8
Two miles down the road he parks in a little rest area.
There are two picnic tables and a Porta-John.
That’s the whole deal.
Danny pulls in, opens the blister pack the Tracfone came in, and scans the instructions.
They are simple enough, and the phone comes with a fifty per cent charge.
Three minutes later it’s live and ready to go.
Danny considers writing down what he wants to say and decides there’s no need.
He’s going to keep this brief so nobody can trace the call.
His first thought was the Belleville PD, but that’s in a different county, and he knows the emergency number for the Kansas Highway Patrol—it’s posted in the Wilder High School office and in the halls of both the old and the new wing.
In schools all across the state, Danny supposes.
Nobody says it’s in case of an active shooter because no one has to.
He touches *47.
It rings just a single time.
“Kansas Highway Patrol.
Do you have an emergency?”
“I want to report a buried body.
I think it must be a murder victim.”
“What is your name, sir?”
He almost gives it.
Stupid.
“The body’s located behind an abandoned Texaco station in the town of Gunnel.”
“Sir, may I please have your name?”
“You go up County Road F.
You’ll come to a rise.
The gas station is at the top.”
“Sir—”
“Just listen.
The body is behind the station, all right? A dog was chewing on the hand of whoever’s buried there.
It’s a woman or maybe a girl.
I covered her hand with a trash barrel, but the dog’ll get that off pretty soon.”
“Sir, I need your name and the location you’re calling fr—”
“Gunnel.
County Road F, about three miles in from the highway.
Behind the Texaco station.
Get her out of there.
Please.
Someone’ll be missing her.”
He ends the call.
His heart is triphammering in his chest.
His face is wet with sweat and his shirt is damp with it.
He feels like he’s just run a marathon, and the burner phone feels radioactive in his hand.
He takes it to the trash barrel between the picnic tables, dumps it in, thinks better of it, fishes it out, wipes it all over on his shirt, and tosses it in again.
He’s five miles down the road before recalling—also from some TV show or other—that he maybe should have taken out the SIM card.
Whatever that is.
But he’s not going back now.
He doesn’t think the police can trace calls made from burner phones anyway, but he’s not going to risk going back to the scene of the crime.
What crime? Youreported a crime, for God’s sake!
Nevertheless, all he wants is to go home and sit in front of the television and forget this ever happened.
He thinks about eating the lunch he packed, but has no appetite.