Serial Uncut - J. A. Konrath [55]
Sal dropped his pole next to his feet and gripped the sides of the boat, moving his body against the pitch and yaw. When capsizing ceased to be a fear, Sal squinted at the helicopter for a tag, a marking, some sort of ID, but it lacked both writing and numbers. It might as well have been a black ghost.
Three heartbeats later the helicopter had crossed the thousand yard expanse of lake and dipped down over the tree line on the opposite shore. What was a helicopter doing in Safe Haven? Especially at night? Why was it flying so low? And why did it appear to have landed near his house?
Then came the explosion.
He felt it a moment after he saw it. A vibration in his feet, as if someone had hit the bow with a bat. Then a soft warm breeze on his face, carrying mingling scents of burning wood and gasoline. The cloud of flames and smoke went up at least fifty feet.
After watching for a moment, Sal retrieved his pole and reeled in his lure, then pulled the starter cord on his 7.5 horsepower Evinrude. The motor didn’t turn over. The second and third yank yielded similar results. Sal swore and began to play with the choke, wondering if Maggie was scared by the crash, hoping she was all right.
Maggie Morton awoke to what she thought was thunder. Storms in upper Wisconsin could be as mean as anywhere on earth, and in the twenty-six years they’d owned this house she and Sal had to replace several cracked windows and half the roof due to weather damage.
She opened her eyes, listened for the dual accompaniment of wind and rain. Strangely, she heard neither.
Maggie squinted at the red blur next to the bed, groped for her glasses, pushed them on her face. The blur focused and became the time: 10:46
“Sal?” she called. She repeated it, louder, in case he was downstairs.
No answer. Sal usually fished until midnight, so his absence didn’t alarm her. She considered flipping on the light, but investigating the noise that woke her held much less appeal than the soft down pillow and the warm flannel sheets tucked under her chin. Maggie removed her glasses, returned them to the night stand, and went back to sleep.
The sound of the front door opening roused her sometime later.
“Sal?”
She listened to the footfalls below her, the wooden floors creaking. First in the hallway, and then into the kitchen.
“Sal!” Louder this time. After thirty-five years of marriage, her husband’s ears were just one of many body parts that seemed to be petering out on him. Maggie had talked to him about getting a hearing aid, but whenever she brought up the topic he smiled broadly and pretended not to hear her, and they both wound up giggling. Funny, when they were in the same room. Not funny when they were on different floors and Maggie needed his attention.
“Sal!”
No answer.
Maggie considered banging on the floor, and wondered what the point would be. She knew the man downstairs was Sal. Who else could it be?
Right?
Their lake house was the last one on Gold Star Road, and their nearest neighbor, the Kinsels, resided over half a mile down the shore and had left for the season. The solitude was one of the reasons the Mortons bought this property. Unless she went to town to shop, Maggie would often go days without seeing another human being, not counting her husband. The thought of someone else being in their home was ridiculous.
Reassured by that thought, Maggie closed her eyes.
She opened them a moment later, when the sound of the microwave carried up the stairs. Then came the muffled machine-gun report of popcorn popping. Sal shouldn’t be eating at this hour. The doctor had warned him about that, and how it aggravated his acid reflux disease, which in turn aggravated Maggie with his constant tossing and turning