Ice on the Grapevine Read online

  What readers are saying about

  the Hunter Rayne highway mysteries:

  “A great take to bed read for anyone who loves crime fiction in a traditional fashion.”

  “Those were the best mysteries I've read in a long time!! As soon as I finished the first one I bought the second and felt empty when I finished it! The characters were awesome and so there that I somehow think they are in my life …”

  “This is a great read for anyone who likes mystery, intrigue and those that are looking for good reads from up and coming Canadian authors.”

  “Great trucking detail, hardboiled characters, no-nonsense dialogue ….”

  “… this book caught my attention from the very first pages and it only got better. I recommend this book to anyone who has a love for a good mystery.”

  “ … Hunter Rayne would make a great TV detective, driving around the country in his rig visiting different states and helping to solve crimes. He is that interesting of a character.”

  Also by R.E. Donald

  SLOW CURVE ON THE COQUIHALLA

  ICE ON THE

  GRAPEVINE

  a Hunter Rayne highway mystery

  R.E. Donald

  Copyright 2011 by R.E. Donald

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Smashwords Edition License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover © 2011 Hunter Johnsen

  Proud Horse Publishing, British Columbia, Canada

  [email protected]

  First digital edition published September 2011

  Second digital edition published July 2012

  First print edition published July 2012

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This story is set in the year 1996.

  To Jim, my inspiration,

  and to my friend, Barbara, who has always believed I could.

  Who longs in solitude to live,

  Ah! soon his wish will gain;

  Men hope and love, men get and give,

  And leave him to his pain.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  Every morning felt like Christmas now that he had a wife.

  The sun had not yet mounted the ragged hills, but the sky behind the San Gabriels was that washed out yellow that signaled another hot July day in L.A. County as California Highway Patrol officer Lucas Triggs neared the end of his graveyard shift. Lucas could hardly wait to get home; home where his sweet little wife was waiting for him with a good morning kiss, a soft cuddle and maybe more if there was time before she left for work. She'd make him a fine breakfast of eggs and sausages and a slab of ham. Mmmm, mmh. The thought of Sylvana made him grin like a fool as he cruised his assigned stretch of Interstate 5, elbow out the window, uphill now between dry slopes dotted with scrub grasses and sage. He wished he could crank up KZLA and sing along but there was too much static this far north, so instead he hummed the chorus of "Standing Outside the Fire" over and over as he kept half an ear on the police band.

  Lucas Triggs was forty-three years old and there'd been few women in his life. Oh sure, there were the ones he'd paid for when he sailed with the navy, but that wasn't like having your own girl. Let's face it, with his hare lip he wasn't the world's best looking guy. The day he'd stopped to help Sylvana and her mother with a flat tire near the Kern County line he now counted as the luckiest day of his life. Eight months later, here he was, a married man with a family on the way. He'd never known it would feel this good, having someone to welcome you home and kiss you good bye and warm your back with her sweet breath as you slept. He'd never imagined how fine it was to sit in front of the TV with your woman in your lap, your hands cupped over her taut round belly and her own hands resting like baby birds on yours. "I get to hug you and Junior all at once," he'd told her, and she giggled like a little girl.

  The Chev's radio crackled to life. A code 10-54, possible dead body at the brake check north of the Templin turn off. "Trucker called it in," said the dispatcher. "He's standing by on the emergency channel if you need specifics."

  Lucas replied that he was on his way, and flipped to Channel 9 on his CB. The trucker wasn't hard to raise, but the signal was poor. "... a cop, so I know better than to touch a dead body, you know what I mean? Where you..."

  Lucas powered up his window for a closer listen. "Come again," he radioed.

  The signal cleared. "CHP, you want to get your ass over here PDQ. I just pulled into the brake check north of Valencia, got out to take a piss, and almost tripped over some poor bastard all curled up like a pretzel."

  "Dead?" asked Lucas.

  "I think so, but I sure as hell ain't gonna touch him. My brother-in-law's a cop and I know the drill. You touch him if you want to, but I got the hell outa there soon as I saw him, and I ain't gonna let nobody else near him either."

  Lucas turned on his flashers and depressed the pedal. The Chevy growled and sprinted toward Gorman, where he turned around and headed south. Minutes later, he pulled off the I-5 into the brake check area, a paved level clearing about the size of two football fields, where he was hailed by a big man in blue jeans and suspenders, his gray tee shirt darkened by sweat rings beneath the armpits. He had a black beard and a barrel shaped torso that reminded Lucas of Bluto. Lucas nosed the Chevy in beside the man's big Kenworth and got out. Another big rig was stopped near the far end of the brake check, and a VW bus that had seen better days was perched half on and half off the asphalt nearby, its side door open. As Lucas watched, a skinny man with an equally skinny ponytail and a Hawaiian shirt that fluttered around his bony frame like a weather beaten flag, hopped out holding an enormous plastic mug.

  "I never touched the guy, and I never let those bozos..." Bluto nodded in the direction of the VW. "... near him either. My brother-in-law's with Houston PD, so I know the drill. He tells me about some of the shit he’s seen go down." He started walking toward the back end of his rig and Lucas followed at his shoulder. "No way I'm gonna mess up a crime scene, and I didn't let those other bozos even come close."

  They rounded a pile of dirt, one of several that ringed the brake check, and Lucas saw a patch of color against the sandy soil. It was a man, or the body of a man, with his legs tucked up and hugged tight to his chest, his neck angled forward as if he were resting his head on his knees. He wore blue jeans, Nikes, and a polo shirt of green and white and blue. Lucas couldn’t see his face. They stopped and stood about five yards away, Bluto with his thumbs hooked behind his suspenders.

  "See? I told you he was all curled up," said Bluto, nodding emphatically as if Lucas had disputed it. "Damn strange, the way he's lyin' there, ain't it?"

  Lucas had to agree. It wasn't so much that the man's fetal position was awkward or unusual, it was that he was lying on his right side, and so stiff that his head and feet didn't touch the ground.

  "Hey! Far out."

  The voice belonged to the skinny man from the VW bus, who had caught up to them and now stood beside Lucas, si
pping at the contents of his plastic mug. "Kinda looks like that little guy from Laugh-In, huh? You remember that? You know, the little guy in the raincoat who used to fall over on his tricycle and just lie there?'

  "Step back, sir," said Lucas. "You'll have to keep clear of this area."

  Bluto turned around and glared at the skinny man, started shooing him away with both hands. "Some assholes are like vultures, feeding off other people's misery," he said in a low voice to Lucas, then louder, "This ain't no picnic, Buddy. Get out of here and don't touch nothin'."

  Lucas motioned Bluto to stay put, then approached the hunched up figure, watching carefully where he placed his feet so as not to obscure any tracks, and making note of where his own footprints lay. He suspected that he was going to have to call the county coroner, but he'd never seen a corpse that looked quite like this before. Proper procedure was to first determine if there was any sign of life. If the poor bastard was alive and having some bizarre seizure or something, there'd be hell to pay if he didn't call an ambulance first. When he reached the body, Lucas squatted, elbows resting on his thighs, to examine the man more closely.

  At the nape of his neck, the man's dark hair fell in loose curls, parting to reveal the knobs of his upper spine. His forearms were thin but muscular, his hands clenched into fists. Folded up the way he was, it was hard to judge his height. Average, Lucas guessed. His skin was white. Very white. Lucas reached out to place two fingers against the man's neck, intending to feel for a pulse in the carotid artery. His hand jerked away as if he'd been burned, and he was so surprised that he stumbled backwards, barely able to keep from falling flat on his butt in the dirt.

  "Holy shit!" he said. "This stiff's a fuckin' block of ice!"

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Hunter Rayne had already picked up the receiver of the payphone before the kid in the black jeans stepped out of the men's room. Hunter punched in his dispatcher's 800 number, and reported that the trailer load of rice cakes he'd picked up in Vancouver three days ago had been delivered to the customer's warehouse in Orange, California, and that he was clear to pick up his return load. The dispatcher, Elspeth Watson, informed him that she didn't have a return load scheduled for him yet. Any load. "I've got to get out of here," he said.

  "I thought you liked southern California."

  "I said that during the winter, El. And that's beside the point. If I've got to lay over, this is a better place than some to pass the time, but I'd still rather be on the road." The kid in the black jeans stood five feet away, smoking a cigarette. When Hunter offered a smile, the kid scowled at his watch, then turned away. "I've got bills to pay. What about that load of nacho sauce or whatever it was you were talking about before I left? Isn’t it supposed to be ready tomorrow morning?"

  "You've got bills to pay!? You think I don't?" El said.

  Hunter clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. It was already the seventeenth of July and he still had to run another four thousand miles this month just to break even, to meet the bank payment on his six-year-old truck and cover fuel and maintenance costs. Over and above that, he had personal expenses to cover. Rent on the one bedroom basement suite in North Vancouver that he called home, and monthly checks for his two teenaged daughters. If business didn't pick up, he'd start falling behind.

  "What happened to that nacho sauce?" he asked again.

  "Well, it's just... oh yeah, your daughter’s been lookin’ for you. Janice." Hunter heard another line ringing in the background, and El said, "Hold on, sweetcheeks."

  "No, El! Don't put me on hold." But it was too late. Hunter sighed and tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder as he adjusted the rolled up sleeves of his shirt, leaning briefly against the aluminum frame of the phone booth. Hot. Too hot. The kid was standing about thirty feet away, smoking and watching the attendants fuel up an immaculate red Peterbilt.

  While he waited through the Vancouver weather forecast and two verses of "Why not me?" by the Judds, Hunter looked up at the afternoon sky, blue with a slight haze, the air around him full of highway sounds and the smell of diesel. He'd paid for a shower at the truck stop in Buttonwillow the previous night, but already he felt rimed in dust, felt it clinging to his face and forearms the way it clung to the navy blue flanks of his Freightliner. Every time he moved he felt his sweat dampened jeans grabbing at his legs. El came back on the line. "Now, where were we?" she said.

  "The nacho sauce?"

  "Right." She cleared her throat. "The nacho sauce."

  The kid in black jeans was back. He threw down his cigarette and ground it into the dirt with the toe of his boot. "Fuckin' hurry it up," he said. Hunter glanced at him, without a smile this time.

  "I gave that to Ray Nillson," said El.

  Hunter swore silently.

  "I said fuckin' hurry it up," said the kid, stepping closer. He had about four inches and thirty pounds on Hunter, but Hunter had twenty-four years experience in the police force on the kid.

  "Ray called this morning, said he and Sharon had to get back to Vancouver ASAP. I'm sorry, Hunter. He said it was urgent. I'll get on the blower and scare something up for you as soon as I can."

  The kid stepped into Hunter's space, squaring his shoulders and shifting his sunglasses from his nose to the crown of his head. Slowly Hunter removed his own sunglasses and tucked them in his shirt pocket, then lowered his head slightly, staring upwards into the kid's eyes, sizing up the kid's courage. He had no intention of taking the kid on, but the kid didn't have to know that. The kid backed up a couple of steps, said, "Fuck it," and turned away, kicking a stone across the asphalt.

  El was still talking. "You just park The Blue Knight under a palm tree somewhere and make yourself comfy. Where you gonna be?" Hunter heard the phone ring again. "Oh, never mind," she said. "Call me first thing in the morning, will ya. "

  He heard her yell, "I got it, Wally!" just before the receiver clicked in his ear.

  "It's all yours, chief," Hunter told the kid with a nod.

  The kid grunted, maybe it was thanks and maybe it wasn't, and stepped wide of Hunter on the way by.

  Hunter eased The Blue Knight through rush hour traffic up the 57 and out the I-10 toward the big truck stop in Ontario. Even with an empty trailer, the big Freightliner whined in complaint at the continual speeding up and slowing down. He couldn't help but think about the fuel he was burning just to cross L.A., and the fact that time was money, and it could be days before El found a load to pay his way home to Vancouver.

  A black BMW cut in front of him and he had to brake. The radio station was playing an old Waylon tuned that he liked, so he turned up the volume, took a deep breath and worked his shoulders in an effort to relax. "So she gave the nacho sauce to Ray and Sharon," he muttered, trying to sic his mind onto a new subject. He'd run into Ray and Sharon Nillson at a truck stop restaurant in Yoncalla, Oregon, on the way down. He'd walked in just as they were finishing up, and they'd invited him to share their table.

  "Come meet Peaches when you're done," Sharon had said in that loud, throaty voice of hers, tapping her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. "We're not in a hurry, are we Ray?"

  Ray shook his head. Ray didn't talk much. He was a big man with a full round face topped by a wavy shock of hair that looked fake, but wasn't. He had a tendency to let his jaw fall slack, pulling his mouth open. He made Hunter think of the big shy kid in school, the one the other boys made fun of because he wasn't cool, because he looked dumb, because he was nice even to those very boys who made his life hell. "Sure, Hunter," said Ray. "We're going to take the dog for a walk before we hit the road again, anyhow."

  "I can do that by myself, hon', if you want to stay and talk to Hunter 'til he's done," said Sharon. She butted her cigarette, then tossed her hair behind her shoulders with a flick of her index finger. Her hair was long and blond, with dark roots, and locks of it were pulled back from her temples and fastened behind her head with a gold-colored clip. A trio of glittering discs dangled from eac
h ear.

  Ray frowned and shook his head. "I don't want you walking around out behind the lot by yourself. I'll come with you."

  "It's still broad daylight, for Pete's sake!"

  "I'll come with you," he repeated.

  "Afraid me and Peaches will get kidnapped?" she asked, with a flirty lift of one eyebrow. Then she turned to Hunter and said, "Ray says it took him thirty years to find me, and he sure as hell doesn't intend to lose me." She laughed, tossing her hair back again and setting the earrings swinging with soft clinks. It occurred to Hunter there were lots of things Ray said privately to his wife that no one else could ever imagine the big, quiet man saying. Hunter knew that had been true of himself, too, in the early years of his marriage to Chris, but it seemed a lifetime ago. Long before she asked for the divorce.

  Sharon reached over and stroked her husband's hand, her geranium pink nails dwarfed by his thick knuckles. Ray ducked his head shyly and started to blush, but looked more pleased than annoyed. Newlyweds. They wore their hearts on their sleeves, as the saying goes, and it made Hunter uncomfortable, as if he were a voyeur. Or was it that they flaunted their being together in front of his being alone. Just then his meal had arrived, and he’d tucked into it, saying he might come out to their truck when he was finished, or he might not.

  He didn't.