Jodi Thomas - Twisted Creek

So when I went back to the store I suggested we talk in the sunshine of the porch, hoping he wouldn’t smell the food.

He agreed as he pulled out a pad. “I’d like you to start with a detailed account of what you saw last night. I understand from another source that you were there.”

“Not much to tell,” I said as I sat on the newly painted porch swing. “Willie and I saw the fire. We went over in his boat.”

The sheriff looked at the chair next to me and decided he’d stand. “Did you see anyone leaving or running away from it?” He set his coffee on the porch railing and prepared to take down my statement.

“No,” I said, thinking I’d pay money to see if the lawn chair would hold under his weight.

He took a minute to write something, gulped his coffee, and asked, “Anyone suspicious at all, beyond the nuts who hang around here normally?”

“No.”

“Do you have any reason to believe it might have been set?”

“No. Willie suggested kids sometimes come out to drink in the summers, but except for a few beer bottles lying around I didn’t see any sign of that.”

The huge man slapped his notebook against his leg as he paced back and forth. Then he stopped suddenly and jotted something down.

While he wrote, I asked, “What did you find?”

“Nothing,” he said a bit too quickly. “I’m turning it in as a lightning strike. Anything else will bring strangers out here and we’ll know no more when they’ve finished poking around than we did before.”

He held his coffee cup up to me as he studied his notebook.

I took the cup, wondering if he did the same thing to his wife when he wanted another cup. If so, and I were his wife, I’d be giving him some serious lumps with his next cup.

I went inside and refilled his coffee, then stood at the door listening to the sheriff talk to Dillon. “There’s nothing but nutcases and losers out here, son. Half these people should be locked away somewhere. If the whole place burned down we could write it off as a beautification project.”

“What about that Miss O’Reilly? She seemed nice enough this morning.”

The sheriff swore. “She’s afraid of her own shadow. Couldn’t take people in town talking about her family. She’d fall apart if she had to deal with half the shit I have to put up with in this job.”

Fletcher lowered his voice. “I’m telling you, son, there ain’t nothing out here but losers and misfits. I could haul every one of them in for being a bother to civilization and no one would care.”

I missed a few words as the Landry boys’ boat puttered by.

“See them two”-Fletcher raised his voice over the motor-“they’re the Landry brothers and they don’t have a brain cell between them.” He laughed. “Some say their mother was a catfish-that’s why they’re both ugly and dumb.”

I heard the sheriff laugh at his own joke, but Dillon remained silent.

Anger boiled in me. Coffee sloshed, almost scalding my hand, but I barely noticed.

It took me a moment to even feel the arm around my waist tugging me backward. Luke lifted me up against his side and walked backward into the tiny office, out of sight, before letting go.

When I turned to face him, his blue eyes were laughing.

“Did you hear what the sheriff said?” I whispered.

He grabbed one of the old towels Nana kept on a shelf to clean up after what she called “leaky fishermen” and blotted at the coffee on my hand. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “But I saw murder in your eyes and I thought I’d better pull you back.” He took the coffee carefully as if it were a loaded weapon.

I smiled, realizing I had thought of crowning Fletcher with a coffee cup. “You’re right. What he says doesn’t matter.”

I reached for the cup.

Luke held it up. “I’ll take it to him.”

“But you…”

“I know, but I’d rather face him than have to break up a fight between the two of you.” He winked. “By the way, if it happened my money would be on you.”

I watched as he walked through the door into the lion’s den on my front porch. Moving close to the window, I watched, feeling like a driver slowing down to see a wreck.

“Allie said you asked for a refill,” Luke lied as he sat the cup on the table beside the sheriff.

For the first time, I realized the sheriff looked a little uncomfortable. “Haven’t seen much of you around here lately.” Fletcher straightened slightly.

Luke kept his head down, not looking at Fletcher.

“Didn’t you tell me last time we talked that you were only here for a short time?” When Luke didn’t answer, the sheriff raised his voice. “Seems to me that short time should be about up.”

Luke stood, staring at the planks in the porch. His body was as still as stone and his hands hung loosely at his sides, but I sensed he waited, not frightened at all. It occurred to me that he looked like a man playing a role. A role he wasn’t naturally born to play.

Nana interrupted the interrogation by stepping outside with a tray of hot cinnamon rolls. They were as big as a man’s fist and dripping with icing.

“Good,” she said to Luke. “I was hoping you were still here. Would you mind taking a few of these out to the Landry boys? I told them they’d be ready a little after dawn and they said they’d be waiting at the end of the dock.”

Everyone, including me, looked down the dock at the two old men in the tiny boat. They sat at either end waiting.

Luke took two of the rolls, wrapped them in waxed paper, and walked out toward the water.

The sheriff started to object, but Nana stepped in front of him. “Now, Sheriff, you have to try one of these.”

He didn’t look like a man who often turned down food. He tugged a hot roll away from the others and slipped it onto a square of paper.

Nana offered the boy one, but Dillon shook his head.

About the time Nana stepped back inside, I looked down the dock and noticed both the Landry boys and Luke had disappeared.

Fletcher frowned. “You know where that man lives?”

“Nope,” I said honestly.

The sheriff licked his thick fingers. “I’m going to have a long talk with him one of these times. That fellow’s got trouble written all over him.”

“You think he’s a criminal?” If so, that was probably higher on Fletcher’s list than the rest of us Nesters.

“I don’t know. There’s something that don’t set right with him.” He looked over at Dillon. “You learn to tell the make of a man when you’ve worn the badge awhile. I can tell a druggie a mile off and a thief, he holds his hands out of sight. Before you leave for college next year, I’ll teach you a few things you’ll never learn down at Sam Houston University, not even if you get your doctorate in Criminal Justice. There’s some things only experience can teach.”

He turned back to me. “You know where Willie Dowman is?”

“Nope,” I answered a bit too quickly.

He stared at me a moment. “You’re just a wealth of information, aren’t you? Who else did you see out by the fire last night?”

“It was dark. I couldn’t see much.” I couldn’t believe I was lying, but suddenly I didn’t want to help. I might be switching to the arsonist’s side, but in some strange way it seemed better company.

He must have figured out I would be little help, so he downed the last of his free coffee and headed toward his car. Halfway there, he turned around. “Old Man Jefferson told me once that his niece was bright. He must have not known you well, girl.”

“I’m not a girl.” I stared at him. “Size doesn’t make a woman any more than volume makes a man.”

He opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to notice Dillon standing a few feet away.

To my surprise, he tipped his hat and said simply, “Later.”

I crossed back into the store thinking I didn’t like the sound of that word.

I stood next to Nana and watched the sheriff’s car pull out of our drive.

“He’s puffed up worse than three-day-old roadkill,” she whispered. “My pa used to say a sheriff is only your friend when he’s running for office. I never believed him, until now.”

Sunday

September 29

0930 hours

Luke walked the path back to his cabin, frustrated that he couldn’t deal with Sheriff Fletcher the way he’d like to. But after last night it was more important than ever to let everyone believe he was just a fisherman on vacation. Someone who knew the lake well was picking the spots for the meth labs and the sheriff would never catch anyone.

Luke had seen Fletcher’s kind of cop before. Go for the easiest answer. Keep the paperwork short. Don’t ask questions if you don’t want to hear the answers.

One theory was starting to make more sense every day. Jefferson must have learned something about the illegal activity going on. He was the one person who knew everything about the place. He could have watched trouble rolling in like a storm. And, if the drug dealers found out he knew something, or even suspected, they might have helped him make that final step off the dock that sent him to heaven early.

One clue had been echoing in his mind since the day he went into Jefferson’s apartment. Why would a man who quit taking his medicine keep the bottles around for months? Why would he even bother to go to town to pick them up? Luke had asked everyone close to Jefferson and none of them had picked them up for him. It was a tiny detail that didn’t make sense. A puzzle Luke needed to find the answer to.

Luke stared out at the water, wishing he could see what Jefferson must have seen. Not only seen, but prepared for. It was like he got all his world in order just in case something happened to him-like he knew what was coming. Knew and couldn’t stop it.

If he’d only left a clue.

Luke felt a sudden adrenaline rush. What if Jefferson had left something? He’d have to hide it good, someplace whoever killed him wouldn’t think to look. But where?