my hand.
He shook it. “Any idea what he’s up to? I can keep a secret; I’m bonded, you know.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
He gave me a wink as if to say we both knew better, then waved me on. Before I went around the first curve, I watched in the rearview mirror as he grabbed his bagel, slammed the Tacoma’s tailgate shut, and got in behind the wheel.
That’s it. Job over.
I wished I could say the same.
• • •
Jacobs came slowly and carefully down the porch steps to meet me. In his left hand was a cane. The twist of his mouth was more severe than ever. I saw a single car in the parking lot, and it was one I recognized: a trim little Subaru Outback. On the back deck was a sticker reading SAVE ONE LIFE, YOU’RE A HERO. SAVE A THOUSAND AND YOU’RE A NURSE. My heart sank.
“Jamie! Wonderful to see you!” See came out she. He offered the hand not holding the cane. It was obviously an effort, but I ignored it.
“If Astrid is here, she leaves, and leaves this minute,” I said. “If you think I’m bluffing, just try me.”
“Calm yourself, Jamie. Astrid is a hundred and thirty miles from here, continuing her recovery in her cozy little nest just north of Rockland. Her friend Jenny has kindly agreed to aid me while I complete my work.”
“I somehow doubt that kindness had much to do with it. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Come inside. It’s hot out here already. You can move your car to the parking lot later.”
He was slow going up the steps even with the cane, and I had to steady him when he tottered. The arm I grasped was hardly more than a bone. By the time we got to the top, he was gasping.
“I need to rest a minute,” he said, and sank into one of the Shaker-style rockers that lined the porch.
I sat on the rail and regarded him.
“Where’s Rudy? I thought he was your nurse.”
Jacobs favored me with his peculiar smile, now more one-sided than ever. “Shortly after my session with Miss Soderberg in the East Room, both Rudy and Norma tendered their resignations. You just can’t get good help these days, Jamie. Present company excepted, of course.”
“So you hired Knowlton.”
“I did, and believe me, I traded up. She’s forgotten more about nursing than Rudy Kelly ever knew. Give me a hand, would you?”
I helped him to his feet, and we went inside to where it was cool.
“There’s juice and breakfast pastries in the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever you want, and join me in the main parlor.”
I skipped the pastries but poured myself a small glass of OJ from a carafe in the huge refrigerator. When I put it back, I inventoried the supplies and saw enough for ten days or so. Two weeks if they were stretched. Was that how long we were going to be here, or would either Jenny Knowlton or myself be making a grocery run to Yarmouth, which was probably the closest town with a supermarket?
The guard service was finished. Jacobs had replaced the nurse—which didn’t completely surprise me, given Jacobs’s own increasingly iffy condition—but not the housekeeper, which meant (among other things) that Jenny must also have been cooking his meals and, perhaps, changing his bed. It was just the three of us, or so I thought then.
We turned out to be a quartet.
• • •
The main parlor was all glass on the north side, giving a view of Longmeadow and Skytop. I couldn’t see the cabin, but I could glimpse that iron pole jutting up toward the hazy sky. Looking at it, things finally began to come together in my mind . . . but slowly, even then, and Jacobs held back the one vital piece that would have made the picture crystal clear. You might say I should have seen it anyway, all the pieces were there, but I was a guitar player, not a detective, and when it came to deductive reasoning, I was never the fastest greyhound on the track.
“Where is Jenny?” I asked. Jacobs had taken the sofa; I sat down opposite him in a wingback chair that tried to swallow me whole.
“Occupied.”
“With what?”
“None of your beeswax now, although it will be shortly.” He leaned forward with his hands clasped on the head of the cane, looking like a predatory bird. One that would soon be too old to fly. “You have questions. I understand