The Traveler

by John Katzenbach

  He stretched and stared out the window of the small office. Darkness had insinuated itself onto the warm late-summer night. All that remained of the day was a fast-fading red glow off to the West. Holt had never traveled farther in that direction than his sister’s home in Albany at Thanksgiving, but he read avidly, mostly novels and travel books, and he longed to go. He liked to think of himself as a throwback to some earlier era, in the Old West. He saw himself as the peacekeeper in the small town, tough yet likable, fair, yet the wrong man to cross, a good man to side with in a fight.

  Of course he had never had a fight in thirty-three years of police work on Martha’s Vineyard. The occasional belligerent drunk had been the worst he’d ever faced.

  He closed his eyes and rocked back in his desk chair. There would be fresh bluefish casserole for dinner, cooked with vegetables from his own garden. Holt congratulated himself on eating well, which was actually more the result of his wife’s dedication. He thumped his heart: Sixty-three and still going strong, he thought. The selectmen had tried to retire him three years earlier, but Holt had passed the state police physical examination ahead of a half-dozen men a third his age, and that had persuaded the selectmen to keep him on. They were amused, too, the way Holt always relieved a good deal of money from the summer kids whom he hired as temporary police help. Holt could out–arm wrestle all of them with his left hand; forty years earlier he’d worked on a lobster boat out of Menemsha, and hauling crates hand over hand from the bottom had left him with considerable upper body strength. He’d also learned poker as a young man, which now supplemented his income handsomely. College kids always think they can play the game, he thought. They learn.

  He examined the stack of tickets and decided: It can wait until morning. Most things could, even in the summer season. He yawned and lazily picked up the police radio on the corner of his desk.

  “Dispatch, this is One Adam One, West Tisbury, I’m ten-thirty-six from HQ. Please put us on emergency link, ten-four.”

  “Hello, Holt, how are you tonight?”

  “Uh, fine, dispatch.”

  “Did Sylvia get the recipe I sent her?”

  “Uh, dispatch, that’s a roger.”

  He hated it when Lizzie Barry was doing the late shift on the 911 network for the island. She was older than him and half-senile. She never followed the proper teminology.

  “One Adam One, roger, ten-four.”

  “Nighty-night.”

  He hung up the microphone and started to collect his things, when he saw the woman walk through the door. He smiled.

  “Just getting ready to close up, ma’am. What can I do for you?”

  “I need some directions,” said Mercedes Barren.

  “Well, sure,” replied Holt, sizing the woman up. Despite the blue jeans and sportshirt, she did not seem like a vacationer. She had a big-city air about her, and Holt could smell business. Probably another damn real-estate developer, he said to himself.

  “I’m looking for a place where an accident took place about twenty years ago.”

  “An accident?” Holt sat down and gestured at the chair opposite him. His curiosity was pricked.

  “Some twenty years ago a businessman from New Jersey, guy owned a drugstore, drowned off South Beach. I need to know where that accident took place.”

  “Well, hell, South Beach is seventeen miles long, and twenty years is a while ago. You’re gonna have to give me a bit more information.”

  “Do you remember the incident?”

  “Ma’am, begging your pardon, but we have one or two drownings every summer. After a while they pretty much seem the same. Coast Guard handles ’em, anyway. I just push some paperwork about.”

  “I have the newspaper account. Would that help?”

  “Can’t hurt.”

  Holt leaned forward while Mercedes Barren fished the old copy of the Vineyard Gazette from her bag. Holt caught just the barest glimpse of the automatic pistol barrel, and without thinking of some clever response he simply blurted out: “You carrying a weapon, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” she said. She reached down into her bag and produced her gold shield. “I should have introduced myself. I’m Detective Mercedes Barren, City of Miami police.”

  Holt was instantly delighted.

  “We don’t get many big-city police, uh, people, up here. You here on a case?”

  “No, no, just visiting friends.”

  “Oh,” he said, disappointed. “Then why the gun?”

  “Just habit, sorry.”

  “Unh, hunh. You maybe want to leave it with me?”

  “Chief, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to leave early and it would be more convenient to keep it. Can’t you bend some rule for a fellow cop?”

  He gave her a smile and little wave, signifying that she could keep the weapon. “Don’t like handguns on the island much. They never do anybody no good no how.”

  “Chief, that’s true in the big city, too.”

  She shoved the newspaper copy over at him. He scanned the page quickly. “Yeah, I remember, but vaguely. Guy got caught in a riptide, I think. Didn’t have a chance.” He looked over at Mercedes Barren. “You don’t get riptides on Miami Beach, I bet.”

  “No, chief.”

  “Well, a rip is caused when the wave motion disturbs a bit of the bottom sand, like opening a new hole. The water pours in, and suddenly it has to go back out. It peters out a couple of hundred yards from shore. Trouble is, most people just fight like crazy when they feel that current pulling them out. They don’t know that all you got to do is ride it out, then swim back in. Or, if you got to do something, you swim parallel to the beach. Rip’s probably only twenty, thirty yards wide. Nope, people don’t keep their heads. They fight hard, get exhausted, and bingo! More paperwork for me, and a body search for the Coast Guard boys. Happens once or twice a year on South Beach.”

  “The paper just says South Beach.”

  Holt kept reading. “It says the family was staying in West Tisbury, but it don’t say where.”

  “I know. I thought you might remember.”

  He shook his head. He looked at the newspaper again.

  “Say, what’s this got to do with visiting friends?”

  Mercedes Barren laughed. “Well, chief, it’s a long story, but I’ll try to make it quick. My friends are renting the house and they came across this old paper. They knew I was coming up to visit and they thought it would be interesting to me, so they sent it down to Miami, along with directions on how to find the place. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I lose the paper with the directions and phone number, but kept the silly old newspaper. So now I’m trying to find them.”

  “Unh-hunh.”

  “I bet you get a lot of weird ones in here during the summer.”

  “Unh-hunh.”

  “Well, just file me under your silly-summer-people file and help me figure out where to go.”

  Holt broke into a smile.

  “That’d be a helluva long file, if I kept one.”

  They both laughed.

  He looked at the story again. “I suppose we could call around to some of the realty people, see if they handled the rental. But that might take some time. Lot of realtors up here on the island nowadays. Did you try calling the Gazette?”

  “Yes, but they had gone home for the night.”

  Holt thought for an instant.

  “Well, I got one idea, might as well give it a shot.”

  He picked up the police band microphone and said:

  “Dispatch, this is One Adam One, come back.”

  “Hello, Holt,” said Lizzie Barry. “You should be home. That dinner’s probably getting cold on the table.”

  “Dispatch, I’ve got a woman here, looking for her friends. It’s a long story, but they’re st
aying down at the same place where a guy named Allen was staying the summer he drowned. Twenty years ago. Do you remember that case? Over.”

  The radio crackled momentarily.

  “Sure, Holt. I remember. He was taking an evening swim. It was that summer we had the hot spell, remember, when it went up to a hundred and five that one time. I remember because the same day my old dog died. Heatstroke. He was a good old dog, Holt, you remember him?”

  Holt didn’t. “Sure. Sure. A setter?”

  “No, a Golden Retriever.”

  “Oh.” Holt waited for the voice to continue, but she didn’t. “So, dispatch . . . Lizzie, do you remember where the guy was living? Over.”

  “Think so. Not certain, but seems to me that he was staying on Tisbury Great Pond. On Finger Point. Could be wrong, though.”

  “Thanks, Lizzie. Ten-four.”

  “Anytime, Holt. Over and out.”

  Holt Overholser hung up the microphone. “How about that,” he said. “Old Lizzie’s like an encyclopedia. She remembers damn well near everything that ever happens up here. Anything exciting, at least. Look, though, it’s gonna be real tricky to find your way down there at night. You ought to find a hotel room and stay the night, go down in the morning.”

  “Sounds like a good idea. Could you just show me, though, on the map?”

  Holt shrugged. He walked over to the wall. He showed her the sand pit entrance and where the washboard dirt road curved about. He showed her the fork in the road and which path led down to Finger Point. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been down that road. Probably not in the twenty years since the drowning. He shook his head. “Got to remember,” he said. “No lights down there at all. All looks the same. You could get real lost down there. Wait until morning.”

  “That’s good advice, chief. I appreciate it. I think I’ll just head into Vineyard Haven and find a hotel room. But I appreciate your taking the effort.”

  “No problem.”

  Holt Overholser walked Mercedes Barren outside into the night. “It’s right warm tonight,” he said. “Dropped down to forty-five three nights ago, so these old bones still say we’re gonna have an early fall, and a tough winter. Course, you get to be my age, all the winters are tough.”

  Mercedes Barren laughed. “Chief, you look like you could handle anything that winter sends your way.”

  “Well, I guess you don’t worry about the cold too much down there in Miami.”

  “That’s right.” She smiled. “You want to recommend a hotel?”

  “They’re all pretty good.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “Anytime. Drop by and we’ll talk police work.”

  “Maybe I’ll just do that,” Mercedes Barren said.

  He watched as she got back into her car. He did not see the instant disappearance of her friendly, outgoing demeanor, replaced immediately by a rigid, hard-eyed concentration. She pulled out of the driveway to the small police station. Holt then started to anticipate his waiting bluefish, although he noticed that Detective Barren had taken the road which led not to town, but into the island’s dark core, which made him pause briefly, filled with vague concern, before heading home.

  Detective Mercedes Barren drove carefully through the thickness of the night, thinking: The darkness will make finding the house more difficult, but it will allow me to approach Douglas Jeffers under concealment, which would give me an advantage. She had no real plan other than to not give him a chance. I will shoot him in the back if I have to, if I can. I will take the shot that’s open. Don’t hesitate. Don’t wait. Just seize the shot when it is there. One shot, make it count. That’s all I’ll get. It’s all I’ll need. She watched the road, peering ahead of the weak light thrown by the car headlights, looking for the turnoff that would lead her down toward Finger Point.

  Images from the day seemed distant, yet intrusive on her concentration: She could see the Lost Boys, circled around her, poised on the edge of their perversion, watching her. She thought that she’d handled them well. She was struck, momentarily, by the power of suggestion, how the right words spoken in the right context can trigger almost any conclusion. She’d walked away from that session completely convinced that Martin Jeffers had gone to find his brother at the location where their adoptive father had died. That persuasion had remained firm, unshakable, as she’d taken a tire iron to the doctor’s window, jackknifing into the apartment as she’d done before, only this time she was oblivious to any noise she made and she made no pretense toward stealth.

  She had gone directly into the bedroom for what she needed: the faded old newspaper. She had been filled with a momentary anger when she scanned the story for details, only to learn that it was less specific than she needed.

  But, she thought, that old country cop was perfect.

  She remembered how she’d driven hard out of New Jersey, battling the afternoon traffic around Manhattan, screaming with frustration at the delays on the road.

  She had had to wait what seemed an interminable time in Woods Hole, pacing about the ferry office, clenching her hands together. The ferry ride itself had been tedious, the picture-postcard images of the setting sun and sailboats cutting through the green waters had been lost on her.

  But she’d had singular success when she’d gone to the rental-car location closest to the ferry landing. She thought of the smallish man who’d taken her credit card and handed her the keys, and who had also informed her that she was absolutely correct, a Martin Jeffers had come in on the morning ferry.

  “Said he had business down island. Friend of yours?”

  “Well, competitors, really.”

  “Must be real estate. All you guys are always hustling about, trying to beat out the next guy. Or gal.”

  She had not corrected him. “Well, it’s a tough buck.”

  “Not here. Everybody’s making out like bandits.”

  He had looked at her license. “Don’t get too many from Florida here. Mainly New York, Washington, Boston. Not Miami.”

  “I work for a large firm,” she had lied. “Lots of offices.”

  “Well,” the clerk had continued, “I think there’s too much damn development up here, anyway.”

  She had sensed a touch of anger in his voice.

  “Really?” she had replied. “I work for a company that specializes in antique-property restoration. Not like my buddy Jeffers. He does motels and condo complexes.”

  “Damn,” the clerk had said. “Wish I hadn’t given him the car.”

  “What sort of car was that?”

  “A white Chevy Celebrity. Tag number eight-one-seven triple J. Keep your eyes open for it.”

  “Thanks,” she had replied. “I will. Did he say where he was going exactly?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I’ll run him to ground.”

  “Good luck. Bring that car back by eight p.m. tomorrow to avoid the extra charge.”

  She clicked on the high beams and went down a small dip in the highway. Every hundred yards she saw another dirt road leading off to her right, and she swore angrily to herself, thinking each one looked the same. Keep going. Keep going. Look for the sand pit, like the chief said. Another car came toward her, lights blinking, signaling her to lower hers. She finally complied, and the other car slid by on the narrow roadway with a whooshing sound. It seemed to Detective Barren to have passed only inches from her and she felt a momentary panic. She watched the red taillights disappear and was suddenly surrounded by blackness again.

  She stared into the night.

  “It’s here,” she said out loud, the sound of her voice in the car comforting. “I know it is.”

  She drove on, slowing the car to a crawl.

  “Come on, come on, where are you?”

  She was alone and adrift, the island�
�s dark like the ocean. She stared up at the skyline, barely able to distinguish where the trees ended and the heavens started. She felt unsettled, as if she were dangling above the water, holding on to the slimmest strand of rope. She could feel tension racing unchecked through her body. I’m close, she thought. I’m close. She felt a smothering sensation, as though there were no air inside the car whatsoever. He’s here, I know it. Where? Where? She gritted her teeth together, grinding them. She squeezed her hands on the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. She raised her voice to herself, almost shouting against the solitude of the car and the night: “Come on, come on!”

  And then she saw the turnoff.

  Anne Hampton sat at the table, staring at the open notebook in front of her. She saw the words: I do what I do because I have to, because I want to. Because something within all of us tells us what to do, and if we ignore it, it will crush us with desire.

  She had scribbled the younger brother’s reply beneath: You can get help. It doesn’t have to be.

  She shook her head. That was the completely wrong tack to take with Douglas Jeffers. She looked at the notes again. This part of the conversation was several hours old. Perhaps he’s figured out another approach. But she doubted it. She thought the brother seemed lost, unable to comprehend, driven to confrontation, then barely able to articulate a sentence, much less persuade the older brother to set down his gun. She closed her eyes. I could have told him that, she said to herself. I could have told him that it was all set, now, there was no way out, no end to the script other than the one Douglas Jeffers had invented sometime earlier, in some other era, deep in the past, when I was still just a student and someone’s daughter and eons before I became the murderer’s biographer.

  Anne Hampton wondered idly what would happen to them all now. She felt detached, almost as if she were someone else, standing outside her body, invisible to all the others, watching the events unfold on a stage. She remembered that she had felt this way before, during some of the murders, during the first moments in the motel. How long ago was that? She could not tell. She thought that was always what memory was like; it seems like so many snapshots in the mind, film clips with ragged edges and blinking, jerky motions. I can see myself running through the snow, she thought. I can see the hurt and cold in my face, but I cannot recall how the sensation felt anymore. I couldn’t save him, she thought. She saw the derelict and the lone man on the street and the two lucky women—what were their names?—then the teenagers in the car. I can’t save anybody. I can’t, I can’t. I wasn’t allowed. I wanted to, oh God, I wanted to save him, he was my brother, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I can’t.