Collision Course Read online

  ‘Oh my god,’ Tess moaned. ‘What happened here?’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Less than an hour earlier, Arlen Sampson had watched in disbelief as Jacob Doyle’s car swerved out of control, hit the median and flipped. Shedding tinkling glass and twisted metal it rolled once, smashing the roof flat, before skewing around and performing another one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees twist in mid-air. The car ended up wedged between the boles of two sturdier trees than those it had already crashed through. Steam and smoke billowed from the crushed engine compartment.

  Temperance hit the brakes, bringing her van to a juddering halt, as she too reacted to the unforeseen event. Breathing heavily she sat staring at the wrecked Chrysler. ‘Holy shit,’ she wheezed under her breath. Then she hiccupped out a laugh of disbelief and looked over at Sampson.

  He also cursed in surprise, but with more a note of regret than his companion had.

  Surviving that wreck would be remarkable, and Sampson held little hope for the youth. In the next instant, sparks popped and fizzed and a soft whump! signified the ignition of a fire. Flames wreathed the rear of the car; chemically fueled they were in shades of yellow and green, as noxious as the pitch-black smoke, which engulfed the car. He reassessed his first thought: surviving that wreck would be a miracle.

  Theirs wasn’t the only vehicle on that stretch of highway. A truck and a car had pulled to the shoulder, and already their drivers had spilled out to try to assist Jacob. Jacob was beyond help, but Sampson decided that appearances were everything.

  ‘Keep the engine running,’ he told Temperance, then he slipped out of the van, and after checking he was not about to be mown down, he jogged across the highway towards the flaming wreckage. At the median his shoes sank into the soft turf underfoot and he stepped backwards onto firmer ground. The truck driver had progressed further into the woods, but the heat and poisonous fumes forced him back. The car driver was urgently talking into his cellphone, alerting the emergency services. Other vehicles came to a stop and more people approached. It was human nature to gawp at scenes of misery, and in this modern era to share such misery far and wide; any second now and their phones would be out, not to call for help, but to film the scene. Sampson had no intention of having his face plastered all over the Internet. He turned away from the wreckage and retraced his steps across the highway to where Temperance watched from the van. He approached her window and she buzzed it down.

  ‘He’s dead?’ she asked needlessly.

  Sampson exhaled through his nostrils and frowned deeply.

  ‘Saves us the trouble of shutting him up,’ Temperance said.

  ‘Jesus, Tempe, have you no pity? A kid just died here.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s just the way the cookie crumbles, Arlen. We didn’t kill him; his death’s on him, so why should I feel anything for him?’

  ‘You’ve been driving around with Dom too long,’ he growled, ‘you’re beginning to sound like him.’

  ‘I’m nothing like him.’

  Sampson refrained from answering. He moved around the hood and climbed back into the passenger seat. ‘Let’s get out of here before we’re asked any awkward questions.’

  Other vehicles slowed as they passed the crash, their drivers as ghoulish as those that’d disembarked their cars for a closer look. Temperance pulled out into the slow-moving traffic, so it’d be unobvious they were witnesses leaving the scene. She steadily built speed, while beside her Sampson scowled at his hands folded in his lap.

  ‘Ten minutes ago you contemplated forcing him to pull over and throttling him into silence,’ Temperance pointed out. ‘We’ve had a lucky break; Jacob won’t be carrying tales to anyone now.’

  She was correct. After he left Madison Toner’s apartment, he’d asked her to try to catch Jacob. The youth had a few minutes’ lead on them, but there were few routes to Portland that he’d have chosen to take, and Temperance rightly elected for the main interstate highway. Sampson saw Jacob as a loose end. It was highly unlikely that any of the others would talk, but the scorned ex-boyfriend had nothing to lose. There was the possibility that Sampson would have to resort to threats and violence, but he’d also considered trying to sweeten the deal with the promise of reward for Jacob’s silence. Only as a last resort would he have strangled the youth into obedience again: yes, Sampson was forced to do shitty things for Blake and Kelly Ambrose, but it didn’t make him a shitty person at heart. In one way, he was as much of a victim of use and abuse as the kid, and he felt an affinity with him. Possibly crushed in the wreckage, but still clinging to life, Jacob would’ve suffered tremendously before the flames or noxious fumes took him.

  ‘Stop the van,’ he commanded.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just stop the damn van!’

  Sampson’s cheeks bulged. Temperance decelerated quickly, forcing out a car traveling close behind into the passing lane. The angered driver laid a hand on his horn and received a barked curse from her in response. She brought the van to a rolling stop. Before it was at a full halt, Sampson was out of the door and bent double. He vomited between his shoes. The soul wrenching noise he made twisted Temperance’s face in revulsion. In the next instant rain thundered down, battering the van’s shell, and also Sampson’s hunched back. He staggered back to the van, red-eyed and wiping his lips with his sleeve. ‘Not a fucking word to Dom about this,’ he croaked.

  ‘You’re really not cut out for this kind of work,’ Temperance said as he climbed back in and slumped in his seat.

  ‘Don’t take my empathy for weakness,’ he warned. ‘I’ve no qualms about hurting anyone that deserves it, but that … that back there was a horrible way for an innocent kid to die.’

  Temperance sniffed. She got the van moving again, looking for an intersection to take and return to Brunswick. Highway Patrol would be en route to the crash, and she’d rather they didn’t come under scrutiny should anyone have mentioned her van had left the scene. The sooner they were off the highway the better. Soon she turned the van and followed cross-country past an expansive lake called Plymouth Pond, and picked up the lesser-traveled Route 202. It made for a slower journey home, but they’d most likely avoid the law. They were southwest of Albion by a few miles before either of them spoke again.

  ‘Do you think he deliberately took his own life?’ Temperance asked.

  ‘I couldn’t say what was on his mind.’ Actually, Sampson had given it some thought. Not long before the Chrysler had gone off the road it had sped up by increments before finally shooting forward at top speed. By the time the tires hit the soft verge it was traveling upwards of eighty miles per hour. Momentarily Sampson had presumed Jacob had spotted the van tailing them and tried to get away. But he was unaware of their vehicle, having never laid eyes on it, so that couldn’t have been the reason for his sudden surge. He pictured the boy sobbing and wailing at being dumped by his girlfriend. Angry and upset, he’d possibly railed against his perceived ill treatment, maybe he was hollering and cursing and beating at the steering wheel as he stamped down on the gas; eyes brimming with tears, he might not have noticed the car was pulling left towards the median, and once the tires dug in to the storm-softened turf it was too late to correct it. Maybe by then he didn’t care. Nobody would ever know, but there was the genuine concern that others might suspect foul deeds. Jacob’s untimely death hadn’t been a lucky break as Temperance had attested; it could prove the opposite.

  Make them disappear, if you must, but in a way that does not lead back to us. Blake Ambrose’s words resonated in his mind. Despite having no physical hand in Jacob Doyle’s death, Sampson couldn’t deny he was partly responsible, as it was through him that Jacob had been kicked out by his girl. Why hadn’t Jacob taken his advice when he’d told him to go and take a slow drive? If he’d left then he’d still be alive. When news of Jacob’s death reached Hayley and the Toners they’d instantly jump to the wrong conclusion; that Jacob’s car had been forced off the road.

  Sampson instructed Temper
ance to turn around. He should go back to speak with Hayley and the others, to convince them he had nothing to do with Jacob’s demise, before they did something stupid.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tess trudged to Po’s GMC, downcast. She’d thrown on a hooded coat against the rain; the faux fur lining around the hood was sodden, dripping with each step. Her jeans were soaked almost to mid-shin, having slogged through the grassy median as close to the crash as the Penobscot County Sheriff’s deputy had allowed. Both she and Po knew the car was Jacob’s but she wanted to confirm if he’d had a passenger or not.

  ‘Jacob?’ Po asked as she got in the car.

  She threw back her hood. Wet eyed, she nodded her head. He’d expected no less.

  ‘Hayley wasn’t with him,’ she went on.

  ‘That’s one thing to be thankful of.’

  Just then Tess couldn’t feel any relief; Jacob’s death had hit her like a kick to the gut. Somehow she felt responsible for failing to keep him safe, despite having been told the crash was purely accidental.

  ‘I spoke with that deputy over there,’ she said, indicating a tall woman standing at roadside, her uniform hat pulled low and her jacket collar turned up. The deputy was soaked through, her face grim and pale. She kept the traffic moving in a desultory manner, waving vehicles on with a glowing baton. Tess had informed her she was a retired sergeant from Cumberland County Sheriff’s department, and it had won her some leeway to approach the scene. ‘I told her I recognized the car, and gave her Jacob’s details. Apparently they’d had conflicting information regarding the probable driver, but Jacob’s name was one that’d come up already in their inquiries. I told her I was worried that he was traveling with his girlfriend, and she let me go and speak with the fire crew. I didn’t see … I didn’t want to … but it was confirmed there was only one male driver involved.’

  Po had concluded the same as she had when first spotting the wreck. She’d probed for answers, and the same female deputy had informed her there were no suspicious details surrounding the crash. ‘There were witnesses to the accident,’ she explained to him, ‘a truck driver and a salesman. Both reported that the Chrysler was being driven at speed, it hit a big puddle and the car went off the road and into the trees. No sooner had it crashed than the car caught fire. They couldn’t get close to help for the heat and smoke; poor Jacob didn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘That’s all they said?’

  ‘That’s all I could get from the deputy.’ The deputy had already extended professional courtesy to its limits by speaking to Tess, and she’d clammed up, recalling the emphasis was now on Tess being an ex-sergeant.

  ‘Those witnesses, they didn’t say why Jacob was driving so fast?’

  ‘No. Besides, how would they know? You drive fast most of the time, do you need a reason?’

  ‘I drive fast,’ he agreed, ‘but I also drive to the conditions. Hitting standing water like that at speed, it could’a pulled the steering wheel outta Jacob’s hands. The question’s why he was driving like an idiot beforehand. Yesterday when we followed him back to Portland, he took things slow and easy, why the change this time?’

  ‘We’ll never know.’

  Po checked out the huge container truck still parked alongside the highway; the driver must’ve been asked to wait until a formal witness statement could be taken from him. Po said, ‘Stay dry, and I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Before Tess could answer, he got out of the GMC and jogged through the rain to the truck. She should’ve spoken with the witnesses herself, but she’d needed a few minutes to come to terms with Jacob’s death. She barely knew the boy, but still … she knew him all the same. She was grateful to Po for taking the initiative.

  Ignoring the rain, Po stood, head tilted up. Tess watched a thick, hairy hand emerge from the truck’s window, and could almost decipher the conversation by the gestures it made. Po finished up, offered a thumbs up to the driver and was given one in return. He jogged back to the GMC and clambered in, shaking raindrops from his hair. Tess looked at him, lips slightly apart.

  ‘One of the first people at the scene was from a panel van,’ Po confirmed. ‘The trucker said there were three witnesses there when the car first went on fire. He didn’t notice when the guy left, but thinks it was before the cops arrived. I described Dom.’

  She could tell there was something coming by the wry turn of his mouth.

  ‘Wasn’t him,’ said Po, ‘unless he’s shaved off his beard and stuck it on his scalp.’

  Tess’s shoulders fell. It was the wrong reaction to Po’s words. What did she want, that Dom had forced Jacob off the road? Whoever was driving the van, he was probably innocent of foul play, and once he realized there was no hope for Jacob, he’d backed off from the scene and left it to the professionals to clean it up. Maybe, once he’d given some thought to his actions, he’d contact the police and offer up his testimony.

  ‘Wasn’t Dom,’ Po went on, ‘but I think it was still the same outfit. The truck driver says a woman was driving the van, a black woman with cornrows and large, decorative earrings. Sound like Temperance to you?’

  Tess wouldn’t describe Temperance as black, but yes, she’d African-American blood in her, and casting back her mind, she could picture her tightly plaited hair and ostentatious earrings, of silver hoops and feathers, reminiscent of those Native American Dream Catchers some people hung over their beds.

  ‘They were chasing Jacob?’

  ‘Driver couldn’t say. Didn’t think so. His truck and the sales rep’s car were the first on the scene, the van pulled up after they were already crossing the highway to help. If they were chasing Jacob, they weren’t putting much effort into catching him.’

  ‘If Jacob knew they were following him, it’d explain why he might’ve panicked and driven too fast for the conditions.’

  ‘We can speculate all day long, it won’t get us anywhere,’ he said. ‘D’you want to tell the cops what we suspect, or should we confirm things first?’

  ‘We confirm things,’ said Tess, to his satisfaction. It was ever their way.

  ‘What about the other thing?’

  ‘You mean telling Hayley that Jacob’s dead? Oh, Jesus, Po, how are we going to break the news to her?’

  ‘That’s not our responsibility,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s for the cops to deliver the bad news. No, I meant should we tell the cops where they can find her?’

  Tess kneaded her temples, her face cupped by her palms. Finally she decided no. She still wanted the opportunity to get Hayley and the others out of harm’s way before everything blew up in their faces. Jacob’s death complicated matters for everyone involved, including the bad guys.

  ‘What about Nathan and Adrian?’ Po asked. ‘They’re Jacob’s actual next of kin.’

  ‘They have his home address; the cops will inform Jacob’s brothers.’

  ‘F’sure,’ said Po. ‘But that’s not what I meant. You saw how hot-headed they were concerning Jacob’s relationship with Hayley, how d’you think they’re gonna react if they decide she’d somethin’ to do with causin’ their little brother’s death?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘They could cause trouble. Last night, they probably gave Jacob the third degree when he arrived home; you can bet they got it out of him that Hayley had coaxed him into joining her at Maddie’s place up in Bangor, and when they skipped out this morning that’s probably where they’d returned. It’s bad enough Jeff Lorton showing up there, never mind the Doyle brothers arriving on the warpath.’

  ‘We should go,’ he suggested.

  Tess took another look at the accident scene. Emergency response vehicles cluttered her view, but she could see between them to where the medics extricated Jacob’s corpse from the tangled wreckage. Thankfully they’d already covered him with blankets before transferring him to a gurney. She looked away. As a sheriff’s deputy she’d attended a number of traffic collisions, some of them fatal, some where the victims were in a worse state than how Jacob
had ended up, but she’d had no personal connection to the victims then. She’d been able to cope with seeing the terrible wounds by doing her job, boxing away the horror, compartmentalizing what had happened against what needed doing and concentrating on the latter. She must do the same again. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘let’s go.’

  Before setting off, Po had another thought. ‘The number of folks possibly convergin’ on Maddie’s place, things could stack up against us, Tess. I think we’ll need help. Do me a favor, will ya? Call Pinky and ask him to join us.’

  She did, and Pinky was more than happy to oblige.

  ‘I’m already on my way,’ he announced, ‘charging to the rescue like the Seventh Cavalry, me.’

  In his usual manner Pinky’s enthusiasm outshone the severity of the situation. He not only mispronounced the word as ‘Calvary,’ he’d also neglected to recall that Custer’s 7th Cavalry regiment were wiped out at Little Bighorn.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘Is there any way that his death can be connected back to you?’ asked Blake Ambrose. His voice was pitched low in anger and Sampson strained to hear him over the rain drumming on the roof of the van, the thrum of the engine and swish of tires on wet asphalt. They were approaching the Bangor city limits, only ten minutes or so from arriving back at Madison Toner’s apartment. Sampson would’ve preferred to keep Blake in the dark about Jacob Doyle’s death until he could perform some damage control, but at Temperance’s urging had come clean. It was best that Blake was fully apprised of the situation, she’d argued, rather than hearing later where his response might be to punish first and ask questions later.

  ‘The crash was an accident, he hit water on the road and aquaplaned into the trees,’ said Sampson, and his next words almost stuck in his throat. He avoided looking across at Temperance. ‘It’s a lucky break for us, really, because he’s one less person we need to shut up.’

  ‘Until his girlfriend starts screaming murder!’