“ Read it.”
She crossed over to the television. “Oh, no.”
“ Yeah.”
“ You think maybe she was killed?” she said.
“ I don’t see how.”
“ Maybe J.P. really did see a knife,” she said.
“ I did.”
The pair turned to see J.P. framed in the open doorway.
“ You scared me,” Judy said.
“ Sorry, I didn’t do it on purpose. I saw Rick drive up, so I got dressed and came over.”
“ Have you seen anybody around here?” Rick asked.
“ No,” J.P. said.
“ That’s hardly surprising, you’ve been gone a long time. He could have been here six months or six days ago,” Judy said.
“ More like six months,” Rick said. “The food scraps have started to come alive with mold.”
“ I saw an animal though, the Ghost Dog,” J.P. said. “It comes sometimes at night and sniffs around. Mom says it’s a dog, but I know better. It’s the Ghost Dog.”
“ There have been some reports of a large wild dog,” Judy said.
“ The Ghost Dog,” J.P. repeated.
“ J.P., there’s no such thing as ghosts or ghost dogs,” Rick said. “Your mother’s probably right, it’s a dog. I’ve seen it too.”
“ Really?”
“ Yeah, it ran in front of my car this morning. I almost hit it.”
“ Did you think it was a bear?”
“ At first, but it was too fast. It looked more like a big dog, maybe a black lab.”
“ Maybe the Ghost Dog?”
“ It wasn’t a ghost dog. It was just a big dog. Right now it’s probably asleep in a nice warm house.”
“ Really, you think so?”
“ I know so.”
“ I’m glad, I was kinda scared, but I’m not now.”
“ Good boy.”
“ I’m glad you’re back,” he said.
“ I’m glad to be back.”
“ You wanna go fishing?” the boy asked.
“ I’ll get my gear,” Rick said, “but first I’ve got to call the sheriff.”
Within minutes Sheriff Sturgees was in Rick’s living room, reading the note.
“ Probably kids,” he said.
“ How can you say that?” Judy said.
“ Nothing missing, no real damage done and the note looks like a kid wrote it.”
“ I can’t believe anybody around here would be cruel enough to write a note like that,” Judy said.
“ Me either,” Rick said.
“ You don’t know kids,” the sheriff said. “What we think is cruel, they think is good clean fun.”
“ I can’t believe that,” Rick said.
“ Oh yeah, when is the last time you pulled the wings off a bee, or stuck a fire cracker up a frog’s ass, or put a cherry bomb down a mailbox? Kids having fun can be cruel.”
“ Maybe?” Judy said.
“ I have my doubts,” Rick said.
“ As long as I’m here I’d like to ask you something,” Sheriff Sturgees said.
“ Ask away.”
“ Tell me about the Ragged Man,” he said.
Rick was stunned and the sheriff saw it in his eyes. J.P. bit into his lower lip and took his mother by the hand.
“ That’s a strange question,” Rick said.
“ In two months I’m throwing in with my brother, we’re gonna buy the Chevy dealership in town. Ever since that day when Mark, Vicky and Janis were killed, the luster has gone out of this job, but I’d like to walk away knowing that I didn’t leave any stone unturned. I’ve heard this nonsense about the Ragged Man and this Ghost Dog the kids have been talking about and I want to know more.”
“ Sheriff, you can’t believe this stuff?”
“ Didn’t say I believed it, said I wanted to know more.”
“ And why ask me?”
The sheriff turned to J.P. “My boy says you told him a story about the day Mrs. Gordon was killed.”
“ Yes, sir,” J.P. said.
“ J.P.!” Judy said.
“ That’s okay Mrs. Donovan. Don’t blame the boy. Kids talk, they don’t mean nothing by it. I just want to hear the story from Mr. Gordon.”
“ Then we better all sit down,” Rick said.
“ Then there is a story?” The sheriff plopped down on the sofa.
“ When you were a child, Sheriff, were you afraid of the Bogeyman?” Rick asked, his voice cracking.
“ I don’t have time for games.”
“ Ann was afraid of the Bogeyman. She had a name for him. She called him the Ragged Man. And her bogeyman has a familiar, a black dingo with saber-tooth canines and tiger-like paws.”
“ What’s a dingo?” J.P. asked.
“ A wild dog, like a wolf,” Rick said. “They live in the Australian outback.”
“ Are you going somewhere with this?” Sturgees asked.
“ You want to know about the Ragged Man?”
“ Yes.”
“ Two years ago we were stranded in the Australian outback. Ann and I were racing in the Australian Safari. That’s a desert road race, and we broke down. While we were wondering what we were going to do, an old couple, Aborigines, came along in an old Jeep.”
“ Like yours?” J.P. asked.
“ It’s the same Jeep, J.P.”
Rick looked out the window, half expecting to see Ann, then continued with his story. “The woman was ill and we asked if they needed help. The man said we could bury them and then they died.”
“ Wait a minute.”
“ Let me finish, Sheriff, then ask me whatever questions you want.”
“ Sorry.”
“ We buried them off the road and took the Jeep. For reasons I can’t explain, we decided not to tell anyone about the old couple. That may not have been the right thing to do, but that’s what we decided.
“ While we were driving back to civilization, a pack of dingoes started following us. We lost them and that night, when we were sitting by the campfire, they found us. I got up to protect Ann and one of the dingoes attacked me. It dragged me down and I was knocked unconscious. The rest of the story I learned from Ann.
“ She told me that after I was knocked out, she was afraid that she was going to be killed. One of the dingoes lept into the fire and danced. The fire had no effect on the animal and, when it stopped its dance, it glared at her with glowing red eyes and saber-tooth teeth. She called it a ghost dog and she thought it was going to kill her.”
“ The Ghost Dog,” J.P. said under his breath.
“ Then the Ragged Man came out of the night. He was wearing foul, dirty clothes and she said she could smell his breath from twenty feet away.
“ The Ragged Man told her to smell her fear.”
