Spider's Web

by Mike Omer

  Tanessa looked at the witness. He had blood on his palms and on his clothes. She realized her own pants were drenched in blood as well. She stared at the pool of blood on the road in disbelief. How much blood had the girl lost?

  “Will she be okay?”

  “Do you know her?” Tanessa asked him. He was about twenty-five, stubble on his face, thin glasses on his nose. He looked dazed, confused. Tanessa couldn’t blame him.

  “Yeah, I do. I don’t know her name, but she was a waitress in The Wild Pony.”

  “The Wild Pony?”

  “It’s the local bar. It’s a few blocks that way,” he said, pointing.

  “Tanessa, check this out,” Sergio called.

  She walked over. He stood near a dark lamppost, which leaned sideways, its base bent.

  “The car crashed into it after hitting her,” Tanessa said.

  “Sure looks like it.”

  “So…” she said, trying to create a mental picture of the accident for her report. “It came from there, hit the girl over there, and then lost control, crashing into the lamppost. Then probably reversed a bit, and drove away in that direction.” She pointed.

  “Sounds right,” Sergio said.

  “Excuse me,” the witness called.

  Tanessa turned. “Yes?”

  “It didn’t drive away in that direction.”

  “I’m sorry?” Tanessa said.

  “It drove away in the other direction.”

  Tanessa frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

  “Maybe the car hit the lamppost first, then hit the girl and kept on driving,” Sergio suggested.

  “Doesn’t look like it. Not the way the lamppost is leaning,” Tanessa said. “It’s leaning away from the spot the girl was lying in.”

  “Sir,” Sergio said. “Was the lamppost maybe broken before the accident?”

  “Well, it was fine a few hours ago.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I would have noticed if it was broken when I came home from work.”

  Tanessa’s skin crawled. “That would mean,” she said slowly, “that the driver hit the girl, lost control, hit the lamppost, then reversed his car, turned it around… and fled down that way.” She pointed at the pool of blood.

  They all stared at the narrow street. The pool of blood was surrounded by parked cars.

  “There’s no way he could have gotten around her,” Sergio said.

  “He drove over her,” Tanessa said, feeling sick. She thought of Tamay, lying motionless, her body twisted unnaturally.

  “Jesus.”

  “We should inform dispatch.”

  This wasn’t a random hit and run anymore. This was beginning to feel like something much more sinister.

  Chapter Eight

  A blue Honda Civic pulled in and parked by the accident scene, and Tanessa didn’t need to glance inside to see who was driving. She knew that car well, had been in it numerous times. She’d ridden in the front seat to her first day at the academy, and after her graduation ceremony as well. She’d once sat in that car for forty-five minutes, crying, blowing her nose into one tissue after the other, as her brother consoled her, telling her there would be other guys. And, on a memorable night, she had thrown up all over the backseat after drinking six vodka shots on a stupid dare.

  Mitchell got out of his car and walked over. Tanessa stood by the temporary roadblock they had raised, prepared to intercept any car that might want to drive through.

  “Hey, Mitch,” she said, trying to sound casual.

  “Hey, Sis,” he replied, smiling at her. “So what do we have here?”

  “A hit and run,” she said, and cleared her throat. “Except it looks like the car turned around and ran over the victim again as it was escaping.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “A guy named Troy, he’s over there. He didn’t see it happening, just saw the car driving away.”

  “Then how do you know what happened?”

  She walked him through their reasoning, the angle and location of the lamppost, the corresponding location of the pool of blood. When she finished, her brother just looked at her. He said nothing, but she could see a tiny spark in his eye. She knew that look well, and was filled with relief, knowing he was proud of her.

  “Okay,” he nodded. “We’ll need to go door to door, see if someone maybe saw—” He suddenly paused. “Who’s that in your patrol car?”

  Tanessa looked, and was surprised to see that Kenneth, the laptopcidal novelist, was still in the backseat. He suddenly seemed so trivial.

  “He’s just a guy we arrested before getting here,” she said. “Unrelated to the accident.”

  “Huh,” Mitchell said. “He doesn’t look happy.”

  “He had a bad day.”

  “Okay,” Mitchell said. He looked around. “It’s really dark here. You say the victim was wearing black? It’s possible that the driver didn’t see her at all at first.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Tanessa nodded.

  “Okay. So here’s what I need you to do—” His phone rang. He motioned for Tanessa to hang on and answered it.

  “Yeah?” His eyes became more serious. “I see. Okay, thanks. Yeah, and Jacob Cooper, my partner as well. Okay.” He hung up.

  “Well,” he said. “The victim just died in the ER. This is a homicide scene.”

  Tanessa looked at him, the words slowly making sense. The girl was dead. The same girl she had held, had reassured, telling her everything was going to be okay, was now gone. Tanessa might have been the last person to talk to her.

  She realized Mitchell was still talking. “She wasn’t carrying any identification, so it’s possible her purse or handbag is still somewhere here. I want to find out who she was as soon as possible—”

  “Her name was Tamay,” Tanessa said. Her own voice sounded faraway. “She was a waitress in a local bar.”

  “Oh?” Mitchell said. “Okay, that’s helpful. Good work. Let’s see if we can find her purse.”

  Tanessa numbly gripped her flashlight and turned it on. She saw Sergio do the same, looking under a parked car. Good idea. It might have been thrown underneath one of the cars. She bent herself, and looked under a small Toyota.

  She had caressed Tamay’s forehead, moving aside one of her numerous braids.

  Nothing under the car. She moved to the next one.

  Who had done all those braids? Tamay? Her mother? Her friend? Someone who had now lost a dear part of his life forever?

  The next car had nothing under it as well. She kept on looking.

  Had Tamay felt any pain when she died? Had she been scared? What was her evening like before the car hit her? Was she just returning from a shift, taking orders from drunk customers, occasionally returning to a table to find out they hadn’t left a tip? Or maybe she’d had a nice evening, spent it with her boyfriend, cuddled in front of the television?

  “I don’t think it’s that far, Tanessa,” Mitchell called after her. She realized she was already fifty feet from the accident site. How had she gotten so far? She stood up and turned away, looking into the darkness.

  The tears came quickly, filling her eyes, clouding her vision. Her lower lip quivered, as it always did when she cried. Damn it! Not now. Later, later. If Mitchell or Sergio saw her like this she would die.

  “Found it!” she heard Sergio shout. She wiped her eyes, tried to take a deep breath, but suddenly an image of Tamay blinking as Tanessa held her cheek popped into her mind, and a fresh tear trickled from her eye. She was a mess. Mitchell would never let her forget this. It would become an example of why she wasn’t fit for the job. He’d never wanted her to be a cop, had begged her to reconsider, and now he would have a fantastic reason to keep on telling her to quit. He’d say she was too sensitive for this job, would rally Richard and Mom to the cause, and… and…

  “Hey, Tanessa,” she heard him say behind her.

  “I’ll be right there,” she said. She could he
ar the shaking in her voice, knew Mitchell heard it as well. There was a pause. He was about to hug her, she knew, tell her it was all right. And later, he’d talk to her about it. Again and again and…

  “Officer Lonnie,” he said, breaking the silence, “I need you to drive over to the gas station on Pine Hollow Road. The car drove away in that direction. Maybe the gas station’s security tape caught something.”

  “Okay,” she said, confused.

  “I’ll drive,” Sergio said.

  “No, Officer Bertini, I need you to join me. We need to go door to door, ask people if they saw anything. Tan… Officer Lonnie will join us as soon as she gets back.”

  “Sure,” Sergio said. “Hey, Tanessa, get me a cup of coffee when you’re there, okay?”

  “No problem,” she said, her voice steadier, not looking back at them.

  They walked away. She breathed deeply, wiped her eyes, and marched quickly to the patrol car, her eyes downcast as she got inside.

  “Hey!” Kenneth said in a whiny voice.

  “Shut up!” Tanessa snapped at him, her voice shrill. “Just shut the fuck up!”

  He shut up. She started the car and drove away, leaving Mitchell and Sergio behind as they approached one of the houses.

  She had never loved her brother more than in that moment.

  It was another boring night at the gas station, and Derek was thumbing through the last issue of Car and Driver, trying to calculate how many shifts it would take him to be able to afford any of those cars. The wage he was getting, about a gazillion shifts. Maybe even more.

  The door rang, and a lady cop walked up to him and asked for a key to the bathroom. He glanced at her. Her face was blotchy and red, her eyes swollen. Her hair was a bit messy. He gave her the key, and returned to his magazine. Maybe if he got a raise, it would just take a billion shifts. He’d have to do the math later.

  Ten minutes later she came back and handed him the key.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  He raised his eyes as he reached for the key, and his breath caught. For a moment he thought it wasn’t the same cop.

  Her hair, now combed and pulled back, was chocolatey brown and completely smooth. A strand left out of the ponytail tumbled playfully on her forehead. Her skin was a sort of rich white, completely unblemished. He wondered how he had imagined it to be red and splotchy before. He was obviously mistaken. Her eyes… oh God, her eyes. They would follow him in his dreams for years to come. Almond-shaped and green, they reminded him of a deep, sparkling lake.

  She smiled at him. This was the highlight of his entire year.

  “Do you have a security camera somewhere?” she asked.

  Security cameras. For a minute he had a hard time remembering what those were. Then he understood. Security cameras! Of course they did!

  “Um… yeah! Sure I do! Lots!” he said, somehow feeling that the number of security cameras would please her.

  “Any of them pointed at the road?”

  He would point them all at the road if it made her smile again. He would install dozens of security cameras, all pointed at the road. There was one pointed at the road, he recalled. Happy day.

  “Uh… Yeah! Absolutely!”

  “Okay. I need to see the feed from the past…” she checked the time. “Ninety minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  He took her to the back room. He was in love. His friends always made fun of him, telling him he fell in love with anything that had breasts. Now he saw that they were right. All his previous loves were nothing, a mere crush. This was the real thing.

  He showed her the console with the camera feed. It displayed a split view of several spots in the gas station. One of the views was pointed at the road. He fiddled with the console’s controls a bit, nervous at the way she stood so close to him. He could smell her scent, reminiscent of springtime and cinnamon and sunlight. Finally, he managed to get the screen to display the view of the road. He rewound the feed back ninety minutes. The time on the screen was 01:43:00.

  “Fast-forward a few minutes,” she said.

  He quickly followed her instructions. In seven minutes, between 1:43 and 1:50, only two cars went by. It was a very quiet road, this late at night. He felt like apologizing for the measly amount of cars. Then he wondered if perhaps she wanted fewer cars. Maybe fewer cars were a good thing. What should he say?

  A third car moved across the road, and the cop said, “Stop. Rewind it a bit, and pause on the car.”

  He did, trying several times until he managed to get it just right. The frame was paused, and he noticed the car’s right front light was broken. Was that what she was looking for?

  “What kind of car is that?” she asked herself quietly, frowning.

  “That’s a Toyota Camry,” he blurted.

  “Yeah?” she glanced at him. “You know cars?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, his heart soaring. They would get married one day. They’d have a boy and a girl. They’d name the girl Amanda, after his mother.

  “Awesome.” She smiled at him, her eyes lighting up. How could a pair of eyes take his breath away like that? “What’s your name?”

  “Derek,” he said.

  “Derek, I’m Officer Tanessa Lonnie. You were really helpful. You just assisted us with a homicide case.”

  “Really?” he asked. He required nothing else of life.

  “Really. Can I have that file?”

  He didn’t even charge her for the USB stick, though she insisted on paying for the three cups of coffee. And when she drove off, he stood by the glass door and watched her vanish into the night.

  While Mitchell and Sergio went door to door questioning cranky people about something they hadn’t seen, Matt Lowery, the crime scene technician, got to the scene and began to photograph it. Jacob got there ten minutes later and, after Mitchell filled him in, began to canvas the houses on the other side of the street.

  The answers they got ranged from shrugs to angry rants about the time to curious questions. No one had seen anything useful. Two women had heard the crash, but by the time they got to the window, the car was long gone. They hadn’t noticed there was anyone hurt on the road.

  Mitchell sighed as the last door was slammed in their face. He turned to look at Jacob, who was just turning away from another door. Jacob shrugged.

  “I think we’re done,” Mitchell told Sergio, who nodded sadly. It was a bust, and Mitchell was a bit disheartened. He shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling the little square velvet box that hid deep within his left one. It had been there for the past three days.

  It was an engagement ring.

  He’d bought it in a moment of recklessness. He had been dispatched to check out a burglary scene in a jewelry store. The thieves had broke in, taken whatever jewelry was available, and run. There were still a couple of odds and ends in one of the glass display cases. One of them was a small delicate ring with a tiny, beautiful diamond sitting on top. Mitchell was not one who cared about jewelry, but when he saw that ring his breath caught. It evoked the image of Pauline almost instantly. The owner had been very eager to sell him the ring, and Mitchell made sure he got a receipt. He suspected the owner intended to include the ring in his report to the insurance company.

  Now, he was waiting for the right moment, and kept the ring on him at all times. Pauline occasionally had unpredictable cleaning sprees, and Mitchell didn’t want her to find the ring by accident.

  He walked over to Matt, who was scraping something from the bent lamppost.

  “What do you have?” he asked Matt.

  “Car paint, I think,” Matt said. “It’s green.”

  “Green, huh?” Mitchell said. “So we’re looking for a green car with square lights.”

  “I think so.”

  “What do you reckon happened? Does our patrol officers’ theory hold?”

  “Yeah,” Matt nodded. “There are some tire tracks which definitely indicate that the car drove over the victim a second time as it w
as getting away.”

  “How drunk would the guy have to be?”

  Matt glanced at Mitchell sharply. “As far as I can tell, the car kicked into reverse, turned around and drove straight forward toward the victim without hitting any of the cars parked around it. A drunk would have a hard time pulling that off.”

  Mitchell’s heart grew cold. “Are you saying that it was… intentional?”

  “That’s how it seems to me,” Matt said.

  “Why?”

  “You’re the detective, you tell me,” Matt said. “Maybe the driver panicked, wanted to get rid of the victim, make sure she couldn’t testify against him in court.”

  “Can you tell the make of the car, from the color and the tire marks?”

  Matt shrugged. “Maybe. Can’t promise anything.”

  Tanessa’s patrol car drove toward them, the front lights temporarily blinding them both. She parked the car and got out. Her face was grim, but in control. Mitchell felt a surge of relief. His sister had seemed on the verge of cracking when she’d left, and he knew well that she could never forgive herself if that happened in front of him. She was clearly calmer as she walked toward him, holding something small in her hand. A USB stick.

  “The video feed from the gas station,” she said.

  “Oh, good,” he said, taking it from her. “We’ll look at it later. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “I already did.”

  “Did what?”

  “Looked at it,” she said. “The car is a Toyota Camry. I couldn’t tell what color, the monitor in the gas station was black and white.”

  Mitchell stared at her, impressed. He hadn’t wanted Tanessa to be a cop. He and Richard had tried repeatedly to convince her to drop it. Now, he was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t in the right line of work after all.

  “A Toyota Camry? Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. Its right front light was busted.”