Sassafras, Part 7


Joan


The police station was new, and a lot fancier than the old one. I wondered how the town was able to afford such a state of the art police station, but then I remembered reading in Jenny’s blog about what a speed trap Sassafras had turned into. They must be writing an awful lot of tickets up by the new highway to be able to pay for all this. Computers were everywhere. There were three people all huddled up around a table. While I was hanging my coat up one of the men who had been seated got up and walked over. "Hello, you must be Joan Weaver. I'm Detective Sneider, we talked on the phone last night." He shook my hand and led me over to a table against the wall.

He was tall, and thin as a rail, the kind of guy who was probably called Lurch or Stretch in high school. When he shook my hand, I noticed he had long, thin, bony fingers. This guy really needs a cheeseburger or something, I thought. For as thin as he was, he had a surprisingly deep voice. "Let's look over your sister's file and see what we can see." He opened a folder and pulled out some papers. "Now, I don't know if you want to see these crime scene photos. You don't really need to see them, but they're here if you want to. Right now, let me just read through this."

He flipped through some pages, and then pulled a couple of papers out that were stapled together. "The coroner hasn't given his official cause of death, but he should be finished this afternoon. So far, all he's saying is that the injuries are consistent with a pedestrian - vehicular accident, and that death occurred between 10 PM and 1 AM. He's waiting for some laboratory tests before he signs the final papers."

"Your sister was drinking at Tanner's bar Monday night. The bartender remembers her getting a drink around 10:30. She had been there since about 8:30 or 9. Nobody remembers seeing her leave, so we don't know if she left alone or not. The next time she was seen was Tuesday morning when a deliveryman driving past Scott's Hardware noticed her laying partially on the sidewalk. He called 911 at 5:18AM, the paramedics arrived at 5:30 and pronounced her dead at the scene."

He flipped through the papers some more and pulled out another sheet. "There was evidence collected at the scene. Part of a rearview mirror, some trim and lots of broken glass. The glass looks like pieces of a headlight, but I don't know if there is enough to get a make on what style. I'm sorry there isn't more to go on."

"I understand. I hope you're able to find out what happened. Do you know if she was with anybody at Tanner's? I just can't imagine her out drinking all alone."

He flipped through the papers again. "Well, I don't know who was there. After her body was found a couple of people called in and said they had seen her at Tanner's, but nobody said they were with her or if she was with anybody else. Why do you ask?”

"Oh, I just thought if somebody had been with her they would have known when she left. Then you could narrow the time of death a little. I'm sure you already thought of that though. I'm a Court TV junkie, so this is sort of deja vu for me. Maybe I just don't want to think that she died in a stupid accident like this. There should be suspects and motives, twists and turns and dead ends, not this. This just seems, wrong."

We talked for a couple of more minutes. He offered to call the coroner for me, but I told him I wanted to wait a little. No sense calling until he would have something to tell me. He gave me the name and number of the coroner and I left. I couldn't decide what to do next, see the coroner, the mortician, or my mother. I decided to punt and called 411.

"Good morning, what city and state please?" the operator asked.

"Sassafras, Missouri," I said.

"What listing in Sassafras?" he asked.

"Deana Thompson," I said. "No wait, Deana Hudson."

"Thank you, have a great day."

While I waited for Deana to pick up the phone I lit a cigarette and walked up to Jenny's car. Its only saving grace had been a nice paint job, and now it didn't even have that. Jenny used to joke that it always looked good when it broke down on the side of the road. Jenny didn't mind it so much because she rarely drove more than 5 miles from Sassafras. Whenever she broke down sooner or later somebody would recognize her and pull over. Some times they could fix her car enough for her to gimp it to the gas station, sometimes they would give her a ride home or to work. I'm surprised some psycho slasher didn’t kill her, but she swore she would never take a ride with a stranger. That didn't really comfort me because I remembered what a bunch of losers and psychos lived in Sassafras.

When the phone was finally answered, I forgot who I was calling.

"Hello? Hello?"

"Deana? This is Joan."

"Joan! I'm glad you called. I didn't know if you would or not."

"You know I couldn't come home without calling you at least once. Besides, I need a friend about now."

"I know. I couldn't believe when I heard about Jenny. I drove by the hardware store and there was still glass all over the road. It was creepy. She was gone already, but still. I can't believe she's dead."

"Yeah, I know. I've still got to go to the nursing home and tell Mom what happened."

"Do you think she will even understand what you're saying?"

"I don't know. Somebody has to tell her and I'm not going to make Billy do it."

"Oh, poor guy. How is he taking it? He's just 15 isn't he?"

"Yeah, he's 15. I can't tell how he's taking it. When he called me in New York he was pretty broken up, but now I think he's just numb."

"How are you taking it?"

"I don't know. It doesn't seem real, you know? I keep wanting to go to Don's and ask her when she's going to get off work, see if she wants to go out and do something tonight."

"Why don't we go ahead and go to Don's? You haven't seen Ashley yet."

"Ashley? I thought you had a boy."

"Brian is almost 3 now. Ashley is my little girl. She's just 4 months old."

"Oh, I hadn't even heard you were pregnant again. Yeah, Don's sounds good."

I was already halfway to Don's when we hung up. I sat out in the parking lot waiting for her. It wasn't the same old Don's from when we were all in school. Don’s used to be in a small building down by Main Street, but last winter Don built a new building right up by the overpass in front of the new Wal-Mart. It was big and square, like a big shoebox with windows all across the front.

The full name of the diner was Don's Mix n Match Cafe. He didn't buy dishes from restaurant supply companies, he bought dishes at flea markets and estate sales, and every time you ate there you never knew what dishes you would get. Sometimes it would be a plastic kid's plate with Barney on it; sometimes it would be part of a fancy china set. Even the silverware was a random collection of patterns and styles. He also bought dishes from his customer's, so you could come in with a box of old dishes you would have thrown away anyway and eat for free.