by Dale Mayer
“Understanding the pain is one thing, but doing something so outside the law and causing the same pain for somebody else? No, I don’t understand that at all.”
“I get that, and I’m really glad to hear it.” She quietly studied his face but heard only truth. “I still need to confirm your whereabouts, so we can move on.” Then she gave him the date of the first accident.
He frowned. “My days pretty well roll one into the next. I live alone, and, outside of the time that I’m out shopping, either I’m here or I tend to haunt the pizza parlor. It’s just …” He stopped, looked shamefaced. “I feel connected to my son there.”
She nodded gently. “Did you see the first accident?”
He shook his head. “No, I arrived just afterward.”
“It’s pretty traumatic to see a duplicate of the horror you already went through. Did you recognize anybody who was there at the first scene, when you were watching?”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “A couple people, somebody who made my blood run cold. I’ve seen them before. They were usually just—”
“Go on,” she urged, with a gentle smile.
Bill frowned. “I don’t know for sure that it was the same person. Those damn kids were hassling her.”
“Hassling who?”
“The blind woman. She comes around here once in a while too. I think it’s the same one who lost her daughter. It’s not just me who hangs around those street corners. It would be better off if we hung around their graves, but it feels like they aren’t there. It feels like we lost them here, so this is where we are.”
Kate understood, but, at the same time, it was ghoulish. “And you saw the blind woman there?”
“And I only saw her because of those kids. They were being asses to her.”
“In what way?”
“Trying to push her down, I think. She did go down, and she looked like she was injured. I wondered about going over and helping her, but she got back up, and the kids lost interest in her.”
“Interesting.” Kate’s senses were on high alert. Candy had said something about her friend group wanting her to push a blind woman. “Could you recognize the kids?”
Bill shrugged. “They hang around here a lot,” he muttered. “It’s not like it’s hard to miss them. There’s a group of six of them.”
“When you saw the other accident, the second one in a week,” Rodney stepped in, “did you recognize the victim?”
He shook his head. “No, but she didn’t look so good. Honestly she appeared to be high.”
“High drunk or something?”
He shrugged. “I tell you what. The kids who come off that university, some of them are great and really intense. Some of them look like they’re completely stressed out, and others look like they’re off on their luck. And, at that accident, she looked like she was out of luck.”
“Right.”
“Another guy was there, and that group knocked him down too.”
“Interesting, very interesting,” Kate muttered. “We did hear complaints about some kids knocking around other people, who were injured and the like.”
“Well, this woman from that group knocked somebody else down—he was disabled—but it wasn’t as bad as what the group did to the blind woman. I know she was sobbing and trying hard to not appear any more vulnerable than she was. I was getting ready to go out and pound the crap out of those little shitheads.”
“How many were there?”
“There is a group of them, usually a couple women with some guys, so about six total in their little gang, and they were hassling the one woman pretty badly.”
Kate nodded slowly. “Yeah, let’s see if it’s the same group I was thinking of. She was supposed to knock down the blind woman.”
“She didn’t. One of the other guys did, but they were hassling her pretty good about something.”
Kate pulled out her phone and brought up a picture of Brandon. “Does this look like one of them?”
“Oh, hell yeah, that’s one of them.” Bill stared at the photo. “That kid needs to be taken down a peg or two.”
“Absolutely. Now, the question is, did he do anything more serious than hassling a blind woman around?”
“Meaning, he had to do something more serious for you to come?” he asked. “What the hell’s wrong with this world?”
“Oh, I get it, but we’re also hamstrung and have to work within the law.”
“See? This is why I couldn’t be a cop any longer. I just want to pound him into the ground and forget about evidence or finding him guilty. What I saw out there? That was just BS.”
“And the guy who they did knock down?”
“Yeah, it was the one woman who did it, and you’re right, she looked like she was being pressured.”
“Nice, nice group,” she said.
“That’s when the cyclist jumped ahead, maybe to get away from them. I’m not sure. Anyway, the cyclist got hit by the car and went down, and, after that, they scattered.”
“But you don’t think the group had anything to do with that?”
“The cyclist definitely got hit by the vehicle, and I don’t know why else she would have jumped ahead into the traffic, besides trying to get away from that group. Hell, I would have too. Unfortunately, in this case, it was fatal.”
“Yes, it was. When you say they surrounded the person on the bike, do you know if they came up on one side or the other?”
Bill stepped down the hallway, positioned the two of them on either side of him. “If I’m the cyclist, I was up here, and they came up on either side of me.”
“Was this before or after the blind woman?”
“It was all around the same time really. They weren’t all hassling the blind woman. They were just crowding and jostling everybody. You couldn’t really see who was doing what, and you sure as hell couldn’t prove what they were doing to any legal standard because everyone was all so crowded together.”
“Which is probably part of the MO,” Rodney said.
“Then you don’t know if it was an accident or not,” Kate said.
“Maybe. The one guy, Brandon, looked like he raised his hand and punched the person in the red hoodie on the bike or did something, but it looked pretty odd.”
“What about the woman riding the bike? Did you see her face?”
“No, except for the fact that she was coming in and looked a little woozy.”
“Were the guys around her?”
Bill frowned. “Somebody was, but I think like four or five people were at the intersection. I mean, that’s a popular place, as intersections go.”
“It is, so, no, I’m not surprised that a few people were hanging around. Now if only I had some proof of it.”
“Proof of what?”
“That they were all there at the same time and that they were hassling people.”
“If you find the one guy they knocked down, I’m sure he’d have something to say.”
“He probably would, but I also have to identify him in order to ask him.”
“The one girl knew who he was because she was talking to him before she shoved him. They were friendly like.”
“And you think that’s why he was targeted?”
“Yeah. At least it’s a reasonable assumption, and the other guys didn’t look like they appreciated her being friendly at all.”
“No, I’m sure they didn’t.” She looked at Bill. “So I guess you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?” he asked.
“The female from the second biking accident?”
“Yeah?”
“She was Candy, the one in that bully group at the first accident this week, the one who didn’t knock down the blind woman but did knock down the guy.”
Bill stared at Kate, and his jaw dropped. “Yeah, but like …” He stopped, frowned. “My God, that’s really shitty. I feel like she got into something she couldn’t handle. Now she’s dead?”
Kate nodded. “Your theory is totally poss
ible. Can I get you to come down to the station and give us a statement?”
He stared at her. “You know what? If you hadn’t told me about that one, I would have said, Fuck off, but because of her …” He sighed. “Are you thinking it’s those damn kids?”
“I don’t know, but they are definitely up to no good. Now at least we have a direction to go on.”
“They looked like the punk-ass kind who never get caught.”
“They’re also the rich punk-ass kind,” she said.
He nodded. “Of course they are. I know a bunch like that gave my son a hard time a few years back. He was in his first year, and he just couldn’t seem to keep it together. He was trying so hard to get aligned and to stay afloat, but he was just overwhelmed with it all. He put them in their place, but it never seemed to really take. When he was killed, for the longest time, I wondered if they had had anything to do with it, but I didn’t have any reason to suspect that. And it was the drunk driver who knocked him out anyway,” he said sadly.
“And I’m sorry. There’s nothing worse.”
“No, there definitely isn’t.” Bill looked at Kate. “Do you have any kids?”
“Not yet,” she said.
“Sometimes I think you’re better off without them because, despite other relationships in your life, you won’t really understand what love is until you have that child. Then everything in your world flips. And, if you’re unfortunate enough to lose that child, the pain is something so incredibly horrible that it’s beyond anything you could ever imagine,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know how I was ever supposed to move forward from it.”
“I’m so very sorry that you—that anybody—has to endure that kind of agony.” She paused, tilted her head. “Do you mind coming down to the station now and getting this over with? I know it brings up very sad and painful memories for you.”
He said, “It’s important, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “It’s not only important but we have a time element working against us.”
“You think those kids will come back and hassle somebody else?”
“It’s very possible, and that doesn’t mean they’ll kill anybody, but—”
“No, but they might kill if it was in self-preservation.”
Kate nodded. “And I think that’s quite possible. But we do need your statement, so I have something to give to the DA when I ask for a warrant.”
“Crap, you’re right.” He walked inside his apartment, picked up his laptop. “I’ll look for that email you wanted. Can I get a ride with you guys?”
She nodded. “Sure can, and we’ll even drive you home again.”
At that, he smiled. “In that case, I’m in.”
Together they trooped out to Rodney’s car.
*
The day wore on, yet Simon struggled to get anything done. He’d decided to stay home just because things were … breaking apart, for lack of a better description. But, at the same time, maybe it was him breaking apart. He felt Pamela in the background, though she hadn’t cried out or called to him. So he didn’t really feel like he should be interrupting her, as she managed her pain, and that just felt stupid too.
Did you leave somebody alone in order to suffer in silence like that? He didn’t know, but it sure didn’t seem like that was the right thing to do. But, at the same time, it was a hell of an intrusion to not talk to her, when she obviously knew that he was there. Plus, if she’d wanted to talk to him, she could have tried. But, so far, she was avoiding all of it. And he understood. He didn’t want to get into her life if he didn’t have to. But she felt so much pain, and he hadn’t realized he was so susceptible to that.
Men always talked about a woman’s tears. And, sure, Simon hadn’t followed through with relationships with a few girlfriends for exactly the same thing. Of course, at that thought, Kate came to mind. A thought that he determinedly pushed back out again. And it was hard; it was really hard not to think about her. He also didn’t want to go outside to check on his rehab projects, only to be struck with more of these visions that made him look like such an idiot. His professional life was very important, although holing up in his apartment wasn’t exactly a smart move either.
Just then he got a phone call from Kate.
“Hey, things are looking up,” she said.
“Great. Did you find Pamela?”
“No,” she said softly. “We’re working on it though.”
“She is being held against her will,” he said.
“I get that, but something else moved forward.”
“Crap, that’s your world though, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately it really is. I’m only one person. And just the five of us on the team are dealing with a lot.”
“Right, so it’s up to me to find this woman, huh?”
“No, I do have a little bit of information, but I don’t have a whole lot. And her husband’s not being cooperative.”
“Of course he isn’t,” he snapped. “Why would he be?” He hung up on her and sat down and determinedly contacted Pamela. “Pamela? Are you a prisoner?”
This time he heard her tears, but he didn’t know if she heard him. “Tell me where you are so I can come rescue you.”
“No,” she whispered. “I deserve this.”
That truth slammed into his heart.
“Because of your daughter?”
“Yes, because of my daughter.”
“But other people can’t blame you for something that was an accident.”
“I should have taken more care,” she whispered. “I should have been looking after her.”
“That would be nice, but that isn’t the way life works.” At that, she started crying, and he didn’t know what to do. How do you even begin to deal with that level of guilt and pain? “We can get you out of there, and you can talk to somebody, get some help.”
“I don’t deserve any help,” she said.
“Are you at your home with your husband?”
“No,” she whispered. “He didn’t want me there anymore.”
“Why?”
“He said it was too hard to see me and to not see Jillie.”
Simon winced. “That’s hardly fair.”
“Nothing is fair, not now.”
It occurred to him that maybe she was being kept for a reason that wasn’t necessarily bad. “Have you been suicidal?” There was silence at the other end, and then she cried some more. His heart sank. “You’ve tried to kill yourself, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I don’t want to live in this darkness. I don’t want to live in this pain.”
He sank down into his chair. “Are you at your parents’ house?”
“It doesn’t matter. This is my life now.”
“You can’t be sitting there, sick with grief every day for the rest of your life. This won’t go away. All the better that you learn to find the tools to deal with what’s happened.”
“Who are you to say that?” she snapped.
“Somebody who doesn’t want to see you waste your whole life because of one mistake. Surely you can envision doing something that would make you feel like you deserve to live again.”
“There’s no way to bring her back,” she said sadly.
“What if you worked to help people? What if you worked to do something to help others?”
“I tried to change the traffic intersection, but that failed.”
He stared ahead blankly. “Were you involved in that too?”
“Yes, not in a big way, just in a little way.”
“Ah. Then I guess you’re blaming the traffic for the driver.”
“At the time I was ready to blame anybody, anything that would take some of the blame off me. But there is no getting away from my involvement.”
“Who told you that?”
“Do I need to be told what I already know?” she asked curiously.
“Right.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “The thing is, what you did was
still an accident. You didn’t mean to do it.”
“That doesn’t make it any different. It doesn’t make it any better and doesn’t absolve me of the loss. She was everyone’s true delight. She was tiny. She was perfect. She was this angel we all loved.”
“And I get that,” he said sadly, hating her pain. “I really do. But you can’t be held accountable for the rest of your life. The guilt alone is too heavy of a burden, without adding in the loss of Jillie. The best you can do is live your life in a positive way to help others and to make sure that you don’t get caught up in something so massively toxic like that again.”
“You don’t get second chances in life,” she said.
“How would you feel if the traffic pattern did get changed?”
“It would make me feel better, but it’s still too little, too late, all because I know I can’t bring Jillie back.”
“Maybe not. But what if you could save another little girl?”
“Then I would do anything. But I also know that nothing I can do will change it.”
“Maybe. Have you had anything to do with that group who was working on it?”
“No, not really. I tried to get people interested in trying again, but everybody was pretty well depressed about it, and I haven’t heard back.”
“Right. That’s something I could look into.”
“And what good would that do?” she asked.
“Maybe nothing, but, until I try, until I look into it, I wouldn’t know.”
“You do that”—a note of bitterness filled her voice—“but it won’t help though.” With that, she disconnected.
It was weird because he was talking with her, and he didn’t know if anybody was listening to her or not. Then Simon remembered the other man who spoke so harshly to Pamela. Simon tried to contact her again. “Are you still in danger? Who was that man yelling at you the other day?”
“He’s part of my family. He was yelling at me because he loves me.”
“Ah, is that a little bit of twisted love?”
“Love is love. When you’re like me right now, you take whatever you can get. Because of what I’ve done, I’m unlovable.”
“You’ve got to stop saying that,” he snapped.
