Trap Door (7 page)

Luckily she always made extra. “Why don’t you unload our stuff from the truck?” I told Jemmy as he followed me in. “There isn’t much, just the cordless drill and a few other gadgets.”

Ellie looked up, her eyes still full of whatever it was she wanted to say to me. But for the moment I ignored her.

“We’ll eat,” I told him as she poured steaming coffee from the thermos into thick white china mugs, “and figure out what you need. Then while we work on the dock, you can supply yourself for remote lakeside housekeeping.”

And that’s what happened: first the unloading of our tools—Jemmy had plenty of energy, even if it was only nervous energy—then lunch. Ellie’s ham salad was as smooth and mellow as pâté, her fresh baby lettuce leaves ruffling out over the edges of the homemade bread. She’d made fresh lemonade, too, and run it through a seltzer bottle to give it fizz.

Later, with input from me, Jemmy made a list of items required for his survival in a no-plumbing, no-electricity wilderness environment. And when I finally handed the keys over, he started Wade’s old truck and muscled it into gear competently. Maybe this will turn out all right, I thought, watching him go.

But Ellie threw a look of undiminished dislike at him as he bumped away down the road, disappearing among the spring-green trees.

“You’re making a
big mistake,” Ellie said as soon as Jemmy was gone. “Why did he have to bring all his troubles around here, anyway?”

Scowling, she grabbed up her canvas carpenter’s apron and wrapped it around her waist. “It’s like he’s got his own personal bull’s-eye painted on him,” she added, “and now you’re going to have one, too.”

I tightened a leather tool belt around my own middle. In its many loops and pockets hung everything I needed: hammer, tape measure, socket wrench, and the heavy-duty fasteners we’d bought for putting the first section of the dock together.

“You know I can’t refuse,” I replied. She’d heard all about my runaway youth.

Almost all. “Besides,” I went on, “Jemmy’s not planning anything that’ll cause me any problems. He’ll probably just try to set up some kind of a meeting with Walt Henderson. Pay him off or something. Buy out the contract so he’s
not
wearing a bull’s-eye anymore.”

Well, a girl could hope. “I mean guys who kill other guys for money, they’ve got no loyalty,” I told Ellie. “They always switch sides and go to the highest bidder.”

I couldn’t believe I was discussing such things way out here in the Maine woods. “Or Jemmy might stay for a while and take off again without anything happening. He has before.”

Well, except for that boat explosion. “And either way it’s not like I’m involved. Not if I don’t want to be,” I added resolutely.

Ellie shook her head. “If you think that, maybe you don’t understand the situation,” she pronounced as we got to work.

We’d prepared the concrete mix in big plastic basins a week earlier, moistening the powdery stuff with lake water we hauled up in buckets. Stirring it thoroughly with hoes and trowels, we’d poured it into two square wooden forms made out of scrap lumber to create the base blocks for the dock pilings.

While the mixture was still wet we’d also set a big bolt head-down into each of the blocks’ centers so that the bolts’ threaded ends stuck up straight. Now Ellie used a clawhammer to knock the wooden forms off the blocks, each eighteen inches square and a foot tall, while I centered six-inch-square metal brackets on the bolts and wrenched nuts onto them, securing the brackets.

“Remember Bella’s friend? The one with the missing kid?” she asked as she hammered away.

“Mm-hmm.” I began ratcheting the nuts tighter onto the bolts until they would turn no farther. When I was done, each concrete block had a metal frame bolted to the top of it.

“But what’s she got to do with anything?” I asked.

“I’m not sure yet.” Ellie hauled six-inch-square pine posts over to our work area. We’d already cut them to nearly the right length using the chain saw; later we would need to perfect our measurements to make the dock’s surface level.

But we couldn’t do that until after we got them into the water, and found out how far they stuck up out of it. “I know who Bella’s friends
are,
though,” Ellie went on.

I didn’t. Like Walt Henderson, I too was a Person From Away, and regularly missed whole layers of Eastport nuance as a result. By contrast, Ellie had known the area’s whole complex family and social network by heart before she could even talk.

“—and one of those women has an eighteen-year-old son,” she concluded grimly.

“Well, then, Bella’s friend has even more of my sympathy,” I replied, tightening down the final bolt with a last twist of the ratchet tool. Because if you think a toddler can fray your lone surviving nerve, try listening to the old ‘Mom, I’m not a kid anymore’ routine two million times.

Then try it when the kid is staggering drunk. “But I fail to see… ” I added as Ellie positioned the first post carefully atop a concrete block, forcing it tightly into the bolted-on metal frame.

We’d had to shave the post ends a little to make them fit. “I know,” she replied. “You
don’t
see, Jacobia.
And
you don’t know the rest of the story.”

She stuck a galvanized nail through one of the holes in the metal frame’s sides, banged it in, then did the rest
bing-bang-boom,
two nails per side for a total of eight. That fastened the wooden post to the concrete block. And we were using galvanized nails—that is, rust-proof ones—because the block would be underwater soon, if everything went right.

“So, since you’re obviously not up on the background info, I’ll give you the high points,” she said. “First, based on who Bella’s friends are, if the runaway kid she’s so worried about is the one I think it is—”

It was. Ellie was never wrong about things like this.

“… his name’s Cory Trow. He had a court date this morning, supposed to show up at the courthouse in Machias. Whole town knew about it.”

Except me. Between Sam’s drunken antics and a roof so leaky you could strain spaghetti through it, I’d had my hands full. So I hadn’t heard about all this.

“And,” she continued briskly, “the court date he had was for a sentencing hearing.” Never a good thing. But I had a feeling worse was to come, and I was right.

“Because he got convicted on a stalking charge. And the complainant… wait for it… was Walter Henderson’s daughter,” she finished.

Ye gods. “So you think he took off. Blew off his sentencing hearing, which means he’ll get a… ”

“A prison term, yes. If and when he ever does show up again. Alive,” she added darkly.

Which was when I caught on. “But that’s not his big problem, is it?” I said slowly. “His problem is—”

“Walter Henderson the hit man,” Ellie finished for me. “Bingo. Who is here in Eastport at all, I gather, because your pal Jemmy has a habit of coming up for air in your vicinity.”

She gestured for me to help her hold the second post, then hammered the nails in just as she’d done with the first. Now we had two concrete cubes, each with a six-by-six wooden post sticking up from it about four feet.

Too bad that at the moment the cubes were also sitting fifty yards from the water’s edge. And since docks are most usefully positioned
in
the water, not fifty yards from it…

“And what do you want to bet our buddy Mr. Henderson’s going to feel like doing some
recreational
killing,” Ellie said, “when he finds out that the town boy who’s been bothering his daughter isn’t in court where he belongs?”

She took a deep breath. “That instead Cory Trow’s on the run, maybe even planning to bother Mr. H’s precious little girl
again
?”

The memory of Henderson conversing earlier that morning with police chief Bob Arnold popped into my mind. “Probably he already knows,” I said.

It was what Henderson had been chewing Bob’s ear about, I was willing to bet. “How little is she, anyway?” I asked. “The daughter?”

To move the huge concrete blocks, we’d invented a transport vehicle consisting of a wooden pallet, some styrofoam blocks I’d managed to beg from the guys out at the boat school, and the wheels from Ellie’s baby daughter Leonora’s stroller.

It was a lovely little item with blue trim and white padding inside, and Ellie had adored it when Wade and I showed up with it as a gift for Lee’s first birthday. But Leonora hated it. She’d bawled when she was placed in it.

So Ellie and I had cannibalized it. To keep it from rolling downhill uncontrollably, we’d tied a rope handle to the rear end and bolted a wagon handle to the front. The completed cart resembled one the Little Rascals would build, and we hadn’t had a test run.

But our choice was between trying it or toppling the blocks end over end down to the water, a process we thought might bode ill for the eventual integrity of the whole dock structure.

And for our own. So together with much grunting and groaning we hefted one of the concrete blocks onto the cart. The stroller wheels bulged with its weight but didn’t collapse.

“Jen Henderson’s a teenager,” Ellie said, eyeing our cart doubtfully. “The tall, blonde, athletic type. I’ve seen her, and so has every male human being in Eastport over the age of two.”

We centered the block by rocking it back and forth; once we got rolling, any instability could lead to an upset.

“Jen takes the whole golden-girl thing to extremes, though,” Ellie elaborated as together we gave the block a last centering wiggle.

“She looks… oof!… like a Barbie doll on steroids. Not that I think she uses them. At her age she doesn’t need them, to look the way she does. Protein shakes, maybe.”

By that time I was gasping. Ellie wasn’t even breathing hard but we still looked at each other with trepidation, wishing we’d brought along someone who regularly ingested both steroids
and
protein shakes. Loaded, that cart was
heavy
.

But there was nothing left for it but to tie the block to the platform, start the whole thing rolling and hope for the best. “So the bottom line is, you think this kid took off to avoid being sent to jail for girl trouble,” I said.

The rickety little contraption, loaded with a concrete cube massive enough to anchor a fair-sized motorboat, stood poised at the top of the slope leading sharply down to the water. And to make the whole project even more of a challenge, the path to the water’s edge was bumpy.

Very bumpy: rocks, exposed roots, ragged jounces and jogs, any one of which could tip the cart. “But now he’s in a worse fix because the girl’s dad has a habit of blowing guys’ heads off. Or whatever it is,” I amended, “that Henderson does to the targets of his professional assignments.”

“Yup,” Ellie said. “And none of it would be happening at all if
you
weren’t here.”

Oh, terrific; now
I
was the cause of the whole mess. Or my habit of attracting Jemmy was to blame, anyway. So in a way I was responsible for the girl being here, too; the entire subject was starting to make my head hurt.

“Are those wheels strong enough?” Ellie asked dubiously, her brow furrowed as she eyed the setup. “Because once it hits those bumps on its way downhill… ”

I spread my hands in a “who knows?” gesture. A shove would get the cart going and we’d learn the answer fast. Stopping it again would be another matter, but the lake would do that.

We hoped. “Grab the rope,” I said.

The plan was to control the cart’s speed by hauling on the rope handle from behind. And from in front I hoped I could also control its direction, since a concrete block careening wildly off into the forest wasn’t what we had in mind.

No point imagining the negative possible outcomes, however. For one thing, there were too many to think about all at once. I lifted the wagon handle. “Okay, push it.”

The vehicle began rolling, slowly at first and then faster. A lot faster; the spokes in the little blue wheels blurred. Ellie planted her feet in the gravel of the path to try slowing it down from the rear but the bright yellow boots she was wearing skidded ineffectually through the stones.

“Hey,” she protested. I leaned hard against the handle from below, also without much result.

“This hill,” I muttered as the makeshift cart built up even more speed, “is way steeper than I… ”

Suddenly the little red wagon handle snapped off with a loud
crack!
and then the rope broke when Ellie’s feet hit a protruding root, stopping her abruptly.

Holding the rope’s end, she sat down hard on the path while the cart careened away from her. “Jake!” she cried. “Look out!”

Gripping the broken handle, I lost my footing on the path and hit the ground, too, as the loaded cart trundled straight at me with the massive concrete block wobbling and bouncing on it.

“Jake! Get out of the way!”

“I’m trying… .” Scrambling aside as the murderously heavy vehicle rumbled past, missing me by centimeters, I landed in what had once been a thicket of old elderberry bushes. We’d cut them down the previous summer so that someday we could stack kayaks and canoes on the spot.

Now the whole area with the cut stems jutting up from it was about as comfortable as a bed of nails. Also our cart was still rolling, jouncing, and bumping while we sat staring.

At the water’s edge it bounced gaily over a boulder, two wheels exploding outward, their spokes and plastic parts flying in all directions, concrete block still perched miraculously atop the platform. And…

And then it
soared
. Out over the water it hung in thin air for a moment while Ellie and I watched openmouthed. Next with a dramatic
splat!
it splashed flat onto the lake’s surface, bobbled a bit…

And
floated
. The top-heavy post tipped the pallet platform precariously. But the block’s weight prevailed and the post at last straightened as the platform steadied itself bravely, small waves rippling around it.

“The styrofoam worked!” I cried, jumping up to dance around deliriously while Ellie still frowned at the thing.

“Genius!” I exulted, heedless of the cuts and scratches on my hands and arms and the many bruises, unseen but certainly not unfelt, in the process of developing on my legs.