Chapter One

Ruth and I were heading up to the Catskills to find somewhere to scatter Murray’s ashes.

We decided on someplace around Kaaterskill Falls, near Woodstock, where the legendary 1967 rock’n’roll love-in and multi-day concert was held – that was why we thought it might be a fitting final resting place. Murray was the right vintage. I was driving my old Jaguar XK8 convertible. It had undeniable advantages – it was fully paid for and had very low mileage because it was a city-dweller’s car. And it was sexy.

It was June last year. Murray was in a cardboard box the size of a Courvoisier carton, which seemed appropriate, but I did not make that comment to Ruth, who was genuinely bereaved. I found myself thinking as I drove across the George Washington Bridge and veered north onto the Palisades Parkway that she was lucky to have found someone whom she loved enough to be so deeply and affectively wounded by his passing.

Although I have been married twice and divorced twice, I think I have never been in love, because I always felt relieved when a relationship ended; girlfriends first, then wives. I didn’t cheat on anyone, but I fomented reasons to break up eventually. Probably my insecurity, as Wife Number Two used to say. She said I wanted to fall in love, not to be in love.

I turned on the car radio fairly loud because the top was down, and Ruth’s voluminous Hermes scarf was tightly tied in almost the manner of an Islamic headscarf.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she said.

“I think I’m easy to read. I was thinking about my two failed marriages, and your one super-successful one, that’s all. It’s odd to say I envy that you miss him so much. It means you were a good couple. I married women who were deeply unsuitable for me, just as I dated unsuitable girls in college before I married Barbara.”

“Unsuitable? Really? What does that mean?”

“Just nothing in common except maybe physical attraction, and too stupid to know that, I guess, but I wasn’t thinking so much about me as I was about you. I think you and Murray were a love story.”

She turned to face out her side of the car and I thought she was probably teary.

A silver Bentley whizzed by on the left, the windows in the back seat tinted dark. It was a Wednesday and there was not a lot of traffic as we went around the big curve that points the Thruway due north toward Albany on the west side of the Hudson after you turn from the Parkway onto the Thruway in Rockland County.

I saw a red car ahead of me in my lane, fairly far ahead, but other than those two and my Jag we had the road to ourselves as we passed the exit for Tuxedo Park, which at least used to be where they held the Renaissance Faire most summers. If I had small kids, I would have been there at least once a year. My son from the first marriage loved going to the Renaissance Faire in San Bernardino County, particularly to see the ‘serving wenches’ who combined jolly big breasts with low-cut dresses and no bras. My daughters were interested in seeing the ‘Queen’, which somehow seemed a better reason to enjoy the Faire.

“That guy in the Bentley up there is driving like a pimp.”

Ruth jerked back from watching the scenery on her side and leaned forward to look at the silver car that was moving farther and farther ahead of us. “He’s wobbling too.”

“Yeah, that’s what I meant and driving like he was fired out of a gun.” I eased up on the accelerator, not wanting to get close to either car.

There was a fast flash of some kind between the cars, like maybe one car kicked up a rock that hit the other one or something like a beam of sunlight reflecting back from the chrome of the big Bentley. The red one veered right, and seemed to drive onto the shoulder and stop. The Bentley kept going or maybe even speeded up then vanished around a curve a couple of miles ahead of us.

“They didn’t collide,” she said.

“No. I wonder if the red car had a blow-out.”

“Call 9-1-1,” I said. “Tell them it looks like somebody may be hurt a couple of miles north of the Tuxedo Park exit going north on the Thruway. I’ll pull off and see what happened. Maybe I can help.”

I slowed down and as we got close to the red car, I realized it was a sporty car, maybe a red Mustang. Nobody was getting out of the car to see what happened.

“I don’t think it was a blow-out.”

I stopped about one hundred feet behind the red car, put on my hazard lights. I asked Ruth to stand by the car and wave to the first responders when they got there. I walked carefully toward the red car. If there was somebody in the car who was hurt, I wanted to help. If there was somebody there who had a gun or something, I didn’t want to get shot.

There was an arm hanging out the driver’s side window. Dark-skinned hand. African-American or dark-skinned Latino, ‘blatino’ in NYC. I circled toward the edge of the roadway so I could approach from far enough away so I wouldn’t scare whoever was in the car.

“You okay?” I yelled.

No response.

“I saw your car here and called for someone to come with paramedics,” I said loudly.

No response.

I started to walk toward the car. It was early afternoon and the sun was overhead. The driver was slumped down and at the same time leaning back where he had been left by the now-deflated airbag. There was blood but not a lot. The airbag had probably hit him in the face when it was activated and the blood probably came from his nose. He moaned but seemed unconscious. I knew it would be dangerous to try to get him out of the car. I wondered what to do, but at the same moment I heard a siren. It was a State Police car heading south on the other side of the Thruway.

When they reached us, they slowed down slightly and drove across the grassy medium, which was a slight ditch with mowed grass or weeds. They crossed the northbound lanes with lights flashing and siren at a very high volume. A black Ford Fusion pulled to a stop in the fast lane, and another car approaching slowed behind. I stood still.

The State Police car pulled parallel to my Jag. I watched. One of the cops stepped out of the car with a bullhorn.

“Put your hands in the air and walk slowly in this direction.”

I did as I was told.

The other cop popped out of the passenger seat and ran to put flares in the street, then ran forward with an EMT bag.

“You hit this car?” the bullhorn blared.

I could hear Ruth explaining how we saw the accident but were half a mile or so behind when it happened.

“Keep your hands up.”

I did what he told me to do and kept walking toward him.

After he looked at my license, registration and proof of insurance, he said, “Sorry for that, Mr. Miller. We have to be careful.”

The other cop came back wearing blue nitrile gloves, leaned into the police car and grabbed a mic, said something, then hung it up.

“Only one person in the car. He seems to be breathing but I think they’re going to have to cut him out of the car. I think the frame is bent.”

I said that I expected to see a dent on the side of the car, because I thought the other car side-swiped the red car or that maybe the other car kicked up a rock.

“Not that I could see,” the second cop said. “Maybe just swerved and the car ran into a rock or something. Obviously totaled, probably nothing left underneath the car.”

They wanted a description of the silver Bentley. No, neither of us had a clue about the license plate number. No idea whether it was a New York plate.

“He drove by us going one hundred or so. All I wanted was to drop back and let him have the road.”

“And you’re heading for?”

“The general area of Woodstock, looking for a place to stay for a day,” Ruth intervened. She did not explain that we had her husband’s ashes in the back seat.

“We’re going to have to ask you to accompany us to our station in Woodbury, so we can take a statement.”

I nodded.

“Nice car,” he said, gesturing at the Jag.

“It’s not new. In fact, it is a 2000 model,” I said.

The car was British racing green with a tan convertible stop and champagne-colored leather upholstery. My version of middle-aged crazy, purchased after my second divorce, and fully paid for ten years earlier. It had about thirty thousand miles on it, and had always been taken care of at the dealer. It drove like a dream.

“What’s that in the back seat?”

“Ashes of a friend who died.”

“It’s illegal to scatter them in water,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“It’s my husband,” Ruth said. “His name was Murray.”

She did not cry.

A second siren came from the south, and an ambulance marked ‘Orange County Fire Department’ pulled over in front of us, near the red car.

We stared as they cut the door off the car and maneuvered the driver onto a gurney. They strapped him down, put a green oxygen mask on him, and rolled him into the back with two EMTs working on him. As I watched, they connected an IV with what was probably a bag of saline above, and they put cardiogram sensors on his chest. Blood pressure cuff. One EMT gave us a thumbs-up as they closed the door. The driver ran over and told the cops they were taking him to New York Presbyterian Hudson Valley Hospital in Cortlandt, on the other side of the Hudson River across the Bear Mountain Bridge.

We went to the Woodbury Police station and gave a formal statement that was recorded then transcribed. I signed mine and Ruth signed hers.

“Is this where all the discount stores are?” I asked.

Ruth nodded slowly. “Probably nothing good, including the prices,” she said with a blank look.

“What’s his name?” I asked Cheslack.

“Edward Razmus Hall, according to the ID in his pocket,” the first cop, Officer Eddie Cheslack, said.

“Pa dum dum,” Ruth said.

Cheslack stared at her.

“It’s a joke, right?”

He said nothing, just waiting for her to explain.

“E Razmus Hall? It’s a high school in Brooklyn. It’s where I graduated. On Flatbush Avenue and Church Street.”

“That’s what his driver’s license says. Hard to say if it’s real or fake, but some moms have an odd idea of what names would be good when they’re coming out of an anesthetic after delivering a baby,” he said. “Forty-two years old, address on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn.”

“I think I know his name,” Ruth said.

“You said it’s like your high school,” Cheslack said.

“It is, when you look at his whole name. But I think he ran for congress under the name Eddie Hall a couple of years back. Or maybe it was just a primary, because he was a Democrat.”

I shook my head. “I used to live in Manhattan. Now I live in Queens. Never paid any attention to Brooklyn races. Not as though there’s much doubt about which way New York City will vote.”

“Well, look at Giuliani and Bloomberg. Both Republicans.”

“Lots of Republican mayors. Lindsay for instance. Almost zero Republican congressmen.”

Ruth shrugged and looked at me. “I already told Murray he has to wait for next weekend or the weekend after that.”

I nodded, shook Officer Cheslack’s hand.

“We may be in touch,” he said, “if we have any follow-up questions. Meanwhile, drive careful. You see what can happen.”

We walked out to the parking lot and dead-headed back t