Open Water

by Maria Flook

“Oh, yeah? How would you know?” She had lost her temper. “Right about now I’m thinking of calling a lawyer. This is starting to smell like that Clarence Thomas thing.”

  The detective didn’t have a point of reference. He wrote the name on his notes, then crossed it off when he finally remembered. For the fourth time, the detective asked her to describe the morning she had set fire to her husband’s bed. The questions seemed to shift from one alleged crime to the other. Yes, she had started that earlier fire in Jensen’s apartment.

  That’s the one they wanted to hear about.

  When she started her narration, the circle of officers leaned back, ready to enjoy the familiar details she offered. Smiles wormed over their faces. Detective Downey asked her if she wanted to burn other items belonging to her lovers. Did she want to burn clothing? Playboy magazines? Did she ever want to set fire to an automobile or any other high-ticket item?

  Holly clamped her mouth shut. Yes. She saw them all: Detective Downey in his cheap wool suit, stretched at the knees and elbows, baggy as a camel, the officers in dark blue uniforms, her probation officer in Liz Claiborne separates from a Cranston discount outlet. Holly imagined all of them turned to char, like the creosote victims of Pompeii, entombed figures standing around the stationhouse holding quart-size coffees.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The nor’easter was churning inland; dense veils of moisture advanced on the horizon like heavy green army blankets moving across on a clothesline pulley. When Willis drove into Easton Way, Holly ran out to greet him. He crammed the brake. Fritz banged into the dash. Willis turned to his friend. “Shit. You okay? I’m sorry.”

  Fritz rubbed his shoulder where it had slammed the dashboard. Holly yanked the door open and wriggled into Willis’s arms.

  Willis said, “They let you go?”

  “For now.”

  “You’re off the hook?”

  “I don’t know. Those assholes. I’m suing for harassment. They had me there for three hours. That extra hour will cost them.”

  “They didn’t bring charges?”

  “Of course they couldn’t bring charges. I didn’t start that fire.” She glared at Willis, then melted against him again.

  He patted her. “Shit, I thought you were in a big mix-up.”

  “Turns out, it was a heat gun. Painters were stripping the clapboards with a heat gun and that old linseed paint caught. It smoldered until long after quitting time.”

  “A heat gun?”

  “You know, an acetylene torch. So what do they do? They bring me in. For a chat. They can’t forget about me. I’m getting a lawyer.”

  Fritz pushed her shoulder. “Did you know Willis almost took a blind date with an eye doctor to buy your walking papers?”

  Holly said, “Excuse me?” She put her face in front of Fritz. “I’m out of there without papers, aren’t I? So, what’s it to you?”

  “You just aren’t worth all this trouble,” Fritz said.

  “Shut up,” Willis told Fritz. “It’s not anybody’s fault.” He smiled back and forth, trying to lasso them in. “I couldn’t have done it with Showalter anyway.”

  “That’s right, the trouser snake is hibernating,” Fritz said.

  Holly said, “Willis, what if I was in jail and needed that cash? You wouldn’t do it with that guy? Even for me?”

  Willis looked between Fritz and Holly, stunned by their duet. He had not seen it coming. He walked into the house. His skin was flushed. It prickled in inextinguishable blotches. It was his junkie itch. Next, his headache drilled his forehead like a nailgun. He had a long evening ahead, getting Rennie wouldn’t be a walk in the park.

  He went upstairs to his bedroom but his drugs were missing. He had finally depleted his supply. He went into the bathroom. His spine felt cold and achy. He found a tower of little color-coded boxes behind the old beach towels in the linen closet. Rennie had made a run to the CVS two weeks prior to her weak spell. Green boxes were twenty milligrams. Willis felt immediately grateful for Rennie’s foresight. Each individual box had foil cards with twelve suppositories. He made a quick addition in his head, but the math seemed too difficult in his frazzled condition. He tried again. He made an exact calculation. Two hundred and forty footballs.

  He took a carton and peeled off its cellophane seal like a shoelace of red licorice. He inserted a deuce. Two was maintenance, three still took him off. He didn’t want to cloud up when he had serious planning to do. On the other hand, he was shaky and wired; he figured he might as well tuck a third.

  Holly came up to him as he was buttoning his pants with one hand. She grabbed the waistband of his jeans and pressed the rivet through its hole. She kissed his lips, which tasted slightly salty.

  “Cold cuts,” he told her.

  “Cold cuts?”

  “I went through a chow line at the mini-book society.”

  Holly tried to follow him. “Mini-book? Hey, do you know anything about some little books? I found one of those little books this morning on my kitchen table. Did you put it there?”

  Willis was walking down the stairs.

  “Well, did you put it there? Willis, I’m asking a question—did you put it there?”

  Fritz was at the landing. “If you can’t tell where he puts it, you’re in trouble, girl.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” she told him.

  Willis was in the parlor. Munro’s teacup was still where it was.

  A piece of Fleet Bank stationery was secured to the sideboard. It was a letter from Munro scratched out in black ballpoint.

  WILLIS—

  OUR MOTHER IS VERY SICK. DON’T DISTURB HER FINAL DAYS ON EARTH. I’VE CHECKED THE PLATES ON THAT TRUCK, IT’S STOLEN, YOU KNOW THAT. I KNOW THAT. NEXT TIME, BETTER GET MAACO.

  Willis held the sheet of paper by one corner and walked into the kitchen. “Look at this,” he mocked. “I’m scared.”

  Holly had a circle of linguica sausage frying. Its spicy scent overtook the empty house. It didn’t feel right to have Holly at the stove instead of Rennie and he tried not to let it bother him.

  “I’m not hungry for that tube steak,” he told her. “We ate a lot of free food an hour ago.”

  “You can’t eat this?”

  “Can’t,” he told her.

  “Oh, nice.”

  “You have it,” he told her.

  Holly looked at the fat rope of sausage in the black cast-iron pan. She hated to ask Fritz, but she turned around. “Ichabod, do you want some of this?”

  “No sale,” Fritz said.

  Holly stabbed the meat with a fork and took it over to the enamel waste can. She pressed the lever with her toe and dropped the greasy coil in the garbage.

  Willis said, “Okay, this is what we do. I go over to Château-sur-Mer and get Rennie checked out nice and easy, just like she’s leaving Motel Six. We might even steal a couple towels.”

  “What do I do?” Fritz said.

  “Wait, I’m telling you. First, before I get my girl, we drive the truck over to Easton Pond and roll it in.”

  Fritz wedged his fingertips in his tight jean pockets. “What is this now?”

  “You know where we ditched those Metric King surprises? We drive the truck into Easton Pond same way.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just drive it in as far as you can, it will fall off that shelf, I think.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “We’ll wipe it down with Amour All, get our dabs off the upholstery.”

  “I’d rather drive it over to my sister’s, keep it on her carport. That’s as crazy as I get.”

  “Listen, Munro is sitting back, licking his lips. I can’t live with that.”

  Fritz said, “Try to live with it.”

  “Can’t.”

  “We steal it. We paint it. We sink it? That’s enough to fill up the whole blotter.”

  Holly said, “He’s right. These last days are crazy. I can see the police log tomorrow morning. The whole left-hand column dedic
ated to us.”

  Fritz turned around to Willis. “I guess I have to tell you. Gene didn’t report the truck. He never called it in.”

  Willis said, “It’s not stolen? Munro thinks different.”

  “Munro’s a bull artist.”

  “Are you saying Showalter’s letting you off?”

  Holly ran the tap and took a drink of water.

  Willis tried to sort it out. How many charades were happening at once?

  Holly said, “Well, they’re still eyeballing me.”

  Fritz said, “You love it.”

  Holly said, “Dr. Kline says they have to come up with a probable-cause hearing or drop the whole thing. They know it was a heat gun, but they love the story about me and Jensen. They’re sickos!”

  Fritz eyed her. His look implied that maybe it was her, maybe she had some of her pages stuck together.

  “What are you staring at, Ichabod?” she said.

  “Excuse me, Miss Ho-ly Temple,” Fritz said.

  Willis ignored it. “I don’t want the truck here. When Rennie gets back, everything has to be square.”

  “Square? Everything’s warped,” Holly said.

  “Man himself invented the wheel,” Fritz said.

  Willis pulled the palm of his hand down his face. He said, “Look, we weight the van, and it will roll right into the drink. It can stay there a few days until someone decides to find it. By then, Rennie’s in heaven.”

  They looked at Willis.

  “Shit. I know it’s happening. She’s suffering. I don’t have any control over it. It’s her jumping-off point that has to be secured.” Willis was already walking out the door. The rain was running through its list of options: a coy smattering, then a mist, then an impatient torrent, then again, a mist. The wind was roaring northeast and the halyard on the flagpole was pinging. He went into the shack and lifted Rennie’s old kiln with a great bit of difficulty. He immediately dropped it, jumping back so it wouldn’t get his boot. Fritz helped him lift the heavy stone-lined oven and they shoved it into the truck. Willis didn’t think that the kiln alone was going to do it. He went into the house and dialed Carl Smith. Willis reached Carl on his rusty tub, the Tercel.

  Willis said, “You know those barrels sitting out back at the Cranston Warehouse? The ones from Balfour? Those ones we stabilized with that concrete slurry mix? I need a couple of those.”

  “Those are regulated.”

  “Shit, those’ve been sitting there forgot-about for weeks.”

  “You need them? For what?”

  “Just do.”

  “It’s Saturday. Now, why do I want to come off my boat and go to work?”

  “I have to have a couple of those barrels, tonight,” Willis said directly.

  “Need paperwork for that. You have your paperwork?”

  “I have it.”

  “What paperwork exactly?”

  “The long green kind,” Willis said. “Winter kale.” Willis enjoyed bringing Rennie’s soup into it.

  Carl Smith was chuckling. “That sounds right. Just why in the hell you want those barrels?”

  “I need them over here. For a demonstration.”

  “That’s a rope of sand,” Carl told him.

  “All right, you think of something on your own.”

  “Kale rhymes with jail,” Carl said. He clucked his tongue. “I’ll haul them for a buck and a half. Why not make that two bucks and some of those little footballs. I guess you have extra of those?”

  Willis wrote three figures on a pad by the phone and showed it to Fritz. Fritz nodded that he had that much cash.

  Willis confirmed the damage and concluded the ritual with Carl. Carl clicked off.

  Fritz was staring at Willis, impressed. They walked outside and took the car to Easton Pond. They drove over the grasses a couple times, back and forth, to test the surface and squash the weeds down a little so they could roll the truck through at twenty miles an hour; that was their plan. What they couldn’t achieve by their wits and know-how they could achieve with a little acceleration. A flat speed of twenty or twenty-five miles an hour.

  The little pram was still hidden behind the weeds, but Willis noticed some fishing gear and crumpled juice packs in the bow. “You been fishing?” he asked Fritz.

  Fritz shook his head.

  “Kiddies found the Crouton.”

  Fritz said, “Shit. This is my boat. This isn’t a childcraft moppet liner.” He crouched over the dinghy and collected the sticky juice containers, tossing them over his shoulder.

  While the men were gone, Holly went back into the kitchen and pressed the lever on the waste can with her toe. She lifted the sausage out. She slapped it on a plate and sliced the meat into individual bites, bright greasy pennies which she ate with her fingers.

  The light was going. The wind was stirring the empty branches until the treetops rolled in tight circles like wire whisks. Carl Smith steered into the drive in his pickup truck. Willis had expected to see the big Narragansett WASTEC trailer, but of course this was a private job, something between him and Carl Smith. They discussed business sitting side by side in the pickup cab. Willis gave him the cash and a twist-tie bag of Rennie’s morphine. Fritz lurked around in the driveway, looking jealous of their height over him. They brought him inside the cab to share a toot of crack. Fritz accepted, rubbing Carl’s lip prints from the stem before he took his turn.

  Then Carl backed his truck into the doorway of the shack and used his block and tackle to lower the concrete barrels into the back of the InstyPrint van. When the first concrete cylinder went in, the van sank on its haunches and didn’t bounce back; the second slurry was a greater insult. The tailgate sagged and wobbled on its suspension until it steadied above the floor’s surface by only a few inches.

  Carl Smith was shaking his head and laughing at the InstyPrint truck. “Looks like a tar baby,” he said.

  “That’s what it is,” Willis said. “Our very own tar baby.”

  Carl wanted to use the telephone and Willis said go ahead. He saw Carl was already organizing something else. When he was gone, Fritz complained. “Shit, that guy likes chasing the dragon. He’s a cry for help.”

  “Carl’s Carl,” Willis said.

  “He should dial 1-800-COCAINE.”

  “Shit.”

  “You know, 1-800-ALCOHOL. 1-800-COCAINE. 1-800-WHATEVER. He’s a cry for help if I ever saw it.”

  At dark, Holly drove ahead of the men in the sedan and parked on Eustis Avenue, where she unfolded a paper napkin of linguica and continued to eat the delicious garlicky wheels of meat.

  Fritz climbed into the van beside Willis and Willis backed the truck out of the shack. Willis worried that the tires might blow from the weight.

  Fritz said, “The rims will hold. It’s just a half-mile to the pond. That is, unless you want to change your mind.”

  Willis was feeling pretty positive about this end of the operation. There was no question that the truck was going to sink, they just had to get enough momentum to roll it past the shelf and into the deep. He looked at the gas gauge. The needle touched the red zone. “Shit, we’re on fumes,” he said.

  “That’s enough, isn’t it?”

  The windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain and Willis was straining to see, but he felt fine. He felt that rare sensation after finalizing a homemade scheme; they were at the crest of it, and from there it was all downhill.

  Willis told Fritz, “I’ll drop you with Holly. Wait in the car. No reason for both of us taking the bumps.”

  “Point. I’m already sitting here. I’m riding with you,” Fritz said.

  “I’m saying. Get out of the truck.”

  Fritz stared at Willis. “I’m not sitting with her.”

  “Shit. This is what it is. I’m going to come in fast from Memorial Boulevard. That’s a sharp turn. We’ll ride over the weeds, and gun it when we hit the bank. We need a bit of speed to blow it off the shelf. We’ll have plenty of time to climb out. Crac
k your window.”

  Fritz unrolled his window so the water could wash in fast. The heavy slurries would pull the pond in without any help from them.

  The radio was playing Stevie Wonder. “Yester-me. Yester-you. Yester-day.” They rode up and down Memorial Boulevard waiting for a window in the traffic. Behind the rain, oncoming headlights throbbed with oversized bulbs. The job would take all of one minute once the boulevard was clear, but the cars kept coming. Willis wondered about the gas. “Yester-me. Yester-you. Yester-day.” Finally, the road was empty and Willis steered off the shoulder and into the marsh grass; he accelerated over the humps of weeds. The radio was blaring and Fritz was hooting, “It’s the blind leading the blind—” Their wild laughter ascended as Willis steered the truck straight into the reservoir.

  When the front wheels touched the bank, Willis crammed the gas pedal for a surge. The truck shot forward but never went airborne as Willis had hoped; it careened into the pond at an abrupt angle. Its nose plowed the watery wall. The truck tipped and went face first; the concrete barrels shifted and crashed into the bucket seat where Fritz sat.

  The bucket tore off its rivets and pinned Fritz against the dash.

  Willis saw the headlights illuminating the green murk as the water washed in over the doors, the wet night sluicing in both sides. The heavy nose of the truck continued sinking as the tail end rose up. Fritz was taking the weight of the concrete slurries and he screamed for Willis until his lungs couldn’t draw any breath.

  Willis tried to push his friend loose from behind the barrels of blended cyanide and concrete. Fritz was pinned against the glove box. The barrels worked closer each time the truck was jostled by the changing water level.

  Never before had Willis confronted a greater physical force than this. Not lightning nor hurricane, nothing like this dumb monster—weight. Perhaps it was the icy water; Willis felt paralyzed. He watched the scene unfold. He recognized a familiar sensation, the passive burden of the witness, that grim eternal duty, so difficult to shirk. Then Willis pulled himself out the window. He swam around to the other side. His cast drank up the pond water and a few bubbles escaped. He tugged open the passenger door. The cab was filling up and Fritz was burbling, then jerking his head back in panic. Willis could hear the radio speakers still grinding out the Stevie Wonder classic; its cockeyed refrain warbled through the cushion of water. By some weird fortune, the cab light had not yet shorted and Willis saw, in full detail, how his friend was crushed against the dashboard. The water was up to his collar. Fritz eyed Willis, following Willis with a helpless attention. It was the patient eye of a manatee or dolphin behind an aquarium window. It was as if Fritz accepted that they were in separate worlds, their fortunes on opposite sides.