15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  “The FBI will be holding a press conference at six this evening, in which they will play the various security camera footage they have amassed on Derrick James Smith. One thing’s for certain, Ms. Chambers, Derrick has been one busy boy since resurrecting from the dead.”

  I couldn’t watch any more. The news was sensationalizing my predicament. It was corny to watch. Like they enjoyed it. Like they relished this sort of news story. They didn’t care about facts, but as usual the news ran whatever the FBI or any law enforcement agency made them run. It happens all the time. I was sure that I wouldn’t be the last case in which the facts got lost within all the hearsay.

  I decided that I couldn’t stay at the diner any longer. I was out of there. I switched off the TV and made a break for the door. I heard the woman walk through the beads once again.

  “Off so soon?” I heard her say.

  “Yeah, sorry, got a two o’clock appointment,” I said, realizing that was the second time I’d used the appointment line.

  She stood there and watched as I briskly walked out of the diner toward the truck stop down the road.

  Twenty-Nine

  I ran across the street and stopped just outside a fence that had a rusted metal sign clasped between the links. It read: Alameda Truck Stop. I noticed a few truck drivers hanging around outside. They were propped up against the wall to what I assumed was the office the company ran shipments from. I noticed the first three men were white, while the other group was predominantly Hispanic. I knew that I needed to approach one of them and inquire about getting a lift to Mexico. The thing is, I wasn’t too sure who would be the best fit for the job. I would need somebody who wasn’t too proper-looking. In other words, I’d need somebody who looked like they did that sort of thing on the side. Looking for these types of people can be dangerous. Odds are, they don’t want to be found.

  I was looking for the usual indicators of a big-rigger. I was looking for hand tattoos. I was looking for neck ones. The sort of man I was after needed to look tough, yet approachable. It was a hard stereotype to come across at this truck stop. Everyone seemed a little on edge. Nobody had noticed me yet, but I feared that when they did, they wouldn’t like what they saw. After all, I sure didn’t look like one of them. I was thin, yet athletic, but these men, they were tough and rugged, like walking construction cranes that towered over me and imposed their will on my confidence. To say that I was frightened about my mission to get to Mexico would be an understatement. I didn’t have any other ideas on how to get there. Hiding in the back of a truck was the only way I thought I’d be able to cross the border without being found out. After seeing the TV news report, I knew I was running out of time. I knew the way these things usually played out. People on the run who get plastered on the news don’t last too long. They either get caught or shot, even if they are wrongfully accused the way I was.

  I took another (useless) deep breath and exhaled. I could feel my body stiffen up. Pulse or not, I was nervous. I bowed my head a little toward the ground and began to take long strides into the courtyard. I was trying to portray a certain level of confidence with my walk, but feared that I was failing on the first hurdle. I took my eyes off the ground and looked up to see that the men lined up against the wall had noticed me, all right. They were grinning from ear to ear, as if I had done something funny. I stopped dead in the middle of the truck yard and looked over my shoulder, wondering if somebody wearing some sort of clown getup was behind me, making those men laugh. To my surprise, I was the one they were laughing at.

  “Look what we have here, boys,” one of the men said. “A greenhorn ready to start his shift at the meat factory!”

  I caught a glimpse of him; he was around five ten and a good two hundred pounds. He had a greasy white shirt, one that clashed with his tar-black jeans. He was wearing fingerless gloves and sported nicotine-stained fingers. This guy looked like the sort of man you’d find in a biker bar raising hell and sucking down shots of Jack.

  “I’m no greenhorn, sir,” I said, to a round of more laughter. It seemed that the more I spoke, the funnier I became. But then I spotted the possible reason behind such hysterical laughter. They were passing around a big joint. I swear, it must have been nearly a foot long. All of them had red eyes, and I even saw one of them downing a cold beer. I guess I had stumbled across my big-riggers. They were still lined up, laughing and drinking. I assumed that it was downtime for them; maybe they were all off the clock. I just hoped that the guy who would take me — if any of them did, that is — wasn’t loaded on narcotics and booze. That would be all I needed. Being pulled over because of some erratic driving and then being hauled off to prison for a crime I hadn’t committed.

  “If you ain’t no greenhorn, what the hell are you doing at this truck stop?” a big guy on my left asked.

  I turned my head and saw a freakishly large man who had hands the size of bricks talking to me. He had a big white beard and looked at least sixty. From what I could tell, he wasn’t drunk or high, so I walked up to the man while keeping an eye on the other men who were giving me the once-over.

  I reached the bearded old-timer and gave him a passive smile. He returned a courtesy one. I leaned in and lowered my voice.

  “Look, sir, I’m in trouble. I need a lift to Mexico. Is there any way I could convince somebody here to give me one? I have money and would be willing to pay for the ride.”

  The old guy shook his head and flashed me his yellow teeth. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt that accentuated his big, tattoo-covered arms.

  “I’m sorry, son. We don’t give people lifts. It’s against protocol. If you’re looking for a ride into Mexico, I suggest you take the train,” he said, hawking up some phlegm and spitting on the ground. He coughed a few times and walked off without saying much else. I watched him disappear into the building they were all leaning against. Someone rattled me out of my daze.

  “You heard the man, whippersnapper. We don’t offer rides to lawbreakers. We suggest you fuck off now, or there’ll be trouble.”

  I turned to see the collective expressions on the truck drivers’ faces. I knew I wasn’t welcome there, so I decided to scoot before I got a beating for my trouble.

  I walked out of the truck stop feeling defeated. Not only did half the world want me in jail for a crime I didn’t commit, the ones who didn’t know me from squat weren’t going to help me out, either. I felt truly alone. I was ready to crawl into a hole somewhere and not come out. Permanent hibernation wouldn’t be so bad. Come to think of it, neither would death.

  Thirty

  Feeling emotionally drained, I decided to come up with another plan. I walked out of that truck yard feeling defeated and bested. I felt overcome by the cruel fates who had bestowed the curse of resurrection on me. I would be lying if I hadn’t entertained the idea of there being a God, and that he was punishing me for something. Maybe I had killed someone in my previous life, if there was such a thing. Maybe I was destined to go somewhere else, and my soul came crashing back down into my body, giving me a second chance at life. Either way, this whole second-chance bullshit wasn’t working out the way I had hoped. Upon my waking up from death a day or so ago, I was excited about the possibility of unearthing the truth behind my defect. Unfortunately, nothing but pain and anguish had fallen on everything I touched since I woke up. It was as if everything around me was destined to be cursed. I guess that’s why I wanted out of L.A. I figured that me getting away from it all would provide a safety net around my loved ones, especially since Chad and Mrs. Weaver had been taken from this world. Not to mention that meddling doctor at the hospital — he was the first to fall because of me. I wondered why these things were happening. It pained me greatly to know that everyone around me was in immediate danger of death, like the Grim Reaper was pissed off because he’d lost my soul and now wanted revenge.

  I could hear the traffic trudging along beside me. A few meters from the truck stop was a bus stop. I decided to sit down and wait for anoth
er ride. My legs were killing me. They were angry at my exertion levels. I was amazed that they were working at all. Sophomore biology teaches us that the muscles need blood and oxygen to work. I wasn’t receiving any of them, to the best of my knowledge. That was another thing that was playing on my mind.

  “How is this possible?” I said out loud to an empty bus stop, my words seaming to bounce off the heavy-sounding traffic driving past me.

  My mind was firing on all pistons. I imagined my brain must be growing weary. I sure as hell was. Even though my heart was not beating, my mind was still the same. It appeared that emotions were still rushing through me. My mind was still capable of putting stuff together and subtracting the unnecessary, which in hindsight would work wonders if I was able to discern the reasoning behind my resurrection. But it was useless until I found out what was wrong with me exactly; I’d be destined to theorize and nothing else.

  My goal was to get across the border. In Mexico a lot of people go to what we call “spiritual doctors” and some call “witch doctors.” I could use the opinion of these doctors. Maybe it would open up the truth behind my situation. It couldn’t hurt, anyway, seeing that Mexico is dense in population, making it hard to find people. I figured that the manhunt for me wouldn’t go too well for the feds if I was tucked away in Mexico, drinking tequila and learning about my condition from people who would appreciate me. I figured I might even be a star in Mexico. Maybe they’d think I was of importance and guard my life (or death, depending on how you look at it). It was all pipe dreams, though. The main reason to cross the border for any criminal is one of universal truth. Mexico is cowboy country. It’s the modern Wild West. Police are corrupt, and drugs are abundant. It’s the perfect place to hide. Between a mass of murderers and the drug cartels, I’d be hard to find. Even as a gringo, I’d be like a needle in a haystack.

  I sat up as I heard the approaching sound of a heavy engine that I thought belonged to a bus. I darted my head to the right and saw an oncoming eighteen-wheeler, flashing his indicator and pulling into the stop. I got up quickly and realized the person driving was that old-timer I’d met down at the stop. He was still sleeveless, and appeared to be smoking a cigar. The truck came to a stop, and he stuck his head out of the window.

  “Say there, whippersnapper, you still looking for a ride into Meheeco?” he said, leaning farther out of the window, his forearm bulging under the weight.

  “I sure am,” I said, a little taken back by his presence.

  “Good, well, I have room in the front of my cab. I’ve got a few stops to make before we go crossing the border, but once we get close, you can hunker down in the back, next to the DVD players and Xboxes I have on board.”

  I looked up at the man as he spat some black tar out of his mouth. He coughed violently and then gave me an angry look. “Well, you just going to stand there like an idiot? Get the hell in, or I’ll leave. P.D. will bust me for parking in a bus stop,” he said.

  I nodded my head and reached for my back pocket, feeling my lump of cash.

  “How much for the ride?” I asked.

  The bearded driver shook his head in disgust. “I don’t want no damn money. Just get in.”

  A slight hesitation crept into the corner of my mind. Why the hell was he helping me out? But then I felt the cold steel up my sleeve. I still had my handgun. If I got into trouble, a man with both hands on the steering wheel of a big rig wouldn’t be much of a hard target.

  I decided to go. I made my way around the front of the Scania and climbed up the two steps on the side bumper of the truck. The door swung open, and I hopped in. Some country-western music was playing on the radio. The cigar smoke made the inside of the truck feel ashy. The driver put his foot down and shifted into second. We drove off at a leisurely pace. I, on the other hand, was far from happy thoughts. I had my arms crossed, one hand ready to reach into my sleeve if there was any trouble.

  Thirty-One

  “They call me Wild Bill,” the driver finally said, reaching down for the shifter and hitting fourth. By now we were cruising at forty-five miles per hour, and I could feel the wind gusting through the ventilation compartments on the dashboard.

  “Why they call you Wild Bill?” I asked, not sure whether I wanted to know the answer.

  Someone crossed the road about fifty yards in front of us; Bill tugged on his horn, sounding it off like a massive explosion. It near rattled me silly. My nerves were on edge.

  “I guess that’s why they call you Wild Bill,” I continued.

  “Get the fuck outta the way!” he yelled out of the window once we got closer to the slow-moving sidewalk dweller.

  We made a left on 8th Street, and I watched him meticulously shift gears. This guy was a very good truck driver. I now understood where he got his physique from. His upper body was tense and taut, his arms bulging with veins and muscle. His belly, on the other hand, was sagging and slightly bloated. Changing gears in this particular truck seemed like a hard thing to do.

  “They call me Wild Bill because,” he said, coughing a little as he gripped the steering wheel, “I’m a little wild when it comes to the things I’m willing to do.”

  I laughed while nodding my head in agreement as I watched him take the bends with ease.

  “Like picking up strangers at the bus stop and offering them safe passage over the border?” I said.

  “Exactly!” he replied, turning to me and giving me a candid nod, as if it was a sign that we understood each other.

  I would be lying if I said I didn’t like Wild Bill from the start. He was a genuine guy. He talked a lot, and I listened. The first stop we were headed to was a good fifty miles away. During that journey, Wild Bill opened up and told me some old-timer stories of what he’d accomplished in his life. He included the stories of his eight past wives — yep, that’s right. This guy had eight women he’d divorced!

  “Sandra was the eighth, you see. She was a great kisser. She loved my beard, sometimes grabbing it during sex and all!” he said, taking a right down some industrial road outside L.A. “We would fuck, like, every day, at least six to seven times,” he went on. I found that fact a little hard to believe, but the more he spoke, the more I liked him. “I mean, we would fuck like rabbits. On the kitchen table, on the stove, in the bathroom, sometimes even in the kiddies’ room when they were at school.”

  I started to laugh uncontrollably. “Oh, man, please go on,” I said.

  “I don’t know what you’re laughing at, boy. Fucking is a beautiful thing between a man and wife. Nothing wrong with that,” he said in a defensive tone.

  “I know, I’m just enjoying these stories.”

  He went quiet for a little while as we pulled into a warehouse. He then turned to me, still driving in a straight line, and pulled a face. “We’d clean the sheets after, you know,” he said.

  I pulled a face of my own, not quite understanding what he meant.

  “Sorry?” I asked.

  “We’d clean the sheets after bonking in the kiddies’ room,” he said, as if it needed to be known.

  “That’s good to know,” I replied.

  We came to a stop, and he hopped out of the cab.

  “We weren’t animals!” he said, shutting the door and walking off to the back of the truck.

  I watched him start to load up some cargo into the back of the rig. He looked distorted in the side mirror, but I continued to observe anyway. I noticed we were in some sort of warehouse. It looked like a big one; it seemed to stretch on for miles. It was one of those open-plan ones where trucks and other vehicles could literally drive up to pallets and offload or load up on gear. I noticed a big sign just a few yards from our truck. I realized we were in a warehouse that belonged to that big online superstore named after a rainforest.

  “Well, at least it isn’t drugs,” I said, feeling happy that Wild Bill wasn’t doing shady deals.

  I waited ten minutes, and Bill entered the cab once again.

  “Man, I tell you what, I
miss Sandra,” he said.

  I had forgotten who she was. “Sandra?” I asked.

  “My eighth wife, haven’t you been listening?” he huffed in an apparent sulk.

  “Yeah, sorry, I’m miles away,” I said.

  He turned the ignition, and the truck came back to life, the headlight beams igniting against the dark backdrop of the warehouse.

  “You’ll be more than miles away by the end of the day! Mexico is a whole other world!”

  Thirty-Two

  I saw the light cascading off the brilliance of the scene that lay in front of me. A chorus of voices was beckoning me to the light.

  “Come closer,” they whispered as I drew nearer. “We won’t hurt you. The pain is gone. There is no pain where you are going,” I heard a thunderous, yet majestic voice say.

  The light grew brighter. My hands started to shake. I could breathe again. The air felt cold. My heart started to pound in my chest.

  Thump Thump Thump Thump.

  Could it be that I was back?

  I opened my eyes to the sound of Wild Bill sounding off his horn once again. It was now nighttime and the traffic was sparse, yet glowed in an abundance of red and yellow smudges on the highway. I felt my chest ache, and I grabbed at it. I was frightened, not knowing what it was. My hand felt at my torso, yet I could feel no pulse.

  “It was a dream,” I said as I came to and straightened myself up.

  “You fell asleep. I didn’t want to wake you up,” Wild Bill said as he hunched over the steering wheel and took a massive yawn. “Come to think of it, I’m a little sleepy myself,” he added.

  I sat back into the cushiony embrace of the passenger seat and attempted to slow down the pulsating thoughts that were crashing through my head. I was at a loss for words, still trying to decipher the meaning behind my dream. I was surprised that I needed sleep at all. I gathered that my lack of heart rate would eliminate my physical needs. I guess I was wrong. Maybe this was something different altogether. Maybe I wasn’t really dead at all.