The Undertaker (18 page)

Doug was the owner of a growing business there. He was established. He was somebody. Once I got out of this hick town and out of this hick state, even if nobody believed me here, in Boston they'd have to listen to Doug. Not that I wanted to drag him into this thing; I had already gotten three people killed and I didn't want to add a friend to the list, but I was out of options. Besides, Tinkerton already knew about Doug. What was it he said? Doug was a “loose end,” something he would take care of “later.” It looked like I had gotten Doug involved, and I had to warn him.

What other choice was there? Head back to LA? They might not be expecting that, but it was a long way to go. Maybe I should try something closer, like Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, or even Indianapolis. They were only a few hours away and big enough for me to get lost in for a while. Not a bad choice, all things considered.

One of my favorite math classes in college was “Non-Linear Dynamics”, more popularly known as the theory of random events and regular chaos. What it said was that the best pattern was no pattern at all. If you want to remain unpredictable in a mathematical sense, then always do the illogical and the totally unexpected. Yeah, that was what I needed if I wanted to stay free — a little unpredictability and a dose of regular chaos to jam into Ralph Tinkerton's spokes.

It did beg the question. What was I doing trying to outrun the police in the first place? I hadn't done anything wrong. Those guys had kidnapped me, drugged me, and would have killed me if I hadn't broken free. True, a couple of people died and a funeral home was totaled, but none of that was my fault. It was Tinkerton's. Maybe I shouldn't shy away from the police at all. Maybe I should do exactly what I told Varner I was going to do: take it to the State Police, lay the whole thing in front of them and let them sort it out. That was my best choice, no doubt about it, provided I got rid of Dannmeyer's car. If they caught me in it, I'd never get a chance to explain anything.

That was when I heard the second set of radio calls. “All units, an APB has been issued for a brown Campbell County sheriff's cruiser, license plate DEL-O23. Observe and report. Do not attempt to apprehend. The driver is an escaped mental patient wanted in the disappearance of Sheriff Virgil Dannmeyer. Suspect is believed to be armed and dangerous. Repeat. Armed and Dangerous. Observe and report only. Do not apprehend.”

“Escaped mental patient?” Nice touch, Ralph. “Observe and report?” To whom? Ralph Tinkerton, Esq.? You bastard! Too bad Ernie didn't hit you harder. It had to be him. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I had it figured all wrong. They couldn't have found Dannmeyer's body so soon, but Tinkerton saw me drive away. Maybe old Ralph was trying a new angle to box me in. Very clever. Label me as a psycho who kidnapped a county sheriff. Soon it would be “cop killer” and there would be no hope of turning myself in. Every cop in Ohio knew that was cop-speak for “shoot on sight for resisting arrest.”

There were two highway maps in the glove compartment. One was for Greater Columbus and the other was for the State of Ohio. I turned on the dome light and unfolded the Ohio map. Ditching the car way down in the city was out. There was too little traffic at this hour and the sheriff's car would stand out. Where then? Leave it at a truck stop on the Interstate and hitch a ride out of town? No, too exposed, and a dead give away that I'd left town that way. My best bet was to dump it near office building or a shopping center near the Interstate. That would leave Tinkerton with a whole lot more guesses than answers.

I looked at the map more closely. I wasn't sure which road I was on, but if I kept driving west it looked like I'd hit Route 42 fairly soon. I could take that south to Route 33 and back into Columbus. I remembered from my earlier trips that the expressway interchanges were full of shopping centers and big office and warehouse buildings. Maybe I could ditch the car and find a friendly trucker or thumb a ride out of town. Yeah, that was my best shot.

Then I heard the third radio call. Short, sweet, and to the point, it made my blood run cold to hear the pleasant female dispatcher say, “Mister Talbott, we would appreciate it if you'd call the office. You can pick up the microphone hanging on the dashboard and push the little red button, or you could get out of the car and use a pay phone. No big deal, someone here would like to talk to you before things get any further out of hand.”

To anyone else who happened to be listening, it sounded like she was calling the typewriter repairman or the plumber, but she wasn't. She was calling me. I pictured the hulking frame of Ralph Tinkerton standing behind her, breathing down her neck as he listened. That meant that Tinkerton wanted to keep this whole business quiet, and that meant something. But me talk to Ralph Tinkerton? Go in and give myself up? After the embalming table and the scalpel, that didn't sound too appealing, so I ignored the radio call and pushed the pedal to the metal. The next time I talked to old Ralph, it was going to be on my terms, not his.

In two minutes, I was on Route 33 headed south toward the bright lights of Columbus. It had four lanes and it carried me across the I-270 Beltway and down into the northwest suburbs. The first big intersection I came to was Longacre Boulevard. It had large strip centers on all four corners, complete with fast food restaurants and big box stores further down the street. The stores were mostly closed at this hour, but I drove into the first strip center on my right. It had a large food store and bowling alley and it backed up to a wooded hill. Perfect, I thought as I continued around back and saw a dark spot between the food store's dumpster and the trees where the sheriff's car couldn't be seen from the highway or the parking lot. The stores would open up at 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning and the workers might arrive a half-hour before. So, if there were no cops or security guards checking the parking lot, and if I was very lucky, Dannmeyer's car might sit here all night without being noticed.

I found a rag under the front seat and ran it over the steering wheel, the dashboard, the door, the maps, and anything else I could remember touching. I scooped up the big wad of bills from the sheriff's coffee fund, jammed it into my pocket, and got out of the car. The trunk was the only place I hadn't looked. I popped the hood. In the dim light, I saw a spare tire and jack, a metal evidence storage box, a first aid kit, and a garment bag. The evidence box had a hasp with a big combination lock. No hope there. In the garment bag were a blue nylon windbreaker and a softball uniform with Yankee pinstripes with “Kiwanis Knights” lettered across the back and #10 on the front of the shirt. I unzipped the garment bag and found a sports coat and slacks on hangers. I stripped off my shirt, opened the first aid kit, and taped two of the big gauze pads over the scalpel cut. That should hold for a while. I put on Dannmeyer's baseball shirt and windbreaker. They were a tad big for me, but at least they were clean. They would do.

Underneath the clothes lay a long, brushed aluminum gun case. Out of curiosity, I opened it. Inside, there was a place for the hunting rifle and the shotgun and several other cut-outs for handguns, two of which were occupied. I looked at the handguns. Should I take one? No. If it came to guns, I was a dead man anyway and I didn't want to give Tinkerton an excuse, so I closed the case and pushed it back in the trunk.

That was when I noticed an old-fashioned ”Jimmy” bar lying in the corner of the trunk. It was a piece of thin spring steel with a handle, designed to slide down a car window until you could pop open a door lock. Most cop cars carried them, because there were often some very legitimate reasons for a cop to open a car door. Maybe someone had lost his keys. Maybe a kid got himself locked inside. Maybe the cops needed to move a car fast or to tow it because of some emergency. Whatever, that's why you usually see a Jimmy in the trunk of a cop car.

That was when it dawned on me that I had the perfect use for one. I needed some wheels that would get me out of Columbus without being immediately ID’d and caught. My Bronco was dead. A cab or bus? Too easy to trace and the odds of my catching either one out here at this hour were zilch. The bus station? The train station? The airport? Too obvious. Tinkerton would have people watching those. Hitchhiking might work, but it would also leave me too visible and too vulnerable. No, what I needed was a car. Stealing one might also work, but that was only a short-term solution and it would inevitably add to my problems. The only car I could think of that no one else was laying claim to at the moment was the Buick my illegitimate twin brother, “Pete” left parked under that oak tree on Sickles. With the Jimmy, I could get inside. If I could get it started, I could get well away from Columbus without constantly looking over my shoulder. Now, all I had to do was figure out how to get there.

Give the man a cigar…

W
alking
alone down a major commercial boulevard in the middle of the night dressed in Dannmeyer's baseball shirt and windbreaker made me fair game for every suburban cop who happened to be out on patrol, not that I had much choice. I put my feet in gear and set off around the far side of the shopping center, walking south through the parking lot to Longacre Boulevard, the next main street, putting as much distance as I could between the Campbell County sheriff's car and myself. Longacre appeared to be an unbroken string of strip shopping centers, big-box stores, big electronic stores, big sporting goods stores, and big banks, but there was very little traffic at this hour. When an occasional car did come by, I'd stick out my thumb and put on my friendliest smile. After all, I didn't look like a total derelict and this wasn't LA. Folks don't drive down the road with one hand on the wheel and the other on a .357 Magnum, waiting for some sucker to smile wrong or tell them to have a nice day. Even still, the few drivers that passed by looked away and ignored me.

My prospects were looking grim until a fat guy on a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle swung over to the curb and stopped next to me. His arms were as thick as hams and he wore a leather Viking helmet with two twelve-inch, black-and-white cow horns poking out the sides. His chinstrap was a bicycle chain. He wore a stonewashed, denim vest, and his bushy, gray beard stuck out the sides of his black, Plexiglas visor like a hairy halo. He gave me a quick once-over and pointed over his shoulder to the bike's padded rear fender.

“You want a ride bad enough, hop on,” he said in a hoarse, gravely voice.

It was a scary thought. I couldn't see his eyes through the dark visor, but my choice was Hagar the Horrible and his motorcycle or nothing. I threw my leg over the rear seat and grabbed onto his denim vest, not waiting for a second invitation.

“Mind the glittery stuff back there, now,” he warned.

I looked down and saw the hand-painted face of Elvis Presley staring at me from the back of the blue denim vest, complete with rhinestones and silver glitter. It was The King all right — the Las Vegas stage shot with the white jumpsuit and the dancing fringe. Elvis was humping the microphone, his right arm thrust upward in mid-wiggle, and his black hair falling in his eyes.

“Got it at Graceland as part of the King's Sixtieth Birthday Commemorative Package,” he announced proudly. “She's a real collector's item now, you know.”

“I'll bet,” I said, de-gripping the vest and shifting my hands to the seat frame.

“Where you going?” he asked.

“Sedgwick. It's a residential street east of Sickles, maybe 3000 north.”

Hagar nodded. “We'll find it.”

“You're a real lifesaver, man. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. The name's Morrie, by the way,” he said as he threw a big paw over his right shoulder.

“Mine's Pete,” I answered as we shook hands. “But I thought you bikers always used names like Ax Handle, or Eric the Red, or something like that?”

“Biker? Me? I'm an internal auditor with the State Treasurer's office. My wife hates the bike,” he said as he fondly patted the gas tank of the Honda. “If I don't sneak it out of the garage once or twice a week and blow the carbon out of the pipes — mine and the bike's — I'd go nuts.”

Ah, the sweet taste of freedom, I almost said, but I didn't want to walk. “So, you're just cruising around town?”

“Going everywhere and nowhere,” he grinned, as he roared off down the deserted street and I felt the wind whip my face.

This was great, I thought, but Morrie had asked me a good question. Where was I going? By morning, my face would be plastered across the front page of every newspaper in the state with headlines that screamed out, cop killer, building wrecker, flag burner, child molester, litterer, and anything else Tinkerton could make up. They'd pin my picture to the targets on the police pistol range and take particular delight in punching me full of holes. Boston? LA? From the rear fender of Morrie's Gold Wing, they might as well be on the dark side of the moon. What other choices did I have? Pay a house call on Jimmy Santorini's pals in New Jersey? Catch him on visitor's day over at Marion? Something told me I didn't want to play with them any more than I wanted to keep playing with Ralph Tinkerton or the Campbell County cops.

If I wanted to unravel their little plot, I had to find a loose end or two and start picking and pulling at them with everything I had. A loose end? What about the other obituaries? If there was a problem with mine, maybe there was a problem with some of the others, too. Skeppington was from Atlanta, Pryor from Phoenix, and Brownstein was from Portland, Oregon. Those three might as well be LA, as far away as they were, but Edward J. Kasmarek was from Chicago. He was only thirty-two years old and Chicago was at least reachable for me. The guy must have family, friends, or drinking buddies up there who remembered him. Maybe I could get a copy of his Chicago Death Certificate and a copy of his obituary in the Chicago Tribune. Maybe I could find a photo, a high school or college yearbook, medical or dental records, something that would make his identification irrefutable. Yeah, the more I thought about it, the guy in Chicago was my best shot. Hell, he was probably my only shot.