Wicked Fix (43 page)

boys began raiding the refrigerator. "I know that

sounds awful, but ..."

"You can't fake an actual lesion. If it's on the scans

they took at the hospital, it's there. And it fits his behavior."

The boys came back in from the dining room,

where they had set up their snack. "Hey, Mom," Sam

said, "Tommy got this great idea. We've set up battery

lanterns in our windows, so now we can signal in

Morse code at night. Secret messages."

"And everyone," Tommy put in, "will be mystified

when they see these lamps flashing. Because the thing

is, with Morse code you can tell right away that it

means something."

"From," Sam enthused, "the pattern. But you

don't know what, so it seems, like, even more secret

than it is."

Patterns; there were patterns all over the place, and

they were driving me crazy, but ...

"Sam," Tommy called back from the dining room,

where he had gone with a jar of pickled herring, some

cheese, a few leftover deviled eggs, a box of Ritz crackers,

and a liter of Coca-Cola. "Let's ask the board

about those girls at the park yesterday."

"Come on, what's the spirit world know about

girls?" Sam retorted, grabbing a bottle of milk. "Dead

girls, maybe, but we want live girls."

Maniacal boyish laughter greeted this impeccable

teenaged logic, as Sam snagged the Oreos bag.

"Tommy," he confided to me as he went out, "is just so

not with it about girls."

His face grew serious. "You know," he added, "I

think I probably will go to college after all. Bridget"--

the girl from the salmon supper--"thinks it's probably

a good idea."

Great. Maybe Bridget would be able to come up

with some way to pay for it, too, now that I was going

to be penniless in about ten minutes.

Then he was gone and I sat down with Ellie, who

was looking miserable. "Rotten of us to snoop in those

diaries," she said.

"Maybe. But if we hadn't, Paddy wouldn't have

told us all he did."

"I guess. It's what he didn't say that's bothering me

now."

"Yeah. Somebody bonks your buddy over the

head, there in the darkness. Under the circumstances

you would be thinking: Maybe that was a mistake;

maybe there was a murderous intruder. But he hit the

wrong guy--maybe the intended victim was me. And I

just don't get it, about that unlocked door. It doesn't fit

anything."

"Maybe Paddy's too heartbroken over Terence to

worry about it," Ellie said. "Somebody coming back

for a second try, I mean."

"Sure. Or--" I hated to say it, "maybe he knows

they won't."

Because Paddy's story was neat, but everyone's

was. That was the whole trouble. Some truth, lots of

poetry; hard to sort out.

The phone rang, and I told the boys to let the machine

take it: it was the zoning commissioner wanting

to know if Victor would appear at the appeals board

meeting, at which the variance for the zoning on the

trauma-center property would be considered.

It rang again: it was the loan officer from the bank

where Victor needed to borrow a zillion dollars, to buy

all the medical equipment he needed just to get started.

I'd forgotten those two when I'd been making my calls;

there were so many of them.

"Maybe," I offered, "we should ask the dratted

Ouija board who killed Reuben."

"No!" She looked shocked. "I don't want that

thing getting a whiff of Reuben. It wouldn't," she

added frowningly, "be prudent."

My thought exactly. "Only kidding," I assured

her. So far, everything had been going just as Reuben

would have dreamed: from bad to worse. I didn't want

him getting an actual hand in matters even if the hand

was only made of ectoplasm, or whatever moves a

planchette around a Ouija board.

If it does. "Anyway, the situation is this," Ellie

summed up. "Everyone's got a motive, and a story, and

everybody--"

"Could be lying," I finished, "about some of it

even if they aren't lying about all of it."

The whole truth about the end of the trauma center

was just then hitting me: finis. Game over.

"Ellie, I've got to start getting past all this."

She ignored me. "So what do you say we just go

and talk to everyone again. Just ... talk to them

once more, the ones that we can find, anyway. See if

anything they say doesn't fit or isn't what they said the

first time."

In the dining room, the boys guffawed at some

spirit-world witticism. "And if we don't? Learn something

new, I mean. What then? Because we've already

talked to ..."

The phone rang. Determinedly, I closed my ears to

it. After a few rings, the machine picked up again.

"Ellie. I mean it, I've got to start thinking hard

about my options here. I've got to think about ..."

"Giving up." She watched me carefully as she

said it.

"I know," I went on quickly, "you don't like the

idea. But I didn't get Victor into this pickle. And it's

starting to look as if I might not be able to get him out.

This time."

As opposed, I meant, to all the other times: the

palimony-demanding girlfriends, the scamsters who regarded

Victor as the perfect flimflam target, the obsession

he'd had over a famous television attorney, who

had responded to his many unappreciated overtures by

having him served with two restraining orders, one in

New York State and one that barred him from coming

within 250 miles of Atlanta, Georgia ...

Well, suffice it to say that if I had all the hot water I

had gotten Victor out of over the years, I wouldn't

have had to worry about that weatherstripping; I could

have run the radiators for centuries with the windows

wide open and stay plenty warm.

Which reminded me: If I didn't get back to work

on the house very soon, I'd be running the radiators

outdoors, because they would be the only thing left

standing when the rest fell down. The weatherstripping

itself wasn't completed yet either, and the rain of the

night before had left a stain shaped like Africa on the

kitchen ceiling, courtesy of those rotten clapboards.

But Ellie was still watching me. "Okay," I gave in.

"Once more. We'll make a few visits. And if that

doesn't work ..."

The words tasted like poison in my mouth, but I

just didn't see much choice. The phone rang again: it

was one of the main prospective outside investors in

Victor's project; he'd read the papers, seen Victor in

them, and wanted an update.

The machine thweeped, recording the guy's message.

"Then," I finished as the phone rang again and I

ignored it, "it's endgame."

Marcus was vehement. "I have no idea why

my father told you that."

He was packing to leave. They were all

leaving, tourists and visitors, getting out of

town in a steady stream up Washington Street like ants

departing a rained-out picnic.

"Following Reuben Tate," he said scathingly.

"Why, that's ridiculous. Our engagements were

booked months in advance. We'd have had no idea

where Reuben might be. It was impossible."

He flung shirts into a suitcase, in one of the Victorian

bedrooms in Heddlepenny House. The oval mirror

above the ornate carved dresser reflected his irritation.

"Not to mention pointless," he added. "What reason

could we have had?"

"Your father suggested he wanted to convert Reuben,"

I said. "I got the sense that saving such a

doomed, damned soul would've been a feather in his

cap. Spiritually speaking."

Marcus made a sound of disgust; his hand was

again covered with dermatological makeup. "My father

had no idea how bad Tate really was. And didn't

take spiritual trophies in the foolish sense that you're

implying. Why he said we were pursuing Tate," he repeated,

"I simply cannot imagine."

Heywood's funeral was scheduled for Friday, in a

tiny town in Florida where, it turned out, he had been

born. His body, now at the medical examiner's, would

be shipped there; if it did not make it in time, they

would have the services anyway and bury him later.

"How could your father not know about death

threats, arson, and murder? About the terrors Reuben

inflicted on the members of the children's group your

father was in charge of? And it's well known that Reuben

was supposed to have frightened your own mother

to death, after she punished Reuben."

"That's nonsense, too," Marcus retorted swiftly.

"My mother had a heart condition; she could have died

of it at any time. But that part was forgotten because it

wasn't suitable fodder for the gossip mill, that's all.

Not sensational enough."

"But you said yourself you thought ..."

"I admit I said it," he retorted, snapping his case

shut. "But I was a victim of the hysteria the town has

about Tate."

What about the coins under her body? I wanted to

ask, but I wanted more for him to go on talking.

"And the notion that Dad ignored his young parishioners'

problems is really a slur on his name. That

really," he faced me, "is going too far."

I noticed, however, that Marcus did not precisely

deny it.

"Are you sure it's not exactly what Reuben threatened

to say about your father? The last time he saw

him?"

Willow had said that Reuben did his homework,

knew how he could hurt you. So why wouldn't he have

updated his arsenal against Heywood, dropped the

story about being gay in favor of one that might work

better now that times had changed?

Especially if there was a grain of truth in it.

"As I told you," Marcus declared, "I don't know

what he said to my father, but I can guess: that he'd

keep coming back until one of us gave him money.

Anything else is pure fantasy on your part. And for

Dad's sake, I'd appreciate your not repeating it."

He swung his case off the white tufted chenille

spread that covered the four-poster. "Now, if you'll