“Yeah, and I need to talk to you.” When Danny glanced around, Jack added, “Privately.” The older officer just nodded and began to walk away from the scene, Jack right behind him.
“What’s up?”
“I don’t know how to say this, but there was a third car.”
Danny gave him a strange stare. “No, there were just two.”
“No, I swear to you, sheriff, I was going east and when I came down that hill over there,” Jack indicated, pointing, “there was a third car there. Because of the fog, I went down to the cross over and came back. When I got here, it was gone. It was just these two.”
Jack gave him a piercing glare. “You’re sure about that?”
“Positive. You’ve found no indication that there was another vehicle?”
“No.”
It was bewildering. Why would the vehicle have left unless it shouldn’t have been there in the first place? “Hey, sheriff! Can you come here a sec?” one of the deputies yelled.
“We’ll talk about this again in a minute. Yeah, whatcha got?” Danny yelled.
“We’ve got dark blue paint on the right front bumper of this van and a wrinkle that looks fresh. No rust.”
Danny wheeled to Jack, his eyebrows impossibly high. “Don’t go anywhere. Stay right there.”
Three minutes later, it was officially designated a three-vehicle accident. But where was the other car? And based on the van’s location and its surroundings, there was no indication it had been moving when it was hit by the red car. Why was it stopped on the highway on a morning like that? There was only one person who’d know the answer, and Jack had every intention of asking her.
The chairs were hard and cold, but at least he was there. Looking around, if there was any family there for her, he couldn’t identify them, so he just settled in and tried to read a magazine. He’d alerted the medical staff to his presence and they told him they’d update him when they could.
Aleta Culp. That was the name of the bloody, battered, broken woman who’d been sitting on the side of the highway. According to the information in her bag, she was twenty-nine. The man on the rocks below the bridge was her husband, Joshua Culp, and the infant, their son, five-month-old Jorie Culp. From the information they’d been able to glean, the Culps were returning home to Mayfield, where Joshua was a minister, from a visit to their relatives in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, a small town in the eastern end of the state. And Jorie had been their only child.
The man in the other car, twenty-four-year-old Frankie McIntosh, had a rap sheet as long as the Kentucky Speedway’s front stretch, but they were all petty crimes. He hadn’t been wearing a seat belt, and his head had hit the windshield, killing him instantly.
But the question no one could answer: How had the Culps gotten out of the car? It was too far for them to have been ejected over the side of the bridge, and besides, Mrs. Culp was somewhere else altogether.
“Well, we’ve got some news,” Matt whispered as Jack looked up, surprised to see him in the surgical waiting room. “That little red car?”
“Yeah?”
“Rented by a dead man. Literally. The guy whose name is on the rental has been dead for eleven years. Word has it there’s a chemist from the Pike County area who was hired to cook for a connection in Texas, and McIntosh was hired to take him to Texas.”
“Where’s McIntosh from?”
“Versailles.”
“And where is the meth master?”
“That’s a good question. Forensics will be going over the car to see if there’s any evidence of him being there, although we have no DNA from him. We also don’t have a name.”
“So we’ve got a dead courier of a human and no sign of the man he was transporting. And we don’t know who the transportee was. Am I getting this right?”
Matt sighed. “Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
A nurse in scrubs appeared in the doorway. “Culp?”
Jack stood. There was no one else there, and someone needed to know what was going on. “I’m the officer who found her.”
The woman crossed the room and stood in front of Jack, closely enough that people around the room couldn’t hear her. “She’s out of surgery. Pins in her arm and leg. Some scalp lacerations and facial lacerations, and a lot of bruising, but nothing more.”
“So she’s going to be okay?”
“It appears so.”
“Husband and child?”
“DOA. Traumatic head injury for the child. Head injury that caused cranial bleeding that couldn’t be stopped in the husband.”
“Has she talked to anybody?” Jack asked.
The nurse shook her head. “Just to ask where her husband and child were. Really sad. She’s breastfeeding, so her milk will come in and there’s no infant to nurse. She’s going to be miserable. I’ll let you know when she’s going to a room.”
“Thanks.” Jack turned to Matt, whose face had gone pale. “You don’t have to stay.”
“I do. If you’re going to talk to her, I’ll wait with you.”
“Then I guess we wait.”
“You can only stay for a minute. That’s it. If she gets tired, you’ll have to come out. She may not make a lot of sense, but until she’s had a few days, it’s the best we can expect.” The doctor pointed to the intensive care cubicle and Jack followed the Nelson County sheriff in. He’d decided to let Danny take the lead unless he thought of something he needed to ask, plus he’d known Danny forever, and he knew the man to be exceedingly compassionate. As soon as Danny had shown up, Matt had headed out, so it was just the sheriff and the state trooper.
“Mrs. Culp, I’m Sheriff Foley from the Nelson County Sheriff’s Department. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions, if that’s okay.”
The woman’s head turned slowly and her eyes opened, but she looked right past Danny and straight at Jack. “You’re an angel. I saw you out there. You’re the angel who saved me.”
“Ma’am, I’m a Kentucky State Trooper. I was the first to arrive at the scene of the accident.”
“You’re an angel, that’s what you are,” she repeated. When Danny gave him a look and tossed his head toward the woman, Jack stepped up.
“Ma’am, can you help us understand what happened out there? Because there are things that don’t make sense.”
“We stopped. To help. The man’s car, it was stalled out. Joshua wanted to help him. I was afraid. It was so foggy out,” she said, slurring her words slightly. “So foggy,” she repeated, her eyes rolling slightly before they came to rest on Jack again. “We stopped. We hit him.”
“With the front corner of your van?”
She nodded, then winced. “Yes. Barely. He was barely off the side of the road. Stalled out. Joshua said we had to stop. We hit his car. He told us to go on, that it was no big deal, but Joshua wanted to help. Joshua always wanted to help.” The last sentence came out almost as a mumble.
“But how did you get out of the car? Why were you on the side of the road?”
“Joshua said to take Jorie and stand away from the van. He said we wouldn’t be safe inside it. So we got out. I was holding Jorie, and Joshua was trying to help the man, and they were arguing. Joshua kept saying, ‘Let’s get your car started so you’re not stranded out here,’ and the man kept telling him to go away. And then the other car came.”
“The red car?”
“I don’t know. It hit the van, and the van slid sideways and hit me. And Jorie flew out of my arms and … Where’s Jorie? It’s time for him to nurse.”
“The doctor will talk to you about your son in a little while. So the baby flew out of your hands and―”
“When Joshua saw him, he jumped over the bridge railing to save him. I know Joshua saved him. He’d never let anything happen to Jorie. He didn’t even hesitate, not for a minute! He just jumped and … Where’s Jorie. It’s time for him to nurse. My breasts are … they hurt … need to nurse him …”
“I’m sorry. You�
�re going to have to leave,” the nurse responded.
“Please, just one more question. Please?” Jack asked.
The nurse frowned. “One more and then go.”
“Mrs. Culp? I need to ask you one more question. When you looked again, where was the dark car? The one with the man your husband was trying to help? Where did it go?”
The woman rolled her head back to face Jack. Her eyes opened wide and she looked straight into his. “It was gone. Just vanished. I never saw it again.” At that, her eyes closed and she let out a huge sigh.
“You have to go. Now,” the nurse hissed.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” Jack and Danny stepped out into the passageway between all the glass cubicles and watched as the woman lay there, semi-conscious and trying to figure out where her family was. “Well, there’s our answer.”
Danny sighed. “Yeah, and that still isn’t an answer. We’ve got to find that car.”
But how to do that? It was gone without a trace.
Chapter 2
God, Jack hated holidays! Normally-intelligent people got drunk and got out on the highways. It drove him crazy, writing tickets to school teachers and ministers and lawyers, all the while listening to them whine about how they just couldn’t get a ticket, because how would it look in their position, and how were they going to explain that, and blah-blah-blah. He got tired of hearing them piss and moan. If he knew he wouldn’t get in trouble for it, he’d just yell at them, “If you weren’t drunk, you wouldn’t have to worry about it!” But he knew that wouldn’t help.
When he hit the hay at well after two o’clock in the morning, he was glad he was off duty the next day. Pull an all-nighter on drunk duty, get a free pass for the next day. He’d take it.
The next morning when he woke, he was ridiculously hungry. There was a pancake place right down the street from his apartment outside Elizabethtown, so he threw on some jeans and a tee and headed that direction. It was the usual mess of individuals, people drinking their hangovers away with cups of coffee so strong they could be used to strip paint from a car. He ordered his usual―two eggs over easy, two pieces of toast, two pancakes, and two pieces of bacon―and was waiting for it when he heard the servers whispering.
“I know they like to hire handicapped people, but come on! She’s never washed a dish in her life. Probably had servants who did it.”
“I know! And why her? She’s so quiet. She’s never going to fit in here. I don’t get it.”
“Maybe they wanted somebody who’d do the work and not stand around and jaw,” a big woman he assumed was their supervisor said. “Get to work. You’ve got customers and dirty tables. Don’t worry about what she’s doing. If you were in her shoes, you’d be thankful to have a job here.”
Who the hell are they talking about? Jack wondered. Must’ve been somebody in the back. In seconds, his plate was delivered and he happily dove into it face-first.
By the time he finished, the two chatty servers were too busy to stand around and run anybody down, and he went to pay his ticket. Wandering past the table where he’d sat, he dropped a five dollar bill on its surface and just as he did, he looked up.
The door to the back opened and he saw the object of their scorn―a woman with a brace on her right leg. Something about her gave him pause, but just for a second. He didn’t know anybody who wore a brace.
But something about her bothered him all day long. He thought about it that evening, and the next morning, he went back to the pancake place. She seemed familiar to him.
And he thought he knew why.
“You’ve got a dishwasher back there, a woman in a brace, right?” Jack asked his server.
The girl made a face. “She’s not here today. It’s her day off. Why, you got a dirty dish?”
“No. I just think I might know her, that’s all. Do you know her name?”
“Yeah. We call her Gimpy behind her back, but her name’s Alice or Aleve or something like that.” The girl’s scorn for the woman filled the space where Jack sat, and his skin crawled.
“Maybe Aleta?”
“Yeah! That’s it!”
Jack couldn’t believe it. What was she doing there? Her people all lived in the eastern end of the state, and her husband had been a pastor in the western part. So why would she stay in Elizabethtown? “When does she work again?”
“I dunno. Whenever she’s scheduled, I reckon,” the girl answered and walked away.
Well, shit. I can’t come back every damn day and hope I see her. Still, Jack wanted to see her, to tell her who he was and how sorry he was about what had happened. He’d never done that with another accident victim, but he wanted to do it with her. The pictures in his mind of her husband and son, their bodies broken and bloodied, haunted him from time to time, and he didn’t think he’d ever forget them.
His phone rang, and he thought he recognized the number, but he didn’t answer it. Sure enough, they left a message: The gunsmith in Needmore, telling him his old shotgun was repaired. It had belonged to his great-grandfather, and his dad had let it go to pot. Jack wanted it to look great again. Amos had its twin, their great-grandfather’s twin brother’s shotgun, and it was in just as shitty shape as Jack’s had been. Instead of going home, he decided he’d just go on to Needmore and pick it up.
He glided onto the parkway in his Camaro and headed toward the little town southeast of Bardstown. The first Bardstown exit disappeared in his rear view mirror, and he rolled on down the road. That was when he spotted it.
The site of the accident. Every time he’d been through there, he’d noticed the little crosses and flowers placed on the side of the road, as close to the rock formations as one could get, and he figured some of the family had put them there, although he hadn’t known who. As he drew closer, he saw a car, and he decided he’d better stop and remind them that the shoulders of the highway weren’t safe, and that they shouldn’t spend long there.
He pulled up behind the car, but he didn’t see anyone, and all his trooper instincts kicked in. He was wearing his ankle holster, so he had a weapon if he needed it, plus his Kimber .380 in his glove box. Glancing around, he opened the door slowly and unfolded his six feet and three inch frame from the short car. That was when he spotted her.
Leaning down from the waist and teetering, Aleta Culp stood by the little crosses, gently fingering the fake blooms there, straightening them and adding to them. As he watched, she kissed her fingers and touched one cross, then moved on to the other one and did the same, fussing with the flowers and a bow there. He assumed she’d heard his car pull up, but when she straightened and turned, she let out a scream. “Oh my gosh!”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you okay?” Jack asked, watching the color come back to her face. Her jaw dropped and her eyes flew open wide, her eyebrows disappearing into the dark hair at her hairline. She only said three words, whispered and reverent.
“You’re the angel.”
Jack could feel his face heating up, and he knew it had to be as red as blood. “Oh, no, ma’am. I’m no angel. I’m a Kentucky State Trooper, and I just wanted to stop and―”
“You were here. I know you were here. I’d never, never forget your face. You were right here that day. Oh, I’ve wanted to see you so many times, to talk to you and thank you!”
The woman had started to cry, and Jack decided he probably shouldn’t have stopped. Maybe it was too much for her. Maybe he’d stirred up too many horrible, painful memories. When he realized it was her, he should’ve gotten back in his car and driven away. “No thanks necessary, ma’am. I was just doing my job.”
“You don’t understand! I’ve needed to talk to you for a while now, but I didn’t know who you were. I asked some of the police officers who come into the restaurant if they knew you, but I didn’t know your name, so they couldn’t figure out who I was talking about. I thought you were a sheriff’s deputy. It never occurred to me that you were a state trooper.” Jack hadn’t realized he�
��d been backing away slowly, but the woman cried out, “Oh, please, no! Please don’t leave! I need to talk to you, please!”
What the hell have I done? Jack wanted to yell and beat himself. The poor woman had been hurt enough. He shouldn’t hurt her any more. “Ma’am, I―”
“Oh, please, now that I’ve found you, don’t deny me that. Please? I’m begging you, please don’t. I really need to talk to you, sir.”
Without thinking, he stuttered, “M-m-m-my name is Jack.”
She quieted instantly. “Jack. That’s a strong name. Jack, I’m Aleta. Aleta Culp.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Those eyes were so lost and in so much pain that he couldn’t look away. “I talked to you in the hospital right after you had surgery.”
She tipped her head slightly and a tiny smile pulled the corners of her lips upward. “Yes. I remember now. You and another man, an older man.”
“That’s my friend, Sheriff Foley from Nelson County.”
“Yes. But it was you I wanted to talk to.” Jack didn’t know how to respond. “Could we go somewhere else, somewhere where we can sit down? This is hard on me, standing this way.”
Jack didn’t quite know what to say. He’d closed her portion of the investigation a good while prior, and yet something about the woman made him want to talk to her. “Uh, okay. What would be good for you?”
“I live in Elizabethtown now. Wanted to be close to the accident site and all, you know. I come here and I feel close to them, like they’re still here with me. But there are some restaurants up here at the exit in Bardstown. Would one of those do?”
“There’s a Mexican restaurant where the troopers go. They’ll let us sit and talk,” he offered. Have I completely lost my mind? I shouldn’t be doing this, he told himself, and yet he couldn’t seem to stop. Even though they’d gotten all her information and determined that she and her family were innocent bystanders, it was like there was a piece of the puzzle missing. Oh, he knew what it was. No one had ever been able to figure out what the other car had been doing there. They knew what was going on, but how did it all come together on the highway? What part did the other car play? Where was the chemist? No one had come up with that information yet.
Justice for Aleta Page 2
