Flailing against the curve of Witch’s hull, Hazel’s fingers brushed a cool steel shape on the shelf behind her bunk: her sewing shears.
He’d made it clear. She had no choice.
WHERE AM I?
Hammon stared into blackness. Enveloping, gravelike, absolute blackness. He blinked several times to no discernible effect. A steady rain drummed overhead, and empty soda cans clattered around in the galley sink as Revenge pitched against the choppy waves.
It was raining. That was important. But why?
Oh, right. Last night he’d docked in Brielle, New Jersey. He fumbled with his Timex, squinting at the luminescent blue rectangle; 1:13 p.m., June 26. Good. He hadn’t overslept. Normally he followed a nocturnal schedule, but not today. He’d been waiting for the rain, counting on it. He’d felt it coming, that familiar dull pain: every fracture, pin, and screw in his body radiated aches, the throbbing more insistent than usual. Ah, the convenience of being a human barometer.
He eased himself from the forward bunk, stepped over dirty laundry, and quietly rummaged around the drawers for a change of clothes, then padded through the dark galley into the tiny head. He could navigate around the boat blind, which, without his glasses, he pretty much was. In the dark it didn’t matter. In the dark lots of things didn’t matter. Darkness was good. He should have been born a bat.
Door locked, he stripped, shoving his sweaty clothes in the corner, feeling his way into the cramped shower. He scrubbed at the uneven textures of his face with the tight, grafted skin on his fingers, following the scars that spread like flames from above his right eyebrow across his neck and shoulder, past where the cosmetic repairs stopped and the real damage began.
Naked, he was as vulnerable as a hermit crab torn from its shell. He raced through his shower, dried and dressed, then combed his hair so it fell across the right half of his face. He flossed, pricking his knuckles against his unnaturally sharp canines. He scowled into the darkness at the black rectangle over the sink. Even unseen, he felt his reflection’s mocking presence. He would have shattered the mirror years ago but superstition stopped him.
Not his superstition; far as he knew, he wasn’t superstitious.
No, not him.
It was Annabel. She tore into him at the mere thought of destroying the mirror, insisting it would offend the mirror spirits as well as the boat they protected. At times it was hard to take her seriously, but Hammon had discovered that Annabel’s guidance usually kept him out of trouble, while defying her could turn his existence into a living hell. Thus, a compromise: he painted every mirror aboard black.
The rain overhead intensified: time to get moving. Hammon shuffled over to the dinette, flipped on the dim galley light, and switched his world from black to blurry. He felt around unsuccessfully for his glasses. Up forward he heard a soft yawn.
“Annabel, you awake?”
“No, Otto. Sound asleep. Next question.”
“Yeah. Where’d you put my glasses?”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t touch them.” Her sleek bare shape slipped past him. “Don’t blame me when you lose things in this floating disaster area.”
“It upsets you so much, feel free to clean up.”
“Do I look like your mother?” She stepped into the head, not bothering to close the door. “You know the rules. And you left your glasses behind the laptop.”
Sure enough, there they were. He slipped them on, bringing his world into focus, and considered taking them back off. Maybe she had a point. The rules were simple: whoever made the mess cleaned it. Annabel was compulsively neat but refused to straighten up after him.
Hammon opened a curtain in the salon and contemplated the Jersey waterfront. Seated on the toilet, Annabel leaned out, looking up. “I think it’s time for some new scenery,” she said. “Why don’t we head up to Maine for a while?”
“Yeah, sure. But first, I got things to do,” he said, trying to remember what exactly those things were. He picked up the pad beside the laptop and read the notes he’d left himself. Grocery lists, memories, ideas, reminders. Ones he’d dealt with were scribbled out, but others still remained.
6/25 DOCKED IN BRIELLE
6/26 TAKE ANNABEL TO LIBRARY
Okay, he knew that. So far, so good.
GARY’S—NEW FREEZER, FUEL GAUGE
Three for three. Not bad.
6/23 M T CAR TRUNK.
He checked his watch again. It was the twenty-sixth; worse yet, unseasonably warm the last few days. Definitely not good. And where was the car? He searched his memory to no avail, which wasn’t unusual. He probably left himself another note, a clue to its whereabouts. And there it was, further down, squeezed sideways into the space beside the spiral binding:
6/23 FAIRMONT BY GATES OF HELL
Crap. That was bad. Extremely bad. Why’d he go and leave it there?
There was one more note, a new one, written neatly between the lines in Annabel’s fluid hand: Eat something healthy.
That he could handle. He dug through the galley for anything clean, settling on a sixteen-ounce. Mix N’ Measure container, and added WASH DISHES to his list. Annabel re-emerged from the head, still not bothering to dress, and paused to regard the bowl of Peeps bobbing in chocolate milk like pastel ducks in a mud puddle.
“Should I ask?” she said, sliding into the seat opposite him at the dinette.
“Poultry and dairy.” He stabbed one with the plastic spork. “It’s in the food pyramid.”
“Nice try.” She combed her bobbed hair, the curls grazing her neck. “Peeps aren’t poultry, and they have zero nutritional value.”
“Okay, Mom.” It amused him the way she berated him for some of his habits, yet tolerated other idiosyncrasies, like the painted mirrors, with a sympathetic smile. Mirrors distorted reality, she contended, and reflections were irrelevant. That’s how she put it, insisting society would benefit from painting all the world’s mirrors black. Humans, she ranted, were pathetic, shallow, image-conscious primates. She completely disregarded her own appearance, which was easy for her. He stared across the dinette table, taking in every inch of her. The wild curls and wide, dark eyes, the irrepressibly mischievous smile, the neck that begged for nibbling, the body firm and curved in all the right places, the satiny, unmarked skin. She was, quite simply, perfect. Not that he was complaining, any more than he’d complain about her preference for minimal clothing.
She gave him a wry smile. “You’re crooked, dear.”
“Huh?” He washed down a pair of NoDoz caplets with a swig of grape soda.
“You can’t even button yourself straight. If you insist on dressing in the dark, at least check when you’re done.”
“That’s what I have you for.” He inspected the uneven shirttails and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the T-shirt beneath, which read: “I wouldn’t be so broke if the voices in my head paid rent.”
Annabel scanned the galley for something she considered edible, and Hammon jotted down BUY MORE FOOD. She paused, turning back in the classic Betty Grable pose. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. You left it in the snow.”
“I what?”
“I don’t know. You said it last night. You told me to remind you. You said it was important.”
He scratched at his scarred arm. “Snow? In June? I must’ve been dreaming.”
Annabel sighed the way she did whenever she was about to say something he didn’t want to hear.
Hammon groaned. He knew where this was going. “And?”
Another sigh. “You said, and I quote, ‘Make sure I tell Stevenson it’s in the snow.’”
“Then it was a nightmare,” Hammon said flatly, scratching at his wrist.
“Stop scratching. Maybe it means something. You could—”
“—talk to him? Sure. When hell—”
“—freezes over.” Annabel stared up at the hatch while rain pounded overhead. “So, Otto, why are we up at this awful hour? Four hours’ sleep isn’t nearly enough.”
<
br /> Hammon took a deep breath. “I was just thinking…”
“That’s my job.” She did a series of catlike stretches, derailing his train of thought. “Thinking about what?”
“I figured maybe we’d—” He hiccupped.
“—take a walk down to the library?” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Nice try, Otto. We’re in Brielle, it’s raining, and I saw the list. You’re going to ditch me at the library and go to Gary’s.”
Damn. He really had to remember not to leave his lists lying around. His eyes lingered on the smooth curve of her neck, transfixed. He could watch her for hours. Sometimes he did. But not today; he had things to do.
“Just for the afternoon. The new freezer’s in.”
“Admit it. You’re tired of me.”
“No!” He didn’t have to tell her. But making him sweat was her favorite game.
Annabel fiddled with her MP3 player. “You don’t want me around anymore.” She slipped on the headphones and danced up to the salon.
“Annabel.”
She pointed to the earphones, smiling apologetically as she sang, way off-key, to “My Sharona.”
“Annabel.”
Eyes closed, she moved to the music, swaying before him hypnotically. Hammon watched, trying to stay focused as another train of thought crashed and burned.
“Annabel.”
She paused, lifting the earphones. “What?”
Good question. “You know I can’t think when you do that.”
“Which implies you can when I don’t. Nice try.” She smiled. “It’s okay. Have fun telling Gary why the old freezer’s dead.”
Oh yeah. Gary.
The freezer.
It was raining.
He was dropping Annabel at the library.
She never ceased to amaze him. Gary swore she was bad news and Hammon should get rid of her. Gary didn’t understand. Hammon and Annabel had been together for years, starting as fellow inmates in the pediatric ICU. He was dying when he first saw her gazing down at him with the sad serenity of an angel. She stayed beside him, blind to the disfigurement and bandages as he endured ongoing surgeries. She accepted the irreparable damage within his shattered skull even when he couldn’t. She refused to give up on him and wouldn’t let him give up either, no matter how much he tried. Even with a few bad sectors on his hard drive, the critical programs still functioned, and that was fine with her. He didn’t want to consider what she was doing with a mess like him or why she’d stayed all this time. Lifting those rocks would only bring to light some troubling truths about him, her, and their relationship. He knew better than to question why and risk losing her. Without her he would have unraveled years ago.
13:40 SATURDAY, JUNE 26
39°13’58.83”N/75°01’59.09”W
BIVALVE, NJ
Typical of New Jersey summer weather, even as isolated storms deluged sections of coastline, other stretches baked under a cloudless sky. Along the southwestern shore, an unrelenting midday sun beat down on the marshy banks of the Maurice River, cooking the low-tide mud to a pungent level. Stagnant air hung wet and sticky, ripe for a good thunderstorm. This was Bivalve: the end of the road, figuratively and literally.
Long ago there had been oysters. Freight trains full of oysters, history told. In its day, the one-time oyster capital of the world created more millionaires per mile than anywhere in the country. Oyster schooners by the hundreds sailed the bay, hauling up a seemingly limitless bounty. Oystermen crewed and dredged the bay; they built and maintained the schooners in hundreds of boatyards; jobs were plentiful on roads and rail, shipping the oysters across the country. By the late 1880s, Bivalve filled ninety freight cars a week, and by the 1920s, the annual harvest reached ten million dollars. But in the 1950s, disease struck. Oysters began dying off, taking with them the region’s bustling economy. Abandoned fleets sank into neglect and into the mud. Docks collapsed and marshes reclaimed the shores. Over time nature methodically erased most traces of a once booming industry until all that remained was a building here, a twisted length of railway there. Bivalve was a ghost town, and even the ghosts had long since packed up and moved on. Only a few people, a few docks, and a few boats remained.
Among those boats were a plywood center console, an old Sea Ray, and a rust-streaked patrol cruiser. In slip F-18, the only numbered slip around, bobbed an ancient wooden Grady-White named Kindling, sporting hot-rod-style flames that covered the bow. Across from Kindling, Witch sat silent, all traces of the previous night’s voyage and cargo washed away.
Above the docks, a faded plywood sign read:
BRANFORD’S BOATYARD
GENERAL MARINE WORK—DOCKS AVAILABLE
Along the bottom, fresh lettering in a shade of red remarkably similar to Witch’s boot stripe stated: GO AWAY.
Beyond the docks and past the lot paved in crushed white shells stood a sagging wood-frame building. Once a sailmaker’s loft, it presently housed Joe’s marine repair shop and yard amenities consisting of showers, a laundry room, small kitchen, wood stove, a sunken couch, and a pool table supported on all corners by car jacks. A carpenter’s level held a place of honor in the cue rack.
Inside the shop, Hazel stared restlessly out the window at the lot. Her father had left an hour earlier with no explanation, depositing her under Joe’s protective custody, and she’d spent much of that time calculating how to make a break for it. She knew she wasn’t supposed to leave. Her father made that clear, even having her recite back his instructions.
“Stay with Joe while you’re gone. Under no circumstances short of fire, earthquake, or nuclear attack should I leave this building.”
She really did intend to keep her word, at least at first. That had to count for something.
She sat beside the workbench and picked at red paint dried on her shredded jeans. She wanted to talk about last night, but since it “never happened,” that topic was off-limits. Instead she scanned the service manual for the dissected Johnson outboard currently spread across Joe’s workbench, passing him tools before he asked and trying not to worry about Micah. Joe concentrated on his work, focusing harder than usual as he loosened a fuel line. With each turn of the wrench, the colorful tentacles on his octopus tattoo writhed around the anchor and skull beneath them.
If there was one thing Joe lacked, it was subtlety. She could see it in his eyes every time he glanced up. He kept studying her the same way he had last night, when she’d wandered trancelike into his apartment, blood-soaked, axe in hand, and said in barely a whisper, “I just killed a man.” She wondered what Joe was thinking, but she was afraid to ask. Maybe she didn’t want to know. Even with the air-conditioner straining and AC/DC screaming from the radio, the silence was intolerable.
“You think it’s not getting enough fuel?” Hazel said at last, stating the obvious. She might as well have commented on the weather. Joe paused, forehead creasing like he was trying to read between the lines, and he wiped his face with a bandana.
“Yeah. Figured I’d test the fuel pump.”
She could see he wanted to say more but turned his attention back to the motor, setting the end of the fuel line into an empty two-liter bottle, cranking the engine. The pump kicked to life, and the fuel line spurted like a severed artery, filling the bottle with raw gasoline. He killed the power, capped off the bottle, and reconnected the fuel line.
Silence resumed. Minutes ticked by.
“Joe?”
He looked up. “Yeah?”
Hazel knew what she wanted to say, but couldn’t actually say it. Joe waited.
“What’s better?” she asked, just to say something, anything. “Double-clutching or floating shifts?”
Joe chuckled darkly. “Neither, if the vehicle in question sinks like a rock.”
She was never going to live that submerged Miata down. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. RoadKill’s tranny’s acting up again, and you want me to check it before your dad notices.”
�
��Could you? Please? Maybe it’s nothing, but I don’t want to take any chances. I’d tell Dad but…”
Joe rubbed his face. “Lay off the clutchless shifting until I take a look.”
Hazel smiled. Her father had bought RoadKill back when she’d been born; even then the Kenworth was already old and rusty. And once they finally purchased a new truck, he began suggesting what Hazel considered unthinkable: getting rid of the antiquated Kenworth. But so long as RoadKill remained reliable and continued to earn its keep, thanks in part to Joe’s ongoing clandestine repairs, Hazel got her way and the truck stayed.
She said, “It’s just that Dad really doesn’t need any more aggravation right now.”
“Speaking of which, I haven’t seen Micah around much these days. What’s he been up to?”
She gathered scattered sockets from the workbench, returning them to the gang box. “I wouldn’t know.” Joe was fishing, but he wasn’t going to catch anything. She knew better than to volunteer any information, not that there was anything to volunteer other than the fact that last night’s visitor asked the same questions. But that little detail might only make matters worse, and besides, it wasn’t what Joe asked. “I haven’t seen Micah.” And that part of her story wasn’t changing. “Or heard from him.”
Joe looked less than convinced. Hazel and Micah weren’t just cousins. They were best friends, confidants, and partners in crime, inseparable for as long as either could remember. Unlike Hazel, Micah’s upbringing had the benefit of married parents, a picture-perfect suburban house, traditional schooling…and a home life that was anything but happy. He rarely talked about it and never suffered any outright abuse, just emotional neglect by parents preoccupied by their own dysfunctional relationship. Aboard Witch he found warmth, guidance, acceptance, and sanctuary from the screaming at home.
Last Exit in New Jersey Page 2