Chapter 2

It was a couple of days, just like Marjorie and Rose warned me, before they brought Lori out of her sleep and she could see and hear. She couldn’t talk yet, as the damage to her face also took a toll on her jaw and part of her throat. She was wired shut, I guess, so I was lucky to have heard her voice at all after the wreck.

What she could do was smile and lift her right hand. She did both when I walked into the room. I must have been a sight. I know I lost a tear when she did that.

“Sit down, Charlie,” Marjorie said. “She asked about you. She asked FOR you, actually. If you need, she can write an answer to your questions, but please be slow, gentle, and careful. If you make my little girl mad, or sad, you have a bigger problem than the thugs and the drugs around here, buddy-boy.” She laughed. Lori attempted a smile and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, ma’am. I understand. Lori, we think we know what may have happened, but I need you to confirm it. Let me tell you what I think, then you help me, OK?”

She nodded very slowly, wincing a bit.

“A truck went by me at the Sinclair going pretty fast, and we figured he went over the hill and might have been in your lane a bit so you had to veer out if its way and lost control?”

She shook her head gently and wrote. ‘IN MY LANE – ALL OF IT - BIG TRUCK’

“There isn’t much of a shoulder there where the creek runs in front of the Litton property. I think I got that. Was there anything else?”

She wrote ‘LIGHTS – TOO BRIGHT – NOT VEHICLE LIGHTS – NOT LEGAL’

“Aircraft landing lights, maybe?”

She carefully nodded.

A few truckers had sometimes used them out in the open and wooded areas to keep from being surprised by any critters, but they were blinding to anyone not wearing sunglasses, and not many people did that at night. They were dangerous, to say the least.

I’m not disparaging over the road truck drivers here. We also had a group of eighteen to thirty-year-old adolescents doing the same thing with their four-wheel drive masculinity advertising units. I caught one of them with his lights on. He wasn’t a happy camper. He had them on the roll bar, along with four other normal driving lights, but forgot to turn them off when he drove into town. He caused a lady to drive into another parked car. It was a mess. Daddy wouldn’t fix it for him, so he got a pretty good sized fine and a week in jail. He shouldn’t have demanded a jury trial. He didn’t find the help he was looking for. No mercy at all.

“OK. Lori, we’re looking for the truck, and the driver, and with what we have, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to take care of it, but you need to not worry and just get better, OK?”

She gently nodded, then wrote, ‘Kiss my forehead again? Please?’

Marjorie laughed, Lori forced a bit of a smile, so I grinned, kissed her forehead gently, but sincerely, then I kissed her nose, and before another of my own tears fell, I squeezed her hand, turned and walked out.

“Charlie. Wait. Stop.” Marjorie came chasing after me. She took hold of my arm, pulled me to her and hugged me. “Lori told us, well wrote to us, what happened out there. Thank you. She said you held her until the medics got there. She said you rocked her, and kissed her softly, and held her, and talked to her. Thank you for that. She also told me, privately, that if she had died, she would have been as comfortable as possible in your hands, Charlie. You gave her a feeling of wellbeing. She said she was ready to go then, with grace, had the Lord chosen to take her. She feels you did that for her. Thank you, again. If there is anything ... ever ... anything at all Bob or I can do for you, Charlie ... Name it. I mean that.”

She hugged me, squeezed my arm, and turned to go back in with her little girl. A sister and brother walked by me on the way down the hall.

“Hey, Charlie.”

“Hi, Bobby. Hi, Sheri. Your mom is with her. She seems to be doing better.”

“You get anything out of her?” Sheri asked.

“Yeah. Confirmation, mostly. I wouldn’t want to be them when your father and Rick get ahold of ‘em.”

“No, siree. Me, neither,” Bobby said. “Rick’s already preparing filings and is going to fill in the blanks as soon as you give him some information. He spoke to the State Attorney General and the county DA yesterday, and lo and behold if he doesn’t already have help lined up. Politicians are scary. I’m glad I stayed in the trust and corporate stuff.”

“Me, too,” Sheri said. “Less blood in the water. I’m not cut out for it. I’ve been too busy crying and being afraid for her to get mad at some idiot for making her wreck.”

All of Bob and Marjorie’s kids were in law except for the oldest girl. She was an accountant, like Marjorie, but worked for her father as well. Claire told me one day that forensic accountancy was as much fun, but far less ugly and bloody than forensic medicine ... and lawyering.

“I have to run, kids. Sheri, tell her we talked, please, and give her another little kiss for me? Please?” To this day, I don’t know why I asked her sister to do that, but I did. I found out later it wasn’t a problem. Much the opposite.

“Of course, Charlie. You know ... Charlie, did she mention anyone or anything else?” I must’ve looked at her quite strangely. “Never mind.”

“No, Sheri. Is there something I should know?” I asked her, looking first at her then him. Bobby shrugged in ignorance. Sheri softly shook her head.

“I don’t know. We’ll see. I’ll talk to Lori. It’s all good. I’ll take care of it for you. The kiss. See ya.”

“Bye, Sheriff,” Bobby said as they walked away, Sheri quickly pulling him behind her toward Lori’s room.

Back at the office, Terry had news coming in hand over fist. Our state police had information, the FBI had information, the Arkansas state police had questions, as well as a few answers, and we wound up starting a wildfire. The drugs in our part of the state were rampant, what with meth labs and such popping up anywhere someone could steal some anhydrous ammonia, and that truck was involved in it, right up to its axles.

The Utah state troopers caught the truck and the driver on a night run down US 191 trying to stay out of the limelight. It didn’t work.

We were provided with the ownership information for the tractor, the driver’s information, copies of the logs for the period one week before, leading up to the accident, and up to the present. This guy’s problems didn’t end with Lori’s accident, nor did they start there. He was running on high octane fumes in order to be driving at all, let alone in Lori’s lane. He was the only driver listed in the logs and they didn’t match the mileage at all. The Department of Transportation let the FBI help investigate the time and distance, showing the driver was either flying low, or taking about three hours in breaks each morning. He was covering an average of fourteen hundred miles a day. Way over any legal possibilities.

Raul Menendez was a thrice deported Honduran felon driving under a false name and with three sets of identification on him. The company that hired him was going to be very surprised when the hammer came down. It was a Mexican/American joint venture that used both Mexican and American Insurance companies, and when the dust settled, all three were probably going to be in the tank.