Superbia 3 (4 page)

"Did the police vehicle pull out in front of the truck and impede its path of travel?"

Chief Tovarich leaned forward intently to hear Frank's reply.  Frank looked directly at him and said, "That's all I saw."

The Highway cop
circled around Frank to look where his car was parked in front of the bar.  "Were you in your vehicle when the crash happened?"

"Yes."

"So you had an unobstructed view as this police vehicle pulled in front of the truck?"

"No."

"No?"

"
I didn't see the police vehicle pull in front of the truck."

"What did you see?"

"I wasn't looking."

"What were you looking at?"

"My phone.  I heard the crash and ran out of my car."

"May I see your phone?"

"No."

The officer scribbled a few notes and said,
"So what did you see then?"

Frank waved his hands at the automobile wreckage and said, "
I saw ponies and butterflies.  The fuck do you think I saw?"

"I meant, what did you see when you looked inside the vehicle?"

Frank turned around, getting nose-to-nose with the cop, glaring up at him.  "I saw a man I've worked with for fifteen years dying in front of me.  Happy now?"

"Was he wearing his seatbelt?"

"What?"

The highway cop stared
back at him, not moving.  "I said, was he wearing his seatbelt when you first went to check on him?"

Frank glanced at the telephone poles along the street behind D
onoschik, checking quickly for any surveillance cameras.  He tried to remember if he'd seen an in-car camera in the unmarked Taurus as Tovarich pulled up, but couldn't risk turning to look.  "Everything happened so fast, I'm not sure.  I don't recall."

Donoschik looked back at his Chief, who closed his eyes and shrugged.  He turned back to Frank, "You know we can
get that tested, right?  We can have his shirt analyzed for seatbelt fibers and stress on the material to see if he was actually wearing it."

The medevac lifted off the ground from behind the bar, its powerful rotors chopping the air and kicking up clouds of dust and gravel in the parking lot.  Frank covered his eyes as he watched the helicopter ascend and said, "
Your kids must be real proud when you tell them you work with a bunch of guys who risk it all on a daily basis just so you can drive around in your Nazi uniform writing hard-working people two hundred dollar tickets.  What a hero."

Donoschik smiled thinly and said, "What I do is save lives, sir.  We'll talk more about this later when your memory clears up a little."

A dark Jeep with municipal tags rolled slowly past the roadblock, turning toward Chief Tovarich.  The Chief turned around and held out his hand
to welcome them and shook his head in a slow, theatrical display of exasperation.  Two men got out of the Jeep, surveying the wrecked police vehicle carefully.  The shorter, fatter one lifted his sunglasses and bent down to peer inside, "And you say he's alive?"

"For now, Mr. Jones," Tovarich said.  "We've got our fingers crossed that he'll pull through.  Luckily, myself and the administrative officer were right up the street and able to get a medevac here immediately."

"Thank God for that," the second man said.  Frank recognized him as Mr. Frederick, the other half of the newly elected Township council.  He felt acid boiling in his gut as Frederick held out his hand toward the Chief and said, "I want you to know how much we appreciate being informed of this and letting us come out to see the crash."

Tovarich feigned surprise, "But why wouldn't I?  This is a township vehicle, and you are the township supervisors. 
I pride myself on communicating with all our public safety committees.  I've even issued badges and ID cards to the supervisors for circumstances like this."

"
We should look into getting that," Jones said thoughtfully.  He looked at Frank and the rest of the men standing in the parking lot.  "Were they all here when it happened?"

"They came running
out of the bar
when it happened."

Frederick checked his watch and frowned, "It's not even noon.  They were
all in there drinking?"

Chief Tovarich looked at the wrecked police car and nodded solemnly. 

Jones looked at Mr. Frederick and muttered, "What a goddamn mess.  What the hell do we do now?"

The Chief
folded his arms and touched his lips with the tip of his finger, pausing before he said, "Gentlemen, I have no intention of overstepping my bounds here.  I do have some experience in these matters, however.  There's the press, the insurance companies, the public concern, all will need to be addressed in a way that properly positions your township in the best possible way." 

The two supervisors looked at one another, until Frederick said, "We'd be grateful for any advice you can offer, Chief.  W
hat do you have in mind?"

"For instance, if it is against your township's policy to operate a police vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, it may limit your exposure and place responsibility back on Officer Iolaus."

"I'm not sure if that's in there," Jones said.  "We'll have to check."

"Or, if you have a seatbelt policy and Officer Iolaus was not wearing it, it would eliminate the
taxpayer's financial burden of his medical expenses."

Frederick frowned, "I'd hate to seem so callous after the guy was just hurt so badly."

"That's why you have to know how to play it," Tovarich said.  He leaned closer to the men and said gravely, "The unfortunate reality of command is that we are responsible for the good of the people, gentlemen.  The taxpayers rely on us to put the needs of the community above the individuals working within it."

Jones lowered his voice, "I suppose if he was doing something wrong and got hurt, it's kind of his own fault.
At the very least, it's our duty to investigate it."

Chief Tovarich nodded silently
and headed back toward the wrecked police car, taking note that both of the supervisors were soon mimicking him and nodding along as well. 

Frank O'Ryan yanked the steering wheel hard, scr
eeching his rear tires sideways against the smooth cement runway of the hospital parking lot.  There was a marked Manor Farms Township Police Department car already parked in a handicapped spot with
HIGHWAY PATROL
scrawled across the back quarter panels.  Frank raced across the lot for the elevator, hammering the button until it finally lit up and dinged.  He scanned the list with his finger for the Trauma Unit's floor and pressed the button, stepping back to watch the numbers light up in sequence.     

The elevator opened, giving way to a stark white hallway with bright fluorescent lighting.  Frank hurried for the heavy double doors marked
No Admittance
at the end of the hall and rang the buzzer impatiently until a nurse looked up from the main desk and waved for him to go away.  Frank slapped his gold Detective badge against the glass and mouthed, "Let me in!" 

The doors automatically unlocked. 

He thanked the nurse as he hurried past her, peering into every room on either side of the hallway, waving to the old people on ventilators and families surrounding comatose people and saying he was sorry for disturbing them.  He crossed a corridor and flinched at the sight of Corporal Donoschik standing there, speaking to one of the hospital's emergency surgeons.  Frank immediately ducked out of sight and spun to see Anne Iolaus sitting by herself at the far end of the halls, her face dark with rivers of watery black makeup spilling from her swollen eyes. 

Frank hustled down the hallway and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest.  "I
t's going to be okay," he said.  "I promise you."  

"Is he going to die?" she bleated.  "No one will tell me anything.  I just want to know.  We've got a baby
, Frank.  I need to know if she won't have a father."

"Shh," Frank whispered.  "Don't talk like that.  I was there.  I talked to Jim before they took him away, and he was fighting.  All he could talk about was the two of you."

Anne covered her face with her hands and tried to breathe, "I can't believe this happened.  Why now?  Everything was going so good."

Frank put his arm around her and sat her back down.  "Did anyone say anything to you?"

"The doctors haven't even come by yet.  The only person I saw was some police officer from Manor Farms who said he was investigating the accident and wanted to talk to me." 

Frank's face twisted in disgust, "
What the hell did he want?"

"
I have no idea.  All he did was leave me sitting here with Jim's things and told me not to touch anything."

"
Things? What things?"

"This bag," Anne said.  She reached under her seat and pulled out an open paper grocery bag.  "I can smell the blood.  Oh my God," she whispered.
  "I can smell it." 

Frank leaned over and looked in the bag, seeing Iolaus' bloody shirt.  H
is head shot up as he searched the walls and ceiling until he found a black domed security camera sitting directly above them.  There was a bathroom just five feet down the hall, directly under another one of the security domes.  Frank looked back down at the bag and quietly said, "You know, if somebody doesn't put cold water on that shirt, the blood won't come out." 

"
The shirt's ruined," Anne said.  "Who cares?  They can have it.  I'll bring him new clothes."

"That's bad luck.  Cops are
always supposed to leave the hospital in the shirt they came in with.  It's like a sign, saying you're bigger and badder than whatever put you in there."  

"It is?"

"But if nobody gets some cold water on that blood it won't work and you know, in cases like this," his voice trailed off.  "Every little bit helps."

"You really think I should?"

"I would want Dawn to do it for me."

Anne Iolaus
snatched the shirt out of the bag and raced down the hall with it and shouldered her way through the bathroom door.  Frank heard the sound of the water tap opening up, followed by angry, frustrated scrubbing.  He slid the paper bag back under the chair with his foot and sat back in time to hear the squeaking sound of hard, rubber-soled boots coming down the sterilized hallway.  He looked up at Corporal Donoschik and said, "Any word?"

"Nothing yet.  What are you doing here?"

"I came to sit with Jim's wife, since she was left here all alone."

Donoschik looked down the hallway, "Where is she?"

"Bathroom."

Donoschik bent down under her seat and retrieved the paper bag, pinching it between his fingers like he was afraid to touch it.  He peeled the bag open and looked down,
releasing a strange guttural noise of disbelief just as Anne Iolaus came out of the bathroom holding her husband's wet, bloody shirt.  "I got as much as I could out," she said.

Donoschik shivered with anger.  He stormed toward her and
wrenched the shirt out of her hands, "What the hell are you doing?  I told you not to touch that!"

Frank
leapt out of his seat, shouting, "Stand down, asshole.  Who the hell do you think you're talking to?"  

Donoschik clutched the
soaking wet shirt in his hands, "This is evidence!  I could arrest you for tampering with evidence right now!"

Frank's eyes widened in disbelief. 
"Wait, that shirt was evidence?" he said, gasping in alarm.  "Anne, was the bag sealed shut with evidence tape?"

"No," she sputtered.

"Did you have to break into someplace where it was being secured?"

"No, it was
sitting under my seat."

Frank looked back
in disbelief at Donoschik, "You mean, you left evidence sitting around for anyone to compromise?  How does that maintain a chain of custody?  In fact, now that I think about it, when I walked up I saw that bag but you were nowhere around.  Is that what they teach you that at highway school?"