Wings In Darkness

by Gregory Kay

  “What the hell is he trying to do to me?”

  “Well, I’ll bet that no-good rascal thought, ‘I’ll do something really mean and nasty, like take him off midnight shift and make him hang out with a pretty girl all week. That’ll fix him!’”

  “She’s not a pretty girl!” He paused, thinking about that for a second. “Well, maybe she is, but she’s also a first-class bitch! Anyway, that’s not the point.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  “I get the distinct feeling it might be my neck that’s being stretched out here. Pete said he wanted this kept quiet. How am I going to do that by helping a New York reporter looking for a story on it?”

  Harry took another drink of coffee.

  “Change of plans, from what I hear. He said he wanted to keep this quiet; the County Commissioner and the Mayor of Point Pleasant have other ideas. They smell the potential for some major tourist dollars resulting from anything she writes in a big publication like The Arrow, and they want her to have full cooperation. They want it bad enough they’re paying for it special, out of the tourism funds.”

  “But – ”

  “Look, what have we got? I mean, really? Basically nothing. A couple of horny kids with a dented Camaro who think they saw something in the dark; that’s pretty much it. Give her that, drive her around, put on a little show for her, and she’ll go back home in a few days, write some innocuous piece of horse shit on rural urban legends or something, and leave us alone to get to the bottom of this. She’ll be happy, the Commissioner and the Mayor will be happy, and the Sheriff will be happy too, and if he’s happy, you’re happy.” A pause, then a knowing tone, “Besides, she's single; play your cards right, and she just might make you happy a time or two before she leaves!”

  “Very funny! And what if it doesn’t work? What’s going to happen if she decides to write a story depicting us all as a bunch of inbred hillbillies, and Point Pleasant and Mason County become the laughing stock of the country, and to top it off, she does it on the County dime?”

  “Why do you think Pete is having you do it instead of him? You’re not interested in politics; you’ve told me that yourself, just like you’ve told everyone else every time they've asked. Well, he is, and, even though he’s acting under orders just like you, he’s not about to risk being associated with a scandal if this thing blows up in their faces. This is Lowell’s and Simms’ baby; Pete’s just their gopher and now you’re just their chauffeur, with neither of you having any say in the matter. Besides, you get to spend a few days squiring around some cute little thing instead of wrestling around with drunks on midnights; what the hell do you have to complain about?”

  “Plenty, including being involved in making the people around here look like fools.”

  “You worry way too much about the people; you didn’t take ‘em to raise. You just worry about you for a change, and you’ll do fine. By the way, they need you there at three.”

  Luke fell back on an old trick he had learned from his mother; when you feel yourself losing your temper, slowly count to ten.

  One...two...three...

  It started building again when Harry didn’t let up while he poured himself a second cup of coffee.

  “Shouldn’t you go get yourself one of those special little chauffeur’s hats, seeing as how you’re going to be driving Miss Fiona?”

  Luke shot him the bird.

  “You and the horse you came in on! I might be driving her, but I’ll be damned if I’m kissing her ass!”

  The trooper set the cup down and said, “Tell you what, partner; I’ve seen her, and if she needs that cute little hiney of hers kissed and you don’t want to do it, you just call me. I’ll grab a new tube of Chapstick and I’ll be right there!”

  CHAPTER 9

  Luke walked into the sheriff’s office exactly three minutes ahead of schedule to find Fiona already there, sitting with her back to him. Simms, facing him from the other side of the desk, smiled.

  “Here he is. This is the officer we’ve assigned to you, ma’am.”

  Fiona turned, immediately recognized the stony countenance with the grin she remembered from the night before nowhere in sight, and her face fell.

  Oh shit!

  “Miss Pelligatti,” the sheriff went on, not noticing, “this is Deputy Carter – “

  “We’ve met,” they both said at the same time, in carefully-expressionless voices that made Pete frown slightly.

  “Really? When?”

  “Last night,” Luke told him, “It was in the report. I was the one who handled her accident.”

  “Oh, okay; I remember now.” Although he showed little outward reaction, the sheriff mentally kicked himself in the ass, finally putting two and two together, and belatedly realizing he might have just put the wrong two together. Damn it! Well, it’s too late now; I’ll have to run with it.

  He rose to his feet.

  “You all go ahead and use my office; I’ve got an appointment with the County Commissioner. Miss Pelligatti, if you need anything at all, just ask Deputy Carter here, and I’m sure he’ll do his very best to accommodate you. You have a nice day. Deputy, can I speak to you for just a minute?” He gestured toward the hall, and Luke turned sideways to let him by before following him.

  “Look,” Pete said quietly, once they were out of earshot, “With all the confusion surrounding this sighting, I forgot you were the one who’d ticketed her. If I had known that, I would have picked someone else.”

  The deputy shrugged, frankly sick of discussing it. Besides, he was already up, and he’d be damned if he was going to be moved back to midnights tonight, after only a few hours of sleep.

  “Don’t worry about it; there are no hard feelings on my end.”

  “It’s not your end I’m worried about.” He paused, licking his lips. “Is there any chance I can get you to drop that ticket?”

  Luke’s voice was cold. “She was doing eighty in a fifty-five.”

  “I know, but considering the circumstances...”

  “Are you ordering me to drop the charges?”

  The Sheriff sighed, “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Good,” Luke told him, happy with a small victory at least, “Then I’d better get back in there and see where little Miss Priss needs to go.”

  Pete had a sudden premonition that this was not going to end well at all; he could only hope he was wrong.

  “Do me another favor, though; while you’re out and about, keep your eyes open for Arthur Barnett, Thomas Losey, Denise Cooper, and Lester Boggess; none of them came home last night.”

  “The ‘devil’s disciples?’” Luke asked with a frown, knowing instantly who his boss was talking about, and the Sheriff nodded.

  “The Losey boy’s mother called this morning when she realized he didn’t come home last night, and none of them showed up at school today. Wahama called all of their parents, and nobody’s seen hide nor hair of them since yesterday evening. Arthur’s van is gone too, and that’s the one they were in.”

  “My guess is they’ve finally decided to do both the county and themselves a favor and run away.”

  “Most likely, but that still worries me; they’re the type that you’ll find their names under the headlines, suicide pact or teen vampire killings or something. We don’t need that.”

  Luke nodded; he could definitely agree with that sentiment.

  “Understood; I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

  Pete laughed suddenly. “That bunch is always trying to call up the devil; maybe this time it worked and he took them with him!”

  Inside the sheriff’s office, Fiona was shaking her head.

  I can’t believe this; just when things were going so good! Damn it!

  Things had been going good; better than good, really. Besides the free dinner, the political pair had given her all sorts of leads on information sources, plus the mayor handed her a VIP pass that would get her discounts in the local restaurants and free admission to almost
any attraction in town...including the one she hadn’t thought of, let alone heard of.

  I never pictured a Mothman Museum, even here! They’re really milking this thing for all it’s worth.

  She hadn’t noticed it on her walk up, and, on her way back, mistook the coffee shop for it, diagonally across the intersection from her hotel and right beside 4th Street and its tacky monster statue, surrounded by tourists taking photos. A natural mistake, she guessed, considering the shop was advertising Mothman souvenirs and tee shirts, and had a piece of plywood painted to look like the mythical creature with a hole cut out where the head was, so you could stick your face through it and have your picture taken.

  Fiona had roped in a passerby, handed him her camera, and had her photo taken just that way; it would add some human interest to the story, she was sure. Then she’d backtracked to the museum, which was just a few doors up from the hotel.

  It was a research goldmine: newspaper clippings, copies of eyewitness accounts, a media room for watching documentaries. She felt rushed because she could only spend an hour in there.

  And now I get to spend a week hanging out with Deputy Dawg.

  Still, she knew if she thought about it logically, she had nothing to be angry with him about. Her mother had always told her, ‘Try the other guy’s shoes on for a minute,’ and she supposed, under the same circumstances, she would have been offended too if someone had tried to ‘bust her balls’ like she did with the cop.

  Logic doesn’t always work too well combined with lack of sleep on top of an already bad mood!

  Heaving a sigh and pushing her temper back in place with an effort, she decided she’d at least give him a chance and try to make the best of it...as long as he did the same.

  If not, all bets are off!

  When Luke reentered the office alone, she looked up at him and silently cursed the tight uneasiness in her voice when she said, “So...I guess you’re my escort.”

  “Yes ma’am, I reckon I am,” Luke said, keeping his tone carefully neutral. He really didn’t want to set her off again.

  Understanding the reason his trepidation, Fiona felt compelled to do something that would have surprised most people who knew her.

  After all, I’m going to be stuck with this guy for a week.

  “Look, I, think we got off on the wrong foot. About last night...I think I owe you an apology.”

  “You want me to drop the ticket.”

  She squirmed a little.

  “No...well, yeah, actually, that’d be really nice if you would, but I’m apologizing either way. I shouldn’t have called you a hillbilly or said all those other things. It was late, and I’d been on the road for a long time. I was tired....”

  The deputy frowned.

  “You were driving straight through from New York?”

  “Yeah; I left yesterday afternoon.”

  Luke whistled and then smiled: not a huge grin, but a relaxed one.

  “It’s alright, Miss Pelligatti; apology accepted. I’ve been called a lot worse. Don’t worry about the ticket; I’ll take care of it. After all, I knew where you were coming from, but I didn’t think about how long you must have been on the road. I should have taken that into account before I became a little bit of a smart aleck myself; I’m sorry too. What do you say we put your attitude down to the long trip and mine down to midnight shift and just call it even?”

  Fiona smiled then, pleased that things were going easier than she thought, and also secretly very glad she wasn’t going to be stuck with a several-hundred dollar fine she couldn’t really afford. She was even more surprised the cop apologized to her, though, if for no other reason that she didn’t think he owed her one, but if he was nice enough to give it anyway, she figured the least she could do was accept it.

  “That sounds great, thanks.” She stood up. “Look, since we’re going to be working together, can we just start this whole thing over?” Seeing him nod, she stood extended her hand. “Fiona Pelligatti. Please, call me Fiona.”

  Luke smiled, and shook hands with her. “Luke Carter; it’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  Luke...there’s a name you don’t hear everyday.

  “Luke? Like in The Dukes of Hazzard?” The show had been one her favorites when she was a little girl, and she’d had a very prepubescent crush on the series’ character by that name.

  The words had no sooner left her lips than Fiona felt like a complete idiot for being that insensitive. Great; for all practical purposes, I just called him a hillbilly again!

  Instead, she was glad to hear him laugh.

  “Well, something like that, maybe, but not exactly,” he said, broadly exaggerating his Appalachian accent and adding a nasal twang for emphasis while jerking his head to indicate the door Pete had departed through, “Besides, Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane gets a might upset whenever I jump one of his cruisers.”

  It was her turn to giggle out loud, and then suddenly both of them noticed their right hands were still clasped together, and they instantly let go, each one looking slightly embarrassed even while trying not to show it, but the feeling stuck with Fiona. She also couldn’t help but think about how big his hands were; his own right literally swallowed hers, but he applied just enough pressure to be firm and not limp, and his palm was warm and dry and somehow welcoming.

  “Same here,” she said quickly in a clipped tone, recovering from she wasn’t sure what, “Now, let’s get down to business. May I see your report on the incident in question?”

  “I’d rather give it to you verbally, in order to preserve the privacy of the people involved.”

  “You mean Jonathan Robinson and Alison Parks?”

  Luke sighed. “Somebody’s done her homework.”

  “It wasn’t too hard; it was in your local paper.”

  She thought maybe she had just messed up, returning to her normal smart-assed self a little too soon, but he only chuckled self-deprecatingly and said, “Just a minute, and I’ll get the report. Would you like me to print out a copy for you?”

  Fiona responded by holding up a USB flash drive.

  “Would you mind putting it on here instead?”

  “Not at all,” Luke assured her as he took the tiny device and plugged it into the sheriff’s desktop computer, “Just have a seat; it’ll take a minute or two for me to bring it up. Would you like some coffee or pop or something while we’re waiting?”

  “Sure; a soda would be nice.

  Swiveling his boss’ chair around, he opened a mini-fridge behind him.

  “Ol’ Pete is a gourmet soda fan; only keeps the best stuff.” He twitched an eyebrow at her mischievously. “Normally it’s off limits to us lowly peons, but you being a VIP and all, I don’t think he’ll mind. Lets see; we’ve got orange, cola, ginger ale...”

  “Is that Blenheim?” she suddenly gasped, pointing at a clear bottle with a gold cap, filled with amber-colored liquid, and Luke obediently retrieved it. “It is! I love that stuff, but I can hardly ever find it!”

  Opening a drawer and taking out an opener, he popped the cap and handed it to her before taking one for himself and repeating the process.

  “I’m not surprised; you can’t find it around here at all. It’s brewed in one little place down in South Carolina, and anytime someone goes to the beach, Pete badgers them into bringing him back a case or two.”

  Fiona lowered the bottle, feeling the familiar bubbles tickling her nose and the heavy dose of ginger pleasantly burning her throat.

  “Umm, that’s good. Thanks.”

  He told her she was welcome, and a moment later, handed her the flash drive before pointing at the monitor.

  “You want to read it here first, instead of having to hook up your own computer?”

  She nodded, so he gave her his chair, then stood behind her, leaning on the seatback with one hand. After studying the screen for a moment, she asked, “You took this report personally?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “In your professional opini
on as a law enforcement officer, what’s wrong with these kids?”

  The automatic assumption that something was not right with two people he liked grated on Luke, but he forced himself to remain calm.

  I guess, to an outsider, and one from a city full of weirdos especially, that’s not an unreasonable assumption. Hell, if I didn’t know them, I’d probably ask that question too.

  “Nothing’s wrong with them. They’re not drunk or crazy, if that’s what you mean.”

  “What about drugs?”

  He sighed straightened up, and she felt his hand leaving the chair-back, distancing himself from her.

  “Mason County is not exactly New York City. I’m ashamed to say we have our fair share of druggies here, everything from pot smokers to pill heads to meth cookers, but we’re a small enough area that we know every last one of them. These kids don’t fool with dope.”

  Fiona picked up on the slight prickliness in his tone, which, of course, showed in her own when she responded.

  “No need to get testy.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound that way, but you need to understand something; if you looked up All American Kids in the dictionary, they’d probably have pictures of these two under the heading. Johnny was an Eagle Scout and he’s on the varsity baseball and football teams; pitcher on one and quarterback on the other. Alison is the head cheerleader, and she teaches the kindergarten class at the Baptist Church. Johnny might sneak an occasional beer now and then, but they don’t even smoke cigarettes, let alone fool around with anything else.”

  She carefully thought about what she was about to say, but, in the end, knew she had to say it anyway.

  “You sound awfully protective of these two; are they relatives of yours?”

  “No, just friends, but I am protective of them. That’s my job; to protect and serve the people of Mason County, and that’s what I intend to do.”