Wicked Fix (25 page)

for the strip of window trim.

Which came away in my hand a good deal more

swiftly than I had anticipated. Flailing, I did manage

not to fall off that blasted ladder. But obviously the

wood around the window had been exposed to water

longer than I'd thought. Instead of being solid with one

loose place in the middle, the whole strip was the

consistency of damp papier-mache, from one side of the

window top to the other.

And down both sides, I realized with dawning horror

as I tapped the wood experimentally. The siding

gave off the punky, hollow-log sound that meant it was

holding together mostly via some dim, vegetable memory

of being solid, at some time in the distant past such

as for instance when it used to be a tree.

While I frowned at it, Monday plunged into a pile

of fallen leaves and rolled joyously, then began snuffling

along the edge of the perennial garden, where I'd

heaped more leaves in hopes of discouraging my best

crop: weeds.

Cautiously, I tugged on a piece of siding. It came

away as if I were tearing off wet newspaper; underneath,

a colony of dark beetles swarmed in the sudden

sunlight.

All thoughts of handy-dandy, one-afternoon home

fix-it work flew out of my head; this wasn't a job I

could do myself. This would take carpentry of the kind

done by people who ordered their lumber and nails by

the hideously expensive truckload.

Probably it explained the rot Wade had found upstairs,

too; this water wasn't only coming in around the

aluminum window. It was from above, as I could tell

by pulling on siding higher than the window frame. A

sick sensation started somewhere in the pit of my stomach;

possibly the leak was in the roof.

The idea made me think I might break out in hives,

because the roof of my old house is three full stories

above the ground, not counting the peak above the

attic. Working on it myself was out of the question,

and hiring somebody to climb up there meant finding

someone who was:

1. drunk enough to consent to do it, and

2. sober enough to be able to.

Also, the person had to know how to perform roof

work. And although that combination is not as rare as

you may think--men in Eastport climb cheerfully up steeples,

ship masts, and shaky, slapdashedly assembled scaffoldings,

and walk along roof lines to reflash chimneys

and install lightning rods without even dropping the

pint bottles of fiery brown liquid with which they are,

in order to go up there at all, necessarily equipped--

there is a final requirement: When it comes time

for the job, you also have to find a place in your house

where you cannot see out any windows, in case the

person you have sent up there should fall past one suddenly,

waving that pint bottle.

So it's a big project even aside from what it costs.

Slowly, I replaced the cap on the caulking gun, turning

to see where the dog might have wandered off to. But

she was still in the yard; as I spotted her she readied

herself to pounce, and plunged her nose curiously into

another pile of dry leaves.

And let out a shriek.

"The dog is fine," Ellie kept saying two

hours later as she drove us home from the

animal clinic on the mainland. Even though

it was Sunday evening, the vet had agreed to

meet us there when I told her what had happened.

Crazed with sudden pain, Monday had run without

knowing it straight into my arms, or I might never

have caught her. I'd grabbed the rat trap she was trying

to shake off and muscled it open, praying for only a

bruise. But the horrid thing--like a mouse trap only

bigger, much bigger--had cut a gash on the side of her

nose.

Now she was stitched up, medicated for pain and

infection, and sedated, her glossy black head cradled

quietly in my lap. The vet hadn't said anything about

owner's tears being therapeutic.

But I shed them anyway. "Sam raked those leaves

three days ago," I managed. "That thing must've been

put out there since then. If I'd stuck my hand in it, it

could have broken my wrist. We're lucky it didn't fracture

Monday's nose."

Ellie nodded grimly, saying nothing. The look on

her face as she glanced in the rearview said it all. Monday

sighed, grieved and puzzled by the whole ordeal,

and burrowed her head tighter against me, wincing

when her nose brushed my sweater.

"Has this happened to anyone else around town

lately? Mean pranks, meant to hurt someone?"

"Not that I've heard." Ellie hesitated. "This is the

kind of thing that Reuben would do, not a normal person.

And I'm not sure it was a prank."

I'd filled her in on the Sondergards' travels, the

way they had mirrored the drifting of Reuben Tate

from town to town.

"I don't mean to upset you any more than you are,

but you've been asking a lot of questions about him,"

she went on. "Word's spread."

She was right. Pranks in Eastport were pretty exclusively

of the ring-your-doorbell-and-run variety, not

the snap-your-hand-off kind. And by now almost everybody

in town knew that Victor was in trouble and I

was trying to get him out of it.

"I called Willow Prettymore," Ellie added. "Explained

your situation. And never mind what Mike

Carpentier might think, I didn't get a feeling that Willow's

exactly dying to talk to us."

The woman Mike had been so sure would blab to

us about him and Reuben.

"Too bad for Willow," I retorted angrily. "She's

going to."

Then the import of Ellie's first comment sank in; I

wondered abruptly what other surprises someone

might have prepared for me.

Ellie met my gaze in the rearview again. "That trap

might have sat there until spring, you know, without

you or anyone else finding it."

So if the rat trap had been intended to discourage

me from asking any more questions, she meant, then

there might be other things intended to accomplish that

goal, too: attacks that didn't depend as much on blind

chance, but were equally anonymous--

--assuming, of course, that Ellie and I weren't

jumping to conclusions.

"If somebody told me to stop digging into this," I

began. "Threatened me right up front ..."

"Then it would be obvious there was something to

dig into," she agreed. "And Victor would stop looking

so guilty, maybe even to the police."

"But this way ..."

I let the rest go unspoken. This way, someone

could go on being subtle about suggesting that I mind

my own damned business, without raising anyone

else's suspicions about the status quo.

Subtle for now. The thought made me angrier.

"You've set it up with her?" I asked. "With Willow, to

meet with us?"

"Uh-uh. She hung up on me. Willow's a tough

one."

"We'll see about that," I said as I smoothed Monday's

ears. The vet said it was lucky that the thing had

caught her sideways, not full on. "We'll just see."

We were nearly at my house. "At this point," I

went on as Ellie turned into the drive--I averted my

eyes from the storm windows--"I'm so mad that to get

rid of me, Willow Prettymore's probably going to have

to break my jaw."

Ellie stopped the Jeep, her eyes meeting mine

again. "Yes, but be a little careful, too, will you, Jacobia?

Whoever's doing this ..."

"I know." The awful scarecrow sight of him rose

again, as if Reuben himself were behind today's mean

deed. Which of course in a way he was...

That night we all pampered the dog to a fare-thee

well, and I explained to Wade and Sam about the rat

trap: that my chronic nosiness might just possibly have

annoyed someone.

Wade raised his eyebrows, saying nothing but

meaning plenty, and I knew we were going to have a

very interesting discussion later. Sam nodded gravely,

filing the information away to think over in private

before he commented on it.

Then he went back to nursing Monday: sitting by

her dog bed on his sleeping bag, where he meant to

spend the night, speaking very quietly to her without

ever stopping--I listened once: he was telling her

knock-knock jokes--and rinsing her nose with warm

water at frequent, regular intervals.

If I had tried this she would have run up three

flights of stairs, to the back of a closet in the attic, and

stayed there until I gave up. But Sam is a repairing type

of boy; not only did she tolerate his method of canine

wound care, but it worked:

The next morning, Monday ate the soft food I prepared

for her and drank some water. The gash looked

clean, if still very swollen; her eyes were clear, her

mood subdued but cheerful. She even frisked a little

when I put down her breakfast--Sam, after a careful

inspection of her condition, had consented to go to

work--and she licked my hand as I got her settled back

onto her dog bed, preparatory to my leaving the house.

The .25 semiauto was in my sweater pocket. Setting

out into a morning of thin clouds and watery sun,

I could feel it there: a lump of misery like the one in my

heart.

Despite what I'd told Sam and Wade, because of

course I'd had to warn them, all night I'd gone on resisting

the idea that the rat trap really had been put

there on purpose. There were, I kept insisting to myself,

other possible explanations.

Only none held much water and at last I'd given in:

Someone wasn't kidding.

"Listen," I'd said to Wade, who was just then waking

up as he always did at the crack of dawn, "there's

another thing. All this is about Victor. And I can't help

thinking that you must be feeling ..."

Annoyed. Even a little jealous. Something.

He'd clicked on the lamp. "Maybe if I'd done what

I ought to all those years ago, this might not be happening."

He sat up. "So I'll tell you what. Until I say so,

why don't you assume I'm okay about whatever you

need to do, all right?"