The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up (15 page)

L
ooking back, we made it easy for the guy.

One of the disadvantages of living in a quaint and beautiful tourist town, of course, is that a lot of day-to-day items, such as gasoline and groceries, are sold at tourist prices. As Warner Pier business people, Aunt Nettie and I—and Joe, too—try to patronize other local businesses. But when gasoline is a nickel higher per gallon in Warner Pier, some of us are not eager to cough up the difference.

The Marathon station ten miles north of Warner Pier, at the Willard exit, always has gasoline eight to ten cents cheaper than the Warner Pier stations. So Warner Pier locals who’ve gone to Grand Rapids or Holland universally follow the habit of stopping there to buy gas on their way back into town. As long as we’re there, we figure we might as well top off the tank. Besides, the restrooms are usually clean.

Joe hadn’t hurried as we left Grand Rapids. First, he’s not one of these immature guys who has to pass everything on the highway. Second, he tries to use as little gasoline as possible, though being forced to drive a pickup truck with enough moxie to haul a big boat means he can’t worry too much about mileage. Plus, I-196 traffic is heavy day and night, weekdays and weekends.

Joe didn’t even mention his plan to stop for gas. He just pulled off the Interstate at the Willard exit and hauled the boat over to an open gas pump. When I asked him if he wanted a Coke, he said, “I can get them,” and I answered, “Oh, I’ll do it. If you want a candy bar, you’re on your own.”

I got out of the truck, visited the ladies’ room, then bought two one-liter bottles of soda—one Diet Coke and one regular. As I was going back out to the pickup, I noticed a big black panel truck—the kind a plumber or electrician might drive—parked off to one side. I noticed it for a silly reason. It had tinted windows, and it looked empty, but just when I happened to be looking at it, it moved. It rocked back and forth, just slightly. The motion made me wonder just what was going on inside. I grinned as I got into the pickup, and I pointed the panel truck out to Joe when he came back.

He laughed. “I guess I’ll have to get my windows tinted,” he said. “Turn the pickup into a love nest.”

He drove out of the station and onto the entrance ramp, paused until the Interstate traffic cleared, then gunned the pickup until he was up to highway speed. He reached up to adjust his rearview mirror so that it dimmed the headlights of the vehicle behind us. “Jerk’s following too close,” he said.

I looked back, and I realized the vehicle behind us wasn’t only too close. It was coming up really fast, too.

“You’d almost think he was trying to ram us!” I said.

“He’d better not hit that boat,” Joe said grimly.

There was no one in the left hand lane, and the vehicle moved out to pass us.

“He could be drunk,” I said. “I hope he stays in his own lane while he gets by.”

Joe’s voice was level. “He’s not staying there,” he said. “He’s coming over. Hang on.”

Joe hit the brakes, hard. The boat began to fishtail. Joe edged over to the right, fighting to keep control of the truck and the trailer. I thought we were leaving the road—until I looked out the window. We were on a bridge. The railing was really close. We weren’t going to be pulling off on that side. The guy on our left was trying to crush us against the railing.

I took a deep breath and held it. The vehicle kept coming over into our lane. Joe hit the brakes again, whipping the boat back and forth and slowing the pickup.

The speeder missed our front fender by maybe an inch, then shot ahead of us.

Joe touched his accelerator gently, and as we speeded up, the trailer we were towing straightened out.

I exhaled. “Yee-haw! That was close. Good driving!”

“The cell phone’s in the glove box,” Joe said. “Try to call 9-1-1. We need to report that guy.”

I was staring at the vehicle that had just gone around us. It was square in the pickup’s headlights and moving away rapidly. I could see that it was a black panel truck. “Is that the truck we saw back at the Willard station?”

“It looks like it. Can you read the tag number?”

“Not the letters.” I was reaching into the glove box while I talked. “I think the numbers are eight, eight, four.”

The black panel truck was moving away fast, already disappearing around a semi. I found the cell phone and punched in 9-1-1. I spoke as soon as I heard a voice. “We want to report a reckless driver on I-196 just south of the Willard exit. He nearly ran us off the road.”

“Where?”

“I-196, maybe a mile south of Willard.”

“What state is that in?”

“Michigan!”

“We’re Wisconsin.”

“Rats,” I said. “Joe, the cell phone bounced us across the lake.”

“Hang up,” Joe said. “We’ll call the Warner Pier dispatcher. She can call the state police. We’ll try to follow that panel truck, see where the guy goes.”

“Sorry,” I told the phone. “We’ll try a local number.”

The semi ahead of us had slowed down, and Joe pulled into the left lane and passed it. He told me the number for Warner Pier City Hall. “How come you have that number memorized?” I said. He didn’t answer.

I was punching in the numbers as Joe pulled up beside the semi.

“Where’d he go?” he asked.

The black panel truck had disappeared.

“He can’t have been traveling that fast,” I said. “He’d have to be driving the speed of light to have disappeared already.”

Joe kept his speed up, passing a couple of cars, but nothing that looked remotely like the black panel truck appeared.

“Weird,” he said. “I don’t think we imagined it.” He settled into the right-hand lane and slowed down, several car lengths ahead of the cars he had passed.

I was looking back. “Oh, no! Somebody’s coming up fast in the left-hand lane.”

It was a replay of the whole first episode. The headlights came rushing at us—the driver must have been hitting at least ninety. When the vehicle got beside us, I could see it was the same black panel truck. It was coming over into our lane. And once again the whole thing was happening on a bridge.

“Look out!” I said.

“Hang on!” Joe said.

Again he hit the brakes. Again the boat whipped back and forth, while Joe fought to control the pickup. Again we edged toward the shoulder and slowed.

This time I closed my eyes. When I opened them, the black panel truck was oozing in ahead of us. His tag was right out there in the headlights. Then the truck headed on up the road at warp speed, passing two cars and moving out of our line of sight.

“This time I got the letters from the tag,” I said.

I finished calling the Warner Pier dispatcher and told her about the whole episode, including the license plate number. She promised to call the Michigan State Police.

“Scary,” Joe said.

“How did he get behind us again? Where did he hide?”

“He must have pulled onto the shoulder, waited until we’d gone by, then taken off again. If we were out beside the semi, we wouldn’t have seen him.”

“Why? He can’t have it in for us particularly.”

“I don’t know why he would, but he seems to be able to pass anybody else without trying to shove ’em off the road.”

“Should we stop?”

Joe thought a minute. “Better not,” he said. “We’re in danger in the pickup, but if he’s really after us, we might be in more serious danger if we aren’t moving.”

There was no exit from the Interstate before Warner Pier. We drove on. Joe stayed in the right-hand lane. He didn’t pass anybody, though the two cars we’d passed now passed us. Joe drove conservatively. But his hands gripped the steering wheel as if it were the neck of the jerk in the black panel truck.

Two miles before the exit to Warner Pier there’s a rest area. I’ve never stopped there—it’s too close to home—but I’m sure it’s a standard rest area, with parking for trucks and for cars, restrooms, and machines dispensing soft drinks and snacks. That’s where the black panel truck ambushed us the third time.

We had just pulled past the exit from that rest area when the semi behind us began to flash its lights and honk.

“What’s he doing?” Joe said.

I looked back. “Oh, God, Joe! Here comes that panel truck again!”

“He’s not going to get away with it this time,” Joe said. He pulled over to the left.

“Joe! There’s another bridge! He can push us into the rail on either side!”

“I’ve got to try something or he’s going to kill us.”

The black truck was gaining fast. When he got within twenty-five feet of us, Joe suddenly moved right, straddling the center line. Then he hit the brakes, hard. The boat began to whip back and forth frantically.

“It’s working!” I yelled. “He’s dropping back.”

Of course, Joe couldn’t keep the boat fishtailing. He had to gain speed or lose control of the pickup. And, of course, as soon as he let up on the brakes and began to speed up, the panel truck was right on us again.

Again Joe let him get closer. Again he hit the brakes, slewing the boat trailer all over the road. Again the panel truck was forced to drop back.

Joe muttered. “That’ll never work a third time.”

“At least we’re off that bridge,” I said. “We’re within a half-mile of the exit. Maybe . . .”

“No. Here he comes again!”

This time the panel truck didn’t let the boat stop him. He pulled out onto the left-hand shoulder, apparently determined to come up alongside us.

I tried to keep my voice calm. “He’s going out to the left,” I said.

Joe fishtailed the boat again, and I felt a shock. “The boat hit him!”

“Not hard enough.”

Joe pressed hard on the accelerator, and we pulled ahead. But the black truck wasn’t ready to give up. He was even with the pickup’s bed now, and he was so close I could see the Dodge hood ornament glittering, could see something shiny inside the cab. Maybe a pair of glasses.

“He’s coming over!”

Now Joe suddenly swung the wheel right. The pickup veered across the highway, then off the highway, onto the shoulder. We were racing down the Interstate, but we weren’t on the pavement. We were on the shoulder. The black truck shot by us.

Then we weren’t on the shoulder any more. We were on the grass. Then we were in the bushes. Then we were heading down a slope. There were trees ahead.

“Hang on,” Joe said. The pickup was slowing.

We came to a stop with the hood of the pickup about a foot from a fence post.

Behind us, the semi honked long and hard. He whizzed by.

Joe and I spoke at the same time. “Are you okay?”

Apparently we both were. We unhooked our seatbelts and met in the middle of the pickup’s front seat. Neither of us said anything for a long moment. We just held each other.

“Well,” I said finally, “if you get tired of repairing boats you can take up driving a race car.”

“The finish line didn’t go exactly the way I planned. I thought I could stop on the shoulder. But it took a lot longer to brake than I’d expected.”

“I thought those trees were going to stop us.”

Joe’s voice was savage. “The guy better not have damaged that boat.”

Joe pulled his flashlight from under the seat and got out to inspect the boat. I started to follow him out the door on the driver’s side, but Joe stopped me. “Wait there. There’s probably a lot of poison ivy out here, and you’ve got on that short skirt.”

So I sat sideways, with my legs dangling out of the truck. It was a typical west Michigan June night—temperature in the mid-fifties—so I put on my extra sweater. By this time several cars had stopped, and people were coming down the slope to us. We assured them we weren’t hurt. I picked up the cell phone, which had landed on the floor, punched “redial” and told the Warner Pier dispatcher what had happened. She promised to have the state police there ASAP.

Joe was dealing with the spectators, so I leaned against the door frame and tried to figure the whole thing out.

What the heck had happened? Three times a guy—or maybe a gal—in a black panel truck had tried to wreck us. The third time he or she had succeeded. Despite Joe’s best efforts, we had hit the ditch. Joe’s efforts, however, had meant we left the highway gradually and slowed at a suitable rate of speed, and neither of us had been hurt. Our luck had been due, I was convinced, not simply to dumb luck, but to skill on Joe’s part and to his experience in hauling boats with that particular pickup.

But why? Why had the person in the black panel truck made such a determined effort to run us off the road? We hadn’t seen the truck before we stopped for gas at the Willard exit. In fact, I was convinced I had never seen it before in my life.

Had it been waiting for us?

That thought sent a chill up and down my spine, and I had to admit it was possible. Anybody familiar with the customs of Warner Pier could have predicted we’d stop at Willard on our way back from Grand Rapids. And the truck had been sitting there, waiting. No one had been visible through the windshield, and the side windows had been so heavily tinted we hadn’t been able to see inside them. But, I reminded myself, something had made the truck move slightly. It could have been the driver, moving around inside while he watched us.

Plus, the driver had apparently been familiar with that stretch of highway. At least, he’d known exactly where the bridges were, where being pushed off the road would be most dangerous.

The whole thing was unbelievable. Someone had tried to shove us off the road. Maybe kill us. But why on earth would anybody want to do that?

It was a relief to see flashing red, white, and blue lights on the highway. The state police had arrived.

Once they made sure we weren’t hurt, Joe began to describe what had happened. It didn’t sound any more logical when he told it than it had when I thought it through. The state police officer, frankly, was looking skeptical.