The Best American Mystery Stories 2017

by John Sandford

  Even if it didn’t make any sense. Four people to retrieve a truck? In the snow? At night?

  “If it’s there, it’s yours,” he said to Pingston.

  Wade grinned and said, “Let’s go check it out.”

  “I’m going too,” Tater said.

  “No,” Pingston said sharply. “You stay here with your mother and Marissa.”

  And Brandon felt the fear creep back inside.

  “Why don’t you all come with me?” Brandon asked.

  “No,” Pingston said sharply. “Peggy don’t need to stand around outside in this weather while we mess around with an old truck.”

  But Brandon heard, I want my son to stay in here and keep an eye on Marissa so she doesn’t try anything.

  When he looked over at his wife, Marissa nodded to him and mouthed, Go.

  It took a while for Brandon to locate a set of keys in the old man’s desk that might open the old shed. While he searched, Wade kept a close eye on him from the door. More than once, Brandon caught Wade glancing toward the gun cabinet.

  “Okay,” Brandon said when he found a ring of ancient keys. “I can’t guarantee anything, but one of these might work.” None of them were marked or labeled.

  “We’ll follow you,” Wade said, closing in behind Brandon as he left the room.

  Brandon pulled on the ranch coat and looked over his shoulder at Marissa. “Back in a minute,” he said.

  She nodded, but her mouth was set tight as if holding in a sob.

  Pingston and Wade followed Brandon outside into the snow. It was coming down harder now and the flakes had grown in size and volume.

  He led them away from the house toward a massive corrugated-metal shed where the old man kept his working ranch equipment as well as the hulks of old tractors and pickups that no longer ran. The pole light that had once illuminated the ranch yard had long ago burned out, so Brandon had to peer through the snowfall to find the outline of the shed against the snow.

  “I told Wade I wasn’t sure if I have the right key,” Brandon said in Pingston’s direction.

  Pingston didn’t reply.

  The shed had a side door but it was clogged with years of weeds that were waist-high, so he figured it hadn’t been used in a while. Brandon walked through the snow to the big double garage doors that were closed tight. A rusty chain had been looped through the handles and secured with a padlock.

  Brandon bent over and tried one key after another in the lock.

  “I need some light,” he said. “Did either of you bring a flashlight?”

  Instead of answering, Wade extended a lighter in his hand and flicked it on. The flame lit up the old padlock in orange.

  The next-to-last key on the ring slid in, and Brandon turned it. Nothing.

  “Jerk on it,” Pingston said.

  Brandon did and it opened. Tiny flakes of rust fell away from the lock into the snow below it. He closed his eyes with relief. Wade reached over his shoulder and pulled the chain free.

  “Okay, step aside,” Pingston said, reaching forward with both of his hands and grasping the door handles. He groaned as he parted them. The old door mechanism groaned as well.

  “Give me a hand here,” Pingston said to Wade. The two men wedged themselves into the two-foot opening and each put a shoulder to opposite doors. With a sound like rolling thunder, the doors opened wide.

  Brandon watched Pingston walk into the shed and disappear in the dark. A wall of icy air pushed out from the open doors. It was colder inside the shed than outside, Brandon thought. Then a single match fired up in the corner and he saw Pingston’s finger toggle a light switch. Above them, two of four bare bulbs came on.

  “See, I remembered where the lights were after all this time,” Pingston said.

  “Good for you,” Wade said without enthusiasm. “You figured out how to operate a light switch.”

  The shed layout was familiar to Brandon, and much of it was the same as it had been. Some of the equipment was so old it looked almost medieval in the gloom. Thrashers, tractors, one-ton flatbed trucks without wheels, a square-nosed bulldozer, a faded wooden sheep wagon as old as Wyoming itself, a lifetime of battered pickups. And there, backed against the far sheet-metal wall, was the toothy front grille and split-window windshield of the ’48 Power Wagon. It sat high and still on knobby tires, its glass clouded with age, the two headlamps mounted on the high wide fenders looking in the low light like dead eyes.

  “Son of a bitch,” Pingston said. “There it is.”

  Wade blew out a sigh of relief.

  “How you doin’, old girl?” Pingston said to the truck. He approached it and stroked the dust-covered hood. “It looks like the old man backed it in after they arrested me and it hasn’t been moved since,” he said.

  Brandon put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. He said, “Then I guess my work is done here.”

  “Not so fast,” Wade said, stepping over and placing his hand on Brandon’s shoulder. Then to Pingston: “Check it out.”

  Check out what?

  Pingston nodded and opened the front door of the Power Wagon and leaned inside. Brandon was surprised how obedient Pingston had been to the command. Then he realized Wade was actually the one in charge, not Pingston.

  “What’s he looking for? The keys?” Brandon asked.

  “Shut up.”

  Brandon pursed his lips and waited. He could see Pingston crawl further into the cab and could hear the clinks of metal on metal.

  After a long few moments, Pingston pushed himself out and looked to Wade. Pingston’s face was drained of color.

  “It’s not there,” he said in a weak voice. “The tools are on the floorboard, but the toolbox is gone. The old man must have found it.”

  Wade closed his eyes and worked his jaw. Brandon felt Wade’s hand clamp harder on his shoulder. Then Wade stepped back quickly and kicked Brandon’s legs out from under him. He fell hard, half in and half out of the shed.

  When Brandon looked up, Wade was crouching over him with a large-caliber snub-nosed pistol in his hand. The muzzle pressed into his forehead.

  “Where is it?” Wade asked.

  “Where is what?” Brandon said. “I don’t have a clue what you’re looking for.”

  “Where. Is. It?” Wade’s eyes were bulging and his teeth were clenched.

  “Honest to God,” Brandon said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t been in this shed for years. I wasn’t even sure the Power Wagon was here. I have no idea where the keys are.”

  He tried to rise up on his elbows, but the pressure of the muzzle held him down.

  “Fuck the keys,” Wade said. He barked at Pingston, “Look again.”

  Pingston practically hurled himself into the cab of the truck. His cowboy boots stuck out and flutter-kicked like he was swimming.

  “Don’t lie to me or I’ll kill you and your wife,” Wade said, and Brandon didn’t doubt it. “Where is it?”

  Brandon took a trembling breath. He said, “This is my first day back on this place. I have no idea what you’re asking me. I’ve not been in this shed. You saw how rusty that lock was, Wade. It hasn’t been opened in a long time.”

  Something registered behind Wade’s eyes. The pressure of the muzzle eased, but he didn’t move the gun.

  “My old man was in this shed since I was here last. Hell, Dwayne Pingston was in this shed after I left. I don’t know what you’re looking for. I’m an accountant, for God’s sake.”

  Wade appeared to be making his mind up about something. Then his features contorted into a snarl and he withdrew the revolver and hit Brandon in the face with the butt of it. Brandon heard his nose break and felt the hot rush of blood down his cheeks and into his mouth. Wade struck again and Brandon stopped trying to get up.

  Wade got off him and Brandon tried to roll to his side, but he couldn’t move his arms or legs. He was blacking out, but he fought it. For some reason he thought about the fact that the only violence he had
ever encountered in his life was here on this ranch. And Marissa was back in the house . . .

  His head flopped so he was facing into the shed. Through a red gauzy curtain, he watched Wade stride toward the Power Wagon with the gun at his side.

  And he heard Wade say to Pingston, “You stupid, miserable old son of a bitch. I knew I should have never believed you about anything. You kept me on the hook for years so I’d watch your back inside.”

  Pingston said, “Wade! Put that down.”

  Pop. Pop.

  Brandon didn’t want to wake up, and each time he got close, he faded back. He dreamed of freezing to death because he was.

  He groaned and rolled to his side and his head swooned. He threw up on the sleeve of the old man’s ranch coat and it steamed in the early-morning light. His limbs were stiff with cold and it hurt to move them. His face throbbed and he didn’t know why. When he touched the area above his right ear he could feel a crusty wound that he couldn’t recall receiving.

  But he was alive.

  He gathered his knees under him and pushed himself clumsily to his feet. When a wave of dizziness hit him, he reached out and grabbed the end of the open shed door so he wouldn’t fall again.

  It took a minute for him to realize where he was and recall what had happened. He staggered toward the Power Wagon, toward the pair of boots that hung out of the open truck door.

  Dwayne Pingston was dead and stiff, with a bullet hole in his cheek and another in the palm of his hand. No doubt he’d raised it at the last second before Wade pulled the trigger.

  Brandon turned and lurched toward the open shed door.

  The morning sun was streaming through the east wall of willows, creating gold jail bars across the snow.

  The Jeep was gone, but Tater’s body lay face-down near the tracks. Peggy was splayed out on her back on the front porch, her floral dress hiked up over blue-white thighs. Both had been shot to death.

  “Marissa!”

  He stepped over Peggy’s body like he’d once stepped over the old man. The front door was unlocked, and his eyes were wide open and he was breathing fast when he went inside.

  His movement and the warmth of the house made his nose bleed again, and it felt like someone was applying a blowtorch to his temple. He could hear his blood pattering on the linoleum.

  “Marissa!”

  “Oh my God, Brandon, you’re alive!” she cried. “I’m in here.”

  She was in the old man’s den.

  When he filled the door frame and leaned on it to stay up, she looked up from behind the desk and her face contorted.

  “You’re hurt,” she said. “You look awful.”

  He didn’t want to nod.

  Five tiny hairless mice, so new their eyes were still shut, wriggled in a pile of paper scraps on the desk in front of her.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Checking on my babies.”

  It was incomprehensible to him. “What happened?”

  She shook her head slowly and said, “When I heard the shots outside I ran upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom. All I could think of was that you were gone and that I’d be raising this boy by myself.

  “I heard Tater yell and run out, then Peggy followed him. There were more shots and then I heard a car drive away. I didn’t unlock my door and come out until an hour ago. I went outside and saw you lying in the snow and I thought you were gone like the others.”

  Brandon said, “And the first thing you did after you saw me was check on the mice?”

  “They’re helpless,” she explained. Then he noticed her eyes were unfocused and he determined she was likely in shock. She’d succumbed to her maternal instincts because she didn’t know what else to do. His other questions would have to wait. He hoped their baby had no repercussions from her terror and tension throughout the night.

  “I’ll get the car,” he said.

  “Can I bring the babies?”

  He started to object but thought better of it.

  “Sure.”

  As he turned he heard her say, “There’s a towel in the bathroom for your face.”

  Brandon was shocked at the appearance of the person who looked back at him in the mirror. He had two black eyes, an enormous nose, and his face was crusted with black dried blood. A long tear cut through the skin above his right ear and continued through his scalp.

  Wade, he thought. Wade had stood over him after he’d shot Pingston and fired what he’d thought was a kill shot to his head. He’d missed, though, and the bullet had creased his skull.

  He looked like he should be dead.

  When Brandon went outside he saw that Wade had left them a present: all four tires on their minivan were slashed and flat, and there was a bullet hole in the grille and a large pool of radiator fluid in the snow.

  When he shook his head, it ached.

  Then he turned toward the shed.

  When he went inside, long-forgotten memories rushed back of observing the old man, Pingston, and various other ranch hands working on equipment, repairing vehicles, and changing out filters, hoses, belts, and oil and other fluids. The old man thought it was a waste of time and money to take his equipment into town for repair, so he did it all himself. Those were the days when a man could actually fix his own car. And as the men worked, Brandon would hand them the tools they requested.

  It had been another world, but one Brandon eased back into. A world where a man was expected to know how a motor worked and how to fix it if necessary.

  The battery in the Power Wagon was long dead, so he borrowed the battery from his minivan and installed it. The air compressor in the shed sounded like an unmuffled jet engine, but it sufficed to inflate the tires. He filled the Dodge’s gas tank from a five-gallon can he found in the corner. Then, recalling a technique the ranch hands had used on especially cold mornings, he took the air filter off the motor and primed the carburetor with a splash of fuel.

  Like they were for all ranch vehicles, the keys had been left in the ignition. He opened the choke to full and turned the key and was astonished that the truck roared to life.

  The Power Wagon reminded Brandon of a grizzly bear that had emerged from its den. It shook and moaned and seemed to stretch. The shed filled with acrid blue smoke. Pingston had been right when he’d inferred that the old truck was indestructible.

  When Brandon eased it out through the doors, he saw Marissa standing open-mouthed on the front porch.

  It was a rough ride, and Brandon couldn’t goose it past thirty-five miles an hour. Blooms of black smoke emerged from the tailpipe. The heater blew dust on their legs when he turned it on. The cab was so high that the ground outside seemed too far down. He felt like a child behind the massive steering wheel.

  He’d forgotten what it was like to drive a vehicle without power steering or power brakes. He didn’t so much drive it as point it down the road and hold on tight to the steering wheel so the vibration wouldn’t shake his teeth loose.

  On the way into Big Piney, he glanced over at Marissa, who was holding the box of mice in her lap.

  “When did you go into the shed?” he asked. He had to raise his voice over the sound of the motor to be heard.

  “Yesterday, after I found the nest of mice.”

  “How did you get in? The doors were locked.”

  “The side door wasn’t locked. The one with all the weeds? That was open and I went right in.”

  He nodded and thought about it.

  She said, “Are you accusing me of something, Brandon? Your tone is mean.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching over and patting her thigh. “I’m just confused. There are three dead people back there and my head hurts.”

  “It was Wade,” Marissa said. “Peggy told me after the three of you left. Wade was behind it all.”

  “I get that. But what were they after?”

  Then, before she could answer, he reached into the box of mice and grasped a fistful of the shredded paper.
He downshifted because the brakes were shot, and he eventually pulled over to the side of the dirt road and stopped the Dodge. The motor banged away but didn’t quit running. He could smell hot oil burning somewhere under the hood.

  “What is it, Brandon?” she asked.

  The strips of paper in his hands were blue and old. But when he pieced them together he could see the words “Trust,” “Security,” and “Stockman’s” printed on them.

  He said, “Stockman’s Security Trust. That’s the bank that got hit years ago. These are bands that held the piles of cash together. Where did you find them, Marissa?”

  “I told you,” she said. “They were in the nest. I didn’t even look at them.”

  He tried not to raise his voice when he asked, “Where was the nest?”

  “It was in the back of this truck. When I found it and realized their mom wasn’t around, I looked for something to put them in so I could save them. There was a toolbox under the seat of the truck, so I poured all the tools out and put the babies in the box. Brandon, why are you asking me this?”

  He sat back. The water tower for Big Piney shimmered in the distance.

  “Pingston did that armed robbery and hid the cash somewhere inside the Power Wagon. Probably beneath a fender or taped to the underside. He got pulled over and arrested before he could spend it or hide it somewhere else. And all these years he thought about that money and worried that the old man would find it—which he did.”

  Marissa seemed to be coming out of shock, and she registered surprise.

  “Either that,” Brandon said, “or my old man was in on the robbery all along and fingered his partner. That way, he could always have a big roll of cash in his pocket even though the ranch was going broke. We may never know how it all went down.

  “Pingston told his cellmate Wade about the cash and promised him a cut of it when they got out. I heard Wade say something about protecting Pingston inside, and that makes sense. Wade kept Pingston safe so they could both cash out. Only the money wasn’t there, and Wade thought his old pal had deceived him all along. He went berserk and killed Pingston, then Pingston’s family.”