some consolation, as was my own nonlethal intention;
the bullet was a dummy and the guy's death was a
freak occurrence. I'd meant to stop him, not end his
life. But none of that changed the fact that the guy had
not survived the episode. Since then, the weapons I
owned--a .25-caliber semiautomatic and an Uberti-made
Bisley .45-caliber 6-shot revolver, the sort of gun you
might see the good guys blasting at the bad guys, in the
old Western shoot-'em-ups--had remained securely stored with
their trigger locks, cartridges, and ammunition clips in
the lockbox in my cellar.
On the other hand, if someone was going around
slitting throats I did not want mine to be one of them.
So I descended to the cellar, opened the lockbox with
the only key, which I wore on a chain around my neck,
and removed the handguns.
The semiauto was metallic gray, only a little larger
than my hand, and very light. The Bisley, by contrast,
was a whopper with a blued-steel barrel, checkered
grip, and weight enough to make you think twice
about carrying it around; also, it's got stopping power
enough to drop an elk.
Experimentally, I slid a clip into the semiauto.
Then I just sat there on the cellar steps, holding it for a
while. It was the Bisley I'd killed the man with, not the
pistol. But that didn't matter. What mattered was that
in the same situation, I knew that I would do the same
again. And, after months of silently thinking it over, I
knew that I could.
It's an interesting thing to learn about yourself.
When I was sure of it, I put the handguns back in the
lockbox and turned the key, snapped the light switch,
and went upstairs. It was not yet time to start adding
deadly weapons to my toolkit. And maybe it wouldn't
ever be.
But they would be there, if I needed them.
Next step: The drive to Machias took a bit under
an hour and felt like five minutes. I had a question, and
I needed an answer in order to make my second decision.
The jail is located in the old red-brick county
courthouse building, on a pretty side street that as I
pulled onto it was quiet; most offices were closed on
Saturday. But there were still official deeds to be done,
apparently; inside, the lobby bustled with low-key but
purposeful activity.
I waited while the desk clerk consulted with somebody
about my request. The verdict: yes, but with conditions.
Okay by me. I followed the young police officer
who was to be my chaperon down a dingy hall, past
offices, a file library, and a coffee room. The uniform
for female attorneys, caseworkers, and others who had
business here today was longish rayon dresses, jackets,
and flat shoes; for the men, jackets and ties.
The inmates, by contrast, were all dressed alike:
bright orange jumpsuits that would make them easy to
spot in the woods, which is where you would head to if
you wanted to escape around here. Victor looked
ghastly in his, though under the circumstances I
doubted that crisp tailoring would have made him look
any better.
The young officer sat on a plastic chair in the corner
of the conference room. When Victor came in, I
didn't mince words.
"Do not, I repeat do not make any incriminating
statements to me."
I didn't know what he might have said to Bob Arnold,
on the trip down. All I knew was that perjury
was not among the crimes I planned to commit for
Victor.
Which limited pretty severely the questions I could
ask him. But there was one, and as I sat there looking
at him across the table in that hideous little conference
room, I understood that I already knew the answer.
I'd just needed to see him, so it would be clear to
me. And I needed to hear him say it.
He understood; even on his worst days, of which
this had to be a real standout, he was no fool.
"Jacobia," he said, and for an instant all his idiocies
and posturings evaporated. He was just a man in
an orange jumpsuit, tired and frightened.
I'd loved him, once.
"Jacobia," he said, "please help me."
"I don't see how all this affects your own
situation," Paddy Farrell sniffed, regarding
me with a narrow look of unwelcome.
Inside the old sardine cannery overlooking
the boat basin, Paddy's fabric-design studio was
aggressively white: the pristine walls, recently painted
woodwork, and high airy ceilings. On the polished tile
floor a half-dozen wooden layout tables were covered
with colored drawings and sketches, under track lights
as bright as little suns.
"Or why you want to go digging up old misery, on
account of it," Paddy added, his salt-and-pepper head
tilted suspiciously at me.
In one corner of the big work area, a chemistry-lab
bench had been built in, complete with gas jets and
oversized, brushed stainless-steel double-basined sinks.
Another area was a display module with swatches of
bright cloth in jewel-like hues spread on low tables,
gleaming like a sultan's riches.
"My situation," I snapped back at him, "is this:
Victor's in jail and if it comes to a trial, Sam may have
to testify against him. Even if he doesn't, he's very upset
over his father being in trouble. Also the money I
personally have in jeopardy over the matter would pay
off the national debt of Peru. So does that adequately
sum up the reasons behind my interest for you?"
At the far end of the studio, cubicles were sectioned
off for computer stuff--workstations with
candy-colored Macintosh hardware set up on them--
and dye testing: the object, I supposed, of the chemistry
equipment. Paddy didn't only design fabrics; he tried
out his ideas on actual pieces of cloth, to see what
effects he could achieve before the work went into
larger-scale trials.
"Also," I said, "jerk that he is, Victor didn't kill
Reuben. And I'd say an unjust murder conviction is
going a little far." In the personal revenge department,
I meant; Paddy knew that my history with Victor
wasn't exactly silk-lined.
He glowered, still deciding whether to talk to me at
all. Meanwhile I thought again how much of a Renaissance
man it was still possible to be, here in Eastport.
Basic design, dye experiments, fabric tests: with no one
around to tell him that he couldn't do it all, Paddy just
went ahead and did.
It was, I'd gathered, an unconventional way of
working. But stubborn, pugnacious Paddy had made a
success of it; from his small Maine island studio here at
the back of beyond, he did business with clients in Europe,
South America, and Japan, as well as in the
United States.
In one corner of the studio hung the big weight bag
and the punching bag that Terence worked out on
when he wasn't jogging or bicycling. His ten-speed
leaned against the wall nearby.
"And Wade," I finished, "has got a mad-on at himself
about something. I don't know what, but I know
it's to do with Reuben."
I faced Paddy. "So are you going to help me or
not?"
He still looked unhappy, pained and put-upon in
the extreme, but no longer so flatly rejecting. "You
were awfully useful, solving that little tax problem I
had earlier this year," he conceded reluctantly.
Paddy was good at earning money hand over fist,
not so good at spending it on anything other than his
beloved studio. Sending any of it to the government,
for instance, was anathema to him. Thus his tax problems
had ended up being soluble only by dint of my
brushing off my tax-preparer credentials and going to
Augusta, and falling on my very own personal knees in
front of the revenue officials.
"If I could just cast doubt on the theory," I said.
"Show that somebody else is at least as good a suspect
as Victor."
Paddy eyed me over another stack of colored
sketches. The patterns were for watered silk in shades
of salmon and turquoise, the effect a pearly shimmer.
"A suspect," he suggested thinly, "such as myself?"
"No," I denied, although the thought had of
course occurred to me. Paddy had been pretty vocal
about his feelings, the night before. "Just ..."
Terence Oscard looked up from a table where he
was writing something in a spiral notebook. Lined up
nearby with his writing things was a collection of potions,
pills, lotions, ointments, and herbal remedies, all
of which he used regularly to ward off real or imaginary
ailments.
"Paddy was with me all evening," he said firmly.
"All," he emphasized, "evening."
The big man waved at the open staircase leading to
the top floor, where Paddy had put the living area.
Mounted on each of the pillars under the stairs, and on
other pillars dividing the whole area of the workspace,
were bright red fire extinguishers.
The effect was of little drops of blood sprinkled
evenly on a background of snow. But the cylinders
were also reassuring; if a fire got started here it could
take the whole downtown with it, not to mention all of
Paddy's investment.
"I'm very glad to hear it," I told Terence. His left
hand, I noticed, was wrapped in an Ace bandage he
hadn't been wearing at La Sardina. But I paid little
attention; probably it covered some minor wound that
might, to a normal person, be worth a Band-Aid, or no
treatment at all.
"It means," I went on, "Paddy can tell me all he
knows about Tate and anyone who might have wanted
to kill him, without worry about incriminating himself."
Which was not strictly true. If it came to these two
having to alibi each other, I wouldn't've put much faith
in it. But it hadn't come to that--at the time, I had no
particular sense that it would--and in any case there
was no sense saying so to Paddy.
"Starting right now," I told him. "Or next spring,
I'll let you sort out your taxes all by yourself and go to
Augusta to try defending the hash you've made of
them."
I spoke to both of them; Terence was Paddy's business
partner as well as his domestic companion but