Dead End

By Jerry Hooten

Sequel to “Don’t Talk to Strangers” In the parking lot of a bar in Sturgis, South Dakota, Glen has just put Roger Wardlow in the back of the camper after stabbing him in the chest with the hunting knife he used on his wife and her boyfriend. We go to Katrina’s hurricane survivor camp. Identities are there for the taking. Do all roads lead somewhere? Or are some dead ends?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jerry Hooten
• Release date: Dec 2, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452477435

Jerry Hooten

Retired from law-enforcement/security. Resource for mystery writers.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Glen kept his foot on the gas and roared out of the parking lot of the bar and onto the highway. He fiddled with the unfamiliar knobs until he got the wipers going. The rain was coming down harder now, the headlights glistening on the wet asphalt.

He wiped his face and checked the side mirrors to see if anyone was following. He could hear the body in the back rolling back and forth as he went around the curves towards Deadwood. He would take Highway 85 out of Deadwood and head for Wyoming.

He wanted to get some miles away from Rapid City and Sturgis while it was dark. He could dump the body on one of the fire roads around Deadwood.

Fear rode with him like a passenger. He clenched the wheel with white-knuckled intensity. He’d had too much to drink in that dive, but he had been desperate and looking for a way out of town when he got lucky. The fear had purged his stomach of the booze and adrenalin back in Sturgis. Now it was as much a part of him as breathing.

When he had the time, he’d examine the papers in the billfold that he had taken from Richard’s pocket and see what else he had managed to acquire in that encounter in the parking lot. He hoped for money and credit cards.

He thought he and Richard, or Dick, as he had called himself, looked enough alike that he could pass on his driver’s license---both a little on the heavy side, about the same age. He had more hair than Dick, but Dick had worn his short, so he could buzz his off. He’d worry about that later. He had to get his nerves together, and fast!

His mind was racing; he wanted to find something to give him hope. His thoughts were jangled bits and pieces that bobbed through his consciousness. Right now he was using the fear to keep him going, trying to escape everything that was happening to him.

He was on the back road from Sturgis to Deadwood. Too many twists and turns to stop along here. Closer to Deadwood, there was a place he knew where he could take a fire road out of sight of the highway.

He wasn’t used to driving a pickup with a camper on it. It felt top-heavy to him, especially on some of the curves. He was using the whole road to negotiate the curves at this speed. He forced himself to slow down and drive more carefully. The fire road was just ahead.

Ever since he had come home from his office, where he worked as an insurance adjuster, and found his wife with that two-bit hustler, he had operated in a daze, at first, in a white-hot rage, when they had laughed at him. After he had killed them both with his hunting knife, he had lost the rage, but not the daze.

He didn’t even remember leaving the house and driving to Sturgis. He didn’t know why he had gone to Sturgis, either, unless it was a memory of happier times that drew him there.

He had been sitting there in the bar, drinking steadily and waiting for the police to pick him up when Richard came in and started talking to him. He had come to his senses enough to think that maybe he could take Richard’s billfold and driver’s license and run. Then when Richard had swung at him with that jack handle, he had gone back into that zone and stabbed him with the knife. What was one more murder at this point?

The knife! He had to get rid of it. Not with the body, that would tie him to Richard. He’d ditch it after he had gone through Deadwood; just throw it in the stream along the highway. He’d have to make sure he had all the identification off of Richard’s body, too. From what Richard had told Glenn, he was a loner. Nobody would be looking for him. That was good.

His thoughts were jumbled, flashing from one scene to the next. For the first time in hours Glen thought he saw a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe he could start over someplace new. He had left his car in the parking lot by the bar. They could track him that far. Richard had been passing through. No one knew him in Sturgis, and nobody knew he was there. That would be a big plus for Glen.

He brought his attention back to the road. He was getting close to Deadwood; the fire road should be just ahead. The thought helped calm him. He could dump the body and be on his way in his new identity soon.

Just a few more miles.

Chapter 2

Roger woke to pain. He was rolling from side to side and felt dizzy and weak. Where in the hell was he?

It all came back to him in a flash: the drinking in the bar, asking the stranger if he needed a ride. He was using the Richard Whiteman ID at the bar. He had hoped it would be the last time he had to use it, since the discovery of Richard’s death, it was becoming unsafe to use.

Richard Whiteman had been his first victim, at least, his first intentional victim. He had needed a new identity and had been lucky enough to get a ride with a man that looked enough like him that he could steal his identity.

Richard had been a widower with no family. It had been a nearly perfect setup for Roger. He had killed Richard in Arizona and left his body where it shouldn’t have been found for years, but some hikers had stumbled onto it. Roger had read about the find just a few days ago. He kept up on any reports of bodies, since he had two that he wanted to keep secret. The Internet kept him abreast of those developments.

They hadn’t officially identified the body, but Roger knew it was a matter of time until they made the connection. Since he had been discovered, he knew they would backtrack and make the identification soon.

Roger had used the Richard Whiteman identity for months. It had worked well for him until it had been found out. Before that time, he had made a trip to San Francisco from his base in Oregon and acquired another identity there from a homeless man living in Golden Gate park. That man, Fred Jackson, had so far not been identified.

Roger had been looking for another identity when he thought he had his man in that bar in Sturgis. Another loner, close in physical appearance and about the right age. Should have worked!

He recalled picking up the jack handle to use on the man from the bar, and then the stranger turning on him with a knife. He could recall the feel of the knife going deep into his chest. These memories were mixing with the pain. He should be dead by now.

He cautiously tried to feel the wound in his chest. He was wrapped in the plastic tarp that was supposed to be used for his victim. He managed to work his right hand free and moved it up to his chest. The front of his shirt and jacket were soaked in his own blood. The knife must have hit a rib. The pain was worse in his left breast and radiated up to his armpit. The rib must be broken, it hurt to breathe. At that, he was lucky; the rib must have deflected the knife from slashing through his heart.

Even so, he felt weak and light-headed. He had to concentrate just to stay awake. He was so tired.

He knew he couldn’t afford to sleep right now. Whenever they stopped, he had to try to defend himself. Was the stranger alone? He really didn’t know. He had been unconscious when he was put in the pickup, that he knew for sure. Everything else was guesswork.

The tarp wasn’t all that tight. Roger worked it loose and tried to sit up. Bright stars and pinpoints of light, along with a bolt of new pain accompanied the effort. He just barely managed to hold on to consciousness.

He was in the back of the pickup camper. His pickup camper. He could hear the hiss of the tires on wet pavement. They were moving, evidently down a curving road, judging by the rocking of the camper.

He managed to move to a sitting position, his back to the leg of the dinette table. He felt something under his left hand. It was the jack handle. His assailant must have thrown