By the time she finished, we had crossed the causeway and were streaking down the four-lane highway that was the quickest route to the hospital on 17th Street. Adrenaline was still pumping through my system when we finally turned into the appropriately named Ambulance Drive and pulled up at the emergency entrance.
I let Chelsea Ann off to stay with Martha and went to find a parking space.
Fitz was nowhere in sight when I got back to the emergency entrance, but I was told I could go back to where Martha’s cuts and scrapes were being treated. Either it was a slow Monday evening or the hospital was exceptionally well staffed for her to be seen so quickly.
Happily, her injuries seemed to be superficial. The gash on her hand needed only a few butterfly bandages to close it up. Her face would be red and bruised for several days, but she was quickly regaining her equilibrium. I hoped the nurses realized that it was only a matter of time before her polite requests to know what was happening with Fitz turned into a full-scale reminder of a patient’s legal rights and the rights of a spouse to be kept informed. Yet all they could tell her was that he had been taken directly to surgery.
Their son Chad called twice during his drive up from South Carolina. He had immediately phoned his sisters, which meant that Martha soon had one frantic daughter calling from California and another from Rome. Each clamored to know if she should catch the next flight out. Martha was usually so decisive that this not knowing what to tell them left her impatient and frustrated; but until he was out of the operating room, there was nothing she could do.
Friends from the conference came to sit with us in the ICU waiting room, and the judges from Fitz’s district brought pizza and milled about to lend support. Poor Fitz got his roast in absentia as we tried to keep our spirits up by remembering funny things he had said or done in his long career on the bench. It wasn’t a wake, but it was damn close to it. And through it all we kept circling back to why the accident had happened and why didn’t the driver stop?
Drugs? Alcohol? Or was it that someone had suddenly recognized that Fitz was the one who gave him jail time or ruled against him in court and impulsively decided to get even? Most defendants who come to district court wind up admitting sheepishly that yes, they are indeed guilty of the offenses with which they’ve been charged, and if they are angry, it’s usually toward their accusers or the police. Nevertheless, I have been threatened by an occasional belligerent, as have most judges. So far as I know, though, those threats have seldom been carried out. All the same, it’s been known to happen in other states.
“Fitz with an enemy? Nonsense!” Martha said firmly. “If it was deliberate—and mind you, I say
Nevertheless, a vengeful defendant was one of several theories that kept us going round and round like blind mice hunting for a way out of the maze.
I was almost grateful for the distraction when Detective Gary Edwards arrived shortly after seven with a Wrightsville police officer in tow for courtesy’s sake and asked to question us. Chelsea Ann and I were the only two there who had seen it happen.
“Let me buy y’all a cup of coffee or something,” Edwards said, and the four of us went down to the hospital cafeteria where they were still serving supper. Once we were seated with coffee that wasn’t as bad as I expected, Edwards tore open a packet of sugar, emptied it into his mug, and told us that one of the doormen had watched the whole thing. “He says it looked like the driver was deliberately aiming for the Fitzhumes. What was your impression?”
“Well, there was certainly enough room for him to have missed them if it wasn’t accidental,” I said, and Chelsea Ann agreed.
“He didn’t slow down at all. In fact, I think he was still accelerating. I feel like kicking myself though.”
“Why?” Edwards asked. “You couldn’t have stopped him.”
“No, but I could have gotten his license plate,” I fumed. “Last night, we watched them film a hit-and-run for that TV show.”
“
“The script called for someone to yell, ‘Did you get the license number?’ and nobody had. I thought that surely in real life someone would at least get the first few letters. But when Fitz and Martha went down, it drove everything else out of my head. Why—why—
“Someone did,” Edwards said, “but it’s blurry and the car was too far away to get a good fix on it. Our computer techs are trying to enhance it enough to get a partial plate, but I’m not counting on it. Someone thought it was a two-door Geo Metro and at least ten years old. That sound about right to y’all?”
Chelsea Ann and I looked at each other and shrugged. Neither of us cares enough about cars to tell a Toyota from a Nissan.
I took a swallow of the coffee and tried to concentrate. “A hatchback for sure,” I said, at last, “and yes, just two doors. Bright red and shiny like it’d been waxed recently, but I sort of think it had some serious dings.”
“What about the driver?”
We both shook our heads. We had an impression that it was a man behind the wheel, yet couldn’t say for sure. We were both too focused on Fitz and Martha.
“I think he was wearing a ball cap,” Chelsea Ann said.
“I couldn’t see him at all,” I said. “He was driving into the sun when he came at us and it glinted off the windshield. Maybe he really didn’t see Fitz and then was too scared to stop.”
“Maybe,” Edwards said. “Or maybe somebody’s got it in for a bunch of you guys. Is there a connection between Fitzhume and Jeffreys?”
We couldn’t think of one. “They’re in totally different districts. Fitz has been on the bench for twenty-five years and Jeffreys only for a year or two.”
Edwards sighed and downed the rest of his coffee. “Well if you think of anything…”
We assured him we would.
