Free The Law of Similars by Chris Bohjalian Page A

fact that these were the very same sorts of dolls around which my four-year-old crafted whole worlds.
    I remember I met with Margaret in her office the morning after my very first consultation with Carissa. The clouds that had dusted the ground with snow were well to the east, and the sky was the neon blue that comes only in winter. It was freezing out, but with the sky that crisp, I lost all fear that the homeopath would make me down arsenic. She'd give me something that sounded vaguely magic, like belladonna. Or Gelsemium. Or Ignatia.
    Ignatia, I decided, that's what I'd like. Sounds just like a saint.
    There were three cases Margaret wanted to discuss: an at-tempted sexual assault, an "L and L" with a minor--a lewd and lascivious act--and a possible murder.
    "Let's start with the murder," I suggested, sitting archaeologist Barbie on the arm of the chair I'd taken opposite her desk, and resting the chocolate doughnut I'd bought in my lap. I'd never seen this Barbie before; she was new. Dark, dark hair. A wide-brimmed hat to protect her plastic shell from that searing hot desert sun, a fossil hunter's fatigues. A colorful map in one hand, a tiny magnifying glass in the other. I made a note in my mind to be sure this particular doll would be among Abby's new Christmas Barbies.
    Margaret dove right in. "Remember that guy in Underhill who died in a hunting accident on Sunday? When he shot a deer, his gun blew up in his face?"
    "I do." How could anyone forget? The poor son of a bitch had ended up bleeding to death in the woods, but his younger brother--a guy in his twenties--was one hell of a hero nevertheless. He'd carried his older sibling on his back close to three miles in the bitter cold that comes after Thanksgiving.
    "The gunsmith who repaired the gun might have rigged it to burst."
    "What makes you think so?" I wondered what a homeopath would do for a guy who'd had most of his face blown away by a defective gun. It began in my mind as a snide little inquiry but then grew merely curious: Maybe Ferrum phosphoricum stopped bleeding. For all I knew, nux vomica--now, there was a remedy that needed public relations help--was a coagulant.
    "The victim was sleeping with his wife."
    "Oh, that's clever," I said, "using one buck to bring down another," but I knew Margaret wouldn't smile. Margaret was profoundly earnest about her work, perhaps because she was still, technically, a newlywed. I imagined she was so happy with her older, wiser psychologist husband--Margaret was twenty-eight, but Dr. Strangelove was somewhere in his late forties or early fifties--that she was all business in the office. In the ten months she'd been married, she'd arrived promptly at eight every morning and left like clockwork at five. Even those weeks when she was in the midst of a trial, she'd managed the seemingly impossible feat of going home almost the moment court recessed for the day.
    "But the gunsmith's record is clean," Margaret said, ignoring me. "Not even a parking ticket."
    "And the widow's?"
    "We haven't checked."
    "Do it. Any kids?"
    "Nope. Thank God."
    I placed archaeologist Barbie on Margaret's desk, and started my doughnut. "Does the gunsmith know he's under investigation?"
    "Yup. Already has counsel. Oren Candon."
    "He's a very successful gunsmith."
    "Guess so."
    "Where's the gun?"
    "What's left of it? At the crime lab. It's a muzzle-loader."
    The regular deer season when rifles were allowed had been over for almost a week, and so the victim had been one of the small group of Vermonters who took to the woods with "primitive weapons"--antiques or replicas of antiques--like muzzle-loaders.
    "Since he has a lawyer, he's probably not doing much talking himself," I said. "So make sure the detectives are talking to his friends. Maybe he said something."
    "Customers, too?"
    "Customers, too. And see if there's a history of these guns blowing up. I think we'll both be very interested in what the ballistics report says."
    I knew it sounded like