Neighbor Says My Sports Car Killed Her Dad, But It's a Model

At my company's new product launch, I was on stage, mid-speech and in full flow.

Then a squad of police officers stormed in, forced me down to the floor, cuffed me, and marched me off to the station.

The whole hall erupted, camera flashes going off nonstop.

At the station, my neighbor Frieda Walker rushed over and slapped me across the face.

"Louise Gilbert! You ran my father down with your carwhy didn't you stop? Why didn't you save him?"

She was clutching her father's memorial portrait, sobbing so hard her whole body shook.

An officer set a stretch of surveillance footage in front of me.

A silver-gray sports car sent an old man flying more than a dozen yards, then sped away.

That one-of-a-kind body. That Galaxy Silver color.

It was the exact car parked in my garage.

But that carthere was no way it could have hit anyone.

Frieda dropped to her knees on the floor, screaming until her voice cracked.

"All my dad wanted was to get back that eighty thousand dollars!"

"And because you wouldn't give him the money, you just ran him down and killed him!"

Everyone in the room glared at me.

I stared at the footage for a long time.

There really was an identical car in my garage.

But it was only a model.

The last thing my younger brother left behind before he died.

I spoke slowly.

"The one in my garage is only a car model. There's no way it could hit anyone."

Frieda burst into tears.

"Every neighbor knows you've got a one-of-a-kind sports car in that garage!"

"My dad's body isn't even cold yet, and you're already treating everyone like fools?"

She shot to her feet, hand raised to hit me again.

An officer stepped between us just in time.

"This is a police station! Everyone calm down!"

Frieda only cried harder.

"How am I supposed to calm down? My father is dead!"

"She killed him and fled, and now she won't even admit it!"

Beside her, Frieda's mother, Agatha Lawrence, lunged forward too.

Holding her husband's black-and-white portrait, she rammed her head straight into my chest.

"Rich people kill someone and think they can just make up any lie they want?"

The wooden frame of the portrait struck my chin.

A sharp corner cut the skin, and pain flared.

I stepped back on instinct.

Agatha's mother instantly pointed at me and shrieked:

"Look, she's dodging! She kills someone and I'm not even allowed to touch her? Everyone, look at her attitude!"

The officer handling the case turned to look at me, his eyes noticeably colder than before.

"Ms. Gilbert, please explain yourself clearly."

"Why do you say your sports car couldn't have hit anyone?"

I forced down the emotions churning in my chest.

"Because it isn't a sports car at all. It's just a one-to-one model."

"No engine, no fuel tank, no drivetrain. It couldn't possibly be driven anywhere!"

The officer's gaze grew more and more skeptical.

"As far as I know, aren't models all scaled down? Where do you find a full-size car model?"

"What is it you do for work?"

I took out a business card.

"I'm the founder of an electric vehicle company."

Frieda seized on the words at once.

"Officers, did you hear that? She builds cars herself!"

"So she obviously built the car herself, and now that something's gone wrong, she's turned it back into a model!"

Agatha slapped her own thigh and wailed.

"I told you she had it all planned out! My poor husband, what an awful way to die!"

"He lived an honest life his whole life, and in the end he's run down and killed by someone with money and power!"

I looked at Frieda.

"Have you ever seen it driven out with your own eyes?"

Her sobbing hitched, then she raised her voice again.

"The whole neighborhood knows you have a silver-gray sports car!"

"Everyone can testify for me!"

The police pulled up the accident footage.

On the screen, the silver-gray car tore across the crosswalk at high speed.

The old man was thrown into the air.

His body rolled a few times across the ground, then went still.

When the car flashed past the camera, the picture was very clear.

Every detail really did match the car in my garage exactly.

The police pulled up footage from near the neighborhood too.

Eleven forty-nine.

A silver-gray sports car drove into the garage area.

Twelve oh-three.

The door to my private garage closed.

The officer paused the frame.

"How do you explain that?"

Before I could answer.

An officer pushed the door open.

He was holding a test report, still fresh off the printer.

"We found silver-gray paint chips at the accident scene."

"Preliminary comparison shows the main components match the Galaxy Silver coating registered to Ms. Gilbert's studio."

Hearing that, Frieda went limp in her chair.

She hugged her father's portrait, crying so hard she could barely breathe.

"Dad they've found all the proof."

"You died with such an injustice!"

Then Max's mother lunged at me.

This time even the two officers couldn't grab her in time.

She seized a fistful of my hair and yanked it down hard.

"Kneel! Kneel to my husband!"

Pain tore across my scalp.

The pull dragged me a stumbling step forward.

The officers finally pried her off.

She used the momentum to drop onto the ground, slapping her chest as she wailed.

"The killer's abusing the victim's family!"

"She ran my husband down, and now she won't even kneel!"

"Where's the justice in that!"

Frieda's eyes were red raw from crying.

She thrust the memorial portrait right up in front of me.

"Kneel! Bow your head to my father."

I looked at Max Walker in the photograph.

Two months ago, he'd been hospitalized with a stroke.

The Walkers couldn't cover the deposit for surgery.

I was the one who wired over eighty thousand overnight.

After he was discharged, he came to see me carrying a box of fruit that had already gone bad.

He said he'd pay it back for sure.

I told him there was no rush.

But now Frieda was saying that eighty thousand had been her father lending money to me.

I looked at her.

"That eighty thousand was the surgery cost I fronted for your father."

"The transfer record is right here on my phone. I never owed him anything."

Frieda looked like she'd been waiting for exactly those words.

She covered her mouth, tears pouring harder.

"So you finally admit it!"

"I knew it, you've been holding that eighty thousand over my father this whole time to shame him!"

Max's mother chimed in at once.

"When you gave the money you clearly said it was a gift!"

"Now that he's dead, you're calling it a loan!"

"Are you planning to hound the two of us to death too?"

The officers stopped them and said they were taking me to the garage.

I got my phone back and found over two thousand unread messages in the neighborhood residents' group.

A murderer actually lives in our neighborhood?

It's terrifying. My kid walks past her door every single day.

So having money means you can drive a sports car and kill people?

She has to move out!

Frieda had already posted the surveillance footage, the photo of her father lying in a pool of blood, and the video of me refusing to kneel to the group.

The head of the homeowners' association put out a notice:

Until the case is resolved, Louise Gilbert's access to the neighborhood clubhouse, the shared parking lot, and all other common facilities is suspended.

The residents have already started a petition demanding she move out immediately.

I looked at that petition list. It was full of familiar names.

Last year, during the heavy rains, the basement of Building Three flooded.

I was the one who opened up my studio so a dozen or so neighbors could store their valuables for a while.

In winter, a water pipe burst.

Again, I was the one who found the repair crew and fronted the emergency costs.

The same people in that group who used to say "Louise is such a good person," over and over.

Now they were debating what color paint to throw on my door.

I took a deep breath and called the company lawyer.

"Secure the evidence for me."

I had just stepped out of the police station.

A crowd of reporters closed in.

The microphones were almost jabbing into my face.

"Ms. Gilbert, do you admit to the hit-and-run?"

"Someone says you and the victim had a long-standing debt dispute. Is that true?"

The flashes were so bright I couldn't keep my eyes open.

I didn't answer, but Frieda suddenly came running up from behind.

Clutching her father's portrait, she slammed headfirst into my back.

"Don't you leave! My father's still lying in the morgue! What gives you the right to go home and sleep!"

She threw herself to the ground, crying like her heart was breaking.

In the reporters' shots,

it looked like I'd shoved down a pitiful woman who'd just lost her father.

Someone screamed curses at me:

"Are you even human?"

"You kill someone and then bully the victim's daughter!"

"Everyone, get a clear shot of her face!"

A bottle of water flew out of the crowd.

It hit me in the forehead.

Right after, eggs and half-finished bubble tea came flying at me.

The police tried to hold order.

But there were too many people.

Someone yanked my hair in the chaos.

Someone kicked me hard.

And someone pressed close to my ear and spat:

"Murderer, you'll get what's coming to you sooner or later!"

When I got back to the neighborhood,

I found I couldn't even get into my own home.

A makeshift shrine had been set up outside my door.

Red paint had been splashed across the security door, four large characters scrawled on it.

A killer pays with her life.

Casey Walker sat beside the funeral portrait, burning paper money.

A dozen Walker relatives crowded around the doorway.

Casey snatched up a fistful of the funeral money and flung it straight into my face.

"You still have the nerve to come back!"

"I'll hold my husband's funeral right here at your door!"

"Let him come find you every single night!"

The officers pushed through the crowd and stepped into my home.

Inside my closet they found a red coat.

Then they pulled up the enhanced footage from the accident and showed it to me.

The video caught it clearly. The driver in the car was wearing this exact red coat.

Wearing a face mask.

They kept searching. In the shoe cabinet, a pair of short boots spotted with mud.

Under the bathroom sink, a small bottle of Galaxy Silver car paint.

Under the bed, a bloodstained star-shaped emblem.

At the scene of the accident,

they'd found the same soil and fragments of the same emblem.

The officer on the case laid the items out in front of me, one by one.

"Louise Gilbert, how do you explain all this?"

I looked at that coat I'd never seen before.

"It isn't mine."

Frieda Walker had arrived with the police.

When she heard that, she let out a cold laugh.

"The evidence was in your room."

"Are you going to tell me my dead father put it all there himself?"

Watching the officers busy with the search, Frieda came to my side and lowered her voice.

"Louise, you killed my father, but seeing as we're neighbors, I'm willing to give you a hand."

"Your company just launched a new car, didn't it? With this scandal, your stock's already tanked, hasn't it?"

"Pay my family twenty million in cash, plus ten percent of your company's shares."

"And I'll write you a clear letter of forgiveness, stand behind you in public, let this whole thing blow over so it doesn't drag your share price down. How about it?"

I looked at her for a long moment, and I finally understood why she'd built this whole trap.

So it was my company's shares she was after all along.

When I said nothing, she stepped in closer.

"I know the car in your garage is a design your brother left behind."

"If you insist on being stubborn, I won't mind bringing people over to smash that car to pieces."

While my brother was alive, he never held back from helping the neighbors, the Walkers most of all.

Frieda's father was in poor health for years, and whenever their family had any heavy work, my brother was the first to jump in.

Back when her father was hospitalized, my brother even went and looked after him three nights running.

Now my brother was gone, dead in a car accident.

And she wanted to use the design he'd left behind to blackmail me, to take the company shares he'd left behind.

The thought of it made me spit at her feet.

"Animal!"

Frieda gave a cold laugh.

"This was your choice!"

Not long after, the officers finished searching my room and started walking me toward the garage.

Outside the garage, the crowd was packed so tight there wasn't room to move.

Countless lenses swung to my face at once.

"Louise Gilbert's out!"

"She's the driver who did it!"

"Look, everyone, they've already got the cuffs on her!"

Frieda walked at the front, holding her father's portrait, dressed head to toe in white mourning clothes.

Eyes red, she faced the cameras.

"I don't want anything. I only want justice for my father."

"Louise Gilbert has to confess in public, and hand over ten percent of her company's shares for my mother's retirement!"

"And that killer sports car has to be smashed in front of everyone!"

The police asked the property management to pull the garage entry logs.

The manager quickly found that the Walkers had once held a spare key.

I'd handed it to them myself, two years back, when they were remodeling their place.

Their house was too small, and there was nowhere to put the new furniture.

Frieda had cried when she begged me.

Louise, your garage is so big. Couldn't you let us store things there for just half a month?

I turned to the police.

The Walkers had access to the garage.

Frieda's face froze for an instant, then she broke into loud sobs.

My father is dead! And you still want to frame us?

I gave that key back to you ages ago!

Louise Gilbert, how can you be this vicious?

In front of the garage door.

The breach team already had their tools ready.

I said,:

My brother's personal belongings are in there.

You can search, but the whole thing has to be filmed.

No one is to damage anything.

Casey rushed forward at once.

You're still protecting that murder car?

My husband's blood is all over it!

Anyone who tries to stop me today, I'll smash them along with the car!

Frieda came up to me and lowered her voice.

You still won't budge, even now? You want to stand here and watch your brother's things get smashed to pieces?

I stared her down.

You really did tamper with it?

The breach team pried open the electronic lock.

The garage lights came on by themselves.

The silver-gray car shell sat quietly in the very center.

The crowd erupted.

That's it! Exactly like the one on the footage!

They found the murder car!

Frieda clutched her father's portrait and dropped to her knees with a thud.

Crying so hard she nearly fainted.

Dad! They finally found the car that killed you!

The police strung up a cordon, and the forensics team went into the garage.

Soon they found a patch of dark-red blood on the left front.

A piece of the headlight was missing too.

The shape of the break matched the fragments from the accident scene almost exactly.

The preliminary results came back. The blood belonged to Max Walker.

The scene went completely wild.

Human blood! The evidence is all there!

And she still dares say it isn't the car!

Casey snatched up the iron bar from the ground and charged at the car like she'd lost her mind.

I'm going to smash this murdering thing to pieces!

I lunged over, the handcuffs cutting into my skin.

And still put my body in front of it.

You can't smash it!

The iron bar came down on my shoulder.

The whole right side of my body felt like it had shattered.

The pain went straight into the bone, and all at once I couldn't move at all.

The police stopped Casey, but no one felt sorry for me.

The forensics team kept examining the car.

Inside the silver-gray shell, they found still more.

A blood-stained scrap of cloth.

A fiber from a red jacket.

The same kind of dirt as at the accident scene.

And an old photo of Max Walker.

Every new find made the Walkers cry a little louder.

The curses from the crowd cut a little sharper.

Rock-solid proof.

How could this ever be overturned?

Just sentence her already.

Every day someone like this stays alive is a waste of air.

Frieda walked up to me.

Kneel. Kowtow three times to my father.

I lifted my head.

In your dreams.

She gave a small smile, turned, and walked to a corner of the garage.

That was where my brother's design drafts were kept.

Every one of them had his handwritten notes.

Frieda picked up the first page.

So this is the junk your brother left behind?

Her fingers slowly tightened, and the draft tore straight down the middle.

Something roared in my head.

Frieda Walker!

I fought to get to her.

Two officers pinned my shoulders at once.

Casey raised her foot and stamped down hard.

Grinding my brother's handwriting away, bit by bit.

Stuff left behind by a dead man.

You actually treat it like treasure?

My husband's life was worth more than the two of you put together!

Frieda looked toward the camera, tears coming on cue.

These design drafts are all part of the murder weapon.

People around her rushed to comfort her.

Good, tear it up!

Trash like that should be burned!

Send it to the grave with Max!

The tow truck had already pulled up to the garage door.

Frieda faced the live-stream camera, her voice catching.

Today, I'm going to watch with my own eyes as the weapon that killed my father is hauled away.

She owes my father a life. No matter how rich she is, she has to pay it back.

A worker stepped up, but couldn't find the tow hook on the silver sports car.

He frowned and crouched down to look underneath.

He switched on his flashlight, and his hands suddenly went still.

Under here

He shifted to another angle and looked a while longer.

Then he slowly got to his feet.

There's no chassis.

This isn't a car at all!