by Nick Pirog
I looked at Conner’s tattoo, his bulging muscular body, his almost buzzed blond hair, his revered blue eyes, and his fairy tale wanger. Then I looked up at Caleb and said, “The game isn’t over. It’s just begun.”
I explained everything to Caleb on the way to the Verona Rowing Club. He shook his head in disbelief. Hell, I almost couldn’t believe it. But it all fit. The puzzle was complete.
There was quite a scene at the Verona Rowing Club and I had to find one of Caitlin’s higher ranking men before Caleb and I were let through the masses to the crime scene. The weather had gone from bad to worse and the day seemed three hours ahead of schedule. The wind was howling in from the ocean and the small waves were running up onto the deck near the lockers. I stood near the cordoned off locker and faced out to sea.
I’d yet to disclose one facet to Caleb and forged the last wrinkle in our little shit pot, “Tristen and Conner were working together on this, so I think it’s safe to say they’d worked out a plan from day one. I’d gone rowing with Conner the day before the first murder. We’d chatted it up about what we would do to Alex Tooms if we ever got our hands on him. Of course, I thought it was a him; Conner must have known Alex was a woman, and always referred to her simply as Tooms. Conner said he would take Tooms to an island where he would make Tooms rewrite the book. He said he would torture and starve Tooms until Tooms wrote the truth.”
Caleb added the gloss, “The eyes in the locker weren’t looking at you, they were seeing the next murder site. They were seeing the island.”
I placed it in the kiln, “Tristen has Alex, Caitlin, and Lacy on Matinicus Island.”
Chapter 57
The rain whipped against the windshield and my wipers fought a losing battle. It was ten after seven when Caleb and I pulled into the muddy Bayside Harbor parking lot. There were only two other cars, a by-product of the seven to ten foot swells smashing against the harbor pier.
Caleb ran to the Backstern and I ducked headlong into the wind towards the manager’s hut. I pushed through the door and evidentially Kellon’s deadbeat dad thought I was there to kill him. He had on a yellow slicker and shot his hands up in the air. Imagine a high school referee signaling a field goal in a typhoon, that’s what he looked like.
The deadbeat screamed, “Don’t shoot.”
I shoved my .45 in my waistband and said, “I’m not here to kill you. I need your help.”
DBD slowly put his arms down and started breathing again. I said, “This concerns your daughter’s killer. He’s on Matinicus Island and I need to get there so I can kill him.”
DBD nodded like this was a run-of-the-mill demand at the Bayside Harbor manager hut. He grabbed a map off the wall and laid it on the counter. Smoothing it out, he said, “We’re here. Matinicus Island is thirty miles directly south. It’s pretty small, it’s going to be a shot in the dark finding it in this weather.”
I asked, “How long by boat?”
“Two hours in a good sea, four in this storm. I just got off the radio with the coast guard, says it’s even worse the farther you get out. Tropical Storm Fernando or something.”
Speaking of the Coast Guard, I wish I had my FBI sidekicks to pull some strings. Unfortunately, the only strings Gleason and Gregory would be pulling would be on their Welcome to Heaven harps. I could get Charles Mangrove on the phone and see what he could do, but I had a feeling when all the strings had been pulled, the sand in the hourglass would be glass itself.
Kellon’s dad must have seen I was contemplating the odds of a Tropical Storm Prescott and walked to a wall safe. He had his back to me for twenty seconds and then turned around with a pair of keys dangling from his fingertips. His eyes were moist and he said, “This boat should get you there in under three hours, it has GPS so you won’t be able to miss Matinicus. Doesn’t seem right for me to hang onto the boat now that she’s dead.”
I took the keys from him and asked him which slot the boat was parked. He said he’d show me, then disappeared into a backroom, emerging seconds later with a double-barrel shotgun. For a moment I thought he might be coming with, but after he loaded the gun he slammed five extra shells into my hand and said, “Put one in him for me.”
Caleb and I were in the big Formula 500 speedboat getting a crash course, which was fitting, from Kellon’s father. On a side note, the three-hundred-sixty horsepower vessel was named The Kellon. That is when Kellon’s deadbeat dad became Frank, Kellon’s father.
The crash course lasted a little under three minutes, whereby Frank programmed the exact coordinates for Matinicus Island into the GPS console. I shook Frank’s hand and promised to inflict as much pain as possible on his daughter’s killer before I released him to the fiery pits of hell.
I eased the throttle forward, the rudder caught, and we began overtaking the crashing waves. The GPS computer read a distance of thirty-two miles, and at an estimated speed of thirty knots, that would put us at Matinicus Island at approximately 9:30 P.M.
An hour into the trip, Caleb and I were soaked with seawater down to our drawers. There were three or four times the boat would have flipped had it not been for the added weight of the water, which was coming in faster than the bilge could pump it out.
Caleb retreated to the small cabin and came up with two life preservers. These particular life preservers were made of a space-age aluminum, and the only life they preserved were those of the hop and the barley. I cracked open the can of Pig’s Eye and had never tasted anything so abhorrently satisfying. It appeared as though Frank was not a connoisseur of fine beer.
Caleb took the helm and I went in search of some actual life preservers. I found them under a cushioned seat and both Caleb and I began strapping on the bright orange vests. As I was pulling the life vest on, I stifled a laugh. What was I doing? If I didn’t make it to the island and fell at the hands of the Atlantic, then so be it. I’d read the script, and it was simple; either Tristen Grayer or Thomas Prescott was penciled in to die on this night. Tonight’s fate was not unforeseen.
Caleb had apparently drawn on the same conclusions and the both of us tossed the life jackets over the side of the boat. Drowning was supposedly the Queen of Spades in the deck of death, and I had the ingenious idea to tie the shotgun to my ankle using fishing line. I had the image of trying to pull the trigger on the shotgun with my big toe while attempting not to drown. I thought about the irony while finishing off my Pig’s Eye.
If it wasn’t for the GPS satellite, there would be no telling which direction the boat was headed. All manual operation had concluded when I’d pushed the throttle to full bore seconds after we’d escaped the harbor walls. The navigation screen began to beep loudly and Caleb informed me it was the five mile alert. I checked my watch, it was 9:13 P.M.
The ocean raged for the next ten minutes and I thought for certain we’d high-sided on several different occasions. But each time we went up, we eventually came down.
By 9:35 P.M. I still hadn’t seen a speck of land.
Caleb grabbed my arm and yelled, “The current is changing.”
He was right, it appeared we were now riding over the top of the waves, rather than running up them. Caleb stuck his arm out and screamed, “Look out.”
In hindsight, I’d assume he was pointing to the small rock bed thirty yards in front of us, not the island looming in the distance.
I yanked the wheel hard to the right, but it wasn’t nearly in time, and the Formula 500 hit the rock formation hard. For an instant I thought I’d hit the rocks, but I was wet, salty, and hypothermic, which is consistent with a mid-Atlantic drowning.
I kept my head above water and craned my neck for any sign of Caleb. I screamed his name a couple times, but the howling wind, and raging seas, made for a futile effort. My eyes and ears might have well been painted on. I was engulfed in blackness. I couldn’t help but think, this blackness, this was Lacy’s life. I was enraged by the thought. Lacy would die before she would again see the beauty of this world.
I turned
over on my back. Not if I could help it.
Chapter 58
At first I thought a great white had attacked me. It took me a moment to register the bites were at the hands of a jagged rock shore. I smashed against the rocks three times before I was able to grip a stationary rock and heave myself from the surf. I tried not to think about Caleb, but I subconsciously clicked the death toll from seven to eight.
The faceplate on the Tag Heuer was shattered, but it appeared to be functioning. It showed 9:52 P.M. I’d been in the water for exactly fifteen minutes. Funny, I’d done the same thing one year ago, almost to the minute. Of course, after my swim last year, I’d taken a four-hundred and eighty-three hour nap. Tonight would not be the case. I was probably borderline hypothermic and my moving was the only thing that would save my life, not to mention, Alex, Caitlin, and Lacy’s.
I took a step up the black rock, my right leg snagged, and I heard a definitive metallic clank. The shotgun. The fishing line had somehow held throughout the ordeal.
Was I smart shit, or what?
I pulled on the fishing line and the shotgun emerged from behind a large rock. I had two shots at glory. I would have to be perfect.
The island was less than a mile at its widest and its longest. According to Frank, there was an unmanned lighthouse and abandoned living quarters on the northeastern tip.
I quickly shed all my clothes, keeping only my boxer briefs and shoes. My extremities were starting to get feeling back and the pins and needles had started. If it hadn’t been pitch black, I might not have noticed the faintest change in blackness at the far right edge of the island. I held the shotgun to my chest like I was a minuteman in the Revolution and did the steeplechase until I was a hundred or so yards from a dilapidated lighthouse. The lighthouse was simply a concrete column sitting on a large concrete foundation. Picture an old man with glasses taking the last shit of his life, that’s what the lighthouse looked like.
There was a small cottage, which I deduced was the lighthouse quarters, less than thirty feet from the lighthouse. It was safe to assume no one had slept a night in the windswept structure in more than twenty years. This was not a homey bungalow; this was a could-fall-over-in-a-heap-of-dust-at-any-second carriage house.
There were two small windows on the western edge, of which a slight glow emancipated into the darkness. I didn’t want to risk being overheard and found my way back to the water’s edge. It took me a little over a minute to navigate the short distance to the base of the lighthouse. The lighthouse door was breathing in the wind and I slipped in the narrow, musty staircase between exhales. A flaxen glow from the light above seeped through the many cracks in the cylindrical concrete stairwell.
I twisted up the stairs and sidestepped into the small chamber. A large form blocked the light against a far wall, and I could tell by the shadow it cast it was a body. As I neared, I noticed the dark chocolate hair carried auburn highlights under the red glow.
I ambled toward Alex. Her naked body began squirming, the metallic cuffs around her wrists slinking through the glistening steel railing. With the duct tape over her eyes, she reasonably mistook my footsteps for Tristen Grayer’s. I gingerly pulled the tape from her eyes and covered her mouth. Her scream heated my palm, and I whispered in her trembling ear, “It’s me, everything will be okay.”
It would take ten minutes for her eyes to adjust but she relaxed at the sound of my voice. She whimpered, “Get me out of here.”
I couldn’t waste a bullet on the handcuffs. I had no choice but to leave Alex’s side and come back for her later. My gut, right down near my gallbladder, told me that she wasn’t in danger. At least not the immediate peril that faced Caitlin and Lacy.
I checked my watch, 10:01 P.M. I had nine minutes.
I kissed Alex on the lips softly and promised her I’d be back for her. I could hear her faint whimpering as I quickly descended the lighthouse steps and slipped past the inhaling door.
Chapter 59
I sprinted the thirty feet to the back corner of the guest quarters in a low crouch. I pressed up against the soft wood, a billowing paint chip brushing against my cheek. The red paint was weather beaten, the flailing chips trying feverishly to catch a nor’easter and drown their sorrows in the Atlantic.
There was light rustling behind me and I whipped around. Nothing. It was the lighthouse door changing rhythm in the wind. I took five or six deep breaths, then edged around to the west wall, my back continuously in contact with the tender siding.
I came to the first of two windows and peeked inside. My eyes had adjusted, my pupils surely the size of a buffalo nickel, and I could make out the shadow of an old toilet and a small sink, chipped, drooping, and breathing asthmatically through rusted pipes. There were two doors. One appeared to open to a small closet, the other serving to separate the small outhouse from the main quarters. From this door, I caught the residue of flickering flames cascading through a hole where a doorknob once rested.
The window was once a four-pane and only the wooden cross and one pane remained. I reached my arm through the frame and pushed hard on the glass with my open palm. The glass bent slightly and popped from beneath the wood’s edge.
I pulled the piece of glass out and silently laid it on the rocky earth. Now for the window’s skeleton. The horizontal piece was only connected peripherally through its vertical better half and slipped off without much fray. The vertical piece ran up into the frame of the window and would be more of a hassle. If I had an hour to kill and my Boy Scout survival knife, I may have been able to remove the twenty-four inch casing without a peep. Unfortunately, I would have to peep. The key would be to peep at the right moment.
It would have been easier to push than to pull, but if I pushed, I risked dropping the casing inside. I dug my right knee into the softness of the beaten timber and grasped the casing with both hands. The door of the lighthouse was banking viciously in the foreground and I started moving my body slowly with the rhythm. Whip, whip, clack. Forward, forward, back. Whip, whip, clack. Forward, forward, back. Whip, whip, cla—
I pulled with all the strength I could muster and I thought I felt the entire structure move, when snap.
Even with my front row seat I was unable to hear the wood splinter beneath the door’s cry. I leaned the shotgun against the outer wall where I could reach it from inside, pulled my shoes off, and bellied up to the window. My plan was to go in hands first, then use my leverage to crawl down the inner wall with my feet. I checked my watch. Seven minutes.
I had the strange feeling Tristen was on the other side of the door doing precisely the same thing.
I wiggled my torso through the window and leaned forward until my hands pet the dusty floor. Pushing hard backward against the inner wall I used my feet to climb down. Then as soon as I’d begun, I was lying on the mold riddled floor staring under the tiny crack separating the rooms.
I cocked my head. In the silence I thought I could hear Alex’s hushed whimper resonating from the lighthouse chamber. Then I heard a fingernail bend, a knuckle crack, the door scratch its head, carbon dioxide levels rise. Then blackness.
Chapter 60
I blinked my eyes and stood up gingerly. Standing made me nauseous and I threw up, which is when I noticed my hands were handcuffed behind a steel pipe running from the ground to the ceiling, one of the guest quarter’s hurricane poles.
A voice ingrained in my nightmares resounded from behind me, “Relax, I hit you with the handle. You’ll live. For another few minutes at least.”
I took a step around the pole and saw leaning against a four-foot ax, his hell orange eyes shimmering in the candlelight, Tristen Grayer. To the right of me standing naked, duct tape over her eyes and mouth, attached to a second pole, was Caitlin. She mumbled something, and thrashed about, before succumbing to her tangible restraints.
I canvassed the room for any sign of Lacy. Tristen took heed of this and said, “Looking for your whore sister?”
I didn’t answer an
d Tristen took a couple paces towards me. He said apathetically, “She’s dead. You would have been proud though, Thomas. She took a blind dive into the Atlantic about five miles out. But I have you in her stead. I wanted to keep you around for next year, but it appears I’ll have to find a new victim after all.”
All the will I had left to live seemed to drain from my body. My brain and heart ceased activity, as if they’d both sent conscripts to the other about surrendering. I wanted one answer before I died and asked, “Tell me about Conner.”
Tristen smiled. “Oh, Conner. Shame about him wasn’t it. And him saving my life and all.”
“He what?”
“Last year when the two of us, you and I, plummeted over the cliff. Conner was the one who dragged me from the surf. I told him about this island and he took me here. He kept me much like you are now. He would come by a couple times a week to give me food and water, eventually we got to talking, and I even started considering him a friend.”
I mentally gagged at the idea of Tristen and Conner as friends. Tristen did a circle around Caitlin and I noticed his laggard left leg drag on the earthy floor. He continued, “Then one day about a month ago, Conner tells me he has this idea, a game. He wants me to help him get his revenge against you, Thomas Prescott, for reaping his benefits. Can you believe my luck? He said he didn’t have it in him to rape and kill, and that I would be his tool.”
I interrupted him, “Then why did you kill him?”
