CHAPTER FIVE

The doorbell rang just after seven o’clock. Darla looked through the peephole to see the uniformed officer waiting on the front porch. Kevin Cook. How long had he been there? Had he examined her car before coming to the door? Should she let him in?

The bell rang again. Darla steadied her nerves. Maybe if she was quiet, he’d think she wasn’t home and go away. She placed both hands flat over her pounding heart. The bell rang insistently, followed by a sharp knock.

“Mrs. Nixon? Mrs. Nixon, are you home? Sheriff’s office, Ma’am. Please open up.”

She remembered his voice. She’d had confrontations with him when he was a child. Always rigid, belligerent, unwilling to compromise, he’d been a challenge then. Now, he was a threat.

Briefly, she considered ignoring him, calling Jennifer Lane to deal with him. But Kevin had always been single-minded, too. Focused to a fault. Like a leech on a warm-blooded animal, he never let go of anything voluntarily back then. A child’s basic personality didn’t change in adulthood, Darla knew. He’d hound her until he got what he needed.

“I’m coming!” she called, as if she’d just realized he was there.

Darla reached down, unlocked the door, and opened it wide.

“Why, it’s Kevin Cook. How are you?” She held onto the door to keep her composure.

He ducked his head, acknowledging her greeting. “I’m fine, ma’am. It’s good to see you again, after all these years. You look just the same.”

Darla wasn’t surprised by this statement. Her former students often said that.

“May I come in? I need to ask you a few questions about Paul Webster’s accident.”

She stood aside. He opened the door wider; maneuvered his broad body into the small room.

“I was back in the kitchen, making coffee. Would you like a cup?”

Perhaps he believed that explained her breathlessness, too. He’d removed his hat.

“No, ma’am. Thank you. I’m talking to everyone who attended the party at Ms. Webster’s house last night. I have some questions to ask you and then I’ll be on my way.”

She smoothed the hem of her shirt over her slight hips and gestured. He sat on the davenport. She perched in the rocker opposite.

“How can I help?”

Detective Cook pulled a small spiral notebook and a pencil with a well-chewed eraser out of his shirt pocket. He flipped through the first few pages and folded the notebook open to a blank, ruled sheet. He jotted the date on the top and, after glancing at his watch, the time. He printed her name. Methodical and precise, as he’d been in elementary school.

“Ma’am, you left Ms. Webster’s party around nine o’clock last night, is that right?”

The question was politely put, but Darla recognized the authority in his tone. She’d used the same tone herself in many a student disciplinary proceeding. Being the recipient was not pleasant.

“Yes.”

“Did you see Paul Webster outside as you were leaving?”

He looked directly into her eyes as he asked the question. She wondered what he expected to see there, whether he imagined he had an innate ability to detect lies. Perhaps he did. She wouldn’t lie, then. She didn’t normally lie and she couldn’t lie successfully, anyway.

Darla shook her head. Tears threatened. “I wish I had seen him, Kevin. I only wish I had.”

Oh, how true that was. If she’d seen Paul, of course she wouldn’t have hit him. None of this would have happened. Why hadn’t she seen him?

She asked, “Why was he outside, anyway? I thought he was supposed to be staying the night with a neighbor?”

Officer Cook jerked his head back and forth, his mouth a thin line of disapproval. “The neighbor put him to bed around eight and didn’t check on him again until morning. Apparently he left the house without her knowledge. We’re guessing he wanted to go home. His mother said he didn’t like being away from her overnight.”

Darla’s own concern about the neighborhood resurfaced. She knew the people who lived near Marie were generally unreliable. She’d asked Marie whether the woman could be trusted last night. Paul could be such a handful. Darla thought the woman might bring Paul home, unable to control him. But this level of negligence was too cruel.

Cook glanced at another page in his notebook again. “It was pretty dark out last night. Do you have trouble seeing in the dark?”

Surely, he knew the answer or he wouldn’t have asked. He was trying to trick her into admitting what she’d done. She was guilty of reckless driving, at least. Her night vision was not sufficient to drive a car, and she’d driven anyway. And she’d hit a child, without even realizing it. She’d be treated with fewer leniencies than a drunk driver. Her judgment wasn’t impaired. What could she say?

“It was raining. There aren’t any streetlights on Marie’s street. Maybe the county will get some up out there after this,” Darla told him.

This wasn’t a real answer and she was sure he realized it. A thin bead of sweat coated the area above her upper lip. She placed both hands flat on her thighs, fingers spread wide, holding steady.

Detective Cook was watching her closely. He printed notes on the clean spaces in his notebook, but she couldn’t read his precise printing from this distance.

“You didn’t see anyone hit Paul, then?”

“I didn’t see Paul at all. I was concentrating on my driving.”

Perspiration now appeared on her forehead. She wanted desperately to wipe it away. To prevent herself from doing so, she clasped her hands together and crossed her feet at the ankles.

“On a night like that, Paul shouldn’t have been outside. Whoever hit him surely didn’t mean to do it. But they should have stopped. Should have helped him right away,” Detective Cook said, as if he was talking to himself. He tapped the pencil led against the page. “Did you notice any other cars on the road as you left Ms. Webster’s house?”

“No. I didn’t. I think I was the first guest to leave, so the other cars were still in the driveway and parked along the street.” Darla glanced at the coffee cup, but if she picked it up she’d spill coffee all over herself.

“Mrs. Nixon, the doctor says the biggest problem Paul has right now is how long he was left outside in the cold rain after he was hit. We’re not sure exactly when that was, but it might have been about the time you were leaving.” Kevin stopped a minute and flipped through the pages in his notebook, looking for something. “Are you sure you didn’t see him?”

Darla couldn’t answer again. She shook her head.

“Are you making any progress at all, Kevin? Finding whoever hit Paul?”

She’d tried not to ask, but the pressure to find out had overwhelmed her terror of his power to ruin her life.

Detective Cook watched her a bit longer before he said, “Hit and runs are hard to solve. If we don’t get a break in the case in the next few days we may never solve it. That happens too often, I’m afraid.”

“What kind of break are you hoping for?” Her voice sounded unnaturally high to her.

“Most often, the person driving the car just can’t live with the guilt and turns himself in.” Kevin’s gaze was steady, pointed. He knew. Of course, he knew. Why would he be here otherwise? Why had she let him in? She should have called Jennifer Lane right away.

He added, “Or the boy could wake up and tell us who hit him.”

A beat passed. Two. Darla began to tremble.

She’d been so happy that Paul was alive and would recover. She hadn’t realized that if he woke up he might be able to identify her car as the one that hit him and fled the scene. He would send her to jail.

Her fist pounded absently on her thigh. Why did she drive that damn car after the doctor told her not to? Why?

Detective Cook closed the notebook. He returned it and the gnawed pencil to his pocket. When he stood, Darla rose with him. For just a moment, he seemed indecisive. Then his gaze fell on a picture frame on the table. She couldn’t see the picture, but she knew it was there. She waited.

“Is that your younger son?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the picture.

“Yes. He graduated from Florida State last June,” Darla said. “He’s working in South America now.”

“Those are amazing flowers in the background. What kind are they?”

Flowers? Were there flowers in the picture? She couldn’t remember. She turned her upper body and her head far to the right to look. Too far. A person with normal peripheral vision would have been able to see the picture long before Darla could. Detective Cook observed her closely, his eyes narrowing just a bit.

“Oh, those are white birds of paradise. Lovely, aren’t they?”

She turned back to face him, her nervousness apparent even to her. He should have known those blooms; they were common enough in Tampa. He was testing her.

Detective Cook remained quiet a bit too long.

“Yes,” he said, nodding once for punctuation. “They are.”

Then, he seemed to reach a decision, turned and walked to the door. Darla followed a few feet behind. He opened the screen and stepped outside, placed his hat on his head, and turned to face her through the mesh.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I examined your car before I came up to the door. It’s got quite a few dents in it.”

Darla nodded. “It’s embarrassing, really.”

“Have you reported all those incidents to your insurance company, Ma’am?”

The insurance company kept all reports. He’d be able to subpoena them if he hadn’t already. Jennifer Lane couldn’t prevent the disclosure, even if Darla called her now and confessed everything.

Darla’s mouth was dry. She wet her lips with her tongue.

“I can’t afford to pay any more insurance than I’m already paying.”

“I see,” he said. “Well, thank you for your help, Mrs. Nixon. You sure scared the heck out of me when I was a boy,” he said with a grin before he turned to leave. “But you’re just a regular person, aren’t you? Not scary at all. You take care, now.”

She watched him walk down the sidewalk, enter his patrol car, back completely out of the driveway, and head toward town. Only then did she close the door. Only then did she sob.