"Bloodstream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerritsen Tess)

16

Glass was everywhere, bright shards littering the carpet, the magazine table, the waiting room couch. Through the broken windows, now open to the night air, wisps of snow slithered in and settled like fine lace on the furniture.

Stunned and silent, Claire moved through the waiting room to the business office. The window above Vera’s desk had been smashed as well, and slivers of glass and broken icicles sparkled on the computer keyboard. Wind had blown loose papers and snow into drifts throughout the room, a blizzard of white that would soon melt to soggy heaps on the carpet.

She heard Lincoln’s boots crunch across the glass. “Plywood’s on the way, Claire. There’s more snow predicted, so they’ll get those windows boarded up tonight.”

She just kept staring down at the snow on her carpet. “It’s because of what I said at the meeting tonight. Isn’t it?”

“This isn’t the only building that’s been vandalized. There’ve been several this week.”

“But this is the second time for me in one night. First my tires. Now this.

Don’t you dare tell me this is a coincidence.”

Officer Pete Sparks came into the room. “Not having much luck with the neighbors, Lincoln. They called in when they heard the breaking glass, but they didn’t see who did it. It’s like that incident down at Bartlett’s garage last week. Smash and run”

“But Joe Bartlett had only one broken window,” she said. “They’ve smashed all of mine. This is going to shut me down for weeks.”

Sparks tried to be reassuring. “It should only take a few days to get those windows replaced.”

“What about my computer? The ruined carpet? The snow’s gotten into everything.

The data will have to be replaced, and all my billing records reconstructed. I don’t know if it’s worth it. I don’t know if I even want to start over again.”

She turned and walked out of the building.

She was huddled in her truck when Lincoln and Sparks emerged a short time later.

They exchanged a few words, then Lincoln crossed the street to her pickup truck and slid into the seat beside her.

For a moment neither of them spoke. She kept her gaze focused straight ahead, and her vision blurred, the twirling lights of Sparks’s cruiser softening to a pulsating haze. Quickly, angrily, she wiped her hand across her eyes. “I’d say the message came through loud and clear. This town doesn’t want me here.”

“Not the whole town, Claire. One vandal. One person-”

“Who probably speaks for a lot of other people. I might as well pack up and leave tonight. Before they decide to burn down my house.”

He said nothing.

“That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” she said, and she finally looked at him. “That I’ve lost any chance of making it here.”

“You made it hard on yourself tonight. When you talk about shutting down the lake, it threatens a lot of people.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, you had to say it, Claire. You did the right thing, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

“No one’s come up to shake my hand.”

“Take my word for it. There are others who have concerns about the lake.”

“But they’re not going to close it down, are they? They can’t afford to. So they shut me up instead, by doing this. By trying to drive me out of town.” She looked at her building. “It’s going to work, too.”

“You’ve been here less than a year. It takes time-”

“How long does it take to be accepted in this town? Five years, ten? A lifetime?” Reaching down, she turned on the ignition, and felt the initial blast of cold air from the heater.

“Your office can be repaired.”

“Yes, buildings are easy to fix.”

“It can all be replaced. The windows, the computer.”

“And what about my patients? I don’t think I have any left after tonight.”

“You don’t know that. You haven’t given Tranquility a chance.”

“Haven’t I?” She straightened and looked at him in fury. “I’ve given it nine months of my life! Every minute, I worry about my practice, about why my appointment book is still half empty. Why someone hates me enough to send anonymous letters to my patients. There are people here who want me to fail, and they’re doing their best to drive me out of town. It’s taken me this long to realize it’s never going to get better. Tranquility doesn’t want me, Lincoln.

They want another Dr. Pomeroy, or maybe Marcus Welby. But not me.”

“It takes time, Claire. You’re from away, and people need to get used to you, to feel confident you’re not going to abandon them. That’s where Adam DelRay has the advantage. He’s a local boy, and everyone assumes he’ll stay. The last doctor who came here from another state left after eighteen months. Couldn’t take the winters. The doctor before him stayed less than a year. The town doesn’t think you’ll last, either. They’re holding back, waiting to see if you make it through the Winter. Or if you’ll give up and leave town like the other two did?’

“It’s not winter that’s driving me away. I can take the darkness and the cold.

What I can’t take is the feeling I don’t belong. That I’ll never belong?’ She released a deep breath, and her anger suddenly dissolved, leaving only a feeling of weariness. “I don’t know why I thought this Would work. Noah didn’t want to move here, but I forced him. And now I see what a stupid thing it was to do..

“Why did you come, Claire?” He’d asked the question so softly it was almost lost in the whisper of air from the heater.

It was a question he had never asked her, an elementary piece of information about herself she had never shared. Why I came to Tranquility. Now as he waited for her answer, the silence stretched between them, magnifying her reluctance to confide in him.

He sensed her discomfort and shifted his gaze to the street, granting her some measure of privacy. When he spoke again, it was almost as if the words weren’t directed at her, that he was merely sharing his thoughts with no one in particular.

“The people who move here, from other places,” he said, “most times it seems to me they’re running away from something. A job they hate, an ex-husband. An ex-wife. Some tragedy that’s shaken their lives.”

She sagged sideways and felt the icy window against her cheek. How does he know? she wondered. How much has he guessed?

“They come here, these people from away, and they think they’ve found paradise.

Maybe they’re on summer vacation. Maybe they’re just driving through, and the name of the town catches their fancy. Tranquility. It sounds safe, a place to run to, a place to hide. They stop at the local realty office and look at the photos on the wall. All the farmhouses for sale, the cottages on the lake.”

It was a picture of a white farmhouse with daffodils nodding in the front yard and a maple tree just beginning to show its spring blush. I’d never had a house with a maple tree. I’d never lived in a town where I could look up at the sky at night and see stars, instead of the glare of city lights.

“They wonder what it’d be like, to live in a small town,” said Lincoln. “A place where no one locks their doors, and neighbors welcome you with casseroles. A place that’s more fantasy than reality, because the small town they imagine doesn’t exist. And the problems they’re trying to leave behind just follow them to their next home. And the next”

Noah told me he didn’t want to come. He told me he’d hate me if I forced him to leave Baltimore, to leave behind all his friends. But you can’t let a fourteen-year-old boy run your life. I’m the parent. I’m in charge. I knew what was good for him, good for both of us.

I thought I did.

“For a while, maybe, it seems to work out,” he said. “A new house, a new town-it keeps your mind off the things you were running away from. Everyone hopes for a new beginning, a chance to make things right. And they think, what better time and place to start a new life than a summer by the lake?”

“He stole a car," she said.

He didn’t respond. She wondered what she’d see in his eyes if she were to turn and look at him now. Surely not surprise; somehow he had already known or guessed that her coming to Tranquility had been an act of desperation.

“It wasn’t the only crime he committed, of course. After he was arrested, I learned about all the other things he’d done. The shoplifting. The graffiti. The break-ins at the neighborhood grocery store. They did it together, Noah and his friends. Three boys who just got bored and decided to add a little excitement to their lives. To their parents’ lives.” She leaned back, her gaze focused on the empty street. Snow was beginning to fall, and as the flakes slithered onto the windshield they melted and slid down like tears on the glass. “The worst part about it was I didn’t know. That’s how little he told me, how completely out of touch I was with my own son.

“When the police called me that night, and told me there’d been an accident-that Noah had been in a stolen car-I told them it was a mistake. My son wouldn’t do something like that. My son was spending the night at a friend’s house. But he wasn’t. He was sitting in the emergency room with a scalp laceration. And his friend-one of the boys-was in a coma. I guess I should be grateful for the fact that my son never forgets to buckle his seat belt. Even in the act of stealing a car.” She shook her head and gave an ironic sigh. “The other parents were as stunned as I was. They couldn’t believe their boys would do such a thing. They thought Noah talked them into it. Noah was the bad influence. What could you expect from a boy who has no father?

“It made no difference to them that my son was the youngest of the three. They blamed it on his lack of a father. And the fact I was too busy working as a doctor, taking care of other peoples’ families, to pay attention to my own.”

Outside the snow was falling more thickly now, blanketing the windshield, cutting off her view of the street.

“The worst part about it was, I agreed with them. I had to be doing something wrong, failing him in some way. And all I could think of was, how could I set things right again?”

“Packing up and leaving home is a pretty drastic measure.”

“I was looking for a miracle. A magic solution. We’d gotten to the point where we hated each other. I couldn’t control where he went or what he did. Worst of all, I couldn’t choose his friends. I could see where it was leading. Another stolen car, another arrest. Another round of useless family counseling…“ She took a deep breath. The windshield was covered by snow now, and she felt buried away, entombed with this man beside her.

“And then,” she said, “we visited Tranquility.”

“When?”

“It was a weekend in fall. A little over a year ago. Most of the tourists were gone, and the weather was still nice. Indian summer. Noah and I rented a cottage on the lake. Every morning, when I woke up, I’d hear the loons. And nothing else. Just the loons, and silence. That’s what I loved most about that weekend, the feeling of complete peace. For once we didn’t argue. We actually enjoyed being together. That’s when I knew I wanted to leave Baltimore…“ She shook her head. “I guess you had me pegged right, Lincoln. I’m like every other outsider who moves to this town, who’s running away from another life, another set of problems. I wasn’t sure where I was going. I only knew I couldn’t stay where I was.”

“And flow?”

“I can’t stay here either,” she said brokenly.

“It’s too soon to make that decision, Claire. You haven’t been here long enough to build up the practice.”

“I’ve had nine months. All summer and fall, I sat in that office waiting for the flood of patients. Almost all I got were tourists. Summer people coming in for a sprained ankle or an upset stomach. When summer was over, they all went home.

And I suddenly realized how few of my patients actually lived in this town. I thought I could hang on, that people would learn to trust me. It might’ve happened in another year or two. But after tonight, there’s no chance of it. I said what I had to say at that meeting and the town didn’t like it. Now my best option is to pack up and leave. And hope it’s not too late to go back to Baltimore.”

“You’re giving up so easily?”

It was a statement designed to provoke. Angry, she turned to look at him. “So easily? And when does it get hard?”

“It’s not the whole town attacking you. It’s a few disturbed individuals. You have more support than you realize?’

“Where is it? Why didn’t anyone else stand up for me at the meeting? You were the only one.”

“Some of them are confused. Or they’re afraid to speak up.”

“No wonder. They could get their tires slashed as well,” she said sarcastically “It’s a very small town, Claire. People here think they know each other, but when you get right down to it, we really don’t. We keep our secrets to ourselves. We stake out our private territory and we don’t let others cross the line. Speaking up at a town meeting is opening ourselves to the public. Most choose to say nothing at all, even though they may agree with you.”

“All that silent support won’t help me earn a living.”

“No, it won’t.”

“There’s no guarantee any patients will walk into my office now?’

“It’d be a gamble, yes.”

“So why should I? Give me one reason why I should stay in this town?”

“Because I don’t want you to leave.”

This was not the answer she had expected. She stared at him, straining to read his expression in the gloom.

“This town needs someone like you:’ he said. “Someone who comes in and stirs things up a little. Who makes us ask ourselves questions we’ve never had the nerve to ask. It would be a loss if you left us, Claire. It would be a loss to us all.”

“So you’re speaking on behalf of the town?”

“Yes.” He paused. And added softly, “And for myself as well.”

“I’m not sure what that means.”

“I’m not sure what it means, either. I don’t even know why I’m saying it. It doesn’t do either of us any good.” Abruptly he grasped the door handle and was about to open it when she reached out and touched his arm. At once he fell still, his hand clutching the door, his body poised to step into the cold.

“I used to think you didn’t like me,” she said.

He looked at her in surprise. “I gave you that impression?”

“It wasn’t anything you said.”

“What was it, then?”

“You never talked about anything personal. As if you didn’t want me to know things about you. It didn’t bother me. I realized that’s just how it is up here.

People keep to themselves, the way you did. But after a while, after we’d known each other, and that invisible wall still seemed to stand between us, I thought:

Maybe it’s not just the fact I’m an outsider. Maybe it’s me. Something he doesn’t like about me.”

“It is because of you, Claire.”

She paused. “I see.”

“I knew what would happen if I didn’t keep that wall up between us.” His shoulders sagged, as though under the weight of his unhappiness. “A person gets used to anything, even misery, if it goes on long enough. I’ve been married to Doreen so long, I guess I accepted it as the way things are supposed to be. I made a bad choice, I took on a responsibility, and I’ve done the best I could.”

“One mistake shouldn’t ruin your life.”

“When there’s someone else who’ll be hurt, it’s not easy to be selfish, to think only of yourself. It’s almost easier to do nothing and just let things slide.

Add on another layer of numbness.”

A gust swept the windshield, leaving streaks of melting snow on the glass. Fresh snow swirled down, whitening over that fleeting glimpse of the night.

“If it seems I didn’t warm up to you, Claire,” he said, “it’s only because I was trying so hard not to.”

He reached, once again, to open the door.

Once again, she stopped him with a touch, her hand lingering on his arm.

He turned to face her. This time their gazes held, neither one flinching away, neither one retreating.

He cupped her face in his hand and kissed her. Before he could pull away before he had time to regret the impulse, she leaned toward him, welcoming his kiss with one of her own.

His lips, the taste of his mouth, were new and unfamiliar to her. The kiss of a stranger. A man whose longing for her, so long concealed, now burned like a fever. She too had caught the sickness, felt the same heat flush her face, her whole body, as he pulled her against him. He said her name once, twice, a murmur of wonder that she was the one in his arms.

The glare of headlights suddenly penetrated the snow-covered windshield. They pulled apart and sat in guilty silence, listening to the sound of footsteps approaching the truck. Someone rapped on the passenger side. Snowflakes slithered in as Lincoln rolled down the window.

Officer Mark Dolan stared into the truck. His gaze took in both Lincoln and Claire, and all he said was, “Oh.” One syllable, an ocean’s worth of meaning.

“I, uh, I saw the doc’s engine running and wondered if everything was okay,”

Dolan explained. “You know, carbon monoxide poisoning and all.

“Everything’s fine,” said Lincoln.

“Yeah. All right.” Dolan backed away from the window. “Night, Lincoln.”

“Good night.”

After Dolan had walked away, Claire and Lincoln sat without speaking for a moment. Then Lincoln said, “It’ll be all over town tomorrow.”

“I’m sure it will be. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” As he stepped out of her truck, he gave a reckless laugh. “Truth is, Claire, I don’t give a damn. Everything that’s gone wrong in my life has been public knowledge in this town. Now, for once, something's gone right for me, and it might as well be public knowledge as well.”

She turned on the windshield wipers. Through the clearing glass she watched him wave good-night, then walk away to his car. Officer Dolan was still parked nearby, and Lincoln stopped to speak to him.

As she drove away, she suddenly remembered what Mitchell Groome had told her earlier that evening about Damaris Horne’s inside source.

Dark-haired, medium build. Works the night shift.

Mark Dolan, she thought.

The next morning Lincoln drove south, to Orono. He had not slept well, had lain awake for hours mulling over the night’s events. The town meeting. His conversation with Iris Keating. The damage to Claire’s office. And Claire herself.

Most of all, he’d thought about Claire.

At seven he’d awakened unrefreshed, and gone downstairs. It was a cold slap of reality to find Doreen still asleep on his living room couch. She lay with one arm dangling off the side, her red hair dull and greasy, her mouth half open. He stood for a moment, looking down at her, pondering how to convince her to leave with a minimum of yelling and crying on her part, but he was too weary to deal with the problem at that moment. Worrying about Doreen had already drained so much energy from his life. Just the sight of her seemed to drag down on his limbs, making them hang heavy, as though Doreen and the force of gravity were intimately connected.

“I’m sorry, Honey,” he said softly. “But I’m going on with my life.”

He made one phone call, then he left Doreen sleeping on the couch and walked out of the house. As he drove away, he felt the first layers of depression peel away like a worn outer skin. The roads were plowed, the pavement sanded; he pressed the accelerator, and as he picked up speed he felt he was shedding more and more layers, that if he just drove far enough, fast enough, the real Lincoln, the man he used to be, would finally emerge, scrubbed and clean and reborn. He sped past fields where the snow, so freshly fallen, puffed up in clouds of white powder with the slightest gust of wind. Keep driving, don’t stop, don’t look back. He had a destination in mind, and a purpose to this journey, but for now, what he experienced was the joyful rush of escape.

When he reached the University of Maine campus an hour later, he felt renewed and refreshed, as though he had enjoyed a long night’s sleep in a comfortable bed. He parked his car and walked onto the campus, and the cold air, the crystalline morning, invigorated him.

Lucy Overlock was in her office in the physical anthropology department. With her six-foot frame clad in her usual attire of blue jeans and flannel shirt, she looked more like a lumberjack than a college professor.

She greeted him with a calloused hand and a no-nonsense nod and sat down behind her desk. Even seated, she was an imposing woman of Amazonian proportions. “You said on the phone you had questions about the Locust Lake remains.”

“I want to know about the Gow family. How they died. Who killed them.”

She raised an eyebrow. “It’s about a hundred years too late to arrest anyone for that crime.”

“I’m bothered by the circumstances of their deaths. Did you ever locate any news articles about the murders?”

“Vince did-my grad student. He’s using the Gow case for his doctoral thesis. A reconstruction of an old murder, based on the remains. It took him weeks to track down an account. Not every old newspaper, you see, has been archived. Your particular area was so sparsely populated at that time, there wasn’t much news coverage.”

“So how did the Gow family die?”

She shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s the same old story. Unfortunately, family violence is not a modern phenomenon.”

“The father did it?”

“No. It was their seventeen-year-old son. His body was found weeks later, hanging from a tree. Apparently a suicide.”

“What about motive? Was the boy disturbed?”

Lucy leaned back, her tanned face catching the light from the window. Years of work in the outdoors had taken their toll on her complexion, and the wintry light illuminated every freckle, every deepening crease. “We don’t know. The family apparently lived in relative isolation. According to the deed maps for that period, the Gows’ property encompassed the whole south shore of the lake. There may not have been any neighbors around who’d know the boy very well.”

“Then the family was wealthy?”

“I wouldn’t say wealthy, but they’d be considered land rich. Vince said the property came into the Gow family in the late 1700s, and stayed with them until this… event. It was later sold off piece by piece. Developed.”

“Is Vince that scruffy kid with the ponytail?”

She laughed. “All my students are scruffy. It’s almost a prerequisite for graduation.”

“And where can I find Vince right now?”

“At nine o’clock, he should be in his office. The museum basement. I’ll call and let him know you’re coming.”

Lincoln had been here before. The broad wooden table was covered with pottery shards this time, not human remains, and the basement windows were blotted over by drifted snow. The lack of natural light, and the damp stone steps, made Lincoln feel he had descended into some vast underground cavern. He walked into the maze of storage shelves, past towering stacks of artifact boxes, their labels feathered by mold. “Human mandible (male)” was all he could make out on one label. A wooden box, he thought, is a sadly anonymous resting place for what had once been a man’s jaw. He moved deeper into the maze, his throat already scratchy from the dust and mildew and a faintly smoky odor that grew stronger as he progressed through the shadows, toward the far end of the basement.

Marijuana.

“Mr. Brentano?” he called out.

“I’m back here, Chief Kelly,” a voice answered. “Take a left at the stuffed owl.”

Lincoln walked a few more paces and came to a great horned owl mounted in a glass case. He turned left.

Vince Brentano’s “office” was little more than a desk and a filing cabinet crammed in between artifact shelves. Though there was no ashtray in sight, the aroma of pot hung heavy in the air, and the young man, clearly uneasy in the presence of a cop, had assumed a defensive posture, barricaded behind his desk, arms braced in front of him. Looking the boy straight in the eye, Lincoln held out his hand in greeting.

After a hesitation, Vince shook it. They both understood the meaning of that gesture: a treaty between them was now in force.

“Sit down,” offered Vince. “You can set that box on the floor, but watch the chair-it wobbles a little. Everything in here wobbles. As you can see, I got the deluxe office.”

Lincoln removed the box from the chair and set it down. The contents gave an ominous clatter.

“Bones,” said Vince.

“Human?”

“Lowland gorifia. I use them for comparison teaching. I hand them to the undergrads and ask them for a diagnosis, but I don’t tell them the bones aren’t human. You should hear some of the crazy answers I get. Everything from acromegaly to syphilis.”

“That’s a trick question.”

“Hey, all of life is a trick question.” Vince sat back, thoughtfully regarding Lincoln. “I take it this visit is a trick question, too. The police don’t usually waste their time on century-old murders.”

“The Gow family interests me for other reasons.”

“Which are?”

“I believe their deaths may be related to our current problems in Tranquility.”

Vince looked puzzled. “Me you referring to the recent murders?”

“They were committed by otherwise normal kids. Teenagers who lost control and killed. We’ve got child psychologists psychoanalyzing every kid in town, but they can’t explain it. So I got to thinking about what happened to the Gows. The parallels.”

“You mean the part about teenage killers?” Vince shrugged. “The underdog will only take so much abuse. When authority clamps down too hard, young people rebel. It’s happened again and again.”

“This isn’t rebellion. It’s kids going berserk, killing friends and family.” He paused. “The same thing happened fifty-two years ago.”

“What did?”

“Nineteen forty-six, in Tranquility. Seven murders committed during the month of November.”

“Seven?” Vince’s eyes widened behind the wire-rim glasses. “In a town of how many people?”

“In 1946, there were seven hundred living in Tranquility Now we’re facing the same crisis, all over again.”

Vince gave a startled laugh. “Man, you’ve obviously got some major sociological issues in your town, Chief. But don’t blame it on the kids. Look to the adults.

When children grow up with violence, they learn that violence is how they solve problems. Dad worships the almighty gun, goes out and blasts a deer to smithereens for sport. Junior gets the message: Killing is fun.”

“That’s too pat an explanation.”

“Our society glorifies violence! And then we put guns in the hands of children.

Ask any sociologist.”

“I don’t think the sociologists can explain this.”

“Okay. What’s your explanation, Chief Kelly?”

“Rainfall.”

There was a long silence. “Excuse me?”

“In 1946, and again this year, we’ve had identical weather patterns. It started off in April, with heavy rains. The local bridge was washed out, livestock were drowned-”

Vince rolled his eyes heavenward. “A flood of Biblical proportions?”

“Look, I’m not a religious man-”

“I’m not a believer, either, Chief Kelly. I’m a scientist.”

“Then you’re always looking for patterns in nature, right? Correlations. Well, here’s the pattern I’m seeing, both this year and in 1946. In April and May, our town has record rainfall. The Locust River floods, and there’s major damage to homes along the riverbank. Then the rains stop, and in July and August, there’s no rain at all. In fact, it’s unusually hot, with temperatures high enough to make it into the record books, both those years.” He took a breath, slowly released it. “Finally, in November,” he said, “it starts to happen.”

“What does?”

“The killing.”

Vince said nothing, his expression shuttered.

“I know it sounds crazy,” said Lincoln.

“You have no idea how crazy it sounds.”

“But the correlation’s there. Dr. Elliot thinks it could be a natural phenomenon. A new bacteria or algae in the lake, causing personality changes. I read about a similar thing happening, in rivers down south. A microorganism’s killing fish by the millions. It makes a toxin that affects humans as well. It damages their concentration, sometimes causes rage attacks.”

“You must mean the dinoflagellate, Pfiesteria.”

“Yes. It could parallel what’s happening here. That’s why I want to know about the Gows. Specifically, whether there were heavy rains the year they died.

Government flood data doesn’t go back that fat I need historical news accounts.”

Vince finally understood. “You want to see my newspaper clippings.”

“It might have the information I’m looking for.”

“A flood.” Vince sat back, frowning, as though a memory had just floated to the surface. “This is weird. I do seem to recall something about a flood He swiveled around to the filing cabinet, yanked open the drawer, and shuffled through folders. “Where did I see that? Where, where…“ He pulled out a file labeled:

“November, 1887, Two Hills Herald.” It contained a stack of photocopied news articles.

“The rain would have happened in the springtime,” said Lincoln. “You wouldn’t see it in the November clippings-”

“No, this had something to do with the Gow case. I remember jotting it down.” He flipped through the photocopies, then paused, staring at a wrinkled page. “Okay, here’s the article, dated November twenty-third. Headline: SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD

SLAUGHTERS OWN FAMILY. FIVE DEAD. Goes on to mention the victims, Mr. and Mrs.

Theodore Gow, their children, Jennie and Joseph, and Mrs. Gow’s mother, Althea Frick.” He set the page aside. “I remember now. It was in the obituaries.”

“What was?”

Vince flipped to another photocopied page. “The one for Mrs. Gow’s mother.

‘Althea Frick, age sixty-two, slain early last week, was buried November thirtieth at a combined graveside service for the Theodore Gow family. Born in Two Hills, she was a daughter of Petras and Maria Gosse, and was a devoted wife and mother of two. She was married for forty-one years to Donat Frick, who drowned this past spring…“ Vince’s voice suddenly faded, and he looked up with startled eyes at Lincoln. “… in the Locust River flood.”

They stared at each other, both of them stunned by this confirmation. At Vince’s feet, a space heater hummed on, its element glowing bright orange. But nothing could penetrate the chill Lincoln felt at that moment. He wondered if he would ever feel warm again.

“A few weeks ago,” said Lincoln, “you mentioned the Penobscot Indians. You said they refused to settle anywhere near Locust Lake.”

“Yes. It was taboo, as was the lower half of Beech Hill, where the Meegawki Stream runs. They considered it an unhealthy place.”

“Do you know why it was considered unhealthy?”

“No.”

Lincoln thought it over for a moment. “The name Meegawki-I assume that’s from a Penobscot word?”

“Yes. It’s a bastardization of Sankade’lak Migah’ke, their name for the area.

Sankade’lak, loosely translated, is their word for stream.”

“And what does the other word mean?”

“Let me look it up again.” Vince swiveled around and took down from the shelf a battered copy of The Penobscot Language. Quickly he flipped to the appropriate page. “Okay. I’m right about Sankade’lak. It’s the Penobscot word for ‘river’ or ‘stream.”

“And the other?”

“Migah’ke means ‘to fight’ or… “Vince paused. He looked up at Lincoln. “To slaughter.”

They stared at each other.

“That would explain the taboo,” said Lincoln softly.

Vince swallowed. “Yes. It’s the Stream of Slaughter.”