Wicked Fix (38 page)

fast and got out of there. Because suddenly I felt I

needed a Cutty, too.

Maybe even a double.

The lights started flickering again as we

made our way back to the parking lot and

went out decisively as we got into the Jeep.

They stayed out as Ellie's car key found its

way to the ignition and the dashboard lights began

glowing like a handful of sparks in the streaming darkness.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Ellie asked

as we made our way down Water Street. Store signs

swung wildly, rain hammered the Jeep's roof and

fought against the sweep of its wipers, its headlights

bars of yellow, probing ahead. "And are you still carrying

that little gun?"

"I'm thinking that Willow might be too light to

have lifted Reuben; she's built, all right, but not that

way," I replied. "The husband could have, though. Or

the two of them together. There's Valium in her bag,

and nobody's told me that the drugs in Reuben's system

weren't Valium, yet."

I took a breath. "Maybe Willow told her husband

about Reuben, and they decided then how they would

get rid of him if he started looking like a real threat to

their--his--plans. Setting Victor up to take the blame

could have come from Reuben's own bragging; he

might have said more to her than she's letting on."

"They'd have had time to work up a real scheme

for getting rid of him," Ellie agreed. "And if Reuben

went back to the motel to ask Willow for more money,

they could have given him a dosed drink there."

"All of which is an awful lot of blue sky," I admitted,

"but it could have worked. I didn't get a look at

the husband's hand, but the two of them had been in

Victor's house and could have seen the surgical-instrument

collection." A pair of killers would've made all

the tasks that needed to be done a much easier proposition.

"So if that's it, why would Willow tell us how bad

Reuben could have made it for them, maybe ruining

her husband's election prospects and so on? Why give

us what amounts to a motive?"

We looked at each other. "To make it seem," we

said in one voice, "not like a motive."

"But what about him being in business and in

country clubs and all? And ... politics?" Ellie questioned.

"He just doesn't seem the type."

"Hey, people have elected real TV wrestlers to political

office. This guy only looks like one. Well," I

amended, "he would look like one, with another million

years or so of evolution. As for business and clubs,

well, people like people who can get the job done, you

know? There are plenty of movers and shakers in high

places who wouldn't be there except that they've got

money. And if a fellow has been careful not to get any

convictions ..."

As opposed, I meant, to everybody knowing that

he'd done bad things. That part some people actually

were attracted to, because it meant he could do bad

things for them.

"I guess," Ellie conceded. "Sure blows my fantasy

of what fancy-pantsy social life is like, though."

I had to laugh; once upon a time it had blown

mine, too. "But Willow was right," I said. "An ugly

story about her would be a find for her husband's political

opponents, especially if he's managed to stay

officially clean, himself. It could be the only thing they'd

have to use against him. Subtly, but effectively."

A trash can rolled across the street in front of us,

driven by the wind; Ellie swerved around it. Foamy

whitecaps slammed the breakwater, then fell back for

another run at it.

"So," I went on, "maybe Reuben finally threatened

the wrong guy. But if Willow and Mr. Personality got

rid of Reuben to shut him up, and faked Willow's near

poisoning to draw suspicion away from themselves,

why do it so dramatically? And why kill Weasel and

Heywood?"

Ellie glanced at me, waiting.

"Maybe to make it," I answered my own question,

"look as if the three deaths are related. And yes, I do

know that's overkill, two murders to cover one, but

that doesn't mean it's not true. And to answer your

other question, no, I'm not carrying the gun."

"Jacobia, I thought we agreed that caution ought

to be the watchword, until ..."

"I know. But I put it away. It started feeling foolish,

day after day and no action. I'll carry it if I go

somewhere alone."

"All right," she agreed reluctantly, sounding as

glum as I felt. "This is getting to be--"

"A crowd scene," I finished for her. "Mike Car

pentier's been in Victor's place with Molly. Willow and

the goon-guy have been there with their kids. Marcus

has been there, for heaven's sake, touring the place.

And I suppose any minute now I'll find out Terence and

Paddy were regular visitors. Tea and crumpets, or

something, with Weasel serving all of them as the butler."

We drove slowly past Wadsworth's Hardware, its

sign dangling by one chain length, the other snapped

off. Lines of raindrops drummed across the street,

sheets of water flinging themselves at the storefronts.

"Drat," Ellie muttered. "I'm pulling over. I could

drive off the fish pier in this and not know it till we hit

bottom."

Cautiously she turned into the tiny parking lot

above the boat basin. The dock lights had gone off, so

the gleams of white paint on the boats tossing and

lurching against their mooring lines were barely visible.

Corralled up inside the dock pilings, they made me

think of a lot of horses panicking in a barn. To our

right loomed Paddy Farrell's building, also pitch dark.

"Next thing you know," I said, "we'll find out

Reuben had been in Victor's office, getting treated for

an ingrown toenail. Maybe Reuben took the scalpel

and slit his own throat with it."

The sheltered spot by Paddy's building kept the

wind and rain from battering us so badly. I settled

down to wait for the power to come back on or the

storm to back off, preferably both.

"Just wait," I fumed in exasperation. "They'll all

turn out to be suicides. Weasel will turn out to have

stuffed the tie down his own throat. We'll find a note

from Heywood, too: sayonara."

"Suicide," Ellie objected distractedly, "is a sin."

Then: "What's that up there?"

"Molly's doll," I ranted on--the heater in the Jeep

was not powerful and I hate wet feet--"will turn out to

be possessed by a horror-movie demon, self-animated

and self-destructive."

"I don't think so. Jake, will you look a minute?"

The rain let up a little as if gathering itself for another

deluge. "What is that? And do you hear something?"

I peered where she was pointing: glimmers of light

moving intermittently behind Paddy's windows. "It

looks like they turned on flashlights. Or lit some candles."

"I don't think Paddy would use candles up there,"

Ellie said. "He's paranoid about fire in that old building.

Even with all the fire extinguishers he has, I don't

think he would ..."

Light shone once more at the loft windows, then

careened away. The wind screamed again; it was nuts

of us even to be out there. "I don't hear anything except

a gale blowing," I said.

But then I did. Light bounced off the inside of the

window again: not a candle. A flashlight or battery

lantern, swinging. And the sound I heard was not the

wind, although very like it.

Somebody screaming.

The power went back on as we reached the

stairs inside the old building, tracklights and

torchieres blazing on blindingly to reveal the

shape of Terence Oscard crumpled by the

bottom step.

"Jesus, oh Jesus," Paddy moaned, clutching his

head. He'd stopped shouting at the sight of us, but he

was still frantic.

"Sit," Ellie told him. "I'll call the ambulance. Jake,

look at him, will you? See if there's anything ..."

To be done for him, she meant, and at first I didn't

think there was. The back of his head was a pulpy

looking mess, and he wasn't breathing until I turned

him.

"Don't move him, you'll paralyze him!" Paddy

shouted. "Oh, my God ... Terence always said you

never move somebody, you could damage their spinal

cord."

"Paddy, if he's not breathing, it won't do him

much good to have an intact spinal cord, will it?"

That much first aid even I knew, but suddenly I

wished I'd taken Terence up on the loan of that Red

Cross book. Still, once he was shifted so that his jaw

wasn't blocking his windpipe, he took a shuddery

breath, then another. "We really, really need a medical

person here right now," I called to Ellie.

"They're coming," she reported, returning from

the phone. "Paddy, what happened?"

"I ... I don't know." Paddy looked dazed. "I

thought he was down here reading, but when the lights

went out and he didn't say anything I went looking for

him with the flashlight. And I found him here ...

like this."

He knelt by Terence's body, reaching out to touch

the unconscious man's face. His palm cradled Terence's

rough cheek.

"Terry, please don't die. Please, Terry--" He

looked up desperately. "Are they coming? Did they say

they were coming?"

"Yeah, they're coming," I told him. A siren approached.

"Go out and wave them down so they know

where we are."

He gathered himself and went. "Here, over here!"

I heard him shout, out in the street.

Ellie came back from the rear of the work area

where Paddy kept cardboard, bags of fabric scraps,

anything he was going to put out in the bin as trash.

Being Paddy, he'd installed a small, very visible red-lit

Exit sign back there.

"Go look at that door," she suggested mildly, and

when I did I found the wooden frame around it splintered,

the broken wood fresh and gleaming under the

chipped-out white paint. The area around the heavy

lock set and deadbolt were especially chewed up.

Someone had jimmied it, using a pry bar or something

like one.