by Sue Hardesty
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The Truck Comes
on Thursday
A Loni Wagner Mystery
By
Sue Hardesty
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The Truck Comes on Thursday
Lesbian Fiction: Mystery
Copyright © 2011 by Sue Hardesty
All rights reserved. 1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-934889-81-7
Printed ISBN: 978-1-934889-82-4
Audio eBook ISBN: 978-1-934889-83-1
(Audio sold only at http://L-Book.com)
First Edition
eBook, Print, Audio Format
Published: October 2011
This book is Published by
L-Book ePublisher, LLC
La Quinta, Ca. USA
Email: [email protected]
Web Site: http://L-Book.com
Editor: Alexa Hoffman
Cover Design by Sheri
I savored every carefully chosen word of this novel. It's fine stuff and the stories are truly priceless. Some of the passages are lyrically beautiful in the way of the desert, and the entire book portrays parts of the Native American culture and the American West with great affection. The pictures Sue Hardesty creates are rich with detail, yet I was caught up in the tale of a hurting police officer come home to start a new. " ~~ Lee Lynch
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Acknowledgments
To my best bud Lee Lynch, whose kind nudging inspired me to finish this book. To my dear friends Taylor West and Lynn Evarts, who suffered through vetting every page. And most of all, to my editor and wonderful forever partner Nel Ward, who decided I didn’t have enough to do and so insisted I write something! Here is the result. Peace.
The Truck Comes on Thursday
CHAPTER 1
July 1, 4:48 a.m.
LONI, YOU THERE? Plane down south end of Wagner Airstrip." The radio crackled with sharp static followed by Bobby's slow, Western drawl. "Your last name. You related?"
"My uncle," Loni answered. "I'm on it." With flashing lights and screaming siren, she sped around an abandoned Shell station and raced along the east end of the small Arizona town of Caliente. Coco pushed against Loni as she whipped her Highway Patrol SUV onto Old Highway 85. Fishtailing out of the turn, she grabbed the dog's brown wooly body, holding on tight. "How'd you get so heavy?"
The standard poodle panted in her ear, dripping drool on her bare arm. Sheared down to a bare cover, except for her ears and a small ball on the end of her stub tail, Coco had just enough wool to protect her from sunburn.
Loni shoved the gas pedal to the floor as she raced down the ancient concrete patched road for the next three miles, clickity clacking over the bumps like an old passenger train. She clenched her teeth to keep from biting her tongue. "Jesus," she grumbled to the dog. “Will the department ever get us new shocks?" Grabbing Coco again, they turned off the highway onto a dirt road adjacent to the runway of the air/carport community.
Light filtered into dark places from the breaking dawn outlined spiraling black smoke in the distance. A streak of fear shot through her. Loni's uncle and cousin were airplane mechanics. They could be testing somebody's plane. "Oh god, don't let it be one of them," she prayed. "It's too early for them to be at work." All she could do was hope.
Swirling clouds of hot dust poofed up behind her and followed her to a long line of dense, dark green salt cedar trees clumped so close that only their huge trunks separated them. Fierce flames shot through the black smoke into the sky above the tree line. Loni couldn't stop from repeating, "Don't let it be Daniel or Uncle Herm. Don't let it be Daniel or Uncle Herm."
Rounding the end of the runway, she speed bumped under wrought iron arches, where big letters spelled "Caliente Cemetery" across the top. She slammed to a stop beyond the arches and stared. In the middle of the cemetery, a small plane nestled softly on the remains of a fallen tree. The top of the tree had split from its trunk, cradling the plane as it settled to the ground, exposing the bottom of the naked tree pointing a jagged, crooked finger into the sky.
Both white wings had been ripped from the top of the single engine plane, taking the roof off the cabin with them. One had quickly fizzled to black, the painted numbers eaten away by the flames. Dry green needles of the thirsty tree popped and sputtered as they fed the fire. The other wing hung upside down in a fork near the top of a tree. Diesel fuel dripped down the tree trunk, the overpowering smell stinging her nose and burning her eyes. Trying to stop a sneeze, she rubbed the knot on her nose, a leftover from the last time she broke it.
The propeller of the Cessna 172, twisted like a pretzel, had shoved through the branches of the tree into the ground. "Damn!" Loni said to Coco, glancing around at the scattered and broken tombstones. "How bizarre is this?"
At least there weren't any flames around the smoking engine yet. Panic forced her out of the SUV and toward her uncle’s Ford truck in front of the plane. Relief swept over her as she spotted her uncle and Paul, a high school kid who hung around the hangar, pulling on the crumpled door of the passenger's side. Where was Daniel? Stopping to get a crowbar from the bed of her uncle's big Chevy pickup, she ran to the plane, ducking to avoid the acrid black smoke oozing out of the engine.
"She's still alive!" Uncle Herm shouted in a high, strained voice as he snatched the crowbar. "I saw her hand move."
Eyeing the smoking engine, Loni snaked around tombstones and crawled through branches, pulling her way up to the other side of the plane. Shards of sharp metal from the wing struts gouged her bare arm, leaving a trail of skin and dripping blood as she cursed the short-sleeved summer uniform.
Needles slapping her in the face left a salty taste in her mouth. One pesky branch caught at the gun on her belt, nearly jerking her to the ground. Using the pilot's door handle to pull herself up onto a large limb, she peered into the cabin and paused in relief. It wasn't Daniel. She recognized the school district's superintendent, Rene Garcia.
A buckling of the engine had sandwiched Rene into his seat, and parts of the instrument panel hung in his lap. A tree limb had peeled back the shattered windshield. She felt his neck. No pulse. His open eyes stared back at her, unseeing, and his head was turned at an unnatural angle. The skin was already turning purple. He was done for. Her seven years as a Los Angeles cop had taught her the look of death.
Leaning back, she studied him, wishing she could forget how much she hated him. His putdown macho bullshit toward the girls in his high school history classes was notorious. Her thoughts flashed on the black papier mâché torso that sat on a file cabinet in his classroom. She could see him even now, sitting at his desk pitching chalk at a slot between the breasts, smirking at the girls as he wiggled his eyebrows up and down, entertaining the boys.
In between writing obscure historical facts on the board, he loved to talk cars. Loni never forgot the day in his class
when he said, "I had an old T-bird when I was in high school. Named it the Mayflower. Anybody care to guess why?"
"Because it was so old?" someone ventured.
"No," he said. "It was because so many girls came across in it." Staring at Rene, she could still see his smug smile as he rocked back and forth in his huge padded oak desk chair, cackling. Well he's not cackling now, she thought.
Loni stared beyond him at a young Chicana woman in the other seat, her long, dyed blonde hair covering part of her face. Loni frowned, shaking her head. It was always the blondes for Rene. They made the best grades in his classes. Half breed Indians like her didn't have a chance. He even flunked her once, but then she had called him a pervert. It was worth it.
Loni reached past Rene to check on the woman passenger. Her head was slanted toward Loni, and her eyes were closed. It wasn't Rene's wife. "Who's the woman, Uncle Herm?"
"Name's Rosie something or other. Rene's secretary, I think," he grunted. Loni watched his muscles bunch as he pried on the buckled door, amazed at the strength of this big, dark German. His blue work shirt soaked with sweat, he gave another giant heave.
Loni reached in front of Rene to check the gas gauge that had popped out of the panel. Careful to not break the wires, she turned it toward her and saw one empty tank and one full. "He didn't run out of gas," she reported, glancing at the diesel running down the trunk of the tree.
Worried, she studied Rosie's pale face as her dark eyes slowly opened. Loni took Rosie's hand as she tried to reach for Rene and shook her head. Her solemn expression answered Rosie's question. "Can you breathe okay?" Loni asked. The woman's eyes glazed over with pain as she gripped Loni's hand. "Hurry, Uncle Herm. She's hurting."
"Got it!" Her uncle yanked the protesting door open.
The engine's smoke and diesel smell grew stronger. "Paul," Loni urged, "get the fire extinguisher from Herm's truck and hose down that motor." Releasing Rosie's hand, Loni stepped onto a tombstone, jumped down, and ran to her truck for a blanket and first aid kit. Returning to the plane, she carefully shaded Rosie from the sun as they heard the ambulance screaming in the distance. "Don't move," Loni said, as Rosie groaned and tried to lift her head. "Help is almost here."
Blood dripped from Rosie's lopsided nose and ran down her mauve silk blouse. Loni pulled a red-checkered bandana from her back pocket and held it gently against Rosie's nose to keep it out of her mouth. Blood oozed between Loni's fingers. "Don't move," Loni repeated.
The blood from Rosie's nose slowed, but the side of her uneven swelling face was turning purple. Maybe a broken jaw, Loni thought, hoping that was all. "Hang on." She brushed Rosie's hair aside to study her face for signs of shock. That slam into the ground might have broken a rib or two.
"We ran out of gas," Rosie mumbled.
"Don't talk," Loni told her. "Focus on me. Listen to me." She kept smoothing Rosie's hair with one hand as she reached out with the other to undo Rosie's seatbelt.
As Rosie tried to move, she turned grey and cried out, "My legs. Oh god. They hurt so much!" Rosie was going into shock fast. Loni hoped she wasn't bleeding out. It seemed forever until the boxy ambulance stopped behind Uncle Herm's truck and two paramedics in white overalls scrambled out. An unlikely pair, Judy was as short as Big Lu was tall, and Judy was as bubbly as Big Lu was dour. Loni watched them grab their cases and hurry to the plane, Judy's trotting steps scurrying to keep up with Lu's long stride.
Jumping out of the way, Loni moved toward Uncle Herm and took his huge hand. He towered over her five-foot-ten height as they watched Judy check Rosie over. Taking a deep breath, Loni shook off the last of her fear. It would have been so easy for her uncle or cousin to be in that plane.
Loni watched Judy's kinky strawberry hair bounce with her body as she helped Lu tighten a neck brace around Rosie's neck. Gently pulling with her long arms, Lu lifted Rosie up and out onto the board as Judy strapped her down to the gurney, quickly pulling the woman's tailored skirt down to cover her thighs. As they loaded her into the ambulance, Rosie passed out. Her legs were bent at crooked angles, and blood dripped from the one foot still wearing a strapless high heel shoe. Lu clambered into the ambulance with Judy. As the door closed, Loni saw Lu pull off the shoe. "Maybe Rosie has a chance," Loni whispered to Uncle Herm as they watched the howling ambulance speed away.
Paul kept circling the engine, hugging the long empty red fire extinguisher as if it were a baby. Flashing lights and clouds of dust were highlighted against the rising sun as cars and trucks followed the yellow fire truck racing toward them. Life in a small town: everybody wanted to know what was happening.
Before the line of traffic arrived, Loni began to question people standing in a small group around the plane. The women quietly stood, worrying at cloth belts and collars of their colorful robes and housecoats. Men in undershirts and Levis wandered among them. One woman asked Loni, "Rosie? Will she be okay?"
"She was awake and talking." Loni couldn't say more. She called out, "Any of you see the crash?"
"I did," Paul said. He had finally left the engine to stand by her uncle, the empty fire extinguisher still clutched in his arms. "The motor sputtered and quit as he turned in to land. I looked up, and the plane fell. Then it plopped. Like a toad out of a tree. Plop." The young man looked at Herm for confirmation.
Plop? Stifling a giggle, Loni glanced at Uncle Herm. It wasn't funny, but she had to resist a nervous giggle.
"Where he came from, they traded DNA a little too close," Uncle Herm whispered. He gave Paul's dark crew cut head a knuckle rub. His small grin faded. "I was in the hangar and heard it come down, but I didn't see it crash."
"I was over there," Paul pointed his skinny arm at the archway. A bicycle leaned up against the iron post with an empty basket hanging off the handles. "Just finished delivering newspapers and was headed home when I first heard it sputtering. Came in right over my head and scared the crap outta me." Suddenly aware everyone was staring at him, Paul ducked his head and moved closer to Herm, who slid a protective arm over his shoulder. The trauma was catching up with Paul, Loni thought. She hoped someone would take him home soon.
Loni's eyes roved around the growing crowd. "Anyone else? Anything?"
"Is Rene really dead?" a man asked.
Loni nodded.
Another voice asked, "Rene? Did he suffer?"
Before she could answer, an old man pushed his way to the front and into Loni's face. "That plane's sitting on my wife," he spat belligerently.
Loni backed away, but he came with her. Old Man Calvin. Hadn't changed much. She heard he had sold the drugstore. Must be retired now, she figured. He was old as dirt and smelled just as bad. None of his clothes matched, not even his shoes and socks. He wore a tie without a shirt. She wondered who had dressed him this morning. Obviously not his wife. She wondered if the new owner ever filled in the hole this mean old bastard had dug in his drugstore parking lot so no one could park there.
"Well?" He stayed in her space and shouted again, spraying spittle on her.
Loni jumped and wiped. "Listen..." It was almost out of her mouth, but Loni stopped herself just in time. "Sorry. We'll move the plane as soon as we can."
She edged around him to stand in front of the group as they stared at the top of Rene's head. Loni waited for eye contact, hoping something would pop. "Anybody know anything about this?" She watched for any reaction, but all she got was a smiling Dorothea Rodriquez.
Dorothea had gained weight since high school. She had four kids, according to Loni's grandma. Loni didn't respond, and Dorothea's smile slid off her face as she nervously pulled down her tight 'show everything I have' thin shirt under an open purple robe. She should squirm, Loni thought as she remembered Dorothea shoving her against the locker room wall and kissing her.
It wasn't that Loni didn't like the kiss. Even then she didn't trust Dorothea, with her history of play and tell. Loni knew she had left herself wide open for it. Her teen rebellion came with stompin' boots, a chip on h
er shoulder, and short, spiky hair that she sprayed a different color every time she turned around. At least, that's what her grandma said.
Loni had changed too since then. Instead of skinny, she had gotten more muscular from her workouts. Her coal black hair, twisted in a single braid down her back, was nearly down to her waist. A scar ran through one eyebrow, turning a few of the hairs white, and the thin scar on her throat from ear to ear was left over after a horse bucked her off onto a barbed wire fence. A couple of times she had broken her nose, leaving it slightly lopsided with a couple of bumps. All in all, her mixed heritage gave her an interesting face.
Turning away from Dorothea, she found herself again facing Old Man Calvin, who was still trying to stare her down. Wailing sirens closing in on them drowned out his voice. Once more she sidestepped him and walked off to watch the bright yellow fire truck pull up. Volunteer firefighters, already sweating in their yellow rubber uniforms and hard hats, swarmed off the truck. Hoses spun out of the truck and yellow peopled tubes shot around the burning tree, quickly turning the area into a black mush.