48
Jon and Carlie stood on the tarmac as the KLM 747 carrying the remains of Dexter Simmons landed. They watched the massive airplane as it taxied down the runway toward the empty hangar where they stood waiting. After it came to rest, a group of men in blue jumpsuits rushed out and opened the cargo door.
A black hearse slowly pulled into view and parked alongside the door. A silver-haired man exited the passenger side and walked around the vehicle. After opening the back door, he waited patiently. A few minutes later, an airport employee rolled up the gurney carrying Dexter’s coffin. The two men carefully slid both the coffin and the gurney inside the hearse and locked it in place.
In less than ten minutes, Jon and Carlie were back on the interstate following Dexter to the funeral home.
As the funeral director read the directions in Dexter’s will for the interment of his remains, Carlie sat stoically and listened. These people were so matter-of-fact, Carlie wanted to reach across the table and slap them.
Suddenly Carlie realized she had been wrong—she could cry. Picking up her purse, she ran to the top of the stairs and out the door.
When the funeral director ran out of add-ons to pitch, Jon signed the contract.
He stepped out of the dreary funeral home into the bright afternoon sun, and spotted Carlie sitting on the park bench across the street.
Squatting down in front of her, Jon took her hands in his and waited until she made eye contact. “Everything has been taken care of. We really should go home.”
Carlie looked over at Jon and said, “Before we go, I want to stop by Dexter’s house. We won’t be long, I promise, but I want to make sure the house is locked up and secure.”
As they rode across town, Carlie read the coroner’s accompanying letter. In it, he explained that Dexter had suffered from a congenital weakness in his carotid artery. When it ruptured, he suffered a brain aneurism. Because these ruptures occur so quickly, Dexter would have experienced a rapid decline in oxygen to the brain, mobility restrictions, shortness of breath, and maybe even hallucinations. This type of aneurism is incredibly fast, virtually painless, and always fatal. The last section of the letter gave her pause. The coroner had found a small vein that had ruptured inside his brain a year or so earlier. Its symptoms would have been identical to a stroke; however, such ruptures are rarely ever fatal.
Inside the house, she found it deathly quiet, as if somehow the house knew that Dexter was dead. She wondered if a house could mourn; if it could, this house was in mourning.
Carlie sent Jon to check the windows on the second floor, and she started in the living room. Opening the drawers to Dexter’s desk, she discovered a large manila envelope addressed to both her and Jon. She folded the envelope and slid it into her purse. She then proceeded to check the first floor to make sure that Dexter had locked all the doors and windows. Secure in the knowledge that he had, she made her way up the stairs to join Jon on the second floor.
She found him standing transfixed in the doorway to Dexter’s bedroom. Someone had completely ransacked the room, scattering books and papers everywhere. The broken bed lay stripped and shredded against the far wall. Every remaining article of Dexter’s clothing lay in a pile in the center of the room.
Jon looked over at Carlie and said, “Let’s get the hell out of here. Is everything locked up?”
“Everything is locked as tight as a drum.”
“Good. Then we’re out of here.”
By mid-afternoon, the weather had changed dramatically. Moderate to heavy snow was predicted by early evening. When Sheriff Duncan pulled into Jon and Carlie’s drive, the wind was whipping the heavy snowfall into whiteout conditions. The snow was coming down so hard, no one saw the pickup truck as it followed the sheriff into the driveway.
Jon answered the door and invited the sheriff in.
Duncan stood in the middle of the front room with his hands on his hips, looking very pompous and official—and just a little suspicious.
Before the sheriff could take a seat, the back door opened and closed, causing both men to look toward the kitchen. A few moments later, Loretta and Carlie entered the room.
Walking up to Sheriff Duncan, Loretta said, “Sit down, Wilbur. Quit acting like such an ass.”
Carlie couldn’t help but snicker, and Jon smiled at Loretta’s bluntness.
The sheriff glared at Loretta for a few seconds before he smiled and apologized. Taking his seat, he looked at Jon and said, “I got a report of a break-in at the Simmons house. I assume it was you who made the call.”
Jon explained what they had been doing that morning—how they had driven by Dexter’s house to make sure he had locked all the doors and windows before he left.
Up to the point where Jon explained what condition he had found Dexter’s bedroom in, the sheriff had shown no sign of interest. When Jon threatened to notify the state police of Duncan’s unwillingness to investigate, the sheriff finally agreed to see what he could do. “Well, all right. I’ll look into it.” Standing, Sheriff Duncan zipped up his jacket and put his hat back on. “Good evening, folks—you too, Loretta. If the weather lets up, I’d appreciate your meeting me at the house in the morning, say 10:00 or so.”
Jon extended his right hand; however, the sheriff hesitated before accepting it.
Neither Jon nor Carlie followed Duncan out the door. As soon as the sheriff was on the porch, Jon closed the door behind him.
The snow was falling more heavily than it had been earlier. The wind had also picked up, blowing the sugar-fine powder in swirls and forming five- to six-foot drifts across the road.
As Sheriff Duncan passed a clearing in the trees, the wind-driven snow whipped itself into a solid wall of white crystal, obliterating the world around him.
Straining his eyes to locate the centerline, he looked up just in time to make out the shadowy figure of a man standing in the roadway. Yanking the steering wheel hard to the left, Duncan steered his cruiser directly into the path of the massive blade of a snowplow as it bore down on him through the wall of white. An instant later, the blade sliced a gaping hole through the cruiser’s fender and buried itself deep into the driver’s door, spinning and wedging the cruiser underneath the raised dump bed.
Sheriff Duncan screamed briefly as twenty tons of steel and road salt crushed and twisted what was left of his vehicle. He watched in silence as the rear tires of the massive snowplow cut through the roof directly over where he sat.