He only caught snippets. “…we’re gonna roll over them…” and “…of course, bro,” and the like. Nothing that helped Scott at all.
The three men got their food and moved off to a corner table. The big man Scott was focused on sat with his back to him.
Scott ordered a cup of coffee to go. He walked to the door, then turned and loudly said, “Hey Charles!”
Everyone in the place, including the three men, ignored him.
Scott cupped a hand around his mouth. “Hey! Campbell!” As soon as he said it, he realized it was louder than he had intended.
This time everyone, including the men, turned and looked at him. As they did, Scott gave an embarrassed wave and said, “Oh, sorry, thought it was someone else.”
When the man had turned around, Scott had noticed that he had a Husky football jersey on underneath his jacket. He looked as puzzled as everyone else in the café, but it wasn’t Charles Campbell. Likely just another Husky lineman out with his friends.
I’m starting to jump at ghosts, I think.
Chapter Thirty-Five
After spending almost five months in the Pacific Northwest, the day Scott had been both dreading and anxiously waiting for finally arrived.
He knew that Campbell had attacked the woman and her baby while she was in her front yard, pushing his way into her house and assaulting her. Scott intended to be there to stop that, no matter what it took.
He had been planning and preparing for exactly how he would take Campbell out for weeks. It had taken another chunk out of his reserves, but he had bought another old beater off an ad in one of the small classified newspapers. He had given the woman he bought it from a fake name and she hadn’t asked him for any ID. She was happy to get the old pickup off her front lawn. Scott was glad that it ran.
He had driven the pickup north to Clearview the day before. He had parked it in a deserted area down an old logging road and left a note in the window: Not abandoned. Broke down. I will be back to get it.
He had walked back to the highway and hitchhiked south until he was able to get a Metro bus to take him back to the U-District.
This morning, he had woken up and driven the Valiant over the same route. He parked it right next to where the pickup was, swapped out the note from the truck to the Valiant, and drove to the house he had been staking out in Clearview.
Just like the Jenkins murders, there was no record of exactly when the rape had taken place. Scott was sure it was in the afternoon, but he arrived at the house at 9:30 a.m.. He parked up the block and faced down the hill, the way he knew Charles Campbell would walk up sometime later that day. He had filled his Thermos with hot coffee before he left his room. He poured some into the plastic red cup that had come with the Thermos and leaned back to wait.
There was a Dodge parked in the driveway of the house, but he didn’t see much activity. After he had sat watching for an hour, a woman emerged with a toddler in her arms, climbed into the Dodge and drove off away from him.
Scott relaxed, knowing that while she was gone, nothing was going to happen. He pulled the paperback he was reading out of his back pocket and read to pass the time.
The woman was gone until almost 1:00 that afternoon. As soon as Scott saw the Dodge approach, he put the book on the seat and sat at full attention. The woman pulled into the short driveway, bundled her baby into her arms and went inside.
Scott stared down the road for an approaching figure, knowing Campbell would approach on foot, but saw nothing.
It was a typical Western Washington December day. Forty-two degrees with off and on rain. Every twenty minutes or so, Scott turned the engine over and let it idle for a few minutes to warm up the cab and blow the moisture off the inside of the windshield.
At 3:00, the front door opened and the woman stepped outside again. She looked up into the gray, misting clouds with a squint, then pulled the hood up over the head of her little girl. She stepped off the porch and walked toward the driveway, then out to the mailbox.
Scott’s fingers tingled and his heart beat fast.
He stared down the road and saw the shadowy figure of a man walking toward them at a good clip.
Scott turned the key and the engine turned and turned, then finally fired. Scott gave it gas and the engine sputtered, then caught and ran.
The woman stood at her mailbox, sorting through her mail, unaware of the danger approaching.
Scott pushed on the brake, revved the engine until the cab shook, then jammed the gearshift into Drive. The pickup jumped out of the parking spot, slipping a bit on the wet pavement, but quickly finding its footing.
Scott buried the accelerator and the truck surged forward. It roared by the woman and her baby, who jumped back with a startled “Hey!”
Scott drove as though he was going to hold his lane.
The huge man walking toward him moved slightly to the left to give him plenty of room to pass.
Scott glanced at the speedometer. He was already at fifty and accelerating.
At the last second, the man shouted and jumped to his right. If this had been a case of an inattentive driver, his good reactions would have saved his life.
Instead, Scott twisted the steering wheel left while still accelerating. He hit the man dead on doing better than sixty miles per hour.
Campbell flew up in the air ahead of the truck, but Scott was still accelerating. The man bounced off the hood of the truck, then smashed into the windshield, shattering it, and flipped again, landing momentarily in the bed of the truck, then tumbling out to lie in a heap on the pavement.
Scott slammed on the brakes, coming to a fishtailing stop. He reached up and pushed the smashed window out onto the hood. A hundred yards behind him, the crumpled form on the pavement might have been a man or a bear. It was impossible to tell.
Scott didn’t bother to turn around. He jammed the transmission into reverse and gunned the truck again. He was watching the man on the ground for any sign of movement. As he closed, the man sat up, saw the pickup approaching again and screamed. He held his hand up to ward off the impact, but the truck ran right up over the top of him.
The truck died.
Behind him, Scott heard the woman with the baby screaming. All around him, people were coming out of their houses, staring.
Shit. Forgot.
He grabbed the blue ski mask he had brought with him and pulled it over his face, maneuvering it until he could see again.
He turned the key, but the truck wouldn’t start.
An old man approached the truck with a puzzled look on his face. He looked at the masked figure behind the wheel and said, “Did you back up over that man? After you ran over him in the first place?”
Scott didn’t answer, but stepped on the gas, let up, and turned the key again. He smelled the strong odor of gasoline, but miraculously, the truck started. He shifted into drive. The old man jumped back with an agility that surprised Scott.
He stomped on the gas one more time, aiming the front wheels for the mass of humanity that lay in front of him. Scott felt both passenger wheels raise and lower as he passed over the body. He accelerated and the windshield slid off the hood and onto the street.
Scott’s adrenaline was too high to drive slowly. He whipped past the 25 MPH sign doing sixty and didn’t slow. He raced to the edge of town, turned off the main drag, and dropped his speed. He followed a web of side streets he had planned out the week before until they led him to the Valiant parked in the woods.
He pulled the ski mask off and wiped the steering wheel, the door, the radio knob. Anywhere he could think of that he had touched. He grabbed his thermos and book, threw them into the Valiant and drove away.