“I’m coming your way. Slow your truck to fifty. Whatever you do, do not stop. Are your doors locked and windows up?”
“Hell yes. I was thinking he’d try to climb in my cab.”
“Give me your license, Dodson.”
“BD48817, Louisiana.”
“Did the man identify himself?”
“Said he was Hunter Keller.”
Son of a bitch! But why use your name, Keller? “What else did he say?”
“Said he is responsible for a lot of dead people.”
“Were those his exact words,” Wilcox asked, turning onto I-55 with grill lights flashing.
“He said he couldn’t stop it. Said he let them all die.”
“I’m on my way, keep driving. Don’t exit. Needle on fifty. Tell me more about Keller.”
“He’s a skinny man, six-feet. Had on a black hoodie and backpack.”
“What made you think he was gonna hurt you, Dodson?”
“The way he acted, all quiet and mysterious, hardly talking, keeping his face covered. He tells me about all these people dead because of him. When he said I was going to die, I knew I was next on his list.”
“But he didn’t kill you when he could. You say he got out of the truck.”
“He told me to stop. I thought he would do it to me then. He slid out. Said thanks and closed the door. I pulled away as fast as I could. I was thinking I just might live to tell this one.”
“Go back to the people you said he killed. Try to remember his exact words. It’s important Dodson,” Wilcox pushed.
“He said when he shows up people die. He said he could not help himself, I mean ‘stop it’. He told me he takes full responsibility.”
“I’m twenty minutes out. I want you to stay on I-55. Do not slow down. If he’s on your truck, we don’t want him jumping off and getting away.”
Wilcox traveled at ninety in the left lane. He put his cell on speaker and set it on the seat. He grabbed his radio mic. “Where did Hunter Keller get out, Mr. Dodson?”
“A mile south of the Hayti exit. Nothin’ there but dead cotton fields.”
“Hold on. I need to talk to my people on the radio.”
He held the mic close so Dodson couldn’t hear. “Get me Miss Prior, this is Wilcox.”
“Sally Prior. Go ahead detective.”
“Get a hold of the Hayti PD and Pemiscot Sheriff’s Office. Tell them there’s a semi traveling north on I-55, Louisiana plate BD48817. Tell them we have a possible serial killer on the truck driven by a Billy Dodson. Hold on.
“Mr. Dodson, did Hunter Keller say where he was going? And give me his exact words.”
Dodson swallowed hard. “Said he had to be in Sikeston tonight.”
“Miss Prior. Get Sikeston PD on the lookout for a skinny, white male, six-feet-plus wearing a black hoodie with a backpack. Name is Hunter Keller. He could be walking on the side of the road, Hayti exit off Interstate-55.” If he’s not on the damn truck.
“Mr. Dodson, local police will pull alongside. I’m still a ways out. The Hayti PD will make contact with you very soon.”
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
“They know what’s going on. They will inspect your truck in motion and guide you to a controlled stop. If Hunter Keller’s on your truck, they’ll get him.”
“I can’t,” Dodson said.
“You can do this. You must do this. They will be there soon. The HPD is blocking the highway as we speak. You will be alone on open road with police cars surrounding your truck.”
“I’m scared. I really don’t think I can do this.”
“Tell me more about your time with Mr. Keller.” Stop thinking and keep talking buddy.
Dodson checked his mirrors and hit his door locks every few seconds. “Keller was quiet a long time. Just sat there looking straight ahead, his hood covering his face. I thought he was tired or the unsociable type. After Blytheville he started talking. Pulled off his hood and leaned back in the seat with his eyes closed. He rambled like he was in a trance or something.”
“In a trance?” What the hell does that mean?
“Yeah. He said he was drawn to death. Then he said I was gonna die tonight. Told me to exit the highway. I refused. Then he got quiet. Said it wouldn’t matter for me anyway.”
Wilcox flew down the highway through the dead cotton fields in northeast Arkansas. He saw the roadblock ahead when his radio crackled alive. “Memphis PD, this is HPD in pursuit of Dodson truck on I-55, over.”
“Memphis PD, Wilcox here, go ahead HPD, over.”
“We’re about a mile out from the Dodson truck. No visual at this time. Will initiate CB radio contact and take it from here, over.”
“Roger that, HPD. Over and out.”
“Mr. Dodson, I’m hanging up now. HPD is close. They will get you on your CB.”
“Got them now.” The cell phone went dead.
On the inside shoulder Wilcox passed a mile of sitting traffic. Then HPD squad cars opened a path and waved him through. Wilcox’s flashing blue streak of cold metal exploded through the roadblock leaving a cloud of dust and burnt rubber. He would not let Keller escape again.
Why tell a random truck driver he’s gonna die tonight? Wilcox wondered as he eased back onto the asphalt and checked his watch. It had been almost fifteen minutes since he first spoke to the trucker. Keller tells him to exit the highway. Dodson refuses. Then Keller has him stop the truck so he can get out. If Keller was gonna kill Dodson, he’d kill him then? Makes no sense he’d climb onto a moving truck.
The needle touched a hundred as Wilcox shot down the empty highway. His radio and cell were silent. The world flew by in a night blur for another eight minutes. Then, an orange glow filled the horizon straight ahead. Wilcox hit his brakes and skidded out of control. His cruiser spun down the hot asphalt. His smoking tires spit gravel as he fought to keep her on the road. When the car finally stopped and the smoke settled, he could see out his side window. The burning cloud climbed into the night less than a mile ahead.
Six
“Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree.”
Proverb
*
After the three from Bethesda left the medical examiner’s office, Petty sat alone with her newest mystery. Staring at the letter addressed to her and signed by the attorney general, she studied the four paragraphs—each word seared into her brain. But memorizing a hundred words was not her goal. Her photographic memory had it the first pass. Petty was launching her process, the beginning of an investigation. At the moment, the letter had become the most important piece to her new puzzle.
It was the only thing credible—her visitors and their bizarre claims were in question. Up until Swenson placed the envelope in her hand, Petty searched for a polite way to conclude the bizarre meeting. Now she was scrutinizing an official document. Were there any conflicting statements, errors, or hidden meanings? The letter she held could be the start of the most hideous hunt of her forensic career, or it could be an absolute hoax.
She removed tweezers from her lab coat, inserted the letter into a paper evidence bag, and attached a label. She wrote: Proprietary—Dr. V. Petty prints and DNA isolated top left & bottom right corners of document. I should find Dr. Swenson and Attorney General Baldwin on this. She pulled out her cell and scrolled contacts stopping on Richard B. Tanner, M.D., PhD, Vanderbilt Medical School, and Department of Genetic Research.
“Hello Victoria,” Tanner said. “I must have dozed off.”
“Richard. I’m sorry to call at this hour.”
“Nonsense, I was looking in a microscope as usual. It’s been a while. How are you doing?”
“I’m good. Thank you for asking. I’m now a Tennessee resident.”
“Memphis. I read about your appointment, chief medical examiner. Nashville is happy to get back our M.E on loan to your fair city. Terrible about Dr. Henderson Bates. We heard all the gory details over here in the music city.”
“Dr. Ba
tes is recovering. He’s offered his support once he gets back on his feet.”
“Congratulations to you. I’m confident Memphis will reap great benefits. Your exceptional forensic skills and intuitive investigative spirit are major assets.”
“Thank you Richard. I’m calling on a confidential matter. I need a favor.”
“Interesting. Please go on.”
“I have a letter from the U.S. Attorney General. He seeks my personal assistance on a secret government matter. Without some objective confirmation, the value and content of this letter is in question. I need a closer look, a forensic look.”
“I think I understand.”
“The people who delivered this letter must be vetted. I can do some myself. One handled the letter. The attorney general should have handled the letter too. It has his signature. I’m looking at it now. It’s been preserved in a sterile evidence bag.”
“You want me to check it for DNA. If found, you want me to confirm the identity of the one bearing gifts—confirm it was indeed handled by Alfred E. Baldwin?”
“I don’t know if a known sample of Mr. Baldwin’s DNA is available to compare. If it is possible to check, I would be grateful. Confirmation of participants in an unfolding mystery would help. You know I would not ask if it was not important.”
“Victoria, please, of course I can help you. And yes, I have ways of obtaining DNA samples from all prospects. I suppose I’ve gotten pretty good at trash-diving. Well, I guess I can’t take all the credit. My younger generation associates deserve the accolades. They’ve made me a believer. We all live in our garbage,” he chuckled.
“I’ll arrange for a courier to deliver the letter overnight,” Petty said.
“I know the identity of the U.S. Attorney General. Give me the name of the person who handed you the letter. I can get my people on it immediately.”
“I suppose both are in the DC area. Dr. John Swenson is who passed me the envelope. He’s an employee of the Bethesda Research Center. I know nothing about him.”
“Name is all I need, Victoria.”
“I think it best I not go into details with you. The less you know, probably the better.”
“I understand fully. A little excitement in my life is a good thing. I’m growing weary harvesting cultures and looking into electron microscopes for fractured strands of DNA. Sometimes it’s good for us researchers to get out of the lab and into the real world.”
“Thank you Richard. Please be careful. I’ll tell you more when I can.”
“Will keep an eye open for your overnighter.”
Before sliding it into the larger envelope, she took another look at the opening paragraph. She would expect it from the top legal authority in the U.S. Government—vague, full of emotive words and flowery phrases, and applauding the courageous spirit of Americans. The dark second paragraph described the unknown danger born in our country—words like ‘untethered’, ‘hideous’, and ‘evil’ sprinkled with care. The third paragraph, dedicated to Dr. Petty, celebrated her forensic accomplishments and new role as the chief M.E. in Memphis. The last paragraph got most of her time. The attorney general did not request her assistance, he directed her to serve her country without question or pause. He demanded confidentiality. He instructed her to accommodate all of Dr. Swenson’s requests in great haste.
The knock on the door went almost unnoticed. The courier stepped inside, stood in the shadows with his clipboard and cleared his throat. Petty returned from her world and handed him the envelope and signed. It was done. The currier left. She made her first move. If Dr. Petty was monitored, she needed to know. If not monitored, information from Tanner would set her course.
She left the county morgue alone after ten. Rain moved through leaving the ground wet and air thick. Her walk from the empty loading dock to her car required carful navigation. Countless water-filled potholes waited to sprain an ankle—something she did not need now. Under the dismal glow of the lone flood at the far end of the secured lot, Petty walked the gauntlet.
Every night for the last three months she began her journey to her car feeling caged. She questioned the need for a ten-foot, chain-linked fence with coiled bobbed wire. It seemed to be there more for protection from danger than to maintain a secured environment. But on this night Petty was uncomfortable. She sensed a new danger—possibly her Bethesda visitors making her overthink everything. She walked in cold silence and felt the hair on her neck stand on end. What was it? Petty slowed when she smelled the salty perspiration. She froze.
The man in the long coat and flat-brimmed hat stepped from the brick wall feet away. He stayed in the darkest shadow.
“Who are you and what are you doing on private property?” Petty asked, with as much authority as she could muster.
“Who I am will mean nothing to you, Dr. Petty.” The words dripped from his lips as he seemed to get bigger and she smaller. Her fingers searched deep in her purse for her gun. My lockbox at the Peabody, I took it out last night. I was going to a range this weekend. I’m alone in a new city. Her finger touched her keys. I’ll press the car alarm.
“Don’t touch your car alarm, doctor.” He stepped closer, like a hungry wolf. His coat opened. He hovered. His acrid odor mixed with hot foul breath. “If you cooperate, you may survive this encounter.”
How did you know I was thinking car alarm? “What do you want?”
“I ask questions one at a time. If you lie to me, I will kill you here and now.”
Her stomach knotted. She backed away. Petty had no defense, and no escape options.
“Why is Dr. Swenson here?”
I can answer that one. “He believes a serial killer is in Memphis.”
“Is he asking for details on Pella, Derby, Hudson, Pemberton, and Deckle?”
How do you know those names? “Ah … Yes.”
“Did Alfred Baldwin send Swenson, or did Dr. Swenson come on his own?”
“Sent by Baldwin. Tell me. Why are you here?”
“Where is Hunter Keller, Dr. Petty?”
The eyewitness on Main, the Deckle case …? “I don’t know Hunter Keller.”
The intimidating silhouette straightened, now looming more than a foot above her. His hot breath now shot into the nightglow. “These people are bad. They are not who they claim to be. They want Hunter Keller for their own, twisted purposes. If you help them, more people die.”
“Tell me who you are. What is your interest in Dr. Swenson and Hunter Keller?”
On her last word headlight beams shot into the mist and a car pulled up to the gate. Petty turned when it clanked alive and started to open. The beams reached across the wet pavement and found her car. Thank God, my field agent. Emboldened, she turned back to confront her threat. He was gone.
Seven
“There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown.”
Elias Canetti
*
Like a broken freezer in a butcher shop, meat hung on the front of the truck and flies gathered.
Wilcox could do nothing. He pulled up to the inferno, the firemen standing back. In the middle of nowhere, even they had their limits. The 1,500-gallon tanker sat almost empty and the fire raged on.
When he saw the blaze on the horizon, he knew something went terribly wrong. Wilcox parked behind the fire truck and walked the length of the hose to the firefighters and the underside of the blazing tractor trailer. They warned him the contents could blow—it kept them all at bay, rescue attempts were never an option. They could only wait for the fire to burn itself out as they kept a hose on the explosive payload.
The morning sun broke before the fire was a smoldering pile of twisted metal. It sprawled across two lanes. Endless lines of traffic crawled access roads on both sides of the highway. Some stopped to load an unexpected surprise—the police allowed it.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Officer Edelman—Hayti police.
For the first time Wilcox did not want a cigarette. He stared at
the grill of the overturned semi. It was the only place not burned beyond recognition.
“Tell me again how this happened,” Wilcox said.
Edelman stared at the grill. “I had Dodson in sight. We were on the flattest span of highway around here. I’m talkin’ to him on the CB. He knew what to do. About a half mile ahead I saw his rig move to the center of the two lanes as instructed. He had left room for me to pass and two squad cars to get on each side and one behind. But, we never got the chance. Never got close enough.”
“Did he say okay to everything?” Wilcox asked.
Edelman blinked away from the singed meat hanging on the grill. “Yes sir. He was talking to me, and pretty much settling down, okay with everything. I watched his taillights. Like I said, maybe a half mile ahead. We were closing in on him at a good clip.
“Then the CB went dead. We saw the explosion. A bright orange-yellow flare shot straight up and out. Lit up the place like a morning sun. We slowed down and watched three more explosions. Had the HFD on the way from the start, but it didn’t matter.”
“Did Dodson say anything before the explosions?”
“Yes. He asked God to forgive him for something. I couldn’t make out what.”
“And what about all these animals?”
“Never seen anything like it before, and I’ve lived here all my life.”
“Don’t leave anything out. It could be important.”
“Okay. It must have been some kind of migration. I’ve heard about it in places like Alaska but never around here. Dang whitetail deer moving from the cotton fields to the river. Maybe something to do with food source or fear. They got plenty of water in the woods ’round here. Doesn’t make sense, detective.” Edelman scratched his head and hung a hand on his holstered gun.
“So, a bunch of deer decide to cross the highway in the middle of the night.” Wilcox squinted at the rising sun. “Am I hearing it right?”
“Yes sir. We almost hit some, too. If we weren’t slowing down for the explosions, we’d run into them too. There were hundreds of whitetails crossing the highway—unbelievable. Mr. Dodson ran into the center of a moving herd. After things settled down some, I saw dead and dying deer all over the road on my way to the burning truck. We had to take it slow to dodge a bunch more of them standing in the highway.”
Evil Like Me Page 5
