Spook Lights: Southern Gothic Horror by Eden Royce Read Free Book Online Page A

near the outer corner and while the gash wasn’t bleeding, the flesh surrounding it had already begun to darken.
    “Tell me it wasn’t one of ours that did the shiner,” I said to the burly uniformed officer stationed in the corner by the door, his back to a wall.
    Officer Butter shrugged. “Don’t think so.”
    “Great,” I mumbled to myself. “Just what this case needs.” I tucked my white cotton blouse into my trousers then marched over to the table and addressed the man in the chair. “Good afternoon, Mister Byrd. My name is Gloria Jackson, and I’m the lead investigator on the Westbrook case. It’s come to my attention you were found with the victim’s wallet—”
    An eggshell colored blob of mucus landed on the floor at my feet. When I looked up from the splatter, Byrd was grinning at me, spittle clinging to his lower lip. So it was going to be that sort of day. Even better. I straightened my glove and continued where I’d left off.
    “—in your possession and copious amounts of her blood were found in your car. I’d like you to tell me something about that.”
    “Fuck you.”
    “We have a verbal statement from you, but on listening to it again, I don’t believe you’ve told us everything you know about this matter.”
    Byrd sucked his teeth as he studied his reflection in the two-way mirror, but was otherwise silent.
    His story was he’d picked up Dana Westbrook where she’s been hitchhiking off Interstate 26 near Monck’s Corner. He said that the girl had told him she was underage—although she didn’t look it—so he hadn’t tried anything. She was running away from home because her parents didn’t get her and she was going to be eighteen in a couple of months anyway.
    Byrd had gone on to say the girl was unhurt when he picked her up and was fine when he’d dropped her off at the bus station in North Charleston, some thirty miles away. His explanation for the wallet? She’d left it and her purse under the seat of his car. He even had an explanation for the blood on his passenger seat: it was her menstrual blood. “She was bleedin’ like a cut pig,” he’d said, laughing. “I wouldn’t stick myself in that.”
    For hours, he’s been questioned about her disappearance, but he hadn’t said any more. The arresting officers knew it was him…I knew it was him. I needed to find Dana, her parents and the entire city were waiting for news of her whereabouts. They hoped we could find her and bring her home safe.
    From the amount of blood and its pattern arcing through the car, I was afraid we should be looking for a body, not for an injured teenager. But if we couldn’t get stronger evidence, most preferably Dana, we’d have to cut Byrd loose. I knew that and Byrd knew it too. He’d been on the streets and in the game long enough to know police procedure as well as I did.
    “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what you know, Mr. Byrd?”
    “I ain’t telling you jack squat.”
    “That’s too bad,” I said as I sat at the table across from him. “I don’t usually brag, but at this moment I have a one hundred percent conviction rate and I’m pretty proud of it. Be a shame to break that streak now, don’t you think?” I opened my notebook, braced it with my left hand and scribbled down a few lines.
     
    Disappearance of Dana Westbrook
    Statement from Nathaniel Byrd
     
    Nate Byrd frowned at my left hand, the black glove covering it fitting tightly enough for the leather to look shiny and oiled. Then he snorted. “Just one? Who are you, Michael Jackson?”
    “Gloria Jackson,” I repeated. “No relation, though. Could never get that moonwalk thing down.” I clicked the pen closed and placed it next to the notepad. I passed both over to him. “We need your written statement, preferably your confession. Or Officer Butter here can record your verbal confession, if you’d prefer. Whether you believe it or not, I’m here to help you.”
    “I don’t believe a word that