Embers (12 page)

"
Yeah. For a year.
"

"
He said you got whacked on the knuckles more than he did. That you wanted to be an airline pilot. That he wanted to be a priest.
"

"
Who remembers?
"

"
Apparently the girlfriend said she
'
s leaving him. He freaked. The kid
'
s not his, by the way. Anyway, he won
'
t send her out until he talks to you. He
'
s thrown out a gun. One gun. The kid
'
s name is Cindy.
"

"
Everyone in place?
"

"
Oh, yeah.
"

"
Okay, where
'
s the hookup?
"

But there was no response to his
"
Eddy, this is Tom Wyler.
"
Only blubbering. He could make out the words
"
not my fault.
"
Then more blubbering.

"
Eddy, listen to me. Send out the little girl. Send out Cindy. And then you and I will talk.
"

"
Can
'
t
...
do that
...
you
...
come in
..."
Wracking sobs.
"
Nothing ever
...
turns out right.
"

Drugs, booze.
But did Eddy have another gun?

He handed the phone back to the negotiator. Their approach was by the book. Backup in place. The hail was lit; no problem there. The apartment door was open, a good sign. Only one little thing, the filthy quilt bundled on the floor in the hail. Wyler pushed it with his foot. It resisted. He bent down
...
lifted one corner.

A four-year-old, blue eyes open, blue eyes blank. Thick black lashes. Pretty. Cindy. Dead. Jesus.

Then a shot, two shots, three shots, all in slow motion. An answering hail of shots from behind him, thunderous.

He was down, his leg on fire, the seaweed wrapping itself around him, pulling him down, pulling him under, on fire.

****

Wyler jolted awake from his island nap in time to hear the explosive rat-a-tat of a lobster boat
'
s unmuffled engine as it passed nearby. He was sweating profusely; his hair was drenched.

Not again.

He thought he
'
d put the dream behind him; he hadn
'
t relived the episode since his arrival at
Bar Harbor
.
Dammit.
He was back at square one.

Wyler stood up, stiff all over, and was struck by an instant,
bone-piercing chill: the sea breeze had filled in, dropping the temperature ten degrees. He looked at his watch: almost noon. Noon! Noon was not when low tide was. He dressed slowly
— he was sunburned, of course
—
and limped back to the sandbar without much hope.

He
'
d read about swift
Maine
tides, but this was ridiculous:
t
he highway of sand was gone, rolled over by whitecapped seas. Forget walking, wading, or swimming. In a helicopter, maybe. He jammed his cane into the sand in disgust. Two hours until high tide, six more after that before he saw the sandbar again.

Elemental physics,
he
'
d told her.

He tried signaling a runabout, but the boat was too busy running about. A sailboat glided into sight, but its sails blocked him from its owner
'
s view. Eventually a lobster boat showed up nearby, but it went deliberately on its way despite Wyler
'
s yells and whistles.

Finally another boat, a slow-moving skiff with an outboard, began heading his way from the
Bar Harbor
side. Clearly he
'
d been spotted. Throwing his dignity to the wind, Wyler began waving his cane and his backpack in wide arcs above his head. As the skiff drew nearer the shore, it became obvious that the person on the helm was a woman, and one he knew.

He swore under his breath as Meg Hazard hove into view. Anyone but her. The only thing worse than being a fool was having announced it beforehand.
Time and tide wait for no one.
Shit.

"
Hey, there,
"
he said in a loud, utterly false voice as the skiff drew near.
"
Fancy meeting you here.
"

"
Small world,
"
Meg shouted, doing her best, he thought, to suppress a snotty smile.

She cut the outboard, turned, and released the engine to lift its prop out of the water, all in one fluid motion, as the nose of the skiff anchored itself on the small strip of beach that was still exposed. Clearly she knew her way around the water.

"
Hop in.
"

Wyler climbed over the bow and dropped into the skiff with a thunk. He swallowed the jolt of pain that shot through his leg and smiled briskly.
"
Go ahead,
"
he said, inviting her razzing.
"
I deserve it.
"

"
Hey,
"
Meg said with a shrug. She took a weathered oar from the bottom of the skiff and shoved off with it, then lowered the prop back into the water and started up the engine, backing down from the shore.

"
Probably this kind of thing happens all the time, tourists getting stranded,
"
he said hopefully.

"
Not usually.
"

She sat down on the aft seat; he followed her example amidships.
"
So how did you find me?
"
he asked, although a voice inside told him to never mind.

"
A boater must
'
ve seen you and passed it on; I heard it on the police scanner.
"

"
Super.
"
He sighed in disgust and looked away. When he turned back to her, he was surprised to see that she was studying him intently. Caught in the act, she blushed and said,
"
You got burned today.
"

"
I nodded off. Blame it on
Bar Harbor
.
"

She didn
'
t answer.

"
Still mad?
"
he asked playfully.

Again he
'
d caught her by surprise; her blush deepened, giving her cheeks a healthy, rosy glow. The wind whipped her chestnut hair across her face and he noticed for the first time how sun streaked it was. Angry or embarrassed, Meg looked very attractive just then.
She ‘s in her element,
he decided.
Being outdoors suits her.
Her sister was made for candlelight and dancing. Meg was made for
—
well, for this.

"
Yeah,
I
'
m mad,
"
she said calmly, squinting in the sun.
"
I don
'
t see why you can
'
t help me out on this. You
'
re here. You know the ropes. You could at least tell me how to get started.
"

"
On
—?
"

"
Oh, come on, Lieutenant; don
'
t play dumb. I
'
m talking about Gordon Camplin. If you don
'
t want to advise me, just say so.
"

"
Okay. I
'
m saying so.
"

"
How can you
say
that? What if he
'
s guilty?
"

"
What if he isn
'
t?
"

"
He could easily have gotten carried away by my grandmother! He could easily have become obsessed! Men do that!
"

"
All too often.
"

"
Then what
'
s the problem?
"

"
Men are doing that
now;
that
'
s the problem. Everyday, everywhere.
They ‘re
the ones I have to
—
"

"
Oh, like you have to ration your energy to track down murderers.
"

"
That
'
s right. I
'
m rationing.
"

"
But you
'
re not doing anything. You
have
the time!
"

"
I
am
doing something!
"
he said, out of patience with her at last.
"
I
'
m putting myself back together again. Call it the Humpty Dumpty syndrome.
"

"
I can
'
t believe this; where
'
s your sense of outrage?
"

"
I
'
m fresh out of outrage just now,
"
he shot back.
"
I left all I had with a four-year-old named Cindy. You want outrage? Check her coffin,
"
he said viciously.

"
Well
—
"
She faltered, then rallied.
"
Well, excuse
me,
"
she said, grabbing a stern line.
"
Around here we keep going till the job
'
s done. We don
'
t have the luxury of taking timeouts to renew our
spirits,
"
she said, spitting out the last word with contempt.

"
Around here you don
'
t
need
the luxury of time-outs. Every
day
is a time-out.
"

"
Really? Wait until August,
"
she said, throwing the outboard into neutral. She played the wind perfectly; the skiff glided to a perfect stop alongside a small floating dock. Above them a grizzled old-timer sat fishing on the edge of the fixed pier, a drop line dangling between the legs of his trousers down into the water.

"
Afternoon, Daniel,
"
Meg said, nailing the boat with a quick hitch over a rusty cleat.
"
How they actin
'
?
"

"
Ain
'
t,
"
he answered.

Meg gave Wyler an out-of-the-boat-now look. He scrambled onto the dock, too annoyed with her to care that he was doing it awkwardly.

"
I was right about you after all,
"
Meg said, turning her back on him.
"
Your heart is hardened.
"

Pushy, controlling, relentle
ss --

She undid her hitch and took off in the skiff, ignoring his shouted, parting remark:
"
Thanks so much! Are you sure I can
'
t take you to lunch?
"

Wyler stood there for a while, mulling over her anger. One thought, more than any other, kept scurrying to the front of his mind: There was no better cover-up for a murder than a fire of biblical proportions.

M
eg knew something was up when she overheard Terry saying to Timmy,
"
Did we pull the heads off
all
our G.I. Joes?
"

A minute later the twins were in their room, overturning a plastic laundry basket filled to the brim with discarded and broken toys. Coughdrop was with them, tail wagging, tongue heaving expectantly at the thought of buried edibles long forgotten.