All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

“She’ll be okay,” the sheriff said. “And so will you, if you’re telling me the truth.”

7

SHERIFF GRANT

The federal agents crawling all over the Quinn place were part of some drug task force, and apparently that meant they couldn’t help look for two missing kids. We lost daylight before we found Wavy and Donal. I’ve had some sleepless nights as sheriff, but that was one of the worst.

By four o’clock I gave up on sleep and went back to the station. The feds had made about a dozen arrests, left me to figure out where to keep them overnight. I sent the women over to Belton County, and put Junior Barfoot in the old drunk tank in the basement. It hadn’t been used in twenty years and still smelled like piss. Down there in the dark, he was this big mountain on the narrow bunk.

“You asleep, Junior?”

“Not likely.” He sat up and gave a long sigh.

“I thought you might have some idea where those Quinn kids are.”

“Isn’t Wavy with her aunt?”

“No, your girl ran off from the hospital yesterday afternoon.”

“You just now decided to tell me that?”

He was a soft-spoken man, but when he took hold of the bars in front of me, I stepped back. I’d never been afraid of him, but right then, I was glad for those bars between us. I’d seen a few men who needed a doctor when he was done with them.

“Did you look up in the meadow? Those cottonwoods? By the windmill? What about my house?” he said.

“We can check again. And your house is locked up.”

“She’s got a key.”

“Alright, we’ll start there.”

“Let me know, will you, Sheriff? When you find them.”

I promised I would, and went up to the desk, where Haskins was on duty.

“Have Delbert check Junior’s house for the girl. I’m going up to the Quinn place,” I said.

“The Rotary’s coming out to volunteer come dawn,” Haskins said.

“Did Barfoot tell you something?” Agent Cardoza said. I hadn’t noticed him sitting at one of the desks in the squad room, and I wished he hadn’t noticed me. A fireplug of a man with a bristly black mustache, he looked as rough as I felt. But he was a federal agent, so even at four in the morning, he wore a suit and tie.

“He’s got an idea about where the Quinn kids might be,” I said.

“You mind if I tag along?”

I did mind, but I shrugged. Cardoza seemed decent enough, but he wasn’t losing any sleep over those missing kids. What was keeping him awake was the fact that his big career-making drug bust had farted and failed. With Liam Quinn dead, Cardoza and the rest of the feds were looking around to see what they could salvage.

Driving out to the ranch, he said, “I like Barfoot for the murders. Looks to me like he tried to make it look like a murder-suicide.”

“If you’re looking for somebody who’d plan a thing like that, he’s not your man.”

“In a big drug operation like this, murder is sometimes the best way to move up the ladder.”

Cardoza could like Junior for the murders all he wanted, but I’d believe it when I saw the evidence.

I’d known Junior Barfoot his whole life, although I don’t suppose I knew him by name until the night I drove him to the emergency room in Garringer. He was maybe ten years old and his old man broke the boy’s jaw. Junior didn’t even cry when they wired his mouth shut and took out a tooth to put a straw through. Coming from that, I figured he’d end up on the same path as the rest of his family. Both his folks drunk all the time, an older brother in prison for armed robbery, older sister in and out of jail, and the oldest brother shot dead in a bar fight before he was even old enough to drink.

Wasn’t but four years after that trip to the emergency room, when Junior was about fourteen, we got our usual domestic disturbance call out to their house. Mrs. Barfoot was standing on the front lawn, her housedress torn and her nose bloodied. Inside, I expected to find the old man going at Junior, but for the first time it was the other way around. Junior was pounding on him and screaming, “I’ll fucking kill you!” It took me, two deputies, and a volunteer fireman to pry Junior off his father. He was a big boy.

After Barfoot Senior was in the hospital, their youngest girl, who was retarded, was put in a state home, and Junior went to stay with Mrs. Barfoot’s family down in Oklahoma. That’s when he started going by Kellen, her maiden name. He came back two years later, and almost immediately got into trouble. I never saw anybody could tear up a bar the way he could. Furniture broken and grown men bleeding and crying, looking like they’d been hit by a train.

So I could imagine Junior killing somebody if he got angry enough, but he wouldn’t waste any energy trying to plan it or cover it up.

“The rape charge is a problem for us, since the girl isn’t cooperating,” Cardoza said. “We’d rather get Barfoot on the murders or the meth production. Your county prosecutor isn’t going to give us any trouble, is he?”

“My county prosecutor is likely to do whatever he wants. He usually does.”

At the farmhouse, I headed for the windmill, with Cardoza trailing.

I panned my flashlight around the stock tank, and there sat a little boy. He was awake, huddled up in his undershorts with a pile of bloody clothes next to him, probably been there all night.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you Donal?”