Twelve Days of Trauma Page 3

  “You’re talking like you know a thing or two about how this works,” she said, not answering my question.

  “I do,” I said. “I was a detective for the NYPD a few years ago. So tell me, did you find anything?” I insisted.

  “The sheriff wasn’t able to cordon the area off long enough for a proper investigation to be conducted,” she said. “The storm and all, you know?” It wasn’t a good excuse, not good enough for me.

  “That doesn’t sound right,” I replied, narrowing my eyes. “Why compromise a crime scene because of a little snow?” I was getting angry and she could feel it.

  “I know and I’m very sorry. I didn’t think it was right either, but around here, what he says goes,” Julie replied. “With the storm, we were all in a bit of a tight situation; we had our hands full just keeping the roads clear.” She looked at the floor, ashamed.

  I took a deep breath, feeling my fingers starting to shake again. “It’s been a long day, detective.” I said. “You know I lost my wife and I almost lost my daughter in that accident.”

  “I’m very sorry, Tim,” She said, handing me a card. ”Please call me if you think of anything else.” She turned around and headed out of the room.

  The nurse came in after Julie left and helped me into the bed.

  “We’re just going to get you a little something to help you rest,” she said, reaching for my IV.

  “I’m good,” I lied, smiling as I ignored the ache in my ribs that would keep me from finding a comfortable spot on the bed. “I’m half asleep already.”

  “Okay, just call if you need anything.” the nurse said, quickly turning around and heading back out of the room. I was asleep within minutes.

  ◆◆◆

  I spent the next day with Celia again as the snow continued to fall. It had been the right call to say no to the drugs the night before. I was finally able to think clearly and I was back on my feet, though walking with a bit of a limp.

  It was hard to accept that my entire world had just been shattered; I had seen many families broken as mine had been but I never expected it to happen to me, especially years after leaving the force. I shed some tears, but I knew myself and the way forward was to keep myself busy. Some asshole had taken my wife from me and he had taken Celia’s mother away from her. I intended to find him and make him pay for what he did.

  Chapter 10

  December 17th

  I woke to a knock on the door.

  “Mr. Jacobs,” a nurse said, opening the door. “You have visitors. Can I let them in?”

  I looked behind her to see my parents, both looking very tired. Dad had his favourite sweater on, stretched tight over the belly he had grown since retirement. He seemed to have less hair every time I saw him. Mom looked the same as always, except for maybe a few more wrinkles on her face, with her short grey hair and small, lean stature.

  “Yes, please,” I said. She came and helped prop me up in the bed and I thanked her, then she left us alone.

  “Tim,” my dad said, moving closer as the nurse left. “I’m sorry it took us so long to get here. I’m so sorry about what happened to Suzy.”

  Mom couldn’t even talk as she was already crying. She just came in and gave me a hug.

  “Don’t apologize,” I said. “I wouldn’t have wanted you two to get in a crash as well. Please, sit down.” I said, indicating a couple of chairs by my bed.

  “That’s what I said,” Mom said, regaining some control. “But then last night I couldn’t sleep, thinking about you here all alone after what happened to Suzy. I’m so sorry.” Her tears started flowing freely and mine did too.

  After the perfunctory visit with me, mom said she wanted to see Celia. I stopped Dad as they went out the door.

  “Dad,” I said. “You mind leaving your car keys with me? I might have to go to the police station to sign some papers.” Dad had been a cop before me and they probably knew me well enough to know what I really wanted to do.

  I got dressed and went out the back door to avoid passing by the nurse’s station. They probably wouldn’t stop me from leaving, but there would be questions and paperwork and they would try to discourage me from doing so. I didn’t want to waste time. Better to beg forgiveness rather than ask permission.

  I made it out the door without being seen but it was a long walk around the building to the parking lot. I spotted my Dad’s taurus and climbed in, taking a moment to catch my breath before driving off.

  Binghamton seemed even smaller in the daylight. A few snowflakes still drifted lazily and Dads car slid around a bit on the roads which were still covered in snow. There wasn’t much trafic. I stopped at one of the few traffic lights and my mind returned to Suzy on the last day of her life, waking up like a bear, spending a few hours at work, enjoying a couple of meals with Celia and I. If only she had known what would happen. If only I had known.

  A horn sounded behind me. The light had turned green while my mind wandered. I drove through the intersection and changed to the right lane, jacked up pickup-truck roaring by me on the left. Did everyone in Binghamton have a four wheel drive?

  I found my way to the scene of the accident and parked in the lot shared by the hotel and the nightclub next door. We had been moments away from pulling into this lot when the accident had occurred, ending Suzy’s life and changing Celia’s and mine forever. How things could have been different if we’d left the restaurant a minute earlier.

  I winced as I got out and walked toward the road. I noted a single camera mounted high on the wall of the nightclub, facing the parking lot. The club was closed now, but I would need to come back later and ask about that. Maybe it had caught something.

  I reached the road and stopped to catch my breath. More snow had fallen, but I could still see where our van had been pushed off the side of the road. I made my way across and waded into the deep snow. I caught a faint whiff of gasoline that had probably leaked from our car. I waded further to where I guessed our car had stopped and started digging in the snow with my hands.

  I found a few indistinguishable little bits of glass and plastic. My fingers were freezing and I almost gave up, then I felt something bigger buried two feet under the snow. I removed a few double handfuls of snow, ignoring the cold and retrieved the object.

  It was a large piece broken off of a custom grill. It couldn’t have come from our van. Was it from the vehicle that hit us? I headed back to my car.

  It wasn’t difficult to find the local police station. It was a small building, the kind that you expected a sheriff’s office to be found in, and after limping my way past the unmanned front desk, I found Smith working alone at one of the five desks in the bullpen. The other four were empty, making it easy for her to spot me.

  “Mr. Jacobs,” she said, standing up and trying to help me to the chair next to her desk. “I don’t think you should be out of the hospital yet. Are you okay?”

  “I snuck out to get some air,” I confessed. “ I just couldn’t sit around there for any longer,” I explained, waving her attempts at helping me away. I sat down, again breathing hard. “Just thought I might come on over to check and see if you’ve made any advances on the case.”

  “We’ve been a little swamped with all the snow,” she explained. “Most of the other officers are out directing traffic.”

  A door opened at the end of the bullpen, revealing a small office. A small, rotund man with a grizzled mustache and a tan uniform stepped out. The gold shield on his chest told me that he was the sheriff of this town, and judging by the scowl that he was directing at me and Smith, I could tell that he wasn’t a fan of my presence.

  “Detective Smith, is this man keeping you from your work?” the man asked in a gruff voice.

  “This is Mr. Jacobs, sir,” Julie said. “He’s just asking for some updates on the hit and run that he was involved in.”

  “The investigation is ongoing, and I’m not in the habit of sharing details of an ongoing investigation with the public, Mr. Jacobs,�
� the sheriff growled, turning his eyes up to me and trying to make himself look as intimidating as possible.

  I opened my mouth to protest that I wasn’t just a member of the public, then I thought better of it and closed my mouth. I took an instant dislike for the man, who hadn’t even offered his name before trying to get rid of me.

  “Now, since paperwork is all Miss Smith here is good for, I suggest you return to the hospital and let her get back to it,” he continued, taking an instinctive step back and returning to his office.

  Julie was wearing an apologetic expression on her face. “Sorry about that. Here, let me help you back to your car.”

  I didn’t really need the help, but I wasn’t going to turn it down either. Besides, from the look of her, I had a feeling that she had something that she wanted to say once we were out from under the sheriff’s watchful gaze.

  “Look,” she started once we were walking through the doors, “I think I understand where you’re coming from. My… well, my husband passed away a couple of years ago. Lung cancer. I know that feeling of not wanting to sit on your ass while your whole world is going upside down.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said, patting her gently on the shoulder. “I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything, but I found some evidence that you might want to look into.”

  I reached into the passenger-side seat of the car, pulling out a chunk of the grille that I had dug up from the snow.

  Smith was quick to inspect it, noting that it had been marked with a custom emblem on the side.

  “I think I’ve seen this before,” she whispered, inspecting it a little closer. “Where did you find it?”

  “About twenty feet from the side of the road,” I said. “The location would indicate that the vehicle that it belonged to had crossed over into oncoming traffic and initiated the collision at high speed. Where have you seen this emblem before?”

  “The sheriff’s son has a truck that he’s very proud of,” Smith said. “It has fog lights over the cab like the ones you described, but so do a lot of other trucks in town. But if this grill matches...”

  My eyes grew wide. “The sheriff’s son?” I asked.

  She looked nervously back toward the building, as if expecting the man to emerge. “If he finds out I suspect…”

  I wanted to protest, but I could tell she was afraid and I didn’t want to put her in danger. Instead I just nodded, offering her the evidence. “Well, I leave it to your discretion. Thank you for your time, Detective Smith.”

  Instead of taking it, she pulled her hands away as if she was afraid it would burn her. “Maybe it’s best if you hold onto that for now,” She said, reaching into her jacket. “And thank you for coming down, Mr. Jacobs. Let me know if you remember anything else.” She turned on her heel and walked away before I could protest.

  ◆◆◆

  I was exhausted. I snuck back into the hospital the same way I’d gone out and I wasn’t seen. I changed back into my hospital gown and put my clothes back in the suitcase in the closet. It had been a long day. The doctors had been right to suggest some more bed rest, as I could feel a dull ache in my ribs and my ankle ached terribly.

  I took over for my parents sitting vigil by Celia’s bed. It wasn’t long before I felt my eyelids start to droop and I soon moved to the sofa, where I fell asleep within minutes. I could get myself properly checked out tomorrow and keep following the trail that had been left behind from there.

  Chapter 11

  December 18th

  I was pretty sore from my excursion and I stayed in most of the next day. The nurse was very coy with me, indicating that she knew I had snuck out. Celia was still unconscious but her condition was stable. Around supper time, I finally felt up to doing some more investigating and I snuck out again.

  ◆◆◆

  I pulled into the same lot as I had the day before. Dark was settling in and there were already a dozen or so pickup trucks in the lot. I walked up and down the length of the parking lot and looked at the front of each pickup truck, just in case one of them happened to be missing a large piece of the grill, then I walked in.

  There were a few small groups sitting at tables, but not enough people to account for all the vehicles in the lot. The man behind the bar was a clean-cut man in his forties dressed in a shirt and tie. He didn’t look like a bartender.

  “What can I get you?” he asked when I approached.

  “I just need to talk to the manager,” I said. I wished I still had my police ID that I could show him.

  “That’s me,” he said, looking at me cloesly. “What is it about?”

  “The car accident that happened near here the other night,” I said. “It’s possible someone involved had just left here.”

  “Derek,” he said. “You mind watching the bar?”

  A scruffy looking younger man got up from a nearby table and walked over. “Got it, chief,” he said.

  Derek walked behind the bar and put an apron on. The manager, who hadn’t given me his name yet, led me to an office in the back. We walked in and he indicated a chair in front of his desk where I sat. He went behind the desk.

  “I’m Jeff Walace,” he said, extending his hand.

  “Tim Jacobs,” I said, shaking his hand. He had a firm grip.

  “Sorry for not introducing myself earlier,” Jeff said, leaning back in his chair. “I get a lot of people from the hotel and apartments nearby complaining about the noise and I thought that was why you were here. So, why are you interested in the accident? Are you a cop?”

  “I was in the van that got hit,” I said. “I’m trying to find out who hit me.”

  “I heard someone died in that accident,” he said. “Is that true?”

  “Yes, my wife was killed,” I said. “And my little girl is in the hospital in a coma. I aim to find out who was responsible.” Saying it out loud almost brought tears to the surface again. I reminded myself that I was doing what I could to make this better.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Jacobs,” he said. “I hate to think that the person responsible might have been drinking at my club before hand.”

  “I won’t hold you responsible,” I said. “I just want to find out who the driver was.”

  “Okay,” Jeff said. “What can I do to help?”

  “There’s a camera outside pointing to the parking lot,” I said. “Do you have access to the footage from 5 nights ago? It would have been about seven o’clock.”

  “I probably do,” he said. “The video is stored for seven days on a server that I can access from my computer. What exactly are you hoping to find?”

  “I was hit by a big pickup truck with fog lights mounted above the cab,” I said. “If your camera picked up the vehicle before it left, we might be able to identify the owner.”

  “Let me have a look,” he said.

  “That would be great,” I said and waited patiently while he worked on his computer.

  “Okay, I found the file from that night,” he said a moment later. “Let me just advance it to seven o’clock.” He made a few more clicks and turned the screen toward me.

  I saw it right away and my heart began to speed up. The video was grainy, it was dark and there was snow falling, but I could easily make out a pickup truck with fog lights on top. I couldn’t make out the color and the license plate was in shadow.

  “Can we speed it up?” I asked, impatient to see if this was the right truck. He increased the speed of the video. Nothing moved except for the numbers in the time stamp, which were going four times as fast as usual. We both watched intently.

  “There,” I said, pointing to the screen.

  The time said 7:04 and a tall figure had entered the camera’s view and was approaching the truck, facing away from the camera. Jeff slowed down the video to normal speed and we watched him walk, with a bit of a stagger, to the truck. After a moment the fog lights came on and the camera was blinded, then the truck started to back up, away from the camera. My heart was beatin
g wildly and I was thinking I wouldn’t get a look at the license plate because of the glare from the fog lights. Then the truck turned and I caught a brief glimpse of the plate before it disappeared into darkness again.

  “Go back a bit,” I said, nearly getting out of my chair. Jeff obliged, reversing the video feed. When it got to the point where the truck turned I said: “There, start there and play it slow.”

  “Okay,” Jeff said. He must have seen how excited I was. He advanced the video slowly, frame by frame. The truck slowly moved on the screen, until the plate came into view.

  “Freeze it there,” I said. I couldn’t see the first half of the plate, but I could make out the word “York” and the numbers “4137.” I took a picture of the screen with my phone.

  “Okay, advance it again, slowly,” I said.

  Jeff did so, but only the second half of the plate was visible.

  “I think I got what I need,” I said, getting up to leave. “Thank you very much.”

  “Glad I could help,” Jeff said, standing and shaking my hand again. “Good luck sir.”

  When I left the office, the music hit me hard. It had been turned up loud while Jeff and I were talking. For some reason they were playing “Last Christmas” at an insanely loud volume. My ears were ringing when I got outside. I climbed into the car, started it and turned the heater on. I pulled Julie’s card from my pocket and emailed her the picture I had taken. Then I dialed her number.

  “This is Detective Smith,” she said in an automatic voice when she answered.

  “Julie, this is Tim,” I replied. “I thought of something else about the accident that might be important.”

  “Hi Tim,” she said, the bored tone in her voice immediately disappearing. “What did you think of?”

  “I have a partial plate number for a truck matching the description of the one that hit me,” I said. “Would you mind running that plate through your database?”