The Cure (19 page)

For instance, what were all these people going to eat?

And where were they going to the bathroom? (She winced at the thought.)

And where would they take shelter if there was a bad spring storm?

And most of all, how could they be controlled, so many of them, when they began to realize they could simply take the things they wanted?

Hope had covered only half of Dublin and already she was up to 137 obvious indigents out on the streets. There was no reason to assume she would find any fewer if she drove the other side of town as well. Add all of them to these people at the park and Hope believed there might be five or even six hundred homeless men and women now. Last autumn had been bad enough, with maybe fifty of them roaming through her little town, but they had kept trickling in all winter, and spring had brought the promise of survivable temperatures for the next six or seven months, and then came the news story about this alleged cure of Mr. Hanks’s with its Dublin connection, and they had swarmed up the coast like locusts. So on top of everything else—half the downtown businesses closing, population shrinking, lobsters vanishing, costly gifts from who knows whom for who knows what reason and all the painful memories Riley’s return had thrust on her—on top of all of that had come this plague of biblical proportions.

Hope had called to ask the governor to send the Maine National Guard. Someone at his office said he would get back to her as soon as possible. That had been three days ago. She figured at least fifty more homeless men and women had come walking into Dublin in that time. According to Steve Novak, in the last twenty-four hours alone the police department had received two reports of stolen vehicles, eight burglaries, and three separate assaults, which was more than the number of criminal offenses Dublin might see in half a normal year. There were nearly constant complaints of graffiti everywhere, garbage everywhere, vandalism everywhere, elderly folks afraid to sleep with their windows open, women frightened to walk outside in broad daylight. Landry’s Sporting Goods over on Highway 1 had sold out of handguns, shotguns and rifles, then restocked, and then sold out again. And it was not just her townsfolk getting armed; in two of last night’s burglaries, firearms and ammunition had been stolen.

The shelter had been overtaxed all winter, so that was nothing new, but Reverend Reardon was now turning them away from the sanctuary of the First Congregational Church. Imagine all the pews full every night, and the floor too! Hope would not have believed it had she not stopped by last Friday evening to see for herself. The stench of unwashed bodies in the church had been horrible, far worse than the smell of passengers sweating in their hammocks on the third-class deck of the riverboat
Tartaruga
.

Hope drove past the swarm of homeless people at the park, rolling up Main Street toward town hall, where Bill Hightower had called an emergency meeting. She dared not be late, not if she wished to keep her job. And in spite of everything, Hope did want to keep her job. The pay was lousy, the pressure sometimes nearly overwhelming, but she had important work to do. She had to save this town from surviving at the cost of hatred. She had to save herself from that same mistake. So she would not run away and she would not hide. Riley Keep might be that weak, but she was not. She would drive on toward the top of the hill, toward the trouble that surely lay in wait, and she would leave her memories at the bottom.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-O
NE

I
NSIDE
D
UBLIN’S TOWN HALL
, Riley crossed a vestibule with dark wood paneling and a marble floor. He entered a large meeting room with a two-story-high ceiling. The walls were rounded at the far end and square at the entrance where he and Dylan Delaney stood. A central aisle sloped down from their position between rows of seats. At the far side of the room, seven people faced the audience from behind a long and richly varnished desk or counter that followed the curvature of the rounded wall. Hope sat in the middle of the counter, with three town councilors to her left and three more to her right, including Bill Hightower. At the center of this semicircle stood an ornate podium. Rising up from there, about a dozen rows of fixed wooden seats had been arranged along the sloping floor. Riley remembered eager hours listening to lectures on soteriology and ecclesiology in a hall arranged like this during his seminary years. But the walls at seminary had been painted sheetrock and the seats had been built of plastic and aluminum. This hall, with its elegant wood furnishings and soaring multi-paned windows, was an unusually fine council chamber for such a small town, a testimony to the days two hundred years before when the builders of mighty clipper ships and whalers had created wealth far in excess of any other time in Dublin’s history.

The seats were almost completely packed with locals. Riley and Dylan slipped along the back row past a couple of people and settled in to listen as Hope spoke to Bill Hightower, her amplified voice reverberating in the lofty space, easily heard above the muffled chanting of the protesting crowd outside.

Hope said, “It just seems to me we have to face the fact they’re here and make the best of it. Technically you’re right. We could arrest ‘em all for vagrancy, but what’s the point of that, when the jail will only hold a fraction of ‘em?”

From the far seat on her right, Bill Hightower said, “So your solution is to commandeer the private property of business owners? Force them to give up their businesses to shelter these freeloaders?”

“They wouldn’t give up their businesses, Bill. Like I just explained, they’d only make the upper floors of their buildings available, which as we all know haven’t been used for much of anything in a long time. And the space wouldn’t be commandeered. They’d be reimbursed at a fair rate.”

“Reimbursed with what? Where’s the money coming from?”

“I’m open to suggestions on that.”

Hightower shook his head. “All right, let’s ignore the fact that the tax base is shrinking and these indigents who have descended on us only make that problem worse, let’s pretend we can print our own money, or one of the council members or one of these good citizens can work a miracle and figure out a way to pay for your plan. Even if we could afford it, do you really think it’s a good idea to have hundreds of vagrants living downtown? I fail to see how that would improve our situation.”

Riley heard the muted voices of the demonstrators outside as Hope replied, “They’d have a place to sleep. They’d have bathrooms. We could set up some simple cookin’ facilities—”

“You’re talking about turning downtown into a ghetto.”

Hope said, “I can’t think of anyplace else with enough space to—”

“Hundreds of drunks, camped out above our downtown businesses, partying on the township’s tab? Come
on
, Hope! Do you really want to do that to your neighbors?”

The hall erupted in applause, drowning out the distant voices, with some in the audience rising from their seats.

Hope beat a gavel and called for order, but it took several minutes to get the people to calm down. When she finally had control again she said, “If these people choose to live here, the township attorney tells me we have no legal basis to run ‘em out of town. This is not the Wild West. And let’s remember these are human beings we’re talkin’ about. We can’t let them go on livin’ on our streets and in our parks. It’s not right. So since there are way too many to arrest, and we can’t force ‘em to rent or purchase dwellings, I can’t think of anything else to do except provide shelter for them. And I—”

“What about the state? What about the federal government? Why haven’t you reached out for help from them?”

Again, there was a spontaneous round of applause from the audience, but this time Hope managed to get control more quickly. She said, “I’ve been callin’ the governor’s office. Apparently he’s too busy to call back.”

Hightower spread his hands and shrugged. “Maybe you’re not calling the right number, Mayor Keep. I phoned the governor this morning. He’s ready to send us all the help we need.”

Hope frowned. “You spoke to him? He took your call?”

“Of course. He’s an old friend.”

“I . . . uh, what kind of help, exactly?”

“Tents, Porta-Pottys, National Guard troops, whatever we need to contain the homeless while we work on a way to send them someplace else.”

“You could have mentioned this before.”

The pale man turned toward the audience and shrugged again. “I thought we ought to hear your ideas, Mayor. Besides, I assumed it was
your
job to network with the governor.”

Several people in the audience laughed. Hope sat staring down at her hands, which were clasped tightly together on the counter before her. To Riley she looked small and defenseless.

Hightower said, “Mayor, I’d like to touch on another matter.”

Hope seemed relieved, yet cautious. “All right.”

“I’m sorry to have to bring this up, I really am, but I understand you now own a new Mercedes Benz, model—” he lifted a paper from the counter and read—”S600, which it says here is priced at one hundred forty thousand dollars. Could you explain how that’s possible on your salary?”

Hope mumbled something.

“I’m sorry, Mayor. I didn’t hear that.”

She leaned closer to the microphone. “I said it’s a gift.”

“My, that’s quite a present.” He shuffled through the papers and lifted another. “I also understand you paid off your mortgage recently. That must be a relief. Not many of us can say we own our house free and clear.” The audience rumbled its assent. “I believe your final payment was . . .” Hightower pretended to read from the paper, which Riley knew was just a ruse. The man was Hope’s banker, to whom Riley’s New York bank had wired the funds. Hightower said, “One hundred twenty-three thousand dollars. Do you mind if I ask where you got that money, Mayor?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Well, was that money a gift as well?”

Hope’s whisper was only audible because of the microphone. “I don’t know.”

In his seat high up at the rear of the hall, Riley watched his ex-wife shrink before the questions. How could he have been so foolish? How could he have failed to consider what it would look like, a woman in her position, suddenly driving around in that car, suddenly free of debt? First he had sown salt into the wounds of millions by failing to set a reasonable price for the cure before he sold it for a fortune; now he had sown ruin in Hope’s life by the way he spent the fortune. Everything he touched became corrupted.

As Hope squirmed under Hightower’s examination like a gorgeous butterfly pinned alive by a sadistic boy, Riley thought about doing the right thing. He could rise up then and there and tell them all that it was he who gave the car and money to Hope, he who sold the cure and forgot to set the price. But the chief of police stood just outside the building at the top of the front steps, ready to arrest the “mystery man of Dublin” for the death of Willa Newdale. And a hundred angry alcoholics stood at the bottom of those same steps, ready to tear that mystery man to pieces for the price he had let them charge for the cure. It would be suicide to confess the car and mortgage were from him. Riley faced a devil’s alternative. He could let Hope suffer, or he could accept death, or prison.

Besides, how did he know a confession would help Hope? Nothing he’d done so far had turned out like he planned. He told himself whatever he did would only make things worse. Overpasses in Florida came to mind again. He wanted to retreat from everyone and everything that he might harm. He wanted to forget his failures. But could he do that without drinking? He had no model for a life like that, no example of the possibility, no system to avoid the awful truth about himself. How did one gain the necessary indifference to dishonor with a sober mind?

It was the ugly irony of his so-called cure: his stolen freedom would not let him rest. Sober or not, nothing really changed, and if honor, life, and freedom could not coexist on either side of his addiction, then they must not really exist at all.

Riley Keep kept silent.

“Mayor,” said Bill Hightower. “Again, I’m sincerely sorry to have to ask the obvious question, but here in front of the people that we serve, it must be done. Has the person or persons who provided these
gifts
benefited from the powers of your office in any way?”

Oh, he was crucifying her! Riley moaned aloud. Dylan turned to him, a question in his battered eye. Riley shook his head. Then he thought of a way out, a fourth way, beyond shame, captivity, or death. He stood and bent to whisper in Dylan Delaney’s ear. “Come with me.”

Hope’s lover rose and followed him. When the meeting room door had closed behind them and they were alone out in the vestibule, Riley paced back and forth while Dylan remained motionless.

Riley said, “I want you to write a note and get it passed to Hope. I want you to tell her she has two million dollars available to fix this. No, three! Tell her to make the announcement, to tell them she’s found an anonymous donor for a shelter to be built at the edge of town somewhere, and . . . I don’t know, maybe incentives for new business? An industrial park or . . . something. A convention center. Whatever she wants.”

Watching Riley pace, Dylan said, “I’m not gonna do that.”

“But Hightower’s
killing
her in there.”

“I know it.”

“You have a better idea?”

“I was prayin’ as hard as I could for her till ya brought me out here. Does that count?”

Riley stopped his manic pacing. “This is serious! We have to
do
something!”

“I’m not gonna help ya buy her affections, Riley.”

“
What?
”

“I’ve respected your wishes. I haven’t said a word to anyone about the deal with Hanks, but we both know where the car and mortgage payments came from. It’s not right to hide the money from her and dole it out this way. I’m a little outta practice, but this is prob’ly some kinda crime, and I can’t be a party to it anymore. You gotta tell her about the money, Riley, or I will.”

“You said you couldn’t tell anyone about my business. You’re my lawyer!”

“I also told ya attorney privilege is not a license to break the law.”

“What law?”

Dylan sighed. “Come on, Riley. Let’s not play that game. Ya know this isn’t right. I guess ya have some kinda plan to get her back, but so far all it’s done is cause her grief. If ya want her, the right thing to do is be honest about it. Come right out and tell her everything.”

Riley balled his fists. “I thought you were a better man than this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re willing to let them strip away her job and ruin her reputation, just to keep me from helping. Just to keep her to yourself.”

Dylan creased his brow. “Keep her to my
self
?”

Riley spoke with urgent sincerity. “Listen, you don’t have to worry about that. I know I don’t have a chance with her. I just want to make things easier for her and Bree . . . and for you. It’s why I chose you for my lawyer. To get some money into your hands, so you can support them.”

Dylan stared at him, and Riley thought he saw a sense of wonder beneath the bruises on the man’s face. “Ya really have no idea.”

It was Riley’s turn to frown. “No idea about what?”

Hope’s lover walked away, crossing the lobby toward the coatroom. There, he stopped and stood with his back turned. Riley saw his shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath. “I can’t believe she hasn’t told ya.”

“What are you talking about?”

Lifting his face toward the ceiling, keeping his back to Riley, Dylan sighed. “You’re right about one thing. I do love her. I’ve loved her for a long time. So last year I asked her to marry me.”

In a flash of inspiration Riley understood and felt his heart sink just a little lower. “You did it, didn’t you? You and Hope are married, but you’re keeping it a secret for some reason.”

Dylan laughed. “You’re pretty close.”

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“Believe me, it’s not you I’m laughin’ at.” Dylan turned to stare across the lobby at Riley. “I assumed you knew this, or I woulda told ya sooner. A lot of this money belongs to Hope already, Riley. Maybe half of it. Maybe more. In Maine, most property acquired during marriage is subject to division between the spouses, and the thing is, Hope won’t marry me because she’s already married, Riley. To you.”