Scheduled to Death

by Mary Feliz

  “After the EMTs check you out, let’s get you in my car and I’ll take you home. You first, Maggie.” He took my hands and helped me stand up. “Steady. We’re going to take this slowly. Linc, stay there. I’ll come spot you after I get Maggie settled.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Linc. He opened the car door, stepped out, and stood, leaning against the side of the vehicle. “Yikes, Maggie, I don’t think there’s much paint left on this side. When they find the truck, it will have your paint all over it. Lots of evidence.”

  The EMTs looked us both over. While they recommended transporting us to the emergency room and insisted that Linc consult a doctor about his hand in the morning, they let us go. Paolo got us both settled in his Subaru, the floor of which was covered with the remains of fast-food meals. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been catching meals wherever I could while this investigation is going on. Just shove all that stuff to the side.”

  He pulled out a tape recorder, turned it on, and placed it in a cup holder. “The official procedure here would be for me to take you in and question you each individually about what happened,” he said. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll tape our conversation and talk to you again when you’re good and rested. Seems to me that as tired as you two are, sleep is now a medical necessity.” He rattled off a description of the time and location, had us each identify ourselves, and say that we knew we were being recorded and had given our permission.

  As we described what had happened, I realized that the explosion at Stanford was news to Paolo. “I’ve been closed up in the conference room, trying to make sense of Apfel’s paperwork, and didn’t get called to the scene. If he was there, though, I should have been too. We’re supposed to be a team, unless maybe he shouldn’t have been there, either.”

  He pounded the flat of his hand against the steering wheel. “I’ve had it with that guy. He’s by the book when he wants to be and throws the rules out when it suits him, but nothing he does has much to do with the people we’re supposed to be serving. Jason has spent months teaching me that taking care of people comes first. That’s the kind of cop I need to be. If the department doesn’t like it, screw it. I’ll find some other way to serve.”

  I wondered who would transcribe the recording, whether Paolo’s words would be included, and what that would mean for his career. But before I could think too hard about it, he jumped back in with more questions.

  By the time we reached the house, he’d done a thorough job of debriefing us and eased us into remembering more details about the silver pickup than either one of us thought we’d noticed.

  He’d called for patrols to swing by the house periodically and asked an off-duty friend to stake out the house in case the silver pickup driver returned. He helped us into the house and said he’d stay until his friend showed up.

  Max was sound asleep when I went upstairs. I kissed him and told him we were home and that everyone was fine. There would be time enough in the morning to tell him about the danger we’d been in, and that his Prius was no more.

  When I woke up hours later, Max was no longer in bed. A quick peek out the window told me Paolo’s Subaru was still parked in front of the house. It was time to pick up the pieces and try to figure out who wanted Linc dead. But there was so much to explain. I scrubbed my face with my hands and realized I was almost afraid to go downstairs.

  Chapter 16

  Paper and pencil are not dead. No matter how many tricks your phone can do, it’s dangerous and often illegal to use it while you’re driving. I keep a notepad on the driver’s console to jot notes down when I’m at a red light or waiting to pick up the kids.

  From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald,

  Simplicity Itself Organizing Services

  Friday, November 7, 9:30 a.m.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, I looked for Max or a note he’d written to tell me where he was. I found neither and part of me was relieved. I brushed back my hair with my hands and rubbed my eyes. I needed coffee and wanted to savor at least one cup by myself, without anyone asking questions or demanding explanations. But poor Paolo had been up as late as Linc and I had, and had been run ragged the past few days. He needed coffee too. I set up the pot, inhaled the scent impatiently as it brewed, and poured two cups.

  Once I was outside, I walked around the car to the driver’s side and peered in. Paolo was asleep with his head on the steering wheel. I hated to wake him, but as I moved closer, he must have sensed my presence. He lifted his head, blinked, and went through the same face- and hair-scrubbing motions I’d gone through to try to force myself to wake up.

  “Morning, Paolo,” I said in a whisper. “When you’re ready, come on in and get some breakfast and we can figure out what happens next.”

  He nodded and took the coffee mug. Leaving him to finish waking up on his own, I went to the kitchen, where both Max and Linc had apparently appeared out of nowhere while I was talking to Paolo.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked.

  “Good morning to you too,” Max answered while whisking a bowl of eggs. “I am your darling husband who is making you a spectacular breakfast.”

  “Sorry,” I said, stopping to kiss him on my way to the coffeepot. “I checked in here just a moment ago and didn’t see you.”

  “I must have just missed you. I was getting the bread from the freezer in the basement,” he said, still whisking. He’d already cut thick slices of the cinnamon bread we bought from a local bakery and froze to have on hand for French toast.

  Linc sat staring at a pitcher of orange juice and three glasses as if he could pour our drinks with telekinesis. He looked up at me.

  “Morning, Maggie. Max took the day off and had our breakfast planned, prepped, and ready to go.”

  “He’s the best,” I said, taking a seat at the table. I poured the glasses of orange juice, since whatever psychic abilities Linc had seemed to have failed him.

  “Paolo will be in shortly,” I said. “He must have fallen asleep waiting for his friend to show up. Poor guy. We could have offered him a much more comfortable bed.” I looked at the clock but couldn’t make sense of it. “What time is it, Max? Where are the boys?”

  Max glanced at the clock. “At school. Tess picked them up. You slept through the whole morning ritual and chaos. Linc, your phone rang and I took the liberty of answering it when I saw it was the vet. Newt is healing well and ready to come home, though you’ll need to try to keep him quiet for a few more days. They’ve immobilized his leg. They chose a regal purple cast for him.”

  “Thanks. That’s a relief. Would one of you mind driving me to Sarah’s? I’ll need to drive her car for a while.”

  “What happened to your car?” Max asked. “And for that matter, what happened to mine? I didn’t see it in the driveway this morning. Actually, I didn’t see any of our cars. What happened last night? How did you get home?”

  Before either Linc or I could answer, we heard a loud yawn from the doorway and turned as Paolo walked in. “It smells wonderful in here,” he said. “I’d be happy to drive you to Sarah’s. Max, Maggie—do you need a lift anywhere?”

  I looked at Max, who was in the process of flipping slices of French toast onto each of our plates. “I don’t know if I need a lift,” he said. “I’m still trying to find out what happened to my car.”

  When no one jumped in to explain, Max continued talking as he cooked. “I’m working from home today, Maggie. Tess is picking up both boys after school and feeding them dinner at her house. Paolo, if you want to shower here, or even get some more sleep, you’re welcome to do that.”

  “Thanks, but as soon as Linc’s ready, I think I’ll take off. I need a change of clothes before I go into work.” He sniffed at his shirt and scowled.

  Linc took that as his cue to get ready. He winced as he stood from the table.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” I said in my sternest mom voice. “Linc, sit down. Roll up your left sleeve and show Paolo your hand and your thumb. Unless it looks a
lot better today than it did yesterday, one of us is taking you to see a doctor. A people doctor. You get to choose who takes you.”

  “Maggie, Linc’s a grown man—” Max stopped scolding and gasped when he saw Linc’s hand and wrist, now swollen to nearly twice its original size with purple, blue, and yellow bruising.

  Linc shook his head. “I’m just stiff,” he said. “I want to get Newt from the vet and see how he’s doing.”

  “You can do that, Linc,” Paolo said. “But first we need to get you taken care of.”

  “Maybe you can get a cast that matches Newton’s,” said Max.

  Linc looked at his left hand, compared it to his right, and tried to flex both hands. He winced, cupped the left hand in the right, and blinked rapidly.

  “You win, Maggie. It hurts a lot more today than it did yesterday. I’ll go. But first, can we talk about Newt? I’m supposed to keep him quiet. I’m not sure how to do that with Belle around. Fewer steps would be good too. Would you mind if I took him back to Sarah’s and stayed there? I’ll get Jelly later.”

  I told Linc that whatever he needed was fine with us, and he limped upstairs to shower and change.

  I stared into my coffee mug. I wanted to tell Max about what had happened the night before, but I didn’t know where to begin. I also wanted to question Paolo before he left. The details of the car chase seemed unreal to me when faced in the daylight. I wanted to ask how he thought all the wild events of the last few days were related. Sarah’s death, Linc’s “accidents,” and the lab explosion. Were they all connected? In a town known as a place where nothing ever happened, was there even a tiny possibility they weren’t linked?

  I held off, though. Both Paolo and I deserved to finish our breakfast and pour a second cup of coffee before we tried to do any serious analytical thinking. And I hoped Paolo or Linc or both of them would help me tell my poor husband how much danger I’d been in. I tucked into my French toast.

  I’d finished the last swallow of my juice when my phone rang from the depths of my backpack. Max answered it, asked the caller to hold, and handed the phone to me.

  “This is Maggie . . . Hello . . . I’m sorry, can you repeat that? The connection is bad and you’re cutting out . . . Stephen? . . . Now?”

  I shook my head and ended the call.

  “It was Stephen, I think,” I told Paolo and Max. “The connection was dreadful. I’d asked him for background information about some of the Stanford scientists, the garden volunteers, and the plot holders at the community garden. He’s got the information, I guess—I couldn’t really tell what he was saying. I’m going to call him back.” I hit the speed-dial number for Stephen, but it went to voice mail.

  “Why don’t you head over there, Mags,” said Max, as he cleared our plates from the table. “Tess is picking up the boys from school this afternoon so you won’t be tight on time. I’ll make some bread and soup for dinner. It looks like we’re going to get some rain and it will be a good night for soup.”

  I turned to Paolo. “How long will the lab need my car?”

  “Wait—what?” Max said. “What happened to your car?”

  Paolo held up a finger to ask Max to wait, then looked at me and shrugged. “It’s hard to say. I’ll call them for you. Talk to your insurance. They may give you a loaner. Your car was pretty bad off, though. Totaled, probably. Driving over parking berms with a flat tire when someone is chasing you is not generally recommended.”

  The color left Max’s face and he sank into a chair at the table and grabbed my hands. “Chasing you? Your car was totaled? Totaled? And you all sat here and let me cook you breakfast without telling me?”

  I looked at Paolo and then back to Max. “I wasn’t trying to hide it. Truly, I wasn’t. I was just searching for the right break in the conversation.”

  “Are you sure you’re not hurt? How did Linc break his wrist? It’s broken, isn’t it?”

  Max looked at Paolo, who nodded. “I think so.”

  “Which one of you is going to start?” Max asked, glaring at each of us in turn.

  Paolo answered before I could. “Maggie is, because the first part of the story is the part I don’t know.”

  Max and Paolo both stared me down. I sighed, took a big sip of coffee, and placed my hands flat on the table.

  “The first part is really Linc’s story. But I know enough to give you the highlights. He took off from here after he got a call from Stanford saying that there’d been a small explosion in his lab. Security must have been downplaying it to keep from alarming him, because the explosion was big enough to make the building uninhabitable.”

  I took another sip of coffee and Max poured me more. “Before Linc could get to Stanford, though, the silver pickup truck ran him off the road.”

  Paolo hissed. “The same one that ran him off the road yesterday?”

  I nodded. “We think so. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you this last night. You too, Max. We were just so exhausted. And there was so much to tell. It’s all mixed up in my head too. Maybe I should let Linc tell it.”

  “Not a chance, Maggie. Keep going,” Max said, scooting his chair near mine and holding my hand.

  “The Prius is totaled,” I told Max. “When Linc went off the road he crashed into a chain-link fence. The whole front of your car was smashed.”

  “I’m glad no one was hurt. That’s a pretty fine endorsement of the Prius, don’t you think? We should get another one just like it,” Max said.

  I was used to Max’s relentlessly positive approach to life, but Paolo seemed shocked. “You might need to hold off on that,” he said. “We towed it to the lab in Santa Clara, and they’ll need to take a look before you talk to the insurance company.”

  “I’ll see if I can get a loaner, then,” Max said. “But go on with the story.”

  “I tried to get Linc to go to the ER,” I said, “but he wanted to get to the lab.”

  “Linc was going to drive home in his car, but I didn’t think that was a good idea. It’s been parked at Stanford in an unsecured lot. Anyone could have tampered with it. So, I drove him back. I was about to drop him at Sarah’s house when the silver pickup showed up again.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t make any sense of what came after that. Really, I can’t.”

  Paolo took over. “That’s natural, Maggie. It’s your brain protecting you from the trauma. Your memory will come back when you’ve had time to process what happened.”

  Linc entered the kitchen from the back staircase, rubbing his wet hair with a towel. Paolo turned toward him. “Maggie was right when she warned you not to drive your car. Don’t touch it until we have our experts look it over. I’ll call Stanford security and warn them.”

  Linc nodded and Paolo shifted his attention to Max. “I wasn’t there, but from what I learned from Maggie and Linc last night, it sounds like the driver of the truck was waiting for them to leave and followed them, probably from Stanford. A major vehicular chase ensued.”

  I involuntarily smirked at Paolo’s use of technical cop jargon. Paolo ignored me and continued the story. “Maggie evaded the truck with driving worthy of a Hollywood stunt expert.”

  Max grew paler and tightened his grip on my hands.

  “But I’m fine,” I said as gently as possible. I took my hands from Max’s and patted his shoulder.

  “We’re getting two new cars just like the old ones,” Max said. He stood and cleared more dishes. Ordinarily I would have helped, but I knew it was his way of dealing with his fear as he absorbed the news that I’d been in grave danger.

  “I’m not going to let this bad guy keep me locked up in my own home, shivering in fear,” I said. “I doubt very much he’ll attack again in daylight—especially since his car must be almost as badly scraped up as mine and will be very easy to identify. Paolo, if you can drop me at Jason’s, I’ll pick up that printout Stephen ran for me, assuming that’s who just called me. Elaine is there and should be able to give me a ride home or take me over to Tess�
��s so she can bring me home after she picks up the boys from school.”

  I started to go upstairs, knowing that it would be awhile before Max would be ready to talk to me about what had happened. I figured I might as well get dressed. But then I turned back. “Max, how much do the boys know about what happened last night? What did you tell them?”

  “I didn’t tell them about it because I didn’t know anything. I said that Paolo had brought you and Linc home from Stanford because there’d been a problem with the car. A problem with the car, Maggie. That’s all you told me last night.”

  I sighed. “We can tell them more tonight.”

  “I would have told them more if I’d known,” he said.

  “I know, hon. I know.”

  * * *

  Max had more questions before he was ready to let us leave. He was going to make some calls and find out how quickly we could replace our cars and whether we’d need a rental or two in the meantime.

  As Paolo drove Linc to Sarah’s and then took me on to Jason’s, none of us spoke. There was really nothing more to say about the car chase, but neither could any of us think about anything else. I found myself self-consciously scanning my mirrors and the other cars more than usual. I looked for damaged silver pickup trucks and black Range Rover SUVs. It turns out a very large number of people drive silver pickup trucks, but none of them had the telltale side scrapes and bashed-in front ends that I was watching for, and I was relieved. That was one part of this investigation I was happy to leave to the police. I hoped never to see the truck in my rearview mirror again.

  Paolo pulled to the curb in front of Jason and Stephen’s house. I thanked him for the ride and for his help the night before. I turned toward the house, squared my shoulders, and walked to the door. Elaine’s car was in the driveway behind Jason’s, but Stephen’s car was gone and I assumed he was running errands or volunteering at the Veterans Hospital. I climbed the steps to the front porch and tried the knob. Elaine had been leaving it unlocked so friends could visit without disturbing Jason.