any possible clues that could help me figure out what the hell had happened. On a separate piece of paper, I made notes of anything that might help things make sense. According to the state police accident report it appeared that dear old Herbert lost control of the vehicle on a curve and went off the road, at which time the car flipped once and hit a tree. The driver had been ejected and decapitated, and fragments of the skull had been found on the highway. Toxicology reports showed that Herbert’s blood alcohol was .06—technically not over the legal limit, but probably enough to impair his reactions on that curve.
But no mention of a passenger.
“Working hard?”
I looked up to see Ed with a coffee cup in his hand and a smile on his face.
“Because if you are,” he continued, “I feel somehow obligated to interrupt you.”
I grinned. “Aw, you’re so thoughtful.” I pulled the papers closer to me in order to make some room on the table. “C’mon, interrupt away. I’m just trying to figure out some stuff that’s been bugging me. What are you up to?”
He sat and set his coffee cup down. “I’m waiting for Marianne so I can give her the keys to my apartment, then I’m going to pick up Marcus, and we’ll be on our way for our annual fruitless attempt to murder Bambi’s parents.”
I laughed. “Male bonding at its best.”
“Testosterone heaven,” he added, grinning. “As well as a nifty excuse to play with ATVs.” He nodded toward the window. I followed his gaze to see a pickup with two four-wheelers strapped onto a platform across the back.
“So, what am I interrupting here?” Ed asked, peering down at the papers spread across the table. “Ew. Looks like work stuff.” He made a face.
“Well, it’s actually a sorta weird personal thing, to be honest.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, I’m totally into weird personal things. Is it dirty as well?”
I laughed. “You wish!” I shook my head. “Actually, this accident happened the same night that you . . .” I sighed and screwed my face into a grimace, “saved me from killing myself from an overdose.”
“Ouch. Yeah. Strange night, that one. You’re talking about the fatality out by the parish line?” At my nod he leaned back. “I’d come on shift only about half an hour earlier. My unit was dispatched to that scene but it was pretty clear they weren’t going to need our services. The cops were pretty well tied up between that accident and then the murder scene out on Sweet Bayou Road.” He winced. “Which is where Marcus found you. We’d just left the accident scene when we got the call to his location. You lucked into it there.”
“How so?”
“Well, Marcus was actually assigned to be patrolling the district by the state line—where the accident occurred. He told me the only reason he was near Sweet Bayou was because he’d dribbled something on his uniform and had to run home to change.”
I had to smile at that. “A spot on his shirt? The horror!”
Ed laughed. “Yeah, for a tough guy he can be a bit of a priss. So, why are you so interested in this MVA?”
“Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but I’m pretty sure I was in that car. I left the bar with this guy that night.” I tapped the page with Herbert’s driver’s license information.
Ed shook his head firmly. “There’s no way you could have been in that car when it wrecked. You didn’t have a scratch on you. Or clothing,” he added with an apologetic grimace. “Besides, the accident was almost twenty miles away from where you were.”
“Yeah, there’s no way. I know that, but. . . . I don’t remember a lot from that night though, so maybe he pulled over and let me out. . . .” I trailed off as images of glass and metal and blood flickered haphazardly in my memory.
He frowned. “In the middle of the swamp? Naked?” His expression abruptly turned stricken and all traces of humor vanished. “Oh, fuck, Angel, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to joke. Oh, man.”
I flushed and shook my head. “No, it’s okay. I . . . I wasn’t, um, attacked. At least that’s what the nurse in the ER said.” Monica’s words flashed through my head. I wasn’t raped.
Ed was silent for several seconds, then nodded toward the printouts with the pictures. “May I look?”
I pushed them his way. “I haven’t done more than glance at them yet. But I haven’t found ‘Angel was here’ scrawled on the dashboard or anything.”
He chuckled, then started flipping through the pages. After about half a minute he paused, attention fixed on one picture. “It’s funny,” he said. “Marcus was on his way back out to help with the accident—after changing his shirt—when he saw you.”
“Like you said, I’m lucky,” I replied. Then I laughed. “If he hadn’t found me it probably would have been Detective Abadie. And he probably would have pushed me into the ditch!”
Ed’s expression stayed strangely sober. “How did you get the job at the Coroner’s Office, Angel?” he asked, not looking up. His voice sounded odd, as if he was working hard to keep control of himself.
I hesitated, briefly tempted to tell him the fiction about my probation officer arranging it. But I suddenly didn’t want to deal with evasions and lies. “I’m not really sure,” I admitted. “I, uh, got a letter telling me there was a job waiting for me. I asked around a bit, but the most I could find out was a rumor that someone with political connections arranged it for me.” I spread my hands and shrugged. “I don’t know why I would rate that, though. I wish I had a better answer for you.”
As I spoke, his face seemed to cave in, grief flooding in so intensely that it nearly took my breath away. I watched him, baffled. What memories could this picture be dredging up to make him look so stricken? And why would my explanation about my job seem to make it worse?
A few seconds later Ed took a shaking breath and set the picture down. The horrible grief in his eyes was gone, replaced by what looked like a weary acceptance.
“You okay?” I asked tentatively.
“I’m fine,” he said quietly.
“You don’t look fine,” I said, frowning. “Is something wrong?”
Lifting his gaze, he gave me a smile that completely lacked its usual spark. “I, uh, lost my parents in an accident like this. It just hit me all of a sudden.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching to touch the back of his hand. “Is that why you became a paramedic?”
His eyes dropped to my fingers on his hand. He made no move to pull away but I had the weirdest impression that he wanted to. “I suppose you could say that,” he said. “When they died . . . it changed my outlook on a lot of things.” His gaze never shifted from where I was touching him. Suddenly self-conscious, I broke contact and pretended to scratch an itch on my arm.
“It’ll all be fine.” He took a deep breath, looked back up at me. “You’re right,” he continued, tapping the picture. “If you were in the car, you didn’t leave yourself a convenient note.” He glanced at his watch and grimaced. “Hey, uh, I really need to get on my way. Are you going to be here for a while?”
“Sure,” I replied. “You want me to give Marianne the keys?”
“If you could, that would be great,” he said, already getting up from the booth. He fished in his pocket then dropped the keys on the table. “I’ll see you soon,” he said without looking at me, then turned and walked away without another word. I watched him as he climbed into his truck and drove away, then pulled the picture to me—a shot of the blood-spattered interior of the car. Gruesome, to be sure. I shivered and rubbed my arms. It had to be torture for him to work accident scenes. I couldn’t imagine having a job that constantly reminded me of a tragedy in my life.
Marianne walked in a couple of minutes later, gaze scanning the diner. I gave her a wave as I held up the keys, and her expression cleared. She headed my way and slid into the booth, giving me a perky smile.
“So, Ed has you doing his grunt work now?” she asked with a chuckle.
“Yeah, I don’t mind,” I said. “You missed him by only a couple of minutes. He seemed to be in a real hurry to get out of here.” I paused. “He was looking at some of the pics from this accident and got real upset,” I grimaced. “I feel bad. If I’d known his folks died in a car wreck I wouldn’t have kept all these pics out on the table like
