by Rachel Ford
“I don’t remember.”
It was Halverson’s turn to trot out, “Bullshit.”
“In a room somewhere.”
“Jesus, Ted. Did you break into Owen Day’s hotel room?”
“Of course not. It’s not breaking in when someone gives you a key is it?”
“Who gave you a key?”
“Look, that’s not the point. The point is –”
“The point is, that’s breaking and entering and theft. B & E and theft is a felony, Ted. It’s burglary, for God’s sake.”
“I didn’t break into anything,” Ted shot back. “I was given a key. And I didn’t steal anything. I found a file full of victims lying around and did the only responsible thing. I turned it over to the first member of law enforcement I found.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Halverson gave Ted a stern talking to. Not that it would make any real difference, of course. But right now, his jail was full, and he didn’t want to process paperwork.
And Ted wasn’t your average burglar. He was an obsessive nutjob, but this was closer in intent to stalking than burglary. Not that it made it alright. But in the eyes of the law, it was only a misdemeanor, not a felony.
And Halverson would have sooner taken his own eyes out with his coffee spoon than dealt with more paperwork at that time of day.
So he chewed Ted out and sent him – still fuming, but somewhat chastened – on his way. By which point dinner arrived.
It wasn’t anything to write home about. Then again, that seemed to be some kind of unwritten universal law. The worse something tasted, the better it was for you; and the better it tasted, the worse it was for you.
Still, Halverson ate it all. He’d worked up a good appetite, and warm food was still warm food. He drank half a pot of decaf too. He looked through Day’s file as he worked on the food.
Despite the fact that he knew it was all rubbish – Day had owned up to that in the end himself – he could understand what sent the other man down this trail.
He had a map of the Midwest with points highlighted to show all the unsolved hunting season homicides. There were a surprising number of them. And more surprisingly, they followed the major interstates.
People hunted all through the rural Midwest, in areas hundreds of miles from an interstate. Hell, people probably hunted more in those areas than anywhere that had easy access to larger areas with more food options.
You ate what you caught or grew in the backwoods of Wisconsin or Michigan or Minnesota – but sometimes, you caught or grew what you ate. Sometimes, money was tight, or the truck couldn’t be trusted to make a two-hundred-mile round trip, or you couldn’t afford the gas even if you could trust the truck.
Sometimes, if you didn’t grow it, forage it, fish it, snare it or shoot it, you didn’t eat it.
And in general, the more a thing happened, the greater the odds of an accident or a mistake – or a crime. Increased foot traffic on a given street means a higher chance of someone tripping on the curb; a higher chance of a vehicle striking a pedestrian; and a higher chance of muggings. All for the same reason: more opportunity for accidents to happen, or criminals to strike.
So increased hunting should mean increased hunting accidents and crimes. That was just human nature.
But that’s not what the data showed. The data showed an unmistakable pattern of deaths along the interstates. It didn’t make sense. And for a long moment, Halverson found himself seriously considering the serial killer hypothesis for the first time since Owen Day had mentioned it to him.
But then he remembered that Day himself dismissed it. And there was nothing in his files to indicate why these victims had been targeted. There was no pattern, other than the proximity to highways. And serial killers always had a pattern, or something that drew them to the victims, didn’t they?
The Son of Sam targeted couples in cars. Jeffrey Dahmer went after young men and boys he found attractive. The Golden State Killer had been a rapist first, and he went on raping while murdering.
There’d been interstate killers before, of course.
There was the I-70 Killer who shot six store clerks in ’92. He had a clear pattern: specialty stores and women. A shoe store in Indiana, a bridal shop in Kansas, a gift store in Missouri, and so on.
All the victims but one had been women – and law enforcement assumed that the sole male victim had been a case of mistaken identity, since he’d been working in his mother’s shop, had his back to the killer, and had a ponytail at the time of his death. The killer, then, had made a snap judgement, assumed he found the owner, and pulled the trigger.
Even the outlier fit the pattern in a sense.
Whoever the I-70 Killer was, he wasn’t the only unsolved interstate serial killer. He wasn’t even the only unsolved I-70 interstate serial killer. There was the I-70 Strangler, who targeted young gay men and boys around Indianapolis.
And there were plenty of others around the nation – plenty of solved and unsolved serial killings along the interstates and highways. America’s network of highways and interstates were good hunting grounds for long distance drivers, nomads of all shapes and sizes, and killers who needed a fresh start in a new area.
But there was always some kind of reason. Sometimes it was sexual deviance. Sometimes it was some kind of pathological bigotry. Sometimes it was voices in the killer’s head that told them to kill people who looked or dressed or smelled or walked a certain way.
But there was always a reason. And there wasn’t a reason here.
So he closed the file and drained his last cup of placebo coffee. Then he stood and stretched and dropped enough money to cover the bill and a good tip.
Halverson picked up the folder and considered what to do with it. Owen Day was already gone. He’d mentioned leaving at breakfast ten hours earlier. So, long gone. He wouldn’t come back for a file full of printouts.
And Halverson sure as hell didn’t need it. So he shrugged and dropped it into the trash on his way out the door.
He hadn’t noticed Nancy Krispen, the dejected reporter, watching him go through the file. He’d been too absorbed for that.
And he didn’t notice her scramble to her feet as he dropped the file in the bin. He just walked out the door to his vehicle, oblivious to the woman rummaging through the trash behind him.
He did notice a dark SUV parked at the end of the lot, though. He noticed it because he hadn’t seen it in town before. It was some kind of Cadillac, big as a barge and probably twice as expensive. He wondered if it was Krispen’s.
But no, that couldn’t be. No reporter’s position paid that much. Not nowadays.
Then a cold blast of wind hit him, and he forgot all about the vehicle. He hiked up his collar and puffed out a breath into the night. It was dark now, and the temperature had fallen to well below freezing. Never a good thing after a big storm.
That meant ice after snow, which in turn meant accidents and misery in general.
Never a good thing.
But he was done working for the day. Done, except for one final check-in on Brittany Wynder and Robert and Rose Cassidy. That wouldn’t take long. Then, he’d get some sleep.
He fired up the engine, and it roared to life. Cold air blasted through the vents, slowly warming until it was almost heat. Almost.
He waited long enough for the defrost to be effective. Then he pulled out of the lot.
Halverson made his way out of town, yawning into the back of his hand now and then. He wondered if he shouldn’t have risked regular coffee, or at least a cup or two of it. He was awfully tired, and not even the cold air had done much to refresh him.
Then again, another cup of real coffee, especially this late, probably would have kept him up all night. So he switched on the radio and flipped through the stations. Eventually, he landed on an Oldies country station.
One of the painful realities of hitting forty was realizing that the music he grew up with was now considered oldies. By this point in hi
s life, he just rolled with it. He didn’t hate new music. He wasn’t one of those guys.
But he didn’t exactly love it, either. The music he grew up listening to spoke to him in a way new stuff didn’t. It had heart and soul. Of course, his dad had said the same thing about his own generation’s music.
So maybe it had nothing to do with the music at all, and everything to do with hearing it during his formative years. Maybe it reminded him of better days, when he had his whole life ahead of him instead of the last half, or less.
But whatever – the oldies station was where he gravitated nowadays. It was like coming home after a long absence, or running into an old friend. It felt comfortable and familiar and welcoming.
Garth Brooks’ debut single, Much Too Young (To Feel this Damn Old), came on as he left town. Garth talked about the highway and the loneliness, and Halverson half-murmured, half-sang along. It was one of those songs that only really made sense when you got older.
Sure, it sounded good back when he was a kid. But now? Now he got it.
Not that getting it made him a better singer. He was never better than average – and probably worse when he was really feeling a song, because he tended to lean into the feeling rather than the tune.
Definitely worse when he was tired.
And generally worse when driving, because he tended to focus more on the road than the song.
So all things considered, his rendition was pretty awful. But he was enjoying himself, and the exercise woke him up a little.
Enough so that he noticed the headlights behind him as soon as he left town, anyway. They were big and high off the ground, and awfully bright. A truck, maybe, or some kind of SUV.
He went on singing about being tired. The lights kept their distance, and the song ended, and a Shania Twain number started.
Halverson knew it and like it too. He didn’t try to sing along this time. He just listened as Shania crooned about a love that would last as long as she lived.
The lights of Yellow River Falls disappeared behind him. The forest rose up all around. The snow shone white and glistening in his headlights, and the sky seemed dark and impenetrable above. The whole world seemed split in two: light below, dark above.
The song ended, and commercials came on. Halverson was about to switch the station when he noticed the headlights behind him. They were approaching. The truck or SUV was increasing its speed – or he was decreasing his own.
He glanced at the speedometer. No, not that: his speed had stayed consistent. So the other guy was going faster, then.
Halverson glanced in his rearview mirror and swore. The SUV – he was pretty sure that’s what it was – was going a lot faster. It had nearly closed the gap behind him and showed no sign of slowing down.
“What the hell?”
The driver must have been pushing eighty. The road had been plowed, but not well enough to justify eighty.
It kept coming, until its front bumper nearly hit his rear. Then it swung into the opposite lane, nearly clipping him in the process.
“Son of a bitch,” Halverson said, reaching for the siren and lights toggles. There was no one else on the road, probably for miles in either direction. But even if this guy wasn’t going to kill anyone else with his erratic driving, he’d be liable to kill himself.
The siren blasted and the lights blazed. At the same time, the SUV – the same giant Cadillac he’d seen in the restaurant parking lot – blitzed past.
Then the driver must have seen the lights and heard the siren and panicked. Because he swung back into Halverson’s lane and slammed on his brakes.
Halverson tried to get into the other lane, but the Cadillac seemed to be straddling the centerline, veering one way and the other. He had a fraction of a second to decide what to do: risk a direct collision at fifty-some miles an hour, or take his chances in the snowbanks.
He chose the snowbank. He turned hard and hit the brakes at the same time. The SUV spun and lurched and rode up over a wall of snow. He steered hard, and his vehicle didn’t launch into the air – into the trees along the side of the road. That probably would have been instant death.
Instead, it came to a smashing halt with its nose in the snowbank and its tail half in the ditch. The airbags deployed, and Halverson snapped one way and then the other – first against his belt, then back against his seat. He felt his head collide with something, or something collide with his head.
He wasn’t sure which, and the motion and the impact stunned him. His head spun, and his stomach lurched. He was only vaguely aware of the other vehicle stopping, too. He was only vaguely aware of movement, of figures crossing and moving in front of his headlights.
He fumbled with his seat belt and his radio. He needed to call in, to let dispatch know that he’d gone off road. Maybe he needed an ambulance. He wasn’t sure.
Then his door opened, and cold air swarmed him. He glanced up, head still swimming. He saw a guy in a ski mask. A guy holding a pistol at eye level.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Owen wouldn’t have said it aloud, but he was seriously regretting the decision to stay an extra day. Tanney had insisted they stop for food and drinks after their futile excursion. He’d talked nonstop the entire way back.
Mercifully, they were almost back, anyway.
Owen understood that the old man really didn’t have anyone else to talk to. He sympathized, to a degree anyway. For his own part, solitude didn’t bother him. He craved it. He relished it.
But he had the awareness to recognize that he wasn’t like normal people. Normal people liked talking and socializing and spending time with other people. Normal people were pack animals, and they liked human bonding and all that.
So Owen sympathized. But he’d done more than his fair share of talking and listening these last days. Tanney could move on to another victim.
No, there was no doubt about it – today was his last day in Yellow River Falls. He’d head out at first light. Hell, he might even head out after he got back to the hotel. Tanney would be back where he belonged, and Owen could grab his stuff and be on his way.
The roads weren’t great, but they weren’t terrible anymore either. Maybe it would be worth a tense few hours of late night travel to avoid a protracted breakfast and conversation tomorrow morning.
As for Sheriff Halverson and his theories, well, he could try calling again, or emailing. He could explain that he hadn’t got it wrong after all.
But no. His best hope was to present his dossier of evidence. He knew that. No matter how much he might want to leave, he’d have to stick around until the next morning.
After that, though, he was a free man.
“So I told Jenny, that’s how it is,” Tanney said. He was telling Owen a story about – something.
Owen couldn’t quite remember. It had started as a military story, and somehow gotten back to Jenny and the grandkids, with a few detours along the way. And also along the way, Owen had more or less stopped listening.
Which meant he had no idea what to say at the moment. So he went with, “Really?”
“Yup. And you know what she said?”
“No idea.” Which was truer than his companion could guess.
“She said…” Tanney paused. “What’s that ahead?”
Owen only half heard him, so for a full two seconds he thought this was just part of the story. Only when he spotted a halo of blue and red on the horizon did he realize Tanney was talking to him. “No idea,” he said again. “Cop, maybe?”
They drove on. It was a cop car, with a light bar flashing away; but there was another vehicle there too, on the other side of the road.
“Looks like someone’s in the ditch,” Tanney said.
“Looks like it,” Owen agreed. “Cop must have stopped to help them.”
He would have been content to leave it there: a problem solved. Somebody else’s problem, solved by somebody else.
But something didn’t sit right with his lizard brain. Some instinc
t told him there was danger ahead. It might have been the angle of the SUVs, or how far the one with flashing lights seemed to be the one off the road, and not the other way around. But the scene was off.
Tanney seemed to sense it too. He pushed forward and screwed up his features, staring with a grim intensity into the dark. “What the hell?”
Owen started to slow. He saw markings on the vehicle in the snowbank: Yellow River County Sheriff. He saw figures in the dark: men in dark clothes with dark hats milling around the sheriff’s vehicle.
But no, that wasn’t right. They weren’t hats. They were ski masks.
“Something’s wrong,” Owen said, gesturing to his phone he had charging in the center console. “Call 9-1-1.”
The men scrambled like roaches as he approached and his headlights swept over them. Two ducked back to their own vehicle. Another squatted on the opposite side of the sheriff’s SUV. The fourth, the one at the driver’s door of the SUV, leaned into the vehicle.
Tanney had already dialed. Owen started to slow. He wasn’t sure what to do, exactly. The same instinct that told him something was definitely wrong also told him this was a dangerous situation.
He knew he couldn’t just phone it in and drive on. That would be trouble, maybe death, for whoever was in the SUV with the lights. But what could he do? He didn’t have a gun on him. And even if he had, what was he going to do: get in a shootout with four guys?
“Get behind the cop car,” Tanney said.
So Owen did.
Then, Tanney must have connected with dispatch, because he started talking into the phone, laying out the scenario unfolding between them. Four men in masks. A county sheriff’s vehicle half in the ditch, with plates such and such, and so on.
Owen considered his options. Two men in the dark SUV on the other side of the road, maybe twenty feet away. Two men at the side of the SUV with the lights. All four of them maybe armed. All four of them definitely up to no good.
He unclipped his belt. His dash started to beep, to warn him that he was no longer complying with seatbelt safety rules.