that didn't feature
a father confined to prison.
What we needed, I decided, was one of those other
suspects Tommy Daigle talked about, preferably one
who was (a) not in any sense a member of my family,
and (b) the real perpetrator.
"How come you're not down at the boatyard?" I
asked Sam.
He shrugged. "Day off. I got twenty hours in,
Harpwell says that's enough for this week."
And Sam did, too, his expression telegraphed with
perfect clarity. Work on the local guys' boats was all
right, as far as it went. Sam enjoyed it, but it didn't
offer him much variety.
"Well, it won't be forever. You'll be at school next
year."
I hoped. He'd been accepted at Yale, into a special
program, then had discovered Yale wasn't among the
top training grounds for marine architects, which was
what he planned on being. In the end he'd turned them
down, deciding to put off college altogether for a year,
which I personally thought was a fine idea.
But now ... "I don't know, Mom. I'm just not
sure that stuff is for me."
I stifled impatience. Dan Harpwell, owner of East
port Boat Yard, was holding out a promise of a partnership
for Sam: better money, more interesting work.
Without advanced schooling, though, in computer
aided design, modern methods and materials, even
some business accounting, Sam's future at the boat establishment
--and in his chosen career--was limited.
"Did you hear," he asked wryly, "about the dyslexic
devil worshiper who sold his soul to Santa?"
Well, at least he could joke about it. We'd found
out about his dyslexia a few years earlier; it had turned
out to be an odd, refractory form of the disability.
He'd gotten through high school by dint of taped texts,
special therapy, and tutoring. But now with a year off
from school he was getting a taste of not having to
struggle so hard all the time, and was--temporarily, I
hoped--shying at the gate of any further education at
all.
"Sam," I began gently, but his shoulders stiffened.
Time for a change of subject.
"I think," I offered carefully, for Sam could be
touchy if you tried cheering him up too blatantly,
"George Valentine knows Morse code. He's a ham
radio enthusiast."
He brightened a little. "Yeah? Hey, maybe I'll ask
him about it. You think spirits could learn to send messages
in Morse?"
"I don't know," I said, again feeling obscurely
troubled. On the other hand, none of the odd events
we'd experienced in the house had been malicious. And
just at that moment I'd have rented a room to the headless
horseman, if it made Sam feel better.
"I think," he said in a wan attempt to make a little
joke, "it would depend on whether a spirit knew any
Morse code before."
He took his hands off the Ouija board and looked
up sideways at me, his grin the pale ghost of the one he
usually wore.
Whereupon I swear that dratted planchette
twitched.
That afternoon, Arnold drove Victor to the
courthouse in Machias, thirty miles to our
south. The prisoner's behavior was calm and
cooperative, Arnold reported; Victor allowed
himself to be fingerprinted, photographed, and
placed in a cell; he was given a phone call, which, as
promised, he had made to an attorney in Manhattan.
"And that," Arnold finished, "is that." Victor
would remain in jail to await arraignment, hearings,
and trial.
I gripped the telephone, not yet quite able to believe
that it was all so cut-and-dried, or in fact that any
of it was real. But of course it was.
"State guys'll be around," Arnold went on, "talk
to you and Ellie about finding the body. About what
you saw and heard at La Sardina, too. And," he added
reluctantly, "they'll want to have a word with Sam."
Which was the part that I was most emphatically
not looking forward to. But it was coming; the state's
mobile crime lab was in town and the bodies were on
their way to the police forensic unit in Augusta;
a father confined to prison.
What we needed, I decided, was one of those other
suspects Tommy Daigle talked about, preferably one
who was (a) not in any sense a member of my family,
and (b) the real perpetrator.
"How come you're not down at the boatyard?" I
asked Sam.
He shrugged. "Day off. I got twenty hours in,
Harpwell says that's enough for this week."
And Sam did, too, his expression telegraphed with
perfect clarity. Work on the local guys' boats was all
right, as far as it went. Sam enjoyed it, but it didn't
offer him much variety.
"Well, it won't be forever. You'll be at school next
year."
I hoped. He'd been accepted at Yale, into a special
program, then had discovered Yale wasn't among the
top training grounds for marine architects, which was
what he planned on being. In the end he'd turned them
down, deciding to put off college altogether for a year,
which I personally thought was a fine idea.
But now ... "I don't know, Mom. I'm just not
sure that stuff is for me."
I stifled impatience. Dan Harpwell, owner of East
port Boat Yard, was holding out a promise of a partnership
for Sam: better money, more interesting work.
Without advanced schooling, though, in computer
aided design, modern methods and materials, even
some business accounting, Sam's future at the boat establishment
--and in his chosen career--was limited.
"Did you hear," he asked wryly, "about the dyslexic
devil worshiper who sold his soul to Santa?"
Well, at least he could joke about it. We'd found
out about his dyslexia a few years earlier; it had turned
out to be an odd, refractory form of the disability.
He'd gotten through high school by dint of taped texts,
special therapy, and tutoring. But now with a year off
from school he was getting a taste of not having to
struggle so hard all the time, and was--temporarily, I
hoped--shying at the gate of any further education at
all.
"Sam," I began gently, but his shoulders stiffened.
Time for a change of subject.
"I think," I offered carefully, for Sam could be
touchy if you tried cheering him up too blatantly,
"George Valentine knows Morse code. He's a ham
radio enthusiast."
He brightened a little. "Yeah? Hey, maybe I'll ask
him about it. You think spirits could learn to send messages
in Morse?"
"I don't know," I said, again feeling obscurely
troubled. On the other hand, none of the odd events
we'd experienced in the house had been malicious. And
just at that moment I'd have rented a room to the headless
horseman, if it made Sam feel better.
"I think," he said in a wan attempt to make a little
joke, "it would depend on whether a spirit knew any
Morse code before."
He took his hands off the Ouija board and looked
up sideways at me, his grin the pale ghost of the one he
usually wore.
Whereupon I swear that dratted planchette
twitched.
That afternoon, Arnold drove Victor to the
courthouse in Machias, thirty miles to our
south. The prisoner's behavior was calm and
cooperative, Arnold reported; Victor allowed
himself to be fingerprinted, photographed, and
placed in a cell; he was given a phone call, which, as
promised, he had made to an attorney in Manhattan.
"And that," Arnold finished, "is that." Victor
would remain in jail to await arraignment, hearings,
and trial.
I gripped the telephone, not yet quite able to believe
that it was all so cut-and-dried, or in fact that any
of it was real. But of course it was.
"State guys'll be around," Arnold went on, "talk
to you and Ellie about finding the body. About what
you saw and heard at La Sardina, too. And," he added
reluctantly, "they'll want to have a word with Sam."
Which was the part that I was most emphatically
not looking forward to. But it was coming; the state's
mobile crime lab was in town and the bodies were on
their way to the police forensic unit in Augusta;
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