That, in and of itself, didn’t mean anything; although Liam had little experience breaking terrible news of this nature, and especially not to parents who had lost their child, he knew enough that people reacted differently to bad news.
“He’s… dead,” Bobby repeated, more as a statement than a question. As he spoke, he reached for a package of cigarettes on the desk and began peeling off the plastic outer wrapping.
“’Fraid so. I’m really sorry to tell you this, but Principal Clifford Zanbar, he also passed last night.”
For some reason, Liam started to focus on Bobby Lee’s fat hands as they picked at the plastic.
“Zanbar’s dead?” he said, this time there was no doubt that it was a question.
Something about plastic, the webbing between thumb and forefinger.
And then it clicked.
The tattoo Liam had seen on the man in the car this morning, the man who had been coming from this very office, from a meeting with Bobby Lee, was also the same insignia on the package of heroin that Stevie had found out in the swamp.
Liam’s eyes drifted about the room, to the lavish oil paintings that covered the wall, to the massive cherry wood desk, the plush recliner from which Bobby Lee had just arisen.
And that was how he planned on funding the revitalization of the downtown core, Liam thought.
“Sheriff? You alright? You look a little tired,” Bobby Lee suddenly asked.
Liam swallowed hard.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, his eyes focusing on Bobby Lee’s hand again as he toyed with the cigarette wrapper.
“You sure, because—”
Liam was staring at the wrong hand.
Bobby Lee scooped up the ornamental clock in his left hand. For such a big man, Bobby Lee Ross was quick. He swung the clock in a vicious arc before Liam got a chance to even raise his hands in defense.
A tiny bell rung when the wooden frame collided with Liam’s skull, sounding his arrival into the world of unconsciousness.
Chapter 51
Dwight’s first instinct was that the girl in the nightgown, despite being much older and taller than the others, was one of them.
That she was one of the black-eyed girls who called themselves mother. Holding his breath, Dwight stood still. Only he was a big man, and big men couldn’t ever be completely still, not really. The girl slowly turned her head, and with relief as palpable as an orgasm, Dwight saw that the girl’s eyes weren’t obsidian glass; and yet, they weren’t normal, either. They were glazed over, shining too brightly in the fuzzy morning sun.
And then Dwight’s brow furrowed.
He recognized this girl, she was… she was…
“Sherry? Sherry Draper?”
The glazed look in the girl’s eyes dissolved. She blinked once, twice, and then a tremble coursed through her entire body.
“Dwight?” she asked in a quiet voice. Her face became a mask of confusion. “What… what am I doing here?”
Dwight animated, and he moved quickly to her. She wasn’t just trembling, he realized, but shivering. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, trying to keep her warm.
The girl fell into him.
“Do you not remember anything?” he asked quietly as he looked around. Dwight thought he could see a break in the thick trees not far to their right. He wasn’t sure, but he considered that this might lead them back to the burned house. From there, he would get into his car and drive himself and Sherry out of there.
And then he would meet up with Liam who would know what to do. The sheriff would know how to fix what was obviously broken inside Dwight’s head.
The man could fix anything, even this.
Or so Dwight hoped.
“I—I heard a voice,” Sherry said unexpectedly. “A voice called to me… said that I—that I need to coooome, that mother was waiting. I knew that this was silly, crazy, even. My mother was sleeping in the room next to me, but I just, I dunno, I just couldn’t resist.”
“It’s okay, Sherry, just stay calm. I’ll get you home. It was probably just a dream.”
They took several steps together, before Sherry suddenly stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Dwight asked.
“I don’t think it was a dream, Dwight. I mean, the words… I heard something else, too.”
Dwight suddenly felt his heart start to race.
“Yeah?” he asked quietly. “What else did you hear?”
Even before the words exited her mouth, Dwight knew what she was going to say.
“It was something in a strange language… Spanish maybe, or Portuguese. Master is, matrem omnia, or something like that.”
Dwight’s vision suddenly clouded and he felt dizzy. Now he found himself leaning on the girl for support and not the other way around.
“Dwight? Dwight, you okay?”
Sherry’s voice sounded as if it were coming from the other end of a long tunnel.
“Dwight?”
Mater est, matrem omnium.
It was what the girls in the water were saying, what Stacey had told Father Smith before he cut his eyes out.
He cleared his throat.
“I’m… I’m fine.”
But Dwight wasn’t fine, far from it.
And that was before he saw the three others, all dressed in nightgowns, all with the same glazed-over look in their eyes that Sherry had had moments ago.
“Is that… is that Miriam? And Tiffany?”
Dwight straightened and he gently eased Sherry to one side.
“Stay here,” he instructed.
“But I think that’s—”
“Just stay here.”
Dwight moved closer to the girls and snapped his fingers. They turned in sequence and their eyes brightened.
“Where am I?” they asked in unison.
“You’re in the swamp, but you’re going to be okay.”
The nearest girl, the one that Sherry had called Miriam, stepped forward.
“How did I—how did we get here?”
“That’s not important,” Dwight answer, shaking his head. “What’s important is that you get back to your families safe and sound. Please, come here.”
The girls, still confused, offered each other hesitant glances, but they couldn’t resist a man in uniform. An Elloree Sheriff’s department uniform was something that they knew, that they associated with good. How they had gotten here, walked to Stumphole which must have taken the better part of two hours, on the other hand, that was just confusing.
The two girls slowly made their way in his direction.
Dwight was smiling, feeling as if he was doing some good after all the bad he’d seen over the past few days.
But that was before he heard dripping water from somewhere behind them.
Dwight glanced over Sherry’s shoulder and stared at the surface of the swampy water.
Please don’t come out, please don’t come out, please just be a frog, a bird, a fucking alligator… anything but—
Three heads broke the surface of the water at the same time. Small heads, heads covered in wet, blond hair.
“We need to hurry,” Dwight said, frantically waving his arms.
“Why? Is there—”
“My legs are sore, I’ve—”
Dwight shook his head.
“Hurry! Please! Just come to me! Fucking move!”
Chapter 52
Bobby Lee Ross stared at the wooden clock in his hand. The glass cover on the face had smashed when the base had collided with Sheriff Lancaster’s head, and now the time read 4:15.
He stared at Liam’s fallen body and felt a pang of pity for the man. They went way back to their high school days, and Bobby Lee had hoped that Liam would come along for the ride. But Liam always had what Bobby Lee didn’t: a moral code.
Tommy Ray didn’t have a moral code either, and look at where that got him. Stupid prick had to go and get himself killed, just when things were starting to get moving, just when things were looking up for
Elloree.
For me and Elloree.
“Mayor Ross? Everything all right in there?” Nancy called from the outer office.
Bobby Lee placed the broken clock gently down on the desk.
“Everything’s fine,” he said, retrieving his suit jacket from the back of his chair. Then he made his way to the door. He pulled it open just wide enough for his big frame to fit through, before closing it behind him.
“The Sheriff just wanted to get a little shuteye, asked not to be disturbed,” he said, with a thin smile.
The secretary gave him a queer look.
“In there? Why?”
Bobby Lee shrugged.
“What can I say? It’s been a long night. Please, just let him stay as long as he wants.”
Nancy looked confused, but said, “Oh, okay. And where are you off to?”
Bobby Lee fished his car keys out of his pocket as he made his way to the front door.
“I’ve got an errand to run.”
“Well, don’t forget that you have another meeting with the Mendez brothers at twelve-thirty.”
Bobby Lee grabbed the door handle and pulled it wide.
“Oh, I’ll be back before then, trust me,” he said, then left.
***
“Mother fucking asshole, ungrateful son of a bitch!” Bobby Lee shouted, slamming his hands down on the dash so hard that the radio skipped. “Just couldn’t keep it together for another two weeks, could you? Fucking half-wit motherfucker!”
Bobby Lee pulled his BMW onto Main Street, barely noticing the throngs of people all heading in the opposite direction.
“You fucked up big time, Tommy Ray. Big time. But if you lost the drugs… oh, you little shit, if you lost the rest of the product, you’re going to be glad you’re dead.”
He slowed and then stopped at a red light. A woman in a white pantsuit on the sidewalk hollered at him and started to approach his car.
Bobby Lee gave a half-hearted wave, but when the woman gestured frantically at him, he paid her more attention.
Her hair was a mess, and instead of minimal makeup, she was wearing none at all, unless raccoon eyes were a new style he was unaware of.
“Sylvie?” he asked, brow knitting.
A horn honked, and Bobby Lee glanced at the stoplight, surprised that it had turned green already. He jammed his foot down on the gas a little too hard, and the car jolted forward.
What the hell is Sylvie doing on the street this early in the morning? And why the hell didn’t she let me know that Sheriff Lancaster was out for blood?
But Bobby Lee was already through the intersection and had decided that finding the heroin was more important than figuring out what Sylvie Sinclair was up to.
***
“No,” Bobby Lee Ross gasped. “No, fucking way.”
He stood halfway up the driveway, staring at the rubble that had once been their heroin stash house.
“This can’t be happening.”
Bobby Lee shook his head, causing his many chins to flap back and forth. Then he sneered and ground his molars.
“Oh, Tommy Lee, you fucked up big time, you little shit.”
His mind whirred as he made his way up the rest of the muddy track that led to the burned house. He stepped beneath the crime scene tape that was loosely strung between two trees and offered a cautious back to the cars at the edge of the road.
Three of them, plus his own: that nitwit Zanbar’s car, his son’s Porsche, and a police cruiser.
His mind immediately set into motion, trying to find a solution to this dilemma.
Maybe this is a good thing, he thought, maybe I can swing this in my favor.
Bobby Lee approached the burnt rubble and started to formulate a plan. The Mendez brothers wouldn’t be happy about the missing kilos of heroin, which had either burned in the fire or had been confiscated by the police. If the police had them, he might even be able to get the three kilos back later. But the men had never liked Tommy Ray and their disdain for Clifford Zanbar was as plain as the many tattoos that marked their tanned skin.
I can swing this, I can use it to my advantage. You can do it, Bobby Lee. You’ve gotten out of worse jams than this before.
As he moved through the burnt rubble, Mayor Bobby Lee Ross continued to work on his plan.
A dead son would play nicely, even if Tommy Ray was tangled up in a small-time drug ring. Nothing got votes like sympathy, and what—
“Why do we have to hurry?” a girl asked from the corner of the property. “I’m tired and my legs hurt.”
Shit!
Bobby glanced around quickly.
He might be able to turn this in his favor, but if he got caught here, now… that wouldn’t be so easy to explain.
“I gotta get out of here,” he whispered. Without thinking, Bobby turned and bolted.
Not a nimble man, he probably wouldn’t have been able to avoid the area in the rubble that was cordoned off by the firemen even if he’d seen it.
But he didn’t see it, didn’t even notice it until the ground beneath him gave way and Bobby Lee Ross was in free-fall mode.
“Fuckkkkkkk!” he cried as he plunged into the dungeon beneath what was left of 8181 Coverfeld Ave.
Chapter 53
“Look, I know everyone is a little confused by all of this,” Stevie said to the throng of people in the high school auditorium. “And I’ll be honest, I’m a little confused, too.”
Many of the parents looked at each other and grumbled under their breath. Stevie was none too comfortable being on stage, and if it weren’t for Officer Jenkins on one side, and Mrs. Ducharm on his other for moral support, he might have just given up entirely.
His hands, which were held out in front of him as if trying to calm an angry mob, were trembling ever so slightly.
“But let’s just keep an eye on the prize, okay? Sheriff Lancaster has been kind enough to raffle away not a used a car, but a brand-new car. And everyone who fills out a survey today is eligible to win.”
More chatter, and Stevie raised his voice.
“There have to be, what, two hundreds of you guys? Those are pretty good odds, don’t you think?”
Jenkins moved closer to him and whispered in his ear.
“Car or no car—and as far as I can tell there is no car—this isn’t going to last a few hours.”
“No shit,” Stevie grumbled.
“Well, where are the surveys, then?” A man with a handlebar mustache demanded.
“Dwight is on his way. Had a problem with printing the questionnaires,” Stevie said.
“He shoulda used my shop,” another man shouted. “I’d make sure they was printed on time.”
Stevie frowned.
Jenkins might have been understating his point.
This might not last a few more minutes, let alone a few hours.
“Does this have anything to do with the missing girls?” a woman near the front of the crowd asked.
And there it was.
“Fuck,” Stevie swore.
Chapter 54
Nancy knew that she shouldn’t go into the office; she had worked with Bobby Lee Ross long enough to know the tone that he had used before leaving.
Let him sleep for as long as he wants, translated into, Stay the hell out of my office until I tell you to go in.
And she would’ve; Nancy would’ve have stayed at her desk all day and all night, so long as the Sheriff remained asleep in Bobby Lee’s office. If it hadn’t been for the sounds, that it.
They started as a mere whimper at first, but then she heard a distinct groan.
Going against Bobby Lee’s wishes was not advisable to anyone with any sense to them, and he definitely wouldn’t be happy if she went in there. And if Bobby Lee wasn’t happy, then the scary brothers with the tattoos wouldn’t be happy either. And Nancy got the distinct impression that crossing them might be even worse than crossing Bobby Lee.
Another moan and Nancy slowly stood, the fingernail of her fir
st finger jammed between her teeth.
But he’s the Sheriff, and if he’s hurt…
“Ooooh,” she whined. “What should I do?”
The grunt sealed it for her; Nancy made up her mind and walked over to the office. With a final moment of hesitation, she pulled the door wide.
Then it was she who was gasping.
“Sheriff Lancaster!”
She ran to the fallen man, scooping his head protectively in her arms. Liam’s eyes fluttered, then opened.
“Nancy?”
“Yes, sweetie, it’s me. Did you… fall? Your head, it’s bleeding.”
Liam grunted as he pushed himself to a seated position.
“Yeah,” he groaned. “Something like that.”
He started to rise, but Nancy tightened her grip.
“You probably shouldn’t move in case you have a neck injury.”
Liam shrugged her off.
“I’ll be fine. Seriously.”
“Gee, I dunno. You’ve got a serious cut there on your forehead. Maybe we should call for an ambulance, or maybe even Dr. Larringer.”
“I’ll be fine,” he repeated, finally managing to shrug her off so that he could rise.
He staggered, and Nancy pressed her hands on the small of his back to keep him upright. Then he smiled at her.
“You’re a good woman, Nancy. And good women don’t need to surround themselves with bad men.”
Nancy’s brow knitted as she watched Liam put his hat back on. Before he got to the door, he looked back and tilted the brim toward her.
“Take care of yourself, Nancy.”
And then he was gone.
Nancy stood there in the Mayor’s office for a moment, before noticing the clock on the desk. She picked it up and realized that the glass had been smashed.
She turned the hour hand with her finger, then set it back on the desk.
“There, that’s better,” she said with a sad smile of her own.
***
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