Ben & Nancy

Passion in James County XV: Ben and Nancy

Chapter twenty-three

Buddy Marks was walking down the street toward his house when he saw the police car swing onto the block. He knew the cops had arrested someone else for what he'd done to Trish and figured he was off the hook, but he started to get nervous when he saw a second police car coming down the street from the opposite direction. "What the hell is going on?" he wondered, feeling scared. He got even more scared when the police cars stopped in front of his house and four uniformed officers got out and, carrying shotguns, began approaching the house. "Oh, Fuck! They must have found out I did it," he realized. He bolted down an alley, running as fast as his legs would carry him.

Buddy, terrified that he might well wind up spending the rest of his life in jail, finally stopped running in the parking lot of the Jamestown Mall. He stopped and leaned against a light post, gasping for breath. "What am I gonna do?" he wondered. "I gotta get away! I gotta get out of town!" He looked around and saw an older woman coming out of the supermarket pushing a shopping cart loaded with groceries. She pushed the cart to a late-model brown Chevy station wagon which happened to be parked near where Buddy was standing, then she reached in her purse and got out her keys to unlock the car.

Buddy realized he had a chance to get the car. He straightened up, ran over to the woman, grabbed the keys out of her hand and pushed her aside. He climbed into the car.

The woman fell and lay on the blacktop yelling, "Help! He's stealing my car! Somebody help me! Please! He's stealing my car!"

Buddy fumbled around, finally got the key in the ignition, and got the car started. He backed out of the parking place, knocking over the woman's shopping cart and scattering her groceries all over the place. He pulled the car into "drive" and screamed out of the lot, onto the main drag.

As he roared down the street, Buddy realized he had no idea where to go. "Mexico!" he thought, remembering the movies he'd seen. Criminals in the movies always went to Mexico. He wasn't sure why, but he wasn't very bright, so that was the only thing he could think of. He had a vague idea that Mexico was south, so when he got to the freeway, he took the on-ramp for the southbound lane.

State Patrol trooper Mavis Dean sat behind the wheel of her brand new Camaro Z-28 patrol unit, in the median of the freeway, with her radar unit pointed at southbound traffic, looking for speeders. She was near the end of her duty shift and was looking forward to going home and spending some time with her two kids. She'd been on the State Patrol for seven years, and enjoyed her job, although she liked running radar less than most of her duties.

"Jamestown Emergency Operations Center to all Jamestown PD, Sheriff's, and State Patrol units," the radio in the sleek cruiser crackled. "We have an urgent BOL. Jamestown P.D. has issued a want on a 1990 Chevy Caprice Classic station wagon, color brown, stolen at 1420 hours from the lot of the Jamestown Mall. Registration is 2-4-5 Boy Ocean Lincoln. Driver matches the description of a suspect wanted by James County Sheriff for rape, aggravated assault, and attempt murder. Suspect is a white male, age 18, five-six to five nine, weight 180, brown and blue. Was wearing a white T-shirt, brown jacket, and jeans when last seen. Subject vehicle was last seen headed for the freeway. Units north and south of Exit 39, be alert. James County advises that suspect should be considered armed and very dangerous. All units acknowledge."

Mavis picked up her radio microphone and waited while the other Patrol units acknowledged the broadcast. "330 to Jamestown, acknowledge that broadcast," she said.

"Copy, 330," the dispatcher replied.

"I wonder if I'm going to end my shift with a pursuit?" Mavis wondered. She scanned on-coming traffic carefully, watching for the car mentioned in the broadcast. Then the alert tone on her radar began beeping and she felt her heart rate increase. She glanced at the radar unit perched on the dashboard. The blinking red letters on the readout said, "95."

Mavis glanced up and saw a brown car flash by. She shoved in the clutch, jammed her cruiser into first gear, and roared out of the median in a cloud of blue smoke. While she shifted up through the gears, she managed to get the car's emergency lights and siren turned on, and when she was in sixth gear, she picked up the microphone. Her heart was pounding and she realized she was yelling when she said, "330 to Jamestown, I'm in pursuit!"

"Copy, 330," the dispatcher said. "All units on this frequency, stand by, 330 is in pursuit!"

"Jamestown, I'm southbound on the freeway, passing mile marker 139, in pursuit of a brown station wagon!" Mavis yelled. "Possibly the BOL vehicle. One occupant, probably a white male. Speed at this time is in excess of 95!"

"Copy, 330, you are southbound on the freeway, passing mile marker 139, in pursuit of a vehicle that matches the description of the BOL," the dispatcher replied, sounding a little agitated, too. "Any units available to assist 330, identify and respond Code 3!"

"325 to dispatch," a male voice said. "I'm at mile marker 150, responding southbound to assist 330."

"Copy, 325," the dispatcher said. "330, 325 is behind you." He didn't wait for Mavis to respond and didn't expect her to, not with a pursuit going on. He turned to another microphone. "State Patrol Jamestown to James County EOC," he said.

"James County EOC on," a female voice replied. "We copied your pursuit. Our units eleven and seventeen are waiting at Exit 35."

"Thanks, James County," the patrol dispatcher replied. He was relieved. His unit would have some backup soon, now. He turned back to the patrol radio. "330 from Jamestown," he said. "You'll have two Sheriff's units with you when you reach Exit 35."

Mavis was gaining on the car she was chasing, but the driver showed no signs of stopping. She was glad to hear there were two sheriff's units ahead of her. The patrol unit who was coming to back her up was still quite a distance off. The stolen car and police car flashed by Exit 35 and Mavis saw the two marked sheriff's units, Camaro Z-28's like hers, racing up the on-ramp, their emergency lights flashing.

"James County eleven to 330," a voice said over the radio. "I'll call the pursuit."

Mavis knew she didn't have to respond. The fact that the sheriff's officers were involved, and that one of them was reporting what was happening on the radio, meant she was free to concentrate completely on driving.

Buddy had never been more terrified in his life. He had his foot pressed against the floor of the car he'd stolen, but he knew there was no way he was going to out-run the Z-28 patrol car that was following him. When he saw two more police cars getting on the freeway, he realized he was in deep trouble. "Jesus!" the terrified teenager thought, "What am I going to do?" Pale, and sweating, and with tears rolling down his cheeks, he clutched the steering wheel of the car he'd stolen, he kept going.

"James County thirteen to James County eleven," the second sheriff's deputy said into his radio mike. "I can get ahead of him. You want to try blocking him in and forcing him to stop?"

"Negative, thirteen," his partner replied. "Traffic's pretty light. I don't want to take a chance on one of us getting hurt. Let's give him a few more miles. Maybe he'll run out of gas, then we'll have him."

"Copy, eleven," the deputy said. He kept his cruiser a safe distance behind the stolen car, just to the right of the state patrol vehicle. The speedometer on his dashboard read "98."

"We're coming up on Macon Pass," Mavis thought as she followed the stolen car down the freeway. "If that guy up there isn't careful, he's going to dump that boat." Macon Pass was a fairly winding stretch of the freeway that led through the small mountain range just south of Jamestown. The freeway had a fairly steep incline and some tighter than normal curves through that stretch. Mavis had investigated far too many crashes involving trucks that had gone out of control there.

Buddy managed to get through the first sharp curve in Macon Pass without too much trouble. Then, because he was an inexperienced driver and even more inexperienced criminal, he did something stupid. He turned around to see whether the cops were still behind him. He should have looked in the rear view mirror. He realized his mistake almost immediately when he felt the car begin to drift to the left, something that happened because he unconsciously moved his hands that way when he turned his head.

"Oh, shit!" Mavis thought when she saw the big station wagon drifting toward the left-hand edge of the road. "Pull it back! Pull it back!" She watched in horror as the car continued to drift into the soft ground next to the highway. Then, finally, the driver took action, but it was the wrong action. The car lurched right as he yanked the wheel in that direction, the abrupt change of direction caused the car's wheels to dig into the soft ground and it flipped on it's side and went airborne. "Damn! Damn! Damn!" Avis thought, sickened, while she watched the car slam, roof-first, into a huge ledge outcropping in the median. She stomped her feet on the brake and clutch.

"James County Eleven to Jamestown!" the sheriff's deputy who had been calling the pursuit yelled. "Suspect has T.A.'d. Start fire, rescue, and the chopper. Get a supervisor and the M.E. rolling, too." He, too, slammed on his brakes and his patrol car slid to a screaming halt next to the other sheriff's unit and state patrol car. Both of those cars were empty. Trooper Mavis Dean and the other sheriff's deputy were out of their cars and running toward the smoking wreck.

"Come on, Tim," Alex Martin said, sticking his head into Tim Jackman's office.

Tim jumped to his feet. "What's up?" he asked as he started for the door. Alex looked excited.

"A couple of our guys and the state patrol got in a pursuit with Buddy Dean on the freeway a few minutes ago," Alex said as the jogged toward the door of the sheriff's office.

"They get him?" Tim asked. He ran around to the passenger side of the big red V-10 Dodge pickup his boss drove and climbed in.

Alex got in, fired up the truck's huge engine, and roared out of the sheriff's department parking lot. The siren on the truck began wailing and the flashing lights he had concealed behind the grille began to wink. "He crashed up in Macon Pass," he told Tim, guiding the truck onto the winding on-ramp and onto the freeway.

"Is the suspect alive?" Tim asked.

"It doesn't look good," Alex said. "One of our guys was calling the pursuit, and he asked for fire, rescue, the chopper...and the M.E."

"Damn!" Tim said.

They arrived at the scene of the wreck in less than ten minutes, but had to park quite a distance away because of all the emergency vehicles that were cluttering the highway. They climbed out of the truck and ran up to the two tan-uniformed sheriff's deputies who were standing next to one of the fire trucks, with a woman in a State Patrol uniform.

"What's up, Milt?" Alex asked Brian Dawson, the senior deputy on the scene.

"The guy in the car's dead," Dawson replied. "He lost control back there..." He gestured in the direction of some deep ruts in the grass in the median. "Drifted off into the median, corrected too quick, lost it, flipped over, and..." He smacked his hands together. "Wham, right into the ledges there. Paramedics figure he was dead before the dust settled. They're still taking the car apart so they can get him out."

"You I.D. him?" Tim asked.

The two deputies and patrol officer shrugged. "From what I saw, it's going to be hard to tell who he was," Trooper Dean said. "He was smashed up pretty good. He did have a wallet on him, though. Had this in it." She handed Tim a small card.

Tim looked at the card. "It's a Jamestown High I.D.," he said. "For Walter "Buddy" Marks."

"Well, if nothing else, Buddy saved the county the cost of a trial," Alex commented. "Sorry you guys had to see this," he told the officers. "I was listening to the pursuit. You all did a good job. Too bad it turned out crappy."

"Hey, boss, he called it, we didn't," deputy Dawson replied. "He coulda stopped when Mavis lit him up. He didn't."

"I guess we don't need to hang around," Alex said. He and Tim started walking back to his truck. "That Dillon lady's a good friend of Heidi's isn't she?" he asked Tim as they walked down the median of the freeway.

"Yeah, why?" Tim asked.

"I had Mike Burwell check out her story about being with Morris the night the girl was attacked," Alex said.

"She wasn't at Morris's apartment, was she?" Tim said.

"You knew, did you?" Alex replied, grinning. "No, she wasn't there. Mike says that, as far as he can find out, she was home. All night. How did you know she wasn't with Morris?"

"The panties," Tim said. "We figured out they didn't come from the victim because she's too skinny. Well, unless I'm losing my eyesight, they're too big for Nancy, too. You going to do anything about this?"

"About what?" Alex asked as they climbed into his truck.