"Dowell, Daniel Scott - Five Down and 7-Up" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dowell Daniel Scott)

FIVE DOWN AND 7-UP
By Daniel Scott Dowell

Willard glanced down at the headlines in the morning paper and took a cautious
sip of hot coffee. There had been another death in the next county attributed
to a tampered soft drink product. Counting yesterday's tragedy, there had now
been four deaths in the last two weeks in a four-county area surrounding
Willard's own Lincoln County. This time the victim was a child. The Daily
Sentinel article stated that the authorities believed the most recent death
was the work of the same man. Just hours after the death, once again an
anonymous caller had phoned the Daily Sentinel, leaving the same cryptic
message as before--"Score stands at four down and Seven Up...We ain't even
yet!"
Willard finished reading the article just as Ethel walked into the tiny room
that served as a combination kitchen-dining room-living room. He hardly heard
her droning voice over the farm report on the television. Willard rarely
watched television. But he usually left it on just to compete with Ethel's
constant conversations. As for his side of these incessant conversations, he
had been relegated to a simple "yes, dear" years ago.
"Have you been smoking again, Willard?" Ethel asked, not expecting or waiting
for a reply. "Cigarettes will be the death of you yet," she added with
disdain.
To this, Willard automatically answered quietly, "Yes, dear."
When Ethel turned her attentions to the dishes in the sink, Willard quickly
sniffed at the sleeve of his stained tee shirt. He had only taken a couple of
puffs. A couple of puffs were all he had time for between their apartment door
and the dumpster down in the basement. That's all he ever had time for in the
twenty-seven years that he and Ethel lived in the Brookstone Apartments.
Willard rubbed his hands across the three-day stubble of light gray whiskers
on his cheeks. The whiskers were all the celebrating he had been allowed in
honor of his retirement last Thursday. Twenty-eight years as the graveyard
supervisor for Madding Building Maintenance, or as Ethel referred to him--the
deadnight shift janitor.
Willard looked down at the story once again. A ten-year old girl, picnicking
with her family at Bedbow Park in nearby Jefferson County, had died while
drinking from an allegedly poisoned soft drink can. A ten-year old girl!
Willard shook his head in disgust at the thought. The world was falling apart,
while the farm report and Ethel both droned on in the background. Willard
imagined that the police had probably returned to the 7-Up distribution center
downtown looking for clues. They had been there after every one of the prior
three deaths blamed on poison transferred from aluminum soft drink cans.
Willard had heard the reports from some of the loading dock workers, as the
distribution center was one of his contracted maintenance facilities.
One sip. He winced as he read again how one sip was all it took to kill each
victim. This particular reporter had been kind in his story. He had spared the
details of the young child's contorting muscles, her torso wracked with
convulsive gasps as her throat constricted. He had mercifully omitted a
graphic description of the final flow of foaming bile through her nose and
mouth, and eventually the blood as her internal organs began to rupture. Death