Editor's Note: Claire has returned after an absence of nearly two months. Quite frankly, I had given up on her. But she has her reasons, not that she would condescend to share them with me. To pick up the thread of her story, see her last entry, SpiceTales: A Shrunken Head and an Old Enemy.
If I hadn’t seen a lurid glow through the skeletal trees, I would have sped past. I braked hard and the Alfa skidded on the slick pavement just as I started across the two lane bridge spanning the Ennis River.
I backed up slowly—believe me when I say this stretch of Highway 70 is deserted at 11 o’clock on a cold, wet winter night—until I found the gravel road on the left. I had been looking for a small, nearly invisible sign that read “Shady Green--Canoe Launch,” letters chiseled into a stick of wood nailed to a loblolly pine. A heavy chain was lying on the ground and I drove over it, tires crunching in the deep gravel.
The road ended in a small dirt parking lot. A hundred feet to my left was a towering electrical grid, a few lights winking against the dark sky. To my right a cluster of people were standing on a rocky bank that sloped steeply down to the river. A big portable spotlight was aimed at a low dam, really just a concrete barricade, with foamy water rushing swiftly through the sluice.
A fine cold mist was falling. My fingers tried to find the zipper on my black leather jacket, but I couldn’t make them work. As I walked toward the group, a figure came towards me. It was Linda. “Claire,” she said quietly and touched my arm. I noticed that she was wearing a blue parka with a lift ticket attached to the zipper and muddy rubber boots. Her nose was red with cold. “I’m fine.” I said. “It’s not him,” I said.
As we neared the river bank, the cluster of strangers parted, their faces curious. Wedged up against the dam, there was a car, nose down in the swirling water. It was almost entirely submerged. Only the tail was visible. Black. Rear tires crusted with mud. License plate JZY 1427. Time came to a shuddering stop. Everything telescoped. I saw it all from a great distance.
“Bring it up,” said a man’s voice. The tow truck rumbled, then emitted a screeching hydraulic whine. A heavy steel cable, hooked under the rear axle of the drowned car, began to retract. The car lurched, then swung loose and was dragged backwards slowly up onto the rocky bank. It was the Porsche. Muddy water was gushing out of the windows and doors. Irrationally I thought about the beautiful champagne leather seats, the pierced ball of amber, the maps, the black journal in which he jotted meticulous notes—a sodden ruin now.
I started forward. “Wait,” said Linda. We had all seen the same thing: a dark figure slumped against the window. A state trooper shone his flashlight inside, then tried the door. It was jammed and he had to pull hard. It jerked open and he stumbled back, then bent down. Something large and unwieldy had fallen out of the car. After a moment he stood up and came over to us.
“Mrs….Polo?” The trooper’s drawl was carefully neutral, but his red-rimmed eyes were sizing me up. I nodded. “The license plate of this car is registered to Marco Nicolo Polo. Is he your husband?” I nodded again. “Can you give me a description?”
“He’s--” my voice was cracking. The words tumbled out: ‘He’s 38--his hair is brown—dark--he has a small scar on his—“ I broke away and ran to the car on legs that were suddenly wobbling.
There was a body lying half out of the driver’s seat, face turned up to the night sky. My breath came out in a rush. The features were still recognizable. The heavy eyebrows, the prominent acquiline nose, the full lips, pale hair plastered across his forehead.
It was Max. I noticed, almost incidentally, that there was a gaping hole in his left temple.
I was suddenly ravenous.