“I’ll pass.”
“Supposed you would. On duty ‘n all that.”
In the background, the drone of the pool pump and filter carried across the lawn.
After a while Lester said, “I been talking to Greg this evening.”
“We call him Boomer these days but I figured you did. Pretty sneaky move you pulled, whisking him out of the jail like that before my lazy-ass lawyer could get down there. Not sure that was entirely legal. One thing for sure about Boomer though; he may be the most natural football talent you’ll ever lay eyes on, but he does have one major liability.”
“What’s that?”
“The boy ain’t too fuckin’ smart.”
“Melissa Parker’s alive,” Lester said in the same manner he might comment on the moon coming over the horizon.
Big Bill’s head snapped sideways.
“True,” Lester said. “We found the cellar.”
Big Bill took another hit off the vodka. Not just a sip this time, but a long pull, the ice rattling in the glass.
Lester said, “Don’t know if you’re aware, but Melissa’s mother, Imogene, killed her husband with a shotgun. She called it in to dispatch. Told our girl on the desk that her husband Albert had killed Melissa. Then Imogene went and took her own life, used the same gun. It was ugly.”
The underwater floodlights in the pool had activated at sunset and Big Bill’s eyes glowed blue in the reflection, focusing on the man at the table.
“What with all that going on, it threw me off for a bit,” Lester continued. “We looked for a body on the Parker farm, but we were searching the wrong farm. All those OSBI people were out at the Parker’s place kicking up clods and pokin’ around. All that time, I kept thinking there was something wrong with the picture. You see, the timing wasn’t right for Albert to have done it. But it was possible and that’s what we were goin’ on as that’s all we had. But then Greg’s teammate Carlos Sanchez tells us that Greg was the one to take Melissa home from the Pirate’s Den on the night she disappeared. Well, you can see how that complicated things.”
Big Bill half rose from his chair. “I need more ice.”
“Sit down!” Lester said with the authority of his badge behind him. The big man hesitated but did as he was told.
“About a half hour ago, Greg told me…”
“Boomer!” Big Bill said, “His name is Boomer!”
“Greg told me,” Lester repeated, “that when he came home that night, late and drunk, you were waiting on him. He said you got all over him like you’ve done all your life whenever he screwed up. He told me about all the times you chewed him out when he missed a receiver or fumbled a snap. No matter how well he played the game, you always found fault somewhere. Always something, some little mistake, no matter how insignificant, where he didn’t perform to your standards. Well, last Thursday night, he screwed up again, didn’t he? Only this wasn’t such a simple matter as a dropped football or throwing an interception was it?
Tonight, Greg waived his rights and manned up to what he’d done. It’s all on tape. He told me how he’d forced himself on that girl, out there on your property, and then went home and told you about it? You pried it out of him. Who the girl was, where he got the liquor, and what’d he’d been doing out there in the country. I got the impression from talking to the boy that he could never stand up to you; not to Big Bill Kingston, one time OU defensive end, and it was the same that night when so much was on the line. When Greg went to his room to crash and sleep it off, you drove out there to the property, the farm land, to take care of Greg’s problem. Just like you always have when your son goes offside, to use a word you’re familiar with.”
“No! No! No! You’re not on the same playing field, Sheriff. The boy and girl had a spat. That’s all it was. No business of mine. Why would I get involved in such stuff?” Kinston said, releasing a great cloud of cigar smoke.
“Simple,” Lester said. “When we pulled that half-dead girl out of that cellar, Greg was as surprised as anyone. His eyes were as big as saucers. That’s what threw me. At the time, I couldn’t figure if he was shocked that Melissa was alive, or because she was locked up in that old tornado shelter or root cellar, whatever that hellhole is. Greg was shocked because he knew he didn’t put her there. He thought you had taken her home, and fed the parents some of your bullshit about not pressing charges in exchange for a little money and that would be the end of it. When Melissa didn’t show up for school on Friday, Greg chalked it off to her inevitable bad hangover. But when I stopped by the football field and started asking Carlos a few questions, Greg began to worry that something else was going on. Something he knew nothing about. Something bad that daddy couldn’t brush away with money and intimidation.”
Big Bill poured two fingers of Gray Goose in his glass and tossed it down, the lack of ice forgotten. Lester waited for a denial, didn’t get one, and continued.
“It didn’t take a smart man to figure out the rest. Only thing I don’t know is how any man could throw a young innocent girl in a cellar, lock it, and leave her there to die a horrible slow death with no food or water. Did you think no one would ever find her? That her bones would dry up and rot like that old house place out there? And you call Greg stupid?”
“How you gonna prove such a preposterous theory as that?”
Lester couldn’t, not at this point in time, and he knew it. He had no proof against Greg or Big Bill Kingston. Melissa was in no shape to talk, not yet, and what would she say when she recovered? How much would she remember about anything that happened that night? Had he overplayed his hand? Big Bill was probably right. Melissa, considering the shape she was in when the crime occurred—practically comatose from all those straight shots of Jose Cuervo— would be a poor witness. Any good defense attorney would destroy her credibility in a heartbeat. There were the rape tests the hospital could run, there was that, but so much time had passed. Would it prove anything?
Right now, Lester was betting on a couple of his favorite horses called Hunch and Intuition. Both had performed well in the past, but the stakes here were huge and the odds were not in his favor. But Lester had another ace up his sleeve. He was a poker player, a darn good one too. Back in the day, he and his rodeo pals had spent many an evening in cheap motels, playing cards half the night. Those days were long gone, yet he’d never forgotten the power of a good bluff. With the legal equivalent of a small pair with an ace kicker, the Sheriff went all in.
“Don’t see proof bein’ much of a problem Mr. Kingston. We have a witness you know, the victim. That young lady’s alive and will stand up in a court of law and point her finger at you Big Bill. You’ll go to prison and that will be the end of you and Kingston Ford of Boise City.
“How’s she gonna identify me being there that night, dark, and her drunk? No way! Not saying I was there you understand, but c’mon; I’ve never met the young lady in my life. How’s she gonna point the finger at me?”
“Not hard at all,” Lester said. “Not with your smiling face up on those billboards all over this town and every other town within a hundred miles of Cimarron County. In this part of Oklahoma, your mug is as familiar as George Washington on a dollar bill. But that’s not all, the hospital is running some rape tests on the girl. Whose semen do you think they’ll find, Greg’s or yours? My money’s on you, Big Bill.”
The big man took another swallow from the glass and slammed it down hard enough to arouse the neighbor’s dog again for a couple of obligatory barks before going back to his dog house. Big Bill Kingston looked into Lester’s cold clear eyes, waited for a blink, didn’t get one, and folded with what might have been the winning hand.
Big Bill lowered his head. “Well sum bitch. I guess fame does have its price, doesn’t it?”
“So now we come to it,” Lester said. “You want to tell me how it went down?”
“What happened wasn’t my intention Sheriff. Not in the plan. Not at all. Yeah, I drove out there, but it was only to help her, t
o take her home. You see, when Boomer told me the story, all I could think about was her filing attempted rape charges and ruining Boomer’s career. Depending on how much time he served, he could lose millions. You can see that, right? Boomer swore he didn’t actually have sex with the girl but he did feel her up a little, he did fess up to that much. But no sex! Girls change their stories too, you know. They don’t want to admit that they disobeyed the rules and were someplace they shouldn’t have been, doin’ what they shouldn’t have been doin’. And Mama will always believe her little angel if she goes to hollerin’ rape, especially when the boy’s parents have a little money.
“But rape trials are always messy. I knew I could find a good lawyer and probably beat it, but the damage would be done, Boomer’s reputation ruined, and he’d possibly lose his scholarship. At least that was my thinking at the time. All that we’d worked for so long—all those years. All the practices, the hours and hours on the field, gone because of one drunken evening and a horny girl with a short dress.” Lester’s eyes narrowed but Big Bill didn’t notice and kept talking.
“On the way out there, I came up with a plan; I’d give her some money, a couple thousand would do it. According to Boomer, her folks were poor white trash anyway, probably never seen that much cash in their life. I’d go in, spread a bunch of hundred dollar bills across their table, and they’d be happy to let it drop. Problem solved.
Under the table, Lester clenched his fists but held his tongue.
“When I pulled up and saw that girl laying there in the light of the moon, so still, I thought she was dead and God forbid, Boomer was somehow responsible. I didn’t think for a minute that the boy would lie to me, but then…there she was.
That’s when I got a little panicky. No, that’s not right, it was way more than a little, more like a bunch. I’m trying to figure out just what the hell to do. I’m trying to calm down, to think, but the shots I’d had earlier from the old Gray Goose here wasn’t helping that process any. I try to reason it out. If I report it, it’s all over, Boomer goes to jail for murder. Right then, at that moment, I didn’t actually know that he’d killed her, but that’s what I was thinkin’ you see. So, what if no one ever finds the body? She’ll be just another runaway that disappears and ends up with her picture on a telephone pole. And I’m bettin’ that’s the just way you guys had it figured, at first anyway, right? I was trying to figure all the angles and pitfalls when a new plan came to mind and suddenly, it was all so easy. No trial, no negotiations with the parents, no money involved. And oh, Boomer told me what a jerk her daddy was. I wasn’t looking forward to that little meeting, not one bit. The only hitch was getting rid of the body. But way out there in the middle of nowhere, it shouldn’t be that much of a problem. Dump her on the back of the property along the tree line and let nature take its course. That was when she moaned. Suddenly, I was back to Plan A and damage control.
Big Bill stubbed out his cigar and poured another shot of vodka. He held the liquid in his mouth for a time before swallowing, savoring the moment.
“You know, I bought that farm out there for a song. I heard the previous owner raised corn on it, or tried to, until a dry spell wiped out his crops. My idea, and you’ll probably laugh, was to put some horses on it, thoroughbred horses, race horses. Breed ‘em and raise ‘em. Yeah, I even had dreams about one of ‘em being in the Kentucky Derby someday. Wouldn’t that have been something?”
Lester said nothing.
Another hit of vodka, this time straight from the bottle. Big Bill tapped his chest, made a little coughing noise, and sighed. “Always pays to buy a good brand of vodka. It’s all about the filtering process you know.”
The Sheriff remained silent.
“Anyway, I picked her up and let me tell ya, she was as limp as a sack of potatoes, not a muscle was working, out cold she was. I opened the back door on the Lincoln and loaded her in, but then…something happened. She was wearing a very short skirt and when I pushed her across the seat, that little skirt rode up, way up, over her hips, and that’s when I saw she wasn’t wearing underwear. My Gawd, she was beautiful. All that white skin on that black leather seat, the dome light shining on her like she was on a stage, almost like a sacrifice. What a sight! A man would have to be dead to not be aroused at such a scene as that. Well, I was a man and I wasn’t dead, and wrong as it was, I felt a boner comin’ on. And the longer I looked, the more excited I got. Marlene in there (he jerked a thumb toward the house) she moved me to the guest room about a year ago. Said I was no longer “attractive” to her since I’d put on a little weight. So I think you can imagine my state as I stood there in the darkness, looking down on such a lovely piece of womanhood, and not a soul around. And I ask you, what kind of girl would go around with no panties on? One looking for some action that’s who. She was there for the taking, like prime rib on a plate. And God forgive me, I had a serving of it.
“To tell the awful truth, it was exciting is what it was, and knowing it was wrong, so very wrong, made it even more so. A guilty pleasure at a level I’d never known before, not even close. It was sooo good I can’t describe it. Maybe exquisite is the word I’m lookin’ for here. Then she moaned again, like she was waking up, but her eyes were still closed. She started kicking out and twisting and clawin’ at me like a little tiger, her fingernails digging into my chest. Still got the scratches. You’ll like that Sheriff, evidence and all. But damn it, I was too far into it to stop then. Any red-blooded American male can relate to that. But she kept fightin’ and squirmin’ and trying to back away. If the far door hadn’t been shut, she might have slid out the other side. She was about to ruin it, the most amazing sex in my life. It couldn’t end like that, not with me flying high and about to come in for a perfect landing. I had to do something. I think I might have hit her then, lashed out, just the once. That took the fight out of her real quick. About a minute later, it was all over…except for what came afterward of course.
“I knew about the storm cellar. Been down in it a time or two. I always wondered if it might have been intended as a fallout shelter. Lots of talk about nuclear attacks and bombs back then. Must have been state-of-the-art when it was built. Last time I was there, I propped the door up to let it dry out a little. Meant to come back and shut it later on, but I never did. There’s an old bent and skinny bolt that I used to slip through the hasp and secure it so some animal or kid won’t fall in it. But afterward, after the sex, when I was finished with my business, well now, that’s when I started thinking crazy. The preacher would call it the devil I guess. ‘The devil made me do it’, the oldest excuse in the books.
Bill made a small chuckling noise deep in his chest. “Not much else explains why a man would do such a thing though. It seemed simple enough, shove her down there and latch the door. Leave her a few days and Plan B, with all its simplicity, was back in effect.”
Somewhere in the pump house, a timer with a lobe on a rotating shaft pushed against a switch and the pool went from an inviting blue to an ominous black where evil creatures might dwell.
Lester stood, stretched, and put his hat back on. “Stand up, Mr. Kingston and put your hands behind your back. You’re under arrest for rape and attempted murder.”
Big Bill had a little problem moving his bulk off the lounge chair and once he got to his feet, staggered a bit. For a moment, Lester thought he might fall in the pool and drown. Save the county some money.
“Oh, one other thing,” Lester said, snapping the cuffs.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Folks might call you Big Bill, but what you really are is a moral midget.”
*****
At a few minutes past three a.m., Melissa Parker was sleeping soundly, her long dark hair spread across the hospital pillow, her breathing cycle normal and relaxed. A clear plastic tube ran from her nostrils to a regulator and a green oxygen tank while an IV unit performed its monotonous drip, drip, drip. The only sound in the room was the soft whir of an unseen electric motor.
A passing nurse hesitated at the door and looked in on her patient, quickly checked the LED’s, and moved on. Had she looked a little closer, she would have seen a man sitting in the shadows, cowboy hat in hand, a gold badge glinting from the reflected light of the instruments. The man sat there, very still, watching over the girl, praying she wouldn’t wake up in the darkened room, afraid, believing she was back in the cellar. In the event she did, he wanted to be there for her, to take her hand and talk to her, to tell it was all over, and if she wanted to cry, he would stroke her hair until the moment passed. Lester P. Morrison stayed in the corner, watching, waiting, until the morning dawn filled the room with warm sunlight.
Chapter 43
Three Days Later: Friday
The last of the supper dishes were dried and back on the shelves when Harley jerked his head up and trotted to the screen door. Billy Ray’s Camaro, dents and all, had turned in the driveway and eased to a stop. Lester opened the screen door and the dog trotted out to greet his friend as always, but hesitated when a young woman emerged from the passenger side. Harley quickly decided the female had the most interesting smells and changed course. The woman had short red hair and was wearing tan slacks with matching sandals and a white blouse. If she had a problem with a dog nosing around her clean clothes, she didn’t show it and patted Harley on the head while the lab continued his investigation.
“Evenin’, Sheriff,” Billy Ray called out.
“Evenin’, Deputy. Your companion looks familiar.”
“She should. She was one of the EMT’s that we’ve been seeing so much of recently.”
Lester stepped off the porch and extended his hand. “I do remember you now. You just look a little different without those coveralls. A mighty big improvement I’d say.”
Fraidy Hole: A Sheriff Lester P. Morrison Novel Page 33
