This was something I didn’t know.
Nick received a speeding ticket about six months ago. I was in the car with him at the time, begging him to slow down, but he didn’t. He was trying to outrun a train, to get through the crossing before the train inevitably stopped on the tracks. A cop had a speed trap set up on Route 59 and caught Nick going nearly sixty when he was meant to be going forty-five. But these other tickets and the threat of having his license revoked, these were things I didn’t know.
“You said you spoke to my neighbors,” I say. “Why?”
“We had two complaints on file. One from a Sharon Cadwallader and one from Theodore Hart.”
Theo. Emily’s husband.
Theo and Nick have never liked each other much, and yet it seems completely ludicrous that he called the police on Nick, and we didn’t know. Or maybe Nick did know, and only I didn’t know, I think, wondering why in the world Nick wouldn’t tell me if a neighbor had phoned in a complaint to the police about him. Maybe Nick felt guilty, maybe he was embarrassed. Nick was never one for gossip; he always tried to see the best in everyone, no matter what they’d done.
“What?” I ask, utterly surprised. “Complaints for what?”
“Complaints for speeding,” Detective Kaufman tells me, and I envision Nick driving the car too quickly down the curling streets of our neighborhood, eager to be home. Even I have nagged him about this, worried for the children playing baseball in the middle of the street.
Sharon Cadwallader I can certainly understand. Sharon Cadwallader, a high-ranking official on the neighborhood council, and the one who fought to have traffic calming measures installed around the community: speed humps or traffic circles, or those ridiculous speed display boards that flashed when one drove too fast. She purchased her own radar gun and sat on her front porch, vetting every car that drove by. I’m quite certain she called the police about everyone who breached the twenty-five mile per hour speed limit.
“Mrs. Cadwallader clocked your husband going forty-eight miles per hour on your street. That’s nearly double the legal limit,” the detective says to me. “And Mr. Hart says there was some run-in with his son. Just a few weeks ago. The boy’s rubber ball had rolled into the street, it seems, and when he went to fetch it, Nick came tearing around the bend.” He concludes with this, “It was a close call,” and an exaggerated sigh through the phone line. And I picture the speed of Nick’s passing car creating a breeze, eddying the brown hairs on Teddy’s head, his eyes wide with fear as he groped for the ball. Theo in the background, screaming, and Emily at a window, watching the commotion from afar. Did Theo and Nick exchange words in the middle of the street? Was there a blowup, name-calling, or were punches thrown? Did Emily know, and if so, why didn’t she tell me? I have a hard time picturing it. Nick is a pacifist. He avoids conflict at all costs, and is quick to apologize even when he’s done nothing wrong. Anything to avoid a fight. I have no doubt that he was speeding through the neighborhood, whizzing home at forty-eight miles per hour to see Maisie and Felix and me. This comes as no surprise to me.
But I also see him rushing out into the middle of the street to see if Teddy is all right; I envision him apologizing demonstratively about the near-miss with Teddy and the rubber ball. He would have apologized for it all; he would have atoned for the misdeed.
So why call the police?
“Seems your husband had quite a history with speeding,” Detective Kaufman says, and I hear the words he says but also those he doesn’t say: Nick’s frequent speeding is the cause of the crash out on Harvey Road. It’s Nick’s fault that he’s dead. Nick took the turn too quickly and lost control of the car. His speed is the reason he ran into that tree.
All roads lead to Nick.
I think of the woman I’ve just met, in the window, smoking her cigarette, and about the car she’d seen leaving the scene of the crash, veering into oncoming traffic. A black Chevrolet.
“I’ve taken the liberty, Detective Kaufman,” I say, echoing his own words, “of speaking to some of the residents who live off Harvey Road. Just to see if anyone saw or heard anything at the time of the crash.” His sigh is long and loud.
“And?” he asks, his words stultified. I’m boring him, it seems. I reach into the back seat to pat Maisie’s knee. Almost done, I mouth. Almost done, and then she can have the phone back. Almost done, and then I can ask about her injured hand.
“There was a woman,” I tell him, “driving home from the market at the time. She came upon the scene just seconds after the crash, passing a black car along the way. It was driving erratically down the road. A black Chevrolet,” I say, pushing from my mind the drug possession charges I spied online for Melinda Grey, wondering if it’s at all possible Nick was under the influence of something at the time of the crash. I won’t put this suggestion in the detective’s mind.
“Did she get a license?” he asks, but I tell him no, blaming the sun. It was so bright that day she could hardly see a thing. “Then how did she know it was a Chevy?” he asks sagely.
“Well, that she saw,” I say, knowing how foolish it sounds. “The emblem on the front of the car was easy to see. She remembers seeing the golden bow tie.”
“What is this woman’s name?” he asks, and I tell him. “Betty Maurer,” I say, and he promises that he’ll speak to her. “Many cars travel on that road every day,” he tells me. “It’s a shortcut, a nice alternative to highway congestion. Just because it was there, passing by around the time of the accident, doesn’t make it a crime,” he says, but I press again, asking if he’ll speak to Betty, and he says that he will. I thank the detective for his time. He says, “Just doing my job,” and we end the call.
As I pass the phone back into Maisie’s expectant hand, asking whether or not her scratch is okay, I’m floundering and confused. Did Nick die because he was driving too fast? He had a history of speeding, that much I know. But there’s so much more to consider, from the canceled life insurance funds to the agent’s suggestion that suicide or homicide are to blame. And then there is the restraining order, and the fact that some man in a hat and gloves has been skulking around my home.
Was Nick driving too fast because he was chasing someone, rather than the other way around?
Was he the pursuer and not the pursued?