It came out of nowhere…
Evangeline had turned with me. “What? You see something?” she asked.
“No,” I said after a pause. “No, I didn’t see anything.” Did I?
“Y’all can go on home now.”
I jumped. Officer Hopkins was right in front of me. The top button of his uniform shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a very white T-shirt beneath. Interesting. Officer Hopkins was apparently fastidious with his laundry.
“I’m the press,” I said without thinking. I held up my notebook and pencil.
He pushed them back down, as if I was brandishing a camera in his face. “There’s nothing to report on.”
“Nothing to report on? There’s a dead body right there!”
“People die every day. We’ve got to investigate this. It could be as simple as a heart attack. His family doesn’t even know yet. You should report on the new hot dog contraption they’ve got in concessions instead. That’s a story people want to read about.”
He couldn’t be serious. I tried to imagine myself telling my old editor in Chicago that nobody cared about a murder victim when there was a new frankfurter machine in town. If I’d ever done something like that, she might’ve actually called U of C and asked for them to revoke my diploma. And I wouldn’t have blamed her. I might’ve given it back willingly.
“So he had a heart attack and then someone ran over him? There’s a murder here,” I said. “Or at the very least a manslaughter.”
Quick panic raced across his face and disappeared, like a lightning strike. “Or an accident.”
“He accidentally fell under someone’s tires?”
“Nobody saw what happened.”
“Not true.” I pointed with my notebook at the witness, who was shuffling away in the arms of two friends, still sniffling. “She saw what happened. Thump-thump happened!”
He gazed at me for a long time, and then he shrugged. “From what I understand, Mary Jean wouldn’t let you print it, anyway.”
“Yes she—” I slumped. He was right. She wouldn’t.
Unless…I was persistent.
For the first time since coming to Parkwood, I was interested in a story. Maybe I could talk Mary Jean into it. I could be very persuasive when I wanted to be. If I took really good notes, she might just be tempted to let me run with it.
I took a defiant side step so I could see around Officer Hopkins and surveyed the scene again. There was something off. Something in plain sight that I wasn’t seeing.
Chief Henderson had gotten out a camera and was taking up-close photos of the coach’s body. I wondered if I should suggest he take photos of Wickham’s car, just in case. Who else around here drove a car with round headlights and a motive to mur—
And that was when it occurred to me.
Paulie.
Paulie Henderson drove an old, beat up Jeep. He was known for always taking it off-road to places it shouldn’t go, like over curbs and through front yards…and…
Across the chest of a man he’d just an hour before very heatedly and very publicly vowed to kill?
Could that be why the chief wanted everyone out of there so badly? Could that be why Officer Hopkins’ job seemed to be to usher me away?
Well, no. The coach was holding a Mercedes hood ornament. I’d seen that with my own eyes. And I would have been willing to bet dollars to donuts that Wickham’s hood ornament was currently missing.
But still. Paulie had actually told him he was a dead man. That had to be taken into account.
“So if you could just move along now…” Officer Hopkins said, stepping in my way again and making little go-away motions with his hands, like he was shooing a stray off of his porch. He was really starting to annoy me with this wanting-me-to-leave thing he had going on.
“Will you be considering Paulie Henderson for this hit-and-run?” I asked.
Officer Hopkins flinched and lowered his voice. “Shhh, you can’t just go around asking those kind of questions.”
I balked. “Did you just shush me? You can’t shush the press, sir. We have constitutional rules about that. And I absolutely can ask those kind of questions. In fact, I think I have a duty to ask them. I owe it to the public and to this man’s family to ask those questions. And I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well save your energy trying to get me out of here.”
He sighed, resigned. “Fine. You want to stay? Stay. But stay right here—don’t move—and don’t bother me or the chief with any questions. There are no constitutional rules about that.”
“You sure about that?” I asked, drawing myself up boldly.
“Obstruction of justice,” he said, matching my confidence. If I didn’t know better, I would think deep down he was enjoying this. And I couldn’t help noticing the little jolt of electricity between us, which was definitely not what I wanted at a time like this. Or at any time. “You can’t write the story if you’re sitting in the back of my car with handcuffs on until I can get around to writing the report. And I am really slow at writing reports. Really slow. Are you catching my drift?”
I nodded. He went back to waving the crowd away, but kept half an eye on me the entire time. The chief put away his camera and began pacing the perimeter of the scene. As tempting as it was to take a giant step out of the spot the officer had ordered me to stay in just to spite him—and kind of to get him to come back within electricity-zapping range to prove to myself that I hadn’t imagined it—I was there to do a job and I had to focus.
“Chief,” I called out. “Would you mind if I asked you some questions? Could a Mercedes run over someone like that,
