JEEP the ripper part 2

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

By R. Peterson

            The screams were deafening inside the now free car; I rolled down my window to save my ears as the Dodge Matador crashed through the guardrail and careened high into the air above Devil’s Canyon. I barely caught a glimpse of Jeep the Ripper’s wagging tail-lights as we rolled over and began to plummet a thousand feet to the river below.

My partner, Tom Wesley, fumbled a battered package of Cool cigarettes from the glove compartment and somehow lit a torn one between shrieks. “I thought you quit smoking?”

“What the hell!” he sneered. His hair was blown straight back from the wind. “We’re going to die anyway!”

The metal tow-chain that had been attached to the Ripper’s Jeep, whipped through the air and cracked the windshield before trailing like a huge snake behind the plunging car. “Damn!” I muttered. “They’re gonna want us to pay for that!”

I decided to try the radio one more time. “This is detective John Elmo,” I tried to keep my voice calm. “We need assistance!”

Dispatcher Molly Hubbard sounded as if she had a mouth full of potato chips; I could hear her munching and a rustling sound as she carefully closed the bag. “Oh hi John,” she said. “I’ve been wondering why you haven’t called in.” Wesley had finished the cigarette in two long drags and was lighting another. “What is your location?”

            “A thousand feet above Devil’s Canyon,” I screamed. Wesley looked out his window. “Eight-hundred feet,” he corrected.

            “Oh that nice pullout above the canyon,” Molly said. “I’ve always wanted to go back there. What a lovely view you have!”

            “We’re going to die!” I bellowed. “We’re about one hundred yards north of the pullout!”

            “But the highway turns west there,” Molly spoke slowly as if looking at a map. “That would put you over the edge and …”

            “Falling! Damn it!” I screamed.

            “There’s no reason to use profanity,” Molly said. “Call back when you find a civil tongue.”

Wesley was smoking his fourth cigarette. “She hung up!” I moaned.

            “Strange,” Wesley said. “But it almost seems like were floating.”

My partner was right. The wind rushing through the windows was now just a breeze. We both stuck our heads out and looked upward. The Dodge Matador was attached to a large army surplus parachute the kind designed to land heavy vehicles in hard to get places. Jeep the Ripper must have activated it when he released the tow chain. Written with a grease gun on the billowing red white and blue silk underside was another message from the ripper.

Dear Boss,

This ain’t over yet … because I don’t want it to be. Careful you don’t get wet… and you’ll be seeing me!

Yours truly

Jeep the Ripper

Thirty seconds later we discovered the Dodge Matador had an uncanny ability to float in the raging white water … for almost two minutes.

-------2-------

            “I should never have put you two morons on the case!” Captain Wolfe was livid. “If it wasn’t for the quick thinking of our dispatcher you two would still be lying on that island twenty miles downstream.

            “It was nothing,” Molly happened to be walking past on her way to the vending machines. “I was on my way home and decided to have an officer swing by to see if you’d calmed down any.”

I was still hurting from the series of rabies shots the paramedics insisted on giving me. “That beaver got in three good bites and could have been rabid!” Captain Wolfe growled. “Why didn’t you climb a tree like Wesley?”

            “His foot was caught in the beaver trap!” Wesley said. “And there wasn’t just one beaver there was a whole family!”

-------3-------

We were given two weeks suspension without pay. During that time no more was heard from Jeep the Ripper. We were beginning to think he moved out of state or had been involved in an accident. I imagined the jeep rusting away in some salvage yard and I could almost relax … then the call came.

            A morning-sickness green 1971 Dodge Coronet Custom station wagon owned by hairdresser Elisabeth Stride had been hung from a historic oak tree in the city park. When we arrived on the scene a weeping Elisabeth Stride was cutting Captain Wolfe’s hair as he sat on a park bench. “What?” he demanded when we stared. “I had an appointment!”

            “My God!” Wesley gasped as he pointed to the famous three hundred year oak.

An industrial sized meat-hook connected to heavy cable had been attached to the water pump and the tremendous applied force had broken the motor mounts as the helpless vehicle had been winched high into the air. Sometime after the initial lift, the transmission mounts as well as the heavy bolts holding the rear leaf springs had broken and the entire drive train assembly was strung Shish kebab style above the car like a trout that had been gutted by an amateur fisherman.

            “When did you last see your car in a drivable condition?” Wesley asked Elisabeth.

A team of tree surgeons and Clabber City officials were trying to decide how best to lower the car without damaging the City’s famous landmark. “Easy now!” A man from the historical society warned the nervous man operating the crane. “George Washington relieved himself behind this tree after the British drove him out of Boston.”

She gasped as the car was slowly lowered to the ground. “Last night when I parked in the driveway,” she sobbed. “I was going to park it in the garage but Henry has his plants growing in there under artificial lights.”

A noisy plane flew over us … and I had to wait for my next question.

            “What time was this?” I asked. I shook my head. Over the past several years hundreds of grown men in the community had suddenly become interested in horticulture. Whatever happened to bowling?

            “Oh Henry’s been growing his plants for years,” she said. “He and his friends seem to enjoy them but I think the flowers are plain … and really not that pretty.”

            “I’m talking about your car!” I indulged her.

The plane was flying in circles. I was tempted to pull my gun!

            “About six O’clock,” she said. “I’d stopped at the store to get Henry’s Ding Dongs on the way home.”

            “Did you notice any strange vehicles driving past your house … perhaps while you were watering your yard?” Wesley noticed the sprinkler attached to a garden hose when it sprayed his leg. That damn plane was flying overhead again and we had to wait for it to pass to be heard clearly.

            “There was one …” Elisabeth said. “A dusty Jeep with a winch attached to the front. But I figured it was one of George’s friends. He tells them to come around after dark. I don’t think he wants the neighbors to know he’s into flowers and all that stuff.”

            “You think this case is related to the Ripper Mutilations?” Captain Wolfe was looking in a mirror.

            “It doesn’t fit,” I said. “The Ripper always leaves a note.”

Just then the branch, the Dodge Coronet was attached to, broke and the car plunged to the ground with a terrific boom. Exhaust pipes, gears, lug-nuts, fenders, broken glass, a car seat, gaskets and a gas-tank rolled and tumbled across the grass. We all looked up to see how damaged the tree was. The plane flying overhead was a sky writer. Written with white smoke were these words:

Dear Boss,

I’ve missed you … let’s have some fun. Why so blue?  I’m never done!

Yours truly

Jeep the Ripper

“I’ll bet that cost him a pretty penny,” One of the officers looking up at the sky muttered.

Captain Wolfe had just stood up and was brushing off his uniform. “Henry Stride is a good friend of mine,” he bragged. “And Elisabeth gives me a discount.”

-------4-------

The Clabber City Police Department ended up buying the Dodge Matador when it came from the repair shop. The captain insisted that we use it for our patrol car. We were sitting at the same stakeout next to the car wash and between two used car lots that we’d used before. “When something works you don’t change things!” Wolfe had growled.

Annie Chapman’s live in boyfriend, Juan Hernández, had done the repairs for the department at a discount rate and he’d also installed hydraulic lifts connected to the car’s radio and cigarette lighter. Whenever Wesley, who was now a chain smoker, lit a cigarette the car’s radio/tape-deck would blast an extra raunchy and loud version of La Cucaracha while the car bounced and danced sideways on the asphalt.

Wesley was on his second pack of cigarettes when the call came. “What the hell?” Dispatcher Molly Hubbard sounded as if she had a mouth full of peanut brittle. “This is the fourth time I’ve tried to call you idiots,” she said. “All I get is two guys snoring and south-of-the-border music blasting through some cracked speakers. What are you doing, having a fiesta while you’re supposed to be working?”

            “We’re trying not to attract attention,” Wesley explained.

            “Jeep the Ripper called more than an hour ago,” Molly said. “He wants you to meet him at the old foundry on Canyon Road in …” They could hear her remove a leg of lamb from her arm and look at her watch, “… fifteen minutes. He said if you’re late or you notify any cops he’s going to slice another Dodge.”

            “Doesn’t he know we work for the department?” Wesley asked.

            “Captain Wolfe said to do whatever the Ripper wants and to send you guys there,” Molly said. “He’s at Elisabeth Stride’s getting another haircut.”

            “He just got one …” I looked at my watch, “nine hours ago!”

            “Some of us like to look sharp!” Molly hung up.

-------5-------

The Clabber County foundry had been closed for more than twenty years, ever since the United States started buying steel and iron from Japan. A security man with a long white beard and a bird’s nest on his head sat in a tiny shack near the front entrance. “Are you here to relieve me?” He sounded like a drowning man who’s spotted an island.

            “We’re cops!” Wesley told him.

            “I didn’t do it!” The man backed out of the shack with his arms raised. A mangy black bird flew out of the shack crapped on our windshield and then soared away; baby birds could be heard chirping.

            “Do what?” I asked.

            “I’ll never tell!” the man turned and started to run. Wesley pulled his gun and shot him squarely in the back.

            “What did you do that for?”

            “That was a Starling that flew,” Wesley said. “Can you imagine someone helping them nest?”

I pulled my own gun and put two slugs in the security man for good measure.

-------6-------

It was inexplicably hot inside the old foundry. We parked the Matador and stood under a huge cauldron capable of pouring fifty tons of molten steel into forms stacked in a circle around us. I wiped my sweaty face with a rag while Wesley lit another cigarette. He barely escaped from the Dodge before it started dancing. The ceiling was more than sixty foot tall in this part of the building. I thought I heard a motor running on a platform high above us. “Jeep the Ripper is that you?” I yelled. There was silence then after a moment we both heard a tiny beep.

            “We’re here … what do you want?” There was a long silence again and then a series of long beeps mixed with short ones.

            “It’s Morse Code!” Wesley said taking out his notepad. “The Ripper is trying to communicate with us!”

The series of long and short beeps continued and Wesley wrote furiously. Finally he handed me the notepad.

Dear Boss,

I don’t get off on your Spanish tunes. And dancing cars are just for goons! I’m heavy metal born and bred. Run for your lives or else your dead.

Yours truly

Jeep the Ripper

We heard the sound of a winch beginning to wind and the massive cauldron above us began to tilt. Molten steel the consistency of fiery lava began to pour from the huge vessel. I looked around but there was no place to run. “Inside the car,” I screamed.

TO BE CONTINUED