The mystery is no more. 

 This past Saturday I had the uncanny experience of opening my blinds to reveal a panorama of red, white, and blinking lights.  Just outside my apartment window sat the fire truck, hulking and humming, surrounding it initially were ambulances and police cruisers.  The truck blocked my view of what I could only surmise was the crash site. 

 I had opened my blinds at about 9:30 am, and the demographic of the emergency personnel metamorphosed throughout the day.  The ambulance was the first out, of course, and the fire truck left before noon.  Plainclothesmen showed up, then a couple of green pickups.  At one time there were four people gathered around the tonneau cover on the truck bed, filling out paperwork.  A wrecker or two lumbered in then shouldered its way out bearing its mangled burden.  Finally, and most tellingly, a plain white van crept onto the scene.  It quietly vomited stretchers and plastic bags, and then reabsorbed them and went away. 

 The street was reopened to traffic about 4 pm, and one of the first vehicles I noticed driving past was a Qwest truck, on his way to go tinker with somebody's cable, I guess.  Life goes on.

 Now mind, I was only taking occasional data points through the half-turned blinds.  It was not my desire to be a snoop or a meddler, and so I kept my distance from the proceedings.  I never made visual contact with the crash site, the half-wall of my apartment complex plus various vehicles coupled with a general lack of desire ensured that.  Thus I was left without a deal of data.

 On my way to the store to get green beans, however, I noted a dust cloud hovering over that stretch of the road.  As I drove through it I observed that the street was chalk-white in places, heaviest near the curb on the corner.  I swallowed and looked at my speedometer.  35mph.  The speed limit. 

 They don't use that dust for motor oil.

 Today, just an hour ago, I found myself without anything much to do, and I remembered these things.  I plopped down at my desk and checked the Google news channel for an accident in my area.  The first hit was Spider-Man.  The second, however, told the story.

 Three women were in a small car with a man at the wheel, all were in their twenties, all from the local reservation.  There was alcohol present in the vehicle, no post-mortem data on that count were available.  They were swerving wildly and collided head on with a van.  The women were all killed, the car driver was in critical condition and the van driver was hospitalized for lesser injuries.

 It was a Qwest van.

 
MJM