Des had to be so damned careful.
As much as she wanted to floor it straight for the falls, she didn’t dare. Couldn’t take the chance that Will Durslag would spot her cruiser at the gate and wig out. Because there was absolutely no telling what that man was liable to do to him. Assuming that Mitch was right and it was Will who’d killed Tito and Donna. Maybe Mitch was totally wrong about his walking buddy. Maybe Will could convince him of this. Maybe he and Will would have a perfectly pleasant conversation, shake hands, and go their separate ways.
Then again, maybe not.
She used an entrance that was way over on the other side of the park, at Witch Meadow. Kathleen Moloney drove over from her cabin to raise the gate for Des. The young ranger had to wonder why Des needed to get into the park at one o’clock in the morning. But she was too sleepy to act genuinely interested, and she did not offer to tag along.
Des made do with her parking lights as she sped through the fog-shrouded park on a narrow service road, asking herself why she was letting herself get dragged into this fool gambit of Mitch’s after all. Even though she’d sworn up and down that she wouldn’t. Even though his impulsive desire to make things right sometimes seemed as if it came straight out of those old Hollywood movies of his, as opposed to the real world. Even though not one bit of this was smart or sane.
Why, damn it?
Because he was her boy, that’s why, and he was what he was. She could not change him. She could only love him, even when he acted crazy. And if anything happened to that pudgy pink butthead tonightbecause she wasn’t up there watching his back she would never forgive herself.
She would just die.
She left her cruiser a quarter mile up the service road from the river, hearing the roar of the falls now. She made it the rest of the way on foot, stumbling her way along the footpath in the darkness. She did make sparing use of her flashlight, holding it low to the ground, pointed straight down. But once she’d reached the guardrail she did not dare use it at all. Plunging herself into utter blackness, she climbed over the rail and crept slowly out onto slick bare granite, the river roaring as it raced by her, her eyes and ears straining for some sign of human life. But it was no use. She was blind and she was deaf. It was straight out of a nightmare.
Except this was no nightmare. This was real.
All she needed was a hint of where they were. One hint. A breath of a voice. A trace of movement. But as she crept slowly forward in her crablike crouch, there was nothing. Not one thing… Wait, was that the sound of glass breaking? No, her ears were playing tricks on her. It was nothing. She couldn’t even be sure they were here at all.
Not until she heard a man’s bloodcurdling scream.
It came from very close to her-no more than ten feet away. And now all bets were off and she was up on her feet with her flashlight out, charging toward the edge of the cliff, waving her beam around the granite promontory.
Except there was no one.
They were gone. Both gone.
She was all alone up there-just her and a broken liquor bottle that glistened on the granite. Peppermint schnapps.
Des felt a clutch in her chest. It was pure, animal anguish. She very nearly went over herself. Because she did not want to live. But she held back, standing there frozen, unable to believe, to think, to breathe. Until at last she drew in her breath in big ragged gulps and called his name out into the black void below her. “MITCH!!” she cried in helpless desperation. “MITCH!!”
“D-Des…”
She barely heard it over the roar of the falls. It was the weakest of gasps.
“D-Des…”
From below her. It came from right below her.
She inched her way over to the very edge and shined her light straight downward-directly into the two poached eggs that were Mitch Berger ’s terrified eyes. The man was swinging there in midair ten feet below her, clinging by his white-knuckled hands to a spindly little cedar that grew out of a crevice between the rocks. It was the very same tree that Tito had snapped when he fell.
“You came!” he groaned. “I-I knew you would…”
“I knew that you knew,” she called down to him, trying to keep her voice calm. “Where’s Will?”
“Dead!”
“That’s not going to happen to you, baby. I won’t let it, hear me? Just hold on. I got you. Just hold on…”
She had no rope. And no time to run back to her car for one. He’d be dead in a matter of seconds. Swiftly, she whipped off her black leather garrison belt, jettisoned her holstered SIG-Sauer and cell phone, and knotted the tongue around her wrist, yanking it tight. She propped the flashlight up against a stone, pointing downward, and edged her way as far down the sheer granite face as she could without losing solid hold.
Bracing herself, Des dangled the belt buckle out to him. “Reach for it!”
He tried, waving an arm in feverish desperation at the belt buckle as it wavered there in the air above him.
But it was no use-the other end of the belt was still a good two feet shy of him. If only she had a fifty-inch waist. But she didn’t. That left her with one last option. It wasn’t a good one, but it was the only one she had.
She had to surrender her solid hold. Climb her way down that bare, vertical granite toward him, fingers and toes searching for crevices and holds in the slick stone. “Hang on, baby!” she called to him as she edged down closer, inch by precarious inch. “I’m here!”
“Des, my arms are g-getting…”
“I am not hearing that!” She dangled the belt out to him once more. Damn, still another foot to go. And not a thing to grab on to. “You can hold on. Just one more minute. One minute. Say you’ll hang on for me. Come on, say it!”
“I’ll… I’ll hang on…”
She edged lower, clinging to the side of the cliff by her fingers, clawing at the moss with her nails as the river tore on by her, pelting her with cold spray. She could not even think about how she was going to climb back up there with him. One impossibility at a time. “Hang on, I got you,” she told him, keeping her voice steady. “You’re taking me dancing, remember? I’ve been waiting for this. Think I’m going to let you weasel out now?” Reaching her belt down to him. Damn, still six more inches. Edging lower, surrendering a halfway decent toehold for no toehold, seeing him real clearly now in the flashlight’s beam, his hair glistening from the spray, his hands trembling around the branch that was the only thing between him and death. The branch that was bending and straining against his weight. “What was the name of that place again?”
“What place?”! He was panting wildly, as if he’d been running all out for miles. It was exhaustion and it was panic.
“Where you’re taking me dancing.”
“T-Tavern… The Tavern.”
One more good foothold was all she needed. One more. She reached down with her foot, poking blindly, kicking, until finally she made contact with the base of the tree that Mitch clung to. Her shoe was right next to his hand, bracing her there. “They got them a DJ?”
“Just a jukebox… Des, I c-can’t…”
“It’s okay, we’re all good now,” she said, her voice brimming with confidence. “I’ve got you. Here we go…” Des readied herself, breathing in and out, realizing with a shocking degree of clarity that it was for this singular moment in her life that she had done all of that work. Every weight she had lifted. Every mile she had run and hiked and biked. The four years of iron-willed training at WestPoint. All of that was preparation for this moment, this mountain, right here, right now. And she would need all she could bring. Every bit of strength. Every bit of heart. It all.
Because she was about to take on two-hundred pounds of man.
With her left arm, Des dangled the belt out to him. “Grab it, Mitch.”
“I can’t! We’ll both go down!”
“No, we won’t.”
“We will!” he cried out, panting. “I’ll p-pull you right down with me. Kill us both. Just let me go…”
“I can’t let you go!” she sobbed, the tears beginning to stream down her face. She could not stop them from coming. She did not even try. “I don’t want to be alive unless you are, too. Then I will die, don’t you get it? Now give me your damned hand, you fat son of a bitch!”
He made an angry lunge for the belt and grabbed hold, the suddenness of his weight very nearly yanking her right off the mountainside. But she held on, wet fingers clinging to wet granite, fingernails breaking, her shoulder feeling as if it were about to pop out of its socket.
But she had him. Now all she had to do was tow him back up one-handed. Nothing to it. Cherry pie. Great big slab of it, a la mode.
Slowly, Des began the agonizing climb back up that sheer cliff to safety, the veins in her neck bulging as she reached up with her right arm, grabbing an uncertain fingerhold, and pulled him up along with her by her left, the muscles in her legs and lower back powering them upward, inch by precious inch. An animal groan of pain coming out of her as she willed them back up. The pain in her shoulder growing so intense that she was positive she could not hold him one second longer, that she had to let him go. Or die. She was beginning to feel light-headed now, almost delirious. The mountain was starting to waver and shift on her, like a ship at sea.
“What’s our… song?” she panted, terrified she was about to pass out.
“Our… what?”
“Got to have… song… How’s Aretha?”
“Fine… by me…” he answered, kicking wildly against the side of the cliff. Somehow, he found a toehold in a crevice, freeing some of his weight from both of their shoulders for a precious moment.
Gasping, she clung there, soaking wet, every muscle in her body quivering, knowing she had to keep moving. Forcing herself to keep moving. “Here we go, baby. One more time.” Climbing upward again. Gaining a fingerhold, losing it, slipping back down, grabbing on to the wet granite for dear life. And trying it all over again. “Your favorite Aretha…?”
“Has to be… ‘Respect.’ ”
“Me, too. Oh, God!” she groaned, as the pain in her shoulder grew even more unbearable. “Tell me about… the food.”
“Des, we can’t…”
“We can!” she screamed, inching farther upward toward the dim glow that was her flashlight’s beam. “Tell me… what we’ll eat.”
“Spinach… fettuccine.”
“Love me… I love me the pasta. Must be part Italian.”
“No, can’t be. You’re already… part Jewish. Bella said so.”
One inch, then another. Until at last he could finally swing a leg up over that branch he’d been hanging from. He straddled it, his chest heaving.
She clung there, her face hugging the cold granite as if it were a goose-down pillow. Her shoulder felt dead now. She felt dead- ready to surrender to the black void below. She had nothing left. Not one bit of energy. She couldn’t make it. They couldn’t make it.
Mitch worked his foot up under himself, bracing it against the base of the little tree. Then he knotted the belt tightly around his wrist, the better to hold on. “Just a couple more feet and we’re there,” he said with a sudden rush of bravado. “Two, maybe three. We’re going to make it, right?”
Now he was trying to spur her on, even though both of his arms had to be ready to fall off. But he could tell that she was losing it.
“Almost there,” she croaked, slowly tilting her head upward, raising her eyes. She could see the flashlight up there. Five feet away. Might as well be five miles. “You… still my boy?”
“You know I am. Know something else? Your gas tank isn’t empty. You’ve got two more gallons left.”
She tried to smile but was too weak. “I-I do?”
“You come with an emergency reserve tank. I read about it in your owner’s manual. Listen to me… Des, are you listening to me?”
“Y-Yeah?”
“My turn to do the heavy lifting now. Soon as I get both feet up under me. All you have to do is move us up two more inches. Then I can push you the rest of the way, okay? Can you give me two more inches?”
Groaning, she started to climb again, positive her fingers were about to break right off at the knuckle. And now he had both feet under him on that little tree and he was pushing her upward instead of pulling her down, lifting her up, up, up the side of the cliff just like when she was a little girl and the Deacon would take her for a ride up on his shoulders, laughing and singing. And Des was grabbing for the top now and she was safely up and she was-
Until suddenly there was an awful cracking sound and that little tree gave way.
And Mitch was hanging on to her for dear life again, nothing under him besides blackness and death. But she could brace her knees against solid stone now, and he was making it up, up, and over and they were both collapsed there, alive, covering each other’s faces with kisses, grateful for life, grateful for each other, grateful.
They lay there for a long time, soaking wet, too exhausted to stir. The awful pain in Des’s left shoulder didn’t subside at all. She couldn’t move the arm one bit.
“Admit it,” she finally said weakly. “Admit that you’re glad I made you lose those ten pounds.”
“I will never, ever doubt you again,” he groaned, sprawled there beside her. “Only, what do I do now?”
“About what?”
“I just killed a man.”
“Don’t go there, Mitch. Will Durslag did that to himself.”
“No, that’s not what happened,” Mitch said with sudden vehemence. “You didn’t see it, Des. I smashed him in the head with a bottle. I killed him.”
“Before he killed you. Which, by the way, he almost did.”
“I know, but-”
“No buts!” Des said angrily. “Just forget about any buts and you listen to me, okay? You will need a story for Rico. And if you don’t stake one out and stick to it you’ll be looking at the inside of a criminal investigation. Will Durslag murdered two people, and he tried to murder you-it was kill or be killed, understand? Say you understand!”
“What are you so upset about?”
“Because I just saved your fool life and I am not going to throw you back. I worked too damned hard.”
He was silent for a moment. “Okay, I understand.”
“Thank you.” She reached over with her good arm and stroked his face. “You got his confession, right?”
“Tape recorder’s in my back pocket. Or it was. I don’t have enough strength to see if it’s still there.”
“Roll over.”
He rolled over on to his side and she smacked his butt with her fist, striking something squarish and hard. “It’s going to be okay. I can work with Rico.” Now she fumbled around for her cell phone.
“Hey, Des?”
“What is it, bod man?”
“Have I told you recently how much I love you?”
“It’s okay, I don’t mind if you tell me again. I’ve had a pretty hard night.”
The sun woke her early. There was no sleeping late on Big Sister. Not in July. Not even with the aid of multiple painkillers.
The morning was warm, but there was a fresh, lovely breeze off the water. Mitch made the coffee and poured them each a cup. She got herself into a tank top and gym shorts and they went strollingbarefoot together on the island’s narrow beach, sipping their coffee, neither of them moving very fast. They were the walking wounded. Des wore a sling on her left arm and bandages around all five fingers on her drawing hand. Mitch’s right cheek was scraped raw, and he had an angry welt on his neck where Will had kicked him. Will had also kicked him in the ribs, cracking two of them.
When they returned to his cottage he picked blueberries for their cereal while Des chilled in a lawn chair drinking iced tea with her long, bare legs stretched out before her and Quirt sprawled out on his back underneath her, his tail swishing happily in the grass. She was on medical leave for at least a week. She had nowhere to go and nothing to do. She could think of worse ways to do nothing, and worse places to do it.
Soave came rumbling over the wooden causeway just past nine, Yolie bringing up the rear in Des’s cruiser. They had taken a preliminary statement from Mitch last night at the falls. Soave had not acted the least bit leery. Perhaps a bit blown away.
Yolie had been a lot blown away. “Shut up!” she kept exclaiming as she listened to Mitch’s story.
The EMS people had hiked down by flashlight and found Will Durslag dead on the rocks in almost the same exact spot as Tito Molina had been. Will was even lying on his back the same way as Tito. Same head trauma. Same everything. It was eerie just how exactly he had followed the great love of his life into death.
Since it was the middle of the night and Des needed medical attention, Soave had held off on taking a more detailed statement until the morning, when Des assured him it would all start to make sense. Then she had accepted EMS transport to the twenty-four hour Shoreline Clinic in Essex. Mitch followed in his truck.
Everyone was very nice to her at the clinic. A chatty technician xrayed her shoulder. A kindly nurse plunged her torn, bloodied fingers into a disposable basin of warm soapy water. The orthopedist who was on duty scrutinized her X-ray and pronounced it an anterior subluxation, which was physician-speak for a partially dislocated shoulder. There was some ligament damage, but the boneswithin the joint were not fractured. He assured her she would not need surgery and would soon be as good as new. After injecting her with a muscle relaxant he manipulated her shoulder back into place, gave her a sling to wear, and told her she might need physical therapy to restore her normal range of motion and strength. He also warned her that when a shoulder has popped out once there’s a greater likelihood that it will pop out again under similar circumstances. Not a problem, Des assured him. She had no intention of ever again clinging to the side of a cliff with a grown man hanging from her arm.
It wasn’t until she was signing her release forms that Mitch happened to tell the orthopedist that he was experiencing sharp pains whenever he breathed. That was when they x-rayed him and found the cracked ribs. Which they did not tape. They just told him to take it easy.
There was a twenty-four-hour pharmacy in Old Saybrook where they were able to get their prescriptions filled. By the time they got back to Mitch’s place her shoulder was starting to ache again. She swallowed a pain pill and climbed into bed with an ice pack, sleeping off and on. Clemmie stayed glued to her hip the whole night, watching over her carefully. Cats were amazing that way. They always knew when you were hurting. Des just hoped Mitch didn’t resent this, since he was prone to jealousy in regards to Clemmie, thereby demonstrating that he still didn’t totally understand cats.
He himself had stayed downstairs watching a tape of his favorite boyhood comfort film, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and putting away an entire box of Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies that he’d had squirreled away somewhere.
Now Des remained on her lawn chair, gazing at the sailboats out on the Sound, while Soave and Yolie went in to talk some more with Mitch and listen to the tape recording of his last conversation with Will Durslag.
Soave strolled back outside first, smoothing his former mustache, and came over and crouched beside her, carefully averting his eyes from her shapely bare legs. “I’ll tell the media we’ve been madeaware of the existence of a confession,” he said slowly. “Meanwhile, we’ll go hard after some physical evidence to backstop it. Could be we’ll find remains of burnt clothing in his Franklin stove with traces of Donna’s blood DNA on them. Maybe even find one of his hairs on the bedspread at the Yankee Doodle. That’ll at least put him at the scene. As far as Tito goes, I don’t think we’ll ever come up with anything solid.” Soave paused now, shaking his head at her. “You were right again.”
“I was?” Des shifted her sling, wincing. “How so?”
“It was about sex.”
“It was about love, Rico. Makes the world go around.”
“Your boy says that it was all his own idea to arrange a meet with Durslag-and bring his tape recorder.”
“True enough.”
“And that you were up there without his knowledge and just happened to be in the right place at the right time to save his fat, sorry ass.”
“He said that?”
“Everything but the fat, sorry part. What were you doing in the park at that time of night anyway?”
“Nosing around. Some local kids have been holding pot parties up there.”
“Uh-huh.” Soave narrowed his eyes at her shrewdly. “Me, I’m figuring it’s a good thing he didn’t tell you his plan in advance- because then it sure might have smelled like the E-word.”
“The E-word?” Des gazed at him dumbly. “Oh, you must mean entrapment. Hell yeah. Smart of him not to do that.”
“You wouldn’t think they’d teach him stuff like that at film critic’s school.”
“Man’s a big-league journalist, Rico,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, well, your big-league journalist seems a little shook up, you want to know the truth.”
“He saw a man die last night. Almost lost his own life in the deal. He’s not used to that.”
Soave stood back up now, swiping at his shiny black trousers, and let out a sigh. “I have to tell you, Des, my life is a whole lot simpler when you’re not in it.”
“Yeah, but you miss me so much you can’t hardly stand it,” she said, smiling up at him. “Can you work with this, Rico?”
“We can work with it,” he said, which was his way of finally indicating to her that they were two people who really were there for each other. “And I still say you have the best legs in the whole damned state. Did you notice I didn’t stare at them once?”
“I did, Rico. And I was impressed. You’re a nascent feminist.”
“Okay, I don’t know what that means, but I’m looking it up.”
“You do that, wow man.”
He started back to his car as Yolie emerged from the carriage house with Mitch. “Girl, I left your keys in the ignition,” she said, coming over to Des.
“Great, thanks.”
“I’ve, um, decided to stick it out a little while longer with Soave.”
“Glad to hear that. You keep your eyes and ears open, you can learn a lot.”
“Dig, I’m not sure that what I learned on this one belongs in any how-to manual,” Yolie said, crossing her rippling arms in front of her boom booms.
“Why, what did you learn?”
“You’re supposed to assemble the facts until they point you at the truth, check? But this one’s ass backwards. The truth’s already a done deal and now we’re going looking for the facts.”
“In Hollywood they call that retrofitting,” Mitch piped up.
“Retro-what?” Yolie shot back, cocking her head at him.
“You insert an earlier scene as story foundation for the climax you ended up improvising on the spot.”
Yolie peered at him in confusion. “Sure, whatever…”
Des said, “Word, it’s the stuff they don’t teach in the manual that makes you wise.” She stuck her bandaged hand out to her. “Stay in touch, Yolie. Put a shout on sometime, hear?”
“I hear,” said Yolie, clasping it gently. “It was all good, Des. I’m wishing we can do this again.”
“That’s something else they don’t teach you.”
“What is?”
“Be careful what you wish for, girl. Because it just might come true.”