“What?” Clara said. “Why? For God’s sake, don’t tell me somebody shot him.”
“Nobody shot him,” Linda Beecham said, and Gregor realized she was still studying Clara Walsh’s face, as if it were a cryptogram she was going to have to solve. “And I thought about it, and of course we did call the police, but you know what Jerry Young is like. It’s Margaret’s Harbor. Nothing ever happens here. He doesn’t have the experience. And besides, I couldn’t find him. So I thought I’d come get you, and maybe Mr. Demarkian here.”
“For God’s sake,” Clara said. “What happened? Is he all right? Is he dead? Don’t you ever just let yourself go long enough to show a little emotion?”
Linda Beecham ran her eyes up and down Clara Walsh’s face, but there was still almost no expression on hers. “He’s not dead,” she said. “If he was I’d have said so. I don’t know about all right. Somebody went after his right hand with a small, very sharp little ax.”
2
Linda Beecham didn’t really know that Jack Bullard had been attacked with “a small, very sharp little ax.” That was one of the first things Gregor found out on the way to the Oscartown Hospital, along with Jack’s last name and the fact that Clara Walsh didn’t trust Bram Winder to drive a car.
“At least not a car with me in it,” Clara said, staring straight ahead as she sat at the wheel. Bram was in front with her. Gregor was in back with Linda Beecham, who seemed not to have any other form of transportation. Gregor found it hard to orient himself geographically. Oscartown was small and on the ocean. Beyond that, he remembered almost nothing else about it. The very little he did remember belonged to another era, with other people in it.
Clara drove on what seemed to Gregor to be side streets and secondary roads. She did not head down toward the glimpse of town green he had seen. She did not head into built-up residential areas. Clara drove past houses that seemed to have been planted in the sand on their own, without a single consideration being given to convenience, or civilization.
They drove and drove, so long Gregor wondered if they would come out on the other end of the island and take another ferry. Instead, after a while, civilization began to creep up on them, in the form of architecture, most of it precious.
There were more enormous houses on very small lots. Oscartown seemed to specialize in those. Most of these houses were new. All of them had gates and multiple announcements of security systems. There were no people on the street, anywhere. It was like traveling through a Stephen King novel.
“It’s the summer people,” Linda Beecham said, beside him. Her voice was so unexpected, Gregor experienced it as sudden, although it wasn’t really. It was just flat. He turned to look at her and saw that she was looking out at the houses, not at him. “Nobody who lives in this neighborhood really lives here,” she said. “They live in Boston, or New York. They come up for the summer and drive the prices of everything right through the roof.”
“There were always summer people,” Clara said firmly. “Even when we were children.”
“There were fewer of them then,” Linda said. Then she turned slightly in Gregor’s direction. “There were a lot fewer of them. And they were a different kind of person. Without this mania for display. The old summer people had money. The new summer people have money and want to make sure you know about it.”
“The film people aren’t summer people,” Bram Winder said. “They’re not even winter people. Nobody knows what they are.”
They were pulling up to the back of a large, low brick building. Just past it, Gregor could see the beginnings of what might be another town, including the green with the flagpole, straight along the street. Just past the green he could see cars and vans parked every which way, as if there were a parking lot there, although he was sure there couldn’t be. He thought they might just have come out on the other side of Oscartown.
“Welcome to my world,” Clara said, pulling into a parking space at the side of the brick building. She had followed the line of Gregor’s sight. “There are probably a thousand people up there, but with any luck they don’t know there’s any reason to be here. Do they know, Linda?”
“I don’t see that there is any reason,” Linda said. “It’s not about the movie people. It’s about Jack.”
“Right,” Clara said.
She got out of the car, and the rest of them got out of the car with her. Gregor looked around. If this was the hospital, it was very small. He had no idea how well equipped it was.