Chapter 29

DENNIS HAD A LOT of studying to do to catch up on everything he’d postponed or ignored during basketball season. Fortunately, there was nothing going on in the evenings until their meet on Thursday. That would be an indoor meet at State and was strictly to determine where individuals fell in relationship to their teammates and others in the state. It had no official standing, even though medals would be awarded. Nearly every 2A school in the State was invited, though not all would attend. No one expected to have a lot of runners from smaller schools win races. The girls would run on Thursday and the boys on Friday.

So, rather than go home after practice Wednesday, he stayed in the Coaches’ office at the new AgCentral Athletic Pavilion and opened his books. He had a paper to write for his Encounters in Humanities class at DMACC. It was a major paper that would count for one-third of his grade. He looked at the rubric again and sighed.

Discuss creative purpose and design. Assess varying definitions of “art”. Characterize the relationship between form and content. Describe important biographical, social, cultural, and historical events reflected in artwork.

He had notes, of course. He’d known all term that this would be an assignment coming up. But even wading through the class notes was a challenge. He’d chosen a concert that he had gone to with Natalie over Christmas break as his reference event. He set about the tedious job of creating a plan and outline for the paper. This was not going to be a one-night project. He still had a statistics assignment to finish and needed to review his biology notes before Friday’s end of term exam.

He opened his laptop and started the project.

Dennis awoke with his head on the keyboard and around 500 pages of ‘h’ where the computer had simply kept typing the letter he’d fallen asleep on. This was ridiculous. He glanced at his phone and saw that it was nearly two in the morning. He’d planned to leave by eight so he’d be able to read to Peg. He’d been so involved in online search after search that he’d let the time get away from him and then fell asleep at the keyboard.

He was hungry and had a sudden sickening feeling that he was locked in the school. After school and evening programs kept the facilities open until nine most nights, but after midnight, there was no chance there would be an unlocked and unalarmed door. He debated his options and shut down his computer, stowing his books. He could find a more comfortable place to sleep in one of the store rooms where there were mats. The building was a little chilly, but he could grab his sweats out of the coaches’ locker room.

He shut out the lights as he opened the door, but his movement was suddenly arrested by a sound coming from the stairwell. He listened closely.

“Seems like overkill to me,” one man said.

“Maybe. I’d have gone straight for the factory farm, but boss wants it intact. He said nothing will hurt the community like losing this building and if the community is hurt, they’ll make it impossible for AgCentral to stay,” said another.

“I have visions of pitchforks and torches,” said the first.

“Smell that frying bacon. So, you head for the roof and start making sure it leaks everywhere. I’ll hit the boilers. They fixed the damn water heaters. We had those all set to give up. If I hit the right place, the pipes will leak onto the electrical box. Who knew they’d have a damn handyman who could fix the circuit breakers?”

“We need to work fast. That storm looked like it was rolling in at a good clip. We want everything set to fail when the rain hits.”

“Go.”

Dennis quietly closed and locked the door to the office. Then he found a place out of view from the door and pressed the speed dial on his phone.

“Hello. This is Moran,” a sleepy voice said.

“Tom, it’s Dennis. I’ve got a big problem and need help.”

“Where are you, Dennis? Your mother said you didn’t call in and didn’t show up for dinner or reading.”

“I’m locked in the school athletic pavilion. I kind of fell asleep.”

“I see. And now you can’t get out without setting off the alarms.”

“It’s worse. I just overheard two guys in the hall talking about sabotaging the building before a big storm hits. They’re fixing the roof to leak and doing something with the water pipes so they drain onto the electrical system,” Dennis said.

“Damn! That storm is moving fast. Where are you in the building?”

“I’m in the coaches’ office with the door locked.”

“Stay put. I’ll get cars rolling.”

“One’s on the roof. If you come in with lights, they’ll be warned.”

“All right. Just sit tight.”

Dennis turned his phone to silent and sat on the floor next to the door, leaning against the wall.

It was a tense twenty minutes as Dennis waited and listened in the coaches’ office. He couldn’t tell if anyone had arrived nor if there was any activity in the building at all. He began to doubt if he’d really heard anything or if it had all been a dream. Had he even called the sheriff?

“I’m not going down without a fight,” said a panicked voice outside the doorway. “This office has a window. Let’s go.”

The knob on the door rattled and there was a low curse. Then the window was smashed in and a hand reached through to unlatch the door from the inside. Dennis didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the hand and dragged it across the broken glass.

“Ah! Fuck! Someone’s in there. I’m cut bad.”

Another hand reached through with a gun waving around vaguely in Dennis’s direction. He hit the floor as two shots were fired. A hand reached for the latch again and the door burst open. Dennis kicked at the intruder, hitting him in the gut. With an “Oof!” the man swung toward Dennis with his gun.

“Freeze!” an officer yelled from the hall.

Dennis kicked again and the gun went off, firing over his head. A shot came from down the hall and the intruder fell into the room. Dennis jumped to slam his foot down on the gun hand, clenching as it fired again. The hand released the gun and Dennis kicked it away. An officer jumped through the door onto the fallen man and Dennis went to his knees with his hands in the air.

“Where’s the gun?” The officer demanded. Dennis nodded toward where it lay about five feet away between the desks. “Don’t move!” The deputy snapped handcuffs on the perp and rushed to stand on the gun. “Second floor office!” he barked into his lapel mike. “Two perps wounded, and a witness is being held.”

Dennis stayed where he was with hands up, trembling. He finally heard sirens in the distance as Tom appeared in the doorway.

“Where’d you hit him?” Tom asked, looking down at the cuffed perp.

“In the ass. He was going through the door shooting.”

“Are you okay, Dennis?” Tom asked.

“Yes, sir.” The gorge rose in his throat and he turned his head to throw up. “Shit!”

“It’s okay, Dennis,” Tom said, backing out of the office slightly to be sure the perp in the hall was covered as more feet sounded in the hallway. “We’re clear for ambulance crew. Two wounded and one in shock,” he spoke into his lapel mike.

“Emergency tourniquet!” shouted a voice from the hall. “This one will bleed out!” Dennis couldn’t tell who was where or what they were doing. He fell forward and passed out.

He woke up in the ambulance on his way to the hospital in County Seat. He didn’t say anything or move, but clamped his eyes shut and let tears run from the corners.

To his surprise, he was taken to an emergency room and stitches were put in his arm and his scalp. The doctor said he’d been cut by glass, but didn’t have any other information to give him. He was shaking and was given a sedative. They decided to keep him in the emergency room ward until morning unless they needed the bed before then. He slept.

Tom was busy, as were the emergency medical crews. The two vandals were taken to Des Moines in the care of State Police to a secure ward where one had a bullet extracted from his butt and the other was listed in critical condition due to loss of blood from a slash on his wrist. Tom knew he’d catch seven kinds of hell from the district attorney for letting the perps out of the county under State Police custody, but this case had a direct bearing on the federal corporate espionage and sabotage case that was under current investigation. And they’d no more than made the arrests when sirens sounded all over the county for a tornado warning.

There were reported touchdowns in several parts of the county and the sheriff’s office and emergency crews were on high alert all night.

“Dot, Dennis has a couple of cuts but is all right,” he said when he called her from his car. “He’s at the emergency room in County Seat and could probably use you when he wakes up. You need to wait until the tornado warnings are lifted before you go in. It’s a mess out here.”

“I need to get someone over here to stay with Peg. She’s already in a panic over the storm. Please be careful, sweetheart. We love you,” Dot said. Peg was cuddled under her arm and shaking.

“I love you, too. I need to hang up now. Drive carefully when you get out.”

Tom hung up and Dot looked at her phone. This was a job for sisters. She called Natalie’s number and woke the sleepy girl up.

“‘Lo?”

“Natalie, it’s Ms. Dottie. I need help with Peg. Can you come over? She needs a sister.”

“Ms. Dottie? Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right there as soon as I get dressed.”

“Thank you, Number One.”

“Amy, girlfriend alert.”

“Natalie? What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. I just got a call from Ms. Dottie. She needs us to stay with Peg. She didn’t say why or where Dennis was. Can you come with me?”