Chapter 11

Two pages into Mozart’s first flute concerto, Effen’s bidding Farrell to take her things and follow him.

She dismantles the flute, packs it in its folding black velvet bag, and follows him along a path through the woods behind the visitors center. “Is this a joke?” she shouts, and tells how her late father, an army officer, used to send new buglers into the woods to practice so they wouldn’t disturb anyone.

Effen laughs. “They did the same to me at Boy Scout camp.”

“You were a bugler?”

“Put it this way: In my mouth, the bugle is the brass equivalent of drums.”

Farrell winces. The thought alone makes her ears ache.

They enter a clearing in the woods. Farrell recognizes Effen’s house and barn. Horselets frolicking in the paddock whinny and trot over to the fence.

Effen unlocks the back door, which opens on to the kitchen. “Come on, before Prince Myshkin runs out.”

“There’s no danger of Myshkin running anywhere. The horselet lies beneath the table, his stumpy legs curled beneath him. His blue eyes bulge. Farrell has the feeling that, if Myshkin could speak, he’d be saying, “Duh.”

Effen rummages through a drawer in the cupboard, then tosses her a key, which she only manages to catch. “There’s tea, coffee, hot chocolate. Make sure you lock up when you leave, okay?”

Before Farrell knows it, she’s alone with her flute and little Myshkin. Steam kicks through the radiators.

Clutching her flute, still in her parka, Farrell stands in the kitchen. It’s awfully good of Francis Hume to give her the run of his home. But why would he do such a thing? They’re not friends, just casual associates by virtue of their connections with Fair Mantle Village.

Discomfort caves in to curiosity. Farrell has never been in Effen’s home. She knows it well enough from the outside, and she’s familiar with its history. But being in it’s not the same as hearing about it. She feels the same way she did when she was a child alone in her parents’ room, rummaging through the dresser and chest of drawers. It was always fun to see what your elders kept from sight. Farrell has no intention of exploring the more private areas of Francis Hume’s home, but she’s tempted. She imagines herself latching on to the pulls on the Sheridan chest. Her cheeks burn.

She restricts her ogling to the interior design and the furnishings, which are no different from what she’s seen in the village buildings. Then she finds a rectangular rosewood box that stands on three slender, rosewood legs and extends from a corner of the parlor. The end away from the wall is twice as wide as the end in the corner. She remembers hearing about this box. Most people thought it had something to do with the history of Effen’s profession. Farrell knows better.

Heart fluttering, she lifts the lid over the harpsichord’s keyboard and finds not one, but two manuals whose keys appear to be made of real ebony. The accidentals are of a vague, creamy yellow color.

She lightly runs her fingers over the keys in the Gonzaga fanfare, the regal blast that opens Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers. The sound tells her Effen’s recently tuned the instrument.

She aches with regret. Effen always knew she played period flutes, yet he never offered to accompany her. He must have thought she wasn’t good enough to play along with him.

Mustn’t be disappointed, she tells herself. I can never do what I really want to do. My life is proof of that.

She closes the lid and once again warms the Grenser. To bide the time, she walks around the parlor and kitchen. She notices a long, large, dirty white vehicle roll into the yard. If it’s a state park vehicle, it’s not marked. Is Effen expecting a shipment of horselets? Has somebody come to buy a horselet?

Two men in gray state trooper uniforms approach the house. As Farrell opens the back door to them, she sees their cruisers parked on the other side of the yard.
One of the troopers politely asks if she’s Francis Hume.

“That’s Francis with an ‘I,’” she thinks, but she doesn’t try to be snide about the man’s inability to tell the difference between the masculine and feminine forms of the name. Her reporter’s experience with police has taught her it’s best to shut up, put up and otherwise cooperate cheerfully. She identifies herself and offers to call the Fair Mantle Village office to try to locate Mr. Hume. One trooper waits in the kitchen while she places the call. The other goes to the paddock, then into the barn.
Farrell asks no questions. If she wants answers, she can always call the state police spokesman in Trenton. She dealt with him as a reporter. She prefers to think he’ll remember her.

Within minutes, a state park four-by-four driven by Tom Von Aldo screeches to a halt behind the trailer.

Effen all but falls out of the passenger door and runs full tilt for the trailer. He’s met halfway by the trooper. “Francis Hume? We have orders to remove these animals.”

Effen tries to rush by, but the trooper holds him back. He twists and turns, frantic, watching the horselets being led from the paddock by four men in bulky vests and navy blue baseball hats. “Where are you taking them?”

“Don’t worry, France. They’ll be all right.”

Effen spins to face Tom. “You knew all along.”

“I tried to tell you.”

“You didn’t tell me it was going to be today!”

“I didn’t know. I wasn’t told.”

Beyond reasoning and still attached to the trooper, Effen throws himself on Von Aldo. The trooper pulls him off and, after an ugly struggle, has him facedown on the ground. “You have the right to remain—"

Tom shouts. “No! That’s not necessary.”

The trooper’s mouth drops. “He assaulted you.”

“No charges. Let him go.”

The trooper sets the would-be perpetrator back on his feet.

Effen staggers. His face is white; his hair, now wild, falls into his eyes. He has the distant, wide-eyed look of a person who chooses not to understand what’s happening because he understands too well.

The trooper tells him to go inside. Receiving no response, the man turns to Tom, who takes Effen by the arm and asks Farrell to put the dog in the cellar.

The dog?

Farrell can’t imagine what Tom’s talking about, then remembers Prince Myshkin. Yes, the troopers wouldn’t expect a horse to be in the house. Myshkin is now the last of the horselets. He must be saved.

Farrell hurries inside, takes Myshkin by the cheekstrap of his little halter and guides him through the door in the kitchen. He goes willingly, without complaint.

Tom, on the other hand, is full of complaints. Effen collapsed as soon as he crossed the threshold. Instinctively, Tom swept him up as if he were a slumbering child. But instinct failed to mention that Effen has more substance than a child. Right now, whatever weight he claims is dead weight. Farrell steps aside as Tom huffs and puffs a litany of oaths all the way across the kitchen and into the bedroom. By the time he drops Effen on the sleigh bed, his knees are buckling and a fine dew has erupted on his forehead. The bed shakes.

Tom wipes his brow on his sleeve. “Ho shit, this guy is o, u, t! Where’s Myshkin?”

Farrell tells him.

“Good, Get that trooper in here. Please.”

“I thought you were a medic.”

“I am, but I want the cop to handle this. Francis was supposed to be out of here, too. If the trooper sees what he’s done, it should scare the shit out of him and buy us some time. And Farr? When you come back in, don’t come in here; stay in the kitchen. And don’t get upset. I don’t think this is life-threatening, but I’m going to make it sound as bad as I can. Understand?”

As Farrell rushes outside, she hears Von Aldo, still puffing, take out his radio and, in the park code for a medical emergency, instruct the rangers to bring “Mister B” to the farm. She’s so shaken that her appearance compels both troopers to pull medical gear from their cars and hurry into the house.

Don’t get upset, Tom said. But Farrell is upset. The day began with such quirky promise and is ending in madness. She’s reminded of all the times the police and emergency medical technicians raced to the house for her mother. She can’t stop shivering. She can’t bring herself to go inside. She doesn’t want to know what’s going on. She stands at the paddock, watching as the men in the blue baseball caps bring the horselets into the van. She hugs herself against the chill.

Brakes squeal. Bruton trots into view. “What happened?”

“See Tom,” is all Farrell can say.

Bruton runs inside, closely followed by Johnson.

The wait is endless. At last all of the horselets are in the trailer. The door to the barn is shut and padlocked. Johnson and Tom must move their vehicles so the trailer can leave. When Tom returns, he doesn’t go into the house right away. He seeks out Farrell. “Why are you out here?”

“Too many emergencies with Mom. I’ve had my fill of tall guys with hardware and crackling radios.”

Tom rubs her shoulder. He seems to understand. “This is different. Come on. Brut’s giving the guys hell. He’s really very entertaining.”

Too late. As Tom speaks, Effen’s arresting officer approaches. “Sorry for the inconvenience, ma’am. Just stay calm, the both of you. I’m sure everything will work out fine.”

“What was that all about?” Farrell asks as the trooper returns to the house.

“Consider that they remembered who you once worked for.”

Farrell has not been a reporter for more than six months. Her ties to the field are severed. To infer otherwise is fraud.

She doesn’t appreciate the way Bruton apparently has invoked her past. But she at last understands why he wanted her back. He really couldn’t get anybody else to do the job. Of all the people of Fair Mantle Village, she alone knows who to call for answers that would be denied him if he tried to get those answers for himself.

She is the weapon that will keep the state however tenuously under his control. And, as publicist, she is the one who will fall on the sword when things don’t go as he expects.

“I’ll be damned,” she tells herself. “I’ll be damned …”