Coldwater Revenge, James Ross [books for 9th graders txt] 📗

to the ceiling and curvy cave girls on the side in little animal skin outfits who regularly produce more little Freddies. For Fred Flintstone, enough is never enough.”

Not just for Fred.

“Then comes the flood, famine, epidemic disease… whatever. Who do you think survives? Balanced Barney? Or Insatiable Freddy or one of dozens of little Freddies? Then repeat that process again and again over millions of years. The theory, basically, is that Balanced Barney’s genes never made it out of the Stone Age, and that we’re all the great, great, great grandchildren of Insatiable Freddie.”

Tom hauled his gaze away from distraction. “That may explain my lust for pizza. But what’s it got to do with me being happy as a lawyer?”

“It has everything to do with your inability to be permanently happy with any achievement. As a linear descendant of Insatiable Freddie, your brain is hardwired so that it can’t be permanently satisfied with any accomplishment, no matter how spectacular. You can enjoy them for a while. But you can never be happy resting on your laurels. If you want to get happy again, you have to go out and do something new.”

“So are you happy being a biochemist?”

“Good question. And no, I’m not. Being something or having something can never make one of Insatiable Freddy’s descendants permanently happy. To get that, you have to fool your genes and manipulate your brain chemistry.”

“How?”

“By manipulating your brain into giving you a dopamine or endorphin kick for things that you choose, rather than for things that might have made sense for Insatiable Freddie.”

“Like what?”

“You pick. That’s where intelligence and personal choice come in. You know what’s good for you and what’s not. You know what goals inspire you.”

“So goals are important?”

“Having them. Not accomplishing them. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to eat your way across a dessert table or trying to find a cure for cancer, the Insatiable Freddie gene keeps you on course by doling out dopamine and endorphins in small increments as you go along—not in one big blast at the end.”

“So ‘it’s the journey not the arrival that matters?’”

“Exactly. Though whoever first said that probably thought he’d had some great insight into the human soul. But what he really did was make a forensic discovery about the evolution of human brain chemistry.”

He swung his legs in time with hers, but could not keep them in sync, so he stopped.

“Did you ever talk to Billy about this? It seems like something that might have helped him.”

Her voice faded, as if the bell ending class had just rung. “Once. Down at the boathouse.” She pulled her legs back over the wall and stood.

“What did he say?”

“He laughed, pulled opened a desk drawer, took out a baggie filled with white powder and threw it at my feet. ‘Dope o’Mine,’ he said.”

CHAPTER 9

The troubled look on Tommy’s face confirmed Mary’s fears. But she didn’t get to quiz him about his encounter with the Pearce woman, as his brother chose that moment to wrench Tommy’s mind someplace else.

“I should get paid for this,” he said, putting down the phone. “Joe wants me to find out if Father Gauss has an alibi for Saturday night—as if a priest might have something to do with Billy Pearce ending up in a sleeping bag at the bottom of Coldwater Lake.”

“Not that anyone would blame him,” said Mary.

“What?”

“If you’re going to stay away for years at a time, Tommy, you’re going to miss a few things.”

He folded his arms and waited.

“One of Father Gauss’s pets….”

“His what?”

“All right. One of his protégées. You weren’t the only one. Or the last. The newest was the Frazier’s boy Maurice. He got himself mixed up with that Billy Pearce, and Father Gauss tried to interfere. Pearce’s charms, whatever they were, won out.”

“And that makes Father Gauss a suspect in Billy’s murder?”

“The young man died, Tommy. Drugs or something. But Father Gauss…well, you’d think he lost a child.”

“When did all this happen?”

“Three months ago. Not even.”

“And Joe thinks Father Gauss might have done something to Billy?”

“It’s your brother’s job to look past the collar.”

Footsteps in the hallway signaled the end of Luke’s self-imposed exile. A fishing rod in each hand made it clear what he had in mind. “You might as well go,” said Mary. “He won’t stay with me as long as he’s got you to play with.” The boy nodded and ran out of the house. “But no boats, hear me? And teach your brother that silly language, or you’ll be leaving a mess when you go.”

“Luke will be talking fine before then. One more adventure should do it.”

Mary wrapped her fingers around her son’s arm. “It’s wonderful you’re making connection with the boy, Tommy. But don’t go making the uncle bigger than the father. No good will come of that.”

He nodded.

“And be careful not to insult the other Father, too. I may need him to forgive my sins one of these days.”

A smile spread across her handsome son’s face. “Got any good ones?”

She turned away before the color flooding her cheeks gave an incriminating answer. “Go!”

* * *

Tom left Luke and his fishing poles down at the church dock and walked up the lawn to the rectory. Mrs. Flynn, the housekeeper, answered his knock. Her hair had turned white since his last visit. The shapeless form in the flowered print house dress and blue apron was a size smaller than he remembered, as if she had shrunk as well as aged. She showed no sign of recognizing him.

“Hello, Mrs. Flynn. I’m looking for Father Gauss. Is he here?”

“Out in that rowboat of his, I should think. He should be back for confessions at three.”

“Is it all right if I wait down at the dock?”

“Suit yourself. The geese have made a mess of it though.”

Tom watched his nephew cast a silver Rapala into the clear blue water and retrieve it over the patches of discolored mud and sand where the blue gills and rock