It was dark when I turned onto the back road that led to Bell's Cove. I was heading for the secluded grove of old trees near the entrance to the sound, where people parked and then hiked a short distance to the beach. Dark, when I got there, but not pitch dark. There were lights from the occasional passing car, a house across the road, a sliver of the moon. Mine was the only car in the dirt lot at the edge of the grove. I moved into the passenger seat, where there would be room on my lap for the computer, and flipped up the top, hoping it had been plugged in, the battery being charged, until I had removed it from the house. It emitted a cheery twang, and the screen got bright and busy, as if a video game was beginning, and, in a way, it was. Then it surprised me and spoke. A woman's voice said, "Welcome." I reached down to twist the top off the Jack Daniels.
In a corner of the screen was the folder icon I dreaded: JOURNAL. I took a long swallow and double-clicked on it. A window flashed onto the screen: THIS FILE IS ENCRYPTED. ENTER PASSWORD.
I typed "Ginny."
INVALID.
Susanna.
INVALID.
"Jesse."
INVALID.
"Henry." Though I knew this was unlikely.
INVALID.
"Sophy." This even more so.
REPEATED INVALID ATTEMPTS DENY ACCESS TO FILE.
I took another swig of the stuff, calling it "stuff" in my mind because I did not want to call it what it was and call what I was doing what it was. That little bit, the second swallow, surged through me in two directions, north and south, my head and the vast vicinity of my heart, which felt as if it were clenching and expanding in a parody of its normal function. I took another mouthful, because I liked the exaggeration of my heart and the numbing of everything else-my tongue, my lips, the tips of my fingers. And another, which traveled down my throat and to the back of my brain in a great burst of color, Jackson Pollock's paint or the splatter of blood on a wall from a gunshot wound. I mean to impress upon you the drama of the sensation, because it made what happened next, first the one thing, then the other, that much more intense.
The first was finding, in the right-hand corner of the screen, a folder called CORRESPONDENCE. I clicked on it, and a listing of letters appeared, organized by date, the most recent May 27, five days before the last phone call and the video rentals.
Dear Svelte, Sophisticated Sailor:
I noticed the ad you ran in the back of Sailing and thought that if you didn't mind an ace sailor still a little rocky from a divorce (that I didn't want), we might find our way to smooth seas without becoming becalmed. I am a 59-year-old retired diplomat living on Swansea, for the time being anyway, in possession of a somewhat rickety but seaworthy Valient 28' (which my wife had no patience for, though I don't think that had anything to do with the divorce). My friend who urged me to write this letter insists the protocol is to send a photo, so I'm going through a shoe box I have that-
The letter ended there. The next one was dated the same day, also addressed to the Classified Department of Sailing:
Please run the following ad for my boat in the next possible issue.
Valient 28'. Windwave, 32V130, 1977, $14,000.
The next letter was dated the day before the classified ad.
Dear Sophy:
Here's the $873 from the insurance company, as per our conversation/fight. I know you think I have been a bastard about the money, and maybe I have been. But that's what comes of all my goddam niceness, bottled up until it explodes. I never did figure out how to be more like Evan Lambert, who is too ambitious to waste time being nice, and less like myself, afraid so often, except in situations where everyone else is scared out of their wits: Vietnam in 1968; crossing the Atlantic in a 30' sailboat; at the funeral of my son. I cannot describe my condition at those times, except to say that I lose my self-consciousness, I lose the crushing fear, with me so much of the time, that I am about to fuck up. Was I born like that-poor Mick who seems to have done pretty well, but it's a house of cards, a guy who lives on Swansea, which sounds like the top of the heap, except we're not summer people, and I'm alone again? Ever since Jesse died I have tried to live with less fear, because with his death, I know I faced the most frightening thing a parent possibly could. But I don't…
The letter did not end here, but my concentration was suddenly severed by what happened next, the second thing in this series, though when I tell you, it may be hard to believe that I didn't see it coming. The truth is that this letter Will had never sent took more than all of my attention, and I didn't notice the car until it was directly beside mine. But it took only a tenth of a second, once I did, to remember the bottle, which I'd had the good sense to keep returning to the purse on the floor between my feet, not to conceal it from anyone except myself. I'd wanted to add another few steps to the process, slow it down, and thank God for that, thank God I was not sitting there swilling it like Diet Sprite, dumb, dumb girl, Jesus H. Christ. It was the State Police.
"There's no parking here after sunset." The red and yellow lights on his roof were twirling as if this were a crime scene. He had leaned into the driver's window, seen me on the other seat, and come around to my side, a large guy with a modified gut and a twangy, slightly nasal Boston accent at odds with his girth: No pahking heah, my deah.
"I didn't know that."
"Says so on the sign."
"I'm sorry. I'll-"
"What are you doing here?" Heah.
"Nothing illegal. Fooling around with my computer." I was trying to close the file and shut the thing down and sober up, with his circus lights bathing everything in surreal colors. My hand was shaky against the tracking pad, and I was trying to keep my eyes from darting down suspiciously to the purse between my feet.
"We don't see too much of this heah. In the pahking lot. On a Friday night. Computers, I mean." More wonder than condemnation in his voice. For an oversized cop, it sounded almost friendly.
When I said what I said next, I meant to sound friendly, too. "Who knows? Maybe I'll start a trend."
The screen went black and I shut the tangerine lid and moved to put it on the backseat when he asked the question that made me wish I had kept my mouth shut: "Can I see your driver's license and registration?"
I carefully fished my wallet from the purse, handed him my license, and tried not to look as if I had no idea where to find the registration. I checked the ashtray, the glove compartment. There was nothing in the stacks of papers and maps and brochures, nothing.
"Problem?"
"I borrowed this car from a friend. I'm not sure where the papers are. The circumstances are somewhat… The car belongs to Evan Lambert. You know, the lawyer? The guy who's always on TV defending the girl who-"
"It's a hundred-and-fifty-dollar ticket and three points on your record for driving with no registration, I don't care who the car belongs to."
I went through the glove compartment again and looked up at him through the window, wondering how much more it would cost if he found the bottle. Could he throw me in jail? Could I convince him that I wasn't driving while intoxicated-I was just sitting? He had jet-black hair slicked back with something shiny and a slightly squashed nose that may once have been broken. I knew that the awful truth might be my best defense. "It must have been someone in your office who called me yesterday."