Page 1 of Justice for Aleta

Chapter 1

“Stop. Just stop. I said no.”

“Oh, come on, Jack. This is a great opportunity and you know it. Take off that silly hat and uniform and come join us,” AmosFletcher chided his younger brother.

“I like what I do. I feel like I make a difference.”

“Yeah, you do. But look what happened to Palmer. That could happen to you too.” Amos just had to bring that up, and it infuriated Jack. Kentucky State Troopers weren’t dying on the side of the road every damn day.

“If it does, it does.” He wanted to add,I don’t have a lot to live for anyway, but he didn’t. Since his fiancée, Heather, had died from leukemia, he hadn’t really cared about his love life. The state trooper and the surgical nurse had planned a life together, a good life, and that had been cut short. Every day was a struggle for him to go on. At least in that uniform he knew he was doing something good for others.

“Jack, listen to me. I know the last few months have been hard, and I’m sorry. But this is the kind of thing that doesn’t happen often. Our agents tend to stay until retirement.”

Amos would never understand, primarily because he didn’t want to. Jack’s older brother had always pushed him, always tried to tell him what to do, always goaded him when he didn’t live up to the standard set for him, and Jack was tired of it. He loved Amos, but enough was enough. “I’m not taking the position. That’s final. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Amos was still talking when Jack hit END and dropped the phone onto the sofa beside him.

That was his typical evening, sitting on the sofa, staring at the TV, trying to choke down something to eat and going to bed as early as he dared. If he went to bed too early, he lay awake in the wee hours of the morning, and that was the worst. When that happened, he could hear Heather’s voice, feel her skin against his, smell her perfume, and practically see her there in the room with him, but that was an illusion. And he always wound up disappointed.

The next call was his dad. Jack didn’t answer it. He knew what that was about?Amos had called Henry and sicced him on Jack. Well, it wouldn’t work. He was wise to them. Pushing the power button on the phone twice, he rejected the call and dropped the phone again.

He was staying right where he was, in the world they’d created. He might not have much, but he had that, and he planned to hold onto it for dear life.

* * *

God,it was foggy! He hated foggy mornings in that area. With stone bluffs, river gorges, and hills and curves everywhere, the BluegrassParkway, or BGP as the locals called it, was a force to be reckoned with when it came to navigation in low visibility. Headed east away from Bardstown, he crested a hill at barely forty miles an hour?the fastest he dared drive in fog that thick?and started down the decline. That was the moment he spotted them.

On the other side of the road, barely visible, was a small cluster of cars, or at least that’s what it looked like. He checked the median, but it was hard to tell how deep it might be, so he drove on until he found a cross drive. They’d been at least two miles back, and he kept wishing visibility would improve just a little.

One vehicle’s flashers were on, and he pulled up behind them and turned on every light he had. At that moment, his primary thought was to keep his own car from being rear-ended by someone who couldn’t see it sitting there. After radioing his dispatch, he stepped carefully from his car and closed the door.

There were only two cars. Jack’s brow furrowed. He could’ve sworn there were three, and he was usually very reliable with observations. But sure enough, all that sat there was a small, red compact car buried in the side of a white minivan. He stepped to the red car first. The driver was slumped over the wheel, and one press of a finger to his neck told Jack he was deceased. He radioed in his discovery and carried on.

The van was empty, but there was blood on the dash, so he started to look around. Where were the occupants? There weren’t a lot of places they could be. The roadway had no one in it, and the side of the BluegrassParkway was steep there, dropping away under the small bridge the vehicles sat on. It spanned a creek bed, but under both ends were rock formations typical of those in the area. As he walked around the back of the van, he heard it.

Crying.

“Hello? Kentucky State TrooperFletcher! Can anyone hear me?”

A thin, small voice called out, “Help me! Please help me!”

Jack ran toward the sound and he almost stepped on her. The woman sat there on the ground, blood all over her, her left arm bent at a weird angle and her right leg in about the same condition. It was impossible to tell how old she was or where else she might be injured because of the blood that covered her. He hit the button on his shoulder-mounted mic. “Central dispatch, this is KSP unit seven. I need assistance from law enforcement and medical personnel. Repeat, I need assistance from law enforcement and medical personnel. Two individuals involved in a multi-vehicle traffic collision at approximately mile marker twenty-two.”

He was interrupted by the woman. “NO! My son and my husband! Please, help us!”

“Ma’am, I’m a Kentucky State Trooper. I’m here to help you. Just stay calm and we’ll get you some?”

“MY HUSBAND AND MY SON! Please help them! Oh, dear Jesus, please help them,” she repeated in more of a moan as she lifted her right arm and pointed toward the bridge.

Jack couldn’t understand. He looked at the scene around him, then glanced at the van. There was a car seat there, but when he checked it, there was no child. Inching along the side of the pavement and onto the bridge, looking for any clue, even the most insignificant -thing that might tell him what the woman was talking about, he stepped fifteen feet out onto the bridge and saw something below it.

There, on the rocks sixty feet below, was an infant, still and quiet, a huge pool of blood under its head. Just feet away lay a man, his body mangled by the fall, blood everywhere. It was a sight so horrifying that he could barely breathe?and then he snapped to. “Central dispatch, we have multiple victims, including an infant. Repeat, multiple victims.”

“KSP unit seven, this is central dispatch. We have emergency services en route. Emergency services en route. ETA three minutes or less.”

Jack could hear the sirens as he tried to pick his way down to the rocky ledge, but it was a perilous path. His shoes were definitely not made for that kind of terrain, and he’d be no good to anyone if he ended up down there too. There was no doubt in his mind that the infant was deceased, and the man… well, there was nothing Jack could do for him anyway. The best he could do was stay with the woman and try to figure out what had happened.

In five minutes, another KSP cruiser, three NelsonCounty Sheriff’s Department cruisers, and three ambulances occupied the space around Jack’s DodgeCharger. The woman was receiving assistance in one of the ambulances, but emergency personnel had finally reached the two individuals below the bridge. And in both cases, they’d looked up at the law enforcement officers standing on the bridge and given them the one sign Jack really hadn’t wanted to see.

Thumbs-down.

---