Heaven Painted as a Poker Chip Read online

  She had watched him do that, marveling at how toned and in-shape he was. He must run and lift weights as well to stay in that shape.

  “That already feels better,” he said.

  “When was the last time you undressed in the back seat of a car?” she asked.

  She was now working on getting her boots off and failing because of the tight back seat and her cold fingers.

  “First year of college,” he said. “Her husband was home and my roommate was home.”

  “Oh, that had to be fun.”

  “Actually it was. Let me help,” he said, indicating her boots.

  She swung her legs up and around on his lap and he quickly got them both off.

  “So how about you?” he asked as she pulled off the socks and wrung them out and draped them over the back of her seat close to the window beside her head. Her feet were so cold, she couldn’t even feel them anymore.

  “High school senior prom,” she said, remembering that disaster of a night. “I didn’t take my dress off, just my underwear. Nothing happened. I touched him, he touched me, and it was all over. But he did have to clean the back seat of his parent’s car.”

  Tommy actually laughed. “Poor guy. That had to be embarrassing.”

  “I always figured that was something better to learn early about a guy rather than later.”

  Then she turned back, raised up her hips, and worked her pants down over her hips. She had worn white standard underwear, not some of her fancy stuff. They were so wet, they looked transparent, but at this point, she didn’t care.

  He managed to kick off his cowboy boots and pull off his socks.

  Then as she was working out of her jeans, he pushed his down as well.

  His underwear was soaked wet as well and clung to every shape. The cold clearly wasn’t affecting that part of him at all, and she liked that view a lot.

  Wow. Could ghosts be sexy?

  The exercise was warming her right up, or something was.

  She wrung out her jeans as best she could, then draped them over the back of Ben’s seat. Tommy did the same to his jeans, spreading them out over the two front seats.

  Then she unbuttoned and slipped off her white blouse and got the water out of it, hanging it off a door handle. Then at the same time, they both slipped off their underwear and wrung them out as well.

  “I think I might actually warm up now,” she said, letting out a sigh.

  “I know I’m warming up,” he said, laughing.

  She glanced down at his penis, which was clearly larger. “I can see that. I didn’t know you were into necrophilia. I’m dead, remember?”

  He just shook his head and laughed again, something she was really enjoying. She loved how easily he laughed, even in this situation. She had only hoped as a doctor after years of practice to be that calm in the face of death and crisis.

  “Put your feet up there between the passenger chair and the door,” he said. “Should be hot air flowing from the heater there.”

  She put her feet up toward the passenger door and he turned slightly so his feet were toward the driver’s door in the same position. Then she leaned against him and he put his arm around her.

  This is nice,” she said, taking a deep breath, enjoying the feel of his chest against her back and his strong arm around her.

  She was dead, she knew that. They both were dead in a tragic accident.

  And now they were ghosts for some reason.

  Still, sitting here naked together in the back of this patrol car just felt right.

  And she had no idea why.

  EIGHT

  TOMMY WAS ENJOYING sitting naked with Jewel in the back seat of the sheriff’s car more than he wanted to admit. How they were sitting, he could see everything about her body, from her small, firm breasts with tight brown nipples to her flat stomach and brown pubic hair.

  Somehow, he managed to keep his arm on her arm, but a number of times he wondered if she wanted him to just ease his arm over and touch her breast.

  Damn, he felt like he was back in high school again. How was that possible? He had just died.

  “Shouldn’t we be upset that we were killed?” he asked her.

  “I would think so,” she said. “But I don’t feel that way for some reason. In fact, I feel like I’m still very much alive, which is more than likely why being dead hasn’t sunk in yet.”

  She was right. He was feeling alive as well. Very much so, and very much attracted to the woman in his arms.

  “Me too,” he said. “Maybe more alive than I was before the wreck.”

  She turned her head and looked at his penis, which was not in full erection, but very much alive as well.

  “Yup, I can see that,” she said, laughing softly.

  “Trust me,” he said, “if your fantastic body didn’t do that to that part of my body, I really would be dead.”

  She reached across and squeezed his arm that was holding her. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  She laughed. “Are you going to have to clean up the sheriff’s car before we leave?”

  “Not without some pretty significant help from you,” he said.

  At that moment, the sheriff and Ben got back into the car.

  Both Tommy and Jewel sat up quickly, but neither of them had a chance to move their clothing.

  The two live men didn’t seem to notice them at all, or the fact that two naked ghosts were sitting in the back seat.

  “You going to be okay?” the sheriff asked poor Ben.

  Tommy really felt sorry for the kid. No one should be forced to look at what that kid saw in that car.

  The first time Tommy had seen something like that was after a firefight in Afghanistan. Three Taliban had tried to make an escape in a small car and when Tommy’s unit was finished, the small car looked more like sponge.

  That had been in Tommy’s first month of deployment. No young person should ever be forced to look inside a car like that, or inside the patrol car that Ben had looked into tonight.

  Ben nodded in response to the sheriff’s question. Then asked, “So what happens next?”

  “Help arrives from Bonnie County in the next twenty minutes,” the sheriff said. “We’re going to need to set up flares to warn traffic.”

  Tommy knew that, but that wouldn’t be needed until more people started to arrive.

  The sheriff went on “Two tow trucks from the forest service are headed here now and it’ll take both of them working together to pull the car up. Then the medical examiner from down in Bonnie will take the bodies once we get them out.”

  “We’re not going to get them out down there?” Ben asked. Tommy had wanted to ask the same question, but didn’t because neither of the men would hear him.

  “They’re more than dead,” the sheriff said. “No point in risking injury and lives of men to go down there and pry them out when they could do it right here on the road. Won’t make a damn bit of difference.”

  Ben nodded.

  “But,” the sheriff said, “I’m going to need you to go back down there, Ben, and take pictures of everything, including the best you can of Tommy and the Doc. Think you can do that?”

  “I can,” he said, swallowing and then nodding. “I’ll do it with both the crime scene camera and my phone to make sure we got it all.”

  “Good,” the sheriff said, nodding. “Let’s get that going before company starts arriving.”

  With that both men climbed out of the car and closed the doors, again leaving the car running and the heater going. Tommy knew that was standard on cold nights to leave the car running and the heater going for a place to warm up.

  Tommy glanced over at Jewel who sat back, an arm across her chest, her other hand covering her crotch area.

  “A bashful ghost?” he asked, smiling at her.

  She shook her head, clearly realizing how she was sitting. Then leaned forward and got her pants and again wrung them out where Ben had gotten them wet again w
ith the water off his slicker.

  Tommy did the same for his shirt and his pants, wringing both out again. But this time they were feeling dryer.

  “I feel bad for Ben,” she said.

  “So do I,” Tommy said. “The kid is young and this will bother him the rest of his life. But the sheriff has no choice. Ben has to do it because the sheriff knows that climbing down that hill might kill him.”

  “That hill killed us,” Jewel said, putting her feet back up and leaning back into him again.

  “That it did,” Tommy said, enjoying the view once again of her wonderful body stretched out in the back of the patrol car. “But I sure don’t feel dead.”

  “Neither do I,” she said. “And that’s bothering me a lot. I’m not angry, not sad, not feeling like all my education was a waste. Nothing. I feel like I’m just moving on to the next part of my life and all that training is going to come in handy somehow.”

  “I feel exactly the same way,” he said.

  “So what do we do next?”

  “We sit here warm until our car is up and on the road and our bodies are taken.”

  “You think we might end up being pulled with our bodies?”

  “I hope not,” Tommy said, suddenly very worried about that. “And I hope like hell we’re not stuck out here haunting this corner for all eternity.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, sitting up and turning to face him directly. “You don’t think that might happen?”

  “Never been a ghost before,” Tommy said, shrugging. “No clue. We’re just going to have to wait and see if we can catch a ride with the sheriff back into town.”

  She sat there, a horrified look on her face. “That would be hell.”

  “I honestly don’t think that’s going to happen,” Tommy said. “I feel we’re to do something more. Don’t you?”

  She nodded slowly. “That’s what it feel like to me as well.”

  “Then we relax and wait,” he said. “Unless you want to get dressed and head out walking back toward town. It’s about nine dark and wet miles. We could make it in a couple of hours.”

  She turned around and stretched out again, putting her beautiful legs up so her feet would get warm from the heater.

  “Let’s wait.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because I’m still enjoying this.”

  “Really?” she asked, glancing at his penis again and then nodding. “Guess so.”

  “This is heaven,” he said.

  “So just staring is heaven to you?” she asked.

  “A first level of heaven,” he said, laughing.

  NINE

  TOMMY MANAGED TO not make a pass at her and she managed to not make a pass at him over the next few hours, although a couple of times she had been tempted. She just didn’t feel it was right so soon after being killed.

  Something seemed wrong about that. She wasn’t sure just what.

  They just sat naked, talking about their lives, their years in college, their old boyfriends and girlfriends. The more she heard about Deputy Tommy Ralston, the man, the ghost, the more she liked.

  And she really liked his sense of humor and his ability to stay calm in this situation. She tried to get him to talk a little about his three years in the Marines, but he had simply said, “We can talk about that later. Just say it taught me a lot about life and paid for my education so far.”

  Just as being an intern in a major Seattle hospital had taught her more than she ever wanted to know about life and death.

  “So why come to Buffalo Jump?” he asked.

  “Pay off debts and get away from the insanity of big city hospitals,” she said.

  He had nodded and let it go at that. She didn’t add in that she had been engaged a year before she left and didn’t really want to be married to another doctor. She had broke it off and part of the reason going so far away was to not have to be around him any more either.

  She wondered if he had something similar. People moving into the middle of nowhere often did.

  After three hours, their clothes were dry enough that she suggested that they get dressed. The clothes were still damp and cold, but would warm quick enough.

  She was kind of disappointed he wasn’t going to be naked. She had enjoyed him looking at her body and she sure liked looking at his.

  Outside, on the highway, it now looked pretty crazy. Two tow trucks with large winches were backed up to the edge of the road and blocked into place so there was no chance they would go over.

  The medical coroner’s van from Walsa had arrived. It was the only small hospital that had staff and an emergency room between Buffalo Jump and Missoula. And it had the only working coroner in five counties. That van got a lot of mileage she had heard.

  After they were dressed, she and Tommy both just sat side-by-side, hips touching, and watched through the rain-covered front window as the two trucks pulled the smashed patrol car with their bodies up the slope and onto the road.

  Two of the men who first looked in, turned and lost their lunches onto the side of the road.

  “We are not a pretty sight,” Tommy said.

  “Extreme death never is,” she said.

  It took the sheriff and three others about an hour to get their bodies out of the car.

  Jewel thought it weird to watch her body being laid out on a stretcher on the road and covered.

  “I’m still wearing the white blouse and jeans there,” she said, pointing to her body. “So what are these?” She pulled on the slightly damp fabric of her white blouse.

  Tommy glanced at her and just shook his head. “There’s a whole mess of things about this I’m not understanding.”

  “Me too,” she said. And she hated that feeling. She had a hunch Tommy did as well. He seemed like the same kind of person she was, a person who needed answers and reasons why things worked.

  The clock on the dashboard said it was a little after two a.m. when the coroner’s van pulled away with their bodies in it.

  They stayed seated in the warm back seat of the sheriff’s car.

  She was relieved. And didn’t feel a thing as the van disappeared around a corner.

  “Looks like we don’t have a connection to those hunks of flesh anymore,” Tommy said, clearly sounding relieved.

  “Yeah, thankfully,” she said. “I didn’t feel a thing as they were twisting my body to get it out of there.”

  “I didn’t either,” Tommy said. “So that answers that question.”

  They sat in silence as the smashed patrol car was loaded onto one of the two tow trucks and it headed off down the road, followed by the other one.

  “Where are they taking it?” she asked.

  “A state police impound yard about two hours away toward Missoula.”

  Sheriff and Ben talked with a few others for a few minutes, then the sheriff nodded and he and Ben came back toward the car.

  “Here we go,” Tommy said, sitting back.

  She pushed closer to Tommy and reached out and held his hand. He squeezed her hand gently, and didn’t let go.

  The sheriff and Ben got in at the same time. Ben took his hat off and tossed it onto the floor in the back seat. Some water splashed on her, but it didn’t matter.

  Ben didn’t see them.

  The sheriff just left his hat on.

  The sheriff did a quick U-turn and headed back for Buffalo Jump.

  After about a half mile, she let out a breath and squeezed Tommy’s hand. “Looks like we’re not stuck back there at least.”

  Tommy let out a huge breath as well and nodded. “That would have not been fun.”

  In the front seat, neither man said a word to each other. Clearly they were in shock and tired.

  Finally, as they got close to Buffalo Jump, Ben turned to the sheriff. “Anything I can do to help?”

  The sheriff just shook his head. “Just try to get some sleep and get those pictures into the office when you can.”

  “I will,” Ben said.

  “And kid, th
anks for the good work tonight. I know it wasn’t easy.”

  Ben only nodded and said nothing.

  Suddenly, she had a thought that made her jump. “Sheriff, remember I was going on a medical emergency?”

  The sheriff didn’t seem to hear her.

  She reached forward and tried to touch his shoulder, but her hand went through. She could feel the sadness and extreme exhaustion he was feeling. And the anger at the entire situation.

  She pulled back and looked at her hand.

  “Weird, huh?” Tommy asked.

  “Very,” she said. She leaned forward again, tried to just lightly touch his shoulder and then said loudly, “Original medical emergency.”

  Then she sat back, frustrated.

  A moment later, the sheriff turned to Ben as they pulled up in front of Ben’s small trailer. “There is one thing you can do for me.”

  “Anything, sheriff,” the young kid said.

  “Call down to the state police and have them send a doctor on the original medical call Tommy and the Doc were headed on. I forgot all about that until just now.”

  “Will do, sheriff,” Ben said.

  Tommy looked at her, surprise on his face. “That worked. Wow!”

  “As you said,” Jewel said, smiling, “a bunch of stuff we don’t know about this new ghost status just yet.”

  Ben reached back and grabbed his hat from the floor, his hand brushing Jewel’s leg.

  And as it did, she got a clear image of the young college girl from Missoula tied up in the shed behind his trailer.

  And she knew exactly what he planned to do to her tonight, and it wasn’t pretty.

  Jewel jerked back and damn near climbed on Tommy’s lap.

  “What?” Tommy asked.

  She stared at Ben, then turned to Tommy. “We got to get out here. Now! I’ll explain,” she said. “Hurry.”

  As Ben climbed out one side, Tommy pretended to open the door and just climb out the other.

  She scooted over and did the same, finding herself standing on the road beside the car next to Tommy.

  The cold was biting and harsh, but at least the rain had stopped. The gravel under her feet felt frozen solid.