Back Where She Belongs(15)

She braced herself. Be strong. This is for Faye and Dad.

He stared at her, irritated, but trying to hide it.

“If you’d prefer, I could simply read the accident report,” she threw in.

“That’s not possible.” The way his eyes slid side to side suggested he was dodging the truth. “The report’s still in process.”

“So you’re still investigating the accident?” Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe he was handling it, after all.

“You know...cops and paperwork. These things take time. Hunt and peck even on the computer.” His smile invited sympathy. “We want to get the i’s dotted and the t’s all crossed. With everyone so lawsuit-happy these days, we have to be awfully careful, don’t we? In the meantime, your insurance agent took my statement, so that’s all cleared up. Your lawyer should get you a nice fat settlement, no problems.”

She took a deep breath, fighting frustration, and took a new tack. “We owe you our thanks for responding so quickly. If Faye has any hope of recovery, it’s because she got immediate treatment.”

“We all just hope she recovers,” he said, trying to sound humble, but clearly proud of himself for his heroic efforts.

She had to step carefully here. “It was lucky you were passing by, since my mother said you usually play poker with my father.”

“Wife was under the weather, so I missed the game. I was on my way into town to grab flu medicine and noticed the downed rail.” He’d put his hand to his face, scrubbing at his jaw, another sign of discomfort, possibly lying. He’d looked up and to the left, too, which typically meant the person was drawing on the right brain, the creative side, making up a tale. People remembering something looked right and down, engaging the left brain, where memories resided.

“The timing was a miracle,” she said, leading him to say more.

“Cop instincts. We’re always on duty. When you’ve been on the job as long as I have, you know what to look for.” He shifted in his seat. He seemed wary by nature, so the cues she was picking up could have been simply tension over being put on the spot.

“As I said, we feel so fortunate.” She attempted a smile, but felt her lips crack. Her mouth had gone dry as dust, anticipating the tougher questions to come. “When I drove by, I noticed the caution tape near some swerving tire marks. I’m no expert, but it looked like the driver tried to avoid something. The odd thing was how far away from the crash site the marks were. Nothing near the rail. The car had to be going fast to knock it down, right?”

He leaned back, as if to escape. “Like you said, you’re no expert. We’d need an accident reconstruction engineer to answer that question and those fellows are plenty pricey. Big police departments have them. Insurance companies hire them. Luckily we don’t need an expert to tell us they went over the rail and crashed.”

“What about the car? I imagine its condition and position would indicate if there’d been a collision, say, with another car or a large animal.”

“My concern was only for your injured family, not their car.”

“But you took pictures, right? That’s required, I believe. And don’t you have to sketch out the accident, describe what happened? For example, if the car was struck from behind, you’d need to look for the hit-and-run driver, right?”

He breathed harshly through his nose, clearly riled. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, but, out of respect to your family, let me lay out the facts. We don’t live in CSI land. We don’t use crash dummies to reenact wrecks. We don’t have fancy labs and if we did we wouldn’t use them on a cut-and-dried one-car accident on a dangerous curve.”

Dammit. He wasn’t going to help her. The emotions she’d struggled with over the past two hours balled up in her chest. “Except it’s not cut-and-dried, is it? People are saying that Faye was driving drunk.”

His hands shot up in twin stop signs. “You don’t need to worry about that. I told you we were clear with your insurance company. You’ll want to leave that alone for everyone’s sake.”

What was he saying? “Was my sister drunk? You were there. You checked them.” Or had her pills thrown off her reflexes? What could possibly have prevented Faye from slamming on her brakes?

“I look out for your family and I always have,” he said in a low voice, sounding eerily like her mother.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m saying leave it alone,” he snapped.

“I have a right to know what happened.” Her voice broke. Dammit, she would not cry in front of this Daddy-knows-best *. “Tell me what you saw, please.”

He glared at her for a long moment. “All right. I’ll spell it out. Was there a strong smell of whiskey in that car? Yes. Did I say that to the insurance adjuster? No, I did not. Will that appear in my report? No. Maybe it was gasoline fumes. Maybe I was mistaken. I could not say. And I refuse to guess. That’s how much respect I have for your family.”

“I can’t believe Faye would drink and drive. It could have been my father, right? And that’s why she was driving. He’d been drinking.”

He stared at her again, hatred simmering in his eyes now. When he spoke, his voice held a threat. “You never did know when to quit, did you?” He blew out a breath. “Okay. We’re not exactly sure who was driving. Don’t make me draw you a picture you won’t want to see.”

“How could you not know who was behind the wheel?”

He huffed out a breath. “They were together on the ground—one of them thrown from the vehicle, the other walked or crawled over to check.”

She swallowed hard, horrified, but fighting not to show it.

“Strange things happen in car accidents, freakish things. Pens sticking out of necks, arms twisted in bad ways, people in the backseat who started out in the front, you don’t want to know—”

“So you’re saying it might have been my father driving? Was he drunk? The blood tests would show that, right?”

He gave her a calculating look. “When they set up an IV, EMTs use an anticlotting agent that screws with any alcohol reading. Even if your insurance company lawyers subpoenaed the lab work, they’d get shit-all, if you’ll excuse my language. This is good for you, since that way they can’t refuse to cover your family’s vehicles in the future. It’s all been taken care of, as I’ve told you more than once.”

“So, what, you lied to the insurance company? You’re falsifying your report to protect my father—or my sister—from a drunk-driving charge? Is that what you’re implying?”

“I suggest you stop right there.”

“I don’t think so. Not until I find out the truth. If I have to subpoena the hospital records, I will. I want to see your report, Chief Fallon, false or not. Accident reports are public record. Certainly I’d like to see the photos of the accident scene and the car, since you don’t seem to remember what it looked like. Where is the car, by the way?” Shaking, she pulled out a notepad to write down his answer.

“It’s wherever your insurance company had it towed,” he said with a smirk.

“You must know where it went.”

“No idea whatsoever.” He snapped his jaw closed and folded his arms. “Better call your insurance guy. See how far you get with him with this nasty, demanding attitude you’ve got.”

“So you refuse to help me? Even though you have all this respect for my family?” Sarcasm was a mistake, but she couldn’t stop herself.

When he spoke, his voice was nearly a growl. “You’re in grief, I know, and half hysterical, so I’m not going to take offense at your insults to my competence and integrity.” Both hands on his desk, he pushed to his feet, leaning forward, as if to loom over her. She stood, not stepping back, not intimidated one bit. “I accept your apology,” he snapped. “Now please leave.”

“My apology?” She’d lost her temper, she knew, but she refused to be put at the mercy of this self-righteous small-town tyrant. Before she could say more, the door opened. Dylan stepped in. “Everything okay in here?”

“No,” Tara said. “Everything’s not okay. This man, who is a public servant, refuses to show me the accident report I’m entitled to see as a citizen and a relative of the victims.”

“Miss Wharton seems to think there’s some conspiracy going on,” Fallon said. “She thinks I’ve got secret evidence I’m keeping from her. Could you tell her there is no mystery here, no TV drama? Could you tell her to go on home and help her poor mother and be done with it?”

Tara was so furious, she was afraid she might slap the guy. This rinky-dink cop wasn’t going to keep the truth from her. She would contact the state police or the sheriff’s office and ask them to investigate. She would hire an attorney. She would file a suit. Whatever she needed to do she would do. “This is not over, Chief Fallon. Count on it.” She turned for the door, shaking with rage, catching Dylan’s stunned look as she left.