Another mile on, I said, “I know I’ve sometimes been, you know, where you’re concerned, a bit-”
“Of an asshole?” Bob said.
“I was going to say, a bit reluctant to show you much respect.”
“Sort of the same thing,” he said, leaning back in his seat, glancing into the passenger door mirror.
“Well, I don’t really think that’s going to change any,” I said. Bob found himself unable to stifle a laugh. “But I want to thank you for taking such good care of Susanne.”
“Shit,” he said.
“No, really,” I said. “I mean it.”
“And I mean shit, you’ve got a cop on your ass.”
I glanced into the rearview mirror. Flashing lights. Way back there, maybe as far as a mile, but unmistakably cruiser lights. I felt my heart hammer in my chest. After all I’d been through today, I was worried now about a speeding ticket?
Unless it was worse than that. Maybe Jennings had figured out where we were going, and what kind of car we were in, and put the word out.
“Shit,” I concurred. The thing was, we were lucky to have gotten this far along without getting pulled over.
There was nowhere to go, out here on the interstate, and no upcoming exits that might allow me to lose the police. I eased my foot off the gas, allowing the car to coast back down to something close to the legal speed limit, hoping that by the time the cop caught up with us, he’d think he’d made a mistake about how fast we were going.
And if he did pull us over for something as simple as speeding-and wasn’t after me for the mayhem I’d left behind-I’d take the damn ticket.
“What are you doing?” Bob asked as the car slowed. First to eighty, then seventy-five.
“I’m dropping down to the speed limit,” I said.
“No no, you’ve got to lose him,” Bob said.
“How am I supposed to lose him? Which side street would you like me to turn down?”
“Okay, here’s the thing,” he said, measuring his words. “I’m not sure, technically speaking, whether the registration for this car will hold up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying it would be better, all around, if we weren’t pulled over.”
“Bob, is this car stolen?”
“I’m not saying that,” he said. “I’m just saying the registration might not hold up to close scrutiny.”
I was still letting the car slow down. The flashing light behind me was getting closer. “Honest to God, Bob, you told me your days of Katrina cars were over. That you were on the up-and-up. I swear-”
“Calm down,” he said. “It might be okay, I don’t know.”
“This is a stolen car,” I said.
“I do not have personal knowledge that this car is stolen,” he said.
“Those are fucking weasel words if I ever heard them,” I said.
I felt sweat breaking out on my forehead. I didn’t see as we had any choice but to pull over and see how this played out.
We could hear the siren now.
“I’m just saying, while this is a legitimate car, its history is a bit clouded,” Bob continued.
“How many cars on your lot are like this?” I asked. “Have you got them grouped? These cars over here, they were in a flood, these ones over here were stolen, these ones over here come with a free fire extinguisher because they’re likely to burst into flames?”
“This is what I mean about you being an asshole,” Bob said.
The cruiser was nearly on top of us now, lights flashing, siren wailing.
“You know,” Bob said, “there’s also the matter of these two guns we’ve got.”
“Oh God,” I said. “Speeding, a car with a murky registration, and weapons we don’t have licenses for that can be traced back to actual murders.”
“Nice going,” Bob said.
And then a miracle happened. The cop car moved out into the passing lane and blasted past us.
“What the hell?” said Bob.
About another mile on, we came upon a pickup truck that had rolled over into the median. The cruiser was pulled over onto the left shoulder, the officer helping a couple of people standing about, apparently not seriously injured.
“You see?” Bob said. “Everything’s okay.”
The rest of the way, I held the Mustang to just a few miles per hour over the limit. It seemed safer that way.
THERE WAS A LONG STRETCH AFTER THAT where neither of us said much of anything. I finished my Mars bar, even drank the bad-now cold-coffee Bob had bought. When there was nothing to do but stare at the road up ahead and fall into a trance watching the dotted lines zip past, I had time to think.
About Syd’s disappearance. Gary and Carter and Owen. Andy Hertz.
And while Syd was always there right in front, I also couldn’t stop thinking about Patty. The girl I now knew to be my biological daughter. And within minutes of learning the truth about my connection to her, came the news that I had lost her.
It was a lot to take in.
Bob would never have been my first choice of someone to open up to. But at that moment, he happened to be the only one available.
I said, “What would you do if you found out there was a child out there who was yours, a grown-up kid, and you’d never known about this person before?”
Bob glanced over nervously. “What have you heard?”
“I’m not talking about you,” I said. “I’m just saying. How would you handle that? Finding out there was this person and you were the father?”
“I don’t know. I guess that would kind of blow my mind,” he said.
“And then,” I said, slowly, “what if, right after you learned this, you found out that something had happened to this kid. And any kind of connection you might have wanted to make, you’d never be able to do that?”
“What happened?” Bob said. “To this supposed imaginary kid?”
“She died,” I said.
I could feel Bob looking at me. “What are we talking about here, Tim? You’re not talking about Evan and Sydney, and anything that might or might not have happened there, are you?”
“No,” I said.
“So what, then?”
I shook my head. I had to blink a few times to keep the road in focus. “Nothing,” I said. “Forget I said anything about it.”
WE HEADED NORTH at the Waterbury exit, past the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory on the left. There were hardly any cars on the road. It was, after all, coming up on three in the morning.
The road wound leisurely up and over graceful hills, through wooded areas and clearings. A couple of times, the headlamps caught the eyes of night creatures-raccoons, most likely-at the edge of the road, starry pinpoints of light.
About fifteen minutes after we got off the interstate the road curved down and to the right, taking us into the center of Stowe. Colonial-looking homes and businesses crowded up to the sides of the road. We came to a stop, a T intersection. There was an inn on the right, a church and what appeared to be a government building just up ahead and to the left. Turning left would take us over a short bridge, with a
