Drip Dead (22 page)

“She’s okay. A few bruises and scrapes, and she’s going to be moving slow for a couple days. But she’ll be fine. What about you?”

I pointed to the left wrist the doctor was wrapping in a compression bandage. “Sprained wrist. The doctor says I can’t work the rest of the week.”

“What kind of work do you do?” the doctor asked, suddenly curious.

“Isn’t it on my chart?” I answered. “I thought it would be. I’m a plumber.”

The doctor shook his head. “No work this week, and we’ll have to see about next. You want to let this heal completely before you put any strain on it.” He scribbled a prescription for painkillers and signed it with another scribble.

“You need a ride?” Barry asked as the doctor continued writing.

“Sue’s here. She said she’d take me home.” I waved my good right hand. “Are they releasing Paula?”

“Said she’d be okay to leave in a couple minutes. If you’re sure you don’t need anything?” His voice trailed off and he moved a step closer to the door. He was anxious to get Paula out of there.

This was definitely one of those big-brother moments. I grinned at Barry and wished I could hug him. He was one of the good guys and Paula was a lucky woman to have him.

I hoped I would be that lucky someday, but it wasn’t something I would admit to my mother.

Mother! Had the sheriff told her about my accident? Could she have heard something, sitting in her cell at the sheriff’s station? Would her guards casually mention it, or try to reassure her?

Sheriff Mitchell came back through the doorway. “Can she talk to me now, Doctor?” he asked. When the doctor nodded, he turned back to me. “I need to take an accident report,” he said. “Would you rather do this here before they send you home, or at the station on the way home?”

“I’d rather do it tomorrow, when I’ve had a chance to recover,” I shot back. “But I doubt that’s an option.”

The sheriff quirked one eyebrow. Had Sue told him that was guaranteed to annoy me? “You have a reputation about making official statements,” he said. “I’d like to get this done tonight.”

I moved my arm to glance at my watch. It wasn’t there. All I could see was a mass of compression bandage and a couple shiny fasteners holding the wrapping tight.

I looked up at the clock on the wall. One o’clock.

“You mean this morning,” I replied. I might have let it go if he hadn’t done the eyebrow thing.

Mitchell gave me a lopsided grin. “All the more reason to get this over with. Sue’s still sitting out there waiting to take you home.”

I sighed. Might as well get it over with.

“Let me give you the discharge instructions,” the doctor said, interrupting our exchange. “Then you can go sit in the lounge. You might be a bit more comfortable there.”

Mitchell discreetly withdrew, saying he’d wait for me in the lounge.

I listened carefully to the doctor’s instructions, took the pain pills he offered me for tonight since I couldn’t fill the prescription until tomorrow, and promised to call my own doctor for a follow-up visit.

“You will not be able to drive for a few days,” he advised me. “You have to rest that wrist and allow it to heal.”

Outside I nodded in agreement, but internally his advice was filed in the “we’ll see” box. After all, I had managed to drive the Beetle with an injured leg, and the automatic stick shift made it possible to drive one-handed.

The sheriff was sitting next to Sue, deep in conversation, when I finally emerged from the treatment room. He stood up at once and motioned to the far corner of the room. I followed him and sat in the chair he indicated.

He could see I was cooperating.

Mitchell pulled out the recorder and I nodded. We’d been through all this before. No need for the preliminaries.

I went through my description of the accident, as I had for the deputy at the scene. This time I was a little calmer and I remembered about the brake pedal the first time through.

“Did you have the car serviced recently?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No,” I said for the recorder. “The’Vette got a full checkup in October, and hasn’t been driven much since.” I shrugged. “Not a good car for the Great North-wet winters.”

The sheriff looked as though he wanted to comment about how well the ’Vette had survived the beginning of summer, but he thought better of it.

“So no one else has had access to the car in several months.”

“I keep him garaged, Sheriff. Not the kind of car you leave parked at the curb. But I have driven him a couple times lately. I took him up the mountain a couple days ago, just driving.”

“Did you have any problems with the car? Any brake trouble?”

I thought back to my drive on Sunday. I remembered the wind in my hair and the feel of a well-tuned engine responding eagerly to my foot on the throttle. I’d turned around in a rest area just a few miles up the highway, and the car had performed flawlessly.

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “He was fine on Sunday.” I stopped for a second. “That was just yesterday, wasn’t it?” Amazing how time got all twisted around in your head. Sunday felt like several lifetimes ago.

“Yeah.” The sheriff looked at the notes he’d taken. “So the car hasn’t been out of your control since your previous drive?”

“No. Well, except for the valets.”

Sheriff Mitchell was instantly alert. “Of course. You and Ms. Ciccone went to a wine event in Portland, correct? And the car was valet parked?”

“That’s correct. We went to an
auction
.”

The sheriff colored for a moment. “It’s just standard in any accident investigation, Georgie. Makes it easier for everyone involved if there is a question later. If your insurance company raised a stink, for instance, you could point to a clean test.” He cleared his throat. “Which, by the way, yours was.”

“Told you,” I muttered, forgetting about the recorder. My eyes darted to the little machine just as the “Record” light flickered.

Smooth move, Neverall!

The sheriff returned to his questions, asking where and how the car had been parked. I admitted I didn’t know where the lot was, just that we had turned it over to the valets in front of Wolfe-Bowers. I remembered thinking it was safer than parking it on the street.

“What’s going to happen to my car?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. The images in my mind of the shredded front end and crumpled headlights made my stomach hurt and brought tears to my eyes.

“It’s being towed,” Mitchell said. “They’re taking it to the impound yard. One of our mechanics will take a look at it, see if he can determine the cause of the accident. When we’re through, you can claim it.”

He’d carefully avoided telling me anything about the’Vette’s condition, and I didn’t ask. Right now I really didn’t want to know.

“I think that’s all I need for now,” the sheriff said, picking up the recorder and slipping it into the pocket of his shirt. “Do you have any questions?”

I didn’t. My wrist throbbed, my head hurt, and all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and pull it in after me.

The sheriff stood and nodded to Sue, who quickly moved to my side. “Let’s get you home,” she said. “You’ve had enough for one day.”

She gave the sheriff a look that wasn’t meant for me to see. My accident had interrupted their plans, which was why she hadn’t gone with me, and now she was leaving him to take me home.

The mention of home finally seeped into my pain-dulled brain. There was something I needed to ask the sheriff.

“Does my mother know about the accident?”

“Why would she?” the sheriff said.

I shrugged, instantly regretting the movement when it wiggled my wrist. “She’s in jail, people in the office talk. She might have heard something.”

Sheriff Mitchell smiled warmly. “I’ll stop by and make sure she knows you’re okay,” he said. “No sense adding to her worries.”

“Thanks,” I said. I appreciated his compassion, especially since I had messed up his evening in several ways.

The doctor had given me a sling for my arm and insisted I wear it. It took Sue and Fred together to get me up and into the passenger’s seat for the short ride to my house.

By the time we reached my house, the pain pills had started to kick in. The throbbing in my wrist subsided, and exhaustion washed over me.

Sue insisted I get into bed, ignoring my feeble protests that it was my mother’s bed for now.

“Well she’s not using it and she’ll have her own bed back whenever she’s able to come home.” Sue’s matter-of-fact tone left no room for argument. To tell the truth, I wasn’t trying very hard. After several days on the couch and an evening on the exam table in the emergency room, the bed looked like heaven.

With Sue’s help I got undressed and crawled under the blankets. She fluffed up a pillow and placed it under my wrist, elevating it the way the doctor ordered.

“I’m beat,” Sue said. “You ready to sleep?”

I murmured my assent.

“Then I’ll see you in the morning.” She turned out the light and started to pull the door closed.

“You leaving?” I asked.

“Naw,” she answered. “You may need some help in the morning, so I figured I’d stay. Besides,” she teased, “somebody has to sleep on the couch.”

“Thanks, Sue. I owe you.”

The door closed softly behind her.

There was a long list of things to do, but all I wanted was to sleep.

I gave in and closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, the sun was shining through the windows and I could hear Daisy whining at the bedroom door. I knew it was Daisy. Buddha usually waited patiently, but she seemed to lack that ability.

I stretched and was instantly rewarded with pain in my wrist. I froze, then moved carefully to the edge of the bed and sat up. The sudden pain had dissipated, leaving an ache behind to remind me to be careful.

I managed to get into my robe and wobble down the hall to the bathroom by the time Sue caught up to me. “You should have called for help,” she said accusingly.

“I can manage.” I sounded whiny. “Sorry,” I said, more pleasantly. “I think I can shower okay. But I’ll holler if I need you. Okay?”

I surprised Sue when I made it to the table without help. She had coffee ready, and I gratefully accepted a cup. “Sorry for interrupting your plans,” I said. “I don’t think spending the night with
me
was on your agenda.”

Sue bristled. “I didn’t plan to spend the night with anyone,” she said tartly. “You just got lucky.”

I rolled my eyes and sipped the coffee before I answered.

“Seriously,” I said, “I said I wasn’t going to let our friendship screw up whatever you and Fred have going, and I meant it.”

“It’s really okay. We had dinner and watched a movie, and he was on his way home when the alert came over the radio. He called me as soon as he knew it was your car, said you might need someone. No interrupting.”

“Thanks for coming. I really appreciate it.”

Sue put a plate of toast on the table and sat down across from me.

“So what are we doing today?”

I thought about the laptop files safely hidden on my thumb drive. “I have some work to do, and you have a business to run.”

“Day Spa’s closed for the day,” she said.

“Sue, this is silly! I have a sprained wrist. I can take care of myself just fine. You go do what you need to.” As though to prove my point I picked up a piece of toast with my left hand and took a bite.

She didn’t look convinced. “What if you need to go somewhere?”

“I swear I will stay here until you get back.” I planned to spend the time trying to unlock the e-mail files.

“You promise?”

“Promise. Scout’s honor. I will stay right here.”

“Okay.” Sue looked relieved. “I have a few deliveries coming this morning. Give me a couple hours. I’ll be back before lunch and we can figure out what to do from there.”

She gave me an appraising look. “You sure you won’t do anything crazy while I’m gone?”

“Go.” I waved her away. “I need to do some computer work. No heavy lifting required.”

I waited until she was out of the house to fire up the desktop and plug in the thumb drive. Finally I had time to work on Gregory’s e-mail files.

First, though, there were a few phone calls I needed to make. I started with the easiest one.

Wade was properly distressed when I told him about the accident, and it took me several minutes to convince him I was fine. Once he accepted my assurances, he wanted to know if there was anything he could do.

“Not unless you know who else was in Veritas,” I said, “and I already know you don’t. Or if you know what the connection is between William Robinson and Phil Wilson.”

“I don’t know either one, I’m afraid. And I don’t know how they’re connected to Gregory.” He hesitated, and I heard him draw a deep breath. “I did look back in Gregory’s records,” he said slowly.