The Traveller (60 page)

Where’s his car? her brain screamed.

She took a step sideways, then another, peering into the small driveway. No car. She walked out into the street to give herself a better look up and down.

No car.

She told herself: He probably went to the deli. That’s it.

But every nerve in her body told her that reassurance was wrong. She made certain that the pistol would slip free from her purse when she demanded it.

She walked to the front door and stepped inside.

What she saw made her heart plummet.

Martin Jeffers’ mail lay uncollected on the floor in front of his apartment.

No, she said. No!

She stepped to the door and removed the pistol. With her free hand she pounded on the wood frame.

There was no response.

She waited, then pounded again.

Again nothing.

She made no effort to conceal the gun as she walked outdoors and around the side of the building. She stared

the windows, pausing at the one where she’d broken into the apartment what suddenly seemed a very long time efore.

She saw no movement. The interior remained dark.

She walked back to the front door and pounded again.

Silence continued to greet her.

She stepped back, staring at the bolted door. She thought it oddly symbolic. I’m locked out. I should have known, I did know, I just refused to acknowledge it, that he would close me out. They are brothers, she thought. Then she slumped down, sitting on the steps that rose to the upper floors of the building.

He’s gone, she said to herself matter-of-factly.

He knows and he’s gone.

She felt one momentary rush of rage that evaporated as swiftly as it arrived. She remained sitting, feeling nothing save a great, gray, utterly absorbing cloud of defeat that rained despair on her heart.

A tractor-trailer had jackknifed on Route 95, not far from Mystic, Connecticut, backing up traffic for a half-dozen miles. Martin Jeffers shifted impatiently in his seat, his face bathed by the blue and yellow strobes of a rescue crew and the state police cruisers. Every few seconds the red taillights

of the car in front of him would flash and he would have to brake hard himself. He hated the jam-up; it intruded on the frantic press of memories which called to him from the recesses of his imagination. He tried to think of good moments they’d shared, instants in time that create the relationship between brothers: a night spent camping, the construction of a tree house, a halting, embarrassed discussion about girls that disintegrated into a conversation about masturbation. That made him smile. Doug never admitted to anything, but was always filled with the advice of a frequent practitioner, regardless of the subject. He remembered a moment when he was six or seven and had been set upon by other neighborhood boys armed to the teeth with snowballs. He’d been unable to outrun the missiles or the gibes of the others. It was a benign challenge, one that stemmed not from competition or animosity but from six new inches of snow falling steadily and the cancellation of classes that day. Doug had listened to his story of ambush and attack, then carefully decked himself in scarf and winter coat and galoshes and led the way out the rear door. His brother had led him around the back, around the block, and finally up from behind, crawling the last fifty yards on their stomachs behind a white-decked hedgerow. Their assault was commandolike and marvelously successful. Two shots crashed in snowy explosion into the faces of a pair of his tormentors before they had any idea where the grenades were coming from.

Even then, Martin Jeffers thought abruptly, Doug knew how to stalk his prey.

He looked ahead and saw a row of flares burning orange into the roadway. A state trooper with a yellow-lensed flashlight was waving the cars through frantically. Still, people slowed to peer at the wreck.

We are always fascinated by disaster, Martin Jeffers knew.

We crane our heads to see nightmare. We slow to investigate misery.

He wished, suddenly that he were above curiosity, but

realized he wasn’t. He, too, slowed in passing, catching a glimpse of a single shrouded figure deathly still on the road.

In ancient times, he told himself, a traveler spotting such an inopportune omen would turn back, grateful that the ktavens had shown him a sign foretelling the tragedy that awaited him. But I am modern. I am not superstitious.

He drove on. He glanced at his wristwatch and knew that he would miss the last ferry at Woods Hole. Damn, he said to himself. I’ll have to catch the first boat in the Morning. He hoped the ferry company still scheduled a 6 a.m. boat. He remembered a good motel within walking distance of the dock. For a moment he toyed with the idea of calling the detective once he’d checked in; not to tell her where he was, but to apologize and try to explain that he was doing what he must, what was dictated by flesh and Wood. He wanted her to forgive him. He wanted her to forgive herself. She will blame herself for leaving me alone, even if just for a few minutes. She should realize there were a dozen moments that I could have abandoned her. He knew it was the sort of rationalization that would infuriate her. Well, he said to himself, you were wrong about New Hampshire. Maybe you’re wrong about Finger Point as well. The head plays a confidence game with the heart.

‘Maybe he won’t be there,’ Martin Jeffers said aloud. ‘Maybe I’ll just embarrass myself by knocking on the door of some vacationing family who’ll think I’m crazy and that will be it.’

Detective Barren slipped from his mind’s eye, replaced by his brother. He felt a great swirl within him. He was caught in a perfect pull of emotions: equal parts demanding he confront his brother and equal parts hoping he wouldn’t have to.

The night had moved into position and he felt more alone than he ever had since the evening in New Hampshire more than three decades earlier.

Detective Mercedes Barren remained rooted on the hallway steps outside Martin Jeffers’ apartment, letting the darkness sweep over her.

She was filled with memories of her own; of her husband, of her niece. A portrait of Susan filled her, but it wasn’t the Susan that she’d seen strangled and molested and discarded beneath a few scrub ferns in the park, but the Susan who would come to dinner and play loud music and dance about Detective Barren’s home, suffused with sounds, barely able to contain all the life she had. Then this image faded, and Detective Barren saw the little girl, dressed in pinks and bows, running to greet her, making the detective feel, if only for an instant, completely whole, completely loved. She thought of John Barren, rolling over in the middle of the night with demands of affection, and the friendly, familiar sensation of welcoming him to her body. She thought: If only I’d known. If only someone had told me: Make every moment special, for your time is short.

She saw herself as a child, gripping her father’s hand.

She looked over at the dark door to Martin Jeffers’ apartment. Well, she said to herself, use some of your father’s logic. It was the only thing he had to will to you. It’s helped you before. What would he do?

Examine the facts. Investigate each element.

All right, she said to herself. Let’s take it simply.

He said: Meet you here.

A lie.

She thought what a wondrous lie it was. Simple, benign, especially the touch about the sandwiches. Use the familiarity of the past days against her.

But when did the lying start?

She reviewed their last meeting, in his office. He didn’t indicate anything had changed. But something obviously had. He didn’t receive any phone calls. There was no mail. He clearly didn’t return to his apartment and then decide to leave. The decision had to have been made by the time they were in his office. She reviewed the situation again. No, she thought quickly, there was nothing from Douglas Jeffers.

So it must have been something he remembered.

She sat back in the darkness and thought deeply.

He went to individual sessions and then to that damn

group of perverts. Then he came back to the office and then he began lying and then he disappeared. She sat up and then stood up. She began to pace about the entranceway, concentrating hard. Her exhaustion slid away in the fury of her mind at work. She felt a wealth of adrenaline pumping through her. Back on the case, she thought, You’re back on the case. Act like a damn detective. Now, though, you’ve got two quarries.

All right,’ she said out loud. ‘Start at the hospital. Start with the patients he saw. Get the list from his secretary. If she won’t give it to you, steal it.’

These last words echoed in the small area.

She breathed in hard. She saw again her niece, her husband, her father. She smiled and dismissed the images from her head. Work, she thought. She replaced the vision with twin portraits of Martin and Douglas Jeffers. I’m coming, she said to herself. I’m still after you.

Weak dawn light flowed over the ferry bow, and Martin Jeffers felt the chill of morning air surround him. He pulled the lapels of his lab coat tighter and let the breeze wash over him. He could see miles of rolling gray-green ocean glistening in the first light. He turned his back to the wind and watched the island loom up in the distance. He could see the shoreline trimmed with proper summer homes, then, a short ways farther in the distance, the white glow of Vineyard Haven, where the ferry would dock. Sunlight hit upon a row of a half-dozen fuel tanks next to the docks. In the harbor, dozens of sailboats bobbed at moorings. He thought of the small slapping sound that wavelets make against the hull of a sailboat.

The ferry moved fast through the morning seas. As it approached the slip, it blared out a single raucous blast on the air horn. Martin Jeffers saw some of the other passengers jump, startled by the sound.

The ferry bumped to a stop, its huge diesel engines grinding the bow into the dock. There was a momentary pause while gangways were lowered and people started to exit. Martin Jeffers pushed through the early crowd of

people. The lines of cars waiting to get on the ferry were already stretched up the street. It reminded Jeffers how close they were to the end of the summer; the boat over had been almost empty. Returning to the mainland, it would be filled.

He looked about briefly as he exited the ferry and walked across the loading area, past the ticket office. He thought: It’s all the same, but different. More buildings. New shops. A new parking lot. But it’s all the same, still.

I thought I would never come back here.

He started to count the years, then stopped. He knew the house would be there, just the same, next to the pond, across from the ocean. His eyes scanned the crowds of people and cars. It will still be isolated and wild, he said to himself. It will have stayed the same.

He did not base this conclusion on any fact, more an overwhelming sensation of familiarity.

It was, he thought, the best worst place.

He remembered what the Lost Boys had said. And he’d come to that place where they’d told him to look.

Look for a death.

Well, he said to himself, I’m here.

And this is the place for both.

He hurried across the street to Island Rent-A-Car, washing his mind of everything save the insistent fear that he would be right.

The clerk was eating a doughnut and sipping coffee.

‘How can I help you?’

‘Martin Jeffers. I made a reservation last night with the late guy.’

‘Yup. Saw his note this morning. On the early ferry, right? Said you wanted a car for a couple of days, right? A little vacation?’

‘A little business. Could be short. Could drag out a bit.’

‘Just so’s we have the car back Friday. Labor Day weekend, you know. All booked up. Everything is.’

‘No problem,’ Jeffers lied.

‘You got an island address for the form?’

He hesitated. ‘Yeah. Chilmark. Out on Quansoo. Sorry, there’s no phone.’

“Best beach, though.’

“Right you are.’

‘Of course,’ the clerk said as he filled out the forms, ‘I don’t go down there too much. I ain’t much of a swimmer and those waves and the undertow and all that stuff scares the daylights out of me. But the surfers, they love it. You ain’t a surfer, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Those kids are always renting the cars and trying to drive them out on the beach and getting them stuck and tearing up the transmissions and all.’

The man picked up a set of keys hanging on the wall behind him. ‘You need a map?’ he asked.

‘No, unless things have changed much in the past couple of years.’

‘Things always change. That’s the nature of life. But the roads ain’t, if that’s what you mean.’ The clerk shoved a form at Martin Jeffers for his signature. ‘All set. It’s the white Chevy just outside the door. Return with a tank of gas, okay? Before Friday.’

‘See you then.’

Martin Jeffers started up the car and fought his way through the building morning traffic. He realized he had no plan other than simply barging in on the people who were there. What are you going to say? he asked himself. What are you going to tell them? Excuse me, sir or madam, but you wouldn’t happen to have seen a man bearing a family resemblance to yours truly dripping blood in the neighborhood?

What can you say other than the truth?

He realized that was impossible. This particular truth was too far removed from reality to absorb at 8 a.m. on a late-summer morning, when eating a leisurely breakfast before heading to the beach.

So, he thought, just tell them he’s lost and you’re trying to find him. Tell them he’s in a fugue state, wandering between poles of memory, disengaged from life, like everyone’s crazy Aunt Sadie, who one day simply walked off and took a train to St Louis. Tell them he’s harmless. Tell them you’re concerned. Tell them anything.

Every construction he tried sounded equally far-fetched.

Just tell them you’re looking for your brother and once you lived in this house and you thought he might have come visiting.

Tell them what they want to hear.

This, he admitted to himself, is going to be impossible.