Creature Discomforts

what you said.”
    Buck was running out of patience with me. “Let’s move this.”
    “You’re the one who taught me to fish,” I told him. “We’ve hooked a big one. What you do with a big fish is play it.”
    Buck sighed mightily.
    “It is in the genes,” I told Fairley. “But the Rockefeller family has two branches. John D.’s branch. Benefactors of Acadia National Park. His brother William’s branch. The mistake you made was not knowing which side of the family was the dog side. It’s William’s side, you see. On William’s side, the Rockefeller family tree produces crop after crop of dog nuts.”
    “I was mistaken,” Fairley conceded.
    “If you knew these people the way you said you did, you wouldn’t have made that mistake. You lured Norman Axelrod up here. I followed you. I was suspicious. I wanted to see for myself. And I did.”
    “Holly, what did you see?” Gabrielle asked.
    “I tied the dogs,” I told her, “so I could creep down this ledge and get a good look. I watched Norman Axelrod follow Malcolm Fairley to the top of the Ladder Trail. Malcolm said that was where the meeting was supposed to be. Only no one else was there. The fog had cleared temporarily. Then Malcolm headed up an abandoned section of the Ladder Trail. You can use it to get to the top of the cliff. Norman climbed up behind him. I saw no one else. I heard no one else. Then Norman’s body fell from the top of the cliff. The sound was nauseating. I started to cut across and down these ledges, but you, Malcolm, came charging at me. You knocked me off the ledge, and I blacked out. I don’t know why you left the job unfinished.”
    “This is outrageous!” Malcolm Fairley was furious. “Norman was about to blow the whistle on your Ponzi scheme,” I continued, “until you lured him up here with the promise of meeting a benefactor. The foundation wasn’t
    a Ponzi scheme after all! It was backed by the Rockefellers! And poor Norman could get to meet one! Then, since you couldn’t actually produce one, you shoved Norman Axelrod off that cliff. What I saw yesterday were the unseen things. I saw that there are no benefactors. Anonymous is the least of what they are. They are the product of your imagination. Yes, I overheard you talking to one of them, and you obviously believe they’re real. But they aren’t. The foundation’s benefactors don’t exist! “
     

Chapter Thirty
     
    I HAD A BAD FALL myself once,” Malcolm Fairley said somberly. “Head injury. The recovery is slow. Truth is, it was years before I was myself again.”
    I’d returned from the ledge to the trail, where I stood next to my father, facing Malcolm Fairley. Speaking of the man’s face, let me note that I was struck by its honesty and familiarity. As I now knew, I’d met him only this week, but I had known men like him, or at least men who looked like him and who, in some invisible and intangible way, had the same air or feel about them. As malamutes recognize other malamutes, poodles other poodles, I’d identified Fairley as one of my own breed.
    “Give yourself time,” Fairley advised me. “Keep the stress to a minimum.”
    “If you actually knew the Rockefellers who’ve been Acadia’s benefactors,” I said slowly, “you’d never have thought they were so-called dog nuts. I’ve been wondering about where you got that idea at all. At a guess, you read a book about the whole family dynasty. As homework, so to speak. Background research. And you read a paragraph or two about Geraldine R. Dodge, and you remembered her because she was memorable. Only, you didn’t get her pedigree straight.”
    Malcolm Fairley told Buck, “Bangor’s less than an hour’s drive. There’s a major medical center there.”
    “I know where Bangor is!” Buck roared. “So does everyone else here! What these people would like to know is where their money is.”
    “The foundation has consistently provided full reports,” Fairley answered in the excessively rational tones that people reserve for lunatics. “Anita prepares the financial statements. She knows the workings of the foundation inside out.” He guffawed. “She knows the details better than I do myself! “
    If I’d been Anita, I’d have been unhappy to have the responsibility shifted to me. Steve, who had his arm around her shoulders, may have felt her muscles tighten or heard a change in her breathing. I saw no sign of a response.
    “Isn’t nonexistence very hard to prove?”