All in One Piece

by Cecelia Tishy

  It’s so different from just days ago, when the boathouse was filled with those lean athletic bodies, the snappy orders to raise and lower boats. I peer into gloom to see the crane, which is barely outlined in the dusk. It looks primeval.

  “Dani? Dani? Hello, Dani Vogler, if you’re here—”

  My voice swallows itself. There’s not a trace of an echo. I wish I’d changed out of this suit.

  The walls and rafters creak. “Hello? Is anyone up there?” Wood expands, right? Or does it contract? There’s a small flashlight in my purse, but the beam disappears in the gloom of the gables. I crane my neck. The boats look like torpedoes.

  Dani said sundown, so I literally jump at the words “Ms. Cutter… I see your skirt.”

  “Dani? Where are you?”

  “Here… at the back wall. I’m on a ladder.”

  I squint, shine my little light.

  “Here… behind the boats.”

  The flashlight is useless, but yes, a shadowy figure is coming down the far wall. I make out rungs and a thin leg, a muscled arm. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “I was changing. There’s a loft up there.”

  I remember rafters, no loft. “You didn’t hear me? I called your name.”

  She’s in leggings and a fuzzy vest with pockets. “I heard you. I thought you were my brother.”

  Inches from my face, her eyes are wide. Wide with fear. “He came looking for me. I was up in the loft. I kept quiet until he went away. When I heard your voice, I thought he was back, trying to trick me.”

  “You were hiding from him?”

  “I didn’t move a muscle. You didn’t see him, did you?”

  “Driving away. I’m sure it was him.”

  “A blue convertible?” I nod. “That’s him. He’s not even allowed to come here. He’s not a member. He plays squash and rides. He rides that poor horse like it’s a bronco.”

  “Diablo.”

  “But this is my place.” Dani stamps one foot as if planting a flag. “Dr. Vantag said so.”

  “Your crew coach?”

  “Dr. Vantag is… my therapist.”

  “I see. Suppose we go for our drinks now. We can grab a bite.”

  She doesn’t seem to hear me. “And he knows I plan to talk to you.”

  “Dr. Vantag?”

  “No.” Her voice rises to shrillness. “Not Dr. Vantag. Drew. Drew knows.”

  “You told him?”

  “He just knows. He’s my brother, he always knows.” She rakes her nails along her arms. “He knew everything in my room, my diary. And my body… I was ten. He was so strong, I couldn’t fight… always.”

  “Then let’s go. My car’s outside.”

  “What if he’s waiting out there?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh yes. He could go around Memorial Drive and cross the bridge and circle back. It just takes a few minutes this time of day, even in rush hour. He could be outside right now. He could be waiting.”

  “To do what?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Let’s… make a dash for it.” Even in these heels? Yes, whatever it takes to calm her down. If Dani turns hysterical, I’ll get nowhere. “Let’s go to a hotel bar. How about Cambridge, the Charles Hotel? There’s lots of security there. And it’s warm.” She hesitates. Another few minutes, it will be dark. “Let’s go while there’s still daylight.”

  “It’s okay, Reggie. I know this boathouse. I could walk it in the dark in my sleep.”

  “But not in my sleep.”

  “I’ve even spent nights here. I roll out a sleeping bag, even in winter. The dark’s no problem. It’s cozier.”

  For me, however, claustrophobic.

  She reaches into a vest pocket. “In case he comes back, I’m going to lock the Storrow side doors. I have the key.”

  “The doors where I came in?” She nods. “Can’t we just go?”

  “In case he sees your car. Don’t you understand? In case he tries to get in here.”

  “But if we get going right now—”

  “It’s a precaution.” She goes to the doors, and I hear a chunk. “Padlocked,” she says. “He can’t get in.”

  “Dani, we can’t get out.”

  “Oh yes, by the river doors.”

  “To swim out? Or will you row us?”

  Her laugh breaks the tension. I manage a laugh too. “It’s okay,” she says. “There’s a side path over some stones beside the boat ramp. My brother doesn’t know about it. I’ll guide you.”

  “In my stocking feet?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s safer.”

  “But it’s getting really dark. And it’s cold.”

  “It’s twilight,” she says. “If you spent as much time here as I do, you’d know the difference.”

  “So let’s leave while it’s… twilight. I’m thirsty.”

  “There’s water. Right over there near our lockers. Wait.” She disappears into the gloom, sidesteps the boats and the crane. On the uneven floorboards, her steps are sure-footed. She’s back, handing me a bottle.

  “Wow, real glass.”

  “Coach orders it. It’s Finnish.” She has one for herself.

  I realize how thirsty I am. Outdoors, there’s a gentle slap of the river water against the ramp. “Thanks.” We drink. The lockup clearly has made Dani feel better. I tell myself again, a hysterical Dani Vogler would be useless. This boathouse is Dani’s playhouse, the address she evidently calls home. Rock-bottom fact: she feels safest here.

  Meaning that she’ll talk here. “Dani, why are you afraid of your brother?”

  “Oh, Reggie, it’s a long story. Tell you what—let’s sit for a little while on the bench, okay? Like we did the other day. That was so nice.”

  Uneasily I say okay. It’s pitch-dark in here, and there’s no moon. The slap-slap of the river water on the ramp outside is nice enough, but the boat hulls surround us like a maze, and those suspended above look ghostly. The crane hovers. And now—that pulsing starts at my temple.

  “You don’t know Drew,” she says. “You met him, but you don’t know my brother. You got the official family version, the wild child tamed when Steve joined the family circle. That’s what you heard, isn’t it?”

  Our foreheads almost touch when I nod. “More or less.”

  “The truth is, my brother is cruel. He’s violent. He was always that way. My father jokes about him throwing bricks in my crib, as if that was cute. I had a pet Siamese. Drew played doctor and cut her. I gave her away to save her life. He wanted to do things to me. I learned to stay away from him.”

  She drinks. “I loved riding, but it was dangerous at the barn. Do you think I liked playing field hockey? I hated it. I played those sports to get away from my brother. I took art lessons because it’s a girl thing, he wouldn’t come near. I faked the flu so I wouldn’t have to see him.”

  “Dani, did you talk with your parents?”

  “They wouldn’t listen. They loved their myth, how great Steven was for their dear firstborn son. The divorce didn’t change a thing. Besides, Margaret’s weird. She has something going with Steven’s ex, in case you didn’t know.”

  “With Alex?”

  “You should see her look at that guy, like there’s nobody else in the universe. But my brother could care less. He games them all. He steals my mom’s silver, my dad’s guns. I think he steals from Margaret too.”

  “Guns? What kind of guns?”

  “Western six-shooters. My father comes from Nevada. Anything that’s western, he’s a fanatic. They blame the house cleaners, but it’s Drew. My brother just hid himself better with Steve around. He’s poison. He’d have been a Nazi. Drew’d do anything.”

  “Dani, when you said Steven and Drew were more than brothers, what did you mean?”

  Her sudden laugh is shrill.

  “Why is that funny?” I ask.

  “Just listen to you… because it just goes on and on… Drew, number one, the big topic. Here we
sit in my house—the boathouse is my house—and it’s all about my brother.”

  “And about Steven. You sang at his memorial service a couple of hours ago. It’s appropriate. It’s right.”

  She pauses. “Steve talked to me about your aunt.” Her voice drops to a hush. “About how she was psychic.”

  “Yes.”

  “So that means she could, like, read minds?”

  “No, not necessarily. The word has many meanings.” I wish I could see the expression on Dani’s face. If only the moon would give us some light. “But my Aunt Jo was psychic, it’s true.”

  “That must be fabulous.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  “And you have it too? You go into a trance?”

  “It’s more intuitional… like daydreams. For me, the experience is… intense.” Do I tell her my temple throbs at this very moment? That I see Steven colliding with a log and drowning? That my temple is pulsing? No. “Images,” I say. “Just different images, like a picture.”

  “Cool.” She slaps the bottle against her palm. Dani has not answered my question about Steven and Drew.

  “Dani, let’s go now. It’s stuffy in here. I’m getting cold. We’ll take my car. If you’re worried, I can call a friend of mine. He’s very physical. I’ll call him.”

  “Just let me put the bench back first.” We stand, and I admire the easy swing of her muscular arms as I reach down for my bag. “Dani, I can’t seem to find my bag.” The little flashlight beam has died. “Can you help find my bag? It’s right here—”

  In the silence, there’s a sudden whoosh of air. It’s a glass bottle. It grazes my scalp, catches my shoulder, and thunks to the floor and rolls. It was thrown.

  “Dani… ,” I whisper, gasping. “Your brother…” Drew is here. He must be inside. “Dani? Dani, can you hear me?” No answer. “Dani?”

  Something crunches. I know that sound. It’s an oar pulled from a wall notch.

  “Dani?”

  There’s silence. Then the oar… from the dark I sense it coming, piercing the gloom. It comes at me blade-first—a spear.

  My God, it isn’t Drew. It’s Dani.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  I dive, and splinters rake my palms and wrists and shins. I’m underneath a rack of boats and panting. My shoes are gone, nylons shredded. My jacket buttons strike the floor like marbles. The oar pokes like a broom. Is the blade to stab me? No, it’s the handle grip. She wants to poke me out.

  She tried to smash my head with a bottle? To beat me with an oar?

  Why? Is she crazy? My heart pounds its message: get out of here.

  The river-side doors are my best chance. Yet my car key’s in my bag, which Dani surely grabbed when she moved the bench. Stupid me. This was planned.

  All of it? From the church? From before?

  Why?

  My palms and legs are on fire on the splintery floor. But the prodding oar has stopped. I’m flattened beneath the bottom row of the longest shells. I do not see her feet. If I lie here, the night will move. Eventually dawn.

  No, this is a lull, not a truce. I have to do… something.

  Get to the river doors. Get outside, across the rocks and around to Storrow and flag down a car? No. She’ll knock me down as I stumble on the stones. I’ll have to swim for it. The Charles in New England in November? How many minutes to freezing?

  First the doors—

  But that’s her plan, isn’t it?… to wait until I dash. To let me roll the ramp door open—then strike.

  Unless I beat her to it, make it outside first. My skirt zipper… unzip my skirt, slip out of it. It feels like an eternity. Splinters drive through the panty hose as I belly-crawl out of the skirt and inch forward on this floor. From here to the sliding doors, it’s eight, ten feet of open flooring. The crane looms like a raptor.

  But what if she has a gun? My mind goes white with fear. Think, Reggie. Think.

  I’ll take off my jacket, toss it out, and see if she shoots. My fingers fumble on the buttons, and the sleeves cling like skin—like a straitjacket. With clammy hands, at last I wad it up, cock my left arm sideways, then fling the bundle of wool with buttons and brooch that strike the floor.

  Clackety-clack… the buttons and brooch on the flooring.

  And a hard pam, pam from above. It’s not a gun. There’s no smell of burned powder. I have no idea what the sound is. Perhaps a starting pistol for a boat race?

  Pam.

  With knees bent in a crouch, I get ready. It’s one, two—and three.

  I dash straight ahead, stepping high for footing on the bumpy floor. Then pam. By my leg. Pam—like a needle near my head. Pam, pam.

  My arm. It hit my arm. The flesh of my upper arm is a burning-hot rod. I’m sick at my stomach, I feel it pierce… in and out like an arrow.

  Like a nail. It’s a nail. Dani is firing nails.

  A nail gun.

  I’m at the doors, grabbing an edge, pushing, shoving the door with all my might. It won’t budge. Blood runs down my arm, my elbow. And now clouds are closing in, my mind a patchwork of clouds.

  Reggie, focus every thought on this door. Fight the door, fight the clouds. Feel the wood, read it. The nail gun is quiet. Is Dani on the move? She’s not behind me, but I feel her. And the door… the sliding doors won’t give at all.

  Because they’re locked.

  No, they’re barred. I feel brackets and a plank. If I can lift the plank from the brackets, I can get out.

  Another sound starts now, a grinding, a motor. I clutch the plank and push up, but it falls back down into the bracket.

  Grind, grind . . .

  Then I see it coming. It’s the crane. It cradles something long and narrow in the slings. It’s poised above me. It swings overhead where I claw at this plank. It swings over my head.

  And the shape in the slings—a wood shell. It’s coming down at my head from the highest rafters, from where I first saw it in the daylight days ago. It’s wood and long and rounded on the bottom—and now I understand.

  Like a log.

  My head pulses like a drum.

  It’s the log, the log that hit Steven. It’s coming at me. It’s ten feet above, then five, then—

  With one big heave, I thrust the plank up. Up. It falls away, and the door slides just as the log grazes my head and I stumble down the ramp and, once in the water, begin stroking to swim in the icy Charles River.

  The current takes me, though I’m numb, my bleeding arm useless, teeth chattering. I kick, swallowing mouthfuls of rank river. My knees and arms bang on rocks downstream as I fight to get ashore. My toes sink into icy muck, but I claw my way up to the guardrail.

  Cars are streaming by in the darkness, their headlights blinding. Horns blare, but nobody stops. If Dani comes after me—or Drew? If they’re in this together—

  A Jeep slows and races on. They all race on. My poor bleeding arm. My scalp is freezing. Where are the cops? One car veers to the guardrail, to the shoulder beside me. One headlight is out.

  No, it’s not not a car, but a motorcycle. The rider in a helmet.

  Visor up, he’s dismounting, pulling off his leather jacket at the rail. “Put this on.” It’s half bark, half growl. Lifting, he’s lifting my body over the guardrail. He’s tying a kerchief around my arm.

  I cannot speak.

  “Here—put the helmet on.” As if I’m a child, the leather jacket comes to my knees. I smell Camels. Atlantic eyes, the ginger hair. “I said, let’s put the helmet on.”

  “Stark.”

  He lifts me up. “Hang on tight, Cutter.”

  “Don’t know if I can.”

  “Damn right you can. Hell of a spot to hitchhike, Cutter. Hell of a night to go for a swim.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  I refuse to present myself as the walking wounded here at the precinct house. I’m a deputy volunteer, not a casualty. In a necktie patterned with frogs, Frank Devaney gives me his signature look—patient, bemused, exasperated. Maglia
is the grill master. “So you went to the boathouse solely to gather information? You did not expect to confront Danielle Vogler?”

  How many times do I have to answer this? “Detective Maglia, I enjoy life. I would not knowingly volunteer to be murdered.”

  “You had no reason at the time to think Danielle was involved in Damelin’s death?”

  “Of course not.” But suddenly I get it. They want to know, how did I manage to get one jump ahead of them? It’s as if we competed to solve the murder, and I won. Frankly, though, didn’t I win? Nearly killed, but first to the finish line. Sort of.

  “And when she attacked you with the bottle and nail gun—”

  “And a wood shell lowered deliberately to strike my head.”

  “And you say you were picked up by a friend who just happened to come along on a motorcycle?” Incredulity drips in Maglia’s every syllable.

  “Someone who’s helped me with my dog and… other tasks. He attended the memorial service and grew concerned about my whereabouts.” Stark is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say his name at this moment. “Could I ask you something?” Maglia says a curt yes. “Could I ask how you think Dani killed Steven?” That, you see, is the police theme so far today: Dani the killer.

  They exchange glances. Finally Devaney speaks. “It looks as though the perpetrator did this crime in two stages, starting at the Renfrew boathouse. As we see it, Steven Damelin came to the boathouse, just as you did, to meet Danielle Vogler on the night of his death. In the course of things, she deliberaterly swung a cradled boat at his head, which knocked him semiconscious. Then she pushed him into the water.”

  “But how could she possibly get Steven’s body back to his apartment? There was no blood on the stairs. Besides, he was nailed to his apartment floor. Nailed like the upholstery of a sofa.” As my arm was nailed. The pam, pam of the gun is mentally indelible. Under the bandage, my arm still hurts, though the doctor and X-ray technician congratulated me on a flesh wound that missed vital nerves, bone, and blood vessels. “So he drowned, and you think—”