Читать книгу Genesis... - Welby Thomas Cox Jr. - Страница 14

Officer Troy Currans had just come on duty. He had heard his partners’, Officer Knower’s initial call to the dispatcher, thinking it odd that he only stated his number and then Currans only heard a clicking noise. He felt, almost instinctively that his partner was in some kind of jeopardy…and knew it wasn’t a good sign. He pushed the gas pedal to the floor and the Ford responded with all it had under the hood. The cruiser squealed and the tires squalled around the intersection leading from I-75 to I-71…the blue lights lit up the interstate and the night sky. Morning was wreaking havoc on this quite cold January morning and there would be hell to pay if Officer Knower had been hurt. Officer Currans knew that his partners’ shift started at Carrollton and he wasn’t far from there…maybe ten-fifteen miles and that meant he would be there in six minutes.

Officer Currans had tried to raise his partner on the radio and the phone when he heard the failed message…put there was no response from Knowers. This was highly unusual and Officer Currans knew that something was wrong…terribly wrong. Once he was on I-71, Officer Currans flipped on his blue lights and quickly flying through the night chill at over one hundred miles per hour. He flew past the Sparta exit, and then he saw his partners’ cruiser going east at a high rate of speed…and the horse van was following.

“44” Currans snapped into the police radio!

“4” Was the response from the base operator.

“Switch to channel 8” He requested of the base.

“Roger that,” was the response.

“I have been unable to reach Officer Knower, and I have just past his cruiser headed east at Sparta and there is a horse van following the cruiser?”

“Copy 44,”

“I am requesting back-up at Sparta, immediately!”

“What is your ETA to the van?”

“Three minutes, over!"

“The OIG recommends that you lay off the cruiser and the van until the split at I-75, operative will either go south or north, advise direction of flight at that time and support will respond appropriately… copy!”

“4”

The occupant in Knowers cruiser listened to the radio and heard the conversation, and then the radio went silent. He had seen the other cruiser with pulsating lights on the west side of I-71. Fortunate for the horse thieves and now the murderers of Officer Knower, the Sparta exit loomed as an escape route and the driver cut the blue lights, taking the exit and then made a quick left hand turn. Now he was headed due north with the van following at a reduced rate of speed he saw truck traffic zipping beneath him under the overpass at Sparta.

The horse van followed suit, cutting his lights and following the cruiser. In a quarter mile there was a convenient gas station on the east side of the road and across the road to the west there was a mammoth parking lot and entrance for the Kentucky NASCAR track. The driver of the cruiser took a left into the major lot. He did not miss the security camera’s measuring and recording his every move from the top of the light standard and it recorded both the cruiser and the van.

Mike Alteer jumped from the cruiser after he had stopped and ran to the van.

“Did you see the cop cruiser headed west?” he asked excitedly.

“Yeh, I saw him go under the overpass…man that was a good move getting off at this exit.”

“Yeh, but we gotta ditch this cruiser and that body!”

“Sure!”

“Look, US 42 is about three miles down this road and the Ohio River bank runs along 42…right off the road no more than five feet. We can find a spot high enough and push the cruiser and its pay load into the river.”

“That’s a plan dude."

They drove out of the NASCAR parking lot and headed north on State road 35 with the cruiser leading the way in the darkness. In a matter of minutes, they reached a perpendicular stop headed west to Warsaw or north toward Cincinnati. Mike took a left heading toward Warsaw. After driving a mile, it was now one o’clock and he knew in another six hours the sky would be filled with choppers. On the right of the highway there was a huge Sycamore, with graying shadows growing out of the riverbank and alongside there was a flat spot from which he could see the Markland Lock and Dam over his right shoulder. He pulled the cruiser off the highway and onto the shoulder…the van nudged in behind him. There was no rail separating the highway from the river, just a bushy trail along its bank beside the Sycamore which bore large gashes from being struck over the years by errant or drunk drivers. The river bank dropped off precipitously…as well as fortuitously into the Ohio some eight to ten feet below. It was a “moody river,” as the song goes and in the night with no moon it appeared black, rolling and cold as a freezer. Mike cut the lights and ran to the van. Frank, the van driver followed suit, opening the side door as the horse watched the activity in earnest. He was huge and beautiful under the globe which shown on his shinny coat…but his nostrils were flared and he grabbed a mouth full of hay.

“The cop is gone?” shouted Frank.

“Where could he have gone? Maybe he is alive?”

“Look the guy was dead, I shot him twice…pitta, pitta, bang, bang.” He held out his fingers like a gun.

“But he isn’t here,” Mike yelled.

“Wait, don’t get excited on me…there he is under the horse’s hay rack.”

Frank ran back to the van’s cab and grabbed a flashlight, returning in seconds and flipped the light on the big liver colored chestnut. The stallion was cool and pure class, nickering to let them know that he was the man…his eyes flashed, large and black as the river flowing beneath them.

Under the stallion, Officer Knower had either pulled himself somehow or the horse pulled him from the position by the side door.

“Get in there dude?”

“Fuck you, I ain’t getting anywhere near that big pricks’ hooves…that is way beyond my pay grade.”

“All right, lets’ not freak out…I’ll get in there! Now, look, the stallion can’t move because he has a shank attached on both sides of his halter and that chain is welded to both sides of the van…the chain holds his head, he can’t go anywhere or bite me. But he can stomp me or kick the shit out of me once I am in his space, so you are going to have to keep him calm…you savvy?”

“Yeh…fucking blind leading the blind!”

They both climbed into the van which had been set-up as three stalls giving

Hunter’s Destiny the largest stall for his big body. Mike thought it looked like one giant stall but it was separated at the top by large, heavy, long iron poles which fitted between the stalls giving definitive separation in the event there was a need to place other horses in the van. As he walked to the webbing which separated Mike from the horse, Hunter’s Destiny half reared, pawing the night’s darkness.

Mike jumped back to avoid the horse’s hooves with the silver plates as Frank made his way alongside the horse. He found a door under the horse’s head and opened it permitting him to pull Officer Knower’s dead body out from under the horse’s head.

“Don’t let him see that you are afraid of him…be calm, Mike!”

“Fuck you dude, that big bastard just showed me a row of teeth that looked like Moby Dick!”

“Talk quietly to him, offer him a hand-full of hay…just give me a second and it will be done.”

Mike feeling a bit overwhelmed and something of a whinny who could not seem to do anything right, jammed his hand into his pocket and felt a pepper mint candy…” you have been owned, big fella!” he said to the horse as he reached out with the mint on his upturned palm. Hunter’s Destiny sniffed it and with his large upper lip scooped it into his mouth…now he settled back as did Mile.

“Whoa there big guy…I once saw you race over at Arlington Park, it was a big race” Mike kept talking trying to calm the horse, he patted his forehead and jaw…the horse was sweating and Mike knew this wasn’t a good sign, knowing he had to calm him down he offered another pepper mint and Hunter’s Destiny gladly took it.

“You were great that day, just played with them horses and when they came to you at the eight pole, you just showed them your big ass…yeh, see we can be friends…I am a big fan of yours…” Mike offered another mint and the horse took it.

Frank Albright pulled Officer Knower from the corner of the stall. He was dead for certain and that was the bad news. The blood from the gun shot entry had tried on the starched collar of the shirt.

He called to Mike, busy with the horse, asking him to remove the jacket of the deceased police officer. Mike felt strangely ill…as he pulled the jacket off he thought that it would never warm the officer again. Dear God, he thought, what have I done…please forgive me.

“Mike…come on…quick help me…take his hands…we’ll get him in the cruiser trunk.”

Officer Knower was a big man, probably weighed in at three hundred pounds dead. The two men struggled but final got him to the rear of the cruiser, near the trunk. Mike went to the glove compartment and popped the trunk lid. He then returned to help Frank lift the body into the trunk, and then Mike dropped the blood stained jacket over the body, as though it might once again warm it. Frank closed the trunk lid.

Next, Frank went to the driver’s side, started the car and lowered the window. He placed the car in drive, it moved forward and off the shoulder, dropping into the swiftly moving black water of the Ohio. The river was high from the winter’s rain and snow…it was swift running and soon the car sank and was carried into the darkness of the water…and the body mattered no more to any of them…the soul had long departed.

Frank ran back to the van. “Get in,” he yelled at Mike who seemed to be in a daze and hesitated as though he could not remember where he was.

“You got no shot out here alone, Mike.”

Mike jumped into the van as Frank pulled away from the shoulder of the road near the river and the place where the car had been swallowed.

“What a fuck-up!” Mike said.

“Yeh dude…its gnarly.”

“Frank, my name is Mike…not Dude…got it?”

“Cool!”

“Look Frank, we’ve gone from stealing a multi-million-dollar horse to killing a cop, and maybe even that night watchman…I say we get off this road…let things cool down, with no more killing…and we got to hide this horse.”

“I think we should high tail it up 42 to Ohio!”

“Are you intellectually challenged…or just brain dead?”

“You don’t gotta hurt my feelings.”

“Look Frank, try to follow this…at this hour, the entire state of Kentucky knows a cop is down…do you know what that means…Frank that is the worst…we are dead meat before a word is said.”

“How do they know…is that?”

“Frank, they know because they can’t speak to him.”

“Oh sure, I get it.”

“So Frank, we got to get off the highway, ASAP.”

“What’s that ASAP?”

“It means as stupid as possible!”

“Mikee, you a smart guy!”

“Yeh, look what two years at UK got me.”

“Big Blue man.”

Ok Frank, this is US 42, it goes to Ohio and all the way to the east coast but we are headed west, going back toward Louisville, and US 42 runs parallel with I71. In a matter of minutes, the cops are going to know that we have gotten off the interstate and this highway is going to be crawling with cops, and as soon as day breaks, they will have choppers all over us. So you see why we have to get off the road and get this van into a barn or garage for cover and some time. Got it?”

“Sure Mikee…get off road and find a cover for van.”

“Now Frank, up here a-ways, we are going to find a nice little side road, leading us to a safe place south of the river. We are going to turn off this highway and make our way to the first big barn we come to. We are going to pull in…secure the van in the barn…get the horse out and into a stall after we walk him about for a half-hour or so…I will secure the house while you are taking care of Hunter’s Destiny…do you agree?”

“Ok, sure Mikee.”

“Now Frank, I’ll need the gun…and since I have two years of college, I’ll run the show…it’s very important Frank that only one person is the boss…got it?”

“Oh sure Mikee, but I have two guns, one for me and one for the boss.”

“Frank, you shot the cop with a shot gun…I didn’t know you had another gun?”

“Oh sure, Mikee…I got this “Dirty Harry 357 Magnum…the most powerful handgun in the world.”

“Good Frank, I like your Clint Eastwood impression, but where is the gun?”

“The shot gun is in the van and the 357 is right here, tucked safely in the back of my pants with the safety on…always have to be safe with gun, it’s no toy Mikee.”

“So you are good with me being the boss, and I appreciate how safe you are with weapons…and as the boss I say you are responsible for keeping the guns cleaned and I will be responsible for keeping them hid.”

“Sure thing Mikee, here is the gun.” Frank seemed pleased to be rid of it and to have someone with smarts running the show. Frank had never been anything other than a groom or hot walker, making at most $150 per week and living out of the tack room. Frank was definitely challenged intellectually and anyone could manipulate him…and now he had killed a trooper, and maybe a man at the farm but Mike doubted that the prosecutor or the court would go hard on him after a psychiatrist got a hold of him. This should never have happened…they should have given up the horse. Mike didn’t know Frank had the guns and he was shocked when he heard the blast ripping out the window of the cruiser. Frank thought he had no other choice and that is where he went wrong…when he started thinking.