Pilate's Ghost

by J Alexander Greenwood

  “Doc? Where is she? Is she okay? Please tell me.” Pilate said, rushing to him and standing inches from his face.

  Hutton put his hand on Pilate’s shoulder. “Come with me, John. I’ll take you to her.”

  “Okay,” Pilate said.

  Trevathan walked in behind them. “Me too,” he said, wheezing.

  Pilate felt as if he was going to throw up as Doc Hutton led him and Trevathan to the ICU. When they got to the ICU waiting area, he gently took Pilate by the arm and led him inside, seating him on a couch.

  “Oh no,” Pilate said, dizzy and nauseated.

  Not the room. Not the private area where the doctor tells me my wife and baby are dead. No.

  Hutton looked at Pilate and said. “Okay, just listen for a minute. Kate’s alive. She took a nasty knock on the noggin and there’s a contusion on the left side of her face where the side airbag smacked her, but she’s okay. Maybe a mild concussion. We’re watching her.”

  “Thank God,” Pilate said. Trevathan smiled and put a hand on Pilate’s shoulder.

  Hutton looked at him a second, seemingly to make sure it had sunk in. “The baby…”

  “What?”

  “Your baby took a hell of a knocking around, and there some bleeding in there.”

  Pilate’s face fell. “My son.”

  Doc Hutton nodded. “He’s alive, and we patched everything up as best we can. Now we have to wait.”

  “Wait for what?” Pilate said.

  “John, listen to me carefully,” Hutton looked up at Trevathan, who stood next to Pilate. Trevathan nodded. “Your son may not make it through the night. We’ve given Kate drugs to try to stabilize things and keep her from miscarrying, but there are no guarantees.”

  “I need to see her,” Pilate said, standing unsteadily.

  “Okay, but she’s still unconscious,” he said.

  “What can we do?” Trevathan said.

  “Pray,” Hutton said. “And be strong.”

  In the fading light of dusk, Brenner Field appeared beneath the humming aircraft after what seemed to be hours of nothing but fields of green and gold.

  The pilot pointed. “That’s it,” he said.

  “Not very big, is it?”

  “Oh it’s fine,” he said. “I like these rural air fields. No mess, usually no problem getting in and out. Except for the occasional wildlife strike. This one’s runway is a beauty - just shy of 4000 feet.”

  The Man observed the nearly-4000-foot runway with its adjacent smattering of hangars and small buildings.

  The pilot called the airport and asked permission to land.

  The field manager consented to the landing.

  “You heard the man,” the pilot said. “Prepare yourself for landing, please.”

  “Bob Hayes?” the Man said, immediately sorry he said anything.

  The pilot’s expression didn’t change. “Yup. Small world. You know him? He’s the manager. Lives here at the field. Met him once at an air show. Real know-it-all type, but a good guy.”

  “We’ve met,” the Man said.

  “Well, you two can catch up…”

  “No. And no more questions.” The Man started to sweat. He felt grimy, as if a film of stink covered him head to toe.

  “As you like,” the pilot checked gauges and did a visual sweep of the horizon.

  “Okay, we’ll get you to the door.”

  “I don’t want to see Bob. I just want to get on the ground and get out of there. Any way you make that happen?”

  “You mean make it not happen?” the pilot smiled as he slowed down the throttle. “Not exactly anyplace to hide once we land.”

  “Then let’s circle the field until dark,” he said.

  “I can, but there are enough lights down there. He’ll probably see you bail,” the pilot said.

  “Just keep us up here until the sun goes down.”

  “What the hell do I tell Bob?” he said, exasperated.

  “Not my problem. I’m paying you to make this happen, so make it happen.”

  The pilot got Bob Hayes back on the radio. “Bob, I’m trying to work out the kinks in one of my ailerons. Gonna need to fly the pattern for a bit.”

  “You okay? Do I need to get the foam truck out of mothballs?”

  “Ha, no, nothing serious. Just let me get this situated and I’ll call you before final approach.”

  “Okey doke.”

  Twenty minutes later, the sun was down, the field lights on. The Man looked at the runway.

  “It looks to me if you were to get to the end of the runway I could jump out and run into the field. It’s not all that bright.”

  “Okay, the clearway it is” the pilot said. “I’ll tell you when it’s safe. But first, where’s my money?”

  The Man removed the bills from his bag and handed them to the pilot.

  “Thanks for flying the friendly skies,” he said, accepting the cash.

  The pilot made his approach, then expertly placed the Corvallis on the runway with a mild thump. He steered the plane toward the end of the runway.

  “You driving into town or what?” Hayes said over the radio.

  “Just enjoying this luxurious runway,” he said. “Turning back in a minute.”

  “Roger.”

  “Okay, when I swing the plane around, we’ll slow down considerably. You need to roll out the door, then I’ll head on back and we never, ever met, okay?”

  “Sounds good,” the Man said.

  The pilot started the turn. “Okay…now!”

  The Man opened the door, jumped out, rolled into the darkness and bolted for the clearway.

  “Bob?” the pilot said.

  “Yep?”

  “Call the sheriff, I just let off a hijacker.”

  Pilate entered Kate’s room. His wife lay connected to monitors and an IV drip; her face swollen and belly bandaged. He grasped her hand, put his head on her shoulder, and wept.

  The Man made it away from the airport, heading toward the lights of a small town a mile away. He made good time, fueled by adrenaline and the knowledge that it would all be over soon.

  Nothing left to do after I finish this.

  He came upon the red and yellow lights of a Sonic drive-in restaurant. One side of the parking lot had three vehicles, a car and two trucks, docked at the ordering stations. A carhop on roller skates flitted between the cars, delivering burgers, fries and sodas. The other side was deserted save a beat-up Chevy Cobalt, parked out of view of the restaurant and the other cars. A girl in a Sonic uniform exited the Cobalt, roller skates hanging over her shoulder by the laces.

  The smell of burgers and fries made his stomach growl. He had his first taste of fried pickles at this very Sonic location.

  Back when I was respectable.

  The Man wandered down an alley next door to the Sonic, then crept behind the restaurant. The Cobalt did not disappoint: the door was unlocked, the keys dangled in the ignition.

  Small town idiots.

  He quietly opened the door, climbed in and threw his bag in the floorboard. He started the car and the radio blared into life at top full volume. He snapped it off and froze for only a second.

  “Fuck it.” He put the car in gear, backed out and sped into the street.

  The carhop dropped a tray of burgers, sodas and an order of fried pickles as she watched her stolen car speed out of town.

  Thurman and Tom left the hospital and drove wordlessly back to the Brown Betty. It was filling up with customers, and both men looked forward to a drink or two before they got back to work.

  In the general waiting area, Trevathan composed himself and approached Sheriff Welliver, who gabbed officiously on the nurses’ station phone. Juilie glared at him as she charted and tried to get on with her duties. Trevathan waited a few steps away for the sheriff to hang up.

  “Dean, you okay?” Welliver said after his call, hands clasped around his belt buckle.

  “I’m fine. Who did this?”

  “Ex
cuse me?”

  Trevathan laughed and made a show for anyone watching as if the sheriff had made a funny remark. He stepped closer, stopped laughing and said “Who did this to Kate?”

  “I don’t folla,” he said.

  “Who did it?’

  “Her tire blew out.”

  “Don’t play dumb hillbilly with me, Welliver.”

  “You’re a respected man around here, ‘specially for an outsider, but you best watch your tongue.”

  Trevathan pulled out his wallet.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Welliver said, emphasis on the word the.

  Trevathan pulled out a business card. “Know what this is?”

  “Looks like a business card.”

  “Well done. Got it in one go. It’s a card for a producer from 60 Minutes. I was on the show a while back. You know, when they interviewed me about Kate and John being heroes and all. You have about sixty seconds to give me a straight answer before I start calling with a story update detailing the incompetence of the new sheriff.”

  Welliver’s hands dropped from his belt, falling loosely to his sides in a pathetic gesture of complicity. “Well, you don’t gotta get nasty.”

  “Apparently I do. Tick, tick, tick, tick. I’m Mike Wallace and this…” Trevathan said, aping the show’s iconic opening.

  “Okay, okay. Well, you saw Thurman was here. He called it in. I don’t think it was him.”

  “Very astute. So who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m Steve Kroft…” Trevathan rasped.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “But you have to promise me you’ll stay out of this. I have an idea it might be…”

  “Perry Mostek.”

  Welliver’s eyes widened. “How in the hell did you guess that?” with emphasis again on the.

  “Because there isn’t anybody else left alive. Now, are you going to haul his ass in or not?”

  “Stop right there, Dean. Now listen, I will investigate but you stop bossin’ me around and threatening.”

  “You tell me you’ll go check it out - see where he was this afternoon and question him, and I’ll back off. Agreed?”

  Welliver sighed. “Shit, yeah. Agreed. Now you stay out of it from here on out. Be advised, Dr. Trevathan, if you get any ideas about being the Long Ranger and Tonto…”

  “Lone.”

  “What?”

  “The Lone Ranger. Even if I were, my Tonto is in ICU praying his wife and baby survives. Perry Mostek better pray they do, too.”

  “I’ll chalk that up to being overwrought,” Welliver said, his lips pursed petulantly. “But you better watch what you say. Excuse me.”

  Welliver walked out the automatic double doors of the hospital.

  I honestly wish that crook Morgan Scovill were on the job right now. Trevathan thought, slipping the 60 Minutes card into his wallet and heading back to the ICU.

  “Dr. Trevathan?” Juilie Hulsey called after him.

  “Yeah?”

  Juilie came to his side, speaking in quiet, soothing tones. “Mrs. Molloy took Kara.”

  “Oh no, Kara!”

  “She’s okay,” Juilie said. “We called the school as soon as Kate was brought in. Mrs. Molloy took her home and will keep her tonight.”

  “Bless you,” he said. “And her. I could go get Kara.”

  Juilie looked at him, her ER nurse’s facade slipping. “Peter, you’re not well. Kara’s all right. Go home. Get some rest.”

  He nodded. “As soon as I know Kate and the baby are okay.” He patted her arm, turned and slowly walked back to the ICU.

  Deputy Lenny met Sheriff Welliver in a deserted parking lot beside the Keillor Sciences Building at the college.

  “We’re going to go have a word with our green grocer,” Welliver said.

  Lenny raised an eyebrow.

  “Be on your guard. He’s an old geezer, but if he did the deed on Kate Pilate, then he’s dangerous.” He put on his Kevlar vest. “Put your vest on.”

  Lenny snorted, threw up his hands and unlocked the trunk of his cruiser, taking the vest out from under a couple of cases’ worth of empty beer cans.

  “Seriously? Jesus,” Welliver said, shaking his head. “When this is over, clean out your damn cruiser, would ya Lenny?”

  The deputy nodded, struggling to affix the Velcro straps of the vest around his considerable belly.

  “What about the hijacking call from over at Richardson County?”

  “Not our problem right now,” Welliver said. “We gotta take care of our own situation first. Lew Hawkins and his people can handle it. Lock and load. Let’s roll,” Welliver said, climbing into his car.

  Lenny sighed, piled into his cruiser and followed his new boss to Mostek’s store.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Well where is he, then, Jacey?” Welliver said, his face two inches from hers.

  She blanched, looking at her shoes. “I don’t know, sheriff.”

  “Is he home?”

  “I guess so,” she said. “He left this afternoon.”

  “Was he alone?”

  She nodded.

  “What was he driving?”

  “His van,” she said.

  “Minivan? Lenny said. “Husker colors?”

  “Yes.”

  Lenny looked at Welliver.

  “Does your grandfather have a cell phone?” Welliver asked.

  “Gampy?” she snorted. “No. He thinks they’re a fad.”

  “Okay, Jacey. We’re gonna need you to come with us,” Welliver said.

  “What? I didn’t do anything!”

  “Not the point,” he said. “We need you to close up the store, and we don’t need you tipping him off that we’re huntin’ him.”

  The bell on the door rang behind them. Welliver called over his shoulder, “Store’s closed.”

  Welliver felt something hit his throat at the same time he heard the sharp crack of a gun. The pain was agonizing and he tasted blood in his mouth. It felt like back in high school when he was hit on the Adam’s apple by a baseball. He whirled, facing Perry Mostek, too surprised to do anything but point at the man who had just shot him in the throat.

  Jacey shrieked. “No, Gampy, no!”

  Lenny grabbed Jacey and pulled her down behind the cash register, shucking a shell into his shotgun’s chamber.

  “Perry, drop it now!” Lenny shouted as Welliver collapsed onto a rack of Double-Mint gum, magazines, candy bars and Chick-O-Sticks.

  Jacey shrieked louder. Lenny ignored her.

  “Perry, drop it or I’ll -”

  The bell on the door clanged as Mostek fled.

  “Son of a bitch.” Lenny scrambled over to the sheriff’s quivering body, his hand on the man’s neck, trying to stanch the flow. Candy and magazines soaked up his spilled blood.

  Welliver’s eyes were open, but glazed over.

  “Jacey, shut the hell up and get me some maxi pads!”

  She looked at him, uncomprehending.

  “Bleeding!” he said, jutting his chin at Welliver. He kicked the girl with some force. “Get up now, god dammit.”

  She rose to her feet, wobbly as a newborn colt, and ran to the aisle stocked with what her Gampy called “unmentionables.” She returned with two boxes of pads.

  “I didn’t know which kind to get…”

  “Does this look like a light day to you?” Lenny said. “Open up a couple and give ‘em to me. I can’t take my hands off his neck for long. He’ll bleed out.”

  Hands trembling, Jacey opened the pads and offered them to Lenny. “Jacey, I’m gonna take those from you, then I want you to get to the phone and call the EMS and state patrol. Can you do that?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “Here we go.”

  Today was supposed to be an ordinary day for county paramedic Burl Crites. Normally based in Vettsville, he had left his partner Misty to cover the response desk there and was taking the day to show Medical Explorer Story Su
dik the volunteer fire station in Cross Township.

  “It ain’t the end of the world, but you can see it from here,” he quipped as they rolled into town that morning.

  Story had smiled, excited at the chance to do the ride along and – despite Burl’s opinion of Cross Township’s relative place in the scheme of things – excited to be in the notorious little town where so many terrible things had happened. She would be the envy of her school friends and the kids in the school orchestra, where she was a first chair flautist, when she told them she had actually been to Cross.

  “All those murders happened here, right?” she said from the passenger seat of the ambulance.

  Burl nodded. “Yes. A real tragedy. Sad what people will do over money.”

  “Did you respond to any of the scenes?”

  “Oddly enough, I was off-duty for most of it,” he said. “But I’ve seen my share.” The twenty-year veteran had indeed seen it all: mangled bodies in cars, weeks-old corpses of the elderly mummifying in shuttered houses, garden-variety heart attacks and worst of all, gory farm accidents of every stripe.

  “I saw something about it on 60 Minutes a while back,” she said. “That Pilate guy is something else.”

  “You watch 60 Minutes?” Burl said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes, sir. Doesn’t everybody? Morley Safer is a dreamboat.” She held a poker face for a few seconds, then her face bloomed into a wide smile.

  Burl laughed. “Good one.”

  Burl wasn’t always too impressed with teenagers, but was delighted with this beautiful blonde kid. She had a good sense of humor and a maturity he didn’t see in some first responders twice her age. Even so, he hoped she wouldn’t have to see any severed limbs under a combine or anything too rough today. He wanted a typical EMS day: Earn Money Sleeping. He’d hate to see this sweet kid fall apart at a nasty scene.

  His hopes for Story Sudik fizzled on the floor of the general store.

  Deputy Lenny barked at them to help him. He held blood-soaked maxi pads to the sheriff’s throat as a screaming Jacey Mostek slid around in the sheriff’s blood, trying ineffectually to help. Blood spatter covered them both.