Fraidy Hole: A Sheriff Lester P. Morrison Novel (36 page)

The nervous man standing in front of Lester was middle-aged, hatchet-faced, mostly bald, wearing gray sweatpants with a shirt sporting faded red flowers that once would have been loosely described as Hawaiian. But the feature that jumped out at Lester was the man’s eyes, wide, owl-like, with white showing all the way around the irises, looking like he’d just seen Freddy Krueger from
A Nightmare on Elm Street
.

Lester stepped back
,
went to the corner of the house
,
and
yelled
toward the rear. “Billy Ray? Come around here please. Mr. McCoy has decided to talk to us.”

He knew it. Gerald knew there had to be more cops out here, dozens of ‘em. He scanned the yard looking for movement or gun barrels, but saw nothing. He thought seriously of running back inside and locking the door again, and would have except for the sight of that demonic black dog in the white truck, pawing at the window, aching to tear his throat out.

“Mr. McCoy, can you tell me if you were at the Pirate’s Den last Thursday night, that’s the bar right next to the road, a couple miles west of here?” Lester watched the man’s face as he asked the question, looking for the lie.

They know something
, Gerald thought, the panic growing in his belly.
But what, what did I do? What do I say?
The eyes got even wider and whiter as he struggled for an answer to the question.
Just play dumb
, he thought,
admit nothing
. It was a good solution for Gerald. Playing dumb was one of his strong suits.

“Well, I might have been there, I don’t exactly remember. My memories not so good you know.”

Lester said nothing, holding the man’s weird eyes with his own cold stare, waiting for a slipup.

Nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Gerald continued to check behind the junk piles, particularly the old cars, watching for the muzzle flash of a sniper’s rifle. After a few silent moments, Gerald continued, “I go over there sometimes. I drink a beer and watch the big TV. Have you seen it? It’s very nice. It’s fun to watch the football games there.”

Lester ignored the question and asked, “When you were there on Thursday, and we know you were Mr. McCoy
,
so don’t play games with us, did you see a young girl, long hair, pretty? She might have been drinking with
some boys
.”

At the mere mention of a female and trouble, Gerald knew his life was over. These men would arrest him and put him in prison, or maybe back in the hospital. He hoped it was the hospital; he hated it there, but prison? Lately, he’d been watching TV shows about prisons. The men in there were monsters, ugly tattooed brutes, itching to beat you or stick you with a knife or worse.
Gerald thought he’d rather die than go to prison. Suicide would be better than prison. He was almost sure he had an old gun in the house.
That would do it.
Finding it would be a problem though. But if he could give the policemen the answers they wanted, maybe they’d go away. He thought hard about the last time he was in the Pirate’s Den. Why would he go there on a Thursday night, a college game? He couldn’t figure it out but he needed to tell the police what he’d seen.

“You know, I do believe a girl was there. When you mentioned the boys, I remembered. They were out on that porch in front sitting on that old couch. The boys were talking loud and the girl was laughing a lot, like they’d had too much to drink I think.”

“Did you see the girl and boys leave?”

“No, they were still out there when I got back in my car to come home.”

“And what time was that?”

Gerald looked at his wrist. It seemed like he had a watch once but where did he put it?

“I don’t know what time that was. Oh, I watched something on the TV after I got home. Give me a minute to think of it.” Gerald screwed his wide eyes shut but nothing came to him.

“I got home, I fed the cats, and turned the TV on, and…” His voice trailed off.

“Do you remember any of the other people in the bar that night Mr. McCoy?

Oh good, now he’s asking about other people. Maybe I’m not the one they’re after.

Gerald took another look around the yard, saw movement and tensed, but it was only a yellow cat stretching in the sun. “Uh, there was the guy behind the bar.”

“Anybody else?” Lester was quickly losing hope that Gerald McCoy would be forthcoming with any sort of
useful
information—didn’t keep him from being a suspect though.

“I think there was a big man sitting at the end of the bar. I don’t know his name but he’s been in there every time I have. He drinks a lot of beer.”

Gotta be J.O. Mecham
, Lester thought. “Okay, now think really hard Mr. McCoy, who else was there?”

Gerald wanted to remember other people, someone that looked guilty of something, but for the life of him, he couldn’t and told the
S
heriff as much.

“Mr. McCoy, I got just one more question for you.” By now Lester had a good idea of the IQ of the man he was interviewing and kept it simple. “Did you see or talk to any female after you left the bar that night? Maybe just to give her a ride home or…?” Lester continued with the stare down, leaving the query open ended.

Gerald was silent for a moment or two before answering.
“I didn’t see
no
body after I left, boy or girl.
At least I don’t think I did.”

“You don’t think you did? What does that mean?” Lester said, his voice rising.

“Like I said, I don’t remember so good anymore. I forget things.
I’m so sorry.”

“
Deputy
, you have any questions for Mr. McCoy?”

Billy Ray
shook his head.

“All right then. Mr. McCoy, that girl you saw at the bar is missing. I might want to talk to you again. You’re not planning any trips away from home are you?”

Gerald had never taken a trip in his life, at least not voluntarily.

“No sir, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here, like always. I have to feed my cats you know.” He gestured toward the yard where a dozen cats preened, slept, and sprawled across the piles of debris.

Back in the pickup, Billy Ray said, “Well?”

“I’m thinkin’ on it
.
”

Billy Ray closed his eyes and waited. Finally, “I need to do a background check on Mr. McCoy, arrests and warrants. I’ll ask the city cops if they’ve had any problems with him in town. Obviously, Mr. McCoy is not the brightest star in our Oklahoma sky, but that doesn’t mean he had anything to do with Melissa. Right now, our best bet is to find out who those boys were, the ones feeding her tequila. We could go back to the high school, talk to every boy there.”

“You think one of them would fess up to it?” Billy Ray asked, eyes still closed, feeling sleepy again.

“Who knows? Damn
!
I’d sure like to talk
to
that Sanchez boy. He was leaving town for a reason. He has to know something.”

“I can call the hospital when we get back in range of a tower, check on him.”

“Do that, in the meantime, we got another visit to pay.”

“Please tell me it’s J.O.”

Lester grinned. “Your wish has been granted my son. Good things happen to those who are patient, don’t ever forget it.”

“Uh, huh,” Billy Ray sighed and leaned his head against the window.

Harley
held
his nose to the rear glass
and whimpered
as the cats faded away in the distance.

Chapter 29

J.O. Mecham had fucked up and he knew it, ramming into that Camaro like he did.
But it was that damn Sheriff, waving his badge at him, taunting him, that’s what triggered it. Course, J.O. had to admit that the boatload of beer in his belly might have been a factor. Seeing that fancy
clean
car of theirs spin out and hit the ditch, what a hoot!
Up to that point, he was simply having a little fun, scaring those SOB’s running up on ‘em that way. Now, sitting here in the woods in the cold light of day with a pounding hangover and nothing to drink, J.O. was having second thoughts.

The path through the trees was easy to find, even in the dark. J.O. had used it many times when he poached deer off his neighbor’s land to the north. Any whitetail that showed up on his own ten acres didn’t last long. He doubted the Sheriff would find the grassy ruts in the darkness, but now?
By the looks of the sun, it was getting on to near noon. Although J.O. knew he couldn’t sit among the trees forever, he was in no hurry to sneak back to the house with a beat up front fender only to find Sheriff Lester P. Morrison in his driveway. What he really wanted was a beer to help him get straightened up and think right. A fox squirrel chattered from a nearby limb, unhappy at the intrusion on his territory.

“You noisy little bastard, you wouldn’t do that if I had my .22,” J.O. moaned. Another hour passed and then, his brain slightly less fuzzy, Mecham had a semblance of a plan.

“I could take 287 north, up to Lamar and get my fender fixed and painted, might even find a replacement in a junkyard. Being in Colorado like that, I’d be out of Morrison’s territory, safe. He could check my truck all he wants when I come back, but he won’t be able to prove diddly-squat, other than I got me a new fender. Coincidence, that’s what I’ll tell him. You think it was me that hit you? Prove it.”

Timing was everything. He’d need some luck too. No way to get out of the woods without going through his yard and past his house before hitting the highway. If the Sheriff happened to come along at that particular time, it could get ugly.

J.O. started the truck, scaring the squirrel, and slowly made his way between the trees, watching. He stopped a hundred yards short of his fifty-year old farmhouse that he’d inherited from his daddy,
got out of
t
he truck
and eased himself closer, walking
slow
, for a better look around. There were no vehicles of any kind in the driveway and as near as he could tell, nothing parked on the road either.
I just might pull this off. Throw out extra feed for the dog, find me a cheap motel in Lamar, stay a couple days while I get my fender fixed and let Morrison get tired of hunting for me. Yep, old James Otis ain’t through fuckin’ and fightin’ just yet.

*****

If the Sheriff had been coming from town instead of from the junkman’s house, he would have spotted J.O.’s pickup going the other way and the matter would have been settled. As it was, J.O. was headed north to Colorado before the Sheriff and Billy Ray came within sight of the ramshackle, weather beaten, old house that J.O. Mecham called home. There was the customary barn—the roof had collapsed years ago—as well as a couple sheds. One building looked to have held a number of chickens at one time, but was now nothing more than additional blight on the countryside.

Lester and Billy Ray stayed in the truck for a few minutes, watching for any activity around the windows or out back, but the only thing moving were the weeds in the yard from the ever present wind.

“I knew it!” Billy Ray exclaimed, pissed. “Gone, just like I thought. We should have come out here last night, or first thing this morning. Now it’s too late.”

Lester sighed. “I was tired last night and you were sleeping this morning. Don’t worry about it Billy Ray, J.O. will be back. This here is his place, he’s not gonna up and abandon all his property and take off for Tahiti.”

“Maybe not
,
but if we can’t prove he hit my car, where does that leave me?”

“Billy Ray, I’ll
talk
to the man, okay?”

“What does that mean?”

Lester turned to his deputy.
“If you haven’t noticed, I have a way with words. Eloquence, I believe
,
is the term for it.”

“Yeah
? W
ell what kind of eloquent bull-shit do you think will penetrate that man’s stupid skull? He wouldn’t know
eloquence
if you hit him over the head with it.”

“Easy, I’ll make J.O. an offer he can’t refuse.”

“Like what for instance?”

“I’ll tell him to pay up or I’ll kill him with my pistol, claim it was self-defense. You’d be my witness.”

“What?”Billy Ray said, incredulous. “Sheriff, you can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I can be quite persuasive should the need arise. J.O. will fall in line.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then I’ll shoot him. World won’t miss the likes of J.O. Mecham.”

Billy Ray searched the Sheriff’s face for a grin, but the hard blue eyes told him there would be none.

“C’mon,” Lester said. “Let’s get out and look around. Be vigilant now. Harley?”