People shouldn't die on beautiful days, he thought to himself.
Lifting the yellow caution tape that cordoned off the upper end of the street where he had parked his car, and ducking underneath it, Jim Brass glanced over at the young officer who had been first on the scene. The man was kneeling down next to a young blonde who sat on the curb. Her shapely legs were pulled up tight to her trembling chest, her delicate arms wrapped around her bent knees. The detective knew she must be the witness.
Brass glanced at her sympathetically for a moment. Delaying the inevitable, his keen brown eyes next took in the small group that had gathered a few stores down. Local shopkeepers and their patrons, talking in hushed voices, occasionally craning their necks to get a view of the body. Probably eager to see if they'd be on the news at noon, he thought cynically. Already preparing the stories they would soon be sharing with others. The ones that started with, "I was there...".
Sighing, he squared his shoulders and dropped the mental barricade that he had learned to erect to help shield himself from those situations that would otherwise twist his gut so cruelly as to make him ineffectual. The new coroner, an East Indian woman...what was her name again? Dr. Vuthoori? Jaya, maybe?...knelt next to the decimated shell that had once housed Denny Martens. Brass gritted his teeth, forcing down memories of the man that Martens had been when they had worked together.
It had been years since Brass had worked with Denny. A long time even since he'd run across him for more than a perfunctory 'hi, how's it going?'. But even beneath the blood and the destruction, he recognized the other cop. Miraculously, Denny's facial features were mostly intact. Heck, the family could probably even get away with an open casket if they wanted to, with the help of a good funeral home.
The sun glinted on the gold band that circled the ring finger of the dead man's left hand. The detective's chest tightened. His ears rang hollowly as he heard the voice from his past. "You know Jim, as fun as this job is, I look forward to being old and grey and rubbing elbows with all those Canuck snowbirds in Florida. Me and Amy enjoying our retirement. Chris, married, visiting us with the grandkids." Denny had given one of those easy smiles. The unmistakably genuine kind that came from that happy place that lived inside the other man.
Brass swallowed hard. There would be no peaceful retirement. No growing old with Amy. After years of successfully avoiding all of the dangers encountered on the job, it would be a stupid, senseless accident like this that claimed Denny Martens. He tried not to think of Amy Martens, or the boy. Except the boy was probably already becoming a young man, Jim realized.
"Broken neck," the coroner spoke in a crisp, lightly accented voice, with professional detachment. "Severe internal injuries, undoubtedly. My guess is he was dead before he fell and the vehicle ran over his lower extremities."
"Bastard never even stopped to see if he was still alive," the voice behind Brass growled. It was the beat cop. "He had to have felt the impact. Looks like he saw him too, at the last minute. There are skid marks," the young man nodded towards the black slashes of rubber. "Ya run a man down like a dog in the street, and just keep going? I don't get it," he continued, his voice rising with each word. "What do you think, Captain? DUI? It's pretty early."
Brass shrugged his shoulders. "Alcoholics can start the minute they get up in the morning," he stated morosely. "Assuming they ever stop during the night." He paused. "Could be high on something else. Could be panic. No license or insurance. Maybe a kid joyriding." He looked over at the blonde who was being assessed now by a paramedic. "Witness?"
"Yeah." The officer consulted his note pad. "Carina Horwath. Twenty-four. Works at Cup A Joe, the coffee shop there."
Brass nodded his thanks and moved over to where the woman still sat, a vacant look in her dark eyes. There were black smudges underneath them from her mascara, and black rivulets, stark against the unnatural grey pallor of her cheeks. Shock. He wanted to talk to her before the paramedics decided to transport her.
"Miss Horwath?" he asked softly. She didn't acknowledge him. "I'm Captain Brass, Las Vegas Police Department. I understand that you saw what happened here?" When she still didn't respond, he tugged up his pant legs a bit and crouched down next to her. Poor kid. Sympathetically, he reached to touch her shoulder. "I can imagine how upsetting this is for you. It's important though, that I get as much information now as possible, while your memory is still fresh."
The paramedic drew back to stand unobtrusively in the overhang of a barber shop.
She didn't protest that she had already answered questions, the way witnesses often did. "He hit Denny, and he just kept going," she whispered with hoarse incredulity.
Brass was instantly alert. Denny? He dropped the hand from her shoulder, resting it across his thigh. "Miss, did you know the victim?"
She swung her head towards him, the platinum strands of her hair falling across her cheek and down her shoulders. "Yeah. He comes into the shop every morning. On his way to work. He's a cop. Only he isn't working today. He's going golfing." Her eyes glinted with unshed tears.
"Yeah," Brass said sorrowfully, noting that she was speaking of Denny Martens in the present tense. "You said the driver was a male?" he prompted.
Her brow furrowed. "I...I don't know why I said that. I never saw anyone. The windows were dark. And it all happened...so fast..." her voice trailed off.
"Do you know what kind of vehicle it was? Colour? Anything that might help us find out who did this?" He gave her a moment to reply. The young cop had already taken that information from her and called all that in, but Brass wanted to see if her recollection would change.
"Um...some kind of SUV. Black, I think. Or dark blue." She clutched suddenly for his sleeved arm, her long, manicured nails digging through the thin fabric. Brass winced but didn't withdraw. "How could this happen? How could this happen to Denny? He didn't deserve this! Oh God...Denny..." She released him, burying her face in her hands, and wept.
Brass knew that it was normal for witnesses to a tragedy to react strongly to any loss of human life. If they happened to know or care for that life, their reactions were even more intense. There was nothing unusual in the way the young woman was behaving in response to the death of a man that she knew. So why was his radar going off? Why was his gut telling him that Denny Martens was more to the blonde than a daily customer?
Denny Martens had been one of the straightest, most decent men Jim Brass had ever known. When some of the guys would go out for a drink after work, Denny would usually decline. When he did join them, it was for one only. And he never accompanied then to the strip clubs, or joined in their suggestive conversations about the women they encountered in the course of their days. Martens loved his wife, truly and deeply, and was careful never to put himself in a situation where he could jeopardize that relationship. It was something that Brass had always admired about the other man.
But...people changed. It had been a long time since he'd worked with Denny, and though they had shared a healthy professional respect for one another, there had been no other common ground to lead them to stay in touch. Denny was in his mid forties, several years younger than Brass, but still not too young to have hit middle-aged-crazy. And who knew how his relationship with Amy had changed over the years? This blonde was a looker. If it had happened, Martens wouldn't be the first seemingly happily married man to have tried to recapture his youth in the arms of a younger woman. And Jim Brass was the last person to judge another man on his fidelity.
Now was not the time for such questions though. Brass could find out easily enough if the two had been having an affair. Right now, he had to concentrate on the immediacy of the accident.
"Miss Horwath," he continued, when she raised her head again, "did you recognize the vehicle? Seen it around here before? Get a license plate number? Even a partial?" Brass knew it was a long shot. Even Warrick Brown, back in his day, wouldn't play those odds.
She shook her head. "It was just an SUV. You see them everywhere." She wiped the back of her right hand across her sculpted cheekbones. He was relieved to see some colour returning to her pretty countenance.
"Did Detective Martens move out into the street quickly or suddenly?" Brass queried. It was important to determine whether or not the driver had been negligent or if the pedestrian had. Even though, either way, it was a crime to leave the scene. "Maybe the driver didn't see him til it was too late, before he tried to slam on the brakes?"
The sorrow in her dark eyes turned glacial. "There's no parking on this side of the street. Denny was crossing at a normal pace, to get to his truck."
Brass filed away the fact that she was familiar with the kind of vehicle Martens drove. There were 'No Parking' signs on this side of the street, and no vehicles here now, but he had to make sure that the scene had been the same at the time of the fatality. That there hadn't been some delivery truck idling there, that Denny Martens had stepped out from behind without checking the road.
Carina Horwath's voice turned cold, and he sensed the underlying fury. "The guy had to have a clear view of Denny, if he was paying attention at all. And he never even slowed."
Brass titled his head curiously. The young cop had said there were skid marks to confirm that the driver had tried to stop. Apparantly, the witness's reliability was questionable. "You say the driver didn't brake?" he repeated.
She shook her head vehemently. "No. It...it was almost like...like he sped up..."
Brass swivelled his head back to the road. He had to see those marks for himself. Had the driver tried to stop? Or had he or she accelerated? He wondered when CSI would arrive at the scene. Then he saw Conrad Ecklie and an unfamiliar woman bending under the police tape at the lower end of the street. Involuntarily, his nose wrinkled with distaste. Jim reminded himself that even though Ecklie could be a dick, the man was, for the most part, a capable forensic scientist.
He had his own job to concentrate on. Was this a random accident? Or the calculated actions of a killer? If Martens and the girl were having an affair...could the driver have been a jealous boyfriend? Or even Amy Martens in a rage over her husband's indiscretion? There was already an APB out on the vehicle, and local body shops had been alerted to call in any possible related or suspicious damage to all SUVs or mini-vans that came in. Back at the precinct someone was checking for reports of stolen vehicles.
"Miss Horwath, where were you when you witnessed the accident?" Jim Brass wondered.
She jerked her delicate chin over her shoulder. "Inside. At the register. Looking out the window."
The detective looked towards the small shop, wondering just how clear the view was. Knowing that his next step would be to go inside and determine the answer. "Thank you, you've been very helpful. I can understand how distressing this is for you."
Brass stood up, shook the kinks out of his legs, and stepped over to the paramedic. "She seems okay now. Are you taking her in?" he asked quietly.
"Not unless she asks to go," the other man told him.
The detective nodded his satisfaction. He moved towards the coffee shop door, then paused, and in an unconsciously Columboesque move, turned back to the young woman. "Miss Horwath?" She shifted on the curb, turning her face towards him. "How long had you had a relationship with Denny Martens?"
His features projected only an idle curiosity, but his brown eyes were cutting. He watched as she tried to process the meaning in the strangely worded inquiry. Brass was rewarded when she averted her eyes for a moment, and two spots of colour appeared high on her cheeks. Her body language and hesitation told him far more than even her halting verbal response.
"We...he...he's been coming here for about two years now." She raised her eyes to his again, trying to read the weathered visage.
"Okay," he said simply, with a thin smile. "Thanks." Then Jim Brass stepped inside the building, wondering to himself what kind of vehicle Amy Martens drove.