Truck Stop (8 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ben pulled to a stop in the side lot outside the junkyard; his eyes were fixed intently on the dark, shadowy maze beyond the cyclone fence. Despite the rain, his cop’s ears had heard the gunshot when he arrived moments ago, and he could tell the direction it had come from.

He unsnapped his holster, grabbed his flashlight, and opened his door. He was in full cop mode now, careful and alert. He had been trained that way. Safety first. Even when it seemed like a routine traffic stop, treat it like the person behind the wheel could be deadly. And this was even more uncertain. There had been a gunshot.

Ben snapped on his flashlight and shone it across the junkyard. The rain had eased up a bit, and he could see more than he thought he would be able to. But what he saw wasn’t helpful; it was just a terrain of tangled clutter.

Ben considered his next move. He was certain it had been a gunshot. He had heard enough of them to know, and this had been a shotgun. But so far there was no one out in the junkyard that he could see.

The back door of the truck stop squeaked open. Ben looked over and saw Bart leaning outside. “Officer? I think we just heard a….“

“Yeah, I heard it too when I was pulling up. Everyone okay inside?”

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Bart answered.

“Go back inside,” Ben ordered. “Lock that door behind you.”

Bart retreated into the truck stop and closed the door tightly behind him.

Ben looked back at the junkyard. It was worth a look. He carefully crossed over to the break in the fence and ducked through. He made his way past the old shed, careful to keep his pistol poised and ready as he panned his light ahead of him through the maze of junk.

He climbed over the mound of slippery metal siding and down the other side to the rusted truck cab and the edge of the dark burial pit. He paused, puzzled. What the hell was this, a collapsed well of some kind?

Ben tilted his light down into the muddy hole. The cold white light landed on the decomposed human remains that bobbed up and down in the murky water at the bottom.

A wave of nausea swept over Ben. “Oh, Christ….”

“Hey!” Roger’s voice called out from the darkness.

Ben whipped his flashlight in Roger’s direction and aimed his pistol. “Freeze!”

It took only a split second for Ben to see it was Roger, clambering desperately toward him through the junk.

Jesus Christ, Ben thought. You never approach an armed officer like that in the dark. Especially one who had seen what he had just seen.

But Roger wasn’t thinking straight. He was panicked and frightened. “He’s out here! He was just out here!”

Ben lowered his pistol. “What’s going on?”

Roger paused on the other side of the sheet metal pile and caught his breath. “The guy who buried the bodies down there…he saw that I found them…he…he took a shot at me.”

“All right, slow down,” Ben said. “What guy?”

“I…I don’t know, I couldn’t see his….“

BOOM!

Inside the diner, Kat screamed as she watched a slug slam into Ben’s chest.

“Moth…er…fuck…er,” Bart whispered beside her, horrified.

Ben reeled for a split second, clutching the gaping bloody wound in his chest, then pitched backward, crashing onto the metal siding.

Roger took a dive to safety behind a pile of tires. Shit! Had that really just happened? Roger was in raw survival mode now; his body was reacting before his mind could come to terms with the horrific turn this nightmare had taken. He pressed back into the shadows, peered out, and saw Ben was lying dead in a pool of blood.

It did. It had happened. The cop was dead.

Footsteps could be heard retreating. Roger looked around the other side of the tires, but he couldn’t see anyone. Then the sound of a truck starting came from the front parking lot.

Headlight beams pierced the darkness, and Russell’s old tanker truck swung into view around the side of the building and headed off for the highway. The motherfucker was getting away.

Roger leaped out of hiding in a blind adrenaline rage and clambered across the junkyard to the opening in the fence. He ducked out and cut around the side of the building as the old tanker truck rumbled off down the dark road.

Roger darted to his Mustang, jumped behind the wheel. He fired it up and jammed the gas. The muscle car squealed out of the parking lot.

The tanker truck threaded its way down the twisting mountain highway. The road was narrow and treacherous in the driving rain and sleet; the old truck’s wheels slipped and shuddered when they hit the patches of black ice that had started to form along the edges of the hairpin corners.

Roger could see the taillights of the old truck weaving in and out of view as it went through the turns in the road ahead of him. He gripped the steering wheel of his Mustang with white knuckles; he could feel the slick road under his car as he accelerated. The tattered windshield wipers, their padding long gone in Roger’s desperate flight from the parking lot, raced back and forth, doing their best to stem the icy onslaught.

He rounded a corner and saw his opportunity, a straight stretch of road ahead.

Roger jammed on the gas and roared up behind the truck. He cut the wheel hard left as he closed the distance; the Mustang slewed wildly out alongside the truck. Through the dark, vibrating side window of the old tanker, Roger could see Russell’s hazy image shoot a look at him. Then the tanker swerved to the left, slamming into the Mustang in a shower of sparks.

“Motherfucker!” Roger yanked his foot off the gas and grimaced as the Mustang careened out of control on the icy wet road, the front end whipping wildly back and forth. He kept turning into the direction of the skid until he regained control.

The son of a bitch had just tried to kill him.

Up ahead, the tanker-truck barreled around a tight corner; the massive wheels rimmed the edge of the road and slammed through a pothole in a shower of icy mud. The brake lights flashed as it was forced to slow.

Roger swerved back onto the road, more determined than ever not to let the monster get away. He jammed on the gas; the Mustang roared and shot forward again. Roger’s plan was wild and reckless; he would force the tanker off the road no matter what it took.

The truck crested a rise in the road with the Mustang behind it. Roger leaned forward into the wheel, squinting out of the blurry windshield. He was starting to close the gap between them again when the truck slammed on its brakes.

Roger instantly hit his brakes too, and he saw why the truck had braked.

A churning flash flood raged across the highway at the bottom on the other side of the rise.

Roger cut the wheel to the right, and the Mustang skidded to a stop on the muddy shoulder.

But the truck couldn’t brake fast enough. The back end of the massive tanker shuddered and swung around sideways.

Roger watched, horrified, as the out-of-control big rig careened sidelong toward a massive power line tower on the side of the highway. Roger jammed the Mustang into reverse trying to get away from the inevitable fireworks, but it was too late. The tanker slammed into the tower; the steel latticework buckled instantly and came crashing down on the tanker. The high-voltage power lines snapped and popped and danced wildly in a shower of sparks.

Roger threw open the Mustang door and raced over to the wreckage on the edge of the raging flash flood. A thick sludge was gushing out of a jagged hole in the tanker. It was probably some sort of toxic waste, which would be dangerous but not, Roger hoped, flammable.

Roger carefully threaded his way through the sputtering power lines to the cab of the truck. Russell was slumped over the wheel, unconscious.

Roger yanked open the cab door, grabbed Russell, and shook him violently. “What the fuck did you do with my daughter?” he shouted.

Russell mumbled incoherently, blood streaming down his face.

Roger shook him again. “Where’s my daughter?”

Russell drifted off, unconscious.

Roger considered his options; the toxic sludge was swirling up around his feet. The sparking power lines were smoldering and shorting all around him. He had to get out of here. Fast.

Roger grabbed Russell and dragged him out of the truck.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Bart was out in the junkyard covering Ben’s body with a plastic tarp when the entire complex was plunged into darkness. He returned to the diner and joined Kat, who was panicking.

Nothing worked. Not even Kat’s cell phone. Whatever tower had gone down must have had cell transponders on it.

They looked out the dark window and saw Florence White and Ida Consiglio outside Florence’s truck.

“The CB radios in those trucks will still work,” Bart said, as he grabbed a couple flashlights from the kitchen. “Here.” He handed Kat her own flashlight, and they went outside.

Kat clung to her flashlight tightly, warily scanning the dark parking lot as they made their way toward the women.

“The cell phone relays and the landlines are down,” Bart said to the women truckers. “We need to get the police up here. Either of you tried calling out on CB?”

“I got word out about the shooting, but I haven’t heard back whether or not the message was passed on to the police,” Florence said. “I’m sure it will get to them eventually.”

“Well, I got on mine as soon as I saw that murderin’ creep drive his rig out of here,” Ida said. “But I heard the entire road below here was washed out by a flash flood. Cops ain’t gettin’ here even if they wanted to.”

Kat anxiously peered around the parking lot. “What do we do?”

Ida gave her a grim smile. “Nothin’ we can do, honey. Just tighten your pucker and stay put. Or, you can come on by my rig and have a stiff one with me and my boy.”

There was no chance in hell Kat was going to take the leathery old woman up on an offer like that. She didn’t even bother to respond.

“We’re going to wait it out in the diner. You’re all welcome to join us,” Bart offered.

“I’ll be just fine out here,” Florence said with a gentle, motherly smile. Then she pulled out a small, silver, .38 pistol. “If that shooter comes back, he’ll have to tangle with me.”

At one time, Kat would have been thrown by the sight of the sweet older woman with the pistol, but in the three years she had worked at the truck stop she had come to expect just about anything from the drivers.

They were a tough, self-reliant group, and this was a rough world. Chances are they’d seen shootings like this before. Self-defense wasn’t just some kind of “what if” scenario for them. It was part of their daily concern, and most of them could tell you a dozen or more stories about having to threaten the use some kind of lethal force to get out of a jam.

Bart, of course, didn’t bat an eye either when he saw Florence’s gun. “All right,” he said. “But if you change your mind, come on in.”

Florence retreated into her truck. Ida headed back to hers.

As Bart and Kat started toward Frank Rucka’s rig, Kat’s racing mind returned to Roger. She had seen him take off recklessly after the truck. She knew how desperate he was. “Maybe we should go down and find out what happened to Roger,” she said to Bart. “If the road was washed out like Ida said, he couldn’t have gotten far.”

But Bart shook his head. “We’re not going anywhere. No point in that. Not with all that happened here.”

Kat started to object but stopped herself. As much as she worried about Roger, she knew Bart was right. She had just seen a policeman gunned down in front of her eyes, and with that, the night had turned deadly. They were all in survival mode now.

Frank was behind the wheel of his truck, staring at the picture of the little girl on his visor. His eyes were rimmed in red. He was utterly lost and desperate. Everything seemed to have to come to an end for him here. His truck. The spoiled shipment. And the feelings he had been running from for the past three years. He was in a dark corner, and there was no way out.

The .44-magnum pistol in his lap had been there long enough for the cold steel to warm to his body temperature. He looked down at the weapon distantly. It wasn’t good or bad. It didn’t care. It wouldn’t do anything he didn’t make it do. It was him. Frank Rucka. He had to do it all, and he was ready.

His hand felt heavy as he reached for the pistol. Then Ben’s and Kat’s muffled voices from outside shattered the moment.

Frank looked out and saw them approach. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Sure enough, they knocked on the door.

“Yeah!” he heard himself call out.

“You okay in there?” Bart’s voice was muffled through the door.

Frank remained motionless with his eyes closed. Go away. Just go away. “I’m fine,” he called.

“Well, if you wanna join us inside, you’re welcome,” Bart offered.

Go inside? With you? Why? To sit around a coffee shop and have to endure the anxious fear of people who wanted to live? Worry about a cop killer who might come back and kill them?

It became clear in Frank’s mind. He wasn’t trapped. They were. They were trapped because they were trying to hold on to something that they had no control over. They so desperately wanted to stay alive that it tortured them. But not him. Not Frank. He didn’t care about his weight, or his diabetes, or his asthma anymore. He was free. He had let go.

“I’m staying where I am,” Frank said. And he meant it. This was it. He wasn’t going anywhere else ever again.

“Suit yourself,” Bart’s muffled voice returned. Frank heard their footsteps retreat, and he opened his eyes again. It was black outside. No parking lot lights anymore. Just deep, eternal blackness.

Bart and Kat headed back toward the diner. Kat took an unsteady breath and shook her head. “Jesus, this is so fucked up.”

That was all she could come up with. She had turned things over and over in her mind, trying to find a way to make sense of everything, and she couldn’t. The evening had started as a nightmare with Roger’s missing daughter and had descended into hell. She felt desperate and helpless and now trapped.

Bart knew she was looking to him to make sense of what had happened, but that would be impossible. The best he could do for her was to remain calm and rational. “We’ll be okay. The storm will blow past, and then the cops will….“

Headlights roared up the dark highway. They both looked over and saw Roger’s Mustang careen into the parking lot and screech to a stop.

“It’s him!” Kat blurted and took off running. Bart followed her. They reached the Mustang as Roger climbed out.

“You’re okay,” Kat panted, relieved.

Roger shot a stony look back at her and opened the passenger side door. Russell was inside, wounded and groggy.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bart asked, stunned by the sight of the bloodied man.

“Finding my daughter,” Roger answered simply as he grabbed Russell and shook him violently. “Wake up! Wake up, motherfucker!”

Bart stepped in and pulled Roger off of the injured man. “Easy! Take it easy!”

Roger yanked his arm out of Bart’s grip. “Fuck that. The only reason I didn’t kill him down on the highway was so I could patch him up long enough to get answers.”

Bart carefully propped Russell’s head up and examined his beaten body. “Well, you’re lucky you got him this far. He’s losing a lot of blood. Let’s get him inside, or you’re not going to get any answers.”

Moments later, Kat swept a tabletop clean and Bart and Roger laid Russell out on it. Bart wiped the blood that oozed from a cut on Russell’s forehead and turned to Kat. “Get the first-aid kit from the kitchen.”

Kat hurried off to get the kit. Bart grabbed a stack of napkins from a dispenser and pressed them against Russell’s head wound.

“All right, we do whatever we have to do to get this motherfucker awake enough to talk. Don’t give him anything for pain. I want him to feel everything,” Roger insisted.

Kat returned with the first-aid kit and put it down on the table. Bart tossed the bloody napkins away and rummaged through the kit. “What makes you think it was him?” Bart asked.

“What?” Roger asked, distracted.

Bart found some tape and gauze. “You saw him shoot that patrolman?”

“Well, of course,” Roger said irritably. “I heard him run to this truck, then I saw him get in and take off.”

“Him? Russell? You saw Russell shoot him? Or you heard it?” Bart asked as he placed the gauze on the wound and pulled off some tape.

“Saw? Heard? Fuck, he was out there running away. He tried to drive me off the road when I came after him,” Roger shot back, growing annoyed with the older man.

Bart remained silent as he placed the tape over the gauze, holding it in place.

Roger pressed his point. “Look, you saw what was back there, didn’t you? I mean, that pit. The bodies.”

“Bodies?” Kat asked, alarmed.

Bart shot a stern look at Roger. Kat was in a fragile enough state; she didn’t need anything else on her plate. But Roger ignored him and looked back at Kat. “He didn’t tell you?”

Bart looked away angrily and continued to dress Russell’s wound. Roger had started something that couldn’t be stopped now.

Kat tried to catch Bart’s eye but he avoided her. “What’s out there?” she said.

“A fucking pit full of remains. Cut up, most of them.” Roger said bluntly. He didn’t see the point of not letting Kat know exactly what they were all dealing with, especially now that they were isolated like this. Her life depended on it.

Kat went pale. “Jesus. Bart?” She looked desperately at Bart, and this time he couldn’t avoid responding.

“Look, you were already so freaked out, I didn’t think I should….“

“Bodies? How many?”

“I couldn’t tell. I just covered up that officer, and then the power went out, and I came back to you.”

“But where did they come from?” Kat asked, reeling.

“This fucker,” Roger said, nodding at Russell. “Right here. You said he’s been coming around here for years. He’s been killing them and dumping them there.” Roger took out the muddy stuffed animal remains. “And my daughter’s stuffed animal was right out there with them.”

“Oh, God,” Kat whispered, horrified.

Bart looked over at the stuffed animal that Roger was holding. The depth of rage he was feeling was palpable. Bart struggled silently for a moment, then spoke carefully and measuredly. “Look, we don’t know that for sure. We don’t know it was Russell.”

“He ran. Why would he run?” Roger jumped in.

“You already had him pegged.” The last thing Bart wanted was to get into a fight with Roger now, but he couldn’t let this continue to careen out of control. “Hey, I know him. Maybe not well, but I know him. At least fifteen years he’s been coming in here. I’ve got a pretty good nose when it comes to reading people, and he never set off a red flag once. Not once.”

“Well, now he has. Especially after what I saw under his truck.” The moment Roger said it, he knew he shouldn’t have.

“What? What did you see?” Bart grew concerned.

“It looked like he ran over someone.” It was the only way Roger could answer without having to explain his visions. The last thing Roger wanted right now was Bart questioning his sanity.

“But the cop checked his whole rig, didn’t he?” Bart asked, puzzled. “I saw him do it. If there was something under his truck he would’ve found it, wouldn’t he?”