I gazed out the Jeep window. The storm had torn
down some of the old wild grapevines that grew on the
cemetery gate where Reuben's body had been hanging.
They reminded me of the rope he'd hung from.
"... about whatever it is," I finished uneasily.
"So start the Jeep, please. We can think much better in
my kitchen than we can in . . "A cold, dark graveyard,
I was about to say.
But Ellie didn't let me.
"I can't," she confessed. "We're out of gas."
"There's a gas can in my cellar," I said, summoning
patience I'd never known I had.
"We'll just walk home, and ..."
Ellie wasn't listening. She rolled down
her window, looking at the cemetery gate. The night
air was damp, fragrant with cedar and the tannic smell
of the wet leaves lying thickly everywhere after the
rain.
"Ellie," I began. She turned and gazed at me, then
back at the grape foliage now dangling haphazardly.
"All those vines," she said simply, and then it hit
me:
Such a small thing, unremarkable. So innocent.
Until you knew. "The trellis," I said numbly.
Ellie nodded. "Willow said Reuben used to climb a
trellis to Mike Carpentier's room. Like the trellis on
Mike's cottage now."
"Mike's daughter, Molly," I said slowly, "is the
age Mike was back then."
"And he's fighting vermin at the cottage. He'd
have rat poison, and traps."
"The trouble he was in," I said thoughtfully. Everyone
in Eastport would know what it was; they always
did. But not me, because I was from away.
"Drugs," Ellie replied. "Marijuana, some heavier
stuff. You can bet he's not doing it with Molly around,
but it might be he's still got connections."
Right; Mike had mentioned that he didn't get
stoned anymore. And I'd already come to the conclusion
that the tranquilizer in Reuben's system didn't
have to be what Victor had prescribed. Now I tried
imagining it.
"So what if Mike's going along as peacefully as
always, but then the ex-wife comes home, finds out
Reuben's been at the cottage. That he was pestering
Molly, that he invaded her room. Hears from Mike,
maybe, about the scalpels at Victor's place."
"And she doesn't react the way Mike did," Ellie
picked up the theory. "For her it's not enough just to
send Reuben packing because, for one thing, she's got
to go back out to sea on the merchant vessel, won't be
here to help protect Molly."
"Maybe she wants to be certain Reuben won't try
anything like that again," I agreed. Battle to the death,
Anne had said. Take care of things; pick up the pieces
later. Maybe I should have taken her words a bit more
literally. "And Mike could have known that Reuben
was blackmailing Victor from Reuben himself, when
he was up there."
"She hatches a plan that includes duping Reuben,"
Ellie said. "Later throws a few curveballs in your direction,
thinks maybe she can get you scared."
"Stopped by the side of the road that day to check
me out," I agreed, "see if I had any inkling about her,
which of course I didn't. And now the boat's back out
to sea, which is why we haven't thought of her; she's
not around. And why there haven't been any more
mean tricks. But ..." Before Heywood died and Terence
was attacked.
I stopped: big problem. "Only she's not around, is
she?" I finished. "Anne went back out to sea before
..." Before Heywood died and Terence was attacked.
A hand thrust in through the open window, seizing
Ellie's hair. A knife gleamed.
"That's right. But you two have figured out way
too much. Why couldn't you let it go? If you had, I
wouldn't have to do this."
It was Mike Carpentier, eyes alight with purposeful
malice. So much for my thinking that I could
tell when people were lying to me. Now I saw Ellie's
throat move as she swallowed hard, and an ooze of
blood showed at the knife edge.
"The three of us are going to drive downtown,"
Mike said.
"We can't," I said quickly. "We're out of gas."
Mike sighed in a way that suggested tolerance
strained to the breaking point.
"Out," he ordered me, and although I have never
been much good at taking orders, I followed that one.
At his instruction, I took the gas can from the trunk of
his Escort where it sat with some sandbags, a coil of
rope, flares, a blanket, the standard set of tire-changing
equipment, and a big water jug; as usual, he was prepared
for anything.
I emptied the gas can into the Jeep. "I should
think," Mike said as I replaced the filler cap, "you'd
have learned to be ready for emergency situations like
this one. Running," he finished scornfully, "out of gas
twice. Hand me that rope."
"Yeah, silly me," I said, thinking about the revolver
locked safely in the box down in my cellar as I
obeyed.
Mike waited, still ready to skewer Ellie, as I got
back into the Jeep. Then he ordered Ellie out, slipknot
ted the rope around her neck, and climbed into the
Jeep's rear cargo area very quickly before yanking her
back into the driver's seat.
"Now," he said, removing the rope. "Drive, and
no tricks."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Ellie whispered. The knife
was aimed at the back of her neck.
"You've been following us?" I managed as we
pulled away from the curb.
"Yes. I knew when you came to the cottage earlier
today that you must've put at least part of it together,
or why would you come back? And then when you
drove by my old house and sat there looking at it ...
then I was sure."
We hadn't been, of course, at the time. But he
hadn't known that. He gave us a lot more credit than
we deserved.
Unfortunately.
His conversational tone was more chilling than a
shriek. "I never meant to hurt you, Jacobia. I'm sorry
it's turned out this way."
Terrific. So maybe he would tranquilize me, too,
before he cut my throat.
"I only wanted to distract you, get you busy with
something else," he went on. "Send you off in another
direction."
"Right," I snapped back as a burst of anger
washed over me. "Somewhere like the hospital. That
rat trap could've broken my wrist, you know. Instead it
got my dog. Someone's pet cat could have walked right
into--"
I stopped, remembering the poor creature Molly
had been burying. "It's what he used," I understood
aloud. "Reuben brought her that pet to win her over.
The way he brought all those animals to you--to try
softening you up, I suppose--he brought the cat to
Molly."
All at once I figured out how he had kept those
long-ago puppies and birds from his parents' notice.
Ellie's voice told me in memory: Somebody wrung its
neck.
"He wanted to repeat history," Mike agreed
grimly. "With my daughter." He frowned suddenly.
"Turn at the next corner."
But just then the familiar rumble of Tommy Daigle's
jalopy came up behind us. Its horn erupted in the
loud ooh-ooh-gah that Tommy loved so dearly, and
that he sounded at the slightest excuse.
"It's the boys," I said. "Just let them go by, Mike.
They aren't involved. Put the knife down so they don't
see it. Ellie won't do anything, will you, Ellie?"
The jalopy's headlights glared in Ellie's rearview,
flashed high and low. The horn ooh-ooh-gahed raucously
again.
"Right. Especially since I'm aiming it at the back of
the driver's seat," Mike said, "and it's long enough to
go all the way through."
As we neared the corner, Ellie touched the brakes,
touched them again to slow for the turn. The jalopy
kept coming behind us and she tapped the brakes once
more.
"I want them to stay back," she explained, but
instead they followed us onto Sullivan Street. Ellie kept
touching the brakes all the way down the steep hill,
finally signaling for a right turn at the bottom. The
boys went the other direction.
The knife returned to Ellie's throat. "When you get
to the lot by Paddy Farrell's studio building, pull in and
park."
Wade's pickup sat by the Quonset warehouse out
on the dock. Beside it was George Valentine's red panel
truck. Hope rose in my heart as I spotted the vehicles.
But the men were nowhere in sight.
"Reuben victimized you," I said. "Did he hurt
you? Touch you?"
Mike laughed bitterly. "He didn't have to. He was
toxic at a distance, like poison gas. He just threatened
to touch me."
Ellie pulled in beside Paddy Farrell's building. "He
liked little boys?"
Mike blew out an impatient breath. "Being a boy
had nothing to do with it. It was power he was into;
that's a whole different thing. As to gender, Reuben
was an equal-opportunity victimizer."
He squinted up and down the street, saw no one.
"He didn't touch me. But he told me what he would do
to me someday," he went on. "And made me listen.
Said if I told anyone he was coming into my room at
night, he'd kill my parents."
He turned to me. "Night after night. Can you
imagine what that's like for a child, not to want someday
ever to come?"
He took a shaky breath. "He had no reason to be
the way he was. He was just ... broken. Someone
should have drowned him at birth," he said. "But nobody
did so I cut his throat," his voice grew chillingly
ecstatic, "and let his blood run."
There were lights on in the cannery building.
"Reuben's blood," he finished wonderingly. "All of
that blood."
His tone grew efficient. "Let me out first."
He kept the knife at Ellie's throat, beckoning her
from behind the wheel. On the sidewalk he kept the
blade hidden by his side, aimed now at Ellie's body;
"Walk with me," he said. "We're going in. You