“Fuck,” said the big cop. “Fuck!”
Jared caught sight of a deer in the road.
The animal was far enough off — they were on another flat, straight stretch — but it was standing still. It was like a snapshot, that deer just standing there, a doe, maybe, and they were going too fast, too fast.
Rather than slow or try to swerve, the trooper accelerated. The Caprice couldn’t have had much left, Jared thought, but it still managed to lurch forward that last little bit, the needle pushing a hundred — everything happening, not in slow motion, not like people always said it did, but with a kind of hyper-reality. Everything was starkly clear, for as instantaneous as it was, it was staccato; just pictures. The deer on the single-yellow dashed line, standing there, looking at the onrushing car, painted white by the headlights.
The speedometer, racking to triple digits.
The trooper’s hand on the wheel, tightly gripping, those coarse black hairs curled.
The impact.
They sailed right along, both of them jerking forward a little, as if they’d only hit a raccoon or a skunk. Jared thought he saw the deer flung off to the left, thrown into the ditch, but it was only a blur. But he saw that it hadn’t tumbled, the front of the Classic was too square and wide for that, the animal had been launched.
After the impact and the little jerk forward, Jared watched the big cop settle back and slowly shake his head. Then Jared heard him say, in a low voice he wouldn’t have otherwise associated with the man, “Sorry, there, little critter.”
Then the voice reverted back to the gruff, terse way of speaking Jared had come to expect. “Fuck. That little sumbitch fucked up my baby.”
“Holy shit,” was all Jared could reply. His mind was racing as the road disappeared beneath them. It was almost impossible to hang on to a thought. He did grasp, for a second, that the experience could work in his favor, that, without having to contrive anything of his own, the deer-crushing was something they now shared, a bond. He sat back, only realizing as he did, that his hands didn’t just come away from the seatback in front of him, but that he had to make an effort to pry them free.
* * *
A short time later they heard sirens in the distance again. Jared couldn’t be sure if they had actually faded for a while, or if the incident with the deer had temporarily distracted him.
The trooper had to slow the big car down as they came to a stop sign.
They then began moving again (he came to a complete stop; Jared thought he was even able to count one-Mississippi) on a two-lane, winding road through a small, bedroom community with a posted speed limit of 25. The trooper doubled it, but in the Caprice it didn’t seem that fast. Jared wondered, for a moment, if this would all simply end with the lunatic Statie just giving himself up, weeping at the wheel, his head in his hairy hands, confessing all of his crimes.
They got up some more speed, and soon the dark-navy chop of Lake Champlain was on their right, and Jared realized it was still going to happen, that whatever was going on, the trooper still planned to see it through to the end.
As they reached the ferry, minutes later, the encroaching storm had built and blotted out the dawn. They seemed to have gone backwards in time, retreating into night.
Then the rain swept in, rain that looked cold, each drop somehow brighter and fuller, like shards of crystal coming down.
In the distance, the hulking ferry came into dock, the tall pilings of the port jostling in the heaving water, the white eye of the big boat shining out at them.
The headlights of the waiting vehicles winked on. Dozens of bright eyes moved through the dark.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Tom ran down the west hallway, his shoes squeaking. He rounded the corner and came out at the nurses station, arousing glances from the people there — two RNs and an intern. The intern opened her mouth as if to ask him what was going on, but Tom turned away and jogged a few more paces until he was in front of Caleb and Elizabeth’s room.
They were still there, sleeping as before, undisturbed. Unsatisfied, though, Tom walked into the room. He could sense the intern coming up behind him.
He stopped at the foot of the bed, then rounded it on the left side so that the girl and baby boy were both facing him, their faces unreadable in the dark room. He determined that they were both breathing. As he started to walk away, he caught movement — in the far corner, along the same wall where the door was, a dark blur.
Then, a glimmer. Something reflective, catching light thrown in from the open door. A sparkle of it along the base of the wall. Finally a shadow snuffed it out.
The intern was standing right there in the doorway and seemed not to notice anything. She looked in, her hand on the door frame, and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
Tom went over to her, his eyes fixed on where he’d seen the movement. He pushed her out into the hallway.
“Hey,” she said.
Tom glanced back into the room to see if they’d been disturbed by his intrusion, and saw that they hadn’t. He didn’t want to turn on the light and wake them up.
“I need a mop, something,” he said in a low voice.
“What?”
“Anyone been in there?”
“What? No.”
Tom turned and looked into the room again. They were only a few feet away from the door. It was dark and still. And then, just then, movement again, this time in the hallway. Tom’s breath caught in his throat. He watched as a scuttling shape rounded the corner of the corridor, headed away from the room. He’d seen it! Dark red color, a sort of matted fur or feathers. Just the tail end of it going around the bend and out of sight.
“Did you see that?”
The intern looked where he was looking. “See what?”
Tom had a thought. He thought of Mahoney. He thought of the officers who had been at the door of Caleb’s room, and now weren’t there. He thought of the five young boys, the ones with the coins. The coins they had taped to the—
Tom turned. He spun, really, on one heel which uttered a loud squeak, and faced the door again. He ran his hand over its smooth surface. The coins were gone, too. Only a single piece of the scotch tape remained. He pulled it free and wadded it up with his finger and thumb.
“What happened to these?”
The intern’s mouth was open again. She hadn’t been here earlier; she didn’t know.
Tom moved past her, ignoring her, and went back into the one empty room nearby. He went to the window, put his hands on the glass, and looked down. The Burlington police were where he’d last seen them, one squad car, with its flickering red and white lights, parked at the entrance of the lot. Two policemen in clear rain-slickers over yellow vests.
No Mahoney.
He turned and saw the intern behind him, nervously fiddling with her hands. He realized he was behaving erratically, rude.
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
“The nurse who’s been here the whole goddamn time. I was just talking with her. Maddy. Where did she go?”
“I don’t know, sir. Maybe you’d better—”
He pushed past her again, bringing a fist to his mouth as a coughing fit overcame him. He needed to get outside, to contact Mahoney, to find out what had happened to the whole place in the five minutes he’d turned his back.
He pitched himself toward the elevator, drawing more looks, coughing as he went.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Headed across the water, the ferry rose and fell, slamming against what felt like concrete. Great fans of dark water came smashing up over the deck, breaking and thinning into sliding sheets. The boat launched up again and again, each time seemingly suspended in the air for a moment, touching neither water nor sky, and then slapping back down, hard, rocking the shocks of the Caprice.
“Jesus,” said Jared. The rain spat against the side of the car. It was impossible to tell whether it was the rain or the lake spray. At least they were underneath the upper deck, on the
right side of the ferry, in a single car lane.
Ahead of them was a dark, empty-looking minivan. Behind them, a Camper. Jared had thought he’d seen a motorcycle while they’d been waiting to board, and instead of feeling sorry for the bastard, Jared wished it was him.
“It’s a rough one, she was right.” said Trooper Jim. It was the first thing the cop had said to him since the deer incident. The booth attendant had warned them about the highwater. Trooper Jim had taken the ticket and his change wordlessly as she had carried on with her speech, a woman in her fifties, with tangled brown hair.
“It’s bound to be a bumpy ride,” she’d said. “Water’s very high — if you’re returning more than twenty-four hours from now, there’s talk of shutting down if another snow or rainstorm really hits.”
Jared had looked east, over the lake, into the fisted thunderheads of the storm that was, indeed, coming. He’d wondered about damage to the car, blood, matted fur, something. But it was dark and the attendant either hadn’t noticed or had chosen to keep her mouth shut about it.
Jared decided now was the time to bring it up himself. The plan to escape by asking to use the bathroom, banking on the good graces Jared felt he had maneuvered into with the big cop, now seemed stupid and dangerous.
The ferry lurched. The night had practically returned. He was lost at sea with a lunatic. Perhaps the only chance was to get the big fucker to worry about drawing attention with a banged-up, bloody vehicle. The rain could’ve already washed it away, and the trooper might not even care, but, it was worth a shot. Jared opened his mouth.
Trooper Jim surprised him by speaking first. His tone was conversational.
“You ever been across when the ice is still breaking up? Probably only a month ago, now. Cold. That water is cold. You’d freeze to death in a matter of seconds, even now. Paddle all you want, you’d freeze up and sink like a stone into all that blackness.
“It’s deep across here,” he went on. “Champlain’s floor is a deep swathe. Carved like everything else by the glaciers; this one here was a son of a bitch. You ever been across in the ice? Big chunks of it, loud as shit, ferry just pushes on through.”
The trooper leaned forward and cocked his head to the side, looking out.
“Water seems high, for sure.”
Then he sat back.
“Macmaster pond is glacial, too. It’s a deep scoop. You wouldn’t think to look at it, but it goes down a long ways.”
The trooper was now looking at Jared in the rear-view mirror, the whites of his eyes illuminated by the headlights behind them.
“You ever think about something down there, something entombed in all that blackness? What if something, like an earthquake, some kind of destruction, sets it free?”
Oh boy, here it comes. “I don’t know.”
“Me neither.”
Jared didn’t dare say anything else for a moment. Here was the confession he’d been expecting. Maybe not exactly, but certainly the cop was starting to loosen up.
“We’re gonna run smack into that storm,” said Trooper Jim.
He uttered the statement with that same casual tone. He didn’t sound crazy, Jared thought, even though there were crazies who sounded like anybody else, luring who they lured, scheming how they schemed. That the trooper didn’t sound like a nut, as they lurched across the lake, plastered by its backlash and the freezing rain, was perhaps most unsettling of all.
The trooper seemed to be checking his hands — he’s going to break down now — but Jared heard the lighter pop, and the cop lit up again. He didn’t offer one to Jared. He smoked and his body rocked with the car and the boat as Jared sat in the back and just watched it all.
Jared heard the sirens again and looked out through the back windshield. He could only see the vehicle behind them, the Camper, which had only now doused its lights, and the bulwark of the engines in the middle of the ferry and a bathroom door that read “Sailors” on it. He couldn’t see the shore.
“Go ahead,” said Trooper Jim.
Jared looked and saw, with some strange, upsetting displeasure, that the trooper had turned around and he was smiling, smoke pealing slowly out through his teeth.
“Get out and look.” He dragged on the cigarette. “If you’re not afraid to get washed away.”
“Yeah?” Jared said. He was careful to control his voice. “You don’t mind?”
“Mind? No.”
The grin had faded and his face, lit only by the orange bulkhead lights, seemed to grow ponderous.
Still careful to not sound excited, Jared said, “Cool, I’ll check it.”
He opened the back door of the Caprice Classic, and stepped out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
A day, in itself, is constructed like a lifetime, thought Tom Milliner. Birth is around seven in the morning. From eight to ten is the early years, stumbling, just learning to walk, half-asleep, stained by dreams and otherworldly knowledge, not quite part of the world. Ten until noon was puberty, and at noon you got your meal, your rite of passage — you are now officially part of the day, and it starts to move quickly. Noon to five is the prime of life. The main act. You toil, you travel, or maybe you just stay in the same place, working away. The subset here was the two-to-four-in-the-afternoon section, parallel with the late-twenties to early-forties of life; you had to get over that hump around four, that slog hour, where things were changing, people were changing, taking late meetings, deciding what to do with the rest of their day, making dinner plans. Around six and seven in the evening, you were finally comfortable in your skin, enjoying the fruits of your labor, to some extent, but still working, maybe around the house, doing the dishes, preparing a meal, cleaning out the garage. You might even still be puttering into the evening, but eventually you hung up your hat, you settled in to watch the evening news, to read the paper, to talk with a loved one, until finally, as the evening wore on towards night, with aches and pains in your body, you grew sleepy, you wound down like a toy. Until at the end, the bed claimed you and there you rested, laid out, one hand over your heart, one over your guts, as if protecting the source of the appetites which brought you so much grief, and, if you were lucky, so much joy.
If this was a good analogy, then what was dawn, then? Was dawn some unconscious, preparatory phase for what lay ahead? Like a backstage before the curtain came up, stomach filled with butterflies, heart pounding, pacing back and forth in a world of props and wigs and makeup and other actors exercising their vocal chords?
Everything we did, thought Tom, every play, every machine, every dance, every sport — was a metaphor for life itself.
“Sir? Hello, Tom. Good to have you back.”
It was the nurse, a Latina woman with capable forearms and light-brown eyes the color of creamy coffee. She reached out for him; he noticed her rolled-up white sleeves.
Sanctification, thought Tom, remembering Sophie and her speech standing on the bed. What is holy protection?
The Latina nurse was checking his vitals, some distant part of Tom realized.
“I don’t wear my uniform,” said Tom. “Haven’t for years. Since Steph and Brian left.”
“Mmhmm,” said the nurse as she took his blood pressure. “You had a little accident outside. Do you remember? You’ve had what we call a fugue. You may not be getting enough oxygen.”
“Sheriff let me drive my own vehicle, too. ‘You act like a goddamn PI,’ he said to me.”
He looked at the nurse’s face, but not really her eyes. She was looking at him with pity, like he had gone crazy. He had. He’d decided for himself that he had, for the time being, anyway.
“Let’s let it all go, okay?”
“Whatever you say, honey,” said the nurse. “The doctor will be in soon.”
Honey, thought Tom. Babylove.
“Forces at work,” he said distractedly, somewhat to the nurse. “What does that mean to you?”
“It means you need to get some rest,” she said, not without compassion, but w
ith a hint that she needed to get him squared away quickly; she had other things to tend to.
What had Jim meant, what I should have done a long time ago? What was he planning? Was he suicidal? What had happened to him — that was, what had really happened to him, when he was in-country over there, when the war was almost over, when some of the worst nightmares had still to reveal their gruesome faces?
And where had Maddy gone? Had she ever even been there? Had he dreamt that she’d driven there with him? Everything else? Honeylove, he thought. He seemed to have no control — it was all slipping away. Something else was in charge. He hadn’t been able to determine if that was a good thing or not. He just didn’t know.
“Where are the coins?”
“Hmm?”
“Did he arrest those boys?” Tom started to sit up.
“Everything is going to be fine,” said the nurse. She eased him back down. “We’ll look after the young woman and the baby boy. That’s our job, too. You need to get some rest.”
Tom looked at her and then stared at the wall. He watched for a shift in the shadows, a dark streak along the floor, against the wall, perhaps.
I’ll come back, thought Tom. I’ll just rest for a moment.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
I know you.
Jared stepped out of the vehicle. The ferry plunged, and he had to grab onto the side of the Caprice as a huge fin of water vaulted over the gunwales, crashed, and broke apart into a foaming shower of water.
I know you, the big trooper had said, when Jared was arrested the night before. Cruickshand had looked right at him then, and seemed to accuse him, not of being guilty of any crime, but of being familiar, as if from a dream.
Jared staggered to the bulkhead, where the engines thrummed. He headed to the bathroom marked “Sailors.” Brushing against the wall for support he reached the steel door and squeezed inside the small room.
He braced himself with both arms, holding himself steady within the narrow walls. There were pipes overhead; the thicker-gauge ones above, and the smaller ones running along the wall behind his head in parallel turns. The bathroom was rounded, making Jared think of a can of sardines. He relieved himself in the urinal.
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