Michael Koryta - Last Words

Blankenship looked him up and down without saying a word, and then he reached out and brushed Ridley’s shoulder with the palm of his hand, making a show of dusting him off. Ridley kept his hand tight around the doorknob, knowing the sheriff had touched him just to rattle him. Ridley was sensitive about personal space, something that Blankenship had learned during their interviews. Maybe the only thing he had learned.

“Been woodcutting?”

“Damn, you must be some sort of detective.”

“One of those boards bite you back?”

“What’s that?”

“Your face looks a little busted up.”

“Caving,” Ridley said. “Rough hobby.”

“Must be. I’ve seen men lose fights and come out looking better than that.”

“Those men probably should stay aboveground.”

“I’ve always figured we all should, for as long as we can. You got an idea what brings me to your door?”

“I asked Novak to town,” Ridley said, “but I didn’t put on a wig and a dress and tell him I was Sarah Martin’s mother. So you don’t need to linger. If anyone has a right to press charges, it’s me, and I’m not doing that. Storm like this, I imagine people need you on the roads, not wasting your time with me. Go help the innocent.”

“What would you be pressing charges for?”

“Like I said, I’m not.”

“But you think you could be.” Blankenship studied Ridley’s face. “Did you not get along with the fellow from Florida, Ridley?”

Ridley didn’t answer.

“Oh boy, we are already there, huh?” Blankenship said. “I ask a question, and you stare at me like you’re a mental defective, and we go round and round.”

A trace of a smile slipped onto Ridley’s face then. He controlled it, but not before Blankenship saw it and lights of anger went on in his eyes.

“Entertaining shit to you, is it, old boy? Glad to know that it pleases you. Not a lot of happy people working down in that cave right now, so I’m glad you’re pleased.”

Ridley lost the smile. “Working in what cave?”

Blankenship didn’t respond.

“What in the hell are you talking about, working in a cave?” Ridley hated the interest in his own voice, the need, but he couldn’t help it.

Blankenship was silent, watching him.

“All right, I get it,” Ridley said. “You want to play my game while you’ve got the chance. Enjoy it, Sheriff. I don’t need to let the heat out.” He started to push the door shut, but Blankenship got his foot wedged in.

“Cecil Buckner found Mark Novak’s clothes inside the entrance of Trapdoor. You don’t know anything about that, I’m sure.”

Ridley opened the door and stared Blankenship full in the eyes.

“Who let him into Trapdoor? Cecil?”

Blankenship shook his head. “Cecil didn’t so much as crack that door once he saw the clothes. He waited for a deputy.”

“Then how in the hell did Novak get inside?”

“Someone spent time and muscle working on that gate with a crowbar.” Blankenship gave him an appraising look. “You’re pretty handy, aren’t you? Good with tools, stronger than you look.”

“Nice line, Sheriff. But what you should have said was that I understand leverage. You’ve experienced that, haven’t you?”

“Go to hell,” Blankenship said. “I’ve no more interest in verbal games with you than I ever had. I want to see some cave maps. Immediately.”

“Why?”

“Because nobody can find the son of a bitch, and you’re the one who knows that cave.”

Novak was off the maps. Interesting. Trapdoor was up to something. Trapdoor had come alive again. Ridley shouldn’t have been surprised by this, but he surely needed to respect it. Trapdoor had responded to Novak. Ridley had hoped for as much, but he’d thought it would be a long process. He hadn’t anticipated that the cave would show her power so swiftly to an outsider. Still, it had been quite some time since she’d had visitors. Maybe she’d gotten lonely.

“He was just supposed to sit there and think,” Ridley said.

Blankenship’s eyes hardened. “You knew Novak was headed into the cave?”

“I’m the one who told him to go. I didn’t expect he’d make such an effort, frankly. But he seems resourceful. She’s more resourceful, though. He probably didn’t count on that.”

“She?”

Ridley ignored that and said, “You’re going to need me in there.”

“I don’t think that idea will be real popular.”

“If you think he’s actually in there, you’re going to need me.”

“To do what?”

“Find him. Let me guess, you’ve called Anmar Mirza already, haven’t you?”

“He’s on his way from Bloomington.”

“Sure he is. And he’s good. But he doesn’t know that cave like I do, and he’d be the first to admit it.”

“I don’t need Mr. Mirza’s opinion of you, Ridley. And I’m not about to grant you access to Trapdoor. What we’re going to do is talk about Mark Novak.”

“Not enough time for that.”

“No?” Blankenship tilted his head back. “Funny observation. You seem to know he’s at risk.”

“If the man’s naked and in Trapdoor, he’s at risk.”

“Naked?” Blankenship echoed in that stupid cop voice that suggested he thought he’d caught Ridley in a slip because he was some sort of master interrogator.

“You were the one who said they found his clothes, Sheriff.”

“Could have been his jacket. Could have been his belt. I don’t recall any specificity.”

“Well, was it?”

“I’d have to check my notes.”

“You’re doing the same thing you did last time. You’re asking the wrong questions of the wrong people, killing time above the surface while somebody does real killing down below.”

“Who did that killing down below?”

Ridley didn’t answer.

“Right,” Blankenship said. “That shuts your mouth pretty fast every time, doesn’t it? Well, we don’t need to worry about what happened in the past—”

“The past is the reason he’s here. It’s the reason he’s in that cave. You might not want to admit it, but your past is now your present. Any other notion is wrong. And you can’t afford to be wrong, Sheriff. Not again. You think about that. You think about what happens if you pull another body out of there.”

For an instant, Ridley thought that Blankenship might hit him. All he did, though, was say “ You pulled the body out” through clenched teeth.

“I sure did. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to if you’d gotten me down there earlier. So now I’ll make you an offer. I’ll go into that cave, but this time it’ll be different. This time, I’ll make a concession. I’ll keep you right by my side.”

Blankenship stood silently in the snow, and his silence made Ridley’s pulse race. The sheriff was considering it. He was actually considering it, which meant only one thing: he wanted to track every move Ridley made in the cave in the hope that it would tell him things about the past, because the sheriff had never gotten over the lack of answers to what had happened in Trapdoor ten years earlier. And that meant only one thing to Ridley: a chance to go back into the cave. If he played this right, he was going to get to see her again.

“Scared to go down there with me?” Ridley said. “Scared of being alone in the dark with me, Sheriff?”

“You’re a sick son of a bitch.”

“That isn’t a fresh verdict.”

“You’re not going back into Trapdoor. We saw how that turned out last time.”

“We sure as hell did. You let the girl die,” Ridley said, and Blankenship swung on him then, hit him with an open palm but a damned big open palm; it knocked him back a step and brought blood to his lips. Ridley touched his mouth with his hand, looked at the blood, and shook his head.