“Is it drivable?” I asked.
“It will be,” she said determinedly, “as soon as I hammer out the fender so it isn’t catching on the tire. Why, are you in some kind of hurry?”
I allowed as how I was. I told her about Jimmy’s call and said that I needed to get back to Diamond Ridge Road in one hell of a hurry. “I could probably ask one of Marvin’s patrol officers to give me a lift.”
“Hold your horses,” Twink growled at me. “Just give me a minute. I’ll have Maude here back in shape in no time.”
Marvin must have managed to work some kind of magic. By all rights the Travelall should have been impounded.
Twink had come to AJ’s wearing what passed as dress-up attire for her—a plaid western shirt, jeans, and a pair of cowboy boots. Within moments she had donned the gray coveralls she retrieved from the backseat and had ditched the cowboy boots for what I assumed to be a second pair of insulated work boots—probably stored in one of the boxes in the rooftop luggage rack
After wrestling her toolbox down to the ground, she opened the lid and extracted both a metal rod and a wooden mallet. She took those with her as she scrambled under the vehicle’s front end. For the next minute or two, a series of thumps—wood on metal—filled the air before Twink emerged once more.
“All good,” she announced before returning the rod and mallet to the toolbox and the toolbox to its designated place on the roof. “Now, do you want me to drive you like this or ditch the coveralls?”
It was dark, and as much of a hurry as I was in, she could have driven me stark naked for all I cared. “You’re fine,” I told her.
Thanks to the snowplow’s having done the heavy lifting, the trusty engine was damage-free, and it roared to life as soon as Twink turned the key in the ignition. When she put the vehicle in gear and we began to move, the ride was smooth as silk, with zero thumping or bumping. Obviously Twink’s two-minute hammer-and-tongs repair job had filled the bill.
“So what’s the deal?” she asked after we cleared the wrecked gate and were speeding along.
“Jimmy called from Roger’s house,” I told her. “He and his mom went there and found Roger unresponsive.”
“So are we going to the house or to the hospital?” she asked. “The hospital’s a lot closer.”
I called Nitz’s number, and Jimmy answered.
“Hullo.”
“It’s Mr. Beaumont,” I said. “Where are you?”
“We just now got to the ER,” he said. “Mom went inside with the EMTs. She said I have to wait in the lobby.”
“We’re on our way, Jimmy,” I said. “Stay put.”
I ended the call. “The hospital,” I told Twink.
“Figured as much,” she replied. “We’ll be there in less than five.”
Which meant I had less than five minutes to prepare whatever I was going to say to a twelve-year-old kid who’d spent his whole life being lied to by all the people he loved—by his mother, his Aunt Penny, and his Uncle Wally. Everything real he’d been able to learn about his background was information Jimmy had gleaned on his own from the Internet.
Twink dumped me out at the entrance to the ER. “Call when you’re ready to go,” she said. “I’ll be in the visitors’ parking area out front.”
After exiting the car, I stood for a moment gathering myself before approaching the door and recalling those unyielding words—the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. On the other hand, how much truth could a twelve-year-old take? Struggling to find middle ground between the two, I squared my shoulders to walk into the hospital and face down Sue Danielson’s grandson.
Chapter 33
When I entered the hospital lobby, there were three groups of concerned family members huddled around the room worrying about their own ailing or injured. Jimmy Danielson sat in desolate isolation in the far corner, staring down at his feet. He didn’t glance up when the entryway doors slid open behind me.
“How’s it going?” I asked as I approached.
He looked up at me briefly, shook his head, and then dropped his gaze.
I sat down beside him. “Have you heard anything?”
Jimmy shook his head again and said nothing. So far this was turning out to be a very one-sided conversation.
“Did they say anything about his condition?”
“They're pumping his stomach. Will that work?”
“Let’s hope,” I said, “but it’s hard to tell. It’s probably a good thing you and your mom went to the house when you did instead of waiting for us to get back to the hotel. By then it might have been too late.”