Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel

by Jeffery Deaver

  Below was a greeting to the readers.

  Dear Reader . . .

  Whether you’ve ended up here because you’re a subscriber or a fan or simply because you happened to be browsing the Web and stumbled across The Report, welcome.

  Whatever your positions on political and social issues, I hope you’ll find something in my reflections here that, at the very least, makes you question, makes you doubt, makes you want to know more.

  For that is what journalism is all about.

  —James Chilton

  Below that was: “Mission Statement.”

  Our Mission Statement

  We can’t make judgments in a vacuum. Will business, will government, will corrupt politicians and criminal and debauched individuals be honest about what they’re up to? Of course not. It’s our job in The Report to shine the light of truth into the shadows of deceit and greed—to give you the facts you need to make informed decisions about the pressing issues of the day.

  Dance also found a brief biography of Chilton, then a section about personal news. She glanced over the listings.

  On the Home Front

  GO TEAM!

  I’m happy to say that after this weekend’s game the Older Boy’s team is 4–0! Go, Jayhawks! Now, parents: listen to me. Your youngsters should give up baseball and football for soccer, which is the safest and healthiest team sport there is. (See The Chilton Report of April 12 for my comments about sports injuries among children.) And by the way, make sure you call it “soccer,” not “football,” the way the foreigners do. When in America, do as Americans!)

  A PATRIOT

  Yesterday the Younger Boy knocked the socks off the audience in his day camp recital by singing “America the Beautiful.” All by himself! Makes a dad swell up with pride.

  SUGGESTIONS, ANYONE?

  We’re coming up on our nineteenth anniversary, Pat and I. And I need ideas for presents! (Out of self-interest I’ve decided against getting her a high-speed fiber optic upgrade for the computer!) You ladies out there, send me your ideas. And, no, Tiffany’s is not out of the question.

  WE’RE GOING GLOBAL!

  Am pleased to report that The Report has been getting raves from around the world. It’s been selected as one of the lead blogs in a new RSS feed (we’ll call it “Really Simple Syndication”) that will link thousands of other blogs, websites and bulletin boards throughout the world. Kudos to you, my readers, for making The Report as popular as it is.

  WELCOME HOME

  Heard some news that made me smile. Those of you who’ve followed The Report may remember glowing comments over the years about this humble reporter’s dear friend Donald Hawken—we were pioneers in this crazy computer world so many years ago I don’t like to think about it. Donald escaped the Peninsula for greener pastures in San Diego. But I’m delighted to say that he’s come to his senses and is returning, along with his bride, Lily, and his two wonderful children. Welcome home, Donald!

  HEROES

  Hats off to the brave firefighters of Monterey County. . . . Pat and I happened to be downtown on Alvarado last Tuesday when calls for help rang out and smoke sprouted from a construction site. Flames blocked the exit . . . with two construction workers trapped on the upper floors. Within minutes two dozen firemen and -women were on the scene and a fire truck had stretched its ladder to the roof. The men were plucked from harm’s way, and the flames were extinguished. No injuries, minimal damage.

  In most of our lives bravery involves little more than arguing politics or, at the most physical, snorkeling at fancy resorts or mountain biking.

  How rarely are we called on to exhibit true courage—the way the men and women of Monterey County Fire and Rescue do every single day, without a moment’s hesitation or complaint.

  Bravo to you all!

  Accompanying this posting was a dramatic photo of a fire truck in downtown Monterey.

  “Typical of blogs,” Boling said. “Personal information, gossip. People like to read that.”

  Dance also clicked on a link called “Monterey.”

  She was taken to a page that extolled “Our Home: The Beautiful and Historic Monterey Peninsula,” featuring artistic photos of the shoreline and boats near Cannery Row and Fisherman’s Wharf. There were a number of links to local sights.

  Another link led them to maps of the area, including one that depicted her town: Pacific Grove.

  Boling said, “This is all gingerbread. Let’s look at the content of the blog . . . that’s where we’ll find the clues.” He frowned. “Do you call them ‘clues’? Or ‘evidence’?”

  “You can call ’em broccoli if it helps us find the perp.”

  “Let’s see what the veggies reveal.” He gave her another URL.

  Http://www.thechiltonreport.com/html/june26.html

  This was the crux of the blog: Chilton’s mini-essays.

  Boling explained, “Chilton’s the ‘OP,’ the original poster. Which, if you’re interested, is derived from ‘OG,’ Original Gangsta, for the leaders of gangs, like Bloods and Crips. Anyway, he uploads his commentary and then leaves it there for people to respond to. They agree or disagree. Sometimes they go off on tangents.”

  The original comment by Chilton, Dance noticed, remained at the top, and below were the replies. Mostly people replied directly to the blogger’s comment, but sometimes they responded to other posters.

  “Each separate article and all the related posts are called a ‘thread,’ ” Boling explained. “Sometimes the threads can go on for months or years.”

  Dance began skimming. Under the clever heading “HypoCHRISTcy,” Chilton attacked the very man Dance had just seen at the hospital, the Reverend Fisk, and the Life First movement. Fisk, it seemed, had once said that murdering abortion doctors was justified. Chilton wrote that he was adamantly against abortion, but condemned Fisk for the statement. Two of Fisk’s defenders, CrimsoninChrist and LukeB1734, viciously attacked Chilton. The former said the blogger himself should be crucified. With the reference to the color in his name, Dance wondered if CrimsoninChrist was the minister’s large, redheaded bodyguard she’d seen earlier at the hospital protest.

  The “Power to the People” thread was an exposé about a California state representative—Brandon Klevinger, who was head of the Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee. Chilton had found out that Klevinger had gone on a golfing junket with a developer who was proposing a new nuclear plant near Mendocino, when it would have been cheaper and more efficient to build it closer to Sacramento.

  In “Desalinate . . . and Devastate” the blogger took on a plan to build a desalination plant near the Carmel River. The comment included a personal attack on the man behind the project, Arnold Brubaker, painted by Chilton as an interloper from Scottsdale, Arizona, a man with a sketchy past and possible underworld connections.

  Two of the postings represented the citizens’ two positions on the desalination issue.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Lyndon Strickland.

  I have to say you’ve opened my eyes on this issue. Had no idea that somebody’s ramrodding this through. I reviewed the filed proposal at the County Planning Office and must say that, though I am an attorney familiar with environmental issues, it was one of the most obfuscatory documents I’ve ever tried to wade through. I think we need considerably more transparency in order to have meaningful debate on this matter.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Howard Skelton.

  Do you know that America will run out of freshwater by 2023? And 97 percent of the earth’s water is salt water. Only an idiot would not take advantage of that. We need desalination for our survival, if we’re to continue to maintain our position as the most productive and efficient country in the world.

  In the “Yellow Brick Road” thread Chilton talked about a project by the state Department of Transportation—Caltrans. A new highway was being built from Highway 1 through Salinas and on to Hollister, through farm country. Chilton was questioning the lightning speed with which the pr
oject had been approved, as well as the meandering route, which would benefit some farmers far more than others. He hinted at payoffs.

  Chilton’s social conservative side shone through in “Just Say No,” a thread condemning a proposal for increased sex education in middle schools. (Chilton called for abstinence.) A similar message could be found in “Caught in the Act . . . NOT,” about a married state court judge caught leaving a motel with a young clerk, half his age. Chilton was incensed at the recent development that the judge had received a wrist slap from the judicial ethics committee. He felt the man should have been removed from the bench and disbarred.

  Kathryn Dance then came to the crucial thread, beneath a sad picture of crosses, flowers and a stuffed animal.

  Roadside Crosses

  Posted by Chilton.

  I recently drove past the spot on Highway 1 where two roadside crosses, and some bright bouquets, sit. They marked the site of that terrible accident on June 9, where two girls died following a graduation party. Lives ended . . . and lives of loved ones and friends changed forever.

  I realized that I hadn’t heard much about any police investigation into the crash. I made some calls and found there’d been no arrests. No citations were even issued.

  That struck me as odd. Now, no ticket means a determination that the driver—a high school student, so no names—was not to blame. So then what was the cause of the accident? As I drove along the road I noticed it was windswept and sandy and had no lights or guardrails near the spot where the car veered off the road. A caution sign was weathered and would have been hard to see in the dark (the accident occurred around midnight). There was no drainage; I could see pools of standing water on the shoulder and on the highway itself.

  Why didn’t the police do a thorough accident reconstruction (they have people on staff who do that, I’ve learned)? Why didn’t Caltrans immediately send a team to examine the surface of the road, the grading, the markings? I could find no record of any such examination.

  Maybe the road is as safe as can be expected.

  But is it fair to us—whose children regularly drive that stretch of highway—for the authorities to dismiss the tragedy so quickly? It seems to me that their attention has faded quicker than the flowers sitting sorrowfully beneath those roadside crosses.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Ronald Kestler.

  If you look at the budget situation in Monterey County and in the state in general, you will find that one area taking the brunt of our economic woes is adequate warning measures along high-risk highways. My son was killed in an accident along Highway 1 because the Curve sign had become covered with mud. It would have been an easy thing for state workers to find and clean it, but did they do this? No. Their neglect was inexcusable. Thank you, Mr. Chilton, for calling attention to this problem.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by A Concerned Citizen.

  Highway workers make obscene amounts of money and sit on their fat [deleted] all day long. you’ve seen them, everybody has, standing by the road not doing anything when they could be fixing dangerous highways and making sure we’re safe. another example of our tax dollars NOT at work.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Robert Garfield, California Department of Transportation.

  I wish to assure you and your readers that the safety of our citizens is Caltrans’s number one priority. We make every effort to maintain the highways of our state in good repair. The portion of road where the accident you’re referring to occurred is, like all highways under state control, regularly inspected. No violations or unsafe conditions were found. We urge all drivers to remember that highway safety in California is everyone’s responsibility.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Tim Concord.

  Your comment is EPIC WIN, Chilton! The police will get away with murder if we let them! I was pulled over on Sixty-eight because I’m African-American. The police made me sit on the ground for half an hour before they let me go and they wouldn’t tell me what I’d done wrong, except for a light that was out. The government should be protecting lives not dissing innocent citizens. Thank you.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Ariel.

  On Friday me and my friend went to see the place where it happened and we were crying when we saw the crosses and flowers there. We were sitting there and we looked all over the highway and there were no police there, I mean, none! Just after it happened! Where were the police? And maybe it was there were no warning signs or the road was slippery, but it looked pretty safe to me, even tho it was sandy, that’s true.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by SimStud.

  I drive that stretch of highway all the time and it’s not the most dangerous place in the world, so what I’m wondering is, did the police really look at who was behind the wheel, I know [the driver] from school and I don’t think he’s the best driver in the world.

  Reply to SimStud, posted by Footballrulz.

  Dude, not the BEST driver in the world???? H8 to break it to you but [the driver] is a total fr33k and a luser, he CANT drive. I don’t even think he has a license. Why didn’t the cops find THAT out? Too busy going for dounuts and coffee. LOL.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by MitchT.

  Chilton, You’re always trashing the government which is total win but in this case forget the road. It’s fine. That guy from Caltrans said so. I’ve drove down there a hundred times and if you missed that curve because your drunk or stoned. If the police [deleted] up its because they didn’t look at [the driver] close enough. He’s a n00b and scary too. SimStud OWNS this thread.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Amydancer44.

  This is weird cause my parents read The Report but I don’t usually so it’s weird that I’m here. But I heard around school what you’d posted about the accident and so I logged on. I read everything and I think you’re one hundred percent right, and what that other poster said too. Everybody is innocent until proven guilty but I don’t understand why the police just dropped the investigation.

  Somebody who knows [the driver] was telling me that he was up all night before the party, I mean 24 hours, playing computer games. IMHO, he fell asleep driving. And another thing—those gamers think they’re hot [deleted] behind the wheel b/c they play those driving games in the arcades but it’s not the same thing.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Arthur Standish.

  Federal funds for road maintenance have decreased consistently over the years, while the budget for U.S. military operations and foreign aid has quadrupled. Perhaps we should be more concerned about the lives of our citizens than those of people in other countries.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by TamF1399.

  [The driver] is effing weird, i mean dangerous. 1 time after cheerleader practice he was hanging out outside our locker room, like he was trying to look inside and get pictures on his phone. I go up to him and I’m like, what’re you doing here and he looks at me like he was going to kill me. He’s a total fr33k. i know a girl who goes to [deleted] with us and she told me [the driver] grabbed her boobs, only she’s afraid to say anything because she thinks he’ll come get her or start shooting people, like in Virginia Tech.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by BoardtoDeath.

  i heard somebody who knows a dude was at the party that night and he saw [the driver] before he got in the car and he was walking around all [deleted] up. And that’s why they crashed. It was the POLICE lost the breathaliser results and it was embarrassing, so they had to let him go. And that’s WORD.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by SarafromCarmel.

  I don’t think it’s fair what everybody in this thread is saying. We don’t know the facts. The crash was a terrible tragedy and the police didn’t press charges, so we have to go with that. Think what [the driver]’s going through. He was in my chemistry class and he never bothered anybody. He was pretty smart and helped our Table Team a lot. I’ll bet he feels real bad about those girls. He’s got to live with that for the rest of his life. I feel sorry for him.

  Reply to SarafromCarm
el, posted by Anonymous.

  Sara U R a lame [deleted]. if he was driving the car then he DID something that made those girls die. How can you say he didn’t? Jesus its people like you who let hitler gas the jews and bush go into Iraq. why dont you call [the driver] up and have him take you for a nice ride? i’ll come put a cross at your [deleted]ing grave, you [deleted].

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Legend666.

  [The driver]’s brother is retarded and it might look bad for the police to arrest [the driver], cause of all this political correct stuff which makes me sick. Also they should check out the girls purses, I mean the girls in the crash, because I heard he ripped them off before the ambulances got there. His families so poor that they can’t even afford a washer and drier. I’ve seen him and his mom and his [deleted]-up little brother at the laundromat on Billings all the time. Who goes to laundromats? Lusers that’s who.

  Reply to Chilton, posted by SexyGurl362.

  My best friend is a junior at [deleted] with [the driver] and she was talking to somebody who was at the party where the girls who died were. [The driver] was sitting in a corner with his sweats hood up staring at everybody and talking to himself and somebody found him in the kitchen just looking at the knives. Everybody was like, what the hells he doing here? Why did he come?

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Jake42.

  U totally OWN it, Chilton!! Yeah [the driver] [deleted]ed up. Look at the luser, his life is epic FAIL!!! He’s always faking he’s sick in PE class to get out of working out. He only goes to the gym to hang around in the locker room and stare at everybody’s [deleted]. He is totally gay, somebody told me that.