Max sighed. “You had two martinis with dinner, El. You weren’t drunk. I’m telling you, you need to let me handle this. I’m trying to keep you out of jail.”
Elwood said nothing.
“I’m going to go talk with him.” Max started for the door but he’d only taken a couple steps when Frank and the deputy entered the room.
Max put up a hand. “I don’t know that Mr. Blankenship is able to answer a whole bunch of questions, Officer. Maybe another day?”
The deputy, holding a small tablet, continued into the room, the implements on his belt bumping against each other and making clinking noises as he did so. “I don’t have a lot of questions. I just need to get the details that we were unable to get last night. It’s for the official report. And, as you know, there was a fatality. We’re required by law to investigate casualties.”
The room went silent except for the deputy’s boots as he approached Elwood. Frank followed quietly behind him. Max scurried to stand at the foot of the bed.
“Mr. Blankenship?” the deputy said.
He waited until Elwood turned from the window to look at him.
“I’m Deputy Owens. I need to ask you some questions about the accident. I know you’re probably in a lot of pain so I’ll make this as quick as I can. All right?”
Elwood nodded.
The deputy asked if Elwood knew how fast he’d been driving. Elwood shook his head. He asked if he’d consumed alcohol prior to getting behind the wheel.
Yes. Two martinis.
Did Elwood recall what caused him to lose control of the car?
He swerved to miss coyotes in the road.
This answer was supplied by Max when Elwood took too long to answer. When Deputy Owens asked if that was correct, Elwood nodded once.
“And he’d just had brake work done on that car, so it could easily have been that something was out of whack, somebody forgot to tighten something,” Max added. “I can show you the paperwork from the garage. He just had it done.”
The deputy wrote something down, asked a few more questions about road and weather conditions, and said he had one last question. “Did you attempt any lifesaving measures on your passenger, Mr. Blankenship?”
Elwood closed his eyes in obvious sorrow and June reached for his hand.
“Mr. Blankenship?”
“She was already gone when the car stopped rolling,” Elwood whispered. “She was looking at me. She wouldn’t stop looking. She wouldn’t stop and I couldn’t reach her to close her eyes. I couldn’t reach her…”
For a moment no one said a word.
Then the deputy closed his little notebook. “Thank you, Mr. Blankenship. I have the information I need to file the report. It willgo to the county but my guess is no charges will be filed. I can’t promise you the family of Ruthie Brink won’t look at a wrongful death suit, though. It happens sometimes in cases like this. I am just telling you so that you will be aware. Do you have any questions for me?”
Elwood shook his head.
“Thank you for your time.” The deputy walked out of the room.
Silence reigned for a few minutes. Then Elwood spoke.
“I’d like to be alone now.”
June would remember those words of his, said that way, for years to come.
15
Eva’s days had been different since Max’s visit to the Blankenship house and since Melanie’s nephew had arrived.
Now that June’s back was nearly healed, Eva spent most of her time at the Blankenships’ upstairs in Elwood’s office, refamiliarizing herself with a typewriter. Every afternoon June gave her a stack of documents to retype—old scripts, recipes from magazines, articles from the newspaper, handwritten notes and other correspondence from Elwood’s many files, and pages from books. The Nazis in occupied Kyiv had expected absolute perfection when she was tasked—as a Russian-speaking German—with translating and typing for the Reich. But she’d never been taught how to do it. She was amazed at how much better she was getting at speed and precision when she was being coached instead of yelled at.
