The Narrows(23)

“How do you know so much about mountain lions?”

Absently, Eddie said, “It’s just what I heard from Davenport.”

“This wasn’t a mountain lion,” Ben assured him.

“I’m just saying.” Eddie sucked his tongue along his teeth. “What you were asking Porter back in his barn about having been in an argument with anyone lately?”

“Yeah?”

“You think a person could have done that?”

The radio crackled. Ben hit the CB and said, “Go ahead, Shirley.”

“Possible 71 on Full Hill Road, between mile-markers ten and eleven,” Shirley said, her voice laced with static.

Eddie sat up straight. “Well, shit.” A 71 was a pedestrian struck by a vehicle.

Into the transmitter, Ben said, “Go ahead, Shirley.”

“Just got a call from Cal Cordrick. Says Maggie Quedentock was in a car accident over on Full Hill. She told him she hit somebody out in the road but Cal, he says he checked the area but couldn’t see nothing. He thought maybe she was just shaken up.”

“We’re on our way back from Porter Conroy’s farm now,” Ben said. “We can be there in two minutes, Shirley. You call for an ambulance?”

“It’s on the way.”

“Thanks, Shirl.”

“Well, goddamn,” said Eddie, sticking his cigarette behind his ear.

Ben switched on the cruiser’s bar lights, washing the world around them in alternating blue and red. He pressed down on the accelerator and felt the raw power beneath the hood of the cruiser burst to life. Ben executed a graceful U-turn in the middle of the street then continued along in the direction he had come from.

“There,” Eddie said, pointing through the darkness at the turnoff onto Full Hill Road. Not that Ben needed him to do so. Ben Journell could walk the circumference of Stillwater blindfolded and tell you the name of every tree he bumped into along the way.

Ben took the turn at a quick clip, the dark, swampy trees bowing over the roof of the cruiser and closing in around them.

“Who the hell would she hit?” Eddie said. “I mean, who’s out here walking after midnight?”

“There they are.” Ben slowed down as he spotted the headlights up ahead, smoky in the buildup of exhaust fumes that hung in thick clouds above the roadway. A figure moved in front of one pair of headlights, long limbed and slump shouldered. Ben brought the cruiser to a stop at the side of the road. He reached beneath his seat and grabbed his spare Maglite, then quickly stepped out.

Cal Cordrick waved both arms over his head as Ben and Eddie approached.

“Is everyone okay?” Ben asked, already surveying the situation. Cal’s Buick was facing Evan Quedentock’s Pontiac, and one of the Pontiac’s fog lamps was out. He could see that the cheap plastic grille was cracked and there was a nice little ding in the hood. “Where’s Maggie?”

Cal jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “She’s sitting on the side of the road. She wouldn’t get back in her car and she didn’t want to wait in mine.”

“Go check her out,” he said to Eddie, who hustled down the road while lighting a flare. A moment later, a bright spark of purple magnesium illuminated the darkness. The fog seemed to coalesce.

“She seems okay, aside from being pretty well shaken up,” Cal said. He gulped audibly. “She thinks she hit somebody. I walked around but couldn’t—”

“Let’s take a look,” Ben said, handing Cal his spare Maglite.

They walked down the center of the road, the asphalt glowing with an unnatural pink-purple hue from the road flare, their flashlights piercing the heavy foliage of the underbrush at the shoulders of the road. A cursory review of the surrounding area showed no evidence of a struck pedestrian.

“When did you get on the scene?” Ben asked Cal.

“Just after it happened, I guess. Ten minutes ago? I was coming down the road and saw her headlights facing me, so I slowed down—you know how the road narrows and you need to slow down if there’s a car passing, Ben—but when I got closer I could see that her car door was open and that the car was in the middle of the road. Then I saw her standing out there, looking off into the dark.”

“You said you looked around for the pedestrian?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t have a light on me and I just did it real quick, in case there really was someone hurt out here.” The tone of Cal’s voice suggested he did not believe Maggie had hit anyone.

When they’d walked far enough away from the vehicles, Ben paused and looked around. It seemed implausible that someone could be thrown this far. Without saying a word to Cal, he turned around and headed back to the Pontiac. Maggie was perched on a large stone at the shoulder of the road, her skin pale, her hair an unkempt nest of bristling auburn wires. From this distance, and in the poor lighting, her eyes looked like hollow black sockets. Eddie stood above her, asking questions in his soft, placating voice.

Ben bent down and examined the skid marks on the pavement. To even call them “skid marks” was hyperbole; Ben spotted two smudgy exclamations of melted rubber on the surface of the road, hardly noticeable. It meant Maggie Quedentock hadn’t been going all that fast when she’d slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel.

Ben stood up, popping the tendons in his back. Out of nowhere, he felt ridiculously old, despite his thirty-five years. He looked over to Eddie who appeared engrossed in his little notepad, where he was jotting some notes. Ben went over to them.