Orchids and Stone

by Lisa Preston

  “I ran because … because he chased me. He grabbed me.”

  He hooked one thumb in his gun belt. “And then you chased him?”

  “Yes,” Daphne admitted, aware she sounded more than half crazy.

  Shaking his head, he said, “Try again. Why did you chase him?”

  Daphne took a breath. “Look. There’s something wrong here, something going on. I think she’s not that woman’s mother. Minerva Watts is not her mother.” She snapped her fingers. “Lady. She called her lady. And then when she saw me, she called the older lady Mother. Hey, did you hear about this car thing?”

  He raised one eyebrow at her. “Yeah, suspicious incident on Eastpark. Navy Lincoln, northbound five or ten ago. Got it.”

  “You do know! Great! Then someone saw something. Someone else besides me, I mean. Someone called it in? Right?”

  “You would be the Daphne Mayfield who called this in to our dispatch center from the JiffyMart?” He pointed over his shoulder to the convenience store without looking.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Dispatch has radios. They use them to tell us out here in the cars what’s going on.”

  “So you know what’s going on?” Daphne wasn’t sure she knew what was going on.

  “Think so,” he said.

  “So, what are you going to do?” she asked.

  He handed her some papers and pointed at her car. “Have a seat. Fill these out. Please be legible.”

  She sat behind the steering wheel like an obedient child. “Okay, for the accident,” Daphne said, glancing at the forms which asked for information like her name and insurance provider. “But about the other thing?” She closed a fist over the papers and folded her arms.

  He walked away.

  She swung out of the car again. He could at least give her an answer. “Hey what’s going to happen? Is someone doing something about it? What are you going to do?”

  “I am going to handle this accident.” He turned to the young man at the two-door and gave him similar pieces of paper.

  “I mean, what are you going to do about that car? The one I was, you know, trying to catch up to?”

  He gave a stony smile. “I am going to handle … this accident.”

  Two tow trucks arrived in a miniature convoy, their gumball emergency lights casting a weak glow in the afternoon sun. One hooked up to the green SUV.

  She looked at her watch. Time was flitting away, wasting. She was going to miss the start of Josie’s volleyball game if she didn’t get clear of this accident soon. This was reality. No one was going to catch the Lincoln Town Car. It was just gone. A suspicious incident, just like the previous afternoon.

  The shock of this realization was more defeating than it should have been. Daphne looked around the scene again. One tow truck driver pushed a broom across the asphalt, tinkling bits of shattered glass and plastic scraps of fenders and headlights into a pile. The scrape of his huge metal dustpan reminded her of the groans of the car door. The SUV made the same sound now as its front end was wrenched into the air by the tow truck.

  “It doesn’t run,” the blond said, shaking her head. “It wouldn’t start again.”

  “Well, you’re coming with us anyway,” a paramedic told her.

  The pendulum swung to awful in Daphne’s mental tabulation of the moment. She took a few hopeful steps toward the two-door, which the young man was cranking over. The engine almost caught, then died.

  “Go. Sit. In your car.” The officer put on sunglasses. “Ma’am.” Then he said something fast and cryptic into his shoulder mic as he went to speak to the young man again.

  The enormity of what she had done seeped within her. She would get a ticket. Her first. Would he look at her driving record and see that she’d never been ticketed before? Would he see that she was a good girl? She’d never even been stopped by a police officer before.

  The ambulance door shut, shielding the paramedic and the blond. Daphne turned away and saw the young man and policeman push the two-door to the curb.

  “I bet a buddy of mine can get it started,” the young man said.

  “So long as it’s not parked here more than twenty-four hours,” the cop said.

  My fault, Daphne nodded to herself as she watched the other driver leave on foot, rubbing his knuckles on his pants.

  The guilty feeling was reinforced by the officer returning for a looming finale. She sat hunkered down in the Honda’s driver’s seat, wanting to try the ignition to see if it would start, pretty sure it would be drivable if she bashed the broken fender piece off the front tire.

  Then the officer’s body darkened her doorway. “Do you know how fast you were going?”

  “No.”

  “What’s your best guess?”

  “Hundred and sixteen?” Daphne managed a weak smile.

  He leaned over, closed his mouth and inhaled a deep, slow breath through his nose.

  “Been drinking, lady?” His gaze flitted to the Honda’s back seat and floor. Daphne was glad Vic kept his car clean and respectable looking.

  “Oh, I wish,” Daphne said, realizing now that the officer had been smelling her breath when he leaned over. “Sorry. Bad joke. It’s just, I was trying to catch up and—”

  “Heard that. Did you get the license plate of this suspicious car?”

  Daphne shook her head but saw a distant flickering image in her mind, summoning a remembrance of speeding down the road staring at the eluding car’s bumper. “Maybe part of it. A Y then I think another letter but I don’t know. I don’t know the rest. But I had to try. They took that old lady. They were at—”

  “What’s your address?”

  She raised her voice just shy of real rudeness. “It’s 11243 Eastpark Avenue. I wanted to make sure she was okay. I still do. You should, too.”

  He studied his notebook and muttered, “See, I think that if you were a law enforcement officer in reasonable pursuit of an actual criminal you would have gotten on the radio. And I still need to see your license.” He waved the vehicle registration paper she’d given him.

  “I don’t have my ID because it was in my jacket and the guy stole my jacket. My wallet was in my jacket pocket.”

  “Uh-huh. Is this your car?” He eyed the Honda and its crumpled fenders again.

  “It’s my boyfriend’s car.”

  “And his name is?”

  “Vic. Vic Daily. Victor Daily.”

  “Do you know his full, legal name?”

  “Victor David Daily.”

  He looked at her, pursed his lips. A feeling of inadequacy pinched at her. Thinking the officer wanted her to explain something she didn’t understand, Daphne offered, “I guess his parents liked Vs in names.”

  And his parents hadn’t thought about a little boy being teased about venereal disease before he understood anything more than bullying. VD, VD. When he’d told her about being teased as a child, he’d laughed. But Vic’s vulnerability, as a man missing his children—and as a little boy teased about his initials—tugged at her heart. Overwhelmed now by every failure, Daphne felt herself disconnect, a roaring in her ears. She felt faint, floaty.

  “Miss, this car is not registered to a Victor David Daily.”

  Swirling out of the car to face the officer, Daphne’s head bobbled as she jerked it back. Dizziness swayed her. Loopy as though she’d had two glasses of wine on a hot day, she still knew he was wrong. “Yes, it is.”

  He smiled, but in a way that made it clear he was sure he had the facts, the upper hand. “No. It isn’t.”

  “But it is. It’s Vic’s car. It has been forever. Since before I knew him. I’ve known him for over four years.”

  “This car is not registered to a Victor Daily.”

  “What?” She held her head.

  “I think you heard me.”

  Daphne shook her head and turned toward the car again. Suzanne! Staring into the rear seat’s side window, she saw her sister’s image. Daphne brought both hands to her face, then touche
d her hair, reassured that the reflection in the window copied her actions. Her ponytail had come undone and rhododendron leaves clung to her hair like feathers.

  How long have I looked like her?

  Suzanne would have been forty this Sunday. Forty. If she’d lived, would she be a mother by now? A grandmother? So, then her dad would be a living great-grandfather.

  How much was missed when part of a generation disappeared?

  “What’s your date of birth?” the officer asked, but his voice seemed soft and Daphne stared at her Suzanne-like reflection in the window, imagining what life might have been like. Would Suzanne have moved far away or would she be here in the city? If she’d stayed, would she have done something with Daphne this Sunday? Would she want to spend her birthday with her little sister?

  Suzanne’s little sister was now more grown-up than Suzanne had ever been allowed to be.

  Daphne squeezed her eyes shut. What would Suzanne have become? She’d have graduated college, maybe gone traveling like she used to talk about. She’d have done everything.

  I didn’t even graduate.

  Suzanne would not have become a roofer, but she would have remained free and funky and more full of life than anyone else on earth.

  “Birthday?” came a voice behind Daphne.

  “Sunday …” Daphne murmured. On this birthday, Suzanne would have been forty years old.

  “This Sunday?”

  Daphne’s answer mewled soft as a prayer without a thought to the voice asking questions. “Yes.”

  “And your full name?” The voice was male, not congenial. And then it snapped, “Miss?”

  Daphne blinked and brought herself back from her memories. They weren’t such nice memories, and too full of questions. She shouldn’t wallow there.

  The officer had one thumb hooked in his gun belt. It was the hand that held a little white notepad. The other hand clicked a pen on and off, on and off.

  Well, Daphne decided, it’s not like her present situation made for such wonderful wallowing either. Anyone would trade the present for the past if she’d had the sort of afternoon this was shaping into.

  “What is your full name?” He sounded like he expected little from her and this was how his days went.

  She shook her head. “I gave it to you.”

  “And then you gave me a different birthday than what the computer shows for Daphne Mayfield.”

  Daphne blinked. “My birthday’s January six—”

  “No, you said your birthday was Sunday. Sunday’s a long ways from January.”

  Daphne shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. That’s my sister’s birthday, Sunday. Mine is January sixteenth.”

  “Your sister.”

  “She’s dead,” Daphne blurted. And the real blurt of this weekend’s two anniversaries was: her father found not the anniversary of the murder, but rather his dead daughter’s uncelebrated birthdays hardest to take. Why? Daphne clamped her hands over her head to stem the headache. Don’t cry. Why am I about to cry?

  He clicked his pen faster. The hand holding the notebook lowered.

  “And where do you live?”

  As soon as she started to give her address on Westpark, he waved her off. “Look, you just gave me an address on Eastpark Avenue. And even though you don’t have your license with you, the computer tells me what your license has printed on it. And it does not show an address on Westpark either. It shows Mapleview.”

  Blanking, Daphne thought she might hyperventilate. “Okay. Okay. I know what it is, what’s going on. Let’s do one thing at a time, okay? I can explain everything.”

  “That’d be great. Thank goodness you’re here. And you’re ready to explain everything.”

  Don’t cry, Daphne instructed herself. Don’t. “My address, see, I, I just never changed it from home. From my parents’ place. My mom’s house, I mean. My dad’s dead. It’s my boyfriend’s place, where I live. We live together. But it’s his place. On Westpark.”

  Another blue police car appeared and a new officer approached, a woman with stripes on the upper arms of her uniform. Daphne brightened. A foreman, like the Wellsley Construction foreman, Bob. Roof here, roof there. Architectural shingles, three-tab. No roofing felt here, put felt on that one. Foremen made the job run, helped everyone be efficient.

  “What’s up?” the sergeant asked, making brief eye contact with Daphne before addressing the officer.

  He pointed his notebook at Daphne. “Caused this mess. Clear reckless in blowing the light. No license in possession. Not the car’s registered owner. Gave a false DOB at first. Doesn’t give a consistent address. Gave a wrong first name on the car’s Registered Owner. The license info on the computer gives a different address from where she says she lives, but the address she gives as a residence does jibe with the car’s registration.”

  “Tried contacting the RO?”

  “Yeah, but no luck.”

  “Medics seen her?”

  The officer turned to Daphne. “You want the paramedics to check you out?”

  Daphne shook her head.

  “Take her in.” The uniformed woman turned away, waving off further wasted time.

  “You got it, sarge.” He pocketed his notebook again and squared his chest to Daphne. “Ma’am, I need you to turn around.”

  Turning to face away from the cop was an idea Daphne embraced.

  “Put your hands behind your back,” he ordered.

  She clasped her hands behind her. Enough patience would get this whole situation over with.

  One of his hands gripped her fingers and he pushed the edge of something hard and cold against her left wrist bone. A quick burst of an odd metal ratcheting sounded and he pushed into her other wrist. Then the ratcheting sounded again.

  He took her arm. “This way.”

  Handcuffs? I’m in handcuffs? Daphne’s brain rejected the idea even as her shoulders asked her pinned arms to swing at her sides.

  “Wait. What’s happening?”

  “You are under arrest for reckless driving. You will be in custody until your appearance before a magistrate or until you make bail.”

  She gasped but couldn’t form words.

  He could. “Have any weapons on you?”

  “Of course not.” At least it was an easy question, Daphne thought.

  He patted her ribs and legs, pulling a carpenter’s pencil from the long pocket on her right thigh. Then he led her not to her car, but to his, to the backseat, to the cage.

  Everything in her body went into alarm mode. Daphne stiffened as he opened the rear door of his patrol car.

  “No,” she said, planting one boot against the door frame.

  “Mm, yes. You are under arrest for reckless driving and you are going to have to prove your identity.”

  “I have to pee,” she said, thighs clamped tight.

  “Well, you’re in custody now and you’re going to have to wait until we get where we’re going. Or you can go as you are.”

  Her eyes grew moist and she knew her chin was puckering. An involuntary bawl threatened to boil out. “Is this because of the car’s registration? There’s something wrong with Vic’s car?”

  “Oh, that didn’t help. Car’s registered to a Lloyd Daily but—”

  “That’s Vic’s father!” Relief flooded Daphne’s body, her brain. “Can I go now?”

  He chuckled. “You can go to a holding cell. We’re leaving in a minute.” And he indicated the open rear door. “Hop in.”

  “Wait. The car is registered to my boyfriend’s father. We live together, my boyfriend and me. Vic’s father is—the registration must show the owner of the car as Vic’s father, right?—Lloyd. He lives at the Green Springs Extended Care Facility in Woodinville.” She shook her chained wrists. “Oh, God, please. Please? Please help me.”

  Then she winced at the painful memory of Minerva Watts’s plea. Please help me.

  “Get in the car.”

  “Please, please listen to me. Please don’t do th
is to me.”

  “We are past done talking. Get in the car. Now.”

  Daphne looked around. The green SUV was gone. The two-door was abandoned. The ambulance had left with the blond.

  I started and ended this mess, she thought.

  Ducking awkwardly into the backseat of the patrol car, Daphne slid on the cheap vinyl upholstery, off balance because her arms were locked behind her back. Inside, the vehicle was surprisingly cramped. If she leaned forward, she could hit her head on a plastic screen. At the sides, she could hit her head on the vehicle’s roll bar. Her knees pushed into the steel cage protecting the driver. Protecting the driver from her?

  But I’m in handcuffs.

  Dear God, I’m in handcuffs. In the backseat of a police car. On my way to … jail?

  “Are we going to jail?” she asked as soon as the officer got in the driver’s seat.

  “Sort of,” he said. “You’ll go to the holding area first.”

  “What about my car?”

  “Mr. Daily’s car will be towed.”

  “Towed where? Can’t it just stay here? Can’t I just park it?”

  “The tow truck driver’s going to park it for you just fine. At the impound lot.”

  “No. Oh, no. I have expensive tools in there.” When he made no response, she said, “I want to call somebody. I want to call Vic.”

  “My dispatcher called the listed number for him and got no answer—”

  “Can’t I try to call him?”

  He nodded. “Sure. From the holding area.”

  “But I want to talk to him now.” Her voice squeaked like a child’s.

  “That may be so, but it’s not something I can help, is it?”

  “Don’t you have to give me a phone call?”

  He smirked. “You watch too much TV.”

  “I do not. I hardly ever watch TV. God, what’s the matter with you? You have to give me a phone call, don’t you?”

  He looked left, right, then at the car’s headliner. “See any phones handy? No? Me neither. The way it works is, I give you a taxi ride and then other people have to deal with you. This is not a long-term relationship. You and I will soon be done with each other.”

  “Aren’t you going to read me my rights?”

  “Mm, I was kind of hoping you’d exercise your right to remain silent and we could be done with the chitchat.” He followed this comment with something short and fast into a dashboard radio microphone. The radio blared a female voice making a short and difficult-to-comprehend response.