Peak Road - A Short Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 10) (4 page)

7

After renting a sedan, we drove through the Strip. Mickey asked if I was hungry, and I was. We stopped at a ribs restaurant in a hotel off the Strip. The valet took the car, and we wandered through the casino. The dings, beeps, rattles, and bright lights brought the tightness to my chest again. I had to close my eyes for a moment and just breathe. It didn’t help much because the air tasted and smelled like cigarettes.

When I opened my eyes, Mickey was watching me.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

I followed him to the restaurant on the south side of the casino. A black curtain separated it from the gambling floor. A host stood behind a podium, pressing buttons on a computer screen.

“Two, please. As far from the gambling as we can get,” Mickey said.

She led us to a seat against the back wall. I could still hear the sounds of the machines, but it wasn’t as pronounced.

“Diet Coke,” I told the server when he asked what we wanted to drink.

“Beer,” Mickey said. “Heineken if you got it.” He took a moment to glance at the menu. “Something threw you off, didn’t it?”

“Sounds and lights, particularly loud sounds.”

“Hyper-sensory?”

I nodded.

“It sometimes comes with ADHD and panic attacks, doesn’t it?”

I looked at him. Panic attacks shouldn’t have made a difference, but I knew he was asking whether or not he had to worry about me.

“I’m fine,” I said.

The waiter brought our drinks, and we ordered. I got a portobello mushroom sandwich, and Mickey got ribs. We sat in silence for a moment before I noticed that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“No ring?”

“I keep it in my drawer at home. I don’t want to lose it. It was her grandfather’s.”

“Tell me about her.” He hadn’t even told me her name so far.

“She’s a doctor, or was. She retired when she tested positive. We met at a lounge in a hotel. What are the odds of that—to meet your soulmate, who lives with the same affliction you do, on some faraway island?”

“Astronomical.”

He nodded, playing with his ring finger as though the ring were there. “It’s funny the things you think about when you know the end is nearing. I’ve got maybe five or ten good years left, if that. I think about my father a lot. I saw him grow old. He would sit in a room by himself and watch television for hours. I used to think it was his way of passing the time with some entertainment, but I walked by once when I was a kid. It was turned to a channel with static, and he was still staring at the screen. I knew then that the television had always been on for my benefit. He was forgetting where he was and what he was doing and he wanted to cover it up. To save me the pain.” He paused. “My mother died when I was young, so he and my stepmother were all I had.”

“How is your stepmom?”

“She has dementia. The nurses told me she has some moments of clarity and asks for me, but by the time I get there, the moment’s passed. I see that a lot in old veterans when I volunteer.”

Mickey was one of only two Vietnam veterans I had ever met. The government had allowed him to join when he was seventeen, and he’d gotten in on the tail end of the war, but he’d seen combat. He didn’t talk about it much, and I’d never brought it up, but I wondered how much that war had shaped him.

The other Vietnam vet I’d known was a man who’d attacked a single mother in a grocery-store parking lot with a hunting knife. He’d just cut her, not killed her. We’d caught a glimpse of him on a grocery store’s video of the parking lot, but he was gone by the time police arrived. We thought he was a paranoid schizophrenic until the victim told me her attacker had called her a “gook” and told her to shut up. “Gook” was a racial slur American soldiers had used for the natives. I went to the VA hospital and sat in on the meetings for soldiers suffering from PTSD. Then a man who matched the description of the man on the video talked about “gooks” he had killed. He went peacefully and kept telling me that it didn’t matter what happened to him—he had already died in the jungles forty years ago.

“Why this case?” I said, leaning back in my chair and glancing around the restaurant. “Of everything you’ve done, why’d this get under your skin?”

Mickey sat there for a moment, seeming to think. “I think it was the second home, the Roths. The child that tried to get away. I told you he was found in the closet, but I didn’t tell you how he died. It wasn’t quick, like the rest of the family—one giant tear in the throat. The boy was torn limb from limb. It looked like a shark attack—that’s the only way I could describe it. I couldn’t imagine how frightened he must’ve been. I thought about him a lot. Sometimes I dream about him, see him crying in a dark closet.”

The food came. I lay my napkin across my lap and stared at the vegetable sandwich. I looked up at Mickey and said, “You know, a case like this, we might not be able to do anything.”

“I know. But at least I can know I tried.”

After eating, we got on the interstate and headed northwest. The scenery changed from desert to forest. The trees surrounded us, and after an hour, we had to stop so Mickey could use the bathroom. I sat in the car, watching the people, who were mostly crossing Nevada on their way to California. I saw a few hunters and even fewer locals.

We got off the interstate a little before four in the afternoon and took a winding road up a hill. We had to stop at a tollbooth and pay five dollars. I got the impression that Peak Road was a town that wanted to dissuade visitors as much as possible.

The town seemed like nothing but trees. The road turned to dirt, and we looped around a small mountain. The valley opened up as we went downhill, and on the bottom of the hill was the town. It was even smaller than I had expected, perhaps no more than a hundred buildings. It had one gas station along the road leading into town, and the dirt road turned to a paved one right as we passed it.

“I didn’t know towns like this existed anymore,” I said.

“It hasn’t changed one bit in twenty years. It would take effort to stay this isolated.”

We drove through town and didn’t see a single person until we got to the school, where children were playing in the yard. The girls wore dresses that came down far past their knees, and the boys wore long-sleeved shirts. A few of them looked our way then quickly went back to playing.

“There’s a motel up here. It’s the only place to stay in town. I have to warn you, it’s not exactly the Ritz.”

“I’m sure it’s fine, Mickey.”

We parked in front of the brown two-story motel. A cleaning woman came out of one of the rooms, and I smiled at her as I stepped out of the car. She turned away without reaction.

“I’ll check in,” Mickey said.

I sat on the hood of the car, watching the cars pass on the road. There weren’t many, maybe one every minute or so. The cars weren’t new. Several of them were easily twenty years old, models that took me back to my childhood: station wagons, Volkswagen Beetles, and Oldsmobiles so large they looked like boats. 

Mickey came out a while later to get his bag, and he gave me a key. Unlike the cards most modern hotels and motels used, it was an actual key.

“I need to sleep,” Mickey said. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.”

I could see the exhaustion etched across his face. This morning, he had looked vibrant and energetic, and now, after maybe six hours, he was worn down.

“I’m going to take a drive around the town,” I said.

“Probably best you don’t tell anyone you’re a cop. The residents weren’t exactly friendly last time.”

I got into the car and pulled away. I saw Mickey nod to the cleaning lady, and she didn’t acknowledge him, either.

8

The town was about five miles across. In the center was the municipal administration building, and next to that were the county sheriff’s office, the station house, the mayor’s office, and the jail. The jail looked like a small cabin and couldn’t have housed more than ten people at a time.

The only restaurant, as far as I could see, was the Peak Road Diner. Across the street was a bar, and small shops ran up and down both sides of the street. A single church sat nearby with a sign out front that listed the times for worship on Sunday. Other than that, the town consisted of family homes. No apartments, no strip malls, no movie theaters or libraries.

At first, it was disorienting, but after driving around, I could see the appeal of living someplace like this, the simplicity of it.

I drove up to the sheriff’s office and got out of the car. Though I was still in Nevada in the springtime, the air was noticeably cooler in Peak Road than it had been in Las Vegas. I strolled along the sidewalk, staring in the windows. A few people walked down hallways into offices, but for the most part, the building looked nearly abandoned.

I opened the door to the sheriff’s office—no metal detectors or security. The office was one large open space with two desks and another room off to the side. At the first desk sat a young girl, maybe nineteen, popping gum and listening to a country station on something I hadn’t seen in years: an actual radio, not a computer or smartphone.

“Help you?” she asked.

“Sheriff here?”

“Yeah, you want me to get her?”

I scanned some of the posters on the wall. “So is it just her in this department?”

“No, we got Will, her deputy. Who are you again?”

“Jon Stanton. I’m just visiting Peak Road.” I approached the desk. Despite Mickey’s warning, I felt I may have been in the one place where telling someone I was a cop meant something positive. “I’m actually a police officer, too. I’m here helping a friend on something. Have you heard anything about the Werewolf of Peak Road?”

She stared at me for a second. “I ain’t talkin’ ’bout that.”

Secretaries at police stations and sheriff’s offices had the best information on what had and hadn’t been done on a case. The case could pass through several detectives, but the secretaries were always there, always listening, and always watching. Many times, the secretary at my own station had information about a case before I did.

“I heard there was a new family about a week ago.”

She looked at me sternly. “I ain’t talkin’ ’bout that,” she repeated slowly.

“You know what? On second thought, can I see the sheriff?”

She popped her gum then said, “One second.”

Instead of calling back on the phone, she rose and went to the other office. She came out a half a minute later. “The sheriff’s on a call right now. She said to leave your name and number, and she’ll call you back.”

I took out my card, which had my cell phone number on it, and left it on the desk.

The woman picked it up and looked at it. “Hawaii, huh? What you doin’ way out here?”

“Like I said, just helping. Have the sheriff call me when she can.”

I left the sheriff’s office and sat in my car a few minutes. I hadn’t yet looked through the case files—what detectives informally called “murder books.” I was sure Mickey had them, but he hadn’t offered to show them to me. Maybe he thought if I’d seen the brutality, I wouldn’t have come.

The door to the sheriff’s office opened, and a woman wearing a beige uniform with a green sheriff’s jacket came out. She walked over to the car, and I rolled down my window.

She was about my age, late thirties, and had shoulder-length black hair. She was wearing little makeup other than lipstick, and a wide scar marked the back of her right hand. In her left hand, she held my card.

“You Jon Stanton?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Sheriff Dolly Briggs. Kristen told me this is about the Werewolf killings. That right?”

“It is.”

“What’s a cop from Honolulu doing out here lookin’ at those?”

“I came out with a friend, Mickey Parsons. He’s helping the FBI with the investigation, and I’m helping him.”

She stared down at the card. “They’re just sending everybody out here for these, ain’t they?”

I got the impression that the sheriff felt as though we were invading her territory. I hadn’t thought she would care, given the nature of the case, but clearly, she’d been burned by investigators in the past. The FBI had a way of steamrolling local law enforcement and making them feel insignificant. That drove detectives to withhold evidence, even sabotage investigations.

“Listen, I’m just a cop. That’s all. One of the feds thought I could add something to this, and that’s the only reason I’m here.”

She handed my card back to me. “The FBI couldn’t do anything twenty years ago, and I doubt they can do anything now. You’re wasting your time, Hawaii Five-0.”

She went back inside. I tapped my card against the steering wheel then tossed it on the passenger seat before pulling away.

9

I went to the diner. Tables were set up against the walls of the narrow space, and I chose one of the barstools at the counter. A waitress, an attractive young girl with a tattoo on her wrist, smiled at me.

“You’re new here,” she said.

“Just visiting.”

“I’m Jennifer.”

“Jon.”

She leaned forward in a way that showed her cleavage. “So what can I get for you?”

“Just an orange juice, please.”

She winked. “Comin’ right up, hon.”

She couldn’t have been older than nineteen, but she acted as if she were thirty. I had noticed that in small towns the girls became women much more quickly. When she came back with my juice, I asked, “How long have you lived in Peak Road?”

“I’m a lifer. How long you here for?”

“Probably just a week.” I took a sip of juice. “What’s it like growing up here?”

She chuckled. “It’s fucking boring is what it is. Never anything to do. Even if you wanna see a movie you have to go over to Baxter, down the freeway. Ain’t nothing to do here but get drunk and get high.”

“Lotta drugs here?”

“Yeah, meth and pot mostly. People here don’t have much money, so we don’t see too many coke heads, but there’s some. Kid in high school OD’d on the stuff. Stopped his heart right there at lunch.” She leaned forward again. “Why you care so much about the town? Most folks don’t wanna know nothin’ about us.”

“I’m helping with something and just trying to get a feel for things.”

“Whatchu helping with?”

“The Werewolf killings.”

Her face changed. The interest faded and was replaced by fear. “You shouldn’t be helping with those.”

“I heard he killed an entire family. Don’t you want to stop him?”

“You can’t stop him.”

“Why not?”

She hesitated for a second, as though she wanted to tell me something, then bit her lip. “Juice is on the house. Lemme know if you need anything else.”

I sat in the diner for a long time. Jennifer didn’t interact with me again. But I heard her tell the cook, a man who was clearly the owner, that she was taking her break. She pulled a package of cigarettes from a purse behind the counter and headed outside through a back door. I left a twenty on the counter for her underneath my glass and waited until the cook was busy before sneaking out the back door.

Jennifer leaned on the building, one foot up against it, as she blew out a puff of smoke.

“You old enough to be smoking?”

She grinned. “Twenty years old next week. Twenty years of life, and I ain’t done shit with it.”

I leaned against the brick wall of the building. “My grandpa used to say that any day above ground is a good day.”

“Yeah, well, your grandpa never lived in Peak Road.”

I grinned. “Why’d you get so uncomfortable when I asked about the killings?”

“We don’t talk about it. No one does.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t.”

“Seems like something you’d want to talk about so we can stop them.”

She inhaled another puff of smoke and blew it out of her nose. “You a cop or something?”

“I am.”

“Where from?”

“Honolulu.”

“Hawaii? I would do anything to go to Hawaii. I seen pictures online. It looks like the Garden’a Eden.”

“As close as we can come, I guess.” I stared out at the traffic passing us. Several drivers rubbernecked as they passed. “There’s this volcano on one of the islands. It’s inactive, so you can climb up to the lip. While you’re climbing, you pass every type of environment the earth has. You see desert, you see snow, jungle. Then when you get to the lip of the volcano, you look down, and it’s pure red and black. The heat just from there can singe your eyebrows off. It’s like you’re looking at the center of the earth, something people weren’t meant to look at.”

She thought for a second, rubbing her cheek with the back of her thumb. “So you’re takin’ me back with you when you go, right?”

I smiled. “Depends how much you help me.”

She exhaled, tossing her cigarette on the ground, then stepped on it. “You won’t find him.”

“Why not?”

“Because it ain’t a man you’re lookin’ for.”