by JJ Partridge
“I still have a key,” Charlie said, hesitantly, reluctantly, “unless they changed the lock.” His face was pale, sweaty, uncertain. “I … should check.”
The thought of Charlie out there alone was none too comforting. Flanaghan immediately volunteered to go with him. I joined in, thinking Charlie’s in a daze and Flanaghan’s out of shape. Charlie said, “There’s storm gear in the boathouse. I’ll get it” and he left us.
“Don’t be a hero,” Nadie said to me earnestly, taking hold of my arm.
Me?
* * *
In yellow slickers, with rain hats tied under our chins like three old salts, we left the house clutching large flashlights. My eyeglasses were useless in the rain and I slipped them into the slicker’s jacket pocket. Our beams bobbed in the pelting rain ahead of our heavy-footed strides. Charlie led us past the barn and corral on the trail which had dissolved into a river of mud. Lightning seemed to be marching to the east as we wound around windswept brush and trees groaning in the gusts, our slickers squeaking as our arms and legs pumped forward, our shoes filling with water in the muddy ruts. At the golf course boundary, we took a sharp right and in a few strides faced closed wooden gates in a high picket fence. Charlie used a key to open a large Yale lock and left it hanging on its hasp. Flanaghan and I swung the creaking gates open and latched them by hooks to two sturdy wooden posts.
Without hesitation, I continued on and slogged up a treacherous, slimy incline toward the glow above the trees, thinking no fire apparatus is ever going to get up here, what was Charlie thinking about? A lonely siren pierced the noises of swirling rain and wind, then a distant horn bleated rhythmically every few seconds, calling in volunteer firemen. Charlie followed me, demanding loudly that we return to the house; Flanaghan, not in any kind of shape for this kind of effort, was far behind, calling my name. At the cusp of the ridge, I stopped to regroup. Flames rose from behind a line of trees on the other side of the ridge and despite the rain, the wind blew sputters of burning wood and acrid smoke at us. Charlie had a few more steps to reach me, cupped his hands to his mouth, and yelled, “It’s gone. We can’t do anything. Let’s go back!”
Cra-a-a-ck! Dazzling light. Molded together in one nuclear second: my head spun, my ears deafened, I was conscious of the air smelling of ozone and that I had been thrown into bushes. Slowly, I gained purchase, staggered upright, unseeing, and my mind grappling with the thought that lightning had struck over the crest of the ridge. My fingers went to my eyes and I realized they were open but all I saw was black, except for sparks that flew around in circles like a pinwheel. I blinked, blinked again, rubbed my eyes, and was slowly regaining my night vision, when a dot of light became Charlie’s flashlight. Another stab of lightning, this one further away toward the north, brought a shattering crash, and Charlie was next to me, his arms over his head. “My God, my God,” he was screaming.
Flanaghan caught up to us, his slicker cap off and his hair sopping wet and falling into his face. “Too goddamn close!” His eyes took in mine as Charlie fumbled at the clasp on his slicker jacket and he croaked out something nonsensical about ‘911’ as his cell phone appeared in his shaking hand. He had to be in shock and I began shaking his shoulders when, from somewhere near the fire, a truck engine cranked, cranked again, and caught in a roar.
We left Charlie fumbling at his cell phone and struggled a few feet over the ridge to a bend where brush grew like hedges and a row of boulders narrowed the trail. Only a hundred feet away, a building was engulfed in flames, the swirling wind flinging golden scraps of fire from its burning roof on to a trailer brightly illuminated by the fire. Silhouetted against the blaze, a truck, with headlights off, leaped on to the trail. Mud, ruts, and fallen branches didn’t slow its charge toward us. I took a step forward, waving my flashlight frantically, expecting the driver to see the beam, my yellow slicker, and brake. No such luck! Fishtailing in the mud as it gained momentum, it came right at me, its engine roaring, its huge off-road tires spinning and slipping in the mud, its transmission grinding. Flanaghan, yards behind me, screamed, “Holy shit” and must have gotten off the trail. I hesitated, still waving an arm while getting a beam of flashlight into the cab, convinced it would now slow. Fog lights over its cab flashed but instead of slowing, it lurched forward as I caught a glimpse of a white mask with red and black slashes at the mouth and eyes.
I was trapped! Boulders on one side, thick brush and vines like a wall on the other, the truck filling the width of the trail, already scraping rock and brush. I was conscious of my body wanting to turn although retreat was impossible; my feet stuck in the wrong direction. Again, I waved my arms madly, and with the truck close enough for me to see the ram emblem on its massive metal grill, I dropped to my knees and dove forward on to the grassy hump between tire tracks. My eyes closed as my chest hit the ground, my nostrils and mouth open to the wet grass, my arms stretched straight ahead, one hand grasping tufts of weeds, the other the flashlight. My body flattened as the engine’s roar overcame any other sound. Please, God, nothing loose in the undercarriage. Please, God, don’t let it slide.
The engine’s roar deafened me, then came the raspy grind of the transmission, the creaks of its struts, a flush of warm air on my neck, the fumes of exhaust. And it was gone. I turned to my left side in time to see reflectors brighten in the light of the fire and disappear over the rise. I struggled up, lost my balance, and went down, my shoulder grazing something hard. Flanaghan, swearing and shouting my name, staggered toward me, and yelled, “Gesus…!” He grabbed my arm as I scraped mud off my face and spat out dirt.
“Freddy Jones,” I managed to say as he helped me to my feet.
“Who?” Charlie approached, his arms flailing like a punch drunk fighter, clutching his cell phone with one hand, his flashlight in the other, but seemingly unscathed and unaware of my near death experience. “Did you see that? Goddamn fool almost hit me!”
There was no time to explain. Jones was escaping, I was sure, not as a fire victim but as a fugitive. I shook Charlie by his shoulders. “The truck is either going up to the path to the Club or into your property. Call Dani, tell her to lock the doors, get everyone upstairs, and don’t let anybody in. Then call 911. Tell them a truck is leaving the scene of the fire at Randall’s, nearly ran us over, is going toward your house or up to the Club. Tell them it’s Freddie Jones. Important. Freddie Jones. Then, get up to the pump house in case the truck is there. If it is, call us, don’t go in, and get back to the house.”
In the glare of the flashlights, rain dripping from his yellow slicker hat mixing with sweat, his tiny pupils and sagging mouth made him seem incapable of comprehending my directions. “God, you’re a mess,” he complained to me loudly.
“Do it!” I screamed.
Charlie’s eyes widened and his voice became robot-like. “I’ll call Dani. I’ll call 911. I’ll check out the pump house.” He seemed none too steady but since he wasn’t a hero, I figured he wouldn’t get too close to a problem, if there was one.
We left Charlie and fought our way up the ridge in a night filled with sirens and fire engine horns as the storm rumbled away and the rain began to abate. We hadn’t gone fifty feet when we heard the smash of metal meeting something hard. I picked up my pace, leaving a panting Flanaghan slipping in the mud After a turn of the trail, my beam shown on the reflectors of the truck, its right fender and rear wheel off the trail and smack up against a slab of ledge, the door on the driver’s side open. The only sound was the ticking of the engine cooling. I approached cautiously, looked in, saw the windshield was a swirl of cracks; a black hat, with a feather sticking out of its band, was on the seat. Flanaghan, painfully out of breath, his chest pumping his slicker jacket up and down, reached me. I told him to follow me back to the house when he could. He acknowledged by weakly raising his flashlight.
With the meager light of a single beam, the trail was treacherous. More than once I tumbled into deep, rain filled ruts before I reached harder surfaces
by the corral. Had Charlie …, Dani …, called the police? Would they be on their way? Where was Jones? What was he doing all painted up? Acting out Magua?
That thought gave me the second wind to sprint past the barn, around the driveway, into the front yard of the house. I banged on the door. “Dani, it’s me, Algy. Let me in!” I yelled as a clatter erupted from within the boathouse across the lawn!
An obviously frightened Dani unlocked and opened the door, with Nadie and Jean behind her. “Go back inside,” I said intently, pushing them back into the front hall with my hoarse whisper.
Dani’s hands went to her mouth as she saw my mud streaked face, about to scream, but she didn’t when Jean Flanaghan touched her arm, “Where’s Tom?”
“Coming. Don’t worry. Charlie went up to the pump house, checking it out.”
Nadie said intently, “Charlie called us. He didn’t make much sense. And we called the police, too.”
Another crash came from the boathouse, maybe something being thrown in frustration, that the women didn’t hear. “Lock the door and get up to the observatory,” I ordered. “Now!”
Nadie grabbed my arm. She realized I was going back outside. “Don’t go, Algy. Wait for the police,” she pleaded but I had a head of steam and left them, waiting at the closed door until I heard the click of a lock. Next to the door was a set of light switches. I snapped them all up and the front yard, walkways, driveway, and boathouse were bathed in floodlights that reflected off a mist creeping up from the pond.
What the hell was I going to do! With the boat tied up at the dock, Jones must be searching for an ignition key or something to wire it. I didn’t have a weapon and was matched against a walking mountain of grievances, an arsonist escaping a fire, wearing war paint. With half an idea, I ran to the Range Rover, fumbled for my keys in my trousers pocket, started up the engine, put it in gear, peeled across the lawn, and rammed its steel framed brush grill against the boathouse door, effectively barricading any exit. The modest shed shook visibly on its foundation causing whatever was loose inside to crash to the floor, producing an unintelligible scream.
Only then did I realize that I hadn’t a clue as to whether the door to the boathouse opened out or in! In, and it was over; hammering blows to the door told me; thank God, it must open out!
I remained behind the wheel, not sure of my next move, as the bangs and thumps and screams of anger continued from inside. The boathouse glowed in the floodlights except where the Range Rover threw its shadow. Siren wails seemed closer and I thought ‘Please be the cops!’ when with a smash of glass and splitting wood from within the shadow, the shutters in the lone window of the boathouse flew open.
Bam! The right headlight exploded. I ducked down across the passenger seat.
Another bam, and a thud of pierced metal.
Bam, and dnang as a third shot ricocheted in a whine off the hood and the windshield above me splintered into frost around a hole the size of a dime.
A moment later, I heard more glass being pulverized and realized there must be another window facing the dock!
I hunched up to reach the door handle and it didn’t budge; somehow I had triggered the all-door lock mechanism, great for safaris, not so great for instant evacuation. I fumbled at controls above the armrest, heard the snap of the door locks, and had my feet on the ground when wham, the windshield showered me with diamonds of safety glass. A horrendous, twisted face appeared in its jagged hole, jerked away with a scream, and wham, what was left of the windshield exploded and disintegrated.
To get to me, Jones would have to go around the rear of the SUV, giving me precious seconds of margin, and I began a sprint which lasted two strides; my right foot jammed into something hard and I fell forward; my arms stretched to break the sprawl as I hit the wet grass. I rolled over and braced with one hurting hand to get to my knees, looking up into floodlights that were suddenly blocked out. Jones was standing over me, the floodlights a penumbra on his bare shoulders, his hands grasping something raised high above his head….
Bam!
I waited for the pain of the bullet.
“Put it down!” Flanaghan roared. “Freddie, put it down!” Jones turned his face into the light, red and black stripes arching over his bulging eyes, white mouth drawn back in anger and surprise, and I knew he was deciding whether to swing downward or challenge the voice with the gun. My arms went up to protect my head as my body curled away in the longest seconds of my life. From five feet away, I staggered up, holding my gut, and saw Jones, in all his painted ugliness, a boat oar poised high above his head.
I stumbled to Flanaghan’s side. “Freddie,” he shouted past me, “ put the fuckin’ oar down!”
Jones complied, slowly, lowering it until the paddle end touched the grass.
“Drop it.”
As he did, his eyes widened in recognition. “The fuckin’ pool player!” he screamed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Not two minutes later, a pair of Westerly patrol cruisers, spouting the amplified angry, raucous shrieks that get attention, careened into the yard, throwing up driveway stones and grass as they converged on the boathouse, their red, white and blue lights transforming us into Cirque du Soleil players, their headlights blinding us. From behind open doors, garbled commands were shouted to “Freeze” and “Drop your weapon.” Flanaghan let his gun slip to the grass and was hustled away toward the cruisers as a uniformed cop took over Flanaghan’s bead on Jones whose arms were folded tightly over his glistening, hairless chest. Some rough handling by two cops ignited a screaming chant as Jones was searched, forced into handcuffs, and pushed into the rear seat of a cruiser. Seemingly ignored, I picked up the oar only to have an aggressive voice from behind the light yell “Drop it.” As a hand holding a shiny blue steel gun appeared, I obeyed.
The Range Rover remained in the floodlights, a film of wet on its exterior. The driver’s door was open and the interior light showed its bashed-in windshield. Closer inspection revealed a bullet hole in the hood and I didn’t have the heart to inspect the damage underneath.
While we had been playing heroes, the three women had wisely remained inside the house. They now rushed to our rescue, their excited voices explaining the circumstances over the sounds of crackling hand sets. Confusion reigned until a sergeant arrived and told us all to shut up because he wanted to hear from Flanaghan who made our story sensible—the fire in the woods, our rush to the blaze, Jones escaping the scene, the crashed truck, my half-ass attempt to keep Jones trapped inside the boathouse, and Jones’ attack. As I listened, the reality of what happened got through to me. Did I do that? My stomach, still hurting from whatever I landed on—it turned out to be one of several pieces of jutting ledge in the lawn—made my breath shallow and the bludgeoning-with-oar scene in The Talented Mr. Ripley was a timely flashback. A cop interrupted Flanaghan to report that Jones had a handgun stuck in his belt, empty of cartridges but with three spent shells in its chambers, and a six inch blade in a boot. The sergeant snapped an order for Jones’ arrest and two cops piled into the cruiser that held him and drove away as another cruiser noisily arrived.
Flanaghan stayed with the sergeant who released us to the house. The mist had now gathered in droplets of drizzle as we went inside. The thought that if Jones had another bullet, I might be lying out there in the car or on the wet grass was clearly getting through to me. A hall mirror reflected my mud-crusted face flecked with bloodied scratches, and Nadie handed me a damp hand towel from a lavette; I wiped away grime and felt the stings of cuts and bruises. She began to berate me for my foolish bravado, but her words belayed her evident concern. I dropped my slicker on the lavette’s tile floor and removed my soggy shoes. I offered no defense, in fact I would have agreed if asked, when Charlie, drying his hair with a towel, appeared from the kitchen. I had completely forgotten about him! Dani embraced him; her breathless update on our fracas with Jones seemed to perplex him.
“Well, good. Good,” he said, patronizing our ex
periences. “My 911 calls got action. And, by the way, someone was at the pump house. That’s what took me so long. Guess who?” Pause. “Joe Pontarelli!”
“What?” I managed to cough out as Charlie headed into the living room and the drinks table. We followed him.
“I can’t tell you how relieved I was because it could have been another crazy Quonnie.” He filled a tumbler with Dewars. “He was at the generators, in the headlights of a maintenance cart. Had the casing off one but they seemed to be working fine and I could hear the pumps. When I shouted to him, I thought he was going to soil his drawers! When he recovered, he said after the electricity went off, he drove to the pump house because they’ve been having problems with the generators switching on automatically like their supposed to.” He took a large snort of his drink and wiped his face with his towel. “I told him about the fire at Randall’s and that goddamn Quonnie in the truck, and that seemed to shake him up even more. Then, get this, he screamed at me that I shouldn’t be up there! To get the hell out! Swearing, and shouting at me, he put the cover back on the generator case, got in the cart, and took off! Didn’t even offer me a ride home. I had to trek back through all that mud!”
Indignation reddened Charlie’s face as Flanaghan, shaking off water like a sheep dog, burst in to the living room, complaining that the ‘new’ cops hadn’t a clue and fortunately, his old friend Sergeant McNulty had arrived. The police, he said, were setting up security near the boathouse. Charlie, gawking at him, made the mistake of extending his Scotch which was taken from Charlie’s hands and emptied in a swallow. “McNulty says the pumpers did get through from Route 1, despite a couple of shaky culverts. The house is gone, the barn mostly, and the trailer is scorched. And I’ll tell you what I think, if we hadn’t been up in the observatory, the whole shebang would have been ashes before anybody reported it.”