Time had gone by, but Danny wasn't sure exactly how much. There were people on the scene now. One of them was Paulina. Another was Sam. Danny didn't know where they had come from. He was sitting on a rock about a hundred yards from the fried car.
The fire was out. A couple of cops and firemen had arrived and sprayed it with white dust. They were late—the flames had been dying out anyway. From where he was sitting in the gorge, Danny could see an ambulance parked at the edge of the cliff overhead. A plastic-gloved paramedic was slowly easing what was left of Star out of the wreckage.
He should have brought a dustpan with him.
Danny watched as Sam broke away from the cops and walked toward him. He knew one of the cops wouldn't be far behind her.
"Did you see how it happened?" Sam asked. Her hand visibly trembled as she raised it to brush hair off her face.
"No," Danny said flatly.
"Then what are you doing here?" Sam asked.
"I was driving by, I saw the smoke." He shrugged. "What are you doing here?"
"The same."
"Did you come with Paulina?"
"Huh? No. Why would I do that?" she questioned shrilly.
"I don't know." He paused. "It is definitely Star, right?"
"Everyone seems to think so. The police got Dash on their radio. He says he loaned Star his Fiat."
Danny nodded in the direction of Paulina. She was conferring with the police. As far as Danny could tell she had not once turned her eyes in the direction of the exploding car. She looked as white as a pale moon. "How did she end up here?" Danny asked.
"She was probably just driving home," Sam said. "I don't think the police called her." Sam stared at the wreckage. "Star's not going to be voted prom queen this year."
"Come on, Sam."
"Well, I'm sorry, but she was a jerk."
Danny stood. "I'm happy she won't be bothering you anymore."
Sam was insulted. "You didn't like her either."
"She wasn't so bad. She might have turned out to be nice." Danny thrust his hands in his pockets and bowed his head. "I wish she'd had the chance."
The bigger of the two cops broke away from the group and walked towards Sam and Danny. He had a red face, like that of a man who enjoyed his whiskey, and a bulging gut that looked well muscled. His expression was dark—appropriate for the circumstances—but he looked as if he were ordinarily a cheerful man. Someone who could visit the scene of a tragic accident in the afternoon, and still enjoy the company of his grandchildren in the evening. He nodded to Danny and offered his hand. Apparently he had already made Sam's acquaintance.
"I'm Sergeant Fitzsimmons," he said. "I understand you're Daniel Fenton."
Danny shook the cop's hand and was surprised at how gentle the man's grip was. "Danny," he said.
"Okay, Danny. Would it be all right if I ask you a couple questions, Danny?"
"Sure."
"You were the first one to reach the scene of the accident, correct?"
"Yeah."
"What did you see?"
Danny fidgeted. "The same thing you see now. Except the fire was burning then."
"Was there anyone around when you first got here?"
"No."
"How did you know the car was down here?"
"I saw the smoke. I drove straight here."
"Did you hear the sound of the crash?"
"I was about a mile from here when I saw the smoke—on the other side of the hill. I didn't hear anything."
"How long would you say it was between when you arrived here and the car went off the cliff?"
"I don't know. Five minutes. It's hard to say."
Fitzsimmons turned to stare at the empty wreck. The paramedic had managed the get Star out of the car. He was laying her out inside a plastic green bag. The three of them watched as the paramedic pulled up the zipper and Star disappeared for good from the face of the earth. Danny felt his eyes moisten and lowered his head to study the ground near his feet. The police officer noticed.
"She was a friend of yours?" Fitzsimmons asked.
In a way, yeah. That's my vomit over there.
"Sort of," Danny said. "We both knew her."
"She was a cheerleader at our school," Sam added.
Fitzsimmons sighed. "I understand she was a beautiful girl."
"Yeah," Danny said. "She was very pretty. I took some pictures of her yesterday."
Fitzsimmons gestured to Paulina. "That girl over there says she was her best friend. Is that true?"
"Yeah," Danny said.
"She wants to accompany us back to the station and await the results of the autopsy," Fitzsimmons said. "She wants you to come with her."
"Me?" Danny asked, surprised.
"Yes," Fitzsimmons said. "Do you want to come?"
"All right," Danny said.
"Why are you doing an autopsy?" Sam asked.
Fitzsimmons studied Sam. "We usually do one to find out the cause of the death."
"But she died in the car crash," Sam said.
"But why did her car crash?" Fitzsimmons said.
Sam raised her eyes to the top of the cliff. "It's a sharp turn in the road. Star always did drive like a maniac."
"But she drove this road every day of her life," Danny said, studying the cliff and remembering how well Roger had known the road as well.
The police station was not in Amity Park but in Elmerton, a town four times the size of Amity, located about twenty miles southeast of it. Danny drove with Paulina sitting by his side, and Sam trailing them in her car. Sam had insisted on accompanying them, which Danny couldn't understand. Fitzsimmons hadn't seemed to mind, though. Fitzsimmons acted as if everyone was welcome. He was in his black and white, a hundred yards in front of them and not far behind was the ambulance that carried Star's remains.
"She always liked Fridays," Paulina said suddenly. They were the first words she had spoken since she had climbed in his car twenty minutes earlier.
"She seemed like someone who enjoyed the weekends," Danny said, feeling stupid. Paulina just shook her head.
"She didn't like the weekends. Just Friday. Just the promise of the weekends. The reality never lived up to the promise for Star. It was always a disappointment for her."
"Why?" Danny asked. "She had a lot of friends."
"I was her only friend." Paulina turned away and stared out the window. "Besides, she was right, they always were disappointing."
"I don't understand."
"It doesn't matter."
"This must be terrible for you," Danny said.
Paulina continued to stare out the window. "I don't know if I feel anything. Maybe I'm in shock. But I do have a feeling that something bad is about to happen, that it's going to hit soon—but I already know what it is. It's already happened. Star's dead. My friend is dead." Paulina shook her head. "But it's like I'm the dead one, and don't really know it, not yet."
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
Paulina turned her head toward him. Her huge blue eyes were arresting.
"You help me just by being here," she said.
"I... don't know about that."
"You do. When I reached the scene of the accident, I couldn't look at what had happened. But just seeing you sitting there, alive, made it all the more bearable." Paulina reached over and touched his knee. "I really mean that."
Danny smiled faintly, uncomfortably. "Thanks."
Paulina took her hand back and stared straight ahead. Her lower lip trembled. "I heard Sam asking the policeman, but I didn't hear the answer—why do they have to do an autopsy?"
"I think they want to make sure it was an accident."
Paulina frowned. "Don't they think it was an accident?"
"Yeah. I think it's just routine."
"What do they do in an autopsy? Do you know? Exactly?"
Danny had read a thing or two about them, but didn't feel like going into details. "I think they take tissue samples, do X-rays—stuff like that."
Paulina wasn't buying it. "They'll cut her open, won't they? They'll cut out her brain. That's what they do in movies."
"Try not to think about it."
Paulina's whole face trembled this time. "She was so pretty."
"Yeah."
"We were both so vain. We'd always tell each other that we were the prettiest girls in school, and laugh at how ugly everyone else was. We'd do that right before we'd get into a fight about who was the prettiest—her or me. I always said I was, and you can imagine what Star said." Paulina glanced at him. "Dumb, huh?"
"It sounds like a normal, friendly argument."
She lost her smile. "It wasn't always so friendly. We weren't always nice to each other. I told you that the other day." Paulina hesitated. "Maybe I should have been nicer to her. Maybe it would have made a difference, you know, with what happened today."
"You can't blame yourself. That would be crazy."
"I am to blame—in a way. I should have given her a ride home. She shouldn't have had to borrow Dash's car. She always drove too fast in that thing."
Again Danny was struck by how Dash seemed to have been Star's boyfriend, rather than Paulina's. "If you'd been with her, you both might have died," he said.
"Do you think that's possible?"
He shrugged. "I'm no philosopher."
Paulina was interested. "You see, I don't think that's possible. I feel like I'm never going to die. Does that sound crazy? I mean, I know I have a body, that it's going to wear out, but I just can't see it happening." then she stopped herself. "But I suppose Star felt the same way." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "You're a nice boy, Danny, did anyone ever tell you that?"
"My mom."
"Your mom is right. What's she like?"
Danny shrugged. "She's nice. What's yours like?"
"I don't know. She never talks to me."
"Do you two fight?"
"No, we don't do anything. We simply coexist."
"That's too bad. How about your dad?"
"Don't even ask about him."
"I'm sorry."
"It doesn't bother me," Paulina said. "Star never got along with her parents, either. She hated them, in fact. I could see why. They were awful." Again Paulina stopped herself. "Do you think I'm being bitchy?"
"Of course not," Danny said.
"No, I mean seriously. Sometimes I do things that hurt people, and I ask myself why I did that. But the next day I'll do the same thing all over again."
"What have you ever done that's hurt someone?"
"You'd be amazed." Paulina thought for a moment. "What do you think this autopsy will show?"
Danny couldn't wrap his head around her probing. "Do you think she was drinking or something?"
Paulina snorted softly. "That would hardly be the beginning of it."
Danny didn't question her further. After a while Paulina began to sob softly, and still Danny didn't speak. It broke his heart to hear her in pain, but he knew he couldn't do anything to take it away.
The station in Elmerton was new—all red brick and white paint. Fitzsimmons led Danny and Paulina inside, and Sam jumped out of her car and scurried in after them. She was still being catty, trying to pretend Paulina wasn't there. Paulina ignored Sam right back, only pausing at the threshold of the station to ask Sam what she was doing there.
"I just want to see what happened," Sam said.
They went inside. Fitzsimmons had them sit in his office. It was small and cluttered and smelled of air freshener. Fitzsimmons had failed to reach Star's parents. Paulina told him that they probably had left for a weekend visit to San Francisco. She wasn't sure which hotel they were staying at. Fitzsimmons pressed her to remember. They needed Star's parents' permission to perform the autopsy. He told them once again it was unnecessary for them to be there at all. Yet he said it without conviction, and Danny recieved the impression that he wanted to keep an eye on them until he had the facts clear in his own mind.
Paulina remembered the name of the hotel after a bit.
