Читать книгу Fri Nov 22 00:00:00 CST 2019 - Bryan Woolley - Страница 19

BULL

“There it is.” Bull Waggoner pointed past the sweeping windshield wipers at the crumpled mass of metal against the bridge abutment, now glistening in the periphery of the patrol car’s headlights.

“Jesus,” the rookie said.

Bull eased the car into the emergency lane behind the wreck. Miraculously, the taillights of the ruined car still burned. The car was tilted against the abutment, as if trying to climb to the bridge above. The revolving red lights of the patrol car moved across the crumpled hood, then off, then on again, then off. The drizzle pelting Bull’s windshield and the sweep of the wipers gave the wreck the aspect of a grotesque Christmas tree.

“You seen many dead bodies, Larry?” Bull asked the kid.

“Just my grandmother.”

“Well, this ain’t going to be like your grandmother.”

Bull grabbed his flashlight and stepped out of the patrol car, and the kid followed. Bull went to the driver’s side of the wrecked car, and the kid went to the other. Bull tried the door, but it wouldn’t open. He shined the light through the shattered side window. The driver had been a young man. Now he was pressed between the steering wheel and the back of his seat, like a flower between the pages of a book. He must not have had a whole bone left in his chest. “This one’s gone,” Bull said. He shined the flashlight across the seat and the dashboard. The woman had been young, too, he guessed although he really couldn’t tell. Her blood on the dashboard reflected his light, and he saw bits of brain.

“Jesus,” Larry said. Bull heard him retching on the other side of the wreck. He had retched himself once, when he was a rookie, but it had been over a suicide—a guy who had stuck a shotgun in his mouth.

“Call for the meat wagon,” he told Larry. “Call for a wrecker. Tell the dispatcher there ain’t no way we can get them out. Tell them how bad it is.”

The kid wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and opened the patrol door and leaned across the seat for the mike. He wouldn’t sleep tonight. He would lie awake a long time, wondering why he had become a cop, wishing he hadn’t. He would consider other career possibilities, maybe go for a couple of job interviews. Then the memory of the bodies in the wrecked car would fade, and the next time he saw one, he wouldn’t think much about it. He would remember these two, though, just as Bull remembered that guy who stuck the shotgun in his mouth. Bull didn’t remember many of the corpses he had seen since then, but he still remembered that one.

Traffic was light on the North Central Expressway, but the drivers were slowing down, first, because they saw revolving lights of the patrol car, then, to rubberneck at the wreck. One seemed to be stopping, and Bull waved him by with the flashlight, throwing his whole huge body into the wave, ordering him away.

Bull went to the patrol car and got some flares. Larry was hanging up the mike, and Bull said, “Stay with the radio.” He set out the flares, listening to the frying sound of the tiny raindrops hitting their bright pinkish light. The drizzle was wetter than it seemed from inside the car, and he was getting chilled. He should put on his slicker, but there wasn’t time. He stood in the light of the flares, waving his flashlight. One of the drivers stopped anyways. Bull yanked off his hat and charged at the car, his crew cut bristling. The driver rolled down his window and spoke quickly, frightened. “I’m the one that called the police,” he said. “They told me to come back to the scene.”

“You a witness?” Bull asked.

“Yeah. I seen it happen.”

“OK. Pull in over there behind the patrol car. I’ll be with you in a minute. Don’t get out of the car.”

The driver rolled up the window and eased his car within the perimeter of the flares. There were sirens in the distance now. First the fire engine, and then the ambulance, then another police car. The firemen arrived first, and the rookie got out of the car to meet them. They began their work on the doors of the wreck. Then the ambulance arrived, then the police car, and finally the wrecker.

“You got a torch?” one of the firemen asked.

“Sure do,” the wrecker driver called.

“Well, get it.”

McDonald, the cop from the backup car, carried a yellow slicker to Bull, grinning. “Put this on, old man,” he said. “You trying to get some sick leave?”

“I could use some,” Bull said. He took the slicker, but didn’t put it on. “Put Larry on traffic,” he said. “I got a witness over there.”

“Right. It’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

“Go look for yourself.”

“Captain wants you to come in and write your report and then go home,” McDonald said. “Rest up for the big day.”

“Right. Soon as I talk to my witness.”

The wrecker man was wearing goggles now, working at the door with his torch. Sparks were flying amid the revolving lights and the dark figures of men. Bull folded the slicker and walked to the beat-up Chevy and climbed into the front seat beside the driver.

“They dead?” the driver asked.

“Don’t know,” Bull said. “May I see your driver’s license?”

The man took off his cowboy hat and tossed it into the back seat, then fumbled in his hip pocket. He brought out a wallet and opened it and offered it to Bull.

“Just the license, please,” Bull said.

The man took out the license and handed it to him, and Bull shined a light on it. He was talking to Jimmy Otis Phillips of Texarkana, it said.

“This your correct address, Mr. Phillips?”

“Yessir.”

“What line of work are you in?”

“I work for a trucking outfit up there. Out of Texarkana.”

“What brings you to Dallas, Mr. Phillips?” Bull was writing on his clipboard. Mr. Phillips was watching him carefully.

“I got a couple of days off and just thought I’d come down and look around.”

“You been drinking, Mr. Phillips?” Bull smelled beer on him.

“Just a couple of beers on the way down. I ain’t even hit town yet.”

Bull shined the light into Mr. Phillip’s eyes and decided he was telling the truth. “OK,” he said. “Tell me what you saw.”

“Well, I was just coming down this road here—”

“US Seventy-five.”

“Yessir. And this guy passed me. Real fast. Then he pulled back into the lane in front of me. And then, when he was—oh, I guess about a hundred yards in front of me, well, he just sailed into that bridge.”

“Did he hit his brakes first?”

“Yessir. I seen his brake lights. Then he hit the bridge.”

“Did he skid much?”

“Well, he skidded, but I couldn’t say how much. All I could see was his lights. But he fishtailed, all right, and then he hit the bridge.”

“And what did you do then?”

“Well, I stopped and went over and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t come open. I tried to peek in the window, but I couldn’t see nothing. And I said, ‘Anybody hurt?’ and I didn’t hear no answer. So I got back in my car and drove to that Texaco station up yonder and called the cops. The police. And they told me to come back down here and talk to the officer at the scene. I ain’t going to get no ticket or nothing, am I?”

“No, you’ve been very cooperative, Mr. Phillips. How long do you plan to be in Dallas? Is there a phone where we could reach you, in case we need more information?”

“Yessir. I’m staying with Bob Timmons.” Bull wrote down Bob Timmons’s number. “I got to be back in Texarkana by Sunday night. I ain’t got no phone there, but the company will know where I am.” Bull wrote down the company’s number. “I bet them suckers is dead. How many was there?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Bull said. “Thank you, Mr. Phillips, and drive carefully. These wet roads can fool you.”

“Don’t I know it. I’m a professional driver.”

Bull stepped out of the car and held his folded slicker over his clipboard. “Much obliged,” he said as he closed the door.

The old Chevy roared into life and moved slowly away, and Bull walked toward the wreck, where the ambulance people were laying a body on a stretcher in the brightness of the fire truck’s spotlights. McDonald stepped out of the light to meet him. “How’s it coming?” Bull asked.

“OK,” McDonald said. “You and your rookie go on in.”

“You need somebody on traffic?”

“We can handle it. Go ahead.”

Bull walked over to the flares and touched Larry on the arm. “Let’s go,” he said.

When they were back into the traffic, Bull turned off the revolving lights and settled himself into the seat. “Nasty night,” he said.