The Highways of the Dead (A Creed Crime Story Book 1)

by James Evan March

  Removing and unfolding a heavy black canvas duffle bag, I filled it with a web belt fitted with two Condor Triple M4 Multi-Cam pouches which carried all six of my loaded 30-round box magazines, an IFAK and a TNVC PVS-14 monocular white phosphor night vision goggle with a head mount. I threw in a pair of Oakley Pilot gloves. Lastly, I took the black denier nylon ARC that contained a Smith & Wesson MP 15-22 with a EO Tech 553 holographic reflex sight and a PEQ 15 infrared laser device attached to the quad rail.

  Locking the two bags in the Ford’s tool box, I was fervently hoping I didn’t need to use either the MP 15-22 or the IFAK. Hoping for the best was human nature, but being prepared for the worst was common sense..

  By then Makker had come home. I put him in the house and drove into Wayland to buy a Samsung with 9.0 Oreo, and two small magnets at the 24-hour Walmart.

  Back home, I began charging the device. The sunrise was in full glory as I called my service to add the new phone while drinking a second cup of joe. Activating the phone’s Find My Device feature, I had just finished adding it to my Google account and sending myself a text with the new phone’s IMEI when Sheriff Guthrie pulled up to my front gate and came on the intercom to tell me – not ask me – to let him in. I did so. Logging out of my computer, I stashed the new phone in the closet and was out on the porch when the white Cherokee rolled up. I left Makker inside.

  Guthrie didn’t get out of the Wrangler so I went to the driver’s side. He rolled down the window and said, “Where’s your killer dog?”

  “Inside. He isn’t a killer dog.”

  “The hell you say. I can foresee the day when I have to put it down.”

  Since he was just trying to provoke me, I let that slide. “What brings you out this way?”

  “What do you think?” snapped Guthrie. He was in a belligerent mood and I couldn’t blame him for it. Or maybe he always was.

  “I only told your deputies what I saw.”

  “I’m not convinced it happened at all.”

  Suddenly, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It took me a few seconds to reply, as I was picking my words very carefully.

  “You mean you’re not looking for that girl?”

  “I mean we haven’t found anything in state-wide missing persons reports.”

  “She’s a hitchhiker. A missing persons report might have never been filed. What about The National Center for Lost and Exploited Children?”

  He had both of his hands on the top of the steering wheel, and he was gripping it tightly. Jaw working, he looked at them a moment, and finally back at me, eyes dark and hostile.

  “Don’t be telling me how to do my job. The long and short of it is, my gut tells me you still have a hard-on for Andrew and you made it all up.”

  “To get back at your son for letting me break his nose?”

  The sheriff’s eyes narrowed into glittering slits. “Or maybe you didn’t see what you think you did. You see a hitchhiker picked up and you think she’s been grabbed and hauled off when she might have just accepted the ride.”

  “She was forced into the truck.”

  “Maybe that’s what you saw. But maybe she was just being helped into the vehicle. Maybe you make that assumption because it’s something you might do.”

  That called for another moment of silence on my part as I tamped down a good dose of indignation. So Guthrie seized the opportunity to keep talking.

  “You’re quite a lady’s man, aren’t you, Creed? You’ve been here, what, a year, and you’ve slept with Nelly Rouse and Jenna Rekar, haven’t you? Probably more. How many other women have you fucked, I wonder? And did they all want to?”

  I looked away from him for a moment, scanning my place, looking at all I had to lose if I did what I was aching to do at that moment. I saw Makker on top of the table gazing out the window. It was possible he was picking up all the aggression in front of the house.

  “So you’re telling me you aren’t searching for the girl.”

  Guthrie sneered like a man who had the upper hand and knew it. “The problem is, your story doesn’t hold up, and there’s no corroboration. My boy was nowhere near that location yesterday. Maybe you saw a red Silverado, but it wouldn’t have had his plate number. And you were both at The Last Stand a couple of nights ago I figure you saw his plate there.”

  I shook my head. Not because of what Guthrie was spouting, but because fourteen hours had passed since I had seen the blonde dragged into Andrew’s truck at the Express Stop – and no one had been looking for her.

  My attention swung back to Guthrie when he stuck his left arm out the window and pointed a finger at me.

  “Listen to me, Creed. Listen good. If you go around spreading more lies about my son, and if I ever see you anywhere near him, you won’t believe the shit storm that’’s going to come your way.”

  The forefinger still aimed at me, he raised his thumb.

  I took a deep, calming breath and exhaled slowly. I wanted to drag Guthrie out of the Jeep and break him. But I had to find the blonde girl and I couldn’t do that behind bars.

  “Thanks for dropping by, Sheriff.”

  Going inside, I used the gate control panel just inside the front door to open the gate at the end of the road and set it to stay open. At the same time I was calling Jenna on her personal cell.

  It was 8.22 A.M. Her shift had just ended. She said she was at the Waffle House at Crockett and 14th and invited me to join her. I had a feeling that it wasn’t just because she enjoyed my company. I told her I would be there in fifteen minutes.

  I took the new phone,the magnets and Makker with me, and double-checked that the Ruger was under the console.

  She was sitting in a booth to the right of the long counter. The place was crowded, and there was a lot of chatter, most of it coming from the staff who were cooking, cleaning, restocking and serving. Sometimes it was entertaining to come get a quick, tasty breakfast and listen. But this morning I wasn’t hungry.

  Jenna was done eating and now nursed a cup of coffee. I figured it wasn’t her first. Even her smile was tired. I sat across from her and waved the waitress away.

  “So what do you need, Roy?”

  That made me feel bad, though she hadn’t meant for it to.

  “Just some information. I’d be willing to pay for it but I know you wouldn’t go for that.”

  “Nope. You could send me flowers, or take me to dinner, or invite me over. But you can’t really do any of that, either, because you’re with Nelly and you don’t sleep around when you’re seeing someone. I should know.” Her smile turned pensive.

  I put the guilt aside for later. “Is Antonio Perez still behind bars?’

  She shook her head. “No outstanding warrants. We could only hold him for twenty-four hours on a D&D charge. What’s the other thing?’

  “I need a good address for Andrew Guthrie. He’s not in the phone book.”

  Jenna leaned forward, throwing a quick look around the restaurant. The noise was enough to prevent us from being heard, even by the family of four sitting in the booth behind me.

  “Did you call the sheriff’s office last night?”

  I told her I had, and that two deputies had taken my statement. I didn’t mention the sheriff’s visit.

  She looked through the blinds on the plate glass window beside us and watched the morning traffic on 14th Street. Her expression told me I was about to hear bad news.

  “Being on patrol last night I should have heard about it. Officially.”

  It was time for me to look through the blinds. Ordinarily a report like I’d made to the deputies at the Express Stop would have found its way to the Wayland PD. Since it hadn’t, I assumed that Sheriff Guthrie had marked it up as a false statement. After the sheriff’s crack-of-dawn visit this morning, I wasn’t surprised.

  The last thing I wanted was to get Jenna in trouble. Then I reminded myself that there was a blonde girl out there who was probably in the worst trouble of all.

  “You
can’t tell anyone I called you last night and got the plate number. And you have to promise me you won’t kick up a fuss about the sheriff withholding information. You need to stay out of it.”

  “I’m not afraid of Guthrie. You should talk to Chief Strain.”

  “I’ll handle it.”

  Jenna sighed and sat back. “You ever hear about the Red Book, Roy?’

  I had a bad taste in my mouth, and looked it.

  She didn’t wait for an answer. “A study back in 2010, I think it was. The theory is that after they get out, some veterans who completed multiple tours of duty engage in high-risk behavior to channel the aggression that they’ve been encouraged to exhibit while in the service. Sometimes this includes violent acts with severe outcomes.”

  “I came home to put all that behind me, Jenna.”

  “A change of scenery might not be enough to do the trick. Let the law handle this, Roy.”

  “So I go tell the Chief Strain. You think he can talk Guthrie into questioning, much less arresting, his own son as a suspect? Maybe, maybe not. But there will be bad blood. Maybe investigations by people higher up in the food chain. Time is precious, Jenna. I think I can find that girl. And it’s not like I’ll be interfering in a criminal investigation because today there isn’t one. If you know where I can find Andrew, please tell me.”

  She sighed again. “You’re going to catch hell, Roy.”

  “Already am. But there’s an old saying. If you’re not catching flak then you’re not over the target.”

  “Last time there was a harassment charge on him, Andrew was living at the Sightsee Motel. A dump. They have renters there now. I don’t know the room number off the top of my head.”

  I got to my feet. “Don’t need the number. Thanks, Jenna. I owe you.”

  “I know of one more thing you’ll need. Good luck.”

  13

  The Sightsee Motel was one of those Sixties-style motor courts. It had gone to seed in the late Eighties and survived since then renting rooms by the week to hookers, migrant workers and others who didn’t have the wherewithal to afford better digs. The once garish, Vegas-style neon sign was a rusting corpse. There was a portable sign under it with the rates. The neon Vacancy sign above the office door was flickering.

  I drove by once and didn’t see a red Chevy in the parking lot of the U-shaped motel. On the second pass I pulled into a lot across the street from the Sightsee, between a thrift store and Buddy’s BBQ. Though neither establishment was open yet, there were a couple of vehicles in the lot.

  Before leaving the Waffle House I had ordered a large coffee to go. I was prepared to surveille as long as it took, while I knew there was no guarantee that Andrew would show up today, and that I would suffer every minute that passed because it would be worse than the one before.

  Having brought the fourteen images Hack had provided, I held them up against the steering wheel, one by one. With my eyes at that level I would notice any vehicle entering or leaving the motor court. When that happened I picked up the Aimpoint Pro Red sight I had brought along, checking every person in the departing vehicles and every man who got out of one that pulled in. There was no guarantee that if Andrew showed up he would be in the red Chevy.

  Buddy’s BBQ opened at 11 AM and by noon the parking lot was filling up. But I was parked near the street so nothing obstructed my view. A little while later I moved, parking alongside the thrift store, reducing the risk that a guy sitting in a truck all day in the same place would draw unwanted attention.

  Early in the afternoon I received a text from Nelly. Is it Saturday yet? That cheered me up a little. I texted back I wish.

  Forty minutes later the red Chevy rolled down 14th from the north and pulled into the Sightsee parking lot. Using the Aimpoint, I watched Andrew park it, get out, and enter Room 8.

  I got out, taking the Android phone with me. Crossing the street, I passed by the motel office and glanced through the window. There was no one at the registration desk. A door behind the desk was ajar, and I could see a television on a table. It was turned on.

  Approaching Room 8, I noticed that the curtains were still closed. The window unit was on and rattling up a storm. I took the phone out of my pocket and attached both of the magnets to the back. Without missing a stride I walked behind the Chevy, bent down, and attached the Android inside the rear bumper.

  Straightening, I glanced inside the Silverado’s bed and saw some empty beer cans and a spare tire on a rusty rim. I resisted the urge to look inside the cab. Andrew could come out of Room 8 at any second. But I also had to resist the urge to go into his room right then and there.

  There was no guarantee he would lead me to the blonde girl. But I could try to force him to tell me where she was. I knew a little something about torture. I’d once been on the receiving end at the hands of some pretty ruthless Taliban. But a lot could go wrong if I tried to get the information out of Andrew by force, and if that happened it wouldn’t help me find his victim.

  I lingered maybe three seconds – then headed back to my truck, stopping at the Coke machine outside the office to get a couple of cans of soda. That was a wise move, since Andrew stayed in his room for over four hours. It was 6:22 PM when he came out and got in the Silverado. He had changed clothes, wearing a red muscle shirt, gym shorts and sneakers.

  By then I had opened a web browser on my phone, navigated to the Find My Device dashboard and signed into my Google account. I selected the new Android and clicked the Locate button.

  When he pulled out of the parking lot and turned south on 14th Street, I followed. He went to the Ultrafit gym on Main and stayed there for almost an hour. By then the sun was setting. His next stop was a fast-food drive-through. I was in a position to see the exchange at the window. He received three sacks of food and a drink carrier with four large drinks. Then he drove west on Main, through the town square and six blocks later turned north on FM 555.

  The GPS tracking worked fine so I didn’t have to stick close to the red Chevy. Once we got out of town I pulled back even more. When I reached the Interstate he was about a mile ahead of me. I maintained the distance, more or less, all the way to Shiloh. Andrew turned left at that intersection, drove about two miles west on County Road 1881 and then turned off the paved road.

  I turned on the high beams, rolled down my window and slowed down. There was no one behind me so I cruised at about twenty miles an hour, scanning the roadside ditch and the wall of trees beyond it, looking for a fence, a culvert, a gate, a dirt road.

  Eventually I found all four together. By then the Chevy’s marker had stopped moving on my Google map, maybe two hundred yards deep in the woods. I drove past the gate. The fence, overgrown with brush, continued about thirty yards west of the gate. Since the Forest Service didn’t normally put up roadside fences in national forests, I was pretty sure I had found private property.

  I drove on and kept scanning, just in case there was another road into the trees close by. A mile later, not seeing anything, I pulled off onto the shoulder. Laying over the console I turned on a penlight and rifled through Hack’s fourteen enhanced satellite image sections. Having spent much of the day studying them, it didn’t take long to find the relevant one. There were two buildings and some small, unidentifiable clutter in a clearing surrounded by a sea of dark timber, and nothing else in the immediate vicinity. I was pretty sure that was where the GPS signal had come from. I ended the location request on my phone.

  Making a U-turn, I drove back, pulling over on the shoulder and parking about a hundred yards west of the gate. That way, if anyone came through the gate and back to the county road and turned east, in the direction of Shiloh, they wouldn’t pass my truck and wonder why it was there.

  I secured the Ruger 9 in a belt-style T.Rex Ragnarok holster, turned off my phone and buttoned it down in my right hand pants pocket. I checked to make sure my needle-nose Gerber multi-tool was in another pocket. Getting out of the truck, I locked it and pulled the assault rifle ca
se and the black duffle out of the tool box, crossed the muddy ditch and entered the woods. I heard the sound of an automobile approaching, saw the glow of oncoming headlights on the county road. The car didn’t slow down as it neared the gate. When it passed my truck it’s brake lights didn’t flash. I watched until those lights were out of sight.

  Putting down the ARC and the duffle, I secured the magazine-laden web belt around my waist, secured the first aid kit to the belt at the small of my back, donned the Oakley gloves and put the night vision goggles on my head but not over my eyes. They provided very little depth perception and would slow me down moving through thick woods. Leaving the bag and case, I found the fence that I assumed marked the western boundary of the private property and headed south, putting everything but the recon out of my mind.

  14

  It was a clear night, but the woods were dense and the tree canopy thick. I moved slowly and quietly. Inside of fifteen minutes I was within sight of the buildings. The barbed wire fence that paralleled the dirt road turned west and then, I assumed, went all the way around the property. It was in disrepair, the rusty wire hanging loosely on wooden posts, many of them leaning precariously. To my right, a pine had fallen long ago, destroying a few fence sections.

  I pulled the NOD down over my eyes and turned the . The nearest structure was open in front and faced east, so I could see inside. It was a shed, corrugated metal on a frame of four-by-fours with a slanted roof. Maybe once it had sheltered a vehicle but now it was full of junk: boxes, hard plastic storage containers, tools, old picture frames, broken down furniture, a couple of bicycles that could not have been ridden in this decade, and other detritus of rural lives.

  The bigger structure was a one-story frame house on pier-and-beam with a sagging shingle roof and a horizontal wood board exterior that had once been painted blue. Most of the paint was peeled off. A porch stretched across the front of the house, with steps both in front and on the west side. There was a swing on the porch, hanging from a chain secured to one of its arms. The other arm had broken and that side of the swing rested on the porch, the chain left hanging. There was a front door and three windows, two to the left of the door, one on the right. All the windows had been covered on the inside by aluminum foil.