Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 25

"THEN HE DONE RUN off with ma truck, ma Hilda, ya know?"

Brodham nodded his head knowingly, wishing he could hurry up and wrap up the interview. But the trucker just kept talking. Brodham busied himself trying to place the man's peculiar accent while he pretended to listen. He already had everything he needed. At 1300 hours, a white Ford Escape had pulled into the truck stop carrying a young man and a male teenager. The man had waited outside while the teenager had gone in to pay for gas, then left through the back. Sometime later, the man had followed, asking for him. Assaulted the cashier, according to the witnesses, then run out the back as well.

About a minute later, both had come running from the side of the convenience store and had fought over entry to the vehicle. The teenager had been inside, and when the man grew aggravated, he attempted to drive away. The man had held onto the luggage rack, and that was where the venerable Clehyde Van Hellemont here had entered the picture.

He'd run over and pulled the man off the SUV – assault in itself, Brodham had almost said – then pinned him to the ground. "Pinned him." Those were the truckers words, although according to the platinum-blonde in the halter top and butt-length bleached jean shorts currently talking to Vickers, he had "just kind of tumbled over him."

"He jemped it right over thar hill," Van Hellemont continued. "Jumped it right over." It was almost Appalachian, but had a hint of Michiganian twang around the vowels. Wisconsin? Flemish?

"And like ah said, must'a been into something dirty with thar kid. Didn't want thar boy gettin' outa his sight, right? Not outa his sight one bit. I'da been watchin' him waitin' fer gas. Watched thar boy all the way in and then some. Somethin' dirty thar, you bet yin stars." Thar. Where in the hell did that come from? Brodham had never heard anyone use that pronunciation, and the trucker seemed to use it interchangeably for "there" and "that." Might be somewhere north of the border, Brodham considered. Ottowa maybe, or Tracadie, somewhere in the boonies out of Quebec. "Van Hellemont" had a French ring to it. Or Belgian. German? Not a chance.

He realized Van Hellemont had switched tones, was addressing him. He snapped back to reality.

"Huh?"

"Ah says, did ye catch him? The goodfernuthin trash done stole ma Hilda?"

"Oh. Not yet, sir. We're working on it."

"Wunnina hell ya mean 'not yet'? Et's a forty ton truck yer chasin'. Aint exactly a dem muskrat, ye know?"

Brodham clenched his teeth. He did know, and he didn't need to hear it from this yokel. As a matter of fact, they had found the truck. At the bottom of a sixty-foot gorge. A frantic salesman in a blue Saab had called it in, and they had two agents doing the preliminaries while he and Vickers finished up here. They'd be over there next. The salesman had also mentioned the white Escape, but so far they hadn't picked up its trail.

"We'll let you know if we hear anything, Mr. Van Hellemont," Brodham said. Let someone else break the news about the truck. He felt a headache coming on, and suddenly couldn't stand ten more seconds talking to the trucker. With a curt nod, he walked away to join Vickers.

Vickers saw him coming, and quickly thanked the blonde for her time.

"God, the people here," Vickers breathed once the blonde was out of earshot.

"Should have heard the load from the trucker. Should be getting a Medal of Honor, the way he sees it."

"So what've we got?" Vickers asked.

"Vehicle descriptions match the DMV records of Rachel Parson's Ford."

"Right, which explains where that went."