The Faceless Thing
by Edward D. Hoch
SUNSET: golden flaming clouds draped over distant canyons barely seen in the dusk of the dying day; farmland gone to rot; fields in the foreground given over wildly to the running of the rabbit and the woodchuck; the farmhouse gray and paint-peeled, sleeping possibly but more likely dead — needing burial. It hadn’t changed much in all those years. It hadn’t changed; only died.
He parked the car and got out, taking it all in with eyes still intent and quick for all their years. Somehow he hadn’t really thought it would still be standing. Farmhouses that were near collapse fifty years ago shouldn’t still be standing; not when all the people, his mother and father and aunt and the rest, were all long in their graves.
He was an old man, had been an old man almost as long as he could remember. Youth to him was only memories of this farm, so many years before; romping in the hay with his little sister at his side; swinging from the barn ropes; exploring endless dark depths out beyond the last field. After that, he was old — through misty college days and marriage to a woman he hadn’t loved, through a business and political career that carried him around the world. And never once in all those years had he journeyed back to this place, this farmhouse now given over to the weeds and insects. They were all dead; there was no reason to come back... no reason at all.
Except the memory of the ooze.
A childhood memory, a memory buried with the years, forgotten sometimes but always there, crowded into its own little space in his mind, was ready to confront him and startle him with its vividness.
The ooze was a place beyond the last field, where water always collected in the springtime and after a storm; water running over dirt and clay and rock, merging with the soil until there was nothing underfoot but a black ooze to rise above your boots. He’d followed the stream rushing with storm water, followed it to the place where it cut into the side of the hill.
It was the memory of the tunnel, really, that had brought him back — the dark tunnel, leading nowhere, gurgling with rain-fed water, barely large enough for him to fit through. A tunnel floored with unseen ooze, peopled by unknown danger; that was a place for every boy.
Had he only been ten that day? Certainly he’d been no more than eleven, leading the way while his nine-year-old sister followed. “This way. Be careful of the mud.” She’d been afraid of the dark, afraid of what they might find there. But he’d called encouragement to her; after all, what could there be in all this ooze to hurt them?
How many years? Fifty?
“What
“Buddy!” she’d screamed — just once — and in the flare of the match he’d seen the thing, great and hairy and covered with ooze; something that lived in the darkness here, something that hated the light. In that terrifying instant it had reached out for his little sister and pulled her into the ooze.
That was the memory, a memory that came to him sometimes, only at night. It had pursued him down the years like a fabled hound, coming to him, reminding him, when all was well with the world. It was like a personal demon sent from Hades to torture him. He’d never told anyone about that thing in the cave, not even his mother. They’d cried and carried on when his sister was found the next day, and they’d said she’d drowned. He was not about to say differently.
And the years had passed. For a time during his high school days, he read the local papers — searching for some word of the thing, some veiled news that it had come out of that forgotten cavern. But it never did; it liked the dark and damp too much. And, of course, no one else ever ventured into the streambed. That was a pursuit only for the very young and very foolish.
By the time he was twenty, the memory was fading, merging with other thoughts, other goals, until at times he thought it only a child’s dream. But then at night it By the time he was twenty, the memory was fading, merging with other thoughts, other goals, until at times he thought it only a child’s dream. But then at night it would come again in all its vividness, and the thing in the ooze would beckon him.
A long life, long and crowded... One night he’d tried to tell his wife about it, but she wouldn’t listen. That was the night he’d realized how little he’d ever loved her. Perhaps he’d only married her because, in a certain light, she reminded him of that sister of his youth. But the love that sometimes comes later came not at all to the two of them. She was gone now, like his youth, like his family and friends. There was only this memory remaining. The memory of a thing in the ooze.
Now the weeds were tall, beating against his legs, stirring nameless insects to flight with every step. He pressed a handkerchief against his brow, sponging the sweat that was forming there. Would the dark place still be there, or had fifty years of rain and dirt sealed it forever?
“Hello there,” a voice called out. It was an old voice, barely carrying with the breeze. He turned and saw someone on the porch of the deserted farmhouse. An old woman, ancient and wrinkled.
“Do I know you?” he asked, moving closer.
“You may,” she answered. “You’re Buddy, aren’t you? My, how old I’ve gotten. I used to live at the next farm, when you were just a boy. I was young then myself. I remember you.”
“Oh! Mrs...?” the name escaped him, but it wasn’t important.
“Why did you come back, Buddy? Why, after all these years?”
He was an old man. Was it necessary to explain his actions to this woman from the past? “I just wanted to see the place,” he answered. “Memories, you know.”
“Bitter memories. Your little sister died here, did she not?” The old woman should have been dead, should have been dead and in her grave long ago.
He paused in the shade of the porch roof. “She died here, yes, but that was fifty years ago.”
“How old we grow, how ancient! Is that why you returned?”
“In a way. I wanted to see the spot.”
“Ah! The little brook back there beyond the last field. Let me walk that way with you. These old legs need exercise.”
“Do you live here?” he asked, wanting to escape her but knowing not how.
“No, still down the road. All alone now. Are you all alone, too?”
“I suppose so.” The high grass made walking difficult.
“You know what they all said at the time, don’t you? They all said you were fooling around, like you always did, and pushed her into the water.”
There was a pain in his chest from breathing so hard. He was an old man. “Do you believe that?”
“What, does it matter?” she answered. “After all these fifty years, what does it matter?”
“Would you believe me,” he began, then hesitated into silence. Of course she wouldn’t believe him, but he had to tell now. “Would you believe me if I told you what happened?”
She was a very old woman and she panted to keep up even his slow pace. She was ancient even to his old eyes, even in his world where now everyone was old. “I would believe you,” she said.
“There was something in the ooze. Call it a monster, a demon, if you want. I saw it in the light of a match, and I can remember it as if it were yesterday. It took her.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I said I would. This sun is hot today, even at twilight.”
“It will be gone soon. I hate to hurry you, old woman, but I must reach the stream before dark.”
“The last field is in sight.”
Yes, it was in sight. But how would he ever fit through that small opening, how would he face the thing, even if by some miracle it still waited there in the ooze? Fifty years was a long long time.
“Wait here,” he said as they reached the little stream at last. It hadn’t changed much, not really.
“You won’t find it.” He lowered his aged body into the bed of the stream, feeling once again the familiar forgotten ooze closing over his shoes.
“No one has to know,” she called after him. “Even if there was something, that was fifty years ago.”
But he went on, to the place where the water vanished into the rock. He held his breath and groped for the little flashlight in his pocket. Then he ducked his head and followed the water into the black.
It was steamy here, steamy and hot with the sweat of the earth. He flipped on the flashlight with trembling hands and followed its narrow beam with his eyes. The place was almost like a room in the side of the hill, a room perhaps seven feet high, with a floor of mud and ooze that seemed almost to bubble as he watched.
“Come on,” he said softly, almost to himself. “I know you’re there. You’ve got to be there.”
And then he saw it, rising slowly from the ooze. A shapeless thing without a face, a thing that moved so slowly it might have been dead. An old, very old thing. For a long time he watched it, unable to move, unable to cry out. And even as he watched, the thing settled back softly into the ooze, as if even this small exertion had tired it.
“Rest,” he said, very quietly. “We are all so old now.”
And then he made his way back out of the cave, along the stream, and finally pulled himself from the clinging ooze. The ancient woman was still waiting on the bank, with fireflies playing about her in the dusk.
“Did you find anything?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” he answered.
“Fifty years is a long time. You shouldn’t have come back.”
He sighed and fell into step beside her. “It was something I had to do.”
“Come up to my house, if you want. I can make you a bit of tea.”
His breath was coming better now, and the distance back to the farmhouse seemed shorter than he’d remembered. “I think I’d like that,” he said.
Days of Rage
by Doug Allyn
“My mama always said I’d end up in the slammer,” Puck grumbled, eyeing the rusting row of vacant cells. The dimly lit basement was divided into a dozen barred cages. Gunmetal gray paint flaking off the concrete walls gave it a scrofulous look, ugly as a leper colony. Rank, dank, and abandoned.
“Visualize the possibilities, Mr. Paquette,” Sara Jacoby said briskly. “Ignore the cells. They’ll be gone, all but one. Try to picture this room filled with smart shops and shoppers, a bustling commercial enterprise with enormous potential. And exceptional security.”
“Barred windows make for great security,” Dan Shea conceded, “but to be honest, I’m not sure I see any potential.”
The three of them were a sharp contrast. Dolph Paquette and Dan Shea, strictly blue-collar working men. Hard-eyed roughnecks in faded jeans, baseball caps, and steel-toed boots. Shea wore a dun corduroy sport coat with elbow patches over a green flannel shirt. No tie. Puck was dressed for manual labor in a hard hat and Carhartt canvas vest. Faces ruddy and weathered from the wind, Paquette and Shea could have posed for before-and-after snapshots, taken forty years apart.
Sara Jacoby, Port Martin’s city manager, was their diametric opposite, young, bright, and formidably fashionable. She wore her dark hair feathered in a short neo-pixie that accented her pert, attractive features. Dressed for success in a plum pinstripe Donna Karan suit, even her walking shoes and briefcase were color-coordinated.
“If you want to see potential, gentlemen,” she said, “follow me, please.” Stepping into an ancient freight elevator, she pulled down the wooden safety gate, then switched it on, filling the basement cellblock with an electro-mechanical din that sounded like a refrigerator falling down a flight of stairs. Puck and Shea exchanged a doubtful glance as the cage rattled upward, but neither man said anything. Couldn’t be heard anyway.
The ride up was jerky and unstable, but well worth the journey. The fourth- floor safety door opened out onto the building’s roof. Flat, coated with tar and gravel, and edged by an artfully crafted, crenellated brick barrier, it offered an absolutely stunning view.
To the northeast, the gray-green waters of Lake Huron, whitecaps riffling in the September breeze, rolling unbroken to the horizon and beyond, a hundred miles to the Canadian shore. Below them, spread out like a picnic blanket, was scenic Port Martin, Michigan, dreaming in the golden September sunlight. A resort town of lakefront cottages and summer homes, a getaway for rich and prominent families of Grand Rapids, Detroit, and Chicago.
“In real estate, location is everything, guys,” Jacoby said, “and this structure is a solid-gold site. It was built in eighteen eighty-seven and served as a combination city hall and police department well into the nineteen seventies, when it was replaced by the new civic center. It’s been standing empty since then.
“The city council has okayed my plan to transform this decrepit eyesore into a prime commercial location and tourist attraction. I envision this level as a rooftop restaurant, enclosed entirely in glass, with a three hundred and sixty degree view of the lake and the town. The lower floors will be subdivided and brought up to code, then leased as office space, shops, and boutiques.”
“What makes you think anybody will want to rent space in a jail?” Shea asked doubtfully.
“Actually, our waiting list is rapidly filling up, Mr. Shea. It’s the age of the Internet. Entrepreneurs can literally locate anywhere now, but they love funky milieus. Buildings with soul. Timberlands Mall outside of Traverse City spent a small fortune tracking down old lumber-camp relics: peaveys, bucksaws, and such. Here, the building itself has all the ambience one could ask for and the address is a perfect fit: Nineteen Sixty-Nine Main Street. Jailhouse Rock. Cellblock chic. This isn’t just a small-town lockup, it’s the Port Martin Jail.”
Shea looked at her blankly.
“The Christmas breakout, nineteen sixty-nine?” Jacoby prompted. “Woodstock? First man on the moon? Days of Rage?”
“ ’Sixty-nine was a bit before my time,” Shea said.
“And before mine too, obviously,” Sara said, annoyed, “but my profs at Michigan State would practically swoon if you mentioned flower power or Woodstock.”
“I remember them times just fine,” Puck put in. “What about ’em?”
“Do you recall the Christmas Break? Nineteen sixty-nine?”
“Christmas Break?” Puck frowned. “Yeah, sort of, it was big news at the — whoa, you mean it happened at
“This very one. The Port Martin Jail, Nineteen Sixty-Nine Main Street. The jailbreak gave me the idea for the counterculture theme.”
“C’mon, I was two years old in ’sixty-nine,” Shea said. “What are you guys talking about?”
“I can probably show you faster than I can explain it, Mr. Shea,” Jacoby said briskly, stepping back into the elevator. “This way, please.
“The first floor was originally the sheriff’s department,” Sara explained, as they rode the rattletrap freight elevator down a floor. “The basement was the lockup, the second floor held the offices for city services, water department, county clerk, et cetera. The third floor” — she opened the safety gate as the elevator rumbled to a halt — “as you can see, was the county courtroom.”
They stepped out into an enormous open room, walnut-paneled walls and towering windows, hardwood floors glowing in the autumn light.
“The jury box was over there, the judge’s bench was backlit by that high window. Trials weren’t all that common so the furniture was all movable. It’s in storage now. City council meetings were held in this room, the city band rehearsed here on Tuesday nights....”
But Shea was only half listening. He and Puck were both drawn to the far side of the gallery, staring up at a massive display of photographs, artwork, and architectural drawings.
The wall held detailed sketches for the new jail, historic shots of Port Martin, but dominating the center of the array was an oversized blow-up of a snarling, wild-haired maniac brandishing an assault rifle.
“The nineteen sixties were violent times: war, riots, assassinations,” Jacoby recited. “Nineteen sixty-nine was the wildest year of all. The country was in complete turmoil, body bags coming home from Vietnam, student riots, bras burning, inner cities burning. Hippie kids with flowers in their hair smoking dope and cheerfully screwing each other in public, leaving their parents baffled and jealous—”
Shea nodded. “I know what the sixties were about. What’s all that got to do with your jail? And who’s the loony with the gun?”
“Red Max Novak,” Sara said, “the Weatherman. The most famous fugitive since John Dillinger.”
“Weatherman?” Shea echoed, puzzled. “A TV forecaster?”
“A revolutionary.” Puck snorted. “A Che Guevara wannabe. The Weathermen were student radicals. Power to the people, off the pigs, all that craziness. A bunch of wet-eared college punks running their mouths.”
“Red Max Novak did more than talk,” Sara said. “In October of ’sixty-nine, during the trial of the Chicago Eight, the Weathermen, SDS, and the Black Panthers all called for mass protests: the Days of Rage. College campuses across the country erupted in violence. Six hundred demonstrators rioted in Chicago, trashing shops and fighting with the police. In Detroit, a campus radical named Max Novak blew up the office of the draft board, then called the newspapers to claim credit for striking a blow against the system.
“Unfortunately, when the police searched through the rubble, they found a body. A night watchman was killed in the blast. And suddenly the student protestor was wanted for murder.”
“What happened?” Shea asked.
“Novak went underground. There was a furious manhunt, Max Novak’s face was all over the papers and on TV for months. A week before Christmas, he was arrested here in Port Martin, brought to this very building, and locked up in a basement cell. That’s his mug shot beside the poster,” she said, pointing out a photo of a defiant Max, giving the cameraman the finger.
“What was he doing here?” Shea asked.
“Hoping to steal a boat and try to make it across the big lake to Canada. But he apparently had friends here, because on Christmas Eve, persons unknown tunneled into the basement cellblock through the storm drain and broke him out.” She pointed at the next photo, an empty jail cell with an outline of the fickle finger spray-painted on the wall. Grim lawmen standing around a jagged hole in the floor, looking baffled and frustrated.
“Did they catch him again?” Shea asked.
“Not then, not ever,” Puck said sourly. “Every lawman in the north country went nuts looking for him.”
“He surfaced in Canada a few months later,” Sara said. “Held a news conference in Toronto to protest the killings at Kent State. That’s Red Max at the microphone,” she said, indicating a photo of a masked man. “He said he was recovering from plastic surgery, wouldn’t show his face.”
“How did they know it was actually him?” Shea asked.
“The FBI identified him by voiceprint. At the news conference, Max said he was sorry about killing the watchman, but American boys were dying every day in Vietnam and pigs serving The Man were fair game. He raised his fist, shouted ‘Power to the people!’ And disappeared into history.”
“And good riddance,” Puck growled.
“Quite a story,” Shea said, shooting his partner a dark look.
“It’s not just a story,” Sara said. “It’s the single most dramatic incident in Port Martin’s history and we mean to cash in on it. Red Max’s photo and the shot of that empty cell are counterculture icons now. The tunnel’s gone, of course; it was filled in immediately after the escape, but we plan to restore that entire scene, the cell — the tunnel, fickle finger, and all. The far end of the basement will be converted into a permanent diorama, with a slide show, a gift shop selling plastic assault rifles, hippie beads, candles, incense, afros, black-light posters, the works.”
“Whoa up!” Puck was staring at her in disbelief. “You’re going to remodel this place into a
“Max Novak is a historical figure now, Mr. Paquette,” Sara countered coolly, waving him to silence before he could interrupt. “In nineteen sixteen, Pancho Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico, killed two dozen people, and burned the town. Today, his statue in Tucson draws ten thousand visitors a year. Missouri has statues of Jesse James, Texas has Billy the Kid. Red Max Novak may be a wild-haired psycho to you, but he’s the closest thing to a celebrity Port Martin ever had, as famous as Jimmy Hoffa, and for the same reason. They both vanished without a trace.”
“But Novak’s only claim to fame was blasting some poor rent-a-cop to hell! The hippies weren’t all flower children, high on peace and love. Remember the Manson Family? They were busy in nineteen sixty-nine too, murdering folks. Why not put them in your shrine?”
“I take it you disapprove of our concept, Mr. Paquette?”
“How can I put this politely?” Puck said, glancing toward the ceiling. “I guess I can’t. I think the idea of glorifying a bozo like Max Novak is dumber than a box of rocks.”
“Excellent!” Sara said, clapping her hands, delighted. “Nothing sells like controversy. Even after all this time, people have powerful feelings about those days. Two city councilmen actually came to blows over it.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Nor was I. Still, I wouldn’t want to hire somebody whose sensibilities are offended by the job. Your outfit has an excellent reputation, Mr. Shea, but you’re not the only contractors on my list. Given your partner’s attitude, if you’d prefer to opt out, I’ll certainly understand.”
“Can you give us a minute, please?” Shea said quickly, wrapping an arm around Puck’s shoulders. “I’d like a word with my partner.”
Hauling Paquette out into the corridor, Shea whirled on him. “What the hell’s wrong with you? We need this job!”
“We need
“Bullshit! This is a fat deal, Puck. I’m not kicking it in the head over forty- year-old politics!”
“It’s not just politics!” Puck flared. “I’ll tell you something else that happened in nineteen sixty-nine. I picked up my nephew at the airport in Saginaw. Fresh back from Vietnam, with a chest full of medals and an empty sleeve where his left arm used to be. And he had spit dripping off his uniform.
“Look, I’m sorry as hell about your nephew, Puck, but that was a long time back and we’ve got bills to pay. This project will keep the crew working into the winter. The structure looks sound, the remodeling should mostly be carpentry 101. It’s easy money, Puck.”
“Whorin’s easy money, too, Danny, or so they say. Buildings have character and the work a man does on ’em should be honorable. I don’t like the feel of this job. That said, I know the crew needs the work, so if you want to take this deal, go ahead on. Don’t worry about me, I’ll carry my weight.”
“All right, then.” Shea nodded slowly. “I’m going to take this gig. We’ll bring it in on time, under budget, and be home and dry for Christmas.”
“I expect that’s what the rent-a-cop was thinking,” Puck said. “Just before the bomb went off.”
Two days later, a ragtag caravan of work vans and pickup trucks rolled into Port Martin. A gypsy construction gang in flannel shirts and work boots, six hard-hats plus Puck and Shea. North-country boys from the tip of the mitten near Valhalla. Wild, woolly, and rough around the edges. Skilled workers who knew their trades.
They ripped into the Port Martin Jail building like a wrecking crew. Reshaping the old city offices was a dirty job, but not a difficult one. The outer brick walls of the ancient building were far stronger than modern code requirements, built to bear the weight of massive rooftop water tanks that no longer existed.
The inner walls were only partitions, panels and doors artfully crafted from native oak trees that were ancient at the end of the last century, perhaps even the one before that.
The work progressed quickly, but without the crew’s usual barking and good-natured curses. Puck was right, the old building had a dour, brooding atmosphere. Dark corners and shadows. Odd creaks and groans as it resettled itself, like an aching patient undergoing major surgery without anesthetic.
Mostly, the strange shadows were caused by the obsolete lighting fixtures that dated from the Second World War. But there were other shadows and sounds which had no connection with reality. The spirit-echoes of men who’d stood before the bench, hearing their lives sworn away. Then rode the rickety freight elevator down to their dank basement cages. A living hell for roughnecks used to ranging the forest for lumber or furs, or sailing free on the Great Lakes.
The cellar cellblock seemed to be the dark soul of the structure, with rusty iron rings set in the walls, the width of a man’s wrists, the endless whisper of wastewater trickling beneath the floors. You could almost smell the despair.
North-country boys aren’t easily spooked, don’t fear much, living or dead. Still, Shea found himself walking soft in the dim corridors, half expecting to meet a ghost around the next corner. So when he stepped into the courtroom and saw a cop staring up at the photo display, for a crazy moment he wondered if...
But the cop was definitely real.
A big man, half a head taller than Shea, wearing a summer blue uniform, short sleeves that showed muscular biceps and a Semper Fi tattoo. Horse-faced, underslung jaw, oversized stallion’s teeth. His smile was probably scarier than his glare, but he wasn’t smiling now. He was glowering up at the poster shot of Red Max Novak holding the AK over his head, silently screaming his defiance.
“Can I help you?” Dan asked.
“I’m Sheriff Martin Doyle. Marty to my friends. You can call me Sheriff Doyle.”
“I didn’t call you at all,” Shea said mildly, “and this work site is closed to the public. So is there something I can do for you? Sheriff Doyle?”
“Yeah. You can bag this whole cockamamie project and head back where you came from. Valhalla, right? You boys are a long way from home.”
“Work’s not so easy to find up north.”
“You should have tried harder. This project’s a lousy idea.”
“I agree with you a hundred percent,” Puck said, joining them from the hall. “But I’ve got my own reasons. What’s your beef, sport?”
“You see the lawman in that photograph, the one with silver hair, standing by that damned tunnel? That’s old Tom Kowalski. Sheriff Kowalski, in those days. He went out of his way to welcome me when I took his job, twenty years ago. Brought me up to speed, helped me all he could, though he owed me nothin’. A good man, a good cop. The jailbreak destroyed his career. Made him a joke in his own hometown.”
“Must have been tough,” Shea said.
“Not as tough as having the city council vote to raise a damned shrine to the murderer who wrecked Tom’s life. There’s nothing heroic about Red Max Novak. He was just another radical commie psycho. Colleges campuses bred ’em like rats in those days.”
“We’re not politicians, Sheriff Doyle,” Dan said, “we’re in the construction business. Just hired help doing a job.”
“Doing the wrong job,” Doyle said. “Just so we’re clear, guys, there’s no statute of limitations on murder
“No big surprise,” Puck snorted, “considering your department lost the most famous prisoner you ever had. We’ll keep an eye on our gear. Feel free to get back to the hunt.”
“What hunt?”
“For Red Max,” Puck said innocently. “Bein’ there’s no statute of limitations and all, shouldn’t you be out looking for him, Sheriff?”
Sheriff Doyle wasn’t the only one unhappy about the job. Four days into the project, Maph Rochon, a bull-necked, bullheaded Ojibwa ironworker, stormed into Shea’s temporary office, demanding to be paid off.
“You gotta be kiddin’, Maph,” Dan said. “You haven’t worked a full week yet.”
“Ain’t gonna work one, neither,” Rochon said. “I don’t like this place.”
“Fine, you want to quit, go ahead. But you can whistle for gas money, I’m not—” He broke off as Puck grabbed his bicep.
“Whoa up, what are you doing? You can’t cut Maph loose.”
“Watch me! He’s a drunk and a hothead, more trouble than he’s worth.”
“He’s also a freakin’ artist with an acetylene torch and we’re gonna need him bad when we start reconfiguring those cells. You’re the boss, Danny, act like one. Cool your jets and solve the damn problem.”
Shea opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. Because Puck was right. As usual.
“What seems to be the trouble, Maph?” Shea grated, forcing a smile.
“This freakin’ place bums me out,” Rochon said stubbornly. “If I’d known what the job was gonna be, I wouldn’t have signed on.”
“You gripe about every job, Maph, but you’ve never quit on me before. What’s your problem? You don’t like Novak’s politics?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about politics, but I’ve been stuck in a few jails. Never had no fun in one and I don’t like workin’ in this one, neither. I got three days’ wages and a hundred and fifty bucks gas money comin’, Danny. You either get it up or I’ll kick your ass for you.”
Rochon was dead serious. His shaggy hair was hanging in his bloodshot eyes. He was hung over, hurtin’, and ready to take it out on somebody. The last time Shea’d tangled with him, the police had to break it up and Shea was sore for a month. Which is why he couldn’t believe it when Puck took a nine-pound sledgehammer from the tool rack and tossed it to Rochon.
“You’re dead right, Maph. I got no use for jails, either. So why don’t we bust this one up?”
“Bust it up?” Rochon echoed, hefting the sledge suspiciously, still glowering at Shea.
“See that photograph next to Red Max? The one with those cops standing around that hole, looking stupid? They had a famous jailbreak here. Red Max’s buddies tunneled in and broke him out. Afterward, the cops poured a new concrete floor in the basement to cover it up. How about you bust that sucker open all over again? Let some air into this dump. Sound like fun, big fella?”
“Yeah, maybe it does at that.” Rochon nodded slowly. “Last time they locked me up, I coulda used a hammer like this. Okay, Puck. I’ll bust open that tunnel for you. I’ll bust Danny up some other day.” Saluting Shea with the sledge, he turned and stalked out.
“What the hell was that?” Shea demanded, turning on Puck. “He was primed to stomp me into dog meat and you toss him a nine-pound hammer?”
“C’mon, Danny, Maph’s a surly sumbitch, but he’s not crazy enough to use a sledge on you. Besides, he can whip you any day of the week. He doesn’t need a hammer to do it.”
“Then why give him one?”
“Because your best chance against a hardhead like Maph is to clock him before he knows he’s in a fight. While he’s deciding whether to use that sledge or not, you sucker punch him two, three times. Put his lights out.”
“Assuming I was smart enough to figure that out,” Shea sighed.
“Also assuming you could hit Maph hard enough to put him down.”
“You’re an evil old man, Puck.”
“Thank you, sir. But I didn’t get this old bein’ stupid, Danny. You’d best keep a weather eye on Rochon. Maph’s a mean drunk and meaner sober. Draws trouble like flies to a roadkill.”
And Puck was right again. As usual.
That afternoon, Shea walked into his office to find Maph Rochon sitting in his chair, his work boots up on the drafting table. “What are you doing in here?”
“Waitin’ for you, boss man. What do you want me to do next?”
“You can’t be finished with that tunnel already.”
“Not exactly, no.”
“Then why aren’t you on it?”
“Ain’t no tunnel to be on, Danny,” Maph said blandly. “Never was, neither.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I busted through the concrete floor like Puck told me, found the original hole into the storm drain. It’s a thirty-incher, plenty big enough to shinny through for the first ten feet or so, then it opens out into a crawl space in the subbasement. And that’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“This old building’s sitting on forty-foot walnut timbers, Danny, twenty inches thick at mid-bole. They rest on the bedrock. Solid granite. The drain’s cut wide to pass under them beams, but it’s only six inches deep and there’s a grille across it to keep the rats out. It’s original, Danny. Made of the same bars they used to build the cells, set in stone, rusted nearly solid. You’d need an acetylene torch to cut it and even then the hole’s too small to pass a man through. Nothing much bigger than a mouse ever went in or out of that tunnel. I double-checked the pictures to make sure there was no mistake. There ain’t. The hole they dug in that cell floor was a shuck, a tunnel to nowhere. That up-yours finger spray-painted on the wall wasn’t a joke on those cops. It was their joke on the rest of us.”
“Show me,” Shea said.
Sara Jacoby emerged from the tunnel shaken and pale as a ghost, her Karan suit covered with grime. “There has to be some mistake. Could Novak have gotten out some other way?”
“I’ve gone over the blueprints, Miss Jacoby,” Shea said. “They show exactly what Maph found. This old barn was built in eighteen eighty-seven, overbuilt actually, to support two water tanks on the roof, a thousand gallons each. There was no running water in those days, so every municipal building had their own supply. You see these lines on the drawing? They’re walnut logs, two and a half tons apiece, braced on bedrock. No way under them, no way around. The tunnel in this photograph never went anywhere. It couldn’t. It was a photo op, nothing more.”
“But there are pictures of a policeman crawling
“With shovels,” Puck said. “Same way they faked the tunnel. Dug it out, took a few pictures, then filled it in again. Topped it off with concrete.”
“But why?” Sara demanded. “Max Novak was the most famous prisoner they’d ever had. Why would they stage a phony escape?”
“I can think of one reason, but you won’t like it,” Puck said. “Back in the Days of Rage, protesters weren’t the only ones who ran off the rails. Guardsmen killed four kids at Kent State and forty civilians during the Detroit riots. Five years earlier, Mississippi cops handed three civil-rights workers over to the KKK. They ended up dead in a swamp. Could be there’s a real ugly reason nobody’s seen Red Max Novak lately.”
“But what are we going to do? If we tell Sheriff Doyle about this, he’ll declare it a crime scene, tape it off, and shut down the project. Which is what he wants to do anyway.”
Shea shrugged. “It’s your project, your call. Do you want us to cover it up again?”
“Damn it,” Sara said softly, shaking her head. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”
“I knew no good would come of this,” Sheriff Martin Doyle said sourly. “Frickin’ yuppie city council and their New Age ideas.” They were in Doyle’s office in the new Port Martin Civic Center, a flashy modern construct of glass and concrete that held the sheriff’s department, fire department, and city offices, and had no soul at all.
“The city council didn’t lose that prisoner,” Puck pointed out. “Your old pal Sheriff Kowalski did. Or did he?”
“What are you saying? You think old Tom Kowalski whacked Max Novak, then staged the escape to cover it up?”
“We have no idea what happened,” Sara said quickly. “That’s why we’re here. We do know that Novak definitely didn’t crawl out through that tunnel, though. So the question is, why would the police fake his escape? If it wasn’t to cover up Novak’s murder, then what did happen?”
“I... don’t know anything I could swear to, you understand,” Doyle said, “but I did hear a story once. Last year, after the council voted to build the memorial, I ran into old Sheriff Kowalski at the Town Pub. It was only a few weeks before he died and he was half in the bag that night. And bitter. He told me he’d kicked Novak loose for the sake of the town, and later, the same punks he’d saved turned on him like a pack of rats. And now they were going to put up a damn shrine to the murderer who wrecked his life.”
“What did he mean, for the sake of the town?” Shea asked.
“After Novak killed that guard during the Days of Rage, he didn’t run to Port Martin by accident. Some of the kids in his little commie cell at Michigan State were from here. He figured they’d be home for the holidays, and would help him get out of the country. But when he got picked up, the first thing Max did was offer to rat out his friends to the FBI to buy himself a better deal.”
“A real sweetheart,” Puck observed.
“Novak was a piece of shit,” Sheriff Doyle spat. “But the others... Hell, they were just college kids dabbling in radical politics. And they were from some of the finest families in this town. They had nothing to do with that bombing and didn’t deserve to have their lives destroyed by that psycho. So the sheriff talked to their parents and arranged for a... ransom.”
“Took a bribe, you mean,” Puck snorted.
“Old Tom needed the money to keep his deputies quiet. He knew they’d probably lose their jobs over it and he was right. So they faked the tunnel long enough to take pictures, then filled it in again. Everybody assumed Max’s pals in the SDS or the Weathermen broke him out. A decade or so later, those same kids had businesses and families of their own, and became the new pillars of the community. And it wasn’t long before they fired Tom Kowalski, the guy who’d saved their collective young asses.”
“Or so Sheriff Kowalski told you,” Sara said carefully. “How do you know that it’s true?”
“I don’t,” Doyle admitted. “But I do know that Tom Kowalski wouldn’t murder a kid. He was too good a man for that. Too good a cop.”
“He wasn’t so hot at guarding prisoners,” Shea said, “and he had good reason to lie. You said it yourself, there’s no statute of limitations on murder, including Novak’s, if he was killed back then.”
“But he wasn’t! Novak spoke at a press conference in Toronto later that spring. That was months after the escape.”
“And he was wearing a ski mask,” Sara pointed out. “It could have been anyone.”
“The FBI identified his voice.”
“Or claimed they did,” Puck said. “It was still J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI back then. Given what we’ve already uncovered, are you willing to take their word for it?”
“Maybe not,” Doyle conceded. “The problem is, you haven’t turned up any actual evidence of anything, except that the famous Christmas Break didn’t happen the way people said it did.”
“What do you intend to do about this?” Sara demanded.
“I don’t know, Sara. This thing’s been lying there all these years, like a hot power line downed by a storm. It destroyed Tom Kowalski and maybe Novak, too. I’m not going to blow my career over a forty-year-old jailbreak.”
“You can’t just ignore this,” Sara said.
“No, but I can pass the buck.” Taking a pad from his desk drawer, Doyle jotted a few quick notes, then slid the pad across his desk to Sara.
“I’ve been against this memorial from the start, Sara. If I open a new investigation, the council will think it’s political no matter what I say. Old Tom told me the names of the kids who were involved at the time. Take a look at it.” Sara picked up the notepad, glanced at it, and paled.
“My God, Marty, this is a who’s who of Port Martin. Half the country-club set.”
“Now you see my problem. If I start questioning these people about a wild story I heard from a drunk, they’ll get my ass fired in a New York minute. They might talk to you, though, off the record. Tell ’em you’re doing research for the restoration.”
“But most of them are my friends, Marty. You can’t expect me to question them, then report back to you.”
“What you decide to tell me is completely up to you. To be honest, if I
“Crystal,” Puck said. “You’re asking us to do your job for you.”
“Maybe I am,” Doyle admitted. “But if I were you, I’d walk extra soft, Pops. Because if Red Max really was murdered back then, you may be talking to the people who took him out.”
“He’s right,” Shea said, as they rode down in the elevator. “Maybe you should just step away from this.”
“And do what?” Sara demanded. “Shut down the project? Or worse, build a monument to a damned lie? Not a chance, guys. Nineteen Sixty-Nine Main Street is my concept and I’ve put two years of my life into it. One way or another, I want the truth now.”
“Then you ain’t looking for it alone,” Puck said positively. “They didn’t call ’em the Days of Rage for nothin’. We dug this mess up for you, we’ll help you put it to rest. Who’s first on the list the sheriff gave you?”
Glancing at the slip of paper, Sara smiled in spite of herself. “Dawn Stanton, the town librarian. Trust me, guys, she’s not dangerous.”
Perhaps not, but Red Max Novak was still a touchy subject. When Sara told Mrs. Stanton why they’d come, she ushered them into her private office, a glassed-in, second-story cubicle with an overview of the book stacks below and the big lake glistening in the distance.
“How much do you already know?” the librarian asked absently, staring out over the lake, whitecaps breaking in the afternoon sun. She was a handsome woman, crowding sixty but well preserved, a matronly blond earth-mother in a flowered granny dress and Birkenstocks.
“We only know that you were... involved somehow,” Sara said carefully. “Anything you tell us will be off the record, Dawn. The memorial is going to attract a lot of attention, I just want to avoid surprises.”
“Then you picked the wrong subject,” Dawn said drily. “Max Novak was full of surprises. Not all of them pleasant. He cut quite a romantic figure on campus back then, the romantic revolutionary, and we... hooked up, as kids say today.”
“You were lovers?” Shea asked.
“Love’s too strong a term to describe what we had. Hot pants would be more accurate. Max was a beautiful boy with a terrific body, but he was also a complete egomaniac. A charming, irrepressible ham. When he was arrested, he told the police he knew he had the right to remain silent, but he didn’t have the ability.” She shook her head, smiling, remembering. “Those were wild times and he was one wild boy.”
“Have you ever heard from him?” Puck asked.
“Never. But that’s not surprising, I wasn’t all that important to him.”
“You were his girlfriend,” Sara noted.
“Things were different back then,” Mrs. Stanton said. “The hippie movement was in full flower-power. Girls would bang any boy with long hair five minutes after meeting them. That’s what revolution meant to most of us — sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. We thought we could change the world, bring on the Age of Aquarius. And we did, eventually.
“Most of the things we were fighting for — ending the war, ending the draft, women’s rights, gay rights, ecology — are all part of the mainstream now. Thankfully, without the bloody revolt Red Max was preaching. But the world changed us, too. We got older, had kids of our own, and presto, we turned into our parents. Straight citizens with families and jobs and mortgages. And if Red Max Novak walked through that door this instant, I might not know him.”
“So you have no idea what happened to him afterward?”
Dawn hesitated, clearly deciding how much to tell them. “I know that his escape was a setup, if that’s what you’re asking, Sara. My father and some of his friends put up the money, but afterward, he and my brother Joel had a terrible fight about it.”
“About the jailbreak?”
“Partly that, I think. After my father arranged to pay off Sheriff Kowalski, he came to Joel for help. But something went wrong.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but it must have been serious. A year later, my father had a coronary. He was hospitalized for weeks before he passed on. But Joel never visited him. After that argument over Red Max, they never spoke to each other again. Ever.”
Joel Kennedy, of Stanfield, Kennedy, and Bauer, attorneys-at-law, had a third- floor corner office with his name on the door in a century-old Main Street office complex, a block from the harbor yacht club.
If he was surprised by Sara’s visit, in the company of two construction roughnecks, he hid it well. He seemed more curious than concerned.
Tall and slender, with crisp, dark hair and a sunlamp tan, Kennedy wore a three-piece pinstripe that probably cost more than Shea’s truck.
“My sister called ahead to warn me you were coming,” Kennedy said, waving them to maroon leather seats facing his ornately carved desk. “She needn’t have bothered. With all the talk about the memorial, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about those days, lately. Maybe it’s time to clear the air, get it off my chest. What do you want to know?”
“What can you tell us about the jailbreak?” Sara asked.
“Which one?” Kennedy smiled, bridging his narrow fingertips. “At the time, with the police blaming SDS and the Weathermen for breaking Max out, most of my friends thought the break was a freaking miracle, proof of revolutionary solidarity, the brotherhood of the working class.” He shook his head ruefully.
“It was all nonsense, of course. Max Novak talked a good show, but one night in that jail and he was threatening to drag us all down with him if somebody didn’t get him out. The sheriff contacted my father, Dad called a few friends, and they arranged for the famous Christmas breakout. But not by revolutionary action. They did it the old-fashioned American way. They bought it.”
“And you knew about it at the time? How?”
“They asked me to help. After the escape, Max was too hot to hide. His face was all over the news, he had to get out of the country right away. Our little anti-war cell had been running an underground railroad, smuggling draft evaders into Canada. We thought it was a big secret, but somehow my father knew about it, and so did his friends. When he asked for my help, it was the most disillusioning experience of my young life.”
“How so?” Shea asked.
“Because I realized the whole thing was bogus. We were preaching power to the people, but all Max managed to do was blow up some poor working stiff. Revolution was just a game we’d been playing. And our parents weren’t really the enemy, they’d just been humoring us. Like the kids we were back then.”
“Dawn told us you and your father had a terrible row. Is that what it was about?”
“No,” Joel said flatly. “She shouldn’t have told you about that.”
“But she did,” Sara said simply. “It’s time for the truth now, Joel. You said they asked for your help. Did you help them?”
Kennedy sighed. “I didn’t have much choice. I knew a Métis who was smuggling dope down from Canada. We’d been paying him to take draft evaders along on the return trip—”
“Métis?” Sara asked.
“Half-breeds, sort of,” Puck explained, “Métis are part French Canuck, part Cree or Odawa, claim to be descendants of the original French
“My father offered the Métis, Bobby Roanhorse, five thousand dollars to smuggle Max across the lake into Canada. But there was a problem.”
“It was already late December,” Puck said. “And Lake Huron froze over early that year.”
“Roanhorse said going by boat was impossible, they’d need a snowmobile. So my father arranged for one, a brand new Polaris 340 from Hal Jensen’s dealership.”
Sara nodded. “Another name on Kowalski’s list. Do you know if they made it to Canada?”
“They must have,” Joel said carefully. “Max held a press conference to condemn the killings at Kent State. It was televised.”
“And a million people saw a man in a ski mask,” Sara said. “But that’s not what I asked, exactly. Do you
Joel looked away, taking a long ragged breath, and let it out slowly.
“No, I don’t know. But to be honest, I very much doubt it. As we were putting together the final arrangements, my father confessed that he’d promised Roanhorse an extra ten thousand to be sure Max never made it off that ice.”
“Dear God,” Sara said softly.
“He did it to protect us,” Joel pleaded, “I realize that now. Max had already tried to sell us out, he’d do it again in a heartbeat the next time he got jammed up. We were just kids, but we could have gone to prison for years, for believing in an unpopular cause and Red Max Novak. My father recognized the danger to us, so he... did what he had to. To save us.”
“What did you do about it?”
“I warned Max. I whispered to him, just before they set off.”
“How did he react?” Puck asked.
“He said it didn’t matter. That he had to get to Canada and the Métis was his only chance to make it.”
“Are you sure he understood you?” Sara asked.
“He understood, all right. Because I did more than just warn him. I...” Kennedy swallowed. “I slipped him a gun.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Puck said softly.
“I had to,” Joel said. “They meant to kill him, forgodsake.”
“And did they?” Puck pressed. “Do you know what actually happened?”
“I truly don’t. Max supposedly appeared at that press conference, but I have serious doubts it was actually him. The Weathermen could have staged that show for their own reasons, and who knows what the FBI was up to in those days? All I know for sure is, a year later Bobby Roanhorse came back to Port Martin. And my father paid him his blood money. Ten thousand dollars. And nobody’s seen Red Max Novak since the spring of nineteen seventy.”
“Maybe you’d better sit this one out, miss,” Puck suggested. “I’ve worked with a lot of Métis over the years, and most of ’em are fine people. But if this dope dealer did Novak in back then and we show up asking questions...” He broke off when Sara glanced at him curiously, as if wondering what language he was speaking. And he realized he might as well be talking to the wall.
Shea kept his eyes focused on the road. They were a dozen miles out of Port Martin, following Joel Kennedy’s directions. The gravel track skirted the shore of Burt Lake, a spot infamous to Native Americans. A nearby Ojibwa town was burned to the ground by local authorities during the Great Depression. Families turned out into the snow in the dead of winter. To forage, or starve.
Even now, with the afternoon light fading into the forest, the land had a somber edge, still brooding over ancient injustices.
The Roanhorse Tree Farm backed up to the edge of a section of National Forest. Thousands of acres of rough country, uninhabited and untouched for a hundred years.
The tree farm wasn’t much better. Rows of ragged spruce and jack pine, poorly shaped and trimmed, fit only for replanting along roadways, or to shield landfills.
The house looked abandoned. A ramshackle, two-story saltbox a century old and showing every day of it. Flaking, chalky whitewash, eyeless windows with shades pulled down. The only signs of habitation were cords of firewood neatly stacked on the sagging front porch. And animal pelts drying on stretch racks against the railings, filling the air with the redolence of wildness and putrefaction. Nature in the raw.
Sara knocked on the door. No answer. “Mr. Roanhorse?” she called.
“Out back.”
They followed the echo around the side of the house.
Bobby Roanhorse was splitting wood, his double-bitted ax ringing as he put his back into every swing. He was working stripped to the waist, wearing leather gloves, army fatigue pants tucked into high-top logging boots, a shaggy mane of raven hair, shot with gray, loose around his shoulders. He looked wild and surly and hard, his dark eyes unreadable behind thick brows.
“I only sell trees wholesale,” he said. “I don’t do no business with the public.”
“We didn’t come to buy trees, Mr. Roanhorse. I’m Sara Jacoby, the city manager at Port Martin. We’re here to talk about Max Novak.”
Roanhorse paused in mid swing, then straightened slowly, looking them over. Coldly. Like a cougar eyeing game that had strayed onto his hunting grounds.
“Who are your friends, lady? Some kind of cops?”
“We’re working men, like you,” Puck said. “I’m Paquette, he’s Shea. Our crew is handling the construction at Nineteen Sixty-Nine Main Street.”
“The freakin’ hippie memorial?” Roanhorse spat, resting the ax head on the log. “I seen about it on the TV. So? What do you want with me?”
“We know you were involved in the Christmas break,” Sara said. “We’d like to know what happened.”
“You’d like to know?” he mimicked her sarcastically. “Why? What’s it matter after all this time?”
“We’re building a monument to those years, Mr. Roanhorse, and you were a part of them. The monument will be here long after we’re gone. We’d like it to be true.”
“Truth?” Roanhorse snorted. “I seen a movie once, lady, some punk asks Jack Nicholson for the truth. Know what Nicholson says?”
“He says, ‘You can’t handle the truth,’ ” Shea said. “But he tells it anyway.”
“That’s right.” Roanhorse nodded, looking away, over his wasted acres. “He does tell it, doesn’t he? It’s almost funny. For years after it happened, I expected the law to come for me. I laid low out here, waitin’ on ’em, always watchful. And after a while, waitin’ and hidin’ were all I knew. When I heard about the nineteen sixty-nine museum, I thought somebody might come around. Or the cops would, finally. Seems like I’ve been waiting for you people most of my life.”
“We’re not the police, Mr. Roanhorse, and we already know much of the story. We know the breakout was rigged, and you were hired to guide Max Novak across the ice to Canada. All we want to know is what happened.”
“Fair enough,” he said, smiling faintly, “here’s the truth. See if you can handle it. You gotta understand how it was in them days. Back then, being Métis was almost the same as being black. People treated me like dirt. Except for the hippies. Freaks didn’t mind hangin’ with me, sharin’ their dope, their women. It proved how emancipated they were.”
“And you resented it?”
“Hell no, I grew up in foster care, lady, no family. Drifted down here, livin’ hand to mouth, peddling weed and speed to stay afloat. I’d take any friends I could get. Even punk-ass college kids who wanted a half-breed mascot.”
“So you weren’t political?”
“Dead wrong. All Native Americans were political back then. American Indian Movement. Alcatraz, Wounded Knee. There was serious shit in the wind, those days. Revolution. I was Métis but I could spout the rhetoric with the rest, power to the people, all that nonsense. But when the trouble with Red Max Novak came up, I found out real quick where my place was.”
“How do you mean?”
“I was strictly the hired help. They offered me five thousand bucks to sneak that dirtbag egomaniac across the big ice into Canada. Five grand was a lot of bread in those days, but they had no idea what they were asking. Even with a snowmobile, it’s more than a hundred miles across territory rougher than the back of the moon, and just as empty.”
“But it can be done,” Puck offered.
“Sure it can. My people have been crossing that lake for ten thousand years. For five grand I would’ve carried Max Novak across on my back whistlin’ Dixie all the way.”
“Yeah?” Shea said. “And what would you do for an extra ten grand?”
“Ah, so you heard about that part.” Roanhorse nodded. “The blood money.”
“We know Joel Kennedy’s father offered you money to kill Max Novak,” Puck said bluntly. “Is that what happened?”
“Not exactly. Joel comes to me, begs me to help his friend, like we’re all buddies, revolutionary brothers, you know? Then his old man tops Joel’s offer with another ten. He asks me to do murder. For money. Like I was some kind of animal.”
“And did you?” Puck asked.
“Jesus, Pops, you just spit it out, don’t you?” Roanhorse grinned wolfishly. “Hell no, I didn’t do it. I’m not a damn savage. I’m Métis, Cree Nation. The first Americans. Besides that, Max Novak was one desperate sonofabitch, paranoid as hell. He was packing a gun and I wasn’t. I figured earning the five for getting him to Canada would be money enough.”
“What happened?” Sara asked.
“The big ice is treacherous that early. Floes shift, ice bridges collapse. One wrong step can drop you into a hundred feet of water so cold you sink like a rock. And we had to travel by night, no lights. With a snowmobile, I figured we could make it in two, three days. But the trip was even rougher than I expected.”
“Let me guess,” Puck said. “Poor Max had an accident?”
“You’ve got it exactly backwards, Pops. I’m the one who took the fall. Dropped a runner through an air pocket, dumped the damn snow machine. We went flyin’ across the ice, which was lucky because the snowmobile broke through the ice, disappeared in half a second, leavin’ us stranded about halfway across.”
“How far out?” Puck asked.
“Maybe fifty miles, give or take. No way to be sure. And I was in rough shape. That damn machine rolled on my leg, broke it. Tough luck, Max says. But since the revolution was more important than either of us and I obviously couldn’t keep up, he’d have to leave me. Which he damn well did. Pulled his gun on me, took my compass, took the water and food from my backpack, then headed north on his own.”
“Do you know what happened to him?” Sara asked.
“Lady, I had other things to worry about, like dragging my ass across fifty miles of ice on one leg with no water and no compass. The only break I got, other than my leg, was a clear sky so I could navigate by night. From the stars, I knew I was closer to the Upper Peninsula than Canada, so I turned west. Crawled four days, maybe more, I lost track. A trapper found me. An Odawa. I stayed with his family a few months. Healed up.”
“And Novak?” Sara asked.
“Yeah, that’s really the bottom line for you people, isn’t it? What happened to the great Red Max? Truth is, I’m not sure. I know they claim that was him at the press conference later that spring, but...”
“But?” Shea prompted.
“Even with food and water, it was a damned long hike across that ice.”
“You made it.” Puck pointed out.
“I’m Métis.” Roanhorse shrugged. “Max Novak was a city boy, didn’t know squat about surviving on that ice. He should have thought of that before he left me to die. My guess is, he likely drowned or froze to death the same night he ditched me. But the God’s truth is, I don’t know what happened to him. And don’t much care. Screw Max Novak. And the rest of you, too.”
“Interesting story,” Puck said, “but you left out the part where you came back. And collected Kennedy’s blood money.”
“You’re right, I did. But not for killing Max Novak,” Roanhorse said grimly, peeling off his gloves. To reveal blunt paws with stumps in place of fingers. Sara gasped.
“Frostbite,” Puck said softly.
“I can barely hold a salt shaker, mister, or work a cell phone. That sonofabitch destroyed my hands, my whole life, really. As for Kennedy’s blood money, I earned every cent of it. I’ve said my piece, told you the flat-ass truth. Now I’m done with it, and with you.” Roanhorse shifted his ax to port arms, hefting it in his maimed paws. “Unless you people want to buy some trees, you’d best get steppin’. I’ve got work to do.”
They made the long drive back to Port Martin in silence, each of them lost in thought. Sorting out the bits and pieces of the puzzle, trying to reshape it into a new reality.
“Do you believe him?” Sara said at last.
“Yeah, I do,” Puck said. “What he said lines up with the rest of it. Besides, he’s Métis. I wouldn’t question his word lightly. What did you make of him?”
“The same,” Sara nodded. “I think Max Novak almost certainly died on that ice through his own selfish stupidity. You were right about him all along, Mr. Paquette. I was wrong, and I apologize. My God, what am I going to tell the council?”
“How about nothing?” Shea offered. “We’ve heard some interesting stories, but we don’t actually
“We know Red Max escaped by bribery, not daring.”
“But the important thing is, he
“But the tunnel—”
“Leave the tunnel to us,” Shea said. “The place is so overbuilt it’s practically a fortress. We can brace the beams and take a short section out. Tourists will be able to crawl through it without ducking their heads.”
“But Novak didn’t really go out that way.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Puck said drily. “Maybe he skinnied right under them beams. From what we’ve heard, he’d have no trouble getting low enough.”
They dropped Sara off at the city hall, watched her disappear through the double doors. But even after she’d gone, Shea left the truck in neutral, idling, drumming his fingers on the wheel.
“What?” Puck asked.
“That was a nice speech,” Dan said, shifting in his seat to face his partner. “Thanks for saving our job. Too bad it was total horse hockey.”
“How do you mean?”
“Max Novak died on that ice, but it was no accident. Old Kennedy sent him out there with a Métis dope dealer, and promised that dealer a lot of money to get rid of him. Max dies, the Métis collects the blood money. Do the math. You don’t need Ellery Queen to figure out what happened.”
“You think Roanhorse murdered Max out there?”
“Don’t you?”
“I... did, at first. Except for one thing. Back when I was loggin’, I saw guys lose fingers and toes to frostbite. Knew a fella once who passed out drunk in an alley. Froze both ears and half his nose off. Had to wear a phony rubber nose after, made him look like Bozo the Clown. Pitiful damn sight.”
“What’s your point?”
“Frostbite’s an ugly injury, like being chewed up by a Rottweiler. A guy losing all ten fingertips? Each one lopped at the first joint, neat and even? That’s something I’ve never seen. Have you?”
Shea started to answer, then closed his mouth again. Getting it.
“Sweet Jesus,” he said softly. “Novak wore a mask in Toronto to conceal his plastic surgery. But maybe they remodeled more than his face. What the hell happened out there?”
“Probably what Roanhorse told us, or something close to it. The snowmobile cracked up, the Métis got bad hurt, and Max left him to die. Or maybe the Métis tried to earn his money and came out second best. Either way, I think Novak was the one who made it off the ice, minus some fingertips. And realized they were his ticket home. As Red Max Novak, he’d be running the rest of his life. But with plastic surgery, he could cash in the rest of his fingertips and come back as Bobby Roanhorse, a drifter with no family. He waited for things to cool down, came back to collect his blood money, and stayed on in the last place they’d look for him. Hiding in plain sight.”
“You think that Métis might really be Red Max?”
“I honestly don’t know. Don’t even know how you could prove it now. Certainly not by fingerprints. And after all this time, I’m not sure it matters which one of those boys came off the ice. One was a murderer, the other meant to be, and the survivor’s serving a life sentence, hiding out in that backwoods shack. And he can’t pick up a salt shaker or manage a cell phone. If that ain’t justice, sonny, it comes damn close.”
“Either way, he’s a murderer, and like the man said, there’s no statute of limitations on that.”
“You’re right. And back in the day, it would have been an easy call. I hated hippies and radicals like Red Max for what they did to my country, and to my nephew. But nobody involved in the breakout really got away with anything. It destroyed some, and still haunts the others after all these years. Even if we knew for certain what happened, and we don’t, I don’t see the point in tearing those old wounds open again. The truth is, a jail’s a perfect monument to those times. Because some people will never be free of them. So let’s do what they hired us to do, Danny. Build their damned memorial.”
“To Red Max?”
“Hell no,” Puck said flatly. “To Nineteen Sixty-Nine Main Street. To the Flower Children and my nephew. And the Days of Rage.”
Work on the rejuvenated civic building raced on through the fall, taking on a small-town rhythm of its own. The crew began attending local football games on Friday nights and hosting walk-throughs for grade-school kids. For many, it was the first time they’d seen manual laborers up close, men wielding hammers, rivet guns, and power saws with skill and great gusto.
The job was still a lightning rod for controversy, though. While remodeling the basement cells, Maph Rochon had a flash of inspiration. Using the photo of Red Max as a template, he reshaped scrap bars of cast iron to form a larger than life outline of an AK-47 assault rifle, raised in the air.
Sara loved the elegant simplicity of the symbol, but when she suggested adopting it as the 1969 Main Street logo, it set off another ferocious debate at a city council meeting, complete with shouted threats and curses. And reams of free publicity.
In the end, the outrageous symbol was adopted by a single vote, and the mayor stormed out of the hall in a huff.
By late October, the lease list was at full occupancy, with tenants clamoring to move in, desperate to cash in on the Christmas rush.
Off the record, Sara met with the council’s planning committee and told them about the tunnel, and what had come to light about it. They thanked her politely for her efforts, then voted to continue on with the historical facts in evidence. Verities like photographs, police reports, and news stories far outweighed the ramblings of a disgraced alcoholic.
When a legend plays better than the truth, go with the legend every time.
Swamped with the bull-work of a major reconstruction job, neither Shea nor Puck ever discussed that day at the tree farm. Or what it meant.
But as the project moved into its final phases, Puck felt a leaden weight gradually lifting from his spirit. He’d expected to hate every minute of this job, but seeing it through, seeing the bogus cell display and the posters of a ranting Red Max Novak every single day seemed to slowly drain away his resentment. Sometimes, familiarity only breeds... familiarity.
The final days of the project swept down on them like an avalanche. Shea, Puck, and the crew were putting in twenty-hour days, desperately wrapping up the last details: wiring and Internet hookups, smoke alarms and emergency lighting; custom-building shop displays and shelving that were being stocked with merchandise even as they worked.
They finished the job on Thanksgiving Day, three weeks ahead of schedule, and well under budget. With luck they’d be home and dry for Christmas.
The grand opening of the 1969 Main Street Mall was almost as wild as the original ’69, minus the bombings, of course. The heated press coverage had generated national interest. The building wasn’t just a commercial development anymore, it had become a genuine Happening.
Eager shoppers began gathering at the entrance a full four hours early. Many were decked out in period garb — headbands, beads, and bell-bottoms. With flowers in their hair.
There were protestors, too, but they weren’t wild-haired student radicals. Instead, they were throwbacks from Puck’s side of the culture war, army veterans and their blue-collar sympathizers, wearing faded camouflage jackets or combat boots. Some carried homemade signs that read
They’d been America’s mainstream once, her muscle and spine. Now they were relegated to the far side of the street, a ragged line of graying soldiers shambling along under the watchful eyes of the police. Totally irrelevant now. The librarian was right. The revolution was over, the insurgents had won the battle for hearts and minds, without firing a single shot.
Up in the old courtroom, which was now a stylish atrium ringed with smart shops, Sara Jacoby spoke at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for 1969 Main Street. She thanked the mayor and city council for their support, and the firm of Shea and Paquette for a job well done. Danny made a brief speech, too, but as he wrapped up his remarks, Puck ducked out of the room. Afraid he might be called on next.
He rode the new escalator down to the street, marveling at the festive crowds in period costumes, savoring the sweet aroma of déja vu that hung in the air, thick as incense.
Suddenly, he felt a chill. An icy premonition. A reflex left over from Korea kicked in. He knew someone’s eyes were on him. He felt it strongly as a physical touch.
Easing into the shadow of the doorway, he looked out over the crush of shoppers, carefully scanning each face. And spotted the Métis, watching him from across the street. Looking ordinary and unremarkable, in grungy work clothes and his unkempt mane of shaggy hair.
Roanhorse was standing near the line of protesting vets, but clearly didn’t belong with them. Even surrounded by that crowd, he seemed more alone than any man Puck had ever known.
His eyes were unreadable at that distance, but there was no mistaking that face anymore. Puck knew every essential line of it. He’d been seeing it every day for months on posters and in photos.
And the Métis recognized Puck as well. Because he slowly closed his crippled hand into a fist, then raised it in a long-forgotten salute. Power to the People. One lone fist held high above that crowd.
Only for a moment. Then it was gone. Or maybe Puck just lost sight of it. His eyes misted, blurring the scene. But he raised his own fist anyway, returning the salute, one warrior to another, across a milling sea of shoppers. And forty years.
He held his fist aloft for a long time, but there was no reply. And as he slowly lowered his arm, he realized Sara Jacoby had moved up beside him, eying him curiously.
“Who was that?” she asked, scanning the crowd.
“Nobody,” Puck said. “Not anymore.”
Password
by Michael Z. Lewin
“You must tell him, Charlie,” Mallory said.
“Tell me what?” Bertie Banfield’s bulky body slumped. He was not a young man and the loss of posture made him look even older. “It isn’t about Laura, is it?” He squinted uncertainly. “How could you know something about Laura already?”
“It’s nothing about the case,” Charlie said. “And it’s nothing, really, Bertie. Nothing that need concern you.”
“It may be work to you two, but to me it’s my life, my peace of mind.” Banfield rocked slowly from one foot to the other.
“Then there really is something you should know,” Mallory said.
“Oh dear.”
“It’s just that
Banfield’s wrinkles clustered together to make his face look like a prune — apart from the bushy eyebrows. He tried to fathom what Mallory was getting at. “
“When she says we don’t do it...” Charlie began.
“
“What do you
“Of course,” Charlie said. “It’s just—”
“
“Why the hell not?” Bertie Banfield’s career, success, and fortune had been built on finding the right people to do the jobs he couldn’t do himself. He paid them well and worked them hard and everybody thrived. But to be resisted, and by people he’d often hired in the past... It made no sense to him.
“Charlie and I are rearranging our lives,” Mallory said. “That means I will not be working for Hayden Investigative Services anymore. He should have told you right off.”
Banfield gave his head several small sharp shakes. “Rearranging lives? It sounds like so much airy-fairy blather to me. Perhaps I’ve missed something, but I’ve got a problem here. I’m
“
“Multitasking,” Mallory said. She took Banfield’s elbow. “Multitasking is the word you were looking for a moment ago, Bertie.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“Give Charlie and me a minute to talk in the next room, okay?”
“Of course.” Banfield nodded.
As Mallory and Charlie walked toward the piano room, they heard Bertie Banfield talking to himself: “Multitasking. Multitasking. Multi-bloody-tasking.”
Once the door closed, Mallory said quietly, “What is he
“He’s made that pretty clear. Trying to get us to find his wife.” Charlie shrugged.
“He never comes
“Maybe he misplaced the phone number.”
Mallory shook her head slowly.
“You
“I also see how much older and more confused he is these days, poor bugger.”
“So let’s help him. It’s not like you’re doing anything else.”
“You have no idea what else I may or may not be doing, Charles.”
“Sorry. Sorry.” Charlie Hayden spread his hands. “I’m just aware that you’re around the house a lot and nobody seems to be coming to see you.”
“I repeat, you have no bloody idea what I may or may not be doing.”
“Well, whatever you’re spending your time on, are you making money at it?”
“Why? Do you need a loan?”
“My only point is that money coming in means it can go out again, and Bertie’s a solid paying customer.”
“And he’s a sweet old bear and I could cuddle him. But Hayden Investigative Services is not what I do anymore.”
“But it’s not like you’ve forgotten how.”
“Take the case on yourself.”
“And I will.” Charlie Hayden sighed. “But especially when it’s a domestic problem we’ve always worked best as a team.”
“The season’s over and the league has disbanded.”
“I only thought you might make an exception for Bertie because this is bound to be a
“Good luck.”
“Laura Banfield’s seventy-four,” Charlie said. “Bertie’s a few groats short of a guinea these days. Maybe Laura’s the same. Or worse. She could be holed up somewhere, confused, lonely, just waiting to be found and brought home. Chances are I will be able to find her, sure. How lost can an old lady get on her own? But she’ll be less frightened if you’re there to talk to her woman-to-woman.”
“Have you ever
“Well, no.”
“Any reason to doubt her mental acuity?”
“No, but why
“I’m not going to work on the case with you, Charles.”
“Despite the fact that we’ve got an old guy in the hallway who doesn’t understand why people who have helped him in the past won’t help him now?”
“I’m sure you’ll be able to explain it to him. Try talking man-to-man.”
When the Haydens returned to the hallway, Bertie Banfield was not to be seen. “Bertie?” Charlie called. “
“Yo,” came a voice from beyond the staircase.
They heard something creak.
“Was that him or a chair?” Charlie said. Then Banfield came into view. “Bertie. There you are.”
“If it’s a matter of money, Mallory,” Banfield said.
“It’s
“I’ll pay you more. Whatever it takes.” Banfield stopped in front of them. “It was the only chair I could find.” He nodded to where he had come from. “Sorry if I’ve strained an antique.”
“We shouldn’t have left you standing,” Mallory said. “I apologize.”
“So what is all this about?” Bertie Banfield looked from one of the Haydens to the other. “Something about not doing it anymore?
“We’re not running the agency the way we used to, Bertie,” Mallory said.
“But you’re good at it.” Banfield looked confused. He shook his head. “Chaps shouldn’t quit at what they’re good at.” He looked at Charlie.
“I’m with you on this one, Bertie,” Charlie said.
“Well
Banfield spread his hands. “So, finding my Laura. Will you help, or not?”
“Charlie will,” Mallory said. “I won’t.”
“You could hardly have been ruder,” Charlie said after he got back from walking Bertie Banfield to his waiting car and chauffeur.
“I was not rude to Bertie,” Mallory said.
“He comes here, for the
“Turning a bloke down constitutes rudeness, does it? Time to reread your Germaine Greer, dear.”
“I’m telling you how he
“So you reckon Bertie cheated on his wife too?”
“I did
She shrugged. It was his story and he was sticking to it. But... “What base you did or didn’t get to is not the issue. You played the game — the
“You
“Not anymore.”
When he said nothing to this, Mallory added, “Poor baby. Doesn’t understand when things don’t go the way he wants them to.”
“I remember days when you were considered to be a warm person,” Charlie said.
“Well, I’m off to warm up in my office.” Mallory turned to the stairs. “What are you up to now?”
“Finding Laura Banfield on my own. What else?”
The facts of the case as Bertie Banfield had explained them to Charlie on the phone were simple enough. On Monday morning Laura Banfield left their house at about nine-thirty. Penelope Halfpenny, the cook-housekeeper, said that she saw Mrs. Banfield leave carrying a small bag, like an overnight case. Mrs. Banfield had said, “I’m off out now, Penny.” She had not been seen or heard from since.
Monday night at about ten, Banfield had called the police. A man he described as “a pleasant enough chap named Orrel” came to the house. A constable, or maybe a sergeant. Some rank like that. Nobody top-flight. But civil, except for his refusal to commit either himself or the police force to
Orrel had asked a number of questions, like whether Laura Banfield was mentally incompetent.
She was not.
Did she need medication on a daily basis that she wouldn’t have access to elsewhere?
No.
Was there any reason to believe that she would be a danger to herself?
No.
A danger to others?
Preposterous.
Had Banfield contacted members of his wife’s family?
The only “family” was their fifty-year-old son and no one had heard from
Friends?
Who knew who his wife classed as a friend these days? He knew of no one she would confide in. Or spend a night with, voluntarily. Liked her own bed, did Laura.
Constable — or Sergeant — Orrel had suggested that ringing his wife’s acquaintances would be a good place for Bertie Banfield to begin. And at that point it was obvious to the abandoned husband that he was on his own.
On his own for Banfield meant hiring help. In this case, call Hayden Investigative Services.
But these details were not what occupied Charles Hayden when he visited Banfield House at noon on Tuesday. “There’s a bit of a problem with Mallory, Bertie,” Charlie had confided. “But if you wouldn’t mind coming to our house yourself, maybe we can get past it.”
Bertie Banfield didn’t understand what the problem with Mallory was, or why a visit to the Haydens’ home and office would help. But he was very tired from worrying about his wife, so he just agreed and called for his car. He’d known Charlie from when he was a lad — and his father before him. So if Charlie said it might help find Laura if he came out, then he’d come out. Charlie wouldn’t muck him about.
When Charlie entered Banfield’s study at four-thirty Tuesday afternoon, he saw that being back in familiar and comfortable surroundings had restored the old man to some extent. “So,” Banfield asked, “has this damn foolishness of your wife’s been sorted, then?”
“Not yet, I’m afraid. I’m sorry to have asked you to appear in person but it really was the best chance to get her on board.”
Banfield sighed and shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you, Charles. You and your missus have always worked well as a team.”
“I know that, Bertie. And I haven’t given up.”
“What
“I promise you, Bertie, I will give your case my full attention and I
“Dead? Or alive?”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Perhaps not.” Another sigh. “So are you and Mallory splitting up?”
Charlie was surprised that Banfield had asked such a thing. But in response to the question he just spread his hands to say, I don’t know. At this point he felt himself to be the victim of something that he couldn’t control. However much his thoughtless actions had triggered the situation. And perhaps his general thoughtlessness over the years. But if Mal had been unhappy with things for so bloody long, she should have
“You shouldn’t let that one go without a fight,” Bertie Banfield said. “Jolly clever, your girl.”
“I know. But look, about Laura...”
Banfield sighed deeply. “Laura, oh Laura. I don’t know
“How would
“I have to ask, Bertie, did the two of you have a fight of some kind?”
“Not a fight. No, of course not.”
“But words?”
“We did have a disagreement. But it’s one we’ve had before.”
“About?”
“Winston — and don’t say ‘Churchill?’ just to be clever. You know damned well who Winston is.”
The Banfields’ only child. “Have you heard from him?” Charlie asked.
“After all this time? Certainly not. And if I had I wouldn’t bloody answer.”
Charlie knew little more than that Winston Banfield had rejected his parents’ lifestyle and values. But just as he was about to request a brief review of what had so alienated father and son, Banfield said, “Don’t ask. Blood’s blood and all that, but there are also times to cut your losses.”
Mallory would agree with
“As far as I’m concerned it
If Banfield had hired them to find Winston, chances were high that he and Mallory could have located him years ago, Charlie thought. But rather than persist with the subject of the missing son, he returned to the missing mother. “Have you looked in Laura’s effects for clues?”
“That’s your job, isn’t it?”
Delegation of tasks was all well and good, but if your wife is missing, doing a little looking for yourself seems an obvious step. Still. “So you don’t know for certain that she didn’t leave you a note.”
“If she’d left a note, she’d have put it where I’d find it, not in her knickers drawer. Mind you, I’m not so sure Laura even remembers how to write by hand nowadays.”
Charlie frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s Internet this and Internet that. She spends all day at her bloody computer.”
“Ah, she’s one of those.”
“Yours is too, I expect.”
“Mallory is technologically pretty savvy, yes.”
“And there’s that chappie you keep in the basement too, isn’t there? I’d have thought if he never goes out he’d be good at the Internet and all that kind of thing.”
The Haydens’ huge house had basement rooms in which a reclusive lodger lived. “Spike is an old friend,” Charlie said. “And he came with the property. All very complicated.”
“Your father, rest his soul, never liked things simple,” Banfield said.
“Tell me about it.”
“But this Internet lark... Must be ideal for someone who never goes out.”
“Yes, Spike is a much better techie than either Mallory or I.”
“And he’s good on the phone too, isn’t he?” Banfield looked like he was remembering something. “Lovely voice, as I recall. Helps on your cases sometimes.”
“I’m impressed you remember,” Charlie said truthfully.
“I’ve got a few candles burning yet.”
“Look, Bertie, I’ll need to go through the parts of the house where Laura may have left a diary, or letters, or...” Charlie shrugged inclusively.
“Look anywhere you bloody like. Anything else?”
“She left yesterday morning?”
“Yes.”
“Did anything else happen before she left?”
“Meaning?”
“Did she get a phone call? Or something in the post?”
“The post doesn’t come till nearly noon these days. But I have no way of knowing about a phone call. She has one of those... those little... whatdoyoucallthems...” He waved a hand. “They vibrate...”
“Mobiles.”
“Mobile phones, that’s it. Take bloody pictures, too. Are they mobile cameras, now?”
“Did the disagreement about Winston happen in the morning?”
“The night before. Sunday, not long after that God-
“What thing?”
But Banfield, tiring, had lost another word. He waved a hand around. “Something... something to do with the queen.”
“The
Mallory loved it, of course.
But Bertie Banfield was looking in some papers on his desk. From his “Hah!” it seemed that he had found what he was looking for. He withdrew a television guide from the stack. He flipped pages. “Bloody hell. How could I forget
“What?” Charlie asked.
“That wretched soap opera.
Before heading for Laura Banfield’s part of the house, Charlie sought out Halfpenny, the cook-housekeeper. He found her in the kitchen. Sunlight was pouring through French windows, and she was sitting in it in one chair with her feet up on another. A cup of tea by her side, she was reading a newspaper and smoking a cheroot. Slowly she turned to take him in. “Yes?”
“I’m Charles Hayden. Mr. Banfield has asked me to look into his wife’s disappearance.”
“That must be tough.”
Charlie wasn’t sure what she meant. “Excuse me?”
“Looking
“Penelope, isn’t it?”
“Ms. Halfpenny to strangers. Even the cute ones.”
“I hope that finding Mrs. Banfield will turn out to be a practical matter and not an existential one.”
“That would make it easier for you, I daresay. Though not necessarily more interesting.”
“I’m told you were the last person Mrs. Banfield spoke to before she left on Monday.”
“I believe I was.”
“Do you have any idea where she might have been going?”
Ms. Halfpenny took a puff on her cigar as she considered the question. “Hmmm,
“I’d be grateful if we could bypass a tour of semantic options, Ms. Halfpenny. Before Mrs. Banfield left, did she speak to you — either verbally or non-verbally — in a way that suggested where she might be intending to go?”
“I’ll give you a break, but only because you’re pretty,” Ms. Halfpenny said. “No, I don’t have a clue where the old lady went or where she might be.”
“Is she ever mentally vague?”
“That one? Hah! She knows exactly what she wants and when she wants it.”
“Do you get along with her?”
“Well enough. But I keep myself to myself.”
“You’ve been here a long time?”
“Forever. Are you married?”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s not a difficult question, is it? And I’ve been answering yours.”
“Okay. Yes, I’m married.”
“Pity. But I’ll bet it’s not been plain sailing. I can see that in your eyes.”
Despite himself, he was startled by the observation.
Ms. Halfpenny smiled. “I’m right, yes? And I bet it was triggered by something you did.”
“They never are. But I’m a good listener, you know, when I want to be.” She gave him a toothy grin.
“So am I, Ms. Halfpenny. Now,
“Please,” she said. “Call me Penny.” She put her feet on the floor and patted the chair they’d been on. “Sit down. Make yourself at home. Cup of tea?”
When Charlie got upstairs he found that Laura Banfield’s suite included a bedroom, a bathroom, a dressing room, and a study. He headed for the study, on the grounds that it was the only room he had a chance of being comfortable in. The others would be full of
The study was tidy and well-organised, which didn’t surprise him given Ms. Halfpenny’s — Penny’s — description of the lady of the house. The furniture was unexpectedly modern. Instead of the feminine equivalent of her husband’s heavy mahogany desk, Laura Banfield had an L-shaped computer table built from light wood and steel. Matching units bore an array of office machines that would put many a small business to shame. Mind you, Bertie Banfield
Which made it all the more surprising to find a laptop in the centre of the main table. Wherever Laura Banfield had gone, she’d
A superficial examination of the drawers and surfaces in the room didn’t yield anything interesting, so Charlie opened the computer. It took the machine a few moments to boot itself up. Then Charlie moved the cursor to the e-mail program and clicked. But before the machine would display Laura Banfield’s e-mails, it asked him to enter a password.
Charlie leaned back in the chair.
Wasn’t it surprising that Laura Banfield felt the need to protect her mail with a password? Nothing he’d heard suggested that she took the computer out to places where it would be left unguarded. Which maybe only proved that he hadn’t been told about such things.
But was she, in fact, restricting access by people in the house? Defending her privacy against her increasingly doddery husband? Age was no longer the guarantee of technical incapacity that it used to be, but forgetfulness was.
Would anything be going on in Laura Banfield’s e-mails that would interest the philosophically inclined Halfpenny? Charlie had stayed twenty minutes with her and shared a pot of tea. He’d even let her pat his knee a few times, but nothing she said suggested she had any interest in or intimate knowledge of either of her employers’ lives.
So was something else going on with this password thing?
Someone new to the Haydens’ house might think it a place where only they lived, and
But there was no one resident in the Banfields’ basement. And their child, Winston, wasn’t a factor if they didn’t even know where he was.
Charlie looked at the screen in front of him. That a mature, confident woman, living where she had lived for decades, felt the need to defend her privacy with a password spoke of secrets and complications.
Of course, any marriage is incomprehensible to outsiders, perhaps in direct proportion to its duration. And Bertie and Laura Banfield had endured. She was, after all, a
How many men of Bertie’s age were first husbands, if it came to that?
And then another thought occurred to Charlie. If there was no evident reason Laura Banfield would need a password routinely, then perhaps she didn’t. Perhaps the password defence was new.
Might it have been put there
It was a tenuous chain of connections, but it
Okay, just
In the password box Charlie typed “Winston” and hit Enter. The screen came to life and Laura Banfield’s e-mails were revealed. Bingo! He punched the air. It was a
But then, to Charlie’s astonishment, he saw that the last e-mail Laura Banfield had received, on Sunday night at twenty-two minutes past nine, was from Mallory Hayden.
Charlie stared at the line on the computer for seconds. Then he opened it. The message read, “Confirmed for ten. M.”
Mallory was making chili and enjoying herself.
These days she didn’t make it exactly the way her mother had made it, back in Kokomo, Indiana. Mallory used fresh chili peppers where Mom always used chili powder. And she used extra-lean minced beef. But most of the rest was the same and, in any case, making chili always reminded Mallory of childhood and home and comfort.
Who’d ever have thought back then that she’d end up in
And comfort was not the only pleasure she was getting from her cooking this day. It was particularly satisfying to feel free to put a
She could hear his bleatings now. “What is the point of making it so hot you can’t taste the other flavours?” “Well,
Or he would say, “What am
And it
Life was pretty good, too. And it would be getting better.
She heard the front door slam. Was it a
Clump clump clump. Oh yes... He’d worked it out, all right. She glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even six yet. And the chili was yet to simmer. A couple of hours would make it
Mallory scooped the sliced and diced chili peppers into the pot. No going back now.
She reached for the red wine. Most of it would go into the chili — another ingredient that her mother didn’t use. But first she poured two glasses. Holding one, she turned to face the kitchen door. She leaned against the counter and sipped.
The kitchen door slammed against the wall as Charlie pushed it open. “How dare you?” he raged. “How
“Care for some wine?” Mallory said. “I’m cooking but I’ll be able to join you for a chat in a few minutes.” She didn’t say, “Who’s a clever boy?” but she thought it.
“It’s very simple,” Mallory said once she joined Charlie in the conservatory that overlooked the garden in the back.
Although his glass was nearly empty Charlie did not seem much less agitated than when he came in. “It doesn’t seem
“No?”
“You’re working, somehow, for Laura Banfield, are you not?”
“Well, yes.”
“You’ve taken on a case from one of our regular clients without the grace, business propriety, or even basic courtesy to
“Only in a way.” She refilled his glass from a freshly opened bottle. “Do you like this? Montepulciano D’Abruzzo. It’s country-rough, but I like it.”
“What on earth are you playing at, Mal? Our private life is one thing, but business is
“Bertie Banfield is not my client.”
“Of course he is.”
“He is
“Whose name is on the checks?”
“
“Same thing.”
“It is
“When did she hire you?”
“Before we get into details, I’ll need you to confirm that this is privileged information.”
“Oh, for
“Off the record or no record at all. I need you to promise — one of the serious promises, not the ones like your wedding vows — that you will not tell
“He just wants to know where his wife is,” Charlie said, ignoring the personal dig.
Mallory sipped from her wineglass. “I’d never cook with a wine I wouldn’t drink.”
“All
“Decades of joy and delight,” Mallory said.
“We have had our moments.” He lifted his glass and saluted her. Mallory nodded and they both drank.
Then she said, “Laura Banfield wants her son to be reconciled with his father.”
“Winston? I thought he was lost in the mists of rebellion against his parents and hadn’t been heard of for years.” He raised his eyebrows. “Decades.”
“Laura hired me to find him.”
“The hell you say. When was that?”
“About three weeks ago.”
“Why you?”
“You were out.” She tilted her head in a way that was as good as saying, with
Charlie said, “And you kept this from me for
Mallory shrugged.
“And you managed to find Winston?”
“People leave tracks. And he wasn’t really hiding. Just denying. Finding him was not the hard part.”
“Then what was?”
“Setting up circumstances in which father and son will be willing to meet, forgive, and form some kind of bond.”
“You’re not talking about some New-Agey rebirthing thing, are you? Bertie wrapped up in a blanket with his grown-up son while you pour a bottle of Evian on them to recreate their respective mothers’ waters breaking?”
“Calm yourself, Charles.”
“What, then?”
“It hasn’t been easy. Winston is not the kind of man a committed capitalist like Bertie Banfield would warm to naturally or understand. Winston is highly political, anarchistic, and anti-materialistic.”
“A terrorist?” Charlie frowned. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be Bushy.”
“Winston’s a militant hippie. He lives on a communal site — not far from here, in fact — in Wales. But he shares his father’s bull-headed stubbornness — and that’s Laura’s phrase, not mine.”
“So establishment-father and anarchist-son are chalk and cheese. Why try to mix them
“Because Bertie is running out of time.”
“Is he ill? He never said.”
“He’s running out of time in which he’ll be able to
“Chili. Great, Mal,” Spike said. “Thanks for bringing some down.”
Spike, the son of Charlie’s father’s gardener, had grown up in the house and alongside Charlie. In Charlie’s father’s will it was stipulated that Spike could live in the basement for as long as he wanted, but the provision was meant to keep Spike from ever feeling
With Spike’s telephone and Internet skills, the disease wasn’t much of an obstacle to most elements of ordinary life. He was happy to receive visitors and a covered area outside the basement door meant that post, packages, and takeaway food could be left easily. Over the twenty years during which Mallory had lived in the house, Spike had also become a help as Hayden Investigative Services grew and blossomed.
“We do have a favour to ask,” Mallory said.
“Ask away.” Spike took a chopstick that happened to be out on his oak table and dipped it in. His face lit up through his bushy beard. “Mmmmm, it’s got zing this time.”
“A couple of favours, actually. It has to do with a case.”
“Take a pew, guys.” Spike had an actual pew for visitors. “Not something to do with your splitting up, I hope,” he said as they sat. “I don’t intend to make that any easier for you.”
“It’s nothing to do with dissolution of our various unions. In fact it’s a matter of bringing some people together.”
Spike found a soup spoon in a recess that wasn’t visible to his guests. He wiped it on his sleeve. “Fire away.”
“We need you to help end the estrangement of a father and a son.”
After swallowing a mouthful, Spike managed an “Uh-huh.”
“We need you to make a couple of phone calls for us,” Mallory said, “using your gift for imitating voices.”
Spike found a bottle of water and drank. Then he said, “I am rather good at voices,” sounding very like Charlie.
“That’s nothing like me at all,” Charlie said.
“That’s nothing like me at all,” Spike said. He and Mallory laughed. So did Charlie, eventually.
“The script will be roughly the same for each call. You’ll tell the son that the father is ill. The son already knows it, because his mother’s told him, but he’s too stubborn to do anything unless he believes that his father wants to make peace before it’s too late. And you’ll also tell the father that the son is ill. Such a terrible tragedy in one so young. Well, not
“Won’t the father find out he’s been lied to?”
“Not really — because the father
“Mmm,” Spike said.
Mallory took a CD from her bag. “The client has recorded samples of each of the voices for you. Track one is Dad, track two is Sonny. The phone numbers and scripts are here too.”
“I get to eat first, though, right? While it’s hot?”
“Oh yes,” Mallory said. “While it’s hot.”
“You guys staying? Cup of tea?”
“I will, thanks, in case you have any questions,” Mallory said. “Charlie has a visit to make.” She turned to her husband. “Here’s
“Have you found her, Charlie?” Bertie Banfield said. The old man seemed agitated but excited.
“She’s ill, Bertie. That’s the problem.”
“Ill? Laura?
“She could be back tonight, Bertie. But she has a serious neurological condition.”
“Oh God. It’s not... not... what’sitsname... with the memory?”
“It’s a kind of depression.”
“Oh, that’s all right. There are pills for that.”
“It’s
Banfield frowned.
“It’s why she left,” Charlie said. “And it’s serious.”
“You
“It’s
Banfield stiffened. “That’s not a subject for discussion.”
“And from her grandchildren.”
Banfield’s silence confirmed that this was the first he’d heard of the fact that he was a grandfather. “What
“There are two. A boy three and a girl who’ll have her first birthday in a couple of weeks.”
“Winston’s a hypocrite now too, is he?” Banfield shook his head. “He swore he’d
“Winston’s changed, Bertie. And, maybe more to the point, Winston isn’t married to the same woman now. Tulip, the new wife, wanted children.”
Banfield looked on in silence. His face was wrinkled in thought.
“Laura has stuck with you all these years, Bertie.”
Banfield continued to stare.
“But she says she will
“Space?”
“In your life. She wants them to visit. She wants you to be involved with them. She wants you to be at Zinnia’s birthday party.”
“Why
“Winston’s not well, Bertie.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know exactly. I don’t know if he knows exactly either. There’s not much access to medical treatment out where he lives. Not conventional medical treatment.”
Banfield sighed. Then sighed again. “Even if I were willing, Winston’s not in my control. He would
“Suppose he did, though, Bertie.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“Suppose he’s changed enough to make the first move. Suppose I could get him to ring you.”
“Get him to
“Suppose I could get him to ring you tonight. Suppose he were willing to agree to some kind of peace. Wouldn’t you do that? For Laura’s sake? And because that’s the only way you’re going to get her to come back home?”
“We should do something for Spike,” Mallory said two nights later as she and Charlie sat in their belvedere sipping wine and watching the sun go down.
“
“I did more work for Laura than you did for Bertie, so naturally I earned more than you.” She held out her glass.
“So Spike’s gift will be paid for proportionally?” He filled her glass and topped up his own. “Of course, if we were a team, we’d split it fifty-fifty.”
She sipped. “Nothing’s black and white, Charles. Any more than that sunset is.”
For a few moments they admired the sky and enjoyed the wine. Whatever the problems in their lives, they could be a whole lot worse off.
“What are you saying?” Charlie asked.
“I
“What? A ladies’ detective agency?”
“A talent agency. It’ll be mostly for young musicians, but also for actors and other talent, if I find I can help them.”
“Starting from scratch? By yourself.”
“Yes.”
“We’re neither of us ever going to go hungry. You don’t
Charlie said nothing.
“Although of course you will.”
“Of course.” Charlie didn’t feel he
“And since that’s the case, I am willing to consider doing
“Really?”
“But nothing that’s boring or whoring. I won’t serve papers or do endless surveillance, and I won’t try to flog security systems to paranoid haves who are petrified of the world’s have-nots.”
“But when things come up that are more complicated, less routine?” And more girlie, he thought. But he decided not to say it.
“I’ll consider anything interesting, if I’m not too busy. But I’m past selling my time just so I can wear a Rolex rather than a Swatch. Beyond a certain amount, money costs too much.”
They both drank.
Mallory said, “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just saying what
“Carp?
“Don’t go all koi.”
After a moment, Charlie said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay then.” She held out her wineglass. “Unless or until you become too insufferable.”
“You already are insufferable. Good thing I’m such a flexible, forgiving soul. You could learn a lot from me, you know.” Charlie clinked his glass against Mallory’s. “To the future. May it be interesting.”
The Ministry of Whisky
by Val McDermid
There’s two things everybody knows about John French the minister — he likes a dram, and his wife won’t have a drop in the house. That’s why he spends as much time as possible out and about, making himself at home with his parishioners. Even the strictest teetotallers, the dry alcoholics, and the three English families understand they have to keep whisky in the house for the minister. Newcomers to the parish who don’t know the drill get their first visit seasoned with a heavy-handed version of the wedding at Cana, complete with knowing winks and exaggerated gestures. If they don’t get the message, Mr. French mentions in passing to one of the kirk elders that such-and-such a body doesn’t seem to have much grasp of the rules of hospitality. Then the elder has a quiet word ahead of the minister’s next pastoral visit. Trust me, most folks don’t have to be told twice.
Don’t get me wrong. Mr. French is no drunk. I’m born and bred in Inverbiggin and I’ve never seen him the worse for drink. I know who the village drunks are and the minister isn’t one of them. Okay, he maybe spends his life a bit blurred round the edges, but you can hardly blame him for that. We all need something to help us deal with life’s little disappointments. And God knows, the minister has that to do 24/7. Because I don’t think for a minute that Inverbiggin is where he planned to end up.
I’ve seen folks’ wedding photos with Mr. French when he first came here. God, but he was handsome. You can still see it now even though he’s definitely past his best. Back then, though, he looked like a cross between Robert Redford and the kind of pop star your granny would approve of. A thick mane of reddish blond hair, square jaw, broad shoulders, and a gleaming row of teeth that were a lot closer to perfection than you generally saw in the backwoods of Stirlingshire back then. The looks have faded, inevitably, though he’d still give most of the men round here a run for their money. What’s more important is that he’s still a brilliant preacher. At least half his congregation are agnostic — if not downright atheist — but we all still turn up on a Sunday for the pure pleasure of listening to him. It’s better than anything you get on the telly, because it’s rooted in our community. So imagine what a catch he was back when he started out, when he was good looking and he could preach. Obviously, his natural home would have been some showpiece congregation in Glasgow or Edinburgh. The man has ex-future Moderator of the Church of Scotland written all over him.
Something obviously went badly wrong for him to end up here. Even its best friends would have to admit that Inverbiggin is one of the last stops on the road to nowhere. I don’t know what it was that he did in the dim and distant past to blot his copybook, but it can’t have been trivial for him to be sent this far into exile. Mind you, back when he arrived here thirty-odd years ago, the Church of Scotland was a lot closer to the Wee Frees than it is these days. So maybe all he did was have a hurl on the kids’ swings in the park on a Sunday when they should have been chained up. Whatever. One way or another, he must have really pissed somebody off.
I don’t know whether his wife knows the full story behind their exile, but she sure as hell knows she’s been banished. There’s no way this is her natural habitat either. She should be in some posh part of Glasgow or Edinburgh, hosting wee soirees to raise money for Darfur or Gaza. One time, and one time only, she unbent enough to speak to me at the summer fete when we got stuck together on the tombola. “He’s a good man,” she said, her eye on Mr. French as he glad-handed his way round the stalls. She gave me a look sharp as Jessie Robertson’s tongue. “He deserves to be among good people.” Her meaning was clear. And I couldn’t find it in my heart to disagree with her.
Her obvious bitterness is neutralised by the sweetness of her husband. Mr. French might have had high-flying ambitions, but having his dreams trashed hasn’t left him resentful or frustrated. It’s pretty amazing, really, but in exchange for the whisky, he’s given us compassion and comprehension. Fuelled by a succession of drams, he seems to find a way to the heart of what we all need from him. It’s not a one-way street either. The more he answers the challenge of meeting our needs, the finer the whisky that makes its way into his glass.
When he first started making his rounds, folk would pour any old rubbish. Crappy bargain blends that provoked instant indigestion, brutal supermarket own-brands that ripped the tastebuds from your tongue, evil no-name rotgut provided by somebody’s brother-in-law’s best pal that made you think you were going blind. But gradually, his Good Samaritan acts spread through the community till there was hardly a household in Inverbiggin that hadn’t been touched by them. Our way of saying thank you was to provide better drink. Quality blends, single malts, single-barrel vintages. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
See, we all find our own ways to cope with living in Inverbiggin. The minister and his wife aren’t the only ones who started out with higher hopes. Maybe it’s precisely because his own dreams were dashed that he handles our failures so well. He intervenes when other people would be too scared or too discouraged to get in the middle of things. Kids that are slipping through the cracks at school — John French grabs the bull by the horns and takes on the teachers as well as the parents. Carers doing stuff for parents and disabled kids that none of us can think about without shuddering — John French goes to bat for them and scores relief and respite.
And then there was that business with Kirsty Black. Everybody knew things were far from right between her and her man. But she’d made her bed and we were all content to let her lie on it. At least if he was taking out his rage on her, William Black was leaving other folk alone.
I must have been about twelve years old when I discovered why William Black was known as BB, a man notorious for his willingness to pick a fight with anybody about anything. “He thinks it stands for Big Bill,” my father told me after I’d had the misfortune to witness BB Black smash a man’s face to pulp outside the chip shop. “But everybody else in Inverbiggin knows it stands for Bad Bastard.” My father was no angel either, but his darkness was more devious. I got the feeling he despised BB as much for his lack of subtlety as for the violence itself.
When Kirsty lost her first baby in the fifth month of her pregnancy, we all knew by the next teatime that it had happened because BB Black had knocked her down and kicked her in the belly. We all knew because Betty McEwan, the midwife, heard it from one of the nurses at the infirmary, who apparently said you could see the mark of his boot on her belly. But Kirsty was adamant that she’d fallen getting out of the bath. So that was that. No point in calling in the police or the social services if Kirsty couldn’t manage to stick up for herself.
Wee towns like Inverbiggin are supposed to be all about community, all about looking out for each other. But we can turn a blind eye as surely as any block of flats in the big city. We all got extremely good at looking the other way when Kirsty walked by.
All except John French. He saw the bruises, he saw how Kirsty flinched when anybody spoke to her, he saw the awkward way she held herself when her ribs were bruised and cracked. He tried to persuade her to leave her man, but she was too scared. She had no place to go and by then, she had two kids. The minister suggested a refuge, but Kirsty was almost as afraid of being cast adrift among strangers as she was of William Black himself. So then Mr. French said he would talk to the Bad Bastard, to put him on notice that somebody was on to him. But Kirsty pleaded with the minister to stay out of it and he eventually gave in to her wishes.
I know all this because it came out at the trial. Kirsty wasn’t able to give evidence herself. She was catatonic by that point. But Mr. French stood in the witness box and explained to the court that Kirsty had exhibited all the signs of a woman who had been reduced to a zombielike state by violence and terror. He told them she had been determined to protect her kids. That she’d been in fear for her own life and the lives of her children that Friday night when he’d come home roaring drunk and she’d picked up the kitchen knife and thrust it up into William Black’s soft belly.
You could see the jury loved John French. They’d have taken him home and sat him on the mantelpiece just for the sheer pleasure of listening to him and looking at him. He surfed the courtroom like a man riding on the crest of a wave of righteousness rather than a wave of whisky.
The prosecution didn’t stand a chance. The jury went for the “not proven” verdict on the culpable homicide charge and Kirsty walked out of the court a free woman. It took some more work from Mr. French, but eventually her lawyers got the kids back from Social Services and she moved back home. Everybody rallied round. I suppose ignoring what had happened to Kirsty kind of guilt-tripped us all into lending a helping hand. Better late than never, the minister pointed out one Sunday when he gave us his particular take on the Good Samaritan story. He was adamant that we should open our hearts and put our faith in God.
But here’s the thing about people like John French. Like his wife said, he does deserve to be among good people. Because being ready to think the best of folk leaves you wide open to the ones that can’t wait to take advantage. And there’s one or two like that in Inverbiggin.
Take me, for example. I’ve been out of love with my husband for years. He’s a coarse, uncouth, ignorant pig. He’s never dared to lift a hand to me, but he disgusts me. Worse still, he bores the living daylights out of me. When he walks in a room, he sucks the life out of it. There is one positive thing about my husband, though. His job comes with terrific death-in-service benefits. And then there’s that lovely big insurance policy. Frankly, it’ll be worth every penny I’ve spent on rare malts and exclusive single-barrel vintages.
Because I’ve been planting the seeds for a while now. I used to do amateur dramatics years ago. I can play my part well and I can paint a bonny set of bruises on my back and my ribs. Good enough to fool a man whose vocation would never let him examine a woman’s injuries too closely. I even got him to take some photos on my mobile phone. If the police examine them later, they won’t be able to make out too much detail, which suits me just fine. And after all, there’s precedent now. Nobody would dare to doubt John French, not after the publicity Kirsty’s case earned him.
Never mind putting my faith in God. Me, I’m putting my faith in John French and the ministry of whisky.
Monopoly
by Judith Merchant
Everything in life has its price.
It’s not always clearly marked, or even fair, but you have to pay it sooner or later. Somewhere up there is the games master; he’s keeping track, making sure everything adds up right.
People get along best if they agree on the price for the things they give each other.
Let someone copy your homework and you’ll get an invitation to his birthday party. A red sports car for your wife buys you a guilt-free trip to Majorca with your mistress. You may be bored at the breakfast table till death do you part, but you’ll never have to watch TV alone.
Sometimes you have to pay even when you thought it was a gift.
And sometimes you give somebody a gift, and he tries to pay for it.
That can be deadly.
3:09 p.m.
I’m not thinking of murder and mayhem that Friday while I’m waiting for my turn at the cash register, I’m much too busy with my new coat: cherry red and nipped in tight at the waist, it reaches nearly all the way to my boots. I look dangerously good in that coat and I’m crazy about it; to be honest, it’s too expensive, but I’ve earned it: It’s my thirtieth birthday.
You ready? asks the saleswoman with the shiny eye makeup, and that’s when I notice it’s my turn.
I’ll wear it home, I say, and with my fingertips I hand her the strip of cherry-red wool with the metal security tag.
Ninety-nine euros, she mumbles, removes the price tag, takes my debit card, pulls it through the slot of her card reader, waits, wrinkles her brow, and tries it again. Something’s wrong, she says, handing me the card. Either your account’s empty or your card’s been blocked.
That’s impossible, I say, and the flush I feel climbing up into my face is rage, not embarrassment, but I know people can’t tell that just by looking, and it makes me mad. I’ve got enough money in my account, I know that for a fact.
She shrugs her shoulders, looks pointedly at the line of people waiting behind me, and purses her lips. Then you’ll just have to pay cash, she says.
I open my wallet even though I know there’s nothing in it; ever since I stopped getting a paycheck I only withdraw fifty euros at a time. The saleswoman’s impatience harangues me; I poke around in my change purse demonstratively and reach into my handbag, searching; my fingers find a wad of stiff pieces of paper, folded twice. The size is about right, but I still don’t believe it until I pull them out and stare in disbelief: three hundred-euro banknotes.
Y’see, you had it all the time, said the saleswoman, pulling one of the banknotes from my hand. She has to bend across the counter to get it; she’s shaking her head as she roots around in her cash drawer.
I walk slowly out of the store, the remaining two banknotes in my hand. The plastic bag holding my old things is cutting a crease into my wrist, it’s so heavy. How did that money get into my handbag, I’m thinking, it wasn’t there last night. I remember spending my last ten euros and besides, I never carry that much money, somebody must have slipped it in there.
I stop, suddenly.
Then I go back to the saleswoman, cut right into the line of people waiting, just push them out of the way.
Give me back that banknote.
At that moment I’m already thinking: People are going to die, somebody won’t survive this, that money shouldn’t have been in my handbag, but first I’ve got another problem to solve.
If you want your money back, you’ll have to take off the coat, she says bitchily.
But I’m not taking off the coat, no way, how could I, I’ve got nothing on underneath but bare skin and a couple of love bites.
Two hours earlier
If the telephone hadn’t rung, I might not even have woken up.
The room begins to spin just a little when I open my eyes, so I close them again.
The telephone rings even louder, it’s the kind of ringing that multiplies exponentially when you try to ignore it, so I roll out of bed and pick up the receiver.
Were you still asleep? my father asks.
Yes, I say.
At one in the afternoon? he asks.
I’m unemployed, I say. Surely you’ve noticed.
I just wanted to wish you a happy thirtieth, he says. And many happy returns of the day. We won’t be able to come, but I’ve already wired you your present, it ought to be credited to your account by now. Buy yourself something nice.
I’ll do that, I say, and then I hang up and push the conversation mentally to one side. It wasn’t news, the money’s been in my account for a week now. He wrote BIRTHDAY on the memo line, he was always short on talk, my father.
Birthday. Obviously I’d already celebrated pretty hard, my head’s spinning, yesterday evening is a black hole in my memory, but slowly, very slowly, an image surfaces, first just a smoothly shaven male face, and then the absolutely divine body attached to it.
I go into the bathroom, pull off my dirty clothes, and throw them in a pile. I turn on the shower, step under the rush of water, and reach for the shower gel.
Under the foam, the red marks on my body start to bloom like a wonderful birthday bouquet of red roses. I run my hand over them, first lightly, then firmly, to see whether they hurt. The warm water brings back memories, I have to smile.
He’s not the kind of guy to send me flowers, I’m thinking. No bouquets, no perfume, but what I’ll get the next time I see him is better than any rose. I let my fingers dance up and down my arms and stand there happily as the water beats down on me.
So what do you do, I asked him. I didn’t really mean professionally, but I couldn’t think of any other question, he could have talked about his pets or his elementary school, I just wanted to sit next to him at the bar and listen to him, the guy in the much too expensive suit who happened to sit down next to me. He looked like someone who wasn’t in a hurry to get home, maybe newly single or something similar; like a guy you’d let buy you a drink because he takes things easy and doesn’t pressure you, later on. His suit was much nicer than my jeans, and his precise haircut contrasted badly with my shaggy mop. Strange that we even started talking to each other, or that I even happened to be at this pub. Romantic people would call it fate, but I put it down to Sonja’s canceling at the last minute and when she did I just didn’t feel like staying home alone on my birthday and smoking one cigarette after another until the place was blue with smoke.
Construction, he says.
And what do you do in construction, I asked, and he grinned and said, I build things, houses, hotels, whatever gets built. I thought of Monopoly and felt the way I used to when the others all had Boardwalk and Park Avenue and all the moolah and I just had debts, but then he said, I didn’t come here to talk about work, and I said, okay, then let’s go to my place, no, wait a minute, I didn’t say that until hours later, first we sat there at the bar for a long time, drinking, and I don’t really remember what happened afterward, but as I stand under the shower and look down at myself, a few things come back to me, good things.
I could tell from the very first kiss that he was a certain kind of guy, the kind that smelled untamed — of hard physical labor, motor oil, and soap, in spite of the expensive aftershave, the kind of guy who wears a suit and looks really good in it, and when you take it off you find the honest body of a young construction worker, all muscles and sunburn. When guys like that climb the career ladder, they don’t just screw girls they meet in pubs, they screw their secretaries, too, I knew that right away, but last night at the pub I didn’t care. I even said that to him. Stop thinking in clichés, he said, and he said it again when I remarked on his suit and his expensive mobile phone, and then he smelled my hair, smelled it for minutes, just like that, as if he’d never smelled anything so wonderful, and the whole time I was afraid to breathe.
I put on clean underwear, pull on yesterday’s jeans, and leave the apartment to go buy myself a birthday present, something great for tonight; I’m sure I’ll see him again, it’s my birthday, yippee!
I go into the Kaufhof department store and slalom through all the racks of stupid clothes until I see the coat.
It’s the perfect coat for me. Calf-length, cherry red, hugs me like it will never let go, a single gleaming zipper divides me into two symmetrical halves; I look fabulous — and it’s even on sale.
I feel different, somehow, more adult, a little more serious, but still sexy; I should have bought a coat like this a long time ago, who knows, maybe my life would have turned out differently, maybe the severe cut of the coat would have worked on the person inside it and made her more self-disciplined. Never mind: I’ve spent thirty years of my life without this coat, but starting today it’s part of my life, for nearly as long as the man from last night.
The man... It must be the last of the hormones from last night that make me go into a dressing room, tear off all my clothes, and slip naked into the coat, wrap my clothes in my old jacket.
While I’m standing in line waiting my turn at the cash register, I’m imagining what tonight will be like, hesitating just a little as I wonder whether we even made a date. And then I think: Is he even the kind of guy you go to meet wearing nothing under your coat?
You ready? asks the saleswoman with the shiny eye makeup, and that’s when I notice it’s my turn.
I’ll wear it home, I say.
3:26 p.m.
The saleswoman’s cash drawer closes with a final click and she turns to the next customer.
The two remaining banknotes are burning in my hand and I want to get rid of them but first I have to take off the coat, so I run to the dressing room and pull it off, so fast that it nearly catches on the buckle of one of my boots. Careful, I think to myself, if I damage it I can’t return it and then I won’t get the banknote back and then I can’t return that, and that’s unthinkable, I’d have to return a different banknote, one from the cash machine or one I’d borrow — Sonja would lend me money, she does that a lot — but no, it’s got to be the same banknote, it’s really important for it to be exactly the same one; if it were a different one his gray eyes would see right away that I had used the money just like he used me. Vivian, his eyes would say, even if you return the money, you used it in the meantime, so we’re even, it was the interest rate for one day, that’s how little you cost, Viv, was three hundred too much for last night, for all the dirty stuff?
I wouldn’t be free if it weren’t the same banknote. Can you ever be free again when you’ve been a whore without knowing it, or does something like that enslave a person forever?
Calm down, take a deep breath. I’ll get that banknote back. By force, if I have to. I can make that bitch give it back to me, maybe I’ll just strike her dead.
Take another deep breath. Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding. I should call him right away. Luckily, I have his business card in my wallet, and when I pull it out, I can even remember how I got it: When he went to pee, I searched his jacket pockets, I wanted to see whether anything in them would give him away, a hot tip that this dream man was already taken or an asshole, or maybe both. I don’t know what I thought I’d find, I felt like I was in a movie, so I behaved like I was; I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a gun or secret documents, but all I found was a stack of business cards that confirmed everything he’d said, with a logo of a tiny house on it, I put one in my wallet and then he came back and we went on cuddling and drinking.
4:22 p.m.
I got my old clothes out of the bag and put them on again.
By the time I get home, I’m exhausted. I got the banknote back. And after I returned the coat, I went back in the shop and just took it. The alarm applauded me as I ran out of there, my hair flying. I’ll never ever take it off, it’s pretty much priceless, it cost a third of last night.
It’s weird calling him at work. I’m nervous and start to stutter when the cool voice on the other end of the line asks who I want to talk to.
I’m sorry, says the voice, he’s in a meeting.
Tell him it’s important, I say, it’s Vivian from last night. I hear her walking in high heels, why doesn’t she put me on hold so I can listen to rinky-dink Mozart or whatever elevator music they’ve got, does she want me to hear her high heels? Click clack, click clack, I can imagine the rest, she’ll be the secretary I had in my mind when I was thinking about the kind of men who screw their secretaries, a Hitchcock blond; in the twenty-first century, women like that wear glasses with pink or turquoise frames, glasses that say: Guess what, I’m the secretary here, I’ve got a good job, not like you. I hate her through the telephone, hate her with a passion that makes me forget I’m on the phone until I hear Hello? Hello? and realize she’s talking to me. He says to look in your handbag, she says, what you find there ought to take care of everything.
That was it, then.
I hang up and go into the bathroom, turn on the water, and sink down onto the rim of the bathtub. My legs are trembling.
My underwear from yesterday is lying crumpled in the corner, damp and with a faint aroma of love nights and alcohol; words float up out of the pile and echo in my ear, the words that came out effortlessly last night, as if someone else were speaking, the memory makes heat flare up in me and I think of the three banknotes I have to get rid of, for the words if for nothing else, under no circumstances should those words have been paid for, words like that should only be spoken freely, they have to be a gift, just like the kisses, otherwise they make a whore of you.
I go into the kitchen, take the Wasabi knife out of the drawer, and stick it in the pocket of my coat. There’s a horrible noise as the sharp blade slices through the wool from the sheer weight of the metal. I wrap a kitchen towel around the knife.
Then I put it in my pocket and leave.
6:13 p.m.
He’s sitting at a big glass desk, the telephone in his hand. Behind his back, all the lights in the city are illuminating the dark, and as if the wall of windows wasn’t ostentatious enough, he’s got a big vase with white calla lilies next to his computer screen, probably the work of that very committed secretary of his. When I see you I’m going to kiss you, he says into the receiver of the phone, and then laughs. Then he sees me and stands up, and surprise spreads across his face like the blood across the grey stone of the floor, one minute later.
This is great, he says, and tries to hug me, but I turn my face away, although — a quickie here in the office, why not? Here, in front of this huge window, everyone would be able to see us, the whole city could watch, but do even you have the money for that, big guy, a tycoon like you? Do you have that kind of money? Because it’ll cost you 300 euros per voyeur, and that’s at least 300,000 people, oh, nobody’ll want to miss it, I say, let’s go for thirty million.
I pull my arm way back and take a practice swing, knocking the vase off the desk; water and shards of glass spray all over us.
His eyes open wide in surprise and he shouts my name, his hands shoot out and clamp down hard on my upper arms, so I pull my head way back and then head-butt him in the face as hard as I can, the pain takes my breath away for a minute, but I can still hear the crack as the bridge of his nose breaks. It sounds good.
Before he can say anything or I can change my mind, I pull the Wasabi knife from my coat pocket and cut his throat. Normally I use that knife for fish, I got it from an ex-boyfriend, I used to make sushi with him, I would have made sushi for you, too, if you’d wanted me to, but now I’m making sushi of you, ha ha ha. No, for sushi you’re not good enough, you probably taste disgusting, let me think, how did you taste last night? I don’t know anymore; it must not have been that great.
I sit down on the floor, catch the body as it drops downward, and pull it onto my lap, I stroke his face and watch as he dies.
The gray eyes roll back in his head and his mouth opens to say something, but the only noise is a gurgling sound like a stopped-up drain and a little blood sprays at me.
When the broad, blood-soaked shirtfront stops rising and falling, the eyes are still turned toward me. There’s a mute question in them, a question that makes me wild with fury, why does he look so confused, he didn’t understand anything, he has no idea what the three hundred euros mean to me. Those last words he couldn’t say, what were they, was he trying to say that he never meant to treat me like a whore, or was he about to offer me more, maybe the sales tax?
I pull his clothes off. It’s harder than I thought it would be, I have to push the little buttons of his shirt through their tiny buttonholes and my hands are trembling so much, we’re both covered in blood, but finally he’s lying naked and exposed on the stone floor, the three banknotes between his slack lips.
What would I have paid for a night with this body, I ask myself as I walk slowly around him; he was better-looking in my memory.
I’m still standing there looking at him when the police arrive, that’s what you get with a glass-fronted office: Every peeping tom can see what you’re up to.
It’d be great if the games master up there, you know, the one who keeps track and makes sure everything adds up right, if he’d give me some good advice. Maybe: Go to jail.
Go directly to jail.
Do not pass “Go.”
Do not collect 4,000 euros.
Above all, do not go home and listen to your answering machine.
Because what if you find two messages on it:
Sonja.
His voice.
And supposing I reach into my handbag and find a slip of paper:
That would really be bad.
Femme Fatale
by E.Shaun Russell
The Girl in the Golden Gown
by Robert S. Levinson
“I’m told you find missing persons.”
I shrug and say, “I’m involved, they’re not missing, only temporarily misplaced.”
He sends a confused look across the clean surface of his Texas-sized mahogany desk, then realizes what I said was a gag and laughs politely.
“I get you,” he says.
“You will if the price is right.”
He gets the gag faster this time and asks how much.
I quote my usual high five figures.
Without hesitation, he pushes back in his executive chair, opens the pencil drawer, and pulls out a leather-bound checkbook, followed by a Mont Blanc pen from the billfold pocket of his Armani jacket. “My personal check okay?”
“Half will do it for now, Mr. Cutler.”
“To show you how much confidence I have in you and your reputation, I’m giving it all to you up front.”
“You understand there’ll be out-of-pocket on the back end. I’m in for a lot of travel anytime I’m talking missing persons, plus gas costing what people once paid for diamonds. Motels thinking they’re the Taj Mahal. At the greasiest of the greasy spoons, it’s a sawbuck minimum before the tip. My reports include receipts and—”
He stops me with a hand signal.
“Not necessary,” he says. “You come highly recommended; by a mutual friend who swears that, of all the private investigators he’s ever used, you’re the only one who always finds the needle in the haystack.”
He shares the name, a high-powered Beverly Hills attorney.
I uncork a smile. “One of my friends without much originality.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You get that opinion from a lot of my friends,” I tell him. It’s not exactly the truth and nothing but, but the truth might turn him nervous, wondering if I come with a money-back guarantee. Fat chance. Not with my gambling jones and the deadline I’ve been facing on a marker held by a professional knee-breaker, born when my aces over nines fell to his four ladies. “So, Mr. Cutler — Tell me who — what — this is about.”
“I’ll show you,” Cutler says, using the desk to push up from his chair. He’s a good six-six, with maybe three hundred pounds buried inside his three-thousand-dollar suit. A wreath of silver-gray hair surrounds a bald dome and runs down past his collar in erratic strands, giving him the appearance of a poet in disguise while adding a good ten years to what I’m guessing his age to be, somewhere around fifty.
Unsteady on his feet, he pads cautiously across the oak-paneled office, past neatly arranged rows of diplomas, certificates, and photos to an oil painting on solitary display on the wall opposite his desk. The painting is relatively small in size, maybe thirty by thirty inches, encased in a simple wooden frame and bathed by an overhead spotlight that makes it the center of attention.
It’s the portrait of a beautiful girl, eighteen or twenty years of age, standing regally erect, wearing an exquisite ball gown the same shade of spun gold as the shoulder-length tresses framing a porcelain doll face the color of freshly drawn cream; her hypnotic ocean blue-green eyes and marshmallow lips forming an expression that hints at secrets she has no intention of ever sharing.
It reminds me of pictures I saw at the county museum by this painter Degas, who spread the bright colors around on ballet dancers looking like they could tippytoe off the canvas. Not as true-to-life as Norman Rockwell did his paintings, but close enough to win my nod of approval.
Cutler winces when I tell him this, like he’s been stung by a bee, or maybe because I follow up by asking, “Your daughter here, she the one’s missing?”
“Missing, but not my daughter.”
“Who then?” I say, joining him. Up close the girl is even more beautiful. She makes the oil paint smell like sweet perfume.
“I don’t know her name. We never met.”
“She’s not your kid, you never met, you don’t know her name, but you’re shelling out all this bread for me to find her... What don’t I know that I should know, Mr. Cutler?”
“I love her,” he says, staring at the portrait, his hand three or four inches away from the canvas, tracing the outline of the girl’s face. “And that already is more than you have to know.”
“I go for older women myself,” I say, concerned about what this geezer might have in mind for the kid after I find her and deliver her to him.
He catches my drift.
He whips around and leans into my face, fists clenched, blue veins growing at his temples, spittle raining on me, demanding, “Don’t you dare insult me with your innuendo.” He throws a finger at the lower right corner of the painting, where the artist has signed and dated the work.
I can do the math without counting on my fingers.
The painting was made twenty-five years ago, meaning the girl in the golden gown was now almost the same age as Cutler.
He says, “You find her, I mean to marry her if she’ll have me.”
“And if she can’t or she won’t?”
Tears well in his eyes; the only answer he has for me.
“In that case—” I offer him back his check and begin wondering how much longer I’ll have healthy kneecaps.
He waves off the gesture, asking, “Have you ever been in love? Really in love?”
“More than both of my ex-wives, and that’s saying a lot, Mr. Cutler.”
“Then you might understand me when I say love is a word for an emotion beyond definition and often beyond redemption. Falling in love, who’s to say when it will happen? When it happens, it happens. Who it happens with? Another conundrum, wouldn’t you agree?”
The way he’s chewing his words, it takes a second for me to realize he had not said
His mind retreats to the past. “A month ago, I’m in New York on business and take a few hours off to check out what’s happened to SoHo. You know SoHo?”
“Not personally.”
“Down between Houston and Canal and Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Used to be the center of the art gallery scene before it moved to Chelsea, between Sixth and Tenth Avenue, from Fourteenth to Thirty-Fourth.”
“Of course,” I agree, like I know the layout of the city beyond the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Times Square, and One Police Plaza.
“I’m exploring the changes since my last trip East a year ago and wander over to an antiques store tucked between a God-awful trendy clothing store and an overpriced bistro. The painting is hanging in the window for all the world to admire. One look and my heart crashes through the plate-glass window to embrace the girl. I am mesmerized by the sight of her. When I see the date on the painting and understand she is my age, I know that fate has intervened. I must possess this painting, just as I must possess her. I must find her and make her my bride.”
What can I say?
I’ve dealt with looser screws than Cutler.
Besides, those lousy aces over nines.
I need the payday.
Need breeds greed.
I say, “The store couldn’t tell you who they acquired the painting from or anything that would help you?”
“Nothing, only who the artist is and that was already evident.”
“I’ll start with the store and see if I can do better. What’s the name?”
“I don’t remember. It was no place I expected to visit again.”
“The name would be on a receipt they gave you or a credit card or bank statement.”
“The owner insisted on cash. I was carrying more than enough in my billfold.”
“Tell me the name of the artist again, Mr. Cutler.”
He tells me.
Later, back at my apartment, I grab a couple brews from the fridge and jump onto the Internet.
Cahuilla Sands is a sleepy community of six or seven hundred residents risking skin cancer in the sun-baked high desert between Rancho Mirage and the California-Nevada border, inland a mile north of the 60 freeway. It’s reached on a pitted two-lane concrete access road that peters out at the base of the San Gorgonio mountain range.
The sign at the city limit, paint chipped and flaking, letters dulled by years of neglect and exposure to the elements, boasts:
Ivor Godowsky.
Who I’m here to find—
The artist who painted Cutler’s obsession.
Who better to identify the girl for me, maybe tell me where she is now? If all he can give me is an ID, I’ll be using the blessed Internet to track her when I get back to L.A., doing in a few hours or less what once took weeks or months of legwork. (If Godowsky had a listed phone, this trip might not have been necessary.)
Trailer parks line both sides of the road, full of mobile homes sitting on permanent foundations, faded white picket fences or chicken wire enclosing weed-infested gardens of heat-resistant fruits and vegetables. Tumbleweed the size of boulders drift with the breeze, sometimes bouncing off the agave, saguaro, and fishhook cacti, creating the impression that Mother Nature is engaged in a fanciful game of pinball.
I have no trouble locating Main Street.
It’s the only street in town, three blocks long.
Cahuilla Sands—
Definitely a boomtown like no other.
A two-story city hall dominates a mixed bag of well-kept wood-frame and brick-and-mortar buildings of architectural irrelevance, not a franchise among the storefronts. I angle my SUV into a parking slot, tread carefully up plank stairs that squawk with sounds of imminent collapse, and enter to the smell of dust and desert history.
It takes about five minutes for someone to respond to my nagging on the brass bell at the information desk, a slope-shouldered octogenarian out to break the Olympic record for strolling while he buckles the straps on the blue denim bib overalls he’s wearing over a red union suit.
“I was doing number two,” he says, like he’s reporting to an old friend. “Third time today. One prune too many with my breakfast bran flakes. I’ll never learn. Bananas, too. I could fertilize the whole valley, it ever came to that. So, what can I do you for today?”
I tell him what’s brought me to Cahuilla Sands.
“Godowsky, yep,” he says. “He painted my picture a couple of times, once naked as a jaybird. Paid me with a six-pack; imported stuff. Heard later they’re hanging in museums, but I don’t remember which. You a collector?”
“In a manner of speaking. Can you tell me where to find him?”
“I’ll write up the directions for you,” he says, reaching for a pad and pencil, wetting the tip of the pencil with his tongue before he starts scribbling.
The directions take me a mile out of town, closer to the San Gorgonio foothills and a gated cemetery the size of two basketball courts, headstones and grave markers bunched tightly together along jagged pathways. The oldest ones visible from the road date back to the mid 1800s.
I hop over the waist-high slatted wood fence and wander the narrow aisles, raising a river of sweat under the relentless heat until I locate Godowsky.
An engraved bronze plaque embedded in the sunburned grass features his name in tall capital letters and no other information, as if Godowsky had never been born or died, but somehow existed at one time or other.
Back in town, the look on the face of the ancient clerk at City Hall says he knew I’d be returning. Before I can complain about the wild-goose chase he sent me on, he has an answer.
“You asked if I knew where you could find Ivor, not the condition that you’d find him in,” he says. His laughter punctuates every word and splashes my face with the heavy scent of garlic. “I can make it up to you if you want, but it’s going to cost you a six-pack of the imported, in the cold case down at Geller’s Grocery and not cheap.” His smile exposes two rows of tobacco-stained teeth too perfect to be his own.
Irma Ballard laughs when I introduce myself to her at Irma’s Snack Emporium, a coffee shop with walls tanned by years of griddle grease, and tell her who sent me to find her. She moves around the counter from the cash register and lands her shapely behind on the stool next to mine. “Herb, he’s a card, that one,” she says. “Loves messing around with strangers, anybody, anytime he figures he can trick a six-pack out of them. I suppose it’s got something to do with the mad Russian.”
“Ivor Godowsky.”
“What is it this time?”
“This time?”
“You think you’re the first one to come chasing after him here, looking to wheel and deal him out of any of his paintings? Getting Moses to part the Red Sea was easier, except whenever Ivor needed bread to buy supplies. Money and fame meant nothing to him. You could say he died to put an end to all those interruptions.” She eyes the dessert carousel and points. “Interest you in the fresh apple pie; great hot with a slab of homemade vanilla ice cream? Both made by yours truly.”
“Sounds delicious, but I’m counting calories.”
Irma breaks out a pout, so I change my mind in the interest of bonding. Besides being one delicious dish herself, Irma looks like she knows more than she’s telling about Ivor Godowsky. She slips off the stool and heads back behind the counter with a wiggle in her walk befitting the soda-parlor-style outfit, out of a fifties Frankie and Annette movie, that wraps provocatively around her awesome curves. She’s in her mid to late thirties, around my age, and that statistic adds thoughts that have absolutely nothing to do with why I’m in Cahuilla Sands. She studies me with a knowing look that promises nothing and everything and lingers while I make a show of enjoying her pie and ice cream.
Swiveling around on the stool in a way that connects her thigh to mine, Irma says, “You haven’t answered my question yet. What is it about Ivor that brought you all the way out here?”
I dig for my iPhone and show her the photo I’d snapped before leaving Cutler.
Irma takes the phone from me for a closer look. Magnifies the image. “Definitely not Ivor’s work,” she says. “It’s one of those phonies that sometimes shows up, the same way there are hundreds of Dali and Picasso fakes always being passed off as the genuine article.”
“How do you know that?”
“For one, see the date?”
“What about the date?”
“Exactly. If you knew anything at all about Ivor’s work you’d know he never dated his paintings, not one of them.”
“There couldn’t be an exception?”
“Not here. The date someone put on the painting would make the girl older than her mother is today.”
“You know her mother?”
“I am her mother.”
Too surprised to speak, I take back the iPhone and weigh her appearance against the girl in the portrait. I can see the resemblance, particularly in the shape of the face, the blue-green color of her eyes, the ripe lips. Or is it only my imagination responding to the power of suggestion?
Irma Ballard reads my expression correctly and draws a bright smile that puts quote marks at the corners of her mouth and deepens the crevices on her cheeks and elsewhere on her sun-darkened complexion. “Her name’s Michelle,” she says. “Like in the Beatles song.” She hums the melody and then sings the words,
“I’d like to see Micki, talk to her?” I say. The idea is to come away with a photo of the kid I can show to Cutler, proof his dream wife isn’t what he expected me to bring back to him.
“So would I,” she says, her husky come-hither voice suffering a melancholy break. “Only she went missing a week after Ivor finished the painting, same time as the painting went missing from our motor home.”
“She took it with her?”
“Would seem so. The paint was hardly dry. A gift from Ivor, same way he gifted me with some of the ones of me he’d done over the years.”
“More than once?”
“Whenever he couldn’t pay the tab he’d run up at the Snack Emporium, which was most of the time.”
“Did he paint Micki more than once?”
“Just the once I know about. Two years ago. Been two years since I saw or heard a word out of Michelle. Not a note or nothing the day she disappeared, just up and gone, like that.” She snaps her fingers.
The last of the customers is at the cash register.
Irma excuses herself to settle his bill and follows him to the door.
She turns the lock and throws the cardboard window sign to “Closed Until” after dialing the clock hands ahead two hours.
“Follow me on over to my place and you can see for yourself,” she says.
Irma’s motor home is a permanently docked high-end gas-guzzler the size of a Greyhound bus, the garden-fresh smell of its spit-and-polish interior tainted a bit by the lingering odor of what my practiced nose tells me is cannabis.
Paintings of modest size hang from what little available wall space there is, a few of the smaller ones on counter and table surfaces. They’re all by Godowsky and they’re all of Irma. Eight in total. Irma ages from image to image, progressing from about Micki’s age to the sensuous woman I met earlier today. Her expression varies from a teasing smile to a cipher worthy of da Vinci’s
“The one of Michelle was over there, covering the window,” she says. “In here’s my favorite, come see.” She pushes open the accordion door to the master bedroom at the rear of the motor home. The door glides closed behind us and I find myself staring at a painting of a full-figured Irma reclining in the buff. “What do you think?” she says, like she already knows the answer. “It was the first one he did of me, younger than Michelle, but mature for my age in body and soul, if you know what I mean. I’ve held Mother Nature to a draw ever since.”
“Gorgeous,” I say.
“You are,” Irma says. She steps forward, throws her arms around me, and settles an electric kiss on me before I can protest, or at least pretend. “I’ve needed someone like you coming around for a long time,” she says, and throws herself into a lingering kiss. “Felt the vibe the second I laid eyes on you,” she says. She steps back and begins undressing. “Want you, sweetheart; want you now. Strictly recreational. What do you think?”
I’m too much the gentleman to refuse.
Later, lounging under the covers and sharing a fat joint of premium Hawaiian, Irma is telling me, “Michelle was always complaining top of her lungs about being trapped here without a future, how she had no intention of taking over and running the Snack Emporium the way I did after my dear mommy and daddy were murdered, what keeps me here to this day, stuck with boredom and the need to scratch out a living.”
“Your mother and father were murdered?”
“In cold blood. The robbers got away with about a hundred dollars from the register and never were caught. Why I bought a gun and learned how to use it from a deputy sheriff who used to patrol out here and loved my mommy’s peach cobbler. Toddy turned me into a mean shot and I wanted the same for Michelle, but she was having none of it. She wouldn’t kill a bug, that one. Step on an ant, not her. Oh, how I miss her. I miss her so much.”
I stash the joint, pull Irma closer to me, and finger-wipe away her tears.
I haven’t felt this comfortable with or protective of a woman since my last wife, and that turned into a disaster. Maybe there’s something more than an accidental fling going on here, or is the Hawaiian playing tricks with my emotions?
I tell her, “I’m going to find your daughter for you.”
“You can do that, sweetheart?”
“I can do that.”
“How, sweetheart?”
“Micki—”
I gently extricate myself from her, slip out of bed, and aim for the fridge. I have an appetite that needs appeasement, a rampaging sweet tooth and a thirst begging for a brew. I have to be satisfied with the bedraggled remains of a lettuce, tomato, and mushroom salad drenched in oily French dressing, a small cup of strawberry yogurt, and what’s left in a pour carton of cheap sauvignon blanc that tastes like cheaper mouthwash.
I settle at the dining table and study Godowsky’s paintings while struggling to recall what it was I intended to tell Irma, my plan for finding Michelle, her belle; not easy, since I have no plan. Not exactly true. I do so have a plan, it’s just I can’t remember what the plan is right now. This Hawaiian weed—
Killer stuff.
I struggle to focus on Godowsky’s paintings.
He never dated any of them. No date on any, ever, except for the fake, the girl in the golden gown; her, the girl in the painting in the window of the antiques store in New York. Whoever painted the fake had to have the original to copy. The original disappeared from Cahuilla Sands when Irma’s belle, Michelle, disappeared from Cahuilla Sands with the only portrait of her ever painted by Godowsky. Meaning—
Michelle had the painting and took it with her to New York, how it wound up at the antiques store in SoHo where Cutler saw the painting and fell in love with the painting and bought the painting.
Cutler said he couldn’t recall the name of the antiques store.
I will have to do better.
I will go to New York, go to SoHo, and find the antiques store.
Find the antiques store and find the artist who copied the Godowsky painting.
Find out how he got the original and who from.
Continue working from Z to A until I have Michelle in sight.
Reunite her with
Provide Cutler with proof his money has been well spent, even if the end did not justify his means.
I polish off the vino, stumble back to the bedroom, and whisper in Irma’s ear, “My plan for finding Michelle, you want to hear how?”
She rouses at the sound of my voice. I tell her what I have in mind. Her smile melts my heart. Before drifting back to sleep, she says, “I want to go with you, sweetheart, please let me.”
I crawl under the covers alongside her thinking it’s not a good idea.
Thinking: So what?
Thinking: We have chemistry going for us, Irma and me.
Thinking: Maybe we have more going for us than a one-nighter.
Thinking: This is me talking to me, me, not the weed, the cannabis, the ganja, the Mary Jane, until the free-floating three-dimensional light show of late afternoon somehow turns into early morning and I wake up sweating from the already oppressive heat attacking the walls of the motor home.
SoHo is like Los Angeles on speed.
People and street vendors crowd the sidewalks, cabs honk for jurisdiction as they maneuver from one gridlocked lane to another.
It’s morning, two days since we flew here.
Irma and I have been wandering the northern section like the lost tourists we are, hoping to stumble across the antiques store Cutler had described to me, located between a clothing store and an overpriced bistro.
Our problem: Too many antiques stores, clothing stores, and bistros, but none so far one-two-three next to one another.
After more than two hours of foot-weary failure and frustration, we navigate south to the less trendy, not as pricey part of SoHo along Grand and Canal streets. There are cast-iron warehouses off the cobblestone streets that talk to the years before lofts filled up with artists, art galleries abounded, and real estate prices aimed for the moon.
We’re not having better luck here after an hour, talking about quitting for the day as the temperature turns chilly and rain clouds ripen in the overcast sky, when Irma grabs me by the elbow and points across the narrow street to a shop nesting between a Chinese hand laundry and a patisserie sending out the smell of fresh pastries and sweets.
“Oh, my dear Lord. Sweetheart, look!” she says, her voice rising from a murmur to a shout.
The flag hanging above the shop entrance reads Treasures Island, but what has excited Irma is the oil painting hanging in the display window.
She zigzags across the street to a symphony of angry car horns, me in pursuit, and stands slack-jawed in front of the window, staring hard at a portrait of the girl in the golden gown. The girl isn’t standing this time, showing off her royal bearing. This time she sits on a high-backed throne wearing a crown encrusted with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, and an expression more precious than any of the stones. The portrait is signed by “Godowsky.” Like the earlier one, it’s dated twenty-five years ago, but it’s unquestionably Michelle. Not the same antiques shop, however, unless Cutler got his landmarks wrong.
We learn he did a few minutes later, when the young clerk tells us, “It’s the second Godowsky we’ve ever had as long as I’ve worked here, going on three years.” She’s a pink-haired six-footer and string-bean thin, legs like stilts; flat-chested under a sheer silk, floral-patterned tent dress that quits above the knees; her voice a birdlike twitter; looking out of place in a showroom filled with period furniture and decorative indoor bronze and marble statuary. “My boss took it as a favor.”
That gets my attention. “A favor?”
“The guy didn’t come off looking like your average junkie; eyes wild as pinwheels but smelling more like turpentine than a garbage truck. Was short on cash to cover his rent and to buy paints, canvas, and stuff is what he said. He said he didn’t feel like being cheated on what the pawn shops and art galleries were offering him for his Godowsky, is what he said. The boss took the painting on consignment and meanwhile wrote him a nice check as an advance. He’s like that, the boss, a big heart and all. No spring chicken, but he’s going to make a fine and loving daddy.” She gently patted what only a fertile imagination could call a baby bump.
“You said two paintings.” I describe the girl in the golden gown.
“The other,” the clerk says, nodding. “Looked to be the same model he used, who sort of somewhat resembles your lady friend here. Went into the window and sold faster than you can spell Godowsky, so I wouldn’t think twice about grabbing this one up, I was you.”
Irma steps forward and shouts an excited, “Yes. What are you asking?”
The clerk tells her and explains, “We’ll need cash or traveler’s checks, ma’am. My boss isn’t one for personal checks or credit cards from anyone but trade regulars.”
The answer elicits a moan from Irma. She shoots me the kind of soulful stare puppy dogs engineer when they’re begging for table scraps. The price is more than I’m carrying in bills. I haul out my roll and peel off ten Ben Franklins. “Will this hold it for us until I find an ATM?”
“Certainly shows good intentions, sir. I’ll go make you out a receipt.”
“And something else I’ll need.”
“Oh?”
“The name and address of the man who brought the painting to you.”
She looks like she’s about to quote some store policy against revealing customer information to anybody outside law enforcement and the IRS. I peel off another pair of Franklins and dangle them. She hesitates before trading in the deep furrows between her sculptured eyebrows on a toothsome smile. “It’s not far from here,” she says, tucking the bills inside her dress, down around her nonexistent breasts.
The four-story factory building is a leading candidate for teardown, its regiment of walled-over truck docks decorated in graffiti and new and disintegrating one-sheets, a relic from SoHo’s past subdivided into cheap loft living. Once through the unguarded entrance, the outdoor city smells give way to a mix of indefinable noxious odors. A narrow stairway that threatens collapse with every cautious step takes us past derelicts sleeping in corridor alcoves to the top floor loft of Bo Goodwin.
The bell doesn’t work, and there’s no response to my knocking on the rusted metal door until I bang harder and holler for Goodwin by name. The spy hole opens for several seconds. It’s another minute before the door slides open and we’re staring back at a young man in boxer shorts, barefooted and bare-chested, his body and arms freckled by oil paint residue; chiseled features punctuated by restless brown eyes, crooked yellow teeth, and an unruly beard the color of mud.
“You’re an hour early,” he says, his voice soggy with sleep. “C’mon,
I nod confirmation to Irma, who’s also recognized Goodwin has mistaken us for somebody else, as we enter a vast expanse of loft space with living areas defined by bits and pieces of furniture and appliances, a stove and fridge by a sink loaded with pots and dishes, a sagging sofa and a decrepit armchair over by one wall, a disheveled bed pushed against another wall; clothes strewn about, the floor for a closet; overall, a nightmare of a bachelor pad. A painter’s easel — a color-splattered bed sheet covering the canvas — and a cluttered work bench dominate the center of the room.
Goodwin ponders Irma. “I didn’t know you’d be bringing company,” he tells me. “Is this some kind of a setup?” He shifts his weight from foot to foot, on sudden guard against what I don’t know or care to know. Through the years, minding my own business has kept me healthier than any HMO. He’s obviously confused me with someone else. I tell him so, explaining what brought us here:
“The Godowsky portrait at Treasures Island? We just bought it and will be taking it back to L.A. with us.”
His tone lightens. “Bought it, huh? It wasn’t cheap.”
“Worth every dollar. The clerk sent us over to see you when she learned we collect Godowsky, thinking you might have others for sale.”
Goodwin’s eyes glide to the easel and back to us, while he weighs the possibility, a study in indecision until: “It would cost you another bundle, ’cause I’d still owe the store a commission.”
“No problem, assuming it’s as good as the portrait in the window.”
“Guaranteed,” he tells us, his head bobbing agreement while he quicksteps across the room to a group of canvases stacked against the wall. He exercises care rifling through them until he locates the one he’s been searching for, emits a victory noise, and displays the canvas.
It’s another rendering of the girl in the golden gown that caused Cutler’s infatuation and locked me into this search for Michelle Ballard. Irma and I recognize it immediately as a forgery, dated the way Godowsky never dated any of his works.
“One more for you to see,” Goodwin says. He settles the oil against the base of the easel and returns to the canvas stack. After another minute, he removes a second portrait of Michelle signed and dated by Godowsky. It’s a smaller canvas, a nude, Michelle gaunt and wasted, her face a study in turmoil, her once hypnotic blue-green eyes blinded by defeat.
Irma locks her arms around herself and, shaking, screams, “Michelle! Oh, my dear Lord. My dear Lord. What’s happened to you?”
Goodwin, puzzled by her reaction, asks, “Michelle? Who’s that?”
I tell him, “The girl in the painting.”
“No,” Goodwin says. “Micki was her name. Her name was Micki.”
Irma explodes into tears.
“She was my girl, Micki was, and she left me cold,” Goodwin says. Now he’s also shedding tears by the bucketful. “I woke up one morning and she was gone. Over a year ago. I finally got around to painting Micki from memory, how I remembered her looking on the day she arrived here knocking on my door. Our last night together. The good times in-between.”
“Imitating Godowsky’s style, signing his name,” I say, like it’s a fact that doesn’t need validation.
“He was my uncle,” Goodwin says, “my father’s brother, only he kept the original family name, from the old country. All I learned about painting was from my uncle, until finally I could match him stroke for stroke. Dealers ignored my work as second-rate imitations, except when I copied Uncle Ivor’s style and signed them with the Godowsky name; like whenever I need scratch to survive.”
“Habits are a luxury.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, lifting his palms to the bright copper ceiling surrounding the skylight twelve feet up that’s showering us with late afternoon sun in a cloudless sky.
“And forgeries put you in prison.”
“Not forgeries, sir. Godowsky’s still legally my name. Uncle Ivor never dated his works, so I do, using my birthday as the date. There’s no law against selling copies. And Micki’s portraits sell better than anything, my originals as well as my copies of the one by my uncle.” His words are racing. He looks desperate for acknowledgment. “She had that one with her on the day she showed up at my door unannounced, saying how my uncle sent her and she was looking for a better life than the one she was living now and how my uncle said I was the one to look after her for him.”
“And living with you turned her into a junkie. You call that a better life?”
“I’ve been living with that sin ever since, sir. Nothing I’m proud of. I loved Micki with all my heart and she loved me.”
Irma unbridles her anger again. “Michelle, damn you. Her name is Michelle, and I am her mother.”
“I see it, ma’am. She was always telling me how you looked alike, like sisters. How much she loved and missed you, but this was the life she needed, free to be herself.”
“Did she say where she was going before she left you? Did she leave a note? Have you heard from Michelle since?”
The questions rattle Goodwin. He averts his eyes from the blistering condemnation she is pouring on him. “I apologize for not making myself clear, ma’am. When I explained I woke up and she was
Before I can stop her, Irma grabs one of the sharp-edged palette knives off the workbench and launches at Goodwin. He sees the oil-crusted blade coming, but can’t move fast enough to avoid it completely. Irma’s thrust catches him below the neck, inches away from his heart. Blood seeps from the wound and mellows into his chest hair as she yanks out the blade and raises it to strike again.
“My little girl is dead because of you!” she screams.
I grab her wrist and force the blade from her grip, trap her in my arms.
Goodwin, bandaging the wound with his palm, shouting with pain and out of fear, stumbles backward. He bangs into the wall and slides down into a sitting position on the stained hardwood floor. The small diamond-shaped blade has done damage, but nothing permanent. He’ll need patching up, but he’ll live.
Irma is trying to wrestle free of me, trying to get to the workbench and another of the palette knives, demanding, “I want him dead. I want him rotting in hell.”
“No,” I tell her. “Enough.”
Without a backward glance at Goodwin, who’s cry-babying for his connection, I steer Irma to the door.
“Wait here a minute,” I say, and backtrack to the easel.
I pick up a palette knife and use the scepter-shaped steel blade to slash and shred the nude of a drug-bludgeoned Michelle out of existence.
As an afterthought, compelled by curiosity, I toss aside the shroud covering the canvas on the easel, revealing an elegant and vibrant Michelle projecting an intoxicating enthusiasm for life.
I return to Irma and hand it over, telling her, “We came to find your daughter and we’ve found her. It’s time to go home.”
Driving Irma back to Cahuilla Sands from LAX, Cutler’s office at One Wilshire in downtown L.A. is an easy one-stop off the freeway interchange. I call ahead, figuring it’ll take me five, ten minutes max to explain about Michelle Ballard and Godowsky’s portrait and square accounts with Cutler before we’re back on the road.
We’re barely settled in the waiting room after the receptionist announces me when Cutler comes charging out of his inner sanctum like an Olympian after a gold medal in the 100-meter dash. He reaches me and quits, bends over with his hands on his knees, huffing and puffing, sweat dripping onto the plush pile carpeting, insisting, “Tell me that you have good news, that you’ve found her.”
Before I can frame the best way to let him down gently, he notices Irma.
He’s momentarily transfixed.
Rising to his full height, sucking in enough air to reach his toes, he points to her like he’s identifying the suspect in a lineup. His lips are moving, but he can’t seem to get words out, until:
“Bless you, my good man, you’re a miracle worker, as good as I was told. Better. You not only found her for me, but you’ve brought her to me... Oh, my dear, you’ve aged exactly how I’ve imagined since I first set eyes on your portrait. The years have made you more beautiful than ever.”
Irma smiles nervously and, uncertain how to respond, turns to me for direction.
I know what I’d do, but I give her a look that says it’s her life, her decision to make.
Cutler reaches out for her hands.
She hesitates briefly before letting him take them.
Satan Rides the 5:15
by Vincent Lardo
1
They had just finished dinner in a neighborhood restaurant. As the waiter cleared the table, Tom emptied a bottle of Chianti into their glasses. Waving away the dessert menu, he said to Colin, “You look very pensive. Are you thinking about next weekend?”
“You might say that,” Colin responded. “In fact, I’ve been thinking about
“The book or the film?”
“Either, because it’s the plot that concerns me,” Colin said. “The story of an actor who sells his soul — or his wife’s body — for a starring role in a Broadway show. I forget how it all turns out.”
“She has a boy,” Tom told him. “He wins a Tony, they go to Hollywood where they live happily ever after in a modest mansion in Beverly Hills. The boy becomes a producer known primarily for his religious epics. You can’t fault Satan for his ironic sense of humor.”
“I think they all go to the devil,” Colin countered.
“And that’s where you’ll go,” Tom assured him, “if you don’t get this role. Your bio says you’re twenty-four. I know you’re twenty-six, and on a clear day you can see thirty. From juvenile to supporting player — at best — to oblivion. You’ve got to get the starring role in Freddy’s new play, Colin, or you’re as viable as yesterday’s mashed potatoes.”
“And for it I have to kill him?”
“Think of it as one small murder for man and one giant kindness for mankind. Besides, I’m doing the dirty work with your help.”
“It’s called aiding and abetting.”
“You talk like a character in those dreadful soaps you keep appearing in.”
“They pay the rent,” Colin said.
“And little else,” Tom reminded him. “Now, shall we go over it once more before the weekend?”
The man whose life these two handsome young men were plotting to end this coming weekend was none other than Fred Langton, the legendary writer/director of the successful Broadway team Langton and Langton. With his wife, Vera, wearing the producer’s hat, this extraordinary couple were solely responsible for no less than a half-dozen Broadway hits, all of which had found their way to Hollywood, where Tonys turned into Oscars. Fred Langton was often called a Renaissance man when his name appeared in print and a bastard when it was bandied about in private. A variety of more descriptive and colorful expletives were also attributed to the Renaissance man with the Machiavellian touch, who was as ruthless as he was talented. This combination attracted envy and hate in equal amounts, and the fact that Fred Langton was not done in years ago attested to luck also being one of his abiding traits.
However, it appears that his luck ran out when he signed the virtually unknown Tom Harrington for the lead in his last Broadway show, making Harrington a matinee idol and a very happy actor. Alas, joy turned to disappointment, then anger, when Tom received the longed-for offer from out West and was told by Langton’s lawyer that he could not accept it because he owed Mr. Langton his services in another play. Tom knew he had signed with Langton and Langton for two plays, but he didn’t know that until he had fulfilled the second obligation he could not appear on stage, screen, television, or radio without the permission of Langton and Langton which, the lawyer made clear, was not likely to be forthcoming in the immediate future. So strident was the second-play clause and such a bitch was Fred Langton that Tom Harrington could not even appear on TV to solicit subscriptions for PBS.
When he asked how he could get out of the contract, Tom’s agent, without malicious forethought, read aloud the final sentence in the binding agreement.
Revenge has no greater champion than an actor thwarted from strutting his stuff before a camera. There, in his agent’s office, Tom decided that
The slow leak in Fred Langton’s lucky vein began to hemorrhage when he gave Tom not only the venue for the crime but a scapegoat to go with it. The Langtons, like many of their colleagues in the New York theater world, kept a second home in Westport, Connecticut, a convenient one-hour-plus ride from Grand Central station. Here they employed a cleaning woman in the person of Rosa Ortiz. On a Saturday morning, before taking the Metro North to Westport, Fred went to his friendly ATM in Grand Central station and withdrew two hundred dollars in twenties before boarding his train. Rosa was just finishing her weekly chores when he arrived at the house.
Going directly to the master bedroom, Fred put his wallet, keys, and loose change on his dresser before doffing suit and tie for jeans and polo shirt. Vera, as often happened, had an appointment with her hairdresser and would join him that evening. Fred decided to go to the local pub for a burger and beer that afternoon. Retrieving his wallet from atop the dresser, he paused to count his money and discovered his total assets were a five-dollar bill and a few singles. The twenties were gone, and only Rosa had been in the house since his arrival. Subtlety was not Fred Langton’s strong suit. He picked up the phone and called the police. They picked up poor Rosa and hauled her into the police station, along with her husband, Alonzo. There, accuser and accused came face to face and the fight was on. In the melee that followed, Rosa denied taking the money; Fred said he would tell all the people who employed Rosa that she was a thief; Alonzo spat in Mr. Langton’s face and threatened to kill him. The evidence against Rosa was circumstantial at best so the police sent everyone home before blood was spilt and relegated the missing twenties to the cold-case file.
The hot-blooded Mexican, Alonzo, had threatened to kill Fred Langton within earshot of a room full of police officers. When Fred told this story to anyone who would listen, Tom knew that an angel or devil was sitting on his shoulder. Uncertain of the identity of his benefactor, Tom was torn between lighting a candle in St. Patrick’s Cathedral or mounting a cross on a black ribbon — upside down.
What Fred didn’t tell anyone was that when he went to hang up his trousers that evening, two hundred bucks fell out of a side pocket. In his rush to make the train, he had stuffed the money into his pants pocket and not in his wallet. He did not tell the police he had found the money. He did not apologize to poor Rosa, and he went to bed happy to have his money back. If ever a man deserved to be murdered, it was Fred Langton.
Tom now knew that Fred would meet his maker in the house in Westport and could only hope that Alonzo Ortiz had an iron-clad alibi for the time of the murder. If he didn’t — so be it. The fast track to fame does not take scenic routes, so when boarding it’s best to keep your eyes on the goal and not on the passing parade. The murder weapon was a problem until Fred, once again, came to Tom’s aid. Having the writer’s flair for the dramatic and being a bit of a ham himself, Fred flaunted his fear of the villainous Alonzo Ortiz — who was most likely an illegal immigrant — and announced that he had transferred a gun he kept in the Manhattan apartment to the house in Westport. The desk in the den Fred liked to call his summer office became the repository for the gun.
The victim, to date, had provided a likely suspect, the venue, and the means to have himself bumped off. Did a murderer ever have such good fortune?
After many a sleepless night, Tom came up with a plan he thought was ingenious, to say the least, but he needed an accomplice to bring it to fruition. Enter Colin Delaney. Colin was an aspiring actor who eked out a living via soap operas, voice-overs, and an occasional gig as “escort” to women of a certain age and gentlemen of a certain persuasion. Colin lived in the same SoHo brownstone Tom Harrington called home, albeit Tom occupied the entire first floor, with access to the backyard, while Colin lived in what real-estate agents like to call a bed-sitter in the brownstone’s converted attic.
The young men had a nodding acquaintance but kept their distance. After all, Tom Harrington was a star and poor Colin did walk-ons and a little modeling on the side, as they say in the trade. But even from a distance, Tom could recognize a hungry actor, which is just what he needed to move his plan from the drawing board to the launching pad.
Fred Langton put the finishing touches on his new play, which could go into rehearsal in six weeks. Tom’s agent informed him that the Hollywood producer would give Tom a month to resolve his contract problem before looking for another actor to fill the role. The clock was ticking, and the countdown was on.
Vera Langton was one of those women of a certain age who enjoy the company of younger men. Being a successful Broadway producer, she was never in want. Vera was forty-something and endowed with a trim figure and a pair of shapely legs that made her wisely shun slacks and pant suits. She kept her hair, like her hemline, short, with a no-nonsense do that looked deceivingly simple but in fact required the weekly attention of a Madison Avenue stylist. Tom introduced Colin to Vera and suggested him as stage manager for the new Langton and Langton offering, as yet untitled. Vera interviewed Colin, who had little experience as a stage manager, for which he compensated by his experience in charming women of a certain age. He got the job.
“She’ll have you in the sack in a week,” Tom told him.
“Are you speaking from experience?”
“Alas, yes. One does what one has to do for one’s art.”
“And what does one do when her husband gets wise?” Colin wanted to know.
“For every stud Vera beds, Freddy helps himself to two ingénues and the balance of power is maintained as long as neither sets his or her sights on the other’s dessert tray. By the way, you do know what to do with a lady in bed.”
“Yes,” Colin assured him. “You had to do it in high school or you didn’t get invited to the best parties.”
“Good,” Tom said, relieved. “It’s like riding a bike. Once you master it, you never forget.”
“I owe you big time,” Colin said to his new pal. “How can I ever repay you?”
“As a matter of fact, Colin, there is something you can do for me. Come down to my apartment this evening and I’ll explain the details over Chinese takeout and a bottle or two of expensive wine.”
By the time the second bottle of wine was uncorked, Colin was privy, in detail, to Tom’s plans for severing his contract with Langton and Langton. Colin was surprised — perhaps shocked — but not appalled by Tom’s proposition. As he held up his glass for a refill, Colin could only think that all he had to do was cooperate with Tom and he, Colin Delaney, would be in line for the starring role in a Langton and Langton production, for this was the irresistible bait Tom had dangled before the hungry actor. It was an offer Colin couldn’t refuse.
“I withdraw from the new play and Vera, who has long itched to direct, inherits the keys to the Langton and Langton kingdom and looks about for a new face to replace this old one. You, Colin, are it.”
“But she’ll want a star,” Colin protested.
Tom shook his head. “I hate to admit it but Freddy’s little comedies are so brilliant they don’t need a name, only competent actors with pretty faces. That’s how I, and a few others, got their start in a Fred Langton play. Unknowns are ingratiatingly thankful, do as they’re told, and come cheap. Besides, Vera enjoys discovering new talent to tread the boards or her bed and has already suggested you as my understudy. You’ll be invited to Westport next weekend, and every weekend thereafter, to scrutinize the script and toss around ideas, as Freddy likes to put it.”
“Suppose the widow cancels the new play and goes into mourning for the dearly departed?” Colin questioned.
“Vera in mourning?” Tom exclaimed. “My dear boy, Vera will hold a memorial service on the stage of Freddy’s last hit looking splendid in white. After the eulogy she’ll announce that she could pay no greater tribute to Fred Langton than to put his new play into production — immediately. Exit Vera to a standing ovation.
“Now, shall we go over the plan once more before you trot up to your garret?” With a pause, Tom added, “By the way, when I go west, you can move down here for the duration of my lease, rent free.”
The plan.
Tom knew from experience that when a new play was being mounted, the weekends spent in Westport never varied. Fred Langton and guest or guests would go up on Friday evening. Vera would join them on Saturday, after her hair appointment. For now, the only guests would be the play’s star, Tom Harrington, and the stage manager, Colin Delaney. Fred didn’t think Colin was necessary at this point but Tom (again from past experience) counted on Vera insisting that Colin be part of the team from the beginning. Tom, of course, was right in this assumption.
On the first weekend Colin would get the lay of the land (no pun intended) and Tom would show him where Fred kept the gun. By the second weekend Fred would be used to having Colin around. The third weekend would be their last in Westport and Fred Langton’s last on earth. On that weekend, Colin would meet Fred in Grand Central, as usual, and say that Tom had pressing business to attend to that would keep him in town that night and he (Tom) would come up with Vera on Saturday. Thanks to Alonzo Ortiz, Fred didn’t like being alone in the Westport house, so he would have no objection to going up with Colin on Friday.
Colin was assigned on their first weekend to pick up Vera at the train station on Saturday at five. Once established, that was his job. On the third weekend, Colin would leave the house to pick up Vera and Tom. First, he would have removed the gun from the desk drawer and planted it under a cushion on one of the outdoor patio chairs. The door to the patio led directly into Fred’s summer office.
When Vera got off the train she would be alone. She would tell Colin that Tom called her cell to say he was delayed but would make the 5:15. Colin would suggest that he and Vera have a drink, then pick up Tom at the station. If he drove Vera home, he would have to drive back to the station almost immediately. Vera, to be sure, would be delighted to have a tête-à-tête with Colin. First, she would call Fred to tell him what was happening.
Actually, Tom would take an early train to Westport and walk to the house, where he would hide in a wooded area just beyond the patio. When he saw Colin leave, he would come onto the patio. He had no fear of being seen, as Fred loathed fresh air and never went outdoors unless forced to do so. Fred would be at his desk with his back to the patio door. Tom would wait until he heard the phone ring and Fred answer it. This would be Vera’s call. When Fred put down the phone, Tom would pick up the gun and enter the den.
Tom would then walk back to the station, ditching the gun down a sewer, and meet Colin and Vera at the station, where it would appear that he got off the 5:15. He, Vera, and Colin would drive back to the house to discover the tragedy.
“Vera speaks to Fred when she gets off the train at five. He’s very much alive. When we get to the house at six-thirty, give or take ten minutes, he’s dead. You and Vera are having drinks in the pub and I’m on the train heading north when the murder occurred. It’s foolproof.” This was Tom’s mantra whenever he outlined the ingenious plan.
“Vera is well known at the pub, so you’ll have a dozen witnesses to back you up — if needed. I’ve arranged with a friend to say he ran into me in Grand Central as I was running for the five-fifteen — also if needed, which I doubt, thanks to Alonzo Ortiz.” At this point Tom usually began humming “California, Here I Come.”
Colin was not as optimistic. “There’s so much left to chance, or luck. I have to get the gun from the desk to the patio without Fred seeing me.”
“Fred tends to nature right after breakfast and sits on the throne reading the
Colin continued, “Vera must have her hair done and finished in time to make the three forty-five — and she must agree to have a drink with me and wait for you to arrive on the five-fifteen.”
“Vera’s Saturday hair appointment is as regular as Fred’s morning stay in the bathroom and nothing will please her more than to have you to herself while sipping a dirty martini,” Tom reminded his friend.
“Fred must pick up Vera’s call and not let the machine get it,” was Colin’s final litany of the things that could go wrong.
Tom shrugged in exasperation. “I know there are pitfalls, but we have to chance it because it’s my only hope of getting out of that contract and your only hope of advancing from stage manager to star. The one thing we can control, and you must, is to keep Vera in that pub long enough so that you get to the station after the five-fifteen has been and gone. I’ll be on the platform.
“It’s over an hour’s jog from the house to the train station. I’ve timed it twice on my morning runs and I’m in good shape for the trip. If Vera calls Fred a little after five, and I do the job minutes later, I should get to the station a few minutes after the train has left. Make sure you get there after me. Don’t leave the pub till six-thirty or later. Understand?”
Colin nodded. “Do you have opening-night jitters?”
“I’m an actor playing a role and I intend to play it like the pro I am.”
“Break a leg,” Colin said.
2
Detective Sam Adler looked down at the mortal remains of Fred Langton. The detective was a big man, but he was careful not to disturb anything in the room as the scene-of-crime crew and the medical examiner had not yet arrived. He was first on the scene because he was at the station house when the call came in and he got to the Langtons’, with two uniformed officers, within minutes.
Adler didn’t need the M.E. to tell him that Langton had been shot through the back of the head while sitting at his desk. He must have died instantly, his body heaving forward to press his face into what appeared to be the manuscript of a play that lay open on the desk. The door to the patio was directly behind the desk. If Langton had heard the murderer enter the room he probably didn’t have enough time to turn around and see who hated him enough to kill him.
Reluctantly, Adler left the murder scene and returned to the living room to face the new widow and her two houseguests. The Langtons were known in Westport, as was the actor, Harrington. Adler didn’t know who the other guy was and had already forgotten his name. The three were seated on a humongous couch, with Mrs. Langton between the two young men, one of whom was holding her hand. It wasn’t Harrington. She looked stunned, as one might expect, but was not in tears. If she was in shock, the hysterics would come when it wore off.
Adler took a portable tape recorder from his pocket and switched it on. “It saves time,” he explained to the trio, who stared at the tall man hovering above them. Two uniformed officers performed sentry duty at the far end of the room.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Langton, but I must ask some questions ASAP, before time blurs the facts. Unfortunately, I speak from experience.”
Vera Langton nodded her consent, then blurted, “We employed a cleaning woman, Rosa Ortiz. Her husband...”
“I’m familiar with the incident, Mrs. Langton. Right now, please tell me where you and your guests were this afternoon.”
“Perhaps I should explain,” Colin Delaney said.
“Please do. You are?”
“Colin Delaney. I’m employed by Mr. Langton — or Mrs. Langton...” He paused. “I’m sorry. I’m very upset.”
“I understand, Mr. Delaney. Just take your time and speak in a normal tone. No need to shout. Now let’s start again.”
“Yes, of course,” Colin began. “I’ve been here since yesterday. Tom and Vera, Mrs. Langton, came up today. I drove to the station at five to pick them up but Tom wasn’t on the train with Mrs. Langton.”
Tom broke in. “I was delayed, so I called Mrs. Langton and told her I would make the next train, which was at five-fifteen.”
Colin picked up with, “Mrs. Langton and I decided to have a drink and wait for Tom to arrive, rather than drive back to the house. That’s what we did. Mrs. Langton called Mr. Langton and told him we would be home as soon as Tom got here.”
“And you spoke to Mr. Langton?” Adler addressed Vera.
“Yes, of course. He was fine.” Vera’s voice trembled and Adler feared she was on the brink of breaking down. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible and have her taken upstairs before his crew and the M.E. arrived. Best for the bereaved not to see the body being photographed, examined, and carried out on a stretcher.
“What time did you speak to him, ma’am?”
“About five, when she got off the train,” Colin answered for her.
Adler looked down at Harrington. “And when did you get here?”
“I made the five-fifteen from Grand Central and got in about six-thirty. We drove straight here.”
Adler, once again, was not in need of the M.E.’s help to establish time of death. Fred Langton was killed between five and six-thirty. Here, the unmistakable sounds of police and ambulance sirens could be heard approaching the house. “Why don’t you men take Mrs. Langton upstairs,” Adler ordered. “Maybe she would like to rest until we’re done down here, and a good stiff drink might help all of you.”
As if sprung from a trap, the three rose with alacrity. Colin took Vera’s arm and led her out of the room as Tom went to the liquor cabinet and helped himself to a bottle of bourbon.
“You can go to the kitchen for ice,” Adler called after Tom.
Turning, Tom said, “They keep a mini fridge and mineral water in their bedroom.”
Once upstairs, Vera did not break down nor lie down but went straight to the phone and dialed Langton and Langton’s lawyer. Tom poured out two shots of bourbon and handed one to Colin. Eyeing each other, they touched glasses in a silent salute and drank. Tom poured a stiff drink for Vera, diluting it with branch water, and handed it to her just as she put down the phone.
“The press will race up here by car or helicopter when this breaks,” she said. “I don’t want to see them. You talk to them, Tom. You know the routine, say nothing in a few thousand words. My lawyer will make an official statement in the morning.” She polished off half her drink in one swallow. “Christ, I needed that.”
“Do you want to lie down, Vera?” Colin wondered aloud.
“I’m too keyed up for that,” she said. “Can you imagine that Mexican bastard...”
“Made you CEO of Langton and Langton,” Tom concluded.
“That’s crude,” Vera protested.
“Come, come, Vera. We’re alone now,” Tom answered. “No need to put on an act until the press get here.”
“Freddy is dead,” Vera cried.
Tom poured himself another shot of bourbon and raised his glass. “The king is dead. Long live the queen.”
Vera hesitated a moment — a very brief moment — then drank to the toast.
An hour later, alone in his bedroom, Tom looked out the window and watched the medics carry Fred Langton out of his home for the last time. As the ambulance drove away he began humming “California, Here I Come.”
At the station house, Detective Adler sat at his computer keying in his report. Occasionally he played back the tape on his recorder so he could quote, verbatim, his brief interview with Vera Langton, Tom Harrington, and Colin Delaney.
There was a tap on the office door and Sergeant Rick Anderson entered without being summoned. “Sorry I’m late, Sam. I went to the city today with the wife and kids. The boys outside told me one of our major summer celebrities has got himself killed.”
“Fred Langton,” Sam responded. “I’m just finishing my report. Have a look when I’m done.”
“Remember the Mexican?” Rick said. “What was his name?”
“Ortiz. Alonzo Ortiz. The boys went to pick him up if he’s still in town, which I doubt.”
“Sorry I wasn’t here to assist, Sam. There was a fire in Grand Central. Nothing serious. One of those track fires that happen when everyone is in a rush. I was going to make the five-fifteen but service wasn’t resumed until seven.”
Sam Adler turned slowly in his chair and rose to his impressive height of six feet plus. “What did you say?”
“I said there was no five-fifteen from Grand Central this evening. That’s why I’m late.”
When, He Wondered
by Lynne Barrett
Maybe it was at the Fenwicks’ playoff party in January, when Tom went to the kitchen for a beer and Elise came up behind him as he turned in the cold exhale of the refrigerator. She said, “Was I wrong? I thought you wanted to kiss me.” He heard the football shouts from Wick’s den, the chattering living room, his own voice, rough with surprise, saying, “Who wouldn’t?” Was it then he crossed the line?
Or there was the afternoon at the Holiday Inn Express twenty miles north, when he asked if she still did it with Wick. Elise sat cross-legged on the bed, sighed, pulled her chestnut hair up into a knot revealing her pretty ears and tiny diamond teardrops, and said she had to, that once when they had gone without for a month, for no good reason, she just hadn’t felt like it, he’d hired a detective. She saw a charge she didn’t recognize listed on a credit-card bill, and then, in Wick’s desk, she located the report, filled with daily schedules of Elise driving their daughter Nikki to school and horseback riding, and photos of Elise at a fund-raiser for literacy, at the gym, standing beside Wick at a groundbreaking. Though the detective didn’t find anything, because there’d been nothing to find, that wasn’t a risk she could take anymore, could she?
From this Tom could tell she wasn’t going to leave Wick, and all Wick had, for him. He hadn’t really imagined she would. But still, from then on he had to picture what she was doing to deflect suspicion.
How about when Wick asked him to go to the driving range one evening in early June? They’d shot hundreds of buckets of balls here when they were teenagers. Now their shadows stretching towards the 50-yard marker were wider, Tom’s with a breadth of shoulder he hadn’t had when young, and, okay, some gut. The dark green Wick shadow reached, as always, farther, his inch of height advantage multiplied by the low angle of the sun. Tom swung his three wood and listened to Wick complain. The wife, a bit extravagant, money just vanished through her fingers, and Nikki, who knew a kid could cost so much? And bigger problems, the pause in real-estate sales since the winter, the sinkhole suits at Spoonbill, the loans and due dates, how overextended you could get when things were ticking down. Maybe it was time to cash it all in. But he’d need a bit of help to do that. And who else could he ask but Tom?
When, as young guys starting out, they worked construction together on Sunshine Marketplace, the first shopping center near Peregrine Springs, Wick hadn’t liked the grubby stuff, the details of aggregate and rebar. He wanted to rise from concrete to dreams. And he did, built the outlet mall near the highway, then the hotel and conference center, the first golf condos, the Spanish-Moorish developments that ineluctably surrounded the village where they’d grown up. After twenty-three years the Sunshine Marketplace, weathered and out of style, was gutted and expanded by Wick’s company, re-facaded and renamed The Shops at Spoonbill, with signs proclaiming what 600 acres of scrubland behind it would be: COMING SOON: SPOONBILL, A GOLF RESORT COMMUNITY, A BILL “WICK” FENWICK PROJECT. Wick liked to name things Heron, Hawksbill, Manatee — evocations of what he was displacing. Wick would say that was Florida tradition: Peregrine Springs had been noplace in the middle of nowhere, an imaginary paradise, when it was incorporated optimistically in the twenties. In their childhood, it had been a would-be artist town with a few motels and cottages on the Little Peregrine River. Now it was cute and clogged with cars circling to park, people lined up to grab cash at a bank machine, get coffee in the old drugstore building, and search the boutiques of the Peregrine Springs Arcade to decorate their new homes with the plunder of the world.
Wick had carried him along — Tom the supply guy, the one with the patience for measurements, quantities, invoices, Tom an essential part, Wick always said, of his success. Tom had dated tan, fun women Florida had in abundance, but somehow rather than marry he moved toward solitude. He could afford toys, Jeep and sport catamaran and dirt bike, and a golf villa that faced a fairway, across a finger of water where gators sometimes sunned. Before he moved in he’d put backstops on doors and re-vented the laundry, little things not standard in a Bill “Wick” Fenwick home, where people boasted about the two-story Great Room and the terrazzo floors. On the first-floor “garage and laundry level,” which opened onto the lap pool and lanai, he installed a tool wall and workbench. He had a library with louvered shutters and a leather chair where he read with sun-dazzled eyes at the end of the day, a glass of Irish whiskey on the oak table beside him, some big book full of facts open on his lap.
Tom liked to read earth science, geology, geography, so he understood the unreliability of the landscape, the karst topography of Florida, how the ground water, slightly acidic, dissolved the calcite in the limestone as it worked its way down through, creating voids. As long as the water table stayed high enough to buoy up the overburden, your mantle of sand and clay, you had the illusion of solid ground. But when you lowered the water level, by stripping out slash pines, by digging drainage canals, by paving so the runoff was redistributed, well, sooner or later, say early one April morning, something had to give. The curve of dirt that would be the Spoonbill clubhouse drive became a bridge over nothing and then dropped, taking two trucks into the widening cavity as the first workers tossed aside their coffee and ran for it. By the time Tom got there, a crane had fallen in. He ordered everything drivable moved, but the men didn’t particularly want to risk it. He found Wick standing on the roof of the Shops at Spoonbill supermarket, looking out at the catastrophe, arms crossed, jaw square, as newspapermen took pictures of him saying, truthfully, that no one could predict this, it was an act of Florida nature, unfathomable and bizarre. TV helicopters hovered as the sinkhole swallowed the foundations for half a dozen already-sold “executive homes.” Hungry attorneys arrived by day, and teenagers showed up at night, so you had to hire guards to keep them from drinking and daring each other to venture down into the pit. No one knew if the sinkhole would take more. Building of the Homes at Spoonbill was indefinitely suspended.
And somehow this disaster had given Wick the idea he laid out that evening at the driving range in June. The way he was going to keep what he could.
East of town, in the woods Tom Baugh and Bill Fenwick had roamed as boys, was one of the original “sights” of the area, a sinkhole known as Old Crater because early travelers ascribed it to a meteor, where a thousand years ago the land had collapsed to the aquifer. This sink, of course, looked nothing like the raw wound at Spoonbill. Trees that grew up out of its sides formed a canopy. The water in its depths was rumored to be bottomless, to be haunted by sacrificed Tequesta maidens or ambushed conquistadors, to be fed by pure and magical springs, to have patches of quicksand, to lead to caves in which was hidden pirate treasure.
Parents warned against swimming in Old Crater. But the boys had boundless confidence — inexplicable, now Tom thought about it — and they explored. Others before them had made a pathway through the greenery, spiraling down to the water. When they dove, they found springs, and, where there was sand, shark’s teeth. Once, swimming underwater, they popped up into a cave at the western edge of the sinkhole with a ledge they could sit on, and as they watched they saw the water moved, sluggishly, yes, but always southwestward.
Tom theorized that the water here might connect eventually to the Little Peregrine, that these springs might feed an underground river. “No way to know but to try,” said Wick, and they filled their lungs and dove, their bodies slim darters slipping downstream, going on past caverns, possible channels, as if they knew the way, till the choice was turn back or drown, but they saw light and came up in another sink — smaller, a hole six feet across and ten feet up, its sides erose and crumbly.
“We can just dive and go back,” said Tom, but Wick — and maybe this was the moment he took the lead? — found footing on an outcropping near water level, and made a stirrup with his hands, and Tom, lighter, stepped up, then stood on Wick’s shoulders and hoisted himself to the edge. He grabbed on with his legs to a bush there, nothing that should have held, really, reached down, and grabbed Wick’s hand, and Wick climbed right up and over him, then lifted him to the top. They stood in an overgrown spot they hadn’t seen before, with the sun just overhead, and laughed, sparkling with ancient water and immortality.
After they’d found their way back over the surface through the woods to where they started, at least one hundred yards away, they talked about the other place — “The Well,” Wick wanted to call it — and vowed to keep it secret. So secret that soon they didn’t speak of it, just sometimes, when anyone mentioned Old Crater, or underground streams, exchanged a look, or not even a look, just shared consciousness.
But once was enough; they’d never done that dive again. Why risk what had been perfect?
In July, Wick told Tom he was ready. Sales were at a standstill, creditors closing in. He picked his evening. Nikki was off at camp in the mountains, and Elise was going to a gallery opening in the Arcade.
Wick’s holding company owned the whole Old Crater tract, had bought it years ago. He’d spoken of donating it someday for a state recreation area, with a visitor center and walkways built down into the pit, but all he’d done was fence it and post signage warning trespassers of danger. Tom watched Wick turn his Lexus onto the Old Crater dirt access road and park by the gate. Tom drove on along the state road in the car Wick had rented with his new identity. Wick had arranged another name and documents years back: He said it was a sensible thing for any businessman to do, and he’d taken care of it before means of identification got hard to obtain. On some level, Tom realized, Wick had always expected the business to collapse. He knew his Florida history of boom and bust.
Wick planned for his new identity to drive the car across the state tonight, get on a Fort Lauderdale late flight to the Bahamas, then fly on to where the money Wick had moved offshore was banked, a destination Wick said Tom was better off not knowing. Tucked beneath the passenger floor mat were the reservations and passport in a sealed envelope.
Tom parked the nondescript sedan in among pines that marked the spot they reckoned was as close as they could get to The Well. Wearing gloves and a Tyvek jumpsuit that came down over his new rubber boots, Tom took out his backpack and carryall and a long piece of rebar he’d laid across the backseat. He locked the car. He went through a break in the fence Wick had cut earlier in the summer — already rusting. Tom moved carefully through the woods to the hidden sinkhole. He pulled from his nylon carryall a small sledge and set to work.
Wick, he knew, had by now unlocked the padlock of the chain-link gate, gone through and pulled it to, and walked to Old Crater. Tom pictured him descending through clouds of midges. By the water, he’d leave his clothes, his keys, his cell phone, his big flashlight, and a partly drunk bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Would Wick take one pull of the whiskey? Tom thought he would, and look up, as Tom did, at the last color from the west touching the rippled clouds overhead. He’d put an underwater light around his head before he got into the water.
“The weak point of any faked death,” Wick had said, “is the lack of a body. It has to go somewhere where it could plausibly disappear.” Tom had asked why Wick couldn’t just leave his evidence at Old Crater and walk over here, but Wick said, “No. They’ll track me through the woods. It’s conceivable they’ll search with dogs. I have to go through the water, and come up where no one would expect. That’s the beauty of it. They’ll think I’m stuck down there, somewhere in the depths of the sinkhole.” He planned for Tom to carry him out on his back, leaving no scent of Wick on the ground.
Tom tried to talk him out of it, one last chance, the day before, but Wick just said, “You think I can’t do it? I’ve been practicing holding my breath for months.”
Nearly eight o’clock. The sky above was losing light, shifting towards purple. Tom clicked on the camping lantern he’d brought. It caught the retinas of something in the shadows across the way — an owl, Tom thought, or a coon. Tom hung the lantern from a branch, aiming the beam down toward the water, to illuminate the spot and help Wick find it.
Elise, Wick had insisted, couldn’t know. She had to act natural when he disappeared, and ignorance was the best guarantee of that. When it was all done, after a year, maybe, he’d secretly contact her, get her to come on what would look like a vacation to where he was living. She’d forgive the charade when she learned how much he’d rescued from the crash. Maybe he’d have started a new business on the island by then. Maybe she’d marry his new self, one day. And his daughter, they’d trust her with the secret at some point. Tom had listened to his romantic confidence and said nothing.
Now Tom breathed in the humidity and heard the singing of mosquitoes. He tasted salt on his upper lip and knew he was sweating. What if Wick hadn’t found the cave? The aquifer would be charged now, the water level higher in rainy season, the movement faster. On maps no stream was shown, but he and Wick understood what they had found years ago, the course of something, whether it reached the Little Peregrine or no. He waited.
He remembered the dim sense, when they moved through the darkness underwater, of other caverns opening to the side. Possibly Wick would turn somewhere and lose his way?
Perhaps Wick would simply not come up?
No, here he was, puffing, gasping, in the water, his headlamp a weak flicker. “Tom,” he whispered. “Hey, y’there?”
Tom sat silent for a moment, then stirred. “Here, buddy, right here,” he said.
“Can’t find any foothold,” Wick said. “Let down the rope.”
“Mmmhmm,” said Tom, “I’m doing it.” He had the polypropylene mountaineering rope secured to the stake he’d driven deep into the ground, angled properly away, a couple of yards from the edge, something not part of Wick’s original plan. Wick had wanted no marks anybody could find. But tying rope to some bush or sapling just wasn’t secure enough for a full-grown man, and it would leave more trace, Tom had argued. A stake removed just left a single hole, sure to fill in with summer rain, and he assured Wick he’d put it under foliage where no one would look.
Tom clipped the rope to his climber’s harness and let himself down four feet, one boot propped on the side to keep him still. He could stretch his arms out and brush the sides of the hole with his gloves.
Wick, treading water, called out, “Hey, you didn’t have to come down yourself. I could climb up.”
A few feet lower and all Tom had to do was land on Wick’s shoulders, paying out the rope, his weight pressing Wick down. He heard Wick’s huff of surprise as he went under.
Wick reached to grasp Tom’s legs but couldn’t, his hands slipping off the slick jumpsuit. He flailed and ducked low, out from under Tom, but he couldn’t wait long for air, and when he pushed his face up, three feet over, his headlamp showed his hand grasping for the edge. He coughed water out, and Tom was there, stepping down on his head, shoving him forward and under. Wick couldn’t have grabbed more than half a breath. And Tom got back on his shoulders and held Wick down, his weight more than any upward force Wick could muster.
Would the drowned man have some bruises when he was found? What more natural, if he came up under some obstacle, in the cave, the underground river, the mineral subterranean world.
Wick had fallen forward and gone deeper.
Tom lifted his feet and went up a bit on the rope. Wick stayed down.
Tom waited, dangling. He flexed his hands and regripped the rope.
He imagined Wick trying to go back through the stream, against the flow, airless: No, it was impossible.
The body surfaced, floating facedown.
Tom waited, counting, making himself go slow.
When it had been five minutes, he pulled himself up. Once on the top, he lay there for a minute breathing, then stood, detached his line, and coiled it up. He took the other rope he’d brought, regular twist, and tied it to the rebar stake, rope and metal both from Fenwick construction. He tossed the fresh line into the sink: it dangled against the side, just breaking the water, visibly unused. He looked down into the dark pool, at the back of a white water mammal, extinct. He pulled out a towel and wiped his boots dry, then hung it around his neck. The lantern was starting to fade. It would die soon, no way to tell how early it had done so, whether Wick had made the simple error of not using fresh batteries, whether darkness kept Wick from finding the rope. From the backpack he took Wick’s set of new casual clothes and left them, the car keys tucked in the right shoe, near the stake. Tom put his harness, line, and sledge into his backpack, and hoisted it.
He walked out, following the path he’d taken before; this would have to look like the route Wick had come in when he set up the stake, rope, clothes at some earlier time. Tom looked into the locked car. One corner of the envelope with the new identity’s information poked out from underneath the floor mat, the way he’d left it.
Tom stayed in the shadows under the trees and moved parallel to the road till the car was out of view. He took off his boots and jumpsuit and put on his running shoes. The carryall was empty now. He rolled it up, and put it and the boots, the jumpsuit, and his gloves — only now did he remove them — into his backpack. He shouldered it and stood square, in running shorts and T-shirt, running his hands through his sweat-soaked hair. He took a minute, thinking through the details, and left.
He walked. It was dark now, and he stayed just off the road, avoiding headlights. Brief rain pattered somewhere in the woods. He concentrated on keeping his mind empty, his pace, his breath, his heartbeat even.
At the Spoonbill Shops, where he’d left his car, he slid the backpack inside a grocery bag on the floor, and went into the market. When he got home, he had two full grocery bags to carry inside. The sledge went into its slot among his tools. He hosed down his boots and jumpsuit and threw them, with rope and tackle, in the catamaran, among the rubble of his other outdoor gear, a temporary risk he’d have to take. He put his clothes in the washer and stepped into the lap-pool shower. Dressed in clean sweats, he started the wash and went upstairs, unloaded groceries, and read for a while, or tried to. When he looked out at the golf course, he saw lightning flicker in the distance. He hoped it would rain a lot during the night.
A little after eleven the phone rang. He looked at the caller ID. After four rings, after the machine kicked in, he picked up, said, “Hello. Sorry, I was doing laundry.”
Elise asked if he’d seen Wick that evening.
“No,” he said, “I thought he was staying late in the office, paperwork.”
“That’s what he told me,” she said, “but he isn’t answering there, and his cell phone’s off, and he hasn’t come home.”
“Maybe he’s on the way. Or maybe he stopped off somewhere for a drink,” said Tom.
“Maybe,” she said. “I guess I’m silly to worry, but he’s been odd lately.”
“Under a lot of pressure,” Tom said.
“Yes,” she said. “Well. Sorry to bother you. I’ll call the bar at the club — maybe he’s there.”
That conversation was on tape, if anybody ever got that far, checking.
In bad financial times, the state needed a good laugh. And Florida guffawed with scorn at the man who died faking his own death. Too tricky by half, that Bill “Wick” Fenwick, who thought he could thread his way under the surface, come up in a new spot, and get away. But no: After his wife’s worried calls, police found his car parked by the gate to Old Crater. In the early morning light, it was easy to follow his track. There were his clothes, his wallet and keys still in his khakis, his cell phone on top of a little memo book, a note in there talking about how he’d always liked to come here to get close to nature, to get ideas. And now, in his despair, where could he turn for peace? (This was utterly hokey, Tom thought, when he read it in the paper. No wonder Wick hadn’t mentioned the note to him.) Further search turned up the other car, parked among pines, inside it the new identity, the planned escape. And from that end, they found the declivity with the rope dangling, and below it the body, a middle-aged man in swim trunks, with a lamp on his head, askew.
They brought in a diver who located the passage from sinkhole to sinkhole. It was assumed Wick had gotten through (a feat in itself, the sheriff said on TV), but didn’t make it out of the deep water — no foothold and perhaps he couldn’t find the rope in the dark, or couldn’t climb it. Unnamed official sources were quoted speculating about how much whiskey he’d drunk, the lamp up above failing, maybe a cramp, maybe his heart, though it was found he’d definitely drowned. Anyway, it looked like justice.
Editorials said, enough of these scoundrels.
Parents said, sinkholes are very, very dangerous.
The widow and the daughter at the funeral were grateful for the support of old friends, of whom there were not many as the financial facts came out.
The businesses, layered with debt, would be closed in on by creditors. Forensic accountants found funds Wick had siphoned overseas, though not as much as they hoped. Under Florida homestead law, business bankruptcy or not, the Mrs. got the house. Which she could sell, in time, when things had settled down.
The life-insurance company had to pay Elise: The policy had long outlasted the suicide waiting period, and anyway it’s not suicide if you die faking suicide, so, though there was comment about Wick’s accident being the result of a planned embezzlement, in the end, she’d get that money.
Tom saw her at the funeral, and at the office a few times, only in public, all aboveboard. She looked pale, and spoke slowly, hesitantly, and people said she’d been given sedatives. And when she told friends she was taking Nikki away for a time, up to the mountains, people said, of course, poor thing, she’s near a breakdown, imagine the betrayal and bad publicity. But Tom was sure she was alert, and careful. Wick had underestimated her, Tom knew. She was an excellent actress.
She had told him, when he revealed Wick’s plan to her in June, that she’d long suspected he’d do some such stupid thing, had seen the other id in Wick’s desk back when she found the private-eye report. From then on she’d set aside cash culled from their expensive life, sent where it wouldn’t be found, against the day when he abandoned her and Nikki.
Still, the details of Wick’s plan had infuriated her. She said it was all boy’s adventure and would look fishy, there’d be a lot of noise and a big chase after him, and then she’d be tied up in it, suspected. And when Wick was, inevitably, caught, and tried, and jailed, what a disaster for Nikki. Better he should fail, she said, and Tom had agreed.
At times Tom walked through waves of vertigo, a feeling that the ground beneath him could turn to powder, but he did what was demanded. He worked with the receivers, his employment now to salvage what could be saved. He got to know the accountants, who listened to his requests for payments that would keep things going and bring in revenue for a smaller, steadier business that could perhaps emerge in time.
In separate trips through August and September he’d dropped the rope, sledge, cut-up jumpsuit, each glove, each boot in the Little Peregrine, in distant spots, where the water ran fast and deep after tropical rains. Nobody was looking for them. Nobody was looking at him. The accountants talked about what Wick’s books told them, about the nested companies making each other loans. Some days, they laughed and whistled with admiration at Wick’s nerve.
In mid November, Elise flew down from the mountains to come to the office to sign papers. She looked serious, and older, in a brown suit, no earrings, a thread of gray in her hair. She said goodbye to him in front of others, saying to him, as to them all, “I hope we’ll meet again.”
But he knew it would be better not to. While she could visit here, and he could court her, even after a few years they could marry — that’s how Wick would think — it was better for her to be free, and far away. He shook her hand, and wished her well.
Tom realized, of course, that she’d known in any plan Wick would turn to him, and so she’d made sure he was her ally. But once she was gone, he started thinking she must have seen, for a long time — years? — what he was capable of. Tom wondered exactly when he’d started hating Wick.
Playing the front nine one morning in early December, on a day when the humidity had cleared, he drove into a bunker. Stood there, waggling the five iron, feeling the sun on his bunched shoulders, the golden force of it. He swung and sprayed sand, and the ball lifted and reached the green, but there was nobody to see it. Then he got what he had lost. And what he had: his own shadow stretched unrivaled across the fairway.
Duel
by William Link
Murder, She Wrote, Mannix,
Jim Siders left his wife at their apartment off Columbus Avenue and took a taxi, which he could ill afford, to Penn Station. It was a blistering hot August day and he was wearing a fifteen-year-old poplin suit, the kind you usually saw the rumpled Charles Laughton wear in his old courtroom movies.
The Metroliner, which he could ill afford, took him to Philadelphia, where he got off at 30th Street Station and took another overpriced cab to the precinct house in West Philly.
He found himself surprisingly calm waiting for Lieutenant Charles Robinson, the homicide cop who had called him and said they needed his “abilities” in a current case they were working on. He knew Robinson was downplaying the importance of the investigation. He and Gail had watched the story evolve, the child who had mysteriously disappeared from her family’s mansion. If the victim had been a minority kid he doubted it would be getting this kind of media attention.
That’s why he was a little surprised when Lieutenant Robinson came out to greet him. Robinson was black as tar, wide, heavy-footed, like the old heavyweight champ Sonny Liston without the glower. He was warm and seemingly friendly, unlike some of the other cops Siders had helped over the years who resented him when his insights proved accurate and the media played him up more than them.
“Got any vibes yet?” Robinson asked, smiling.
“Zip,” Siders smiled back. This was somebody he knew he could work with, an amiable cop, overweight, overworked, with an agreeable absence of attitude.
“Give me a list of your travel expenses,” Robinson said. Another smile: “I’ll get you reimbursed just about as fast as they reimburse me. That’s a promise!”
He took Siders back to his office, a cramped, cluttered room with only an ancient fan with a missing blade fighting the stagnant heat. Robinson sat on the corner of his desk, Siders in a hard-backed chair facing him. “What do you know about the case?” he asked.
“Just the little I saw on television.”
Robinson nodded, serious now, the startling whiteness of the teeth in his smile gone. “Eight-year-old little girl driven home from school by the family chauffeur. Servants saw her watching TV in her room.”
“Were her parents home?” Siders asked.
“No. Mother was shopping in town, Dad was at his business. The little girl, Allison, never showed for dinner. This was three days ago now.”
“You mean someone took her from the house?”
“Looks that way. Unless she walked out herself. Maybe met a friend, but we talked to all her buddies and nobody saw her again after they left school.”
Siders was sweating now, but not from tension. “Was the child angry at her parents?”
“Not that we know of. They’re so distraught, I’d think they’d admit it if there was some kind of conflict with the kid. Although the cook told me the parents have these horrendous arguments, shouting matches, which the kid was privy to.”
Siders was not a stranger to out-of-control fights with one’s wife. Luckily he and Gail hadn’t had a child who would have had a front-row seat on their fireworks. He knew he had grown mistrustful of most women after his wife had that “incident” with her old high school friend.
Robinson crisscrossed big hands under his arms. “Hot today! You want a Pepsi or something?”
“No, no I’m fine.”
Robinson went to a small fridge Siders had missed, opened it, pulled out a bottle. “I want to take you out to the house, let you poke around, hopefully get some vibes.”
“That’s what I’m here for, Lieutenant.”
“Have to tell you something else. We got one other person working with us on the case — another psychic.” He smiled. “Unless you divined that already.”
Siders smiled back, but now the bad sweat broke out: He finally had a vibe, the wrong kind. “Who?”
“Woman named Libby Stark. You know her, ever hear of her?”
“No.”
“She’s local. Seems the mother, Mrs. Schofield, goes to her quite a bit. She insisted we bring her in to see what she could come up with. You bothered with that?”
What could he say? “No. Not if she could be helpful. We’d both be working toward the same goal.”
It seemed that now the broken-bladed fan started working. He suddenly felt cold, very cold, in his old poplin suit.
Robinson drove him out to an imposing Georgian mansion on the Main Line. He was still quietly seething with worry: He had hated competition even as a kid in school, never played games, chess, cards, anything that put an opponent square in his face. Who was this Stark woman, some Philly faker, preying on stupid rich women with lots of time and money on their manicured hands?
In Allison’s bedroom there was a profusion of personal objects, but nothing with “vibes,” as the lieutenant put it. He looked in the laundry hamper, at a tangled pile of dresses, underwear, T-shirts. Nothing spoke to him.
Later, downstairs in the opulent living room, Robinson introduced him to Mrs. Schofield, a pale, almost translucent blond, not unattractive woman in her thirties. She was with another woman, dumpy, dowdy, fortyish. Mrs. Libby Stark.
Siders shook hands with both of them. Stark had a surprisingly strong grip, which he knew connoted an authoritative, confident personality.
“I’ve seen you on Court TV,” she said. He didn’t know if there was the shadow of a sneer on her fleshy lips.
They were joined by the husband, an executive type, whose handsome, stolid face betrayed no emotion, either because he refused to exhibit any or because he didn’t have any.
“...usually don’t call in any psychic folks until the late part of our investigations,” Robinson was saying.
“But—”
Mrs. Schofield interrupted: “I called Libby because I thought you fellows might need all the help you can get.”
Siders checked out the husband, who looked as if he harbored a low-grade contempt for his ditzoid wife who actually believed in these crystal-ball charlatans, especially this Philly specimen. But his wife’s bills to her psychic were probably no worse than her bills from Saks or Neimans or the downtown jewelers. Those more upscale charlatans.
Siders said, “Mrs. Schofield, do you mind if I look around the house? I might pick up something in one of the rooms where your daughter has been.”
“Oh yes, yes, of course. Consider the house yours. You too, Libby.”
Fine, Schofield’s face seemed to say. And maybe they should contribute to our astronomical mortgage while they’re at it. And this Siders guy — tell him the liquor cabinet and my wife’s jewelry box are off-limits.
“Thank you, Annette,” Mrs. Stark said, rubbing in her friendship with the lady of the house. “I know how worried you and Stewart are over this terrible situation, but rest assured I will do my very best.” She volleyed a look back at Siders as if to say: This is my territory, buster, always has been, always will be, so maybe you’d better get back on the train.
“Okay, people,” Robinson finally said, like a tolerant tour guide, “I think we better let you psychics do your thing.”
During his tour of the house, Siders bumped into Mrs. Stark in a sort of demilitarized zone, the study. “Picked up anything?” he asked, trying to be friendly.
She smiled. “If I did you’d be the last to know.”
“Mrs. Stark,” he said, “we don’t have to be enemies.”
“Don’t we? You’ve had your run as a media darling, darling, don’t you think it’s time for somebody else to have her place in the sun?”
Siders caught his first vibe in the chauffeur’s quarters over the garage. It was a one-bedroom dwelling with few personal possessions except for clothing and some photos in cheap frames on the wall. Siders was immediately drawn to a shot of four mechanics, grease monkeys in oil-stained coveralls smiling fatuously at the camera. Something about it, Siders thought, something about it.
Later, as a mauve summer dusk slowly descended and chandeliers sprang up like bonfires all over the huge house, the chauffeur himself arrived with a beautiful Angora cat in his arms.
As Siders and Robinson approached the man near the garage, Mrs. Stark having already left for the day, the psychic felt another strong, almost seismic pull, not knowing if it was emanating from the man or the animal.
It seemed Cassandra, the Angora, had become deeply depressed since Allison’s disappearance, and had been taken to the vet for “therapy.”
“How old is she?” Siders asked the chauffeur, a short, bright-eyed man in his forties named Jorge. Siders had immediately recognized him from the photograph.
“Four, maybe five years,” he answered in an accent that Siders later learned from Robinson was Argentinean.
Cassandra refused to be petted. Typical, Siders thought: Male cats are much more friendly than the watchful, judgmental females. Like his wife. But he still wasn’t sure if he was getting a glow from Cassandra or the chauffeur.
“Vibe?” Robinson asked after the chauffeur had left. The cop was more perceptive than he’d thought.
“I always get good vibes from cats. I had a beautiful Siamese when I married my wife, but she made me get rid of it.”
“You were lucky,” Robinson laughed. “When
In the motel that night, Siders suddenly woke at almost three in the morning. There was just a light paintbrush of neon at the window near the panting a/c unit and the hesitant patter of rain.
The image of two numbers had emerged from his sleep: 7 and 6. It had seemed as if he had been looking up at them, like they were on a building or a sign. 7 and 6.
He called the precinct house and cajoled a detective, who luckily knew Siders’s role in the case, to call Robinson. “Middle of the night? He’s gonna chew your head off,” the man warned him.
“Not when he hears what I have.”
Luckily, a sleep-drugged Robinson was more cuddly than Cassandra. “Anything,” he said. “Tell me anything you have.”
Siders told him about the 7 and 6 in his dream. He considered dreams the mind’s movies, almost like a binary code that could either mask or reveal the truth.
Robinson was silent for a long time; then Siders heard him soft-talking his wife back to sleep. “You know this guy Jorge — the chauffeur? — he used to work at a gas station, was a mechanic there?”
Very sleepy: “Right.”
Then it hit Siders like the fifty thousand volts from a stun gun. “A 76 gasoline station?!”
“I think so, yeah. You figure Jorge’s got something to do with this?”
“Maybe. But I still don’t understand the connection with a gas station.”
There was the unmistakable sound of bedsprings as Robinson bounced his big body from the bed. “Let’s go find out.”
“Now?!”
“Why not? You got something better to do tonight?”
“What part of town is this?” Siders asked as the big white police cruiser moved through the light drizzle, the windshield wipers cutting a window in the hot night. It was almost four in the morning now.
“Upper Darby,” Robinson said. He looked strange in his hastily thrown-on civilian clothes. “It used to be lah-di-dah but now it’s mostly my kinda folks.”
“But we drove past the Scofield mansion just minutes ago. That Main Line still looks like old money.”
A tired Robinson smile. “Welcome to big-city America. The rich nuzzling the poor.”
“Yeah. Like in New York.”
Robinson looked over at him. “What do you think of this Stark woman?”
“Really think?” He paused. “Why’d she leave early today?”
Robinson shrugged. “Said she had some appointments back at her place. She gives these readings.”
“Does that answer your question?”
“What was my question?” Laughing: “Oh yeah. So you don’t think she’s got too much spin on her crystal ball.”
They drove a few minutes more, then they slowed, the rain strengthening.
“The gas station’s near here?” Siders asked.
“Well, I know it’s on Cobb’s Creek Parkway where we are, so — yeah!” He pointed. “Right up there on the right. See it?”
He pulled up beside one of the four pumps in front of an old, decaying structure with its adjoining mechanic’s garage. Through the gray scrim of rain, Siders could see the small, faded, brick building was dark, looking long abandoned. He also saw the unlit “76” sign on the roof.
“What do you think we’re going to find?” Robinson asked. “The little girl? Her body?”
“I don’t know. And don’t say I’m supposed to know because I’m a psychic!”
They got out, Robinson with a big black golf umbrella that Siders was sure wasn’t police issue, probably his own. He followed the big detective around the corner of the gas station, the rain pleasantly cool on his face.
“Any vibes?” Robinson asked.
“No.”
Robinson knocked on a boarded-up window, listened. Kept listening. Nothing. Slowly moved down to the attached mechanic’s garage, hammered hard on its door. “Allison!” he yelled. “Allison!” He waited.
No answer.
There were just trash cans and a Dumpster in the rear, the rain pooling on the heaped trash.
Robinson gestured expansively at the dark field sprawling away behind the little structure. “Anything out there ringing your chimes?”
There
Robinson’s face suddenly eclipsed his view of the dark field, beads of rain glistening on his prominent cheekbones. “What do you feel? What?”
“Maybe... something.”
Robinson turned, swung back toward the gas station, the umbrella over his head again like a big, scalloped awning.
Siders hurried after him. “Where are you going?”
“I have to round up my team and get back here right away.”
He woke at nine, his stomach sore, no appetite. He had picked up some toilet articles last night so he could at least shave, use deodorant. Of course the phone rang while he was in the shower—
Robinson. “You got any Champagne in your motel’s courtesy bar?”
“They don’t have courtesy bars here.” He was suddenly plunged back to the gas station last night, the remnants of shower water on his face and hair like the rain.
Robinson’s voice darkened. “We found the little girl. A pretty crude grave in that field, not that far back from the gas station.”
“My God,” Siders murmured. “Who do you think—?”
“Jorge. Who else? We just routed him out of his nice warm bed. Trust me, we’ll be on him all day like a bad smell.”
“Should — should I stay put?”
“For now, yeah. But if we get a confession, well, you’ll be the star. You’re going to have the media all over you like a worse bad smell. You up for that, Siders?”
He was nervously toweling his hair. “Does Mrs. Stark know what’s happening?”
Robinson laughed. “Who knows? But I wouldn’t trust
Siders hung out in Robinson’s office in the precinct house where he knew they were grilling Jorge. In the early afternoon Robinson came into his office. He looked beat but quietly jubilant, his necktie loose, his sweaty shirt collar open.
“Did you break him down?” Siders asked.
Robinson dug a Pepsi out of the fridge, sat down. “Took some work, but yeah, we broke him — like this bottle — if it wasn’t plastic. He killed her all right. Where’re my manners — you want a Pepsi?”
He wearily related how Jorge had driven the girl from the house that afternoon. She was in a bad emotional state, having heard her father threaten to kill her mother that morning. She ordered Jorge to drive her to New York. He said he couldn’t and she exploded, said she would accuse him of trying to rape her. Jorge lost it. They struggled in the car and before he knew it he had strangled her. He panicked — where could he get rid of the body? And then he remembered the field behind the gas station where he used to work.
“You got a written confession?” Siders asked.
“Ink’s still wet.” He looked relaxed now, his legs, with their size-twelve shoes, up on the desk. “You’re going to be the media’s lover boy. You want the department to set up the interviews?”
“Yeah, fine. My motel. I’d appreciate it, Lieutenant.”
“Make sure you’ve got plenty of drinks.”
“You put me in a cheap motel. I told you I don’t even have a courtesy bar.”
Robinson frowned. “The media without a courtesy bar?”
Siders grinned: “Trust me, they’ll manage.”
The following morning was a noisy carnival with Philly TV, the local papers, even CNN from New York in his little room. He finally managed to shoo them out and was spread-eagled, exhausted, on the bed when there was an authoritative knock on the door. “Who is it?” he called.
“Robinson,” came the gruff, slightly muffled reply.
“It’s open.”
An unusually dour Robinson took his time coming in. He gave the room a quick once-over, an obviously ingrained cop habit. “I’m going to have to put you in custody, Siders.”
He nodded, slowly sitting up on the bed. Even a psychic knew you couldn’t rain-check the inevitable. But what the hell had gone wrong?
“New York homicide got a tip, went to your apartment. Found your wife, bludgeoned to death.”
He came closer, looking more disappointed than angry or accusatory. “They got the prints off the weapon and they’ll be comparing them with yours. Neighbors say they heard the fights you had with her, very violent fights, your threats to kill her.”
Siders nodded again. He slumped down on the bed. There was no adrenaline left in the well, everything was depleted, gone. He had thought he would get back to New York, figure out how to dispose of her body. Just like Jorge, he thought grimly. “You... you said they acted on a tip.”
“Mrs. Stark. She called them in New York, said she had a vibe. They called me to check on her. I told them she was credible, we were using her on this Schofield thing.”
Siders put his face in his hands. He heard the rain start again at the window, whispering, something else conspiring against him.
Robinson was trying to salvage his good humor. “Amazing,” he said. “I mean how she repaired that damn crack in her crystal ball.”
A Tour of the Tower
by Christine Poulson
The five o’clock tour was the last of the day.
Sadly, for Miriam it was to be the last one ever.
The grey-haired American — in his sixties, Miriam judged, around her own age — had been the first to arrive. He was wearing a cream linen jacket: good material and very nicely cut. Miriam’s working life had been spent in the menswear department of a big store and even now she couldn’t help noticing what people were wearing. She glanced down at her chocolate- brown linen shirt and trousers: a devil to iron but worth it.
She stole another glance at the American. He was talking to a middle-aged couple (matching red anoraks) and their teenage son (hooded blue sweatshirt). There was also an older couple: a T-shirt that he really shouldn’t be wearing with a paunch like that and a pale blue cotton sweater for her. The Australian couple in their twenties (chinos and a short skirt with high-heeled sling-backs) looked like newlyweds. There were a couple of French girls (cropped top and shift dress), who were probably from the local language school. The two young men, a tall blond (ancient Fruit of the Loom T-shirt) and a shorter, shaggy-haired youth (blue waterproof), were campers, she guessed, judging by their wrinkled clothes.
The group was a typical mix of nationalities and ages and Miriam had seen hundreds like them in her time as a cathedral guide. She was already leading them across the nave to the locker room when two latecomers, a middle-aged woman in a cream raincoat and a stocky young man in a blue anorak, came hurrying up. That made fourteen — fortunately. She didn’t like having thirteen in a group. After rucksacks and umbrellas had been placed in lockers, Miriam asked for a volunteer to stay at the back of the group so that she could be sure that no one was left behind. The American raised his hand and she smiled her thanks. She’d guessed it would be him. He’d probably ask the best questions, too. She led the way to a door in the corner of the locker room. From there a spiral staircase wound up through the wall of the west front.
“It’s a long climb,” she warned.
One by one they followed Miriam through the narrow entrance. The staircase was lit by electric lights that threw a shifting pattern of shadows onto the walls. The group toiled up the steep stone steps, hollowed by generations of feet. When they were almost at the top Miriam made her usual comment to the people behind her.
“It’s just when you think you can’t go any further that you get there!”
She had timed it just right. They emerged onto the narrow gallery as the choir came in for evensong. There were exclamations and gasps of surprise when people realised how high they were. To Miriam’s mind this was the best view of the cathedral. There was a lump in her throat as she watched the white and crimson robes moving in stately procession down the nave.
When she had heard about the new regulation, she had gone to see the dean, but he had explained to her that his hands were tied: “...new rules... insurance company... no one over sixty.”
“It’s not fair, I know,” he said, smiling at her, “when one feels as fit as one ever did.”
And that was kind, because she knew for a fact that he was a good three years younger than she was
His cropped hair and natural tonsure gave him a monastic look. He had asked her to call him Jim, but she really couldn’t bring herself to be so familiar, and after that she tried to avoid calling him anything.
The dean was right. It really
When everyone had had time to recover, she led them up the next flight of stairs to the space over the clerestory. Her voice seemed to run on independently of her, weaving in the history of the cathedral with little jokes and anecdotes.
“Pardon me,” said the American, “but this render on the walls, what would that be?” He had an “aw-shucks” kind of voice that made her think of James Stewart.
“That’s pumice stone covered with lime wash,” she told him, thinking she’d been right about his asking the best questions.
“You really know your stuff,” he said admiringly.
She did. It was scarcely an exaggeration to say that she knew every inch of the building. At nights when she couldn’t sleep, she explored the place in her imagination, roaming the vast dark spaces of the nave and the glorious soaring transept, wandering through the tranquil cloister and the chapter house, where the treasures of the cathedral were displayed. There were some wonderful things in there — early printed books, embroidered altarcloths and vestments, silver plate, and most precious of all, St. Edmund’s silver-gilt chalice. It had escaped being melted down during the Reformation, when the bishop had buried it in the garden of the palace.
The cathedral was the only thing that had kept her going after Bill died so soon after they had retired here from London. But perhaps she shouldn’t have let it become her whole life. Maybe she should take up bowls again. She and Bill used to play at competition level...
Someone coughed. She came to herself and realised that everyone was looking at her.
“This way,” she said brightly and led the way across a gangplank to a room at the base of the tower that housed the working of the medieval clock. This was the first place on the tour where one could get a view of the close and the surrounding landscape. Pewter-grey clouds were massing over the water meadows. Miriam pointed out the bishop’s palace through the rain-flecked window. She noticed for the thousandth time that the crevices of the windowsill were clogged with the desiccated corpses of dozens of butterflies. She had been meaning for ages to bring up a little battery-operated vacuum cleaner and now she never would.
I’m looking at things for the last time, she thought, and that’s almost like looking for the first time. She was struck all over again by how strange it was to be up here, like seeing behind the scenes at the theatre.
An open wooden staircase, like a piece of scaffolding, wound up around the inside of the tower. They climbed it and emerged into the bell chamber. Miriam had timed this to coincide with the chiming of the hour at six o’clock. The group ranged themselves on wooden benches or leaned against the wall and waited. The sound, when it came, was stupendous. It swelled to fill the whole space and got into your head. It was impossible to speak, scarcely even to think.
When the reverberations had faded away, it was time for the final climb up to the walkway that ran around the base of the spire. Today, the view was literally breathtaking. When you tried to speak, the wind whipped the words out of your mouth. The Australian girl didn’t want to go out, and in those heels, no wonder. The metal rails were chest-high, but it felt as if the wind was about to lift you off your feet.
All that was left now was to retrace their steps. She kept up her flow of patter — it wouldn’t do to shortchange the visitors — but when the door at the foot of the spiral staircase thudded shut behind her, it had such a final sound that she felt like crying.
She got a grip on herself. Her last task was to count heads before the group dispersed. She counted thirteen. She frowned — must have missed one — and asked everyone to stand still so that she could count again. She did count again — and again — but it still came to thirteen.
Someone was missing.
“Did you count them in the clock room on the way down?” asked the dean.
It had been the rule ever since a visitor had got stranded on the walkway around the foot of the spire. Miriam blushed to the roots of her hair. She had clean forgotten. The guide hadn’t realised that he was still out there and had bolted the door. The poor chap had been trapped for hours.
The American had been adamant that no one had been left behind. No, he hadn’t actually counted them, but he had been the last to leave every room and each time he had checked that it really was empty. Miriam had felt a momentary doubt, but she clung to the knowledge that there had been three dark young men on the way up and only two when they reached the bottom. The trouble was that they were all dark and stocky and they all had been wearing something blue. No one else thought there was anyone missing.
It was just her luck that the dean should have been hanging around to witness her discomfiture. Not that he was censorious, far from it, but his kindness only made her feel worse.
“I’ll go back,” she said.
“You most certainly won’t,” said the dean. “I’ve been in my office all day. I could do with the exercise. I’ll be there and back before you know it.”
Miriam could only submit. She took a seat at the end of a pew. The other guides were drifting into the nave one by one. Miriam glimpsed one of the posher ones, a woman who was a leading light in the local pony club. She was pleasant enough, but Miriam never felt comfortable with her. She was whispering something to one of the others. From the corner of her eye Miriam saw them glance at her and look away. She wished the earth would open up and swallow her.
It seemed to take hours, but couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes before the dean emerged from the locker room. As he walked briskly towards her, the skirts of his cassock flicking out behind him, he smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.
“All clear. There’s no one up there,” he said. “And there’s nothing left in the lockers, either.”
Miriam felt a surge of relief. She got to her feet and the smiling dean took charge of her. Chatting at her side, his hand under her elbow, he steered her towards the cathedral cafe. She was surprised to see that the little gathering of guides had swelled to a crowd. The door was opening, there were balloons, and someone was holding a bottle of Champagne. The dean released her and held up his arms like a conductor readying an orchestra. He brought them down and there was a ragged but enthusiastic chorus of “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”
“Happy birthday, dear Miriam,” said the dean, and he leaned forward to kiss her on either cheek.
Perhaps it was the excitement or the Champagne or both, but Miriam couldn’t sleep. It was almost two o’clock when she gave up and pushed back the single sheet that was all she’d been able to tolerate. She put on her dressing gown, padded into the sitting room, and switched on the light. Rain was spattering the window and buffeting the geraniums in their pots on the little balcony.
The top-floor flat wasn’t in the close, but it was near enough for a view of the cathedral. On sunny days, the massive structure looked as vast and improbable as Mont Blanc. Tonight it was like a black ocean liner floating in the dark. The floodlights were switched off at midnight and only a red warning light on the very summit of the spire remained.
If Miriam craned her neck, she could see part of the top floor of the dean’s house. The windows were dark tonight. In the months after Bill’s death, when Miriam had found it hard to sleep, she had often seen a light there in the early hours. It was comforting to think of the dean working late on a sermon or reading some weighty theological tome and to know that she wasn’t the only one awake.
Miriam thought about that last tour. She had been certain that fourteen had gone up the tower and only thirteen had come down. Of course,
The cathedral clock struck two. In her mind’s eye Miriam saw the clogs turning and meshing together, the ropes growing taut, the pealing of the bell vibrating through the empty cathedral and floating out into the night air.
And that was when she knew how the disappearing trick had been pulled off.
She had already started to dial the dean’s number when she asked herself what she thought she was doing. She couldn’t ring him at this time of night and he had already been up the tower once. And suppose she did instigate another search, how would she feel if after all there was no one there?
She went back to the window. If there was some real evidence, lights in the cathedral maybe... But she could see only the upper part from here. She bit her lip, considering. Well, why not, she wasn’t going to get any sleep, that was for sure. She went into the bedroom and got dressed.
She was about to leave when her eye fell on her bowling bag, open on the chest of drawers. Buoyed up by Champagne-induced optimism after the party, she had decided to polish her woods, thinking that maybe she could find a new partner and begin again. She picked up the nearest wood and cupped the familiar almost-spherical object in her hand. It wouldn’t make much of a weapon, and if it came to self-defence, she couldn’t see herself putting up much of a show. Still, there was something reassuring about its smooth weight in her palm. She slipped it into the pocket of her cagoule. It just fit.
Miriam was no stranger to the close at night. After Bill had died, insomnia had often driven her out to stroll there alone, but she had never been there when the rain was pelting down and the wind was blowing so hard that her umbrella was turned inside out. Two of the spokes were actually broken, and she dumped it in the bin next to the kiosk that was occupied by the constable of the close. There was no one there at the moment — he must be on his tour of the close — but that would be her first port of call if she did see anything suspicious.
She pulled up her hood and pushed her hands into her pockets to reassure herself that the wood was in one and her mobile phone in the other. She set off along one of the paths that dissected the grassy space around the cathedral. She didn’t need a torch. Her feet knew the path and took her confidently forward. She reached the paved area outside the west front. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark now and the cathedral was no longer one black undifferentiated mass. She could distinguish window arches and the shadowy forms of saints in their niches. Out of the inky darkness of the porch a figure stepped forward. Her heart jolted and her hand shot up to her mouth. The beam of a torch light dazzled her.
“Jeez, you nearly scared the pants off me,” said a laconic American voice. “That hood. Thought for a moment you were some kind of monastic ghost.”
“
“Same as you, I guess. Couldn’t sleep. Look, you’d better come in out of the rain.”
She stepped into the porch. The American held the torch so that it illuminated both their faces. The strong light exaggerated his features, giving him deeply shadowed eyes and flared nostrils.
“I don’t think we introduced ourselves. I’m Tom, Tom Leverens.” He thrust out a hand. His clasp was firm and his hand felt dry and warm in hers.
“I’m Miriam. And I think you’d better switch the torch off. If there is something going on...”
“Yeah, yeah, okay.” There was a click and his face vanished. “If I’d had my wits about me, I’d actually have counted heads, but — well, my mind was elsewhere. I’ve been planning this trip for years — it would have been our fortieth wedding anniversary — me and Louise. She passed away last year, and, well, I wasn’t going to come, but the kids thought I needed a break. Tell the truth, I thought one of them might come with me, but Jeannie’s expecting her second and Martha got offered this internship....”
This homely litany was reassuring. He was a solid presence in the dark beside her and she was conscious of an aftershave or cologne that smelt of lime.
“Hey,” he said, “you don’t want to hear all that. Thing is, I know when someone might have slipped away.”
“Me too.”
“The clock striking, right?”
She nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see her. “No one would have heard him going back down the stairs. There’d be plenty of time to hide in the roof space above the clerestory.”
“But why?” he said. “For a bet? To steal something? All the valuable stuff must be in the chapter house. That chalice...”
“St. Edmund’s chalice. That’s what I’m afraid of. All the security is all aimed at keeping people out of the building, but once you’re in there...”
“I’ve already been round the building looking for lights, but what say we do another circuit?”
As they stepped out of the porch, Tom took her arm and tucked it in his. It was a long time since a man had done that, but it felt natural. They fell into step with Miriam leading the way. The rain had slackened, but the sky was still overcast. They kept close to the cathedral, moving out to skirt flying buttresses, staring up at the windows, straining their eyes against the darkness. It wasn’t until they were rounding the east end that something occurred to Miriam. She pulled Tom in against the wall.
“You said you’d already done a circuit,” she whispered. “Did you see the constable?”
“Didn’t see a soul.”
“He wasn’t in his kiosk when I passed it, so where is he?”
“Maybe he’s there now.”
They looked across the close towards the kiosk. But an avenue of mature beeches blocked the view. They saw a light glinting through the leaves, nothing more.
“We’d better see,” Tom said.
They set off across the broad expanse of lawn. The wind pushed Miriam’s hair back from her face and made her eyes water. From time to time, she glanced back and it was when they had almost reached the shelter of the beeches that she thought she saw something moving on the tower.
“What’s that?”
Tom’s arm stiffened in hers and he said, “What — I can’t see—”
Something was dangling from one of the windows of the clock room like a spider letting itself down from a web.
“We’d better call the police.” Miriam pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket.
“I don’t think so.” Tom’s hand closed round her wrist and he didn’t sound like James Stewart anymore. “I’d hate to hurt you, Miriam, so I think we’ll just stand here and let my confederate make his escape.”
The night exploded into dazzling whiteness. The cathedral sprang out of the darkness. The floodlights had been switched on.
Tom released Miriam. He turned on his heels. The next moment she heard the thudding of his feet on the paved path between the beeches.
A figure in track-suit bottoms and a sweater emerged from the porch door. Was it another member of the gang? No, it was the dean. He was looking up at the tower. In the stark light she saw a young man with a rucksack on his back hanging ten feet from the ground. The rope on which he was descending had snagged on a gargoyle. In an effort to free it, he was bouncing himself off the wall with his feet.
The dean was sprinting towards him. Without pausing to think, Miriam set off too.
The gargoyle gave way. The young man fell heavily to the ground. Miriam prayed that he had twisted an ankle, but the next moment he was on his feet. The dean was closing in on him. The young man slipped off his rucksack. For a moment Miriam thought he was going to drop it and run. Instead he gripped it by both straps and swung it at the dean. The dean swerved and the rucksack hit him only a glancing blow, but it was enough to send him spinning out of control. He fell awkwardly on his side. The young man was off, sprinting towards the west front.
In the distance there was the wail of a siren. Over by the constable’s lodge flashing lights appeared and there was the sound of a car screeching to a halt. The dean was getting to his feet, but he wasn’t going to be in time. Once the youth had reached the other side of the close and the bridge into the water meadows, he could lose himself in the darkness. Even if Miriam could intercept him, what then? He was young and fit and desperate and she was sixty.
She pulled the wood out of her pocket, drew back her arm, and bent forward in one fluid movement. The wood seemed to flow out of her hand and float across the shaven grass. Time slowed down. The wood reached the path at the precise point where its curved trajectory met that of the fleeing youth. The sole of his right foot made contact with the ball as if the two of them had always been destined to meet. His arms flailed, he wobbled, he teetered. For a moment it seemed that he was going to regain his balance. Then he was down with a crash that knocked the wind out of him.
“Ouch,” said the dean.
“Sorry,” said Miriam, “but it’s a nasty graze and it should be disinfected.”
She put the top back on the tube of antiseptic cream. The dean rolled down his sleeve. They were in the kitchen in his house and there was a bottle of brandy on the table between them.
“I should be the one worrying about you,” the dean said. “You must have had an awful shock when that scoundrel turned on you.”
“He’ll get his just deserts.”
Tom Leverens and the driver who was waiting for him had been stopped as they tried to leave the market square.
“You’re sure you’re all right? Delayed shock can be nasty thing.” He took one of her hands in both of his and squeezed it.
“Something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said. “What were you doing in the close at that time of night? How did you know something was wrong?”
“I didn’t, but I know
“In my flat?”
“You can just see it from my bedroom window.” Could it be? Was the dean blushing? “I tried to ring you, but there wasn’t any answer. I couldn’t raise the constable of the close, either. I went out and found the poor fellow trussed up by the wall of the bishop’s palace. That was when I called the police.”
“Thank goodness you were working late!”
“Actually, I wasn’t working. I was reading a detective story.” Now the dean was definitely blushing.
He wasn’t looking at her, but he was still holding her hand.
Hunting for the first-aid kit, Miriam had noticed tins of soup for one in the cupboard. It struck her that a person could be busy and important, yet still come home to an empty house.
She cleared her throat.
“Tell me, Jim,” she said, “have you ever thought of taking up bowls?”
The Widow’s Garden
by Bruce Rubenstein
Every spring the widow Cavanaugh invites me to her garden party, every spring I attend, and every year I swear it’s the last time. It’s not my kind of party. No pig’s knuckles, no sauerkraut, nary a bent copper, gangster, or floozy to be seen. There’s supposed to be some hooch in the punch, but I doubt it.
The high point of the evening comes when the widow, Francine is her name, reads a “poim” she’s composed for the occasion. A little coterie of admirers gathers round while she stands next to the garden fairy and emotes.
Her poem always begins with flowers bursting forth in the spring, then cuts to a few stanzas that may or may not be about love bursting forth within her brief marriage. Frankly, I find this embarrassing. I’ve learned over the years to take it in out of earshot; at a distance it can be charming. She doesn’t recite until dusk has fallen. There is always a faint scent of flowers on the breeze. Tiny colored lights are strung through the shrubbery, and along the stone walls that separate her huge backyard from those of her Summit Avenue neighbors. I remember one evening, it might’ve been last year, when a bright quarter-moon gleamed off the milky glass wings of the garden fairy and cast a pale glow over Francine’s little heart-shaped face.
She’s gained a pound or two since we met, but she’s still a fey creature. You almost expect her to float away like a balloon when her “poim” is finished. Instead she curtsies, then flits amongst her lady friends for praise and hugs, along with the occasional limp handshake from some frail-looking young fellows who are keeping the gals company.
About then I hear someone in the nearby bushes clear his throat. That will be her father, Arthur Brandon, who offers me a slug of scotch from his flask. The two of us hang in the background and reminisce for a while. He’s always a little apprehensive around me, but he needs someone to share a nip with on these occasions and I’m glad to oblige.
Arthur called me the summer of 1934. He said he had a case he wanted me to pursue, and asked me to come to his office for the lowdown.
I guessed what he had in mind. His son-in-law had been snatched three years earlier. There’d been several other high-profile kidnappings around that time, all wealthy men or their relatives. The difference was, they’d been returned to their families after the ransom was delivered. Frank Cavanaugh was never seen again.
Arthur was a surprise, considering his legendary status. I’d always pictured him as a gimlet-eyed miser, well-organized and ruthlessly efficient. He was nothing of the sort. He was a husky, balding fellow seated behind a huge, cluttered desk, vest unbuttoned, tie loosened, and some stubble under his jaw that he’d missed when he shaved that morning. He mumbled to himself as he rooted around among the documents strewn over his desk. Eventually he found a key, unlocked the top drawer, and pulled out a bottle. I guess he knew my reputation as well as I knew his.
There were two lines outside Arthur’s bank when the 1930 panic got rolling, one for the run that all banks were suffering, and one made up of people who’d heard that Arthur played his cards right before Black Tuesday, and had plenty of liquid assets. They wanted in. From then on Arthur was banker to the elite in St. Paul.
We had a few nips. He showed me a picture of his late wife and told me his daughter was just like her. Sweet and guileless. “I’m going to tell you something I didn’t tell the police,” he said, when we got down to cases. “I marked those bills, most of them, at least. In indelible ink, just a tiny curlicue under the Federal Reserve seal. Took me all night. Here, look.”
He picked up a magnifying glass and showed me the mark on a century note that he laid on the desk for my perusal. “I gave them four hundred of these, McDonough. Forty thousand dollars, and it didn’t buy my daughter’s husband back. You heard what they did with him, didn’t you? She has nightmares about it.”
Couldn’t blame her for that. Her husband had fallen into the hands of amateurs.
The Barker-Karpis gang had snatched Bill Hamm, the brewery magnate, and the banker Edward Bremer. They’d demanded $100,000 for Hamm, $200,000 for Bremer, and got every nickel. The hostages had been slapped around some, but were in reasonably good shape when they were released.
Cavanaugh’s kidnappers had demanded a relative pittance, the mark of the novice as far as the bulls were concerned. That was borne out by something they’d discovered a few months later, which made its way into the newspapers. A car thief who’d been collared over in Minneapolis gave the coppers some information in return for leniency. He told them that awhile back he’d been hired to steal a getaway bucket by a man who wore a mask when they met. They’d made a deal for a few bucks on the spot, more when a big payoff came through. During negotiations, the masked man let it slip that the car was for the Cavanaugh snatch.
A few weeks later the masked man came around to pay. He told the buggy bandit that the scheme had been to stash Cavanaugh in an apartment until the ransom was in hand, but the palooka in charge of that arrangement failed to pay the rent, resulting in some last minute make-do.
Bad as the kidnappers were at planning, they were worse at improvising. They’d driven out in the country somewhere, dug a hole the size of a grave, trussed Cavanaugh up like a pig on a spit, and tossed him in. Something was rigged to keep him breathing, but the whole thing collapsed when it rained that evening and the poor fellow suffocated, which explained why payment of the ransom didn’t result in delivery of the goods.
“The police told me about it, and I told them to make sure Francine never found out,” said Arthur, “but next day there it was on the front page. Poor thing fainted dead away when she read it.” He shook his head sadly. “I had a hunch I couldn’t trust the police. That’s why I didn’t tell them about marking the bills.”
“But what was the point of marking ’em if you didn’t tell the coppers?”
He explained that he was pals with a network of bankers from Wall Street to San Francisco. He’d alerted them to be on the lookout, and quite a few bills had shown up on the East Coast within a year of the kidnapping. He’d hired a private eye out there, but the investigation went nowhere. Now, after a long hiatus, the bills had begun turning up again, only this time closer to home.
“That’s what I know for a fact,” Arthur said. “Here’s what I know in my gut. Frank was lured by a woman. Women were his weakness.”
“It’s a common failing,” I observed, but irony will never be Arthur’s long suit. He continued to explain the role a vamp must have played in the kidnapping.
Frank Cavanaugh got a phone call shortly before noon the day he was snatched. He told his secretary he’d be out on business through the lunch hour, and never returned. The secretary told the police it was a woman who’d called. She assumed it was another secretary, because that’s how the hoity-toity make appointments with each other.
Arthur thought otherwise. “You see, Frank didn’t have many appointments, because he didn’t have much to do. He wasn’t cut out to be a banker, that’s for sure. I had him downtown with me for a while after the marriage, trying to teach him a few things, but by the time he was abducted I’d sent him over to our Midway branch. I have a competent fellow in charge there who didn’t let him get in the way. That was about all I could hope for.”
The marked bills were showing up at a bank in Duluth. Arthur wrote the banker’s name down and said he’d be expecting me. Then he handed me a sealed envelope. “I want you to track down the kidnappers and give this to them,” he said. “Unopened.”
That was half the job and it was odd, but not as odd as the rest. Arthur wanted me to meet with his daughter when I returned. I was supposed to tell her that I’d donned a pair of brass knucks and brodericked a confession out of one of the torpedoes who’d kidnapped her husband. He’d told me that Cavanaugh hadn’t been buried alive after all. He’d tried to escape because he missed her so, and they’d shot him dead.
“Tell her they dumped his body in the river or something,” he said. “Then she can forget about finding his remains. I can’t bear to see her pining away any longer.”
The next day I made my way to Union Station and boarded the morning train to Duluth. I chose a window seat and threw my patrimony, a carpetbag with a wooden handle, into the luggage rack. We chuffed slowly up the Phalen Creek ravine, passed through my north-side stomping grounds, then nearly came to a stop behind the shop ponds, so the boiler man could throw a shovel of coal on the pile.
The dirt-poor families that lived in old boxcars on the siding relied on that coal for their winter heat. It was an act of kindness by the Great Northern that kept many from freezing to death, but raised the mortality rate from black lung, too. My schoolmate Tommy Quinn hacked himself into an early grave from coal smoke, which sad betiding led to the only enduring relationship with a woman I’ve ever had. I got to spooning with his sister Maggie behind St. Andrew’s after the funeral, and we’d been seeing each other off and on ever since.
We gained speed quickly once we left the yards. Rows of stunted corn flashed by. Off in the distance I saw a water tower shimmering in heat waves off the surrounding farmland. A dust storm had blown through a few days earlier. Everything — trees, corn, barns — was coated with Iowa topsoil.
Funny how your thoughts, which might seem to be highballing down a track of their own, find their way back to whatever is pressing. Thinking about coal fires, and Maggie, and the intimacies Maggie and I had shared, reminded me of something wicked I’d done with another gal. It happened on the only occasion when I’d crossed paths with the widow Cavanaugh’s late husband.
The Chamber of Commerce chose Frank Cavanaugh to be Boreas, King of the Snow, for the 1928 Winter Carnival. He selected the usual assortment of society janes and dishy downtown shopgirls to be his princesses. Boreas and his pals wine and dine the princesses, and do battle with Vulcan the Fire King. It helps if both monarchs are hams, because their clashes are mostly rhetorical. Cavanaugh fit the bill nicely. Not only was he a man about downtown, he was an amateur thespian who looked good in a costume, and was very quotable.
At the end of the Carnival, Boreas is deposed and Vulcan reigns supreme. As the Fire King himself said when he knighted me: “Vulcan battles to end the cold of winter and bring warmth back to Saint Paul.”
You might wonder how I attained knighthood. Easier than you’d think. I hung around Tin Cup’s with some neighborhood fellows, amongst them Joe Rogers, who was well known because everybody knew him. I don’t know how they knew him, but his nickname helped. He came by it honestly, by confronting a Hun who had the temerity to walk into Tin Cup’s and order a drink. “Get the hell outta here!” said Joe. “Who’re you to order me around?” the Hun replied. “I’m yer worst nightmare, ye heathen bastard,” was Joe’s now-famous rejoinder. The Hun backed out cursing, and Joe’s been “The Night Mayor of Rice Street” ever since.
Due to his notoriety, the Night Mayor was named Duke of Soot for the 1928 Carnival. He arranged knighthoods for several of us from Tin Cup’s. We spent ten days during the shank of the winter doing battle for Vulcan. Our routine consisted of dressing up in red capes and devil’s horns, rubbing coal dust on our mugs, and riding round town drunk on a fire truck. We had a free pass to leap off the truck any time we saw a bunch of dames and bring warmth back to St. Paul by giving them a big sooty smooch. The gals always acted alarmed, and some of them were truly outraged (I personally got slapped twice), but mostly they put up a token struggle, then left the mark of the Vulcan on their puss for days to show that they were certified tomatoes.
Good clean fun, but cold work on a winter eve. It was comfier crashing the Snow King’s soirees. That was how we made war on His Highness. By busting in and besmirching the princesses.
Boreas employs his own shock troops. Traditionally they’re coppers, which means they’re just Rice Street rowdies in uniform. My friends Jack Moylan and John O’Connor were in the Palace Guard that year, as was another bull I knew, a bent gumshoe named Jimmy Philben. Jimmy fled St. Paul a few years later, about an hour ahead of the G-Men.
On the evening I was thinking about on the train, Frank Cavanaugh was at the Lowry Hotel, regaling his court with bootleg hooch and funny stories. The gals’ laughter turned to mock horror as we descended upon them. The Palace Guard put up some token resistance, and I vaguely recall His Majesty protesting vigorously — “good sirs, unhand these maidens forthwith” or something like that — but what I recall vividly is a kiss I got from a shop gal. She was nearly as tall as me, with taffy blond hair done up in thick braids on top of her head and that toast-colored skin Norsky dames sometimes have. When I kissed her, she stuck her tongue in my mouth.
I was shocked. I still made the odd confession back then, and the first thing that came to mind was, how am I going to explain this to the priest? I must’ve looked stupefied.
She stepped back. “Aww, did I scare you?” she said. “Thought’cha wanted a kiss.”
The Night Mayor swooped in and grabbed her before I could respond. Then the Duke of Clinker’s crew arrived and added to the chaos. I never did get her name, but I can still see the brazen smirk on her face and feel the heft of her. She was quite an armful.
King Boreas is the Chamber’s official glad-hander until the next Carnival, so Frank Cavanaugh was in the papers regularly over the following year. I’d often see pictures of him shaking hands with one mucky-muck or the other. That must’ve been right after he married Francine, when his father-in-law still had hopes for him.
The conductor came through to check the luggage racks. “There a bar car?” I asked.
“No hooch until after lunch is served,” he replied, “and we’ll be in Duluth by then.” He must’ve seen the disappointment on my map. “Try looking at the scenery,” he said.
People are always suggesting things I can do instead of drinking. The scenery was right up there with some of their other ideas — bowling, model airplanes. Nothing but stumps and blackened tree trunks as far as you could see. When I was a kid you could smell smoke from the forest fires up here back in St. Paul.
Duluth turned out to be a little town perched on a steep hill, next to a large body of water. I didn’t see just how large for a while. The water was mostly hidden by industrial buildings and big piles of reddish-brown rock when we rolled in, and my first stop was a windowless gin mill a few steps from the depot.
Once fortified, and having gotten directions, I trudged up the hill to Second Street and entered a brick building with North Shore and Iron Range Bank of Commerce chiseled into the granite facade. A guard gave my carpetbag the fish eye, but it wasn’t too long until I was ushered into the president’s office.
I leaned across the desk to shake hands with a tall fellow who rose to greet me. He had thinning blond hair and a grip like a teamster. Arthur had written his name down, but I couldn’t pronounce it so I simply uttered mine.
“Martin McDonough.”
“Jusseri Jalkanen. Sit down.”
Turns out the Finns pronounce J as Y, which made his first name sound like “usury,” which probably explained the wry smile when he introduced himself. He had lots of gold in his teeth. Behind him was a picture window that looked out on what might as well have been the Atlantic Ocean. There was no end to it.
“That’s a lake?” I said.
“Dat’s
“Fine, but his daughter is still grieving.”
“Terrible ting, dat.” He opened a drawer and pulled out two century notes. “Here dey are.”
We examined the little curlicues. They say money talks, but those bills weren’t telling me what I needed to know. “Any idea where they came from?” I asked.
“Yah. In a deposit from da lending co-op, up in Virginia. It’ll take some detective work to find out how dey got dere. But dat’s what you do, ain’t it?”
I assured him it was, with more bravado than confidence. I was a long way from St. Paul, and the coppers who provide most of the information I trade in.
“How far is Virginia?” I asked.
“Too far to walk. Fifty miles, uphill all da way.” He stood, and motioned me to join him looking out the window. “Dere’s a train unloading right now, see. — Tell ya someting. Dey never even fired da boiler on dat bastard once dey got ’er out of da mine. Just aimed ’er for Da Lake and braked ’er on da curves. Twenty hoppers with seventy tons of ore in each one. Took about an hour to roll ’er down here. Going back, now dat’s different. Tree, maybe four hours. I can get you on if you want. Why not? You could save a few bucks. Udderwise it’s da jitney bus, and dat usually breaks down on da way.”
I agreed and we strolled down to the yards together. I asked if he got many century notes through his bank. Very few, he told me, but more from where those marked bills came from than anywhere else. The Virginia lending co-op tended to be the collection point for cash from the Crane Lake area, he explained.
That rang a bell. Crane Lake was an old bootlegger’s route out of Canada, a remote and wild region where many a gangster and percentage-copper kept cabins. Redhots on the lam often holed up there, ready to pop over the border on a moment’s notice. I knew for certain that the fugitive gumshoe Jimmy Philbin lived on Crane Lake. He told me so himself when he tennis-shoed into town for his father’s funeral, wearing a wig and dark glasses.
Jalkanen and the engineer conversed in their native tongue while the boiler fired up, then it was time to get aboard. Jalkanen wished me luck. “Careful,” he cautioned. “Dat’s no ordinary bank up dere.”
I’d have questioned him about that, but we were under way.
The engineer was a laconic fellow and the boiler man was busy shoveling coal most of the time. To call the trip uneventful would be an understatement. I could see how rolling down to Duluth might be a thrill a minute though. You could tell from the way the engine labored that we were climbing a steep grade, and every few miles a hairpin curve slowed us to a near halt.
The land was mostly logged over. Poplar grew where the big pines had been, thick but not high. Off in the distance I could see a few stands of remnant evergreen. We whistled our way through some villages, Cotton, Forbes, Central Lakes, and arrived in Virginia three hours after we left Duluth. It was dusk when we came to a stop at the lip of a huge, horseshoe-shaped hole in the ground.
“Dat’s da Mesabe,” said the engineer. “Biggest open-pit mine in da worlt.” I could see train track looping down the side of the pit, and some electric lights aglow at the bottom, but not much else.
“We’re at da end a’ Chestnut Street here,” he said, as I climbed down from the locomotive. “Dere’s some saloons and a hotel a few blocks back.”
The joint I chose was called The International. It was well named. The barman spoke English, but the patrons were gathered in knots, gabbing amongst themselves in alien tongues. They had one thing in common, though, the crust of red dirt on their boots.
A couple of moochers who apparently knew some key words in each language were working their way from one end of the bar to the other. I kept an eye on my carpetbag as one of them hovered nearby. He was a tough-looking guy in a corduroy worker’s cap. His boots were clean. “Ain’t seen you here before,” he said.
“Ain’t been here before,” I replied, but the conversation improved some after I bought him a drink.
His name was Pete Urbina. He told me he was from Jugo-Slavia, that he’d mined copper in Michigan, and iron ore here and over in Hibbing. He’d quit because of the dust. He’d been organizing for the CIO until the strike settled. Then he got to drinking too much. “The OIC cops worked me over coupla times,” he said.
“What’s an OIC cop?”
“Oliver Iron Company. They don’t like organizers.”
“I’m lookin’ for a cop,” I told him. “Actually he’s an ex-cop. Lives over on Crane Lake. Jimmy Philbin, ever heard of him?”
“Nah, but them Crane Lake guys don’t give yuh their right name anyways. How come you’re lookin’ for a copper?”
I told him I was a private eye and Jimmy was an old friend. He advised me to skip the fleabag down the street and stay in the municipal cabins on Green Lake, at the edge of town.
It was good advice. I spent a comfortable night for a buck, plus fifty cents for bedding. The cry of the loon lulled me to sleep.
Next morning bright and early I walked into the Virginia Cooperative Bank, a storefront with no tellers, no cages, nothing but a strongbox and a desk. A fellow with a black moustache and broad shoulders crossed by suspenders was seated behind the desk. A sign on the wall said: LOOK AT THE BANANA! EVERY TIME IT LEAVES THE BUNCH IT GETS SKINNED! JOIN THE CO-OP.
“I’d like to ask a favor,” I said.
“You the guy talked to Petey Urbina last night?” he replied.
“Uh, yeah.”
He reached under his desk and pulled out a Colt .45. “I’ll do ya a favor, ya Pinkerton bastard! I won’t shoot ya if ya turn around and walk out the same way ya come in.”
“Easy. Jesus! Do I look like a Pinkerton?”
It was a dumb question, but it set us on the path to resolution. I told him the truth, embellished for dramatic effect. He lowered the gat as I spoke, and eventually stuck it back where it came from. I’d say he was intrigued by the heartrending story of a brutal crime that left a young widow pining, and an intrepid private eye in search of justice. I was moved myself.
“So you think this copper was in on it?” he asked, when I finished.
I shrugged. “He knows who’s who up there. That’s a start.”
He opened the strongbox and pulled out a roll of bills wrapped in a deposit slip. “This is from the Crane Lake Store,” he said. “Came in yesterday.”
There were three century notes in the wad. One had the curlicue mark.
“Think they’ll remember where it came from?” I asked.
“Maybe, but they ain’t gonna tell you. They don’t like people snoopin’ around, ’specially private dicks.”
“Told’ja, he’s a friend.”
“Yeah, and I believe ya. But they won’t.”
He helped me arrange a ride up to Crane Lake. A sawbuck covered the trip in a Model A, with my big-mouthed drinking buddy Pete Urbina at the wheel. I grumbled about the fact that he nearly got me shot, but Pete just scoffed. Should’ve known better than to say you’re a detective, that was his attitude.
I’d have discussed it with him, but the ride wasn’t conducive to conversation. Breeze whistled through the open windows, and the rattling of the frame made it hard to think, let alone talk. The so-called road was naught but two parallel ruts through pine woods, aspen thickets, bogs, and along the edges of scummy green swamps. It was rocky and potholed, but Pete didn’t let that slow him up. In fact it spurred him to accelerate. “MIGHT GET STUCK IF WE SLOW ’ER DOWN,” he shouted, when he noticed my alarm.
I shut my eyes and devised a ruse. In case I survived.
A few similarly awful roads intersected ours. We turned on one of them and fifteen minutes later, to my immense relief, we pulled up in front of a clapboard shack at the edge of a big lake. A dock with a few boats tied to it poked into the water. The sign said Crane Lake Store — Cabins For Rent.
“Good luck,” said Pete. “You’ll need it.” He left in a hurry.
The sound of the Model A rattling through the woods faded and died.
The old gent behind the counter listened politely as I explained my predicament. “I need to find my friend Jimmy Philbin,” I told him. “His father died recently and I’ve got some documents he needs to sign, so his mother can get her hands on some lettuce the old man left.”
The gent smiled as if he’d heard tales like mine before, and tapped a bell on the counter. A door behind him opened. A younger fellow emerged from a dimly lit alcove that might have served as an office. He had a pistol holstered on his belt. The old gent repeated what I’d said.
“What’s your name?” the guy with the heater inquired. I told him. He asked how I knew Jimmy.
“From St. Andrew’s parish. From the saloon, Tin Cup’s place.”
His eyes narrowed. “Let’s see the papers,” he said.
I pawed around in the carpetbag and came up with the envelope Arthur had given me. “They’re in here, but I can’t let’cha read ’em. Lawyer told me Jimmy should open it, nobody else.”
“Oh yeah? And how do you know Jimmy’s here? Who told you that?”
“Jimmy did, when he came to town for his old man’s funeral. The lawyer knew too.”
He thought it over for a few moments, and sighed. “C’mon,” he said. “I’ll show you where his place is, and rent you a boat. If you get back here before nine or so I can rent you a cabin for the night too. Otherwise you’re on your own.”
I grabbed my carpetbag and followed him. He untied a rowboat and showed me how to fit the oars into the locks. “See that out there,” he said, pointing at a dim hump of shadow rising ever so slightly above the choppy surface of the water. “That’s an island. Jimmy’s place is out there.
It’s further than it looks,” he added, as I stepped aboard.
“Really? It looks like it’s halfway back to Virginia.”
He allowed himself a flicker of a smile. “All’a three miles,” he said. “We hang a lamp on the dock at night. Say hello to Jimmy.” He gave me a shove-off.
I rolled up my sleeves and put my back into it. The wind was against me, but intermittent. I didn’t check my progress until I needed a rest. It was disheartening. I could’ve swum to shore. I leaned into it again and tried to think about something other than the distance I had to row. The investigation came to mind, of course, and it soon occurred to me that my modus operandi is always the same, even when I’m two hundred miles from anything familiar. You have to start somewhere. I start with the coppers. They generally know who did it even if they can’t prove it, and sometimes they did it. I hated to think that Jimmy Philbin was behind Cavanaugh’s murder, but as theories go, it wasn’t bad. He was an infamous percentage-copper, so blatantly on the take that Chief Tommy Brown, a man whose palm has been crossed more times than a priest’s heart, didn’t hide his disdain for him.
I rowed for most of two hours before I was close enough to pick out details on the island. There were two cabins and a dock. I spotted what might have been a person behind one of the cabins, but when I got nearer I could see it was a scarecrow. A big one with straw pigtails and a slouch hat.
I stood on the dock and stretched, working the kinks out of my muscles. I was sweaty and exhausted. My back ached. A black fly landed on my arm and bit me. Another one buzzed my ear.
Having been amply warned that sneaking up on residents of Crane Lake wasn’t advisable, I purposely clunked off the dock. All I heard was the echo of my footsteps.
I walked around back of the cabin, close to the water. A yard with a garden had been hacked out of the underbrush, and someone was down on their hands and knees under the scarecrow, pulling weeds. I could tell by the rear end I was looking at — large, shapely — that it was a woman. I didn’t want to embarrass her, so I cleared my throat.
“Yeah what,” she said, in an irritated tone.
“I’m lookin’ for Jimmy Philbin.”
“Gone huntin’.”
She tossed some weeds on the lawn, jerked out a stem of goldenrod, then another, and gave no sign of stopping any time soon. It was hard not to stare at her backside, which swayed a bit as she weeded.
“Uh, when’s he comin’—”
She stood, whipped her sunhat off, and turned to face me. It was her. The tongue-kisser. She must have seen the look on my face, but she didn’t recognize me. She wiped her brow and pushed back a few strands of taffy-colored hair.
“What do you want with Jim?” she said.
“I’m a friend.”
“Yeah right.” She smiled, which lit up her puss, although it was not a good-humored grin. She had a nicely upturned nose, plump cheeks, and big blue eyes. She was wearing a pair of frayed OshKosh B’Gosh coveralls, and based on the way she’d jiggled when she rose I guessed nothing underneath, but I was wrong. She reached under the bib, revealing one lovely round breast in the process, dug around a bit, and then I was staring at the business end of another pistol.
“Jim doesn’t have many friends,” she said. “Lotta people want to arrest him though.”
“Not me.”
“Came all this way to say hello, did’ja?” She lowered the weapon until it pointed at my privates. “BANG!” she hollered, and she laughed when I jumped. “If you’re the buzz, then I’m Aimee Semple McPherson. Who are you, anyway?”
I hesitated. She stopped smiling. “C’mon, out with it. What do you want here?”
“Well, I am a friend of Jimmy’s, from back in St. Paul, and I’m hopin’ he can give me some information.”
“About what?”
I thought about it for a moment, then told her the whole story. What did I have to lose? It was just a hunch, but it looked to me like I could hand her the envelope and call this case closed.
That was how it looked to her, too. “So gimme it,” she said, when I finished. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Promise me you’ll give it to Jimmy?”
That amused her. “Why should I promise you anything? I’m the one with the pistol, remember. You’re just a peeper without enough sense to arm yourself when you come to Crane Lake.”
I took umbrage at that. I didn’t know I was coming to Crane Lake, I explained. I left for Duluth yesterday, and the rest was just following my nose. “Besides, how do you know I’m not packin’?”
“By looking at’cha, that’s how. There are enough droppers around here so I know one when I see one.” She tucked the pistol back where it came from, baring a breast again in the process. She caught me looking and smiled, friendlier this time.
We walked out on the dock together. I pulled the envelope out of the carpetbag and handed it to her. She immediately tore it open and began to read.
“Oh, this is rich,” she said. “Listen, you’ll get a kick out of it.”
“But I’m not supposed to—”
“ ‘Dear Frank,’ ” she read. “ ‘It didn’t take long to figure out that it wasn’t a real kidnapping. The police took me aside a few days after you disappeared and said they were afraid you’d been grabbed by inexperienced criminals. They deduced that by the paltry demand you made. To be precise, they said the perpetrators were ‘aiming low.’ Of course, the moment I heard that term I thought of you.’ ” She laughed out loud. “Know why Frank didn’t ask for more? He was afraid he couldn’t get that much.”
“You tellin’ me Frank Cavanaugh is alive and kickin’?”
She put a finger to her lips. “Listen to the rest.”
It was short and to the point. Arthur said he’d been keeping track of Cavanaugh’s “peregrinations” by the marked bills. The fact that he was getting closer to St. Paul worried him.
“You didn’t think things through very well, which doesn’t surprise me,” he wrote. “You had enough to get a good start somewhere else, but you’re essentially a bum, so no line of work suggested itself. You spent the money foolishly, and rather quickly, I might add. Doing nothing must be damned expensive, given your lack of intellectual curiosity.”
She sighed. “He knows Frank better than I do, and I’ve been stuck with him for three years.”
The letter ended with a warning. Arthur told him that if he was thinking of showing up again and resuming life with Francine, he should think again. “If you ever show your face here I’ll see to it that you spend the rest of your life in the penitentiary,” he wrote. “I’d have you arrested now, but Francine tells me that you never mistreated her, so I’m willing to call that your one redeeming quality and write the whole thing off. It would break her heart if she knew the truth. Just stay buried. — Arthur.”
She tucked the letter in her pocket. “I gather that Arthur is Frank’s father-in-law, and Francine is that sylph he married,” she said. “She doesn’t know how lucky she is.”
I shook my head in wonderment at the tricks life plays on everybody, especially me. “You don’t have somethin’ to drink, do ya?” I asked.
“Maybe I do.”
On the way back to the cabin we stopped at the cooler — a pit in the ground with a heavy wooden cover, and a boulder on top of that “to keep the bears out.” She instructed me to roll the boulder off, and took out a crockery jar.
“Home brew,” she said. “I wouldn’t touch it myself, but you’re welcome to it.”
We sat in the kitchen, at a rough-hewn wooden table. She told me her name was Jeannie Halgren. She grew up near a lake in Minneapolis. “You know, a beach, a boulevard, an ice-cream stand. That’s what I thought a lake was.”
I told her about our previous meeting.
“Did I do that?” she said. “I oughta be ashamed.”
There were books everywhere — on the floor, piled on chairs, a bookcase full of them. She said she read everything she could get her hands on, but especially novels and books about accounting. “There’s nothing else to do,” she explained, “and besides, I’m trying to educate myself so I can make a living when the idyll is over.”
I asked how a nice girl like her got mixed up in a sting.
“I wasn’t mixed up in it,” she protested. “Frank just asked me to run away with him. I figured what the hell, it’s that or another day at Schuneman’s Department Store. I didn’t know about the scheme until we were on the train.”
They’d been to Paris, Miami, and New York. She wanted to stay in Paris, but Cavanaugh missed American food. “I’d have stayed in New York too,” she said, “but Frank was already talking about the great fishing on the lake where his pal Jimmy lived, so I knew I was doomed.”
“Was Jimmy in on it?”
“Not really. Frank gave him a few bucks to find a car thief and plant that story.”
I explained that the story was what made things unbearable for Francine, and told her Arthur wanted me to say he’d been shot trying to escape. “He thinks that will help her get over it.”
I’d been sipping the home brew right along, but about then I gave up in disgust. “I’m not fussy, but I’d call this stuff undrinkable.”
“Frank and Jimmy don’t even drink it. They use it for bait.”
“Bait? What are they hunting?”
“Squaws.” She tried to keep a straight face, but she couldn’t. We laughed, and I told her I had to get started if I was going to get back in time to rent a cabin.
“You could stay the night,” she said.
I’d been hoping for that. Nevertheless, I was pretending to give it some careful consideration when she stood and dropped the coveralls. She was wearing a belt around her waist with a pistol tucked into it, nothing else. My jaw must’ve fallen.
“Don’t have a stroke.” She took off the belt and put the pistol on the table. “I’m gonna take a dip in the lake, freshen up a bit. You might wanna do the same.”
Next morning she kissed me goodbye on the dock, and gave me some advice. “Don’t tell the dryad that Frank was shot and dumped in the river. That’s too depressing.” She closed her eyes and thought for a few moments. “Say he was being held by gangsters up at Crane Lake... Tell her that bank robber who comes up here was behind it — what’s his name—”
“Dillinger?”
“No, the little psycho who expects ya to pretend he’s six feet tall.”
“Baby Face Nelson?”
“Yeah, him. Say Frank got away, and Baby Face and his dropper friends looked for him but couldn’t find him. The bears might’ve eaten him — or maybe, just maybe, the Indians are holding him captive.”
That had a gentler ring to it, I had to admit.
She watched me row until I was well under way, then waved once. We’d promised to look each other up in the nebulous future, but I never saw her again.
I told Arthur the good news first. “You were right,” I said. “A skirt was behind the whole bunko.” Then I explained that I’d given the skirt in question the letter, and before I could object she opened it and read it out loud.
He didn’t pretend to like that. “I knew in my bones Frank was the real culprit,” he said, “but I didn’t contemplate anyone else knowing.”
I told him his secret was safe with me, but he must have had his doubts. That was obvious from the way he stood in the background wringing his hands a few weeks later when he finally got Francine and me together.
I told her in some detail about Frank’s ordeal. Baby Face kept him tied up at first, but ultimately his charm prevailed and his bonds were loosened. Soon he was playing cards with his captors, then going fishing with them. One day they put him ashore to pee and he seized the opportunity to take it on the Arthur Duffy. Death by bears is a possibility, I explained, but the bears around there are well fed on berries and fish, and rarely avail themselves of the human alternative.
“The palookas at Crane Lake tend to believe that Frank was captured by Indians,” I said, “and the local people I spoke to are almost certain that’s what happened.”
Her eyes teared up, but I could see the wheels turning behind them. “Thank you so much, Mr. McDonough,” she said. “You’ve been very brave and resourceful.” She offered me her hand, and gave me the tiniest of squeezes.
The following May I was invited to the first of many garden parties. The widow’s “poim” took me by surprise, so I caught most of it. Something about a wild man, “imprisoned by warriors and maids, plotting to return to his sweetheart, ere her beauty fades.” I’ve stayed out of earshot since, but based on a stray verse or two over the years I believe the wild man is still in the redskins’ cooler, scheming his getaway.
I know why Arthur is apprehensive when we meet. He finds the garden parties just as painful as I do, and wonders why I’d put myself through it year after year unless I had ulterior motives. Next spring I’ll tell him he doesn’t have to worry. I’m not a blackmailer, or the kind of hoocher who gets blotto and does unforgivable things. I come for the same reason he does. I don’t want to disappoint his sweet, guileless daughter.
Death by Misadventure
by John Buchanan
Her mother’s looks and my brains, Jake thought, as he watched his sixteen-year-old daughter Kate wave goodbye before getting into the day-camp van that would take her and her sister Mimi, who was ten and nicknamed Ditto, upstate on a special Saturday outing to Bash Bish Falls. Kate was still a bit gawky, but the promise of becoming a long-legged beauty like her mother was definitely there, and she already had that sweet sweep of neck that had first attracted Jake to Lucy, who stood beside him as they waved to their girls.
“Watch out for Mimi,” Lucy called.
The door closed and the van pulled away from the house and down the circular driveway. Jake and Lucy waved again just before it drove out of sight on the winding, wooded, suburban road. People often remarked on what an attractive contrast they made. Jake lean, dark-eyed, and craggy; Lucy fair, blond, blue-eyed.
Jake looked at his wife and said, “Why don’t you come with me.”
Annoyance crossed Lucy’s face, and she turned away and walked toward the house. “I told you, Jake, there are things to do around the house, and the garden needs weeding.”
Jake followed her. “C’mon, Lucy, this tour promises to be—”
She stopped and spun around, blue eyes icy as she snapped at him. “I said no. I’ve been on the go all week. I don’t feel like tramping around the woods all day.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. You don’t have to take my head off. Is it so terrible that I love having you with me?”
Her features softened. “I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just that I’m a bit tired and I’d like to stay home.”
He smiled. “Okay, honey, I understand. Look, how about if I pick up a pizza on the way back? The girls would love that.”
“They’ll love even better what I’ve made,” Lucy said, as she turned and continued on to the house.
“What?”
“Lapin a la moutarde.”
On their honeymoon, crisscrossing France in an old Citroen, they had lingered in Lyons to sample its bistros, and for the first time Jake had eaten rabbit in mustard sauce. Lucy had charmed the chef-owner with her looks and Middlebury French and he’d given her the recipe.
“Great. When did you make it?”
“Yesterday, while you were in the city telling all those boring Wall Street types what they should already know in the first place.”
“That designer dress you wore to the Costume Institute shindig this year was paid for by boring Wall Street types willing to fork out my hefty fees.”
“I don’t need to be reminded what a wonderful provider you are,” she said tartly, over her shoulder, as she entered the house.
Inside, Jake asked, “Is something bothering you?”
Once again she whirled on him. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean anything, I’m simply asking a question. You’ve been on edge ever since we got up.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Her blue eyes were icy again, challenging.
Something was definitely wrong, but Jake couldn’t fathom what it might be. It was as if she were waiting for something to happen but didn’t quite know how it would turn out.
“Okay. I’m off, then.” He stepped forward and kissed Lucy full on the lips, but her response was half-hearted, her smile strained.
“Have a wonderful time, darling. And say hello to Andy and Maggie.”
On the drive to the meeting point Jake thought about their exchange. They’d had spats, of course. Who hadn’t after twenty-one years of marriage? But he’d never seen her like this. She had definitely been edgy this morning, and now that he thought about it, she had seemed lost in thought last night. He and the girls had to repeat remarks and questions to get her attention.
Jake put it aside when he pulled into the reserve’s parking lot. About a dozen cars were there and people were standing around chatting and drinking coffee from thermos bottles and Starbucks cups. Jake parked, grabbed his day pack, and walked over to his very best friend, Andy, a short, roly-poly man with an infectious smile who stood with his equally plump and smiling wife and a few other people.
“Didn’t think you were going to make it,” Andy said.
“Had to wait until the kids got off.”
“I’m going to miss Lucy,” Maggie said.
“She had a load of stuff to do.”
A man at least ten years younger than anyone else in the group stepped forward and called out, “Listen up, folks. Let’s get squared away. We have a lot of territory to cover, so we’d better get going so we can get out of here before the gates close at five o’clock.”
“This guy is really good,” Andy said.
“Columbia, right?” a man nearby asked.
Andy shook his head. “Yale. Yale School of Forestry. I took one of his tours in the Catskills. This is going to be a treat.”
An hour later everyone agreed. They had just emerged from woods into a broad meadow that skirted a wetland, where the tour leader stopped to allow stragglers to catch up. Jake and Andy and Maggie were walking together. Andy suddenly stopped.
Jake looked at his old friend and became alarmed. “You okay?”
“Honey, what is it?” Maggie asked
Andy raised a hand to his forehead, said, “I feel dizzy,” and collapsed.
Jake caught him and lowered him gently to the ground, at the same time shouting for help. There was a doctor in the group and he immediately began CPR. Andy, eyes closed, lay as if dead. The tour leader called 911 on his cell phone. Jake, who was quite familiar with the lay of the land, volunteered to run to the service road about a mile away on the other side of the wetland and guide the ambulance in over passable ground. The doctor was still working on Andy when the paramedics arrived and took over.
The doctor and Maggie accompanied Andy to the hospital. Everyone else hurried to the parking lot to follow. Jake arrived at the hospital first and hurried to the emergency room, where he found the doctor from the group talking to the resident, whom Jake knew. Their expressions were grim. As Jake approached, the doctor looked at him and shook his head.
“He didn’t make it, Jake. It was massive. I think he was dead while I worked on him.”
Jake just stared at him, and finally asked, “Where’s Maggie?”
“We gave her a sedative,” the other doctor said. “She’s lying down.”
“Anybody with her?”
“A nurse who knows her well.”
Jake walked to a nearby bench and sat down. He still couldn’t grasp the enormity of losing his best friend so quickly, so unexpectedly. The rest of the group began arriving. Some wept when they heard the news, but Jake couldn’t cry. He was too stunned. Tears might come later, but now all he could do was sit there and stare at the opposite wall. It was eleven a.m. before he finally looked in on Maggie, but she was sleeping. Two close women friends who had been on the tour were sitting in the room. They assured Jake that they would tell her of his concern when she awoke. They were going to take her home then, and Jake told them that he would be over to see her later. But he would call first.
He didn’t want to break the news to Lucy over the phone. She had really liked Andy and Jake wanted to be there to comfort her and receive comfort when he told her of the tragedy. His mind reeled, emotions churned as he drove away from the hospital. He still could hardly bring himself to believe what had happened. He turned off the radio. He wanted nothing but silence.
But on the interstate, when the traffic suddenly began to back up, he turned on the radio to traffic news and learned that there had been a fatal accident on a bridge a few miles ahead. All lanes were closed until further notice. An exit came up just as he heard the news and he turned off and began thinking of what route to take home. There were three obvious choices, but he saw ahead and behind that others had also turned off, and he expected that those roads would soon become clogged. Jake was an expert on the side roads in his own county and several surrounding ones. He decided to take a roundabout way, via Digby Road, that would add several miles to his trip, but he reckoned that once he got beyond the Great Hudson Mall the roads he intended to take would be lightly traveled and he would make better time than if he stuck to the standard routes.
Digby Road was busy, but that was because it was a direct route from the east to the Great Hudson Mall. He finally came down a long hill to the six-lane highway that bordered the mall and just missed the light. He was in the left-hand lane with his turn signal on, ready to turn onto the highway and head south. As he looked about he spotted on the highway a Jeep Cherokee the same color and model as Lucy’s. It was stopped in the left-hand lane, the driver waiting for the green light to turn into the mall. There was a woman behind the wheel.
Jake’s eyes narrowed. She was a considerable distance away. He couldn’t make out her features but her profile was familiar. It couldn’t be Lucy, though. They never shopped here. It was too far away. Fairview Mall, much closer to them, had everything the Great Hudson had plus a Filene’s. Besides, she wanted to work around the house and the garden. Still... that profile. He opened the day pack on the seat next to him and took out his powerful military- type field glasses and zoomed in on the woman in the Jeep Cherokee.
He was dumbfounded. It was Lucy. What in God’s name was she doing over here? His surprise drove Andy’s death at least temporarily from his mind. Lucy’s light changed and she wheeled into the mall. Other cars in her lane followed. Jake strained to keep her in sight. He flicked off his turn signal and kept an impatient eye on his traffic light. Dammit! He was going to lose her. Then his light changed and he shot forward in pursuit, cutting off the car next to him. When he entered the mall, most of the cars ahead of him were turning into the entrances to the parking lot of the Walmart Superstore. He craned his neck for a sight of Lucy’s car and finally saw it far ahead of him. She had passed Walmart. He jumped a light that had just turned red, drawing angry horn blasts. There were now only two cars between him and Lucy. Home Depot, Target, Staples, and Sam’s Club were ahead. Which one was she going to? She passed the entrances to Home Depot, Target, and Staples. Sam’s Club, then, she was going to Sam’s Club. But why here, a good thirty miles out of her way? And why wasn’t she home where she said she’d be?
At the entrance to Sam’s Club, which was a right-hand turn, she signaled left and turned into the back parking lot of the big Riverview Motel. A chill settled over Jake. He sped up and made a left into the lot of a Dollar Store directly behind the motel and drove parallel with Lucy, but behind her. There were half a dozen cars parked behind the motel. Lucy slowed and started to pull in beside a dark green Jaguar. Jake’s eyes narrowed. The owner couldn’t be the man who came immediately to mind. Impossible. It had to be somebody else. There was more than one dark green Jaguar in the county.
Lucy stopped halfway into the parking space, backed up, and drove six units down before parking. Jake glanced at his watch. Almost noon. Early for motel business. That is, normal motel business. The chill had not gone away. Now it was joined by a sense of disbelief. Not Lucy. Not his Lucy, love of his life. He parked facing the motel, facing the dark green Jaguar, and raised his field glasses.
Lucy got out of her car, slung her Louis Vuitton bag over her shoulder, paused momentarily, seemed to square her shoulders. She looked smart in her Ray-Ban sunglasses, well-fitting Prada jeans, and a delicate blue blouse by Hanae Mori that matched her lovely eyes. She strode with quick, nervous, long-legged strides down the walkway to the door opposite the dark green Jaguar.
The drapes of room 453 were closed. Lucy paused again and seemed to take a deep breath before raising her hand and knocking on the door. Jake’s hands squeezed the field glasses until his knuckles turned white.
The door opened wide. The man in the doorway was tall, bronzed, muscular, and appeared to be naked.
“Jesus!” Jake said loudly.
Smiling broadly, the man stepped aside as Lucy entered the room. He wasn’t naked, but his skimpy briefs barely covered him. He put an arm around Lucy’s shoulder bent, and nuzzled that sweep of her elegant neck so sweet and dear to Jake. The door closed.
Jake lowered the field glasses to his lap. He felt as if he had been poleaxed. There was a great empty feeling in his stomach. He could not believe it. He pounded the steering wheel. “No!... No! No! No!” His breathing was loud, harsh. He thought he was going to be sick to his stomach and quickly unbuckled and got out of the car and leaned against it. His breath came fast. He felt weak. Was he going to have a heart attack? Was he going to die here, this morning, not fifty yards from where his wife was undressing for another man? Or was she being undressed?
“Damn!... Damn! Damn! Damn!”
He clenched his hands and walked away from his car. When his breathing slowed he stepped over the low concrete barrier between the parking lots and walked quickly toward room 453. His Vibram-soled hiking shoes were quiet on the concrete. He slowed as he approached and tiptoed up to the door and put his ear to it. At first he heard nothing, then Lucy laughed. No. No, she had giggled. Giggled like a schoolgirl.
He stepped back quickly, stung, anger rising, regretting that he had eavesdropped. Visions of what was going on behind the closed door of room 453 assailed his imagination. The wife he adored rutting with a man he held in contempt. He wanted to smash the door down. He thought about getting the car and driving full speed across the lot into the big picture window. He trembled. He felt the tug of the towering rages of his youth that he had willed himself to control as he matured. The urge to violence almost overwhelmed him. But that masterly self-control for which he was widely admired among those who were aware of his naturally high-toned nature restrained him.
For one thought took precedence and kept him from unleashing violence on Lucy and her lover. The children. Kate and Mimi. Innocent, trusting, loved, and loving. They must never know. There must be no violent confrontation that would bring attention, police, publicity. Above all, the children must be protected. They must not be publicly shamed.
Which is why he did not knock on the door and interrupt Lucy’s tryst. For he knew that if he came face to face with them he would not be able to restrain himself. At this moment, he could kill. And whether she committed the act or not was now irrelevant. Her intention was treachery itself. Besides, he knew what he was going to do. Not how he was going to do it, not yet, or when. He would have to think about that. Until he was ready, for the children’s sake he must control himself.
Jake walked away from the sounds coming from room 453. For a moment he stopped by the Jaguar and considered gouging deep scratches in the surface with a key. Instead, he went to Lucy’s car. At least he could inconvenience them. He and Lucy carried keys to each other’s car in case of emergencies. He got in, started her car, and sat there for a few minutes, watching the door of room 453. When no one appeared or peeked out from behind the drapes, he backed out to the edge of the lot and drove slowly away and up the exit road, turned into the parking lot of the Walmart Superstore, and drove around until he found a parking space deep in the crowded lot. Then he walked back to his own car. He was tempted once again to approach the door of room 453 and listen but decided not to torture himself anymore or risk releasing the fury banked within him. He pulled out and drove away. He was overpowered by a sense of massive betrayal. On the way home he broke down and wept.
In good weather, he and Lucy always left their cars in the driveway during the day, but now he parked out of sight in the garage. In the entrance hall he stopped and looked at the handsome credenza of Chilean oak they had bought when they were first married and really couldn’t afford it and agonized together over the price, but had gone ahead anyway and never regretted it. Friends and visitors often admired the piece, and Jake loved it. Now he wanted to take an ax to it and chop it into pieces and smash the heirloom china inside that Lucy had brought to their marriage.
He dropped his day pack in his study but set his field glasses aside. It was a large room furnished in oak and leather and lined with bookshelves containing hundreds of volumes in English, French, German, and Arabic, mostly history, geography, science and technology, and contemporary affairs, but also some well-selected fiction. They were arranged by subject matter, and within subjects alphabetically by author, so he could immediately lay his hands on exactly the book he wanted, for he knew every book in his collection. His own books, ten of them, including three bestsellers, and his leather-bound collected articles were shelved behind his desk. The desk was well ordered, on it a few neat piles of papers related to an article he was writing. Their cleaning woman was not allowed in Jake’s study. Jake vacuumed the room and dusted the books and furniture. Lucy had helped him until some papers he had sworn were on the desk disappeared and he accused her of throwing them out by mistake. She had fetched a feather duster and thrown it at him and told him to clean the damn inner sanctum himself.
On the only free wall space were family pictures and photographs of Jake with world leaders, including the signed photographs of four Presidents. There was also a photograph of Jake in boxing gloves and trunks standing over the fallen opponent he had knocked out the day he won the Big 10 middleweight championship. He still weighed the same and worked out every day in the exercise room in the basement, finishing up each session with the punching bag. Jake walked over and looked at one photograph in particular, his favorite of Lucy, taken before Kate was born. They had gone backpacking in the Adirondacks. Lucy was half turned to the camera, sunglasses perched on top of her head, thumbs hooked into the straps of her rucksack. Her lips were slightly parted, and her enigmatic half-smile was the stuff of Renaissance paintings. Jake wanted to snatch it from the wall and smash it and tear the photograph to bits.
He went to his desk and called Andy’s house. A close friend of Maggie’s answered and Jake asked if it would be all right to come over later and she suggested after dinner. He left the study to make himself a light gin and tonic in the small bar off the living room, then returned and pulled a leather armchair to the window. He kept the drapes closed in the morning so the sun wouldn’t damage his books, but now he opened them a few inches so that he had a clear view of the circular drive. He tried to think of Andy, but Lucy’s betrayal drove the terrible events of the early-morning hours to the recesses of his mind. He sat and waited, brooding, sipping his gin and tonic so slowly that the melting ice diluted the drink.
Were there signs he had missed? He had certainly spotted her edginess this morning, and now he knew the reason for it. Her behavior this morning and the signs of nervousness and hesitation as she had approached room 453 and before she knocked on the door made him think it was the first time she had cheated. Or was it? That sharp, incisive mind so many had praised over the years thought long and hard about their marriage. Had she seemed restless lately? Not that he’d noticed, and he considered himself sensitive to her moods. Out of sorts? He didn’t think so. She was a bit high-strung, but he had always found that trait endearing. They made love often and passionately. Money worries were well past them. She loved to travel, often accompanied him on his expense-paid trips abroad, her style and beauty and gift for small talk on social occasions fitting accompaniment to Jake’s gravity. It was a good, well-ordered life, exactly the opposite of the home and neighborhood he had grown up in. He liked that old saying: a place for everything, and everything in its place.
Jake sat back and closed his eyes. He could think of nothing that should have led her to this incredible act of treachery, and that was precisely the word for it. Treachery. The opportunities presented to Jake for infidelity over the years had been legion. He was a well-known man, much in demand in chancelleries and boardrooms around the world, his insights valued, his predictions, often against the grain, of sharp turns in national and world affairs uncanny. Several smart, lovely women, well known and obscure, had either blatantly or subtly revealed their availability. He had politely spurned them all, for his love for Lucy was deep, and he was not a man for one-night stands or casual affairs. What, then, had gone wrong? What had driven her to this? And why that cretin? A man he held in deep contempt, a man who flitted from one job to another, always regaling friends and acquaintances with tales of big deals that never materialized, a man who would have had trouble holding a clerk’s position had he not been anchored by a sizeable trust fund and the old-boy network. And a notorious womanizer. How could she? His smart, beautiful, fastidious Lucy. Mother of their children. How could she?
The dark green Jaguar pulled into the circular drive and stopped directly in front of the house a little after four-thirty. Jake raised his field glasses and watched as Lucy and the man embraced and kissed. Watched as the man left her lips to nuzzle the elegant sweep of neck no longer sweet and dear to Jake. He would never again be able to do the same. Watched as Lucy pulled reluctantly away only to thrust herself eagerly back into the man’s arms when he reached out and cupped her breast. Finally, she pushed away, shaking her head. She seemed to be laughing. She opened the door and got out of the car but remained bent at the open door as they talked.
Jake left the study quickly and went to the front door, opened it quietly, and stepped outside. Her back was to him and she blocked the driver’s view. Leaving the door open, Jake approached silently and stopped within a few yards of Lucy.
He heard her giggle, then say, “Steve, you’re awful.”
“Lucy!”
She jumped as if she had received an electric shock. She swung around to face him, eyes wide, panicky.
Jake’s expression was grim. With a mighty effort, he held himself in check.
“Jake... What are you doing—”
He cut her off harshly. “Where’s your car?”
“S-stolen. It... it was stolen.”
“Stolen?”
“Yes.”
The man, tall, bronzed, muscular, got out and watched them over the top of his dark green Jaguar. His expression was wary.
“Hi, Jake.”
Jake ignored him and said to Lucy, “Where?”
“What?”
“Where was it stolen?”
“Fairview. I was over at Fairview.”
“I thought you were going to stay home.”
“I needed a few things. I went over to Fairview and parked, and when I came out the car was gone.”
“Did you report it?”
She had recovered some and began to assert herself. “Of course I reported it. Stop barking at me. And why are you home so early?”
Jake jerked his head at the house. “C’mon in. I have something to tell you.” He turned and walked towards the open door.
“Tell me here.”
“No, I’ll tell you in the house.”
“Has something happened to the children?”
“No. C’mon.”
“Well... aren’t you at least going to thank Steve?”
“For what?”
“For coming by quite by chance while I was looking for my car. He waited for me at the Fairview Police Station so I could report it. Then he brought me home. I could still be over there waiting for a taxi.”
Jake waved vaguely, and though it stuck in his craw, said in a half-hearted voice, without looking back, “Thanks, Steve.”
As he entered the house, he heard her thanking Steve in an unnaturally loud voice. She slammed the door when she came in.
“How could you be so rude?”
“Rude? What do you mean?”
“You were unspeakably rude to Steve.”
Jake snorted. “Him? That cretin. He’s too dumb to know what rude is?”
Lucy flushed. “What is wrong with you? I’ve never seen you like this.”
Jake was usually a soft-spoken man, gentle in speech and action. Perhaps too gentle, he thought, perhaps an athletic coupling with the likes of Steve the Stud, the slob, the bastard, was more to her taste. He examined her closely. Her lips were swollen.
“Why are you home so early? You said it would be close to six.”
“Andy’s dead.”
She was taken aback. “What?... Dead?... Oh my God. How?”
“About an hour into the hike he had a heart attack. He was standing right next to me. I caught him and lowered him to the ground. I think he was dead before I laid him down. Harry was there and worked on him, the paramedics got there quickly, but there was nothing anybody could do.”
“Oh, Jake, I am so sorry.”
Jake knew she was sincere. She had liked Andy and knew how much the friendship had meant to Jake.
“Poor Maggie,” she said. “Is anyone with her?”
“Louise and some other friend. After the kids get home, we’ll eat and then all of us will go over.”
“Is Maggie in shape for that?”
“Yes, I checked.”
“The children are likely to be beat.”
“Well, they’ll have to suck it up. We’re going as a family.” He looked directly into her blue eyes. “That’s what families do, in good times and bad. They stick together and comfort each other when things go bad. Go clean up. I’ll set the table.”
He had to get away from her, had to busy himself. He left her standing there in the hallway, an anxious look on her face, and walked quickly to the kitchen. He had never struck a woman, but it had taken enormous will power to stop himself from hitting her. He wanted to hit her hard, knock her down. And when he had seen Steve outside he had almost exploded.
Kate and Mimi got home just before six. They were tired, especially ten-year- old Mimi, but after Jake explained what had happened they wanted to go immediately to “Aunt” Maggie. Jake and Andy had been so close that the children had come to call Andy and Maggie aunt and uncle. But Jake sent them upstairs to shower and change. Afterwards they all sat down to Lucy’s rabbit in mustard sauce. Lucy was a superb cook. Jake had often told her that she should try her hand at a cookbook. With his connections in the publishing world, he could easily get her a serious reading. Tonight, however, the meal, one of his favorites, tasted like straw to him, and he picked at it. The girls dug in, though, and Lucy also ate heartily.
He caught Lucy sneaking anxious glances at him, obviously wondering, does he suspect... did he see us... in the car? Jake forced himself to grin at her now and then while asking the girls questions about their outing.
Later, on the drive over to Andy’s, he thought again of how he would deal with Steve. A plan was taking shape.
At a tearful meeting with Maggie, Jake broke down. They all did, but Jake sobbed so that he had to leave the house and walk around a bit, his emotions conflicted, a jumble of sorrow and regret and bitterness for Andy, for Lucy, for himself.
That night, in bed, Jake and Lucy lay sleepless for a long time. Normally Lucy would have tried to comfort him, but not tonight, and he bitterly resented it, even though he didn’t want her touching him.
“Can’t sleep?” he finally asked.
“No... poor Maggie.”
“I’ll get you a sleeping pill,” he said.
He came back from the adjoining master bath with the pill and a glass of water.
“Thanks, honey,” she said as he gave them to her.
When he could tell by her deep breathing that she had fallen asleep, he got quietly out of bed. Her sleeping pills were strong. She’d be out for hours. He got fresh running togs from the closet, and underwear, shorts, and a polo shirt from his drawer, and went downstairs and left them in his study. He went to the shower off the kitchen that a previous owner had installed. There he sat on the floor of the shower for a long time and let the hot water beat on him. Once more he wept. For the shocking suddenness of Andy’s death? For the enormity of Lucy’s betrayal? Perhaps both? He wasn’t sure. But of one thing he was sure. Steve had to be dealt with. Lucy’s act of infidelity, as crushing as it was, magnified beyond comprehension when he thought who she had committed it with. That phony, that total, absolute phony womanizer. How could she? Yes. Steve had to be dealt with. Steve had to pay. But it had to be foolproof. The children. Think of the children, their vulnerability, their need for him, his need of them. So don’t get fancy, keep it simple. Quick and simple.
He finally rose and turned off the hot water and got up and turned on the cold and stood under it for a while. When he turned the shower off he felt fresh. Back in the study he checked the time. A few minutes after four a.m. He put on a jockstrap and his sweatsuit and running shoes. From the closet in his study he found a pair of kid gloves and put those in the rear pocket of his sweatpants. His house keys went in the zippered pocket of his sweatshirt.
He let himself quietly out the back door, made sure it was locked, then walked across the back lawn, past Lucy’s kitchen herb garden, down the winding gravel path through the English flower garden he and Lucy had made. How exciting it had been. They’d gone to see the gardens at Sissingurst on one of their trips to England for a week-long seminar Jake was giving at Sandhurst, and once home they had played the roles of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West. Jake designed the garden, and Lucy with her green thumb had planted and nurtured and weeded until today their splendid garden was described in garden books by well-known writers and was always on the county’s annual garden tour. The old-fashioned roses with their marvelous aroma were in full bloom. Lucy and Jake scorned the modern scentless roses and favored even more the old-fashioned, aromatic peonies, but their two weeks of glory had long passed. Now he wanted to rip up roses and peonies along with everything else and leave their prize-winning garden in ruin. He savored the thought. Every morning after Lucy got up she walked through the garden, checking this and that, pulling a weed here and there, before breakfast, before anything. But he mustn’t. He must go on pretending that, except for Andy’s death, God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.
At the edge of their property he climbed the narrow trail he had cut through the woods to the public jogging path that followed the twisting turns of the Gallatin River far below. He could hear distantly the rushing waters as they tumbled over the rocks. At the path he turned left and began jogging.
He ran until he reached an opening in the narrow band of trees between the path and the cliff edge overlooking the river. He had passed several such unofficial openings, frowned upon by the trustees and staff of the Gallatin River Reservation, of which he and Lucy were members, but insisted upon by the public to provide views of the wild river that ran as free as it had for centuries. A proposal to build a fence along the cliff edge was still being mulled over by the trustees. Steve walked to the cliff edge and looked down. This was a good spot, a little over 100 feet to the river and only about fifteen yards from the path. He returned to the path and resumed jogging.
Jake was counting on Steve sticking to his normal schedule of rising early and hitting the jogging trail by five a.m. Did he sleep in on Sundays? Jake didn’t know. But Sunday was good, because most people slept in and jogged later than on weekdays. He came to a slight rise and stepped off the path and stood quietly among the trees and waited. The path sloped gradually about 100 yards before rising again, and he could see Steve’s back deck nestled at the bottom of the slope. Five o’clock came and went and he wondered if Steve would show. After he had been there fifteen minutes he peeked up the path from the direction he’d come but saw no one. He’d give it another fifteen, twenty minutes. By six other people would be out, and then it would be too risky.
At 5:25 Steve emerged from his deck in shorts and running shoes and began some stretching exercises. Now all he had to do was come in Jake’s direction. The stretching exercises seemed to take forever, and Jake grew fidgety. But Steve finally left the deck and approached the jogging path... and turned in Jake’s direction. Jake peeked behind him. No runners on the path. He took off in a half-sprint, passed the opening he had chosen, rounded a bend so he was out of sight of anyone behind him. Still no runners on the path. He turned and began jogging slowly back, towards Steve.
Steve came in sight just before Jake reached the opening. Jake slowed opposite the spot. Steve, about forty yards away, also slowed. He became wary, alert. Jake noticed something that he had missed when he had Steve in the field glasses in the doorway of room 453. He was getting a paunch. Didn’t he realize it? Running without a shirt, showing off his bronzed, aging, athletic body — with a paunch. How could she? Jake raised a hand in greeting.
“Steve. Glad I caught you. I need to talk to you.”
Steve stopped five yards away, now really wary. His body was tense. He sucked in his paunch.
“Oh. What about?”
“I have to apologize.”
“Apologize?”
“I was pretty rude yesterday. I’m sorry.”
“Rude? I didn’t notice.”
“Yes, I was, but I was pretty upset. You heard about Andy, didn’t you?”
“Andy Reid?”
Jake nodded. “He died yesterday.”
Steve was obviously surprised. “Andy died? What happened?”
Jake told him what had happened. At the same time he was getting nervous. This was taking too long. Other people might already be on the path. Steve, however, had visibly relaxed and looked genuinely concerned.
“So that’s why I wasn’t myself yesterday. Andy and I were really close.”
“Oh, I know, Jake, I know. I am sorry.”
Jake held out his hand. “Forgive me.”
Steve smiled and shook his head as he walked over and took Jake’s hand. “Nothing to forgive, Jake. I understand, I really do.”
“Thanks, Steve. I figured you’d understand.”
“Of course I do.”
Jake dropped Steve’s hand. Standing flat-footed, he put his whole body behind a powerful left hook to that inviting paunch. The solar-plexus punch for which he had been famous in college. Steve grunted loudly and jackknifed. He would have fallen, but Jake grabbed him under his arms and propelled him to the side of the path and well into the opening, where he threw him to the ground. He ran back and looked up and down the path. They were still alone. He ran back to Steve, pulling out the kid gloves as he went and drawing them on. Steve was still lying flat, his legs shaking. Jake came down in the middle of Steve’s back with one knee and planted the other firmly on the ground. Steve grunted. Jake hooked his left arm around Steve’s neck and took a firm grip on his wrist with his right hand. He bent to Steve’s ear.
“Yesterday. Room 453, Riverview Motel. Was that the first time with Lucy?”
“Jake, I—”
“Answer me or I’ll kill you. And don’t lie to me. Tell me the truth and you live.”
“Yes... Yes... first time... please, Jake.”
“Were you planning another?”
“Jake, please—”
“Dammit, tell me or I’ll kill you now.”
“Wednesday.”
That made sense. Jake was going into the city on Wednesday to give a talk on the Middle East situation to a business group.
“Same time, same place?”
“...yes... Let me up, please.”
“You won’t be seeing her Wednesday, Steve. You won’t be seeing her again. You won’t be seeing any woman again.”
Steve had begun to revive. He struggled. Jake tightened his grip and pulled up hard and fast and broke Steve’s neck. He heard the crack. He let go and Steve’s head flopped crazily to the ground. Just like a chicken’s. As Jake rubbed Steve’s arms where he had gripped him to wipe off fingerprints he might have left, he was assailed by a powerful stench as Steve’s bowels evacuated. He rose, hurried back to the path, and looked up and down. No one. He rushed back and dragged Steve’s body to the edge, looked across at the heavily wooded land on the other side. He saw no one among the trees and at that hour on a Sunday he didn’t expect to see anyone. He tipped Steve’s body over the edge and watched as it tumbled, arms and legs and head flopping, to the river, watched as it spun downstream in the current, banging against rocks, toward the falls about two miles below. He left the bank and checked the hard ground where he had dragged Steve. There were no signs of a struggle. He resumed jogging, in the direction Steve had come from.
Jake passed a couple on the way whom he knew and they all smiled and waved before disappearing in opposite directions. Two solitary runners passed him on the way back. He knew them too, and smiled and waved. Jake got home just before seven o’clock. He fetched the Sunday
But he wasn’t out of the woods. He knew that. He was sure that the damage done by the rocks and the falls would mask any human involvement in Steve’s death. But the police would surely ask anyone who had seen Steve on the jogging path to come forward, and he would do that. He mustn’t lie about things like that. Yes, he passed him a little after 5:30. Did he see him on the way back? No, but people often took the Slocum Woods path that joined the river path and made a circuit instead of retracing their steps. Lots of people did that. He’d done it himself. Did he see anyone else? Yes, and after thinking a bit he could name them. Did he always jog that early on Sunday? No, he usually didn’t even jog on Sundays, but his best and oldest friend had died in front of him the day before and he couldn’t sleep that night and finally got up and went jogging.
As Jake drank orange juice and ate oatmeal, he thought that part through and reckoned he had it covered. But the county police were not stupid. A desk sergeant or patrol cop might mention to the investigating detectives that Steve had brought a woman not his wife to the Fairview Mall substation to report her stolen car. Did Steve go in with Lucy or wait outside? He didn’t know and he wasn’t going to ask Lucy. Jake grimaced. He shouldn’t have moved the car. On the other hand, Lucy’s shocked expression when she arrived home with Steve and found Jake there... that was worth the risk.
The local paper might print Steve’s picture, and if the clerk at the Riverview Motel saw it she might ask herself, wasn’t he here the other day? Surely, Jake thought, Steve wouldn’t have used his real name or written down his real license number on the check-in card, and surely he must have paid in cash. Somebody they knew might have seen Steve and Lucy in Steve’s car, which could prompt that person to come forward. The motel angle was tricky. If the police suspected foul play and found out about Steve being at the motel, they might examine the room and fingerprint it. Of course, it would have been cleaned by then, perhaps even occupied by somebody else, but a lingering print might be found. He was sure that Lucy’s prints were not on record anywhere, but if the police made the connection between Lucy reporting the theft of her car and Steve...
He wasn’t worried for himself, though. He’d come straight home from the hospital. He had listened to local radio and heard that the bridge had been closed by the accident. He had taken side roads home, but not, of course, Digby Road. If it came to the police suggesting that Lucy and Steve had been involved, he would stare at them in wide-eyed disbelief. Not a chance he would tell them. Not his wife.
Jake shook his head. It would probably never come to that. Steve was well known as a daredevil from his youth. He loved to tell a story from his undergraduate days at St. Lawrence University. After seeing a movie of a mountie and his prisoner shooting rapids in the Canadian wilds, he and a friend drank several pitchers of beer, then tried to shoot the falls on the Oswegatchie River in the middle of town while students lined the bridge egging them on. They wrecked the canoe, almost drowned, and had to be rescued by the police. He had tried to shoot the rapids on the Gallatin River a few years ago in a kayak, had overturned, met a rock with his head, and again had to be rescued by police and ended up in the hospital with a concussion. And then there was the time he went across the river to the Shawangunks to rock climb and tried a climb out of his class, fell a short distance, and broke his arm. This time one could easily speculate that he leaned too far over to look down and lost his balance.
The telephone interrupted his thoughts. It was the police. During the night an officer driving slowly through the Walmart Superstore parking lot at the Hudson Mall had looked at the license plate of Lucy’s car, checked his list of stolen cars, and bingo. It had been towed to the police compound, where it could be picked up on Monday upon showing proper identification. Jake thanked the officer and told him they would be by in the morning.
By eleven o’clock, everybody was up and ready for Jake’s Sunday breakfast. He had already made his pancake mix and slowly heated up the old soapstone griddle that he and Lucy had bought years ago for a few dollars in an antiques store in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Lucy and the girls were finishing up their first heap of pancakes when the phone rang. Jake got up and answered it.
“Hi, Charley... What?... Good Lord... Are you sure it was him?... I see... Right, just like him... Thanks for letting us know, Charley... Right, right... Okay. Talk to you.”
Perfect, he thought. Unplanned, unexpected, just perfect.
Jake turned to expectant looks from Lucy and the girls.
“What is it?” Lucy asked.
“Steve van Schaick,” Jake said, looking directly at Lucy. “He’s dead.”
She paled. Her eyes widened. “What? How?”
“Drowned, apparently. Or was killed going over the falls. Charley Gentile was out in his backyard and saw the body hung up on a downed tree near his side. He went out and pulled it in. The cops are there now. Charley’s sure he went over the falls, ’cause he was pretty banged up. Broken leg, broken neck. He said the cops seem to think that’s what happened. I wouldn’t be surprised. He probably got too close to the edge at one of those overlooks and lost his balance. He was always pulling dumb stunts like that.”
Lucy’s hand had covered her mouth. Her expression was pure shock.
“Anybody want more pancakes?” Jake asked, before reaching down and picking up a piece of sausage and popping it into his mouth.
“More pancakes,” Lucy said, her voice shocked. “A friend is dead and you expect us to go on as if nothing has happened.”
The girls looked at their mother, then at Jake, who finished chewing his sausage and swallowing it.
“First, my dear, he was definitely not a friend. A least, not of mine. Second, to be brutally candid, I won’t be losing any sleep over Steve’s demise.”
“Me neither,” Kate said.
“Ditto,” Mimi said.
Jake gave his daughers a surprised look, then smiled, delighted to have unexpected allies.
Lucy, however, was furious. “How dare you,” Lucy said to Kate. “A good man has died. I won’t have you talking like that.” She glared at Jake. “You shouldn’t say things like that in front of the children.”
“He was not a good man,” Jake said evenly, watching Lucy as he spoke. “He was exactly the opposite of a good man. He was a phony, and a chronic womanizer.”
“I hated the way he looked at me,” Kate said.
“What do you mean?” her mother asked.
“You know what I mean, Mom. Like he was undressing me with his eyes.”
“I don’t believe that. You’re making it up to side with your father.”
Kate got that stubborn look on her face she had inherited from Jake. “I am not. I saw him looking at you that way, too.”
“Ditto,” Mimi said.
“Young lady,” Lucy said, “you keep quiet.”
“He looked at you that way?” Jake said to Kate, then switched his gaze to Lucy. “And your mother? He looked at your mother that way?”
“Yes,” Kate said. “I couldn’t stand to be around him.”
“By God,” Jake said, “if I’d known that, I’d have horsewhipped him.”
“I don’t believe any of this,” Lucy said.
“Lucy,” Jake said, “are you really going to sit there and pretend you didn’t know that he was a serial adulterer?”
“What’s a serial adulterer?” Mimi asked.
“Ask your sister later,” Jake said.
“Well, he may have had a few flings,” Lucy said.
Jake laughed. “A few? C’mon, Lucy. He was a rabbit. But you know what has always puzzled me? Why any decent, self-respecting woman would have anything to do with that cretin? Doesn’t that boggle your mind?”
Flushing deeply, Lucy sat straight in her chair, spine rigid, trying to compose herself. Jake stared at her. Kate and Mimi, aware of tension in the air but uncertain what it might be about, kept looking back and forth between their mother and father.
“Anyway,” Jake said, turning his eyes toward his daughters and smiling warmly, “Steve the slob is no conversation for the breakfast table. Who wants more pancakes?”
“Me.”
“Ditto.”
“Coming up,” Jake said, and turned toward the stove, then stopped, looked thoughtful. “But I wonder if I should call the cops first.”
“Call the police,” Lucy said. “Why?”
“I saw Steve this morning.”
Her eyes widened again. “Where?”
“On the jogging path.”
“You were jogging this morning?”
“Yes.”
“You never jog on Sundays.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night. All I could think of was Andy. I lay awake for hours staring at the ceiling. Finally I got up and went jogging. Passed Steve on the path. Waved, said hi, that was it. I probably should tell the cops. It might help them figure out what happened. But first — pancakes.”
“Yea!” the girls cried.
As Jake headed for the stove, he was conscious that Lucy was staring at him. He glanced at her, then began spooning the batter onto the griddle. When he finished he looked at her again. She was still staring at him, a troubled expression on her face.
“What?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Lucy rose and headed for the back door.
After Jake served the girls their pancakes, he went outside and watched Lucy She had put on knee pads and was weeding. She often weeded when under stress. But as Jake watched she stopped and looked up at the woods that bordered the jogging path, her head cocked to one side, as she did when she was thinking, revealing that sweep of neck once so dear and sweet to Jake but no longer. Perhaps she had heard him step out on the back porch, perhaps she sensed his presence. She half turned and looked behind her and for long seconds they stared at each other. Finally, Jake smiled, not the tender smile family and friends and neighbors knew so well, but that superior little smile of victory reserved for opponents in public-policy debates. Then he turned and went back inside to call the police while Lucy, pale and shaken, stared at the door he had gone through.
Late that week the local paper reported that the medical examiner had declared Steve’s death an accident. Death by misadventure, the local paper called it. The following week the trustees of the Gallatin River Reservation voted at a special meeting to put up fencing on both sides of the river.
Jake had decided that he would have to wait for some time, a good deal of time, but he was already giving serious thought to how he could dispatch Lucy to join Steve and get away with it.
Cleaning Up
by Steven Steinbock
Cora Lewis chewed her lip and clenched at the cotton afghan that lay on her lap in a disordered heap. On the end table beside her, a plate held a jumble of orange peels and a kitchen knife. Over the drone of the local news coming from the television set she could hear the clop-clop of her sister-in-law’s shoes before she saw her coming up the walk. She let out a slight, nasal grunt and bit on her lip again.
Frances was going to kill her. Cora knew it. She was certain of it. If she didn’t do something about it, it would be just a matter of time.
Fran was out of sight now. She must have climbed up the steps to the landing, but from where Cora was sitting, by the living room window, the stoop was invisible.
The television weatherman was explaining warm and cold fronts that would bring thunderstorms by evening. That was all Cora needed. To be stuck in the dark with no television and who knew what kind of crazies prowling about. Instinctively she reached for the knife, dislodging some of the orange peels, and pressed it into the side of her cushion.
What was taking her so long? What does it take, even for an eighty-three- year-old woman, to walk up a few steps and open a door? Not that Cora could take the steps any longer. The arthritis had her nearly crippled, but Frances didn’t seem to care. No, Frances moved about like a cat on fire. So what was keeping her?
As she heard the key in the lock she gave a shudder.
“Hello-o,” came a singsong voice from the hall.
“In here. I hope your shoes are clean. Did you wipe them?”
“Yes, Cora. I’ll take them off if you like.”
“Never mind. Of all people, I don’t have to worry about you getting the floor dirty.”
“What do you mean by that, Cora?”
“Nothing.”
“You’d think I leave your house in a mess every time I come over, Cora. I—”
“Never mind! I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Fran entered the living room. She had a supermarket produce bag pulled over her hair, clear plastic with green lettering, forming a makeshift rain bonnet, cotton-gloved hands carrying a brown grocery bag.
A regular bag lady, Cora thought. She let her grip go on her lower lip and began gnawing at her loose bridgework. Why in God’s name her sister-in-law couldn’t spend the dollar and a half to buy a real rain bonnet was beyond her. It aggravated her to no end. It was idiotic. She knew her brother Harry had done reasonably well with his shop, even if he couldn’t keep up with the technology and was forced to sell it after his stroke. That was fifteen years ago. At least Frances had a husband well into her golden years. Cora’s husband, Bill, had passed on in ’76, just shy of his fiftieth birthday, when he tried to pass a freight train at a railroad crossing. A little hasty misjudgment had left Cora a widow for more than half of her life.
Frances was in the kitchen, now. Still wearing her raincoat, she began washing dishes. “I feel bad because you’re all alone here all day,” she said. “I just thought you’d appreciate a little company and perhaps some help with the housework. I don’t mind a little cleanup. You know me; I like to help out. To do my part. A place for everything.”
“And everything in its place. Fine. Now why are you doing my dishes? Are you going to stand there all day in your coat? You look a mess.” She put special emphasis on that last word, knowing it would stick in Fran’s craw. “Did you walk all the way here from town?”
Fran took the produce bag from her head and pushed it into her oversized purse, which she set on the floor. “I took the bus and walked the rest of the way. It’s not that far. And the streets are nice and clean along that route.”
“Enough with the clean, already. And it is far. You could get killed. Did you hear about this pervert who’s suffocating people right on the streets? How can you say the streets are clean? And on a night like this you could get hit by lightning. They’re talking about a terrible thunderstorm.”
As if on cue, there was a flash through the misted windows, followed by a startling peal of thunder. “See? You’ll walk through a storm, get hit by lightning, and you’re dead.” As if for emphasis, she added, “And I won’t go to your funeral.”
“Dear, I wouldn’t expect you to come to my funeral. Especially with your arthritis.” She pronounced it “arthur-it-is,” which drove Cora crazy.
“Besides,” Frances chuckled, “I wouldn’t be there to help you push your wheelchair on the cemetery lawn.”
If a stream of toads had cascaded from Frances’s mouth, Cora wouldn’t have registered more shock. She’d heard her sister-in-law say some stupid things before, but this took the cake.
But Frances Hart took no notice of Cora’s reaction. She shook off her coat and stepped into her sister-in-law’s living room. The two women were the same age, Fran having just turned eighty-three. But Fran had a youthful energy that gave a lightness to her step, despite the effects of gravity and osteoporosis on her height and posture.
“Cora, let me take the vacuum out for a minute.”
“No.”
“But you have dust bunnies behind the television set.”
“Leave them alone.”
Fran pursed her lips in a pout. “Fine,” she said.
Cora mumbled something under her breath.
“What’s that?” Fran asked, after hooking her coat in the hall.
“Nothing. I wasn’t talking to you.” Cora eyed her sister-in-law with a mixture of suspicion and contempt.
Fran was looking around the living room. No doubt she was inventorying all the furnishings she’d be taking once she had Cora out of the way. “May I switch off the set?” Fran asked, gesturing to the television.
“No. I like having it on. I like knowing what’s happening in the world.”
“I don’t like most programs. It’s so much violence and scandal. I enjoy a good clean story.”
Cora mumbled a response.
“Pardon?”
“Never mind,” Cora said. And then, for emphasis, she pointed her bent hand to the television. “See there. Nobody is safe. This is the guy I was telling you about who has been killing lowlifes in the street.”
Fran looked at the television. “What’s ’fixyation?’” she asked.
“
“Oh.”
“Now they’re talking about traffic. More important things, I suppose. Anyhow, it just isn’t safe anymore. It’s not smart for you to come out here by bus. You’d be a lot smarter to take a cab.” Or better yet, stay home, she thought.
“I couldn’t do that, Cora. I like the walk. And I find cabs so filthy.”
“Well, if you watched the news or read the papers, you’d know how dangerous it is in the streets.”
“That’s why I don’t like watching the television. I’m going into the kitchen. Can I fix you some tea?”
“I don’t drink tea. I get palpitations.”
“Okay. I was just asking.”
Just asking is right. Cora knew that Fran would be happy to see her have a heart attack or a stroke just to get her out of the way.
Frances returned to the living room a moment later with a glass of orange juice that she set on a napkin atop a doily. Before taking a sip, she stepped over to the television.
“My God, Fran. What are you doing now?”
Her sister-in-law was on her knees now, reaching behind the television with her backside pointed toward Cora. With the legs of Fran’s polyester pantsuit hiked up, Cora could see the knee-high nylons that Fran had cut off at the ankle. That was something else that Cora couldn’t understand; something else about Fran that drove her crazy. Her hand reached down and felt for the knife beside the cushion.
“Your reception isn’t good, Cora,” came her muffled voice. “I’m surprised you still use an antenna. I’m pretty sure I have a satellite dish and a descrambler in Harry’s workshop. If we can get Elliot to put it up, I can get it hooked up. We can get you Lifetime, the Food Channel, the Shopping Network. There’s even a Hallmark channel now.”
“I don’t want a satellite on my rooftop. And I don’t want your grandson climbing up there, either.”
She sat while her sister-in-law fiddled. It dumbfounded her. How could a woman be so cheap and idiotic, and still understand all the electronics work that Harry left behind?
She turned her attention to Frances’s purse. It was large and awkward. The wooden handles were ugly, with big copper buttons that looked more like rivets than decoration, and the clasp that held the bag closed was broken.
Cora watched, clenching and unclenching her fists. She knew that Fran kept a big purse so she could take more of Cora’s things. Cora knew that Fran wanted everything. Just because she had married her brother, worked side by side with him in their appliance shop — a shop financed by
Cora pulled herself up from the chair and bent forward to catch a better look at what was in her sister-in-law’s bag. It astounded her that a woman so fussy about neatness and cleanliness would carry around such a motley mess. She noted a ratty old collapsible umbrella, a billfold, several more plastic supermarket bags just like the one she wore on her head, and a wad of paper towels — not the kind that come in rolls, but the kind taken from dispensers in public restrooms, probably stolen. Then again, when had Cora ever known her sister-in-law to use a public restroom. Too dirty for her, of course.
“What are you looking for?” asked Fran.
“Don’t scare me like that, Frances. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Of course not.”
“Frances, why do you have a TV remote in your purse?”
Brad Skinner was just about to pee when he heard the footsteps. He stifled the warm stream and shoved his johnson back in his pants. He remembered to clasp his belt but after struggling with the fly for a second or two, he decided not to bother. No matter.
Skinner took in a silent breath. He blinked and patted his jacket pockets and nodded his head with each clip-clop of the footsteps. He tightened his fists and released them again, then edged to the corner to peer around a wall.
As soon as he saw her, he smiled. It was an old lady with a plain raincoat the color of puke. She had a plastic bag on top of her head for a rain hat. He’d take her purse, grab the cash, the cards, the social-security check, and get off to Gerber’s place to score.
He stepped out of the doorway and asked her, “Do you have the time, lady?”
He looked again at the makeshift rain bonnet and wondered if maybe she was a street person. She better have enough to make his score or he’d be doubly pissed. But her face didn’t look like that of a street person.
“It’s a quarter of eight,” said the old woman, looking up at him. She was about four feet away from Skinner. Her washed-out yellow hair was curly beneath its plastic covering. She had a big round nose that together with the hair made him think of one of those Marx Brothers, the weird one that never talked.
He felt himself grinning, and felt a rush of excitement in his groin. Or maybe it was just the piss he was still holding in. The old lady didn’t look scared. That was good. Ladies who thought they were safe carried more money, he figured.
“Lemme have your bag, lady.” He loved saying that. It made him feel strong. Bag lady, he thought. She’s a real bag lady with that thing on her head. But then again, a real bag lady wouldn’t have anything worth stealing so she couldn’t be a real bag lady after all.
“Are you going to rob me?” she asked.
“Hunh-y-yeah,” he chuckled, although it came out like a nervous shiver. He reached for her now and stood in her path so she’d have to turn around to get away from him. When she tried, he’d trip her.
“Hand it over or I’ll have to hurt you, lady.”
She grasped her oversized purse in both hands. For a second, Brad Skinner thought she was going to throw it at him. It was big and looked heavy. But she didn’t throw it. She held it toward him, still gripping it at the sides with both hands. The top of the purse wasn’t closed all the way. Kind of like his zipper. Jeez, the bitch has got nerve, he thought.
He stretched his right hand out and reached for the purse.
He looked in the lady’s eyes. Damn, she didn’t look scared or anything. She did have nerve. Then, suddenly, the woman dropped the purse.
Skinner looked down at it, his arm still suspended midair. Some of the purse’s contents — a wallet, a hairbrush, and several plastic bags — fell onto the sidewalk.
Before he could look back up at the old lady, something bit at his wrist.
It felt like something was grabbing his hand. He was surprised at how much effort it took to shift his glance from the sidewalk to his arm.
The old lady was holding something in her hand. It looked like an old TV remote, with just a couple of buttons. He started to reach for the thing. But he wasn’t moving fast enough. The lady held it toward him and pressed it into his shoulder. He felt the bite again, but this time it was duller. He felt like he was shaking. He thought of some bad speed he took once, but this was faster, more violent. It was like a gorilla had him by the shoulder and was shaking him faster than light.
“You want my bag, young man? Shame on you.”
He had the urge to scream, but his lungs wouldn’t work.
The old lady bent down with surprising agility and scooped the wallet and hairbrush back into her purse, along with the thing she’d zapped him with. He couldn’t remember what it was called. It wasn’t a TV remote. He couldn’t remember. He had to concentrate on his breathing.
His efforts to stay upright were useless. Already down on his haunches, he tipped over, falling like an empty beer bottle, like a tree — a drunken tree.
“This is a good city,” the old lady said, “and these are good streets. There’s a place for everything, and everything in its place. This is no place for dope and gangs, or for hurting good people. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
He thought he was screaming, but no sound came out. He wanted to punch the lady, but he couldn’t move. His jaw was stiff. His eyes closed for a moment and when he opened them again, he saw the woman holding her closed hand toward him. She was pushing something into his mouth. A bag. A plastic bag like the one on her head. Like what Skinner had seen a thousand times at the market. She was pushing it into his mouth.
He felt his throat constrict in a gag. He tried to inhale. He groaned and retched and solid chunks of vomit lodged in his sinuses and dripped from his nose. His eyes were burning from tears.
“I hope you’ve learned something today, young man. This is not a place for anything ugly or unpleasant. Everything has a place, but not that.”
She looked down at the stream of urine glistening on the sidewalk. “Oh, look at that.”
Skinner stared, unbelieving. From the way the old lady was looking at the puddle at his feet, he thought she was actually thinking about scrubbing it with disinfectant. Why would he think of that? He thought of his own mother as blackness rose from his chest. His eyes bulged, barely seeing. But he saw the woman take the bag from atop her head. Consciousness faded, but not fast enough. In his last, gurgling silent scream he watched the translucent plastic being pulled over his face.
For a moment he watched in shock as the bag quivered and filled with steam from his own nostrils. The bag’s green lettering covered one eye. It was a large letter C from a supermarket logo. The printed symbol and the cloudiness of the faded bag gave a twisted, disorienting view of the figure that stood above him.
The last thing he saw was that large letter C. With his last breath, he made the sound “Ccccc,” almost, Frances thought, as though he was trying to utter the other half, “clean.”
It was time to draw a bath. Frances Hart set her purse on the glass end table, pulled off her cotton gloves, and kicked off her shoes. She stepped into a pair of white slip-on house slippers with a nylon rose on top.
She took a roll of grocery produce bags from under the kitchen sink and tore off five or six. She separated them and folded them neatly, and placed them in a pocket inside her purse. The stunner was still disconnected from the electrodes on the purse handles, so she took it out — it was a simple one that Harry had designed — and put it back on its charger. One must always be ready for the unexpected.
She walked into the bathroom and, after giving the tub a quick rinse, set the plug and began to draw her bath.
It had been a long day. A good day, but a long one. She was tired, and feeling a little dirty. Now it was time to clean up.
The following morning, Cora Lewis made her way from one end of the kitchen to the other. She was furious. A slice of toast was getting cold on the kitchen table. A grapefruit sat on the cutting board beside the sink.
On her ever-present television, a local newscaster said, “Last night, a twenty-four-year-old man was found dead on the corner of High Street and Sweeney, another apparent victim of the Bell Town Strangler. Police are not disclosing the name of the victim and the details of his death. But sources tell us that the victim died of asphyxiation in a manner similar to that of five other men in the same vicinity over the past three months...”
“Damn her,” said Cora, not listening to the television, her mind on the grapefruit waiting to be sliced, as she frantically searched the countertops. “If Fran took my knife, we’ll see if I let her in my house again. I know she took it. That was part of a set we got for our anniversary. Frances and her damn purse.”
A place for everything, she thought angrily. And everything in its place.
She didn’t think to look at the side of her easy-chair cushion, where it had lain since Fran’s visit, its blade still sticky with the juice of yesterday’s orange.
Rearview Mirror
by Art Taylor
I hadn’t been thinking about killing Delwood. Not really. But you know how people sometimes have just had
And even though I was indeed thinking hard about taking my half of the money and maybe a little more —
Sometimes people are just too far apart in their wants — that’s what my mama told me. Sometimes things just don’t work out.
“Why don’t we take the day off,” I’d asked him earlier that morning up in Taos, a Saturday, the sun creeping up but everything still mostly quiet in the trailer park where we’d been renting on the biweekly. “We could go buy you a suit, and I could get a new dress. And then maybe we’d go out to dinner. To Joseph’s Table, maybe. Celebrate a little.”
He snorted. “Louise,” he said, the way he does. “What’s it gonna look like, the two of us, staying out here, paycheck to paycheck, economical to say the least” — he put a little emphasis on
“We don’t have to go to the nicest restaurant,” I said, trying to compromise, which is the mark of a good relationship. “We could just go down to the bar at the Taos Inn and splurge on some high-dollar bourbon and a couple of nice steaks.” I knew he liked steaks, and I could picture him smiling over it, chewing, both of us fat and happy. So to speak, I mean, the fat part being figurative again, of course.
“We told Hal we’d vacate the premises by this morning. We agreed.”
Hal was the man who ran the trailer park. A week or so before, Del had told him he’d finally gotten his degree and then this whole other story about how we’d be moving out to California, where Del’s sister lived, and how we were gonna buy a house over there.
“Sister?” I had wanted to say when I overheard it. “House?” But then I realized he was just laying the groundwork, planning ahead so our leaving wouldn’t look sudden or suspicious. Concocting a story — I imagine that’s the way he would have explained it, except he didn’t explain it to me, he just did it.
That’s the way he was sometimes: a planner, not a communicator.
“Okay,” I told Del. “We’ll just go then. But how ’bout we rent a fancy car? A convertible, maybe. A nice blue one.” And I could see it — us cruising through the Sangre de Cristos on a sunny afternoon, the top slid back and me sliding across the seat too, leaning over toward him, maybe kicking my heels up and out the window. My head would be laid on his shoulder and the wind would slip through my toes. Now
“No need to blow this windfall on some extravagance,” he said. “No need to call attention to ourselves unnecessarily. Our car works fine.”
He headed for it then — an old Nova. Little spots of rust ran underneath the doors and up inside the wheel well. A bad spring in the seat always bit into my behind. Lately, the rearview mirror had started to hang just a little loose — not so that Delwood couldn’t see in it, but enough that it rattled against the windshield whenever the road got rough.
I stood on the steps with my hip cocked and my arms crossed, so that when he turned and looked at me in that rearview mirror, he’d know I was serious. But he just climbed in the car, and sat there staring ahead. Nothing to look back at, I guess. He’d already packed the car while I slept. The trailer behind us was empty of the few things we owned.
“A new day for us,” he’d whispered an hour before when he woke me up, but already it seemed like same old, same old to me.
When I climbed in beside him, I slammed the passenger-side door extra hard and heard a bolt come loose somewhere inside it.
“It figures,” I said, listening to it rattle down. The spring had immediately dug extra hard into my left rump.
Del didn’t answer. Just put the car in gear and drove ahead.
When I first met Del, he was robbing the 7-Eleven over in Eagle Nest, where I worked at that time. This was about a year ago. I’d just been sitting behind the counter, reading one of the
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said. “I’m not a bad man. I just need a little boost in my income.”
I laid the
“Yes, ma’am.”
I bit my lip and shook my head — no no no — just slightly.
“I’m only twenty-four,” I said.
He looked over toward the Doritos display — not looking at it, but just pointing his head in that direction the way some people look into space whenever they’re thinking. He had a moustache and a beard. I could see the stray hairs poking out around the bottom of the ski mask and near the hole where his mouth was.
“Excuse me?” he said finally, turning back to face me. His eyes were green.
“I’m not a ma’am.”
He held up his free hand, the one without the pistol, and made to run it through his hair — another sign of thinking — but with the ski mask, it just slid across the wool. “Either way, could you hurry it up a little. I’m on a schedule.”
Many reasons for him to be frustrated, I knew. Not the least of which was having to wear wool in New Mexico in the summer.
He glanced outside. The gas pumps were empty. Nothing but darkness on the other side of the road. This time of night, we didn’t get much traffic. I shrugged, opened the cash register.
“You know,” I said, as I bent down for a bag to put his money in. “You have picked the one solitary hour that I’m alone in the store, between the time that Pete has to head home for his mom’s curfew and the time that our night manager strolls in for his midnight to six.”
“I know. I’ve been watching you.” Then there was a little nervous catch in his voice. “Not in a bad way, I mean. Not
I kept loading the register into the bag. “You don’t think I’m worth watching?”
Again, with the ski mask, I can’t be sure, but he seemed to blush.
“No. I mean, yes,” he said. “You’re very pretty,” he said.
I nodded. “There’s not much money here we have access to, you know? A lot of it goes straight to the safe. That’s procedure.”
“I’m a fairly frugal man,” he said. “Sometimes I just need a little extra for... tuition.”
“Tuition?”
“And other academic expenses.”
“Academic expenses,” I repeated, not a question this time. I thought that he had a nice voice, and then I told him so. “You have a nice voice,” I said. “And pretty eyes.” I gave him my phone number, not writing it down because the security camera would have picked that up, but just told him to call, repeating the number twice so he would remember it. “And my name is Louise.”
“Thanks,” he said, “Louise.”
“Good luck with your education,” I called after him, but the door had already swung closed. I watched him run out toward the pumps and beyond, admired the way his body moved, the curve of his jeans, for as long as I could make him out against the darkness. I gave him a head start before I dialed 911.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I was some bored, bubble-gum-popping,
It wasn’t exciting that he robbed convenience stores.
It was exciting that he was brave enough to call me afterwards,
That
Not a one of those stories held a candle to hearing Del’s voice on the other end of the phone: “Hello, Louise? I, um... robbed your 7-Eleven the other night, and I’ve been percolating on our conversation ever since. Are you free to talk?”
But it had been a long time since I believed we were going anywhere fast. Or anywhere at all.
We took the High Road down from Taos. That figured too: two lanes, 45 miles per hour.
“Afraid they’ll get you for speeding?” I asked.
“Who knows,” he said. “One thing might lead to another.”
As we drove, he kept looking up into the rearview mirror, nervously, as if any second a patrol car really was gonna come tearing around the bend, sirens wailing, guns blasting. He had put his own pistol in the glove compartment. I saw it when I went for a Kleenex.
“If we get pulled over, are you gonna use it?”
He didn’t answer, just glanced up again at the mirror, which rattled against the windshield with every bump and curve.
I was doing a little rearview looking as well, I guess.
Here’s the thing. Even if I had become a little
I mean, like I said, he was a planner. I’d seen my mama date men who couldn’t think beyond which channel they were gonna turn to next, unless there was a big game coming up, and then their idea of planning was to ask her to pick up an extra bag of chips and dip for their friends.
On the other hand, take Del. When he picked me up for our first date, I asked him straight out, “So where does the desperate criminal take the sole witness to his crime on their first date?” I was admiring how he looked out from under that ski mask — his beard not straggly like I’d been afraid, but groomed nice and tight, and chiseled features, I guess you’d call them, underneath that. Those green eyes looked even better set in such a handsome face. He’d dressed up a little, too: a button-down shirt, a nice pair of khakis. He was older than I’d expected, older than me. Thirties, maybe. Maybe even late thirties. A little grey in his beard. But I kind of liked all that, too.
“A surprise,” said Del, and didn’t elaborate, just drove out of Eagle Nest and out along 64, and all of a sudden I thought,
And then there’s the fact that he did indeed finish his degree at the community college, which shows discipline and dedication. And then coming up with that story about his sister and why we were moving, laying out a cover story in advance, always thinking ahead. And then planning for the heist itself — the “big one,” he said, “the last one,” though I knew better. Over the last year, whenever tuition came due, he’d hit another 7-Eleven or a gas station or a DVD store — “shaking up the modus operandi,” he said, which seemed smart to me, but maybe he just got that from the movies he watched on our DVD player. He’d stolen that too.
That was how we spent most of our nights together, watching movies. I’d quit the 7-Eleven job at that point — it was too dangerous, Del said —
We’d make dinner — something out of a box because I’m not much of a cook, I’ll admit — and I’d watch Court TV, which I love, while he did some of his homework for the business classes he was taking over at the college, balancing work and school and me. And then we’d watch a movie, usually something with a crime element like
“Is that all you do, sit around and watch movies?” Mama asked on the phone, more than once.
“We go out some, too,” I told her.
“
“He surprises me sometimes,” I said. “Taking me out for dinner.”
(Which was true. “Let’s go out for a surprise dinner,” he’d say sometimes, even though the surprise was always the same, that we were just going to Our Place. But that was still good because it really was
“He loves me,” I’d tell Mama. “He holds me close at night and tells me how much he loves me, how much he can’t live without me.”
Mama grunted. She was in South Carolina. Two hours time difference and almost a full country away, but still you could feel her disappointment like she was standing right there in the same room.
“That’s how it starts,” Mama would tell me, “ ‘I can’t live without you,’ ” mimicking the voice. “Then pretty soon, ‘I can’t live without you’ starts to turn stifling and sour and...”
Her voice trailed off.
And I knew where she was coming from, knew how her last boyfriend had treated her. I’d seen it myself, one of the reasons I finally just moved away, anywhere but there.
“I thought you were going to start a
I twirled the phone cord in my hand, wanting just to be done with the conversation, but not daring to hang up yet. Not yet.
“Frugal,” Mama said, making me regret again some of the things I’d told her about him. “Frugal’s just a big word for cheap.”
“Are things gonna be different someday?” I’d asked Del one night, the two of us laying in bed, him with his back to me. I ran my fingers across his shoulder when I asked it.
“Different?” he asked.
“Different from this,” I said.
He didn’t answer at first, and so I just kept rubbing his shoulder and then let my hand sneak over and rub the top of his chest, caressing it real light, because I knew he liked that. The window was slid open and a breeze rustled the edge of those thin little curtains. Just outside stood a short streetlight, one that the trailer park had put up, and sometimes it kept me awake, shining all night, like it was aiming right for my face.
After a while, I realized Del wasn’t gonna answer at all, and I stopped rubbing his chest and turned over.
That night when I couldn’t sleep, I knew it wasn’t the streetlight at all.
For this
I liked watching his mind work: the way he’d suddenly nod just slightly when we were walking across the plaza or down the walkway between the John Dunn Shops, like he’d seen something important. Or the way his eyes narrowed and darted as we rode throughout the neighborhood where the gallery owner lived, keeping a steady speed, not turning his head, not
We had a nice time at the gallery opening itself, too. At least at the beginning. Delwood looked smart in his blue blazer, even though it was old enough that it had gotten a little shine. And you could see how happy he was each time he saw a red dot on one of the labels — just more money added to the take — even if he first had to ask what each of those red dots meant. I hated the gallery owner’s tone when he answered that one, as if he didn’t want Del or me there drinking those plastic cups of wine or eating the cheese. But then I thought,
“I like this one,” I said in front of one of the pictures. It was a simple picture — this painting stuck in the back corner. A big stretch of blue sky and then the different colored blue of the ocean, and a mistiness to it, like the waves were kicking up spray. Two people sat on the beach, a man and a woman. They sort-of leaned into one another, watching the water, and I thought about me and Del and began to feel nostalgic for something that we’d never had. The painting didn’t have a red dot on it.
“With the money,” I whispered to Delwood. “We could come back here and buy one of them, huh? Wouldn’t that be ballsy? Wouldn’t that be
“Louise,” he said, that tone again, telling me everything.
“I’m just saying,” I said. “Can’t you picture the two of us at the ocean like that? Maybe with the money, we could take a big trip, huh?”
“Can’t you just enjoy your wine?” he whispered, and moved on to the next picture, not looking at it really, just at the label.
“Fine,” I said after him, deciding I’d just stay there and let him finish casing out the joint, but then a couple came up behind me.
“Let’s try
“S,” said the man. “Okay. S.” They looked at the couple on the beach, and I looked with them, wondering what they meant by “trying
“Sentimental,” said the woman, quick as she could.
“Um... sugary.”
“Saccharine.”
“Okay. No fair,” said the man. “You’re just playing off my words.”
The woman smirked at him. She had a pretty face, I thought. Bright blue eyes and high cheekbones and little freckles across them. She had on a gauzy top, some sort of linen, and even though it was just a little swath of fabric, you could tell from the texture of it and the way she wore it and from her herself that it was something fine. I knew, just knew suddenly, that it had probably cost more than the money Del had stolen from the 7-Eleven the night I first met him. And I knew too that I wanted a top just like it.
“Fine,” she said, pretending to pout. “Here’s another one. Schmaltzy.”
“Better! Um... sad.”
“No,
“Agreed,” he laughed.
“Swill,” she whispered, dragging out the
Del had made the full circuit. Even from across the room, I could see the elbows shining on his blazer. Then he turned and saw me and made a little side-nod with his head, motioning toward the door. Time to head back home. Back to the trailer.
I looked once more at the painting of the couple on the beach. I’d thought it was pretty. Still did.
I’d thought the wine had tasted pretty good, too.
But suddenly it all left a bad taste in my mouth.
A bad taste still as we drove south now.
The steep turns and drop-offs that had taken us out of Taos had given way to little villages, small homes on shaded roads, people up and about, going about their lives. I saw a couple of signs pointed toward the Santuario de Chimayo, which I’d visited when I first moved out this way, picking Northern New Mexico just because it seemed different, in every way, from where I’d grown up. I’d found out about the church in Chimayo from a guidebook I’d ordered off the Internet, learned about the holy earth there and how it healed the sick. When I’d visited it myself, I gathered up some of the earth and then mailed it off to Mama — not that she was sick, but just unhappy. I don’t know what I’d imagined she’d do with it, rub it on her heart or something. “Thanks for the dirt,” she told me when she got it.
“Do you think they’ve found him yet?” I asked Del.
“They?”
“I don’t know, Del. The police. Or the cleaning lady or a customer.”
We were nearing another curve and Del eased the Nova around it slowly, carefully.
“Probably somebody will have found him by now. Like I told you last night, I tied him up pretty good, so I don’t think he’d have gotten loose on his own. But by now...”
He sped up a little bit. I don’t think he did it consciously, but I noticed.
A little while later, I asked, “Are we gonna do
“What kind of fun?”
“I don’t know. Clothes, jewelry... a big-screen TV, a vacation. Something fun.”
He scratched his beard. “That’s just extravagance.”
“Are you gonna make
“All the good ones,” he said. He gave a tense little chuckle. “Don’t you ever consider the future?”
But again, he missed what I was saying. The future is
We bypassed Santa Fe proper, and then Del had us two-laning it again on a long road toward Albuquerque: miles and miles of dirt hills and scrubby little bushes, some homes that looked like people still lived there and others that were just crumbling down to nothing. The Ortiz Mountains standing way out in the distance. We got stuck for a while behind a dusty old pickup going even slower than we were, but Del was still afraid to pass. We just poked along behind the truck until it decided to turn down some even dustier old road, and every mile we spent behind it, my blood began to boil up a little more.
I know Del was picturing roadblocks out on the interstate, and helicopters swooping low, waiting for some rattling old Nova like ours to do something out of the ordinary, tip our hand — even more so after I asked about that gallery owner getting loose. But after a while, I just wanted to scream, “Go! Go! Go!” or else reach over and grab the wheel myself, stretch my leg over and press down on the gas, hurl us ahead somehow and out of all this. And then there was all the money in the trunk and all the things I thought we could have done with it but clearly weren’t going to do. Once or twice, I even thought about pulling out that pistol myself and pointing it at him. “I don’t want anybody to get hurt,” I might say, just like he would. “Just do like I ask, okay?” That was the first time I thought about it, and that wasn’t even serious.
Still, it was all I could do to hide all that impatience, all that restlessness and nervous energy. None of it helped by that tap tap tap tap tap of the mirror against the windshield. I felt like my skin was turning inside out.
“I need to pee,” I said, finally.
“Next place I see,” said Del, a little glance at me, one more glance in the rearview. I looked in the side mirror. Nothing behind us but road. I looked ahead of us. Nothing but road. I looked around the car. Just me and him and that damn mirror tapping seconds into minutes and hours and more.
We stopped in Madrid, which isn’t pronounced like the city in Spain but with the emphasis on the first syllable: MAD-rid. It used to be a mining town back in the Gold Rush days, but then dried up and became a ghost town. Now it’s a big artist’s community. I didn’t know all that when we pulled in, but there was a brochure.
We pulled up by one of the rest stops at one end of the town — outhouse, more like it. Del waited in the car, but after I was done, I tapped on his window. “I’m gonna stretch my legs,” I said, and strolled off down the street before he could answer. I didn’t care whether he followed, but pretty soon I heard the scuff scuff of his feet on the gravel behind me. I really did need a break, just a few minutes out of the car, and it did help some, even with him following. We walked on like that, him silent behind me except for his footsteps as I picked up that brochure and looked in the store windows at antiques and pottery and vintage cowboy boots. Fine arts, too. “Wanna make one
I walked in one store. Del followed. I just browsed the shelves. The sign outside had advertised “Local artisans and craftspeople,” and the store had quirky little things the way those kinds of places do: big sculptures of comical-looking cowboys made out of recycled bike parts, closeup photographs of rusted gas pumps and bramble bush, hand-dipped soy candles, gauzy-looking scarves that reminded me about the woman at the gallery the night before. I browsed through it all, taking my time, knowing that Del was right up on me, almost feeling his breath on my back.
One shelf had a bowl full of sock-monkey keychains. A little cardboard sign in front of the bowl said, “Handcrafted. $30.”
“Excuse me,” I called over to the man behind the counter. He’d been polishing something and held a red rag in his hand. “Is this the price of the bowl or of the monkeys?”
“Oh,” he said, surprised, as if he’d never imagined someone might misunderstand that. “The monkeys,” he said, then corrected himself:
I turned to Del.
“Why don’t you get me one of these?” I asked him, holding up a little monkey.
I tried to say it casual-like, but it was a challenge. I felt like both of us could hear it in my voice. Even the man behind the register heard it, I imagine, even though he’d made a show of going back to his polishing.
“What would you want with a thing like that?” Del said.
“Sometimes a girl likes a present. It makes her feel special.” I dangled the sock monkey on my finger in front of him, and Del watched it sway, like he was mesmerized or suspicious. “Or is the romance gone here?”
“It’s kind of pricey for a keychain.”
I leaned in close for just a second. “Why don’t you just slip it in your pocket, then?” I whispered.
Del cut his eyes toward the man behind the counter, and then turned back to me. His look said
I just swayed that monkey a little more.
A woman in a green dress jingled through the door then and went up to the counter. “You were holding something for me,” she said, and the man put down his polish rag, and they started talking.
You could tell that Delwood was relieved not to have a witness anymore. “C’mon, Louise,” he said. “Be serious.”
But me? For better or worse, I just upped the ante.
“Suppose I said to you that this monkey” — I jerked my finger so that his little monkey body bounced a little — “this monkey represents love to me.”
“Love?” he said.
“The potential for love,” I clarified. “The possibility of it.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, suppose I told you that my daddy, the last time I saw him, me only six years old, he comes into my bedroom to tuck me in and he gives me a little sock-puppet monkey, bigger than this one, but looking pretty much the same” (because the truth is they all do) “and he says to me, ‘Hon, Daddy’s going away for a while, but while I’m gone, this little monkey is gonna take care of you, and any time you find yourself thinking of me or wondering about me, I want you to hug this monkey close to you, and I’ll be there with you. Wherever I am, I’ll be here with you.’ And he touched his heart.”
I wasn’t talking loud, but the man behind the counter and the customer had grown quiet, listening to me now even as they pretended not to. Del wasn’t sweating, not really, but with all the attention — two witnesses to our argument now — he looked like he was or was just about to break out into one.
“And my mom was behind him, leaned against the door watching us,” I said. “Anyone probably could have seen from her face that he wasn’t coming back and that it was her fault and she felt guilty, but I was too young to know that then. And I dragged that monkey around with me every day and slept with it every night and hugged it close. And finally my mom threw it away, which told me the truth. ‘Men let you down,’ she told me when I cried about it, because she’d just broken up with her latest boyfriend and had her own heart broken, I guess. ‘Men let you down,’ she told me. ‘Don’t you ever fool yourself into forgetting that.’ And I stopped crying. But still, whatever my mama told me and whether my daddy came back or not, I believed — I
Del looked over at the wall, away from the shopkeeper and his customer, and stared at this sculpture of a cowboy on a bucking bronco — an iron silhouette. The tilt of his head and the nervous look in his eyes reminded me of the first night we’d met, at the 7-Eleven, when he’d called me “ma’am” and I’d told him my age. Seemed like here was another conversation where he was playing catch-up, but this time he seemed fearful for different reasons.
“And maybe,” I said, helping him along, “just maybe if you bought this for me, I’d know you really loved me, for always and truly. Now,” I said, “would
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an embarrassed look on the storekeeper’s face — embarrassed for Del and maybe a little embarrassed for me, too. His customer, the woman in green, cleared her throat, and the shopkeeper said, “Yes, ma’am, I’ll get that for you.”
Del shifted his lower jaw to the side — another indication, I’d learned, that his mind was working on something, weighing things. He really was sweating now, and still staring at that bucking-bronco sculpture like he felt some kinship with the cowboy on top, like staring at it might give him an answer somehow.
“What was your monkey’s name?” he asked me.
I gave out a long sigh, with an extra dose of irritation in it. He was missing the whole point, just like always. “I don’t know,” I told him. I sighed again. “Murphy,” I said.
His look changed then, just a little crease of the forehead, a little raise of the eyebrow. “Murphy the monkey?” he said. He wasn’t looking at the sculpture now, wasn’t looking afraid anymore but something else entirely. “Well, Louise,” he began. “I don’t really think that this monkey represents the love we share, and the truth is that thirty dollars seems like quite a bit for—”
But I didn’t hear the rest of it. I just turned and walked off, out the door, slamming it behind me the way I’d slammed the Nova’s door that morning and stomping off fast back toward the car.
I can’t say whether I wanted him to call for me to come back or rush out after me, something dramatic like that, but if I did, I was indeed fooling myself, just like Mama had warned. That wasn’t Delwood. When I got in the car, I saw him through the window, slowly coming back — those sad little footsteps behind me, scuff scuff scuff. No hurry at all, like he knew I’d be waiting.
We rode on in silence after that — a heavy silence, you know what I mean. More ghost towns where people used to have hopes and dreams and now there was nothing but a little bit of rubble and a long stretch of empty land. I wasn’t even angry now, just deflated, disappointed.
“Men will do that to you,” my mama told me another time. “After a while you feel like it’s not even worth trying.” I’d known what she meant, theoretically. Now I knew in a different way.
Soon the two-lane widened, and the strip malls started up and fast-food restaurants — civilization. I saw a Wendy’s and asked if it was okay to stop.
“I’ll pick from the dollar menu,” I said, sarcastic-like.
Del didn’t say anything, just pulled through the drive-thru and ordered what I wanted. He didn’t get anything for himself. I think it was just out of spite.
Toward evening, we stopped at a motel in Kingman, Arizona, one of those cheap ones that have been there since Route 66 was an interesting road and not just a tourist novelty — the ones that now looked like they’d be rented for the hour by people who didn’t much care what the accommodations were like.
Del checked us in, pulled the Nova around to the stairwell closest to our room.
“Get your kicks,” I said.
“Kicks?” he said, baffled.
“Route 66,” I said, pointing to a sign. “Guess we couldn’t afford the Holiday Inn either, huh?”
He stared straight ahead, drummed his fingers light against the steering wheel. He curled up his bottom lip a little and chewed on his beard.
“You know those court shows you watch on TV?” Del said finally. “And how you tell me some of those people are so stupid? You listen to their stories and you laugh and you tell me, ‘That’s where they went wrong,’ or ‘They should’ve known better than that.’ ”
“Do you mean,” I said, “something like a man who robs a convenience store and then calls up the clerk he’s held at gunpoint and asks her out for a date?” I felt bad about it as soon as I said it. Part of why I fell in love with him and now I was complaining about it.
“There were extenuating circumstances in that instance,” he said, and this warning sound had crept into his tone, one that I hadn’t heard before. “I’m just saying that we need to be fairly circumspect now about whatever we do. Any misstep might put us in front of a real judge, and it won’t be a laughing matter, I can assure you.” He turned to face me. “Louise,” he said, again that way he does. “I love you, Louise, but sometimes... Well, little girl, sometimes you just don’t seem to be thinking ahead.”
It was the
“Del,” I said through clenched teeth, putting a little emphasis on his name, too. “I’ve always said that I love you. But sometimes, Del, sometimes, I could just kill you.”
He nodded. “Well,” he said, slow and even as always, but still with that edge of warning to it, “I guess you’d go to jail for that too.” He handed the room key across to where I sat. “You go on in. I got a couple of things to rearrange in the trunk.”
“Fine,” I said, toughening the word up so he could hear how I felt. He stared at me for a second, then went back to get our bags. In the rearview, I watched the lid of the trunk lift up, but still I just sat there.
I don’t know how to describe what I was feeling. Anger? Sadness? I don’t know what was running through my head, either. What to do next, I guess. Whether to go up to the room and carry on like we’d planned, like he seemed to expect I’d do, or to step out of all this, literally just step out of the car and start walking in another direction.
But then I knew if I really did leave, he’d come after me. Not dramatic, not begging, but I knew he wouldn’t let me go. Can’t live without you, that’s what he’d said, and like Mama said, sometimes that kind of love could turn ugly fast. I’d seen it before.
“You just gonna sit there?” Del called out, just a voice behind the trunk lid. Still rearranging, I guess.
“No. I’m going up,” I called back, calling to the reflection of the trunk lid, I realized. Then, just before I stepped out of the car, I opened up the glove compartment and slipped the gun into my purse.
In the motel room, I locked the door to the bathroom, set down my purse, and then turned the water on real hot before climbing in. I stood there in the steam and rubbed that little-bitty bar of soap over me, washing like I had layers of dust from those two-lane roads and that truck we’d followed for so long.
I thought about what would happen after I got out. “Sometimes people are just too far apart in their wants,” I could say. “I do love you, Del, but sometimes people just need to move on.” It was just a matter of saying it. It would be easy to do, I knew. With or without the gun. But the gun showed I was serious. The gun was protection. “I’m not taking all the money, Del,” I might say. “That’s not what’s going on here. That’s not the point.” As if he had
I took both towels when I got out of the shower. The steam swirled around me while I stood there toweling myself off — one towel wrapped around me and one towel for my hair, leaving him none.
Would he try to talk me out of it? Would he try to take the gun away? Would I have to tie him up and leave him there the way he’d left that gallery owner back in Taos? Just thinking about it left me sad.
He was sitting there when I came out of the bathroom, sitting on the one chair in the room, staring at the blank television. I hadn’t taken the gun out, just held my purse in my hand, feeling the weight of it in there. Thinking that I might have to use it, I suddenly wished I’d gotten dressed first. I mean, picture it: me wrapped in two towels and holding a gun? Hardly a smooth getaway.
Del’s face was... well,
“You never talked much about your daddy,” he said, breaking the silence. “He really leave you when you were six?”
“Yes,” I said, and I realized then that I felt like I was owed something for that.
Del nodded, stared at the blank television. I looked there too, at the gray curve of the screen. I could see his face there, reflected toward me, kind of distorted, distant.
“He really give you a sock monkey when he left?”
I thought about that, too, but I was thinking now about what I owed Del.
“No,” I told him, and I could hear the steel in my own voice. “But what my mama said, she did say that.”
I stared hard at the dusty TV screen, at his reflection there. I saw then that his fists were clenched, and that he clenched them a little tighter at my answer, and I could feel myself tighten too. I knew then that he knew the pistol was gone. I didn’t take my eyes off that reflection as I pulled up the strap of my pocketbook, just in case he stood up quick and rushed me. But he dropped his head down a little, and then I saw his profile in the reflection, which meant he’d turned to see me straight on.
“So you lied to me, then?” He was clenching his hand hard, so much that if I’d been closer, I might have backed away. But there was a bed between us. And the pocketbook was open in my hand.
“If that’s what you want to take from it.”
His eyes watched me hard. Those green eyes. First thing I’d really noticed about him up close.
“Do you believe your mama was right?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
Those eyes narrowed. Thinking again. And it struck me that I could just about list every little thing he did when he was pondering over something: how he sometimes stared hard at something or other times stared off into space with this faraway gaze, running his fingers through his hair or through the tip of his beard, shifting his jaw one way or the other. Usually left, I corrected myself. Always to the left. And sure enough, just as I thought it, he shifted his jaw just that way, setting it in place.
I almost laughed despite myself.
“Do you want a surprise?” he asked, and I almost laughed again.
“It’s a long drive back to Our Place.”
“A new surprise.”
“Sure,” I said.
“The story we told back at the trailer park, about me having a sister out in Victorville,” he said then. “I really do. Haven’t talked to her in a while. We were estranged.” He stretched out the word. “But I told her I wanted to go straight —
Part of me wanted to go over to him, but I didn’t.
“I stole that painting you wanted, too,” he said, as if he was embarrassed to admit it. “We can’t hang it in the house, at least not the living room, not where anyone might see, but you can take it out and look at it sometimes, maybe, if you want. It’s out in the trunk now if you want me to get it.” He gave a big sigh, the kind he might give late at night when he was done talking, as if he might just pretend to be asleep. But something else in his face this time, some kind of struggle, like he wanted to go quiet, but wanted to say something too. “But I was serious about that being the last one,” he said finally. “This is a new day and I want to do it right. So I paid for this.”
He opened his fist then. The little sock monkey was in it. Crushed a little in his grip, but there it was.
“I knew that story wasn’t true, about your daddy,” he said. “I knew it while you were telling it. But it being true or not, that wasn’t the point, was it?”
I smiled and shook my head. No no no, that wasn’t the point. And yes yes yes, too, of course.
Needless to say, I didn’t kill him. And I didn’t take my half and hit the highway.
When we got in the car the next day, I almost didn’t see the rust along the wheel well, and I closed the door so soft that I almost didn’t hear that loose metal rolling around inside. While Delwood packed the trunk, I slipped that pistol into the glove compartment, just like it had been in the first place. I didn’t touch it again.
As Delwood drove us along 66 and out of town, I rolled down the window and kicked up my heels a little, leaned over against him.
You might imagine that I was stuck on that $5000 painting in the trunk and that house ahead, and partly I was, but again you’d be missing the point. It was the sock monkey that meant the most to me. Light as a trinket but with a different kind of weight to it. When I hung it from the rearview mirror, the rattle there died down almost to a whisper, and it all seemed like a smoother ride ahead for a while.
The Seven Sorrows
by Terence Faherty
1
“World War Two officially ended on September second, nineteen forty-five. So this September will be the fiftieth anniversary. Last summer we started to run newspaper ads asking residents of Middlesex County to donate or lend us World War Two memorabilia for an exhibit. The response was tremendous.”
That was putting it mildly. The Middlesex County Historical Society had been deluged with donations. Either there was a sincere desire in this corner of New Jersey to honor the generation that won the war or a lot of people wanted to remodel their attics. The society had been forced to rent warehouse space a few blocks from its New Brunswick offices. And to hire additional flunkies to sort through the largess. I was one of those, and my new supervisor, Rachel Terman, was giving me my orders and a pep talk.
“It’ll be fun, Owen. A lot more fun than sitting behind a desk. You’re like an archeologist. Or a detective.”
That last inducement was ill-chosen, though Rachel couldn’t have known it. I’d played at being a detective way too often during my forty-odd years, which was one of the reasons I found myself in this barely heated warehouse on a January morning, working for little better than minimum wage.
Rachel was a small woman made a little less so by the bulky winter coat she hadn’t even unbuttoned. Small but brimming with organization.
“What we need for you to do is prepare the rough draft of a catalog. We want you to assign each box and bag a lot number and list the contents. Then we can get it all on the computer.”
She pointed to the nearest object, a wooden trunk in olive drab. “Let’s do this one together. Got your pad ready? This’ll be lot number one. The tag says it’s a donation, not a loan. It was donated by Mrs. James Petrone. It must have been her husband’s footlocker. See, his name is stenciled on it: Sergeant James G. Petrone. Okay, now we open it up, if it will open.”
It certainly wasn’t locked. There was a heavy hasp on the lid, but no padlock to go with it. On either side of the hasp were rusty latches, like the ones I’d had on my grade-school lunchboxes only much larger. Despite their oxidation, these opened easily. I lifted the lid, and Rachel let out a little gasp. Coiled on top of some neatly folded uniforms was a belt of ammunition. Every sleeve of the long canvas strip contained what appeared to be an intact round.
“Don’t panic, Owen,” Rachel said, though I hadn’t even joined in the gasping. “There’s a protocol in place for this. We were afraid there might be some live ammunition or even a souvenir gun mixed in with the donations. Don’t touch anything like that. The bullets could be unstable after all these years.”
She dug in her coat pocket and produced a cell phone. “We’re supposed to call the police so they can come and take it away. They gave us a special number.”
By the time that special number produced results, I’d gone through three additional boxes without finding any mortar rounds or hand grenades. Rachel had kept watch with me, though she’d spent her time on the phone, talking with someone back at the society.
The responders, patrolmen named Ryan and Wisehart, were big men dressed, as policemen often seemed to be, in uniforms a half-size too small for them. They immediately violated our protocol on not touching old ammunition. In fact, Wisehart, after hefting the belt and scratching at one of the rounds with his thumb, tossed the whole thing to his partner, squeezing another gasp out of Rachel.
“False alarm, Ms. Terman, Mr. Keane,” Wisehart said to us. “That there is dummy ammunition. The shell casings are real, but the bullets are just painted wood.”
“Thirty-caliber wood,” his partner commented. “Machine-gun belt. Must have been used in training or something.”
“Or something,” Wisehart repeated. He looked around at the stacks of boxes and bags that filled the big room. “Maybe you shouldn’t be calling us every time you make a find. Maybe you should collect the stuff into a corner or someplace.”
“An ammunition dump,” Ryan said. “Or a woodpile.” He dropped the belt back into the footlocker and shut the lid. Then he said, “Huh.”
“What?” Wisehart asked.
“The name on this, James Petrone. Wasn’t that the rosary guy?”
“Sure was,” Wisehart said.
Rachel asked, “The rosary-murder guy? Of course. I knew I’d heard that name before.”
I hadn’t. “I’m new in town,” I said. “Somebody got killed with rosary beads?”
“No,” Ryan said. “Shot. Shot and robbed. But the perp left a rosary on Petrone’s body. He’d stolen the beads from a church. Left them right on the hole he’d drilled through the old guy’s pump.”
Wisehart’s equipment belt groaned as he bent to look at the tag on the trunk. “Donated by the widow. Not very sentimental of her. If we didn’t already have a guy for the shooting, we’d have to give Mrs. Petrone another look.”
“She had an alibi,” Ryan said. “And no motive. I’d be looking at Petrone’s mistress, if I was looking.”
I said, “He was cheating on his wife? Isn’t that a motive for killing him?”
“It would be for my wife,” Ryan said, “but not for Petrone’s. She knew all about the chickie on the side. She knew about the previous five. Guess the old guy was a hound from way back. But the other woman now, she had a motive. Petrone ran through some money of hers. Told her he was investing it. Turned out, he made all his investments at an off-track betting parlor.”
“Bad ones, too,” Wisehart said. “But the mistress also had an alibi. And she’s not suddenly donating her keepsakes.”
“As to that,” Rachel said, “the donation was set up last summer.”
Wisehart looked at the trunk’s tag for a date. It didn’t have one. Rachel held up her phone.
“While we were waiting for you, I spoke to my office. I wanted someone to check the files in case we had to call Mrs. Petrone about the ammunition. Carol, who checked for me, said that a Marie Petrone first wrote in August offering us the footlocker. That was before the murder, wasn’t it?”
“Sure was,” Ryan said. “Which is good, ’cause we don’t need any more suspects. We got the guy.”
“Got a guy, anyway,” Wisehart said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
The patrolmen’s radios produced what sounded like static to me and a call to duty to them.
“Whoops,” Ryan said. “Gotta go.”
“And why the rosary?” I asked.
“Think stockpile,” Wisehart said to Rachel. “We’ll catch you later.”
2
Rachel followed the policemen out, leaving me alone with my unanswered questions. And a definite feeling of dread. It was more than just the here-we-go-again sensation I experienced whenever I happened on a mystery, more than the certainty that I would poke it with a stick even though I should have learned by then to think twice. What bothered me was the timing of it. In the past few months, I’d investigated two mysteries, which was quite a caseload, considering that I didn’t average two a year. And here was a third. I couldn’t escape the feeling that events were building to something, something I wouldn’t like. Whether this rosary murder was that ominous something or just another step toward it, I couldn’t say.
I could have escaped the whole question by forgetting I’d ever heard of James Petrone, by adopting a protocol for murder similar to Rachel’s for live ammunition: Leave it to the police. Instead, I reopened the dead man’s footlocker and turned it inside out.
The carefully folded uniforms beneath the dummy ammunition were lying in a tray that lifted out of the locker, revealing the main compartment. Its contents, which filled a full page of my notepad, included Petrone’s mess kit, his corporal’s stripes — still fringed in the threads cut from his uniform when he’d made sergeant — curled photographs of the camps where he’d trained, and postcards from Paris and other places in France. There were also citations for two medals — the medals themselves were missing — and a small bundle of letters loosely tied with black ribbon. The letters weren’t in envelopes, so I could see a little of them without undoing the bundle. Each was written in pencil on a tiny piece of paper folded once. And each was signed by Petrone’s wife, Marie.
I thought, as Wisehart had, how odd it was that the widow had donated the locker, especially since it contained her wartime letters. But she might not have searched the locker first. It couldn’t have been that hanging on to mementos of a murdered husband was too painful for her, since she’d arranged for the donation before he’d been murdered. It was more likely that she was just unsentimental about the baggage of a serial philanderer. And more likely still that I was making too much of it. After all, I was sitting in a room full of other donations made by other, equally unsentimental families.
I turned to a new lot and worked away quietly until the time came for my lunch break. Then I headed for the Central Library on Livingston Avenue. I hadn’t been in New Brunswick long, but I was already on a first-name basis with one important contact, a reference librarian named Darryl Craddock. Darryl was another cog in the historical society’s World War II exhibit wheel. He and his library were to provide poster-size blowups of important wartime front pages, culled from the files of the
I’d met Darryl during a meeting about the posters. And made a good impression on him, I hoped. If the rosary murder had happened sometime since last September, it was too recent to be in any newspaper’s index, and I didn’t feel like working my way through weeks of dailies. Darryl looked like a high-school junior, but in our meeting he had demonstrated a real knowledge of 1940s history. I was hoping he was at least as good at current events.
The young archivist was on duty in the library’s stacks, and he knew all about the Petrone murder. In fact, he saw it in a way the others hadn’t, as a cause célébre.
“It’s a travesty of justice, Owen. He’s being railroaded.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Raymond Sleeth. He’s a homeless guy. And he’s gay. That’s two reasons for them to want him locked away.”
Some of Darryl’s extreme youthfulness came from his small size, some from the loop in his earlobe, and some from his fashionably shaved head. Three decades separated me from the sixties and my own extreme youthfulness, but it still made me cringe inwardly to see a young man wasting hair like that.
“You’re saying the police don’t have any evidence?”
“Sure they have evidence. When Sleeth was arrested, he was carrying the murder weapon and Petrone’s wallet.”
“Not exactly circumstantial,” I said.
“Sleeth explained it. He’d been Dumpster-diving behind a Shoprite a couple of blocks from where Petrone was shot and found the gun and the wallet.”
“The wallet was empty?”
“No, it had twenty or thirty bucks in it. The police made a big deal about that. But all it means is, the real killer panicked. He didn’t want any part of the money when he realized what he’d done. I think that’s why whoever did it left the rosary beads. They were a sign of remorse.”
“Didn’t the rosary come from a church Sleeth robbed?”
“Another conclusion the cops jumped to. Sleeth slept in some churches last winter when he could get away with it. He may have helped himself to some stuff in one of them.”
I risked a little of Darryl’s goodwill. “Helped himself?”
“Okay, he took some things. But I don’t think he really knew what he was doing. He’s not quite balanced mentally. That’s the third strike against him. He’s as good as in Rahway Prison right now.”
I said, “Maybe Sleeth happened across Petrone after he’d been shot and took whatever he found. He could have left the rosary in exchange.”
“No, Owen. That’s not how he tells it. He never saw Petrone. He didn’t leave anything with him or take anything away. He’s stuck to the same story through all of this, and I believe him.”
I tried another angle. “How did the police find Sleeth?”
“They got a tip from another homeless guy who shared a packing case with Sleeth one night down near the river. Sleeth showed him the gun and the wallet. This guy figured he deserved a share and Sleeth wouldn’t give him one, so he turned him in.
“The cops swarmed all over Sleeth. They found the gun and the wallet in his knapsack. They checked his record and found out he’d tried to pawn some stuff from St. Monica’s last year, which explained to them why he’d have a rosary. They figure they have an airtight case.”
It was looking that way to me, too. The other side of the balance contained only Wisehart’s subtle dissent. And Darryl’s unsubtle one.
“You can read all about it for yourself, Owen. I’ve kept every story the
3
When Darryl spoke of saving “every story,” it led me to expect a thick file that would swallow the rest of my lunch hour whole. What he actually delivered to the one cubicle I found with a working reading light was a very thin folder. The biggest nearby daily, Newark’s
Majo’s testimony had helped to establish a time of death, an always imprecise process. Without her help, it would have been especially imprecise, since Petrone’s body hadn’t been found right away. He’d either been lured or forced into the alley next to the tavern or else he’d stumbled in there after he’d been shot. Either way, he’d gone unnoticed until early the next morning. But based on the time it took to drive from Majo’s to the Ten-Spot, the police had placed the attack at approximately ten-forty. No one inside the tavern had heard the single shot that killed Petrone, but a late basketball game had been showing on the bar’s televisions, which were kept loud to accommodate a graying clientele.
The
The third
The remaining clipping in the file was from the second paper Darryl had named, the
The
Like Patrolman Ryan, the
Petrone’s past affairs were mentioned, five of them, going back to 1955. According to the writer, they were known to the police because the long-suffering Marie Petrone had listed them by way of proving that this latest example was no big deal. She’d told the police that she worked the late shift at the hospital because she’d gotten tired of waiting for her husband to come home.
The reporter didn’t explain why Marie hadn’t gotten a divorce, except to say that she and Petrone were Catholics. That satisfied his inquiring mind, but not mine. A lapsed Catholic myself — I’d lapsed my way right out of a seminary — I’d known a number of divorced ones, one or two from Marie’s generation. I was also bothered by the rosary left on the chest of a Catholic man. That had to be a coincidence, if it had been done by Sleeth or some other stranger, and I had the amateur sleuth’s natural distrust of coincidence. It was true that in this corner of New Jersey you couldn’t swing a rosary without hitting a Catholic, but it still made me wonder.
It bothered me while I was returning the clippings and thanking Darryl and through the process of looking up the addresses of Marie Petrone and Geneva Majo in a city directory. It was still rankling when I returned to my Saturn, so much so that it knocked my earlier visions of burgers and fries clean out of my head.
4
I kicked myself for not bringing along the packet of letters I’d found in Petrone’s footlocker. They would have given me the perfect excuse for showing up at Marie Petrone’s house. I could have returned them on behalf of the historical society and, as long as I was there, asked her why on earth she’d stayed with a cheating husband. Also about possible accomplices. She’d have needed one, if she was behind the murder, since she couldn’t have reported for work at ten-thirty and killed her husband blocks away at ten-forty.
I considered tracking down the
The other woman lived in an older, well-kept building on Leyland Street. I was saved from having to negotiate with Majo via the front-door intercom by a deliveryman who happened to be leaving the building as I walked up. That only postponed the problem of explaining myself and my interest in the Petrone murder, but I was a man who’d take a postponement whenever I could get one.
That day I got two. When I rang the bell of Majo’s second-floor apartment, no one answered. Someone was home in the next apartment, though. I heard movement behind the door as I turned toward the elevator. On impulse, I knocked on that door, and it opened as far as the security chain would permit. A very short, very old woman peered out at me. Or rather, peered over my right shoulder.
“There’s no soliciting in this building,” she said.
“I’m not selling anything,” I told her. “I came by to ask Ms. Majo about James Petrone.” Which got me back to the challenge of explaining myself, or would have, if the old woman had asked for an explanation.
“I won’t undo the chain,” she said instead. “You have a nice voice. I’m sure you have a nice face, too, but I won’t undo the chain.”
“You can’t see my face?”
“Not very well. Macular degeneration, both eyes. I can’t see anything I look at straight on. I only see things at the edges. But I don’t complain about it.”
“You told the police that you’d seen James Petrone leave on the night he died. Did you really see him?”
“A little. Mostly I heard him. He and my neighbor Geneva were having words that night. I’d been dozing a little, and they woke me. I heard them in her apartment and then out in the hall. I think she knocked on my door so he would leave. It worked, too. As soon as I opened up, he went away.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t hear that well either. Geneva said later it was over money. It usually is, isn’t it? She didn’t want to talk about it. Geneva is a good person and a good neighbor, but she picks bad men. She doesn’t like to be alone. I know all about that.”
“You’re sure it was ten-thirty when Petrone left? Can you still read a clock?”
“I’m not blind. I can see the buttons on your coat don’t match. And I’ve got a clock that reads out the time if you push a button. But I didn’t have to use it that night. I know what time it was because Geneva asked me over to watch
“Too racy?”
“
“About Petrone?”
“No, about New Brunswick and what it was like when I was a little girl. Geneva was full of questions. Not that she was really interested. She just didn’t want to be alone. I know how that is, believe me.”
5
My lunch hour was over and then some, so I headed for the warehouse with every intention of putting in a good afternoon’s work. Then, a few blocks from Majo’s apartment, I saw a church with a familiar name: St. Monica’s. It was the place robbed by Raymond Sleeth, according to Darryl and his press clippings. There was a parking space open at the curb in front of the church, a Romanesque building of once-white brick, and I pulled in.
The church was open and occupied. Two men on a scaffold were working on one of the elaborate hanging light fixtures, which looked like diving bells designed by Bernini. From the safety of a checkerboard center aisle, a little man in black was watching them.
I introduced myself to this supervisor and told him that I was concerned about a homeless man who’d been arrested for murder.
“Raymond Sleeth, of course,” the little man replied before leading me to the nearest pew. “I’m Father Macy. I’m the pastor here, and I’ve been praying over that very thing. I’m concerned about St. Monica’s role in all of this.”
“Your role?”
Father Macy’s skin was peeling like a sunbather’s, though he wasn’t the least bit tanned. He scratched at the back of one hand as he answered.
“Oh yes. We’re major players in this drama. Mr. Sleeth did break into the church and did steal some things we had in our basement, but we didn’t have to prosecute him. I was persuaded to do it by the police, who told me it was the best way to get Mr. Sleeth some help. He’s not quite right in the head, you know, poor man. Nowadays, it’s hard to help a person like that unless he wants to be helped or he runs afoul of the law. But the law can’t have done very much for Mr. Sleeth, since he ended up on the street again and committed a far worse crime.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Of course. But however his case turns out, we bear a burden of responsibility. I was in New York recently and saw that musical they made of
“Was one of the things he took a rosary?”
The old priest sighed. “The police and I have gone round and around about that. In the end, they had to accept that I just don’t know. You see, what Mr. Sleeth broke into was a storage room where we keep odds and ends. One of the boxes he found contained the personal effects of a retired priest who’d passed away at our rectory. Father Gregory Carron was his name. He didn’t have any family, so we’d just stored his things away until we could make an inventory, which we never got around to doing.”
At that mention of a shirked inventory, it was all I could do to keep from looking at my watch. Father Macy missed the struggle.
“Mr. Sleeth was caught because some of the things he pawned had Father Carron’s name or initials on them. There was an engraved gold watch that his last parish had given him and some beautiful cufflinks that had been his father’s, I believe. Mr. Sleeth hadn’t tried to pawn a rosary — I doubt if you could these days — and that bothered me, too. Not that he’d kept it but
Or to me. I started to thank the priest for his time, but he cut me off by tapping his peeling forehead with a peeling hand.
“Listen to me,” he said, “calling those beads a rosary when I tried for an hour to get the police to stop doing it. I got mad every time I read ‘rosary murder’ in the paper, and here I’m near to saying it myself. Too catchy to resist, I guess.”
“The beads weren’t a rosary?”
“Not the ones the police brought to me to identify. They were a chaplet, of course, a circle of beads used for a religious devotion, but not a true rosary. The church has many devotions that feature repetitive prayers counted off on prayer beads. Over fifty devotions, I think. The Holy Rosary is only one of them.”
I suddenly remembered a long-lost lecture from my seminary days. “There’s one connected with the Sacred Heart, isn’t there? And another with St. Anthony.”
“Very good,” Father Macy said. “If you know that, I’m sure you’ve heard the Virgin Mary referred to as ‘Our Lady of Sorrows.’ ”
“It was the name of my high school.”
“A Trenton boy, eh? Well, the chaplet the police brought me was for a devotion connected to Our Lady called ‘The Seven Sorrows.’ It’s very like the rosary Catholic children used to grow up with, except instead of five groupings of ten beads there are seven groups of seven. You meditate on seven sorrows of the Blessed Virgin as you say the Hail Marys.
“The Seven Sorrows dates from the late Middle Ages. I believe it’s much better known in Europe than over here. I don’t recall Father Carron ever mentioning it, but he might have practiced the devotion. Or someone could have made him a gift of the chaplet at some time or other. You wouldn’t believe the number of Miraculous Medals I’ve been given, especially during flu season. People fall into the bad habit of thinking of those things as lucky charms.”
He walked me to the door. There he said, “I’m afraid it’s Mr. Sleeth who needs the lucky charm now. I trust our prayers will do instead.”
6
Rachel Terman wasn’t waiting for me back at the warehouse with a pink slip in her hand. By the time she showed up an hour later, I’d made enough progress to cover my wanderings. Not that Rachel seemed interested in my productivity. She’d come back to get in the last word in a conversation that had ended hours before. She wanted to address those words to a certain pair of policemen, but in their absence, she had to make do with me.
“I found Marie Petrone’s original letter to us, Owen. It supports what Carol told me over the phone. Mrs. Petrone offered us the footlocker before her husband was murdered.”
Rachel was almost indignant over something, the suspicion cast on Mrs. Petrone, I guessed. It was as though a slur against a benefactor of the historical society reflected on the society itself.
“Did you find anything else we need to show the police?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“Too bad. I brought the letter with me. I wanted them to read it.”
She handed it to me instead. It had been typed very neatly on a manual machine. The first paragraph contained the offer of the footlocker and explained why its owner had been willing to give it up: “My husband isn’t as sentimental about the war as some veterans and most wartime brides, like myself.”
This particular war bride was extremely sentimental. Her closing paragraph was a prose hymn to the generation that had won World War II.
“The strengths and sacrifices of that pure time shaped the rest of our lives. And more than that. The courage and fidelity of those few short years justified and sanctified all the long decades since.”
“She writes beautifully, doesn’t she?” asked Rachel, who’d been reading along over my shoulder.
“Yes,” I said, agreeing to both possible interpretations of Rachel’s compliment. Mrs. Petrone’s writing was impressive and her penmanship, as displayed in her signature at the bottom of the page, was in perfect copybook style. Perfect and wrong. She’d signed herself “Marie Petrone” rather than “Mrs. James Petrone,” but that wasn’t what brought me up short. The first name of that signature was nothing like the “Marie” I’d seen on the letters in the footlocker. An adult’s handwriting changed over time, but it had never been my experience that it improved. Compared to this copperplate, the signature on the old letters was a scrawl.
I waited until my busy supervisor had bustled off before I opened the locker and retrieved the loosely bound packet. Loose or not, I’d respected the seal represented by its black ribbon when I’d first happened on the letters, but now I slipped the flimsy pages out and started reading.
I noted right away that more had changed than Marie’s signature. Her prose style had also improved greatly since 1944. In fact, the style of the letters was so awkward and simple it was as though their author had been writing in a second language.
That insight confirmed what the difference in signatures had led me to suspect. The coincidence of a common name popping up twice had caused me to make a hasty and incorrect assumption, perhaps the thousandth of my career. The wartime letters had not been written by the bride Petrone had left behind.
I read through the packet, finding references to “my village” and “our chance meeting” and “our night together” that seemed to back my latest hunch. There were many wishes for Petrone’s safety, one of which made the warehouse seem even colder: “You think it foolish, but keep my little gift close to your heart.”
7
When my shift ended, I returned to my apartment, which was stylishly decorated with the boxes from my recent move. There I placed a phone call to a television station in New York. The station’s staff transferred my call three times, keeping me on hold between each handoff. Even so, I was back on the road again by six.
I drove to a yellow-brick cottage on a winding street near Mayburg Park. The small front yard, a steep brown slope on either side of crumbling steps, was decorated with a concrete statue of the Virgin Mary. There were traces of blue paint in the deepest folds of her veil.
Marie Petrone answered the front door. She was a tall woman, nearly my height, with bright red hair. That it was her natural color or at least an accurate reproduction of it was suggested by her very pale complexion and by her eyes, which were a blue bordering on aquamarine.
I introduced myself and used the opening I’d thought of earlier, telling her I’d come to return the letters she’d mistakenly left in the footlocker. She didn’t look down at my empty hands or ask to see the letters, which I’d also left in the locker, though not mistakenly.
She just said, “I don’t want them back.”
She started to shut the door, so I quickly jumped to my real business. “Then maybe you can help me save a man named Sleeth. He’s been falsely accused of murdering your husband.”
If I hadn’t read Mrs. Petrone’s letter to the society, I would have considered a slammed door a likely reply. It was still an even-money bet, but something, the mismatched buttons on my coat or the January cold I was standing in, swung things my way.
“Come in,” she said.
By the time she’d settled me in her under-lit living room, which Rachel Terman would have taken intact if she’d been doing an exhibit on the 1960s, the widow had thought of things she should have said on the front porch.
“Raymond Sleeth hasn’t been convicted of anything, Mr. Keane. If he is, I would consider asking the judge for mercy, given the man’s mental problems.”
“You can do better than that,” I said. “You can get Sleeth out of jail tomorrow. All you have to do is admit that you shot your husband.”
Somewhere in the back of the house, a stereo was playing Glenn Miller. “String of Pearls” gave way to “American Patrol” without commercial interruption.
Mrs. Petrone was dressed in a velour sweat suit, and its material was tight at her knees. But she smoothed it absently now with her big hands as though it were a misbehaving skirt.
“Why would I do that, Mr. Keane?”
The question was ambiguous, and I took the easier path. “So an innocent man doesn’t suffer.”
“I meant, why would I have shot my husband? And how could I have done it? I was at work when it happened.”
“The how wasn’t hard to figure out. Geneva Majo lied to the police when she said your husband left her about ten-thirty. It was probably no later than ten past ten. The neighbor who seconded her story has vision problems. She based her testimony on an episode of
“The police might have looked into the time business more closely if Majo’s alibi had depended on it. But hers didn’t. It was enough that she was never alone after Petrone left her. Your alibi was the one that rested on the timing of everything. I guess the cops couldn’t imagine you and Majo working together. And, of course, Sleeth distracted them by diving into the wrong Dumpster.”
Sometime during my long speech, Mrs. Petrone had turned her gaze from me to a spinet piano. And to the wedding portrait that sat atop it. The pictured groom was a young soldier with remarkably curly hair. The girl bride was beautiful, with a button nose and a chin held very high. Taking her cue from that artifact, Mrs. Petrone raised her chin now.
“Why would that Majo woman do anything for me? And why would I hurt Jimmy?”
“Jimmy wiped out Majo’s savings. She’d probably have shot him herself if you’d set it up that way. You pulled the trigger because your husband cheated on you.”
“He’d cheated on me many times. I told the police about five affairs I knew of before Miss Majo. I gave them the name of every one of Jimmy’s women.”
“Not every one. You didn’t tell the police about the only woman who mattered. Her name was the same as yours: Marie. Your husband met her in France in nineteen forty-four when you two were still newlyweds. All these years you’ve thought of your early days with Petrone as a pure time. All the things your husband did to you since you forgave for the sake of those newlyweds, for the sacrifices they’d made and for what they’d meant to one another.
“You didn’t find out about Marie until last fall, when you went through your husband’s old footlocker. You came across the letters she wrote him. Tied up with them was a lucky charm she’d given him, a religious chaplet. She’d told him to keep it by his heart, which is where you left it.”
Her only defense was a half-hearted one. “I didn’t open the locker. I didn’t find any letters.”
“Then your fingerprints won’t be on them.”
Since I’d dragged us down to the sordid level of clues and evidence, I asked, “Where did you get the gun?”
Her chin descended, slowly but steadily. “James always had one around.”
“It wasn’t registered to him.”
“He didn’t believe in that. He had principles in some things. Things that didn’t involve women. You must think I’m a terrible person, Mr. Keane. A silly person. I let my whole life be misshapen by a decision of a seventeen-year-old girl. I’ve let one mistake dictate my life.”
“You’re not silly, Mrs. Petrone. And you’re not unique.” I felt the abyss of autobiography looming before me and, drawing back from its edge, I nodded toward the girl in the photograph. “What would she tell you to do?”
“She’d say, ‘Tell the truth,’ ” the old woman replied. “Will you go with me, please, to the police?”
It all Adds Up
by Thomas Kaufman
That first day, Colin was ready to kill Royce. When he walked into Royce’s house, he nearly turned and walked out again. Setting off a bomb would be an improvement. Burning the place to the ground, with its stacks of newspapers, pizza boxes, rat turds, fast-food wrappers —
Colin just stared, then sighed. Well, he’d known about Royce already. Why act surprised? Early on Colin had decided on four clients at a time — tops. Sure, he could have more, but you had to weigh safety against the money you might make to come to the right decision. His four clients were Royce, Joanie, Gupta, and Clarice.
Royce and Joanie had government jobs, which was good. They’d have to really try to get themselves fired. Gupta worked as a lab assistant in a medical practice. And Clarice? Well, Clarice was different.
What did they have in common?
They all had ADD.
Lots of people think ADD is just something kids get, that adults aren’t affected. That’s wrong. And while ADD has been misdiagnosed — that happened frequently in Colin’s opinion — it was very real for his clients. A kid acting out in class — interrupting, forgetting his work, talking nonstop — may get a trip to the principal’s office. An adult does this, he’s fired.
How can you tell who has ADD? If a person has trouble paying close attention to details, makes careless mistakes, can’t focus on work, has trouble listening when someone talks to them — they could have ADD.
Likewise, folks with trouble organizing their lives, folks who are always losing things, folks who get distracted by just about anything — you get the idea.
The adults Colin saw needed help. They needed a doctor to prescribe meds. They needed to take their meds every day. Dosage was critical — too little and they’d get discouraged. Too much and they’d have a heart attack. A lot of them needed coaches.
Like Royce, a guy in his mid thirties who didn’t know he had ADD. In school he just couldn’t focus. His grades were terrible. It didn’t help that his dad was a jerk-ass who would slap Royce whenever he brought home his report card. Colin hated when parents made things worse. Royce went through life screwing up one job after another. His mother cried and his father yelled. Portrait of a family.
Then Royce heard a friend talking about ADD. Sounds like me, he thought. So he got a book and read it, then went to see a doctor, who confirmed what Royce read in his book — that he was not stupid, not lazy, he could function if he had the right tools. This doctor said Royce was going through life with his vision all blurry. He just needed a good pair of glasses.
Well, for Royce this was huge. It meant his dad was wrong — Royce wasn’t stupid or lazy, he just had ADD. It was almost too good to be true.
So Royce got his meds. In this case, it was time-released Ritalin, which is like speed, and you’re probably thinking that’s the last thing a guy like Royce needs, a guy who flits from project to project, never finishing anything. It’s counter-intuitive, but people who have ADD generally do better with some kind of amphetamine medication.
Meds alone won’t do it. He had to get organized. He needed a coach. That’s where Colin came in. He’d run an ad in
At first Royce was guarded. Colin couldn’t blame the guy. After all, until recently Royce was, in his own mind, America’s number one screw-up. So there was an embarrassment factor. Then there was his house, with its stale smell of decay and desperation. The floor gritty beneath Colin’s feet.
Fortunately Colin knew how to hide his feelings. Plus he’d gone to the trouble to place an ad, and this poor schmuck went to the trouble to answer it, and now Colin was gonna walk? That didn’t make sense. So Colin sighed, smiled at Royce, and said, “Let’s just start at the beginning, okay?”
Well, a few more visits and things started looking better. Royce’s house wasn’t a candidate for
Colin helped him develop a system so he could locate the things he needed when he needed them. For instance, the IRS had sent Royce some nasty letters. The guy hadn’t paid taxes in years, though he had the money. Colin helped him with that mess, got him an accountant. Royce invented a part of a search engine, and the monthly royalty checks came to ten, twelve thousand. He kept them in a desk drawer. See, he knew he should deposit them but just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Colin said it had to do with Royce’s relationship with his father, that because his father didn’t understand what was wrong with Royce, Royce felt unworthy. Now everything was different, Colin said.
“Because I’m taking drugs?” Royce asked.
“No, because you know what your problem is and you’re doing something about it.” The poor guy started to cry. Colin hugged him, told him it was okay. That day Colin really earned his money. And Royce never noticed that every few weeks some of those endorsed checks went home with Colin.
Now Royce is straight with the IRS. He’s got money in the bank. His house is in better shape than it’s been in for years. He’s got a girlfriend. And in addition to the money he paid Colin, Colin got a little bonus.
See how this works out for everybody?
Joanie was twenty-eight, blond, cute, and worked for OMB. That’s Washington’s Office of Management and Budget. It was funny Joanie worked there — she was terrible at managing her time, and she never lived within her budget. Joanie lived at home with her mom and worked as an accountant.
ADD people are often good with numbers. Colin liked to tell his clients that ADD wasn’t all bad. In fact, when Colin dealt with a new client, he made sure they knew that ADD had a good side. Lots of important, creative people have had ADD — probably. Joanie’s face lit up when Colin told her that Einstein had ADD, as did Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy, plus guys like Beethoven and Stevie Wonder.
Joanie had thought she could handle ADD by herself. She bought a smart phone, the type that keeps track of your schedule and gets e-mail and stores all your phone numbers and can synch up with your desktop computer.
So far so good, right?
Wrong. Because Joanie had a dozen alarms going off to remind her of stuff every hour. So, in a few days, she learned just to ignore the alarms because they hammered her all the time. Then she started leaving the phone at home. Like it’s gonna do her any good there.
So with Joanie, the first thing Colin did was to cancel out all her alarms. Every last one. Then they started from scratch. “What’s really important here?” Colin asked.
“Well, that I take my meds,” Joanie said.
“Good, let’s input that alarm. Anything else?”
“My mom, she needs her medication, too, and I have to give it to her every day.”
“Okay, put that in, too. Now let’s just stop there and see how it works.”
“Just two alarms?”
“Just two,” Colin said.
Joanie’s mom was really ill, she couldn’t care for herself. Or the things around her. She owned these Hummel figurines. If you’ve never seen them, they’re kinda kitsch, but look ’em up on eBay and you’ll see they’re worth a lot. The ones in Joanie’s house were from the 1940s. Worth over five thousand dollars each because they were in beautiful shape. Pristine. So a few left with Colin over a couple of weeks. They were never missed.
Joanie feels much better. She looks better, too. Now that she’s not so frenzied, she has time to groom herself. She told Colin a guy she works with asked her out. Colin was not surprised.
Gupta had another story altogether. He was smart enough to get through high school and college, even with ADD, but keeping a job was another matter. The poor slob lost three jobs simply by forgetting to show up for work.
Before he got fired from his last job, he started dating one of the secretaries, Betsy. She was hot. Five foot eight, auburn hair, big green eyes, high cheekbones with a sprinkle of freckles, and a figure that would give myocardial infarction to a moose.
Betsy liked Gupta, but she didn’t realize that she was marrying someone with ADD. Gupta would do things that would set Betsy off. Like, he’d decide that their dining room needed painting, start the job, then realize he needed more paint and go to the mall.
Problem was, he wouldn’t come back for the rest of the day. He would just lose track of time. Betsy was fuming when, at nightfall, Gupta finally showed up.
“What am I, his mother? I gotta look out for him every day?” she screamed at Colin.
In this kind of situation, Colin had to counsel both of them, together and separately. First, Colin talked to them as a couple. Let them air their feelings. Then Colin spent some time with Betsy. Colin offered to drive her someplace — the house, with its clutter and unpainted walls, was stifling her. She really appreciated his sensitivity. Plus, Colin knew this really cool motel.
After that, Gupta and Betsy seemed much better. Colin collected a check from Gupta every week for helping him get organized. And Colin still hooked up with Betsy at the motel afterwards.
See? Everyone’s a winner.
Now Clarice was a different kind of problem. If ADD exists on its own, that’s one thing. But when you couple it with other problems, it can be dangerous.
Clarice was thirty-six, lived alone, had an okay body with a plain face. Limp brown hair. No family in town. So Clarice was pretty much on her own. She had a nice house, off the always-busy Route 140. Far enough away you couldn’t hear the constant traffic. She had expensive furniture, oil paintings on the wall. That first day she gave him the tour, took him to the garage. Colin saw a Bugatti sports car.
Unbelievable. The Bugatti had a turbo-charged V12 engine, it could go zero to sixty in about four seconds. Top speed over 200 mph. Who knew how much the thing was worth? A million? Two? Colin had always wanted to drive a Bugatti. Too bad hers wasn’t running, hadn’t been driven in years. Colin figured to make that car a priority.
Apparently Clarice didn’t have to work. This might have been a good thing, but really it wasn’t. A job gets you out of the house, gives your day-to-day life a built-in routine. It’s harder to coach someone without a position.
Speaking of positions, Clarice knew a lot of them, as Colin found out on that first day. Still, she’d hired him to do a job, to help her. Colin just had to figure out how.
It took him awhile to see it, but Clarice was bipolar. Some days she’d be a tiger, ready to get it on. They’d wrestle in the bed, then take on her finances, her overdue credit-card bills, her late mortgage payments. Those were fantastic days. They even called a tow truck for the Bugatti, made out a list of things the car needed. She took the list to the dealership, all on her own. Colin felt proud of her. He could hardly wait to drive that car into the sunset. Beep-beep-’n’-yeah!
Other days he’d show up and she couldn’t get out of bed, hadn’t showered in a week. All the shades in her house were drawn. The first time, it was creepy — Colin thought she’d died.
Colin told all his clients to take one day at a time. Like the day of Clarice’s job interview. It was a busy day — the repair shop had just dropped off the Bugatti, she had to mentally and physically prepare for her first job interview in years, and she was a mess. Terrified, actually. Colin helped to calm her, told her it was all going to be fine.
“No, it isn’t. You say that, but it won’t be fine, Colin, I know it.” She sobbed.
“Tell me what you need help with.”
“Everything.”
“Okay, one thing at a time.”
“I don’t
“How ’bout if I get your dry cleaning?”
She looked at him through the tears. “You’d do that?”
“Of course.” Colin kissed her hand, then her lips. “Anything, you know I’d do anything for you.” And for the Bugatti. How often does a guy get a car like that? Clarice had no way to trace him. Colin wasn’t his real name, she only had his cell-phone number, and if the cops tried to get him through that they’d find it was a burner, disposable. By that time, Colin and the Bugatti would be gone, gone, gone.
He was heading out when her phone rang. Colin picked it up for her. Some woman, saying she was Clarice’s mother, demanding to talk to Clarice. Clarice rolled her eyes but took the call. From across the room Colin could hear the voice, cracking and screeching through the phone. Clarice grimaced at Colin. He smiled at her. Then she remembered her mother was talking, giving her advice she didn’t want, telling her things she already knew. Clarice tuned her out long before she hung up the phone. But she still looked pretty agitated.
Colin shrugged on his jacket. “Who’s that?”
“My mom. God, that bitch is out to destroy me. Sorry, I usually let the machine pick it up when you’re over.”
“Well, I hope you didn’t miss anything important.”
She snorted. “You kidding?
“She sounds well-off.”
“Money’s not the problem, believe me. I’d spend a million just to have her go away for a while. Be worth every penny.”
Colin laughed. “I guess it would get pretty annoying at that.”
“You have no idea.” Clarice used her finger to trace a circle on the back of Colin’s hand. “I’m going to tell you something really terrible, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Sometimes, sometimes I wish the old bag would just push off already, you know? Her health is terrible, she’s got no quality of life. Does that make me a bad person? Saying things like that?”
“Of course not. You can’t control what you’re feeling.” Colin kissed her cheek. “I’ll get your clothes. By the time you finish showering, I’ll be back.”
“What would I do without you?”
“Fortunately, you’re stuck with me.”
“Oh crap! Look at the time.”
“Here I go.”
Opening the garage door, Colin shook his head. Here he’d been ready to skip, just for a car. Insane. Someday Clarice’s mom would shuffle off this mortal coil — if she needed help Colin would lend a hand. Then Clarice would inherit millions. She’d need help managing all that cash. Someone she trusted. All Colin had to do was stick around. When Mom headed for that big buffet in the sky, Clarice and Colin would get married.
Of course, Clarice had issues. If she had an accident? With her medical history, her background of depression and mania? Colin felt sure most people would just shake their heads and say, what a nice girl, it’s such a shame. Colin would be heartbroken.
But he’d get over it.
The Bugatti roared to life. Goddamn, what a car. He was sailing at over 120 down the country road, a half-mile from the junction with Route 140. He could see the semi crossing in front of him when his cell phone rang.
Clarice.
“Yes, honey?” Colin said.
She was screaming something awful, Colin really couldn’t understand a word.
“Dear, take a deep breath.”
“The garage, I forgot to tell you, they need parts for the car.”
“Parts?”
“Yes, dammit, they told me to tell you they’re having trouble getting parts.”
Well, naturally, the car was over twenty years old. Bugatti parts don’t grow on trees.
“What parts?”
Colin heard her scream, “Brakes. They need to replace the brakes.”
The Bugatti’s engine revved as it grabbed some air just before Colin plunged into Route 140 traffic.
The horn didn’t work either.
The Disappearance of Wicked
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First, let me preface my story by telling you that none of us liked Wicked. He was an obnoxious little yappy dog, with long curly white hair that needed trimming and a propensity for peeing on anything vaguely foodlike, from a bag of groceries in the open trunk of a car to the kibble set out for the neighborhood cats. He barked most of the time he was awake. When he wasn’t barking, he was yipping, a sad little high-pitched sound that was twice as annoying as any bark could be.
Even Isabel, the dog he lived with, an elderly female mix about the size of a Lab, hated him. Isabel, who faithfully guarded our neighborhood hilltop for the past thirteen years, would slink away whenever Wicked was outside, as if to say,
None of us had much to do with Wicked, not even his so-called owner, Ike Maize. Ike had inherited the dog from his daughter, Roxy, who was going through a messy divorce. Ike and his wife Stella promised to care for Wicked while Roxy went back to California to move her things to Oregon.
I had assumed Roxy would get an apartment when she got to Oregon. Instead, she showed up with the furniture and a six-month-old no one had told me about. The divorce wiped her out financially, so she moved in with her parents.
And that meant Wicked stayed, too.
I work at home and am usually immune to the neighborhood noise pollution. I’m not the kind of man who investigates each blaring radio or early- morning chain saw. Normally, I play my own stereo so loud that I don’t hear much during the day.
But I could hear Wicked. Nonstop. Barking, barking, yipping, and barking.
By the end of the first day, I wanted to strangle the little thing. By the end of the third day, I spent more time glaring at Wicked than I did working. By the end of the week, I was actively plotting the dog’s death.
I’m an inventive plotter. The critics say that’s one of my (only) strengths as a novelist. In fact, they claim I’ve been on the bestseller list for the past ten years because I can plot better than anyone else in the business.
Outwardly, my home does not reflect the wealth that my plotting skills have brought me. I kept the same footprint — as my realtor likes to say — and built up to make three full stories. It’s quite a redesign, but it fits into the neighborhood — or it pretends to.
And that’s all that matters to me.
Because I don’t want to leave the Crest Hill subdivision. This is the first house I ever bought — and I vowed not to sell it. Back then, it was a simple split level, built in 1972, and not remodeled in twenty years. I pulled up the orange and green shag carpeting, remodeled the kitchen by myself, and turned the free-standing garage into my writing office, which I still use without many modifications.
In fact, the free-standing garage/office is the problem. The walls are thin because here on the temperate Oregon Coast, houses don’t need insulation. I haven’t replaced the cheap windows I put in during my first redesign, which is why I can hear that early morning chain saw and the blaring truck radio.
Normally, I don’t mind.
But that was before Wicked.
It was all before Wicked, who, oddly enough, changed my view of the neighborhood forever.
The Crest Hill subdivision was built on a sandy ridgeline, 700 feet above sea level, several blocks east of the Pacific Ocean. The story of the subdivision is a story of neighbors — common in most places around the country, but extremely uncommon here on the Oregon Coast. In Seavy Village, three out of four houses are vacation rentals or second homes. These houses are full every Fourth of July. Two-thirds are full on Thanksgiving. A third are full during spring break.
Seavy Village has housing for forty thousand people, and hotel rooms for twice that many, but its year-round population is 7,000. Most neighborhoods are entirely empty most of the time or have only one year-round family residing on their quiet streets.
Crest Hill subdivision has always been different. We are a small enclave in a sea of empty houses. All twenty houses in Crest Hill are owner-occupied.
For the most part, we get along. We have an annual barbeque at Dave the plumber’s. When we see each other during the rest of the year, we always wave. If we have time, we stop on the street and chat.
Not a week goes by without a group of us gathered in front of the mailboxes, exchanging the village gossip and catching up on each other’s lives. We watch out for each other as best we can, and sometimes we even babysit each other’s children or feed the pets during the occasional long weekend.
When my money started pouring in — and it did pour: one minute I was scrambling to make my mortgage, the next I was talking to my broker about various places to store excess cash — I could have built a true mansion on a cliff face overlooking the ocean. But every bare piece of property I looked at, every tumbledown house that could be replaced with something better, existed in that sea of empty houses.
I didn’t like that much isolation, so I stayed in Crest Hill, along with Ike and Stella next-door, the Sandersons one house up, old Mrs. Gailton across the street, and Annalita Carmica on the corner. We formed the foundation of the neighborhood, and over time we acquired even more full-timers. Dave the plumber and his wife (whose name I always forget), Joyce the Hollywood producer who retired to her dream house, and the McMillians who bought, for a song, a McMansion that lost its view to the six-plex.
We were a pretty quiet bunch who lived in a very safe place — or so I thought, in those days before Wicked moved in.
The morning Wicked disappeared seemed like any other. I had trudged through the rain from my back door to my free-standing office, a hot mug of coffee in one hand and an offering to the Goddess in the other.
The Goddess was the elderly cat who lived alone in my office. She bit the hand that fed her each and every day. I was inordinately fond of her, enough that I put up with her nasty temper and her inability to get along with anyone, including me.
She spent that morning in the library window, watching Wicked, as she often did. She hated the barking more than I did. Once, she had seen him peeing on one of her dishes that I had set down outside. She had pushed the screen out of the window, then attacked him, tearing him up so thoroughly that I had to go over to Ike and Stella’s and offer to pay for Wicked’s trip to the vet.
That’s when I learned how much Ike hated Wicked.
“Let the damn dog suffer,” he said. “He’s got to learn that the world isn’t his toilet.”
During Wicked’s stay on the hilltop, the Goddess glared out the library window — the only room in my office that had a good view of Wicked’s yard — and occasionally made little growling noises. Mostly, she seemed to believe if she stared hard enough, Wicked would feel her anger and shut up.
It spoke to my desperation that daily I wished she did have magical powers. I wanted something to shut that damn dog up.
About eleven o’clock that morning, I got my wish. Wicked let out one of his sad yips, followed by the strangest bark I’d ever heard. It was high-pitched and sharp, almost sounding startled. Then he let out a long half-bark, half-yowl that seemed more like a human scream than a noise any dog was trained to make.
That sound didn’t end. It got cut off. I leaned back in my office chair and listened, waiting for the barking to begin again.
It didn’t.
Instead, I heard the squeal of truck tires against gravel. Rocks pelted my newly built fence (good fences make good neighbors; they also keep out little peeing yappy dogs).
Then silence.
After a moment, the Goddess sprinted across my desk. She landed in my lap, meowed in my face, and pawed at my hands. I hadn’t seen her that agitated since a yellow tom sprayed one of the rose bushes outside the office’s sliding glass doors. So I followed her into the library.
She jumped onto the window ledge and pressed her face against the glass.
I peered out. From this one window, I could see over the fence and into the Maizes’ yard. No truck sat in the driveway, even though I had heard one. Isabel, the elderly dog, was sitting on the walkway to the back door, head tilted to one side.
I didn’t see Wicked.
The Goddess was murping, a sound she made when something in her universe was out of order. I frowned, my stomach knotting in a little ball.
I realized I recognized that sequence of sounds.
I hadn’t heard it in years, not since the Maizes’ daughter was little and Ike drove up the driveway too fast one afternoon, running over one of their cats.
He scooped the bleeding, broken creature into his arms, placed it on the floor of the truck, and then backed out of the driveway, peeling away as fast as his old Ford one-ton could go.
He made it to the vet’s in record time, but it was still too late. He’d crushed his daughter’s favorite cat beneath the wheels of his truck and it took months for her to forgive him.
Now, I figured the same thing had happened. Right in the middle of her messy divorce, one that threatened to spill into a long custody battle over her own daughter, her father runs over the dog she has loved since she moved away from home.
Ike had to be devastated.
I really didn’t want to be there for him — there are some things that are beyond neighborly, even in Crest Hill subdivision — but I knew I had to investigate, just in case my writerly imagination had leaped to the wrong conclusion.
I let myself out of the office. The morning rain had turned into a light drizzle, the kind that looks harmless but actually can soak you within five minutes.
Red and gold leaves littered my driveway. Sometime during the night, a raccoon had clearly pulled part of a white plastic trash bag through the slight hole in my garbage can’s lid, scattering plastic food containers and paper plates across the yard.
I ignored the mess and walked to the fence. It was a picket fence, painted brown, with the pickets rising over six feet, so that few people could see over the top of them. I pulled open the gate in the center and stepped onto the Maizes’ unpaved driveway.
The rainstorm had left the ground so wet that the retreating truck had torn deep grooves in the muck. I walked to the edge of them, expecting to see some pieces of white curly hair ground into the dirt or maybe a bit of blood on the already wet rocks. Maybe even a smashed collar or the impression of a small dog’s body in the dirt.
To my disappointment, I saw none of that. I didn’t even see Ike’s footprints in the muddy gravel, although mine were clearly visible.
I frowned and looked up. Isabel, who was used to me, stared at me, a matching frown on her large doggy face. I couldn’t tell if she was perplexed to see me standing on her driveway or if the truck’s quick retreat had surprised her.
I clasped my hands behind my back and walked farther up the driveway, so that I could peer inside the garage. No injured Wicked lying on his side on the concrete. No impish brown eyes peering at me through the small window beside the garage door.
Nothing barked, nothing yipped.
The silence was profound.
Isabel sighed, seemingly in relief, and put her head between her paws. Again, I couldn’t understand the reason for her emotion. Relief that a human was on the case? Or relief that Wicked had finally shut up?
Or both?
I felt no relief. The depth of my Wicked hatred surprised me. Part of me really wanted to see that dog dead. I had never actively wished anything dead before, not even the raccoons who constantly defeated each garbage can I bought.
I had hoped to find evidence of that dog’s demise.
Finding none disappointed me.
But at least something had forced Wicked to become quiet. As I peered into my neighbor’s garage, I realized I should accept the gift.
I hurried back to my office — after stopping briefly to clean up after the raccoons — and had the most productive day I’d had in the month and a half since Wicked had moved in.
The silence didn’t last.
As I microwaved the takeout I picked up for dinner, someone knocked on my door. Even though our neighborhood was close, very few people knocked. The UPS guy knocked every morning, and the newspaper delivery boy knocked once a month, but almost no one else came to the door.
I pressed Stop on the microwave and walked to the door. The door was solid- core, with no peephole, something I’d meant to remedy. So opening it always contained, for me, a small bit of adventure.
Someday, my vivid thriller-writer’s imagination told me, the person on the other side of that knock would be a serial killer, coming to attack me. My logical mind told me that serial killers didn’t knock, but my vivid imagination would counter with the fact that thieves often did, just to see if someone was home.
Fortunately, the person waiting on my stoop wasn’t a serial killer or a thief.
It was Ike.
He was a big man with long, graying hair that showed his hippie roots. He slouched on a good day, but this evening, he was nearly bent in half.
He gave me a sheepish half-smile. “I don’t suppose I can ask you a question.”
“Sure,” I said. “Come on in.”
I stepped back and he walked in, careful to stay on the throw rug I put over the hardwood at the start of every rainy season. Even though we had been neighbors for more than fifteen years, we hardly went inside each other’s homes. I couldn’t remember the last time he had been in mine.
He looked at his mud-covered shoes as he said, “My daughter sent me over here. Seems Wicked is missing.”
His voice had the right combination of sincerity and loss, but he wasn’t meeting my gaze.
“Wicked stopped barking about eleven this morning,” I said.
Ike looked up, frowning at me much the way his elderly dog had when I stood in their driveway.
I told Ike the entire story, such as it was, leaving out, of course, the Goddess’s odd attack and her murping sounds, as well as my desire to see Wicked blood seeping into the muddy tire prints.
“A truck?” Ike repeated.
“I thought maybe it was you,” I said. “You know, that whole incident with the cat.”
He winced. “No one lets me forget that. I didn’t mean to hit the damn thing.”
“No one ever does,” I said, then realized I wasn’t being neighborly. “You want a beer?”
“I want an entire keg,” he said tiredly. Then he smiled at me. “But a bottle will do.”
I got him a Rogue Brewery Pale Ale from the fridge, then kicked out one of the dining room chairs. “Sit for a minute.”
“I’ll track all over,” he said.
“Who cares?” I said, catching myself before I added,
Although it was hard not to notice in my maple and cherry kitchen, with the matching formal dining table, the brand new appliances, and every cooking gadget known to man lining the kitchen counters. Not that they saw those.
What they usually saw was my one and only toy. My late-model Jag, which I replaced each and every year.
He sat down and took a sip from the long-neck bottle.
“That goddamn dog,” he said. “If my karma determined that I had to run over only one animal with my truck, why did it have to be Roxy’s kitten? Why the hell couldn’t it have been Wicked?”
“If the neighborhood had known you were looking for volunteers...” I said, letting my words trail off.
He looked up at me, startled. Then he realized I was joking. He leaned against the table, resting his elbow against the tablecloth my housekeeper insisted on changing every Tuesday
“There were times I might’ve looked,” he said. “The Bastard” — that was his nickname for his daughter’s soon-to-be ex — “trained the little creep, or didn’t train it, as the case may be. Wicked loves my daughter and that baby, and will guard them with his little doggy life, but other than that, he isn’t a dog at all. He’s a goddamn menace. He doesn’t shut up, he pees all over everything, he tears up the furniture.”
“He’s still a puppy,” I said, not exactly sure why I was making excuses for a dog I hated.
“A puppy?” Ike said, sitting upright. “Are you kidding? Wicked is three years old. I’ve been trying to train him all month. It’s not working.”
“I haven’t heard Wicked since that truck,” I said. “You’d think if he got injured or snuck into the woods, we’d hear him.”
“You’d think the entire town would hear him,” Ike said. “I’m hoping the little bastard ran off.”
The little bastard, trained by the Bastard. I had never put Ike’s language together before. He hated Wicked not just because he was an uncontrollable dog, but also because the dog represented an uncontrollable soon-to-be-ex son-in-law.
“If Wicked did run off,” I said, “he did so chasing that truck. Silently.”
“That dog isn’t quiet about anything,” Ike said. Then he paused for a moment before adding, “You thought I was driving that truck?”
I nodded.
His frown grew deeper. “Not many trucks sound like mine. Did you see it?”
“Nope,” I said, taking another sip of my ale. “I heard it. It sounded big and heavy, like yours does when it comes up the driveway. But you usually don’t peel out. In fact, the only time I ever heard you peel away down the driveway was—”
“The cat incident,” he said tiredly. “I know.”
He started to take a sip from his beer, and stopped.
“The Bastard,” he said.
“Hmmm?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the soon-to-be-ex or the little dog.
“The Bastard,” Ike said to me, slowly, like he was having a realization. “He used to peel.”
I sipped. Thought. Remembered.
He did peel. It was one of the noises I had gotten used to. Roxy had started dating the Bastard in high school. It became one of those neighborhood dramas, something everyone in Crest Hill subdivision talked about, since the Bastard came from a family of do-nothings on the wrong side of town.
In a town of seven thousand, the wrong side is pretty low-key. We don’t have murderers, thieves, or knife-wielding maniacs. Our do-nothings are well named. They’re freeloaders who try to live on county money without doing any work. If they do get a job, from an unsuspecting out-of-towner, they lose that job within the month.
The Bastard’s family was pretty notorious. Entire generations lived in a small trailer on an expensive lot near the ocean. They wouldn’t move, no matter how much developers offered them, and they wouldn’t work, either. Mostly, they sat outside — rain or shine — and drank, throwing their empties into an ever growing pile in a part of the yard that had once housed a driveway.
The Bastard had that bad-boy charm. At least, that was what fifteen-year-old Roxy had thought. She had been a straight-A student, and remained so, graduating at the top of her class, earning several partial scholarships — enough so that the Maizes could send her to the school of her choice in California.
The Bastard followed. By this point, he had dropped out of high school, lost three jobs, and had his first DUI. Yet for her, the charm remained.
For Ike, who complained about him every moment he got, the Bastard was a gigantic version of Wicked, peeing all over the neighborhood, then barking and yipping when anyone else got in his mangy little way.
When the Bastard followed Roxy to California, I stopped thinking about him.
“I thought he was still in California,” I said. That was what Stella had told me one morning when we met at the mailboxes, both of us picking up our rain-soaked copies of the
“He went to live with his mother in Vegas,” Ike said.
“Oh, jeez.” I didn’t even have to ask how that was working out. When you took do-nothings and gave them the opportunity to get rich quick for very little effort, they spent every dime they hadn’t earned on penny slots and the upcoming big win.
“Yeah,” Ike said. “Good riddance, I thought. But he threatened to come back and get his things. I told Roxy to get a restraining order, but she thinks he doesn’t have the balls to drive all the way up here.”
“But you think he does,” I said, trying to keep the surprise from my voice. I agreed with Roxy on this one. A third-generation do-nothing wasn’t going to drive across three states just to retrieve his things. That would take too much effort.
“Yeah, I do,” Ike said. “He’s a mean, weasly little bastard who thinks my daughter is something he owns.”
He took the final sip of his beer and sighed.
“I’m not the smartest man in the world,” he said, “but I’ve seen guys like him before. When they think they’re losing the only things they own, they get dangerous.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Ike was right; sometimes do-nothings became violent and possessive. I hadn’t seen that in the Bastard, but then I hadn’t done much more than exchange a few sentences with him in a little more than five years.
“Why would he take Wicked?” I asked.
Ike gave me a chilling glance. “Because my daughter loves that horrid little dog. Although for the life of me, I have no idea why.”
* * * *
In the next few days, the Wicked saga became the focus of neighborhood gossip. From Dave the plumber, I heard that Ike had the cops searching for the Bastard’s truck. From old Mrs. Gailton, I heard that Roxy had been getting threatening phone calls. From Stella, I heard that Roxy had finally hired an attorney to finalize the divorce and to get that all-important restraining order.
The whole family believed that the Bastard had stolen Wicked, although the chief of police, Dan Reilly, thought the little dog had finally run away.
“Good riddance,” he said. “The nasty thing peed on my leg one afternoon.”
We had run into each other at the local A&P. We stood in the fresh fish aisle, which smelled of both fish and cocktail sauce. Twice during our conversation, the butcher snuck us bits of a steak he was cooking up in the back.
“We’re looking for the Bastard, of course,” Reilly said. He was a big man with gym-rat muscles. They made him look formidable in his gray-green uniform.
As he spoke, I smiled to myself. Ike had everyone in town calling his daughter’s soon-to-be ex the Bastard. “But I doubt we’ll find him. He knows better than to come back here.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“He’s got a bench warrant,” Reilly said. “You didn’t know that?”
“No,” I said. “Does Ike?”
“Now he does.”
“What did the Bastard do?” Even I had picked up the phrase.
“Robbed the Cruise Inn one Friday night using his father’s forty-five. Got away with about one hundred dollars, but the crime’s pretty serious. See, it’s—”
“Armed robbery,” I said. “A felony.”
Reilly’s eyes twinkled. “Forgot you write about this stuff.”
Usually I write about bigger things. Stockbrokers taking down entire corporations and having hit men after them; the President surviving assassination attempts; and, of course, my biggest seller, the serial killer truck driver working the Pacific Northwest who finally gets caught by the plucky female cop from the Oregon Coast.
“How come I never heard about this robbery?” I asked.
Reilly shrugged. “The Cruise Inn doesn’t want anyone to know how easy they are to rob. Or how often they do get robbed.”
“How often do they get robbed?” I asked.
“At least once a month. We leave it out of the police report as per their request.”
I shook my head, this time letting my amusement show. These things happen in small towns. In fact, when I moved to Seavy Village, Ike Maize told me that the best way to get your news was to talk to the locals. The paper didn’t cover most of the interesting stories, since we were a tourist town and we didn’t want our tiny crime waves to scare the tourists away.
“How long has he had that warrant?” I asked.
“Since before he went to California,” Reilly said.
At least a year then. “Why didn’t you tell Ike? He knew where the Bastard was.”
Reilly sighed. “I thought about it. But Ike and Roxy fought about the Bastard enough. Ike almost lost his daughter because of it. So I never said anything to Ike, although I did find out where the Bastard and Roxy lived. I tried to get someone down there to act on the warrant, but they wouldn’t. Seems a hundred-dollar theft, even if the thief used a forty-five, is small potatoes to them.”
I wondered how much anguish it would have prevented for the Maizes to have the Bastard arrested in California. But that would have been before the marriage went south, and Roxy might’ve gotten stuck, like so many women did, waiting for her man to get out of prison.
“What if he
“I would’ve heard about it,” Reilly said. “Everyone’s looking out for him.”
“Now they are,” I said. “But a week ago? I had no idea this was going on. Neither did anyone else in Crest Hill. And we were the ones most likely to see him.”
“He’s not in town,” Reilly said. “You can take that to the bank.”
If I took it to the bank, I wouldn’t be able to deposit it. Much as I liked Dan Reilly, he was a place-holder chief of police, one of the local boys made good until the out-of-town replacement showed up like she was supposed to do sometime the following spring.
Reilly, for all his certainty, really didn’t know much about police work. He knew Seavy Village, and nothing else. Usually, in this town, that was enough. But bench warrants, armed robbery, and hints of violence took the Bastard out of the local small-time range and into something much more dangerous.
Something I really didn’t want on the other side of my fence, not even for a short, dog-stealing visit.
Still, I didn’t hear any more trucks except Ike’s reliable one-ton. Occasionally Isabel barked, but those were welcome-home barks for her family or her standard warning to the UPS guy not to get too close.
The Goddess and I worked every day. I progressed on the latest book. She growled at the raccoons. We both had a productive week.
Until we heard a truck zoom its way up the Maizes’ driveway. The Goddess murped at me as she ran from the double glass doors to the library window.
I didn’t go to the library window at all. I hurried out of the office, grabbing my cell phone along the way.
The truck I heard was bigger than Ike’s. It was one of those with the double-long bed. I had no idea what kind it was — trucks aren’t my specialty — but I called this kind, which stood higher, wider, and longer than most trucks, penis-shrinkers. I figured any guy who wanted one of these was overcompensating for something.
I had already dialed 911 as I approached the fence. Through the slats, I could see the Bastard. He had stepped out of the truck’s cab, leaving the door open. The truck was running, and even over the roar of the diesel engine, I could hear the dinging of the warning bell, reminding us all that the keys were in the ignition.
The Bastard ignored the sound. He was one of those guys who changed from a thin, somewhat good-looking teenager to a muscular, menacing twenty-something.
As I reached for the gate’s handle, I saw Roxy step out of the garage. Isabel was barking, a strange, frightened bark I hadn’t ever heard from her. She blocked Roxy’s path, but Roxy went around her.
Roxy, still carrying baby weight around her hips and stomach. Roxy, carrying the baby — now a cute blond toddler — tightly in her arms.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said in a frightened voice as the 911 dispatch answered on my cell.
I stopped, softly gave my address, and said, “We need police up here immediately. We have a felon with a bench warrant against him in my neighbor’s yard, threatening everyone he sees.”
Then I pulled the phone away from my ear, opened the gate, and stepped onto the Maizes’ driveway.
The Bastard whirled toward me. He had something white and bloody in his arms, and I realized that it was Wicked. I couldn’t tell if the dog was alive or dead.
“Go away,” the Bastard snarled at me. “This is a family matter.”
“It’s a neighborhood matter,” I said loudly, hoping the 911 dispatch could still hear me. “You’re not supposed to be on Ike Maize’s property. There’s a restraining order against you.”
I said all of that for the 911 dispatch, not for the Bastard. Still, he glared at me with so much anger that my pulse started to race.
“Is that Wicked?” Roxy asked, her voice shaking.
“Stay back,” I said.
But her question had turned the Bastard back to her.
“Yeah.” He tossed the dog onto the driveway. The dog bounced on the gravel and then, appallingly, whimpered.
Time and time again, I had imagined horrible, hideous ways to kill that dog, but now that I saw it in front of me, I was ashamed for myself and terrified for the dog.
So was Roxy. She ran to the dog, and as she did, the Bastard ran toward her.
“Roxy, don’t!” I yelled, and I ran toward both of them.
But I was too far back. The Bastard grabbed his daughter from Roxy’s arms and raced for the truck. He cradled the toddler against his chest as he jumped into the cab, pulling the door closed.
“Noooo!” Roxy screamed, running for the truck. I ran for it too. She got there ahead of me, grabbing the door handle.
The Bastard shoved the truck into reverse and sped up, sending gravel in my direction. It hit me like sharp needles, but I kept going.
Roxy lost her grip, falling backward.
For one horrible moment, I thought he was going to back over her, but he didn’t. He maneuvered around her and sped off down the driveway.
I reached her side a moment later. Her knees and hands were scraped and she sat there, defeated, staring at the truck down on the road.
“Here,” I said, thrusting the cell phone at her. “I’ve already called nine-one-one. Give them the license plate and the make of the truck. I’m going after the Bastard.”
I didn’t give her time to argue. As I ran back through the gate, I realized I should have told her to call her dad as well. I hoped she was smart enough to figure that out.
I ducked inside my house, grabbed my car keys, and sprinted for my one indulgence. That Jag could outperform any other car in Seavy Village. And it could outperform a penis-shrinker, too.
I slid into the driver’s seat and started the car in the same motion. It purred into life, the engine ready to go at whatever speed I wanted.
I peeled down my driveway — something I had always wanted to do, but never dared to, not in this quiet subdivision. I turned right at the bottom of the driveway, thanking whatever developer had designed this place for the long twisty road that took us out of the subdivision to the highway.
I could just see the truck at the intersection. He didn’t come to a full stop — he was kidnapping his daughter, after all — but the stupid Bastard had his signal on.
He was turning left. To the straightaway that would take him out of Seavy Village and down Highway 101, away from the police and into a kind of legal no-man’s land.
He pulled out, and for the first time, I cursed the fact that I had given Roxy my phone. I wanted to tell the dispatch what direction he was going in.
Of course, in this tiny town, he had only two choices — north or south. The smart direction was south. Anyone with a brain would think of that straightaway and legal no-man’s land.
There, in the miles between Seavy Village and Whale Rock, the Seavy Village Police Department lost its jurisdiction. For ten miles, only the state police could arrest anyone. Then the Whale Rock police took over.
The state police, underfunded and undermanned, never patrolled that section of the highway. If they had to come in to make an arrest, they often had to come from another part of the county — sometimes from another part of the state.
When I reached the intersection, I didn’t stop, either. I turned left, sliding behind a black Subaru and in front of a bright blue Smart Car. The Smart Car slammed on its brakes, but I was already passing the Subaru, heading south at eighty miles an hour, double the speed limit.
There weren’t a lot of cars on the road, but there were enough that I had to weave and dodge around them, moving from the southbound lane to the passing lane to the shoulder in the areas where I could see far enough ahead to make sure there were no cyclists on the road.
The hotels and convenience stores, the kitschy restaurants and antique stores, sped by me in a blur. My engine roared as I shifted into the final gear, cranking the speed up to 100 miles per hour.
I had never driven these roads this fast. Part of me hoped someone would report me to the police — I could lead them on a chase to the Bastard, and then, since they were already on the scene, they could arrest him for the state police.
Part of me prayed that I wouldn’t hit anything or anyone. If I hit someone going this fast, I’d kill them. My Jag was so well built that I’d probably survive, but I wasn’t sure I could live with myself.
Then I thought of that little girl. I had only gotten a glimpse of her, even though she’d lived right next-door for the past few weeks. Tiny, blond, quiet for someone that age, on this afternoon she had been wearing a pink dress that showed her chubby legs.
Those legs were probably coated with Wicked’s blood, rubbed off from the Bastard’s hands.
I shuddered, gripped the steering wheel tighter, and pressed hard on the accelerator. I continued to weave, continued to pray, and finally, as the road narrowed and curved up the mountain between Seavy Village and Whale Rock, I saw the truck.
It was hard to miss with that extended back end. A lot of young men in Seavy Village loved those trucks, but most couldn’t afford them.
It had to be the Bastard.
I drove even faster.
The truck moved closer at a rapid pace.
Now if I swerved, I would hit the guard rail, maybe bounce over it and fall wheels over roof all the way to the ocean. Or if I crossed into the northbound lane, I would hit the mountainside.
I wouldn’t survive either of those.
My breath caught. I had to make myself exhale and think. I couldn’t force the Bastard off the road because he had the toddler with him.
But there was a wide area in the road, about eight miles from this point, where another road — coming from the east — intersected it. I could force him down that road, away from the ocean.
That road dead-ended into a large parking lot that led to a state park.
I zoomed up to him, then around him, hoping that he was smart enough to stop or turn when he came across an obstacle. He knew these roads better than I did, and I hoped that would influence his driving as well.
When I reached the road that formed a T with the highway, I glanced east. The road was as wide as I remembered. Someone driving fast could make a quick turn — even if that someone was in an extra long truck.
I stopped only a few yards away, turned on my flashers, and blocked both lanes. I kept watching both lanes, hoping that the first vehicle to approach — on either side — would be the Bastard’s truck.
Of course, it wasn’t. A minivan heading north pulled up and stopped. A middle-aged man with a paunch and graying hair got out. He walked around to the driver’s side and knocked on the window.
“You okay?”
“No,” I said. “Move away from my car.”
“You can’t block the road.”
In the distance, I saw the truck. I pointed at it.
“You see that truck? The man in there is wanted for armed robbery. He kidnapped the baby in the car with him. I’m trying to force him to stop. You got a cell phone?”
The man was looking at the truck, squinting. “Yeah.”
“Call the police. Tell them you’ve seen the gray long-bed truck that everyone’s looking for. Tell them he’s gone into Whale Cove State Park. Can you do that?”
“Um—”
“Because I’m going after him and I need backup.”
The truck had nearly reached the T. He was at the point where he would see the car blocking the highway. At that moment, I realized it was good to have the middle-aged man alongside my Jag. The Bastard wouldn’t know I was waiting for him.
He turned east, just like I expected him to. His truck was too big to make a U-turn. The drive to the parking lot and back would allow him to drive north again.
“Move!” I said to the middle-aged man.
A smart guy, he ran behind my car, so that I could zoom after the Bastard.
My initial plan had been to follow the Bastard down to the parking lot, but as I drove the few yards, I realized that was stupid. The best thing I could do was park in front of the T. He’d have nowhere to go.
I parked over both lanes of the state-park road, blocking it, my Jag facing north.
Then I shut off the ignition, set the parking brake, and got out.
I was only a few feet away when the Bastard crashed into my car. The sound was tremendous, overpowering everything, the scream of metal on metal.
His truck shoved my car toward me. I had to dive into the ditch between the highway and the mountainside to get out of the way. My car rolled and then hit the guard rail.
The Bastard turned north and drove away as if nothing had happened.
I lay in the ditch. I had landed in cold, brackish, muddy water. I made myself climb out slowly, my heart pounding, my breath coming in short gasps.
I never expected him to hit my car, not with the toddler in his truck. I thought he’d get out, scream at me, and stay busy until the police showed up.
I pulled myself up by my hands, then got onto the state-park road and walked to the highway. I stood beside the highway, looking north, probably as forlornly as Roxy had looked as the Bastard drove off with her baby girl.
In the distance, I heard sirens. I turned, slowly, and saw the middle-aged guy with the van. He was walking toward me, clutching a cell phone.
I refused to look at my Jag.
“That was like a monster truck rally,” he said. “I kept expecting him to drive over your car.”
He sounded almost excited. His cheeks were flushed. As he got closer, I realized he was probably younger than I was. All I had seen before was the gray hair and paunch. I’d missed the roundness to his cheeks, the brightness of his eyes.
Or maybe that came from the adrenaline brought on by witnessing an accident.
“He did enough to my car,” I said without looking at it. I didn’t want to know exactly what had happened to it. I knew the moment it hit the guard rail that he had totaled it.
Because of my vivid imagination, I did not want to know what the driver’s side looked like. I didn’t want to have nightmares about what might have happened to me had I been inside.
The middle-aged guy waved the cell phone at me. “They said that they already had reports on the guy and they were heading this way. They said that they’ll catch him now that he’s turned around. You forced him back to Seavy Village, you know?”
I knew. That hadn’t quite been my plan — I didn’t have a plan past blocking the road and waiting for the police — but it would have to do.
With the baby in the truck I preferred to have the police take down the Bastard rather than to do it myself.
“How’d you know what was going on with the guy?” the middle-aged man asked.
“I was there when he took the baby.” I suddenly felt very tired. My whole body hurt.
I wanted to go home. It meant I would leave the scene of an accident, which was a crime, but not a major one if no one had been injured.
I had a hunch I could talk my way out of that one.
And even if I couldn’t, I could pay the damn fine.
“Can you give me a lift?” I asked the middle-aged guy. “I want to go home.”
The middle-aged man grinned. “I’d be happy to,” he said. “Just don’t ask me if you can drive.”
The middle-aged man, whose name was Tom Yates, chattered all the way to Crest Hill. I figured it was a nervous reaction and let him talk. I had him let me out at the bottom of Maize’s driveway — for some reason I didn’t want him to see my house — and then I waved as he drove away.
He had told me he was going to the police station to make a report. What a good citizen he was. I figured they could come to me if they wanted to talk.
As I reached the top of the driveway, I was stunned to see Ike’s truck, two police cars, and an ambulance. One of the paramedics was working hard on something on the ground.
It took me a moment to realize he was bandaging up Wicked.
Ike wasn’t around. Neither was Roxy.
But a uniformed police officer — a man I recognized but didn’t know by name — walked over to me.
“You the famous writer neighbor?”
“Yeah,” I said tiredly.
“I didn’t expect you here, sir,” he said. “I thought you’d be by Whale Cove State Park.”
“I was. But the other guy at the scene offered to drive me home.”
The policeman stuck out his hand. I stared at it a moment before taking it. He shook hard, then let go.
“You’re a real hero, sir. They have the baby. She’s fine. The Maizes have gone down to the station to get her.”
“So they caught the Bastard,” I said.
“They did. He’s going away for a long, long time.”
I hoped so. I hoped that the legal system would work the way it was supposed to. I would testify against him, that was for certain.
But I didn’t say that. I just nodded at the police officer and walked over to the paramedic. “Didn’t know you guys worked on dogs,” I said.
“That girl,” he said, “she was hysterical. Dispatch thought she had been injured and sent me up here. She asked me to work on the dog. How could I say no?”
I looked down at the stretcher. Wicked’s eyes were glassy and he was panting. The paramedic had bandaged his back legs.
“That guy who took the dog — he cut the tendons in its back legs. Knew what he was doing, too, because he stayed away from major arteries. This poor thing’ll probably never walk right again.”
Wicked’s gaze met mine. He was clearly in pain. He whimpered.
Lifting his leg was probably impossible now. He wouldn’t pee on my groceries again. He probably wouldn’t ever run again.
I never thought I could feel sorry for that dog, but I did.
“I’ve got him stabilized,” the paramedic was saying. “Can you let Ike know I’m taking the dog to Seavy Village Animal Clinic? They’ll know what to do with him.”
“Think they’ll have to put him down?” the officer said from behind me.
“No,” the paramedic said. “He’s not a horse. You don’t have to shoot him just because he’s injured his leg. Right, buddy?”
To my surprise, he put his hand gently on Wicked’s side and Wicked didn’t even try to bite him. The dog closed his eyes. His tail thumped.
“I’ll tell Ike,” I said. I wasn’t sure he’d be happy. But he would have a different dog than the one he hated. Wicked would never be the same.
Neither would Roxy. I only hoped her daughter wouldn’t have lasting scars.
Knowing the Maizes, they would do everything they could to make that little girl feel loved and wanted, not the product of some felon who had seduced their only daughter.
The paramedic wheeled the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, got in beside it, and pulled the double doors closed. The ambulance backed up in the very tracks left by the Bastard’s truck, then eased carefully down the driveway as if its cargo were as precious as an injured human being.
The officer watched from beside me. Then he looked at me and frowned. “You okay?”
“Tired,” I said.
“No kidding. You did a great thing.”
I hadn’t done anything great. If anything, I’d been reckless and stupid, letting my vivid imagination get away with me, making me think I could be as heroic as the people I wrote about.
“What do we do about my car?” I asked. “It’s crumpled on the side of the road by Whale Cove State Park.”
“I’ll take care of it,” the officer said. “And we’ll need you to make a statement whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now.” I wanted this incident behind me.
I didn’t want to think about Wicked or the Bastard or Ike’s helpless hatred of both. I wanted to go back to my office and use my vivid imagination to create stories.
I thought it would be easy to go back. But I found I couldn’t shake the memories. Which is why I’m writing this.
Wicked is home. He’ll limp badly, and he’ll be a mostly indoor dog. The incident changed his temperament — or, as Ike says, being helpless has. Wicked lost all the aggression that made him the nasty little piece of work he was.
Roxy’s divorce went through. The Bastard pled out to the minimum on both kidnapping and the armed robbery. He’ll be gone for years.
And the neighborhood has gone back to normal. Except that people ask me for advice now, as if my impulsive actions have given me some kind of wisdom.
Actually, old Mrs. Gailton says they don’t see me as wise so much as the neighborhood leader. The mayor of Crest Hill subdivision.
Apparently, it’s an appointed position. It’s certainly not one I want.
I blame Wicked. If it hadn’t been for the little bastard, I’d still be the mostly invisible weird writer who lives next to the Maizes, not the thriller writer who channels James Bond in his off-time.
So I hide in my office with the Goddess. She hunts raccoons again, having no interest in Wicked now that he’s not barking incessantly.
I have a little more interest. Sometimes I wonder what he went through while the Bastard had him. Sometimes I wonder if Wicked realized he meant nothing to the man who had trained him. And I wonder if the little dog had wanted to die when the Bastard tossed him onto the driveway.
I’ll never know, and Wicked will never tell.
He’s quiet these days. Isabel actually stands guard over him, as if she understands the changes, too.
Sometimes, in the middle of the afternoon, when no one’s around, I go to the Maizes’ yard and pet him.
I have the sense that, ever since the incident, Wicked needs comfort.
And I know that I do, too.
On the Banks of the Khorad Dur
by Brian Muir
“Palimp...? Palimps...? What the hell’s a—”
“Palimpsest,” chirped Mira, reading small letters highlighted by her fingertip on the dictionary page, the weighty tome open on her lap. “ ‘Palimpsest: a parchment, tablet, etc. that has been written upon or inscribed two or three times, the previous text or texts having been imperfectly erased and remaining, therefore, still partly visible.’ Hm.”
“ ‘Hm,’ is right. This isn’t the palim-whatsit, is it?” MacLean shook the three pages in his hand, heavy yellowed parchment rattling.
“No, that’s just a letter.”
Mac set aside the letter and continued searching the old steamer trunk.
“Maybe the palimpsest isn’t in there, Mac.”
“Well, the guy stole it ’cause he thought it was valuable. If his letter survived all these years, what about the...?”
“Palimpsest.”
Mac mumbled, sifting through the contents of the trunk.
“Who knows if the letter is even real, hon.”
“Look at that thing,” implored Mac, “Look how old it is.”
“Well, it does look old, that’s for sure.” Mira carefully flipped the crinkled pages; one had writing blurred by a dark brown stain. “Looks like somebody spilled coffee on it.”
“What?!” Mac swiped the letter, turned the stationery this way and that, examining it under lamplight. “Blood’s that color when it dries.”
Exasperated, Mira rolled her eyes, yet when Mac went back to inspecting the steamer trunk’s contents, she couldn’t help but examine once more that dark blotch on the page; she didn’t want to think it was blood. She kneeled beside Mac at the open trunk as he pulled out an old flannel shirt.
Mira got a whiff, “Eeewww. I don’t think that got washed before it got put in there.”
Mac spread out the shirt arms. “It’s in good shape though. Might fit me.”
“Are you kidding? That’s going straight in the trash, mister. The stench on that shirt has its own zip code.”
Mira grabbed the shirt and tossed it toward the back hall, which led to the porch and garbage can outside.
“I doubt the palimpsest is in there, hon. Look.”
She pointed out a faded sticker on the rear bottom corner of the trunk, not a souvenir from faraway Singapore, Morocco, or even New Jersey, but rather a faded and worn sales sticker from K-Mart.
“That’s probably from the seventies,” she said.
“Some of the stuff in here is older than that, though. The guy who died was in his nineties.”
“You have to stop going to these estate auctions, hon. At least until we can afford to buy the good stuff. Not these sealed trunks with the mystery contents.”
“Hey listen, spending all kinds of money for a painting with a gilded frame will only get me so much in return. This is where the true treasures are found, the kinda stuff people go nuts for on eBay. Like that old toy truck I found last February, remember?”
“You can’t win the lottery every time. These mystery crates are like when we were in school and once a month the cafeteria would cart out its ‘Chef’s Surprise.’ How many times was that a winner?”
Mac paused to recall his junior-high years. “Chef’s Surprise...” A shiver ran through him.
“See what else is in there,” said Mira.
“Oh, suddenly we’re curious.”
“Well, it is kinda fun.”
Mac rummaged through the trunk, hauling out a dusty vase, chipped; a set of fountain pens still in their case, unused.
Mira plopped into the armchair with the old letter:
Mira peered up over the parchment. “ ‘Warmed our hearts to her as well as our loins?’ Puh-lease.”
Mac held an old fishing reel, fifty-pound test uncurling all over the floor. “Keep readin’. I’m startin’ to like this letter.”
She frowned playfully and continued:
Mira put down the letter.
Mac had paused in his search of the trunk, a broken bisque doll in his hand.
“Why’re you stopping?”
“Because it’s ridiculous, that’s why. I mean, come on, succubi and monsters with scabbards...” She expelled a dismissive burst of air, shaking her head.
“Hey, we don’t know how old that thing is. Way back when, in unexplored parts of the world, all kinds of weird stuff was going on.”
“Not this kind of stuff, hon.” She joined him again on the floor next to the trunk. “You find any eBay treasures?”
“Not really.” He pointed out the contents of the trunk, now piled on the floor around him. “I might get something for this doll. Even though it’s busted.”
Mira peeked inside the big, open maw of the empty trunk. “Didn’t find any jewelry? Engagement ring?”
Mac, tremulous: “Engagement ring?”
“I’m just saying.”
Mac’s brow knitted. “Did I forget a birthday or anniversary or something?”
“No. But sometimes we ladies need a ‘just because’ gift.”
“ ‘Just because’?”
Mira nodded, grinning sweetly.
“Can we get back to the business at hand?”
“What business?” Mira reached inside the trunk. “Not even the trunk is worth anything. It’s water-stained and mildewed. Look, this corner is warped.”
Pinching an inside corner of the browned lining, she peeled it away, holding it up like roadkill.
Both heard the soft
He reached in and pulled it out; about the size of a fish stick, wrapped in brown waxed paper, tied with a short length of knotted twine.
“It must have been hidden inside the lining.”
“Now we’re talking.” Mira beamed with curiosity.
Mac tugged on the twine, the knot petrified with age. “Hand me those scissors.”
Mira did and Mac cut the twine, carefully unwrapping the heavy brown paper to reveal a simple key inside; long and slender with a fleur-de-lis head and a double notch at the other end of the dark metal stem.
“Looks like a skeleton key,” he said.
“There’s writing on the paper,” Mira pointed out.
The inside of the wrapping had faded letters broken by heavy creases in the wax paper. Mac kept turning it into the light so as to make out the faded words:
“Where the hell is the Khorad Dur?” he asked.
Mira hauled the old world atlas from the bookcase, blowing dust off the top of it. “Let’s find out.”
“He was talking about the palimpsest. Shipping it across the seas... somewhere.” Weighing the key in his palm, Mac trailed off in thought.
Mira scanned the index in the rear of the atlas. “Can’t find a Khorad Dur anywhere. Sometimes names change after so long. Or maybe it’s a regional thing, the translation is different. My guess would be the Middle East, or maybe Northern Africa. I’ll check online later.”
“But why would he want it destroyed?”
“Seems he thought it was the work of the devil.
“I’m not sayin’ I believe any of it. But that doesn’t mean somebody else wouldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if I could find this thing? I put it up for sale online, list it as a genuine book of black magic, sort of like that famous one, the Necro...?”
“Necronomicon. The Book of the Dead. I think that was made up, hon.”
“Whatever. I list it along with the key and that letter to prove how old it is. People would pay good money for it.”
“Nutjobs, you mean.”
“Nutjobs with money.”
“Don’t waste too much time looking, hon. We still have bills to pay.”
The next morning, first thing Mac did was get to the hardware store when it opened and traipse into the back corner where virgin keys lined the wall, waiting to be notched. He was told that the old guy who ran the key-maker wasn’t in, probably out getting his java. Frustrated, Mac did the same, going across the street to the 7-Eleven for a coffee and donut, leaning up against his car in the hardware-store parking lot to eat it. Soon, a beat-up Toyota the color of a rotten tangerine pulled next to the rear door of the hardware store. A sixtyish gentleman unfolded himself from the front seat, holding a Starbucks cup. Wisps of sandy hair fluttered atop his sun-marked pate. Mac recognized him from when he’d been in before.
“Excuse me. Are you the guy that makes the keys?”
The man turned, one side of his crooked mouth approximating a grin. “I also play bass in a jazz quartet at the Jade Lounge on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You should come in some night.”
“Maybe I will,” smiled Mac.
He’d left the brown wax paper with the writing on it at home and now had the key wrapped in a paper towel, which he unfolded.
“Looks like a garden-variety skeleton key.” The guy squinted, pinching the key between thumb and forefinger, examining it in the sunlight. “Made of brass, not very unusual. You want a copy made?”
“No, I just wondered if you could tell me anything about it.”
The key-maker turned it over, looking closely at the fleur-de-lis head. He pulled out a Swiss Army knife, unfolding a tiny magnifying glass. “Don’t get to use this very often.”
He peered through the glass at the back of the keyhead, finding no unusual markings. “I don’t think it’s a mortise key, too short for most doors or gates. Probably opens a small box or locker, maybe a desk.”
“How old?”
The key-maker shrugged, “Early nineteen hundreds, maybe earlier.” He handed the key back. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
Mac appeared slightly disappointed. “I know more than I did five minutes ago. Thanks.”
The man took his Starbucks and loped to the back door of the hardware store. “Don’t forget, the Jade Lounge...”
“Every Tuesday and Thursday. Gotcha.”
The man nodded and entered, leaving Mac in the small parking lot with the key in his palm.
Mac drove out through the alley behind the store, bordered on one side by the rear of the storefronts and on the other by thick hedges. As he rolled down the narrow, pockmarked pavement, a dark figure burst from the shrubbery, lunging toward his moving car. Startled, Mac glanced over his shoulder to see a hunched figure, wide as a refrigerator but half as tall, with arms reaching nearly to the gravel, a hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his head.
Mac stopped at the end of the alley to check oncoming street traffic, and when he glanced back in the rearview, the figure was gone.
“I’m telling you, the thing looked like an ape in a hoodie,” Mac relived his encounter with the figure in the alley.
“Honey, please.” Mira sucked a mango smoothie, sitting across from him during her lunch break, the two of them in the open-air food court.
“He creeped me out.” Mac plucked fries from a greasy takeout bag and shoved them in his mouth.
Mira extracted from her purse a printed sheet. “I went online this morning, did a little Googling. Looks like you can chalk another one up to yours truly. I was right: the Khorad Dur, as far as I can figure, was in Northern Africa; Libya to be exact. Some nomadic tribes referred to it by that name, but I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean. It was a dead river running through a rocky area called the Black Haruj. Great names, huh?”
“Sure.” He wasn’t too interested.
“If the guy who wrote the letter was planning on shipping the palimpsest ‘across the seas,’ he could only have been referring to the Mediterranean, which means he more than likely was shipping it somewhere in Europe. There’s no reason to think he was trying to get it to the States.”
“It could have come from Europe to New York; maybe whoever he shipped it to brought it with them when they immigrated over.”
Mira considered that. “That’s actually not a bad idea, hon.”
“Any way to find out what shipping line was operating in the Mediterranean back then?”
“Way ahead of you.” She flipped to another printed sheet. “The Ruby Seas ran cargo and passengers from Port Said and Tripoli to parts north.”
“Any way we can get copies of shipping manifests?”
“From over two hundred years ago? Hon, even if we could, the Ruby Seas had a liner that went down in a storm in eighteen ninety-two, killing all three hundred forty-eight people aboard. The man who owned the line was so overcome with guilt that he killed himself. Soon after that, Ruby Seas went bankrupt. There are no records. Not anymore.”
Mac slumped in his chair, a limp French fry drooping between his lips.
Mira stuffed the printouts into her purse. “Why don’t you just go to the family that held the auction? They might be able to tell you something. Maybe they even know what that key opens.”
“Are you kidding? They’ll want a piece of the action!”
“Need I point out that right now you have no action?”
“Once I get my hands on that palimpsest, I will.”
“If it’s even real.”
“It’s real.”
“Whatever you say, hon. Listen, I got to get back to work.” She leaned over to give him a quick kiss that tasted to him of tropical fruit.
He watched her walk away, grinning at the swish of her rear under her skirt. As she disappeared into the lobby of her building, his eyes scanned the crowd in the food court. Amid those hustling up and down the brick steps that led to the street were two figures, unmoving, both facing his direction.
One seemed hunched over, his face hidden by a dirty, hooded sweatshirt. Standing beside him was an Asian man in a navy blue three-piece suit, silver watch winking in the sun.
Mac squinted at the sun glare off the man’s watchband, shielding his eyes with his hands. By the time he shifted his head to look again, the two men were gone.
He scanned the crowd but saw no sign of the two. Quickly he stood up from the table, tossed his remaining fries in a trash can, and hustled toward the parking structure.
His tennis-shoed footsteps echoed softly off cool concrete as he marched to 2F, the letters highlighted in purple paint.
He heard laughter over his left shoulder and whirled to espy a young woman talking on her cell phone, stepping to her car.
Mac found his car and unlocked the door. He took one last look around the dark underground lot, freezing as he caught sight of those two figures again, standing in a shadowed corner across the way.
The wide one seemed a shadow unto himself, dark and evil, face obscured. The other, the Asian, took one step forward, an overhead light forming Karloff shadows on his narrow face. He stared at Mac and, grinning, pointed right at him.
Stunned, Mac dropped behind the wheel, slammed the door, and cranked the ignition. He shifted into drive and stomped the gas, tires screeching as his old car chattered toward the glowing green exit sign.
He didn’t even glance in his mirror.
Reading in the armchair, Mac tilted the letter toward the window to catch the last of the dying sunlight, squinting to make out the writing. The piercing doorbell caused him to jump an inch off the seat.
He took a breath, set down the letter, and strode to the door.
He casually peered into the peephole. His hand froze on the doorknob as he saw, peering back at him, an Asian man, face distended in the fisheye view. Standing on the porch behind him, a dark wide figure, face hidden under a hooded sweatshirt.
Mac gasped, pulling his face away from the peephole.
As the doorbell rang again, Mac tiptoed through the room to swipe his car keys off the kitchen table. He pocketed the old letter and skeleton key, quickly sifting through a wad of receipts near the phone until he found the one he wanted.
Then out the back door he slipped, dialing his cell phone as he snuck to his car, parked in the driveway that hugged the side of the house.
“Mira?” he whispered when she answered. “It’s me... I can’t talk any louder! Don’t come home yet. Listen, those guys are here... the ones I told you about earlier! I’m serious! Look, just go over to Carol’s or something. I’ll call you later...”
He hung up, quietly opening the car and lowering himself behind the wheel. Leaving the door open, he shifted into neutral and used his foot to give a Fred Flintstone shove and get the car rolling backwards down the slight incline of the driveway.
He pulled the door in without shutting it, letting the car roll, tires crunching pebbles with little sound, past the front porch of his house where the two figures waited at the door, turned away from him.
He watched them anxiously, then checked the rearview for traffic and cranked the ignition as his car hit the street.
With the cough of the engine, the Asian and his hooded companion spun to see him making his escape.
Mac slammed the car’s door shut, shoved it into drive, and sped away as the Asian ran into the street, gesticulating wildly behind him.
Mac laughed victoriously, turning the corner and erasing the man from his rearview mirror.
The sun had set by the time he got to the house, sky the hue of ripe autumn squash. At the bottom of the hill, he switched the car’s dome light on, scanning the receipt again to check the address. The name on it was Hintze — why hadn’t he put that together before? — the same as on the note wrapped around the skeleton key, probably a distant relative of the family that held the auction.
He switched the dome light off, instantly enveloped by the gathering gloom. He got out of the car and peered apprehensively up at the house, a Gothic structure with sloping dormers, multiple chimneys, cornices bordering the several levels, and a shingled crest housing an attic. The only light from inside was a rounded oculus window glowing from an upper story, with sash bars like a cross to warn visitors away. Mac gulped fearfully, thinking of that creepy house in
He knew the answer was in that house, the answer to what the skeleton key opened, maybe even the palimpsest itself. The Asian and his goon had some connection to this place. Maybe they knew what the key opened and were trying to get it back; maybe they hadn’t known the key was hidden in that old footlocker until it had been sold. Mac’s mind reeled with paranoid possibilities; they were after him for some reason and he hoped they wouldn’t figure out that he’d come here to the house. At least not until he’d had time to snoop around.
He crept up the sloping hillside, through scrub and rocky talus. Then across a lawn badly in need of maintenance, grass high and thick enough to conceal Viet Cong snipers.
As the last of the dying sun faded, he reached a corner of the old house, touching the splintered wood of one of the porch support beams. The house loomed large over him, taller than it appeared from the base of the hill, a malevolent shadow.
Mac skirted the wide front porch, looking for a back way in. He discovered most of the shutters locked over the darkened windows. Likewise the storm doors leading to the cellar, which inwardly pleased him; he didn’t relish the idea of sneaking through the cobwebbed basement of this spooky place.
When he came to the rear door and put his hand on the polished knob, it turned freely, surprising him.
With a creak, the door opened and he stuck his head into the darkness, eyes acclimating to view a pantry, its shelves nearly empty but for scattered mason jars of old fruit and stacks of rags and towels.
He stepped inside, softly closing the door behind him. He crossed through the pantry into a large kitchen, the only light a flickering fluorescent bulb over the counter, causing the black-and-white tile floor to strobe bluish before his eyes. Two shipping boxes sat open on the big wooden island, filled with cast-iron skillets and battered pots. An old refrigerator hummed in the corner. He opened it to find nothing but a few cans of Coke and a lone Hostess chocolate cupcake in open cellophane, nourishment for those clearing out the old house.
In the large dining hall, a chandelier hung high. Furnishings covered with sheets, the ghosts of sedentary creatures. The quiet seemed to suck the very air from the place and Mac’s tennis shoes made too much noise even on tiptoes.
He nearly tripped over an ottoman in the dark and it scraped across the wood floor, the echo like a dying rodent. He rubbed his shin, cursing himself for not grabbing his flashlight from the glove box, though knowing himself as he did, the batteries inside it were probably dead.
He lifted the corner of a nearby sheet, carefully, as if expecting a gargoyled hand to slash out from underneath, but discovered only a green velvet sofa. He moved about the room, lifting sheets, until he found a varnished oak desk with many drawers, one of which — on the upper right-hand side — had a dark keyhole.
He dug the skeleton key from his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole, but it wouldn’t turn. Frustrated, he lowered the sheet and kept looking.
In a dark hallway he uncovered a bureau, a bottom drawer of which was locked. Again he tried the key and once again was unsuccessful. He continued his search in the dark and quiet, berating himself for coming up with this stupid plan.
He moved up the curving staircase to the second floor, discovering what had once been the master bedroom. The four-poster bed seemed only bones without its mattress, an ornately carved relic waiting for a family member or perhaps a winning auction bidder to claim it.
On this upper floor the windows allowed light from the gibbous moon to shine through, revealing to Mac a battered steamer trunk in the corner, resting on end, much like the one he’d purchased at auction. Invigorated, he rushed to it, shoving the key home and forcefully cranking it, trying to make it work but having no luck.
He froze as somewhere above him sounded a loud scrape. Hoping it was an errant branch brushing the outside of the house, he shivered as the sound was followed by that of small footsteps tracking across the floor overhead.
He recalled that yellow light behind the rounded window at the top of the house, the attic window. Someone was up there, in the house with him.
He heard a door open somewhere above, then footsteps slowly padding down a stairwell in the darkness.
He raced from the bedroom down the dark hall, glancing back over his shoulder to see a woman trailing after him, moving past moonlit windows into faint light then disappearing into darkness again before reappearing into light. The woman’s hair shot out from her head, undulating like the tentacles of a translucent sea creature, her loose garments floating behind her like a cape.
Too frightened even to scream, Mac found the head of the stairs and blasted down them, hand tracing the cold railing. Halfway down, his heel missed the edge of a step and he went tumbling. Reaching out to stop his fall, his arm bent awkwardly, the wrist snapping like the crack of an ice cube dropped in a glass of tap water, loud in the cavernous house.
Whining in pain, he cradled his broken arm and crab-walked backwards across the floor as the woman seemed to float down the stairs toward him.
Closer and closer to the front door he inched, but it swung open before he could reach it and two men entered, one flipping on a light switch: the well-dressed Asian and the muscled goon in the hoodie.
Mac yelped like a little girl, clumsily changing direction on the floor to crawl away, bumping his elbow against the wall, shooting pain through his broken arm. Wincing, he collapsed in the corner, the two men coming at him from one direction, the witchlike apparition from the other.
“Please... don’t hurt me... I don’t want the palimpsest... take it... please... just don’t hurt me...”
With his good arm, he held out the skeleton key.
“Oh.” The old woman’s face lit up with a beatific smile, an angel’s smile, looking nothing like a witch at all. “Just what I was looking for.” She plucked the key from Mac’s palm with fingers delicate as breadsticks.
The Asian in the clean blue suit regarded the old woman. “You shouldn’t be wandering around without your sweater, Mom. You’ll get pneumonia.”
“Mom?” squeaked Mac.
The big guy behind the Asian lowered the hoodie to reveal an Asian face of his own, a stockier version of the man in the suit.
“We been trying to find you all day,” he said to Mac.
“You’re rather a hard man to track down, Mr. Burling,” said the well-dressed one. “We had your address on the auction receipt, but not your phone number. You never seemed to be home when we stopped by.”
The old woman lowered herself into a sheet-covered chair, a small wooden box in her lap. Carefully, she inserted the skeleton key into the lock and turned it with a satisfying click.
“Is the palimpsest in there?” Mac squeaked.
The beefy one asked, “What’s this palimpsest you’re talking about?”
“The old book... the one in the letter... the one the guy fought those ape-creatures for...”
The well-dressed guy shook his head amusedly. “There is no palimpsest, Mr. Burling. Clearly, you’ve fallen victim to one of my father’s old games.”
“Huh?”
“Our parents were divorced many years ago, but when they were young and in love, my father used to send my mother cards and letters from the road — he was a traveling salesman — and often disguised them as old parchments or documents, sometimes giving her clues, sort of like a scavenger hunt.”
“A scavenger hunt?” Mac winced again as pain shot through his busted arm.
“Sometimes it would take her days, but my mother would follow the clues until, inevitably, they led her to a prize, often a declaration of my father’s love for her, or a bauble or trinket. She would sometimes include me and my brother on those hunts.” He grinned at a pleasant memory.
The big one in the hoodie nodded. “Sometimes he’d leave toys for us to find.”
“You mean the letter was a fake?”
“I’m afraid so, Mr. Burling. At least, in terms of its historical significance; certainly fake. When my father died recently, one item he left to my mother was that wooden box, though she had no key for it. Presuming — correctly — that the key was mistakenly sold off at auction, we managed to contact every one of the buyers in our search for that key... sort of our last scavenger hunt. Finally leading us to you.”
Mac sighed. “Oh.”
All three men turned when the old woman gasped, a sound so tiny, as she opened the wooden box and removed a trinket none of them could see from across the room. She cosseted the little thing in her two withered hands. She closed her eyes. A single tear tracked through the crevices of her face as she clutched the trinket to her breast, a symbol of love strong enough to conquer time and difference, outlasting even death.
The glow of the monitor lit his face as Mac scrolled down the screen, typing with one hand. His other arm rested useless on the desk, encased in a chalk-white cast.
Mira flipped on the lamp as she entered the dark room, setting a plate on the desk with a bologna sandwich on it.
She kissed his cheek.
“Hey, check this out,” he said. “I told you that bisque doll would sell. Just about paid for the whole trunk of junk.”
“But it won’t pay for your arm.” She rubbed his shoulders.
“Well, there is that.” Mac tapped a pencil on his cast.
“I hope you’ve learned not to buy any more of those mystery trunks,” she said.
Mac grinned. “I’ll always go after the mystery trunk, honey. Check out the bidding so far on that old fishing reel.”
Mira peered over him at the screen, surprised. “Damn.”
“But I have learned a few things these past couple days. That’s for sure.”
He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a tiny gift-wrapped box topped with a shiny, curling ribbon, handing it to her.
Flabbergasted, she regarded it as if an extinct species of butterfly had lit on her palm. “What’s this for?”
He smiled. “Just because.”