Impact

by Douglas Preston

  She nodded.

  “I’ll take a . . . let’s see . . . a fireball—haven’t had one of those in years—some malted milk balls, a rope of licorice, and a peppermint stick.”

  She collected the candy in a bag, laid it on the paper. “Two dollars ten cents.”

  He fished in his pocket, took out his wallet. “I heard a meteor came over here a few months back.”

  “That’s right,” the girl said.

  He thumbed through the bills in the wallet. “You see it?”

  “I saw the light out the window. Everybody did. And then there was a sound like thunder. When we went outside there was a glowing trail in the sky.”

  “Did anyone find the meteorite?”

  “Oh no, it hit out to sea.”

  “How do they know?”

  “That’s what all the papers said.”

  Ford nodded, finally getting the money out.

  “Is the harbor down there?”

  She nodded. “Take the right past the store—dead-ends at the wharves.”

  “Any place to buy live lobster?”

  “The co-op.”

  He took the bag of candy and the paper and went back to his car. Popping the fireball in his mouth, he looked at the front page of The Lincoln County News. Plastered at the top was a headline:

  Body, Gun Recovered from Sunken Boat

  There was a blurry photograph of a Coast Guard vessel at sea hauling a body on board with grappling hooks. Ford read the article, his interest piqued. Turning to the inside, he saw a picture of the two girls who’d been attacked, a high school yearbook picture of the dead attacker, and several photographs of the ruined boat hauled into dry dock. This was big news in Round Pond—a high-seas robbery attempt, complete with a boarding, attempted murder, and a sunken boat. Something to do with a legendary treasure. It aroused his investigative instincts: the story had gaps, inconsistencies, which cried out for explanation.

  He turned the page, read about the bean supper at the Seaside Grange, complaints about a new traffic light, an article about a soldier returning from the Middle East. He scanned the police notes, read a scolding editorial about a poorly attended school board meeting, looked through the real estate and employment ads, read the letters to the editor.

  Finally he folded up the paper, charmed by the picture he had acquired of the town. A quiet little New England fishing village, impossibly picturesque, economically stagnant. Someday the real estate developers would get their hooks in a town like this and it would be all over. He hoped that someday never arrived.

  He started the car and drove down the road toward the harbor. Almost immediately it came into view—lobsterman’s co-op on his right, piers, a dockside restaurant, a harbor full of fishing boats, the heady smell of salted fishing bait.

  He parked and went over to the co-op, a wooden shack sitting above a pier, wooden flaps opened, tanks of water brimming with lobsters. A chalkboard gave the day’s prices. A bald man in orange waders came to the window.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Do you lobster these waters?”

  “No, but my daughter does. I just sell ’em.”

  Ford could see a young woman in the back, manning the lobster cookers.

  “You see the meteor?”

  “No. I’d gone to bed.”

  “Did she? I’m interested in it.”

  He turned. “Martha, fellow here wants to know if you saw the meteor.”

  She came over, drying her hands. “Sure did. Came right over us. I saw it through the window while I was washing dishes.”

  “Where’d it go?”

  “Straight past Louds Island and out to sea.”

  Ford held out his hand. “Wyman Ford.”

  The woman took it. “Martha Malone.”

  “I’m hoping to find that meteorite. I’m a scientist.”

  “They say it fell in the ocean.”

  “You’re a lobsterwoman?”

  She laughed. “You must be from out of town. I’m a lobster fisherman.”

  “Here’s the problem.” Ford decided to get right to the point. “That night, the ocean was dead calm. The GoMOOS weather buoy out there didn’t register even the slightest ripple at the time of the impact. How do you explain that?”

  “There’s a lot of sea out there, Mr. Ford. It could have landed a hundred miles offshore.”

  “You haven’t heard of anyone around here talking about finding a crater or seeing any evidence of blown-down trees?”

  A shake of the head.

  Ford thanked her and walked back to his car. He popped a malted milk ball in his mouth and sucked on it thoughtfully. Once in the car, he flipped open the glove compartment, removed the notebook, and crossed out “Round Pond.”

  And that was it. It had been the wildest of wild-goose chases.

  40

  Abbey Straw carried two baskets of fried clams and a brace of margaritas to the table where the couple from Boston were seated. She set down the food and drink. “Can I get you folks anything else?”

  The woman examined her drink, her long fingernails clicking irritably on the glass. “I said no salt.” She had a heavy Boston accent.

  “My apologies, I’ll bring you another.” Abbey swept up the drink.

  “And don’t think you can just wipe off the salt, I’ll still taste it,” said the woman. “I need a fresh drink.”

  “Of course.”

  As she was about to leave, the man said, gesturing at his plate, “Is this all you get for fourteen bucks?”

  Abbey turned. The man weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds, wearing a double-knit golf shirt stretched to the theoretical limit, green slacks, bald with a fat-dimple right in the center of the bald area. Thick black hair grew out of his ear holes.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Fourteen bucks for ten clams? What a rip-off.”

  “I’ll get you some more.”

  As she headed toward the kitchen, she heard the man speak again, loudly, to his wife. “I hate these places where they think they can hose the tourists.”

  Abbey went back into the kitchen. “I need more clams for table five.”

  “What, they complaining?”

  “Just give me the clams.”

  The chef chucked three small clams on a side plate.

  “More.”

  “That’s all they get. Tell ’em to go fuck themselves.”

  “I said more.”

  The chef dropped another two on the plate. “Fuck ’em.”

  Abbey reached over, scooped out another half-dozen, heaped them on the plate, and turned to go.

  “I tole you before, don’t touch my stove.”

  “Fuck you, Charlie.” She went back out, placed the plate in front of the man. He had already finished the ten clams and tucked into the new plate without pause. “More tartar sauce, too.”

  “Coming right up.”

  A tall man was just being seated in her section. On her way to get the tartar sauce, she stopped by, gave him a menu. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.”

  As she poured the cup, she heard the querulous voice of the man from Boston rising above the general conversation. “Problem is, they think we’re all rich. You can just hear them licking their chops when summer arrives and people start coming up from Boston.”

  Abbey was momentarily distracted and the coffee she was pouring slopped over the edge of the cup.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said the tall man. “Really.”

  She looked at the man for the first time. Angular, large hooked nose, jutting jaw—lean and strong in a curiously pleasing way. When he smiled, his face changed dramatically.

  “Hello? The tartar sauce?” came a loud voice from the next table.

  The tall man nodded, winked. “Better take care of them first.”

  She hurried off and returned with tartar sauce.

  “AFT,” the man said, snatching it up and spoo
ning it onto the clams.

  She went back to the tall man, ticket in hand. “What can I get for you?”

  “I’ll take the haddock sandwich, please.”

  “Anything to drink besides coffee?”

  “Water’s fine.”

  She hesitated, glanced over at the Boston table to see if there was anything else, but they were busy eating. He followed her glance. “Sorry about them.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “You live around here?”

  Lately this had been happening a little too frequently. “No,” she said, “I live out on the peninsula.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Then you must’ve gotten a good view of the meteorite a few months ago?”

  Abbey was instantly wary, taken aback by the unexpected question. “No.”

  “You didn’t see the meteorite’s trail or hear the sonic booms?”

  “Not at all, no, I didn’t.” Feeling that her denial had been too emphatic, she cast about, trying to cover up her reaction. “That’s meteor, not meteorite.”

  The man smiled again. “I always get those two terms mixed up.”

  She quickly went on. “Anything on the side? Salad? Fries?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She put in the order and hurried back to the table with the two people from Boston, who had finished eating. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “What, you need the table already?”

  The wife said, “I think it’s inexcusable when they try to hustle you out.”

  She checked her other tables, picked up the haddock sandwich, brought it over.

  “Hey, where’s our check?” came a cry from the Boston table. “Can’t you see we’re done?”

  She pulled out the ticket, went to the cash register, rang it up, printed it out, and came back and laid it on the table. “Have a nice day.”

  The man flipped open the check, ostentatiously examining the total. “What a rip-off.” He counted out some money on the table, a lot of change and crumpled bills, and left it in a heap on the check.

  The tall man left a while later, leaving a tip so large it made up for what she had been stiffed by the Boston table. As she cleared his table, she wondered why he asked pointed questions about the meteor. The man seemed nice but there was something shifty about him—distinctly shifty.

  41

  Wyman Ford had crossed the Wiscasset Bridge when he finally pulled off the road in front of an antique shop. He threw the car into park and sat there, thinking. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something wasn’t adding up. It had to do with the odd behavior of the girl in the restaurant and this crazy story in the local paper. He picked up the paper, which he’d tossed on the passenger’s seat. The girl in the restaurant was definitely the girl in the news story, the one searching for the pirate treasure. When he’d asked her about the meteorite, she’d suddenly become nervous. Why? And how many small-town waitresses knew the difference between the terms meteor and meteorite?

  He pulled out and headed back the way he had come. Ten minutes later he walked into the restaurant. The girl was still there, bustling around, and he watched her from the maître d’s station at the door. She was definitely the one from the story in the papers—in fact, she was the only African-American he’d seen on his entire trip to Maine. Short black hair that curled around her face, bright black eyes, slender and tall, with an athletic frame. Walking around with a sardonic, even ironic expression on her face. No makeup at all. A stunningly beautiful girl. Twenty-one, maybe?

  As soon as he stepped into the dining room she saw him, and a guarded look came into her face. He nodded at her, smiled.

  “Forget something?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Her face frosted up. “What do you want?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry, but aren’t you the girl who was involved in that incident I read about in the paper?”

  Now her face became positively cold. She crossed her arms. “If you don’t mean to pry, then don’t.” She turned to leave.

  “Wait. Give me a minute. This is important.”

  She waited.

  “You corrected me on my use of the word meteor versus meteorite.”

  “So?”

  “How’d you know the difference?”

  She shrugged, folded her arms, glanced back at her section.

  Ford wasn’t even sure where he was heading with this, what he hoped to find out. “It must have been exciting when that meteor streaked overhead.”

  “Look, I have to get back to work.”

  Ford looked at her steadily. She was oddly nervous. “You sure you didn’t see it? Not even the trail? It persisted in the sky more than half an hour.”

  “I already told you, I didn’t see it at all.”

  Her eyes were tense. Why would she lie? He pressed ahead, still unsure of where this was going. Clearly she wasn’t used to lying, and her face betrayed confusion and alarm. “Where were you when it fell?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “At nine-forty-four P.M., a girl your age?”

  She faced him directly, crossing her arms. “You’re really interested in that meteorite, aren’t you?”

  “In a way.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You looking for it?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  She seemed to consider this, then she smiled. “You want to find it?”

  “That would interest me very much.”

  She stepped closer and spoke in a low voice. “I get off in half an hour. Meet me in the bookstore café down the street.”

  A half-hour later, the girl arrived. She had changed from her waitressing uniform into jeans and a plaid shirt.

  Ford rose and offered her a seat.

  “Coffee?”

  “Triple shot of espresso, two shots of cream, four sugars.”

  Ford ordered coffees and carried them to the table. She looked at him directly, her brown eyes disconcertingly alert. “You start first. Tell me who you are and why you’re looking for the meteor.”

  “I’m a planetary geologist—”

  She gave a sarcastic snort. “Cut the bullshit.”

  “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “No planetary geologist would have mixed up the words meteor and meteorite. A real planetary geologist would have used the scientific term, meteoroid.”

  Ford stared at her, flabbergasted at being smoked out so easily—by a small-town waitress no less. He quickly covered up his confusion with a smile. “You’re a bright girl.”

  She continued to look at him steadily, her arms folded in front of her on the table.

  Ford extended his hand. “Let’s start with an introduction. I’m Wyman Ford.”

  “Abbey Straw.” The cool hand slipped into his and he gave it a shake.

  “I’m sort of a private investigator. That meteoroid interests me. I’m trying to track it down.”

  “Why?”

  He thought of lying again, decided on a half-truth instead. “I’m working for the government.”

  “Really?” She leaned forward. “Why’s the government interested?”

  “There were certain . . . anomalies about the fall that make it interesting. I hasten to say I’m not here in any official capacity—you might say I’m freelancing.”

  Abbey seemed to be thinking, and then she spoke slowly. “I know a lot about that meteoroid. What’s it worth to you?”

  “Excuse me.” Ford was nonplussed. “You want me to pay you for the information?”

  Abbey reddened. “I need money.”

  “What kind of information do you have?”

  “I know where it landed. I’ve seen the crater.”

  Ford could hardly believe his ears. Was she lying? “Care to tell me about it?”

  “Like I said, I need money.”

  “How much?”

  A hesitation. “One hundred thousand dollars.”

  Ford stared at her, and then started to laugh. “Are yo
u crazy?”

  Her face faltered. “I only ask because . . . well . . . that’s what it cost me to find the crater.”

  “For a hundred thousand dollars, I could find the crater five times over.”

  “Trust me, Mr. Ford, you could search that bay a hundred years and not find it—unless you knew exactly where to look. It’s small and unrecognizable from the air.”

  Ford leaned back, sipped his coffee. “Perhaps you might tell me how you made this discovery and why it cost you a hundred thousand dollars.”

  The girl took a long sip of her coffee. “I will. Back on April fourteenth, I had just bought a telescope and I was taking a time exposure of the constellation Orion. Wide field. The meteor passed through and I got the streak on film. Or rather digitally.”

  “You photographed it?” Ford could hardly believe his luck.

  “Then I had an idea—I checked the GoMOOS weather buoy data on the Internet. No waves. I figured it must have hit an island instead of the water. So, by angulating from the photograph, I was able to identify a line along which it must have fallen. I borrowed my father’s lobster boat, took a friend, and went out looking for it.”

  “Why so interested in meteorites?”

  “Meteorites are worth a lot of money.”

  “You’re quite the entrepreneur.”

  “To cover our tracks we circulated a phony story about looking for a pirate treasure.”

  “I’m beginning to see the real story,” said Ford.

  “Yeah. Our meth-addicted stalker was addled enough to believe it and attacked us, sinking my father’s lobster boat. The insurance company wouldn’t pay.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “My father’s making payments on a boat that doesn’t exist. We might lose our house. So you see why I need money—to get him a new boat.”

  Emotion welled up in her eyes. Ford pretended not to notice. “You found the crater,” Ford said easily. “So what did the meteorite look like?”

  “Did I say I found a meteorite?”

  Ford felt his heart quicken. He knew instinctively the girl was telling the truth. “You didn’t find a meteorite in the crater?”

  “Now we’re getting into the information that’s going to cost you.”