"Who? Sinjin?"

"The doctor. He's been retired for over a decade. I'm gonna hear what he thinks about these midwives, and then I'll decide whether or not I push the St. Johns to file a civil suit against them."

"A lawsuit? Sheila, I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one, we're relying on the hospitality of these people for our own safety. Do you really want to go poking a hornet's nest right now? You saw how they treated my mother at the funeral. It was like that scene in The Godfather, everyone paying their respects to Don Corleone." He scratched his chin with the backs of his fingernails. "Bonasera, Bonasera."

"Now who's being dramatic?"

He shrugged. It was a bizarre scene, watching his mother accept their adulation and kind words, inquiries about her health and how she was getting along with Martin after so long apart. A few of them had even called her "Mother." All while the poor reverend stood gaping, his cheeks red from drink or embarrassment, as mourner after mourner shook, even kissed her hand.

Once again Martin found himself wondering who his mother was to these people. Was she just another midwife, the first face they'd seen in this world? Or was she more? Was Nadine right about her? What was it about these midwives, and Ruby Savage in particular, that held these people in apparent thrall?

"I think you're right," he said. "We should talk to this doctor. An obstetrician on the island and every childbirth goes through these midwives? It doesn't make sense. Tradition is one thing, but you'd think someone would buck tradition once in a while, you know?"

Buck, he thought grimly, remembering the deer that crashed out of the trees on his way home from the Legion. As though it had been following him.

Nadine bucked tradition, and what did she get for it? A pair of goddamn antlers through the throat.

"At the very least, he'll have some interesting stories to tell," Sheila said. "According to his website, he's also the town historian."

While his favorite fucking writer was attending a child's funeral in a small Rhode Island town a hundred and sixty miles to the northeast, Qurban Youssef stepped out of his Porsche at a parking meter half a block up from The Writing Room, a trendy bistro in Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Featured were shelves of books, a crackling fireplace, and photos of actors and authors from when it used to be known as Elaine's. Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Mario Puzo and Joseph Heller had once been regulars here. Qurban's clients loved the atmosphere and the history but Qurban had disliked it even in the gregarious former proprietor Elaine Kaufman's day, when cigarette smoke still punctuated the smell of good food, booze and old books.

While his mother had instilled in him the art of making deals, his father had given him a love of literature. Qurban was a businessman, first and foremost. And though books and writers were his business, he was glad when the industry had begun its halfhearted shift from dusty old tomes toward electronic devices. Print was a dying beast, he believed, much too stupid to know it had been mortally wounded. E-books and audiobooks were the future.