Side by Side

58

The road Winter Massey had crashed his truck on wasn’t heavily traveled. It was Saturday night, and only a few people lived out that way, and it dead-ended into one of the few remaining farms that hadn’t been turned into a shopping center or a subdivision. The first driver down that road would spot his truck-rolled over like it was and lit up like a Christmas tree-and call the cops. Winter only hoped it wasn’t discovered until he was close enough to the Dockerys that it wouldn’t matter.

He was muddy and bruised from the dive he’d taken out of the truck’s cab when it left the road. He didn’t generally jump from moving vehicles, but he’d had little to lose by taking a chance that the ground would be soft enough to keep him from breaking his neck. Based on what the Tahoe’s driver said on his phone to Randall-if the wreck wasn’t found and broadcast over the police channels-Winter might have an hour before the men in black he’d killed didn’t show up wherever Max Randall expected them to meet him. Add maybe another half hour before Max got word to the bunch at the Westin. He might have additional time after that before anybody got word to the Smoots to tell them that Click might have ratted them out.

Clayton Able, who certainly knew Randall’s team was after Winter, would be monitoring local police radio channels for news of any incident. He would learn a wrecked truck had been found near the clinic, know it was Winter’s, and learn pretty quickly there were three bodies. That would set up the first alarm. Winter was counting on it taking some time for the bad guys to discover that none of the dead bodies was his. When they did, Clayton and company would know that Winter was responsible for the dead men, and they’d know it long before the cops put it all together. Police interest would be piqued when they discovered that one of the men in black battle dress uniforms without any insignia was packing an illegal automatic weapon. There would be a lot of explaining to do, and hopefully he could explain it with Fondren’s help and have the truth accepted over whatever cover story the military came up with.

It wouldn’t be the first whirlwind that had Winter Massey at its epicenter. If he had things figured correctly, Judge Fondren might not even be aware of Winter’s involvement. Once Hank Trammel got the message to the judge detailing what was really going down, maybe he could figure out some way to help Winter save his family.