“Maybe it takes more accidents,” she said.
“What? That’s a hell of a thing to wish for.” He stared at her.
“I’m not wishing for it, not by any means. I just wondered if people are trying to make it look like more and more accidents are there, hoping the city government would step up and make the changes.”
He stared at her uncomprehendingly.
She turned to look at her partner; he had suddenly stumbled into what she was getting at. His eyebrows shot up. “That’s an interesting idea,” Rodney said slowly.
“You’re talking nonsense,” Bill said, then looked up and down the hallway. “Haven’t you got anything better to do with your time?”
“Better than solving these crimes? No, I live and breathe them.”
“You guys do a hell of a job, do you? Right,” he said sarcastically.
“And yet the guy who hit your son was drunk and has served time for what was his third DUI.”
“Did you hear yourself?Third DUI.”
She nodded. “I get it, Bill. The law sucks when it comes to a lot of drunk drivers. He got off, and, because he got off on previous ones, he was out again and available to hit your son.”
“Exactly,” he sneered.
“So, I would think you’d be trying to change the drunk driving laws instead.”
“What’s to change?” he asked. “Nobody gives a damn. If it’s not their own child, nobody gives a crap.”
There was so much truth to his tale, so much woe in his voice, that she had to wonder. “Have you seen anybody else hanging around this intersection? Anybody who looks suspicious?”
He stared at her. “What? Now you want me to start tailing other people?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “What if somebody—potentially somebody like you, who lost someone—is trying to make this whole traffic pattern thing change in order to save lives?”
“Then go ahead. I’m all for it.”
“But you didn’t have a hand in that, right?”
Bill stared at her in shock. “What? You talking about staging accidents? Hell no, and anybody who’s lost somebody wouldn’t do that.”
“I’m not so sure about that. People’s motives can get pretty twisted when they’re emotionally overwrought.”
“Maybe, definitely a few people are pretty overwrought. I saw the lady whose kid got killed in that accident last year. She was absolutely beside herself because she’d been riding her bike with her daughter.”
“I know about her too,” she said quietly. “When did you see her?”
“She seemed to haunt the place for a while. But she’d been hurt herself as well and was losing her sight. She was in poor shape. It was pretty sad. I mean, you think about that, and it’s not only the loss of life but also a loss of her way of life.”
“Agreed,” Rodney said at her side, staring at him. “We’re just wondering if something a little more nefarious is going on, like over the last two biking accidents.”
“You think that somebody might be still hanging around, somebody who was involved in it?”
She nodded. “But the cameras are very limited, and the observers aren’t very helpful.”
He snorted. “That’s nothing new.”
“I’m wondering about you. If you could tell me where you were during the accidents, then it would help us clear you as a viable suspect.”
“I was in the damn pizza parlor. It happened right in front of me.”