I was pondering the use of the word
incident
to describe the sudden death of a young man when Peck addressed me: “Dr. Banks, I'd like you to give me a full account of what happened here before you left tonight.”
Tom sent me a wary glance. I guess he was afraid I was still drunk. But, as Rick said in
Casablanca,
“that was all over long ago.” I'd never felt more sober. I gave a clear and concise account of the biker party as I remembered itâfrom the time I arrived until Sunny left for the hospital. The detective took rapid notes, interrupting me only onceâto ask the nature of my relationship to Pi. Sensing Tom's interest in my answer as well as Peck's, I chose my words carefully. “Just an acquaintance. He arrived three days ago. On a whim one afternoon, he rehabbed my bike. We had a few beers afterward. That was it. Oh ⦠and he came to my officeâbriefly.”
Tom shot me a look.
“He wanted to consult me about a rash. I diagnosed a mild case of poison ivy and gave him some calamine lotion.”
“And where is he now?”
I blinked.
He's missing?
“I have no idea. Have you checked his room?”
He nodded. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Around eight o'clock. Here, in the parking lot. When he left on his bike I thought he was going to the hospital to see Sunny.”
“According to my reports ⦔ he took a sheaf of notes from his pocket and consulted them before continuing, “he only stopped at the hospital briefly and no one has seen him since. Do you know what his relationship to Sunny was?”
A scene flashed through my mind. Sunny being tossed out of this very lobbyâby Pi. Humiliated in front of all his biker brothers. But I also remembered the Dutch Uncle tone with which Pi had given Sunny a lecture and his obvious concern when Sunny was injured. I shook my head. “All these bikers are very close. They have a deep bondâmore than friendship. More like family.” I could feel the cold wave of skepticism emanating from Tom on my left. As Peck considered my answer, I couldn't contain myself any longer. “How did Sunny die, Mr. Peck? We need to know ⦔ I glanced at Tom, “ ⦠if his death had anything to do with his earlier injury”
“My clients have a right to this information,” Henry Wosky said, backing me up.
“The trouble isâ” the detective replied, and scratched his head. “I can't answer you. We don't know. He was treated at the hospital, a surgeon reattached his earlobe, and he was sent home, or rather, back here. They gave him some painkillers to help him sleep and everyone thought he'd gone to bed. But around midnight a couple of bikers pulled into the parking lot and almost ran over him. He was lying flat out on the asphalt. They tried to revive himâwithout success. Then they called nine-one-one. But the paramedic's efforts failed, too. Finally the state police were called and our ME pronounced him ⦔ he paused, “ ⦠dead.”
Death, it seems, gives even a detective pause.
“There were no marks on his body other than the earlier wound inflicted by you.” Peck sent Tom a wry look. “They've taken him to the morgue and are doing an autopsy right now. But we won't know anything conclusive until morning.”
Tom and I exchanged glances.
“Are my clients murder suspects?” Wosky asked.
The detective, taking pity on us, said, “Judging from the ME's cursory examination, the victim's death was caused by something other than his previous injury.”
Together we expelled our tightly held breaths.
“What led him to this conclusion?” Wosky asked.
“A number of things. The nature of his pallor, the clammy touch of his skin, the dilation of his pupils, and especially ⦠an odor around his mouth.”
“Garlic?” I asked.
He looked at me keenly. “What makes you say that?”
“When I was applying pressure to his wound, our faces were very close and the garlicky odor was overpowering. I remember wondering what he'd had for dinner.”
“This is important ⦔ Peck said.
We waited for him to go on, but he didn't.
“Since when is garlic a poison, Mr. Peck?” asked Wosky.
“Not garlic,” he said softly. “Arsenic. One of the symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning is a strong odor resembling garlic.”
The rest of Peck's questions concentrated on our whereabouts after we had left the motel and when we returned. A quick phone call verified that we had been at Harry's the whole time. The bartender and several customers who knew us vouched for us. Peck's interest in Tom's whereabouts before the parking lot party was not great, I noticed. I had the impression that his suspicions were centered on people directly connected to the motel. Guests and employees. He stuffed his notes back in his pocket and let us go. As we were leaving, he called us back. “If you run into that Pi fellow, let me know. I'm anxious to talk to him.” He gave Tom his card.
While Tom was thanking Wosky for coming out so late, I gathered my courage and went after the detective. “Why are you so interested in Pi, Mr. Peck?” I asked. “Poison is the last weapon a biker would use on another biker. They're violent, not sneaky.”
He looked at me with interest. “You have a point, doctor,” he
said. “But you see, Pi is the only one who fled the scene. And he has a prison record.”
So that was the “trouble” Dad had referred to that had caused Archie to drop out of school. What had he done, I wondered, to warrant imprisonment?
“But don't worry, we're not picking on your friend.” He smiled. “We're pursuing other leads as well.”
I wondered how Peck had learned about Pi's record so quickly. An image of Jingles whispering to Peck in the lobby earlier came back to me.
When Tom and I stepped out of the motel, there was no trace of Sunny. Only one state trooper remained to guard the crime scene. He sat at the wheel of his car, dozing. A light wind caused the yellow crime tape to ripple.
After unloading my bike, we leaned against Tom's pickup, neither of us speaking. But this time the silence wasn't awkward. Something had been resolved between us back in the motel. The magnitude of recent events had revealed our differences for what they wereâpetty. He bent and kissed me. I returned his kiss.
“I don't like leaving you here,” he said. “Sure you don't want to come back to my place?”
I hesitatedâtempted. I didn't relish returning to my empty room.
Sissy
. “I shook my head.”Thanks. I'd better not. I have to be at the hospital early.”
We kissed again and he drove off.
Although exhausted, I couldn't sleep. I lay staring into the dark, my thoughts churning like wet laundry in a washing machine. First there was Tom. I was relieved that he didn't seem to be a serious suspect and happy that we had become reconciled. It was sweet of him to ask me back to his place. Very un-PC, but sweet nonetheless.
And then there was Pi. He seemed to be the detective's number one suspect. Piâa poisoner? The thought of any biker stooping to poison was ludicrous. It wasn't their style. They were boisterous, violent, in-your-face. Not sneaky. But where was he? Why would he take off like that? And who would want to kill Sunny? Granted, Sunny was a womanizer, a lecher even, but he had a certain boyish charm.
Under all these outerwear thoughts lay the underwear thoughts. How were Maggie and Paul holding up? Didn't they have enough problems without a homicide landing in their lap? And what about Jack? Poor, vulnerable, easygoing Jack, escaping each night from godknowswhat into his sci-fi fantasy world via paperbacks. I'd always wanted to find out more about that kid, but somehow I never got around to it.
There was one bright spot in this gray load of laundry. Bobby and Becca. A pair of colorful socks spinning together in the revolving dryer. Becca had visited Bobby at the hospital. And tomorrow,
she told me, she was taking him some reflectors and a headlight for his bike that she had bought with her own allowance.
Another soggy thought: I still hadn't read the riot act to Bobby's parents about their son's bad biking habits. Sigh. No use. Sleep was out of the question. I slipped out of bed and began to dress in the dark.
Â
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At first I thought I was just going for a ride. I did that sometimes when I couldn't sleep. When I'd first come to Bayfield, Sophie's death had haunted me every nightâthe minute my work was done and I was alone with my thoughts. I used to take long fast rides until the wind whipped the dark thoughts from my mind and my body grew so tired I'd fall into bed like a lump of cement and lose consciousness. But tonight the cause was different.
I didn't realize where I was headed until I rolled up to Harry's Bar. It was still open, but just barely. All the tables and booths were empty. There were a couple of regulars still hanging on to the bar, but the bartender was cleaning up around them.
“Seen any bikers tonight?” I asked him.
“No, thank god,” he grunted.
I rode on to the Blue Arrowâthe one place in Bayfield where you could get coffee and a hamburger twenty-four hours a day. The waitress told me a biker had just left. “He stocked up on sandwiches and bottled water,” she said. “Seemed in a hurry.”
“Which way did he go?”
She wasn't sure but thought he'd turned left. “Those hogs make such a racket, you can't help but notice them.” She had probably noticed him for reasons other than the racket, but I didn't argue the point.
I took off after him, also making a left. It was five minutes before I caught sight of a single red taillight. I had barely registered the light when it disappeared. The biker had turned rightâinto the wilderness of shrubs and phragmites that make up most of south
Jersey. I counted slowly to twenty, not wanting to get too close, turned off my headlamp, and followed him.
Right now I didn't need my lamp. A full moon illuminated the road and every leaf and twig. But I knew once it set and dawn drew nearâ
It's always darkest before the dawn
â(who said that?)âa mist would rise from the marshes, like steam from a pot, and obliterate the landscape with its white blur.
In a few minutes, I sighted the red dot, and I was convinced it belonged to Pi. Although I was riding with no light, I kept my distance. I knew the moonlight would render me perfectly visible. And there was no way I could hide the noise of my motor. I hoped the noise of Pi's own motor would drown out mine. I wondered what he would do if I caught up with him. I wasn't afraid of him exactly, but I had a healthy respect for his brawn. As the dankness of the marsh crept under my jacket, I wondered briefly why I was out here. What made me think this guy was innocent?
Because he had been my paper boy?
Pretty thin. But what could have been his motive? From what I'd seen, he seemed to be fond of Sunny. I had plenty of time to think about this as I followed the red pinprick of light through the desolate marshland. The marshes weren't really desolate, of course. The foliage on either side of me was teeming with as much life as Macy's at Christmastime: birds, fish, amphibians, small mammals, and insects of every description. I had only to pause for one second to find out about the insects; hordes of mosquitoes would zero in on every part of me that wasn't covered by denim or leather. And in my haste, I'd forgotten my bug spray.
As we followed the creeks, the road twisted and turned. Now and then I lost sight of Pi's taillight. The moon was fading and darkness was closing in. I was afraid I'd have to turn on my headlamp to avoid ending up in a gully or ditch. When I'd left the Blue Arrow, I'd gotten my second wind. And in the excitement of finding my prey, my exhaustion had disappeared. But it was back again. Slumped in my seat, I felt drowsy and numb.
Snap out of it!
I sat up straight, inhaled the dank fishy smell of the marsh, and fixed my gaze on the little red dot bobbing ahead of me among the reeds.
The darkness deepened as I had predicted, and the mist began to rise from the creeks and seep out of the marshes. At one point the fog became so dense I was forced to turn on my headlamp. The beam bounced back at me as if hitting concrete. I turned off the lamp. Sometimes the mist seemed to be stalking me, rising in front and behind, encircling, trapping me in a cotton wool cell. Then the road would open up suddenly, presenting a clear path ahead, and I'd tear along for a while thinking I had escaped, only to meet up with the fog againâas if it had taken a secret shortcut and was lying in wait for me.
Once, as I broke out of an especially dense patch, there was no taillight ahead. I traveled for a long stretch, probing the darkness, but it didn't reappear. Maybe he'd turned off somewhere and I'd lost him. To make matters worse,
I
was lost. I turned on my lamp, but there were no familiar landmarks. Nothing but low scrub and phragmites stretching to the horizon. Without that small red beacon in front of me, my desolation was complete. Until now, I hadn't realized what a comfort it was. The sign of another human being in this no-man's-land. I glanced at my gas gauge. The needle was dangerously low. I pulled over and stopped. As soon as I turned off the motor, the silence overcame me. No distant rumble of Pi's motor. There was nothing but a smothering hush. In this hour before dawn
no bird chirped, no animal rustled, even the mosquitoes had left off their incessant humming. I glanced over my shoulder to see if the foul fiend was after me, ready to pounceâthat black aura of failure and guilt that had forced me to leave Manhattan and come to this desolate place. Was it out there, shrouded by mist, waiting to wrap me in its damp, sour arms and drag me down into the abyss?
“Bullshit!” I grunted. “Next you'll be seeing the Jersey Devil!” Sightings of that mythical monsterâhalf goat, half gargoyleâwere often reported by the natives in these parts. I turned on the ignition.
What's the worst that can happen? You'll run out of gas and be stuck here until daylight, when someone will come along and rescue you.
The mist was dissipating already. There was a clear stretch of road ahead. I turned up the throttle and sped along. I'd just keep going until I either found a landmark or ran out of gas. Pausing at a fork in the road, I let my motor idle while I tried to decide which way to go. To my right, I thought I glimpsed part of a wharf that looked like Stow Creek Landing. Yes. And there was the creek, straight ahead. This wharf had been used by pirates and smugglers in the old days. According to legend there had been a tavern here favored by Black-beard and his cronies. Later, bars and a bawdy house had replaced the old pirate inn and it was rumored that an occasional stabbing was not uncommon. Still later, a religious man bought the property, tore everything down but the old wharf, and planted winter wheat. Recently the state had taken over the fields, turning them into a nature preserve and picnic ground.
Despite the sanitizing of this place by the government, in the darkâjust before dawnâI wouldn't have been surprised to see the ghosts of some pirates or smugglers or whores rise up and try to reclaim their turf. To keep my spirits up I let out a resounding chorus of, “Sixteen men on a dead man's chest, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!”
A figure flew out of the phragmites. Huge hands grabbed my shoulders and shook me violently. You know that saying, “He shook me till my teeth rattled.” Well, it's bunk. My teeth were just fine. It
was my brain that was rattling around inside my skull, like marbles in a pinball machine.
“Sta ⦠ah ⦠ah ⦠ahp!” I cried.
The hands let go. Pi stared at me.
I tried to catch my breath. By some miracle I was still in my bike seat.
“
Why are you following me
?” In the dark, his eyes glowed red and his astonishment was so great he forgot to swear.
I raised my hands in a protective gesture, afraid he was going to start shaking me again. “The police are looking for you!”
“What d'ya mean? I didn't do anything.”
“I didn't say you did, but you have to go back and talk to them.”
His expression hardened.
“They'll come after you. Use your head.”
“Fuck you!” Any vestige of the love-struck Archie was gone without a trace.
“Why did you take off?” I persisted.
He stared, examining my face carefully in the first light of dawn. Finally deciding to risk it, he said, “After I left the hospital, I went for a long ride. I felt like celebrating, because Sunny was OK. He was a pain in the butt, but he was sort of a kid brother to me ⦔ He paused and looked away. “When I got back to the motel the place was full of cops. At first I thought they'd been called in âcause of the party. Then I saw Sunny ⦔ He winced. With a shock, I realized the extent of his grieving. “I went a little crazy and beat it.”
After a moment, I said, “But you planned to stay away. You bought suppliesâ”
“How do you know that?” His face was hard again.
I told him about the waitress at the diner.
“Why don't you mind your own fucking business!”
“Because I want to help you!” To my horror, I realized I was screaming.
He stared. “Why?”
Forcing down a surge of emotion, which had come from who
knows where, I shrugged and said lightly, “For all those newspapers you threw at our front porchâand missed.”
I was rewarded with a fleeting smileâa small shadow of Archie. He turned and dragged his bike from the phragmities where he had hidden it before he ambushed me.
“You're coming back?”
He turned. “Are you crazy?”
“Butâ”
“I'm outta here. I'll be in Arizona in three days. I have friends there where I can hide out.”
“The police know your license number. They'll stop you before you get out of Jersey.”
“I'll trash it.”
“They'll pick you up for not having a tag.”
“I'll think of something.” He mounted his bike.
“Wait,” I said desperately. “I have another idea.”
“If it's anything like your others ⦔
“I know a place. There's this piece of Jersey land that actually belongs to the state of Delaware. It's a long story, but you'd be safe there. The Jersey state troopers wouldn't be able to touch you. Trust me. You could hide out there until they find out who really killed Sunny”
“Where is it?” he said slowly.
I had his attention; I rushed on. “That's the beauty of it. It's right near here. About ten miles down the road. I could supply you with food and drink and keep you up-to-date on what's going onâ”
“Why would you do that?”
I wasn't sure. A mixture of loyalty to that kid from the past who used to beat me at gin rummy and a desire to see Sunny's real killer brought to justice? I said, “That's my business,” and held his gaze. “Let's go. It's getting light.”
And it was. The sky at the horizon was turning pink. Without waiting for an answer, I pressed my start-up button. I heard him kick-start his bike. I was afraid to look back. I just kept going, willing him to followâand praying I could find this place. I hadn't been paying much attention when Paul had told me about it.