much more than we did."
She walked over and began restoring my dresser
things to order, stepping deliberately in front of Victor
to do it, so that he had to move away.
"His plan nearly worked," I added. "He almost
did make it seem to be too much trouble, to keep on
trying to get you out of jail."
He had the grace to look grateful, but only for an
instant. "And the trellis? What did that show?"
"Again, nothing in itself. But Reuben climbed one
when Mike was a kid, to terrorize him. He was trying
it again on Mike's child, on a similar trellis. And the
connections between those things were strong in
Mike's mind. He thought we would see them too,
much sooner than we actually did."
"Reuben made Mike a killer," Ellie said, "in the
sense that he gave Mike what it took to be able to do it,
fear and rage. But unlike Reuben, Mike still had some
remnant of a conscience, and that, in the end, was
what caught him up."
Victor pondered this for about a millisecond.
Then:
"Well, that's all very edifying, I'm sure. And it's
over. Jacobia, is there anything good to eat in the refrigerator?
Jail food is hideous, and I'm starved."
He rubbed his hands together in what he apparently
thought was a display of charming eagerness.
At this, I considered telling him of the lovely red
berries among the weeds in the garden: nightshade,
among the deadliest of the natural poisons. When I was
busy getting him out of jail I had somehow missed noticing
the obvious alternative to his imprisoned status:
that he would be here.
Which was when Wade came in, his knapsack over
his shoulder. He and Ellie had been putting their heads
together earlier, but I didn't know what about. Now he
took in the scene:
Me propped up on pillows, Sam at the card table,
Ellie in the doorway, and Victor, there in the middle of
it all, looking smugly sure of his newly regained position
as king of the castle, even if this particular annex
of it did happen to be my house.
The phone rang; Sam ran to answer it.
"Hey, Victor," Wade said pleasantly, putting down
his bag. "Welcome back. Glad everything worked out
okay for you."
Then, astonishingly, he began taking off his
clothes.
It was his bedroom, of course; Wade's and mine, I
mean. But somehow I don't think Victor had quite understood
that, before.
Slowly, Wade unbuttoned his shirt and hung it on
the chair where he always hangs his work clothes until
he washes them. He sat, removing his boots and socks
as casually as if he were used to stripping down in a
room full of people.
Which he was not. To Wade, there is a border between
the land of clothing and the land of not wearing
any, crossable by invitation only. Now, as Ellie left the
room very quietly, Victor cleared his throat and began
frowning with extreme discomfort.
Seeming not to notice, Wade pulled his belt off and
undid his pants. He looked fetching and entirely unselfconscious;
that he did this in front of me often must
suddenly have been, to Victor, illusion-smashingly clear.
Until that moment, I do believe Victor thought the
idea of my having any sort of romantic life apart from
him was just some ridiculous fraud I kept attempting to
perpetrate on him, just to annoy him. And the rest of it,
of course, was only an extension of that: Victor's belief
that somehow I still belonged to him.
Wade stood up, destroying as he did so any possible
remnant of this mistaken--not to mention utterly
CroMagnon--notion.
"Well," Victor croaked, glancing about wildly for
somewhere to rest his gaze, not finding any, and backing
toward the door.
"Say, isn't that Sam calling me?" he asked flusteredly
at last, then turned and fled.
When he was gone, Wade approached, looking I
thought rather convincingly Cro-Magnon himself.
In the nicest possible way, of course.
That night, Ellie and I went onto the porch
for a breath of air. The sky was full of stars
as if someone had punched pinholes in it,
letting light through from the other side. On
the eastern horizon lay the false blue dawn of moonrise.
"You put him up to it," I accused her, meaning
Wade.
"I never," she denied innocently, then temporized.
"Well, I did say I thought you needed some help setting
Victor's head on straight, making him see reality. And
anyway, what's wrong with a little help from your
friends?"
It wasn't reality. I was no more Wade's property
than I was Victor's, and Wade would be the first to say
so. But as illusion, it was better than Victor's idea that I
was still somehow part of his harem.
More fun, too. "Thank you," I told Ellie sincerely.
"What's going to happen to Molly, do you suppose?"
The child had seen it all; that, bottom line, had been
the reason for Reuben's murder.
"Anne Carpentier's flown home. Pretty shocked,
from what I hear. I don't think she had any idea Mike
was capable of anything like this."
"No." Sensitive and complicated, she'd called him,
while she herself was the perfect example of "what you
see is what you get." I'd have bet money that she'd
never even had an inkling.
"She's a tough cookie, though." Ellie's voice was
approving. "She'll get Molly through it, if anyone
can."
I thought so too, but it wasn't going to be an easy
task. In trying to protect her, Mike Carpentier had
done his daughter more damage than he'd prevented.
"If anyone can," I echoed.
We stepped off the porch, strolled down Key Street
to Water Street. Ahead lay the granite-block post office
building, across from the blackened remains of Paddy's
studio.
"Victor's project getting back on track?" Ellie
asked. Beside us Monday ambled companionably,
pausing to snuffle up a piece of apple core before trotting
on.
"In a New York minute," I said, still amazed at the
speed with which he had done it. "The district attorney
decided not to press charges about the prescription he
wrote Reuben, under the circumstances." Which
wasn't such a complete no-brainer as it sounded, since
it was that prescription drug, in part, that Reuben had
been incapacitated by. Victor had been lucky.
A bat swooped past, twittering as it gobbled the
last of the autumn insects. "This afternoon he was
working the phone so fast I thought it was going to
melt in his hand. He's got a new idea to add to his
plan. And it's such a hot money maker, he's already
got folks begging to be in on it. Alternative therapies."
She glanced sideways at me as we headed downhill
past the Quoddy Tides building, its little frame structure
perched neatly on an outcropping overlooking the
boat basin. Beyond, Leighton's Variety was doing brisk
business in quarts of milk, packs of cigarettes, all the
things people suddenly discover they want in late evening,
or they just want a little ride to the store.
"Herbs," I explained. "Acupuncture, massage,
hypnosis." People wanted those things, too. And increasingly
their insurance would pay for them. The
trauma center would be a great resource for Eastport,
but with the alternative-therapies clinic he was now
planning to add, I thought Victor had actually stumbled
onto something brilliant.
"Listen," I said. "I don't want to get your hopes
up. But Victor's planning something else, too. He's going
to Portland tomorrow."
Her face lit up. "Terence?" she asked, her voice not
daring to sound optimistic.
"Uh-huh. He's stabilized but still comatose. Victor
says he won't get any better until somebody removes
the blood clots from the injury, and that would be very
risky."
I took a deep, lung-cooling breath of the damp,
salt-tangy air, more delicious than any champagne.
"Victor wants to do it, though, and he wants to go
after the scar tissue at the same time. I don't understand
all of it," I confessed. "But Victor's been on the
phone with the surgeons in Portland, and he seems to
think he can get Terence through it."
What he'd said, actually, was something about one
hand tied behind his back. But I was sure he would
really use both of them.
She frowned. "What about Terence's illness? And
doesn't somebody have to give permission? For the surgery?"
"There's no reason people with HIV can't have
this surgery, Victor says. That's not a factor, given Terence's
good health otherwise. And Paddy can give permission."
A thump of regret hit me as I thought of this. If I
hadn't been so diverted by the diaries, I'd have paid
more attention to the letter Terence had written to go
with them, to Terence's attorney.
"Terence was confused. But Paddy was right, he
had enough sense left to know something bad was happening
to him. In his last lucid moments he gave Paddy
power of attorney and appointed him his legal guardian.
The letter was to tell his lawyer so."
I heard Ellie sigh. "So Terence will get a chance."
Out on the water, the ferry was making its final
passage to Deer Island for the night, its deck a puddle
of light. The waves of its wake began slopping desultorily
on the gravel shore.
"A little chance," I agreed.
Which I guessed was all any of us got. Only for
some of us, little miracles happened too.
"Sam's staying around here and going to college,"
I said. This time he seemed really sure of it. "He told us
at dinner. He'll work part-time at the boatyard, commute
to the University of Maine in Machias. Best of
both worlds, it seems to me."
Also, it gave him a way to start that he felt he
could handle. Later, Dan Harpwell would help him
plan how to go on.
"Wonderful. How did he decide, finally?" Ellie
reached down and took an urchin shell out of Monday's
mouth.
"Victor. Can you believe it? He told Sam that he,