Fraidy Hole: A Sheriff Lester P. Morrison Novel (43 page)

Still in the kitchen, Lester took a bottle of whiskey from the shelf and poured a couple jiggers in a drinking glass, no ice. He took a sip and then another before going to the living room and plopping himself down in the recliner. He took his hat off, tossed it on the couch, kicked his boots off, and leaned back.
Harley took one last lick around the bowl in case he’d missed something and joined Lester beside the chair.

“Been one hell of a day dog.”

Already feeling the glow from the whiskey, Lester felt his eyes growing heavy. But the nightmarish scenes of Imogene and Albert flooded his brain, dominated his thoughts. The violence, the gawd-awful gore in the kitchen and bedroom, had shaken him to his core. How long would it be before he could have a decent night’s rest without the repeated flashbacks of what he’d seen today?

“What I don’t understand
,
dog, is why Imogene killed her husband. If he murdered Melissa, why not call us? He goes to jail, and Imogene goes on with her life. She didn’t seem the type to blow someone away with a shotgun.”

Harley had a full belly, was half asleep, and had no reaction to the question.

“I don’t know, maybe if someone had beat you and dominated you your whole life and then admitted that he had killed your daughter, and knowing Albert, probably laughed about it, yeah I guess I could see it. Maybe she just got fed up with being his punching bag, lost it, and took him out. Then again, maybe there was some incest going on between him and Melissa and Imogene found out. I suppose we’ll never know will we
,
dog?”

Lester put the chair in full recline. Fatigue and alcohol wrapped around the lawman like a warm blanket. His last conscious memory of the day was a photo of a pretty young girl with long brown hair and a smile on her face.

*****

The phone shattered the still of the predawn. Lester jumped awake, hit the lever on the recliner, and quick stepped to the phone nearly tripping over the Harley dog.

“They’re here,” Billy Ray said.

“Who’s here?”

“The OSBI bunch; three Chevy Suburbans, a bunch of people in suits, and one German Shep
herd
.”

Lester rubbed the sleep from his eyes and scratched his butt. “Well, I’ll be damned. Didn’t figure to see them till afternoon sometime. Might be hope for that bunch yet. Okay, I’m on my way. I’ll see about getting you a ride home.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Billy Ray said. “I caught some catnaps in a chair. I’m okay.”

“Jason Woods show up?”

“Nope. Usual story. Doesn’t answer his phone.”

“All right then. All I have to do is put my boots on and I’m there.”

“Sheriff?”

“Yeah.”

“Bring coffee and lots of it.”

“Got it.”

Lester started the coffee pot, dumped some grain in Harley’s bowl, and stomped his boots on. Ten minutes later the pickup was on the move. The morning sun was blinding as he headed east, the highway devoid of traffic. From a fence post, a Red-tailed hawk stared intently at a patch of grass seemingly unaware of the white truck flashing past. Lester
sped past
the Pirate’s Den and
slowed for
t
he turn on
to
the gravel road. The Parker farmyard was full of people and vehicles. Groups of three and four were standing around in clumps, arms moving in animated conversation. A German Shepherd dog tugged at the end of a leash. Billy Ray stood to one side of the activity, leaning against a tree, arms folded. Lester saw him and stopped under the shade. He poured coffee from a thermos and filled two plastic cups he’d brought from the house.

“Brought you some breakfast.”

Billy Ray peeled back a layer of waxed paper. “Peanut butter and jelly?”

Lester shrugged. “I would have made you an omelet but I was out of eggs. Any useful activity yet?”

Billy Ray took a bite of the sandwich and talked through the peanut butter. “What we have here is your basic cluster-fuck. That’s what we called it in the Army. You might describe it as too many chiefs and not enough Indians.” Lester took a look. Fully half of the investigators were wearing suits or just white shirts and
a
tie. A few others, including the dog handler, wore jeans and light jackets with the initials OSBI on the back. “There’s been a lot of talking and pointing but not much else,” Billy Ray said. “Might be they’re a little cranky with the guy that got them out of bed to drive all night.”

“Would that be agent Anderson?” Lester asked.

“It would.” Billy Ray pointed toward the front porch. “That’s him in the gray suit. The dude next to him in the blue blazer is your man Metcalf.”

Agent Anderson looked up, saw the Sheriff and made a
come over here
gesture with his fingers.

“Looks like I’ve been summoned,” Lester said.

The Sheriff extended his hand. “Sheriff Lester P. Morrison. Glad you could make it.”

Anderson ignored the goodwill gesture. “Sheriff, where in the hell are the bodies? What have you done to my crime scene? You’ve destroyed it, that’s what you’ve done. Even a country bumpkin Sheriff should know not to disturb the evidence. What were you thinking?”

Lester removed his hat and rubbed the bridge of his nose, a mannerism quite familiar to Billy Ray. U
h oh, here it comes
.

The hat went back on and Lester pulled the front brim down low and tight before he spoke.

“Agent Anderson, I’ve known you less than five seconds now and already I do believe I could shoot you between the eyes with my pistol, go to prison, and still die a happy man.”

Anderson blinked his eyes while Agent Metcalf took two steps backward; both checked to see if the Sheriff was wearing a gun. He wasn’t.

Lester took a breath and continued, “The lady that lives here or rather
lived
here…” Anderson interrupted, “The perpetrator?”

“No, not a goddamn
per-pe-trator
, the nice woman who raised a family and worked hard all her life and got fed up and shot her worthless, abusive, sorry-ass excuse for a husband
.
T
hat
lady
told my dispatcher what she’d done and what she was about to do. And she did it. Now you can do all the goddamn investigating you want to but you ain’t gonna come up with any other explanation than that. My deputy here took photos before the bodies were removed.” To Billy Ray, “Did this bunch of so-called professionals ask if you had photos
,
Deputy?”

“Nope.”

Metcalf jumped in. “C’mon now Sheriff. What kind of pictures is your man going to get with his point and shoot from Wal-Mart? We have an expert photographer with us and the latest in photographic technology.” Metcalf nodded toward a woman with a camera around her neck held by a wide red and white strap with the word Canon on it. The camera bristled with buttons and switches and sported a 3 inch LCD screen on the back.

“Seems to me,” Lester said, “if a pitcher is in focus (Billy Ray cringed. Lester never bothered with the distinction between pitcher and
picture.
) and reasonably exposed, that should suffice wouldn’t you think? And my deputy over there is quite capable of achieving both those requirements. Now, I’m done talking about pitcher taking
A
gent Metcalf. What I’m wanting to know is when in the Sam Hill are you going to start looking for their missing daughter? That dog over yonder is getting fat
just
sitting around like it’s doing now.”

Anderson gave a sigh, glared at Lester and said, “What’s done is done I guess. We’ll just have to make the best of what we have.” The agent raised both arms over his head, demanding attention. “ Listen up people. Paul? How bout you take the dog and start in that barn over there. The rest of you split up and start looking. Three of you take the house. The rest of you start with the outbuildings. If we don’t find a body, we’ll regroup and start walking the property.”

Lester spoke up, “It’s not a
body
. It’s a pretty young high school girl with long hair. Melissa Parker is who you’re looking for.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay Melissa then,” Anderson said, angry at the interruption.

One of the men asked, “How big of an area
are
we searching?”

Anderson looked at Lester.

“Hundred and sixty acres, more or less,” Lester answered.

“Aw Jesus,” somebody said.

“Let’s get started people,”
A
gent Anderson proclaimed. “And will somebody please get some fucking yellow tape across that driveway?”

The man with the German Shep
he
rd, approached Lester and said. “My dog needs to get a smell of the girl’s clothing before we start looking
anywhere
. Can you help us out with that?”

Lester nodded. “Nice to see someone in this bunch has a little good sense. Melissa’s room is as the top of the stairs, on the right.
You can’t miss it. It’s the one with no blood in it.” The man turned toward the house, the dog tugging on the leash, ready for the hunt.

Lester called after him, “You might wanna think twice about takin’ that dog
in the house
, lot a blood in there.”

The handler pulled the dog to a halt, gave Lester a tip of his cap, and conferred with another man to bring the clothes outside.

“What should we do to help?” Billy Ray asked Lester.

Lester watched the various OSBI personnel mill around, in and out the house, the barn, and the sheds, reminding him of when he was a kid and poked anthills with a stick. After a minute, “Let’s check around all the gates leading to the fields. Look for recent tracks. Might be tough considering how long it’s been.”

“That and the rain the other night,” Billy Ray added.

By three o’clock the front porch thermometer read eighty-five degrees and the search for Melissa Parker had ended without a single clue to her whereabouts, no clothing, no blood, no fresh graves. The men had shed their suit coats long ago, their white shirts soaked with sweat. Two of the men had ripped their pants, one on barbed wire as he climbed between the strands, and the other on some wild blackberry thorns. A thin coat of dust covered their once well-shined shoes. The German Shepherd lay in the shade of the oak tree, tongue out, and panting while his handler looked for a garden hose to water him down.

Anderson and Metcalf sat in the front seat of one of the black Suburbans, windows up with the AC on high. As Lester approached, Anderson slid the tinted window down two inches and stopped it.

“Looks like you boys are whipped and calling it quits already,” Lester said, peering through the crack, his face hard. “I’ve noticed that city folks don’t seem to do so well out here in the Panhandle with the heat and red dust as us country bumpkins do. I don’t know why.”

Metcalf leaned down and yelled over the noise of the AC fan, “I’d say the body’s not here. I say let nature take its course. If she is here, someday, somebody will find some bones or some clothes and we’ll identify them and that will be it. If not, …well.”

Agent Anderson said nothing and adjusted one of the vents in hope of a stronger breeze.

“So that’s it then?” Lester asked. “You look around for a couple hours and the elite law enforcement agency of Oklahoma gives up and goes home, whipped like a dog with his tail between his legs? That’s how you’re gonna leave it?”

Anderson turned and said, “It will remain an active case until the girl is found
,
Sheriff. But you said yourself, she’s dead. Her father killed her. We can’t keep a dozen people in the field to search for a body with no more information than what we have. There
are
other crimes waiting to be investigated you know, other victims, other killers. We have missing children by the dozens. We have unsolved bank robberies. We have finite manpower and resources
,
Sheriff, just as you do. Surely you can understand that.” With the whir of an electric motor, the darkened window slid closed and the car lurched forward. Lester had to step back rather quickly to keep his toes out of the way as the big Chevy did a U-turn and churned up dust. At the mailbox,
A
gent Metcalf stepped out of the car long enough to remove the yellow tape blocking their exit.

Following Anderson’s lead, the remaining suits and techs hurriedly packed their gear, loaded the dog, jumped in the two remaining Chevy’s, and hurried to catch up. Without a word, Lester and Billy Ray watched the little
caravan
until they reached the highway, a sense of finality settling in. It was over.

“Car comin’,” Billy Ray said. Lester turned to the south and watched a late model Buick slow and turn into the driveway. Dora and Becky Wilson stepped out, the teenager staying close to her mother.

Lester touched the brim of his hat. “Ma’am.”

Dora said, “We drove by earlier and saw the crime scene tape. What happened?”