Multiplex Fandango (35 page)

Behind him, Gibb could hear the emergency medical technicians working on the living.
Occasionally, the shrill whistle of a flatline would pierce the canopy of noise surrounding the accident.
Everyone would silence themselves as they prayed for the sound to modulate and return to the beating of a living heart.
All but once they were rewarded, and that last was a mother of three who’d been in the passenger seat of the station wagon.

By the time the U
–
Haul and the station wagon were loaded onto flatbeds and taken away and the traffic had resumed a two
-
lane flow, Gibb had learned what had happened.
The U
–
Haul had been on the side of the road, when for whatever reason it had pulled out in front of the eighteen-wheeled semi truck.
The driver of the semi had tried to avoid the accident by swerving to the left, but unbeknownst to him, the station wagon was coming on at high speed in the left hand lane preparing to pass.
Suddenly finding the semi blocking his way, the station wagon swerved off the interstate on the left, found traction, then shot back across the road where it went airborne, twisting and turning like a car should never do.
The driver of the U
–
Haul seemed oblivious to it all.
The semi had no choice but to plow through the back of it, crunching the tin box container which held seventeen illegals like a beer can.

The results were seven dead illegals, a mother and two children dead from the station wagon and lives irrevocably shattered.

The driver of the station wagon was in critical condition along with the lone surviving child.

The driver of the U
–
Haul had miraculously survived and had disappeared into the desert.
A helicopter scoured Black Mesa in the hopes they could find him.
He was most assuredly a human smuggler or coyote, as they were called.

The driver of the semi was uninjured, but rattled by the loss of life and blood that still dripped from the front grill of his truck.
As it turned out, it was Jake Robinson.
He throttled his baseball cap in his hands as he sat on the rear bumper of an ambulance retelling the story to the sergeant who’d come on the scene to supervise cleanup. It was only yesterday that he’d shared a meal with Gibb at a truck
stop and now the man’s life had irrevocably changed.
Gibb knew only too well the weight of responsibility that must be pulling on the man’s psyche.
When the sergeant moved on, Gibb took a moment to speak with Jake.

“How you doing?” Gibb asked, already knowing the answer.

Jake looked up with haunted eyes.
For a moment, he seemed happy to see a friendly face, then lost it as his nose scrunched in an effort to keep a sob from escaping.
When he finally got himself under control, he spoke.
“I didn’t have time to react.”

Gibb nodded and understood perfectly.
At seventy-five miles-per-hour no one had time to react.
There were fewer accidents since the speed increased from fifty-five to seventy-five, but there were more fatalities.

“It’s a hard thing,” Gibb said.

Some of the other patrolmen had told Jake that there was nothing he could have done, that it wasn’t his fault, but that wasn’t really true.
In fact, there was plenty that could have been done.
He could have jackknifed the rig.
He could have seen the U
–
Haul and anticipated it pulling out into traffic.
He could have jerked his wheel to the right and maybe saved everyone, except himself.
He could have stayed home an extra day and taken the next load.
The fact remained that Jake had chosen to pre
serve his own life first, then t
ake evasive action.
In that first decision came the onus of responsibility for everything that came after.

“I thought I heard them scream, but I couldn’t have.”

“Probably the airbrakes,” Gibb said, “Or the metal.”

“Probably.”
He stared at
his
hat in his hands for a moment, then looked up into Gibb’s eyes.
“But I’ll never unhear that sound.
It’s going to stay with me.
Scream or no scream, I’ll remember that sound.”
Jake shook his head.
“You don’t know what it’s like.”

Gibb knew only too well what it sounded like.
The way to make metal scream was to make it twist through the air.
He’d heard fist hand what it sounded like and it did sound like a scream, as if the metal were alive and tortured.

A tow truck had arrived to remove the semi.
Gibb said farewell to Jake and walked back to his car.
He opened his door and climbed in.
Within moments, he was ensconced in his electronic web, receiving emails and updates on crimes past and present.
The map on the screen was lit where activity remained.

Through the window he watched as a car pulled to a stop just past the scene of the accident.
An elderly woman climbed out.
She held the hand of a child and they both walked to a space about a dozen feet off the road near the crash.
The woman put down a votive candle and lit it.
The child laid a stuffed elephant beside this.
With the driver of the U
–
Haul still at large, Gibb had no choice but to check it out in the event she was related or knew him.

He strode over to where they stood.
As he approached, they looked up at him.
Tears danced in the woman’s eyes.
She looked anything but Mexican, maybe Middle Eastern with her hooked nose and downturned full-bodied lips.

“How long has it been?” she asked.

“About two hours,” Gibb said.
“Did you know the deceased?”

“I babysat the kids,” she nodded.

“How did you—“

“I got the call from Al Foster.
He’s their grandfather, er the father of the man who drove the car.
Al knew that I’d want to know.”
She looked around at the ground littered with broken glass, bits and pieces of metal and footprints.
“Which one survived?”

“The children?”

She nodded.

“The youngest.”

“Ahh.”
She swallowed slowly and stared at the votive candle.
“That would be
Alice
then.
The others were Peter and Dolan.”

Gibb jerked when he heard his name.
Dolan was pretty rare.
No one used it to name their kids these days.

“Did they suffer?”

“I don’t think so.
High speeds.
The truck.
I think it happened pretty fast.”

“Are we going to put a cross here, Ooma?” the little girl asked.

“Tomorrow honey.
We just need to keep the light on for Peter and Dolan tonight and then tomorrow we’ll bring a cross.”

The use of his name was throwing Gibb.
It was as if he’d died.
He tried to ignore it as he realized what they planned.
“You can’t stay here, ma’am.”

“But we must.
Without us, the boys will be scared.”

“It’s too dangerous.
There’s already been one accident here and the rubberneckers will be slowing to see what’s going on all night.
Having you here will just exacerbate the problem.”

“What’s a rubbernecker?” the girl asked.

“Officer Gibb—“

“Patrolman,” he corrected.

“Patrolman Gibb, I’m not going to leave these boys out here alone in the dark without someone here to take care of them.”

“But ma’am,” Gibb said, looking at the girl first, then back at the woman.
“They’re passed on.”

“Passed on where?
They’re right here.
I feel them as surely as I feel the arthritis in my knees.
If I could speak to them, I would.
At the very least they can take comfort from my presence until the sun rises.”
Seeing Gibb’s resolve crumbling she hurriedly added, “You wouldn’t want someone to die out here all alone and no one know about it, would you?
Have no one to care?”

Gibb felt his head shaking and followed it up with a weak, “No ma’am.”
Then he added, “You just be careful here and stay away from the road.
Might want to pull your car off farther if you can.”

She nodded, then turned back towards the candle.

Gibb felt dismissed.
He took one step back then returned to his cruiser.
He sat there for an hour watching the woman sit and talk to the spot on the ground.
He couldn’t help but think of the event he’d witnessed out by
Sore Finger Road
and the words of Rev Boscoe.
There was little doubt in his mind that the ghost of the woman had been there.
"Entonces ámeme dejándome ir," she’d said.
Love me by letting me go.
It was as if the shrine, the cross that had been placed there, held her soul there like a butterfly pinned to a board.
It kept her from leaving.

Now watching the woman preparing the accident site for a cross that would be placed tomorrow, Gibb wondered if the same thing was going to happen to the children, Peter and Dolan, and their mother.
And what of the seven illegals?
Would all of their souls be kept there or just the ones who were enshrined by the roadside ceremony?

So many questions.

The radio finally interrupted him and called him back towards Buckeye.
There was yet another wreck and more bodies to deal with, which meant very soon there would be more crosses.

***

He dreamed that he was buried beside the road.
He tasted gravel and fuel fumes.
The head burned and singed his skin.
He tried to move, but felt a great weight that kept him in place.
There was a brightness above him that he couldn’t see past.
Above it he knew was salvation.
He could almost see it.
If he could only rise, he could reach it.

Then came a hand, a cold skeletal hand.
He didn’t want to grab it but he felt impelled to touch it.
When he did, it was like a magnet and his hand was fast affixed to the cold, dead thing.

Then he heard the voice, her voice, the voice of the Long Cool Woman.

Gibb shot awake.

She’d said something to him that was already caught by the gossamer wings of his dreams.
It was gone, but not in real life.
He could always track her down, all he had to do was put out the call and the truckers would let him know.

He went on shift an hour early, so eager was he to talk to Rev Boscoe and the Long Cool Woman.
He had an idea, something that would help sooth his soul and allow him a modicum of peace.

He tracked the convoy down heading just past
West Indian School Road
.
He caught up to them with ease.
The mourners in the bus stared at him as he screamed past.
With lights flashing and siren blaring, he pulled in front of the three Harley
–
Davidsons.
The convoy slowed as he applied his brakes.
After a hundred yards, they all eased to a stop on the side of the road.
He watched the bikers in his rearview mirror.
Two straddled their bikes and stared at him making eye contact through the mirror.
The center biker, dropped his kickstand, and sauntered back to the Cadillac.

Gibb radioed in his position and exited the car.
He kept to the shoulder, positioning the vehicles between him and the traffic.
He passed the bikers, ignoring their impertinence and stepped to the back window of the Cadillac.
He rapped on the window with his right hand.
After several seconds, to the electric whine of a hidden motor, the window lowered.
Gibb knelt and glanced inside and saw that Rev Bosco
e
stared back at him.
Gibb turned and stared east.

"What did you mean, what you told me yesterday?" he asked.

"I said many things."

"About my life being incomplete...you don't know me.
How can you say that?"

"You know better than that.
You are of a type.
I may not know you, but I know your type."

"What type am I?"

"Mr. Gibb, we don't have time for this."

"Then make the time."
Gibb faced Rev Bosco
e
, but out of the corner of his eye he also caught the gaze of the biker, who'd been leaning down and glaring through the other rear window.
They exchanged a look that only cops and robbers knew.