no idea how far I was from anything. It was a hard day, and I finally admitted I’d be at sea for another night.
Katie would expect a call, but she knew sometimes it didn’t work out. No one would look for me before Sunday evening, twenty-four hours away. Then it would be Monday before they could search, and only if the clouds broke.
Hurricanes and freighters-just avoid those two.
The lead sky faded to black, but at least I was tired. Sail down, secure the boat, eat. What was left in the cooler? Enough, but I ate sparingly. Ten o’clock with the rain still falling.
I was lost in the dark. There was a haven somewhere, a place for the boat to get to and be safe. What about for me? I had no such certainty. I didn’t even know where I was to wonder why I was there.
I needed a wind behind me. It was midnight and my drifting was finally to sleep.
I woke disoriented, my bed alive. I fought to stay in it, but then I knew where I was, and I rushed up on deck. Stars swung wildly above. Waves coming over the side soaked me as I pulled up enough sail to bring the bow into them.
The rocking calmed, and it was back-to-front instead of side-to-side. Four o’clock again, black sky but a million stars, and a bunch of them in a long straight line along the horizon due north.
No more sleep. With the seas as high as they were, I needed to keep watch.
Two hours later I saw the end of the night. The water held the dark as long as it could, but the sky rushed into day. Then the sun breached the horizon, the water had its own cataclysm, and the sky was left behind with its cautious brightening. There were no clouds except in the farthest west, and they were the last to feel the day.
The stars and shore lights had disappeared. I couldn’t see the shore but I knew where it was, and the wind was steady from the southwest.
The adventure was over.
I’d discovered Long Island. I put in to charge the batteries and call Katie.
“Montauk?” she said. “What are you doing there?”
“Just following the wind. I’ll be home by six.”
“Was everything okay?”
“Yeah, it was fine,” I said. “Anything happening at home?”
“Fred wants you to call.”
“I’m sure. I’m on vacation until I walk through the front door.”
I was fully in the twenty-first century as I put into the wind, with GPS, radio, and food. Before noon I’d cleared Long Island, and the southwest wind was pushing me fast into the Sound and toward home. The last sixty miles took four hours.
I had the marina in sight at four thirty, back in my safe haven and right at the edge of cell phone range, and my cell phone rang. It was Katie.
“Jason?”
She sounded terrible.
“What’s wrong, Katie?” She was sobbing, and I said again, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Angela. She’s dead.”
17
I was holding Katie, telling her it was okay, we were okay, I was right here with her. It was like the last time, but only a little. Last time it was Melvin going over a cliff, but that was his own fault, in one way or another. He wasn’t innocent.
Here I was holding Katie again, but it was much worse. It was too terrible to think of cottony Angela writing her little note, holding the gun to her head. How did she even know how to use a gun?
The rain had begun again. Katie had finished crying, and we had been sitting, just silent. Melvin’s death had meant change, but Angela’s meant only loss. Katie was grieving for Angela’s despair that we couldn’t help with, her loneliness that we couldn’t fill, even the friendship, of some type at least, that was lost.
Eric arrived dripping, wide-eyed and somber. But this time he had experience, he could deal with it. I couldn’t hold both of them, so I left them with each other.
Who was supposed to make the arrangements? Had anyone called her sister or brother? They were all estranged, of course. Only a funeral might bring them together. But Melvin’s hadn’t.
I called Fred. Good old Fred. Yes, all the arrangements had been made long ago by Melvin. Fred was executor-everything would be taken care of.
And by the way, just for my information, this would not cause any complications concerning any Boyer interests. All of Angela’s connections with Melvin’s estate were strictly for her lifetime only.
Which was now over.
“It also means you now have full rights over the main house and grounds,” he said.
“I’ll find a demolition company,” I said back to him.
“Wait until after the funeral,” he said. “You needn’t be annoyed. I’m just advising you.” He sounded annoyed.
“Then you wait until after the funeral, too.”
“Very well. Have the police called you yet?”
“It was suicide.”
“Supposedly, but if it isn’t…”
I pushed the little button that made him go away. He didn’t call back.
Nathan Kern called later to express his deepest regret and sympathy. I accepted just as deeply.
It was just four weeks since the last time. That had been on a Sunday, too, that we’d sat together mourning. But they really didn’t know when it had happened, this time, Sunday morning or Saturday night. They just found her in her puffy pink parlor after she didn’t show up for breakfast, and her bed hadn’t been slept in. Three maids and a cook lived in the place. It sure took them a long time to notice she was missing.
They were all unemployed now, as well as the gardeners and other staff. Katie would fix that soon enough. We’d need a real staff for our new mansion. It was actually convenient. Although… Melvin and Angela, their two employers, both dead, one month apart. Before we hired these people, we might want to get references.
We had our own quiet dinner, the three of us, long after dark. It helped some, and Eric slept in the guest room. I didn’t sleep in my own bed. I just laid there in it, even after Katie finally went to sleep. I’d been looking forward to a real night’s rest, but it would have to wait.
18
We were all better in the morning. Katie wondered if we should go out to the big house, but she couldn’t think of any reason why. She just wanted to do something.
“No one else will,” she said.
“We’ll wait until afterward,” I said.
“What will happen to the house?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“Somebody has to live there.”
“I’ll call Nathan Kern. He probably knows lots of homeless people.”
“Jason, be serious.” Apparently we were not quite up to sarcasm yet.
So I thought about it seriously, for about fifteen seconds. “I guess I’ll sell it.”
“It’s your father’s house!”
“Do you want to live in that place?” I asked.
I never would. I’d sell that place as fast as it was decent. It was one part of Melvin I really could disown. Maybe I actually would find a demolition company.
