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I allowed Sheriff Ridley to take a seat on the old sofa while I grabbed a chair, a TV tray, and a spit cup from the kitchen.
I set up the TV tray and cup for Ridley, positioned the chair to face him, and sat down.
“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry. Can I get ya anything to drink, Sheriff?”
“Nah, thank ya.”
Again, more silence ensued.
What was up with the people here?
If this was California or New York, we would’ve covered the pleasantries, the weather, and the goddamn issue right now, with still time enough to talk sports.
“So,” I interjected the silence. “Who died?”
Ridley spit into the cup.
I should’ve gotten a non-see-through glass. Now I’d have to look at this ever-mounting accumulation of tobacco spit throughout the rest of this conversation that appeared was going to take a lifetime.
“Victim was Mary Luden; formally Mary Dryers. Remember her?” he questioned.
Mary, Mary, Mary, I thought.
It’s amazing what years away and marijuana will do to someone’s memory.
Then her face began to form in my brain.
Brunette. Hot. Never aged, at least not from when I hit puberty to before skipping town a few years later.
I smiled for a second at the thought, remembering the lack of lines on her face and the shape of her curvy figure. But then I remembered that Ridley just told me she was dead. The smile left as quick as it came.
“Yeah, I do,” I answered. “Mary Dryers. Oh my God, that’s awful. What did she die from?”
Ridley didn’t answer with words. He answered with digging into his uniform’s pocket and slapping a bunch of pictures onto the TV tray before filling the cup with another ounce of spit.
I reached over and grabbed three of the pictures.
They looked like the covers of some of my horror books from back in the day.
There was blood and ripped flesh everywhere.
I couldn’t even make out which body part was what.
The last picture I held in my hand was a close up of what used to be poor Mary Luden’s beautiful face. All that was left was one eyeball hanging from its socket while some brains (but not all) were scattered across the pillow above her.
“Jesus Christ!” I said aloud.
“Nope, wasn’t him,” Ridley said calmly.
I coughed a bit. I looked at the cup of spit and again coughed even more. I began choking on my own spit. I almost retched. Thankfully I held onto my lunch.
“Dude, what the...” Dammit, I knew I was going to say it!
“I’m sorry,” I rebutted the “dude”. Ridley just sat there, as stone-faced as he’d been since I opened the door for him. “Sheriff... what... why are you showing me these?”
Ridley inhaled a deep breath before exhaling and spitting again.
“Because,” he said before pausing... again. “You might be able to help me.”
Wait a minute. Did he think I have something to do with this?
“Sheriff, I was home that night. I mean, I don’t know what day or night this took place, but I know I was home because I never leave. You know that.” I was stumbling over my words. Oh my God, I sound guilty. Shut up, Philip!
“I know you didn’t do it, Mr. Solomon,” Ridley reassured.
A huge weight came off my chest that, even though had only been there for two seconds, had felt like it had been there forever.
It was my turn to exhale.
Whew!
“Well, Sheriff Ridley. I’m sorry, I don’t know how much help I can be. Like I said, I never left my house. I didn’t hear or see anything if that’s what you’re asking. I haven’t talked to anybody since I moved back except Bailey the grocery guy and Louise at the post office, all food and mail related topics. I don’t even know where Mary lives... lived.”
Ridley spit out what looked to be the remaining chew into the cup.
Finally!
“I know that, Mr. Solomon,” he said with a mouth no longer full of tobacco, although his voice still sounded exactly the same. “I came here for a different kind of help.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. You see, as you can tell from these pictures, it would take a very capable man a long time to cause this kind of severe damage to the human body.”
“You could say that,” I replied.
“Based on what you see, do you think another person did this?”
I looked at the pictures again, not wanting to.
“No,” I answered. “Honestly, it looks like an animal attack. A very extreme one.”
“I agree,” Ridley said. “That’s what the forensic analysts from Jefferson City concurred. They even found some traces of animal hair on Mrs. Luden’s body.”
“Okay, so it was an animal.”
“Now hold on there, sonny. It gets stranger. The lab technicians analyzed the hair to see what kind of animal it was. There were two problems with their test results. Wanna hear ‘em?”
“Yes,” I responded simply. I was intrigued at where this conversation was going, and how in the hell I could help with this case.
“Problem numero uno: the hair came back as nothing that has ever been categorized before.”
“What the hell? Really? It wasn’t a bear or anything?”
“No, sir. Now I don’t know nothing ‘bout what makes a bear hair a bear hair, or the difference of hairs between a rabbit and a muskrat, but alls I knows is that the lab techs were baffled. They couldn’t determine what kind of hair to what kind of animal it belonged to.”
“How weird,” I commented.
“Here’s where it gets weirder. Problem numero dos: before the tech could analyze it some more, the hair evaporated into thin air. There are no longer any hair samples.”
My face changed expressions from one of curiosity to being completely confused.
“Wait, what? The hair went missing?”
“No, Mr. Solomon. They no longer exist.”
“How so?”
“They disappeared right in front of the technician’s eyes.”
“That’s... not possible.”
“I agree.”
I hunched back into my uncomfortable wooden chair, looking at the pictures while Ridley continued to keep his eyes on me.
“That’s not possible” I repeated.
“Again, I agree,” Ridley said. “The tech was trying to test the hair samples some more, and while holding it under a microscope, they just vanished. Poof! Gone.”
I let out a “Whoa” before saying, “That’s just crazy. I don’t believe it.”
“By the way, I should have said this before discussing this subject with you. These specifics for this open case have not been given to the papers. Alls anybody knows is that Mary was killed and Tom is missing.”
“Tom?”
“Her husband, Tom Luden. Remember him?”
“Can’t say that I do at the moment.”
“He was one of the high school teachers at Hell High School.”
“I went to Pierpont Christian.”
“That’s far.”
“Well, that’s what my parents wanted. You remember how... ‘religious’ they were.”
“Yes, I do. And I may not have said it at their funeral, but I’m sorry for your loss. They were good people.”
I didn’t correct Ridley’s assessment.
“I’m sure I’ve seen Tom around here and there growing up. His face is just not striking any bells at the moment.”
Ridley produced another photograph. I was relieved to see that it wasn’t another bloody and disgusting mess of a dismembered half-eaten person. It was a standard picture: a white man in his early fifties standing on a boat with a cigarette in one hand and a large bass in the other. He looked vaguely familiar.
“Okay, I kind of remember seeing him around back in the day.”
“Yep, that’s Tom. He went missing the same night as Mary’s passing. Obviously there’s a connection.”
“Do you think he had something to do with Mary’s... injuries?”
“Frankly, no,” Ridley replied. “I’ve known Tom for a long time. He loved his wife. Even when he found out that Mary couldn’t have children, he stayed with her. I knew him before he met Mary. I knew his only goal in life was to have tons of young’ns running around with his DNA. But he loved Mary. He was... I’m sorry, is a good Christian man. He was one of the few that always had my back after I married Janice.”
I had all but forgotten about the “talk of the town” over twenty years ago. In this deep part of the south, it was quite unheard of to have a black sheriff presiding over a town of mostly whites. It was considered even more taboo to have a black man of any status to marry a white woman. I wondered if those same people that egged their house and tormented them at restaurants still felt the way they did before. Yet another thing I miss about California. Of course there were race issues there too, but you would definitely find more tolerant and accepting sympathizers than instigators. I had to remember where I lived now.
“That poor man. And poor Mary too,” Ridley continued. “I knew she wanted kids badly as well. But you know, that’s how it all goes, ain’t it?”
“I guess so, Sheriff.”
“In short: No, I don’t think Tom did this to Mary. For one, he loved her to death. For two, I don’t know of any human who could cause these kinds of macabre cuts on a person. For three, the disappearing unidentified hairs show that it must have been some kind of animal. For four, Mary placed a call to dispatch stating that there was an intruder in the house, not Tom attacking her. And lastly, there was Tom’s blood found on both the top of the stairs and at the bottom. He must’ve been bleeding and then thrown down the stairs to the first floor. We had the lab results come back, and it was confirmed that it was his blood. So wherever he is, if he’s alive, we believe that he was kidnapped.”
I began to feel exhausted after listening to all the details Ridley was giving me. But the question in the back of mind continued to gnaw at me, so I had to ask it.
“So what do you want from me, Sheriff Ridley?”
He placed his hand into his jacket and pulled out his dip can. Oh no. Not again. Ulgch!
He grabbed some chew and put some into the corner of the inside of his mouth.
“Honestly, Mr. Solomon?” he spoke. “I need your help. I’m stumped. I’m short-staffed. It’s just me and my deputy, Lindsay Rose. The case isn’t being handled by anyone higher up than me right now. The state police don’t want to have anything to do with it because they despise our ‘hick town’. And to be honest, I like it that way. I don’t want any more police outside of Langston County getting the details of this case in their hands and taking over. People already have a negative idea of what small town Southern folks are like. Granted, some of those assumptions are accurate. Like racism, for instance. However, despite the issues I have with living in these parts, I happen to love this county and all its inhabitants, even if not all of ‘em love me back. I don’t wanna make this town known for unexplainable and horrific murders and kidnappings. Social media these days does a really good job of simplifying complex matters. I wanna solve this case ASAP, internally. But I can’t do that without help.”
He looked at me as if he was expecting me to say something. I didn’t.
He went on. “I’m coming to you because of your profession.”
“My profession?” I questioned. “I’m a horror novelist, and apparently not a good one anymore.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “This case has some very unexplainable elements to it. For instance: the hair. How in God’s green earth did those hairs just disappear? What animal did those hairs belong to? And where the hell is Tom? I’ve read some of your books, Mr. Solomon. Quite disturbing, a few of them. In one of them, you had the main character ripped to shreds by a sea monster halfway into the book.”
“Ah yes. The Island was the title. One of my earlier ones that actually did well back in my golden years.”
“Yes, that one. Very entertaining I must say. I’m not one to read that genre, but something about your writing style was intriguing. You killed off the main character halfway through the book. I didn’t know that was even allowed.”
“Well, there’s no rulebook that says you can’t,” I said.
“I guess you’re right on that point,” Ridley commented before producing his first spit of his new chew into the cup. This time I wasn’t so grossed out by it. I guess I’m adapting, slowly but surely.
“Anyways, that book was very creative. The killer beast was basically a native version of the Loch Ness monster, is that right?”
“Yeah, that’s essentially what I was going for. It wasn’t the Loch Ness monster per se, but a play on the legend.”
“A good story, no doubt.”
This lifted my spirits a bit, even though the main topic at hand was unsettling to say the least. It had been a few years since I received any good criticism for my books. I would sometimes go back to reading reviews from the successful books and reread them over and over just to attempt to ignore the recent poor reviews left for my newest works. It never really helped.
Ridley spit again before saying, “And that’s why I need you. Now I know you don’t know much about actual police protocols and what-have-you, but you’re damn creative, and you know about paranormal experiences. I know this house is haunted, Mr. Solomon. I can’t imagine what you endured growing up in here. But you have childhood experiences I could never even think of, and you have a mind that is expansive enough to think of ghosts, goblins, and monsters. Essentially, you know more about the nature of this unexplainable tragedy more than I do.”
I coughed.
“I mean, I would love to help you, Sheriff, but I just... I don’t know. I’m trying to write another novel and like you said, I don’t even know how to investigate like real detectives do. I mean, what would I do?”
“I honestly don’t know at the moment, but I would like to know that I could consult with you in the near future. Would you please consider it?”
Before I could begin to think about Ridley’s offer, he continued with one last pitch: “And just so you know: The townsfolk here aren’t too fond of your return. They feel like you left because you were too good for us. Now you’re back. Unsuccessful. Forced to move back to your childhood home because you couldn’t hack it on your own in California, New York, and wherever else you city folk like to live. If you help me, and you keep the details of this case on the down low, I’ll make sure to let everyone in Hell know that you were instrumental in solving this case. Heck, if we can find and bring back Tom alive and hopefully in one piece, you’ll be the hero across all Langston County. Things might start picking up for ya. Maybe you’ll get a piece of that Southern charm that folks ‘round here have stopped giving ya. Maybe they’ll help ya out with getting more books sold somehow. I don’t know. Alls I knows is: when you help the town, the town helps ya back. I’ve noticed that sentiment over my tenure here as Sheriff. I was like you once. I hated this town. Couldn’t wait to leave. After how they treated me when I became a cop, then the sheriff, then after marrying my Janice... I was ready to pack my bags. But you know what? After I saved a few folks, treated ‘em like a friend instead of a criminal, gave folks some slack where other policeman would’ve thrown the cuffs on ‘em in a heartbeat, and so on and so forth... I soon saw people finally showing me respect. You show others you’re a good person, even when they’re not being one themselves, and sooner or later it’ll be repaid back to you. Just think on that, Mr. Solomon.”
I said nothing in response.
He spit another large amount of dark liquid into the cup.
“I’ll see myself out. If you decide you wanna help, go ahead and call my cell.”
He pulled out a card that had his name, badge number, cell phone number, and even his home address (welcome to the small town community), and placed it on the table next to the cup.
Ridley stood up and I followed suit.
He raised his hand, “Have a good rest of your day, Mr. Solomon.”
I grasped his hand and shook it.
“You too, Sheriff.”
As his boots began stomping towards the door, I said to him, “Hey, Sheriff?”
He turned around.
“If I accept, you gotta do me one favor.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“Call me Philip.”
Ridley gave one nod, turned around, and exited the front door.