Wicked Fix (48 page)

two wanted so badly to understand this. Now you're

going to help me finish it."

"Finish ... sending your message," I said, because

it was all coming clear now; too late.

"You didn't tell your parents or the police what

Reuben was doing," I went on. "But you told someone:

Reverend Sondergard. When it got to be too much, you

must have gone to him and asked him to help you."

It was Heywood's only possible link to the

whole thing. But it still didn't explain the Weasel.

"Why ... ?"

"Shut up." We were approaching the narrow door

at the end of the row of brick buildings, their front

windows boarded against mischief so the place looked

more like an abandoned tenement than a high-tech design

studio.

Which was the way Paddy wanted it. He liked that

stark urban contrast between gritty exterior and airy

inside. From the street you couldn't tell anything about

what was going on in there.

"I begged him," Mike said. "Reverend Sondergard.

He told me that I should pray about it. He would

pray too, he said. But I guess," he finished as he urged

us into Paddy's building, "the old coward just didn't

pray hard enough."

Inside, he locked the door behind us and lowered

the bar that Paddy used for extra security. And then

the thing I'd begun fearing back when he appeared in

the cemetery came true:

All of them. The folding chairs that usually resided

along Paddy's long conference table were set out separately

in the big workroom with the overheard lights

glaring down:

Willow Prettymore. Marcus Sondergard. Wade

Sorenson, looking furious but unable to do anything

about it. And George Valentine, likewise incapacitated.

Each had been tied, wrists behind, ankles bound to the

legs of the chairs. Neat and complete.

On the table lay a canvas satchel. I didn't like

thinking about what might be in it; Mike's penchant

for careful planning and preparation made the possibilities

unpleasant.

"How the hell did you do that?" I demanded,

struck by the sheer unmanageability of it. And yet there

they were.

Mike smiled, proud of his accomplishment.

"Paddy was here when I arrived. He was easy. Willow

got here next, and I hit her with a brick. Tied her."

A runnel of blood on Willow's terrified face confirmed

this. Mike gazed around. "Then Marcus arrived."

The enmity in George Valentine's glance at Marcus,

combined with the darkening bruise developing on

George's temple, told me what must have come next.

Marcus had ambushed George, tied him up at Mike's

instruction. Otherwise, Mike had threatened, he would

use the knife on Willow.

"Wade? Are you all right?" There was an enormous

purple lump over his right eye.

He looked disgusted. "He called us separately,

asked us to meet him here. Told each one of us he had

something to say about the murders, couldn't tell anyone

else. Spaced the arrivals five minutes or so apart,

give him time to do the necessary. And then Marcus

ambushed us one at a time. He didn't," Wade added,

"have any choice."

But that still left ... I peered around, puzzled.

"Told me he knew who killed Reuben," Wade

went on, "but he was afraid, needed my help. Fooled

me but good," he finished, angry with himself.

A few feet away from him, Paddy sat glowering,

tied like Marcus. "You should," Paddy said, "have

been praying for brains, you tone-deaf little Jesus

freak."

Paddy had never been a great fan of organized religion,

but I thought this was no time for them to be

sorting out their theological differences. Especially

since, if someone didn't come up with a way out of this

pretty efficiently, it looked as if we were going to be

getting answers to an entire spectrum of deep, important

questions about the afterlife, real soon now.

"Sit." Mike waved at the two remaining chairs.

We didn't have a choice, any more than Marcus

had had. Ellie looked pale but composed, seating herself.

I sat too, readying myself to rocket back up again

the very instant Mike took that knife away from Ellie's

neck, which he would have to do in order to begin

tying one of us.

But then I realized: If Marcus had tied the others to

keep Mike from cutting Willow's throat, who'd tied

Marcus? Not Mike; he was busy doing his knife

handling act.

Then a small voice came from the shadows under

the circular staircase. "Dad?" Molly Carpentier

quavered. "Dad, can we go home now?"

"Get over there and do what I told you," Mike

snapped, his eyes glittering dangerously.

Reluctantly the child came out. In her hands she

held a ball of thick brown twine, the kind all those

hanging planters at the cottage were made of. And if it

could hold up a heavy earth-filled planter without

breaking, it could probably hold us.

Which it did. Molly wrapped the stuff repeatedly

around Ellie's wrists and ankles, then around mine.

"I'll try not to cut off your circulation," she said, tying

the final knot. I didn't have the heart to tell her that

pretty soon I wouldn't have any.

"Mike," I said. "I know you want Molly to get the

message you never got. That she's not alone, that you

will help her if someone gives her trouble. But is this

what you want her to know? That the answer is violence?"

Suddenly Willow Prettymore broke her silence.

"That's a lot of bull. There's no message. Things didn't

go little Mikey's way and now he wants revenge, that's

all. ..."

Mike was at her side in an instant; Willow broke

off and uttered a thin, breathy little scream as the knife

moved fast. A line of bright red ran suddenly down

Willow's pale throat, into the collar of her white

blouse.

"Shut up," Mike whispered. "Or next time I'll

really cut you." Willow stared, whimpering.

"Your time to talk," Mike grated out at her, "was

when you saw him going in my window at night. But

you never told anyone. You were older, I was just a

little kid, I needed help."

Mike looked around contemptuously. "But if Reuben

was after me, then he wasn't after any of you. Isn't

that right? You could forget him for a while. So you

did. All of you ... you just did."

"Why didn't you stand up to him?" Ellie asked

sadly.

He spun on her. "Sure. And be another Boxy

Thorogood, go down hard. It was different for you

guys. You were Reuben's own age. Me and Boxy were

eleven years old."

"Dad," Molly began faintly.

"Quiet." The little girl shrank back, frightened.

"But why hurt Terence?" Paddy asked sadly. "He

didn't have anything to do with any of this. He wasn't

even here."

"He really did fall, that first time," I said to Paddy.

"And hurt his hand. And turned those gas burners on,

himself."

"Yes." He eyed me helplessly. "But the thread he

said he'd tripped on ... it wasn't there. That was his

mind," Paddy mourned heavily, "telling him something

bad was about to happen, he was so intuitive,

Terence was, and then Mike really attacked him. ..."

"Shut up." Mike whirled on him, spitting a reply.

"I mistook him for you in the dark, you artsy little

fake. Always talking about facing Reuben down, always

ready to get into a big argument. But he killed

your own father and you still didn't do anything because

you were afraid. You know it's true, don't you?"

Paddy's face hardened. "What should I have done,

Mike? Drop to his level? Sneak around killing people?"

Like you, his look added clearly, but Mike didn't see it.

"And when he came back," Mike went on,

"threatened to burn down your building, what did you

do?"

He grimaced mockingly. "You whined about it.

'Oh, big, bad Reuben's back, somebody save me.' I

could have told you how well that works," he finished

scornfully.

Outside it was full dark, and beyond Paddy's studio

windows the water was calm, each little fishing

vessel in the boat basin seeming to perch upon a mirror

image of itself. From Campobello, the lights of shops

and houses reflected in straight, bright lines to the water,

like bar codes drawn in Day-Glo markers.

"You didn't jimmy those locks to get into the studio,"

I said, understanding it now. "Terence hadn't

even locked them--he wasn't thinking right, so he'd

left them open."

I looked at Mike. "You thought you were equipped

to break in. You weren't, but then it turned out you

didn't need to. You still broke the door frame, though,

because ..."

Cold comprehension washed over me. "Because if

things had gone entirely your way, Paddy would be

dead by now. And Terence might or might not be here

to let you in. Once you saw how big those locks were,

you decided to give yourself a head start on getting

through that door next time."

Breaking the frame, weakening the structure ...

people think about the locks they install. Too often

they don't worry so much about what that expensive

hardware is set into: solid wood, or a splintered door

frame slammed back together with a couple of good

looking but easily-pulled nails?

On the other hand, it had turned out not to matter,

anyway, because once again, dumb luck had favored

the prepared mind. Too bad that in Mike's case, the

prepared mind had lost a few marbles in the Thou

Shalt Not Kill department.

"You've been planning this a long time, haven't

you, Mike? Planning on finishing things, tying up loose

ends, and doing it here, like this. But I still don't see

how you got Victor's tie, or why you had to kill Weasel."

His face showed exasperation; apparently I didn't

appreciate his cleverness fully enough to satisfy him. "I

watched, and I waited, and I took advantage of every

little thing that happened, that's how. I was outside La

Sardina, saw Reuben and your ex and the rest of you

through the window."