Wreckage: An Addictive Psychological Thriller Packed with Twists, page 15
Smoke detector: easiest place in the world to hide a webcam.
I glance again at the new detector and then casually look away. If there’s a camera inside it, I don’t want to betray my suspiciousness.
No question about it, I can feel eyes burning my skin, and I am sure there’s a live camera on me. I need to get the hell out of here. Not just for an hour or two. For good. Relocate. But I don’t want whoever’s watching me to know that’s my plan.
I stretch and yawn, then stand up and look offhandedly at my phone’s clock. I react to the time in fake surprise. Pretending I’m late for something, I stuff Miles’s laptop into my backpack. Luckily, most of my clothes and other belongings are still packed in there, but I deliberately leave a pair of socks on the floor and a tee-shirt draped over a chair, as if I intend to return. Then I throw on my raincoat, feeling for my homemade blackjack. Taking pains not to look up at the smoke detector, I exit the room.
Pellets of rain blast the upstairs hall window. That hurricane-like system is still parked out in the Atlantic, and the forecast is for more intermittent wind and rain and continued high seas. A craptastic Saturday-before-Labor-Day, in other words.
I’m tempted to go down to the front desk and ask JJ if he recently installed smoke detectors, but I decide to just get the hell out of Dodge. I exit by the fire escape on the third floor, then slip down the alley behind the island’s mini-laundromat. The wind whistles through clapboards up and down Island Ave, creating steam-train sound effects.
I’d already planned on dropping in on a few old friends. That mission has now taken on urgency. I need a place to stay. Not someone’s house—I can’t ask anyone to take that risk—but maybe a tool shed or a guest cabin that’s not being used this washed-out weekend.
Dennis and Billy’s place is close by, so I head there first. I still haven’t returned Billy’s rain suit, but now I need to ask him for a bigger favor—the use of his storage locker as a hideout. I make my way to his door, on the bay side of the building. I need to time my way past the waves, which are now crashing into the base of the sandwich counter. No crab rolls today.
Dennis answers the door. He’s holding a mop and looking frazzled. Seawater must be getting into the building. “Billy’s in the shower right now,” he declaims, unsmiling. The cold shoulder he showed me earlier has metastasized into third-degree frostbite.
No light is on in the bathroom, so I say, “Looks like he may be finished.”
“He hasn’t started yet.”
“Well, can you tell him I came by, and I’ll probably drop by again later?”
“He’ll probably be in the shower later too.”
Dennis doesn’t quite slam the door, but he shuts it with feeling. Hi-ho, my friendship mission is off to a rollicking start. So, whom else can I hit up for shelter on this fine late-summer morn? Most of my other island friends live either in the Greyhook neighborhood or out on Studio Row—at least they did last I saw them.
I haven’t been to Greyhook on this trip, so maybe I’ll head over there first. As I start off in that direction, the wind is whipping so hard it feels like it’ll lift me off my feet. Salt from storm-blown spindrift is mixing with the rain, stinging my eyes.
Greyhook occupies the eastern side of the bay all the way out to Seal Point. As I may have mentioned, Greyhook is where the working folk live—fishermen, dockhands, bartenders, shop clerks, and a number of “village artists.”
There are three types of professional painter on the island, FYI. First you have the “rock stars” who own the large ocean-facing properties at the far end of Studio Row and whose work is represented by top galleries in New York, London, and Paris. Then you have the almost-famous Studio Rowers, who own the studio-galleries on—wait for it—Studio Row. Finally, you have the “village” artists. Like I was. These are painters who sell their work for three figures, occasionally four, in the village shops and coastal tourist galleries. Village artists are tradespeople, nothing more, nothing less. Like lobstermen and boat builders.
Many of my island friends are—or were—village artists. We had a loose club of sorts. We’d hang out together, doing plein air sessions around the island, then hoist a few at The Rusty Anchor or Pete’s Lagoon at the end of the day. We kept each other sane and motivated.
The most diehard member of the gang was a guy named Enzo. I’ll head for his place first.
I keep my head down, to cut through the wind and keep the saltwater out of my eyes.
Enzo is a crusty old socialist and conspiracy theorist who lives in a rundown Greyhook cottage near the point. He’s a throwback to the days when liberals were the ones worried about secret government conspiracies. His paintings are sad, muddy-hued things layered with political symbolism. They don’t sell, but Enzo doesn’t care. Enzo was one of the earliest adopters of personal computers back in the Eighties. When he’s not painting, you can usually find him at his high-end PC, blogging about men in black and warning people they’re being spied on.
Not today, though. When I knock on his peeling, lockless door, only his dog Herbert Marcuse comes to check me out.
I poke my head inside, just in case Enzo’s on the can, and shout, “Come on, Enzo, I’m dying out here.”
His place boggles the mind. His state-of-the-art computer system and peripherals take up a whole wall, but the rest of the house looks like it’s inhabited by a caveman. Dust bunnies the size of jackrabbits lurk in the corners. If anyone has Internet access during a storm, though, it’s Enzo. But I can’t use his equipment if he’s not home. Can’t ask him about a place to stay either.
Maybe later.
The tiny house next door is the extreme opposite of Enzo’s. Meticulously painted in three tones and rimmed with lush window boxes, it is home to another village artist, Miranda. She’s only fortyish, but she dresses like an old hippie and listens to Incredible String Band music from the Sixties. She’s a good soul, though.
“Finny!” she shrieks, opening her arms for a hug. She invites me in for tea, which I gratefully accept. Miranda tells me that in the years since I left, the island has taken on bad juju. There is infighting, ill will, negative energy. Something about the way she’s saying it, though, with her hand clamped on my wrist, feels more like a warning than an idle observation.
“All I can do is paint about it and hope my paintings heal,” she says. Ah, Miranda, God bless her. I decide not to gum up her chakras with my housing woes.
Maybe the Bourbon triplets can help me: Matt, Zack, and Mike. They own a party fishing boat and one of the island’s few apartment buildings, a four-unit affair. They’re all painters too. They learned to paint because art is a sellable commodity on Musqasset. If they’d been born in Brooklyn, they’d have learned to make pickles. But oddly—or maybe not—they’re among the island’s best painters. All three of them.
When Matt answers his door, his expression is more puzzlement than hostility. He looks around to see if anyone’s watching. “Hey, Finn, kind of surprised to see you here.” He lobs me a couple of polite catch-up questions from behind his screen door, but there’s no “Come on in and dry off” or “Let me show you my latest work.” Pulling teeth to keep the conversation going, I learn that his brother Zack got married last year and that Mike had a gallery showing in Boston. Matt’s not expending one syllable more than required. Okay, fine. I was planning to ask him if any of his apartments were unoccupied, but clearly that would be fruitless.
I make my way through the eye-stinging rain to Pop’s, the world’s most inconvenient convenience store (opens at ten, closes at four). Pop’s sells dairy products with adventurous expiration dates, and a baffling selection of overpriced canned goods. But it’s the house behind Pop’s I’m interested in today—a saltbox where Gerry and Ginny Harper live. They’re a lobstering couple who also paint in oils. When Jeannie and I lived together, Gerry and Ginny were our best “couple” friends. Both of them are hilarious, both amazing cooks. I probably should have tried them first—they’ll know a place I can stay, for sure.
Through their wavy old window glass, I can see Ginny moving about. But when I knock on the door, no one answers. I knock again, harder. Nope. They’ve been warned off. Tears rush to my eyes, melding with the salt spray.
As I march down rain-swept Camden Avenue, past the weathered homes and rooming houses that line the street, I feel as if I’m being watched from multiple angles. At one point, a curtain whips closed at my approach. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.
I decide to swing by The Rusty Anchor to dry off and see if anyone I know is hanging out there. Bad idea. The way Big Al eyes me from behind the bar makes me feel like a wanted man stepping into an old-West saloon. He cranks out an effortful smile and says, “Finn Carroll, in the flesh.”
I ask him how he’s been, and he replies, “Can’t complain...”
“...since they closed the complaints department.” It’s an island moldy oldie.
I order a coffee—it’s a bit early for a beer—and Big Al says, more out of compassion than animosity, “I’ll get you the one, Finn, but then maybe it’s best if you get rolling.”
Wow, am I actually being kicked out of The Anchor? Normally you have to rip a urinal from the men’s room wall to accomplish that feat. I take the coffee. Big Al waves off payment.
The place is nearly empty. Back in the day, there’d be a fair number of morning drinkers on a Saturday, but the weather is forcing folks to do their sorrow-drowning at home. The only patrons are a threesome of silent drinkers in hooded raincoats, none of whose faces I can make out, and, over in the corner, Enzo, the raving socialist painter, huddled over a breakfast tumbler of house red.
“Grizzled” doesn’t begin to describe old Enzo; he looks as if the last tool he shaved with was made by Husqvarna. He gives me a surprised nod, which I take as an invitation to join him. Enzo cares not one jot what anyone thinks about him or the company he keeps.
Still, he does keep his voice down. “So, I take it you’ve been getting a heaping helping of island hospitality?” he says, as I sit at his table, pulling back my dripping rain hood.
“You might say that,” I reply, matching his turned-down volume. After we trade pleasantries for a minute, I pursue the topic further. “I don’t get it, Enzo. I mean, I know some people are pissed at me, but why am I being singled out for an Amish shunning?”
“Homo sapiens is a pack-hunting beast motivated by fear and self-interest and unmoved by reason... But to be fair to the beasts in question, you brought a lot of it on yourself, wouldn’t you say?”
“Why? Because I spoke up for that development plan—in its early days, when it still had merit? So did a bunch of other people.”
“You did a tad more than ‘speak up’ for it, amico mio.”
“What? What did I do that was so terrible?”
He peers at me over the rim of his tumbler. “Are you asking that rhetorically or...?
“It’s a real question, Enz.”
“Come on, Finnian. Don’t be coy. We’re both too smart for that.”
“What?” I really don’t know what he means. “I introduced Miles Sutcliffe to a few people with bucks. Big whoop. I talked some of the fishermen and selectmen into listening to his plan, but that’s all I did—grease the wheels of conversation.”
“You vouched for him, among other things.”
“Because he was my friend. And because I thought his plan was exactly what the island needed—a way to rehab Fish Pier and also bring in some new tax and retail money. I didn’t tell anyone how to think or vote, I just brought people together across tables.”
“On this island, vouching for someone means something.”
“Of course it does.”
“And when the vouchee lies and deceives, there are consequences for the voucher.”
“I get that, Enzo. But here’s what I don’t get. Miles struts around the island like he owns the place. No one seems to be shutting doors in his face. But he was the one—him and his partners—who actually tanked Fish Pier, not me.”
“And the Romans were the ones who actually nailed a certain influential carpenter to a stick of lumber.”
“What do you mean?”
He leans forward, closing the gap between us. “Whom does history blame for Calvary, Finnian? Not the people who did the literal stabbing and flogging and hammering.”
I see where he’s headed, but I allow him to make his point.
“There have always been, and always will be, Romans.” He lowers his voice another notch. “People with power and money who seek to enforce their will at everyone else’s expense. Romans are a given. A force of nature. Like weather. We don’t take their actions personally. Miles Sutcliffe is a Roman. No one expected any better of him. You, on the other hand...”
“I may be many things, Enzo, but I’m no Judas. I didn’t betray anybody.”
“You might want to take an opinion poll on that, Buckaroo Banzai.”
“I didn’t know Miles’s plan was going to change! I didn’t know Fish Pier was going to be canned! Once that started happening, I washed my hands of the whole thing.”
“Interesting choice of words.”
“I was more upset than anyone when those plans started changing, Enz. I was the one who came up with the whole letter-writing idea and got all those letters to the developers.”
Enzo leans back and appraises me with a hoised brow.
“What? Are you saying you don’t believe me?”
“What I believe is unimportant. I’m not a member of—” He cuts himself off, looks around the barroom, and grumbles, “of a certain ‘fraternity’ that need not be named.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Maybe I do, but I want to hear him say it. “Can I buy a vowel?”
The silent drinkers at the other table rise in tandem, sliding their chairs back.
Enzo flicks his eyes toward them and knocks on the table in a wrapping-up gesture. “The wine’s done too much yapping already. ...Besides,” he says in the tone of a strong suggestion, “you probably want to get on with your day.”
The raincoat posse heads toward the door en masse. Enzo stares at the floor, waiting for them to leave. After they do, he pauses for a few seconds, then stands and zips his own raincoat to his chin. He tosses a scratch ticket on the table as a tip for Big Al and ambles to the exit. Before leaving, he surveys the street, then shoots a glance back at me that I take as a warning.
I stand and head toward the rear of the bar as if I’m going to use the men’s room.
And duck out the back door.
22
Imake my way out of Greyhook, sticking to the back alleys. I haven’t found roosting quarters yet, but right now the village seems a more welcoming place than Greyhook.
As I’m passing the row of old fishmonger shacks that divides the two “districts,” I spot Jeannie, in a blue poncho, talking to someone behind a stack of lobster traps. My view of the second person is blocked by her body and filtered through the beat-up traps.
Jeannie notices me, and a “caught” look flashes across her face. She covers it with a smile then says something to the other person, who turns briskly in the opposite direction. I catch a flurry of motion behind the stacked traps as the figure stalks away.
Jeannie marches toward me. Before I can ask who her conversational partner was, she says, “Walk with me. I’m on my way to work. Let’s take the scenic route.”
We’re only a minute from Pete’s, but we take a detour loop around the small residential neighborhood north of Island Ave. Jean pulls down the visor of her rain poncho as if she doesn’t want to be seen with me.
“I hear you’ve been snooping around Greyhook, looking for trouble,” she says, aiming her voice at the ground.
“Can’t a person take a dump on this island without CNN doing a Special Report?”
“It was on TMZ, actually. ‘Carroll Takes Dump.’ Hey listen, I’m sorry about the way I slammed the brakes on last night.”
“It was late. I’d been blathering. It was time for me to leave.”
“No. There was something I wanted to tell you. Something that might be important to you, but I couldn’t. Not till I checked with someone first.”
“And?”
“Well, I did that.”
“And?”
“It’s not something I can just blurt out in thirty seconds. It needs... context.”
“Okay. What time do you get off work tonight?”
She tramps ahead for a few seconds before mumbling, “Ten.”
Fine, I’ll take that as a “date.” We walk in silence for a bit. I want to know who she was talking to behind the traps—my gut is flashing warning signs—but she doesn’t volunteer the information, and I don’t feel it’s my place to pry.
“Hey Jeannie, can I ask you a big favor? Say no if it makes you uncomfortable.”
I ask her if she still has dial-up Internet at her house and if I can use it while she’s at work. I expect some resistance, but she quickly answers, “Sure.” I don’t know if she’s agreeing so fast because she wants to help me or because she wants to distract me from asking about her back-alley chitchat.
“I promise to respect your privacy. I’ll just plug my computer in and work. I won’t poke around or peek in drawers.”
“You didn’t have to say that, Finn. I trust you.”
She hands me her key chain with the tiny stuffed Cthulhu doll on it—another old gift from me—and tells me where to find the logon instructions for the Internet. “Use the landline too, if you want, and help yourself to anything you need.”
“Thanks. I will steal some of your underwear; I hope that’s understood.”
“Duh. It’d almost be creepy if you didn’t.”
We’re approaching Pete’s again but from the opposite direction. I say I’ll meet her at ten. She doesn’t argue. She’s about to step inside when she says, “I’m worried about you, Finn.”
