Ugly As Sin (8 page)

Leon took a long drag off his cigarette.

“Your son-in-law, Eddie? He was the one who introduced me to the stuff.”

“He wasn’t my son-in-law,” said Nick.

“Anyway...he used to sell it. I guess that was a convenient arrangement for both of us, seein’ how we was neighbors.”

Nick said, “I also suspect it’s what got his head blown off.”

Once again, Leon had a hard time meeting the big man’s eyes. His hand trembled as he dropped his unfinished cigarette in a dirty cereal bowl. Its fire went out with a hiss.

“I figured the pigs cleaned out Eddie’s place, but maybe they missed somethin’. The sheriff had a patrol car watchin’ the house nonstop, the first couple weeks after what happened. Once it was gone, I couldn’t help myself, dude! I’ve been jonesin’ bad. Swear to God I was gonna put everything back like I found it. I didn’t mean no disrespect to your kin. I just wanted to get spun.”

“I don’t give a damn about any of that,” said Nick. “All I care about is helping Melissa find her daughter.”

Leon fidgeted in his chair.

“You saw something the night Eddie was killed, didn’t you, Leon? You saw something, and it scared the hell out of you.”

“I keep to myself, hoss. Mind my own business.”

“Back at the house, you thought I was someone else.”

“You snuck up on me! I panicked, that’s all. Thought you mighta been one of Sheriff Mackey’s men.”

“You’re lying.”

“Nope.”

“I’m asking for your help, Leon. You’d tell me the truth, if you were half the ’Maker fan you claim to be.”

“Dude! That ain’t playin’ fair!”

Nick couldn’t resist: “I always did hit below the belt.”

“Okay!” Leon sank in his chair. “I seen ’em! I seen ’em, but I didn’t say nothin’ ’cause I was scared I’d end up like Eddie!”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I was out in the pasture, lookin’ for ’shrooms. Fella I know told me that could be a lucrative gig, diggin’ through cowshit, sellin’ what you find. This musta been ’round one-thirty in the mornin’. All of a sudden, I heard tires squealin’. Car doors slammin’. Buncha cussin’ and shoutin’. I snuck through the woods to see what was goin’ on...and that’s when I heard the shotgun blast.”

“Go on.”

“Four of ’em came out of the house. Two big bastards—like, your size, almost—and two smaller ones. They had Melissa’s kid.”

“And then?”

“They threw her in the back of their car, took off.”

“She was struggling, trying to get away?”

“Oh, she put up a hell of a fight. She got one of the big dudes good, clawed him in the face.”

“Would you recognize these guys if you saw them again?”

“It was dark. They was wearin’ suits and ties, I think. But no, I couldn’t make out their faces.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“Somethin’ fancy-lookin’. Black. Or maybe blue.”

“That narrows it down.”

Leon snickered, but his laugh turned into a choking sound in the back of his throat when he realized his hero wasn’t trying to be funny.

“The cops think Sophie killed him,” Nick said.

“I heard about that.”

“But you never told them what you witnessed.”

Leon started scratching furiously at his left nipple. “Like I said, I was scared they’d come after me if I started blabbin’ about what I’d seen. Them guys looked like mobsters or somethin’, kinda dudes who’d just as soon put you in a pair of concrete boots and dump you in the Snake River as look at ya. On top of that, me and the fuzz ain’t exactly the best of friends.”

“That’s a shock.”

“I reckon I shoulda called somebody, but—”

“You’re damn right, you should have. I can’t believe it’s been
three weeks
and you’ve kept this to yourself the whole time?”

“I’m sorry,” Leon whined. He murmured something to himself that the big man couldn’t hear. A prayer, perhaps.

Nick took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

“I’ll do anything I can to make it up to you, man, I sw—”

“Shut up a minute. Lemme think.”

“I’ll help you find her.”

“I said shut up.”

Leon mimed zipping his lips shut.

Finally, Nick calmed himself. He took another deep breath. “Say you’ll do anything?”

“S-Sure, man. Whatever you need!”

“Give me a number where I can reach you over the next few days.”

“Uhh...that might be a problem, hoss. I don’t have a phone. I used to. But I was tweakin’ one night, took it apart. Afterwards I couldn’t figure out how to put it back together.”

Nick rubbed at his temples. “Jesus Christ.”

When his hero finally stood, Leon looked relieved, as if he could barely believe he had survived this exchange.

“You takin’ off?”

“Gonna head back to my motel room, touch base with Melissa. Probably need to have a chat with the local law as well.”

“You gonna tell them what I told you? About what I seen that night?”

“Count on it.”

“Fuck me runnin’.” Leon started gnawing at his fingernails again. “I’m a dead man.”

“You’re not a dead man.”

“Sure as I’m sittin’ here. Might as well just find me a hole somewhere, lay down in it and pull the dirt in over my head.”

Nick said, “Trust me. You’ve done the right thing.”

“For once in my sorry-ass life?”

“You said it, not me.”

Leon laughed.

Nick didn’t. He turned to leave, glad to finally get out of there.

†

Evening. Nick headed back to town. Beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains bordering Polk County, the horizon had turned the color of ripe peaches.

He spotted the black-and-white the second he pulled into the parking lot of the Sunrise Motor Lodge. It was parked conspicuously in front of the motel’s main office. A man in a khaki uniform leaned against the patrol car, talking into a cellphone.

The Bronco’s brakes whined as Nick backed the vehicle into a spot facing his room.

In his peripheral vision he saw the lawman cut his call short, start walking toward him. Nick took his time switching off the ignition. Rolling up the windows. Dabbing at his leaking eyeball. Pocketing his keys, then sliding the fob for Room 118 out of the ashtray where he had stashed it.

He got out of the truck. Slammed the door.

“Mr. Bullman? Nick Bullman?”

The man with the badge was in his early forties. His hair was close-cropped at his temples, just starting to turn gray. He had a muscular frame, but carried a hint of a middle-age belly, as if he might have once pumped iron but had gotten out of the habit the last few years. He wore a five o’clock shadow, wire-rimmed glasses with a blue tint.

“Sheriff Kyle Mackey,” he introduced himself.

“Sheriff,” said Nick.

The cop’s handshake was firm, sincere. “I was wondering if I might have a few words with you.”

“We do need to talk,” Nick said. “You wanna come on in the room?”

“Actually, I was thinking we could head over to the Denny’s on Brookshire Boulevard.” When Nick didn’t say anything, the sheriff lowered his voice as if he and the big man were coconspirators. “Had to skip breakfast this morning. Any time that happens, I get cranky. Have to make up for it later in the day. It’s my favorite meal.”

Nick couldn’t care less about the sheriff’s eating habits. But they did have a lot to talk about.

“What do you say? Denny’s, my treat?”

“I’ve never been one to turn down a free meal,” said Nick.

“Good man,” said the sheriff. “We’ll take my car.”

†

They started off with idle conversation—talk about the weather, and about how much Midnight had changed in the last thirty years—and Nick noticed the whole time that the sheriff seemed to have no reservations about looking into his disfigured face as they spoke. He wasn’t used to this. Folks
always
reacted one of two ways: with an anything-but-subtle aversion to his mug...or they couldn’t tear their eyes off of it, as if he were some scientific anomaly.

Not this guy, though. Sheriff Kyle Mackey had honed his poker face to perfection. Done his homework beforehand, most likely, knew what to expect upon meeting the man who had once been the Widowmaker.

“I’ll get to the point,” the sheriff said between bites of his long-awaited breakfast. “In a place like Midnight, word travels fast. I heard you were in town, thought it’d be best if I wasted no time making sure we’re on the same page.”

Nick took a sip of his iced tea. “Say what you gotta say, Sheriff.”

Mackey put down his fork. Nick noticed a stripe of pale skin on his left ring finger, where the lawman had once worn a wedding band.

“I’m asking you not to get involved in this. With all due respect, I need you to stay out of my way, let me do my job.”

“What makes you think I’d want to get in your way?” Nick said.

“Mr. Bullman, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know Melissa is desperate. She must have asked you to—”

“Since when is it a crime to visit my daughter?”

“I never said it was.”

“The poor girl’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She’s got nobody.”

“Finding Sophie is my number one priority, Mr. Bullman.” Mackey rested his elbows on the tabletop. “I’ve got every man in my department pulling double-time seven days a week to bring Sophie home. The SBI has been called in on this. We’re utilizing resources from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. All I’m asking is, you don’t do anything to muddy up my investigation.”

Nick let him finish.

“We’re on the same side here, make no mistake. On the other hand, if you get in my way I will not hesitate to do whatever I have to do to move you aside.”

“Fair enough.”

The sheriff dug back into his breakfast. “Glad we understand one another.”

“I gotta wonder, though, how well this ‘investigation’ of yours is going, considering it’s been almost a month,” said Nick. “From what I hear, you’re no closer to finding Melissa’s daughter than you were the night she disappeared.”

Sheriff Mackey froze with his fork an inch or two from his mouth. He knew he’d been insulted. But before he had a chance to retort, a pretty young waitress approached their table.

“Freshen up your coffee, Sheriff?”

“Thank you, Sandra.”

The waitress stared at a spot somewhere over Nick’s left shoulder. “Sir? More tea?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

She looked disappointed, as if the big man had let her down. She snatched up his glass and took it away.

“You’ve got nothing, Sheriff,” Nick said the instant she was out of earshot, “because you’ve been looking at this all wrong from the start.”

Mackey set down his fork. Stared at Nick.

“You think Sophie did it,” said Nick. “You think she murdered this drug-dealing piece of shit.”

“It’s one theory,” said the sheriff. “It’s certainly not the only one.”

“Well, it’s dead wrong.”

“Mr. Bullman, whether you or your daughter choose to believe it or not, there is
no
evidence to suggest there was anyone in the house with Eddie that night except Sophie. Plus, I’ve got a phone call from Sophie
telling
Melissa she did it. I’m supposed to ignore that because no one wants to believe a fourteen-year-old is capable of doing something like this? Kids younger than that commit murder all the time, without provocation.”

“Wait a minute. What
phone call
are you talking about?”

“Your daughter must have told you.”

“I guess she didn’t.”

“We put a tap on her phone for the first couple of days after Sophie went missing, hoping that we might get a ransom call. I never expected anything to come of it, given Melissa’s financial situation, but it is standard procedure. About forty-eight hours in, Sophie called her mother from a payphone in Hendersonville.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Nick.

“She told Melissa that Eddie had been putting his filthy hands on her since she first came to live with them. She assured her that she was safe, and promised she would be in touch again ‘as soon as things died down’.”

Nick shook his head, refused to believe what he was hearing. “Someone
forced
her to make that call. My granddaughter was kidnapped. I have proof.”

The sheriff gave a mildly annoyed expression, but his eyebrows rose behind his tinted glasses. He wanted to hear more.

Nick obliged him. He filled Mackey in on everything Leon had told him, about four men forcing Sophie into a fancy black car. He wasn’t sure why, but he chose
not
to rat Leon out in regards to his breaking into Eddie’s house, searching for drugs. Perhaps he felt he’d gained an unlikely confidante in the twitchy little speed freak? Plus, there was the matter of his own illegal entry. He changed the details of how they had met to a vague white-lie account of the skinny man walking out of the woods, striking up a conversation while Nick’s Bronco sat idling in front of Melissa’s former home.

The sheriff was suddenly uninterested in finishing his favorite meal. He pushed his plate aside, slid a pen and a small notepad from his breast pocket.

“Leon Purdy,” he said, as he scribbled something on the pad. “Assuming the little scumbag was telling you the truth, this changes everything. Why hasn’t he come forward with this information before now?”

“He was scared. And Leon claims his relationship with local law enforcement is...strained.”

“He ain’t seen nothing yet,” said the sheriff. “Son of a bitch.”

The waitress returned with Nick’s tea. Ice cubes clinked against the inside of the glass as she set it in front of him.

“Sandra, can you bring the check?” Mackey was already dropping a few dollar bills on the table for her tip, preparing to scoot out of the booth. “I’ve gotta roll.”

†

Melissa picked up the phone halfway through its third ring. Several seconds passed before she mumbled into it, “Hello?”

Nick couldn’t tell whether she sounded half-asleep because he had woke her, or perhaps she had taken something to ease her mental anguish since he saw her last.

According to the clock on his motel room nightstand, the time was a few minutes past eight p.m.