Ice on the Grapevine Read online

The traffic had started to ease off by the time Hunter reached the Ontario East truck stop in San Bernardino County. He waited until after dinner to call his daughter. He never could keep track of the girls’ hours, but evening seemed a better bet than afternoon. The sun was setting, its rays scattering in a golden arc above the horizon, highlighting specs of dust and smears of dirt on the truck stop restaurant’s dirty window. He watched the molten circle sink, then punched in his calling card number, wondering who would answer. Janice, the eldest, Lesley, the youngest, or his ex-wife, Christine. He hoped it wouldn’t be Chris.

  It was Lesley. “Hi, Dad. Where are you?” she said. Then he heard, “Janice, it’s Dad. Want to get it in the other room?” She lowered her voice. “Hang on a sec, we don’t want Mom to hear.” Hunter smiled. The kids were always plotting surprises. He’d been on the receiving end more than once.

  “Dad, are you going to be home by Sunday?”

  “I sure hope so.” What was Sunday? July the… “Your mom’s birthday?” he asked.

  “It’s next Wednesday,” said Janice. “But we’re going to have a barbecue and cake and stuff on Sunday. We thought it would be nice if you could drop by. Totally casual. Nothing fancy.”

  Hunter hesitated. He briefly wondered whether the girls were trying to get their parents back together. It had happened several times during the first year of separation, but never since. Their attempts had created some very awkward moments, usually evolving into heated recriminations and slammed doors from Chris, or clenched teeth and swift, silent departures on his own part. He didn’t miss those scenes.

  “We hardly ever see you anymore, Dad. You’re always out of town,” said Lesley.

  It had been a few California trips ago, well over a month, since he’d seen either one of them. He’d tried to call several times, but he always hung up if he didn’t get them on the phone. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving messages for Lesley and Janice on their mother’s answering machine.

  “The only way we can make sure we see you,” added Janice, “is to plan ahead. Come on, Dad. Come, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said. He winced at the thought, but added, “I miss you kids. It’ll be good to see you all.” And it would make a nice change from the usual restaurant dinner, with the girls always in a hurry to go somewhere afterwards, often leaving him to finish his coffee alone and pay the bill. He agreed to be there on Sunday at six.

  He hung up the phone, stood there staring at it with his hands in his pockets for a minute, then sighed and headed for the driver lounge.

  A movie was playing on a big screen TV, volume loud enough so he could hear the sounds of a car chase: squealing tires, thunks and clunks of speeding vehicles hitting curbs and flying across medians, terse dialogue and screamed epithets. Two men were watching the TV, another three sat at a table near the bar drinking long necks and talking. One of those men, a middle aged guy who drooped everywhere – moustache, jowls, belly and belt – looked up at Hunter and nodded, then turned his attention back to his companions. Hunter leaned against the wall by the door, his arms folded across his chest, and watched until the car chase ended in a hail of automatic gunfire, then wandered back outside.

  The warm evening air lay across the parking lot like a wool blanket, no hint of a breeze. Hunter, alert to sounds and shadows, threaded his way back toward The Blue Knight through a maze of tractor-trailers. This truck stop wasn’t as bad as some, but drivers and their loads were always a target for crime. The hum of refrigeration units on reefers surged and ebbed in several directions as he made his way alternately beneath the glare of security lights and the shadows of the big rigs. Occasionally he’d hear voices, or the sound of a television, or throbbing base rhythms coming from behind the closed doors of air-conditioned sleeper units. He exchanged a gruff hello with a young man wearing a cowboy hat who was leaning against the fender of a custom painted Kenworth, smoking a cigarette. Behind the Kenworth’s partly open door, a white high-heeled shoe appeared on the end of a naked female leg, then another, then a denim skirt that barely covered the woman’s crotch. Hunter looked away.

  Parked beside The Blue Knight was a cream-colored Ford, its interior lights on and a muffled male voice coming from inside. As Hunter unlocked his own door, the door to the Ford swung open and a big man climbed out, supporting himself on the grab bar with his right arm, and clutching something to his broad chest in his left.

  “There you go, Scrappy,” the man growled as he bent down to the ground. He straightened up with a grunt. Curious, Hunter paused with one foot on the lowest of the steps leading up to his cab to watch. The man had deposited a white miniature poodle with a sharp little face and glittery black eyes. It sniffed the Ford’s front tire, then began to follow its nose in circles along the ground. As soon as it stopped sniffing long enough to look up, which was a matter of only a few seconds, it saw Hunter, planted its front paws and began to bark fiercely. The big man, who had remained standing with his back to Hunter, swung around.

  “Mercy!” he said. “Where’d you come from alla sudden?”

  Hunter looked down at the poodle, which had settled down to a growl that sounded like tiny ball bearings rolling across cement, punctuated here and there by two or three sharp yaps. “Hey, Killer,” said Hunter. “Easy now. I’m not going to bite you.” He crouched down and held his hand out toward the dog, glancing from the big man to the dog and back again. “Scrappy his name?” he asked.

  The big man broke into a wide grin, the white of his teeth almost neon against the black of his skin. “Not his name, friend. Scrappy here’s a little bitch, can’t you tell? Always gots to be the center of attention, see?”

  Hunter scratched the dog’s back, just above its quivering tail, but the dog saw or heard something interesting on the other side of the Ford and scrambled across the gravel, tugging on its leash.

  “Come back here, you l’il scamp” said the driver. He pulled the dog out from under the truck and tucked it under his arm. “They got a grassy patch out back,” he said to Hunter, playing with the poodle’s ears as it tried to climb his massive chest to lick his face.

  Hunter nodded and smiled. “Goodnight,” he said, and climbed up into his cab as the big man walked into the shadows. Hunter heard him talking to the dog again as he rounded the corner of the Ford’s forty-eight foot trailer.

  Maybe talking to a poodle was better than talking to yourself. He wondered sometimes if he had become a long-haul trucker in order to avoid human entanglements, rather than because he enjoyed the sense of freedom, as he liked to believe. His ex-wife had accused him of running away, and that thought made him uncomfortable. Running away was linked, in his mind, to cowardice, and he did not consider himself afraid. Cautious, perhaps, but not afraid.

  He’d only had time to switch on the light in his sleeper when he heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel and then a knock on his door. He killed the light and looked out the window. A young girl with a ponytail and dangling earrings was looking up at him, smiling broadly. She motioned for him to come down, but he just rolled down the window. He could tell she wore nothing under her thin pink tank top, and he recognized the skimpy denim skirt and white high heels. “Hey, cowboy!” she said. “Want some company?” She winked and ran her tongue around her lips.

  Hunter smiled at her, but shook his head. “Go home, little girl,” he said. “Go home.” She gave him the finger.

  He rolled up the window, double checked his door locks, and clambered into his bunk. He glanced at the paperback beside his pillow, but decided against it. He had all day tomorrow to read.

  Lonesome had hit him like a Mack truck, and sleep was the best antidote for now.

  This was Sharon’s first time at the Fontana lot. Whichever truck stop they settled at, for safety's sake, Ray always insisted on parking as close to the lot's security lights as he could. It hadn't taken long for Sharon to grow used to it, the soft blue of artificial light coming in through the tinted upper windows of the sleeper unit, like moonglow.
They'd made love tonight, then he'd snugged up behind her, like spoons, and he'd fallen asleep right away. He always did. She pulled herself gently out from under his heavy arm, giving his hand a kiss as she placed it on his pillow, then she propped her head on her arm, watching him. His breathing was deep and smooth - the sleep of the innocent - and his breath, still faintly hinting of peppermint mouthwash, puffed softly across her cheek.

  A year ago, if you told her she'd be married to a trucker and driving the truck half the time herself, she would have laughed in your face. When Ray came along, he was just one more lonely long-distance trucker, a homely one at that, chatting up the barmaid while she stood waiting for him to pay for his beer. It was maybe the third or fourth time she'd seen him there that they'd started talking about dogs, she couldn't remember why. She told him how when she was a little girl, the neighbors had a Pomeranian and she thought it was the most perfect little animal, but her father wouldn't let her have one.

  "Why don't you get one now?" Ray had asked.

  She couldn't get one, she said, because she'd never had a dog and she wouldn't know how to take care of it properly. Ray had looked at her with those hound dog eyes of his and said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world, "Don't worry. If you truly love it, keeping care of it will come naturally." And that was one of those moments when it seems like God is speaking directly to you through someone else's mouth. It was like a light clicked on in her brain, and she realized that all those goddamn skunks she'd been crazy about through the years, those bastards who'd treated her like dirt, that they never really loved her at all. It got her thinking about how it would feel if somebody really did love her like that, somebody she could trust to treat her the way she would treat a little dog that she loved and who trusted her. If you loved somebody like that, you'd never want to cause them pain. That night she'd cried herself to sleep, fearing she was doomed never to be loved that way. Never in her life.

  She didn't love Ray then, of course. But he'd got her thinking. Whenever he was in town, he'd spend long hours in the bar nursing one or two pints of beer, and he made no secret that he was there because of her. So when he finally said, "I love you", she was primed for it. She was ready. And she began to love him for loving her that way, that was how it started. And then they just kind of started getting used to each other. He was sweet and kind and so serious, but she could make him laugh. It got so that she was like one of those monkeys they do experiments with. She tried to say funny things to him, and when she pushed the right button and a laugh spilled out, it was like a fix for her. It gave her a warm feeling in her chest, and a bit of a tickly feeling at the base of her skull. So then she loved him for letting her make him laugh, too.

  She never expected anybody to love her like this. She never thought she would be so precious to anybody. These last few weeks on the road with him had been like paradise. Fear circled her breastbone like a cold hand. Was it to end so soon?

  She reached out and gently pushed the hair back from his forehead, and he stirred softly. His brow was smooth, untroubled. Perhaps he was in denial, she thought. She knew enough about denial from the treatment center. If there's something about your life you don't think you can deal with, you just pretend it doesn't exist. It wasn't just that Ray refused to talk about this morning, it was as if he refused to even acknowledge it. Except for driving all the way to the truck stop in Fontana, and being in a hurry to get out of California, he was acting as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had changed. He must be as afraid as she was of losing this beautiful life they had together. At the foot of the bed, Peaches got up and turned in a circle, then lay down again with a sigh.

  "I love you both," Sharon whispered and lay back on her pillow.

  There was nothing to see in the blue glow on the ceiling of the sleeper, but she could not close her eyes.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  Russell Kupka’s partner was a pig. He dressed like a pig, he snorted like a pig, and his theories were often hogwash, so Russell thought it most appropriate that one of Merv Campbell’s irritating affectations was wearing that stinking pork pie hat. Russell was counting the hours until Merv’s vacation, which was due to begin at the end of the week. Ever since he’d started with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, Russell had been itching for a chance to prove himself by working a good case alone, without Merv’s help and questionable advice, and he couldn’t contain a flutter of excitement in his gut. He was almost certain that this case would be the one.

  Russell leaned back in his chair and rolled his tongue inside his cheek. “So, Merv,” he said. “You think the Iceman was involved in some kind of gang initiation rite?”

  Merv nodded, pushing his lips out so they looked like a snout. He’d just finished a fast food breakfast and had grease in the corner of his mouth. “I'm leaning that way. The way I picture it,” he said, “is that some bonehead gang bangers decided that spending time in a freezer was a good test of manhood, but they were too fuckin’ stupid to realize that a guy would freeze to death in - what did the doc say? - couple or three hours? They probably left the poor stiff in a meat locker overnight and panicked when he had turned into a popsicle before they let him out. Poor stiff. Ha, ha! Poor frozen stiff!”

  “The Iceman looks a little old for a gang initiation, don’t you think?” Russell suspected Merv was just looking for a reason to pass the case on to another department. It had happened often enough before.

  “You never know these days, Cupcake,” said Merv with a wink.

  Russell gritted his teeth at Merv’s use of that goddamn nickname. In his childhood, he’d bloodied at least a dozen noses in the school playground over that very name, and the thought of the ones he had to let get away with using it still rankled. There was always some kid who was bigger and tougher than he was, but Russell had never learned to back down gracefully.

  Merv continued. “It’s my opinion that a guy has to be crazy to get sucked into a gang, and crazies, as you should know by now, come in all shapes and sizes, ages and colors.”

  “Okay, Merv.” Russell squinted at his partner out of the corner of one eye. “So it’s a gang initiation gone wrong. If they were so panicked about their mistake, why’d they drop the corpse where it would get found so fast? And just where do you suppose these gang bangers live? An inner city neighborhood like Pyramid Lake? Fort Tejon? Otherwise, how the hell did they transport the body to the middle of nowhere so fast that it was still an ice cube when we got the call?” They’d spent all yesterday morning at the crime scene. When they’d loaded the curled up corpse in the coroner’s van, the legs were still too frozen to lay him flat.

  “They hitched a ride with the Good Humor man?” Merv laughed like an idiot.

  “So how do you suggest we proceed with our investigation?” Russell asked, lifting an eyebrow in irony. Yes, he'd been partnered with an experienced detective. He was actually supposed to be learning the job from Merv. What a joke! All he’d learned from Merv, aside from how to fill in the paperwork and where the blank forms were kept, was where to pass which buck whenever possible.

  “Well…” Merv actually looked as if he believed that what he was about to say had some kind of value to Russell. “Since the morgue doesn't have a microwave big enough to defrost the poor fucker, I'd say we wait 'til he thaws out enough to get at his pockets. If there's no ID on the body, we run his prints. Once we know who he is, it’ll give us more to go on. Maybe circulate his picture, see if the Missing Persons Unit has anything on him. I keep tellin’ you, Cupcake,” Merv said, suddenly leaning forward and pointing a finger, “you’re gonna ruin them nice ties your girlfriend buys you if you keep running your oily fingers over them like that.”

  Russell almost bit his tongue. This from a guy who wore the same grimy sport jacket five days a week. “I’ve talked to the coroner. There was nothing in his pockets.” He worked his jaw, then deliberately resumed stroking his tie between his thumb and forefinger. “So you wouldn’t follow up on
the barcode label?”

  “What? Chase all over a foreign country looking for something that may or may not have anything to do with the stiff? Waste of time. Shot in the dark.” Merv grabbed a business card off Russell’s desk and started picking his teeth with it. “You’ll just get yourself all frustrated, kid. Like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

  The phone rang, and Russell dove for it. “Homicide.”

  “Detective Kupka?” said a crisp female voice Russell recognized as belonging to a U.S. customs clerk he’d spoken to less than an hour earlier.

  “Cory! I appreciate you calling back so quickly. As I mentioned, time is of the essence in this investigation, since we're probably looking at a mobile crime scene. Did you turn anything up?” he asked her. He glanced up at Merv, hoping he would take the hint and leave, but Merv yawned, stretched, and continued picking his teeth. Russell hunched himself around the phone receiver.

  “Yes. There haven’t been many meat shipments coming across the border from Canada in the last few days, so it wasn’t hard to track it down. The number you quoted belongs to a shipment of frozen beef that crossed the border Friday night at Blaine, Washington. I have photocopies of the 7533 and the commercial invoice right in front of me,” she said.

  “Seventy-five thirty-three?”

  “The inward cargo manifest,” she said without apology. “You want the shipper’s name?”

  “Perfect, Cory. Shoot.” Russell took down the information, his ballpoint pen moving in broad, sure strokes across the yellow legal pad he always kept on his desk. The customs clerk gave him the name and address, not only of the shipper, but also of the consignee in Fullerton. “According to the 7533, the shipping company is Watson Transportation in Delta, British Columbia, Canada,” she added. “If you’re trying to track down the truck like you said, your best bet is to call them.”