I thought Bailey might as well unhook the Internet
link; all the information anyone could ever need was
already there in the store.
"They go to early services at First Baptist when
they're in town," Heather said. "So they're probably
home by now."
Just then Bob came in, got a coffee, and walked
with me to the booth in the back of the shop, the look
on his round, pink face one of abiding disgust.
"This murder business," he said, sliding in across
from me, "is not the kind of tourist attraction the
chamber of commerce had in mind when they started
advertising us as a big downeast Maine travel destination,
tryin' to get publicity."
He took a swallow of coffee. "City manager's office
is in a tizzy gettin' calls from reporters who want to
know does Eastport have a serial killer? 'Cause if we
do, we can all get on Hard Copy, but if it's just us folks
killin' one another, that ain't as newsworthy."
Oh, he was on a tear. I tried edging him in a new
direction.
"Well, but you know what the flip side is, don't
you? It's that most of the time, the great big world out
there leaves us alone, way up here at the edge of the
continent. To do things the way we want to, take care
of things that way, too."
He nodded reluctantly. Bailey came over with the
cream and sugar, caught my expression, and didn't
stick around to chat.
"Which," I went on, getting to the point, "I think
somebody did when they finished off Reuben Tate.
Took care of things their own way, I mean. And I'll tell
you another thing, Arnold: I think somebody set Victor
up for it on purpose."
I didn't feel so nervous about floating this theory
with Bob as I had with Bennet. As a small-town police
chief, Bob had seen a lot of odd things, and their oddness
hadn't prevented them from being true. His gaze
sharpened as I told him about the call Victor said he'd
gotten, and the mysterious coming of the trash truck.
"People in town knew Reuben was giving Victor
trouble," I said. "And I know of people who'd been in
his house, probably seen his collection of surgical instruments.
You can't walk down the hall without passing
it."
Well, Mike Carpentier had been in Victor's house
recently, anyway, and likely there were more. "I don't
suppose you've heard about any fingerprints, by any
chance? On, say, the weapon?"
"Nuh-uh. Glove marks on his skin, maybe. Burn
'em, or toss 'em in the bay, they're gone forever, probably."
"Darn. But my point is, if you hung back and
watched for your chance, you could steal a scalpel
from Victor's collection and kill Reuben with it, on a
night when Victor had no alibi for his time. That Victor
had threatened Reuben, and that he had a reason to
clean up so thoroughly--"
"Him being' a few fish short of a bucketful, in the
rub-a-dub department," Arnold put in accurately.
"Right. That would be, from your angle if you
were a sneaky murderer, just dumb luck. Whenever
you find out about it, you use it, even work it into your
plan. Take advantage," I finished, "of happenstance."
"Nothing dumb about the rest of it, though," Arnold
said shrewdly. "And the call would seal it. He'd
know Reuben was dead when he couldn't have yet, and
he couldn't prove how he found out. Same with that
garbage truck."
"Seems Reuben was talking up his plan to
blackmail Victor, too," I said, "so more than one person
might have thought to take advantage of that. And
sometimes when people get away with things, it's because
other things just happened to go their way," I
finished. "Like the bar fight, and Victor's hygiene fixation.
You couldn't plan that, it would be a couple of
lucky breaks you would use, just because they came
along."
Arnold nodded. "Maybe," he allowed. "But what
about the drugs in Tate's system? I hear he was loaded
with sedatives. The state boys," he added sarcastically,
"let me in on a few things."
"I don't know. I didn't say I had it all figured out.
But I doubt Victor's the only one on the island with a
bottle of Valium or whatever. For all I know, Reuben
had them himself."
Arnold shook his head. "Reuben liked uppers
more, though I guess if somebody offered to fix him up
with something he'd take it, no matter what it was. I
had his head, I'd want to be out of it a lot too. What
we've got left is someone who's smart, angry, and in
the right weight class to lift him up there."
"And there's another thing." The worry that had
seized me the previous evening came over me again.
The thing about shooting someone is, you do the deed
from a distance.
But this had been close-up work. "Whoever did it
is really dangerous, Arnold. To be able to--"
The sight of Reuben hanging there came back to
me again full force and I shuddered, unable to help
myself. Even a little blood can look like a lot.
And this was a lot. "Yeah," Arnold said reluctantly.
"That, too. Like whoever done it had a whole
lot more in mind than just killing him."
"Like the method itself was supposed to ..."
He nodded again. "Say something. I thought about
it. And ... look, I'm not supposed to talk about
this. But the patronizing attitude on those sons of
bitches ..."
The state guys, he meant. From their point of view,
Arnold was about as credible a law enforcement officer
as Deputy Dawg.
And it hurt his feelings. "Guy on the breakwater,
tie in his throat," he said.
"Right. That's another thing I'm curious about."
Arnold eyed me acutely. "I'm guessing your interest
isn't on account of your still having a soft spot for
your ex-husband."
"No. I've got serious financial reasons for not
wanting him to stay in trouble. And Sam ..."
"Yeah. His old man. Hard on a kid. On top of
which, the worse pain in the tail a fellow is, the more
you feel you've got to go the extra mile for him, sometimes.
Prove to yourself you are not being' a jerk yourself."
"Yes." I exhaled gratefully. That part was just so
hard to explain, but Arnold had put his finger on it.
"But look, it's not just me. I've got--"
"A funny feeling that maybe all this isn't over
with?"
I blinked at him, surprised.
"Me too," he mused. "You say somebody called
Victor, told him about the body in the cemetery? Said it
was Reuben dead, but Victor didn't know who it was
calling?"
"That's right." A suspicion struck me. "Arnold
..."
"Because," he said gravely, "I didn't think so much
of it at the time. Figured it was just somebody who
didn't want to get all involved in a bad business."
He looked up at me. "But yesterday morning right
after we found our first victim, I went across the street
from the seawall, into my office. Got an answering machine
in there, it's not set up to go through the
dispatcher, 'case Clarissa wants to call me on any
personal matter, and I'm not in the car."
To tell him, maybe, that the baby was coming.
"And that," he finished, "was how I found out about
Reuben. Course, by now that machine's number is
common knowledge. But I didn't recognize the voice.
Hung up 'fore I could ask, too."
"No caller ID, I suppose?"
"Nope. Line's just for me, didn't want to pay more
on it."
"The other guy," I said, "the one who was strangled.
Is he from here? Does he have a family?"
The victim's name, Arnold said, was Wesley Bo
dine. "Weasel for short. And by inclination. That fellow
was pure no-account: beat on his wife, wouldn't
support his kids, rowdy and mean when he wasn't so
drunk he could barely navigate. Worst guy in town, in
fact, or anyway he was, up till Reuben came back. Not
many people knew about him 'cept the guys he drank
with 'cause he kept himself to himself and so did his
wife, till she took the kids and went back home to her
folks in New Hampshire. But I knew."
Arnold glanced around to check that we weren't
being eavesdropped on. "And the tie wasn't the only
thing," he said, keeping his voice low. "In his mouth.
Weasel didn't have many teeth left but he had a few.
And the medical examiner says there was a chunk of
what looked like skin stuck on one of 'em."
It took me a moment to make sense of the implication.
"Not Reuben's."
Arnold nodded soberly. "That's right. Hell of a lot
of bad things were done to Reuben in his last hours.
But no one bit him."
"So unless you think there were two other killers--
besides Reuben, I mean--running around Eastport on
Friday night ..."
"And I don't," he said firmly. "Tiny town, middle
of nowhere, and two unrelated murders on one night?
It's just too damned much coincidence. No, I think
whoever did Reuben also did the Weasel. Two victims,
one villain."
"But the state cops don't agree. They're thinking
two killers. So it doesn't matter that Victor doesn't
have a cut hand, either."
Arnold's tone was even. "That's right. Like I say,
they never wanted Victor for Weasel in the first place,
so this won't change things in that regard."
So much for a stroke of luck. Another odd thing
struck me. "So how do you know about this skin
shred, anyway? Arnold, you wouldn't happen to be
related to the medical examiner? Or ..."
In downeast Maine, everyone was related to almost
everybody else. Arnold looked wise.
"Ice fishing. He comes up winters, we go out and
swap ourselves a few tall stories, drink beers. Kind of
activity the college-boy investigators think is beneath
'em. You keep the information to yourself, though," he
warned. "He gets in trouble, leakin' things to me, he
won't be telling me no more. Or comin' up fishing no
more, either."
"I'll keep my lip zipped," I promised.
"And don't go thinkin' it gets your ex off the hook,
either," he repeated brusquely. "Way this'll all happen,