Page 61 of The Furies

“But we don’t have what Kepler wants.”

“You should consider writing him a note to that effect. I’m sure he’ll take your word for it.”

“There’s no need to be snide.”

“Equally I might argue that there’s no need to be naive. We’re talking about a dangerous individual who may already have burned one man alive, and I’d speculate that hopes are also fading for Egon Towle.”

“But Raum said that Kepler was dying,” said Dolors.

“Everybody’s dying, but like scripture says, without knowing the day or the hour. Those with a grudge can be surprisingly resilient. I wouldn’t be relying on the prospect of Kepler’s mortality as a guarantee of my safety, or anyone else’s.”

This gave her pause, and I was suddenly back in Eleanor Towle’s kitchen, watching a sharp woman calculating odds.

“Have you a means of contacting Raum?” I asked.

“I gave Will his cell phone number. He was supposed to pass it on to you.”

“He did, but Raum isn’t picking up.”

“He’ll surface again once Kepler is dead.”

Her certainty was striking, and I thought I understood why.

“Raum didn’t just tell you Kepler was dying,” I said. “He informed you of the existence of the coin, the one made from potin. You know why Kepler wants it back.”

“What if Raum is right?” she said, and her eyes were bright. “What if that coin is special?”

I felt as though I’d wandered into the canteen of an asylum.

“Have you seen it?”

“Raum showed it to me. I held it.”

“And?”

She splayed the fingers of her right hand before me, and I saw again a spread of white blisters.

“There’s something to the story,” she said. “I have faith in it now.”

She spoke with the zeal of a new convert, the gold flecks in her irises shining like the flares of a black sun.

“What you may or may not have faith in is irrelevant to Kepler,” I said. “I doubt he’ll balk at hurting a woman to gain leverage. Raum needs to come back down here and return what he stole, or else it could go badly for everyone.”

“That’s Raum’s decision, and he’s already made his choice.”

“You don’t apprehend the seriousness of this. Raum is relying on a myth for protection, but that’s all it is: a myth. Kepler may outlive us all, in which case he won’t give up, and if he can’t lay hands on Raum, you and your sister will be high on the list of alternates.”

“I trust Raum to do what’s right,” said Dolors, with the faintest of shrugs, and I knew I was wasting my time.

“Did you and Ambar help him leave Portland?” I said.

She didn’t bother with dissimulation.

“That was why he came to me,” she said. “Ambar and I followed him as far as Houlton, and said goodbye to him at Monument Park. Ambar dumped his car at a mall in Lincoln, and I drove us both back to the city afterward.”

Lincoln was in Penobscot County, south of Aroostook.

“Why did he want you to get rid of his car?”

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