Chapter 15

Bruton is ankle-deep in paper rolling out of the fax machine in the study. “Christ Almighty, it’s wallpaper,” he rumbles, working his way down to the beginning.

Together he and Farrell scan the continuous flow of scientific articles that are being sent by a scientist at Princeton. The articles support what the woman told Farrell earlier in the day: volcanoes can’t form in that part of the state; the geophysiology isn’t appropriate.

“Then how does she explain the horses?” Brut growls.

Farrell needs clarification.

“The horselets. Francis said they go crazy before the planes fly over. Animals can’t anticipate sonic booms. I checked it out. If they anticipated sonic booms, the wildlife in Florida would go berserk every time a space shuttle lands. But animals can anticipate earthquakes. It happens all the time, all over the world.”

Farrell admits he has a point. She brings the paper to Bruton’s massive cherrywood desk and tries to find a clear spot on a blotter already laden with everything from medical journals and local newspapers to gas and electric bills.

The material is a brain teaser loaded with technology and tables. Farrell neds to cut it all down into a concise statement, but it’s not easy. Her mind’s back at The House.

Effen couldn’t simply give her the parka. He had to hold it open for her and help her into it, a nicety that men don’t do any more. Then he had to walk her all the way down the stairs and see her out the door and make sure she’d be all right walking home in the snow. Her parka was awfully wet, he noted. Would it keep her warm and dry enough all the way back to Bruton’s?

Farrell’s not used to such attention. She wonders if he was as sorry to see her go as she was to leave.

No, she argues, he’s just a well-mannered human. He treated me with the same courtesy he shows everybody in his house, alive or dead.

But didn’t he hold her arm longer than necessary when she stepped onto the snowy porch? And didn’t he look more than casually concerned when he asked her about the parka?

Brut slips a piece of fax paper beneath her nose. The item, fresh and warm from the machine, contains the image of a stick-figure Dracula rising out of a sleigh-bed coffin, saying, “Bleeeeaaah! You forgot the flutes!”

Brut grunts. “I too wrote silly stuff before I became an old, married man.”

Farrell thinks he’s criticizing Effen for being childish. “Come on, Brut, you know the saying: ‘little boys grow up to be little boys.’”

“You’re missing my point, Farrell. I did this kind of thing before I was married. I ended up marrying the person I did it to.”

Farrell doesn’t appreciate the inference. “Nonsense, it’s nothing more than a reminder for me to bring my flutes the next time. He wants to accompany me on the harpsichord. He’d have joined me the other day, but for the troopers.”

“The next time? Did you say, ‘the next time?’”

“Please be realistic. He’s not interested in me, if that’s what you think. He’s walked into a bad time. He’s spent the past decade taking care of two dozen little horses as if they were members of his human family. Suddenly they’re not there anymore. It’s a real loss, like sudden, unforeseeable death, and it’s happened to two dozen members of his family all at the same time. Right now, he just wants somebody to play with. I’m lucky it’s not the kind of playing people do between the sheets.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. I’ve never known him to fool around, but I think I’ve heard enough from him to know he’s regular guy. Once he finds the right lady? Wow.”

“Spare me the details? Please?”

“What’s the matter? Can’t bear to think of him working away beneath the bedclothes?”
Farrell gathers the papers and heads for the dining room table. Bruton follows. “Hey, ma’am, I wasn’t the one who hung out by the paddock all the while the troopers were there.”

‘I told you why I didn’t want to go in.”

“You did. So tell me: If you’re so affected by that kind of activity, why did you go down to the corner and watch that accident last night?”

“A bad habit from my days as a reporter.”

“Then why didn’t you act like a reporter the other day at the farm? And why did you just walk ten blocks in a snowstorm to see him?”

“’Why, why, why’! You sound like a little kid. Why?”

“We’re all little kids when it comes to wanting the people we like to like us. We all want to find the best friend who’ll be with us when we want to play and when we have to slog through life’s grisly moments. The best way to find that best friend is to realize who’s there when you’re slogging. Guaranteed, that person will be there when you want to play.”

“That’s a pretty speech, Brut, but you’re forgetting something: I’ve done my slogging. I did it alone. Francis Hume knew, and Francis Hume wasn’t there.” Neither were you or anybody else from Fair Mantle Village, she adds to herself. “So please do me a favor: don’t talk to me about best friends. Let me do what I was brought here to do.”

Farrell’s answer is solid; her mind, made up. Brut ends the barrage. Now she can enjoy the only thing she trusts: her work.