Wave

by Mara, Wil

  The screwdriver produced the desired result—the acid broke away in dusty hunks. Once the bulk of it was gone, she used the bowl brush to take care of the finer work. Fresh acid seeped out from around the base of the terminal, but she didn’t care about that. With any luck she might be able to wrangle a new car out of the insurance people, too. This could be a very profitable day indeed.

  The cable hung nearby like a rearing cobra. When BethAnn touched the rounded clamp to the terminal, it threw a spark, causing her to jump. At least there was some charge left, she thought; hopefully enough. She placed the clamp over the post and raced back to the driver’s seat.

  There was life this time, but not much—the engine turned but didn’t start. She looked at the dials and gauges in front of her, hoping beyond hope that she would somehow, suddenly and divinely, be given the knowledge to, one, identify which reading measured electrical power, and, two, evaluate that measurement. She gave that up after about five seconds and tried the key again…and again…and again….

  Then she stopped, knowing enough to realize she was pushing the battery closer to the end of its life with every attempt. Out of options and drained of patience, she lowered her head against the steering wheel and began crying. It was a high, squealing sound, broken by breathing hitches and so quiet it was almost imperceptible.

  When she looked back up, her eyes were red and puffy, and they stared contemptuously at the battery through the narrow strip of visibility that ran underneath the open hood.

  You piece of shit. You piece of no-good sh—

  Then the answer came in a flash—the cable wasn’t attached tightly enough to make the required connection.

  She scrambled out and went inside again. This time she took a pair of vise grips from the drawer. Back in the driveway she removed the cable from the positive terminal, reapplied it, then tightened the nut until she couldn’t tighten it anymore.

  She was so excited—sure that it would work this time—that she literally flung herself behind the wheel. The car creaked and bounced like an old ship. She twisted the key, and when the engine roared into life she screamed, “Yeah! Take that!” and clapped like a delighted child.

  She got out one last time to drop the hood. Then, returning to the driver’s seat, she rolled all the windows down, trained her eyes on the rearview mirror, and set the transmission into reverse.

  Brian Donahue knew he was in a no-win situation. He examined and re-examined all the possibilities and couldn’t seem to arrive at any other conclusion.

  If we find Mark, get on the road, and make it out alive, I’ll be charged with endangerment….

  He was sure of this, absolutely and unequivocally sure—Jennifer’s mom would see to it. She was that type. Even if her daughter escaped unharmed, the scare alone would motivate her to get a lawyer and have him ripped apart; there wouldn’t be enough meat left on his bones to fill a maggot’s belly.

  If I turn the car around right now…

  …that might quell the storm brewing inside Mrs. King, but not her daughter. The seeds of hatred would be planted, and if Mark didn’t make it…what then? Would his mom be after him, too? From what Jennifer had said in the past, the woman didn’t seem to care much for her son; it sometimes seemed as though she regretted having a son at all. But would this still be her position if he were killed? Mothers have a way of protecting their children above all else. At the very least, the woman would have an easy lawsuit on her hands, so maybe the money would be her driving force—Yes, your honor, Mr. Donahue had the chance to save young Mark’s life, and yet he drove off in callous disregard.…

  So he was screwed either way, and he damn well knew it. And the irony—once again—was that he got into this hopeless loop solely because he thought he was doing something decent. He remembered something one of his favorite teachers from high school used to say: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

  Jennifer hadn’t said a word since the fight with her mother. She sat hunched forward, the phone limp in her hand, staring through the windshield without really seeing anything. She was trying to contain the tears, but the pain and the tangled confusion were overwhelming.

  “Hey,” Brian said softly.

  For a moment it seemed as though she hadn’t heard him. Then she turned to look at him—her eyes red and swollen—and said, “What?” Her throat was clogged with phlegm, temporarily reducing her normally pretty voice to a guttural growl.

  He smiled, and for a flicker of an instant he looked like the Everyday Brian again, with his white short-sleeved shirt, his black tie, every hair combed into place, and that gleam of eternal positivism in his eye.

  “We’re going to find Mark, we’re going to hit the road, and, as the shepherds say, we’re going to ‘get the flock out of here,’ okay? That’s the plan.”

  She returned the smile, but there was no sincerity in it. Her eyes left his, went down to the dead phone in her hand. He knew what she was thinking—turn it back on, talk to your mother, and get this thing cleared up. What was stopping her was equally clear—there wasn’t any way to get it cleared up. The two women held sharply different viewpoints, and neither was willing to give an inch.

  “We’ll find him,” he said, not fully believing it but acting the part to perfection. “Don’t worry.”

  “I hope so.”

  They reached the entrance to the refuge and went in. They had passed the end of the traffic line a few miles back and hadn’t seen a soul since. Brian said nothing but he was growing uneasier by the minute.

  When Jennifer spotted Mark’s car in an otherwise empty parking area, she came alive again. She sat up straight, put the window down, and began looking around.

  “Mark!” she called, hands around her mouth. “Mark!”

  Brian did likewise. As they pulled up next to his car, Jennifer opened the door and took off like a shot.

  “Jen, wait!” he shouted, but she ignored him. She was gone in seconds.

  He turned the motor off and got out. He checked his watch for the first time since they’d left the store—10:15. Less than ninety minutes to go.

  “Shit,” he muttered. Then he went down the trail after her.

  It was only a turtle—a diamondback terrapin to be precise, which was fairly common to the area—but it was beautifully posed, the background perfect. It was resting atop a half-submerged log set in a tiny pool surrounded by a wall of young reeds. Mark couldn’t have composed a better image if he’d designed it from scratch.

  You don’t create beautiful images like this one, you can only hope to find them.

  He knew this was the bottom line when it came to photography, knew it to be the Big Secret. There were millions of amateur clickers out there who would never rise through the ranks simply because they didn’t understand this. Striking images either existed or didn’t, and that fact had absolutely nothing to do with the people or their equipment. The best photographers were the ones who recognized the brilliant shots when they encountered them. From there, the only real talent required was a level of technical skill with the camera.

  There was an added challenge in this case—getting the perfect shot before the subject moved. Mark had photographed diamondbacks before, knew they were, like all aquatic turtles, skittish and untrusting. He had been following a sandy trail that brought him to a set of tidal pools scattered behind a rise about a hundred feet from the main beach. When he saw the animal, it saw him, too, and it leaned forward in a predive posture. So Mark froze. He froze to convey the message I won’t hurt you, and the diamondback seemed to buy it. It took another few minutes for the turtle to relax again. Mark came forward so slowly that his movements were almost imperceptible.

  He ended up in a crouch, one knee in the sugary sand, the other supporting an elbow to keep the camera steady. The animal seemed to understand what he was doing. It was no more than five feet away now. He’d never been this close to a diamondback; he was awed by its ornate carapace. He took a few landscape shots, then turned the camera sidew
ays and took a few uprights. The composition was magical—the turtle at the bottom with the log underneath and the clear-as-glass pool of water all around it, the tan of the reed wall in the middle, and the cool blue sky above. He could see the image as a SandPaper cover, could see the headlines printed in the appropriate places and the SandPaper title running across the top. He took what he considered the best shot from the best angle, then varied the aperture setting and took some safety shots.

  He took the last shot, brought the camera down, and admired his subject for a moment. The turtle appeared more relaxed now, as if it’d been photographed on prior occasions and was relieved to find that this was all the intruder wanted.

  “Thanks for being so cooperative,” he said with a smile. “Sorry I can’t offer you a modeling fee.” The diamondback didn’t respond.

  Slowly, Mark turned and moved down the trail. He looked back just before the pool was out of view and was struck by a momentary sense of sadness when he saw that the creature was gone. He was sorry he had disturbed it.

  He went about rewinding the roll and removing it from the back of the camera. It was stored in its assigned compartment in the bag. His experienced hands loaded a fresh roll autonomously, permitting him the freedom to take stock of his surroundings. His first thought was that he had absolutely no idea where he was. He’d been to this refuge plenty of times, but never this far in. There was no sign of human interference, which was exactly why he came here.

  He put his hands on his hips and absorbed everything, overcome by that familiar feeling of warmth and relaxation; pure happiness. He could definitely stay here forever, in a world that made considerably more sense to him than the other—the purity of the land, the benevolence of the creatures that dwelled in it. They all had natural enemies, of course; no world was totally without violence. But in this world violence was only a tool used to secure food or protect young. Animals didn’t kill each other for their television sets or their leather jackets or for heroin. Funny, he thought, how humans often referred to other people as “animals” when they exhibited senselessly violent behavior. The analogy was fundamentally illogical.

  He wondered what Jennifer would think of these musings. She came from a stable and loving household, and there certainly wasn’t anything wrong with that. But he had a feeling her parents had furnished little space for such ideas. They were well-to-do, straight from the pages of the all-American handbook. They drove new vehicles, watched the evening news, put their money into safe stocks and IRAs, and wore their best clothes to church. They were cut from a very popular template, and within that design was virtually no room for one to wonder about things like nature and its many mysteries. So what did Jennifer really think when he talked about stuff like this? She always seemed receptive, sometimes even fascinated. But was it sincere, or was she merely intrigued because his ideas were so alien to any she’d encountered in her carefully controlled world?

  He didn’t know, but he would have to find out eventually. Meantime, he wished she were here to share this astonishing beauty, whether she truly appreciated it or not. He could teach her to appreciate it, to feel as he did. That would be one of the gifts he would give her, a positive piece of himself. He had little else to offer, he thought.

  He checked his watch again. Still some time to go before she arrived. What was left to do? He’d taken all the shots he needed. He had plenty that were cover-worthy. Should he take more, just to be safe? Or maybe some shots for his portfolio. Sure, why not—while I have the chance.

  Since this was a new area to him, he didn’t know exactly which way to go. He felt like going to the right, so he went to the right. He followed the rise that separated the sea from the pools. He didn’t know what treasures lay beyond, but he was excited to find out.

  This was turning out to be one of the most enjoyable days in recent memory.

  Carolyn King wasn’t imposing in the physical sense. She stood five foot six—lithe, elegant, and quite beautiful for a woman of fifty-three. Boys who were young enough to be her sons still turned to look at her. She had her hair (which was naturally auburn) and her nails done once a week, and although she no longer worked out at a health club, she was disciplined with her diet and stretched in her bedroom every morning while watching the Today show with Matt Lauer and Katie Couric, neither of whom she liked.

  No, it wasn’t her aura of American elitism that struck fear in the heart of everyone she knew—it was her eyes. They were small, narrow, and steely, like those of a dangerous little animal. She looked angry even when she wasn’t. Her normal, relaxed expression was one of bitter disappointment, the look of someone already stretched to the breaking point. One more annoyance, that look said, and I’m going to blow. Many people who knew her had never even seen her smile. If you told her something that would normally elicit a positive reaction—My son just got accepted into Harvard or My husband made it through the operation, she might nod and deliver a properly polite response, but there would be no enthusiasm, no Hey, that’s terrific! Some people thought of her as “unimpressable.” Others felt she was just plain cold, emotionally unplugged. The general consensus of all outside her immediate family was that this was one scary bitch.

  Now, making no effort to soften her reputation, she burst through the front door of the Harvey Cedars Police Department, steely eyes blazing. With her fingernails manicured to perfection and a pair of diamond earrings dangling obtrusively from narrow lobes, she looked like a character from a soap opera. The only other person around at that moment was Terri Houghton, HCPD’s dispatcher. She was behind an inch-thick pane of smoked glass, in a tiny room and surrounded by a bank of blinking and beeping electronic equipment. The microphone in front of her looked like something from the J. Edgar Hoover era. It was in fact a vintage RCA Ribbon Velocity Type BK-11A from 1960, discovered by Chief Garrett at a flea market a year earlier and installed as a novelty.

  Houghton, a small, plump young woman of Polynesian descent who was in fact born in Hawaii, recognized Carolyn King at once and was instantly terrified. She’d had very little interaction with Mrs. King through the years but knew the woman’s reputation well. She also knew that her husband, Burton King, was one of the wealthiest men on the island and a close personal friend of Chief Garrett’s as well. They played cards together at the Surf City Yacht Club on Friday nights.

  King zeroed in on her like a Stinger missile. She moved to the glass that separated them and, without any preamble, said, “Where’s Chief Garrett? I need to speak to him right away.”

  “He’s not here at the moment, Mrs. King. He’s at—”

  “Is there any other officer available?”

  “Well…yes, Officer Mitchell is here, but he’s about to—”

  “Have him come up here, please.”

  Houghton paused. Jeff Mitchell was not only the youngest and cutest guy on the force (wife and family notwithstanding), but he was also on his way back out to direct traffic by the Eckerd Drug Store on the island side of the Causeway. This was a particularly sticky area, with a confusing array of little side streets and one-way turns. Two men were already there, but a third was badly needed. The last thing Houghton wanted to do was feed poor Jeff to this carnivore.

  “Mrs. King, he has to go to—”

  Her hand struck the counter with such force that Houghton jumped.

  “Listen, young lady—my daughter has vanished. She’s gone off to find her goddamn boyfriend, she won’t answer her phone, and I don’t know where she is. But I do know this—if someone here doesn’t help me find her right now, you’re going to have a lot more trouble on your hands than a tidal wave!”

  Their eyes were locked together, King’s wild with rage, Houghton’s wide with fear and a long measure of morbid fascination. She had always been intrigued by forceful, gutsy people, the way they didn’t seem to care what anyone thought about them, how they tore through the usual barriers in life like tissue paper. For a moment she was unable to pull away, mesmerized in the same way one
was when passing the scene of a car accident.

  “I’ll…I’ll get him right now.”

  “Hurry!”

  She scrambled out of her seat, King watching her every step of the way. When she returned, she was scurrying behind Officer Mitchell, who was considerably taller. A human shield.

  There was a buzzing sound, and Mitchell opened the door that separated the lobby from the hallway. He was slender and lean, with wispy brown hair combed in a one-stroke sweep across the top. Although he was born and raised in Forked River, he had an easy, Midwestern look about him. His mother was, in fact, from Cheyenne, Wyoming, where her family had lived since 1824.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” he said with a smile. His voice was deep and manly, resonating like a cello note. No doubt Houghton had warned him that crazy Mrs. King was out there and in a ripe mood.

  “Yes, officer, you can. My daughter, Jennifer, is missing.” She took her cell phone from her pocketbook and shook it in the air. “I’ve tried to reach her on this thing for the last half hour, but there’s no answer.”

  “Do you know where she might be?”

  “The last time I talked to her, she said she was in her boss’s car on her way to find her boyfriend.”

  “May I ask where she works?”

  “She works at the Acme on the Boulevard.”

  “Terri? Would you kindly call the Acme and see—”

  “I’ve already done that,” King said impatiently. The words that were left out at the end but were there nonetheless were, “you idiot.”

  “And?”

  “And there was no answer.”

  Terri watched this exchange from the safety of her little booth, and marveled at Jeff’s calm. It wasn’t an act, either—she hadn’t seen him lose his temper once in the four years he’d been here.