Trial By Fury

As I fishtailed around a stopped car at the Beacon Avenue intersection, I caught sight of the lumbering van. It was far too unwieldy for the sports car rally speed and terrain. Half a mile ahead, it skidded into the wrong lane, around a sharp curve. I don't know how she did it, but Candace Wy

As she disappeared behind the hill, I slammed the gas pedal to the floorboard and the Porsche shot forward. I was gaining on her. No way the van would be a match for my Porsche. No way.

I raced down Graham, swooping around the curve, over the top of the hill, and down the other side, with its second sharp curve. The traffic light at the bottom of the hill turned red as I approached. Despite my frenzied honking, cars on Swift Avenue moved sedately into the intersection.

One disinterested driver glanced in my direction as I tried to wave him out of my way. Another, a semidriver, flipped me a bird. I finally moved into the intersection all right, but only when my light turned green.

While I was stopped, I had looked up and down Swift, searching for her, but I saw no sign of the van. There was only one other direction she could go at that intersection, only one other choice-onto the freeway, heading north.

I shot across Swift and sliced down the on ramp. Far ahead, a glimpse of yellow school van disappeared around yet another curve, swerving frantically in and out of the otherwise leisurely flow of homeward-bound Sunday afternoon traffic.

I dodged from one lane to another. Where the hell was she going? Why did she have Peters in the car with her? My heart thumped in my throat as we came up the straightaway by the Rainier Brewery. I was closing on her fast, looking for ways I could cut her off, force her to the side of the road.

Just north of the brewery, I was right behind her, honking and motioning for her to pull over. Suddenly, without warning, she veered sharply to the right. With a crash of crumbling metal, the van smashed through the temporary guardrail on a closed exit ramp and bounced crazily over a railroad tie barrier.

I skidded to the shoulder. I couldn't follow her in the Porsche. It never would have cleared the railroad tie. Throwing myself out of the car, I tumbled over the shattered remains of the guardrail and raced up the ramp on foot.

Nobody clocked me, but I was moving, ru

I topped the rise. She must have thought the exit was one of the almost completed ones that would have swung her back onto Beacon Hill. At the last moment, she tried to stop. I saw the flash of brake lights, but it was too late. She was going too fast.

The van skidded crazily and then rammed into the two Jersey barriers, movable concrete barricades, at the end of the ramp.

I stopped in my tracks and watched in horror. For the smallest fraction of a second, I thought the barrier would hold. It didn't. The two pieces split apart like a breaking dam and fell away. Carried forward by momentum, the van nosed up for a split second, then disappeared from view.

An eternity passed before I heard the shattering crash as it hit the ground below. Riveted to the ground, frozen by disbelief, I heard a keening horn, the chilling sound of someone impaled on a steering wheel.

Sickened and desperate, I turned and ran back the way I had come. Within seconds, the wailing horn was joined by the faint sounds of approaching sirens. I recognized them at once. Medic One. The sirens did more than just clear traffic out of the way. They said help was coming. They said there was a chance.

"Hurry," I prayed under my breath. "Please hurry."

As I reached the Porsche, I saw two squad cars speeding south on the freeway, blue lights flashing. The boy on the bicycle had made the call. They were coming to help me.

Nice going, guys!

CHAPTER 31

It took three illegal turns to get off the freeway and reach the area on Airport Way where the Van had fallen to earth. By the time I got there, someone had mercifully silenced the horn.

Naturally, a crowd had gathered, the usual bloodthirsty common citizens who don't get enough blood and gore on television, who have to come glimpse whatever grisly sight may be available, to see who's dead and who's dying. Revolted, I pushed my way through them. An uncommonly fat woman in a bloodied flowered muumuu with a plastic orchid lei around her neck sat weeping on a curb. I bent over her, checking to make sure she was all right.

"Look at my car," she sobbed. "That thing fell out of the sky right on me. My poor car! I could have been killed. If someone had been in the backseat…"

I looked where she pointed. A few feet from the van sat the pretty much intact front end of an old Cadillac Seville. The rear end of the car, from the backseat on, had been smashed flat. All that remained behind the front door was a totally unrecognizable pile of rubble.

A few feet away lay the battered van, surrounded by hunks of shattered concrete. The van's engine had been shoved back to the second seat. It lay on its side like a stricken horse with a troop of medics and firemen scurrying around it.

My knees went weak. I felt sick to my stomach. The sweet stench of cooking grain from the brewery mixed with the odor of leaking gasoline and the metallic smell of blood. The concoction filled my nostrils, accelerating my heartbeat, triggering my gag reflex.

I attempted to stand up, hoping to get away from the smell and to escape the lady in the flowered dress, but she grabbed onto my arms, pulling herself up along with me. Once we were both upright, she clung to me desperately, repeating the same words over and over, as if repetition would make sense of the incomprehensible.

"It just fell out of the air. Can you imagine? It landed right on top of me."

Prying her fingers loose one by one, I broke away from her. "You stay here," I told her. "I'll send someone to check on you." I walked toward the wreck. A uniformed officer recognized me and waved me past a police barricade.

Just then a second Medic One unit arrived at the scene. A pair of medics hurried to the woman's side. I turned my full attention on the van.

Paramedics, inside and outside the vehicle, struggled to position their equipment, trying to reach the injured occupants of the van. I knew from experience that their job would be to stabilize the patients before any attempt was made to remove them from the vehicle, place them in ambulances, and transport them to hospitals.

Standing a little to one side, I waited. I didn't want to be part of the official entourage. I didn't want to ask or answer any questions. I was there as a person, a friend, not as a detective. The less anyone was aware of my presence, the better.

Dimly, I observed the gathering of reporters who showed up and demanded to know what was going on. Who was in the van? What school was it from? How had it happened? Were there any children involved?

Not directly, I thought. Only Heather and Tracie, whose father lay trapped in that twisted mass of metal. I thought of them then for the first time, of two girls waiting at home for me to bring them word of their father.

A paramedic crawled out of the vehicle and walked toward the lieutenant who was directing the rescue effort. In answer to the captain's question, the paramedic shook his head.

Dreading to hear the words and yet unable to stay away, I moved close enough to overhear what they were saying despite the roar of nearby fire truck engines.

"She's gone," the paramedic said. "What about the guy?"

"Lost a lot of blood," the lieutenant answered. "I don't know if we'll get him out in time or not."