The woman Ada seemed nice, even if she carried that big gun.
Lena would make the best of the situation, break out her phone and video some footage of the town. Make the best of the time she was there. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be for too long.
6.
WINGED
Even though it had been eight years, every once in a while Cass would flash back to that day.
Or rather the details of that day; the events never left her mind.
It was the taillight of one of the cars in the parking lot of Eb’s shop that started it. One of the three cars involved in the accident story she as working on.
Her fingers reached down to it, running across the back end of the car, the taillights not even broken.
How was that possible when the entire front end was missing? Some things were never explainable.
Laughter.
Cass thought of how hard she and Eb laughed at the beginning of that day.
“Fifty-seven,” Eb said as they drove. “Whoa. Wait. Fifty-nine.”
“He’s creeping up to the speed limit.” Cass laughed.
“Your father will never drive the speed limit. Ever.”
“I don’t know what changed,” Cass said. “I remember my mother always yelling at him to slow down.”
“He probably never sped,” Eb told her. “Just not your dad. Your mom is probably still telling him to slow down.”
“We should have been the lead car,” Cass said.
“No, then we’d be doing that thing where we pull over every twenty miles to wait for them.”
“We may get to the Grand Canyon this week, right?” Cass joked.
Eb laughed. “Oh, wait, he’s picking up speed. No, he changed his mind. Fifty-six… shit.”
Truck.
“Cass?”
Eb’s voice startled her some, causing her heart to skip a beat, her body to jump and a buzz in her ears. She spun around.
Withdrawing from the memory, she smiled. “Oh, hey, Eb.”
“Oh, hey, Cass. I know that look on your face.”
“Yep. You do.” She folded her arms to her body and smiled up at him.
Eb had aged and did so well. But to her, he still looked the same as he did when they were teenagers. Tall and lanky, tattooed arms defined from working on the cars and trucks. His age was masked behind his beard with dark wavy hair that sported a wiry gray here and there.
“So,” Eb said, “word on the street is you’re doing the accident story.”
“Considering this town has about a dozen streets it’s easy to hear.”
“Kit told me you were coming.”
“I can’t stand him,” Cass said. “He’s such a hotshot. He walks and struts looking like he should be doing strip-a-grams somewhere instead of enforcing the law.”
“You’re funny.”
“He told me I wasn’t allowed in the station.”
“You’re not.”
Cass waved her finger. “Only if the chief is there. And he threw up how Mark saved my butt on that one.”
“That’s true.”
“No, Mark told the chief a libel suit would only hold if it was proven false. It wasn’t. So anyhow, tales of the kinky police department and my brief second husband are not why I’m here.”
“The crash.”
Cass nodded. “Marge thinks something was up.”
“It was an accident, Cass, you know they happen.”
“I do. But she wants answers. You know, how it happened. Just to understand. You have that talent.”
Eb laughed. “What talent?”
“Remember when we were kids and you used to be able to look at a dent in a car and say exactly how it happened.”
“Cass, if you’re wanting me to say how this happened, it’s pretty easy. No brainer. Don’t need to be a body shop worker, insurance adjuster, or crash investigator. Any Joe or Harry can see. Three cars. Blue, driven by Brad. Gray and red driven by tourists. Gray and red cars were traveling south. They weren’t moving. Both were stopped in the middle of the road, one right behind the other. Brad was going about sixty, and for some reason he just veered left, off his side, drifting into…”
Drifting.
Cass was back in the car with Eb eight years earlier, she saw that truck. It wasn’t a tractor-trailer, it was a pickup truck. A newer one and bigger than normal. It was flying, and drifted into their lane…
“Cass, you listening?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I was just trying to picture it. Go on,” she said.
“Anyhow, once Brad hit the deer he plowed into the gray car, the red car tried to move, but Brad didn’t slow down, hit that too, then continued aiming left until he hit a tree.”
Cass just stared.
“What?”
“That’s a lot of details for anyone to figure out. I know why he drifted into the southbound lane. We watched the dashcam footage. He was too worried about the deer that was behind him.”
“Another deer?” Eb asked. “I know I figured the gray car stopped for the deer that Brad hit.”
“I saw the deer he didn’t hit. It was winter color. You don’t by chance have the one that Brad hit, do you?”
Eb chuckled. “No. But… chunks in the front end mean it was the same winter color.”
“Crazy Ada told Kit that she stopped hunting yesterday because the deer are sick. I was gonna head over to talk to her. I think she’s right,” Cass said. “By that footage, the buck was not behaving normally.”
“She may be right. I’ve smelled deer guts and I ain’t never smelled anything this foul.”
“Seriously?”
Eb nodded. “You gonna make this story about sick deer?”
“Heck yeah, if it’s true, they caused the accident.”
Eb’s attention turned to the road. “Speaking of Crazy Ada. Walt had to tow a vehicle from her property. Broke down. You may like it.”
Cass turned and looked. “Oh, wow, that’s Lena Feeny’s reality show bus. Is she in town?”
“I think she’s at Crazy Ada’s. She’s not with Walt.”
“Sweet. I’ll talk to you later and thanks for your help.” She tiptoed up and kissed him on the cheek. “Maybe I’ll get an interview.”
“Go get ’em, Scoop.”
That made her smile. She looked back one more time to Eb, then headed to Ada’s.
Ada had never really thought of her home as charming until Lena enthusiastically complimented it. And Ada believed her; she wasn’t being polite, she was genuine.
“Oh, Ada,” Lena said as they stepped into the kitchen. “Thank you for the tour. This is just rustic and charming. This kitchen is so big. It’s a dream.”
“Thank you.”
“I take it you cook a lot.”
“Nope,” Ada replied. “Not at all. Not much of a cook.”
“Really? This is a cook’s dream kitchen.”
“My husband was the cook. He designed this house. He passed and the kitchen doesn’t get the use it should.”
“I’m sorry about your husband.”
“We had plans, you know,” Ada said, “him and I. We were going to make this into a bed and breakfast one day. Everything you eat is off the land, the food, meat, water.”
“Why don’t you still do it?” Lena asked.
“It’s a lot of work. Maybe if I had someone to help. Plus, you know”—Ada winked—“there’s that bit about breakfast. I don’t cook.”
Lena smiled. “Now, I noticed the bedrooms were all made up. Do you have children, roommates?”
Ada shook her head. “Nope, I live alone. My niece and her kids come by to stay once a month. So I keep the rooms ready.”