Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 04 - Any Port in a Storm (13 page)

They were getting ready to close the door to the ambulance when a set of tires screeched and a door slammed, followed by a second car and another person doing the same.

“She all right?” Sgt. Morehouse’s voice carried into the ambulance.

“No obvious major injuries, but she hurts.”
The paramedic in the back with me was a woman about my age who had a much firmer physique and a good tan.

“Gimme a minute,” Morehouse said, and he climbed into the back of the ambulance.
“Where were you headed?”

“I’m doing okay, thanks,” I mumbled.

The woman chuckled, then cleared her throat. “I take it you know each other.”

“Smartass,” he said, but in a sort of kind way.
I was pretty sure he was talking to me.

“I heard you were rammed,” he said.
“I wanna find ‘em. What color car? Did you know them?”

“Black, not so big,” I said.

“So a black guy?” Morehouse said.

“Car.”
My mouth was so dry.

“Could you tell the make?
Who was driving?”

I could hear someone pacing on the gravel outside the ambulance.
I thought for a couple seconds. “All I know is tinted windows and the visor was down.”

“Crap.”
He turned to leave. “No, George, you can’t go in.”

“I’ll see you at the hospital,” George called.

“It’s not a time for damn interviews,” Morehouse said.

“He’s my good friend,” I whispered, crying full-out now.

“She says he’s her good friend,” the paramedic said to Morehouse as she shut the door.

I GUESS THE MORPHINE made me doze off, because I remember the trip to the hospital in terms of speed bumps and the transfer to a gurney in the ER in terms of jolts.

“I just can’t believe this!”
Aunt Madge’s voice jolted me awake.

Uh-oh.

“Jolie,” George whispered from a position somewhere near my head. “Your aunt’s out there. I think she’s talking to Dana Johnson.”

I could hear a murmured conversation in the hall and opened my eyes to find George’s face about six inches from mine.
I was holding his hand. “She won’t like this.”

“Like you do?” he said, and stood as Aunt Madge entered my curtained area.

I let my gaze drift to her, still keeping my head and neck still. “S’all right.” I let my eyes close. “I can still hear you.”

“It doesn’t look all right,” she said.
“What happened?”

I figured since my eyes were closed this was meant for George.

“Don’t know much more than what Dana probably told you. Somebody rammed her car out by your favorite park.”

Aunt Madge gave a more or less ladylike snort.
She hates that park.

“No one had a good description of the car except black and a mid-size four-door,” George continued.
“Guy who helped her first thought it was a fairly new Chevy or Ford, with no front license.”

Aunt Madge had walked closer to me and stroked my forehead.

“I really am okay, it’s just they gave me something sleepy.”

“Something that made you sleepy,” she said, almost absently.

“I uh…” George paused. “I’m thinking it had to be related to that guy’s death. Hayden.”

I opened my eyes all the way.
“I forgot about that.”

“Keep forgetting,” Aunt Madge said, a strident note creeping into her tone.

“Jeez.” The curtain slid open and Scoobie stood there. “I go to class and you’re fine. I come out and Harry’s waiting to bring me down here.”

Although the collar made it too hard to crane my neck, from the sappy look on Aunt Madge’s face I knew Harry must be behind Scoobie.

“Ah-hem.”
A willowy young nurse had walked around Scoobie.

“Yes, I’m sure we’re too many,” Aunt Madge said.

“We’re probably going to release her in an hour or so. Maybe you can catch up at home,” the nurse said.

“I can drive her home,” George said, quickly.

Aunt Madge looked down at me. “Okay with you?”

“It’s okay,” I said.
The nurse left.

“I know Madge has her afternoon tea to serve,” Harry said.

“Oh! Harry.” I remembered why I was on the road. “I was going to that house we talked about, to take pictures.”

“Don’t worry about that, Jolie.
I’ll get them tomorrow.”

After some more clucking noises and a firm order to be careful on the way home (
excuse me?
) Aunt Madge and Harry left.

George sat back down and Scoobie stood next to him.
“I’m not sure how many times you’ve been in this ER in the last few months,” he said.

“You should talk.”
I lifted my hand and looked at the intravenous tube in my arm. “I’ll look like a drug addict when I get out of here.”

George leaned closer.
“Is that really all you saw?”

“It was all so fast,” I said.
“I just remember the car was black.”

The curtain pulled aside again and Dana Johnson walked in.
“Hey Jolie, you look a lot better than you did a couple hours ago.”

“It was that long ago?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, crisply. “George.” Her tone was a disapproving one.

“I know, I know.
I’m asking as her friend, not a reporter.”

“There’s a new one.”
Sgt. Morehouse walked in. He stared at me for a couple seconds.

“Thanks,” I said.

He was still wearing a tie, but it was loosened. “Since it was my night to serve at the fish fry at St. Anthony’s, I been out there and back. So for once you didn’t wreck my schedule.”

“Did you bring us anything?” Scoobie asked.

“Dream on,” Morehouse said.
He turned slightly. “You can head home, Corporal Johnson.”

There was a three-way chorus of “Thanks, Dana,” and she left.

“I’m glad you aren’t hurt worse,” Morehouse said, “but you gotta listen when I tell you to leave this alone.”

“It’s not like I had a ‘hit me’ sign on my bumper…Oh.
Is my car okay?” I hadn’t given it any thought.

“I’m not the auto club,” Morehouse said.
“Remember anything else?”

“A nice man stopped,” I said, suddenly feeling very tired again.

“Stuart Cambridge. He’s running for city council this fall. If I’m you, I’d expect a donation letter,” Morehouse said. “So, nothing else?”

“I just saw the front of a black car.

“Mmm. But a man at the wheel, you think?” he asked.

“I guess it’s more of an impression, maybe from the size,” I said.

Morehouse sighed. “I’m thinking if it was somebody really out to get you they would have picked something more permanent than putting you in a ditch. Madge ever get that security system installed?”

“Yes,” Scoobie said.
“But it doesn’t have any cameras, just an alarm.”

“Keeping them out is more important than a photo shoot,” Morehouse said.
“Okay, when they spring you I think you’ll be okay. Call me if you think of anything else, and if we figure out anything I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling as if I was going to use that word a lot in the next couple of days.

Morehouse walked out and then stuck his head back in the curtain. “And no more choir lofts.” He left.

“What does that mean?” Scoobie asked as he pulled up a chair to sit next to George.

I shut my eyes again. This morphine gig had its advantages.

“Remember I told you I went to Hayden’s funeral?” George asked Scoobie.

“And…”

“Little Miss Detective was there, too.
I figured I’d let her tell you.”

“Yo, Jolie,” Scoobie said.
“Are you nuts?”

“It’s not rhetorical question day,” George said, and he and Scoobie did sort of a mid-range high five.

They both turned back to look at me. I gave Scoobie raised eyebrows, but when I went to shrug my shoulders I winced.

Scoobie lowered his voice.
“I asked Max and Josh if they’d seen Hayden around much.” He looked toward the curtain and back. “Josh said he was on the boardwalk a lot for a week or so, just before after Labor Day. Then he was gone for awhile, then he started showing up at places with Alicia and a couple of her friends.”

“Know where he was staying?” George asked.

“No. Josh actually followed him the first couple times he saw Hayden with Alicia. But every time they’d walk off the boardwalk and get into his car and drive off.”

“Maybe it was his car,” I said.

“How much of this juice are you on?” George asked.

“I expect his family has his car,” Scoobie said, in a kind of gentle tone of voice.

“Oh, right. I keep forgetting things,” I said.

“No shit,” George said.

“Anyway,” Scoobie said, “Josh said, and Max of course repeated five times, that he never saw Hayden with anyone except Alicia and her friends.”

“So nothing else?” George asked.

“One thing. When he showed up after being gone a few days he had a lot more cash.”

ONE THING I can agree with Sgt. Morehouse on is that I don’t believe in coincidences. I thought about things a lot the next two days when, once again, I spent a lot of time on the couch in Aunt Madge’s sitting room.

Hayden left and seemingly returned with more cash than he had before.
Was it to spend money on young girls? Why? Okay, there was the obvious reason, but he was so much older than they were that they couldn’t possibly hold much interest for him. He surely knew what statutory rape was. If he’d wanted to bed one of them he would probably not have been as brazen about hanging out with them.

I stared at the ceiling.
I had not seen him at the vacant house with Alicia, or in any others, for that matter. He wasn’t from Ocean Alley, and since Scoobie didn’t recognize him he couldn’t have spent much time here until around Labor Day. One thing was for sure, Hayden’s presence in town seemed to have been a catalyst for changes in Alicia’s behavior.

“Nuts.”

“What’s up with you?” Aunt Madge asked.

I had forgotten she just came in from church.
I guess I had my eyes closed, because I hadn’t heard her come into the sitting room from her bedroom. “Just tired of being confined, I guess.”
Well, I am
.

“You seem to be moving a lot better today,” she said.

“I am. Believe it or not, I’m trying to do what the ER doctor said.”

“You’re right,” she said.

“About what?”

“That I won’t believe you,” Aunt Madge said.

“Very funny. He said the head is very heavy for the neck, and I should stay almost flat for a couple days. Haven’t I been doing that?”

“Hmm.
Headstrong.” There was a glint in Aunt Madge’s eyes. “I do see what you mean.”

The doorbell rang and she left to answer it, returning moments later with Scoobie and George.
“You sure you won’t have tea? I have iced as well as hot.”

“Thanks, but no,” George said.

Scoobie gave Aunt Madge a light kiss on the cheek. “We came over to see if she’s giving you too hard a time.”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” she said.
“Jolie, since your public is here I’m heading out for a bit.”

“Going to see about getting your house appraised?”
I asked.

“Good one,” George said, then caught Aunt Madge’s eye.
“If you need it done, I mean.”

“You three deserve each other.”

George sat on the couch and Scoobie plopped on the floor near me and let Mister Rogers try to climb in his lap.

“Tell Harry I said hello,” I said, and gave her my four-finger wave.

The door to the breakfast room had barely swung shut when George said, “I think I know where he was for a couple years after high school.”

“You’ll love this,” Scoobie said.

George flipped open the narrow notebook he always carries. “January after high school he went to, get this, Threshers’ Faith College in Kansas and…”

“Isn’t that a Christian college?” I interrupted him.

“Which I was about to tell you.”

“He was Catholic, right?
Wouldn’t that be more like Notre Dame or something?” I looked from Scoobie to George and saw the exasperation in George’s expression. “Ok, I’ll shut up.”

Scoobie snorted and George continued.
“Aside from the fact that he seems to have been a lousy student and wouldn’t have gotten into Notre Dame, I would guess he was sent to Threshers’ Faith to try to get him in a different environment.”

“What…?”
I stopped. “Go on.”

“And his crooked path was kind of like mine, “Scoobie said, “except that he didn’t just have one drug of choice.”
Miss Piggy was trying to place her head in Scoobie’s lap as well, so he lay down on the floor and they each put a paw on him and thumped their tails.

“I don’t know what all he did the entire six months after high school, before he went to Threshers’ Faith, but he had two arrests
.”  George glanced at his notes.  “One was for buying precursors to making meth — like the medicine in those red cold pills — and the other for trying to sell a couple little baggies of meth.”

“That one got him some free room and board with Monmouth County,” Scoobie said.

“But he didn’t learn as fast as Scoobie,” George continued. “Old Hayden’s home from Threshers’ Faith College in Kansas for maybe three weeks and he gets picked up for pot.”

“He must have been confused,” Scoobie said.
“You’re supposed to start with pot.”

“Shut up, Scoob,” George said, in a conversational tone.
“So he gets assigned to community service and does it that summer, helping the Parks Department in Matawan and then he goes to community college in the fall.”

“Guess they figured why spend money on the Christian college if it didn’t take?” I mused.

George shrugged. “I think he was a lost cause long before then. Then he seems to stay out of trouble, or not get caught at it, until about June of the next year.”

“So, what is that, two years out of high school?” I asked.

“Ramona said you used to help her in geometry class,” Scoobie said.