Someone Else's Death

BRIDGE

A few days later in the company lounge, she read a piece in People magazine about the Golden Gate Bridge's bad safety record. A particularly sad case involved a San Francisco eighth-grader. After school one day she made it to the middle of the bridge and stepped over the railing. The note found on the girl's pillow said something about being sorry for disappointing everyone once again. She had made a Con a test. It struck the reader of the article that this kind of thing, incredible as it might seem to normal people, was done and was done frequently and so, the reader concluded, being twenty-five years of age she was more than old enough to solve her own problem as she saw fit.

RUSS

Ten days earlier, on a Tuesday morning while Hilda was at work, Russ, her boyfriend of three years, left a note underneath the trivet on the kitchen table. In the aftermath she spoke with him just once by cell. He was leaving Portland Maine for Portland Oregon.

INTERSECTION

On her way to the drugstore for sleeping pills, she idled at a red light. In her right side-mirror a bicycle appeared. She watched the cyclist, appareled in bright tight lycra, approach between curb and cars. A blue-gold blur, he pedaled past her and entered the intersection, timing the light-change perfectly. But an Explorer barreling down the cross-street plowed through what was now a red light. Sixteen pounds of carbon and aluminum flew away from three tons of Ford. The cyclist sailed off the saddle, his arms stretched at nine and one o'clock, until landing in the far lane, his helmet skittering along the surface like a button. His bike lay ten feet away, tangled in a sign pole. Hilda pulled over, cutting the engine. The driver of the Explorer, a man in a suit, had rushed to the victim. Blood and grit streaked the cyclist's legs, his elbows flung out in cubist design, collarbone collapsed. "A perfect day for a talk with the police about someone else's death," said Hilda. The police arrived six minutes later, thirty seconds ahead of the ambulance. One officer attended to the victim. The other one went to work clearing a lane. Hilda didn't like the idea of being hit by a car. It would hurt too much. She now recalled Russ's passion for mountain biking. He had talked about it all the time. Of course.

BICYCLE

Hilda hadn't sat on a bicycle seat since freshman year in high school. Family campground in Pennsylvania. Rented bikes. The owner of the Biddeford Bicycle Boogie broke her reverie. "How can I help you on this beautiful fall afternoon?" "I'd like to buy a bike." "Awesome! Have you ever biked before?" "Yes, of course, but not seriously so I don't need a top quality bike, something costing three maybe four hundred." He led her into the showroom, talking the while. The girl's eyes leaped at the sight of a dark green bike latched to a rack in an upper row. "That one." He took it down and adjusted the seat. "Out back, in the parking lot, give it a spin."

MAP

She asked him about places to ride. He flipped through a guidebook to some nearby trails then looked farther afield. On one map his finger traced various squiggles. "This one, near Kingfield, gorgeous, but these are called technical trails, I'd stay away from them unless you're with an experienced rider, also hunting season begins, let's see"—he checked the calendar—"tomorrow! Riding will be dangerous, you shouldn't go too far into the woods, not anywhere, and you shouldn't go five inches anywhere without wearing orange, they all want to bag a stag in the first fifteen minutes so it's a bad time to ride so I suggest" "I was born and raised in the Berwick area, they hunt there, I know the drill. Please include this book in the sale." Total time in store: 22 minutes 46 seconds...