The Runaway by Terry Kay

Author:Terry Kay [Kay, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical
Publisher: Untreed Reads Publishing
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

The call on his two-way radio came from Fletcher at nine-twenty, just as Frank was crossing the bridge on Sweetwater Creek.

“We found one.” Fletcher’s voice crackled in static.

“The whole body?” Frank asked.

“Looks like it. They just started uncovering it,” Fletcher answered.

“I’m almost there,” Frank replied.

“Want them to keep digging?” Fletcher asked.

“It’s what they’re there for,” Frank said.

“Ten-four,” Fletcher said.

“Yeah. Ten-four,” Frank mumbled. He slipped the hand-held microphone back onto the V-neck of its holder. He disliked using the two-way radio. Especially talking to Fletcher. Fletcher changed his voice on the two-way, pitched it higher, dragged out the words until, mixed with static, they sounded like fingernails raked over a chalkboard.

At least he had guessed right, Frank thought. A second body had been buried under the sawdust and shavings piles of Jed Carnes’ mill. They would find the third one before the day was over. He was sure of it. And then there would be the haggling over which bones belonged to which name and, after that, two more woeful funerals. He wondered if the families of Blue Conley and Compton Mays would dress their skeletons in new blue suits for the burials.

He reached the turnoff of the logging road leading to the sawdust piles and slowed his car to a stop. Evelyn Carnes was a half mile up the road, waiting, tea cooling in her refrigerator. Maybe he should drive on to her house, tell her that a body had been found, spend a few minutes calming her. He wondered if she was wearing the yellow dress. No, he thought. I can’t go there now. Not now. He had work to do. Evelyn Carnes could wait. Later, the tea would taste better, the sight of the yellow dress, or green dress, or blue dress, or whatever dress she had chosen to drape over her body, would be even more pleasing.

* * *

By ten-thirty, the skeleton, buried deep, its leg bones up near the chest cavity, had been removed from its sawdust grave.

“Looks like he was dumped in facedown,” Frank judged.

“Look at the size of them bones,” Fletcher said. “He must have been a big sonbitch.”

“Blue Conley,” Frank said.

“How you know that?” Fletcher asked.

“He was buried a lot deeper than Rody, which means he must have been put in earlier. And from what I hear, he was a big man.”

“You right about that,” Fletcher replied. “I remember him. Built like a bull.”

“You remember where he was killed?” Frank asked.

“Best I can remember, it was out in his barn. He lived pretty close to here, unless I’m turned around,” Fletcher said.

“Didn’t have to take him far, then,” Frank said. “I’d guess the way they did it was to dig a hole just big enough to hold him, right where they were piling the shavings and sawdust, and then they dumped him in it and covered him up enough to keep him hid. When the mill was cranked up the next day, it didn’t take long to finish the job.” He looked at Fletcher.

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