Murder in Focus Read Free Page B

toy truck, its back end painted a hazy red, floated dreamily along the shimmering road. He fixed his heavy-lidded eyes on it and yawned. Without warning it leaped into focus, huge and solid, right in front of him. As his foot smashed down automatically on the brake pedal he jerked the wheel over and then accelerated again, lurching crazily back and forth in the left lane. A horn screamed in his ear. In his rearview mirror he saw a small Mercedes sitting right on his back bumper. No doubt it had been about to pass him when he had swung into its lane, and he could feel the righteous wrath of its driver burn through the windshield. With deliberation he flicked on his turn indicator and moved neatly back into the right lane. The Mercedes shot past with another blast of its Teutonic horn. The slow-moving truck faded into the distance behind him.
    â€œChrist almighty,” he said aloud. “This time I damned near got spread all over the road.” The words sounded peculiar, echoing, isolated, in the padded interior. Where in hell was he? He glanced at his watch. He had been driving for almost three hours and couldn’t remember having passed by a single landmark since he left the industrial tangle of the outskirts of Toronto. Wherever he was, though, if he didn’t stop soon and get out of this damned car, he’d be driving into Ottawa in a meat wagon. At that point a road sign promised an exit for Highway 2 leading into Brockville in five hundred meters. He grabbed it before it got away on him, passed a motel with a coffee shop before he had slowed down from highway speeds, braked—but not soon enough—to make the turn, took a right through a nearby gas station, bumped over a strip of empty field, shot in and out of a parking lot, and slithered to a halt by the front door.
    The coffee shop turned out to be a bar that also served food. Originally conceived by an enthusiastic architect to take advantage of its hilly, shrub-filled location on the St. Lawrence River, it soared airily above Sanders’s head, all dark beams, potted plants, and shaded glass. The owners were obviously not the dark beam, shaded glass, and fern sort; the room had been cozied up with plaques and posters advertising beer, an assortment of garishly decorated video games, a pool table, and a large-screen television. There was a noisy group crowded around two tables pushed together near the bar. Construction workers, probably, to judge by their boots and coveralls. He looked at the massive collection of bottles on their table and shuddered. He hoped they weren’t trying to build anything complicated.
    Sanders headed for a table in the far corner and folded his long frame into a chair with its back to the room. He glanced suspiciously at the grubby menu propped on the table and ordered coffee and a club sandwich from the harried-looking waitress. His head still roared and thumped with the sound of the road, and he tried—unsuccessfully—to ignore the raucous laughter coming from behind him.
    â€œJesus,” said a whining voice, separating itself at last from the general noise, “this country’s turning into a goddamn fast, uh, fash—”
    â€œFascist?” said a helpful voice.
    â€œYeah, whatever, state, eh? First they tell us that fucking stretch of road’s gotta be finished in three days—three days! Three weeks is more like it. And the other day when I go in the woods to take a leak this fucking Mountie bastard comes racing over and says he’s gonna arrest me if I don’t get the hell outa there.”
    â€œWhat’s in the woods?” said the helpful voice. “Besides the RCMP?”
    â€œNothing, that’s what.” The whine was getting louder now, and belligerent. “Nothing but fucking Mounties and trilliums. Mounties guarding trilliums, that’s what. We spend billions of dollars so the Mounties can keep people from pissing on trilliums.” He guffawed