Deadout (24 page)

Teddy's eyes smoldered, tight and small. Then they opened up and seemed to focus over my shoulder.

I opened my mouth to say something. I forget what, but I'm pretty sure it was hilarious and that it started with the letter “M,” because that's the letter I got stuck on for what seemed like a long time as a shitload of electricity passed through my body.

I went totally rigid, which didn't interfere with the whole “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” thing, then I teetered for a moment before slowly falling over onto the ground. Actually, when you fall like that, you start out slow, but by the time you hit you're going at a pretty decent clip. Luckily, the agony of being electrocuted kind of numbs you to the lesser pain of falling down. But I was pretty sure it was going to hurt later.

It wasn't until they cut the juice that I realized I'd been saying “Mmm” the whole time. When they killed the power, I moved onto “Oh.”

I had a vague sense of someone stepping around me, and the sound of a car driving away. By the time I was able to stand up, I was alone. I staggered for a second, then stumbled over to the center lane as quickly as I could. I got there just in time to see the van's brake lights flare in the darkness, then twist to the right and disappear.

 

40

On my way back to the Jeep, I staggered and fell, but I managed to get the thing started and turned around without too much difficulty. I drove fast, a straight shot down the center of the lane, slamming on the brakes just before I turned onto the road.

I drove hard until I caught up with them, but once I did, I gave them plenty of distance.

They were driving annoyingly, conspicuously slow, and it took considerable effort to stay back as I followed them for several miles. For a while, I turned on the fog lights, hoping to look like a different vehicle. I considered whistling nonchalantly, but I didn't want to be too obvious.

We were approaching the telltale white picket fences of Edgartown when the van stopped at a stop sign up ahead and stayed there. I tapped the brakes, then harder, slowing almost to a stop.

I was torn between coasting toward them at half a mile an hour and pulling up like a normal driver and sitting directly behind them. I pictured a knife-in-the-boot paramilitary maniac throwing open the back door and spraying me with machine gun fire, hand grenades, and Chinese throwing stars. Next I pictured Teddy getting out and saying something snotty and hurtful about my relationship with Nola. I wasn't sure which was worse, so I added an embellishment to the second scenario in which I punched him in the face. Then I liked that one better.

I was starting to feel conspicuous
not
honking when they finally moved, turning onto Edgartown's Main Street. I coasted to a stop at the intersection, and had to wait while another car went by in front of me.

The street tightened in around us and the picket fences thickened as we drove into town. The van slowed even more, and I was glad to have the other car between us.

The street continued to constrict, down to a single lane as it turned one way. We were approaching the water, running out of land. The car between us turned off, and I realized there was only one block left before Main Street hit the waterfront and looped tightly around. I didn't want to get stuck right behind them.

I made a sharp left and sped up to the next intersection and waited, anxious that I'd lost them after following them for miles. Mercifully, the van appeared at the intersection a block to my right, moving in the same direction as I was. Once it cleared the intersection, I sped up to the next cross street and stopped. And I waited. And waited some more.

The road narrowed ahead of me, and a car pulled up behind me. I pulled over as far as I could, but there still wasn't room for him to pass.

The van had disappeared.

With a growl in my throat, I made the right turn. I stashed the Jeep in a small parking area halfway down the block and jogged the rest of the way.

I'd been so sure the van wouldn't be there, I almost walked right out into the open. But I saw it just in time, pulled over on the side of the road, the engine running.

I ducked back and watched it, and after a few minutes, it rolled slowly forward sixty feet, stopping between a large seafood restaurant and a small building that backed onto the water. The smaller building had a sign in front that read
MARTHA'S VINEYARD SHIPYARD
, but it didn't seem to have any ships, or even much of a yard. It did have a set of what looked like railroad tracks running between the two buildings, out into the darkness and down into the water.

The back door to the van opened, and Teddy got out. The manic energy was replaced by a grim determination. Or numb determination—apart from the tension in his jaw, his face was blank. He reached back into the van and pulled out the tank he had been filling at the industrial park. He lifted it up, two hands, under his chin, elbows out. Then he turned and fast-walked around to the water side of the building, disappearing into the darkness.

For a long few seconds, nothing happened. I looked behind me, just for a moment, and when I did, the sky lit up. I could see myself silhouetted against the brick wall behind me, and for an instant, I was confused, immobile, wondering what the hell was happening. Then I was brought back to the moment by the sound of almost-screeching tires as the van sped away.

I didn't know if I should run to my car or run to see what was happening on the water. I wondered briefly if while I was distracted, Teddy had gotten into the van before it pulled away.

But he sprinted into view as I watched, skidding to a stop right where the van had been idling. He looked one way, then the other, then down at his feet, at the street beneath them. I would have felt sorry for him if it wasn't him.

The light in the sky was getting brighter, and it occurred to me I needed to be doing something. I took out my phone but before I could dial, I heard a siren rapidly getting louder.

Teddy was in a daze, but the siren snapped him out of it.

I called out to him. “Teddy!” I don't know why. Maybe I was going to tell him not to run, that he would only make it worse. But he took off before I could say anything else. Which was fine with me. I kind of liked the idea of it getting worse.

A police cruiser screeched as it swerved around the corner, the street exploding in flashing lights. As it sped past me, Jimmy Frank looked right at me and raised one eyebrow.

I waved.

Teddy had taken off running straight along the street, which meant the cruiser caught up with him after seventy feet instead of after thirty feet. It also meant that when the cruiser caught up with him, the cop inside it was that much more annoyed.

Jimmy rolled down the window as he slowed alongside Teddy. “Police,” I heard him say. “Stop.”

Teddy redoubled his efforts, leaning forward with his arms pumping hard, his hands flat like blades.

“Stop!” Jimmy said, his voice sounding more weary than anything else.

This time Teddy glanced over. But he didn't slow down.

Jimmy was still pacing him with the cruiser, and he reached out the window with his nightstick and gave Teddy a poke in the ribs, just enough get him off balance. Teddy took two more steps, almost in control, then a few more with his arms flailing. Then he seemed to come apart, limbs shooting out in all directions in a futile effort to regain his balance. He went over hard, his arms insufficient to stop what looked like a nasty face-plant.

I'll admit it—I laughed.

Jimmy got out of the car and looked back at me, shaking his head. He might have heard me.

The sirens had multiplied, and I looked back to see the fire trucks pulling up in front of the shipyard. The orange light illuminating the sky behind it was already dying back down.

Teddy was rolling on the ground, his hands over his face. Jimmy was standing over him. He gave me a look as I walked up, letting me know that we were going to have a talk.

Then Teddy groaned. Jimmy looked down at him and pulled out his handcuffs, saying, “You have the right to remain silent.”

 

41

When Jimmy got him to his feet, I could see Teddy had a split lip, a red nose, and grit in his eyebrows. I let out a snort at the sight of him, earning glares from them both.

Jimmy led him past me to the car and when Teddy muttered, “Asshole,” Jimmy looked at me and nodded, like the kid had a point. Then he palmed Teddy's skull and forced him down while he seated him in the back of the cruiser. He closed the door, and turned to face me.

“You think that was funny?” he said.

“Well … yeah. Parts of it were hilarious.”

“Ha, ha. Okay, turn around.”

“What for?” I protested.

“Just turn around, dumb-ass.”

I turned around and felt a pair of sharp pinches on my back. “What the fuck?” I said, turning back to see Jimmy holding a pair of taser darts trailing wires.

He raised an eyebrow. “What's up with this?”

“You'll have to ask your prisoner over there. I was trying to talk him out of whatever stunt he just pulled when one of his friends tagged me from behind.”

He grunted noncommittally. “And what stunt was that?”

We both looked over to where the firefighters were slowly rolling up their hoses.

“I don't know,” I said. “Nola called me, concerned that he was about to do something stupid.”

He snorted at that.

“I know, right? Anyway, she told me where to find him, at his dad's old Thompson Chemical Company place, on Edgartown Road. I tried to talk to him, and someone tased me from behind.”

Jimmy let out a sigh and got into the car. “All right. We'll talk more about it later.”

I turned and walked back down the street, past my Jeep and toward the shipyard, to see what had actually happened. I had just reached the shipyard when Jimmy pulled up next to me and got out of the cruiser.

“You know this is a crime scene under police control, right?” Teddy was fuming in the backseat.

I shrugged, but didn't stop walking. “I'm police.”

He fell into step beside me. “Not here you're not.”

“Come on, I'm just having a look-see.”

He shook his head. “That kid might be right about you.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Behind the shipyard building was a small yard and a wooden dock, maybe forty feet long. Jimmy and I climbed the couple of steps up onto it and walked halfway out, to a blackened circle of charred wood with the crumpled ruins of what looked like a pile of crates, smoldering, smoking, and dripping with water. I felt a shiver go through me, and tensed my muscles against it. The air was heavy with the smell of smoke and wet ash, and behind it, almost as strong, harsh chemicals.

Jimmy tilted his head. “What the hell is that?”

“I can't say for sure. Looks like burned-out beehives.”

Lying on the dock a couple of feet away was the white plastic container I'd seen Teddy filling back at the industrial park. I crouched down and touched my finger to the opening. Then I sniffed it, pulling my head back from the sharp chemical smell.

“Don't be touching every goddamned thing,” Jimmy snapped.

“This is what he used,” I said, looking up at him.

“What is it?” he asked. “Doesn't smell like gasoline or kerosene.”

“Don't know. I saw him filling this from a bigger tank at the industrial park.”

Jimmy nodded, and looked out over the water at a set of lights slowly approaching out of the darkness.

“What are you doing?” called a voice from the boat. It was Pete Westcamp. “You better not be messing with those bees! They're the last ones I got!”

Jimmy looked at me and winced.

“Goddamn it,” Pete yelled, getting close enough that I could see him now. “You got no right taking those bees. I only left them there for a couple of hours. So you better bring 'em back this instant. I'm getting them off this goddamned island, taking them to Chappaquiddick, where maybe they'll be safe.”

“Hey, Pete,” Jimmy called out to him. The boat was coasting up to the dock. “These were your bees?”

Pete was craning his neck to see up over the dock. The boat hit the piling harder than it was supposed to. Pete staggered but he didn't fall. “What are you talking about?” he said, but his voice had lost its bluster, suddenly sounding old and confused. He didn't bother tying up the boat, and it kicked back out into the water as he clambered onto the dock. He charged forward, then stopped and fell to his knees just outside the charred circle. “Where's all my bees?” he asked, tears starting down his face. “What happened to my bees?”

 

42

It was midnight by the time they got Teddy booked, processed, and tucked into his cell. Martha's Vineyard had five or six police departments but only one jail, and it was by far the nicest one I'd ever seen. In the middle of scenic Edgartown, blending right in with white clapboard, black shutters, and a white picket fence.

Jimmy had emerged from the place five minutes earlier, carrying a couple of paper cups, and we were now drinking whiskey on the jail's front steps.

“You know, if I ever have to go to jail,” I told him, “I think this is the one for me.”

Jimmy snorted. “The way you're headed, you might get your wish.” He got a laugh out of that one, but not a long one. We were tired.

“Did they set bail?”

He shook his head. “Bail commissioner's tied up until morning. Not really how it's supposed to work, but to be fair, this is a tricky one. He's not a typical flight risk, but he's got lots of money, he owns a boat, and now he's bragging about his connection to a shadowy cabal of eco-terrorists. Plus, I don't think they know what to make of the crime.”

“So what do you think's going on?” I asked, nodding my head toward the jail building and the asshole inside it.