to it. Then he climbed down the ladder, moved it to its opposite end, climbed back up, and began sawing again.
Maggie documented the activity.
“You look kind of ragged around the edges, Professor.”
“I’m not feeling too well tonight. For days, actually.”
“How so?”
“Just tired. Haven’t been doing too much work out at the property. To tell you the truth, it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”
“Thinking of throwing in the towel?”
“…Yes, I am. The Twin Cities are looking pretty good to me right now. I’ve just about decided to confront Maggie about what she’s been doing, move back, and divorce her.”
“But you haven’t said anything to her yet?”
“No. God knows what she might do if I did. She’ll find out from my lawyer. Besides, she’s hardly ever around.”
“Oh?”
“Every day she disappears into the woods, down by the beach, where the last few cabins are. Says she needs her space. Damned if I know what she’s up to.”
“If I were you, Professor, I’d follow her the next time. And do it quietly.”
Maggie studied the images on the digital camera’s screen, one after the other. Cal sawing one end of the fallen-in cabin’s beam; Cal sawing the other; Cal constructing his elaborate system of braces and ropes like trip wires. The braces and ropes themselves, in close-up.
God, I never knew he had such mechanical ability. He’s planning another accident…a big one this time. The kind that will send him to the hospital. And maybe send me to jail. How did it come to this? He was depressed and acting out against me when he was denied tenure, but the therapy seemed to help. Until we came here. My fault, he’d say….
“Maggie!” His voice, coming from one of the cabins by the beach.
She got up, went to the porch railing, and called: “What is it?”
“I need your help down here.”
“Be right with you.”
She took the camera into the lodge and set it on the counter. Evidence of Cal’s mental instability. What am I going to do with it?
“Maggie!”
“Coming!”
Take the image card to a lawyer? The police? Destroy what’s left of our marriage? Destroy Cal? I don’t love him anymore, probably haven’t for a long time, but those years together and the boys have to count for something, don’t they?
“Maggie!” He wasn’t distressed, just insistent.
As she descended the slope to the beach, she took deep breaths, told herself to remain calm.
Cal stood on the ladder inside the cabin, holding the end of the beam that he’d first sawed through yesterday. He was smiling—falsely.
“Sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I need you to get up here and hold this for me.”
“What?”
“Just climb up and hold it for a minute. You can do that, can’t you?”
She pictured the braces and trip wires. Pictured what would happen when everything came tumbling down. And realized what Cal’s plan was. What it had been all along. The knowledge hit her so hard that her gut wrenched.
She fought to control the nausea, said: “Cal, you know I don’t like ladders.”
“Just for a minute, I promise.”
She made her decision and moved toward him. “Just for a minute?” she asked.
“Not even that long.”
“OK, if you insist…oh my God, look over there!”
She flung her arm out wildly. Cal jerked around. His foot lost purchase on the ladder, and then his hand lost purchase on the beam. He clutched instinctively at one of the ropes. The dilapidated structure came crashing down, taking the ladder and Cal with it.
Maggie’s ears were filled with the roar of falling wood and Cal’s one muffled cry. Then everything went silent.
Slowly Maggie approached the cabin. Through the rising dust she could see Cal’s prone body. His head was under the beam, and blood leaked around the splintered wood. Dead. As dead as he planned for me to be.
She fell to her knees on the rocky ground. Leaned forward and retched.
Howie’s barking penetrated the silence. After a time Maggie got up shakily, put her hand on his collar, and restrained him from charging at the rubble. She remained where she was, face pressed into the dog’s rough coat, until she had the strength to drive to town to notify the police that her husband had had a final, fatal accident.
Five days later, Maggie returned to the lodge for the first time since Cal’s body had been taken away by the county coroner’s van. Most of the time, until today’s inquest, she’d stayed in Sigrid’s guest room, unable to sleep, eat, or even communicate her feelings to her old friend. Now it