Now he could see that one of the cabins, closer to the main house, was occupied, a sweet little convertible Roadmaster out front. Climbing the maple was easy, but just as he was about to swing down onto the roof, his heart clenched: Magnus was standing, smoking his pipe, just behind the occupied cabin. Frank kept very still. Strange to see Magnus in overalls. Usually he wore a moth-eaten tweed jacket and a little hunting hat with a quail feather in the band. Tall, frail, genteel, he spoke with an accent some said was English. He had changed the name of this place from Heavenly Haven to The Lodge and wandered around it like a lord surveying his estate. He would kiss women’s hands and could quote poems from memory. He also spent a lot of time with Bennet and his cronies. His dad said it was just so he could get free booze; if you blinked, your beer was down his throat. Frank lowered himself very gently onto the roof, and when he glanced again, just a second later, Magnus was gone. But where? He had disappeared. Frank waited for twenty minutes before climbing down.

When he got home, Annie was in the kitchen eating a sugar sandwich.

“They released Lew,” she said immediately. “We brought him home. Just like that.”

“Just like that? He’s been there over a year and a half.”

“Mr. Tivot ran out of that doctor’s office with a piece of paper in his hand. It was like we was escaping. We even left Lew’s clothes and stuff behind.”

“So is he going to try to shoot Dad again?”

Annie didn’t say anything for a moment, just stared at two squirrels warring in the magnolia.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

He laughed. “You don’t think so?”

She kept her eyes on the squirrels. “I don’t think so.”

Maud was cooking split-pea soup. She was a little round woman, her small features marooned on a brick-red, bloated, scowling face. Magnus entered the kitchen with the slow brittle grace of some exotic insect. Close to six and a half feet tall, he had a mottled skull-like head.

“Did you fix that leaky roof in twelve?” she asked.

“Oh, my dear”—he removed his hat—“I did try. Unfortunately, I became rather dizzy. My head’s far enough off the ground you wouldn’t think heights—”

“Did you damn well do it or not?”

“I really was afraid I would fall. I haven’t, truthfully, been feeling myself lately.”

“So you didn’t do it?”

“Madam, tomorrow I shall wear blinkers and endeavor—”

“Then what did you do today?”

“Oh, maintenance of a general order—prophylactic maintenance.”

She took hold of the pan, lifted it slightly, and slammed it down.

He jerked back a little.

“I could have been a rich woman,” she said, almost to herself, “living in a decent place, married to a decent man.” She turned to him. “I swear, I hate you so much.”

He seemed to have become fascinated by the countertop, rubbing it with his elegant hand.