RATTLEMAN: Praise for 18 Seconds 'Excellent! Stephen King Read online

  “A little after two.”

  Douglas looked at her. “See how easy that was, Jewel?”

  “Yeah, well don’t let it get around, okay Chief?”

  Ten minutes later Douglas was standing at Tiny’s door.

  He drew a boot back and kicked, splintering wood and locks, and after a second attempt the door flew wide open. Douglas heard footsteps above and charged up the stairs, saw Tiny looking down at him and caught him by the heel of his foot as he turned to the bedroom.

  “What the fuck?” Tiny yelled.

  Douglas dragged him from room to room until he was sure they were alone. Then he took him to the kitchen and dropped him in the chair. “Sit still,” he ordered, flinging drawers and cabinet doors open, then headed into the living room where he scattered pillows and cushions from the couch – then he stopped. There were three zip-lock bags full of marijuana and a brick sized package of white powder wrapped in Duck Tape.

  Douglas smiled and took off his hat. He laid the bags inside and walked back into the kitchen.

  “Not much else to say, is there, asshole?”

  A green knot was rising on Tiny’s forehead, blood trickling from one nostril. His lip trembled in rage as Douglas bent down to look in his face.

  “Judge just let you out on bail,” he said, laying the hat on the kitchen table. He pushed the Budweiser lamp and let it swing over Tiny’s head. “Guess you know what this means?”

  “Yeah”, the midget mumbled. “False arrest, assault and battery. I want a lawyer.”

  Douglas smiled. It was obvious that Tiny saw something in the policeman’s eyes that scared him.

  “Sure,” the chief said, strolling casually around the kitchen table. “You’ll get your lawyer, but first I want to tell you about Probable Cause. See, your lawyer’s going to tell you I had the right to break into your miserable little Hell. A witness, Tiny, someone who will testify that you bragged about buying a shitload, and those are your words, Tiny, a shitload of cocaine. And since a shitload of cocaine just happened to go missing in the last twenty-four hours, it was more than reasonable of me to suspect you were telling the truth. In fact it was probable. And now I’m going to put you away for the rest of your miserable life.”

  “I still want a lawyer,” Tiny said again, but this time without conviction.

  Douglas straddled the chair on the other side of the table. “I want to know where you got the cocaine.”

  Tiny clamped his jaw shut, eyes darting to the cowboy hat on the kitchen table, feeling his good fortune tumbling like a crystal vase to concrete.

  “You realize your prior felony makes you eligible for thirty more years, Tiny.”

  Tiny shook his head, tears of anger filling his eyes.

  Douglas reached for his hat and pulled it to the edge of the table. “Have it your way, Tiny,” he said, beginning to rise out of the chair.

  “I don’t know his name,” Tiny said.

  “Then they’re going to carry your little casket out of prison.”

  “Quite tall and hair down to here. His clothes were smelly and ragged.” Tiny raised his left hand. “He didn’t have a thumb on one hand.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “Kettle Hollow, I think. He said Kettle Hollow.”

  Chapter 25

  Marion, West Virginia

  Judy had just gotten to sleep when the motel telephone rang next to her bed. The clock said 4:30 AM. Marty had dropped her off an hour before, and should be back at the crime scene now. She had been hoping for at least another hour’s rest.

  She sat up and reached for it groggily. Who but her boss and Marty knew she was here?

  “Hello,” she said hoarsely.

  “Why hey there, Missy. I wasn’t sure if you’d be entertaining or sound asleep. Sounds like you were asleep.”

  There was no mistaking Douglas’s accent.

  “What do you want, Chief?”

  “Probably you’re all tuckered out from all that investigating you and Marty Wayne have been doing. But hell, if I’d known you were alone, I’d have come to see you personally.”

  “Do you want something?” she said sharply.

  “Oh, I have something that could interest you. Thought you might want to have a look at some of your cocaine.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, you see, while you were tucked in there under the covers, I was out doing some old-fashioned police work. Got a brick of your cocaine right here and about to get the rest.”

  Judy sat up and put her feet on the floor.

  “Meet me in Quills Landing on the street along the river, just next to the old warehouses and docks. You’ll see the running lights on my truck.” Douglas hung up the phone.

  Judy pulled on her jeans and dialed Marty’s cellphone, let it ring several times and heard it go to voicemail. Then she tried his office, but a recording referred emergency callers to 911. They would all be on the mountain, she thought. Everyone on Cemetery Hill.

  They had already said their goodbyes and in a moment that was out of proportion to all the emotion she felt. It was so anticlimactic she couldn’t remember the words. Just the taillights of his Jeep as he pulled out of the parking lot.

  She dressed and scribbled a note, telling Marty she had stayed to meet Chief Douglas. Then she rolled the note and tucked it into the doorjamb, got into her car and passed the pink vacancy sign on her way to the road to Quills Landing.

  Something told her it was not going to be a good day.

  Judy raced toward the Corporal Edmond Bridge, gray light of dawn creeping in under a swirling black haze. As she approached the intersection at the Pentecostal Church she thought about the woman’s eyes on Cemetery Hill and a shiver ran down her spine.

  Then she thought about Marty again and what had happened at his place. Maybe she was just tired or maybe she was numb, but for some reason she felt no remorse. Nothing else mattered but seeing him again. As if her life had changed in the course of a day.

  The streets of Quills Landing were shrouded in fog, ominous as the restless sky. Judy turned at the first intersection and steered toward the river. There was only one streetlight and it blinked amber in all directions. A dog dashed like a ghost between shadows and the sky opened up, rain beginning to fall as a shard of lightning sizzled over the river. A man stepped in front of her car and she skidded to a halt. He just stood there in his raincoat and floppy hat, staring at her with cold hollow eyes, then moved on with coat tails flapping behind him.

  She pressed the accelerator and continued along the river until she saw taillights on the side of the street. Douglas’s pickup was idling opposite a block of dilapidated row houses. Exhaust rose in the falling temperatures. She pulled in behind him and pressed her elbow against her side, feeling the cold hard bulge. She hadn’t drawn or even looked at it since that day at the range, but there it was snug in its holster. Every instinct told her this was wrong. That she should drive away now.

  She turned off the ignition and opened her door.

  The wind picked up and waves of raindrops smacked the windshield. She ran to the passenger side of the pickup and the door opened an inch. She pulled it the rest of the way and slid onto the seat.

  Douglas grinned. “Well now, Missy. I’m so happy you came.”

  “What happened?” Judy asked.

  “Bit of a story.” Douglas put the truck in gear. “I’ll just tell you along the way.”

  “Way where?” She put a stiff hand on the dash.

  “Way to arrest the man who stole your cocaine,” he said.

  “What about backup?”

  “Hell, us country cops don’t need no backup. If I was to start calling for backup every time I went out to arrest someone they’d find themselves a new chief of police.” He shook his head. “No, ma’am, we already got this one outnumbered. Now I like to make my arrests early morning when people are still asleep. You going with me or not?”

  Judy nodded, feeling a growing nervousness
in the pit of her stomach. The truck lurched out onto the street and headed back toward the church at the foot of the hill. They climbed Mountain Road past a dozen police and rescue vehicles lining the field around Cemetery Hill.

  Was it Marty that was bothering her and making her nervous or was it going off into the unknown with Chief Douglas? She looked back toward Cemetery Hill wishing she had left a voice message. At least Marty would have known where she was going. But she would find him when she came back and they would say their goodbyes again. This time she would tell him to call her. This time she would get the words right.

  “We’ll be back by noon,” Douglas said, as if reading her thoughts. “Then you can call Washington and tell them how good you did.”

  Judy stared out the window, thinking about Jack Halligan and then strangely enough about the pistol range. It all seemed like such a long time ago now.

  Douglas told her about the midget and the man with the missing thumb. He told her about how he woke old Preacher Holland and learned there was a Ledder boy who unmistakably matched Tiny’s brief description of him. And how odd that only hours before, this same Ledder man had made a rare appearance in his church.

  The rain came hard and steady as they climbed the mountain road. Halfway to Kettle Hollow they felt the full impact of the storm. Douglas had to slow to a crawl and leaned forward over the steering wheel to wipe the condensation from the windshield, searching the side of the road until they came to a break in the trees and the ruts that had once been a lane. He turned sharply and the rain came even harder; visibility had fallen from yards to mere feet.

  Douglas held onto the steering wheel, tires spinning wildly, back end swiveling like the road had been paved with smooth ice.

  Tree limbs shook and branches rained upon them. Leaves tore away, pasting themselves across the windshield.

  They climbed a harsh grade that scraped the undercarriage of the vehicle and the rain kept coming harder until the sound was like a million ten penny nails falling on the roof.

  Douglas kept climbing the hill, steering wheel tight in his hands, letting the tires follow the course of the ruts in the road. It took them around a bend, and the trees to their left fell away until there was nothing below them but a dark void. There was no turning back now; the road was too narrow, the grade too steep to turn around. The mud got deeper as they continued, tires slinging away what little traction was under them.

  “Maybe we should stop,” Judy yelled over the din of the rain. “We can wait out the storm.”

  Douglas shook his head, but she could tell he was nervous, constantly checking his side window for the edge of the road.

  “It’ll level off soon,” he said. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

  But as he spoke the truck slipped sideways. He put his foot down, tires spinning frantically. He was afraid to give up another inch. But instead of pulling them forward, the tires were digging a hole and the truck began to slide backward until the tailgate went over the embankment. They hung there on the edge of space, as the hillside on their right began washing away.

  Thunder boomed. Judy could smell the engine overheating. The truck inched backward over the edge.

  “Get out!” Douglas yelled and he held the accelerator to the floor. She pulled the latch, but the truck lurched sideways and she screamed as her door slammed closed and they slipped further back over the edge.

  She remembered the expression on her mother’s face the afternoon she was told her father wasn’t coming home. She remembered her daughter’s tiny body lying cold in the crib. She remembered Marty’s face on the dock at his pond, thinking that good things never seemed to come to good ends.

  The truck slammed into something hard and the passenger window exploded. Her body was wrenched sideways, suspended in air by her shoulder harness. Her left arm dangled over Douglas’s bleeding face.

  The truck was lying on its side with Douglas on the bottom. She could hear the engine running and the windshield wipers beating. Beyond the windshield there were two shafts of light cutting through the haze as it continued to rain.

  Judy looked down at Douglas and wondered what to do next. She saw the rise and fall of his chest. He was still alive. His cowboy hat was on the floor. Chunks of safety glass covered his scalp and hair.

  She tried to reach for the release on her seatbelt, but it was twisted under her side.

  “Chief,” she yelled. “Chief, are you okay?”

  Her face was nearly touching his shoulder, her legs bent, the toes of her shoes against the dash. She smelled fuel.

  “Chief,” she coaxed, trying to reach the key in the ignition, but her hand was still a foot away.

  “Chief!”

  She looked around, saw the glove box and managed to push the button with the toe of her shoe. The door fell open. There was a first aid kit inside. She got her foot on the side of it and maneuvered it out to her fingertips, then she pulled it into her chest and fumbled to get it open. As the contents fell she managed to catch hold of a pair of scissors and began the laborious task of sawing through the seat belt.

  Ten minutes passed before Douglas finally stirred. As the last threads of the seatbelt broke free she plunged into him, reached for the keys in the dash and shut off the ignition.

  Douglas moaned. Judy’s chin was jabbing into the side of his neck. He shook his head.

  “Douglas!” she yelled in his ear. “I need to put my weight on you to reach the door. Can you hear me?”

  He nodded.

  Judy put a foot on his leg and another on the steering column and pushed until her hand could reach the passenger side window. “Okay, push my feet.”

  Douglas managed to brace her feet as she put her head and shoulders through the window. She pulled herself over the side and fell vertically to the ground. She rolled on her side and looked up. She was facing the hot exhaust on the underside of the truck. The hood and the bed had been caught in the arms of two immense trees.

  Now she had a new dilemma. Douglas was too big to get through the window.

  She climbed back up and looked down at him. “I’m going to need to open the door for you. If you can unlatch it and move it a few inches, I’ll find something to pry it open the rest of the way.”

  Douglas nodded, got a foot against his door and worked his way out from beneath the wheel. He reached for the door latch and prepared to push it straight up in the air. “Are you ready?”

  “Just a minute,” she yelled, searching the hillside for a sturdy limb that she could handle. After a minute she found one broken by the truck’s fall. “Okay, open it, Douglas.”

  He pushed, using the back of his neck and shoulder. The door went up by inches, but he had also expended the advantage of his height. Still, Judy had been able to cram an end of the limb between the door and the frame. “Okay,” she said. “Again.”

  This time Douglas put a boot on the steering column and his shoulders raised the door another few inches, far enough for Judy to get the limb into the floorboard.

  “You ready?” she said.

  “Yeah,” he yelled.

  Judy put her weight against the limb and Douglas shoved the door with his boots on the steering column, and when his shoulders opened it far enough, he grabbed the edge of the seat frame and pulled himself up until at last he fell to the ground. “There’s a flashlight under the seat,” he yelled, grabbing the limb and holding the door open. Judy crawled back inside and found it under the gas pedal.

  “Christ,” he yelled and she could hear the limb begin to snap, but by then she was moving and quickly backed out the door. Douglas left the limb wedged in the door and rolled away from the truck next to Judy. They crouched there on the muddy hillside for a minute, struck by how close they had come to plummeting off the side of the mountain.

  “You can climb the hill?” Judy pulled her wet hair behind her ears.

  Douglas nodded.

  They climbed the hillside together, both grabbing anything that wouldn’t tear away in th
eir hands. Minutes later they reached the top and below them was only darkness broken by two shafts of headlights fading into space.

  “This way,” Douglas yelled and she followed him, mud sucking shoes as they rounded a curve in the road. And there the rutted path ended in a clearing with a cabin.

  “I’ll take the front,” he said, pointing. “You cover the window.”

  Judy nodded, then ran through the puddles to one side.

  There was a thump as Douglas’s boots landed on the porch and his fist began to pound the door.

  Seconds later it swung open and a tall, scrawny young man in long underwear squinted out. Douglas pushed the door and shoved the man roughly against the wall. “I’m in,” he yelled, but Judy was already on the porch and crossing the threshold behind him.

  She opened a window shutter and played the beam of her flashlight across the cabin floor, checked the four corners and a homemade ladder to a loft. She saw cardboard boxes labeled Chiquita Bananas along one wall, each filled with jelly jars of clear liquid. She put her light on the man’s terrified face.

  “Put your hands in front of you,” Douglas ordered, backing up to the mattress on the floor. He used the muddy toe of his boot to drag off blankets.

  “You live alone?” Judy asked.

  “Just me.” The man nodded vigorously. One of his front teeth was missing, others protruding at odd angles from the gums.

  “What’s your name?” Judy turned the light toward the loft.

  “Clem.” He was craning his head, studying the scratches on her cheek. “You had an accident?” he asked. His eyes moved between them. Judy looked down at her clothes covered in mud and felt a welt rising above her eye.

  “I’ll check the loft,” she said, turning to grab the ladder.

  “Last name?” Douglas barked.

  “Ledder,” the man said quickly.

  “You got any brothers?” Douglas asked. “Man with no thumb?”

  “Rolfe,” the man said, looking at the policeman, then at the open door. “He doesn’t live here or nothing. He just visits now and then. Sometimes sleeps under the porch.” He nodded toward the door.