The Popsicle Tree (27 page)

“That's okay, Joshua. We'll get you home now.”

Bonnie Bronson appeared in the doorway of the main playroom, where the other kids were doing various kid things involving a minimum of noise.

“Miss Bronson,” I said by way of acknowledgment, and she merely nodded, then looked pointedly from Estelle to me. Estelle merely lowered her head, then led me to the door.

“I'm sure he'll be better tomorrow,” she said as she opened the door for me.

“Thank you.” I carried Joshua to the car. Looking back toward the house as I was opening the driver's side door after depositing Joshua in the back seat, I saw the two sisters standing behind the screen door, watching. Well, Estelle was watching me. Bonnie was watching Estelle.

*

I don't know how real parents do it, but I'm very glad we skipped the diaper-changing stage. A vomiting four-year-old is plenty bad enough! Poor Joshua threw up twice on the way home, and once when we got inside—luckily I had enough advance warning to get him to the toilet bowl in time.

As I was cleaning him up, I reflected on my earlier thoughts about single life as opposed to family domesticity, and the single life didn't look so bad.

I managed to get him into his pajamas and into bed. He wanted me to read to him, and I got about three pages into
The Littlest Tractor
before he fell asleep. I had to clean the car, but I didn't dare leave him alone. But the minute Jonathan walked in the door, after a brief hug, I grabbed a roll of paper towels and the spray cleaner, and was out the door.

Though I'd had to park on the street (as had Jonathan, though I couldn't spot his car anywhere), I'd arrived home in time to find a spot fairly close to the apartment. God knows how far away Jonathan had to park.

*

By morning, Joshua seemed to be pretty much back to normal, though when I took his temperature he still had something of a fever, so Jonathan called work to say he wouldn't be in. (“It's been pretty slow this week,” he reassured me, “and we finished that big job yesterday.”) Then he called Happy Day to tell them he'd be keeping Joshua home for the day.

I left for work a few minutes early, hoping I could avoid the commuter train this time. Everything was fine until I reached the top of the steep hill leading down to the railroad crossing at the very bottom. There was a fair amount of traffic ahead of me and I saw the damned crossing lights start flashing as the gates started coming down.
Damn it!

I started applying the brakes to slow down, and the pedal went all the way to the floor!

Shit!
I started pumping the brakes and nothing happened, except that I continued to pick up speed. I tried shifting down, which didn't do much, then pulled the emergency brake. Nothing! I was rapidly coming up on the car in front of me. Thank God no cars were coming up the hill, so I swung over into the other lane, missing the car in front by just feet.

Great! Now what?
I was going faster and faster down a steep hill, headed straight for a railroad crossing with an approaching train!
Shit!
I shut off the engine and tried to jam the gears into reverse! Nothing but a loud screeching, grinding sound. I glanced at the speedometer: 45 and rising. I could cut across the street and go up over the curb, but there was nothing to slow me down except houses and trees, neither of which seemed like a wise option.

Then I saw the small cemetery paralleling the railroad tracks and surrounded with a hedgerow fence. With luck, the hedge would slow me down without totally destroying the car; but if it didn't slow me down enough, I'd go right onto the tracks and into the side of the train!

Laying the heel of my hand on the horn…
what the hell good is
that
supposed to do?
my mind-voices wanted to know, rightfully…
Let the train know you're coming?
I pulled the wheel to the left, watched the cars of the passing train coming closer and closer, bounced roughly over the curb, and into the hedgerow. I heard the loud hissing and scraping of the branches on the car, then a large, solid
thunk
as the front end hit something very solid, stopping the car. I was ten feet from the end of the hedgerow and twenty feet from the railroad tracks, where the last car of the train was just passing.

Thank you, God!

*

Somebody gave me a ride about four blocks to the nearest phone, where I called for a wrecker and for Jonathan to come get me. I was just thankful that he and Joshua hadn't been in the car with me.

After making the calls, I walked back to my car, where two patrol cars were waiting. I explained what had happened, and that I'd called for a wrecker. Seemingly reassured that I wasn't either drunk or on drugs, one of the cops still wanted to give me a ticket for reckless driving and/or for operating a motor vehicle in an unsafe manner. Apparently he'd already met his ticket quota for the month, since I managed to talk him out of it.

About fifteen minutes later, the tow truck arrived and, after both cops directed traffic while the wrecker backed up to my car, the ticket-prone cop got in his squad car and drove off. Just as the truck hooked up to the car, Jonathan pulled up on the other side of the street, with Joshua and Bunny staring out the back window at the scene. Seeing no cars coming, Jonathan made a U-turn…
not the wisest of moves, Jonathan,
I thought…and pulled up behind the squad car.

“My ride,” I explained lamely to the cop, and he just nodded.

Whew!

I hurried over to the car and got in.

“Are you okay?” Jonathan asked, as he'd already asked on the phone, and I again assured him I was. His face reflected his concern.

“Why is your car in the bushes?” Joshua asked.

The wrecker was now winching the much-the-worse-for-wear car out of the tangle of flattened and broken hedgerow. The front end had sustained quite a bit of damage, and the paint was badly scraped, but it looked reparable. At least I hoped it was.

When the car was totally winched to the wrecker, the cop again directed traffic while it pulled out into the street. Jonathan pulled around the squad car and followed it as I waved a thanks to the cop.

“You're
sure
you're all right?” Jonathan asked for the third time.

“I'm sure,” I said, aware that Joshua and Bunny were trying to climb through the space between the front bucket seats to get up front with us.

“Leave Bunny back there,” I told him, and he did, then climbed up onto my lap.

“And how are
you
feeling, Joshua?” I asked, putting my arms around his waist both as potential protection from a sudden stop and to keep his inevitable squirming to a minimum.

He looked at me, his face taking on a wide-eyed look of utmost solemnity, and said, “I've been very, very sick!” nodding his head slowly up and down in confirmation.

“But you're better now,” I said, and Joshua looked to Jonathan, who grinned and nodded.

“Yes,” Joshua said, reassured, “I'm better now.”

We followed the tow truck to the garage, and the owner told me he'd get to it as soon as he could. I gave him my home and office numbers, and the number of my insurance man, and asked him to call me as soon as he knew anything—especially about what might have caused the brakes to fail. I knew I'd had them checked as part of my last tune-up.

I was tempted to just not bother going in to work, but I had to finish up a research assignment for one of my lawyer clients, so had Jonathan drive me to work. I told him I'd catch the bus home.

It was nearly nine thirty by the time I got to the office, and the light on my answering machine was blinking. I walked over and pressed Play.

“Mr. Hardesty, this is Estelle Bronson. I've been giving a great deal of thought to the matter, and since you've come up with nothing to indicate Carlene's death was anything but an accident, I think we should consider the issue closed. Please send me a bill for your services, and thank you very much for indulging me.”

No “Good-bye.” No “Give me a call if you have any questions.” Nothing. But I got the definite impression that while Estelle was saying the words, Bonnie had put them in her mouth and was probably standing right behind her when she said them.

Great! So here I was with no client and a wrecked car, all in the space of two hours. Estelle had perhaps been technically correct in my not having come up with any solid evidence that Carlene's death was not an accident, but I'd bet my bottom dollar that it wasn't.

Well, it was her nickel, and I couldn't afford the time or money to pursue the case any further on my own…especially now that Joshua had entered the picture. I always hated to leave a case dangling, but I had no choice.

I left the office and went to the Hall of Records to do the research I needed.

*

Rather than go directly home from the Hall of Records, I stopped by the office to drop off the materials I'd collected and to make a few notes to myself for typing up a report in the morning. Once again, the light on my answering machine was blinking.

There were two messages, the first from the garage where my car had been taken. Well, they didn't waste much time, obviously.

“Mr. Hardesty, call Otto at Otto's Auto Repair right away, please.”

The second was from Jonathan.

“Dick, it's Jonathan.” I never understood why he always felt it necessary to tell me who he was—I was pretty sure I could recognize his voice by this time. “The guy at the garage wants you to call him right away.”

So I did.

I asked for Otto and there was a long pause.

“Hello?”

“Otto, this is Dick Hardesty returning your call. What did you find out?”

“Uh, yeah, Mr. Hardesty.” He sounded a little hesitant. “This might be a strange question, but do you have any enemies?”

That one struck me as peculiar, to say the least. “Yeah, I'm sure I've got a couple. Why?” I didn't have an immediate idea of what he was getting at, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like it.

“Well, I just thought you might want to make a police report.”

“They took a report at the scene.”

“Yeah, but did they know somebody cut your brake fluid hoses?”

CHAPTER 13

My first reaction was surprise, which quickly segued into a mild shock. No one had ever seriously tried to kill me before—and I had to assume cutting someone's brake hoses had to be considered serious.

Nothing gets by you, does it, Hardesty?
a mind-voice observed.

And if whoever did it knew I would be going down that hill toward a train track, I'd say it was pretty damned serious.

My second reaction was anger, which blossomed into near fury. What if Jonathan and/or Joshua had been in the car with me and those bushes hadn't been there? If anyone has a grudge against me, they can take their best shot…but they'd damned well better keep everyone else out of it, especially people I care about.

If whoever had done this had just left well enough alone, I'd have put the whole matter behind me. I'd just resigned myself to the fact that with no client paying the bills, I'd simply have to let it drop. Ah, but that was before it became
really
personal, and I had very little doubt that when I found whoever was responsible for the brakes, I'd also find who killed—or was responsible for killing—Carlene DeNuncio.

I wanted a cigarette, and that alone told me I was more shaken up than I thought. I hadn't had a cigarette, or wanted one, literally in years.

I put in a call to Marty Gresham at police headquarters, just to let him know what was going on, but he wasn't in the office, so I just decided to try again in the morning.

I closed up the office, and walked to the bus stop.

*

I wasn't really aware of the ride home—almost missed my stop, as a matter of fact—for thinking about who might have cut my brake lines, and why. Well, the “why” was fairly obvious: someone suspected I knew more than, in fact, I did know, and didn't want me to find out any more. As to who that “someone” might be, though….

Bonnie Bronson? She'd always been a sort of peripheral suspect as far as I was concerned, and she had obviously talked Estelle into firing me. So why not let it go at that?

Well, maybe she was covering her ass with Estelle and anyone else who might follow up on my movements/activities prior to my demise, had the attempt to kill me succeeded. I still wasn't certain about the relationship between the two sisters, but it struck me that Estelle might be a tad suspicious of her sister if I suddenly turned up dead. I couldn't really picture Bonnie with a pair of clippers cutting the lines herself—she didn't strike me as the mechanical type. But if Eddie Styles was still around somewhere, she—or Jan Houston—could have had him do it for her. Roy D'Angelo could easily have done it himself, but it was highly unlikely he was still in town.

Jan Houston hadn't been too happy with me when I last talked to her. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Jan knew her way around an engine. Had I asked her if she by any chance knew Eddie Styles? I wasn't sure, but if I hadn't, I would.