“Garreth, stop him!” Maggie shouted from the far side of the 150.
First he need to stop the Silverado’s driver, whose intent seemed to be bodily harm. He leaped out of his car into a flood of human and vehicle fluid smells…caught up to the driver and spun him. “Hey. Hey! Look at me! Stop. You need to lie down. Lie…down.”
The driver’s knees buckled.
Garreth eased him to the pavement. “Stay there.”
Then he ran after the 150’s driver…reaching him as the boy round the front of the truck, still yelling the girl’s name. Beyond him, Garreth saw with dismay why Maggie wanted him restrained. A female sprawled on the hood of a Ford Fairlane with her head embedded in the windshield.
Inside the Fairlane a female passenger screamed hysterically, almost drowning the male voice trying to calm her. Maggie straightened beside the driver’s window and headed for the bed of the 150.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
As Garreth dragged the boy back and turned him, to his further dismay he spotted a second motionless figure…this one male, lying on the highway several yards ahead of the Silverado, a dark stain spreading around his head.
Two fatalities? Damn!
He jerked his focus back to the boy whose arms he held and after capturing the boy’s gaze, laid him down on grass beside the highway.
Maggie, having peered into the back of the 150, gave Garreth a thumbs up and ran for the passenger side of the Silverado.
Garreth checked the 150, too. A juvenile male lay curled in the truck bed, motionless but signaling life by whimpering, clutching the Cougar banner, which had torn loose from one pole.
“Passenger’s alive but unconscious!” Maggie called from the Silverado, raising her voice above the nearing sirens.
The sirens announced Fire Rescue’s arrival. Soon they had other assistance, too: two Bellamy SO deputies, one in uniform, the other in a Cougar sweatshirt with his badge pinned on the front, and Duncan in a Timberwolf sweatshirt, face painted blue and yellow. Duncan and a deputy set out flashing cones and diverted traffic from 282 to Kansas via cross streets north and south of accident. Sue Ann reported that Serk had moved from the stadium to handle traffic downtown.
Fire Rescue took the injured victims to St. Francis. The deputies left when the last of the injured victims were on their way to the hospital, the sweatshirted one agreeing to contact the families of the two Bellamy boys. Duncan disappeared about the same time. Leaving Garreth and Maggie photographing the fatalities — named Diane Barnes and Jonah Wiltz — so the wagon from Sterling-Weiss Funeral Home could transport the bodies to the hospital, too.
Looking after the Sterling-Weiss vehicle’s departing tail lights, Maggie visibly braced herself. “I need to go notify our parents.”
The grimmest job of the night. “Would you like me to come with you?” Garreth asked.
She hesitated only a moment before shaking her head. “I know them. You finish up here.”
So he took final photos and measurements of the scene and made a rough sketch, watched while A-1 towed the vehicles, then helped them clean up debris and fluids, so he could finally pick up the cones and re-open the road.
Maggie radioed to join her at the hospital.
Taking the photos and accident scene diagrams from him, she tallied the injuries for him: James Coffey, driver of the Fairlane, broken ankle; Arlene Coffey, his wife, possible whiplash; Matt Schaller, driver of the 150, possible whiplash; Gary Canfield, passenger in the Silverado, concussion and frontal sinus fracture; Kenny Creager, the Silverado’s driver, and Peter Barns, passenger in the 150 and brother of Diane Barns, under observation but apparently sustaining only contusions.
She had taken a statement from Mr. Coffey but was waiting until tomorrow for the rest. Mrs. Coffey, Matt, and Peter were all under sedation,and the parents of the Silverado's driver and passenger had not arrived yet. Matt and Peter’s parents were here, devastated. Mrs. Barnes, Maggie reported, sat at her son’s bedside weeping quietly but ceaselessly. Quietly forewarned about Diane’s injuries, Mr. Barnes insisted he alone identify her…which he had done by her clothes and a necklace she wore, then needed fourteen stitches in his hand after punching out a window. Mr. and Mrs. Wiltz had been there to identify Jonah but now gone home, Mrs. Wiltz with sedatives.
All people Maggie knew. This had to be hard for her. Garreth said, “How are you doing?”
Her jaw went square. “I’m fine!”
Meaning, no but damn if she would admit it. He retreated to patrol.
Meeting with Serk to thank him for the help downtown, Garreth gave him details of the accident.
Serk shook his head sadly. “I worked plenty of fatalities in the Highway Patrol but the accidents involving young people always got to me the most. And this…such appalling consequences for a prank.” He sighed. “There’s one more victim we need to remember, too, Jonah’s brother Darrell. Darrell made the football play of his life tonight, and now how can he ever enjoy the memory?”
A tragic ending for what should have been a night to celebrate.
Echoing that, Baumen settled into the silence of a graveyard. Walking Kansas, then cruising down random streets, all empty, Garreth felt like the last man on Earth.
Around two-thirty Doris radioed: “Can you come to the station?”
When he arrived, he found Maggie bent over a typewriter. He eyed her in surprise. “You haven’t gone home yet?”
“I need to finish this accident report while everything is still fresh in my mind.” Diamonds would have shattered on her voice.
Doris gestured him to her with a crooked finger and whispered, “She’s been at it since one, but keeps tearing up forms and starting over. Can you do something?”
Maybe.
He walked back to her desk. “Maggie.” He expected her to at least glance up so he could look her in the eyes. But her focus stayed on the typewriter. Might voice alone work? “You’ve been on duty over ten hours. Go…home. Finish…this…in…the…morning. Believe me, you’ll still remember every detail.”
The temperature dropped twenty degrees. “You’re in my light.”
Garreth shrugged at Doris and left. Frosted again.
So he never expected to find Maggie sitting on his stairs when he came home.
“I finished the report.” Her tone challenged him…what, to apologize for doubting she could?
He kept his own tone casual. “But you still haven’t gone home.”
“I’m not tired.” Still challenging him.
He recognized that syndrome…had been there. In fact she was probably exhausted but too wound up, too haunted, to sleep. In a bigger department she could have decompressed in a bar with a group of fellow cops. Here, now, she had only him.
He climbed past her and opened the door. “Then come in and have some tea.”
Her nose wrinkled even as she followed him. “Tea!”
Not that tea interested him, either. What if he just went ahead and had his blood. His throat burned for it. How would she know what it was?
“I don’t have anything stronger.” Blame hunger for the impulse that made him add, “I never drink…alcohol.”
She missed the Dracula reference. “Oh…recovering alcoholic?”
A reasonable assumption, he had to admit. “Alcohol allergy.” He put two mugs of water with tea bags in the microwave. “Have a seat.”
Instead, she paced. Several times she took a breath as though about to speak, then paced on. Not sure what she wanted to say….or how to start?
She needed a nudge. “You keep seeing it happen, right?”
She halted, eyed him, and dropped into a chair at the table, staring into the past. “Over and over, in slow motion. The Silverado pulling out around Matt to run from me, realizing there’s an oncoming vehicle and trying to pull back in…but too soon, impacting at Matt’s rear wheel. Matt spinning out…ejecting Jonah. Diane…” Maggie sucked in a breath. “Diane had been hanging out her window howling back at the Silverado. When the Fairlane t-boned Matt, she — ” Maggie choked…swallowed. “I heard her hit the windshield.” Her tone went defensive. “It’s wimpy, I know.”