Dead Stop (5 page)

Lovely.

 All she
could do was leave a message to call her office in the morning, and hate what a
formal and unfeeling bitch it made her sound like.

She really
wished she had permission to start in on a necropsy. She wanted
something…anything…to tell Miss Tatum that would explain how this could have
happened. Some defect she could point at to help make sense of the treasured
pet’s death.

From all
appearances Prissy had been a perfectly healthy eight year old cat. Now she lay
stiffening in the freezer while Rachel slouched in her office, hating the
world.

Life was
supposed to make sense. Things were supposed to happen for a reason. Those two
central tenets of her life had propelled her into science with the firm
confidence all the answers were out there, just waiting for somebody with her
type of determination to find them.

Rachel found
comfort in the immutable laws of physics, math, and chemistry. Matter is
neither created nor destroyed, two plus two invariably equals four, and
multiplying the squared radius of a circle by pi would always give you its
area. The universe had rules. Deep down she nurtured the unspoken conviction
that “mystery” simply arose from the absence of data and there were no truly
unpredictable events in the world.

Her physics
professor had once stated that God was found in the places where the outcomes
couldn’t be predicted.

The only thing
Rachel had ever found there was disaster.

People’s cats
weren’t supposed to die just because you sedated them, and husbands weren’t
supposed to get killed just because they agreed to come out with you on a house
call at night and help you with a sick horse. If God liked hanging out in those
kinds of places then he could damn well do it without her.

A brief flicker
of distant lightning lit the room, causing her to look up and glance at the
clock.

“Crap,” she
muttered, “Looks like the rain is almost here. If there’s going to be any
supper for Dr. Killjoy, I guess I better get moving.

Rachel grabbed
her jacket off the hook, started for the door, then came back to her desk to
grab her Kindle and notebook as well. She decided she might as well have a book
to read if the storm got bad and she stayed late. And who knows, maybe she
could also write Mrs. Tatum something while she sat out there.

A distant rumble
of thunder mirrored her thoughts on the subject, and she turned and headed for
the door.

###

Twilight -
Deke

“You want me to
what
?!”
Deke choked on his Coke and sputtered at his grinning companion. “Are you out
of your mind?”

The two sat
parked beside the water tower on the low hill overlooking Masonfield, drinking
sodas and watching the storm front roll in. The line of clouds towered over the
little town. They rumbled with internal flashes of light that ricocheted back
and forth throughout the approaching mass. Tiny street lights started to
flicker on, a good half hour earlier than normal as the great shadow moved
across the streets and houses. The distant lights of the football field already
blazed with the game well under way.

“Calm down,”
Harley laughed. “You act like I just asked you to jump off a roof or
something.”

“Yeah? Well that
might hurt too but it would be a lot less humiliating!”

“Aw c’mon, Deke.
You’ve asked out girls before. Hell, you were running around with that Harper
girl when I first got back.”

“Yeah, but that
was Molly Harper. This is a whole different ballgame!”

“How?” Harley
took a long swig of his drink then crumpled the can. “Did Molly have webbed
feet or something?”

“No! Jeez,
Harley!”

“Okay, just
checking. You never know. So what’s the big problem here? I don’t see it.”

“The problem is,
we’re talking about Stacey Collins.”

“So?”

“So?” Deke
looked at Harley as if he had grown a second head. “We’re talking about me
asking out
Stacey Collins
! Do you realize who she is?”

Harley squinted
at Deke, tossed the can into the back of the truck, and started the engine.
Then he tilted back his hat and made a big show of scratching his head.

“Let me
think…works at the Textro, pretty face, sexy smile, sunny disposition, and
ginormous ta-tas. That Stacey Collins?”

“Harley,” Deke
shook his head, “you just don’t get it. I went to school with Stacey. She was a
pom-pom girl…hell, she was THE pom-pom girl. She was runner up for both
Homecoming Queen and Prom Queen. She dated the quarterback, fer God’s sake. She
was way up there on her end of the social ladder…and let’s just say I was a few
rungs down.”

He wasn’t about
to go into just how many rungs those were.

“Really?” Harley
shrugged and pulled the truck out onto the roadway. “Well, high school is over
and now she’s a waitress at the Textro, trying to keep her ass from getting
grabbed by every horny trucker who drops in. She might not look down on you
from as high as you might think. Besides, the worse that can happen is she says
‘no.’”

Deke wasn’t so
sure about that. He had a pretty vivid mental image of the gorgeous waitress
dissolving into a fit of hysterical laughter so full of feminine scorn the mere
sound of it would melt him into a puddle of pure humiliation.

“So this is why
you wanted to go hang out at the Textro tonight, isn’t it.”

“Well, I had
noticed you looking at her before, and I just thought…”

“Of course I was
looking at her, Harley! I’m male and I’m human! I’ve noticed the other hot
number they have waitressing there too, you know.”

“I just
thought,” Harley persisted, “that you have been pretty down in the dumps lately
and needed to do something to shake things up. I hear she’s available right
now, and I think it would be good for you to take a risk and ask her out.”

“Getting my
pride squashed and used as toilet paper ain’t exactly what I call shaking
things up, Harley.”

“Oh come
on,
”
the older redneck laughed again. “Now I know you’re bullshittin’ me. You’ve
been turned down before, and you survived.”

“Yeah, but those
were surprises. At least I thought I had a chance with those girls. Besides,
what would I say? Hey Stacey, how’s it going? You want to come hang out over at
my house with me and Mom?”

Harley didn’t
answer right away.

The two sped
down the hill in the rattle trap truck, neither speaking for a moment. Harley
reached over and popped open the glove box with a sharp blow and pulled out a
cd case. He fished out the disc and pushed it into a dusty cd player he had
duct taped on top of the dashboard.

“Oh no,” Deke
groaned. “Not this.”

“It’s time for
some man-up music, Deke. You need this, son.”

The deep twang
of a steel guitar rang through the truck to the tune of
Ghost Riders in the
Sky
. Deke rolled his eyes as Harley started beating the steering wheel to
the rhythm of the song with his hands.

“Harley,” he
raised his voice to be heard over the music, “this ain’t the answer to
everything, y’know.”

“It is for what
ails
you
.”

“Aw c’mon.
What’s that supposed to mean?”

Harley didn’t
answer right away, but chose to sing along with the song instead. It didn’t end
until the truck chugged to an intersection where they turned off the road and
onto the highway heading away from town. The shadow of the great line of clouds
fell across them as they accelerated down the roadway towards a distant white
sign glowing on the horizon.

“Your problem,”
Harley nodded towards him, “isn’t that you’re afraid she’ll turn you down.”

“Oh no?”

“Nope. You’re
scared to death she is going to say yes.”

“What do you
mean, ‘is going to’?  I’m not sure I’m doing this.”

“You will.”

“Oh, you think
so? I’m just gonna march up to the hottest living female in Mazon County and
say ‘Hey babe, how about you and me gettin’ together and startin’ something
special,’ huh?”

“I don’t know
how you’re gonna do it…and I sure don’t recommend that approach…but you will.
You promised, remember? Besides, you
need
to.”

“I do?”

“Yep. You need
to start doing something to feel good about…even if it means getting shot down.
Remember, it ain’t about whether or not you win every battle but whether or not
you fought them. There’s the way you win the war of life.”

“That’s deep,
Harley.” Deke rolled his eyes. ”Maybe I ought to just walk in and shoot the
girl. It’ll save us both a bunch of embarrassment and I don’t have to grow old
living with my Mom.”

“That’s a
solution too,” Harley nodded sagely.

“You’re not
helping.”

Deke felt a
small pool of acid form in his stomach as the Textro sign grew larger in the
windshield. Even if by some unbelievable miracle she agreed to this, what the
hell was he going to do with a girl like Stacey Collins?

“You see, you
are
going to do it. Good for you!”

“I am? Oh
really?”

“Yep. I can tell
by the look of sheer terror on your face. You’re already considering outcomes.”

“You’re a real
pal, you know that?” Deke watched the approaching sign like it was a harbinger
of doom. “If I ever get hit by a bus, at least I know who I can count on to
tell me how painful it looked.”

“I’m just here
to help.”

“Oh, yeah? So
what exactly am I supposed to ask this girl out to do? Sit at home and watch
Jeopardy with Mom?”

“You’ll think of
something.”

“Dammit! If
you’re going to throw me to the wolves, you can at least throw me a bone to
wave at them! This is your stupid idea, so how about a little help?”

“Listen to you!”
Harley crowed, “Think about where you are…now you have reached a place where
the idea of
succeeding
in asking out a hot girl scares you.”

“I know, Harley!
Maybe I ought to start smaller. What do you think?”

“I think you
would only end up with ‘smaller’…which is part of your whole problem. If you
don’t do this, you’re going to end up ten years from now sitting at home with
your mom and making excuses to yourself for another girlfriend with webbed
feet.”

“Molly didn’t
have webbed feet!”

“Don’t you think
it’s time you upgraded your criteria from that?”

Deke slapped his
forehead into his palm, and then dragged his hand down his face to see they
were arriving at their destination.

The Textro was a
medium sized truck stop. It sat near the front of a five acre square of
grease-stained asphalt at the corner of the US Highway 103 and a small country
road. Its bleak isolation was accented by the cornfield bordering the parking
lot on the other two sides. The main building was a rectangular structure with
large plate glass windows running across the front and about two thirds of the
way down each side. A large row of gas pumps sat under a red and gold awning
out front of the store/restaurant, and another long awning covered the diesel
pumps off to the south.

At the rear of
the lot, a large maintenance building housed the garage and mechanic shop.
Attached to it was a smaller structure containing a restroom, showers, and a
small locker room for the truckers parked nearby. Most of the trucks were
parked in a line near the back of the parking lot. At the moment, only the tall
Textro sign and the red and gold neon around the top of the main building was
lit, leaving the trucks sitting back in the gathering gloom.

“You ready to do
this, kemosabe?” Harley pulled the old pickup into a parking space between the
gas pumps and the front of the building. The spaces for cars ran in a row
parallel to the building, about thirty feet away from the front sidewalk.

“Just give me a
minute,” Deke complained, his throat suddenly tight and dry. “I need to think
up an approach that at least has some chance of success here. You act like you
just want me to run in there and tackle her or something.”

Harley laughed.

“Now I would pay
real money to see that!”

Deke shook his
head and rolled his eyes.

“You’re a sick
man, Harley,” he sighed. “Just so you know.”

“But I’m in your
corner, Deke. Never forget.”

“Oh yeah, lucky
me,” Deke grumbled and opened the truck door. “Well, let’s get on with it. I
can figure out how to do this over some coffee.”

He hopped out
and met Harley in front of the truck before the two strode across the parking
lot under the darkening sky. The air felt thick and electric from the
approaching storm.  It wasn’t quite nightfall, but the windows already
shined with a cheery light casting long bright rectangles on the ground
outside. Still, the only hint of autumn Deke could detect was the less than
usual number of bugs starting to fly around the outside lights.

He pushed open
the door and stepped into the truck stop.

The entrance
opened into the store side of the truck stop, with another glass door to his
immediate left leading to the restaurant. The store itself featured a bright
collection of knick knacks, bumper stickers, drinks, and the usual junk food
that people on the road found convenient to eat on the go.

Gladys Deacon
looked up from her perch behind the counter, then immediately lost interest and
went back to watching the little portable TV behind her counter. A skinny,
middle aged woman with a beehive hairdo, Gladys had been a fixture here as long
as Deke could remember. The only concession the schoolmarmish clerk had made to
the changing times was now she stepped outside to smoke her cigarettes.
Otherwise, she remained the same dour woman Deke remembered when his father
brought him here as a kid. 

He wasted no
time in turning and pushing through the side door to the restaurant beyond.