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The L.T. was also in town but no way Moe was calling the boss on what sounded like a vehicular accident. He mixed and drank two glasses of the protein shake, showered, shaved, got dressed, and drove to Westwood.
Thirteen minutes from his apartment in Sherman Oaks. Had to be a record.
—
The incident had taken place on one of those hilly streets east of the U.’s sprawling campus. Nice houses, nice trees, nice cars.
Not the kind of place you had four a.m. pedestrian-versus-vehicle confrontations.
Three squad cars on the scene. Yellow tape blocked off entry and exit to the street, encasing a hundred-foot stretch where the moving van sat.
One of the uniforms summed up, then pointed. “Those are them.”
Indicating two men standing with another officer. One big and heavy, the other midsized and lean.
Moe said, “Where were they headed at that hour?”
“A house four blocks up. They came from San Diego, slept in Orange County, set out early to avoid traffic. Claim they were going slow, saw nothing, just felt impact.”
Moe said, “Any signs of a deuce on the driver?”
“No evidence of any impairment at all, Detective, and their logbooks say they had adequate sleep. Actually, they both look totally aware and with it. And freaked out. They estimate they were going maybe fifteen per, felt a bump on the passenger side, figured it was an animal. Then they saw the victim.”
“I.D. on the victim?”
“Nothing on him,” said the uniform. “Literally. He’s buck naked.”
Moe blinked. “That’s different. Young, old, medium?”
“Looks young. Smallish. To be honest, there’s probably not enough intact face for an I.D. Unless you guys have some new high-tech thing. My guess, he’s a stoned-out student.”
Moe said, “High-tech? If only. Naked, huh?”
The patrolman said, “The sororities on Hilgard aren’t far, maybe there was a party and some idiot wandered off and got slammed.”
“Worth checking out. Thanks.”
Moe left him and walked around to the front of the van. Huge thing, white, well kept. A national company named Armour, Inc., with a muscular arm logo. A slogan below the logo.
We treat your belongings like ours.
Which sounded good on the face of it. Unless you were dealing with a client who was a slob.
Moe took out his flashlight and ran it over the van. Was surprised to find no damage or blood on the hood or the windshield. No damage, period, until he got to the right side and the beam caught a dent just above the bumper.
Lateral impact. Vehicular wasn’t his strong point but this was a bit different.
He phone-photo’d the dent. Maybe an inch deep, two, three inches in diameter. Concave. Flecked with blood. For a human head to do that to heavy-duty steel there had to be considerable force.
He got closer to the damage. Cup-shaped, perfect fit for a skull. He pictured the victim, maybe a naked frat boy, staggering around in the dark, too out of it to hear or see the van.
Even with the headlights on? Assuming theywereon.
No reason they shouldn’t have been on, the drivers were pros. Plus, they’d driven a hundred plus miles, no way they could’ve pulled that off without lights. So, lights on, but the victim hadn’t paid attention.
So accidentalwaslikely: some poor stoned kid had walked right into a mass of metal, got caught on the head, and flew backward. If Moe’s luck held, he could wrap this up and wait for a real case.
Unless, despite what the uniform thought, the drivershadbeen impaired. Or had done something else that made them culpable.
