Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey

by Brian Stewart

  “Everything OK at the campground?” he asked.

  Michelle gave him a brief rundown, and then Uncle Andy said, “All right, we’re gonna drop off the kids and then we’ll be back to fill you up.” He shined a little flashlight into Michelle’s Tahoe, angled his face lower and said with a big smile, “You got lipstick on your face, Eric.”

  My hand went instinctively to rub at my face, and I could hear Walter, Uncle Andy, and even Francis and Marty laughing as they drove off. Michelle was wolfing right along with them.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “I’m not wearing any lipstick, but you just busted the both of us and now they all know it.”

  Uncle Andy and Walter were still chuckling when they pulled alongside us a few minutes later.

  Chapter 8

  We refueled out of Uncle Andy’s transfer tank and headed back to the marina. It was after 11:00 PM and I was getting a little bit tired; Michelle said she was too. But, no rest for the weary, there was a couple things I wanted to talk over with everybody before I went to bed. When we got to the marina I noticed an older model Ford van parked near the front of the bait store. I started to say something to Michelle, but she cut me off.

  “I see it,” she said.

  Obviously, Walter and Uncle Andy noticed it as well. They pulled in and kept their headlights on it as we pulled around in front, boxing the van in. The headlights from Michelle’s Tahoe didn’t reveal any movement inside the van. I opened the passenger door and got out; I could hear that the van was still running—couldn’t be there for gas then, I thought. I took my flashlight out from the sheath on my belt and pressed the switch on the tail cap, the Quark AA light flared into turbo mode as I approached. Michelle was providing cover, gun drawn, sheltered behind the open door of her truck. I made it to the passenger side of the van and shined the Quark through the window; nobody. The van had a solid body, no sliding doors or windows on the sides, two small windows—one on each door—in the rear. I slid around to the back of the van, did a quick “rise-shine-peek” into the cargo area of the van; no movement that I saw, no sideways figure-eight pattern of a double barrel twelve gauge pointed at me either. I risked a longer look. Nobody inside, just what looked like an old couch.

  “Clear,” I yelled.

  Walter spoke out of the window of Uncle Andy’s truck. “Everything OK?”

  “So far,” I said, “but stay in the truck, both of you, okay?” I saw him nod.

  Michelle moved up to me at the rear of the van, shined her light through the window for a minute, and said, “Is that blood?”

  I directed the beam of my flashlight through the other rear window and looked again, what I thought was a fabric pattern on the couch might be something else—my stomach started to sink. I reached down to the rear door handle and lifted; it was unlocked, so I opened the door. An acrid coppery odor wafted out of the van. It wasn’t a fabric pattern. I was about to go into the van for a closer look when I heard Max start to snarl. I spun around, and saw where he was facing—it was toward the back of the parking lot heading down to the boat ramp area. Both Michelle and I directed our lights in that area. A figure was approaching . . . male, about six feet tall, walking towards us with his hands leading the way. Max’s snarl increased in intensity as the figure got closer. I drew my CZ and switched to the flashlight/gun grip; Michelle dropped to one knee, aiming. Twenty yards away and closing . . . now fifteen, I could see blood on the guy’s shirt. The tritium night sights on my SP-01 steadied on his chest until I heard the echo of Sam Ironfeather’s warning . . . “Central nervous system, head or neck,” I adjusted upwards. Twelve yards away.

  “You in the parking lot, freeze,” I yelled.

  Amazingly, he did.

  “Do you all mind not shining those lights in my eyes?” he said with his hands still raised, shielding him from the glare of our flashlights.

  “Get down on your knees, put your hands on top of your head,” Michelle ordered.

  He did. I holstered my CZ while Michelle covered him with her Glock. I started to approach but Michelle cut me off with the two words.

  “Eric, gloves,” she said.

  I normally keep a whole box of the nitrile gloves in my truck, but not only for searching suspects. In my line of work I also deal with a lot of animals, living, dead, roadkill—you name it. Michelle must have been reading my mind.

  “I put the ones Sam gave us in the cargo department in the back of my truck,” she said.

  “You got him?” I asked.

  Her Glock didn’t move off the suspect, but she gave a quick nod. I went over to the Tahoe, popped the rear release using the remote on the keys that were still in the ignition, and got two pairs of gloves out. I moved back over, pulling on one glove at a time. Pretty comfortable actually, a little stiff on the backside of the hand maybe, my immediate impression was that they would loosen up pretty quick. I drew the CZ again, covering the suspect while Michelle put on a pair.

  The guy on the ground started talking, “Hey man, you got it all wrong. This ain’t what it looks like, I was just trying to help her.”

  Michelle took over covering the guy while I re-holstered my gun and moved up to cuff and search the guy. He still hadn’t moved from the “on your knees, hands on top of your head” position. I had a feeling he’d been in that position several times. He was squinting away from my light as I moved up, and something about the story that Sam relayed about Trooper Fernandez came to mind.

  “Keep your hands on top of your head, don’t move your knees, slowly turn your head to the right and look at me, open your eyes wide,” I said.

  He did, squinting his eyes half closed. “Open your eyes wide, do it now,” I ordered.

  “Dude, your light is like freaking blinding me,” he muttered. But he opened his eyes. They looked normal to me.

  I took him slowly to the ground, cuffed him, and then asked “Do you have anything in your pockets that is going to stab, cut, or poke me?”

  “No, man.”

  I carefully searched him, found seventeen dollars in bills, a small folding wallet with a driver’s license, and a few ATM cards; also a little zip lock bag with about an ounce of marijuana and a small stainless steel pot pipe, complete with a screen that he probably swiped out of his kitchen sink faucet. Michelle had holstered her Glock and was assisting with the search. After we were done we stood him up. His ID showed that he was Bruce D. Westwick, resident of Bismarck, North Dakota.

  We walked him back over and sat him down near his van. Michelle watched him while I did a quick search. The glove box had registration and proof of insurance, both current and in his name. The center console up front had another bag of weed, some rolling papers and a half finished Cherry Pepsi. There was a large cooler between the front seats that had more Cherry Pepsi, several assorted bags of chips and about a dozen miscellaneous canned food items. Behind the seats were two duffel bags filled with clothes, toiletries and a few fiction books. Two empty 5 gallon gas cans and a clear siphon tube, a few quarts of oil, and a four way tire iron were stashed there as well. Everything looked normal for a typical stoner. Until you saw the couch. It looked like part of a sectional with an armrest only on one end—the side closest to the driver’s seat. I would have guessed that its original color was somewhere between a cream or ivory, but most of the exposed surface area was now a dirty gray hue, interlaced with cigarette burns and food stains. What interested me most, however, were the several large Rorschach patterns of blood staining the cushions, arms, and back of the couch. There was also a belly length mink parka, some bloodstained jeans, and what looked like a wadded up piece of cloth, completely soaked in blood. Under the couch was a pair of women’s flats, size six, and a small teal colored purse. The purse had some makeup, a cell phone and about $400.00 in assorted U.S. and Canadian currency. No ID. I got out of the van and walked over to Mr. Westwick. “Sir, you are not currently under arrest, you are being detained both for your safety and the safety of the officers p
resent, do you understand?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” he said.

  Max was still growling, so I walked about forty feet away from where we had the guy seated whistled for him. He bounded off of the back of Uncle Andy’s truck and trotted up to my side, eyes never leaving the guy in cuffs on the ground.

  I put my hand down and gave him a quick “good boy” pat on the side of his rib cage. “Max . . . easy,” I said. “It’s OK . . . easy.” He stopped growling, well almost. “Max, sit . . . wait . . . Good boy.” Max went down on all fours, belly against the ground. That was his “sit” position when he was in any type of stress situation. He rarely sat with just his haunches on the ground except when we were playing, and even then he wouldn’t stay like that for long. His golden yellow eyes were still locked on Mr. Westwick. I reminded him one more time to “wait” and then I walked back over to where Michelle was.

  Michelle asked him, “Mr. Westwick, why don’t you tell us what happened here.”

  “Oh dude . . . I mean ma’am, I was just trying to help her ma’am, I swear,” he said.

  “Who?” Michelle asked.

  The guy kept sputtering, “That lady, I’m telling you man, she was freakin’ weird.”

  Michelle said, “Slow down and tell us what happened, start at the beginning, OK Bruce?” Using a suspect’s first name can often give you the “good cop” advantage in certain situations, in other situations it can give you an upper hand when you’re the “bad cop.”

  Bruce started talking. “Like, I was leaving Bismarck, me and about a billion other people . . . you know all the stuff they’re saying like war in Korea and everybody getting sick and all. And after sitting in traffic for like days it seemed, I cut down some back roads that I knew—I used to drive the delivery truck for a home medical supply company and I knew a lot of the back roads. So I kept heading north—got some buddies in Canada I was going to crash at for awhile—until I came to some small hick town called Mesa Hill, and the damn sheriff wouldn’t let anybody in. He was detouring us back out toward the main highway. So I drive out that way, and I can see that this far out the traffic is at least movin’, so I got back on the interstate headin’ north again. I went for, I don’t know, maybe seventy or eighty miles; there were cars everywhere man, people outside pulled off yelling at each other, other cars with people sitting on the hoods and trunks and even their roofs, I saw some dude whip out a shotgun and blow the window out of a station wagon filled with people that cut in front of him. Man, there were kids in that car. I took the next side road off the interstate and started heading east where I knew I’d eventually run in to the road that I needed to head into Canada with. I went down there maybe another two hours, got lost a couple times where the road turned and wasn’t marked, but I eventually came back out on another highway, and dude, right there where I came out was a sign pointing to the left that said ‘Canadian Border—USA access 117 miles.’ I got like all happy and fired up a fatty right there. So, like, I’m sitting there, enjoying the sunshine and a little bit of mother nature, and I swear here comes this candy apple red Vette flying down the road, swerving like the dude driving it was drunk. Man, I couldn’t have even got out of the way if I wanted to, but at the last minute it locks up its brakes and fishtails, then does a 360, and ends up sitting with the back wheels off the ground and the nose down in a little drainage ditch. So like I take another hit off the fatty, and pinch it out. I’m feeling pretty toasty right then, and then I start thinking that I got some bad weed and was seeing things cause out of the Vette steps this gorgeous blonde; dude she was smokin’ . . . I mean, so was I, but not like she was, you know, like really good looking, like stripper good?”

  Michelle and I tried to suppress our smiles as we answered, “What happened next?”

  “So she walks around her car, not real fast though, then she notices me lookin’ and says something like ‘Are you just gonna stare or are you going to help a lady in distress?’ So I got out of my ride and asked her if she was OK, and she said that she wasn’t feeling good, felt kind of dizzy or something. I told her that if I’d just wiped out like she did I’d probably feel dizzy too. She said something like ‘No, I was feeling that way before I wrecked.’ Anyhow, she said her name was Celeste . . . something . . . and asked if I could give her a ride. You know, right there I had an idea and asked her if we could use the gas from her car since I was getting low. She said something like ‘she didn’t give a rat’s ass what I did to “his” car because he was a cheap-ass-chicken-shit-good-for-nothing bastard that left her high and dry . . .’ Anyway, she went on awhile about whatever dude she was talking about, then grabbed her purse and got in my van. I used my siphon to drain the gas, almost filled me up, and then we hit the road. So, like, she’s riding shotgun, I got the heat cranked up and she takes off her coat; underneath she’s got this red tube top, lookin’ real fine you know, but then I see that she’s got blood running down from her shoulder, and it’s, like, soaking in to her tube top. I asked her if she was OK, and she says something like ‘it’s not from the wreck,’ but when she stopped to try and get gas a while ago, some jerk tried to attack her. She said she kicked him in the nuts and got back in her car and took off, drove for a while until she started feeling dizzy and ‘about creamed me.’ Anyhow, she said she was tired and wanted to lay down on my couch, so she went in back and I kept driving. When it got dark I pulled off the road ‘cause I only got one headlight. I finished my fatty and probably zoned out for a few hours, and when I woke up she was all moaning and stuff, and she wouldn’t answer me when I asked how she was doing. So I went back and she was lying on the couch with nothin’ but her panties on. She didn’t look too good; I mean, she looked really good, but not healthy good . . . I mean she looked ‘healthy’ . . .” He indicated by holding both of his hands, palms up, fingers curved, in front of his own chest.

  “Yes,” Michelle smirked, “we understand ‘healthy.’”

  “Yeah, that . . . but not healthy. I touched her forehead and it was burning up. I don’t see too good at night, and with only one headlight I normally don’t drive after dark, but I figured I should try and get her to some kind of doctor, so I started driving again. A couple minutes later I hear this big thump in the back, so I pull off the road and she’s laying on the floor in the back. I got out of my seat and helped her back on the couch, that’s where I got all of this blood on me from. Her eyes were, like, fluttering, like she was trying to send Morse code on acid, and the light in the back of my van isn’t so bright, but her eyes were like all dark, I mean all dark.” He emphasized the word “all.”

  “So, I start driving again and after about a half hour I see lights up ahead—not car lights, I saw plenty of them—but like streetlights, those up there,” he inclined his head to indicate the lights above the parking lot of the marina.

  “I pulled in here, and I was going to try and get her out to get her some fresh air or something, but I didn’t want to drag her over the front seats so I went around and in the back. I tried to get her to sit up but she would just flop back down, so I got out and went to see if somebody could help me. I walked all around this building a few times, tried all the doors but nobody was home. I could see there was a couple lights over there along the lake, thought it might be a house, but like I said, I don’t see too well at night. I walked down to the lake to see if anybody might be fishing there, but no dice, so I washed my hands off and came back here. I was going to try and drive to the next place, but when I got back here, dude . . . she was gone. I’m serious man, freakin’ abracadabra like, she was out of there. Man, I looked all over, out to the road, in that big gravel lot across the highway, all around the store, even back down to the lake, but she ain’t anywhere. So I was coming back, and that’s when you showed up.”

  Michelle’s eyes met mine, our thoughts racing to the same conclusion. Michelle said, “Go tell Andy and Walter, I’ll watch this turkey.”

  I scanned the area all around with my light but saw nothing moving,
so I went over to the passenger side of Uncle Andy’s truck. I gave him and Walter and a brief rundown of what the guy said, and when I was done Walter said, “Shit.”

  The guy still hadn’t moved, neither had Max, so I motioned for Michelle to come over. When she got over to us I asked her, “Do you have any other guns in your truck?”

  “Only the 45 that I took off the guy who went trigger happy inside the bait store. It’s only got five rounds left, but it’s a nice one, Springfield Armory 1911, looks like it’s got some custom parts on it too."

  "Get it," I told her, probably a little too harshly. Her eyes narrowed at me, but she walked toward her truck.

  "Are you still carrying your Mustang?" I asked my uncle. He nodded yes.

  "Get it out and have it ready,” I said as Michelle came back.

  “Walter, do you remember how to shoot?” I teased.

  “Boy, I’ve been shooting guns longer than you’ve been alive about three times.” Michelle handed him the Springfield; he hit the magazine release and dropped it out, racked back the slide and locked it open to make sure the gun was empty, then counted the rounds in the magazine, reinserted it, and hit the slide release to chamber a round. I heard his thumb click the safety on.

  Uncle Andy and Walter left the truck running and walked over toward the front of the bait shop where we had the guy seated.

  “Uncle Andy, Walter, stay here and keep a watch out, remember Ironfeather’s advice if you have to shoot, head or neck, OK?” They nodded.