A Penny for the Hangman

by Tom Savage

  “Okay, you’ve got an aisle seat, 3B, and you’ll be boarding on concourse D in thirty minutes. You’ll be arriving in St. Thomas at four-forty, their time—that’s three-forty our time, so don’t forget to reset your watch. Here’s your boarding pass.”

  “Thank you,” he said. With a last anxious glance at his watch, he left the counter and was lost in the milling crowd before Ann could finish with her most suggestive “Have a fantastic day!” She watched him go, sighing, and turned to greet the next passenger in line.

  —

  “The Night Is Forever” (conclusion)

  Wherever they are now, Harper and Anderman can rest assured that their legend remains with us, and not merely because of the new movie. The British press recently mentioned a forthcoming opera based on their story. The poster made from a photo of the two boys, handcuffed and flanked by policemen, can be found on the walls of college dorm rooms everywhere. A Google search produces thousands of hits, including at least twelve slavishly maintained websites dedicated to the events in St. Thomas fifty years ago.

  The scene of the crime, which is now—ironically—a temporary home for troubled children, offers twice-weekly tours, which regularly attract large crowds. A T-shirt adorned with the boys’ front-and-profile mug shots above the legend “IH&A” is available in every souvenir shop on the island. In the words of one proprietor, “It’s our hottest item!”

  And so the story continues. “The night is forever, and we are the night.” Forever, indeed. Rodney Harper and Wulfgar Anderman: Their names live on, touchstones, two of the most famous entries on the roster of children who kill.

  —

  The room was very quiet. Karen stood before the painting, feeling the hand on her shoulder, hearing the soft voice.

  “I was released in February of 1981,” Wulf Anderman said, “and in April I got permission from my parole officer to go to New York City. I’d learned of Lieutenant Faison’s forthcoming book, and I hired a private investigator who arranged for me to see a copy of the manuscript. After I read it, I asked the investigator to recommend an attorney. He sent me to the firm of Colson and Janowitz on Madison Avenue.”

  She shut her eyes, listened to the sudden pounding of her heart, felt the rush of blood through her body. She must have made some movement, because his other hand arrived on her left arm, supporting her, actually holding her upright. She wondered if she would otherwise slump to the floor. And still the voice continued, changing her reality, shattering her life.

  “Robert Colson represented me. He delivered a formal demand to the publisher, and they told him to get lost. Then he filed a civil complaint, and we waited for the summary judgment. It took six weeks. I was alone and miserable; I had no family, no friends, nothing. I sat in a cheap hotel on Eighth Avenue, waiting for the phone to ring. I made frequent trips to the law firm, and—well, I met a woman there. She was the receptionist, and she was kind to me. Her name was Grace Tyler.”

  “No,” Karen whispered. “Please, no.”

  But Wulfgar Anderman continued. “She was charming—blond, blue-eyed, quiet, and efficient. She always smiled at me when I came in, and that smile meant a lot to me. You see, she knew who I was, but she smiled at me just the same. No one else ever did that, not even Mr. Colson. One day, after a long session in Colson’s office, I came out to the reception area. It was closing time, and she was putting on her coat. On a whim, I—I invited her to dinner. I was certain she’d refuse, and I don’t know what possessed me to ask her, but I couldn’t bear the thought of another sandwich in that dreary hotel room. To my everlasting surprise, she said yes. Just like that. Next thing I knew, we were in an Italian restaurant not far from the law firm, sharing wine and chatting like old friends.

  “She was twenty-eight and lived with her parents in Brooklyn. She’d been working at the firm six years, ever since she’d completed secretarial school. I asked her why on earth she would agree to be seen in public with the likes of me, and she said the most amazing thing. She said, ‘Whatever you did, it’s in the past, and only an honest person would worry enough about his reputation to do what you’re doing with Mr. Colson.’ Then she gave me that lovely smile and said, ‘I usually say no when men invite me to dinner, and I should be more adventurous. Besides, I think you’re lonely, and I’m lonely, too.’

  “I admitted that she was the first woman I’d ever asked out. I told her I was thirty-six and I’d spent more than half my life in prison and—and I’d never been with a woman. I’d never even been on a date. Grace smiled again and said, ‘Well, here we are.’ ” He sighed, another hot expulsion against Karen’s neck. “I suppose you can figure out the rest of this story.”

  Karen opened her eyes. She drew in a deep breath and clenched her fists at her sides, just to be sure she could still move. Nothing on earth would induce her to turn around and face him at this moment. She couldn’t look into his eyes, not now. She managed to keep her voice low and even.

  “Let go of me,” she said, and his hands immediately fell away from her. She walked to the archway that led to the front hall. Still with her back to him, she said, “I’m going up to my room. I need to be alone for a while. I’ll come down when I’m ready.”

  “Very well,” he said from the room behind her.

  Karen crossed the hall to the stairs, increasing her momentum as she climbed. The upstairs gallery was a blur rushing past her. She stumbled into the bedroom, locking the door behind her. Then she threw herself facedown across the bed and sobbed.

  Chapter Nine

  The Discs

  MAY 26, 2007

  Arrived on HC at last! The house is just as I envisioned it. The architectural firm from Tortola has done a terrific job. The sundeck is redwood, and it hangs out over the cliff face. Now there are bathrooms in both suites upstairs and bookshelves in the living room. The furniture has arrived, and my trunks, and Molly G. has brought linens and food and such. She’s made herself useful with Windex and Pledge and Pine-Sol. Ugly as sin, but a good little worker bee and cooks well. I was right to let C. talk me into bringing her along to serve us.

  The other firm has been here, too, setting up the air-conditioning and electrical wiring from the generator down in the boathouse. The surveillance cameras and motion sensors will be placed around the beach, with a command center here in my office. Four screens: Peekaboo! That should take care of adventurous tourists and amorous teens. I’ll be aware of them from the moment they enter the inlet—there’s no other possible landing here, thanks to the rocks that ring the island—and we can trot down the steps and send them on their way.

  A new house with all the latest gadgets. Bliss!

  —

  Winston Tippett clutched his steering wheel in the bumper-to-bumper traffic in the pouring rain, cursing his luck. The airport had been packed with tourists and returning locals who’d just landed in three planes from the States. Most of them were clamoring for the taxis and hotel shuttle buses in front of the terminal. Anyone could have snagged his hack, but no—he had to get stuck with the crazy guy.

  The guy hadn’t looked crazy when he’d slid into the backseat of Winston’s cab. He was tall and spare and dressed like a cowboy. Winston had assumed it would be an easy trip to the Reef or Bluebeard’s or some other high-end hotel, but then the guy had told him where he wanted to go. A seedy bar smack-dab in the center of Back Street, in the center of the waterfront city. At five forty-five in the afternoon. With seven cruise ships in port. In a rainstorm.

  And the guy was no tourist. He’d made that plain the minute Winston had balked at the address. No way, Winston had told him, not at this hour; we’d never get out of there! Fine, the guy had said, just stop in the parking lot of one of the big malls along the waterfront, Palm Passage or International Plaza, and wait for me there. I’ll be twenty minutes, half an hour at the most, and then we’re going on, out to Red Hook. Winston had refused at first, but the old cowboy had shut him up with his punch line: two hundred bucks.

  T
wo hundred bucks! This was one crazy white man!

  He’d been as good as his word, returning to the cab in just under thirty minutes. Winston couldn’t imagine what possible business this guy would have in The Lounge, that hellhole where knife fights broke out every night, so he didn’t try. The guy got back in, shaking the rain from his hair and his jean jacket, and they were off.

  Now Winston maneuvered the car at a snail’s pace around Harwood Highway toward Sugar Estate. Up Raphune Hill, out to Four Winds Plaza, hang a right, and straight on to American Yacht Harbor. A twenty-minute drive on a good day. Today, with rush hour and the rain, anywhere up to two hours. He glanced at his fare in the rearview mirror. No, definitely not a tourist. No tourist would know where The Lounge was—it wasn’t exactly in the brochures….

  Oh hell, who cared? Two hundred bucks was two hundred bucks.

  —

  The Discs

  JUNE 12, 2007

  C. is off to NYC tomorrow for his first assignment, and he knows what to do. She lives in the Village with Craig O’Brien’s son, and she works at Visions on 54th and Sixth. C. is to watch and report, and he’ll also reestablish contact with my PI, Frank Macy. I’m counting on Frank’s greed, and I’m sure he won’t let me down. He’ll lead me to the prize.

  Ah, the boat is arriving with the guns. And my crateS!!!

  —

  She woke in darkness, and the first thing she became aware of was the rain. It was pelting the windows in a steady roar, punctuated by rumbles of thunder. As she sat up in the four-poster bed, a sudden flash lit up the closed curtains at both windows, followed by another thunderclap. The promised storm had arrived.

  She couldn’t remember closing the curtains. Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember falling asleep. She remembered the scene in the living room, the movie and the conversation after it that had veered into unexpected, uncharted territory. She pictured the moment now, reliving her wrenching sense of shock and confusion.

  Wulf Anderman was her father.

  More to the point, her father was Wulf Anderman, a famous killer. He seemed nice enough now, fifty years after the fact, pleasant and generous and well mannered. He’d paid his debt to society, according to the system that had convicted him, and now he was free to be whatever he wanted. He was free to be—

  Her father.

  She couldn’t imagine it, the scenario twenty-eight years ago that had led to her conception. Grace Tyler had not been a spur-of-the-moment kind of woman, her advice to her daughter notwithstanding. When Karen had imagined her father—the one who’d died in a car accident before her birth—she’d always pictured a quiet, fastidious man, shy and well meaning. Her mother would never speak of him, but Karen had filled in the details, the long courtship of dinners in nice restaurants and Broadway plays and concerts at Lincoln Center, and hand-in-hand excursions through the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim and MoMA. And the Museum of Natural History—in her childhood fantasies, her phantom father loved the great blue whale as much as she, Karen, did. They’d always had that in common.

  Another clap of thunder brought her to her senses. How had she ever come up with such a story? And why had she believed it? Why had she never wondered why her mother had never so much as shown her a picture of the man who had been her father, or told her his name? Of course now it made perfect sense—in a senseless sort of way.

  Karen wasn’t going to cry again; she wouldn’t allow herself to do that. She’d bid goodbye to that romantic figure from the past and adjust to the flesh-and-blood reality that waited downstairs. Her actual father.

  She switched on the lamp and looked at her watch. It was 7:40 in the evening. How could that have happened? She’d slept so late this morning, and she’d only been up for a few hours: breakfast and the movie in the living room and—and the bombshell. That must be it, she decided: shock, denial, rage, anguish, acceptance, and another six hours of sleep. Her body still felt numb from the emotional overload.

  She rose and made her way into the bathroom. The face in the mirror stared back at her, haggard and creased, her eyes red-rimmed and bloated, her hair a tangled bird’s nest. She’d taken a shower this morning, but another one was definitely needed. She peeled off her clothes and turned on the hot water.

  If only Jim were here with me, she thought as she washed her hair for the second time today. Or Gwen. Or Amy Friedman—her lifelong neighbor and best friend from 81st Street was in Scarsdale now with her stockbroker husband and her first child, but she’d rush to Karen’s side in a heartbeat if she thought she was needed. Amy, alone among Karen’s friends, remembered Grace Tyler clearly. Amy could help her fill in the blanks of Grace’s relationship with Wulf Anderman.

  Jim. Oh God, how was she going to tell Jim? He was hardly a snob; he was the son of famous left-wingers who loudly endorsed second chances and rehabilitation for criminals. But helping amorphous groups of sinners was not the same as having one in the family. Even the most liberal Democrat—even Craig O’Brien—would have misgivings about grandchildren with direct genetic input from one of “those awful boys.” Karen wondered if finding her father would cost her a potential husband.

  And now that she’d wept and slept, what did she think of being Wulf’s daughter? She couldn’t decide. She’d worry about it later. Now she’d get dressed and go downstairs. She was a journalist; she would get the story.

  In the bedroom, she switched on the overhead light. She was picking up her clothes from the bed, where she’d dropped them, when she noticed the new presence in the room. There, on the armchair in the corner, lay a pale blue dress, and a matching pair of pumps was on the floor directly in front of it. Karen went over to the chair and picked up the dress: thin silk with a pattern of dark blue flowers against the light blue material. It was a simple, elegant design, sleeveless, form fitting, a daring-but-not-too-daring neckline, with a hemline just above the knees. It was her size and her favorite color, but it was more than that. It was something she would select, given a selection—just the sort of cocktail dress she preferred. The shoes—also her size—were the type she’d pick from a warehouse full of choices.

  Then she saw the note on the dresser, a sheet of plain white stationery with a message written in his sloping hand: Whenever you’re ready, I thought we’d dress for dinner. W. On top of the paper lay a single long-stemmed red rose.

  She put on her underwear and slipped the dress over her head, then stepped into the shoes. She went back into the bathroom and put her hair up, then made up her face with what Jim always called her “party paint”—lots of eye and lip and cheekbone. The jewelry she always wore—her watch, her mother’s tiny silver cross on its chain, the silver star ear studs and matching ring Jim had given her on their first anniversary—went well with the dress. She was ready to face him.

  She glanced down at the doorknobs as she went out to the gallery, wondering how Mrs. Graves had brought the dress in through a door that only locked from the inside. Sure enough, there was a keyhole on the outer knob. She hadn’t noticed it before, but then again, it hadn’t occurred to her to look.

  She hoped it had been Mrs. Graves.

  He appeared once again at the bottom of the stairs, this time in a black dinner jacket. Pleated white shirt, black bow tie, cummerbund, studs, cuff links, and patent leather shoes—the man was born to wear these clothes. Seeing him there, trying to stand tall while leaning on his cane, she was glad she’d made the effort with her own appearance.

  “How beautiful you are,” he whispered as she came down to join him.

  Karen smiled. “Thank you, umm—”

  She stopped short, realizing with a shock that she had no idea what to call him now. She laughed nervously at her awkwardness, but she could see that his blue eyes were twinkling. She took his waiting arm, and they went into the dining room together.

  —

  The Discs

  JUNE 24, 2007

  Hired a local man today who came looking for a job. Wants to be our personal ferry
man. Fine. The old speedboat isn’t good for much anymore, and C. hates it anyway. From now on, we’ll leave the driving to Gabby….

  —

  Officer Rick “Brick” Wall had caught hell from Cousin Josh (whom he was always to address as Lieutenant Faison) when the woman he was watching yesterday had waltzed out of the Reef right under his nose. Brick knew that if his mother hadn’t been old Lieutenant Faison’s sister, he might not be a cop in the first place. So, here he was at American Yacht Harbor, making good on a second chance.

  The hotel’s front desk people had seen Ms. Tyler leave the lobby with two men, but they weren’t sure of the exact time. An hour later, the exact time (12:07) had been established in a hotel security video of her getting into a Land Rover with the men, and the license number. Brick winced when he was shown this footage back at the station; he’d been sitting in his car exactly two rows away at the time, drinking coffee and dreaming of a promotion.

  The Land Rover was registered to a Thomas H. Huxley, and his only known address was a post office box. But the Rover was soon located in the parking lot of American Yacht Harbor. People there had seen the pretty blond woman and her companions boarding old Gabby’s Turnabout and sailing away.

  Brick wanted to go down to the dock and ask old Gabby where he’d taken Karen Tyler, but Cousin Josh patiently reminded him that this was a stakeout, and the whole point of the exercise was that Ms. Tyler and her friends not know about it. So, now he stood under the awning of a restaurant, peering through the rainy evening at the lights of the little fishing boat. Old Gabby was inside, he knew, down in the cabin. With luck, Gabby would take off in the Turnabout anytime now, and then all Brick would have to do was wait until he returned with Karen Tyler and her friends.