the hopes they could find him. He was most assuredly a human smuggler or coyote, as they were called.
The driver of the semi was uninjured, but rattled by the loss of life and blood that still dripped from the front grill of his truck. As it turned out, it was Jake Robinson. He throttled his baseball cap in his hands as he sat on the rear bumper of an ambulance retelling the story to the sergeant who’d come on the scene to supervise cleanup. It was only yesterday that he’d shared a meal with Gibb at a truck stop and now the man’s life had irrevocably changed. Gibb knew only too well the weight of responsibility that must be pulling on the man’s psyche. When the sergeant moved on, Gibb took a moment to speak with Jake.
“How you doing?” Gibb asked, already knowing the answer.
Jake looked up with haunted eyes. For a moment, he seemed happy to see a friendly face, then lost it as his nose scrunched in an effort to keep a sob from escaping. When he finally got himself under control, he spoke. “I didn’t have time to react.”
Gibb nodded and understood perfectly. At seventy-five miles-per-hour no one had time to react. There were fewer accidents since the speed increased from fifty-five to seventy-five, but there were more fatalities.
“It’s a hard thing,” Gibb said.
Some of the other patrolmen had told Jake that there was nothing he could have done, that it wasn’t his fault, but that wasn’t really true. In fact, there was plenty that could have been done. He could have jackknifed the rig. He could have seen the U–Haul and anticipated it pulling out into traffic. He could have jerked his wheel to the right and maybe saved everyone, except himself. He could have stayed home an extra day and taken the next load. The fact remained that Jake had chosen to preserve his own life first, then take evasive action. In that first decision came the onus of responsibility for everything that came after.
“I thought I heard them scream, but I couldn’t have.”
“Probably the airbrakes,” Gibb said, “Or the metal.”
“Probably.” He stared at his hat in his hands for a moment, then looked up into Gibb’s eyes. “But I’ll never unhear that sound. It’s going to stay with me. Scream or no scream, I’ll remember that sound.” Jake shook his head. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
Gibb knew only too well what it sounded like. The way to make metal scream was to make it twist through the air. He’d heard fist hand what it sounded like and it did sound like a scream, as if the metal were alive and tortured.
A tow truck had arrived to remove the semi. Gibb said farewell to Jake and walked back to his car. He opened his door and climbed in. Within moments, he was ensconced in his electronic web, receiving emails and updates on crimes past and present. The map on the screen was lit where activity remained.
Through the window he watched as a car pulled to a stop just past the scene of the accident. An elderly woman climbed out. She held the hand of a child and they both walked to a space about a dozen feet off the road near the crash. The woman put down a votive candle and lit it. The child laid a stuffed elephant beside this. With the driver of the U–Haul still at large, Gibb had no choice but to check it out in the event she was related or knew him.
He strode over to where they stood. As he approached, they looked up at him. Tears danced in the woman’s eyes. She looked anything but Mexican, maybe Middle Eastern with her hooked nose and downturned full-bodied lips.
“How long has it been?” she asked.
“About two hours,” Gibb said. “Did you know the deceased?”
“I babysat the kids,” she nodded.
“How did you—“
“I got the call from Al Foster. He’s their grandfather, er the father of the man who drove the car. Al knew that I’d want to know.” She looked around at the ground littered with broken glass, bits and pieces of metal and footprints. “Which one survived?”
“The children?”
She nodded.
“The youngest.”
“Ahh.” She swallowed slowly and stared at the votive candle. “That would be Alice then. The others were Peter and Dolan.”
Gibb jerked when he heard his name. Dolan was pretty rare. No one used it to name their kids these days.