CLAWS 2

by Stacey Cochran

  Laura said, “This is a big van. It would take a lot to turn it over.”

  “Like ten people,” Jonas said, “pushing from its side.”

  They walked around toward the picnic table. It was covered in fresh snow, but there were a couple of snow cowls indicating that stuff was buried underneath. Jonas stepped over and brushed off the snow from one lump.

  “It’s a camera bag,” he said, lifting the black camera bag from the snow. He brushed it off.

  Angie said, “No one would leave a camera bag out here like this.”

  They all saw the cooler sticking up from the snow on the ground. The cooler was overturned.

  “Jack,” Angie said, “how do we get up here by road? We need to get police up here. Something happened.”

  Jack said, “I think we’re north of Silverton. Let me write down the tag numbers.”

  He wrote down the license plate tag numbers from the back of the van. Angie lifted the cooler up. Packages of food were torn open. The site had the eerie look of an attack scene, but the van’s being overturned threw her.

  That looked more like the aftermath of a street riot.

  “Why would the van be overturned?”

  No one had an answer for that.

  Jonas called out, “Hello? Anybody here?”

  His voice echoed out over the lake.

  Angie walked far out in front of the van and looked down the slope to the east. The steep grade was covered in fresh powder, but she saw nothing out of place.

  “We need to get police up here,” she said.

  Jonas said, “Well, we can’t do anything else with this right now. Let’s get back over the mountains to Telluride. I’ll run the tags and see if we can find an owner. We can get police up here later today or first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Twenty-two

  The man had no name. No real name anyway. He went by Karl Roe, David Hutchins, Fernando Miskreet, but none of them were real names. None of them were names a parent had given him. The man didn’t have any parents. His life began at sixteen when he killed a boy his age because the boy had laughed at him. That was the first time he killed someone, but it was not the last.

  By the time the man was in college, he had killed three more people, each of them for insignificant reasons. The man developed the twisted logic that he was doing his victims a favor by removing them from this earth. He was extremely intelligent, extremely bright, and he read the most esoteric philosophies and theologies ever written in history.

  He came to adopt a certain quasi-Existential view of life and reality. That is, he didn’t believe in God as such, and he believed that anxiety was a primary motivation driving humanity. Specifically, the fear of death. The man believed—somewhat akin to Freud—that there were several primary motivations driving most human interactions and motivations. Unlike Freud, the man believed that survival was the dominant drive—not sex—in causing people to do what they did. The will to survive, to avoid death, shaped and influenced every human thought. Sex was merely a subplot in life’s story.

  At least, that’s what he believed.

  The man read Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, Hamlet, and the Holy Bible in a search for life’s meaning. Not his own meaning, but life’s meaning, as in why is there a universe at all when there could be nothing.

  After college, the man moved to an isolated desert town in Arizona where he wrote three books over a four-year period and killed two more people. It was the latter of these two people that set him on his course because he’d killed that person for money. He’d done it as a favor for three hundred bucks.

  Soon thereafter, he’d killed again for money. And for the next five years, he averaged two murders per year. His salary increased as his client base diversified.

  There was no shortage of people willing to pay large amounts of money for an assassin, and as with any “craft,” the man mastered the tricks of the trade, diversifying his interests, limiting his client base, and removing only people whom he felt needed to be removed from this existence. He never took a job he didn’t feel completely certain about, for the man had a keen intuition, almost a psychic degree of foresight regarding how and who to kill.

  He was not an atheist.

  He believed that what people see in terms of reality was merely the tip of the iceberg. He believed that when people died, a part of their souls became a part of the quintessence that formed the most fundamental level of reality. The senses with which humans perceive—sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell—was not enough to experience this quintessence, and the spirits of the dead influenced people much as angels in the Bible were described as doing. He drew the analogy of a fish that could not smell flowers in a garden on the shore.

  Humans were like those fish, and this other dimension of reality was like the scented fragrance of roses in that garden. The fish could not see far beyond the water, let alone smell roses in the garden, yet they were there. The fragrance was there. He believed that certain gifted humans could smell those roses, so to speak, could sense and interact with the spirits of the dead, but that the vast majority of people could not.

  And so his killings were always grounded in the basis that he was saving a person from a life of ignorance and transporting them into this other dimension, as though his killing them got them into heaven all that much faster.

  • •

  He was not wearing his Yoda mask today. The man rose from the passenger side of a black Ford Taurus SHO. He glanced at the driver through the window, and then turned and looked around the packed Telluride Regional Airport parking lot. It was not a big lot, and so it looked absolutely filled with cars. The driver nodded at the man, and the man crossed through two rows and approached the front side of Angie Rippard’s Bronco.

  He wouldn’t be fiddling with the ignition today.

  Quickly, he scanned the parking lot, saw no one in his immediate vicinity, and so dropped down on his hands and knees and looked up under the car. It was a big engine, he’d give it that.

  The man wore black leather gloves, and he rolled over onto his back and shimmied up underneath the undercarriage. He removed a pair of black wire cutters, then positioned himself closer to the left front tire and reached up through the engine well. His fingers touched a black rubber hose.

  He looked at it, saw that it was attached to the brake fluid box, and then shimmied around so that the fluid would not drain down on top of him.

  The pliers came up, their blades on either side of the hose, and snip! he cut right through it. Immediately, the brake fluid began to pour out, and the man climbed out from under the hood, rose to his feet, brushed himself off, and glanced around the lot. There was an old man and woman on the far end of the parking lot, but they couldn’t see him.

  He slipped the pliers into his pocket and crossed back through the two rows toward his car. He saw the driver through the front window and opened the passenger side door.

  The driver said, “Yeah?”

  He looked at him and said, “Yeah.”

  The driver fired up the engine, and the two men eased carefully out of the parking lot.

  Twenty-three

  Angie saw that there were two inches of fresh snow on the hood of her Bronco, and she turned to say goodnight to Jack, Laura, Dan, and Wendy. Jonas had gotten out, too; his patrol car was three spots down from Angie’s.

  “You’re sure your not going to stay at the hotel?” Jack said. “The governor’s offering free rooms.”

  “You guys do the honors,” Angie said. “I moved into a place two days ago, and I haven’t even hardly been there since. I think I’m gonna drive home.”

  “What about you, Jonas?” Laura said.

  “I’m with Angie,” he said. “I think I’d sleep better in my own bed. You guys have a good night. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Goodnight!” Laura said.

  “Goodnight,” Jack said.

  “We’ll see you in the morning,” Wendy said. “M
eet us at the hotel at eight?”

  “You got it,” Angie said.

  “Goodnight, Angie,” Dan Gardner said. “’Night, Jonas.”

  And with that, Jack Dante pulled away in his SUV.

  Angie turned and looked at Jonas.

  “You sure you’re gonna be alright?” he said.

  Angie nodded. “It’s only about ten miles up to my place.”

  “Some of those roads are treacherous,” he said. “Just be careful; we’ve got a couple inches of fresh snow.”

  “You got it,” she said.

  She wanted to turn to step over to the driver’s side door of her Bronco, but she hesitated a moment. She looked at Jonas. She couldn’t tell whether he was feeling the same thing.

  “Maybe when this is over,” he said, “I could buy you dinner.”

  “You already bought me dinner.” Angie smiled. “And you paid for my car. You helped me out.”

  Jonas paused. He looked into her eyes. He smiled warmly.

  “Alright, then,” he said. He turned to walk to his car. “You have a good night, Angie. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  She watched him walking away from her, and she felt a pang of guilt. She’d hurt his feelings, and he’d done nothing but try to be nice to her from the start.

  “Hey, Jonas,” she called.

  He turned. The snow fell gently on both of them.

  “I’d like that,” she said. “Dinner. That’d be nice. You’ve been a real friend, and I appreciate it.”

  Jonas listened.

  She said, “I didn’t come up here to, you know, to get involved. I’m just trying to piece my life together.”

  Jonas nodded.

  “You understand where I’m comin’ from?” she said.

  “I think so.”

  “I lost my fiancée,” she said. “It takes time to get over things like that. It might have been my fault that he died.”

  He took a couple steps closer. She stood at the front of her Bronco.

  “Don’t get in that truck, Angie,” he said. “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink. No strings attached. Maybe you’d just like to talk. I just want to listen to you.”

  Angie looked into his eyes. The snow had begun to accumulate on his woolen coat’s shoulders. She could feel herself attracted to him. He was good looking in the way that she liked: quiet, soft-spoken and polite, but fully engaged with her. He had a soft, almost boyish way of looking at her that was so innocent and free from guile that it made her heart ache. It actually made her want to hold him close, to take care of him. And that’s what she liked.

  She stepped forward and motioned to give him a hug. He stepped forward, and they held one another. To hold her close like that was exciting to Jonas, and he didn’t want to let her go. He could smell the fragrance of her hair, and he leaned back and looked into her eyes.

  Angie could feel herself losing control. She felt nervous inside, but she didn’t want to stop it. She felt like she needed to stop it, that she didn’t know this guy, that she’d only known him a few days, but she didn’t want to stop it. They started to kiss, and for a moment, they both enjoyed it.

  Angie stepped away. “I can’t,” she said. “I don’t even hardly know you. You should be out chasin’ college girls.”

  “I don’t want college girls,” he said. “I want somebody with your conviction. I want you. You believe things, Angie, like nobody else I’ve ever met. You’re brilliant, and you’re beautiful, and you deserve more from this world than what this world has given you, has done to you.”

  “That’s very sweet.”

  “I’m serious,” he said.

  “I can see that.”

  They were at a standstill, and an awkward silence ensued. Jonas had no idea what she was thinking, but what she was actually thinking was whether she could get away with sleeping with him. Even if she did it just one night, would anybody find out? The thought of going back to the hotel and making love to him was absolutely compelling inside her.

  But she said, “No, listen, it’s just too fast. Let’s wait and see what happens the next few days, at least. I’m not going anywhere, you know? You’re not going anywhere. Let’s work through the situation. Let’s see what Governor Creed comes up with. Maybe we can have a date. Just . . . I don’t want to sleep with you tonight.”

  Her admitting that she was even thinking about that made Jonas excited and attracted to her.

  “Okay, look,” he said. “We’ll have a date. I’m pushing it too fast.”

  “No, don’t feel bad. I want this,” she said. “I think I want it, too.” She motioned with her hands, but he couldn’t tell whether she was motioning to come closer or to back away. “Just not now. Right now.”

  Jonas looked into her eyes.

  “Can you understand that?” she said.

  He nodded.

  She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. He smiled, and it made her smile.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Angie,” he said.

  “Eight o’clock.”

  Jonas leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. It was so sweet, it surprised her and she looked curiously into his eyes right before he turned to go.

  She watched him walk away. Then, she turned and opened the driver’s side door of her Bronco.

  • •

  She noticed the trouble with the brakes before she exited the parking lot. The snow was falling enough in the headlights’ shine and up over the window that it worried her as she pulled out onto State Route 145. She’d had to put the pedal nearly all the way to floor when she stopped at the airport exit.

  And now she was out on 145 doing about thirty miles per hour, and the road was white with fresh powder. The wiper blades cut back and forth across the glass, sweeping thicker and thicker swaths out of the way. Angie reached down and adjusted the heater, then looked back up at the road.

  “What in the world,” she said. She touched the brake pedal, and the Bronco did not slow down at all.

  She stayed off of the accelerator in the hope of letting the truck coast to slow down, but the road was descending and the truck did not slow down. She watched the speedometer needle move to the right from thirty-five to forty, and she felt panic.

  Angie glanced in her rearview mirror and saw a pair of headlights far behind her, falling snow, darkness, and the red glow of her own taillights. The truck started to veer around a curve.

  She glanced down at the brake pedal, saw that her foot was on it, and pressed it down as far as it would go.

  The truck did not slow down.

  The speedometer needle moved from forty to forty-five, and she felt the truck sliding to the right through the curve. The back end began to fishtail, and Angie pumped the brake as hard as she could.

  The truck swerved out of the curve, and she just barely managed to keep it under control. The road straightened out, but she was still heading downhill. Her speed increased from forty-five to fifty. She saw a guardrail approaching along the right, and she considered putting the truck into it to slow down.

  She realized she wouldn’t be able to take the next curve in the road if she was doing fifty. It was just too icy with snow. What she couldn’t tell was how far the drop-off on the right side of the road was.

  She looked up and saw a bright yellow warning sign for a curve to the left. Angie tried the emergency brake, pulling it out hard, but it did nothing to slow the truck down.

  Her speed increased from fifty to fifty-five, and the curve raced towards her. She couldn’t keep it on the road.

  The truck slammed down off of the right side, and snow flew up at her. Everything bounced around crazily. She felt the steering wheel fly in her hand, and trees raced past her.

  She screamed.

  For an instant, she was racing through the woods down a steep hill, and then she struck something hard, the horn blared, and her head hit the steering wheel knocking her unconscious.

  • •

  She was not sure how long she had b
een out, but she opened her eyes and saw the dashboard lights in front of her.

  “Oh, man,” she groaned.

  She leaned back and reached her right hand up to touch her forehead. It came away damp with blood. She noticed the spinning blue lights of a police cruiser reflecting on the trees from somewhere behind her. She tried to gain her bearings.

  Suddenly, the Bronco lurched to the right.

  “Angie!” someone called.

  Angie tried to turn around in her seat. Her neck hurt, and she grimaced.

  “Angie, don’t move the steering wheel!”

  “Jonas?” she said. She turned in her seat and saw Jonas standing about twenty feet outside the driver’s side window.

  His hands were up frantically in front of him, but it looked like he didn’t want to approach too closely to the truck. Slowly, her eyes rose up to look out the window in front. It was cracked badly, as though a large rock had struck it squarely in the center, splintering outward in a spider web of broken glass. Then, she turned slightly to her right, and she saw that the earth dropped out from under her right front fender.

  It was snowing lightly and the glass was shattered, so it was difficult to see very well, but it looked like the earth just fell completely away.

  Again, the Bronco lurched to the right. The front end dipped down in a strange teeter-totter way.

  “Oh, my God,” she gasped and glanced back out the window on her left.

  Jonas had a rope tied around his waist. He approached her.

  “Don’t move, Angie!” he said. “It could go at any moment!”

  She looked back out the front window. She watched the snowflakes fall past the hood of her Bronco. They kept falling, and falling, a long way down.

  “Oh, shit,” Angie said.

  The truck was at an angle. It was on the edge of a rocky drop-off. It had lodged against a tree near the front left headlight, but it was on a slope in such a way that it kept sliding from left to right. The front right end was already over the edge, which caused the nose of the truck to dip down.