Coming Home To You. M. K. Stelmack

       CHAPTER TWO

      DAPHNE’S MORTIFICATION SWELLED when she viewed the damage to the motor home and the restaurant. One of the Tim’s windows was webbed with cracks, and the RV’s fender was twisted and stuck well into the bashed brickwork. At least Fran owned The Stagecoach, as they’d dubbed it, so they just had to deal with the insurance company.

      A uniformed officer was taking pictures, and so was the Tim Hortons man. Should she be, too? Then again, to what end? Responsibility—hers and Fran’s—was undeniable.

      Mr. Greene disappeared once more into the restaurant. She moved to follow him when Corporal Grayson said, “Can I get your full name, Daphne?”

      Right. Business before doughnuts. “Daphne Merlotte.” She automatically spelled it for him.

      “Date of birth?”

      Daphne stated it, inexplicably relieved that Mr. Greene wasn’t there to hear she was five months shy of fifty. Daphne had always dismissed Fran’s claim that she barely looked forty, but on this particular occasion, considering what an appalling impression Mr. Greene no doubt already had of her, she hoped he’d give her the benefit of the doubt when it came to her age. If he thought of her at all.

      “Address?”

      She gave her Halifax one, and Corporal Grayson moved on to get the same information about Fran. Daphne was rattling off the address when Mr. Greene emerged, balancing a tray of coffees and a box of Timbits.

      “Here,” Mr. Greene said, handing her a coffee. “Have one.”

      “I couldn’t.”

      “Go on,” Mr. Greene said, taking the Timbits box. “The tray’s heavy. You’d be doing me a favor.”

      He smiled at her, making laugh lines crinkle around his eyes and his tanned face lift and lighten. His expression was one of pure joy and warmth, so unexpected on a man, at least in her experience with the anemic-looking professors of her faculty.

      She obediently took the coffee and two mini cups of cream. “Thank you,” she said.

      He held out the box of mini doughnuts.

      “I couldn’t possibly.” Her stomach squeaked an objection to her objection.

      He must’ve heard because he smiled again. Oh, that smile. She took a Timbit.

      She popped the sugary ball into her mouth because, of course, it was the doughnut making her mouth water.

      Mr. Greene offered the box to the officer. “How about you, Paul?”

      “Mel,” Corporal Grayson said, “we already have to deal with the stereotype of police liking doughnuts without you perpetuating it.”

      Mel! Mel, fell, sell, tell, well. Mr. Greene—Mel—Mel Greene shook the box invitingly at the officer.

      “Okay, one. So you’ll leave me alone.” Corporal Grayson took two.

      “I’ll take the rest and the coffees up to the ladies,” Mel said. Of course, Fran. If anyone, her godmother had proved how much she needed a coffee. “She likes her coffee with cream and sugar,” Daphne called after him.

      “Got it,” he said, not breaking stride.

      He entered the RV before she could thank him, another uniformed police officer right behind him. Through the shaded window, Daphne watched Mel and the stiff solidness of the police officer move to the bedroom. More authority to further enliven Fran.

      Corporal Grayson brushed the sugar off his shirtfront. “Could you tell me what happened here?”

      Daphne dropped her gaze. She’d found only her flip-flops under the bed, and her toes curled from the mild morning chill—or from her guilt. “I—I can’t tell you much, really. We stopped last night in Red Deer and planned—”

      “In an RV park? Which one?” he asked.

      Daphne tried to remember. The campsites were all running together as if Canada was nothing more than a string of campgrounds. “The one by the river?”

      Corporal Grayson nodded and gestured for Daphne to continue.

      “We departed early this morning while I was still sleeping.” She’d woken to books thudding off her bed as The Stagecoach swung onto the highway.

      “How did Fran Hertz—”

      “She’s my godmother.” It somehow felt important to state that Fran was more than a driver or a traveling companion or a full name on a police report.

      “How did your godmother seem to you at that time?”

      Mel Greene emerged from the motor home and walked its length to the rear. The other police officer slid into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition. The Stagecoach shuddered to life.

      “Do you intend to impound the RV?” Daphne couldn’t keep the hope out of her voice.

      “Just moving it out of the way,” he said.

      “Oh.”

      “We were talking about your godmother,” he prompted.

      “As well as can be expected,” she said automatically.

      The officer paused his writing.

      “That is, she seemed fine. She was talking. Coherent.”

      “How did she look?”

      Daphne curled her toes completely under and confessed yet again to her inattention. “I—I couldn’t say. I—I was in bed.”

      From the back of the RV, Mel called for the police officer to put the vehicle into Reverse. As he pulled back, the front grille severed from the restaurant wall with a loud scraping and a crumbling of bricks. The Tim Hortons employee took more photos of the wall and the front bumper, clearly to be used against Fran in a court of law.

      If Fran was still alive to contest it.

      “Sorry. You were in bed?” Corporal Grayson said.

      Daphne pointed to the approximate place in the moving Stagecoach. “I sleep on a hide-a-bed right behind the driver’s seat. I don’t drive so I decided to read.” Today she’d reached for the nearest book, which happened to be Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.

      “So...when did you notice that your godmother’s driving had become erratic?”

       About a week into our trip.

      There’d been a terrifying incident where Fran had nearly driven them off a steep riverside embankment in Quebec when she’d momentarily closed her eyes. After that, Daphne had wrung a promise from Fran that she would drive for only two hours at a time and never in the afternoon, when she was especially drowsy. Daphne was clear that if Fran once, just once, broke her promise, they would cancel the trip then and there. No doubt taken aback by Daphne-the-Mouse’s rare display of ferocity, Fran had agreed and since kept her word. She had a tiresome habit of keeping her promises.

      The RV continued its slow reverse. As the rear wheel reached the edge of the pavement, the back end hung suspended over the ditch. Mel flipped up his hand, and the cop halted the RV immediately.

      Whenever Daphne had signaled in such a way to Fran, the older woman had maintained that a minimum five-second delay existed between Daphne’s signal and Fran’s response. It was the way the rig operated, she had said. No, it was the way Fran operated.

      Somehow, she had to keep Fran off the road.

      Refocusing on the officer’s question, Daphne looked to the corner of the highway and the side street. “There. I noticed that we were in trouble when she turned in.” More books had tumbled off the bed and Daphne herself had pitched to the