Your Chariot Awaits (7 page)

I assured myself that dead people can't get even and hastily scooped what was left of Uncle Ned into a Kentucky Fried Chicken sack. But just in case, I added a conciliatory thought.
I'll get you a nice new frame.

I don't know what chauffeur uniforms usually look like, but I was favorably impressed with these. A sophisticated black with two rows of gleaming silver buttons up the front of the jacket, a snug-fitting collar, two more silver buttons on the sleeves, and pants with a narrow, black-satin stripe running down the side.

Joella knocked on the kitchen door while I was trying on a uniform in my bedroom, and I yelled at her to come on in.

“Hey, wow, classy!” she said when she saw me. The jacket was overlarge, but wearable. Both jacket and pants had nice silky linings. “You can cinch in the waist of the pants with a belt. It'll be under the jacket, and no one will see.”

There was a neat cap, too, also black with a silver pin in the shape of Texas above the visor. I stuck it on my head at a snappy angle, clicked my heels, and saluted my image in the mirror.

“Right this way, sir,” I told an imaginary client as I made a grand sweep of the arm
.
“Your chariot awaits.”

Joella applauded.

I told her about Fitz's call and asked, “Should I wear this on Tuesday when I go to Sea-Tac?”

“Oh, yes. You'll probably get a fifty-dollar tip.”

“Limousine drivers get tips?”

“My father always tipped the driver when he rented one.”

This was looking better all the time.

“Hey, is my birthday celebration still on for tomorrow?” I was suddenly feeling more upbeat about a birthday too.

“The cake is in the oven. I just came over to see what time would be good. Anyone you want to invite?”

Oddly, the face that popped into my head was Fitz's. But he was off sailing. Not that I'd invite Mr. Nosy anyway.

“No, I don't think so . . . Hey, I know what let's do. Let's make it a picnic out at that park on the other side of Hornsby Inlet. We'll go in the limousine!”

Joella clapped her hands. “We can build a fire and roast limo-dogs!”

We decided to leave about noon the next day. My first-ever birthday celebration with a limousine. Maybe sixty really
was
prime time!

I WOKE SOMETIME in the night. No, closer to morning, I realized as I peered at the red numbers on my clock radio. I had the feeling something had wakened me.

Moose, the Sheersons' Dalmatian, was barking, but that wasn't out of the ordinary. The early-morning garbagecollection guys always set him off, as did anyone taking a stroll too early or late for his strict time standards.

But the thing was, Moose usually barked
at
something. He also sometimes got out of his yard, and what he especially liked to do when he got out was rush over and dig in my flower beds.

I listened another minute. No, he wasn't in my yard now. His bark was too far away. So what had set him off? Crime certainly wasn't rampant on Secret View Lane, and traffic wasn't heavy because it was a dead-end street. But last fall someone had managed to dig up and steal an expensive Japanese lace maple JoAnne Metzger had newly planted in her yard.

The limo. What if teenagers were hot-wiring it for a joyride? Or getting their kicks vandalizing it! Slashed seats, obnoxious graffiti, key-scratched paint, flattened tires—

I jumped out of bed and raced to the kitchen window. A heavy fog blanketed everything, blocking out stars above and turning the houses across the street into mist-shrouded blobs. No streetlights on our little lane, though JoAnne was nagging the powers-that-be about it.

But I could make out the long, sleek shape of the limo and my little Corolla, which I'd parked behind the limo when I got home from work. Nothing going on there. Moose was still barking, but sometimes he got excited about a stray cat wandering by.

Then I glanced at the hook by the back door. No limo keys! And now I realized with even more dismay that I couldn't remember locking the limo after I brought the uniforms in last night. Had I left the keys sitting right out there, readily available to any thief or vandal?

I flicked on the outside light, released the chain across the front door, and stepped outside. The cool, misty air hit me, and an unexpected prickle of apprehension stopped me on the top step. If I really
had
heard something . . . if Moose was barking at something more than a stray cat . . . was rushing out there in my bare feet and pajamas really a smart thing to do?

I peered at the dark shapes of the limo and the Corolla in the driveway. With the light over the front steps on, the night seemed darker, the mist more ghostly, the tinted limo windows more mysterious. Was that a movement? A flicker of something on the far side of the hood?

I watched for a long, breath-held minute. No, no movement, just my imagination doing a 4 AM tango with nerves. But still, I decided, I'd feel better if the limo were properly locked.

The shaggy grass between the concrete walkway and gravel driveway reminded me it was time to get the mower out again, and my bare feet squishing through the night-damp grass told me I should have taken time to put on some shoes.

But this would just take a minute. Moose had resumed barking, but he was barking at me now, of course.

I opened the driver's side door. The dome light came on, casting a reassuring rectangle of light across the grass.

But no, the keys
weren't
on the front seat. I frowned. Had I used the keys rather than the button to open the trunk, and then left them in the lock?

I turned to go around to the back of the limo and look.

And plunged headlong into an explosion of silvery stars and then a pit of darkness . . .

7

T
here is no awareness of time when you're out cold, but I knew minutes or hours had passed, because I was now looking up at a pale dawn sky, not foggy darkness. I also had a different view of the world now, a very peculiar view. The limousine loomed over me, the door open. Beside me, the underside stretched out in a gray maze of pipes and springs and unidentifiable car stuff.

I was, it appeared, flat on my back.

I felt groggy and stiff . . . and why was my right leg bent under me, and driveway gravel digging into my backside?

And my head, I realized with a sudden groan, oh, my head . . .

I reached up to touch it gingerly, and something moved to block the pale sky overhead. Tom Bolton's frowning face. What was he doing here?

I felt a strange sense of disorientation, as if I'd plunged into a time warp in one of those science fiction books Rachel likes to read.

“You okay?” Tom asked.

“I don't know. What happened?” I wiggled my lips. They'd gone puttyish, slow moving and sluggish.

“I noticed the limousine door standing open. I came over to see what was going on and found you lying here unconscious.”

I sat up hastily. Mistake. Limousine, Tom, and pale sky whirled as if we'd just been engulfed in some cosmic readjustment. I waited until the whirling stopped, then winced as I fingered the back of my head and found a lump that felt like the shape and size of Texas.

I offered the only explanation that seemed plausible. “I must have stumbled and bumped my head on the door when I fell.”

“What were you doing out here in the middle of the night?” Tom's tone oozed disapproval, as if he figured I had to have been up to something nefarious.

I hadn't been, but why
was
I out here? And in my pajamas too. Straining to think back, I remembered trying on that chauffeur's uniform. Yes, and waking up in the night, being worried about the limousine. Coming outside, opening the limo door . . .

Then that big, dark pit.

I got my hands under me and tried to lever myself to my feet. Tom pushed me down.

“You'd better stay right there. I called 911. An ambulance and someone from the sheriff's department will be here in a few minutes.”

Alarm joined the foggy mist in my head. Police? Ambulance? I knew I should thank Tom for coming over to check on the open door of the limo, but at the moment I didn't feel too appreciative. Would they charge some huge fee just for coming out with the ambulance, even if I didn't need it?

Again I tried to rise; again he pushed me back. I looked at his scowl and had the peculiar feeling he wasn't so much concerned with my welfare as he was with keeping me immobilized until someone from the sheriff's department arrived.

“Perhaps you could call back and tell them everything is okay here,” I suggested.

He didn't move. “Soon as I saw that limousine in the neighborhood, I knew we were in for trouble,” he said darkly.

His logic escaped me. “Why?”

“Mafia. Crooks. Drug dealers. Hookers. It's people like that who use limousines.” He nodded sagely.

“All kinds of ordinary people use limousines,” I said, with as much indignation as I could muster with chunks of gravel digging into my bottom and Texas throbbing on the back of my head. “They use them to go to the airport or get married or celebrate an anniversary! Kids even go to the prom in them.”

“Emma and I never rode in any limousine.”

I could hear sirens approaching. I was still sitting beside the limousine door, Tom watching me suspiciously, when a blue-and-white car bearing the insignia of the county sheriff's department pulled to the curb.

We were outside the city limits here, so it was the sheriff's department rather than the city police who'd responded to Tom's call. Two middleaged officers in brown uniforms stepped out. When Tom wasn't looking, I struggled to my feet.

“Got a problem here?” the shorter of the two officers inquired pleasantly.

He introduced himself as Deputy Somebody and the other officer as Deputy Somebody-else, but by now I was so rattled that the names slid by me like fried eggs on Teflon. Down the street, I saw a front door fly open, then another.

“Nothing's wrong.” I yanked my pajama top down, feeling uncomfortably exposed even though everything was modestly covered. At the same time I was halfway wishing I'd worn something more stylish than these daisy-flowered things that were more Old Mother Hubbard than Victoria's Secret.

“Everything's fine. I just came out to check on the limo and stumbled and hit my head on the door. My kind neighbor here found me and was concerned for my welfare and called you.”

I gestured toward my kind neighbor. I realized I was babbling, but there's something about police officers looking you over that makes you feel you have to explain yourself. It gives you a guilty feeling, as if you've probably done something illegal even if you can't remember what. “But I'm fine, so if you could just radio the ambulance not to come—”

Too late. The ambulance skidded to a stop behind the deputy's car. The paramedics rushed to Tom, who, with rub-bery folds of flesh above his thick neck, gray stubble on his jaws, and the expression of a man who's just eaten a raw squid, apparently looked as if he needed medical attention more than I did. He was also dressed in pajamas, a wild plaid like the pants he usually wore, but he did have a blue terry-cloth robe on over them.

“Hey, get away from me!” Tom backed away and waved his hands as the paramedics approached him. By now Moose was in a full frenzy of barking in the Sheersons' backyard, and I remembered he'd been barking in the night too.

I stepped forward. “I guess it's me you came for,” I said reluctantly. “But I'm fine, just fine.” I smiled brightly and bounced on my bare feet to reinforce that claim.

“And you are?” the shorter officer inquired.

“Andi McConnell. I live here.” I pointed to the house. “And that's my limousine—”

“Your limousine?”

“I inherited it a few days ago. Long story,” I said. “Everything's fine.”

After some discussion with the officers, with me trying my best to look both physically and mentally robust, the ambulance finally departed. By this time Joella had come out, and other neighbors had clustered and were milling around on the sidewalk.

“What's going on?” Jo was in a robe too, with a wispy nightgown trailing around her bare feet. She reached up to touch my sticky hair. “Andi, you're hurt!”

I repeated my mantra. “I'm fine, just fine. This is all just a misunderstanding.”

Short Deputy was examining the door of the limousine, Tall Deputy circling the vehicle, both of them being very careful not to touch anything.

“We don't find anything that suggests you had contact with either the door or doorframe,” Short Deputy commented. “No hair or blood.”

I fingered my head. I didn't feel any stream of blood, but my hair was sticky and matted over Texas. “What do you mean?”

Tall Deputy: “It doesn't appear you hit your head on the door. Or anywhere else on the vehicle.”

“Then I must have just fallen and hit my head on the gravel.”

“Are you sure you weren't struck?”

“Struck by what?”

“You didn't see anyone?”

“No. Just Tom here, when I came to.”

“She was out cold when I found her.”

He sounded defensive, and I was startled to realize that under the circumstances the deputies might think he was involved in my injury. Okay, Tom and I have our differences. Most people in the neighborhood have differences with Tom. He's pointed those binoculars in my direction more than once, and he called in a complaint when Rachel was playing “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” too loudly to suit him one Christmas. But I'd never suspect him of clunking me on the head.

Short Officer pulled out a notebook and looked at Tom. “Your name is?”

“Tom Bolton, 413 Secret View Lane.” He pointed across the street. “Lived right there for the past twenty-four years. I'm up by five or five thirty every morning. I like to get an early start on the day.”

An early start on spying on the neighbors
, is what I thought, but what I said was, “Tom is my good neighbor. He didn't have anything to do with this.”