Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

moments and then drove off.
    I presumed that meant Marty was in no danger, but now I had to know who was in that car—at least I had to get the license number. I stepped on it, finally able to pull up parallel at a stoplight. It was Don in the car.
    I leaned over to adjust my radio and busied myself until the car behind me honked, informing me I’d missed the signal. Don was a safe distance ahead. I could only hope he hadn’t seen me, but my heart was beating fast.
    And that wasn’t entirely about my nearly embarrassing almost-encounter. I had to know about that silver compact. I drove back to the motel, took its license number, and found myself heading, without deciding to do so, toward Julio’s street.
    He had a car like that, his initial was “J,” and Marty had yelled at me for going over to his house. So what? How was their romance any of my business?
    It wasn’t. Anyway, I knew what I knew. I didn’t need confirmation.
    These arguments did no good. The Volvo seemed to have a mind of its own.
    On Julio’s block, cars were packed pretty closely together. I drove slowly. Was his car a Nissan or a Honda? Or maybe one of those funny little Fords? And what make was the one at the motel? Why hadn’t I noticed?
    I only realized I was holding my breath when I released it—I did see a silver compact, though not quite where it was supposed to be. Across the street, in fact. I’d nearly missed it, and had to turn around, craning my neck, to get a good look. It was the right color, but was it really a compact? Was it the same design as Julio’s? I slowed down to almost a crawl.
    And when I looked back, I saw what was about to happen, too late. I slammed the brake, but didn’t stop fast enough. Someone had had the nerve to park, not a normal-sized car, but a recreational vehicle that stuck out far more than the other cars, right in my path. I closed my eyes and braced myself. The thud was hideous. The shock was ugly. I was thrown mercilessly forward. Fortunately, I was wearing my seat belt. My body didn’t even bang anything.
    My eyes flew open, and I saw that I was awfully close to the beige back end of the RV. My hood seemed to be shorter than it had been a moment before. I sat there, trying to take that in, figure out why that would be, and also trying to catch my breath. If my heart had been beating fast before, it was now doing double time, hammering like John Henry. I could feel it, but I couldn’t hear it—because of the shouting.
    “Goddammit, you bitch! You stupid goddamn bitch!” I couldn’t see the shouter’s face, because his arms were going like windmills.
    “Rebecca! Rebecca, is that you?” The second shouter was Julio.
    Fear of the first shouter overcame my embarrassment. I jumped out of the car and into Julio’s arms, looking for any protection I could get from the mad van owner.
    “I just had the goddamn thing painted! Do you see the ‘For Sale’ sign? Goddamn thing’s for
sale
, you stupid bitch!”
    Julio said, “Take it easy, Mr. Donahue. What happened, Rebecca?”
    “I looked away for a second.”
    “Mr. Donahue, you really didn’t park very well.”
    I looked at the curb and saw that the van probably was more than the legal eighteen inches away.
    “Stupid bitch!” said my persecutor. He was a freckled man of about fifty. His hair had probably once been red, but it was now a pinkish-gray color, what there was of it. The top of his head was a contrasting pink. His suffused face clashed horribly.
    On their small front porch was an overweight woman in an apron, which she was clutching and squeezing as if wringing it out. She was probably terrified of the madman she was apparently married to.
    I stuck out my hand. “Rebecca Schwartz, Mr. Donahue.”
    “You wrecked my RV!”
    He wouldn’t shake.
    “Well, I’m sorry about that, but my insurance will pay for it.”
    “Insurance! I’m supposed to leave on a three-week trip to Europe in a week!”
    Maybe he was right—maybe I was stupid. I couldn’t really see how that applied.
    Julio said, “Rebecca, are you all right?”
    I nodded.
    “Are you up to moving your car?”
    I realized then it was still in the middle of the street. Cars were going around it, but people had come out of their modest homes to inspect the damage. I had become a neighborhood spectacle.
    I nodded, and then took a good look at my car. The front end was more or less pleated. I looked back at Julio. “Oh, my God. It’s totaled, isn’t