In the movies, when your hero gets whacked on the head, he might lose consciousness for five minutes or an hour or all night, whatever serves the needs of the story. When he wakes up, he shakes his head, grins ironically, leaps into his car or onto his horse, and sets off to chase down the bad guys. He’s angry, maybe embarrassed, and he probably sports a manly dribble of blood running down the side of his face, but otherwise he’s none the worse for the experience.
In real life, it takes a mighty blow to the head to knock you out for more than an instant. A blow hard enough to do that will leave you with a concussion, at minimum. More likely a fractured skull. It can kill you.
I was out for only an instant. He had hit me squarely in the sensitive center of the top of my head, and waves of pain radiated from that spot all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes.
Through the dizzy blur behind my eyes I watched his shadowy figure move into the the darkness, and a minute
later I heard the engine of a vehicle start up. Then I saw headlights flash on and slice through the dark forest and disappear.
In the movies I would have growled an angry vow, spit blood and teeth out of my mouth, and then sprinted to my car and sped through the woods after the villain who’d bushwhacked me.
But this wasn’t a movie.
It took an enormous amount of willpower just to push myself into a sitting position. My ankle was throbbing, and a sharp pain jabbed in my chest whenever I took a breath.
But mainly, my head just hurt like hell.
I crawled over to the steps that led up to the porch of the camp, rested my back against them, and squeezed my eyes shut. Everything hurt less with my eyes shut.
So I slumped there against the wooden steps with my eyes closed, waiting for the pain and dizziness to pass and drifting on weird images and disconnected thoughts …
The whole time he was hitting me, I kept thinking, he never said a word. For some reason that made it even more frightening.
Ten or fifteen minutes later I became aware of a bright light shining in my face.
I opened my eyes experimentally. The dizziness and blurriness seemed to have subsided.
I blinked and shielded my eyes with my hand.
Somebody was holding a flashlight on me.
“Move that thing, will you?” I said.
He moved the light a little to the side so that it wasn’t shining directly in my eyes. I looked around. A police car, a
square SUV of some kind, had pulled up in front of Albert’s camp. “Limerick PD” was painted on the side, and a light bar was attached to the roof.
The man with the flashlight wore a khaki-colored police uniform. The brim of his cap was pulled low over his forehead so that his eyes were in shadow. He had one hand resting lightly on the holster on his hip. “What’s happening there, pardner?” he said. “You drunk?”
“No,” I said. “I fell down and hit my head.”
“You okay? Can you stand up?”
“Of course.” I braced my hand on the steps and pushed myself to my feet. A wave of dizziness made me stagger and reach for the railing for balance. I took a deep breath. The pain in my head had subsided to a dull, deep ache.
The cop moved beside me and patted me down. He found me unarmed. “You fell down coming out of the camp?” he said. “That what happened?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Must’ve tripped on the steps. Lost my balance. Banged my head.”
“Right,” he said. “Who are you?”
I turned to face him. “My name is Brady Coyne. Who are you?”
“Huh?”
“I asked your name,” I said.
He blinked at me. “Munson. Officer Paul Munson. Looks to me like you’ve been snooping around inside the camp. Is that right?”
I thought, absurdly, that while he couldn’t nail me for breaking and entering, he had me dead to rights for breaking and exiting. “I came up from Boston to see if Albert Stoddard was here,” I said.
“Let me see your wallet,” said Officer Munson.
I moved my hand to my hip pocket.
“Slowly,” he said.
I withdrew my wallet with my thumb and forefinger and handed it to him.
He moved over to his vehicle, flipped my wallet open, and shined his light on my driver’s license. He shined his light back on me. “So what do you want with Mr. Stoddard?”
“I’m a lawyer,” I said. When in doubt, give ’em a non sequitur. “It’s business.”
“Lawyer, huh?” he said. “Mr. Stoddard in some kind of trouble?”
Officer Munson looked like he was playing dress-up in his khaki-colored uniform. He had a smooth, pink face and clear blue eyes. Sometime when I wasn’t looking they’d made puberty a qualification for becoming police officers and brain surgeons and had started distributing Glocks and scalpels to children.
“I don’t know if he’s in trouble,” I said. “I was hoping to ask him.”
“Friend of his, are you?”
“Yes.”
He narrowed his eyes as if he’d just made a smart deduction. “So you’re his lawyer and his friend both, then.”
I shrugged. “I can’t really talk about it. I’ve already told you too much.”
“So was he here?” said Officer Munson. “Mr. Stoddard, I mean?”
Somebody had been here. He’d whacked my ankle and kicked my ribs and poked at my testicles and smashed the top of my head with the barrels of a shotgun. It could have been Albert.
I considered briefly explaining to this small-town cop how
I’d been assaulted. But that would require other explanations that I couldn’t ethically give even if I wanted to—to Officer Munson, or to anybody.
“No,” I said. “Nobody was here.” I looked hard at him. “Have you seen Mr. Stoddard around lately?”
“I’ll ask the questions, sir,” he said. “You got a key for this place?”
“No.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You said you fell coming out. That means you went in. What’d you do, break a window?”
“The door was unlocked,” I said. “I opened it and went in.”
“No, sir,” he said, “that’s not what you did. Mr. Stoddard keeps the place locked.”
I shrugged. “I don’t have a key, and I didn’t break a window. Take a look if you want.” I suddenly remembered Henry. “Look,” I said. “My dog’s inside. Do you mind if I let him out?”
“What kind of dog?”
“Brittany spaniel. He might want to sniff your pants, but he’s gentle and loving.”
“If he tries to bite me, I’ll shoot him.”
“Fair enough,” I said. I went back onto the screen porch and opened the door.
Henry was sitting there. He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at me. It was the look he always gave me when I returned home after going someplace without him.
I patted his head. “Sorry about that,” I said. “Come on. Heel, now.”
He followed me off the porch. I went over to my car and opened the door. “Get in,” I told him.
He got in.
“How’d you do that?” said Officer Munson.
“Do what?”
“Get your dog to obey like that?”
“I’m firm and consistent with him,” I said. “Dogs are like children.”
“I’ve got two hounds,” he said. “They pay no attention to anybody. Gotta keep ’em chained outside.”
“That explains it,” I said.
“So you didn’t answer my question,” he said.
“Which question was that?”
“Mr. Stoddard. You said he was in trouble.”
“I didn’t say that. You inferred it. I just said I was looking for him. What about you?”
“Huh?”
“Have you seen him lately?”
“Just because I haven’t seen him,” he said, “that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been around. You sit over there for a minute.” He shined his flashlight at the porch steps. “I’ve got to call this in, have them run your plates, see what we’re going to do.”
“What do you mean, do?” I said.
“You were trespassing, sir. I caught you red-handed.”
“Red-handed,” I said. “Wow.”
He frowned at me. “Pardon?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Go ahead. Check me out. I hope it won’t take too long.”
“Oh, we’ve got computers,” he said.
I went over to the steps, trying not to limp, and sat down.
Officer Munson slid behind the wheel of his cruiser and used his two-way. He left his door open so he could keep an eye on me.
Ten or fifteen minutes later I heard him say, “Okay, right. Ten-four.” He looked over at me. “You’re free to go, sir.”
I started to thank him, then decided not to. “Tell me something,” I said.
“Sir?”
“Why did you come here.”
“Here to Mr. Stoddard’s camp, you mean?”
“Yes. Did you get a call?”
“A call?” He shook his head. “Why would there be a call? Who’d call?”
“Are you saying you just happened to drive all the way down this particular dirt driveway at this particular time on this particular evening just at the time when I happened to be here?”
He shrugged. “We keep an eye on all the unoccupied places in our jurisdiction.”
“There must be dozens of them, huh?”
He nodded. “Oh, sure. Hunting camps, summer cottages, places up for sale.”
“And you keep an eye on all of them?”
“Right. One of our main jobs this time of year.”
“So this place here,” I said, “it’s on your rounds, is it? You come by here every day about this time?”
He laughed. “You kidding me? There’s only six of us on the whole force. There’s about three hundred square miles to cover in this town. No, we pretty much do it random.”
“Random,” I repeated. “So finding me here was just a lucky coincidence for you.”
“Me, lucky?” He grinned. “You’re lucky I’m not arresting you.”
“And I do appreciate your leniency,” I said.
“You go get into your vehicle now, sir. I’ll follow you out,
make sure you don’t get stuck. That BMW of yours, it’s pretty sweet, but it sure wasn’t made for dirt roads.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I said.
“Protect and serve,” said Officer Paul Munson, and I didn’t detect the slightest hint of irony in his tone.
I drove out the long driveway and turned south on the paved road, heading home. The headlights of Officer Munson’s cruiser followed me all the way to the town line, where in my rearview mirror I saw him make a U-turn.
I drove on for a few minutes before I remembered the envelope with the two obituaries that I’d found in Albert’s camp. I patted my jacket pocket where I’d put it.
It wasn’t there.
I figured the man with the shotgun had taken it.
I pulled to the side of the road, opened my glove box, found a pen and a pad of paper, and jotted down everything I could remember from those obituaries. I was pleased to observe that despite the throbbing on the top of my head, my mind was clear and my memory was sharp.
By the time I’d wended my way through the maze of dark country roads through some sleepy New Hampshire villages and found my way back to Route 101, it was approaching eight o’clock.
My head and ribs and ankle hurt, but aside from bruises that would be tender to the touch, I figured I was okay. No broken bones, none of the building nausea or persistent dizziness that were signs of a concussion.
He could have killed me if he’d wanted to. I wondered why he didn’t.
I realized that my stomach was growling.
That reminded me that I hadn’t eaten for a while, which reminded me that it was Evie’s turn to take care of dinner.
Normally we eat around seven.
I assumed she got my message. I’d told her I might be a little late.
I was still two hours from home. By the time I got there, it would be later than anybody’s definition of “a little.”
I’d been a bachelor for a long time. I still wasn’t in the habit of accounting for myself to somebody else.
Another way to look at it was: Being considerate took a conscious effort. It didn’t come naturally to me.
Evie knew me pretty well, and she tolerated me better than I deserved. Still, after a while she’d probably start worrying, and worry had a funny way of evolving into anger.
I started looking for a telephone. Along that hilly stretch of Route 101 there wasn’t much of anything except fields and trees, and it was another fifteen minutes before I spotted a pay phone outside a darkened gas station.
I pulled in. Henry, who’d been snoozing on the backseat, sprang to attention when the car came to a stop. It was way past his suppertime, too.
“Sit tight,” I told him. “I’ll be right back.”
I dialed all the required numbers to charge the call to my card. The phone that Evie and I shared at our home on Mt. Vernon Street rang five times before her recorded voice answered. “You’ve reached Brady and Evie’s house,” she said. “We’re sorry we can’t get to the phone right now, but we do want to talk with you. Please leave your name and number
and we’ll get right back to you, we promise.”
After the beep, I said, “Hi, honey. It’s about eight, and I’m on the road somewhere in New Hampshire. Sorry about this. I got tied up. I’ve still got close to two hours before I get there. You better eat without me, if you haven’t already. I’m a bad boy. Probably deserve a spanking.”
I thought about telling her how I’d been assaulted and was lucky to be alive. But that would be a cheap play for sympathy, and it would serve no purpose except to make her anxious every time I went anywhere.
Besides, I didn’t want to talk to her about the case.
So I said, “Henry sends kisses. Me, too.” Then I hung up the phone and got back into my car.
Where the hell was she?
Okay, so she got the message I’d left at noontime, guessed I’d be home late, and decided to put in some extra time at the office. Evie’s job was demanding and stressful, and she often worked late. But she always called, and when she said she’d be home by seven, or seven-thirty, or whatever, she always was.
It was more than she could say for me.
Sharing a house and a life with another person was turning out to be more complicated than I remembered.
Well, I had that spanking to look forward to.
I decided to retrace the route I’d taken in the afternoon, the route that Gordon Cahill had taken the night his car went off the road and exploded in flames.
It looked a lot different in the dark. No streetlights lit the way, and the trees arching over the road formed a black tunnel that blocked the starlight and moonlight from the sky. The road seemed darker and narrower and twistier and
spookier than it had in the sunshine, and I found myself checking my rearview mirror frequently.
Horowitz said that Cahill was a cautious man, and that’s how I knew him, too. Gordon Cahill liked to be in control. He’d never drive too fast for the conditions, and he’d drink coffee if that’s what he needed to stay alert behind the wheel at night.
I imagined him driving his little Corolla where I was now driving my BMW through the darkness, working on a new pun, maybe, or thinking about the case he was working on, or maybe just looking forward to getting home and crawling in bed with his wife, and then the headlights suddenly appearing in his mirror from around the bend, coming up fast behind him, and Cahill cursing, probably, at this impatient asshole who was now tailgating him on this narrow, winding two-lane road, and slowing down a little and easing to the side, inviting the bastard to pass him, and the vehicle, accepting the invitation, pulling out and easing up alongside … and then a shotgun poking out the window, and the explosion of the shot, and Gordie realizing that his front tire had been blown out, the steering wheel leaping in his hands, the little Corolla swerving off the pavement, out of control now, and Gordie standing hard on the brake pedal, his tires skidding and slewing through the sandy shoulder, and then the big tree trunk looming suddenly in his headlights, and the sudden hard, jolting collision …
No headlights came up fast behind me, and it wasn’t until I emerged on the other side of the state forest into the village of West Townsend that I realized I’d been gripping my steering wheel so hard that my hands ached.