Free Sidetracked-Kobo by Brandilyn Collins

I fell silent. “Melcher’ll come around. He can’t hold it against you for long that you forgot to tell him somethin’ last night. Just after you’d found your good friend dead? What’s he expect of a gal?”
    I wanted to believe that. But there were so many nuances of the encounter between the chief and me that I couldn’t explain to Pete. The vibes that had quivered in the air. My hostility at his questions of Billy, and the chief’s reaction.
    “What if he doesn’t ‘come around,’ Pete? I got the feeling my description of the man’s height wouldn’t be enough to turn the police from looking at Billy. He was seen in the area. Recognized. That means a lot.”
    Pete grunted. “Billy couldn’t a killed Clara.”
    “I know.”
    “They’ll see that soon enough.”
    “You don’t know that, Pete!” A dust storm kicked up inside me. Whirled old dirt around. “People can be accused of crimes they didn’t do, and their lives are never the same. Especially if the lead detective is under a lot of pressure to solve the case—like Melcher is. Or maybe the detective’s just got an ego too big to fail. Melcher again.”
    Pete sat back, one finger pressed against his bearded chin. “Well, we just can’t let that happen.”
    But how to stop it? I’d crossed a line with Melcher. He would not listen to me anymore. “Melcher is bound to question Billy soon. And I’m afraid Billy will lie, like he did to me.”
    “Maybe he’s not lyin’. Maybe he wasn’t on Brewer Street at all.”
    I pictured Billy’s body language as he’d made his denial. Heard the defensive tone in his words. “He lied, Pete. It was obvious to me. And it’ll be more than obvious to Melcher.”
    Pete ruminated on that a moment. Then shook his head. “What’s happenin’ is, the chief’s gettin’ sidetracked. And I’m here to tell ya, sidetrackin’ a train’s tricky business. Can cause some crazy accidents. Reminds me …” He focused across the room, his eyes taking on that faraway look he got when gazing into his cherished past. I so envied him that.
    “Back in ’89, on a record cold day, one of our freight trains picked up three pusher locomotives in Helena, Montana for help gettin’ over the Mullan Pass. Then the lead engine got some electrical problem. The crew parked the train at the Austin siding, east of the Pass. They uncoupled the engines from the cars—I think there were forty-eight of ’em—and set the air brakes, but not the hand brakes. ’Bout 5:30 in the mornin’ the crazy cold temperature—I’m talkin’ thirty-two degrees below zero—caused the air brakes to fail on those cars. They started rollin’ backwards. Rollin’ and rollin’, pickin’ up speed, headed back into Helena. Nobody was awake to see ’em comin’, but even if they had … There’s just no stoppin’ that kind of thing. The cars crashed into a parked work train at a crossin’ in town, right near a college. Whole train caught fire and exploded. Amazin’ no one was killed. But it did a lot of damage and knocked out power. That’s pretty cold to be goin’ without heat for days. People got real scared. That kinda freak accident happens to you once, and you suddenly realize life’s full of random events that can rock you at anytime. Took the whole town years to come back from all the damage—physical and emotional.”
    For a moment we both sat in silence, picturing the scene.
    Pete sighed. “It’s too hard a thing, stoppin’ a tragedy like that once it’s done started. You got to keep it from ever gettin’ goin’. Put on those hand brakes as a precaution, know what I mean?”
    I nodded. “So what do we do?”
    Pete pushed his lips together. His mouth nearly disappeared into his beard. “I’ll think on it.”
    “Don’t take too long. These things can move awful fast.”
    He gave me a long look, and I tried not to wince under his gaze.
    My cell went off—Andy’s ring tone. I pushed up from the couch to head for my