Out of Time

by David Klass

  “Is that where he is now?” Tom asked. “On the road?”

  “No,” the chief said. “He’s helping Mabel Parker cut down her pecan tree.”

  Tom and Earl traded glances. “Maybe we should just get going,” Earl suggested. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

  “Why does she want to cut down her pecan tree?” Tom asked.

  “Her cat climbs up that tree all the time and she can’t get it down,” the chief said. “So it was either the cat or the tree, and the tree’s coming down this morning.”

  “Where will she get pecans?” Earl asked, poker-faced.

  “Oh, she can buy them at the produce stands,” Andrea said.

  “Or at the grocery over in Fairmont,” the chief added. “They sell nuts.”

  “Can you give me Mabel’s address?” Tom requested. “I’d like to ask Dwight a few questions on our way out of town.”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  The young policeman sipped a Sprite near the pecan tree, which stood untouched. “She couldn’t bring herself to cut it down, after all these years,” he explained, and gave Tom a glance and a knowing smile. “Looks like you stopped at Felix’s.”

  “Who’s Felix?” Tom asked.

  “The barber. He’s savage, but he’s quick. You have to give him that.”

  “He is quick,” Tom agreed, noticing that Dwight had exactly the same buzz cut. “I wanted to ask you if you happened to stop a van, exactly one week ago, about an hour later than it is now. The only passenger would have been the man driving it, thirty to fifty years old, wearing a cap or a hat, who would have followed all your commands promptly. We think the license plate would have been from Ohio, Michigan, or Wisconsin, and the characters would probably have been all numbers—”

  “Michigan,” the young cop said, cutting Tom off.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Sorry to interrupt, but the guy in the van had a Michigan license plate,” Dwight said. “He had come to do some fishing out west, and he was headed home with a busted brake light.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “Don’t embroider,” Earl cautioned. “You might want to help us by telling us things that you think could be true, but you don’t know for sure. Actually, that will set us back. Just tell us exactly what you can remember.”

  “You understand that we need to record this?” Tom asked, readying the recorder.

  “Sure, and I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Dwight said, glancing from Earl to the digital recorder a little nervously. “You really think it was Green Man?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Tom told him. “All we know is that the timing works.”

  “Chief Griffin and Andrea aren’t gonna be happy about being kicked out of their own police station,” Dwight noted.

  “We need to talk to you alone, and this is the best place,” Earl told him. “They’ll understand. The questions that we’re going to ask you and your responses are highly privileged information. You can’t talk about them with anyone—your girlfriend, or some local reporter you’ve known for years, or even Chief Griffin. If you’re asked, don’t be polite, just directly refuse.”

  “Yes, sir. There were things I was warned I couldn’t talk about in Iraq, and I didn’t say one word about them.”

  “How many tours did you do?” Earl asked.

  “Two, sir. Saw a little of Afghanistan, also. Almost three years, total.”

  “That’s a long time in a hard place. You served your country well.”

  “Thank you, sir. I can’t say I liked all of it, but I did my best,” Dwight said. “Is it okay if I sit down for this?”

  “Why don’t we all sit down,” Tom suggested, switching on the recorder and setting it down on the table between them. They sat on identical black swivel chairs. “Want some coffee before we jump in?” Tom asked. “A Coke?”

  “No, sir,” Dwight said. “Let’s get to it. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t run his plate. I could have caught him. I was about to run it.”

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” Earl suggested, taking the lead in asking questions with his slow, measured cadence. “You were out on solo patrol that morning?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dwight said. “I’d been on the roads since about six A.M. Still got a bad habit of waking at the crack of dawn from my time in the service. Drives my girlfriend crazy. I’d given a few tickets. Helped change a flat. Stopped at the Dunkin’ for a coconut glazed. I was a mile out of town on Route 55. . . .”

  “Is that east of Destry or west?” Earl asked.

  “East, sir, so the van would’ve already driven through town when I saw it. I can take you there. It’s the last Destry traffic light, even though it’s technically outside of town limits.”

  “We’ll head out there after we talk,” Earl said. “And you saw a black van?”

  “It was doing everything it should, and I wouldn’t have given it a second look except when it came to that stoplight, it braked, and the right brake light was out.”

  “Where were you watching from?”

  “There’s a hedge on the side of the road. I was parked behind the hedge. Some people don’t stop for that light when they think no one’s around. They just blow through it. Others speed up to fifty and even sixty to beat the yellow. So I was sitting behind the hedge, sipping my coffee, eating my glazed, and waiting.”

  “The van drove by you, reached the light, and braked,” Earl recounted, “and you saw that its brake light was out, so you turned onto Route 55 and pulled him over?”

  “No, sir. I waited for the light to change and let him get going. Then I pulled out and followed, keeping about a hundred feet back, and I crept up on him.”

  “Why didn’t you pull him over right away?” Tom cut in curiously.

  The young cop turned to Tom and seemed to relax. Earl’s seniority was clearly intimidating, but Dwight and Tom were almost the same age and had the same buzz cut. “I like to follow them for a hundred yards. Let them see me, and I check out how they react. Do they speed up or slow way down? If they’ve got anything to hide, you can usually tell it by what they do when they first spot you.”

  Tom nodded. “Good, I like it that you were judging his state of mind. Anything you can tell us about that, even hunches, might be useful.”

  “But don’t embroider,” Earl warned again.

  Dwight looked from one of them to the other, clearly puzzled about how he could talk about his hunches without embroidering.

  “So the driver of this black van didn’t react to your subterfuge?” Tom followed up, and saw Dwight blink at the word. “He didn’t react to the little test you were giving him? He stayed calm and didn’t speed up or slow down?”

  “Nope. Steady as they come.”

  “That sounds about right,” Tom noted. “Do you think he saw you following him?”

  “That hedge is a blind spot, but once I pulled out he probably saw me. I kept back a hundred feet, and then I closed the gap and hit my flasher.”

  “Did you also turn on your siren?”

  “Yes, sir. Gave him the sound-and-light show. He pulled over right away.”

  “Did you call the stop in to Dispatch then?” Earl asked, but Tom cut in again.

  “Before you get to that, I’d like to focus on how cooperative the driver was. Did you need to give him a verbal command? Or did he just know what to do?”

  “He knew,” Dwight said. “Some folks, you gotta flash ’em and then order them to the side two or three times. This guy couldn’t have been more cooperative.”

  Tom nodded and sat back, trying to hide his mounting excitement. He popped the tab on a Coke and took a sip. He had the strong sense that he was brushing Green Man for the first time, and he was surprised to find that his hand was shaking slightly. He closed his fingers around the cold can of soda.

 
Earl’s poker face never twitched, and his voice remained slow and steady. “So did you call the stop in to Dispatch?”

  “Not right then,” Dwight said. “I had just been chatting with Nancy in Dispatch over in Fairmont, and I knew she was taking a bathroom break. I figured I’d get his license and registration and come back and run them in a minute.”

  “But you’d already decided you were going to run them?”

  “Yes, sir. We’d been told because of what happened over in Idaho we should run everybody we stopped. I’d given three tickets that morning, and I’d run all their tags. You can check.”

  “We believe you,” Tom said. “You’re doing great. Keep going.”

  “I parked twenty yards behind and got out. Walked up to the driver window.”

  “So when you walked up, from the left rear, you saw the van up close?” Earl suggested.

  “Clear in the morning light, sir.”

  “Describe it for us. Be as specific as you can.”

  Dwight spoke carefully. “Black cargo van, thirteen to fifteen feet long, maybe seven to ten years old. It had seen a lot of road, but it was well taken care of. The chrome strip with the model number wasn’t there, but I didn’t think anything of it. A lot of time those strips peel off and people don’t replace them.”

  “Could you tell the make and model just from looking?” Earl asked.

  Dwight shook his head, just a bit frustrated. “A lot of those vans from ten years ago look kinda the same. If I had to guess, I’d say a Ford Transit or maybe a GMC Savana, but you told me not to embroider, and I can’t say for sure.”

  “Good, you’re being careful to stick to the facts, and I appreciate that,” Earl told him. “Were there any markings or bumper stickers or dents or deep dings?”

  The young cop hesitated, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back slightly. “There was something small, on the far right side of the back bumper.”

  “Like a little bumper sticker?” Earl asked. Tom waited, curious but dubious.

  Dwight kept his eyes closed, replaying the scene in his mind. “Yeah, it was a little bumper sticker or decal and maybe there were one or two words and some kind of picture or logo on it. I didn’t get a good look from the angle I walked up, and I can’t remember more. But I can tell you the van had a Michigan plate. I always check out where they’re from. I remember the slogan was ‘Pure Michigan.’”

  “Do you remember any of the numbers or letters from the plate?”

  “Definitely they were numbers. A seven to start. I figured I’d be running it in a minute so I didn’t look close, and it was a week ago. They blur together.”

  “That’s understandable,” Earl said.

  “And if it makes you feel any better,” Tom added, “if it was Green Man, he almost certainly doctored the first few numbers or letters so even if you could remember them, it probably wouldn’t help us.”

  Earl gave Tom a cautioning glance and then continued with his slow questions. “So you walked up to the driver’s side?”

  “Yes, sir. He already had his window half down.”

  “Were the windows clear or tinted?”

  “Tinted gray. Side windows can’t be reflective, but they can be tinted to keep out the UV. This one was tinted pretty dark. But like I said, it was already half down, and I could see the driver looking down at me.”

  “How close were you when you first saw him?”

  “I stayed back maybe two feet, like they teach at the academy. If you get too close or lean in and they open the door fast, you can get a door in your nuts.”

  Earl was ready with his next question, but then he paused and reluctantly nodded for Tom to take over. They had reached the moment when Dwight might have been face-to-face with Green Man, and they had agreed beforehand that this would be Tom’s territory. Tom tried a sip of Coke to calm down and realized that somehow he had already drained the whole can. “Is it normal for drivers to already have their windows down when you walk up, or do you think he was being extra careful and polite?”

  “Sometimes they’re already down and sometimes not,” Dwight answered. “But this guy was definitely being cooperative.”

  “What can you tell us about the driver?” Tom asked, and he couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. “You looked up at him. What can you remember seeing in your mind’s eye? Anything, no matter how small, might help us.”

  “I couldn’t see his eyes because he was wearing a black cap with the visor tilted low. I could see the bottom half of his face, and I remember thinking that he hadn’t shaved for a while. Which made sense, because he told me he’d been camping and fishing.”

  “Was there any writing or design on his cap?” Tom asked.

  “No, sir. It was just a black driving cap.”

  “How old did he look?”

  “Forty to fifty, sir. If I had to guess, I’d say closer to forty.” Dwight shot a nervous look at Earl. “But you don’t want me to guess.”

  “Anything you can tell us is helpful,” Tom said. “Could you see the driver’s eyes?”

  “I stepped forward a little, and I think maybe they were black, but they were in the shadow of the visor, and I’m not super positive. They could’ve been brown.”

  “And his hair under the cap?”

  “Couldn’t really see it.”

  “The stubble on his chin?”

  “Black.”

  “Streaked with a little white if he was forties to fifties?”

  “No, sir. It was all black. Maybe a week’s growth.”

  “Could you see his hands on the steering wheel?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “So you don’t know if he had a wedding ring?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Or if he was wearing gloves?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t think so. It was a nice, sunny morning.”

  Tom nodded, imagining Green Man with the deer hunting gloves still on, driving through Destry and then realizing some local cop was pulling him over and the situation was critical. “Tell us as much of the conversation as you can remember.”

  “I always start by asking them if they know why I pulled them over. He said he didn’t. I told him about the brake light, and he made a joke about how he had hit a bump in Wyoming that might have knocked a wire loose and it might have been a Teton.”

  “So he said he came from Wyoming and he could actually make jokes with you?” Tom marveled. “He was that relaxed?”

  “Yes, sir, he seemed totally calm. I asked him what he was doing on Route 55 because most people take the interstate. He said he was an artist and he liked the color of the light on the hills. I’d never heard anything like that before, but it kind of made sense.”

  “Did it sound to you like he had that answer ready,” Tom asked, “or did he come up with it naturally the way people do in conversation?”

  “I’m not sure,” Dwight responded. “But from the way he said it, I believed he was an artist. And he also knew about fish. I remember I asked him why he didn’t just fish in the Great Lakes and what pulled him so far west, and he said he had caught his share of fish in the Great Lakes but he came west for cutthroat trout.”

  “But he didn’t tell you where he’d been fishing or camping?”

  “No specific place, sir. And then I told him I would let him go with just a warning and he should get the light fixed right away.”

  “How did he react to that?”

  “He thanked me. He seemed real grateful.”

  “I’ll bet,” Tom said quietly.

  “But then I told him that I had to run his license and registration anyway, on account of what had happened in Idaho. He didn’t argue, the way some people do. He told me he’d have to reach into the glove compartment with his right hand and get the papers. I said go ahead, and then he’d be on his way.
He started to reach down and that damn phone call came. Mabel’s cat, Greta, was up in that stupid pecan tree and wouldn’t come down.”

  “So you had to go help her right away?” Tom suggested.

  “I didn’t want Mabel to get scratched,” Dwight told them. “She’s more than seventy and doesn’t see real good. So I let the driver go with a warning, and he said he’d get the light fixed at the next gas station. He wished me good luck with the cat.” Dwight suddenly thumped the table with his palm hard enough to make the Coke can jump. “Guys, I’m sorry. If I’d run his tag, I would’ve caught him right there.”

  “No,” Tom said, “he never would have given you his license and registration.”

  “He was reaching down for them.”

  “If it was really Green Man, he was reaching down for a gun, and that phone call saved your life,” Tom said quietly.

  Dwight looked back at him and swallowed. “You really think he would’ve shot me?”

  “He wouldn’t have had a choice.”

  “But we don’t know that it was Green Man,” Earl pointed out, taking over again. “Listen, you’ve been extremely helpful, but there will be more questions coming. So my young colleague and I would like to bring you back to Washington with us.”

  Dwight hesitated, surprised. He had clearly not contemplated such a thing. “Well, I sure wanna help, but I don’t know if I can get away from my work here and I guess the plane ticket’s pretty high. . . .”

  “We’ll take care of all that stuff,” Earl assured him. “It won’t cost you a dime, and you’ll be where you’re most needed. I’m sure Chief Griffin won’t mind sparing you for a few days when I explain things. Now we’d like to see the traffic light where you pulled him over, and then you should stop at home and pack up whatever you need to travel, because there are some folks in DC who would like to speak with you as soon as possible.”

  NINETEEN

  Using his researcher’s pass, Green Man had wandered through the stacks of the largest library collection in the world to fish out two dozen volumes and periodicals by hand. He was dressed in frayed corduroys and an old maroon sweater, and he could have passed for a rumpled college professor researching a book that would shed light on an esoteric subject and secure him tenure at some middling college.