Fraidy Hole: A Sheriff Lester P. Morrison Novel (15 page)

Chapter 12

At just a few minutes past two a.m., the jangle of the phone signaled that sleep—at least for the human
in the house
—was over.

“Harley, what person in his right mind would be calling me this time of night?” The dog didn’t move. “Sheriff Lester P. Morrison here,” Lester said with a sigh, swinging his feet to the floor and dreading what was probably coming next.

“It’s Nelda
,
Sheriff, you know, from dispatch.”

“My
g
awd
,
Nelda, don’t you ever sleep?”

“I work the night shift
,
Sheriff, just like I’ve done for over a year now. I sleep in the daytime, when I can that is.
Now hush up and listen.”

“Go ahead if you must.
Jesus.”

“There’s been a wreck
. A
one car accident out on Highway 287
about ten miles southwest of Conrad.
Another driver called it in.”

“Nelda, I’m sure sorry to hear that, but why are you disturbing
my
beauty sleep?
That’s a job for the Highway Patrol.”

“I know that and I called them first.
But they’re dealing with two other wrecks right now, one of ‘em an overturned semi that’s leaking some kind of flammable all over the road.
Said it might be an hour before they could get to this one and to call you.
I got an ambulance and a tow truck on the way.
Don’t give me a hard time
,
you old buzzard, I’m just doing my job.”

Lester softened.
“I’m sorry
,
Nelda, but you know me, I can be sorta cranky in the middle of the night.”

“
No kidding?
You want me to call Billy Ray
or not
?”

“No, it’s his weekend off.
I can still investigate a wreck by myself, despite being an old buzzard.
Let the boy sleep.
I’ll check back with you when I’m on the scene.”

“All right, but be careful.
Lots of things going on out there tonight.
Must be a full moon.”

Lester
mumbled a few choice obscenities to himself, then
dressed and headed for the front door.
Harley raised his head, hoping that a late night snack might be in order, but it was not to be.

“Guard the fort, dog.
I’ll be back.
Gettin’ too old for this shit.”

Nelda had been right about the full moon.
The countryside shimmered under the
lunar
glow, almost bright enough to drive without headlights.

Maybe that’s what that poor fool in the wreck was doing,
Lester thought as he turned south. He shook his head.
Clear skies, dry pavement, how could anyone smash up a car on a night like this? Probably drunk, that’s usually the case, especially at
two
a.m. I’ll know in a few minutes I guess.

Once again, his
thoughts turned to Melissa.

Where in the hell is she?
Kid like her, should’ve come home by now, especially if the fuss was nothing more than a family feud.
Got to be more to it than that. Albert?
I bet he figures in it somewhere. Crazy bastard. I’m guessing sexual abuse or rape. That’d be plenty of cause for a young girl to not come home, keep on runnin’.
But where would she go? Her purse and school I.D. w
ere
still in her closest.
Is Mrs. Parker telling all she knows? Doubt it, especially if Albert’s involved, scared of him like she is, the man being a domineering jerk and stupid to boot.
Damn fool stunt he pulled at the farm, pointing that shotgun like he did.
It’s a wonder Billy Ray didn’t shoot him between the eyes. Would have been justified too.

The highway was as straight as a painter’s plumb line
and
with no headlights as far as the eye could see prompting Lester to up his speed to 75. He hit the switch for the red and blue’s on top of the pickup—lest some late night drinker didn’t see him coming—but left the siren off. Lester hated that
noisy bitch
of a siren. Twelve minutes later and just after topping a small hill, the familiar flashing lights of an accident scene
w
ere
making shambles
of the once beautiful night sky.
Lester parked on the side of the road, left his emergencies on, got a half dozen orange traffic cones from the bed of the truck,
and spaced
them up and down the highway.
A
car had come to rest in a field
,
leaving a path of uprooted brush and weeds from the edge of the blacktop and across a shallow ditch before taking out a couple sections of barbed wire fence, one of the posts having left a deep vertical crease in the front end. Spotlighted as the car was from the ambulance and wrecker, it had the appearance of a ghostly metallic dragon, defeated in battle, with steam spewing from what was left of the radiator. It didn’t take much of an investigation to determine the primary cause of the wreck.
A whitetail deer had taken out the entire windshield of the Chevy Cavalier, its lifeless body wedged halfway inside the car, legs and hooves now pointing out and up, toward the stars.
Evidently, the Chevy
,
with its low-angled hood
,
had slipped beneath the belly of the animal on initial impact, leaving the glass and the driver to take the brunt of the massive collision.

The EMT’s had the victim on a gurney, strapped down, and loaded in the ambulance.
A young woman, not unattractive, with spiky red hair and wearing a dark blue shirt with a medical emblem on the sleeve stepped out and sprinted toward the sheriff.
Lester didn’t know her name but had seen her before in situations such as this.
Her
clothes were covered in blood.

“It’s a one car, one passenger wreck Sheriff. We have a young male in bad shape with multiple facial lacerations, and likely with neck and spine injuries.
He has a pulse but he’s unresponsive.
That’s all I got for you right now
. We’re
leaving,” she said and raced away.

“Thank you darlin’, Lester called out. The woman gave a backward wave, and jumped into the waiting ambulance, barely finding her seat before the siren wailed and the driver punched the gas.
With the ambulance out of the way, a tow truck with Showman Wrecker Service and Body Shop in white lettering on the side, pulled into position to make the hook up. Charlie Showman stepped down from the driver’s seat and walked around the wreck. He pulled a pair of leather gloves from his back pocket and began removing the barbed wire from the little Cavalier while checking for other potential problems.
He decided to ask for help with the most obvious.

“Sheriff, do you think you could help me get that deer out of there? No sense hauling it back to the yard to stink up the place.”

“You don’t want to keep the carcass?” Lester asked.
“Should be a lot of good meat there.”

“Naw, I still got venison in the freezer from last year’s hunt.
Besides, the little woman’s not all that crazy about deer meat. Say’s it has a whang to it.”

“Has she tried it made into summer sausage with that spicy cheese mixed in? Don’t see how anyone wouldn’t like it that away.”

“Yeah, she’s tried that too.
No accounting for taste I guess. Give me a hand, we’ll jerk it out of there and leave it for the coyotes.
At least something can benefit from this mess.”

“Sure thing
,
Charlie
. How
about if I shove from the inside and you pull from the hood?”

“That’ll work.”

Only it didn’t work, not at all.
The deer, a big doe and in her prime, was jammed tight
. A
fter several minutes of struggling and cursing with no visible progress, both men were drenched in sweat
;
their uniforms stained red with animal blood, or human blood, or both.

“Well piss shit,” Charlie said, that being one of his favorite vulgarities.
“I quit. I’m takin’ it in like it is.”

“Go ahead,” Lester agreed, breathing heavily but trying not to show it. “Let me take a quick look in the glove box, see if there’s any insurance
or
registration in there, get a name of the owner. That ambulance took off so fast, I didn’t have time to check that poor man’s pockets.”

The passenger door
,
slightly sprung out of alignment from the impact
,
opened with a pop. Lester
did a quick search of the rear seat with his flashlight, then
reached for the glove box
,
but stopped.
A
duffel bag was lying
open
in front of the passenger seat, the contents scattered across the
floor
board
.
There were tee shirts, socks, and underwear
,
but it was the black and orange football jersey that got his attention.
A shiny 81 reflected off the beam.

“Aw sh
it,” Lester said
.

Chapter 13

Earl Redman was on his third cigarette and second cup of coffee when he heard his name being called
—and
quite rudely
—from
the bedroom.

“Earl, you up yet? Answer me damn it
!
I can hear you banging around out there in the kitchen.”

Earl took another sip of lukewarm coffee and a long drag off his Marlboro, ignoring the screeching from down the hall.
Earl wasn’t quite ready to deal with his wife this early in the day, although it
was
past ten in the morning. His routine was to sleep till at least nine (hopefully later) but it seldom worked out that way.
Marilyn, his wife of forty-four miserable years, not counting the first three, began with her list of daily demands from the moment she heard his feet hit the floor, eve
n if only to go to the bathroom
.

Earl had lain in bed as long as could get away with it, staying as quiet as possible, and hoping Marilyn didn’t hear the loud farts from the pork and beans he’d eaten straight from the can the night before.
He’d locked the doors on the Pirate’s Den shortly after one last night, the bar being disappointingly empty of customers despite it being a Friday night and the Boise City Bobcats playing a home game. He hadn’t bothered to clean the place up, knowing that he should’ve, but he’d been tired,
physically and
mentally wor
n
out.
Dealing with that damn sheriff again, him showin’ up and running off J.O. like he did, had
weighed
heavy on Earl’s mind. He hoped that
would be the end of it.

Earl was fairly confident that the Saturday crowd would make up for the poor showing the previous evening. Despite the bar’s poor location on a lonely rural road, the Pirate’s Den had its group of regulars and just enough thirsty travelers to keep Earl in business.
Much to his pleasant surprise, the motorcycle crowd had taken a liking to the place.
Somehow
,
the word had gotten around that the Den was laid back and loose on rules and if a biker should happen to get a little drunk, or a
lot
drunk, the owner would more than likely let him, or sometimes
her
, sleep it off on the old ratty divan out front without calling the law.
Luckily, the two-wheeler crowd, for the most part, was non-violent with only
the
occasional shoving and pushing from a disputed shot on the pool table.
The simple truth was that most of the bikers who stopped by for
a
few cold ones were ordinary citizens with ordinary jobs who just happened to enjoy riding motorcycles. Some out-of-towners made a weekend of it, riding
in
from Oklahoma City or Tulsa or Lawton and visiting the Black Mesa State Park.
Black Mesa itself, the highest “mountain” in Oklahoma, measured a less than impressive 4975 feet but drew its fair share of visitors.
Some hiked the trail to the top but a lot of the bikers took
one
look, mumbled something about a waste of time, and
rumbled back down the road
in search of a
friendly bar.