by Lee Harris
“And James murdered his mother?”
“No one will ever know. Perhaps James did it, perhaps his brother did. Perhaps they did it together. More likely, an intruder came in. By the time Mrs. Talley’s body was found, any evidence there might have been had been completely destroyed by the twins.” She paused meaningfully. “The body wasn’t found for several days. You can imagine what a mess that house was.”
“I can.”
“And it was convenient or expedient to assume the twins were guilty. Sister—Miss Bennett.” Mrs. McAlpin looked across her desk earnestly at me, and I knew she had come to the reason for our little chat. “Greenwillow needs your help, quite desperately, in fact. We have tried every means at our disposal to persuade the town of Oakwood to accept us. The father of one of our residents gave us the services of his advertising firm so that we could place informative literature in the hands of every resident in town. We sponsored an evening question-and-answer session, which seemed to be going well until a group of very vocal and very hostile people took over, undoing much of our work. The final vote of the council is tonight. I no longer know where we stand. I’m afraid the vote will be very close. Now that you’re a resident of Oakwood, you can speak for us. Several very wonderful people have done so already, but we can use another voice.”
“I’d be happy to speak. I’m really very grateful to you for telling me about all this.”
Mrs. McAlpin’s executive face broke into a smile. She rose, walked around the desk, and took my right hand in both of hers.
“Thank you. Thank you so much. We really want that house. It has everything Greenwillow needs, space inside, land outside. I’m very grateful to you, Miss Bennett.”
I stood and shook her hand. For a moment I thought she might kiss me. “I’ll do my best,” I said.
“That’s all we can ask.”
3
The monthly meeting of the Oakwood Council began at eight. Anticipating a crowd, I drove over half an hour early. The parking lot was already filling, and inside the firehouse, the seats up front were already taken. I found an empty chair in the fourth row and sat.
The mayor called the meeting to order a few minutes after eight. By then every seat was filled and a handful of people were standing along the side aisles. The firehouse wasn’t air-conditioned, but a woman had set several fans going in the front and back of the large room. I was glad I had kept the shirtdress on; anything else and I would have been sweltering.
There were several obligatory rituals to be performed at the outset, and I sensed the impatience of the spectators as the minutes were read and approved and some rather boring old business was taken care of. Finally, about nine-fifteen, the mayor addressed the main issue.
“We have a question before us,” he said, moving papers this way and that as though he could not quite remember what the question was. “Resolved: That the town of Oakwood grant a variance of statute 703 to permit the group known as Greenwillow Associates to buy the property at 411 Central Avenue, known as the Aldrich property.” He looked up, his mouth set. “Are there any comments for or against?”
The number of hands raised, people rising from their seats, shouts of “Yes, right here,” took me by surprise. It seemed that everyone present had something to say. My first reaction was to be thankful that I had napped in the afternoon, giving me, I hoped, the strength to stay awake for what promised to be a long night.
The mayor recognized a man in the front row. “State your name and address for the record, please.”
The man, already on his feet, said, “Walter Harris, 37 Mill Road.” Then, without taking a breath, he continued. “I would like to state in the strongest possible terms my unalterable objection to allowing Greenwillow to buy the property in question or any other property that may in the course of time come on the market in Oakwood. As you all know, I have nothing against the retarded. We’ve gone over and over the dangers that exist to the people themselves, dangers from cars tearing down Central Avenue, danger of drowning in the brook that runs behind the Aldrich property, all kinds of dangers. I won’t go into all of them again. That’s the problem of the Greenwillow Association, not our problem. If they think they can cope with all of that, more power to them.” I noticed he was glancing at notes he held in one hand, and I wondered if we would be out of here before daylight. “But our problem—and I mean the problem of every man, woman, and child in Oakwood—is who they let live in that house. We can’t have a convicted murderer in our midst even if he didn’t murder anyone for forty years. You can’t ever tell with people like that.”
“Point of order, point of order!” a woman shouted from the rear.
“What’s your point of order?” the mayor asked wearily.
“No one in that house is a convicted murderer. Mr. Harris knows that. Everybody in this room knows that.”
The mayor banged his gavel. “That’s not exactly a point of order, Sally,” he said. “You better sit down and let Walter finish.”
“You can’t let him spout lies, Mr. Mayor,” the woman shouted.
“Walter,” the mayor said, “try not to spout lies. Okay?”
“You bet,” the man in the front row said, and continued his tirade.
When he sat down, someone jumped up and asked for a motion that all discussion be held to two minutes. The motion was soundly defeated. A second motion was made to limit discussion to four minutes. That one passed.
I did a little quick arithmetic. If a hundred people spoke, we would have nearly seven hours of discussion before the question came to a vote. They would carry me out. Or perhaps I would just lie down on several of these very uncomfortable wooden folding chairs and sleep-after the vote.
I sat and listened for almost three hours. It was encouraging that a determined group of people, all sitting together on the other side of the room, were solidly in favor of letting Greenwillow into Oakwood. They brought up just about every point that I had noted on a pad this afternoon, but certainly it would do no harm to repeat them in my own words.
What seemed clear from the negative contingent was that they had largely abandoned the rather silly objections that Walter Harris had begun his oration with—the “dangers” to the Greenwillow residents, obviously a collective euphemism for people’s fear of having a group of retarded adults in their midst.
Instead, they had latched on to the murderer in the group. As I listened, I found myself completely out of sympathy with their position. To believe that the quiet, sad man sitting in the chair in the Greenwillow lounge could have killed his mother, could have used a weapon as intimate as a knife to draw her blood, required more imagination—or less information—than I had. I didn’t think James Talley could be angered to the point of wanting to kill, much less make the attempt.
But these people believed it, and the belief was making them afraid. In the years I had known her, I had often heard my spiritual director, now the Mother Superior at St. Stephen’s, say, “You may be smarter than they are and you may know more than they do, but that’s no excuse to patronize them.” And on one occasion she had said, “If they believe something, that’s reason enough to respect it.” Just because I wanted Greenwillow to have the house on Central Avenue, just because I wanted Gene nearby in a better home, I couldn’t dismiss these people’s specious arguments and real fears, however much I disagreed with them.
I decided the time had come to speak up. I would reiterate a point that had been made before and I would make a suggestion. There were still hands raised, still people rising and making their feelings known, and it was already past midnight. If I didn’t get my chance soon, I might lose what little energy I had left.
I raised my hand.
The mayor recognized two people before he pointed at me and said, “State your name and address for the record.”
I rose. “My name is Christine Bennett, and I live at 610 Pine Brook Road. I’m a new resident in Oakwood. My aunt, Margaret Wirth, passed away and left me her house in this lovely
town, and I intend to live here and be an active participant in town affairs. This afternoon I visited Greenwillow.” I let them draw the obvious conclusion, that I had been exercising my right as an active participant in town affairs by making the visit. “While I was there, I met James Talley.”
There was an actual gasp and then a stir among the diehard spectators. “He is very quiet, very docile, and I felt no fear whatever during the time I spent with him.”
“It doesn’t matter!” someone shouted, and the mayor banged his gavel and shouted back, “Let the lady speak. You had your turn.”
“I understand your apprehensions and your misgivings. Someone accused of a murder and never cleared of it is someone we find hard to trust, even after many years and after exemplary behavior. James Talley was given permission to reside at Greenwillow because for almost forty years he has shown no sign of a violent nature.”
“But tomorrow he’ll kill someone,” a man behind me called out, and the mayor gaveled him down.
“I would like to make a proposal to this town and this council. I’d like you to delay your vote until your next meeting. When do you meet next, Mr. Mayor?”
“Third Tuesday in September.”
“You’ve only got a minute to go,” the timekeeper warned.
“Let her talk.” This from a member of the pro-Greenwillow group across the center aisle.
“I would like you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, to appoint someone, perhaps one of your police officers, to look into the murder of Mrs. Talley. Neither James Talley nor his twin brother was ever tried or convicted of her killing. It happened a long time ago. Perhaps at that time there was fear of people like the Talley brothers. Perhaps the police just seized on these unfortunate twins and made them scapegoats. Perhaps there’s something in the records that would show they couldn’t have done it.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“Miss—uh—Bennett,” the mayor said, glancing at his scribbled note, “our police force, as you may not know, is very overworked and understaffed. For one of our officers to devote the time that such an investigation would require—”
“Why doesn’t she do it?” It was Walter Harris, the angry man in the front row who had kicked off the discussion. “Our cops don’t have time for this stuff. It’s her idea, so let her do it.” He turned around and looked me in the eye.
“Good idea,” one of the pro-Greenwillow people across the aisle called, and then there was a murmur of general agreement.
“How ’bout it?” the mayor asked.
“Time’s up,” the timekeeper said.
“Oh, sit down, Doris,” the mayor grumbled.
I was stunned. Suddenly on the spot, I found myself fumbling for excuses. I had a course to prepare for; I had volunteer work I wanted to do. “I’ll be glad to,” I heard myself say, wondering who was behind the voice coming out of my mouth.
The hands of half the people in the room were raised.
“Sonny Terry, 151 Maple. What if she finds out nothing? What if it’s all a wild-goose chase?”
I was still standing and I spoke without being recognized. “I will turn over all my information, whatever it is, to this council before the start of the school year. The council can vote as it wishes.”
“Let her do it,” someone called.
“Yeah.”
“It’s another damned delay.”
The mayor banged and banged. A hand was raised and a resident was recognized in the midst of the chaos. As the noise abated, I heard a motion proposed with my name in it.
“So move,” a councilman said.
“Second.”
“Call the question.”
The secretary read the motion, editing it as she read. The mayor called for a vote.
To my surprise, the vote was unanimous. In favor. I had been appointed to investigate the Talley murder and turn over the results of my investigation to the mayor and council before the September meeting. My heart was pounding rather wildly and I was about to make a fool of myself.
“If there is no other business,” the mayor droned.
People were standing, moving up the aisles, coming toward me. I found myself shaking hands, being thanked, being invited to visit.
I was so tired, it was all I could do to find my way to the car, drive home, and get myself to bed.
4
I slept right through till six, a first in my adult life, having exhausted myself the night before. I dressed and went out for my morning exercise, too late, apparently, to run into Melanie Gross. I was happy to be alone. When I had made my offer earlier this morning, I had done so without thinking of the consequences. Where had the Talley murder occurred? Might I have to fly to California or Montana to peruse police records? Although I had a comfortable income, it would not pay for such extravagances.
The phone started ringing before nine, just as I finished cleaning up my breakfast dishes. Happily, the first call was from Mrs. McAlpin.
“Miss Bennett,” she said, her businesslike voice almost emotional, “what a fine thing you’ve done. When I asked you to speak in our behalf, I never imagined anything quite so generous.”
I didn’t want to say it hadn’t exactly been generosity. “It seemed the right thing to do and the right time to do it. The people who don’t want Greenwillow have practically abandoned all their other objections. If I can bring some persuasive evidence that James Talley didn’t kill his mother, I think the council will accept the group and forget all those lesser gripes. But I’m going to need your help to get started.”
“Anything,” she said. “Anything at all. And as soon as you’re ready.”
“I can be there in half an hour. I would appreciate it if you would try to find out all you can about where and when the murder took place.”
“I’ll do that directly.” She hung up so abruptly that I almost felt slighted.
—
“Mrs. Talley was probably murdered on April seventh, 1950, in an apartment in Brooklyn, New York.”
I felt a surge of relief as she said this. Midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn were both about twenty miles from my Westchester County suburb and easy to reach by car.
“I must tell you, Miss Bennett, the day it happened was Good Friday.”
My heart did a little blip at that, but I said nothing.
“The body wasn’t found until two days later, that is, the ninth, Easter Sunday. The twins had been alone in the apartment with her the whole weekend.”
“Do you know who found the body?”
“I don’t, no. But the murder was front-page news, most especially in the tabloids. I’m sure you can find microfilm copies in many libraries, although probably not in Oakwood’s. I have other information for you as well. The Talley twins were well-known within the medical community. I believe I told you yesterday that they were savants. While they could scarcely add two and two, they could somehow come up with successive prime numbers of great length. Although you don’t recall that period of time yourself, I can tell you that computers were few and far between and much less sophisticated than they are today. Testing prime numbers the Talleys produced sometimes took mathematicians days of work. But they were always correct.
“And they had other gifts, too,” she went on. “They could remember every day of their adult lives, what they ate, what they wore, what the weather was like. Today poor James can’t even tell you what he had for lunch.”
“You said he lost those gifts.”
“Sadly, yes. He’s been in a high-security facility upstate since the judge remanded him there. The atmosphere, as you can imagine, is as far from Greenwillow as prison is from a private home. We had hopes, when he arrived, of seeing those gifts restored. Unfortunately, in the months he’s been here, there hasn’t been any noticeable progress.”
“And where is his brother, Robert?” I asked.
“I’m afraid I don’t know that. Certainly not in the upstate facility that James was in. It’s possible that my contact at New Hope will
know. I’ll call today.” She made a note on a pad in front of her.
“What about the father, Mrs. McAlpin? There must have been a Mr. Talley.”
“So there must, and that’s something else I don’t know. Perhaps the newspapers will say.”
I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock. There was more than half a day during which I could work. I stood and started to say good-bye.
“Miss Bennett,” Mrs. McAlpin said hesitantly, “I don’t know quite how to say this. I don’t know what your financial circumstances are, but if you run into difficulty, I’m sure I can find—”
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. When I left the convent, I received what was left of my dowry, and Aunt Margaret named me as her sole heir. She was far from rich, but she left what seems to me to be a very substantial sum, as well as a house without a mortgage. And I’m quite used to going out with fifty cents in my purse.”
Mrs. McAlpin looked concerned. “That’s only two phone calls nowadays. I’d put some folding money in that bag of yours. Just to make me feel happy.”
“I’ll do that.” I started for the door and stopped. “Is James Talley Catholic?” I asked.
“Let me see. Yes, I believe he is. He’s taken to mass every weekend.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep in touch.”
5
By ten-thirty I was driving south to New York. My first stop would be the public library on Fifth Avenue at Forty-second Street. I had no idea where I would park, but I assumed something would turn up. I had fifty dollars in my wallet, more cash than I had ever had on my person in my life.
Mrs. McAlpin’s concern about my finances had been a good and generous one, but in my case, misplaced. When I had entered St. Stephen’s that terrible, rainy night fifteen years ago, I brought with me my inheritance of twenty thousand dollars, more money than I had ever heard of, but not much as inheritances go. A few months later, a check for my mother’s life insurance of ten thousand dollars was forwarded to me and added to the dowry. Some of that money had been used to buy the first year’s toiletries that a novice must supply herself—soap, toothpaste, hand lotion, and other personal necessities. Later, when I was given permission to own a car, the dowry had paid for it and had subsequently paid for gas, oil, and periodic maintenance.
