Huck’s hands shoot out into the camera’s eye as he grabs for the weapon.
Simone lunges, twists, grunts, blood spurts.
Huck says nothing as she continues to stab him.
Milo runs toward the deck stairs that lead to the beach, Reed races on his heels, overtakes him.
Aaron Fox gapes at the screen.
I catch the look on his face as I run after Milo and Reed.
See him right now, and you wouldn’t know he was ever a confident, elegant man.
The sounds from the screen, wet, thumping, insistent, fill my ears as my feet hit the sand and I’m well out of range and hearing is no longer relevant.
CHAPTER 42
When we get to the spot where Simone Vander has attacked Travis Huck, he is sitting on the sand, cross- legged, like a yogi. His face is calm as he watches blood rain from his hands and arms and chest.
Simone is stretched out several feet away, inches from the water’s edge, flat belly exposed to the moon, twin pierces winking.
The knife protrudes from the side of her neck. Long-bladed, wooden-handled kitchen utensil. Her body is twisted as if in escape. Her eyes are white and dull.
Moe Reed stoops on the sand, like a baseball catcher. Checks, needlessly, for a pulse.
He stands up, shaking his head, joins Milo at Travis Huck’s side.
The run has left Milo panting. Struggling to keep up with Reed, he managed to call for an ambulance.
He and Reed attend to Huck, tearing off their shirts to use as tourniquets. Within seconds Milo ’s undershirt and Reed’s broad, bare chest are slathered with blood.
Huck seems amused by the fuss.
Two bound packets of money lie on the sand. Later, we’ll discover both are bundles of singles covered by twenties at both ends.
Seventy dollars each.
Aaron Fox shows up, surveys the scene. Approaching Simone’s body, his look says she’s something alien and slimy, washed up by the tide.
A wave rolls over her, leaves a coating of foam on her face that dissipates as bubbles burst in the warm night air.
No lights have gone on in the neighboring houses. This is a haven for weekenders. By sunrise all blood will be laundered by the ocean, but now the sand is gummy.
Fox and I stand around as Milo and Reed, working silently, in perfect concert, reduce spurt to seep. Huck turns pale, then an odd off-white, begins to nod off.
Milo braces him and Reed holds his hands. The young detective says, “Hang on, pal.”
Huck looks at Simone’s corpse. Moves his lips. “Uh-ah-uh-”
Milo says, “Don’t talk, son.”
Huck’s eyes remain fixed on Simone. He shrugs. Leaks.
“Don’t move,” says Moe Reed.
Huck mutters something.
“Shh,” says Milo.
Huck’s head sways. His eyes close.
He forces himself to form words.
Says, “I did it again.”
I’m thinking about that as movement from the beach house grabs my attention.
Brief flash of activity below the house, where a bulb fastened to the bottom of the deck casts weak light on the pilings and the bulkhead beneath the main structure.
Something shifting. No one else notices. I go over.
A Zodiac raft hangs on chains from a rafter. Behind the boat is a door, slightly ajar, cut flush with the plywood that veneers the bulkhead.
No lock, some sort of storage space, it probably blew open.
But no wind, tonight. Maybe it’s been that way for a while.
I make my way between the pilings, smelling salt and tar and wet sand. Enter the cave-like space created by the overhang of the deck. The Zodiac is fully inflated. Other things dangle from the rafters, like sausage at a deli. A small metal rowboat, two sets of oars. An old Coca-Cola sign, rusted beyond easy recognition, nailed to a listing, warped crossbeam.
Things go better with…
I approach the door. Barely wide enough to squeeze through. No movement, no light from within, and unlikely to be deeper than the few feet allowed by the bulkhead.
Blown open, who knows how long ago.
I swing the door open, just to be sure.
Come face-to-face with a black figure eight.
Double shotgun barrel. Above the lethal tube, a face, slack in spots, unnaturally taut in others.
Hairless. No eyebrows, no lashes.
A visage turned mask-like by the tickle of indirect light.
Bald head, pale eyes. Dark T-shirt and sweats, dark running shoes.
Big diamond ring on one of the fingers gripping the trigger.
What I can see of the shotgun’s stock is shiny and burled. Engraved metalwork elevates the weapon to art. A whole different level from my father’s bird-slayer.
One of the pricey weapons Simon Vander got rid of when his new wife asked him to.
Buddy Weir’s diamond ring bounces as his finger tightens.
“Easy,” I say.
Weir mouth-breathes. It’s his turn to sweat.
A soft-looking, slope-shouldered man, stinking of sulfurous fear.
More dangerous than if he’d been angry.
Pale eyes look past me at the scene on the beach. He seems about to cry.
The ring bounces again. The barrel moves closer, stops inches from my nose.
A strange, wonderful numbness takes over as I hear myself speak.
I say, “Wrong eye.”
Confusion freezes Weir’s hand.
“You’re right-handed, but you might be left-eyed. Close one, then the other, see which one makes my face jump more. Also, you need to stop fighting the gun, guns don’t like to be wrestled with, lean in, embrace, be part of it-go ahead, blink, test your eyes.”
Weir’s look is scornful, superior, but his eyes effect unconscious compliance and the shotgun wavers.
I duck, hit him hard as I can, low in the gut, follow with the most vicious kick I can muster, connect with his groin. He gasps, doubles over, the gun points upward.
Thunder.
Wood shreds.
Weir is still in pain as I put all my weight into a two-handed blow to the back of his neck.
He crumbles to the sand. Still holding the shotgun.
I stomp his arm, break some bones, free the weapon.
Lovely trap gun, probably Italian. The burl is glorious walnut, the metal engravings scenes of Renaissance hunters stalking mythical beasts.
Weir moans in agony. Later, I will learn that his ulna shattered like glass, will never be the same.
I watch him writhe, allow myself a moment of satisfaction that I will never disclose to anyone.
Milo has heard the shotgun go off, arrives with his nine-millimeter in hand.
