John Gapper - A Fatal Debt

I thought about my options and realized I didn’t have many. He was parked on top of the slope, cutting off the road down to the highway, and there was no one in the building to shield me. My car was a beacon signaling where I was. If I tried to get back in it and drive, I’d have to head either straight toward him or to the left along the dirt track and into the trees. He could easily seal the path behind me if I did that. Jogging back to the airstrip, I looked around for some means of escape. I couldn’t run on the tarmac, for I would be starkly visible on the flat landscape and he could catch me in his car. I looked to my right and saw a ditch by the side of the field that ran toward the trees. That ditch was the only cover I had.

I started up the hill, half running with my head down, hoping that he wouldn’t spot me. It was muddy and stony and I stumbled and half fell a few times, but I was making progress when I glanced over my right shoulder to see the Mercedes roar into life, speeding up the hill parallel with me. When it reached the brow, the door opened and a man in his twenties tumbled out and sprinted across the field toward me. My pursuer was tall and blond, and he covered ground very rapidly. He was solidly built, with wide shoulders and a thick waist, and stared at me as he ran as if he had plans to crush me. The good news was that he didn’t seem to be carrying a weapon. The bad news was that he didn’t look as though he needed one.

All I could think of was to keep going, to reach the woods. Maybe I’d lose him in the forest, where his size would give him trouble. I coughed and choked as I scrambled to make cover, but it was useless. He tackled me five yards from the trees. I felt his weight on me, as I had in Central Park, and we toppled into the undergrowth. He grabbed me in a headlock and dragged me roughly across the ground. The pressure on my neck was brutal; I thrashed wildly to force myself free.

He was hauling me into the forest, out of reach of rescue. I tried to shout, but only gurgles emerged from my mouth. Then we were in the trees and I felt one of my feet catch in a root. It only made him yank my shoulders harder, and I felt a shooting pain in my ankle as my foot sprang free. He dragged me ten yards into a clearing covered in leaves and twigs, and I felt the pressure slacken on my neck as he let me drop to the ground. I bent over, reaching for my neck, and as I did so, he kicked me in the ribs, as if finishing his assault. I shuddered with the pain of it and looked up at my assailant.

The last time I’d come across him, it had been dark and I hadn’t caught sight of his face. Now I saw him. He had blue eyes and a lean face with his mother’s nose. His blond hair was streaked and tousled as if he didn’t bother to keep it trimmed. He and Anna would have made a nice couple , I thought as he stood above me, panting with the effort he had put into pummeling me. It had come to me the night before, as I’d read about the Greene family. Their son, who worked at a hedge fund in New York after being shunted through the Ivy League, was called Nathan. It was just uncommon enough a name that I could remember the last time I’d heard it-from Anna, as she’d talked of her old boyfriend.

He was borderline, my therapist reckoned. He hooked me, and then made me suffer for loving him , she’d said.

Having witnessed the intimacy between her and Margaret Greene, I knew that was who it was. It had to be. Who else would have followed me after my meeting with Anna and trashed my apartment? It had to be someone with a grudge, and Nathan Greene had several. He had not only seen his old girlfriend kissing me, but he knew me as the psych who’d let Harry out of the hospital to kill his father. I’d remembered Rebecca’s old dress, slashed through from shoulders to waist. He must have believed it was Anna’s.

I had just enough time for the thoughts to pass through my head before Nathan dropped onto me, his knees pinning my shoulders to the ground and his body knocking away my breath. He put his hands around my neck in a throttle grip and squeezed. I was immobilized-his weight was enough to eliminate any thought of being able to struggle free-and I strained for breath.

“Murderer!” he shouted.

On his tortured face, I saw something that gave me hope. He was weeping. Tears were running out of his eyes and down his nose, and a couple dripped on the ground. He doesn’t want to kill me , I thought. He doesn’t know what he’s doing . I was only barely conscious, and I knew I didn’t have much time left. I summoned what energy I had and thrust my head sharply to one side while pushing up with my shoulders to release his grip.

“Nathan!” I cried weakly. “Nathan. Stop.”

He reached forward and reengaged his grip on my throat. He started to squeeze again, but then his hands went slack and he seemed to pull back. He was still sitting on me, but as I turned my face upward, his hands were covering his face and he was shuddering with emotion, the hostility leaking out of him like his tears.

“I’m sorry, Nathan,” I said, spluttering and trying to spit a piece of twig out of my mouth. “I didn’t kill your father. I’m sorry.”

He cuffed my head with one hand, but there was no force in the blow-the assault was over. Then I felt his weight lift off me and he sat on the forest floor with his knees up and his arms wrapped around his legs and sobbed to himself without speaking. I got my breath back and then sat up myself. My ankle still hurt badly and my throat felt sore, but I was otherwise all right. We stayed like that in those woods, the two of us, for fifteen minutes, not talking, letting the panic subside, and then we walked to his car-me limping on my damaged ankle.

It took a little while for him to start talking about why he’d fixated on me as the cause of everything that had gone wrong in his life. When he did, the truth spilled out unchecked for over an hour. I sat there listening as I’d been trained to do, interjecting occasionally to try to convince him I was innocent-although I wasn’t sure I was. He was only a few years younger than me, but he seemed like a child. I felt sorry for him. He’d been exploited to hide the truth about Greene’s death. I almost liked him, although he had inherited his father’s arrogance. He needed therapy, but I wasn’t going to volunteer. The best I could offer was to forget about his twin assaults and having trashed my apartment.

It was quiet there-there wasn’t anybody around. Once I heard the sound of an engine from the airfield, and I looked over to see a small plane landing in the distance. Otherwise, we were by ourselves. If he’d really meant to kill me, I’d taken him to a perfect spot.

After we’d finished, I made him promise to drive back to the city and wait for my call. The resistance had gone out of him, and I trusted him to do what I advised. My ankle was hurting and he drove me to where my car was parked, still alone in the lot. I steered it down through the woods to the highway and headed toward the woman who’d made me his target.

When I reached the entrance to the lane, I halted the car and got out, standing where Bruce Bradley had stood that day. To my left was the road to the sea, with surf now being blown from green waves. The beach was empty, as usual. The hedges and flowers along the lane were verdant, and blossoms had cascaded from a sculpted tree in the front yard of a home nearby, carpeting the lawn and drive.

Halfway along the lane, a line of contractors’ vehicles were parked outside a house at which someone was having work done. Mostly, there was silence-interrupted only by the wind whistling in the telephone wires and the distant roar of the sea. I squinted along the lane at the Shapiros’ house but couldn’t see any sign of life. I tried to imagine the view as it would have been that Sunday, the lane jammed with police vehicles. Pagonis and Hodge would be picking up Harry to take him to Yaphank.