A Deadly Turn

by Claire Booth

  ‘Wait – what?’ she said, tuning back in.

  ‘I said, when’s Hailee’s funeral?’ Dale repeated. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw Hank give the ceiling a satisfied smirk. Then he looked down and over at her. By that time, lucky for him, he wore only an expression of innocent interest. She glared at him anyway.

  ‘It’s tomorrow. Ten a.m. At the Catholic church.’

  ‘All right,’ Dale said. ‘We’re going to need some of your folks for that one. I’m spread thin because of the theater and all.’

  Now Hank wasn’t even bothering to hide his grin. ‘See, you need me.’

  She patted at her hair. ‘Fine. But you have to stay hidden.’ He might be smiling now, but she still didn’t trust him to hold himself together during a funeral. He started to protest and then stopped to run a hand over his unshaven jaw. OK, he said. Deal.

  ‘Good,’ Sheila said. ‘Now – will you please go home?’

  The church was empty. Nora Rossetto stood next to Sheila, her shaking hands clutching her purse.

  ‘I knew I shouldn’t have done this,’ she whispered so softly Sheila barely heard.

  Sheila had talked to the priest earlier and found out that a co-worker of Nora’s was a parishioner and had asked him to do the service. Nora herself had no congregation. In every sense of the word. Sheila reached over and took her hand.

  She was about to guide her toward the front pew when there was movement out in the vestibule. They both stared in surprise as three people came in. Then two more. Then another four. Eventually, more than twenty people filed in and took seats. All of them were adults – no teenagers. She recognized one as the high school football coach. The rest must be teachers as well.

  The tenor of Nora’s trembling changed. The mortification was gone. Now it was only grief, and the fact that that was a good thing made Sheila’s heart want to break. She kept hold of Nora’s hand and settled her into the front row. She saw Dale quietly slip in and position himself in the back. She was about to sit down next to Nora when she saw Sergeant Jenkins slink into the sanctuary and sit in a pew opposite Dale. She couldn’t have been more surprised if it’d been Santa Claus entering the building.

  The priest, a broad-chested Latino, entered and she had to stop staring at the Highway Patrol and face forward. Everyone lowered their heads to pray.

  Sheila stuck him in the parking lot. Which was smart, actually. He knew he still wasn’t ready to face an actual funeral service, although he wasn’t going to admit that to anyone. He was getting better. He’d finally managed to shave. And eat breakfast – Maggie had forced him to sit and eat an entire omelet. He obeyed, even though it had vegetables in it.

  He drove over, incognito in Maggie’s minivan, and parked close to the exit but in a spot where he had a good view of the church entrance. He leaned the driver’s seat back, his hand resting against the cool glass, and pretended to be asleep as cars started trickling into the lot. He wondered what else was scheduled for this morning – there were too many people arriving for it to be on behalf of poor, ostracized Hailee. Then he saw the English teacher he’d interviewed on Monday climb out of a Honda Accord. Maybe they actually were all here for her.

  Thank goodness.

  Kayla Anderson’s parents pulled up. They trudged up to the church without speaking. The fortitude it must take to subject themselves to another funeral, and for a child they didn’t even know. That was the very definition of classy, Hank thought.

  Then DeRosia and Jenkins pulled up in one of their crash unit pickup trucks. Hank actually froze in amazement, his travel coffee mug halfway to his mouth. The partners got out. DeRosia looked around and spotted him across the broad expanse of pavement. Jenkins pointed toward the church and said something Hank couldn’t hear. She responded, and Jenkins spun on one heel and marched stiff-backed toward the building. Nina headed toward the minivan.

  ‘Hi.’

  Hank rolled down his window. ‘Hi. I didn’t expect you guys to come.’

  She grinned. She hadn’t either. It’d been Jenkins’ idea. He’d done the initial death notification with Deputy Turley and said yesterday that he wanted to come to the funeral.

  ‘He wouldn’t really say why. The notification really seemed to affect him, which they usually don’t.’ She shrugged and then looked like she was choosing her words carefully. ‘I, ah … decided to come with him because he can be not exactly the most … tactful in expressing himself.’

  That was for damn sure. She turned to go and then stopped.

  ‘Oh, I was going to call you Monday with this, but since we’re both working on this fine Saturday, I’ll just tell you now. We have a cause for the crash.’

  Hank stared at her. She put her hand on the minivan door and gave him a sympathetic smile.

  ‘It’ll be quite a while before we release it officially, but our finding is going to be driver error. There was no mechanical defect. No weather or poor road conditions. Just excessive speed and failure to negotiate the curve.’

  Hank shifted so he was looking out the windshield. He didn’t want to meet her gaze. He managed to get out a ‘thank-you’ and then watched as she walked away toward the church. He’d tried to prepare himself for this possibility, but from the icy pressure building in his chest, he hadn’t done a very good job. He took a deep breath and tried to turn his attention back to the funeral surveillance.

  The top of the hour came and went. At 10:05, an old Pontiac rattled into the lot and pulled up in front of the entrance. The passenger got out and the haggard woman behind the wheel drove off. Daddy Fitch paused for a minute and straightened his worn button-down dress shirt. Hank quickly texted Raker, who instantly came into view through the glass doors. There was some talking – by Raker – and some rude gesturing – by Fitch. Then Hank saw Raker take Fitch by the arm, and they disappeared inside. The detective must have ‘invited’ Fitch to sit next to him. Hank smiled. He liked the Branson detective more and more all the time.

  He slouched down lower behind the steering wheel and waited. The parking lot stayed deserted for quite a while. He saw a woman he recognized as the church secretary cross over to the parish hall and go inside. And a plumbing company cargo van pulled in and parked up near the side of the church itself. He shook his head. That was all Father Tony needed on the day of a funeral.

  He fiddled with the minivan’s stereo Bluetooth connection for a minute and started an old Wilco album. And then sat up a little straighter. The plumber who’d hopped out of Pete’s Priority Plumbing van and gone through the side door of the church had a toolbox and was wearing coveralls that looked way too big. A ball cap was pulled way too low over the face.

  He started to climb out of the car.

  FORTY-ONE

  They’d knelt and were now back to sitting. The priest began the homily, and Nora reached over and clasped Sheila’s hand. They sat that way as he touched on what a good person Hailee had been. It was true, but it was only half of it. The other half hovered just out of reach, like when Hailee was alive. Tainting Hailee’s funeral as she had her little sister’s life. The priest paused and the sanctuary fell quiet except for some rustling of clothing and the thumbing of hymnal pages. And one soft clank of metal.

  Sheila turned immediately. It’d come from the left side of the sanctuary, out of view. A doorway led to what must be a room or hallway on the other side of the wall. She caught a glimpse of blue clothing and a flash of blond hair. She rose to her feet, ignored the priest’s startled look and quickly crossed in front of the pews, completely interrupting the service. As she moved, she glanced toward Dale and saw immediately that he couldn’t leave Mick Fitch. That guy would bolt at the slightest thing, and they needed him, too.

  Almost to the doorway, she saw someone on the opposite end of the back-row stand. Jenkins nodded at her and pointed toward the main doors that led to the vestibule. She nodded back and broke into a run.

  He rounded the car and had put one heavy step down to push off in a run when
Jenkins burst through the front doors. The sergeant waved to the left and started shouting. Hank took off toward the cargo van. He saw the too-little plumber dive inside, and the engine turned over with a roar.

  He looked at Jenkins, who was closing in on the van by cutting through the landscaping shrubbery, and skidded to a stop. He’d be of more use back in his own vehicle. He scrambled back in and peeled out as he gunned it across the parking lot. He’d block her in. He spun the wheel and fishtailed into position perpendicular to the cargo van. And then slammed into the window as the bigger work van ran full speed into the side of his wife’s minivan. His head smacked against the glass and the airbag followed up with an explosion that felt like a right hook to the face.

  Sheila lunged and almost caught the long hair that was tumbling out of the baseball cap. But the little felon was fast. She leapt into a van that was parked right alongside the building. Sheila grabbed for the door handle, but missed it as the van leapt forward. There was a horrible crunch, and the van lurched to a stop. Then it plowed forward again and with a squeal of tires and more screeching metal, it was gone. Only then could she see what had caused the pause in Emily’s getaway. Hank’s minivan sat askew, the back right side caved in.

  She swore and ran toward the man who would’ve seen that coming if he’d managed to stop and think before he leapt into action.

  The impact had pushed the minivan just enough for Emily to get by. She floored it and whipped out of the parking lot going at least sixty.

  The minivan was still running. He hit the gas and turned the wheel. The whole frame shuddered but managed to move. The entire left side of his face felt flattened and was starting to send shocking tendrils of pain through the rest of his skull. Through the ringing in his ears, he thought he heard Sheila yelling.

  He fought through the airbag and pulled his seatbelt on while the car clattered across the parking lot and had both hands back on the wheel by the time he turned onto the road. He couldn’t take them off in order to reach his phone and let Sammy know what was going on. He’d have to hope that Sheila got on the radio and launched a full-on pursuit. He didn’t know how far his battered minivan would be able to go.

  Sam was thinking about getting a cup of gourmet coffee. Not now, of course, but when the funeral was over and he could stop hanging out on this side street monitoring traffic for a possible Emily Fitch sighting. And it was dull Saturday morning traffic – tour buses and guys with trucks full of landscaping equipment and families on the way to kid soccer games. He was fighting off a yawn when a plumbing van whipped by so fast he forgot his boredom. He was supposed to stay put, but that vehicle needed a speeding ticket more than any car he’d probably ever seen.

  He spent thirty seconds debating what he should do. And then the Chief’s minivan, with the Winnie the Pooh sunshade in the back window, blew by almost as fast. Damn. He fired up the squad car and took off after his boss.

  Sheila watched Hank tear out of the parking lot and spun toward Jenkins. He’d had to throw himself out of the way of the plumbing van and was now picking himself up out of a boxwood shrub. DeRosia was standing on the front steps and calling in the van’s description.

  ‘That was the sister, wasn’t it?’ Jenkins was yelling, and for once, Sheila didn’t think his hostility was unwarranted.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she said. ‘That was her.’

  ‘And your idiot boss is going to catch her in a wrecked minivan?’

  Oh, how she didn’t like this man. She especially didn’t like that, in this particular situation, he had a point. He rolled his eyes and ran toward his truck at the far end of the lot. Sheila followed. No way in hell was she going to let him go after her suspect by himself.

  The truck was already rolling before she made it fully inside. She buckled up as Jenkins took the turn out of the church lot at speeds that weren’t recommended during law enforcement pursuit training.

  Hank heard the siren, and a quick look in the rearview mirror confirmed that Sammy was behind him. Hallelujah. The minivan was shaking more violently every minute. He switched to the slow lane, and Sam sped past him in a gloriously functional department cruiser.

  He wasn’t going to stop, though. Not when they were so close to getting answers. Not about the crash – there would never be a reason for why those six kids had to die. The only external force with a hand in that crash was him. But there could be answers with the murder. Answers that were speeding away in a plumbing van with a broken headlight.

  Wow. He’d never been involved in a real chase. And this definitely was one. That van was insane. He figured it had to be Emily Fitch behind the wheel, and she was ignoring every traffic law in existence.

  They’d cut up Roark Valley Road and were headed west toward Gretna Road. Traffic was light but they were getting close to one of the outlet malls, which would mean more cars. He tried to remember his pursuit training. Vehicle traffic. Pedestrians. Weather conditions. He stayed carefully behind her, siren wailing and knuckles white on the steering wheel.

  He didn’t know which direction she’d go at the intersection. If she turned left, she’d be headed straight for the Strip, and that stretch of theaters and restaurants never had just light traffic.

  Jenkins was making up ground. The truck flew effortlessly along the Branson streets. Sheila grabbed the car’s radio and reported the pursuit in progress. Then, just in case her own agency didn’t hear it immediately, she called department dispatch on her cell. She was told that Deputy Karnes had radioed two minutes earlier that he was in pursuit of a blue Ford cargo van.

  His changing locations began getting relayed through various dispatches, and Jenkins followed the updates flawlessly. The jerk actually drove better during a high-speed chase. And had made a point to come to a funeral he knew would attract very few mourners. Sheila glanced over at him. He had a few more layers than she’d thought.

  They overtook Sammy and were suddenly directly behind the plumber’s van.

  ‘Are you taking notes?’ Jenkins said. ‘Because this is how it’s done.’

  And yet, he was still an asshole.

  FORTY-TWO

  Once they passed Sammy, Sheila took over relaying the pursuit. They were fast approaching the intersection with Gretna. Which direction Emily went was going to say a lot about what kind of person she was.

  The brake lights flashed briefly. Then Emily laid on the horn and blew through Gretna Road, heading straight across instead of turning. That meant there was another major intersection seconds ahead. If she ran that one, Jenkins said, he was calling off the pursuit. Sheila agreed that it was getting too dangerous and held her breath over what Emily would do next.

  The light at Shepherd of the Hills Expressway was green. Emily swerved around a small pickup and, blasting the horn again, raced directly through.

  ‘OK, that’s it,’ Jenkins said as they sped through the clear intersection. ‘I’m calling it.’

  ‘No,’ Sheila said. She knew Roark Valley Road dead-ended up ahead and there was only one way.

  ‘Go right. Now.’

  And he did. She braced herself as Jenkins and Emily turned their vehicles simultaneously. The cargo van swung wide and barely managed to stay on the access road that practically did a U-turn before straightening out. Jenkins hugged the inside of the curve like a pro and gained enough on her to end up right alongside.

  Sheila got on the radio to Sam and gave him instructions. They heard his siren veer off to the east.

  ‘You good with that?’ she asked Jenkins. He nodded without taking his eyes from the road.

  Sam’s cruiser screamed north on the Expressway, which was thankfully wider, smoother, and better graded than the access road that paralleled it to the west, on the other side of Roark Creek. He reached the spot where the smaller road crossed the bigger one as he listened to Sheila call out their progress, which seemed like it’d slowed down.

  He parked on the grass shoulder of the southwest corner and left his lights and siren going as he
went around to his trunk. He got out the case and pulled out the accordion-folded strip. He could hear more sirens coming from the north – hopefully BPD officers blocking off traffic from that direction. He heard radio confirmation of that as he flung the spike strip onto the pavement. It wasn’t heavy, but man, was it awkward.

  Hank turned up the Expressway and followed the Pup’s cruiser at a much slower pace. The minivan’s shuddering got worse with every revolution of the tires. Wind was leaking in somewhere and whistling loudly through the interior. And part of the back bumper had fallen off at some point.

  He reached the top of the rise and immediately saw what Sammy was doing. He started swerving back and forth across the lanes, trying to stop the traffic coming up behind him. When he laid on the horn, it sounded like the cartoon roadrunner, not the agitated bull blast he was used to in a squad car. But it didn’t matter. Turned out that a crazy man in a battered minivan was just as effective as a police car in getting people to back the hell off.

  He inched along, steering from side to side. He had no idea when Emily would show up, or how fast she’d be going. It was critical that there be no cross traffic when she hit those spike strips. It was critical that no one be following too close behind. And it was beyond critical that Sam get far off the roadway before a two-ton vehicle came gunning for him.