Sleepwalker (33 page)

“Looks like you’ve been through the war.” The cop’s voice reflected the common dialect of the folks living up here in the country: high-tone with a touch of redneck
twang
that stereotypically signified their perch on a lower limb of the IQ tree.

“I’ve had better days,” Richard retorted, a shrewdness rising up in his harried mind, testily labeling the still unseen trooper as ‘Cletus’.

“I think you ought to start telling me about it,” Cletus the trooper said.

Richard’s sights cleared some and he could see the hood of the trooper’s car as he leaned on it. Looking through the front windshield there was a small
Mr
Donuts
box on the dash, a half-eaten cruller and an empty coffee cup tipped alongside. “I had an accident...I was camping, got lost in the woods, fell into the trough. I think I’ve dislocated my shoulder.” It was the best whitewash he could come up with, a passable lie on par with his tale about how the blood ended up on his kitchen floor. “I’m in need of medical assistance.”

He felt the grip of the trooper squeeze his bicep. “Don’t move,” he said. “Is this where it hurts?”

Richard was about to say ‘yes’ when Cletus the trooper gave his arm a sharp jerk, sending excruciating pain through his entire body. He yelled out, lungs heaving as his breath nearly escaped him. It felt like he’d been stabbed again.

Damn it, Richard! You manage to escape your mortal enemy, not to mention the Fairview police, only to be brought in by Cletus the redneck trooper?

Conscience?

No, he’s dead. Just a temporary voice of moral support checking in. Keep looking around inside that head of yours, there’s plenty of us in here.

“So how the fuck am I supposed to get out of this jam?”

Cletus tugged on his arm again. Excruciating pain. “Who the fuck you
talkin
’ to, boy?”

The sudden excitement of hearing the voice in his head, the one he thought was his long lost ‘conscience’ coming back to him, had had Richard talking to himself again--an all-too-common idiosyncrasy of the past. As usual, it earned him some undesirable attention. “No one, I...”

“You ain’t
goin
’ nowhere, boy. It’s a slow night...and you is mine!” Cletus had moved close to Richard’s ear, the smell of coffee on his breath thick and repulsive. The trooper spun Richard around, slammed him back against the highway patrol car, the cuffs digging into his wrists and sending jolts of pain through his hands. He squeezed his eyes shut. When the pain finally subsided he opened them and was able to take in all that was Cletus the redneck trooper.

The first thing Richard noticed was his youthful age. Couldn’t have been more than twenty, if that. He had a simple look about him, pale-faced and pimpled, a few errant hairs making their way across his lip in a comedic struggle for a moustache. His lips had dried chocolate on them, some denser accumulations nestled in the corners of his parted mouth, which proudly displayed crooked teeth and an encumbering tongue thrust.
If freckles could breathe
, Richard thought,
I’d be smelling them too
. What a simple Simon, through and through. Except for one thing.

The look in his eyes, his pupils. They were dilated, drifting in a sea of glossy white that swam across Richard’s face in an arbitrary and seemingly unfocused left-right pattern.

Damn
, Richard thought.
Either the kid is on drugs, or he’s completely insane.

Either way, you’re fucked, chief.

Richard bit his lip, cursing the voice in his head. He kept his gaze away from Cletus, looking, by accident, at his badge.

It had a smear of chocolate on it. It said ‘Earl’.

I like Cletus better.

“Me too.”

“What’s that you said?” Earl-Cletus said, breathing hot chocolate-coffee breath in Richard’s face. His shuffled his feet against the dry road in a nervous repetitive way, sending up a dry cloud of dust that settled on Richard’s already dry tongue.

Coughing, Richard finally stepped up to the plate. “Why do you have me in cuffs? I didn’t do anything.”

Earl-Cletus shined his flashlight in Richard’s face. “You be trespassing. Park’s closed. Can’t you read the sign?”

Can’t you?
Richard, head turned down, giggled at the voice in his head, and Earl-Cletus responded with a swift knock to the temple with his flashlight. The pain was fierce, his body already compromised, and he crumpled defensively to the ground.

“Don’t you be laughing at me! No one gets away with laughing at Earl Porter anymore!” Earl grabbed Richard--the guy
was
pretty strong, he guessed that if you put that much baby-fat into it, you could certainly accomplish
something
pushing your weight around--opened the back door of the cruiser and rolled him in. The door slammed shut behind him.

Richard stayed down against the seat, listening with dismay as Earl got in, backed out and drove north, away from the state park entrance. For a while he just lay there, feeling his splitting headache bloom into a migraine. He noticed a peculiar burning sensation that started from the point of pain at the front of his head, traveling through his body, across his back and into his legs and finally turning into a tingling numbness in his feet. He’d had this sensation before, an uncontrollable thrust of anxiety, perhaps a signal that his body was finally ready to shut itself down. In an effort to fight it, he sat up and distracted himself by peering at the trooper through the mesh divider. Gosh, the guy was dumb. But Richard had to give him credit. He’d gotten his man, and was now more than likely taking him to the Sheriff’s station house where some of the smarter folk would commend the rookie for unwittingly bringing in a sought-after man.

“I ought to bring you in, put you in the cell for the night,” Earl finally said, breaking the harsh silence. “Daddy and the men are up in the mountains looking for a dead body. You just might have something to do with that, now. Wouldn’t you?”

Richard’s heart pounded. He stayed silent. The situation was worse than he thought.

“Speak up!” Earl’s shout was alarming. He slammed the gas, peeled out, taking the car to sixty, hooting and hollering the entire way. Richard caught his wild gaze in the rearview mirror just as the reckless trooper hit the brakes, smoked the tires and did a three-sixty in the middle of the deserted road. Richard slammed against the left door, then bounced forward, scraping his hands on the seat cage as he put them up to avoid hitting his head again.
Your second guess was more accurate, Richard. This guy’s a few cards short of a full deck.
Even in this vulnerable position, it took great effort to keep a leash on his grin after that unprovoked witticism. Either the throbbing pain in his head made it a bit easier to control his emotions, or he was really losing his mind this time.

When the car stopped, the sounds of the night immediately took over: an eerie symphony of crickets, the random hoot of an owl, plus the raving lunatic breathing of trooper Earl-Cletus, who duly turned around and eyed Richard behind the safety divider as if he were a curiosity at the zoo.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Richard’s voice was weak, the words barely making their way out.

“There’s a dead man up in
them
woods. My dad--the Sheriff, you know--went on up with Deputy Boyer to check it out. I’d reckon that since you came
outta
there all limping and bloodied up and stuff that you might’ve had something to do with that. You wanna tell me what you’re doing all bloodied up? And stuff? Huh?”

Richard could smell Earl’s nasty breath from the back seat. His sweat-coated forehead glistened under the dome light, his eyes rode waves looser than ever. “I told you, I was hiking, had an accident, slipped into the river. That’s all.”

“LIAR!” Earl pointed his gun at Richard. “Before you told me you were camping.” Richard trembled, wondered if he’d be dumb enough to fire against the steel grate.

Like an unexpected alarm in the middle of the night, the car radio squelched. A deep male voice filtered through the static-filled signal. “Earl, just where in the hell are you? Over.”

“Oh shit!” Earl fumbled the gun, placed it on the seat next to him. His eyes
zig-zagged
in their sockets as he sat himself forward and took a few deep breaths, seemingly preparing himself with some weak excuse for not being where Papa Cletus wanted him.

The voice came through again. “Earl, I tried you at the station, then on your hand-held. There was no answer each time. Are you in the car? Over.”

Richard saw Earl reach to his side, whisper
oh shit
as he realized that he’d forgotten his radio, then picked up the receiver and said, “Hi Daddy,” in his best ‘be gentle with your son’ voice.

“Well where the fuck are you, Earl? I told you to stay at the station. Who the hell is watching the god-darned station? Over!”

“Uh, I was hungry, I’m on my way back now.”

“Son of a bitch! You listen to me, and listen real good. You get back there this instant, get on the phone with Tommy and tell him to get his ass out of bed and into the station A-S-A-P. We’re gonna be here a while.”

“Dad, I think there’s something you ought to know...” he said, peering around at Richard. Richard shuddered but was relieved when Earl-Cletus was interrupted by his pissed-off father.

“Damn it Earl, I ain’t got no time for games! Get back to the station and call Tommy. Over!” The signal disconnected.

“Shit!” Earl shouted, slamming the receiver against the dash a half-dozen times.

“What’s the matter Earl?” Richard said from behind the safety of the cage. “Papa’s all sore on you?”

“Fuck! You!” he shouted, tears in his eyes.

Richard couldn’t help but smile. “Are you crying, Earl?” Richard realized with a bit of satisfaction that this confident and rather cocky attitude was something new seeping in from the multitude of personalities digging their way out from his subconscious. He listened for a supporting voice to make itself known, but found only silence in his head for the time being.

“Fuck you!” Earl screamed, again pointing the gun at him through the cage. “I
oughta
put a nice fat hole in your head.”

“I don’t think daddy would approve of that.” Richard grinned. He saw Earl’s face turn red. The boy then slammed the gun on the seat next to him, turned around and shifted the car into drive. “We’ll see who laughs last!” He slammed the gas and burned rubber as he peeled down the dark country road. Richard fell back into the seat, the knife wound on his shoulder stinging like acid. He stayed low, watching the natural environment speeding past the windows until a few houses came into view, then the small town of
Bledson
--your typical storybook one-light community with a church, a local bar, and of course, the Sheriff’s Office. Amazing, Richard thought, that a tiny hillbilly town like this could exist just eighty miles north of the big city.

Earl tore into a small blacktop lot alongside the Sheriff’s office. Richard sat up and peered at the small structure. Brick face. A pretty brass sign out front. There was a small piece of paper taped to the inside window of the front door with the words
back in ten minutes
scribbled on it. Richard laughed when he realized the cruiser’s beacon light was spinning, good ‘ol Cletus acting all important as if he were chauffeuring some big time criminal to the state courthouse.

Let’s just hope he doesn’t find out the truth.

No one knows the real truth. Not even me.

Let’s not get too technical, okay, Richard?

“Good thing you had those twirlers on there, Earl. Otherwise we might not have made it through all the traffic.”

“Shut up,” he said, getting out of the car.

“Don’t forget your donuts.”

He groped for his gun, but slipped up, realizing that he’d left it on the seat next to him. He reached back into the front seat to retrieve it, then came out and pointed it at Richard as he opened the back door. “Get out,
dirtbag
.”

Richard, shifting the cuffs in attempt to alleviate the pain they caused, followed Earl’s lead. The good news was that for now the station would be empty, just the two of them to trade insults. Soon enough though, if Earl obeyed his father, another cop would be here
 
and would no doubt have some questions for the sheriff’s idiot offspring. And Richard. They walked toward the small building, Earl digging the gun into Richard’s side. For a moment Richard thought of making a quick attack, but the cuffs were too tight and there was no way he could bring them around his body quicker than Earl could fire the gun.

Earl fished a set of keys from his belt, put one in the lock, and opened the door. He held it open with his foot, using the gun to guide Richard inside. The interior was real small, a total of three desks, each with a telephone and a variety of personal office supplies. A coffee machine sat in the far left corner, the pot half-filled with burnt liquid. Across the way a hallway disappeared to the right. Earl grabbed another set of keys from a desk drawer, led Richard down the short hallway and locked him in one of the two cells there. The dust on the bars showed that these holds hadn’t been utilized for quite some time.

“Hey Earl, you want to tell me what I’m under arrest for?”