The River King

by Alice Hoffman

  “I saw Gus Pierce last night,” Betsy found herself telling the detective. “It was probably right before he wound up in the river.”

  Abe had often noted that people gave you more information than they were asked-for; without the least bit of prodding, they’d answer the exact question that should have been posed, the important detail that hadn’t yet come to mind.

  “He was with another student.” Betsy tossed some of the crusts in her pockets onto the path, but the swan ignored her offerings and hurried after them, feet slapping the concrete. Thankfully, though, they had reached the dormitory.

  “A blond girl?” Abe asked.

  Betsy nodded, surprised he would know. “They were arguing in the old cemetery.”

  “Bad enough for him to kill himself over?”

  “That all depends.” What was wrong with her? She couldn’t seem to shut up, as if silence might be even more dangerous in the presence of this man than speech. “It’s hard to tell how people in love will react.”

  “Are you speaking from personal experience?”

  Color rose at her throat and cheeks, and Abe felt oddly moved by her discomfort. He stepped closer, drawn by a most delicious scent, reminiscent of homemade cookies. Abe, a man who never cared much for desserts, now found he was ravenous. He had the urge to kiss this woman, right there on the path.

  “Don’t answer that question,” he said.

  “I didn’t intend to,” Betsy assured him.

  In fact, she had absolutely no idea what people in love might do, other than make fools of themselves.

  “You’re a teacher here?” Abe asked.

  “First year. What about you? Did you go to school here?”

  “No one from town goes to the Haddan School. We don’t even like to come onto the property.”

  They’d reached the door, which had locked behind Abe; he pressed his weight against the wood, then ran his gas credit card under the bolt, bypassing the coded entry lock.

  “Pretty good,” Betsy said.

  “Practice.” Abe told her.

  Betsy felt such a ridiculously strong pull toward him, it was as if gravity were playing a nasty little trick. It was nonsense, really, the way she couldn’t catch her breath. The attraction was on the same level as wondering what the postman’s kisses might be like, or what the groundskeeper who tended the roses would look like without his shirt. She and Eric would surely laugh about it later, how she’d been roped into police work by a man with blue eyes. It was her civic duty, after all. To keep matters businesslike, she’d make certain to charge the police department for film and processing.

  “I see you caught yourself a photographer.” Matt Farris introduced both himself and Joey when Betsy was brought up to the attic. With so many people standing around, Gus’s room seemed tinier still. Matt suggested they step into the hall and let Betsy work away. “Not bad,” he commented to Abe once they had.

  Joey craned his neck to get a good look while Betsy set up in Gus’s room. “Far too smart and pretty for you,” he told Abe, “so I’m not giving out any odds.”

  Local people liked to joke that ninety percent of the women in Massachusetts were attractive and the other ten percent taught at the Haddan School, but these people had never met Betsy Chase. She was more arresting than pretty, with her dark hair and the sharp arc of her cheekbones; her eyebrows had a peculiar rise, as though she’d been surprised in the past and was only now beginning to recover her equilibrium. The fading light through the attic window illuminated her in a way that made Abe wonder why he’d never noticed her in town. Perhaps that was just as well; there was no point in getting worked up over Betsy, who wasn’t even close to his type, not that Abe had ever found his type before. A woman with zero expectations, that’s what he’d always wanted in the past. Someone like Betsy would only make him miserable and reject him in the end. Besides, it was too late for him to start any emotional attachments now; he probably couldn’t if he tried. There were nights he sat alone in his own kitchen, listening to the sound of the train headed toward Boston, when he’d stuck pins into the palm of his hand, just to get a reaction. He swore he didn’t feel a thing.

  “Maybe I can get her number for you,” Joey said.

  “I don’t know, Joe,” Abe ribbed him back. “You’re the one who seems interested in her.”

  “I’m interested in everyone,” Joey admitted. “But in a purely theoretical way.”

  They were all having a good laugh over that one when Betsy finished and came to join them in the hall. Abe suggested he take the roll of film off her hands, which suddenly made her feel cautious. Perhaps it was all that male laughter, which she rightly imagined might be at her own expense.

  “I develop my own film,” Betsy told Abe.

  “A perfectionist.” Abe shook his head. Definitely not his type.

  “Fine.” Betsy knew when she’d been insulted. “If you want to take the film, take it. That’s fine.”

  “No, it’s okay. Go ahead and develop the photos.”

  “Lovers’ quarrel?” Joey asked sweetly as they cleared out of Chalk House.

  “No,” they both answered at the very same time. They stared at each other, more confused then either one would have cared to admit.

  Joey grinned. “Aren’t you two peas in a pod.”

  But in fact it was now time for them to go their separate ways. Matt Farris headed over to the lab in Hamilton, Joey went out to the porch to use his cell phone and check in with his wife, Betsy started back on the path she’d been on when Abe had first called to her.

  + “You can send the prints to the station.” Abe hoped his tone was one of disinterest. He didn’t have to go after every woman he met, as if he were some undisciplined hound. He waved cheerfully, the good policeman who wanted nothing but justice and truth. “Don’t forget to include the bill.”

  After she’d gone, he stood there moodily, not noticing the swan’s approach until it was nearly upon him. “Scat,” Abe said, to no effect. “Go on,” Abe told the creature.

  But if anything, the swan came closer. The Haddan swans were known for their odd behavior, perhaps because they were trapped in Massachusetts all winter, searching for crumbs outside the dining hall door like beggars or thieves. Huge flocks of Canada geese passed over the village, pausing only to graze on the lawns, but the swans were forced to stay on, nesting in the roots of the willows or huddled beneath hedges of laurel, spitting at the ice or snow.

  “Stop looking at me,” Abe told the swan.

  From the way the bird was eyeing him, Abe thought it meant to attack, but instead it veered off behind Chalk House. Abe watched for a while before he, too, went around to the rear of the dormitory. He didn’t want to think about women and loneliness; far better to concentrate on the trail that led from Chalk House’s back door to the river.

  When Joey was through arguing with Mary Beth about whether or not he had to be in attendance when her parents came for dinner on Sunday, Abe signaled him over. “Something’s not right here.”

  It was watery and dank in this hollow, and although it hadn’t rained for days, puddles had collected in the grass.

  “Yep,” Joey agreed as he slipped his cell phone into his pocket. “It stinks.”

  “You don’t see anything?”

  That they could perceive things so differently always amazed Abe. Whereas Joey’s attention focused on the clouds over Hamilton, Abe was only aware of the rain in Haddan. Joey spied a car crash, and all Abe noticed was a single drop of blood on the road.

  “I see that damned swan watching us.”

  The swan had settled on the back porch, its feathers fanned out for warmth. It had black eyes the color of stones and the ability not to blink, not even when a jet broke the silence of the darkening sky up above.

  “Anything else?” Abe asked.

  Joey studied the porch, if only to appease his friend. “A broom. Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  Abe led him to the dirt path heading
to the riverbank. It was neatly cared for; in fact, it appeared to have been swept. When they returned to the porch, Abe held the broom upside down; a line of mud edged the straw.

  “So they’re neatness freaks,” Joey said. “They sweep the back porch. I’ve seen stranger.”

  “And the path? Because it looks like someone swept that, too.”

  Abe sat on the back steps and gazed through the trees. The river was wide here, and fast. There were no cattails, no duckweed or reeds, nothing to stop an object traveling downstream.

  “Anybody ever tell you you’ve got a suspicious nature?” Joey said.

  People had been telling Abe that all his life, and why shouldn’t he? In his opinion, any man who wasn’t cautious was a fool, and that was why he planned to think this situation through. He, who had always made certain not to get involved in anyone else’s business, was already in way too deep. After he dropped Joey off at home he found himself thinking about boys who had died too soon and women who wanted too much, and before long he had grown confused on the streets he’d known all his life. He took a wrong turn on Main and another on Forest, mistakes any man who’d been distracted by a beautiful woman might make, and before he knew it he was driving down by the bridge where his grandfather used to park, the place where the wild iris grew. After so many years Abe could still find the spot, he could still pinpoint the exact location where the river ran slowly and deeply into Sixth Commandment Pond.

  * * *

  IT FELL TO ERIC HERMAN AND DUCK JOHNSON to meet the boy’s father at the airport that evening, a duty no one would have chosen, least of all Duck, to whom talking itself seemed an unnatural act. They set out after supper and drove to Boston in silence. Walter Pierce was waiting for them outside the US Airways terminal, and although he looked nothing like his son, Eric and Duck knew him immediately; they could feel his sorrow before they approached to shake his hand.

  They carried his suitcase back to Eric’s car, an old Volvo that had seen far too many miles. As they drove, the men talked briefly about the inconstancy of the weather, perfect as they left Logan, but growing gray and windy as they progressed on 193; they then discussed the brevity of the flight from New York. It was the tail end of rush hour when they left the city, and by the time they turned onto Route 17, the road was empty and the sky was midnight blue. Mr. Pierce asked that they stop in Hamilton, at the lab where the autopsy had taken place, so that he might view the body.

  Although Gus would be returned to Haddan in the morning, where he’d be cremated at Hale Brothers Funeral Parlor, his remains readied to be taken back to New York, and although Eric and Duck were both exhausted and sick of the whole affair, of course they agreed to stop. Who could deny a grieving father one last look? But for his part, Eric wished that Betsy had come along. She’d had a bit of disaster in her own life, losing her parents at such a young age. She most likely would have gone along into the lab with the elder Pierce and would have offered some consoling words, the sort survivors yearn to hear. As it was, Walter Pierce went in alone to a building that was dimly lit and understaffed and where it took several tries before the body was located.

  Waiting in the parking lot, Eric and Duck grumbled and ate the tinned peanuts Eric discovered in the glove compartment, then went on to share one of the energy bars Duck always kept handy. Proximity to bad fortune made certain people hungry, as if the act of filling their stomachs could protect them from harm. Both men were relieved that Mr. Pierce didn’t hold them accountable, considering they’d been the adults responsible for his son. Although Eric and Duck had shared duties as houseparents at Chalk House for five years, they’d never been inspired to communicate much with each other. Now, there was absolutely nothing to say, especially when Mr. Pierce returned to the car. They could hear him crying as they traveled the road leading to Haddan, a band of asphalt that on this dark night seemed endless. From out of nowhere, Mr. Pierce suddenly asked why this had happened to his son. His voice was ragged and barely intelligible. Why now, when the boy’s life was only just beginning? Why Gus and not some other man’s son? But as neither Duck nor Eric knew the answer, they didn’t say a word, and Mr. Pierce went on crying all the way to town.

  They took him to the Haddan Inn, relieved to at last retrieve his suitcase from the trunk and say their good nights. After they’d safely deposited Mr. Pierce, Eric and Duck Johnson went directly to the Millstone. Most people from the school opted to frequent the inn, where a martini was expensive and the sherry was forty percent tap water. So be it, people born and bred in town always said, if top dollar and bad service was what the Haddan School folks wanted, but now it was whiskey and beer Eric and Duck were after and a quiet space where no one would bother them. They needed a tonic after an encounter such as the one they’d just experienced, but their usual haunt at the inn was definitely off-limits, as the elder Pierce might decide that he, too, needed a drink, so they found their way to the Millstone, an establishment they’d always looked down upon, although they quickly made themselves comfortable at the bar.

  Haddan School people rarely were customers at the Millstone, with a few exceptions, such as Dorothy Jackson, the school nurse, who was thrifty and liked the happy hour when all drinks served were two for one. Some local people took fleeting notice of the newcomers, but no one approached them.

  “Too bad Gus Pierce wasn’t assigned to Otto House,” Eric said to no one in particular. He neither cared about nor valued Duck Johnson’s opinion and therefore felt free to say whatever he pleased in the other man’s presence, particularly after he’d consumed his first drink, Johnnie Walker, neat, no water, no ice. “Then he would have been Dennis Hardy’s problem,” he said of the geometry instructor and Otto houseparent, a man no one particularly liked.

  “Maybe we should have spent more time with Gus. We should have talked to him.” Duck signaled for the bartender and ordered another round. The coach was experiencing the uncomfortable feeling he sometimes had when he took a canoe out on the river early in the morning before the sun rose, a time when the birds were calling as if they owned the world. It was so peaceful at that hour Duck could feel his aloneness, a huge dark burden that wouldn’t leave him be. A man by himself on the river might begin to entertain thoughts he didn’t want; he might go so far as to examine his life. Whenever this happened to Duck, he’d made sure to turn around and start back to shore.

  “I did talk to him!” Eric had to laugh in recalling that the boy had been as noncommunicative outside of class as he’d been in Eric’s freshman history seminar, although whether or not Gus was truly in attendance depended upon one’s point of view. The kid kept his sunglasses on, and several times he’d had the nerve to turn the volume of his Walkman up so high the entire class had been subjected to the driving bass line resonating from the headphones. Eric had been looking forward to failing Gus Pierce, and to some extent he now felt cheated out of doing so.

  But Eric’s biggest concern was the faculty committee. He worried that this Gus Pierce fiasco would leave its mark. Facts were facts: Eric was the senior houseparent and a boy in his care was dead. Not that there was anything to say that Eric, or anyone else, for that matter, had been negligent. All freshmen had a tough time, didn’t they? They were homesick or overwhelmed by the workload, and of course they were inaugurated into dorm life, low men on the totem pole until they had proven themselves worthy. Hadn’t Eric told the boy exactly that? Hadn’t he suggested Gus take some responsibility and pull his life together?

  “The father’s the one I really feel sorry for.” Duck Johnson was as morose as he’d ever been in his life. “The guy sends his kid away to school, and before he turns around, the kid commits suicide.”

  That was what everyone was saying, and even Dorothy Jackson admitted that in retrospect there’d been warning signs during his stay in the infirmary: the depression, the headaches, the refusal to eat.

  “Who wouldn’t feel sorry for him?” Eric agreed, in part to appease Duck, for it seemed entirely possible th
at after one more drink, the coach would be in tears. Eric called for a last round, even though it meant he and Duck would be late for evening curfew check-in. Still, they might as well relax. Chalk House had already had its tragedy, hadn’t it? Surely statistics would keep the place safe tonight without the men’s presence.

  Had Duck and Eric chosen to take their drinks at the inn on this night, they might have run into Carlin Leander and been forced to report her curfew violation to the dean. But fortunately for Carlin, they were on the other side of town. The village seemed especially quiet when she set out for the inn at a little after nine. The pharmacy and Selena’s were already closed and there was very little traffic, only an occasional car passing by, headlights cutting through the dark before fading to black. The branches of the oak trees on Main Street shifted in the wind; leaves fell, then gathered in unruly piles beside fences and parked cars. The streetlamps, fashioned to resemble the old gas variety that preceded them, cast long shadows that angled across the streets in yellow bars of light. It was the sort of night when anyone out walking alone would naturally quicken her pace and arrive at her destination a bit shaken, even if her visit hadn’t been fueled by torment and guilt.

  The lobby of the inn was deserted, except for a woman posted at the desk who was so out of sorts that when Carlin asked if she might contact a guest, the clerk merely pointed to the courtesy phone. Carlin was wearing her one good dress, a stiff blue sateen her mother had bought on sale at Lucille’s. The dress was ill-fitting and so summery that even if Carlin had worn a coat rather than the light black cardigan dotted with little pearl beads she had on, she would have been shivering.

  As soon as she’d overheard Missy Green, the dean’s secretary, mention that Gus’s father had come to town, Carlin knew she had to see him. Now, her hands were sweating as she dialed the number to his room. Fleetingly, she considered hanging up, but before she could, Mr. Pierce answered and Carlin rushed headlong into asking if he would consider meeting her in the bar. The place was empty, aside from the bartender, who served Carlin a diet Coke with lemon and let her perch on a stool, even though she clearly wasn’t of legal age. At the inn, top-notch behavior was presumed; a person with other intentions would surely be better served at the Millstone, which had lost its liquor license twice in the past several years. Darts weren’t played here at the inn, as they were at the Millstone; there were no noisy feats of strength, no fried fish and chips, no ex-wives chasing a man down for alimony past due. Admittedly, the dark booths at the rear of the bar were sometimes frequented by people married to someone other than their evening’s date, but tonight even these booths were empty; any affairs that were currently transpiring in Haddan were taking place elsewhere.