Off Season - Jack Ketchum [18]
And now she wondered, Just who the hell am I to be coming down on any of these people?
She settled back next to Dan and thought and watched the tarmac roll by.
“Anybody else hungry?” Dan asked later.
“Me,” said Jim. “It’s after two and we haven’t stopped since breakfast. God, find someplace!”
“There’s fruit in the bag,” said Marjie.
“Fruits everywhere,” said Laura, turning a page.
“‘Lured to His Death by Homicidal Homo,’ huh?” said Nick.
“Right,” said Laura.
Dan flicked a cigarette butt out the window. “I need something substantial,” he said. “How about stopping before too long?”
“Fine with me,” said Nick. He could stand something too, he thought. Especially now that they were in Maine and you could get a good cheap lobster. He hoped nobody would insist on some fast-food joint in order to make time. They’d been riding long enough to take a good long break for lunch. Carla wasn’t expecting them at any particular hour, anyway.
“How about a seafood place?” he suggested.
“Great idea,” said Dan.
Nick passed one exit and then another until he saw the little knife-and-fork sign along the highway. He turned off at Kennebunk and prayed it would not turn out to be Howard Johnson’s. It wasn’t. The roadside was lined with seafood places on both sides. He braked and proceeded slowly.
“Take your pick,” he said.
“Captain’s Table looks okay.”
“How about the Golden Anchor?”
“Shit, anything,” said Dan.
Nick pointed off to the right. “How about that one?” he said. “The Norseman.”
“Waiters in skins with horns on their heads,” Laura said. “You drink out of gourds and helmets.”
Marjie laughed. “Not out here,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Dan, “back in New York is where you find that shit.”
“I forgot,” said Laura. “This is the country. This place is fucking civilized.”
He pulled in and cut the motor.
2:55 P.M.
“How is she?” Peters asked.
He nearly had to shout. As usual, the station was noisy as a kennel. He shifted his weight in the black swivel chair. He stared up at Sam Shearing and scowled. “Close the door,” he said.
“Hospital says she’s still under sedation,” said Shearing. He stepped into the office and blew his nose into a handkerchief.
“Got a cold, Sam?” asked Peters.
“Little one.” Shearing shrugged.
“What else do they say?”
“They think she’ll come out of it okay,” said Shearing. “Suffering mostly from exposure, I guess. And of course those crabs did quite a job on her.”
Peters winced. The crabs were the part that disgusted him. Seems they had been at her legs for hours before the lobster boat had sighted her. Tough little woman, she was. Delirious and near unconscious and only half-alive, yet still holding onto those rocks, still mean-minded.
“Any word on the wounds on her face and back?
“Looks like she was running through the woods,” said Shearing. “They picked particles of bark out of the wounds. Birch.”
Peters grunted. “That must have been a hell of a run,” he said. “I figure some of those cuts to be half an inch deep.”
“Doctors say deeper than that. Nearly an inch, some of them.”
“It don’t scan,” said Peters. “You don’t get hurt like that and keep running long. Not unless you got a bear after you.”
“Maybe she did.”
“Sure. And maybe she was facing that bear too, staring right at him while she was running backward away from the sonofabitch. That how you explain those wounds on her back?”
“Guess not, George.”
“Guess not. I figure somebody was running along right behind her, beatin’ at her. Those wounds have the look of a whipping to me.”
Shearing sniffled. “Not much we can do until she gets