He turned. The rain washed across the floorboards of the deck and the runoff joined the sea. A moment ago the floorboards had been pink with the suggestion of blood. But within another half minute all traces of blood were gone and the color of the deck was a glimmering green again.
He went inside to where the two children were running up and down a different aisle now, shrieking and playing pirates.
Chapter 24
He watched through the drawn front gate of the ferry as the vessel neared land. Occasionally he glanced in his rearview mirror, half expecting the car to be surrounded by police.
'Who was the man you threw over the side?' they'd ask him.
'Why'd you kill him?' they'd demand.
'She swung the ax' he'd answer. And they'd never believe it.
Was that her game? He chied himself She'd saved his life twice and he'd caught himself still being suspicious.
'I've never been involved in this sort of thing,' he mused absently.
He could feel the jitteriness in his stomach. He was shaken.
She looked at him sternly, almost inquisitively.
'Your father was in plenty of them. Wasn't he?' It sounded like a probe.
He turned to her, frowning, sensing an implication but unable to grasp it.
'What makes you say that?'
Her face softened and she gave an innocent shrug.
'Just that I've heard your father's reputation' she said.
'A fairly well-known criminal lawyer, wasn't he?'
'The word criminal is a noun, not an adjective,' he said.
'My father's got nothing to do with me She laughed slightly, raising her eyebrows.
'Oh, come now,' she said.
'He has everything to do with you. He drew you into this.'
He searched her face, begging for more.
'If you know more than I do, I'd love to hear it ' 'Of course I don't,' she scoffed.
'All I'm saying is that if you search your memory-' 'I don't know one bit more than you do!' he snapped at her quickly, tension and a vibrating headache getting the better of his nerves.
'How many times do I have to tell you that?'
She lowered her eyes demurely, not challenging him, but rather embarrassing him. He sighed.
'I'm sorry. I don't mean to yell at you He tried to smile.
'I owe you too much, I guess' She returned his smile. She could forgive as easily as she could sketch or dispose of a body.
They were no more than a hundred feet from docking now. The buildings of the Woods Hole wharf were visible through a misting rain, and a gray fog.
'Ever paint seascapes?' he asked.
She wore a fleeting smile, her artistry being recalled to her.
'Occasionally,' she answered brightly.
'I went to the Gaspe in Quebec for a summer. Fabulous land- and seascapes up there. You should see it sometime. Breathtaking' ' 'I should' he agreed, though his breath had been taken often enough recently to last far into the future.
Her smile vanished.
'I don't think I could do a seascape again for a while though' she said.
He asked why, as she knew he would.
'I'd become involved with the water,' she said.
'I'd see the man we just buried He looked away. So much for changing the subject. The boat docked with a sudden grinding of the engines and a resonant thud.
Moments later they drove from the ferry and picked up the route northward to the bridge to the mainland.
They drove for the entire day, stopping only for a meal late in the afternoon. In the evening they crossed from New Jersey into Pennsylvania. By nine o'clock that night they were in the town of Barnstable, where they checked into a motel which featured Magic Fingers, loud televisions in every room, and every other drearily functional detail expected of such places. In spite of it all, or perhaps because of it, they were asleep by midnight.
The light sliced across the motel room, crossing the bed where Thomas's head was. He felt the moonlight on his eyes.
At first, in his sleep, he held a forearm across his face. But the light disturbed his rest. He found the brightness an intrusion, one which he could not immediately avoid. Blinking, his eyes opened.
He was aware of movement in the room.
For a moment he lay there in stark fear. He would not move.
He focused his eyes on a mirror. Then he could see. The room was easily bright enough for him to see the figure of a nude woman moving before the dresser.
Gently he rolled over. He was now aware that he was alone in the bed.
He kept his eyelids close together so that they'd appear closed.
He watched her. She was doing something which she did not want him to see. She stood there completely naked, facing him, watching to make sure that he was still asleep.
He didn't move.
Quickly she dressed. She grabbed her coat silently from a closet.
But instead of immediately leaving, she returned to the dresser.
There she began picking through the coins he'd taken from his pockets before going to bed. She was putting together a handful of change.
Carefully she took the key from the top of the dresser. She looked back at him to assure herself that he still slept. She reached the door.
His instinct was to sit up quickly and demand to know where she was going. He glanced at a bedside clock. It was three A.M. He said nothing. She disappeared out the door.
Immediately he sat up and pulled on his clothing. He was just lunging for his coat when he heard her footsteps outside his window.
He edged close to the curtain and looked out.
He saw her.
Leslie was in the parking lot in front of the motel. She was trotting quickly toward the center of the lot. He couldn't see what was attracting her there. Then he realized. She was going to the telephone booth.
He watched her. She glanced around as she entered the booth. She looked carefully back toward the motel. She saw no one. She put two coins into the pay telephone.
He could see that she was not speaking. She was waiting for her coins to get her a dial tone. But something was wrong.
He watched her press the coin return and repeat the process of dropping coins. Then she struck the telephone with the flat of her hand. A second time she hit it. She pressed the coin return and tried a third time. The telephone was out of order. It wouldn't work for her.
Disgustedly she stepped out of the booth. She looked in all directions, obviously realizing that the only telephone nearby was out of order. She was only about fifty feet away from him. He could see the expression of displeasure on her face, an expression of anger that he'd never seen on her before. She began to walk back to the motel.
He quickly pulled off his clothes and dived back into the bed. He resumed the same sleeping position he'd been in before she left.
