June felt tears sliding down her own cheeks and she was afraid she already knew why.
Ruthie.
“Woody?” Frank said.
“She’s dead,” Elwood whispered, eyes still closed.
“Oh, God,” Frank breathed.
Two more tears slid down Elwood’s cheeks.
Two more slid down June’s.
Elwood opened his eyes and looked at them. “I killed her.”
Over the next few hours it became clearer to June why Elwood believed it wasn’t the car accident that had killed Ruthie, but rather him.
He’d been at the wheel of the car.
He’d had a couple drinks beforehand.
He’d been driving too fast.
He’d dared to think she was falling in love with him, and he with her, and that they might actually have a chance.
The Riverside County sheriff’s deputy who showed up thatafternoon wanting a full report on what had happened the night before didn’t care about that fourth reason. He did, however, care about the first three. But by the time that deputy was at the nurses’ station asking for permission to speak to Elwood, Max was also at the hospital, having arrived an hour after Frank called him.
Max instructed Elwood to let him handle the deputy’s questions.
Elwood told him no.
Max, who’d also heard Elwood say he’d killed Ruthie, then said, “I insist.”
“No.”
Max inhaled heavily and then let the breath out. “El, you’re upset. I understand that. But you didn’t kill that woman. It’s very sad that she died, but it was an accident. An accident that nearly killed you, too, okay?”
Elwood moved his head slightly to look at his agent and then moved it back. “Those little boys are orphans now because of me.”
“No. No, they lost their mother in a terrible accident that you had no control over. You didn’t kidnap her and put her in that car. She willingly got in it. Everyone who gets inside an automobile to go for a ride knows there is danger in doing so. It’s a risk we all take when we head out to go anywhere. And you had nothing to do with the death of their father. You can blame a Japanese Zero for that. They are not orphans because of you.”
Elwood said nothing.
“And didn’t you tell me you just had brake work done on that car?” Max continued.
“Frank told you that.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? You just had brake work done and something probably wasn’t right. You tried to stop and the car just wouldn’t obey.”
“I was driving too fast.”
“You don’t actually know how fast you were going, right? You weren’t looking down at the speedometer when that pack of coyotes decided to run across the road.”
“It was only two. Three, maybe.”
“Oh, so now you’re telling me you counted all of them? You don’t know how many there were. It was an instinctual response to swerve to miss them. You only did what is natural for any of us when we suddenly see something in the road that’s not supposed to be there.”
Elwood blinked languidly. “I’d been drinking.”
