Linwood Barclay - The Accident

Nothing happened.

The car continued toward us.

I squeezed the trigger a second time.

The recoil forced my arms up into the air and I felt myself stumble back half a step. The windshield on the Chrysler spiderwebbed out from the passenger side. Sommer turned the wheel hard left, missing me by no more than ten feet as he screeched past. I threw myself out of the way, hitting the pavement and rolling to within a few inches of Wedmore.

There was a loud thunk, the screech of scraping metal, and then a crash.

By the time I’d turned around to see what had happened, the Chrysler had already bounced over the curb, driven into the middle of a yard, and slammed into a tree.

“Stay down!” Wedmore screamed at me.

But I was already on my feet, gun still in hand. My heart was pumping so hard, the adrenaline rushing through me with such speed, that I was immune to reason or common sense.

I ran over to the Chrysler, coming around it cautiously from behind, the way I’d seen cops do it on TV. I noticed a length of angled gray metal sticking out from under the car, and surmised that before Sommer hit the tree, he’d mowed down a street sign. Steam billowed out from beneath the buckled hood as the engine continued to run, but instead of the usual growl, it sounded more like nails in a blender.

As I got closer, I spotted a deployed airbag, and coming up alongside, I saw Sommer.

There wasn’t much need to train the gun on him.

The edge of a white metal sign reading SPEED LIMIT 25 had caught Sommer on the forehead and just about taken the top of his head clean off.

Two ambulances were dispatched to the scene. Darren Slocum, whose condition was deemed more serious than Rona Wedmore’s, was taken away first to Milford Hospital. The bullet had gone right through him, on his far left side, and while no one was able to say anything with certainty at the scene, it looked as though it had missed any vital organs. Wedmore’s shoulder had been grazed, and while she’d lost some blood, she was standing on her own before the paramedics forced her to lie down on the stretcher.

The Mortons were more or less unharmed, although George’s head had been cut open when it was slammed into the television. For sure, they were both traumatized. Belinda told me what had happened inside the house. Wedmore had burst into the study, then dived for cover as Sommer took a shot. Sommer had grabbed the money-stuffed envelope and fled. He must have figured the detective had already called for backup and he didn’t have much time to get away.

For the longest time, I could not stop shaking. I wasn’t actually hurt, but the paramedics wrapped me in blankets and sat me down to make sure I was okay.

The police had plenty of questions for me. Fortunately, before she was taken away, Wedmore put in a good word for me.

“That stupid bastard just got a guy who tried to kill two cops,” she told them as they loaded her into the ambulance.

They wanted to know about my gun.

“Is it yours?” they asked.

“More or less,” I told them.

“Is it registered?”

“Not to my knowledge,” I said.

I had a feeling I was going to get some sort of slap on the wrist for this, but nothing more. I didn’t think the police would like the optics-hassling someone who’d saved one of their own from getting run down in the middle of the street.

But even though they took a conciliatory tone with me, the questioning at police headquarters went on until dawn. Around seven they drove me back to my truck, and I found my way home.

And went to bed.

I woke up around three. The phone was ringing.

“Mr. Garber?”

“Hmm?”

“Mr. Garber, Rona Wedmore here.”

I blinked a couple of times, glanced at the clock, totally discombobulated. “Hey,” I said. “How are you?”

“I’m okay. Still at the hospital. They’re going to let me go home in a few minutes. I just called to tell you that what you did was one of the stupidest, dumbest, most moronic things I’ve ever seen anyone do. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. What have you heard about Darren Slocum?”

“He’s in the ICU, but it looks like he’s going to pull through okay.” She paused. “He might be sorry he made it after the department’s through with him.”

“He’s in a lot of trouble,” I said.

“He came with Sommer to the Mortons’. He may face accessory charges and God knows what else.”

“What else do you know? Anything about my wife? Or Darren’s wife?”

“There’s still a lot we don’t know, Mr. Garber. Sommer’s dead, so we’re not going to learn anything from him. But we’re talking about one very nasty son of a bitch here. We can’t assume anything, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn he somehow arranged the deaths of both your wife and Mrs. Slocum. And early indications are he killed a private investigator named Arthur Twain, as well, at the Just Inn Time hotel.”

I sat up in the bed and threw off the covers. “Arthur Twain?”

“That’s right.”

I felt numbed by the news.

“I don’t know how, exactly, Sommer might have done it,” I said, “but given the kind of person he was, it’s possible he killed Sheila. Somehow got her drunk, set her up in that car, knowing someone would run into it sooner or later.”

Wedmore was quiet.

“Detective?”

“I’m here.”

“You don’t buy that?”

“Sommer shot people,” Wedmore said. “That’s what he did with anyone who got in his way. He’d never have gone to the kind of trouble you’re talking about to kill someone.” She paused. “Maybe, Mr. Garber, and I mean no disrespect when I say this to you, you’re going to have to accept that, in your wife’s case, things are exactly as they appear. I know that can’t be easy, but sometimes the truth is a very difficult thing to accept.”

Now it was my turn to be quiet.

I stared out the window, at the large elm tree in our front yard. Only a handful of leaves still clung to it. In another few weeks there’d be snow out there.

“Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you,” Rona Wedmore said, and ended the call.

I sat there on the edge of the bed, my head in my hands. Maybe this was how it ended. People died, and their secrets died with them. I’d get the answers to some of my questions, but not all.

Maybe this was as far as I could go. Maybe it was over.

I phoned Kelly.

“I’m going to come get you today.”

“When? When are you coming?”

“This evening. I’ve got a few things to get out of the way first.”

“So it’s all safe to come home?”

I paused. Sommer was dead. Slocum was in the hospital. And I knew who was responsible for the shot window. If there was anyone else out there to be worried about, I couldn’t think who it was.

“Yeah, sweetheart. It’s safe to come home. But there’s something I have to tell you about.”

“What?”

I could hear the worry in her voice. So much had already happened to her, she must have been getting to the point where she was expecting bad things to happen.

“It’s about Emily’s dad. He got hurt.”

“What happened?”

“A very bad man shot him. I think he’s going to be okay, but he’s going to be in the hospital for a while.”

“Did somebody get the bad man who shot him?”

Kelly would probably hear the whole story at some point, if not from me, then someone else. But I didn’t see the need to get into the details now. So I said, “Yes.”

“Did he die?”

“Yes.”

“A lot of people are dying lately,” Kelly said.

“I think things are going to calm down now,” I said.