Chapter 47
CHAPTER 47
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
I n the northbound breakdown lane on Interstate 95, Steve Josephs of Troop A of the New Hampshire State Police stretches and yawns in the driver’s seat of his dark green Ford Interceptor as the digital clock on the dash changes from midnight to 12:01.
He’s waiting for Morneau Towing to show up from nearby Greenland.
New day, same old shit, thinks Josephs.
The flashes from his grille lights and roof light bar reflect off the rust-red Sentra parked on the shoulder just in front of him.
The driver of that car, Herb Lucienne, is sitting in the back seat of Josephs’s cruiser, cuffed and woozy.
“How much longer?” Lucienne asks.
“I don’t feel so good.”
Josephs looks at him in the rearview.
“Do not vomit in my vehicle. Do you hear me?”
Josephs had been patrolling the northbound lanes when he got a call from dispatch about a red Sentra weaving on the highway about five miles ahead.
He’d caught up, hit his lights, and pulled the car over.
As soon as the driver’s window came down, Josephs smelled the beer.
He gave Lucienne the standard field sobriety tests—the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, the one-leg stand, and the walk-and-turn—and the Breathalyzer test, all of which Herb Lucienne failed in spectacular fashion.
His license showed one previous DUI from two years back.
The Sentra was registered to Ken MacDonald of Portsmouth.
Lucienne claimed that MacDonald was his friend and had lent him the car.
Since a check showed the car hadn’t been reported stolen, that seemed like a reasonable story.
“Shit!” mumbles Lucienne from the back seat.
“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any fucking luck at all.”
“Well, sir,” says Josephs, “sometimes you make your own luck. If you hadn’t been drinking tonight, we would never have met.”
He glances at his side-view and sees the amber lights of the tow truck approaching.
The wrecker pulls in front of the Sentra and into position.
As Josephs exits his vehicle, another state police Interceptor pulls up behind him.
His supervisor, Sergeant Evan Tasker, turns on his flashers, opens his door, and climbs out.
“Hey, Sarge,” says Josephs.
“Slow night?”
Tasker puts on his trooper hat as he walks over.
“You know me, always looking for excitement.” He glances into the rear of Josephs’s car.
“That your DUI? I heard the call.”
“Yep. Caught him bobbing and weaving, just like they said.”
“Local?”
“Yeah. Herb Lucienne, from Hampton Falls. Failed every test.”
“Yo! Troopers!” The tow-truck driver is calling from the side of the Sentra.
“You want to inventory this thing before I hook it up?”
This is one reason Josephs likes working in New Hampshire.
In most parts of the country, cops can’t search a car without the owner’s consent or a warrant.
But if a driver gets arrested in the Granite State, the car gets inventoried before being towed.
Very efficient system.
Especially if the inventory turns up drugs or stolen property or unregistered firearms.
Josephs and Tasker walk over to the Sentra.
Tasker sticks his head through the open driver’s-side window.
“All I see is a duffel bag in the back seat.”
“I’ll grab it,” says Josephs.
He opens the rear door and pulls out the worn denim bag.
He puts it on the trunk and unzips it, then rummages around inside.
“Just some work clothes and tools,” he says.
The tow-truck driver writes it down on a clipboard.
Tasker walks around to the passenger side and checks the glove box.
Nothing but manuals and a flashlight.
He grabs the flashlight and peeks under the seats.
“All clean,” he calls out, “except for candy wrappers.”
Josephs reaches into his pocket for the Sentra’s keys.
“I’ll pop the trunk.”
Tasker and the tow-truck driver meet him at the back of the car.
He sticks the key in the slot and turns it.
The lid pops open; the interior light flashes on.
“Jesus Christ!” The tow-truck guy takes two steps back.
“Fuck me,” says Tasker.
Josephs feels his stomach turn.
But he leans in to get a closer look.
Alongside a set of jumper cables and some road flares is a bundled-up filthy blue sheet.
Staring out through a gap in the fabric is a grinning human skull.