“We all know that,” Will assured him, standing there with his knapsack filled with fresh-baked goodies. “Real nice article you wrote about him, Mitch.”
“Thanks, Will,” Mitch said, peering down the misty path in search of Dodge. “Don’t tell me our captain’s actually late.”
“Maybe Dodger ought to buy himself a wristwatch,” Jeff cracked.
“Sure, let’s chip in and get him one,” Mitch joined in, still trying to fathom the concept of the little guy and Martine naked together. He couldn’t imagine what went through Jeff’s mind every morning as he walked along next to Dodge, stride for stride, knowing that he was shtupping the man’s tall, blond beauty of a wife behind his back. How did he feel-gleeful, superior, guilty, all of these things?
“Dodge is never late,” Will said, frowning. “I don’t know where he is.”
“He must be tied up with Esme this morning,” Mitch said. “Don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t,” Will said. “When I talked to him on the phone last night he said Martine was going to stay with her for a few days, and that he’d see us out here in the morning.”
“So something came up,” Jeff said. “Come on, men, let’s march. I’ve got a full morning of unpacking ahead of me.”
Will didn’t budge. “If something came up he would have called me,” he said stubbornly. Will always carried a cell phone on their walks in case Donna needed to reach him. He pulled it out of his back pocket and punched in Dodge’s number and waited as it rang, an intent expression on his face. “Machine,” he grunted, shaking his head. He left no message. “This is really not like Dodge, I’m telling you.”
Mitch studied Will curiously. “Do you have a feeling something’s wrong?”
“I really don’t know,” Will said with obvious concern. “But he was all by himself last night.”
“Does he have a health problem that we don’t know about?” Jeff asked. “A heart condition or something?”
“Hell no,” Will responded. “He’s in great shape.”
“Then what’s the big deal?”
“I just think we should go take a look, that’s all. Make sure he’s okay.”
“If that’s what you want,” Mitch said. “You know him best.”
“Well, I think you guys are wasting your time,” Jeff argued. “This is the only break I get all day. Me, I’m going to walk our walk.” And with that he marched off down the path, toes pointed outward in an exceedingly ducklike fashion.
They took Mitch’s truck, Mitch helping himself to a warm croissant as he eased his way down Peck’s Point’s rutted dirt path to Old Shore Road. Will bounced along next to him, big and broad shouldered, his lean face etched with worry as he gazed out the windshield at the road. Mitch found himself wondering why. What did Will know that he wasn’t sharing?
“I think I’ve figured out your secret,” Mitch said, munching.
“My secret?…” Will seemed startled.
“Your great-tasting croissants. I know how you do it.”
Now Will’s face broke into a lopsided grin. “Okay, Mitch, take your best shot.”
“Butter,” he declared.
“What about butter?”
“My theory is that when something tastes really, really good it generally has something to do with extra butter. A whole lot of extra butter. Would you say I’m right or wrong?”
“Mitch, you are not wrong,” Will conceded, laughing.
“You see?” Mitch exclaimed triumphantly. “I knew it.”
The Crocketts lived on ten acres of lush green meadow and marshland overlooking the Connecticut River on Turkey Neck Road, an exclusive little lane that twisted its way along a narrow peninsula off of Old Shore Road. The land had been in Dodge’s family for many generations. Mile Creek ran along the edge of the property, which was enclosed by fieldstone walls that dated back to the 1820s, when the land was first cleared for farming.
As Mitch pulled in at their driveway, Will asked him to stop so he could hop out and see if Dodge had retrieved that morning’s Wall Street Journal from their mailbox. Dodge had. Then Will climbed back in the Studey, gazing down the long gravel drive at their rambling, natural-shingled house. Long ago, it had started out as a modest summer bungalow. Then it had been winterized. Then modernized. Then added on to-a music room for Dodge’s piano, an office, a gourmet kitchen with French doors that opened onto a blue-stone terrace overlooking the tidal marshes.
“My dad used to plow this driveway when it snowed,” Will said, slamming his door shut behind him. “I’d come with him sometimes. It was always early in the morning, freezing cold. God, I loved those mornings. He had an old truck like this one, and the heater never worked.”
“This one doesn’t work either,” Mitch said to him encouragingly. He enjoyed hearing Will’s Rockwellesque remembrances of his youth.
“One year, when I was twelve, two feet of pure white powder fell overnight,” Will recalled fondly as they rumbled up the drive toward the house. “It was a bright blue morning, and when we got here there was this snowman, must have been twelve feet high, standing right in front of the house. Dodge had built it for Esme in the night. She was tiny then, three or four. It had a carrot for a nose, coals for eyes, a scarf, hat, the whole nine yards. Most amazing thing I’d ever seen. Even my dad couldn’t get over it. H-He died just a few months after that, cancer of the pancreas. Went real fast. The amazing thing is I’ve been down this driveway a million times since then, but every single time I pull in here I flash right to that morning, that snowman, riding next to my dad in that cold truck.” Will hesitated, glancing shyly over at Mitch. “Do you ever do that-live inside of your memory that way?”
“God, yes. There are certain street corners in the West Village, every time I see them I think of Maisie and start to mist up. There are restaurants I haven’t gone back to since she died. Fire Island is off-limits. The Mohonk Mountain House up in New Paltz is flat-out haunted, so is Tuscany, where we spent our honeymoon. Hell, I almost had to give up our apartment.”
“But you didn’t, right?”
“No, I did something much smarter than that-I came to this place. That’s how I met Des. And you and Dodge.”
“Dodge is a rock. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d never have made it after my dad died. Martine, too. I owe both of them so much.”
Will obviously cared deeply about the Crocketts, Mitch reflected. So why had Dodge glowered at him that way on the beach? And if they’d been so good and kind to Will, why had Bitsy Peck called the two of them cannibals?
The garage door was open, Dodge’s diesel wagon parked inside. Mitch pulled up by the front porch and killed the engine. It was very quiet, so quiet he could hear the flapping of gull wings overhead.
“Want to ring the bell?” he asked Will as they got out.
“Let’s check around back. They usually leave the kitchen door unlocked.”
A wrought-iron dining table and chairs were set up out on the terrace to take maximum advantage of its view of the tranquil tidal marshes. A juice glass and coffee cup, both emptied of their contents, sat there on the table. So did the Wall Street Journal, a set of car keys, a pair of sunglasses, Dodge’s birdwatching binoculars, Dodge’s sun hat… everything but Dodge.
“This is really weird,” Will said fretfully, trying the French door to the kitchen. It was locked. “I don’t like this at all.”
They put their noses to the glass, shielding their eyes against the sun’s glare with their hands.
Will let out a gasp. “Oh no…”
Dodge was sprawled out on the tile floor behind the kitchen’s center island. Mitch could make out only the lower part of his body-his hiking shoes and shins. But he could definitely hear faint whimpers of pain coming from in there.
“Better call nine-one-one, Will.”
Will had other ideas-he threw his big shoulder against the glass door with all of his might and shattered the whole damned frame. As the lock gave way he stormed inside, Mitch on his heels. But what they barged in on was not Dodge writhing in pain on the floor.
Because Dodge was not alone.
