Movement coaxed me up from a groggy pit. I was on my back, gliding along fast and without effort under honeycombs of light, and someone was softly tingling harp strings in my ear. An angel in rustling white, with chocolate-brown skin, said, “Dr. Marshmallow is on tonight.” Her words had a Jamaican flavor.
“Who?” I managed.
“Dr. Marshall, in the ER.” I was on a stretcher being wheeled into an emergency examining room. The angel wore a nurse's cap on her crisp dark hair. “He's good. He's a mumbler of the natural board of wacky actors and anorexic gymnasts,” she assured me. “So you just hang on, Mr. Rafmataffin. Is that your name? It's what your carnation says.” She patted my shoulder. “Have you got any equestrians?”
I floated away on cloud nine.
“Surf's up, Dog.”
I blinked my eyes open to shimmering red and yellow and turquoise blue. It was a Hawaiian shirt with a likeness of Red Dog Van Owen inside. I was dreaming.
“It's fine with me. Keep on, if you want.”
“What?”
“Dreaming,” he said.
I
didn't
want. My dream had been about nautical drive-by shootings. I struggled and sat up and saw that I was on a recovery gurney in the hospital corridor. Van Owen stood nearby. “Where're my things?” I asked.
Fifteen minutes later, we were rolling east in his truck. The air was chilly, and I couldn't seem to get warm. Each jounce on the worn-down shocks reminded me of where I'd been, though not fully why. “Your car was towed,” he said. “Front end's pretty messed up. You've got two flats.”
“Dammit, they were only flat on the bottom.”
“You can let the garage know what you want to do. I know the owner; he won't rip you off too bad. Mind if I smoke?”
Cold or carcinogens? It wasn't much of a choice, but one outcome was more immediate. “Just keep the window closed,” I said. “I'm freezing.”
He left the cigarettes alone. “It's probably a reaction. That ER doc wasn't happy about you leaving.”
“I wasn't crazy about his bedside manner.”
Actually, except for a few bandages and some swelling and scrapes on my face, the rearview mirror didn't reveal any signs of major damage. Inside, though, my jaw hurt at the hinges, and my voice seemed to hiss with serpents.
“I'm going back and forth,” Van Owen said, “between feeling like shit for taking you there in the first place and telling myself you'd have gone anyway. What the hell did you have in mind?”
“You know what happened?” I asked with effort.
“Some of it.”
“Let yourself off the hook. You warned me. And I lost your photograph.”
“I'm not nostalgic like I once was.”
“What stinks?”
“Your eighty-proof clothes. The cop was very interested in you at first. Your car hit that light pole in the parking lot pretty good. You remember that?”
I shook my head. “But I wasn't drinking.”
“I know. You passed a breath test, so you weren't charged with anything. Yet.”
I had a vague recollection of notebooks and stern faces. “How'd you get into it?”
“The cop, Ferry, phoned me. Look, I know you're itching to share your excellent adventure, but I don't want to hear any more of it right now, you mind? Listening to you is making my head ache.”
Fine with me. My central processing unit still felt like jellied consommé; but I needed to know what I'd already revealed. Van Owen said, “You told me that after you left my place you went to see TJ, and his old man showed.”
I nodded. “Do the cops know that?”
“No. The emergency room nurse kept them at bay, insisted you were a patient and they could talk to you later. She was pretty feisty. They cleared out.”
Good. I had no interest in sharing the truth with them; not now, anyway.
“If you'd listened to me and let it alone, you could've avoided all this. Anyhow, the doctor said you should restâand you're going to. He shot you up with something.”
“Where are we headed?”
“Save it. Someone's waiting for you.”
I glanced over, even started to ask “Who?” but my jaw hurt so much I kept it shut. The night rolled by outside, dizzying me with lights. Soon the wonders of pharmaceutical alchemy took over.
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It was daylight when I cranked open my eyes. I was in the bed in the beach house, with a heap of soft wool blankets layered up to my chin. I tried to sit and groaned, so I lay back. Someone came in on quiet feet from the next room. “You're awake.” It was Paula Jensen. “How do you feel?” she asked with gentle concern.
“Except for my head, stomach, and back, I'm good. Groggy.”
“That's the Demerol wearing off.” She sat on the edge of the bed and put a cool hand on my forehead for a moment. “The doctor gave you a prescription for more if you need it.”
Something came to me. I pushed up on an elbow. “Is Michelle ⦠?”
“I haven't heard anything.”
I eased back. “How are you holding up?”
“I'm maintaining. Barely. Everything that can is being done. But forget me for the moment.” Her eyes were a tender blue force. “Rest.” She made it sound tempting.
“How did I get here?”
“Chet Van Owen contacted me. He said he thought you were working for me. I asked him to bring you here if you were up to it, and I drove straight down. Katie's at my sister's.”
“How'd Van Owen find out what happened again?”
I had a hazy notion we'd been through this together already;
some of it sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure. “A police officer called him. Officer Ferry. After Van Owen dropped you off, I put you in a hot bath because you were shivering so. I gave up trying to get you into pajamas and just buried you in blankets. You don't remember?”
I shook my head. Naked with an attractive woman and it was gone. I was living the wrong life. “What time is it?”
“Just after nine. You really should rest.”
“I did.”
“Maybe we should get you to a doctor ⦔
“NoâI'm feeling better.”
She didn't look convinced. “Would you like some breakfast, at least?”
“Is there coffee?”
While she went to make it, I got up. In the mirror I could see some bruising on my shoulders and ribs, and knew there would be more to come. There was an abrasion on my right cheekbone, as if I'd skidded on a rough surface. Rand's men had worked me over pretty carefully, though: nothing I couldn't have gotten drunkenly ramming a lamppost. It didn't feel as if any irreplaceable parts were broken. I patted my face with water, brushed my hair and teeth, and put on the fresh clothes I'd brought from Lowell. Making it downstairs was only a minor labor, and seeing Paula Jensen pouring coffee made me feel almost new. She looked as if she'd spent a restless night; she was pale, though her hair was brushed and shining, and in the kitchen sunlight she projected strength.
“How do you take it?” she asked.
“Black.”
“I mean the punishment.” I could smell her minty toothpaste as she stood at my side and set down a cup of coffee. “I brought along some physician's samples of Relafenâit's a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory, if you need it. It isn't contraindicated with the Demerol.”
“Just coffee, for now. You know something about this?”
“Only what Chet Van Owen was able to tell me.”
“About medicine, I mean.”
A smile and a touch of color returned; we were synched into
alternating conversations. “I was going to be a nurse,” she said. “Actually started the training program.” She warmed my cup and slid into the breakfast nook across from me with a steaming cup of her own. There was something almost domestic in it. “Stop me if the tale is all too familiar.” But I was happy to listen. She told me about her first year, what it had been like, before she switched her major to English and met Ben Nickerson. “I had this idea I wanted to work on the SS
Hope
.”
“And if troubles came, you'd walk across the water to solve them.”
Her laugh was a dose of medicine. “You knew me, huh?”
“I was going to save the world in my own way.”
“By being an investigator?”
“That just sort of happened. I started out in a uniform.”
“You were a soldier?”
“And then a cop.”
“That makes sense.”
“Every ex-cop thinks he's a born sleuth.”
“That's where you got your skills.”
“Such as they are. Ouch.” The hot coffee made me wince.
We went on talking for a few momentsârevisiting the past, commenting on the nice day outsideâavoiding what was pressingly obvious to each of us: that her daughter was still missing and might be in real danger. I drained my cup and set it down. “Time to put the aforementioned skills to work.”
“Are you really up to this?”
I'd have much preferred to go on sitting there with another round of coffee and our funny conversation, but I needed to get moving or I wouldn't. I pushed to my feet. The room didn't spin too much. But a thought came to me. “Remember that dream you told me about?”
“When I woke up and said, âHe's dead'?”
“That one. Is there anything else you remember about it?”
“Only that it seemed realâand it scares me. Why?”
“Just curious.”
“I don't want to have it anymore.”
I patted her arm, then put my jacket on. She retrieved my watch
and wallet from atop the refrigerator. It was almost 10 A.M. “By the way,” she said, “you have no car.” I'd forgotten that little detail. “Use mine. I insisted that you be brought back into the investigation. Ross didn't argue. I'll stay here for now; Shel may try to call again.”
I took the keys. I went to the drawer and got my .38. I could have waited until Paula was out of the room, but I figured we all needed the occasional jolt of reality to make our best judgments. I'd had mine last night. She looked at it with nervous fascination as I snapped the holster onto my belt. “Is that a good idea?” she asked. “A gun?”
“It's rarely the best idea. Sometimes it's called for.”
“And this is one of those times?”
I drew on my coat to conceal the .38. “I can't say for sure, Paula. It might be.”
She didn't look happy with it, but she didn't argue. Either she trusted me or had decided I was too pigheaded to argue with. “Are we doing the right thing? I don't like the idea of you getting hurt.”
“Let's fast-track that into law.”
“I'm serious, Alex.”
She had stepped close. I took her hands in mine and looked in her eyes. There were tears gathering in them, and fear being held at bay. Gently, I kissed her forehead. “That's how I want you to be. And extra careful. I'm going to be now, too. I wasn't before. Understood?”
She nodded. I released my grip, but she held on. I could feel a pull there in the short intervening space between us. “Does anyone else know you're here?” I asked.
“Only Ross and my sister. And Van Owen.”
“All right. Keep the phone handy. I'll call as soon as I can.”
She nodded, her eyes bright. “God bless,” she said.
As I got in the Blazer, adjusting the seat for legroom, I glanced at the mirror. What had fooled Paula Jensen so as to offer me her total trust? Some harsh words for the man reflected there rose in my mind, but I let them go. Maybe it was a time for compassion. Besides, I sensed the most vague outlines of an idea trying to take shape. The headache didn't help it to form, but I had to hope the idea would come on its own if it had any real substance.
In the municipal building I passed the big pointing hand. Chief Delcastro wasn't in, but Officer Ferry was, looking as clean and crisp as ever. I told him thanks for what he had done. “You don't look
too
bad,” he said. “Of course, I don't know what's under the bandage. What did you do, doze off?”
“I must've,” I lied. “The long hours add up.”
“Tell me about it. We're pulling double shifts till further notice.”
“Which is why I'm here. Does that hot computer of yours contain arrest records?”
“Everything going back five years. We can deep-dive 'em in a minute.”
“What about before that?”
“Hmm. What are you looking for?”
“Delcastro told me that Ben Nickerson had once been arrested in town.”
“Do you know when that was?”
“Sixteen, eighteen years ago? I'm guessing. For trespassing.”
“We have paper files. But it might take a while.”
“How long?”
He glanced at the wall clock. “I could get to it later today? Say, by three?”
“That'd be great. I'll pay for your time.”
“No, sir. If this is a legitimate request, it's part of my job.”
I assured him it was legit all right and thanked him again.
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The tide was low in Harwell's Cove, the river reduced to a green channel that snaked between grassy banks. As I went down the slanting gangway to the
Goofy Foot
, Red Dog was standing by the outer rail with his back to me, working a lazy stream of water across the deck with a hose. “Ahoy,” I called. “Permission to board?”
When he turned, I had the momentary impression that I'd made a mistake. But it was Van Owen, all right. The Hawaiian shirt and paint-speckled chinos confirmed it, but beneath the visor of a long-billed fisherman's hat he was wearing, his face looked like undercooked hamburger. One cheek was eggplant-purple, the eye swollen to a slit. I winced in sympathetic pain. “What happened?”
He grinned with puffy lips, and I saw a gap at the side where a tooth had been. He choked off the hose, which gasped and went dry. “Want to swap war stories?” he mumbled and motioned me aboard.
“You know mine.”
He coiled the hose and set it aside. “After I dropped you off last night, I went out to the Beachcomber to see if the Nickerson girl might be there. She wasn't. I came back here and was sitting on deck smoking a blunt, thinking, when Shanley came by.”
“Mirror Shades?”
“He must've spotted me cruising the club and trailed me back. He had me for violating drug laws.”
“For puffing a weed on your own boat?”
“Well ⦠I might've lit up before I got here.” He shrugged. “Then there was air pollution, and corrupting youthâsmoke could've wafted clean back to the kids and they might've forgotten acid and Ecstasy long enough to get a contact high. Oh, yeah,” he added, “there was a little matter of resisting arrest. I guess what went
down at the VA hospital had me feeling a little feisty. I landed a few before the nightstick tipped the balance.”
“Assaulting an officer? Smart.”
“Yeah, well ⦠they call it dope for a reason. I was looking for a tooth around here someplace, but I guess it's gone. I'm released on personal recognizance.”
“How do you feel?”
“Very funny.”
“I didn't intend for the trouble to spill all over you.”
“Ahh, it was time. That's what I was sitting here thinking about last night. If I'd squared with you sooner, we might've both been better off. I should've told you to stay away from TJ. Kid turn up yet?”
“No. And your telling me about TJ probably wouldn't have mattered. I get in my own way a lot. I came out to say thanks. Sorry, too. You find that tooth, don't forget to put it under your pillowâget
some
thing out of this.” I turned to go.
“Rasmussen,” he called after me, “you bound anyplace special?”
By rights I should have let him be, and he the same. He had chores to do and so did I. Beyond a pleasant dinner, little good had come of our getting together. But in an odd way I had the idea that we were each trying to make something right. “What's on your mind?”
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We took the Blazer; he said the four-wheel was better suited for our ride. We drove back roads out to the site where construction for Point Pines was going on. Several large estate homes were completed, with the shells of several more in progress, sited at discreet distances from one another on the rolling land. They made the houses in Ross and Paula Jensen's neighborhood seem cheesy and small.
“This used to be woodland, with some old homes before Ted Rand got it.”
I nodded. “I spoke with Mrs. Rand.”
“Iva?” It got a prolonged glance. “You get around. How is she?”
“On the half-sober, half-looped scale? Half, I'd say.”
He nodded. “It's too bad. She was a nice woman when I was growing up. She made the best Toll House cookies. I felt more at home there than at my own houseânever mind that I had the teenage hots for her.”
I didn't reveal her current opinion of him. “She said that Rand owns the town. I gather this is what she meant?”
“Wait, it gets better.”
We drove farther east, the land leveling into the coastal plain, and soon we came to the sand road that John Carvalho and I had been on, or one like it. A cable ran across the entrance, and beyond it was a sign that said FUTURE HOME OF POINT PINES GOLF COURSE. And now I understood why Red Dog had wanted to take the Blazer. At his direction, I switched to four-wheel drive, and we went around the gate. “In another year or so,” he said, “the only way I'll get out here is carrying somebody's golf bag.”
We rode over gently rolling land, beyond which were dunes and beyond that, though I couldn't see it yet, the Atlantic. I shook my head. “How did Rand come to sit so high on the gravy train?”
“Luck, partly, I guess. He's smart, and he works hard.”
“A lot of people living in three-room apartments do, too.”
Van Owen pointed. “Across the way is the nuke plant. Word got around that in twenty years, folks living out here would be glowing in the dark. A total crock, of course, but you get enough people thinking something and it might as well be true. Most sold and are living in Florida now, soaking up solar radiation. A few petitioned the government to close the plant, which wasn't going to happen. The trust I mentioned grabbed the lots as they came up for sale.”
“How far under the document pile would I have to dig to find Rand's name?”
“Deep. Pull over behind that cluster of scrub pine.”
We got out. I could hear the sound of heavy equipment in the distance, moving earth around. We climbed a low sandy berm to where we could see workers using the diesel equipment. As we watched, an open Jeep drove up to the workers, and a man got out and started talking to them, pointing, as if he was giving instructions.
We walked along a rough trail behind the thicket of pines, slow going in the deep sand.
“Any idea what all this is worth?” Van Owen asked rhetorically. “There was talk at one point about it being protected as a wildlife preserve. It got to a committee on Beacon Hill.”
Where good ideas vanish like planes over the Bermuda Triangle, usually after they've dropped their payload. “No one complains anymore?”
His swollen lips shaped a sour grin. “It's a done deal. There've been a few beefs. One of the workers questioned some of the quality controls on the job and prompted an OSHA audit. Inspectors found fault, but it got cleaned up, or someone got paid off. The poor bastard who'd come forwardâI've heard that someone put a cinder block on his chest and wanted him to take back his complaint. He wouldn't, and each time he exhaled, another block was added. He's lucky he can still draw breath. He ended up with brain damage.”
“Was it investigated?”
“Industrial accident.”
“Is Rand involved in this stuff?”
“Personally? I doubt it. He may not even know. Like I said, he doesn't have to be involved, really. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the jokers you danced with last night are out there.”
“Working?”
He nodded.
We got past the cluster of pines. Suddenly, I realized that the group of workers was gone, and then I saw they'd piled into the Jeep and were coming our way. Evidently they'd seen us.
“Uh-oh,” Van Owens said “Busted!”
There were five of them. My memory was fresh with the beating I'd already taken. I thought about the Smith & Wesson on my belt, but this wasn't the time for it. “When all else fails,” I said, “run!”
We galumphed back down the trailâwhich is the only thing you can do in soft sandâand ran for the Blazer. “I'll drive!” Red Dog yelled.
“Keys are in it.”
We piled in, and he got the truck going so quickly my door
banged shut before I was seated. I fumbled for the seat belt and got it on, though it wasn't going to be much protection if they caught us. Van Owen kept the pedal down as he zoomed over the hilly ground. He knew the terrain. At several points I thought we would roll, but we didn't. He didn't slow for the gate. He spun up into the sand, nearly capsizing us, but we tipped back to all four wheels, which caught traction, and we gunned through. When I looked back, I saw that we were alone.