4th of July

Chapter 115

I PHONED THE MAN in the Moon Garage on my cell phone and got Keith’s answering machine.

“Keith, I’m in a little jam. It’s Lindsay. Please pick up.”

When Keith answered, I gave him my coordinates. Twenty minutes felt like an hour before he pulled up in his jouncing tow truck. He hooked up the Bonneville for her ignominious return home, and I climbed up into the passenger side of the cab.

“It’s a luxury car, Lindsay,” Keith chastised me. “You’re not supposed to do loop-de-loops with this thing. It’s more than twenty years old, for God’s sake.”

“I know, I know.”

Long silence.

“Nice blouse.”

“Thank you.”

“No, really,” he said, making me laugh. “You should wear more stuff like that.”

Back at the garage, Keith flipped open the Bonneville’s hood.

“Ha. Your fan belt snapped,” he said.

“Ha. I know that.”

“Did you know that in a pinch you could fix this with a length of panty hose?”

“Yes, I did. But, strange as it may seem, I didn’t have any tights in my roadside emergency kit.”

“I have an idea. Why don’t I buy this car back from you? Give you a hundred bucks more than you paid me.”

“I’ll think about it. No.”

Keith laughed and said he’d drive me home and I had to accept his offer. Since he was going to find out anyway, I told Keith what I hadn’t told my girlfriends, hadn’t even told Joe yet.

I told him about the gunfire the night before.

“And now you think someone’s following you? Why don’t you go home, Lindsay? Seriously.”

“Because I can’t turn this murder case loose. Not now. Especially since someone threw a dozen rounds at my sister’s house.”

Keith gave me a sorry look, tugged on the bill of his Giants cap, handily negotiated the turns in the road.

“Anyone ever call you stubborn?”

“Sure. It’s considered a good trait in a cop.”

I understood what he was getting at. I no longer knew whether I was being intrepid or stupid.

But I wasn’t yet ready to make the call.