Joe Gores - Glass Tiger

Thorne set his lemonade on the arm of the couch. ‘What other shoe?’

‘I was only twenty-nine at the time, doing my very first tour of night duty at St. Mary’s ER. Life and death. Heady stuff. You remember your first one.’

Thorne could vividly remember his first night patrol in the Panama jungle. He’d been nineteen. Nothing had happened.

‘You probably know the basics. Corwin had always been a sort of wild kid, but not a bad one. He was underage, but that night he’d been drinking at the Rainbow, then went out and stole a car, and ran over the Johanson girl by accident on a nearby country road. He plowed the stolen car into a tree a couple of hundred yards beyond. The sheriff’s men brought him to the ER.’

‘I didn’t know about him drinking at the Rainbow.’

‘He was out cold when they brought him in to us, but after he woke up he told me the only thing he remembered was being at the dance.’ He leaned forward, face intent. ‘His blood alcohol level seemed to me too high for him to be able to drive a car. Somehow he did. That bothered me. Still does.’

‘I thought no alcohol tests were run until too late.’

Spencer gave a little half-laugh. ‘I told you I was young and eager. I ran ’em myself and didn’t tell the police when he was arrested because I hadn’t recorded them so they couldn’t be used in evidence. Besides, I felt he had enough trouble.’

Thorne sipped his lemonade. It was good. The sounds of summer carried from behind the house. Spencer cocked his head.

‘The wife, kids, grandkids. God bless ’em, every one.’

Thorne said slowly, thinking it through, ‘If he was so drunk he was passed out, how did he remember the Rainbow?’

‘He wasn’t passed out — knocked out. His head hit the steering wheel when the car hit the tree. No seatbelt, of course. Twenty-two stitches. Retrograde amnesia, common with severe concussions. Sometimes part or all of the events shortly before the blow comes back, sometimes none of it ever does.’

Amnesia. In Corwin’s case, apparently permanent. Again the prickle up Thorne’s spine that he had felt leaving the Johanson farm.

‘What did he think happened?’

‘He had no idea. Even when he was all patched up and awake, he didn’t remember much beyond the Rainbow. Something about someone helping him into a car...’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe a false memory, maybe Heidi herself. I guess we’ll never know.’

Thorne said, ‘He and Gus Wallberg were teammates in football and hockey, and great buddies off the field. Why would he steal the car of his best friend’s old man? He could have just borrowed it. And since he and Terry Prescott had broken up, why weren’t Corwin and Gus Wallberg out together that night?’

‘Who knows? Maybe Gus had a date of his own.’

‘Good point. But then wouldn’t he have been driving his dad’s car?’

Spencer nodded. ‘It never came out, but some other kids claimed the two of them were drinking together at the Rainbow.’

‘Both of them drunk?’ mused Thorne. ‘Corwin maybe more so? You said he was a wild kid in those days. Maybe he was even already passed out in the car when they left the dancehall.’

Spencer kept it going. ‘And Gus Wallberg is driving—’

‘Hell yes,’ said Thorne eagerly. ‘It’s his father’s car. Wallberg goes roaring down the little country road, Heidi pops up in front of him, he hits the brakes, too late... WHAM!’

Spencer was really into their hypothetical reconstruction. ‘So it’s Gus who’s in a panic and runs into the tree.’

‘He’s the mayor’s son,’ said Thorne. ‘Maybe he’s already planning a life in politics.’

‘Even if no criminal charges are brought, his career ends right there, before it even starts. So...’

‘So his buddy Corwin is out cold on the seat beside him. Comes from a lousy family, indifferent student at Rochester JC, probably’ll flunk out and get drafted for Vietnam anyway. So Gus slides Corwin into the driver’s seat, hikes back to the Rainbow, calls his old man... Good old Dad is a politician...’

Thorne ran down, stopped. Spencer was nodding.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Here’s where it always falls apart for me, too. I just can never quite buy it. Gus would have had to run the car into the tree deliberately, so Hal would be blamed — his best friend. Even if Gus would do that, I can’t see Mayor Wallberg saying to him, “I’ll report that my car was stolen, son, and say you were home with your Mom and me all night.”’

‘Not enough heat for the mayor to do it,’ agreed Thorne, remembering that the man who had killed Alison and Eden lost his license for a few months, that was all. ‘Wallberg was mayor, a politician himself. He would have known that a drunk-driving hit-and-run charge wouldn’t stop a young man’s later political career, especially not in those pre-MADD days. Remember Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne? And that was years later.’

Spencer gave a low chuckle.

‘We started sounding like Kennedy-assassination theorists there for a minute, didn’t we? In reality, I can’t see Gus Wallberg letting his best friend take the blame for the accident, and I can’t see his dad letting him get away with it if he tried. Mayor Wallberg felt so terrible that it was his car killed the girl that he paid for Heidi’s funeral, her memorial service, everything. He didn’t have to do that. He even paid the family compensation for their loss. They bought that farm out near Elgin with the money.’

‘An unusual gesture, don’t you think? Like maybe there was some guilt mixed in?’ Which gave Thorne an idea. He asked, ‘Were any blood tests run on Heidi to see whether she had been drinking that night?’

Spencer looked surprised.

‘I’m sure not. She was the victim, after all. And she was only fifteen. And she was already dead.’

‘How extensive were her injuries?’

‘Terrible. Almost like she’d been run over deliberately. Couldn’t have been, of course. Corwin was too drunk to formulate such a plan. I was bothered enough by it that I attended her autopsy, but...’

‘Was there anything to support that idea?’

‘Only thing would be that the poor girl was three months pregnant at the time of her death. So two lives were lost. And there were whispers that it might have been Hal’s child. But three months before, he had been very involved with Terry Prescott, was going steady with her. Plus the fact that Heidi was two grades behind him. That’s a huge age-difference for kids in high school.’

‘And Terry married him before he went off to Vietnam. So obviously she didn’t think he was the father of Heidi’s child.’

Thorne’s tickle wouldn’t go away. If Terry believed Corwin was innocent of getting Heidi pregnant...

‘They didn’t have DNA testing then, but if Heidi’s body was exhumed, even now, could they run tests to determine—’

‘The point is academic,’ said Spencer. ‘She was cremated.’

Thorne packed his meager belongings. Sleep tonight, leave first thing in the morning. Again, a lot of driving to do. He felt his rage trying to rise again. He ruthlessly suppressed it. It didn’t serve him here. Not yet, anyhow. He didn’t need it.

Heidi had been carrying Gus Wallberg’s illegitimate child, and would have been demanding marriage — the mayor’s son was a real catch. That New Year’s Eve was just about as Thorne had pictured it — except the hit-andrun wasn’t by Corwin and wasn’t a hit-and-run. It was deliberate murder.

Three months pregnant. Wallberg would be frantic by then. Call Heidi up secretly, tell her to meet him on the country road near the Rainbow at midnight. We’re going to elope, don’t tell anyone. Get his best friend Hal — who he was maybe jealous of? — really drunk. Maybe dope his drinks. Get him into the car, at midnight speed down the country road — wham! Heidi’s gone.