Parallel Lies by Ridley Pearson Read Free Book Online

So why
was
Priest there? he wondered. And though he didn’t want to face it, he also had to wonder why Rucker had offered him the chance to pick up three or four days’ work instead of sending a regular NTSB investigator. His explanation had been simple enough: Tyler’s expertise set himapart. But curiosity got the better of him now and encouraged him to drive faster.
    It was after 9 P.M. when he arrived at the Terre Haute yard, another massive area of rust, rails, and parked railcars. He spotted Priest’s Suburban already parked. He touched the hood of the vehicle and found it barely warm. She had beaten him here by at least a full half hour.
    Bothered by having to play catch-up, Tyler entered the office of Max Shast, night foreman. Nell Priest occupied one of the two free chairs, her full-length coat draped over the other. This was the first time Tyler had seen her with the coat off, and it had been hiding plenty. She wore a light gray wool suit with a dark blue silk blouse unbuttoned at the collar. The skirt was probably above the knee when she stood, because it was well above the knee when she sat. To look at her, his first reaction was cover girl or supermodel. In her early thirties, she was a little too perfect for him—fine to look at but nothing to mess with. Women that beautiful carried baggage, they had lived with too much of the wrong kind of attention. Her hair was pulled back severely from her face and held with a southwestern-style Indian-bead-and-silver clasp. She wore her watch on her left wrist, suggesting she was right-handed, and a plain silver ring on her right hand. Her wrist was so slight the watchband fit her loosely like a bangle. He figured her for a tattoo tucked in a provocative place on her body, a tiny rose maybe. He indicated her coat. She dragged it off the chair and folded it across her lap.
    Shast came around and hung the outer garment on a coat-rack outside. Tyler sat down. The room smelled of corn chips and coffee.
    “We were just wrapping up,” Priest said in what sounded to him like an imperious tone.
    “How did I guess that?” Tyler asked.
    She smiled her best smile.
    Shast said, “Ms. Priest tells me you’re looking for a pairof riders, maybe boarded here, maybe somewhere between here and St. Louis.”
    “One or both of whom may have subsequently been beaten pretty badly,” Tyler reminded him. “A description of one or both wouldn’t hurt us any.”
    Shast responded, “As I was explaining to the lady, boarding here is a possibility, of course, but more typically these guys jump the trains out in the countryside.”
    Priest said, “Mr. Shast says that it’s a busy line. Lots of traffic coming through at all hours.”
    Shast said, “We toss some guys, sure we do. I mean, if we find ‘em, we toss ‘em. But it’s not a top priority.”
    Priest added, “Dozens come through a week, even in the winter, he’s guessing.”
    “No names, no faces,” Tyler suggested, sensing a dead end. “A parade of the homeless.”
    “You got it.”
    “We need more than that,” Tyler encouraged the man. “One of these guys is either dead by now or close to it. That can’t be left to stand.” He, Tyler, had done something awful to another man, and it was to be left to stand for all time.
    Priest said, “Mr. Tyler and I are feeling the pressure of time, Mr. Shast. You can appreciate that, I’m sure. These two people in the boxcar bled badly. They need medical attention. St. Louis hospitals report no such admissions. We need some help here.”
    Tyler found her beauty distracting—maybe that was part of her technique. Shast, too, could barely keep his eyes off her.
    “It’s not like I know these guys personally,” he complained. “I’m telling you: dozens, a hundred or more maybe, come through here every week.”
    Tyler pressed, “We believe it possible that one or both of them might have reversed direction. The storm has backloggedthe St. Louis yard. Trains were moving east in