Death on the High Lonesome (4 page)

“You mean the tree? The doctor told me a tree limb came through the windshield and sliced open the side of my head.”

“No. I mean the woman.”

Jimmy sat up a little more in the bed. “The woman? What are you talking about, Sheriff? What woman?”

Virgil spent the next few minutes explaining to Jimmy that it was a woman coming off the overpass that landed on his vehicle, shattering his windshield, partly coming through, but
then thrown off the car when it crashed into the tree at the bottom of the ravine.

The look on Jimmy's face told Virgil all he needed to know. After reassuring Jimmy that he did nothing wrong, he stood up.

“Sheriff, who was the woman?”

“I don't know, but I'm hoping that Dr. Arthur Kincaid will be able to help me out with that. He's probably down in the morgue now waiting for me.”

As Virgil stood by the elevator, he was hoping that he was right. That Dr. Arthur Robert Kincaid, known by all his friends as Ark, would indeed have something for him. At least enough to help him get rid of the nagging feeling that somehow he knew this woman.

V
irgil could see Art Kincaid through the glass in the upper part of his office door. He waved Virgil in, then pointed to one of the chairs opposite his desk.

“My least favorite part of the job.” Ark pointed to a stack of folders on his desk.

“You're preaching to the choir, Ark. I'd rather muck out five stalls than sit behind a mountain of paperwork.”

“At least you've got that option as an excuse. My only option is to slice open a cadaver. Not exactly on par with mucking out stalls.”

“Guess I picked the wrong person to complain to.”

“We all do it, Virgil. I leave here after a crazy day and want to vent. Then I get out of my car. World War III is raging as I walk through the front door. If I'm smart, I bite my tongue. Save my venting for a quieter time, take the baby off Terry's shoulder, grab a beer out of the fridge, then go referee the boys.”

“Boy, my life is dull by comparison.”

“Just different. But I wouldn't trade what I've got for anything. Virgil, you haven't lived till you've walked across a family room littered with toys like a minefield while an almost-two-year-old is wrapped around your leg hitching a ride.”

Virgil sat back in his chair. “I don't believe it, but I think I'm envious.”

“So . . . I guess we should get to the reason for your visit. Wasn't the easiest autopsy I ever performed. She was pretty banged up.”

“I know. I was up close and personal.”

“Yes, I heard. The EMTs told me. Maybe that was one time sitting at your desk in back of a pile of papers wouldn't have seemed so bad. Anyway, as I've told you on other occasions, this is only a partial. Tox screen won't be complete for a couple of days, along with some tissue sample tests, but here's what I've got, so far. No ID, but I think you already knew that. Age approximately thirty-five, give or take, Caucasian, maybe mixed ethnicity, Nordic with southern European, Italian, or Spanish. Five foot two, weight one thirty-five. No obvious physical problems. Those are the basics. Beyond that, I can tell you a couple of things. She was in really good condition. Strong. I don't mean gym-workout strong. I think she was day-to-day strong.”

“I don't understand.”

“Well, my guess is her job or whatever she did on a day-to-day basis was pretty physical. Also, she'd been doing it for a long time. This wasn't a woman who was getting a monthly manicure or a regular massage in some spa. Her body was under severe stress. There was no food in her stomach. Her dehydration was so critical that she had most likely been hallucinating. I'd venture that she was no longer capable of rational thought. She'd been on her own for at least four or five days.”

“Cause of death?”

“Massive trauma to her body was the immediate cause. That's why the autopsy wasn't a walk in the park.”

“Was that from the fall off the interstate?”

“No. That was from what caused her to get thrown off the highway. I'd say she was hit by a vehicle. My thought would be a truck, maybe even a semi.”

“So, the truck hit her and killed her,” Virgil said. “The impact threw her off the overpass. Then she landed on Jimmy's cruiser. Perfect timing.”

“That's the scenario as I'd reconstruct it.”

“Guess the first thing I have to do is talk to that truck driver.”

“Will he be hard to find?”

“No, not really. As a matter of fact, I think he might be having a coffee and a doughnut with Rosie in my office, right now.”

Ark looked surprised, so Virgil went on to explain about the early-morning phone call.

“Was there anything about her clothing,” Virgil said, “that could give us a fuller picture of who she was?”

“Not really, Virgil. Outdoor wear, nothing you'd wear in an office. That's one of the aspects we're working on now. Trying to put a name with a face, but so far we've been drawing a blank. I don't think she's local. At least, I've never seen her before.”

Virgil didn't respond right away.

“Listen, Ark,” he finally said. “Before I leave, I'd like to take a look at her, if you don't mind.”

*   *   *

It was so still he could hear every breath Ark took, and the throb of his pulse in his own ears. Sunlight filtering through half-drawn blinds did little to lighten the atmosphere. Ark had
walked directly to the center of the room, toward the sheeted figure that lay on the examining table. Virgil followed after a momentary hesitation. He'd been in the presence of death many times, but it had never become routine for him.

“I know you think I'm well used to this,” Ark said, “but I'm not. I've never been able to treat death as a clinician. I look at it as a kind of trust. Whatever has brought them to me . . . to this table . . . I can't change, but what I can learn from them can make their leaving easier for whoever they left behind. In a case like this, even more so. What is the narrative of this woman? Beyond who she is, where did she come from? Why did this happen to her?”

“I guess in a way we're both doing the same thing, Ark.”

“Why did you want to see her, Virgil?”

“I know you said you didn't think she was local, but somehow she seemed familiar. I need to confirm, so I can put that notion to rest or . . .”

He didn't finish the thought. Dr. Arthur R. Kincaid stepped to the head of the table, reached over, and drew back the sheet, exposing the face of the woman lying there. He folded the sheet slightly below the top of her shoulders, then took a step back. Virgil moved to stand alongside of him.

Her face looked thin. She had prominent cheekbones, which were more accentuated by the thinness. Virgil remembered what he'd been told about her not having any food in her stomach. Her hair reached her shoulders. Brown with a few streaks of gray. He was surprised that her skin showed evidence of her life outdoors. Most of the bodies he'd seen in this room, even darker ethnic types, had a lighter pallor. Some almost looked ivory.

“Do you know her, Virgil?”

Virgil took a step closer, leaning slightly over the still form.

“I don't know her, but I've seen her before. Now I've just got to figure out where.”

Ark replaced the covering over her face. They both stepped back from the table, then turned and walked to the door.

Virgil paused there, then looked back. “The silence is deafening.”

“That's because you're listening for life,” Ark said.

R
osita sat across from the man she was trying to see in the role of murderer. She was failing miserably. He looked like most every other stranger she had met for the first time. When he came into the office, he politely introduced himself. Despite her earlier comment to Virgil, she wasn't the least bit nervous. After a polite exchange, she offered her visitor a cup of coffee. There were no doughnuts. Wilbur Anderson, as he had introduced himself, was so generic he could have been selling vacuum cleaners. Dif came through the door about ten minutes later. Rosita was anxious to get the lowdown on the Lester Smoot incident. She knew Virgil was so tight-lipped she'd never get the details from him, but Dif was another breed of cat. He loved talking about his past escapades and he was good at it, even though the embellishments were rampant. No one really minded them.

Dif always had a willing audience. He was well into his narrative when Virgil arrived. Virgil could pretty much get the lay of the land a few seconds after he came into the office. Rosita
and Dif had their heads together, so entranced with the details of the previous night, Rosie hadn't even realized Virgil had come in until Dif lowered his voice to almost a whisper. It must have been a good retelling, Virgil figured. Even the alleged murderer was sitting on the edge of his chair hanging on Dif's every word.

“Sorry to interrupt the flow of conversation, folks. I'm assuming you're Wilbur Anderson.”

“Yes, sir. I am.”

“Well, Mr. Anderson, why don't you come over to my desk? Then we won't interfere with
Tales from the Darkside
.”

Rosita shot Virgil a look as Wilbur Anderson came over to the desk, almost reluctantly.

“Guess it was kind of exciting here last night.”

“Yes, we have our moments,” Virgil said. “Now, why don't you tell me why you might have killed someone.”

For the next few minutes, Wilbur Anderson explained that he was an independent trucker working generally out of Albuquerque, where he lived.

“I do long hauls or short, whatever I can to keep that truck on the road. Don't make any money if it's sitting in the driveway. Anyway, I got a shot at a white glove job. That's usually electronics or something real technical, usually government work. I don't care, but they're usually small loads, sometimes like this one from White Sands, highly classified. It's real good money. When you get a crack at that kind of freight, you don't want to pass that up. You know, one can lead to another. That's a good list to get your name on—didn't want to miss the opportunity. But I'll be honest with you, Sheriff. I was really beat. I'd just come off a quick turnaround from a run to Fresno. But I didn't mean to do no harm.”

“Okay, Mr. Anderson. Just tell me what happened.”

“I had left the weigh station, was really rolling because that
mile-grade uphill was ahead of me. Just crested the top, started the descent. That's a long way to the bottom. You know where I'm talking about?”

Virgil nodded.

“Well, I started downshifting. A lot of forward gears in that truck. Even though I wasn't packing a heavy load, I try to be real careful. Don't want to burn out the brakes. Brake jobs are expensive. It was real dark. I remember: no moon, just black. Think it was about two in the a.m. Nothing else on the road. Gets kinda lonely, especially on long runs at night. Anyway, I was downshifting, like I said. Got a call on the CB. Reached over—that's when it happened. Barely saw, thought it was a muley. Felt the thud, saw it fly off to the side outta the corner of my eye into the dark. Honest to God, Sheriff, I don't want to hit anything alive. I done it. More than a few times. Makes me sick in the pit of my stomach. Hate hearing that thump. Thought for sure it was a muley. You gotta understand, one second it was there, then gone. Happened so fast. Took me a quarter mile to bring the truck to the side. I know some truckers don't. They just keep right on, let the kangaroo catcher do its job and keep right on. I never been able to do that. I got a gun in the cab for just that reason. Used it a couple of times. It's registered. Don't want to see anything suffer. If Smokey's near, I call him, let him do the job. It's not that I want to. Anyway, I went back. So dark, took a light. Nothing. No deer, no muley, nothing. Walked a good half mile, couldn't find any sign. I was beginning to think I imagined it all. After about a half hour of looking, I finally give up, got back on the road. Went on to Houston. It was when I was heading back when a CBer told me somebody had been hit during the night. I swear, Sheriff, I looked and looked. Never meant for anything to happen.”

Virgil looked at Wilbur Anderson. He had the gut feeling
that he was looking at an honest man. Wilbur was no killer. Just someone who had been caught between the crosshairs of fate and coincidence.

“Think you can rest easy, Mr. Anderson. This wasn't your fault. The medical examiner cleared you. They'll be no charges. Just leave a phone number with Rosita. She'll make a copy of your driver's license for our records in case we need to follow up. She'll also take a statement from you and have you sign it. Then you can get on your way. I really appreciate you coming in—you made my job a lot easier.”

Virgil saw relief come into Wilbur Anderson's eyes. “By the way,” Virgil said, “if you'd like to stop at Margie's place around the corner for lunch before you get on home, just tell her to put it on my tab.”

He was standing outside the door enjoying the late-morning sun when Wilbur Anderson left. The nights were definitely cooling off and the sun had become a lot more tolerable during the day. Rosita soon joined him.

“You're sure about this, Virgil? No charges?”

“Yes. Ark told me that woman was hallucinating when she ran out onto the interstate. He said she was severely dehydrated. Probably hadn't had water in three or four days. Forty-eight hours without water, you're in trouble. Ninety-six, it's amazing she was still on her feet, much less having any idea where she was or what she was doing. If Mr. Anderson's truck hadn't hit her, she'd probably be lying dead out there alongside of the road in some cholla. Maybe wouldn't have been found before the scavengers did their job and there was nothing left but bones. No, Mr. Anderson didn't kill her. But I think somebody did.”

“Who, Virgil? Who do you think killed her?”

Virgil took off his Stetson, slapping the dust off it against his
leg. “The person she was running away from. That's who I think killed her.”

*   *   *

It was a little after one when Virgil walked through the door of Margie's place. Margie's had been the go-to place for good food at a reasonable price in Hayward for over thirty years. Virgil liked Margie. They had been in school together, but the connection didn't end there. Years later they had shared their common story. They had both gone to out-of-state colleges, and neither had ever figured to spend their future in Hayward. Both of their lives had done a one-eighty because of events beyond their control. In Virgil's case, it was the death of his parents in a car crash on the new interstate. For Margie, on the other hand, it was her father's sudden death that changed everything.

One day, Howard had decided because it was slow in the restaurant to go across the street to get a haircut. In the way people get careless doing everyday things, when he stepped outside he saw the ancestor of the yellow dog that presently but not as frequently would lie down in the middle of Main Street, undisturbed sometimes for hours. He took it as a sign of the absence of traffic. As far as automotive traffic was concerned, he was right. What he didn't know was a quarter mile away on a cross street a trailer loaded with steers heading for Luther's Livestock Auction down in Redbud had been rear-ended by a pickup. The cattle, seeing the gaping hole rendered by the pickup, saw an opportunity to not end up on someone's plate in the immediate future. They turned the corner and bolted down Main Street. Howard froze in the face of the unexpected. He was not the first person in Hayward to die in a stampede, but he was the first person to have it happen in the middle of Main Street.

After the funeral Margie decided to stop by the restaurant for something, only to find a couple of the regulars standing outside. She opened it up, managed to serve them, and had been there ever since. Virgil, the staff at the office, along with others who had been going there for years, christened it Margie's place. It had worn the name ever since. The key to its success was Margie's understanding of what her customers liked to eat. Obviously, a restaurant that offers as one of its signature dishes chicken-fried steak and biscuits smothered in brown gravy has few illusions of haute cuisine.

It was going on three when Virgil left, loosening his belt a notch, before heading back to the office. Dif had gone. Rosie was sitting at her desk.

“Guess I'd better get out to the Thompson place. See where Charlie got to before Velma gets too antsy. Charlie probably used that ‘looking for missed strays' notion just to get out of the house.”

“Virgil, about that. I think you're going to have to change your plans. Got a call a half hour ago from Kyle Harrison. Says he needs to see you. He'll be here within the hour.”

“What's this about? Couldn't we discuss it on the phone?”

“I asked him. Told him we got off to a flying start around here today. But he was like a bulldog with a bone. Wouldn't give an inch or a hint. He's a nice guy, but he is a federal agent. They all take that course on sharing only on a need-to-know basis. Guess I don't qualify.”

“Well, I guess you better call Velma. Maybe I can get out there later. Better yet, maybe Charlie's showed up—save me the trip.”

“Virgil, I wouldn't mind getting out of the office for a few hours. Since you're going to be here, I thought maybe I could take a ride out to Thompson's.”

Virgil pushed back his chair. “So what am I looking at now, a closet deputy?”

“C'mon, Virgil, the personal touch. Like you said, Charlie will probably be there. If not, it'll at least let Velma know we haven't forgotten about her.”

“Okay. Take my car. If you need me for any reason, I'm as close as the radio. Don't do anything stupid. I can always get another deputy. Good office managers are an endangered species.”

“You got that right. I'll leave stupid to the boys.”

*   *   *

The ride to the Thompson ranch was a good half hour. It was one of those crisp, clear days with a sky so blue that it hurt to look at it. Rosita rolled down the two front windows. The breeze was like a scent-filled tonic. The sun-warmed air layered over her. She basically followed the same route that Jimmy had followed two nights before. The Thompson ranch was on the far side of the interstate, which actually ran along the property's border. The ride in daylight would make a photographer's mouth water. Twice she stopped to take in the view. Some said that on top of the saddleback, on a clear day, you could see all the way to Mexico. Rosita just knew it was one of her favorite places. She and Dave had driven to the top on one of their first dates. She remembered it as the first time she took him to be a serious prospect. Twenty-some-odd years later, they still made the occasional trip. It had turned out to be a good choice for each of them. They had reared three nearly normal kids but more important, they still liked each other. The fact that Dave spent quite a bit of time down in the substation at Redbud didn't hurt the relationship, either. A little distance, Rosie came to think, was not necessarily a bad thing. It gave them each a little breathing room.

By the time she entered the road into the Thompson ranch, the sun had reached its midpoint. Its downward slide was just
enough for her to break out her sunglasses. It was the only thing about coming winter she didn't like. She didn't so much mind the cold or occasional snow which white capped the mountains. In this part of the country, winter didn't generally hang around long enough to become a nuisance. What she minded was losing the light. She had come over time to the conclusion that she was one of those people who were definitely light-affected. She had even joked that she was also one of those people who, if she lived in Alaska, would become a drunk or a homicide. Not a suicide, she said, but a homicide. Dave, in turn, said he most likely wouldn't be living with her under those circumstances.