Fraidy Hole: A Sheriff Lester P. Morrison Novel (52 page)

Tonight, Greg
waived his rights and
manned up to what he’d done.
It’s all on tape. He told me how he’d forced himself on that girl, out there
on your property
, and then went home and
told you about it?
You
pried it
out of him.
Who the girl was, where he got the liquor, and what’d he’d been doing out there in the country. I got the impression from talking to
the boy
that he could never stand up to you
; not
to Big Bill Kingston, one time OU defensive end, and it was the same that night when so much was on the line.
When
Greg went to his room to crash
and sleep it off
, you drove out there to the property, the farm land, to take care of Greg’s
problem
.
Just like you always have when your son goes
offside
, to use a word you’re familiar with.”

“No! No! No! You’re not on the same
playing
field, Sheriff.
The boy and girl had a spat.
That’s all
it was
. No business of mine. Why would I get involved in such stuff?” Kinston said, releasing a great cloud of cigar smoke.

“Simple,” Lester said. “When we pulled that half-dead girl out of that cellar, Greg was as surprised as anyone.
His eyes were as big as saucers.
That’s what threw me. At the time, I couldn’t figure if he was shocked that Melissa was alive, or because she was locked up in that old tornado shelter or root cellar, whatever that hellhole is. Greg was shocked because he knew
he
didn’t put her there.
He thought
you
had taken her home, and fed the parents some of your bullshit about not pressing charges in exchange for a little money and that
would be
the end of it. When Melissa didn’t show up for school on Friday, Greg chalked it off to her inevitable bad hangover.
But when I stopped by the football field and started asking
Carlos a few
questions,
Greg
began to worry that something else was going on. Something he knew nothing about. Something bad
that daddy couldn’t brush away with money and intimidation
.”

Big Bill poured two fingers of Gray Goose in his glass and tossed it down, the lack of ice forgotten. Lester waited for a denial, didn’t get one, and continued.

“It didn’t take a smart man to figure out the rest. Only thing I don’t know is how any man could throw a young innocent girl in a cellar, lock it, and leave her there to die a horrible slow death with no food or water. Did you think no one would ever find her? That her bones would dry up and rot like that old house place out there? And you call
Greg
stupid?”

“How you gonna prove such a preposterous theory as that
?”

Lester couldn’t
, not at this point in time,
and he knew it.
He had no proof
against Greg
or
Big Bill Kingston
. Melissa was in no shape to talk, not yet, and what would she say
when she recovered
?
How much would she remember about
anything
that happened that night?
Had he overplayed his hand?
Big Bill was probably right.
Melissa,
considering the
shape she was i
n
when the crime occurred—practically comatose from
all those straight shots of Jose Cuervo
—
would be a poor witness
.
Any good defense attorney would destroy her credibility in a heartbeat.
There were the rape
tests the hospital could run
,
there was that,
but so much time had passe
d. Would it prove anything?

Right now,
Lester
was
betting
on
a couple
of his favorite
horses called Hunch and Intuition.
Both had
performed
well in the past, but the stakes here were huge
and the odds were not in his favor.
But
Lester
had another
ace up his sleeve. H
e
was a poker player
, a darn good one too
.
B
ack in the day
, he
and his rodeo pals had
spent many an evening in cheap motels, playing cards half the night.
Those days were long gone, yet he’d
never forgotten
the power of a good bluff.
With the legal equivalent of a small pair with an ace kicker, the Sheriff went
all in
.

“
Don’t see proof bein’ much of a problem
Mr. Kingston.
We have a witness
you know
, the victim
.
That young lady
’s alive and
will stand up in a court of law and
point her finger at you Big Bill
. Y
ou’ll go to prison
and
that will be the end of
you and
Kingston Ford
of Boise City.

“
How’s she
gonna identify me being there that night,
dark
, and her drunk?
No way!
Not saying I was there you understand, but c
’mon
;
I’ve never met the young lady in my life
. How’s she gonna point the finger at
me
?”

“Not hard
at all
,” Lester said.
“Not with your smiling face up on those billboards all over
this town
and every other town within a hundred miles of Cimarron County. In this part of
Oklahoma
, your mug is a
s
familiar as George Washington on a dollar bill.
But that’s not all, the hospital is running
some rape tests
on the girl. Whose semen do you think they’ll find, Greg’s or yours? My money’s on you
,
Big Bill.
”

The big man took another swallow from the glass and slammed it down hard enough to arouse the neighbor’s dog again for a couple of obligatory barks before going back to his dog house. Big Bill Kingston looked into Lester’s cold clear eyes, waited for a blink, didn’t get one, and
f
olded with what might have been the winning hand.

Big Bill lowered his head.
“Well sum bitch
. I
guess fame does have its price
,
doesn’t it?”

“So now we come to it,” Lester said. “
You want to tell me how it went down?”

“
What happened wasn’t
my intention Sheriff
. Not
in the plan
. Not
at all.
Yeah, I
drove out there, but it was
only
to help her, to take her home. You see, when Boomer told me
the story
, all I could think about was her filing
attempted
rape charges and ruining Boomer’s career. Depending on how much time he served, he could lose millions.
You can see that, right? Boomer
swore he didn’t
actually
have sex with the girl but he did
feel her up a little
, he did fess up to that much
.
But no sex! G
irls change their
stories
too
,
you know. They
don’t want to
admit
that
the
y
disobeyed
the rules
and were someplace they shouldn’t have
been, doin’ what they
shouldn’t have
been
doin’.
And
Mama will always believe her little angel if she goes to hollerin’ rape, especially when the boy’s parents have a little money.

“
But rape
trials are always messy. I knew I could find a good lawyer and probably beat it, but the damage would be done,
Boomer’s
reputation ruined,
and
he’d
possibly
lose his scholarship. At least that was my thinking at the time. All that we’d worked for so long
—all those years. All
the practices, the hours and hours on the field, gone because of one drunken evening and a horny girl with a short dress.
”
Lester’s eyes narrowed but Big Bill didn’t notice and kept talking.

“On the way out there, I
came up with
a
plan
;
I’d give her some money
,
a
couple
thousand
would do it
. According to Boomer,
her
folks were poor white trash anyway, probably never seen
that
much cash in their life. I’d go in, spread a bunch of hundred dollar bills across their table, and they’d be happy
to let it drop. Problem solved.

Under the table, Lester clenched his fists but held his tongue.

“
When
I pulled up and saw that girl laying there in the light of the moon, so still, I
thought
she was dead
and
God forbid, Boomer was
somehow
responsible.
I didn’t think for a minute that the
boy would lie to me, but then…there she was.

That’s when I got a little panicky.
No, that’s not right, it was
way
more than a little
, more like a bunch
.
I’m trying to figure
out just what the hell to do. I’m trying to calm down, to think, but
the shot
s
I’d had earlier from the old Gray Goose
here
wasn’t helping
that
process any
.
I try to reason it out.
If
I report it
,
it’s all over, Boomer goes to jail for murder.
Right
then,
at that moment,
I didn’t
actually
know that he’d killed her
,
but that’s what I was thinkin
’ you see
.
So, w
hat if no
one ever finds the body
?
S
he’ll be just another runaway that
disappears
and ends up with her picture on a telephone pole. And I’m bettin’ that’s the just way you guys had it figured, at first anyway
, right
?
I was trying
to figure all the angles and pitfalls when
a new plan came to mind and
suddenly
,
it was all so easy. No trial, no negotiations with the parents, no money involved.
And oh, Boomer told me what a jerk her daddy was. I wasn’t looking forward to that little meeting, not one bit. The only hitch was getting rid of the body.
But way out there in the middle of nowhere, it shouldn’t
be
that much of a problem. Dump her on the back of the property along the tree line and let nature take its course. That was when she moaned. Suddenly, I was back to Plan A
and damage control.

Big Bill stubbed out his cigar and poured another shot of vodka. He held the liquid in his mouth for a time before swallowing, savoring the
moment
.

“
You know, I bought that farm out there for a song. I heard the previous owner raised corn on it, or tried to
,
until
a dry spell
wiped out his crops. My idea, and you’ll probably laugh, was to put some horses on it, thoroughbred horses, race horses. Breed ‘em and raise ‘em. Yeah, I even had dreams about one of ‘em being in the Kentucky Derby someday.
Wouldn’t that have been something?
”

Lester said nothing.

Another hit of vodka, this time straight from the bottle. Big Bill tapped his chest, made a little coughing noise, and sighed. “Always pays to buy a good brand of vodka. It’s all
about the
filtering process you know.”

The Sheriff remained silent.

“Anyway, I picked her up and let me tell ya, she was as limp as a sack of potatoes, not a muscle was working, out cold she was. I opened the back door on the Lincoln and loaded her
in,
but then
…
something
happened
.
She was wearing a
very
short skirt
and when I pushed her
across the seat,
that little skirt rode up, way up, over her hips, and that’s when I saw she wasn’t wearing underwear. My Gawd, she was beautiful. All that white skin on
that
black leather seat, the dome light shining on her like she was on
a
stage
, almost like a sacrifice
.
What a sight! A man would have to be dead to not be aroused at such a scene as that. Well
,
I was a man and I wasn’t dead, and wrong as it was, I felt
a boner comin’ on
. And the longer I looked, the
more excited
I got. Marlene in there (he jerked a thumb toward the house) she
moved me to the guest room
about a
year ago. Said I was no longer
“
attractive
”
to her since I’d put on a little weight. So I think you can imagine my state as I stood there in the
darkness
, looking down on such a lovely piece of womanhood, and not a soul around. And
I ask you,
what kind of girl would go around with no
panties
on? One looking for some action that’s who.
She was there for the taking, like prime rib on a plate.
And
God forgive me,
I had a serving
of it
.