worst nightmares. I said that the wheels for releasing
him were in the process of turning and he would be out
tomorrow.
Well, it was the kind of thing that happened in my
worst nightmares, anyway; that much was true. But it
was the last time I would get away with saying any of
the rest of it. The land-option payment was due in
twenty-four hours. So if Victor stayed in jail for more
than a day longer, it was all over.
"Have you," Ellie asked quietly, "read these?"
I sat down and put my face in my hands. "Yes.
Pretty low tactic, I guess, snooping in them when he's
not even around to object. But what Bob Arnold said
about him really struck me."
"That Terence might have done it himself. Hurt
himself, I mean, by throwing himself down the stairs.
The bottom step was messy, maybe from his landing
there after someone hit him. But maybe just from his
landing there ... hard."
"Yeah. He'd fallen once before, or so he said. His
behavior on the ferry and at the festival was odd, too.
It made me think he might be ill."
The diaries, though, opened a whole new can of
worms. They were dated on the covers; Ellie opened
the most recent one again.
"Paddy owed Terence a lot of money. Apparently
he'd lent it to him to put into the design studio. And
they were breaking up."
She looked at me, disbelieving. "But I can't imagine
them without each other. It would be like dividing
Siamese twins."
"Meanwhile, Terence was looking to get his money
back," I recited. "And Paddy couldn't pay. So Terence
was about to sue."
Glumly, Ellie looked at the pages again. "Which is
something else I absolutely can't believe, under normal
circumstances. And it looks as if, even if that never
paid off, Terence would be okay financially. I never
realized it, but I guess he's wealthy. Or so it says here."
"Right. Not the show-off type." I examined once
more the pages with their well-organized paragraphs
and crisply set-off things-to-do lists, each task checked
off as it was accomplished, interspersed with notes
about his and Paddy's imminent breakup.
There were notes about his finances, too: CDs,
money market accounts, a portfolio of blue chips. Like
the kind I should have had, except that in the past
couple of years I'd let that aspect of my financial life
slip, handing Ellie all my juicy stock tips instead of
following them myself.
Terence's personal finances were news to me but
not a huge surprise. I'd done Paddy's taxes, but knew
Terence's situation only as it related to his partnership
in Paddy's business. He had done his personal taxes
himself, and from the look of these notes he'd done
them as well as I could have.
Now I thought about his good, casual clothes, his
easy, self-effacing way of approaching most situations.
It all spelled money, but so quietly you never would
notice it unless you were looking for it.
As Terence--a quiet, civilized man--had intended.
"I'll bet he had his other affairs in order too," I said.
"Terence is a neat freak." Only at the end of the final
book had the diaries' careful system of organization
begun deteriorating.
"So I'll bet Terence has a will tucked into a safe
deposit box somewhere," I said, "and a copy in his
desk."
"Right," Ellie said. "But why would he--"
"Your next guess, I suppose, is that I am the beneficiary,"
Paddy Farrell said, appearing suddenly in the
hall behind us.
A thump of guilty embarrassment hit me. We
hadn't heard him come in, and it was pretty clear what
we were doing.
"Paddy, I hope your being back this early doesn't
mean--"
"That he's died?" Paddy's expression was haunted.
"No, he's hanging on. For now."
He stared at the diaries. "Sorry to startle you. I
knocked but you were apparently engrossed in your
reading. I came to ask about his package. But I see
you've already dealt with it. In," he added bitterly,
"your great wisdom." He turned to go.
"Paddy, this isn't the way it looks."
"Oh, I think it is. It'll make great dinner conversation
all over town, Terence's poor delusions, like his
crazy idea of suing me. Have fun, chewing over our
relationship. You're right about his will, by the way;
I'd get everything if Terence passed. As if," he finished
bitterly, "I would want it, then."
He opened the door; I got up and stopped him.
"Okay. As long as you're here, I'll ask: What about it,
Paddy? What's all this about Terence wanting to leave,
wanting his money and your not wanting to pay it
back to him?"
His eyes were hard and glittery. "Oh, it's not
enough to read his diary? Pry into his private secrets?
You want details?"
I shook my head impatiently. "I want to know if
you hit him, Paddy. Maybe you had an argument over
his leaving, and over the money. You lost your temper,
the way you do sometimes. And then set it up to look
like an intruder. That's what I'm asking you."
All the fight went out of him; he sagged against the
door.
"No," he whispered, aghast. "We argued, but not
over money. It's true I don't have it to give him, but
that's not the point. The trouble was that he was talking
about leaving again, and he couldn't leave. ..."
"Why not?" Ellie asked.
He looked at her as if the answer must be obvious.
"Because he's ill. He can't be alone. Surely you've noticed."
He turned to me, distraught. "Jacobia, I thought
you at least understood, since the other day on the
ferry. He stumbles, he talks strangely--that's when this
whole idea of his going away began, when he started
behaving ... irrationally. And it was getting worse
all the time."
He began pacing the kitchen. "It's why I took him
to see your ex-husband--once he'd have jumped at the
chance of another medical examination, but he'd gotten
so strange ... and now your ex was the only doctor
Terence would agree to be examined by."
His face clouded with guilt. "But I still didn't believe
he was really sick. He was always saying he was,
you know. I tried acting cold to him, to let him see how
it would be if we really did part."
A huge sigh escaped him. "But," he finished miserably,
"I was wrong. I guess I just didn't want to believe
it. When he got so ill on the ferry, that's when I started
really thinking--"
"So you've been in Victor's office too," I interrupted.
"Yes." Paddy looked taken aback. "Why shouldn't
we have? He scheduled Terence for tests, referred him
to a man in Portland, much to Terence's dismay. But
now, of course, all that is pretty much beside the point.
We know what the trouble is."
Yeah, he'd been bonked with a crowbar or something.
"Paddy, what the hell are you talking about?"
He pulled a chair out, sank into it, his face bleak.
"I'm saying," he uttered, "that even before what happened
last night, Terry was dying."
The words hung there. "I don't understand," I
managed after a shocked moment. "Terence is always
so ..."
"Healthy," Paddy finished for me. "So healthy it
was a joke. But aside from everything else, he was--
well. It's a dangerous world, Jacobia."
Suddenly I knew what was coming. Eastport's not
perfect; we probably have as many knuckleheads as
anywhere else. But much of the time, we tolerate one
another's differences pretty well. And when you've
gone without overt hatefulness over your neighbors'--
and your own--differences for a while, you can start
thinking maybe the rest of the planet's ills won't come
around to afflict you either.
So I hadn't considered it. But:
"He's been HIV-positive for nearly thirteen years,"
Paddy said quietly. "Or technically he has been--
there's been no detectable virus for a long time, but
they never call you cured."
"So his being a hypochondriac, studying first aid,
all the herbal remedies, working out and jogging, and
so on," I began.
"Were his ways of coping," Paddy agreed. "Along
with his real medications, of course. He'd been one of
the lucky ones, always responding well to treatment,
even in the early times when the medicines weren't as
good as they are now. We thought that might go on
forever. It never occurred to me that something else
might go wrong."
He took a deep breath. "But before he was in treatment,
just around the time I met him a dozen years
ago, he'd had some headaches. The doctors said then
that they were probably from some kind of an infection
that had left a scar in his brain. And now, just because
he's getting older, or whatever, the scar had begun
changing and starting to press on something important."
"But ... can't it be removed?"
"No." He sounded heartbroken. "If it weren't for
this injury, we wouldn't even know about it yet. And
now with the skull fracture and all the damage beneath
it, Terence would have only about a ten percent likelihood
of surviving the surgery, the doctors told me."
"And his mental status? How'd they say the tissue
would have affected it? Before the injury?"
"Paranoia, delusions, emotional outbursts, unsteady
gait, a slur when he talked. More to come. Any
of that sound familiar?"
He straightened with an effort. "He was sending
his diaries to his attorney in Bangor for safekeeping.
Another of his crazy ideas. But I'll do it for him now, if
you'll let me have them."
Ellie gathered them up and gave them to him unhesitatingly.
"Sure, Paddy. We'll be keeping a good
thought for him. And you."
"Right," he said, accepting the volumes.
He nodded wanly at Tommy and Sam as they came
in, Monday galloping happily behind them, and went
away down the street, his step so slow it made me
think of a man walking to the gallows.
"You don't suppose he's lying," Ellie said as the