Death at the Wheel (33 page)

I saw the railing coming at me, the window shattering. I closed my eyes.

Dom's hand was on mine again. Strong and comforting. "When you can," he said. "Take your time."

"I hit the rail and the car started to tip and then it rolled over and over down the hill and stopped in the ditch. The metal was groaning and creaking. All I could think of was fire and my door wouldn't open. Neither door would. I pushed out the glass, crawled through the window, and started up the slope. I wanted to get high enough so that if it exploded... I didn't know if cars explode often or rarely but I wasn't going to wait around and see. It was all I could think of...."

"Not very—" was all Crimmins got out before Dom shushed him.

"I went up the slope on all fours. Not the one I'd rolled down. It was too steep. The other side. Partway up I was ready to lie down and take my chances but somehow I kept on. I got to the trees and when I looked back down, I saw him."

"Saw who?"

"I don't know. It was so dark. Raining heavily. A man. That's all I'm sure of. That it was a man. I thought he was coming to get me out of the car... I was going to call to him, but then he stopped, looked up toward the street, where people were, and instead of opening the door or looking in the car, he went to the front... and did something underneath. It was tipped sort of sideways in the ditch, lying on the passenger's side. There was a flash—a lighter, I think—he held it to see while he did something... then the light clicked off and I heard sounds, gurgling and splashing, like liquid being poured. He bent down. Clicked the lighter again and ran away. He never looked in the car. He set it on fire and never looked in the car."

I squeezed Dom's hand. "He never looked in the car."

I was holding on so tightly I was probably hurting him, but he didn't complain. "There were people coming down the bank—to rescue me, I thought—I wasn't sure they could see the fire. I tried to call to them. I left the woods and went toward them. It flared up with a huge roar and then..." I tried to remember. "A small pop, like a champagne cork... and a big roar as the fire took hold. My whole car was burning. Then an explosion. Knocked me down like a bowling pin. I couldn't get up. I didn't think they were going to find me. It was so cold...."

My eyes closed. I'd given them what they wanted and now they'd let me rest. I could feel the drug beginning to work, feel the tangible spreading of relief and a delicious lethargy.

"How fast were you going?" Crimmins said.

"Around fifty-five. The rain had started and it was hard to see."

"What did you observe about the vehicle which allegedly bumped you?" Crimmins asked.

My eyes popped open. "It didn't allegedly do anything, Officer. It bumped me, hard, stayed there and kept on pushing. And if my car hadn't burned... or maybe even now, a shrewd detective who knew what he was looking for might find traces of paint there, if he bothered to look. Paint from the car that pushed me. And I suppose your next question will be about the man I allegedly saw, right? Well, there's no allegedly about him, either. I can't tell you who he was, but I can assure you he was there. Probably trying to destroy evidence that the car was tampered with."

I thought about that. Realized what the other possibility was; the other very likely possibility. The man had never looked to see if I was in the car. The man Sonia's cousin had seen in the street, working on "his" car. "And to destroy me."

Crimmins kept looking at me like I'd offered him caviar and served him baloney and marshmallow fluff. I didn't know how to make him happy. There might be something more but my poor, weary brain couldn't cough it up. Not now. I needed R & R. Rest and Rosie. "Don't look at me like that, Officer. I wish I remembered more. Had noticed more. Maybe I did and I just can't recall it right now. It all happened so fast. In the dark. In the rain. Have you ever been in an accident, Officer Crimmins?"

He shook his head. "No, ma'am."

"Ever had someone deliberately try to kill you?"

"No, ma'am." He was staring at me like I'd gone loco. I hadn't, though. If I had nine lives, like a cat, then I've already used up several. It's not the sort of thing you can explain to disbelieving strangers.

"Maybe that's why you don't understand. Why you don't believe me. And I can't help you. Is there anything else?"

"Can you give me any sort of description of this man?"

I started to shake my head and thought better of it. My brains were scrambled enough already. "He was wearing a raincoat and a hat."

"Tall? Short? Old? Young?"

"It was dark. It was raining. I saw a man. That's all I can tell you." I plucked at the blue and white hospital gown I was wearing. It seemed to be all I was wearing, except panties. "I can't go out like this, Dom. Where are my clothes?"

Dom made a face. "You wouldn't want 'em right now. Blood, mud, grass stains, prickles. Soaking wet. I'll throw them in the washer when we get home and see if anything can be saved."

"But what am I...?"

He held up a brown paper bag. "I've brought you my favorite sweats, fresh from the laundry."

"They'd better be, Florio, I've seen how they look when you're done with 'em."

"And there's this." He pulled a brownish-white item out of his pocket and let it dangle from his hand. It was a bra. Not very clean. Probably mine. "It's almost dry. I washed it out in the sink with my own two hands," he said proudly. "And I wouldn't do that for just anyone." Crimmins stared stupidly from the bra to me and back to Florio.

With his glasses on, in his conservative, detective attire, Florio looks like an aging, bearlike accountant. Take off the glasses so you can see his probing, intelligent eyes, and you can see the detective. Give him a basketball and dress him in sweats and you've got an aging jock. Put him with Rosie and you've got a romantic hero. My second favorite cop, Dom Florio, is a human chameleon.

"I love you, Dom," I said, holding out my hand for the bra. "How did you find me?"

"Meagher." Steve Meagher is Dom's partner. "He heard something on the radio, Red Saab. License number. Steve's a good detail man. He called me. I called here, got Crimmins and got the story, and jumped in my car. Steve says to tell you hello."

"A good man in a tight spot," I said. "Speaking of good men. Does Andre know?" Dom nodded. "What did you tell him?"

"Fender bender. Cut on your arm. A few stitches. I would bring you safely home and put you to bed."

"He was okay with that?"

"He knew I was lying. He told me so. He wanted to know how bad it was. I said you weren't even staying overnight in your least favorite accommodations—minimal blood loss, minimal stitches, no broken bones, and only a mild concussion—and I would keep you under police surveillance twenty-four hours a day."

I let out the breath I'd been holding.

"He just caught a nice, fresh murder and was on his way out the door,” Dom continued. “I promised you'd call him when we got home. They'll page him." He stroked my arm. "It's okay, Thea. He knows you were being careful. I think he's getting used to your ways. Now, if Rosie were to get herself in scrapes like this..."

"You would be awestruck," I interrupted. "You would stare at her in wonder and suggest that while you'd rather she didn't, you knew she was going to do what she was going to do and you'd ask her to please be careful... and not hurt the other guy too much."

"You're right. Impossible women hold a fatal attraction for me."

"We hope it's not fatal," I said. Crimmins's mouth was pinched up like a prune with disapproval.

Dom reached in the bag and pulled out a handful of gray. He dumped it on the bed beside me. "You need some help with this?"

"Maybe you could send a nurse?"

He made a face. "I'm perfectly capable..."

"I know you are, Florio, but what would Rosie think?"

My second favorite cop considered. "That I'm a crass opportunist?"

I nodded. "I'll find a nurse," he said.

"Take Crimmins with you?"

"With pleasure."

Even with assistance, getting dressed was no picnic. The medication helped, but I was sorer than sore and stiffer than a whalebone corset. Where the seat belt had held me in, there were livid strips of red as tender as a burn. It felt like the bruises went all the way to my bones and all the bones were shaken loose. My neck was so stiff I couldn't turn my head. A bulky bandage on my arm. Six stitches from the glass.

The nurse gave me some prescriptions and helped me off the table. She'd given me an efficient and daunting rundown of things to look out for and worry about, so that at any minute I was expecting to be killed by an embolism or experience blinding headaches as my brain swelled. Most likely my insides would rupture and I'd discover several joints were dislocated. My body temperature would drop, I'd go into shock and be unable to stop shaking. And I should expect to have nightmares for a few weeks, and difficulty riding in cars.

I limped out, leaning on her arm. Crimmins was in deep conversation with a real mean-looking black trooper. Probably trying to persuade the guy to arrest me on a charge of being America's Most Wanted. Somebody wanted me, that was for sure. Wanted me dead. I wished I knew who.

 

 

 

Chapter 26

 

True to Dom's promise, Rosie was waiting for me, her expressive face creased with worry. She hovered by the door, leaning on her cane, as I limped in with Dom at my heels like a sheepdog. She was wearing something long and green and flowing and looked like a Madonna in an old painting. She stared at me and shook her head. "In the bathtub. Now. You look like you've been plowing a field with your face." She turned to her husband. "Dominic, I can't believe this. At that hospital they didn't even wash her face. We need health care reform, all right. Back to good old-fashioned basic care."

I looked in the bathroom mirror and was even more outraged than she had been. I did look like I'd been plowing a field with my face, right after I finished a swim through a murky canal and a romp through a hayloft. No wonder Crimmins hadn't believed me. I looked like a lunatic. A coal miner. A fireman after a fire. I turned angrily toward Dom, the abrupt motion causing so much pain my frayed temper fizzled and snapped. "Why didn't you tell me I looked like this?"

"I didn't want to upset you."

"When I'm feeling a little better, I'm going to kill you for this."

"I just wanted to get you out of there as quickly as possible."

"Arms up," Rosie ordered, ignoring our squabbling. Like a cooperative kid, I stuck them up and she pulled off the sweatshirt, making a face at my filthy bra.

"Don't look at me. He washed it. Or he says he did."

Rosie stared at her husband's embarrassed face and started to giggle. "You never stop surprising me," she said. "Now get out so I can get this girl into the tub...."

"Hey, no fair," he said. "I brought it home. I get to keep it."

"You get to go make everyone a drink and find the portable phone so Thea can make a phone call and set someone's mind at ease," she said. "Now shoo."

He shooed. I sat down on the toilet seat and rested my filthy head on Rosie's velour shoulder. "I had the worst fight with my mother tonight. She'll never get over it. And then someone tried to kill me."

"Let's get the rest of these things off and get you in the tub and then you can tell me all about it." As I struggled with track pants and underwear, she poured in a handful of lavender. "Very soothing," she said.

"It would take a whole field to do me any good."

"We'll see. I know you don't want to hear this, Thea, but you're awfully lucky, considering."

I didn't feel lucky and things wouldn't look better in the morning, when I'd hurt even more and face hours replacing credit cards and my license, as well as my car, while work piled up on my desk. I didn't want to think about it. I submerged completely except for my bandaged arm. Combing my hands through my hair, I found bits of grit and chaff and glass, moving cautiously over the tender spots where my head had banged into the seat and the window. When I popped up, Rosie handed me a washcloth. "Here. I'm going to go find you a nightgown."

A knock on the door. It opened a crack and a hand came in, holding a phone. Rosie took the phone. The hand disappeared and reappeared, holding a glass. She took the glass and set both it and the phone on the toilet seat within easy reach. "Wash your face and make that call," she said. "I'll be back."

I followed orders. The washcloth came away filthy. I rinsed it and rubbed again. Carefully. Under the dirt were a bunch of tiny nicks from the glass. Rinsed and rubbed again. Squeezed out some shampoo and washed my hair. Putting off the moment when I'd have to call Andre. The phone rang. Dom stuck his head around the door. "It's for you."

"Andre?"

"Are you all right?" A world of worry and tenderness packed into four words.

"Nothing broken. Fewer stitches than a baseball. But I feel like I've been through the wringer."

"Wish I was there. Are they taking good care of you?"

"The best. Well, maybe second best... I wish you were here."