Back to Wando Passo, David Payne [little red riding hood ebook .TXT] 📗

“Not that we’ve been able to tell.”

“Door locked?”

“We never lock the door.”

They all turned as Claire came in.

“This is my wife, Sergeant Thomason.”

“Evening, ma’am.”

“Are they down?” Ran asked.

Claire gave him the parental squint. “In a manner of speaking.”

Thomason gingerly poked a mangled breast with the pen from his pocket protector. “How old’s y’all’s kids?”

“Four and two.”

“Dag!” Thomason’s expression sprang into alarming animation. “I got me two grandkids that old. How old are you, Mr. Hill?”

“Forty-five,” Ran answered tersely.

“You ain’t! I’m forty-five—last June the ninth! You don’t look no older than Johnson here.”

For an instant, Ransom and Thomason faced off like alternate selves encountering each other at the shadowy intersection of the road-less-traveled-by. Shaped by processes only distantly related to what Ransom understood as life, the policeman had let himself go in a manner Ransom never could, yet Thomason seemed comfortable in his skin in ways that Ran could only speculate about. After brief consideration, neither seemed inclined to regret his chosen path.

“Can you tell us what happened here, Sergeant?” Claire asked.

“I got me a theory. Johnson?”

“Animal?”

Claire turned a vindicated stare on Ran. “Isn’t that what I said? That’s exactly what I said.”

“Um-hm. I think you may have nailed it, ma’am.” Thomason held Ransom’s doubtful stare. “Y’all got a cat?”

“No, we don’t,” said Ran. “And, frankly, I don’t see a cat…”

“I ain’t saying cat, necessarily. Coulda been a possum or raccoon. Squirrel, even.”

“A squirrel…” Ransom looked at Marcel, making no effort to conceal his mirth.

Thomason shook his head. “Wouldn’t rule it out, Mr. Hill. When it comes to demolition power, pound for pound and ounce for ounce, there’s few things can compare to a gray squirrel. Y’all know Titus Nevers down the road?”

“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.”

“Last summer, Titus took his wife to Myrtle Beach for their anniversary. Played a round of miniature golf, had a nice dinner at the Red Lobster, then turned around and drove back. When they got home, looked like Al Capone and his whole gang had shot up the place with tommy guns. Know what it was?”

“I’m going to guess a squirrel,” Ransom said.

“Yes, sir. One itty-bitty little squirrel. Come in through this gap beneath the eave, dug up all the houseplants, toppled a eight-foot Schefflera, then sat looking out the window trying to chew out through the wall. Damn near made it, too, only he bit into a hot one-ten and fried up crisp as that there chicken. Cost the insurance company thirty-seven hundred dollars and took damn near a month to put back what that dag thing done in a half workday with no overtime.”

Claire put her hand over her mouth, and Marcel made a low, deep chortle.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Thomason, “it’s right funny, in a way. But let me tell you, Titus and Francine won’t doing that much laughing.”

“Do squirrels eat meat?” said Ran.

Thomason frowned. “Which is why I’m leaning toward a possum or raccoon, Mr. Hill. Could’ve come up from the crawl space. Old place like this, chances are you got a rotted board someplace.”

“We do!” Claire said. “Ran found one yesterday. Didn’t you, Ran?”

Ransom pointed. “Officer Thomason, do you see this pot?” Looking refreshed after its bath—one might have thought it newly scoured and blacked—Exhibit A now sat on the table. “When I left here this afternoon, that pot was upstairs in the tub. Are you suggesting this squirrel—Super Squirrel we’ll call him—picked it up, brought it down the steps, and set it upright on the dining table?”

This finally seemed to give his persecutors pause.

“Or maybe it was a flying squirrel,” said Ran, unwisely pressing his advantage. “Maybe he airlifted it down here and did a drop with a top secret self-destructing parachute?”

Thomason looked grieved. “Now, Mr. Hill, there’s no need to take that tone. None a’tall. All we’re trying to do here is put our heads together to figure out your problem.”

“You’re right,” said Ransom. “You’re absolutely right. Sorry.”

“Maybe you moved it and forgot,” suggested Claire.

Ran met her eyes and read the implication. “Absolutely not. No way. I’m one hundred percent sure, no, two hundred percent sure that pot was in the bathtub when I left.”

“What was it doing in your bathtub, Mr. Hill, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I put it there to soak. As far as I can figure, the only person who could have moved it is the person who did all this—i.e., the burglar.”

Thomason frowned and shook his head. “Problem is, Mr. Hill, we see a fair amount of burglaries, and this ain’t really got the feel. I mean, what’s your notion? Fella breaks in, burgles your chicken, makes a mess, then runs off, leaving all that silver in the cupboard there, all that stereo equipment in the other room, plus twenty other things in plain sight he could’ve sold?”

“What about some high school kids?”

“I ain’t never seen no high school kids leave scat, have you?” He nodded to one of the half-digested piles. “That looks more like a hairball th’owed up by a cat.”

Ransom weighed the point. “So you think it was an animal.”

“That’s my best guess.”

“I’d like to say you’ve persuaded me, Sergeant.”

“But you just ain’t sure.”

“I’m not.”

Thomason regarded him with the resigned, unresentful expression of one whose best work was frequently greeted with disappointment.

“Could you at least dust for fingerprints?”

Thomason and Johnson exchanged long-suffering looks, and the sergeant shook his head regretfully. “I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Hill. On the subject of law enforcement, TV’s messed with people’s minds. We’re a little department here. Getting forensics in means calling down a two-man team from Columbia to the tune of two hundred and fifty bucks a hour. That’s taxpayer money, Mr. Hill. If it was someone else, would you want us to spend it over six dollars’ worth of chicken?”

“I just want to know my wife and kids are safe in our own home.”

“I understand that, Mr. Hill, I truly do. My daddy was a auto mechanic, and one thing he always taught me is look for the simple explanation