Wicked Fix (26 page)

Which was typical of him. "Yes," I agreed, wondering

who I'd been in a past life to deserve him: St.

Teresa of Avila, apparently.

"And," he continued, "if Victor bugs me, I'll be the

one to take care of it. We all square on this?"

"Perfectly," I'd agreed, "square."

"Okay. C'mere," he'd said sleepily, and held his

arms out.

I slid into them. Like I say, Wade is not a particularly

verbal guy.

But when he wants to, he gets his message across.

No one answered the door of Heddlepenny House, but

I found Marcus out in the Winnebago, on the exercise

bicycle.

"Your father," I said, "was on that list."

His eyes narrowed. "What list? I don't know about

any list."

But it was the only thing that made sense.

"The list of gay men Reuben Tate got hold of,

somehow. He tried to blackmail them. And that sort of

story would have ruined your dad in this town, back

then."

He started to reply, but I got in ahead of him.

"You made it sound as if you left right away, but you

two stayed in town for years after your mother died. A

long time, if your motive for leaving was grief over her

death. But then Reuben went to jail for six months,

and when he came back ..."

He was staring at me. "When Reuben came back,"

I finished, "he did something that drove your father out

of Eastport."

The flywheel on the exercise bicycle spun down

with a low whine. "You're wrong. Without her, my

dad couldn't stand it here. He tried for a long time, but

everything reminded him; he had to get away finally."

"What did your father and Reuben talk about the

other night?"

He picked up a small freeweight from the rack of

them near the exercise apparatus and began hefting it

up and down nervously.

"I told you, I don't know. Dad took him into the

study, in the house. Half an hour later, I heard the door

close. When I went in, Reuben was gone."

"Your father didn't say what they'd discussed?"

Marcus shook his head. "Said it was pastoral. He's

serious about the confidentiality of that. It was one

reason the kids all went to him with their problems,

back in the old days. Although I can't imagine what

Reuben could talk about that would have to do with

solving any of his problems. Or about religion."

"Maybe they talked about how you two and Reuben

kept ending up in the same towns, time after time.

So which was it, Marcus--was he following you, or

were you following him?"

He went to the refrigerator in the galley kitchen,

came back with a bottle of water, and drank nervously

from it. "I don't know what you are talking about," he

repeated.

I felt like punching him. Maybe he was a good

musician, maybe not. But he was a lousy liar. "You

know, Marcus, I used to be a money manager, back in

the city. Investing, tax counseling. That sort of thing."

"How," he remarked uninterestedly, "interesting."

"Some of my clients were crooks," I went on.

He looked sharply at me.

"And liars. Skilled ones, not like you. Sometimes

they even lied to me. And since I didn't want my name

on anything that could be proven fraudulent--since it

was my job to make sure it couldn't be, in fact--I

would ask them questions. Know what I found out?"

"What?" he replied resentfully, picking up a towel,

wiping it across his face. He was starting to look even

more uncomfortable.

"Nobody ever says they don't know what you're

talking about when you ask them about what somebody

else did. They say it when you ask about what

they did. Or they don't say it at all."

Marcus frowned thwartedly. "I don't want to talk

to you anymore. All you want to do is stir up trouble."

"It's already stirred up. Two men are dead. Where

is your dad, anyway? Maybe he can manage to give me

a straight answer."

Anger flashed in his eyes. "You're not a police officer.

You can't just barge in here and ask me questions

like this."

"Sure I can. And you can refuse to answer. Of

course, if you do, I'll just go ask somebody else."

I got up, looked between the slats of the Venetian

blinds. "Do I look like a quitter to you, Marcus?" I

asked, and waited.

He sighed defeatedly. "Dad's at the lake. We had a

camp out there. Sold now, but he still likes to fool

around on the water."

Boyden Lake was a few miles west on the

mainland. It was big, and there were quite a few camps on

it. "Want to give me a hint? Or should I just go down

to Bay Books, ask around, maybe mention why I want

to find him, to ask him about that list and what he did

to get on it? I'll bet people would be fascinated."

He slammed down the water bottle. "Look, my

father is a good man. He did a lot of good for this

town, kids especially. He gave them somewhere to go,

something to do, he helped them with their problems.

And a lot of them, if they care about anything today--

if they go to church, or like music, or try to help people

--it's because of what they learned from him. And

the example he gave."

I could think of at least one kid whose problems

Reverend Sondergard hadn't helped with at all. "He

doesn't deserve to have his name blackened now,"

Marcus went on furiously. "To have you digging up

old dirt."

Boxy Thorogood would have raced down Washington

Street right outside the Sondergards' house, the

night Reuben ambushed him. And according to Wade,

he'd been a member of that youth group: the youngest

member, more helpless than most against a guy like

Reuben. But I didn't say this, or anything. I just let

Marcus rant, noticing that the mark on his right hand

was again covered skillfully with makeup.

And when he had finished, and saw that I still

hadn't given up, he scribbled me a little map.

Traffic along rural Route 190 was busy, lots

of motor homes and vans piling into town

for the festival. At the airfield small planes

crowded the usually quiet tarmac, and the

tourist cabins at Harris Point sported barbecue grills,

bicycles leaning against the porch rails, and badminton

nets strung up in the side yards.

It all looked like someone's happy dream of an

island autumn in Maine, and I can't tell you how uneasy

it all made me feel, as if the other shoe were just

hanging there waiting to drop. Marcus Sondergard was

hiding something, and I had little confidence that his

father would tell me what it was.

But I had to try, because something very bad was

happening in Eastport and it wasn't over: as if Reuben,

for all the sick, purposeful display someone had made

of him, wasn't quite dead.

The unusual number of vehicles didn't slow me

much, since they were all heading into town; outbound,

the only obstacle was a slow eighteen-wheeler,

just ahead of me, hauling a massive crane and apparently

having some kind of engine trouble. Its wide load

sign barely described adequately the size of the vehicle,

but finally it found a bit of shoulder and pulled to the

side.

And then it was smooth sailing. After the causeway

came a short jog onto the Golding Road: rolling pastures,

dark granite outcroppings, crosshatchings of

orchard trees studded with red and yellow apples.

Scrub pine closed in on the roadside until a dirt cut

opened to the left.

I put the car on the shoulder, its tires in the sand

that had accumulated over years of icy winters, and

hiked into the brush. Hundred-year-old spruce trees,

originally planted as windbreaks, towered in rows. I

passed an old well hole, its cover rotted in and its

throat choked with stones. There was a cellar hole, too,

now a shallow depression edged with arm-thick rose

canes. A barn foundation humped under mats of thick

grass behind the collapse of a rail fence. A hundred

yards ahead, water glittered in a gap between two

small structures: the camps.

In Maine your camp is your summer place,

whether primitive or elaborate. These were little old

clapboard houses, each situated pleasantly on its ledge

in the sunshine overlooking the water. A dirt path between

them led down to a short dock.

"Hello?" Marcus Sondergard was sliding a dark

green kayak into the shallows. Two paddles lay on the

dock.

"I'd hoped someone might be out here," he

said cheerfully, "to take a ride with me. But no such

luck."

Until you showed up, his expression communicated

hopefully. The kayak was a two-seater. Hey

wood wore dark canvas slacks with the same leather

belt I'd seen before, the cross-and-rose buckle glittering

in the sun, plus a gray sweatshirt and old sneakers. His

hair, as thick and youthfully luxuriant as his son Marcus's,

shone nearly as silver as the belt buckle. "Care

for a spin?"

The problem with a kayak, as I understood it, is

that it could roll upside down, so your head would

poke straight down into the water like the stick on a

popsicle. But I did want to talk to him. And the water

there was quite shallow. Maybe I would only break my

neck on the lake bottom, instead of drowning.

"This isn't a social visit," I temporized.

"I know," Heywood said calmly, his blue eyes perceptive.

"I know exactly why you're here. And"--his

eyes twinkled--"two-person kayaks don't roll. Come

on, we'll talk on the water."

Ten minutes later, with his help I'd maneuvered

myself into the kayak's aft cockpit, and I wasn't even

completely drenched. "Don't worry," he said, "I'll do

all the work. If we do tip, just cross your arms and

tuck." He demonstrated.

Sure, I thought; in my dreams. But I took a paddle,

held it as he instructed, and did nothing with it, also as

Heywood instructed.

And then we skimmed.

The water's surface was bright as a pearl and

seemed to offer no resistance; under Heywood's power