Chapter 1
Figure Eights
Saturday, October 21, 1995
Vincent Emory Illick opened the sliding glass door to the backyard and stepped outside as Randy bolted past him, headed for the woods. He closed the door, leaving it unlocked, and turned to follow. A barely visible trail descended a wooded hillside and he shuffled down it, dodging the branches that occasionally blocked his path. Halfway down he saw the decaying shed he used as a navigation reference, a hundred feet away through the trees. Moments later he saw ghostly white walls emerge through foliage at the base of the hill. He left the woods and entered a field of uncut grass next to the fenced-off remnants of the Pennyfield House, at Pennyfield Lock in the Chesapeake and Ohio National Historical Park. Randy was already across the canal, urinating on a tree next to the towpath. He turned back to locate Vin, wagging his tail in anticipation. Vin jogged across the meadow and the wooden bridge that spanned the lock, then turned south with Randy following for the three-mile run down the towpath to Swains.
Thin gravel on the towpath crunched beneath his feet, beating out a melancholy rhythm that had stalked him the last few months… thirty – five – thirty – five – thirty – five. On October 22 – tomorrow – Vin would be thirty-five. That was almost half a life and he didn’t feel like he had much to show for it. Twelve years of experience along a career path he cared less and less about. A few months severance and some stock options he’d been able to cash in as part of the buyout. A small network of family and friends scattered across New England and the west coast. And as of three weeks ago, a new city, a new place to live. With Nicky – that was one positive. And at least Nicky was sanguine about her own career. He also had a vague and inchoate sense that he belonged here, was here for a reason. He’d never lived in the mid-Atlantic before, but long-dead ancestors on his mother’s side had roamed the Maryland hills near the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers for generations. For Vin, moving here somehow seemed like coming home.
As the towpath curved clockwise in a shallow bend, he watched his shadow slide in the opposite direction, out over the leaf-spattered water of the canal. It bounced rhythmically forward over the sun-drenched and slowly drifting pool, keeping time with the thumping of his feet as he ran. Sycamores, swamp oaks, and maples soared high overhead, sending gold, green, and vermilion branches arching toward each other above the water. The arms receded along the axis of the canal but never embraced. He felt the uneven northeast breeze stiffen into an extended gust. A shower of leaves took flight and the clear skin of the canal morphed into a fingerprint of ripples. The falling leaves spun a slow descent toward their graves along the canal and the towpath, as they had for a hundred and sixty-five years.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Randy pawing at a root. For a Saturday afternoon, this stretch of the C&O Canal was surprisingly quiet, given that it was only fifteen miles from the Maryland-D.C. line. He focused on the path ahead and ran on.
Rounding a lazy bend, he saw the whitewashed stone lockhouse at Swains emerge in the distance. He jogged backward and whistled for Randy while scanning the terrain. An apron of brush and trees eased down from the towpath toward the broad Potomac River, hints of which he saw glinting in the sunlight through the trees. The towpath itself was a flat dirt ribbon, eight feet across. Low vegetation and vines sloped down a few feet from the towpath to the canal, which was forty feet wide. The wooded bank across the water rose steadily away from the canal.
Randy burst up onto the towpath from behind a tree and jogged toward Vin, tongue hanging. Medium-sized, with a short coat and silky ears, Randy looked to most people like a skinny chocolate lab. But Vin had realized years ago that there must be something else mixed in – maybe Doberman. Nicky said pit bull. Randy was panting hard when he reached Vin, who clipped the retractable leash he was carrying onto the dog’s collar. He turned downstream and they ran together for the last quarter-mile to Swains.
Like many of the old lock sites along the C&O Canal, Swains Lock provided recreational access to the towpath and the river. A small gravel parking lot was connected to the towpath by a wooden footbridge over the stone lock. Between the lot and the footbridge, a stand sold soft drinks and rented canoes during the warm months of the year. The whitewashed locktender’s house stood empty and shuttered, set back from the lock by trampled grass.
Slowing to a walk, Vin examined the parking lot as he approached the footbridge. Nicky’s wasn’t among the handful of cars, so maybe she’d been delayed at the Clinic. He hoped not, since she needed a break and they’d planned an afternoon outing together. He drew his leg up onto the railing of the footbridge to stretch his hamstring and let the leash extend so Randy could sniff the grass beside the towpath. A man and his son wheeled their bikes across the footbridge, and then two older women walked past with their dogs. Vin glanced back at Randy, who was gazing across the thinly-wooded apron toward the river.
Vin turned back to his stretching and saw a woman crossing the parking lot toward him, holding a slack leash clipped to a large dog – probably some kind of Akita-shepherd mix. The dog bobbed its head eagerly from side to side, but the woman looked straight ahead and seemed to glide forward like a cat. She wore faded jeans and a simple sweater under a purple vest, with her hair pulled back in a short ponytail. Her hiking boots were scuffed and streaked with dirt. Vin glanced up as she passed and saw a thin, faded scar descending from her left temple to the top of her cheekbone. He guessed she might be forty, maybe a little older.
A second later the towpath behind him erupted in a cacophony of canine aggression. A woman yelled “Allie – let go!” as Vin whirled to see a snarling tangle of fur and fangs where Randy had been. “Randy, no!” he yelled, sprinting back to the towpath. He retracted the leash to yank Randy back from the other dog, pulled it tight over Randy’s head, and put a foot on his hindquarters to push him into a sitting position. Randy was panting, his face and neck streaked with saliva from the other dog’s jaws. Vin angrily held his open palm directly in front of Randy’s eyes, then looked up at the woman and her dog.
“I’m really sorry. Are you OK?” His hair had fallen across his forehead and he brushed it back along with pinpricks of sweat. The woman had placed her dog into a sitting position and was stroking its withers. She looked up at Vin.
“She must have lost her mind. That’s not like her at all.”
Vin caught a trace of bemusement in her voice. “What happened?”
“Your dog came over to sniff as we walked by,” the woman said, still stroking her dog’s neck. “Allie growled and showed her fangs, but your dog kept coming. Then Allie decided she’d seen enough and jumped your dog.” Standing up, she took her hand from the dog and looked at Vin. Her eyes were grayish-green and for a moment they seemed to flit left and right as she met his gaze.
Vin approached Allie slowly and extended a hand toward the dog, fingers down. “That’s OK,” he said soothingly. “Good girl, Allie.” He let her sniff his hand, then lightly ran his fingers along the thick fur on the dog’s neck.
“I hope this is a friendly pow-wow!” called a familiar voice. He turned to see Nicky crossing the footbridge.
“It is now,” he said as she joined them. He turned back toward the woman. “By the way,” he said, extending his hand, “my name is Vin and this is Nicky.”
The woman hesitated for a second and her eyes darted quickly from Vin to Nicky and back. They steadied and she smiled. “I’m Kelsey,” she said.
“And it looks like our dogs have already introduced themselves,” Nicky said. Randy was still breathing rapidly, with his tongue hanging and flecks of saliva drying on his neck. “Did they go at it?” she asked Vin, kneeling down in front of Randy and pushing up her sleeves.