began crawling toward the bed. Infuriated, he snatched up one of the candles on the bedside table and began setting fire to the sheets, while Miss Miller grabbed at his ankles, trying to pull him away.
When the flames started leaping around Kronk's body, Max grabbed Miss Miller by the wrists and tugged her out into the hall. With desperate strength she fought free of him and raced back into the bedroom, snatched the satiny polyester comforter off the floor, and tried to beat the fire out with it. Seconds later the comforter was a sheet of flame draped over her head, clinging to her flesh.
She staggered backward, arms flailing. Max threw her to the floor and tried to pull the comforter away, but the polyester had melted to her skin from the top of her scalp to her knees; flesh and fabric were inextricably merged. Max beat the flames out with his hands.
A violet hush had crept over the forest. Irene couldn't bring herself to speak. She leaned forward and placed her hand on Maxwell's left shoulder. He reached back to pat her hand; she turned his hand over to look at the scars. Again she marveled at the smoothness of his palm-no life line, no love line, nothing there to show a palmist how many children he'd have.
“It must have been painful,” she said.
“I was glad for the pain. It kept my mind off the guilt.”
“Do you still feel the guilt?”
“Only every fucking day of my life.”
“And the woman I met this morning-the woman with those terrible scars? That was Miss Miller?”
Max nodded. “What a world, what a world,” he said in a high-pitched, cackly voice.
The words of the Wicked Witch hung in the still forest air.
“Sounds like a good place to start our next session,” said Irene encouragingly.
“You're the doctor,” replied Max, smiling weakly.
59
Pender had to put on his drugstore half-glasses to review the fax Davies had sent him. There was no background, no narrative, just names, dates, descriptions, convictions, incarcerations. Davies had highlighted the names of the five strong-arm criminals who were either in custody or on parole-the highlighter showed up as a gray bar on the fax.
Of these, one of the parolees in particular caught Pender's attention, perhaps because of the unusual first name. Cazimir. Cazimir Buckley, aka Bucky, aka Caz. African-American, six-two, hundred and eighty pounds, born Los Angeles, 1970. The closer Pender studied the tiny print, the better this Buckley looked. String of assaults going back to age twelve. Did three stretches in the Umpqua County Juvenile Facility. In a year, out a month, in a year, out a month, in a year, and on to the penitentiary. Pender read between the lines: little problem with managing your anger there, Caz? Probably not easy being black in Umpqua County. Wherever that was.
When Buckley was eighteen, they put him in with the big boys after a conviction for aggravated assault. The assault must have been aggravated as hell-they'd given him the going rate for manslaughter in Oregon. Perhaps he learned anger management in the state pen, though-Pender noted that he was paroled only six years later, so he must have earned all his good time.
Cazimir Buckley was currently under the jurisdiction of the Umpqua County Parole Board. Seemed like as good a place as any to start. Pender got the area code for Umpqua County from the operator, got the number for the parole board from directory assistance, then gave himself the rest of the night off and went back down to the bar, where he washed down two Vicodins with the help of his old friend Jim Beam-his head was absolutely killing him.
Jim and the Vicodins proved to be a potent combination. The big bald man in the plaid sport coat, head bandages, and crumpled, bloodstained hat finished the evening perched on the end of the piano bench, singing Everly Brothers duets with the piano player. Pender took Phil Everly's parts, his sweet tenor handling the high harmonies with surprising ease. “Bye Bye Love,” “Hey Birddog,” “Wake Up, Little Suzy”-he even remembered the entire recitativo of “Ebony Eyes.”
They finished up with “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” then Pender stuffed a twenty into the tip jar and staggered back to his room. Umpqua County, he thought, as he collapsed into bed. Where the hell is Umpqua County?
60
Irene had expected to be dining with Maxwell and Miss Miller that evening; instead he brought a covered tray up to her room. A tiny chicken, hardly bigger than a Cornish hen, baked potato, snap beans, and a bottle of Jo'berg Riesling. He and Miss Miller needed to spend some time together, he explained. So if she wouldn't mind staying in her room until tomorrow morning…
The antique escritoire was in the corner of the room. Irene pulled it over to the window and watched the sun setting behind the next ridge while she dined. Living on the shore of Monterey Bay, Irene was no pushover when it came to sunsets. But this one was a keeper-it set the sky on fire and burnished the green meadow grass gold. Her heart filled, then emptied with a rush that left her breathless and despairing. She'd never known homesickness before. She missed her house, her friends. She prayed Barbara was all right. Old Bill and Bernadette, too. She wondered if she'd ever see her father and brothers again. She even missed her young stepmother.
She also worried about her patients. Lily DeVries-they still hadn't followed up on her last breakthrough. The girl would be bound to see it as yet another abandonment, another betrayal.
Hang in there, Lily, she thought, raising her head and looking out at the fiery sunset. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window.
“You too,” she told the reflection. “You hang in there too, Irene.” And though she was not particularly hungry, she forced herself to finish the meal, washing every other mouthful down with a swig of wine as it turned to ashes in her mouth.
There were no books or magazines in her room, no television. Feeling restless, unable to concentrate on her notes from the day's sessions with Max, she decided to try her hand at a haiku. She'd gone through a haiku phase in college. Frank had illustrated some of them with his pastels-what delicate, feathery strokes his big hands were capable of. She and Frank told themselves that someday they'd publish a book of her haiku and his drawings, but of course it never happened-life, then death, had intervened.
Irene poured herself another glass of wine, turned the notebook to a blank page, began doodling green curlicues around the margins. First line, five syllables. She looked out through the window and the pen began to move. That two-horned mountain. Second line, seven syllables: Black, jagged, it hides the sun. Third line, five syllables: And the creek runs cold.
Quality time with Miss Miller. Supper in the dining room, with the good silver, the good china, the candelabra on the white tablecloth. Miss Miller, with effort, dissects her chicken with a knife and fork and insists that Ulysses do the same.
To eat, she unties the bottom string of her green silk surgical mask and shoves the food under. She wears only silk-she can't bear any coarser fabric rubbing against the scar tissue. After dinner, they do the washing up together-she washes, he dries-then walk hand in scarred hand to the chicken coop at the edge of the forest.
Freddie Mercury has already led his harem from the outer yard into the inner coop. Miss Miller locks the gate while Max checks the wire surrounding the yard for breaches, and examines the ground outside the fence for holes.
Reassured that the flock is safe from raccoons and foxes for another night, the master and mistress of Scorned Ridge return to the house, and Miss Miller selects a video from their extensive collection. Casablanca — they watch it together at least once a year. The original version, not the colorized. During the last scene, Miss Miller speaks Ilsa's lines along with her; Max does Rick and, at the very end, Renaud as well.
The act of retiring to bed is an intricately choreographed ballet-a pas de trois, though if Max and Peter
