Lester
Lester told Taggart that he wanted to take another look at Mindy’s body. See if he noticed anything unusual. Taggart told him not to tamper with anything until the forensics team and the detectives arrived. Lester nodded, bit his tongue, and said he wasn’t gonna touch anything.
The snow had been coming down harder, the wind stronger, so they had to keep the front door closed up, since Mindy’s place was still considered a crime scene. It might preserve the condition of the room itself, but the unfortunate end result was that it kept in the smell of death. Lester shut the trailer door behind him and still couldn’t believe what surrounded him. Mindy and Johnny Knolls. Dead. Worse yet, murdered.
Lester gave the kitchen a quick search for a pack of cigarettes. He knew that Mindy smoked. Hell, who didn’t? He felt a pang of guilt for only coming in here to look for cigarettes, but his craving for a smoke was greater than the guilt. Good old nicotine. The kitchen stood neat and tidy except for a bottle of whiskey his deputy must have gotten into, but no sign of cigarettes.
He glanced over at the living room and spotted an ashtray and a carton of Salems on a TV tray beside the recliner. Lester avoided looking directly down at Mindy as he walked over and pulled a pack out of the carton. He smacked the pack against his palm a few times and tore off the foil. Lit up and took a deep draw.
Lester didn’t particularly care for menthol, but this would have to do the trick. He was moving toward the front door when his eyes finally fell on Mindy’s corpse. Her face and head weren’t covered, just everything else from the neck down. He knelt to pull the blanket over her but stopped himself.
Funny. Didn’t notice that before.
He inspected a few abrasions on the side of her cheek and neck. The skin looked red and irritated. Probably happened when she fell down. Maybe Danny dragged her across the carpet and it scuffed up her face.
Lester touched her cheek gently. Her skin cold now, and growing stiff.
I’m real sorry, little lady. You were a good kid.
As Lester pulled the blanket over her face, his eyes went to the robin figurine that was still lying beside Mindy’s head. He knew immediately that it was Danny’s handiwork. He had seen the boy playing with blocks of wood, whittling away outside the Wash ’N Dry, lost in his own little world. The boy had a knack for carving—that much was for sure.
Lester picked up the wooden bird and turned it over in his hands a few times. Specks of blood dotted the robin’s feathers, staining them red on the orange belly of the bird. It was evidence that the detectives would probably want to take a look at, but something about it troubled him a little. Why in the hell would Danny go through all the trouble of carving this figurine, hike all the way out here three miles in the freezing cold, then beat the poor girl to death? Just didn’t make sense. Maybe Mindy didn’t react so well to him showing up in the middle of the night unannounced. Rejection was a damn strong emotion, especially if the boy had held a torch for the girl for so many years. Maybe she was a bit too nice to him over the years, and that gave him false hope. Hope could be a double-edged sword. Once hope got turned away and crushed, it could make a person do things he wouldn’t normally do.
A truck pulled up outside and killed its engine. He heard voices talking to each other, making their way toward the front door. Lester hoped that it was the coroner’s office. He wanted to get the bodies out of here before anybody else showed up. He still couldn’t figure out why in the hell Johnny showed up. Maybe Mindy had phoned him before making a call to the deputy.
He couldn’t give it much more thought, because the front door swung open and Taggart stepped inside with Sokowski and Carl in tow. Lester did a double take at Carl’s face—his lip was busted open, and his cheek had swollen up to the size of a peach.
“Christ. What in the hell, Carl?” Lester managed.
Carl didn’t answer. Just looked down at the floor, wide-eyed. He and Sokowski were both staring down at Johnny’s Knolls’s body.
“Let’s take this outside,” Lester said, and motioned toward the door.
Sokowski and Carl remained frozen in their spots, trying to piece together exactly what they were seeing. Sokowski saw Johnny’s rifle on the floor beside him and glanced over at Lester.
“Johnny showed up a bit ago. Madder than hell, and for good reason. He had his gun drawn on me, and Officer Taggart here did what he had to do.”
Carl could only stare at Johnny’s body while Sokowski gave Taggart a look. Taggart stood stone-faced but kept Sokowski’s gaze.
Lester moved forward and finally managed to guide them out onto the porch. He shut the door behind them and sucked his cigarette down to the filter. He flicked it into the snow and went back to the business at hand.
“Tell me what happened here, Carl.”
“Danny is what happened. Fucker attacked him,” Sokowski responded instead.
“Hell. You okay, son?” Lester asked Carl, who kept his head down and nodded.
“Ain’t the worst of it. He got out the back window of Doc Pete’s and took off running. I knew we should have cuffed him. Christ.”
Lester felt Taggart’s eyes on him. Judging him and their small-town ways.
“When exactly did this happen, Carl?” Lester asked.
Sokowski didn’t give Carl a chance to answer. “Dunno. Probably thirty, forty minutes ago.”
Lester looked past them and up into the night sky. The snow was still coming down pretty good.
“You know what direction he was heading in?”
“Up toward Spring Hill, I think,” Carl muttered softly.
Lester looked down at his old Timex. It was a little after three in the morning.
“Well, we ain’t gonna find him tonight. That much is for sure. Deputy, why don’t you take Carl and go on home and try to get a few hours’ sleep? We’ll meet up at the office before six and go see if we can’t track him down. He ain’t gonna get far tonight.”
Taggart finally spoke up. “You really think that’s such a good idea, Sheriff?”
Lester felt his stomach tighten up and his blood pressure soar. “Yeah, I do. It’s hard terrain around this way. We ain’t gonna find him in the dark, and I think we’re better served having fresh legs.”
“I think we might be ‘better served’ going after the suspect while we might still have a trail,” Taggart stated matter-of-factly. “Snow might be covering some of his tracks at the moment, but by morning there’ll be no sign of them.”
Lester ignored Taggart’s suggestion and instead nodded at Sokowski. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Lester watched and waited for Sokowski and Carl to get into their truck and back out of the driveway before he turned to Taggart again. “Look, son, I appreciate your help in this situation, and I fully expect to cooperate with your office, but there are a few things in play here that I need to better inform you on.”
Taggart’s expression remained unchanged.
“Danny Bedford has a bunch of limitations. He ain’t very bright, and he doesn’t spend much time in these woods. That much I do know. It’s true that we don’t see our share of homicides out here, but I think it’s best if me and my deputy get our heads screwed on straight so that we can properly assist in the tracking of him. We know these woods better than anyone. A few hours ain’t gonna hurt nothing.”
Taggart let out a small breath. “Fine. Have it your way, Sheriff. I just hope your boy doesn’t hurt or kill anyone else before you find him.”
The strobe of emergency lights pricked through the dark countryside and wound their way toward the trailer. Another set of emergency lights wasn’t far behind the first vehicle. Lester and Taggart watched the ambulances as they got closer.
“Well. I suppose I should head over to Sarah Knolls’s house and let her know what happened out here. She’ll be wondering where the hell Johnny is, and I don’t want her hearing the news from anyone else.”
“You do that, Sheriff. I’ll handle the situation here.” Taggart walked to the end of the driveway and waited for the two approaching ambulances.
Lester found his new pack of menthol cigarettes and lit one up. He climbed into his truck and pulled away from the trailer, glad to put some distance between himself and it. In his rearview mirror, he watched Taggart greet the ambulance technicians as they hauled two gurneys from the back of their vehicles.
Lester returned his attention to the road and tried to figure out the best way to let Sarah Knolls know that both her husband and daughter were dead.
