Free Short Squeeze by Chris Knopf Page B

thousand acres of wilderness.
    At two million dollars, a two-acre parcel boasting the ultimate in fashionable seclusion might look like a steal. Until you read the fine print, where it says she can’t sell it, transfer ownership, or pass it down to her heirs. The seller was an ornery holdout from the time the Nature Conservancy was buying up contiguous tracts who negotiateda onetime private sale with the deed forfeited to the preserve upon the death of the buyer.
    So this was a girl serious about her privacy.
    A few minutes after turning on to County Road in my new car I was reproaching myself for holding on to the rattletrap Toyota for so long. The only similarity between the two vehicles was they had steering wheels and tires and moved over public thoroughfares. The Volvo was so quiet you couldn’t hear the engine when the radio was on. In contrast to the pickup, where you couldn’t hear the radio when the engine was on. I’d have to exercise more to compensate for the reduced effort needed to shift gears, steer, and brake, but on the bright side, my kidneys would probably last a few more years.
    I turned up North Sea Road and headed for the ferry to Shelter Island. The decision to go solo was looking better all the time. It was dicey enough barging uninvited into Wendy Wolsonowicz’s costly isolation without bringing along a behemoth like Harry Goodlander.
    Alone, I got to pay a little attention to the weather, which was exceedingly lovely and mild and sparkly, as it often gets in the fall. North Sea Road winds all the way to Noyac, where it becomes Noyac Road and goes from there up through North Haven to the South Ferry dock. Most of the trip is in the woods, except for a long, gentle curve along the southeastern shore of Noyac Bay. My heart always picks up a beat or two when I look out over the water, even after a lifetime of looking at the little lakelike bays that fill in the gaps between the forks.
    Today it was fairly wavy, but no whitecaps, and bluer than usual. Probably because of the deep blue autumnal sky. This was how water at its best was supposed to look. Not British Racing Green. Not turquoise, like a ’55 T-Bird. But a nice deep blue, like a shiny new Volvo station wagon.
    I was halfway around the bay shore when a big pickup came up fast behind me. He flicked on his high beams and blasted his horn. I pulled onto the shoulder and he whooshed by. Then all I had to do was wait for my pulse to fall to normal range and dig my fingernails out of the steering wheel before getting back under way.
    “Dickhead,” I whispered into the soft silence of the station wagon.
    The guys who load the ferry noticed right away that I had a new car and went out of their way to put me in a safe spot, thereby redeeming the whole class of young men with long sideburns and baseball caps, like the kid in the truck who’d almost run me down. I got out and stood at the side of the boat to look at the water and breathe in a little salt air. The channel was a lot choppier than Noyac Bay, but the stolid, flat-bottomed little ferry wasn’t fazed.
    When I got to the other shore I looked at the printout of the Internet map. Wendy’s place was close to the ferry landing, which was at the southwest corner of the big preserve. So within a few minutes I was following a gravel road dotted with signs hysterically warning against messing with the wildlife, as if that’s what people came to wildlife preserves to do.
    Wendy’s house was built on a rise, with a driveway that curved more than necessary up to an area in front of a separate two-story garage. The house fit on the wooded lot as if it had grown up from the soil along with the surrounding trees.
    Three dogs streaked across the property the moment I pulled into the drive. A big chocolate Lab, a white shepherd, and a midsize gray-and-black mishmash of a thing. They looked more curious than aggressive, but I stayed in the car until I reached the house, where I sat and prayed none of