The Big Kahuna (Fox and O'Hare #6)(71)

Efraín




We sat in a small gray room, with the window shades drawn. There was a videotape recorder, which made me nervous, but the deputy who was brought in to translate, a feo with curly hair and braces on his teeth, told me that this was normal. “El protocolo,” he said, and asked if I wanted some water or coffee. I said no. I was eager to get it over with, describe what I had seen that night, and leave. So I told the story the way I remembered it. “I was riding my bicycle on the 62, heading home after work, when the chain fell off my back gear.” I was speaking to Detective Coleman, who sat across from me, but I had to wait while the deputy translated.

It was a strange way to tell a story, pausing after every sentence, waiting to hear it spoken in another language, though in a strange way this made me more conscious of its details. After a while, I was even relieved that there was a videotape, because once my words were recorded I would finally be free to forget them. That was all I wanted now. To put all this behind me. I couldn’t take Guerrero’s meddling in my life anymore, or Marisela’s silence over the past few weeks. Even though she’d stopped asking me about the accident, I knew she wanted me to talk to the police and I hated to see the disappointment in her eyes, day after day, when I said no. I wanted things to go back to the way they were before.

As soon as I reached the end of my story, the detective made me tell it again, this time interrupting me with questions that could get me to contradict myself—or at least, that’s how it seemed to me, because she spoke to me in a combative way. “Wait, were you going east or west on Highway 62?”

“East,” I said.

“How far were you from the intersection when you stopped?”

“About a hundred feet. Maybe a hundred and fifty.”

“And what happened after the car hit Mr. Guerraoui?”

“Well, the car turned left on Chemehuevi, and as it did, the man rolled off the hood and fell down on the pavement.”

“You didn’t try to help him?”

“He wasn’t moving,” I said, glancing at the translator for help. “He wasn’t moving at all. I was sure he was dead.”

“You said earlier that the accident happened at nine thirty. But how did you know the time? You’re not wearing a watch.”

“No. But I leave work at about nine and I usually get home by ten. The intersection is about halfway between my work and my apartment, so I’m guessing it happened around nine thirty, but I could be wrong.”

“And what color was the car?”

“Silver, I think.”

“Make and model?”

“I’m not sure. I only saw the car from the side as it turned on Chemehuevi. But it was a sedan with a long hood. I think it might have been a Ford.”

“Did you read about this in the newspaper, Mr. Aceves?”

“What newspaper? I didn’t read anything about this. I just saw a car like it in the parking lot of Kasa Market.”

“What about the sticker on the side window? What did it look like?”

“It was round and red, like an apple.”

“Were there any passengers in this car?”

“I didn’t see any passengers.”

“What about the driver?”

“I didn’t really see him.”

“But it was a him?”

“I think so. He was wearing a baseball cap.”

“And did he slow down?”

No, he didn’t. I had told her this the first time, but she asked me again anyway, asked me to close my eyes and return to that night, see if the driver had paused at any time, either before or after striking Guerrero. I told her once more that the driver hadn’t slowed down and hadn’t stopped. If anything, he’d sped up. That’s what had made me look up from my bicycle—the sound of the car speeding up.

“When did he speed up?”

“When?”

“Before or after hitting the victim?”

“Before.”

“Are you sure about this?”

I had heard the car speeding up, then the sound of the impact. “Yes,” I said. “He sped up before. Then after he hit the man, he took the turn and ran off again down Chemehuevi.”

Again, she asked me to start over, tell the story from the beginning. By the time I stepped out of that room, it was well past lunchtime and I was exhausted. I wasn’t even sure whether I had been of any help, because the detective refused to say. All she said was that someone from the district attorney’s office would be in touch with me when the case went to trial.

When I came out to the lobby, Marisela stood up. “How was it?”

“It’s done,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I took her hand and hurried down the stairs to the glass doors. Marisela had taken the morning off from work to be with me, but as we came out into the sunlight I worried that I had only entangled her in this mess. I had spent weeks burdened by guilt and apprehension, and I still wasn’t completely free of either. If the case went to trial, I would again have to remember the accident and talk about it in front of others, and if there was no trial, my name was somewhere in those police files now, where it could be found at the touch of a button. “What about the reward?” she asked, touching my arm.