Jeffery Deaver - Praying for Sleep

What is going on here? Heck trained the flashlight on the part of the madman that remained on the ground-the part that was now grasping about for something to pull over her ample breasts.

“Shit, son of a bitch!” the man’s upper half shouted in an edgy tenor. “What the hell you think you’re doing?”

The Boy started laughing first then Fennel joined in and, if Heck hadn’t been so upset at losing his reward money, he’d have laughed too. The sight of the skinny man, searching desperately for his shorts, the long condom whipping back and forth as it dangled from his quickly shrunk member… Well, it was the funniest thing Heck had seen for a month of Sundays.

“Don’t hurt me,” the woman wailed.

“Son of a bitch,” the skinny man growled once more. Heck’s humor returned and he whistled the “Dueling Banjos” tune from Deliverance.

In a Kentucky-mountain voice Charlie Fennel said, “Naw, I want him. He’s a purty one.”

“Sooo-eee,” Heck called. “Here, piggy, piggy, piggy!”

The woman wailed again.

“Oh, shit…” The young man fumbled with his pants.

“Calm down now.” Fennel shone the light on his badge. “We’re state troopers.”

“That wasn’t funny, I don’t care who y’all are. She wanted to do it. She picked me up at that diner up the road. It was her idea.”

The woman had calmed in proportion to the amount of clothing she’d pulled on. “ My idea? I’ll thank you not to make me sound cheap.”

“I didn’t want-”

“That’s your all’s business,” Fennel said, “but it’s our business you’ve had a hitchhiker on the back of your rig for the past ten miles. An escapee.”

Heck too understood that this is what had happened and he was angry at himself for not thinking of it sooner. Hrubek had clung to the back bumper guard or loading platform of the truck. That was why the scent had been so weak, and why it had never wavered from the road.

“Jesus, that fellow at the truck stop in Watertown? The big guy? Oh, my everloving Lord!”

“You’re that truck driver?” Heck asked. “He asked you about going to Boston?”

“Shitabrick, maybe he’s still on the rig!”

But the Boy had already circled around and checked out the truck’s roof and undercarriage. “He’s not here, nope. And the back’s padlocked. He must’ve took off into the fields when the truck stopped.”

“Oh, Jesus,” the driver whispered reverently, “he’s a killer, ain’t he? Oh, Jesus, Jesus…”

The woman had started crying again. “This is the last time, I swear. Never again.”

Fennel asked how long the driver had been there.

“Fifteen minutes, I’d guess.”

“You love bunnies hear anything?”

“Nothing, not a single thing,” the driver said, eager to please.

“I didn’t hear anything either,” the woman replied, sniffling, “and I don’t like your, you know, attitude.”

“Uhn,” Fennel responded, then said to the young man, who was buttoning up his shirt, “Now I suggest you get back in that rig and take this lady home; and get on your way.”

“Take her home? Forget about it.”

“You prick,” she snapped. “You damn well better.”

“I think you ought to do that, son,” Heck said.

“Okay. If she don’t live too far from here. I’ve got a load of auto parts I got to get to Bangor by-”

“You prick.”

Fennel had checked the bushes around the semi. “No sign of him,” he called.

“Well, with the sound these two were making,” Heck said, chuckling, “I’d run too. Well, let’s get on with it. He can’t be more than a half mile from here. We should-”

The Boy said, “Uh, Trenton, I think there’s a problem.”

Heck looked up to see the young trooper pointing at a small sign that in their silent approach they’d passed but not noticed. Its back was to Heck and Fennel. They strode to it, turned and read.

Welcome to Massachusetts

Heck looked at the scripty green letters and wondered why anybody’d waste a nicely painted sign here on this dim country road, home of madmen, horny truck drivers and loose waitresses. He sighed and looked at Fennel.

“Sorry, Trenton.”

“Come on, Charlie.”

“We got no jurisdiction here.”

“Why, he isn’t but a half mile away! He could be two hundred yards from us right now. Hell, he could be watching us from one of those trees over there.”

“The law’s the law, Trenton. We need to get the Mass troopers in.”

“I say let’s just go get him.”

“We can’t cross the state line.”

“Hot pursuit,” Heck said.

“Won’t work. He ain’t a felon. Adler said that Hrubek didn’t kill that fellow was in the body bag. It was a suicide.”

“Come on, Charlie.”

“If he ain’t so crazy-and it looks like maybe he ain’t-and we nab him in Massachusetts, he might sue us for assault or kidnapping. And he could damn well win.”

“Not if we get our stories straight.”

“Lie, you’re saying.”

Heck didn’t speak for a moment. “All we do is we find him and bring him back. That’d be that.”

“ Trenton, did you ever falsify a case report?”

“No.”

“You ever perjure yourself on the stand?”

“You know I never did.”

“Well, you’re not wearing a badge now and I know you feel different about those of us who are. But the fact is, we just can’t stroll over state lines.”

Rising through Heck’s prominent anger now was a sudden understanding-that the interest Charlie Fennel and the young trooper had in the search was this: to do their job. Oh, they’d give the pursuit of Michael Hrubek 110 percent and they’d bust their balls and put in all sorts of god-awful overtime and even risk their life. But for that one purpose only: to do their job.

Leaving the jurisdiction wasn’t their job.

“I’m sorry, Trenton.”

“Didn’t any of us notify the Mass troopers before,” Heck said. “It’ll take ’em a half hour to get the first cars here. Maybe more. If he hops another ride he’ll be long, long gone by then.”

“Then that’s what’ll happen,” Fennel said. “That’s the way it is… I know what the money means to you.”

Heck stood with his hands on his narrow hips, looking at the sign for a few moments. Then he nodded slowly. “Let’s don’t have words over it. You gotta do what you think’s right, Charlie.”

“I’m pretty sorry about this, Trenton.”

“Okay. No hard feelings.” He walked back to Emil. “If you two’ll excuse us.”

“No, Trenton,” Fennel said in a firm monotone.

Heck ignored Fennel and continued walking to where Emil was loose-tied to a forsythia whip.

“ Trenton…”

“What?” Heck’s voice bristled as he turned.

“I can’t let you go by yourself either.”

“Don’t ride me, Charlie. Just don’t do it.”

“By yourself? You’re a civilian. You couldn’t argue hot pursuit even if he was a felon. You cross that line, it’s kidnapping for sure. You could get yourself into a real fix.”

“And what if he kills somebody else? You’re happy just to let him go.”

“There are rules for how this works and I’m going to stick to ’em. And I’m going to see that you do too.”

“You’re saying you’d stop me?” Heck spat out. “Use that gun? Use that fancy de -partmental Glock of yours?”

Fennel was clearly stung by this but he received no apology from Heck, whose fists were balled at his side, as if spoiling for a schoolyard fight.

“Don’t be stupid, Trenton,” Fennel said kindly. “Think about it. That Dr. Adler’s a peckerhead to start with. You think he’s going to pay you a penny of reward, you snag his boy out of state? You know he’ll cheat you if he can. And what if some pansy civil-liberties lawyer gets ahold of you for kidnapping some poor retard. Bang, your ass is hung out to dry.”