The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian [135]
“Michael,” she’d replied at one point when, yet again, they were arguing, “he may have stuck a knife in his stomach. He has phantom pains that are off the charts. He may have poisoned the family cat. He went berserk over a coal chute door.”
“And that door turned out to be a crypt,” he had answered, though he knew this really didn’t exonerate Chip. The man hadn’t known the Dunmores buried their son there. And so quickly he’d added, “He’s calm and reasonable now, and we don’t know if he poisoned the cat—and we probably never will. Imagine if we were discussing whether the man was competent to stand trial: Well, perhaps he wasn’t competent the night that Molly Francoeur was over at their house and he hurt himself. But you know as well as I do that a person can become competent. And he is definitely competent right now.”
Though they had argued for nearly thirty minutes—their third debate over the past five days—it was clear that she wasn’t going to budge. And neither was he.
Up ahead he saw a vehicle pulled off to the side of the road with its hazard lights flashing, and he thought about what a miserable night it was to have car trouble. He slowed as he approached and saw the car was a new-model hybrid and there was a person in a hooded yellow slicker standing beside it, waving at him with a flashlight. He coasted to a stop ahead of it, wishing his sheepskin coat was waterproof or he kept an umbrella in the backseat. But there was nothing to be done about that now, and so he braced himself for a foray into the chill rain and climbed from his car.
He saw that the individual was a tweedy, athletic-looking older man with a great shock of Robert Frost–like white hair and wire-rimmed eyeglasses, now spotted with rain. He guessed the fellow was in his late sixties or early seventies.
“Thank you so much,” the gentleman said, and Michael realized that he was shouting to be heard over the wind and the rain.
“Not a big deal. What’s the problem?” he asked. The guy must have been desperate to stand out here in the storm.
He shook his head and extended his hands, palms up, signaling his absolute befuddlement. “And there’s no cell coverage here—at least I have none,” he said.
“Yeah, I don’t, either,” Michael told him. “What happened?”
“I heard a beep and then got a mass of flashing warning lights on the dashboard. One for the ABS system, one for the battery, one for the pressure in the tires. I pulled over to turn off the car and turn it back on, hoping it was just some computer glitch that needed a restart. Nope. Now the car won’t even turn over. When I looked under the hood, I saw nothing obviously amiss.”
“Where do you live?” Michael asked. “At the very least I can give you a ride back to Franconia. Maybe something will be open there. Or you can call someone from my house. I only live about two miles up this road.”
“If it comes to that, I’ll certainly hitch a ride. Thanks a bunch. But would you mind first seeing if you can get it started? It would save us both a lot of trouble.”
Michael grinned. “My auto mechanic training begins and ends with adding wiper fluid. Sorry. You probably know a hell of a lot more about what goes on underneath the hood of a car than I do.”
“Well, maybe you’ll have better luck turning it over,” the man said, and he handed Michael the keys. “Would you mind trying? Maybe something will catch.”
“And I thought I was an optimist,” Michael said. “Get in with me and we’ll see what happens. Is the door unlocked?”
“It is,” the fellow said. Then: “I think I have some gloves in the front seat. My fingers are a little numb from the cold.” And already he was racing around the front of the car and escaping the rain in the passenger seat, where he retrieved his gloves. Michael slid in behind the steering wheel, amazed at how already the rain had soaked through his coat and sweater and shirt. He could feel the wetness against his back when he leaned against the seat in the car.
“I’m Michael,” he said as he settled in.
“John,” the older man said. “Pleasure to meet you.” Then he added, “Excuse the blankets