Black Cat Weekly #83

Chapter 5-1

byHunter looked through the pickup’s windshield and saw the white sedan, beige-streaked with road dust, stopped over at the county road’s edge.

Low wire fencing stretched on each side of the dirt two-lane road; tall grasses and an occasional scant burst of wildflowers, persistent against the summer heat, grew in the narrow space between compacted dirt and fence. Beyond the fencing, sere brown hills, marked with clumps of scrub pine, rose toward the mountains where big pines grew and hidden creeks coursed.

A woman stood by the rear of the sedan. She stared down at the listing corner of the vehicle and ran her hands up through shoulder-length black hair.

Hair like Blair’s.

But Blair was dead, and Hunter was not a man who felt any obligation to help strangers.

Still.

He pulled his pickup over and stopped about twenty yards behind the sedan. The fishing gear and cooler in the truck bed slid forward with a hissing sound as he braked, banging into the back of the cabin before he came to a stop. The woman turned towards Hunter as he climbed out, and the resemblance to Blair dropped away. She was nice-looking enough, with a decent figure in gray slacks and a pale blue blouse, but she lacked Blair’s striking cheekbones or full lips.

And Blair would have smiled as Hunter approached. Most women with a breakdown on a lonely road might have been wary of a stranger’s approach, but hopeful for aid as well.

The woman with the dirty white sedan wasn’t hopeful.

Hunter knew what fear looked like.

He slowed his approach. His size and looks intimidated many people—still did, even at his current age, with hair gone white and face deeply lined—and that had worked to his advantage many times. This didn’t need to be one of them. He spoke, trying to put a smoother tone on a rough voice weathered further by too many years of tobacco and whiskey.

“Morning. Need some help with that?” He nodded towards the sedan. He was close enough to see the tire’s lower portion squashed against the ground, flatter than hell.

The woman’s mouth gaped open, closed, gaped again like a goldfish. Struggling for words, not finding any.

There’s something wrong here, Hunter thought. He stopped and stood still, several yards away from the woman and the car. He tried again: “I can change that tire for you, if you have a spare and a jack in the trunk.”

There’s something wrong hereThe woman trembled. She took a step back.

Very wrong. And that was when Hunter caught it.

Very wrong.Beneath the scent of dust and grass and distant scrub pine, the hot-metal odors from the sedan and pickup’s engines, there was another odor, something faint but noticeable.

Something from the sedan.

Something from the rear of the sedan.

Something from the trunk of the sedan.

trunkHunter knew what death smelled like.

He looked over at the trunk, then back at the woman. They stared at each other for several seconds.

“Who’s in the trunk?” he asked.

The woman whirled and dashed towards the open driver’s door, lunged inside, grabbing for something. A pistol rose in her hand as she turned back toward Hunter.

But he was already there, the yards between them gone, closing the last few inches between them, slapping the pistol from her hand with a sound like a bat smacking a fastball. He pushed her back, hard, her head cracking against the door frame. She cried out and sagged, sliding down the car door until the seat of her slacks thumped against the dust and gravel of the road. She moaned, then began to weep.

there“It’s…it’s over. So stupid, I was so f*****g stupid…”

Hunter leaned over her and pressed the “Unlock” button on the inside of the car door. The sedan’s other doors and trunk unlocked with a *thunk*.

*thunk*Hunter picked up the woman’s g*n and put it inside the back of his pants. He moved to the rear of the sedan and opened the trunk. Hunter looked inside for a moment. He came back around the car and looked down at the woman.

“This is the first time you’ve killed anyone, isn’t it?”

The woman blinked. “What?”

Hunter sighed. He should just get back in his truck and drive away. “You wrapped the body in a blanket. The blanket got saturated, and now you have blood smears in the trunk of your car. A plastic tarp or a few rolls of kitchen wrap might have prevented that. And helped keep in the smell when the body’s sphincter relaxed.”

“I panicked,” the woman said. “I had to get him…it…out of the house.”

“Where were you taking it?”

The woman’s eyes brimmed. “I didn’t have a plan. I just…drove. The highway, at first, out of the city. Then state roads. Then smaller roads. Then this road. I’m…I’m not even sure where I am. I drove most of the night.” She ran her hands through her hair again. “God, I’m so tired.”

tiredHunter looked down at the woman. He jerked his head back towards the trunk. “Did he deserve it?”

She looked back, then stood, slowly, as if bearing a great weight. “You tell me.” Her hands reached up and began to unbutton her blouse.

Hunter’s eyes narrowed. A come on? But there was no sense of anything s****l when she pulled one side of the blouse away, then used her other hand to lift a b*a cup and pull the bottom edge up partway.

A come on?The scars on the underside of the breast were the size of a cigarette tip. Some were older than the others.

“You should have run after the first time.”

“He’d have found me if I ran. I tried, once.” She shuddered, then rearranged her b*a and buttoned her blouse.

Hunter realized what he had to do. “Give me your purse.”

She hesitated, then reached over to the car seat. Hunter took the purse, found a wallet inside, and searched through it, examining what he found. He put the wallet back.

“Your name is Julie,” he said. “All right, Julie, this is what we’re going to do.

“First, we’ll change the tire. Then you’ll follow my truck about three miles down the road. There’s a shaded spot to pull off. About a hundred yards down the hill from there is a larger group of scrub. We’ll drag the body there and cover it with any loose brush we can find.”

She stared at him. “Why are you helping me?” she asked.

Hunter stood silent for a moment before he answered. “You reminded me of someone I cared about.”

“My…my lucky day, then.”

“If you say so.”

The woman’s face relaxed a fraction, then tightened again. “What if we’re seen?”

“This road gets maybe a half-dozen vehicles a day. It’s a pretty small risk.” It was a plan. The plan was crappy, but it was a plan, and it made the woman heave a deep sigh of relief.

“I need you to do something for me, Julie,” he said, and watched a measure of fear climb back onto her face. A different type of fear. “Not that. After we dump your little problem and part ways, if you still end up ever being questioned about this guy’s disappearance, I need your word you’ll never mention meeting another person on the road, what he looked like, what his truck looked like, or that any person gave you help. Can I trust your word on that, Julie?”

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you? You…you’re a professional.”

“Not anymore. I retired. I was heading to the mountains for some fishing. There’s a little creek with big trout up there almost no one knows about. But my face and prints are in some police files, so I don’t do well interacting with cops. I need your word, Julie.”

“Yes. Yes! You have my word. My promise. We’ve never met, never talked.”

“All right,” he said. “One more thing.” Hunter held up her purse. “I’m going to put this in my truck. I’ll give it back at the pullout. You need to do what I tell you. No change of mind, no thoughts that turning yourself in might be the best course. You got out of one bad situation; prison is just another. Worse, in some ways. Do you understand?”

“I…I understand.”

“Okay.”

Hunter took Julie’s purse to his truck and came back, pulling on a pair of work gloves. He leaned into the trunk and shifted the body around, grunting.

“Did you get him in by yourself? No one helped you?”

“It took a long time. I almost gave up. I thought I might have to…cut him up, but I guess thinking about that gave me the strength to finally get him up and in.” She let out a bark of laughter, then clapped her hands over her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just thought, that’s why they call it ‘dead weight’.”

“You should have left the body and ran. Saved having to deal with all this. I think we can get the spare out now.”

The blanket-wrapped corpse now rested at the back of the trunk space. In the trunk’s floor, a panel covered the recess where the spare tire and jack were kept; the panel had an opening to insert a hand and lift.

Hunter pulled up on the panel. The front edge came up partway; the corpse still covered part of the panel’s far side, weighing it down. Spare and jack were visible in the recess, but the opening didn’t look large enough to pull them out. Hunter let the cover drop shut.

“I’ll need some help for this. When I lift, you reach inside and try to pull the tire out.”

Julie moved to stand close by Hunter’s side. When Hunter pulled up the cover again, she bent into the trunk space. “Oh, God, I smell it.”

Hunter heaved up with another grunt. The recess cover bowed, expanding the opening several inches. Julie reached in, took out the jack, and dropped it on the ground beside her. The tire was heavier and more awkward. She grappled with both hands and tugged until the spare moved enough to rest at an angle on the edge of the storage recess.

“Any time,” Hunter said, his voice strained.

“I’m trying.” She pulled again, grunting herself now. Another inch of movement rewarded her effort. With more tugging, the spare shifted further, enough to rest its edge on the trunk’s lip.

“That’s enough for the moment.” Hunter lowered the recess cover down to rest on the spare. “Quick break.” Both of them panted as they leaned against the rear of the sedan. Hunter felt annoyed with himself; twenty years younger, even ten, and the task would have been easy for him. He hated weakness in others, and it was frustrating to recognize it taking root in himself.

The sun was warm and growing warmer. After a moment, Hunter spoke. “The longer we take, the more likely another car will come. Let’s get this done.”

The last part went more easily. Julie slid the spare up over the trunk’s lip and out as Hunter held the recess cover up again. Hunter let the cover drop shut, then closed the trunk.

Changing the tire took less than ten minutes. Hunter loosened the lug nuts in a quick staggered pattern, jacked the car up, then twisted the nuts off with spins of the tire iron. Julie held the lug nuts while Hunter set the flat aside, centered the spare on the axle, and went through the process in reverse.