by Bryn Roar
Opened up that old drive-in, they did.
Another waste of space as far as Rupert was concerned. There ain’t been a good movie made since John Wayne passed on from the cancer! Lord rest his soul.
Movies today rotted the young ‘uns minds.
He sauntered over to the concessions stand and took the Juicy Fruit he’d been jawing on since that morning and tossed it at a garbage can behind the counter, missing it. “How ‘bout pour me a Co’ cola,” he said, smiling sweetly at the short black kid. Son of the most influential man on Moon. Rupert’s mother might have raised herself a lazy good-for-nothing, but she hadn’t raised no idjits! He wasn’t near stupid enough to piss into that brown wind.
Henderson had himself a good thing going, and by gum he knew it too. The town only paid him a nominal salary; barely enough to keep him solvent, but goods and essentials were all on the house. Most of his groceries were free, as well as his small but well-appointed apartment over the jailhouse. All utilities gratis, including satellite service. Over 200 channels on his big screen TV, and four of ‘em porno! Doc Bidwell took care of his aches and pains at no charge—that in itself must have saved him about five grand a year. He had no expenses to speak of, and best of all, once his retirement kicked in, he’d have basically the same free ride on Moon for the rest of his life!
That wasn’t the best part of it, though. No sirree! The best part was when Dr. Clint Bidwell had come by to pay him a visit, early on in his first year as Sheriff.
An agreement was reached, sweaty palms were pressed, and Rupert’s bank account at the First National in Beaufort had grown by leaps and bounds ever since.
Except for two notable instances, once back in ’96, and again this very day, that nervous handshake with the doc had been the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Henderson took the cup of soda from Rusty and showed him his perspiring back.
“Sheriff, is there something else I can do for you?”
Henderson ignored Rusty and walked over to the little O’Hara kid, blasting away at those aliens as if his life was in the balance. Rupert had already made plans to question the so-calledCreeps about the fire yesterday in the Pines, when an urgent visit from John Cutter made him forgo his afternoon nap to interrogate the kids straightaway. He drank the Coke down in one swallow and set the empty cup on top of the video game. When he discovered the nude body of Oscar Wilson, a low-level employee of the Center, laying just off the Old Oyster Trail in the Pines that morning, Henderson thought the shit was truly about to stack up. He’d made the call to Bidwell, and was more than a little shocked when the boss man actually sounded relieved to hear the news! The only time he’d raised his voice was when he demanded to know if anyone had touched the body—which was a big negatory.
He’d told Bidwell: ‘Doc, that poor son of a bitch has all kinds of dried-up mucous caked around what’s left of his piehole. More than half of his face is gone, and something had been gnawing at his damn throat, too. I wouldn’t touch that fucker for all the beer in Milwaukee!’
Again, Bidwell had seemed relieved, and thirty minutes after the call, he and the Center’s boys had swooped down on the dead body like vultures in lab coats.
Bidwell and his men were still out there, Rupert supposed, beating the damn palmetto bushes for God knows what. Even though the victim—a kennel manager Rupert had once met at a company picnic—was shot right between the peepers, Bidwell had asked (nay, he’d demanded) that the incident be categorized as an animal attack. Which wasn’t exactly a lie, now, was it? Something inhuman had surely been snacking on that fucker’s face.
Those injuries, however, were several hours older than the gunshot wound…the real cause of death. But it wasn’t as if Henderson was putting his job at risk by falsifying the report. After all, Dr. Bidwell was also Moon Island’s official coroner! An autopsy would be required, but once again, Clint Bidwell would be the man performing it. Except for maybe Ham Huggins, no one on Moon was as respected as the good doctor. Shiiitt! Bidwell could have stated that Wilson had been the victim of a falling meteor, and nobody would’ve blinked an eye!
Henderson had no qualms with any of this. In fact, it was a load off his lumbago. For a moment there, he’d thought the ghosts of 1996 were revisiting his life. 1996. Back when all hell had broken loose on Moon Island.
The O’Hara boy didn’t even acknowledge his presence as Rupert loomed over him. Just kept tap-tapping that damn button. He wondered where the boy’s sister was. He’d seen the pretty little thing walking down Main Street with the same fucking losers for over seven years now.
Hhmmph! Three pitiful peas in a pod, that bunch.
Henderson had it in his head that Bud Brown had something to do with not only that fire yesterday, but the shooting as well. Bud had been a pimple on his ass since last year, when he’d nearly killed that asshole, Charlie Noonan. Not that that would have been any great loss. Still, it made Henderson look bad when he’d stood by and let the boy get away with nothing more than a sleepover at the Silly Factory. On that count, though, he’d been on his own, and he’d let that particular sleeping dog lie right where she was. No sense pissing off Bill Brown and Ham Huggins, the latter being a good friend of the Browns.
But things were different now! Now the all-mighty muscle of the Center, and those who supported her, backed him up! By God, the US Army! If Rupert got the information he needed, not even Ham Huggins could stand in his way! But as John Cutter had pointed out to him: It has to be done by the Book! And quietly! The last thing they needed was to draw attention to themselves.
Especially from the mainland press.
On that count, Henderson agreed whole-heartedly. Just fifteen months till I can retire with full benefits!
He reviewed his notes again: Miss Beasley made a call to the office last night around 10:00 p.m., from her apartment over the bookstore, saying she’d seen four kids running down the middle of Main Street. As if the devil was hot on their tails. She didn’t have her glasses on at the time, so she couldn’t swear to it, but to her it looked like Bud Brown out there, brandishing a firearm of all things. That call came in shortly after two other calls, reporting a gunshot in the vicinity of the Pines. Coincidence? Henderson didn’t believe in ‘em. And even though Rupert couldn’t charge Bud with the murder, or even yesterday’s arson (Cutter said that would be imprudent at this time), the Research Center had seen fit to thrown him a bone.
If he could get any of theCreeps to admit to witnessing any of the following: Oscar Wilson, the gray bitch, or, of all things, a chimpanzee—today or yesterday in the Pines—then he was duty-bound to take them into custody. Whereupon the Center would jump in and place the kids into immediate and indefinite quarantine.
According to Bidwell, the kennel manager and his two escaped charges had been exposed to a virus that the Center was working to eliminate. And while it wasn’t usually fatal (once again, according to Dr. Bidwell), it was highly contagious, and therefore required extraordinary measures to prevent its spread. The Center’s cushy Quarantine Section sure as hell wasn’t the same as Rupert’s hoosegow, but the idea of putting Bud away gave Henderson a hard-on just the same. Besides, their visit to the Center would be anything but pleasant or restful. Rupert had an idea that the doc was looking forward to having himself some human guinea pigs to poke and prod. Rupert wanted, oh so badly, to oblige the man.
He tapped Joel on the shoulder.
“Where’s your sister, sonny boy?”
Joel looked up at the sheriff and shrugged, not bothering to answer.
Rude little shit, ain’t he? Rupert went to the back of the video unit and unplugged it.
“Hey!” Joel said, staring up defiantly at the sheriff.
“Hay is for horses,” Henderson said, placing his Smokey hat back on his head. He had ordered it special, all the way from Kansas City with his own money. He thought it made him look like one of those Drill Sergeants from Parris Island, across the way. Folks on Moon thought it made him
look like an overgrown Boy Scout. “Now, I’ll ask you again, young feller, where’s your sister?”
Rusty watched the sheriff loom over Josie’s little brother, trying to intimidate the kid. For his part, Joel seemed entirely unperturbed. Dealing with a mean drunk on a daily basis will do wonders for a boy’s self-reliance. He wasn’t about to be unnerved by the town laughingstock.
Meanwhile Rusty was shaking in his hi-tops. He kept looking at the front doors, hoping to see his friends there. He went over what he was supposed to say in his head. What Bud wanted him to say. If only the sheriff would stop wasting his time asking Joel questions the kid didn’t have the answers to! Rusty was so eager to get this over with, he nearly blurted out the prepared statement unasked. Only his natural curiosity stopped him. What in the world has gotten into Rupert Henderson?
The man was usually lazy and laidback. Not at all the aggressive sort. He had always been timid as a mouse around anyone related to Ham Huggins or Bill Brown. Rusty’s daddy could have had the simple fool fired with very little effort. And Bill...well, everyone knew that the apple didn’t fall far from that family tree. Bill Brown was not a man you wanted to aggravate. That’s why Henderson’s sudden lack of restraint unnerved Rusty so. In fact, the man seemed supremely sure of himself.
He’s wise to us, Rusty thought uneasily.
As scared as Rusty was, it pissed him off to see Joel getting pushed around like that. The sheriff grabbed the boy by the front of his shirt and lifted him up until they were eye to eye. Joel’s sneakered feet dangled in the air.
“Leave him alone!” Rusty said. He climbed over the counter and landed on wobbly legs.
Rupert ignored Rusty. “I’m going to ask you one more time, sonny boy. Where’s your damn sister?”
Joel looked right into the sheriff’s florid face and said, “She’s probably home painting her toenails. If you hurry, maybe she’ll let you blow on ‘em till they’re dry.”
Rusty couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer audacity.
His jowls shaking angrily, Henderson dropped Joel on his ass. Despite his earlier bravado, the little boy whimpered in fright. The helpless sound triggered something in Rusty. “What the hell did you do that for, Rupert? He’s just a little kid!”
Henderson bent over until he was looking straight into Rusty’s owlish eyes. “There’s no call for all that noise, Rusty. All he has to do is answer a few questions and I’ll be on my way. Hell, I’ll even pony up a quarter for the boy’s next video game!”
Rusty looked away involuntarily, trembling like a Chihuahua on a chilly day. Rupert smelled his fear as surely as that rabid dog had done the day before. “J-just l-leave him a-alone, is a-all,” Rusty sputtered anemically.
Rupert let out a phlegmy chuckle that reeked of Juicy Fruit and Polydent. “Okie-dokie, boy. Then you can answer my questions. Where’s that booger-coated gang of yours? Starting more fires out in them woods?”
Rusty glanced at the front entrance where a clock hung over the double glass doors. Josie’s been gone for almost three hours now! Even if he didn’t appreciate Henderson’s Bull Conner routine, maybe it was time to tell the sheriff his friends might need some help.
Rupert let out an exaggerated sigh. He was getting tired of all this obvious stalling. “Rusty, listen up here. Do I have to take you to the jail for questioning? Son, it’s a simple dang question: Why are you here, and where are Bud Brown and Josie O’Hara?”
“Bill is in Beaufort, that’s why I’m here helping, and Bud, he and—” Rusty opened his mouth to tell the sheriff that his friends were in the Pines, and were all long overdue, but couldn’t get his mouth around the simple sentence. Something’s wrong here! The skin on the back of Rusty’s neck tingled. What the hell has gotten into this man? What does he know? What should I say?
Rupert stuck his thumbs behind the gunbelt until the leather creaked. He liked that sound. Made him feel like Matt Dillon. “All righty, then. Let’s try another tact. Now I want you to answer this, Rusty, and no more dang foolishness! Were you and your friends—specifically Josie O’Hara and Bud Brown, in the Pines yesterday, last evening, or at any time today? Yes or no! Quick now!”
Rusty blinked at Henderson’s cold black eyes and realized he couldn’t hold out any longer. He gazed at the front door leading out to Main Street. His friends nowhere in sight out there. For all he knew they might even be in grave danger. It was time to come clean. “Here’s what happened, Sheriff. Bud, Josie, and I, and a new kid, named Ralph Tolson, cut school yesterday and went—”
“—up to the roof, where we hung out all day and night,” said a breathless Bud Brown from behind Rusty.
Rusty turned his head. Bud and Josie, having come in through the back entrance, were standing in the hallway; the two of them drenched in sweat. Bud looked like that Pig Pen character from Peanuts. A dusty dirty mess.
Rusty arched his eyebrows, and Josie gave him a slight headshake, as in: Keep your mouth shut, boyo!
Rusty gave her an even slighter chin chuck.
“Joel, go upstairs and wait for me,” Josie said, tossing the key to her brother. Joel snatched the key out of the air, gave the Sheriff a fuck you look, and did like his big sister said.
Rupert muttered under his breath. He’d nearly had the Huggins boy admitting to being in the Pines! If only he hadn’t wasted so much time on that smart-ass little whelp. He looked Bud Brown up and down. Loopy bastard was some kind of dirty. He hitched up his gun belt and fiddled with the short billy club hanging off to the side. Bud was more than double the man the sheriff was, but Henderson was one of those little Napoleons who get more confidence than is good for them from their badges and uniforms.
“Boy, you been rolling around in the dirt?” He picked some of the soil off Bud’s T-shirt. He rubbed it between his fingers and grinned. “That there is dirt from the Pines. Rich, dark, and moist. I’d know it anywhere.”
Bud shrugged. “Yeah? So?”
Josie turned to Bud, thunderstruck. For feck’s sake! Doesn’t he know what he’s saying?
Henderson’s smile stretched across his face. “So you admit to being out there today?” He reached for the radio on his gun belt. Time to call in the white coats.
“No, sir. We haven’t been out to the Pines for quite some time. Isn’t that right, Gnat?”
Rusty nodded dumbly. “T-that’s right.”
Henderson sputtered. “What the…then w-where…”
“My friend Ralph Tolson and I were playing around in our cemetery back there,” Bud said, pointing to the graveyard further down the brick tunnel. “The Pines is where my dad and I got the soil for that part of the ride. Three tons of it, in fact. You can check if you—”
Henderson turned his gimlet eye on Josie. “How ‘bout you, girlie? You’re all sweaty, I see, but not a speck of dirt. You been foolin’ around back there, too?”
“Me?” Josie trilled sweetly. She had always despised Henderson. The way his eyes rolled up and down her body when he thought no one else was looking. “Nice girls don’t get dirty. You know that, Sheriff.”
Seething inside, Henderson calmly wrote all this down in his notebook. Somehow these kids were wise to him. They weren’t about to admit to nothing. “This here Ralph Tolson, where is he? I’ll need to talk to him, too.”
“Right here, sir,” Tubby said, coming out of the same hallway. After a quick breather, he’d followed his friends through the back door, staying hidden in the shadows long enough to hear most of their replies.