| |
Mary insists on driving since it’s possible I could easily pass out again or stroke out.
“You should have never gotten behind the wheel in the first place, Martin,” she says. “Not when you’ve been drinking all day and taking a wrecking ball to your bedroom like some deranged mental case.”
“You’re killing me,” I say, pulling out my phone and looking for any new texts.
Strangely, there are none, but I do have a new alert from my Ring Doorbell System.
“Not trying to be a jerk,” Mary says. “I just think the decision-making portion of your brain needs a tune-up. Maybe that means cutting out the drinking for a while. As it is, you haven’t been able to write. The last time that happened, you ended up in the Poughkeepsie sanitorium for almost two weeks.”
“Can you say electro-shock therapy?” I say.
“You treat everything like it’s a joke, Martin,” the cop says while pulling out onto the rural road and heading in the direction of Poughkeepsie.
“Life shouldn’t be taken so seriously,” I say. “Death is a different story. However, when I find the motherfucker who hit me from behind with that bat, I’m gonna kill him...or her.”
“Martin, you tried to burn your house down with your wife inside it,” the cop reminds me. “Thank God your daughter was at a sleepover at a friend’s house.”
“I never would have lit the match had she been home,” I say, as if that justifies my actions from years back.
“Let’s talk about something else,” she says. “That period of your life is a disturbing one.”
“You weren’t around for it, Mary,” I say. “How would you know?”
She shoots me a glance.
“I’m a cop,” she says. “I know everything.”
I press the Ring alert icon. Suddenly my pulse begins to race.
“Holy shit, there she is,” I say.
“There who is?” Mary asks.
“The girl...the stalker...Jennifer,” I say. “At least, I think that’s got to be her.”
I turn the phone around so she can get a good look at the digital video shot by both the front and back doors of the farmhouse. In the video, the woman...if it is a woman...is wearing a long robe with a hood on it, like Little Red Riding Hood. Only in this case, the robe is black and you can’t possibly make out the face since whoever it is, is wearing a full face mask like a hockey goalie would wear. Like Jason in that horror movie, “Halloween.”
“She’s there right now?” the cop asks. “We can race there and bust her on the spot for suspected B-and-E.”
“The alert says five-fifteen,” I say. “That was a half hour ago.”
“We’ll head there anyway,” she says, slowing the truck and pulling a U-turn.
She then floors the truck. We drive past the bar in the direction of my farm. I hold on to the bar mounted above the passenger-side window and hope we don’t crash. But then, just like she’s an expert marksman, and a self-defense expert, Mary is also an expert behind the wheel. She’s trained to drive fast when speed is of the essence.
We make it to the farm in about half the time it would have taken me. But now, it’s almost full dark. She throws the truck in park, and leaves the engine idling. Reaching into her purse, she grabs her service weapon (or one of them anyway), and pulls back on the slide, locking and loading it. It’s a short-barreled Smith & Wesson that possesses the potential to blow a person’s chest cavity away if fired from a close enough distance. Point-blank distance.
“Stay here,” she says. “Maybe draw your weapon while you’re at it.”
“Good idea,” I say, pulling my .45 from its hip holster. “So much for worrying over my unstable brain and bad decisions.”
Opening the door, I get out and stand beside the truck.
“I’ll yell if I see anything,” I say.
“If anyone comes at you with a weapon, shoot him...or her. Understand?” Mary says. “It’s your property. I’ll back you up when it comes to the DA.”
“Got it,” I say.
With her semi-automatic held out before her using both hands, combat position, she approaches the back of the house. She takes it slow, peering behind the brick barbeque pit, then behind some shrubs. Soon she disappears around the side of the house where the old stone chimney is. That’s when I get nervous for her. What if whoever is wearing that robe getup is setting the cop up for an ambush? A deadly one.
My heart beats and my mouth is dryer than hell. I could use a drink. I’m tempted to head into my studio where I’ve stored a second bottle of whiskey. But I’m not sure that’s a good idea. The cop is counting on me. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see something coming around the near corner of the farmhouse’s front exterior. I take aim with my .45.
“Mary,” I bark.
I take a shot. A deer bolts in the direction of the road, hops the five-foot fence, sprints across the road, and disappears into the woods. Mary shows herself.
“Don’t shoot, Martin,” she says.
I lower my gun and realize I’ve been holding my breath for so long, I’m growing dizzy again.
“I thought it was a person,” I say.
“There’s no one here,” she says. “I’m going to check the other buildings.”
I inhale and exhale while she makes a full check on the other three buildings including my studio, inside and out.
“Clear,” she reports as she heads back to the pickup with her pistol barrel now aimed at the ground. “Whoever it was must have tried the doors and realized you installed new locks.”
I feel a vibration and hear a chime coming from my back pocket.
“Jennifer,” I whisper.
Holstering my weapon, I pull out the phone and thumb the texts icon.
Why would you change the locks on me Martin? the text reads. You know how much I love and care for the man who is writing me a novel and that he’s going to dedicate to me with love.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Mary says.
I nod in the affirmative.
“You wanna see it?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says.
I show her the phone. She reads the message.
Handing me back the phone, she says, “Does this Jennifer always call from the same number? Or does she switch them up?”
“Far as I can tell,” I say, “she likes to switch them up.”
“Okay, get back in the truck,” she says. “When we’re through getting you checked out at the Poughkeepsie Medical Center, we’re headed straight to the trooper barracks so I can run the numbers. It’s impossible to get a read on her identity but maybe we can get a name or names.”
We both get back in the still-idling truck. She shifts it into drive, makes a U-turn on the gravel driveway, and then heads out of the open gates and onto the road.
“Not exactly the final date night of the week I had in mind,” I say, placing my hand on her thigh.
“Me either,” she says. “But you...we...don’t have much of a choice now do we?”
I remove my hand and stare out onto the dark road and the way the two halogen headlamps cut through the country's darkness. It’s always been hard being a writer. Now it’s even harder.