The Good Wife(27)
JJ exhaled hard. “How do you know?” he asked, looking from his mom to the officers.
“The ’71 Saab was registered to a Jack Roberts at this address, and the vict—man—had his wallet on him, and the car’s registration in the glove compartment.”
JJ shook his head disbelievingly. “But how? What happened?”
“Looks like he lost control, went over the guardrail on Fountain Grove Parkway, and ended up down in one of the ravines.”
Fountain Grove Parkway was a route they used to get to the 101, which meant Jack had crashed not long after leaving the house.
Eyes stinging, air bottled in her lungs, Sarah heard again the squeal of tires as Jack screeched down the driveway, leaving angry. The parkway was new, but the terrain was hilly and there were steep drop-offs on either side of the road. You couldn’t make a mistake on Fountain Grove, but apparently Jack had.
“It took him a long time to be found,” Meg said, shivering and rubbing her arms.
“A motorist noticed the damaged guardrail and called 911. It took a couple of hours to reach the car and recover the body.”
JJ looked from his mom to the officers. “Do you think he suffered?”
“No, son. He probably died on impact.”
Meg pressed her fist to her mouth. “My fault,” she murmured, still shivering. “We shouldn’t have argued. Shouldn’t have fought. He left upset, because of me.”
“That’s not true, Mom,” JJ said sharply, shoving his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Dad and I were fighting—”
“No,” Sarah said, her voice low, rough, unable to listen to them do this. “It’s no one’s fault. Not yours, Meg, or JJ’s. It was an accident. A tragic accident—”
“But if we hadn’t been fighting,” Meg protested.
“Everyone fights, Meg. Everyone argues. But it was Jack’s choice to walk out of the house and get into the car and climb behind the wheel. Nobody made him go. Nobody wanted him to go.”
“But normally he’s such a good driver,” Meg whispered. “Normally—” And then she was crying and JJ reached for her, holding her, and Sarah turned away as she saw Meg’s tears splash onto JJ’s bare shoulder.
One of the officers cleared his throat. “We still need someone to come identify the body.”
“Let me get my coat and shoes,” Sarah said.
“No.” JJ patted his mom’s back. “We’ll do it. Mom and I will go together.”
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to go, son,” the officer answered. “The Saab was destroyed, flattened in the fall.”
“But he’s my dad,” JJ said roughly. “I need to see him. And I need to be there for my mother.”
* * *
Meg wanted to drive, and so she and JJ rode together, and they followed the officers into town to the morgue.
As the cars disappeared down the long, winding drive, Sarah went upstairs to retrieve her phone to call Boone.
Her teeth were chattering as she waited for him to answer. It was almost six thirty in the morning in Florida. Boone would be sleeping. He hadn’t gone to bed until late, but he wasn’t picking up. She left him a message, asking him to call, and headed to the kitchen to make something warm to drink.
She’d just turned on the burner beneath the teakettle when he called her back.
“What are you doing up? Are the kids okay?” Boone asked when she answered.
Sarah sat down on the nearest kitchen stool. “Jack’s dead,” she blurted, her hand shaking as she pressed the phone to her ear. “Meg and JJ have gone to identify the body.”
“Say that again,” Boone demanded, his voice louder, harder.
“Jack’s dead.”
“When? How?”
“Car accident. Lost control on the parkway and went over the edge of the hill.” Her teeth chattered together. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling chilled to the bone. “How can he be gone just like that? How can he be dead?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s going on. Who told you? How did you find out?”
“Two officers came to the house to break the news. I guess a motorist saw the guardrail—it was bent or broken or something—and called 911, but because Jack’s car was way down in the ravine, it took them a while to get to him. And now Meg and JJ have gone to identify the—” Sarah broke off, unable to say “body.” Her eyes filled with tears. “. . . Identify Jack.” She blinked and a tear fell. “I was going to go do it, but JJ said they should, and he went with her. But Boone, the girls don’t know yet. They’re upstairs sleeping. They have no idea what’s happened.” She abruptly stopped talking, unable to say another word because she’d just realized that everything had changed for Meg’s children, forever.