“Big Bill, you know I don’t do criminal law. If it’s serious, and your tone of voice tells me that it is, you should call over to Enid or better yet Oklahoma City. What exactly is our quarterback in jail for? He steal a six pack of beer from the Merry Mart or something evil like that?”
Kingston’s voice grew even louder causing Masters to wince at the volume blasting through the earpiece.
“You don’t need to know what he’s in for. All you got to do is go down there, announce that my kid has a lawyer, and tell that little shit to keep his mouth shut.”
“Boomer’s too big a boy to be calling him a little shit don’t you think, Bill?”
“Goddamn it, Johnny! Are you gonna help me out here or not?”
“Yes, Bill. I’ll go down to the courthouse, let the authorities know your son has a lawyer, and talk to Boomer. But like I said, if it’s as grim as I think it might be, you would be wise to call in the big guns. I’ll dig around and get you a couple names, okay?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Just do it and do it now!” A click followed.
Masters looked at the phone. “Jerk!” he said aloud and hung up. The lawyer reached for his suit coat, thought better of it, and ambled back to his den and the well-stocked bar he kept there. He poured a glass half-full of Jack Daniels—no ice—sat back in his leather chair, put his feet up, and took a sip.
“Screw Big Bill and the dusty horse he rode in on. Him and his hotshot son can wait.” Another sip and John felt the problems of the day soften a little. “Wonder what that boy has done to get old Bill all fired up like that?” he said. The lawyer laid his head back and closed his eyes.
*****
Greg Boomer Kingston spoke without looking up. “Sanchez was drunk on his ass, passed out on that raggedy old couch. The girl, Melissa, and hey, I hardly knew her, she was staggering around, laughing too loud, smashed out of her mind. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t used to drinking the hard stuff, especially that damn tequila. I hate it when girls get sloppy drunk. Man, she was embarrassing. I decided it was time to take her home and tried to rouse Carlos but he didn’t so much as wiggle, so I piled her in the Mustang and took off. I told her she’d have to give me directions, but she was so wasted…we drove right by her turnoff and she didn’t even notice.
We kept driving, three, four miles, maybe more, and I’m about to decide there’s no way she could have walked that far and I’m getting pissed. One minute she’s singing Me and Bobby McGee at the top of her lungs and the next minute she’s bawling about something and mumbling about her no good daddy. I keep asking if we’re getting close yet. Finally she looks around with this blank look on her face and says nothing looks familiar and she doesn’t know where the hell we are. I can tell she’s about to crash and burn. About then, I come up on this old house place, an abandoned farm that my father owns. He took me out there once, showed me the land. Said he had big plans for it someday. Something to do with horses or cows, I don’t remember. He told me he’d bought it cheap from some old man that couldn’t make a go of farming it. You guys might know of it, has a little house on it, boarded up and the floors are rotted through. Any strong wind could blow it over. Got one little tin shed still standing. Ya’ll seen it?”
Billy Ray and Lester looked at each other. Both shook their heads.
“So I pull onto the property and start to turn around and by now Melissa is leaning against my shoulder, her long hair hanging down my chest. She was wearing this little ol’ skirt, so short it almost showed her monkey. I just did what any red-blooded boy would do; turned the motor off and eased my hand up her dress. She didn’t say anything or move my hand or nothin’. Looked to me like she was ready to play.”
Lester’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying Greg, that she told you that she wanted to have sex?”
“Well not exactly in those words but…she didn’t say no either.”
“Then what happened?”
Greg took another breath.
“So I got out of the car and went around to her side and opened the door. I swung her legs out and pulled her panties off. That was when she got all crazy with me, beating on my head and chest, kickin’. Started yellin’ and carryin’ on.
“Uh huh,” Lester said. “Did you hit her?”
“I might have slapped her once. God, she was squealin’ like a pig caught under a gate. Hurt my ears.”
“And?”
“And I pulled her out, got her on the ground, and spread her. But she kept on yelling and trying to kick me in the balls. I don’t know why she was fighting so hard. She’s just a silly ass cheerleader for God’s sake. I done busted the cherry on a couple of those bitches already. They left with a smile on their face, but not this one. She wanted to make a big deal out of it. Made me mad.”
Lester asked “What happened then.”
“Nothin, absolutely nothin’. Like I said, she pissed me off. That was it. She had her chance. I don’t need that kind of crap. There’s lots of girls around that like nothin’ better than puttin’ out for the quarterback.”
“So? Is that when you took her home?”
“Hell no. I left her there. I figured if she could walk to the bar, she could walk home.”
Billy Ray leaned in. “I don’t believe you. I think you raped her, maybe strangled her, and dumped her body in a ditch. Where did you put her, Greg? Or is she still lying out there on that farm somewhere, decomposing, with bugs and coyotes eatin’ on her?”
“No, I didn’t do anything like that. I swear! Last I saw of her, she was still on the ground, sick or passed out. Who knows?”
Lester said, “Greg, considering your actions today: assaulting a police officer, avoiding arrest, and threatening me and your father with a deadly weapon, I don’t think I believe you either. That’s not the behavior of an innocent man.”
“Look, I panicked that’s all! I’m telling the truth here! When I saw you coming down the aisle at school, I thought I was gonna be arrested, go to prison. I lost it. I knew that girl hadn’t been back to class. Everyone in school knew she was missing. I was scared, scared that something really bad might have happened to her, and I’d be blamed.”
Billy Ray put his hand behind the boy’s head and jerked him close, nose to nose. “Or that she’d file rape charges against you, Greg Kingston? You think that might have been part of it?”
Greg opened his mouth but made no sound, his vocal cords frozen in fear. Billy Ray released his grip and turned away in disgust.
Lester said, “Let’s get back to that night. When you stopped to pick up Sanchez, did you tell him what happened? That his girl friend was out there in the dark somewhere and needed help. Did you at least do that, Greg? Did either of you have the decency to call Melissa’s parents and tell them where their daughter was?”
“I don’t remember,” Greg said, his voice soft, barely audible.
“What?”
Louder. “I don’t remember if I told Carlos or not. I was drinkin’. I told you that already.”
Billy Ray lost it. “Jesus H. Christ! You sorry piece of dog shit! You rape that girl, leave her all alone out in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night, drunk and helpless, and you can’t remember if you or anyone else called her parents to help her?”
“Hey, I didn’t rape her! Why won’t you believe me?”
Billy Ray took a step forward, his fists clenched in anger. Greg’s eyes got wide.
“Easy there, Deputy,” Lester said. “So, Greg, before you left, did you think to check if she was breathing or not? Maybe dying from an alcohol overdose?”
Greg glanced at the hallway, looking for help. “I think I better wait for my dad to get here before I say any more.”
Lester stood. He thought he saw a semblance of a smirk flicker across Greg’s face but it was gone in an instant. “Stand up boy. Deputy, put the cuffs on this punk. We’re going for a ride.”
“Out to that old house place?” Billy Ray asked as he snapped the handcuffs around Greg’s wrists.”
“Yep.”
“We’re taking the sedan right?”
“Get in the truck Billy Ray.”
“What about him? You don’t want him riding between us, do you?”
“There’s some tie down rings in the bed. Hitch him to one of those.”
Billy Ray smiled.
Greg protested. “Hey, you can’t…” but Boomer Kingston, star quarterback of the Boise City Bobcats, was already being pushed out the door of the Cimarron County courthouse in a manner quite unfitting for a potential Heisman Trophy winner.
Chapter 40
Melissa lay back on the cot, one arm over her eyes, wondering how much time she had left. She thought about her mama, her friend Becky, finishing her senior year, and getting off the farm, but those things seemed so far away, so long ago. She was losing it, her fire, her will to live, her physical strength worn down by the lack of food and water. She’d given up on God as well. Divine intervention, it seemed, would not play a part in the rescue of a girl who might have used one too many cuss words recently.
Then, a faint whine of tires from the road. Once again, Melissa grabbed her bent tubing with the orange webbing on one end, the last remaining usable piece of the Wal-Mart lawn chair, and struggled up the steps. She slipped it beneath the door, rotated it so the angle had the webbing sticking up, and twisted her wrists, back and forth, waving her pathetically small signal flag. The sound moved on, fading away just like Melissa’s hopes.
No one can see me. No one can hear me. Maybe they’re not even looking. It’s do or die Lissa.
Back at the cot, Melissa reached underneath, picked up the jar with both hands, and dumped the candle and matches on the floor at her feet. With the jar resting on her legs, she rotated the glass, checking the thickness, looking for cracks. There were none. Her one source of collecting water was quite stout and wholly intact.
God, I hate to do this.
She went to the rear of the cellar, pushed the leaves aside, and cautiously tapped the bottom edge to the concrete and heard a dink, dink sound. But the glass didn’t break. She tapped harder. The glass held. The frustration of her imprisonment, the anger of it, washed over her in a sudden wave of fury. She screamed out, took the jar in both hands, raised it over her head in a double-handed grip, and heaved it into the corner. The precious glass shattered, the shards falling like hailstones to settle among the leaves.
Breathing heavily, Melissa stood perfectly still, waiting for the rage to subside.
That wasn’t too smart was it, Lissa? Glass all over the place. Shit! Sorry, Jesus.
Careful of her bare feet, she cautiously kneeled on the floor, sifting through the dead vegetation for a piece of glass suitable for the task in mind, hopefully a section of the rim with one blunt edge. In less than a minute, Melissa got lucky.
The dead snake hung from the nail in the board where Melissa had impaled it, the head of the nail though the lower jaw, the skull being too thick to penetrate. It’s body hung limp and straight without a single kink. Her heart racing with desperation, Melissa struggled to concentrate. She held the piece of glass—her make-shift skinning knife—with her right hand and used her left to grasp the snake about midway down the length of the body, its belly facing toward her. She pressed the edge of the glass to the area just below the head and made a slicing motion. A few scales gave way. Pressing harder and being careful not to cut herself, she did it again and saw white flesh along with a little blood. Encouraged, she slowly and deliberately worked on the incision until she had made a ring cut all the way around the snake’s body. Breathing heavily now, her energy quickly fading, she began another cut, this time vertically down the underside of the snake. Beginning at the bloody ring, she worked from head to tail, but halfway down, her arms gave out, her legs weak and wobbly. She sat on the cot, resting, hoping for a second wind. Wiping her bloody hands on her skirt, she stared at the snake. Only half the meat was exposed, the peeled skin hanging like a wet sheet on a clothesline.
I don’t think I can do this. So tired, so very tired.
With about 10 inches of meat exposed, Melissa decided that was enough skinning. She would cook it as is, or try to. She yanked the snake from the nail and wound it around the remaining leg of the aluminum chair, her signal flag, like a macabre maypole, spiraling the body around and along the tube.
This may be the most unappetizing meal I’ve ever seen in my life.
But it was food, all that she had, and probably ever would have. It was eat it now or die.
Got to build a fire.
Her brain, confused from the dehydration and lack of food, struggled with the process.
Need a hot pad to hold the tube. Should be one in the drawer.
Her eyes blinked in confusion, her mind reeling with bewilderment. She shook her head, trying to clear away the cobwebs of delusion—of being back home, back in her mother’s kitchen. It took a moment, but the mental fog lifted, and she got an idea. She pulled her tee shirt over her head, removed her bra, and wrapped it around one end of the chair leg. It was a far cry from the hot pad her mother used to take her delicious pies out of the oven, but it would have to do. Finally, the D cups comes in handy.
She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth, testing for a trace of saliva, worried that she wouldn’t be able to swallow. So dry. She hoped the aroma of cooked meat would stimulate her salivary glands so she could choke it down.
Earlier, with great effort and using the driest twigs and leaves she could find, she’d built a cone shaped pile of debris near the top of the stairs where the smoke would have a way out and if the step should happen to burn in two, well, she would still be tall enough to yell through the gap—if and when someone came along. She wondered how much longer before she couldn’t yell or even talk. Not long. A day maybe?
With one butt cheek on a step and the hideous snake carcass and tubing balanced across her legs, Melissa held her final match in her hand, poised over the striking surface of the matchbox, her last flame to burn away the coming darkness, to chase away any noises in the night. She shook her head. Get it over with, Lissa. You’re not gonna die of fright. Water and food are the only things you need now. So do it.
The flame erupted from the match as reliably as the others and she cupped it in her hand, shielding the fire from any stray breeze. A single leaf took the flame, added to it, and passed it on. It took awhile for the twigs to catch, but, as Melissa blew ever so gently on the tiny blaze, they too began to burn. She added some larger branches, about the size of her thumb, and in minutes the fire was healthy and burning bright.
Barbeque snake. It’s what’s for supper.
She held the meat about six inches off the flame, rotating the tubing every few seconds, left then right, for an even bake. Soon, she could hear the sizzle of flesh. Her stomach reacted to the smell with an involuntary contraction.
It’s working.
She gave it about fifteen minutes, looked the meat over, and called it good. Besides, the aluminum was getting too hot to hold, the padding in the bra being much less efficient than a kitchen hot pad. But there was no good way to put the fire out. No water of course. She hadn’t thought about that.
Why worry? It’ll burn itself out in a bit.
Back on the cot, she touched the meat with a finger and when it didn’t burn her, tore off a bite-sized hunk. It felt like a warm rock in her mouth and tasted about the same. She closed her eyes, willing the secretions to flow, to moisten the food, to get it down. It took a while, but down it went, although it felt as if she’d swallowed a cocklebur.
Doesn’t taste like any chicken my mama makes. Not even close.
Melissa kept at it, piece after piece, forcing it down until her belly cramped, rebelling at the sudden mass it was being asked to digest. With the snake meat only half eaten, she lay back on the cot, drained of energy, and closed her eyes. In mere moments, and with food in her stomach at last, an exhaustedMelissa Parker fell asleep.
At the top of the stairs,
the fire was dying out, with only a single burning branch supporting combustion. But an ember from a post oak twig popped and rolled off the back of the step, landing on one of the thicker piles of leaves on the cellar floor. Soon, acrid smoke from the leaves joined with that hovering near the cellar door, not all that much, barely enough to set off a detector—had there been one. The real danger, unnoticed by the sleeping young girl, came when a fresh afternoon breeze found its way into the fraidy hole, swirled down the walls and between the steps, adding new oxygen to the fuel.
Chapter 41
Twenty miles out of Boise City and doing seventy, Lester asked, “How’s our prisoner doing back there, Deputy?”
Billy Ray spun around for a look. Greg’s long hair was blowing wildly in the wind and lashing across his eyes. The boy squirmed on the bed of the pickup, legs outstretched, looking in vain for anything to lean on that wasn’t hard.
“I’d say he’s a tad bit uncomfortable.”
“Good,” Lester said.
“You thinking we’ll find Melissa where he left her, in the weeds?”
“I’m afraid we might, Billy Ray. That poor excuse for a human being back there might have hit her too hard, not knowing his own strength. He’s as strong as a bull. Maybe he choked the life out of her and doesn’t remember it, or he’s not saying. Maybe she died from the tequila. It’s happened before.”
Billy Ray nodded and said, “Then again, if she did start walking home from there, no telling who might have come by, gave her a ride, or forced her in their car. Could have been hit too, hit and run, like we were thinking at first. If we get nowhere on this, we could get the OSBI back out here or better yet, form a search party with a dozen or more citizens and walk the road.”
“I like your second idea best,” Lester said. “I’ve had my fill of that OSBI bunch.”
They passed the Pirate’s Den, still deserted, and flew by the turn off to the Parker place. The Junkman’s house flashed by on the left.
“Ask Greg if we’re getting close.”
Fraidy Hole: A Sheriff Lester P. Morrison Novel Page 31