Appearances, copyright 2006, by Etienne. All rights reserved.
-38-
Incident on Peachtree Street
After I left Charles, I went back to the Townhouse to take care of a few things, and then waited for the moving company to arrive, which they did ten minutes later than expected. I showed them up to the master bedroom and told them what I wanted moved, which amounted to the contents of the room as well as the chests of drawers and about half of the clothes in the walk-in closet. It only took them an hour to load their truck. They already had Gran’s address, and I gave them Mr. Goodman’s name as the person to contact when they arrived in Buckhead. I then secured the townhouse and left.
As I headed up Peachtree, my mind was still going over all of the things that needed to be done in order for Charles and me to be comfortable at Gran’s. I suppose I had been driving on autopilot for a few minutes before something unusual registered in my consciousness. I finally figured out that what was bothering me was that I had noticed the same blue van in my rearview mirror for an unusually long time. I was not driving very fast, for once, and the van would have had more than ample opportunity to change lanes and go around me in the time it had been behind me, but it had not done so.
Keep calm, I thought to myself, as I focused on the street ahead and where I might take some kind of evasive action. I realized that I was only a few blocks South of the Peachtree Battle Shopping Center, so I eased into the far right-hand lane until I was at the light for the shopping center, and without signaling, I abruptly turned into the Peachtree Battle parking lot, and sped through it. The van, with tires squealing, followed me. That told me all that I needed to know - whoever they were, they were up too no good.
The adrenaline was flowing now and I was thinking furiously. With one arm in a cast, my ability to outmaneuver the van was limited, but thanks to a powerful engine, I certainly ought to be able to outrun them, whoever they were.
I circled around the perimeter of the parking lot and sped back toward Peachtree Street. Just as I reached the traffic light, which mercifully, was green, I heard a loud popping sound and looking in the rearview mirror, I saw that a large hole had appeared in my rear window with fracture lines spreading out from it. I floored the accelerator, and turned South on Peachtree, tires squealing in protest. Where is a policeman when you need one, I thought to myself, as I ran red lights and passed cars at uncomfortable speeds, always keeping a weather eye in the mirror for the van. It was still back there, but was clearly unable to catch up with the BMW.
I could see far enough ahead of me to realize that I could not keep up my present speed for much longer and my brain began to go into overdrive. In a flash, an idea came to me and I quickly slowed down so that the van began to overtake me. When they were a little more than a car length behind me, I slammed on brakes and virtually stood the BMW on its nose stopping. I jammed the gear selector into park and braced myself. They were expecting flight on my part not a sudden stop, and they plowed into the rear of the BMW. My air bags deployed, and as soon as I could, I extricated myself from the car and looked back at the van, ready to run for it if I had to. There were two men in it, but neither of them was moving. It was an old van and apparently did not have air bags because the impact had thrown both of them into and one of them partially through the windshield.
I started to call 911, but stopped when I heard sirens in the distance. Instead, I called Richard on his cell phone and quickly told him where I was and what had happened. He said “on my way,” and hung up.
The first police car pulled up, and I walked over to the driver, arriving at the car as he exited. “The two guys in that van were chasing me and shooting at me,” I told him. “You can see the bullet hole in my rear window.” I filled them in on the shooting in the park and referred them to Detective Howard.
The second cop, who had been listening, said “what did they do, ram you?”
“No,” I said , “with my right arm in a cast, I knew that I could not outmaneuver them, and I knew it would be hard to out run them in traffic, so I slowed down a bit to let them get closer, and slammed on my brakes hoping that German steel was stronger than American steel, so to speak. The fact that it is an old van without air bags probably helped a lot.”
He scratched his head and said, “man, that was quick thinking on your part.”
“I don’t see that I had much choice,” I said, “my car surely could have out run them, but traffic was much too heavy up ahead, and I did the only thing I could think of.”
By this time, an ambulance had arrived, and an EMT team was examining the two men. One of them pointed at the man whose head was through the windshield and gave a thumbs down signal. The other member of the team shouted “this one’s alive,” and pointed at the other man.
I looked back at the cops, and said “I hope they take him to a lockup ward. We want to know who is behind these attacks on us.”
“They will,” he said, “it’s standard procedure in a case like this.”
“How much longer will you need me here, officer?” I asked. “I have an appointment in Buckhead less than half an hour from now, and then I need to get back to the Hospital.”
“You can leave as soon as we get a statement from you,” he said, “but your car will be impounded for forensic tests for a few days. There is a bullet somewhere inside that will tie the shooting to those guys’ gun.”
“No problem,” I said, “I’ve already called someone to come and get me.”
As if on cue, Richard came trotting up to the scene. I quickly filled him in on what had happened, and he waited while the cops took my statement. I returned to my car and removed the garage door opener from the visor, took my keys out of the ignition, separated the car keys from the rest of the keys on the ring, and handed them to the cop. “She’s all yours,” I said, “just have someone let me know when and where to collect her.”
Richard led the way back to his car. “Can you take me back to the house so I can get Charles’ car?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “Are you up to driving after all that?”
“I don’t have much choice,” I replied. “I have a lot to do before we get our boy home from the hospital which, hopefully, will be tomorrow.”
We reached the house, and he pulled into the garage. “Richard,” I said.
“What?”
“Now that we have one bad guy dead and another one in a lockup ward at the hospital, do you think Charles and I should be less careful, or more careful?”
“That’s a tough one,” he said. “If they were acting alone, probably the former, but if they were part of a larger group, the latter. I would err on the side of caution for a while until we see what the investigation comes up with.”
“I think so, too,” I said. “By the way, you still have a blank check to run your own investigation. As soon as you find out what the police know, I want to know everything about those two guys, right down to the minute details of their lives and with whom they might have been involved and/or working for. The police department seems to be keen to handle things properly, but even with a gay Detective on the case, I’m not totally convinced that they will.”
“Not a problem,” he said.
I went upstairs, retrieved a spare key to the Jaguar, and made it to my appointment with five minutes to spare.
-To be continued-
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Your feedback is invited, be it good, bad, or indifferent.
Official story site for Etienne:
http://www.rcwp.homestead.com/Appearances.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||