Deputy Paul Grier had been with the Floyd
County Sheriff’s Department for 35 years.
In all those years, he had seen some weird things and busted people for
bizarre stuff. For example, there was
the case of the missing cats from Francis Johnson’s house. This happened outside of Charles City back in
1997. It turned out her neighbor, Old
Man Howard, was trapping the cats, skinning them and eating them. He had gone so senile, he had reverted back
to his childhood when he and his folks lived off of raccoons and skunks they
trapped in the field. In 2003, there
was a case of a reckless driver on Highway 218.
Deputy Grier and his partner, Clyde McDonnel, called in the license
plate and quickly found out it belonged to a Mr. Reginald Van Pelt from Los
Angeles, CA. When they pulled the guy
over, they thought it would just be another drunk driver or speeder. But when the guy rolled down his window, they
quickly learned that Mr. Van Pelt was now a Miss. Van Pelt explained that one of his breast
implants had become dislodged while he was driving and he was attempting to put
the breast back into place but was having trouble steering at the same
time.
And then there was today, Friday morning,
the weekend was just eight hours away.
Grier sat in the driver’s seat of his cruiser with McDonnel sitting
shotgun. Both men were overweight, well
past their prime and getting close to retirement. Grier was bald with double chins, a wide nose
and beady brown eyes. He wore a dark
brown shirt with his bright, brass badge prominently displayed. His belt strained against the girth of his
belly, his sidearm dug uncomfortably into his gut. When he breathed, it sounded as if he were
panting, as if he had just finished running a marathon. McDonnel could have been Grier’s
doppelganger except he wore a thick, grey moustache under his wide nose.
The two had been discussing what to do for
lunch, sitting in the parking lot of the abandoned Rockfurt gas station. Rockfurt was a small town, population
1500. It was a good spot to sit a spell,
waiting for a call to come in from dispatch.
It was late Spring, Summer was just around the corner. School would be out in two weeks or so, the
kids would be up to no good and more calls would come in. This was all floating in the back of their
minds when a call finally did come in.
“Paul? Hey, Paul? You and Clyde in Rockfurt?” Martha Allen’s squawking voice came in across
the radio. Paul was a veteran with his
35 years of experience but Martha was an antique with her 45 years under her
belt as a dispatcher. The running joke
was that Martha was born, climbed out of her cradle and started working for the
Floyd County Sheriff’s Department.
Paul reached over and lifted up the
microphone.
“Yeah, we’re here. Whatcha need, Martha?” he asked.
“We’re getting some reports over by the
Library. There’s a man running around in
nothing but a poncho and a pair of underwear.
He’s gibbering and scaring the blue hairs and little kids,” Martha
reported in her typical “tell it like it is” fashion.
“Alright, we’ll go check it out,” Paul
sighed. He hung up the mic and turned on
the engine. Five minutes later they
were across town and rolling along Main Street to the Library. It didn’t take them long to find the man in
the poncho. He had already drawn quite a
crowd of onlookers, unfortunately.
“Hey, isn’t that Bob Rinehart?” Clyde said
from the other seat. Robert Rinehart
owned a plot of land a few miles outside of Rockfurt, it was his family’s
land. He farmed it or so folks said but
he didn’t make much money off of it. He
was also a notorious drunk or so Paul had heard from Walter Dixon who owned the
only tavern in town. Last Paul had
heard, Robert had two kids and a wife to support as well. Paul pulled to the side, shifted to park and
looked over at the man in question.
He wore a dark green, plastic rain poncho
that draped across his narrow frame like a trash bag and every time he took a
step, it would move revealing bare legs and a flash of tidey-whities
underneath. It was hard to look at
anything but those hairy legs under the poncho but when Paul managed to look
up, he did recognize the face. He had
seen that strong jawline, slender cheeks and piercing blue eyes many times throughout
the years. It was the face of Robert’s
father, Sam, who had died mysteriously fifteen years ago. There hadn’t been an investigation because he
was found dead in his bed but it was odd because Sam was one of the healthiest
guys that Paul knew. Robert’s mother, Margaret,
died shortly after that, many thought it was because of a broken heart. And then just last year, Robert’s younger
brother, Billy, was killed in a car accident down in Kansas. And now here was Bob Rinehart wandering
around Main Street, talking to himself and tossing his hands up in the air
sporadically.
Robert also looked like he had just walked
out of a spring downpour even though there hadn’t been a drop of rain in the
entire county since early April. His
brown hair looked black from wetness as it lay plastered across his pale
forehead. Water dripped from his nose
and dribbled from his fingertips as he gestured wildly in the air.
“Let’s find out what’s going on,” Paul
said. He then opened his door and
struggled out of his seat.
As they approached the farmer, Paul
noticed the onlookers and rolled his eyes when he spotted Clayton Jones. The scarecrow thin journalist owned the Town
Tattler which was a near cousin of used toilet paper as far as Paul was
concerned. Clayton was snapping photos
one handed with his Digital Camera and apparently recording the bizarre
ramblings echoing from Robert’s mouth with a Digital Recorder in the
other. Paul wanted to tell the news
junkie to beat it but he knew that would just wind up in whatever story Clayton
wrote so he thought it best to let it go for now. Instead he turned his attentions to Robert
who was having one hell of a conversation with himself.
“Shadow…coming…can’t stop it,” he
muttered. His blue eyes were focused on
the street, as he paced back and forth.
Suddenly he stopped, raised his hands as if to ward away some invisible
attacker before he began pacing again.
“Hey, Bob, what seems to be troubling
you?” Paul asked as they approached.
Clyde began skirting around behind Robert, Paul kept his eyes friendly
but observant.
“He’s been like this for almost an hour,”
Janine Douglas, one of the onlookers, called out to Paul. She carried Baby Huey against her hip who was
nibbling on a rubber nook.
“Is he high?” another person asked. But Paul ignored the question and focused on
Robert.
“It’s our curse…it’s happening,” Robert
continued to mutter.
“Bob, why don’t you come and sit in the
cruiser for a sec? Let’s talk about
what’s going on?” Paul offered. While he
spoke, he continued to approach Robert from the front while Clyde approached
from behind. So far, the farmer did not
seem to notice they even existed.
“I’m sorry, Millie…” Robert said as Paul
and Clyde closed in on him. Paul reached
out hesitantly and then placed his hand on Robert’s shoulder. Finally, the blue-eyed man looked up at
him. Paul had seen people high on drugs,
their pupils were usually dilated. Bob’s
pupils were not dilated at all. Paul
realized what he was seeing reflected in those eyes. It was fear, pure and unadulterated.
“Talk to me, Bob,” he said. For a moment, he thought Robert might just do
that but then a car came speeding up the street. It screeched to a halt, not far from Paul’s
cruiser. Paul and Clyde turned, staring
at a beat-up old Volkswagen. The gears
grinded as the driver shifted it into park.
A woman with frizzy hair and wild eyes
stepped out of the rust bucket. She wore
a tight blue t-shirt that accentuated her feminine form nicely. Being from a small town, everybody knew
everybody and Paul quickly recognized Tammy Weinbecker. She worked over at Dixie’s Tavern on Fridays
and Saturdays. She nodded at Paul and
Clyde and then stared at Robert.
“Hey, Bobby,” she said, her voice low and
sultry. A mischievous grin fell across
her lips. The man in the green poncho
turned toward her, and his shoulders slumped.
“You found me,” he said in defeat.
“You knew I would. You can’t hide from me,” she said. Paul stared at the two of them, befuddled by
the strange conversation. Finally he
decided enough was enough.
“Tammy, if you don’t mind, we were talking
to Mr. Rinehart before you interrupted…” he said. Tammy turned toward him and something changed
about her. She seemed to darken, her eyes
took on a menacing glare and Paul would later swore that she even growled at
him.
“Actually, I was just about to take Bobby
away from this godforsaken place so I kind of do mind…” she said and in a flash
she reverted back to her flirty self.
“Now come along, sweetie, time’s a wastin’.”
Robert stepped past Paul and Clyde, his
eyes locked on the frizzy haired woman with the tight shirt. Clyde glanced over at Paul, Paul could only
shrug his shoulders. It wasn’t as if
Robert had broken any laws and now the problem seemed to taking care of
itself. They watched as Tammy opened the
passenger door and Robert climbed, the poncho slid up revealing his underwear
and bare legs. Tammy then slammed the
door shut and skipped over to the driver’s side. She waved farewell to the crowd and climbed
into the car.
A few seconds later, the two of them were
headed south out of town. It was the
last time that anyone ever saw either of them, although rumors had been
circulating for weeks that Robert was having an affair with the cocktail waitress
so it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.
It would be the hot topic in the small town, probably even the county
for a few weeks. Not that any of that
concerned Paul Grier or his partner, Clyde McDonnel.
The two Deputies told the gawkers to go back
to their business and then they went back to their cruiser. Paul climbed in and Clyde did the same. Paul reached down to radio Martha, to give
her the all clear but Clyde said something.
“Huh?” Paul asked.
“I just said I feel sorry for his wife and
two boys. Millie’s a good woman and his
boys are going to go through hell when word of this gets out.”
Paul merely nodded and then radioed in to
dispatch.
No comments:
Post a Comment