“I doubt we have the choice anymore. We had one body when we left four days ago; that’s more than we’ve had in the last three years. I’d be surprised if the selectmen haven’t forced Brandt to bring in everybody but the Mounties by now. Gail said they’d soon be looking for someone to hang.”
For once, Frank didn’t even groan. Slim as it was, Kees’s conjecture about Harris’s killer had given him something to chew on besides his endangered reputation.
He muttered, “I bet he’s a government man.”
“A spook?”
“That, or a vet. Special Forces or something. He’s got to be on his own, though. Sure as hell that bug was stolen.”
“He might be the fetus’s father.”
“Sure, or even the real killer. It’s not impossible that since we missed him the first time, he’s renewing the invitation-the man’s obviously bonkers.”
I nodded. “I like that one.”
“The only problem with it is he doesn’t fit my image of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and according to Kees that’s who did her in. You ever notice Ski Mask having trouble breathing?”
“You mean asthma? No, from the little I’ve seen, he’s in good shape. Of course, Kees didn’t say it had to be asthma.”
“I know, and I’ve heard of crippled kids becoming gymnasts. But I can’t believe a guy who was so sick three years ago would be a jock today.”
The car in front suddenly swerved out of control and started slowly spinning around and around, working its way toward the opposite guard rail like a gyroscope losing power. I downshifted and pumped the brakes a couple of times, feeling the road slide out from under the wheels. I hit the accelerator gently an atocopd crabbed by the other car, which had come to a stop a few inches from the edge of the road. My tires finally caught and brought us back into line.
“Everyone okay?”
Murphy was looking back over his shoulder. “Yeah. No damage.” He settled back and we both watched an abandoned eighteen-wheeler lying in a ditch loom up and disappear like a half-remembered thought. “Interesting trip.”
I waited a couple of minutes for my heart to start beating normally. Maybe it was time to get some snow tires. “Of course, no one says he even had a humpback. Kees did mention he might have just had poison ivy or something.”
I shook my head. “Kees was just covering his tracks. I don’t say the guy had the hump necessarily, but he was seriously into this prednisone stuff or Kees wouldn’t have brought it up. I have the suspicion he thinks we have, or at least we had, a full-fledged Cushing’s victim on our hands. In any case, hump or no hump, a run through the local prescriptions ought to give us something.”
“Assuming he was local.”
And so it went, hour after hour, traveling through white space with only the occasional slipping of the tires to let us know we were attached to the road. The conversation lapsed now and then, but only long enough for us to come up with a few more weird ideas.
It was a morale booster if nothing else. By the time Frank took over the wheel in Hartford, I knew for certain my old friend was back where he belonged. We had never worked together on a case as convoluted as this, but we had shared lots of long, winding conversations that had eventually set us on the right course. After all the uncertainty and frustration of the past few days, that simple process, even without final answers, was a big comfort.
Night had fallen halfway into the trip, narrowing our already limited view to a hypnotizing funnel of onrushing snow. Coming from the space-like void, it blazed briefly in the headlights before careening off the windshield, without sound or trace. It was like flying through densely packed stars while standing perfectly still. I was no longer sure if we were moving, or if the earth was slipping rapidly beneath us. And we were utterly alone. North of Springfield the traffic had ceased to exist and we hurtled along in total isolation.
The illusion was shaken first by the dark, deep rumbling of a diesel engine coming up from behind-an oddly menacing sound that enveloped the car. Murphy muttered, “Christ, the son of a bitch must be flying.”
I looked around. The ice-caked rear window glowed with two shaking headlights from an eighteen-wheeler. The noise grew and became a vibration, tickling the soles of my feet and making my hands sweat.
“How fast are we going?”
Both of Frank’s hands were tight on the steering wheel. “Forty-something.”
The light was getting stronger, along with the noise.
“He’s got to be going fifty or better.”
The truck was abreast of us now, a mechanical monster looming like a nightmare.
“What the fuck’s he doing? He’s going to kill us.” Frank tugged at the window crank, fighting against the ice outside. The window suddenly came free. Blazing snow, wind, and the screaming of a diesel engine swept into the car, making us both shout in alarm. Across Murphy’s chest I could see the trailer’s side marker lights gleaming inches from his door; had he reached out his hand, he could have touched them. The wind blew the hat from his head, and in the demonic red glow his face was tight with fear.
“Let up on the gas,” I shouted.
He was ahead of me. The truck’s speed picked up as ours lessened, but too late. The riveted steel wall of the box veered closer and connected. There was a thump and a screech of metal. The car wa s lifted as by the wind. The smoothness beneath our wheels rippled loudly and then sent a punch that lifted us from our seats. Briefly, as in the flash from a camera, I saw the guard rail dead ahead, heard a sudden smashing and then all was quiet and darkness.
For a moment we were airborne, the headlights gone, the windshield a spidery web of cracked glass, the car filled with wind. The nose made contact first, throwing me against my seatbelt. The windshield blew out and we began to roll, slowly at first, then faster and faster. I felt my body float in harness amid an orchestra of noise. The end I don’t remember. There was a flash of light from deep behind my eyes, and there was water. The lovely sound of rushing water.
15
I woke up in a hospital room, staring at a ceiling of pockmarked little tiles, complete with a brown water stain directly overhead. I can’t remember ever seeing such a ceiling without a stain like that.
I was flat on my back and my head hurt. I knew it was a hospital because of the smell, the whiteness, the drip bag suspended from a coat-hanger contraption to my right, and the fact that I’d been woken up by a voice paging Dr. Winters.
I turned my head slightly to better examine the drip bag and instantly closed my eyes against the burst of pain. A scraping noise made me open them again. Gail’s face came into view.
“Joe?”
“Guilty.” My voice had a canned sound to it, as if it came from the outside.
“How are you?”
“Not good, I guess.” My head pounded regularly now, in perfect time with my heart.
Her face came very close, and I felt her lips touch my own. They were soft and trembling. I had never felt so totally in love. I wanted the kiss to continue.
She touched my cheek with her hand. “You’ve been asleep a long time.” Her eyes were brimming.
“How long?”
“Two days.”
I lifted my right hand to rub my eyes and found an intravenous tube taped to my wrist. It was hard to concentrate. “Did we land in some water?”
“A river. You were half-frozen when they found you. You’ve had a concusDid wesion."
“Jesus. How’s Frank?”
She pursed her lips and a tear ran down her cheek. “He’s dead, Joe.”
The pounding got worse and was joined by a humming sound. I looked at her for a long time, feeling increasingly detached, as though the inside part of me could just get up and leave the room. I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.
When I woke up, Brandt was looking down at me. “Welcome back.”
His face was serious, his eyes slightly narrowed, as if trying to guess what lay hidden just beneath my skin. I watched him silently from my hiding place.