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Gentle people seemed somehow a more natural phenomenon than the greedy bulk of humanity.
“What’s the problem?” A
“We think Scotty has eaten his wife,” Tinker confided.
THREE
A
“It’s made from all natural ingredients,” she said as she handed A
Eye of newt and toe of frog, A
“So. Scotty’s wife-Do
“Seven,” Damien said, making the number sound like Do
“Seven,” A
“We went down to the water on the far side of the dock, down through the tangle of new-growth firs. There’s a little cove there where hardly anybody goes. Do
A
“Yes, it was opportunistic,” Tinker agreed. “But sometimes Damien and I would go there later in the day to watch the birds she had attracted.” Again A
“We saw a red-necked grebe, and once a black scoter came to feed.” For the first time Damien sounded like a boy. Birds, then, were his passion.
“Last Wednesday, after breakfast, we went birding in the cove. Do
“Maybe she came earlier, fed them, and had already gone,” A
Damien shook his head portentously. “You don’t understand. The ducks were expecting her.” The boy was gone; the wizard was back.
“Did you ask Scotty where she was?”
“He said she’d had the flu and was home watching the soaps and drinking orange juice,” Tinker replied, as if that course of events was too farfetched to fool even a child. She folded the tips of long tapered fingers delicately around the lacquered bowl and raised it to her lips, not to drink but to inhale the sweet-smelling steam.
It crossed A
“There is no flu going around,” Damien declared flatly.
Tinker said: “Do
“We conducted the surveillance warranted by the seriousness of the situation,” he said firmly. In his airy voice the statement reminded A
“You watched the house,” A
“Nothing,” Damien echoed his wife. “Neither days nor nights. We never saw Do
A moment’s silence was slowly filled with suspense, yet A
“Then this,” Tinker said gravely. She turned to a brick-and-board bookcase filled with field guides to birds, bats, edible plants, herbs, and mammals of Isle Royale, bits of rock, bones, dried plants, and melted candle stubs. From beneath the bookcase she took a small glass container so clean it looked polished. She set it on her palm and offered it up to A
A
“Yes,” Damien replied formally. “We would not have come to you had we not found proof Scotty devoured his wife. It is a serious charge.”
A
“A jar,” A
“A pickle relish jar…” Damien encouraged her.
A
“A pickle relish jar,” she repeated.
“Heinz,” Tinker added.
“That”-Damien pointed to the little bottle as if it were something unclean-“is not an isolated incident. The last food order Scotty Butkus sent to Bob’s Foods included an order for an entire case of pickle relish.”
ISRO employees ordered their food for a week at a time, sending lists to several markets in Houghton. Every Tuesday the food was shipped back on the Ranger III.
“That’s a lot of relish,” A
“It was in the trash,” Tinker explained.
From beyond the screened-in window, A
Suddenly voices were raised in anger: a brawl, quickly hushed. On Mott they were allowed more freedom; here in the lap of the tourist trade the hard-drinking crew were kept in line.
Another burst of noise, invective. “Rock Harlem” seemed terribly apt at the moment. A
“You went through his trash.” This time A
“We were seeking recyclable materials,” Damien said stiffly. “The Butkuses’ trash customarily provides seven to ten pounds of recyclable glass and aluminium.” He pronounced the word “al-yew-min-ee-um.”
“I’ll bet,” A