he might be going to Chilmark, though, and it was even more unsettling. Did Coffin, like his imaginary rapist, have a shovel in the back of the truck? Was he headed not to Troyer’s place but to Lincoln’s, intent on excavating the yard? Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. An old man with a shovel and no idea where on Lincoln’s two acres to dig? But the more important question was why Lincoln’s thoughts were racing toward such bizarre conclusions. After all, it was a big island with plenty of places Coffin could be heading. Still, entering the rotary himself, it was all Lincoln could do not to blow off his meeting with Marty, follow the old cop and know where he was going.
Because admit it, ever since setting foot on the Vineyard, guilt or something akin to it had been his more or less constant companion. He’d assumed its source was the decision to put his mother’s house on the market, but what if it was something else? Earlier, in the dark microfilm room at the Vineyard Gazette, when Jacy’s face appeared on the screen this ambient sense of guilt had morphed into something more like dread; and later, after he’d explained the disappearance and Beverly concluded that Jacy was still on the island, his stomach had done a somersault. Whatever this was about, it was more than real estate. He’d gone to Coffin’s apartment hoping he might alleviate his growing apprehensions, and in a way the old cop’s vivid scenario of Jacy being stalked, raped, killed and buried somewhere on the mainland had been strangely comforting, because if she’d died after leaving the island, then he and his friends were off the hook. Whereas if something happened to her here, they were, in a sense, complicit. Okay, sure, it was beyond ridiculous to imagine that Jacy lay buried in the backyard of the house he was now, over forty years later, putting up for sale. Why, then, was its symmetry so compelling?
Halfway to Edgartown, he pulled off to the side of the road. He was able to hold off until several other vehicles were safely past before vomiting his Bloody Mary into the ditch.
* * *
—
“MINT?” Lincoln offered.
Instead of going directly to Marty’s office, he’d stopped to buy a large roll of them and a package of Wet Wipes, having managed to splash his loafers. Had Anita been along, this errand would’ve been unnecessary. Being a woman, she always carried both mints and wipes in her purse. Not being a woman, he had no idea why they would imagine that at some point during the day you just might, for example, vomit onto your shoes and need them.
“You okay?” Marty said, studying him thoughtfully as he crunched his mint. “You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” Lincoln said to him. “What’s up?”
“Come around the desk and take a gander at this tax map. This is you here,” he explained, running his finger over Lincoln’s property. “And this is our friend Troyer. These other two lots”—he penciled Xs onto them—“also belong to him. Probably to keep anybody from ruining his water view. And at some point either his parents or the previous owners also owned this lot.” He marked another X there as well. “But they sold it.”
“So he owns all this now?”
“Correct.”
“Lucky him.”
“Except for one thing.” Here Marty indicated the dirt road that led to Lincoln’s house, then snaked down the hill to Troyer’s, where it dead-ended. “This is the only way for him to get home from the main road.”
“Does he need another?”
“He wouldn’t if he had an easement, but guess what? He doesn’t.”
Lincoln shook his head. “How can that be?”
“I don’t know, but I just came from the Dukes County Registry and there’s no mention of one on either your deed or his.”
“Again, how could that happen?”
Marty leaned back in his chair, hands laced behind his head. “Hard to say. Possibly an unspoken neighborly agreement going back as far as anybody can remember, and the issue’s never come up because neither property ever went on the market. It happens. You say your place was in your mother’s family for some time?”
“I don’t know exactly how long, but yeah.”
“The other possibility is that the lot they sold off was where the easement used to be, and at the time of the sale nobody caught it. Whatever the reason, he certainly doesn’t have one now.”