4
Pender’s plan, of course, was to spook Apgard into making a move tonight-warning the Epps, trying to hide them, get them off the island, something like that. At the end of the Apgard driveway he turned and parked the cruiser a hundred yards or so down the Circle Road behind a stand of coconut palms. He got out, trotted down to the end of the driveway, looked back, couldn’t see the cruiser. He could barely see the palm trees.
He returned to the cruiser. The rain was falling as it had fallen all day, no harder, no softer, no gusts, no letup. Pender had never known anything like it in the States for sheer consistency and staying power-it was like living under a freaking waterfall.
Although it had been years since Pender had worked a lone stakeout, it didn’t take him long to get the feel of it. He left the motor running to power the windshield wipers and the defroster, then sighted in the binoculars, poured himself a cup of 7-Eleven coffee, opened a prewrapped turkey sandwich, and settled down to pay attention with intention, the way Sheriff Hartung had taught him back in Cortland County.
But he was out of practice. His mind wandered. He found himself thinking back to those early days. How proud he’d been, the first time he’d donned the uniform. Back then, Dawson would probably have thought of him as a pig. That’s okay-he’d have thought of her as a dope-smoking commie.
His mind drifted back to the previous night. If she hadn’t already told him who she was, he’d have recognized her from her picture in the Ten Most Wanted when they were making love-she looked twenty, thirty years younger in afterglow. Sweeeeeet. And she’d already told him she’d be waiting up for him tonight. Lying there in her Quonset or his sleeping loft. So what was he doing sitting in the front seat of a squad car two full years after retirement, when he had a beautiful woman waiting in bed for him?
Good question, Pender told himself. If you’d asked it more often when you were younger, you might still be married to Pam.
Or maybe not. Because the answer would have been the same: trying to stop the bad people from killing the good people.
5
Chaos in the overseer’s house. Emily had taken Apgard’s call. “Get out now,” he told them. “Bennie left a fingerprint on the machete-if the cops aren’t on their way, they will be soon. Grab what you can carry, leave the house by the back door. Cross the pasture, keeping the north fence and the sheep cotes to your right. At the far end of the pasture is a stile. The other side of the stile, a path leads up into the rain forest. Follow it over the top, past the ruins of the windmill tower and down the other side.
“When you reach the Core, skirt around the clearing, circling downhill to your right. Take the path into the woods until it forks at the outhouse, follow the left fork until you come to the cars parked under the flamboyant. I’ll be waiting in the Land Rover. I’ll take you to the cave, hide you out, bring supplies. In a few days they’ll come to the conclusion you’ve made it off the island, and the heat’ll die down. Then we’ll get you off the island for real-I can get hold of a boat.”
“Why don’t you just pick us up here?”
“They might be watching the driveway. I’m safe enough-I don’t think they suspect me yet, but they’ll tail you for sure. And if they do pull me over, the car will be empty-they’ll have to let me go. Listen, there’s no time to argue. I’m throwing you a lifeline here. If you want it, meet me in the Core parking lot one hour from now. If you’re not there, the hell with you-I’ll try to save myself.”
It was a lot to swallow. The three conferred briefly, agreed they had no reason to disbelieve Apgard, and no better plan. Bennie didn’t think he’d left a fingerprint, but couldn’t swear he hadn’t, so the bug-out began.
Phil and Emily filled their backpacks with food, water, extra batteries, toiletries, toilet paper, anything they could stuff into their packs. Bennie slipped his well-worn copy of
Transferring the money into freezer bags took only a few minutes. The hands took longer-he had to pry the lid off each can to make sure there were twenty-seven bones in each (offering an incomplete hand would have been an unforgivable insult to the ancestors waiting on the other side of the abyss), before transferring them, one set of bones at a time, into freezer bags, which he then vacuum-sealed by sucking the air out before closing the little plastic zipper.
There was, however, no need to count the bones in the last can-after spending only five days wrapped in the poultice of turpentine tree leaves Bennie used to loosen the skin from the flesh and the flesh from the bones, Mrs. Apgard’s hand was still intact. Bennie unwrapped the poultice and slipped this most recent trophy into a bag; when he sucked out the air, the shape of the plastic conformed to the shape of the hand, as if it were a second, transparent skin.
The sheep pasture was a quagmire, threatening to suck the rubber boots off their feet at every step. Phil’s glasses kept fogging up. The waterproof hooded ponchos were heavy and unbreathing-by the time they reached the stile they were nearly as wet inside as out from trapped perspiration. Their boots were heavy with clinging mud as they entered the rain forest.
Under the trees there was some measure of relief from the pelting rain. It dripped steadily, but the violence of its fall was broken by the forest canopy. The climbing was hard going, though. They trudged up the steep muddy trail, Emily in the lead with the light from her helmet lamp set to LED white, Bennie bringing up the rear. Phil’s breath was ragged when they reached the ruins at the top of the ridge. They had to wait for Bennie to catch up-the weight of his knapsack was obviously a burden for the slender old man.
By then Emily’s own back was killing her. It had been giving her trouble ever since her boobs blossomed at age fourteen. Breast reduction surgery had been recommended by more than one doctor, but she’d as soon have cut off her nose. As would Phil. She agreed to a short rest.
The rain was drumming hard again, up above the forest canopy. They ducked into the mill tower, shucked off their packs, and rested for a few minutes in what little protection was provided by the conical walls before starting off again on the downhill leg of their journey.
6
Headlights. Coming down the long drive leading from the Great House. Pender grabbed the binoculars from the passenger seat, focused in as best he could through the rain and the windshield wipers. Land Rover. Apgard at the wheel. No passengers visible, but three people could easily have been hunkered down in the back.
Pender slumped in his seat as Apgard reached the end of the driveway, then sat up again when the Rover turned in the opposite direction, toward town. With no backup for the tail, he couldn’t afford to be spotted, but neither could he afford to lose Apgard. He counted to one thousand three, then pulled out without turning on his headlights.
Fortunately that section of the Circle Road was relatively straight, and there was no other traffic. He gave the Rover a long lead, close enough to keep the subject’s taillights in view, too far back to be spotted in the subject’s rearview mirror.
The Rover’s right turn signal flashed (how very law-abiding, thought Pender), then the brake lights. Pender hit the accelerator, caught up just in time to see the red taillights disappearing up the Core Road. When they were out of sight he switched on his parking lights-the reflection from the rain-shiny black tar surface provided just
