Dead and Gone

by Jack Patterson

  He looked over at his wife, Nancy, who slumbered in the passenger seat. To him, she deserved sainthood. I picked a good one. Not many women would embrace his obsession with NASCAR and spend their early retirement years driving from track to track every weekend. Parker installed appliances for a major home improvement store for nearly 35 years before he retired. His life had been anything but a dream, but he felt like he was living in one now—almost.

  If Parker had his druthers, he would have owned a car and spent years on the NASCAR circuit as a famous driver. He’d experienced some mild success racing sprint cars on dirt tracks in the Midwest, but when a blood clot led to a minor stroke in his early twenties, it dashed any hopes he had of making a career out of it. With his right leg partially paralyzed, there was no way he could have handled the demands of competitive racing.

  He looked down at his speedometer, holding steady at 70.

  Thank God for cruise control.

  This was the second year Parker had signed up to help the Davis Motorsports Team sell memorabilia at the different tracks. But ever the work-a-holic, he also covered security shifts for sick or absent volunteers. He and his wife followed the tour and went to work a couple of days before the race, selling merchandise to fans or guarding a chain-link gate. It wasn’t much money, but it was enough to cover gas and food. However, monetary gain was near the bottom on his list of reasons to sign up for such menial tasks. There was another motivation at the very top, one he never mentioned to Nancy.

  The reasons Parker proffered to her centered around his desire to gain access the pits and get to know the drivers. He sold the idea well. He and Nancy decided that they would spend each week getting to know a different driver. Sometimes they would introduce themselves and end up spending thirty minutes or more engaged in a conversation with a driver. Other times, it’d be nothing more than a quick pose for a picture. Then there were the crew members, the backstage magicians who made sure the drivers had the best chance to win each week. And they got to know them too.

  That’s why Parker knew something was awry the second he glanced at the No. 39 car in the garage at the Texas Motor Speedway. The garage area remained quiet until it opened at 7 o’clock the morning of the race. But someone had snuck in there and was doing something they shouldn’t have been—at least in Parker’s estimation. He only saw it all by chance when he couldn’t sleep and climbed atop his RV to watch the sun rise.

  After two years of being close to the action on the circuit, he knew such activity was rare. In fact, during that time he’d never seen anybody working on a car before the garage was open. And he dismissed it as no big deal and forgot about it—until he watched Carson Tanner’s No. 39 car careen into the wall on the final lap and skid to a stop in a crumpled heap of metal. He was convinced it was no accident.

  But what to do? He had no proof of what he’d seen. Investigators ruled it an accident. Everyone seemed to move on. It’s racing. Sometimes drivers crash—and sometimes they die. Maybe there wasn’t anything to do. Regardless of how the racing world moved forward so quickly, Parker wanted to linger on it. He needed to, for he saw a way to make all his problems disappear, perhaps even have a normal retirement. After all, he wasn’t sure he could fabricate another reason why they needed to continue following the circuit. The real one sickened him.

  With Nancy still sound asleep, Parker scanned the radio dial for something to pass the time. He found a station broadcasting his favorite conservative talk show host. Parker chuckled as the man lampooned congress; a recent poll showed them as being only two percentage points more favorable with the U.S. public than the latest Middle Eastern terrorist group blowing up American interests overseas. The host then went to break and a news segment started.

  Authorities in Nevada today are searching for Bill Goldini in connection with a brazen murder at a casino in Las Vegas on Saturday. Goldini, who has spent time in prison after a racketeering conviction along with his father Jim Goldini, is rumored to be the heir-apparent to the Goldini crime syndicate. Officials say …

  Parker turned the radio off in disgust and stared out the window.

  What’s this world coming to?

  He preferred not to dwell on such things too long. Life was too short to spend it worrying about all the crazy people in the world.

  He looked up and noticed the Arizona state border sign, signaling that their long journey would soon be over—another week safe from his demons. At least, that’s what he hoped.

  Nancy twisted in her seat and squinted as she stared at her husband.

  “Where are we?”

  “Good afternoon, little angel. Someone got a good nap.” He pointed at her shirt, which appeared damp from drool.

  She grabbed a tissue and blotted it. “Oh, cut it out, Ron.”

  He snickered and turned his attention back to the road. “We just entered Arizona. Got about five more hours left until we get to Phoenix.”

  “Avondale, honey, we’re going to Avondale.”

  He shook his head and rolled his eyes. Nancy remained a stickler when it came to talking about the precise location of a track. It drove Parker nuts. Every time someone asked them where they were from, he’d answer, “Columbus, Ohio.” She’d punch his arm and say, “We don’t live in Columbus. We live in Powell.” Unless the person was from the Columbus area, Parker saw nothing but blank stares until he’d clarify. “Powell is a suburb of Columbus,” he’d say, which would be met by a knowing head bob. He used to tell her to stop that practice, but he quit trying after twenty years of marriage. Nancy didn’t have that many faults, and he decided it was best to let it go and just explain where Powell was.

  Parker’s phone buzzed and Nancy snatched it off the console.

  “Hey,” Parker said. “Gimme that.”

  “Who’s calling you? I wonder.” She punched in the code for his phone and didn’t see a missed call but a photo texted to him. She gasped and held it up for him to see. “What’s this all about?”

  Parker stayed calm. “Oh, it’s probably just one of the guys having fun.”

  “Having fun? Pointing a gun at the camera, taking a picture, and then sending you a message that says, ‘Time’s up.’ That’s having fun?”

  “You know how Larry is,” Parker said as he reached for the phone.

  “Honey, that wasn’t from Larry.”

  “Oh?” he said as he scrolled to his texts.

  She playfully hit his hand. “Stop texting and driving.”

  He put the phone down. “Then who was it from?”

  “Some guy named Butch. Now, I don’t know much, but when a guy named Butch takes a picture of himself brandishing a gun and adds, ‘Time’s up,’ I take that seriously.”

  Parker laughed. “I don’t know anybody named Butch. Someone must have typed in my number by mistake. No worries.”

  He waited until she was looking out of her window before he grabbed his phone again. He deleted the photo and slid the phone back onto the console.

  “Some psycho killer would accidentally start texting you, wouldn’t he?” she added as she turned her gaze back toward him. “I hope he doesn’t think you’re really the person he’s after and is tracking you by using your phone.”

  “Me, too,” he said as he reached for his phone and turned it off. “Me, too.”

  She turned back over and went to sleep.

  Parker waited for a few minutes to make sure she was actually asleep instead of attempting to take a nap. When he was satisfied that she was asleep, he rolled his window down and glanced at the mile marker.

  Mile number 303.

  Then he flung the phone out of the window.

  CHAPTER 9

  CAL WOKE UP WEDNESDAY with a feeling that something wasn’t right. Call it instinct. Call it intuition. He didn’t care. He simply knew that something about Tanner’s accident—one he played over and over in his mind—wasn’t a freak event. It felt planned, if not perfectly timed. The idea had already gripped him that something else was at p
lay that day, and he wasn’t ready to relinquish it.

  “Are you all right, honey?” Kelly asked.

  Cal rubbed his face. “Sure. Why?”

  “You were awfully restless last night. I don’t know what was going on with you, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be in those dreams.”

  “Did I say anything?”

  She rolled over and gazed at him. “Not that I could make out. It was mostly gibberish.” She paused, looking him up and down before continuing. “I have no idea how coherent you were, but I didn’t understand any of it. Whatever it was, though, you sounded stressed out, paranoid even.”

  “When am I not paranoid?” he shot back.

  “Good point. It carries over from your waking hours to your sleeping habits. Lucky me.”

  Cal leaned over and kissed her before climbing out of bed. “You’re an angel.”

  She smirked at him before turning over and closing her eyes.

  Cal got dressed and ate his breakfast, poring over a copy of the Charlotte Observer. It was a morning ritual that never escaped him when he was home.

  He read a story about a man named Franklin Guyton who was wrongly imprisoned for twenty-five years before forensic evidence proved him innocent.

  A quote from the article jumped off the page at him: “Sometimes the most obvious answers aren’t the right ones,” said Mecklenburg District Attorney Ashton Myers. “We all worked under the assumption that Mr. Guyton was guilty based on the standard of a preponderance of evidence, not the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. I’m happy to say that today the courts got this case right and reversed its course in overturning the conviction of Mr. Guyton.”

  It was the first phrase that ate at Cal: “Sometimes the most obvious answers aren’t the right ones.”

  For the NASCAR world, the obvious answer regarding Carson Tanner’s death was that it was an accident. His throttle got stuck and he struck the wall with such force that it killed him. That’s what it looked like anyway. Who would ever suspect anything different? After all, everyone who attends races—from the drivers all the way down to the six-year-old boy sitting on the front row—knows the inherent danger of zipping around a track at over a hundred miles per hour.

  Yet somebody—or maybe more than just one somebody—was trying to tell Cal that the obvious answer wasn’t the right one.

  He then picked up his phone and dialed Max Folsom’s number.

  “Geez, Cal, it’s nine o’clock. Don’t you ever sleep?” Folsom griped.

  “Sorry, boss. I didn’t work until one a.m. putting the paper to bed.”

  “Put a little thought into it, okay?”

  “Fine. I’ll call you back later.”

  “No, no,” Folsom protested. “I’m already up. I might as well hear what this is all about—and it better be good.”

  Cal took a deep breath. “Here’s the thing. I just can’t get it out of my head that maybe Tanner’s accident was anything but that.”

  “Here we go again.”

  “Please, hear me out,” Cal snapped. “Now, I went back and did some research on his old races last night and couldn’t find a single incident of him wrecking on his own.”

  Folsom grunted. “There’s a first time for everything.”

  “Sure, but he could’ve driven backward across the finish line and won the race on Sunday. Why risk it?”

  Folsom sighed. “He didn’t, Cal. That’s why it’s called an accident. Get it?”

  “No, I understand that. But something just doesn’t seem right about it all.”

  “Why? Because someone slipped you a note?”

  “And then sent me a message on Twitter. Someone is trying to tell me something.”

  “I’m trying to tell you something too, so listen closely,” Folsom said. “Let it go. It was an accident.”

  “For the record, I don’t like this.”

  “Cal, based on your track record, I don’t think you’ve ever met a conspiracy theory that you didn’t like.”

  Cal seethed. “I think the hunches I pursue speak for themselves. I’ve got a shelf lined with awards if you’d like to see them.”

  “And you haven’t won an award since you’ve been here,” Folsom countered. “You know I like you, Cal, but you’ve got to stop with all this. It’s going to reflect poorly on the paper as well as impact your credibility as a journalist. Please don’t try to write anything to this effect or even put it out through one of your social media channels. Please, Cal. I’m begging you to stop with this fool’s errand.”

  Cal banged his fist on the counter. “Fine. I won’t write anything about it. But I’m going to keep digging and I’m going to come back with something that you’d be a fool not to print.”

  “Until that moment comes, don’t overstep your bounds. Got it?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I got it.”

  Cal hung up and tossed his phone onto the counter with disgust.

  Kelly shuffled into the kitchen, bouncing Maddie on her hip. She rubbed his back with her free hand and kissed him on the cheek.

  “What’s wrong now?” she asked. “You feel a little tense.”

  He waved dismissively. “It’s just Folsom being Folsom. He and I don’t see eye-to-eye on this potentially explosive story about Carson Tanner.”

  Her eyes widened. “Did something else come out about the accident?”

  “No, but I did my own research and none of it makes sense.”

  “Didn’t his throttle get stuck?”

  “Yeah, but I got this note.” He pulled it out of his pocket and showed it to her.

  She read it aloud: “That crash was no accident.”

  Then he handed her his cell phone with the message on it: “I know who did it.”

  “Somebody’s probably just messing with you, honey.”

  “If so, they’re doing a pretty darn good job. But between these notes and Tanner’s history as a driver, I think maybe foul play might be involved.”

  Kelly cocked her head as the corners of her mouth turned upward. “Don’t you almost always suspect foul play whenever an athlete dies?”

  Cal chuckled. “Guilty as charged—but that’s only because a lot of times it is.”

  She grabbed his hands. “Well, this isn’t one of the usual sports you cover. I remember drivers dying in wrecks on the track in the past. Maybe that’s just what happened.”

  “But it’s been a while due to safety precautions.” He paused. “I don’t know. It just seems really odd to me the way it went down.”

  “Just think about it, Cal. It’s the last lap of a race and he runs into a wall. Do you really think anyone could plan that?”

  He shook his head. “Someone could have planned to sabotage his car and it just happened when it happened.”

  “But on the last lap when he has to win to qualify for the championship?”

  Cal stopped. “I didn’t realize you were such a race fan.”

  She kissed him on the cheek again and smiled. “You know I read everything you write. I know it’s far more interesting to talk about when you get home rather than discussing how many times Maddie pooped in her pants the day before.”

  He reached up and pinched Maddie’s bulging cheeks. “Awww, don’t say that. I want to know everything that happens to Maddie—except her bowel movements.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Are you ready for your flight to Phoenix today?”

  “Almost. Got a few things I need to do at the office before I head to the airport.”

  “Well, I’m gonna miss you at the gun range today.”

  “I’m gonna miss it, too. It’s been good for me.”

  She smiled. “To let out all that pent up frustration you have from all those people calling you a hack in the comments section of your article.”

  “It’s a good way to let off some steam.” Cal’s phone buzzed. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said as he got up and walked toward the living room.

  “This is Cal.”

  The voice on the
other line sounded hysterical. “Mr. Murphy, this is Jessica Tanner, Carson’s wife. I was wondering if you could help me before I lose my mind.”

  “Just calm down,” he said. “Take a deep breath and talk to me—and I’ll see if I can help you. What’s going on?”

  “Carson’s insurance company isn’t going to pay out the policy because it was limited to accidents off the track, not accidents on it.”

  “I understand. There’s not much I can do about that.”

  “Well, the policy does cover something that isn’t an accident on the track.”

  “You mean, like if someone intentionally try to hurt him?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not to be insensitive or anything, but nobody hit him when he ran into that wall.”

  “Everybody knows that—but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about someone tinkering with his car to make it crash.”

  Cal’s eyebrows shot upward. “To be honest, I’ve been wondering how he could just crash on the final lap like that. It’s not like he needed to run wide open to win the race.”

  “Maybe the throttle did get stuck, but maybe it didn’t.”

  “Is there anything you’re going to do about it?”

  “I’m launching an independent investigation. I’d love for you to follow it, maybe even help me put pressure on the insurance company.”

  Cal took a deep breath. “Look, Mrs. Tanner. I’m happy to help you in a way that’s appropriate for me as a journalist. But I can’t write something just to put pressure on an insurance company. That’s not what I do.”

  She started crying softly. “I just don’t know how I’m going to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Take care of this baby, that’s what. We hardly have any money as Tanner wasn’t making that much yet—and almost everything he made was going to pay off some massive debt he’d accrued before we got married.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “And to make matters worse, I just found out that our little girl has a congenital heart defect.”

  “Aww, Mrs. Tanner, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  She blew her nose near her phone’s receiver, startling Cal. “If you think that my husband was murdered out there on the track, don’t you shy away from writing about it. It’s going to be hard enough raising this little girl full time, much less make ends meet.”