The White River Killer: A Mystery Novel (2 page)

Luis’s eyes narrowed, and his lips pressed together into a scowl.
Maria turned men into fools
. He glowered at Pablo.

Smiling apologetically, Pablo turned his attention to the particulars of the miserable weather outside the door window. He edged closer to the glass as his hand swept back and forth, wiping away condensation. “
Shit
. . . Some guy is watching us. He’s standing by that tree. Look!”

The tightness in Luis’s chest returned, squeezing the air from his lungs. Struggling to breathe, he slid closer to Pablo’s window to see through the gray mist. After several tense seconds, he returned to his former position. “It’s only a shadow. Yes, it looks like a man, but it’s not. You need glasses.”

“But I saw him move. He walked—”

“
Glasses
.”

Pablo folded his arms around his chest and his bottom lip jutted out.

After their breath had fogged the windshield completely, Luis said, “Okay, let’s go.”

11. Use side rails to get into truck bed. Don’t leave footprints on wet ground.

Stepping onto slick side rails, they climbed into the cargo area. The men stood on either side of the rug, staring down at it expectantly as if it might suggest how best to move it.

“Did he tell you who’s in the rug?” Pablo asked. “Do you know? What did he do wrong?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care,” Luis said. “Let’s lift it.”

Crouching down, they tried to lift the carpet, but discovered it was too heavy to pick up. The long downpour had soaked it for several hours after they took it from the mansion to hide it until nightfall in the woods. Now, filled with both water and a body, the dead weight stuck to the truck bed as if glued. After minutes of futile strain, both of them were breathing heavily. They sat across from each other on the sides of the truck bed to catch their breath.

“The goddamn thing won’t budge,” Pablo said. He straightened and put a hand on his back.

Luis struggled for air. “Give me a minute.” He realized that he had unintentionally reverted to English and returned to their native Spanish. There was too much at stake to trust Pablo’s rudimentary English skills. “Let me think.”

“Maybe we drop the tailgate, go real fast, hit the brakes, and let it slide out the back.”

“That wouldn’t make it slide out. It’d come forward if it moved at all.”

“I mean
real
fast.”

Combing his fingers through his thick black hair several times, Luis tried to focus his thoughts.

A nighthawk’s nasal
peent
came from a leafless tree. Pablo pulled at his collar to shield himself from the rain now reduced to drizzle. “I’m cold.”

The muffled snap of a wet branch silenced the bird as a nocturnal creature moved toward them through the undergrowth. Pablo turned to survey the dark terrain behind him and grabbed the knife in his pocket.

Luis glanced up. “Stop looking around! There’s no one out here.
Focus
. If dumping a body was easy, he would’ve hired children, not us. We’ve got to open the rug and pull him out. There’s no other choice.”

Pablo put his hands up fingers spread apart, to emphasize his opposition to the idea. “No. I told you. I’m not risking that. You get cursed if you touch a dead person who didn’t have last rites, and you become the next to die,
damned for eternity
.”

“That’s a superstition.”

“No, it’s not.
It’s true.
The old men in my village said the curse can follow you for years. But when it tracks you down—you’re dead, just like that.” Pablo snapped his fingers. “No, I won’t do it. I respect the dead.” He made the sign of the cross.

“Those old men were just . . .” He needed a new approach. “Then what do you suggest?”

“We drop the tailgate, go fast, and hit the brakes.”

Luis released a long sigh and became quiet. Storm water cascaded through the large ditch beside them and the echo of a diesel truck floated through the trees from the highway. Considering the problem of unloading their freight, he bit his bottom lip in concentration. Finally, he got down by the carpet and tried to ignore the cold metal floor soaking his clothes in rainwater. He burrowed his arm underneath the rug. This close to the rug, he could see stubborn traces of sawdust still lodged in the weave of the braided rug despite the rain. “Get on the opposite side, facing me, and push your arm underneath it—hurry.”

“What does that do?”

“Just do it . . .
Quick
.”

Pablo took his time stretching beside the rug and then strained to get his arm under the dead weight.

“Okay, on the count of three lean up.”

“What?”

“Look at me. Do as I do.”

“What are you going to do?”

“
For God’s sake
, just follow me.”

Luis bent at the waist like a lever, and the rug rose. Pablo, on the other side, got the idea. Miraculously, they achieved a seated position with the carpet on their shoulders. Pablo looked as if he had learned the secret to walking on water.

“It works,” Pablo said.

“Thank Archimedes.”

“Who?”

“Now let’s stand up,” Luis said.

That portion of the miracle did not work as well. Luis was almost to his feet, but then fell hard, landing on his knees and crying out in pain.

Pablo couldn’t make it to his feet and remained seated.

The carpet on his shoulder, Luis shuffled on his knees to his left, agonizing with each small sidestep. “Slide to the side of the pickup and we’ll dump it over.”

“But if we go fast—”

“Move!” Luis barked. The heavy pressure on his knees became unbearable and he flung the carpet toward the trench with a loud grunt of effort.

Pablo saw it flying at him too late.

The airborne rug pushed Pablo toward the truck wall, coming to a stop when his neck struck its curved edge with a resounding thud. The carpet roll bent around the boy’s head. Luis pushed the floor covering off Pablo and it fell over the side.

Collapsing on the truck floor, Pablo cradled his neck with his hands, and curled his body into a ball. “My neck is broken . . . My neck—
bro-ken!”

Luis stood and saw blood through a ripped pant leg. “
Shit.
These were new.” He glared at Pablo and his hand slashed through the rain in frustration. “Don’t be a baby. If you broke your neck you’d be paralyzed. We can’t stay here.” Luis limped to the side of the truck and slid down to the side rail.

Pablo tilted his head up. “Is my nose bleeding?”

“No! Get up now—or I’ll drop the tailgate, go real fast, hit the brakes, and let you shoot out on the highway.” He got behind the steering wheel and slammed the truck door.

Once inside the cab, Pablo’s fingers sought the bridge of his nose. “How long before they find the rug?”

“Who knows? But when they do, the Hayslip paper will have more than the latest soybean prices on the front page.”

As they drove off, their numbered plan was folded neatly on the seat between them.

13. Cover the rug in brush or trash. Hide it completely.

2

T
HE
B
OY
K
ING

J
OHN
R
ILEY
H
UBBARD
sat on an old Harvester tractor listening to the slow grinding of the starter. He released the key, leaned back in the seat, and cast a long string of profanities into the frigid morning air, throwing in a couple of boot stomps to make his meaning crystal clear.

When he had finished venting, he sighed and looked into the predawn sky. He was losing whatever advantages his early morning start gave his workday. Successful farming was as much about timing as it was about rain, and completion of critical work on Hubbard’s irrigation depended on the ancient machine performing today as if it was 1980, the year it was manufactured.

His cell phone’s sharp ring was jarring. Thrusting his hand into the pocket of his green barn jacket, he tried to mask his annoyance. “Hullo.”

The male voice on the line was loud, almost shouting at Hubbard. “Guess what Deputy Pine found in that big ditch that runs through Shanty Town?”

Hubbard felt an unexpected ripple of tension course through him when he heard
Shanty Town
. He didn’t recognize the voice immediately, but then he realized that the call’s timing provided all the identification he needed. Only the
Boy King
, sometimes known as Tony Andrews, would phone before daybreak, and assume he’d receive a gracious reception.

“Just a minute,” Hubbard said. Unwelcome as the interruption was, he had to be courteous; the Boy King’s newspaper, owned by the Andrews family for multiple generations, provided one of his two sources of additional income. There were months when one or the other of his two part-time jobs—covering high school games or selling burial insurance—kept the lights on. He was like every other small farmer he knew. He depended on the support of a small paycheck from other sources to keep his farm running.

He leapt off his tractor, landing in one of the shallow pools of standing water that dotted the lawn. Icy water surged through a gash on his leather work boot. Frowning, he picked his right foot up and tried ineffectually to shake the water out. He mouthed a silent ‘goddamnit’.

Hubbard pulled the phone away from his ear and took advantage of his lanky frame to make a couple of lengthy strides toward a squat tree stump—a cedar island rising a few inches above the soaked lawn. He climbed on top of the stump and put the phone to his ear, clutching his coat collar to his neck in the surprisingly chilly April morning. Hearing road noise on the line, Hubbard guessed Andrews was calling from his Suburban’s speaker phone.

“Er, say again? What did Eddie find?”

“Dep-uty Pine,” the Boy King said.

“Yes, Dep-uty Pine.” Eddie Pine comprised exactly half of Hayslip’s thin blue line; Sheriff Toil was the other half.

There was a pause in the story, possibly a dramatic flourish meant to provide significance to whatever was to follow.

“Deputy Pine found a body.” The Boy King’s high-spirited voice made it sound as if Deputy Pine discovered Blackbeard’s treasure chest. “He was on patrol overnight and on his way home when—”

“On his way home?” Hubbard said. “That’s not on—”

The Boy King charged on. “Sheriff Toil’s there now—
right now
. Anyway, it gets better.”

“Better?”

“The dude, the body, uh, the
victim
—that’s the word—was murdered. Straight up! Shot with a shotgun. Both barrels! He was wrapped up in an old rug and tossed into the ditch. This could be the White River Killer?”

There was a hint of a question tacked on to the Boy King’s excited speculation, as if he were market testing how an unlikely connection to the White River Killer might play among the readers of
The Hayslip Union Democrat
.

“The White River Killer?” Hubbard said, trying to discern the Boy King’s reason for making a wild connection to a serial killer presumed to be dead for almost a decade. He then braced himself for the news that someone from Hayslip had been murdered. “Who was it? Someone from town? Who?”

“What! Do you think I’d get this pumped if someone I knew had been murdered? Am I like that? Am I? Tell me. Am I?” People in town said Andrews had two speeds: high or low. Obviously he was in high mode today.

Hubbard lied. “No. No, of course not.” As the sky brightened, he could dimly see the expanse of his bare acreage, seemingly begging for his attention.

“This is
so
big,” the Boy King continued with undiminished zeal. “The victim was a college student from UA Monticello—apparently an Arab. The kid’s wallet was filled with Arab stuff, writing and such. Just about nothing in English ’cept his driver’s license and student ID. Anyhow, we’re lucky today’s Monday. We could get it in the paper this week if we start rightaway.”

There was one place Hubbard knew he would not be visiting this morning—Shanty Town. When he was twelve, he spent an entire summer stalking ghosts supposedly haunting those abandoned shacks. Unfortunately, his youthful quest didn’t turn out the way he expected. At the bitter close of that miserable season, he swore he’d never go near those hovels again.

The Boy King spat out an order. “Pull to the side, jerk wad!”

Taken aback by the command, Hubbard realized belatedly that Andrews was talking to another vehicle on the highway. He heard the SUV’s big engine whine and assumed the Boy King was passing the slower-moving car.

As the motor noise decreased, Andrews restarted the conversation so casually it was as if he hadn’t left it. “So, how ’bout it? This is front page material.”

“Isn’t there someone else you can send out for this? I’m really—”

“The
Union Democrat
is a lean, mean machine. I’ve got eight stringers. Three didn’t answer their phones, Mary Bernhart claimed she had the flu and had a hundred and one fever, Tomlinson said he was still in mourning for his wife—Did something happen to his wife?—and the rest said they had to get their kids off to school. Everyone just thinks about their own needs, it’s so disappointing. You’re my only hope.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t. March was just too warm and wet this year and I’m way behind. Rupert told me the other day that he’s got his tomatoes in the ground, while I got a few hundred
Pink Lady
seedlings in my hot house that have yet to see dirt. There’s no way.”

“I see. And how much work are you getting done in the mud today? Not much, I’d guess.”

Hubbard’s tractor was at his right—a study in still life. “Well, I’m looking at my tractor right now.”

“Okay, I’ll add forty to your usual fee; that makes it almost two hundred! Just like a day at the Farmers’ Market, only less work.” It was typical of Andrews to pull out his wallet to win a disagreement. The Boy King used money like a sledgehammer, smashing anything in his way.

“Look, I’m just a guy who makes extra money as a high school sports reporter for a small town weekly. I don’t know anything about covering a murder. Give me a Timberjack’s basketball game and I’m your guy.”

“John Riley, this happened in our town. All I need is forty column inches . . . Oh, I see what this is about. I’ll go a full two hundred dollars. Cash.”

“
Cash?”
Hubbard was startled by the unexpected offer. Cash was good; the amount would almost cover the delinquent electric bill.

The Boy King pounced on the opening. “Yeah, cash. I don’t like to pay off the books, but for this . . .”

Hubbard was quiet, thinking about tractor repair expenses, child support, and every other bill stacked on his kitchen table.

“It’s important to keep the town informed,” the Boy King said. “Do you know how many years it’s been since we’ve had a murder in Hayslip?”

Hubbard’s voice turned cold. “Yeah. I remember.”

The Boy King stammered, “Oh God. I’m um, a, sorry. I wasn’t meaning to . . . I wasn’t referring to . . .”

On the line, Hubbard heard brakes squeal and then the repetitive thumps that sounded like the ones created by a highway rumble strip. Andrews screamed like a teen actress in a slasher flick. Next, tires screeched across wet asphalt. Whatever was happening, the Boy King was not in control of the huge SUV. How fast was the idiot going?

Andrews cried out a rapid-fire mantra. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Get-outta-the-way. Get-outta-the-way.”

A new threat barged into the sound mix—an air horn blaring on a diesel rig.

Hubbard was blind to what was going on, but tried to help by throwing out advice for every driving emergency he could envision. “Ease off your brakes! Don’t over-correct. Keep your wheels straight! Get back in your lane
.
”

The big truck’s horn became deafening, blotting out everything else. Hubbard squeezed his eyes shut, steeled for the carnage. He pulled the phone a few inches away from his ear, his pulse racing.

Unexpectedly, the air horn’s roar peaked and diminished. Its confrontational blast downgraded into a rude insult as it trailed away.

The previous commotion faded and Hubbard heard the Suburban’s tires crunch over the gravel on the highway shoulder and come to a stop. He realized he’d been holding his breath. He inhaled with relief, stepped off the tree stump and squished across the grass.

After another moment, the Boy King came back on the line. “Are you still there? Can you believe that guy? What was he thinking? He could have gotten us both killed. Some drivers just can’t think fast. Just a minute . . .” There were more sounds of unknown things being jostled about in the cabin.

“Well, this sucks. I dropped my coffee and it spilled over everything. That damn poultry truck came within inches of hitting me. But get this: just as we passed, I looked up onto that trucker’s red face peering down at me. I could tell he was yelling something—but, you know, by then it was too late for his apology—that doesn’t help anyone. What I need is for that fool trucker to take driving lessons before he kills somebody.”

“I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head.” Hubbard said, hoping his sarcasm went undetected. “And why are you out on the road so early this treacherous morning?”

“Highway Commission meeting.”

Hubbard started to laugh at the absurdity, but with effort caught himself. “Well, that’s a coincidence. By the way, was there a vote on the interstate extension?”

Andrews’s chuckle sounded forced. “Um, no, but I keep pitching. Never give up.”

It was a lame effort at positive thinking. The Boy King’s three-year term on the commission was due to end, which meant the new roadway wasn’t going to happen.
Hayslip can’t catch a break.

“So, what about it, Hubbard? Can you help me out? Isn’t this what I pay you to do?” There was a note of undisguised frustration in Andrew’s voice.

Hubbard pulled his ball cap down toward his eyes. He couldn’t afford to lose this job. He’d have to find a way to handle his Shanty Town memories and not let his life spin out of control.

“Okay. For a full two hundred and fifty dollars, I’ll do my part. I’d hate to let you down.”

“What? Two hundred and fifty? It wasn’t a double homicide, just a single.”

Hubbard and Andrews were silent on the line.

“Okay.” Andrews gave in. “Sometimes you’re just like your uncle R.J.”

Hubbard frowned in the emerging daylight. Was Andrews dragging his uncle into the conversation to goad him? “Thanks, but I’m nothing like my uncle,” Hubbard said. “Oh, and cash, right?”

“Yes. Cash. Two hundred and fifty dollars. I got it. Do you usually demand unmarked, non-sequential bills? You’ll have to excuse the question; it’s the first time I’ve been blackmailed.”

“A personal check is fine. I trust you.”

“Hmm.”

“Any other thing you want?” Hubbard asked. He looked down, his other boot leaked, too. He shook his head in resignation.

“Focus on the White River Killer angle. It’s a natural. And get plenty of photos. Hurry, they’re waiting on you.”

“They’re waiting on me? You want photos of a dead body in the
Union Democrat?
And what about the
White River Killer?
Why do you think—? Hello?”

The Boy King was gone. Hubbard pulled the phone from his ear, looked at its blank screen and returned it to his pocket. He glanced up at the pink-blue sky, took a deep breath and slowly released it.

Shanty Town . . . Two years of sobriety . . . I’m so screwed.