Come to Dust

by Emma Lathen

  “I know you mean well, Mr. Lancer,” she said in tones reminiscent of tones she had used with her children. “But Elliot and I — well we have always made it a rule to work out our problems together, not with outsiders. Elliot is as important in raising the girls as I am. And I have always helped him with his business decisions. We talk things out and we don’t go running to others, the way so many people do. We’ve always said that if we didn’t have perfect confidence in each other, why, we wouldn’t have anything. So now, when something like this comes up, I am not going to lose my head and rush off to the police.”

  George was getting a little punchy as Mrs. Patterson’s gentle but inexorable aria unwound.

  “And I know and trust my husband. Of course, I have worried that perhaps he had an accident. But, thank God, I’ve come to my senses. If Elliot had been hurt, I would have been notified. Elliot is always very careful to carry ID, just in case. He always has been. And as for these insinuations that Elliot could have done something wrong …”

  She shook her head at the absurdity of that thought. Words, unfortunately, did not fail her as she went on, “Oh, I realize what some people are saying. Mr. Uhlein phoned and said something about not calling the police. And the Dartmouth Committee too, Jim. Oh nobody said anything. But I’m not a total fool. I know what they’re thinking. That Elliot might have … oh taken money. Or run off with another woman.”

  Mrs. Patterson’s sentiments might be vehement but her control never faltered. “That’s utterly ridiculous,” she said with quiet conviction. “Elliot is a sensitive person. His whole life is devoted to service. He is not out for all the money he can get. He wants the good things for his family — but only the good things that count. Elliot wants to help people — young people. You know that, Jim. His whole life is dedicated to spiritual awareness. Whatever people are saying — well it reflects on them not Elliot.”

  In sum, Elliot was not common clay. To Thatcher he did not sound quite human either. Sally was also making it clear, as she genteelly harangued Lancer, that Elliot’s wife was cut from the same superior web. Lesser souls might experience shame and mortification. Poor insecure creatures. Where there is real knowledge, there can be no suspicion, no fear, no shame. Thatcher had no trouble making his diagnosis. Mrs. Patterson had spent 10 years perfecting her role as all understanding, all forgiving earth mother. It was now far more essential to sustain that role than to find Elliot. Happily neither Sally nor George suspected this state of affairs for one moment.

  Even the door chimes did not break pace. While Jim obeyed an unspoken request and went to the hall, Mrs. Patterson continued to provide further analysis, secure in some inner conviction that it was not her husband on the doormat.

  And she was quite right. It was not Elliot. Thatcher, whose attention was inclined to wander, could hear the low rumble of several masculine voices. Surely they were spending a long time on hallway preliminaries. Young Dunlop seemed to be protesting.

  It was several minutes before he returned. What he trailed in his wake did succeed in putting a period to Sally’s remarks.

  Two gigantic bronzed armed and booted State Police troopers stolidly took up positions in front of a cobbler’s bench, looking wildly out of place surrounded by pine paneling and chintz. Suddenly the room became very low ceilinged.

  Mrs. Patterson’s self-possession was not shaken. She bent on Dunlop a look that nicely blended comprehension and forgiveness. She had charged him with insubordination, convicted him, and then suspended sentence all in the blink of an eye.

  “But Sally. We didn’t call them,” he protested.

  Sally shook her head indulgently.

  “You’re Mrs. Patterson?” the older and senior of the troopers broke in to ask. “Mrs. Elliot Patterson?”

  “That’s right. And I do wish you to understand that whoever has reported my husband’s disappearance has done so without my permission.” To those who knew her, and even after one short hour Thatcher had no hesitation in including himself on that select roster, the anxiety to set everyone straight came as no surprise.

  Its effect on the police, however, was nothing short of sensational. Until now they had been exuding stately benevolence. At Mrs. Patterson’s magic words they both stared dumbfounded at their hostess, momentarily off guard, before every vestige of human expression disappeared as completely as if shutters had fallen over a loaded shop window.

  “That’s not surprising,” the sergeant said heavily as he pulled out a notebook and pencil. “Now you say your husband has disappeared?”

  Sally stiffened at his skepticism. She had met many reactions to her news about Elliot — amazement, sympathy, horror, reassurance. This was her first encounter with disbelief.

  “Certainly,” she said with a ladylike snap.

  “And when did he disappear?”

  “On Monday night.” Sally eyed the sergeant with cold dislike.

  “And Mr. Patterson is the owner of a green Oldsmobile, license number 317-48?”

  Sally contented herself with a nod. She had become a visual rebuke to uncouth intrusiveness. She was sitting, gracefully erect, on the sofa. As no one had suggested they sit, the troopers very correctly continued to loom overhead.

  “And I suppose the car disappeared with him?” the sergeant suggested softly.

  Mrs. Patterson, whose preoccupation with the more civilized aspects of life had severely impaired her instinct for survival, did not hesitate.

  “Certainly. Elliot drove the car into the railroad station every morning. It isn’t there now.”

  Thatcher was conscious of his own surprise seconds before it was mirrored by his slower witted companions. But within a very short time all three men were gaping.

  Sally exploded this piece of dynamite with serene unselfconsciousness. She was absorbed in her silent battle with the sergeant. But for everybody else, Elliot ceased to be a man who had disappeared on Fifth Avenue in the middle of Manhattan. Now he had disappeared five minutes before reaching his house. Or five minutes after?

  Thatcher told himself sternly not to leap to conclusions, even if Sally suddenly seemed too stereotyped to be true, even if the whole Patterson ménage suddenly seemed too upright to be real. Remember, this was a house with three children in it. Thatcher’s efforts at self-discipline received an assist from the object of his suspicions.

  “Sergeant,” she said clearly, “We must have one thing understood. I have no intention of permitting a police search for my husband.” She grabbed an attitude which had stood her in good stead this afternoon. “No doubt you mean —”

  “Mrs. Patterson,” the sergeant interrupted unceremoniously, “there’s no question of your permitting or not permitting a search for your husband.”

  Sally was looking more animated. Anger had brought two bright patches of color to her cheeks and sharpened her jawline. She also permitted herself a looseness of phrasing that would have been unheard of an hour earlier.

  “And who else wants him? Whose business is it?” She demanded.

  The sergeant was very grim. “Well, we want him. We want to question him in connection with the hit and run killing of two high school students on Monday evening.”

  Chapter 5

  Papers will be Required

  Sally came to the rapid conclusion that the police, after all, did not mean well.

  “Don’t be silly,” she spat with a kittenish ferocity that stripped away assurance and years and left a gauche girl in her place.

  “It would be easy enough to prove it’s silly. Just produce that car so our lab boys can go over it,” the sergeant said evenly.

  “How can I produce the car?” Sally demanded wildly. “I don’t know where it is. I don’t even know where my husband is. You’re just taking advantage of the fact he’s not here.”

  Now that Sally was visibly distressed the sergeant moderated his bulldozer tactics. As a sign of his new approach he seated himself and beckoned his junior to do likewise. At chair level they were si
mply big men, not threatening presences.

  But Sally, biting the corner of her handkerchief, started at them as if they were two savage panthers let loose in her living room.

  “I know this isn’t easy, ma’am, but believe me, it’s best to get the whole thing cleared up. Now, don’t you think your husband should come back and cooperate?”

  Whether the real tragedy of the situation had at last come home to Sally or whether she was simply undone by being on the receiving end of gentle authoritarianism, Thatcher never knew. But quite suddenly she went to pieces.

  “No,” she began in a low guttural voice as her back arched alarmingly. “No I won’t listen to you,” she stormed. “No, no, no.” Spreading rigidity brought her heels and palms slapping down in a ragged drumbeat.

  Fortunately a neighbor, maddened with curiosity by successive arrivals of a limo and a squad car on Walnut Street, materialized on the front doorstep just in time to be pressed into service until a doctor could be located. But Thatcher could see that prospects for departure were not good.

  Common decency required that Mrs. Patterson be supported during this awful time. And even after sedatives turned her hysterical denials into the moans of a wounded animal, release did not come. The police now seized on Dunlop as a source of information about the missing man. Common decency required the continued presence of Lancer and Thatcher during the questioning of Dunlop.

  “After all we dragged him into this thing,” George said… “We couldn’t just walk out on him.”

  Thatcher was stung by the plural pronoun. “It might be more useful to send out for some food,” he retorted.

  The police were reviewing Patterson’s last known movements. “And all of you left this Ivy League Club together?” the Sergeant was saying.

  Dunlop was very unhappy. “Marsden, Armitage, and I left with three of the boys we had been interviewing. Elliot stayed behind to talk to another one of them. That was the last I saw of him.”

  But the police were far more interested in where Patterson might have gone after the accident than where he had been before. Did he have a summer place? Where did he have relatives? Did business take him somewhere frequently? Did he have a mistress? If Dunlop didn’t know the answers to these questions, then who did, they asked.

  Well, the search for Patterson had now passed into professional hands, Thatcher reflected. Certainly the mystery of his disappearance could cease to trouble his family and friends. A hit and run killer’s reasons for going to ground spoke for themselves.

  And presumably this evening would produce food sooner or later.

  “I am sure,” George said with as much slow sincerity as if his dinner time were not long past, “We all hope this is a terrible mistake.”

  The sergeant was not unsympathetic. He looked around the carefully middle class living room and tried to find the right words.

  “Sometimes this kind of thing happens so fast people don’t really know what they have done. Say Patterson had a drink or two. Somehow he hits these kids. Before he knows what he’s doing he steps on the gas. Then when he comes to his senses, he’s stuck. He’s afraid to go back. He knows he lost his head … “He shrugged fatalistically.

  This was cold comfort, and Thatcher was happy to see that nobody was maintaining that Patterson was incapable of having a drink or two. Still, he reminded himself, he had come along to lend George a helping hand. He might as well try.

  “What took you so long, officer?”

  Hitherto largely ignored, he became the focus of attention. Young Dunlop frowned in his direction. Lancer looked his question. The troopers were silent.

  “I gather the survivors gave you an accurate description of Patterson’s car and license plate. Yet here it is Wednesday. And I think you said that two youngsters were killed on Monday. I know that our police are a good deal faster moving than that.”

  “Of course,” George mouthed silently as a look passed between the policemen.

  Then it came: A group of eight teenagers, eddying out of a beer hall just over the line in Putnam County had spilled onto the gravel driveway. They were somewhat the worse for drink. At any rate, headlights suddenly roared out of the darkness and brought horror to the scene. After the screaming and the cries were past, after glass and blood were removed, six shaken high school boys were still alive. Two of them were too injured to be of any use and two, in shock, were released to their parents who whisked them away to a doctor’s care. This left two boys to be interviewed. They agreed it was a late model Oldsmobile. Bloodstains and enamel fragments from the torn trousers of one of the corpses told the authorities the car was jade green. Not until yesterday had a further item appeared. The license plates were New York State; the first three numbers were 317. The boy was certain because his own were the same.

  “So we pulled a list,” said the younger trooper with a slow humorless smile. We’re checking out 275 cars. Over 100 are clean.”

  Everybody present was too realistic to fall upon this. Even Lancer was very temperate. “It could still be a mistake,” he said.

  “It could,” the officer agreed. “But you see why we want to see Patterson and his car.”

  They did. The party that finally set off for New York was not in good spirits. On the other hand, they were in better shape than Uncle Bill Consett, who wearily pulled up just as they were leaving. His wife hurried purposefully indoors. Consett lingered.

  “That I don’t believe,” he said upon hearing an encapsulated male interpretation of the police charges. He waved away polite professions of faith. “No I mean the business about roaring out of the darkness. El is not only the worst driver I’ve ever known, he is the slowest. I doubt if he’s gone over 50 in his whole life. Not” and here he paused, struck by a new and unwelcome thought — “unless he has gone stark raving mad.”

  This time there were no polite professions at all.

  Emboldened by two miles and the darkness of the car’s interior, Dunlop broke the silence. “I suppose that’s possible isn’t it?” That Elliot has temporarily lost his mind.”

  Since there was nothing else to do, Thatcher set out to learn what was in the young man’s mind with a question of his own. “Have you ever observed signs of abnormality?”

  The negative was hasty and emphatic. Overemphatic?

  “It’s tragic,” George said. “If only Patterson had gone right home after your meeting, Dunlop, this never would have arisen. Why on earth was he driving around Putnam County?

  “Outside a beer hall,” Thatcher murmured with intent.

  He was right. Dunlop restrained himself only with difficulty.

  At 68th Street Lancer roused himself from his somber thoughts and courteously invited his companions to join him in a late suppler. Thatcher truly regretted having to beg off and was sorry to deny young Dunlop the opportunity to taste Matthilde’s notable cooking. Still, consoling himself that he was doing an unknown wife a considerable favor, he refused George’s invitation, neatly cut Dunlop out, and bore him away. It had been a long trying day. But he did not propose to let it end without knowing what was weighing so heavily on the young man.

  Lancer rounded off his evening with a better dinner than Thatcher was enjoying. Then, over brandy, he told Lucy about the trials of the day. As usual she listened with interest and produced one excellent suggestion: that he alert the Sloan’s PR man first thing in the morning. Newspaper coverage of the search for Patterson could be moderated if not entirely eliminated.

  “Not that I think the police will release anything to the papers until they have something more definite,” George said, making a note of it. “But you’re quite right Lucy. Publicity will only add to that poor woman’s distress. And to be quite selfish about this, I could wish that Patterson had not been so active in the Dartmouth Club—that is if things turn out to be what they seem now. I’d be sorry to see Dartmouth’s name get dragged through this kind of mud.”

  “I know dear,” said Lucy. “And speaking of dragging, what a
shame you had to let John in for all this.”

  Blissfully unaware that Thatcher was laying up information that would enable him to repay in kind, George agreed that he regretted it very much, and then inquired about Lucy’s day. Like Gaul, it had been divided into three parts: unwed mothers, preservation of landmarks, and Friends of the Opera in the afternoon.

  Despite these creature comforts, however, George did not enjoy an untroubled night’s sleep like John Thatcher. This was not because he was less unregenerate but because of fundamental differences between the two men. Thatcher had perfected the art of compartmentalizing his thoughts, so that he could put the most nagging problems out of his mind at will. Lancer, on the contrary, positively enjoyed turning things over ruminatively during the odd hours of the morning, searching out details that had been overlooked. He was not a worrier but, as Lucy put it, a ponderer.

  Then too, Thatcher was a SVP of the Sloan which, given the current President, gave him considerable responsibility for day to day operations while Lancer, the Chairman, normally functioned as the Bank’s outside leader. With Brad Withers on the premises these lines frequently got blurred, but in theory it was Lancer who maintained liaison with other banking notables, government officials, and major customers. He was a specialist in choosing the best and most dignified way for the Sloan to do and say exactly what it wanted. Accordingly he had developed a certain feel for the large vague forces that shape people, events, and opinion. At the moment he felt nothing but disquiet about all of that.

  Nevertheless the Sloan received his undivided attention the following morning. This was fortunate since in his and John’s absence, the Loan Policy Committee had erupted into overt warfare, with Bowman evincing determination to grind Vaughan and the whole International Division to dust beneath his heels. Peace was restored by lunchtime. Harmony was yet to come.