“Whatever.”
“Brewster, we can clear this whole matter up in the blink of an eye. We’re investigating an accident that occurred on October twenty-third of last year, in New York City. If you can provide proof you weren’t there at the time, we’ll apologize for bothering you and be on our way.”
“Or I could ask you to get out and come back with a warrant.” Whatever tremor Brewster had heard in his voice before was now replaced by the steely tone of an insulted man. He reached for the cell phone in his pocket. “Who’s your boss?”
The Northbrook cop sprang to life, clasping his hands over his pressed-together knees and leaning forward. “Yes, you could ask us to leave, and we do understand your right to do that.” The second those words escaped his lips, Laurel and Hardy turned to glare at him from either side with a silent but obvious speak only when spoken to instruction.
Enough of this nonsense. Brewster went ahead and pulled out his phone, opened the calendar, and scrolled backwards twelve months. An office appointment on the date in question would chase all three bozos back to their circus.
He hit pay dirt. October twenty-third of the previous year happened to fall on a Saturday. He’d been on a weekend trip out of town that day—a trip supported by all kinds of documentation and proof, from travel itineraries to hotel registers to… He fought the urge to taunt the cops with a victory dance but couldn’t keep from busting into a wide grin. “I met with an agent that day, in Seattle.”
“An agent?” the bad cop asked.
“Yeah, I was at a writers’ conference, and I met with a woman to pitch a book I’ve been working on.”
“I thought you financed trucks.”
These cops were really getting on his nerves. “Don’t you have any hobbies? Now do you want to hear this or not?”
All three men fished little notebooks out of their pockets and flipped them open.
He provided the details of his trip, scrolling through old emails and notes to come up with names, addresses, phone numbers…the whole nine yards. The cops seemed friendlier after that—even the fat one—and Brewster stifled the urge to pump his fist or do anything else that might win a yellow flag for taunting, having lifted the burden of false accusation from his shoulders. When he finished divulging all pertinent information, he waited for the three intruders to say something in apology and leave.
The Northbrook cop actually did start getting up, but the gaunt one stopped him by settling a hand on his shoulder. The heavy cop spoke again. “You’re probably wondering what this is all about, huh?”
“Well, I—”
“And our apologies for barging in on you like this,” his partner cut in, embracing the role of good cop with gusto.
The willingness of two New York detectives to tell a story he probably had no business hearing stirred Brewster’s suspicions, and even brought the hint of a twitch back to the surface. He’d been watching old Colombo reruns on TV lately while on the treadmill at the health club. Peter Falk always closed in for the kill by pretending to leave and then stopping mid-stride to turn back. “Oh, one more thing.”
But Brewster was an innocent man, a guy with an alibi, and someone sufficiently relieved to act magnanimous. Not to mention a man now burning with curiosity. “I’ve got to admit you guys have me wondering why you strayed so far out of town over an accident. Are you sure you don’t want some coffee?”
The body language of all three men said they might.
“I picked up a blueberry pie at the grocery on the way home from work yesterday,” he added.
* * *
The four of them sat at the kitchen table. The kid from the Northbrook PD faced Brewster, and the two New York cops flanked him on either side. Brewster dug into his pie and listened to the heavy one, Jonesy, bitch about how accidents and suicides that got reclassified as homicides a whole frigging year later were a royal pain in the ass, because the evidence at the scene gets totally obliterated and even the forensic stuff scooped up by the cops before the stomping feet come along can get lost or mishandled or tainted. “You don’t wanna know how often that OJ Simpson stuff happens.” And the witnesses get on with their lives, unable to remember a goddamn thing anymore.
“What sort of accident was it?” Brewster asked when a pause in the man’s diatribe gave him a chance to work in a question.
The cop rolled over him and kept on going, but his rant became more focused. “If that ain’t bad enough, here’s a case dumped in our laps because of a couple goddamn dreams.”
Dreams? The taste of pie went flat in Brewster’s mouth. He stopped chewing and listened up.
“The operator had a blackout just before it happened. Train almost jumped the station.”
“It did stop, but a little too late,” Barnes, the thin cop, chimed in.
“Ain’t that a bitch?” Jonesy said. “At the time, the operator claimed this woman was standing alone out there, but he checks in with a different story last week and says he remembers it better, because he just had a dream about it.”
“Slow down,” the Northbrook cop said. He caught Brewster’s eye. “We’re not following you.”
Jonesy ignored him and plowed on. “Then some chick who’d been on a train heading the opposite direction, and who’d made herself scarce after the thing went down, comes into the precinct house three days ago and says she glanced out her window when it happened. She saw a man standing with the victim, too. Wanna guess why she came in?”
Brewster gazed into the cop’s unreadable eyes. An accident, dreams, two cops flying all the way from New York City to talk to him. His hands were getting sweaty. He didn’t have a clue where the cop was going with
