John Saul: Brain Child

“Far enough, son,” Finnerty said quietly. “Whatever’s happened, we’ll take care of it.”

“But—” the boy began.

“You heard him,” Jackson broke in. “Get back up on the road, and stay out of the way.” He flashed his light on the knot of teenagers who were clustered together. Most of them had wet hair, and their clothes were in disarray. “Those your friends?”

The boy nodded.

“Musta been some party. Now, get up there with them, and we’ll talk to you later.”

Silently the boy turned and started back up the hill, and Jackson followed Finnerty down toward the wreckage. Behind him, he heard car doors slamming, and the sound of voices issuing orders. Vaguely he became aware of other people beginning to move down the slope of the ravine.

The car lay on its side, so battered its make was no longer recognizable. It appeared to have turned end for end at least twice, then rolled until it came to rest against a large boulder.

“The driver’s still in it,” Jackson heard Finnerty say, and his stomach lurched the way it always did when he had to deal with the victims of automobile accidents. Stoically he moved forward.

“Still alive?”

“Dunno,” Finnerty grunted. “Don’t hardly see how he can be, though.” He paused then, well aware of his partner’s weak stomach. “You okay?”

“I’ll throw up later,” Jackson muttered. “Anybody else in the car?”

“Nope. But if someone wasn’t wearing a seat belt, they’d have gone out on the first flip.” He shone his light briefly on Jackson’s sweating face. “You wanna help out here, or look around for another victim?”

“I’ll help. ’Least till the medics get here.” He approached the car and stared in at the body that was pitched forward against the steering wheel. The head was covered with blood, and it looked to Jackson as if Finnerty was right — if the smashup itself hadn’t killed the driver, he must have bled to death by now. Still, he had his job to do, and clenching his teeth, Jackson began helping his partner cut through the seat belt that held the inert body into what was left of the car.

“Don’t move him,” one of the emergency technicians warned a moment later. He and his partner began unfolding a stretcher as the two cops finished cutting away the seat belt.

“You think we haven’t done this before?” Finnerty rasped. “Anyway, I don’t think it’ll make much difference with this one.”

“We’ll decide that,” the EMT replied, moving forward and edging Jackson aside. “Anybody know who he is?”

“Not yet,” Jackson told him. “We’ll run a make on the plate as soon as we get him up to the road.”

The two EMT’s slowly and carefully began working Alex’s body out of the wreckage, and, what seemed to Jackson to be an eternity later, eased him onto the stretcher.

“He’s not dead yet,” one of the EMT’s muttered. “But he will be if we don’t get him out of here fast. Come on.”

With a man at each corner of the stretcher, the two EMT’s and the two cops began making their way up the hill.

The crowd of teenagers on the road stood silently watching as the stretcher was borne upward. In the midst of them, Lisa Cochran leaned heavily on Kate Lewis, who did her best to keep Lisa from looking at the bloodied shape of Alex Lonsdale.

“He must still be alive,” Bob Carey whispered. “They’ve got something wrapped around his head, but his face isn’t covered.”

Then the medics were on the road, sliding the stretcher into the ambulance. A second later, its lights flashing and its siren screaming, it roared off into the night.

In the emergency room of the Medical Center, a bell shattered the tense silence, and a scratchy voice emanated from a speaker on the wall.

“This is Unit One. We’ve got a white male, teenage, with multiple lacerations of the face, a broken arm, damage to the rib cage, and head injuries. Also extensive bleeding.”

Marshall Lonsdale reached across the desk and pressed the transmission key himself. “Any identification yet?”

“Negative. We’re too busy keeping him alive to check his I.D.”

“Will he make it?”

There was a slight hesitation; then: “We’ll know in two minutes. We’re at the bottom of Hacienda, turning into La Paloma Drive.”

Thomas Jefferson Jackson sat in the passenger seat of the patrol car, waiting for the identification of the car that lay at the bottom of the ravine. He glanced out the window and saw Roscoe Finnerty talking to the group of kids whose party had just ended in tragedy. He was glad he didn’t have to talk to them — he doubted whether he would have been able to control the rage that seethed in him. Why couldn’t they have just had a dance and let it go at that? Why did they have to get drunk and start wrecking cars? He wasn’t sure he’d ever understand what motivated them. All he’d do was go on getting sick when they piled themselves up.

“It was Alex Lonsdale,” Bob Carey said, unable to meet Sergeant Finnerty’s eyes.

“Dr. Lonsdale’s kid?”

“Yes.”

“You sure he was driving it?”

“Lisa Cochran saw it happen.”

“Who’s she?”

“Alex’s girlfriend. She’s over there.”

Finnerty followed Bob’s eyes and saw a pretty blond in a dirt-smeared green formal sobbing in the arms of another girl. He knew he should go over and talk to her, but decided it could wait — from what he could see, she didn’t look too coherent.

“You know where she lives?” he asked Bob Carey. Numbly Bob recited Lisa’s address, which Finnerty wrote in his notebook. “Wait here a minute.” He strode to the car just as Jackson was opening the door.

“Got a make on the car,” Jackson said. “Belongs to Alexander Lonsdale. That’s Dr. Lonsdale’s son, isn’t it?”

Finnerty nodded grimly. “That’s what the kids say, too, and apparently the boy was driving it. We got a witness, but I haven’t talked to her yet.” He tore the sheet with Lisa’s address on it out of his notebook and handed it to Jackson. “Here’s her name and address. Get hold of her parents and tell them we’ll take the girl down to the Center. We’ll meet them there.”

Jackson looked at his partner uncertainly. “Shouldn’t we take her to the station and get a statement?”

“This is La Paloma, Tom, not San Francisco. The kid in the car was her boyfriend, and she’s pretty broken up. We’re not gonna make things worse by dragging her into the station. Now, get hold of the Center and tell them who’s coming in, then get hold of these Cochran people. Okay?”

Jackson nodded and got back in the car.

Lisa sat on the ground, trying to accept what had happened. It all had a dreamlike quality to it, and there seemed to be only bits and pieces left in her memory.

Standing in the road, trying to make up her mind whether or not to go back to the party and find Alex.

And then the sound of a car.

Instinctively, she’d known whose car it was, and her anger had suddenly evaporated.

And then she’d realized the car was coming too fast. She’d turned around to try to wave Alex down.

And then the blur.

The car rushing toward her, swerving away at the last minute, then only a series of sounds.

A shriek of skidding tires—

A scraping noise—

A crash—

And then the awful sound of Alex screaming her name, cut off by the horrible crunching of the car hurtling into the ravine.

Then nothing — just a blank, until suddenly she was back at Carolyn Evans’s, and all the kids were staring at her, their faces blank and confused.

She hadn’t even been able to tell them what had happened. She’d only been able to scream Alex’s name, and point toward the road.