Mean Streak

“Will, the younger, is particularly ornery,” Knight said. “Dropped out in tenth grade, and nobody in the school system was sad to see him go. Always in trouble. Noted bully. Ne’er-do-well. He has a couple of B and Es to his credit. Vandalism. Shoplifting.

“Last summer, he harassed a young woman at a baseball game, got rough with her in the parking lot, but she got cold feet about pressing charges, so he was released. Here’s his mug shot. Look familiar?”

He withdrew a rap sheet with Will Floyd’s photo. In it he looked like the belligerent, depraved individual he was.

“And this is his big brother, Norman, who has a similar rap sheet.”

Knight passed it to her. “Take a good look at them. But before you say anything, you should know that we already sent a deputy up there to question these boys.”

Her burble of elation was replaced by dread. It seeped through her like a paralyzing poison.

“What we heard back from the deputy? He was informed by their mother that her sons are presently sharing a room in the county hospital. The deputy went to see them there. Will is real bad off. He has a…mandi…mandubur—”

“Mandibular fracture,” she said quietly.

The detective nodded. “That’s it. His jaw’s wired shut with rods sticking out his face. The deputy described the apparatus as looking like something out of a torture chamber.

“Norman’s face looked like ‘a hunk of pork gone bad that had been run through a sausage grinder anyway.’ That’s a quote. Plus he’s got four broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and a kidney that has turned his urine red. The deputy took his word for that.”

Grange picked up the thread. “But when he wasn’t wheezing in pain, Norman could talk, and before his brother wrote down on a piece of paper for him to shut the eff up, he alleged it was their neighbor who inflicted the injuries.

“He claimed they’d never had any trouble with him until night before last, when he and a lady doctor, a Dr. Smith, intruded on what should have been a private family matter and made a house call to treat their ailing sister, Lisa.”

After a time, when she still didn’t speak, Knight said. “Emory? This guy who lives down the road a piece from the Floyds, we’re bettin’ he’s the man in the video. Correct?”

Both settled gazes on her, but it was Knight whom she addressed. “Was Lisa there?”

“At the house? No,” Knight replied. “Mrs. Pauline Floyd told the deputy that somebody came early this morning, before daylight, and took her.”

“Took her?”

“Yes, but she wouldn’t say who.”

“Don’t forget about the dog,” Grange said.

“Oh, yeah,” Knight said. “He also drove off with the family pet.”

At the tender memory the dog evoked, she smiled.

Grange said, “That’s funny?”

“No.” Feeling weary, she pushed back a strand of hair. “I assure you that the situation in the Floyd household was no laughing matter.”

Grange pounced on that. “So you were there? You were Dr. Smith?”

Declining to answer that, she asked, “Was Pauline all right?”

Grange held her gaze, as though considering how much to tell her. “Depends on your viewpoint. She was fine. But she frustrated the deputy by claiming not to know the individual who thrashed the living daylights out of her sons, although according to them she witnessed the altercation.

“The deputy described her as uncooperative because she flatly refused to answer his questions about the unnamed someone who carted off her daughter, saying only that he was a ‘right decent sort.’”

He’d won Pauline’s loyalty by treating her with respect and dignity, probably one of the few people in her whole life who had.

Knight was saying, “Those boys told the deputy

that relatives in town had been persuaded by Pauline to take Lisa back. Whatever that means. We got the name of Mrs. Floyd’s sister and called. She confirmed that the girl and dog were dropped off at her place around dawn by a man driving a pickup truck. He didn’t stick around. Left his passengers at the curb and drove away. Exactly the way it was with you yesterday.”

She didn’t address his last statement. She was thinking about Lisa’s welfare. “Has anyone spoken to Lisa?”