Drummer Boy: A Supernatural Thriller (11 page)

Like the bones of war.

“I’m ready, Dad,” Vernon Ray whispered.

He turned toward the table and the mock battle. Capt. Jeff Davis would die this day, but he would die proud.

Vernon Ray turned his left wrist up and rested the tip of the stick against the snare head. He clenched the stick in his right hand and raised it several inches above the horsehide.

“Awaiting orders, sir,” he said.

Do it, Earley.

Tears welled in his eyes, but soldiers didn’t cry, only scared little boys. He wanted to blink, but he promised his dad he wouldn’t. A freshet of salt water threaded down his left cheek and he licked it when it reached his lips.

Stoneman’s unit was closer now, the horses hammering out their own cadence, static in the air as if the sky were holding its breath.

Vernon Ray drove the right stick solidly against the drum, following with a snap of the left, then again with each stick, letting the pattern roll into a flourish. He would sound the advance, encourage the troops against long odds, stand firm in his duty amid the cries of agony and rage and panic.

He slapped out the cadence-

ratta-tat-tat

-the drumsticks blurring, the air moving with the action of his hands, the beat echoing off the cheap paneling, punctuating the bravery of those who repelled the invaders who sought to destroy the homes and hearths the Home Guard stood united to defend. The tears flowed freely, cooling on his face, but he was smiling.

The toy soldiers on the table didn’t hold their positions, though. They retreated, their stiff lead bases vibrating back away from the road and into the cover of the forest, winding up the slopes of Mulatto Mountain. Vernon Ray pounded harder, certain that if he stayed strong in the face of flying steel, the men would rally and return to their posts. But the soldiers turned tail in the face of Stoneman’s superior force, or their fear of looming death, or their lack of faith in the Confederacy. They scrambled madly up Mulatto Mountain, scaling the
papier-mâché
until they huddled around the Jangling Hole, seeking entrance among the mouse-gray boulders.

They would hide today in the Hole and live through Stoneman’s Raid, but their end would come soon enough.

The important thing was for Vernon Ray to hold his line, drum until the Grim Reaper harvested with his steel blade, stand tall, make his dad proud-

The Room exploded with the bright fury of a cannonade, and Vernon Ray blinked.

His dad stood in the doorway, hand on the light switch. “And just who do you think you are, you sorry little sack of civilian shit?”

“Look at this long list of environmental violations,” Cindy Baumhower said, spreading the sheaf of papers on Littlefield’s desk.

The sheriff sat back in his chair, the hinges squeaking and driving rusty nails into his skull. He rubbed his crew cut, hoping the headache would magically rise into the ceiling. Cindy Baumhower was normally more of a thorn in the side than nails in the palms, but tonight her crusading-journalist bit was merely annoying. If
The Titusville Times
wasn’t such a convenient mouthpiece when he wanted to crack down on any type of public nuisance, he would show her the door and lock it behind her.

But besides her drooling desire for a Pulitzer, or at least a few state press association awards, Cindy wasn’t so bad. At least she had ethics and when he gave her information off the record, it stayed off the record. In a small town, gossip could mean the difference between reelection and unemployment.

“You know that’s not my jurisdiction,” Littlefield said. “That’s the state’s problem.”

“Christ, Frank, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is just a rubber stamp for developers and industrialists. The lobbyists in Raleigh are practically blowing the governor. And who wants teeth when you’re getting a good hummer?”

“You forget, Bill Willard is a Republican and the Democrats have had a hammerlock on the capitol since Reagan.”

“This is about rich and richer, not right and left.”

Cindy jutted out her chest, but Littlefield forced himself not to look at it. She wasn’t much younger than Littlefield, but her freckles and sun-bleached hair, along with her ardor, gave the impression of a college co-ed. Her blue eyes were radiant and piercing, and Littlefield knew better than to meet them for too long at any one stretch. She reminded him of Sheila Story, and that hurt way too much.

“I’m sorry, Cindy,” he said, regretting that he’d let their relationship get on a first-name basis. As always, that made lying a lot more difficult.

Cindy swept up the papers and shoveled them into her hemp tote bag, which bore a pot leaf and the slogan “Legalize It.” She claimed not to smoke the stuff herself, and Littlefield was inclined to believe her. He’d arrested more than one bong-huffing member of the Hemp Liberation Movement, but all things considered he’d much rather have ganja gangstas in his holding cells than meth junkies or dry drunks. Stoners tended to stay mellow and never complained about the food.

“Okay,” Cindy said. “What about financial wrongdoing?”

The sheriff kicked his boots up on his desk and crossed his legs. “Depends. If it’s interstate, it’s federal, and these days practically every white-collar crime involves the Internet in some way.”

Cindy snorted in derision. “So I should check with your fraud division?”

Littlefield’s staff consisted of 12 officers, and between four and eight were on duty during any given shift. With J.R. looking like he’d be on a long leave of absence, there would be a gap in regular patrols, and drug investigations would have to be scaled back. While drug busts made for good photo ops, people generally were more concerned about their houses being broken into, the old “Hitting close to home” theory of law protection. No way could the department afford an extra shift or two devoted to Cindy’s latest vendetta against Budget Bill, even if there had been some decent evidence.

“Bill Willard’s never been accused of anything shady,” Littlefield said. “Truth is, I think you don’t like him just because his photographs have gotten more recognition than yours.”

Like many small-town reporters, Cindy took her own photographs, and though she clearly had an eye for composition, Willard’s equipment was thousands of dollars finer than what the
Times
could provide. “That’s not fair, Sheriff.”

The only thing worse than being on a first-name basis was when she shifted into that cold, professional demeanor. He tensed a little as she came around the desk, thinking he’d rather be anywhere else at the moment, even at The Jangling Hole after sundown.

“Are you in Budget Bill’s pocket, too?” she asked, standing over him, hands on her hips.

“Why in the world would you say a thing like that?”

“You sure buried my sexual assault charge.”

“Hell, Cindy, your own paper was afraid to run that incident report. There was just not enough evidence to make an arrest, much less get an indictment from the Grand Jury. He would have sued you and half the county.”

“Well, I hope one day he squeezes
your
tit and see how you like it.”

Littlefield let his gaze flick to her chest. Not that he had to do much letting. His eyes seemed to take off of their own free will, like other parts of him did whenever crazy women infected him with sweet madness. “Budget Bill’s an upstanding citizen,” Littlefield said. “He’s got a right to develop Mulatto Mountain. Maybe people like you think it’s immoral-”

“People like me? And just what kind of people is that, Sheriff?”

The sheriff took his feet off the desk and sat forward, but she didn’t back away as he’d expected. She was less than a foot from him, much too close for a professional relationship or to respect personal space.

The sheriff swallowed hard. “All I’m saying is he follows the law, and I follow the law. Check with the planning department. He has all his permits and he even took out a bond for the road.”

“Can’t you block the site in the interest of public safety?”

“What are you getting at?”

Cindy twisted her lips and sighed out one corner of her mouth, spreading fine tendrils of her hair. Maybe she knew how fetching the mannerism was and used it to keep him off guard. But the sheriff got the impression she wasn’t as calculating as some women he’d known. She genuinely seemed not to notice the effect her simmering, subtle sex appeal had on men.

Or maybe Littlefield was just an old pervert. He’d been called worse.

“I monitor the scanner, remember?” Cindy said. “Crime beat? So how’s Officer Perriotte?”

“Fine. He’s under observation. But I guess you knew that already.”

Her smile would have made the Grinch proud. “Privacy laws kept the hospital from giving out his condition,” she said. “But I have my sources.”

Bat your goddamned eyelashes and you could win over Marcus Welby, House, and Dr. Doolittle
. “No visible injuries.”

“Just some head trauma. On the
inside
.”

“That’s undetermined at this point. Could be stress, epilepsy, hell, even low blood sugar.”

“Three shots fired.”

“That’s undetermined, too.”

“Doesn’t that trigger an internal investigation? I’m assuming your officer was the one who fired the shots, since Sandy in records said no incident report had been filed.”

Littlefield had not yet got around to filing an incident report simply because he wasn’t sure which lie to put on it. He’d been hoping to avoid it altogether, even though Hardy Eggers, Mr. Ayinari the Pakistani store owner, and Willard all knew the police had been on the property responding to a complaint. And those three boys . . . .

He stood, towering a foot over Cindy, and she backed up half a step. “I’m looking into it,” Littlefield said through tight lips.

“You looking into the Jangling Hole while you’re at it?”

Littlefield forced a laugh that sounded like he was choking on a biscuit. “Not you, too, Cindy. Why don’t you save that one for your Halloween feature? You know, where you crank out some cheesy local ghost story and pretend it’s in the interest of serious paranormal research.”

Her blue eyes sparked ice and then fire. “I do my job and you do yours.”

“That’s all I want.”

“Just like you did in Whispering Pines in 2002,” she said.

The sheriff’s lips worked like a trout trying to learn French.

“I did some checking,” she said. “You covered that one up pretty good, but I found a few people willing to go off the record. So is Archer McFall still considered a missing person?”

“That case is cold,” he said, though in his heart it was as closed as a coffin lid on a rotten corpse. Not that McFall had been considerate enough to actually leave a body. Well, he’d left behind several bodies, but not his own, though Littlefield believed he didn’t really own one, just borrowed them from time to time.

“You have a lot of holes, Sheriff. In your stories, and in your soul.”

She turned and marched to the door, her tote bag pressed against her side.

Please, God, don’t let me look at her ass
.

Even though he didn’t believe in God any longer, the prayer was answered. Or maybe he was just upset enough that whatever odd light she’d aroused in him had been darkened by the curtain of self-doubt and fear.

He rummaged around in the bottom drawer of his desk. His fingers brushed against the cool bottle with its greasy liquid. This would be a hell of a time to give in to the habit.

No, not a habit. ‘Habit’ is for normal people and nuns. I’m a plain old garden-variety, C-grade drunk. For people like me, it’s not a habit, it’s an occupation.

Littlefield shuffled some papers on top of the bottle and continued digging. The newspaper clippings on the McFall case were sparse and mostly centered on Sheila Story’s accidental death in the line of duty. In fact, McFall was barely mentioned in connection with the death. The incident report said Littlefield and Story had been responding to a public disturbance call at McFall’s church when Littlefield’s patrol car plunged into the river. The newspaper and the incident report both contained the truth, but Littlefield had been around long enough to know the truth never told the entire story.

He glanced at the color photo of Sheila that had run on the front page of the
Times
. It had faded with the years, and the
Times
had never been known for its print quality, but those honest blue eyes seemed to appraise and taunt him from beyond the grave: “Come on, Frank. Something weird is going down and you’re pretending everything’s normal. But I know you too well. You’ll just close me up in the drawer and leave the past in the dark where you think it belongs.”

He dropped the clipping and slammed the drawer shut.

Drop it, Frank. There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for a set of footprints that ends in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah, and the Tooth Fairy was coming to steal everybody’s Halloween candy, too. He put on his Stetson cowboy hat and pulled the brim down so it shaded his eyes. He’d donned the headgear during the last campaign and his popularity had swelled. Now he wore it on all but the most blustery day, and it didn’t hurt that the stiff suede covered his ever-expanding bald spot. The hat also had the effect of improving his posture because he found himself holding his shoulders back so the headgear was better balanced.

He’d wanted to check on J.R. before turning in, but he had one more stop to make first. Two of the boys were unidentified, but the store owner had tabbed Dex McAllister from a mug shot. Of course, misdemeanor shoplifting rarely merited such a time-consuming investigation, but Littlefield wanted to get this little mystery under wraps and pray that Bill Willard and his silent partners blasted the Hole to hell and gone before anything went poking its head out.

“I’m on call tonight, Sherry,” he said to his dispatcher as he headed for his cruiser.

Despite a smoking ban in all public facilities, Sherry kept the office in a menthol fog, compliments of Kool 100’s. Since she’d been on the county payroll longer than the politicians who’d voted in the policy, no one had ever had the guts to take her on. The smoking had given her face a tough, leathery quality, and two brown acorn eyes stared back like those of a cigar-store Indian.