“Oh, we’re sitting?” Kit asked. “This has to be good if you’re making me sit.”
“Like you don’t sit all day, in the car, in the office,” Cass snipped.
“Cass. What?”
“The accident on Miller Run last night,” Cass said.
“What about it?” Kit asked. “If you’re trying to run a story, really it’s basic. No drinking and driving. Just a freak accident.”
“Kit,” Cass said. “It was on Miller. The fact alone that there were three cars at the same time on Miller is freakish.”
“Well, two of the cars were traveling together. Sort of a reunion of a Route 66 tour they do every ten years.”
Brian looked curiously at Cass, then to Kit. “If they do it every ten years how were they lost and using Miller? That’s what we heard.”
“They weren’t lost,” Kit replied. “They took Miller Run on purpose to avoid Griffin.’
Cass scoffed a laugh. “Seriously? They wanted to avoid our town. Why?”
“Avoid Crazy Ada,” Kit replied. “She shot at them for getting too close to her property and they won’t come back.”
“When?” Cass asked.
“Thirty years ago,” Kit answered.
“Way to hold a grudge,” Cass said. “The accident. Were you there afterward?”
Kit folded his hands on his lap as he reclined. “Yeah, yeah, I was. It was pretty bad. You know, the cars are all down at Eb’s.” Kit pointed back as if he were actually pointing at the garage. “If you wanna take a look. I mean, I’m sure they won’t have a problem showing you, considering one owner is your editor and the other is your first ex-husband.”
“Original. Never called him an ex,” Cass said. “It won’t be necessary right now. Marge’s boy was in that. Which is why we’re here. She wants answers.”
“Not many to give,” Kit replied. “It was an accident. Messy but an accident. His girl was killed by way of…” He raised his eyebrows a few times. “Antler.”
“Antler?” Cass asked. “What do you mean antler?”
“Four- or six-point buck.” Kit shrugged. “All points impaled her somewhere when the buck came through the windshield.”
“Do you have pictures?” Brian asked.
“Brian,” Cass scolded.
“What?” Brian lifted his hand. “It would be interesting to see.”
“I have pictures,” Kit said. “But like I originally said: a freak accident. Nearest we can figure, Brad hit a deer, was driving blind, the white Chevy hit a deer and—”
“Wait,” Cass halted him. “Two cars, hit two deer…?”
“And Brad hit the other car.”
“Two deer up on Miller Run?” Cass asked.
“Cass, it’s not abnormal when they’re running to find safety. Ada was up there hunting earlier in the day.”
“It’s not hunting season,” Cass said.
“It’s Crazy Ada,” Kit replied. “But…” He reached into the drawer. “If you want to give Marge answers”—he pulled out a plastic bag containing a broken dash camera—“this was from one of the cars. Found it on the road. The memory card is in there. Maybe watch it. But bring that back please.”
“Absolutely.” Cass took it. “Thank you, Kit. And thank you for the information.” She stood up and turned to leave.
“Oh, Cass.” Kit snapped his finger. “I did think of something weird. The deer… they were gray-brown.”
Cas tilted her head staring at him with questionable surprise.
“What?” Brian asked, confused. “What does that mean?”
“That’s a winter color for them,” Cass answered. “That’s just really weird.”
“Maybe they’re sick,” Brian suggested.
Kit shrugged. “If you ask Crazy Ada she says they’re poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Cass questioned. “Why does she say that?”
“I don’t know,” Kit replied. “She was up there hunting and wouldn’t shoot them because they’re poisoned. Her words, not mine.”
“Thanks. And…” Cass showed him the bag. “I’ll bring this right back.”
She and Brian walked from the station, causing the bell to ding on their exit. Once outside, Cass stopped.
“Could that mean something?” Brian asked.
“It… it could. I mean, if the deer are sick, it could have them behaving erratically. Which would give some answers to Marge. I mean, when a person you love is in an accident, you want answers. You… you need answers, you search for something to make sense of it, anything…” Cass’ words trailed and her eyes seemed to drift off.
“Cass.”
She jumped a little, blinking a couple times. “Yep.”
“Sorry.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. I’m good. Let’s get back to the paper and watch the dash cam. Because I’m pretty sure we’ll see all we need to on this.” She lifted the camera. “If not, there’s always a visit to Crazy Ada.”
“That’s not even funny.”
“Yeah, it is. I love when you talk to her. You get all nervous.”
“She’s always holding a gun and aiming it at me.
“You’ll have that.” Cass started to walk.
“No, Cass you won’t.”
Cass ignored him and kept walking back to the office. She laughed a little at Brian but, she knew, once she looked at the footage, laughing would be the last thing she’d want to do.
Crazy Ada wasn’t really crazy. Not at all. It was only those who didn’t know her who called her that. And those who just got used to saying Crazy Ada. Even she referred to herself as that name when ordering pizza. It was the surefire way that the order would always be right.
Those who knew Ada knew her to be a bit eccentric and a whole lot of quirky, but they also knew her as smart, witty, and resourceful. She had the only house and piece of land considered part of Griffin but located a mile out of the town down a country road off Route 66.
She and her husband got the house with the GI loan when they were first married. They prided themselves on making their land a place to be self-reliant. Having been lifelong Griffin residents, they knew how isolated and spotty things got with technology even before the internet.
She and her husband were savvy. Both had been in the Marines for ten years. They got married and then got the house. Ada worked at the hospital as a nurse for a little while, but travel to Flagstaff was a lot when Tommy fell ill not even ten years into their marriage.
He needed constant care, and after he passed she supported herself as a firearms instructor.
Now she was more of a consultant.
Ada thought back to those early days of her really wild side when she went into town for a paper. She’d heard about the accident with the couples that avoided Griffin. Ada remembered them well and how they tried to press charges. To her it was funny because the three decades had made the incident somewhat of an urban legend. Young people told the story of how they were lost and were trying to get directions and Ada chased them with a shotgun, shooting at them the whole way.
In fact, the couple told the same story, probably even believing that was the truth after all the years of lying.
It wasn’t.
Just like she told the chief of police back then, they were drunk, one tried to ‘pop a squat’ by her fence, and she scared them off. She never fired at them. The chief knew damn well if she did aim at them, she would have hit them. Ada didn’t miss.
She heard about the tragic accident, not from the news—they didn’t put out papers often enough to be up to date—but from Dale at the corner market. He told her they were up on Miller Run and Ada knew exactly what caused the accident.
The deer. They were erratic and sick for some reason. Behaving out of the ordinary. Deer in the area was uncommon. Ada heard they were there and she wanted to take advantage of it, until she saw them.