Everything You Want Me to Be(92)

After a few minutes, the 4x4s returned and waved toward the boat to let us know we were all clear.

“Well, that’s that.” I started to turn the boat around when Bud leaned over the side.

“Wait.”

He pointed at the water. Two sunnies had bubbled up to the surface, dead as doornails. As we stood there, another popped up. Then another.

“There. Over there.”

“Look at that one. He must be a three-pounder, at least.”

All around us, fish floated on their sides, their silver bellies shining like a hundred streaks of light in the morning sun. We couldn’t count them all. They were everywhere.

“Must have been the shock wave.” I’d felt it go through me, but assumed it was as much in my head as anyplace else. Seeing all these dead fish, though, well, it took the thing out of me. The tremors were already gone.

We stood side by side, staring at the water.

“Let’s go grab a drink, all right?”

“Mmm.”

I turned us away from the floating fish bodies and the demo crew swarming around the rubble, pointing the boat back to the launch. Just as we docked, dispatch came over the radio.

“We’ve got a ten-fifty-two involving two vehicles out on highway twelve, right along the stretch by the lake. Del, are you still in the water?”

“Just getting out, Nance. I’ll be there directly.” I was already halfway to the cruiser. “Sorry, Bud. You’ll have to come along and sit tight, unless you want to stay here. I’m sure Mona’d come by to pick you up.”

But he was already in the passenger seat, buckling up. I hit the lights and gunned past the line of cars. A few of the watchers swung their binoculars on us.

“What’s a ten-fifty-two?”

“A crash with injuries.”

It didn’t take long to find the accident. A semi was halfway to jackknifed on the shoulder and the driver stood nearby, frantically waving us down. As we pulled up, the pickup underneath the semi became visible, or what was left of it anyway. It was one of those monster-truck types by the look of it—a modified F150.

I parked the cruiser in the middle of the lane to keep traffic to the left.

“He ran right into me.” The driver started in as soon as I opened the door. “There was this huge freaking boom and then this truck came at me. I couldn’t get out of the way.”

“What are you hauling back here?” I checked his fuel line to make sure it was intact.

“Produce. Strawberries from California.” He stopped outside the wreckage, leaving me to work my way under the belly of the semi.

“Hello there! Sheriff Goodman here. Can you hear me?”

There was no answer.

I saw a pair of boots walking around the far side of the truck.

“Del!” It was Bud.

I ducked through by the wheels and met him on the other side.

“It’s Tommy’s truck,” Bud said. “Tommy Kinakis.”

“Help me get the driver’s side door open.”

We yanked it until there was a few feet of space to crawl through and I poked my head inside.

Tommy looked like he’d been swallowed by the steering column of his truck. The whole dashboard was crushed against the seats, with Tommy slumped in between. Blood dripped off the wheel and over the shredded fabric, where some empty liquor bottles were lying. I reached to take a pulse without any hope. The boy’s eyes were open and blank.

I backed out of the wreck and shook my head at Bud, then called dispatch for an ambulance on a DOA.

“Jesus, he’s dead?” The truck driver held his head like it was going to fall off and paced in the ditch next to his cab. I left Bud to go talk to him.

“Tell me again what happened. Slow it down this time.”

“I was supposed to drop half the load in Rochester and half in Red Wing. I just left Rochester and was thinking I should have gassed up, and then this huge boom came out of nowhere.”

“Demo crew blew a barn up right over that hill. Less than a mile away.”

“Oh. Oh, okay.” He took to wiping his forehead.

“So after the blast . . .”

“It was then, right at the boom, that this truck ran into me. He was coming from the opposite direction and it looked like he just spun out, going at least seventy. His back end kind of swerved and I hit the brakes and tried to move to the shoulder. He was under me before I knew it. I heard the crunch and the whole rig jolted to a stop. I jumped out to see if he was hurt, and all I could make out was his head, but he didn’t move and he didn’t answer me when I yelled, so I ran back and called it in.”

“No other cars coming at the same time? Anyone else see it?”

“No, none. It’s pretty backwater out here. Maybe there was some afterwards, I don’t remember.”

“Del!” Bud shouted and I looked to see him half inside Tommy’s truck.

“Watch for that ambulance,” I told the driver, and jogged back. Could Tommy actually be alive? I hadn’t felt any heartbeat.

“What is it?”

Bud withdrew, staring inside the truck like someone had just poleaxed him in the back of the head. He held up a finger and pointed.

I checked inside, but nothing had changed. Tommy was still dead. I didn’t smell any fuel.