Hillary was waiting when Gerald and I got to the Paradise parking lot. She did not look pleased. Gerald mouthed “I’ll call you” from her car as she tore out and headed east onto the highway, and probably back to her place.
I’d planned to grab a bite at the diner but saw Mike O’Malley through the miniblinds and backtracked to my Jeep instead. The last thing I felt like doing was sparring with O’Malley and then winding up having to apologize, which seemed to be the way most of our encounters went.
I’d go home, take a short run, and eat clean. Digging in the garden the last few days had been a good upper-body workout. I wouldn’t be worrying Serena Williams anytime soon, but my arms looked good. There was still an hour or so of daylight, and the run would help me think.
I quickly changed and strapped the heart- rate monitor on, making sure the watch was set for Workout. At the last minute, I grabbed my baseball hat with the reflective tape on it and a nylon anorak. The rain Al Roker had promised hadn’t materialized yet, but there was a good chance it would come soon, probably while I was out running in the middle of nowhere.
For the first two miles, everything hurt. Then I settled into a rhythm. My heart rate was good, and if I’d been running with anyone, I would have been able to keep up a conversation.
I got to the intersection of Huckleberry and Glen-dale. If I turned left, it was another six miles back to the house; if I turned right, I could cut through the UConn parking lot and be home in twenty minutes. Just then it started to drizzle, and that made the decision for me. I pulled on the anorak, tied the drawstring hood tight around my hat, and took the shortcut home. The cloud cover made it dark sooner than I’d expected. I was sorry I hadn’t brought a small flashlight with me, but hopefully the reflective tape on my hat would keep me from getting killed by oncoming traffic.
As I jogged through the deserted parking lot, I noticed a vehicle at the entrance to the recycling center. The center was padlocked after 3, so I couldn’t imagine who’d be there. I tiptoed across the street, past the cemetery, and onto the fringes of the Sunnyview property, where I knelt behind a staggered hedge of Japan-ese barberry to find out.
I saw a nursery pickup-open in the back, with two or three power lawn mowers and rakes and other garden implements strapped to the raised wooden sides. A brown tarp was tied down, covering something in the back of the truck, and the bottom of the tarp obscured my view of the license plate.
I heard the sounds of shuffling feet, then the clang of metal against metal-a chain dragging across the chain-link fence, but I still hadn’t seen anybody. I crouched down a little lower. The gate squeaked open. The rain was coming down pretty good by then. The prickly barberry was scratching my legs and I was getting paranoid about ticks, but I flattened myself as much as I could behind the hedge. Someone must have heard me, because I saw a flashlight switch on and point in my direction. I remembered the bit of reflective tape on my baseball hat and tore it off and stuck it in my pocket. Then I held my breath and waited.
The light moved back to the recycling center and disappeared. After a while, I crab walked closer to the road for a better view of the truck. It was dark green. Big deal; most nursery trucks were. The scratches on my legs were stinging now. Great, I was probably sitting in a patch of poison ivy, and for what? To watch somebody dumping a refrigerator or pilfering compost? I was just about to stand when I heard cursing and angry muttering. I hunkered down just as the door slammed and the truck screeched out of there. A second vehicle followed, swerving close to the shoulder where I was hiding. I fell backward, hitting my head on a tree stump. The next thing I saw was a man standing over me whacking his palm with the long object he held in his other hand.