his chair. "You always say nasty things about Sarah to try to get a rise out of me and I'm not going to give you the satisfaction."
Lucas merely sat and smirked at her.
"Of course, I'm not going to sit idly by and do nothing either," Ronilyn said and dumped the remainder of her cappuccino on his lap.
Lucas leapt to his feet, swearing. Horace rushed over from the other side of the shop. "Are you alright, Sheriff?" he asked worriedly. "Let me get you some napkins to wipe that up."
Lucas glanced up from dabbing at his wet pants. "Well, I'm glad to see you've developed such remarkable self-control," he told Ronilyn.
"Considering who I'm dealing with, I think I controlled myself quite well." She smiled. "You're just lucky that wasn't hot. Might've burned something you consider important down there."
"Ronilyn..." A beeping sound stopped him. "Damnit." Lucas unclipped a pager from his belt. "What now?" He glanced at the display. "Forget the napkins, Horace," he told the proprietor, who had just brought some over. "I'd be obliged if I could use your phone instead."
"Sure thing, Sheriff."
"Since when do you have a pager?" Ronilyn asked.
"Floyd was doing a crossword puzzle and one of the answers was the word 'pager'," Lucas explained, wiping absently at his pants. "It got him all curious for some reason and he actually found a place where you get a month free on a trial basis. Signed me right up for it without sayin' a word."
"I can tell you enjoy it," she commented as Horace brought the telephone over.
"Damn things," Lucas muttered, as he dialed the phone.
"Set it on vibrator mode," Ronilyn suggested. "Might be more fun that way." Lucas gave her a sideways glance. "Horace, can you give me another cappuccino, please?" she asked. "I seemed to have had an accident with mine."
"What is it, Floyd?" Lucas said into the phone. "Pen run out of ink?" He listened for a moment. "He did what? Alright. I'm on my way." He hung up the phone and glanced at Ronilyn. "We'll finish this some other time," he said as he left the coffee shop.
"Great," Ronilyn said. "I look forward to it." She yawned and gave him a halfhearted wave.
"Well, Doc?" Ben demanded as Billy Peale walked into his office where the deputy waited with his suspect.
Billy sighed. "I hate to tell you this, Ben, but preliminary results show that it's uncontaminated water. Nothing more, nothing less."
Ben opened and closed his mouth. "What?" he finally said. "Why, that can't be."
"I'm afraid it is."
"Of course it is," Sam Richardson snapped. "What the hell did you think I was doin', makin' bathtub gin or somethin'?"
"Why were you givin' her that water?" Ben demanded.
"Why?" the boardinghouse resident repeated. "How about because she looked thirsty and it was warm out. I thought I was bein' nice!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know that was a crime in Trinity."
"More unusual than criminal," Billy remarked.
"Just exactly who are you, mister?" Ben asked.
"Well, if you'll let me reach into my pocket without shootin'my hand off..." Ben inclined his head and the man removed his wallet and handed the deputy a business card.
Ben peered at the card, then glanced up at the man. "Says here you're a travel writer?"
"That's right," Richardson said, slipping his wallet back into his pocket. "I'm doin' a story on the charm of small southern towns." He met Ben's gaze evenly. "I guess I can take Trinity off the list."
"And add it the the top 10 list of towns to avoid? I don't think so," Lucas said, strolling into Billy's office and up to the writer. "You can hardly blame an entire town for the well-intentioned - " he
glanced over at Ben " - but rash act of a single man." Lucas threw his arm around Richardson's shoulders and guided him out the door. "Let me see if I can redeem our little town in your eyes..." he said, his voice trailing off as they left.
Ben sunk down into a chair with a deep sigh. "You got any cyanide around here, Doc?"
The Crown Victoria cruised down the streets of Trinity. It had taken Lucas awhile to persuade that travel writer not to write anything unpleasant about his town and so he'd been in just the right frame of mind to deal with Ben upon his return to the station.
"Jumpin' the gun," he'd lectured his deputy then. "This time, not only did you jump the gun, but you actually went ahead and pulled a gun on someone."
Lucas drove slowly past Ronilyn's house and pulled over to the curb. "Hey," he shouted through the open window on the passenger's side. "What are you doin', just sittin' out there?"
Caleb hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly left the front porch of the house and walked over to the car. "I'm waitin' for Ronilyn," he said. "I'm suppose to come over and help her with the pets after supper and she ain't here yet. Funny thing is - " he glanced over his shoulder at the house and back again " - it's real quiet. It don't sound like the animals are even there."
"Hmm. Well, I wouldn't worry about it, son. She's probably just runnin' late. The mayor might've had something last minute for her to do."
"Well, it's kind of funny that she didn't call Miss Holt and tell me not to come if she wasn't gonna be here," Caleb said. "I hope she's alright. You know, with that rapist runnin' around and all."
Lucas frowned. The boy's thoughts were echoing his own, which would have been encouraging under less troubling circumstances. "Ronilyn's the toughest woman I know," he assured Caleb. "She can take care of herself better than most people." He peered up at the darkening sky. "It's gettin' late. Why don't you get on home? I'm sure she's fine."
"No, sir." Caleb backed away from the car. "I think I'll stick around here awhile longer if it's all the same to you."
Lucas shrugged. "Alright, but don't stay out too long, you hear?"
He drove away, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "The boy's right," Lucas said aloud. "There's no way she would've forgotten that he was comin' over. No way in hell." He stepped on the accelerator.
[A/N: Regarding the pager, remember Trinity is a small town and this takes place in 1996, so not that many people had pagers or cell phones.]