Free KS13.5 - Wreck Rights by Dana Stabenow Page B

way, and believe you me, truckers are all about deadlines.”
    “Yeah.” Jim frowned. “Did you hear that?”
    Hazen’s brows drew together. “Yeah, sounded like a scream. Look.” He pointed. “Somebody’s waving at you. I think they want you down there.”
    Jim regarded the waving and screaming at the bottom of the hill with distinct disfavor. “Why me and not you?”
    “This is a state highway,” Hazen said virtuously, and grinned when he saw Jim’s expression. “I wouldn’t dream of overstepping my authority, which after all stops at the Ahtna city limits.”
    “My ass,” Jim said.
    He heard Hazen chuckle when he began the slippery descent of the hillside below the highway. It was one long wet slide punctuated by tree trunks that had an uncanny habit of leaping out in front of him just when he’d achieved too much momentum to stop. It didn’t help that the spruces among them were beginning to ooze sap. He was covered with it by the time he reached the small knot of people clustered around a tiny hollow, all staring down at something, which accounted for the ill-humor in his voice when he said, “All right, what’s the problem?”
    They turned as one and stared at him out of white faces. Some he knew, a few were unfamiliar. Marty and Dickie Grayling were regulars at the Roadhouse. A girl had her face tucked into Marty’s armpit; all Jim could see of her was a lot of black hair. Her shoulders were shaking. A heavyset man with a permanent scowl turned that scowl on Jim, like the girl crying was Jim’s fault.
    Jim didn’t take it personally, having a lot of experience with shock in all its various forms. More gently this time he said, “What’s the problem?”
    Another woman, this one older and thicker through the middle, her ruddy cheeks leeched of color, motioned with her hands. The circle parted, to reveal the body of a man, mostly white, maybe some Native if the straight black hair was an indication, the fleshy nose of the drinker beneath eyebrows so stingy they looked moth-eaten. A slack mouth sat over a receding chin with a faint down of ragged beard that looked more like neglect than fashion. He was probably in his late thirties, wearing jeans, blue plaid flannel shirt, thin nylon windbreaker, hightop tennis shoes over thick socks.
    No hat, and no gloves, either, although Jim had to turn him over to tell because his hands had been tied behind his back with the same kind of rope that bound his ankles.
    · · ·
     
    “So whaddya think, suicide?” Hazen said, after they’d put the victim in a body bag, tied it off to a length of polypro and hauled it to the road.
    “What was your first clue,” Jim said, “the bullet hole in the back of his head?”
    They stooped to examine the entry wound. “Twenty-two?” Jim said.
    “Handgun,” Hazen said, nodding. He turned the body face up. “And no exit wound. We got mob in Alaska?”
    “Not so’s you’d notice,” Jim said. He looked back at the body. “Up till now.”
    Hazen jerked his head. “Took a look at the skid marks.”
    “Oh yeah? Anything left?”
    “Enough. There was no reason for her to slam on the brakes the way she did. Some black ice, sure, here and there, but she had her chains on, moderate rate of speed, fair visibility. I checked her driving record. She’s clean. Got a good rep with her outfit, I talked to her boss and he’s ready to take her back on as soon as she gets out of the hospital.”
    “Let’s go talk to her,” Jim said.
    · · ·
     
    The semi driver was laying in a bed in the Ahtna hospital, brow bandaged, both eyes black and swollen. “When the fuck do I get outta this place?” she said when Jim entered the room.
    “Beats me,” he said, removing his cap. “I’m Sergeant Jim Chopin, with the Alaska state troopers.”
    “I know who you are,” she said malevolently, “the so-called Father of the goddamn Park. I want my goddamn pants.”
    Hazen nudged him in the back and said in a stage whisper,