Motor Mouth (Alex Barnaby 2)

“This could take a while,” I said to Hooker. “They’re not going to sort this out in fifteen minutes.”

Hooker reached over and ran a fingertip along the nape of my neck. “Want to make out?”

“No!” Yes. But not here and not now. I wasn’t going to give in on a freeway. If we were going to have make-up sex, it was going to be good. It for sure wasn’t going to be in the backseat of an SUV.

“Just some kissing,” Hooker said. He put his hand over his heart. “I swear.”

“You’re not planning on doing any touching?”

“Okay, maybe some touching.”

“No.”

Hooker blew out a sigh. “Darlin’, you’re a hard woman. You’re doggone frustrating.”

“And it’s not going to do you any good to drag out your Texas drawl,” I told him.

Hooker grinned. “It got me where I wanted to go when I first met you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not going to get you there now.”

“We’ll see,” Hooker said.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Come on, admit it,” Hooker said. “You want me bad.”

I smiled at him, and he smiled back, and we both knew what that meant. He held my hand, and we sat there, holding hands, staring out the windshield, watching the cleanup spectacle like it was a television show.

There were fire trucks and medical-emergency trucks from three counties and enough flashing strobes to give a healthy man a seizure. The medevac helicopter didn’t drop out of the sky, and no one seemed to be rushing around, frantically trying to save a life. So I was hoping that meant no one was critically injured. All but one of the fire trucks left the scene. And one by one the EMT trucks left, some with flashing lights. None of the EMT trucks sped away with sirens blaring. Another good sign.

Tow trucks and police were working on the outer perimeter of the crash, moving cars. The road was still blocked, but the problem was shrinking. A tow truck inched into the heart of the wreck.

“They’re going to try to get the coach off the Hummer,” I said to Hooker. “I’m going out for a better view.”

I was afraid to climb onto the car again. Too many lights now. Too many people looking around. So I stood beside the SUV with my sweatshirt hood up and my hands in my pockets, hunched against the cold.

After a lot of discussion, the tow-truck driver attached a chain to the coach and slowly winched it back. The rear on the Hummer had been squashed down to about three feet of compressed fiberglass and steel, so the coach didn’t actually have all that far to drop. It came off with a decent amount of grinding noise and a loud wump when it hit the ground. It bounced and jiggled a little, and then it went stoic, silently enduring its disgraced condition.

Now that the motor coach was off the Hummer, it was easy to see how Rodriguez had escaped. The right front had taken the biggest hit, and the shell of the coach had completely peeled back, leaving a gaping hole where the door used to be. Rodriguez had probably gotten yanked out of his seat and then found that the handrail had broken free of its moorings.

Hooker had his head out. “What’s going on?”

“They pulled the coach off the Hummer. And now I think they’re going in to investigate. Probably want to make sure no one’s inside.”

Hooker pulled his head back into the SUV and slunk down. They were about to discover poor Bernie Miller in the motor-coach bedroom. And he wasn’t exactly Sleeping Beauty.

I watched two cops enter with flashlights. Long moments passed while I held my breath. The cops came out and stood beside the bus. One was on his talkie. More cops came over. Some suits pushed through the crowd. A uniform unrolled yellow crime scene tape, securing the area around the bus.

I leaned into the SUV. “They found him,” I whispered to Hooker.

Hooker looked at me. “Why are you whispering?”

“It’s too horrible to say out loud.”

An unmarked cop car with its Kojak light flashing cut through traffic and eased up to the outer perimeter of the smashed cars. Two suits got out, followed by Spanky and Delores. They all power-walked to the bus, and even from my distance, I could see Spanky’s eyes go wide. He stopped and stared, mouth agape, arms dangling at his sides. If I’d been closer, I’m sure I could have seen the blood drain from his face and his breathing get shallow. He swayed slightly, and one of the cops moved him forward, toward the coach. They got to the door and stood talking. One of the cops was gesturing at the coach, and Spanky was appearing to listen, but I suspected nothing was registering in his brain.

I popped back into the SUV and grabbed a bag from the back. “I have my binoculars in here somewhere,” I said to Hooker. “I need to see this. I think they’re going to take Spanky into the coach. I bet they want him to ID the body!”