The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (4 page)

The
EMT
replaced the wool blanket over the body and turned to beckon one of the officers to help him load it. Ben got his camera ready, bent over, pulled the blanket off,
and
photo
graphed
the undershirt.

“What are you doing?”
Porter
was
still panting heavily from the climb up. “This is a restricted area!”

Ben raised the camera and
snapped another
photo of the stretcher
.
“Freedom of the press
. E
ver heard of it?”

Porter
covered the body and gestured at the
EMT
to take it away. “Interfering with the scene of an accident is a
crim
e
.”

“
Who’s interfering?
” Ben
looked around.

“
Hand over
your camera!”

Taking a step back, Ben said, “
Do you know
Fran
DeLacourt in Hate Crimes? I have her on speed dial.
”

Already on the move to grab the camera,
Porter
paused
, his hand outstretched in midair.
Lt.
Fran
cine DeLacourt
was the type of a woma
n
men didn’t mes
s with, and
Porter
’s
reaction revealed that he not only knew
her
, but
was
n’t
an exception to the rule.

“
Say hello to her
from Ben
Teller
, w
ill you
?”

After a hard glare,
Porter
turned and
went
to his Ford.

Ben
returned to his motorcycle and used the iPhone to se
nd all the photos to himself by e-mail, followed by a
n update
to
Ray
:

Ben
Teller
reporting live: It’s 2:39 PM at the
Camp David
Scenic Overlook
near
Thurmond, MD
. T
he annual
Marine Corps Veterans
’
Ride has resumed
following a tragic in
t
errupti
o
n
earlier when
Z.H
, a male participant, age estimated at 45, lost control of his Harley and
crashed
over a
cliff
. CPR efforts were unsuccessful, and he was confirmed dead at the scene.

He attached photos of the stretcher, covered in
a
blanket,
first at the bottom of the hill, then
being carried up, examined by the medic, and loaded into the ambulance
. He didn’t send
the photos of the symbols on the
undershirt. There was a story
here, and he wanted to investigate further before tipping his hand to
Ray
.

Before putting away the iPhone, he checked the
NewZonLine.com
homepage
. His first report was midway down the list of Top-Ten news pieces, with his name as the source. He clicked on it, and his own photo came up—a
headshot that Keera had taken on the balcony at their townhome last year, shortly after he started freelancing for
Ray
. It clearly wasn’t a professional portrait—his longish hair was still damp from the shower, his eyes
seemed even
darker against his pale face,
and his cheeks were
smooth shaven, which happened at most once a month.
Basically h
e looked like a kid who wasn’t too happy about having his picture taken.

Ben rode
the twisty road downhill in complete solitude
. Ten minutes later, he
pulled into a Shell gas station at the intersection. The attendant, a
bearded man wearing
a
turban
, looked up from a pocket-size
d
religious book
. “
Hello
,” he said in a singsong accent
. “Many motorcycles today
.
”

“Yes,” Ben said. “It’s the
annual
Marine Corps r
ide
.”

“Very nice.” He collected Ben’s money and turned on the pump
.

Outside, while filling up, Ben noticed the security cameras mounted high under the flat roof sheltering the pumps. One of them covered the exit from the gas station, presumably to catch the li
cense plates of any wrongdoers.

Picking up the receipt inside, Ben peeked over the counter. A TV monitor showed the feed from the cameras, rotating
among
the
four.
One view was of a man with longish black hair standing at the cashier, and it took Ben a second to realize it was him. He rubbed the week-old fuzz on his cheek, and the man on the TV did the same.
Then the view switched to the camera pointed at
the exit
. It
had a wide enough scope to capture a section of the road coming down from the Camp David
Scenic Overlook
, just before the
stop sign at the intersection.

Ben
asked, “Do you record the feed from the security cameras?”

The attendant nodded.

Ben handed him a $20 bill. “I’m a freelance journalist for
NewZonLine
.com
. Can I look at it?”

“You have ID?”

Ben
handed
over
his press card
.

He
showed him to
a
n
office. The system was
old, combining a VCR and a bulky
TV. He handed the remote
control
to Ben and returned to the counter.

The TV screen was divided into squares
, each
show
ing
the feed from
an individual
camera
. Ben turned off the recording and rewound the tape while peering at the square that
show
ed
the exit and the section of the road
.

The camera had
captured
several cars, vans
,
and a
Coke
truck exiting the gas station and turning onto the main road.
Finally he saw a dark sedan pass by
. He
stopped
and
rew
ound the tape. P
laying forward, Ben watched carefully.

T
he
Ford
sedan cross
ed
the screen from right to left
in front of the exit,
heading
in the direction of
the
overlook
. The recording quality was poor,
typical for a slow cycle of
twenty-four
hours with the same tape being recorded over and over. B
ut the
driver
was
visible
though the window
with enough clarity to
resemble
Porter.

For
the next few
minutes
, with the
system
re
play
ing at regular speed,
several more
vehicles appeared on the screen
, leaving the station
. Then, very briefly, something passed from right to left.

Ben played it again. Now that he was expecting it, he could see a motorcycle at a speed much higher than anyone would expect to see on the approach to a stop sign at an intersection. The rider must have
reach
ed
the intersection without stopping
and taken
the
turn
quickly
.

Watching it a third time
,
he
paus
ed
every second or two
, until he had the image on the screen
. He
snapped
a few photos of the hazy image
with his Canon. It would take some effort to improve the
image
, but the essentials were there—a white Ducati and a rider dressed in whi
te leathers and a white helmet.

As t
he woman back at the accident site had
said, it
looked like
a ghost
.

Chapter 3

The confirmation of the
white
Ducati
’s existence changed everything.
Furthermore, i
t
had come downhill
immediately after
the accident
, yet
no other bike had passed through for nearly an hour
afterwards. These facts
eliminated any remaining doubts
in Ben’s mind
.
There was a story here!

He
rode back
up
hill
.

Red flares
still
l
ined the road to block off the
overlook
area, leaving a single lane. He
continu
ed
down the other side
. Slowing down to a crawl, he scanned
the road
for
clues
. The
hundreds of
stranded riders had left
surprisingly little trash—a
few snack wrappings, cigarette butts, and a
Ravens
baseball cap. The
only evidence that the road had served as a parking lot for over two hours was
plenty of
oil spots,
a
typical
byproduct
of aging Har
leys even when well maintained.

But
what
Ben
really sought was
evidence
to support the
proposition that the
white
Du
cati
had waited here earlier
.

A plausible
scenario
was forming
in Ben’s mind:
A
guy with a Ducati, who’s too cheap to pay the modest entry fee to participate in
the
Marine Corps Veterans
’ Annual
Ride
, instead skips the
starting
point near I-70
and
wait
s
somewhere along
the route
to join the ride midway. When
the roar of
engines
approache
s
from downhill
, he start
s
up the Ducati
and g
ets
going
. But
rather than a
slow-moving
hoard
of slogging bikes,
bunched together in the camaraderie of veterans, an out-of-control
,
stars-and-strip
e
s
hog
race
s around a blind curve. Zachariah Hinckley, to
ta
lly unprepared for the Ducati’s sudden appearance on the road, weave
s
to avoid a collision,
struggle
s
to regain control just as the road reache
s
the top of the hill and
turns
sharply. Failing to make the turn, he
fl
ies
over
the
edge of
the
Camp David Scenic Overlook
. The Ducati rider,
not
realiz
ing
the severity of the accident, ke
eps
going, secure in the knowledge that other riders
w
ill
help the
embarrassed
patriot get back i
n
the saddle
. Or
maybe
he
d
oes
see Zachariah’s calamitous spe
ctacle but
is
too scared to stop, adding himself to a long tradition of hit-and-run instigators
of roadway accidents
.