Beasts of the Field: The Investigation
Episode VII
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← In Episode VI: The Recovery, amidst the aftermath of a traumatic accident, Judith struggled to remember something important.
While Beasts of the Field can be read as a standalone story, you may appreciate the characters and their interactions more if you are familiar with Judith’s first adventure, Down in the Holler, in which she investigated a cold case in rural Kentucky. Click here to read Down in the Holler.
Tim Morrissey parked his car in front of the Township of McFerrin Police Department, shut off the radio, and rubbed his tired eyes as silence fell heavy on his shoulders. The dregs of bone-deep fear still lurked in his stiff, aching muscles.
But it could have been worse. It had almost been so, so much worse.
When that call had come in last night reporting a wreck on the northbound highway, he’d known, somehow. He’d known, but he’d quashed the morbid thought, because why would it be her? Lots of people traveled the northbound highway to Lexington. It wouldn’t be her.
He’d driven quickly, but he’d stayed calm because it wasn’t her. It was somebody else.
Along the shoulder of the secluded highway, he’d found a parked car, hazard lights blinking and headlights shining, illuminating a mangled guardrail and a trail of smashed metal and broken glass cascading down the steep hill.
He’d turned on his spotlight and shone it down the embankment before taking his first cautious steps down the slick, grassy slope. In the white light was a car, crumpled around the trunk of a tree. Windshield shattered, airbags limp and deflated. A silver car, a little silver car.
His heart had started to pound, his senses springing alert as the thoughts he’d so forcibly ignored reared up with a thunderous roar.
Following the light, his eyes had found a woman, kneeling. Kneeling over something that lay still, sprawled in the grass, something that looked small in the shadows and the flashing lights and the jagged debris that littered the underbrush.
Then he was running down the hill, reckless, slipping and sliding on the grass until he reached level ground, until he got to her, and she opened her eyes.
She had opened her eyes, and he could breathe again.
In his silent car, Tim took off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair, breathing in and out and trying to shake away the image of her eyes drifting shut again and again, of blood running down the side of her face, of her strapped to a gurney as paramedics struggled up the steep hill, shouting that they should have called a helicopter.
If her car had hit that tree any harder or at a slightly different angle, if a woman hadn’t happened to be driving home at that precise time and looked down the embankment – so many minute variables. But she was alive.
Replacing his hat, Tim climbed out of his car and made his way into the police station. Just outside the door, his phone dinged, and he pulled it out of his pocket to find a message from Cathy.
Conference Friday. Lexington. You didn’t forget, right?
Tim typed a quick reply and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He had forgotten, but Cathy already knew that. Calendars and schedules weren’t his strong suit.
Pushing open the door, Tim waved at the receptionist and strode directly through the door to the cramped bullpen in the back room.
It was a quiet morning, with a handful of officers doing paperwork or chatting, and through the window at the far end of the room, Tim caught a glimpse of Chief Kelly alone in his office. That was a stroke of luck, catching him alone.
Glancing around the room, Tim didn’t see Bowen anywhere. Another stroke of luck.
Tim wound his way through the tight pathways between desks and chairs and filing cabinets as he exchanged grunts of greeting and quick hellos with the bleary-eyed officers. He was mere feet from Kelly’s office when the bathroom door opened, and Officer Bowen stepped out in front of him.
Bowen paused and raised an eyebrow. “Mornin’. How’s your psychic girlfriend?”
“What is your problem?” Tim kept his voice low, but his skin suddenly ran hot, his muscles tight. “She could’ve died.”
Bowen scoffed. He opened his mouth, then, as though thinking better of what he was about to say, shut it again with a defiant glower.
Tim sidestepped him without another word and knocked on Chief Kelly’s door.
The salt-and-pepper-haired police chief raised his eyes as Tim entered. “What was that about?”
“Sorry?” Tim, his hands still clenched and his breath coming hard, sat down in the faded chair across from Kelly.
Kelly tipped his chin and narrowed skeptical eyes. “You and Bowen.”
Giving himself a few moments to breathe, Tim leaned back in his chair. “I let him know I didn’t like the way he treated a witness last night.”
“Well, he didn’t land in the police force ’cause of his sparklin’ personality. What’d he do this time?”
“He was openly hostile to a hit-and-run victim and tried to gaslight her into admitting that she fell asleep at the wheel.”
“Did she?”
“She said someone ran her off the road,” Tim said. “And there’s no reason not to believe her.”
“Was this that psychic lady?’
“How did you hear about her?”
Kelly shrugged. “Small town. Small office. News travels fast. She all right?”
“She’s pretty banged up, but the doctor says she’ll be okay.” Tim leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “That’s not why I’m here, though. I have a request in the Samantha Scott case.”
“Sheriff, we’re this close to shuttering that case. It’s a weird one, but there ain’t no sign of foul play.”
“Actually, there is.” Tim lowered his voice. “You know that warrant I got to look into the medical examiner’s financials? There’s some sketchy stuff going on with her. Lots of cash withdrawals, some big deposits coming in that aren’t from her paycheck. And there are rumors that she’s addicted to Ritalin, and possibly other stuff as well, and has been covering it up.”
“Isn’t the ME Rob’s daughter? Heather Tierney?” Kelly said, his thick gray mustache quivering. “Didn’t you two –”
“In high school, Kelly. Geez, why does everyone in this town have such a long memory?” Tim took a breath and stared hard at the police chief. “I wanted to make sure you’re on board with me requesting a second opinion on the autopsy.”
“Does Heather know you’re lookin’ into her? What, you think she lied about the cause of death or somethin’?”
“No, she doesn’t know. And yes, maybe. Maybe she was bribed or blackmailed or something. I just want to know if an unbiased, third-party ME will come to the same conclusions, and I want to make sure you and I are on the same page.”
“Look.” Kelly took off his reading glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and fixed his sharp green eyes on Tim. “I want to figure out what happened to Samantha Scott as much as you do. It’s a sad case, real sad. But you’re telling me that you think a hometown girl, Rob Tierney’s own daughter, lied on the autopsy report ’cause there was some conspiracy to murder a lonely blind girl? Tim, this is real life in McFerrin, Kentucky, not some New York cop show.”
“Are you on board with me requesting a second opinion?”
Kelly sighed. “It’s a joint investigation. I ain’t your boss. If you think a second opinion is what we need, then sure. Get a second opinion. Just don’t be disappointed if you don’t get the answers you want.”
Tim didn’t like hospitals.
His boots clicked on the shiny, sterile floors of McFerrin County Medical Center, a testament that the last scraps of eastern Kentucky’s wealth no longer lay deep in the mountains but in the money that insurance companies paid to treat wheezing and coughing and chronic disease, courtesy of the thick black dust deposited in the lungs of retired miners.
Making his way up to the third floor, Tim reached the door to Judith’s room and hesitated.
The doctor had said rest was the best treatment. He didn’t want to barge in and wake her up.
Then a sudden burst of laughter, in a voice that didn’t sound like Judith’s, caught Tim by surprise, and he knocked and opened the door.
The head of Judith’s bed was upright, and, though the neck brace was still wrapped tight and her face and arms were littered with cuts and bruises, she was smiling. A reflective smile broke through Tim’s weary face.
Then she turned toward the door and caught his eye, and her face reddened.
Tim’s own skin got a little warmer. He was probably grinning like an idiot.
Looking away, Tim shifted toward the two other women in the room and was surprised to find that one of them was Clem Skaggs, her round face rosy with laughter. She looked utterly at home in the hospital, as she did everywhere, even in her faded jeans and her baggy brown jacket.
The other woman he had never seen before, but he had no doubt of her identity.
Constance was an echo of her sister. Petite like Judith, but just a little bit older, a little bit taller, a little bit more blonde in her hair. Her face was like Judith’s – until it moved. Judith was usually impassive, but Tim suspected there was no thought or emotion that didn’t play out all over Constance’s face. In a matter of seconds, Tim watched Constance size him up, realize who he was, decide she approved, and aim a grinning thumbs up at Judith when she thought Tim had looked away.
Judith’s eyes were wide, her face turning an even deeper shade of red. “Hi,” she said too loudly, turning to Tim and away from her sister.
“Hey,” Tim said as he struggled to keep his smile in check. “Just stopped by to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m hoping they’ll discharge me today.” At a nudge from Constance, Judith continued. “Oh. This is Constance. My sister. And you know Clem. Constance, this is Tim – um – Sheriff Morrissey.”
Constance shook Tim’s hand, a knowing, gleeful smile on her face. “Nice to meet you, Sheriff.”
“Even if they discharge me today,” Judith said, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I have a few more questions for Samantha’s friend. What was her name? Willow?”
“What you should be doing is resting,” Constance said, raising her eyebrows.
“It’s just a few questions. Nothing extreme.”
Constance pulled out her phone. “I might be able to drive you back tomorrow instead of today. I can see if Steve’s okay with me staying an extra night. The boys are running him ragged.”
“Oh.” Judith paused, frowning. “Sorry, nevermind. I forgot. My car.”
“Even if your car was working, you can’t drive it for at least two weeks.” Constance smirked. “So you get me as a chauffer.”
“I’m going to Lexington Thursday night,” Tim said. “I have a conference thing on Friday. I could drive you up.”
Judith’s eyes widened like a startled deer, but Constance lit with immediate enthusiasm.
“Well, doesn’t that just solve all our problems! I’ll head back tonight before Steve loses his sanity, and y’all can drive down on Thursday.” Constance’s face suddenly sobered again, and she turned to Judith, lowering her voice. “Will you be okay on your own? I can stay; it’s really not a problem.”
“I’ll be fine,” Judith said. “You don’t need to babysit me. I’ll stay at the motel and only go out to talk to Willow. I won’t be hiking mountains or anything.”
“Let me know when you wanna go see Willow,” Clem said, her comfortable, rocky voice breaking into the quiet conversation. “She’s usually up at Noah’s house, right down the hill from mine. I could always drop you there and back when I run my errands.”
Constance’s eyes darted back and forth between Tim and Judith. “Clem, I’m going down the hall for some coffee. You wanna come? I’m sure the sheriff and Judith have things they need to discuss…about the case and all.”
“The case?” Clem said. “Oh, you mean that poor Samantha Scott. Lord have mercy, all this excitement almost blew it right outta my mind. The poor thing.”
“Didn’t realize you were coming to pay Judith a visit, Mrs. Skaggs,” Tim said. “News sure travels fast.”
“Timothy Morrissey, you’re a grown man and the county sheriff. Call me Clem like everybody else. I had Leon drive me into town this mornin’ to run some errands, and I heard through the grapevine that Judith here was shut up in the hospital. Seein’ as she’s not from around here, I thought she might be needin’ some company, but lo and behold, her sister was here already! Just what a body needs when they’re recuperatin’ – a big sister to fuss over ’em and cheer ’em up.”
“I’m sure this’ll help too,” Constance said, holding up a mason jar full of crinkled brown leaves and bits and bobs of colorful plants. “And if she won’t drink it, I will. It smells delicious.”
“Helps with brain fog ’n focus,” Clem said. “Peppermint, ginger, turmeric, citrus. Good tea there. One o’ my most popular blends.”
Standing up in her slow-moving way, Clem followed Constance out the door, and their chatter drifted away down the hall. Tim stepped closer to Judith’s bed.
Judith fidgeted with the blanket. After a moment, she spoke. “I don’t suppose there are many security cameras along that road? No way to see if I was being followed?”
Tim nodded. Conversations with Judith were like stepping onto a moving treadmill. “Not many, that’s for sure. Between McFerrin and where you crashed, there are a few gas stations that have security cameras, but the closest one is still at least five miles from where your car is. I’ve made some calls, and a couple of them have already said they’ll let me take a look at their footage from last night.”
“I didn’t stop at a gas station.”
“Sometimes the cameras are angled to catch a little bit of the road too. We might get lucky.”
“It’s a long shot, isn’t it?”
“It is, if we’re just banking on the cameras,” Tim said. “But if you think somebody was worried about you poking into Samantha Scott’s death, then the best thing we can do to figure out who ran you off the road is to work out what happened to Samantha.”
“Oh, speaking of which, I remember what I was going to tell you.”
“About the incest?”
“What?”
“Last night you said something about Rob Tierney and incest.”
“I said wha – no. Definitely not. No incest. But Rob Tierney did create a county medical examiner position out of thin air after Heather Tierney resigned from her job in Lexington.”
Tim took in a sharp breath and leaned against the wall. “Okay, that’s – that’s interesting. I’ll have to look into that some more.”
Judith tugged at the sleeve of her hospital gown. “By the way, I wanted to say thank you. For last night.”
“I didn’t do much except wait for the paramedics to get there.” Tim crossed his arms and shifted his weight. If that woman hadn’t stopped and called 9-1-1, Judith could have been lying unconscious on the ground for hours, all night even, in the cold, bleeding and struggling to breathe around broken ribs.
If Judith hadn’t texted or called to say she’d made it home safely, he would have called her. But if she hadn’t answered, would he have gone so far as to check along her route, like a stalker, or would he have assumed, like the mostly normal person he was, that learning about his high school girlfriend had made her feel awkward and she wasn’t ready to talk about it yet?
If that woman hadn’t found Judith, she could be dead now.
The silence stretched on, images of what could have happened battering Tim’s thoughts, until Judith’s voice brought him back to the hospital room.
“Did you happen to get the name of the woman who found me?”
“No. She left right after the ambulance got there, and by the time I even thought to ask her, she was gone.”
Judith frowned and bit her lip. “It’s lucky she was there.”
“Sure is.” Tim watched Judith’s thoughtful face. “Why’re you wondering about her?”
“That’s such a quiet road, especially at that time of night. She had to have not only seen the broken guardrail but also taken the time to look down the embankment.”
“Are you worried she had something to do with it?”
“I don’t know.” Judith sighed and leaned back against the bed. “If someone, or several someones, ran me off the road, they could have had an accomplice come to check on the aftermath. She wasn’t driving a black pickup truck, was she?”
“No, a sedan. But why would an accomplice call an ambulance?”
Judith started to raise a hand to push a hair back from her forehead, then winced and slowly lowered her arm again. “I know, it doesn’t make sense. It just seemed like too much of a coincidence.”
“Maybe you’ve got a guardian angel working overtime.”
Judith gave a small laugh, then gasped, her face screwing up in pain.
“Sorry, sorry.” Tim stepped forward and put a hand on Judith’s arm. “I won’t make you laugh anymore.”
“Hope we’re not interrupting,” came Constance’s voice from the door. “Judith, you have a…um…visitor.”
Tim turned back toward the door to find shaggy, lumbering, excited Orwell dragging a willowy middle-aged woman in a colorful head scarf into the room.
“Shirley?” Judith inched herself up from the pillow. “What are you doing here?”
“I brought your emotional support animal for a visit!”
His nails sliding on the vinyl floor, Orwell scrambled to Judith’s bed and started to cover her hand and arm with frantic licks.
Pulling back from the animal saliva, Judith transferred her hand to his fluffy head and scratched behind his ear. “He’s not a – You drove two hours? Why does his harness say Service Dog?”
“I had an old harness laying around. Figured the hospital wouldn’t kick him out if he was wearin’ it.”
“Shirley, you can’t do that. He’s not a service dog.”
“But he missed you! And doggy kisses make everyone feel better.” Shirley gave an indulgent tsk as Orwell put both front paws up on Judith’s bed. Leaning down, she stage-whispered, “They’ll know you’re not a service dog if you keep doing that, silly boy.” Shirley’s gaze landed on Tim. “You look like a sheriff! You the one who called me this mornin’?”
Tim laughed and shook Shirley’s hand. “I sure am.”
Dropping his paws from Judith’s bed, Orwell bounded to Tim. He leaned the whole weight of his massive body against Tim’s legs, and his tail thump-thumped against the wall with each ecstatic wag.
“This must be such a quaint, friendly little town, Judith, if you got the sheriff himself payin’ you a visit!” Shirley said. “You make lotsa hospital visits, sheriff?”
Tim cleared his throat. “Occasionally.”
From the corner of his eye, Tim caught a glimpse of Constance nudging Judith, whose face reddened again.
The door swung open, and a stern-faced nurse stepped in, hands on her hips and her gaze fixed on Shirley. “Ma’am, you can’t have that dog on this floor.”
“He’s a service dog –”
Tim didn’t like hospitals, but this hospital room, with its strange assortment of women and a huge, shaggy dog, seemed brighter, softer, better than the glaring fluorescence and chemical sterility he’d experienced before. But maybe it was just because, though her face was flushed up to her ears and she stared with determination at her knees, Judith was smiling.
It was in the hospital parking lot that Tim saw it. He’d been on alert all day, turning his head at every pickup truck, at every black car.
In a sunny spot in the first row of parking spaces was a big black pickup truck, and Clem’s hulking son Leon Skaggs sat inside, fiddling with something on the dashboard.
Tim slowed his walk, his skin tingling and alert. Splatters of red mud smeared the sides of the truck and covered the tires. Keeping his distance, Tim circled to the back of the car and made a mental note of the license plate.
Making an arc around the truck, Tim narrowed his eyes and searched, but he could see no scratch marks, no scraped paint, though the mud could potentially be camouflaging that evidence.
The hair on the back of his neck bristled, and Tim looked up to find Leon’s eyes locked onto him.
Taking a long breath, Tim slid his hands into his pockets and moseyed toward the driver’s side door of the truck. Leon glowered at him from within.
When Tim tapped on the glass, Leon slowly lowered the window.
“How’s it goin’, Leon?”
“Wha’d’you want?”
“Nice truck. You had it a while?”
“Seven years,” Leon said in his throaty mumble. “Bought it myself.”
“You must have to keep it in good condition to handle those bumpy unpaved roads for seven whole years.”
Leon said nothing, but he narrowed his eyes at Tim.
“You get to come into town much?” Tim said. “See friends and all that?”
“Don’t have no friends in town.”
“Well, now, that’s a shame. But I’m sure you come up here sometimes on your own to pick up groceries and stuff, right?”
Leon grumbled in what seemed vaguely like assent.
A chittering came from inside the truck, and a fluffy tail flicked out from behind Leon’s arm.
“Is that a squirrel?” Tim said.
“Yeah.”
“Your squirrel?”
“Yeah.”
“You raised it?”
Leon’s eyes narrowed even further, sinking into the thick folds of his skin. “Yeah.”
“What’s its name?’
“Acorn.”
“Cute,” Tim said. “You come into town last night?”
“No.”
“Did you go out at all last night? Nice night for it.”
“No. I stayed home with mama.”
Tim nodded, holding Leon’s gaze and drumming his fingertips on the side of the car. “The whole night?”
“You tryin’a say somethin’ to me, sheriff?”
Tim shrugged. “Just curious. Good for a guy to get out and about every now and then.”
“My mama’s gon’ be comin’ out o’ there soon. We’re fixin’ to go back home.”
“Well.” Tim tapped the side of the truck. “Won’t keep ya any longer.”
With a wave, Tim stepped back and made a slow, deliberate walk back to his car, keeping a subtle eye on Leon the whole way. Leon barely moved. Bulky as a bear, his eyebrows glowering low over his small eyes, he sat hunched in his seat, suspicion radiating like heatwaves from his face.
Tim kept his face calm, his walk slow, his shoulders loose and easy, but his skin flushed hot with fury. If it was Leon Skaggs, if he was the one who sent Judith careening down a hill, who put her in the hospital, who came within a hair’s breadth of killing her –
But he couldn’t think like that, not now. He couldn’t get distracted. He had a case to solve. Two cases – a death and a near-death, somehow intertwined.
Somewhere, running around McFerrin, was a killer, and he needed to pin that killer down before they came back to try again.
Thank you so much for taking time to read Beasts of the Field! Check back Saturday, November 23rd for Episode VIII!
← Read Episode VI: The Recovery
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Literally zero flat characters. The pet squirrel got me.
It's literally like Christmas morning when a new chapter drops! Tim, you rascal, you have such a good heart.