“From now on, I will.”
Maggie took to watching Cal, covertly, through lowered lashes as they worked side by side or sat on the porch in the evenings in the light from the mosquito-repellent candles. His gaze was remote, his expression unreadable. But every now and then she’d catch him watching her with the same guarded look she employed.
After a few days, he began working alone on tearing down one of the uninhabitable cabins, encouraging her to complete her renovations of the owners’ suite. Grateful for the respite from his oppressive presence, she replaced floorboards and primed walls and refinished the heavy old furnishings. Occasionally she thought of the diary she’d put back where she’d found it behind the second drawer of the bureau. She intended to read more of it, but the work was grueling and made the time go quickly. She told herself she’d save it for the winter months ahead.
Right before the Labor Day weekend, Sigrid reported that she’d seen Cal and Abel Arneson in intense conversation in the Walleye, and that Abel had later refused to tell her what they’d been discussing.
After that, when Cal went out to work alone on the cabins, Maggie covertly followed him. And just as covertly documented his activities.
The roof beam was thick, and, even though the wood was brittle, it was taking Cal a long time to saw through it. He couldn’t risk using power tools, though. Maggie wasn’t to know about this particular project.
The wind blew off the lake and rustled the branches of the nearby pines. He heard the whine of an outboard motor and Howie’s excited barking-probably at the flock of mallards that frequented the water off their dock. The dog had followed him down here to this cabin by what Cal had privately christened Poison Ivy Beach, then wandered off. The mallards were in no jeopardy, though. The damned dog-Maggie’s choice, not his-was a lousy swimmer.
Cal hummed tunelessly as he worked. Tomorrow the cabin would be ready.
Maggie crouched behind a thicket of wild raspberries watching as Cal sawed at the beam of the ramshackle cabin. Its front wall had fallen in, so she had a clear view of him. After a moment she activated the zoom lens of her digital camera and took a picture. Last week she’d photographed him deliberately inflicting an axe wound on his arm that had sent him to the emergency room for five stitches. Now it appeared he intended to fake another accident-that of a major support beam dropping on him.
Why is he doing these things to himself? Why is he blaming them on me, telling Abel Arneson I’m trying to kill him? Sigrid said he hasn’t spoken to anyone else, or the police. What does he hope to gain from hurting himself?
Just before he’d sawed through the entire beam, Cal used a pair of long metal wedges to brace the beam in place. Each piece had a thin piece of rope tied to it. Then he climbed down the ladder, moved it to its opposite end, climbed back up, and began sawing again.
Maggie documented the activity.
“You look kind of ragged around the edges, Professor.”
“I’m not feeling too well tonight. For days, actually.”
“How so?”
“Just tired. Haven’t been doing too much work out at the property. To tell you the truth, it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”
“Thinking of throwing in the towel?”
“…Yes, I am. The Twin Cities are looking pretty good to me right now. I’ve just about decided to confront Maggie about what she’s been doing, move back, and divorce her.”
“But you haven’t said anything to her yet?”
“No. God knows what she might do if I did. She’ll find out from my lawyer. Besides, she’s hardly ever around.”
“Oh?”
“Every day she disappears into the woods, down by the beach, where the last few cabins are. Says she needs her space. Damned if I know what she’s up to.”
“If I were you, Professor, I’d follow her the next time. And do it quietly.”
Maggie studied the images on the digital camera’s screen, one after the other. Cal sawing one end of the fallen-in cabin’s beam; Cal sawing the other; Cal constructing his elaborate system of braces and ropes like trip wires. The braces and ropes themselves, in close-up.
God, I never knew he had such mechanical ability. He’s planning another accident…a big one this time. The kind that will send him to the hospital. And maybe send me to jail. How did it come to this? He was depressed and acting out against me when he was denied tenure, but the therapy seemed to help. Until we came here. My fault, he’d say….
“Maggie!” His voice, coming from one of the cabins by the beach.
She got up, went to the porch railing, and called: “What is it?”
“I need your help down here.”
“Be right with you.”
She took the camera into the lodge and set it on the counter. Evidence of Cal’s mental instability. What am I going to do with it?
“Maggie!”
“Coming!”
Take the image card to a lawyer? The police? Destroy what’s left of our marriage? Destroy Cal? I don’t love him anymore, probably haven’t for a long time, but those years together and the boys have to count for something, don’t they?
“Maggie!” He wasn’t distressed, just insistent.
As she descended the slope to the beach, she took deep breaths, told herself to remain calm.
Cal stood on the ladder inside the cabin, holding the end of the beam that he’d first sawed through yesterday. He was smiling-falsely.
“Sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I need you to get up here and hold this for me.”
“What?”
“Just climb up and hold it for a minute. You can do that, can’t you?”
She pictured the braces and trip wires. Pictured what would happen when everything came tumbling down. And realized what Cal’s plan was. What it had been all along. The knowledge hit her so hard that her gut wrenched.
She fought to control the nausea, said: “Cal, you know I don’t like ladders.”
“Just for a minute, I promise.”
She made her decision and moved toward him. “Just for a minute?” she asked.
“Not even that long.”
“OK, if you insist…oh my God, look over there!”
She flung her arm out wildly. Cal jerked around. His foot lost purchase on the ladder, and then his hand lost purchase on the beam. He clutched instinctively at one of the ropes. The dilapidated structure came crashing down, taking the ladder and Cal with it.
Maggie’s ears were filled with the roar of falling wood and Cal’s one muffled cry. Then everything went silent.
Slowly Maggie approached the cabin. Through the rising dust she could see Cal’s prone body. His head was under the beam, and blood leaked around the splintered wood. Dead. As dead as he planned for me to be.
She fell to her knees on the rocky ground. Leaned forward and retched.
Howie’s barking penetrated the silence. After a time Maggie got up shakily, put her hand on his collar, and restrained him from charging at the rubble. She remained where she was, face pressed into the dog’s rough coat, until she had the strength to drive to town to notify the police that her husband had had a final, fatal accident.
Five days later, Maggie returned to the lodge for the first time since Cal’s body had been taken away by the county coroner’s van. Most of the time, until today’s inquest, she’d stayed in Sigrid’s guest room, unable to sleep, eat, or even communicate her feelings to her old friend. Now it was over.
The verdict had been one of accidental death while attempting to commit a felony. It was the only possible one, given the existence of a large life insurance policy on Maggie’s life, taken out at the time she was a partner in an interior design firm, as well as the photographs of Cal inflicting wounds on himself and rigging the cabin. In his testimony, Abel Arneson had said he had doubts about Cal’s stories all along: “The professor was an unstable man. Anybody could see that.”