Читать книгу Civil Twilight - Susan Dunlap - Страница 9

5

THE SWEAT-SUITED woman turned back toward the house and motioned John over with an imperious flick of the wrist. She looked furious.

He was pretty near boiling over himself. As he strode toward her, no one but a sibling would have known how close to the edge he was, but I could tell that from the brick-stiff fingers on the hand he was fighting not to make into a fist. I didn’t envy the velvet woman this encounter. John had never touched any of us younger kids, but he could degrade, humiliate and disgrace all with one phrase. It had made us wary and his friendships brief.

The woman stood on the stoop in her spike heels, he on the walk. Still, he had a couple inches on her and it looked like he could tuck her under his arm. Her expression said: Try it! She was probably in her fifties, but well cared for, with dark hair slant cut to her chin line. She raised a hand. A bracelet sparkled, diamonds all around. Definitely not a woman planning to sweat. Without raising her voice enough for me to hear five yards away, she lit into John.

I had to stop myself charging over to protect him.

She spat out a few more words, turned her back and tapped up the steps. It appeared she’d out-Johned John.

He looked close to snapping. It wasn’t just anger, there was something else—something I couldn’t quite put a name to.

“What was that?” I demanded.

“Darcy! Get out of here now.”

“What was that?” I repeated, ignoring him.

“Later.”

“Tell me now.”

He leaned forward. “Later!” I could have sworn the expression on his face as he looked at me was fear. Then it vanished and he motioned one of the patrolmen. “Cordon off the block from the corner—”

I checked the time. I had to get to the set. A stunt double who keeps the whole production company waiting, won’t be working again—ever!

But I couldn’t leave John like this.

I scanned the crowd behind us—a large, holiday-spirit kind of group—for the person who’d know what’d happened, and tell me quickly. An elderly man, in beaked cap and Giants jacket looked eager to talk—too eager. A flicker of sunlight glistened off the aluminum handle on a stroller, but I discounted the mother holding on. Too distractible. Then I spotted a woman in jeans holding a coin pouch and an empty container of soap. I sidled up next to her. “What’s going on? Did you see the whole thing from the Laundromat across the street?”

She glanced at her watch—right choice! “Six minutes on the dryer. Okay”—she looked over at me—” yeah, I heard the siren, but, I mean, who pays any attention to sirens? It was the brakes that got me. Cop must’ve been standing on the brake pedal. The black car—looked like an unmarked—it cut into the oncoming lane, siren going, but even if you’re a cop with the siren, you can’t just do that, you know? No one expects a car coming at you head on, even a cop car. She sideswiped it”—she pointed to the patrol car across the street—“and it went smack into that hydrant. Unbelievable.”

“Where’s the driver? The woman?”

She shrugged. “My washer was down to two minutes and there are only six dryers and I wasn’t alone in the place, so I grabbed a cart and ran it across the room to save a dryer. She must’ve backed up. Next thing I saw she was shooting around the corner down there. From the sound of it, she must’ve cut off a couple of cars doing it. It’s just a guess, but I’d say she didn’t have the light with her.”

“After that?”

“Gone. She stopped after that turn. Probably the horns and brakes and everything stunned her. She stopped, like she was about to be a good citizen and not leave the scene. Then, like, you know, she must’ve realized she’d hit a cop car, not just the other one, and decided to get out while the getting was good.”

“So?”

“Squealed off. Jesus, talk about hit-and-run!”

“They didn’t go after her?”

“Couldn’t. They’d have had to be hooked to a tow truck!”

When I’d told Karen Johnson I’d misjudged her, I hadn’t known the half of it.

Two patrol cars pulled up, double-parking a few feet to our left. My companion took a step away from me and I got the feeling I had pressed too hard. But, now or never. “Any guy in a suit come here a lot?” I glanced in the direction of John. Without meaning to.

“Yeah,” she said, picking up the implication I hadn’t intended. “Look, I’ve got to go get my clothes.” I let her go.

It couldn’t be. Not John. Officers from the arriving cars now hurried toward him. A curtain shifted in the Victorian’s window. There was someone looking out. Was she watching John, in his expensive new suit, and the shirt that brought out his eyes? John, furious and fearful.

I tried to see him from my just-departed informant’s perspective. She had to be wrong. The crowd was dissipating now, thinned by the monotony of the action. I made my way toward him.

There had been suspicions about John. When I heard any such innuendoes I put them down to the usual departmental resentments. John could be overbearing. He was overbearing. Gary and Gracie, Mike and I had bitched about him throughout our childhoods. John, The Enforcer.

I had lived away from San Francisco all my adult life. When I looked at John now I still peered with the wary gaze of the teenager I’d once been. For the second time today, I asked myself who was this man.

As if to remind me of the answer, John turned toward me. “Get out of here! Now!”

Instinctively I planted my feet. I have a long history of staying in John’s face. “You want me out of here? Get someone to drive me to the set!”

Normally, he’d have chewed me out loud and long. Now, he grabbed my arm, walked me to a patrol car, and shoved me in the cage. “Take her to the movie set, Jenkins. And don’t answer any questions.”