Doublecrossed, p.20
Doublecrossed, page 20
As I worked, I thought about the gun and the latex gloves in Marnie’s knapsack. They supported the idea that she planned to shoot my brother or force him—and me—to jump over the side and then delete any signs she’d been present. This meant Marnie would need to sail to the harbor—a tall order for a landlubber—but she might have managed it under power. I recalled her curiosity about the channel markers and realized her question hadn’t been an idle one. Once at the marina, she could finish her cleaning, leave the boat—hopefully with no one noticing her—and drive her car to the house. There, Marnie could fashion a story about Alex kidnapping and robbing me, all the while insisting she was an innocent victim. Except she would need to explain all the credit card purchases. More likely, Marnie would have sold the Solara for cash and fled.
My mind spun, trying to sort the convoluted possibilities, but the emotional duplicity distressed me the most. I sat on the seat opposite the table, fighting tears, and recalled happier times playing with my brother before our parents’ divorce. Making sandcastles on the beach, swinging on the Jungle Gym set in the backyard, dressing in identical pirate costumes for Halloween. As small children, we had been close, but after he moved to Europe and especially when Alex reached puberty, I became increasingly wary of spending time alone with him.
I sighed, disturbed by these later memories of my twin and also by recollections of cooking elaborate dinners with Marnie, gardening and dancing together, laughing, and making love. She had been an adept and convincing lover, a woman who had cleverly constructed a persona that matched my ideals. How gullible I’d been!
Disgusted with myself, I rose, shoved the Fantastic and the hand towel in my parka pockets, and climbed topside, where I scoured the exterior starboard bow and mid sections: the hardware, grab rails, mast, boom, and shrouds. I straightened my aching back and duplicated my efforts on the port side of the boat. Returning to the cockpit, I cleaned the winches, cleats, and hatch cover. I hadn’t touched the wheel or the bench where my brother’s body lay.
When my tasks were completed, I replaced the worn gloves with Alex’s second pair, returned to the galley, and ate the last sandwich and drank a Coke. Afterward, I dealt with the sink and refrigerator and then inserted the remains of my sandwich wraps, soda cans, water bottle, discarded gloves, and used duct tape into a garbage bag, which I threw on deck, leaving Marnie’s beer cans, the chicken bones, and their plastic utensils and paper plates in the trash bin. Next, I examined the floor to be sure I hadn’t stepped in the blood, but no footprints were visible. However, a forensic examiner might find traces of my sneakers, which scared me until I remembered Marnie’s shoes were the same as mine and new. Hopefully, the treads were identical, without any idiosyncrasies in the patterns. Before the police found me, I would throw away my pair of Nikes.
Above, in the cockpit, I slumped on the bench across from my brother and wondered how I would return to shore. Though I wasn’t sure of my exact location, Sandy Hook was at least an hour away. I found the autopilot manual among the charts and read through the directions several times before my brain processed the information. I decided to weigh anchor about 6:15 p.m.
Unsure what to do in the interim, I remained sitting, arms crossed, sweating in the latex gloves and parka, and returned to thoughts of my brother. Over the years, I’d never resolved my ambivalence about who he was and how I felt about him, and his death didn’t clarify my confusion. Over recent days, some poignant memories had been resurrected along with shame and fear—emotions that had originated during our childhood.
We had never spoken about Alex’s perverse attraction, which I now understood was interwoven with his genuine love. Did he view me as his bright side, the twin who could make him whole? Yet, in many ways, Alex also completed me, and, as during our past, I had entered into our unique space, filling the absences present since our separation. Now that he was dead, it seemed impossible to discern which emotions were his and which were mine, as if I had absorbed him, with our personalities entwined. No one, no matter how close, would ever replicate this assimilation.
A vast emptiness overwhelmed me as I stared at the expressionless ocean and moved unconsciously in rhythm with the boat. I should pick up the gun and discharge a bullet into my brain, hastening the end to this estrangement from my family. I thought about my mother and father. Did they exist on some spectral plane, waiting for us to be together? Had they mended their differences and called for Alex, their lost child, to come to them? Suddenly, I wanted to be there too, beyond this boat, this floating morgue.
But I didn’t move. I didn’t reach for the gun, which seemed to glint with supernatural power. Instead, I sat there helpless, inert, half gone with Alex, with my mother and father, as if I were fading in harsh sunlight like a poorly fixed photograph. I don’t know how long I lingered in this daze or where I traveled in my head. I’m not a mystical or religious person, but it felt as though I soared past the confines of Earth. Tears welled up and began to fall. I closed my eyes and was swamped with images of Alex and his bloody chest. After I opened my eyes again, I couldn’t shake the disquieting sensation that I was slipping into another self, reprising a situation that was eerily familiar.
As the clouds migrated eastward, the blue sky slowly diminished into a peach sunset sliced with thin purple clouds.
*
The coolness of evening soothed my feverish thoughts. Beginning the preparation for my escape, I used the head and then sprayed Fantastic on the toilet and its handle, the sink’s hardware, and the ladder’s rails, even if the lack of prints on the railings would look suspicious because everyone needed to climb in and out of the cabin. Once this was accomplished, I studied the marine chart, carried it topside, and placed it in the box by the hatch so I could refer to it without going below. Then, though I disliked throwing anything overboard, I flung the garbage bag and the sunscreen into the ocean, hauled up the main anchor, started the ignition, and set the autopilot on a heading toward shore.
Standing on the leeward side, where the wind would blow any hairs into the water, I stripped off my jacket and shirt. With care, I inserted the plastic bags of cash and coins into my bra and duct-taped them there and across the flat of my breastbone. A plastic bag with the diamonds and smaller rolls of money was placed in the front pocket of my cargo pants, its flap zipped closed, and my thigh girded with duct tape. The bag containing my social security card, the certificates of authenticity, and my mother’s jewelry was stuck in the other pocket. Replacing my shirt, I added tape to bind it to my body, in case the inside tape holding the bags became loose. I donned my jacket, tightened the hood, and dried the sweat from my face with the towel before throwing the towel overboard.
I avoided looking at my brother, but my glance was often drawn to him as he lay stiff and pale on the bench, the wind ruffling his shirt collar and locks of his hair that fell below the confines of his cap. I imagined he was having an evening’s rest and everything was fine.
*
The black strip of coast loomed off the bow, though visibility was diminishing due to the approach of rain. I turned on the light above the hatch door and consulted the chart once again. Fighting anxiety about the treacherous shoals running along the Hook, I steered out of the channel and sailed parallel to the land. When the Twin Lights were directly ahead, I edged in closer, raised the swing keel to decrease the boat’s draft, and replaced the chart in the box. After removing my parka, I rolled it tightly except for the arms, which I tied around my waist. Then I circled the jacket with tape before throwing the tape over the side.
The sea was relatively still. I could see the distant beach, but as I stood on deck, the clouds slowly choked the last glimmers of sunlight, merging the land and sea into an undifferentiated mass. I didn’t like to think of the stories I’d heard about ravenous bluefish biting swimmers, or worse yet, about the sharks that cruised the coast. One thing was certain: I didn’t want a metallic sparkle to catch the eye of one of those omnivorous predators. Reaching into my pants, I pulled out a plastic bag and placed my watch inside, returning the bag to my pocket.
After slowing the sailboat to an idle, I debated whether to leave the lights on in order to prevent a collision with another boat but decided that if time of death was accurately established as during the morning, night lights would be suspicious, so I switched them off. There was enough gas to take the boat out to sea, far enough to preclude the possibility that someone had tried to swim ashore.
I sliced off the lower legs of my cargo pants with the matt knife and pitched the cloth and knife over the railing. Turning toward my brother, I studied his face in the pale light. He looked so young, almost angelic. Though his life force had departed, I knew my good brother, the one I loved, would always be with me.
I swung the boat so it faced east, reset the autopilot, and pushed the throttle forward at a slow speed. Then I jumped over the starboard side into the black water.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
THE OCEAN WAS surprisingly cold. After peeling off the latex gloves, I began a slow crawl toward shore, trying not to worry about the distance, which now seemed vast. Immediately, the duct tape became uncomfortable as it bound the free movement of my muscles and skin. The coins and cash against my chest also grew burdensome, giving me the sensation that I had to fight to stay afloat. I urged myself to swim steadily, stopping only to catch my breath and to alternate from a crawl to a sidestroke or breaststroke.
How far would the sailboat travel before it ran out of gas? I hoped it wouldn’t be struck by an ocean-going vessel—not that it would cause much damage to a tanker or large ship—but if the O’Day sank, the evidence on board would be lost. Evidence necessary to support my story, which I was in the process of refining.
When the outline of a Sandy Hook kiosk appeared, I prayed it was the one near the park entrance and that no rangers were making rounds. It was after sunset, though the water was eroding my sense of time. Suddenly, something touched my foot, and I lurched in fright. A floating branch. I threw it away and waited to catch my breath and steady my nerves. Letting the waves carry me forward, I drifted. Part of me wanted to let go and sink. I felt so alone, chilled, and weary, but I continued on through the black water, kicking weakly, sometimes not at all.
As with pre-sleep thoughts, my mind circled like a roller coaster, around and around, rotating over the options I might have chosen to prevent Alex’s death, even though, in actuality, I was helpless after I’d decided to return to the house and take the gun from the bedroom. My brother’s determination to make me penniless, to exact revenge for some terrible grievance he held against me, were so powerful that I doubted he would have relented no matter what I had done. Did this plan originally include my death? There would have been no other reason to enter into the house purchase otherwise, unless this had been solely Marnie’s idea. Or should I trust his last words, that he hadn’t intended to kill me? I held this belief close and hoped it was the truth.
I turned once to see the sailboat, already a great distance away, its outline fast being concealed by the gathering mist, a mist that would obscure me when I reached the beach. As the swells became more pronounced, I checked the tape and plodded along, aided by the ocean. In the forming area of the waves, I caught a breaker halfway into shore. A second one deposited me on the sand, in the retreating white froth. I lay there, water coursing around me, and thought I would never get up until one large wave spewed sea over my head. I sat, coughing, my hands disappearing into the withdrawing sand. With a huge effort, I stood and walked to the crest of the dune, hoping the incoming tide would erase my footprints nearest the ocean. Then I collapsed.
*
I rested until rain began falling. I came to my feet and, with trembling fingers, unraveled the tape from my thighs, jacket, blouse, and chest and made a pile of the plastic bags, which were thankfully intact. I restored my blouse, slipped my arms in the parka’s clammy sleeves, raised the hood, and filled all the pockets with bags. Then I dug a deep hole in the sand to bury the used tape.
Being in the rest area was risky because rangers checked it regularly, but walking through the dunes, which were thickly covered with poison ivy, wasn’t an attractive alternative. After climbing up to the kiosk, I used the foot shower to rinse off and then pushed my legs to a trot, crossing the blacktop parking lot and the main road into the park. Just as I was stepping on the far curb, headlights pierced the dark night from the north. I tottered unsteadily down the path to Plum Island and hid, peeking to see a white car with green stripes careen into the parking area and loop back toward the station house. When the ranger was out of sight, I climbed to the street and proceeded toward the exit, jogging up the incline of the overpass and slowing my pace as I reached the bridge. There, a chilly wind blasted me, and rain needled my face.
I cursed, rushed over the bridge, averting my face from the bridge keeper in his booth, and hurried down the ramp into town, where I kept to the back streets, wary of meeting a passing patrol car. Finally, the road ascended and narrowed, rising steeply to my father’s driveway.
By a hydrangea bush, I found the spare set of house keys. After opening the door next to the garage, I removed my shoes, dried my feet with a beach towel, went into the kitchen and stared blindly through the window, overcome with deep and unutterable exhaustion. How could I return to the house Marnie and I had bought, call the police, and answer their questions? All I wanted to do was vanish within the shelter of my father’s home, to surrender to the oblivion of sleep, hoping I’d wake with no memory of what happened.
I poured a glass of cold water and drank it, ate some stale crackers. Then I emptied my pockets and carried everything of value to a wall safe except for forty dollars and my social security card. I stripped off my parka and sodden clothes and placed them and my Nike shoes in a brown grocery bag. Stepping into the bathroom, I was terrified to look in the mirror, but I did. My eyes were scarlet, and my left cheek and body were painted with blue and purple bruises. The wound on my chin still hadn’t healed.
A hot shower helped. I scoured my skin with soap and shampooed repeatedly to remove any residue of sea salt. My hair would appear cleaner than it should, but if I let it dry uncombed, it would look appropriately tousled and unkempt. From the bedroom closet, I selected fresh clothes, a pair of running shoes, an old trench coat, and placed my Seiko watch on my wrist: 8:40 p.m. Time to go. I grabbed the keys to my father’s old Audi and went into the garage, raised the car’s hood, and attached the battery connections. I had taken the Audi for a drive a month ago and prayed it would work now. After one nervous sputter, it started. I checked that my travel umbrella was in the back seat, in case I needed it, and exited the house.
The weather had improved slightly. On the way to the Parkway, I stopped in a strip mall and lobbed the bag of clothes and shoes into a trash container. Once on the highway, fatigue proved adversarial. I raised the volume on the radio and rolled down the windows so the night air would keep me alert. Forty minutes later, I drove into a commuter parking area two miles from the house. I took the Audi’s key, the two house keys and those for my father’s place, and locked the car. I began running, grateful the rain had stopped, and I wouldn’t need to explain a wet coat or umbrella.
On the front door was tacked a sodden letter. Using my jacket sleeve pulled over my hand, I lifted the corner to read a date. The notice had been left by the police a few days before. I ignored it, slipped off my shoes, and went inside without turning on any lights. I hid the keys to the Audi and my father’s house as well as the two twenty-dollar bills in a pair of white pants, hung my clothes in the closet, and replaced the social security card in my open wallet in the bedroom. Naked except for my underwear, I walked into the kitchen, looped the house keys on the hook, and entered the laundry room, where I changed into the bloody clothes I’d worn during the fight.
Next, I returned to the living room and stared at the bloodstained carpet, trying to banish the ghosts of Alex and myself rolling on the floor. The high-backed chair stood in the middle of the room, apart from the cluster of furniture. It was surrounded by ropes and tape, evidence of my confinement. I thought for a moment and moved the chair and some of the bindings beside the dining table. After searching the kitchen, I found a cheese spreader, whose blade lacked a sharp edge, and cut sections of the rope and tape with the spreader—not an easy task. And then, as my brother had done, I tied bowline knots to re-section the laundry line sliced by the carving knife. After rubbing my wrists and forearms with the rope to chafe my skin, I dropped the cheese spreader on the floor and groaned. Blood was on my clothes. None was on my face. The scab didn’t appear recent, so I ran to the bathroom, used my fingernail to prick the wound on my chin, and blotted the blood with a hand towel. I hoped the police would conclude the cut had been freshly opened when I cleaned my face prior to calling them. To deter close inspection, I added two large Band-Aids. To support my story about not knowing the time during my captivity, I placed my watch in the back of my jewelry box.
I waited until my breathing was even. At 10:36 p.m., I switched on the lights and telephoned the police.
*
The police arrived promptly. The uniformed officer entered first, a tall, heavyset man named Fantana, and then a plainclothes officer walked in, a stocky woman with short-cropped gray hair and wearing a blue pants suit. She introduced herself as Detective Denise Griscoe. I showed them into the living room.
Detective Griscoe studied my bruised face and bandaged chin. “You didn’t say you were hurt when you called. Only that a theft occurred. Should we summon an ambulance?”
“I’m sorry. I was just so upset on the phone. Yes, I’m sore and have a bad headache, but you need to catch my brother and Marnie. They can’t be allowed to get away.”
“Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?” Fantana asked.
