The Trouble With Murder (12 page)

I’m not a huge fan of law
enforcement anyway, my past being what it is, but I do have a certain respect
for the people who do it. That had taken a serious hit in the last couple days.
Hensley would have railroaded me because it was the simplest thing to do. No
one could find Tyler, yet I’d done it without even really trying. What were
Stacy’s chances of finding justice? Was Ellmann really trying to track down her
assailant? Or would he simply continue to focus on me because that was simpler?
I had been in the lobby, and Stacy had been there to meet me, but that was the
extent of my involvement. The security footage clearly showed I was not the one
to attack Stacy. And while there had been some unusual activity in my bank
account recently, a quick check would prove I’d not paid anyone to do it,
either.

If left in the hands of the police,
would Stacy’s attacker be found and punished? I couldn’t deny I had my doubts.
This left me examining my options.

King Soopers was crowded with the
after-work rush, but I managed to survive without any hand gestures or colorful
language. I piled the hundred dollars worth of groceries into the truck and
went home. Then, in an effort to get the most of my new gym membership and take
the forty-seven-pound problem seriously, I threw on sweats and paid a visit to
the elliptical. I spent thirty sweaty minutes considering whether or not there
was anything I hated more than the elliptical. Just about the time I decided
there wasn’t, and that I was going to ralph, the timer ticked off the last
minute, and I shuffled back out to the truck. I returned home, set the coffee
pot timer for nine, showered, and hit the hay.

I knew I hadn’t been asleep very
long when my phone awoke me. My whopping headache told me so. I also didn’t
need to look at the time to know it was late. Late-night phone calls are almost
always bad news.

“Yeah?” I answered without opening
my eyes.

“Zoe, I need help.”

It was my brother.

I pushed the covers back and sat
up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Can you pick me up?”

“Where are you?” I asked as I got
up. I switched on the lamp sitting on the floor beside the bed and winced at
the light.

“College and Mulberry.”

“I’ll call you when I get there.”

“You won’t miss us.”

That sounded ominous.

I wish this was the first time I’d
ever gotten a late-night call about my brother. But it wasn’t even close. And
while I always hope it will be the last, I have no illusions.

I could see the blue and red strobe
lights from half a mile away. Northbound traffic on College was unaffected,
while southbound traffic was down to two lanes and eastbound traffic on
Mulberry down to one. A team of uniformed officers was directing traffic.

Donald’s Lincoln was nosed up
against the southbound traffic light, blocking traffic in the same direction.
The light was leaning at a forty-five degree angle, the lights hanging crookedly
and flashing signals at eastbound traffic. Two ambulances and a fire truck
completed the party, emergency response personnel everywhere.

A tall officer I recognized from
the Elizabeth Tower incident waved me through the intersection. I complied then
hung a right into the Safeway parking lot, squeezing through a large group of
gathered rubberneckers, staring and pointing, some snapping photos and taking
videos with their phones. I snagged the first parking space I found
(handicapped) and hopped out.

Dodging a string of oncoming traffic,
I cut across and hustled up to the officer.

“What are you doing?” he asked over
a chorus of horns. “You’re going to get hurt.”

“My brother,” I said, trying to
keep the worry out of my voice. I pointed at the Lincoln. “That’s his car.” For
all intents and purposes, anyway. Zach had borrowed it from Donald because I
was currently borrowing his truck. “Is he okay?”

The officer, whose nameplate read
frye,
kept one eye on traffic,
continuing to move vehicles through while he spoke to me.

“Don’t worry,” he said seriously.
“They’re all fine. EMS has them in the ambulances. As far as I understand, none
of them need medical care.”

“None of them? How many were
there?”

“Eight, I think. All in various
states of inebriation.”

“Drunk? And driving?” My worry was
quickly giving way to anger.

“If it makes you feel any better,
they only killed the light pole; they didn’t hit anyone else, and no one was
hurt.”

“It doesn’t.”

I spun on my heel and marched
toward the first ambulance, parked on College, south of the intersection. I cut
through traffic as two other officers yelled at me about being in the street.
Ignoring them, I stormed the ambulance. I saw five young faces, most of which
were familiar to me. None of them belonged to my brother.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” I
said, pointing my finger at each of them.

The second ambulance was parked on
Mulberry, just west of College, in an eastbound lane. There was a uniformed man
standing in the open back door talking to someone sitting on the bumper. When I
got closer, I could see two others sitting inside with a female attending to
them. My brother was sitting on the gurney. He spotted me the instant I rounded
the door.

“Wait, okay?” he said, spreading
his hands and getting up before I could do more than take a breath. “Before you
freak out, let me explain.”

“You better think long and hard
about every single word that comes out of your mouth right now,” I said.

He jumped down and stood in front
of me. He’s ahead taller than me and lean, like our mother, with light brown hair
and blue eyes, that were currently bloodshot. He’d been experimenting lately
with a goatee I didn’t like. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, and I could smell the
alcohol on him.

He sighed and took a breath.

“It’s not as bad as you think.”

“I think you were driving drunk and
hit a light pole, which could have just as easily been a car full of children.”

“No one got hurt. See, we went
out,” he said, waving a hand at the first ambulance. “It’s Hayley’s birthday;
we were celebrating. At first it was just five of us. I was the only one with a
car we could all fit into, so I ended up driving. Then we ran into a few more
people. And after we hit a few more places, I knew I shouldn’t be driving. So I
gave the keys to Devin. He had the least to drink of all of us.”

I turned and looked at the Lincoln
French kissing the light pole then looked back at Zach.

“How dare you, Zach. That isn’t
your car. How could you be so disrespectful?”

He scoffed and shot a look at the
Lincoln. “That thing’s made of steel, Zoe. Not even a bulldozer could dent it.”

I took another look and privately
agreed the Lincoln appeared unscathed. And, actually, the damage to the light
pole seemed worse than expected. But that was not the point, and I wasn’t
willing to let it go.

“If there is any damage to that car,
you’re paying for the repairs. You’re also going to tell Donald what you’ve
done.”

“Fine. Donald’ll understand.
Second, don’t lecture me, Zoe. I don’t need it.”

“The hell you don’t. Anybody who
runs around doing stupid shit like this needs a hell of a lot more than a
lecture. What the hell were you thinking, letting a drunk person drive? Getting
in the car while a drunk person was driving? People could have been hurt, or
worse.
You
could have been hurt.”

“I told you, Devin wasn’t drunk.”

I pointed at the light pole. “Try
selling me that line one more time.”

“He just lost control of the car,
that’s all. It’s a mammoth car; he wasn’t expecting it.”

“You mean his reflexes were dulled
by alcohol. That means he’s drunk. You know better than this.”

“Whatever,” he snapped. “I knew
you’d freak out.”

“That’s my job. I’m supposed to
freak out. Now, hand it over.” I held out my hand.

He looked at it and tried for a
blank expression, but I saw guilt flash in his eyes. “What? What are you
talking about?”

“Whatever ID you used to get into
the bars tonight.”

“No idea what you’re talking
about.”

“You’re twenty years old, Zach.
Give it to me.”

He stood, staring at me with a cold
look, his chin tipped up defiantly. I held my ground, giving him an equally
cold look. Finally, with childish indignation, he reached into his pocket and
pulled out a card. Slapping it into my palm, he turned and stomped back to the
ambulance, climbing up beside his buddies to commiserate.

I tucked the fake ID into the
pocket of my jeans and went back to the other ambulance. Devin was sitting on
the bumper beside Hayley. The two had been an item briefly, but the fact that
Hayley actually liked my brother had ultimately come between them. Devin was
basically a good kid and had been basically a good friend to Zach since they’d
met in middle school. Hayley, however, was bad news, and she had a way of
dragging everyone down around her. For a time, one of those people had been
Zach. I thought he’d finally broken away from her. I was genuinely surprised to
learn they’d been out together tonight.

Devin spotted me and immediately
looked down at his feet, his shoulders slumping a little. At least he had the
good sense to be ashamed of what he’d done. Hayley, on the other hand, sat up a
little straighter and stared at me head-on.

“I’m really sorry, Zoe,” Devin
said. “I shouldn’t have been driving; I know that. But that car, I mean, it’s
so damn long, and it doesn’t steer . . .”
He rubbed a hand over his face then pushed it back through his hair. His
eyes were moist as he looked at me pleadingly. “I’ll help pay for the damages.”

“You’re damn right you will. Do you
realize you could have killed someone? Could have killed yourself or anyone
else in the car? Did you think of that?”

He shook his head as he dropped his
gaze again. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Hayley snapped. “Back off.
You’re not his mother.”

I turned on her. “I’m sure you
remember I take issue when Zach is put in danger.”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“How can I forget? You’re fucking crazy, bitch.”

“Right now, my crazy isn’t focused
on you. Would you like that to change?”

Her mouth snapped shut, and the
wheels of her alcohol-polluted mind began turning. She sat back, surrendering.

I turned back to Devin, holding out
my hand.

“Let’s have it.”

Unlike Zach, he made no attempt to
deny or protest. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out the ID, and
handed it over.

“Where’d you guys get these?” I
asked, tucking it away with the other.

“Bought ’em from a guy downtown.
Hundred bucks apiece.”

“You’re going to tell your parents
about this,” I said. “All of it.”

Devin groaned and bent forward, his
head in his hands. “I’d rather go to jail.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m pretty
sure you’re going to jail, too.”

Frye walked up to me, a tow truck
driver on his heels. I recognized the tow truck driver; he’d towed my truck
more than once, including yesterday morning. Zach saw the group gathering and
joined us.

“I thought that thing belonged to
you,” the driver said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder toward the Lincoln. “I
mean, how many of those things can there be?”

“Will it fit on your truck?” I
asked.

“Ah, it doesn’t need to be
towed
,”
Zach said. “Look at it. It’s fine.”

“Actually, the kid’s probably
right,” the driver said to me.

“But we need to move it,” Frye
said. “It’s blocking traffic.”

No kidding.

“The keys in it?” I asked.

The driver nodded. “Yeah. I’ll hook
it up if you can’t drive it.”

“Do me a favor,” I said to Frye as
I walked away. “Keep an eye on him.”

Frye looked at Zach then nodded to
me. Zach rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

The driver climbed into his truck,
parked behind the Lincoln, and backed up, giving me some room. I boarded the
road-boat and turned the key. The gas-guzzling engine that topped out at a
hundred and fifty-nine horsepower roared to life. I levered the transmission
into reverse and gave it some gas, angling the wheel as I backed away from the
pole.

I felt it the instant the bumper
separated from the pole. Then I heard a deep, agonizing moan over the rumble of
the engine. Looking at the pole, it seemed to almost shutter. Then, as if in
slow motion, it began to move. It fell, crash-landing in the middle of the
intersection, barely missing a small VW Beetle and instead smashing into a
parked police car, snapping the light bar and caving in the roof. The blue and
red lights winked out as the traffic light flashed to green.

I saw Zach’s mouth fall open as he
stared at the pole and police car. And I was pretty sure Devin burst into tears.
The tow truck driver appeared beside the open driver’s side window.

“Didn’t see that coming,” he said,
staring at the pole. “Did you?”

_______________

If Devin hadn’t been destined for jail before the
destruction of the police car, he certainly was after. And it turned out the
tow truck driver hadn’t made the trip for nothing. Frye issued tickets for
drinking to all the kids who were underage, then let them go home with sober
rides, mostly parents. And I was pretty sure he confiscated a few more fake IDs.
Devin was arrested and taken to jail for his parents to bail out. I parked the
Ford legally then climbed aboard the Lincoln with Zach and drove him home.

Zach didn’t speak to me the entire
trip. Once home, he marched off to his room and shut the door without so much
as a backward glance. It was three o’clock in the morning, but my mother wasn’t
home. It was entirely possible she wouldn’t come home tonight. Glad she wasn’t
there to yell at me and too exhausted to drive anywhere else, I crashed on the
basement sofa and fell asleep almost instantly.