“Tell me again, detective Freeman, why are you in Elloree?”
Detective Freeman adjusted the cuffs on his wrists and laid his hands on the desk. Because the interrogation room was occupied—Father Smith and the young girl whom Hugh claimed was Stacey Weller, were inside accompanied by Sylvie Sinclair—Sheriff Lancaster had put Hugh in cuffs and had sat him at his desk. Liam had wanted to put Hugh in the cell, but the man had produced the badge that looked a hell of a lot like an NYPD detective shield.
Liam decided better locking him up—for now. He still wasn’t certain that the man was telling the truth, which is why he was in handcuffs, but in the interim Liam had put a request in for an authorization code for the badge and a photo of Hugh Freeman to be sent to the fax machine. Problem was, no one in New York used fax machines anymore, so there was a bit of a delay while they struggled to get one up and running and send him what he needed to know.
What they had told him was that Detective Hugh Freeman had gone AWOL several months ago, and while they wouldn’t go into any of the details, it did appear plausible that the man before Liam now was in fact Detective Hugh Freeman.
But that didn’t explain why he was here, and what he was doing with this girl.
“It’s a long, long story,” Hugh began, looking at his hands as he spoke. “A long story that has taken its toll on me, and others. It started with a shallow grave, and has only ballooned from there.”
Liam shook his head. He wasn’t a fan of this obtuse language, these paradoxical riddles or whatever the hell they were that were coming out of the man who claimed to be Hugh Freeman’s mouth. He looked over his shoulder at Stevie, who was staring at Hugh not with a look of confusion, but of something else, something that he couldn’t quite place.
Liam drove his elbow into Stevie’s thigh, jolting from his stupor.
“Tell me about the girl,” Liam said, changing tactics. “Tell me about how you found her.”
The girl certainly looked like Stacey Weller, whose picture was laid out on Stevie’s desk with the other three. He had put a call in to his friend, Officer Jenkins in Batesburg where Stacy Weller lived with her parents, to see if he could get someone out here to confirm that it was indeed her. Officer Jenkins himself had agreed to make the drive that afternoon.
Time, and a little soap and water to clear the grime and grit from her face and hair, would help, too.
“I found her,” Hugh answered. “I was in the swamp, and I found the girls. There were so many of them, but I could only save one. The others… they were drowned.”
Liam was shaking his head almost constantly now, and he fought the urge to cry out in frustration.
This was the same rhetoric that he had been saying since he’d arrived.
He had saved the girl; the others had drowned. How? Who? Why? None of these questions were answered; at least not to Liam’s satisfaction.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.
“Look, Hugh, I’m going to level with you here. It’s been a long day already. A long fucking day. Things haven’t gone so well. As a professional courtesy, assuming of course that you actually are a detective from New York City, I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me what the fuck is going on here before I throw you in the Goddamn cell.”
Hugh sighed.
“There’s a witch—”
Liam leaped to his feet so quickly that it startled not just Hugh, but Stevie as well.
“That’s it, get the fuck up. Get up, and get in that Goddamn cell.”
Liam reached across the table and hoisted Hugh Freeman to his feet by the handcuffs.
“You really think that’s a good idea, boss? I mean, if he really is—”
“Be quiet, Stevie.”
Liam pulled the detective across the room toward the cell. To his surprise, not only did Hugh not complain, but he didn’t resist either and this caused Liam’s anger to quickly fade. It didn’t subside entirely, but enough so that he slowed his pace.
The Elloree police station only had a single jail cell, an old-fashioned type of jail with a large metal padlock that, while others before him had attempted to change out for something new, something digital perhaps, Liam had decided against it. Truth was, he liked the thing, even though it was a bastard and you had to jiggle the key for a good thirty seconds to get the damn thing to unlock. And now, as he fiddled with the lock, he heard a door behind him start to open.
He didn’t need to turn to know what was happening, to guess who was coming out of the room.
“Shit, hurry up,” he grumbled as he jiggled the key.
Just as it popped open, Sylvie’s voice spoke up from behind him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
Liam shoved Hugh inside the jail cell and then quickly closed and locked it, before turning around.
Sylvie was standing in the center of the police station now, hands on her hips.
“That’s an NYPD detective, you can’t—”
But a sound from behind the woman interrupted her: the door to the interrogation room slamming closed.
Stevie moved first, walking briskly toward the interrogation room. But even though Stevie was gangly and wiry and quick on his feet, he wasn’t fast enough.
“Don’t—” lock the door, Liam meant to say. But before he could get the words out, a resounding click filled the now silent police station.
Chapter 15
“I guess you and Patty Smith were good friends, then?” Dwight said. They were empty words, the only ones that popped into his head at that moment. Teresa was still consoling Rebecca who, while she had stopped sobbing, still had tears streaking her young cheeks. Principal Zanbar had resolved himself to just stand in the corner of the small office, a far-off look in his eyes, the pink skin of his lower lip tucked between his teeth.
Like Dwight, Principal Zanbar had lived in Elloree his entire life and nothing like this had ever happened to either of their recollections.
“How did she die?” Rebecca asked, finally raising her eyes to look at Dwight.
Now it was Dwight’s turn to pause. In the end, he settled for “We’re still looking into that, Rebecca. The truth is, we don’t know for certain. Maybe that’s you can help us with.”
Rebecca looked stunned.
“I have no idea—”
“I just want to know what happened to her,” Dwight said. “And if you could tell me why she might’ve been out in the swamp, that would be a great help. And you do want to help your dead friend, don’t you?”
Rebecca’s thin frame hitched and Dwight thought that the waterworks were going to return, but the girl managed to regain control of herself and eventually answered. She lowered her eyes as she spoke, her voice a dull monotone barely above a whisper.
“We go out there sometimes, we go out there sometimes because that’s where Tommy Ray keeps the drugs.”
Dwight wasn’t sure what he expected the girl to say, but it definitely wasn’t this.
The drugs?
When Dwight didn’t reply immediately, Rebecca raised her gaze to look at him again, and now he saw something else in her face besides sorrow and confusion: he saw fear.
“I thought… I thought you said that I wouldn’t get in trouble, that I could tell you—”
“No—no sweetie you’re not in trouble,” Dwight informed her, although he was aware that he might be made a liar this day. “Like I said I’m not here to arrest people for some weed that they might have stashed out in the swamp, or even if they’re drinking underage. I’m here because a young girl was killed. Murdered. I’m here to find out who did this to her, and to put her friends and family at ease.”
Rebecca was shaking her head as Dwight spoke, but it was a subtle gesture and he wasn’t certain if she knew she was doing it.
“I’m being serious here, Rebecca.”
Rebecca shook her head more noticeably this time.
“No, not weed. Not booze. Heroin.”
Again, D
wight was taken aback by her response.
Heroin? The mayor’s son Tommy Ray Ross was stashing heroin in the swamp?
And with that singular answer—heroin—it was clear that they had a prime suspect in Patty’s murder. In his mind, Dwight started piecing things together, an idea forming of Tommy Ray taking Patty Smith out to the swamp, the score his stash, maybe get her involved in moving the product, but then Patty Smith, a good preacher’s daughter, resists maybe even threatens to go to the police with what she knows, and then Tommy Ray loses it.
“Yes,” Dwight stammered trying to catch his bearings, “you’re not getting in trouble. But I do have a few more questions for you: did Patty know about the heroin?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Yeah, we all did. Everyone in the school did. How else could he afford a new Porsche?”
Dwight mulled this over for a moment. He hadn’t noticed that Tommy Ray was driving a new Porsche around town, but if he had, he might’ve chalked it up to his father giving him an early high school graduation present. A reward for succeeding on his third attempt.
“Thank you for your honesty,” Principal Zanbar said from his perch against the wall. The man stepped forward, a placating smile on his face.
Dwight raised an eyebrow, curious about the man’s decision to interject.
Who’s running the show here? We might be in his school, but I’m still the law.
Rebecca, however, appeared on the verge of breaking into tears again, and this time he was doubtful that Teresa would be able to console her.
“Just one more thing, Rebecca. Do you know why she might have gone to the swamp this morning in particular?”
“Last night she said she was going somewhere with Tommy,” Rebecca replied quietly. “But that’s all I know. That’s the last I heard from her.”
Dwight nodded, and with that, Teresa helped the girl to her feet.
“You can go home now, honey, you don’t have to go back to class,” Teresa informed the girl.
Just before they left the room, Dwight offered some parting words.
“Please, Rebecca, please keep what we discussed here today to yourself. And I’ll be in touch.”
As he watched them go, Dwight was struck by something that the girl had said, and couldn’t help but turn and offer a curious stare in Principal Zanbar’s direction.
Everyone in the school knew about it.
Everyone.
Chapter 16
“Stacey? Stacey, can you please open the door? Open the door, sweetie,” Sylvie pleaded through the thick pane of glass.
In the intervening seconds between when Liam had walked to the cell and the door to the interrogation room had slammed closed, the girl had locked it from the inside.
“Stacey? You need to open the door, Stacey.”
Liam moved to the door and jiggled the handle roughly. It was indeed locked, and as Stevie had alluded to, not only had they redone the insulation to prevent sound from bleeding into the main police station, but unlike the lock on the cell door, this one had been recently replaced and upgraded.
The doorknob didn’t even turn.
“Hey Stevie, you have the master key for this door?” Liam hollered over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Stevie replied, and then Liam heard the man rummaging through the desk. “Should be here somewhere.”
Liam leaned to one side to peer through the glass again, and while he could see that Stacey’s lips were moving, and that father Smith was staring intently at her, he couldn’t hear anything.
What the hell are they talking about?
“You better hurry on that key there, Stevie.”
Sylvie knocked on the glass, trying to get either of the occupants’ attention, but they seemed to be locked in a one-sided discussion that was keeping the preacher particularly rapt.
“Stacey, sweetie, open the door please,” Sylvie said for what felt like the hundredth time.
“No use; they can’t hear you in there,” Liam replied. And while this was true, something suddenly occurred to him.
An intercom had been installed in the room so that if Liam needed to mention something to one of his deputies inside, he could speak to them directly. If he recalled correctly, it was also a two-way intercom, so he might be able to pick up on what the hell Stacey was saying.
Liam walked around the corner of the room to the metal box mounted on the side of the wall. He pressed the button and spoke in a brisk, harsh tone.
“Father? Father Smith, please open the door. You need to open the door, now.”
But as he watched through the glass, Father Smith didn’t seem to hear his words, or if he did he simply paid them no heed. He was, however, still intent on whatever Stacey was saying. Her lips were moving, but her mouth was so small that it made it impossible for Liam to read her lips.
What is going on here?
Liam pressed the button again.
“Open the door, Larry. Open the door now!”
And then over his shoulder, Liam said, “Stevie, the key, we need the key.”
“I’m looking, I’m looking!”
Sylvie knocked on the glass again, and this time Father Smith startled.
At first, Liam thought that he was about to arise and finally unlock the door, but he didn’t. The Sheriff pressed the intercom button again, but this time he didn’t speak; this time he listened.
Stacey Weller spoke in soft tones, words uttered barely above a whisper, and Liam was forced to press his ear directly up against the warm piece of metal to hear.
“Mater est, matrem omnium,” he heard the girl say. The words didn’t sound like English to Liam; in fact, if he didn’t know any better, if they hadn’t been uttered by a six or seven-year-old girl, he would’ve thought them Latin.
And yet this gibberish seemed to hold some meaning for Father Smith as he slowly snaked his hands across the desk. As Liam watched, his fingers wrapped around a pair of scissors.
Horrible thoughts suddenly flooded Liam’s mind, and he shouted over his shoulder for Stevie to hurry with the damn key. Stevie shouted back that he was looking for it, then something about the desk being rearranged ever since Sylvie had come, how he had put them in the desk and now they weren’t there, about how his mother used to move things around and they were never where he left the night before.
“Now, Stevie! Now!”
But Liam could see that even if Stevie got the key this very moment, he was going to be too late.
Sylvie must’ve also realized what was going to happen, because a gasp escaped her lips.
Liam abandoned the intercom just as more Latin words flooded the police station, and he hurried back to the door. He gripped the doorknob with both hands and then slammed his shoulder into it. There was a splintering of wood, but it was unsatisfactory; it was coming from deep inside the frame, and there was no suggestion that the door itself was going to give way. Liam slammed his shoulder again, and a third time, a fourth, and while the cracking got progressively louder, the door didn’t budge in the frame.
“Fuck!”
Liam took a break from banging on the door to look around the side and in through the window.
And then he froze.
Liam watched in sheer terror, as Father Smith brought the pointed end of the scissors to his face.
Sylvie stumbled backward, falling into a chair and then to the floor, but Liam paid her no heed. He wanted to shout, he wanted to run back to the intercom and shout at Father Smith to put down the damn scissors, but he couldn’t.
Suddenly, Liam Lancaster couldn’t do anything; he could only stand there and watch.
Father Smith drove the point of the scissors into his left eyeball, and for one fleeting moment, Liam was grateful that they had double thick walls between them so that he couldn’t hear the sound of the man’s eye exploding.
A thick dark substance squirted from where the scissors had made contact and then sprayed across the table.
“No!” Someone screamed, but
Liam had no idea who had made the sound.
Father Smith drove the point of the scissors into his right eyeball next, this time with increased fervor. Blood sprayed from the socket, soaking Stacey Weller’s already soiled T-shirt.
Liam somehow managed to tear his eyes away from the horror that Father Smith’s was inflicting on himself, and found himself staring at Stacey.
He expected the girl to be screaming, to be shouting in terror and anguish, perhaps trying to get as far away from the bleeding, blind man as she could, but none of this was evident on her face.
Daughter (Family Values Trilogy Book 3) Page 6
