"What about the skeleton?" Marge asked. "You're sure it's Gordon Lasher?"
"According to the ID in his wallet," Fallon said. He looked at Henry. "And a few other things."
"There was a ring with the body," Henry said. He took it out of the pocket of his coveralls and held it up for all to view. "Remember that big old flashy crystal that Lasher always wore? This is it."
"Okay, so it probably is Lasher," Marge said. "What are we going to do with it?"
"The body is a small problem," Fallon conceded.
Violet widened her eyes. "A small problem? It's a dead body."
"Whatever happened to Gordon Lasher happened more than twenty years ago, and judging from the comments I've heard tonight, no one seems to have missed him," Fallon said.
"That's for damn sure," Ben Stokes muttered.
"We've got a couple of options," Fallon continued. "We could tell the county cops about the skeleton but I can't see the sheriff or any of his men figuring out how to get into the shelter to retrieve the remains, let alone conduct an investigation into the death. You know what the atmosphere is like down there."
"Jones is right," Henry said. "The local authorities will realize right away that something downright weird happened down there in the shelter and they'll contact the Feds."
"That means the CIA," Fran Hitchcock said darkly. "Or some other clandestine agency. The same folks that set up that lab twenty-two years ago may still be in operation for all we know."
Oliver Hitchcock looked alarmed. "If that crowd comes back, they'll be all over the Cove this time, trying to isolate the source of the energy in that fallout shelter. I wouldn't put it past them to shut down the whole town and kick us out."
"It will be like Area 51," Isabella said, getting into the spirit of the conversation. "There will be armed guards all over the place."
"Fallon says there's some kind of cosmic energy nexus along this stretch of the coast," Vera offered. "If the CIA discovers that they can tap in to a power source like that, there won't be any stopping them. Isabella is right. The first step will be to clear out the town."
"It could be a whole lot worse," Harriet Stokes said in ominous tones. "They might decide they don't want any witnesses."
There was a vast silence while the crowd digested that possibility. Then the hubbub started up again, louder this time.
Beneath the cover of the general uproar, Fallon turned to Isabella.
"I never used the term cosmic energy," he said.
"Details," she said.
"Cosmic implies energy from beyond Earth. While some of that may be in play here, it is not, at present, measurable, and has no bearing on the nexus energy that I mentioned."
She patted his thigh. "Nobody's listening to you, boss."
"I noticed," he said.
The anxious conversations got louder and so did the level of alarm.
Fallon leaned back and extended his arms along the bar. He surveyed the crowd with a satisfied air.
"It's an amazing thing," he said to Isabella.
"What?" she asked.
"Being present at the creation of a full-blown conspiracy theory. It's like watching a galaxy being born. Lots of random, unconnected bits and pieces of matter whiz past each other, exert a little gravitational pull and bingo, they start forming an organized system. The next thing you know you have a complete, wheels-within-wheels fantasy involving the CIA, Area 51, cosmic energy and a dead guy."
She gave him a severe look. "You started this with that business about the CIA taking over the town."
"I never actually said that, either."
She blinked. "You think this is amusing, don't you?"
"I do." He gave her one of his rare smiles, the kind that heated his eyes. "You know, since I started hanging around you, I've begun to feel almost normal for the first time in my life."
"There are serious grounds for speculating about a potential conspiracy here," she told him.
"No," he said flatly. "Three people running experiments on some antique weapons twenty-two years ago and the skeleton of a dead con man do not a conspiracy make."
"Okay, what do they add up to?"
Fallon reached for his beer bottle. "A problem. One that can be easily solved."
"Really?" Isabella waved her hands to get the crowd's attention and raised her voice. "Fallon says there's a solution to the problem of the skeleton."
Silence descended again. Everyone in the room looked expectantly at Fallon.
"It appears to me," he said deliberately, "that the simplest approach is to remove the bones from the shelter and dump them into the ocean off the Point. As you know, the currents are very strong there. I calculate a ninety-eight-point-five percent chance that none of the bones will ever wash ashore, at least not near here. Even if a few do, no one will be able to trace them back to the old bomb shelter."
They all stared at him, expressions of dawning comprehension on their faces.
Henry pursed his lips. "Works for me."
Fran Hitchcock nodded slowly. "Lasher was always talking about the forces of karma. This strikes me as a fine example of karma in action."
"I like it." Ben Stokes brightened. "I like it a lot."
"Think of it as a burial at sea," Fallon said.
"Oh, yes," Isabella said. "That's perfect."
Marge nodded quickly. "Perfect."
There were several more nods around the room.
"Let's take a vote," Henry said. "Those in favor of letting Fallon handle this problem, raise your hands."
Every hand in the room went up with one exception.
Henry looked at Walker. "How do you vote, Walker?"
Walker stopped jittering for a moment. A ferocious expression crossed his thin features. Isabella was sure that his eyes got a little hot.
"Gordon Lasher was a b-bad man," Walker said.
"I'll take that as a yes vote," Henry said. "It's settled, then. The bones go into the ocean and those weird gadgets in the shelter go to the Arcane Society."
There was a round of satisfied murmurs. Chairs scraped. People got to their feet and started pulling on their jackets and gloves in preparation for going out into the damp, misty night.
"Don't look now," Isabella said to Fallon. "But I think they just elected you sheriff of Scargill Cove."
"And here my mom always thought I should go into finance."