Killertrust (2 page)

“That poor man
wasn’t carrying
anything.”

Rhetta McCarter ran her hands
through her spiky, blonde-streaked hair as she repeated her eyewitness account
for the third time. She stood eye to eye with the cop, who glared at her just
inches from her face. She wondered how he was tall enough to make the force.
Didn’t they have to be at least five-foot four, or some such?

 “When I first saw him, he
was very much alive. He was standing in the median, waiting to cross
Kingshighway. Looked like he was headed toward the Days and Nights Motel.” She
gestured in the general direction toward the new motel. The divided four-lane
main thoroughfare through Cape Girardeau, Missouri had a faux brick median,
replete with flowers, shrubs and weeds. “I’m telling you, Officer, I saw him
plainly when I drove past, and he wasn’t carrying anything. I saw both of his
hands.

“That”—she pointed to a
bottle of vodka protruding from a rumpled brown paper sack—“would have had to
have been in his pocket, and I don’t think it would’ve fit in those jeans, do
you?” In spite of the cool air, the man lying motionless on the ground wore
only faded jeans and a T-shirt. The half-full forty-ouncer, or liter if one
used the metric system, lay tucked under his arm. It was much too bulky to fit
in any pocket, even if he’d worn a jacket.

“I’m asking the questions
here, ma’am, if you don’t mind.” He paused his patronizing questioning to
straighten his shoulders. Undoubtedly, the habit sprang from being vertically
challenged. The obvious bulk of a bulletproof vest under his shirt accentuated
his overall square-ness. “Wait here, please.”

The way he added the “please”
made Rhetta want to smack him. She didn’t answer. He glowered at her, then
walked off. At least Rhetta interpreted the look as a glower. It was hard to
tell with so many swirling blue and red lights creating an artificial aurora borealis
on the side of the road. An ambulance skidded to a stop, ahead of the police
patrol car. Seconds later, a brown and white Ford minivan emblazoned with
First News
in two-foot tall orange letters joined the gathering.

The late November evening
darkness had now fully descended, bringing with it a flash of crisp air,
hinting at the winter weather to come. While she waited, Rhetta rubbed her bare
arms against the chill. She’d worn a short-sleeved blazer over starched linen
slacks, and now her arms rippled in gooseflesh.

The summer and fall had been
devilishly hot and dry and the unseasonable warmth had pushed on into November.
Even this week before Thanksgiving, the daytime temperatures were still mild.
The nights, however, were a different story. They previewed the cold winter
weather right around the corner. Because of the summer-long drought, the
deciduous trees along Kingshighway had long since parted company with their
leaves. With their bare arms reaching skyward, they stood like skeletal
sentries guarding the roadway. The parched grass in the adjacent county park
hadn’t needed mowing in weeks. The only green anywhere in the normally
meticulous grass was in the form of the persistent weeds. Nothing seemed to
deter their proliferation. The chill of the night air hadn’t diminished the
languishing smell of dust and dry leaves.

Another officer, taller and
slimmer, bumped a wheeled measuring device over the rough highway shoulder,
stopping occasionally to jot in a small notebook.

Rhetta crossed one leg over
the other at her ankle, and leaned against the right front fender of Cami, her
restored 1979 Camaro Rally Sport. She hoped the interview would finish soon.
She also wished that she’d used the bathroom before she left the office.

After the Cape Girardeau County
ambulance had loaded the man and zoomed off for Saint Mark’s Hospital, the two
uniformed officers finished working the accident scene. The milling crowd,
which had assembled upon the arrival of the van carrying perky television
reporterette, Kelly Davenport, from Cape’s
First News
,
thinned quickly when the anchor finished her report.
The good citizens who weren’t interviewed were undoubtedly disappointed that
they hadn’t had a chance at five minutes of fame. A hit-and-run accident
garnered a lot of excitement in Cape Girardeau, a small city nestled along the
Mississippi River. Especially on a slow news day.

Rhetta had managed to stay
out of Kelly’s line of sight, knowing if the reporter had stuck a microphone in
front of her, she would’ve let her mouth overload her butt. She was majorly
annoyed at the cops because they didn’t seem to believe her account. The way
they kept asking her to repeat everything, she felt they weren’t taking her
eyewitness account seriously.

A few onlookers straggled,
watching the cops as they finished up. The taller officer sidled up to the shorter
one, and both joined her near Cami’s fender, shaking their heads in unison.
“It’s pretty dark, so I doubt you could make anything out, Mrs. McCarter,” the
short one muttered, and shook his head, either for emphasis or sympathy for her
insistence on her version. She wasn’t sure which way to interpret their
actions. Either way, she was beginning to get ticked off.

She turned to him. “Officer,
I’m telling you, he had nothing in his hands when he held them both up in front
of him, like this.” She demonstrated by throwing both of her own hands upward
as though in surrender. “I remember because I thought that was a strange
gesture.”

Rhetta, a branch manager for
Missouri Community Bank Mortgage and Insurance, insisted that when she’d left
her office just over a mile down Kingshighway it was still plenty light enough
to see clearly.

Her temper flared. “It
happened just after I’d gone through the stoplight at Lexington. I couldn’t
help but notice the man standing in the middle of Kingshighway, waiting for his
chance to finish crossing. He was on the island divider. I watched in the rear
view mirror as he crossed the other two lanes of traffic.” She put her hands on
her hips in a move she hoped would convey her displeasure at the cops’
reticence.

“If that’s the case, and he
made it across, when did he get hit?” The taller cop stepped toward her, taking
over the questions. He tapped a pen against his notebook as he waited for her
response.

She stood inches from his
face, not backing down. “I told you. I watched him cross the street, and then
watched traffic ahead of me. I glanced in the side view mirror to make sure he
really was all right. That’s when I saw a truck swerve to the shoulder, hit him,
and speed away. I couldn’t believe someone did that. I immediately called
9-1-1, then made a U-turn as soon as I could and drove back. I wanted to help.”
She stared pointedly at the notepad, which the cop flipped shut without notes,
and returned to his shirt pocket.

Another police cruiser eased
onto the shoulder to join the first. This one landed quietly, without lights
swirling or siren screaming. A lone officer climbed out, spoke to the first two
officers, then joined Rhetta, who was still propped up against Cami’s fender.
He was taller than the short cop, and nearly as tall, but more muscular than
the tall cop.

“Good evening, Mrs. McCarter.
My name is Sergeant Delmonti.” He reached into his shirt pocket as he greeted
her. “Did you know the victim?” he asked without preamble. His quiet
professionalism instilled more confidence than the two previous officers had.
He withdrew a notepad. The other officers had undoubtedly called him to the
scene. He knew her name. Was he called because she was being recalcitrant? She
hoped so. She was determined that the cops wouldn’t talk her out of what she
saw.

“Sergeant,” she answered, and
nodded her head in greeting. “No, I didn’t. I just had the misfortune to
witness what happened to him.”

“Are you sure?” Delmonti flipped
the spiral book back and forth, as though searching his notes, then began
writing. Rhetta was happy to see him jotting onto the pages. The two other
officers who had initially questioned her walked away, leaving the job of
interviewing Rhetta to Delmonti.

“Of course, I’m sure. I saw
it. The truck that hit him was a late model, dark color, maybe dark blue or
black.”

Delmonti shook his head. “We
have that information. I was referring to the injured man. Are you sure you
don’t know him?”

Rhetta shivered, backed to
Cami’s driver’s door, opened it leaned in and tugged a sweatshirt out from the
back seat. When she turned, she saw that Delmonti had followed her to the door.
He wore a sober expression with his blue uniform.

“I never saw that man before
in my life.” She draped the sweatshirt across her shoulders and shivered.

Delmonti slapped his left
hand with the notepad, and removed something from under the page. Taking a step
toward her, he proffered the item in his hand. “Then maybe you can explain how,
even though he had no identification, he had your business card?”

Following a light
supper of
grilled chicken over
penne pasta and a small glass of white Riesling from
Primo
Vino!,
Rhetta
began clearing away the dishes just as the news report came on. She grabbed the
remote and turned up the volume on the kitchen counter TV.
First News
was running Kelly Davenport’s on-site report of the
accident. A camera zoomed in on a close-up of Kelly standing in front of St.
Mark’s Hospital.

The evening wind tousled
Kelly’s shoulder length ash blonde curls and she hunkered down into her trendy
scarf. The reporter grasped the microphone and spoke directly into the camera.
“Authorities tell us that the man struck by a hit and run driver late this
afternoon in front of the Days and Nights Motel has passed away from his
injuries. Police also report that no identification was found on the deceased
man, who appeared to be in his late sixties. They are urging anyone who saw
anything or who may have information about this accident to call the Cape
Girardeau Police Department.” A telephone number flashed across the screen
before the breakaway to the newsroom.

“It was awful, Randolph,”
Rhetta said, turning off the TV. She gathered up the dishes and carried them to
the sink. “I still can’t believe I saw that truck hit the old guy. As soon as I
saw it, I barreled to the next left turn opportunity—nearly a half mile farther
down Kingshighway, now that they have those dividers. I swung a U-turn and raced
back. The truck was pulled over onto the shoulder in front of where the man lay
with a burly guy in a dark jacket standing over him. He stood there for a few
seconds, staring down at the man. I saw a glow, and assumed he was using a cell
phone to call the police. But when I pulled up, he bolted for his truck, and
roared away.”

“And of course, you told all
of this to Delmonti?” 

Randolph McCarter, retired
circuit judge-turned-artist, obviously wanted to be sure that Rhetta had
cooperated fully with the police. Rhetta had been known to have a less than
stellar opinion of the cops.

“Absolutely!” Rhetta rose,
gathered the dishes, and headed to the sink. “Even though the cops acted less
than excited about my eyewitness account. Delmonti thinks the old guy was an
itinerant drunk who stepped in front of a vehicle. I don’t agree at all. The
escaping dude even squealed his truck tires as he left. I couldn’t make out the
tag numbers. But I did notice that it had Missouri plates.” She began rinsing
the supper dishes and arranging them in the dishwasher. “I wonder why there was
no mention of the truck on the news.”

“Maybe Delmonti is keeping
those details out of the media to see if any real witnesses come forward.”
Randolph wiped down the counter. “There was no mention of any liquor bottle,
either.”

“That’s true. I wonder what’s
going on.” Rhetta turned toward her husband, a dinner plate in her hand. “How
could that poor man have gotten my card? I never saw or met him before. I’m
sure of that.” She turned and slid the plate into the dishwasher, closed the
door and started the cycle.

“No doubt the police want to
know why he had it, too. Whatever is going on is police business, Rhetta, and
you don’t need to get involved.” Randolph had assumed that judge voice she
hated. “Or maybe Delmonti feels that it was too dark for you to have clearly
seen the truck.”

“Now you’re beginning to
sound like the cops.” She waved the dinner plate for emphasis. “By the time
Delmonti got there, it had gotten darker, but there was plenty of light when I
saw the man get hit. I was curious as to what he was doing crossing the
highway, so I watched in the outside mirror, like I told Delmonti. It only took
a couple of minutes for me to turn around and get over there. Although at the
time it seemed like an eternity.”

Her husband had not taken
kindly to her previous entanglements with police investigations. She had
already demonstrated an uncanny ability for getting involved with a dead body.
Or two. She was garnering a reputation as a corpse magnet especially after
she’d discovered a body under an old Camaro she had purchased last year. Now,
another dead body had turned up. It was worse this time, because this dead man
had her business card, and she had no clue how he got it. In fact, no one seemed
to know who the unfortunate man was.

Rhetta grabbed four cans of
cat food from the pantry and headed for the deck. “I’ll feed the kids,” she
called back to Randolph. She jerked open the sliding glass door a little too
hard; it bounced against the frame. Four feline faces stared at her. She closed
the door, more gently than she’d opened it. After spooning the stinky mush into
four bowls, the cats murmured appreciatively. She watched them snarf down the
food—Pirate, Greystone, Jiggles and Smith. All had been strays adopted through
the Humane Society, except for Greystone. Rhetta rescued him from a downspout
outside her office. She said their names sounded like a law firm. The cats were
their only children, their fur babies, as she liked to refer to them. Randolph
was a widower when she met him, but he’d had no children. She had never been
married, and was also childless.

She balanced the empty cat
food cans in one hand and slid open the door back into the kitchen.

Randolph continued the
conversation where they had left off
.
“More likely, the police are
probably waiting for someone else to come forward. That way they can
corroborate your account.” If he’d noticed her display of temper, he clearly
had the good sense not to mention it.

“You’re probably right.” Rhetta
rinsed out the cans, opened the door into the garage, and tossed them into the
trash. One missed the garbage can and clattered to the floor. “Crap,” she
muttered, and scurried out to retrieve it.

Back in the kitchen, she
poured herself a cup of coffee and propped herself up on a stool at the island.
“I can keep out of Delmonti’s way. Believe me, I don’t want to be involved either.
But I’m worried about what will happen to him now. How long will he stay in the
morgue?” She filled a cup for Randolph and slid it toward him. He pulled out
another matching stool and joined her.

Randolph blew across the
surface of his coffee. “The police will make every effort to identify him.
They’ll start by sending his fingerprints through the national fingerprint and
criminal history system. If they get a hit, they’ll try to locate any family.”

“Where will his body stay
while all this is happening?” She poured sweetener and skimmed milk into her
coffee and stirred, the spoon clattering against the side of the coffee cup.

“Typically, unclaimed bodies
stay at the morgue. At least while they track down family. They’ll do their
best to find next of kin, if for no other reason than the county doesn’t want
to have to pay for a funeral.” He tasted his coffee.

“I totally get that you don’t
want me involved, Randolph. But, let’s face it, I already am. I’m a witness. I
practically saw it happen, for heaven’s sake, and the poor man had my business
card. Something smells fishy.”

“What smells fishy is the cat
food,” Randolph said with a straight face, then hid behind his cup as he sipped
again. His dark eyes flashed over the brim, and a lock of silver-streaked black
hair flopped over one eye. Brushing it aside, he set his cup down and the
corner of his mouth twitched. She knew he was trying not to smile.

She ignored his attempt at
humor. “I don’t want to appear overly dramatic, but something is way off
kilter. Like why the guy that hit him pulled over. He obviously knew he hit
him. What was he doing when he leaned over the man? I thought he was calling
9-1-1, but when I called, the dispatcher said no one else had called it in. As
soon as I pulled over, he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I believe he
ran him down deliberately.”

Randolph sighed. “I’m sure
there’s a reasonable explanation, and we’ll know it when they find the guy, or
someone comes forward.”

“Where’s that cynical judge I
married? What did you do with him?” Rhetta hopped down and made exaggerated
searching motions around the kitchen. “The real Randolph would never believe
that an undiscovered witness would come forward voluntarily.”

“You win.” He corralled her
and wrapped his arms around her slim waist. “I admit it all seems very strange.
Of course, I believe you saw exactly what you recounted. I just think there has
to be an explanation, that’s all.” He kissed the top of her head.

When the house phone jangled,
she slid out from his embrace to reach for it. She snatched up the phone on the
third ring, yet the line was silent.

“Hello?” No answer. She
glanced at the caller ID.
Blocked
.
“Probably a freakin’ survey robo call.” She didn’t wait to hear the message.