Part 19 (1/2)

Kate sat back, grumbling. ”Easy for you to say. Dandy's probably seducing Ellen Steen in the focsle even as we speak.”

”That would be Old Sam's problem, not yours. And Mr. Steen's, if there is one.”

There had been a smile in Anne Flanagan's voice when she replied, and Kate looked across the deck to find no distaste or censure in the minister's expression. Humor, yes, sympathy, understanding, kindness, tolerance, yes, all these things in abundance, but no rush to judgment, no disapproval, no condemnation. She didn't look much like an Old Testament prophet, either. ”You're an odd sort of minister.”

Anne raised an eyebrow. ”How many have you known?”

”Touche.” Kate faced forward again.

Anne dropped a st.i.tch and reached for a crochet hook. ”The problem most fundamentalists share is that they mistake metaphor for fact.”

Kate's smile was sour. ”What? You mean Joshua's trumpet didn't bring down the walls at Jericho?”

”Pastor Seabolt would say it did.”

”And you? What would you say?”

”I'd say it's a great story, one that always gets the kids listening and, true or not, teaches a good lesson about the power of faith.” Anne put down the crochet hook and picked up the knitting needle again. ”Have you ever noticed how all the best biblical stories begin with J? Joshua at Jericho, Jonah and the whale, poor old Job.”

”Jesus and the Crucifixion,” Kate said.

Anne laughed. The sound didn't surprise Kate as much as it would have a week before.

The Flanagans' gear was riding the incoming tide, with two skiffs out picking it. One was filled to overflowing with three kids and one big man who even at this distance looked hara.s.sed. Kate's heart went out to him. The second skiff was filled with four old women, their hands a blur as they picked fish after gleaming fish, and with a shout of triumph topped off their load before the first skiff was even half full. Jack shook his fist at them, and their laughter as they headed for the Freya reached Kate in her chair on the deck.

”I liked him,” Anne Flanagan said, her hands stilling. ”Neil Meany. I liked him a lot.” She closed her eyes briefly. ”I must be the world's lousiest judge of character.”

Kate started to shake her head and thought better of it. ”No. I saw his brother in action. Believe me, Calvin Meany was enough to drive anyone mad.”

A pause while Anne began her second row. Eyes intent on her work, she said, ”Was he mad?”

No, Kate thought. Despite the histrionics on the deck of the drifter that evening, she believed that Neil Meany had known exactly what he was doing. ”I think he'd been pushed to his red-s.h.i.+ft limit. It happens, to all of us.”

”But most of us manage to rein it in. Most of us don't wind up killing three people.”

”No. Most of us don't.”

”Thank G.o.d.” Anne Flanagan said the two words in a soft voice, with absolute sincerity and unquestioning belief.

Kate wished she had the faith to believe that G.o.d had both the power and the inclination to curb the more homicidal urges of the human race. It would have been very comforting. ”Why did he stay?” ”What?” Kate said.

”He took the skiff and Evan McCafferty out to the drifter that morning. You and Jim didn't show up until late afternoon. Why didn't he just raise anchor and sail away?”

Kate had wondered about that, too, with no result. ”I don't know.”

Anne increased a st.i.tch. ”Maybe he wanted to get caught.” ”Maybe.” And maybe he had, maybe Neil Meany had waited for discovery, not knowing who would come, knowing only that someone would. Which might put an entirely different interpretation on whether he knew what he was doing when he pushed the starter. If he had, he'd not only have been committing suicide, he would have been committing his third and fourth murders. Maybe his brother had been right, maybe he was too dumb to drive a boat.

It was all academic at this point, anyway, Kate thought. Neil Meany had killed two people and had taken a third with him when he'd killed himself, accidentally or by design. Either way, he was bent on self-destruction, and Kate had no time to waste on the self-destructive, who all too frequently managed to be as destructive of the people around them as they were of themselves. She thought of her mother.

No. Life, as Old Sam might have said, was too G.o.ddam short.

There was a whoop from offsh.o.r.e, and they looked out on the water to see Jack hold up a king salmon, balancing carefully in a skiff that was rocking exuberantly from side to side with the enthusiasm of its crew.

Anne's eyes narrowed. ”Sixty pounds?”

Kate squinted. ”Fifty, maybe fifty-five.”

”We'll give it to Mary to smoke.”

”Good idea.”

Anne began the next row. ”He was a Yeats scholar. Neil Meany. He could quote everything Yeats ever wrote.”

”Um.” Kate turned her face more into the sun and closed her eyes. ”I never did like Yeats much myself.”

”But he's terrific!” Anne was shocked. ”He loved women.”

Kate snorted without opening her eyes. ”Yeah. 'The broken wall, the burning roof and tower and Agamemnon dead.' I remember the first time I read that, I thought, Yeah, and Iphigenia, too, Agamemnon's firstborn daughter, sacrificed by her father for a lousy fair wind to Troy.”

There was a brief pause. ”You didn't like Neil Meany much, did you, Kate?”

Kate opened her eyes and said flatly, ”I don't like killers. Neil Meany killed his brother, killed his niece, killed Evan McCafferty and tried like h.e.l.l to kill me, twice. Lucky I have a harder head than Dani, and that he a.s.saulted me on the deck of the Freya, not in some little upstream backwater where he could have finished the job. No. I didn't like Neil Meany. And no, I'm not sorry he's dead.”

Anne worked a few st.i.tches. ”You'll have to forgive him, you know. Forgive him, to get past it.”

”No.” Kate was definite without being overly emphatic. ”No, I won't.”

”What did you do with Cal Meany the night of the Fourth, auntie?”

”Not much, Katya,” Auntie Joy said with elaborate nonchalance. ”I just take him down to dock and shove him off.”

”Auntie!”

The old woman heaved a deep sigh and added, ”But tide is in. He just trip and fall on knees on his own deck.”

The four aunties burst into gusts of merriment at the expression on Kate's face.

”Make big cuss words, too,” Auntie Joy added, to the sounds of additional merriment.

Evidently there would be no potlatch held to honor Calvin Meany's memory, Kate thought. He would not be missed. She thought of his wife and son, now on their way back to Ohio. He would not be missed by anyone.

It was maybe eight o'clock by the slant of the sun, and all of the sailors were home from the sea, and one hunter home from the hill as well. Aunties Vi and Joy were still at the Flana-gans' cabin, Aunties Edna and Balasha had gone back to fish camp. Jack and Johnny were scarfing up the last of Anne Flan-agan's superb spaghetti. Anne was was.h.i.+ng dishes, Kate drying.

Chopper Jim, none the worse for wear, looked Kate over with a critical and not wholly approving eye, nodded once and said, ”I guess it takes more than blowing up a boat to kill a Shugak.”