Road Test

by David Wickenhauser

  They had arrived at the campground off of Highway 89 at the northern end of the park after making the eight-hour drive from the ranch the day after the wedding.

  It was Jenny’s first real chance to start moving into their new RV-style custom sleeper cab. She’d had little time after the late evening wedding, the reception, and saying goodbye to friends.

  They had stopped at Bozeman along the way to shop for supplies they would need for their trip.

  Now settled in at the campsite, Jenny was looking at boxes of supplies from the ranch they had thrown into the truck before taking off, and at the shopping bags from the store.

  “You’ll have to help me decide where to put all this stuff,” Jenny said. “I can’t believe how much space we have, and how much storage.”

  After they packed those things away and made some semblance of order, Jenny heated up leftovers they had packed into their refrigerator from the wedding reception. They were sitting at the table eating dinner.

  “I love this kitchen,” Jenny said. “It is so different from those first meals we used to have crowded all together in your other truck. Remember?”

  Hugh remembered how nervous he had been when Jenny had first come onto his truck, and how the closeness from the confines of the small sleeper had both unnerved and excited him.

  “Yeah, I definitely remember those days,” he said. “And I’m so happy you like it.”

  Jenny remarked at what a beautiful wedding it had been.

  When the wedding was being planned everyone had agreed they liked the idea of an evening wedding that would give a romantically lighted ambience as dusk turned into night.

  The caterers had set up a large canopy on the expansive lawn next to the log house.

  “It sure was nice seeing all of our friends who came to our wedding,” Jenny said. “I was surprised by how many were able to come.”

  Roc and his two cousins, whom Jenny knew by their real names, Huey, Dewey and Louie, cycled up all the way from Southern California.

  James came, of course, to be Hugh’s best man. And Hugh and Jenny had been surprised when they had seen Charlie coming up the driveway in a rental car. She had been in Boise at the time, finishing up moving out of her condo there.

  The four of them had managed to take a few minutes before the wedding to talk for a bit on the pool deck. Hugh wanted to get brought up-to-date about Charlie’s legal status and job situation.

  Charlie said it was going to work out the way they had hoped. After making an extensive investigation into attorney Fishburn’s activities, the authorities agreed Charlie had been an unwilling accomplice, doing what she had done under duress. It had also gone in her favor that she had helped thwart the attorney, and Frank and William from accomplishing their full agenda soon after she realized what they were doing.

  She had been hired by the Arizona Democrat newspaper, Arizona’s largest daily, and was working to put together the huge story about the fake-crash insurance scam, the murders and the kidnapping of Jenny.

  “Don’t be surprised to see a book come out of it,” she had told them.

  Grant Elliot Johnston III, WestAm’s attorney, had been invited, but he had sent his regrets. The timing wasn’t good because of his case load. Also invited was Gloria, Hugh’s dispatcher, but she couldn’t get away on such short notice.

  Hugh had been pleased to see Trooper Donovan pull up in his cruiser. The trooper’s introduction to Charlie had been a little awkward at first, but when he had heard the whole story about Charlie’s involvement, the two of them had gotten along fine.

  Donovan had mentioned to Hugh something making the rounds in law enforcement circles – a number of incidences of truckers picking up young female hitchhikers and raping and murdering them, or holding them for ransom.

  “I’m assuming your lady’s hitchhiking days are long over, so no worry there,” he had said to Hugh. But he had asked Hugh to keep his eyes open for potential situations at truck stops that didn’t look right.

  “Also, I don’t know if you make it down by the southern border very often, but we’ve heard from border patrol that truckers are bringing illegals up from the border in their trailers.”

  He told Hugh that sometimes the truck drivers were part of it, and sometimes the drivers didn’t realize coyotes were slipping the illegals into their trailers.

  “I’ve actually been down in the Phoenix area quite a bit lately,” Hugh had told the trooper. “I’m sure I’ll be down there a lot more for testifying if the insurance scam case goes to trial.”

  “In that case, be extra careful,” the trooper had told Hugh.

  The remainder of the guest roster consisted of a few friends from when Hugh was growing up, Roly’s and Mary’s friends, and Martha and Hugh senior’s friends from town and the church. Most of those were unknown to Hugh and Jenny.

  One that Hugh and Jenny had recognized was the DMV lady who had given Jenny her license. When she saw Jenny, she just chuckled and shook her head. “I still can’t believe you did that.”

  This would be their first night in the new sleeper. Jenny had not even seen it with the bed lowered down from the back wall. Hugh would have liked to have spent their wedding night in their new “home.” But it hadn’t worked out that way. It had been a long day and Hugh hadn’t prepared the bed beforehand, and then he hadn’t wanted to deal with it. So, they had spent their wedding night in Jenny’s room.

  When Hugh lowered the bed, Jenny said, “Wow! It’s huge!”

  “Really, it’s just a full-size bed,” Hugh said. “But definitely bigger than the bunk beds in my old truck.”

  They got ready for bed. Jenny had already been shown how to use the RV-style toilet. He could hear her through the closed bathroom door saying, “I love it! I love it!”

  She came out of the bathroom. “I love it,” she said to Hugh.

  Hugh laughed, “So I hear.”

  He had to admit it did beat having to tromp over to a truck stop restroom, or having to use the jug.

  He took his turn in the bathroom, then joined Jenny in their bed.

  “I can’t get over what a huge surprise it was when I saw this new truck,” Jenny said.

  Wanting to observe tradition, Hugh had told her to close her eyes, and he had intended to carry her over the threshold into the new sleeper. But he hadn’t accounted for how narrow the side door entrance would be, and it hadn’t exactly worked out the way he had planned.

  “Sorry the whole threshold thing didn’t work out,” Hugh said.

  Jenny laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Mann. I’m just real happy to be Mrs. Mann, and I love this new truck.”

  “I’m still getting used to you being Mrs. Mann,” Hugh said.

  “You got used to it real quick last night.”

  “Speaking of that, how are you feeling … about everything?” Hugh asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I was just wondering if you are OK after last night. Is it too soon?”

  Jenny kissed Hugh passionately, “Let’s find out.”

  Epilogue

  Their nearly two-week-long honeymoon trip had wrapped up with the last stop being Grand Canyon National Park.

  Knowing they would be on the road soon hauling freight full time, Hugh and Jenny had decided to spend a couple of nights out of the truck, so they were staying in a lodge on the canyon’s South Rim.

  They had returned to their room after breakfast at the lodge’s restaurant with that morning’s Arizona Democrat newspaper in hand.

  “This is exciting,” Jenny said. A top-of-the-fold headline had caught their eye in the stack of newspapers at the cash register.

  Underneath the headline that read, “Scottsdale attorney, others, face trial on murder charges,” were mug shot photos of Fishburn, Frank, William, and Joe.

  Also named in the story with lesser charges as accomplices were the WestAm dispatcher and her boyfriend.

  On the jump page, where the story continued from the front page
, were photos of Hugh and Jenny, as well as the mother and her sister who were killed in the crash.

  “Look here,” Jenny said, as she pointed to the story byline. “By Charlie Shields, reporter.”

  “How about that,” Hugh said. “She got the job.”

  The story went into great detail about the events leading up to the attorney’s and the others’ arrests. Then it told how all had pleaded not guilty during their arraignment, and that bail had been denied for Fishburn, Frank and William on the basis of them being a flight risk. High bail amounts were set for the others.

  “I guess we’ll be spending some time in court in Phoenix as this thing works its way to trial,” Hugh said. “I guess they couldn’t have done the easier thing and just pled guilty.”

  “Yeah, this will be going on for years,” Jenny said.

  Of course, the newspaper had been covering the story since the men were first arrested three weeks earlier, but Charlie’s article was the first full-blown, large-scale investigative piece about all of the events that had gone down.

  One interesting and unique part of the article was the sidebar written by Charlie with full disclosure of the part she had played in the events laid out in the main article.

  Her article, because of the inside knowledge her involvement had given her, revealed aspects of the events other media couldn’t have known.

  Within minutes of them finishing the article, Hugh’s phone rang.

  “Oh, no. Here we go again.” Hugh showed Jenny his phone screen.

  “Los Angeles Times. How did they get your phone number?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m just about ready to walk to the rim and throw this phone into the Grand Canyon,” Hugh said, only half joking.

  “Do you think we’re ever going to be able to just do our job hauling freight without trouble following us everywhere we go?” Jenny asked.

  “I guess all we can do is get on the road, and find out.”