John Lutz - Night kills

"We got a problem?" a voice asked.

Joe Ray had awakened and stumbled sleepy eyed out onto the porch. He was shirtless and barefoot but had pulled on his old jeans. There was a rip in one leg, revealing a dirty knee.

"It's about the old Dodge truck we left in the swamp," Cathy Lee said. She looked at the deputy. "Have we broken some kinda law?"

Simmons looked puzzled, still with the smile that wasn't a smile. "This wasn't a Dodge. It was a near-brand-new Ford."

Joe Ray had started down the porch stairs and almost fell. He looked panicky for a moment. Cathy Lee realized she was standing with her mouth hanging open.

"Somethin' wrong?" the deputy asked.

"We got that truck all legal," Joe Ray said too defensively.

Simmons narrowed his eyes. These two were acting as if he'd happened onto a Mafia meeting. "You the one left it stuck out there in the mud?"

"I don't know nothin' about it. My friend Juan was drivin' it last night."

"Where would he be?"

"In the house, fast asleep. Musta had a late night."

The deputy rested his right palm on the top of his black leather holster and glanced off to the side.

"What's in that outbuilding?"

"Gardenin' tools. That kinda stuff," Joe Ray said.

"I never noticed any plantin' around here when I drove in."

"I hear somethin' about a truck?" Juan asked. He'd come out onto the porch. He was barefoot, like Joe Ray, but wearing a white T-shirt with his jeans.

"The Ford truck," Joe Ray said. "You know."

"I was on my way home from Rodney's Roadhouse last night," Juan said, "an' got it stuck in the mud. Woulda thought that was impossible with that big Ford, it havin' four-wheel drive an' all, but I missed a turn an' drove it well off the road. I gave up after tryin' to get it out an' walked the rest of the way here. Truck's still where I left it, I guess."

"Yeah, I saw it," the trooper said. "Need a tractor or somethin' with a winch to pull it out."

"You got that right."

"You have a snootful when you left Rodney's?"

"Two beers, is all. You can ask Rodney."

"I've always trusted Rodney. Weren't drinkin' behind the wheel, were you?"

Juan's smile was sheepish. He hadn't been high on booze last night, but on something else. "I can honestly say no, officer."

"I don't know a damned thing about that truck," Cathy Lee said.

Anger flashed in Joe Ray's eyes. "You rode in it enough. You even got yourself-"

"Best not go there, Joe Ray," Cathy Lee said.

"We can show you where we left the old Dodge," Juan said, tumbling to what might be a dangerous development. Showing a little cooperation and changing the subject. Maybe they should invite the cop inside, where he or Joe Ray could get close to a gun. Not that they wanted to kill a sheriff's deputy, but if it came down to that…

"Uh-hm." Simmons looked from one of them to the other. "Forget the Dodge. I gotta say I'm curious about the Ford truck. Big F-150."

"It ain't stole," Joe Ray said. "You can check."

"Already did. I wonder if we looked in the cab, we'd find some beer cans or liquor bottles. Maybe even some illegal substance."

"Not on your life," Juan said, using a forefinger to cross his heart.

"Truck's not very far from here," the deputy said. "Let's go see."

Juan shrugged. Joe Ray looked worried.

"Seemed far enough when I was walkin' it last night," Juan said.

"You can stay here, ma'am," the deputy said to Cathy Lee. "We' won't be more'n fifteen, twenty minutes." He looked at Juan and Joe Ray. "I'll drive, since you've got no vehicle. I apologize, but you two'll have to sit in back, where we usually transport prisoners." Without averting his gaze from them, he walked over to the car and opened a rear door.

Joe Ray and Juan glanced at Cathy Lee and ambled over to get in the backseat. They both had their thumbs tucked in their front jeans pockets. Joe Ray, leaning over to enter the car first, got a look at the steel grille separating the front and back of the interior, and the absence of inside door handles. There was a control for the window to go up and down, but he knew it would be dead.

Halfway into the car, he hesitated and turned and looked back at Deputy Simmons. "This ain't a trick, is it?"

"No kinda trick I know of," Simmons said. "Just regulations, sir. We got passengers, there's where they gotta sit."

Joe Ray nodded and disappeared into the back of the car. Juan followed.

As the deputy walked around to get in behind the steering wheel, he glanced over at Cathy Lee. His smile seemed genuine again. And at this distance, he was youthful again.

"This is just a formality. We won't be long, ma'am."

"I'll make some coffee," she said.

When the sheriff's deputy's car reached the spot where the F-150 was bogged down off the road, Simmons steered slightly onto what passed for a shoulder and braked to a halt. The back of the blue truck's bed was visible through lush green foliage. Flattened-out grass and some sheared-off small saplings showed where the big Ford had gone in. The road had curved, and the truck had gone straight and just missed some good-sized cypress tree trunks, one on each side. It hadn't missed their lower branches.

"Looks like you broke some wood goin' in," Simmons said over his shoulder.

"Tell you the truth, I mighta fell asleep at the wheel," Juan said. "I got sleep watchamacallit-a sleep disorder-so I'm tired most of when I'm awake, doze off unexpectedly at the darnedest times."

"Sleep apnea," the deputy said. "Doctor can treat that for you."

"I don't wanna wear one of them breathin' apparatus things when I sleep," Juan said. "Looks to me like they'd suffocate you."

"Cure your sleep apnea," Joe Ray said.

"I'll be right back," the deputy said and climbed out of the car and shut the door before they could answer.

Deputy Simmons didn't look back at them as he approached the truck. Morning sunlight slanted in low through the trees, and the F-150's bulbous blue tailgate gleamed like an Easter egg badly hidden among the greenery.

When he was as close to the vehicle as he'd been last time, Simmons rolled up his uniform pants and waded into shallow, brackish water. He thought about removing his shoes, but it wasn't worth the risk of stepping on something. Or getting bitten by something. Besides, the sheriff's department would compensate him for a pair of regulation shoes ruined in the performance of his duties. He hoped. There was no other, dry way to reach the damned truck.

He felt the cool water rise on his bare legs, then spill into his leather shoes. His socks were soaked within seconds.

All in the job.

When he got to the mired truck, he attempted to open the driver's-side door and found it locked. He could see across the cab that the opposite door was also locked.

Laugh's on me.

In part so he wouldn't look foolish to the two men confined in the rear of the cruiser, he began a slow, sloshing circuit of the truck, making a show of examining its exterior.

When the one called Juan had driven it into the swamp, the branches had scratched it considerably. One deep gouge in the right front fender revealed black paint beneath the blue.

Black.

Simmons was pretty sure the truck hadn't been manufactured with black primer paint. This vehicle had been repainted. It was awfully new for a repaint, unless it had been in an accident.

Standing and staring at where black paint showed through some other, smaller scratches, the deputy suddenly remembered it hadn't been that long ago when every lawman in the South was looking for a black Ford F-150. It had been stolen by that Coulter guy who'd been found dead and full of shotgun pellets about ten miles down the state road. This truck had a different license plate number, but that was no surprise.