“Must’ve rained here,” Leonard said. “Gonna make it difficult gathering evidence.”
One of the two men stepped forward. He wore a full sheriff’s uniform, complete with a cowboy hat and badge.
Perhaps this is Mayberry after all
, Leonard thought jokingly, his tired mind starting to make him think frivolously. The sheriff wore thick brown-rimmed glasses that needed cleaning; they were covered with a film of water and dust.
“Evening...Captain Reese?”
“That’ll be me.”
“Sheriff Porter.” The two men exchanged handshakes. Sheriff Porter was the type that must have been made fun of in school. His face bore a striking resemblance to a bird, long and cadaverous, his nose pointed like a beak. He had a thin Vincent Price-like moustache above even thinner lips. He was probably fifty pounds overweight, most of it concentrated in a belly that’d seen more than its fair share of bacon and eggs. He took a sideways glance at Leonard’s badge. “Detective
Moldofsky
, I presume?”
Leonard didn’t want to correct the Sheriff, God only knew how temperamental the local yokels got when invading their turf, so he simply nodded and grinned, along with Kevin who introduced himself as ‘officer’ Hughes.
“I got your bulletin late this afternoon. Took a gander then folded it up in my pocket. Didn’t pay too much attention. After all, not too many serial killers make it out of the city, you know. And if they do,
Bledson
Hills is a wee bit too small to hide out in.”
“Well, we thought Fairview was safe from this kind of drama too, but here we are, two and possibly three murders later, trailing a local man as our primary suspect. Looks to me like he found the hills a good place to hide.”
“Or a good place to commit suicide. There’s a Winchester right next to the body.”
Suicide?
, Leonard thought.
Was
Sparke
really that desperate? No, it can’t possibly be.
“Shotgun. Must be bad.”
“Pretty messy.” He hesitated, then said, “I suggest you put your thinking caps on, gentlemen. The man you thought was a murderer either committed suicide, or was murdered himself.” His smile was thin, all wry and cocky as if he just single handedly
unfoiled
every theory that Leonard and Kevin had worked so hard on to establish. Damn it, Leonard thought, Porter wasn’t even the one who discovered the body. He grunted to himself. Quite possible that all this overtime was starting to make him tired and cranky, but his first impression of Porter fell sour--he really didn’t like the man.
“Can we see the body?” Reese, his impatience showing through, also seemed to find an immediate distaste for the local authority.
Sheriff Porter stepped aside and made a sweeping gesture with his hand as if granting them admission into a carnival tent. The three cops moved forward, flashlights pointed at their feet, careful not to step on anything that might prove to be valuable evidence at a later time. From behind them, the sheriff yelled, “Try not to touch anything. A specialist is on his way from the city now to do a sweep. I just wanted you all to make an ID before the body is taken away.”
Kevin said, “I guess we should be thankful that he called us up here. He could’ve waited until the body was in the morgue.”
Leonard agreed. “To his credit, he knows timing is everything. But I can live without the arrogance. Besides, we still have to wait for their men to get here before any additional clues come our way, and that won’t be until tomorrow morning.”
Deep inside he hoped and prayed that the body lying twenty feet away
wasn’t
Richard
Sparke
. Because if it was, then many of their theories were out the window...except for that of a third person being involved, or suicide, which Leonard highly doubted. There’d been no evidence in Delaney’s files to suggest this possibility. And if
Sparke
had
been murdered by the third person, then they would have no clues as to who might have done it, and what their motivation might be. It’d be like starting from square one, a consideration Leonard totally dreaded.
Finally they came to the body, the ten-yard journey feeling like an endless trek. They froze before it, staring, mouths open, their breaths visible--clouds of anxiety unfurling before them. Leonard’s thoughts ceased, paralyzed. He could only nod. And gaze upon the mutilated body.
Son-of-a-bitch, it’s
Sparke
all right.
Except now he looked much different with half his skull missing.
The first thing that came to his mind was,
What happened to her injury? She
was
shot, wasn’t she?
Then he once again recalled how he’d shattered her nose with the butcher block this morning, and that too had seemed to magically heal itself since then. So at this very moment, upon locking eyes with an uninjured Pam, Richard became fully convinced that she played a much larger role in his life than he ever imagined, one that included his dreams, his anxieties, and his twin nemesis: the now dead man in black. Without doubt he now knew she held all the answers to the questions he’d been asking himself for three years. If they managed to get out of here--he came to the immediate assumption that she was here to do just that--he’d insist on a complete and thorough explanation as to what the hell was going on. And then he’d insist on knowing why she waited until the shit hit the fan before telling him everything.
“What’re you looking at?” Earl asked Pam, stepping away from the wall. Good ol’ Cletus-Earl, just trying to do his job. Kind of tough with a boner making its way across the front of his pants.
She turned and looked back at him, her gaze seductive, her sudden smile dripping with allure. “I wanted to make sure we were alone.”
“Well, we are, ‘
cept
that guy in the cell.” Richard could see Earl visibly shaking, and he wondered how the hell they could let this idiot carry a weapon. God help the poor soul that required his assistance in a life threatening situation. Hell, if a sexy woman could immobilize him with a smile and a stare, he could just imagine what a gun pointed at his head would do.
Earl smiled then added, “He ain’t
nothin
’ though. You just tell me what it is I can do for you, ma’am.”
She placed a gentle hand against the bulge in his pants. “My husband is cheating on me, and I’d like to get back at him. Know anyone who might be able help?”
Earl was near conniption, Richard could see. He was trembling even harder now, like a washer on full-cycle, his brain probably spinning as much too. Finally he managed to say, after a few stuttering attempts, “H-How do you suppose to get back at him?”
Under normal circumstances Richard would’ve had a hard time holding in the laughter, after all the scene
was
quite funny. But the situation was far too serious. And his body hurt like hell. And very soon Tommy would be here to rescue Earl from his father’s lack of confidence in him. That would further complicate the situation. He needed Pam to act fast.
And act fast she did. Earl melted under Pam’s spell, his eyelids closed and fluttering as she stroked his hard-on with her right hand. She pushed him against the wall, working her magic as Earl went off into never-never land. Then, silently and with the finesse of a cat, she used her left hand to remove the gun from his belt. Too caught up in the God-given moment, Cletus-Earl didn’t even realize his weapon had been snatched. He just went on dreaming, fingers groping for and generally missing Pam’s butt and thighs.
She placed the barrel against his head. Eyes still shut, he kept on smiling. It wasn’t until she stopped stroking his boyhood that he realized something might be amiss, that when he opened his eyes and watched the cold circle of steel slide from his temple to his groin, he knew he’d been had.
He looked down, contemplating the gun against his hard-on--which was quickly becoming a soft-on--then began to tremble...well, he never really
stopped
trembling, it just stemmed from a different source now, that of fear instead of pleasure. He tried to utter something along the lines of, “What the fuck?”, but it came out more like
whaddafut
because so much drool had accumulated in his bottom jaw.
Richard had been watching the whole time, saying to himself,
good going, Pam, that was a piece of cake
. She jammed the gun against Earl’s groin. Earl flinched. So did Richard.
“Party’s over, country boy,” she said. “Nice and slowly now, turn around.”
He did, no questions asked. He even raised his arms.
“That’s it. Good. Now walk slowly down the hall, and don’t make any moves ‘cause I can just as easily get what I want with you dead.”
He obeyed her command, taking it one faltering step at the time. They reached the cell. Richard stepped back, staring at Pam’s eyes, which went everywhere except towards him. Finally Earl said, “My dad’s gonna
shit
a brick.”
She ignored him. “Open the cell.”
He hesitated, then said, “
Keys’re
in my desk.”
She dug the gun into his back, the pain on his face evidence of her strength and desire to get this task over and done with. “They’re in your pocket, Earl. I had my hand down there, remember?”
Richard saw the pained expression of defeat on Earl’s face, his eyelids and nose and lips wrinkling with frustration. He reached into his pocket, slowly fishing out the keyring to the cell.
“Open it,” she demanded.
He did. The door fell free from its lock.
“You,” she said, referring to Richard. “Out.”
Richard ran from the cell, passing Earl, passing Pam, who at the same instant shoved the sheriff’s son inside. She slammed the door shut, then grabbed Richard by the arm and quickly led him away, leaving Earl behind to his babbling and crying and yelling until they were all the way outside and could hear him no more.
Winded, dizzied and in pain, Richard fell to his knees just past the front door. “Shit...my leg’s hurt bad. I have no strength.” He looked up at Pam, her face a tense nut of fear, of dour concern.
“We have to run, Richard. The police will be here in no time.”
He remembered something. Not a voice in his head, just a recent recollection. “The car.”
“What car?”
He motioned toward the trooper’s cruiser. “He left the keys in it.”
She ran to it, opened the driver’s side door. Richard stood up and staggered over as she felt around the steering wheel. “Get in!” She slid into the front seat, started it up. Richard opened the back door and lay down on the seat, realizing that, like before, he’d be trapped here until she let him out.
Again, he was a prisoner. This time it was Pam who held him captive.
He closed his eyes as she drove away from the police station, thinking,
I’ve done much worse in the past
.
He tried to sit up but could not. Fatigue weighed him down. Hunger ate at his stomach and he thought of the donuts on the dashboard, but fell asleep before he could manage to ask for one, his stomach and mind both crying in want of something satisfactory to quench the sickness within.
“What the hell is going on?”
Leonard, Kevin, and Reese spun around to face the angry sheriff, who had his radio fastened to his ear. He was pacing about in a mad circle, one arm waving furiously in the air. Leonard grinned, somewhat pleased to see the cocky sheriff getting the short end of somebody’s stick, yet concerned that something might wrongly affect their current situation. Any distraction to the local authority would create further delays and headaches.
“Captain...” Sheriff Porter yelled, motioning with his hand for them to approach. They returned to where he stood, the sheriff replacing his radio upon their arrival.
“Find anything?” Reese asked, following a fast-walking Porter away from the scene.
“Tommy, one of my men, found my damn son, my ‘junior deputy’, locked in a cell in the station. Shit, I just spoke to the bastard a half hour ago! Said he’d made his way out for some eats. Son of a bitch, I
oughta
wring that fat neck of his!”
“What happened?”
Sheriff Porter kept his quickened pace as they entered the woods. Battling fatigue, Leonard and Kevin struggled to keep up. “Said on his way back he picked up a suspicious-looking man coming out of the park by the main entrance. Looked to have some injuries. Brought him in but then said a woman came in--”
“A woman,” Leonard said. “Do you think he might be able to give us a description?”
“Got one for you. Hot. That’s what the
putz
said. Hot.”
Kevin looked at Leonard. “Could be Pamela Bergin.”
They reached the clearing where
Harnisch
had parked the cruiser. He and Jake Hammer were standing by the entrance of the cabin, sharing cans of soda. They must have returned back down the mountain while Leonard, Kevin, and Reese milled about the body.
“
Fellas
,” Porter yelled. “We’re
goin
’ back to the station. Sit on down at the gate and wait for the forensics team to arrive.”
Jake Hammer had a Chevy pickup parked behind the cabin. He and
Harnisch
took that down while Sheriff Porter drove the cruiser with Reese beside him and Leonard and Kevin in the back. Once past the remote control gate, Reese got out and followed them into town in Leonard’s cruiser.