A Penny for the Hangman

by Tom Savage

  Chapter Two

  Karen gazed out of the canopied, open-air tour bus as it rattled along, delighted by the smiling people and vivid Caribbean scenery. Some of the natives waved to the people in the bus, and the tourists waved back. Interspersed among the tropical splendors were occasional strip malls and shopping centers of glass and cement and aluminum siding, fronted by asphalt parking lots and all-too-familiar signs: McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Kmart, Cost-U-Less. Many changes had come to the island since the time of the Harper/Anderman affair. Hardly surprising, she mused; in those fifty years, the population of the U.S. Virgin Islands had doubled.

  Despite the jarringly modern touches, tourism was still clearly the main industry here. The bold hues of the native clothing and the bright paint jobs on the buildings—magenta, lime green, and DayGlo orange were favorites—contributed to the festive, exotic atmosphere. The natural greens and blues of the land and water were startling, difficult to believe, as was the climate. The sun poured down on everything with a clarity and intensity unusual for Statesiders, as American mainlanders were called. Karen felt her body relaxing in the warmth of the trade winds.

  The bus moved up steep hills and down even steeper ones, pausing at lovely views and beautiful places: Drake’s Seat, Magens Bay, Mountain Top, old Fort Christian on the waterfront. The fort was of particular interest to Karen, being the place where Harper and Anderman had been detained and tried in 1959. The tour guide mentioned that fact, of course, and everyone in the bus peered at the building with renewed interest, snapping cell phone cameras. The invoking of those two notorious names was enough to titillate the visitors, as the locals were clearly aware. The scandal was now part of the island’s folklore, and those long-ago teen killers were good for business.

  There was one place on her tour that Karen found unusually affecting, strictly for private reasons. They got out of the bus in Market Square at one end of Main Street, and the guide told them they had two hours to explore the downtown area before the tour moved on. They were to be back in Market Square at noon. Everyone else took off toward the crowded shops and alleys that lined the narrow street, and Karen stood in front of the big, noisy, open-air structure that had once been the headquarters of the region’s slave auctions, perusing her complimentary guidebook. She studied the map of Charlotte Amalie, realizing that the place she sought was close to where she stood. She walked down the bustling street in the opposite direction from the one her fellow tourists had taken, and in moments she came upon it.

  Sts. Peter and Paul was an imposingly handsome Catholic church, built in 1848, according to the guidebook. Karen found a scarf in her purse and put it on before she went inside. It was quiet at this hour, with only a few people in the sanctuary, their heads bowed in prayer or contemplation. The contrast between this shadowy environment and the teeming street outside was startling at first, but she adjusted to the peaceful atmosphere. She dipped her fingers into the font and genuflected, entirely out of habit, and proceeded up the aisle to the nave. The rows of candles here gleamed in the dim interior before the altar. She knelt and lit a candle for her mother.

  Karen did this in a Catholic church in every new place she visited. It was her own personal pilgrimage, a fond reminder of her only relative, the woman who had loved her and raised her to be a capable, intelligent adult. Karen had never really understood Grace’s fierce devotion to God, never having felt it herself despite her mother’s best efforts, but she’d gone to church with her every Sunday, and she’d never admitted her secret skepticism—her agnosticism—aloud to her mother.

  Grace had only ever wanted one thing in the world: her daughter’s happiness. She’d forfeited the love of her own staunchly Catholic parents when she’d told them she was pregnant out of wedlock and refused to name the father. They’d assumed he was one of the married men at the law firm where she worked, and they’d disowned her, cast her out of their Brooklyn home, never spoken to her again. They’d never so much as laid eyes on Karen, nor she on them. Grace Tyler moved into Manhattan and fended for herself and her child until the day she died. Now, in this quiet church, Karen silently thanked her mother again for all her sacrifices, and she apologized again for her own lack of religious faith. It was at moments like this that she missed her mother the most.

  She paid for the candle in the collection box on her way out of the church, then spent an hour exploring Main Street. She made it back to the bus in Market Square just in time. The other passengers were laden with shopping bags of duty-free treasure; jewelry, cigarettes, and liquor were amazingly inexpensive here. Enough of the sights, she decided; time to get to work. Her rental car would be waiting for her when the tour bus arrived back at the Reef. She’d have a quick lunch in the hotel and head for Tamarind.

  Thinking of the house made her think of the man on the telephone yesterday and her sensation of being watched while she spoke with him. She looked around at the smiling, sunburned tourists in the bus. No one seemed unduly interested in her. Nobody had followed her into the church or in the street afterward. She was fairly sure that she was unobserved—for now, at least.

  Oddly enough, being the object of remote scrutiny was something she’d grown used to feeling, long ago.

  —

  Karen Tyler’s Journal

  New York University

  APRIL 26, 2002

  I’ve always thought of him as The Watcher.

  I first became aware of him when I was 11. It was a rainy afternoon in April, exactly like today, and I had just left school to walk the three blocks north along West End Avenue to my home on 81st Street. I usually walked home from school with Amy Friedman from my building, but she was out with the flu that day, so I was alone. I was wearing my favorite yellow slicker, the one Mom always called my “Doris Day,” and I clutched my plastic Barbie umbrella in one hand and my Barbie book bag in the other.

  There had been some discussion about my occasionally walking to or from school unescorted. Mom didn’t like the idea, but I argued that I was quite old enough. I knew all about strangers with candy and offers of rides in unfamiliar cars and all the other vital warnings issued to latchkey kids, and I felt confident that I was not a “little girl” anymore, Barbie accessories notwithstanding. Mom gave in, more out of necessity than choice, but not before insisting that I repeat the litany of dos and don’ts, including the “quarters for pay phones” rule, the memorized phone number of the law firm where she worked, and the famous “find a lady” clause—the contention that women are automatically maternal and nurturing and will make short work of any potential molesters or kidnappers who might be lurking. Mom meant well, of course. She must have been worried on those rare days when I walked alone, but I was determined to prove to her and the world—and myself—that I was self-sufficient.

  On that April day, I first glimpsed one possible downside of my feverishly defended independence. From the moment I walked down the front steps of the elementary school on 78th Street, I had the distinct feeling of being watched. I turned up the avenue and headed homeward, clutching my Barbie bag tightly against my side under the umbrella so it wouldn’t get wet. There weren’t many people around, and the few I saw rushed past me, bent under umbrellas, oblivious.

  But there were eyes on me—an odd expression, but it’s exactly how it feels when it happens. My first instinct was panic. I couldn’t turn around to look behind me for fear of what I might see. I had recently watched a forbidden horror movie on cable when Mom wasn’t around to stop me, some Friday the 13th or Elm Street flick, and with the pounding rain and the darkened sky, I imagined Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger right behind me, all but breathing down my neck. I walked faster across the next street, just making the light before it changed, and then I broke into a run.

  I didn’t get far. I could see my building now, on the other side of the avenue at the next corner. Our doorman, Mr. Meehan, was nowhere in sight—he’d be inside, of course, waiting in the lobby for the shower to pass. I was alone on this stretch of pav
ement with whatever was producing the steady, wet footfalls just behind me. I came to the corner of 81st and dashed into the crosswalk, not even looking at the signs. There was a sudden screeching of brakes and the shriek of a car horn beside me. I glanced to my right to see a taxi come to a halt mere inches from my right leg. I raced toward the sidewalk. My foot crashed into the curb and I went down, sprawling in the torrent that rushed through the gutter. I was on my face, winded, with water and leaves flowing past me. A distant male voice was furiously cursing me in some foreign language.

  I pulled myself up onto my hands and knees and retrieved the book bag from the stream, looking around for my umbrella. I was dazed, disoriented, soaking wet. The shock of the fall had made me all but forget my fear and the footsteps behind me. I might have forgotten them completely if a gloved hand had not suddenly arrived before my face, holding out my Barbie umbrella to me. At the same moment, another gloved hand grasped my elbow and gently pulled me up to a standing position.

  A man’s deep voice said, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sir,” I murmured, grasping the umbrella. I glanced up at the figure towering above me, but I couldn’t see much of his face. He wore a brown raincoat with the collar turned up, sunglasses, and a tweedy-looking hat. He might have had a mustache, or I might have imagined that later.

  “You must be more careful, Karen,” the man admonished. “You shouldn’t run out into the street like that.”

  “No, sir,” I said, already moving away from him, out into the avenue crosswalk. “Thank you, sir.”

  I reached the other side of the avenue and ran to my building, aware of my wet hair and clothes and book bag. Mr. Meehan materialized to usher me inside, clucking and fussing as I dripped water across the lobby. I sagged against the elevator wall as I rose up to the 5th floor, shaking from the delayed shock, glad that Mom was not home to see me in this state. No matter—I’d have plenty of time to take a bath, change, and hang my clothes to dry on my closet door, and Mom would be none the wiser when she got home from work at 5:30.

  I was sitting on the edge of my bed, removing my sneakers and socks, when the odd thing about my accident first occurred to me. I stopped, staring down at the sock in my hands, and then rose and hurried over to my bedroom window. The rain had let up and the sun was out again, so when I looked down at the street outside I saw it clearly.

  The corner across the street was empty. The tall man with the hat had vanished as mysteriously as he’d appeared. But I hadn’t imagined him—I knew it then just as I know it now. He helped me up when I fell, and I’d never seen him before.

  But he knew my name. He had called me Karen.

  Sidney Singleton was waiting in the lobby of the Reef when the tour bus pulled up to the front entrance. He watched as the tourists tumbled out and bustled into the hotel, loudly making plans for lunch and swimming and sailing. The lone passenger who neither tumbled nor bustled was Karen Tyler. She went over to a counter in the lobby and spoke to a clerk. The girl handed her a key attached to a bright red plastic medallion that read avis. Karen thanked her and moved off toward the elevators. Sidney followed.

  She didn’t take the elevator but descended a staircase to the lower level and entered a concourse of shops under the main lobby. He watched her browse in various shops, ultimately purchasing skin moisturizer, Evian water, a bag of peanut M&Ms, and two paperbacks. These last items involved a long inspection of a large array of titles. Sidney smiled when he noted her selections: Craig O’Brien’s latest thousand-page doorstop and a mystery novel by Laura Lippman. She took the shopping bag with her purchases out onto the terrace overlooking the pool. Sitting at a table in the sun, she ordered lunch.

  Sidney chose a table away from hers and ordered a sandwich and a Coke. She pulled the big book from the shopping bag and began reading while she ate. After a few pages, she gave up in obvious despair and switched to the Lippman novel. Sidney nearly laughed aloud, understanding perfectly. He’d never been able to read the dense, much-awarded prose of Craig O’Brien, either, but Karen Tyler was trying to be loyal. He and Karen had never met—a good thing, considering what he was planning—but Gwen had told him that Karen was living with Craig O’Brien’s son, James, a fledgling writer whose novels were much easier on the eyes than his father’s world-class masterpieces. Karen was having no trouble reading the Lippman novel, and this told Sidney something else about her. Karen Tyler—a journalist who loved mysteries—clearly identified with Lippman’s brave newswoman detective. No surprise there.

  If Sidney was going to buy the Manhattan co-op he’d had his eye on, this was his opportunity. Leaving Karen Tyler on the terrace with her book, he went back inside the hotel and found a shop in the arcade that sold cameras. He knew nothing about them, so he chose the most impressive-looking Nikon digital model on display, wincing at the price. The clerk, a friendly young native man, gave him a quick crash course in basic photography, a box of photo discs, and a strap that would allow him to hang the thing around his neck. Sidney maxed out yet another credit card and left the shop.

  He took up a position on a couch in the lower lobby where he could watch Karen Tyler out on the terrace, pulled out his cell phone, and called the Virgin Islands Daily News. He assumed the name of one of Gwen and Karen’s male coworkers at Visions magazine and asked to speak to Don Price.

  By the time Sidney was through with his phone call, Karen was on the move again. She came into the hotel and passed right by him without a glance in his direction, heading for the elevator. She’d be going up to her room to drop off the shopping bag, he reasoned. He bounded up the stairs to the main lobby to wait. She emerged from the elevator a few minutes later, now wearing a light blue sundress, and went out to the parking lot.

  She and Sidney had identical gray rental cars, Chevy Cavaliers, a few spaces away from each other in the crowded lot. Just before Karen Tyler got into hers, she stopped and glanced around, making a study of the lot. Sidney ducked between cars to avoid being seen. Then she got into her Cavalier and drove up the hill, away from the hotel. He followed at a discreet distance. He wondered where they were going but also why she’d looked around like that, as if aware of being watched….

  —

  Karen Tyler’s Journal

  New York University

  APRIL 26, 2002 (CONTINUED)

  The second time I remember the feeling of being observed was when I was 16. Amy Friedman, Lisa Miles, and I had gone to see Titanic one snowy January afternoon, and we stopped at a diner on our way home. We were seated at a window table, sipping hot cocoa and sighing over Leonardo DiCaprio, when that odd sensation came over me, a feeling I now recognized. I glanced around the restaurant, then out at the busy sidewalk.

  He stood at the curb beside a phone booth, and he was looking directly at us. At me. He was dressed much as before—coat, hat, gloves—and he had a wool scarf around his neck that covered the lower half of his face, under dark glasses. I only glimpsed him for a moment through the twilit flurry, but I was sure he was the same man. When he saw that I had noticed him, he turned and walked away, vanishing in the crowd.

  I didn’t tell my friends about it. They would have thought I was crazy. I rejoined the conversation about Leo, finished my cocoa, and walked home with Amy. Along the way, I looked for him, but he was gone. I hadn’t gotten a particularly bad feeling from the man, merely a sense of his quiet intensity. At 16, I was observant enough to have made a note of the men, especially older ones, who stare at schoolgirls. He wasn’t one of those. I remember concluding that he was sad, that maybe I looked like someone he’d loved long ago, as Kate Winslet had loved Leo, and his heart would go on and on.

  He showed up again two years later, at my mother’s funeral. It was raining that May morning at Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn, and there were few mourners. I stood under a black umbrella beside the casket, flanked by Mr. Colson and Mr. Janowitz, the law partners for whom she’d worked, and their wives. Amy and her parents were there, and four other friend
s from high school. Three junior partners and two executive assistants from Colson & Janowitz rounded out our silent cortege. Her estranged parents—my grandparents—and the rest of the Tyler family were not there, conspicuous by their absence, especially since they lived mere blocks from Holy Cross. Father Clark was intoning the final prayer, and I was gazing around at the coworkers and vague acquaintances who made up Mom’s modest procession, when I happened to look behind me, over Mr. Janowitz’s shoulder.

  A tall man in a long black raincoat was standing alone in the distance, at the edge of the field, clutching an umbrella. He was watching us. I couldn’t see his face through the deluge, but I experienced that same eerie sense of scrutiny I’d felt twice before. Father Clark’s prayer ended at that moment, and I returned my attention to the gravesite. When I looked behind me again, there was only the rain.

  I’m thinking about all this now because I had another encounter with him today. At least I think I did. I was rushing, late, through a downpour from my dorm to my 3:00 English Lit. class (What else is new?), and I was halfway across Washington Square Park when I sensed it. I stopped, getting thoroughly drenched as I looked around at the crowds of students and tourists. I didn’t see him this time, but today I could feel him here, on campus. Well, I felt something, and it was the same feeling as the earlier times. Then I hurried to class, arriving just in time for the lecture.

  I’m beginning to wonder if he’s real. He only seems to arrive in inclement weather, riding in on the rain like a sprite in a fairy tale. Maybe I’ve invented him, cobbled him together from my own secret hopes and dreams, a benign paternal figure who watches over me. Or maybe I’m just crazy.

  —

  Karen had to remember to drive on the left. The car was American, with left-side steering, but the traffic laws on this American island were still, unaccountably, British. It took getting used to, but she soon got the hang of it. She followed the instructions on the map that the hotel clerk had provided.