Death at the Wheel

 

 

 

 

 

Death at the Wheel

 

by

 

Kate Flora

 

 

 

 

 

Published by:
ePublishing Works!

www.epublishingworks.com

 

ISBN: 978-1-61417-138-6

 

Without limiting the rights under copyrights reserved above and below, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

 

Please Note

 

This is a work of fiction.
 
Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

The scanning, uploading, and distributing of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law.
 
Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
 
Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

 

Copyright © 1996, 2011 by Kate Clark Flora

 

Cover and eBook design by eBook Prep
www.ebookprep.com

 

Thank You.

 

 

 

 

 

In memory of my father, Robert Louis Clark

 

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.

~
Ecclesiastes

 

May the gardens of heaven grow green.

 

 

 

 

 

Acknowledgments

 

Once again, thanks to my readers for the nit-picking, attention to detail and general good advice. For technical assistance, thanks to Concord Police Chief Leonard Wetherbee, to attorney and road warrior Howard Cubell, and to Donnie and Jane Prentiss, who kept trying to get me behind the wheel. For great lines and good stories, thanks to Susan Clark, Greg Englund and Sara Lloyd. And thanks also to that anonymous gentleman on the flight back from Bouchercon in Omaha who sat next to me and talked about cars and weekend racing; he inspired the story. I have been well advised, but, this being a work of fiction, I have taken geographical liberties and perhaps factual ones as well.

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

Some days it doesn't pay to get up in the morning but usually, by the time we find that out, it's too late. So it was with me on Easter Sunday. I'd been up since the dawn. Since before dawn. My church attendance may be sporadic but I love the Sunrise Service. I'm not sure that makes me Christian. There's something deliciously pagan in celebrating the return of life to the earth; yet the words of redemption, rebirth, and renewal were etched in childhood, and they still move me.

I stood out on the back deck of my condo, drinking coffee, looking out at the sparkling ocean. The wind, after a chilly spring, was finally warm, and the perfect way to spend the rest of Easter Sunday would be to walk on the beach and then curl up with a good book. Instead, like everyone else in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I was going home for dinner, toting the obligatory potted plant. I hadn't realized how widespread the custom was until I came out of my condo carrying a plant and discovered all my neighbors doing the same thing. As I drove toward Route 128, half the houses I passed seemed to be disgorging residents in twos and threes and they were all carrying potted plants. It was like some new form of Invasion of the Body Snatchers—invasion of the plant-toters.

I turned on the radio, searching for something that would lighten my mood. There was no mystery about how the day would go. It was all predictable. My mother, worn out from her efforts to produce the perfect meal, wouldn't be able to control her anxiety about my unmarried, childless state. As the only one of her offspring likely to give her a grandchild, my reproductive prospects were a source of great concern. She would make what she considered exquisitely subtle inquiries about the state of my romantic life. If I allowed that things with Andre were going well, she'd be even more unhappy. My being married to or even seriously involved with a state trooper didn't conform to her upwardly mobile, country club notions of the proper consort. I rubbed my forehead, trying to press away the incipient headache that threatened whenever a family dinner was inevitable.