The Long Sleep (2 page)

It seemed to me that an accident was an
accident, whether it was a car crash or too much depressant. But I
couldn’t help sort of agreeing that if you
could
be kept
alive, then maybe you were, sort of. Maybe I didn’t know anything
about it. No wonder Hank thought it was interesting. And certainly
controversial.

He said to Mr. Geyer, “You must have heard
something about the Welbourne case if you were in Southbridge
around that time. How long have you been teaching here?”

Geyer gave him a stony look as if he didn’t
want his age announced. But he certainly wasn’t any teenager.

“Twenty years,” he said, and clamped his jaw
shut.

Then he opened it again. “It’s true, I heard
about it, but it didn’t concern me. I had nothing to do with the
Lakeside School.” He packed up his briefcase and left, giving a
little wave from the door.

I thought that would end the meeting.
Instead, the discussion went on. Hank kept looking at his watch,
but he let them talk. As for me, I had to keep an eye on the
window. This was November and darkness came early. With only a
junior license, I wasn’t supposed to drive after sundown.

Finally, during a lull, Hank noticed how late
it was and called it a day. He could have called it earlier. I
could have left on my own, but this was my first time at
The
Tiger’s Roar.
I didn’t want to get up and walk out.

As I headed for the door, Hank caught up with
me. He wanted to talk about Paula Welbourne. He figured I knew more
than most because of Lakeside.

“I really can’t tell you anything new,” I
said. “It was ancient history by the time I got there. All I know
is, they took her off the ventilator and she lived a few more years
and then she died.”

“That’s right,” he agreed. “That’s what it
said on the Internet.”

“I suppose technically she was alive, if she
could breathe on her own. She died of pneumonia, but she never was
conscious again. Is that really living?”

“Hard to say. I understand some people in a
coma can hear what’s going on around them, and even feel, but they
can’t respond.” He took another peek at his watch.

“What’s with the watch?” I asked. “Are you
meeting someone?”

“Just a bus. I missed it.”

“Is there another one?”

“I missed that, too.” He grinned but he
didn’t look happy.

“Do you have far to go?” I asked. “I could
drop you somewhere.”

“Nah, I’m okay. You’d better get on home.” It
was very nearly dark.

“Really, it’s no problem. It’s too cold to
walk.” I steered him to a corner of the lot where I was parked.

He asked, “You drive to school every day?
From where?”

“Lake Road. It was easier when I went to
Lakeside. I could walk there.”

“How come you transferred?”

He might as well know. Everyone else did.

“There was this guy, Evan Steffers. He got
too controlling and I tried to break it off but he wouldn’t accept
that. He hit me a couple of times, as if hitting could win me over.
Even when I left Lakeside, it didn’t help. He followed me around
and he broke into my house one night and tried to drag me
away.”

“Oh, that was you? I read about it in
The
Chronicle.
”

“Yep, that was me.” I unlocked the car and
made sure Evan wasn’t crouched in back, even though I knew he
wasn’t.

Hank got in on the other side. “Poor besotted
fool.”

“Fool is right,” I said. “It has nothing to
do with love. It’s obsession and it’s sick. People don’t realize
they’re just being a jerk.”

He groped for the other half of his seatbelt.
“How are you liking Southbridge so far?”

I found the belt for him and closed my door.
It made the interior light go off.

With a loud
boom,
the windshield
exploded.

Chapter Two

Something whizzed
past me. I felt it. I heard the explosion.

The windshield blew apart, spraying glass all
over.

Hank slumped against the door. I saw blood on
the door. Blood everywhere.

“Hank?”

I tried to sit him up. If I could get him
talking, then he’d be okay, right?

Blood gushed from the side of his head.

“Ohmigod, Hank!”

People came running. They tried to pull the
doors open. I always kept my doors locked when I was driving. They
gestured for me to open a window, but I couldn’t with the engine
off.

My head cleared just a little. I dug for my
cell phone. It was the first time I’d ever called 911 and I
couldn’t think what to say.

“There’s somebody—I think it was a gun. He’s
bleeding. A lot.”

In my confused state, I didn’t think to tell
her where we were. She must have had plenty of experience dealing
with rattled people. Somehow she got the information, and told me
to stay on the line.

A crowd collected, mostly teachers and a few
kids from
The Tiger’s Roar.
I didn’t see Mr. Geyer. They
kept trying to open Hank’s door. They must have thought I was
demented not to let them in, but sometimes well-meaning fumblers
could make things worse. Hank needed to stay quiet without a lot of
people grabbing at him. I held him in my arms, his blood soaking
into my black jacket.

They pounded on the door, on the windows. An
arm tried to reach in through the broken windshield. The operator
asked what was happening. I told her.

“An ambulance is on the way,” she said. “Keep
everyone out except medical personnel. Is he still bleeding?”

“Yes, a lot.” I supposed that meant he was
alive, if his heart went on pumping.

“It’s his head,” I told her. “I can’t put a
tourniquet on his neck.”

I heard sirens. I told her that, too.
“There’s a police car.”

It was two police cars. The operator
disconnected. My throat felt like sand.

An officer slammed out of his car and ran
over to me. I turned on the engine so I could open my window. I
recognized him from the two times I went to the station to get Evan
off my back. He had gorgeous green eyes, greener than mine, but
right now I barely noticed them.

Falco, it said on his nametag. I told him
what happened as best I could figure it out. Meanwhile the
ambulance arrived. They lifted Hank onto a stretcher. I heard them
say something about “vitals.” Did he have any?

Officer Falco tried to distract me. He
remembered me, too, and asked, “How are you doing?”

“Not so well right now,” I said.

He helped me out of the car. I tried not to
get blood on his uniform. He said, “It looks like you’ll need a new
windshield.”

“Thank you.”

I didn’t mean to be sarcastic. I just wasn’t
in the mood for—well, anything.

Falco stayed with me while the other cops
looked around. The parking lot had a chain link fence. Bushes grew
right outside the place where I was parked. It would’ve been easy
for someone to hide there and disappear without a trace. The police
couldn’t find anything, not even fibers caught on the bushes.

I couldn’t help wondering about Cindy
Belcher. She was so anti Hank’s idea. Where would she have found
the time to run home and get a weapon? Unless she had it hidden and
ready. She must have known what we would talk about, if they
started it last week. But how could she have guessed where Hank
would be?

Maybe she didn’t, but saw him walking in this
direction. Who’d have imagined she was some kind of sharpshooter?
Maybe it wasn’t Cindy, but I couldn’t forget her antagonism. She
was the loudest. Still, why would anybody feel they had to shoot
Hank for his ideas? Falco wanted to know about Hank. I did the best
I could. “He’s the editor of our school paper. He was planning a
series that got some people upset, but hardly anybody knew about it
except the newspaper staff.”

“What was the series?” Falco asked.

I knew he was trying to keep my attention
away from the paramedics. The blood. The IV bag. The portable
defibrillator to start his heart if it stopped. I turned away and
talked about the meeting.

I remembered Cindy putting on an orange
sweater when she left. Those bushes were bare in winter. An orange
sweater would show up, even in twilight. In the near dark, how
could anyone, whoever it was, see to aim a gun?

The parking lot was lit, and my interior
light had been on. I’d been in the process of closing the door.
That turned the light off, just as the person fired.

Falco took my name, address, home, and cell
phone numbers. Even my email address.

“You’re a witness,” he reminded me. “So far,
you’re the only one we have.”

I stood against the car door but my legs
wouldn’t hold me up. The only place to sit was inside the car. I
sat sideways, with the door open and my feet out, so I could talk
to him. Not that I had anything intelligent to say. Mostly it was,
“I can’t believe it,” over and over. And, “How could anybody get
that worked up? I mean to
kill
someone?”

“Happens all the time,” Falco said. “Wars can
start over a difference of opinion.”

“That’s stupid. Why can’t people just live
and let live?”

“Sometimes,” Falco backed away as an officer
photographed the windshield, “they feel their whole identity is
threatened. Sometimes it can really be about something else. They
don’t realize what makes them feel the way they do.”

“How did you get so wise?” I asked.

He hunkered down to put us on a more equal
level. When he looked at me, his green eyes sparkled. “I run
deep.”

They strung yellow tape around my car and
around the fence where the bushes were. They were going to keep the
car for a while as evidence. I didn’t want it anyway with a broken
windshield and all that blood. I could get the windshield fixed but
I’d have to deal with the blood myself. Unless they had something
in the Yellow Pages that said
Blood removal our
specialty.

Hank’s blood. I wondered if he was still
alive. Falco gave me the hospital’s number. I called, but he hadn’t
gotten there yet. They said he’d be prepped for surgery and I could
try calling again tomorrow.

“They wouldn’t do surgery if he was dead,
would they?” I asked Falco.

“Seems unlikely. But that’s not to say he’s
out of danger.”

Just what I didn’t want to hear. I wished I
could erase the whole thing. Go back in time and start over. There
had to be some way to do that. I couldn’t help feeling just a tiny
bit responsible. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but it
was
my
car. And I’d gotten him into it. I tried to call my family. No one
answered. Falco said, “I’ll take you home.”

“Are you allowed to?” I asked. “I mean, leave
the scene of the crime?”

“Far as I know, this is it for now. We’ll be
back when it’s daylight. Getting a witness home is part of the
deal.” He smiled. Something about that smile cheered me a
little.

“It’s kind of far,” I warned him.

“I know where Lake Road is.”

I had given him my address. He probably knew
the whole area. All of Southbridge and environs.

I looked up at the sky. “It’s pitch dark
already.”

“Yup. It does that in November.”

“Cold, too. I wonder how long that shooter
had to wait. And why. It just seems so crazy.”

“A lot of people are,” he said. “It could
even be a case of mistaken identity.”

That got me angry. “They shouldn’t have been
shooting at
anybody.
If they absolutely had to, for their
own stupid reason, they should watch what they’re doing.”

“Like I said...”

“A lot of people are crazy,” I finished for
him.

“And careless,” he added. For which, I
thought, read stupid. I supposed people couldn’t help their IQ, but
then they should be extra careful.

We drove through the center of town. Past the
music store. Past CVS Pharmacy and Burger King. All the places
where I hung out with my friends, Glynis Goode from Lakeside and
Cree Penny from Southbridge. It looked different already. Nothing
would ever be the same again, after this.

“How can you stand being a cop?” I asked.
“With the human race so annoying?”

“We prefer the term ‘police officer.’”

“Sorry. But how can you stand it?”

“I do the best I can.”

I thought how maddening it would be if they
never found the shooter. Once they got the person in custody, I
would feel a little better.

But then they would have to deal with defense
attorneys and stupid jurors. Why did the law have to be so
frustrating?

We came to a narrow bridge, the original
South Bridge. It crossed the Vanorden Kill, a wide, shallow creek,
“kill” being the Dutch word for creek or stream. The bridge was
narrow and bumpy. It had to be taken slowly. Right after it, the
road turned left and began a very steep climb. I really did live
way out of town.

The road leveled, we made a right turn, and a
minute later I pointed out my house. All the lights were on.
Now
my folks decided to be home.

Falco came around to open my door. “Would you
like me to go in with you and tell them what happened?”

“I’d love it.” He could explain it much
better than I could. I tried to imagine my mom’s expression, seeing
me come home in a police car.

I took him in through the front door even
though I knew they’d all be in the kitchen. They came out fast
enough when they heard me. First my mom, who I called Rhoda because
that was her name. Her hair, the same color as mine, was still
growing out from chemotherapy. Then my dad, who I called Daddy. And
my brother Ben, who was barely a year older than I was. They
adopted him, and not much later, I was born.

And the two lab retrievers, Petey and
Pumpkin, who had saved my life the time Evan broke into our
house.

Rhoda gaped at Officer Falco. Then at me. I
introduced him and he explained. “Your daughter’s car is out of
commission.”