Summitt

Chapter Eighteen

Selby signed the lobby check-out register and pushed through the revolving doors. The streets and sidewalks were slick with rain that reflected the red and green Christmas lights.

The parking mall was several hundred yards long, a broad avenue that ran from City Hall to the church, and was divided by a green belt with graveled crosswalks and playing fountains. The big square was dark except for the Christmas lights and a flashing neon bar sign. A young couple walked past the bar, their arms linking them together in a single, swaying unit.

Turning his collar up against the wind, he walked toward the dark bulk of the church. His footsteps sounded above the leaves rustling in the gutters. Something had distracted Brett, he knew. He looked back at City Hall, and saw that her office lights were still on. He wondered what had caught her attention in the mall. Her face had been worried when she turned from the window. But Selby saw nothing unusual — water splashing in the fountains, a shimmer of neon on parked cars...

He passed the church and turned into the narrow street where he was parked. Another sound mingled then with the wind stirring the trees. A car had started up. Glancing the length of the mall, Selby saw exhaust fumes rising from a sedan facing City Hall.

There was a strength about her, he thought, a sense of conviction that impressed him. People could fake those heated responses, but they couldn’t fake the fire he sensed in her.

The Italian, Dom Lorso, had been furious with her. So had Eberle. Had that been an act? Or had she enraged them by ignoring the local power structure? Was that what made her a lightning rod for their attacks? If that was true, she wasn’t alone... Shana had been a target, and now he was in Slocum’s and Thomson’s sights too.

The sedan, a black Lincoln, turned on its headlights. For some reason, he thought of Gideen and his son...

Dorcas Brett came through the doors of City Hall, belting her raincoat as she walked toward St. Christopher’s, her high heels sounding sharply in the silence.

The grassy divider and fountains glittered in the lights of the moving Lincoln. Selby thought of Gideen again, and the black Connie that had tailed him around Muhlenburg and Buck Run...

Turning into an access lane, the Continental swung into the street behind Brett, the powerful lights outlining her slim figure. And Davey... Davey had told him about the car following Shana and Brett yesterday.

She was fifty yards from him. The Lincoln was about the same distance behind her, but gathering speed, the sound of the motor rising sharply.

Selby ran through the mall and between the trees along the divider, waving desperately at her. But she was blinded by headlights; his warning shouts were lost in the motor’s roar.

There was only an instant to consider the angle and to judge his speed and the car’s. The angle was wrong, he didn’t have the edge, but that was his last reasoned thought; adrenaline swept aside everything then but his instincts and reflexes.

Breaking from the shadow of the trees. Selby threw himself in a headlong dive in front of the car, and just managed to roll out of the way of its wheels and glaring headlights.

His swinging arm struck Brett at the knees. They tumbled across the sidewalk and against a storefront at the same instant the car’s fender struck at the flying hem of Selby’s raincoat.

Twisted rubber sounded as the Lincoln bounced off the curb. In moments its tail light had flashed from sight beyond the big church.

A man in a leather jacket appeared from the bar. “Up to me, them hit-run assholes get life. You people okay? Saw the whole thing, crazy goddamn fools. You okay?”

“I guess so,” Selby called across the mall. He held Brett close to him; she was shaking. “You get a license number?”

“Saw the whole thing, man. They shouldn’t be allowed behind a wheel, crazy bastards. Bunch of drunken Puertos or freaked-out kids. The lady all right?”

“Call the cops,” Selby shouted at him.

“That’s another thing,” the man said. “Where’s a cop when you want him? On their butts in a parked squad somewhere...”

He rubbed his face and returned unsteadily to the bar, the closing door cutting off a wail of country music.

Selby helped Dorcas Brett to her feet. He found her handbag and put it in her hands. “Can you walk?”

“I dropped my purse.” She was trembling. “My keys are in it.”

“It’s all right, I found it.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and she sagged against him. “I’ll take you in my car. Walk slow. Do you feel any pain anywhere?”

“Where did they go?”

“Never mind, they’re gone. Lean against me.”

Her eyes were unfocused. She put both hands on his arm and clung to him. Selby steadied her and helped her into his station wagon. Climbing in beside her, he saw that the mall was empty, the streets and sidewalks shining in the reflected Christmas lights.

“This isn’t my car, Mr. Selby.” Her voice was like a worried child’s.

“If you feel any pain, tell me,” he said.

He stretched her legs slowly, lifting them onto the seat. Her stockings were torn, her kneecaps scraped raw and smudged with dirt. “Okay?” he asked gently.

“I’ve got to find my car.”

“I know where it is, Brett. There’s nothing to worry about.” He moved her kneecaps gently with his fingertips and watched her face and eyes.

“Does that hurt?” She didn’t answer. He squeezed her hands. “Can you hear me, Brett?”

“I can’t leave my car here.” She had begun to stutter slightly.

“Your car is fine. You took a fall, Brett. Try to listen. You fell on the sidewalk, but you’re all right. You’re not hurt.”

He took her wallet from her handbag and checked the address on her driver’s license. “I’ll drive you home. We can get your car tomorrow, don’t worry about it. Just sit back and relax.”

“I left my cigarettes in my office,” she told him in a plaintive helpless voice. “Goddammit...”

“We’ll stop on the way and buy a pack.”

“They’re on my desk, I left them there.”

“That’s okay. They’ll be there tomorrow. Now relax.”

She stared through the windshield, her eyes wide and vacant as he pulled away from the curb and drove out of the mall. It seemed he, not she, was the lightning rod for violence. Right from the first, from his visit to his brother, his questions about their father...

She lived near the river in a fieldstone house with narrow windows. Her street fronted a park on the Brandywine where the waters forked at the site of an old powder mill. One branch flowed smoothly toward Delaware Bay. The other frothed in a white turbulence beneath the rows of unused milling sheds.

The wind came up noisily when he cut the motor, whistling and snapping through the bare trees. Lights showed from only a few windows.

She said abruptly, “May I have a cigarette now? I’m trying to stop but so far I’ve only managed to stop carrying them.”

He gave her the package of Salems he had bought in an all-night market. “You’ve seen that Lincoln Continental before, right? You were watching it from your office...”

“The book I’m reading,” she said, “the one on how to quit smoking, it says that it’s a therapeutic” — she stuttered again — “humiliation to ask for something so bad for you...”

“Let me help you into your house.”

“What did you say? About the car?”

“You’ve seen it before, right?”

She stiffened suddenly. Her hands tightened in a spasm on the pack of cigarettes, crushing them. She shuddered so that her teeth chattered. An after-shock, he knew from his own game injuries, a recoil, a whiplash of memory...

“Take it easy now,” he said. “You’re home, it’s all right.”

“The car hit you, I heard it.”

“It didn’t hit either of us. We’re safe. Can you hear what I’m saying?”

“I couldn’t see anything. The lights were in my eyes.” She started to cry. “I knew it was going to hit me and I couldn’t do anything. It hit you and I don’t know where anything is...”

Selby put his arm around her and held her close. The car smelled of her perfume and the crushed cigarettes. She was still shaking.

“Okay, okay,” he said, and stroked her hair. “We’re parked in front of your house, the street is quiet, everything’s fine.”

He held her until her body relaxed and her breath lost its edge of panic. At last her eyes cleared. She lay against him without moving...

“I’ve seen it before,” she said then. “So has Burt. He didn’t get a license number.”

“I think you’d better forget it for now. You need a compress on your knees and a sleeping pill. Do you want me to go in and turn on the lights? Take a look around?”

“No, thanks, that’s all right, Mr. Selby.” She straightened up and pushed her hair back from her shoulders. “There are dead-bolts on the doors.”

A wind whistled high in the trees and a shudder went through her. “Of course I’d like you to come in. I’m scared silly. I’d appreciate it, Mr. Selby. Thanks.”...

Her living room ceiling was low and beamed. A fireplace was framed with fieldstone panels and a dark wood mantelpiece. The rear windows looked out on a walled garden, where lamps glowed under a pair of dwarf boxwoods.

He lit the fire while she went upstairs to change. When she came down she asked him if he’d like a drink or a cup of coffee.

“Coffee would be fine.”

“It won’t take a minute.” She went into the kitchen and Selby looked around at the bookshelves and prints and the miniature rolltop desk at the foot of the stairs. An appointment book and phone were on the desk. She brought in a tray and put it on the table at the fireplace and poured two cups of coffee. She was limping slightly.

“You feel okay?”

“A little stiff but that’s all. I’m very grateful to you, Mr. Selby. What about cream and sugar?”

“Just black, thanks.”

She handed him his cup and sat down and crossed her legs. She had put tape and bandages on her knees. “Sergeant Wilger noticed that Lincoln following me the day we took Shana back to Vinegar Hill. I saw it parked in the mall tonight when you were in my office.”

“Why didn’t you mention it?”

She shrugged. “It didn’t really register, I didn’t make a connection.”

“Who besides Lieutenant Eberle knew you’d be working late tonight?”

“There was no secret about it. I’m usually there when I have a hearing the next morning.”

“Do you know who was in that car?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

“A friend of mine,” Selby said, “spotted a black Lincoln cruising around Muhlenburg a few days ago. He noticed two men in it, one had red hair or red sideburns. Does that help you any?”

“No, I’m afraid it doesn’t.”

“Does Sergeant Wilger have any ideas?”

She sipped her coffee. “I’m not holding out on you, Mr. Selby. I hope you believe that, but if you don’t there’s not much I can do about it. I understand your anxiety about Shana can make you suspicious of everyone, but... well, we’re due in court at eight a.m. Thanks again for what you did tonight. I’m very grateful—”

“Do you live here alone?”

She looked surprised. “Yes, why?”

“Just curiosity, I guess. I’d like to know you better.”

“In what way?”

“The usual way, I suppose. I’ve got to trust somebody, you know.”

She looked at him with a skeptical smile. “Knowing people doesn’t always mean you can trust them. It’s just the opposite sometimes.”

“I don’t want to argue with you, because I don’t have anything logical to argue about. I do know I like you. I like you because you were the only person in this goddamn business who bothered to say you were sorry about what happened to Shana.” He held up a hand. “Just a minute. I know something about moving objects and getting hit by them. So not even Super-woman could have staged that scene in the mall. But I don’t trust Slocum and Eberle, and you’re working with them, I guess you have to... but I know there’s something strange about the pressure coming from Thomson... It’s all the same package, and I guess liking you isn’t enough to make me accept it—”

She said angrily, “Goddammit, I don’t need a seal of approval from you.”

“You were as frightened as Shana about something that morning out at Vinegar Hill. Why, Brett? Why?”

“I was moved and outraged and showed it, I cracked a little. Are you still holding that against me, along with the fact you’d probably prefer a man on this case?”

“That’s not it at all.” Selby stood and picked up his raincoat.

“Then what the hell are you trying to tell me?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that I need help, and need it badly.”

Her phone rang. She started and looked at her wristwatch. It was after midnight. “Excuse me,” she said. She picked up the receiver and said hello twice and waited for a few seconds. “Who’s this?” she asked and said hello again.

Shrugging, she put down the phone. “Whoever it was hung up.”

Limping slightly, she moved back to the coffee table, poured two more cups of coffee. “How about my calling you Harry to save time?”

“That’s fine.”

“I think maybe we both need help, Harry,” she said.

“Then let’s talk.” Selby put a small log on the fire and told her about the letter he’d received from Breck, the attorney in Truckee. “Everything that’s happened to me and Shana seemed to start with that trip to Summitt to see my brother...”

When he left he drove twice around her block before he started home, slowing down to check the side streets and alleys. An elderly couple was walking a dachshund, but as far as Selby could tell the neighborhood was peaceful and quiet, nothing stirring but the breezes rising from the river.

When he drove by her house the second time, all the windows were dark.