never mind what he'd
told Sam he was going to do about it; worrying about
looking bad was one of Victor's main ways of not worrying
about being bad.
Typical Reuben Tate, too, from what I'd been hearing:
playing into Victor's psychology that way. Sam got
up, closed the Ouija box, and took it and the blue
covered Morse code book with him.
"Mom, how could they have arrested him? He's
not guilty. He couldn't have done it. He's not ..."
Sam paused, swallowed hard. "He's not violent.
Anymore."
"Right," I said, knowing that we were remembering
the same incident. But that was from the really bad
old days, and it was over. I put my hand on his arm,
made my voice sound confident.
"His talk about threatening Reuben, even if he did
say that stuff, it was just talk. Don't worry about it too
much. Things are going to be a little rough for a while,
but I'm certain that this will all get straightened out
just fine."
Sam met my gaze, comforted for a moment. But
then his face changed, as he realized that I was lying.
That Victor was innocent of Tate's murder I was
certain; I knew Victor too well. It was the getting
things straightened out part I wasn't sure of, because
what I couldn't come up with was the answer to one
simple question:
Neither Ellie nor I had said anything about Reuben
Tate when we'd arrived home from the cemetery to
find Victor sitting in my kitchen.
Arnold hadn't mentioned Tate either when he'd
called Victor earlier, because at that point he hadn't
heard.
So how had Victor known that Reuben was dead?
The question of hauntedness was a recurring
one in our old house: cold spots on the
stairs, strange noises in the attic, doors that
opened or closed with odd, mischievous regularity.
Once I came down in the morning to find a set
of steak knives, their blades all bent and twisted, inside
the washing machine.
So having a Ouija board around the place just
seemed to me like begging for trouble, but Sam was
enthralled with the thing. He took it into the dining
room and sat brooding over it, as if it might reveal
some hidden secret to him.
"Sam," I said. "It's supposed to take at least two
people to get any action out it."
Live people, I meant, and not that I wanted any
action; the reverse, in fact, unless the dratted thing decided
to levitate itself into the trash. The astral plane
had been pretty quiet on our part of Key Street in recent
months, and I wished it would stay that way.
"I know," he replied. "I'm just playing around
with it."
He'd finished stripping the radiator, put a coat of
primer on it, and cleaned up, then spent some time on
the phone and afterward just picked at his lunch. Behind
him, early-afternoon sunlight slanted brilliantly
through the dining-room windows.
"Are you worried about your dad?"
Sam frowned, moving the planchette a fraction
toward the Yes corner of the board. "Daigle says lots
of people wanted to kill Reuben Tate. He says there
are, like, other possible suspects."
Which wouldn't stop a prosecutor from doing his
best to pin the deed on Victor. And until recently I'd
have been happy to see Victor impaled on a pin the size
of a railroad spike. But now that he was in trouble I
had to admit that, over the months since he'd moved
here, Victor had done the one thing I'd never expected
of him: he had behaved.
Oh, he was still about as easy to have around as a
sprained ankle, and all the emotional baggage I had
with him could have filled a boxcar. Still, he hadn't
engaged in any scandalous dalliances with Eastport
girls, or gotten into feuds with any of the town's leading
citizens. He hadn't, as I had been so much fearing,
made a public spectacle of himself.
And then there was Sam, whose personal transformation
over the past couple of years had been nearly
miraculous. Now all he wanted was some semblance of
a normal home life, or at any rate one
told Sam he was going to do about it; worrying about
looking bad was one of Victor's main ways of not worrying
about being bad.
Typical Reuben Tate, too, from what I'd been hearing:
playing into Victor's psychology that way. Sam got
up, closed the Ouija box, and took it and the blue
covered Morse code book with him.
"Mom, how could they have arrested him? He's
not guilty. He couldn't have done it. He's not ..."
Sam paused, swallowed hard. "He's not violent.
Anymore."
"Right," I said, knowing that we were remembering
the same incident. But that was from the really bad
old days, and it was over. I put my hand on his arm,
made my voice sound confident.
"His talk about threatening Reuben, even if he did
say that stuff, it was just talk. Don't worry about it too
much. Things are going to be a little rough for a while,
but I'm certain that this will all get straightened out
just fine."
Sam met my gaze, comforted for a moment. But
then his face changed, as he realized that I was lying.
That Victor was innocent of Tate's murder I was
certain; I knew Victor too well. It was the getting
things straightened out part I wasn't sure of, because
what I couldn't come up with was the answer to one
simple question:
Neither Ellie nor I had said anything about Reuben
Tate when we'd arrived home from the cemetery to
find Victor sitting in my kitchen.
Arnold hadn't mentioned Tate either when he'd
called Victor earlier, because at that point he hadn't
heard.
So how had Victor known that Reuben was dead?
The question of hauntedness was a recurring
one in our old house: cold spots on the
stairs, strange noises in the attic, doors that
opened or closed with odd, mischievous regularity.
Once I came down in the morning to find a set
of steak knives, their blades all bent and twisted, inside
the washing machine.
So having a Ouija board around the place just
seemed to me like begging for trouble, but Sam was
enthralled with the thing. He took it into the dining
room and sat brooding over it, as if it might reveal
some hidden secret to him.
"Sam," I said. "It's supposed to take at least two
people to get any action out it."
Live people, I meant, and not that I wanted any
action; the reverse, in fact, unless the dratted thing decided
to levitate itself into the trash. The astral plane
had been pretty quiet on our part of Key Street in recent
months, and I wished it would stay that way.
"I know," he replied. "I'm just playing around
with it."
He'd finished stripping the radiator, put a coat of
primer on it, and cleaned up, then spent some time on
the phone and afterward just picked at his lunch. Behind
him, early-afternoon sunlight slanted brilliantly
through the dining-room windows.
"Are you worried about your dad?"
Sam frowned, moving the planchette a fraction
toward the Yes corner of the board. "Daigle says lots
of people wanted to kill Reuben Tate. He says there
are, like, other possible suspects."
Which wouldn't stop a prosecutor from doing his
best to pin the deed on Victor. And until recently I'd
have been happy to see Victor impaled on a pin the size
of a railroad spike. But now that he was in trouble I
had to admit that, over the months since he'd moved
here, Victor had done the one thing I'd never expected
of him: he had behaved.
Oh, he was still about as easy to have around as a
sprained ankle, and all the emotional baggage I had
with him could have filled a boxcar. Still, he hadn't
engaged in any scandalous dalliances with Eastport
girls, or gotten into feuds with any of the town's leading
citizens. He hadn't, as I had been so much fearing,
made a public spectacle of himself.
And then there was Sam, whose personal transformation
over the past couple of years had been nearly
miraculous. Now all he wanted was some semblance of
a normal home life, or at any rate one
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