He kept one hand on the ladder as long as he could, swinging like a cowboy bailing off a bucking bull. When he was sure he was clear of the train, he let go and tumbled hard into a foot of snow. He sprawled on impact, rolling away from the roar and blur of motion, and came up covered in powder. His jeans caked, ice clumped on his hat and jacket. The highway was a fifty-yard walk down the hill, no cars in sight when he reached it. On the other side, a cluster of lonely buildings made up the last gasp of town before wilderness took over. There was an auto-parts store, a coin-op car wash, and a place the size of a supermarket that sold ranch and farm supplies. Beyond them sat a parking lot—a low plateau of blacktop guarded by a pair of automated ticket machines.
A sign said this was a park-and-ride drop-off for the university. Between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, students could pay to leave their cars here and catch a shuttle to campus. There was no fence around the lot, no retractable gate between the machines. Light poles surrounded it, but he saw no security cameras. He guessed university security must patrol the lot during regular business hours. Now, a week into winter break, it sat untended. Traffic on the highway was sparse even in the middle of the afternoon. On a Saturday night with school on break, you could drive here from any part of town and leave your car in this lot. You could hike across the road and hop a westbound train and be at the Great Northern rail yard in under an hour. Unless you stumbled out in front of a car, or got caught by train-yard security, nobody would see you.
Wind whipped his pants tight against his legs and he retreated from the lot, standing under the metal awning of the ranch supply store to dry off. The store looked warm and bright inside. After spending the last hour clinging to the back of a freezing train car, he wanted nothing more than to go in, but didn’t dare do it. He could smell the wet stink of himself and cringed at the idea of dripping crusted snow on the dazzling white floor. Instead, he walked along the stretch of sidewalk toward the auto-parts dealer. He checked the hours listed for both stores, discovering they closed at six in the evening. The car wash was old and decaying, maybe out of business. This whole commercial stretch would’ve been empty and dark by the time the fire at Cheryl Madigan’s house started a few miles away. Three video cameras were mounted on the front of the ranch store. Two focused on the store’s entrance, but the third faced the parking lot. Beyond that was the park-and-ride. He didn’t know how far the cameras could film with any clarity, but there was a chance the third camera captured the comings and goings next door.
He pulled out his cell phone and called Voelker. When the cop answered, the tone in his voice said he didn’t expect to hear from Matthew twice in one day. “There was a guy,” Matthew said, trying to be heard over the rush of an eighteen-wheeler. “In the street by the footbridge. I saw him the night Abbie Green died. He smelled like gasoline.”
“Slow down,” Voelker said. “Tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
He tried to take a breath, but the words boiled out of him. “Remember you asked me if I saw anyone in the neighborhood that night?” he said. “Anyone who didn’t belong there? You asked me twice and both times I said there was no one—but there was somebody. I didn’t think of it until just now. A guy with long hair and a trench coat, carrying a big duffel bag. I remember him now and I remember he smelled like gas.”
“Where are you?” Voelker asked. “I hear traffic.”
“I think the guy might have hopped a train,” he said. In the pause that followed, he heard how ridiculous that sounded. “The long-haired guy, I mean. If he wanted to get in and out of the Northside hauling a gas can without anybody seeing him, he could’ve hopped a train. I’m out on the highway by the university park-and-ride lot. I’m staring at a video camera that might’ve got a look at him.”
Some digital noise crackled on the line. “Matt,” Voelker said. “I’m going to ask you a question. You’re not out there hopping trains, are you? We talked about this.”
“No,” he said, “of course not.”
“This guy,” Voelker said. “Did anybody else see him?”
His skin rushed to hot out in the cold. “No,” he said. “Just me.”
“Look, Matt—” Voelker said, wanting to get him off the line.
“You answered my call on the first ring,” he said. “You’re sitting in your office right now because you don’t have shit and we both know it. I’m calling you saying I saw a guy. I saw a weird-looking guy who smelled like gas two blocks from where Abbie Green died. If I’m right, then it’s probably the same guy who killed your partner. You think it might be worth driving out here and seeing if there’s some footage of him?”
The force of his own words surprised him. Voelker was silent for a long moment. “Sure,” the cop said finally. “I’m up to my balls in stuff here, but I’ll just drop everything and come out to look for some boogeyman. This guy who smelled like gasoline but who you somehow forgot to mention until right now. Give me the address and I’ll write it down.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” he said. “If I give you the address are you really going to come?”
Voelker sighed, considering it. “I can’t promise it’ll be my top priority,” the cop said, “but I’ll try. I don’t even know if those cameras are turned on.”
Matthew walked out into the parking lot to read the ranch supply store’s address into his phone. The last thing Voelker told him before he hung up was: “Don’t do anything too stupid, okay?”
After the phone went dead he tried to work up the courage to go in and ask about the security cameras himself. As he stood there, the doors slid open and a guy in tight Wranglers came out with a bag of dog food slung over his shoulder. He glanced at Matthew and looked away, avoiding eye contact the way you do when you’re afraid a bum might ask for money. He turned and saw himself—sodden as an animal—in the store’s front window. After the man’s truck boomed out of the lot, he walked back across the highway and up the rise to the tracks.
On the opposite side of the rails was a stretch of wooded state park land. He saw the entry of at least one trail and guessed there must be a whole network of paths back there. There could be camps hidden in the trees, places where transients shared cook fires and built wall tents to survive the winter. No trains came now, the tracks cold and quiet. He had been so sure a few minutes ago that the long-haired guy had come this way. Just as sure that he had killed Abbie Green and James Phan. But Voelker had dashed his confidence. Maybe he was just out here chasing ghosts.
The sound of a motor interrupted his thoughts again. He turned and saw the four-wheeler bearing down on him, the railroad worker with the eye patch perched in the saddle. The guy gripped the handlebars with the thick forearms of a sailor, a substantial gut stretching the shimmering material of his reflector vest. He had a nose that looked like it had been broken a half-dozen times. The patch covering his left eye was brown, the color of an Ace bandage. When Matthew saw it, his mind filled with thoughts of industrial accidents, street fights gone wrong.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the man said, his tone more amused than angry.
Of course, Matthew knew that. The tracks were lined with signs warning him of trespassing fines and the dangers of buried petroleum pipelines. He didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut. The man on the four-wheeler shifted his weight, the plastic seat burping under him. “Where you headed?” he asked, like he was used to people ignoring him.
“Nowhere,” Matthew said. “Just walking.”
The guy’s teeth were tiny and jumbled when he grinned. “You never done this before, huh?”
“I’m sorry?”
A dry laugh. “I seen you get off. You’re going to get yourself killed riding like that.”
“Oh?” Matthew said. “You’re concerned for my safety?”
“Riding in an empty coal car is about the dumbest thing you can do,” the guy said. “Train takes a corner too fast, hits the brakes, you could lose your grip and rattle around inside like a damn pinball. Give yourself a concussion, or worse. Only thing dumber is hopping into a car with a full load. All that coal can shift in an instant and crush you. Just—squish—like rotten fruit. They’d probably ship you to China before they found your body. Next time, get yourself a nice open boxcar, maybe an empty auto trailer if you ain’t going too far. That’s day-one stuff.”
Matthew’s eyes traced a line in the snow toward the rails. He might have smiled at the notion of giving himself a concussion, but the wind had started to blow harder, cutting through his damp jacket. He didn’t want to be out there anymore. He wanted to go back to the motel and put on dry clothes. Make himself a cup of bad coffee in the kitchenette.
The guy with the eye patch spat on the ground. “So,” he said, “where’d you serve?”
“I’m sorry?” Matthew said again.
“Iraq?” the guy said. “Afghanistan? I like to think I can still spot a serviceman. I was over there myself. Desert Storm One. Yeah, you got that look all right.”
He wondered what look the guy meant, but didn’t ask. “Are you going to give me a ticket or something?” he said. “Turn me in to whoever you work for?”
The man’s one good eye crinkled and suddenly he looked like somebody’s kindly grandpa. “Best place to catch out is over there.” He indicated a spot where the trees came to a point twenty yards from the tracks. “Train slows down coming around that bend. Wait until the engineer’s out of sight and they’ll never know you were there.”
The grove of trees looked thick enough that Matthew could sit in there for a long time without anybody seeing him. “Thanks,” he said.
“Be safe, soldier,” the guy said. “No more coal cars, okay? Assholes start getting killed on the rails, it makes everybody out here look bad. You know what I’m saying?”
Matthew said he did, but his voice was lost in the sound of the four-wheeler starting up. The guy cut a tight turn and sped back the way he’d come. Matthew walked into the trees. Ten feet in he found a pine wide enough to lean against. A couple of cars passed by on the highway, wheels sizzling on wet pavement. He stood with his phone in his hand, wondering if he should call Georgie or Scottie for a ride. Eventually, he tucked the phone back in his pocket. The wind swished through the treetops, gusting hard enough to make the trees groan overhead. Aside from that, it was quiet. He heard no trains. It was cold and he wondered how long he’d have to wait.