“A crossbuck?” Mac asked.
“That’s what the railroads call a passive crossing sign,” he said. “The giant X you see at every crossing. Standard at rural crossings with low traffic. So in that sense, I guess, the cop was right. We were lucky to have the lights.”
I closed the file and put it to the side. “What about the next accident?”
Wolanski handed us another folder off the stack.
“December 1975,” he said. “Robert Spence, age forty-three, and Bobby Spence, age eleven. Spence drove smack into the train. The two of them died instantly. It was night, there was heavy fog, and Spence was deaf.” Wolanski shook his head. “The fog that night was like pea soup. They shouldn’t have been driving. I doubt they could even see the lights at the crossing.”
My fingers were cold on the file. I didn’t open it. I’d seen enough in two years on the job. I handed the file back to Wolanski.
Mac said, “What did the railroad say?”
“They sent out a maintenance guy to check the signal box. I was right there with him. That was, let’s see, two or three days after the accident. He said everything was working fine.”
“Did Mrs. Spence sue?”
Wolanski shrugged. “I don’t know. That was the one incident I didn’t handle.”
“What about the first accident?” I asked. “Do you know if the Dalgren family sued?”
“Sorry. I don’t have any idea.” He looked back and forth between us. “You guys ready for the third accident?”
We nodded.
Wolanski picked up the next folder. Neither Mac nor I reached for it.
“Three months after the second one. Another teenager. Seventeen-year-old Melissa Webb. She’d gone on an errand for her dad. After the accident, her parents turned down the settlement offer from SFCO. They said the lights weren’t working, and their lawyer sued. They lost, though. I heard that their lawyer and an independent expert checked the signal box and found everything in working order.”
“So nothing more came of that?” Mac asked.
“Well, people got riled up this time. Usually these cases get a headline for a day and then it’s over for the rest of the world. But this time some folks started lobbying the city government to petition the state to get a gate installed.”
“What was the response from the state?”
“More of the same,” Wolanski said. “Which is to say, nothing. State transportation officials had been looking at that site for years. But they said they didn’t have the funding to install gates. They were waiting on the Feds. You want the folder?”
“In a minute,” I said. I was anxious to grab the file for the fourth and final accident so that I could look at the photograph of the victim. Or victims. See if one of them was the woman whose photo had been in Ben’s desk. I was sure that somehow this accident held the key that would help us solve this case and find Lucy. But I wanted Wolanski to unspool the story for us so that nothing was left out. “Tell us about the fourth accident. That was the last one before the crossing was turned into an overpass, is that right?”
Wolanski set aside the folder for the third accident. “That’s right. Raya Quinn. Hers was the only accident where I was first deputy on scene. I was out on patrol when I got the call. In a way, it was the saddest one of all.” He picked up the final folder and set it in his lap. “Back in July, it was. Hottest damn month on record. We were all sniping at each other. The AC in the sheriff’s office was on the blink, so all of us kept going outside to pour water over our heads from the hose, just to try and cool down. We’d have given anything for the kind of rain we’re getting now.”
“July?” I asked. “What was the date?”
He looked at his watch. “Why, tomorrow. It’ll be twenty-eight years to the day. Now there’s a coincidence for you.”
It was also the day the hazmat train identified by the killer had been scheduled to roll through Denver. A buzz started up in my ears like the crackle of lightning. There were no coincidences.
“Who called it in?” I asked, half expecting to hear Bull Zolner’s name.
“We got the first call from the railroad dispatcher, who’d been notified by the train engineer. Then we got a separate call from Alfred Tate. He was the owner and executive manager of SFCO. His railroad owned the T&W short line, which is where that crossing was located.”
Mac said, “You’re sure of that? Alfred Tate notified your office about the accident?”
Wolanski nodded. “It was a terrible night for him. He kept saying he blamed himself for letting Raya work late. Said he should have noticed when she left that she was upset.”
My mind was shooting off in half a dozen different directions. “Raya Quinn worked for SFCO?”
“That’s right. Had for a year or two, I think.”
“So what did Tate say happened that night?”
Wolanski opened the file and looked down at a typewritten report. “He was heading home after doing paperwork at one of his branch offices. It was just after ten p.m. when he left. The railroad had a couple of rooms in a building in a tiny community called Grant, pretty far out east. Tate had investments in the sugar beet fields there. He told me he could manage both from that office. He was a real hands-on kind of guy, didn’t like to delegate. Anyway, Raya had been working that night, too, but she left about an hour before her boss did.”
“How far is the crossing from the office?” I asked.
“Maybe twenty minutes. Faster if you drive the way I imagine Raya was driving that night. So there was some unaccounted time. I’ll get to that in a minute.”
I nodded for him to go on.
“Tate was driving home when he came upon the scene. The train at a dead stop, blocking the intersection, the car knocked clear of the tracks. He said he knew from the condition of the car and all the blood that anyone in the vehicle was dead. It looked like it had just happened—no one else was on scene yet. He figured the engineer was still walking back from the head of the train. As you well know”—he gave me a nod—“it can take a mile or more for the train to stop. So anyway, Tate returned to his office and called it in. No cell phones back then. After he knew help was coming, he went back to the scene. I got there ten minutes after that. He was in bad shape. Just torn apart.”
“Tate knew it was her?”
Wolanski nodded. “That’s right. He recognized her car. I mean, she wasn’t exactly identifiable. I ran the plates to be sure. And even then, we had to wait and get confirmation from the coroner the next day. You couldn’t make anything out of that mess. Plus, it was dark, and the car had been crumpled up like a soda can.”
“When you got there, was anyone else on the scene?” I asked.
“The engineer and the conductor had arrived. And DPC’s cop was there. Even he was pretty shook up.” He met my eyes. “I bet you’ve seen your share.”
I said, “What was the name of the cop?”