Wintertide: A Novel (17 page)

I nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

Not five minutes after my mother
pulled out of the driveway, Seth pulled up in his mother’s car. I opened the front
door and then stepped back away from the cold air.

"Is she gone?" he asked
as he came inside.

"She went to the grocery store.
I think we have at least an hour."

"Good.” He brushed past me and
walked into the kitchen. "You got anything to drink?"

I followed closely behind. I had on
my pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt. "Help yourself."

He went to the refrigerator and
pulled out a soda. Then he popped the top and sat down at the kitchen table.
When I sat across from him, I noticed Seth push his chair back. "No
offense,” he said. “I've got enough problems. I don't need a cold on top of
everything else."

Seth gulped down more soda,
scrubbed his hands over his face and then said, “Eddie got into my house last
night. I woke up to find him standing there, over my bed, looking down at me.”

This information rid me of any
lingering grogginess. I leaned forward, resting my arms on the table. The idea
of waking up and seeing Eddie in my room was beyond creepy. “How did he get in?
What did he want?”

“Basement window, I think. It’s
been broken for a while. After I recovered from the heart attack he gave me, he
told me that he can’t let the police find him until he knows that we’re going
to back up his story.”

“So, he knows they’re looking for
him.”

Seth nodded. “Yeah. And he doesn’t
understand what the big deal is. Why we can’t just say that we were with him at
the sea cliff after we left the bar.”

“Because we weren’t.”

Seth downed the rest of the soda
before his eyes met mine again. “I think we should say we were.”

I snorted out a laugh and sat back
in my chair. I knew he would do this. I knew that all his talk about us
sticking together and Eddie being on his own was bullshit. I was the one on my
own. Again.

“What?” Seth asked, angry now.

I only shook my head at him.

“You’re making a mistake, Dan.
Crossing Eddie is a very bad idea.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What
does that mean?”

He stood up abruptly, pushing his
chair across the floor. “Look, he told me that I’d better get you on board or
he would.”

I found myself laughing at that.
This whole situation was too crazy. My reaction just inflamed Seth more. “Are
you fucking listening to me?” he yelled now.

“You’re screaming in my face. I
can’t help but listen, can I?”

“You need to take this seriously.”

My churning emotions propelled me
out of my chair. I walked over to the sink to put some distance between us.
What the hell had I been thinking for the past few days? That this whole thing
would just disappear leaving me unscathed? “What’s he going to do?” I asked,
turning back to him. “Beat me up?”

Seth pushed his hands deep into his
pockets. “No. Worse.”

“Worse?”

“He’s going to tell them you did
it.”

I blinked at him. I couldn’t
believe I was hearing this crazy bullshit again. “He’s going to tell them I did
it?”

Seth just looked at me.

“Why would anyone believe that?” Seth’s
placid face made me want to walk over and hit him. “Seth?”

He took a deep breath and rushed a
hand through his hair. “He took the fireplace poker with him that night. Just
like we thought. He said he would put it somewhere that would be incriminating
for you and then tell the police about it.”

I shook my head at this. “That’s
ridiculous. He’s going to voluntarily go to the police and fabricate this story
about me and hide the poker where? In my parents’ house? And what would you say,
Seth? Would you back up Eddie’s story like he suggested you would?”

Seth leaned his head against the
wall and stared up at the ceiling. “No way.”

I stepped closer to him, wanting
him to look me in the eye. “That answer wasn’t very convincing.”

“Let’s not let it come to that
okay?”

I got in his face now, rage
simmering inside me. “You would do it, wouldn’t you? You would say I did it.”

“No, Dan. I wouldn’t do that to
you. But I don’t think it has to get that far. I think we should just tell them
we were with Eddie and then that can be it. It can hopefully just end there.”

I couldn’t believe we were having
this conversation. I took a step back and studied Seth as he stood in the
kitchen where we had shared so many meals together, where we had practically
grown up together and I suddenly felt as though I had no idea who he was.
Meeting him and Eddie for a drink that night was the worst decision I had ever
made. I wouldn’t compound it with another one.

“I won’t do that,” I said.

Seth pounded his fist on the wall
and shook his head at me. “I knew you wouldn’t agree. You’ve always been so
goddamned stubborn.” He started pacing in front of the table. “Well, we’ll have
to think of something else then.”

My eyes widened at him. “Something
else?”

He nodded.

“I assume you mean something other
than going to the police with the truth. Because that’s really what we should
do at this point.”

“No,” he answered dismissively. “We
have to do something that keeps our names out of it.” He glanced up at me with
an idea. “Eddie is already hiding from the police, right? Maybe we could
convince him that leaving town is the best thing. We could give him some money,
help him go somewhere."

"First of all, I don't have
any money that I don’t need, and if I did I certainly wouldn't give it to
him."

Seth stopped abruptly and leaned in
close to me. Obviously my germs were no longer a concern. "Don't you have
any ideas, Dan? Why am I the only one here trying to figure this thing out?”

I reached for the closest chair and
sat down hard. "Give me a second to catch up. Okay? A minute ago you were
both ready to turn me in.”

Across the table, Seth lowered
himself into a chair. “I would never do that. I just think that we can still
figure out a way to get out of this. If Eddie took the poker, then the police
might not even have any evidence. They’re not trying to arrest him, just talk
to him. If we can convince him that leaving town is his best option, that works
out for everyone.”

“Where would he go? How long would
he have to be gone for? He’s probably never even left South Seaport.”

“Then we’ll have to make him see
that this is an opportunity. It’s not as though his life here is all that
great.”

I should have said no to this. Believing
that Eddie was dangerous and that Seth wasn’t trustworthy, I should have decided
to go to the police on my own and do the right thing. Then I thought of the
repercussions of doing just that. I was sure that running off that night and
not getting the man help was likely a crime in itself. If I went to the police
on my own, I knew that Eddie would try to turn it all on me, and I did not know
what Seth would do in that case. In all likelihood, he would do whatever it
took to save himself. If it was somehow possible to escape this entire
situation without anyone ever finding out the truth, I had to at least try. I
had set myself on this path when I made my decision not to help the man that
night. Now, I could only try to help myself.

“Fine,” I said. "We'll try to
convince him to leave town."

Seth sighed with relief. "Okay.
Good.”

When my mother returned that
afternoon, she made me toast with black raspberry jam and poured me another
glass of juice. I sat in the living room for the rest of the day while she
puttered around the house, checking in on me at different points. The Christmas
tree was wilting. It would have to be disposed of soon.

Seth was going to get in touch with
Eddie and tell him that we wanted to talk. If Eddie decided that he had no
intention of leaving, he would once again try convincing me to lie and then
he’d likely threaten me, too. I knew there could be a confrontation. Although I
wasn’t thrilled at the idea of a possible confrontation with Eddie, I couldn’t
hide from this anymore. I needed to be there.

"Daniel, it's time to take more
aspirin."

I glanced up and saw Mom standing
over me with a glass of water and two white pills. I sat up and took both from
her extended hands. As I swallowed, she bent down and began picking up the
tissues I had sneezed into and then discarded beside me.

"Are you feeling any
better?"

"Maybe a little," I
fibbed. My head was pounding and my stomach felt like someone had punched it. But
my cold probably had nothing to do with either discomfort.

"Well let's hope by Monday
you're doing better. You wouldn't want to disappoint your professor after he's
been so kind to you. Although, if you're still sick, you're not going to work. I'm
telling you right now so there will be no argument about it later."

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. "Let's
worry about that on Monday. Okay?" I wished that was the worst thing I had
to worry about.

"We'll see," she answered
noncommittally.

"Where is Dad today?” I asked.
“Working?"

She sat down beside me on the couch.
"He said he was driving to Yarmouth to look at a piece of land someone
might be interested in building on."

"Do you think that’s what he’s
really doing?" I asked boldly.

She didn’t answer at first. "I
don't know, Daniel," she sighed, not sounding angry, just tired.

"If you think he’s really at
the pub, you could go down there and see for yourself. I could go with you if
you like."

She shook her head. “No, I don’t
want to go there,” she told me, keeping her eyes on the carpet. Then she patted
my knee and stood. “I'd better go get dinner started.”

I watched her disappear into the
kitchen thinking how devastated she would be if she knew Dad wasn’t the only
one keeping things from her.

Dad came in late that night, long
after dinner. I was back on the couch watching television. "I hear you've got
a cold," he commented looking down at me. The room was dark with only the
flickering of the television occasionally lighting his shadowed form. He lifted
his baseball cap, ran his large hand over his unruly hair and then replaced the
cap on his head, fiddling with the brim to position it right.

"Yeah," I answered.

“That’s too bad. Having a cold
during your vacation.”

“Yeah,” I repeated, not in the mood
to muddle through another conversation with him.

"Well," he continued. "I
thought you might be interested in this. You were friends with the McKenna boy
in high school, weren’t you?”

I nodded at him, sitting up a
little straighter.

“A couple of the police officers here
in town work on one of my weekend crews to make some extra money. They were
saying that they’re looking to talk to the McKenna kid about that killing that
happened here in town just before the holiday.”

“Really?” I said, although this
wasn’t news to me.

He eyed me intently. "Have you
seen him while you’ve been home?”

I shook my head automatically.

“Because apparently he was out with
some friends at the Southside Tavern the night the attack happened.”

My stomach lurched, and then my
heart began hammering against my ribs.

“You weren’t there, were you?” he
asked.

I had already done this, gone over
who had been there that night. I hadn’t recognized anyone. So it would stand to
reason that no one had recognized me. But we hadn’t planned to lie about being
there with Eddie, just about what happened after.

“No” I said, panicking now over
what saying yes would mean, the additional questions that would follow,
questions I wasn’t ready to answer tonight.

“That’s good,” he replied. His eyes
stayed on me for another beat before he continued. “Because that boy has always
been trouble. Goodnight, Daniel.”

 “Goodnight,” I told him. After he
left, I sat there for some time not moving in the darkness. The rhythm of my
heart never slowed as I stared, unseeing at the TV.

My cold still had its claws in me
when I woke up the next morning. On the dresser, my phone vibrated, and I read a
text from Seth asking if I could meet him at the coffee shop. That meant his
mother was probably home, and he didn’t want to speak in front of her.

I showered, dressed, and threw a
couple of cold pills and aspirin down my throat. I called out to my mother as I
headed out the door with her keys. “I’m going out.”

“What?” she cried following after
me. “But you’re sick, Daniel. You shouldn’t go out.”

“I feel fine today,” I lied,
standing in the doorway, pulling my coat on. “I won’t be gone long.”

Her disapproval was evident. “I
think you should stay home one more day.”

“Did you need the car?” I asked,
not addressing her comment.

“No.”

“Then you don’t mind?” I asked
holding her keys now.

She hesitated a moment more, but
then she gave in as I knew she would. “Just don’t stay out too long.”

I saw Seth sitting by the window
when I pulled up. After getting the largest sized coffee they sold, I joined
him.

“You still look like shit,” he said
in greeting.

I hadn’t bothered shaving or
sleeping much in the past couple of days. “Feel like it, too,” I answered
before taking a sip of the scalding coffee, the burn traveling down my throat
but not warming me the way it should have.

“So, I talked to Eddie,” he began.

I watched him, realizing all our
conversations began this way now.

“He wants to meet in the woods
behind your house tonight.”

“The woods?” We hadn’t gone there
together since high school. “Why there? We’re going to freeze our asses off. He
can’t think of a place indoors to talk?”