went on. "Typing, for instance: I could do that. Not
fast, but I could. I was a bookwormish kid. So he made
me do it if he wanted something typed. I was scared of
him, to tell you the truth."
"But you still spent time with him. How did that
happen? I mean, where, for instance?"
"Oh, around," Mike said vaguely. Then he looked
straight at me. "See, I was a child. We weren't friends
in the way any normal person would use the word. He
just had a weird thing about me; I don't know. Like a
pet," he repeated.
"Mike," Ellie said, "are you sure you weren't
among Reuben's present-day enemies?"
I'd have asked him about the other victim, too, if
I'd been the one putting the question, though I might
not have asked at all. It flat-out implied that Mike
might be a murder suspect. But he seemed not to take
any offense.
"Oh, no," he said serenely, looking almost
amused. "That's what you still don't understand. That
was then, and this is now. What's past is past."
He got up from the table. His hands were red and
work-roughened, and there was an ugly-looking recent
burn on the back of the right one.
"That looks painful," I said, but he shrugged off
the injury easily.
"Can't be too careful with a woodstove. One slip,
and the next thing you know, hssstl But it's healing
okay."
Molly returned as he filled the kettle again, from a
big metal carboy of water on the sink. "I probably
wouldn't have told you about me and Reuben at all. It
isn't something I like talking about. Too," he made a
little grimace of distaste, "weird. But I hear Willow
Prettymore is back in town for the festival and she's
sure to gossip a mile a minute. So--"
He lifted his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.
"I just go on," he said, dismissing the subject. "Would
you like to take some gingerbread? Molly, wrap it up
for these ladies."
The child scurried wordlessly to obey.
"Mike," I asked, "did Bob Arnold happen to
mention anyone else Reuben might have been giving trouble
to lately?"
"More than the usual, you mean? No, he didn't
really seem to have a clue about that. And I didn't," he
went on, "offer any."
Molly returned, handing me the parcel. She was
very self-possessed for a young girl, her manner gravely
polite. Yet she had an odd, repressed air of babyish
ness, too; at her age, many girls in the city had already
become mall rats.
Mike hesitated as if wondering whether to elaborate
on his last remark. Then:
"I hear the Sondergards are playing on the bandstand
for the Salmon Sunday supper," he said to Ellie.
"Dad," the little girl interrupted insistently, tugging
at her father's sleeve.
As Mike lay a soothing hand on the girl's shoulder,
it struck me that Molly might be a wee tad overprotected,
especially way out here with no other children
of her age to play with. Given a choice, though, I'd
take that over a whole mall full of preadolescent girls
in spandex halter tops and eye makeup. In Eastport, a
child could still be a child long after the city kids were
getting rushed willy-nilly into the adulthood.
"Dad, I need you to help me with this," Molly
persisted. "I need you now."
So the kid wasn't perfect, and if you dropped her
in a mall she'd probably go hysterical from sensory
overload. But if Mike Carpentier had chosen to stick to
a strict parenting route, lots of his own input and not
much from anyone else, I couldn't blame him. If I'd
done it earlier, maybe Sam wouldn't have had so much
trouble.
When we left, the two of them were standing in the
doorway, waving serenely, Molly with her macrame
project in her hands. The downhill trip was easier and
faster than the climb up; in a few minutes we were
back at the Jeep.
I opened the gingerbread package; the fragrance of
cloves filled the air. "How does he manage up there?
No power, no running water. Not even a telephone--
what happens if there's an emergency? Can you really
raise somebody on a CB radio? And what about winter?"
I ate a morsel of gingerbread. "Or does he hole up
in the cottage until spring? Home-school Molly, eat
what they've canned from the garden and butcher a
few chickens till the snow melts? Pray," I added, "that
neither one of them needs an ambulance, or that the
cottage needs a fire truck."
Ellie glanced wryly at me. "First of all, Mike is
prepared for any emergency short of being at ground
zero. I looked around a bit while you two were talking
--there's a water tank up the hill in case of fire, a
first-aid kit that makes Terence's look like a toy doctor
bag, enough canned goods to stock a supermarket out
in the shed. There's the radio for emergencies. I doubt
there's a whole lot of people Mike chats to on a regular
basis, so he doesn't need a phone. And he drives Molly
to school every morning, picks her up in the afternoon."
"Drives? But ... Oh." That Ford Escort, I realized,
pulled to the side of the cove road. "So he isn't
the hermit he appears?"
"Nope. Just when he wants to be." Ellie pulled the
Jeep into my driveway, beside which stood all those
storm windows. A pang of urgency stabbed me at the
sight of them, because September in Maine is like the
condemned man's last meal: fun while it lasts, but it
won't put off what is coming.
"Not that the self-sufficiency routine does too
much," Ellie added, "for Molly's social life. From what
people say around town, I guess Mike doesn't think
Molly's peers are fit companions."
She swung out of the Jeep and walked with me to
the house. "I wanted you to meet him," she went on,
"before I told you much about him, so you could form
your own impression. But to tell you the truth I wasn't
surprised that Bob Arnold had gone to see him. Mike's
a good father but otherwise he's pretty strange."
"Oh, I don't know. I kind of enjoyed him. Just
because he's independent, likes to do things his own
way. I don't see why it should make a person feel suspicious
of him."
I held out the remaining gingerbread. "Want a
piece?"
Ellie stopped by the porch steps. "No, thanks. Interesting
he should bring up the Sondergards, too.
Maybe we ought to talk to them. I think his mentioning
them was no accident; he isn't a fool. And the same
with Willow Pretrymore ..."
Her voice trailed off thoughtfully.
Checking the mailbox, I found it empty, then remembered
it was Sunday. "Come on, Ellie. Aren't you
making him out to be more subtle than he is?"
I opened the back door. "Mike's a plain-looking,
plain-speaking guy who does what he wants and says
what he thinks, from what I can see. I admire that."
Inside, Monday galloped to meet us. "It was weird,
his story about Reuben. And I'll admit I had a bad
moment with the blood on the chopping block. But all
he'd done was kill a chicken for his Sunday dinner.
Whacked," I finished, "its head off."
"Huh," Ellie said skeptically, ruffling the dog's
ears. "I'm surprised he bothered."
I turned on the coffeemaker. "What do you mean
by that?"
She eyed me levelly. "The cat Molly was burying?
Did you get a look at it? A good," she emphasized,
"look?"
"No, why?" I picked up the gingerbread again,
meaning to put it in an airtight container, since Ellie
didn't want it.
"Because," Ellie said, patting Monday's head and
making more kind noises at her, "somebody had
wrung that cat's neck."
I dropped the gingerbread in the trash.
"Oh, and one other thing," she added. "The man
Paddy said was going to testify against Reuben? But
instead got found with a bump on his head," she finished,
"down in his own cellar?"
"You know about that?"
The coffeemaker burbled. I turned from the refrigerator
where I was getting out the cream. I had not
mentioned that part of my trip with Paddy and Terence.
"Uh-huh." Ellie reached up into the cabinet, came
down with cups and saucers. "Paddy always likes to
tell that story when the topic of Reuben comes up, so I
figured he'd told it to you. But for some reason there's
always one aspect of it he leaves out."
If he thinks leaving something out'll make him
look better, Wade had said of Paddy, he'll do it. "What
part is that?"
Sunshine from the tall kitchen window fell slantwise
on the cup Ellie was holding, filling it with milky
light.
"The man in the cellar was Paddy's father," she
said.
The telephone rang.
"Jacobia. Good to talk to you. Wish it were
under different circumstances."
"Hello, Ben." It was a voice from the
bad old days. Bennet Berman had handled
Victor's side of the divorce. "Since when are you doing
criminal cases?"
"Since never. Just getting the ducks in a row for
your ex. He'll have a criminal defense attorney, of
course. I'm not even licensed to practice in Maine."
Right; divorce as a metaphor for all-out nuclear
war hadn't yet gotten fashionable up here in moose
country, so there wasn't much real call for Bennet's
area of expertise.
"But Victor wants me on the team," Bennet went
on. "He seems to feel there are ways I can be effective."
I banished memories of just how effective he'd
been against me; as Mike Carpentier had said, that was
then and this was now.
And Victor needed all the help he could get. "So
what kind of quacking are you hearing, Ben? From the
ducks in the row."
His laugh turned mirthless. "Well. It's still the
weekend, so things aren't high gear yet. But I've got a
faxed preliminary medical report on the victim. Victor
said"--Bennet's tone was puzzled--"that you would
want to hear it."
"You're kidding." Back in the old days when I was
a money manager, Victor seemed to feel my job was