Майкл Корита: If She Wakes

Only problem: her phone seemed to be missing.

So it went into the river with her, Abby thought. She came up, and the phone didn’t.

She drained her beer and frowned, flipping back and forth through the pages of the report. Explaining Tara Beckley’s missing phone didn’t seem to be difficult, but Amandi Oltamu’s phone could also contain evidence, and Abby didn’t see where that was either. The police report included the items removed from the car, and the coroner’s report had a list of personal effects removed from the body, ranging from a wallet to a Rolex.

No phone, though.

The lead investigator was a guy with the state police named David Meredith. Abby wasn’t eager to speak to police these days, considering that there were two cops in California still urging a prosecutor to press charges against her for an accident that had made her more of a celebrity than she’d ever desired to be.

The concern conjured the memory, as it always did. Luke’s empty eyes, his limp hand, the soft whistle and hiss of the machines that kept him breathing. Synthetic life. And the photographers waiting outside the hospital for a shot of the woman responsible for it all: Abby Kaplan, the woman who’d killed Luke London, cut down a rising star in his prime. James Dean and Luke London, joined in immortality, young stars killed in car crashes. The only difference was that Luke hadn’t been driving the car.

That was a fun little secret about his movies. He never drove the car.

Never felt any shame over that either. Luke was completely comfortable in his own skin, happy to hand the keys over to a woman who barely came up to his shoulder, to smile that magazine-cover smile and say, “One day you’ll teach me how to do it myself.”

And I was going to. That was the idea, you see. It was his idea, not mine, I just happened to have the wheel, and my hands were steady, my hands were...

She shook her head, the gesture violent enough to draw a curious glance from the bartender, and Abby tried to recover by pointing at her now-empty glass, as if she’d been intending to attract attention.

One more, sure. One more couldn’t hurt.

She took out her phone to call David Meredith. He was safe. Most people here were. This was why she’d come back to Maine. David Meredith knew Abby only as Hank Bauer’s employee, nothing more. Hank was the closest thing Abby had to family, and he wasn’t telling any tales about her return to Maine. She owed him good work in exchange, even if that meant speaking with police.

She found Meredith’s number, called, and explained what she was working on.

“You guys caught that one?” Meredith said. “Good for Hank. It’s easy money.”

“Sure looks that way,” Abby agreed. “But I’m heading out to take some pictures at the scene and see if there was anything that might be trouble for the college.”

“There isn’t. Tell the lawyers they can sleep easy.”

“I’m curious about the phones, actually. Where are they?”

“We’ve got his.”

“Ramirez’s, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“What about hers? Or Oltamu’s?”

David Meredith paused. “I’m assuming hers is in the water.”

“Sure. But his?”

“The coroner’s office, probably.”

“The report doesn’t account for it. His wallet and watch and keys and even a comb were mentioned. But there was no phone.”

“So he didn’t have one. Some people don’t. His doesn’t matter, anyhow. Now hers, I could see what you’re worried about there. Was she texting or whatever. But... she was parked and out of the car. Hard to imagine a scenario where she gets blamed.”

“She wasn’t where she was supposed to be. That’s my only worry.”

“I can’t help you on that one. But like you said, the wreck is simple, and Ramirez is going to be formally charged tomorrow. That’ll help you. I’ve got to talk to the girl’s family today. I’ll ask about the phone, see if I can figure out who the last person to hear from her was.”

“Great.” Abby thanked Meredith and hung up, glad that her client was the university, faceless and emotionless, and not the family of that girl in the coma. Five days she’d been in there, alive but unresponsive. Abby didn’t like to imagine that, let alone see it. That was precisely the kind of shit that could get in her head and take her back...

“I’ll have one more,” she told the bartender.

One more wouldn’t kill her. It just might save her, in fact. Thinking about the girl in the hospital and wondering if her eyes were open or closed was not the sort of image Abby needed in her head before she got behind the wheel. Another beer would help. People didn’t understand that, but another beer would help.

Abby was five foot three and a hundred and fifteen pounds, and two pints of Sebago Runabout Red would bring her blood alcohol content up to, oh, 0.4. Maybe 0.5, tops. Still legal. And steadier.

A whiskey for the spine and a beer for the shooting hand, her dad used to say. Abby had no idea where he’d picked up that phrase, but it had always made her laugh. He also liked to say One more and then we’ll all go, which was even funnier because he was usually drinking alone. Jake Kaplan had been one funny guy. Maybe not in the mornings, but, hell, who was funny in the morning?

Abby sipped the pint and held her slim right hand out level above the bar.

Steady as a rock.

She turned back to the case file and flipped through it to see where the cars were impounded. Tara Beckley’s CRV and the cargo van rented by Carlos Ramirez had both been hauled off by an outfit with the exquisite name of Savage Sam’s Salvage.

Abby called. The phone was answered almost immediately with one curt word: “Sam.”

Savage Sam? Abby almost asked, but she managed to hold that one back and explained who she was and why she was calling.

“Ayuh, I got ’em both, the van and the Honda,” Sam acknowledged without much interest. “Both of ’em beat to shit, but the Honda took it worse. Those are little SUVs, but they’re stout, so it must’ve taken a pretty good pop.”

Abby thought of the photos of the bloodstained pavement and of Tara Beckley in her hospital bed, body running on tubes and machines, eyes wide open and staring at Abby.

“Yes,” she said. “It did take a good pop. I’ll need to see the vehicles, but I’m also interested in what you might have found in the car.”

“I don’t steal shit out of cars, honey.”

That was an interesting reaction.

“My name is Abby, not honey, and I didn’t mean to imply that you stole anything,” she said. “It’s just that I’m looking for a phone that seems to have gone missing and that might still be in the car.”

There was a long pause before he said, “I can check it again, maybe.”

First the adamant claim that he didn’t steal things out of cars, now the willingness to check it again. Perhaps Savage Sam was uptight for a reason. Abby had a hunch that he was going to discover the phone — and maybe a few other valuables. She suspected this wasn’t the first time he’d swept through a wrecked car in his impound lot.

“I’d appreciate that,” Abby said. “Because that phone is going to be pretty important to the case, and we’ve got one dead and one in a coma. You know what that’ll lead to — trial, lawyers, cops, all that happy crap.”

She said it casually but made sure to emphasize the police and lawyers. It did not seem to be lost on Savage Sam, who said in a more agreeable tone of voice, “It’s possible I overlooked somethin’.”

Abby smiled. “Can happen to anyone. If you don’t mind checking, that would be great. And I can keep the cops out of your hair. If they come by, they’ll waste more of your time than I will, you know?”