Switchback. Ch5

Across town

All in all, the residents of Leyton Falls were having a terrific time at their summer festival until around ten minutes to noon when six year-old Elizabeth Ferris’ body was discovered face down in the narrow brook that ran through the town. Elizabeth was found in no more than two-inches of water, and although the brook was four-feet wide and two-feet in depth, the water level was governed by the weather, which hadn’t produced rain in almost three weeks.

          It was assumed she may have been trying to retrieve her favourite doll which lay in the brook beside her small lifeless body. Although, beside her small lifeless body wasn’t entirely accurate. The doll -in the guise of a two-foot clown- was in fact found in a sitting position on the back of Elizabeth’s neck with its little plastic fingers entangled in her hair. But in the commotion of getting her from the brook, no one noticed this, no one except the school’s principal, Anne Morris, the person who found Elizabeth and the person who pushed the doll from her.

Mitch Cunningham had suffered indigestion ever since his pie-tasting duties at the festival and had just about managed to fall asleep when he was jolted awake by what sounded like a tin garbage can being kicked around inside his head. He reached out to switch his alarm clock off in a bid to quell the noise and knocked his indigestion tablets off the bedside cabinet along with his half glass of water and the ringing telephone that actually woke him in the first place.

          ‘Darn it,’ he drawled. ‘This better be a Goddamn murder or I’m gonna shoot somebody.’ He focused on the clock, wasn’t pleased to see only seventeen minutes past midnight. ‘ Hello?’ he snapped.

          ‘Don’t you shout at me, Mitch Cunningham,’ said Ruby May Debreu. ‘You pay me to sit here and do this job, remember?’ Studying for her finals in order to obtain her law degree, Ruby found working the graveyard-shift perfect, because nothing ever happens in Leyton Falls after dark. Ever.

          ‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry,’ he said, and rubbed at his breastbone. ‘Thanks to those seven slices of pie I’m havin’ a bad night right now.’

          ‘Yeah? Well believe me,’ she said. ‘If what old Missus Winkle just told me is true, your night’s about to get a whole lot worse.’

          ‘Why, she been on her home-made joo-joo, again? Been seein’ some weird alien things?’

          One of Mrs Winkle’s not-so-secret qualities was being the oldest drunk in town; she had a small still in her back yard that Mitch chose to ignore provided she kept all she made to herself and not poison the town.

          ‘I wouldn’t know, Mitch, but I think it’s best if she tells you herself.’

          ‘Yeah, okay, put her through.’

          Mitch heard a click.  

          ‘…eriff? Can you hear me, Sheriff?’

Once Ruby had the call transferred she made one of her own. It rang four times before anyone picked up.

          ‘You said to let you know about any goings-on up at the old Evans place. Well, according to Missus Winkle there’s plenty of goings-on up there right now, so I’m letting you know.’

          ‘Go on.’

          ‘There’s a lot of noise and maybe gunfire.’

          ‘And Mitch?’

          ‘Probably be on his way there real soon.’

          ‘And the degree?’

          ‘I’m about ready to submit.’

          ‘Then get it to me in the next day or two, and like I promised, I’ll guarantee you success.’

          ‘But−’ Was all she managed when the dial-tone stopped her.

Mitch sighed, his voice sullen. ‘Hello, Dorothy, what in the name of Jehovah are you doin’ up at this hour?’

          ‘Well how the heck in hell am I s’posed get any sleep around here with all that racket from across the street?’

          Mitch sat on the edge of his bed and placed his warm feet on the cool wooden floor as he held the receiver in one hand and rubbed his stubbled face with the other. ‘Go on, Dorothy,’ he said, defeated. ‘I’m listenin’.’

          ‘It’s the Ferris’; they’re makin’ a hell of a racket down here. There’s shoutin’, n’ screamin’, and if I ain’t mistook, I think I heard shootin’, too.’

          ‘Now forgive me for askin’ this, Dorothy, but are you sure about that? I mean, are you really, really, sure?’

          ‘Ya mean about the ruckus they’re makin’? Darn right I’m sure, and on a night as hot as this I had to shut my windows, but that didn’t help none. And the shootin’?’ she paused.  ‘Well, I think so.’

          ‘And are you aware of what happened yesterday afternoon? To young Elizabeth, I mean?’

          ‘Of course I am. I was there too, ya know.’

          After flexing and scrunching his toes over the polished grain underfoot, Mitch stood, sighed. ‘Okay, Dorothy, you stay in your house and I’ll be over right away. Don’t go out now; just wait for me to get there.’ He hung up.

          Mitch cursed his own choice of career as he pulled his uniform from the closet. He picked up the phone to ring his first deputy, Danny Walker.

          ‘Hello?’

          ‘Hey, Dan, it’s me.’

          ‘Mitch?’

          ‘Listen, I’ve had Missus Winkle on the phone sayin’ somethin’ ‘bout a row over at the Ferris’, reckons she can hear them clean across the street.’

          ‘The old Evans place?’

          ‘Yeah, said she heard gunfire over there, too. But she probably heard one of them Howler boys pissin’ ‘bout with that motorcycle o’ theirs. Anyways, I said we’d take a look-see, so be ready in ten.’

          ‘Sure, Mitch.’

          Mitch felt certain Mrs Winkle had this whole thing ass backwards, so decided to grab a quick black coffee and downed three of his indigestion tablets. He checked his pocket watch before he left to see it was thirty after midnight, five minutes later he pulled up outside his deputy’s house and Dan climbed in.

          ‘Is this some kind of joke, Mitch?’ he said. ‘I mean, the Ferris’? After what happened yesterday?’

          ‘A joke like that is a million and one miles away from funny, but I’d much rather deal with that than deal with the reality it might be.’