Widow Town

by Joe Hart

  “Gray, glad you could make it.”

  “I bet.”

  “We were just speaking with Dr. Barder about his findings.”

  “Well, I appreciate the help, Mitchel, but I’ll be fine from here on out.”

  Enson grimaced and glanced over his shoulder at the doctor. Barder looked between the three men and nodded once. “I’ll be inside whenever you gentlemen are ready to continue.” When the door shut behind him, Enson turned a gaze full of anger on Gray.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you, Gray?”

  “Nothing, actually I feel fine, although hospitals do make me antsy at times. Nothing good except babies come out of places like this.”

  “Quit fucking around, you know what I mean.”

  “I know exactly what you mean, Mitchel, that’s why I’m saying thank you to you and this strapping young lad here for securing the door for me until I arrived. Now you can leave.”

  The deputy shrugged his shoulders and threw out his considerable chest as color began to creep up from Enson’s neckline in a border of red that advanced like an invading army. “You don’t have the right.”

  “Actually I do, Mitchel, you see Miles was taken from my county and was also found there, so the jurisdiction is mine.”

  “I meant you don’t have the right to order me around, this is my county hospital. And he was not taken,” Enson said, spitting the last word.

  Gray cocked his head. “I’m sorry, was he on vacation in the woods for the last month?”

  “I looked at the man’s wounds, he was attacked by an animal of some sort.”

  “Thank you, doctor, but I’ll wait until the medical evaluation comes in.”

  “You’re a sonofabitch, Gray, you know that?”

  “If I say I do, will it make you leave faster?”

  The deputy stepped forward and put one thick finger in the middle of Gray’s shirt. “You should watch your mouth.”

  “And you should watch where you put your hands if you want to keep them attached,” Gray said, looking down at the deputy’s finger. He waited another beat and then looked up at the young man who couldn’t have been older than twenty-two. Gray smiled. “Son, I’ve had two days full of shit and I’m not about to take any of yours.”

  “Terrel, stop,” Enson said. The deputy sneered at Gray and then stepped back to a comfortable distance. “I’m warning you, Gray, no bullshit without backing it up.”

  “I’d like to have one of my deputies stationed outside his door at all times,” Gray said, ignoring Enson’s words as he glanced at the room number.

  “No, there isn’t any need for that.”

  “Are you deaf as well as stupid, Mitchel? Someone was holding that man somewhere and torturing him, the driver who brought him in said it looked like he was in a week-long knife fight.”

  “The guy was shook up, that’s all. I’ll bet my paycheck that he was attacked by an animal and got lost in the woods. Nothing more.”

  Gray stepped nearer to the other sheriff. “There will be a guard outside this man’s door, Mitchel.” The hulking deputy reached for Gray but Gray caught his arm at the wrist and squeezed, feeling the movement of the small bones there. The deputy grunted in surprise and tried to lunge forward but Enson stepped in the way.

  “Stop it, let him go, Gray!”

  Gray smiled and released his grip. The deputy tried to maintain a calm demeanor but couldn’t resist rubbing his wrist with the opposite hand.

  “I’ll put a guard here since this is my county,” Enson said, pushing his deputy back a few more inches. “That’s the best you’ll get, Gray.”

  Gray sighed and clenched his jaw once before nodding. “Okay, but whoever it is stays on this door night and day. No leaving for the john, no going home before he’s relieved.”

  “Fine.”

  “Where’s the driver who brought Miles in?”

  “He’s downstairs in a meeting room.”

  “Good. It’s been a pleasure, truly,” Gray said, looking at Enson before tipping a wink at the glaring deputy. Gray turned away from the two men and opened the door to the hospital room.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust in the sudden shift of light. The room was spacious with an upright bureau to hold clothes standing near the only window, its shade tucking the sunlight out. A small bathroom opened to the left and a wide medical bed sat near the middle of the space with a headboard made completely of wires, blinking lights, and switches. Several of the hoses snaked down to the figure occupying the bed beneath a layer of heavy blankets.

  Gray moved to the bedside and nodded to the doctor who made an attempt at a smile and continued examining a digital chart in one hand, touching icons with the tip of his finger. Gray’s breath caught in his throat and he blinked, taking in the man who lay before him.

  In school, Miles had been an athlete, well built but a little gangly. Gray had been able to keep up with him on longer runs, but in the sprints, no one was faster than Miles Baron. The man who breathed slowly in and out in the bed now was at least forty pounds less than the last time he’d seen him. His hair was a dirty red, matted in some places with what could only be dried blood. Miles was bare chested, his skin blistered and raw around numerous lacerations that coated him like a rash. Some Gray could tell were deep while others were shallow and long, barely cutting through the uppermost layers of skin. Gray traced the pallid lines of his friend’s face down to the missing left hand ending in a freshly bandaged wad of gauze.

  “My God,” Gray said, his eyes never leaving the massacred flesh. “He’s cut to ribbons.”

  “Yes, he’s suffering from multiple lacerations and gouges on over eighty percent of his body,” Barder said, setting his chart down. “He’s extremely malnourished and dehydrated. His left hand has been amputated as you can see with a sharp object, but not so sharp to do a good job. It was basically hacked off. I’m amazed that he isn’t consumed with infection.”

  Gray reached out and put a hand on his friend’s shrunken shoulder. The skin was cool and overly soft. “Was he awake when he was brought in?”

  “Semiconscious but unresponsive. We gave him a sedative to help him relax and we’re infusing him with a calorie concentrate along with saline.”

  “Will he make it?”

  The doctor sighed and came closer to the bed, his intense eyes now filled with compassion. “This man has suffered more trauma than anyone I’ve ever seen in my twenty years as a physician, but he’s strong. His pulse is steady and I don’t see any signs of head injury.” Barder looked up at Gray and smiled. “I think he’s going to be okay.”

  Gray released Miles’s shoulder and straightened. “Doctor, what caused these injuries?”

  “I won’t really be able to say until the digital analysis comes back along with the blood work.”

  “In your opinion, I won’t hold you to it.”

  “My opinion? Someone did this to him, most likely with knives or hooked instruments.”

  “So you don’t think it was an animal?”

  “Like the sheriff was insisting upon?”

  Gray squinted at the other man. “Is that what he was telling you to say?”

  “He was suggesting it in so many words.”

  “And you don’t think so?”

  “Absolutely not. These wounds couldn’t have come from an animal; the lines are completely uniform in keeping with an edged object. An animal bite or claw marks would have tears; the trauma would be ragged, unkempt.”

  Gray lowered his gaze, his eyes unfocused. “Thank you, doctor.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll be his primary physician while he’s here with us, so if you have any questions, please let me know. I’ll be sending over the lab results to your office as soon as they come in and I’ll notify you with any changes.” Barder moved around the end of the bed and stood next to Gray. “You know, what scares me is not only that someone was insane enough to do this to him, but that he was found less than ten miles from my home.” />
  Gray glanced at him. “You live near Shillings?”

  “About fifteen miles northeast. They said he was found on East Six, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  The doctor’s eyes glazed over. “Makes you wonder.”

  Gray regarded the other man for a moment. “Don’t worry, doctor, we’ll find whoever is responsible for this.”

  “I hope you do,” Barder said before quietly leaving the room.

  Gray turned back to Miles and sighed, watching his friend’s face twitch in the drug-induced sleep.

  “You’re safe now, Miles, no one’s going to hurt you anymore. Renna and Davey are on their way, they’ll be here soon.” Gray waited for any acknowledgment from the prone man. None came. “I’ll get them,” he said in a lower voice. “I’ll find them for you. They won’t go free.”

  Miles’s right hand flew up from the bed and latched around Gray’s forearm. He jerked in surprise but managed to keep the yell behind his teeth. Miles’s eyes sprung open, two traps of bloodshot veins that stared at the ceiling above the bed. Gray tried to pry his friend’s grip from his arm but he held fast.

  “Dark,” Miles whispered at the ceiling tiles, his broken voice drawing out the vowel. His hand relaxed and dropped away from Gray, settling on the bed once again. His eyes drifted shut, disappearing behind bruised lids.

  “Miles?” Gray said. “Miles, can you hear me?”

  Nothing. The other man breathed deep and exhaled, his thin chest rising and falling.

  Gray stepped back from the bed, watching for any more movement. Miles lay still. He steadied the tremble in his fingers before reaching the door and moved into the hallway. The first thing he saw were two people moving toward him down the corridor, a skinny boy with red hair leading a slender woman, swaying like a reed on the bottom of the sea. Gray tried to smile as they approached.

  Davey’s face was lit from within by a cautious smile, his eyes shining. “Is it him, Sheriff Gray? Is it Dad?”

  Gray put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Yes it is, Davey, it’s him.”

  The restrained tears dropped down the boy’s cheeks and he didn’t attempt to wipe them away.

  “You’re sure?” Renna Baron said. Her voice startled Gray and he looked at her fully for the first time.

  She had aged in the last three weeks since he’d seen her, her hair growing gray roots at the temples, eyes sunken in folds of worry lines that had no business being on a woman’s face that had yet to turn forty.

  “I’m sure, Renna.”

  “Because I couldn’t take it not being him, not now. I won’t let myself believe it until I see him.”

  Davey tried to move past Gray, towing his mother with him, but Gray stopped him with a gentle hand on his chest.

  “Wait just a second, son, I need to say something to both of you.” He paused, looking from one face to the other. One so aged, damaged by despair, the other young enough to still hope. “I want to warn you, Miles is in pretty bad shape.”

  “He was in an accident, right? That’s what they told us at the front desk,” Davey said, trying to look over Gray’s shoulder at the door behind him.

  “We’re not sure yet, but he doesn’t look like the last time you saw him, so I want you to be prepared, okay?” Davey blinked several times and then nodded. Renna stared. “I’ll have the doctor sent in right away and he can speak with you both.”

  Gray released Davey and stepped aside for them to pass. Davey opened the door like a present on Christmas, flinging it away to get inside, his mother a weightless waif towed behind him.

  Gray readjusted his hat and began to walk away but not fast enough to drown out the muffled cries of intermingled joy and horror that came from behind the closed door.

  Chapter 19

  “Joseph, bring that map you’re always going on about into my office.”

  Gray released the intercom button on his computer and waited, the seconds ticking off inside his head loud enough to drown out all other noises. He didn’t move as he sat behind his desk, his eyes beginning to dry in the hot air. Soon he heard the deputy moving down the hall and a moment later the younger man entered the room and strode to his desk, setting down what looked like a folded square of leather.

  “I’m surprised you remembered we had this, Sheriff.”

  “Don’t get cheeky with me, Joseph.”

  “No sir.”

  “What did you turn up with the calls to Joslyn’s in-laws?”

  “They were a little cagey with me but said that they did receive the account balances in full, all the money was there.”

  “Well we figured as much.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Ruthers unfolded the map one layer at a time until it covered over half of the desk. Its surface was opaque with several round symbols sealed beneath a clear, protective cover. Gray ran his fingers across the map.

  “It looks like a miniature Twister game,” Gray said.

  “A what?”

  “Am I the only one who likes classic games in this town?”

  “What sort of game is it?”

  “It has a larger mat like this with differently colored circles to put your hands and feet on. Two people get on there and someone else calls out colors and whose hands and feet to go where.”

  Ruthers stared at him.

  “The two people get twisted up with one another. Twister.”

  “Hmm.”

  “The hell with it. How do you turn this damn thing on?”

  Ruthers squeezed the map once at its corner and the entire surface lit up from within, its face brightening with lines signifying roads and a scattering of blocks in the center. The words ‘Shillings County’ hovered at the top of the map.

  “Well that is handy, isn’t it?” Gray said, bending over the desk.

  “Yes sir,” Ruthers said, rubbing his forehead.

  “Headache still bothering you?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Caffeine withdrawal is a bastard.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Maybe you should go get a coffee.”

  “No, I’ll just suffer.”

  Gray chuckled. “Okay, let’s find East Six.”

  Ruthers touched the pliant mat and slid his finger across its surface, dragging the digital view with it. He stopped and placed his other pointer finger on the map and pulled his hands away from one another. The map zoomed in, the small squiggles of roads expanding into clearer definition, several lakes and plots taking up most of its area.

  “This is East Six,” Ruthers said pointing to a relatively straight line running through the center of the view.

  Gray studied the intersecting lines and then touched a spot on the upper right side of the map. A little dot of green light appeared where he’d tapped it. “This is where the transport driver found Miles, about a mile from where Six hits Northbound.”

  “Is he still in custody over in Wheaton?”

  “No, I released him. He’s from Massachusetts, just passing through on a delivery. All his background checked out. Poor guy was still shaken up when I interviewed him.” Gray studied the map for a while, his eyes tracing different features before returning to the point he’d marked. “Make me a concentric circle around that point, Joseph, twenty miles in diameter.”

  Ruthers touched the mark twice and then drew a line away from it. A circle appeared and grew on the map, a barrage of decimal-pointed numbers racing along its outer edge until Ruthers paused, stopping the circle at a ten mile radius.

  “Good, now can you show current homesteads on here?”

  “Sure can.” Ruthers touched the edge of the map. A line of symbols appeared. After tapping one of them a grid materialized, overlaying the current view. Over a dozen rectangular shapes lit in borders of orange. Miniscule print floated within each of them.

  “The labels are the names and addresses of each plot registered in the county,” Ruthers said. “The map gets updated each month through the courthouse’s files.”

&n
bsp; “Okay, here’s where things get tricky because we’ll have to rely on logic,” Gray said. “Stop me anytime you think I’m wrong, Joseph. In my opinion, Miles escaped sometime yesterday, I’m willing to bet in the evening or early morning. Now with his injuries and seeing how frail he is, it’s unlikely he would travel more than ten miles in the space of twelve hours.” Gray glanced at his deputy.

  “I’m with you so far.”

  “Good. Now normally I would cut our search down considerably with Wilson Creek running parallel to Six since it would carry even a strong man away when the water’s high, but with no rain that stream would be dry as a bone allowing someone to either cross it or walk down it.” Gray leaned closer to the map. “Which poses a problem for us because most of the residences are on the north side of the creek.”

  “Which side of Six was he found on?”

  “The north side.”

  “So he most likely came from that direction.”

  “If we’re still treading water in logic, yes.” Gray peered at the map for a full minute without speaking before straightening up. “Joseph, I want you to call Dodger and get him and Tex out to the spot where Miles was found, see if that dog’s nose can pick up a trail. The heat might’ve burnt away any scent but it’s worth a shot. And bring a scanner with you out there, I don’t think it’ll be any use with how dry it is but you never know.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Can you send a snapshot of that map to my cruiser’s readout?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Do it. I’m going to make a few house calls and meet up with you later this afternoon.”

  Ruthers nodded and folded the map in half and then half again. “So the town celebration is tomorrow.”

  “Joseph, I’m not easy if you’re asking me to the dance.”

  Ruthers laughed and shook his head. “No, but I wanted to thank you for the urging the other night. I finally got up the nerve to ask Siri out.”