Hello, Stranger

by Virginia Swift

  “Murderer!” shrieked the crowd, shoving up against them, hemming them in.

  The girl began to sob wildly.

  “Grip my forearm,” Maude ordered Sally, putting her other arm in front of the girl and instructing Hawk to do the same. Within moments, the three of them had locked arms around the patient. “Now put your head down,” she told the girl, “and when I say ‘Do it!’ we move forward as fast as we can go. Three deep breaths,” she instructed.

  One. Two. Three.

  “Do it!”

  But they never did. An ear-shattering explosion ripped the air, lashing the crowd into pandemonium.

  People screamed and cried and ran. Sally smelled gunpowder, hot glass, scorched metal. In a daze, she watched Maude pull the girl in the sweatshirt to her feet, saw them rushing back out the gate, into the street, away from the building. Everyone who could was heading in the same direction.

  Sally had just enough time to register a car in the parking lot, windows and windshield blown out, wipers and window frames grotesquely twisted and blackened, before Hawk yanked her by the hand and they started running.

  It was a regular stampede. The crowd heaved down the street, blindly seeking escape. Half went south toward Grand, half north to Ivinson. Sally and Hawk were headed north.

  “Come on!” Hawk hollered. “Let’s get the fuck away!”

  Halfway down the block, he veered left and pulled her into an alley. Lungs pounding, breath ragged, she ran as hard as she could, Hawk half dragging her along. The screeching wind pounded them with hard gusts of dirt and pebbles, coating her mouth, searing her eyes.

  Amazingly, no one followed them. They crossed streets, but by silent agreement stayed in the alley. Within three blocks, she began to feel as if they’d gained some distance on the panic-stricken crowd, the madness of a morning gone hideously wrong.

  That was when they nearly fell over the body, sprawled in the gravel in the middle of the alley.

  Chapter 4

  Demons

  Someone was screaming. Not surprising, of course. The horror of the demonstration, the shock of the blast, and now a body in an alleyway. Who wouldn’t scream?

  What surprised Sally was that the person screaming was, evidently, she.

  “Sally! Don’t. Don’t look. We’ll get the police. Come over here, honey, just come with me. Come on, Sally. Come on, sweetie. Oh fuck. Stop it!” said Hawk.

  Somebody was shaking her, and hugging her tight, and shaking her some more.

  Her ears were still ringing from the blast at the doctor’s office.

  God, there was so much blood.

  Demons were loose in the town of Laramie.

  They needed the police, right away.

  Like the police had nothing else going on at the moment.

  “I saw you put your phone in your pocket,” said Hawk. “Come on, girl. Get it out.”

  With hands that shook until she felt her elbows rattle, she dug into her pocket and found her cell phone. Managed to punch in 911.

  Got a busy signal.

  “K-keep trying,” said Hawk, rubbing her back, his own teeth chattering.

  Sally kept hitting redial until the operator answered. All available officers, she said, were currently on emergency call.

  “I know,” Sally said. “I was at the demonstration. But we’re standing here in an alley, looking at a person who appears to be, erk, dead.”

  That got the operator’s attention. She told Sally to wait there for an officer.

  Sally felt the cold gale, heard the scream of police sirens, the honking of fire engine klaxons. Every detail of the scene sharpened, in surreal focus: the weathered plank fences that lined the alley, the bare branches of cottonwoods peeking above the fence tops, flapping in the keening wind, the garbage cans, chained down to board boxes to keep them from blowing away, the clattering sound of dust and gravel flung against hard surfaces.

  And the body on the ground. Now she looked at him. Blue pinstripe suit, black wingtip shoes. Not, Sally thought with an unbelievably inappropriate giggle, a Laramie look. He lay in a twisted heap, facedown, head covered with blood. She could only glance at his head for a moment. Someone had bashed his skull to pieces.

  A brown Toyota 4Runner pulled into the alley, and Detective Scotty Atkins, chief investigator of the Albany County Sheriff’s Department, got out.

  Ever a man of few words, Scotty merely nodded at them and went to check the body. Sally and Hawk stood waiting. Finally he turned to them.

  “You didn’t touch anything?” he asked.

  “No,” Sally said. “Of course not.”

  Scotty pursed his lips. “You recognize this man?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Well,” he said, “I do.”

  They waited. Finally Hawk asked, “Are you going to tell us who he is?”

  Scotty took a deep breath, expelled air out his nose. “His name is Bradley Preston. He’s an attorney.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” said Sally.

  “Your student’s father,” Hawk said, moving to hold her up when her knees buckled.

  “Take it easy,” said Scotty. “I’ll get the sheriff. He’s pretty tied up, but he’ll want to take a look. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Why don’t we sit down,” said Hawk, walking Sally over to a pile of cinder blocks stacked against a leaning fence. The blocks had evidently been there for some time. Weeds had grown up around them, crackling against Sally’s legs as she found her way to take a seat.

  She didn’t know how long they sat side by side on the cinder blocks. Scotty Atkins’s voice, calling in the sheriff and crime scene team, registered dimly above the moan and rattle of the wind. Sally leaned back against the fence and looked off to one side, the better to use the fence to support a head grown suddenly too weighty to bear.

  And then she saw it. There, in a tangled patch of dried weeds, amid back-alley litter that hadn’t quite made it to the garbage cans. A faded and flattened cardboard beer carton, soda cans and broken bottles, a disposable diaper improperly disposed of. And a long, thin metal tube, bent at one end, fitted with a socket fixture of some kind.

  No bigger around than her thumb, except for the socket. Crusted with drying blood and some kind of gelatinous substance Sally didn’t want to name.

  “Do you see that?” she asked Hawk.

  With great effort, he turned to look. His eyes narrowed, then opened wide. “Oh God.”

  “What do you call that?” she asked, fatigue and shock washing away on a wave of bright awareness. “A tire iron?”

  “Lug wrench,” said Hawk, leaning forward for a better look. “Some kind of fancy one. See how it’s jointed there? It telescopes. Compacts down to fit in the tool compartment of even a little car.”

  “Like a Mazda Miata?” Sally asked, feeling sick all over again.

  “Yeah,” said Hawk. “Maybe. But it wouldn’t be standard equipment. You’d go out and buy yourself something like that if you wanted a little extra leverage.”

  “For example, let’s say you were a girl,” said Sally, “and you wanted to be able to change tires yourself, without having to ask some guy for help.”

  “For example,” Hawk agreed.

  “Detective!” Sally called. “Come here. You need to see this.”

  Atkins, talking on his cell phone, held up one finger.

  “No,” Sally insisted, “really! Really, Scotty, right now!”

  He said something more into the phone, clicked off, walked their way.

  “Look at that,” she told the detective, pointing into the weeds.

  Atkins looked. His mouth hardened. He glared at Sally, closed his eyes tightly, shook his head hard, and opened his eyes. “Let me think a minute about the facts I know as of this moment,” he began. “Bradley Preston”—he nodded in the direction of the body—“is dead, by all appearances, victim of a very recent assault.”

  “An assault with a blunt instrument, it looks like,” said Sally, pointing at the
object in the weeds.

  “You’re getting ahead of me. The guys will be here soon enough to make that determination.”

  “But much as you hate to admit it,” Sally put in, “that’s what probably happened.”

  Scotty continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “This same Bradley Preston’s daughter has disappeared. Gone, who knows where, and it seems she herself had been assaulted at the time she took off. Meanwhile, this very morning, the man’s wife is involved in a demonstration at an abortion clinic, and for the first time in the history of the state of Wyoming, there’s a car bombing.”

  “Beatrice Preston? Is she blond, pretty in a sort of permanently blow-dried, network anchorwoman way? Prays a lot and acts like she’s not trying to attract attention, when she is?”

  Scotty winced, scrubbing his palm across his forehead. “May I ask what you know about Mrs. Preston, Sally?” he asked.

  “We went down to the demonstration,” said Hawk. “Just getting our fair share of abuse.”

  At that moment, Sheriff Langham peeled into the alley, the tires of his Blazer spitting gravel. An Albany County patrol car was right behind.

  “What’s going on over there?” Atkins asked Dickie.

  “FBI’s on the scene,” he told Scotty. “Guess they headed over from Cheyenne the minute they heard about the demonstration at the clinic. ATF will be here within the hour. We’ve got a half-dozen people heading for the hospital with cuts and bruises, but nobody seriously hurt. It’s a fucking miracle.” Dickie glanced over at the body in the alley. “What the hell’s happened here?” he asked of no one in particular.

  “We were down there at the doctor’s office,” said Sally. “When that car blew, we just started running this way. That’s how we found him,” she finished, tipping her head in the direction of the body.

  Dickie walked over to the deputies pulling crime scene kits out of their vehicle. Atkins followed him, Sally and Hawk trailing behind. “I know things are a little crazy right now,” he told the deputies, “but take your time here. Do this right. Pretty soon every investigator within a four-hundred-mile radius will be stomping all over that doctor’s office, treating the incident like the federal case it is. In other words, not the county’s case. Our job over there is to render assistance as requested. But over here,” he continued, “looks like we’ve got a murder on our hands.”

  Chapter 5

  Sick

  Under normal circumstances, Sally’s first move upon wakening was to wash her face and brush her teeth. Her second was to head straight to the kitchen counter, fill the coffee grinder with Peet’s French Roast beans, and perform the ritual that transformed her from a lump of protoplasm into a thinking human being.

  After what she’d seen and been through, she wasn’t sure she wanted the feelings that came along with thinking. Then again, she told herself as she lay in bed, loath to face the day, give a creature a big enough brain, and consciousness came with the territory. Get a grip on the feelings by focusing the thinking.

  She didn’t wait for coffee. She hauled herself up, grabbed a notepad out of a kitchen drawer, pulled a pencil out of a jar on the counter, and sat down at the table to try to draw, from memory, the object she’d seen in the weeds in the alley the day before. She wasn’t the world’s best artist, but fortunately her subject was simple. It took three sketches to get the bend in the bar right, to get to the point where the socket seemed to her the right size. Eventually she was satisfied.

  Turned out she was a step behind Hawk, who’d taken the more rational if perhaps less artistic tack. He’d been on the computer, searching the web for auto parts. He’d found scores of websites that offered lug wrenches of various kinds, half a dozen more that specialized in gear for Mazda Miatas. He’d printed out pictures of several possibilities, but only one matched both Hawk’s excellent memory and Sally’s imperfect drawing: the Nut-Buster extendable lug wrench.

  “That thing isn’t only for Miatas, right?” Sally asked. Despite her automotive nickname, you could put in an eye-dropper everything Mustang Sally Alder knew about cars.

  “No. It’s a pretty generic tool. But we do know that it works for Miatas, since I found this one on a Miata site. Most people would just use whatever lug wrench happened to come with their car. You’d buy something like this, maybe, if the original was gone, or as I told you yesterday, if you wanted a little extra leverage,” Hawk explained.

  “That doesn’t mean it’s a girl tool,” said Sally.

  “It could be, sure. But think about it, Hawk. Who actually wants to work harder than they have to? I can imagine some big giant former football hero whose knees have gone to sludge and bone chips, deciding that the Nut-Buster would save him the trouble of having to get down on, and back off of, the ground. Or some trucker who has to change tires a lot wanting an extendable jobbie that would cut down wear and tear on an arthritic elbow joint. Things that save anybody’s labor aren’t just for girls. That’s one of those myths that are meant to reinforce men’s images of themselves as manly and make women think they’re too weak to do stuff like be president of the United States.”

  “Presidents probably don’t change a lot of tires,” Hawk replied dryly. “But I catch your drift. You know, all this serious thinking about gender roles won’t ultimately mean shit if they find Charlie Preston’s prints all over that Nut-Buster.”

  “Or possibly her boyfriend’s prints. And given the fact that both kids have records, it wouldn’t take the cops any time at all to make a match. I really wish I could talk to Charlie before that happens. They’ll catch up with her eventually. The sooner she’s back here, telling her side of the story, the better.”

  “If, in fact, she didn’t do it,” Hawk said.

  Sallybit her lip, thought a minute. “Even if she did, which I can’t believe at this point. I think,” said Sally, “I’ll give a call to the Stark household. See if young Agatha’s around.”

  Julie Stark answered. Aggie, she said, was at a track meet at the Laramie High stadium. She was running the 800-meter lap in a medley relay, running the mile, and doing a little pole vaulting.

  “Pole vaulting?” Sally asked. “Aren’t you terrified she’ll impale herself?”

  “Yes, I am,” said Julie. “But when I mention it, Aggie just says ‘Mother!’ in that disgusted way they do, and tells me not to get all girlie on her.”

  “I’d like to talk to her about Charlie,” Sally said. “Have you heard what happened to Bradley Preston?”

  “It was in the Boomerang this morning. Horrible. What’s this town coming to? You’ve heard, of course, about the blast at the doctor’s office. Maude’s calling it a bombing, but the newspaper said the police are calling it a prank—some kids hauled a derelict car into the parking lot and set off a bunch of firecrackers inside.”

  “I was there,” said Sally. “I can’t believe firecrackers would do that much damage. But I guess the police are still sorting it all out. Meanwhile, I’m hoping Aggie might be able to tell me something that could help Charlie.”

  “Hmm,” said Julie, considering the pros and cons. “I guess that’s okay.”

  “Today would be good,” said Sally, pressing, but, she hoped, not too hard.

  “I think she’s planning to go out with friends to get something to eat after the meet. Your best bet is probably to go down to the stadium and try to catch her between events. She’ll be there most of the day. The athletes are always up and down from the stands, getting water and snacks, and talking to people. Look for Mike. He took the dog down to cheer her on. Or if you don’t see him, look for a gaggle of kids wearing brown and gold sweats. She’ll be one of them.”

  “Thanks,” said Sally. “Think I’ll do that.” She hung up the phone and turned to Hawk. “Feel like going to a high school track meet?”

  “You know, Mustang,” said Hawk, moving behind her and wrapping his arms around her, nuzzling her neck. “Yesterday was a bad, bad day. I could use a little comfort and care. I was just thinking to m
yself that it might be fun to try to talk you back into bed for an hour or so.”

  The nuzzling was having the effect of liquefying her limbs, from the knees up and back down again. “I really ought to talk to Aggie Stark,” she said, undermining her position with a sigh that edged into a moan when he put his hands into action.

  “I used to run track in high school,” Hawk told her. “I’m partial to the distance events.”

  “I’ve always admired that about you,” Sally said, reflecting on the prospects.

  “If you want to know the truth, a track meet is mostly a matter of standing around. Another hour,” he said, emphasizing the point with roving fingers, “won’t hurt.”

  “No,” said Sally, turning around to put her arms around him, raising her face for a kiss. “I think, in fact, it’ll probably feel really good.”

  “I’m compelled to warn you,” said Hawk, lips against her mouth. “If we dawdle around here, you might miss the pole vaulting.”

  She made a semirude remark about doing some pole vaulting of her own.

  By the time they got to the stadium, the sun was high in the sky. The field was full of fit teenagers in various combinations of brightly colored sweats and shorts and tank tops, stretching, high-stepping, striding, jogging, milling, and flirting with one another. Over a loudspeaker a voice so distorted as to be, to Sally’s ear, unintelligible announced the results of previous events and called athletes to line up for the next race. Out on the oval track, runners sauntered to staggered starting lines, shaking out their legs.

  Up in the stands, clusters of uniformed team members mingled with parents and friends, forming islands of color all up and down the concrete steps, the metal benches. Sally spotted the group in brown and gold. The kids were chattering gaily, slugging water and Gatorade out of bottles, chomping on PowerBars and sandwiches and raw vegetables and an enormous assortment of junk food. One group of leggy girls clustered around Mike Stark, babbling baby talk to a miniature schnauzer they were passing hand to hand.