Atonement

ATONEMENT

A Joe Logan Thriller

-2-

By

Michael Kerr

Published by Head Nook Books

Copyright © 2013 Michael Kerr

Discover other Titles by Michael Kerr at
MichaelKerr.org

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ATONEMENT

The
muscles in his forearms and biceps knotted, bulged and trembled.  He had both of his gloved hands clamped around her neck; had been squeezing hard and long enough to make his fingers ache, but the bitch was still thrashing her legs and flailing her arms in the confined space.  She was going berserk, fighting for her life.  And the force he was exerting was not stopping her from screaming.  The high-pitched shrieking was filling the vehicle, reverberating, spiking his mind and causing all logical thought to be dispelled.  He panicked, dug his thumbs into her throat, and the shrill screech ceased as suddenly as it had begun, due to the hyoid bone fracturing under extreme pressure.

He let go, pulled away and watched her eyes roll back to show the whites.  Her body shook violently as she put her hands to the seat of the pain, and low whooping sounds began to emanate from her gaping mouth as she attempted to breathe.

It took under a minute – that seemed like an eternity to him – for her to slump down in the seat and stop moving.  She had died of asphyxia.  His mind reeled.  It hadn’t meant to end up like this.  Fifteen minutes ago, when he had stopped alongside her and offered her a lift into town, he had no idea that he was soon to be faced with the biggest problem of his life to date.  He needed to think quickly and make sure that he could not be linked to the dead teenager.  First things first.  He had to make sure that there were none of his fingerprints or any trace of him on the body, and then dump it.

He looked through the windshield and checked his rearview.  Just darkness in both directions on the country road.  He put the car in reverse and accelerated back a hundred yards to the entrance to a trail on the left-hand side, which he knew she had walked out from.  His racing heart began to slow and beat normally.  He now had a plan.  The car parked up ahead of him at the side of the track was his salvation.  In it was sitting the perfect candidate for the girl’s murder.

CHAPTER ONE

It
had been a little before six p.m. when Ray left the simple two-story, three-bay house with a front porch and a tin roof, which was adjacent to the Pinetop Motel, that was also owned by his father, Clifton Marshall.

Ray drove his Black PT Cruiser the two miles into town, to park up outside the detached stucco on Walnut, which was a street on a small development on the west side of Carson Creek, just a five minute walk from Main Street.

Tanya waved from the bay window, and two minutes later she was in the car, pecking him on the cheek and telling Ray all about her day as he set off to drive south towards Manitou Springs, where his pal Greg walker’s father owned a ranch.

The early evening was cold and bright, and they were looking forward to the cookout, and the local band that sounded a lot like the Zac Brown Band.

Ray should not have attempted to drive home.  He had snorted a few lines of gratis coke, and sunk a little too much beer.  Tanya managed to get him to leave at a little after nine, and the journey back to the Creek was going well until he pulled off onto an almost overgrown trail that had once led to a small, timber-framed house that had burned down a decade back, and been left to be reclaimed by nature. It was still known as Old Man Carver’s place.

Ray cut the engine and started to fool around.

“You’re stoned,”  Tanya said.  “Please, Ray, take me home.”

“Jesus, Tan’, I’m fine,”  Ray said, cupping her right breast and deciding that after six months of going steady it was definitely time that they got it on.  She would let him use his hands and fingers wherever he wanted, within reason, and was happy to jack him off, and even on occasion give him a blowjob, but wouldn’t let him actually do ‘it’.

“No!”  Tanya said as he put his hand up her skirt and attempted to work his way inside her panties.  “Not tonight.  Just take me home.”

Ray withdrew his hand and just sat for a minute.  He was angry.  He thought the world of Tanya, but couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to do it.  He took a small plastic zip lock bag out of his coat pocket, shook a little white powder from it onto the back of his hand and snorted it up so fast that he thought he would choke as it hit the back of his throat.

“Here,”  Ray said, wiping the remaining few grains across Tanya’s top lip with his finger.  “Maybe some of this will put you in the mood.”

“You’re pissing me off, Ray,”  Tanya said, pulling away from him.

He slapped her, hard.  Wished that he hadn’t as soon as the sound of the palm of his hand on her cheek died away.  But it was done.  Spilt milk.  He could never rewind time and take it back.

“You bastard,”  Tanya said, her eyes blazing with shock and anger.  She opened the door, got out and stormed off along the trail towards the blacktop, with tears spilling down her cheeks.  She loved Ray, or at least thought that she had up until a few seconds ago.  Now she had the feeling that it was over between them; had read somewhere that if a guy hits you once, he’ll hit you again, and again.  She had no intention of going that route.  Okay, maybe it was the combination of too much beer, coke and frustration that had caused him to lash out, but she didn’t need it.

Reaching the highway, she turned right and headed north.  It was only a three mile walk back to town.  No sweat.  She zipped her fleece jacket up, put her hands in the pockets and kept walking.  If he drove up and apologized and expected her to forgive him and get in the car, then he didn’t know her as well as he thought he did.

Ray sat back and closed his eyes.  The coke was stopping him from thinking straight.  He felt a little woozy and thought that he may throw up.  Decided to wait a few minutes and then go after Tanya; tell her that he was sorry and take her home.  Maybe after a day or two she would forgive him.  He hoped so.  She was special, and he loved her.  He sat mulling it over with the heat on and the car radio playing, and passed out.

Tanya had only walked a couple of hundred yards when she heard the car approaching from behind her.  She kept walking and didn’t look round, even as the vehicle slowed down alongside her.  It was with peripheral vision that she realized that it wasn’t Ray’s PT Cruiser.

The window slid down.  “Get in,”  the driver said.

Tanya thought about it.  She was cold to the bone already, and there was snow in the air, so she opened the passenger door and climbed in.

“What the hell are you doing in the middle of nowhere at this time of night?”  he said.

“I had a spat with my boyfriend,”  she said.  “I left him back up the road aways and decided to walk home.”

He reached across slowly and brushed her top lip with his leather-clad index finger.  Put it to his mouth and licked it.  “Well, what do you know?”  he said.  “What would your father think? I’d bet the farm he doesn’t know you do nose candy.”

Tanya swallowed hard.  Her dad would totally freak out if he thought she did drugs, and wouldn’t believe that someone had put the shit on her face.

“It isn’t how it looks,”  she said.  The words sounded lame.

Maybe it was at that moment he decided to have sex with her.  He saw the fear in her eyes.  He had leverage.  She was young, good looking, and her skirt had ridden up on the seat.  He was suddenly hard and wanted her.

“Where exactly is your boyfriend?”  he said.

“Parked off-road near Old Man Carver’s place. Why?”

He shrugged.  “Just wondered.  I reckon I could forget I even saw you tonight,”  he said.  “If you were nice to me, I’d drop you off near where you live and be on my way.  How does that sound?”

Tanya didn’t know what to say.  She wanted to just get out of the vehicle and run back to Ray, but knew that it would make things worse.  Ray had been drinking,
and
doing coke.  “Please,”  she said.  “Don’t do this.”

He grinned.  “I’m not doing anything, honey.  Not without your consent.  You either make me happy for a few minutes, or we drive straight to your house and have a talk with your father.  It’s your call.”

Tanya didn’t move or say a word.  He drove up onto the berm and cut the lights and engine.  Unbuckled the seat belt and leaned across to put his hand on her knee, and then slid it up the inside of her thigh to touch the soft mound at the fork of her legs.

Tanya could not have moved an inch for a million dollars.  It was as if his touch had turned her to stone.  She just sat there.

“Help me out here, honey,”  he said.  “Lift up that cute little ass and take off those fuckin’ pantyhose.”

She was petrified.  Found herself reaching up under her skirt and pulling her hose and panties down, and slipping them off.  She could hear his breathing getting quicker.

“Open your legs,”  he said, and she did, and he could see the dark triangle of short hair that was bisected by a glistening slash of flesh.

He relaxed.  She was his for the taking.  He used his other hand to unzip his pants and release his rigid penis for her to see.  “Don’t be shy, touch it, play with it, and then suck it.”  he said.

Her hand reached over as if it was separate to her, no longer a part of her body.  She wrapped her hand around his throbbing member and began to work it up and down.  Tried to pretend that it was no big deal.  She had done the same to Ray dozens of times.  A few seconds in her mouth and the guy would pop and the episode would be over with.

“Whoa,”  he said, pulling her head up by the hair as her warm, wet mouth almost took him over the edge.  “Climb over here and sit on me.  I need to be inside you, honey.”

Tanya somehow forced herself to straddle him, only mentally breaking free of whatever spell she was under as she felt the tip of his penis touch her bare skin. She jerked backwards.  Her mind screamed
this is not going to happen!

His hands grasped her buttocks and pulled her forward, and that was when she found her voice and began to yell as she fought to be free of him.

Ray woke up with a pounding headache.  He felt sick.  Got out of the car, fired up a cigarette and threw up in the long grass at the side of the trail.

It was almost dawn, and there was a fine covering of snow.  The cold made him feel a little better, but not much.  He’d been a complete asshole, and knew that Tanya would never go out with him again.  Shit!  He climbed back in the car and drove home.  Sneaked in quietly so as not to wake his dad, went to the fridge and drank a half carton of OJ before tiptoeing through to his bedroom, where he got undressed and was asleep less than a minute after his head hit the pillow.

CHAPTER TWO

The
events that had taken place that past summer in West Virginia were now like all of life’s experiences; seemingly less real to him with some time and miles separating him from when they occurred.  He didn’t dwell on the past.  He had memories, both good and bad, but lived for the day.  His take on it was that life in the main was a random chain of events, and that too much planning was a waste of valuable time.

The red LCD display on the cheap plastic radio-alarm clock on top of the nightstand glared 6:50
A.M
.  He got up slowly, went over to the coffeemaker on the dresser and switched it on before heading for the bathroom.  By the time he’d shaved and showered the coffee was filling the motel room with his favorite aroma.  He pulled on a clean shirt, boxers, and his not so clean jeans and Timberland boots, filled a mug with the steaming java and went out onto the porch that ran the length of the block of twelve rooms. Sitting on a plastic chair outside the door, he took a deep breath of the clear Colorado air and sipped his coffee as he looked west to the white-tipped Rocky Mountains.

It briefly crossed Logan’s mind that he should consider this day in January to be special; it was his fiftieth birthday.  He sighed, had another mouthful of coffee and decided that to a twenty-year-old he would seem ancient, and that to an octogenarian he would still be a whippersnapper.  Everything was relative.  He didn’t like to look back over his shoulder and contemplate the way his life had worked out, or what had brought him to this particular moment in time.

He turned his head as he heard the sound of tires on the thin carpet of frosted snow.  A Dodge Charger with a Sheriff logo on the side slid by and parked outside the motel owner’s house, which was only thirty yards from where Logan was sitting.

It was seven-fifteen.  The law didn’t make courtesy calls on local residents at that time of the morning.  Something had gone down, and Logan wondered what that might be.

The two uniforms got out of the cruiser and walked up the steps, into the shadow of the porch, and one of them removed his hat and rapped on the door in a businesslike manner.  He was approximately Logan’s age; slim, about six-foot tall, and had a weathered, clean shaven face topped by a steel-gray crew cut.  The other cop was shorter, a little overweight, and wore his Smokey hat set at a jaunty angle over his ruddy face.

Clifton Marshall opened the door, and after a few words the cops went inside.

Logan got up and went into his room, recharged his mug and went back out to sit down again, to watch and wait.

It had been ten days ago that he’d walked off the highway and down the driveway to the Pinetop Motel.  He had planned on staying maybe two or three nights, maximum, but had liked the place and the location so was still there.  And Clifton was a genuinely nice guy, who didn’t pry or come on too strong or friendly.  They had shared a beer on several occasions, and enjoyed small talk about the area and the weather.

Twenty minutes passed, and then the two cops came out of the house with Clifton and his son, Ray.  They guided Ray into the back of the cruiser and drove off leaving Clifton standing in the dirt at the bottom of the steps looking bemused.

Logan got up again and walked across to Clifton.  “You okay,”  he said.

“No, Logan.  I’d have to say that I’m about as far from okay as you can get.  They just took my boy in for questioning, and it seems pretty serious.”

Logan said nothing.  Just waited to see if Clifton wanted to offload.

“I’ve got a pot full of coffee in the kitchen,”  Clifton said.  “I’d be obliged if you’d help me drink it.”

Logan nodded.  Followed Clifton into the house and through to the large dining kitchen that had a scenic view out of a picture window to die for.

“Ray’s been courting a girl by the name of Tanya Foster for a few months,”  Clifton began as he picked up the pot and set them both up with a strong Colombian blend.  “They went over to Manitou Springs to a cookout, which was actually held in a barn, due to the cold weather.  Anyway, from what the sheriff says, Tanya has gone missing.  Never got home last night.  Her parents called the sheriff’s office after spending half the night phoning everyone that Tanya knows.”

“Did they phone here?”  Logan said.

“Supposedly, but real late.  I must’ve been asleep.  And I’d only just got up when the police came to my door.”

“Check your machine,”  Logan said.

Clifton went to the phone.  He had one message, and played it: ‘This is Wayne Foster.  Pick up, please.  Tanya was supposed to be out with your son last night, and she hasn’t arrived home.  ‘Hello.  Get back to me, and quick.’

“Shit!”  Clifton said.

“What does Ray have to say?”  Logan asked.

“He was shocked.  Said that they stopped off on the way back to the Creek, and ended up having an argument.  Ray told the sheriff that Tanya got out of the car and walked off.”

Clifton paused and drank some more coffee.

“And?”  Logan said.

“That’s it.  Ray admitted to having drunk too much beer.  Said he thought he’d give it a couple of minutes and follow Tanya, but fell asleep.  He woke up before dawn and drove home.”

“But she didn’t make it,”  Logan said as a statement of fact.

Clifton sighed.  “That’s the size of it.  I don’t get it.  Her folks have obviously contacted all her friends.”

“Sounds bad, Clifton.  She either left the highway for some reason, or had an accident, or…”

“Or what, Logan?”

“Or she was lifted.  Or there’s something that your son isn’t telling you.”

“Ray’s a good kid.  I know that he wouldn’t have harmed her.”

“What did the sheriff say?”

“Not a lot.  He took Ray’s car keys, and asked for the clothes that he’d been wearing last evening.”

“They already suspect foul play,”  Logan said.  “You’d best phone your lawyer.  He should be down at the sheriff’s office with Ray.”

“What are you saying, Logan?”

“That if I was investigating this, I would already be thinking that the girl is incapacitated somewhere, or maybe even dead.”

“Jesus!  She’s only been missing for a few hours.”

Logan shrugged.  “Ruling out alien abduction, what would you be thinking and feeling at this minute if you were her dad, or the police?”

“I’d be worried sick.  But there must be a simple explanation.  Ray would
not
have harmed her, believe me.”

“The sheriff will have the area searched,”  Logan said.  “If she’s okay, they’ll find her.  And if she isn’t, they’ll probably still find her”

Clifton swallowed hard. “And if they don’t?”

“Then Ray knows where she is, or someone else does.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know what it means.  If Ray is telling the truth, then she has had some kind of accident, and is too injured to use her cell phone.  We didn’t have a lot of snow through the night, so there’s no reason to assume she got lost.  Worst case scenario, she was walking on the wrong road at the wrong time, and someone lifted her.”

Clifton hung his head and just stared into his cup for a minute.  When he looked back up he asked Logan, “What did you mean when you said ‘if I was investigating this’?”

“I used to be a cop,”  Logan said.

“And you’ve dealt with stuff like this?”

“Yeah, Clifton, I was a homicide detective.”

“Will you help me…and Ray, if we need it?”

Logan went over to the counter and filled up his cup from the coffeepot.  He didn’t want to get involved.  Was ready to move on, and was positive that the local law would resolve the case.  “Phone the lawyer,”  he said.  “I’ll keep an eye on how the sheriff proceeds with this.  But if your son has nothing to hide it should all work out.”

“Thanks,”  Clifton said as he got up and walked over to the wall mounted phone and picked up the receiver as he ran a finger down a list of numbers pinned to a cork wallboard next to it.  He punched up a number, and after three rings it was answered.

“Kate Donner.”

“Hi, Kate,”  Clifton said.  “Did you hear about Tanya Foster?”

“It’s a small town, Clifton, and I’m the only lawyer here.  I hear about everything.  What’s the problem?”

“They just took Ray in for questioning, and I don’t want him there without representation.  Can you go and check that it’s being handled right?”

“Are you hiring me?”

“Yes, I guess I am.”

“Okay, so tell me what you know; everything. And then I’ll go across and let the sheriff know that Ray is as of now my client.”