I turned and walked back to the truck, got in, and drove away as fast as I could without appearing to be running for my life.
_______________
I drove to King Soopers on College and sat in the truck while I dialed the phone number that had been listed at the bottom of the wanted poster. I had been expecting to speak to a real person, given the fact that Jakowski was such a wanted man, but instead I reached a recording and was instructed, in detail, about what to leave in my message. I recited all the requested information and hung up. I wondered how long it would take for the reward money to be paid. I also wondered why the police and sheriff’s office had been unable to find Tyler. After a few minutes on the computer, I’d had a few doorbells to ring. Tyler had answered the first one.
I’m not a huge fan of law enforcement anyway, my past being what it is, but I do have a certain respect for the people who do it. That had taken a serious hit in the last couple days. Hensley would have railroaded me because it was the simplest thing to do. No one could find Tyler, yet I’d done it without even really trying. What were Stacy’s chances of finding justice? Was Ellmann really trying to track down her assailant? Or would he simply continue to focus on me because that was simpler? I had been in the lobby, and Stacy had been there to meet me, but that was the extent of my involvement. The security footage clearly showed I was not the one to attack Stacy. And while there had been some unusual activity in my bank account recently, a quick check would prove I’d not paid anyone to do it, either.
If left in the hands of the police, would Stacy’s attacker be found and punished? I couldn’t deny I had my doubts. This left me examining my options.
King Soopers was crowded with the after-work rush, but I managed to survive without any hand gestures or colorful language. I piled the hundred dollars worth of groceries into the truck and went home. Then, in an effort to get the most of my new gym membership and take the forty-seven-pound problem seriously, I threw on sweats and paid a visit to the elliptical. I spent thirty sweaty minutes considering whether or not there was anything I hated more than the elliptical. Just about the time I decided there wasn’t, and that I was going to ralph, the timer ticked off the last minute, and I shuffled back out to the truck. I returned home, set the coffee pot timer for nine, showered, and hit the hay.
I knew I hadn’t been asleep very long when my phone awoke me. My whopping headache told me so. I also didn’t need to look at the time to know it was late. Late-night phone calls are almost always bad news.
“Yeah?” I answered without opening my eyes.
“Zoe, I need help.”
It was my brother.
I pushed the covers back and sat up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Can you pick me up?”
“Where are you?” I asked as I got up. I switched on the lamp sitting on the floor beside the bed and winced at the light.
“College and Mulberry.”
“I’ll call you when I get there.”
“You won’t miss us.”
That sounded ominous.
I wish this was the first time I’d ever gotten a late-night call about my brother. But it wasn’t even close. And while I always hope it will be the last, I have no illusions.
I could see the blue and red strobe lights from half a mile away. Northbound traffic on College was unaffected, while southbound traffic was down to two lanes and eastbound traffic on Mulberry down to one. A team of uniformed officers was directing traffic.
Donald’s Lincoln was nosed up against the southbound traffic light, blocking traffic in the same direction. The light was leaning at a forty-five degree angle, the lights hanging crookedly and flashing signals at eastbound traffic. Two ambulances and a fire truck completed the party, emergency response personnel everywhere.
A tall officer I recognized from the Elizabeth Tower incident waved me through the intersection. I complied then hung a right into the Safeway parking lot, squeezing through a large group of gathered rubberneckers, staring and pointing, some snapping photos and taking videos with their phones. I snagged the first parking space I found (handicapped) and hopped out.
Dodging a string of oncoming traffic, I cut across and hustled up to the officer.
“What are you doing?” he asked over a chorus of horns. “You’re going to get hurt.”
“My brother,” I said, trying to keep the worry out of my voice. I pointed at the Lincoln. “That’s his car.” For all intents and purposes, anyway. Zach had borrowed it from Donald because I was currently borrowing his truck. “Is he okay?”
The officer, whose nameplate read frye, kept one eye on traffic, continuing to move vehicles through while he spoke to me.
“Don’t worry,” he said seriously. “They’re all fine. EMS has them in the ambulances. As far as I understand, none of them need medical care.”
“None of them? How many were there?”
“Eight, I think. All in various states of inebriation.”
“Drunk? And driving?” My worry was quickly giving way to anger.
“If it makes you feel any better, they only killed the light pole; they didn’t hit anyone else, and no one was hurt.”
“It doesn’t.”
I spun on my heel and marched toward the first ambulance, parked on College, south of the intersection. I cut through traffic as two other officers yelled at me about being in the street. Ignoring them, I stormed the ambulance. I saw five young faces, most of which were familiar to me. None of them belonged to my brother.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” I said, pointing my finger at each of them.
The second ambulance was parked on Mulberry, just west of College, in an eastbound lane. There was a uniformed man standing in the open back door talking to someone sitting on the bumper. When I got closer, I could see two others sitting inside with a female attending to them. My brother was sitting on the gurney. He spotted me the instant I rounded the door.
“Wait, okay?” he said, spreading his hands and getting up before I could do more than take a breath. “Before you freak out, let me explain.”
“You better think long and hard about every single word that comes out of your mouth right now,” I said.
He jumped down and stood in front of me. He’s ahead taller than me and lean, like our mother, with light brown hair and blue eyes, that were currently bloodshot. He’d been experimenting lately with a goatee I didn’t like. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, and I could smell the alcohol on him.
He sighed and took a breath.
“It’s not as bad as you think.”
“I think you were driving drunk and hit a light pole, which could have just as easily been a car full of children.”
“No one got hurt. See, we went out,” he said, waving a hand at the first ambulance. “It’s Hayley’s birthday; we were celebrating. At first it was just five of us. I was the only one with a car we could all fit into, so I ended up driving. Then we ran into a few more people. And after we hit a few more places, I knew I shouldn’t be driving. So I gave the keys to Devin. He had the least to drink of all of us.”
I turned and looked at the Lincoln French kissing the light pole then looked back at Zach.
“How dare you, Zach. That isn’t your car. How could you be so disrespectful?”
He scoffed and shot a look at the Lincoln. “That thing’s made of steel, Zoe. Not even a bulldozer could dent it.”
I took another look and privately agreed the Lincoln appeared unscathed. And, actually, the damage to the light pole seemed worse than expected. But that was not the point, and I wasn’t willing to let it go.
“If there is any damage to that car, you’re paying for the repairs. You’re also going to tell Donald what you’ve done.”
“Fine. Donald’ll understand. Second, don’t lecture me, Zoe. I don’t need it.”
“The hell you don’t. Anybody who runs around doing stupid shit like this needs a hell of a lot more than a lecture. What the hell were you thinking,
letting a drunk person drive? Getting in the car while a drunk person was driving? People could have been hurt, or worse. You could have been hurt.”
“I told you, Devin wasn’t drunk.”
I pointed at the light pole. “Try selling me that line one more time.”
“He just lost control of the car, that’s all. It’s a mammoth car; he wasn’t expecting it.”
“You mean his reflexes were dulled by alcohol. That means he’s drunk. You know better than this.”
“Whatever,” he snapped. “I knew you’d freak out.”
“That’s my job. I’m supposed to freak out. Now, hand it over.” I held out my hand.
He looked at it and tried for a blank expression, but I saw guilt flash in his eyes. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Whatever ID you used to get into the bars tonight.”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re twenty years old, Zach. Give it to me.”
He stood, staring at me with a cold look, his chin tipped up defiantly. I held my ground, giving him an equally cold look. Finally, with childish indignation, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. Slapping it into my palm, he turned and stomped back to the ambulance, climbing up beside his buddies to commiserate.
I tucked the fake ID into the pocket of my jeans and went back to the other ambulance. Devin was sitting on the bumper beside Hayley. The two had been an item briefly, but the fact that Hayley actually liked my brother had ultimately come between them. Devin was basically a good kid and had been basically a good friend to Zach since they’d met in middle school. Hayley, however, was bad news, and she had a way of dragging everyone down around her. For a time, one of those people had been Zach. I thought he’d finally broken away from her. I was genuinely surprised to learn they’d been out together tonight.
Devin spotted me and immediately looked down at his feet, his shoulders slumping a little. At least he had the good sense to be ashamed of what he’d done. Hayley, on the other hand, sat up a little straighter and stared at me head-on.
“I’m really sorry, Zoe,” Devin said. “I shouldn’t have been driving; I know that. But that car, I mean, it’s so damn long, and it doesn’t steer . . .” He rubbed a hand over his face then pushed it back through his hair. His eyes were moist as he looked at me pleadingly. “I’ll help pay for the damages.”
“You’re damn right you will. Do you realize you could have killed someone? Could have killed yourself or anyone else in the car? Did you think of that?”
He shook his head as he dropped his gaze again. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” Hayley snapped. “Back off. You’re not his mother.”
I turned on her. “I’m sure you remember I take issue when Zach is put in danger.”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “How can I forget? You’re fucking crazy, bitch.”
“Right now, my crazy isn’t focused on you. Would you like that to change?”
Her mouth snapped shut, and the wheels of her alcohol-polluted mind began turning. She sat back, surrendering.
I turned back to Devin, holding out my hand.
“Let’s have it.”
Unlike Zach, he made no attempt to deny or protest. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out the ID, and handed it over.
“Where’d you guys get these?” I asked, tucking it away with the other.
“Bought ’em from a guy downtown. Hundred bucks apiece.”
“You’re going to tell your parents about this,” I said. “All of it.”
Devin groaned and bent forward, his head in his hands. “I’d rather go to jail.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to jail, too.”
Frye walked up to me, a tow truck driver on his heels. I recognized the tow truck driver; he’d towed my truck more than once, including yesterday morning. Zach saw the group gathering and joined us.
“I thought that thing belonged to you,” the driver said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder toward the Lincoln. “I mean, how many of those things can there be?”
“Will it fit on your truck?” I asked.
“Ah, it doesn’t need to be towed,” Zach said. “Look at it. It’s fine.”
“Actually, the kid’s probably right,” the driver said to me.
“But we need to move it,” Frye said. “It’s blocking traffic.”
No kidding.
“The keys in it?” I asked.
The driver nodded. “Yeah. I’ll hook it up if you can’t drive it.”
“Do me a favor,” I said to Frye as I walked away. “Keep an eye on him.”
Frye looked at Zach then nodded to me. Zach rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.
The driver climbed into his truck, parked behind the Lincoln, and backed up, giving me some room. I boarded the road-boat and turned the key. The gas-guzzling engine that topped out at a hundred and fifty-nine horsepower roared to life. I levered the transmission into reverse and gave it some gas, angling the wheel as I backed away from the pole.
I felt it the instant the bumper separated from the pole. Then I heard a deep, agonizing moan over the rumble of the engine. Looking at the pole, it seemed to almost shutter. Then, as if in slow motion, it began to move. It fell, crash-landing in the middle of the intersection, barely missing a small VW Beetle and instead smashing into a parked police car, snapping the light bar and caving in the roof. The blue and red lights winked out as the traffic light flashed to green.
I saw Zach’s mouth fall open as he stared at the pole and police car. And I was pretty sure Devin burst into tears. The tow truck driver appeared beside the open driver’s side window.
“Didn’t see that coming,” he said, staring at the pole. “Did you?”
_______________
If Devin hadn’t been destined for jail before the destruction of the police car, he certainly was after. And it turned out the tow truck driver hadn’t made the trip for nothing. Frye issued tickets for drinking to all the kids who were underage, then let them go home with sober rides, mostly parents. And I was pretty sure he confiscated a few more fake IDs. Devin was arrested and taken to jail for his parents to bail out. I parked the Ford legally then climbed aboard the Lincoln with Zach and drove him home.
Zach didn’t speak to me the entire trip. Once home, he marched off to his room and shut the door without so much as a backward glance. It was three o’clock in the morning, but my mother wasn’t home. It was entirely possible she wouldn’t come home tonight. Glad she wasn’t there to yell at me and too exhausted to drive anywhere else, I crashed on the basement sofa and fell asleep almost instantly.
10
It was Sunday. At seven o’clock, there was the sound of sharp heels clicking against the tile and someone hitting my feet. I shot up and peered through one blurry, barely-open eye at my mother standing at the end of the sofa with her hands on her hips.
“What’s wrong?” I mumbled.
“Aren’t you going to church?” she asked. “After what you did last night, you need to go to church.”
I groaned and fell back against the pillow.
“You’re going to hell.” She said this with the authority you’d expect from the gatekeeper herself. “You’re a troublemaker. You need to go to church.”
The same record, the same lines.
I rolled over and smashed a pillow down on top of my head. I knew I fell back to sleep, because I awoke sometime later to a sharp pounding on the front door. Vacations are supposed to be about sleeping in and relaxing, being lazy. So far mine sucked.
There was another round of pounding, and I adjusted the pillow, pressing it against my head.
What does Hensley want now? I wondered, until the sleep cleared enough for me to realize Hensley shouldn’t want anything now that his case was closed.
Upstairs, I heard the front door open and Donald speak to the visitor. The visitor’s voice was muffled, and I couldn’t make out the reply. A moment later, t
he door closed and there were footsteps on the stairs. I rolled over in time to see Ellmann cross to my former bedroom and peek inside, finding it empty. Maybe they taught cops how to knock on doors at police school.
I threw the blanket back and swung my legs over the side of the sofa.
“I don’t live here anymore,” I said, my voice hoarse from sleep.
He came to stand at the end of the sofa, the same place my mother had stood earlier. He was dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and a ball cap.
“I need to talk to you.”
“You look pissed.”
“I just came from the hospital. Stacy Karnes woke up briefly but then went into cardiac arrest. She’s back in critical condition, and it doesn’t look good.”
I looked at him, confused, rubbing sleep out of one eye. “I’m sorry to hear it,” I said. I felt genuine sadness for Stacy and her family. “But what does that have to do with me?”
“While I was there, I ran into Stacy’s roommate, a girl named Tina Shuemaker. She told me all about some girl who came by her house asking all sorts of questions about Stacy and her boyfriend. She described the girl pretty well. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“And if I did?”
He sighed and grabbed the cap off his head, running a hand back through his hair. “So that’s what you were really doing when you ransacked her purse. You were looking for her address. Why would you do that?”
“Hey, hey, hey,” I said. “I didn’t ransacked her purse.”
“Is that the only part you heard me say?”
“Okay, look. I might have wondered what her name was, so it’s possible I looked for her driver’s license. I might have found it and happened to noticed her address. I might have wanted to express my condolences to her family, so it’s possible I went to that address. Her roommate might have been home.”
“Hypothetically?”
“Exactly! Hypothetically. And, in that hypothetical scenario, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Why the interest in her boyfriend?”
“Hypothetically, I might have wanted to offer condolences to him, as well.”
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