My father’s alarm, I correct myself silently-at least at that time, for the house was invaded before Kimmer and I took possession.
Wait.
My father’s alarm.
I tie another small knot in my memory handkerchief, knowing that I am straying very close to an important clue I will never quite reach if I search for it, but confident that it will drop into my mind unexpectedly if I just think about something else.
So I pay attention to the scenery, although it is not particularly scenic. The sky is a misery of gray. Empty trees rush past the car like a skeletal army marching at double time. And Meadows gave me bad information, either because she lied or because she was lied to. She told me that Scott’s companions were white. My new friend, with nothing to gain by manufacturing a clever story, says that one of them was black. Moving pictures on the screen of my imagination: a mysterious dispute between the man whose name was not McDermott and the one whose name presumably is not Foreman, a fight in the boat, the third man-whoever he was!-takes Foreman’s side, and Scott goes over the side. And what disagreement could possibly lead to murder?
The arrangements, of course.
Something my father had, or organized, scared somebody sufficiently that he, or she, or it, or they, would be willing to kill to…
No, no, no, it is too much, I am beginning to think like Mariah. Besides, a stranger in the middle of the night called to tell me that my family and I are safe.
Maybe poor Colin Scott obtained no such guarantee.
On the other hand, my father was obviously worried about something. He owned a gun. And had an instructor. Taking target practice.
I shake my head as the loneliness of North Road in the winter crowds in on me. I pass a handful of very determined cyclists in brightly colored jerseys, then two rugged women on horseback, even a car or two headed in the opposite direction, but, basically, I have the road to myself.
And then I do not.
Coming up behind me on the narrow road, moving very fast, is some sort of sports-utility vehicle, large and intimidating, deep blue, tinted windows. A Chevy Suburban, I register as it roars up to my bumper. I might have seen the same car in Menemsha. I might not have. It hangs annoyingly close. I hate being tailgated, but there is no passing on this stretch of road, so I am stuck. I try speeding up, topping sixty on the winding road, but the driver sticks to my rear. I try slowing down, but the Suburban’s horn brays in irritation and the headlights flash.
“What do you want me to do?” I mutter, the way we talk to other drivers, as though they can hear us but, usually, secretly relieved that they cannot.
I decide to get off the road and let the fool pass me. The trouble is that there is no shoulder, so I have to wait for a side turning. I slow down, because if a crossroad should emerge I do not want to miss it.
The Suburban flashes its lights again but does not leave my tail.
For reasons I cannot quite explain, I feel myself slipping from annoyance toward fear, although I would be a lot more frightened if the car that is chasing me were a green sedan. Perhaps I have become over-watchful, an aftereffect of the beating I suffered.
I notice a couple of large ponds on the right-hand side of the road, meaning I am now in the town of West Tisbury, site of the Island’s summer agricultural fair, where Abby won all those prizes a million years back, when everybody was still alive. Thinking about my baby sister awakens in me an image of a fiery crash, and a desire, perhaps irrational, to get the Suburban off my tail. I try to recall the Island’s geography. Most traffic this time of year will bear left, in the direction of Vineyard Haven. So will the Suburban, I suspect, if it is not following me. Only one way to find out. There is a sharp right-hand turn coming up: the South Road, which I can take to the Edgartown Road, where a left turn will take me toward the airport, and, ultimately, Edgartown… a crowded part of the Island. And crowds are what I suddenly crave.
I see the intersection ahead. I accelerate, flipping on my left-turn indicator, and then, at the last possible second, I turn a hard right onto South Road. The rear end fishtails, the front wheels whine in complaint, and then the little Camry is under control again.
Behind me, the hulking Suburban duplicates my maneuver with contemptuous ease.
For a foolish instant, visions of Freeman Bishop’s mutilated body dance in my head. And of Colin Scott, pitched over the side of a boat. Then I remind myself that I am on the Vineyard, for goodness’ sake, where I have summered for over thirty years. Maybe the leviathan behind me is only a rude driver, not… well, whatever else I was worried about.
Two minutes later, with the Suburban still on my tail, I streak past the tiny clutch of stores and houses that mark the center of West Tisbury, but there is nobody on the street. The sun is sinking, the trees are casting long, unhappy shadows, and the empty town looks like a movie set. I turn left onto the Edgartown Road, and the Suburban remains a few car lengths behind me.
Once more the trees close in on either side. The day is suddenly darker: perhaps a storm is gathering. The Suburban still hangs on my bumper. I am not quite sure how far the airport is. Three miles, I suppose, maybe four. The Martha’s Vineyard airport is a tiny affair, but there are bound to be people there, and people sound good right now.
The airport, then, is my new goal.
I never get there.
As I top a small rise, the Suburban roars up close to the Camry’s tail once more, and now it is mere feet behind me.
The road falls off into a steep gully, we are momentarily invisible from both directions, and that is when my irritation causes me to make a mistake. Trying to prove I will not be intimidated, and also trying to avoid leaving the road when I reach the bottom of the hill, I slow down further, letting the speedometer drop below twenty.
The Suburban hits me from behind.
The bump is not hard, but it is jarring enough to snap my neck to the rear. As my head whips forward again, my teeth close on my tongue.
As instinct makes me press the brake, the Suburban strokes my car again, this time at an angle, so that the rear end slews a little and the front wheels slide, almost as though the larger car is trying to force me off the road and into the woods.
I manage to remember to steer in the direction of the skid instead of fighting it, and so I avoid spinning the Camry completely around, but I still travel another twenty or thirty feet, all the way to the bottom of the little valley between the last hill and the next, before I regain control.
The Suburban glides down the hill behind me. We both stop, right there in the road.
I take a moment to make sure that all my body’s working parts are in good order. I taste blood in my mouth. My neck is singing with pain. My fear is gone. I am furious, the daylight is all fading to red, but I make myself control the rage, keeping my Garland cool, rooting in the glove compartment, thinking: Rear-end collision, always the fault of the driver in the back, and a good thing, because bashed bumpers are expensive, especially on foreign makes, and where in the world is that insurance card?
The other driver is already out of his vehicle, leaning over, inspecting the damage to our bumpers. I open the door and walk back to join him, reminding myself to remain calm, and I discover that the driver who hit me is female. She does not even glance up, and I find myself looking down at the back of a very tall woman in a yellow cashmere overcoat. I notice for the first time that she is a member of the darker nation, a fact which, through some bizarre trick of racial psychology, actually reassures me. The semiotician in me takes a brief interest in this symbology, but I shut him up.
“Excuse me,” I say, with a little less force than I intended, but it has never been easy for me to be tough with women. “Hey,” I add when I am ignored. And then I notice the familiar shock of hideously flat brown curls.
The driver of the Suburban straightens up, turns slowly in my direction, and smiles toothily as I gape in astonishment.
“Hello, handsome,” says the roller woman. “We have to stop meeting like this.”
