Wicked Fix (42 page)

worst nightmares. I said that the wheels for releasing

him were in the process of turning and he would be out

tomorrow.

Well, it was the kind of thing that happened in my

worst nightmares, anyway; that much was true. But it

was the last time I would get away with saying any of

the rest of it. The land-option payment was due in

twenty-four hours. So if Victor stayed in jail for more

than a day longer, it was all over.

"Have you," Ellie asked quietly, "read these?"

I sat down and put my face in my hands. "Yes.

Pretty low tactic, I guess, snooping in them when he's

not even around to object. But what Bob Arnold said

about him really struck me."

"That Terence might have done it himself. Hurt

himself, I mean, by throwing himself down the stairs.

The bottom step was messy, maybe from his landing

there after someone hit him. But maybe just from his

landing there ... hard."

"Yeah. He'd fallen once before, or so he said. His

behavior on the ferry and at the festival was odd, too.

It made me think he might be ill."

The diaries, though, opened a whole new can of

worms. They were dated on the covers; Ellie opened

the most recent one again.

"Paddy owed Terence a lot of money. Apparently

he'd lent it to him to put into the design studio. And

they were breaking up."

She looked at me, disbelieving. "But I can't imagine

them without each other. It would be like dividing

Siamese twins."

"Meanwhile, Terence was looking to get his money

back," I recited. "And Paddy couldn't pay. So Terence

was about to sue."

Glumly, Ellie looked at the pages again. "Which is

something else I absolutely can't believe, under normal

circumstances. And it looks as if, even if that never

paid off, Terence would be okay financially. I never

realized it, but I guess he's wealthy. Or so it says here."

"Right. Not the show-off type." I examined once

more the pages with their well-organized paragraphs

and crisply set-off things-to-do lists, each task checked

off as it was accomplished, interspersed with notes

about his and Paddy's imminent breakup.

There were notes about his finances, too: CDs,

money market accounts, a portfolio of blue chips. Like

the kind I should have had, except that in the past

couple of years I'd let that aspect of my financial life

slip, handing Ellie all my juicy stock tips instead of

following them myself.

Terence's personal finances were news to me but

not a huge surprise. I'd done Paddy's taxes, but knew

Terence's situation only as it related to his partnership

in Paddy's business. He had done his personal taxes

himself, and from the look of these notes he'd done

them as well as I could have.

Now I thought about his good, casual clothes, his

easy, self-effacing way of approaching most situations.

It all spelled money, but so quietly you never would

notice it unless you were looking for it.

As Terence--a quiet, civilized man--had intended.

"I'll bet he had his other affairs in order too," I said.

"Terence is a neat freak." Only at the end of the final

book had the diaries' careful system of organization

begun deteriorating.

"So I'll bet Terence has a will tucked into a safe

deposit box somewhere," I said, "and a copy in his

desk."

"Right," Ellie said. "But why would he--"

"Your next guess, I suppose, is that I am the beneficiary,"

Paddy Farrell said, appearing suddenly in the

hall behind us.

A thump of guilty embarrassment hit me. We

hadn't heard him come in, and it was pretty clear what

we were doing.

"Paddy, I hope your being back this early doesn't

mean--"

"That he's died?" Paddy's expression was haunted.

"No, he's hanging on. For now."

He stared at the diaries. "Sorry to startle you. I

knocked but you were apparently engrossed in your

reading. I came to ask about his package. But I see

you've already dealt with it. In," he added bitterly,

"your great wisdom." He turned to go.

"Paddy, this isn't the way it looks."

"Oh, I think it is. It'll make great dinner conversation

all over town, Terence's poor delusions, like his

crazy idea of suing me. Have fun, chewing over our

relationship. You're right about his will, by the way;

I'd get everything if Terence passed. As if," he finished

bitterly, "I would want it, then."

He opened the door; I got up and stopped him.

"Okay. As long as you're here, I'll ask: What about it,

Paddy? What's all this about Terence wanting to leave,

wanting his money and your not wanting to pay it

back to him?"

His eyes were hard and glittery. "Oh, it's not

enough to read his diary? Pry into his private secrets?

You want details?"

I shook my head impatiently. "I want to know if

you hit him, Paddy. Maybe you had an argument over

his leaving, and over the money. You lost your temper,

the way you do sometimes. And then set it up to look

like an intruder. That's what I'm asking you."

All the fight went out of him; he sagged against the

door.

"No," he whispered, aghast. "We argued, but not

over money. It's true I don't have it to give him, but

that's not the point. The trouble was that he was talking

about leaving again, and he couldn't leave. ..."

"Why not?" Ellie asked.

He looked at her as if the answer must be obvious.

"Because he's ill. He can't be alone. Surely you've noticed."

He turned to me, distraught. "Jacobia, I thought

you at least understood, since the other day on the

ferry. He stumbles, he talks strangely--that's when this

whole idea of his going away began, when he started

behaving ... irrationally. And it was getting worse

all the time."

He began pacing the kitchen. "It's why I took him

to see your ex-husband--once he'd have jumped at the

chance of another medical examination, but he'd gotten

so strange ... and now your ex was the only doctor

Terence would agree to be examined by."

His face clouded with guilt. "But I still didn't believe

he was really sick. He was always saying he was,

you know. I tried acting cold to him, to let him see how

it would be if we really did part."

A huge sigh escaped him. "But," he finished miserably,

"I was wrong. I guess I just didn't want to believe

it. When he got so ill on the ferry, that's when I started

really thinking--"

"So you've been in Victor's office too," I interrupted.

"Yes." Paddy looked taken aback. "Why shouldn't

we have? He scheduled Terence for tests, referred him

to a man in Portland, much to Terence's dismay. But

now, of course, all that is pretty much beside the point.

We know what the trouble is."

Yeah, he'd been bonked with a crowbar or something.

"Paddy, what the hell are you talking about?"

He pulled a chair out, sank into it, his face bleak.

"I'm saying," he uttered, "that even before what happened

last night, Terry was dying."

The words hung there. "I don't understand," I

managed after a shocked moment. "Terence is always

so ..."

"Healthy," Paddy finished for me. "So healthy it

was a joke. But aside from everything else, he was--

well. It's a dangerous world, Jacobia."

Suddenly I knew what was coming. Eastport's not

perfect; we probably have as many knuckleheads as

anywhere else. But much of the time, we tolerate one

another's differences pretty well. And when you've

gone without overt hatefulness over your neighbors'--

and your own--differences for a while, you can start

thinking maybe the rest of the planet's ills won't come

around to afflict you either.

So I hadn't considered it. But:

"He's been HIV-positive for nearly thirteen years,"

Paddy said quietly. "Or technically he has been--

there's been no detectable virus for a long time, but

they never call you cured."

"So his being a hypochondriac, studying first aid,

all the herbal remedies, working out and jogging, and

so on," I began.

"Were his ways of coping," Paddy agreed. "Along

with his real medications, of course. He'd been one of

the lucky ones, always responding well to treatment,

even in the early times when the medicines weren't as

good as they are now. We thought that might go on

forever. It never occurred to me that something else

might go wrong."

He took a deep breath. "But before he was in treatment,

just around the time I met him a dozen years

ago, he'd had some headaches. The doctors said then

that they were probably from some kind of an infection

that had left a scar in his brain. And now, just because

he's getting older, or whatever, the scar had begun

changing and starting to press on something important."

"But ... can't it be removed?"

"No." He sounded heartbroken. "If it weren't for

this injury, we wouldn't even know about it yet. And

now with the skull fracture and all the damage beneath

it, Terence would have only about a ten percent likelihood

of surviving the surgery, the doctors told me."

"And his mental status? How'd they say the tissue

would have affected it? Before the injury?"

"Paranoia, delusions, emotional outbursts, unsteady

gait, a slur when he talked. More to come. Any

of that sound familiar?"

He straightened with an effort. "He was sending

his diaries to his attorney in Bangor for safekeeping.

Another of his crazy ideas. But I'll do it for him now, if

you'll let me have them."

Ellie gathered them up and gave them to him unhesitatingly.

"Sure, Paddy. We'll be keeping a good

thought for him. And you."

"Right," he said, accepting the volumes.

He nodded wanly at Tommy and Sam as they came

in, Monday galloping happily behind them, and went

away down the street, his step so slow it made me

think of a man walking to the gallows.

"You don't suppose he's lying," Ellie said as the