Part 41 (1/2)
I waited for a call from d.i.c.k. It didn't come. I tried calling him. He wasn't available. His secretary said he would call me back. He didn't.
I placed three more calls: one to d.i.c.k, one to Reid, one to Mitch. n.o.body took them.
I RODE MY BIKE ALL THE WAY TO PROVINCETOWN. I HAD NOT MEANT to go that far. I had ridden the Rail Trail, taken the Chatham route, then continued on through Orleans until I got to the roundabout that marked the transition from Mid-Cape to Lower Cape. I could have gone one hundred eighty degrees around the rotary, then on to Rock Harbor, where I could have stopped and looked at the fis.h.i.+ng boats, maybe bought a lobster roll at a place called Cap't Ca.s.s on the edge of the Harbor parking lot, then gotten back on the Brewster leg of the Rail Trail and returned to my car in Dennis. This time of year I wasn't sure Cap't Ca.s.s was still open, and so I decided to head east instead, go to Arnold's Lobster and Clam Bar along Route 6. It was closed for the season, so I kept going, through Eastham, with a vague idea that there were more roadside lobster shacks and one of them was bound to be open. I kept riding through Wellfleet, and by the time I got to Truro I decided to go all the way.
It was almost dark when I got to the end of the continent. I wasn't going to be able to ride back. I didn't have a light, didn't even have a windbreaker, and it was getting cold. I booked a room at a motel at the far end of town, out on a jetty, the very edge of the world.
IT WAS FOGGY WHEN I got up in the morning, and still cold. I had walked partway along Commercial Street the night before, looking for something to eat. I had gotten some catcalls from men who had enjoyed my spandex outfit, and now I was going to have to make the walk again if I wanted to buy something warm to wear for the long ride back.
I reminded myself that the catcallers were unlikely to be out first thing in the morning and left the dankness of the room to begin my trek. I had walked for no more than thirty seconds when a black vehicle that looked like a giant Jeep began blinking its lights. The clouds were at ground level and all around me. I could hear foghorns out on the water, and I could not see one hundred feet in any direction, but I could see those flas.h.i.+ng headlights. I stopped, thinking it might be police or a national park ranger, somebody warning me it was dangerous to be trying to navigate on foot when visibility was this poor. Maybe warning me it was dangerous to walk through town dressed the way I was.
But this was P'town. People could wear anything they wanted.
The vehicle's door opened, and I realized it was not a Jeep but a Hummer, the smaller model, the one they called the Hummer 3. ”Hey, Georgie!” a voice called. A male voice.
I squinted, trying to get a better look.
The man was holding something in his hand, something like a bag. I remembered the hood in Tamarindo and it occurred to me that I should run. Except there was nothing behind me but the motel and the long rock jetty. I stood my ground while the man approached. A big man, wearing shorts. Red shorts. Nantucket Reds, knee-length, salmon-colored, popular among the summer crowd on the islands. The object in the man's hand was a piece of dangling cloth, a blanket maybe, or a jacket. Below the shorts he was wearing Top-Siders; above them he had on a sweater and a polo s.h.i.+rt with the collar popped. The man was grinning. He was grinning because he knew me and he had not seen me in twelve and a half years.
He stopped when he got an arm's length away from me. He did not try to embrace. He did not even offer his hand. What he offered was the cloth, which turned out to be a sweats.h.i.+rt. A crimson sweats.h.i.+rt.
”Penn guy like you probably doesn't want this, but it's better than freezing your a.s.s off.” He tossed it to me.
I caught the sweats.h.i.+rt in one hand, looked down at it, saw the word ”Harvard” emblazoned with white letters and continued holding it, dumbstruck.
”Want some coffee?” He slung a thumb over his shoulder. ”I got a whole Thermos. Got some Dunkin' Donuts, too, if you're hungry.”
I was hungry. I did want some coffee. I said, ”No, thank you, Peter.”
He nodded. He looked as if he was going to try some other friendly acts, suggestions, gestures, and then he wiped the condensation from his brow and said, ”I was wondering if I could talk to you.”
”We're talking now, aren't we?” I still had not put on the sweats.h.i.+rt.
”I guess you don't want to get in the car, huh?” Then he answered himself. ”Yeah. I don't blame you. You've been through a lot because of us, and that's what I wanted to talk about. To apologize, really. Listen, can we go for a walk at least? You mind? How about out on that jetty?”
Go out on the jetty. In the fog. With Peter Gregory Martin.
”How about we go into town?” I said.
”Yeah.” He nodded. ”We could. Except you can never tell who's around.” He looked around. ”Always seems to be somebody with a camera when you least expect it.” He inclined his head toward the jetty as if it were the only possible place for two men to walk if they wanted a little privacy.
”Which begs the question: What are you doing here, Peter? Outside my motel at eight in the morning? You follow me here?”
”Not really.” He grinned some more, harder this time. It was still a friendly grin, not a sick one like Jamie's, but not a charming one like the Senator's, either.
I tried to think. n.o.body had followed me. At least I had not seen anybody follow me. ”Peter, I didn't know I was coming here. It's just where I ended up.”
He waved his hand in the direction of Route 6, as if that was where somebody had seen me. Of course, it was also the direction of everything else in the country, everything except the motel itself. I looked at the motel office. He saw me looking.
”Nah,” he said, interpreting. ”What, do you think we have some big network of informers or something? You check in someplace and the desk clerk immediately calls us up?”
He acted like it was a joke, but that was exactly what I was thinking. It didn't make a lot of sense, but neither did the idea that someone could have been with me on a trail that did not allow motor vehicles and then tailed me all along Route 6, where I had not seen a single other cyclist. And then it came to me.
”You put a tracking device on my bike, didn't you?”
”C'mon, Georgie.” Peter Martin swatted me playfully on the shoulder.
I recoiled. ”Where is it? Under the seat?”
Peter stopped grinning. He looked away. There was not much he could look at. ”I don't do these things myself, George.”
”You wanted to talk to me, you could have come to my house. Called me on the phone.”
”I wanted to see you in person. That's why I came across country. Didn't think it was going to be f.u.c.king winter.” He wiped his brow a second time. The fog was so wet it was matting our hair into strands that plastered our skulls and created little follicular runways for drops of water. ”I didn't want to come to your house because, like I said before, you never know who's around.”
Peter Martin did not want to be seen with me. Peter Martin was standing with me in a fog so thick there could have been a troop of soldiers arrayed fifty yards from us and I would not have known.
”Could be anyone,” I said.
He agreed.
”Could even be Josh David Powell.”
”His people, yeah.”
”All kinds of folks following me, aren't there, Peter?”
”It's part of what I want to apologize about. Look, can we please walk? Just in case Powell does have somebody around, can we not stand here like this?”
He wanted to go on that jetty. I looked and couldn't see anything. Just the first few gray-black boulders that made up the riprap that curved its way into the ocean. A foghorn sounded again, warning me away.
Prosecutor found dead floating off Provincetown jetty. He must have slipped on the rocks and hit his head. He was wearing bicycle shoes with metal plates on the soles.
”No,” I said. ”This is as good a place as any.”
Prosecutor found dead in parking lot. Strangled, garroted, beaten to a pulp. I would take Peter down with me. I would make him pay. Hit me, motherf.u.c.ker, and I will carve you up. With what, I didn't know. My fingers, if that was all I had.
Peter sighed. He shrugged. ”At least put on that sweats.h.i.+rt if we're going to stand here. You don't need to freeze to death.”
Prosecutors don't freeze to death in September on Cape Cod. Nevertheless, I draped the sweats.h.i.+rt over my shoulders, crossed my arms, and waited.
”I know,” Peter said, starting slowly, ”that you were there when Jamie was murdered.” He threw up his palm quickly to stop me from responding. ”I even know what you said to him. I'm not here to argue about it. What I am thinking, however, what the family's thinking, is, okay, Jamie's dead, what good does it do to drag all this out?”
Now? Did he want me to answer now? No.