by Glenn Trust
“That was nice of you. So where’s she headed?”
“Canada.”
“Canada? Really? Where’s she from?”
“Somewhere down in Pickham County. She wouldn’t say where exactly.”
The trooper’s next question was spoken in a voice that had suddenly lost the neutral-toned modulation of a routine traffic stop. “Tell me exactly where you met this girl and where you left her. The whole story.”
The trooper’s tone startled Clay. The traffic stop had just taken a turn, and he wasn’t sure if it was for good or bad. The one thing it did, for certain, was raise his concern for Lyn.
Clay quickly recounted the encounter at the I-95 Diner and the trip to the AcrossAmerica Truck Stop. He explained the phone message Lyn had left and his search for her at the truck stop. When he got to the part about Lyn leaving in a vehicle described as an older, faded Chevrolet in the company of a medium built white male with brown hair, the trooper stopped him.
“Mr. Purcell. I need you to come back to my vehicle with me.” He opened the door of the pickup and backed up waiting for Clay to follow.
Clay’s heart pounded in his chest. Stepping from the pickup, he moved past the trooper and towards the cruiser.
“You carrying any weapons?”
Clay turned at the trooper’s question.
“No. Nothing.”
“Show me your belt line and pockets.”
The trooper watched closely as Clay pulled his pockets inside out and turned around.
“Good. Have a seat in the passenger side,” the trooper said as he moved to the driver’s door.
Clay did as he was instructed. Once in the cruiser, he told the story again. The trooper was particularly interested in the description of the Chevy and the man driving it, and of the girl.
When he was done, Clay sat quietly while the rain tapped on the cruiser’s windows and ran in sparkling drops across the glass. The trooper picked up the radio microphone.
In a businesslike manner, he began speaking into the mike. He gave the information Clay had provided about the car and driver and added the description of the young girl going by the name of Lyn who may be accompanying the driver.
He added that the vehicle might be associated with the murders in Pickham County earlier that date, and the vehicle and driver should be approached with caution. Clay’s heart raced, as if it might pound itself out of his chest.
When he was done, the trooper looked at Clay and said, “I need you to follow me to the state patrol post at Statesboro. There are some GBI investigators that will want to speak with you.”
Clay nodded. Murders. In Pickham. The pounding of his heart moved to his throat and prevented him from saying anything more than a choked, “Yes.”
A minute later, he was back in his truck following the state patrol cruiser. Their speed increased to ten miles an hour over the limit, but this time it was legal.
63. Another Wake Up
“George!”
The cell phone that had been annoying him a moment before rested on the pillow and leaned against his cheek. George Mackey lay with his eyes closed, hoping the voice in the phone would stop yelling at him soon so that he could go back to sleep.
“George! Dammit, George answer.”
George pushed his eyes open and squinted at the light from the illuminated face of the phone. The voice was not going to stop yelling. Reluctantly, he spoke.
“What is it?” he asked through the fog in his brain.
“George, you need to get up.”
“What? Why…who is this?
“It’s Bob…Bob Shaklee. Start waking yourself up, George. We’re gonna need you.”
“Bob? Why? It’s the middle of the night, Bob…what time is it?”
His voice had the pleading, groggy whine of fatigue mixed with what, Shaklee knew, was alcohol. It was apparent that George had self-medicated before going to sleep.
“It’s just after two in the morning, George. Now get moving.”
“Bob, can’t this wait until daylight?” George’s voice was pleading with fatigue.
“No, George, it can’t. The Chevy was seen at a truck stop outside Savannah. We have a witness at the state patrol post in Statesboro, and we need to get moving. Meet us there.”
The fog began evaporating from his brain, and George sat upright in the bed.
“Right. I’m moving now. Won’t take long.”
“One more thing, George. There may be another victim. Young girl from the truck stop. She was last seen alive, and he may not have had time to hurt her yet.”
George’s mind whirled as he shook himself fully awake.
“Girl. Another one?”
“Yes, George. Another girl. Last seen alive. We may be able to find the killer and maybe save the girl…if we hurry. It’s a long shot, but…”
George cut him off. “On my way.”
He ended the call, tossing the phone onto the nightstand with his wallet, badge, and the off-duty nine millimeter Glock he carried when not in uniform. Grabbing a pair of semi-clean blue jeans from a chair by the bed, he tugged them on as he hopped into the bathroom where he washed his face in cold water and ran a comb through his hair.
Squinting into the mirror in the dim, yellow light, he shook his head wryly acknowledging to himself that he looked exactly like what he was, a boozed-up, middle-aged man trying to mask his condition and pull himself together enough to take care of the business at hand.
Turning from the mirror, he went back to the bedroom chair and grabbed a faded, short sleeved, plaid shirt that had been under the jeans he was now wearing and hurriedly buttoned the bottom two buttons and then shoved his feet into the boots beside the chair. Grabbing the wallet and badge from the nightstand, he shoved them in his back pockets and pushed the belt clip of the Glock’s holster down over the waistband of the jeans.
The coffee he craved would have to wait until he was on the road. George lifted the pickup keys and an old khaki windbreaker from a hook by the front door. Thirty seconds later the tires of the county truck were spitting gravel as it pulled from Fel Tobin’s driveway.
Redemption for his sins was not something George Mackey expected, but he would not be late again.
64. Uncertain Status
A gust of wind caused the rain to rattle against the window behind Clay Purcell. The room’s fluorescent lights reflected off the glass and aluminum window frame. Outside there was only black. The storm blocked any moonlight or starlight that might have made its way to the window.
He had been in the room for over an hour. The trooper who had brought him in sat at a desk across from him completing paperwork of some sort.
Not long after arriving at the state patrol post, Clay had impatiently asked the trooper, “Am I arrested?”
The trooper had looked up from his paperwork and said simply, “No.”
“Well what then? Can I go?”
“No.” The trooper’s tone was even and firm.
“I’m not under arrest, and I can’t go. What if I just decide to leave?”
“Don’t.” The trooper, the little silver nametag on his shirt said ‘Collins’, looked up from his paperwork and stared into Clay’s eyes. The look said it all. Clay was not leaving, and Trooper Collins would make sure of it.
Clay just nodded and resumed looking around the small office from his chair. What Trooper Collins did not say was that Clay’s status at this point was unclear. At the least, he was a possible material witness to two homicides, and they needed all the witnesses they could find right now. At the most, well that was to be determined.
The young man seemed to know quite a bit about the old Chevy and its driver. Criminal files were full of suspects who had tried to appear helpful and to be on the side of law enforcement in order to evade detection or capture. In Clay’s case, maybe he was telling the truth, maybe not. But Trooper Collins knew that he was not the one to make that determination, and until the GBI investigators arrived, he would make damn s
ure that Clay Purcell kept his ass in that chair.
The room that the non-arrested Clay sat in was painted government tan over cinder blocks. The furniture was institutional metal gray. A hallway on one side led to several small rooms. They had to be small, Clay knew, because of the dimensions of the building he had noted as he entered.
A door on the other side of the room was closed. Clay wondered where it led. He had heard that the patrol had barracks for troopers who were posted away from home and wondered if there were more troopers, off-duty, on the other side of the door. There had been a couple of other cruisers in the lot as they had entered the building.
As he pondered the possibility of additional troopers sleeping in the building somewhere, a radio on a shelf behind the desk crackled.
“Post 12, from State 115.”
Trooper Collins turned and pulled the mike from the clip on the side of the radio.”
“Go ahead, 115.”
“Post 12, we’re thirty miles out, ETA twenty. Is the subject standing by?”
Realizing that he was the ‘subject’, Clay looked up and into Trooper Collins’ eyes. Yep, he was still standing by. No doubt about that.
Collins returned Clay’s look and nodded as he spoke. “Ten-four, subject standing by.”
Clay was a little concerned about being the ‘subject’, but he was more concerned about Lyn. It was clear the patrol and GBI were working on something big, and it seemed that Clay had stumbled into the middle of it. And if he was in the middle, what did that mean for Lyn?
Trooper Collins shuffled his papers, but he remained focused on Clay. He would have to cooperate with them. Hell, why wouldn’t he cooperate with them? They were the Georgia Patrol and the GBI. If there were something wrong, they would be the ones to take care of it. They would be the ones to help Lyn.
Those would be Cy’s words for sure. They made sense but somewhere inside, Clay wanted to hurry back to his hunt.
Hunt. Things had changed for him. This had started as a search. But now? Yes, that’s what this was feeling like now, a hunt. He wasn’t sure who the hunter was, but there was an uneasy feeling that Lyn had somehow become the prey.
65. California or Bust
The rain slackened as they approached Columbia, South Carolina. The cool night air caused the mist to rise eerily from the wet pavement. But eerie was not a word that troubled Lylee Torkman. In the eyes of most others, he was normally the eeriest person around.
On the outskirts of the city, he pulled the Chevy off the interstate and into the parking lot of a small, deserted convenience store in a shabby part of town. He could see an older, heavyset woman reading a magazine behind the counter. She squinted out the window at the headlights that pulled up. He knew that in the glare of the lights, she could make out no details in the car from inside the store.
Lylee glanced around. The lot was empty. The street was empty. The rushing of traffic on the interstate was the only sound. He looked at the girl beside him.
“We need food. I’m going to get us something to eat. You stay still and quiet. You hear? No sound. Nothing. Any noise and I will kill that old lady, and then I will kill you.” He lifted the knife that was never far away and let the tip rest under the girl’s left breast. After a moment, he lifted the breast with the tip of the knife and smiled as she winced. He added as an afterthought, as if she might not understand, “I’ll make it hurt. Hurt bad. So don’t move and no sound. Got it?”
He expected an answer, and Lyn struggled to give a nod that demonstrated her understanding while still maintaining her resistance. The best she could do was to look him briefly in the eyes while giving one quick up and down jerk of her head. It was enough to plaster one of the sick smiles on his face. She was becoming accustomed to those smiles, and more frightened by each one.
Moving suddenly, he was out of the car and through the door of the store. She could see him inside rapidly gathering up bags of chips, candy bars and sodas. He dropped them on the counter, paid the clerk, and was back in the car. He could not have been gone more than two minutes.
Lyn had watched him frantically trying to decide what to do and if she should attempt to escape. It was useless. Her right hand was still strapped to the frame of the seat. The door was locked and could not be opened from the inside; there was no one around, except for the old woman in the store who probably couldn’t even see if there was someone else in the car.
As it was, he was back, and she was still there. He pulled open a bag of chips and popped a can of Coke, munching a handful of chips as he backed away from the store.
A minute later, they were back on the interstate. With one hand, he held the bag of chips in front of her as he drove. When she made no move, he looked at her and shook the bag. “Eat. Don’t know when we’ll be stopping again.”
Lyn reached up and took a chip from the bag. She had forgotten how long it had been since she had eaten and how hungry she was. Quickly, she reached up and grabbed another chip before the bag moved away.
Lyn could see that they were circling a city on a large highway, an interstate. The signs said Columbia, and she knew this meant she was in another state. She had never been in another state, not even Florida which was not many miles from her home in Pickham County.
After a while, she saw a sign that said Augusta. She knew that Augusta was in Georgia.
Lylee watched her, and the grin was back. It seemed always to be there when he hurt her or she was confused or frightened.
“Figure out that we’re not headed to Canada, did you?”
Lyn stared out the window at the interstate signs that said I-20 Augusta, Georgia.
“Well, I figured we could take a little detour. Did you know that if you get on I-20 here and drive west, you can go all the way to west Texas and hit I-10 east of El Paso? From there just keep heading west and you end up at the Santa Monica pier in California. What’s that the old pioneers used to say? California or bust.” He made the little snickering sound that caused her flesh to crawl.
Lyn made no reply. In her heart, she knew that she had no more chance of seeing California than Canada. All she could do was stay alive as long as possible and hope for some chance of escape.
66. Waiting
Sharon Price wheeled the unmarked, silver-gray Ford into the lot of the state patrol post, splashed through a puddle, and came to rest beside an old pickup parked by the front door. The GBI car rocked from her braking.
They had taken one vehicle so that they could more easily discuss the case and developments with the young man who had been stopped by the patrol. George would be bringing his county pickup.
“Nice landing.” Bob Shaklee was unbuckling the seatbelt he had snugged down when they left Everett. Bob was a better driver than he was a passenger, but they both knew that Sharon was the better driver when it came to getting somewhere quickly, and they had gotten to Statesboro very quickly. He couldn’t deny that.
Walking briskly to the building, they peered into the bed and interior of Clay Purcell’s pickup as they passed. There was nothing remarkable inside.
“Looks innocent enough,” Price commented.
“Yeah. He seems to know a lot about this though,” Shaklee replied, referring to Clay’s knowledge of the old Chevy and the physical description of the driver, details he claimed to have picked up at the truck stop. “We’ll see.”
The door squeaked open and then clattered shut. Clay looked up from his seat across from Trooper Collins and eyed the two persons who stood there for a moment taking in the surroundings.
One of them, the male, looked over at the desk across from Clay. “Trooper Collins?”
“Yep.” Collins stood. “You Shaklee?”
Bob nodded affirmatively.
“Come this way and I’ll fill you in.”
Bob Shaklee followed him into the hallway to Clay’s right and then into the first small room where they closed the door. Clay was left alone in the office area with Sharon Price.
She regar
ded him intently, as if waiting for him to say or do something. Her silent gaze continued for what seemed like a much longer time to the young man, but was probably no more than thirty seconds.
The intensity of her look mixed with the silence and absence of any conversation made Clay uncomfortable in the extreme. Just as he was about to speak and at least fill the room with something besides her silent stare, the woman smiled and took a step towards him.
“My name is Sharon Price.” She held her hand out. Without thinking, he shook it as she continued her introduction. “My partner and I are with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation…GBI.” She pulled the leather badge and identification case from her waist and held it up for inspection.
Clay nodded. “I know. The officer told me you were coming to ask me some questions.”
“Did he tell you what we wanted to ask you about?”
“Not much. He stopped me for speeding.”
“Were you?”
“Yeah, I guess I was,” Clay nodded and gave a slight, boyish grin. In the land of NASCAR, a speeding ticket was almost a badge of honor for young men, and Clay was no exception. But the reason why he had been cruising the interstate returned to him, and the grin evaporated.
“So you were speeding and the trooper stopped you, and you told him why you were speeding.”
Clay nodded.
“Tell me.”
Bob Shaklee and Trooper Collins watched on the video monitor in the small room they had entered as Clay recounted the day from giving Lyn a ride at the diner, to the phone message she had left him, to his search for her at the truck stop.
Sharon Price waited until he had finished before speaking. “Do you still have the voice message?”
“Yes, ma’am. On the phone.” Clay nodded towards the desk where Trooper Collins had been seated.
“Do you mind if I check the voice mail on the phone?” The words were spoken very clearly and louder than she had been speaking, which put a look of surprise on Clay’s face.