There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (49 page)

According to Bidwell, the kennel manager and his two escaped charges had been exposed to a virus that the Center was working to eliminate. And while it wasn’t usually fatal (once again, according to Dr. Bidwell), it was highly contagious, and therefore required extraordinary measures to prevent its spread. The Center’s cushy Quarantine Section sure as hell wasn’t the same as Rupert’s hoosegow, but the idea of putting Bud away gave Henderson a hard-on just the same. Besides, their visit to the Center would be anything but pleasant or restful. Rupert had an idea that the doc was looking forward to having himself some human guinea pigs to poke and prod. Rupert wanted, oh so badly, to oblige the man.

He tapped Joel on the shoulder.

“Where’s your sister, sonny boy?”

Joel looked up at the sheriff and shrugged, not bothering to answer.

Rude little shit, ain’t he?
Rupert went to the back of the video unit and unplugged it.

“Hey!” Joel said, staring up defiantly at the sheriff.

“Hay is for horses,” Henderson said, placing his Smokey hat back on his head. He had ordered it special, all the way from Kansas City with his own money. He thought it made him look like one of those Drill Sergeants from Parris Island, across the way. Folks on Moon thought it made him look like an overgrown Boy Scout. “Now, I’ll ask you again, young feller, where’s your sister?”

Rusty watched the sheriff loom over Josie’s little brother, trying to intimidate the kid. For his part, Joel seemed entirely unperturbed. Dealing with a mean drunk on a daily basis will do wonders for a boy’s self-reliance. He wasn’t about to be unnerved by the town laughingstock.

Meanwhile Rusty was shaking in his hi-tops. He kept looking at the front doors, hoping to see his friends there. He went over what he was supposed to say in his head. What Bud
wanted
him to say. If only the sheriff would stop wasting his time asking Joel questions the kid didn’t have the answers to! Rusty was so eager to get this over with, he nearly blurted out the prepared statement unasked. Only his natural curiosity stopped him.
What in the world has gotten into Rupert Henderson?

The man was usually lazy and laidback. Not at all the aggressive sort. He had always been timid as a mouse around anyone related to Ham Huggins or Bill Brown. Rusty’s daddy could have had the simple fool fired with very little effort. And Bill...well, everyone knew that the apple didn’t fall far from
that
family tree. Bill Brown was not a man you wanted to aggravate. That’s why Henderson’s sudden lack of restraint unnerved Rusty so. In fact, the man seemed supremely sure of himself.

He’s wise to us
, Rusty thought uneasily.

As scared as Rusty was, it pissed him off to see Joel getting pushed around like that. The sheriff grabbed the boy by the front of his shirt and lifted him up until they were eye to eye. Joel’s sneakered feet dangled in the air.

“Leave him alone!” Rusty said. He climbed over the counter and landed on wobbly legs.

Rupert ignored Rusty. “I’m going to ask you one more time, sonny boy. Where’s your damn sister?”

Joel looked right into the sheriff’s florid face and said, “She’s probably home painting her toenails. If you hurry, maybe she’ll let you blow on ‘em till they’re dry.”

Rusty couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer audacity.

His jowls shaking angrily, Henderson dropped Joel on his ass. Despite his earlier bravado, the little boy whimpered in fright. The helpless sound triggered something in Rusty. “What the hell did you do that for,
Rupert
? He’s just a little kid!”

Henderson bent over until he was looking straight into Rusty’s owlish eyes. “There’s no call for all that noise, Rusty. All he has to do is answer a few questions and I’ll be on my way. Hell, I’ll even pony up a quarter for the boy’s next video game!”

Rusty looked away involuntarily, trembling like a Chihuahua on a chilly day. Rupert smelled his fear as surely as that rabid dog had done the day before. “J-just l-leave him a-alone, is a-all,” Rusty sputtered anemically.

Rupert let out a phlegmy chuckle that reeked of Juicy Fruit and Polydent. “Okie-dokie,
boy
. Then
you
can answer my questions. Where’s that booger-coated gang of yours? Starting more fires out in them woods?”

Rusty glanced at the front entrance where a clock hung over the double glass doors.
Josie’s been gone for almost three hours now!
Even if he didn’t appreciate Henderson’s Bull Conner routine, maybe it was time to tell the sheriff his friends might need some help.

Rupert let out an exaggerated sigh. He was getting tired of all this obvious stalling. “Rusty, listen up here. Do I have to take you to the jail for questioning? Son, it’s a simple dang question:
Why
are you here, and
where
are Bud Brown and Josie O’Hara?”

“Bill is in Beaufort, that’s why I’m here helping, and Bud, he and—” Rusty opened his mouth to tell the sheriff that his friends were in the Pines, and were all long overdue, but couldn’t get his mouth around the simple sentence.
Something’s wrong here!
The skin on the back of Rusty’s neck tingled.
What the hell has gotten into this man? What does he know? What should I say?

Rupert stuck his thumbs behind the gunbelt until the leather creaked. He liked that sound. Made him feel like Matt Dillon. “All righty, then. Let’s try another tact. Now I want you to answer this, Rusty, and no more dang foolishness! Were you and your friends—
specifically
Josie O’Hara and Bud Brown, in the Pines yesterday, last evening, or at
any
time today? Yes or no! Quick now!”

Rusty blinked at Henderson’s cold black eyes and realized he couldn’t hold out any longer. He gazed at the front door leading out to Main Street. His friends nowhere in sight out there. For all he knew they might even be in grave danger. It was time to come clean. “Here’s what happened, Sheriff. Bud, Josie, and I, and a new kid, named Ralph Tolson, cut school yesterday and went—”

“—up to the roof, where we hung out all day and night,” said a breathless Bud Brown from behind Rusty.

Rusty turned his head. Bud and Josie, having come in through the back entrance, were standing in the hallway; the two of them drenched in sweat. Bud looked like that Pig Pen character from Peanuts. A dusty dirty mess.

Rusty arched his eyebrows, and Josie gave him a slight headshake, as in:
Keep your mouth shut, boyo
!

Rusty gave her an even slighter chin chuck.

“Joel, go upstairs and wait for me,” Josie said, tossing the key to her brother. Joel snatched the key out of the air, gave the Sheriff a fuck you look, and did like his big sister said.

Rupert muttered under his breath. He’d nearly had the Huggins boy admitting to being in the Pines! If only he hadn’t wasted so much time on that smart-ass little whelp. He looked Bud Brown up and down. Loopy bastard was some kind of dirty. He hitched up his gun belt and fiddled with the short billy club hanging off to the side. Bud was more than double the man the sheriff was, but Henderson was one of those little Napoleons who get more confidence than is good for them from their badges and uniforms.

“Boy, you been rolling around in the dirt?” He picked some of the soil off Bud’s T-shirt. He rubbed it between his fingers and grinned. “That there is dirt from the
Pines
. Rich, dark, and
moist
. I’d know it anywhere.”

Bud shrugged. “Yeah? So?”

Josie turned to Bud, thunderstruck.
For feck’s sake! Doesn’t he know what he’s saying?

Henderson’s smile stretched across his face. “
So
you admit to being out there today?” He reached for the radio on his gun belt. Time to call in the white coats.

“No, sir. We haven’t been out to the Pines for quite some time. Isn’t that right, Gnat?”

Rusty nodded dumbly. “T-that’s right.”

Henderson sputtered. “What the…then w-where…”

“My friend Ralph Tolson and I were playing around in our cemetery back there,” Bud said, pointing to the graveyard further down the brick tunnel. “The Pines is where my dad and I got the soil for that part of the ride. Three tons of it, in fact. You can check if you—”

Henderson turned his gimlet eye on Josie. “How ‘bout you, girlie? You’re all sweaty, I see, but not a speck of dirt. You been
foolin’
around back there, too?”

“Me?” Josie trilled sweetly. She had always despised Henderson. The way his eyes rolled up and down her body when he thought no one else was looking. “Nice girls don’t get dirty. You know that, Sheriff.”

Seething inside, Henderson calmly wrote all this down in his notebook. Somehow these kids were wise to him. They weren’t about to admit to nothing. “This here Ralph Tolson, where is he? I’ll need to talk to him, too.”

“Right here, sir,” Tubby said, coming out of the same hallway. After a quick breather, he’d followed his friends through the back door, staying hidden in the shadows long enough to hear most of their replies.

Rupert eyed the morbidly obese kid with open disdain. Fatty looked as if he’d been chasing an ice cream truck. His flinty eyes flicked slyly back to Bud. “Bud here says you two been out in the Pines today. Said you saw a strange dog yesterday, too. That right, Baby Huey?”

Tubby looked to his friend. “Gee, I’m sorry, Bud, but I can’t tell a lie to the police.” Everybody in the lobby held their breath. “We’ve been hanging out here, most of yesterday and today, sir. In fact, I’ve never even been inside the Pines! My mom won’t let me.”

Henderson flipped his notebook shut. “Uh-huh. And those dirty clothes you’re sporting?”

“Bud and I were wrestling back there, sir.”

Rupert stuffed the notebook into his back pocket. He nodded his head and chuckled juicily as he headed to the front door. “All righty, now. Y’all have your little laugh at my expense. But we’ll
see
who laughs
last
. I know y’all are lying to me, and as soon as I can prove it…I’ll be back.” Rupert smiled and tipped his Smokey hat, wondering if still had time enough for that nap.

             
            
 
Chapter Twelv
e
:

             
             
How Terribly Strange to be Seventeen

Josie put in an old movie for Joel to watch up in the clubhouse and then gathered with the rest of th
e
Creep
s
down in the lobby. Rusty had been just as surprised as Bud to hear of Dr. Bidwell’s involvement with the Center. Tubby had never met the man before so the news meant nothing to him. The simple fact that the local law enforcement appeared to be coordinating efforts with the Research Center concerned him enough.

             
“What’s to stop the sheriff from coming up with a witness of his own?” he asked.

             
They were huddled together at the concession stand. Rusty and Josie sitting atop the counter, Bud and Tubby behind it, filling up on ice cold Fresca.

             
“My dad, for one,” Rusty replied. “Deputy Dawg ain’t gonna risk his job with some half-baked lie. Pops would boot his sorry ass right off this island.”

             
“Yeah, Tubs. That stuff he said going out the door was bullshit,” Bud replied. “Rupert was just trying to save face. As long as we stick to our story, we’ll be fine.”

             
Josie eyed Bud suspiciously. He was holding back on them again. “You can’t fool me, boyo! You’re going to tell your father, aren’t you?”

             
He sighed. “I have to, Red.”

             
Josie hated to admit it, but it did make sense. After all, Bilbo already knew that they hadn’t in fact spent most of yesterday afternoon, here at the museum, as they had just informed the sheriff. For that reason alone it was imperative they get Bilbo up to speed. “Jaysus pleezus. I guess you do at that,” she relented at last.

             
Bud leaned in between her and Rusty and told them about his and Ralph’s close encounter with the chimpanzee.

             
“A rabid
chimpanzee
! Well, fuck a duck!”

             
“So they
did
say something about a chimp,” said Josie. “And I thought I was hearing things out there. Why didn’t you tell me this on the way here, Bud?”

             
“After what you told us? Another rabid animal, even if it was a damn monkey, seemed trivial at the time.”

             
“Ape,” Rusty corrected him.

             
“Huh?”