Driver's Dead (10 page)

Kirsten opened her eyes. A lock of her hair was on the street below her, lying across a black skid mark.

Inches away was the right front tire of the red Jeep.

Kirsten sat up. She was dizzy. She scanned as much of herself as she could. Her khaki pants were ripped at the knee, her elbow was bloody, and the palm of her left hand had a wicked cut.

Plus she was now a little balder.

“You're worse on a bike than in a car!”

Kirsten spun around. The voice was unmistakable.

“Mr. Busk!” she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet. “I'm sorry!”

“Sorry?” Mr. Busk's face was beet red. His eyes bulged with anger.
“Sorry?
You almost gave me a heart attack! You ought to be glad you're alive!”

“I know … I
am!”

“You think you don't have to look both ways on a bike? You think you can just cross wherever you want?
And you want to get your driver's license?”

He was practically spitting his words. The sickly sweet smell of alcohol blew past Kirsten in putrid gusts. She thought of asking him for some—to put on her cut—but that didn't seem like a wise move.

Besides, he was not going to give Kirsten a chance to speak. After his tirade he turned and stomped back to his Jeep.

With a squeal of tires, he tore off.

The jerk.

The drunken, irresponsible, ought-to-be-fired-if-I-had-the-guts-to-report-him jerk!

Nearly killed me, and he didn't even ask if I was all right!

Besides, couldn't he see her riding across the park? Or would he have, if he were sober?

He was the last person who should be teaching driver's ed, and she vowed to report him to the school officials.

Kirsten stretched her legs and arms. Everything seemed to be intact. She was lucky.

Her bike was even luckier. It had rolled to the curb and fallen onto a soft patch of grass.

A few yards away, in the green, Kirsten spotted an old cement water fountain. She went over and let the water rinse her elbow and palm.

Next she found a bandanna in her jacket pocket and pulled it out. The skin that had scraped off her palm hung in a loose semicircular flap. She flipped it over to cover the scrape, then wrapped the bandanna around her hand to hold the skin in place and stop the bleeding.

That would protect it until she got home. The elbow would just have to air out.

Carefully she picked up her bike and started riding. Padanarum was the street to her left. She turned onto it and looked for number 147.

Kirsten had figured that Gwen's family must have been on the rich side. But that wasn't likely in this neighborhood. The houses were old, small, and close together. Some were neatly kept, but others were run-down, with scraggly, weed-strewn dirt patches for lawns.

Number 147 was on a corner, a modest aluminum-sided colonial-style house with a screened-in porch.

Kirsten slowed down. She could hear the tick-tick-ticking of another ten-speed bike.

A moment later, Gwen shot out of the driveway on the other side of the house, wearing a bulky backpack. Pedaling fast, she headed away from Kirsten.

When Gwen was a block and a half away, Kirsten began to follow.

It wasn't easy keeping Gwen in sight. She darted left and right, taking a winding route through streets Kirsten had never seen before.

At a five-way street corner, Kirsten stopped. Gwen was nowhere in sight.

Poof. End of search.

Kirsten muttered a curse. All that effort—a brush with death—and all Kirsten had to show was a sore back and a souvenir of the Port Lincoln Highway Department embedded in her skin.

Now what? Go back to Gwen's and wait, or go home?

Kirsten looked at the street signs: Main St, Beckwith Ave, Teichner Pl. She might as well have been in Bulgaria. Not one name rang a bell.

With a sigh, she headed down Main. It didn't
seem
very main, but you never knew. Sooner or later, something might look familiar.

After a few blocks, Main Street widened. When it intersected with Merrick Road, Kirsten finally had her bearings. A left turn would take her home.

Across Merrick, Main Street looked like an abandoned movie set, a center of town for some mythical village from the 1960s. Among the dilapidated storefronts were a few struggling shops among boarded-up buildings. On one of the lampposts a faded sign proclaimed Port Lincoln—Babe Ruth League Champs 1971.

Below the sign, Gwen's bike was chained to the post.

Kirsten walked her bike across Merrick. She could see Gwen's back through a shop window with the words, Something Old, Something New, printed across in cracking gold letters.

Directly across the street, Kirsten saw an alleyway between two buildings. She ducked into it and kept still.

After a few moments Gwen emerged, putting on her backpack. She looked up and down the street warily.

Gingerly Kirsten backed farther into the alley, out of Gwen's sight.

She counted to fifty and edged forward. Gwen and her bike were gone.

Kirsten stepped out of the alleyway and looked up and down the street. No Gwen.

She looked at the shop again. In its window was a bizarre collection of things: a saxophone, an old manual typewriter, a pair of ice skates, several cameras, a bulky metal computer, and some jewelry on a felt-covered shelf. The dominant color was light brown, as if the display hadn't been dusted since the Babe Ruth championship.

Under the store's logo, smaller letters spelled out, Loans Made.

Kirsten had seen plenty of pawnshops in the Big Apple. A person could get an instant loan by giving the shop a valuable item. If the person didn't return after a certain time, the shop could sell the item to the public.

Gwen was putting on her pack as she left. Which meant she had removed it inside.

Had she bought something or left it?

Only one way to find out.

Kirsten chained her bike to the street lamp and walked to the door. Above the door's brass handle was a handwritten sign that said, Please Buzz.

In the handle was a rolled-up sheet of yellow paper.

Kirsten pulled the sheet out and opened it. A note had been scribbled inside:

T
HE WITCH!
T
HE SNEAKY,
lying, evil, murdering witch!

Gwen was trying to frame her.

The dent in Dad's car looked as if it could have been made by a person. Would the police fall for it?

They might.

But not if they had something else to fall for.

Kirsten folded up the note and stuffed it in her pocket. Gwen meant business, but so did she.

Gwen had gone into this pawnshop for a reason. Why did she need cash? Or did she need to get rid of something?

Kirsten pushed the buzzer. When she heard a buzz back, she pushed on the metal door. It gave way with a loud click.

Her footsteps creaked on the shop's wooden floor. In a dark corner, an old man with a feather duster glanced up briefly, grunted hello, then turned back to his work.

To his left was a human skeleton hanging under a sign that read, BEEN WAITING HERE LONG?

Gee, this place is a barrel of laughs.

A narrow pathway led her between old tables crammed with knickknacks. The air, what was left of it, had a sweet, pungent smell of mildew and aging wood. The front section of the shop had electronic equipment, appliances, and antiques. Racks of old books, records, and cassettes rested against walls covered with ornately framed mirrors and paintings. A ceiling fan whirred noisily above, encrusted with dust and grime.

“Quite a scrape you got,” said a voice to her right.

Kirsten turned to see a pudgy, middle-aged mart behind the counter. He had a patient, slightly fake smile. On top of his pasty face was a thick crop of waxy black hair. Kirsten wondered how much money he had given a customer for
that.
Probably not a whole lot.

He was leaning back in a chair, reading a dog-eared copy of a horror novel. On the glass counter in front of him was an old-fashioned cash register and a small pile of new-looking clothing and jewelry.

“Yeah, I fell off my bike.” Kirsten fingered Gwen's pile. “Hm, this stuff looks nice.”

The man's smile widened. “It was just brought in. By a young lady probably about your size. I haven't priced any of it yet, but if you're interested in an item, we can work something out.”

Kirsten sifted through the pile—a gorgeous linen shirt, a hideous orange bathing suit, a cheap purse, and a few T-shirts and trinkets.

A small gold ring fell out of a folded skirt. It was set with a diamond-shaped pale purple stone. Kirsten held it up to the light.

The inscription
GM & RM
was engraved inside the band.

Gwen Mitchell and Rob Maxson. This must be stuff Rob gave her.

Stuff Gwen wanted to forget? Evidence?

Her eye fixed on one item among the jewelry.

A locket.

She'd seen that before. Gwen's nervous fingers had been fiddling with it for weeks.

As Kirsten picked the locket off the counter, she glanced at a stack of business cards in a Lucite holder. She read the top one:

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

Your castaway is another person's treasure.

Loans made * Antiques bought and sold *

Jewelry * Electronics * Clothing

62 Main Street

Port Lincoln, New York 11500

Erik and Olaf Maartens

Olaf.

Why did that name ring a bell?

“Are you Olaf?” she asked the man behind the counter.

“Nope. My father is.” He nodded toward the old man.

Oblivious, the old man shuffled around the shop, carrying on a spirited little conversation with no one in particular.

“The car belonged to this little old guy—you know, Olaf, who walks around town talking to himself?”

Maria's words came back to her.

“Wasn't your dad the guy whose car was stolen?” Kirsten asked softly.

The son—Erik—chuckled. “Hey, Pop,” he called to the old man, “this girl wants to know if you were the one whose car was stolen.”

Kirsten was mortified. “I didn't mean to—”

“That's okay. He loves to talk about it,” Erik said with a wink. “Turned him into an overnight celebrity at age eighty-seven.”

Olaf was peering at Kirsten through one eye. The other seemed to be not functioning, half hidden under a droopy lid. As he hobbled over to the counter, Kirsten noticed a faint, stale smell of Old Spice.

“Fifteen years old, that car was,” he announced. “I had no theft insurance. Didn't make sense on a wreck like that. Thieves know that. Most of 'em have the decency to take newer cars.” He shook his head crankily. “Was a Toyota. Guess the boy liked his country's own products… .”

“But Toyotas are from Japan,” Kirsten said.

Olaf glared at her, as if she weren't supposed to speak. “Okay, maybe the kid was born in the States, but you know what I mean.”

“Well, he was Vietnamese,” Kirsten pressed.

Olaf waved a bony hand dismissively. “Yeah. Well, Vietnamese, Japanese, who the hell can tell the difference? 'Specially at night. Anyway, he was wearing a leather jacket, black one, just like them kamikaze pilots in Double-ya Double-ya Two.
They
were Japanese. Also, the kid chose April 18, same day Doolittle bombed Tokyo—same day Yamamoto was killed, too. Now ain't that a pretty little coincidence—”

“It was nighttime, Mr. Maartens?” Kirsten interrupted.

“You bet. I was watching the Mets. Gooden was pitching—”

“And you saw him through a window?”

“Yep.”

“And you still got a good look at his face?”

“They found the little rat in my car, didn't they?”

Olaf scrunched up his one good eye at Kirsten—if “good” could be used to describe the glazed, yellowish thing. “I know, you're one of them liberals. Let 'em all in this country,
that's
what you think. Well, see what happened? They think they can get something for nothing! We should force 'em back to their own country—”

“Pop!”
Erik said sharply.

The old man sneered, revealing a few worn, yellow teeth separated by gaps you could stick a cigar through. He turned away and went back to his work, muttering further political commentary.

“Sorry,” Erik said. “He's not … firing all thrusters. Now, if you want to buy something, Miss—”

“No, thanks,” Kirsten replied. “Maybe some other time.”

She hightailed it outside and unlocked her bike.

As she pedaled home, the houses of Merrick Road sped by in a blur.

He said he saw Nguyen steal his car. An old codger with half an eye, looking through a window at nighttime. Its impressive he was even able to make out a leather jacket!

But the town believed him.

And they didn't believe the Trangs.