by Rich Foster
“Well if you found one end of a snake and it’s the tail, the other end should be the head”, said Ralphie who was lounging by the other side of the stream.
“That’s what I’m hoping. A nice parking lot with a SUV in it would be fine by me. It would be nice to get there before dark.”
“Maybe we should double back to camp?”
“It’s tempting but we might be out of here in the same amount of time. I want to push on and see where this leads.”
Ralphie shrugged and was gone.
Alan stood, stretched and then headed up the trail. The shadows in the trees were getting long. If he didn’t try to start a fire soon it would be too late. He hurried along the trail looking for an open spot where he could start a fire. Soon he came to a sunny glade, but the shadows were reaching far across the new grass. Alan took out his cigarettes, which despite their addiction had become far too valuable as a fire starter than as a cigarette. He had rationed them wisely and staying in one place where he kept the fire going had preserved his supply. Now he bent over, patiently holding the cigarettes tip in the harsh white focused light from the bottom of the shaving can. Three minutes passed and the cigarette trembled lightly on his lips as the first curl of smoke rose from the tip. He puffed gently and the tip glowed, he allowed himself one deep puff and then set to building his fire with fine duff he had collected. It surprised him the pleasure one could derive from a single puff of smoke. Like a single kiss from a new lover, it was hard to let it go at that, but with a discipline forced by a desire to survive, he put it out and carefully replaced it in his pack.
Once he had his fire going he felt reassured. Tomorrow he could go back and eventually he would find his old trail or perhaps if he continued on he would find the trailhead. In the fading light as the sun moved behind the mountains he climbed a tree. He was feeling weaker. His hiking had been slower but he was not particularly aware of how much he had slowed. But the physical work of climbing from limb to limb drove it home to his mind.
From his vantage point in the tree he did not see anything of promise, simply an expanse of treetops, their drab green and olive coloring spreading out before him. Overhead the sky was taking on a purplish tone and the high level clouds were becoming dark rather than pink. He saw long mare tails sweeping back from them. A front was moving in.
A breeze stirred down the valley and the tree swayed gently. He could smell the pinesap on his hands and the smoke rising from his campfire far below. He sat in the tree watching the twilight grow around him for half an hour. Then before darkness fell he moved to climb down. At that moment he thought he saw a narrow plume of smoke rising far up the valley. He tried to focus at that distant spot. He saw nothing. He waited patiently and once again he thought he saw a wisp of smoke but then it was dark.
He climbed down into growing blackness. The tree limbs shrouded out the remaining light from above and it wasn’t until he was almost down that his small campfire cast enough light for him to see to the ground.
Ralphie sat cross-legged by the fire roasting a hotdog over the fire. In his other hand he held a hot dog bun. Alan was accepting of such impossibilities. The longer he was in the woods, the more real Ralphie became.
“I think I saw smoke!” he cried in excitement.
Ralphie was non-committal.
Alan opened his pack and brought out some pieces of smoked fish. He placed them on a stick and warmed them over the fire.
“Tomorrow we might be out of here!”
Still Ralphie sat silent.
“What’s wrong?” asked Alan.
There was a long silence and then Ralphie said, “Then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“What happens to you? What happens to us? Do we know anything more than when we went off the road? What about Lilly?” wailed, Ralphie. He began to blubber.
It was some minutes before Alan realized he was sitting alone by the fire crying. He wasn’t sure what he was crying for. It was for himself, it was for something, which was just outside his grasp, but what it exactly was he did not know. He put it down to exhaustion and curled up near his fire for the night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was mid afternoon when Maddox slammed his phone down on his desk. A perfectly pleasant afternoon had just been destroyed by a single call.
“Lane, get in here, now!” he bellowed.
Lane came3 at double time.
“That was Lilly Chandler on the phone right now. She called her Visa Company and a gasoline charge was posted from that old gas station way out on route 218. It was dated from two and a half weeks ago. The very morning that Alan Chandler disappeared!”
“So?” Lane asked apprehensively.
“Why the hell am I getting news of this investigation from the prime suspect?”
Lane shrugged helplessly, “We checked the Visa Company. They didn’t have a thing.”
“Well did you keep checking? They sure as hell have got something now! Unless you really want to be a patrolman all your miserable life, I’d get the hell out there and check out this station. See if anyone remembers anything. There must be some reason that this slip just turned up now.”
With a crisp “Yes, sir” Lane meekly backed out the door.
Lane’s unmarked car sped along Route 218. Small heat waves shimmered on the asphalt in front of him. Outside Beaumont the road was a long straightaway until it reached the base of the mountains, so Lane pushed the gas pedal to the floorboard and opened the car up. The needle pushed past 120 mph. He kidded himself it was to blow out the carburetor. In reality he just liked to drive fast. He also liked the authority that came with a badge. It was what had first attracted him to being a cop.
The miles slipped by and within fifteen minutes he saw in the distance the GAS sign bolted to the top of an abandoned windmill. He let the car coast. When he reached the station and rolled off the highway he still raised a cloud of dust in the gravel lot next to the station. The station was from another era. It was old and tired. The paint flaked from the sides of the building and the lettering LAST GAS was barely visible on the cement block wall. It appeared that the world had passed it by and all hope had taken the last bus through. Two metal lawn chairs occupied the shade in front of the station. One was empty and the other filled by a slouching, lanky youth. His skin was bad, his overalls grimy, and Lane was sure his attitude would be surly.
Lane eased out of his car and ambled over toward the youth. He stopped at an ancient soda machine and pushed some coins in, but when he pushed the button nothing came out.
“Hey this machine swallowed my money!”
The attendant spat on the ground. “Doesn’t work.”
“How do I get my money back?”
“You don’t, unless you contact the vending company. The names on the machine.”
The youth lost interest in Lane’s troubles and closed his eyes.
“Look, I’m a police officer from over in Beaumont!”
The kid looked up. “I haven’t been there in ages so it wasn’t me.”
Lane felt like slamming the punk against the block wall but held his anger in check.
“I wanted to ask you about a charge slip that turned up from two and a half weeks ago. It was a Sunday morning early. The guy was driving a dark grey Jeep. His name was Chandler. Were you working then?”
The boy remained seated but opened his eyes wide enough to reveal the boredom behind his dilated pupils. “Yeah, but I don’t remember him! I just pump gas. If it was a topless chick, I might remember!”
Lane noted the boy’s bored and dilated eyes and knew that as a witness the kid would be worthless in court. But if the kid knew anything, Lane was determined to pry it out of him. He pulled out a copy of the charge slip and pushed it in front of the boys face. “Do you remember this?”
The boy shrugged. “Get lost. You’re out of your area.”
Lane was still angry from Maddox’s rebuke. He grabbed a handful of the youth’s shaggy hair and jerk
ed his head backward over the top of the chair. “Listen you little maggot, you were the last one to see this guy before he disappeared. That’s neither here nor there, but I don’t like your attitude. Maybe I’ll have the sheriff pick you up and brought to town where we can discuss this alone. Maybe hold you on suspicion of murder. Then I’ll go to your house where I’m sure I’ll find some weed and kiddie porn. And then to make your life more interesting I’ll let a few folks in our County Jail know that you like little boys!”
Panic spread across the youth’s face “That’s bull shit! You can’t make up crap like that!” The words came out so confused and fast that spittle ran down his cheek.
“Try me!” said Lane forming what he hoped was a sadistic grin on his face. Tugging more firmly as he continued holding the boy’s head back Lane shoved the charge slip in his face. “Do you remember this? This charge didn’t show up for two weeks!” He annunciated each word slowly and loudly as though speaking to the near deaf.
“I remember something,” stammered the boy. “Let me show you!”
Lane let go of his head.
The boy rose and scurried inside like a frightened rat. “It’s this old machine,” he said. He punched “no sale” on an old bronze finished mechanical register. The bell rang and the drawer slid open. He lifted the till tray.
“We use an old manual credit card machine; ya know? It uses stiff paper and a carbon copy. After we run it through and the customer signs it, we put our copy under the till tray until we close. Jess, my boss, takes them to the bank every few days. But this one got scrunched up behind the till tray. You only see it if you pull the tray and look in the back of the register. Jess found it a few days ago. He said to be more careful, that I was screwing up his bookkeeping and it made me look like a thief.”
Lane looked at the name on the kid’s overalls.
“So, Darryl, was it a man or woman in the Jeep?”
“How the hell should I know? I just pump the gas. I don’t remember squat about any of them!”
“Well, remember this, don’t try to screw with me or you’ll get a rap you’ll never squirm out of!”
Lane turned and strode back to his car. The large V-8 rumbled to life and Lane floored it, fish tailing out of the parking lot, while sending a shower of stones against the building, and burning rubber off the wheels as he hit the pavement.
Feeling cautious, the youth waited until Lane’s car was a receding speck, then he flipped his index finger in the cop’s direction.
*
When he returned later that afternoon Lane joined Maddox and Delaney who were both seated in the Chief’s office.
“Where are we,” asked the Chief, looking at Maddox?
“With our ass in the wringer!”
“What do you think Lane?”
“She’s innocent! The gas receipt’s legit, it just got lost. You should see the place, they’re operating in the Stone Age.”
“What about the signature?” questioned Maddox.
“It’s just a scrawl; little more than a bump and a line. Anyone could forge it.”
“What about prints?”
“Nothing legible. Just partials and smudges.”
The Chief pondered this for a moment. “Could someone have paid the kid to dummy up a receipt?”
Lane shrugged, “Sure. The kid’s a maggot. I’m sure he’d do anything for a few bucks, but why would he do it?”
“The better question is why would Lilly Chandler risk bringing someone into it?” said Maddox. “We don’t have a body. Her chances of beating a guilty rap are better than fifty-fifty. Hell I’m surprised the D.A. filed with what we had.”
“Maybe she’s getting nervous. The real question is who was there, mister or missus Chandler?”
“What if it was someone posing as Alan Chandler? A guy? In case someone noticed the Jeep. Like her possible boyfriend Charles Blain?”
“But wouldn’t they do something to make themselves memorable?” protested Lane.
“No, because you wouldn’t want the clerk to actually remember your face. Besides they had no way of knowing the charge slip would be lost. They may have intended to leave a trail. It could be how they dumped the body and the car!”
The Chief leaned back in his chair. “Double Indemnity, Fred McMurray and Barbara Stanwick, they work it together. She puts the body in the Jeep, drives to Don Juan’s house. He takes the Jeep and she follows in his car. He stops for gas out of need, or to make a paper trail. After they stash the body and car, he drives back and drops her off near her house. She walks home, which is why the neighbors only hear one car leaving.”
“But this is all supposition”, protested Lane.
“But it’s possible. I think we better check that area again. Run a couple cars up 218 as far as Red Lake. Check any side roads where they could have dumped it.”
“But there are dozens of logging roads up there!” said Lane.
“I’ll call the Sheriff and see if we can get some flight time on their chopper. After that I think you need to have a conversation with Mr. Blain.”
*
By mid day Maddox was on his way out to the helicopter pad behind the jail. The County Sheriffs copter waited, its engine whining and the blades stirring up dust devils as they lazily rotated. Lane and Maddox trotted over, instinctively ducking even though they knew the blades were well above their heads. The cops called it the Vic Morrow instinct.
Lane clambered into the back and Maddox slid into the seat beside the pilot. He slammed the hatch and slipped on the headset at his seat. Immediately the pilot wound the engines up and with a slight wiggle it lifted off the ground. They banked hard and picked up 218 out of Beaumont. The chopper rose to a thousand feet and leveled off.
“Speak up, if you see anything. Anything at all!”
They flew along the road. Soon the gas station passed below them.
“We have County prowl cars checking the side roads up the valley. Keep your eyes open as we move up the canyon. Look for any flash of light. Remember, if you’re dumping a car it’s going to roll down hill. Keep your eyes open at the base of cliffs or below roads. The car had a full tank of gas, but they wouldn’t want it to burn, that would have called attention to it. So, they probably rolled it down a slope, not off a cliff.”
The chopper worked its way up the canyon following the road as it climbed the side of the mountain. Two hours later they set down in Red Lake to take on fuel. Maddox stretched his legs while they fueled.
“I think we’ll cover the same route from the other direction. The sun has shifted and we might get reflections that didn’t show before.”
“Whatever you want,” said the pilot, “I just like getting the flight time in.”.
Lane came back with three cups of coffee, which they drank as the pilot did a walk around check. The fuel truck finished and pulled away and five minutes later they were lifting off again. Red Lake sparkled below them for a minute and then they climbed over the mountains and began their descent down the other side. The helicopter made wide sweeps back and forth across the face of the mountain, like a skier descending a powdery face. The highway snaked along the ridges below them.
Suddenly Lane shouted, “I’ve got something!” He pointed down and behind them. The pilot pulled the nose up hard and the helicopter made a gut wrenching 180-degree turn. He dropped the nose in toward the trees.
“There, about one o’clock!”
“Got it”, said the pilot.
The craft slowed and hovered. Under the spreading branches of a sugar pine was a lone dark-colored Jeep. The pilot walked the copter back in a circle around it. The tops of the trees whipped wildly driven by the wash from their rotors. On the far side of the sugar pine, the trees thinned out and gave way to a rocky bluff with a fabulous view. On the rock a naked couple desperately clutched at their wind driven blanket and clothing items. Maddox saw a shirt or a blouse set sail off the ledge. “Hell!” said Maddox.
The pilot grinned lecherously,
as he backed the helicopter out over the canyon to free them from the blade turbulence. As they banked away Maddox saw two bare, white bottoms scurrying over the point and back to their car. Lane laughed and made hourglass motions with his hands. “Makes it worth the trip eh?” he asked.
“Sure. And you can tell the Chief that! Now keep looking.”
They spent two more hours scouring the mountainside. Unbeknownst to them, they passed over the spot where Alan’s Jeep had left the road. But the loose gravel and pounding rain had hid any traces of the Jeeps descent. The Jeep itself had been turned upside down by the storm’s flood. It lay upside down in the deep pool at the base of the bluff from which it had fallen. The rocks hid it in shade. The submerged glass or chrome could not reflect the afternoon sun, it’s undercarriage barely extended above the water. The helicopter made two passes where it might have been visible but they missed the opportunity.
They made their final pass at the base of the slope. The pilot made a jester of pulling one finger across his throat.
“Times up! I need fuel and the Sheriff’s not going to pay overtime for this,” he said.
“Not a thing.” said Maddox with disappointment.
“If the car is down there, it’s well hidden. Did the cars on the ground come up with anything?”
“Nothing! I think it’s time we visit Mr. Blain.”