At the Water's Edge (28 page)

She slapped the arms of the chair, startling me. “Then
why
?”

“Money, of course,” I said. “And the
really
stupid thing is that I brought all of this on myself.”

“No,” she said, frowning. “How could you have?”

“I was stupid enough to let him know that I don't believe he's color-blind. If I tell his father, he'll cut him off without a penny. So he's come up with a plan that lets him dismiss anything I say as crazy
talk—and, of course, if I were ever foolish enough to open my mouth, he'd make the phone call and take care of the problem. The only thing I can do is try not to upset him until I figure something out.”

“No,
this
is what we're going to do,” Meg said firmly. “We're going to get you out of here. Anna's family will have you, I'm sure of that. Angus will spirit you over later.”

“It wouldn't work. He'd find me.”

“We'll make sure he doesn't.”

“He'd find me and have the rest of you arrested for kidnapping. And, of course, I'd be delivered to a hospital in the back of an ambulance and come back drooling. Drooling, but ever so obedient.”

“But you can't just sit around waiting for it to happen!” Meg said angrily. “It makes no sense!”

“You don't understand.
He'd find me
. There's too much money involved—his own family's fortune is big, but sooner or later he's going to find out that
my
father is dead, and there's an
obscene
amount of money at stake there.”

Meg fell quiet for long enough that I finally turned back to her. Her pale eyes bored through me. She sighed and turned away from me, staring into the empty grate.

She obviously knew there was more to it, but what could I tell her? That there was nothing anyone could do to save me that wouldn't land Angus in prison for life? That his fate lay in the hands of my volatile, feckless husband, and in my attempts to pacify him?

After more than a minute, she began tapping a finger against her chin.

“Well,” she said, “it's just possible there's another way.”

For the first time since flopping on the bed, I pulled myself upright.

“What? What is it?”

“Fiddlehead stew is a delicacy around here, very tasty indeed, especially with a few drops of malt vinegar. Of course, you have to be very careful not to cook it too late in the season or you risk bracken poisoning…”

Her eyes cut sideways at me, to see if I was following.

“But I suppose if the shoots were just a
little
bit iffy—maybe a week or two older than someone might usually use them, an inexperienced cook might decide they were still safe. And then somebody else might see the pot boiling, and—knowing that it was too late in the season to be cooking fiddleheads—come to the conclusion that someone was boiling up a batch of insecticide for the vegetable garden. And to be helpful, she might throw in a few rhubarb leaves.”

I blinked a few times.

“I don't think I can do that,” I finally said.

“Do what?”

“Kill him,” I whispered.

“Heavens no,” Meg said sternly. “It would be an unfortunate case of kidney failure, a tragic misunderstanding.”

“Even if we make this…mistake,” I said in a strained voice, “Angus is still going to think I betrayed him. At least until I figure something out.”

“I don't see how that's to be avoided, since you won't hear of being removed from the situation. If you won't let him do anything to protect you, we certainly can't tell him—if he thought for a moment you were being threatened, he'd take matters into his own hands, and then we'd have a body to dispose of, and not from anything nearly as neat and tidy as kidney failure. I can't guarantee that he won't take matters into his own hands anyway.”

“What if he stops loving me in the meantime?”

“I don't imagine you have to worry about that,” Meg said. “But I also don't see that you have much choice, since you won't be talked out of doing nothing. Seeing you with your husband
will
crush him—that much I know.”

I
could barely breathe when I descended the stairs that night, and as I crossed the small distance to the nook by the fire, I felt like I was climbing the platform to a guillotine. I wondered if Hank had filled Ellis in about our chat by the fire and my ill-advised accusations. I tried to convince myself that he wouldn't say anything—he knew what was at stake. He couldn't possibly hate me that much, even if it turned out he was flat-footed.

I tried to read Hank's face as I approached the couch, but he was giving nothing away. Ellis patted the cushion next to him.

“Sit, darling! I was beginning to wonder if you'd show up.”

“I'm sorry about earlier,” I said, flashing him a quick, forced smile before taking my seat. “I'm sure that wasn't the welcome you were hoping for.”

“Don't be silly,” Ellis said. “I should have sent word that we were going to be staying away longer. Is your stomach any better?”

“A bit.”

My attempt at an about-face probably would have been more convincing if I'd asked him about the trip and what they'd discovered
about the monster, but I knew enough about what else they'd been up to that the conversation would have required a level of artifice I couldn't possibly sustain. For the moment, I was just going to have to blame my lack of curiosity on an upset stomach.

Angus was watching the three of us intently, his face an inscrutable mask. I couldn't look directly at him—didn't want to give Ellis any reason to notice him at all—but in my peripheral vision I saw the way he clunked glasses down on the bar, the way he grimly went about his business.

I couldn't imagine what he thought. He must have known that things weren't as they seemed, but he also must have wondered why I didn't just tell him what was going on. I wanted to, desperately, but I was as good as shackled. Either he'd go to prison for life, or he'd kill Ellis and hang for it.

To a man, the locals were as stony and speechless as Angus, and when Willie the Postie came in, he took his seat without so much as a glance in our direction—it was as though Hank and Ellis had never been gone, and the last thirteen days hadn't happened.

I was careful to avoid eye contact with the lumberjacks, who were clearly baffled at seeing me back in my old role as Mrs. Hyde. I sent up a silent prayer that none of them would let on that I'd been working behind the bar, because I knew with absolute certainty that if anything would send Ellis off to the phone booth, that was it.

Fortunately, the lumberjacks were much more concerned with Meg than with anything that was happening by the fire. Earlier in the afternoon, Dr. McLean had cleared her for work at the inn, although she could not yet return to the sawmill. She was painfully thin and moved carefully, but she'd made herself up and donned a bright dress, determined to carry on as usual. From the right, she was as gorgeous and perfect as ever. From the left—well, seeing her from the left made me want to cry.

“Shame about her face,” said Hank, lighting a cigarette. “She was a real looker.”

“Can't say I noticed,” said Ellis. “But she's definitely a wreck now.”

I wondered if the night he'd tried to break down my door ever crossed his mind, or if he had any idea what he'd planned to do if he'd succeeded.

When Meg set our plates in front of us, Ellis asked, “Is this beef?”

“Venison,” she replied.

Ellis shot Hank a gleeful look.

I hated him. Oh, how I hated him. It seethed inside my belly like a squirming snake.

A quarter of an hour later, an old man in a ragged uniform stumbled in and announced with drunken flourish that he'd just seen the monster.

Willie snorted. “Here we go again,” he said.

“Are you doubting me, then?” the man asked incredulously.

“Oh, heavens no. What possible reason would we have to doubt you?” said Ian Mackintosh. Chortles ran down the length of the bar.

“Well, if that's how it's going to be, I'll just take my custom elsewhere.”

“You'll be walking the two and a half miles to the Clansman, will you?” said another.

“Well, I'll not be staying where I'm being insulted, that's for certain!”

Willie's orange eyebrows shot up. “You'll be lucky to make it home, from the looks of it.”

The old man harrumphed and turned to leave, staggering toward the door.

Ellis and Hank exchanged glances. Ellis leapt up and rushed over.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, touching the old man's elbow, “I couldn't help overhearing. Would you care to join us? We'd be delighted to hear about your experience.”

The man ran his rheumy eyes over Ellis, spent a moment concentrating and weaving, then poked him in the chest.

“I know you. You're the…I know who you are,” he said, struggling
to form the words. “I heard you were in town. Do you know, I met your old man. Nice chap. Very generous, if I recall.”

“Yes, that runs in the family,” Ellis said brightly. “Do come sit.” He swept an arm toward the fireplace, as though inviting the old man into our drawing room.

“Well, I don't mind if I do,” said the man.

“Bartender?” Ellis said, snapping his fingers over his head. “Bring the gentleman whatever he wants.”

I cringed. I could only imagine Angus's reaction, and it took every ounce of my self-control not to look.

Ellis took the old man's arm and parked him in the chair beside Hank. After introducing the three of us, he took a seat and leaned forward, rubbing his hands together. “So, enough about us. Tell us about you.”

“The name's Roddie McDonald,” he said. “And I should have known better than to say anything in a room full of skeptics.” He cast a disparaging look back at the bar, then leaned in to confide. “This isn't the first time I've seen the monster, you know. I told your father about the other time. And very grateful, he was.” He nodded knowingly. “Your father…he was a colonel, wasn't he? How is the old devil? He was in the Great War, like me…only now we're supposed to call it World War One.” He looked down at himself. “This uniform…I wore it in the Battle of Liège, you know. It's the Home Guard for me, this time around. Too old, they say…” He looked directly at me, cupped a hand around his mouth, and said in a loud, wet whisper, “Just shows what they know. I'm as much of a tiger as I ever was.”

He winked, and like a scene from a
comédie grotesque
, Hank and Ellis threw their heads back and howled. Roddie looked alarmed, then just confused, and then he joined in, exposing rotting teeth and the gaps between them. I shrank into my seat.

“I'll just bet you are. Can't keep a good man down!” said Hank. He stopped laughing and cleared his throat. “Now, start at the beginning and tell us everything.”

Although it was perfectly obvious that Roddie had come to the inn with financial gain in mind, I sensed immediately that something more was going on. He claimed to have seen the monster at the Water Gate, which should have upset Hank and Ellis since that was exactly where they'd been setting up shop, but they displayed not so much as a ripple of displeasure. Instead, they were attentive and encouraging, dazzling in their conviviality. I imagined them in tuxedos, holding court in some mansion on Rittenhouse Square.

Roddie clearly relished the audience, making wild expressions, inflecting dramatically, and illustrating with his hands. “Then, with no warning at all, the surface began to boil and churn, and suddenly the neck and head rose straight out of the water, not fifty yards away!” Roddie shook his head in wonder. “Oh, it was a sight to behold…”

“The neck was long and curved, was it not?” said Ellis.

“Oh, aye,” said Roddie, nodding. “Like a swan's. Only much, much larger. And its eyes—”

“Were they prominent?” Hank asked. “Round and dark? Like a creature of the deep?”

“Oh aye,” Roddie said, nodding again. “It had a fearsome look about it, like it wouldn't think twice about carrying you off.”

“How big was the fin on its back?” asked Ellis.

Roddie cackled and slapped his thigh. “And how were you knowing it had a fin?”

“We've been doing some research,” Ellis said, glancing at Hank, and I suddenly understood. Interviewing doctors and visiting the courthouse was not all they'd been up to while they were away.

“Indeed, it did have a fin, and that alone was at least four feet long…”

In due course, Roddie confirmed that the monster's body was “dark olive, with signet brown on the flanks, and a sort of speckling on the belly.” He'd gone from claiming he'd seen the head and neck of the beast from a distance of fifty yards to describing its whole body.

“Excuse me, darling,” I said. “I think I'm going to head up now.”

Ellis looked at me with surprise. I couldn't remember the last time
I'd called him “darling,” and was sure he couldn't either. It was all I could do to force the word past my lips.

“But you haven't touched your dinner,” he said.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm still a little queasy. I'm sure I'll feel better after a good night's sleep.”

“Of course,” he said, rising. “I'll walk you up.”

“No, please stay.” I laid a hand on his arm. “This is important. Get as many details as you can. The sooner you flush the beast out, the sooner we can go home, and then everything can get back to normal.”

He watched with a curious expression as I bade good night to Roddie and Hank, and then continued to watch as I rounded the couch and headed for the stairwell.

He was not the only one watching. I nearly crumbled under the weight of Angus's scrutiny.

As soon as I closed the door, I threw myself on the bed. The scent of Angus lingered on my pillow. I buried my face in it and cried.

Hank and Ellis either had built a model or were planning to, and because of the description they'd coaxed out of Roddie, I knew exactly what it would look like. If they'd already built it, they would obtain their footage in a matter of days, and arrange to go home. But first, Ellis would have my brain scrambled, because he would be returning triumphant, with clear footage that confirmed the Colonel's pictures.

Father, son, and bank account would be reunited, and Ellis would not let anything on earth get in the way of that—especially something of as little consequence as me.