| |
Real car crashes don’t look anything like the movies.
Fireballs are rare. Explosions only happen by design. Airbags prevent most drivers from kissing their hood ornaments.
Real people die alone in the dark.
Like the girl in the crumpled blue Ford. All the car’s safety features had done what they were designed to do. But flipping through the air and slamming against a tree was beyond their capabilities.
She was young and blonde. Couldn’t have been a day past twenty-one. Now she never would be. Happy clothes, bright yellow shorts and a Mickey Mouse vest, soaking up the blood that fell like burgundy tears from a head hung in sorrow and regret.
I couldn’t smell the blood. Gasoline pooled under the car from a ruptured fuel tank. A bottle of champagne had exploded against the dashboard, cork still tightly wrapped. She was on her way to a celebration. This was supposed to have been a good day.
The photo tucked into the sun visor showed her smiling, waving, wrapped in the arms of an older man. He wasn’t smiling. He didn’t look happy at all.
There was no pulse. I nodded in acknowledgement of small mercies. The side of her face was shattered, from her cheekbone to behind the ear. I could almost see inside. Nobody should be found that way. Death is a private affair, one on one. Let her family remember her the way she was in the photo.
The night stopped holding its breath as I used the broken door to push myself upright. Crickets resumed their mating calls, defiant after the respectful moment of silence. The rest of the world moved on.
All except him. The suit in the red Porsche.
*
I’D SEEN HIM COMING in my rear-view mirror, no number plates, chatting on his cellphone, casually weaving into the middle of the road to see whether he could cut past me without having to indicate or slow down. Without having to shut his mouth and consider his actions.
*
NOW HE LAY HALF INSIDE his red coffin, legs trapped by a collapsed steering column. He hadn’t had much time, but he had tried to pull himself free. Or maybe he was trying to reach his cellphone, a few feet away on the wet grass.
I picked it up.
“Got a light?”
His head jerked up, seeing me for the first time.
“Thank god, someone’s here. Quick, help me. I think my legs are stuck.”
I made myself comfortable on a log.
“Do you smoke?”
His face showed a complete lack of comprehension.
“What?”
*
IT WAS A QUIET ROAD, late at night. He had done what he could get away with, instead of what would have been right. And he got away with it, cutting back in front of me too soon, forcing me to tap the brakes, inches away from catastrophe.
I decided to follow.
Hanging back, not too close, slowing down for the corners, letting him shoot ahead, then catching up on the straights. Not crowding him. Dimmed lights, demanding total concentration as the sun dropped behind the tree line and shadows claimed the quiet country road.
*
“SHE’S DEAD.”
More incomprehension.
“Who?”
“The girl you killed. Your friend in the Ford. When you clipped the front of her car.”
He shook his head, then winced. Perhaps his legs were bothering him. Hard blue eyes fixed me from beneath a shock of white hair that remained unruffled.
“It was an accident. Accidents happen. Look, give me a hand here, will you?”
*
IT WAS INEVITABLE. If it hadn’t happened that night, it would have been another night, another road, another victim. As inescapable as a Greek tragedy.
The sports car crossed a solid white line to shoot past the Ford, cresting a hill and taking a hairpin bend to the left. The eighteen-wheeled Freightliner coming the other way had no chance to slow down or swerve.
I saw the trucker spit out the window as he passed me, still tugging on his air horn. He drove on into the night, blissfully unaware of the carnage that lay in his wake around that bend.
*
THE SUIT LAY PROPPED up on his right arm, hand sinking in a puddle of gasoline. His other hand had a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. He wore no rings on that hand.
I slipped his cellphone into the inside pocket of my sleeveless denim jacket. Crossed the space between us and lifted him by his armpit, sitting him back against the red leather seat.
It was a beautiful car. Red and black trim, understated dashboard, plenty of room in front. Before it crumpled around him, bent by the ancient oak that had stood its ground against the onslaught.
I whistled as I walked back towards my log.
“Not looking good, there, sport.”
His eyes explored the stomach wound moments before his fingers reached it. The eyes didn’t come away dripping.
“Oh my god. You have to help me. Call an ambulance.”
I looked to the tree line. A lone wolf peered from the brush, nostrils flaring as he launched his own investigation into the incident. Grey fur on the back of his neck bristled. He looked healthy. Not starving. He wouldn’t come out yet. Not by himself. The wrecked cars aroused his curiosity, but the bald bearded man seated on the log didn’t look like prey. A fellow predator had reached the scene first and marked his territory.
When I looked back at the car, the suit was pushing his tie into his abdomen, gritting his teeth against the pain. I gave him credit. He wasn’t screaming. Not yet.
“You need a priest, not an ambulance.”
Frantic eyes spun my way, flicked to the wolf, then back to me.
“Look. I have money. In the car. In a briefcase. It’s yours. Just call an ambulance. Please. Or give me my phone and I’ll do it.”
I took out the phone. Latest model iPhone. Of course. Red Porsche cover to match the car. I pushed the button. A family photo appeared as a screen saver, wife and kids all smiles and waves.
“No signal out here. Don’t you love this part of the world?”
His eyes seemed to be growing larger as his face drained of colour. Even the fake tan couldn’t hide what was coming.
“I have a family. Children.”
I nodded, holding up the phone.
“I can see that. Do they know you’re a murderer?”
“I’m not a murderer. That was an accident. Surely you can see that? I’m a senator. I care about people.”
Come on, you would have laughed too. An honest politician with a briefcase full of cash? What other imaginary creatures could I expect to meet on the side of the road?
“You got a light?”
Typical politician. He ignored my question, wanted to control the conversation. This time he concentrated on his enunciation, speaking slowly to a backward child.
“There is a briefcase next to me containing $65 000. The money is yours if you get me to an ambulance.”
Maybe I was slow after all. The pieces of this puzzle had been dancing around one another since I had found the dead girl. Now they snapped into place with an almost audible click.
“Is that what a life is worth these days?”
Not what he wanted to hear. I could see him make an effort to keep the frustration from his voice. The pain, though, that he could no longer hide.
“Please. I’m a wealthy man. My family, they own most of this state. They’ll pay. Whatever you want. Just... just help me. Please.”
“What’s to stop me taking your money? Either now or in a few minutes when you no longer need it?”
Fear sparked a fire in his eyes. Desperation bred creativity.
“There’s a man up ahead. A dangerous man. This money’s his. I was taking it to him.”
“Really? A mysterious stranger? What does he look like?”
He coughed, wiping his hand across his mouth. He didn’t like what he saw when he took his hand away. It took him a moment to collect himself.
“I never met him. My aide set it up. But this man, he’s already looking for me. You don’t want to get in his way. You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
I pushed the button on his iPhone and took another look at the family photo. Happy, smiling. All except the husband.
“Why were you giving him money? Buying votes?”
The senator smiled for the first time. I hoped he wouldn’t do it again.
“He’s not that kind of guy.” Another cough, rattling deep in his chest. “He’s a killer. A stone-cold killer.”
“Like you? Does he run young girls off the road and try to call it an accident?”
“No. He shoots them. In the head.”
Our conversation suffered the same fate. The howl of a distant wolf broke the silence. Moments later, a response sounded from the nearby trees. I smiled. It was good to have friends and family you could count on.
“So you hired a bad man to shoot a young girl in the head?”
He nodded, but slowly. His batteries were running down.
“She had it coming. She was blackmailing me. Threatening my family.”
The answer was obvious, but I still asked the question.
“Why?”
His eyes were glass marbles, motionless windows into a darker place. I thought I could see distant fires dancing on the other side. I shivered.
He shivered too. Losing body heat. He knew he didn’t have long to go. Decided he had nothing to lose.
“We had an affair. I broke it off. She threatened to go public.”
I nodded. An old story. I’d heard it before.
“This girl? This sweet young thing with a bottle of champagne and a photo of her lover pinned to her sun visor?”
I showed him the photo I had found in the girl’s car. His brain was running short of oxygen as the blood seeped into his custom leather seats. It took him a while to recognize the faces.
“She hadn’t broken anything off. She was on her way to see the man of her dreams. An older man with a family, who had decided that she had become an inconvenience. You lured her out here to die.”
His head wobbled as he juggled these revelations.
“Karma’s a bitch.”
I reached past him to retrieve the briefcase from the passenger side.
“Except she wasn’t supposed to die. Just because a dirty politician thought his career was more important than her life. I was going to put the bullet in your head, not hers.”
I could see I was losing him. Pain was being replaced by a cold numbness.
“You were right. This money belongs to a bad man, who does bad things. It always did.”
I saw the zippo in his breast pocket and slipped it out. His eyes fluttered open one last time and he nodded towards a pack of Camels tucked into the visor. His last bribe.
“Thanks,” I told him, “but I don’t smoke.”
*
WOLVES HOWLED IN FRUSTRATION as I drove away. The pack had finally arrived in numbers strong enough to make a difference. But they wouldn’t go near the flames. And there would be nothing left once the flames were gone.