“Lord help, you people are nuts,” Gran laughed.
The road must have had a slight downgrade—either that, or the universe joined in the celebration—because the truck rolled easily, and soon the three of them were running just to keep from losing touch with it. As they ran, Tyler’s dad began to sing. “Swing low . . . sweet chariot . . . comin’ for to carry me home.” His strong, clear voice rolled out across the fields.
“Swi-ing low,” his mom chimed in, “sweet cha-ri-o-ot . . . comin’ for to carry me home.”
“Here it comes, here it comes!” shouted Pop-Pop. “Point eight . . . Point nine . . . Zero!” His shout was joined by the truck’s wildly honking horn—a trumpeting horn, a jubilant horn; a horn the Angel Gabriel himself would have been proud to blow, if only the Almighty had allowed him to turn in his angel wings and trade up to a 1950 Chevy half-ton: a bug-eyed, bona fide miracle of American engineering and mass production.
Fifteen years later, when Tyler graduated from college, his dad had surprised him by giving him the truck—but the truck as Tyler had never known it: a glorious, ground-up restoration of the truck, with gleaming new paint, leather interior, seat belts, and a stem-to-stern mechanical rebuild that rendered the rings, valves, and gearbox as tight as they’d been the day Pop-Pop had driven it out of the showroom. It was not so much a restoration as a reincarnation: as if everything else—everything but the odometer—had rolled over to zeros this time around.
“SORRY; WHAT’D YOU SAY, Dr. B?” Tyler blinked, somewhat surprised to find himself in 1992, standing at the base of the stadium, his boss staring at him, bringing him back to the present—back from the sweet childhood memory to the grim realities of death and decay and unrelenting demands.
“I said, what would you think of selling it?”
“Selling what? The truck?” Tyler looked at Dr. B, who cocked his head, waiting. “You mean to you?” Dr. B nodded. “What, for your son?” Another nod. Tyler was startled by the question; no, more than startled, he was stunned and unmoored. Unhappy, too. He stared at the truck, as if it had suddenly coalesced out of thin air; as if it were some . . . alien . . . thing, rather than a steadfast fixture of his entire existence. Was Brockton trying to take over his whole damned life?
Finally he spoke, choosing his words carefully. “This? For a teenage driver? You gotta be kidding. No air bags, no shoulder harnesses, no impact protection. Hell, if he hit something head-on, the steering column would go right through his chest, like a spear. This thing is a death trap.”
Dr. B smiled slightly, looking . . . what? Wistful? “I don’t blame you,” he said. “I’d hang on to it, too, if I were you. Twenty years from now, you’ll be giving it to your son.”
Tyler hoped the subject of selling the truck was closed, but—knowing Dr. B—knew it would come up again. “Maybe not,” he said. Brockton looked hopeful for a moment, until Tyler added, “Maybe I’ll be giving it to my daughter.”
CHAPTER 8
Satterfield
THE WAND AND HOSE of the pressure washer twitched and swayed in the air like a living creature—like a cobra, Satterfield thought—as the water hissed against the long hood of the Peterbilt. Bright red water sheeted down the side of the truck’s cab, a visual echo of the blood spilled inside the sleeper so recently. Fanning the seething spray back and forth in the morning sunlight, creating airy rainbows and red puddles, Satterfield envisioned the pressure washer’s long, thin nozzle as a magic wand. “Abracadabra,” he murmured, liking the feel of the word in his mouth, liking the sense of power he felt as a sorcerer. “Presto change-o, red to blue-o.” As if in response to the spell he was casting, the Peterbilt was transformed, wand wave by wand wave, the red truck dissolving and melting—molting—to reveal its inner self, its true colors: gunmetal blue, with a fringe of orange flames edging the back of the sleeper.
He’d been watching the news—on television and in the newspapers—but he’d seen nothing about the woman’s body being found. Apparently nobody even missed her yet, as there’d been no reports of a search, either.