HIGHWAY HOMICIDE (19 page)

Chapter Thirty

David took time out from his lunch hour at Ryan’s Appliances to drop into the Sheriff’s office. He’d called and asked Carl to meet him there. Carl had told him it would be no problem for him to drop by the store any time if he’d prefer it.

David asked him not to, but to meet him at his office if he could. Carl asked him what
it was about and David said he’d tell him when he saw him.

He and Carl had brought his Chevy back from
Burlington and David had spent a long time scrubbing the cargo space out. It now looked clean, but David thought he’d trade it in just as soon as he had the opportunity.

The car reminded him too much
of things he didn’t want to have to remember.

“So, Dave, what’s up?” Carl asked as Dave walked in to the office and greeted them. Carl had called Almost and had asked him to swing by the office
as well if he wasn’t busy.

Before David could say any more, Judy said, “You haven’t had any lunch, have you? I’ll bring you some donuts and coffee. And you can keep your hands off them, Carl. These are for David,” she said over her shoulder.

Carl grinned.

“Your mother hen is taking very good care of you then, Dave, is she?” he said, as Judy returned carrying a mug of coffee and a plate of donuts. David smiled but ignored the comment, taking the coffee from Judy instead.

“The reason I’m here, Carl, is that I’ve just seen it again this morning.”

“The Jeep?”

“Yes. It drove very slowly past the store again this morning.”

Carl put his hands together in a praying motion, and looked reverently up at the office ceiling.

“Please tell me you got the goddamned license number this time, Dave,” he said fervently.

David let him stew for a couple of long moments.

“Was I supposed to?” he said innocently.

“Just give me the goddamned number, Dave, and quit jerking me around,” Carl growled at him.

David laid a piece of paper down on the desk in front of him.

Carl looked it over and said, “So it’s a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited then, brownish gray and…”

“Taupe,” Judy interjected.

“
What
?” Carl said, giving her a baleful look.

“Taupe, Carl. It’s a stocking color, ladies stockings. It’s called taupe,”

“We’re not looking for ladies stockings, Jude; we’re looking for a goddamned
Jeep
!” he said testily.

“Same difference, its still taupe,” Judy said smugly.

“Whatever. We’re looking for a brownish gray Jeep,” Carl repeated.

“Taupe,” Judy said again.

Carl heaved an exasperated sigh.

“Okay
, then, goddamn it, we’re looking for a
taupe
Jeep. You happy now?”

Judy didn’t answer but just licked her forefinger and drew an imaginary line in the air in front of her as though she was keeping score.

Carl shook his head in frustration.

“Accuracy, Carl. All good descriptions should at least be accurate, even yours.” Judy added.

“Well, Jude, if you want to be really accurate, the manufacturer, Chrysler, doesn’t call it that either. As a matter of fact, the color is…” David started to say.

“Don’t
you
start as well,” Carl roared at him.

“Okay
, Sheriff. You’ve got all the info now so do I get a deputy’s pay for this?”

“You don’t want to know what you’ll get if you don’t get yourself out of here. And take her with you, for God’s sake. Leave me in peace; I’ve got work to do now.”

“
Finally
, the man’s got work to do,” Judy said. “Come on over here and have your coffee with me, David. Let the old grouch get on with it and I’m better company than he is anyway. I swear if you were to give that man a brand new Cadillac, he’d just complain about the color of it. Especially if it was
taupe
,” she added with a grin.”

Her comments had gone right over Carl’s head, since he was already on the phone checking out the Jeep’s ownership.

When he hung up, he said, “Ever heard of a guy called Overton Wells, Dave?”

David thought for a moment.

“Overton Wells? Yes, I believe I have, if it’s the same guy,” David said. “I guess it must be. Not too many people around called Overton, are there?”

“Okay, then, who is he?” Carl said impatiently.

“I met him just the once, at the University. He’s Jason Wells’ father.” David said.

“Jason Wells, the guy on this list of yours?”

“Yes, he was part of our little group.”

“Tell me about him, Dave,” Carl said.

“Well, for starters, he was another one of the guys in our group that Maria gave a hard time to. He laughed it off but you could tell he was furious with her. I remember he was also kidded about his name by one of our professors once. In front of the whole class. He didn’t like that too much either.”

“Kidded him about what? Wells or Jason? Why would he be kidded about either of those, the
y’re common enough names, aren’t they?” Carl said.

“The professor called him the ‘Calendar Guy’ one day, in front of everyone, because of his name.”
              “Calendar Guy? What was there about either of those names to cause him to do that?” Carl said in a puzzled voice.

“It was the first letter of each of the months in the name Jason, Carl,” David said.

“Huh? I still don’t get it.”

“July, August, September, October and November. J.A.S.O.N., ergo, calendar,” David said.

“Ergo? What the hell kind of word is that, for Christ’s sake? Hell’s bells, Dave, use English, dammit.” Carl spluttered.

“That is English, Carl. It means
therefore
”, David said.

“You have to remember to just use small words for Carl, David,” Judy said, grinning.

“It
was
a small word, Judy. They don’t come a whole lot smaller, but I’ll try harder next time.”

“Alright, smart asses, if it means therefore, why can’t you just say therefore, instead of all that ergo crap?” Carl said testily.

“Anyway, Carl, after that episode, a lot of people started to call him Cal, short for Calendar Guy, or Jay, short for Jason.”

“Alright, Dave, I get the picture, so enough of the explanations. The important thing is, did you see this Jason guy driving the Jeep, or was it someone else? His father, maybe?”

“Yes, it was him. I knew the face yesterday, but I just couldn’t place it right away. Not until you threw his name into the mix.”

“But you’
d already written that name down for Carl,” Judy said.

“Yes, I know, Judy, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen any of the old group, except Maria. I’m sorry if I’ve wasted a lot of time here. I should have made the connection earlier.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Dave. At least we know who our killer is now,” Carl said with satisfaction. “Jason Wells of Rutland.”

“Right,” David said.

“That’s the good news, folks. You ready for the bad?”

“Bad?” Judy said. “
What’s
bad?”

“I think I know who his next intended victim will be,” Carl said grimly.

David was very quiet for a moment.

“So do I then, I
guess,” he said, “You think it’s me, don’t you?”

Beside him, Judy gasped, “Oh, God,
no
!”

David breathed out heavily.

“I suppose I should go away and just paint a big target on the back of my shirt” David said in a vain attempt at levity.

“David!” Judy said harshly, “Don’t even joke about such things.”

“We’re gonna catch that bastard, Jude,” Carl growled. “I don’t plan for that son of a bitch to murder anyone else around here.”

He thumped his fist down angrily on his desk.

“Where the hell is Almost?” he said, “Jude, call him and tell him to get his ass in here now, right away. And Dave, you call Alvin Ryan and tell him you’ve been detained at the Sheriff’s office to help with the investigation. Tell him too, I’ll call him later to fill him in about what’s happening. I’m sure that he’ll understand,”

“Well, if he doesn’t and I’m out of a job, I guess you’ve just hired yourself another deputy,” David said jokingly. Judy shook her head and frowned at him but said nothing.

“Actually, that might not be such a bad idea, Dave, all joking aside. We’ll talk it over when Almost gets in here.”

“I don’t like this one little bit, guys,” Judy moaned. “I don’t want any of my boys to get hurt.”

“Jude, if anyone is going to get hurt, it’s our plan to hurt the other guy. And in any case there’ll be three of us against one of him. Four of us, if we count you, Jude,”

“Three?” David queried. “Who are the three?”

“That’s what I said. Three of us, Deputy Gates,” Carl said, smiling. “Feel better now, Jude?”

Judy just shook her head.

“Not until it’s all over, Carl, no.”

In their planning, they had to tread very carefully. At the mome
nt, the only hard evidence they had to go on was two partial thumbprints of somebody. At this point in time, they actually had no solid idea if that ‘somebody’ was actually Jason Wells or not. Somehow they’d need to match the prints they had to his.

Suspicions alone were not enough to possibly blast someone out of existence, if it came down to a sho
ot out of some kind. That wasn’t the way things were done here. In New York City or in Tombstone, maybe, but not in Cooper’s Corners!

The trouble was
Carl was now almost obsessed with catching the Cooper’s Corners killer himself. Not himself personally, necessarily, but he did want his police department to bring the killer to justice one way or another.

When Almost arrived, Carl filled him in and together with Jude; they witnessed Carl’s swearing in of David as a Sheriff’s Deputy for the
County of Lamoille. Carl said the position was temporary and could be part time if he wanted to continue with it later. In the meantime, he’d square it all away with Alvin Ryan.

To be more comfortable, they all adjourned to the back interview room for their planning session. All four of them agreed that, although
they wouldn’t be officially deputized, Carl would need the assistance of a lot more of the townsfolk, if their plan was to succeed.

As the morning progressed so did their plan. Just before lunchtime it was finalized and they went over it all once more, looking for possible flaws in their collective reasoning. Then the three guys left to go over to Lisa’s for a meal.

Around one thirty, Almost, Carl and David came back into the office together. Jude was busy tidying up around the radio table and had her back to them. Carl called out a greeting to her as David and Almost went on into the interview room. Almost was carrying a blue sports bag and David dropped off a box of donuts as he passed Judy’s desk.

Carl pulled up a chair beside her desk as Judy turned around, came back to it and sat hersel
f down behind it. Carl knew he was going to be in trouble as soon as he opened his mouth.

Jude looked at him questioningly. Carl usually just yelled at her from behind the sa
fety of his own desk. It was unusual for him to come over and sit at hers.
              He took a deep breath and said, “David’s going to be moving out of your place for a while, Jude. He’s going to bed down at my place, just until we catch this guy. It’s going to be way too dangerous for you if he stays with you.”

“Dangerous f
or
me
? Was I complaining, or something?” Judy snapped.

“No, you weren’t. But we’
ve decided over lunch.” Carl said.

“Oh,
we
did, did
we
? And just where was I when
we
decided all this?” Judy said angrily.

“Come
on, Jude. We have to make sure you’re kept safe. You know that.”

“So I’m being left out of it all then. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“No, you’re not being left out of anything at all. As a matter of fact, we hope you’ll be an absolutely vital part of our plan.”

Jude pursed her lips.

“So, go on, tell me all about
our
plan” she said, “Since you’ve planned it all as well as decided it all without me.”

“Okay, then, here’s the plan so far,
so you know all about it. As you know, we all think David is the prime target for this guy, hopefully his last target. We just have to make damned sure the guy doesn’t immediately recognize Dave the next time he sees him. Oh, just a minute, Jude,” Carl said as he got up. He went over and knocked on the interview door. The door opened and two uniformed deputies walked out into the main office. Both of them were in identical deputies uniforms, complete with hats, and both wore sunglasses.