Tough Cookie

“Right,” Vance murmured. When Tom sat down at my side, Officer Vance slid the salt, pepper, and three unused serving spoons into a line. His thick, carrot-like fingers moved the salt cellar. “This is the white pickup.” Then the peppermill: “This is you.” The first spoon: “This is the guy behind you, another van.” The second spoon: “Then there’s another vehicle behind that van.” He placed the last spoon in place. “Then here’s somebody quite a bit farther back.”

I concentrated on the objects, then moved the first two slightly to give the right scale of distances. But I had not seen a fourth vehicle, somebody quite a bit farther back. It had been snowing too hard.

Vance pointed to the last spoon. “The driver of this car farther back, a woman from Idaho Springs, was in a Subaru station wagon. Only she didn’t skid into anybody. She was right behind another Subaru wagon, and the two of them were ten car-lengths behind you. Just before the accident, she swears that other wagon sped up wildly and rammed into the van behind you.” Officer Vance moved the next-to-last serving spoon up toward the first spoon. “Then she heard the noise of cars colliding. She braked, and skidded. Ahead of her, the other Subaru sped up and rammed the van twice more. The snow made it hard for her to see exactly what had happened. In a fraction of a second, she saw the truck, and then your van, go over the cliff edge.” He sighed. “By the time we got there, what with the snow and all the cars going by on the way to the tunnel, there weren’t any skid marks left. Apart from what this woman said, we don’t have a trace of the two vehicles behind you.”

“I don’t remember the cars behind me. Van, one or two Subarus, nothing.”

Vance shrugged. “You were hit, you hit a truck.”

“But … because of the snowfall, I didn’t see the truck. At least, I didn’t see it go over.”

“The guardrail was busted in two places,” he told me, “but aside from that, we don’t have much physical evidence. The van behind you took off,”—he raised his shrewd, assessing eyes to mine—“and we can’t find this Subaru the woman saw.”

“So … are you telling me this accident was a planned hit-and-run?” I was incredulous. “That someone deliberately rammed the van behind me? Rammed it three times? Why would anyone do anything that insane?”

Officer Vance held up his hands. “That’s what I was hoping you could help me with.”

Tom reached over and gently clasped my fingers. “You witnessed a ski accident in the morning—”

“I didn’t witness it,” I protested. “I just … saw a guy lying on the slope. He died in the ambulance.”

“In the road accident,” Vance interjected, “we still don’t know the identity of the guy in the pickup. We only know he’s dead. Which makes the accident vehicular homicide.” I moaned. “With the storm so bad, they won’t be hoisting up either vehicle until the morning.” He paused. “Did you see any vehicle, any person you recognized, anywhere on the road from Killdeer to the Eisenhower Tunnel?” Officer Vance demanded.

“No. Sorry.”

“Did you witness any aggressive driving prior to your being hit?” Again, I shook my head. Officer Vance sighed. “This could have been a drunk. It could have been someone ticked off with the van driver, which would explain why the van was long gone by the time we got there.” When I stared at him in baffled disbelief, he picked up the pad, placed a card with his name and number on the table, and thanked me for my time. And if I remembered anything else … I nodded mutely and thanked him for coming. Tom showed him to the door.

“Do you think someone was trying to hit me?” I asked Tom, when he returned to the kitchen and poured milk and sugar into some cooked rice. “What are you doing?”

“Making a treat. I know you’re bullheaded enough to try to cook tonight, and you can’t do it on aspirin and an almost-empty stomach.”

I sighed. “You didn’t answer my question about the car accident.”

He nodded and stirred the cooking mixture, which gave off a rich, homey scent. “I don’t know. Hitting a van behind someone else’s van isn’t a very reliable way to kill someone on the road. Still, driving Julian’s Rover is a good idea,” he added thoughtfully. “As far as the roads go, the storm was breaking when Arch and I came through. No matter what, I feel more comfortable with you behind the wheel of a four-wheel drive. And speaking of the Rover, did you know General Farquhar had all the windows tinted very dark and bulletproofed?” I rolled my eyes at the mention of the super-paranoid military man, Julian’s benefactor. Tom searched for a set of custard cups, then went back to stirring. “I want you to keep the cellular with you all the time. Watch who’s around. Have somebody with you if you can. Just as a precaution, especially over in Killdeer, okay?”