In a Dark Wood (2 page)

“I don’t think he’s my type.”

“What are you talking about? He’s attractive, smart, funny — and he has a steady job.”

“He carries a gun.”

“He rarely shoots people on the first date.”

“I may beg him to; he’s taking me camping.” Against my will, I was smiling.

“Camping?”
Rob recovered quickly. “Camping is a
great
idea. You’ll love camping. Fresh air, sunshine, exercise…”

“I hate fresh air, sunshine and exercise. I haven’t been camping since I was thirteen.”

Rob ignored this. He knows me pretty well. “Where are you going camping?”

“New Jersey.”

“
Jersey?”

“Yeah, we’re staying with the Jersey Devil.”

Rob snickered.

I added, a little uncomfortable because part of the evening — including the part where I’d agreed to go camping — was fuzzy, “I think he just wanted an excuse to get me to take him to the skull house.”

“You’re taking him to the skull house?”

My head was really pounding now. I was going to have to take more painkillers. A lot more painkillers. My poor liver. “I don’t think I could find it if my life depended on it. But Luke seems to think it would be fun to try.”

Luke
. His name felt alien on my tongue. Like it was the first word I’d learned in a foreign language.

“Wow.” Rob’s single word seemed a little inadequate. I’d have phrased it more like…WTF? “Well, for the record,” he said, “he wanted to meet you before he ever heard about the skull house. He loves that column you write for the New York Blade.”

Against my will, I was flattered.

“And,” Rob added, “He said you were really cute.”

“Cute?
That’s like saying Marcelo Gomes has nice legs! I’m gorgeous!”

* * * * *

At five fifty-nine a.m. on Saturday morning, my doorbell rang. I stared blearily into the peephole. A tiny Luke stood at the end of what appeared to be an inverted telescope. As I studied him, he raked a self-conscious hand through his hair.

I stepped back, unlocked the slide and the three deadbolts, and opened the door.

“You’re early,” I said.

He laughed. He had a very nice laugh. I laughed too, although I was still convinced the weekend was a mistake. It sort of worried me that I was looking forward to it so much. Looking forward to seeing Luke again.

He really was good-looking: just over medium height, wide shoulders, narrow hips, long legs. He wore faded Levi’s and a white tee-shirt that read,
OK, so I like donuts!!
The tee emphasized the rock-hard muscles in his arms.

“Ready to roll?”

“I guess.”

His mouth twitched at the lack of enthusiasm in my voice. He nodded to my backpack. “That it?”

“Yeah.” I gave him a doubtful look. “You said you’d bring the gear…”

He picked up my bag. “Yep. We’re good.”

Were we?

I followed him out, locked the door with shaking hands and tottered down the street to where he’d parked. He unlocked the passenger side and I crawled inside, slumping with relief in the front seat.

He stowed my gear in the back of the SUV, came around to his side. “Buckle up.” He smiled, but he was obviously serious.

I fumbled with the seat belt.

He started the engine and Springsteen’s
We Shall Overcome
:
The Seeger Sessions
picked up where it had left off on the CD player. I was a little surprised. I’m not sure what I was expecting. The Stones?
The Seeger Sessions
was a good sign; hours of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” would have been daunting.

Somehow the close confines of the car heightened my awareness of him. He smelled like he had just stepped out of the shower. There was another smell too, straight from my idyllic childhood — Hoppes gun cleaner. And here I’d hoped I was kidding about his carrying.

I asked, “Can we stop and get coffee or something?”

He glanced at me. “Rough night?”

“Late night.”

He nodded like that’s what he’d thought. He found a Starbucks and we got coffee and pastries to go — which Luke insisted on paying for. I felt a little better after the coffee and sugar.

We started talking. It had been a long time since I had to make dating conversation. Maybe the effort showed.

Luke asked, “How’s the hangover?”

I glanced at him. “Wow,” I drawled, “you really are a detective.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Hey.”

Hey yourself, I thought irritably, but I let it go. He probably didn’t miss a hell of a lot.

“How long have you been a detective?”

“Nine years. In New York, detectives are the equivalent rank of police officers.” He added very casually, “I’m a Detective Second Grade now.”

I gave him another look. He wasn’t a lot older than me in years, but in experience…light-years. “What’s that like: being a queer cop?”

“I don’t think of myself as a
queer
cop. I think of myself as a cop.”

“Sorry. You know what I mean, though. Is it tough? Or are you not out at work?”

“I’m out.” He drove with one hand on the wheel, very relaxed, and one hand resting on the seat behind me. My skin felt alive to the possibility of the brush of his fingertips. If he flexed his fingers he could stroke my neck or touch my shoulder.

“But you’re right. Law enforcement is a macho gig. I don’t go out of my way to stress that I like to sleep with other guys.”

“Have you ever shot anyone?”

He laughed. “Why does everyone ask that? You know how rare it is for a cop to actually shoot someone?”

“Have you ever
wanted
to shoot someone?”

“All the time!” We both laughed.

When we reached the Garden State Parkway I began to reluctantly dig through my mostly forgotten memories of that long ago summer. My friend, Ricky, had lived outside of Batsto, that much I remembered, but how far outside, I couldn’t seem to recall. Nothing looked the same.

We stopped for a late breakfast — or early lunch — at a little pub called Lighthouse Tavern and had a couple of thick, juicy “Alpine” burgers and a couple of beers. By then we were getting along pretty well, having discovered that we had a few vital things in common, namely love of Cuban-Chinese food, Irish music, and really, really bad kung fu movies.

I mentioned digging the Springsteen track on Jesse Malin’s new album, and he suggested — very off-hand — getting tickets for Malin’s Bowery Ballroom concert if I was interested.

I said, equally off-hand, yeah, I was probably interested.

I ordered another beer. Luke again declined on the basis of driving. He seemed thoughtful as I finished my drink. “So what’s the deal with you and cops?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“Rob said you had this thing about cops. You get nailed for a DUI or something?”

What the hell was
that
supposed to mean? I set my mug down and stared at him, instantly offended. But he just seemed curious. “Hey, for the record, just a couple of drinks can put you over the legal limit if you haven’t eaten.”

“Sure,” he said peaceably. “So that’s it then?”

“Not really.” I gave him a sheepish grin. “I mean, I guess everyone is a little intimidated.”

“Some people are turned on.”

Our eyes met. I said casually, “That too.”

He grinned.

* * * * *

Just outside of a little hamlet we stopped at the one-hundred-fifty-year-old general store and picked up German sausages, smoke-cured bacon and insect repellent. On our way out of the market I noticed a glass-fronted bulletin board. Tacked on top of the faded flyers and browned cards was a recent poster of a smiling girl: Elizabeth Ann Chattam. Twenty-one years old, freckles, brown hair clipped in big daisy barrettes, blue eyes, last seen hiking in Wharton State Forest.

“Something wrong?” Luke asked.

I shook my head.

Historic villages and blueberry farms gave way to cranberry bogs and cemeteries and ghost towns as we wound through the deep oak-pine forest of the Pinelands National Reserve.

We left the SUV at Parkdale, an old ghost town with only a rusty railroad bridge and a couple of stone foundations to show civilization had ever made it that far. We loaded our gear onto our backs. Luke checked his cell phone. His mouth did that little wry quirk.

“No reception?”

“I didn’t really think there would be.” He put his phone away. Pulled out a compass and then checked the sun. “We’ve got plenty of time before it gets dark. Any idea of which direction we should head out?”

I had exhausted my small store of memory getting us this far. I shrugged on my pack, shook my head. “Even if I —” I realized what I was saying, and shut up.

“Even if you…wanted to?”

“Hey, this was your idea. I’m just along for the ride.” I caught his expression, played my comment back in my head, and felt myself reddening.

He grinned that devilish grin.

We hiked the sugar sand road for a couple of miles, then moved off onto one of the narrower trails.

I knew Luke was hoping that something would trigger my memories, but Ricky and I had been lost for hours when we stumbled on the house. It could have been just a mile or so in, or it could have been a day’s walk — we had
spent
a day walking, but that was as likely due to having lost our sense of direction as necessity.

“Let me know if anything looks familiar,” he requested when we paused to drink from our canteens.

I gave him an ironic look, and he grinned back.
When Irish eyes are smiling
, I thought ruefully. I still couldn’t believe I’d let him talk me into this.

We kept up a brisk pace until it started to get dark. Then Luke set about finding a good spot to camp. I left it up to him. I was out of shape and feeling it. My feet ached, my calf muscles ached, my back ached. I was just glad I’d done enough walking tours in my time to know how to avoid blisters and heat rash.

I looked forward to sitting down and having a drink. I wished we could have just…gone away for the weekend; I knew a wonderful little historic bed and breakfast in Crown Point. But I didn’t kid myself after miles of splashing through creeks and climbing over logs; the main attraction for Luke was not me; it really was the skull house.

That was okay. We could still have some fun. I just hoped the ground wasn’t too hard and the night wasn’t too cold. Or wet.

Luke found a nice little clearing that already had a campfire ring. I was glad to see the campfire ring, glad to have proof we hadn’t traveled too far off the map. It was weird how a few miles could take you so far from civilization. It was like another world out here. He made up a campfire and we spread our bags out. He unwrapped the brats we’d bought at the little market.