Double Booked For Death

“I still don’t understand that part,” Darla protested. “Traffic was moving, but it wasn’t going that fast. How can she be dead?”

Jake flicked an ash and glanced Darla’s way.

“You don’t have to be hit by Speed Racer to be killed by a moving vehicle. Even if the van was going only thirty miles an hour or so, that’s still a pretty good smack. She probably flew at least fifteen feet. All it takes is landing headfirst on the pavement, and you’re dead on scene. We’ll know the exact cause later.”

Darla suppressed a shudder. “So has anyone figured out why she ended up in the street in the first place?”

“Since I’m not a cop anymore, kid, I’m pretty much on the outside here. They took my statement just like they did with your fan girls.”

She paused for another draw on her cigarette.

“Unofficially, from what I’ve overheard of our witness statements, it looks like Valerie decided to confront your Lone Protester, and the two of them struggled,” she went on. “Of course, at the time, no one realized it was Valerie herself doing the confronting. She was wearing the same hooded black cape that everyone else and their dog had on. As far as anyone who noticed that little smackdown knew, she was just another fan who didn’t like seeing her pet author being dissed. It seems Valerie managed to grab the sign, but lost her footing in the process and stumbled off the curb just as that poor SOB in the van was driving past. At least, that’s what our witnesses say they saw.”

Darla frowned. “What, do you think there’s more to it than that?”

“Like I said, I’m on the outside here. But from all the publicity I’ve read about her, I have to wonder why in the hell Valerie would’ve abandoned her adoring masses just to lay down the law to some kook. If it worried her that much, she could have sent her bodyguard out to do the old intimidation routine. I don’t even see how she knew that protester was out here.”

“Probably one of the fans mentioned it when she was autographing, and it ticked her off,” Darla reasoned. “So she made up the excuse about needing another smoke break, and instead she snuck out to deal with the girl.”

She was about to ask if the police had tracked down this unknown antifan who’d been the root cause of the tragedy. Before she could, however, the officer who had been interviewing the driver began herding all the van’s occupants away from the accident site and toward where Darla and Jake were leaning.

Darla, who had given the passengers only a cursory look before, now stared in surprise. While Valerie’s fans had all been dressed in black capes, this group was attired in white robes that billowed behind them as they walked and which gleamed beneath the artificial light. The effect was even more pronounced, given the crisp black precision of the officer’s tapered motorcycle breeches and tall boots.

“Must have been running late for a KKK meeting,” Jake observed with a snort as she stood and stubbed out her cigarette on one leg of the barricade. Flicking away the tobacco remains, she straightened and stuck the filtered butt into her back pocket.

“How’s it going, Harry?” she addressed the cop, who had halted before them, the van passengers hanging back in a small uncertain knot behind him.

The officer pulled off his cap to reveal a balding pate. Wiping a sleeve across his brow, he resettled his hat and shrugged. “You know how it is, Jake. Good as it gets under the circumstances.” Then, with a look at Darla, he added, “You’re Ms. Pettistone, the bookstore owner?”

“That’s me,” Darla said, wondering which of his five white-clad charges was the ill-fated driver. Best she could make out, there were three women and two men, all dressed in the same odd fashion.

The cop thrust a beefy thumb over one shoulder. “We’ve got the driver’s and passengers’ statements, so these folks are free to go for the moment. But the driver wanted to talk to you . . . claims she knows you.”

She?

That was Darla’s first surprised thought. Somehow, she had expected that the driver would have been male. On the heels of that came confusion. How in the world did the driver know her, unless maybe she was a bookstore customer who’d had the horribly unfortunate bad luck to be driving past at the same moment that Valerie stepped off the curb? But before she had much more than a moment to wonder, one of the white-robed women pushed past the cop to stand toe-to-toe with her.