“Coop, what’s going on?” It wasn’t so much her tone this time, but her body language. It was rigid with worry, as was her grip on my arm, her slender fingers all but digging into the flesh of my wrist.
“It’s Ames. There’s been an accident. A horrible accident.”
My eyebrows rose and my brow furrowed. “An accident? What happened?”
“He was hit by a car,” she said with almost no emotion. “I saw it. It was a hit-and-run.”
Welp, there went that bacon cheeseburger.
Chapter 10
“C’mon. We have to help, Trixie. It looked really bad,” Coop urged, taking my hand and pulling me out to the lobby, where we headed out the doors. She pushed her way past the crowd of people gathered at the front entrance with me in tow.
“Coop, did you really see it happen?” I asked as I watched the paramedics lift a gurney into the ambulance, a glittery pair of socks poking out from beneath the sheet.
And that’s when I saw shoes in the street—Ames’s shoes. He’d been hit so hard his shoes had come off. Dear Heaven…
She nodded her head, pulling me under the cream-and-black striped awning. “Just the last bit of it. I heard someone yell for Ames to get out of the way just before a car raced toward him and ran him right over, Trixie. They just plowed into him.”
I could tell she was anxious, because now her words were becoming rapider, shooting from her lips like bullets.
“Okay, okay. So did you see the car? What kind of car was it, Coop?”
She bit her lip and paused in thought before she gripped my fingers. “It was black with really shiny hubcaps, and small. It was small. Not a big car, but maybe more like a Prius or a Honda Fit.”
Great. Only half of Portland drove those models, but there was hope. Coop was great with details. Maybe she’d seen something distinctive or heard something. “License plate? Driver?”
“No. I was so shocked. He…he flew up in the air, Trixie. It was…” She swallowed, the long column of her neck stretching and expanding. “It was awful.”
I pulled her into a quick hug, and then I gripped her shoulders firmly, setting her from me. “Did you see anything else? Anything at all? Anything memorable, anything that could help identify the driver?”
She shook her head again, her hair wet and sticking to her face, her eyes like saucers. “No. I did the only thing I could think of. I called 9-1-1.”
“Good girl, Coop. You’re always Johnny-on-the-spot. You did good.”
“He was drunk as a skunk,” I heard a man’s gruff voice ring out from the area of the tall electric heaters where people gathered to warm themselves while they waited for their Ubers. “Wandering all over the place, crying and demanding somebody named Mitzy give him his money. Kept sayin’ she had it comin’. Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, it all happened so fast. I think I lost ten years off my life watchin’ that kid with all the fancy makeup fly up in the air like a rag doll. Hellfire, I sure hope he’s okay.”
I needed to talk to this man. I don’t know that what happened to Ames was related to Mitzy’s death. In fact, if it was, that would be rather odd, unless there was a hit out on spoiled makeup gurus I was unaware of, but it couldn’t hurt to poke around.
“Wait here, okay, Coop? I’ll text Higgs and let him know you’re out here. I want to go see what this guy is talking about. Maybe he can help us with some information.”
Suddenly, Goose and Knuckles were there, pushing their way through the crowd to get to us with concerned faces.
“Trixie girl, what’s goin’ on?” Knuckles asked with a worried glance at Coop.
He wrapped an arm around her and tucked her close as I explained what was going on. Goose flanked the other side of Coop, cupping his chin and running his fingers over his beard while he listened, giving her a warm hug when I finished.
Knuckles ruffled her hair with the palm of his hand and chucked her under the chin. “Poor kiddo. But we’re here now. We gotcha.”
“You go do what you do, Trix,” Goose said reassuringly. “We got our girl.”
I scurried off toward the man who’d claimed Ames was drunk and crying in the middle of the road.
I approached with caution, though I got the feeling he needed to vent to someone about what had happened just by the way he wandered around talking to anyone who’d listen. I hoped he’d feel comfortable enough that he’d share with me while we waited for the police to arrive.
“Excuse me, sir. Hi, my name is Trixie Lavender. I sometimes work with the Portland Police Department. Are you all right? Do you need—”
He whistled, long and loud, cutting off my offer of help. “You shoulda seen it,” he said with a shake of his dark head, his chubby face wrinkled in worry. “It was terrible. Just terrible.”
Refocusing him, I asked, “And your name is?”
He cleared his throat and held out his hand to shake. “Gene. Gene Lapowski. From the great state of Idaho. Here for a pharmaceutical convention. Was out here grabbin’ a smoke when it happened.”
“Can you tell me what you saw, Mr. Lapowski?”
He cleared his throat and peered at me from hooded eyes. “He was carrying on about somebody named Mitzy and how she stole all his money and somethin’ about how she had it comin’, and that’s all I heard. Next thing I know, he was running out into the middle of the street, waving his arms in the air and, out of nowhere, a car came and plowed right into him! I’m telling you, lady, I heard his bones crunch, he hit that car so stinkin’ hard.”
Wincing, I shivered at the visual. “Did you see what kind of car it was, or maybe who was driving?”
He swiped his hands together. “Zoomed through here like a bat
