Black Valley by Jim Brown

Author:Jim Brown [Brown, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781543954401
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2019-01-03T22:00:00+00:00

The Sheriff’s Department had had its share of prisoners. Mostly just the drunk and disorderly, mostly overnight, and a few vagrants. And once, the Bendez brothers, who had gone on some cattle-shooting jag that ended when they turned on each other. It wasn’t often, but it was enough for there to be a routine, a ritual.

Each morning Coye Cheevers would go across the street to the IHOP and get a breakfast for their visitor. He preferred the term visitor to inmate. Visitors weren’t as scary. The breakfast was always the same: buttermilk pancakes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and orange juice. But this morning was different. This morning the visitor was a killer, a real cut-’em-to-pieces, honest-to-goodness serial killer, just like in the movies. Just like Sir Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs.” Just like that.

What does a man who slices people to pieces eat for breakfast? Fava beans?

This quandary consumed several minutes. Finally, he decided on sausage links and eggs, poached not scrambled. Blueberry pancakes – no reason, it just felt right – and both milk and orange juice. Better to be safe than sorry.

Coye was feeling pretty good about his selection when he returned to the station and bounded down the stairs leading to the holding area. But doubt was never far away. What if the visitor didn’t like eggs? What if he didn’t like pancakes? He could be allergic to blueberries. He hadn’t thought of that. And the sausage links? What if he took it the wrong way? Coye’s mouth was dry, his steps slowed by the morass of indecision. What if . . .?

“No, don’t matter,” he said aloud, to make it so. “Don’t matter at all. This is what I got him and this is what he can eat, like it or not. He’s the prisoner and I’m the police. Simple as that.”

He reached out and touched the metal doorknob. Skknapp – a thin, jagged spark of blue electricity flared from the knob to his finger. He jerked his hand away, almost dropping the tray. “Lord God!” Static electricity. He must have been dragging his feet on the thick, new carpet the sheriff had put in last summer. He tried the knob again, slower this time. It didn’t bite. He sighed with relief, opened the door, and went inside.

“Breakfast time. Now look, I got you sausage links, poached eggs, blueberry pancakes, and . . . ”

Coye dropped the tray. His knees wobbled.

Holding cell number two was empty.

“Lord God.”

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