Free Legally Dead by Edna Buchanan

wheel in the passenger compartment. The faster he ran, the faster the car sped, straight ahead.
    Adults laughed, the kids loved it, and so did Scout, who watched, fascinated.
    Danny wore jeans and a black T-shirt that read: TO ERR IS HUMAN, TO FORGIVE IS DIVINE. NEITHER IS MARINE POLICY. He captured the children and carried them off to bed despite their protests.
    Luz was in the kitchen when he returned. “Don’t be surprised,” Danny warned Venturi, “if some woman, or women, show up.”
    â€œWomen?”
    â€œLuz asked if you were single. She cried when I told her what happened, then she wanted to know which one of her girlfriends is your type.
    â€œDon’t panic,” he said, seeing Venturi’s expression. “The woman is Miami’s matchmaking queen. It’s in her blood, and her friends are hot. I mean smoking. ”
    â€œI’m sure they are,” Venturi said. “But right now, all I want to do is go fishing.”
    â€œI told her that,” Danny said. “But she won’t be happy until everybody is married and making babies.”
    â€œI tried that once,” Venturi said.
    â€œIt’s been, what, more than three years?” Danny asked.
    Venturi nodded. “She was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was the worst that could happen to her.”
    â€œHow so? I only met her once, but you seemed great together.”
    â€œBut if we hadn’t met, she wouldn’t have been pregnant or on that ferry when it smashed into the pier. She’d be alive.”
    â€œBullshit,” Danny said.
    â€œNo, it’s not. I blew it. I was so damn careful. Wouldn’t let her breathe the fumes when I painted the nursery, but I let her and her mother take that ferry to Manhattan for the baby shower her coworkers gave.”
    â€œDon’t beat yourself up, man. She would have been on that same damn ferry, or hit by lightning or a goddamn taxi cab whether she knew you or not. You know my theory: There’s a big blackboard up in the sky. If your name is on it, you’re gonna die that day. If it ain’t, you ain’t—no matter what.”
    Danny’s Blackboard Theory was older than their friendship.
    It neatly explained fatal bolts from the blue on sunny days, and stray bullets that fall from the sky on New Year’s Eve and find their mark.
    â€œHow else do you explain a guy who uses the same electric drill for twenty years and all of a sudden one day it electrocutes him?” Danny asked. “Or the motorist who drives under a familiar overpass just as a giant concrete slab falls off a crane? How do you explain that?”
    â€œShit happens?” Venturi asked.
    â€œNope. Danny’s Blackboard Theory. Here’s a new one. Look at this.” He fumbled among the newspapers on his desk and found the story about a snorkler attacked by an alligator. The gator ripped the man’s arm off at the shoulder. Bleeding profusely, with minutes to live, he staggered out of the remote lake and collapsed—in front of five strangers on a picnic.
    â€œAnd who were the strangers?” Danny asked triumphantly. “Five registered nurses with a cooler full of ice.”
    Their fast action saved the man’s life. Doctors called it a miracle. Danny’s explanation? “His name wasn’t on the damn blackboard.”
    Dinner was boliche —Cuban pot roast, slow-cooked in light gravy, thick slices that melted succulently in their mouths, moros —black beans and rice—and fat, sweet, moist plantains.
    â€œNow you know why I married her,” Danny said fondly, “and why I work out every day and run six miles every night.”
    The doorbell rang as they ate tres leches , a sweet and spongy milk-soaked cake, and drank Cuban coffee.
    Danny lifted an eyebrow at Mike.
    Tanya, a leggy, brown-eyed blond aerobics instructor, had dropped by and was invited to join them for dessert. Then Luz insisted