“Seat belt, seat belt,” I yelled at her over the engine noise, while I struggled to follow my own advice. “What’s your name?” I asked the driver.
“Sean. Glad to meet you. He kill someone or something?”
We hit a trough, and I smacked my head against the roof. “Yeah.”
His hands still on the wheel, he said, “Use the radio. Tell them to call for backup.” He had a portable radio wedged under his thigh. I grabbed it, keyed the mike, and said, “This is a police emergency. Call the cops and tell them we have an officer down and are in pursuit. We need assistance.”
The laconic reply was, “Got that. VSP’s already been notified.”
Ahead of us, Freund leapt onto the roadway and fishtailed toward the parking lots. Moments later, with a sickening crunch from underneath, we did the same. Sean let out a yell and hit the gas.
“This thing going to hold together?” I shouted, grabbing the dash.
“Hell if I know, but I’ve always wanted to open ’er up.”
We barreled down between a row of parked cars, grateful to be on a smoother surface, even if it was still dirt. I kept my fingers crossed no pedestrians would suddenly appear. In the straightaway, Walter widened the gap between us.
“Don’t worry about him losin’ us,” Sean declared.
“Why not?” I asked skeptically.
“’Cause he won’t be able to turn right worth shit.”
Those words were still in the air when Walter reached the end of the lane in front of us, cut right to make the corner, and went sailing into a row of cars, sending a shower of sparks into the night air. That canted right front wheel, solely designed for left turns, had bit into the dirt with all the effectiveness of a skinny bicycle tire. We were back on his tail as he recovered and regained speed.
The next stretch played to his favor, however, going downhill in a wide left turn, at the bottom of which the surface returned to asphalt. We were nearing the exit to Thunder Road and the state highway beyond.
“Let’s hope your friends are on their toes,” Sean said, “’Cause this boy’s options are just about to open up.”
Walter seemed to sense the same thing, while simultaneously catering to his vehicle’s one drawback. As he hit the end of the entrance road, he predictably turned left.
I grabbed the radio again. “Anyone out there?”
The response was scratchy, the range being only a mile or so. “Go ahead.”
“We’ve gone left out the entrance. Tell VSP to set up roadblocks.”
Nothing came back except static.
“Guess we’re on our own,” Sammie said from the back.
Sean needed no more urging to apply the speed. I hoped his skill matched his ambition as I felt my back press against the seat-especially as we topped a rise, all four wheels off the ground, and saw Walter ahead of us swerve to avoid an oncoming pickup truck.
Either his lack of skill or that front wheel did him in. He fishtailed slightly, puffs of blue smoke curling from his rear tires, and then he began to slide. As Sean hit the brakes and started us into our own controlled skid, I saw Walter’s car give the pickup a glancing blow and go sailing across the ditch. He smashed into a tree about five feet off the ground and landed with the finality of a dictionary hitting the floor. As we shuddered to a halt not fifteen feet behind him, only slightly out of true with the road, I was suddenly aware of both silence and stillness, even before Sean killed his engine.
I stepped out, glanced over at the pickup’s astonished driver, still frozen with his hands on the wheel, and crossed the ditch to Walter’s car. It was shattered, flattened, surrounded by debris, and utterly, totally at peace.
Sammie was right behind me. “You see him?”
“Not yet,” I said softly. I approached cautiously, gun drawn, aware of sirens closing in from afar, and crouched low so I could see through the passenger window. Walter Freund was holding the steering wheel in a lethal embrace, his rib cage seemingly welded to the car. Blood was everywhere.
He hadn’t had time to fasten his seat belt.
I straightened and turned to Sammie. “Of the three men who killed Phil Resnick, it looks like we’re down to one.”
29
We returned to the track after the state police took over the crash site. The evening’s events had been canceled, and thousands of departing spectators were being detoured through various exits, forcing Sean to inch along in a parody of his earlier glory. By the time we got back to where the late models were parked, Danny Mullen was long gone and his crew was tight-lipped about his whereabouts.
I found it a frustrating end to a day that had begun far more hopefully.
In contrast, Sammie seemed curiously upbeat. “Too bad Walter committed dumbicide, but at least now we know who to focus on.”
Since I remembered she’d been on a tear to go after Mark Mullen earlier, she now had me guessing. “Danny or Mark?”
She stared at me. “Danny. You know God-damn well he tucked Walter out of sight ’cause he was on the payroll. No frigging way that’s some kind of fluke.”
I didn’t disagree. “What about his brother?”
“Same thing. They’re in it together. One guy does up-front showboating, the other one breaks legs and raises the money. All we need now is enough to justify a warrant for all his paperwork, and I bet we get him cold.”
I remained silent in the face of her enthusiasm. “You don’t think so?” She challenged me.
I hesitated before answering. “I don’t doubt Danny’s got dirt under his nails, and I don’t doubt Mark wants to be governor. I do wonder how neat and tidy it all is.”
Sammie was dismissive. “But it is neat and tidy. That’s what’s fouled us up from the start-Phil Resnick, Owen Tharp, Brenda Croteau, Walter Freund, Billy Conyer. All of them were like cobwebs hitting us in the face, keeping us from seeing the root cause of it all. If you take it back to the Mullens, it gets real simple.”
I thought back to what was the biggest objection to William of Occam’s famous razor in his day-that if the answer to a problem was arrived at by extracting or excluding all pseudo-explanations, who was to decide which of those was superfluous and which had merit? Might the process not become too simplified and miss a vital truth?
I decided to hold off debate and take advantage of Sammie’s reborn energy to get her to open up a little. “I’m glad you got the bit back in your teeth.”
That caught her by surprise. She looked out the side window at the passing darkness for a while before finally saying, “Yeah, well.”
“I owe you an apology,” I continued. “I think I’m partly to blame for what happened between you and Andy.”
She switched her gaze to me. “How?”
“After I talked to him about hanging out at the Dirty Dollar, drinking with Billy Conyer and the others, I dropped the ball. I knew Brenda used to go there, too. It would’ve been logical to find out if they knew each other-I did ask him, but only in passing. I should’ve checked into it. If I had, it might’ve made things easier for you.”
She merely shrugged. “I doubt it. Any way you look at it, he lied to me. Wouldn’t’ve mattered when I found out.”
“You really loved him.” It wasn’t a question.
“Whatever that is.”
“Don’t be so cynical. It doesn’t make you a sucker because you fell for the wrong guy. Everything in life takes practice, otherwise every teenage hot flash would end up in a lifelong commitment.”
She flared up a little. “I’m not a teenager.”
I kept silent, hoping I’d uncorked things enough that they’d start flowing on their own.
After a pause, she added, “It just felt so right. He was really good company.”
“You sure you were right to dump him?”
She surprised me by sighing tiredly. “Yeah. You know, it’s funny, saying what good company he was. It’s almost like hearing someone else talking. He wasn’t that good company. To tell you straight, he was mostly just terrific in bed. And I was really horny. Sounds pathetic, but that’s what I miss the most right now. I never did have what I see with you and Gail-the deeper stuff.”