The Third Guitarist

By Kent M Carringer

Guitarist, Con Artist, Terrorist . . . Who was David Gaines?

The day was too pretty for a burial, as if nature, in its sunny disposition, was taunting anyone trying to mourn. Anna Vangraff waited next to the coffin. She thought about the last time she had seen David Gaines alive. 

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Canto33
• Release date: Dec 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736417621

Book preview

I

THAT DEAD BAND’S SONG

Sometime after midnight a lime green Prius drove into the middle of a deserted parking lot on the outskirts of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The engine idled a few minutes before it cut off. Three figures emerged and stood transposed in shadow against a starless sky. The ground was wet from a late evening shower—the fast kind that comes in during summer, announcing its approach with thunderclaps and beautiful flashes of lightning, letting loose with a deluge lasting only thirty minutes before moving on to different, maybe more deserving, country.

The young man fastened his flashlight to his helmet, like an aboveground miner. A piece of duct tape partially obscured the lens—placed there in hopes of keeping the light’s beam small and undetected. The preacher asked them to gather in a circle. They held hands. The preacher and student bowed their heads and closed their eyes. The young man lowered his head but kept his eyes open. The student sneezed in lieu of an amen. She had caught a cold, and the young man worried she would hold them back or get them caught before they could make it to their destination. He knew the wet ground would slow them down. Luckily, it had only been a small shower, and it was likely the ground would be drier under the dense ceiling of pine trees up on the ridge.

They started out across a mossy field leaving the lights of the city behind, while the silhouette of Pine Ridge stood before them hulking in the dark like a sleeping giant. It wasn’t going to be a long trek, just a little more than mile, but it was uphill in pitch-dark with no trails or roads to ease their progress. The piece of tape allowed just a sliver of light through, but the young man’s hearing improved as his ears compensated for his lack of vision. He discerned the sounds of his two companions in the dark. The preacher was breathing fine, despite his age, compared to the young man’s gasping wheeze. He hadn’t expected the hike would be so difficult, and it was clear the old man was in much better shape than he was. The student, meanwhile, was easy to distinguish in the dark by her sniffles and stifled coughs. He heard rocks and twigs and leaves give way under their feet. Tree limbs and leaves brushed against his arms, like the boney fingers of blind strangers groping furtively in the dark. The young man’s backpack, the heaviest of the three, was loaded with bolt cutters, spray paint, and the obligatory human blood. They were halfway up the ridge, about an hour into their hike, when they stopped to rest.

The previous day the preacher had shown them John Hendrix’s grave—only a short distance from where they were now. The legend was well-known to people with an interest in the Y-12 National Security Complex and its development, but it was new to the young man. Apparently, Hendrix was an ascetic at the turn of the 20th century, before there was a town called Oak Ridge, back when it was mostly forest and log cabins.

One day John Hendrix heard the voice of God telling him to go into the woods for forty days and nights, and John obeyed. He went and stayed on a ridge overlooking Bear Creek Valley in what was then called Black Oak Ridge. When he returned forty nights later, he told the townspeople: Bear Creek Valley someday will be filled with great buildings and factories, and they will help toward winning the greatest war that ever will be…thousands of people will be running to and fro. They will be building things, and there will be great noise and confusion and the earth will shake.

The preacher had recounted Hendrix’s story in a solemn voice, as though he were delivering one of his sermons. The student had cried, but the young man merely nodded. The story was meant to strengthen them, to make their resolve clear and focused—as if it were a sign from God that their mission was approved. But to the young man it seemed like another crackpot urban legend. Interesting from a historical standpoint, but unverifiable. The preacher believed that victory would be attained after Y-12 was shut down. But the young man didn’t buy it. If the United States and the rest of the mega powers around the world disarmed, it would merely leave the world hostage to places like North Korea. After all, hadn’t Dr. Strangelove proven that the one safeguard against nuclear war was mutually assured destruction? Without that mutuality, how long would the world stay friendly, and who would be the first to build up a new nuclear supply? Of course, he didn’t share these thoughts with anyone else. There was a time and place for doubts and questions, but in the midst of an extremist environmental group’s protest was neither the time nor the place. Especially after making the deal he had made. He couldn’t even in good conscience speak with the other members of the group without feeling a pang of guilt. But guilt was better than prison. It had to be.

Since making the deal, his thoughts often turned toward his mother and how easy it was for her to fight for the environment. To him, the snail darter controversy seemed clear. David versus Goliath. Class warfare—something he understood. Rich folks wanting to flood a valley so they could have lakefront property while not caring about the poor farmers, defenseless animals, and unique ecosystems they would displace or destroy in the process. But this, what he was doing now, what was it? Geopolitics? Terrorism? Patriotism? Religious radicalism? It wasn’t clear.

Would his mother be proud of him? He could hazard a guess. The space in his life allocated to parental approval was empty, leaving him searching for ways to fill it up. Leading him here to Pine Ridge in the pitch black, trudging up to a facility where the heart and soul of Fat Man and Little Boy had been enriched before being assembled and dropped on Japan. Where billions of dollars in federal money went each year. Where more than 24,000 people were employed either directly or indirectly. Where, just over the ridge, they’d enter and vandalize the world’s largest uranium deposit, like high schoolers rolling a neighbor’s house. If they didn’t get shot dead before they got there, of course.

Their break was over. They continued up the dark incline. Above the ridge the dark sky was smeared with light, as though El Dorado or Carcosa might be on the other side.

A half hour later they topped the ridge and peered down at their target. A patrol SUV turned onto Bear Creek Road and disappeared from view. What happened next seemed like a montage of random film cuts playing in his mind. His adrenaline pumped. It seemed like it only took a few seconds to climb down the other side of the ridge. Before he knew it, they were right in front of the first gate. The sound of his own heart banging in his ears against the silence of the forest was gradually replaced by the hum of lights and generators resembling the metallic hiss of a great electronic cicada.

He took out the bolt cutters and clamped them down on the chain-link fence where No Trespassing signs hung like funeral wreaths over neglected graves. The links separated and the sound reminded him of how his guitar strings always used to snap at the most inopportune times, like in the middle of a show, or when he was trying to impress a girl with a solo. His thoughts turned to the man he had called father for so many years, and how he had never been a good enough musician for him. He thought about the man’s hands starting to curl from arthritis. Someday they’d form a claw unable to grip the neck of a guitar or much of anything else. Then he thought about how ambivalent he felt toward the man, neither hate nor love, just coldness and regret at having spent so much of his life trying to impress him.

He cut the fence enough to let the group pass through, pushing the backpacks ahead of them. First the preacher, then the student, before he finally crawled inside of the compound. They had officially reached the kill zone, and it felt just fine. If everything he had been told was true, the alarm system on the first fence was faulty. Yet the feeling of being watched persisted, as they walked across white rocks to the next fence. Surely this wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be happening. There had to be cameras capturing their actions. There had to be alarms. The preacher recited some bit of scripture under his breath.

The second fence featured electromagnetic sensors, but it was cut as easily as the first fence. The Gatlin guns located somewhere out of sight remained unarmed, unused, and cold. One more fence to go before they reached their destination—a reinforced bunker storing one of the world’s largest stockpiles of enriched uranium.

He thought about all the people working at the facility and how many would lose their jobs after this incident. He thought about the taxpayer money that would go toward beefing up security, and he thought about the defense contractors and subcontractors who would place their bids to be the new security provider, happily profiting from this serious lapse in federal defense security. The preacher and the student were doing God’s work, but even God’s work left casualties. He knew some would think them heroic, while others would label them terrorists, but the young man didn’t care because he wasn’t really there.

Upon reaching and successfully breaching the third and final fence, there was still no one in sight. The facility was eerie in its silence, like walking through a town evacuated because of some unknown, unseen threat. They approached the drab grey concreted building. Their destination. They got out the spray paint and blood and began desecrating the side of the building, which was supposedly fortified to withstand an airplane crash. The blood had freaked him out at first, but it was part of the ritual. You had to be tested first to make sure your blood was clean, which in his mind violated his sense of privacy, but he had submitted and given his blood to the cause. Now with large paintbrushes, they fashioned their blood into cryptic symbols with messy results, like children learning to write on a living room wall.

He thought about his mother again. Would she have joined him? Would he have betrayed her too if she were there? He thought about his real father and grandfather—they would have appreciated a good con, wouldn’t they? It was another thirty minutes before he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. The young man tossed the can of spray paint and raised his hands above his head. As the patrol SUV came to a stop and the door opened, he thought about Anna, and wondered if she would make it to his funeral. But first he had to die.

II

WALLS LEAN AWAY

Once upon a time, I only listened to loud music, Anna said over the Warren Zevon song playing in the background.  The man sitting across from her at the small round table nodded his head out of rhythm.

Loud music? Like loud in volume?

Yep. I wouldn’t stop turning the dial till my ears started to ring.

Not so much anymore?

I get headaches now. Unfortunately.

You sound like you miss it.

I don’t know if I miss it, but music just isn’t the same played low. It’s like seeing an animal at the zoo. Something’s missing. It feels so domesticated. Their waitress, a stout Indian woman wearing a tight purple dress, stopped at their table.

Ready to order?

Is there any way to have the music turned down? Adam asked on Anna’s behalf.

I’ll see, the waitress replied. Do you know what you want?

Adam looked to Anna. She turned her attention back to the plastic menu in her hands. Go ahead, I’m ready, she lied.

I’ll have the Elvis Burrito. Adam ordered too quickly and simply. Anna’s turn. She skimmed the menu, her eyes darting frantically over the laminated words.

How’s the tuna chalupa?

Good.

Then I’ll try that.

What to drink?

Do you like sangria? asked Adam.

I love it, Anna said. Adam ordered a carafe of the fruity red wine, and the waitress walked away, past a poster of Clint Eastwood staring off into the distance with a cigarillo in his mouth looking cool in a still from A Fistful of Dollars.

Che Guevara was the name of the restaurant where Anna met Adam on a blind date. It was a small Mexican joint off Kingston Pike in the corner of a strip mall between Barnes & Noble and Toys R’ Us—two bastions of a fading generation when people went into stores and bought things instead of having them delivered to their door. How long would it be before all the stores in the strip mall went the way of Borders or Blockbuster, leaving behind only adverts for liquidation sales and empty buildings? Anna mourned the death of brick-and-mortar stores, while making no plans to visit one in the foreseeable future.

Despite the bourgeoisie setting, Che prided itself on its hipster namesake. An orderly grunginess. There was no sign on the building to tell you what it was, and the interior was dark and cramped and loud. Cherry red intellectuals rubbed shoulders with families of four. There were never any drink specials and it was always crowded, but the food was great and it sported a novel, independent charm that was hard to find among the city’s chain restaurants. No two tables were alike. Most of the legs on the chairs were uneven, and a red glow fell about the smoky dining room, even though smoking wasn’t allowed anymore. Velour pictures of Elvis and the Madonna decorated the cluttered walls. The bartender selected the music from stacks of old CDs and cassette tapes. The patrons would bob their heads through the entirety of Exile on Main Street or look up quizzically as the songs of Unknown Hinson came over the speakers. That night Zevon’s Bad Luck Streak at Dancing School blared triumphantly before the volume was lowered following Adam’s request.

Thanks for doing that, Anna said.

No problem. I’m not sure if it helped, but at least now it’s a softer kind of loud. Anna thought a softer kind of loud would be a good name for an album but didn’t share it with the boy across from her with the cool last name, Rundgren.

Are you any relation to Todd? she asked, trying to make small talk.

Who?

Todd Rundgren…Genius Todd?

Never heard of him.

He’s a musician.

Oh…I’ll have to check him out then.

Anna nodded her head. She didn’t know what else to say. It was the first date she had been on in a while, and so far, she hadn’t found the groove. Their conversation was piecemeal, stopping and starting in that exciting but tiring fashion of first dates. Anna was conscious of every movement, glance, or spoken word she made. Why the hell had she worn a white shirt when she knew she was going to eat Mexican—especially knowing her penchant for spilling food on herself at the most socially awkward moments? She concentrated on every dip of her chip. She was not going to get salsa on her shirt. If she could prevent this, then the date would be a success.

Adam seemed like a nice boy. His short haircut and youthful features made Anna think of him more as a boy than a man even though he worked in the federal prosecutor’s office. He wore khaki pants and a tucked in button-down with the sleeves rolled up casually to his elbows. The sangria arrived, like an old friend joining their conversation. The wine was good, served in short-stemmed glasses with lime and orange slices on the rim. Their conversation increased as each new glass was poured.

So, I was a runner before I started my first semester at UT Law, and the senior partner is this wild guy with long white hair that looked like he had been hit by lightning, Adam said. And I’m terrified of this man. He’s a workaholic. A stereotype. Like a parody of a lawyer, you know? All he cared about was billable hours. So one day he pokes his head in my little hole of a runner’s room and tells me there are these old files he wants me to throw away. He had decided to clean house that day or something. So, I nod and go back to his office. He has pictures of the Civil War on his walls along with newspaper clippings of famous train wrecks. And in the corner of his office…I swear to God, he’s got a suit of armor.

Like a knight’s?

Yeah. Broadsword and all. Rumor was on days before a trial, he’d take the sword and swing it around the office saying how going to trial was like going to war. I never saw it personally, but I could believe it. Anyway, I see the folders lying on the floor, and they’re in a large stack that he told me to toss, but I’m leery about throwing anything away in a law office. So, I check with his secretary before I do anything, and she assures me everything on the floor is supposed to be chucked. OK, I start packing all these folders onto one of those pushcarts like they have on airplanes. I stack them all up and take them to the recycling bin. Next day I show up and he’s waiting for me.

Uh-oh, Anna laughed.

Right? So, I’m like, hello, and he asks ‘Where’s the Martin v. Lopez case?’ and I have no idea what he’s talking about. ‘Did you throw it away?’ he asks. I tell him I threw away what was on the floor. ‘Well, you better start looking for it then,’ he says and walks out. I have no clue what to do, because our recycling bin is huge and you know how much paper a firm can go through in a day. But I wheel this big bin into my little runner’s hole and tip it over. I’m on my hands and knees for hours trying to find this file he wants. I’m sweating through my shirt. My mind is racing—I’m thinking if I don’t find this file I’ll never be a lawyer. I’ll never get a job. Maybe my boss will run me through with his sword and put me out of my misery. I try to sort through it all, frantically poring over every case caption on every piece of paper until the office manager comes by and laughs at me. The other secretaries are all laughing out in the hall, too. Finally, the firm’s receptionist tells me to stop looking because it’s probably not in there. ‘Most likely he left it at home,’ she tells me. All right—whatever. So, he’ll fire me or kill me. I clean up the mess and wait all day expecting he’ll show back up and chew me out, but he never does.

Did he find it?

I have no idea. I never brought it up again and neither did he. Sometimes I wonder if there ever was a file to begin with—maybe he was just messing with me. I would have thought it was a joke except the man didn’t appear to have a sense of humor outside the sole joy he had in making money. Anyway, that was my first law job, and I decided I didn’t want to be in a civil firm.

Well, I never dug through trash, Anna started, as Adam refilled their glasses, but I did have an embarrassing incident during my first trial.

I’m listening, Adam said. They were both on their third glass of sangria, and the wine and spices and brandy were working their charms, loosening their tongues and dulling their minds.

"I was an intern working in this civil firm during my third year of school, and one of the senior attorneys asks me if I want to sit in on the trial with them. I had been doing research for them and I knew the case pretty well, of course I wanted to sit in. So, I’m wearing a nice-looking dress skirt. Kind of like what Scully wore in The X-Files."

Sexy but classy.

"Exactly. I’m feeling good about myself and I’m trying to look cool and collected like I do this sort of thing all the time. Old hat, right? So, we’re about to start voir dire and I decide to get a glass of water. We’re out in Grainger County at their new, but quickly aging, justice center, and they have the pitchers of water in the middle of the table. So I get a glass and pick up the pitcher while watching the jury pool come in. I’m trying to read their faces and see which ones would be good for us. And I start pouring out the water and…I pour it all over my chest. Missed the glass completely. I jumped up and took off my jacket before I remembered I was wearing a white blouse—You could see right through it."

What did you do? Adam asked. His voice had an edge to it, as though he were trying to turn away from what he wanted to say. Anna thought she could see him blushing even in the red light. Only women bleed and only boys blush past the age of twenty-one. She was starting to like him.

I stood there terrified and unable to move. The judge was one of those old courthouse demagogues who seemed like nothing could ever faze them. He looked at me and didn’t even blink before saying: ‘Counsel’s zealous attempt at making a good first impression on the jury should be noted.’ One of the senior partners put his coat over me, and the next thing I remember I’m in the bathroom of the courthouse not knowing whether to cry or laugh, so I end up doing a little of both. I dried my eyes and marched right back into the courtroom like nothing had happened. Since then I’ve never been nervous about talking in court. It was like submersion therapy. I know I can never be that embarrassed again, and it helps me not to worry about anything.

From what I hear you’re not afraid to tackle anything now. You worked on the Carson case, didn’t you?

Yeah. And everything had been going so well, she thought.

That must have been exciting. I mean it was terrible what happened, but it was a big case…I guess they will rehear it though.

It looks that way.

Are you going to be working it?

I’m taking some time off right now.

Oh, Adam said, his voice faltering a bit. Do you mind if I ask why?

Maybe some other time. Suffice it to say I’m taking some time for myself. Her response was not meant as a cutoff. Her tone coyly implied maybe one day, if their relationship continued, Adam would be allowed in, but currently there was a No Trespassing sign framing her words.

What about you? she asked, trying to shift the conversation in a different direction. How’s life on the other side of the street?

It’s good. I enjoy the work, Adam replied. He worked downtown in the federal courthouse across from the City-County Building where Anna worked for the Knox County District Attorney’s office. She hadn’t wanted to go out on the date, but she couldn’t refuse. Anna had been on leave from the DA’s office for nearly two months and her boss had thought it would be a good idea if she got out and met someone new. Of course, he had turned out to be an attorney, and a prosecutor to top it off. Two traits which would have dissuaded Anna from taking an interest on her own, but she had to admit it was nice to be out of her house and dressed in something other than a t-shirt and baggy sweatpants. And it was even nice to flirt again, though she was a little rusty. On top of all that, nearly four months before, Anna had turned twenty-nine. Thirty now hung like an ax above her head, and she knew pretty soon heads would start to roll.

Any interesting cases? She really wanted to keep the topic of discussion away from herself and her work.

Well, we got one the other night. Some people tried to break into Y-12.

Out in Oak Ridge?

Yeah, they got pretty far into the facility, too—right outside where they keep the uranium deposit.

God. Who were they?

I’m not sure. We’re still trying to get it worked out. Homeland Security is involved, and the Feds and TBI and a bunch of other agencies, so everything is taking longer. It’s a little hush-hush right now. He lowered his voice so much it was nearly drowned out by the music, and with a straight face he said, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

Anna laughed, and for a moment she thought something between them might be starting again. Then she noticed a man on the other side of the room clearing off a table. She knew him from somewhere. Somewhere in her past…Her eyes dropped to the table as she crossed her arms over her chest. Adam shared another anecdote about his first job, but she wasn’t listening anymore. The man across the room was Billy Bowman. She had known him once, only briefly, but during a moment she couldn’t forget. Anna tensed as he walked by. He didn’t see her. Or maybe he didn’t remember her. A girl could dream, couldn’t she?

Anna finished the rest of the meal with a vague sense of dread. Why should she care if Bowman noticed her, or even talked to her? Despite being embarrassed by her past, she had no reason to fear what Bowman might say. She barely knew him, so why was she waiting for him to notice her? Anna mechanically drank the sangria and ate her tuna chalupa, which was delicious, but she hardly noticed Adam or what he was saying.

She watched Bowman as he cleared another table in front of a poster advertising a Spanish language version of a film based on Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The poster read: Crimen Y Castigo in dramatic italicized typeface below a silhouetted man, who must have been Raskolnikov, holding an ax. The ax wielding man wore a thin Spanish mustache instead of the great Russian beard artists typically portrayed Raskolnikov of having. It was the oddest thing Anna had ever seen. She was so transfixed by the poster she didn’t notice Bowman walking up to her table.

Anna, Bowman said, wearing a faded Death to the Pixies t-shirt. His eyes were sunken and his sallow skin looked like it hadn’t been exposed to the sun in the better part of a decade.

Oh, Anna said as she looked away from the poster. Hello.

It’s me. Bowman.

Adam introduced himself after Anna failed to follow up with introductions.

I used to know Anna here. Back in time. Adam waited for Anna to speak, but she didn’t.

How did you know her?

Anna used to be a groupie…

Hello Billy, Anna cut in. It’s been a while. Bowman was smiling, but he was the only one.

A groupie? Adam said, with raised eyebrows.

I was never a groupie, Anna said, grabbing a tortilla chip, dipping it in the salsa bowl and taking a bite.

Sorry, Bowman said. I didn’t mean that. You dated Gainsy though?

Yes, I suppose I did, she said.

I used to play keyboards for his band, Bowman said to Adam, as though Adam had asked him a question. Anna, wow, I never thought I’d see you again.

Yes, that would have been nice, wouldn’t it? Anna said. She had no reason to be mean to Bowman, but she wanted him to leave. She didn’t want to talk about the past. She never did, but Bowman had other plans. He laughed away her insult.

How’d you take the news about Gainsy anyway?

What news?

You didn’t hear?

I guess not, she said.

You didn’t hear about him?

What about him?

Well…he’s dead, Bowman said.

Anna looked down at her white shirt where a large red chunk of salsa now sat above her left breast. Shit, Anna thought, with Zevon sound tracking her disappointment. So much for a successful blind date.

* * *

Anna returned home with the memory of her blind date already forgotten. She’d have to speak with Katherine Knight, her boss, in the next couple of days. Yes, Adam was a nice boy, and yes, they would make a good couple, but no, I’m not ready for a relationship yet. Maybe someday. Just the thought of talking about it made her tired.

Anna slid out of her jeans and turned on Boxer by The National. Soft voices tumbled from the surround sound speakers installed throughout the house. The speakers had the capacity to rattle the windows in a sonic quake, but Anna never turned the volume knob up past three on the dial.

She removed her stained blouse and threw it into her small laundry room, which was little more than a closet in the hallway. The stain should be pre-treated with bleach and stain remover, but first she needed a drink. She took off her bra and found a Kinks t-shirt in her bedroom. In just shirt and panties, Anna walked into the kitchen where she poured a Willet four-year-old rye with precisely three ice cubes into a short glass. She didn’t usually drink whiskey without a mixer, but tonight called for something that burned going down. The ice clinked against the glass as Anna moved into the living room and looked out the windows.

She had bought the house for the view. A neat one-bedroom one-bath structure no bigger than an apartment, but it looked out onto Lake Loudon, and most of the walls were floor-to-ceiling windows. During the day Anna never had to turn on a light, but at night the darkness seemed poised and ready to swallow the house into nonexistence. In response, Anna would turn on a few dim lamps, light some candles, and play music while pretending the voices over the speakers were friends she didn’t have to converse with. She kept a clean house with a well-stocked fridge and pantry. She liked to cook. And she liked to drink, too. Mostly wine, but her bar was well represented by various spirits from around the world. She drank vodka from Russia and whiskey from Kentucky. As much as she loved Tennessee, Jack Daniel’s gave her heartburn. The parts of the home’s walls that weren’t windows were lined with books. Mostly fiction. The only law book in her home was a collection of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s writings.

Anna looked into the falling darkness trying to see past it down to the water’s edge and across the cove to a neighbor’s boat dock. A tiny light swayed from the roof. In the pitch black of a cloudy night, the little flicker reflected an orange glow off the dark blue water. Anna stared at it as though it were some kind of signal, but from where and from whom, she didn’t try to discern. Later she searched the room until she found the day’s newspaper. The break-in at Y-12 in Oak Ridge was the major headline. Anna skimmed the story quickly. The article was void of much substance, other than what Adam had told her during dinner. She flipped to the obituaries and scanned the columns of cheap newsprint until she stopped at a name she recognized: David Gaines.

Anna dropped the paper after reading the few lines below David’s name. She picked up her glass, swallowed the remaining brown liquor, and filled the glass again. Finally, she turned off the lights so they wouldn’t reflect against the windows. The darkness from outside filled her home, as Anna stared down to the water’s edge. David Gaines. She crossed her arms around herself as if she were fighting off a chill even though she felt feverish. David Gaines. A young man when she first met him. Then her best friend. Then her first love. And in the end, a stranger. David Gaines.

Anna drank until she started to forget how much. She couldn’t say if she felt better from it, but she did feel different, and sometimes different was enough to convince herself it was better. The swinging orange light from her neighbor’s dock outlined little waves in the black water. Across the cove and far out in the distance, half hidden by trees, a pair of headlights zigzagged across some unknown back road. Was the car out on a joy ride or was it filled with tears? The music stopped playing, and Anna turned from the window, but as she did, she thought she saw something moving on the other side of the cove—under the orange light. Was it a deer, a person, a shadow maybe, or something else? She stood still for a long time, staring down, trying to see if anyone was out there. She must be losing it. Too much liquor and bad memories and not enough sleep.

Perhaps a more superstitious person would have associated some kind of supernatural explanation to the phantom, but Oliver Wendell Holmes didn’t believe in ghosts and neither did Anna. The last thought she had before falling