Sassafras, Part 86

Rick

I called Boyd and gave him an update. He was on the highway, but with the roads the way they were it would probably be 4 or later before he got to town. I finally talked him into having the state police pick up Matt. Maybe by the time Boyd got to town he’d already be talking.

I decided to go to my apartment. Maybe she left a message on my answering machine. No luck. Why hadn’t she called? Where was she? I tried calling her again but all I got was that damn voice mail. I thought I would scream if I heard that recorded message one more time.

I called the station and talked to Franklin, but nobody knew where Joan and Bill were. I was really starting to worry. I drove around town for a while, trying to think of where they could be. Where would she go? Where would she feel safe? Maybe she was with that redhead, Deana. I wished I could remember her last name. Damn fucking nightmare. Complete Fucking Night Mare. Every time a police car drove past my heart jumped into my throat until I saw the back seat was empty.

It wasn't snowing any more, but it was cold and the wind was blowing the snow everywhere. After I drove around for at least an hour I decided to call the station again and got the bad news. They didn’t have Bill, but they had Joan.

I drove as fast as I could to the station, and on the way I called Boyd's number and told him they had Joan. He said he could send me some backup, but by the time anybody we could trust got here it would probably be too late. I was going to have to get her out of there somehow. When I got to the station I sat in my car for a minute trying to calm down and come up with a plan, but nothing came. I wanted to just go in there and kick everybody's ass and get Joan the hell out of there, but since they all had guns and I didn't have shit that didn't sound like it would work. At least I recognized all the cars in the parking lot. Stapleton wasn't there. At least not yet.

I took a deep breath and tried to think of something. I was going to have to suck up to Sneider a little longer, no matter how repulsive the idea was. And I was going to have to do it right in front of Joan. If I was able to pull this off, by the time this was over she was going to hate me, but at least she’d be alive. That was more important to me than anything else. It didn’t matter what she thought of me, just that she would be safe. I just hoped I wasn’t too late.

Sneider had to get Joan to tell him where Bill was before he did anything permanent to her. There had to be an angle there I could use. Sneider liked violence, but she was tougher than he realized. I didn’t think he would be able to simply beat it out of her. I thought of all the time I spent in prison. That could work to my advantage. If Sneider thought I was a hardened criminal I might be able to convince him I knew ways to get her to talk. Somehow I had to find a way to get alone with her, and then get her out of there, but I still couldn’t come up with anything. I was going to have to just bluff my way through it and hope something came up.

I tried to act casual when I walked in. Franklin was sitting at the front desk, and he said everybody else was in back in the interrogation room. I walked back there and opened the door. Sneider, McDaniel and Thompson were in there. And Joan. I couldn't see her very well at first, but when they turned around to see who was coming in I got a better look at her. She looked bad. Her clothes were torn and I could see blood on her shirt. There were bruises on her face and her lip was cut. She looked at me and I could see hope in her eyes. I knew what I was going to have to do. I just didn’t know if I would be able to pull it off. This was going to be the hardest thing I had ever done.

"Hey, Sneider," I said, as casually as I could. “Nice shiner.” It took all my willpower to smile at him when all I wanted to do was punch him right in the mouth and then keep hitting him until he didn’t move. "Hi, Joan. Imagine seeing you here." She looked confused, then horrified. I was afraid she would say something that would raise Sneider’s suspicions, so I had to find a way to give her a message. I walked up and tried to give her a kiss but she backed away as far as she could since her right hand was handcuffed to a chair bolted to the floor.

"Is that any way to act after all we've been through?" I asked and grabbed her hair, pulling her face up to me. I bent over and kissed her, and could feel her fighting to get away from me. She tried jerking away from me, then she bit my lip so hard I could taste blood. I couldn’t believe she bit me. I had never felt so misserable before, but I had to act pissed, no matter how hard it was. "You dumb bitch. You knew I worked for Sneider," I said, squeezing her jaw with one hand, forcing her to focus on me, putting my right hand on her back.

While I was talking I started writing on her back right between her shoulder blades, spelling out 'Trust me' over and over. “Welcome to Stalag 13, Fraulein.” I took a chance and gave her a quick wink. “Romancing you was the nicest job I’ve ever had. It’s a shame it had to end so soon.” While I said that I switched to writing ‘I (Heart) U” over and over, hoping she would be able to trust me. Terrified that she wouldn’t.

“Oh, don’t act so surprised, Joan. I thought the two of you made a great couple,” Sneider said. I stood next to her, trying to look casual, but kept my hand on her back busy, spelling ‘trust me’ again and again.

Joan looked up at me like she wanted to rip my throat out with her teeth. “I hate you, you bastard,” she hissed at me.

I switched to ‘I (Heart) U’ again. “Like I care.” I rolled my eyes and looked back at Sneider. “Where is Stapleton?” I asked. I kept spelling ‘Trust me’ and ‘I (Heart) U’ on her back, hoping she would realize what I was doing.

“He went back to Stoneypoint when he got tired of driving around in circles looking for her. I’ve never seen him so pissed off. I’m not about to call him until we get the boy, too. I don’t want him around until all this is over.”

"Where is the boy?" I asked Sneider.

"She won't say," he said.

"Maybe you just haven't asked her nice enough," I said. "Come on, where's Bill?" She just glared at me. "Now, Babe, don't be that way," I said. "You don't want anything to happen to him, do you?"

"Go to Hell, you son of a bitch! I'm not going to tell you anything," she said. Sneider laughed.

"Oh, you're going to tell me," I said, kneeling in front of her, writing on the side of her thigh now. "It's just a matter of how much am I going to have to hurt you first. I learned a lot of things in prison. I know four different ways to kill you with my bare hands." I put one hand on her throat and squeezed a little, making her look at me while I spelled ‘Don’t worry’ with my other hand. “Did you know if I put just the right amount of pressure on the sides of your neck it will cut off all the blood to your brain, and won’t even leave a bruise?" She was stiff as a board, and she looked terrified. I let go of her throat and slid my hand down her arm. Her hands were cuffed behind her and chained to the chair she was sitting on. I leaned closer and touched her hand. "Do you know how delicate fingers are? So many little, tiny bones. It’s so easy to break them."

I quit spelling 'Trust me' and started spelling 'Lie' instead. "Come on, Babe, just tell them where Bill is and this will all be over." I spelled ‘Lie’ and looked her straight in her eyes, raising my eyebrows slightly. For a second I thought I saw her relax just a fraction.

"I'll never tell you where he is. You can go ahead and kill me you son of a bitch."

I grabbed her chin again and moved my other hand up into her hair and then on her back again. "Do you know what hair smells like when it burns?" I asked her, spelling ‘Lie’ and ‘I (Heart) U’ and ‘Trust me’. "There was a guy in prison who set his cell-mate's hair on fire. You could smell it all through the cellblock. I'll never forget hearing him scream until he passed out. You smoke, don't you? I bet you have a lighter in your pocket, don't you?"

She looked even more terrified. Either she was a good actor, or she still didn’t trust me. I just repeated 'Trust me lie' over and over. "Now, are you going to tell me what I want to know, or do you want me to find your lighter?" I felt her barely nod her head, or maybe she just twitched. I couldn’t be sure.

"He's in a shed," she whispered.

"And where's this shed?" I asked.

She was crying now. "On the edge of town, in back of the school."

Please, I thought, let that be a lie. "There, see how easy that was?" I said.