Chapter 4 Jordan
FOUR
JORDAN
Innocent is as innocent does!
—@cutiepiefromcali
Jordan found the wreck just north of the small town of Coarsegold, where the highway climbed through the hills toward Oakhurst.
At first, all he could see was the overturned, jackknifed semi blocking both lanes of the highway.
Driving past a line of stopped northbound cars, he eased onto the shoulder and went around the big rig.
As he did, he looked into the sideways cab and saw the staring, vacant eyes below the driver’s bloodied forehead.
An accident he would have likely survived in his mammoth vehicle if only he’d been wearing his seat belt.
Jordan’s breath caught in his throat when he reached the other side.
A silver Dodge Ram 1500 with an oversized grille guard had come to rest on the center stripe, its cab nearly crushed.
Ahead of him, the back half of a white transit van rested on the shoulder, opened like a tin can.
Its front half was in the ditch on the opposite side of the road.
The driver’s-side door had an eight-pointed star showing it was from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
His scalp prickled. There was no reason a prison van should have been traveling on this road—except for the detour on 99.
Dimly aware of an older couple standing beside a Toyota Avalon pulling a teardrop trailer—apparently unscathed—Jordan thumbed his transmitter as he rolled slowly through the wreckage.
“Gracia, I’m about three miles north of Coarsegold.
We have a head-on collision involving at least three vehicles: a semi, a pickup, and a CDCR van.
We’re going to need fire, ambulances, and wreckers.
All hands on deck, including the coroner.
Reroute traffic as quickly as you can. This road’s going to be closed for hours. ”
“Understood, Sheriff,” Gracia answered.
Leaving his flashers on, he pulled his vehicle across both lanes to block the northern approach.
In the old days, he would have tossed flares, but given the fire outside Fresno and the constant fire danger in general, he had instructed his department to make do with triangle reflectors.
He’d have to drop a few after he checked for survivors.
Jordan took deep breaths as he stepped onto the asphalt.
He had arrived at the scenes of hundreds of accidents, but this was the worst one he’d ever seen.
He summoned the words of his dad, and his granddad before him, the mantra that had allowed three generations of Burkes to keep functioning enough to do their jobs in the aftermath of murder, rape, battery, child abuse, farm accidents, and countless overdoses.
When the shit goes down, you’re not a man. You’re the goddamn sheriff.
It was the kind of macho bullshit that usually made his skin crawl. But it worked.
“Sheriff?” called the elderly male onlooker in a quavering voice. “I looked, but I don’t think—”
“Please remain by your vehicle,” Jordan instructed him.
He headed for the pickup, which was closest. His throat tickled as he realized he recognized it—that it had, in fact, been parked in his driveway as recently as last week.
When he looked inside the mangled driver’s-side window, its safety glass nearly gone, he tried to swallow and couldn’t.
The bloodied, freckled face belonged to Bree McDaniel, his sixteen-year-old daughter’s best friend.
Her head was almost all he could see because the cab had crumpled around her, pinning her in place.
He yanked the door handle with both hands, but it didn’t budge.
Reaching inside, he put two fingers to her neck.
Her skin was warm, but her pulse was weak.
They’d need the Jaws of Life to get her out.
His vision blurred. It didn’t look like anybody else was with her, but it was hard to tell.
He didn’t want to leave her side, but he had to keep looking for other survivors.
There was nothing he could do until the fire trucks arrived.
Not a man. The goddamn sheriff.
He walked unsteadily to the front half of the prison van, face down in the weeds.
This driver was dead, a halo of blood ringing his head on the deflated airbag.
Open, surprised-seeming eyes looked up at him from the footwell of the passenger seat.
But the uniformed guard’s body was still belted into the passenger seat. Both men still had their guns.
Three dead, one barely alive. So far.
The goddamn sheriff.
He crossed the road again. A Hispanic woman wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackled hands and feet was lying half in and half out of the back of the van.
Her injuries were not immediately apparent, but she wasn’t moving.
Jordan lingered with her, checking in vain for signs of life but not finding any.
It was possible she’d been killed on impact by blunt force trauma.
The crash had happened so recently that he could still feel the heat from the hot tailpipes coming through the floor.
Four dead.
He circled the van, peering inside, calling out in the hope that someone could hear him, but no one answered.
Where the damage was the worst, he glimpsed orange fabric, red blood, and a few wisps of white hair.
Squeezing in for a better look, he recognized Molly Bailey, a meth dealer he’d known was headed back to the pen for multiple convictions.
His simple decision to schedule her transfer for today had sealed her fate.
Five.
Jordan walked over to the couple, finally taking them in. The husband was a bald man wearing shorts and white knee-high compression socks, and his wife had highlighted, chestnut hair at odds with her deeply creased face. Judging from their trailer, they were most likely on their way to Yosemite.
“Did you see this happen?”
“We got here after it happened,” said the old man, his hands tremoring. “Right after, I think.”
“Not that we know first aid,” said the woman.
“Did you see anyone leaving the scene?” Jordan asked, wondering if any other vehicles might have been involved.
“Yes,” said the man, nodding.
“What did the car look like?”
His wife shook her head firmly. “She wasn’t driving. She was jogging.”
“What was she wearing?”
“Orange . . . you know, prison clothes.”
“Which way did she go?”
“That way,” said the husband, pointing toward a partially downed barbed-wire fence and the trees beyond.
Jordan swore silently.
“Stay here until my deputies can take your statement,” he told the couple.
He radioed Gracia as he walked back to Bree’s truck. “We have five fatalities and one girl with life-threatening injuries. Notify CDCR they have two corrections officers and two prisoners deceased, plus one on the loose.”
“Will do, Sheriff. Beto is about two minutes out. The fire department is right behind him.”
He reached inside to check Bree’s pulse again. Nothing. He pressed his fingertips harder into her neck and found a heartbeat, agonizingly faint.
“Hang on, Bree. Help is coming.”
As if on cue, he heard sirens.