One could easily imagine finding a dead body in one of the trucks, a human skeleton, or a baby abandoned on the passenger seat, swaddled in a blanket, crying.
None of these things was expected when a yellow school bus pulled off the rural highway and thirty students between the ages of eleven and thirteen clambered off with sketchpads, cameras, and brown paper lunchbags for a field trip led by their art teacher, Miss Summer Dayes, whose face beamed with enthusiasm—"Aren't they beautiful!"—as she waltzed around the semicircle of rusty trucks, her fingers floating over the dilapidated hoods like a game show hostess.
"When you find something you want to draw, sit down with your pad and sketch it,” Miss Dayes instructed as the children spread out to explore. “You may want to take a photo to help you when you start your paintings back in class. I'll be around to help."
One eleven-year-old girl wandered to the last truck in the semicircle, a Dodge with a high cab and a truck bed of broken wooden slats. Large purple morning- glory flowers wound around the smashed windshield, and a green anole scurried over the brown hood. Careful to avoid an anthill, the girl pulled herself up to peek into the cab.
She did not scream.
She knew the man.
* * * *
Sheriff Bill Crocker was barreling down Sandy Point Road in his 2009 Escalade from Magnolia Spring Country Club, where he had played nine holes with Donald Mayes, president of the Walker County Chamber of Commerce. He yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, nearly missing his turn, his mind completely distracted by Mayes's proposal.
"The last election was close and frankly, you probably won't win again,” Mayes began over drinks after their game. “We need a representative who is well connected, who can get us more state funds. The whole county will back you. I'll kick ass in the publicity department. What do you say?"
Bill gulped his drink and waved to the bartender for another round. He felt his heart pounding, his face hot with excitement. And ambivalence. He liked where he was, a big alligator in a small pond.
For thirty-two years Bill Crocker had been sheriff of Walker County, a vast underpopulated land of pine forests, cypress swamps, and seaweed-covered beaches. He knew Walker County back when its schools didn't have toilets and a fourth of the population was illiterate, when there wasn't a doctor or dentist in the entire county, when the roads were unpaved tracks of ribbed sand, when the only businesses were logging and shrimping, when your house was a rundown trailer or unpainted shack, and when restaurants sold you a choice between fried mullet or catfish, with a side of collard greens and hush puppies. Which they still did.
Sure it was flattering. But Bill wasn't sure he trusted Donald Mayes, a retired advertising executive who had left Tampa under some financial scandal and ingratiated himself into local politics, joining local clubs and charities as if he had some burning passion for community service. He was too smooth for Bill's tastes. He had made two land investments with the sheriff and had never cheated him. Still . . . he was an outsider. His teeth were perfect.
"Why don't you announce your intention to run at the Worm Gruntin’ Festival,” suggested Mayes. This was an annual street fair in the tiny town of Tamucua which celebrated redneck culture with a competitive mullet toss, a worm- grunting contest, and a raw oyster eating contest. “I'm chairman of the festival this year. I can get you on the program."
So many phone calls and handshakes, so much smiling. Did Bill really want that? And he would have to give up Summer—he couldn't run for state office with a mistress.
The booze began to hit. Bill's eyes were getting blurry, his lids heavy, the car feeling oddly motionless, although he knew he was moving forward, the dashboard lights mysteriously luminous. Just get me home, he thought.
He began to imagine making a speech at the Worm Gruntin’ Festival, and wondered if Debra Sue Dobson would be there.
He first met Debra Sue—forty years ago?—when she was sixteen, newly married to Joe Dobson, a good-natured, not-too-bright son of a shrimper. Joe made his living collecting worms in the forest—worm grunting, it was called—which entailed rubbing a wooden stake in the ground with a narrow slab of iron, which for some reason drove the worms to the surface. They lived in a trailer Joe bought new for ten thousand dollars, a fortune for the young couple. When they missed a few payments, the bank foreclosed, and Deputy Sheriff Crocker—new on the job—was sent to boot them out. He couldn't do it. Debra Sue, seven months pregnant, a skinny scraggly-haired girl with bad teeth, whose accent was so thick that at first Bill thought she was deaf, standing in cutoff jeans up to her ass, a man's shirt tied up under her breasts, offered the only thing she had. He felt sorry for her. He went to talk to the vice-president of Walker County Bank, who happened to be his cousin, and got him to stop the fore-closure. For the next year or two, whenever Bill came across something he thought the young couple might need—canned goods, a dining-room set, a water pump—he dropped it off. It was just something he wanted to do.
Again he almost missed his turn, right on Azalea Park, a two-lane road that meandered through pine forest to the center of Mulletville. Crocker lived on the road, had driven it thousands of times, drunk, sober, late at night on moonless nights when it was pitch black, and early in the morning when deer, raccoons, or an occasional bobcat or boar darted across the road. The houses were set back from the road, many with boats parked in their driveways. There was no shoulder.
The speed limit was forty-five miles per hour. The sheriff seldom drove it that slowly. This time of night he would probably pass no more than two cars in the seven-minute drive to his house.
Good ole Debra Sue. He wondered where she was now.
A flash of white leapt out at him. At first he thought it was a snowy egret by the side of the road, startled, taking flight. Just before the horrible scraping, crashing noise, before impact, before the snap of his neck, before the thoughts—What the hell? Where'd that come from?—raced through his mind, he realized it was nothing but a white mailbox.
* * * *
"Are you sure this is the right house, honey? I don't see any lights on. Did you write it down right? Let me see it again. Where's the light?"
There they sat, Donna Brinkmeyer and her eleven-year-old daughter Sophie, in somebody's driveway on Azalea Park Road, in a black SUV, both of them reaching for the overhead light as if it were some competition, Sophie snapping off her seatbelt, pushing off the seat with one hand, stretching her thin arm, her little fingers darting around the fixture, Donna jamming her thumb against the sharp rim.
"The switch must be here somewhere,” said Donna.
"Let me do it,” Sophie insisted.
"Nine eighty-nine or eight ninety-eight? It's further down, I'm sure. Where's that piece of paper?"
Donna reached behind the seat, feeling for her purse—"Can't you find the light?"—her neck twisted uncomfortably, touching something sticky like an old roll of Lifesavers, then gritty sand under her fingernails.
Blam! A horrible squealing scraping sound! Plastic crunching! The car jolted forward and pivoted, the rear shoved left. Sophie screamed, falling into Donna's lap, the steering wheel stabbing into her ribs. Donna's head slammed into the window. The airbags did not open.
Donna looked around out the rear window. A huge SUV, the passenger-side door up against the rear window. Why did anyone need such a big car? The windows were tinted. The driver threw the SUV in reverse, then drove twenty feet. The car paused, then drove another twenty feet, paused, then continued down the street.
"They took off!” cried Sophie indignantly.
Donna swung around, relieved to see Sophie sitting up in her seat unharmed. “Are you okay, honey?"
"Are they crazy? They can't do that!” Sophie twisted around in her seat, grabbing the headrest with her hands to see out the rear window.
Donna couldn't believe it. There weren't any cars anywhere. They were off the road. How could someone crash into them?
"Call the cops, Mom. They should be arr
ested."
* * * *
Bill Crocker was shaking, that awful sound of scraping metal still in his ears. He stopped and looked in his rearview mirror. No cars around, no cars coming. No lights in the house, nobody running out of the house. Maybe nobody saw it.
Where did that car come from? Was someone in it? He should stop and check. Shit, shit, shit. He couldn't stop. He'd been drinking. Shit. It wasn't his fault. Who sits in a car in a driveway in the dark? What now?
Bill felt nauseated and sweaty, his arms rubbery, tingling as if he had d.t.'s, adrenaline pulsing through his body.
Get home. It was the only thing he could think of. Like a wounded, frightened animal, home to its den. He pressed the gas pedal, leaning forward, his eyes peering into the dark so wide they hurt. Get home! It was just down the road. Get home!
* * * *
"Turn on the light, honey. Where's my phone?"
"In your purse, Mom. I hope you charged it up,” said Sophie, her voice trembling, yet still managing sarcasm. She reached up and snapped on the light, this time finding the switch easily.
Donna blinked, her eyes tearing. The light was so bright. Her forehead throbbed. She saw a patch of plastic or film on the window. It was her skin, about the size of a peach, from her forehead, she guessed, smeared across the glass.
"Wake up, Mother,” Sophie scolded. “Are you in shock? Give me the phone.” She snatched Donna's purse from her, dug out the phone, and flipped it open. She dialed 911. When someone answered, she handed it back to her mother.
"What an asshole,” said Sophie. “They didn't even stop to see if we were all right.” She peered out the window again as if looking for taillights, which were long gone. “That's against the law."
* * * *
Clutching his chest, Crocker stumbled through the front door—he thought maybe he was having a heart attack—a stabbing tightness across his chest that caved him over. He headed for the Windsor cabinet where he kept the hard liquor and almost poured himself a drink until he realized that the last thing he needed to do was raise his blood alcohol level. He poured himself a glass of water instead and drank it. Slowly the pain eased. He lowered himself into a mustard leather wingback chair. He leaned his head back and moaned.
How could he do something so stupid! He felt miserable, his head throbbing, clinging to the hope nobody saw, drowning with the injustice of it all. He indulged in self-pity for a moment, his hands over his eyes. Then panic jolted him awake.
He reached for the phone.
Roland Parker, a captain at the sheriff's department, was watching television in his home when Crocker called and told him—as clearly as he could—what happened.
"Was anyone in the car?” Captain Parker asked.
"I don't know. Maybe I saw someone. I'm not sure."
"Why in the hell didn't you stop and check it out?"
"I wasn't thinking straight."
"Now they're gonna call and report a hit-and-run. What a mess. Where's your car?"
"I put it in the garage."
"Good. I'll send a deputy over to take your statement. And someone for your car."
"I can't pass a sobriety test, Roland."
Silence on the other end. Then Roland said, “Don't worry about it. I'll take care of everything."
* * * *
Highway Patrol Officer Randy Rutkowski arrived at the crash site at 9:16 and started asking questions. The mother was obviously shaken, worried about what her husband would say, worried that her insurance wouldn't cover a hit-and-run, worried that her ten-year-old son was still waiting to be picked up—she'd never get him home in time to do his homework, unless he was doing it while he waited at his friend's house, which she doubted.
"The driver slowed down a couple of times—braked—so I thought he was going to turn around. But he never did. He just kept on going."
She rambled on nervously, but failed to answer many of Officer Rutkowski's questions. “Did you see how many people were in the car? Was there any damage to the other car? Did you catch the tag number? What was the make of the car? How about the color?"
"I don't know,” she said. “Silver, white. It was huge. It all happened so fast."
"You said he drove toward Mulletville?"
"Yes, that's right, Officer."
"Probably some drunk,” Rutkowski muttered.
"Aren't you going to put out an APB?” asked the little girl.
Officer Rutkowski laughed. “You must watch cop shows. Yes, I called it in."
The girl kicked the front tire, her arms crossed, frowning, stepping in and out of the beam of the cop's headlight, watching her shadow. “Can we go yet? I have a French test tomorrow I have to study for."
"I'll let you go as soon as I have all the information from your mother."
"It's the other guy's fault. Why don't you go after him?"
He laughed again and turned to the mother. “I was never that smart at her age. Were you?” He turned back to the girl. “It usually takes about twenty minutes. I have to type in the crash report on the car computer."
Before he got to his car, he heard tires crunching behind him. It was a sheriff's car. Two deputy sheriffs got out and walked up to him.
* * * *
"Why are there so many cops, Mom?” Sophie whispered. “It was just a fender bender. Why are they yelling at each other?"
The new arrivals appeared nervous, hurried, and self-important, as if they were classroom monitors trying to calm a tornado of spitballs before the principal walks in. “The new officers are sheriff's deputies,” Donna explained to Sophie. “The other one is Florida Highway Patrol."
"What's the difference?"
"FHP is supposed to handle traffic accidents."
"Then what are the other guys here for?"
They watched FHP Officer Rutkowski stomp back to his squad car and talk on his radio. He had one leg inside the car, the other on the ground. After a minute, he pulled his left leg into the car and slammed the door. He started the engine and backed up, pausing to lower the window. A balled-up traffic report flew out the window. The car sped away.
It didn't make sense to Sophie. Why did the sheriff's deputies act like it was their fault? Demanding her mother's license and proof of insurance. Asking her if she'dbeen drinking. Asking her why she was parked where she was. What was she doing this time of night? Telling her she was wrong to have moved the car after the accident.
"We gave the same information to the other officer,” her mother said. “Why is the sheriff's department involved?"
"Just answer our questions, ma'am. Okay? Now tell me, has anyone in the vehicle sustained injury?
Donna hesitated before answering, surprised. Why would the deputy sheriff say that instead of, “Is anyone hurt?"
It occurred to her that perhaps she shouldn't admit she was fine. She had heard of people discovering they were hurt days after a crash, their eyes suddenly blurring, neck and back aching. Weird tingling. Numbness. Shooting pains. She knew that if she answered wrong, her husband would be angry—"Why don't you think before you open your trap?"—would accuse her of being emotional, of trying too hard to please. “Use your head for once."
It then occurred to her that maybe someone important had hit her. Someone with money.
"I feel pretty banged up,” she said softly.
And as if on cue, Sophie began to cry.
* * * *
The next morning Bill Crocker was cheerfully packing a small cooler with coldcuts and beer, the accident all but forgotten, hurrying to get out of the house before Meredith got up and started grilling him about all the men who descended on the house last night, when the phone rang. It was Roland Parker.
"A reporter called this morning—must've caught it on the scanner last night. The first thing he asked was if you'd had a urine drug test."
Crocker slapped the refrigerator angrily—some asshole reporter trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. “Who was it?"
"Clive Johnston, Capitol C
ity Observer. I told him the deputies didn't think a urine test was necessary, and then he asked why not, since it's department policy to require any sheriff department employee in a crash in a county vehicle with over five hundred dollars’ worth of damage to have a urine drug test."
"What did you say?"
"I said that you are the sheriff, and that the policy doesn't apply to you."
"I can't believe you said that. How did he find out about the damage estimate?"
"Hell if I know. He asked what you were cited for."
Crocker caught his breath, sensing a fatal mistake, as if suddenly noticing the gate left open to a bull pen. “What was I cited for?"
"Nothing. Nobody wrote you a ticket. Did you want them to? He wanted to know why the sheriff's deputies dismissed the FHP officer who was already at the scene."
Crocker noticed he was sweating. “What did you say?"
"I told him it was none of his damn business."
"You didn't."
"Of course not. I said that department policy provides an option for the sheriff's office to investigate accidents involving department vehicles."
"Can I put you on speaker for a second?” Crocker went to the sink and splashed his face with cold water.
Parker rambled on. “The reporter wanted to know why you took off. He wanted to know where you'd been before the accident."
Crocker wiped his face with a paper towel, then tossed it into the trash. He missed and had to pick it up.
"How much did you have to drink?” asked Parker.
"Nothing I couldn't handle. Nobody at the bar will say anything. I'll have the deputies write me up a ticket."
"You can't change the date and time. It's all computerized."
"Shit."
Parker cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Summer wasn't with you, was she?"
Crocker was taken aback. He had never told Parker about any of his “lady friends.” He'd almost forgotten that Summer had joined them at the bar, listening as Mayes pressed him on the campaign, flattering him, making him feel important, all the while her Cheshire Cat smile mocking him, getting him hot, and making it worse by running her finger over his ear there in the parking lot—"You want to find a boat?"—then acting all concerned—"Are you okay to drive?"—when he said he had to get home. Thank God they had separated there. He understood how it would have made things worse. Much worse. “No,” Crocker said. “I was alone."
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