By the time the cops found him on Manzanita he was in full meltdown. Recognizing immediately what they were dealing with, Red Bluff PD tried talking him down from his psychosis, but by this time the hallucinations were so vivid and frightening all he saw were blue devils with badges.
“They stole my clothes,” he screamed over and over and over again as he picked and picked and picked. Meanwhile, officers discovered a two-block trail of discarded clothing, starting with a particularly foul piece of underwear—officers dubbed it the underwear that crawls—that was unceremoniously draped over a fire hydrant. Working backward they found socks, then jeans, then shoes—a discount brand designed in the fashion of the Nike Cortez but without the quality. Farther on, they found his shirt stuffed under the windshield wiper of a Dodge Neon—he’s a tweaker, they do stuff like that—and his jacket was lying in the middle of the road thirty feet west of his backpack (which was filled with clothes even more stanky than the underwear that crawls).
He didn’t discard the clothing, though.
He made that perfectly clear.
No.
They stripped him naked and They stole his clothes.
Then, apparently, They—he was never quite clear on who They were—laid his clothes out behind him just to taunt him.
In the end it took four blue devils to restrain him and carry him off to hell … though in this case “hell” was the Tehama County Jail. Not pleasant, but by no means does it resemble the fiery abyss.
They even have ice.
And they only have three levels, not the nine described by Dante—though the first floor sometimes smells like the Malebolge, Dante’s eighth level of hell. It can’t be helped. That’s what happens when inmates paint the walls of their cell in their own feces.
Good times.
“His car was parked in the street a half mile away,” Jimmy says. “When he ran out of gas he just started walking … and stripping.”
“Okay, what’s scary is that he was driving in the first place.”
“Drug-impaired driving. Happens every day in every city across the country.” Jimmy shrugs. “The only thing worse is the drunk drivers; they still kill more people.”
“Yeah, but that’s just numbers. There are more drunk drivers than tweakers.”
Jimmy shrugs again but doesn’t say anything.
“So the car is in police impound?”
“The meth pipe on the front seat was enough to get a search warrant. The shotgun in the trunk and the three small baggies of meth in a hidden compartment in the door were enough to seize it. It’ll probably end up back at the same auction where Jacob bought it.”
A Red Bluff officer named Danny Coors—like the beer—meets us at the impound yard with a ring of keys and ushers us through the gate. Danny’s a nice enough kid, but overly rigid and formal, everything’s Yes, sir and No, sir, and I’ll check on that, sir. Probably hasn’t been out of the academy more than a year.
Don’t get me wrong, such courtesy would be perfectly appropriate if he was giving me a ticket, but we’re all on the same team here and I get uncomfortable when people call me sir, especially fellow law enforcement.
“I’ll unlock it for you, sir.”
Jimmy starts to make small talk with Danny, who’s unlocking the driver’s door, then the passenger’s door, then the trunk, while I walk around the exterior of the Hyundai. Ashley’s car may have been nice years ago … many years ago … but it’s a full-fledged doper car now. Every corner is bent or blemished, like a dog-eared book that’s been loved too much or too little. The right rear taillight has red tape covering a gaping hole from an incident with a baseball bat; the windshield has a horizontal crack that runs the length of the glass; the rear bumper is held together by faded, peeling stickers; and the radio antenna is cockeyed. Its best feature is the two-tone paint job: faded silver and rust.
Sad Face is all over the vehicle.
His shine is in the driver’s seat, on the door, the steering wheel, the trunk, even the gas cap. He drove it long enough to put gas in it.
Ashley’s all over the vehicle as well. The patch of shine in the trunk is particularly disturbing because it’s shaped like a curled-up body; it’s not a place one would willingly go. The original carpet is missing, as is the spare tire, leaving a filthy metal base with a tire-sized hole in the center. At some point the car was used to haul everything from trash to old car batteries and used motor oil, all of which have left their mark on the small space.
She was alive when he stuffed her into this nasty black hole.
I can almost see her struggling in the dark. She certainly would have been tied or duct-taped, but she must have slipped her hands in front of her because I see them all over the latch, groping for a handle, a knob, a button—something that would pop the trunk, something that would set her free.
She would have been smarter to rip the wires from the taillights, I think. That, at least, would’ve gotten the right kind of attention. Kicking the taillight out and sticking a hand through works even better.
There’s no shine on the underside of the trunk, either; no fist-shaped glimmer where she pounded and beat and pounded on the trunk, hoping someone would hear. Hoping anyone would hear.
No. She was quiet as a mouse; trembling in the dark; afraid.
Afraid he would hear.
Afraid of what he would do.
Ashley’s shine is flat and dead; no vibration, no pulse, no life. Her fate was sealed when she was placed in that trunk. Better if she had kicked and screamed and pounded until the heavens shook. Her end may have been no different, but a mouse has two choices: it can walk into the lion’s mouth and lie down upon its teeth, or it can bite and leap and claw and spit its last breath.
Better to fight than to lie down.
When Officer Coors is out of earshot, I whisper to Jimmy, “He’s all over the car.”
Jimmy nods his understanding and sighs. “I was hoping she was in Cabo.”
“Me, too.”
“Did he drive this one, or just leave his mark?”