Heart of Stone (45 page)

“Don't be like that,” he whined. “Do you think I want to do this?”

“Listen to yourself,” I yelled. “You're about to kill me, and you're asking for my understanding.”

He went quiet, perhaps thinking about my words. For a brief moment, I thought I'd reached him. Then he nodded. “You're right. That was wrong of me. You see, you really have taught me a lot of things.”

I looked into his lazy eyes, hoping for a change of heart. I was disappointed.

“Okay,” he said. “The rain's stopped. Let's go before it starts again.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Ever the gentleman, Terwilliger invited me to leave the cab on my side, and he followed, extending his meaty right hand to provide me with some slack. He nearly slipped in the wet grass. Had my hand been free of the handcuffs, that would have been the moment to run. But tethered to Baby Huey, I had no hope of escape. I had to wait for my chance.

The storm had paused only long enough to get us out of the truck. Not ten paces into the grass, the heavens opened again and favored us with a downpour to impress Noah.

“Too late to stay dry now,” said Terwilliger. “Come on.”

He led the way through the high, wet grass, pulling me along by the wrist.

The thunderheads raced across the sky, dumping buckets of rain over the land and occasionally exposing the moon. The refracted light made the night brighter than normal, even if the clouds were black and roiling above. Still I could barely make out the edge of the cliff before us. He reached into his pocket and produced a steel key. My last chance was upon me.

“Give me your hand,” he said.

I braced myself for what was to come next. I intended to slap him or push him. Poke him in the eyes or stick two fingers up his nostrils and roll him over the cliff like a bowling ball. Maybe I'd kick him in the shins, then run. Which was I going to do? I was panicking again. Drawing one deep, wet breath, I made my decision.

We were about twenty feet from the edge of the cliff. Driven by strong, whipping winds, the rain strengthened as if bent on making my last moments on earth wetter and even more uncomfortable. He squared up to me, pulling me in close, his belly pressing against mine. Holding my arm tight with his right hand, he squeezed the steel key in his left.

“Just hold still now,” he said, fiddling with the lock. He couldn't see in the dark, and it took him several tries before he found the hole.

The lock sprang.

I jerked my knee into his groin and pushed away in one motion, taking off on a sprint. He tried to snatch my arm, scratching me in the process, but my wet skin foiled his grip. He shouted for me to stop. The last thing I saw was the approaching void.

In that instant before he'd unlocked the handcuffs, I'd realized in a moment of perfect clarity that my only chance of survival was to dive off the cliff and reach the water below. My only chance. Emily Grierson's only chance. But a successful leap off Baxter's Rock involved not only gaining enough speed to clear the beach below, but also jumping in the right direction. A takeoff too far to the right would send me onto the high rocks that separated the cove from the lake to the south. The same result to the north if I pitched myself over the edge too far to the left. But it was too late for any such doubts. I didn't have the luxury to pause to consider angles and hazards below the lip of the cliff. I ducked my head, closed my eyes, and barreled toward the edge, even as Terwilliger shouted behind me, and the thunder boomed over my head.

One, two, three, four, five strides and I pushed off like a bird taking flight. Reaching out as if trying to grab the moon, I soared skyward before gravity drew me back to earth. I stretched into an arrow-straight dive, aiming my fingertips toward whatever fate awaited me below. Everything went silent. Everything stopped for an instant as I fell. My soul was at peace with my decision to fly, and I was ready to die. Die in a spectacular, adrenaline-fueled leap into the night. My end would be swift. No suffering, no awareness of the impact on the sharp rocks. Just a broken neck and a crumpled—

A boom interrupted any thoughts of consequences. Then a tumbling and bubbles and water up my nose. It was cold and wet. I had hit the cove in a magnificent dive, and I was still alive.

I kicked my way to the surface and gasped for air, eyes still clenched shut. My relief was short-lived, however, as even amid the thunder and the sloshing water and my own desperate respiration, I heard the gunshots. I drew two quick breaths and ducked under the water again.

There were rocks, I knew, at the entrance to the cove. I could find shelter there. Kicking and stroking under the surface, I swam furiously toward the open lake. Swimming in a dress isn't as easy as one might think. The fabric becomes heavy when laden with water. It drags, makes you work twice as hard to move half as far and half as fast. And the dress I was wearing was bright yellow, surely making me an easy target in the water. I had to dive deeper. But first I needed air. I came up for a breath but didn't wait for any bullets to find me. I gasped twice and dived back under.

Twenty seconds later, I surfaced again like a whale breaching. I wheezed, tried to suck in as much air as I could, then plunged into the dark water, kicking deeper, seeking the protection of the depth. But the lake floor had risen, and I found myself in barely four feet of water. I was a sitting duck.

I heard no shots. My feet found the muddy bottom, and I ran for my life. Rather I tried to run, but the water and my dress slowed me as if I were dragging a wet parachute. Finally I reached the rocks that guarded the entrance to the cove, the same entrance that Terwilliger had navigated one week before when I first saw the two dead bodies. Now those rocks provided me with cover. I scrambled behind the largest one protruding from the water and cowered behind it, heaving for breath.

I listened, but all I could hear was rain and thunder off in the distance. I waited more than a minute before chancing a glance over the top of the rock. I could make out the crest of Baxter's Rock against the gray-black sky, but just barely. If Terwilliger was still there, searching for me, I couldn't see him. Then a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, and he came into view, standing atop the hill, arms akimbo, peering into the night. The light vanished after three quick flashes, and all was dark again. I waited thirty seconds more until the wind, coursing west to east above, cleared a swath of sky and revealed the moon. The clouds lit up, and I could see again. There atop Baxter's Rock, large and menacing, scanning the cove below for signs of movement, paced Ralph “Tiny” Terwilliger.

I heard shouting. My name. He was calling out to me. Other than my name, I couldn't make out his words. I shrank behind the rock, my eyes just high enough to hold him in my sight. He was terrifying, standing there, yelling my name, knowing I was below listening. Then he turned. He wasn't alone. And I saw him stumble. I watched him teeter at the edge of the precipice. And I watched in horror as he plunged palsied into the void. Unlike his imaginary father and son witnesses, I was close enough to hear his scream and the impact on the rocks below. Tiny Terwilliger did not clear the stony beach. He did not reach the water.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I phoned the state police from Lenny's Diner on Lake Road. It was past eleven by then, and I was soaking wet in my torn yellow dress, no shoes on my feet, with my hair looking like Medusa's after a couple of turns on the Coney Island Cyclone. The place was empty, except for Lenny and the dishwasher. Lenny just stared at me, mouth agape, a wad of chewing gum forgotten somewhere between his tongue and cheek. My conversation with the troopers surely shocked him. Chief Terwilliger dead on the shore below Baxter's Rock, in the same spot Karl Merkleson and Jerry Kaufman had been found.

“Yes, he tried to kill me,” I insisted into the receiver. “He handcuffed me and drove me up to the cliff. I have marks on my wrist. He was going to push me off.”

At length the doubting policeman on the other end of the line agreed to send a couple of cruisers over from Schroon Lake to investigate.

“Would you like some coffee, miss?” asked Lenny once I'd hung up the phone. “It's a couple of hours old, I'm afraid.”

“Thank you,” I said, sniffling, trying to keep warm by hugging my wet self.

“That'll be ten cents,” he said, placing the cup down before me. “And a dollar should cover the long-distance call.”

Forty minutes later, the state troopers still hadn't arrived. I was shivering in a booth near the back, cursing Lenny the cheapskate, who would have to wait for his dollar and ten cents. My purse was somewhere on top of Baxter's Rock. I was also feeling a bit overwhelmed by the drama of the past seven days. Karl Merkleson and Jerry Kaufman, Isaac, Simon, the rest of the Arcadians, and, of course, Tiny Terwilliger. A tightness in my chest, combined with the dunking I'd taken, made me feel lonely and forsaken. I thought of Isaac.

The dishwasher appeared above me. He was a short, square man of about fifty. He had nervous eyes, the kind that dart around in search of a place to rest. His hands were rough and red.

“You look cold,” he said, holding out a neatly folded tablecloth. “This is the closest thing we got to a blanket. It's clean.”

I wrapped the cloth around my shoulders and thanked him.

“What happened out there anyway?” he asked.

“I'm not sure I should say.”

“Did Tiny Terwilliger really fall off Baxter's Rock?”

“He must have slipped,” I said, just as four state troopers entered the diner.

The state police radioed for five more cruisers, a lieutenant, four troopers, a hearse, and a photographer. I showed them the scene from the top of the cliff and from the rocks below, explained what had happened, and answered the same questions three different times from three different officers.

“We've recovered his gun,” said Lieutenant Miller Sutter as we sat in the backseat of a state police cruiser. Sutter was tall and slim, about thirty-five, with broad shoulders and a deep voice. Gosh, cops are sexy. “Looks like he fired four times.”

“I heard a couple of shots once I was in the water.”

“And you weren't lying about the cuffs. They were still on his wrist.”

Realizing just how close I'd come to dying, I started to cry and wiped my eyes on the handkerchief he'd offered me.

Sutter waited until I'd composed myself. “You took quite a chance, miss, diving off that cliff. And in the dark. That was very brave of you.”

I shrugged. “When the alternative is getting shoved over the edge, you kind of lose your reluctance to dive. At least I had a chance with a running start.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about what happened up there?” he asked.

I recalled the figure I'd seen atop the cliff struggling with Terwilliger. He might have been a figment of my imagination, but, no, I knew what I'd seen. A gaunt silhouette, illuminated by a flash of lightning, grappling with the large man who'd tried to kill me. I'd watched as the larger shape stumbled, lurched to one side, and, whirling his arms in a desperate attempt to regain his balance, teetered. His weight had shifted too far into the void, and slowly, like a duckpin kissed by a passing bowling ball and doomed to fall, he toppled over the edge of the precipice.

“No,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

Lieutenant Sutter accompanied me back to Cedar Haven sometime after two in the morning. My dress had dried stiff and muddy, and it crackled whenever I moved. My hair was a right mess, and, as I later discovered looking in the mirror, I had a dark smudge of something on my forehead and on the side of my neck. I must have looked a fright. Nevertheless Lieutenant Miller Sutter doffed his hat at my door as he prepared to leave, giving me a hungry look I knew all too well. He asked if I wanted him to check on me in the morning. I said that wouldn't be necessary. Then he extended a hand to wish me good night. I took it and held it fast. He gazed into my eyes for a long moment, flexing a muscle in his jaw just so as he did. I scolded myself. I told myself no. And then I released his hand and took a step inside. He tried to follow, and I almost let him. But, instead, I said it had been a trying day. He nodded, replaced his hat on his head, and strode off toward his car. Gosh, cops are sexy.