“Sure thing, mister.”
When they pulled over, Sloan got out and told the driver, “I’ll just be a minute.” Sloan inhaled deeply but no air seemed to get into his lungs. His chest began to hurt again.
One of the officers glanced at Sloan. The big man, his tan shirt dark with sweat, approached. “Hold up there, sir. Can I help you?” He held his flashlight defensively as he walked toward Sloan, who introduced himself and handed over a business card. Sloan observed the man’s name badge. Sheriff Mills. The law enforcer looked over the card and then Sloan’s suit and, satisfied that he wasn’t the man they were looking for, asked, “What can I do for you?”
“Is this about that fellow who escaped from the prison?” He nodded at the squad car.
“Yessir, it is. You seen anything that might help us find him?”
“Well, it might be nothing. But I thought I should mention it.”
“Go ahead.”
“What’s the prisoner look like?”
“Just escaped about two hours ago. We don’t have a picture yet. But he’s in his mid-thirties, beard. Six feet, muscular build. Like yours, more or less.”
“Shaved head?”
“No. But if I was him I mighta shaved it the minute I got out. Lost the beard too.”
“Tattoo?”
“Don’t know. Probably.”
Sloan explained about his car’s breaking down and about his stop at the Willises’ house. “You think that prisoner would come this way?”
“If he had his wits about him, he would. To go west’d take him fifty miles through forest. This way, he’s got a crack at stealing a car in town or hitching a ride on the interstate.”
“And that’d take him right past the Willises’?”
“Yep. If he took Route 202. What’re you getting at, Mr. Sloan?”
“I think that fellow might be at the Willises’ house.”
“What?”
“Do you know if they have a nephew?”
“I don’t think they ever mentioned one.”
“Well, there’s a man there now — sort of fits the description of the killer. He claimed he was Bill’s nephew, visiting them. But something didn’t seem right. I mean, first of all, it was supper-time but they hadn’t eaten and they weren’t cooking anything and there were no dirty dishes in the kitchen. And anything Greg told them to do, they did. Like they were afraid to upset him.”
The sheriff found a wad of paper towel in his pocket and wiped his face and head. “Anything else?”
“He was saying weird stuff — talking about death and about this experience he had that made him look at dying differently. Like it wasn’t that bad a thing…. Spooked me. Oh, and another thing — he said he didn’t want to mention something in front of strangers. He might’ve meant me but then why’d he say ‘strangers,’ not ‘a stranger’? It was like he meant Bill and Agnes too.”
“Good point.”
“He also had some bad scars. Like he’d been in a knife fight. And he mentioned somebody who died — a woman, who gave him as much grief after she was dead as before. I was thinking he meant trouble with the law for killing her.”
“What’d their daughter say?”
“Daughter?”
“The Willises have a daughter. Sandy. Didn’t you see her? She’s home from college now. And she works the day shift at Taco Bell. She should’ve been home by now.”
“Jesus,” Sloan muttered. “I didn’t see her…. But I remember something else. The door to one of the bedrooms was closed and there was a sound coming from inside it. Everybody there was real upset about it. You don’t think she was, I don’t know, tied up inside there?”
“Lord,” the sheriff said, wiping his face, “that escapee — he was arrested for raping and murdering girls. College girls.” He pulled out his radio, “All Hatfield police units. This’s Mills. I have a lead on that prisoner. The perpetrator might be out at Bill Willis’s place off 202. Leave one car each on the roadblocks but everybody else respond immediately. Silent roll up, with lights out. Stop on the road near the driveway but don’t go in. Wait for me.”
Replies came back.
The sheriff turned to Sloan. “We might need you as a witness, Mr. Sloan.”
“Sure, whatever I can do.”
The sheriff said, “Have the driver take you to the police station — it’s on Elm Street. My girl’s there, Clara’s her name. Just tell her the same thing you told me. I’ll call her and tell her to take your statement.”
“Be happy to, Sheriff.”
The sheriff ran back to his car and jumped in. His deputy climbed into the passenger seat and they skidded 180 degrees and sped off toward the Willises’ house.
Sloan watched them vanish and climbed back in the truck, then said to the driver, “Never thought I’d end up in the middle of this.”
“Most exciting call
The driver pulled back into the highway and the flatbed clattered down the asphalt toward a faint band of light radiated by the heat-soaked town of Hatfield, Michigan.
“I don’t see anybody but the Willises,” the deputy whispered.
He’d made some fast reconnaissance of the bungalow through a side window. “They’re just sitting there talking, Bill and Agnes.”
Three male officers and two women — five-eighths of the Hatfield constabulary — surrounded the house.
“He might be in the john. Let’s go in fast.”
“We knock?”
“No,” the sheriff muttered, “we don’t knock.”
They burst through the front door so fast that Agnes dropped her soda on the couch and Bill made it two steps to the gun rack before he recognized the sheriff and his deputies.
“Lord of mercy, you scared us, Hal.”
“What a fright,” Agnes muttered. Then: “Don’t blaspheme, Bill.”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure, we’re okay. Why?”
“And your daughter?”
“She’s out with her friends. Is this about her? Is she all right?”
“No, it’s not about her,” Sheriff Mills slipped his gun away. “Where is he, Bill?”
“Who?”
“That fellow who was here?”
“The guy whose car broke down?” Agnes asked. “He left in the tow truck.”
“No, not him. The guy calling himself Greg.”
“Greg?” Agnes asked. “Well, he’s gone too. What’s this all about?”
“Who is he?” the sheriff asked.
“He’s my late brother’s son,” Bill said.
“He really is your nephew?”
“Much as I hate to say it, yeah.”
The sheriff put the gun away. “That Sloan, the man who called the tow truck from here — he had this idea that maybe Greg was that escapee. We thought he’d held you hostage.”
“What escapee?”
“A killer from that prison west of here. A psychopath. He escaped a couple of hours ago.”
“No!” Agnes said breathlessly. “We didn’t have the news on tonight.”
