HIGHWAY HOMICIDE (6 page)

She nodded reluctantly. “Please don’t keep calli
ng me ‘ma’am’. My name’s Erica and I’ll need to pack a bag. So how long do you think I’ll be away?”

“Well, it’s about sixty miles or so from here to
Burlington. So less than a couple of hours each way if the weather holds up. I could have you back here later on tonight, or early tomorrow if that would be easier on you.” Carl told her.

“Alright,” she said, and took hold of his hand. Her tears had stopped and her voice was steady now. “Whichever is
best for you. I really don’t mind. I’m really sorry I gave you such a hard time when you came to the door. I didn’t mean it but you know how it is when a woman is living alone. You just don’t invite strange men into the house. Not even policemen if you don’t have to. Not these days, you don’t. It wasn’t you, it’s just the times we live in, isn’t it?”

Carl nodded. “It’s alright, I understand. I’ll go outside and wait in the cruiser, get it warmed up
. You can come on out when you’re ready.”

She squeezed his hand gratefully and went to pack a bag. Carl went back out and started the cruiser. Then he called Judy on the radio.

“Hi, Jude, Carl here. Can you hear me okay?”

“Bit of static, Carl, but, yes, I can hear you well enough. What’s up?”

“I’m bringing Erica Caspar back up with me. She’s the victim’s sister. She’s agreed to do the ID for us. I’m taking her over to Burlington now and I’ll get Almost to run her back down here in the morning, I think.”

“What’s she like, Carl?” Judy asked.

“Nice lady, when you get to know her, I guess. Why do you ask?”

“Well, Carl, if she’s got to be up here overnight, she can bed down at my place if she wants. I’ve got plenty of room and Almost can pick her up here in the morning. Better yet, why don’t you bring her here for s
upper as well? I can rustle something for us all while you’re in Burlington. Run it by her and see what she thinks and Carl, call me when you are leaving Burlington so I can time the meal. I think I’ll ask Almost to drop by for a piece of pie and he can meet our guest at the same time. That be alright with you? It must be just terrible to lose a sister like that, poor woman.”

“Okay and thanks, Jude, that’s very nice of you. I’ll tell her and get back to you.”

It was very nice of her, Carl thought. One of these days, he was going to have to discuss the economic use of radio time with her as well but not today. Not with one of Jude’s delicious suppers in the offing.
Definitely
not today!

Chapter Ten

Back on the highway, David Gates, the man driving the old red Ford tractor, had reached an intersection. He climbed down from the tractor’s seat and trudged through the snow to a large road sign.

Once again he was thankful for the old leather gloves that he’d found. He reached up and brushed his gloved hands over the face of the sign. The bulk of the snow dropped away immediately, revealing the highway information underneath.

It was only important to someone like himself, a stranger to the area. All the locals knew exactly whe
re they were and what roads they were on. He recalled a visit he’d made to Barbados once. Some of the local people there turned all the road signs around. Consequently, any visitors hiring their own cars to drive instead of using the local taxis got themselves hopelessly lost. He, himself, had driven for forty five minutes, only to find himself right back where he’d started.

In
Vermont, as in any other State, visitors perhaps would know the Interstates, but unless they had reason to go off them, they’d probably never use the secondary highways like this one.

The sign informed him
he was at the junction of 100 and 15. These were more direct routes rather than highways, but if he continued on down, he’d hit Interstate 89. Ahead of him were the small towns of Hyde Park and Morrisville. Neither of the names meant a thing to him but a further sign informed him Stowe was about another fifteen miles further down the 100 highway. He recognized that name, at least, as being in the Green Mountain ski area.

What in the world was he doing way up here anyway, he thought. And how had he got up to this part of
Vermont? His home in Rutland was close to seventy miles south of here. His last memory was of entering his home and seeing…? Once again, the door to his memory slammed tightly shut on him.

He trudged back through the snow to the idling tractor and clambered awkwardly back aboard.
In spite of the fact he was now wearing everything, his own clothes, the heavy parka, gloves and hat, with the oilskin and sou’wester over all of that, he was still bitterly cold. His cheeks and nose felt raw as he wiped a wet glove over his face, and he immediately regretted it. He’d also got his boots and the legs of his jeans soaking wet again.

These Ford tractors had never been designed for long trips along the side of a highway and offered no protection to the elements at all, especially in winter. More modern models offered protection in the form of a Plexiglas cabin. It had already taken him a couple of hours to travel from the old house to where he was now and it was still bitterly cold.

Thinking of the old house and the skeletal figure upstairs in the bed, he once again had an acute feeling of déjà vu. As he’d approached closer to the figure, to check out the hole in the forehead, a couple of mice had scurried out from between the skeleton’s ribs. He’d been terrified, because in the dim light, it had seemed to him as if the skeleton itself had moved.

This morning, befo
re he’d left, he’d considered going back up to take a better look. Maybe to take the rifle with him on the tractor too, but he quickly thought better of both options.

Right now he was guilty of car theft, and quite
possibly he’d been the cause of the girl’s death as well. But if it had to be, it would better to just be caught, than to be caught in the possession of a firearm as well. That would definitely get him shot, without a doubt.

He also realized the old tractor wouldn’
t run much further on the small amount of gas he’d put into it. Right now he’d have to think about shelter again for the coming night. With the snow now stopped, he could see clearly across the surrounding rolling countryside. If he could see clearly, it followed that anyone looking for him would be able to see equally clearly as well.

He’
d be smart to find a suitable hiding place early, even if he didn’t actually go to it until after dark. Also, even beneath his layers of clothes, he was already shivering just as badly as before.

He had to dump the tractor now as well, which gave him
another problem. Whatever he’d brought with him, the oil lamp, canned food and candles, he’d have to carry with him. The old tractor had got him this far but it was going to be way too conspicuous and a lot of people had already seen it on the highway. It was
bright red
, for God’s sake! Why wouldn’t they have seen it?

He put the idling tractor into gear and made a left turn at the intersection. Using the shadows cast by the bright sunshine as
a guide, he believed he should now be heading east.

After another four to five miles after making his turn, he came to a narrow secondary road, also on his left.
When he’d made the turn on to this road, he could see a house about a few hundred yards away, on his right.

As well as the house, he could see a medium sized red painted barn with an attached silo, on the far side of the house.

He drove the tractor past the house and on further down the road, past the barn as well. When he was well past it, he once again used a break in the trees to hide his getaway vehicle in the field behind them.

As he got down from the tractor, he could see the back of the barn facing him across the field. It had been built at the top of a small hill.
The house he’d seen was completely obscured from his view on the other side of the hill by the bulk of the barn and silo. Likewise, he was out of the view of the house as well.

Reaching into the wooden crate under the tractor’s seat, he began to stuff the pockets of the parka with everything in it except the oil lamp. This he had to carry in his hand.

As he turned to walk away, through the snow covered sloping field to the barn, he looked back at the tractor, and being red, it stood out from the surrounding snow and was easily visible. The saving grace was that, although it could be clearly seen from the road, it couldn’t be seen from the house.

Of course, if the house’s owners left the house, they would surely wonder what someone else’s tractor was doing in their field. With the blizzard now over it was highly unlikely that even blowing snow would do much to hide it.

After his painful and totally unnecessary experience of the previous night, he made no attempt to cover his tracks as he plowed his way across the field to the barn. This wasn’t exactly what he’d intended, but his choices appeared to be somewhat limited. He really didn’t want to be seen walking across a field in broad daylight, but that too wasn’t an option either.

Trudging wearily uphill through the deep snow in his soaking wet boots, he finally reached the back doors of the barn. These were the animal entry doors and were securely locked. The house was on the far side of the barn and probably th
ere’d be an entry door on that side as well, providing easy access to the barn from the house.

He edged his way carefully along the back of the barn looking for another way in, out of sight of the house. As he rounded the far end, he came to a small access door, which was directly across from another smaller building. This
second building was also much closer to the house.

It had been hidden fr
om his view by the barn as he’d approached. It was similar in size to the large shed at the old house in which he’d found the tractor. He couldn’t see any signs of life anywhere from where he stood, but if he tried to investigate the smaller building, he’d then be in full view from the house.

David Gates gripped the small door’s handle and turned it. Much to his rel
ief, it opened easily and he slipped inside.

The barn itself was empty of any kind of farm animals. No cows, horses or anything else except perhaps a few mice. There were several gaps between the siding boards, where blowing snow from the night bef
ore had drifted inside. Now he was also inside, David could see there was another entry door on the house side of the barn, as he’d expected. The barn actually had two doors for cattle. The one he’d seen earlier, leading out to the field and the one he was seeing now.

There was also a large square window, set diamond fashion, high up in each end wall of the barn, plus several lower down. H
e’d noticed the typical Vermont white painted cupola on the roof as he’d approached across the field. It appeared to him the barn was no longer in use as a working farm building though.

There were many like that scattered across the State. All over the country too, he supposed, in various states of disrepair.

David shrugged off the oilskin and sou’wester and hung them on a nail beside the door. Ahead of him was a built in ladder leading to a hay loft. He set the oil lamp down on the floor at the base of it.

Leaving the
examination of the loft for a moment, he went over to the far side of the barn and peered out at the house through one of the spaces between the boards. The two storey house, with a detached garage, which he now realized the other smaller building was, appeared to be a good two hundred yards away. Because of the accumulated and drifted snow, he couldn’t tell where the yard stopped and where the driveway to the road started.

More importantly, he could see that the house was definitely occupied. Smoke drifted up lazily from the chimney and he could faintly hear the sounds of country music coming from inside the house.

He couldn’t see any signs of tracks leading from the house to the barn. With no animals to attend to, what reason would the occupants have to come in here? Especially in this weather.

David could
see the barn roof looked sound and was probably reasonably waterproof. He made his way back over to the hayloft ladder and, picking up the oil lamp, climbed the ladder up into the loft.

He cleared a space of hay and emptied his pockets of all of
his collected supplies. He’d put the lamp down but he wouldn’t light it. It would be a dead give away to the house’s occupants that there was someone inside their barn. A light shining inside the barn would surely bring them out to investigate, even if the barn was no longer in use.

David was
suddenly very hungry, almost ravenously hungry now. He attributed it to his freezing and debilitating experiences of the previous day.                Now, looking at his collection of unlabelled cans, he made his choice. Because it was the easiest, he chose what he believed to be canned meat. It was the easiest because it had its own pull strip and attached key. He thought would know immediately if it was still edible by the smell of it. Meat that was ‘off’ didn’t usually leave you in any doubt at all as to its edibility.

Beside him, poking out from under the hay was a small piece of painted plywood. He picked it up and wiped it on the sleeve of the parka. Not very hygienic, he thought, but what the hell, he had to put the meat on something.

He keyed the metal strip open and sniffed at the contents. The meat seemed to be okay and once again he was out of options. He continued pulling the top off of the can, upended it onto the piece of plywood and shook it. Nothing happened until he had shaken it several more times.

Finally it plopped out of the can and on to the plywood ‘plate’. It was corned b
eef, just as he’d thought it would be. David picked up the board and sniffed at the meat again just to be sure. The can was sure as hell long past its ‘use by’ date.

He took a deep breath, picked the block of meat up off the board and bit into it. He wasn’t sure if it was contaminated in any way but right now it tasted just great. In no time at all, he
had eaten all of it, but he’d also need to drink as well.

He’
d had nothing liquid at all since the coffee at the diner the previous day. After leaving the board on the floor of the loft, he climbed back down the ladder and began to look around the barn. He soon found what he was looking for. A galvanized metal bucket was hanging from a nail in one of the stalls.

It was dusty, but otherwise appeared to be relatively clean. He took it over to the small entry door, scooped some snow into it and wiped it out. Then he half filled it with fresh snow and carried
it back inside again. When the snow melted, the water he’d have would be as pure as he could have wished for. In the meantime he took a handful of snow and slowly put some of it into his mouth.

Carrying the bucket up the ladder, he set it down on the loft floor and packed hay around it, which he thought would speed up the melting process. He didn’t realize that out in the barn, the hay would probably insulate it rather than help to melt it.

Finally he made one more trip down the ladder. This time he took the piece of plywood with him. Carrying it over to the door as he’d done with the bucket, he used some more snow to scrub it as clean as he could.

He smiled to hims
elf as he recalled a saying his old English grandmother used. “Don’t worry about a little bit of dirt, laddie. You’ll be eating a peck of it before you die.” She never did tell him what a peck was though.

David closed the door and carrying the board with him, he climbed back up the ladder into the loft again. He put the board down beside the oil lamp and took off his jeans, his soaking wet socks and boots. He hung the socks and jeans to dry over the rail of the loft, and then he burrowed himself as deeply down into the hay as
he could. Within minutes, he’d stopped shivering and he was fast asleep.