Hailey's Hog

by Andrew Draper

  Eventually, the evening wore on and the DJ packed up his equipment, the crowd dwindling. Hailey didn’t want the evening to end, the little slice of happiness so greatly coveted. They walked back to the spot were Hailey’s bike rested and stopped.

  “Can I call you?” he asked. “I’d really like to see you again.”

  She hesitated, not really knowing why, the reason unimportant in the fluster of the moment. “I just met you.”

  “I don’t believe in wasting time. If you don’t want to go out with me, it’s totally cool, just say so.”

  “No, that’s not it at all.” I can’t believe I said that. She thought. “I just don’t really date that much. I’m really busy taking classes this summer.” But, I think I really do want to see you again. She wondered if she should…could…let him into her life, if she dared to take the risk of letting him into her heart. Do I have the right to drag anybody into that mess?

  His voice snapped her back to the present. “Are you busy on Saturdays? I have Saturdays off.”

  “Well… no. I don’t have classes on Saturday.”

  “How about coming with me on the next bike run?” he said. “We’ll just go for a ride, no pressure. It’ll be fun.”

  She gave him a small, coy smile. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Cool. I hope you decide to come. I think you’ll have a good time. I know the rest of the guys in the club would love to see your bike. Plus, it’s for a good cause.”

  She considered and reconsidered his offer as she made her way back to her apartment, feeling a glimmer of hope for the first time in many months.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The medical examiner’s report gave Smith that something he’d been lacking all this time, something concrete to link both cases. He’d suspected all along that the two murders were connected and now he knew how. After falling off the radar for a full day, he still hadn’t returned any of Matarski’s calls…and didn’t plan to. The truth finally beginning to come into focus, Smith burned in renewed anger at both Matarski and the Senator. Those punks raped that girl, and now she’s hunting them down one by one. While he couldn’t condone her actions, he certainly understood her rage at the men who had brutalized her. I don’t even know how I’d react if somebody hurt Cassie like that. Deep down, he did know. He knew exactly how he’d react, and that scared the hell out of him. I can understand what she did, but she has to be stopped.

  Smith tried to call Mendoza, but couldn’t reach him. He left a message on his voice mail.

  I’ll have to wait to get any kind of warrant until he gets out of court. But that doesn’t mean I have to do nothing.

  A quick call to DMV and he had a street address for Hailey Barrow, age 20, college student. Smith parked his car across the street from Hailey’s apartment and moved toward the door. He looked in the windows, and seeing nothing, decided not to tip his hand by knocking.

  Moving back down the steps, he checked the plates on a 2002 Toyota Camry parked in the lot, confirming the vehicle belonged to his quarry. Her car’s in the lot, but she’s not here. She can’t be far away if she’s on foot.

  Smith saw an elderly woman wearing a pink housecoat, the threadbare material far too small for her substantial frame, gingerly making her way down from the apartment across the breezeway. The portly woman, he figured her to be at least seventy years old, slowly worked her way from the bottom of the stairs to join the detective now standing by the curb. Smith noticed she held an obese calico cat in her arms, the furry beast purring loudly.

  “If you’re looking for Hailey, she took off on that damnable motorcycle of hers.” The woman said in a grating New York twang.

  “Miss Barrow has a motorcycle?” Smith asked.

  “Annoying as hell too! Pardon my French,” she said as she scratched the cat soothingly behind the ears. “Rattles the windows every time she comes or goes.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “No. We’re not that close.” she said in obvious disdain.

  He reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved a business card, placing it in the neighbor’s hand. “If she comes back, please give me a call.”

  “I will. I’m happy to help the police. And you should confiscate that infernal machine,” The wrinkled lady complained, pointing a bony finger at his chest. “She scared Mr. Whiskers half out of his wits.”

  She turned her back on him, then waddled back in the direction from which she came. Smith shook his head in mild amusement.

  Back at his car, Smith thought about where Hailey might have gone. “Well, she’s not here,” Smith said aloud. “Where could she be?”

  He spent the better portion of the day camped outside the girl’s apartment waiting for her to return. Having too much time on his hands, he began to kick the events of the last two days around in his head.

  He thought about what Jaco said, the cold hard facts of the CODIS report couldn’t mask the reality of the human tragedy behind them. He felt the bile rise in his throat. My God, he swallowed several times, forcing his stomach to obey his mental commands. What that poor girl must have gone through! He clenched his fists in anger at what he instinctively knew those men had done to her.

  Smith’s brain shifted gears, moving to the progress of the case, or lack of it. That train of thought derailed at Matarski and Grady. Either they knew, or they suspected…either way they’re covering it up…and it has to stop.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sitting in one of the cubicles at the college library, Hailey’s fingers flew across the computer keys, calling up the website for the Triumph Owners of Arizona. The browser settled on the page in seconds.

  She nearly choked on her quick intake of breath, the ad burning her eyes. The monster sat in plain sight, smiling from the back of a vintage bike. She scanned the copy for a second time, shuddering in disgust.

  Axel’s custom cycles of Chino Valley.

  We build and sell all types of custom motorcycles, specializing in English brands.

  Axel Rackley, owner.

  Click, Click, and she had the address and directions to the shop.

  The Hog growled in her ears as the trip to Chino Valley went by in an instant, compared to the long and arduous trek to Tucson. She drove SR 89 north, the giant boulders of Granite Dells giving way to the empty sections of dry grassland surrounding the municipal airport.

  I have to finish this. She thought as she put Prescott behind her. They have to be stopped before they ruin someone else’s life.

  She pictured the remaining two monsters striking again. The manufactured images rolled across the canvass of her troubled mind. She could almost see them ambush some other young woman in some dark, isolated place and drag her off. She instinctively knew they’d force this other unsuspecting innocent to do the same disgusting things they’d made her do. She shivered at the heinous memory, her senses balking at the idea of another young woman suffering as she had. I can’t let that happen. If nothing else, it has to end with me.

  Stopping at several traffic lights, she finally made her way through the congested corridor of Chino Valley proper, out to Road Five North.

  Tires crunching on the loose gravel, she parked the Hog down a side street, hiding it behind some unkempt bushes along the edge of the road. She stood sweating in the early afternoon heat waiting for a chance to cross the street unobserved, it finally came. Rounding the rusting stretch of chain-link fence that separated Rackley’s Custom Cycles from its neighbor, she used the cover of several partially disassembled automobiles to get closer to the door. She moved with the stealth of a cat, careful footsteps leaving no sound as she approached the utilitarian steel building, its paint sun-faded and peeling. The caustic smell of burned steel permeated the air, stinging her nose. Pulse hammering in her ears, she quietly slipped through the door into his world.

  She stepped into the dark confines of the shop, her eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden change in lighting. As the interior came into focus, she noticed
that everywhere she looked a motorcycle, or parts of one, littered the floor, several even hung suspended by heavy chains from the building’s rafters. An orange glow, bright and flickering, danced along the walls, filling the shop with wildly pulsating light. She moved toward the source of that light.

  She saw him standing in the middle of an incandescent fountain of bright sparks, the welder in his hand spitting red and yellow slag in all directions.

  She silently threaded her way across the floor, dodging piles of jagged metal that created a crooked path between her and her nemesis. She steeled herself as she closed the distance. All right, you son of a bitch, time to pay for what you did to me.

  Her foot catching on a large chunk of plate steel, she kicked it to the side, the movement creating an explosive racket in the otherwise silent shop. She froze in place, petrified of making another sound. He wheeled around, flipping his gray helmet up to see her silhouetted by the shafts of sunlight streaming through the open roll-up door.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  His hair was shorter than she remembered his mustache longer, but there was no doubt that monster number three now stood before her, a six-foot tall bundle of blind aggression and imminent danger. She steeled herself, forcing her knotted emotions under control.

  “You’re Axel Rackley.”

  “Yes. Who’s asking?”

  “You don’t remember me do you?”

  “No. I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “We have, last summer.”

  “I think I’d remember meeting you.” He said, a small smile splitting his face as his eyes traveled up and down her body.

  “You didn’t meet me, you raped me.” She spat.

  He stood straighter, jaw dropping in disbelief.

  “That’s a lie!” his sharp response echoed off the shop’s walls.

  “You know it’s true. You…and three others…terrorized me.”

  He dismissed her with a wave of his gloved hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She looked at him, green eyes blazing in hatred. “Just admit it. You and three others pulled me into an alley and raped me.”

  “I’m not admitting shit!” He put the torch down, taking a step toward her.

  In a flash of bright silver, the revolver came into view. “Stay back!” The pistol shook in her hands, barrel circling menacingly. “The other two at least admitted to what they did…finally. Be a man and own up to it!”

  “Easy now…” he said, staring at the weapon’s dark maw. “All right, I admit we had sex with you in that alley. I don’t know what you’re so bent about. You acted like you wanted it. We thought you wanted to party.”

  She froze in momentary confusion. That’s what Stone said, that I acted like I wanted it! Did I somehow give them that idea? The notion staggered the pistol-wielding woman, distracting her for a fleeting instant…an instant too long.

  When she first approached, she hadn’t noticed the three-foot section of tubing lying across the bench at Rackley’s left. Now at gun-point, he snatched it up, stepped to his right and lashed out, a howl of rage escaping his lips.

  A searing pain bloomed in her left hand as the makeshift weapon found its target, shooting a fire trail the length of her arm. She felt, rather than heard, a faint ‘pop’ in her wrist as the pistol shot out of her grip to skid across the floor.

  Moving with an astonishing speed for a man so large, he twisted his body to the left then swung again, the pipe landing with a horrific impact. Her breath exploded from her lungs with a loud “whoosh” as the heavy tube smashed into her side. The inertia of the blow carried her backward, slamming her into a rolling tool box with bone-jarring force. Dazed by the impact, she landed face-down with an audible thud, the stars dancing before her eyes. Blinking franticly to clear her vision, she crawled toward the gun, now lying just out of reach.

  His face painted in an evil smile, Rackley took aim at her head. Spinning the pipe in a high arc like a Samurai sword, he raised the weapon for the kill.

  Stretching every sinew to the limit, she finally wrapped her fingers around the pistol’s handle. She rolled to the right as the pipe careened off the floor in a shower of concrete chips, missing her skull by a hair’s breadth.

  In an overwhelming surge of hot adrenaline, she raised the weapon, the thundering blast amplified by the smooth steel walls of the shop. With no time to aim, the bullet missed Rackley’s body but found his left forearm, a ragged hole appearing in the belly of the naked woman tattooed there. He screamed in pain, using his undamaged arm to raise the pipe again. She knew with a terrible certainty there was no chance he would miss a second time.

  She pulled the trigger and the pistol again belched fire and lead at her attacker. The second bullet found Rackley’s chest, tearing through his heart and lung in a single, deadly pass. His blazing eyes expanded to black pools, the sudden shock painting his face an ashen grey. He coughed once, foamy blood running from his mouth as he stood frozen in disbelief. The pipe slowly slipped from his grip, landing on the floor with a loud clang.

  She trembled in pain and terror as he stood above her, his dazed expression now melted to a vacant stare as the life drained from his body. She emitted a strangled gasp of relief as he crumpled to the ground.

  Her chest ablaze with excruciating pain as she tried to pull in even a partial breath, she slowly picked herself up, holding her throbbing wrist close to her side. She gingerly touched the other hand to her aching midsection. Oh, my God! Her mind flashed in horror as a scorching agony raced across her chest, I think my ribs are broken!

  She took a last, fleeting look at Rackley, now lying unmoving among the scrap and refuse of the shop floor. Somebody had to hear that. I’ve got to get the hell out of here!

  She dropped the card on Rackley’s cooling corpse, the sudden motion of her arm causing another incendiary flash of pain. Burn in hell you bastard. She bolted for the door, moving as fast as her rubbery legs could carry her.

  Every bump a jolt of agony, she clung to the handle bars as she struggled against the swirling blackness to stay upright in the saddle. She pointed the Hog back toward Prescott, the wind disturbance kicking up a thick cloud of dust. Only one more left. Then it’s over.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Smith finally reached Mendoza, getting the call back when the deputy was on a break from the trial.

  “Smith, Mendoza here. I saw that you called.”

  “I did. I got the lab results back. We ran Grady’s DNA through CODIS and it showed up in one of your cases from last year, a sexual assault in Prescott.”

  “Really? Holy Shit!”

  “Really. The victim’s name is Hailey Barrow. Stone’s DNA is in the same sample too. We have our link.”

  “I’ll call records and get you access to the file,” he said. “I have to get back inside, but I want to hear all about it. I’ll call you as soon as I’m free.”

  That will make finding her easier. Smith thanked Mendoza for his help.

  I know she’s not at home. So, let’s try her mother’s house.

  With Mendoza cutting the red tape, in less than an hour he’d checked the file and found the address. As he made the short drive to Joanne Barrow’s residence, Smith considered all he had learned about his quarry in the last few hours.

  She’s armed and dangerous, rides a motorcycle and was sexually assaulted by four men, two of which are now dead. He drove up the tree-lined driveway to the house. She’s not going to stop on her own. I have to find her and stop her…before she strikes again.

  He parked his car and stood in front of the entry. He pushed the button next to the wrought iron security door, hearing the bell ringing inside. After a minute, a tall, thin woman opened the inner door, swinging it back out of the way. She stuck her head out of the doorway.

  “Joanne Barrow?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He flashed his badge. “I’m Detective John Smith, Tucson Police. May I come in?

 
She stepped out to the porch. “We can talk out here. What can I do for you?”

  “You have a daughter named Hailey?”

  “Yes, Hailey’s my daughter,” her face instantly went pale, “Is something wrong? Please tell me she’s alright!”

  “As far as I know she is fine. Do you know where she is right now?”

  “No. I assume she’s at her apartment. What’s this about? Is she in some kind of trouble?”

  “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  “Yesterday.” The voice was tentative, wary.

  “Does she have a cell phone?”

  “Yes, she does.”

  “Would you try calling her please?” Smith asked, remaining stoic.

  “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’m investigating a crime in Tucson and your daughter might have information that can be of use.”

  “Somehow I doubt that. I don’t think my daughter’s ever been to Tucson.”

  “Just the same, would you please call her and ask her to come here as soon as possible. It’s very important.”

  “Why should I?”

  He pushed forward, continuing his questions in spite of Joanne’s resistance.

  “Do you know where she was last Saturday, June twentieth?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Could she have been in Tucson?”

  “She didn’t mention any trip to Tucson.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “What would she be doing there?” she asked, her maternal instincts heating up.

  “We believe she was involved in a shooting.”

  “What! A shooting!” she waved a hand in disbelief. “That’s preposterous!”

  “I just need to ask her a few questions. That’s all.”

  “And what evidence do you have to support this ridiculous accusation?”

  “Your daughter was raped last year, correct?”