The Traveller (64 page)

‘A detective.’

The word was out of his mouth swiftly. He regretted it immediately.

‘He knows, too?’

Martin Jeffers saw his brother stiffen, struggling but maintaining composure. But in the same moment whatever lilt and relaxation emptied from his voice, was replaced with an instant harsh noise. It was a tone Martin Jeffers had never heard before, but which he knew with a familiarity born of years. He thought: Killing tones.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Actually, it’s a she.’

Douglas Jeffers waited, then said.

‘Well, that brings dying time a bit closer.’

Detective Mercedes Barren had trouble controlling the large American car, with its mushy suspension that bounced and yawed back and forth, trying to take the bumps in the dirt road. A high-pitched scratching sound filled the interior as a tree branch scraped paint from the side of the automobile. She heard the tailpipe slap the ground, but she continued on, doggedly, ignoring the difficulty.

She would not acknowledge that she was lost. But the enveloping black of the night and the forest created a sense of despair within her, as if reason and responsibility had been abandoned back on the main highway, and she was descending into some netherworld where the rules were created by death. The shadows seemed to leap from the

headlights, each one a bansheelike wraith with the face of Douglas Jeffers. She gasped in fear and drove on, her heavy gun now clutched in her right hand, balanced on top of the steering wheel.

When she arrived at the multiple fork in the road, her headlights picking out the four different-colored arrows, she stopped the car and got out.

She stood, looking at the four different paths.

Her heart was filled with frustration. She remembered the police chief’s description, and she formed a mental picture of the map that hung in his office. But it had no correlation to the dark choices that faced her now. She thought of the lady and the tiger, but knew that she wanted to open the door that contained the beast.

‘It must be that one,’ she said, pointing down one black path. ‘I’m certain,’ she added in defiance of the fear of her actual uncertainty. The disjointed idea that she would arrive, gun in hand, at some other summer vacationer’s house, floated about for an instant in the back of her mind. Then she dismissed it.

‘Let’s go,’ she said, the sound of her own voice seeming small and puny against the forest. She got back behind the wheel of the car and drove ahead.

Two hundred yards down the road, it forked again and she followed her instincts to the left. She knew that she was searching for the pond, and that the point of land where she would find her quarry waiting was long and narrow. She rolled down the window, trying to get a sense of where the water was, but only the night penetrated into the car. She kept driving, rolling through an open wooden fence and a large keep out this means you sign. She ignored it, pushing deeper and deeper into the scrub brush and pines, until the forest seemed to envelop her. She was afraid of being smothered and she sucked in air, hyperventilating.

She would not allow herself even to think for an instant that she might be heading in some completely wrong direction.

‘Keep going,’ she said.

She saw a break in the trees ahead and she punched

down on the accelerator gratefully. The car jumped forward, then crunched down, seeming to fall, like an athlete tripped just short of the finish line. She shouted out in sudden fear. She heard a snapping sound, followed by a grinding noise.

She stopped the car and stepped out.

Both front wheels were driven into a small yet unfortunately effective pit. The car’s front axle was ground into the sand.

She sighed and closed her eyes. Keep going, she told herself again. She opened her eyes and got back into the car. The rear wheels spun furiously when she tried to back out of the pit. She pounded the wheel in momentary frustration, then swallowed hard and looked about her. She shut off the engine and switched off the lights. All right, she told herself. You can go the rest of the way on foot. This isn’t terrible; you planned on abandoning the car soon anyway. Just keep going, keep going.

She headed toward the break in the trees, her eyes adjusting rapidly to the night light. She kept her pistol in her hand and started to jog, just gently, afraid that she would do to her ankle what the pit had done to the rental car. But the hurried movement encouraged her, and she pressed farther, listening to the thudding sound her feet made as they hit the sandy road surface.

The road seemed like a tunnel to her, and she could see the end. She picked up her pace and suddenly shot out of the overhanging trees into a wide grassy field awash with moonlight. She dizzily stared up into the skies, overwhelmed by the thousands of star lights that blinked and shone in the endless expanse. She felt minuscule and alone, but comforted by being out from under the trees. For an instant she thought she would be blinded by the moonlight. and she stopped, breathing hard, to get her bearings.

She saw a great glistening reflection off to her left and she stared out at the pond. She could clearly see the strip of sand that stood between the edge of the field and the start of the pond water. She held her breath for a moment and realized that she could hear the steady rhythmic

pounding of surf against the shore. She looked toward the sound and could easily make out the black line of South Beach a half mile distant.

I found it, she thought.

I’m there.

She looked ahead, expecting the see the house, but could not. She turned and looked to her right, expecting to see the pond, also, but all she could see was the dark forest stretching back into the island.

‘That’s not right,’ she said out loud, hesitant, suddenly worried. ‘That’s not right at all. Finger Point is supposed to be narrow, with water on both sides.’

She moved forward ten feet, as if by looking at it from a slightly different angle the topography would change.

‘This isn’t right at all,’ she said.

Dozens of conflicting emotions reverberated like so much dissonance within her.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘It must be.’

She walked down to the edge of the water and stared out across the pond. The moonlight shimmered on the light, choppy waves. She stared into the night, across the water.

Then she sank down to her knees in the sand.

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Please, no. No, no, no.’

In front of her was the pond water, stretching out in one direction across to the rolling sandy dunes of South Beach. But back, just across from where she knelt, she could see a single long, black spit of land that pointed out into the center of the pond.

‘No,’ she said, under her voice. ‘It’s not fair.’

She could see the house on the end of the point and knew then that she was looking at the place where the Jeffers brothers waited. She concentrated her eyes in the darkness and saw the moonlight catch what she guessed was the white shape of the rental car checked out to Martin Jeffers.

She pitched forward at the waist and pounded her fist on the sand. ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ she moaned. Still kneeling, she turned and looked back at the forest. The wrong road, she thought, the wrong damn road. I’ve come down the wrong edge of the pond. All this way, just to take the wrong

damn turn. Dismay filled her precipitously. She battled within herself against herself.

Finally, breathing hard, as if she’d just run a race, not was about to start one, she gained control.

She stood.

‘I will not be defeated,’ she said out loud. She raised her fist at the house. ‘I’m coming. I’m coming.’

Holt Overholser pushed himself back from the table, staring at the few remains of his second helping of bluefish casserole that were left on his plate, and said, ‘Damn, damn.’

‘What is it, dear?’ his wife asked. ‘Something wrong with the fish?’

He shook his head. ‘Just something happened that’s kinda bugging me,’ he said.

‘Well, don’t keep it to yourself,’ his wife replied, clearing the dinner dishes. ‘What’s on your mind? Worries just get in the way of digestion, you know.’

He thought for an instant that his wife had the world figured out pretty squarely: everything was digestion. If the Arabs and the Jews ate more grains, they wouldn’t always be fighting. If the Russians were more balanced in their diet and cut their caloric intake, they wouldn’t forever be thumping their chests and threatening world peace. If terrorists would stop eating red meat and partake of more fish, they wouldn’t need to seize airliners. Republicans ate too many fatty foods, which gave them bad hearts and conservative outlooks, so she always voted the Democratic ticket. He’d once tried to ask her about some of the more substantial members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, like Tip and Teddy, but she wouldn’t listen to him.

‘Well, right before closing shop, I had this visit from a detective. She came all the way from Miami.’

‘Was she on a case, dear? It must have been exciting.’

‘She said she wasn’t.’

‘Why didn’t you bring her home for dinner?’ ‘But she was armed. And she had a funny story that makes less and less sense the more I think about it.?

‘Well, dear, what are you going to do?’

Holt Overholser thought hard for a moment. Maybe he wasn’t any Sherlock Holmes, but he sure could match Mike Hammer.

‘I think I’m gonna take a little ride,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry none. I’ll be back in time for Magnum P.I.’

He slung his Sam Browne belt over his shoulder and headed out to the big four*wheel-drive police truck.

Martin Jeffers remained frozen in his seat, watching his brother pace angrily about the room. He tried once to catch Anne Hampton’s eyes, but she was rigid, at the table, pen poised. He wondered for an instant what she must have been through; he could not guess, but knew that it must have been severe to bring about the state of near-catatonia she seemed trapped within.

His observation surprised him. It was the first reflection he’d had since arriving at Finger Point that at least displayed some rudimentary psychological knowledge. He tried to give himself commands: Use what you know!

Then he shook his head slightly, just the barest of acknowledgments, signaling to himself that it was hopeless. At this moment, he thought, I am nothing except the younger brother.

He looked up at Douglas Jeffers and thought: With him, it is all I will ever be.

He fixed his eyes on his brother, who seemed filled with excitement. He seemed to be assessing the situation with every step about the room.

‘Isn’t it funny,’ said Douglas Jeffers in a voice devoid of any semblance of humor, ‘how one enters into a situation so emotionally complex it cries out, yet there is little, if anything, actually to say to one another? What are you going to do? Tell me I can’t be the way I am?’

The comment brought forth a short explosive laugh.

‘So,’ said the older brother, ‘tell me something relevant, something important. Tell me about this lady cop.’

‘What do you want to know?’

His brother stopped and pointed the gun at him.

‘Do you think that I would hesitate for an instant? Do you think that your status as my brother gives you some special dispensation? You came here! You knew! So you knew the risks as well…’

He paused.

‘So don’t screw around with me.’

Martin Jeffers nodded.

‘She comes from Miami. She believes you killed her niece …’ He couldn’t state what he knew, and what his mind insisted: You did kill her niece! You killed all of them! ‘ . .. She was the one that broke into your apartment and found the pictures.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘I left her in New Jersey.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she means to kill you.’

Douglas Jeffers laughed.

‘Well, that seems sensible from her point of view.’

‘Doug, please, can’t we …’

‘Can’t we what? Marty, you were always such a dreamer. Don’t you remember? All those books I used to read to you when you were little. Always fantasies, adventures, filled with heroes and battling for just causes against insurmountable odds. You always liked reading about soldiers who fought desperate fights, about knights that charged dragons. You always liked the ones where goodness triumphs …

‘You know what? It doesn’t. It never does. Because even when goodness wins, it lowers itself and has to beat evil at its own game. And that, dear brother, is a far worse defeat.’

‘That’s not true.’

Douglas Jeffers shrugged. ‘Believe what you want, Marty. It makes no difference.’ He paused, then continued. ‘Tell me more. Is she a good detective? What’s her name?’

‘Mercedes Barren. I suppose she is. She found me

Douglas Jeffers snarled. ‘You think she’ll find me, too?’

Martin Jeffers nodded.

‘No fucking chance. Not unless you told her where to come. You didn’t, did you, brother?’

Martin Jeffers shook his head.

Douglas Jeffers scowled. ‘I don’t fucking believe you.’ He paused. ‘Oh, you probably didn’t know you were telling her, but you did. I know you, Marty. I know you as well as I know myself. That’s part of what being older means: the older brother is burdened with understanding, the younger brother is filled only with equal parts awe and jealousy. So, even if you think you left her behind, you probably didn’t. You said something, probably didn’t even know what it was. But you said it and now she’s on her way. Especially if she was smart enough to get to you in the first place. But how close is she? There, dear brother, that’s the real question. Is she outside the door?’

Martin Jeffers’ eyes involuntarily flicked to the sliding glass doors. His brother laughed again, menacingly.

‘ … Or is she a little ways behind? Maybe a few hours.’

He smiled, not with any enjoyment that belonged on the earth.

‘You see,’ Douglas Jeffers continued, ‘after tonight I will be long gone. I thought coming to Finger Point an excellent place to be born again. And not in some silly fundamentalist religious sense. We’ve got a lot of memories, shall I say, floating about around here. That’s a joke. Anyway, here is where it all begins again for me. Starting over. Back to square one, free as the proverbial bird.’