by Melanie Finn
“The cases are not related. Totally separate incidents of male dickery.”
The Franconia Notch is grand geology, slicing between the steep ski runs of Cannon Mountain and the bulky high-rise of Mt. Lafayette. The White Mountains prickle outward, wilder and steeper to the north, more subdued to the south, where they cede to the suburban outflow of greater Boston. Rose always felt she’d entered another country here — Norway or Scotland — especially when the mists crowded the mountain tops. Fens, she would think, fjords, and just beyond, down a lonely track, there’d be a hamlet where few people spoke an English she could understand, there’d be old men with crooks and glasses of whiskey in a pub.
The road syphoned into one lane, there was no shoulder, so the girl wouldn’t have stopped here, Rose surmised, she’d have forced her crappy, broken car on, begging her vehicle, chugging and spluttering, and then she’d have seen the exit for the Mt. Lafayette trailhead.
Rose imagined she was the girl, there was no cell reception here. At first, she parked right by the rangers’ station, under the bright security light, but then she decided she’d try to get some sleep even though it was cold. Maybe the girl had something else in the car to keep her warm, a thrift-store coat, a borrowed jacket. Her failing car crabbed to a far corner of the parking lot where it was darkest and the girl turned the engine off.
How quiet, even in this mid-summer mid-afternoon, Rose thought as she sat in her own car. The parking lot was full of cars, but most of the hikers were still out for the day. A family of four was arguing as they stood around the open hatchback of their SUV. The sky was reduced to a slice between the shouldering mountains, it was deeply shadowed already. The river, running fast just beyond a narrow stand of woods, drowned out the sound of the highway. At night, here, it must have been fiercely dark. But also, the girl might have found it peaceful, accepting defeat with the stars above and the wild river beside. She let go of the struggle, of the mess of her life and hassle of the car, she’d just wait until the morning and deal with it then.
A flock of blue jays startled Rose, shrieking out of the thick copse of spruce. She watched them vanish again, toward the river. That night, heads tucked, feathers fluffed against the mountain cold, they’d have heard when the girl arrived, the riotous midnight noise of her broken car. They’d have listened to see if it concerned them, this matter from the world of men, and as it did not, they’d turned back to sleep.
Maybe the girl did manage to sleep, a jagged dozing. The headlights from another car woke her. Or maybe the man did, already there, slipping into the seat beside her because she’d forgotten to lock the doors. Slipping in the seat beside her, slippery as oil.
Getting out of the car, Rose perused the perimeter of the parking lot, and at last she found what she was looking for: a torn ribbon of police tape. A sharp note of victory — she was right, this was the place. In the woods, she could see the trampled ground and even a coffee cup — some litterbug cop. The girl hadn’t got far, 50 yards out of her car, sprinting into the darkness, shouting for help, and the jays heard and the man heard, but there was no one else.
How did he kill her? Did he rape her first? She had the idea that men who raped wanted women to carry the knowledge of rape with them as they lived on. Rape was like a tattoo, like a branding. No, she thought, the girl wasn’t raped, she was just scared, she suddenly wanted her life more than anything, the dull days, the angry bills, the anxious dawns — suddenly, these were beautiful and glimmering. The girl had stumbled, the smell of pine needles, the taste of earth as if this were a summer picnic, she saw the sinewy roots of the dark trees, the gracious curve, and she grabbed on. Persephone. Beyond her, the inky river hurried by, the fat trout slumbering in the eddies.
And suddenly Rose wondered about Bennett. If he’d understood, just for a moment, that she was killing him.
“Some lady here to see you.” Nick swung open the door.
It was PI Di. She nodded at Rose. “Sorry to bother you at work.” She wasn’t sorry at all, she was determined, she wanted Rose to know this.
“Have a seat.” Rose gestured to an empty chair near her desk.
Diane sat. “This won’t take long.” Which made it sound like an unpleasant medical exam.
“Did you find Bennett?”
“I think we both know I didn’t.”
I think Rose noted, and suddenly wondered if they were lovers, her daughter and this woman. Perhaps Miranda had been gay for years and her decision to have a child by IVF wasn’t the lack of a decent man, as Rose had supposed, but her dislike of them entirely.
Then Diane went on, barely able to contain her self-satisfaction. “Some new information has come to light.”
“Has it?”
“I intend to search the house where you live.”
The awkward wording had been carefully chosen. Rose grew alert. “Don’t you need a search warrant or something?”
“I just need the home owner’s permission.” Diane was pleased with herself.
“Why would I give you permission?”
“You don’t know, do you?”
Rose waited for what was about to come. The other shoe on the millipede.
“The house isn’t yours.”
The smile twitched as Diane proudly unfolded a piece of paper — a child with a gold star on her book report — and slid it across the table. It was the title deed. Rose read the owner’s name: Barbara Elizabeth Kinney.
Not Bennett Edward Kinney. Rose almost laughed. Yet she did not touch the paper, she knew her hands would shake.
“I’ve been in touch with Barbara. She’s his sister in Kennebunkport,” Diane said. “I’m meeting with her next week.”
“Why?”
“Why? I’m sure she’d like to know what happened to her brother. I’m sure she’ll give her blessing for a warrant.”
Rose kept her voice steady: “What do you expect to find in the house?”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s nothing.”
“Then we’ll find nothing.”
“Mice.”
“Then we’ll find mice.”
How badly Diane wanted to defeat her, as if they were competing for Miranda’s love. “Diane,” she said carefully. “Do you have some other motive?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re trying to prove something, personally, to my daughter.”
Diane leaned back, shook her head with full intent to condescend: “I’m a professional private investigator. I’ve been hired by Miranda Kinney to find out what happened to her father.”
“Then why do you ask all these questions about who he was?”
“In my experience — which I must tell you is extensive — who the person was is usually connected to what happened to them.”
Your experience. Oh, couldn’t Di see her own self, projected forward in time with the magic time app? What would it be? A dead child, infertility, depression, brain cancer? Or maybe just Miranda. Miranda will run back and forth over Diane’s heart like a power-sander. Poor you, Rose thought, you still have extensive experience to happen to you. “Bennett liked Miles Davis.”
“Miles Davis?”
“Maybe that says something about him. The kind of man who likes Miles Davis. Personally, I can’t stand it.”
“Maybe Miles Davis killed him,” Diane said.
“Maybe.”
They regarded each other in silence.
“Something happened in May 1993,” Diane said at last. “I’ll find out what.”
“And that’s the crux, is it? The moment that defined Bennett Kinney was some hour in May decades ago? Not all the shit trailing behind him, a leaky sewage truck spewing through the years. Let me tell you, Diane, in my extensive experience, people seldom get the end they deserve. It’s completely random. Bennett probably slipped on a banana peel and, bam! Instant death. Or, yes, he’s running a writer’s workshop in Iowa under a phony name with phony credentials telling his bullshit story about Truman Capote. And the
y all think he’s wonderful.”
Standing now, Diane leaned in. “His mother did commit suicide. He was 21.”
“How?”
“Cut her wrists.” Turning away from Rose, moving through her shoulders with a swagger of assurance, Diane left the title deed on the desk. At the last moment, she made one last riposte: “Miranda’s just trying to find out about her dad. That’s all.”
Through the slatted blinds, Rose watched Diane walk to her car. She was swinging her keys, she drove a Jeep Wrangler, black with tinted windows, she slipped on her shades. Dad. Had Miranda used that word? Not father, the remote giver of genetic material. But Dad. Dadadad. Dad to give whiskery kisses and fix a broken bike, Dad to stand between a girl and the leering men of the world.
Glancing down at the deed, Rose studied the name. Barbara Elizabeth. She knew if she compared it to the deed Bennett had given her, she’d see a faint outline of Wite-out perhaps an unevenness in the letters where Bennett had typed his own name — Bennett Edward over Barbara Elizabeth.
Boomerang Bennett.
Which would be worse for Miranda? The cops finding her father in the cellar, his skull with a bullet hole? Or realizing that he’d been there all along, buried in the earth, a dozen feet beneath the kitchen table where she’d done her homework and blown out the candles on her birthday cakes? Rose’s mouth filled with saliva. Stop the ruckus, stop the noise. She swallowed hard and did a Google search.
As Miranda herself had said: You can find people these days, there’s always a trace.
Barbara Elizabeth Kinney. A registered Republican. Kennebunkport, ME.
“You OK?” Nick was hovering.
Rose turned, smiled. “Fine, yup.”
“Who was that?”
“A private investigator, actually.”
He leaned on her desk, an antidote to Diane. “You a dangerous criminal, Rose?”
Then Bob’s voice came on over the intercom. “When you two have finished your tea party, Nick, we’re going to have to lock down shed 4, there’s an eye infection. Nasty.”
Ignoring him, Nick whispered to Rose: “He’s such a dick.”
She whispered back, “What qualities make someone, specifically, a dick?”
“That is a good question, Rose. Dick versus asshat.”
“Asshat is not my generation.”
“Asshat is an asshole who’s also stupid. You know, maybe they can’t help it, being low IQ.”
“And dick? What defines someone as a dick?”
“A dick, Rose, a dick will go out of his way to fuck you over.”
“It’s about intention, then.”
“Exactly. A dick plans, a dick means what he does.”
Was this the final verdict, then? Bennett had been a dick? Dickery, Fornier had coined a word. But dickery didn’t begin to describe the extent of his deception, the pathology of his lies. If she was a murderer, so was he. And it mattered, surely, the innocence of the victim, as much as the intention of the murderer. Billy had walked across the field, burning with indignation and toughness and her desire to protect Rosie and Miranda — her family. Bennett laughed at her — You don’t even know who Ezra Pound is. I used to visit him in the insane asylum and we’d play cribbage — and his greasy bullshit lies slid right down the silver armor of Billy’s love. She had challenged him, and he’d simply taken something — a skillet, a bottle, a hammer — and smashed in her head. The way he’d driven over a body in the road and kept going. This was the man Miranda was so set on finding out about.
Suddenly, from Bob’s office, the wild blaring of an air horn. Rose and Nick looked over and he let off another blast.
Nick whispered: “I’m planning my escape, Rose. Gonna light out for the territories. You wanna ride shotgun?” He gave her a quick smile, but his voice had held an odd tremor. Of panic or despair. Or something worse, for she recognized the pusillanimity.
Perhaps Andy had done it this way, perhaps Bob himself — though Rose doubted he had the cunning. The accounts were like a cave system in porous rock, full of corners and pockets in which to hide or get lost. She transferred small amounts from four different accounts, crossing the transactions with other transactions so that a cursory glance would give the impression of balance. She took several larger amounts from Bob’s personal account, shifting money back into the account, then out again, winnowing it into the accounts payable. From this she made cash withdrawals over five days, amounts that mirrored amounts she paid by check for actual invoices. On the statements, the transactions would look like self-corrected bank errors, and the accounts would show that the money was still there. In total, she had stolen $13,497.50.
She counted this out at her kitchen table, stacks of hundreds, the 20s, the smaller bills, the change. And put it into a brown paper bag. One day they might come for her, they might hunt her down, but she would be hard to find, an invisible middle-aged woman living a quiet life under a different name, Betty or Sue. One day she’d find a way to tell Miranda, explain: this was the choice I made, the choices, I made them with the best data available to me at the time, I made them because of everything already stored in the museum of my cells, I made them because of you.
The night was warm, Rose decided to stay awake, to be with herself — Rosie-Rose, the last night of her sentence. The prisoner did eventually grow accustomed to the prison; and, even to feel affection for the inanimate objects within it. The house had kept her dry and mostly warm, it had at least sheltered her from the storms. At the kitchen table, she had fed Miranda for 18 years; the rich venison, the wild forage, the day-old bread, the discount vegetables — misshapen or bruised, but in sufficient quantities so that the child grew tall and strong and bold. There had never been hunger at this table.
Thank you, table.
The bed Rose had slept in, Hook once curled warm and snoring at her feet, expanding in the night so that Rose was crowded to one side and the dog splayed out in comfort. Rose was used to that bed, the slant to the left, the sink-hole mattress. The bed had molded itself around her body like a sarcophagus. Rose knew — there was one certainty: she did not want to die an old woman in that bed. She was grateful, though, for the sleep she’d had. Thank you, wonky bed. Thank you, cool sheets and warm blankets and lumpy pillows. The chair by the stove: Miranda used to sit on her lap, they’d wrap themselves in blankets, and Rose would read — Goodnight Moon, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Treasure Island, The Hobbit. There had been a pivot — no, rather a slow arc through a series of points on a graph, and Miranda had sat on her lap less, she’d been too big, too heavy. Miranda’s need for affection was replaced by the desire for individuation; childhood was one long trajectory away from the womb. And Rose had let her go, that was the great proof of mother love — the relinquishing. One day, Miranda would learn that, too.
The stove. Rose put her hand upon the cast iron beastlet. It was cold, hibernating through the summer. No one would use it again, no one would notice the design crafted by a 19th century Vulcan on the sides — along the ribs; and the elegant handle, rounding into the palm with the ergonomic and perfect design of a bone into a socket.
Stove — she began:
Stove,
You have kept me alive. Cold winter storms, colder springs — you kept me bodily warm. You could be relied upon, mute and stolid. If I tended you as you required, you always bloomed back your warmth. You did not fail, the failing was always mine: damp wood, insufficient kindling, my haste. You taught me to value the steady.
Goodbye, dear Stove. Thank you.
Absurdly, her eyes were tearing. The stove, an inanimate conglomeration of molecules, made no reply, did not arch its back to her touch as beloved Hook had done. But perhaps — perhaps, something of her life was embedded within its atoms after all. Who really had the final say about life’s energy — not just movement, construction and destruction — but what was felt with intensity, what energy came out through the pores of the skin and into the air. The residue of love and hate, despair and hope,
and the vast steeps in between these treacherous antipodes — perhaps drifted, alighted, and was absorbed. Why not? Why not consider the air filled with the invisible pollen of emotion? Why not consider the absorbency of every object, flesh or earth or steel or wood? And the re-spooring, out again, out-out — like downy seeds, Nature’s relentless recycling through different forms, perhaps transforming even the densest hate and grief into something digestible, restorative.
She put the matches she used to light the stove in her pocket.
And she thought of the young couple renovating Billy’s house and barn. She wanted them to bring noise and children and chaos into it, for the garden to bloom and surge. There should be laughter again in this quiet valley in the lee of the mountain.
Goodbye.
In her hand she held the green Lanvin dress and slipped it over her head. She was too fat for it, across the back, the zipper wouldn’t rise. But it still fit her smoothly across the hips. The glorious color, the filmy texture — in a sense, her trousseau.
And then she stepped outside.
To the woodshed where she found a red plastic container of fuel for the chain saw. From this position, she saw the house before her. It was like a Wyeth painting: a sense of unease pinned the beauty like a moth so that her eye didn’t simply slide over the easy prettiness, but was drawn in, fascinated by the mystery that waited within. Rumors, stories were like the chipped paint and the cracked windows, so much a part of the place. Life had happened here. Death, too. Not just during her tenure, but for nearly two centuries.
Rose went back into the house, down into the basement. She stood on Bennett’s grave. He would be bones now. Maybe little bits of mummified skin. Teeth. A few strands of hair. But he was nothing else, not a ghost, not a spirit, neither guilt nor sadness.
Looking around for a rag, she didn’t see any on hand, so she tore off the hem of the Lanvin dress and stuffed one end into the neck of the fuel container and lit the other with the matches. The silk burned slowly but surely. Nothing that a match and a gallon of gasoline won’t fix, Bob had said. Well, on this occasion, Bob was right. Thank you, Bob.
