by Judith Ivie
Despite my exhaustion, I slept badly. When I did doze off, it was to suffer impossibly convoluted dreams in which Armando chased yellow-suited MWD workers with a kitchen knife, and Prudy Crane refused to take my order for a cell phone, which she held just out of my reach. At 4:30 a.m. I lay awake in the dark, almost afraid to doze off again. Thinking it must be time for breakfast if I was awake, Simon butted me with his head in an effort to roll me out of bed. It was too early and too dark to gauge the weather, but I had a feeling it would be a cold, grey morning. Good. It would match my mood to perfection.
While the puzzled, but appreciative, cats ate an early breakfast and my coffee brewed, I stared at the tote bag into which I had repacked the four volumes of Harriet Wheeler’s diaries. Despite the whirlwind of confusion that clouded my thinking about this investigation, I had come to a decision. Before I did anything else this morning, I would haul Harriett’s diaries to the police station and turn them over to Lieutenant Harkness and his investigators to make what use of them they might. I had had enough of Harriett’s drivel and was convinced that her writings would produce no information of value. Since they began well after Mavis’s and Henry’s daughter had been born and given up for adoption, it seemed unlikely that any mention would be made of them in the two volumes Joey and I had not read, so I didn’t feel that I was risking exposure for them. In fact, I didn’t think I was risking exposure for anyone, judging from the petty, querulous entries Joey and I had already waded through. From what I could tell, all those diaries revealed was that Harriett Wheeler had been a supremely self-involved piece of work, and I doubted that would come as a surprise to anyone who had known her.
Still, someone besides us had been looking for the diaries, if I was correctly interpreting the damage done to the Wheeler house Sunday evening. How anyone else knew of their existence, I didn’t know, but the damage inflicted to the walls and floorboards of the old house convinced me that the intruder was looking for something of bulk, and the diaries were the only thing we had found that fit that description. Whoever it was must have overheard me talking with Emma or Margo about them and decided to try to beat us to them. Now that they knew they had not done so, we—or at least our residences—would be in jeopardy. To head off further property damage or possibly violence, I intended to march into the police station in full daylight, carrying the books, and emerge without them. If anyone was watching me, it would be clear that I had been in possession of the diaries but no longer was. I would tell the Lieutenant the truth, or at least a slightly modified version of it. While cleaning the house and preparing for the open house on Sunday, we had dusted the volumes on Prudy’s bookshelves. While perusing them casually, we had discovered what they really were and had appropriated them for safekeeping while deciding what to do with them. Harriett Wheeler had been something of a local celebrity, after all. The Wethersfield Library or one of the local museums might wish to add the diaries to their collections. After last night, however, it occurred to us that whoever vandalized the Wheeler house might have been searching for these very diaries, and so we were handing them over like the public-spirited citizens we were.
I didn’t really expect Harkness to buy this amateurish blend of fact and fiction, but Margo had told me that John, in a rare fit of candor on this subject, had confessed his disinclination to arrest Abby Stoddard. Nobody really believed she was guilty, but based on the evidence available, although admittedly it was circumstantial, they had had to charge her. I figured that he would be glad enough to have a new source of information that he might not examine how we had come by, or even known about, the diaries too closely. Couldn’t hurt, might help, was how I looked at it.
After downing two mugs of coffee, I headed for the shower and cranked the adjustable flow to maximum pressure, hoping for semi-alertness before I left the house. I stood under the stinging spray with my eyes shut and tried to put Armando’s behavior of the previous evening into perspective. Maybe he had still been angry with me for standing him up. Perhaps he had had a bad day. It was possible that his grown daughter had telephoned, and they had gotten into one of their wrangles. Nah, I decided. None of the above could possibly explain his highhandedness with the water district worker, and even if he could explain it, I couldn’t excuse it. For a man who prided himself on unfailing courtesy to one and all, he had exhibited unforgivable arrogance. This time, he could pout until hell froze over, and I would count myself lucky to have escaped spending the evening with him.
The ten minutes I spent in the hot shower didn’t improve either my mood or the weather, so I fluffed my short hair under the blow dryer, swiped on mascara and lipstick, and threw on a flowing tunic and pants in a subdued shade of taupe. At 5:30 as the sky was beginning to lighten, I grabbed my briefcase and the tote bag and headed for the door to the garage. Now that their bellies were full, Simon and Jasmine had no interest in my comings and goings and snored contentedly at the end of the couch in the living room, the one area of the house in which the furniture was forbidden to them. I didn’t even pause to admonish them. If I chased them off, they would return two minutes after I left the house, I knew, and I limited my battles with them to the ones I had some chance of winning.
For the benefit of anyone who might be keeping tabs on me, despite the ungodly hour, I raised the garage door and made a show of walking around to the Altima’s trunk, unlatching it, and stowing the bag of books. As I backed out of the driveway, I looked at the wreckage of my neighbor’s lawn. The street and storm drains had been cleared of most of the debris, but that yard would have to be completely resodded. I felt eyes upon me, or perhaps I only imagined it, and took a quick look around me. I could see no one else up and about, but at The Birches, that didn’t mean I wasn’t being watched. I knew from long experience that there were many in the condo community whose primary recreation was monitoring the activities of their neighbors from behind concealing drapes and shades. In this instance, I welcomed their nosiness. I wanted everyone possible to know about my trip to the police station and the volumes I intended to leave there.
Slowly, I drove the length of the private access road and turned left onto Prospect Street. I would follow that a couple of miles, then turn left again onto Maple, then the Silas Deane Highway. From there it was a straight shot of perhaps two more miles to the new police station.
The streets were all but deserted as I headed down Prospect, made the turn onto Maple, and approached the Silas Deane Highway. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and what few vehicles there were on the road were using headlights. In fact, the black Trans Am behind me had his high beams on, which glared annoyingly in my rearview mirror. Too much car for his brain, obviously. I pushed the mirror to one side until I lost the fool, just barely resisting the urge to make an obscene gesture. I started around the curve that lead down to the Deane, signaling to make a left there, but the Trans Am abruptly pulled out from behind me and came up alongside me on the left, preventing me from moving into that lane. What a jackass! First he blinds me with his high beams, then he changes lanes and blocks my turn. I directed a scathing glare to my left but was unable to judge its effect, since the windows of the offending vehicle were too heavily tinted for me to see through.
Impatiently, I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the light to change so the Trans Am would make his turn and I could make mine. The only other vehicle in sight was an eighteen-wheeler bearing the Stop & Shop Supermarket logo. It was approaching the intersection from the right, probably heading out after making a night delivery at the Rocky Hill store. The driver slowed and downshifted for the turn, then cranked hard right onto Route 3 straight ahead of me, which would lead him over the Putnam Bridge to Glastonbury. Watching the trucker, I suddenly missed Joey and wondered what highway he was negotiating right now, or was he sleeping in the snug bunk behind the seats of his rig’s cab?
At long last the light changed, and I waited for the Trans Am to get out of my way, but it didn’t move. This guy was some je
rk. I tooted my horn briefly and made “get moving” circles in the air with my finger, but the car didn’t budge. Disgusted, I took my foot off the brake and gave the Altima some gas to move ahead of and around the Trans Am to make my turn, but the black car jumped to life and kept pace with me, forcing me to cross the Silas Deane instead of turning left. This guy was drunk or crazy or both, I decided. The Stop & Shop tractor-trailer lumbered along in the right hand lane, picking up speed as he moved through the gears. As I slid past the truck, the Trans Am fell in behind me, and my annoyance turned to anger. I needed to lose this jerk, and then I had to find a place to turn around so I could head back to the Deane and be on my way.
I straightened my rearview mirror and was shocked at how closely he was following me. Instead of being blinded by his headlights, I couldn’t even see them, just the black hood and tinted windshield. My hands tightened on the wheel, and the back of my neck prickled atavistically as it dawned on me that this wasn’t just some yahoo playing road games with a stranger. This was deliberate. Whoever was driving the Trans Am had targeted me, and his intentions weren’t good. My heart began to pound. I could never hope to outrun him, so I took the only defensive action I could devise on the fly. I cleared the truck’s front bumper and, praying that the driver was paying attention, wrenched my wheel to the right to slide into his lane right in front of him. Predictably, the driver hit the air horn. I couldn’t blame him, but I had bigger trouble than a pissed-off trucker right now. I was careful to maintain enough speed so that the truck didn’t have to brake, but I needed his rig as a barrier behind me. To appease him a little and to let him know I was in trouble, I hit the hazard lights button on the dash and pointed frantically at the driver on my left. Maybe the trucker would call the state police. In the meantime, whatever the driver of the black car had in mind, surely he wouldn’t be stupid enough to take on an eighteen-wheeler.
Frustrated, the Trans Am kept pace on my left as the three vehicles crossed the two-lane bridge over the Connecticut River. I didn’t know what the trucker could be thinking, but my mind worked feverishly, trying to remember the sequence of exits ahead. Then I hit on what would have to pass for a plan. As we came off the bridge, I accelerated, catching the Trans Am by surprise, and for a moment, he was nearly parallel with the semi. The Main Street-Glastonbury exit came up on the right, and I tore onto it at breakneck speed, hoping I had timed it right and the big rig would block my pursuer from following me onto the ramp. I fought to keep control of the Altima as my own brakes locked and I slid, more than drove, into the intersection at the bottom of the ramp. Above me on the deserted highway, the Trans Am roared into reverse, then plunged down the ramp after me. Damn.
I was grateful that traffic was almost nonexistent as I yanked the car left onto Glastonbury Boulevard and floored it for Main Street, for once in my life praying that a cop would spot me. At the intersection ahead I could see a few cars moving along Main Street. My hands ached as I clung desperately to the wheel. I dragged it hard right and careened through the intersection, tires screaming, without lifting my foot from the accelerator.
Miraculously, I didn’t hit anyone. Behind me, I heard the Trans Am scream around the corner, followed by the clash of metal on metal. He had hit something, but apparently, it wasn’t enough to slow him down. I flew on down Main Street, hoping against hope that I remembered the location of the Glastonbury Police Department correctly. It was a town I seldom visited other than to shop in its bookstores and malls. I leaned on the Altima’s horn and blared through the red light at the New London Turnpike, the Trans Am gaining on me, then blew through the four-way stop at Hebron Avenue, still honking wildly. Please, please let it be where I think it is, I prayed.
And then I saw it, the white wooden sign on my left and the two-story red brick building behind it. Two patrol cars were parked at the left of the long driveway, but no officers were in sight as the Altima screamed through a hard left turn but missed the driveway. A young officer emerged from a side entrance and stared in amazement as the car churned across the front lawn of the station, spitting chunks of sod behind the rear wheels. It came to rest on the pavement with its bumper barely a foot from the cruisers, for which I was insanely grateful.
Behind me, the Trans Am fared no better. Attempting to follow me into the hard left turn, the driver had missed badly, actually striking the wooden pole holding the sign for the Police Department before screaming to a stop against a pine tree. At that point, confronted by the young officer who was now speaking rapidly into a radio, the driver must have realized where I had led him. The big motor idled for only seconds before roaring into reverse at full throttle, and the car shot backwards into Main Street. As the officer approached my car, gun drawn, two of his colleagues sprang from the police station entrance and leaped into the nearest cruiser. Siren wailing, they tore after the Trans Am. Officer number one approached the Altima cautiously, gun at the ready. He bent down and motioned for me to lower my window, and I fumbled at the buttons on the door panel until the glass went down.
“What’s going on?” he demanded. Despite his steely eyes, I couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t look old enough to carry a gun. For some reason this struck me as hilarious. I sat bolt upright, both hands visible on the steering wheel, and laughed and laughed until I cried.
Once my bout of hysteria had passed, Officer Petrillo could not have been nicer to me if I had been his own mother. He quickly relayed the information I gave him to his colleagues in pursuit of the Trans Am and then helped me out of the car and into the police station. The dispatcher relayed word of a 911 call made by the Stop & Shop trucker about a woman in an Altima who was being pursued by a black Trans Am. There had been another call from a local octogenarian whose sedan had been sideswiped near the highway entrance by a fishtailing black car, make and model unknown. The old gent had been heading out early to beat the traffic and was very shaken up by the incident. I knew exactly how he felt. And then, of course, there was the eyewitness report of Officer Petrillo, who had watched me and my tormenter arrive across the front lawn of the station. I wondered how much I was going to owe the Town of Glastonbury for the sod and the sign, although technically speaking, the sign hadn’t been my fault.
After settling me in an interview room with a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee, Officer Petrillo asked me to write out my statement in longhand, a procedure with which I was becoming dismayingly familiar. I limited my comments to the events of the morning, making no reference to the Wethersfield homicide investigation. Although I felt strongly that the two things were connected, I couldn’t say so for certain, so why get into it? I said simply that for reasons known only to the other driver, whose face I was unable to see because of the heavily tinted windows on the Trans Am, I had been harassed and chased as witnessed by the Stop & Shop trucker and the other motorists I had narrowly avoided hitting. So far, the Trans Am had eluded the pursuing officers, but based on the information provided by the observant, however rattled, truck driver, an APB was being issued as we spoke. I had every confidence that the driver would soon be apprehended, and after that, we’d see where we were.
When Officer Petrillo asked where I had been headed at that hour of the morning, I’d said only that I was headed for my place of business to get a jump on the day. Except for one final turn, the route I had planned to take to the police station was identical to the one I took every morning to MACK Realty.
Presently, the officer excused himself to deliver my statement to a clerical person, who would transcribe it for my review and signature, and to check on my car. I was content to sip my coffee and stare blankly at the wall during his absence. When he returned, he reported that the Altima had been parked properly at the side of the driveway and seemed to be just fine. Not even a tire had been blown, although I’d probably want to have someone look them over more thoroughly when I had a chance. Nobody mentioned the tote bag full of mystery novels, so I assumed the trunk hadn’t been opened. Even if it had been searched, suc
h reading material would be considered entirely suitable for a single lady of my age, I was sure.
After perhaps twenty minutes, Officer Petrillo placed a computer print-out of my statement on the table in front of me. I read it and signed it. In response to his question, I assured him that I felt able to drive. He promised to keep me informed on the progress of their investigation and ushered me out the side entrance I had entered just an hour before. The Altima waited placidly in a visitor parking space. Except for muddy tires, it looked exactly as it always did.
I started to think that perhaps the events of the morning had all been a bad dream, but one look at the ruined lawn snapped me back to reality. When I put them on the wheel, my hands felt bruised and tender. I flipped down the visor and was surprised to see how normal my face looked in the mirror. I had chewed off my lipstick, but there was nothing unusual about that. The tremble in my fingers, as I attempted to reapply it, was the only vestige of my harrowing experience. I looked at my watch and was shocked to see that it was only 7:30. It felt as if a week had passed since I stood in my kitchen drinking coffee, but despite the complicated events of the morning so far, I wouldn’t even be late to work.
I drove sedately over the bridge back to Wethersfield, happy to remain within the speed limit, and considered my options. I couldn’t prove it, but every instinct told me that my stalker had been attempting to force me off the road this morning in order to get his hands on the diaries in my trunk. That meant he had to have watched me leave The Birches. Joey and I had read only two of the four volumes so far, and despite our doubts, it was certainly possible that something incriminating remained to be discovered. Presumably, the driver of the Trans Am thought so and had trashed the Wheeler house for the same reason. Otherwise, more than one violent thug was after Harriett’s scribbling, and that seemed extremely unlikely.
