The Coaster (14 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Max and I got in the truck and we bounced down the long gravel road that leads to the main entrance to the farm. Max loves the truck. He slides around like he's on skates but he never loses his footing.

I was scanning the fields out both sides of the truck, keeping an eye out for Rex. Nothing but darkness. When I turned back to the road, it took me a second in my flustered, adrenaline-sapped state to realize my headlights were reflecting off some creature's eyeballs right back at me. My reflexes were slow and shaky, but there are a ton of animals roaming the farm and they generally get out of the way. Not this time. I slammed on the brakes and Max flew snout-first into the dashboard. We skidded to a stop about ten feet short of what I realized was a doe. She stood there staring and then sprinted away.

“I know how she feels, boy,” I said to Max, as he clambered groggily back onto the seat.

I planned to drive down and shut the main gate so we wouldn't have any more unwanted visitors tonight. We were about halfway there when, to my horror, I saw a pair of headlights turning into our drive. Whoever it was, it was bad news. In my neighborhood, nobody drives over in the middle of the night to borrow a cup of sugar. There were really only two possibilities. It was either the cops or Corny's ride, and whoever it was, I couldn't just turn and run because they'd seen my headlights. If it was the cops, I didn't want them to think I had anything to hide. If it was Corny's friends, I didn't want to lead them back to the house where my kids were sleeping. The gun was in the glove compartment and if it came to it, I could probably reach across to get it just in time to get shot in the back of the head. I decided my only choice was to continue on down the road like a confident man driving on his own property. As long as nobody got out of the car, I might be okay.

As the lights got closer, I could see the car was a police cruiser. It wasn't the old black-and-white Crown Victoria sedan we all grew up with. It was an all white Dodge Charger or Camaro or something. It looked like the cop's police car was in the shop so he had to borrow his sixteen-year-old daughter's car. It probably had a unicorn hanging from the rearview mirror and was full of lip gloss, tampons, and empty Diet Coke cans. Still, a police car was definitely better news than the alternative. At least the cop most likely wouldn't try to kill me. That would have to wait for my first day in prison.

I popped a mint to cover my vomit-breath, stopped the truck, and rolled down the window. I was hoping he'd pull up alongside me, driver's side to driver's side, so we could talk while he was still in the car. No such luck. The cruiser stopped directly in front of me and a young policeman got out. He had closely cropped blond hair and the obligatory cop mustache. He hadn't pulled his gun, which was a good sign. He approached my window.

“Mr. Patterson? It's Officer Tate. I've been out here a time or two when your burglar alarm went off by mistake.”

Almost every cop in the county has been to our house for that reason. We finally had to stop turning the damn thing on, although we would have to change that policy starting tonight. “Sure, Officer, I remember you. Is there a problem?”

“I'm not sure,” Tate said. “What are you doing driving around out here in the middle of the night?”

When you're lying, they say to stick as closely to the truth as you can. And I had a fair amount of experience with lying. “Something spooked our stallion and he busted out of his stall and ran off. We don't know if he's hurt or what. I'm trying to find him.”

“Did it make a lot of noise?”

“Oh yeah, a hell of a racket,” I said. “It woke me out of a sound sleep. I went down to the barn and he had kicked clean through the stall door and was gone.”

“We got a call from your neighbor. She said there was a bunch of commotion over at your place. It sounded like someone was being killed.”

“It did sound like that,” I said. “The horse was screaming and whinnying like he was being attacked. Maybe a snake got in the barn or something.”

“To tell you the truth, your neighbor calls the station with a lot of wild stories. I think she's seen
Rear Window
one too many times.”

I smiled. “We've had quite a few dealings with her ourselves. She's not a big fan of my wife. She thinks a mother should stay home with her children.”

“Well, I'll let her know it was just a horse. Can I do anything to help you find him?”

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NO!

“I'm happy to help. That's what we're here for.” He pointed at his badge. “To serve and protect. Do you have a flashlight back here?” Tate started to walk back toward the bed of the pickup.

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just sat there, waiting for the inevitable.

“Mr. Patterson?” Tate called from behind the truck. “Could you come back here, please?”

***

I got out of the truck and trudged slowly back toward the pickup bed. “Officer, I can explain.”

“I'm sure you can. Are you aware your tags are expired?” Tate was shining Corny's flashlight on the license plate. How could he not see—nothing. I searched the bed of the truck with my eyes and there was nothing but an assortment of junk. The tailgate was open and Corny was gone. I tried to regain my composure.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Your tags,” Tate said. “They're expired. The last sticker on here is a couple of years old.”

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, right. We only use the truck here on the farm. We never take it out on the street.”

“You still have to register it and pay the fees. It's a personal property tax you owe just by owning the vehicle. It doesn't matter if you drive it. Like the property taxes on your house. You have to pay them whether you live there or not.”

“I understand.”

“On a piece of crap like this—no offense—it probably won't amount to much at all. It's a percentage of the value of the vehicle, which is practically nothing.”

“No offense taken.” We had the “vehicle” precisely
because
it was a piece of crap. We didn't want to ruin our other cars with all the dirty work on the farm.

Tate reached down and tried to shut the tailgate but it wouldn't latch. He handed me a bottle of Stallion Spray that we use to get the horses ready to breed. “This was just rolling around in the bed. You should probably get the tailgate fixed or you're going to have your haul sliding out of the back of the truck.”

“You're right.” I looked back in the direction we'd come to see if I could spot my current cargo. It was too dark to see anything. “I'll take care of the tags and the tailgate first thing tomorrow.”

“See that you do. Since you don't drive it on the street, I'm going to let it go this time, but if I see it again without new tags, I'll have to give you a ticket.”

“I appreciate that, Officer.”

Tate held up Corny's flashlight. “I did find a torch. Man, this thing is high tech. What is it, some kind of military issue?”

“I had Q make it for me,” I said. “Just don't punch the wrong button and accidentally shoot me.”

“Who's Q?”

Cops are very literal people. You would be too if you spent your day hearing nothing but bullshit from everyone you talked to.

“Should we go try to find your horse?” Tate asked.

“Sure.” I had no choice now but to carry out the play fake. The key would be not stumbling over Corny's corpse, which had to have fallen out of the back of the pickup. So we definitely didn't want to go back toward the barn. I hoped we could find the horse in the other direction.

But what if Corny's body didn't fall out of the truck? What if he somehow managed to climb down on his own? I wasn't truly certain he was dead. My only experience with dead bodies comes from TV and movies. I know to touch the victim's neck with my first two fingers and then immediately turn to my partner and say “He's dead.” But I didn't feel Corny's neck and I don't think I would have learned anything if I had. I already knew he had a giant hoofprint in his forehead.

***

Tate handed me the flashlight. “Here, you take this. I've got another one in the cruiser.”

Of course you do, you conniving bastard, I thought. Cops always carry big, heavy flashlights and Officer Tate was looking for an excuse to snoop around in my truck. Apparently he took the neighbor's complaint a little more seriously than he let on. At any rate, it was now clear I was not above suspicion, and I was going to have to be careful.

“Follow me!” I called as I got back in the truck. I drove down toward the gate and Tate turned around and followed. He must not have seen anything as his lights swept across the darkness because he kept coming.

I drove straight to the front gate. The odds of Rex finding this twenty-foot opening in the miles of perimeter fence were pretty slim, but I still wanted to discourage additional visitors as well as reinforce to Officer Tate that he was on my property and I controlled who came and went. It was also as far away as possible from where I thought Corny must be.

I shut the gate and then got back in and headed west along the south fence. A lot of times a horse that runs out of the barn will stop after a few hundred yards. Once they feel safe, they quit running and stand there eating grass. That's not very smart but they're so fast it doesn't matter. If the danger follows them, they'll run off again. In this case, though, I thought Rex might have been spooked enough to keep running until he got to the fence, then he would stop.

We drove slowly along the fence line for a half-mile or so and suddenly there he was, calmly eating grass and staring at the lights without blinking. I got out of the car and approached him cautiously. I wasn't kidding when I said he hated me. Stallions hate all other males. It must be our masculine scent or the lack of a female odor. Whatever, he considers me a rival and his sworn enemy.

Rex seemed to be fine. I shone the flashlight over his body from a safe distance and couldn't find any injuries. He wasn't bleeding or limping, so there was really nothing to do.

I walked back to the police cruiser. Tate rolled down the window. “Do you want me to help you corral him so we can get him back to the barn?”

I shook my head. “There's no point. His stall is broken, so there's no place to put him.”

“You're just going to leave him out here?” Tate asked.

“He'll be fine. The gate's closed and he could never find it anyway. Plus, there's no way you and I could handle him. Sarah could probably do it by herself, but he'd beat the crap out of us. We'll have the trainer round him up in the morning.”

“Then what was the point of driving around looking for him?” Jesus Christ! What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? I'm not saying another word until I speak to my lawyer!

“I wasn't concerned about him making it off the property. I had to make sure he wasn't hurt so my wife would stop worrying about him.”

“I'm glad everything's all right,” Tate said. “You never know what you're going to find when you get called out to a private residence in the middle of the night.”

“Well, it's not exactly Charlie Sheen's house around here,” I said. “I've only got the one goddess and she's usually asleep by ten o'clock.”

He chuckled a little. Or at least his mustache moved up and down. “Well, I'll be on my way. Let us know if you ever need anything.”

“I'll follow you down and shut the gate behind you.” So you can't snoop around my property any more than you already have, you justifiably suspicious prick with what appear to be decent instincts for a career in law enforcement.

After Officer Tate drove away, I stood there watching for a good five minutes to make sure he wasn't planning to double back and spy on me with night-vision goggles or something. When I was satisfied, I got back in the truck and drove back up the driveway. I didn't know where I'd lost Corny, but I figured the place to start looking was where I'd stopped to talk to Officer Tate earlier. I found what I thought was the spot, give or take half a mile—it was dark and everything looked the same. I grabbed Corny's flashlight and got out of the truck. Just in case, I went back and got the gun out of the glove compartment. I was way more likely to accidentally kill Max than successfully defend myself, but it made me feel better nonetheless. I didn't ask Max what he thought.

It was overcast, so there wasn't much moonlight. I turned on the flashlight and followed Max back toward the house. The flashlight only illuminated the ground about ten feet in front of me, but Max has found every other rotting carcass ever deposited on the farm and tried to give it to me as a present, so I thought he could pilot this expedition successfully.

Max trotted happily ahead of me, occasionally dashing off the road to investigate a sound or smell or to pee in specific areas chosen for reasons known only to him.

Watching Max made me realize I had to pee myself, so I made my way to the weeds along the side of the driveway. I was about midway through when I heard a sound behind me. I stopped mid-stream—it's not like I'm shutting off a fire hose—and stood perfectly still, listening. Maybe Corny
wasn't
dead. I felt something touch the back of my neck, then my shoulder. I grabbed the gun out of the back of my pants and whirled around in the classic shooter's pose. Two hands on the gun, straight out from my body. The safety was probably on, but I
looked
ready to shoot. My target had brown hair and a long face. An extremely long face. Somehow I'd allowed a fifteen-hundred pound beast wearing steel shoes to sneak up on me. I thought about shooting the bastard and claiming self-defense, but I didn't think Sarah would buy it.

“Go on!” I whispered. “Get out of here.” Rex just stood there and stared at me, which is one of only two behaviors he exhibits toward me. The other is open hostility. This was better, but not by much. He sure as hell wouldn't do anything I said.