no second suitcase.
“The bastard’s checked out,” Chelsea Ann said. “Good.”
A large vase of roses had begun to drop their crimson petals on the desktop. Probably bought on sale at a grocery store. I dumped them in the nearest wastebasket.
We carried Rosemary’s things back to Chelsea Ann’s room and Rosemary called down to the front desk to confirm what we suspected. Yes, ma’am. Judge Emerson had checked out twenty minutes ago. Did Mrs. Emerson want to keep the room? It was paid for till eleven the next morning.
“No, thank you,” Rosemary said.
Martha was determined to punish him every way possible. “Who’s his chief over there? Joe Turner? I shall make a point of telling him that Dave cannot claim credit for attending this conference,” she said magisterially, as she rose to go get ready for the evening reception.
“Could you give Fitz my regrets?” Rosemary asked plaintively. “I don’t think I feel like going out again this evening.”
“Of course, sugar,” Martha said. “Charge your room service to Dave’s tab, then you get a good night’s sleep and just think about all that lovely alimony you’re gonna collect.”
Because I had volunteered to drive the Fitzhumes, Chelsea Ann asked if she could hitch a ride as well, and we agreed to meet in the lobby at 6:30.
I called Dwight, who was on his way out to supper with some other deputies, then scribbled a few words on a note card so that I could remember the sequence of the funny story I wanted to tell on Fitz at his roast tonight. Fresh lipstick and I was good to go.
The sun was more than an hour from setting as we crossed the parking lot to my car. I had planned to pull up to the door, but the others trailed after me. I had just pressed my remote to unlock the door and turned back to see where Martha and Fitz were when a red car dug out from its parking spot several spaces over and hurtled toward us.
For one bewildering moment I felt as if I were back on last night’s sidewalk, watching them film the hit-and-run scene for
Without touching the brakes, the driver careened down the drive and out onto the street that ran the length of the island, narrowly missing the gateposts.
Even as I ran to Martha and Fitz, cell phones were flipping open all around me, their frantic owners pushing the 911 buttons.
Martha was dazed and bleeding profusely from a scrape on her cheek and another on her hand. She tried to push herself upright, unaware that it was Fitz’s body that kept her pinned to the pavement. He was unconscious but breathing. I grabbed a roll of paper towels and a bottle of water from the trunk of my car and we made wet pads to ease Martha’s wounds and stanch the blood. We were afraid to move Fitz before medical help arrived but Chelsea Ann slipped off her jacket and made a cushion for Martha’s head. Between us, we managed to keep her calm.
It seemed hours before we heard ambulance and police sirens, although another glance at my watch showed that only twelve minutes had elapsed.
Two patrol cruisers got there first. One uniformed officer and a security guard from the hotel held back the onlookers while a second officer began questioning us for details on the car.
All I could say was that it was an older red car. A hatch-back.
“There was something about the wheels,” Chelsea Ann said.
“Yes!” I exclaimed, remembering now. “The hubcaps were spinners.”
My nephew Reese is crazy about his truck and one of the many chrome extras he’s bought for it is a set of hubcaps that keep spinning even after the truck stops.
An ambulance from the New Hanover Regional Medical Center swung into the parking lot and was directed over to us. The paramedics hopped out, checked Fitz’s vital signs, and immediately put a cervical collar on his neck, then lifted him onto a stretcher. I heard one of them mutter, “BP’s tanking and one lung’s collapsed.”
They fitted him with an oxygen mask before loading him into the ambulance—Martha, too.
Strong-willed, imperious Martha looked at me beseechingly. “Deborah?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
“Ma’am, I’ll need your statement,” said one of the officers. “You can’t leave.”
“The hell I can’t,” I told him and slammed the car door on his protests.
As the ambulance rolled down the drive, I slid my key into the ignition, pausing only when Chelsea Ann yanked open the other door and jumped in. Flooring the gas pedal, I caught up with the ambulance and hung tight. Even after they turned the sirens back on and sped through red lights, I sailed through with them.
“Omigawd!” Chelsea Ann shrieked when I swerved around a pickup and almost T-boned a blue convertible full of white-faced college kids.
I saw that she had retrieved Martha’s purse. “Is her phone there?”
A moment of rummaging and she came up with it in her hand. “What’s their son’s name? Chad?”
“Sounds right,” I said.
Moments later, she had scrolled through Martha’s contact list and found the son’s number on speed dial.
Weaving in and out of the vacation traffic that clogged the island’s main two-lane street, I listened with only half an ear as Chelsea Ann explained who she was and what had happened.
