A Matter of Mercy Read online

  “Might be enough time,” Tomas called into the window Mario opened. “Hurry up. Call Tweed, have him call Bogsie. Better call Clint too. Hurry.”

  “Man, I don’t carry a cell phone. One of you guys gotta call.”

  Tomas called to Rid, six feet behind him on purpose. “You got your phone in the truck?”

  “It’s home on the charger,” Rid called back.

  “Dammit.” Tomas turned and ran toward his own truck, well up on the beach. Meanwhile, Rid loosened the tow rope and pulled his own truck up above the tide line. He sure as hell wasn’t going to risk sinking his while they fooled with trying to pull Mario out.

  Mario was out of his truck then chasing Rid down, sand spraying behind each foot as soon as he got on dry terrain. “What the hell!? You gotta get me out! You gotta….” He was sputtering, desperate. And slurring his words. Tomas had a point.

  “We can’t do it without more help. Tomas is calling.” Darkness was a fine thing. He couldn’t look Mario in the eye, kept his back turned and kept walking. Freezing, teeth chattering, boots waterlogged, jeans soaked, legs chafing, shivering, feet numb and burning at once, he headed for the homing beacon of the fire, his hands outstretched. When he reached it, he yanked the boots off and stood as close to the fire as he dared, a sleeping bag draped around his back. Mario kept talking at him, begging, but Rid tuned him out. “I can’t do any more right now, man,” he said, a couple of times, and “I’m sorry.”

  Tomas reappeared in the fire-lit circle like a specter. “I forgot Marie took my phone today. She was going to her mother’s and wanted to check on the kids after school.” This from Tomas, the straight-arrow honest man. His voice sounded breathless, apologetic. Rid looked at the ground.

  Mario was frantic. They all knew without discussion that they were too far from town to fetch help in time. “WhatamIgonnado? Ohmigod! WhatamIgonnado?” He looked beseechingly at Tomas, then Rid, his arms outstretched in supplication. “Man, I gotta have my truck!” He was right, of course. They were all dependent on their trucks.

  “Let’s get your equipment and what you harvested out of the back so it doesn’t get lost, for one,” Tomas said. “The truck may be salvageable. We’ll get it out in the morning. You know, we’ll flush it out, see if it runs. You can file an insurance claim. We’ll come up with something. Rid, you stay put. We’ve got waders on.”

  Still begging, gesticulating, Mario followed Tomas as he strode resolutely back down the beach toward where the truck foundered like a dark whale. Rid turned his head and stared into the fire.

  In a bit, when the front of him felt seared, he reversed, draping the sleeping bag across his chest to hold in the warmth and putting his back to the fire. Now he could see the faint figures of Tomas and Mario moving, a black pile amassing high on the beach where the sand was soft and dry.

  One of them walked toward Rid, no big hurry now. When he had closed about half the distance, Tomas called, “Rid, can you go get my truck? Keys are in it. Bring it over here so we can load this gear?”

  Rid dropped the sleeping bag and headed in the opposite direction, toward the forest and the access road where Tomas’ truck was parked near his own. When he got in, he hesitated a moment before starting the engine or pulling on the headlights, he checked the center compartment. Everything neatly organized: gum, pens, pencil, sunglasses, paper, some notes, a space the cell phone might fit. Then he flipped open the glove compartment and felt around. No phone. He was surprised, gratified. Maybe he’d misunderstood the whole thing. He turned the key and the engine answered.

  Then another impulse. He leaned forward and felt around under the driver’s seat. Nothing right away. But then he reached further back. Rid left it where it was and drove the truck.

  Chapter 14

  Terry couldn’t say exactly what it was about CiCi that made her uneasy. It was like the feeling you’d get entering a familiar room in which no one thing was in the wrong place, but many things might have been moved an inch—or not. It was the way CiCi came to the library every day, for example. A lot of magazine stories are written every year about the outer Cape, for heaven’s sake, but what reporter had ever come to the library every day for weeks on end doing background research? And her story was about the Indian Neck landowner’s lawsuit against those oyster farmers. How much did she need to know about aquaculture, anyway? The court documents weren’t here in the library, and neither were the men being sued.

  “You must be about finished with your research by now,” she’d baited CiCi just yesterday afternoon. No obvious hook; she’d said it exactly the way she said everything else, but inside she knew.

  “Gettin’ there,” CiCi had answered. “But it’s a lot more complex than I realized.”

  “Your deadline must be coming up?”

  Had CiCi blushed? She’d hesitated a nanosecond, then said, “Oh, well, the editor was going to run the story in the spring, but it’s been pushed to the summer issue. I guess he’s hoping there’ll be a resolution—in the court, I mean—to include in the story.”

  “How convenient.”

  Had she given away her suspicion by sounding sarcastic? From behind the cart of returned books, Terry manufactured an engaging smile.

  And she’d looked over CiCi’s shoulder. The pages of notes on aquaculture were real. But one day over lunch Rhonda said, “Your friend sure spends a lot of time here. Do you see her much outside of work?” They were in the staff break room where a small fake Christmas tree was blinking at them. Terry wished she could pack Christmas and bury the whole goddamned thing next to Alexander. She’d wanted to shout this at Rhonda, who’d decorated the library, and wrap the ugly tinsel roping from the checkout desk around Rhonda’s neck while she was at it.

  “She’s not my friend,” Terry said sharply. “She’s a patron.”

  “Oh really? I thought—well, I assumed. I mean I see her talking to you so often, I presumed you were personal friends and I thought it was starting to get in the way of your work a bit. I was going to—never mind, she’s a patron.”

  “She’s the journalist I’ve sent to you a couple of times on research questions, the one working on aquaculture.”

  “Hmm. She’s not talked to me. Well, whatever.”

  “Really? Didn’t she ask you about where to find records or laws about aquaculture leases? She was asking about whether they could become part of an estate, or if it was always done by just writing a son or daughter’s name on the grant. I guess her point was what if another heir wanted to work it, but hadn’t had their name written on it, in the case of a sudden death—she didn’t ask you about that?”

  “Nope, sure didn’t. Now don’t fuss about this. Probably you gave her as much help as she needed and didn’t realize it.” Rhonda gave an encouraging smile as Terry fingered her pin.

  “I apologize if I’ve been talking with her too much. I was answering questions.”

  “In that case, you’re doing your job and doing it well, as usual.”

  Terry waited until Rhonda’s day off, Thursday that week. CiCi came in around eleven. She wore jeans, sneakers, and a baggy gray sweatshirt that made her look like she’d just come off the flats. She looked tired, too, gray smudges around her eyes. Her hair looked bristly, one step away from unkempt, like it needed shaping by a stylist. If she was wearing makeup at all, it needed refreshing.

  Terry kept an eye on her, but didn’t approach. Finally, about a half hour later, CiCi reached out to stop Terry as she walked by the table where CiCi was ensconced, surrounded by papers and books. “Terry, hi. Look! I found some great stuff on juvenile oyster disease! I’m hoping you can help me find more about other diseases, though. By the way, how are you? It sure is getting colder out, isn’t it? Winter is definitely here. Are you a Christmas lover or a Christmas hater?”

  “Sure is. Winter’s here, I mean. Hey, I’ve been meaning to catch up with you and ask if Rhonda helped you find what you needed—about inheriting grants, if there’s a law or precedent, what t
hey do if it’s disputed.”

  There was the tiniest hesitation, as if CiCi couldn’t quite decide which direction to go at a crossroad while people were honking at her. “Oh I’m all set on that,” she said.

  That wasn’t enough. Terry infused her voice with concern. “Was she nice about it? I mean, not to be unprofessional, but sometimes I worry. She’s the research librarian, but if you hit her on the wrong day with a question, she can sort of brush you off. How did she respond to you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “She was all right. I’d rather work with you any day. She’s a little brusque. But I got what I needed on that question. If you don’t mind, though, I’ll continue to ask you first.”

  Terry felt heat inside her body and hoped it didn’t show. She’d worn a real wool sweater that John’s mother had knit her when the baby was three, the same blue as his eyes, and suddenly she was sweaty and suffocating. “Okay, then, I’m glad to hear she helped you.” She moved away toward the desk, hearing her heart echoing too loud and fast in her ears.

  After that, she couldn’t settle herself down. Her mind whipped and twirled like a weathervane in a hurricane. You’re getting completely paranoid, she admonished herself, but then imagined the tobacco-rasped voice of her crazy cousin who’d moved to western Massachusetts, the volunteer sheriff’s deputy, Citizen Watch Area Commander: only a fool don’t know that sometimes they really are out to get ya.

  Boo was considered insane by the rest of the family. He set himself up for the opinion by dressing in fatigues and a flak jacket and sermonizing that the outer Cape was a hotbed of lawlessness and immorality. Before Terry’s little boy was killed, when Boo and his big-haired wife Luann came to family occasions, it had been great fun to leave leaflets advertising the female impersonators’ revues and Gay Tea Dances in Provincetown around the living room. Watching the veins in Boo’s forehead throb, especially the big one, and seeing if the blood vessels in his eyeballs burst had been family sport. How long he lasted before Luann had to lead him by the hand out to his truck, and whether she let him drive was the subject of the family betting pool. Unlike Boo, all the year-rounders on the outer Cape knew dozens of gays and lesbians and didn’t think anything of it. They were just good neighbors living and working, with or without children, with or without partners like everybody else.

  For a big extended family, toying with bigoted Boo about it was just good- natured cruelty. There was plenty to ridicule. The funny-looking kid with the face like a flattened ball had started seriously insisting he was an FBI informant at nine. It would have been one thing if he had outgrown it. By twelve, though, he was mocked as Peekaboo Pete by everyone but his parents, and once it was shorthanded to “Boo,” even they picked it up. He’d enlisted, wanting to be assigned to Military Intelligence. Mysteriously, he ended up back home in eighteen months, the family speculating behind his back that he’d lacked the Intelligence part. What he did have was a pumped-up patriotic fervor with no place to put it except into his family, and he’d finally settled into appointing himself a one-man army dedicated to defending them against all enemies, domestic, foreign, animal, vegetable or mineral.

  Terry hadn’t seen her cousin since the baby’s funeral, but now she entertained the idea of calling him. He’d go gangbusters at this CiCi woman who almost certainly wasn’t what she claimed to be. Terry thought how John would disapprove of turning the family nutcase loose. But John thought she’d become a nutcase herself, and that wasn’t John’s first or only mistake. Who’s crazy, John? Is it Boo, or you? What does love mean?

  She stayed at the desk, attending to checking books out and other robotic tasks. Don’t fall apart.

  About an hour later, CiCi pushed back her chair, bundled into a goose down jacket that looked too small, as if it wasn't hers, gathered up her papers and moved toward the door, which was just to the left of the circulation desk. Her pattern was to stop and chat on her way out. Terry steeled herself. Act normal.

  “I’m headin’ out.”

  “Another day’s work, another half a day’s pay, huh?” Terry offered with a laugh.

  “So true.”

  “What’s it like down on the flats now? Must be freezing.” She hadn’t been able to resist it.

  “Pretty much. I don’t know how they stand it.”

  That gave nothing away to Terry because, cold as it was, the aquaculturists probably were out working on their grants. It was still an R month, and probably most of the oyster farmers hadn’t buttoned up their grants for the winter quite yet.

  Once CiCi had cleared the parking lot, Terry got to work. Most of what she was about to do was against library policy, so she couldn’t do it when Rhonda was there, and for sure she wasn’t about to wait until the next time Rhonda wasn’t around.

  CiCi was using a CLAMS library card, good at any public library on the Cape, even though she’d said she was from Quincy. By itself, this was no big deal. They gave them out to visitors and summer people all the time, just for filling out a form, so CiCi could have gotten one easily. She pulled up the record of what CiCi had checked out of all branches of the library, not just Truro. Aquaculture and some novels from this branch. Cancer management, death and dying, a pamphlet on funeral planning, pregnancy and abortion from the Provincetown branch, except for one time she’d taken some of that out from this branch, but never again.

  We’d have asked for ID, Terry thought suddenly. The computer showed that CiCi hadn’t given a Quincy address when she registered for a card. Sweet Jesus. She was a resident of Wellfleet.

  Fingers flying, Terry went into real estate records through the Internet. The house had been owned by Eleanor Marcum until sixteen months ago, at which time it had been sold to Caroline Marcum for one dollar. Could CiCi be a nickname for Caroline? That made sense. Terry checked the tax records. The bills were still going to the same address and were paid up, but that didn’t tell her who’d been writing the checks. What am I missing?

  County records showed that the Marcums had owned that house for over forty years. Caroline, or CiCi, or whatever her name was, must have been raised there. That meant that Terry could almost for sure find someone who’d known her back when.

  She was fitful that night, changing to pajamas before picking at a frozen dinner, drinking too much wine, her legs tangling the bedclothes. Up and down, up and down after she went to bed, getting water, making a list of ideas, trying to figure out an approach that would not give away her intent and then wondering why she felt as if she were doing something wrong. Once, for a few minutes, she was sad, realizing that she would miss CiCi.

  At two-thirty five in the morning it came to her. It really wasn’t difficult, once she worked it out. And she didn’t even have to be at work until one, so she could do it when she woke up. Not where she worked, where Rhonda could glance over her shoulder, or worse, CiCi could come in and search her out to ask for “help” right as Terry was pulling up information.

  * * * *

  At eleven she was at the Provincetown branch of the library, on Commercial Street. She was dressed for work, in stockings and black dress shoes not meant for walking, but she’d known it wouldn’t matter. Off-season Provincetown is a hair short of a ghost town, the empty streets nearly a promenade for the year-rounders who come together as one neighborhood as they dodge the wind between the cafes, the post office, the town hall, hardware and liquor stores, and up on Shank Painter Road, the Stop & Shop. Terry parked within twenty steps of the sagging portico of the eighteenth century building.

  The clerk at the desk was staring into space. Rhonda would never put up with that. “Do I need to sign up for Internet time?” Terry said.

  “I guess. Prob’ly. Lemme ask. I’m new.” The girl had a pierced tongue that she clicked on her teeth as she went up on her toes to look for another employee. A greasy ponytail slouched down her oversized sweatshirt. Rhonda would no more hire her than leap naked off Pilgrim Monument. The girl flagged an employee, conferred, and returned to Terry.

/>   “I need to see your card, then you can sign up for a half hour. But if nobody’s signed up for the half hour after you, we won’t kick you off. The sign-up sheets are over there.” She pointed. “Prob’ly in the winter you can have a computer all day. There’s hardly nobody around.”

  Terry showed her card. “Thanks.” Through this, her stomach was off-kilter and she felt lightheaded, a faint buzz in her ears like a white noise fan. Why was she so upset about the P-town library looking shabby?

  She sat at the computer, and went to the website for the Provincetown Banner. She could always go to the larger newspaper later. “Eleanor Marcum” she typed in to the search engine. Two or three seconds later the results popped up. Just by scanning the titles, she knew a good deal. The woman was a potter, she’d had a number of gallery openings that had been reviewed, she’d been a member of multiple civic organizations, and she was dead. Terry clicked on the obituary. Yes. There it was. One surviving daughter, Caroline Marcum of Chicago. Not Quincy. But Caroline Marcum was listed as owning the house. It must have been put in her name because the mother had cancer and knew she was dying.

  All right. But none of that explained what Caroline Marcum could possibly want by stalking her. Unless she really was a journalist. If so, then she’d be easy to find on the Internet, too, Terry reasoned. A Google search yielded nothing.

  Terry went back to the Provincetown Banner website and typed in “Caroline Marcum.”

  When the results came up, in reverse chronological order, she thought she’d made an error in her haste. A flush spread over and through her body and with it, a panic. She thought she’d entered her own name by mistake. She hadn’t. “Local Teacher Charged With DWI Following Death of Four-Year-Old Alexander DiMarco.” What the hell? But there were other stories listed: old ones. And there it was, like a hand reaching for her throat. Caroline Marcum and Charles Vance Wed in Wellfleet Saturday.