Jacob Willow exited the truck, his shoes sinking into sand. There was no vehicle in Ryder’s drive or under the house. Willow climbed the dozen steps to the small porch at the door. He knocked and surveyed Ryder’s setting. The street held three houses before abutting a finger of scrubby woods. To the east was a big, fancy structure. Ryder’s place and the house to the west were much more modest. It was the beachfront real estate that made them expensive. The truncated street meant almost no traffic. A nice place to live.
Willow knocked again. Nothing. He retreated down the steps, crossed beneath the house, skirting the fish-cleaning table, the kayak, the picnic table. He walked into the sun and looked up at the deck. A light was on in what was probably the kitchen window. He walked back under the house, listened for sounds from above, footsteps, radio. Nothing but silence. Willow went to his truck and grabbed the cellphone to give Ryder a call, but remembered the detective’s words: things are breaking…I need the phone.
He sighed, tossed the phone back in the cab. He was preparing to follow it when he thought, What the hell, maybe Ryder ran to the store for something.
Willow shut the door of the truck, walked to the steps of the stilted house. He slipped on his sunglasses, pulled down his hat, and sat in the hot South Alabama sun, wishing he had another cigarette.
I’d heard an engine shut off on the vehicle in my drive, a diesel engine, not Harry or Danbury. Who did I know with such a vehicle?
Willow. His big Dodge truck was diesel. Speaking to him an hour back, I’d mentioned being home waiting for information. Had he gotten the jitters, jumped on the ferry and come to the Island?
It sounded like something the old cop would do.
For a moment, a thrill of hope flashed through me, and just as quickly died. Though Jacob Willow was sixty feet from me, about the length of a tractor-trailer rig, there was no way to let him know I was here. It got worse: Lydia would return in minutes; what would happen if she recognized Willow?
At my knees, the hard-frozen head of Rubin Coyle stared mockingly.
Willow stood from the step, stretched. It was time to do something else; Ryder was probably on the mainland. The breeze nearly snatched his hat before he jammed it down. He shot a look toward the Gulf and paused: churning water fifteen feet out and moving parallel to the shoreline. He crossed quickly beneath the house and out to the strand. He stared past the surf line, the Polarized sunglasses cutting glare.
Willow spotted the dorsal. As he’d thought, shark. Not a big one, thirty inches maybe. It was hunting in the shallow trough between shore and first sandbar, gorging on schooling baitfish. Eat, regurgitate, eat, leaving a trail of red and silver. Sharks never got full: hardwired to eat from the dawn of life.
Willow watched for a minute until the shark shot seaward over the bar and disappeared into deeper water. Or maybe hovered between the two, hiding in the depths, feeding in the shallows.
He pulled his hat low against the wind and walked back toward his truck. Cresting the dune line and almost beneath the deck of Ryder’s house, he heard a vehicle crunching onto the broken shells of the lane. He looked up, hoping to see Ryder. Instead, it was a woman in a blue SUV. She stared as he walked into the shade beneath Ryder’s house, then shot a friendly wave. Willow waved back. He watched the woman pull into the drive next door, climbing the steps with feline grace.
Lydia’s face was dark when she entered. She glared at me, then strode to the kitchen and rattled through drawers. I heard a drawer flung to the floor, a clattering of silverware. She returned holding a six-inch boning knife and knelt beside me. She ripped the tape from my mouth, and jammed the knife against my neck.
“Someone’s at your place. I can’t see his face, but he’s in a big black pickup. Older guy. Who is it?”
Black truck. Verification of Willow. But she hadn’t recognized him.
“I don’t know.”
She pressed the knife against my jugular. “Don’t lie to me. Who the hell is it?”
“Probably…a potential client.”
“Client? For what?”
“I do a little guide work on my off days, fishing. Vacationers ask around for a guide, sometimes the locals give my name. Check his truck or in the cab, he’s maybe got rod holders.”
She jumped up and glanced through the window, then turned to me. “I don’t know what the fuck a rod holder looks like; tubular things like pipes?” She looked outside again, seemed to relax, the visual input matching what she’d been told. “He looks restless, about to leave. Guess this is one client you’ll have to miss, Ryder. The one that got away.”
She laughed, walked past me, slashed the knife an inch above my eyes, and went back to the kitchen.
Jacob Willow climbed into his truck, slipped the key into the ignition. He had a while to go before the ferry headed to Fort Morgan, maybe take a tour of the Estuarium at the Sea Lab, it’d been a few years. Make a drive-by after that, see if Ryder was here. Best leave a note. Willow grabbed a pad and pen from the glovebox.
I was here at 3.00. I’m as worked up as you are. Might check out the Sea Lab until the next ferry. Take ten seconds Ryder and CALL AND TELL ME WHAT’S HAPPENING!!!
Sincerely,
J Willow
He tried to jam the note between Ryder’s door and frame at eye height. The seal was too tight. Willow grabbed the doorknob and pushed, trying to put a little space between them. To his surprise, the knob turned. Willow gave it another quarter turn. The door opened.
Ryder had left his house unlocked. Willow pressed the door inward six inches, peeked into the cool house, scanned the room. Ryder’s white linen jacket was draped over a chair. Something beneath it caught Willow’s eye, a webbed strap.
What the hell?
Willow scrambled inside, picked up the jacket. Beneath it was Ryder’s shoulder holster and service weapon. What kind of cop takes off without his piece? Willow wondered, staring at the blued nine-millimeter tucked into its holster. Willow never went anywhere without at least an ankle gun, like the little .380 AMT he was wearing now; only held five rounds, but at 500 grams, it wasn’t a burden. Things were too weird out there not to pack something, crazies storming the barricades from all directions.
Willow went to the door, stepped out on the porch. His imagination followed Ryder down the steps, into his vehicle, driving away. Unarmed, probably. Why?
He let his eyes wander to the house to the west, where the woman had gone minutes before. A vacationer, probably; had the look. Willow studied the small sloping dunes between the two houses. There were faint depressions in the sand. By their spacing, they could only have been footprints.
The Gulf breeze blew steadily into his face. Gusting every now and then. Willow wondered how long would it take for prints to fill on a day like today?
What would be a comparative?
Willow thought a second, then walked down to his truck. Beside it were the footprints from his arrival fifteen minutes ago. They were already filling in, smoothing out. He again studied the prints between the houses. Probably not older than ninety minutes, max. Much longer and they’d have disappeared.
Was the woman a vacationer, or did she live there? What if she was a friend of Ryder’s? Had he run over to tell her something important?
Questions. Willow had always hated questions.
He tipped back his hat and followed the footprints across the sand.
I heard shoes crunching through the sand and shells outside, someone walking this way. Lydia ran to the window.
“It’s that old fuck. Probably wants to ask if I know where you are.” She smiled at me and affected a bimbo voice: “‘Oh my goodness, I do believe Mr Ryder’s gone to Birmingham to visit a sick friend.’ What you think, Ryder? Get rid of old Mr Fish and I’ll be your guide for a little while? Take you some places you’ve never been before?”
The feet paused, like Willow was looking up at the house. They continued, louder now, crunching over the shells in the drive.
I played out the upcoming scene in my head. The door opens, Willow’s on the stoop. Would she recognize him? When had she last seen him? What would Willow do? Would he know her? Did he ever, or had she simply turned to smoke back in 1972?
Feet ascended the stairs.
Lydia said, “He’s coming up, Ryder. Stay put, I’ll be right back. Don’t despair, we’ll get our fun in before I catch my ferry ride out of here.” She nodded at the frozen head at my knee, winked lasciviously. “Keep Rubin company ’til I get rid of the geezer.”
I nudged the head of Rubin Coyle. Icy. There were drips falling from the softening hair, but the rest of the ghastly thing seemed hard as a bowling ball.
Knocking at the door.
My mind raced, adrenalin blazing through my neural network: the disassociative moments…if she wasn’t expecting Willow and he suddenly appeared before her, would it stop her engine for a few seconds?
Lydia called out, “Just a second, please. Be right there.”
I looked at the head at my knees and studied the shining floor. Lydia took a final glance to make sure I was out of sight of the entry. She tucked the knife into the back of her slacks. Crossed the last few feet.
Opened the door.
I took a deep breath and snapped my legs sideways with everything I had, nudging the head of Rubin Coyle.
Jacob Willow held his hat down against the wind. The door opened. Willow nodded. The woman smiled back, said, “Can I help -”
That was all she said. The moment she looked into his eyes, her face went blank. Absolutely still, like a dead face. She looked like a statue. Damn strange, was she all right?
“Ma’am?”
There was something faintly familiar about her face; that was strange, too.
But an even stranger thing happened next. A human head - nothing but the head - skittered slowly across the floor a half-dozen feet behind the woman. It stopped, gently rocking to and fro. The woman didn’t seem to notice, her mouth drooping open, her eyes absent.
Willow was reaching for his boot when the woman’s eyes returned.
They were on fire.