Harper, Kaje - Life Lessons by Kaje Harper

Author:Kaje Harper [Harper, Kaje]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-08-04T23:55:01+00:00

“Hey!” someone yelled. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Mac turned quickly. A heavyset man with two-day stubble stood on the porch of the house, staring at him. The man wore jeans and an old T-shirt, but his feet were bare. Mac walked over slowly, pulling out his badge.

“I’m with the Minneapolis Police Department,” he said. “Is that your car in the garage?”

“Better be,” the man grunted, “Unless the kid’s brought home someone else’s. Why are you asking?”

“Could you come and have a look?” Mac asked.

“What for?”

“There was a report of an accident,” Mac said carefully, “that might have involved a car from Roosevelt High. I’d like to be sure it wasn’t this one.”

“Kid didn’t tell me about no accident,” the man rumbled, coming reluctantly down the steps. “I’ll tan his hide if he wrecked it.”

“This is the car your son usually drives?”

The man nodded. “Most days. Sometimes he rides with his friends. You know. They get to be eighteen, they don’t hang around much.”

“Would you open the garage door?” Mac asked, trying to be casual. He couldn’t insist on it, but the man grunted and hauled up the door. He glanced at the blue car.

“Yep. That’s mine. Doesn’t look wrecked.”

“Do you mind if I look at the front end?”

The man shrugged. “It’s your time.”

Mac squeezed past the boxes piled beside the Cavalier and made his way to the front end. The left front amber lens was cracked, with a narrow wedge missing. The front bumper on that side showed a modest dent, and the right fender was also bent. Mac looked closely, without touching. In the dim garage, it was impossible to tell if the damage was really fresh, but his pulse sped up. That turn-signal light looked just about right.

“There is a little damage on the front there,” he said as he came out of the garage. “You don’t know when that happened?” “Nope.”

“Mr. Peterson,” Mac said urgently, “I need to have a team come and look at this car and see if it matches the accident.”

The heavy man blinked at him, frowning. “I don’t want Zach getting into trouble.”

“If it doesn’t match, there won’t be any trouble.”

“And if it does?” The man spat in the dirt. “This accident, it was serious?”

“Yes.”

“How bad?”

“People were hurt.”

“And the driver didn’t stop?” Peterson asked.

“No.”

“Then it wasn’t Zach,” the father said firmly. “Kid can be a pain, plays his music too loud, doesn’t study much, but he’d never leave someone hurt by the road.”

“Maybe he let a friend drive, maybe he got scared.”

“Maybe it wasn’t him.” The man hacked and spat again. “All right. You check this car. But it ain’t gonna match.”

“Thank you.” Mac pulled out his cell and called Oliver. It took twenty minutes of staring at the car, keeping himself from messing up evidence by putting hands on it, before an evidence tech showed up. Then there was a pause while the tech squeezed into the garage to look, and photograph, and finally take samples.

“Hey, detective,” she called finally.

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