ONE
It was snowing heavily when they rolled the girl off the back of the pickup truck onto the freeway.
What happened, I was heading east on that stretch of Interstate 94 where you cross from Minneapolis into St. Paul. Rush hour had expired long before, yet traffic was moving at a cautious pace out of respect for the inch of snow that had already fallen and the twenty-miles-per-hour winds that made it swirl, reducing visibility to about the length of a football field. A vehicle came up tight on my rear bumper. I knew it was either a pickup or an SUV because of the height of its headlights.
Nina was sitting next to me, her voice competing with the whump-whump of the windshield wipers and the hockey game being broadcast on the radio, my Minnesota Wild against the Tampa Bay Lightning-a regular occurrence that always made me shake my head, hockey in Florida. She was telling me that we needed to get something for the condominium we had recently purchased together, yet the sudden appearance of the vehicle distracted me.
"What do you think?" Nina asked.
"Hmm?"
"You haven't been listening to a word I've said."
Driving instructors everywhere warn that it's dangerous to hug the rear end of the vehicle in front of you, especially during a blizzard. I tapped my brake pedal politely to remind the driver. I figured the flash of my brake lights must have done the trick because the pickup pulled into the lane next to mine.
"Of course I've been listening," I said.
"Well, what do you think?"
"I think whatever you want to do is fine with me."
"Sure it is, until I actually do it, and then it's hey, I didn't agree to this."
The pickup accelerated until it was even with my car. The passenger looked down at me and said something to the driver. The pickup leapt forward and abruptly pulled into my lane.
Swoop and squat, I thought. I might even have said it aloud. A vehicle swoops in front of you and slams on its brakes, causing a rear-end collision that, according to state law, is always your fault. Usually the vehicle will contain several passengers-like the man wearing a heavy coat with a hood, squatting in the truck bed-who will testify that the extreme pain and suffering caused by the medically ambiguous injuries they sustained can only be alleviated by hefty insurance settlements. And if you happen to be driving a $65,000 Audi S5 ...
I immediately applied the brake, causing the Audi to shimmy a bit on the snow-covered pavement as it slowed. The pickup accelerated at the same time, putting plenty of distance between us.
"What?" Nina said.
I took my foot off the brake.
"Nothing," I said.
Nina has often accused me of being cynical, of having an overly suspicious nature and a generally low opinion of my fellow man. So have many others, come to think of it. Watching the pickup speed away, I told myself they might be on to something.
And then the hooded man dropped the tailgate.
He scooted to the front of the truck bed and, with his back against the cab, used his legs to shove something out. I didn't realize it was a woman at first. She was lying horizontal across the bed, and I thought she could have been a thick carpet. Hell, she could have been a sack of potatoes. Until my headlights caught her blond hair twirling through the air as she fell.
It seemed to me a terrible way to end a relationship.
I stomped the brake so hard I thought my foot would go through the floor. My tires gripped the icy asphalt with a high-pitched shriek. The car fishtailed, yet I managed to keep it going in a straight line. The girl seemed to roll toward me as I moved toward her. I cranked the steering wheel hard to the right and the Audi skidded sideways. I lost sight of the girl. The car came to an abrupt halt, its nose hanging over the white line indicating the shoulder, its rear resting in the driving lane.
I thought of moving the car, but I didn't know where the girl was, so I worked the manual transmission into neutral, pressed the button that started my emergency flashers blinking, and released my seat belt. I pointed at the snow-covered bank that led from the valley that was the freeway up toward the residential streets.
"Get out, climb the bank, stay away from the car," I said.
Nina did not argue, did not question, did not hesitate. Instead, she did exactly what I asked, and in the brief moment while I was still thinking about her, my inner voice reminded me that I was lucky to have a woman who trusted me that much.
I opened my own door; the sound of the wipers and a Wild power play followed me as I escaped the Audi. The girl was lying on her back next to the rear tires. Her wrists were tied together with twine. I didn't know if I had hit her or not. There was no blood that I could see, but I knew that meant nothing. Her eyes were open and staring at me as I bent over her.
"Are you okay?" I asked-a stupid question that she made no effort to answer. She had just been thrown from a pickup truck traveling at least fifty miles per hour. Of course she wasn't okay. This wasn't the goddamn movies. How badly hurt, though? I couldn't wait to find out. I gripped the back of her shirt under her shoulders-she wasn't wearing a jacket despite the January cold. I lifted and pulled, cradling her head between my arms the way they taught me back at the police academy.
Yes, it was risky to move her. I knew what was about to happen, though, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I dragged her body in a straight line across the asphalt and down into the ditch that ran along the freeway. If she was in pain, she did nothing to show it.
The ditch was filled with two months' worth of snow, and I sank several inches with every step, yet the lack of friction made it easier to slide the woman along. When I reached the bottom of the ditch, I maneuvered so that I was pulling the girl away from the Audi. I managed maybe fifteen yards when the inevitable happened. A driver, following the long curve of the interstate, saw my car too late, hit his brakes, slid sideways, corrected course, and plowed his vehicle into the passenger side of the Audi. Both vehicles lurched forward about ten feet. A few seconds earlier, the girl and I would have been buried under the wreckage.
I settled the girl against the snow. Her eyes were closed now. The flakes melting on her face and the distant yellow freeway light gave her a ghostly appearance. I knelt and placed two fingers across her carotid artery. She was warm to my touch, and I could detect an uncertain pulse. I couldn't work the knot, so I cut the twine that bound her wrists with a tiny pocketknife I always carried. Afterward, I draped my coat over her, tucking it in around her throat.
Nina trudged toward me. I held up a hand to hold her back. At the same time, a skidding sound caused my head to snap around. I was just in time to see a second car crash into the car that crashed into my Audi, although with considerably less force. A third car managed to stop in time, only the driver behind him wasn't as capable. His car hit the third car with enough force to push it into the second car.
"Oh my God, this is going to be a bloodbath," I announced to no one in particular.
I left the girl, climbed out of the ditch, and moved to the cars. The radio in my Audi continued to broadcast the hockey game, although the windshield wipers had ceased working. I yanked open the passenger door of the second vehicle. The air bag had deployed, and the driver was sitting there with an expression that suggested he had no idea what had just happened. The woman next to him seemed more cognizant. There had been no air bag on her side of the car, and she was holding her shoulder under the seat belt strap with one hand and her forehead with the other. Blood seeped between her fingers.
I took the handkerchief from my back pocket and folded it over. I pulled her hand away from the wound, covered it with the white cloth, and returned her hand. She didn't seem to mind at all.
"I told you you were driving too fast," she said. "I told you. Didn't I tell you?"
I'm not sure the driver even heard her.
"Try not to move," I said.
She turned her head, looked me directly in the eye, and said, "Huh?"
"Try not to move."
"Move what?"
Another car piled into another car, which was hit by yet another car.
The snow grew thicker and heavier.
The wind blew harder.
Nina appeared at my side. She held up her smartphone for me to see.
"I called 911," she said. "They're sending help."
I could only nod. I watched the freeway behind us. Some vehicles, unscathed, were caught in what was fast becoming an enormous traffic jam stretching all the way back to the Mississippi River bridge. Others were skidding and sliding and bouncing around like bumper cars. The magnitude of it all was beginning to overwhelm me. It was Nina asking, "How's the girl? Did you hit her?" that brought the world sharply back into focus.
"I don't know," I said, one answer for both questions. "Is the operator still on the phone?"
"Yes."
I took the smartphone from Nina's hand and spoke into it.
"There are car accidents piling up all around us," I said. "We need paramedics. Ambulances. Police. Send everybody. Also, and this is important-are you listening?"
"I'm listening, sir."
"This isn't just an accident scene. It's a crime scene. A young woman was purposely thrown out of a moving pickup truck. That's what started it all. She's alive, but I don't know for how long."
"What is your name, sir?"
"Rushmore McKenzie. I used to be a cop with the St. Paul Police Department."
I added that last bit in case the operator thought I was some kind of nut job-she wouldn't have been the first.
"You will remain at the scene, Mr. McKenzie," she said. It wasn't a question.
I returned Nina's phone just as a Wild player deflected the puck past the Tampa Bay goalie. The radio announcer gleefully shouted, "He scoooooooooooores."
And another car hit another car.
"We should shut that thing off," Nina said.
* * *
In the end, 37 assorted vehicles were damaged in what the Minneapolis Star Tribune labeled the most massive highway pileup in state history, easily exceeding a recent 25-car melee in Des Moines, Iowa. In case anyone was feeling smug about it, though, the newspaper also reported that the accident paled in comparison to a 140-car, fog-induced pileup in Texas, a 100-car accident near Fargo, North Dakota, and an 86-car pileup in Ohio. This was Minnesota, after all, and we liked to keep score.
Footage of the accident, including aerial shots, appeared the next morning on all of the Twin Cities TV stations that pretended to deliver the news, as well as ABC, NBC, CNN, and The Weather Channel. Most Minnesotans who saw it felt an inexplicable sense of pride, what comes from living in a place where not much happens that's of national interest. In each case, it was reported that the accident was caused when a car struck an unidentified woman that was trying to cross the freeway on foot at night.
I saw Bobby Dunston's hand in that last bit-he was always one to keep his cards pressed firmly against the buttons of his shirt.
Dunston was a commander in the St. Paul Police Department's Major Crimes and Investigations Division. They had roused him from his warm and happy home-which was coincidentally less than a mile from the scene-when the cops concluded that I was right, there was fuckery afoot. He saw me talking to one of his detectives and a lieutenant wearing the maroon hat and overcoat of the Minnesota State Patrol. The sight made him abruptly turn away, stand with hands on hips, and look up at the snow-filled sky.
It's a pleasure to see you, too, my inner voice said.
He turned around.
"Hey, boss," the detective said. "This is McKenzie. He used to be one of us."
"I know who he is," Bobby said.
He glanced over my shoulder and his face brightened considerably. Nina was resting against the bumper of an MSP cruiser. The paramedics had draped a blanket over her shoulders, and she held it closed over her leather coat with a gloved hand. Despite that, she was shivering. I don't know if it was because of the cold, the wind, the snow, or the chaos around her. Probably all four.
Bobby gave her a hug.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Don't worry about me," Nina said. "I'm fine. How are Shelby and the girls? It must be awful getting pulled away from them on a night like this."
He brushed the snow off her bangs and kissed her cheek. I knew what he was thinking because I had thought it myself on numerous occasions. There she was, looking and feeling miserable under miserable conditions in a miserable situation, yet she was more concerned about someone else. For the second time that evening, my inner voice reminded me how lucky I was.
"You should sit in a car, get warm," Bobby said.
"What, and miss the show?"
Eastbound I-94 had been closed on the Minneapolis side of the Mississippi River, and angry, put-upon drivers were being detoured to the side streets around us. Westbound vehicles were moving at a crawl because drivers had slowed to get a good look at what was going on as they drove past, which in turned caused several fender benders that snarled traffic even more.
The portion of I-94 where we were standing was no longer a freeway. It was a parking lot, and a surprisingly bright one, too, given the freeway lights, vehicle headlights, the blinking red and blue light bars on top of emergency vehicles and tow trucks, and the helicopters overhead with their searchlights-all of it reflecting against the slanting snow. Paramedics moved between the cars checking occupants for injuries. The man and woman in the vehicle that crushed my Audi had both been transported to Regions Hospital. Others had followed, yet I was impressed by how few of them there were. Experience told me, though, that come morning many people who insisted they were perfectly fine now would realize that they weren't. Chiropractors and auto repair shops were going to make a killing off of this.
Drivers gathered in small groups to exchange insurance information. Skirmishes broke out between some of them that were quickly broken up by St. Paul cops, Ramsey County deputies, and state troopers, most of whom didn't seem to be getting along any better than the accident victims. Undamaged vehicles were being carefully guided around and through the accident scene, their drivers thrilled to escape intact with a story to tell. It wasn't easy. Snow was piling up at an alarming rate, and the plows weren't able to get to it. Cars with smashed bumpers and other damage-including mine-were being towed off one at a time. Yet their owners described their experiences in typically Minnesota fashion to the TV reporters who had somehow managed to get their camera equipment through the melee.
"It could be worse," they said.
Yeah, it could be snowing, my inner voice added. Oh, wait ...
Nearly two inches had fallen since the girl was pushed out of the pickup truck, and I found myself stamping my feet to keep them from being buried.
Bobby gave Nina's shoulder a big-brother pat and returned to where we were standing.
Hey, that's my girl you're manhandling, pal, my inner voice complained.
"Okay," Bobby said.
The three of us all began speaking at once. He waved us silent and gestured at his detective. The detective told Bobby everything I had told him, adding that Ms. Truhler had corroborated my story.
"We also found the twine McKenzie claimed he cut, and there were deep abrasions on the girl's wrists, so..."
Bobby turned to the officer from the state patrol, who pointed upward at a traffic camera fixed to a light pole.
"Already checked it out," he said. "Footage confirms McKenzie's story, too, only because of the blowing snow, hell, we can't even identify the truck, much less the license plate number. What we know for sure is that the pickup left the freeway at the Cretin-Vandalia exit."
"What about the girl?"
"Paramedics took her to Regions," the detective said. "She was unconscious. I don't know her exact condition. The medics said ... I guess it's not looking good. There was no ID on her. We searched the scene as best we could in the snow. No coat, no bag."
While he spoke, I found myself tugging at the zipper of my own coat. The paramedics had returned it to me before they transported the girl. It was a dress-up coat, though, made for hopping from warm cars to restaurants and clubs, not for standing around in a Minnesota blizzard.
"Anything, McKenzie?" Bobby said. "Anything at all you can tell me?"
I pretty much repeated everything his detective and the trooper had already told him.
"In other words, you got nuthin'," Bobby said.
"Sorry."
"Bobby," Nina called.
"Nina?"
"It was dark."
"I know it's dark."
"No, no, I mean the color of the truck. It was dark. Black or dark blue. It was a Ram truck, too. I recognized the emblem on the tailgate."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Sorry, I didn't get a license plate number."
Bobby looked at her with the expression of a man who was trying not to smile.
"Thank you," he said. "Okay. Lieutenant, would you be kind enough to send the camera footage to my office?"
"Happy to."
"Thank you. Detective"-he rested a hand on the elbow of his fellow officer-"get down to Regions. Let me know about the girl's condition. Let me know when they think we can talk to her."
"Sir."
Bobby returned to Nina's side.
"I bet you could use a ride home," he told her.
Nina nodded.
"How 'bout me?" I asked.
"You can come, too. Sit in the back. Try not to make any noise."
* * *
Money can't buy happiness, or so I've been told. On the other hand, it was because I had plenty of dough that I wasn't particularly upset that my Audi was now a pile of rubble in the SPPD's impound lot. Unlike most of the other drivers caught in the accident, I didn't need to worry about replacing it. I didn't have to wonder how I was going to get around until I did. I was concerned only with the inconvenience.
The next morning, I kissed Nina good-bye, hopped into my backup car-a battered Jeep Cherokee-and drove to the lot located just south of Holman Field, the airport along the Mississippi that served downtown St. Paul. I had to produce two forms of ID just to inspect the vehicle, never mind removing contents or ransoming its freedom. I took several photographs of it from all sides with my smartphone and sent them to my insurance agent. Afterward, I called his office. A woman I knew as Theresa answered on the fifth ring, recited the name of the insurance agency, asked if I would hold, and then put me on hold before I could reply. She came back three minutes later and apologized.
"It's been crazy," she said. "We get a lot of calls the first couple times it snows, people relearning how to drive in winter, you know? Today, though, the number of accidents-we only got four and a half inches, for goodness sake. You'd expect better from Minnesota drivers in January."
"About that. This is McKenzie, and my Audi..."
"Hi, McKenzie."
"Hi, Theresa. Like I was saying..."
"I was telling Pat the other day that we haven't heard from you since, what is it, now? Four months? I said you were due."
"Yeah, yeah..."
"What happened this time? Machine-gun fire?"
"Considering the amount of business I've given you guys over the years..."
"I'm not complaining. I just want to know. My kids have been asking for new McKenzie stories."
"This time it wasn't my fault. I got caught in that pileup on I-94 last night."
"Please tell me that you didn't cause it."
"Not exactly. Look, can I talk to Pat? I sent him some photos."
"He's on another line, but you know what, I bet he'll take your call."
Theresa put me on hold again. Thirty seconds later, Pat answered. His voice sounded tired.
"Did you know that I have over a thousand clients?" he asked.
"No, I didn't know that."
"So why do I spend most of my time talking to you?"
"Because we went to school together and you like me?"
"No, that's not it."
"I e-mailed some photos."
"Uh-huh ... Hang on ... I'm pulling them up ... Oh, c'mon."
"Do you think it can be fixed?"
"Your car? No, I don't think it can be fixed. We'll send an adjuster out to take a closer look, but geez, McKenzie, what did you do?"
I explained. Pat sighed heavily.
"This might become complicated if other drivers involved in the accident decide to blame you," he said.
"It's not my fault. The cops said so."
"Uh-huh. Well, you know where to download the forms. Be sure to get the case number from the police."
"Been there, done that."
"Way too often, if you ask me. You know, McKenzie, I have only about a dozen drivers who pay higher insurance premiums than you do."
"Gives me something to shoot for-the top ten."
"You might make it with this one. Two words, McKenzie, something to think about-mass transit."
"Always a pleasure talking to you, Pat."
"We'll be in touch."
I ended the call, just in time to receive a second one. I answered the way I always do. "McKenzie."
"Where are you?" Bobby Dunston asked.
"St. Paul impound lot, why?"
"Meet me at Regions. SICU."
"When?"
He hung up without answering. I took that to mean "Right frickin' now."
* * *
The Surgical Intensive Care Unit was located on the third floor and was damn near impossible to reach by a visitor using Regions Hospital's overly complicated elevator and corridor system. On the other hand-and I'm speaking from experience when I tell you this-if you come in through the emergency room, they can whisk you right up there.
I talked my way past a nurse-receptionist and found Bobby leaning against a wall and looking down as if his shoes were the most interesting things he had seen in a long time. He was standing across from a recovery room. Beyond the sliding glass walls of the room I could see the figure of a woman lying on a bed, her head wrapped in white bandages, a cast extending from the elbow of one arm down far enough to enclose a couple of fingers. Cables attached her to a monitor; wavy red, green, and blue lines and ever-changing numbers kept track of her vital signs.
"How is she?" I asked.
Bobby pulled out a notebook. For most things he used his smartphone or one of those tablets. For others it was still paper and pen. He began reading.
"Three broken ribs, two broken fingers, broken wrist, broken clavicle, broken scapula, one punctured lung, one bruised lung, blood in the chest cavity, they call that a hemothorax. Cracked spleen, fractured liver, dislocated kneecap, major road rash-abrasions over half her body; there's gravel and bits of pavement imbedded in her skin. The big thing, though, she has a fractured skull. Some blood vessels ruptured. The bleeding put pressure on the brain. They had to drill holes to drain the blood and alleviate the pressure."
"Epidural hematoma," I said.
"The same thing happened to you a couple of years ago."
"I remember."
"Traumatic brain injury," Bobby said. "The docs are concerned because they don't know how extensive it is. Could be..."
"Traumatic?"
"Yeah."
"Jesus."
Bobby showed me the woman's photo on his phone. Her face was puffy and pale, setting off the ghastly scrapes on her chin and forehead. Her blue eyes were open and staring at the camera, yet they seemed to be out of focus, as if she had no idea what she was looking at. My impression was that she had been very pretty once. I hoped she would be again.
"Recognize her?" Bobby asked.
"No. Should I?"
"I don't know. Should you?"
"What are you thinking? That they dumped her in front of my car on purpose so I would be the one to run her over? Some kind of revenge thing?"
"Yeah, I thought about it. Have you?"
"All night long. Listen, Bobby. I don't know her, and I'm not involved in anything right now that would piss someone off."
"Take a good look."
I took Bobby's phone, stared at the image for a few moments more. She bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Bobby's younger daughter, Katie. I didn't tell him that, though.
"I don't know her." I returned the cell. "Who is she?"
"Unidentified Woman Number Fifteen."
I that took to mean the police had been unable to put a name to her face despite running her fingerprints through the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a database with over 100 million files including prints from people who served in the military or bought a gun in some states or worked a sensitive civilian job. A search through the National Crime Information Center's missing persons files and the Minnesota Missing and Unidentified Persons Clearinghouse must have proved inconclusive as well.
"Look at the bright side," I said. "If she was in the morgue, instead of Unidentified Woman Number Fifteen, the toe tag would read 'Jane Doe.'"
"There is that."
"Someone must know her. Someone must miss her."
"Besides the three men who tossed her onto the freeway?"
"I can only identify two of them as being men."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah..."
"Are you going to ask the media for help? Run her photo on the nightly news?"
"I haven't decided yet. McKenzie, why would they push her out of a speeding truck?"
The obvious answer was to kill her, so that's what I said.
"Why not just shoot her in the back of the head, bury her in the snow? We wouldn't find her body until spring if ever."
"They wanted to make it look like an accident."
"Better ways to do that. Besides, did they think no one would see them?"
"They were pulling away from me at the time, so, yeah, maybe they did think that, the way the snow was falling. The guy just dropped the tailgate too soon. If the pickup hadn't come up so close to my bumper in the first place, I doubt I would have paid any attention to it."
"Did they think the highway cameras wouldn't see them?"
"There are cameras everywhere-on the freeways, at street corners, in shopping malls, in front of stores and apartment buildings, gas stations. How often do you think about them?"
"Not often."
"Bobby, are you asking these questions because you want me to answer them or are you just thinking out loud the way you do?"
He didn't say.
"Anyway, when the girl comes to, you can ask her," I said.
"She regained consciousness before they wheeled her into surgery-the second surgery. She doesn't remember a thing."
"People who suffer a head injury often don't remember details of the accident that caused it. They call it traumatic amnesia."
"Just because you dated a psychiatrist back in the day doesn't make you one. Besides, she didn't just forget the accident, she forgot everything, and I mean everything, including her name."
"That sounds more serious."
Bobby gave me one of those looks.
"Or not," I added. "Listen, whatever it is, it's probably just temporary. What do the doctors say?"
"They say it's probably just temporary-if she's telling the truth."
"Why wouldn't she be?"
"All I know is, she didn't do what I would have done if I came to all busted up in a hospital emergency room, if I couldn't remember who I was or how I got there. She didn't panic. She didn't scream for her mother or a doctor or a policeman or a superhero from the Marvel universe. She didn't demand assistance or rail at her attackers or promise retribution. Instead, she accepted it all as if it was the natural order of things. As if she believed the world was a place where sooner or later they threw you off the back of a speeding pickup truck."
"Bobby, why am I here? Why are you telling me all this? You haven't discussed an open case with me in years, not since I quit the cops."
"I might need a favor."
Copyright © 2015 by David Housewright
