Jenna Kernan - Dangerous Conditions

“No,” said Lou. “They were chasing it down the road. Animal got tired and turned to fight. Guess they figured out how fast that truck could go backward!” He laughed. “The thing put his antlers through their windshield.”

“They’re big animals.”

“And meaner than all get-out in mating season, which it is.” Lou pulled out his phone. “State police asked me to tell everyone to be extra vigilant while driving. They also sent me photos. Want to see?”

She nodded, and Lou went to his texts. Up came an image of a blue pickup truck missing its passenger-side mirror, with deep gouges in the side panel. The windshield was caved in like an empty soda can and the glass showed a web of hairline cracks.

“Wow.”

Lou beamed, delighted at the damage. “Village supervisor voted to close that cutoff to traffic so folks avoid that moose’s territory.”

She approved of that solution. Calling animal control would mean that moose would be put down. The hunters had been in his territory. The long-time village supervisor and Logan’s older brother, Connor Lynch, was competent and respected, handling squabbles and avoiding small-town politics with the mastery of an experienced politician.

Paige wished Lou a good day and headed for the elevator. Once inside the compartment, she unbuttoned her wool coat. Today was one of those in-between days. Too hot for winter gear and too cool for a light jacket.

Leaving the elevator, she crossed the spotless hallway and tapped her card to the contactless entry system that allowed her access to her department. Two more such barriers and she was in the peace and quiet of her lab and hanging her coat beside her coworker’s. Jeremy Chen generally beat her in since he did not have a daughter to see off to school. Getting Lori out of bed was becoming a challenge that she suspected would get worse as middle school loomed.

“Where’s Ed?” she asked Jeremy, referring to Dr. Edward Sullivan. Her boss, and the head of product quality assurance, was generally here at six in the morning because he said that was the only time he could get anything done. Then he left at three so he could coach his son’s travel basketball team over in Mill Creek.

Jeremy glanced up from his computer. He was her height, ten pounds lighter and of Chinese descent. He wore his straight black hair short on the sides and long on the top. He had a habit of pushing his bangs back off his forehead when thinking, only to have them fall back in place the instant he removed his hand. Only his protective glasses ever managed to keep his hair back from his face.

Jeremy glanced at the clock on his computer screen. “Wow, he’s really late. I’m not sure where he is.”

“You got that report done?” she asked. The monthly quality control statistic compilation was Jeremy’s job.

“I need Ed’s results from the last round,” he said.

“Want me to get it?” They all knew each other’s login information as the company had yet to adopt a file-sharing system that worked. The bugs in the current one caused it to take forever to transfer data and, as flash drives were not allowed by company policy, they had resorted to this workaround.

“No. It can wait.”

Her department did all the quality assurance testing for all pharmaceuticals produced on site including liquids, gases and solid tablets.

Paige stowed her lunch in the mini fridge and her purse beneath her desk. It wasn’t like Ed to just not show up.

“Maybe I’ll call Lou.” She already had the handset to her ear. Lou confirmed that Ed had logged in at 5:37 a.m. and left at 6:00 a.m. to do his run. But he had not checked back in before Lou arrived at eight, and Lou had not seen him since arriving. She lowered the phone. “That’s odd.”

Paige relayed Lou’s information.

“Call Ursula?” Jeremy suggested, referring to Ed’s wife.

“Maybe.” Paige retrieved her mobile phone and considered her options. She didn’t want to worry Ursula unnecessarily. “I’ll try his cell.” She did and got his voice mail. “It’s Paige. Call me back when you have a chance.”

Something didn’t sit right. It was dark out when Ed ran and there was no shoulder on most of the county roads. He could be lying in a ditch right now. Then she thought of what Lou had told her just this morning and sucked in a breath.

“Does he run on the cutoff on Turax Hollow Road?”

Lou Reber showed up at the lab just before lunch wearing a long face and rubbing the back of his neck. There was no clearer indicator that he was the bearer of bad news.

“What’s happened?” asked Jeremy, meeting Lou halfway across the room.

Paige instantly thought something had happened to his wife, Miriam. The woman was so changed since that ski accident, distracted, disheveled and unfocused.

But then she realized as the pit of her stomach dropped like a broken elevator, the bad news was about Ed, her boss.

“We found Dr. Sullivan,” he said. “Constable Lynch drove his jogging route after we couldn’t find him. He’s…gone…dead. Looks like a hit-and-run.”

Paige sank to her seat on the high black stool beside the tall lab table, samples abandoned as she absorbed the blow.

“He’s got kids,” said Paige, her voice trembling as the shock of having this man so suddenly torn from her life met with denial. As if having kids somehow exempted him from premature death. Hadn’t her father’s fatal auto accident taught her that no one was immune from tragedy?

Jeremy picked up where she had dropped off. “His son’s team… He coaches for the Lions Club and Boy Scouts.” Jeremy’s head sank and he covered his face with both hands.

“Everyone… The whole village will be devastated,” said Paige as the denial gave way to grief.

“That’s certain,” said Lou. “Anyway. That’s all I know. Lynch is out there. He’s with the game warden who was in the area because of the moose. They’re waiting for the state police and the county coroner.”

“Does his wife know yet?” asked Jeremy.

“Logan’s been to the Sullivans’ home and told Ursula. She is headed to the school to pick up her son and daughter.”

“Logan’s sure it’s Ed?” asked Jeremy. His voice was soft, as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. Neither could Paige.

“Listen, that boy might not be all there but he sure knows every family who lives in Hornbeck and a fair number that don’t.”

“He was always good with names,” said Paige and both men stared at her. She realized then that she’d spoken of Logan in the past tense as if he were the one who had died. Sometimes she felt like he had. Part of him, anyway, the part that loved her.

“Did he die right away?” asked Jeremy.

Lou shook his head. “Doesn’t look that way.”

Paige gasped. Could Edward have been saved if the driver had stopped or if help had reached him? If they had reached him, she thought, taking personal responsibility.

“I should have noticed that he was late,” said Jeremy, shouldering the guilt.

“I didn’t notice he had not checked back in,” said Lou.

Jeremy’s head hung and his gaze fixed on the floor. “But I did.”

“It’s not your fault, either of you,” said Paige. But she wondered if one of them could have saved him. If she, or either man, had noticed soon enough, called, checked and found Dr. Sullivan before the minutes of his life ticked away and he died, abandoned, on a lonely road.

IT WAS HARD not to notice when the village’s new EMS vehicle, carrying her boss’s body, made its way past the manufacturing plant. Paige’s lab was on the second floor and though the plant was three blocks off the main street and down the hill, she saw the flashing lights of the procession of the state police cruisers and EMS truck. The bright red and blue lights blinked in the twilight. Paige realized, grimly, that the ghastly parade would pass directly before Ed Sullivan’s home. Would his wife and two children be there to watch?