May Cooler Heads Prevail (17 page)

Gunther croaked out the words, “Okay! That first one’s fine with me, man.”

Freedom let him off the desk, but not off the hook. “Good choice. Stay put.”

Freedom walked over to me and helped me stand up.

“What happened?” The words came out like I had a
mouthful of peanut butter. I held the left side of my face with my hand.

Looking somewhat sheepish, Freedom admitted, “Sorry. I ducked.”

“You ducked?” Then the words came full circle inside my mind. “You ducked!”

“It was a reaction. I forgot you were standing behind me.” Freedom gently took my hand away from my face. “Whew, that’s going to swell up and be real ugly looking.”

“Thank you for that diagnosis, Dr. Freedom,” I snapped, putting my hand back on my face. I wondered just how long I would have to leave my hand there before my face went from real ugly to only sort-of ugly.

Freedom turned to Gunther and asked, “You got any ice?”

Gunther pointed toward a door. “In the garage. Ice is in the freezer.”

“Anything to put the ice in?”

“Yeah, clean towels, third drawer down, next to the refrigerator.”

Freedom fixed me a makeshift ice pack, and I held it on my face.

“You okay, Dixie? Gunther’s ready to talk. He understands the situation now.” Freedom turned to Gunther adding, “Don’t you?”

Gunther nodded. The man looked like he’d spill his life story from birth on if we asked.

I grabbed the desk chair Gunther had been sitting in
when we came in, rolled it well away from both men, and sat down. “Mr. Gunther, I realize this has been a painful experience for, uh, both of us. But if you will just tell us what you know about the night Dolly went missing, then we can get our business here over and done with.”

“Yeah, okay,” Gunther said, rubbing the back of his head. “Me and Dolly had a thing going on for more than a year. It was sort of off and on. She’d get mad or I’d get mad, then we’d make up.” Gunther lifted the corners of his mouth in what passed for a leering smile. “In the good times we sure had us some fun. Things seemed like they was goin’ pretty good for a while there, but she started actin’ funny. Breakin’ dates, not bein’ home when she said she would be, things like that. I began to suspect she was seeing someone else. Late one afternoon I called to ask her out. She told me she had other plans. Big plans. Made me so mad. We had us one huge fight. She admitted she was seeing someone, but she never told me who. Just said he treated her like a lady, something she didn’t think I knew how to do. She said this guy was gonna marry her. According to her, they were gonna go away and live some kind of fancy life. After she told me that, I went down to Jessup’s, had a few too many, and me and some buddies went fishing. I waited a couple of days, then I went back to her place to see if she had cooled down and come to her senses yet. She wasn’t there. I figured maybe she really did take off with this guy. Just to cause her some grief, I called the police and reported her missing. They looked for her for a day or
two, then they figured out I just wanted to get back at her, and they quit searching. That’s it, the whole story.” Gunther shrugged then hung his head down and added, “She was a wild one all right, but she could turn a man’s insides to jelly by just smilin’ real pretty. Sometimes I still miss her.” He looked at me, shamefaced. “Sorry. I just can’t stand to think of her with another guy, even after all these years.”

Although the relationship between the two was obviously not a healthy one, I could see that at one time Gunther had feelings for Dolly. I hastened to reassure him. “Mr. Gunther, our friend is not the one Dolly was seeing. Do you have any idea who this man was? Any wild guesses or hunches?”

“Naw.” Gunther shook his head. “She only said that when he put a ring on her finger, it would surprise everyone in Brogan’s Ferry and Kenna Springs.”

“Do you think, then, that this guy she was seeing was from Kenna Springs?” Freedom asked.

“Don’t know for sure.” Gunther shrugged. “Always thought so, though. There was talk around town that she was sneakin’ around with some guy from Kenna Springs.”

“What makes you so sure Dolly just ran off?” I prodded. “Couldn’t something bad have happened to her? They found her car parked near Addison’s Mill. Didn’t that make you suspicious at all?”

Gunther sat down on the edge of the desk. “Naw, you have to know Dolly. She used to do all kinds of crazy stuff. She’d take off every now and again when she felt like it. When
she came back, she’d tell me how sorry she was, and I’d take her back.” Gunther went quiet, tracing an imaginary pattern in the dust of his desk with one of his fingers. “For a long time I thought she’d come back. She never did.”

Just then I came the closest I would probably ever come to liking Chad Gunther. He loved Dolly and missed her. Everyone should have someone who missed them.

I rolled my chair a little closer and gently asked him, “So, you think she is still alive?”

Gunther’s eyes widened, and I saw that he was on the verge of tears. “Sure I do. I always have.” He stood up and turned his back to us. “And if she’s not, I don’t wanna know about it.”

I looked over at Freedom and motioned with a nod of my head toward the door to let him know it was time to leave.

Freedom extended his hand to Gunther. “Sorry about the head thumping.”

Gunther looked at Freedom’s extended hand for a moment then reached out and shook it.

I handed Gunther what was now a sopping wet towel with melting ice in it, and Freedom and I left.

As we walked out the door, I heard the rumble of thunder. The rain would come soon. Maybe it was just the throbbing sensation from the swelling around my eye, but when I looked at the dark clouds, I felt a sense of foreboding.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

T
he numbing effect of the ice pack was wearing off. Pain was taking center stage in my mind again by the time I got into Freedom’s truck.

I put on my seat belt and frowned at Freedom. “You
ducked!”

“I said I was sorry, and I really am.” Freedom sounded sorry, but he was also grinning from ear to ear. “I suppose now I’ll have to listen to you moan and groan all the way home.”

“At the very least,” I snapped.

Freedom backed the truck out then put his foot on the brake and stopped. Leaning over, he pulled a small plastic cylinder out of the glove compartment. Flashing a smile my way, he commented, “Maybe not,” and took out two yellow earplugs and stuffed them in his ears. “I wear these when I’m working with my chainsaw.” Then the man actually had the nerve to chuckle as we drove off.

All the way out of town I tried to figure out how to remove those yellow earplugs from his ears—accompanied
by as much pain as possible.

I was still working out the details as we passed the city limits of Brogan’s Ferry. A few miles later I glanced at the rearview mirror on my side and noticed a hay truck with a full load of hay turning from a side road and coming up behind us. Another glance told me that the hay truck was moving fast and edging up pretty close to the back end of the truck.

Tapping Freedom on the arm, I said, “You’d better let that hay truck pass us.”

“What?” Freedom yelled.

“THE HAY TRUCK, LET IT PASS,” I yelled back, pointing at the truck behind us.

Freedom looked in his rearview mirror and nodded. No one was coming from the opposite direction, so he moved his truck over to the shoulder as far as he could. Rolling down his window, he stuck his arm out and motioned for the hay truck to pass.

I was watching from the rearview mirror on my side as the driver looked like he was starting to pass then suddenly swerved into the bed of Freedom’s truck.

Our truck started fishtailing across the road. All I could do was hang on to the door with one hand and the dashboard with the other and hope the seat belt held until Freedom could get the truck under control.

When he did, the driver in the hay truck hit us again. This time hard enough for Freedom’s truck to spin in and out
of a shallow ditch. I bounced high enough to hit my head. Freedom pressed down on the gas pedal and tried to outrun the hay truck.

I held on to the dash and yelled, “Whoever is in that hay truck wants us dead!”

“What?” Freedom yelled back.

“TAKE THOSE STUPID EARPLUGS OUT OF YOUR EARS,” I yelled, pointing to his ears.

“Oh, yeah.” He plucked them out and tossed them to me. The hay truck was edging up again. It didn’t seem to be the time to worry about being neat and tidy, so I dropped them on the floor and braced myself.

“Can you outrun him?”

“I don’t know, this is an old truck,” Freedom answered, then he looked at the gauges on his dashboard and added, “Uh-oh!”

“‘Uh-oh’? What does ‘uh-oh’ mean?”

“It means I’m on empty. But I’ve usually got a couple of gallons left when it says empty. Don’t worry, we’ll make it.”

“What about the bridge by Addison’s Mill?” I asked. “If we can’t lose this maniac by the time we get to the bridge, we’re in trouble. One good bump on that flat concrete bridge, and there’s nothing to stop this truck from diving right into Twelve Mile Creek. We’ll be swimming home, providing we’re still alive. If you have any ideas, now is the time to say so.”

“Well… I have one idea,” he said. “In the truck bed there’s
several glass jars of wood stain. They’re packed in a cardboard box. One of us could climb through the back window, grab those jars, and throw them at his windshield. If he can’t see where he’s going, maybe he’ll have a harder time hitting us.” Then he added, “Of course, one of us is busy driving.”

“Won’t that make him madder?”

“You got any better ideas? The bridge is coming up.”

At the moment there didn’t seem to be any other alternative. I unbuckled my seat belt, turned around, and slid the back window open. I had started to climb out the window when another problem occurred to me. “What if he has a gun? Won’t he shoot me?”

“If he had a gun with him, he would’ve used it by now to shoot out my tires,” Freedom answered, keeping an eye on the hay truck. “Dixie, you’d better get through that window pretty quick. He’s starting to close the gap.”

Bad timing was the password for this nightmare. I no more than managed to get almost half my body out the window when I felt the rain starting to fall. I saw the flash of lightning and heard the
crack
of thunder overhead. I started wiggling my way out the window. Finally, my hands touched the truck bed. I made it! I was just at the point where I could ease my legs down, when the hay truck bumped us again. For a brief moment I was airborne, until gravity took over and I slid face-first across the wet metal truck bed. Every bone in my body vibrated, but I could move, no broken bones. I thanked God, sincerely, and crawled over to the box of
clinking glass jars in the corner of the truck. I tried to drag the box over to the tailgate, but the rain made the cardboard soft and it tore. Praying it would be enough, I grabbed three jars and scooted backward to the end of the bed.

The rain started coming down harder, and I had to squint my eyes to see anything. I threw the first jar and heard the glass break on the pavement, but the hay truck kept coming. Freedom had told me to aim for the windshield. I threw the second jar. It hit the hood of the hay truck, rolled off, and broke on the pavement. I was getting better.

The hay truck hit us again. Freedom’s truck swerved all over the road. I couldn’t hold on to brace myself and was thrown from one side of the truck bed to the other before Freedom got the truck under control. I had the one jar left in my hand. Popping my head over the rim, I threw the jar as hard as I could.

It hit the mark and crashed dead center on the windshield of the hay truck. Still squinting in the rain, I saw the truck swerve from side to side and heard the tires squealing as the driver fought for control. But the truck was too heavy and the road too slick. It spun off the road, sideswiped a tree, and came to a lopsided stop.

I continued my squinty-eyed watch from the bed of Freedom’s truck as the hay truck became smaller and smaller. At first I wondered why Freedom hadn’t stopped to let me back into the cab, then I realized he wanted to put some distance between us and the guy who wanted to kill us. That
was fine with me.

Freedom crossed the bridge and stopped the truck so I could get back in the cab. Dripping wet and shivering, I announced, “I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.”

“I turned the heater up full-blast, but it’ll take a few minutes for it to kick in. You did real good, Dixie. We’d probably be dead by now if it weren’t for you.” Freedom took off his jacket, put it around my shoulders, and held me close, rubbing my arms and shoulders to give me more warmth.

Thanking him through chattering teeth, I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. I wanted to cry. I wanted to sleep. I wanted an ambulance. I wanted to laugh hysterically. I didn’t know what I wanted. Except that I wanted to be warm again.

Finally I stopped shivering, and I knew what I wanted to do. Pulling away from Freedom and handing him back his jacket, I said calmly, “I think we should go back and see who the driver of that hay truck is. He’s probably hurt or may even be dead. I don’t think we have anything to fear from him, so it’s safe for us to go back there. Whoever is in that truck is probably the same person who murdered Dolly and Aaron. And I want him turned over to the police. We can put an end to this today, right here, right now.”