in spite of that twitchy anger. “Mind you, this means I won’t be able to review it when it comes out. Hey, wait, is this all just an insidious ploy to disqualify me?”
“No way,” Tito insisted. “I’m not that clever, man. I swear it.”
“In that case, I’ll be happy to read your pages. Drop them by any time.”
Tito sat there staring out the window for a long moment. “I don’t know, it’s all just so…” He trailed off. Briefly, he seemed very far away. Then he shook himself and drained his scotch. “I’m in the middle of something bad. Something I got myself into. And I can’t get out of it.”
Mitch watched the actor curiously. Was he still talking about Puppy Love or had he moved on to something else? Mitch couldn’t tell. “You can get out of anything if you really want to. You’re in charge of your own life, Tito. You have the power.”
“What power, man? I don’t even know who I am.”
“Do you want to know?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Trust me, that puts you way ahead of most people.”
Now Tito jumped to his feet, so suddenly that Mitch found himself flinching. It was an involuntary thing, and if the actor noticed it he didn’t let on. “Gotta go. Big thanks, man.”
“For what, Tito?”
“The T-shirt,” he replied, flashing a smile at him.
“I wouldn’t mind getting that back, if you think of it.”
“You can have it right now,” Tito said easily. “I’m all dried off.”
“No, go ahead and wear it home. It’s damp out. You might catch cold. Besides, it looks so much better on you.”
Tito went to the door and opened it, pausing there in the doorway. “Sorry about this afternoon.”
“It’s forgotten, as far I’m concerned. Can I give you a lift back to your car?”
“Naw, I’m cool. I’ll take that bridge thing back. The walk will do me good. Later, man.”
Mitch flicked on the porch light and watched Tito Molina melt soundlessly into the fog just like Sinatra did after he delivered the Arabian pony to the young lord in The List of Adrian Messenger, one of Mitch’s favorite thrillers in spite of George C. Scott’s awful English accent. Quirt was curled up on a tarp under the bay window, his eyes shining at Mitch. Mitch said good night to him, then flicked off the light and went back inside, breathing deeply in and out.
He hadn’t realized it, but he had been holding his breath practically the entire time since he’d walked in on Tito.
He crawled right into bed, Clemmie snuggling up against his chest for the first time in weeks. Mitch didn’t know if this was her trying to atone for being disloyal to him or whether she just felt cold. And he didn’t much care. He was just grateful to have her there. Exhausted, he lay there stroking her tummy and listening to her purr. And now the rain started to patter softly against the skylights over his bed. Mitch lay there with Clemmie, listening to it come down and growing sleepier by the second. Soon, they had both drifted off.
His bedside phone jarred him awake. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. It didn’t seem like very long. He fumbled for it, jostling Clemmie, who sprang from the bed and scampered downstairs. “H-Hello… Whassa? …”
“I’m sorry if I woke you. I just wanted you to know something.”
“Okay… Uh, sure.” Mitch sat up, recognizing the voice on the other end despite the steady, persistent roar in the background. “Where are you?”
“I’m on Sugar Mountain, with the barkers and the colored balloons.”
“Wait, give me a second, I know what that’s… Neil Young, right?”
“You are.”
“What’s that whooshing noise? Are you hanging out in a men’s room somewhere?”
“Not exactly.”
“What time is it anyway?”
“It’s too late. The damage is done. The hangman says it’s time to let her fly.”
“What hangman? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Good-bye, Mitch.”
“Wait, don’t-!”
No use. The line had already gone dead.
Mitch lay there trying to figure out what on earth had just happened. Briefly, he wondered if he’d simply dreamed the whole conversation. He decided there was no sense to be made of it now. He was just too damned tired. So he rolled over and fell immediately back to sleep.
Until another phone call awakened him. This time it was Des. It was dawn now and a steady, driving rain was pounding the skylight over Mitch’s head.
“Baby, I’m sorry to wake you-”
“No, no. I’m glad you called,” he assured her, yawning. “I didn’t feel good about how we left things yesterday. I shouldn’t have hung up on you.”
“Mitch…”
“I was just having a bad day. I understand that you have to obsess. If you don’t, you won’t get anywhere.”
“Mitch…”
“So was that our first real fight? Because if it was I don’t think it was that bad, do you?”
“Baby, please listen to me…”
Something in her voice stopped him now. “Why, what is it?”
“I’m on my way up to the Devil’s Hopyard. The ranger’s found a body at the base of the falls. A jumper, apparently.”
The hangman says it’s time to let her fly.
Mitch’s heart began to pound. “God, I should have known. The falls, damn it. That’s what I was hearing…”
“When?” she demanded. “What do you know about this?”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” he said, his voice filling with dread. “It’s Tito.”
She didn’t need to answer him. Her silence said it all.
Mitch closed his eyes and let out a groan of sheer agony.
His own worst nightmare had just taken a giant leap into pure horror.
CHAPTER 6
The road up to the Devil’s Hopyard State Park was intensely twisty and narrow. Des’s cruiser very nearly scraped the mountain laurel and hemlocks that grew on either side of it as she steered her way toward the falls, the wet pavement steaming in front of her as the sunlight broke through the early morning haze. Already, she had her air conditioning cranked up high. The Hopyard was situated in Dorset’s remote northeast corner. Very few people lived up here. She spotted a farmhouse every once in a while. Mostly she saw only granite ledge and trees, trees, trees.
The road dead-ended at the entrance to the falls, where a uniformed park ranger was waiting for Des next to a green pickup. Due to funding cuts, many of the state parks made do with summer interns, most of them college students. Kathleen Moloney, the trimly built blond who met Des, was exceedingly young and fresh faced.
Des nosed up alongside of the pickup and got out, her hornrimmed glasses immediately fogging up in the warm, humid air. Des had to wipe them dry with the clean white handkerchief that she kept in her back pocket.
One other vehicle, a scraped-up black Jeep Wrangler, was parked there in the ditch next to the gate.
“It’s just awful,” Kathleen said to her over the steady roar of the falls, her voice cracking. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I was making my routine morning swing through the park, you know? I didn’t even know what I
