Sheriff Ackerman liked to believe that he had the keen nose of a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out competent talent for Meadowton’s police force. The entire sheriff’s department was budgeted to pay only three full-time officers. One deputy was hand-selected by Ackerman from a list of twenty eager cadets. Howard Briggs was a confident youngster whose sheer size intimidated most, but a peanut-sized brain had kept him from acquiring a position in more reputable departments. Some believed that Ackerman chose Briggs simply because the sheriff felt intelligent when in the company of the man.
Briggs seemed especially anxious when the sheriff first appointed him. The latest disappearances represented Briggs first opportunity to apply his skills outside the academy. His initial assignment was to accompany Ackerman to Ben Murden’s house to commence an investigation. Since Briggs stood well over six foot and had the girth of at least two well-proportioned men, the sheriff brought him along as shield of protection. Unlike the sheriff, Briggs was blessed with a sinewy frame and chiseled features that gave him the look of an obsessed bodybuilder rather than a man upholding the law.
As far as Ackerman could determine, his new deputy possessed all the tangible qualities necessary for the job, but the sheriff might’ve purposely overlooked a couple of flaws. Aside from Briggs’s limited intellectual capabilities, he had one other trait that may have compromised his ability to handle the burdens of such a position. At times, and seemingly for uncertain reasons, Briggs’s would turn excessively violent and display a level of maturity that made him appear childlike. He had been known to punch walls and sling a tirade of insults at those who threatened his authority.
While growing up, Briggs familiarized himself with all of the local lore in relation to Ben Murden. He had never met the codger personally, but the deputy harbored resentment toward the old man that almost equaled Ackerman’s detest. Today, the deputy didn’t plan to squander the opportunity to confront Murden personally.
The summer’s heat was not potent enough to slow Briggs’s progress as he navigated the hill on foot leading to Murden’s shanty. The sheriff, however, became completely exhausted by the time he reached the clearing. His face was flushed and an ample amount of perspiration spilled from his cheeks and neck. Crushed mosquitoes speckled the man’s forearms and hairline. As the sheriff leaned wearily against a tree, he began to suspect that his weight had become more of a hindrance.
Briggs stood beside the sheriff impatiently, twitching his finger near the holster of his firearm. From their position in the woods they could see the old man’s residence.
“I got a wicked feeling about this dude,” Briggs told the sheriff nervously. “He makes me itchy all over.”
Still panting like a thirsty hound, Ackerman reached out and slapped Briggs’s arm. A large mosquito splattered under the weight of the sheriff’s fingers. “These damn bugs are making you itchy, Briggs,” he said. “Now I want you to stick close by my side and don’t do anything stupid. This old man may seem sick and feeble, but he’s got a crafty edge to him that makes him a whole lot more dangerous than he appears.”
“What do we gotta do to nail him once and for all?”
“We got to be smarter than him,” Ackerman sneered.
For Briggs, such an expectation presented a significant challenge. Having Ackerman as a mentor didn’t exactly increase the likelihood that he’d learn anything remotely productive in relation to police work, except perhaps that the law was designed to protect the innocent from wrongful persecution.
“This police business just doesn’t make sense to me sometimes,” Briggs declared. “I mean practically everybody in this whole town knows that Ben Murden is filthy murderer. We should just go up there and get rid of him. Who the hell would blame us for doing that? Christ, as far as I see it, we’d be heroes.”
Ackerman snickered joyfully at the younger deputy’s reckless enthusiasm, but such actions, no matter how well merited, would’ve surely corrupted the town’s reputation even more than it already was. Although it was a difficult notion to digest, Ackerman realized that Murden was as free to live in the woods as any other man. Without any evidence to support the claims against Murden, the sheriff had no legal right to disrupt the old man’s lifestyle.
After the sheriff recovered from climbing the hillside, he directed Briggs across the field toward Murden’s shack. As a precaution, both men had their guns drawn as they approached the debris-ridden property. The sheriff kept his voice pinched to a whisper when ordering the deputy in position beside the shack. By now, Briggs’s hand was visibly trembling with the weapon.
Murden didn’t typically leave his home before noon each day, but the afternoons had become too muggy and he couldn’t breathe without difficulty. He ventured out earlier on this sunny day to tend to some of nature’s pleasures. Cancer may have stripped him of his ability to perform most physical chores, but he still reserved enough strength to labor in his small rose garden from time to time. The summer roses hadn’t yet bloomed, and he doubted that he’d live long enough to see the scarlet buds unfurl. Still, the idea of creating life, or at least assisting the natural process in some way, gave the man unequaled satisfaction at this stage of his life.
Even before Murden saw the sheriff and deputy approaching, he heard their footsteps crackling in the dry grass and weeds bordering his shack. The old man did not attempt to direct his attention away from the roses as the officers approached. He simply scratched at the soil with the tip of his walking stick until Ackerman strayed close enough to warrant a response.
Ackerman cleared his throat, hoping the contrived gesture might instigate a response from the old man. It didn’t surprise the sheriff that Murden was in no hurry to greet the uninvited guests onto his property. Briggs finally moved forward into the garden and grabbed the oldster by the back of his arm. Resisting the brutish deputy would have been foolish, so Murden simply turned toward Briggs and smiled insincerely.
“Well, well,” Murden chuckled at the sheriff with a sarcasm that was as thick as the humid air. “I see you couldn’t wait to pay me another visit, Sheriff, and this time you brought along rather large company.”
“Keep your rotten mouth shut,” Briggs admonished, while yanking on the old man’s arm for emphasis. The deputy was still nervously holding his gun in one hand as he maneuvered Murden out of the garden. Once sensing that the situation was under control, Ackerman put his gun back in his holster and motioned for Briggs to do the same.
“I guess you already know why I’m here,” Ackerman told Murden. “It seems that we got a problem that just doesn’t seem to go away. And for some reason, you’re always at the center of it.”
Murden was amused by the sheriff’s presumptuous disposition. He showed his disapproval by hacking up a bloody wad of spittle and spewing it on the ground near Ackerman’s boots. “I reckon you’ve come up here searching for something that won’t be found,” he snarled.
“Don’t be so sure,” Briggs interjected. “We’ve already got at least two witnesses who can place those teenagers in your peach grove on the night they disappeared.”
Murden pivoted toward Briggs and stared closely at the young man’s features. Although he had never met the deputy before this moment, he sensed that the man possessed an impulsive instinct that was bound to eventually get him into some serious trouble.
The old man finally redirected his vision back to Ackerman before saying, “Why do you bother me with this rubbish, sheriff? You know I got nothin’ to hide up here.”
“I’ll determine that when the time is right,” Ackerman replied.
“Why don’t you and your little sidekick show a trace of common sense and get the hell off my property. After all, sheriff, we both know your limitations.”
Briggs suddenly motioned as if he was going to strike the old man, but he withheld his urge so that the sheriff could finish his questioning. Ackerman had no intention of engaging in a shouting match with Murden. Such arguments in the past had proved to be counterproductive to any
investigation. The sheriff decided that it was more logical to approach the matter with a shred of professionalism, a strategy that he had not placed into practice before this moment.
Murden, of course, was wise to the sheriff’s tactics and employed a bit of manipulation of his own. “You should’ve kept your nose out of the laws of this town,” he reminded the sheriff. “You make your daddy look smart by comparison.”
Murden new very well that Ackerman felt quite defensive about his father’s reputation, perhaps more so than his own. The sheriff’s face turned as red as a pepper before he blurted out, “My daddy served this town well, Murden. What the hell did you ever do to make anyone’s life easier? Had it not been for your doings, my daddy would’ve been remembered with more fondness.”
Murden chuckled in a mirthful tone without bothering to immediately comment on Ackerman’s words. He simply tugged a cigarette from his shirt pocket before saying, “An honest man would’ve cleared my name of any wrongdoing before passing the torch to his son, but your father was bitter enough to allow his own inadequacies to incriminate me.”
“He believed you were guilty,” Ackerman hissed. “In my mind, not much has changed in regard to that suspicion in the last thirty years, old man.”
“A man as unlawful as you claim me to be would’ve surely had a few skeletons uncovered by now. But you boys have been skulking around my property for years, digging up soil in search of remains. Despite your efforts, all I sense is frustration in your eyes as you walk away. What makes you think today will be any different?”
Neither Ackerman nor Briggs had an answer that would’ve made them appear better suited for the task at hand. They merely relied on the speculations generated by others, and that level of justice resulted in no particular accomplishment.
Before lighting his cigarette, Murden paused to observe a golden finch as it flitted between the sycamores bordering his property. His concentration seemed unusually transfixed on this bird as he watched it soar off into the azure-colored sky. Whether this was an effort on Murden’s part in order to distract the flow of discourse was not clear, but Briggs had no intention of prolonging this interrogation any longer than necessary.
“I’ve got a good mind to take my fist and stuff it down your throat, old man,” Briggs snarled. The veins in the deputy’s neck popped out of his skin like purple cords when he spoke. “I will personally ensure that you experience a lot of pain before all of this is done.”
Murden casually removed a box of matchsticks from his pocket as he stared into Briggs’s fierce eyes. Despite the angry façade, the old man detected genuine fear tracing through the younger deputy’s blood. He calmly lit a match and touched the tiny flame to the cigarette in his mouth.
The old man calmly exhaled a pocket of gray smoke into Briggs’s face and said, “Take an old-timers advice, boy, get out of this business while you’re still young and eager enough to do something worthwhile with your life.”
“And what’s wrong with what I do?” Briggs coughed, clenching his teeth in a fitful rage. “I protect people from vermin like you. One way or another, old man, I’m gonna take a personal satisfaction in bringing you down. You’ll spend your dying hours locked in a cage. I’d say that’s a fitting end for an animal such as yourself.”
Murden remained silent as he removed his straw fedora and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. He then glanced tiredly at Ackerman, who was perspiring profusely under the hot sun.
“I reckon you best find yourself some shade, Sheriff,” Murden remarked as he pivoted back toward his rose garden. “A man in your physical condition is likely to fall prey to a stroke in this kind of heat.”
“I’ll be the judge of my own health,” Ackerman specified while dabbing at the thick sweat covering his jowls. “Let’s just talk about the facts and how we’re gonna unravel this mystery once and for all.”
Such a statement sparked a touch of amusement in Murden, for he was entirely certain that neither the sheriff nor deputy possessed the aptitude to solve a word puzzle, let alone a kidnapping investigation with no definitive motive.
“I’ll permit you boys to search here for as long as you see fit,” Murden announced. “But since I am a compassionate man, I will offer you some advice that you should consider with a degree of seriousness.”
“Nothin’ you got to say is important,” Briggs said.
“Then take it for what it’s worth,” Murden interjected. “But I’m asking you to limit your investigation to the hours between sunrise and sunset. Beyond that frame of time will severely complicate your mission.”
Briggs was quick to dismiss the old man’s admonition, but Ackerman had made enough mistakes in his past to recognize that any hint—no matter how dubious the source—was better than no hint at all.
The sheriff tried not to appear too submissive when he said to Murden, “I suppose you’ve got a reason for trying to help us out?”
“We’ve had enough folks disappear in these woods to last each of us two lifetimes, Sheriff.”
Even Briggs understood the implication of Murden’s words now. A connection between darkness and the heightened danger of the woods struck him as peculiar, but not necessarily relevant to the job they sought to accomplish.
“If we’re aiming to find the truth,” Briggs noted to the sheriff, “then we can’t fuss about how or when we achieve it.”
“You’re right, Briggs,” Ackerman agreed. He then motioned to Murden and said, “What do you know that you’re not telling us, old man?”
Murden puffed intensely on his cigarette; the gnats that gathered around the man’s face soon dissipated. He didn’t immediately answer the sheriff, which resulted in another demonstration of Briggs’s fiery temper.
“Hey, old man, the sheriff asked you a freakin’ question!”
“I got ears that work,” Murden grimaced. He then coughed into his hands as if to conceal a burning sensation that suddenly consumed his lungs. “Go about your business. You’ve got all you’re gonna get from me.”
Ackerman was tempted to let Briggs have a swing or two at the old man, but nothing other than revenge would’ve been satisfied by the supervision of such a beating. Moreover, as the sheriff stood beside Murden in these seconds, he realized how pathetically decrepit the oldster had become. Did a man in such poor health even possess enough strength to overtake two teenagers? In truth, the possibility didn’t seem likely to the sheriff, even under the element of surprise.
The sheriff presumed that it was a pointless endeavor to badger Murden for answers he wouldn’t or couldn’t divulge. He tugged his deputy aside to clarify his thoughts. Murden tended blissfully to his garden as the two officers spoke.
“I need just five minutes to work him over,” Briggs pleaded. “I’ll make the bastard talk.”
“There may be more information to be found in the peach grove,” Ackerman suggested. “Maybe that’s the best spot to search.”
“He’s buried all the evidence by now, you know that, Sheriff.”
It was obvious to Ackerman that his deputy required some patience when trying to extract the truth from a potential criminal. Experience had taught the sheriff that a good liar—especially one who may have been pathological in nature—rarely confessed to any wrongdoings. It was quite possible that Murden had no conscious memory of his misdeeds. Or perhaps he even justified his actions to the degree where no guilt existed. Attempting to persuade a guiltless man into a confession was no more productive than dropping a rock off a precipice in anticipation that it would somehow float away like a feather in the wind.
Without further comment, Ackerman clamped his clammy fingers around Briggs’s forearm and directed him away from Murden’s property. Briggs’s stubborn position caused him to resist the sheriff initially, but he soon realized that his job greatly depended upon his willingness to follow orders. Once the two officers were well out of earshot from Murden, the sheriff stated his intentions more precisely.
“We’re gonna lea
ve here for now,” he told Briggs. “But we’ll be back.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“Well, Briggs,” Ackerman stated, while glancing over the deputy’s shoulder to monitor Murden’s position. “The old man mentioned that we should stay out of his peach grove after dark. The way I see it, that’s the perfect time to come back here. Whatever Murden is doing in these woods after sundown will be a whole lot more difficult to accomplish if we’re patrolling the area.”
Briggs offered a mischievous smile to the sheriff before saying, “Sounds like you got it figured right. I guess that’s why you’re the sheriff, huh?”
Ackerman chuckled confidently and gave Briggs a hardy swat on his back, imprinting his sweat-soaked fingertips on the man’s shirt in the process. “You just stick by my side, Briggs,” Ackerman advised. “It’s no secret that you’ve got a lot to learn about law enforcement, but with the proper tutoring, I’d say that you could wear my badge one day with the dignity it deserves.”
The compliment was all the confirmation Briggs needed to curtail his lividness for now. With his ego properly massaged, the deputy found it much easier to obey the sheriff’s commands. A temporary retreat to the squad car suddenly seemed like the appropriate move, but Briggs was already contemplating the night’s activities.
Murden spent the rest of the morning tilling the soil in his garden. After the officers had gone, he didn’t waste too many minutes wondering when they would return. He had lived long enough to comprehend the motivations of human beings. His time alone in the woods allowed him to cleanse the distractions that so often cluttered the minds of the less intuitive. In this instance, he knew that another nightfall would bring unwelcome visitors to his peach grove, and the consequences of such action seemed inevitable in his mind. The songs would surely be heard again this evening, he gathered, and the living would just as certainly take their rightful places among the dead.
Chapter 16