On Emma's Bluff by Sara Elizabeth Rice, edited by davebccanada (audio ebook reader txt) 📕

In the raw morning light, Lacey surveyed the layers of dust that coated all the flat surfaces in the Sheriff's office. He had been sitting on a hard wooden chair for almost two hours. Judging from the carvings on the arms he was not the first to have spent a long spell in that chair.

The last time he had seen Harvey Johnson had been early that morning when he had been roused awake in his car. He had passed out still sitting beneath the steering wheel. Harvey had stood there studying him long and hard with a clear look of displeasure on his face. Lacey had shamefully confessed to having ‘fallen asleep on the job’. Well okay, he had a wee bit of whisky to calm his nerves. The half empty bottle in the back seat made a liar out of him.

"I know every damn move you made, God dammit," Harvey had bellowed into his face. Lacey, not knowing what was expected out of him had then proceeded to just stand there mute, staring at his own feet.

Now in the sheriff's office hours later Lacey was still confused over what was going on. Though no one had ever told him directly, in fact no one addressed him at all; he knew the sheriff had been found dead. He also knew, though he certainly didn't know why, the sheriff had been found in his own car on the road leading to Lacey's house. That just didn't make any sense. Red knew Lacey wasn't at home. Red knew Lacey was posted in town.

Maybe it was something out in the woods that had interested the sheriff. These thoughts and the overheard whispers about the state Red's body had been found in kept Lacey's stomach in tight knots. He was content to remain unattended in the office until they caught whatever was out there doing this killing.

"Mr. Caine, would you come this way?" A stoic patrolman was beckoning to him.

"Certainly." He got to his feet noting that his rear end was asleep. He was lead into what looked like a small supply room in the back of the building. Unlabeled boxes lined two walls and metal shelves stacked with notebooks and loose files covered a third wall. In one corner of the room a makeshift desk had been constructed from a door and two short filing cabinets. On this desk, assorted maps, some hand drawn, others actual aerial photos were carefully laid out under a harsh lamp.

Harvey Johnson worked over these maps. To his side stood another patrolman, a large man with a drooping moustache that did not successful cover his bad teeth. This man seemed engrossed in an area marked off on one of the maps with a yellow high lighter. Neither of the men looked up when Lacey entered. So Lacey just stood there clasping his hands behind his back for a full two minutes before anything was said to him.

"Lacey, can you point to your house from this photo?" Harvey asked looking at his awkward captive for the first time.

"I ah, might can." Lacey took a shy step toward the table.

"Here." The patrolman handed him three Xeroxed photos. The pictures were grainy and mostly treetops could be discerned from this view. In the second photo the familiar snaking of Lacey's dirt road peaked out between the trees. Judging by the loop of the road, Lacey could guess where his house was, even though he could not actually see it. The third photo showed a distinct corner of his roof.

"That's it. Right there." He pointed to the spot in the third copy. The man took the shot from him, marked the area in yellow, and placed it back in the pile on the desk.

"What are ya'll doing here?" Lacey finally managed to ask.

"Grasping at straws." Harvey answered, discouraging any further questions.

"That's it for now." Harvey turned to speak to the man beside him. "Take these back into the city for me and have them compiled into one. Make copies for everyone who needs them. And call me just as soon as you get news from Memphis."

Silently the unnamed patrolman assembled the marked maps and left the room.

"Pull up a crate." Harvey gestured to Lacey. Scrambling, Lacey drug a small box from the pile and sat.

"What do you know about all this?" Harvey rubbed his eyes and leaned across the make shift desk.

Lacey opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn't compose the words to say. He wasn't just sure what he knew about what.

"Let me make it easier on you. Go back and start with when you found Lucille May's body and go through every word you had with Red up until his death." "Yes sir."   And Lacey began his long story.

"So let me get this straight. Red told you that you would just be keeping an eye on the town while the police were on a stake out?"

"He didn't exactly call it a stake out. He was real mysterious about it and I didn't figure it was really any of my business."

"Well Lacey, if I hadn't sat up in the top of Jeb's old store and watched you all night I might call you a liar. But I know you didn't leave town after you got that whisky and further more I don't know why Red was having you watched so carefully."

"Watching me?" Lacey was bewildered.

"Fraid so. And I might as well tell you that I am going to be watching you pretty hard too. I know there wasn't no way for you to have gotten away, gone home and done this to Red. Who ever did get him must have been one hell of a big man. But you are tied into this some way. You may or may not even know how, but you are."

Lacey could only stare dumbfounded at Harvey. Not for the first time that day he wanted a drink.

Emma lie curled up on her bed. She was shaking and nothing she did seemed to stop it. She could not bare Barbara Lee being in the house below her. So far Barbara Lee had done the dishes, taken a shower, and now it sounded as though she had gone on to the back porch. Emma dreaded but sought every tale-tale creak and groan made as Barbara Lee moved about. She could no longer think coherently about her dilemma. The facts and circumstances loomed larger than life before her. Images of herself, pathetically being thrown out by her aunt and uncle, having no place to go, no one to turn to, crowded her mind. It seemed as if she had cornered the market on pain. No matter how hard she tried there were no words, no action that could make it all okay again.

In this panic state horrible memories, long buried, came flooding back to her. She saw herself back in her bed in the home she had grown up in with her parents. She slept under a window with a cool breeze, pulled in by the attic fan, blowing down on her. She remember vividly waking up in that bed late one school night. Her nose and her throat felt assaulted by the bitter air. She knew instantly it was smoke. Still sleepy, she hurried across the hall to her father's room. Her mother had been dead for over a year now, and she had become accustomed to checking on her father during the night.

This night the full impact of the smoke did not hit until she opened the bedroom door. She could see her father's large body lying sprawled across the bed. He wore only a pair of dirty khaki green work pants. His open mouth and the awkward angle of his head witnessed the fact that he had once again drank himself into a stupor before passing out. All of this she took in in an instant because the focal point of the room was the flames that lapped up from the mattress beneath him. Her father was suspended in a sea of fire. No more thoughts interfered with her mind. She made no decision of which she was aware. With that rumored adrenaline energy that makes interesting conversation, the twelve-year old drug her father from the bed and on to the floor. He never awoke.

She searched the room for a container and her eyes found a small porcelain vase that had been her mother's. It was like she was still asleep, still dreaming as she toted vase full after vase full of water from the bathroom to the bed. Finally the fire was more smoldering than raging. The thought of calling for help had never entered her mind. Perhaps it was embarrassment as well as years of training, training in keeping her father's dark drunken secret that kept her from considering that she could call for help.

The amount of time that lapsed before the fire was finally out seemed like eons. More than once she thought the mattress must surely be too soaked to support any more combustion only to be startled by yet another blue flame.   She took breaks from her task to lie beside her unconscious daddy on the floor, stroking his head and holding his lifeless hand. His heavy snoring and sputtering assured her that he was quite alive. It was sometime after sun up that she crept back to her bed. She had to go to school this day. She could never let on that anything had happened at home. The embarrassment would be too great to bare other wise.

In her bed at her aunt's and uncle's now she shook with the sobs that she had no time for then. She felt as if the event had just then happened. She finally cried herself into a deep if not restful sleep.

It was Sunday afternoon and Bill sat on the couch at Joy's not watching the football game that played on the television. Usually Joy's father and brother were there too. They would sit there together enjoying the game as if he were already an accepted part of the family. But today the two Hutchinson men were in town with most of the rest of the community up in arms over the latest murder.

Joy was in the kitchen preparing a snack for the two of them. Bill could hear her speaking to her mother. They always spoke like close friends, Mrs. Hutchinson's girlish laugh much more winsome than Joy's. He sometimes wondered actually what did Joy tell her mother about him.

"Here you go, sweetie pie." She brought in a tray with two colas, a bowl of potato chips and a bowl of popcorn, plenty of salt.

"Thanks baby." He kissed her lightly as she bent to place the tray in front of him on the coffee table. Quickly she moved to the couch where she perched beside him with her legs bent beneath her. She wove her arm through his and grabbed a handful of popcorn.

"So, how was you date?" she asked in a teasing voice. She was pleased that he had called her first thing that morning and had sounded anxious to see her. What jealousy she had felt the night before had now bloomed into victory.

"It was okay." He did not take his eyes from the T.V.

"Just okay?" she asked playfully.

"Yes," he sighed. He knew there was no avoiding this conversation.

"Did you kiss her?"

"Yes."

"On the mouth?"

"Yes."

"Did you like it?" she pouted.

"It was all right."

"Show me how you did it." She moved in front of him.

"Joy!!" he whined.

"Show me," she insisted, "Was it like this?" She gave him a quick peck of a kiss, her lips tightly puckered together.

"No." he said irritably.

"Well, was it like this?" She parted her lips and kissed him fully but still prudently on the mouth.

“I don't like this." He pushed her aside and got up from the couch.   "And I don't remember what it was like."

"I'm sorry you had such a bad time. I could have told you that you wouldn't