Doppelganger

by Byron Starr

  “Hi, Greg, I forgot to tell you something before you left home.”

  He started to speak, then something dawned on him.

  Where was her car?

  She was almost at the driver’s side door when Greg floored the accelerator. He cut the wheel hard, but the forward momentum was too much. The patrol car slid into the far lane, directly into the path of the oncoming eighteen-wheeler.

  * * *

  Clara McClelland was filing her nails in the dispatcher’s office when one of the inmates started banging on his door. “Jack, can you see who’s making all that racket.”

  Jack Coleman had worked for the sheriff’s department in Newton County for twenty-five years, ten of those years were way back when Sheriff Bill Oates was just Chief Deputy Bill Oates. He had been a deputy up until three years ago when he retired. Retired life didn’t suit Jack well, so he tried to come back to work after only six months away. The truth of the matter was that ol’ Jack had become more of a liability than an asset to Bill. Jack had never been very bright, and old age hadn’t been kind to his mind. Bill was caught between a rock and a hard place. He didn’t want to rehire Jack, but he didn’t want to hurt the old man’s feelings. Bill’s solution was to hire Jack on as a jailer, and it had worked out fine.

  Clara nudged Jack, who was sleeping, leaned back on two legs in a metal chair in the dispatcher’s office. “Wake up, Jack.”

  Jack snorted.

  “One of the inmates is makin’ an awful racket in the back. Go see what they want.”

  “Huh?”

  This time Clara yelled, having to practically scream at Jack who was almost deaf and had taken out his hearing aid. “Go check on the inmates. One’s yellin’ up a storm!”

  “M’kay,” Jack said lazily as he readjusted his glasses, which still had the same prescription he’d wore twenty years ago.

  Jack slowly made his way down the hall to the cells. As he passed through the security door he could faintly hear a man in one of the cell’s yelling at the top of his lungs. He finally hobbled to the door of the cell of that James Taylor boy. The inmate was pounding on the glass window and yelling something, but Jack couldn’t understand him.

  Jack reached in his ear to adjust his hearing aid, and found it wasn’t there. He must have left it in the dispatcher’s office. He put his finger to his lips, trying to tell the boy in the cell to be quiet, but this only seemed to make the kid angry; he started hammering the glass with his fists.

  “I’ll be right back,” Jack said, then started back up front to get his hearing aid. When he got back through the security door and into the dispatcher’s office Clara was frantically dialing the phone. She seemed panicked and had tears in her eyes.

  Jack fumbled around the room until he finally realized that his hearing aid was in his shirt pocket. By the time his hearing aid was in his ear, Clara had finished her phone call and was on the radio. “We’ve got a 10-50 major on the corner of Eighty-seven and Farm Road Fourteen-fourteen.” Then she forgot all about protocol. “It’s one of our cars. I think it’s Greg.”

  * * *

  Bill stood in the middle of the road watching the organized yet chaotic drama as it unfolded around the mangled patrol car. Three paramedics were fighting to keep Greg alive while the Newton Volunteer Fire Department tried their best to free him from the knot of twisted metal using the Jaws of Life. Bill hated sitting still when there was work to be done, and he hated he couldn’t do anything to help Greg, but he knew he’d just be in the way. So he stood back and watched.

  Behind him Chad Hudspeth was taking a statement from the driver of the truck, who seemed to be uninjured, but was rather shook up. Every now and then Bill would catch part of their conversation.

  “… just pulled out in front of me … ”

  “… too sudden to react …”

  “… God, I hope he’s okay …”

  Then he heard something that struck him cold, “ ... sounds crazy, but there was some sorta bear standing by his car when ... ”

  Bill turned around and walked over to Chad and the truck driver. “What’d you say?”

  The truck driver was leaning up against Chad’s patrol car, but when Bill walked up he straightened up like a steel rod had been shoved up his ass and into his spine. “I was tellin’ deputy, uh, Husseth that I thought I saw a bear or an ape or a big hairy man or somethin’ walkin’ up to that fellow’s car. Officer, know it sounds silly r ... ”

  Bill interrupted. “Was this ... bear walking on two legs?”

  “Yeah,” the truck driver replied.

  Chad was standing with his mouth open. He dropped his pen. Bill’s eyes drifted toward the dark woods and remained there. He stood in silence, thinking. The driver glanced nervously from Bill to Chad and then back to Bill. Bill finally spoke to Chad who was now palming the dark pavement in search of his pen. “Call Clara and tell her to get a hold of Emilio Rodriguez and tell him to get out here, pronto.” Then Bill turned to the truck driver. “Show me where you think you saw this thing.”

  The truck driver led the way over to the corner. The whole way he was retelling his story of the accident, about how he did everything he could to avoid the collision, there was no time to react, the car just jumped out in front of him, but Bill wasn’t hearing a word he was saying. The truck driver got to the corner and pointed at a spot on the ground and said, “It would’ve been about right here.”

  Bill nodded, then said, “Thanks. Go finish givin’ your statement to Chad.”

  Bill pulled his flashlight from his belt and kneeled down to have a closer look at the ground. The ground was hard here, very little chance of good prints. At first Bill didn’t find anything, but after moving around some he saw the outline of what might have been a print. He got up and walked further into the ditch hoping the softer ground would yield better prints, but was having little luck. He had just about given up when he looked right on the edge of the standing water in the ditch. There it was: a big human-looking print in the mud. He stepped further into the ditch and found another.

  “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Bill murmured.

  “There you are, sheriff,” a voice said. Bill looked over his shoulder and saw Dave Elender, one of the paramedics from Jasper, standing near the edge of the road, his orange and white jumpsuit marred with crimson bloodstains and his expression long and worn. “I’m sorry Sheriff. We did everything we could, but we couldn’t save him.”

  Bill nodded and stood up. He walked back to his patrol car without saying another word to anybody. The investigation of the new prints would have to be put on hold for an hour or two. Now it was time for the part of his job Bill hated more than anything else — he had to inform Sandy O’Brien of her husband’s death.

  * * *

  Deputy Darren Woolford came and got James early the next morning. They walked down the hall in silence, their moods darkened by the events of the night before. Darren led James through the second security door, then past the booking room, past the dispatcher’s room, and on past the first security door. In fact, it looked as if they were heading outside when Darren stopped at a door with a simple piece of polished wood nailed to it. The piece of oak had the word OFFICE burned into its surface. Darren opened the door and James stepped into Bill’s office.

  Bill sat behind the desk, with his hat off. He looks different with his hat off, James thought. He looks older. A tall Hispanic game warden was sitting against the wall to the right in one of the folding metal chairs.

  Bill briefly introduced the two. “Emilio Rodriguez, James Taylor. James Taylor, Emilio Rodriguez.”

  Emilio stood, smiled, and offered his hand, James found he couldn’t return the smile, but took the hand nonetheless.

  “James, I’ve briefed Emilio here on the little conversation we had yesterday, so you can feel free to speak freely about your, uh ... ”

  “Dreams,” James helped out.

  “Yeah, dreams,” Bill said, mumbling as if he was ashamed to have the wo
rd come from his own lips.

  “Do you believe me now?”

  “If that were the case, son, I’d be releasin’ you, but I’m not. Let’s just say we’re willing to look at every angle on this thing.”

  I’m not your damn son, James wanted to say, but held his tongue. Instead he sat there waiting for Bill to make the next move, and Bill finally did. “Clara said you were raising quite a stink right before the call came in about Greg. What was that all about?”

  “What the hell do you think it was all about?” James shot back.

  Amazingly, this caused no visible reaction from Bill. He calmly said, “We need to work together on this, James.”

  “Then drop the charges! You know damn good and well I saw Greg’s death! You know I didn’t do it!” James shouted, making Emilio jump, but causing no change in Bill’s stern face.

  “James,” Bill said, his voice calm, but not cold like it had been during their last meeting. “If you could just tell me what you saw last night.”

  This was James’ chance to prove that his dreams were real. The main purpose of his and Greg’s conversation with Bill yesterday was that if something happened and James saw it in his visions, he could relay it to the sheriff, and prove he wasn’t lying. But James had just lost his wife, his son, and he had actually witnessed the death of his best friend. He had actually seen the terrible collision through the beast’s eyes. Right now James wasn’t thinking clearly. All he felt was anger. He looked straight into Bill’s eyes and said, “Go to hell.”

  Bill and James sat staring at each other for quite some time without either turning away or saying a word. Then Bill broke the silence. “Darren,” he said in a slightly raised voice, without turning his eyes from James. Darren poked his head in through the door. “Take Mr. Taylor back to his cell.” This caused a look of confusion to cross Emilio’s face.

  * * *

  As soon as James was out the door, Emilio said, “Sheriff ... ”

  “Call me Bill.”

  “Bill, you saw the autopsy reports. You saw the reports from A&M. They all say the injuries were caused by some sort of large animal. And we both saw those tracks out where Greg had his accident. You know he wasn’t involved there. Surely you don’t think he had something to do with the other deaths.”

  “I’m not sure what I believe right now. I’m certainly not one-hundred percent certain we’re dealing with an animal here. The one thing I am certain of is that boy’s the only suspect we’ve got.”

  “Think of all this guy’s been through. In the last ten days he’s lost his wife and kid, been accused of their murder plus two others, and now he’s lost his best friend.”

  “I know. If it turns out he’s innocent, I’ll never be able to apologize enough to that poor kid. But I just can’t release him right now.”

  * * *

  James woke up the next morning and tried to remember what he had seen the night before. Once again the beast had crawled out from under its lair. James had paid particular attention, trying to note landmarks, but in the dark pine forest there were very few distinguishing landmarks to go by.

  The beast had continued through the woods until there seemed there were quite a few houses in the area. Occasionally it would peek out of the trees and look around. James recognized some of the buildings. The creature was inside the city limits. It looked around seemingly taking in the sights, as well as the smells and sounds, then lumbered back into the woods.

  As soon as Bill came in, he went back to see James. He gave James some magazines. This confused James at first; then he realized the hard-assed sheriff might be showing signs of a guilty conscience.

  James told Bill about last night’s dream, especially about the fact that the beast had been in the city limits. This time the sheriff seemed interested.

  Later that afternoon, James finally saw his court-appointed attorney, but his visit was very brief. The young lawyer found his client highly uncooperative and left without accomplishing a thing.

  That night James went to bed again, hoping to see something useful.

  * * *

  As Bill strode through the first security door at 3:45 a.m., he was greeted by Clara McClelland. “I’m sorry to wake you, Bill, but he wouldn’t quit banging on the door. He was demanding to speak to you. I didn’t know what else to do but to call you.”

  “You did fine, Clara.”

  Bill could hear a steady banging coming from the back. He walked through the second security door and turned the corner. He could see Chad standing in front of the door to James cell, looking through the window.

  Chad turned and said, “I would have shut him up, but you said not to go in their cells when they’re freakin’ out unless you’re here.”

  “I know what I said,” Bill snapped. He still hadn’t forgiven Chad for his lapse a few days ago.

  Bill walked up to the window and looked in. James had been repeatedly kicking the steel door as hard as he could for over fifteen minutes. He was out of breath, and his face was red from the exertion. When he saw Bill in the door he stopped his frantic efforts and supported his body by putting his hands on the wall. “Good morning, Sheriff,” James panted with a twisted, sarcastic smile on his lips. “It struck again last night. This time inside the city limits.”

  Bill just nodded, then turned to Chad, “Go back up front, tell Clara to open cell number two. Then go get his things and meet us in my office.”

  “We releasin’ him?” Chad asked, shocked.

  “Probably. Now hurry!” Bill snapped gesturing toward the security door.

  * * *

  Bill and James got out of the patrol car on East Street, just across from the playground at Newton Elementary School. James was now out of his orange jumpsuit and in blue jeans and a t-shirt. He looked small alongside Bill’s tall stature. Chad walked behind them with a shotgun. James told them the beast was no longer in the area, but Bill wasn’t taking any chances.

  “I’m not sure where it struck, but we’re in the right place. I remember the playground,” James said.

  “Lead the way,” Bill said, as he gazed across the playground and its empty monkey bars and swing sets.

  Even though Bill knew that this beast, if it really did exist, was more than likely nocturnal and no children would be at the elementary school at night, the idea that a monstrous killing machine had been this close to the elementary school bothered him tremendously.

  They walked along the outside of the playground’s tall chain-link fence until James came to a stop. He pointed at some hedges in front of a small white house across the street and said, “I think it was looking out from those bushes when I got the good view of the playground. From there it went that direction,” he said, pointing up the street.

  “How far?” Bill asked.

  “Not far, three or four houses at most.”

  On the way over, James told Bill that he thought tonight’s victim was an elderly black lady who had worked in the Newton High School cafeteria when he was still in high school. Bill had a good idea who James was talking about. Now that James had practically pointed out her house he was almost positive. Alma Carroll had worked in the cafeteria at Newton High School for years. The old widow had retired four years ago. She lived only four houses down from the one James said he’d seen the playground from, but, for right now, Bill was going to play it dumb. He wanted James to take him to the house, just to be sure.

  They walked down the street, which was brightly lit by streetlights and security lights. However, Bill could see how someone — or something — could skirt along the shrubs and trees in the yards and hug close to the houses and easily remain in the shadows.

  After passing three houses, James pointed to a small, yellow, wooden house. “That’s the house.”

  It was Alma Carroll’s house all right. “Are you sure?” Bill asked.

  “No, but we can go see. She should be lying in the doorway.”

  They started across the street toward the house, then Bill stoppe
d. He saw that the front door was open. James, who was in front of Bill and didn’t see him stop, continued into the yard. When he got to the start of the sandstone walkway leading to the front door he stopped and looked back at Bill, who was now coming up to join him. “Now do you believe me?”

  Bill walked up beside James and saw the poor old black lady lying face down in the doorway. Blood was all over the small front porch and the floor of the entrance hallway. Bill walked on up for a closer look. Alma’s arm, severed at the shoulder, was lying over to the side a little way. Judging by the blood splattered on the porch and the walls beside it, something seemed to have shaken the arm like a dog shaking a toy in its mouth. Bill remembered Alma had big arms with fat hanging down from the upper part, but there was hardly a strip of meat left on the arm lying on the porch.

  Chapter 11

  Texas’ Finest

  Chaos was quick to descend on the small town after Alma Carroll’s body was found. The murders had been the biggest gossip to hit Newton County since County Commissioner Alex Harrison had been caught in the drug bust, but up until now the rumors floating around hadn’t caused much panic. But now one of the horrible killings had taken place inside the city limits, and within full view of the elementary school playground. The morning that the body was found, a handful of parents arrived at the elementary school, demanding to take their kids home. Despite efforts to stem the panic, the rumors spread throughout the day more and more parents arrived to pick up their kids. By the end of the day, three quarters of the elementary students had gone home and half of the students at Newton High School had also gone.