Kitabı oku: «The Racer», sayfa 3
6. Closed lake
The boat station was Heartstone’s only way to access the lake. There were no households along the entire coastline. The only public beach was adjacent to the boat station. The owner of the station, Ruben Hustler, decided from the very beginning to make a deal with the authorities, refusing to charge residents for visiting the beach in exchange for tax breaks, pledging to take care of the beach. There was not a day that Ruben regretted this decision. With the opening of the season, the beach was always full of people, among whom there were always those who wanted to ride a boat, speedboat or catamaran.
Even at sixty-five years old, with mild arthritis and varicose veins, Ruben did not want to think about retiring. The boat station was the meaning of his life. He was constantly changing something at his facility. Ruben’s proudest acquisition was launching a cabin boat, which became very popular with many unfaithful husbands and wives in Heartstone. In a longboat in the center of the lake, no one will definitely catch you. This was the safest place to cheat on your other half without leaving any evidence behind. Inside, the covered cabin had quite comfortable fold-out seats, although Ruben had not thought that it would be precisely these types of clients who would be interested in his best vessel. He bought a longboat with the expectation that it would be rented on some holidays and birthdays, which is why he selected a vessel with a spacious deck for celebrations.
Over the years, Ruben Hustler became more and more attached to the boat station. After one of the two administrators quit, he did not look for a new one, but preferred to work half the time on his own. Spending time on the beach in the sun with a newspaper and cold lemonade is everything you need to ensure that old age is not wasted. At least that’s what Ruben thought. Even in his youth, he treated material possessions with trepidation. More than his property, Ruben valued only his friends, who did not allow him to become completely lonely in his old age. This was what he feared most. Ruben was literally obsessed with not inconveniencing anyone, being as helpful as possible, and never refusing to help anyone. In this regard, he succeeded greatly and was still far from having stopped finding a common language with people one or two generations younger than him. Despite being engaged in commerce, hardly anyone could call him greedy. On the day he received a call from New York and was told that his daughter had given birth to a grandson, Ruben posted an ad that all rowing boats and catamarans were available for rent for free for three days. He wanted to see happy people, because he himself felt warm in his soul, and it didn’t matter for what reason others were happy. All that matters is that they all had a good time. Ruben began to value such moments especially strongly after he was widowed at forty-nine.
Early in the morning he drove up to the office in his pickup truck. Ruben pulled over in front of the entrance to get out and open the gate. But he only managed to get out of the car, after which his jaw dropped, and his knees buckled. In front of his eyes the body of a girl hung on the gate in a crucified position. Her hands were impaled on the spikes atop the wrought-iron fence, and fixed in a horizontal position, and her head hung down, her chin buried in her chest.
– You’re armed to the teeth, and this is your town, I get it. I already understood – Spencer spoke through the bars of his cell after spending the night in the cell. – That’s it, come on, let me out.
– Shut your mouth! – Harry shouted.
– You guys are untouchable, huh? – Spencer barked displeasedly, after which he headed towards the couch at the opposite end of the cell.
The phone rang in the office. After the third ring, Harry arrived and picked up the phone:
– Sheriff’s office. How can I help?
– … – Didn’t understand
– …
– Mr. Hustler, try to calm down. Let’s do it again, as slowly as possible.
Nothing is as annoying as the phone ringing at six-thirty in the morning, and even being on the nightstand right next to the bed.
– Hello? – Sheriff Poe said in a sleepy voice, rubbing his closed eyelids with his thumb and forefinger.
The conversation lasted two minutes, after which, patiently waiting for Desmond to hang up, Rhonda said languidly:
– Well, what could happen there at this time? You could lie around for another hour.
– Trust me, honey, plenty can happen – Desmond said, yawning widely.
Forty minutes later, the sheriff, Jenna, and fifty-five-year-old pathologist Larry Green, who worked part-time as a medical examiner, arrived at the boat station. He and Desmond were bosom friends, so even if not a single dead man was found in Heartstone in ten years, they still found a reason to meet.
– My God – said Larry, taking off his cap to take a better look. – Under other circumstances, I would have thought that a movie was being filmed here.
Desmond came up and looked at the hanging head with his narrowed eyes. It was difficult to see anything because of the hanging hair that covered the face.
While Jenna was calming Ruben, Larry came to the gate, wearing latex gloves. He carefully pulled back the victim’s hair to examine her face.
– Dana Host – Desmond said affirmatively.
– Yes, that’s her. Eh, she was a cute girl.
– And she chose an unsafe occupation – Desmond added, continuing to examine the corpse from under the visor of his straw hat, with his hands busily placed on his belt.
– Do you think one of her casual friends?
– So many lustful men flock to Gomorrah every evening. I wouldn’t be surprised if among them suddenly there’s at least one preoccupied psycho with a sick imagination. It is quite possible that this time she was simply unlucky in choosing her next lover. She had a loud reputation and she says that so many travelers and truckers roll into Gomorrah that she always found herself some kind of male for half an hour. Imagine how many of them she had and who was not among them. – After a short pause, the sheriff added: – As soon as they bring it to the morgue, check for DNA evidence right away. If this is rape, then at least the motives will be clear.
Sheriff Poe then thought for a moment, imagining various options. He thought that he would need to get the addresses of all the waitresses and dancers working at Gomorrah in order to interview them. He also thought it would be a good idea to talk to Luther too.
Meanwhile, a van was arriving, from which a stretcher and a black plastic bag with a zipper were already being taken out.
Having calmed Ruben a little, who was sitting on the edge of the back seat of the patrol car, Jenna heard the creaking of the radio. She came up, answered, and half a minute later went to the sheriff.
– Chief, Harry reports that some tourists found Norman’s patrol car at the foot of the cliff, not far from the eastern entrance.
– And Norman? – Desmond asked anxiously.
After a painful pause, Jenna still said:
– He burned. Apparently he drove off the road, and after the fall the tank exploded.
Desmond covered his face with both hands, and when he scratched his skin with them, he took a deep breath, as if he was about to say something, but then changed his mind. A few seconds later he turned to Jenna:
– Call the transport company. Order a tow truck and a crane. Tell them to meet us at the eastern exit. And I will inform the hospital so that they can send a second car.
After waiting for Larry to finish examining the corpse of Dana Host, the sheriff said:
– Let’s move on.
Having reached the foot of the cliff, where he had to walk for several minutes, Desmond could not contain his emotions, although they were not so violent:
– Norman. How did you even manage to…
The closer Desmond got to his assistant’s burnt-out car, the clearer the image of the burnt body became.
Jenna couldn’t get too close. It wasn’t even that she couldn’t stand the sight of burnt flesh. She wasn’t sensitive that way. She could not bear the sight of a dead man with whom she worked and treated like a family member. She never dared look at Pierce’s body after he was mauled by the bear. Even at the funeral, she barely found the strength to walk up to the closed coffin, imagining what was hidden underneath. Strangers are another matter. Here she always had enough self-control to do her job.
A stretcher and a bag were brought to the spot, waiting for Larry to finish his part of the job. The crane and tow truck also began to look for a way to get as close to the place as possible.
Meanwhile, the sheriff said:
– Okay Larry. For now, you work, and so as not to waste time, we’ll go and see what’s up there.
– Accepted.
The sheriff and Jenna reached the official car and returned back to the highway. They drove to the section of the road that was closest to the scene of the incident.
Jenna walked up to the guardrail and drew the sheriff’s attention:
– Look!
– You’ve got sharp eyes – said Desmond, slightly lifting the visor of his hat with his index finger. – Well done.
They began to trace the scratch, which only lasted a couple of meters.
– What do you think? – Jenna asked. – What speed must be developed to cover such a distance in the air?
– Yes, this is an interesting question. But even more interesting is “why?”
– It’s unlikely he fell asleep if he was flying at high speed. Maybe he was chasing someone? Someone was driving in the oncoming lane and didn’t notice the guardrail?
The sheriff considered the assistant’s words.
– I like the way you think. If he was chasing someone and managed to catch up, then he could not go to the right, and to the left there was an obstacle that was not visible due to the darkness and the headlights of an oncoming car.
– Accident?
The sheriff shook his head and said:
– I don’t know, Jenna. Let Larry finish the job, then we’ll inspect the car. Maybe we’ll find something. In the meantime, take a photo of the scratches on the guardrail to attach to the case.
7. The books are closed
That evening, thirty-six-year-old Gloria Nelson was late at work and it was bad for her. Gloria constantly strived to lead a pedantic lifestyle, where everything was scheduled almost to the minute. As a rule, she managed to maintain the usual order of things at the usual time. But sometimes her finely tuned schedule fell apart, and it pissed her off. That day was exactly like that. Because of one lost receipt, she was unable to prepare preliminary figures for upcoming reporting. This could have been done the next day, but for Gloria it was fundamentally important to bring together all the numbers every day, so that after a couple of months she would not have to look for a lost couple of dollars that do not match the documents and rummage through a stack of papers to find documents for the required period. Compiling numbers every day was a guarantee for Gloria that the work would run like a well-oiled machine and there would be no problems with accounting in the future. Gloria spent an extra hour and a half searching for the receipt, which forced her to be delayed and significantly spoiled her usual schedule. In such cases, her husband or one of her daughters always called her at work, realizing that such a delay by Gloria looked suspicious and that perhaps something had happened.
She usually finished her work day between 18:00 and 18:10. This time she left the transport company office at 20:42. If Gloria usually warmed up the engine for five minutes before leaving the parking lot, this time she immediately she took off the parking brake and headed home.
Gloria looked exhausted, but not so much because of the delay at work, but because of that damned receipt got on her last nerve. She was going to come as usual, cook dinner, and now she didn’t even have time to stop at the supermarket for food for dinner and asked her husband to do it. She then had to iron and hang two of the nine curtains. Next she had to take a bath. Following this, she planned to read the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters of The Night Cabby1. Gloria always set a deadline for reading a book, estimating the number of pages and chapters, distributing an average plan for each day, thus calculating the time in which the book should be read. Now, in her busy evening, she could barely fit in a quick dinner, or rather a snack, and a bathroom, or rather a shower, because she still had to be in bed on time.
When the light turned red ahead, Gloria decided to slow down and approach the traffic light slowly, so that at the moment when the light turned green, she could simply press the gas pedal a little harder and thus spend less time accelerating.
Now every second counted. Her white Ford was barely rolling, and the yellow one still didn’t want to light up.
But in the rearview mirror a black Dodge was rapidly picking up speed. Its piercing headlights grew larger in the mirror every second. The roar of the engine grew. But Gloria was so absorbed in waiting for the yellow traffic light that she didn’t even notice the growing noise outside her car.
But then the yellow light came on and Gloria stepped on the gas. By the time she arrived at the traffic light, it had already turned green. The needle on the Ford’s speedometer began to creep up and it seemed to Gloria that she was gaining precious seconds without wasting time on the brake, clutch and gear shift. She saved a lot of time. By the standards of her attitude towards managing time, this was a lot.
Gloria was in a hurry to accelerate to the maximum permissible speed as quickly as possible. But there was no speed limit that evening because there was the Dodge on the road. At a speed of one hundred and seventy-one kilometers per hour, it slammed into the back of the Ford and added speed that this car could not develop on its own. By this moment, a slight rise loomed ahead and the Ford lifted off the asphalt for a second, making a short flight. Gloria didn’t have time to realize that something was wrong. She didn’t waste time stopping at traffic lights or wearing her seat belt. Her head first suddenly stuck to the headrest, and then sharply rushed forward. The Ford logo in the center of the steering wheel was the last thing Gloria saw, but she didn’t even have time to realize it. The Racer driving the Dodge left no time for that.
8. Day of cash and debauchery
Carter Beckran attached special symbolism to the end of each month. For him it was like a flag at the start, like a green traffic light or a command to go ahead. This was the moment when many of his employees seemed to break loose and turn into ancient Romans during an orgy. Considering the fact that his company’s employees received salaries three to four times higher than the average in Heartstone (this is in the off-season), they allowed themselves to forget on payday that they were people and partied like animals; others stocked their refrigerators with the most expensive delicacies; someone went to Gomorrah and preferred to get lost somewhere between alcohol and women’s bodies.
Chief engineer Seth Crawford for the last four years, after each paycheck, he visited the most expensive, most elite and most sought-after call girl in Heartstone, whom he hired for the entire night, although for all other clients the payment was hourly.
The economist, accountant, logistician, storekeeper and agronomist finally set aside the necessary amount for Las Vegas so that during a joint vacation they could indulge in sin without knowing any boundaries.
Among Carter’s employees was a security guard who fulfilled his dream and bought an eleven-year-old Porsche 911, and repaid the loan in a year and a half.
The head of the HR department, a lady of forty-seven years old, always bought herself some kind of jewelry at various intervals. Over the course of a couple of years, she accumulated so much jewelry that the work team began to say that it was better to give up the New Year tree at the end of the year, because they had their own blinged-out Christmas tree dripping with sparkle from top to bottom. No matter what day she came to work, her neck, earlobes, wrists and fingers were thoroughly hidden under a decent layer of gold and precious stones.
Another lady of mature years, a deputy chief accountant in her fifties, also had her own hobby. She set aside money every six months for her biggest expense item. Every vacation she went to a Mexican resort, which was especially popular with divorcees and wives disillusioned with family life, where they were seduced by dozens of young studs who were ready, for the money of rich women who were old enough to be their mother, to make any of their fantasies come true.
Every birthday, bachelor party, bachelorette party or any other event requiring a wild celebration, where the culprit is a person working for Carter Beckran, turned into a feast for the stomach and a test of strength for the liver, because in these cases the amount of alcohol and exotic dishes was greatly exceeded far beyond what’s typical in Heartstone. The whole town knew what you could achieve by working for Carter Beckran, and so working for the Beckran & Co. was a dream for most Heartstone residents.
In conversations at home with his father, although Carter joked, saying: “I sense that soon they will have to cut their salaries, otherwise they will soon spend all their savings on alcohol and whores”, – he himself was not against indulging in something from time to time. However, what was noteworthy was that all his pranks regarding spending money were either small-time splurges or epic blowouts. Sometimes it was a bottle of the most expensive alcohol he could find. But one day Carter bought a Cadillac Gage Commando armored personnel carrier and drove it for six months until he got tired of it, after which he sold it to a private military company.
9. Dancing with death
Leonardo Benetti couldn’t recall the last time he had to hold two funeral services in one day. After the coffin with the body of Norman Hughes is taken out of the church, the farewell ceremony for Dana Host will begin. Father Benetti did not sit down from the moment the coffin was carried into the church. He approached each of those who were close to the deceased. Relatives, neighbors, acquaintances, friends, his classmates and school teachers. When Father Benetti came up to express his condolences to Norman’s mother, she hugged the priest tightly and did not let go for about fifteen minutes. Father Benetti stood patiently and patted Martha Hughes on the shoulder, offered words of comfort few could muster. But Leonardo Benetti knew how to do this and could speak mournful speeches without stopping, trying to alleviate the mental suffering of the mourners. It’s unlikely that anything can comfort the souls of those grieving after the loss of a loved one, but when there is someone whose hugs and words of sympathy give at least a drop of warmth, it becomes very important. It was this kind of warmth that emanated from Father Benetti.
More and more people were arriving at the funeral every few minutes. Norman was buried in a closed coffin. His identity was identified using the results of a genetic examination, comparing the DNA of the corpse with the DNA of Bernard Hughes, Norman’s father. The closed coffin gave some the impression that a ghost was being buried here today.
Desmond, Jenna and Harry crossed the threshold of the church. The sheriff and his deputies arrived in the same car. Each of them had a bouquet left in the car, which was to be laid at the cemetery. In addition to the red carnations, Desmond bought a wreath on which was written: “To the bravest guy in Heartstone from his colleagues”. Although Desmond paid for the wreath entirely out of his own pocket, he nevertheless considered it necessary to present it on behalf of the entire team. Jenna bought ten red roses on her own. Having crossed the threshold of the church, she remembered how she had recently buried Pierce, and this made her feel doubly bad. Harry admitted that he doesn’t understand anything about flowers and asked Jenna to help him choose. She picked out a dozen roses for him in a dozen pale scarlet hue. Leaving the flowers and wreath in the trunk, they entered the church, heading straight to Norman’s family. They shook hands and hugged Bernard, Martha, and Norman’s twenty-nine-year-old sister Sabrina. Martha reacted the same way to hugs from her son’s colleagues, not letting go of each of them for several minutes. Wrapping her arms around Desmond’s neck and pressing herself against his shoulder, Martha’s crying became stronger. Seeing Sabrina’s face pink from endless tears, Jenna fell into an even greater sense of grief and, hugging her, did not let go of her for some time. Next came relatives who came from Austin, Houston and Oklahoma.
The number of people grew faster and faster as the time at which the farewell ceremony was scheduled to begin approached.
Soon Father Benetti began to walk around the arrivals and invite them to sit down so that they could begin.
The first eight rows were filled to capacity. Silence reigned in the church and Father Benetti began his speech:
– Today we’ve gathered here because we’ve lost a son in this world. There is one less brother. Sometimes life ends suddenly, and the more painful this loss becomes…
Riggan Brooks sat by the phone in the sheriff’s office. When cases arose that neither the sheriff nor any of his deputies were in the office, Desmond asked Riggan to sit on the telephone as the person on duty. In this sense, he enjoyed the trust of the sheriff, which he occasionally allowed himself to show off in front of his acquaintances. The feeling of being alone in the law enforcement office with the approval of the sheriff himself caused him to experience a sharp increase in self-esteem and self-confidence. Now he is in charge here, albeit without official authority.
Before leaving, Desmond warned Riggan not to go into the corridor with the temporary holding cells where Spencer was sitting, who, if he found out that there was a young boy on duty, could mess with his head, hoping for something there. The sheriff made such warnings all the time, although he did not doubt the guy.
In all this time, Riggan had never had to take any kind of emergency call about an incident, although deep down Riggan felt that this was exactly what he needed to complete the sensations, to realize that he was in a real office of a real sheriff, especially that this time there is also a prisoner in the cell.
That day, Riggan just had a day off. While the sheriff and his deputies were at the funeral, he reclined more comfortably in Harry’s chair, folded his legs on the table and unfolded a magazine dedicated to events in the world of cinema in front of him. Riggan was stuck on an article that described the details of the filming process for “Gone in 60 Seconds”, which had been released a year earlier. Having read it to the end, he once again looked at the photographs from the set and a joint photograph of Dominic Sena and Jerry Bruckheimer. Next was a biography of Clint Eastwood with a dozen photographs in different images in which he was filmed, arranged in chronological order. After it there were articles about new technologies in the field of visual effects, analysis of the film market, articles by film critics, plans of Hollywood studios, and on the back there was a table with a schedule of world premieres of some films in the coming months, which, according to surveys, are the most anticipated. After the article about “Gone in 60 Seconds” Riggan lost interest in the magazine and took the latest issue of Playboy out of his backpack, immediately after which the day got lively. After half an hour Riggan began to notice that the reaction to naked female bodies was too strong and he decided to return to the film magazine. He ran through the movie schedule and noticing “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” on the list, thought about taking his girlfriend to the cinema, but when he saw that the premiere was still six months away, his enthusiasm immediately faded.
Suddenly the bell rang. Riggan put the phone to his ear, without taking his eyes off the magazine.
– Sheriff’s Office. How can I help?
Riggan listened to the person on the other end of the line for a couple of minutes, then hung up and hurriedly began calling the sheriff’s car over the radio. Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the keys to the front doors and ran to the exit.
When Bernard Hughes gave a speech to those present, often wiping the damp skin under his eyes with a handkerchief, the distinct sounds of someone’s footsteps began to be heard inside the church. Despite the fact that Riggan was wearing sneakers, his steps still echoed throughout the entire room, because he no longer bothered about decency and all that. He hurried quietly and stopped between the rows, looking for the sheriff’s head. Like everyone else, Desmond also looked back when he heard loud footsteps. He saw Riggan’s face, very alarmed by something, who motioned for him to come out for a few words. Desmond was greatly surprised by this. He understood that the guy would not just leave the office and rush here with all his might, as evidenced by his deep and frequent sighs, which were so difficult for him. The sheriff immediately stood up from his seat, heading towards the exit.
Maurice Callaham worked as a security guard at a dance school. At the age of sixty-three he was no longer particularly worried about spasms throughout his body and pain in his knees. It is unlikely that with such a physical form he would be able to repel unauthorized entry into the building. But since he was not guarding gold and foreign exchange reserves, the school management decided not to deprive him of his job. Instead, they paid attention to the conscientiousness with which Maurice approached his work. Even the fact that, with a height of one hundred and sixty-four he already weighed more than eighty, did not cause any concern to the school director or his deputy. They valued the reliability of employees, since a new security guard, like a potential employee for any other position, was perceived by them as an unknown quantity.
Maurice was in the habit of constantly smoothing his mustache in both directions, thereby checking its smoothness and levelness, so that he knew when it was time to cut it. For his age, Maurice had a rare quality: he had a good knowledge of modern musical art. In addition to the fact that the school taught dances to various music, across the street there was a video and music rental store, where an acoustic speaker was installed on the street side, from which some kind of music was constantly playing. Maurice liked most of the compositions, so when he got bored, he went out onto the terrace or opened the entrance doors, after which he began to walk around the nearest rooms and dance, and when the music was already familiar to him, he also began to silently move his lips, as if singing along. These were one of the few times Maurice put stress on his knees, but did not experience absolutely any discomfort. He simply danced and sang, and his soul rejoiced. At the same time, he did not go through any particular genres or styles. He liked pop, retro, blues, jazz, rock, disco and much more.
That morning Maurice started his next shift. He stepped off the bus, holding his lunch bag in his hand, heading towards the dance school, which was a two-minute walk from the bus stop. Every time he got off the bus, Maurice was interested in his sixty-four-year-old colleague Anthony Herb, whom he most often replaced. He wondered how soundly Anthony slept, since only twice in Maurice’s memory had he found Anthony awake when he went on shift. As soon as the noise of the bus died down, music began to reach Maurice’s ears. It was still difficult for him to understand what kind of song it was, but he was already in a hurry to find out. Halfway through, he recognized the notes of “Stop” by Sam Brown. And from that moment on, Maurice’s steps slowed down. He did not walk, but glided to the music’s rhythm. At moments he even lowered his eyelids and made more characteristic movements with his hands, moving to the beat of the music. While Maurice walked to school at this pace, Sam Brown had just finished singing. She was replaced by Rammstein, and the eyes of Maurice Callaham saw the body of Gloria Nelson on the main staircase with her face battered and caked under a layer of dried blood.
