by Sam Cade
Ice shards tap danced over yellow steel.
26
PIERCE DUNNIGAN BLASTED DOWN BLACK POINT AVENUE, blew through the light at Colony Street, and slung his Wagoneer into an angled parking spot in front of Ken and Vernon’s barber shop. The tires hit the curb and bounced back.
The barber, twelve feet away behind a large sheet of vulnerable plate glass, jumped as the truck hit the curb. Vern was putting the finishing touches on a cut that would make any monk smile. The top of the man’s head shined like just-waxed linoleum.
“That damn Dunnigan,” said the barber. “Thinks that shit’s funny.”
Pierce hopped out, cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth, eyeballed Vern with a don’t-give-a-fuck grin, popped his chin up in a redneck howdy. He hustled across the street wearing a rain slicker over his paramedic uniform. The ball cap on his head said ProMed.
Approaching the law office, he took a deep drag, flicked the cigarette onto the wet street, stepped on the sidewalk, spat, and then blasted into the front door of Wild Bill Burnham’s law office, dripping water.
It was one hour and twenty minutes after the bus crash. Dunigan carried a piece of valuable cargo in his pocket. A flip phone that was under the back of dead Carly Codger, one of the twins.
“What’s bringing you out in a storm?” asked Liz, Wild Bill’s longtime office manager.
“Legal business. Private. Tell Bill it’s important.”
She picked up her cell, texted Bill who was just one flight of stairs away.
Dunnigan’s here. Says it’s important.
Bill had a vertical electric space heater pulled up close. The old building had porous insulation. Tell him to come on.
Dunnigan speed-stepped, leaving wet footprints along the way. He walked into Bill’s office with a funeral-face. Earnest, distraught, but no tears.
Shaking his head. “I just left the worst damn scene I’ve ever been to. Got two kids on a life flight bird and told my boss I had to call off cause my nerves are shot. I came right here.”
Dunnigan was one of Wild Bill’s most productive runners for his ambulance chasing empire. He gave out no names, no business cards, no suggestions at the accident scene. But he would take your contact information. One of Bill’s office reps would be in touch. Fast.
“Well, hell, Pierce, spit it out. What happened?”
He laid it out for Bill, exactly what he saw. Truck. Bus. Bodies.
“That ain’t all.” Dunnigan slid the broken flip phone from his pocket with two fingers, leaned forward and placed it on the desk right in front of Bill’s face. “This is why I drove straight here.”
Bill’s left elbow rested on the desk. He massaged his chin as it rested in his left hand. His eyes flicked down. “What’s this?”
“Well, if I’m right, it could be a lottery gold mine.”
“How’s that?”
“Found it under one of the kids. It was open. Somebody could have been talking, maybe texting while they drove. And fuckin’ drove their ass right off the road.”
“Huh.” Bill was thinking. “That could be a problem.”
“School bus crashed into a big rig. Dead kids. All I see is a money parade.”
“Hmm.” Bill tried not to look excited.
Dunigan leaned in conspiratorially. “Ain’t nobody but me and you know about this phone.” Pierce pointed at the black plastic. “One thing I know about you, Bill. You’re slicker than green diarrhea. Figure you know exactly what to do about something this important.”
“Might belong to one of the kids. Driver may have had a phone in her pocket. Or a purse,” said Bill, trying to lower expectations.
“Well, I bet you’ll find out.” Pierce stood up, started to make for the office door. “I’m headed to Greer’s for a six of Bud. My nerves can’t take all this crash shit at seven in the morning. I might go online, check out a new center console boat, cause I want ten percent of your cut.”
“Bullshit, Dunnigan. Five hundred bucks if I can land a case. Another five hundred if I rip something out of the insurance companies.”
Dunnigan, at the threshold of the office door, walked back and grabbed the phone off the desk. “You ain’t the only lawyer in town.”
Bill stood up. “Okay, okay, ten percent.” Dunnigan spun and walked out. Bill sat down, plopped his boots up on the small office refrigerator and unleashed the brilliance in his mind. He knew damn well the cops would be searching for cell phone records of the driver. Always do.
Bill grabbed the phone and raced down to Theo Fuller’s office, his primary researcher. He heard booming drum beats as he reached the door. He twisted the doorknob and pushed into the room. ‘Little Sister’ by Queens of the Stone Age slammed against Bill’s eardrums. “Turn that shit down.”
The room was dark, lit only by colors bouncing off three twenty-seven-inch Dell gaming monitors. One monitor was loaded with technical specs for a cheap-ass Mississippi-made turkey fryer that burned down some houses for several brain surgeons who didn’t read the instructions. Black sound curtains covered the walls. If the devil had a den, Bill knew he was in it.
Theo killed the music. Bill placed the phone on the desk in the luminescence from a monitor. “What’s that?” Said Theo.
“It’s a cell phone. Don’t know if they taught you this at your fancy college, but I need you to track phone records off this.”
“Okay.” Theo didn’t engage Bill. He placed headphones on, looked away, and went back to his music.
Bill walked out, closed the door.
Theo picked up the phone. It split apart. No, they didn’t teach him how to do this in college. But he’d known how to do this since he was in about the ninth grade. The phone had juice but no service. He popped out the sim card, picked up his tool bag, and took out a SIM reader. He determined the phone number. ATT was the carrier. Twenty minutes later he was through their firewalls, a place he’d hacked before. He printed out the call history for the last thirty days.
He took several sheets of paper upstairs, walked into Bill’s office, slid them onto the laptop keyboard Bill was typing on.
“Damn. That was fast. Hold on a minute, let me look while you’re here.” Bill studied the sheet.
“Okay, so what’s happened with this phone since midnight?”
“This phone number is registered to someone named Ella Codger. Three call attempts were made after midnight to another phone number. That number is registered to Bobby Carl Codger. May have gone to voicemail. No time for a real conversation. At almost 7 a.m. this morning a call came in from the 430-area code to this phone. It’s a payphone in Longview, Texas. The precise time was eighteen seconds before seven. The phone service died at seven on the dot for nonpayment.”
“Shit, that’s interesting.” He bit his lower lip, thinking. “Good work, now beat it.” Bill gave the air a swat.
Bill scrolled through his contacts on his cell, found Dunnigan, hit call.
“Yo, Wild Bill, what’s up?”
“Very important, Pierce. Very. What time did the ambulance call come in?”
“Just so happens I know that. I had a tasty ham biscuit in my mouth from Lyrene’s the second we got it. My iPhone was on the table. It said 7:03 when I took the 911 call. Dispatcher said it was called in from a truck driver at the scene.”
“Thanks.” Bill thought fast, fingers tapping on the desk. It’s almost two hours after the crash. Have the cops run a phone search yet? Ha! They didn’t find a phone, so probably not.
Bill flew through his office door, went down the stairs like he was running from a fire, cut to the back of the building, walked into Theo’s office, and pulled the headphones off Theo’s head.
“Do you have the brains to erase the history of the calls to and from the phone since midnight?”
Theo didn’t answer as he took the phone. He lifted his right hand, waggled his fingers down with his palm facing Bill. Buh-bye. Bill felt it best to keep his mouth shut and leave, closing the office door
with respect.
It took seventeen minutes.
Ella Codger’s phone now had no record of any phone activity since 9:37 last night.
27
THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER TEN P.M. the tires of the Lone Star Paint Works truck crunched over the oyster shell parking lot of Giacotti’s seafood in Bon Secour, Alabama, only seven miles north of the beaches in Gulf Shores, and twenty-five miles south of Black Point. The cold rain was still spitting through the night.
Dude parked and ran through the rain to Delroy Vaughn’s old shrimper.
“Delroy,” said Dude loudly as he stepped on board. He opened the cabin door before Delroy could reach it and stepped inside. Smelled of cigarettes and beef stew. A small space heater kept the place warm.
“Oh hell, Delroy, it’s an emergency.” Dude’s words rushed out of his mouth. Sounded manic. “I’m in a life and death situation here. Now, listen to me. Listen.”
“Dude.” Delroy was calm, subdued, not his usual angry self. He stared at Dude’s swollen, bruised face.
“No, man, listen. I’m in trouble. Ella’s in danger. The kids are in danger. I need to get home.”
“Dude.”
“Shut up, will you, shut the fuck up... and listen. Delroy, you ain’t gonna believe this shit. Never believe it.”
Delroy’s demeanor was withdrawn. Dude’s voice calmed. “What, Delroy?” Delroy’s eyes were welling up. “What’s going on?”
“Just ain’t no easy way to say it, so I’ll just say it. Ella, Bobby Carl, and Carly are dead. Abigail’s in a coma in the hospital.”
Dude fell into a fetal position as howls came from his gut.
The Mexicans.
28
DELROY VAUGHN WALKED INTO WILD BILL BURNHAM’S law office thirty-six hours after Dude arrived at the shrimp boat. With all the billboards, everyone had heard of Wild Bill. Delroy agreed to be a one-time only messenger.
“Ma’am, I’d like to set up one of those free consultations with the attorney. It’s about a crash.”
“Oh, my. Anybody hurt?” Said Liz.
“Yes, ma’am. Killed.” He didn’t elaborate.
Liz texted Wild Bill.
Somebody here for consultation. Dead people.
Bill was talking to a client over his land line about an ice cream case. An otherwise healthy thirty-five-year-old woman ate some pistachio ice cream, developed diarrhea for two days, went to the ER, received one bag of fluids spiked with an anti-nausea medication and went home feeling fine five hours later. She wondered if she might nab something like two million out of this severe health crisis.
Bill read Liz’s text. He responded. Five minutes.
“Listen, Rochelle,” said Bill talking on speaker, “what if we could snag you a check for a grand plus medical bills on this ice cream thing?”
“Hell yeah, that’ll work.”
“Listen now, if you want to turn your next stomachache into a multinational corporation here’s some advice. Get your ass real damn sick, stay in the hospital a month, lose forty, fifty pounds, keep grabbing your belly and screaming ‘Jesus God in Heaven,’ spike some high fevers, go delirious, and start bleeding from your rectum. Think we might get you in the one million range. Sound good?”
Bill texted. Send him up.
Wild Bill’s chubby paw stuck out for a shake. “Wild Bill Burnham, glad to meet cha. Come on in, grab ya a seat.”
“Well, Mr. Burnham...it’s about a bad accident. A bus crash...”
9:55 P.M. THAT NIGHT. WILD BILL, TODDY IN HAND, WATCHED through a window as the vehicle snaked down his curvy two hundred-foot drive. Gravel crunched as the pickup made it to the roundabout in front of Bill’s front door.
He opened the front door before the visitors could knock. Bill saw a man with greenish-yellow bruising over most of the face. Crusty deep scratches covered his left cheek.
“Well, dadgum, it is you. They did a number on you.” Bill stuck out his hand, “Wild Bill Burnham.”
“Dude Codger. Thanks for meeting me like this.”
“Spent a lot of money with you down at the Anchor, Dude. Glad you tracked me down.” Bill turned away, waved forward with a couple of fingers on his right hand. “Follow me.”
Bill led Dude to a cozy den and pointed to a dark leather couch. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll grab you a beer.” Burning oak popped in the fireplace. A full bookshelf covered one wall; the other three walls were pecky cypress holding wildfowl renderings lending the room a hunting camp feel. The light was dim. Cozy with the fire.
They talked almost two hours. It was coming up on midnight. “Dude, I’ve been around the block a time or two but I ain’t ever heard any shit like this. Here’s a critical first question. Are you sure nobody besides Delroy knows you’re alive?”
“Yes, sir. A hundred percent sure. At least nobody who knows who I am.”
Bill blew out a puff from a Cohiba, glanced at the sparks dancing in his fireplace, and took a hard slug of his scotch. “I know what we need to do.” His head bobbed with a nod.
“First and foremost, you gotta stay dead forever.”
Bill looked over at Delroy. “Mr. Vaughn, tomorrow you need to go to a payphone and call the office number of the Black Point Police department. Give ‘em an anonymous tip. Tell them you heard that two guys from Florida robbed the Rusty Anchor and shot the bartender. Codger was buried in a field somewhere, dead. His car was run down a boat ramp into the bay. The killers were driving an old, red Jeep Cherokee. Don’t let them ask questions. Don’t give your name. Just hang up.”
“Got it.”
Bill pulled a wad from his trouser pocket, peeled off some bills. “Here’s a grand for your trouble, Delroy. This step is critical to keep Dude alive. You got that, right?”
“Yep.”
“Tomorrow morning I’m stopping by Walmart. Gonna buy you a cheap pay-as-you-go burner phone so I can reach you, Dude. Only I will have the number. I want Delroy to pick it up at my office. I’ll also have ten thousand in cash for you. And, Delroy, don’t come by the office after that. I have a feeling the Mexicans are gonna be snooping around town.”
“I’ll get Theo, my data guy, on the research tomorrow. This guy can find out anything about anybody. I’ve been seeing Gemini school buses my whole life. I’ve seen Hendrickson’s trucks on the road but I don’t know their background. It won’t be long before we know every minute of their corporate life and how they’re sitting financially. And, of course, what their insurance situation is. That’s where we get the first payouts.”
“For you, Dude, I need you to find a spot in the sticks, I mean away, maybe something over around Pensacola. Take a few thousand and let Delroy buy you a beater out of one of those little classified rags you see around. Stock up on food and park yourself in front of a TV with the phone next to you.”
Bill stared into the fireplace flames. Thinking a moment. Shook his head as he caught Dude’s eyes. “I really hate to be the fly in the ointment at this point, Dude, but if you’re dead I need a client, and unfortunately that sweet, precious baby of yours in the hospital is incapable of making decisions.”
A smile slid across Dude’s swollen face, followed by a nod. “I think I’ve got a solution for that, Wild Bill.”
29
“HER NAME IS DORIS BELL.” That’s what Dude told Wild Bill. She was Ella’s mother’s sister, Ella’s aunt. Ella’s mother had been dead for five years, so she was not available to be a plaintiff in the lawsuit, nor offer information on Doris.
Doris left the United States when Ella was two months old. Ella mentioned her existence to Dude on a couple of occasions, but the only information Dude had was barely a sentence worth. Aunt Doris is a Christian medical missionary in Africa.
Bill gave the name to Theo with one instruction. “Find her in twenty-four hours and I’ll give you two grand.”
Six hours later, Theo walked into Bill’s office. Bill looked up with eyebrows raised. “Got something already? Damn, boy, you’re good.”
“Dr. Doris Bell received a RN degree from UAB and then went to medical school in the Caribbean two years later after being an ICU nurse. She receives some missionary sponsorship money from Pentecostal churches in Missouri and Oklahoma but not much.” Theo handed a slip of paper to Bill. “This is where she is.”
Bill read the note out loud. “Chikudum village at the base of Didinga Hills in Sudan.” He cut his eyes to Theo. “Where the fuck is this?”
EIGHT DAYS LATER, BILL WAS ROLLING OUT OF EGYPT in an early 1990s ragged Range Rover Defender. Inside with Bill were three armed men who agreed to take him to the village for a 90-minute visit for $25,000 dollars. Egypt was the safest entry into Sudan, they informed him. Prior to the trip, Bill found that other than a face to face visit, rapid communication was all but impossible.
The country was one of the poorest on earth. It was war torn and flush with crime, an extraordinarily volatile area. The three men with Bill all had AK-47s, and plenty of ammo.
It took five days of rugged travel to reach the village and locate Dr. Bell. Bill knew her to be sixty or so, but life made her look ten years older. She was an extremely thin woman who wore her silver-gray hair short, completely exposing her ears. Her skin was dry and weather beaten, but her eyes held a sparkle, a look of contentment in what looked to Bill to be a dismal existence. She wore a sweat stained khaki shirt and pants, like a uniform from a chicken plant. A black and white photo of her would remind someone of a woman living through the poverty of the Dust Bowl in the southern plains of the 1930s.
While he held no strong beliefs, Bill felt he was looking at a living angel of God. Certainly, a woman who had made a hard turn down the road less traveled.
Bill introduced himself and was met with a skeptical eye from Dr. Bell. She said she met Ella as a newborn, and just that one time. Bill informed her of the awful accident and saw a flood of sadness come over Dr. Bell. She shook her head, said, “The storms we face, oh, the storms. I’m so glad my sister didn’t have to bear that loss.”