The Bone House - Brian Freeman [100]
'Bradley,' the man said. 'I was wondering when you'd call me.'
Mark recognized the voice now. He wished he hadn't dialed the number. It was Peter Hoffman. The old man must have picked up his phone at the store and kept it. Instinctively, Mark's temper, which he'd tried to tame all day, flared again. He struggled to keep a lid on his emotions.
'Mr Hoffman, I'm sorry about what happened between us. Really. I hope you're OK.'
'Don't you worry about me, Bradley. I just hope that glass jaw of yours is broken.'
Mark didn't take the bait. 'I didn't call to pick up where we left off. I just want to get my phone back.'
'I've got it right here,' Hoffman said.
'I don't know why you took it with you. I wish you'd left it at the store.'
'I could have done that, but then you wouldn't have had to face me again, would you? If you want your phone back, you can come and get it.'
Mark checked his watch. The ferry was due in ten minutes. Hoffman's home wasn't far, but he doubted that he had time to go to the man's house and make it back to the port in time. He also didn't think it would be a simple matter of Hoffman handing him the phone. The man wanted another confrontation.
'I have a ferry to catch.'
'In other words, you don't have the guts to look me in the eye. I suppose tomorrow you'll send your wife to collect it.'
Mark grimaced, because that was exactly what he'd planned to do. Hilary wouldn't let him cross Hoffman's doorstep. Not with what had already happened.
'Good night, Mr Hoffman,' he said.
'Yeah, you hang up, Bradley,' the man cut in. 'Go back across Death's Door and get a good night's sleep. But let me tell you something. I already talked to that detective in Florida. He's coming to see me.'
'Good for you.'
'When he knows what I know, he'll be heading out there to arrest you, Bradley.'
Mark slapped the phone shut, cutting off the abuse from Hoffman's mouth. He got out of the truck. He smelled the approaching downpour in the thick air. He shivered and hiked to the ticket booth, where Bobby Larch slid open the window and took back his phone.
'Thanks,' Mark said.
'Whatever.'
'Is the ferry on time?'
'Bobby shook his head. 'Nah, it'll be ten to fifteen minutes late getting in.'
Mark returned to his Explorer. He switched on the radio, and the local rock station was playing a song by the Black Eyed Peas. That wasn't his kind of music, and he normally would have changed the station, but as he listened, the beat of the song thumped in his head. The refrain, repeated over and over, was the title of the song, and he found himself responding the more he listened to it.
Let's Get It Started.
That was right. He wasn't going to lie down for anyone anymore. Whatever happened would happen.
When Mark checked his watch, he saw that the ferry delay gave him time to drive to Peter Hoffman's home and see the man face to face. He pulled out of the ferry line, did a sharp U-turn, and shot through the flat ribbon of curves toward Port des Morts Drive.
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Five
The house was dead still, the way it always was.
Peter Hoffman sat at the butcher block table in his kitchen and drank whiskey straight from the bottle as he listened to the silence. His need for quiet was a holdover that he'd never been able to shake from his days in the war. He never played music. He rarely watched television. He wanted to hear exactly what was happening outside so that he could detect anything out of place. His ears were attuned to every sound that the house made, every trill of every bird, every shriek of wind, hiss of snow, and drumbeat of rain. There were times when his wife had insisted on playing symphonies on the stereo, but he'd found that he couldn't stay in the room with the noise. Since she'd died, he'd lived in silence, listening and waiting.
Forty years had passed, the war was long gone, and he still expected an enemy to come from somewhere. If they did, he'd hear them.
Hoffman had a map of Door County laid out in front of him. Next to it was the metal ring on which he kept his bulky set of keys. He held on