by Laura Bickle
This errand to the jail was an unwelcome distraction. Owen didn’t spend a lot of time at the jail anymore. Sure, it was his domain and his jurisdiction as county sheriff, and he kept an office in the building. Every person who pissed in an alley or who spat on a deputy and got arrested wound up here, for at least a little while. He thought of his domain as having two sides. There was the upper world of the open road and sunshine, driving in a cruiser and feeling the wind tickle his mustache. He liked that one, the feeling of being free in the world. This, though, was the underworld, the lightless place where unlucky souls waited for the gears of justice to grind them down or open the door to let them out. This one, he avoided when he could. He knew that strange things happened when men were given power over other men, and he knew that he was just as susceptible to abuses of power as the next guy with a badge. So he stayed the hell away. Or as much as he could.
Today, though, the underworld had dialed him up and asked him to come on down.
Owen opened the heavy metal door leading to the jail. He used his left hand; his right was missing. Not that a casual observer would see that. He’d had a prosthetic made. But he was still getting used to it; it felt clunky and annoying and in the way. He was right-handed, and he was still figuring out how to shoot and fiddle with his cell phone with his left. In his dreams, he still had two hands, and if he wasn’t paying attention, he swore his phantom fingers could feel things. Even in the summertime, he wore gloves on both his real hand and the prosthetic one. The rumor that went around town was that he wore gloves so that he wouldn’t leave fingerprints behind on whatever shady business he was dabbling in. Owen didn’t address those rumors at all.
The door closed behind him, leaving him in a tiny vestibule with a locked door before him. To his right stood a wall-mounted line of small lockers, resembling a stand of PO boxes at the post office.
A little blonde girl at his side stared up at him, chewing on the drawstring of her pink hoodie. “What’s in there?”
“Guns. Mace. Tasers. Whatever weapons that cops carry.” Owen was mindful to turn his back to the camera perched in a dome over the locked door. Wouldn’t do for anyone to see him talking to himself. Because Anna, the little girl beside him, was a ghost. A ghost no one else could see. There were enough rumors swirling about him; he didn’t need to add madness to the stew.
Owen unholstered his sidearm and secured it in a lockbox, pocketing the key. Though no one would challenge him if he strode through his jail with a bazooka on his shoulder, Owen was careful about which rules he decided to break and which he didn’t.
Anna poked at the empty boxes on the bottom row. “Why would you give up your gun?”
“Because this is a place with bad men behind that door, and we don’t want to take a chance that the bad men would get my gun.” Owen tipped his head to the second heavy metal door. It had been painted many times, and the most recent beige color had been chipped away in spots to reveal black and grey underneath. There was a bar to his left, which suspects could be cuffed to while arresting officers surrendered their guns. Sort of like tying up one’s horse outside a saloon.
Anna’s pale face twisted in a grimace. “Bad men?”
“Lots and lots of bad men. I’m going to talk to one of them today.”
She shook her head vigorously. “Yuck. I’m going to go play with the puppy.”
“Good idea.”
Anna walked through the exterior wall of the little chamber without opening the door and vanished. In a few seconds, Owen heard barking. He peered through the tiny bulletproof glass window at the top of the door to see Anna standing beside a patrol car from a nearby city, tapping on the glass of the backseat window. A police dog was going nuts, pawing at the window. Owen took this as some small evidence that he wasn’t entirely guanopsychotic. Maybe the dog could see her, too.
He had been told by folks with their fingers in the supernatural that Anna wasn’t real, that he was, in fact, insane. But he’d seen enough creepy shit in his jurisdiction to believe a lot of screwed-up things. Anna, the ghost of a murdered girl, was the most benign supernatural thing he’d encountered, certainly more pleasant than carnivorous mermaids, undead cowboys, and the alchemical Tree of Life. And Anna had been with him for years.
He had, after he’d been told she wasn’t real, tried to ignore her for about a week. He tried to act like a sane guy. But that was hard to do with the ghost of a kid demanding that he turn on the cartoon channel on the television or chattering at him about the wildflowers growing near the mailbox. He finally decided that Anna was real. He may be batshit crazy, but he knew what he saw, and in a world of ever-shifting reality, he decided to believe in her.
Owen smacked a red button beside the interior door. Within seconds, an intercom crackled to life. “Good afternoon, Sheriff.”
Without any explanation required on his behalf, a loud buzzer sounded. The door to the outside locked behind him, and the interior door unlocked with a thick thunk. Owen pushed it open and strode into the intake area.
There were no windows here, only buzzing fluorescent lights overhead. The area had been painted a sickly pink, the color of calamine lotion. The entire interior of the jail was painted in this color, from bars to walls, ever since the time Owen’s father had been sheriff. Owen’s father had read in a law enforcement magazine that pink was supposed to be a calming color. Owen had no idea if it worked or not, but knowing his father, he suspected it had more to do with his father’s odd sense of humor.
Owen’s skeleton staff was running the jail without complaint. Probably because nobody really wanted to get sent to direct traffic on hot asphalt all day. Behind a Plexiglas wall in a tiny control room, a deputy’s face was glued to security cameras and computer monitors, a stack of paper court orders printed out beside him. Another deputy was searching a row of molded plastic benches for left-behind contraband, keeping one eye on an orange-clad prisoner talking into the wall-mounted telephone. The prisoner was hunched over, clasping the phone in handcuffed hands. The place smelled like piss. No matter how much cleaning happened, it always did. One got used to it, of course, and the deputy supervising the inmate caller had marinated in enough fragranced body spray to make flowers wilt.
Owen nodded at the deputy. He moved to another door and swiped his keycard at a lighted panel beside it. The door crunched open, and he entered the men’s cell block.
No matter how often he ordered the plastic-covered lights overhead changed, the light had a dim, amber cast. This was where male inmates who weren’t considered too sick or dangerous were kept. Four inmates crowded a steel cage with a lidless toilet piercing the floor. Beds were bolted to the concrete, with thin plastic-covered mattresses arranged on them. The inmates, dressed in orange suits and plastic molded sandals, watched him as he passed the pod. Some stared, some snickered. One rushed up to the bars and howled at him, like he was Lon Chaney under a full moon. Owen was very glad that Anna had stayed outside. This wasn’t a place for children, and so far Anna had never followed him in.
Owen didn’t look directly at the inmates. He’d cultivated a thousand-yard stare that could look right through a person. He didn’t quicken his pace, either—that was a sign of fear, and this was his backyard. He just kept moving toward the end of the hall. The handful of solitary cells the jail had were there, featureless rooms with solid doors and mattresses on the floor.
The interview room was here, as well, at the end of the hall. It had once been a utility closet, but space was limited. This was where attorney visits took place. Today, Owen would be conducting another type of interview.
Owen keyed the radio pinned on his uniform shoulder. “L2, this is S1. I’ll be awaiting our guest in interview room one.”
His radio crackled back: “S1, this is L2. I’m en route.” The lieutenant on the other end sounded frazzled. Owen wondered if his interviewee was giving the lieutenant some shit.
No matter. Owen parked himself in the first tiny interview room. He sat down in
a molded plastic chair in front of a desk bolted to the floor. There was nothing else in the room except another chair.
A dull, grinding noise echoed in this area, sounding like excavation equipment. It came from the basement, and Owen could feel the vibration of it in his feet. The jail had a machine that ground up all the materials that inmates flushed, like a giant garbage disposal the size of a closet. It destroyed everything from plastic forks to contraband, chewing it all up and spitting out sludge. It was an irritating sound, and was not always helpful for interviews. Owen had hated the expense, but having plumbers out every week to retrieve shredded shoes and bedsheets from pipes was more expensive.
The door to the interview room opened. The shift lieutenant ordered an inmate to enter. The man in the orange jumpsuit looked to be in his late forties, but it was hard to tell. Grey mingled with stringy brown hair. The guy was skinny, in the way that guys who did far too much meth were. His face was covered with stubble and red marks. Whatever he was on, it was causing him to pick at his skin something awful.
The lieutenant pulled out the plastic chair on the other side of the desk and asked the inmate to sit, then lean forward. The inmate obediently extended his hands to the metal bar welded to the desk. The lieutenant quickly unfastened his cuffs and recuffed them around the bar.
Owen sat back, watching, rocking on the back legs of the chair. “What’s his story?” he asked the lieutenant.
The lieutenant nodded at the inmate. “This is Luke Timothy Rogers. He goes by ‘Rattler.’”
Owen covered a snort. Of course he did. He addressed the inmate: “You in a biker gang or what?”
Rattler leaned forward and pulled his lips back on a grin of loose and missing teeth. “They call me Rattler on account of my superior dental hygiene.” His tongue wiggled one of his front teeth.
Owen looked at his lieutenant. “Wonderful.”
The lieutenant continued, reading from a folded-up paper that she removed from her pocket: “Rattler has a lengthy history in this and nearby counties. Grand theft auto, domestic violence, possession of criminal tools, assault and battery, possession of narcotics with intent to distribute, burglary, and”—she paused for a moment, a perfectly shaped eyebrow creeping up her forehead—“using a firearm to fish.”
“I was drunk,” Rattler said by way of explanation. “Fish got away.”
“As it happens when one goes fishing with a firearm.” Owen rubbed his mustache. “What’s he in for now?”
“He was pulled over with a trunk full of stolen collectible bowling balls. Twenty-six of them. Their value is enough to make it grand larceny, and Rattler’s least favorite judge is not sympathetic to his protestations of innocence.”
Owen did some quick math in his head. “That’s over four hundred pounds of bowling ball . . . How was his bumper not dragging the pavement?”
“That was how he was discovered. The bumper of his vintage Caddy scraping the road generated enough sparks to catch the attention of the arresting officer. It was likened to Fourth of July sparklers.”
The corner of Owen’s mouth crept up beneath his mustache. “Thank you. You can leave us now, Lieutenant.”
The lieutenant nodded. “I’ll be outside when you’re finished.”
Owen waited for the door to shut and turned his attention back to the scraggly guy chained to the table before him.
“I don’t know how those balls got in my—”
“I didn’t come down here about that. You insisted that you had information about a murder. And that you would speak only to me.”
“Right—yeah. I know some things about a murder that happened twenty years ago.” Rattler’s tongue poked at his tooth.
“And I imagine that you want to tell me now out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Nope. Got no goodness left in my heart.” Rattler grinned. “But I’m willing to make a trade in exchange for shaving some time off my sentence.”
Owen knew he sounded bored. “I’m guessing you spent as much time behind bars as out on the street. Why make a deal this time, after twenty years? And why not go through your attorney?”
Rattler chuffed dismissively. “My attorney is useless. Hence all the time I spent on the inside. It’s better to get an audience with a man with clout, go direct.”
Owen shrugged. He wasn’t impressed.
“Look, I know I’m looking at hard time . . . a fifteen-year minimum on this stupid bowling ball charge. All the small shit adds up, since I guess I’m what they call a repeat offender.” The Rattler’s face soured, and he looked spooked. “Judge said that if she ever saw me in her courtroom again, she’d make sure it was my last. My attorney ain’t gonna do nothing to stop that. But I think that you’ve got enough pull to maybe get it done.”
Owen was wary. “How about you tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you if it’s worth anything?” Likely, the guy had made something up or had something insignificant on a case that had already been put to bed.
Rattler grunted and shrugged. “I understand. A man’s time’s limited. I’ll cut to the chase. Twenty years ago, I spent some time here while I was waiting for trial.”
“Which time was that?”
“The time I stole a hearse.”
“Oh yeah. The auto theft. Go on.”
“I shared a cell with a guy for three days. A guy who was in for misdemeanor possession. Robin Wayne Cuthbert.”
The name meant nothing to Owen. “Go on.”
“After a couple days, the guy’s girlfriend came in to visit him. She slipped him some pills. We crushed ’em up and snorted ’em. He had more than I did, since his girlfriend was the one that brought ’em, and when he was lit, he talked about a little girl who had gone missing.” Rattler paused for dramatic effect. He’d been around the block a few times. The dude knew how to work a story and the system. “Would what he said about that girl be worth something?”
Owen slowly lowered the chair so that all four legs sat on the floor again. He reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, the lingua franca of the jail. He tapped out a cig and offered it to Rattler.
Rattler leaned forward, and Owen stuck it in his mouth, successfully resisting the urge to grimace at Rattler’s complete and utter lack of familiarity with a toothbrush. Owen plucked his own cigarette out of the pack. He lit his cigarette first, and then Rattler’s. Rattler sat back in his chair, sucking on the cancer stick like he hadn’t had one in days. Which was probably the truth. Dude had to be experiencing withdrawal from God-knew-what.
“Anyway, this was some strong shit that the girlfriend brought. Robin went on a bad trip. Said he was being haunted by a Toad God named Pigin.” The lit end of the cigarette bobbed as Rattler talked. “I dunno if the acid sent him to another dimension, or what.”
“A Toad God. Named Pigin.” Owen was beginning to regret wasting a cigarette.
“He said it was a really profound experience. Spiritual. Described a toad the size of Jabba the Hutt.”
“Um. Far out?” Owen hoped he was describing it properly.
“Totally. This Pigin promised to grant him the power of persuasion . . . the ultimate silver tongue. Like, Robin would be able to talk anyone into anything. As you can imagine, Robin really dug the concept. The number of scams he could do, the amount of shit he could rip off . . . it would be staggering.”
“Staggering,” Owen repeated. Owen had the sensation of falling down a rabbit hole of psychedelic weird. Trying to get this over with, he said, “So what did Robin say about the girl?”
“He said he went over to a dude’s house to crash for the night. Dude was a regular customer, and Robin was lying low from the fuzz. He’d gotten in some trouble and he wanted not to be at home if anyone came knocking.” Rattler sucked on the cigarette deeply. “He got there to find his customer passed out on the couch. Robin began looking for some drugs to keep him entertained for the evening.”
“As one does?”
“As one does. Robin discovered, howev
er, a little girl sleeping in her back bedroom. And he swears that Pigin told him to kill the girl.”
“And did he?” Owen’s heart was hammering.
“Yeah. He did. He took her and killed her for the giant toad.” Rattler nodded, ash trailing from the cigarette.
Owen tried to keep his tone neutral. He reminded himself that this was a weird yarn, but there was no evidence behind it. Nothing concrete. “Rattler. This is gonna be hard to take to the judge . . .”
“Robin said he wrapped the body up in a blanket, took her to his car, and ditched her in a well.”
Owen’s heart stopped clunking around in his chest like the transmission of an old car. Twenty years ago, he had found a body at the bottom of a well. That detail was not public knowledge; the news had reported that the body in question was found in the woods.
Rattler sucked on his cigarette for a moment with his wrinkly lips before he spoke again. “So there it is. I hope it’s worth something. The guy confessed to murdering that little girl.”
“It’s worth something,” Owen said softly, before taking a deep drag on his own cigarette. “It’s worth something if you knew the killer of Anna Jean Sawarski.”
There might have been sun if there wasn’t so much smoke in the sky. The fire turned the sky overhead a storm-like violet as Petra drove. The sun broke through once in a while, streaming through the smoke, not with summer’s full invincible wrath, but with a pale, sickly light. It reminded her of the sun in February. Petra had the windows down against the heat that clung to the land, winding down two-lane roads toward Maria’s house. The air-conditioning didn’t work on the Bronco, and Petra had never bothered to get it fixed, a decision she was now second-guessing. Sig sat on the passenger side, leaning his head out the window. His eyes were slitted in joy and ears flapping in the breeze. Some things about canines were universal, she thought.