“You brought them here,” he said at last.
“Brought who?” I asked.
“‘Brought who, brought who,’” he mimicked. “You know who. You brought them.”
“No, no,” I protested. I had thought about it a long time, and my brain—and my conscience—refused to accept responsibility. “It has to be a coincidence.”
“No coincidence,” The sheriff insisted. “They came with you.”
And suddenly it occurred to me that he knew all there was about Alison—where she had come from and why. I told him so.
“Her name is Michael!” he shouted. “Michael Bettich!”
He was in the final stage now—assault is imminent. His face went from red to white; his lips tightened over his teeth; his eyebrows slanted forward into a frown. He closed his hands and started rocking back and forth. His eyes darted quickly to my groin, my jaw—target glances.
“Listen,” I told him, talking loud and fast now, trying to reduce the threat verbally, “only two people knew I was going to Deer Lake and why. Neither of them knew about The Harbor, neither of them knew where Alison could be found. And I wasn’t followed; there was no chance of that. No one followed me to Alison, so it had to be—”
“Her name is Michael!” the sheriff screamed and lunged at me, catching my jaw with his shoulder. His momentum pushed me against the stone wall, jamming my cuffed hands against my spine and knocking the breath out of me. One, two, three blows to my stomach and then one to my face. Then another. I turned my head with the next punch, and his hand caromed off my chin into the wall. The sheriff cried in pain as I pivoted out of his reach.
He turned quickly and swung at my head, but I bobbed and danced away. His knuckles grazed the wall. The miss made him even more furious. He moved toward me with measured steps, his hands held high. When he was in range, I lifted my right leg into the chamber and snapped a kick to his solar plexus. But with my hands cuffed behind my back, I was off balance. When he fell, so did I, landing on my shoulder. I think I hurt myself more than I hurt him. I tried to roll to my feet, but it was too late. He was on me in a hurry, pounding my head, throat, and upper chest. I used my knee to push him away but the relief was only temporary; he resumed smothering me with punches before I could even get to my knees.
I was fading fast.
“Jesus Christ!” a voice shouted. “Jesus Christ, Sheriff! What are you doing?! Jesus Christ!”
A pair of hands gripped the sheriff by his shoulders and pulled him off me. I didn’t see who they belonged to until I was able to shake the sweat and blood out of my eyes.
“Deputy Loushine,” I muttered, tasting blood in my mouth. “How good of you to come.”
“Jesus Christ!” he repeated.
“Get ’im outta here!” the sheriff shouted.
“But, Sheriff …” Loushine protested.
“Get ’im outta here!”
“He’s a material witness—”
“Get this sonuvabitch outta my county!”
I rode in the front seat of Deputy Loushine’s white 4X4. A second deputy followed close behind in my car. My hands were free, and I dabbed at my swollen, cut lip with a white handkerchief now stained pink.
“What you’re doing doesn’t make sense,” I told the deputy.
“You’re telling me,” he answered.
“Do you know who Michael Bettich is?” I asked.
“All I know about her is that she’s been living with the sheriff for over two months now,” Loushine replied. “And that’s all I need to know.”
I had to chew on that one for a while. Finally I said, “It doesn’t make sense.”
We drove without further conversation. Twenty minutes later Loushine stopped at an intersection of two county highways, crossed over, and stopped again.
It was nearing 8:50 central daylight saving time, and the sun was fading fast. Loushine sat with his eyes on the road ahead while the second deputy parked behind us, came around, and yanked open the passenger door.
“This is the county line,” Loushine announced.
“I guessed,” I told him.
I left the 4X4 and struggled to my own car. I hurt all over, and my head felt light and fluffy, but I managed to squeeze behind the steering wheel without fainting. The keys were in the ignition; the engine was running; the headlights were on. Suddenly Loushine was next to the door, squatting so that he could see my face through the window.
“Sorry ’bout this,” he said.
“To serve and to protect,” I told him. “Have a nice day.”
I steered my car more or less south, driving on automatic pilot, not knowing where I was until I saw the sign: WELCOME TO MINONG. There was something familiar about it, even in the dark. That and the county blacktop where I turned left, the gravel road where I turned right, and the dirt driveway at the end of the gravel road that I followed to a large two-story lake house.
The pain was a flashing red beacon blinking a simple message: Lie still, don’t move. I ignored the instructions and left the car, hugging my sides like a grocery bag that was threatening to burst open at the next hard jolt. I staggered to the door of the house in the light of my high beams. I immediately recognized the man who answered my knock. He recognized me, too.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, obviously confused.
“Dean, who is it?” a woman’s voice called from behind him.
I moved past the man into the hallway. The woman was wearing a flowing white robe that my wife and I had presented to her on her birthday over five years ago.
“Excuse me, Phyll. I don’t mean to intrude.…” then I collapsed at her feet.
Never let it be said that I don’t know how to make an entrance.
eighteen
A bright ceiling light was in my eyes, and a cool washcloth was on my forehead. Voices filtered through the bedroom door.
“No police,” one of the voices insisted. “Not until we know what happened.”
“Why did he come here?” asked the other voice.
“I don’t know. We’ll ask him when he wakes up.”
“Think he’s in trouble?”
“That’s my guess.”
“He looks different.”
“Honey, he’s beat up. You’d look different, too, if you were beat up.”
I heard nothing for a moment, then: “What are you doing?” my mother-in-law asked. The metallic sound of the hinge of a double barrel shotgun opening and closing punctuated her question.
“Think I’ll just take a look around.”
“Dammit, Dean, you haven’t been in the service for good long time.”
“Honey. Once a marine, always a marine.”
I woke up tired and sore, remembering vaguely a dream in which I was running naked through the forest, chased by a bear wearing a sheriff’s badge. I couldn’t remember if he caught me or not, and then I moved. Oh, yeah! He’d caught me.
The washcloth was still damp and resting on the pillow next to my head. I carried it from the bedroom to the kitchen. Phyllis Bernelle was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee, a black briefcase opened in front of her. Her head jerked up at my entrance.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“How do I look?”
“Like someone beat you up.”
“That’s how I feel.”
I sat across from her, and she poured me a steaming mug of coffee, French almond, one of my favorites. It had been Laura’s mother who first introduced me to the pleasures of coffee made from beans you grind yourself.
“Are you hungry? Do you want some breakfast?”
I shook my head. I doubted my stomach could handle the job.
Phyllis was dressed in a simple sports jacket over a white shirt and blue jeans. That was another one of the things I liked about her. She dressed like me.