Once again it pulled alongside us, this time the barrel of a gun clearly visible on the passenger side. Frank grabbed me by the neck with one hand, forcing my head down. I could see nothing, but felt the car veer from side to side. Suddenly a blast of shattered glass fell all around me as the gunman fired through the back windshield.
Frank took the wheel with both hands again, and I started to sit up, ignoring him when he shouted, “Stay down!” We reached the crest of the hill and began rocketing our way down the other side. That was when we saw the garbage truck.
Coming up the hill from the opposite direction, almost as if in slow motion, the lumbering white giant filled the road. There was no time to stop. Both cars were plummeting downhill side by side, heading straight for the truck. Frank gave a hard pull to the right, driving up onto the sidewalk. The car jolted as we went over the curb and mowed down a picket fence. We heard a sound like a bomb going off, the loud boom of the Lincoln hitting the truck. We kept going, Frank trying to regain control of the Volvo as it bounced wildly through front yard after front yard. The front windshield shattered as we came to rest with a bone-jarring halt in a large hedge. Beads of glass and sticks and leaves came flying at us, with Frank’s side of the car taking the brunt of the impact.
There was that eerie peacefulness that follows collisions. For a moment, it seemed all was still. I was a little dazed, but came around quickly. I became aware that my forehead was cut in several places and bleeding, but not too badly. I may have hit the dash. I was shaken up, but nothing seemed to hurt much.
Then I heard Frank moan softly.
He was slumped over the wheel.
“Frank?”
Another small moaning sound. Afraid to move him, I called his name again, without response. He was breathing through his mouth, as if he were sleeping. There was a streak of blood down the front of his shirt, but it all seemed to be from his nose and some facial cuts.
People from the neighborhood were starting to come toward the car. An elderly man reached us first. He spoke to me though the open windshield. “You okay, honey?”
“Yes, but please call an ambulance. And the police.”
“Already called ’em. They’re on the way. Is your friend all right?”
“I don’t know. He’s breathing. There’s some blood. He’s unconscious. I can’t tell how badly he’s hurt. I’m afraid to move him.”
“That’s all right, now. Shouldn’t move him. Can you open your door here? It’s pretty smashed in on this side.”
I tried, but it was no use. The trip through the alley had sealed us in.
Frank moaned again. I felt utterly useless to him.
“Don’t let that worry you, honey, he’s just trying real hard to come around. My name’s Charlie. What’s yours?”
“Irene,” I said. “This is Frank. Detective Frank Harriman,” I added, not really knowing why.
“Oh, a policeman? Well, it looks like you two had quite a chase. You came out better than the folks in that blue car. Those boys didn’t have a prayer.” I looked around, still in something of a fog. The garbage truck and what was left of the Lincoln seemed far, far away.
If it hadn’t been for that old man, I would have gone crazy. I couldn’t tell how badly Frank was hurt, I couldn’t get out of the damned car. But Charlie would see my face grow worried, and console me. “He’s going to be okay, Irene,” he would say, “I know you wish there was something you could do, but you can’t, you’ve just got to hang on for a little while. He’s gonna make it, it looks worse than it is. You listen to this old man; I know.”
I was calmed by his constant stream of conversation. His gravelly voice went on and on, telling me his life story, trying to distract me. Before I knew it, I heard the wail of sirens coming up the hill.
“There, now, you see?” Charlie said. “That didn’t take too long. They’ll have you out of here in no time. And they’ll get your friend fixed up, too. He’ll be all right. He just needs a little time to come around is all.”
As if he heard Charlie, Frank moved himself to a sitting position for a moment, eyes closed; he moaned, then slumped over the steering wheel again. His nose had been bloodied, his upper lip was swelling; much more I couldn’t see before he fell forward.
The paramedics arrived. They got a crowbar and went to work on the car doors, Frank’s side first. They got the door open and tried talking to him, checking him over and cleaning him up a little without moving him. He didn’t come to, so they gently strapped his back and neck to a support board. I watched as they carefully managed removing him from the car, taking no chances with his injuries. By this time, one of the other men had helped me out of the other side. I felt shaky and tired, but was okay. They cleaned my cuts out and bandaged my forehead, and made sure I could answer questions like “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Someone had called in a report of an injured officer, and more sirens soon howled their way to the scene. I was watching Frank get loaded into an ambulance, feeling afraid to see him taken away, when I heard someone say, “Miss Kelly?”
I looked over to see a short, dark-haired man in a suit. He introduced himself as Pete Baird, and told me he was Frank’s partner. He offered to take me over to the hospital, but would I mind answering a few questions on the way? Before we left, I walked over to Charlie and said, “Thank you isn’t enough, Charlie. I won’t forget your kindness.”
He looked genuinely bashful as I shook his hand.
As I passed by the remains of the Volvo, I suddenly remembered Hannah. To Pete Baird’s surprise, I got back in the car and crawled halfway over the seat. I picked up the box with Hannah’s skull in it and retrieved the papers from under broken glass. I opened the top flap of the box, and there was Hannah, grinning at me, unscathed by it all.
“What have you got there?”
“This,” I said, gently closing the box, “is the beginning of a long story.”
18
PETE LED ME over to a black-and-white where two uniformed officers stood waiting. As Frank’s partner, Pete already knew about O’Connor’s notes and Frank’s conversation with Hernandez. As we drove to the hospital, I told him about the visit with Dr. MacPherson. I asked him if they could please have someone check on the professor. I thought of MacPherson’s last cautioning words to Frank-he was right, harming a cop was no big deal to whoever had come after us.
“Do you know who was in the Lincoln?” I asked.
“No, not yet. I don’t know if anyone told you-they’re both dead.”
“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Do you think this was the car that fired the shots into your house?”
“Yes, pretty sure. But I’m not positive.”
“That’s okay. If it is, ballistics will probably be able to match the gun to the bullets from your wall. These guys followed you from San Pedro?”
I told him about the drive back, and the chase. It seemed as if it had all happened to someone else, except that I was holding a skull in my lap. It was funny in a way. I didn’t want to have it near me earlier. Now it was my link to believing we still had an edge over whoever wanted Hannah’s identity to remain a secret.
“Here,” I said, reluctantly handing the box to Pete. “It’s her skull. And here are the computer drawings. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take one set in to the paper. And this is a list of places she was most likely to have lived before coming here, or at least, where she lived as a child.”