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Before the welcome sign to Gallup, Flynn could make out the thin glimmer of red and blue curving along the pavement. Emergency lights lit up the intersection and he came to a stop behind the Peterbilt, unable to see much of what was ahead.
He dialed Jesky’s work number and heard three rings before the old man picked up.
“Where are you?” he said.
“Somewhere out west, Jesk.”
“Come home, son.”
A choked sob almost forced its way out of Flynn’s throat. He could hear a car horn through the earpiece and he could visualize Jesky smoking with the window down. He was likely driving home for lunch.
“I didn’t do it, Jesk.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“I can’t come back if they don’t believe a word I’m saying.”
“Not surprising with all the bizarre things in the News. When was it you ran naked down the street with Dennis?”
“Dang, Jesk, I was eight years old!”
“Was it a dare?”
“I dunno. Why’s it so important?”
“I was thinking it’s lucky there ain’t no picture to go with it.” Jesky let out a long breath, probably a cloud of smoke. “The cops are reeling with phone tips and the internet’s lively. Apparently, you’re a serial murderer obsessed with dolls.”
“Dolls?”
“Yeah, dolls,” Jesky said. “But don’t let that bother you. It never has before. What are you driving?”
“A rental.”
“Use plastic?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, they know where you are.”
Jesky, always the practical one. He had a way of looking at the world and a way of walking into men’s minds with the kind of instincts Flynn could only dream of.
“Give me a road name,” Jesky said, “somewhere I can meet you.”
Road name... road name... there was one Flynn recalled in Gallup. “Puerco Drive.”
“OK, son. Tomorrow. Two o’clock.”
Flynn didn’t know if it was the fact Jesky put the phone down first that made him feel hollow inside, or if it was the word tomorrow. And he hadn’t asked for a landmark on Puerco Drive to find him. Flynn felt gutted all right, felt ashamed too. Jesky was the one dependable thing in his life.
Stuffing the phone in his pocket, he hooked the backpack over one shoulder. He opened the door and hobbled outside. The pain seemed to leach up to his calves and every stab made him gasp. He crouched behind the Peterbilt without knowing if the police were searching for him. No matter how guilty he may have looked, he was not some crazy killer.
Hot gusting winds moaned along the underbelly of the rig and the rear mud flaps shuddered in response. Flynn inched toward the back wheels, easing his head around to study the flashing lights he had begun to dread. He was surprised to see an officer standing on the step of the cab leaning into the passenger window. There would have been another officer on the driver’s side, only Flynn couldn’t hear anything over the rumble of the engine.
He eased back thinking he had been seen. His shirt clung to his back, drenched in sweat and streaked in dust, and he hoped there wasn’t a nosy K-9 up there straining against its leash. The guard rail was only a few feet away and he was half-tempted to run, but any sudden movement would arouse the officer and he would be arrested before he counted to three.
He looked over his shoulder to study the car behind. A small Honda Civic and a driver with his nose pressed to his cell phone. He appeared to be taking no notice of a man wedged between a Peterbilt and a jeep trying to grasp whether it was worth sliding down a steep slope all the way to the river.
Flynn had to be quick and he had to do it now because the officer would soon be making strides toward his car. He took a few agonizing steps, sucking air between his teeth, and then a few more. He was over the guard rail, shoes sliding over loose gravel as he half-legged it, half-plummeted twelve feet down before barreling into a concrete support column. His shoulder took most of the impact, almost slipped out of its socket and he screamed, more out of frustration than pain. He came down on one knee dragging the other leg behind him.
The air rushed out of his lungs and dark shadows blurred the edge of his vision. He knew he was close to vomiting with all the coughing. He tried to stand but everything went gray and hazy and all he could hear was a rattle of breath in his chest. The pain began to focus him.
A shout. Then another.
Flynn winced and tried to stand, feet slipping on gravel and sand. Dust swirls gyrated around him like a troop of Tasmanian devils and he had to cover his eyes to keep the sand out.
Run!
He was sliding down the slope as two officers vaulted over the guard rail. There was a culvert feeding into a six foot pipe. It was his only chance and he rounded toward it glad to be out of the wind. It took all he had to stay quiet, shoes squealing as he dragged one after the other along the channel until he was out into the sunlight beyond. Thigh-high grass swayed like a shifting sea as far as the eye could see and something told him to go left along the ditch bank.
He never looked back, strides longer now as he doubled back under the overpass, hearing the faint trickle of water. There was a rumble of traffic above and the echo of law enforcement behind him. He hid between a forest of concrete columns and covered his mouth to keep from dislodging more soot from his lungs. The old lust for life was coming back, the clear blue skies he remembered from childhood and the laughter he’d thought he’d lost.
It was early afternoon when he found a short bridge straddling the river and leading to a main road. He knew East Highway 66 was one of the main arteries running through Gallup and there were railway cafés and pizza places along the strip. But he wasn’t hungry enough to be seen. Keeping his head down, he slogged along Verdi Street as far as East Aztec Avenue, taking signs to Mossman High School. There was a gaunt stand of pines behind a redbrick structure and he collapsed against a tree, backpack pressed between him and a gnarly trunk. He rubbed his calves if only to relieve the pain in his feet. If he removed his shoes, he’d never get them back on again and they were probably bleeding.
It wasn’t right for Jesky to get mixed up in all of this and Flynn tapped out a short text. Not tomorrow. I’ll tell you when. The detective thought he was the most evil person on the planet. Now he was probably sure he was.
Jesky had the sense not to text back. He wouldn’t worry much either. As far as he was concerned, Flynn would work it out, find somewhere to go and stay safe. He might recall a time when Flynn went on a school trip to the mountains with best buddy Dennis. Mr. Fleming assured them there would be harsh punishments if any of the kids got lost, kept them all on a tight leash, made them walk in single-file like a row of prison inmates. He would have shackled them too if it hadn’t been against the law.
It ticked off Dennis and you could see the cogs in his head doing wheelies and other stuff too. He triple-dog dared Flynn to do a runner with him when no one was looking. If only to prove Fleming didn’t have eyes in the back of his head. Unfortunately, Fleming did.
He found Dennis in a hole he’d dug under a tree. Gave him a walloping right there in front of the camp fire. But Flynn was up that tree and too scared to come down. If it hadn’t been for Dennis’ roving eyes which continually flicked skyward, Flynn would have won the dare.
Even through the cold, Flynn smiled for the first time in days. He missed Dennis and his grubby fingernails, missed the infectious laugh he had. He regretted not having visited the gravesite for well over two years. But the truth was, Dennis wouldn’t care.
Snap!
Flynn tensed, lowered his chin and looked through tall stalks of grass. He heard a yelp, a high-pitched sound tearing a jagged hole in the stillness. A coyote perhaps. Then all went quiet... above the rustling leaves and the creaking branches.
He sat there for a while studying a freshly mowed path leading to a football field. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw moonlight gleaming on silvery white buttocks. Murmurings. Lovers coupling under the stars when they should have been spending the night at home. Hot and sweaty, and too busy to know they were being watched.
Flynn began to shiver, pressing his hands into the warm nook under his arms, staring at the ground like a naughty school boy who had been caught looking at something he shouldn’t. If he moved they’d only hear him and call him a Peeping Tom. He was trapped, that’s what.
The man rolled over on his side and sat up. He might have heard something, might have needed a break. Shoulder length hair slicked back over his head, he stood and pulled up his pants. Walking behind a tree, he took a leak and the spatter of urine against the leaves irritated Flynn as well as the abrupt parting as if the loving act didn’t matter anymore. A hand combed away two errant strands of hair from his face and he seemed to give the woman a cursory glance.
“Aren’t you going to get dressed?” he asked.
Her voice was childlike. “I can’t find my clothes.”
“They’re right there. On the blanket.”
“I can’t see. I can’t see anything.”
A deep sigh and the man sauntered over to the girl, pulling her to her feet. Fifteen, sixteen, too young to be with a flinty old man.
“Hurry,” he said, pulling on a sweater before staring at the blue screen of his cell phone. His face was covered in whiskers and there were lines around his mouth. “It’s her.”
She snatched a deep-cupped bra, fastener hanging by a thread as if the man couldn’t wait to undo those tricky little hooks. Flynn could hear the snap as she pulled on a pair of lacy underwear highlighted by the beam of the phone. She sighed as she gathered clothes strewn around the grass and twice she wiped away a tear. She appeared nervous.
Flynn watched them saunter along the path toward the football field, disappearing into the gloom that hovered between the goal posts. There was a neat row of houses on the far side where Flynn could almost make out a solitary figure in one frame of light. A mother at the sink looking out into the night. Waiting.
He struggled to stand, leaned against the tree and sighed loudly. There was nowhere else to go unless he hotwired a car in the neighborhood and made it out to Holbrook. A streak of blue lit up the ground where the lovers had been and he limped toward it, reaching into the long grass before it went out.
A cell phone. Certainly not the man’s judging by the pink Animé wallpaper and a text from mom asking if she was on her way. It didn’t seem right keeping the phone, nor did it seem right to let an old man hurt a little girl like that.
Flynn staggered away from the clamminess of the woods and followed the mismatched couple along a dark gray street.
