I screamed as Greg tried to jump out of the way.
The Hummer bounced over the little concrete barrier that was supposed to keep residents from parking too close to the building and roared across the narrow strip of dirt edging the parking lot. With a great crashing noise, it rammed the Sand and Sea, a yellow behemoth bent on destruction.
I stared in shocked disbelief, unable to process what I was seeing. Still, I managed to scream long and loud. At least I assumed it was me yelling like a banshee. No one else was around to break the sound barrier.
I lost sight of Greg as he dived for cover. Oh, Lord! Oh, God! Please don’t let him be hurt!
The ice paralyzing my limbs melted in the hush following the crash. I started running. “Greg! Greg!”
Not that there was no noise. I could hear falling building parts, the rumble of the Hummer’s engine, and the slap of my feet, but by contrast to the fearful roar of the crash it seemed deathly quiet.
As I ran, I could see Chaz in his Hummer, still embedded in the building, pushing the now-deflated air bag out of the way. He looked at what he had done, looked at the guy with the badge rushing from the building with a gun in his hand, and threw the Hummer into reverse. At the movement, his face crumpled as if he were in pain, which he would be after being hit in the face and chest with the air bag. He stepped on the gas, and with a great roar the car tore itself loose from the building and flew back across the lot.
“Halt!” the man with the gun yelled as he pointed his weapon.
For the briefest of moments, Chaz and I stared at each other as he fought with the gearshift. I had a vision of him going for me as he had for Greg, eyewitness that I was, but he jerked the wheel and squealed out onto the street, disappearing toward the bridge that would take him off the island.
“Shoot him!” I yelled at the constable as he raced after the Hummer into the street. “Shoot him!” I had never known I could be so bloodthirsty.
“Can’t.” The constable gave a frustrated snarl. “Too populated.” He slipped his gun into his trouser pocket and jogged back to the apartment.
Of course he couldn’t. What was wrong with me? I hadn’t even noticed the older couple walking down the street or the young mother and her two little children who rounded the corner of the building.
The constable knelt by Greg. “You okay, Barnes?”
Greg didn’t respond, just lay there in the strip of dirt by the complex, eyes wide. In pain, in disbelief, or in death? My heart climbed to my throat where it threatened to choke me.
I fell to my knees beside him. “Greg, can you hear me?” Oh, God, let him be okay!
I flinched at the bleeding gash on his cheek, and a lump was rising on his forehead. Blood seeped from the many abrasions on his arms and cheek, all angry and painful looking. None appeared to my inexpert eye to be life threatening, but what if the Hummer had hit him? Were there internal injuries I couldn’t see? Broken ribs? Pierced lungs? What if there was a life-threatening hematoma forming under that bump on his forehead?
I looked at the constable, who was just standing there, and found him hanging up his cell.
“Nine-one-one,” he said. “They’ll be here pronto.”
Greg frowned. “They were coming for Chaz anyway.”
“Yeah,” the constable nodded, “but now they’ll hurry.”
I took a deep calming breath. Greg was conscious. Conscious was good. And he could talk. Talking was excellent. Slowly my heart returned to my chest and began beating in regular rhythm again.
“Ambulance?” the constable asked.
Greg shook his head and grimaced. “Nah. Just a bump or two. I think I hit one of the parking barriers on my way down.” He pushed himself to a sitting position, grabbing his shoulder as he did. He tried to rotate it and made a face.
“A bump or two, my eye. You need to be checked out,” I said.
He put out a hand. “No.”
I hadn’t realized he could be so stubborn.
He stared in disgust at the great hole in the side of the Sand and Sea. Siding, cinder block, insulation, drywall, and glass littered the dirt and bled into the parking lot. “Would you look at that!”
I gave up on him and medical care as a lost cause and looked at the wrecked building. I could see all the way through the apartment to the front window.
“There’s broken furniture in the living room.” I knew the Hummer hadn’t done that.
“Yeah.” Greg tried rotating his shoulder again. “Chaz protesting his eviction.”
A cop car pulled into the lot, lights flashing but no siren. Officers Maureen Trevelyan and Rog Eastman climbed out.
Rog surveyed the damage and shook his head. “Talk about irate tenants.”
“He tried to run Greg over!” My indignation must have been a little over the top because they all looked at me with strange expressions. I dialed back my outrage. “Well, he did. I saw it all.”
“But he missed, I see,” Maureen said as Greg pulled himself to his feet and leaned against the nearest car. I stood too, my arms spread as if I would catch him if he fell. There was a bruise already forming on his forehead bump, and his cheek was turning purple beneath the bloody cut.
“Was he after you, or were you just in the way when he went for the building?” Maureen asked him.
Greg shrugged and winced at the movement. “Hard to tell.”
“Think about it,” Maureen said. “You too, Carrie. There’s a big diff between attempted homicide and willful destruction of property.”
“So what was he driving?” Rog asked.
“A yellow Hummer.” Greg, the constable, and I spoke in near unison.
The constable added, “Heading toward the bridge.”
“His name’s Chaz Rudolph.” Greg gave them the license number.
I stared. “You memorized the license number of a car about to run you over?” The man was amazing.
“When it first showed up on the lot, I automatically committed it to memory.” He looked at Maureen and gave a half smile. “Old habits.”
She nodded.
“Its front end is all messed up,” I added.
Rog glanced at the building again and laughed. “I bet.” He leaned in the squad car and spoke into his radio, ending with, “Cover the bridge exits.”
Greg lurched a bit as he tried to take a step, and I grabbed his arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” He forced a smile as he contemplated the building. “What an idiot!”
“I’ve pulled a couple of people from cars in living rooms when they’ve lost control or couldn’t stop on a slick road,” Rog said, “but on purpose is a new one for me. And just when I thought I’d seen it all.” He grinned at Maureen. “Days like this, I love my job.”
Maureen grinned agreement as three people ran into the lot and joined the young mother and the older couple who’d stuck around to see if there would be any more excitement. Reality TV was never this interesting.
Maureen’s smile dimmed as she watched the gawkers. They all had cell phones in hand and were texting madly, even the older couple and the young mom. Her kids were busy scooping cinders and sand into a small mountain.
Maureen gave a frustrated laugh. “They’re tweeting and facebooking.”
As if to prove her correct, one guy called, “He couldn’t get across the Ninth Street Causeway. People blocked it. He turned south on Bay toward the Thirty-Fourth Street Bridge.”
Greg snorted. “Amateurs playing at being cops.”
“Voyeurs.” Rog shook his head. “Someone’s going to get hurt one of these days. They may think it’s fun and exciting, but the bad guys don’t. If one of the gawkers is in the way, look out, baby.” Irked though he was, he went to his cruiser and relayed the Thirty-Fourth Street Bridge information to the dispatcher.
“Regular guys blockaded the causeway?” I was stunned. I couldn’t imagine putting my car in the path of Chaz and his Hummer. Of course, the tweeters out there hadn’t seen what the Hummer had done to the Sand and Sea. Still a Hummer is a Hummer, all big and bad. I was surprised Chaz didn’t use it to ram his way past the blockade.
Two cars pulled into the lot, and a twenty-something climbed out of each, one male, one female. They huddled with the other watchers, whispering and pointing when their thumbs weren’t dancing on their keypads.
Rog was grinning as he rejoined us. “Dispatch already knew. Several phone calls to 911 from people tracking the Hummer. I bet he’s got a line of cars behind him, all tweeters and their friends. He hasn’t got a chance.”
“Sort of a wedding party motorcade without the crepe-paper streamers,” I said. “Or horns. Or bride and groom.”
Greg put his hand to his head.
I forgot the tweeters. “Headache?” Dumb question. Why else would he hold his head?
“Oh, yeah. I never should have left the café.”
Café! I glanced at my watch. Eleven thirty-five! “I’ve got to go. It’s lunchtime.”
“I need to talk to you more,” Maureen said.
“Sure, but can you stop at the café? I’m seriously understaffed and need to be there.”
She nodded. “I’ll drop in after the crime scene techs finish here.”
I smiled my thanks and looked at Greg. “You stop in too. Someone’s got to clean those scrapes.”
He waved his hand like he was erasing the cuts and blood. The heel of his palm was red and weeping.
“You haven’t seen yourself, bub. Stop in.” I turned away before he could say no. What was it with men? When it wasn’t “if you build it, they will come,” it was “if you ignore it, it will heal.”
As I hurried down the street, several of the texters followed me, joined by a gray-haired lady who zipped right along with the crowd in her motorized scooter. Cilla Merkel, a café regular.
“Did you see it happen?” one tweeter called to me. “I know some lady in a blue top was a witness to that mess. SweetCilla said so. She heard the lady’s screams and saw the whole thing go down from her place across the street in that apartment building.”
I glanced down. I had on my blue Carrie’s Café shirt today. It felt very strange knowing that my screams were responsible for all these people. I glanced at Cilla and gave her a did-you-have-to look. She grinned back.
“Yeah, my Twitter source said blue shirt too,” another texter called. “Said her name’s Carrie. You Carrie?”
“So what did you see, Carrie?” a third yelled. “Did you scream because he tried to run over you too?”
I began to feel a bit heckled. “Don’t you people have jobs?” I asked over my shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Yeah,” Number One said. “What’s your point?”
There was a rumble of agreement from the rest of the tweeters as we reached the café.
I turned to them. “You’re welcome to come in if you want to buy something to eat. If not, stay out here. Okay? Just remember I don’t know anything, and nothing’s going to happen here except lunch.”
“But you haven’t told us what you saw.”
And I wasn’t going to. “That’s because I think I should tell the police first.”
There was another rumble but not of agreement. They saw me as unreasonable. I studied the motley crew of twenty- and thirty-somethings and Cilla who was old enough to know better, though I supposed she was the only one not cutting work to trail me. The older couple must have been smart enough to continue their walk to the boardwalk. The young mom was here, her two kids hanging from her legs.
“Come on, guys. If you hang outside my door in a big clump, you’re going to scare off my customers.”
They looked around as if searching for said customers and finding none.
“They’ll be here,” I said somewhat defensively. “Lindsay’s quiche is famous in these parts.”
“It’s wonderful,” Cilla agreed. “My favorite. You got tomato basil soup today? It’s Monday.”
I gave her a faint smile and addressed the others. “Maybe you could wait across the street by the drugstore.” People had to go in to get their medicine regardless of street crowds, right?
“I’ll go in and get lunch,” Cilla said to the tweeters. “I’ll let you know if anything happens. Anything at all.” She waved her iPhone.
There was a chorus of “Promise?” and one “You sure you know how to use that?”
Cilla skewered the doubter with a steely look that had him taking a step backward.
“Hey,” Number One said. “This is SweetCilla.” Like she was royalty.
The doubter looked instantly impressed. “I’m so sorry. No disrespect intended.”
Cilla waved a hand, forgiveness granted. Queen Cilla.
As I let the door fall shut behind me, I nearly ran over Lindsay, Ricky, and Andi staring out at our visitors. Linds had her smartphone in her hand, and Ricky was standing too close to her under the guise of reading over her shoulder. His own phone was still in its holder clipped to his belt.
Andi, pink phone in hand, vibrated with excitement. “You saw Chaz try to kill Greg?” Her hazel eyes were wide.
“He was mad about being evicted, and he rammed the building.”
“He wasn’t after Greg?” Linds held out her phone. “Cilla said it was attempted murder.”
“She did, huh?” I replayed the scene in my mind, and I realized I couldn’t say whether Chaz wanted to harm Greg or not. He seemed nutty enough to do something that rash, but I didn’t know that was what he intended. If you’re nuts enough to ram a building with your shiny yellow Hummer, you might be crazy enough to go after a person too. But the word was might.
“I don’t know,” I said, and the three looked disappointed.
The door opened, and Cilla drove in. She smiled sweetly. “Don’t you worry, Carrie. I won’t bother you.”
I gave her my hostess smile. “Take any seat you’d like.” I waved my hand to show her the possibilities, and there were many since no one in Seaside seemed to be taking an early lunch.
“We follow you on Twitter, Ricky and I,” Lindsay told Cilla. “I’ve learned more about Seaside past and present from you than anyone else.”
Cilla nodded, as regal as Elizabeth II, taking the compliment as her due. The only thing missing was the royal wave. “I just sit at my window or on the boardwalk and report what I see.”
Even I recognized an understatement.
Cilla rolled up to table two, her eyes sparkling with life and intelligence and her gray hair curled around her very attractive if somewhat wrinkled face. She was a widow, and I wondered why no man had stepped up to take Mr. Merkel’s place. Probably no one her age could keep up with her.
“I’ll take Lindsay’s quiche with fruit on the side and a cup of tomato basil. Oh, and a sweet iced tea, BTW.”
BTW? Give me a break!
The door opened, and two of the texters came in.
“You have to order food,” I said as I shooed my staff back to work.
“We have to eat lunch sometime,” said the taller of the two, “so we decided to eat it here.” They slipped into a booth. In another minute all the street group were inside, seated and scanning menus, even the young mom with the two little kids.
As soon as they placed their orders, they began texting, though I couldn’t imagine what they were talking about. I ordered quiche or I’m having grilled cheese with ham and tomatoes? Nothing else newsworthy was happening unless you counted someone dropping a tray of silver in the kitchen with a horrendous crash. Today’s dishwasher?
Which reminded me, if Jase wasn’t going to be here, I had to do something about tomorrow. And where was he? Lord, let him be okay, okay?
Whenever one booth or table emptied, another group of tweeters appeared. Aside from the little bleeps and chimes that denoted new messages, the place was eerily quiet. The upside was that they were too preoccupied to notice the slow service.
“Since he couldn’t get over the bridge and out of town, he’s speeding south into Avalon on Ocean Drive,” one texter announced just in case the others had missed that information.
Ocean Drive was a highway that linked the run of barrier islands that edged South Jersey, protecting the mainland from the ravages of the ocean’s temper. I sometimes wondered what would happen to the highway and all the islands if the predictions of global warming came to pass. The highest point in Seaside was less than ten feet above sea level, and it wouldn’t take much to devastate the town. In a storm several years ago, the ocean and bay met in Harvey Cedars, an island community several miles north of Seaside. Would such a thing happen permanently up and down the coast someday?
“It’s a good thing it’s off-season and there aren’t many people and cars around,” Cilla said when I refilled her sweet iced tea. “I can’t imagine the confusion and danger if the place was crawling with summer people.”
I had to agree. The thought of that huge vehicle speeding through streets swarming with vacationers was enough to give me the shudders.
The café door opened, and Mary Prudence, Lindsay’s and my fairy godmother, walked in, making her way through the three parties waiting for tables.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Not that I’m not always glad to see you, but what’s up?”
“I read on Twitter that things were slightly nuts here. I thought I’d better come in and help you out.”
“Sure. Isn’t everyone? I follow SweetCilla. She’s been reporting everything ever since you screamed.”
Uh-huh.
“And I follow Mary P,” Cilla said.
“And I follow both,” called a slick-looking guy whose suntan was fading toward winter wan.
A flurry of “me too’s” and “so do I’s” sounded.
I looked at Cilla with her gray hair and Mary P with her carefully tinted hair. How weird that they knew more about technology than I, who was at least thirty years younger than Mary P and closer to forty for Cilla.
“So what can I do to help you out?” Mary P slipped her smartphone into its holder clipped to her belt.
A stray piece of information finally connected. “Carrie’s Café is being mentioned on Twitter by name?”
Mary P nodded. “Facebook too. You couldn’t pay for publicity like this.”
Wow. Maybe there was something to social networking after all.
She wrapped an apron around her ample middle. “You want me to do counter or tables?”
I smiled at her. It was like old times, only then she was the boss and I the employee being told my wait station.
“I’ll take the counter and the register,” I said. “You and Andi take the tables and booths.”
With a nod, Mary P went to talk with Andi about division of labor.
“They got him,” Lindsay yelled to the customers.
“Yeah,” called a guy with black glasses and a terrible haircut. “The Wildwood PD was waiting for him at the south end of town.”
“He smashed up a cop car when he tried to run a barricade,” Cilla said. “Marleysghost has pictures on YouTube!”
Everything stopped as everyone, including the cook, the baker, and both my servers went to Marleysghost’s YouTube post.
“Ricky,” I yelled. “All the cheese in the grilled cheese for booth one is melting out of the sandwich! And smoke’s beginning to swirl. Quick or we’ll have the smoke alarms blaring!”
Ricky grinned at me and cocked his head toward our customers. “They’ll never notice.”
How true.
He flipped the sandwich, and it was fine—which I knew. I’d just been trying to keep his mind on his job.
When Maureen and Rog came in around one thirty to hear my version of the incident at the Sand and Sea, I thought my remaining customers would twist their heads off their shoulders as they tried to watch what we were doing and eavesdrop on our conversation. When we went to the back of the café and my office, there was a collective groan.
“Don’t worry,” Lindsay called to them, waving her smartphone. “I’ll keep you updated.”
Not if I didn’t keep her updated.
I closed the office door behind the three of us, relieved to be free of being reported on. Who knew being a celebrity was so wearing? But if it meant more business …
“I’ve got a question for you guys,” I said. “How come there isn’t an army of texters out there looking for Jason Peoples?” I’d been thinking about that for the last hour. “If some idiot ramming a building got everyone so excited, you’d think a missing person would make them froth at the mouth.”
“Good question.” Rog looked around my cluttered office. “We’ll have to get SweetCilla and Mary P on it. Our sources haven’t come up with much.”
“Tell me you don’t follow them on Twitter,” I said.
“You’d be surprised what those two ladies have uncovered.” Maureen looked around for seats.
I indicated my desk chair. “Yours, Maureen.” I pulled a pair of folding chairs from against the wall, offered one to Rog, and took the other.
Maureen sat with caution in the desk chair, well used when I got it. It only wobbled slightly. “As to Jason Peoples, we do know he had a fight with a guy, big and with dark hair, first name Bill. We’re looking for that guy as a person of interest, but we don’t know much else.”
So Bill hadn’t followed Greg’s advice and gone to the police. I wasn’t surprised. My feeling was that Bill would buck authority without a second thought, convinced that he, ruler of his small universe, knew better than they. After all, their only purpose was to interfere with his life.
Maureen appeared frustrated. “No one at the party knew this Bill, or so they say. They’re all telling us he crashed the party with some pretty girl with strawberry-blond hair and he got into the fight over her.”
I flinched. Andi. “You’re looking for Bill Lindemuth.”
Maureen looked blank, but Rog, a lifetime resident of Seaside, perked up. “The football hero of a couple of years ago?”
I nodded. “He was in the café this morning for breakfast.”
“Yeah? How do you know he’s the guy we’re looking for?”
I hesitated for a moment, feeling like a traitor but knowing I had to tell them what I knew. Finding Jase was more important than the almost certain possibility of angering Bill or upsetting Andi.
“You need to talk to my server, Andi Mueller. She’s a friend of his. In fact she’s the girl he was with at the party. But she’s only sixteen. Take it easy on her.”