The Kills

33

The view from my bedroom's French doors out over the lawn that sloped down to the pond was a muted palette of grays and greens, moistened by a steady rainfall. Trees and tall grasses seemed colored by a dull assortment of Crayolas, and the pale sky hung heavily overhead. Only the whitecaps in the distance suggested that this calm before the storm would kick up and show its stuff within a few hours.

I drove to the Chilmark Store for coffee and the Times, and to reassure myself that there were plenty of people I knew who wouldn't be all that far away if Hurricane Gretchen packed her anticipated wallop.

"I'm running low on candles and flashlight batteries," Primo said. The owner was restocking his shelves with storm supplies. "Better take plenty while you're here, Alex. I'm closing early."

I picked up a fistful of C batteries, extra matches, boxes of candles, and rolls of masking tape and took them to the checkout counter. "Can you put this on my tab?"

"Sure. Need a hand with anything out your way?" Primo asked.

"I'm all set, thanks. This should do it. Would you save me a newspaper in the morning?"

"If they get to the island, Alex. Steamship Authority's gonna stop the ferries if the swells get real big."

"Of course," I said, embarrassed about forgetting how these self-sufficient islanders were cut off from all normal services whenever Mother Nature got angry.

I was back in the house at eight-thirty, and tried to find Jake, to apologize. Voice mail answered at his home, his cell phone, and the office. Maybe he was mimicking my habit of screening calls, or maybe he was paying me back for last night. Could he have really thought I was keeping him away because I was settled in here with someone else?

"Hey, it's me. Horatio Hornblower," I told his recorded message. Jake loved to make fun of my bright yellow foul-weather gear, and here I was pulling the rubberized hood back up over my head to go out and haul the deck furniture into the barn. "Call me when you get a chance, okay? I'm trying to hunker down for the storm. Miss you."

I went through the old summer kitchen, refitted as an office, and out the side entrance that led to the sheep barn, built more than a century ago. I pulled open the door and surveyed the space. The Gravely and mower took up a third of it, while the workbench and Adam's antique tool collection stretched along two complete walls. I shuffled around some of the gardening equipment to make room for everything that needed to come inside.

I spent the next two hours ferrying recliners, chairs, and tables from the rear decks around the building into the barn. I had been here for too many storms to risk chancing the results of Hurricane Gretchen's fury-chairs lifted and blown hundreds of yards away, and tables hurled against the side of the house, shattering windows and spreading glass all over the interior floors.

At eleven o'clock, I paused to make a cup of hot chocolate and sit at the kitchen table to dry out and listen to the radio. The marine forecast issued alerts for gale-force winds, and news bulletins tracked the eye of the storm as it buffeted the Connecticut coastline. Flooding and downed electrical lines had already caused five deaths in the New York area.

I put my slicker on again and circled the property for a last check. The wind was picking up, and I walked down to the edge of the wildflower field to recover the bird feeders. The last cosmos that stood amid the elephant grass were losing their heads to the elements, and the rain swept away small flecks of white and fuchsia petals.

My caretaker's cottage, beyond the rise at the foot of the hill, looked snug and tight. It was two small rooms, an old Menemsha fisherman's shack that once stood on the dock and had been moved up here in the sixties, before Adam and I bought the place. Now charmingly redecorated, it was home to an islander who maintained the property for me in exchange for a year-round residence.

Back inside, I hung up the rain jacket on a hook, stepped out of my boots, and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. I tried again to find Jake, with no better luck, and decided against leaving more messages.

A fresh cord of dry firewood was stacked in the bin beside the rear door, and another neat pile was in the fireplace, ready to be lighted. I knelt on the granite hearth and placed a match against the thin pine starters beneath the sturdy logs, watching the flames take and spread. I was ready to give up rock and roll in favor of some Beethoven piano concerti, music that I hoped would soothe and calm me.

Now the wind howled at the top of the chimney, drawing up the smoke and carrying it away. I stood and looked outside, watching the tall evergreens bend and sway with the pounding gusts that swept the hilltop.

The rolls of tape were in the kitchen, and I made the rounds of the rooms, standing on a chair to place X 's across the glass, corner to corner, on each of the enormous panes that afforded me such a glorious view.

As I balanced myself on my tiptoes in the bedroom, I heard a loud banging noise coming from the opposite side of the house. The tape dropped from my hand and rolled across the floor. I climbed down from the chair and followed after it. Retracing my steps through the kitchen and hallway, I found the front door open and swinging wildly as huge drafts of air pressed against it.

When I was at home, I rarely locked the doors. But the booming noise was so jarring that I pushed the door shut and turned the bolt. I circled the house, making sure the side entrance and the other two doors leading out onto the expansive rear deck were fastened as well, before going back to taping the glass.

Fierce weather spooked the animals. I was used to seeing that here in the country. Cottontail rabbits that usually didn't appear until dusk were skittering across the lawn. A family of skunks huddled against each other under the leeward side of a beach plum tree. Flocks of birds were fighting the wind in an effort to steer themselves south.

I was just as unsettled as the wild creatures. Somehow this old farmhouse had weathered scores and scores of storms, but now a cedar shingle ripped loose from the barn roof and flung itself against the window, reminding me that the glass was all that stood between me and the approaching squall.

Again, I paced around the house, checking windowsills for places that had leaked before, and laying old beach towels beneath them. When I returned to the living room, I fixed myself a spicy Bloody Mary, switched on the radio to track the storm, reached for an old copy of Sterne's Tristram Shandy in the bookshelf behind the fireplace, and settled onto the sofa to relax, read, and wait for Gretchen.

I must have fallen asleep, aided by the warm combination of the alcohol and fire. A loud thud right behind my head startled me awake. A large bird, some sort of grackle, had become disoriented and crashed against the pane. Dazed for a few seconds, it picked itself up and flew off with a few taunting squawks.

The day had changed. It was after three o'clock, and the sky had turned from a pastel gray to a deep black. Everything in the landscape was atilt, yielding to the power of the wind that was gusting at almost seventy miles an hour, according to the local newscaster.

For the next half hour, I felt as though I were on an amusement park ride that wouldn't stop to let me off. Objects swirled around outside and thumped against the roof and sides of the house. Tree branches snapped in half with a terrible cracking sound and slapped at my taped windows. I moved to sit on the floor in the middle of the room, fully expecting a limb or bough to hurtle itself through the glass and impale me against the sofa's cushion.

It was exactly 4:05 in the afternoon when the flickering lights went out and the electricity went dead. No radio, no music, no quiet hum of kitchen appliances. The interior darkness mirrored the weather, and I inched closer to the fireplace to add more logs to my only source of warmth and light.

I had flashlights at the ready in every room. I turned one on and tried to continue to read, but the drama outside the window made reading impossible.

The storm raged for more than an hour. The strange noises of nature's destructive forces had unnerved me. Old wooden floor-boards creaked and groaned, damp drizzle seeped in through cracks in doors and window sashes, squalls pounded against every surface of the house.

And something moved up above me. Footsteps in the empty second-floor bedrooms? I took the flashlight and followed the beam up the staircase. Squirrels, probably, or field mice. Had to be some frisky critter that had found its way inside or burrowed under the attic eaves.

I checked from room to room, but all seemed fine. I shined the ray into the bathroom, and highlighted a spider on the outer window screen, clinging to an iridescent web as the wind tried to tear it from its hold. Standing at the top of the stairs, I could hear the pitter-patter of small-clawed feet echoing over my head. Whatever was in the attic could spend the night. I wasn't going up to investigate.

Now there seemed to be a distinct tapping coming from below me. I took three steps down and listened again. It was pitch-black, save for the narrow path of light leading from my hand. Lilac bushes stood outside the door. Their bare, hearty branches must have been scraping against the old six-over-six windows on the house's facade.

I returned to the living room and tried to settle down again.

Still there was something besides noise that was disturbing me. There were shadows, too. I hadn't put enough vodka in my drink three hours earlier to distort my vision, but ghostly shapes seemed to move back and forth along the length of the rear deck. I would have offered shelter to almost any form of animal life, but not to these weird, unwelcome dancing phantoms.

Maybe the bedroom was a better place to be. Careful not to trip over chair legs or stools, I made my way through the house. Too much glass, I told myself. I couldn't shake the eerie feeling that someone was looking in at me. Was I foolish to want to climb back upstairs to one of the guest rooms and snuggle under a quilt, out of range if someone wandered onto the property? How stupid to be afraid in my own home.

I pulled the chaise longue away from the foot of my bed into a corner of the room, flipped open my cell phone, and punched in Jake's number. A mechanical operator told me the call I wanted to place could not be completed as dialed. I tried Jake again before dialing Mike. The problem was clearly on my end, so I gave up.

I rested my head against a small pillow my mother had needle-pointed for me, just as a violent spasm brought something crashing through what I thought must be one of the kitchen windows. I jumped to my feet and ran through my office to get to the large, open room, trying not to let my agitation overcome my wits. Why hadn't I gotten extra small batteries for the radio when I was at the store? Why had I wanted to ride out a hurricane in the first place?

One of the window boxes that hung outside beneath the sill had been thrown up through the glass and onto the floor with enormous force. Wet topsoil was everywhere, and blustery air charged into the room behind the wooden missile, which had overturned and landed beneath the dining table.

I looked up and thought I saw someone running on the slick lawn at the bottom of the steps that led down from the deck. Maybe it hadn't been the wind that had torn the flower box from its mooring and sailed it inside. Maybe I wasn't imagining the shapes and shadows around me after all.

Why wouldn't someone have knocked on the door if he or she wanted to get inside? I picked up the landline telephone to see whether it was working, but since the portable models were now run on electricity, too, the phone was dead. Back to the front door. I was nervous and edgy, checking to see whether someone had driven in from the road, looking for help. With the house looking so dark and quiet, it was possible that a person approaching it would think no one was at home.

A terrible rattling started again, now from the French doors in my bedroom. I slinked through the narrow hallway, clutching the banister to steady myself. There was a distinct outline of a body against the tall glass pane. Someone was trying desperately to get inside the house.

Should I call out to my unexpected visitor and let him know that I was indeed in residence? No. Not a good idea. I remembered the plume of smoke that must have been pouring out of the chimney. Forget the house's quiet and the darkness, of course an interloper would know I was in here. This was not someone looking for my help. Whoever it was wanted to scare me to death before he showed himself.

The noise stopped. I turned off the flashlight and crouched in the area behind the staircase, not visible from any of the windows. All I could hear was the crackling of the logs shifting in the fireplace as they charred and burned.

Then another blast of broken glass. This time it sounded like it was coming from the living room. I had taped the giant picture window, but not the small panes in the door that opened onto the deck. Had the wind propelled something through the narrow space or was there really someone intent on breaking in? My gut told me it was the latter.

I crawled twelve feet to the front entrance, lifting my arm over my head to feel for the small brass lock and twisting it gently 180 degrees. I paused, and heard what I thought was a jiggling noise that might have been the door handle back in the bedroom. I wanted out.

Hoping that my visitor's attention was fixed on the house's rear side, I pulled at the knob and opened the door wide enough to slip through, still squatting, onto a patch of dirt between the lilac bushes as branches scratched at my cheeks and snagged my hair. The rain was pouring down, and within seconds I was soaked, my moccasins squishing in the cold mud.

I had choices now: I could try to run into the wooded area that ringed my property against the traditional stone walls, or go out the driveway and try to find cover in the yard of either of my neighbors, more than half an acre away at the closest point. Both were summer families whose houses were locked up for the winter months.

But if my burglar had arrived by car, and if there was an accomplice waiting to drive him away, that direction might prove disastrous.

There was only one way to go. The caretaker's cottage was down the steep hill, not even visible from the main house. It would be locked, I knew, but I also knew that there was a crawl space beneath it, rather than a real foundation. It rested on pilings and concrete since early house owners had moved it up from Dutcher Dock. After Adam was killed, I had never gotten around to having it rebuilt, as we had once planned.

I ran to the far end of the main house but couldn't make out anyone from my position behind a stand of hydrangea bushes. Trees were blowing and bending with the wind, and everywhere the shadows danced and took on human form. I was wet and tired and scared. I wanted to click my heels so that the storm would end and I could wind up safely back in Kansas at Auntie Em's farm.

I heard the front door of the house banging furiously behind me. If my tracker could hear it, it would draw him around to see what was making such a racket. Now was my chance to sprint, running downhill, taking care not to fall and slide on the slippery grass. I reached the far side of the small shack and stopped again to catch my breath, fearing that he might hear my heaving gasps.

I lifted my head above the clothesline to see whether I could spot anyone, but I could barely make out the main house's shape through the fog and mist. I would be safe here if he didn't know the property well enough to realize that this little cottage existed.

On my hands and knees I crawled for the hole behind the three steps that bordered the deck railing. I found it and began to slither inside. If someone thought to search down here, I would be hidden completely beneath a sodden blanket of wet leaves. That was a trade-off, then, for bellying down with whatever spiders and snakes and rodents lived in this underground outpost.

I tried not to think about my possible companions and I covered myself as best I could. For more than fifteen minutes, I flattened myself against the ground, listening to my heartbeat, hearing nothing but fierce air currents whooshing over and around my head.

Then suddenly, I heard what sounded like padded footsteps on the thick, wet grass. I was lying on my stomach, my head turned to the side away from the house. I dared not move to look up at my intruder.

I stared straight ahead, frozen in place.

Suddenly the pattering sound stopped. Whoever was coming had put on brakes just a few feet from where I lay.

I smelled the creature before I saw it. Whoever had scared me had also frightened a mother skunk and her brood. She released her rank spray in the direction of the main house before creeping in with them to join me in my lair.