Chapter 2

By one in the morning, Rafe was far into Louisiana and needed to relieve his, nearly, overfilled bladder. Pulling into a deserted rest stop, he made a dash for the restroom, barely taking time to shut off the engine of the car.

His return to the car was a great deal more leisurely but a little unsteady since the nips he had consumed were finally hitting him. Whew, he thought, that was close. Damn, I didn't even shut and lock the car door since I was in such a hurry.

He couldn't seem to work up much concern over the warm golden glow of the alcohol sloshing around in his veins. At least he had quit shaking and was a lot more relaxed then he had been earlier.

Maybe he should give the 'Boss' a call. Maybe it wasn't as bad as he thought. Shoot, when you got to thinking about it, it was even a little bit funny. In fact, the more he thought about it the funnier it got, and he was giggling as he got into the car and reached for the ignition.

As the engine started, a black clad arm clamped around his throat pulling his upper body toward the back seat and a black gloved hand slapped a rag over his nose and mouth!

"The Colonel sends his regards," hissed a voice in his ear.

Holding onto the steering wheel to keep the person from pulling him over the seat, his foot rammed the gas pedal to the floor. The car engine screamed as he tried not to breathe, struggling to reach the gearshift but it was no use and, as his lungs convulsed, he breathed!

It was pitch black; Rafe was cold, his mouth tasted awful, his head hurt, and he was wet.

Wet! Why am I wet? He wondered. Then he realized that he was still in the car but setting in water up to his chest!

Just as he reached for the door handle, the car gave a lurch and rolled over. Suddenly he was under water entirely, confused as to up or down. The rollover had caught him by surprise and he hadn't had time to get a breath of air. He had to breathe!

Scrabbling frantically to find a pocket of air, he found only seats and floorboards. His lungs convulsed causing him to swallow water. He gagged, his lungs convulsed again, causing him to swallow even more water. He was strangling, choking, and clawing at whatever surface met his frantic fingers, all to no avail.

Watching until the car sank; the followers climbed into the gray truck and drove away. As the taillights disappeared, the frogs and other creatures resumed their age-old dirge as the black night closed back over the deep black pool of water and quicksand.

In Marshall, Pate awoke to find himself crossway of the bed and eye to scarred eye with El Tigre the boss cat, which preferred the back of the hide-a-bed.

Soft light filtering in from the street light outside illuminated the room enough for him to see that the covers, a twisted mess, had pulled completely out at the foot.

With a glance at the clock on the end table, Pate told El Tigre that, "From midnight until five a.m. was too short a night." Midnight, the time he had finally collapsed onto the bed in near exhaustion, only to awake a few short hours later when the dream, starring Anna Edwards, had climaxed, waking him.

El Tigre merely opened one yellow eye in annoyance, looking in disgust at Pate from the back of the couch, as if to say, "That sounds like a personal problem, not requiring the rousing of the entire neighborhood." Then, having handled the situation to his satisfaction, tucked his paws under his chest and promptly went back to sleep.

Pate wished he could do the same, but even if the dream hadn't seen to the end of sleep for this night, it was almost time to get up anyway. Sitting up on the edge of the bed didn't make Pate feel any less tired, switching on the bedside light caused his eyes to hurt and even though the room temperature was tolerable, the cold radiating up through the rug under his feet was numbing his toes.

Padding into the kitchen, dressed as nature intended, Pate found that the timer on the coffee pot had functioned as advertised. The aroma seemed to help pull his tired brain together and, after pouring a cup, he headed for a much-needed shower.

As steam arose in billowing clouds to fill the bathroom, Pate's mind went back to his dream. He knew that he was feeling the possibility of something special. Although he had met a great many women of every description with many more then willing, he had steered clear of intimate entanglements and never, until now, had he even dreamed, no pun intended, of finding someone the caliber of Anna Edwards.

While shaving, his mind drifted over the events of the proceeding day. When he had finally arrived at his office, he wished he'd stayed away because every busybody in town wanted to know the latest and he finally told the dispatchers to hold all but the official calls; there had been enough of those.

Pate discovered that Gabe, who was feeling a little better, was coming in to help and he had sent him out to relieve Jim, so Jim could get some rest. Another message stated that Trommer was on his way back from Little Rock so that also relieved some of his manpower shortage problems, or at least as close as they usually got to being relieved. His offices still had the usual problems to deal with in addition to this recent bit of business.

He would call the medical examiner in Harrison later this morning, to see if he could speed up the autopsy. All that was available locally was a glorified clinic, run by the Harrison Hospital with several other doctors rotating through to flesh out the staff of two resident MDs.

Tommy Daniels, elected as County Coroner reached the limits of his expertise just picking up the bodies of those that had died of natural causes.

As expected, the State Police hadn't found anything.

After dressing, Pate stripped the bed, remade it, folded it closed, which earned another dirty look from El Tigre who had, almost, decided to forgive Pate temporarily, at least until the food dish was filled.

Pate dumped everything in the washer, hit the button and it dutifully began to work. Doing the wash was not one of the top ten on his list of favorites but he didn't like to let it pile up. He'd long ago learned that he wouldn't have the time to do it later.

Opening the front door and stepping out onto the front porch with another cup of coffee in hand, Pate noticed that the paper carrier had made it through the deep snow and, for once, had found the porch which the wind had swept clear of snow. Well! There's a first time for everything, he thought.

As he picked up the paper, Pate noticed that the sky was crystal clear, the air was crisp and, though he had assumed that it had been the street light shining through his windows earlier. Instead, he saw the full moon had illuminated the still world imitating a massive spotlight.

El Tigre came out through the still open front door, with a glare in Pate's direction that plainly stated what was thought of people that left the door open, which let cold air into the house, disturbed the sleep of the Head Cat, didn't fill the food dish, and then left cold white stuff all over the toilet.

After tossing El Tigre into the middle of the "snow covered toilet," better known as the front yard, to see if that would bring about a much needed attitude adjustment, Pate reentered the house. He poured a third cup of coffee, filled El Tiger's food dish, and began trying to extract the newspaper from the multiple layers of plastic wrappers and rubber bands which encased it.

The articles didn't surprise him. Mona, the reporter for the local gossip rag, had left two dozen messages for him to call and the daily statewide paper had left a dozen. How they learned of it he hadn't a clue but before he could answer any calls, even if he had been so inclined, both reporters showed up.

He gave them what he could, which was nothing, making sure he left out any mention of the Edwards boy, stating only that a hunter's dog had found the body and all other information was confidential as part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation.

Neither, reporter had been happy that the other was there, or that so little information was forthcoming, but at least they'd gotten the story straight, even if they had misspelled his name.

Listening to his tires crunch through the snow as he drove to the diner, Pate's mind reviewed the news he had read in the rest of the paper, which to him looked the same as usual, only worse.

The people in Searcy County actually did not seem to know how blessed they were to live where they did.

The politicians on the state and national level made promises to correct the problems at home but only continued to either, try buying friends in other countries, or feathering their own nests at the expense of those, that elected them to serve.

A problem reflected to a lesser extent on the local level and one requiring correction before the nation as a whole collapsed.

Speaking of problems, his stomach informed him that it was under the impression that someone had cut his throat.

At 0600, Pate plowed to a stop in front of the Gaslight Restaurant, he hoped that Bob and Carol had made it in to open up because he might not get another chance to eat for a while.

Opening the inner door, Pate saw Bob just beginning to switch on the 1900's style fixtures, for which the restaurant was named, and could hear Carol in the kitchen getting ready for the breakfast crowd. Although, thought Pate, that crowd might be no more than a group today.

"Morning, Pate," Bob said, "I saw you plow in. There's a cup of coffee already on the counter. I didn't put it in your usual spot because I wasn't sure if it was you or Jim."

This last, said with a perfectly straight face, but Pate could see the twinkle in Bob's eyes and at a growl from Pate, Bob suddenly decided that Carol needed his assistance in the kitchen. It didn't help one bit that Carol had snickered when she heard Bob.

I've got to get them to repaint that SUV, thought Pate; it was bad enough that it wasn't American made but the fire chief jokes were wearing a bit thin.

Breakfast had, somewhat, mellowed Pate's disposition as he drove the two blocks to his office. According to the thermometer on the Bank, it was a chilly twenty-nine degrees with the sun not yet breaking over the mountains.

They had canceled school of course and the kids would be out in force later, making the most of their extra holiday. Then the kids would piss and moan because they had to make up the days later in the spring instead of going on Summer Vacation.

Parking at what should have been the curb, Pate noticed that the grounds around the old court house were an unblemished field of white at least sixteen inches deep in the shallow spots with drifts around the corners and elsewhere of at least a couple of feet. The exception was the main walk, which had been cleared and salt-sanded all the way from the street to the front doors.

Well, thought Pate, at least Clank can get to his office without undue difficulty.

The Honorable (if dishonest), Hubert Penworthy Groefeld, County Judge of ten years, had come by his nickname because of the hardware which replaced his lower left leg (a souvenir from WW II). Pate did not begrudge the man a clear shot at the door, even if he had been responsible for the Red SUV, Pate just didn't care for the man's political practices.

Wading over to the cleared section of walkway, Pate entered the old courthouse, descended a flight of stairs, and turned left, walked through an opening flanked by a massive steel door in the basement, now standing open and locked to the wall.

Inside was a steel corridor four feet deep, sized to the original opening, which terminated in a steel door with a camera mounted above and a button, hooked to a speaker mounted in the middle, which he pressed, to gain admittance.

Once identified, He opened the door when it buzzed; entering what had originally been a large vault covering half of the basement of the old Courthouse.

Formally used to store the county records, it had stored junk for years after construction of the Searcy County Court House and Office Complex adjacent to the jail, aka Searcy County Correctional Facility, which most of the folks shortened to SCCF (pronounced Scef).

Once elected Sheriff, he requested that the dispatchers transfer out of the jail into the Vault area because of the security requirements for a terminal to access the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) computers and suggested the Vault's utilization as the Incident Command Center for Disaster Response (ICCDR).

After lengthy heated debate, the Quorum Court had grudgingly approved the move. With the introduction of the 911 system, a year later it had been shown as a wise decision since the dispatchers for both systems could be combined into one unit and placed in a separate partitioned area.

The Vault was also completely self-contained with systems separate from the city for water, electric, air, and solid waste.

Pate was proud of what the people in Searcy County had accomplished, even going the extra mile and voting a sales tax increase, in order to finance the renovations.

The Vault had already shown it was worth the cost and effort when, less than a month after completion, a tornado had knocked power out over most of the county for several days, County Emergency Services had continued to operate efficiently.

When it became apparent more room at SCEF was required, Pate had requested that the Sheriff's Office Operations transfer to the remaining space in the Vault.

The usual bitching, moaning, and sometimes acrimonious debate ensued but the people of Searcy County liked the new way that things in the county were progressing.

They brought petitions signed by a huge percentage of the registered voters in Searcy County to the Quorum Court demanding approval.

The members of the Court had dithered, squirmed, and tried to drag their collective heels but in the end had to, again, grudgingly approve the move if they wanted to be re-elected.

Once moved, Pate and the deputies were able to interview suspects or witnesses free from prying eyes or ears, which had not been the case in the old offices at SCCF.

Now when someone wanted to see a member of the Searcy County Law Enforcement team, it had to be only on official business. Then only when the person they wanted to see was free to escort them from the entrance straight to an office and back, with the escort held responsible for the visitor.

There had not been many accidental or intentional leakages of information from the Sheriff's Office since the move, Pate made sure the cause of the leaks was long gone.

Waving to the dispatchers visible through the bulletproof glass of the secure area, Pate made his way to his office in the far corner. There was a message from Paul Graysky offering to cut his vacation short and a return number.

Pate called to leave a message at the resort for Paul, thanking him for the offer but telling him he should finish the two days he had left on the only Vacation and Honeymoon he and Jean had been able to take since they were married over a year ago.