The Traveler

by John Katzenbach

  She turned to the sports pages. The pennant races were just heating up and football training camps were heading to the last cuts. She turned to an inside page to read the agate and see whether the Dolphins had cut any of her favorite players, but they had not. She saw, though, that the Patriots had released one of their old linemen. He was a steady block of a man from some solid Midwestern state, who’d always played infuriatingly well against the Dolphins and she had come, over the years, to admire him for the constancy of his effort, carried out in anonymity and pain. She knew he would play hurt, and she respected that, perhaps more than the other fans. She was saddened suddenly by the news, a reminder both of sudden mortality and the changeable nature of life. She thought she would root hard for his replacement to fail.

  Everything changes eventually. Everyone passes on to something new, she thought.

  She looked back up at Jeffers’ apartment and stiffened when she realized that the light had been switched on. She saw a shape move in front of the window and she shrank down in the car seat involuntarily, not really worrying about being spotted, but strongly feeling the need for concealment.

  Come on, she said to herself. Come on, doctor. Get the day started.

  She was flush with excitement and she rolled the window down, breathing in the damp morning air as if she were scared that her thoughts would suffocate her.

  Martin Jeffers moved about the apartment in the weak morning half-light. He had slept, of that he was sure, but he did not know for how long. He felt no sense of refreshment, remaining as exhausted by emotion as he had at the start of the night. He moved into the bathroom and dropped his clothes on the floor. He forced himself into the shower, making certain that it was colder than comfortable. He wanted to shock his system into movement. He wanted alertness and quick wit. He held his face under the cascading cold water, shivering, but feeling vitality creep into his bones and blood.

  He stepped from the shower and rubbed himself red with a threadbare towel. Still naked, he shaved with cold water.

  He padded into his bedroom and put fresh underwear, shirt, tie, and suit onto the bed. Do twenty, he said to himself. He dropped to the floor and managed a fast ten pushups. He laughed out loud. That’s good enough. He turned over and did twenty-five sit-ups, with his knees bent, faithfully holding his hands behind his head. He remembered his brother explaining that that was the only way they were effective. Doug never had to worry about exercise. He was always strong, always in shape. He could eat everything in the house and not gain a pound. Martin Jeffers stood and looked at himself in the mirror over the dressing table. Not bad, he thought. Especially considering all the sedentary work you do. Take up running again or find some tennis partners. Back in shape in no time.

  He dressed quickly, glancing at the clock.

  He thought of Detective Barren. He had not told her when to come to the hospital, but he knew she would be there early. He shook his head.

  No, he thought, nothing’s been proven. Nothing at all.

  It is in the nature of brothers always to exaggerate, both goods and evils. It comes from childhood, from the constancy of love, jealousy, and un­restrained emotion that is inherent in the relationship. So Doug killed a bird when you always thought—no, assumed—that it was your father. You were mistaken. Still, that doesn’t make your brother a killer. Not at all.

  Martin Jeffers’ hands stopped in midair as he was finishing the knot to his tie. He was almost overcome, suddenly, by the force of the self-lie. He closed his eyes, then opened them, as if he could clear the agony of his thoughts from his mind. He said out loud, firmly addressing himself in the third person:

  “Well, whatever Doug is, and you damn well don’t have any proof, any real proof of one thing or another despite what that goddamn detective says, he’s still your goddamn brother and that ought to count for something.”

  His words sounding strong in the empty room comforted him momentarily. But he also thought angrily that he’d been a doctor long enough to recognize clinical denial. Even in himself.

  Still stretched between the poles of disbelief and realization, not trusting his memory, his feelings, or the knowledge that had grown over the years within him, Martin Jeffers headed off to the hospital. He did not see the detective waiting and watching from her vantage point across the street.

  She waited another ten minutes just to be certain.

  But she knew from the brisk pace he’d set and the fixed glance he’d worn that he was heading directly to the hospital and to the meeting with her that she assumed he’d spent the night worrying about.

  He’ll get that meeting, she thought, just not quite as early as he probably expects it. Again, she was mildly troubled about what she was about to do. Part of her argued: You know enough. He will come around and offer to help. But the pessimist within her doubted that the doctor would ever help her to find his brother until she could overwhelm him with necessity. You still need an edge, she told herself, and that apartment is as good a place as any to start looking for something. She was also uncertain about Martin Jeffers. If he’s known, she thought, perhaps he’s been hiding this knowledge for years. She recalled the look of surprise that Martin Jeffers had so quickly concealed when she’d first blurted out her need. Perhaps he’s a killer as well. Perhaps, perhaps. She felt armored by knowledge, weakened by supposition, and realized that she still needed to know more. Facts, she thought. Hard truths. Evidence.

  She shut down the mental debate and slid from her car. After glancing about momentarily, she sauntered across the street toward the apartment. But instead of walking up the front steps, she quickened her pace and trotted around the side of the building. Within a minute she spotted the window, cracked to let in fresh air.

  Don’t hesitate, she said to herself. Just do it.

  She grabbed a metal trash can and thrust it against the side of the house. Then she jumped up on top, throwing the window up in the same moment. She punched in the flimsy screen and jackknifed into the apartment in the same motion, landing like some clumsy waterfowl in a heap on the living room floor.

  She scrambled to her feet and quickly closed the window behind her.

  She had the odd, slightly humorous thought that she’d accomplished a pretty efficient break-in, for a first time. She pictured several dozen assorted burglars and robbers that she’d arrested in her career, and saw them lined up, a rogues’ gallery applauding her. Just one of the guys now, she thought.

  She stared around her and felt a momentary distaste at the haphazard arrangement of clothes and furniture. But the sensation passed quickly.

  She was reminded of visiting John Barren in his freshman year, before they started sharing quarters. She smiled, remembering the socks festering in the corner, the underwear filed in a gray metal filing cabinet along with reading lists and course outlines. At the very least, she’d told him, you could put it in the drawer marked with a U. He’d lived in clutter as well, as if for him it was important to leave the mind unfettered and the surroundings messy. Then she thought that was her memory just being overly kind: that in reality he was just another man who’d become too accustomed to a mother who picked up after him; as if, even though he was away at college, his mother would mysteriously appear and pluck the socks from the corner, delivering them at a later point freshly laundered and rolled. And—she smiled again—he’d been right: It was almost the first damn thing you did. His damn laundry. You gave him a kiss, then there was a quick roll in the sack while his roommates were out, and then you picked up all his dirty clothes and set out for the local laundromat. Women never learn, she thought. She wanted to laugh out loud.

  Then she heard a noise in the hallway and froze in fear.

  Her mind swiftly sorted through perceptions: Was it a voice? The sound of a door being opened? Footsteps? She swallowed hard and concentrated her listening, trying to hear above the sudden throbbing wi
thin her.

  He can’t be back! she thought.

  She pulled the 9 millimeter from her belt and waited stiffly, thinking: I’m crazy. Put the damn gun away. If it’s him, just talk fast. He’ll be angry, but he’ll know why you’re here.

  Instead she leveled the gun at the door and waited.

  She thought suddenly, terrifyingly: It’s the brother!

  She felt overcome by an immense, uncontrollable evil, as if its stench had instantly filled the room like smoke from a fire. Oh, God! He was hiding him here! They’re in it together! It’s him!

  She crouched, trying to still her noisy heart and quaking hand. She demanded toughness of herself, summoning it from within. Her hands steadied. Her breathing became even and patient. She sighted down the barrel of the gun, just as she had toward hundreds of firing-range targets.

  Get him with the first shot, she snarled to herself.

  Go for the chest. That will stop him. Then finish him off with a second shot to the head.

  She closed one eye and took a deep breath. She held it in.

  Then she waited for another noise.

  But there was none.

  She remained in her shooter’s stance. She thought she might be unable to move and that her muscles would never relax. Thirty seconds passed. Then it stretched into a minute. Time seemed elongated by tension.

  But the world was precipitously filled with silence.

  She would not allow herself to breathe, until finally she could hold it in no longer and she released her pent-up breath in a long, low hiss.

  She lowered the gun slowly.

  “There’s no one there,” she whispered out loud. It was reassuring to hear her own voice.

  “You have lost your mind completely,” she continued under her voice. “Now, stop screwing around and find something and get the hell out of here.”

  She gave the bathroom a perfunctory look, then swiftly searched the bedroom. She was not being particularly systematic, she realized, but she also knew that anything Martin Jeffers had that might help her find his brother was not necessarily going to be hidden. Underneath the bed she found two cardboard file boxes filled with personal records. She pulled these out and sat on the floor, reading through them as swiftly as possible. They were mostly income tax forms, loan applications, records from college. She saw that his grades at medical school had been midrange, while in college they had been outstanding. It was as if once he’d arrived at his future, he’d stopped applying himself with the same intensity. That might explain why he was at a state mental hospital, she thought, instead of a Main Street private practice. But that only posed a series of new questions and she threw the papers back into the box, rifling through some more. She came across a certified letter from the state Catholic Charities organization that was a half-dozen years old. Idly, she opened it and read:

  . . . We are unable to provide any information about your natural mother. Although the adoption was between family members, we did handle the paperwork. Unfortunately, when St. Stephen’s Parish burned in 1972, many of the old records that had not been transcribed on microfilm were irretrievably ruined.

  Detective Barren stared down at the letter, thinking how interesting a piece of information it was but not knowing precisely why. She thrust it back and flipped through the remaining papers. There was one letter in an unmistakably feminine handwriting. “Dear Marty,” she read. “I’m sorry, but it’s just not going to work between us . . .” And the rest was maudlin self-recriminations by a woman named Joanne. Detective Barren recognized the style: Say you’re to blame when you know the opposite is the truth. She’d helped a dozen friends write that letter during her teenage years. Her heart jumped and she remembered her niece at age sixteen once calling her with the same request for help.

  She dropped the letter into the box and pulled out a yellowed, brittle copy of a newspaper. It was the Vineyard Gazette from Martha’s Vineyard and it carried an August date from nearly twenty years before. She scanned the front page rapidly; the main headline was: steamship authority reaches agreement on new ferry dock. On the other side, above the fold, there was a picture and story: swordfishing fleet sets one-day record with 21 fish. Next to that, in smaller type, was: Swimming Accident Claims Life of Summer Visitor.

  She glanced at the lead paragraph: “Summer visitor Robert Allen lost his life Tuesday when he was caught in a sudden undertow while swimming off South Beach in the early evening. Police and Coast Guard officials surmised that the businessman from New Jersey struggled against the flood, exhausting himself, and was unable to reach shore after being swept a half mile from the beach.” She was struck by the fact that the man in the story was from New Jersey, but his name was different, and she went on to the next. Butting against that story was: tisbury selectman reject blue law modification proposal.

  She stared at the page for a moment and thought: Maybe there’s something on the inside, and she started to flip through the pages rapidly. Nothing jumped out at her. It was the usual run of summer stories; she was familiar with the style of small-town resort newspapers. Some marriages, agricultural reports, who’s visiting whom, cautious assessments on how many ticks there were in the woods. Warnings about shellfish contamination. Story and pictures of the prizewinning apple pie at the Tisbury Fair. The usual mixture of everyday things. She turned back to the front page and looked at the picture accompanying the swordfish-capture story. It had no credit line. She stared at the composition of the photograph and wondered: Is that his? The eyes of the fishermen seemed to burn on the page, while the dead eye of one of their catch looked out in eerie contrast. It’s his style, she thought. But she was impatient, which she recognized was an awful quality for someone conducting a nonspecific search. She ignored this recognition and dropped the newspaper back into the box. She pushed both cases back under the bed to the locations they’d previously occupied.

  So far, nothing.

  She went into the living room and saw the comforter tossed onto an easy chair. That’s where he slept last night, she thought. If he slept at all.

  She noticed that there was a bunch of magazines littering the floor around the chair. So he tried to get his mind off things. Well, I’m sure it didn’t work. She started to cross the rooms when something struck her about the pile of magazines. She turned and looked back at them.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered. “What is it?”

  She focused on the one magazine dropped in her direction.

  She stared, then chided herself: Out of date. Pay attention, dammit!

  She stepped across and knelt by the pile. She picked up a six-month-old Life. It seemed hot in her hands. She knew what would be inside. She let the magazine waft open and she saw instantly what it was—the by-line leaped out at her: photographs by douglas jeffers. She looked at the page and saw the grainy gray of a picture. It was of an emergency-room physician staring out through the camera in exhaustion. The palpable sense of closeness between the camera and the subject struck her sharply and she had to push the page back.

  I know what he was looking for, she thought. She could see the doctor brother sitting in the chair, looking into the pages, trying to see what the pictures could tell him.

  She quickly spread the magazines about her, searching each for the pictures inside. People and shapes jumped out of the pages, exploding about her.

  But none told her anything she did not know already.

  He’s good, she thought. But we already knew that. We knew he was one of the best.

  But what else is there to see?

  For a moment she felt the same frustration she knew the brother had felt hours earlier. There is so much to see, she thought, but it shows so little.

  She closed the magazines and arranged them in a close approximation of the positions in which she’d found them.

  She complained to herself: Find
something!

  She crossed to the desk and looked down on it and saw the words: Doug’s apartment key. It was so obvious that for an instant she did not realize what she was staring at. Then her hand shot out, as if bidden by something other than her conscious mind, and she seized the envelope. She felt the key inside, and put back her head and barely managed to stifle the cheer welling up inside her. She stuffed the envelope into her pocket, then raised her hands above her head, balling them into fists like an athlete at the moment of victory. The exultation dissipated swiftly in the face of a quick demand for discipline: Get ahold of yourself, she thought angrily. Then, with near panic, she started to look about her: Address, address, I need the address. She looked across the room and spotted a small black book next to the telephone. She jumped to it and flipped it open. The Upper West Side of Manhattan address of the brother stared out in black ink. She looked about for a pen and scrap paper and saw none. She ripped the page from the book.

  Then, feeling flush with heat, she walked to the front door, opened it, and, after looking back briefly, exited the building. She could think of nothing save the electric feeling that the stolen key in her pocket gave off.

  On the street outside the apartment, she passed an elderly lady walking a small dog, carrying an old-fashioned parasol as protection against the rising sun. “Good morning,” the woman said cheerfully.

  “Beautiful day,” replied Detective Barren.

  “But hot,” said the lady. She looked down at the Sheltie panting at the end of the leash. “Dog days,” she said. “Too hot in the summer. Too cold in the winter. Isn’t that the nature of life?”