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Sandra’s heart was racing. This was so stupid. She hesitated. How could she ask a stranger in a bar’s dark parking lot a hypothetical question about shooting someone without sounding like she was planning to shoot someone? “I know this is weird, but it’s driving me crazy. Someone told me that a man had been killed with a ...” She forgot the numbers again.
“Two forty-three,” Bob said quickly.
“Two forty-three,” she repeated, “and everyone was all surprised at that. Do you know why?”
The parking lot lights were few and dim, and the brim of his baseball cap cast an extra shadow on his face. She couldn’t tell if he was confused, annoyed, or angry. “What makes you think I’d know?” He looked into the van as if he could sense someone else was in there.
“I’m alone,” she said quickly, thinking of Joanna. Since she’d already lied once, she figured she might as well continue. “I pulled in here to finish a phone call, you know, want to be safe and all ...” She tittered and it sounded manic. Her cheeks were on fire. She was grateful for the dark. “And my friend told me about the gun, and it was really bothering me. It’s weird, I know, but I saw you and thought you’d probably know.” She paused, wishing for time travel.
“Be calm,” Bob said, “you’re doing fine.”
She wanted to snap at him that she was most definitely not doing fine, but she managed not to.
Something behind her let out a primal shriek. A surge of adrenaline rushed through Sandra. She looked in the rearview mirror. What on earth could make a sound like that, and why had it sounded familiar? She couldn’t see anything.
The man in the cap looked into the darkness behind her van. “Calm down. It’s nothing. She’s just asking me a question about guns.” He said this as if it made sense.
“Guns?” the person wailed. Sandra definitely knew that voice but from where? “Why, is she going to shoot you?”
“No! Calm down. Get in the truck.”
“Do you know her?” she accused.
“No.” He sounded exasperated. “I told you, she’s just asking me a question—”
“Well, I know her! I’d know that van anywhere! I remember the bumper sticker.” The fifth-grade honor student bumper sticker. As proud as she was of her son, she vowed to scrape that sticker off pronto.
Finally, Sandra caught a glimpse of the woman in her side mirror.
Ms. Cowbell.
“Thanks anyway, sorry to bother you,” Sandra said to the man as fast as possible.
Ms. Cowbell, who didn’t appear to be armed, but Sandra didn’t want to take any chances, was fast gaining on her car door. Sandra couldn’t back up without hitting her, so she drove her van forward, intending to immediately turn the van around and speed away, but when she swung the van to the right, she couldn’t quite make the turn without clipping the trucks parked in the next row. She muttered a semi-naughty word.
“Mom!” Joanna accused from the back.
She threw the van in reverse and backed up two feet. This wasn’t going to be a three-point turn. It was going to take at least five.
Ms. Cowbell was still coming. “Are you following me? Are you trying to prove something, stealing my boyfriend?” She punctuated that accusation with a few curses of her own.
Sandra put the van in drive again, praying she could make the turn, and she probably could have if she hadn’t been so flustered.
“You’re more scared right now than you were when you were being chased by a murderer,” Bob said.
Sandra threw the van into reverse while it was still rolling forward, and it lurched in protest. “I know, but I know this woman, and she’s crazy!”
“What did you just say?” Ms. Cowbell screamed. “Who are you talking to? Are you talking to me?”
She backed up a few more inches, wishing she had one of those fancy backup cameras.
“Take a breath,” Bob said, and his calmness annoyed her. “I won’t let her hurt you.”
Maybe not, but she was only feet away from the van now.
Sandra rolled up the window with her left hand, put the car in drive with her right hand, and stomped on the gas with her foot without holding onto the wheel. As her tires found purchase, the nice man’s girlfriend swung her giant plastic purse over her head and brought it down like a battle ax. It glanced off the side of the minivan, probably leaving a dent, but Sandra didn’t care—there were a thousand dents. Her tires spun up two rooster tails of gravel, which sprayed the surrounding trucks, the owners of which might get more upset about dents than she did. Her embarrassment deepened. She hadn’t meant to do that. But she didn’t feel bad enough to slow down.
She didn’t dare look at Ms. Cowbell, whom she might’ve injured, but as she drove by Mr. Cowbell, he had turned his body away from her van and brought his arm up to shield his face from the projectiles.
She didn’t even slow down to check for traffic. She pulled out onto the road without looking both ways and turned the van so fast that it went up on two tires. At least, that’s what it felt like. She didn’t feel the other two tires crash back to the asphalt, so maybe that hadn’t really happened.
Bob was laughing.
“I am so angry at you!” she hollered at the angel.
“What? I didn’t do anything!”
“You had a really lame idea! Did you know that she was there? Did you do that for your own entertainment?”
“Of course not. Angels have far better ways to entertain ourselves. And no, I don’t even know who she was.”
“You don’t? That’s the woman who tried to kill Moose and me with a cowbell at Dixville Falls!”
Understanding dawned. “Oh! Now I understand why she was so upset.”
Sandra tried to get her breathing under control.
“Why would those two drive all the way from Dixville Falls to drink in Plainfield?” Bob said contemplatively.
“I doubt that’s the case. I’m betting he lives here.”
“Well then, you better hope they don’t hit it off, get married, move to Dixville Falls, and make more soccer players.”
She didn’t answer him. She was suddenly very tired.
“Mama? Can I get off the floor now?”
Sandra’s stomach rolled. “Of course, honey. Get in your seat and buckle up.” She’d done it again. Her goofy sleuthing had put her children in danger. Nate was going to have a fit. “I’m so sorry, honey.” She needed to solve this case for the dance angel, and then she needed to retire.
Sandra heard the click of the seatbelt.
“That woman said a lot of bad words.”
Bob snickered.
“Yes, she did,” Sandra said. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
“It’s okay. I hear the same words at school. Just not all at the same time.”
Bob laughed again, and this time it was more than a snicker.
Joanna joined him.
The two of them were having a grand time.
“Quiet, both of you,” Sandra ordered.
But they kept laughing, each feeding off the other, leaving Sandra to be the only one still wondering why a two-forty-three bullet was a big deal.
