In our last episode: "Sure. I'm on my way." The driver turned and jogged off toward his truck, but halfway there, he stopped and turned around. Suspicion crept into his voice as he asked, "Say, you didn't hit that gal, did ya?"
"No. It was a guy in a big Lincoln. He was headed south. Maybe you passed him."
"Yeah, I saw him, alright. A big black sedan . . . he went by me a ways back down the road goin' hell-bent for leather."
"Well, get to that phone as fast as you can so we can send the cops after him."
I listened to his engine straining up the hill, and when his only working taillight disappeared over the crest, I jotted the truck's license plate number in my notebook. It occurred to me the cops might get the same idea about who hit the woman. At least the truck driver could vouch for the fact that there really was a speeding Lincoln out here tonight.
Leaning against a fender that was damp from the fog, I listened for traffic and wondered about the woman and why she'd been killed. When I didn't come up with any good answers, my mind drifted back to another time . . . a time when I carried a shiny gold badge and dead bodies were part of my job. Sadly or gratefully, depending on how you looked at it, most of the images that remained in my mind from that time are little more than hazy pencil sketches worn thin by an eighty-proof eraser.
I've learned to avoid looking at those pictures, but sometimes my brain doesn't cooperate. This was one of those times, and I was glad when a couple of wailing sirens finally drove my dark memories back into their hiding place.
Two patrol cars converged on me from opposite directions and they got there within seconds of each other. The sergeant, who'd come from the north, took command of the situation. He was short and stocky with a fringe of gray hair showing around his khaki uniform cap. The other fellow was tall, sharp-featured, and couldn't have been more than twenty.
They took a look at the body and the young guy turned a little green around the gills. After sending the kid off to direct traffic in case any came along, the sergeant explained apologetically, "He's new. This is probably the first corpse he's ever seen. The first ones are always the hardest."
"Yeah," I added, "and some guys never get used to it."
The sergeant looked at me a little curiously, like he was wondering what the hell I knew about such things, but he didn't ask. Instead, he fished a notebook out of his leather jacket and motioned for me to follow him over into the glare of his patrol car headlights where he could see to write.
He was really pretty good. I've questioned a few people in my day and I know the kind of cooperation you get depends a lot on your attitude. The sergeant was relaxed and friendly. If he had any suspicions about my role in the accident, they didn't show.
Story and design © Steve Eitzen
Header graphic and HPO logo © HPO Productions
LAPD badge © City of Los Angeles
Patrol car modified from public domain source
All rights reserved by copyright owners
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
