Lullaby Road, page 5
Andy opened a good-natured smile. “I’m confident we’ll all be forgiven. After all,” he added, “it’s not real.”
“Well,” I said, warming to the moment, “I’m no Christian, Andy—and maybe John will help me out with this—but doesn’t the thought count? A sin in the mind is still a sin.”
Andy took the cigarette and began a long, slow draw. John nodded and started to speak. Blowing smoke with his words, Andy said, “Don’t encourage him, John.” He returned the cigarette to me. “Have you seen anything unusual out here in the last week?”
We both did our best not to let our eyes drift over to John and his cross. I drew on the cigarette and handed it to John.
“Could you narrow that down a bit, Andy?”
“A vehicle.”
John took a puff and looked toward the mesa and shook his head.
“Now that you mention it,” I said, “last week I saw a Prius with a gun rack.”
Andy sighed. “Ben, don’t make me go get my hat.”
“Nope,” I said. Andy was like all cops asking questions, careful not to lead. “What’s this about?”
“Not much, probably. Since I want you to keep a lookout, I’ll tell you.”
John offered Andy the cigarette. Andy declined so John handed it back to me.
“You know that Utah Entry weigh station as you come down that steep grade on 191 from Soldier Summit coming into Price?” When I said I did he continued: “Last Wednesday a truck dodged it.”
“That all?” I said.
“It would be except that he’d done it before—always early in the morning, before dawn. Moving fast on that downgrade. Last Wednesday I took a nightshift as a favor and I was on US 191 north of Green River. I had plenty of time to intercept him. A Price officer was investigating a prowler and saw the truck and trailer going south at a high rate of speed. Then the rig just disappeared.”
Andy didn’t need to spell that out for me. The driver didn’t want to be stopped and inspected and he was willing to risk it all. “You figure he turned down 117?”
“I do. Only turn he could have made. And that scares me. For him to reach the turnoff for 117 ahead of me he had to be traveling at least a hundred miles per hour, maybe one twenty or better. I don’t have to tell you a truck going that fast is dangerous in the extreme. Felony reckless endangerment. You get time, not just a ticket. Your vehicle is impounded. Your CDL will get jerked in a heartbeat. To risk that you’re not just stupid, you’re either high or—”
He didn’t need to finish his thought. “A lot of trucks out here, though not so many on 117. You got any kind of description?”
“I’ve got color and a little more. You know those old cab-over White Freightliners from the 1960s and early ’70s? Flat-nosed monsters?”
I did. In their own way they were legendary. Blowers. Some ranging up to 800 horsepower. “Kinda rare,” I said.
“This one was freshly painted candy-apple red.”
“Subtle,” I volunteered.
“Some words in block letters. ‘Red’ something. Begins with an h maybe ‘Hell.’ ”
That got John’s attention. “Red Hell?”
“You’ve seen it?”
“No. If I did, I’d remember.” John appeared relieved to say he hadn’t seen it, as if it were more than just a truck speeding through the desert night.
“If you do, just let the Highway Patrol know as soon as possible, okay? Don’t either of you try to approach the truck or driver.” The concern in his voice was unmistakable, especially for John. “You see him coming, get well off the shoulder. You listening to me, John?”
John said he heard loud and clear.
For a moment I thought about mentioning the semi that had clipped me earlier and just as quickly dismissed the idea. As far as I knew it wasn’t a cab-over, though it might have been. I was too damn busy, half-blinded, and pointed in the wrong direction to notice its color. Its driver came at me fast, but his actual speed was difficult to judge. I decided against mentioning it because all I could really tell Andy was that I’d seen a truck.
Out of habit, I dropped our imaginary cigarette to the ground and rubbed it out with my boot. “You got a vintage red truck with maybe the words ‘Red Hell’ painted on it going over a hundred miles an hour. That’s a neon-blazing crazy. Anything else?”
“The trailer. Also relatively rare. Either a side-dumper or a live bottom, though he could change trailers.”
Both trailers were specialty jobs, used mostly for road construction or sometimes agriculture, at least as far as I knew. They were long trailers usually pulled by a three-axle tractor that unloaded to the side or had an opening beneath them that unloaded waste or aggregate of some kind. Either one was designed for a quick release and go and to keep the load from getting in the way of their tires or impeding traffic at a construction site. Unless you were on a highway where roadwork was being done or on a construction site the odds were you might never see one during daylight. Seeing one under way past dark was damn unusual no matter where you were.
Andy wished John and me a good and safe day and walked back to the white Ford F-150 pickup that served as his cruiser.
I followed him and leaned over and waited for him to open his window. When he did, I said, “I’ve never seen or heard of you pulling your service weapon, Andy, but you pull that truck over I suggest you have it drawn.”
After a grim nod, Andy said, “You know I still see that county deputy around. That scar on his face is hard to miss. And there’s more than a few more officers around wearing similar souvenirs you gave them. I never thought I’d live to see the day Ben Jones would warn a cop to be careful.”
“You still haven’t,” I said. “For the record, remember, that county jerk-off punched me in the gut while I was handcuffed. It wasn’t an intentional head butt no matter what he said. My attorney made it clear it was simply a reflex in response to his punch. Besides, that was a long time ago. And I was drunk. I’m a changed man.”
“Sure,” Andy said. “A reflex. Of course it was. Though I’ll wager it seems just like yesterday to him every time he looks in the mirror. He probably doesn’t care much about you changing. Even I wonder how changed you are, Ben. No matter how much time goes by a volcano is still a volcano.”
“What are you getting at, Andy?”
“I’m not getting at anything, really. Just making an observation. Like you, I have a lot of time to think. I had coffee with Captain Dunphy a few weeks after his retirement. He’d been doing some thinking too. There were a lot of questions that weren’t asked a few months ago when that woman and her million-dollar cello disappeared. Part of the reason they weren’t asked is because the insurance company wouldn’t file a report. Maybe the biggest reason is that insurance investigator PO’d the captain.”
Though Andy said he was just thinking, I didn’t care for where his thinking was taking our conversation. “That asshole pissed me off too,” I said.
“Did you know they found tire prints out there near where they found that rented SUV? You remember, don’t you? The one that got caught in the flash flood and killed that woman’s ex-husband? The one you flagged for Search and Rescue?”
“I remember. So?”
“Tire prints from a motorcycle.”
I waited.
“Dunlops. Just like the ones on Walt’s vintage Vincent Black Shadow.”
“Walt rides that Vincent all over this desert. And all of his other motorcycles too. And I’m sure there are other bikers.” I wasn’t sure about the last. It sounded plausible enough.
“Walt sure does get around, that’s for sure.”
We could have gone on pretending I didn’t know what he was doing, but I didn’t have the patience and I didn’t want the conversation to continue. “You wearing an invisible hat, Andy?”
We watched each other’s faces. “No,” he said. “When I put on my hat it won’t be invisible and it would be a big mistake if you failed to see it.”
“Come on, Andy. You saying Walt and maybe me had something to do with that woman and her cello disappearing?”
Walt and I were the only two people who knew the whole story of Claire and her cello. As far as Andy and the rest of the world were concerned, particularly the law, she and the cello had vanished into the desert with no connection to us—just an old man and a truck driver. Now Claire and her twenty-million-dollar del Gesu cello were on an eternal tour with Elvis. I wanted to keep it that way. I needed to keep it that way, though if pressed I might not have been able to come up with a logical explanation. Sure, some of what we had done was illegal, but not criminal—not to my mind anyway. Claire might not have been the cello’s legal owner, but she was sure as hell its rightful owner and it belonged where it was—in her grave.
“I’m saying that the couple times my path crossed with you and Walt since all that happened, you two have seemed a little—” He took a breath. “Different. That’s all. It’s got me to thinking about how rare it is for a man to actually change.”
“Who are we really talking about? Me or Walt?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t really have to be one or the other, does it?”
Though it happened a long time ago, if you kill three men with a butcher knife like Walt had, no matter what the circumstances, people, especially law-enforcement types, will always wonder what you’re capable of in the future. No charges were ever filed against Walt for killing Bernice’s three rapists, and no one but me knew about the fourth—and as Walt said, he didn’t kill the guy, he just didn’t save him. It was a fine line to be sure, and only I knew where that body was buried.
“Well, if that’s what keeps your time occupied, then you go on thinking all you like.”
“I will. Just don’t go off the reservation, Ben.”
I’d heard that saying a lot in my life as a way of generally warning someone not to get crazy. I never liked it much. “How come people say that about Indians and never about Jews? I’ve never heard of anyone saying, ‘Just don’t go off the kibbutz.’ ”
“You’re right. So here it is for both sides of your heritage: Don’t go off the kibbutz, Ben. You stay a changed man. You know anything more about that truck?”
“No,” I said. “But you and I know that driver is trouble. If I knew anything, I’d tell you. Just for the record, I’m not warning a cop. I’m warning you. My guess is that the driver didn’t go far down 117. Probably just far enough and waited long enough to think it was safe to get back out on 191. He’s long gone by now.”
“Probably,” he said. “By the way, have you seen Dan Brew lately? Particularly his new bride, or latest fiancée?”
I told Andy I’d just seen Brew.
“The woman?”
I shook my head. “Not lately. I can’t even remember the new one’s name. Maybe I didn’t ever hear it. Not that I care either way.”
“She hasn’t been in touch with her family back east for a while. They’re concerned. I was asked to drive out there and check on her. You were just there?”
“An hour or so ago.”
“There was no one there when I stopped by. If you see her or Dan, tell Didi to phone home.”
I laughed. “Didi?”
Andy put on his hat and pulled the brim snug against his head. “Shut up, Ben. And don’t forget what I said about the kibbutz.”
He spun his tires on the gravel shoulder and turned around and disappeared back the way he had come.
9
John had begun to feel the cold again and was putting on his coat when I returned. “Seemed like you and Trooper Smith were having quite a conversation.”
I ignored his observation and wished I could do the same for my own. John stretched again and cocked his head at an odd angle. “I think I’m spending too much time out here.”
“You think?”
“I’m beginning to hear things.”
This was mildly concerning to me, though truth be told it didn’t surprise me. “Is God speaking to you?”
“No,” he said. “And yes. He speaks to all of us all the time if we’re listening. This time it’s just the wind.”
Eager to be on my way, I asked a question without much interest in hearing the answer. “And what’s the wind saying?”
“Not saying anything, exactly. Just sounds to me like a baby crying.”
John recoiled a half step from the startled expression on my face. I’d forgotten all about my passengers. It was only a few steps to the door of my cab and I covered them in record time. The dog was sitting up and looking at the girl, who was cradling the baby in her arms. She smiled at me and gently rocked Annabelle, which quieted her a bit until she got her next breath and then she let loose with an ear-piercing scream. I caught a whiff of the problem.
John had come up behind me and I felt his presence at my shoulder. “Well, well,” he said, “I think you have a chore ahead of you.”
He seemed content, at least for the moment, to keep any questions he might have to himself. I took Annabelle and motioned for the girl to scoot over onto the driver’s side. She complied. The dog squeezed over the center console and resumed his position at her feet, though his attention was now on me.
Like a carpenter unpacking his toolbox I laid Annabelle on the seat and grabbed the baby bag and dumped its contents on the floor of the cab. She let out another wail while I considered my next move.
I was embarrassed and angry with myself. How could I just forget about them? My excuse was simple. I had spent five days a week for twenty years driving the desert alone. Suddenly having children as passengers was a steep and dangerous learning curve.
As I stood there surveying the new tools of child care, John said, “It’s been a long time, Ben, but I’d appreciate it if you’d let me do this. I used to be good at it.”
“I can do it!” I barked.
He put his big hand on my shoulder and said, “I know you can. I’m just saying this brings to mind such sweet memories. I’d consider it a favor if you let me.”
I always knew John had a story, everyone did, though his dead-ended on a Utah desert road. Whatever his former life, it wasn’t something I thought much about, and it always struck an unsettled nerve in me when he infrequently referred to some ordinary fact as if an ordinary life could somehow land your aging old ass in the middle of nowhere hauling a cross.
“Since you put it that way,” I said. The two of us exchanged places on the running board.
We watched him go to work—by “we” I mean the girl and the dog, and me—first washing his large, callused hands with a wipe before touching the baby. If Annabelle had been imaginary he couldn’t have done a better job. No wasted movement, almost rhythmic the way his hands moved, firm and gentle at the same time. He had her out of her little jumpsuit in a flash even as she squirmed and complained.
I noticed the pink flannel suit was covered with a pattern of green Day-Glo skulls with pacifiers in their bony mouths, surrounded with happy little flying black bats. I idly wondered where in the hell Ginny found all of her grim crap. Maybe there was a Halloween Baby Gap tucked away somewhere in Price. I stopped asking myself the “why” of her fascination months ago. I knew it would be the kind of answer that only made sense to the young. To anyone of serious years the symbols of death meant something a bit more personal than a fashion statement. If I ever saw a nose or lip ring near Annabelle, Ginny and I would have a holy roller come-to-Jesus meeting, or a come-to-Halloween meeting. I didn’t care which it was.
John paused and admired his fresh handiwork while the baby reached for a handful of his white beard. He turned and winked proudly at me. “Praise the Lord. Muscle memory.”
I complimented his work just as Annabelle went all out with a new wail that burst past us in a warm cloud into a quickly cooling breeze. John and I exchanged our clueless masculine befuddlement. We might have puzzled a while longer if not for the girl. She scooted off the seat and lifted one of the full bottles out of the side pocket of the baby bag and offered it to John.
Bottle in hand he dabbed a bit of liquid on his wrist and then confessed he didn’t know if it was warm enough.
“Try it,” I said. “If she doesn’t find it to her liking I’m betting she’ll let us know in short order.”
John wrapped the baby in a blanket and held her close to him, out of the rising wind. It might not have been just right, but it was right enough. There on the side of the road as the sky darkened she took the nipple and drank with the abandon of a man dying of thirst. I didn’t know such a little thing could consume that much liquid so quickly. John lifted her to his shoulder and patted for a minute or two and the ensuing burp brought a bit of laughter from both of us.
John put her down on the passenger seat again, swaddled and full and already drifting, and tipped a corner of the blanket across her face. A breeze blew the blanket back and the girl and John both reached at the same time to replace it. Their hands touched above the baby’s head. From behind John all I could see were the girl’s steady black eyes and their hands, her tiny dirty fingers across his clean, huge wind-burned paw. The seconds ticked into a minute, maybe longer, and neither one removed their hand.
The weather worsened around us. When the first small snowflakes began to skitter across my face I tugged at John’s jacket and their hands separated. Together John and I resettled Annabelle into her car seat and strapped her in and the girl and the dog resumed their positions on the passenger side.
I closed the door. “Seems like you and my other passenger were having quite a conversation yourselves.”
John took his time responding, though it wasn’t really a question that required an answer. He zipped and buttoned his jacket all the way to the top and pulled a threadbare gray scarf from a pocket and wrapped it twice around his head before tying the ends in a bow beneath his long white beard. He extracted a pair of old deerskin work gloves from another pocket, and as he put them on he said, “Ben—” That was as far as he got.
He looked over to the cab and started again. “Ben, that girl…”
