Annie gunned the car, trying to get out of the flooded area.
If Annie knew about Cordelia’s selling drugs, maybe she knew something else.
Something that would help find Cordelia’s killer, and clear Diana.
Now the rain was coming sideways as well as vertically. Annie swore under her breath as she squinted at the windshield trying to see through sheets of water. She’d turned off the flooded street onto a narrower street, or alley, or maybe a wide driveway. Bushes and low branches of trees scraped first Maggie’s and then Annie’s side of the car.
Annie, bent over the steering wheel, stared straight ahead. She never slowed down.
At the end of the narrow passageway she turned abruptly left onto a wider street, swerving as she turned. Suddenly, through the rain, Maggie saw a high brick wall maybe thirty feet in front of them.
Instinctively, she braced herself.
Annie slammed on the brakes, but nothing happened. Then she turned the steering wheel as far as she could to the right.
The car began to skid.
Maggie watched helplessly as the car fishtailed in slow motion and the driver’s side crashed into the wall, bounced back into the road, and then the left rear end hit the wall. Hard.
Chapter 39
Panax Coloni.Outstanding copper engraving of plant now called Marsh Woundwort, from Jacob Trew (Berlin) edition of Elisabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbarium, her volume of “useful plants now used in practice of physic,” published in 1757. Also called All-Heal, Panay, or Clown’s Woundwort, as a tea it was used to stop internal bleeding and as a poultice to stop external bleeding. It was also said to aid dysentery, and as a gargle, sore throats. Artist and engraver Blackwell began working when her husband was imprisoned for starting a printing business without serving the apprenticeship required by English law. Her book was a success, and she was able to obtain his release. He was later executed for treason in Sweden. She was an artist and entrepreneur well beyond the norm for a woman of her time. 9 x 12.5 inches. Price: $250.
They’d crashed. She was alive. Her neck and shoulders ached, and pain slashed through her left ankle. Blood? None she could feel. Maggie tried to focus in the dark.
The car’s engine was running.
She looked over at Annie. “Are you all right?”
Annie didn’t answer. Blood was dripping down her forehead, into her right eye, onto her raincoat. She was breathing, but her left arm was at an odd angle. Probably broken. Getting her out of the car wouldn’t be easy. Her airbag had probably saved her life, but now she was pinned between the steering wheel and where her side of the car was crushed and pushed in. Jagged points of what had been the door and roof of the car had hit her head. Rain dripped through openings in what a few seconds ago had been the car’s two left-hand doors.
Maggie unfastened her seat belt, reached over, and turned off the car engine.
She needed to get Annie to a hospital.
She didn’t have a telephone.
Annie would have one.
She pushed aside the now-deflated airbag on her side, found her canvas bag, and foraged for the small flashlight she’d bought that afternoon.
Annie’s pocketbook wasn’t in what was left of the front seat. It must have been thrown somewhere during the accident. Maggie tried to open her own door. The latch on the handle worked, but the door was jammed. The crash had changed its alignment just enough so it wouldn’t open more than an inch or two.
She, too, was imprisoned.
She managed to turn around in her seat enough to flash her light over the back of the car. There. Annie’s pocketbook was on the floor, but its contents were strewn all over the backseat. Her phone was in back of the driver’s seat, caught beneath a piece of the caved-in back door. Despite the searing pain in her ankle, Maggie managed to crawl halfway over the console between the seats. Annie’s seat was bent backward and sideways.
The throbbing in her ankle was worse when she moved it. Maybe it was broken.
A maid of honor with a cast on her ankle. Gussie would love that.
She squirmed around the broken seat and finally was able to reach the phone, and dial 911.
“We’ve had an accident. We need an ambulance. They’ll need to bring equipment to cut us out of the car. No. I don’t know where we are. Can you track this phone with GPS?”
The 911 operator pointed out there was a hurricane. Emergency vehicles were busy.
“I know there’s a hurricane. No, I don’t see any street signs. I told you. I can’t get out of the car. Yes, I’ll stay on the line. The woman who’s badly injured is Annie Irons, Police Chief Irons’s wife.”
She held on another minute. Then the line went dead.
Was that enough time for the Emergency Center to track the call? She hoped.
Annie’s cell phone battery light was blinking. Just what she needed. A dead phone.
She started to dial Will’s number. Maybe she could get through before the phone died completely. Then, only inches from her head, someone knocked on the glass of the passenger seat window.
“You folks need help?”
From outside, in the pouring rain, a face peered in at her.
She rolled the window down. Thank goodness Annie had an old-fashioned car. No power windows.
“We’ve had an accident. We’re both trapped in the car. I’ve only hurt my ankle, but my friend is unconscious. I called 911 but I didn’t know where to tell them we were. If you know, could you call and tell them?”
“No problem, Maggie. Let me see if I can get you out of there.”
Maggie looked closer. Through the heavy rain it was hard to see, and the man was wearing a dark hoodie. But, yes. It could be. “Rocky Costa?”
“In person.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Didn’t Annie tell you? I live over that way.” He gestured in the general direction of the brick wall. “You were coming to pay a call on me. You’re late, so I came to see what was holding you up. And here I’ve found you had a bit of a problem along the way.” Rocky stood and looked over the car, shaking his head. “Women drivers. Annie always did have a heavy foot.”
“I’d love to talk with you, but why don’t you call 911 first? Let them know where we are. Annie needs to get to a hospital.”
“Actually, I’m thinking this is working out just fine the way it is. Two birds in one car crash, as it were.”
“Why was Annie bringing me to see you?”
“You were getting a little too nosy, Maggie from New Jersey. I heard from one of the kids on my baseball team this afternoon that he’d talked with you. He wanted me to tell him he’d done the right thing. He figured it would be okay, telling you about the drugs, seeing as Cordelia isn’t exactly in the business anymore. He didn’t see the big picture. But I figured you, being a smart professor and all, you might put all the pieces together. So I told Annie what the boy’d done, and we decided it would be best if you didn’t tell anyone what you’d heard.”
“I haven’t told anyone,” said Maggie. Except Will, she thought. “I talked to the boys this afternoon, and was planning to spend the weekend celebrating a wedding, as you’ll remember. I’m going back to New Jersey Sunday.”
“Annie and I decided to change your plans a little. To make sure you don’t open your mouth and share any information someone here in Winslow might find of interest, you understand,” said Rocky. He stood back a little, his clothing and hoodie dripping, rain running off his nose and fingers. The wind had let up a little, but the rain hadn’t. Water coursed down the street, creating a new waterway. “But I believe now this little accident opens up new possibilities.”
“What do you want from me?” said Maggie.
“Simple. I want you to disappear,” said Rocky.
Not good. Would the emergency operator be able to trace her call? She couldn’t count on it. Caught in the car she had no defense. Maggie pressed down on the door handle again. “I don’t understand enough to be dangerous. Sean and Josh said Cordelia was dealing the drugs. Why should you worry about that? Cordelia’s dead.” She pushed on the door. It stuck at the same place it had before. Rocky didn’t seem to notice.