fast and got out of there. Because suddenly I felt I
needed a Cutty, too.
Maybe even a double.
The lights started flickering again as we
made our way back to the parking lot and
went out decisively as we got into the Jeep.
They stayed out as Ellie's car key found its
way to the ignition and the dashboard lights began
glowing like a handful of sparks in the streaming darkness.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Ellie asked
as we made our way down Water Street. Store signs
swung wildly, rain hammered the Jeep's roof and
fought against the sweep of its wipers, its headlights
bars of yellow, probing ahead. "And are you still carrying
that little gun?"
"I'm thinking that Willow might be too light to
have lifted Reuben; she's built, all right, but not that
way," I replied. "The husband could have, though. Or
the two of them together. There's Valium in her bag,
and nobody's told me that the drugs in Reuben's system
weren't Valium, yet."
I took a breath. "Maybe Willow told her husband
about Reuben, and they decided then how they would
get rid of him if he started looking like a real threat to
their--his--plans. Setting Victor up to take the blame
could have come from Reuben's own bragging; he
might have said more to her than she's letting on."
"They'd have had time to work up a real scheme
for getting rid of him," Ellie agreed. "And if Reuben
went back to the motel to ask Willow for more money,
they could have given him a dosed drink there."
"All of which is an awful lot of blue sky," I admitted,
"but it could have worked. I didn't get a look at
the husband's hand, but the two of them had been in
Victor's house and could have seen the surgical-instrument
collection." A pair of killers would've made all
the tasks that needed to be done a much easier proposition.
"So if that's it, why would Willow tell us how bad
Reuben could have made it for them, maybe ruining
her husband's election prospects and so on? Why give
us what amounts to a motive?"
We looked at each other. "To make it seem," we
said in one voice, "not like a motive."
"But what about him being in business and in
country clubs and all? And ... politics?" Ellie questioned.
"He just doesn't seem the type."
"Hey, people have elected real TV wrestlers to political
office. This guy only looks like one. Well," I
amended, "he would look like one, with another million
years or so of evolution. As for business and clubs,
well, people like people who can get the job done, you
know? There are plenty of movers and shakers in high
places who wouldn't be there except that they've got
money. And if a fellow has been careful not to get any
convictions ..."
As opposed, I meant, to everybody knowing that
he'd done bad things. That part some people actually
were attracted to, because it meant he could do bad
things for them.
"I guess," Ellie conceded. "Sure blows my fantasy
of what fancy-pantsy social life is like, though."
I had to laugh; once upon a time it had blown
mine, too. "But Willow was right," I said. "An ugly
story about her would be a find for her husband's political
opponents, especially if he's managed to stay
officially clean, himself. It could be the only thing they'd
have to use against him. Subtly, but effectively."
A trash can rolled across the street in front of us,
driven by the wind; Ellie swerved around it. Foamy
whitecaps slammed the breakwater, then fell back for
another run at it.
"So," I went on, "maybe Reuben finally threatened
the wrong guy. But if Willow and Mr. Personality got
rid of Reuben to shut him up, and faked Willow's near
poisoning to draw suspicion away from themselves,
why do it so dramatically? And why kill Weasel and
Heywood?"
Ellie glanced at me, waiting.
"Maybe to make it," I answered my own question,
"look as if the three deaths are related. And yes, I do
know that's overkill, two murders to cover one, but
that doesn't mean it's not true. And to answer your
other question, no, I'm not carrying the gun."
"Jacobia, I thought we agreed that caution ought
to be the watchword, until ..."
"I know. But I put it away. It started feeling foolish,
day after day and no action. I'll carry it if I go
somewhere alone."
"All right," she agreed reluctantly, sounding as
glum as I felt. "This is getting to be--"
"A crowd scene," I finished for her. "Mike Car
pentier's been in Victor's place with Molly. Willow and
the goon-guy have been there with their kids. Marcus
has been there, for heaven's sake, touring the place.
And I suppose any minute now I'll find out Terence and
Paddy were regular visitors. Tea and crumpets, or
something, with Weasel serving all of them as the butler."
We drove slowly past Wadsworth's Hardware, its
sign dangling by one chain length, the other snapped
off. Lines of raindrops drummed across the street,
sheets of water flinging themselves at the storefronts.
"Drat," Ellie muttered. "I'm pulling over. I could
drive off the fish pier in this and not know it till we hit
bottom."
Cautiously she turned into the tiny parking lot
above the boat basin. The dock lights had gone off, so
the gleams of white paint on the boats tossing and
lurching against their mooring lines were barely visible.
Corralled up inside the dock pilings, they made me
think of a lot of horses panicking in a barn. To our
right loomed Paddy Farrell's building, also pitch dark.
"Next thing you know," I said, "we'll find out
Reuben had been in Victor's office, getting treated for
an ingrown toenail. Maybe Reuben took the scalpel
and slit his own throat with it."
The sheltered spot by Paddy's building kept the
wind and rain from battering us so badly. I settled
down to wait for the power to come back on or the
storm to back off, preferably both.
"Just wait," I fumed in exasperation. "They'll all
turn out to be suicides. Weasel will turn out to have
stuffed the tie down his own throat. We'll find a note
from Heywood, too: sayonara."
"Suicide," Ellie objected distractedly, "is a sin."
Then: "What's that up there?"
"Molly's doll," I ranted on--the heater in the Jeep
was not powerful and I hate wet feet--"will turn out to
be possessed by a horror-movie demon, self-animated
and self-destructive."
"I don't think so. Jake, will you look a minute?"
The rain let up a little as if gathering itself for another
deluge. "What is that? And do you hear something?"
I peered where she was pointing: glimmers of light
moving intermittently behind Paddy's windows. "It
looks like they turned on flashlights. Or lit some candles."
"I don't think Paddy would use candles up there,"
Ellie said. "He's paranoid about fire in that old building.
Even with all the fire extinguishers he has, I don't
think he would ..."
Light shone once more at the loft windows, then
careened away. The wind screamed again; it was nuts
of us even to be out there. "I don't hear anything except
a gale blowing," I said.
But then I did. Light bounced off the inside of the
window again: not a candle. A flashlight or battery
lantern, swinging. And the sound I heard was not the
wind, although very like it.
Somebody screaming.
The power went back on as we reached the
stairs inside the old building, tracklights and
torchieres blazing on blindingly to reveal the
shape of Terence Oscard crumpled by the
bottom step.
"Jesus, oh Jesus," Paddy moaned, clutching his
head. He'd stopped shouting at the sight of us, but he
was still frantic.
"Sit," Ellie told him. "I'll call the ambulance. Jake,
look at him, will you? See if there's anything ..."
To be done for him, she meant, and at first I didn't
think there was. The back of his head was a pulpy
looking mess, and he wasn't breathing until I turned
him.
"Don't move him, you'll paralyze him!" Paddy
shouted. "Oh, my God ... Terence always said you
never move somebody, you could damage their spinal
cord."
"Paddy, if he's not breathing, it won't do him
much good to have an intact spinal cord, will it?"
That much first aid even I knew, but suddenly I
wished I'd taken Terence up on the loan of that Red
Cross book. Still, once he was shifted so that his jaw
wasn't blocking his windpipe, he took a shuddery
breath, then another. "We really, really need a medical
person here right now," I called to Ellie.
"They're coming," she reported, returning from
the phone. "Paddy, what happened?"
"I ... I don't know." Paddy looked dazed. "I
thought he was down here reading, but when the lights
went out and he didn't say anything I went looking for
him with the flashlight. And I found him here ...
like this."
He knelt by Terence's body, reaching out to touch
the unconscious man's face. His palm cradled Terence's
rough cheek.
"Terry, please don't die. Please, Terry--" He
looked up desperately. "Are they coming? Did they say
they were coming?"
"Yeah, they're coming," I told him. A siren approached.
"Go out and wave them down so they know
where we are."
He gathered himself and went. "Here, over here!"
I heard him shout, out in the street.
Ellie came back from the rear of the work area
where Paddy kept cardboard, bags of fabric scraps,
anything he was going to put out in the bin as trash.
Being Paddy, he'd installed a small, very visible red-lit
Exit sign back there.
"Go look at that door," she suggested mildly, and
when I did I found the wooden frame around it splintered,
the broken wood fresh and gleaming under the
chipped-out white paint. The area around the heavy
lock set and deadbolt were especially chewed up.
Someone had jimmied it, using a pry bar or something
like one.