Solitude Creek

‘I did too,’ Dance muttered, looking at Billy’s gash. ‘They should be here soon.’

She peered out of the window, her hands shaking, heart pounding audibly.

Panic …

The crowd had ganged at the door. Their faces were possessed. She thought of the time when a crazed Doberman, off its leash, had charged her and her German shepherd, Dylan, on a walk. Only pepper spray had stopped it.

No reasoning, no escaping.

Dance grimaced, noting that Henderson was holding a revolver, a Smith & Wesson, short-barrel .38 Special. Gripped uneasily in his hand.

‘Put that away.’

‘But—’

‘Now,’ she snapped.

He set the weapon back in its drawer.

A rock smashed into the side of the office, a huge sound, thanks to the metal walls. Others. Two windows broke, though no one tried to climb in. More shouts.

Dance looked at Billy, whose eyes were closed from the pain. He held a towel, filled with ice, against his swollen face. Henderson’s relative had brought it. It appeared that the jawbone was shattered.

Looking out through a broken window Dance could see flashing blue-and-white lights.

And, just like in the Solitude Creek video of last night, the madness vanished. The mob who’d been ready to lynch Billy and break Dance’s skull turned and were walking away, making for their own cars, as if nothing had happened.

Fast, so fast. As quickly as they’d become enraged they’d calmed. The possession was over with. She noted several of them drop the rocks they held; it seemed some of them hadn’t even realized they were holding the weapons.

Squad cars from the MCSO eased to a stop in front of Henderson Jobbing. Two sheriff’s deputies from the vehicle closest to the office surveyed the scene around them and walked inside.

‘Kathryn,’ said the woman deputy, a tall, striking Latina. The other, a squat African American, nodded to her. She knew both of them well.

‘Kit, John.’

‘The hell happened?’ Kit asked.

Dance explained about the mob. She added, ‘You could probably get a few collars for assault and battery.’ A nod toward Billy and she showed her own rock-bruised arm. ‘I’ll leave that up to you. I’m not processing criminal cases.’

Kit Sanchez lifted an eyebrow.

‘Long story. I’ll witness, you need it.’

John Lanners, the other deputy, looked over Billy Culp’s shattered face and asked if he wanted to press charges against anyone in the mob. Billy’s mumbled words: ‘I didn’t see anyone.’

He was lying, Dance could see. She understood, of course, that it was simply that he didn’t want any more publicity as the man responsible for the Solitude Creek disaster. And his wife and children … They, too, would be targeted.

Dance shook her head. ‘You decide.’

‘Who’s running this? CBI or us?’ Lanners asked, nodding back to the roadhouse.

Sanchez said, ‘We don’t care. Just, you know …’

‘Bob Holly’s here, for the county, so I guess you are.’ Dance added, ‘I came to check some licenses.’ She shrugged. ‘But I decided to stay. Ask some questions.’

Lanners wiped sweat — he was quite heavy — and said to Billy, ‘We’ll call in some medical help.’

The driver didn’t seem to care, though he was in significant pain. He wiped tears.

Lanners pulled his radio off his belt and made a call for the EMS bus. The dispatcher reported they’d have one there in ten minutes. Dance asked Lanners, ‘Can you go with him?’ She added, in a whisper, ‘It’s like there’s a price on his head.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘And we’ll give his family a call.’ The deputy, too, had spotted the wedding band.

Dance swiped at her own injury.

Kit asked, ‘You all right, Kathryn?’

‘It’s …’

Then Dance’s eyes focused past the deputy to another sign on the wall. She pointed. ‘Is that true?’

Henderson squinted and followed her gaze. ‘That? Yeah. Saved us a lot of money over the years.’

‘All the trucks?’

‘Every single one.’

Kathryn Dance smiled.

CHAPTER 10

The man Ray Henderson was going to sell out, the man the crowd ten minutes ago was ready to lynch, was innocent.

It took only five minutes to learn that Billy Culp was not responsible for the tragedy at Solitude Creek.

The sign Dance’d seen on the wall of Henderson Jobbing, not far from where the driver sat, miserable in his heart and hurting in his jaw, read:

WE know you Drive safely.

Remember: Our GPS does too!

Obey the posted speed limits.

All the Henderson Jobbing trucks, it seems, were equipped with sat nav, not only to give the drivers directions but to tell the boss exactly where they were and how fast they’d been going. (Henderson explained that this was to protect them in the case of hijacking or theft; Dance suspected he was also tired of paying speeding tickets or shelling out more than he needed to for diesel fuel.)

Dance got permission from Bob Holly and the county deputies to extract the GPS device from Billy’s truck and take it into the Henderson office. Once it was hooked up via a USB cord, she and the deputies looked over the data.