Start at the Taraval police station, get a look at the patrolmen’s report if he could, then up to Twin Peaks — and why, if it was a phony accident, Twin Peaks, that world-famous landmark which stuck right up from the center of the city? Did that have any significance? And after the accident site, down to the police garage under the Hall of Justice to check if the Jaguar had automatic transmission. Damned hard to work it with a straight stick...
“If somebody did attack Bart,” he said belatedly, “I want to go after him.”
“So even if you get him, what good would it do?” she demanded bitterly.
“As much good as sitting here waiting for him to die.” When he was halfway down the hall, she caught up to hold him again and kiss him on the side of the face and wish him good hunting.
One hell of a girl, Corinne Jones.
Four
The black-and-white parked in front of DKA had ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION BUREAU lettered on the door, so Ballard went straight back to Kearny’s office. It was blue with cigarette smoke and just barely big enough to hold, after he had come in, four people. Kearny looked up sharply.
“Where the hell have you been? I called the hospital—”
“I had a couple of cases to work,” he said quickly.
“You want some coffee, Larry?”
He shook his head at Giselle. As he had expected, the cop was Waterreus, a huge Dutchman with a round red face and a big laugh and the eyes of a wild boar. He dropped in or called in often enough so Ballard was pretty sure he was taking DKA bread under the table for turning hot cars for them off their skip-list.
Waterreus nodded distantly, returned to the Xeroxed report resting on the upper of his crossed knees. “... three o’clock patrol found the Jaguar upside down on Twin Peaks Boulevard just about where Midcrest Way dead-ends.” He looked up. “Midcrest doesn’t actually come into the boulevard, it—”
“I know the place.” Kearny knew most streets in the city.
“Okay. It hadn’t been there when the patrol had gone through, oh, roughly an hour before. The injured man was a Negro male, head contusions, probably from doorpost, hell, I can skip all that crap... yeah. Here. Tracks down the side hill — which is maybe a hundred fifty yards high, maybe a forty-five-degree slope — these tracks indicate it went off on the next curve of the S, up above. Ah... subsequent examination showed it had not gone through the guardrail as first—”
“It didn’t go through the guardrail?” Giselle asked, surprised.
Waterreus looked up. “What? Oh. No. That whole street, right from where it leaves Portola Drive, is guard-railed on the downhill side with that heavy steel freeway fencing, two and a half feet high, eight-by-eight uprights sunk in concrete. Except right there at the top, where the boulevard divides in half to make a double circle of the peaks. There’s a little parking area on the right-hand side, and a little grassy knoll like, that comes down flush with the road. Maybe six, eight feet from where that guardrail starts.”
It was Ballard’s turn. He said, “I know the place.”
“Must of been goosing her, coming back around the circle,” said Waterreus, “and lost control. Hell, drunk like he was—”
“Bart wasn’t drunk!” yapped Ballard, half rising.
Waterreus looked up from his accident report again. “Whole interior of the car still reeks of Scotch. The bottle busted when the car rolled.”
“How are things at the hospital?” interrupted Giselle quickly.
“In a coma.” Ballard’s voice was grudging. “He was breathing so badly they did a tracheotomy. The doctor says if he doesn’t wake up within seventy-two hours, he probably never will.”
Waterreus stood up. “Tough luck about him — and about the Jag. You guys going to have to eat the loss?”
“Unless we can prove responsibility elsewhere,” said Kearny.
“Pretty tough in a one-car, one-driver accident, ain’t it?”
He shook hands around. Giselle followed him out of the cubbyhole bearing a tall narrow paper bag that clinked. Ballard slid down in his chair to cock one knee against the edge of the desk.
“How’s that for superficial?” he sneered. “No mention of possible skid marks, no estimate of the speed the car was going when it went through that slot between the fence and the knoll, no mention of the automatic transmission, no mention of the fact that the head injury was on the side away from the doorpost—”
“Just what were those cases you checked out when you left the hospital?” asked Kearny mildly as Giselle came back in.
“I don’t like that guy, he’s always got his hand out,” she said.
“Be glad he does.” To Ballard, Kearny said, “You left your attaché case here with all of your case files in it. All of them.”
“All right, so I was up on Twin Peaks to see where he went off,” said Ballard irritably. “And I went down to the police impound garage at Fifth and Bryant to look at the Jag.”
Kearny lit a cigarette. Waving out the match, he said to Giselle, “He thinks somebody drove Heslip up there with his skull already fractured, stuck him behind the wheel with the Jag pointed at that gap by the end of the fence, used Heslip’s foot to jam down the accelerator with the car in neutral, then reached in the open window, flipped it into gear, and bailed out before it was going so fast it—”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you think.” When Ballard was silent, Kearny thrust his massive jaw across the desk like Popeye sighting the spinach. “Isn’t it?”
“All right, that’s what I think. It’s what Corinne thinks, too.”
“There’s some great facts to hand the insurance company.”
“Whitaker says the injuries don’t rule out a prior assault—”
“Don’t rule out. I think.” Kearny smeared out the almost untouched cigarette, reached for another. “Facts!” he barked explosively. “I’d love some facts. If somebody tried to kill him, I can tell the insurance company to pound salt.”
“No skid marks,” said Ballard. “No witnesses. Everybody knows that Bart is no boozer—”
“Everybody knows. Jesus, Larry, you’ve been with us for two years, you know what facts are.”
“All right, goddammit, I don’t have any facts!” Ballard began walking back and forth in front of the desk, slamming his open left hand with his fisted right, like a boxer warming up his taped fists against the target provided by the trainer’s open palm. “Let me work Bart’s assignments for a few days, I’ll get you facts. This has to be in connection with something he was working...”
Kearny shook his head sadly. “Two years as a field investigator? I can’t believe it.”
“Without pay, then,” said Ballard. “You want off the hook with the Jaguar. If I can furnish you with proof—”
Kearny’s “If” dripped scorn. He drummed the desk with his fingers, glaring from Ballard to Giselle impartially. Finally he said, “What did that doctor say was the critical period? Seventy-two hours? You’ve got that to prove or disprove your idea. Have you checked Bart’s case files?”
“Not yet. I didn’t know—”
“Everything’s on his desk. Type up a full list of your cases so Giselle can spread them around among the other men, then go through Bart’s and narrow it down to possibles. I want a summary of those, and daily reports on all work done.” He turned to Giselle. “Bart wasn’t carrying anything except repossessions and chattel recoveries right now, was he?”