The road curved gently but steadily each way; trees passed in a whoosh of morning-dark green. The dead possums he’d noticed yesterday no longer littered the shoulder. There would be more, he knew—people would be running them down and smashing them flat for the next five months, but at least the first wave had been cleaned up. It was odd, though. The sun was just now peeking over the horizon; he’d never known the animal control crew to come through at night.
Another few bends in the road, and he could see Merkel’s field in the gray morning darkness. The cornfield had always baffled them; there was no one in town named Merkel, and nobody really knew who owned or worked the field. The corn would grow heartily all summer, then would suddenly be gone, as if harvested overnight, all without a single sign of farmers. Every so often kids would steal or dismember the scarecrow, but there would always be a new one up the next day.
Kurt stopped on the shoulder just past the farthest boundary of the field, where the break in the forest ended and the trees began again. Parked directly ahead of him was Bard’s T-bird, the hazard flashers blinking rhythmically on and off. Bard and Mark Higgins stood off to the side, arms crossed contemplatively, their figures pale in the gray light. Swaggert and the town cruiser were not to be seen, nor was there any sign of the mangling car crash he’d envisioned earlier.
Bard greeted him with his usual inexplicable question. “Was Swaggert fucked up last night at shift change?”
“No,” Kurt said, and arched a brow. It was a question without pretense; Doug Swaggert was straight and everyone knew it. “Swaggert doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t do dope, either. That’s common knowledge.”
Bard glared at Kurt, then at Higgins. His face seemed to be giving off heat. Kurt could tell he was fired up about something.
Higgins said, “Christ.”
“If he wasn’t shitfaced, then he must’ve fallen asleep at the wheel, the dumb fuck. Take a look at that.” Bard pointed down into the narrow gulch that descended off the shoulder.
The town patrol car was settled there at the bottom, as if dropped. Kurt could see that the entire left of it was crumpled in; the car lay on its side so that the two right wheels hung aloft in the air. Dew beaded on the shiny metal and glass, sparkling. The passenger door was cocked open, precariously defying gravity.
“Holy shit,” Kurt said. “Where’s Swaggert?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“There’s no blood inside,” Higgins told him. “Whatever happened, he walked away from it.”
“Did you call South County General?”
Higgins nodded. “Not admitted. And the dispatcher says she didn’t hear from him all night.”
“He must’ve bolted,” Bard said. “Probably thought I’d hold him responsible for the car, so he just took off and left town.”
“No way, Chief,” Kurt said. “If Swaggert wrecked the car through his own negligence, he’d own up to it. He’s not the kind of guy to head for the hills just because of one departmental.”
They all turned their heads then, exactly at the same time. The sudden whine of an engine tore through the dawn silence, and a tow truck from DeHenzel’s Texaco appeared from around the bend. Gears ground as it jerked to a halt. The driver got out and looked into the gulley; he was young, lanky, frighteningly tall, and had freckles and bright blond hair. Frowning, he nodded dumbly, then hitched the cruiser up and hauled it out of the ditch. Bard’s distress shone plainly on his face; he nearly fell over when he got full view of the cruiser’s damage—body work alone would kill the emergency fund, in addition to the cost of a new front end, a new visibar, and probably a new radiator. Damn crying shame, Kurt thought; it had been a good cruiser. But it was better the car than Swaggert, wherever he was.
“I’ll probably have to buy a whole new cruiser,” Bard said after the tow truck had left. “The mayor’s gonna shit bowling pins… Wait’ll I get my hands on that fuckin’ Swaggert. I’ll murder him.”
Higgins was leaning back on Bard’s fender; he ran a tiny comb through his mustache. “I have to agree with Kurt, Chief. Swaggert didn’t do this and run off. We all know him better than that.”
Bard and Higgins began to bicker back and forth, making liberal use of four-letter words. Kurt wandered out to the yellow line ten or fifteen yards back. Two even black slashes streaked diagonally across the line; they led toward the gulley where the cruiser had been. cruiserOver here,” he called out.
They walked over sullenly. Bard stooped and put his hands on his knees, a physical act that Kurt could scarcely believe.
“Skidmarks,” Bard said. “How did I miss them?”
Try opening your eyes, Kurt thought. “Swaggert didn’t nod at the wheel. Something made him slam on his brakes and cross the yellow line. Then he lost control.”
“We can guess all we want,” Higgins said, “but the only way we’re going to know for sure is to ask Swaggert.”
Bard’s heavy face now glittered an amazing shade of pink. “Yeah, but first we have to find the son of a bitch.”
Birds chirped around them, reveling in the joy of a new day. As the sun cleared the edge of the earth, pouring light, the three men faced each other, suddenly unable to speak. Kurt felt a spark of dread in his gut; next to Cody Drucker’s disentombment, he couldn’t imagine anything so wrong. Doug Swaggert, it seemed, had simply vanished.
««—»»
Kurt hadn’t been to Glen’s for so long that he nearly forgot the way. Glen lived in a drab little bungalow just beyond town limits, in Annapolis. When he finally found the place, he parked the new cruiser next to Glen’s Pinto. Six bungalows formed a horseshoe shape around a communal parking oval. They all looked the same—gray and squat and forsaken, windows blank in afternoon shadow. Heaps of leaves lay still between the bungalows, crabgrass crawled out through cracks in sidewalks. Another car was parked two spaces down, a black, nameless foreign make; its sleek curves, tinted glass, and sharp-sloped front end reminded Kurt of a shark. He thought he heard its engine ticking as he walked across the cul-de-sac.
He fastened his portable to his belt, then rapped gently on Glen’s storm door. Glen appeared almost instantly, as if he’d been waiting all along, and instead of inviting Kurt in, he stepped outside and walked straight to the new cruiser.
“So here’s the new patrol car,” Glen said. He looked at it appraisingly. “What a beaut.”
“How did you know about it?” Kurt asked.
“Higgins told me this morning when I got off.”
“When Bard found out how much it would cost to repair the old one, he decided to just go for it all. The old one was breaking down anyway. I’d sure like to know how he wrangled the extra cash out of the town council.”
“Probably had to spend some time on his knees.”
Kurt smiled at the insinuation, but then he darkened at the next thought. “I guess Higgins told you the rest, too.”
Glen was peeking in at the dash, shading his eyes with his hand. “Huh? Oh, yeah—about Swaggert. That’s spread all over town by now. What do you think happened to him?”
“That’s what I came to ask you. Did you see him last night?”
“Nope, and that’s strange because he usually stops by Belleau Wood to bullshit for a few minutes. But not last night, I didn’t see hide nor hair of the guy. Could he have been thrown clear when he wrecked the car, or maybe crawled away?”