A Conspiracy of Fear

by Mark Zubro

  Peter Fulham had been a good looking kid. His mother would have won beauty contests. His father was a tall, hirsute man. There was Peter when he must have been in his early teens with the damn belt buckle. In the photo he and his brothers and his dad were gathered around a Model-T Ford which was up on blocks. They all had the belt buckle.

  At the back of the fourth album was a half-inch-thick stack of photos and clippings from newspapers. The pictures all showed views of Peter Fulham in baseball uniforms, the stories about games he pitched in.

  “How did these get here?” I asked.

  “My best guess is his mother went to a great deal of trouble. Certainly they aren’t from all of his games. They’re from different cities and different years. The most logical explanation is she followed his career. It was possible back then to go to the AP and UPI wires at the newspaper office in town and ask for articles on things, and perhaps she wrote to the newspapers or maybe she had friends in different cities. Martha was a chatty person. I think she loved her son although I never got the chance to talk to her about him.”

  “But she never got in touch with Peter.”

  “No, she’d have never gone against her husband. Not openly. I tried to ask my husband and in-laws about Peter. They wouldn’t talk to me about him. I didn’t even know he existed until one of the younger ones noted the name in the sports news. Lots of famous people with namesakes of course, but a couple of the kids began checking records. There was a Peter Fulham born here. I’ve seen the birth certificate. I have it if you’d like to see it.”

  She opened a drawer in a sideboard and withdrew a manila envelope. She sat back down and handed it to me. “It’s just a copy.” She sipped more tea. “He’s not quite famous enough for the town to want to make him a tourist attraction, and there’s opposition from some of the old guard, but as they die off and the desperation for tourism grows, who knows? Maybe if he’d made it into the Hall of Fame that might have made a difference.”

  I said, “Supposedly he didn’t because he’s gay.”

  “The rumor he’s gay has been around.”

  “You know from who or where?”

  “It’s just been around for years.”

  “You said you asked questions. What happened when you did that a long time ago?”

  “We learned not to ask when my husband and in-laws were around. The kids were careful and none of the old folks noticed, or if they did, they didn’t say anything. Mostly they worked hard on their farms.”

  “What did Millicent find out? I’d really like to talk to her.”

  “She was the most persistent about asking questions. She made her grand uncle, my cousin-in-law George Junior, furious one Thanksgiving. She almost got banished from the house. The adults argued. I defended my granddaughter, but I was an in-law, not of the precious Fulham stock, as they put it. They were protecting what they thought was their family good name.”

  “Or themselves from what they’d done to their brother.”

  She leaned forward. “What did they do?”

  I retreated. “He must have left for some reason.”

  She gave me a piercing look. “They drove him out.” She could make shrewd guesses.

  I said, “It was a difficult time for all. I’d like to talk with more of the family.”

  “I’ll keep trying my granddaughter. She’s in the fields driving a tractor. They make them turn off their cell phones when working with heavy farm equipment. A kid got distracted with a phone a few years ago and lost an arm. You could try the feed store. They gather there on Saturdays sometimes, but be careful. They can be an unfriendly bunch to strangers. Malcolm runs it. He’s the son of Peter’s brother George. I’ll call ahead for you.”

  I thanked her for the tea, her time, the information, and left.

  I got into the car and dictated notes using my app on the phone. With my phone I’d taken pictures of a few of Mildred’s photos as well. One of them had shown Fulham with a group of young guys outside what looked like the Grand Avenue entrance to the old Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis. Scott knows how I love baseball and has given me several books with pictures of old parks. I’d recognized that one when Mildred showed it to me. That picture was from Peter’s mother’s collection of articles and didn’t have any names on the back.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Saturday - 5:01 P.M.

  I headed to Fulham’s Feed Store on Highway 61 out of town going north.

  I took one step into the establishment and stopped. The wall opposite was filled with racks of guns. A whippet thin man wearing bib overalls was behind the counter. I guessed he was in his seventies. I wondered if that rangy cowboy look was passed down to all the Fulham men. He had a three day growth of heavy beard.

  I said, “I’m looking for Malcolm Fulham.”

  He nodded. “You found him.”

  The tone of his voice was clipped, short, and mean.

  I began. “I talked to Mildred.”

  He cut me off. “You’re the fag from back east who’s trying to get sympathy for my pansy uncle. Fuck him. He didn’t belong here.”

  “What story did they tell you about why he left so long ago?”

  “They ran him out of town when he was a kid. Good riddance.”

  “Who told you the story?”

  “We all know the story. You should leave.”

  “If he writes an autobiography, wouldn’t you want your side told?”

  “Nobody around here will believe his bullshit. He turned his back on this town.”

  “I thought he got run out of town.”

  “Only right thing to do.”

  “And it was someone here who sought him out after all these years.”

  “That was my idiot sister-in-law’s granddaughter who actually started all this. You can try to talk to anyone you want, but no one wants to talk to you. You might get a few old ladies who are soft hearted, but that’s all. You should leave.”

  I gave up on the feed store and Malcolm.

  I turned back south to begin the journey over the prairie to the airport. As I got to the town’s only stop and go light that I’d seen so far, a Farthingdale police cruiser pulled in behind me. I drove a half block. I passed a candy store with a few cars in front of it, a Laundromat, then Hugo’s bar, and finally, the pockmarked marquee for the closed Majestic movie theater which advertised a revival meeting for next Sunday.

  Another half block and the police cruiser’s lights began to swirl. He beeped his horn and stayed behind me. I pulled to the curb. Over his loudspeaker he said, “Stay in your car.”

  I wondered what I’d done wrong and then wondered if I’d stepped into the Nebraska version of the movie Mississippi Burning. Yes, I know it’s paranoid. I had my phone out to record anything that happened. The tall, lean cop wore a belt with the belt buckle. He looked to be in his mid-forties. He swaggered up to my window. I rolled it down.

  “Turn off your engine.” He was chewing gum and wore mirrored sunglasses. Or maybe the movie Cool Hand Luke.

  I turned off the engine.

  “What’s the problem officer?”

  His name tag said Fulham.

  “The mayor would like to see you.”

  “He can’t pick up a phone and call?”

  “Nobody can find your number.” The curse of being unlisted. “Follow me.”

  We drove three blocks to a ranch style home on a tree-lined street.

  Why the hell did the mayor care that I existed? Unless Malcolm at the feed store was wrong and people did want to talk to me, or I was about to be lynched. Scott would say I was letting my paranoia run away with me.

  I entered a living room. Two men stood in the middle of a blue shag carpet. The taller one said, “I’m Mayor Fulham.” He indicated the other man. “This is my brother Alfred.” He turned to the cop who stood next to me. “This is our Chief of Police, my son, Dave.”

  The mayor looked like Hawthorne’s description of Roger Chillingworth. He was slightly deformed with one s
houlder higher than the other with a well-wrinkled face. Alfred looked equally as ancient, as thin as every Fulham male I’d seen so far, but his shoulders were even. And they both wore one of those stupid belt buckles.

  The mayor continued, “We’re the sons of George Fulham, Peter’s younger brother.”

  On the long wall there was a large picture of sports-Jesus playing basketball. Another wall had a vast series of pictures, floor to ceiling, front to back. The ones at the top left were in black and white and seemed to be the oldest. About the middle were ones centered on a farmhouse surrounded by mounds of dust. They continued down to the lower right and ended with a family photo of at least fifty people in modern dress.

  A picture window looked out on the green lawn. Sprinklers sprouted every six feet along the edges.

  The living room set looked purchased from an IKEA catalogue. I was not invited to sit nor was I offered a beverage.

  In a high, reedy voice, Mayor Fulham said, “You’ve been asking questions about Peter.”

  I said, “You know he was wounded in that shooting in Chicago.”

  “I’m afraid there has been very little contact between Peter and the family for many years.”

  “He asked me to help him with his autobiography. I’m here checking, trying to get some background.”

  “I’m sure he’s old and not remembering things well.”

  “Perhaps there are family stories about him.”

  “Maybe someday we’ll put up a statue to him. He was a baseball player after all.” He cleared his throat. “We don’t want you bothering people. You should leave town. These are family value issues that are not for airing in public.”

  “I think Peter plans to have a significant section in his book about his family.”

  “It will all be lies.”

  “We’re still in the process of constructing it. Wouldn’t you want to get your part of the story told?”

  “We only care what we think.”

  I tried anyway. “What happened the night he was run out of town?”

  “Justice was served.”

  “Is that what you were told or were you given details?”

  “He got what was coming to him.”

  “A mob of teenagers trying to kill another teenager. His own brothers?”

  “Sensible youngsters trying to protect themselves from a contagion.”

  “Did they think they’d catch being gay from him?”

  “There’s no story here. You need to leave and stay out. This town doesn’t need this kind of publicity.”

  I said, “Certainly Peter’s version of the truth is going to become known. I’d like to hear all sides.”

  “We have nothing to tell and have done nothing to be ashamed of. Those involved, my father and his brothers, and their friends did what they needed to do.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Run him out of town. If we need to do that to you, we will do so.”

  “This is America in the twenty-first century. You cannot suspend time and truth at your whim.”

  “That’s exactly what we do in our town, play with time and truth in the way we see fit.”

  “Then it is a time warp and is no longer truth.”

  He quoted, “And what is truth said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer.”

  “You don’t want to give your version of events?”

  “There is no version. Get out of town.”

  I thought it would be useless to remind him that it was a free country. In this part of rural America it was free for those who had the status and power.

  I asked, “Where’d you get the belt buckle?”

  He glanced down. “Who cares about the stupid belt buckle? They’ve been in the family for years. Leave.”

  I got stern looks from them as I walked out.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Saturday – 7:06 P.M.

  I was an hour and a half on my way south, about a half a mile past the last house in Hyannis, when a beat up black Ford pickup truck pulled out of a dirt road and slid in behind me. It began to tailgate. When I picked up speed, it stayed a foot from my rear bumper.

  Playing tag with some truck in rural Nebraska struck me as kind of pointless. They knew the territory. I was in a rental, but even if I was in Scott’s Porsche, I wasn’t a racecar driver.

  At the first crossroads, little more than a dirt road, without signaling and slowing only at the last second, I turned right and came to a stop a few feet off the road. I parked next to a wind-torn tree that was the tallest thing from me to the horizon in all directions.

  I heard the screech of the truck’s brakes. I glanced back. It had fishtailed and ended up sideways in the middle of the road. The driver did a K maneuver and turned down the dirt road. He pulled up ten feet from me.

  I looked around. It felt like the scene in North by Northwest when Cary Grant was in Indiana. Flat, desolate with no other traffic visible. No airplanes. Yet.

  A man and a woman jumped out of the truck’s cab. I watched them in my rear view mirror. On closer inspection as they neared me, the two people looked like kids, maybe in their last year of high school at most. The two of them gave feeble waves as they approached my car. They didn’t look lethal. I didn’t see any guns. I shut off the car, got out, and stood with my butt resting on the driver’s side door.

  Up close, they were well scrubbed and blond. The boy had brush-cut hair with freckles and zits pocking his face. He wore scuffed brown cowboy boots, a tight, much-washed, grease-stained T-shirt and faded wrangler jeans on a lanky frame. The tight jeans clung to his crotch and hinted at a basket of some heft. She wore a plaid shirt, baggy shorts, and pink cowboy boots. Her blonde hair was tucked up under a Western hat.

  When they got ten feet from me, they stopped. The boy leaned his head down and shuffled his feet. He kicked up a small cloud of dust. He said, “I gotta talk to you.” He glanced up and down the road. No traffic. “Not here.”

  My hammering heart was just starting to slow down. I said, “No, here. Now. You scared the hell out of me.”

  He mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

  The girl looked exasperated.

  I wanted to admonish them like someone’s cranky grandfather ‘you idiots, what did you think would happen when you chase someone you’ve never met down a rural highway? Did you think they’d welcome you with open arms?’ but I’ve been with Scott a long while, and he’s taught me patience and to swallow my anger. Well, at least I’m better than I used to be.

  The kid glanced up for a second then hung his head again. “Sorry.”

  I drew a deep breath. “Who are you?”

  “Derek Fulham, I’m a great-grand-nephew of Peter Fulham. I know you’re in town talking to people.”

  An eighteen-wheeler rumbled by on the rural two-lane highway.

  The girl said, “I’m Millicent, Mildred’s granddaughter, great-grand-niece of Peter. I’m the one you talked to. I brought Derek along because, well.” She looked at the boy and tapped her foot on the ground.

  He wiped his hands on his jeans, put them on his narrow hips, stood straighter. He blurted and then he babbled. “I’m gay. I think it would be so cool if Uncle Peter was gay. It’s so cool to meet you and talk to you. I read everything on the Internet about Mr. Carpenter and you. You guys are like heroes.”

  He blushed very red and caught my eyes for the first time. “Are you guys okay? I saw your names connected with the attack in Chicago.”

  He looked at the bandage on the side of my head. While as bandages go, it wasn’t that big; nonetheless, it was where a bandage is noticeable. He continued, “Is Mr. Carpenter going to pitch again? I hope so. I want to go to a game where he pitches. That would be so cool.”

  I said, “We’re both fine, thank you. If you get to a town where he is pitching, I will get you tickets.” I took a card out of my wallet for Scott’s publicist and handed it to him. I’d give Weston a heads up for a possible call. The publicist did this kind of thing for us.<
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  “Wow, you can do that?”

  “Sure.”

  Millicent pointed at me. “He’s here to find out stuff about Peter. I just turned my cell phone back on a little bit ago and got the message and called my grandma. I called Derek, and we found out you left town.” She drew a deep breath. “My parents would kill me if they knew I was talking to you.”

  Derek said, “Mine would kill me too.”

  Millicent continued, “Except Grandma, the whole family is mad at me. They call it stirring up all this trouble.”

  “What trouble?”

  “That’s the thing. There hasn’t been any. I just asked questions, and people got really mad.”

  I said, “Your grandmother was a big help.”

  “She knows all that family history shit.”

  I said, “How’d it come about that you know about Peter?”

  “There was an old family Bible from great-great-grandma’s time with a list of names. I saw Peter’s and asked if he’d died. I got a lot of strange conflicting stories. I listened carefully to what people said. I began to put bits and pieces together.”

  Derek interrupted, “There were a lot of old stories that seemed to follow Uncle Peter around.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  Millicent looked peeved while Derek said, “That the Fulham brothers would do nutty stuff. Play chicken on the train tracks to see who could be the last to jump out of the way.”

  “You can’t believe all the shit this family tells. It’s a history of lies.”

  I wondered if that’s what I’d been listening to since Peter Fulham began his story before the massacre. All this old history, what difference did it make? Unless it drove people to new crimes.