The grotesque sculpture had once been separate vehicles—three of them: two cars, one semi. Emergency flashers lit up the cordoned-off intersection, but there was a gloom to the wreckage that no amount of pulsing red and blue could disperse. Detective Hal Jenkins, feeling every one of his 51 years, lumbered toward the scene, suspecting fatalities. This was a dark night getting darker. He needed a drink.
Police cruisers blocked off the eastbound lanes of Route 46 and both directions of 202. Scores of gawkers, having left their stranded cars, pressed toward waist-high yellow tape. Jenkins sniffed: gasoline, burnt rubber, and impending rain. The screech of a metal-cutting saw ripped through the night. The good news: no press. He ducked under the tape like a boxer entering the ring.
“Hey, Jenks,” called a patrolman. “You’re too much—a coat and tie?”
Jenkins stepped close enough to be heard. “Experience, Coop,” he said touching the perpetually loose knot at his neck. “Got a hunch I’ll be working straight through ’til morning.” His eyes locked on the distorted chasses. “What the hell happened?”
“Eighteen-wheeler nailed two SUVs. Never seen anything like it. We have a witness, over there by the light stanchion—goofy kid in the baseball cap. You should hear it from him.”
“Survivors?”
“The truck driver—barely. Taken to St. Clare’s.”
“How many dead?” Jenkins asked.
“Just the other two drivers—so far. At least that’s a stroke of luck.”
Jenkins rubbed his brow, knowing that all the luck here was bad.
“The EMTs got no pulse on either of ’em,” Cooper said. “The bodies are still trapped.”
“I’ll talk to the kid first.” Jenkins, trying not to look intimidating, ambled toward the witness, a skinny white male wearing military fatigues. The kid cringed as Jenkins approached, the way many whites reacted when facing 250 pounds of black cop. After flashing his shield, Jenkins made eye contact with the witness, who couldn’t have been older than twenty and twitched like he needed a fix.
“I’m Detective Jenkins,” he said loud enough to be heard over the saw. “What’s your name, son?”
“Ricky. Ricky Brown.”
Jenkins flipped open his notebook and jotted the name. “Hear you saw what happened.”
“Yeah. I was waiting—for the bus, right over there.” Ricky pointed at a Plexiglas shelter thirty feet away. He spoke in jumpy bursts. “I was heading to the city. The one car, a black SUV—no, they were both black SUVs. Well, the first one, a Highlander, was stopped for the light. But kinda far out. The driver braked late.”
The saw’s screeching stopped, so Ricky lowered his voice. “About ten seconds later, the other SUV squealed left outta the strip-mall, laying rubber. Musta been doing fifty. Didn’t even touch the brakes, man. Smashes halfway through the Highlander, pushing them both into the intersection, right in front of the… Well, the trucker didn’t have a chance. The semi plowed smack”—Ricky clapped his hands—“into both. You shoulda heard the noise, man. Like a bomb. The whole mass musta skid a hundred feet. Well, you can see.”
Jenkins looked up from his notebook. “So the second car didn’t slow down?”
“No, man. It was cooking, like it was tryin’ to beat the light, but the light was already red. That’s why the first car stopped.”
Jenkins scrutinized Ricky’s jumpy eyes. “That’s a pretty detailed description, son. You sure about all that?”
“Yeah. I was looking right there when it happened.”
“And why’s that?”
“Highlander didn’t have its lights on.”
Jenkins squinted. “So it was already dark?”
“Dark enough so’s I noticed the lights weren’t on. I even yelled over, ‘Turn on your lights, lady!’ But her window was up, so she didn’t hear.”
“So it was a lady in the Highlander?”
“Yeah.”
“But you said it was dark, so how do you know?”
“She had on the inside light, like she was looking at a map or doin’ her nails or something.”
“And the driver of the second car—you see who that was?”
“No way. Goin’ too fast; like I said, at least fifty.”
“You have a radar gun in your head?”
“Hey, man, I can tell.”
“Hard to get up to fifty from that exit to the intersection,” Jenkins said, gesturing toward the gentle curve. “It’s only about fifty, sixty yards.”
The kid scrunched his nose, thinking. “Maybe it might have been a little slower. But it was fast, man. Had to be to shove the other car into the highway.” Ricky shivered. “Can I go now? I really gotta get to the city.”
Jenkins felt the first raindrops. “Not yet, Ricky.” He took a closer look at the boy’s eyes. “You on something?”
The saw resumed its whine.
Ricky shouted, “No way, man! I’m just nervous about all this—I’m not using!”
Jenkins leaned close. “Maybe a little pick-me-up for a party in Manhattan?”
The kid stepped back. “Uh-uh.”
“I need you to wait in the backseat of that patrol car there, okay?” Jenkins saw that it wasn’t okay, but the kid went.
Jenkins walked over to the gnarl of metal. A raindrop plunked the nickel-sized bald spot on his head. Three EMTs hovered, waiting to transport bodies to the morgue. The whining saw screeched on, hacking into the rear portion of the pancaked SUVs, which together looked like a distorted U-shaped extension of the truck’s grill. Jenkins saw that the passenger door of what used to be a Highlander had already been ripped open to get at one victim, a woman who was wedged in the crumpled front seat. He shined his flashlight at her sagging head—blond hair. Jenkins extended his arm to illuminate the woman’s profile. She looked to be in her late forties and, even in death, was almost beautiful, an observation that Jenkins found disturbing. He gave a cut-throat signal to the saw operator. The screeching ceased.
Jenkins stared in at the woman. “Any ID on this one?”
“Driver’s license in her purse,” Cooper said. “Erika Pryzinski, from Boston. Fifty-three.”
“And that one?” Jenkins pointed his light toward the rear of the co-joined SUVs where a head appeared to be growing out of mangled steel.
“Some kid. Can’t get to his wallet until the jaws of li…” Then Cooper’s voiced perked up. “Green took photos, and the crime boys got everything they could without full access.”
Jenkins turned to the EMTs. “You can take the woman to the morgue now. I’ll have forensics meet you there.” He leaned into the wreckage and shined his light on the dead boy’s open-mouthed face, which looked like a Frankenstein Halloween mask. “Damn,” Jenkins whispered.
“What?”
“Look at his skin,” Jenkins said. “And teeth. Another meth addict?”
Patrolman Cooper pointed his light at the face. “May be right.”
Jenkins stared. “Oh shit.”
“What?”
Jenkins pulled his head back through the buckled doorframe. “I know this kid.” He lowered his chin and pinched the bridge of his nose. Raindrops spattered on his head and shoulders. “Johnny Kruger. He played PAL ball for me. His father’s Bill Kruger, the state senator.”
“The Bill Kruger who’s been in the papers?”
“Yeah,” Jenkins said.
“How can a state senator’s kid be a meth addict?”
Jenkins had no answer.
“Hey,” Cooper said. “You think the woman could be the mystery blonde everybody’s talking about?”
Jenkins looked from one corpse to the other. “Good question. Damn good question.”
“Jenks.” Cooper stood ramrod straight, bringing his eyes up to Jenkins’s chin. “If it’s drugs, any chance of getting some undercover work on this?”
“Too soon to tell.” Jenkins flipped open his phone.
“Calling the Chief?”
“Nope,” Jenkins said. “Bill Kruger.”
* * *
Two hours later, Jenkins hung up his office phone, then frowned across back-to-back desks at Jack Kron, a tall, grumpy veteran whose plastic glasses had, as always, slid half-way down his nose. The police station was dark, except for their corner of the squad room.
“That was the dead woman’s husband in Boston,” Jenkins said. “Will Pryzinski, the former Knick. Can you believe that?”
“Nick?”
“New York Knicks. Pro basketball.”
“I don’t follow basketball like you guys.” Kron grinned.
“Pryzinski’s sending his daughter to make the ID—she’s closer, a student at Drew.”
“That’ll be a drag.”
“Don’t worry,” Jenkins said. “I’ll take it.”
“Thanks,” Kron said, visibly relieved. “Want me to bring in old man Kruger?”
“He already ID’ed his son at the scene.”
“Did you ask Kruger if he was boinking the dead woman?”
“Not in those words,” Jenkins said. “He was emphatic—he didn’t know anyone named Erika Pryzinski; I believed him. He also said his son wasn’t on meth. I didn’t believe that.”
“So, is it coincidence that the drugged-up son of a pathological womanizer rams a good-looking blonde?”
Jenkins, aware of Kron’s penchant to shoot-from-the-hip, shook his head. “We have nothing but the accident that ties them together.”
“Suppose the kid suspected, followed his father, saw them sneak off. When the woman leaves, the kid follows and rams her car.”
“Or more likely,” Jenkins said, “he was jacked up on meth and didn’t even know there was a car in front of him, much less whose car.” Jenkins stood. “Anyway, Will Pryzinski says his wife was driving back from their daughter’s college.”
“So? Maybe mom stopped for a Kruger-quickie on the way home.”
“Give it a rest, Jack.”
“Why else would she be off the interstate—heading toward Embassy Suites? We should check hotel registrations.”
“There’re a hundred more likely explanations.” Jenkins sighed. “I have to go meet the daughter at the morgue. Maybe she’ll enlighten us.”
“Ask her if she knows where our high school kids are getting the stuff.”
Jenkins’s frown deepened.
“Seriously, Jenks. We need a break. The mayor’s gonna freak over this.”
“I know,” Jenkins said. “Maybe with a high-profile vic, we’ll get the task force we need—now that the meth epidemic’s hitting home.”
