Superbia 2 (11 page)

“Okay,” he whispered. 

He reached for the pillowcase and slowly started to peel it up from Kayla’s head, revealing it a little at a time.  He had to reach in and unstick her long blonde hair from the inside of the fabric. 

Aprille came around Frank’s side and said, “He hit her three times.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think she felt anything after the first one?”

“No, probably not.”

“How can you know?”

“I’m pretty sure,” Frank said.

“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

Frank looked at her, then back at the crippl
ed dead girl in front of them, imagining the terror she felt when the pillowcase went over her face, covering the only part of her body that worked, the only thing she was physically aware of.  Her ability to see, to hear, to smell, all suddenly eliminated while she sat there defenseless.  Strapped down.  Crippled.

“Frank?” 

“I’m going to kill this man,” Frank whispered.

“Okay, buddy.”  Aprille patted him on the back,
“Let’s just cool downl.”

“
You don’t understand.  I really am.”

1
2.
“Chief, do you have any leads on the whereabouts of Ralph Polonius?”

Erinnyes pushed past the
sea of reporters and said, “Nothing I can share at this time.”

“Have you had previous contacts with the Polonius family? 
Anything that might have indicated something was wrong?”

“Our departmental records show one call a few days ago.  A reported domestic in the parking lot of a store, but they were gone prior to our officer’s arrival.”

“Is Ralph Polonius a suspect in the homicide of his wife and daughter?”

“We certainly want to speak with him.  Now excuse me, I have to get back to the station.”

Jim Iolaus watched the Chief’s car drive away, just as the coroner’s people came through the front door.  The gurney’s wheels dropped down on the hard cement porch, followed by a chorus of cameras flashing from behind the yellow police tape.  The large figure in the body bag was strapped down under bright yellow nylon straps.  It took four people to roll her down the incline of the front yard toward the driveway.  Nobody wanted to ditch the body in front of so many cameras, so they moved slowly. 

The next group
came through the door with the second gurney.  The figure inside the bag was much smaller, really just the size of a child.  Iolaus bent down between his knees and vomited onto the street.  Acid filled his stomach until tears dribbled down his cheeks, and as he spat the rest of it out and looked up, some ignorant fucker took a picture. 

***

“Hello?”

“Dawn, it’s me.”

“You’re up early,” she said.  “Couldn’t sleep?”

“I got called into work.
  We had a pretty bad incident here.”

“
So
now
the Chief decides you can do more than just write speeding tickets?”

“I guess so,” Frank said.  “Anyway, the guy that did it needs to get caught, so I’m going up to look for him.  I think he might be up in Potter County.”

“Where’s that?”

“Far, far away.  I probably won’t be home tonight.”

There was silence on the other end. 

“What?”

“Are you meeting with that CI again, Frank?”

“…which CI?”

“The
girl.
  The one you told me about.  The one you’ve been going out to see at her work and coming home smelling like perfume and cigarettes.”

“She works at a bar, hon.  I told you that.  And no, I’m not working on that case.  I’m going to Potter County to look for a homicide suspect.”

Again, no answer.

“Go online and check the local news, honey.  They were all over the place.  You’ll see what I’m talking about.  This guy killed his wife and crippled daughter.”

“So why are they sending you after making you a patrolman again?”

“Because they are,” Frank said.  “Do you really think I’m cheating on you?”

“You’ve been going out at night on all sorts of weird hours.  Taking our van instead of a police car.  Meeting up with some girl.  It’s got me wondering.”

“Listen, I didn’t get much sleep and have seen some things today that I’m not going to forget for a long time.  Now I have to drive four hours to go to East Bumblefuck to find this douche bag and try not to put a bullet in his brain.  Can you cut me some goddamn slack, please?”

“Fine.  Consider it done.”

The phone line went dead.  Frank tossed it across t
he car and followed the signs for the turnpike. 

***

Trees.

Cowshit. 

Crickets. 

Cornfields.

All populated Frank’s senses simultaneously as he looked down at the tiny town below the freeway.  It looked to be the size of a postage stamp.  Smaller, even.  Frank looked at his watch.  It wasn’t even eight p.m. and everything was closed.  Even the one gas station on the main road. 

Frank drove down into the valley and navigated the dusty, unpaved roads until he passed the dark gas station and headed into town.  There were t
wo traffic signals, just blinking single lights strung across the intersections that flashed yellow.  Frank stopped to find a street sign, but there weren’t any.  “What the hell,” he whispered. 

He kept going, past a barber shop and a Radio Shack.  Finally, he saw a sign for the municipal services building a
nd police department and pulled into the parking lot.  The municipal services building was a small, glass-faced storefront sitting beside the town bakery.  He looked around for the police department but only found a trailer in the back of the parking lot.  Finally, he took another look at the trailer and saw the name,
Cole Clayton, Chief of Police
stenciled across the door.  “You have got to be kidding me,” Frank said. 

He heard someone talking inside the trailer and knocked several times until the door opened.  Frank held up his badge, “Chief
Clayton?”

A skinny, annoyed looking man with a thin-mustache said, “Naw.  He don’t work nights.  How can I help you?”

“I’m trying to find out information on a homicide suspect.”

“Okay,” the officer said.

“So…can I come in?”

“Okay,” the officer said.  He got up and cleared a pizza box off of the couch, then went back to his computer.  He picked up a black headset and put it back on his head, then immediately began typing on the keyboard.  “Sorry about that, I had to answer the door.”

Frank sat down on the couch, seeing that the officer was playing a computer game and cursing every time the enormous Orc he was controlling got hit by an effeminate looking wood sprite.  Frank tapped his fingers on his case file and waited.  Finally, he said, “Hey, is someone around who can help me?”

“Hang on,” the officer said over his shoulder. 

Frank stood up, “I’ll just come back.”

“I said to hang on one freaking minute!  Christ!”  The officer threw off his headset and rolled his chair over to the radio sitting on the countertop.  He pressed the microphone and said, “Chief, you there?”

After a moment, the radio crackled, “Go ahead.”

“You got a visitor who say he need information on a homicide suspect.”

“Is that right?  Send him around the homestead and I’ll see what I can do for him.”

“All right.”  The officer turned around and said, “I’m not even supposed to be working tonight.  I told the Chief I had a very important match to play and he said I could just sit here and cover the desk.  Now that’s all shot to hell, thank you very much.”

“Well, I appreciate it,” Frank said.  “How do I get to the Chief’s house?”

“Keep going that way until you come to the first white picket fence and turn left.  It’s four doors down.”

“Thanks again,” Frank said.  “Good luck with your fairy, or whatever you were fighting.  She looked tough.”

The
officer grabbed his headset and slammed the door behind Frank with a thud and a quick turn of the lock. 

***

The man sat on his front porch, rocking back and forth in a chair.  He had short cropped grey hair and a thin goatee with blue eyes, razor sharp enough to make Frank stop at the edge of the driveway. 
God knows what they do to intruders around here,
he thought.  “Are you Chief Clayton?”      

“Yes, I am.”

Frank shut his door and showed him his badge and case file, “Is it too late for me to be bothering you like this?  I can try and come back tomorrow if you want.”

“Not at all,” the Chief said.  He held out his hand, “Name’s
Cole.  Welcome to my home.”

“I’m Frank.”  He showed him the case file and said, “I’m investigating a homicide, and
while I was searching the premises, I found a utility bill for a residence out here.  I was wondering—”

“How far you dr
ive today?”

“About two hundred miles.  I came straight from the scene.”

“You want to use the bathroom?”

“Actually that would be amazingly fantastic.  Do you mind?”

“Go ahead in.  It’s the second door on the left.”

Frank looked into the door and saw a woman standing in the kitchen, “I won’t scare your wife walking into the house like that?”

“Son, I started carrying a gun when I met that woman because I seen what she can do to with a knife.  Go ahead in.”

Frank knocked politely on the door and let himself in. 
Cole turned around in his seat and yelled, “Honey, fix Frank up some coffee and supper!  He come all the way from Philadelphia in one shot.”

“All right,” she said.  

Frank nodded politely at Mrs. Clayton, and she said, “You hungry for anything in particular?”

“No, ma’am.
  Last thing I ate was a Wendy’s hamburger at noon.”

“Go ahead and get washed up then.  I’ve got just the thing for you.”

***

Frank picked up one of the ribs and gnawed on it.  “This is delicious.”

Cole pointed to the plate in Frank’s lap, “Everything on that plate is from a five mile-radius.  Them ribs are from cattle over on the Bower’s farm.  The coleslaw and beans are homemade from what my neighbor grows.  She put some egg on there too?  Those are from my chickens out back.  We got so many damn eggs she’s making me eat them morning, noon and night.”

Frank stopped talking to keep eating, making tiny grunting noises when the Chief spoke just to be polite. 

“I take it you met Bill.  The one who sent you over here?”

Frank nodded. 

“Was he an asshole?”

Frank tried not to smile and shrugged slightly, “He was tied up with something
.  I just think he wasn’t expecting company.” 

Cole
shook his head, “I’m kind of stuck with the runts of the litter around here.  Anybody worth a damn runs off and joins the State Police.  I have to make do with what I’m given.”

Frank wiped off his mouth and said, “Honestly, I thought you guys would be covered by the State Police at night.  That’s what most of the smaller police departments outside of our county do.”

“We used to be,” Cole said.  “Then me and the local barracks had a falling out over an investigation.  Some asshole was cooking meth up in the hills and dumping the chemical byproducts in the nearest stream.  We caught on when people started getting sick.  Turns out the State Police narcotics boys were sitting on this house for over a year, gathering intel, making all sorts of overtime.  I raised holy hell and told them what was what.  Now I’m always struggling to keep somebody in that damn trailer on the overnights.”

“That sucks,” Frank mumbled.  A bit of meat fell out of his mouth, but he caught it and ate it again.  “This is the best food I’ve ever eaten in my life.”

Cole patted him on the back and said, “Eat up.  There’s plenty more.  When you’re done, we’ll go into my office and see what I can dig up on your suspect.”

***

There was a yellow-painted brick mounted on a plaque above Cole’s desk, hanging beside a framed certificate from the FBI National Academy.  “You went to the National Academy?”

Cole
put on a pair of bifocals and leaned forward to squint at his computer screen, “Yes, indeed.  Working on my master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh too.  I do online courses mainly, but there’s a satellite campus about an hour away.”  Cole turned and looked up at him, “You thought we were a bunch of podunk hicks out here in the boondocks, didn’t you?”

“No,” Frank said.  “
I bet things really changed for you folks when the invention of flight finally reached you out here last year.” 

Cole
smiled and said, “Hand me that file of yours so we can track this rascal down.”

The Chief’s fingers flew over his computer as he logged into the town’s financial records, bills of sale
, and courthouse records.  “I’m running a search for anything related to the name Polonius.  Luckily it’s not too common around here.”

“We get all sorts of goofy names around my way,” Frank said.  “My chief’s name is
Claudius Erinnyes
.  He was born to be a flaming dickwad.”

“Language, boys,” Mrs.
Clayton called out from the next room. 

Frank felt his cheeks go hot
.  “Sorry, ma’am!”  

Cole
went to the kitchen and came back with two beers.  He handed one to Frank, but Frank said, “I shouldn’t in case I gotta go get this guy tonight.”

Cole
dropped the beer in his hands and said, “It’s darker than the devil’s hind quarters out there in the mountains this time of night, son.  All you’d do is get yourself lost, or hurt, or worse.  Let’s triangulate this knucklehead’s position and give ourselves a proper advantage.”

“Know any good motels around here?”

“Nope.”

“Can I sleep in the police department’s parking lot?”

“Nope.”