I edged around the corner. Some of the soda stealers had scattered when it looked like the gas station was going to go kablooey, but I noticed a man in a suit peering into the vending machine to see if any sodas remained in it, and the elderly woman with the walker was still trying to reach her Dr Pepper. In a half squat, one hand clutching the walker for balance, she looked like maybe she was stuck. I helped her up, handed her the Dr Pepper, and earned a “Thank you, dear,” for my trouble.
“It’s her fault,” Dreiser said when he saw me. He stood by the squad car, apparently in custody, cap missing, hair mussed. “She let those cans loose.” He pointed a bony finger at me. The police officer, splotches of dark soda on his shirt, gripped Dreiser’s upper arm and had taken his wrench.
I gasped as employees, drivers, and Dreiser glared at me. “I didn’t—”
“Spilling cans isn’t a crime,” the officer said. “Threatening people with a deadly weapon is. Come on.” He nudged Dreiser toward the squad car. Dreiser glared at me with a fury that would’ve stripped paint off a tractor.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean—”
Shrill yapping from a white Pomeranian in the nearest car drowned me out. I shifted indecisively from foot to foot and finally decided I had nothing to gain by hanging around. I certainly wasn’t going to get anything else from Dreiser, who was shouting something about “… payback … get you … find Goldman…” as the police officer locked him into the backseat. I climbed in the Hummer, grateful for once for its size and bulk, and drove out of the small parking lot, hearing someone call after me, “Don’t come back!”
I stewed about the injustice of it all—it wasn’t my fault Dreiser cornered me in his machine, and it wasn’t my fault that the careless boy hadn’t hung up the gas hose, and it wasn’t my fault that woman wanted to kill herself by smoking cigarettes—but got over it by the time I reached the office. No one needed to worry that I was going back to that gas station. I was never showing my face there again. Come to think of it, I’d never gotten gas there anyway, so it wasn’t much of a sacrifice. Thank goodness no one got hurt.
Back at the office, I wriggled out of my ruined tights in the bathroom and tried to blot the soda stains off my clothes. Maybe my dry cleaner could do it. He’d worked miracles on my blue satin blouse when I got raspberry sauce on it. Seated at my desk, I unzipped my boots to ankle level and sighed with relief. They were the teensiest bit too tight around my calves. Even though they were cuter than cute, I didn’t wear them too often because by the time I’d had them on for an hour, they cut into my calves something awful. However, one must suffer for fashion sometimes. I’d said that to Charlie once and she’d looked at me like I was crazy. At least the boots didn’t hurt as much as the tank top whose sequins rubbed the insides of my upper arms raw whenever I wore it. Massaging the red line around each calf, I listened to the messages on the answering machine. One was from Charlie, asking me to find out how Wilfred Cheney ended up in a wheelchair and telling me that she and Father Dan were on their way back. I brewed a pot of coffee, more because I liked the smell than because I wanted a cup, and Googled Cheney.
Before I could study the results and find a phone number, Albertine breezed in. An emerald green caftan shot through with silver threads drifted around her. It was a light silk, and I wondered if she wore long underwear under it.
“You look like you need a drink, girlfriend,” she said. “Come on down to the restaurant.”
I glanced at the computer screen, tempted. “I need to get hold of someone for Charlie,” I said, “but then I’ll be down.”
“Let Charlie do it herself. With everyone waiting on her hand and foot since she took a bullet in her posterior, that woman’s getting lazy.”
Charlie was the least lazy person I knew, and I knew Albertine knew it. “She’s not back yet.”
Albertine arched her penciled-on brows. “You don’t mean she went to Wyoming after all, do you? In this?” She waved a hand at the window, and I saw the snow had started. It fell steadily, like confectioner’s sugar from a sifter.
“They’ve already started back.”
“They?”
“Father Dan drove.”
Albertine’s brow smoothed out. “That’s okay, then. I’d trust that man in a tight spot. If terrorists overrun the city or the Yellowstone caldera blows and everything north of Boulder gets buried in lava and ash, I want him in the bunker or shelter next to me.”
“He’s a priest.”
She gave me a pitying look. “Honey, he may be a priest now, but his eyes say he wasn’t always one.” Helping herself to a cup of coffee, Albertine plunked down behind Charlie’s desk. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to figure out how to ask a man how he ended up in a wheelchair.” I sighed. Asking that kind of question felt rude and intrusive. I was pretty sure any PIs in Atlanta or New Orleans must have moved down from New York or Chicago, since southerners didn’t ask those kinds of questions. It just wasn’t polite to pry like that.
“Can I do it?” Albertine surprised me by asking. “I’ve always thought it would be a kick to be a PI.”
“You want to do it?”
She nodded, setting the beads worked into the three skinny braids that fell down beside her face clicking. “Sure.”
“What would you say?” Even as I asked the question, I was pulling up a Web site that provided phone numbers for a fee. Swift Investigations subscribed to it.
Albertine straightened up. “I’d say, ‘This is Albertine Dauphin from Swift Investigations in Colorado Springs. Could you please tell me how you came to be in a wheelchair, sir?’”
“You’d ask him straight out like that?” Albertine was brave.
“Give me the phone number.”
I read it off to her, and she dialed, using a pencil to protect her long green nails. “Put it on speaker,” I whispered as the phone began to ring on the other end.
A man answered with a brusque “Hello?” and Albertine introduced herself, sounding self-confident and professional. Once the man confirmed he was Wilfred Cheney, she asked him her question.
His reaction was immediate and violent. “I knew it! You’re with the insurance company. Well, I’ve had it with you motherfu—”
“Sir, there’s no call for that kind of language,” Albertine said.
“Oh, yes, there damn well is,” he spat. “The accident was two years ago! I filed a perfectly legitimate workman’s comp claim, and you assholes have dragged your feet and—”
“I can’t abide profanity. I’m going to have to hang up if you can’t moderate your language,” Albertine said, sounding stern. I wished I could talk that way to Dexter and Kendall.
I shook my head to keep her from hanging up as Wilfred Cheney blasted the kind of language that got my brother’s mouth washed out with soap, then banged the phone down. Albertine replaced the phone more gently and pursed her full lips. “I don’t know how you and Charlie do it, Gigi, I really don’t. How can you put up with that kind of rudeness day in and day out?”
“Not everyone’s that way. I can’t imagine it’s much worse than some of your customers.” I’d heard customers rag on Albertine before, complaining about soup that was too cold, music that was too loud, shrimp that tasted “off.”
“Yeah, but my customers are paying me, so it’s easier to tolerate their ’tudes. Maybe I’d better stick with cooking and restauranting and leave the PI’ing to you.” A guilty look crept over her face. “I guess I really pissed him off. He probably won’t talk to you now. What will you do?”
“He said something about an accident two years ago…” My fingers tapped at the keyboard, and a newspaper article popped up. It showed a mangled truck with EPB OF CHATTANOOGA stenciled on the side, upside down in a creek, a bridge with a busted railing above it. Everything in the photo had a sort of shimmer to it, and it took me a moment to realize the landscape was coated with a thick layer of ice. Pretty.
“Looks ugly,” Albertin
e observed, having crossed the office to peer over my shoulder. “That man’s lucky he’s alive, although if he uses that kind of language around me again, he won’t be for long.”
I skimmed the article. “It says he worked for the electric company and he was inspecting lines after an ice storm when his car slid off the bridge and ended up in the creek. A Flight for Life helicopter saved his life. I guess there’s no way Heather-Anne—if she was really his wife, Lucinda—could have made it … No, wait! Here at the end the reporter says, ‘Cheney insists an oncoming truck forced him off the bridge. He describes the truck as a red pickup and the driver as a white man wearing a high-collared coat and a knit hat pulled low. Police have been unable to find evidence that another driver was involved and ask that anyone with knowledge of the accident call…’ Well!” I looked up at Albertine.
“Suspicious,” she agreed.
I chewed on my lower lip. “It certainly doesn’t prove his wife, whoever she was, had anything to do with his accident, though. In fact, if there was a truck involved and a man was driving it, that seems to prove she wasn’t.”
“Maybe Cheney was wrong. It could’ve been a woman under that jacket and hat.”
Sighing, I printed the article and shut down the computer. “Some days this job makes my head hurt.”
“Don’t they all? Come on.” She bumped her hip against the back of my chair. “It’s mojito time, girlfriend.”
27
The blizzard caught up with Charlie and Dan south of Fort Collins, Colorado. Charlie had begun to think they’d outrun it when suddenly they were enveloped in snow so thick it was like being on the inside of an eiderdown quilt. She couldn’t see more than three feet out the passenger window and knew from Dan’s grim expression that he was having similar difficulty, even though the windshield wipers were swiping at warp speed. The truck’s powerful engine growled as it plowed through the quickly accumulating snow on the interstate. A flash of blue outside her window caught Charlie’s eye, and she realized it was a car that had slid off the road.
“Maybe we should have stopped in Fort Collins?”
Dan’s only reply was a brief sideways glance. He gripped the steering wheel in competent hands and drove in silence for another ten minutes as the snow steadily thickened. The high beams made a golden flurry of the flakes that fell in their cone but did little to illuminate the road. A rough vibration indicated they’d strayed onto the shoulder, and Dan corrected, setting the truck fishtailing slightly. “We can’t stay on the road,” he said finally. “I can’t see ten inches in front of us. Either we’re going to run off the road, or we’re going to be rear-ended by a semi, although with any luck we’re the only people stupid enough to still be driving.”
The radio, which Charlie had tuned to a travel conditions update channel, announced that the state police were closing I-25 from north of Cheyenne to Pueblo, Colorado. “I’m sorry I talked you into this trip,” Charlie said.
Dan shot her a half-smile. “I’m a big boy. I don’t remember you doing any arm twisting. Besides, I’m the one who wanted to get back tonight.”
“We’ll just get off at the next exit, find a motel—preferably one with a well-stocked bar—and dig in for—”
Flashing amber lights suddenly appeared dead ahead of them, and Dan steered right to avoid the SUV. Despite the measured way he eased his foot down on the brakes, the truck swerved and then began to spin. Catching a glimpse of the SUV as they spun, Charlie tensed against the seemingly inevitable collision. They slid past it with Charlie craning her neck to try to see if anyone was inside the vehicle. Her muscles started to unclench when the tires bit into the shoulder, which crumbled away beneath them. A ditch! Dan wrenched the wheel back toward the left, the engine labored, and for a moment Charlie thought they were going to make it back onto the road. She found herself leaning hard left, as if that would make a difference. Then, with the slow finality of a mastodon falling to its knees, the truck slid into the ditch and toppled over.
They landed with a jarring thud, and Charlie’s head banged against the door as the truck settled on its side.
Dan’s voice came immediately, sharp and concerned. “Charlie?”
“Fine,” she said, pressing her fingers against her head and face to make sure that was true. Her right shoulder hurt as if she’d wrenched it, and her head ached, but otherwise she seemed okay. “You?”
“Operational.”
“I’m sorry about your truck.” Guilt over dragging Dan on the trip weighed on her.
“It’s only a truck.”
Cold began to seep into Charlie, and she noticed that snow had already blanketed the windshield so it felt like they were buried. She shivered.
His thoughts obviously in sync with hers, Dan said, “We need to get out of here or they’ll be digging us up in the spring thaw.”
The prospect of leaving the still-warmish truck for the frigid cold and wind outside did not appeal to Charlie, but she liked the idea of being buried alive less.
Dan pushed at his door, which gave a metallic creak but didn’t open. “Must have dented it,” Dan said. “Here goes nothing.” He cranked the engine, which started, and buzzed down the window. Snow sifted in. Reaching an arm out and around, he dragged himself up sideways, careful not to kick Charlie as he heaved himself out of the truck. Moments later, he was peering through the door, snowflakes frosting his hair and sparkling on his eyelashes. “Take my hand,” he commanded.
Charlie reached her arm up and wiggled around until she lay stomach-down on the seat, her feet on the door. She used the console like a climbing hold and levered herself up until her fingers touched Dan’s. He pulled; she thrust with her legs, aware of a deep ache at the site of the healing bullet wound, and levered her head and shoulders out the door. Wind tangled her hair and whipped it across her eyes, and she used her shoulder and arms—like getting out of a swimming pool, she thought—to pull herself the rest of the way out of the car. She landed in a heap on the snowy ground, stood, and brushed herself off.
“Well,” she said.
“Well.”
They looked at each other for a moment, then smiled, and Dan began to chuckle. Charlie laughed, too, knowing it was relief that brought the laughter, not anything funny about their current situation. The immediate future seemed to feature hypothermia, frostbite, and possible starvation. Charlie’s stomach grumbled at the thought.
“We need to make sure no one’s hurt in that SUV,” Dan said, “and then we need to find shelter.”
Charlie’s gaze swept the barren, snow-clad landscape dubiously. “Where?”
“We passed an exit less than half a mile back. There might be a gas station or something there. Come on. Stay off the highway—we don’t want to get flattened by any idiots out driving in this.”
“Other idiots.”
“Exactly.”
They took a few steps back the way they’d come, and Charlie could vaguely make out the amber lights blink-blinking through the snow’s thick veil. When they reached the other vehicle, they brushed snow off the windows to peer inside. No one.
“No footprints,” Charlie observed.
Shrugging, Dan said, “That doesn’t mean much. The way the wind’s blowing, footprints would be obliterated in less than two minutes. Look.” He pointed back where they’d just walked, and Charlie saw that the wind had scoured their footprints to faint, shapeless impressions. “Let’s get moving.” He headed into the wind, trudging through the ever-deepening snow that had drifted as high as Charlie’s knees in spots. She tucked her hands into her armpits and ducked her head against the wind to follow him.
28
I limited myself to one mojito at Albertine’s and made it home in time to cook dinner for the kids. “Kendall? Dexter?” I called as I opened the garage door leading into the kitchen and stamped my snow-wet feet on the mat. My unzipped boots sagged around my ankles, and I kicked them off gratefully.
No answer from the kids. I padded into the kitchen and al
most immediately felt liquid soaking into my stockings. Yuck. I looked down to see dirty puddles of water tracked across the kitchen tile, ending at the fridge. I balanced on one foot to peel off my wet knee-high stocking, clutching at the counter when I wavered. How many times had I told the kids to take off their boots in the garage or on the porch before coming inside? Did other parents succeed in making their kids think? Grabbing a dish towel, I mopped up the wet spots and opened the fridge. Leftover pepperoni pizza called to me, and I slid a slice out of the box and took a bite. Mmm. Heaven.
“Rowf!”
I looked around but didn’t spot Nolan, my black-and-white shih tzu. “Nolie?”
The bark came again. I followed the sound to the basement door and opened it. Nolan frisked out, jumping up at me like he hadn’t seen me for weeks instead of hours. Or maybe he was leaping for a bit of pizza. “What were you doing down there?” He didn’t spend much time in the basement. Dexter must have been down there playing on the Wii. I closed the door and went in search of the kids. They weren’t in their rooms, although I thought Dexter might have been home earlier, since Nolan found a couple of Cheetos in the middle of his bed and scrambled up to eat them. He cocked his fuzzy head at me when they were gone, clearly asking for more. Orange powder clung to his chin whiskers.
A little worried, what with the snow and all, I was about to call Kendall’s cell phone when I decided to check messages on my phone first. Kendall’s voice told me she was spending the night with a friend since District 12 had already canceled classes the next day due to the blizzard. I deleted the message, sighing. I wished she’d asked first. My mother would have skinned me alive if I’d ever gone to a friend’s house after school, never mind overnight, without asking permission. I listened to the other messages, but there was nothing from Dexter. Where could he be in this storm? He’d been going to catch a ride home from school with his buddy James, so maybe that’s where he was. I’d call over there as soon as I’d changed.
Fifteen minutes later, wrapped in my pink velour robe and wearing the fuzzy slippers with the bear heads on them that Kendall had given me two Christmases ago, I went downstairs to the kitchen. Nolan danced around my ankles. “You’re going to trip me,” I told him.
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