7 Blizzard

As we neared the Nebraska line, Angela was napping in the coffin. I kept thinking about the what-ifs. What if I get her to Indianapolis and she doesn’t want her old boyfriend? What if he doesn’t want her? What if she doesn’t even have a boyfriend and faked the call? Was this just one more tactic to stay in my sleeper? Free meals, free showers and all expenses?

I groped in her purse and found pepper mace. I hid it where she wouldn’t find it.

The storm had overtaken us during the night and Interstate 80 was getting slower. It was dark when I hit Laramie and started grinding up the Elk Mountain grade. Snowflakes caught in my headlights like sparks, and visibility dropped to a few feet.

I worked my way over the top and down toward Cheyenne. I saw several trucks jackknifed into piles of twisted metal. I was so tired that I thought about parking for the night. Indiana was still over two days away and at least three days in my logbook. If I got stopped by a cop or checked at a weigh station, the book would show that I’d driven too far and too fast, and I’d risk a citation.

It seemed like forever, but we finally made it to the first rest area on Interstate 80 in Nebraska. At 7:00 P.M. I checked the tarps. I had to sleep till I stopped seeing white streaks in my eyeballs—at least four hours. I reminded Angela that I didn’t have the luxury of napping while someone else drove.

I was exhausted, but she didn’t want to understand. She was in a hurry to get into her boyfriend’s bed. I told her that Indiana could wait for one more sleep period—“If you need to get there quicker, get on the CB radio and find another ride. I’m shutting down for a while.”

She changed tactics again. Sex, of course. I stroked into her over and over, but that only made me more tired. I was half-asleep while I was still inside her.

I pulled out and said, “Wake me in four or five hours.” She looked angry. At this point I really didn’t care. I saw right through her. I was mad at her for the very thought of blaming me for her child. That’s about as low as a woman can get.

After twenty minutes she yanked me awake and said, “I won’t sit here one more minute!”

I rolled over and told her to shut up, but she rattled on. I’d just started to get back to sleep when she shoved against my shoulders and told me we had to leave—right fucking now! I kept trying to doze, and she kept waking me up.

This went on for an hour till I sat up and shoved her away. She was already dead. She just didn’t know it yet.

 

I drove east to the first rest area in Nebraska and parked at the very end. I let the truck idle down and told Angela I needed to use the restroom. I stepped out to make sure we weren’t being watched. Traffic was light. I got back inside. Party time!

I ordered her to shut up and arrange the bed. When she got into the sleeper I pushed her facedown and rolled on top of her. “Get off me!” she said, thinking it was just one more stupidity by the clumsy-ass trucker.

“No,” I told her. “It’s about time I get a little something for allowing you all the comforts of home.”

She whined that Lady Rose had told her I was a nice man. I said, “You’re about to meet the Keith that Lady Rose doesn’t know.”

I got out my duct tape and started to wrap it around her mouth. “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

“Oh, yes I do.”

She said, “Listen, baby, I’ll do what you want.” When I didn’t respond, she said, “Just let me pray first.” She clasped her palms together and prayed to Jesus Christ loud enough for me to hear. Then she said, “You won’t hurt me, will you?”

“No, I won’t hurt you,” I lied.

She told me she never gave head, but I could screw her again. I nodded in approval, and she began to get into the sexual experience like we were lifelong lovers. She kissed me like she loved me and guided me in. Afterwards she climbed on top and rode me till I was half-crazy.

After my second orgasm she claimed to be hungry and asked to stop at a restaurant. I knew this trick. When we stopped, she would yell rape. It wasn’t going to happen. I screwed her a third time and held her close till I came again.

She grabbed for her purse and I jerked her hand back. I said, “You were reaching for your pepper mace, weren’t you?”

She yelped, “No, I wasn’t! No, I wasn’t!”

I said, “It doesn’t matter. I took it out.’

She said, “Oh, no!”

I told her we were going to play the death game and there was nothing she could do about it. After the way she’d treated me, she had it coming.

I shoved her on the floor of the sleeper and began to choke her. I kept up a steady pressure till she was out, then waited for her to breathe again. After the fourth or fifth time, she stopped breathing for good. It was tiring work, and I slept for three or four hours.

When I woke up, I put her body in a plastic garbage bag and set it on the mattress with her head pointing towards the driver’s-side sleeper door. I wasn’t sure what to do with her because she’d been seen hanging out with me for over a week off and on and she’d used my credit card to call her dad and boyfriend. She probably had a rap sheet. Her fingerprints might even be on file. I decided that I had to make her disappear completely.

I drove to a McDonald’s and ordered for two. I sat in the truck and talked to her. “If you just played straight with me, bitch, you could be eating right now.” I laughed. I didn’t feel remorseful at all. To me she was just another bitchy woman, better off dead.

I felt her breasts as they stiffened up. I started to get hard, but I’d had my fun already. Now that I had a full stomach, it was time to make her invisible.

I needed to be on the far side of the scale house in the morning so I wouldn’t be documented. In a few hours I drove by, and the scales were closed. At Mile Marker 198 I pulled into a spot that looked dark—no other parking lights or headlights. If there was anybody else there, I didn’t see them. I was going to do a magic trick and I didn’t want to give away my secrets.

 

It was 3:00 A.M. on January 23, 1995, just ten days after my truck caught fire. Angela was already starting to stink. A bad smell comes off dead skin. Not putrefaction, just a skin smell. It’s unique, comes from chemicals in the body. Dead deer don’t smell like that. Just humans.

I retaped her hands in front so her fingerprints would disappear first. With the truck dark I laid her stiff body on the pavement. I tied a length of black nylon rope to a cross member under my trailer, just long enough to allow her body to drag between the dual rear wheels so she wouldn’t be seen from passing vehicles. I connected the rope to her ankles and placed her nose-down under the trailer. That way I could drag her backward and grind off her face and prints. I did all this in about three minutes. A few clusters of traffic passed me but didn’t slow down.

I waited for another group to pass before I reentered the highway. It was a good three miles between me and the drivers in front of me. Traffic was running at about seventy-five, and the top speed of my truck was sixty-four, so I had to allow ample time to grind her to hamburger before the next cluster caught up. I did the math, and my timing was perfect. I ended up dragging her twelve miles before I slowed down to check what was left.

As I pulled over, the next cluster of trucks started to pass, and one of the drivers asked me on the CB, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m just stopping to get rid of some coffee. Do you want to help me?”

He laughed and said, “No, thanks.”

The cluster disappeared down the highway. With the road dark again I crawled under the trailer to see what was left of Angela. One shoulder was gone, a thigh gone, her chest was broken, guts gone, arms and hands gone up to her shoulders.

I figured that other drivers would see her body parts in their headlights and think they were roadkill. A two-legged deer! Her face was ground off to the ears—no dental work to worry about.

I dragged what was left down the bank and dumped her in twelve-inch grass about fifty feet from the freeway and ten feet inside the fence. Lights were coming my way as I got back in my cab. Another trucker checked to see if I was okay, and I stuck to my story that I stopped to wet down a tire. A cluster courteously moved over to the left as I entered the interstate.

 

At Exit 305 near Grand Island, I pulled into the back of the Union 76 station and took a short nap. When I woke up, I phoned in my hours and lied about my location so it would match my logbook and throw the cops off. Then I went outside and cleaned the rest of Angela off the truck.

I drove to Lincoln, crossed over to I-29S and down to I-70 and headed east to match what I’d recorded in my logbook. I made it look like I’d gone through Denver in case they found the body right away. Hell, officer, I wasn’t even in Nebraska. Who could prove otherwise?

I got rid of her clothes at the Ohio Turnpike, unloaded in Pennsylvania, and picked up a new trailer with a load of frames for Denton, Texas. I’d gotten away with another murder—maybe. I was on edge again because I’d been seen with the victim. I thought, It won’t be long before I’m caught. What made me kill her? Just because I was tired and she was bugging me? What the hell kind of reaction was that?

I made me sick.