Dream Chasers (32 page)

“Lie still!” he said. “Let the paramedics check you.” His gaze scanned her body, looking for blood, torn clothing. Nothing. Thank God!

“It didn't hit me, I tripped.” Then she sat up, her eyes wide with horror. “Where's Crystal?”

The girl was walking slowly across the street towards the mangled car on the lawn. Her arms hung limply at her sides, and her gaze was rivetted to the car. Smoke and steam swirled from the wreck, and the stink of burnt rubber choked the air. Already officers were rushing toward the scene, thrusting Crystal aside. Two of them were peering inside. People shouted, steam hissed, and in the distance Green heard the harsh blasts of a fire engine.

“No-oo!” A bellow rose above the din. Green swung around to see a man leap out of a black
SUV
and charge up the street towards the scene. A flashing squad car was right behind. Reflexively, police officers reached for their holsters. Green grabbed Hannah and thrust her into the shelter of a house on the corner, shielding her with his body.

Uniformed officers swarmed Vic McIntyre with their guns drawn and forced him to the ground. Green could see his limbs flailing and hear his shouts of fury.

“What did you do, you fucking idiots!” he screamed. “You killed him!”

Fury rose in Green's throat. He told Hannah to stay put and hurried towards them. “Cuff him and get him the hell away from the scene.”

McIntyre struggled for words, gasping. “You—”

“Later,” Green snapped, not trusting his temper. He turned his back, and breathing deeply, he walked towards Crystal, who was still in the grip of two female uniforms. Her eyes were fixed on the car, and her body shook with silent sobs.

“Crystal Adams? I'm Inspector Green,” he began, trying to make his voice gentle. He reminded himself that despite her role in Lea's death and her endangerment of Hannah, she was only sixteen.

She turned her head to stare at him. Her face was slack with shock and defeat. “I didn't mean it to happen.”

Against his orders, Hannah appeared at his elbow. “We were coming in to see you, Mike. That's what I was trying to tell you. She had agreed. She was going to tell you everything.”

Crystal's chin quivered. “She promised me you'd go easy on me, since I'm under eighteen.”

Green looked at his daughter. At her tiny frame and her innocent pixie face. Never let me underestimate this girl again, he thought. He nodded to Crystal's escorts. “Get them some blankets and make sure the paramedics check them out when they arrive.” He swung to address Crystal. “After that, the officers will take you both inside and get you some tea. Then we'll get a chance to talk.”

She hung her head, and he turned away towards the accident just as two fire trucks roared onto the scene, closely followed by an ambulance. Fire fighters and paramedics raced over to the car. Green drew as near as he dared, but could see little through the debris except shattered glass and long, drenching streaks of blood.

“Is he alive?” he murmured to an officer near by.

“He's breathing, but I wouldn't bet on his chances.” By this time, the area was flooded with curious passersby and officers from the station. Police set up a cordon, and the crowd watched in tense silence as the firefighters and paramedics worked over the car. Green saw McIntyre standing at the edge of the crowd, handcuffed and firmly gripped by two officers. None of the restraints seemed necessary, as the agent stood unmoving and unblinking as he watched. Green walked over.

“He wants to see if the kid is all right,” one of the officers explained anxiously, as if expecting a reprimand. “We figured it would be okay to wait.”

McIntyre shifted his emotion to Green. “You did this! You chased him down like a dog!”

“On the contrary, Mr. McIntyre, you did. He was running from you.”

“Bullshit! I was just trying to catch him.”

“Yes, to kill him.”

“No! To stop him going to you. To stop him ruining his life. You don't have a thing on him.” Belatedly, confusion clouded his expression. “What the hell do you mean? He thought I was going to kill him?”

“That's what he told me.”

“That's bull! I love that kid! I would never...” He backed up, causing the officers to tighten their grip.

“You'd already killed once.”

“That girl's death was an accident! Riley knows that. He called me, for fuck's sake.”

“I'm talking about Jenna Zukowski.”

“The social worker? He thought I...?” Astonishment raced across McIntyre's face. He stared at the car wreck in disbelief, and gradually his face twisted. “Oh my God, Riley!”

Green tried to make sense of McIntyre's disjointed words. Of the stricken look on his face. “You thought Riley had killed the social worker?”

McIntyre tore his eyes from the accident. He began to shake his head in mute horror, but at that instant he spotted Crystal being led across the lawn towards the police station, and his panic turned to fury. “It was that bitch! She gave Lea the bad drugs.”

“But I bet you sold them to her.”

McIntyre's jaw snapped shut, and his face grew cold. “You better not throw that kind of outrageous crap around unless you want your ass kicked to the next country by my lawyers.”

“Let's leave the threats and accusations till we have everyone's statement,” Green said. “Then we'll see what's outrageous. Book him on criminal negligence and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle for now,” he told the officers. “I'll send word about Riley's condition as soon as we know.”

McIntyre tore off the restraining hands and stepped forward. “If he dies, or even a single bone in his body is broken, I'll see you never carry a badge again, Green. The country loves that boy.” Green watched McIntyre being led away, his head high and his gaze defiant. As the small procession passed by the flashing cruisers that cordoned the area, Green saw Darren O'Shaughnessy standing with a uniformed officer outside a police cruiser. O'Shaughnessy was in handcuffs but was offering no resistance. He had been staring at the wreck, but now his gaze shifted to McIntyre. Bewilderment flickered across his tense, florid features. Some other emotion too. What was it?

Shame? Or guilt. Green studied the scene of chaos before him. The bloodied body of Riley, the defiant agent, the tormented Darren, and Crystal, whose nasty drug deal had started it all.

Something didn't make sense.

It took the emergency crews almost an hour to extricate Riley from his crushed sports car, and the evening rush hour was in full force when the ambulance finally whisked him towards the Civic Hospital. By that time, Darren O'Shaughnessy had been booked, printed and was in a holding cell awaiting his lawyer, Vic McIntyre had managed an impromptu news conference on his way through the media scrum that pressed around the accident scene, and Bob Gibbs had taken the two teenage girls under his wing.

Green had been busy dealing with the clamour of the media, the Professional Standards department and Barbara Devine. Both the car chase that had jeopardized countless innocent commuters and the spectacular crash that had possibly ended the life of a promising young athlete had everyone screaming for explanations. In retrospect, Green was grateful for the quick thinking of the duty inspector who'd vetoed the use of lights and siren during the pursuit, and equally grateful that he'd kept his own objections to himself. Lights and siren would not have changed the outcome one bit, but would have redefined the incident as a police chase, drawing Professional Standards, the Special Investigations Unit and a host of procedural nitpickers into the fray. This way, the blame for the crash would be laid squarely at McIntyre's feet.

When Green was finally able to escape and track down Hannah and Crystal, Bob Gibbs had managed to get them a warm meal. Green phoned Crystal's mother, who after much swearing and whining, agreed to send her boyfriend JD down to the station to support the girl.

“She don't say a word without a lawyer,” Mrs. Adams snapped, almost as an afterthought.

“We can get one of the duty defence counsels—”

“Oh no, she's not getting one of them morons sits in your back pocket. JD knows someone. I'll get him to give the guy a call in the morning.”

“Tomorrow is too late, Mrs. Adams. We need her statement.”

“That's not my problem, is it? My daughter's had a shock, she's entitled to a good night's sleep, a lawyer, and somebody to watch her back while youse guys go trying to pin something on her.”

Green listened to her smoke-gravelled voice as she built up a head of self-righteous steam. He remembered Gibbs's reference to the expensive electronic equipment in her welfare townhouse, and he wondered just who she was really protecting. But through the half-open interview room, he could see Crystal and Hannah slumped in plastic chairs against the wall. Neither seemed to have the energy even to speak. Crystal stared into space, looking very young beneath the skimpy tank top and cascade of curls.

In the end, he agreed to allow her to go home with a firm appointment to return the next morning accompanied by an adult family member and the lawyer of their choice. As he watched her slink out under the dead-eyed stare of a man with a straggly goatee and snakes tattooed all around his biceps, Green hoped he hadn't made a mistake.

He took Hannah's hand when she started to follow them out the door. “I'll get a patrol car to drive you home.”

She yanked her hand away. “Mike, pul-lease!”

“Unmarked. Okay? Humour your old man.”

“I'm not a baby. I got across the country by myself, I can get across town.”

“I know, but you've had a shock, and shock does funny things to the body.”

She considered. “Will it be a cute cop?”

He managed a smile. “I'll see what I can do. I'll be home as soon as I can, promise.”

She didn't brush it off as unimportant, but instead gave the briefest nod of appreciation. As the cruiser pulled away from the front curb, piloted by the tallest, youngest constable he could spare, she turned in the passenger seat and gave him a big thumbs up.

He wanted to toss all his obligations out the window and rush after her, but at that moment a muddy pick-up slewed into the semi-circular drive and jerked to a stop almost on his toes. Out of the cab piled three men and a woman, all identically dressed in
T
-shirts, jeans and work boots, with faded ball caps pulled low over their eyes. Green knew instantly that this was Jenna Zukowski's family. They were all built like beer kegs, half as wide as they were tall, with broad, sunburnt Slavic faces and arms like tree trunks.

The three men headed for the glass doors to the lobby without a glance in his direction, but the woman stopped. She peered at him through blue eyes bleak and bruised by pain.

“You're the inspector.”

He extended his hand. “Mrs. Zukowski. Yes, we've spoken on the phone.”

“When did you plan to tell us about this accident? You got an answer on the dead woman yet? Is this boy the killer?”

Inwardly, Green sagged. He thought of all the tasks clamouring for his attention upstairs in the squad room. Arranging a legal search warrant for McIntyre's house, interviewing Darren O'Shaughnessy, finding out the news on Riley's condition... All of them would have to wait. In the crises of the day, the fate of Jenna Zukowski had inexcusably slipped from his mind. But for her family the nightmare continued.

He took the mother's elbow and opened the door for her. “I don't have those answers yet, but please come in. I'll see what I can track down.”

He seated them in a small conference room off the lobby while he went down the hall to the Ident lab to check on Paquette's progress with the fingerprints.

The Ident officer looked harried. “Not ready yet. The skin was pretty damaged. But MacPhail did the post mortem earlier. He might have some news.”

Green glanced at his watch. It was nearly eight o'clock, well into MacPhail's serious drinking time. Green steeled himself as he punched in the pathologist's cell phone number. MacPhail must have been at the rosy stage of intoxication, because his manner was ebullient.

“I left you a message centuries ago, laddie. Thought I must have fallen from grace when I didn't hear from you.”

“It's been a busy day.”

“Oh aye, that's what they all say.”

A dull ache flickered behind Green's eyes, and he pinched his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “So have you got confirmation on that
ID
for me?”

“Possibly, possibly. But that depends on the family. I need the answer to one wee question.”

Green jotted it down and returned to the conference room. He dreaded the task. Up to this point, the family had been able to cling to the faint hope that their daughter had not met with a brutal, terrifying end. With this one question, all hope could be dashed.

The elder Zukowskis were slumped in the plastic chairs, looking small and forlorn, but Jenna's two brothers stood at rigid attention against the wall. They all tried to read Green's face as he entered.

“Mr. and Mrs. Zukowski, did Jenna have an accident when she was a girl? A broken bone?”

The mother sucked in her breath. “What kind of bone?”

“Her left forearm. A spiral fracture, as if from twisting.” Even before anyone spoke, Green knew the answer. Shoulders stiffened as if from a physical blow. Glances shot around the table. It was one of her brothers who spoke. Softly. Flatly.

“Jenna was raped when she was fifteen years old. A senior from her high school. Guy pinned her down. The fucking bastard walked away without a charge.”

Green heard the implicit accusation but steered clear.

“What hospital would have the
X
-rays?” “It's why our girl left Barry's Bay, went into social work,” the mother said as if Green hadn't spoken. “She wanted to help people.”