by Reed Arvin
Boyd looked up briefly, giving Henry the feeling of a moment’s connection. But as before, it passed quickly into an impenetrable void. “We’ve got to check out what’s happened here,” Henry said sharply, “and right away.”
Collier shrugged. “Say you’re right, say somethin’ pushed him. What do you expect me to do about it?”
“I expect you to do your job, damn it. In fact, I’m going with you to make sure you do it. One thing I’m positive of—Boyd’s not dangerous. For all his bluster, he’s perfectly harmless, and you know it. Something, or someone, got to him.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about that.”
“That’s why you’re going to check it out right now, Sheriff, because the first thing in the morning you have the funny farm lined up to take him to a psychiatric hospital. I want to know what’s happened before then, because once they get hold of him I have no doubt he’ll be so drugged the person you see in that cell will no longer exist.”
“You’re actin’ like the man’s lawyer. Which you ain’t.”
Henry looked at Boyd, and saw him looking searchingly into his eyes. “Sheriff,” he said, “I’m going to find out what happened here if it’s the last thing I do. As of this moment I’m representing Raymond Boyd.”
Collier smiled and ran his hand through his thinning hair. “Then I take it you ain’t representin’ the estate no more. Can’t be both, son. I know that much about the law. Conflict of interest. I’ll see to that, since we’re flingin’ threats around here. You’ll be just some low-paid flunky representing an indigent fruitcake. That’d be new territory for you, I imagine. I’d think that over pretty carefully.”
Henry stepped out of the cell and pulled the door shut. “I resigned that position two days ago, Sheriff. You’re behind the times. Now go start your car.”
Collier stared back, a bemused expression on his face. Twenty years of Crandalls had taught him to look after himself. There were forces at work here that the kid knew nothing about, forces that could crush both of them without a thought. But the boy had stuck his oar in things, and set into motion a legal chain of events that followed one another like night followed day. It was goddam annoying. If he didn’t investigate the case properly, the punk would turn it on him and burn him. On the other hand, if he did investigate, his bosses wouldn’t like that. Why, he thought, did Tyler Crandall have to go and die? He picked up his gun and holster, slinging it around his waist. “Hell, let’s go,” he said. “Lemme see if I can get what’s left of this little audience to go home first.”
Collier talked the crowd home, and by waiting a few minutes he and Henry were able to ride out to Custer’s Elm without a public escort of hangers-on. The trip across town was brief, and Henry found himself exhilarated as they drove. He smiled, the first really free smile he had experienced in a long time. Ten minutes later the police cruiser swung into a parking space on the street opposite Boyd’s bench, and the two of them got out and looked around for twenty minutes or so with a couple of Collier’s big police flashlights. Nothing appeared unusual or out of the ordinary, and Collier said at last, “Well, I hope you’re happy. All you’re doin’ is costing me sleep. I’m startin’ to hate this case already, and it’s only the first day.”
Henry, ignoring Collier, stood quietly by the bench, staring into the night. The park was dead quiet, which disturbed Henry, although he wasn’t sure why for a moment. Suddenly he asked, “Where’s the bird?”
“The vulture? How should I know? Asleep, I hope. Or maybe carryin’ babies off into the night.”
Henry gave the sheriff a look of profound irritation. “Are they nocturnal? Do they sleep nights, or what?”
Collier, feeling he had exhausted his expertise on the subject, said nothing. Henry turned suddenly and said, “Come on.”
“I ain’t no taxi service, boy,” Collier replied.
“Where you headin’?”
“We’re going to Boyd’s house,” Henry said. “Right now.”
Collier sighed and walked to the car, getting in after Henry. It was only about ten blocks to Boyd’s place, and soon the cruiser’s headlights streaked across the run-down home, settling on the porch. Henry looked at the house, gasped out a low moaning sound, and turned his face.
Collier, hearing Henry, peered up through the harsh light of the headlights at the house. What he saw made him catch his breath; there, nailed to Boyd’s front door, was the bird. The head had been wrenched horribly, twisted into a disfiguring angle. Each wing was fully extended and a long nail held it in place, hammered into the splintering wood. A large iron spike was run through the center of the bird’s body, pinning it to the door. A pool of blood and body fluids lay collected on the porch below the animal. Henry retched, and Collier whistled. “Shit,” he said quietly, “now that is truly sick.”
Henry closed his eyes and leaned back in the car seat. “Truly personal,” he whispered. “Truly designed to do exactly what it did.”
Collier looked at him. “What does that mean?”
“This was a calculated move, something intended to push Boyd over an already very fragile edge.”
“I don’t like this any better than you do, but if you’re tryin’ to tell me that this is some excuse for what happened tonight, you can kiss my ass, boy. The law’s the law. Boyd’s goin’ up on charges, period.”
Henry took a deep breath and forced his eyes away from the door. There was something transfixing and horrifying about the sight of the bird, once a tyrannical legend in his own life, now so evidently, manifestly dead. It was, in a bizarre way, like Ty; both characters, once so frightening, suddenly finished. “Look, Sheriff,” he said, “that bird was the only thing Raymond Boyd cared about. It was like a child to him. Killing it was an act of inhumane cruelty. You ought to be asking yourself who did this and make finding them your first priority.”
“You’re takin’ me the wrong way, son. I told you I don’t like this, and I meant it. Like I said, I like a quiet town, which is what this place was until that damn will screwed everything up.” He pushed his hat back. “I’ll handle this like any other case. But you’re as crazy as Boyd if you think this means I’m easin’ up on him. And you can forget what you’re thinkin’.”
“And what’s that?” Henry’s irritation was turning into profound dislike.
“You’re thinkin’ it’s Roger Crandall did this, and you’re dead wrong.”
“I wasn’t thinking that. But since you bring it up, what makes you so sure?”
“For starters, because he’s in Topeka, like I already told you. Point is, Roger’s no fool, and everybody in town knows how he feels about the Birdman. Too damn obvious.”
“Everything Roger Crandall does is obvious,” Henry said. “He wouldn’t have given that a thought.” He paused a long moment, and added quietly, “But that doesn’t mean I think he did it. The fact is, it’s not his style.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that when Roger’s pissed off he’s more likely to just haul off and hit somebody. There’s a finesse to this cruelty, something truly diabolical that’s beyond his limited mental faculties. If nothing else, he lacks the imagination to think of it.” He turned to the sheriff. “If, after seeing this, you’re still bringing charges against Boyd, I want you to remand him to my custody. There’s no need for the hospital.”
“If I ever saw somebody who does need a hospital, it’s him,” Collier replied flatly.
“I don’t think so,” Henry said. “Twenty minutes ago you thought you had a dangerous man going off for no reason, a loaded gun. It’s obvious now that Boyd was more than just pushed. He was shoved.”
Collier looked at Henry. “Shoved is still shoved. I don’t give a damn why he’s dangerous. I just care that he is dangerous.”
“Not dangerous,” Henry said, “just crushed inside. Just because he’s a little crazy doesn’t mean he can’t feel pain. Maybe he feels it even more deeply than we do.”
“What do y
ou expect me to do? Just let him go? I can’t do that and you know it. After what happened tonight, if I just let Boyd go I might as well hand in my badge.”
“I want Boyd to get help. I just want it to happen without his being committed.”
“What about the medical care? You expect them to come out here?”
“Yes, I do,” Henry said firmly. “Look, Sheriff, what I want is merely a change of venue. Let your hospital people come here in the morning. Let them do an initial workup on him. But guarantee me that unless it’s absolutely necessary, he won’t be committed. This man lived peacefully for over twenty-five years, not bothering a soul. What he did tonight is completely understandable. I won’t have him locked up in the state hospital. I’ve seen it. It’s whitewashed hell.”
“That’s a hell of a big request, boy. It ain’t psychiatrists gonna be comin’ out in the morning. It’s just the lockups they send in the van.”
“Then we get a psychiatrist to come. Use your head, damn it. For some reason Boyd has found it absolutely essential to spend the past twenty-five years away from people, out in the least congested place in this whole town. Forcing him into a tiny room for the next few years is probably enough to snap whatever cord he has left. If they do that, it won’t make a bit of difference what kind of treatment they give him, because there won’t be anyone left to save. Somewhere there’s a doctor who understands that. Besides, if there is someone else behind this, committing Boyd just gets him out of the way. I don’t want that. I want him very much in the way.”
Collier watched him narrowly, his mind in an unaccustomed effort of concentration. The lawyer was dangerous, and it didn’t look like he was going away. He hated this whole night, and it wasn’t over yet. Neither spoke for a long time. Finally Collier released a short, sardonic burst of laughter. “Hell, you can have him,” he said in a gritty voice. “I’ll let you step in it. But I’ve got a condition—you get nothin’ unless you can get a board-certified doctor out here tomorrow by noon to sign off on it. I gotta have the paperwork or it’s my ass. Till then he stays where he is. But if he does get released to you, that don’t mean I can’t change my mind. If I hear one thing out of that nut, I’m sending him away to the padded room, and I don’t give a damn what anybody says.”
“He’ll be fine.”
The sheriff gave him a sideways glance. “Ain’t his safety I’m worried about,” he said dryly. “But that’s your problem. You wake up with an ax in your back, I’ll be glad to handle your funeral arrangements.”
“Thanks, that’s a real comfort.”
Collier started the engine. “Let’s go,” he said. “If we’re lucky, maybe Boyd will have killed himself while we were gone. Then I can get some sleep.”
Henry drove to the Flinthills Motel, woke up the owner, and checked in. There were only two other cars, and the parking lot looked forlorn under the glare of harsh streetlamps. He dropped his bag on the bed and looked out the picture window of his motel room. A shallow haze of orange was just forming to the east, coalescing into light. He stared at his watch; it was after five. He would need to sleep, if only for an hour or two. He pulled out a travel alarm, put it on the nightstand near his ear, and lay down, fully clothed, on top of the bed. At six-thirty it went off, and he rose, surprisingly alert. He was hungry, and rummaging through his briefcase yielded a bag of peanuts and a granola bar. He devoured them and calculated when he could call Amanda. He showered, and at seven he dialed her number. The instant she answered he could feel her still sleeping.
“Amanda, this is Henry.”
“Mmm.”
“Henry Mathews. Sorry to wake you.”
A pause, and her voice was more alert. “Henry? It’s okay, my alarm was just about to go off. Where are you?”
“I’m in Council Grove. I’ve got news.” There was a rustling of sheets; he could hear her sitting up in bed.
“You’re supposed to be in Chicago.”
“Raymond’s in jail.”
He could feel her catch her breath. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story, and we don’t have time to go into that right now.”
“We?”
“Look, I know this is a presumption, but I could really use some help.”
“You helped me. Seems fair.”
“Helped you, then left town.”
“You couldn’t help that. Or maybe you could, since you’re back. I don’t know what’s happened to you or Raymond. Neither one of you is where you’re supposed to be.”
“I’ll fill you in on both of us when I see you. Can you get away today?”
“I can get away for the week. My office would probably pay you to get me out of their hair.”
“All right. Then do you feel like a new cause?”
There was still a trace of early-morning husk in her voice. “I love causes.”
“Then meet me at the sheriff’s office at about ten.”
“No problem.”
“And I need you to do something in the meantime. Unless I can get a psychiatrist out here to declare Raymond safe for polite society, the sheriff is going to have him carted off to the state hospital and nothing much will matter after that. I need a sympathetic man, not a government robot, and I need him by noon. Can you help?”
“Do I seem like I’d know a lot of psychiatrists?”
Henry smiled. “Well, you don’t appear to play well with your classmates. It was just a guess.”
“Hate to disappoint you. But I have a friend who’s a nurse. I can ask her.”
“That will have to do. Just tell her we need somebody with some humanity, will you?”
“All right. I can’t make any promises, but we’ll see. And, Henry . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know what’s happened, but I’m glad you’re back.”
“I’m glad, too. And I don’t know what’s happened, either.”
To pray seemed unlikely, at a minimum. He hadn’t prayed in . . . well, not much since his parents’ accident, and not at all since law school. There had been the railing against God for a short time, the angry, Job-like questions that turned quickly into stilted recriminations. Then, like the quiet after a storm, his soul had settled into a silent disbelief. The bomb had been dropped, and the patient was terminal. Now, against all odds, there were signs of life once again.
It could never be like it had been, that he realized absolutely. It could never be the kind of faith that asked no questions and believed blindly. He could never take his requests to the God of his childhood, that imaginary beast, half ogre, half heavenly honey bear. He never knew whether to be terrified of that God or to beg Him for treats, like a puppy. That was gone forever. But a tremor of something else moved very quietly within, a vibration that he was tempted to quell before it developed pitch and voice.
To open that door again. To believe . . . if not in the earlier God, then in what or in whom? In an amorphous God, a blind force of nature? In a karmic accountant who dealt benevolently or harshly based on a scale of worthiness? None seemed alive to him, none worthy of taking the enormous personal risk of believing again. Behind them all, there was a suspect, however; moving still in shadows, not of evil but of stupendous, incomprehensible politeness, a God who could somehow wait in utter silence—as if dead or never having lived—and then, in a web of events so complex and interconnected they were beyond comprehension, begin to move, to gently push and prod and unveil Himself. This God could, perhaps, be prayed to. A God not on the end of a chain but on and in the synapses of his very brain, behind everything and in everything and more enormous than he had ever imagined.
It was short, in the end, this reopening of communication. There was no ritual, no bowing of the head, no bending of knee. After five years of silence, Henry’s first utterance into the invisible space surrounding him was little more than a Morse code of a prayer, a short collection of letters that spelled out only two words: “Help Raymond.”
Seeing her was different from hea
ring her. He watched her come across the street from her car and once again liked her walk: it was strong, but feminine, with a subdued, comfortable sexuality. She was dressed casually, in pants and a collared shirt that merely hinted at her figure. She smiled, the sweetly crooked line of her mouth curving upward, a welcome flaw in an otherwise charming face. He bussed her cheek, feeling the warmth of her skin against his own. There was a flush of attraction, but he pushed it away. “Right where I left you,” he said.
“I think you have that backward. I have news.”
“It’s good, obviously. The smile doesn’t go with disappointment.”
She nodded. “Dr. T. R. Harris. Shrink to the downtrodden, apparently. My friend says he’s wonderful, and he’s on his way.” She grasped his hand momentarily, then let go. He took her fingers back into his own.
“There’s a lot to tell you,” he said. “But at least the part about me can wait, if you can.”
“After we see Raymond. Then tell me everything.”
The two crossed Chautauqua, passed by the Trailside Diner, and walked into Sheriff Collier’s office. Collier glanced up at Amanda, and Henry pointedly declined to introduce her. “How’s my client?” he asked. “Anything happen while I was gone?”
Collier put down his cup of coffee with languorous deliberation, as if thinking over an important crime strategy. He pulled on a chain that snaked from his right front pocket, and a huge set of keys popped out. “Birdman’s had a quiet morning,” he said. “He paced for the first few hours, which didn’t bother me none.”
