Knockdown: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery (28 page)

Which was when her temper threatened to get the better of her; she got up from her own stool at the workbench opposite him, averting her eyes from the charred floorboards under the window.

“Listen,” she said, “I can see you feel strongly about this, and I do, too. But I don’t want to argue. We can talk about it again later. Okay?”

“Yeah.” His voice and his face were stony. But Wade was no more up for an extended argument than she was.

“Yeah, okay,” he repeated, and as she went down the shop stairs she heard him moving around, checking to see that all his tools and so on had been put back where he wanted them. Then:

“Jake. Be careful, all right? For the rest of the day …”

A retort rose to her lips, something along the lines of her not needing a babysitter. But Wade wasn’t like that; he was just worried, and after all that had happened, he had a right to be.

She was worried, too. She reached the downstairs door, put her hand on the knob, and paused.

She was very glad he was home. “I’ll be careful,” she called back upstairs to him on her way out.

But she was still thoroughly annoyed.

IT TOOK A FEW HOURS FOR STEVEN TO GET ALL HIS THINGS
rearranged down in the cellar again, the tarp spread, and himself
cleaned up again and fed. By then it was a little after two in the afternoon, and he still had the rest of the day to endure.

He couldn’t very well ride the bicycle past her house again; he’d upped the ante too much for that. But he couldn’t just sit down here all day, either.

For one thing, it was filthy. Now that he’d used a whole pack of the antiseptic towelettes just getting to feel halfway normal again, he didn’t want to have to do it a second time.

And for another, he was too excited. Just being alive, his own heartbeat thumping and his breath moving in and out of him, felt thrilling, like a roller-coaster ride that didn’t end.

But mostly he just didn’t like that big broken beam hanging over his head. Sure, there were other beams holding the house up.

It gave him the creeps, though, every time he shone the penlight up there.

All that weight, a whole house sitting on something he could see was cracked through. And not shining the light up there was worse, because then he couldn’t see whether or not the crack had gotten any bigger.

Although it hadn’t. He told himself it certainly hadn’t. Those things took forever to happen, buildings shifting on their foundations and so on. This house must’ve been here a hundred or more years; maybe the beam had been cracked nearly all that time. If old buildings could just collapse, you’d hear about it happening. It would be on TV, in the news. Nevertheless, he felt better when once again he mounted the wooden stepladder he’d positioned below the cellar door’s opening.

There hadn’t been any sound from up there since the cop had gone away. Cautiously, Steven reached the ladder’s top, put his hands up onto the doorframe, and stuck his head through.

A startled rodent squeaked, inches from his face. Rearing back, he nearly toppled off the ladder, but recovered in time to see the animal scuttle to a hole in the baseboard and vanish into it.

Rat
. He felt his gorge rise. Bad enough up here, but later he’d be down in the cellar again, and …

But he wouldn’t be alone then, would he? The thought cheered him immensely. Maybe he could even introduce her to the little beasties.… A grin stretched his cheek muscles, so wide it nearly hurt. It just went to show there was always a bright side to even the darkest situations.

Bright for him, anyway … He hauled himself up through the doorway, careful not to kick the ladder over as he went; now that he’d hauled the mattress out of sight, he had no other way to get down.

And that reminded him: the rope. He’d slung what remained of the clothesline around his neck before climbing the ladder; now he cut another, longer length from the coil. In the afternoon light streaming in through the filthy old kitchen windows, he fashioned another noose, larger than the ones he’d made before.

Big enough to go all the way around a person’s waist, with their arms tight at their sides. Because otherwise, that person could untie the knot, couldn’t they?

And that wouldn’t do. But now they—she—couldn’t. He tossed the noose on the counter under the window, beside the old sink that was such a horror, he could barely glance into it.

Never mind, though. The fright of the rat’s appearance had receded, and he felt happy again. He was on the right track, he was heading for his final triumph.…

Soon all this would be nothing more than a bad dream. He crossed the sagging kitchen floor to the broken door, shoved it open, and stepped outside.

Squinting in the bright afternoon light, he touched his ears to make certain the fresh application of glue had worked. Then he popped the baseball cap from his duffel onto his head, and a pair of sunglasses onto his face.

A Red Sox T-shirt, navy shorts, and white sneakers completed his
costume. In real life, he would never have worn any of these items, which was, of course, the whole idea.

He looked like … someone else. Anyone else; just not Steven Garner, the guy the cops were looking for. And in Eastport on the Fourth of July, there were about a million guys he
did
look like.

So he was safe. Casually he strolled down the broken front walk of the old house, to the street. From there he continued on downtown between the food tents and trinket tables. Good smells assailed him: hot dogs, cotton candy, fried dough.

But now he wasn’t even tempted. Partly it was that what he’d already eaten today had been satisfying enough.

Mostly, though, he just felt stronger.
Much
stronger; able to eat or not eat whatever he liked with no repercussions. The scrubbing thing was easier, too; normal cleanliness didn’t have to involve scraping off skin, apparently.

He supposed it was all on account of the other things he’d been doing. Things he’d only dreamed of … and with his ultimate goal now in view, he was practically invincible, the blood of one enemy on his hands and another soon to come.

Ducking suddenly to his right, up an alley behind the row of old Water Street buildings whose front windows looked down onto the festivities, he located again a low shed he had glimpsed the day before, just a shell of an old hut with no door in its entry opening, and a ragged hole where a window used to be.

From it, he could see all the way down the alley to where it opened onto the street, and all the people passing by. Which they would also be doing tonight, visible through the alley’s opening.

And as he’d hoped, placards in every window downtown said the holiday fireworks had been rescheduled for tonight, so that hours from now—

She would come, he was certain of it. After all he’d done to her in the past forty-eight hours, she would have some plan in mind, maybe even in cooperation with the police, to trap him.

His heart swelled in anticipation. When she came, he would be here, waiting. And then …

Then he would swoop down upon her, snatch her away, and the best part, the very
best
part, was—

She would never even see him coming.

P
ULLING INTO THE LONG, CURVING DIRT ROAD TO SHACKFORD
Head State Park, Jake saw at once that there were plenty of cars in the parking lot. Probably the trail would be crowded as well with hikers, families, and even a dog or two.

None were in sight now, though, giving her the illusion of solitude without any of the anxiety-provoking reality.
Perfect
, she thought as she got out of the car; she needed to cool off, get some exercise, take deep breaths of the sweet, fresh air.

For peace of mind, having other people well within shouting
distance was a safety requirement at the moment, whether or not she resented it. But luckily, here she could have it both ways.

She slammed the car door, crossed the field overlooking Deep Cove. Out here on the grassy bluff, looking back across the water, things fell into their proper perspective.

She was fine, unharmed, and so was her family. Tonight she would do nothing more daring than she did every Fourth of July: walk downtown, see the fireworks. She wouldn’t even carry a gun.

Having one in the crowd tonight would be even riskier than going unarmed, she’d decided, and anyway, Wade would no doubt be carrying one. All she had to do was be there, then wait for other people to pounce on Steven Garner when he showed himself.

Thinking this, she started uphill past the large wooden sign at the trailhead.
NO GUNS, NO FIRES, NO UNLEASHED DOGS
, the sign instructed in big white letters; few enough restrictions, she thought, in exchange for the illusion of solitude, the unspoiled wilderness available here in the park.

Not that she was
really
alone. With all those cars in the lot, no doubt the next person or group was no more than a hundred yards off, easily within hearing distance if they made any noise at all.

But at the moment nobody was, the forest more inspiring of whispers than shouts. On either side of the first, sharply uphill part of the trail, young hardwoods sprouted, but after that the park was mostly old spruce and pine, a blanket of tan evergreen needles spread between their massive trunks.

She climbed steadily until the path emerged into a field of tall grass, then crossed the swamp on the narrow boardwalk. At its far end the real forest began, wild and ungroomed.

Black, fallen carcasses of ancient blowdowns angled this way and that, like twisted girders of a fallen skyscraper. Rising up through them, new growth spread an evergreen canopy overhead.

Here too lay silence, other hikers no doubt also hushed by the once-great trees now lying motionless and mute. She went on uphill,
stepping over exposed tree roots as big as her forearm; soon the air cooled, only a few flickering slants of sunlight penetrating the green shade.

But the dampness was refreshing, and the smell of pine mixed with salt air felt cleansing on the inside, too. A few hundred yards farther up the trail, she sat down to rest on a bench made of a split tree trunk.

But as soon as she’d stopped moving, the questions she’d been avoiding popped into her head: What if Garner never went downtown tonight at all? What if he
didn’t
mean to use the fireworks as a diversion, to perpetrate something dastardly?

And even if he did, the whole notion of watchers from the windows above Water Street, strategically stationed so wherever Garner was spotted they could rush down to move in on him like pincers …

Way too optimistic, she concurred with Wade’s opinion now that she didn’t have to admit it to him. Just one small deviation on Garner’s part from anything she expected, and—

A faint sound from behind her interrupted her thought; she froze, listening. Scanning the trail in both directions, she saw no one either way, and suddenly it struck her that all those people she had expected to meet weren’t materializing.

Maybe they’d taken side trails, down onto the beaches or out to Ship’s Point, the high, rocky tip of the promontory the park was perched on. But for whatever reason, they weren’t here.…

She got up, began walking back down toward the parking lot. The sound came again, a crisp rustling that stopped whenever she did, whereupon all at once the trail seemed isolated, indeed, and she regretted her certainty of having companions on it.

Around her the dark green pine boughs looked nearly black in the shade of the treetops. Cadaverous old spruces, with grayish limbs hung with moss, loomed threateningly. Suddenly she felt like running, but before she could, a hand on her arm stopped her.

Reflexively she hurled both arms up, kicked back hard with her right foot. A sharp exhalation of surprise said she’d nearly connected.

“Hey,” said a familiar voice, “easy does it. It’s me—”

She spun around. “Wade! You scared the—”

The amusement in his blue eyes changed instantly to contrition. “I’m sorry. Honestly.” He spread his hands in apology. “I followed you out here to say I’m sorry. I didn’t think …”

He wrapped his arms around her, and after a moment she let him. “It’s okay. I thought it was him.”

She stepped away. “Wade, don’t you see? It’s like being in prison, this feeling. And while he’s free and walking around, I’ll always feel this way.”

A party of tourists came around a bend in the trail. A small brown dog romped beside them. Jake had time to notice the shorts and T-shirts they all wore, and to think about all the mosquitoes they would encounter up ahead where the trees gave way to insect-infested meadows.

Then they were gone, glancing curiously as they passed; and the dog’s happy yapping faded, too. Jake looked at Wade. “You were saying? About an apology?”

Wade stared purse-lipped at his shoes. “Well. The thing is, you were right that I wouldn’t have waited for you. That I’d have gone ahead and done something on my own. And—”

And that you had a life before I knew you, in which you did worse things. Scarier, too
.

Although perhaps not so blatantly dangerous. In the bad old days, she’d pretended what she did was normal: creating financial strategies for guys so habitually criminal, any dollar bill they owned should’ve borne an engraving of Captain Kidd.