Swimsuit - James Patterson [18]
Chapter 22
BARBARA RESTED her chin on her hands, and asked, “What happened with you and the Portland police department — and please don’t tell me what it says in your book jacket bio. That’s just PR, isn’t it?”
Barbara let me know by her focus and determination that if I didn’t answer her questions, she had no reason to answer mine. I wanted to cooperate because I thought she was right to check me out, and I wanted the McDanielses to trust me.
I smiled at Barbara’s direct interrogatory style, but there was nothing amusing about the story she was asking me to tell. Once I sent my mind back to that place and time, the memories rolled in, unstoppable, none of them glorifying, none of them very pleasant, either.
As the still-vivid images flashed on the wide screen inside my head, I told the McDanielses about a fatal car wreck that had happened many years ago; that my partner, Dennis Carbone, and I had been nearby and had responded to the call.
“When we got to the scene, there was about a half hour left of daylight. It was gloomy with a drizzling rain, but there was enough light to see that a vehicle had skidded off the road. It had caromed off some trees like a two-ton eight ball, crashing out of control through the woods.
“I radioed for help,” I said now. “Then I was the one who stayed behind to interview the witness who’d been driving the other car — while my partner went to the crashed vehicle to see if there were survivors.”
I told the McDanielses that the witness had been driving the car coming from the opposite direction, that the other vehicle, a black Toyota pickup, had been in his lane, coming at him fast. He said that he’d swerved, and so had the Toyota. The witness was shaken as he described how the pickup had left the road at high speed, said that he’d braked — and I could see and smell the hundred yards of rubber he’d left on the asphalt.
“Response and rescue vehicles showed up,” I said. “The paramedics pulled the body out of the pickup, told me that the driver had been killed on impact with a spruce tree and that he’d had no passengers.
“As the dead man was taken away, I looked for my partner. He was a few yards off the roadside, and I caught him sneaking a look in my direction. A little odd, like he was trying not to be seen doing something.”
There was a sudden flurry of girlish laughter as a bride, surrounded by her maids of honor, passed through the bar to the lounge. The bride was a pretty blonde in her twenties. Happiest day of her life, right?
Barbara turned to see the bridal party, then turned back to look at me. Anyone with eyes could see what she was feeling. And what she was hoping.
“Go on, Ben,” she said. “You were talking about your partner with the guilty look.”
I nodded, told her that I turned away from my partner because someone called my name and that when I looked back again, he was closing the trunk of our car.
“I didn’t ask Dennis what he was doing, because I was already thinking ahead. We had reports to write up, work to do. We had to start with identifying the deceased.
“I was doing all the right stuff, Barbara,” I told her now. “I think it’s pretty common to block out things we don’t want to see. I should have confronted my partner right then and right there. But I didn’t do it. Turns out that that sneaky, half-seen moment changed my life.”
Chapter 23
A WAITRESS CAME OVER and asked if we wanted to refresh our drinks, and I was glad to see her. My throat was closing up and I needed to take a break. I’d told this story before, but it’s never easy to get past disgrace.
Especially when you didn’t earn it.
Levon said, “I know this is hard, Ben. But we appreciate your telling us about yourself. It’s important to hear.”
“This is where it gets hard,” I told Levon.
He nodded, and even though Levon probably had only ten years on me, I felt his fatherly concern.
My second club soda arrived and I stirred at it with a straw. Then I went on.
“A few days passed. The accident victim turned out to be a small-time drug dealer, Robby Snow, and his blood came back positive