Wicked Fix (44 page)

excuse me, I have a long way to go, and since I'll have

to do all the driving myself, I want to get a head start."

It was two in the afternoon, too late to get a head

start on anything. He was getting out, was what he was

doing. But I let him leave. I couldn't stop him.

Besides, he'd already given me what I wanted.

At the door, he turned to me. "Look, I hated Reuben.

But I didn't kill him. And I certainly didn't kill my

father, your foolish suspicions notwithstanding."

He sounded so sincere. Everyone did. "Marcus," I

asked quietly, "what's on your hand?"

I'd promised Bob Arnold, but I couldn't help it,

and since Marcus was leaving, he wouldn't be telling

anyone I'd asked.

I hoped. "The spot," I added, "that you always

keep covered up with the makeup?"

At this he whitened suddenly, his face tightening as

if painfully wounded. Then he turned and stalked out.

"Part of what he told us is true," I said to Ellie

when we got to the street. "They weren't following

Reuben. Heywood never even said so, not in plain

words."

In my mind, I went over the talk I'd had with the

older man at the lake. "Heywood Sondergard just

went along with whatever I said, let me draw conclusions."

The Winnebago's engine roared to life. "And

now," I went on, watching the big vehicle lumber up

Washington Street toward the causeway, "Marcus is

getting out of here like his hat is on fire and his pants

are catching. What's he in such a big hurry about?"

"But they still did," Ellie recalled, meaning Reuben

and the Sondergards, "end up in the same towns at the

same time. It could hardly have been coincidence.

So ..."

"Right," I said. "Tate was following them. Their

concerts were booked well in advance, so it wouldn't

be difficult. And the reason he would go on doing that

would be ..."

"Money. One of them--Heywood or Marcus--

was paying him."

"Absolutely. My question is, for what?"

"Let's," Ellie said thoughtfully, "go see Mike Car-

pentier one more time."

The house on the hill was as storybook

pretty and remote as ever, the bay shining

gloriously below it and the sky blue above.

Mike was turning the compost heap behind

his vegetable garden, his hands encased in leather gardening

gloves.

"He was on it," he confirmed. "The list Reuben

had; Reverend Sondergard was one of the men I wrote

letters to, when Reuben got out of jail."

"And did he? Pay, that is?" Once again I was

struck by the assertive neatness of the garden area, and

in fact the whole service portion--firewood, food production,

and trash burning, composting, or recycling--

of the acre of paradise:

Paper went in a barrel, to be reduced to a smaller

volume of ashes. The ashes apparently went in the

compost heap, as did all vegetable waste. Bins held bottles

and cans; a wooden box with a slat top received all

meat scraps.

Only this last part of the arrangement seemed to

need some tuning; animals had been at the scrap bin,

and a couple of gnawed chicken bones lay scattered

near it.

He saw me looking at it. "Damned vermin. Sometimes

they're smarter than people."

"You could get a cat." The tactless words were out

of my mouth before I thought about them. He made a

face of distaste.

"Don't care for them. Speaking of vermin, though,

yeah, I think Reuben got some money from Heywood.

Don't know for sure. I was on the giving end, the giving-trouble

part. But not on the receiving end, where

the money was. That part was all Reuben's."

He stuck his pitchfork into the compost as Molly's

face appeared at an upstairs cottage window, then vanished

again.

"Is she all right?" I asked. "After what happened

at the supper? It must have been awful for her, seeing

all of that. And her doll ..."

"I made her another one," Mike said shortly.

"She's fine."

"Willow says," Ellie told Mike, "that you were at

the fire. The night Deckie died."

"Willow," Mike replied, "is a lying fool. All she

wants is to cover her own dirt, by making a big show

of somebody else's."

Willow was also halfway to Boston by now, according

to the proprietors of the Motel East. The police

had been there first thing, done their interview, gotten

her address and phone number. We wouldn't be seeing

her again, or her intriguing husband, either.

"You mean you weren't there?" I said, glancing at

the scrap box again. Something had gnawed through

the side of it; something small, sharp toothed, and hungry.

"Willow lied about that?"

"I said I wasn't," he replied flatly. "And I don't see

how you knew Heywood Sondergard was on that list,

either. Reuben never told anyone, and he told me not

to. And I didn't."

He glanced up sharply. "Molly! I said stay inside."

A glimmer of blond hair vanished around the corner

of the house, and the door slammed.

"After all," he went on, plunging the pitchfork

into the compost again, "there's no sense blackmailing

somebody whose dark secret is common knowledge, is

there? So I shut up."

He dug energetically, but stopped suddenly, his

shoulders sagging. "It was all a long time ago," he said

in less combative tones. "Reuben was in the past."

I looked out over the water. "Sometimes the past

lives on. When people do more than hurt us. When the

hurt does damage."

I was thinking of Victor: how sometimes you just

can't get there from here. It changes you, finding that

out. But if you're like Mike you go on, build around it

somehow. Or like Sam.

"He wouldn't let me be," Mike said suddenly. "I

was afraid to tell anybody. He was always around.

Even in my own room ..."

"It must have been scary," I said. If adults in East

port were frightened of Reuben Tate, what must it have

been like for a child? "I'm surprised it really didn't scar

you for life. If," I added gently, "you're sure it didn't?"

Because building around it really isn't the best solution.

If you have to, then you do it, allowing for the

radiator that can't be removed, the supporting wall

that must remain where it is or the rest of the house

will fall down.

But it can leave you in a wicked fix. He straightened.

"You know, it might have scarred me. For a

while I thought it had, he scared me so damn badly.

But then we had Molly, and somehow after that I was

okay again. You know how a kid can straighten out

your priorities whether you like it or not?"

"I do," I said, thinking of life after Sam. "All of a

sudden you're a sensible grown-up person, because you

have to be. You do things you never dreamed of being

able to do."

He smiled at me. "When I first saw her, and I realized

this helpless little creature was depending on

me ..."

"Right," I laughed, remembering. "You thought

oh my God, the poor thing, it'll starve, or I'll drop it,

or something."

"Yeah," he agreed with a grin. "How old is

yours?" he asked, leaning on the pitchfork.

"Seventeen. I didn't," I added, "drop him. And he

eats as if he's starving, nowadays, but I didn't starve

him back then. You and your ex worked it out okay, I

guess, about raising Molly. I met Anne, by the way."

Mike nodded. "Better this way for all of us. Anne's

a good person. She cares a hell of a lot. She's just not

cut out for what people think of as the normal wife and

mother thing. That's all."

Which was what I had gathered from her, too. I

gazed around the little homestead; Ellie had made herself

scarce. There were hollyhocks in the dooryard, and

the trellis up the side of the cottage was still full of

roses, their perfume wafting lightly on a warm offshore

breeze.

"You've done a great job here," I said, meaning it.

"The gardens, your ways of taking care of everything,

and the trellis. I do love a trellis."

His look sharpened for an instant, then relaxed.

"Thank you. All the work is difficult sometimes, but

it's worth it. That was one thing the Reverend Sondergard

said that was worth something: 'Mikey,' he told

me, 'if you want things to be a certain way, you have to

make them that way.' "

Wade had said that, too, I remembered. That must

have been where he'd gotten the phrase: from Hey

wood Sondergard. Out on the water a barge puttered

steadily toward the salmon pens.

"It was bad for a while," Mike said. "And the divorce

itself was hard." He gazed around the small

homestead. "But we're all right now, and we're going

to be even better."

Hearing him say it made me wish I had some wood

to knock for him. "Was there ever really a list?" I

asked quietly, gazing out at the bright water. "Of gay

men Reuben was blackmailing? Or did he just make

that up, about getting hold of one in jail?"

He shook his head regretfully. "I don't know. I've

wondered about it myself. He had names, addresses.

But--"

"But how would he have gotten them?" I finished

for him.

Mike nodded. "I believed him back then, but now I

guess it's more likely he just picked those guys out of a

bunch of phone books. Yellow Pages listings of doctors,

dentists--men he thought would have some

money, or had a lot at stake. Maybe some would pay,

Reuben would be thinking. And maybe some did."

"What if one had called the cops on him, instead?"

He shrugged. "If they had, he'd just make himself

scarce for a while. And none did that."

A deep breath. Then: "You were right about the

night at Deckie's. I was there, Reuben made me go

along with him. Later I said it was Willow; that was

more likely, and it took the heat off me. I was scared

my folks would find out I hung out with Reuben, and

then he might hurt them. But I don't really know what

Sondergard paid him for, or if he paid. Reuben added

something to the letter that I didn't see," he confessed.