“Guilty on both counts,” he said. “I throw myself on the mercy of the court-splat!”
“Splat is right. Not even married yet, and you’re already henpecked.” Kelly sounded proud of it.
“Worse things to worry about.” For Colin, that was nothing but the truth. He could worry about Margot Keller, her body used, crumpled, and discarded like a paper towel. He could think about all the other old women killed before her, and about the guy out there living what looked like a normal life till he got the urge to add one more to his list. Next to that, imperfect married bliss was no big deal. “Somehow or other, we’ll make it work. What do the Brits say? We’ll muddle through-that’s it.”
“There’s what I like: confidence,” Kelly said. “Won’t be long now, Mister.”
“Good,” Colin answered, and she purred at him over the phone.
XXII
The Piscataquis chuckled through Guilford. In the western part of the little town, it powered the mill. Farther east, its northern bank turned into a park that would no doubt be pretty when the grass was green and the trees had leaves on them. Eyeing the bare branches of those trees and the snow that was burying the river-view benches, Rob Ferguson wondered whether Guilford would ever see days like that again.
A monument, also splotched with snow, listed Guilford’s war dead from a history longer than towns on the other coast knew. The letters on one of those names were still bright and shiny and new. Sooner or later, they would mellow to match the others. By then, though, chances were newer names would have gone up on the monument.
Rob was getting used to wearing too many clothes all the time, and to being cold anyway. What heat there was in the Trebor Mansion Inn rose to his little tower room-where it leaked out through the walls and windows. The glass in the windows was double, with an insulating air space between the panes. They routinely did such things here. Heat leaked out all the same.
Kids in the park slid down slopes toward the river on sleds. They flung snowballs at one another. They thought a winter with all this snow in it was fun. Rob might have felt the same way if he hadn’t wondered when-or whether-the weather would let up.
One of the books in his tower room was a sort of informal history of Maine. It told him more about the Year without a Summer after Mt. Tambora erupted than he’d found out online. Quebec City had got a foot of snow in June 1816. Ice stayed on the lakes and rivers th long as far south as Pennsylvania. Crops were ruined in North America and Europe: ruined to the point of widespread hunger. The haze was so thick, you could look at the sun with your naked eye and see sunspots. And Mt. Tambora was just one of these kids banging on a toy drum next to Charlie’s fancy amplified kit when you compared it to the Yellowstone supervolcano.
Shaking his head at such gloomy reflections, Rob trudged up Library Street toward the Trebor Mansion Inn. The library was another historic building. Books in there would no doubt have even more to say about that summer that wasn’t. He didn’t stop in to go look for those books. Why bother reading about it when he’d be living through it-and then some-before long?
Both SUVs from the band remained in front of the inn, along with the Barber family’s cars. Nobody was going anywhere. The Shell station still hadn’t got more gas. All the stations in Dover-Foxcroft were dry, too. Tankers weren’t even trying to come up here any more. North and west of the Interstate, Maine was on its own: the big part of the state, if not the populous part.
But something new had been added. Out there next to the nearly useless motor vehicles stood a one-horse open sleigh straight out of “Jingle Bells.” In lieu of a hitching post or rail, the horse-a well-curried bay-was tied to a doorknob. It munched contentedly from a feed bag.
When Rob went inside, he took off his hat and his overshoes, and that was about it. With even firewood in short supply, the place stayed cold. Dick Barber greeted him with, “Come into the parlor, why don’t you? Someone here I’d like you to meet.”
“Whoever’s in charge of the sleigh there?” Rob asked.
“That’s right. Your cohorts have already made his acquaintance.” Barber sometimes had an old-fashioned turn of phrase. He could use it or not, as he chose, which made Rob classify it as a special effect.
He wasn’t inclined to be fussy. A fire burned in the parlor hearth, perhaps in honor of the newcomer. The man stood with his back to Rob, savoring the warmth. He was talking to Justin and Charlie, who listened in what was plainly fascination.
Hearing Rob and Barber come up behind him, the fellow broke off and turned toward them. He was in his late sixties, and looked like.. Rob needed a moment to realize who he looked like. If you took John Madden down to about five feet eight, that would do for a first approximation. He was ruddy and fleshy and had a sharp nose, bushy eyebrows, and silver hair.
He didn’t dress like John Madden, though. John Madden looked like an unmade bed, even in a suit. This guy could have been a 1930s dandy. A lot of his hair was hidden under a broad-brimmed black fedora. His overcoat boasted fur trim. When he shrugged it off, he was wearing a double-breasted, pinstriped wool suit underneath, with lapels sharp and upthrusting enough to cut yourself on.
“Jim, this is Rob Ferguson, also of Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles,” Barber said. “Rob, here before you stands Jim Farrell, recent unsuccessful Republican candidate for Congress in the Second District-most of Maine, even if it’s not the part with most of the people in it. The ones who do live their chose, in their wisdom, the usual blow-dried airhead over someone who actually had some idea of what he was talking about.”
“Glad to meet you, Rob,” Farrell said in a resonant baritone. “Dick helped run my campaign, such as it was. He tends to forget that it’s over, and that we got trounced. Ancient history now, like any failed campaign.
“Speaking of ancient history, Jim taught it for years at SUNY Albany,” Barber said. “Then he retired and came home-claimed the good weather in Albany was wearing him down.”
Albany and good weather didn’t strike Rob as a likely mix. Farrell raised those extravagant eyebrows. “I’ve got over that,” he rumbled. “The way things are these days, so has Albany.”
Barber went on as if the older man hadn’t spoken: “He picked up a fair amount of fame-”
“Notoriety,” Farrell broke in, not without pride. “It was definitely notoriety.”
“-for his newsletters called To the Small-Endians. They skewered PC academics the way they deserve. Skewered ’em, hell-screwed ’em to the wall.”
Charlie jerked on the couch where he was sitting. He startled a cat sleeping beside him. “Oh, my God! Those things!” he said. “My older brother picked up a couple of them at an sf convention. I think he’s still got ’em. I’ve read ’em. They’re wicked!” He eyed Farrell with newfound regard.
Farrell doffed the fedora, showing off a hairline that hadn’t surrendered even half an inch. “I finally quit doing them. I gave up, in short. The real academic world proved madder and sadder than anything I could invent.”
“And he’s known for his comparative study of the campaigns of Alexander and Julius Caesar,” Barber added. “I can’t speak as a professor-I never even played one on TV. But as a career military man, it impressed the bejesus out of me.”
Rob, Justin, and Charlie eyed one another. Sometimes you got a song cue when you least expected one. Charlie started beating out a rhythm on his thighs and on the coffee table in front of the couch. That was a long way from his usual industrial-strength noisemakers, but it would do. It was plenty to make the cat, which had tentatively settled down again, head for the hills with a tail bristling in indignation.
And Justin and Rob launched into “Came Along Too Late.” Not every band had a song about Alexander the Great-one that even mentioned Julius Caesar, too-but Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles wasn’t every band. Not even close. The words were mostly Charlie’s, with some tweaks from Marshall back when he’d got into ancient history. They’d done it before larger audiences, but never before a more knowing one: