Third Strike (2 page)

“I'm sure I met her mother at Parents' Day at school,” said Zee. “Maybe you should invite Mary over again before summer vacation ends.”

“That would be excellent!” said Diana. “Can I call her when we get home?”

“Yes.”

We turned off the paved road onto our long, sandy driveway and drove down to our house. The property had once been a hunting camp where whiskey had flowed more often than shots had been fired. When my father bought it and its surrounding few acres, land in that part of the island was cheap. Since then, first he and then I had slowly transformed the cabin into the rambling house it was now, with its lawn and its flower and vegetable gardens, its shed out back, and its balcony that looked out over Sengekontacket Pond and Nantucket Sound. The latest addition to the Jackson place was the tree house in the big beech, which was a popular recreation stop for our children and their friends.

In our yard there was nothing to suggest the tensions elsewhere on the island. Beyond the gardens, the green waters of the pond and sound were lovely under a pale blue sky. A gentle southwest wind sighed through the trees, and the morning sun was climbing through a thin scattering of summer clouds.

Paradise. But with serpents just out of sight.

We climbed out of the truck, and Diana tugged at Zee's hand. “Come on, Ma. Let's call Mary and see if she can come over. Can she stay the night, Ma? Please?”

“One thing at a time,” said her mother. “First, we'll see if she can come over to play.”

Oliver Underfoot and Velcro, who had been snoozing in the sun, yawned hello and came to meet us, asking where we'd been in their catty voices.

Zee and Diana gave them pats and went into the house, and our eldest, Joshua, said, “Can I have somebody over, too, Pa?”

“Why not? Who do you have in mind?”

“Jim Duarte. Pa, if he can come over, can we go to the beach?”

It was a beach day, for sure. “Maybe your mother and sister and Mary would like to come, too.”

“First, we have to find out if Jim can come. I know his number.” He started for the house.

“Your mother's on the line right now,” I said. “You can call him when she's through with the phone.”

While we waited for Zee or Diana to come out and give us a report on the Mary call, Joshua said, “Can we take fishing rods?”

“We always take fishing rods when we go to the beach,” I said, “because you never know when there might be some fish swimming by. We'll take quahog rakes, too, and a couple of wire baskets. We can go down to the far corner of Katama Bay. If the waves aren't too high, you kids can swim on the ocean side of the beach and I can do some clamming in the bay. If it's rough water outside, we'll go on over to East Beach.”

I looked at the door just as Zee emerged. Her face had an odd set to it.

“I just talked with Gloria Alvarez,” she said in a quiet voice. “Eduardo Alvarez was her husband. She says he would never have tried to blow up that boat. I'm going over to see her. She needs to have someone with her. I'll take Diana with me. Mary needs a friend, too.”

Joshua and I watched them drive away. Although the sun was bright, the world seemed darker.

“Pa?”

“What?”

“Can I still call Jim? Can we still go to the beach?”

I looked down at his innocent face. For him, Eduardo Alvarez's death had no meaning. Joshua's world had not changed.

“You can ask him over,” I said, “but I think we'd better stay here so we'll be home when your mother and sister come back.”

“We can play in the tree house,” said Joshua agreeably, and I watched him trot into the house to make his call. He was a happy boy.

I thought that we humans must be the only animals who grew up to believe that death intruded on life.

A
round seven o'clock on a sultry Thursday evening toward the end of August, Evie and I were sipping our second round of gin and tonics in our little patio garden behind our house on Beacon Hill. A gang of goldfinches and a few song sparrows and nuthatches were swiping sunflower seeds from the feeders. Henry David Thoreau, our Brittany spaniel, was sprawled on the bricks, absorbing the accumulated warmth from the day's summer sunshine and eyeing the songbirds without much interest.

I had swapped my lawyer pinstripe-and-tie for jeans and a T-shirt. Evie had shucked off her business suit in favor of blue running shorts cut high on the hip and a skimpy pink sleeveless tank top. Bare feet, no bra. All but naked. She was slouched in one of our Adirondack chairs with her long golden legs splayed out in front of her, and when the phone rang from the kitchen, she was yawning and stretching her arms up in the air, exposing a delicious patch of flat belly and zinging dirty thoughts into my brain.

She opened her eyes. “You want me to get that?”

“Get what?” I said.

“The phone.”

“I didn't hear anything.”

The phone rang again.

“You heard it that time,” she said.

“I choose to ignore it.”

“It might be important,” she said.

“What could be more important than our quiet togetherness after a noisy day at our offices? What could be more important than our gin and tonics?” I waggled my eyebrows. “Know what I was just thinking, speaking of important?”

She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at me. “Of course I know what you were thinking,” she said. “I was thinking the same thing.”

The phone rang a third time. Evie sat up.

I held up my hand. “Let it go, honey. If it's important, they'll leave a message and we can call them back.” I patted my lap. “C'mere.”

“Brady, really,” she said. “I can't just…”

It rang again, as if it was determined to wedge its two cents' worth into our conversation.

Evie blew out a breath, took a quick sip, and put her glass on the table. “I can't ignore it,” she said. “You know me.”

“Just leave it.”

“Sorry, babe. Can't.” And she unlimbered her long sleek legs, stood up, patted my cheek, and trotted into the house.

Henry lifted his head and watched her go. Even a dog couldn't take his eyes off her.

I sighed, tilted my head back, and gazed up at the sky.

A minute later Evie came out. She was pressing the phone against her stomach. “It's for you,” she said.

“Come on, honey,” I said. “I understand and tolerate your compulsion to answer any ringing telephone, but couldn't you at least take a message, tell them I'd call back?”

“He's on a pay phone. Says it's important.
Urgent
was his actual word. It's…Larry Bucyck?” She made his name a question.

“Larry Bucyck,” I said. “No kidding?”

She nodded. “Do I know him?”

“No. Hm. I haven't talked to Larry in…I don't know. Years. What's he want?”

She shook her head.

“Calling from the Vineyard?”

She shrugged. “Didn't say that, either.” She thrust the phone at me and mouthed the words, “Talk to him.”

I took the phone from her and put it to my ear. “Hey, Larry,” I said. “Long time. What's up? Everything okay?”

“You're still my lawyer,” he said, “right?”

“Depends,” I said. “Did you murder somebody?”

“Not yet.”

“Hey, listen—”

“I'm kidding. Jesus, Brady. You used to have a good sense of humor.”

“Just wondering why you didn't call the office, that's all.”

“You never were big on trying to make people feel better,” he said.

“Hey,” I said. “I'm a lawyer. I cherish the truth. Truth and justice. If it hurts, too bad. Just giving you a context here. I told Evie not to answer the damn phone, but as usual, she does what she wants.”

“Look, okay,” he said. “I'm sorry about that. I had to pedal my bike about four miles—well, okay, maybe a mile, but it's a crappy old bike—to get to this damn pay phone, and then there's some fat lady with orange hair beat me to it, should never be seen in public wearing a bathing suit, kept making phone calls, some August person complaining about the price of groceries and she can't find a babysitter, and no matter how much I sighed and paced around glaring at her, the old bag wouldn't hang up.”

“You still living off the grid down there?” I said. “No phone? Can't even spring for a cell?”

“Brady, listen. I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't important.”

“I know. You wouldn't be comfortable if I didn't bust your balls a little, either. So what's up?”

I heard him sigh. “I got a real problem, man.” His voice was low, as if he was trying not to be heard. “I—it's something bad. I think I might be in trouble.”

“Talk to me, Larry.”

“I can't. Not on the phone. There's something I need to show you.”

“This got anything to do with…what happened?”

“No, no. Nothing like that.”

“So what kind of trouble?” I said. “You're scaring me.”

“Yeah, well, I'm kinda scared myself, so that makes two of us.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I hate to ask…”

“You need a lawyer, why don't you—”

“I need you, Brady. You're the only—”

“There are plenty of lawyers on the Vineyard.” I glanced at Evie. She had her head back and her eyes closed and her gin-and-tonic glass resting on her bare belly, pretending not to be listening. “I can recommend somebody,” I said to Larry.

“My point is,” he said, “I don't know who I can trust down here these days. So I don't trust anybody. Lawyers are as bad as anybody.”

“I can't argue with you there,” I said. “But you can't expect me to just…”

“Yeah,” he said, “okay. Right. Sorry. I get it. I'm a thoughtless jerk, and I don't have any money to pay a fancy Boston lawyer anyway. You're pretty busy, there, with your girlfriend and your gin and tonic and everything. Forget about it. Sorry I called.”

“Come on, Larry. Lighten up. Anyway, I'm not that fancy. And you know better. It's got nothing to do with money. I was only—”

“I sat around all day just trying to summon up the courage to call you,” he said. “Stupid me.”

“You really in trouble?”

“You think I'd grovel like this if I wasn't?”

“I didn't notice you were groveling.”

“Well, what else would you call it?”

I hesitated, then said, “Okay.”

“Whaddya mean, okay?”

“I mean,” I said, “okay I'll be there. Tomorrow. Can it wait till tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Tomorrow would be great.”

Evie had sat up. She was waving her hand at me.

I arched my eyebrows at her.

She mouthed something that I didn't understand. I frowned at her and shook my head, and she rolled her eyes and sprawled back in her chair.

“Tomorrow's Friday,” I said to Larry. “I'll try to get away in the afternoon. We can make a weekend of it. Maybe do some fishing.”

“Fishing,” he said. “Sure. That'd be fun. You remember where I live?”

“I guess I can find it. It's been a couple years.”

“More like five years, actually,” Larry said.

“You're in the woods down there in Menemsha,” I said. “I remember that. I guess you better remind me how to get there.”

“Coming from Vineyard Haven, Oak Bluffs?”

“That end of the island, yes.”

“Okay,” he said. “So you pick up South Road in West Tisbury, follow it into Menemsha. Other side of Middle Road, South Road becomes Menemsha Cross Road. Stay on it, you go, oh, less than half a mile on Menemsha Cross, you come to a left turn. First road on the left. You with me so far?”

“I'm with you. I got the map in my head. I guess I'll recognize it when I see it.”

“Take that left, go half a mile, maybe, past some new houses that weren't there last time you came down. You come to another left, little dirt road going back up into the woods,” he said. “Follow it all the way to the end. Hundred yards or so. My driveway—not much more than a pair of ruts—it angles off to the right. Look for the stone sculpture.”

“Huh?” I said. “Stone sculpture?”

Larry chuckled. “You'll see.”

“I'll find you one way or the other.”

“Look for you around suppertime?” he said. “I'll dig some quahogs, make us a chowder.”

“You don't want to give me a hint what this is about, Larry?” I said.

“I got people here getting restless waiting for the phone,” he said. “Gotta go.”

“Okay. Tomorrow, then.”

“Thanks, man. You're a lifesaver.”

I pushed the Off button on the phone, put it on the table between Evie and me, and picked up my drink. The ice cubes had shrunk to mothball size, but it still tasted good.

“You're going to the Vineyard, huh?” said Evie.

I nodded.

“That man's in trouble?”

“He called me a lifesaver.”

“Wouldn't tell you why?”

I shook my head.

“He calls it urgent,” she said, “and you take it at face value.”

I shrugged. “I know. It might be nothing. Larry Bucyck's not the world's most stable person. Actually, he shows all the symptoms of a paranoid schizophrenic. Thing is, though, if I didn't go and something really did happen to him, I couldn't live with myself.”

“He's your client.”

I nodded. “He is my client.”

“And he needs you.”

“That's about it,” I said.

“You should've been a social worker, you know that?”

“I'd've made a terrible social worker,” I said.

“And this has nothing to do with slipping off to the Vineyard for a weekend, escaping the steamy city, getting away from your crabby girlfriend for a couple days, doing a little surf casting, huh?”

“Nothing like any of that,” I said. “Something has seriously freaked the man out. Anyway, you're not that crabby. You're, um, challenging sometimes. And sexy always. But I wouldn't call you crabby.”

Evie smiled. “So how exactly were you planning to get down to the Vineyard?”

I looked at her for a minute, then slapped my forehead. “I forgot about the damn strike.”

“That's what I was trying to tell you. The ferries aren't running.”

“God damn Larry, he never even mentioned it.”

“You said he was living off the grid,” said Evie. “Maybe he doesn't know.”

“How could he not know?” I said. “The whole world knows about the ferry strike. Stupid me for not thinking of it. Just the other day ex-President Callahan was on TV saying he'd be available to mediate it if the two sides were willing to sit down. I guess if Callahan could bring those Middle East countries to the table, he ought to be able to get a ferry strike settled. Seems to me he's done more good peacemaking since he left office than he did while he was in the White House.”

“So what're you going to do?”

“I can't not go,” I said.

Evie smiled. “Of course you can't,” she said. “Listen. The big-shot surgeons at the hospital wouldn't be caught dead riding the ferry with the riffraff even when it is running. They fly. You want to fly?”

“Sure. What's my choice?”

“No choice.” She frowned. “What's the name of the…? Okay. I remember. Cape Air. Several flights every day, Logan direct to the Vineyard. Want me to call them for you?”

“That,” I said, “would be sweet.”

“You go make us another pitcher of gin and tonics, then.”

I took the empty pitcher into the kitchen as Evie was pecking numbers on the telephone. When I returned, the phone was sitting on the table beside her.

I filled both of our glasses, then sat down. “So'd you get me a reservation?”

She smiled. “Cape Air flies every hour on the hour starting at 7
A.M
., something like ten flights a day, and the first available seat was next Monday. She said things've been crazy with the ferries not running, especially around the weekends. I did not reserve that seat for you. You said it had to be tomorrow.”