Page 11 of Midnight Ride

“Nice to meet all of you county law enforcement people. I might need to call on you from time to time if any of my hunting infractions are actual crimes. Heard that happens quite a bit during hunting season.”

“Yeah, it does,” said Travis. “Let me tell you what we’re looking for at the campsites, Linda.”

Travis couldn’t tell her the details of the investigation—not that we had many—but he told her about the large number of men we were searching for and that two of them would be twin brothers, a bit younger than the other men in the party.

Molly gave her a list of the names of the hunters in the group and if Linda found even one of them, we wanted to be notified. Everyone in that hunting party was a person of interest and a possible murderer.

“Twins,” said Linda. “I’ll keep my eye out for them.”

“The area you cover will be different than just Harrison County,” said Billy. “We have no way of knowing how far thehunters have gone since they left the murder camp, but I need every one of them in here to answer some hard questions.”

“Yes, sir, Sheriff Johnson. Murder in a hunt camp is serious business.” Linda helped herself to another donut. “Nice meeting all of you. Looking forward to working with you, Sheriff Frost, and your entire crew. Call on me anytime when you need a hand. We’re all on the same side.”

Linda left to get on with her patrol and Molly asked about the two new guys in the lockup.

“A couple of drunks fighting last night at the Run,” said Travis. “The bouncers tossed them, and instead of going home, those guys wouldn’t let it go. Kept it up in the parking lot. I didn’t want them, but they insisted on spending the night with us.”

Molly giggled. “Are you laying charges?”

Travis glanced at Billy and shrugged.

Billy shook his head. “No weapons. Let them go with a warning.” To me: “Harlan, give them a phone call and somebody can come pick them up.”

“Copy that,” I said.

“Good enough,” said Travis. “Let’s get the drunks picked up and out of here before we leave. I don’t want Molly letting them out of the run on her own.”

When I brought the first one out to the squad room, I gave his ID to Molly, and she recorded his name and address, so he’d be on record aspicked up and released.

Molly had a file for those names.

“I’ll go get the other one,” said Virge.

After they’d arranged for a ride, Travis sat them down at the empty deputy stations and gave them a little talking to.

“Consider this your lucky day, fellas. I’m not charging you boys, but I think y’all are smart enough not to show up here again while y’all are on your vacay in my county.”

“We won’t be back, Sheriff. Too much beer. That’s all it was.”

“That’s what I figured. Happens to the best of us.” Dad winked at me and Virge.

As soon as those boys were picked up by another one of the guys in their camp, we went out again to continue searching. There were so many places to look, it would take us days.

I kind of hoped Linda Tucker would find the fuckers for us. Save a lot of time and a lot of our gas.

Black Eagle Pass.

The first camp me and Billy found this morning, the early-bird hunters were still snoring in their sleeping bags. Billy pulled up one of the tent flaps and gave a shout out.

“Hey, are you guys here to hunt or to sleep?”

One guy rolled out of his tent, staggered around a bit, then he pissed in the long grass out behind the tents and lit up a smoke.

“Jeeze, you look rough,” said Billy. “You guys have a tough night?”

He grinned. “Sure did. We discovered Krystal’s Palace, and we were there for the duration.”

“Y’all were in Ethridge, then,” said Billy. “Making memories hard to forget.”

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