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“We’re not sure. It’s upside down in a coulee. We’re waiting on the Jaws of Life. We had to get them from Opelousas. The vehicle is wedged, so we can’t flip it over.”
I had to close my eyes to control my frustration. “How many people are in there? Are we talking about a man or woman? Can you be specific?”
“I can see one man. I don’t know if anybody is in there with him or not. I hope he’s the only one. I sure as hell do.”
“Explain that.”
He paused. “The guy I can see has space to breathe. Most every other area of the vehicle is crushed tight as tinfoil.”
“Give me your twenty again,” I said.
After he gave me directions, I pressed down the button on the phone cradle and looked at Molly, the receiver still in my hand. “It’s Alafair’s car. There’s an injured man inside. The trooper can’t be sure if anybody else is in the car.”
“Oh, Dave,” she sai
d.
“Clete and I are headed there now.” Before she could speak, I raised my hand. “You have to stay here in case somebody calls. Maybe it was a carjacking, maybe an abduction. Alafair would have fought. She wouldn’t have just submitted to some guy who drove off with her.”
There were other scenarios that were much less optimistic. But there was no point in reviewing them. “Weingart is behind this, isn’t he?” Molly said.
“That’s my guess. But I don’t know.”
I saw Clete look at me and tap on the dial of his watch. I called the department and asked that a cruiser be stationed in front of our house. Then Clete and I headed for Interstate 10, the emergency flasher clamped on the roof of my new Toyota truck, the rain dividing in the headlights, the highway unwinding behind us like a long black snake.
CHAPTER
25
THE STORM WAS still in full progress when we arrived at the accident scene, the sky roiling with blue-black clouds, the lights of farmhouses barely visible inside the rain. The state troopers had ignited emergency flares along the edge of the coulee where, according to a witness, Alafair’s Honda had been hit at high speed by a tractor-trailer that had never slowed down. The Honda had rolled over at least three times before it landed on its roof at the bottom of the coulee, the driver’s window pinched into a slit. A trooper with a flashlight in one hand and a radio in the other approached us as soon as Clete and I got out of the truck.
“You’re Detective Robicheaux?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s probably going to be another fifteen or twenty minutes before the Jaws are here. I don’t know the status of the guy inside. He’s generally incoherent and uncooperative,” the trooper said. He had a square jaw and tight mouth and eyes that kept looking at everything around him rather than at me.
“Did you get a name?”
“No. I’m trying to get a crane in here. Did you see one on the road?”
“No,” I said.
“The attempt to locate didn’t give us very much information. What’s the deal on your daughter?”
“I think she may have been abducted.”
His eyes met mine before he gazed down the road again, his expression neutral. “We don’t quite understand what happened here. The witness says two other cars seemed to be traveling with your daughter’s car. But they didn’t stop. From what we can gather, the guy driving the semi may be DUI, but the two companion vehicles fleeing the scene don’t add up.”
“What kind of description do you have on them?”
“The witness says one was white, the other dark-colored. If you want to talk to the guy inside your daughter’s car, you’d better do it now.”
“He’s not going to make it?” I said.
“We’re trying to open an irrigation lock and divert the water out of the coulee. I give it about ten more minutes before it’ll be over his nose. If we have to chain-pull the car out—” He didn’t finish his thought. “Take a look for yourself.”
Clete and I worked our way down the side of the coulee, each of us holding a flashlight the troopers had given us. The rain was warm and pattering on the exposed undercarriage of the Honda. Through the opening between the roof and the window jamb, I could see a man’s head and shoulders wedged against the steering wheel, the safety strap still in place across his chest. His face was contorted, the water in the coulee flowing thick with mud and dead vegetation through the broken windows, touching the top of his head.
