“Can you make it?” Katy asked softly.
“Sure…I’ll do anything to get outta here,” Elizabeth replied as she stood. She winced as a pain shot up her leg.
“Mr. Crosby, what about my boyfriend?” Elizabeth whispered after a few moments.
Jake stopped and turned around. He paused. “I don’t know, Elizabeth. Let me get you girls someplace safe first, and then I’ll think of something.”
“Get ready, old boy. This could be our big break,” Larson said to Shug, who momentarily stopped his ceaseless grooming and looked up with a cocked head. “If we find something significant at the camp, Sheriff Landrum might expand the K-9 program.”
Deputy Larson Hodges and Mrs. Martha O’Brien had a fair working relationship. Although she didn’t care for the dog, she admired Larson’s attitude and seriousness. She just thought he needed to spend more time talking to humans. Radioing her, Larson gave her a quick update on the status of the investigation and where he was headed. Martha in turn filled him in on Tanner’s current condition since she was in constant contact with the hospital.
The chief resident, Dr. Sarhan, a Vanderbilt grad from India, had come in to oversee Tanner’s case. The town folks could hardly understand Dr. Sarhan, but he was unquestionably the most talented physician they had ever had in the area. He was so well thought of that one restaurant had added curried chicken to its menu. Tanner was in good hands.
The latest hospital report indicated that Tanner had multiple fractured ribs and a broken nose, had lost five teeth, and had a mysterious grazing wound on his right hand. There were too many bruises and cuts to list. Concerned about Tanner’s neck, Dr. Sarhan called in a special X-ray team. Tanner was heavily sedated and would be for a while. Dr. Sarhan was cautiously optimistic about his initial prognosis.
Martha was chain-smoking menthol cigarettes and drinking black coffee. She was itching to find out what might have happened to Tanner. They must have driven up on a drug deal gone bad, she guessed. She immediately set out to determine the whereabouts of Ray-Ray Walker, who was at the heart of almost every crime in Sumter County. Without instruction, she called Ray-Ray’s house. His woman du jour answered. When Martha asked to speak to him, the woman said that he was in jail in Montgomery and that she was going to kill him when he got out. Martha verified Ray-Ray’s incarceration with the Montgomery Police Department and promptly forgot even hearing his girlfriend’s ranting. Martha O’Brien was back to square one.
Larson pulled into the camp and turned off the ignition. He opened his door and stepped out, taking a moment to stretch and look around. Shug sat in the back seat licking. Opening the door, Larson called, “Achtung,” and the dog jumped out and heeled on the wrong side.
“Finden!” Larson said in his best German accent, and the dog began searching the high grass. Larson reached back in the patrol car and looked for his long search leash.
Shug barked excitedly several times as he ran around. Larson looked up curiously. What’s goin’ on? Shug never barks. Larson clicked on his flashlight and as he walked over to Shug, he stumbled on something, nearly falling.
“Holy moly!” Larson exclaimed as he trained his light at his feet and saw a .44 Magnum revolver. It was huge. “This is our big break, Shug. Ollie’s gonna be thrilled. We might even get another K-9 officer for this find. Good boy, Shug!”
Hearing himself praised, Shug trotted back to Larson.
“Quit lickin’ the gun!” he scolded Shug, who ignored the command.
Larson pulled Shug away and wondered what he could use to pick up the weapon. He finally stuck his pen through the trigger guard and carefully lifted it. He held it up to the car lights. It was a Ruger Blackhawk, a very powerful handgun. He smelled the end of the barrel like they do on TV.
“It’s been fired!” Larson exclaimed; then he placed it in the Burger King bag he had on his front seat and hurried to radio the sheriff.
Larson’s hands shook as he grabbed the mic. “Unit Five to Unit One!” Larson used his best radio voice. He was dying to tell someone.
“Go ahead.”
“Sheriff, you’ll never believe what I…what Shug found over here!” he said as fast as he could.
“Hang on. I’ll be right there,” Ollie said matter-of-factly, hoping Larson understood what he was doing. In case the Beasleys were still at his office, Ollie didn’t want Elizabeth’s parents hearing an excited deputy describing what might be their daughter. He was thinking the worst.
“You don’t want me to tell you?” Larson was disappointed.
“No. I’m on the way.” Ollie looked for a place to turn around.
Twenty-five miles away at the sheriff’s office, Mrs. Martha O’Brien was on the edge of her seat. Her intuition kept her from saying anything.
Ollie had hit the brakes immediately upon hearing Larson’s report. He backed up thirty feet, found a wide spot in the Dummy Line to turn around, then headed to the camp.
Just past the reach of the Expedition’s headlights when Ollie stopped, in the center of the road, lay a black fleece jacket that was ripped almost in half. It smelled of perfume. Sheriff Ollie Landrum never saw it.
Mick slowly pulled into the Bama Jama Night Club parking lot. He recognized a few of the redneck locals’ trucks. Those same guys always patronized this fine establishment. They were mainstays in the late-night pool hall scene. Mick didn’t see Jake’s truck, so he decided to ride through once more, looking for any Mississippi tags. Maybe he has a new truck. This is stupid. Jake’s not here. He doesn’t play high-stakes poker, and he certainly wouldn’t call me for money. A car flew by at eighty-five miles an hour just as Mick started to pull out onto the road. “Jeez um! That was close!” Mick yelled at the idiot driver.
“This is crazy,” he said, then let out a deep breath. “Nothin’ makes sense.”
Mick carefully looked both ways, pulled onto the road, and headed home. He wanted to sit down, clear his head. His wife could help sort it out.
What had he heard? The words he remembered were Mick, Jake, club, and kill. He thought he had heard emergency. Maybe he had imagined that. The telephone connection had been awful, and he hadn’t been fully awake. Could it have been a hunting accident? Not that late at night. Mick smiled as he thought that, to Jake and any die-hard turkey hunter, killing a gobbler was an emergency.
It was beginning to get foggy in the low areas. Mick noticed that the sky was clear and the stars were out as he pulled into his driveway and parked. He lowered the tailgate and allowed Beau to jump down.
“Night, Beauregard, I’ll see ya in the mornin’.”
Beau wagged his tail as he watched Mick go inside. He then went to the corner of the porch, circled three times, and lay down on his monogrammed camo dog bed.
Mick’s wife was waiting up. Their two kids were sound asleep. She was flipping the stations between CNN and the Weather Channel. She got up when she heard the door open.
“Well…what’s going on?” she asked.
Mick hung up his coat and answered, “Nothing. Ollie thinks it was nothing, and he wants to wait till about eight in the mornin’ to call Jake’s house and check it all out.”
Mick sat on a kitchen chair and ran his hands through his hair.
“I don’t know…I don’t really know what I heard.”
“What about the blood?”
“Ollie thought it could be turkey blood.”
“Yeah? I didn’t think about that,” his wife responded. Clearly she’d been worrying about it.
“You huntin’ in the mornin’?” she asked, folding a quilt she had been using.
“Yeah…I better get some sleep. Maybe I can get an hour or so,” he said, again running his hands through his hair.
“Are you OK?” she asked, placing the quilt on the end of the couch.
“Yeah, I just can’t get it all straight in my head. The camp lights were on…even the heater was on…but no Jake. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Did Ollie take it serious?”
“I think so…I mean he and R.C. drove all the way out there and looked around. I suppose they know what they’re doing.”
“They don’t know Jake.”
Mick looked at her. She’s right. But what could I do? All I can do is go to sleep and hope for answers in the morning.