Page 41 of Sharp Force
“Reba, what kind of car do you drive?” Whalen then asked her.
“A two-thousand-eighteen Jeep Cherokee. Silver.” She recited the plate number.
“Where were you when your husband went out jogging, ma’am?”
“Home with our two boys. You don’t think I had…?” She didn’t finish the sentence.
CHAPTER 14
Rowdy O’Leary suffered multiple fractures to his lower legs, his back and occipital skull. I study photographs taken at the hospital. The accordion pattern of the car’s front grille is clearly visible behind his knees and lower thighs.
His tibias and fibulas were shattered in both legs, the bones protruding from the skin, and surgeons deliberated whether below-knee amputations might be necessary. The police speculated that what plowed into him wasn’t a truck or SUV. Something lower-slung than that, possibly a sports car.
A search of area body shops came up empty-handed. It was suspected that the driver was drunk and speeding with no headlights. This person had the ability to evade and conceal.
“Possibly someone who works in the automotive business, repairing the car himself,” Trad Whalen told a reporter.
I glance at photocopies of news stories, the headlines more buried and less emphatic over time:
Local Man Badly Injured While Jogging Late at Night
Marathon Runner Struck by Car
Reward Offered in Alexandria Hit & Run
Hope Fades in Hit & Run Case
Nothing I’m seeing suggests the police suspected Rowdy wasrun down intentionally, certainly not by his wife. In fact, Trooper Whalen quickly came around to blaming the victim, telling journalists that Rowdy was running late at night on a heavily trafficked road, placing himself at risk.
“Unfortunately, he ended up in the path of a drunk driver,” Whalen said, and there’s no proof of that.
Other information and diagrams indicate that when Rowdy was struck from behind, he flew into the air, the back of his head striking the car’s windshield. His brain was contused, a coma induced to control the swelling. After he was awake and alert, he had no memory beyond hearing a powerful engine behind him before everything went black.
In physical therapy for the better part of two years, he struggled to walk. He began gaining weight and seeing a psychiatrist. He reported episodes of tachycardia and was hooked up to a Holter monitor. A cardiologist early on diagnosed him with premature ventricular contractions due to extreme mental distress.
Other paperwork shows that Rowdy called the Virginia State Police now and then, checking on his case, Trad Whalen mentions in reports. When the Slasher murders began ten months ago, Rowdy’s interest shifted to them. He became more fearful and was obsessed with the investigation.
Based on what I’m seeing, the last time he contacted Whalen was only a month ago. Rowdy calledin ref. to Phantom Slasher,I read.
“I asked if he had suspicions about who the Slasher might be,”Whalen wrote in a memo about his last phone call with Rowdy.“He started making wild accusations about the government. He impressed me as increasingly paranoid & unstable…”
Included in the article is a photograph of Trooper Whalen, andhe looks familiar posed in his state police dress uniform, a lot of dark blue and brass. His eyes are shadowed by a campaign hat as he smiles stiffly in front of an American flag. He appeared to be in his thirties then and somewhat brutish with a crew cut, the flattened nose of a prizefighter.
I’m all but certain I saw him earlier in the year at Ivy Hill cemetery when I was there for the funeral of a former governor on a cold rainy day. If I’m right that it’s the same trooper, he was surly when directing me to park an unnecessary distance from the tent.
“Could you park me any farther away?” I joked but meant it.
“If you’re not careful, ma’am, I will,” was his aggressive answer.
I remember being taken aback by his overt hostility as if he had a personal beef with me, and decided he was a chauvinist, maybe a misogynist. It wasn’t the first time I’d encountered such uncivil behavior. When I began my career, scarcely anyone wanted a woman to be a medical examiner, much less a chief.
Getting up from the bed, I stir the fire with a poker, sparks swarming up the chimney. I’m adding another log as I hear a car stopping at the gate, the engine quiet over the security camera microphones. My mood lifts as I see Benton’s Tesla SUV in the monitor across from the bed.
I watch him driving through the opening gate, stopping at the carriage house and climbing out. I can see his breath fogging and hear his feet crunching. I’m glad he put on boots before driving home, always keeping a pair in his car for when the weather takes a bad turn.
He kicks away crusty snow in front of the double wooden doors. They scrape loudly as he swings them open, driving inside, getting out again to close and latch them. He trudges along the driveway tothe house, and I see no sign of the raccoon or owl. Nothing growls or screams. The floating red lights are gone.
I head downstairs in my pajamas and slippers, keeping my eye out for Merlin. I hope he’s not in the basement, irritable or frightened. Knowing him, he’s pacing back and forth collarless in front of the cat door, upset that it won’t open as if he’s lost his magical powers.
