Fraidy Hole: A Sheriff Lester P. Morrison Novel (49 page)

Billy Ray leaned in. “I don’t believe you
.
I think you raped her, maybe strangled her, and dumped her body in a ditch. Where did you put her
,
Greg? Or is she still lying out there
on that farm
somewhere
, decomposing, with bugs
and coyotes eatin’
on her
?”

“No, I didn’t do anything like that
.
I swear! Last I saw of her, she was
still on the ground
,
sick or passed out
. Who knows?
”

Lester said,
“Greg, considering your actions today
:
assaulting a police officer, avoiding arrest,
and threatening me and your father with a deadly weapon
, I don’t think I believe you either. That’s not the behavior of an innocent man.
”

“Look, I panicked that’s all
!
I’m telling the truth here
!
When I saw you coming down the aisle at school,
I thought I was gonna be arrested, go to prison.
I lost it. I knew that girl hadn’t been back to
class
.
Everyone in school knew
she was missing
.
I was scared, scared that something
really bad
might have happe
ned
to he
r
,
and I’d be blamed.
”

Billy Ray put his hand behind the boy’s head and jerked him close, nose to nose.
“Or that she’d file
rape charges
against
you
,
Greg Kingston
?
You think that might have
been
part of it?”

Greg opened his mouth but made no sound, his vocal cords frozen in fear. Billy Ray released his grip
and turned away in disgust
.

Lester said, “Let’s get back to that night. When you stopped to pick up Sanchez, did you tell him what happened?
That his girl friend was out there in the dark somewhere and needed help. Did you at least do that
,
Greg? Did
either of
you
have the decency to call Melissa’s parents and tell them where their daughter was?”

“I don’t remember
,” Greg said, his voice soft, barely audible.

“What?”

Louder.
“
I don’t remember if I told Carlos or not.
I was drinkin’. I told you that already.”

Billy Ray lost it. “Jesus H. Christ! You
sorry piece of
dog shit! You rape that girl, leave her all alone out in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night, drunk and helpless, and you can’t remember if you or anyone else called her parents to help her?”

“Hey,
I didn’t rape her
!
Why won’t you believe me?”

Billy Ray took a step forward, his fists clenched in anger.
Greg’s eyes got wide.

“Easy there
,
Deputy,” Lester said. “So, Greg,
before you left, d
id you think to check if she was breathing
or not
? Maybe dying from an alcohol overdose?”

Greg glanced at the hallway, looking for help.
“I think I better wait for my dad to get here before I say any more.”

Lester stood. He thought he saw a semblance of a smirk flicker across Greg’s face but it was gone in an instant. “Stand up boy. Deputy, put the cuffs on this punk. We’re going for a ride.”

“Out to that old house place?” Billy Ray asked as he snapped the handcuffs around Greg’s wrists.”

“Yep.”

“We’re taking the sedan right?”

“Get in the truck Billy Ray.”

“What about him? You don’t want him riding between us
,
do you?”

“There’s some tie down rings in the bed. Hitch him to one of those.”

Billy Ray smiled.

Greg protested. “Hey, you can’t…” but Boomer Kingston, star quarterback of the Boise City Bobcats, was already being pushed out the door of the Cimarron County courthouse in a manner quite unfitting for a potential Heisman Trophy winner.

Chapter 40

Melissa lay back on the cot, one arm over her eyes, wondering how much time she had left. She thought
about
her
mama
, her friend Becky, finishing her senior year, and getting off the farm, but those things seemed so far away, so long ago. She was losing it, her fire, her will to live, her physical strength worn down by the lack of food and water. She’d given up on God as well. Divine intervention, it seemed, would not play a part in the rescue of a girl who might have used one too many cuss words recently.

Then, a faint whine of tires from the road. Once again, Melissa grabbed her bent tubing with the orange webbing on one end, the last remaining usable piece of the Wal-Mart lawn chair,
and struggled up the steps. She slipped it beneath the door, rotated it so the angle had the webbing sticking up, and twisted her wrists, back and forth, waving her pathetically small signal flag.
The sound moved on, fading away just like Melissa’s hopes.

No one can see me. No one can hear me. Maybe they’re not even looking. It’s do or die Lissa.

Back at the cot, Melissa reached underneath, picked up the jar with both hands, and dumped the
candle and matches on the floor at her feet.
With
the
jar resting on
her legs, she rotated the glass, checking the thickness, looking for cracks. There were none. Her one source of collecting water was quite stout and wholly intact.

God, I hate to do this.

She went to the rear of the cellar
, pushed the leaves aside,
and cautiously tapped the bottom edge to the concrete
and heard a
d
ink, dink
sound
. But the glass didn’t break. She tapped harder. The glass held. The frustration of her imprisonment, the anger of it, washed over her in a sudden wave of fury. She screamed out, took the jar in both hands, raised it over her head in a double-handed grip
, and heaved it into the corner
.
The
precious glass
shattered, the shards falling like hailstones to settle among the leaves.

Breathing heavily, Melissa stood perfectly still, waiting for the rage to subside.

That wasn’t too smart was it
,
Lissa? Glass all over the place. Shi
t!
Sorry, Jesus.

Careful of her bare feet, she cautiously kneeled
on
the floor, sifting through the dead vegetation for a piece of glass suitable for the task in mind, hopefully a section of the rim with one blunt edge. In less than a minute, Melissa got lucky.

The dead snake hung from the nail
in the board
where Melissa had impaled it, the head of the nail though the lower jaw, the skull being too thick to penetrate. It’s
body hung limp and straight
without
a single kink. Her heart racing with
desperation, Melissa struggled to concentrate. She
held the
piece of glass—her
make-shift skinning knife
—with
her right hand and used her left to grasp the snake about midway down the length of the body, its belly facing toward her. She pressed the edge of the glass to the area just below the head and made a slicing motion. A few scales gave way. Pressing harder and being careful not to cut herself, she did it again and saw white flesh
along
with a little blood. Encouraged, she slowly and deliberately worked on the incision until she had made a ring cut all the way around the snake’s body. Breathing heavily now, her energy quickly fading, she began another cut, this time
vertically
down the underside of the snake. Beginning at the bloody ring, she worked from head to tail, but halfway down, her arms gave out, her legs weak and wobbly.
She sat on the cot, resting, hoping for a second wind.
Wiping her bloody hands on her skirt, she stared at the snake.
Only half the meat was exposed, the peeled skin hanging like a wet sheet on a clothesline.

I don’t think I can do this. So tired, so very tired.

With about 10 inches of meat exposed, Melissa decided that was enough skinning. She would cook it as is, or try to. She yanked the snake from the nail and wound it around the remaining leg of the aluminum chair, her signal flag, like a macabre maypole, spiraling the body around and along the tube.

This may be the most unappetizing meal I’ve ever seen in my life.

But it was food, all that she had, and probably ever would have. It was eat it now or die.

Got to build a fire.

Her brain, confused from the dehydration and lack of food, struggled with the process.

Need a hot pad to hold the tube. Should be one in the drawer.

Her eyes blinked in confusion, her mind reeling with bewilderment. She shook her head, trying to clear away the cobwebs of delusion—of being back home, back
in
her mother’s
kitchen. It took a moment, but the mental fog lifted, and she got an idea. She pulled her tee shirt over her head, removed her bra, and wrapped it around one end of the chair leg. It was a far cry from
the
hot pad her mother used to take her delicious pies out of the oven, but it would have to do.
Finally,
the D cups
comes in handy.

She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth, testing for a trace of saliva, worried that she wouldn’t be able to swallow.
So dry.
She hoped the aroma of cooked meat would stimulate her salivary glands so she could choke it down.

Earlier,
with great effort and
using the driest twigs and leaves she could find, she’d built a cone shaped pile of debris near the top of the stairs where the smoke would have a way out and if the step should
happen
to
burn in two, well, she would still be tall enough to yell through the gap—if and when someone came along. She wondered how much longer before she
couldn’t
yell or even talk.
Not long. A day maybe?

With one butt cheek on a step and the
hideous
snake carcass
and tubing
balanced across her legs, Melissa held her final match in her hand, poised over the striking surface of the matchbox
,
her last flame to burn away the coming darkness, to chase away any noises in the night. She shook her head.
Get
it over with,
Lissa. You’re not gonna die of fright. Water and food are the only things you need now. So do it.

The flame erupted from the match as reliably as the others and she cupped it in her hand, shielding the fire from any stray breeze. A single leaf took the flame, added to it, and passed it on. It took awhile for the twigs to catch, but
,
as Melissa blew ever so gently on the tiny blaze, they too began to burn. She added some larger branches, about the size of her thumb, and in minutes the fire was healthy and burning bright.

Barbeque snake
. It’s
what’s for supper.

She held the meat about six inches off the flame, rotating the
tubing
every few seconds
, left then right,
for an even bake. Soon, she could hear the sizzle of
flesh
. Her stomach reacted to the smell with an involuntary contraction.

It’s working.

She gave it about fifteen minutes, looked the meat over, and called it good. Besides, the aluminum was getting too hot to hold, the padding in the bra being much less
efficient
than a kitchen hot pad. But there was no good way to put the fire out.
No water of course.
She hadn’t thought about that.

Why worry? It’ll burn itself out in a bit.

Back on the cot, she
touched the meat with a finger and when it didn’t burn her,
tore off a bite-sized hunk. It felt like a
warm rock in her mouth
and tasted about the same. She closed her eyes, willing the secretions to flow, to moisten the food, to get it down. It took a while, but down it went, although it felt as if she’d swallowed a
cocklebur.

Doesn’t taste like any chicken my mama makes.
Not even close.

Melissa kept at it, piece after piece, forcing it down until her belly cramped, rebelling at the sudden mass it was being asked to digest.
With the snake meat only half eaten, she lay back on the cot,
drained of energy
, and closed her eyes. In mere moments,
and with food in her stomach at last,
an exhausted
Melissa
Parker
fell asleep.