Kennebunk burst out laughing. He had a hearty laugh. It was obviously a release from the groveling tension of life as a traffic cop under Rollo McNutt. Heads turned at other tables. Homer grinned. Then Kennebunk stopped laughing. “His father’s town manager. His uncle’s on the board of selectmen. His brother—”
“Oh, right, I get the picture.” Impulsively Homer said, “Look, why don’t we work on this together? You and me? And nail that Bluebeard Small?”
“Bluebeard?”
“Oh, it’s my niece Annie. She’s obsessed with folktales. Bluebeard murdered one wife after another. There was this locked room full of corpses.”
“You think Small’s like that?” Kennebunk looked at Homer soberly. “You think Pearl Small didn’t go away, he killed her?”
“And maybe six or seven wives before her.” Homer was carried away. He waved his doughnut at Kennebunk. “Princess, they called her Princess. She’s got this long golden hair.”
“Princess, oh, right.” Kennebunk’s rugged face softened. “Her hair is yellow as straw. She’s like the princess in the tower, the one with her long golden hair hanging out the window. She always reminds me of that.”
“What, another fantasist in our midst?” Homer beamed at Kennebunk. “You’re as bad as Annie. Listen, do you have any idea who told The Candid Courier she was missing? Somebody must have given them all that stuff about Pearl’s disappearance.”
Under his thick white hair Kennebunk’s ruddy face grew redder still. “It was me, I’m afraid. McNutt wasn’t doing anything about it and he refused to let me look into it. Small’s his old drinking pal and lodge buddy. So I thought a little publicity wouldn’t do any harm. I tried the Globe and the Lowell Sun, but they didn’t seem interested. So I worked my way down to the Courier.”
“I see,” said Homer. “Well, good for you. At least it got my wife all excited.”
“There’s something else that’s sort of strange,” said Kennebunk. “After Pearl disappeared, Small showed up with his arm in a sling.”
“Oh? How did it happen, did he say?”
“I asked him, when I stopped at his house to ask about Pearl.”
“Well, how did you know she was missing?”
“My wife’s her boss at the Southtown Public Library. When Pearl didn’t show up for work, Dot was worried. She suspected for a long time that Pearl was being knocked around. One day she asked her point-blank why she didn’t leave her husband, and Pearl said she couldn’t leave her trees.”
“Her what? Her trees?”
“That old pig farm. Pearl was trying to improve it, planting trees.”
“I see. So what about Small? You asked him about his wife?”
“Right. He was mad as hell. Said it was none of my business. If a man’s wife chooses to go off for a while, it’s no business of the police, that’s what he said. And then of course Small called McNutt, and McNutt bawled me out.”
“You poor bastard. Well, what about the sling on his arm?”
“He said he fell downstairs. He’d been drinking, he said, and he fell downstairs. I’d like to think Pearl knocked him down, but she was pretty small and fragile.”
“What about a doctor? Did he go to an emergency room or anything?”
“Apparently not. I checked with the hospital. I mean, my wife kept after me. My wife—”
“You don’t have to tell me about wives.” Homer laughed. “She should get together with Mary Kelly, they’re two of a kind.” He stood up. “How about another doughnut?”
“Oh, no thanks,” said Kennebunk. “My wife’s got me on a diet.” He took an appointment book out of his pocket, wrote down Homer’s phone number, and promised to keep in touch.
Left alone in Jacky’s, Homer ordered two more doughnuts and ate them slowly. They were a mistake. When he waddled outdoors and climbed into his car, the four deep-fat-fried morsels sat like a dead weight in the bottom of his stomach.
Chapter 16
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes in holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”
As soon as Annie walked into the house with her bag of groceries, she heard a strange noise, a rhythmic humming. She dumped the bag on the counter and turned around.
There was a whirl of color on the floor in front of the window. It was a spinning top. It droned and hopped and spun as though it would never slow down.
“Flimnap?” called Annie. At once there was another sound, a loud engine-driven noise, the lawn mower. Flimnap was outside, cutting the grass for the first time.