The Genuine Article by Guthrie A. B.;

Author:Guthrie, A. B.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media

Chapter Fourteen

Charleston was on the phone when I pushed into the inner office the next morning. “Yes, Mrs. Lindstrom,” he was saying, “we’ll certainly try to find her. I’ll notify surrounding authorities and the newspaper. Two or three days, you say? If you could bring in a picture of your daughter, it would help. Her age? Yes, I have it. Sixteen.”

He said to me as he put the phone back. “Missing girl, name of Linda Lindstrom, juvenile. Parents! They’re not even sure how long she’s been gone. How she was dressed.”

He had hardly hung up when another call came, relayed through Jimmy. He listened, got up abruptly and said, “Come on. A bad wreck on the Titus road.”

On the way out he told Jimmy, “You heard? Notify the highway patrol, Doc Yak and Felix.”

“Soon as you quit talkin’,” Jimmy said. His hand was already on the dial.

We climbed in the Special and drove away, the tires screeching at turns. “Two kids, both hurt,” he said. “Maybe dead. One-car accident. It happened near Fred Harris’s place. He made the call.”

“No identification?”

“He couldn’t say. Said they missed a curve, hit a telephone pole, turned over and landed right side up, maybe not in that order.”

He sounded the siren and shot past a car. In the siren’s dying wail he said, “Mix kids, alcohol and wheels, cook on an open road, and take out the cake.”

The tires squealed as we braked at the scene. A car, its front end and top mashed in, stood in an unfenced field off the road. Farther on, a shattered telephone pole hung by its wires. A highway patrol cruiser was already on hand. A girl hunched near, screaming.

The patrolman was Sven Svenson, whom we knew. He was a good officer. He was peering inside the door of the wreck. When he saw us, he turned and approached.

“Howdy. Just happened by,” he informed us. “The boy at the wheel looks hurt bad.”

“Doctor’s on the way,” Charleston said.

The girl was pacing back and forth, crying out, “Oh, God, I’m going to die. I hurt. Help me, Jesus! Help, someone!”

“Thrown clear, I would say,” Svenson said with distaste.

Charleston went to her. “Be quiet! Hush up! What’s your name?”

“I’m dying.”

“You’re not. Name, please?”

“God save me! God save poor Linda!”

“Linda Lindstrom?”

“It was. It was. It was.” She collapsed by the roadside and moaned. She could have been pretty, I thought, grade-school pretty, but now her clothes were dirty and torn, and her face swollen and red, like a man’s marked by booze.

A man I had hardly noticed stood at the other side of the road. He came closer and said his name was Fred Harris. Damn shame, young people and cars.

The long cry of the ambulance sounded and died hard. The ambulance braked to a stop. Doc Yak, following close, bumped it and scrambled out.

Some traffic was beginning to build up, both ways. Drivers and passengers peered through the opened windows. Some of them got out but stayed at a distance. Blood attracted people but still held them back.

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