Wicked Fix (30 page)

so that I could have a dad. And that meant I had to

step up to the plate, and be a son."

"I never meant to obligate you to ..."

"That's okay," he went on impatiently, "it worked

out okay. Only once in a while I'd be getting along

with him all right, and suddenly it would pop into my

head that I ought to be punching his lights out. For

what he did."

He turned to me. "I mean, that smack he gave you,

that was just the cherry on the cake. There was so

much more, but I was a little kid, it was what I could

understand."

So it represented something to him. "Okay. And

now?"

Sam sighed heavily. "Now we've ... I don't

know. Built around it, or something. And I guess it's

not such a huge deal, to talk about him in court. Like

you said, he's already told them stuff. But, Mom, he's

so weird. And with the school thing going on, too, like

maybe not wanting to go ... I'm afraid he'll decide

I'm doing it all to punish him. School, court, everything."

He gazed at me in youthful appeal. "Like, that I've

been saving it, like it was my big guns, you know? And

now I'm taking my chance to hit back at him any way I

can."

Which for Victor was not only possible, it was

likely. "Not because it makes any logical sense,

but ..."

Sam nodded energetically. "He thinks he deserves

it. I know he does. That trauma-center thing means a

lot to him 'cause it's a way to make something decent

work out with you. Mom, I think he'd marry you again

if he could. I bet that's what he was sitting out there

thinking about, in the cemetery."

Now there was an idea right out of my absolute

worst nightmare. "You do know it's not going to happen,"

I said evenly.

"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry, Mom, if that ever

started looking possible I'd tie you up and smuggle you

out of here on one of the fishing boats. Or Wade

would."

He managed a laugh, sobered instantly. "It's like

he's been on this shaky little raft, though. And now it's

sinking, and he might think I'm, like, secretly glad, like

I think it serves him right. And you know Dad: if he

feels bad ..."

Right. He would find a way to make you feel bad

too. He was, as Sam said, so weird.

"And then it'll all get messed up again," Sam finished.

"The whole Dad thing. Like a boat you've been

working so hard building and then it gets smashed."

"Sam, I'm going to do my very best to try to prevent

that," I told him as we pulled into our driveway.

"Really."

"Yeah. I know you are."

He smiled weakly at me. But he didn't sound at all

convinced that I would be successful, and at the moment

neither was I.

Inside, Sam went upstairs and stayed there while I

checked on Monday, whose nose was healing nicely. I

gave her a liver biscuit, which she took delicately, carrying

it under the dining-room table to gloat over it

before she ate it.

Then I called Bennet. "Listen, Mr. Hot-Shot Attorney,"

I began when his secretary put him on. "I don't

know what you were thinking when you said it was

okay to--"

"I know," Bennet cut in tiredly. "Jacobia, I'm

sorry. I just found out myself. This is what happens

when you're in one state and your client is in jail in

another."

"Right, a state of confusion, and by that I mean

both of you. What happened to the criminal lawyer

you were supposed to be lining up? Where's the skilled,

on-top-of-it-all defense he's supposed to be getting,

preferably from someone who has seen an actual copy

of the criminal codes and is in the same area code as

Victor?"

Bennet let me rant on this way a little longer, until

I ran out of breath. Then:

"Jacobia, he's demanding to interview them." Ben

net sounded very discouraged. "Wants to make sure he

feels they're competent, he says."

"Competent? Bennet, he's the one who

needs ..."

A competency hearing, I was about to say. Then I

realized that Bennet's glum tone wasn't only the result

of my being angry with him; during the divorce, he had

absorbed the equivalent of white-hot lava and had

never lost his chipper, we'11-get-through-this professional

attitude.

"Bad news," I guessed aloud, and he sighed heavily.

"Victor took advantage of the attorney-client privilege

a little while ago," he said quietly, "on the phone

to me. Right after he told me that the war of words you

two had for a marriage escalated to more than words.

And he'd told the cops about it."

"He slapped me on one occasion. One only, Ben

net, and that was ..."

"Drugs they found in Reuben's system," Bennet

said, ignoring me. "Sedative drugs. Ever wonder where

he got them?"

"Well, it could be anywhere," I said, nonplussed. It

was, I'd thought, the hardest part about it all to nail

down. "How would I know where ... Oh. Oh, Ben

net, you don't mean ..."

Thanks for that other thing, Reuben had said to

Victor on his way out of La Sardina.

"Victor prescribed them for him," Rennet confirmed.

"Tate was pushing him around and one of the

things he demanded was drugs. A pick-me-up, Victor

says Tate called it."

"But these were--"

"Yeah. Victor got the bright idea that what this

guy really needed was a tranquilizer. So he wrote him a

'scrip, but not with a brand name that Tate would have

recognized. He used the drug's generic name, the chemical

name. And he knows Tate filled it from the local

pharmacy, 'cause the druggist called him, checking to

make sure it really was a legitimate prescription. Tate

being the kind of guy, I guess, who everyone knew

would steal prescription pads if he got a chance. But

this time he hadn't."

"Oh, hell," I said, sinking onto the chair in the

telephone alcove. "He didn't look sedated in the bar."

"Just got the 'scrip that afternoon. Took some after

you saw him, maybe. Victor says on top of alcohol, the

stuff would really knock you for a loop."

"So it could look like Victor was setting him up to

kill him. Has Victor told anyone else about this, Ben

net?"

The attorney let out an exasperated breath. "No.

This is the thing he's really worried about. I can't seem

to make him see it, that it's nothing compared to his

real troubles. That he wrote a prescription that wasn't

warranted ..."

But it was precisely the kind of thing that Victor

would get his britches in a twist over: his precious medical

integrity.

"... And it's what he was doing out there in the

graveyard," Bennet finished. "Agonizing about it."

"And now he's sitting down there in a cell without

any legal counsel. What did you tell him?"

"To stop being a damned idiot. That he's as able to

judge the competence of attorneys as I am to judge

brain surgeons. To get off the dime, pick a lawyer from

the list I faxed up, and do what the lawyer tells him.

Think it'll work?" He laughed.

The advantage of dealing with the attorney who

handled your bitter, go-for-the jugular divorce is a

shared appreciation for black humor; the chances of

Victor's putting his trust in a lawyer he'd picked from a

list was about the same as his dialing 1-800SHYSTER

and throwing himself on the mercy of whoever answered.

"Okay, Bennet," I said. "Keep on keeping on,

please. I know you're doing your best. And hey, it

could be worse."

I told him what Sam had said about Victor sitting

out there maybe thinking about remarrying me.

Bennet laughed again. "You two ever tried that, I'd

come up there and murder you both myself. It'd be a

mercy killing."

Soon after, we hung up, Bennet because his day

had made him thirsty for a vodka gimlet, and me because

the kitchen had that bright, clean-asa-whistle

look that meant it must be time to start dirtying it up

again, by cooking dinner.

I thought it might cheer Sam up, too, but he didn't

appear downstairs. I'd made fish and potatoes, a

hearty, strengthening meal, but Sam's portion had gotten

all shriveled and dried in the warming oven by the

time Tommy Daigle came over at around eight o'clock,

went upstairs, and stayed for a couple of hours.

Later, when I saw him coming down again, his

freckled face looked troubled.

"So, what have the two of you been up to?" I

asked lightly.

But Tommy wasn't fooled; he had a mother himself,

and knew all the information-getting tricks. "Oh,

nothin'. Doing the Morse thing, gettin' decent at that.

And fooling around with the Ouija board. Man, but

isn't that thing some wicked strange, though."

It was downeast Maine phrasing; as far as I knew,

Tommy had never been farther from Eastport than

Bangor, three hours away. He pulled his jacket on, remembered

something in the pocket.

"Hey, my mom found this at the library, said I

ought to give it to you."

He pulled out a folder. I couldn't think what

Tommy's mother might have found for me at the library;

some recipes maybe, or curtain patterns. She

was ferociously domestic. As he handed it to me, I noticed

the red, inflamed mark on the back of his hand.

Seeing me blink at it, he shrugged embarrassedly.

"Reached for the salt instead of asking to have it

passed. Ma smacked me with a serving spoon."

"I see," I replied carefully. "You get smacked

often?"

"Oh, no, Mrs. Tiptree. Don't you go thinkin' that.

Jeez, that kind of story got around, Ma would kill me

for sure."

Tommy grinned earnestly at me as he said this, to

show he was only joking. "Paddled my behind some

when I was a kid. Guess I earned it. My uncle, he was a

one, though."

He winced, as if remembering. "Gave me this

here." Pointing to the dent over his eyebrow, shaped

like a ...