by Gen Griffin
“Fuck.”
“But I can sit here and watch the spot move while you go after the truck. We can keep in touch using our phones.” Mason held up his own cell.
“You're brilliant.”
“Thanks Breedlove. You want me to call the Sheriff too? Let him know where the truck is and tell him that you're on your way?”
David hesitated for half a second and then nodded. “Call Frank. But tell him that I'm going to shoot the bastard dead if I get to him before they do.”
“I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear that last part, David. You don't need to get charged with premeditated murder.” Mason shook his head and gestured for David to go.
David went.
Chapter 10
“I can't believe I'm helping you do this.” Kerry had seriously mixed feelings as he yanked the gear shift of Addison's truck into drive.
“Just keep your eye on the prize.” Curtis had rapidly growing sweat stains under both of his armpits. His shirt was wrinkled and filthy.
“The prize?”
“Justice for your friend Stacey.”
“Casey,” Kerry corrected him. “Her name was Casey.”
“Whatever. The dead chick you're so hung up on.” Curtis blew him off as he held a heavy chunk of rock over the accelerator of Addison's truck. “Line the wheels up with the boat ramp and get out of the truck. We need to get this beast sunk and get out of here.”
Kerry checked the alignment of the tires once more then climbed out of the truck. He accidentally elbowed Curtis in the side as he made his way past the bigger man. Curtis dropped the rock hard onto the accelerator. The big truck lurched forward hard. Curtis, in his hurry to avoid getting his toes run over, leapt backwards. He tripped over Kerry and both of them tumbled to the ground as the truck flew towards the landing.
Kerry watched in horror as the truck missed the boat ramp and plowed onto the wooden dock, crashing through the wood with a terrifically loud splintering noise. The truck ran down the surface of the dock for approximately two seconds and then the dock tipped from the weight of the truck. The tires on the passenger's side fell of the dock, tipping the truck over. The truck rolled off the side of the dock and into the water. It landed with a hard thud on its side in approximately three and a half feet of water. The entire driver's side was still sticking up out of the lake.
“You fucking idiot!” Curtis shoved Kerry back onto the ground as he stood up. “I told you to line those tires up with the dock.”
“I did!” Kerry's knees and palms were skinned from hitting the pavement.
“Obviously not. You missed the goddamned boat ramp. We needed to hide the truck, not make a spectacle of it!”
“I'm sorry! I did the best I could!”
“Your best wasn't good enough!” Curtis shifted his massive bulk and climbed to his feet. He stared at the ruined Ford. His small, piggish blue eyes were filled with fury. His cheeks were flushed bright red. The rest of his skin was splotchy.
“We are so fucked.”
“We need to get out of here.”
“Good idea.”
Kerry hazarded one more glance back at Addison's truck and then bolted for his cruiser. Curtis was only a few lumbering steps behind him.
“Get in the back seat,” Kerry snapped at him.
“No way,” Curtis snapped. “I don't fit back there. There isn't any leg room.”
“It'll be a lot easier to explain what you're doing in my car if you're in the back seat.”
“We aren't going to be explaining why we're together. No one is going to see us,” Curtis snapped. “At least, they won't if you hurry your sorry ass up.”
Curtis yanked open the passenger's side door of Kerry's cruiser and climbed into the front seat. Kerry gritted his molars together as he sat down behind the wheel.
“What am I doing?” He muttered out loud.
“Huh?”
“I'm the good guy.” Kerry started the engine on the police cruiser. “I became a deputy with the Callahan County Sheriff's Department because I wanted to bring justice to the citizens of Possum Creek.”
“And I became a lawyer because I wanted to save poor misguided thugs from the death penalty.”
“I'm not being sarcastic,” Kerry snapped. “I really do want to help people- Oh shit.”
“Sure you do,” Curtis laughed.
A full-size Chevrolet truck was roaring towards the landing going at least 80 miles per hour. A golden truck that Kerry recognized.
“Get down!” Kerry yelled at Curtis, physically shoving the big man towards the floorboards.
“What the hell-?”
“Get down,” Kerry repeated. “That's Cal's truck. If he sees you with me, we're both dead.”
“I can't get down. I don't fit.” Curtis was struggling to wedge himself onto the floorboards, but his massive stomach wouldn't fit between the seat and the dash.
“Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.” Kerry was starting to hyperventilate.
The entire cruiser shook as Curtis tried to wiggle down onto the floorboard. “We've got to get out of here. Drive!”
“I can't!” Kerry gasped. The big truck was less than 50 feet away now. There was no way Cal hadn't seen Addison's ruined truck. “I'm supposed to be searching for that truck. Why would I be driving away from the exact evidence that I'm supposed to be searching for?”
“You have to handle this!” Curtis hollered.
The driver of the Chevy was hitting the brakes now. The big truck was coming down the wet pavement just a little bit too fast. It started to skid and cut sideways. The big truck screeched to a stop less than three feet away from the water.
“Get out of the cruiser,” Curtis hissed at Kerry. “Tell him you just found the truck and were about to call it in. You can't let him see me.”
“I can't do this,” Kerry gasped. The driver's side door of the Chevy was opening.
“I swear to god, Kerry. If you turn on me now, I'll ruin your life. You'll wish you had never been born. I'll tell them you helped me kill Trish's grandpa.”
Kerry's blood ran cold. He didn't have time to think as he opened the door of his cruiser. He stepped back out into the cold rain just as David Breedlove got out of the Chevy with an assault rifle in his hands.
Chapter 11
David saw Kerry's cruiser sitting to the far side of the landing as he pulled up, but he only had eyes for Addison's truck. David jumped out of the cab of the Chevy as it slid to a stop, barely taking the time to jam the gearshift into park.
The Ford was laying awkwardly on its side in a couple of feet of water. David ran for the truck, scarcely daring to hope that Trish's asshole of an ex-husband was still trapped in the cab.
“Hey!” Kerry called out. David ignored him.
The lake water was brackish and cold as it soaked through David's jeans. He didn't care. The algae that had spent the last 15 years growing on the concrete boat ramp was incredibly slick under his boots. He was thigh deep in the choppy, muddy water when he had to grab hold of the tailgate to keep from falling.
“You can't be here!” Kerry screamed from the bank. “This is a crime scene! The truck is evidence!”
David continued to ignore Kerry as he made his way down the side of the truck. The undercarriage was surprisingly clean. David made a mental note to himself: wherever Addison's truck had been for the last few hours, it hadn't seen any of the county's many dirt roads.
He reached the cab. He wanted to yank open the door but he couldn't do it when he was standing next to the transfer case. David tried to listen for any signs of life from inside the cab. He couldn't hear anything over the pounding of the rain, the sloshing of the small waves against the cab and the ticking from the engine. David narrowed his eyes at the truck. The engine was still warm. He shifted the gun so that it was dead in the center of his back. He was going to have to take the risk that Curtis was lying in wait for him inside the truck. David grabbed the bottom of the frame and boosted himself up onto the base of the c
ab.
“Hey! Get out of there or I'm going to have to arrest you!” Kerry was still screaming from the bank. David cast a half a glance back at the other man to see that he hadn't so much as gotten his loafers wet.
David knelt on the side of the cab and peered down through the open window. It had been left down rather than busted when the truck had flipped. If David had to guess, both windows had been left down. The cab was full of water. The clutter that Addison kept in it was floating around on the surface, but there was no sign of Curtis.
“Shit.” David stared down into the murky water and fought the urge to scream or punch something. He'd been so sure he was about to catch up with Curtis. He was determined to put an end to this nightmare.
“David!”
A familiar camouflage case was bobbing around between the backseat of the truck and the front. David laid flat against the metal side of the cab and stretched down to grab hold of it. He yanked the gun case out of the water and flipped it open.
The Benelli was still inside. David stared down at the $1,000 shotgun with surprise. What kind of a killer would leave an expensive loaded weapon behind?
He snapped the case back shut.
“Put that back! You can't touch my evidence! Put it back.” Kerry was still yammering away in the background. David continued to ignore him.
Aside from the .45 caliber duty gun that they already knew Curtis had taken, Addison carried several guns in the truck. David needed to know how many of those guns were now in Curtis's possession. He pulled the AR-15 he'd been carrying off of his shoulder and laid it on the metal side of the truck next to the Benelli.
David briefly debated trying to get the door open and then decided it was a waste of time. He slid down into the cab of the truck through the window opening.
“Damn, it's cold,” David muttered. The entire passenger's side of the truck was underwater. Which meant the glove box was underwater. David bent down in the water, trying to ignore how cold it was as he found the latch of the glove box by memory. He pulled the compartment open and stuck his hand into it. Nothing but wet paper. David sighed and knelt all the way down into the water. He reached back behind the glove box and applied pressure until the plastic that held the box in the dash gave. The glove box came all the way out of the dashboard and David reached back behind it. He pulled Addison's back up gun, a 9 mm Glock, out of the opening. “There's two,” he whispered as he tucked the Glock into the waistband of his jeans.
Kerry was still yelling and making noise, but the cab of the truck kept David from hearing exactly what threats were being made. He didn't care anyway.
He turned inside the cab, feeling glass from the broken side mirror under his boots. He was two for two on the guns. He reached into the fabric pocket behind the passenger's seat, digging all the way to the bottom until his fingers touched wet metal. The tiny .22 revolver was still right where Addison kept it. Three for three on the guns now.
There was only one more unaccounted for. A 30.30 hunting rifle that Addison kept in a locked hard case underneath the back seat. David twisted around in the cab of the truck. He had to bend at an awkward angle to get to the underside of the back seat. The black plastic case was still in its hidey hole. David yanked it loose and tried to open it. The case wouldn't open. It was still locked. He needed the keys.
David tossed the gun case back up through the window and then, on a whim, checked the ignition for Addison's familiar mass of mystery keys. They were still there. David pulled them loose from the ignition and fastened the carbiner to his own belt loop. He boosted himself back out of the cab of the Ford.
“You're breaking the law!” Kerry still hadn't come any closer.
“I don't care.” David stood with one boot on either side of the window opening. The engine had stopped ticking but steam was still rising from where the hot motor was coming into contact with the cold lake water.
He frowned at the ruined floating dock as another police cruiser pulled up to the landing. Ian McIntyre parked his cruiser next to the Chevy and got out. He hurried towards the sunken truck and the lake, but stopped short as he caught sight of the dock.
“What the heck happened?” Ian was looking to David for answers.
“He's violating our crime scene,” Kerry snapped.
Ian ignored Kerry, walking straight for the dock. “Did he try to drive down the dock?”
“As best as I can figure.” David picked the AR-15 up and slung it back over his shoulder by the strap.
“He didn't make it,” Ian commented.
“Hell no, he didn't make it. The wheel-base is wider than the dock. Not to mention that the dock wasn't strong enough to support this much weight. Besides, Addy's truck needed an alignment. Its been pulling to the passenger's side for the last couple of weeks. He hit a pretty nasty pothole and damaged one of the tie-rods. I need to pull it, but I haven't bothered.”
“So?” Ian rubbed one hand through his strawberry blonde hair. “What does that mean?”
“It means the truck pulls to the right like a motherfucker.” David picked up the rifle case and tucked it under his arm. He grabbed the case for the Benelli in his other hand and then jumped back down into the miserable water. He landed on his feet, slipped on the algae and wound up on his ass underwater.
He popped back up to the surface, forcing his feet underneath him.
“You okay?” Ian was knee deep in the water, making slow and slippery progress towards David.
“He's stealing evidence!” Kerry yelled. “Don't you see all those cases he's carrying.”
David handed the Benelli case to Ian. “Put these in the backseat of my truck.”
“Your truck?” Ian blinked at him dumbly. “I thought your truck burned?”
David raised one eyebrow at Ian and then intentionally glanced back at Cal's truck.
“Oh. You mean the Chevy?”
“No shit,” David said.
Ian took the Benelli from David, but he made no move to head back to shore. “Why drive Addy's truck off the dock?”
“Because Curtis is a fucking idiot.” David turned and began to carefully make his way back to shore. He wasn't interested in landing on his ass in the water again. “My guess is that he thought he could hide the truck by submerging it.”
“You'd have to go three hundred yards out into the lake before the water got deep enough to submerge the truck.” The confusion was evident in Ian's voice. “The water at the end of the dock is only chest deep on me.”
“I know this. You know this.” David turned to look back at Ian. “Want to hazard a guess who doesn't know how deep the lake is?”
“Trish's ex-husband,” Ian guessed.
“Exactly.” David kept walking towards the Chevy. “He thought he could throw us off his tracks by submerging the truck. Unfortunately for him, he picked the shallow end of the shallowest lake in the county.”
“Damn. You ever thought about becoming a cop?”
“No,” David carried the AR-15 and the 30.30 to his truck. He opened up the back door on the driver's side and gently laid both of the wet, muddy guns down on the soft, creamy pale leather interior. Cal was going to be pissed about the mud, but Cal could get over himself.
He gestured for Ian to hand him the Benelli. Ian did.
“You can't take those guns. They're evidence!” Kerry was standing self-righteously behind them, glaring at David. He held one hand out. “Give the guns to me.”
“Hell no.” David opened the case that the Benelli was in. The gun would fire just fine whether it was wet or dry. One of the few weapons that could be completely submerged in gritty, nasty swamp water and still work perfectly. That particular feature was the reason Addison had dropped over a thousand dollars on the gun. It was the same feature that David was interested in right now. He quickly disassembled the Benelli, dumped as much water out of the gun as he could and then reassembled it. “Addison's guns aren't evidence.”
“Yes, they are.”
“No, th
ey are not.”
“Yes, they are.”
“Curtis didn't take them,” David loaded a handful of shells into the shotgun's chamber. “If he didn't take them, then that means he hasn't been using them. If he hasn't been using them, they aren't evidence.”
“The truck is part of a crime scene. Anything that was in the truck-.”
“Shut the fuck up before I knock your ass out.” David spun around to face Kerry directly. He pointed at the Ford. “That engine was still warm when I pulled up. Curtis didn't get far.”
“Did you just threaten me?” Kerry's face was pale with bright splotches of red on both cheeks.
“Yes.” David began loading the shotgun.
“I'm going to arrest-.”
“Why are you still standing here?” David asked. “There's a murderer on the loose. He can't have gotten too far away. Mason Slaughter was GPS tracking the truck for me from the county road department. I was only two miles away when he told me the truck had stopped moving and that he thought it might have been driven into the lake. Trish's ex is around here somewhere, but instead of chasing him, you're worried about trying to take my best friend's guns away from me?”
“You really think we can still catch him?” Ian interrupted.
“Use your brain, Ian.” David narrowed his eyes at his little cousin. “What's around us?”
“Well, swamp. Mostly swamp.” Ian rubbed his face with his hands. “Only one road in. No houses for almost a mile because it always floods down here. Maybe three houses within two miles.”
David bared his teeth in a look that came nowhere close to passing for a smile. “Curtis is an out-of-shape lawyer from the city. He didn't have enough sense to get the weapons out of Addison's truck before he tried to sink it. Not to mention that he tried to sink the truck in three feet of water. He doesn't have the survival skills to stay hidden in the swamp for long. Unless he swam out of here or got an accomplice, we'll get him within the hour.”
“Thank god,” Ian said.
Kerry turned pale as a ghost.