The Accident

TWELVE

“Darren, I need to ask you some questions.”

He was sitting in the front passenger seat of a car parked in his driveway. Behind the wheel was Rona Wedmore. She was a short, stocky black woman in her mid-forties. She had on a tan leather jacket and jeans, and there was a gun holstered to her belt. Her short hair was sensibly styled, although lately she had been streaking just a few strands, so there was this pencil-thin line of silver-gray that swept across the top of her head. The sort of thing that said she was her own person, without shouting it from the rooftops.

They were sitting in an unmarked police car. Darren Slocum had his hand on his forehead, shielding his eyes. “I just can’t believe it,” he groaned. “I just can’t. I can’t believe Ann’s gone.”

“I know this is a tough time. But I need to go over a few things with you again.”

Rona Wedmore knew Darren. Not well, but they did have the same employer, after all. He was a Milford street cop and she was a police detective. They’d worked several crime scenes together, knew each other well enough to say hello, but they were not friends. Wedmore was aware of Slocum’s reputation. At least two complaints of excessive force. Rumors, never proven, that he’d helped himself to some cash at a drug bust. And everyone knew about Ann’s purse parties. Darren had once asked Wedmore if she’d consider hosting one, and she had declined.

“Go ahead,” he said now.

“What time did Ann go out last night?”

“It would have been nine-thirty, quarter to ten, around then.”

“And did she say why she was going out?”

“She got a phone call.”

“Who called her?” Wedmore asked.

“Belinda Morton. They’re friends.”

Darren Slocum knew that wasn’t the only call. He knew there had been one before that. Ann had spoken to someone else. He’d seen the light on the extension come on. And he knew, from talking to Emily later, that the Garber kid had her own cell phone. That she hadn’t, as Ann had suggested, used their landline to call her father to pick her up.

“Why were they getting together, Belinda and Ann?”

Darren shook his head. “I don’t know. They’re friends. They talk to each other all the time, cry on each other’s shoulders. I figured they were going to grab a drink somewhere.”

“But Ann never met up with her?”

“Belinda called back here around eleven, asking for Ann. Said she’d tried to raise her on her cell but she wasn’t picking up. Wondered what had happened to her. That was when I started to get worried.”

“What did you do then?”

“I tried her cell, too. No luck. I thought about driving around, trying to find her, look for her car at places where she might have gone, but Emily was asleep, and I didn’t want to leave her in the house alone.”

“Okay,” Wedmore said, taking down some notes. “So what time did you call it in?”

“I guess, around one?”

Wedmore already knew the answer. Slocum had called his department at 12:58 a.m.

“I didn’t want to call 911. I mean, I work there, I know all the numbers, so I called in on the nonemergency line, got hold of Dispatch, asked, kind of unofficially, you know? Asked if everyone could kind of keep an eye out for Ann’s car, that I was worried about her, that I was afraid maybe she’d had an accident or something.”

“And you heard back when?”

Slocum ran his hands over his cheeks, smearing tears. “Uh, let me think. I think it was around two. Rigby called me.”

Officer Ken Rigby. Good man, Wedmore thought. “Okay. I’m just trying to get a sense of the timeline, you understand.”

“Did anyone see anything?” Darren Slocum asked. “Down by the harbor? Did anyone see what happened?”

“We’re canvassing for witnesses now, but this time of year, there’s hardly anyone down there. There are some nearby houses, so maybe we’ll get lucky. You never know.”

“Yeah,” Slocum said. “Let’s hope someone saw something. But, what do you think happened?”

“It’s early, Darren. But what Officer Rigby found was, the car was running, the driver’s door was open, and the right rear tire was flat.”

“Okay,” Slocum said. Rona wasn’t sure he was listening. The guy seemed dazed.

“The passenger side of the car was pulled up right next to the edge of the pier. We’re just guessing so far, but it’s possible that she went around to see what was wrong, and when she bent over to check the tire, she lost her footing.”

“And that’s when she fell into the water.”

“Possibly. The water’s not that deep there and there’s not much current. When Rigby was shining his light around, he spotted her. It looks like an accident. There’s nothing to suggest it was a robbery. Her purse was sitting on the passenger seat. Doesn’t look like it was touched. Her wallet and credit cards were all still there.”

Darren shook his head stubbornly. “Why didn’t she just call me? Or a tow truck? Something? I mean, what was she thinking? That she was going to change a tire by herself down there in the middle of the night?”

“I’m sure we’ll know more as the investigation continues,” Wedmore told him. “Do you have any idea why Ann would be driving down around the harbor? Is that where she was going to meet Belinda?”

“Maybe. I mean, maybe instead of going for a drink, they were just going to take a walk.”

“But if that’s where they’d planned to meet, Belinda wouldn’t have called you to ask where she was,” Wedmore pointed out. “She’d have called to say she’d found her car, but that Ann wasn’t anywhere around.”

“Yeah, yeah, that makes sense,” Darren agreed.

“So that brings me back to my question. What would Ann have been doing down at the harbor? Is it possible she was going to meet someone else before she was going to meet up with Belinda?”

“I… I can’t think of anyone.” Darren Slocum was crying again. “Rona, look, I don’t think I can do any more… I’ve, I’ve got a lot to do…”

She looked out her windshield at Darren’s pickup, noticed the For Sale sign in the window. Looking out, from between the living room drapes, was Emily.

“This must be a terrible thing for your daughter,” Detective Wedmore said.

“Ann’s sister, she lives in New Haven, came over around five in the morning,” he said. “She’s helping pull things together.”

Wedmore reached out and patted Slocum on the arm. “You know we’re going to do everything we can.”

Slocum looked at her with bloodshot eyes. “I know. I know you are.”

He watched Wedmore drive away and once she had turned the corner he got out his cell and punched in a number.

“Hello?”

“Belinda?”

“Oh my God, Darren, I still can’t-”

“Just listen to me. You have — ”

“I’m going out of my mind,” she said breathlessly. “First, that man comes to see me, threatens me, and then you call at four in the morning and tell me Ann-”

“Would you just shut the fuck up for a second?” When there was silence at the other end, Darren continued. “Rona Wedmore is coming to see you.”

“Rona who?”

“She’s a Milford police detective. I know her. She’s coming to see you because she knows you and Ann were talking, that you and she were going to meet up.”

“But-”

“You tell her it was just girl talk. Maybe, I don’t know, you had a fight with George or something and needed to talk. Nothing about the business, or that guy who visited you.”

“But, Darren, what if he killed her? We can’t just-”

“He didn’t kill her,” Darren said. “It was some kind of accident. She fell into the water and hit her head or something. But listen to me, you don’t talk about the other things. Not one word. Are we clear?”

“Yes, yes, okay. I got it.”

“And tell me again what Glen said when you talked to him last night.”

“He said… he said the car didn’t burn up. Sheila’s purse, it wasn’t lost in the fire. And he said there was no envelope in it.”

“He actually said that?”

“That’s right,” Belinda said, her voice breaking.

Darren thought about that. “So there’s a chance the money’s still around somewhere.” He paused. “Or maybe Glen’s already found it.”