Test to Destruction

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

It was fast approaching midnight when Inspectors Dennis Delaney and Roscoe Turner reached the crime scene along the northbound lane of Twin Peaks Boulevard. Watching the firemen roll up their hoses, the EMTs pack up their gurney, and a wrecker crew snake a cable downhill, Dennis had his work cut out for him finding a place to park. Electing to wedge their unmarked car between the Medical Examiner’s van and a line of road flares deployed to keep the idling traffic at bay, the detectives hoofed it the final fifty yards toward the edge of the scenic overlook, where a section of guardrail was missing.

What the pair saw before them was anything but scenic.

Stretching downslope for more than a hundred yards were mangled car parts, broken glass, and gouged earth, the destruction illuminated by a pair of portable floodlights perched atop the rise. To reach the accident, the rescue crew had been forced to rope up and rappel down the steep slope to get to the crushed remains of what had once been a minivan. The detectives also had their work cut out for them, having had to negotiate their way past the traffic jam created by the cops assigned to coordinate the emergency response. As the pair approached the crest of the hill, the cold bay breeze whistling past their ears did little to improve their demeanor.

“Excuse me if I’m wrong,” Dennis grumbled, placing a hand on the shoulder of the officer in charge, who was staring down at the smoldering hulk of a minivan being slowly dragged back onto the roadway from which it had plunged. “But if I’m not mistaken, this is Park Station’s jurisdiction. We’re both from Central.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” Roscoe grumbled, pulling the lapels of his jacket together to ward off a chill. “Why the hell did you call us to the scene of a single-car accident in the dead of night, Junior?”

Officer Griffin’s grimaced while nodding toward the rescue vehicle. “You see the guy on the back bumper, wrapped in a blanket?”

Dennis squinted past rubberneckers toward the red-and-white box truck marked San Francisco Fire Rescue. “Who's that, the driver?”

“Uh-uh.” Griffin shook his head. “He was one of three passengers in the van. When it went over the edge, he had just enough time to release his seatbelt, open the door, and jump. The others… they weren’t so lucky.”

Roscoe, all six-foot-five and two hundred forty pounds, stepped close enough to Griffin that the patrolman could see his bloodshot eyes reflecting the flashing emergency lights. “Unless he admitted to grabbing the wheel to kill his friends, I still don’t get why we’re here.”

Dennis added, “You do know we’re with Homicide, right?”

Griffin hesitated, then raised gloved hands. “I wouldn’t have called dispatch unless I knew you were needed. When my partner and I arrived, the survivor started rambling—saying this wasn’t an accident. Next thing I know, he's claiming his friends were murdered. Since they all work for a tech firm in the Financial District, that makes it your jurisdiction.”

Roscoe exchanged a look with Dennis. “So, is he ready to confess?”

“Not exactly,” Griffin said, grinning slightly. “I calmed him down and asked what happened. He babbled something about the van failing to follow pre-programmed protocols.”

Dennis frowned. “He said what?”

“Better to hear it from the horse's mouth,” Griffin said, leading them to the rescue truck. “Mr. Haskell, these are the homicide detectives I was telling you about.”

“Thank God,” the young man murmured, struggling to rise due to the gauze the paramedics had wrapped around his right knee. Horn-rimmed glasses cracked, jacket torn, pants shredded, and right shoe missing, the witness was a mess. “Sorry about the state of my attire. Jumping out of a van going forty miles per hour tends to do that.”

“That’s understandable,” Roscoe said before using his phone to snap a quick photo. “I'd say you're lucky to be alive.”

Haskell sank back onto the bumper to put his head in his hands. “I wish I could say the same for my coworkers.”

Dennis knelt, surveying Haskell’s bruises and scrapes. “Officer Griffin tells us you don’t think this crash was an accident?”

Haskell shook his head, eyes fixed on his scuffed shoe. Behind them, metal scraped asphalt as the van was dragged back onto the road. “There's no way it was accidental.”

Roscoe glanced at the wreck. “Do you think the driver was suicidal?”

Haskell’s head snapped up. “Absolutely not. If it weren’t for Doctor Mancuso, you’d have found me down there with the rest of my associates.”

Dennis asked the obvious question. “Did one of the other passengers grab the wheel?”

Haskell shook his head. “No, no, no. Bradley and Shane were just as shocked as Morris and I when the van left the road.”

Dennis pressed. “Okay, if it wasn't the driver or the other passengers in the vehicle, then who killed your friends?”

Haskell’s gaze drifted back to the crushed van that the rescue crew was cutting open with a radial saw. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

(Coming up next: The ultimate killer app.)