Jeffrey Deaver - Triangle

“Welcome to Baltimore, where the local time is twelve-twenty-five,” the flight attendant said. “Please remain in your seat with the seat belt fastened until the plane has come to a complete stop and the pilot has turned off the Fasten Seat Belt sign. Thank you. ”

The medical examiner estimated that Hank was traveling eighty miles an hour when he struck the ground and that death was virtually instantaneous.

Welcome to Baltimore.

Doug met him at the airport. Shook his hand. “How you doing, buddy?” Doug asked. “Okay.”

This was so weird. Spending the weekend with a man that Mo knew so well and Pete hardly knew at all.

Going hiking with somebody he hardly knew at all.

Going to kill somebody he hardly knew at all.

He walked along beside Doug.

“I need a beer and some crabs,” Doug said as they got into his car. “You hungry?”

“Sure am.”

They stopped at the waterfront and went into an old dive. The place stunk. It smelled like the cleanser Mo used on the floor when Randolf, their Labrador retriever puppy, made a mess on the carpet.

Doug whistled at the waitress before they’d even sat down. “Hey, honey, think you can handle two real men?” He gave her the sort of grin Pete’d seen Doug give Mo a couple of times. Pete looked away, somewhat embarrassed but plenty disgusted.

When they started to eat Doug calmed down, though that was more likely the beers. Like Mo got after her third glass of Gallo in the evenings. Doug had at least three that Pete counted and maybe a couple more after them.

Pete wasn’t saying much. Doug tried to be cheerful. He talked and talked but it was just garbage. Pete didn’t pay any attention.

“Maybe I’ll give my girlfriend a call,” Doug said suddenly. “See if she wants to join us.”

“You have a girlfriend? What’s her name?”

“Uhm, Cathy,” he said.

The waitress’s name tag said: Hi. I'm Cathleen.

“That’d be fun,” Pete said.

“She might be going out of town this weekend.” He avoided Pete’s eyes. “But I’ll call her later.”

“Pete's only smart when it comes to computers and baseball. He's stupid about everything else. ”

Finally Doug looked at his watch and said, “So what do you feel like doing now?”

Pete pretended to think for a minute and asked, “Anyplace we can go hiking around here?”

“Hiking?”

“Like any mountain trails?”

Doug finished his beer, shook his head. “Naw, nothing like that that I know of.”

Pete felt rage again-his hands were shaking, the blood roaring in his ears-but he covered it up pretty well and tried to think. Now what was he going to do? He’d counted on Doug agreeing to whatever he wanted. He’d counted on a nice high cliff.

But then Doug continued, “But if you want to be outside, one thing we could do, maybe, is go hunting.”

“Hunting?”

“Nothing good’s in season now,” Doug said. “But there’s always rabbits and squirrels. ”

“Well-”

“I’ve got a couple of guns we can use.”

Guns?

Pete said, “Okay. Let’s go hunting.”

“You shoot much?” Doug asked him.

“Some.”

In fact, Pete was a good shot. His father had taught him how to load and clean guns and how to handle them. (“Never point it at anything unless you’re prepared to shoot it.”)

But Pete didn’t want Doug to know he knew anything about guns, so he let the man show him how to load the little.22 and how to pull the slide to cock it and where the safety was.

I’m a much better actor than Mo.

They were in Doug’s house, which was pretty nice. It was in the woods and it was a big house, all full of stone walls and glass. The furniture wasn ’ t like the cheap things Mo and Pete had. It was mostly antiques.

Which depressed Pete even more, made him angrier, because he knew that Mo liked money and she liked people who had money even if they were idiots like Doug. When Pete looked at Doug’s beautiful house he knew that if Mo ever saw it she’d want Doug even more. Then he wondered if she had seen it. Pete had gone to Wisconsin a few months ago. Maybe Mo had come down here to spend the night with Doug.

“So,” Doug said. “Ready?”

“Where’re we going?” Pete asked.

“There’s a good field about a mile from here. It’s not posted. Anything we can hit we can take.”

“Sounds good to me,” Pete said.

They got into the car and Doug pulled onto the road.

“Better put that seat belt on,” Doug warned. “I drive like a crazy man. ”

The field looked familiar to Pete.

As Doug laced up his boots, Pete realized why it was familiar. It was almost identical to a field in White Plains, the one across the highway from the elementary school. The only difference was that this one was completely quiet; the New York field was noisy. You heard a continual stream of traffic.

Pete was looking around.

Not a soul.

“What?” Doug asked, and Pete realized that the man was staring at him.

“Pretty quiet.”

And deserted. No witnesses.

“Nobody knows about this place. I found it by my little old lonesome.” Doug said this real proudly, as if he’d discovered a cure for cancer. “Lessee.” He lifted his rifle and squeezed off a round.

Crack…

He missed a can sitting about thirty feet away.

“Little rusty,” he said. “But, hey, aren’t we having fun?”

“Sure are,” Pete answered.

Doug fired again, three times, and hit the can on the last shot. It leapt into the air. “There we go!”

Doug reloaded and they started through the tall grass and brush.

They walked for five minutes.

“There,” Doug said. “Can you hit that rock over there?”

He was pointing at a white rock about twenty feet from them. Pete thought he could have hit it but he missed on purpose. He emptied the clip.

“Not bad,” Doug said. “Came close the last few shots.” Pete knew he was being sarcastic.

“So, what? We go to a ball game together? ”

“No, it's got to be more than that. Ask him to come visit you. ”

“Oh, that 'd be fun. ”

Pete reloaded and they continued through the grass.

“So,” Doug said. “How’s she doing?”

“Fine. She’s fine.”

Whenever Mo was upset and Pete’d ask her how she was she’d say, “Fine. I’m fine.”

Which didn’t mean fine at all. It meant: I don’t feel like telling you anything. I’m keeping secrets from you.

They stepped over a few fallen logs and started down a hill.

The grass was mixed with blue flowers and daisies. Mo liked to garden and was always driving up to the nursery to buy plants. Sometimes she’d come back without any and Pete began to wonder if on those trips she was really seeing Doug instead. He got angry again. Hands sweaty, teeth grinding together.

“She get her car fixed?” Doug asked. “She was saying that there was something wrong with the transmission. ”

How’d he know that? The car broke down only four days ago. Had Doug been there and Pete didn’t know it?

Doug glanced at Pete and repeated the question.

Pete blinked. “Oh, her car? Yeah, it’s okay. She took it in and they fixed it.”

But then he felt better because that meant they hadn't talked yesterday or she would have told Doug about getting the car fixed.

On the other hand, maybe Doug was lying to him now. Making it look as if she hadn’t told him about the car when they really had talked.

Pete looked at Doug’s pudgy face and couldn’t decide whether to believe him or not. He looked sort of innocent but Pete had learned that people who seemed innocent were sometimes the most guilty. Roy, the husband in the Triangle book, had been a church choir director. From the smiling photo in the book, you’d never guess he’d kill a soul.