I topped the rise. She must have thought the exit was one of the almost completed ones that would have swung her back onto Beacon Hill. At the last moment, she tried to stop. I saw the flash of brake lights, but it was too late. She was going too fast.
The van skidded crazily and then rammed into the two Jersey barriers, movable concrete barricades, at the end of the ramp.
I stopped in my tracks and watched in horror. For the smallest fraction of a second, I thought the barrier would hold. It didn't. The two pieces split apart like a breaking dam and fell away. Carried forward by momentum, the van nosed up for a split second, then disappeared from view.
An eternity passed before I heard the shattering crash as it hit the ground below. Riveted to the ground, frozen by disbelief, I heard a keening horn, the chilling sound of someone impaled on a steering wheel.
Sickened and desperate, I turned and ran back the way I had come. Within seconds, the wailing horn was joined by the faint sounds of approaching sirens. I recognized them at once. Medic One. The sirens did more than just clear traffic out of the way. They said help was coming. They said there was a chance.
"Hurry," I prayed under my breath. "Please hurry."
As I reached the Porsche, I saw two squad cars speeding south on the freeway, blue lights flashing. The boy on the bicycle had made the call. They were coming to help me.
Nice going, guys!
CHAPTER 31
It took three illegal turns to get off the freeway and reach the area on Airport Way where the Van had fallen to earth. By the time I got there, someone had mercifully silenced the horn.
Naturally, a crowd had gathered, the usual bloodthirsty common citizens who don't get enough blood and gore on television, who have to come glimpse whatever grisly sight may be available, to see who's dead and who's dying. Revolted, I pushed my way through them. An uncommonly fat woman in a bloodied flowered muumuu with a plastic orchid lei around her neck sat weeping on a curb. I bent over her, checking to make sure she was all right.
"Look at my car," she sobbed. "That thing fell out of the sky right on me. My poor car! I could have been killed. If someone had been in the backseat…"
I looked where she pointed. A few feet from the van sat the pretty much intact front end of an old Cadillac Seville. The rear end of the car, from the backseat on, had been smashed flat. All that remained behind the front door was a totally unrecognizable pile of rubble.
A few feet away lay the battered van, surrounded by hunks of shattered concrete. The van's engine had been shoved back to the second seat. It lay on its side like a stricken horse with a troop of medics and firemen scurrying around it.
My knees went weak. I felt sick to my stomach. The sweet stench of cooking grain from the brewery mixed with the odor of leaking gasoline and the metallic smell of blood. The concoction filled my nostrils, accelerating my heartbeat, triggering my gag reflex.
I attempted to stand up, hoping to get away from the smell and to escape the lady in the flowered dress, but she grabbed onto my arms, pulling herself up along with me. Once we were both upright, she clung to me desperately, repeating the same words over and over, as if repetition would make sense of the incomprehensible.
"It just fell out of the air. Can you imagine? It landed right on top of me."
Prying her fingers loose one by one, I broke away from her. "You stay here," I told her. "I'll send someone to check on you." I walked toward the wreck. A uniformed officer recognized me and waved me past a police barricade.
Just then a second Medic One unit arrived at the scene. A pair of medics hurried to the woman's side. I turned my full attention on the van.
Paramedics, inside and outside the vehicle, struggled to position their equipment, trying to reach the injured occupants of the van. I knew from experience that their job would be to stabilize the patients before any attempt was made to remove them from the vehicle, place them in ambulances, and transport them to hospitals.
Standing a little to one side, I waited. I didn't want to be part of the official entourage. I didn't want to ask or answer any questions. I was there as a person, a friend, not as a detective. The less anyone was aware of my presence, the better.
Dimly, I observed the gathering of reporters who showed up and demanded to know what was going on. Who was in the van? What school was it from? How had it happened? Were there any children involved?
Not directly, I thought. Only Heather and Tracie, whose father lay trapped in that twisted mass of metal. I thought of them then for the first time, of two girls waiting at home for me to bring them word of their father.
A paramedic crawled out of the vehicle and walked toward the lieutenant who was directing the rescue effort. In answer to the captain's question, the paramedic shook his head.
Dreading to hear the words and yet unable to stay away, I moved close enough to overhear what they were saying despite the roar of nearby fire truck engines.
"She's gone," the paramedic said. "What about the guy?"
"Lost a lot of blood," the lieutenant answered. "I don't know if we'll get him out in time or not."
I dropped back out of earshot, trying to make myself small and inconspicuous. I didn't want to hear more. The paramedic's words had confirmed my own worst fears. They didn't think Peters would make it.
I didn't, either.
I retreated to the curb and sat down a few feet away from where the woman in the flowered dress was being treated for cuts and bruises. I closed my eyes and buried my face in my hands. I kept telling myself that Seattle 's Medic One was the best in the country, that if anyone could save Peters' life, they could. My feeble reassurances fell flat.
Peters was still trapped. How could they save his life if they couldn't even get him out of the van?
I forced myself to sit there. While the paramedics worked furiously to save Peters' life, they didn't need someone like me looking over their shoulders, getting in the way, and screwing up the works.
Detectives are ill-suited to doing nothing. It goes against their training and mind-set. Sitting there, staying out of the way, took tremendous effort, a conscious, separate act of will for every moment of inactivity. Watching the paramedics and the firemen on and in the van was like watching an anthill. Everyone seemed to be doing some mysterious specialized task without any observable direction or plan.
Then, suddenly, the anthill of activity changed. There was a new urgency as firemen moved forward, bringing with them the heavy metal shears they call the jaws of life. Without a wasted motion, they attacked the side of the van. Within minutes, they had cut a hole a yard wide in the heap of scrap metal. Leaning into the hole, they began to ease something out through it. They worked it out gradually, with maddening slowness, but also with incredible care.
Peters lay on a narrow wooden backboard with a cervical collar stabilizing his head and neck. Blood oozed from his legs, arms, and face. Carefully, they placed him on a waiting stretcher and wrapped his legs in what looked like a pressurized space suit, then carried him ever so gently toward a waiting medic unit. A trail of IVs dragged along behind them.
I was grateful to see that. The IVs meant Peters was still alive, at least right then.
As the medic unit moved away, its siren beginning a long rising wail, I was surprised to discover that darkness had fallen without my noticing. Floodlights had been brought in to light the scene so the paramedics and firemen could see to work. It was dark and cold and spitting rain. I had been so totally focused on the van that I had seen and felt none of it.
Chilled to the bone, I straightened my stiffened legs and walked to where the paramedics were busy reassembling and packing up their equipment. I buttonholed one I had seen crawl out of the van just before they brought Peters out.