کتاب 03-07

7

They followed the Fireman away from the church and in under the pines, where there were no boards to walk on. But the snow was brittle here, frozen and glassy on the surface, and for the most part they could make their way downhill without leaving any tracks.

Downhill? They seemed to be heading toward the water. Harper was surprised, had expected them to pile into a car.

Harper’s foot went through the polished surface of the snow and she lurched into Ben’s side. He steadied her, then looped his arm through hers.

“Let me help you,” he said. He cast a hooded look at the Fireman’s back and muttered, “Crazy bringing you along.”

A weight and ill-shaped mass in his pocket pressed against her arm and she frowned. She pushed her fingers into his coat pocket and found a revolver: hatched walnut grip, cold steel hammer.

She slipped her arm free.

He glanced at her, half smiling. “You’re supposed to ask if that’s a gun in my pocket or if I’m just happy to see you.”

“Why do you need that?”

“You have to ask?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought we’re off to help people, not shoot them.”

“You’re off to help people. I’m on this trip to make sure my favorite nurse gets back to camp in one piece. We don’t know anything about these two men. We don’t know what they were locked up for. Maybe John Rookwood is all right risking your life for a couple outlaws, but I’m not.” His face flushed and he looked down and away. “You ought to know by now how much I care about you, Harp. If something happened—sheesh.”

She put her hand on the back of his arm and squeezed. She hoped he read that squeeze as Thank you for caring and not God, I’m horny, we should really screw sometime. In her experience it was very difficult to offer a man affection and kindness without giving him the impression you were also offering a lay.

He smiled. “Besides. Departmental regulations require any officer transporting a prisoner to carry his firearm at all times. You can give up the badge, but it’s hard to give up the mind-set. Not that I ever really gave up the badge.”

“You still have it?”

“I keep it with my secret decoder ring and the fake mustache I used for undercover work.” He bumped her affectionately with his shoulder.

The snow was the color of blue steel, of gunmetal, in the moonlight.

He mused, “Sometimes I think I ought to put it back on.”

“The fake mustache?” She peered into his features. “I guess you could pull one off without looking too sleazy. You have a good face for a mustache.”

“No. My badge. Sometimes I think this community could use some law. Or at least some justice. Think about this gal who’s running around, helping herself to grub and jewelry. If she comes forward and admits what she did—or if we find her out—is that really going to be the end of it? We’re all just going to hug it out on Father Storey’s say-so?”

“Maybe she could peel potatoes for a week or something.”

“Or we could lock her up for three months, teach her a lesson. I even know where I’d do it. There’s a meat locker below the cafeteria, just about the size of a cell at the county jail. Bring in a cot and—”

“Ben!” she cried.

“What? She wouldn’t freeze. It’s probably warmer in there than in the basement of the church. There hasn’t been any electric for months.”

“That’s disgusting. Solitary confinement in a room that smells like rotten meat. Over a couple cans of milk?”

“And the Portable Mother.”

“Fuck the Portable Mother.”

He flinched.

Father Storey and Michael Lindqvist ambled along ahead of them, Father Storey saying something, a hand on Mike’s back. Mike walked with his nightstick stuck out to one side, rapping it against the occasional tree trunk, like a boy running a stick over the boards of a fence. Ben watched them for a bit, then shook his head and snorted.

“If I was Mike, I’d be relieved to get out of camp and I don’t know if I’d hurry back. He might be in more danger here.”

“From who?” Harper asked.

“From Allie. That girl has a temper. I wouldn’t want to cross her.”

“You think she’s mad Michael didn’t come to her defense?”

“Especially after what they were up to before chapel. I saw the two of them ducked behind a pine at the edge of the woods, making out like they were never going to see each other again. If I was her father, I would’ve—but I’m not, and I guess neither of them are exactly kids anymore.”

“I didn’t know they were a going thing.”

Ben waggled his hand. “On again, off again. Apparently on again.” He smiled at this. When he spoke once more, his voice was pitched low and soft. “Putting the thief in the meat locker might be a kindness. You don’t see that, because you think everyone is as warmhearted as you. Father Storey doesn’t see it either. You and he are two sides of the same coin in that way.”

“How is it a kindness?”

“It would keep her from getting killed. It’s less a punishment, more like protective custody.”

Harper opened her mouth to disagree, then recalled Allie’s talk of finding the thief and yanking out her tongue. She closed her mouth and said nothing.

Three canoes were tied alongside the dock, bobbing in the sea. The Fireman lowered his burning left hand, put it under one flap of his turnout jacket, and smothered the flame.

“It’ll be safer and faster to go the rest of the way by water.” He settled into the canoe at the far end of the dock, slid his halligan into the bottom.

Ben frowned. “Um—John? Am I counting wrong, or are we at least a boat short? We’re rescuing two men, aren’t we? So . . . where are we going to put them?”

“You’ll have room for them. I’m not coming back by boat. I’ve arranged for other transportation.” The Fireman undid a rope and pushed the canoe into the Atlantic. It rode low in the water and Harper wondered how heavy a halligan bar really was.

Ben gestured at one of the other canoes. “Harper, I don’t know much about boats. Do you want to steer and I’ll—”

“Actually,” Father Storey said, “I have a private medical matter to discuss with Nurse Willowes. Do you mind?”

Ben did mind—for a moment the disappointment on his face was so bald it was almost funny. But he nodded, and climbed down into one of the other canoes. “We’ll see you when we get where we’re going, then. Watch out for icebergs.”

Harper untied them while Father Storey carefully climbed into the front of their canoe. As they pushed out into the water, Harper shut her eyes and inhaled deeply. The air was so clean and smelled so richly of the sea, it made her briefly dizzy.

“I like it out on the ocean. Always have,” Father Storey said, speaking over his shoulder. “You know, the camp has a nearly forty-foot sailboat stashed on John’s island. Big enough to—oh, will you look at that!” He pointed across the water with a dripping paddle.

Allie was in the front of the Fireman’s canoe with a paddle. She had sat up as soon as they were fifty feet from the dock.

“Do you remember what John said to her, back on shore? ‘If you want to have a row with me, it’ll have to be later.’” Father Storey did a voice that was a little like Paul McCartney in Yellow Submarine. Not a bad imitation of the Fireman at that. He said it again—“‘A row!’”—the British way, so it rhymed with cow, then repeated it once more, but in the American fashion, so it rhymed with low. “Ha! He was telling her we were taking the canoes, so she could run ahead and wait for us. Well. She comes by her go-screw-yourself streak honestly. I could never tell her mother, Sarah, a thing, either.”

The shoreline, bristling with firs, scrolled by on either side of them as they made their way out of the little harbor.

“What’s bothering you, Father? You said you’re not feeling well?”

“I believe I said I had a private medical matter. I don’t think I said it was anything to do with me. I guess I’m all right. A little sick at heart. You don’t treat for that, do you?”

“Sure. Take two chocolates and call me in the morning. I think Norma Heald has a few Hershey’s Kisses in the kitchen. Tell her I wrote you a prescription.”

He didn’t laugh. “I think I’m going to have to send someone away. I’ve been trying to figure out how to protect someone no one will forgive. It seems to me that sending her away is the only hope for her. If she stays here, I’m afraid of what the camp might do to her.” He cast a glance back at Harper and smiled a little. “Every time I see them sing and shine together I always wonder what would happen if they formed a lynch mob. Do you think the Dragonscale would like a lynch mob as well as a chorus? I do.”