Hit and Walk
Prologue
Bright sunshine slashed through the steam rising from the radiator of the car. Burger wrappers and empty water bottles lay strewn across the dash and floorboards. Moments before, this mess had been in the back seat. The driver lifted his head from his chest, where it had lolled unaware of the world around him. A cell phone sat by his feet, messaging app open.
As he looked out his cracked windshield, his hands instinctively pawed in front of himself, pushing back against the collision that had already happened. Blood covered the window. It was on the outside of the window. It dripped from the roof and down the door post and into the open window. All he could hear was a ringing sound, occasionally punctuated by the noise of dripping. Scarlet ribbons dripped in his open door window, and landed on his arm. He retched, and then emptied his stomach onto the steering wheel in one long torrent of horror.
Chapter 1
“Hello?” A voice filtered through the curtain from the door way.
“Mr. Haldane? Are you awake?”
The face to whom the musical voice belonged peered around the curtain. It was a pleasant, slightly plump face to whom this voice belonged. A young woman dressed in the light blue uniform of a nurse stepped around the curtain. She appeared to be young, perhaps in her early twenties. She held a sheet of paper in one hand and a couple of pens were clutched in the other, with which she also held a paper coffee cup.
“My name is Sarah. I’m your dayshift nurse. How are you doing?”
The man looked up. He was sitting up, staring at his hands. His eyes were rimmed with red. He had been trying to pretend that he had not been crying, for that is not a dignified thing for a grown man to be doing. There was not much else to do for it. He screwed his face up, and swallowed audibly. He motioned as if to speak, and then found he could not. Something was wrong.
“Did she make it?”
His voice trembled. He knew the answer to his question. He had known from the moment he had come to. He had not seen the old lady, not until after the crash. When he had first seen her, all he had seen was her legs, dangling lifeless down his cracked windscreen. The wiper blade had snapped in the impact, and the movement of the control arm had moved her foot ever so slightly, back and forth.
The nurse pursed her lips and slowly shook her head.
“Are you in pain? Can I get you something? Perhaps a little something to take the edge off?”
She fussed around the drip bag hanging from the stand at his elbow. He looked at his wrist. A needle jutted out from the bandage on his wrist. He took a breath. Pain suddenly shot through his upper chest and coursed over his shoulder. He could hear a grinding in his shoulder and collar when he moved.
“Your collarbone is broken, and you’ve got two fractured ribs. There is some bruising on your arm and torso, but other than this, you don’t appear to have any injuries.” She continued to fuss about the equipment. Her bustle had the appearance of tired professionalism. This was the middle of her shift, and she had other patients to attend to. Receiving no further complaints from Mr. Haldane, she retreated from the room.
Barely had the door closed behind her, when another uninvited knock sounded on the heavy door. This time the guest did not bother with pleasantries when he entered. A tall, muscular man in his thirties stepped through the door.
He moved around the curtain and into the room. His movements were fluid and sharp. Haldanes’ eyes took in his boots, his dark blue pants with that vertical yellow stripe running up the seam. Cuffs, a pistol, and magazines hung from the leather belt. On the front of the soft body armor there were two rifle magazines and a radio attached. His head was bare, as he held his hat in one hand by the brim. In his other hand there was a small, well worn note-book. The lawmen looked every inch like a man well aware of his authority.
Haldane shuddered. He suddenly felt very cold. His stomach flipped, and he fought to keep down his bile.
“Mr. James Haldane?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Constable Hooker.”
The policeman looked Haldane up and down, slowly assessing him.
“I’m here to ask you a few follow-up questions. Do you remember when we spoke at the site?”
Haldane shook his head slowly. He did not remember much after he barfed. He did remember this officer, but he could not recall much more than his face.
“Are you feeling well enough to speak for a minute?'“
“I t-think so.” He stammered.
“Your cell phone was found at the scene in your car. Do you remember anything about it?”
James swallowed and looked down at his hands. He felt sick.
“Yes”
“A messaging app was open on it. Do you have anything to say about it, or do you wish to wait for a lawyer?”
Grief and horror surged inside of him. He could remember that much. He had been texting one of the boys, and he had not been paying attention to the street. He only dropped the phone when he felt the bump of the curb passing under his tires. By the time he looked up, all he saw was the fence post. He barely touched the brakes before he slammed into it. It had been a sturdy wooden fence. It was only in this moment of recollection that he realized that the airbags had not gone off.
“Yea, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Ok. Mr. Haldane, do you remember why you swerved onto the sidewalk? Were you trying to avoid something?”
James shook his head slowly. Even that little movement hurt.
“No.”
The officer looked at him. It seemed like he was looking through him. He felt thin, exposed.
“Just for my records, what is a good phone number to reach you at?”
James recited the number to him, almost chanting the numbers. He was going to be sick again.
“And your address, please?”
Again, he recited the numbers. The room seemed to close in on him. It felt as if the air was thick, impossible to breath. He abruptly sucked in a mouthful of air, and then his vision collapsed into the light fixture on the wall behind the officers shoulder. With one last pop, everything went dark. He sank to the bed, unconscious. He was unaware of the hands reaching out for him to slow his fall. He did not know anything anymore.
Chapter 2
“Hey there champ. How’s it going?”
Constable Hooker peered over his raised coffee mug. A brunette hovered into view. She smiled at him.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Sure” He gestured to the seat opposite himself. “Fancy meeting you here!”
The young lady flashed a bright smile as she sat. Leaning across the table, she touched his arm.
“I was hoping to meet you here. Bob said you’d be here.”
“Oh?”
“I was just over at the Prosecutors office. He was talking with the head admin guy from the hospital on the phone about something that you might find interesting.”
She sipped her coffee. Her face scrunched up and she wiggled her eyebrows. It appeared that she believed that this was a ‘cute’ face. In truth it had the effect of making her look rather silly. Hooker sat there grinning stupidly. This woman had that effect on him.
“Aaand… the head admin guy, or whatever, has sent a nice letter to that guy who ran over Mrs. Brown.”
At this, Hooker frowned. That traffic accident was not what he had expected to be talking about. At least not here, and not with her. He’d taken Susan out on a couple of dates. He really liked her. She also happened to be one of the clerks at the courthouse.
“Mmkay. Whaddya mean?”
“Weeeell…” Susan leaned in, delighted to have a captive audience. Gossip needs such to thrive, and Susan did like to gossip. Pausing to take what she must have imagined to be a dramatic sip of her coffee, she looked around, tossed her hair over her shoulder, and resumed.
“The head admin guy sent a letter to the fellow who ran over Mrs. Brown. In it, he thanked him, on behalf of the taxpayers, for saving the taxpayers 2600$.”
Constable Hooker sat back, brows knit in confusion. He put his mug down on the table.
“What?”
“Yea, the head honcho guy thanked him for saving taxpayers 2600$. You see, Mrs Brown had dementia. Been suffering from it for a long time. Her family had enrolled her in the MAID program on Monday. I think that they might have wanted her gone. Too much bother, or something. Anyways, she didn’t have a clue. And then yesterday, she dies anyways.”
Susan say back with a careless wave of her hand, raised her mug to her lips and took a sip of her latte. The whole story seemed rather trivial as it tumbled out of her mouth. She cradled her warm mug in both hands and resumed her tale.
“So Johns, you know the guy, he decides on the spot not to press charges for vehicular manslaughter. Your poor chap walks, Scott-free. He did everyone a favor, really, when you think about it.”
Hooker leaned on the table with one elbow and stroked his mustache. Susan was cute, but she was brainless. Heartless, rather. He didn’t think in this moment, that she would get a third date. Clenching his jaw, he grunted some sort of acknowledgment of this news.
“Look, I gotta go. Thanks for the news. See you soon.”
Chapter 3
Hooker sat in his patrol car outside 9305-107th Ave. The house was blue, the shingles new, and a red SUV sat in the driveway. The blue car that usually sat next to it was in the impound yard across town. It would go to the wreckers within the month. Most things take too much time in a bureaucratic system. Certain things take no time at all. Hooker pushed these musings out of mind, and got out of his car.
As he walked to the front door, he scanned down the side of the house towards the fence, and the shed that was visible in the back yard. There did not seem to be anyone there. He scanned the windows on the one side, and across the front. The curtains were drawn, and did not move as he approached. No signs of a dog were visible. No neighbors were out, either. Quiet neighborhood, he thought to himself. He’d gotten a service call to the house five doors down. But that was six weeks ago, and that woman was crazy.
He walked up the two steps to the door and rang the doorbell. He could hear the sound of the bell echo within. Then he heard the scraping of a chair across linoleum. Muffled footfalls padded towards the door from the other side. Slowly, without any sign of haste, the knob turned and the door creaked open.
James Haldane stood there in a sweat-stained muscle-shirt and flannel pajama pants.
“Oh, geez.”
The words shot out of his mouth as blinked in the sunlight. He had been drinking all night, if Hooker was any judge of such things. Beer cans and an empty glass bottle were strewn across the table and floor behind James. He smelled like sour rye as he blinked his blood-shot eyes.
Hooker gave no appearance of noticing any of the putrid smells wafting out the doorway at him, nor did he seem to notice the appearance of the man standing in the doorway. The Constable most certainly did notice these things, but he took it all in with a calm air of imperturbability. He removed his sunglasses, and folded them neatly into his pocket.
“Mr. Haldane? Do you remember me from the accident, and the hospital?”
“Yea. I s’ppose I do.”
“I’m here to preform a wellness check. Just making sure that you’re ok.”
Haldane cracked a grin. He shaded his eyes with one hand and leaned on the door jam with the other.
“A wellness check? As you can see, dear sir, I am very much unwell!”
As he spoke he swayed slightly. Drunk he might be, but a liar he was not. Some men drink to escape the truth, only to find they cannot.
“Though I s’ppose that I’m better off than that poor old lady…”
The words seemed to trail off, as if unbidden. Suddenly James put his hand to cover his mouth. He seemed to be choking on a sob. He was most definitely not ok.
As Haldane swayed in front of him, attempting to regain a hold on himself, Hooker watched. After a few moments, he spoke.
“It seems that there won’t be any charges, sir. Given the circumstances, I’d say that you’re gonna be ok.”
“Ok?” Spat the swaying man. “I’ve killed a woman! And then the government sends me a thank-you note!” Swiftly turning, he retreated back to the table, scooped something from it and returned to the door. In his fist he clutched a crumpled paper. The letter head was clearly visible. It was from the Health Authority.
“Right here!” Haldane shook the paper vigorously. “Dear Sir, we write this letter to inform, blah, blah, blah, ‘thank you for saving the taxpayer, blah, blah, twenty-six-hundred-blasted-dollars!”
With the last roar, he threw the paper as far over the constables shoulder and into the yard as he could.
“What is this world coming to? Are we gonna kill every old lady with dementia? I should be goin’ to jail! What about her family? What about Justice?”
His eyes poured tears as he bellowed. The snot flowed from his nose and mixed with the spittle, spraying on the constable with every percussive syllable.
“I was texting! I didn’t even see her! I’m a killer!” He waved his hands furiously with every confession. He was quite out of his mind. “What about justice! What about her family? I don’t deserve to live. I hate myself. Go away. Go away now.”
With this last word, James slid down to door frame and sat down, howling his grief and guilt into his hands.
Constable Hooker turned to go. As he slipped his shades back on, he turned one last time to the miserable wretch on the porch.
“She was my grandma.” And saying this, he left.