An Incident At Bloodtide

was the largest suitcase he owned, and he'd brought a lot of clothes. I did not think that boded well.

'Garth, I didn't call because I didn't want to intrude.'

'I know that,' my brother replied in a flat tone.

'When I didn't hear from Harry, I figured there was no problem with the police, and I didn't think that whatever else was going on was any of my business. It's not that I wasn't concerned.'

'I know that too, Mongo. I should have called you. I'm sorry. I. . just didn't feel like talking.'

'Do you feel like talking now?'

'Not particularly.'

'All right, will you talk? Mary means something to me too, you know. I love both of you, and I've never met a couple who looked more in love than the two of you. I can't believe this is happening.'

'I know the feeling,' Garth replied drily as he picked up a handful of ties, then walked to the closet and began to drape them over a tie rack. 'What do you want to know, Mongo?'

'For openers, what's the story on the guy you threw through the window?'

'They haven't found a body in the river, he hasn't shown up anywhere else, and, so far, nobody's filed a missing persons report. As far as the cops are concerned, if there's no body and no missing persons report, there's no problem. Mary backed up my story of what happened, and Harry took the knife with him. I pushed the Cadillac out onto the street. That's about it.'

'Who the hell was the guy, Garth?'

It seemed to me Garth hesitated just a moment before answering. 'An old boyfriend.'

'How old? Where the hell did he come from?'

Garth had finished hanging up his ties, but he remained standing in the doorway of the closet, with his back to me. 'I don't know the answer to either of those questions, Mongo. Mary freezes up whenever she tries to talk about him. As close as I can figure, she got involved with the guy twelve or thirteen years ago, before she got involved with the Fellowship of Conciliation and moved to Cairn.'

'Christ, Garth, it's hard for me to imagine Mary hooking up with such a weirdo-an obnoxious weirdo, to boot.'

'To you and me, maybe, but apparently not to her. Who knows? What I do know is that she's very much afraid of him.'

'Why?'

'I don't know, Mongo. I get the impression he has something on her that she doesn't want me to know.''

'Jesus, Garth, it's been three days. You haven't been able to talk this out?'

'No. She can't seem to talk about her past with this man without ending up crying hysterically, or just clamming up and staring off into space. She did manage to tell me that they were lovers back then, and that they met at a time when her career was at its low ebb. She says he left her, but she can't-or won't-tell me why he should show up again after all this time.'

'Now that she's on top again, maybe he wants her back for her celebrity value. Not to mention her money.'

Garth shrugged his broad shoulders. 'There's also the question of how he found out she lives in Cairn.'

'Mary Tree may not be listed in the phone book, but you are, and it's no big secret that Mary Tree lives in Rockland County, or that she's married to you. Garth, you think Mary still carries a torch for this guy? Is that what this is all about?'

'I don't know how she feels about him romantically; I only know she's afraid of him. She doesn't think he's dead.'

'Assuming he didn't land the wrong way and break his neck, and that he's a good swimmer, he could have stayed underwater after you threw him in the river, swum up under the overhang out of your line of sight, and then split before you got down there. The question is, why would he do it? And, once out of the water, why not just get in his car and drive away, or at least come back for it later? It seems silly to disappear and let his car sit out on the street collecting tickets. What would be the point?'

Still with his back to me, Garth began rummaging around among his suits, then began rearranging the ties he had just put on the rack. 'I don't know,' he said at last. 'Mary said something about it being his way of trying to do a number on our heads. She called it a magical attack. It didn't mean anything to me, and, like I said, Mary hasn't been very good at explaining things.'

I felt a tightening in my throat. The words meant something to me, not only as a result of the time I had spent with the decidedly good witch, April, but as the legacy of a deadly confrontation, many years before, with a decidedly evil band of self-described super-witches, so-called ceremonial magicians, in New York.

'Mary ever into the occult?' I asked quietly, watching my brother's back.

'You know she's heavily involved with her church.'

'I'm not talking about Christianity. I'm talking about witchcraft, voodoo, astrology, that sort of thing.'

My brother grunted. 'When did you start making such fine distinctions between beliefs in the supernatural?'

'I'm making them for purposes of this discussion. What about it? Was Mary ever into witchcraft?'

'What's your point, Mongo?'

'You said she used the words 'magical attack' to describe Sacra Silver's disappearing act. That's a wicca concept and term. One difference between wicca and the big-time religions is that wicca isn't centered around one deity. Witches don't pray to get what they want, they manipulate; they do things, for good or bad. They try to shape events by, in one way or another, enforcing their will on others. To wit, Silver tried to get Mary away from you, and you out of her lite, through sheer intimidation. That didn't work; you threw him out the window. So what does he do? Give up? No. Disappearing like that could be his way of making sure that he remains the focus of your lives, that he stays between you. You have to be able to think like a witch. Going away like he did could be his means of not going away. It's a very witchy thing to do.'

'You're putting me on, right, Mongo?'

'He hasn't really gone away, has he? You went away, which is all Sacra Silver wanted from the beginning.'

Garth's reply was a halfhearted shrug.

'Right now Mary presumably believes in Holy Trinities, virgin births, messiahs, life after death, and various other tenets of Christianity. What notions do you suppose she had thirteen years ago, when she became involved with Silver?'

'I don't know, Mongo,' Garth said wearily. 'When you get right down to it, I just don't really know all that much about my wife's background, outside of her music and career. She doesn't talk about her past, except for the things everybody knows. I didn't-don't-care who she was with, or what she did, before we met. I just loved her. As far as I was concerned, everything important in our lives together started on the day you brought me those tapes she'd given you to give to me.'

'Garth,' I sighed, 'I have to say something. And then I have to ask you a question.'

'Mongo, I guess maybe I wish you wouldn't do either.'

'By your own admission, Mary's very disturbed about Sacra Silver, dead or alive. In your own words, she's damn well afraid of him. If you'd found them in bed together, or if she'd tossed you out because she said she wanted to go back with her old boyfriend, that would be one thing. But that's not what happened. She's so upset, so afraid, that she can't even bring herself to talk about who he is, or what it is about him that so terrifies her. Your wife's in a lot of trouble, Garth. My question is, what are you and your damn suitcase doing here?'

Garth remained unmoving and silent for what seemed to me to be a very long time, but probably wasn't. It would be understandable if he was offended, considering what I had just said, but I'd felt I'd had to tell him what was on my mind. Then he slowly turned around to face me, and I could see that he wasn't offended; he was crying. Garth didn't cry like other people; there was no sobbing, no facial distortion, no strangled speech, virtually nothing changed in his speech or appearance, except for the tears that welled in his bloodshot eyes and streamed down his cheeks.

'I can't help her, Mongo,' he said evenly as he walked back across the room and sat down on the bed.

'Who says?'

'She won't let me. I guess you may be right about his disappearing the way he did being his way of making