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Reed nodded. “Right.”
“Crap.” Bronco let out a defeated sigh, waited a beat and finally said, “Fine. Okay. Just give me a sec to put on some pants.”
“Two minutes,” Reed said, and as Bronco turned from the door, added, “Just so you know, we’re watching the front, back and sides of the house.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.” Bronco pulled the door behind him, leaving the porch light glowing and a second moth to join the first. Reed waited, Delacroix at his side, he watching the digital readout on his watch, she still focused on the door, her service weapon drawn.
Bronco snapped on interior lights and opened the door twelve seconds short of the two-minute limit. In a pair of battered jeans and a T-shirt, his hair still uncombed, he unlatched the chain and stepped aside, allowing them to pass into the squalor of his living area.
Reed stepped inside cautiously, his eyes scanning the small pine-paneled living room for the dog, who turned out to be a docile hound of some kind. Curled up on a small rag rug near the end of a stained couch, he watched the newcomers but couldn’t keep his tail from wagging.
Delacroix was edgy, though she tried her best to keep her case of nerves under control as Bronco waved them into two beat-up recliners and settled onto a corner of the couch near his dog. The place smelled of old tobacco, stale beer and dog, ashtrays overflowing, beer cans left on a center coffee table that had seen better days.
“I figured you’d show up here,” Bronco admitted. “Shit, man, it didn’t take you long.” He lit a cigarette and rubbed the stubble on his jaw. Exhaling in defeat, he let the smoke drift up to the yellowed ceiling and leaned forward, elbows on knees.
“You called in the bodies?” Delacroix asked. She was sitting tentatively on the edge of her seat, a battle-scarred brown recliner, her eyes laser-focused on Bronco, the fingers of her left hand rubbing together nervously, as if she were contemplating reaching for her service weapon.
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved off the question as if it were a given. “I was up to the old house and I went into the basement and found the graves.”
“Why?” Delacroix asked. “What were you doing there?”
That’s when the lies began weaving in with the truth. Reed read it on the other man’s face.
Bronco looked to one side, trying to come up with a plausible answer as he scratched his chin and took another drag. “Well, y’see I had the key. From my granddaddy.”
“Wynn,” Delacroix supplied.
“Yeah, he’d been the caretaker up there for years, y’know. Anyway, he, um, he passed away a few weeks back and I ended up with the keys to the place. I thought I should go up and see if everything was okay.” He glanced to the window and the dark night beyond. “Because of the hurricane, y’know.”
“And?” Reed pushed.
“And nothin’. I was checkin’ out the basement and I found those bodies.” He took a long pull on his cigarette again, and Reed noticed his hands shook a bit. “Scared the bejeezus out of me, if ya want to know the truth. Spooky as hell. I saw ’em, took off, and made the call. Figured I had to. Them two little bodies . . . shit.” After a final drag, he shot a stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth and jabbed his cigarette out in the already-full ashtray. “Hope I never see a thing like that again.” He looked up at Reed and motioned to the two cops. “You all. You see that kind of shit all the time, but me? I don’t. And I sure as hell don’t want to again. Not if I live to be a hundred!”
That part Reed believed.
But Delacroix wasn’t moved. “So you waded through the muck in the basement to the far wall and found the latch to the crypt.”
“Yeah, that’s about it.” He was nodding.
“Kind of intricate, isn’t it?” she pointed out. “Not all that easy to get into.”
Bronco frowned and Reed noticed a bead of sweat running from his temple. “Well, the damned door was open and I . . . I peeked in and damn, but one of those skulls seemed to be starin’ straight at me!” He gave a shudder.
She asked, “What time was this?”
“’Bout ten minutes before I made the call. I got in my truck and me and the dog came here, I called, took a shower and . . . and drove into town.”
“To the Red Knuckle?” Reed asked.
“Yeah.” Bronco’s head snapped up. “You had me followed?”
“Well, yeah. After we figured out who made the call, we started looking for you,” Reed explained. “Do you have any idea how long those bodies have been up there?”
“Hell, no! I didn’t know they were there.”
Delacroix interjected, “What about identifying them? Do you know who they were?”
“Shit, no! They looked like girls, I guess. I mean, they were wearin’ girl things, but . . . wait!” He focused on Reed. “What is this? How would I know who they were? Wait a minute? Are you . . . ? Are you suggestin’ I knew something about how they got up there? What happened to them? Shit, I got no fuckin’ . . . no clue!” He scraped his pack of Winstons from the table and shook out another cigarette. His hands visibly trembled as he snapped his lighter over the end of his filter tip. “What the hell are you trying to pull here?” He squinted through the smoke. “I did you all a favor. I found the bodies, got the hell out, called fu—effin’ 911 and that’s all I know.”
