He shook my hand and then scurried down the steps. Belly roiling, I sat down on the low cement wall at the edge of the landing. Knotted muscles had a painful grip on my neck. How could I help but worry? Recognizing that Aunt Lada would be growing more anxious by the minute, I took out my phone and called her apartment at The Cedars.
The Cedars is the assisted-living complex I found for her sixteen miles from Pequod. She’d worked as a photo librarian for the Associated Press well past retirement, but her crippling arthritis eventually made navigating the city impossible. The Cedars is much nicer than those claustrophobic urban senior residences. Lada seems happy there, and the proximity means I can visit her every week. The only downside is that I need to make up the difference between what they charge, what Medicare pays for and what Lada can afford. But I feel good about setting her up in a safe environment. She moved just in time. She’s begun to drift.
Lada’s line trilled and trilled, eventually rolling over to the front desk. I left a message with Yvonne, the receptionist, asking her to tell my aunt that I was fine and I would visit as soon as I could. The loud rumble of a motorcycle had me shouting the last few words before I hung up.
A dark-green-and-chrome bike—a vintage model—thundered along the perimeter of the parking lot and stopped at the base of the steps. Amazingly, Ben straddled it. I walked down to meet him, incredulous.
“Since when is this your ride?” I asked over the engine idle.
Ben pushed the visor of his helmet up.
“My car is in the shop.” He patted the Triumph logo on the gas tank. “This was Sam’s graduation present. A ’92 reissue of Steve McQueen’s bike. She needed some work, so Sam left her home for first semester. She’s perfect now.”
He pulled a second helmet from the bike’s saddlebag and offered it.
“Hop on.”
I hesitated.
“It’s okay. I know what I’m doing. I had a Harley in college.”
“It’s not that. I’m just . . . I’m not ready to go home yet.”
He looked at me for a long moment, seeming to search my face for I don’t know what.
“Understood,” he finally said. “How about we find a bar in Massamat, or go back to Pequod and stop at—”
“The Tea Cozy,” we said in unison. I smiled. I felt lighter already.
I strapped on the helmet and climbed on behind Ben. As I leaned into his broad back, I was surprised by its firmness. I wrapped my arms around his center. No beer gut. He was in pretty good shape at forty-seven. But it felt strange to be embracing a man after so long, and even stranger that the man was my boss. I was used to taking assignments and editorial notes from Ben, not motorcycle rides. He put his hand over mine briefly and squeezed. I was both surprised and comforted.
“Hang on tight,” he said.
With a flick of his foot, the kickstand went up, the bike lowered and we took off with a jerk and a roar. Ben steered us out of the lot heading east toward Pequod, but not along any route I’d driven before. We zigged and zagged through sketchy residential streets, passing boxy houses, unmowed lawns and broken, weedy sidewalks until we met up with a narrow country road that hugged the shore.
Ben drove faster on the winding road. I leaned in with the dip and swerve of the bike as we rounded the curves, taking pleasure in the movement and in the vibration alternately hastening and slowing between my legs. I breathed in the salty sea air. The late afternoon sunlight flickered through the bare trees, lulling me into a pleasant trance. Ben’s body blocked the wind, and the heat of him warmed my chest. Only my bare hands were cold; I hadn’t thought to wear gloves.
As if reading my mind, Ben took my right hand from his waist and placed it inside the pocket of his parka. It felt intimate—a gesture a boyfriend might make, and I tentatively followed his lead, slipping my left hand into the other pocket. It met with something metal. About four inches long, an inch or two thick, smooth on the sides, and ridged in between. A folded knife. A big one.
I pulled my hand out, alarmed, and felt Ben’s body stiffen. What was he doing walking around with a knife like that? Chill. You are a paranoid mess right now. I slid my hand back in.
Eventually we made a turn onto the straightaway that cut across a bay just outside of Pequod, a strip of flat, sandy land with nothing but seagrasses and water on both sides. The landscape looked so magical in the waning crimson-and-orange light that if I had even half of Hugh’s talent, I would paint it.
All that talent gone, I lamented, starting to slip into melancholy. Hugh would never paint again. But I recovered quickly, sat up tall and tightened my thighs around the saddle. Removing both hands from Ben’s pockets, I stretched my arms out to the sides, attempting to take in the striking beauty all around. I was perfectly balanced, thanks to Pilates. My core supple and strong. Ben opened the throttle, and we flew down the road with the wind at our backs. For a few short, ecstatic moments I forgot all my troubles. Then a dark thought swept in.
I might not ever feel this free again.
“Two-for-one hour” was just gearing up at the Tea Cozy. The cranberry-colored clapboard roadhouse used to be a tea parlor, though the Cozy has always served stronger brews than tea in its cups. Protected by a police department paid off by the gangster Dutch Schultz, it was the most popular of the “Rum Row” establishments that opened up near the coast during Prohibition. Mostly because Captain William McCoy, a rumrunner known for his high-quality giggle water, stocked its shelves. The Piqued like to encourage the myth that the phrase “the real McCoy” referred to the enterprising captain’s goods.
The Cozy lived up to its adjective. The main room had a stone fireplace, wood-beamed ceilings above wide-board pine floors and booths with small, shaded lamps on the tables. Yet from the moment I entered, despite the glowing hearth and warm decor, I felt a shiver so deep in my bones I had to keep my coat on.
Kevin Coates, the African American owner and a former state wrestling champ, signaled us from the far end of the busy bar as we walked into the room. Kevin is a leading member of Pequod’s small African American community. His roots go back to the years when escaped slaves came north and took tough and dangerous jobs on whaling ships alongside Native Americans and white men. Kevin is descended from one of those slaves who eventually became a whaling captain. The Coates family has seen a lot of social and economic upheaval in Pequod over almost two centuries. He wanted to talk about the murders.
“You hear anything off the record? Was it a botched robbery? A home invasion? Did someone have a big, fat grudge?”
Ben and I shook our heads. In an unspoken agreement, we feigned ignorance of anything that hadn’t already been reported. We certainly didn’t tell Kevin I’d been taken in for questioning.
“The police are being tight-lipped so far, Kev,” Ben said.
Kevin continued to speculate as Ben put in our order for two vodka tonics.
“If there’s a serial killer on the loose, we should form neighborhood watch committees like they did for that Zodiac Killer.”