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Episode
5
Ed
Riggs groaned as he pulled himself into a sitting position. He was
sitting on cold, damp ground, but it was solid. He reached into the
water and brought a handful up, pouring it over his calf where the
sharp pain fixed his attention. The water felt good on his leg. He
touched his pants and found them torn. On his calf was an open
wound, a gash. It wasn't deep, but it hurt like the blazes.
He
looked around, but couldn't see anything near that would give him a
hand up. The trees were smooth with no low-hanging branches. The
pier was too far to reach; he had drifted, as did the body of Clara
Miller, away from the old pier. There was nothing to do but to sit
there and gather his strength. He certainly wasn't going to walk
through the swamp with one shoe and an open wound.
He
wondered if Clara was pregnant. Did that spark an argument? Frank
was easy enough to argue with. There wasn't much you could say to
him that didn't illicit a negative response. If she announced she
had become pregnant, that could have sealed her fate. Frank didn't
want kids. That's just one of the many things that Harlan had
against him, that he would never be a grandfather while Frank was
wielding the baby-maker.
Ed
lay back on the cold, hard ground. His hand fell to his side and
into the water, letting him know that he was just inches away from
the swamp.
Inches.
His life was just spared by inches. Clara had died by inches. The
fear in her eyes, the mouth frozen in a silent scream, showed that
she probably was still alive when she went under. The coroner would
probably find for murder-by-drowning rather than blunt-force-trauma,
the mark of the gun butt notwithstanding.
He
strained his ears for sounds of engines, of shouting, of someone
coming to search for him. If he wanted to, Frank could summon up to
six officers to join in the search without even trying. If he roused
the town's folk, he could get 30 or more out. But he had just sat
there, squatting on the pier, talking to him in his soft voice, the
voice that told Ed Riggs everything he needed to know.
“Sorry,”
he had said. But Frank Morton wasn't sorry. The soft voice held a
sneer that told a different story. Ed Riggs had to face facts, Frank
Morton wanted him dead and only left without further violence because
he thought that was already the case.
Out
on the dirt road, through the trees, came the sound of a car engine,
then another. Lights came through the trees and down the dirt road.
They drove up to the trailer and stopped. First one light, then
another, shown through the complete darkness. Help was on the way.
Al
Gaither pulled his car around the far end of the property to a place
where he could see the Miller trailer. He was driving without
headlights, hoping he wouldn't run into anything, or anyone. He cut
the engine a distance from the trailer. He had long since removed
the inside bulb, so no light went on when he opened the door. He
left the door open, partly so it wouldn't be heard closing and partly
to facilitate a fast getaway if needed.
The
Miller trailer was dark. It could be he was too early and the lovers
were still entwined, or that he was too late and the man had already
left. He settled in for a long night in case it was the former.
There
was a light that caught his eye, but it wasn't in the trailer, it was
off in the swamp. An oil lamp shown through the trees from the bog,
slightly moving. Someone had a light going in a small boat.
Al
stood up and moved quietly forward. As he moved around the trailer,
he noticed that the black Ford was not there. Perhaps he was too
late and the visitor was already gone. The Miller girl was probably
in her bed fast asleep, looking innocent for when her father came
home from his shift in a few hours.
Two
headlights came into view down the dirt road from the county highway,
headlights moving toward the swamp, toward him as well. It wasn't
the Ford that was usually there, the lover; it was a Chevy wagon.
Soon
another joined it, a big car, with one dim headlight.
He
went around the trailer to see who had arrived. There was still dust
settling where the cars had driven up the road. They stopped at the
trailer and doors were opened and closed. A flashlight beam broke
the darkness. In the beam a man could be seen. There was a short
exchange, then the man went to his trunk and brought out a second
flashlight.
Together,
both beams moved toward the small pier jutting out into the swamp.
Al moved closer to find out who took interest in the pier at this
late hour. He moved past the trailer, past the two cars toward the
pair of flashlight beams. He was about to call out, when he heard
the blast of a shotgun.
From
the mound where he lay, Ed Riggs looked across the patch of swamp and
the Miller yard beyond to where the two cars had stopped. Two
flashlight beams were walking toward the pier where he had fallen.
They were not that far away, he could yell to them, he thought. But
he couldn't get the strength or breath to yell. He tried, but made a
weak squeal instead.
He
had figured out who killed Clara Miller and felt a renewed sense of
purpose. He had to get back to the station, to call the coroner, to
call the chief, to find his partner – the one who left him to die.
But his body was fighting him, too weak and injured to comply. He
looked around, trying to find a way to begin his new quest, to cry
out to the searchers, to be rescued and take command of the situation
once more. Then he heard the sound of a shotgun blast too close for
comfort.
Collin
Miller sat in his boat lulled to sleep by the crystal-clear brew the
Belter boys had sold him and the gentle lapping of the water against
his flat-bottomed boat. He snored himself awake, jerking a bit and
having to recover his balance.
He
noticed that the caulking had come loose again and the boat was
slowly filling up, his boots were in an inch-and-a-half of water. He
decided it might be time to go back in. He took the shotgun from his
lap and began to lean it against the the seat so he could work the
oars.
That's
when he noticed the lights in his yard. They couldn't have spotted
his truck, which he left in the woods behind his place. They must be
coming for something, maybe his boat, which they couldn't see was
missing from the pier. Maybe it was Clara's lover, and he's brought
a friend. Maybe they were gonna have a party. He would fix 'em!
Collin
Miller raised the shotgun and aimed it at the lights just coming onto
the pier. He pulled the trigger and the gun went off, knocking him
back into the boat, into the inch-and-a-half of water.
The
sound shook Harlen Eldridge from his half-sleep. The empty glass
fell from his hand and the sound as it hit the wooden porch made him
wonder if he had really heard a shotgun report. Perhaps he just
imagined it.
No,
he was sure, it had been a shotgun. He grasped his ivory-handled
walking stick and struggled up to his feet. The sound had come from
the other side of the bog that bordered his land. There were some
shacks over there, who-knows-what-all lived in them. Some trailers
too, poor white trash or worse.
Harlen
looked at the pictures still in his left hand and looked up across
the yard to the trees that hid the swampland beyond from view. Could
it be that old man Miller had found a solution, right or wrong, and
had set it into play? Surely Gaither would have been there to record
it all on film. Surely the police would come soon and see what the
ruckus was. But what if it was something else? What else? He
didn't know, but he had to be sure.
He
opened the screen door and picked up the keys lying inside on the
side table, turned back and hobbled down the stairs to the new
Chrysler sedan sitting in front of the house at the near loop of the
circular drive. He climbed into the driver's seat, turned on the
lights and started it up. He headed toward the highway that would
lead to the dirt road leading to the place where the pictures were
taken, to where his son-in-law besmirched the family name with an
underage trailer whore.
Frank
Morton jerked awake. Did he forget to turn the television off?
There was a noise that sounded like a shot. He rolled over to look
at the clock and fell off of the couch onto the floor, hitting his
head on the coffee table in the process. He struggled up from the
floor. The television was still on, but there was a test pattern,
not a show. The western was over, as was all programing for the day.
Frank got up and switched the television off, then went to the front
door. Outside a few neighborhood dogs were barking at the sudden
noise that woke them as well as him, but all was still otherwise.
Then
Frank Morton got a flash of an idea that made his eyes go wide. Had
Miller gotten home and found some evidence of him? Had someone found
the Miller girl's body, or Ed Riggs? Had the shotgun report been at
someone mistaken for the crimes? Or at shadows in the swamp? In
either case, he knew he had to somehow insert himself into the middle
of the investigation to turn suspicion in other directions.
Frank
grabbed his coat from the door, ran down the three steps to his car
and started it up. In the side mirror he could see his wife's face
appear at the window to see where he was off to at this hour. He saw
her face diminish in the mirror as he sped down the gravel path to
the two-lane that would lead him to Thompson Bog.