by John Enright
The FBI released a photograph of the suspect supplied by Scotland Yard, which believes his real name is Jake Forrest. In addition to using the name Lord Witherspoon in the U.S., Forrest has in the past used the aliases Sir Reginald Faber and Bishop Fenwick. He is described as armed and dangerous.
Forrest is believed to have been associated with the local environmental group Bay Savers, perhaps using them as a cover for his terroristic purposes. A Reggie Fenwick was found on the group’s membership list but could not be located. Authorities have questioned members of the group and have detained one of its leaders, Atticus Jameson, for questioning on suspicion of aiding and abetting terrorist activities.
Accompanying the article was the ICE-released photo of Mr. Forrest, one of those nightclub-photographer shots of a well-dressed man sitting in a padded booth between two handsome young women. Aside from being a big man he looked nothing like Dominick. He looked a great deal like a young Prince Charles, with a long Anglo face and slicked-back dark hair. There was something dated about the photo—the clothes, the setting, maybe just England—but the man in it was a good ten years Dominick’s junior. He took an instant dislike to him.
Amazing how the world moved on without you when you paid it no attention. Here he had been deposed from his bogus peerage without even knowing it. Always the last to know. But the news of Atticus’s arrest was troublesome. How could he be aiding and abetting terrorists when he didn’t even know any? Also, there was no mention of Theo whatever his last name was, the actual leader of Bay Savers. Dominick wondered if Emma had turned herself in or not, and if she had, what sort of questions she had been asked. She wasn’t mentioned either.
Dominick wasn’t sure what to say in reply to Angelica’s e-mail, so he did not respond. He had to sort this out. He checked out the books he had found; others he had to order on interlibrary loan. The librarian had noticed that he had not put down a phone number on his library card application. They had to have a phone number. How else would they notify him when his books came in? Everybody had a phone number. These days everyone had several, she said. Dominick couldn’t remember Atticus’s number, nor Charlie’s disconnected one. He made up a phone number and filled in that space on the application, thanking the librarian for catching his oversight. He had on his Lord Witherspoon outfit. She smiled and thanked him back. “Enjoy your research, professor,” she said.
Professor? No, that wasn’t right, but he didn’t correct her. Professors professed things. He only read things so he could pretend that he lived in another era, could be somebody else. Such as the slave West Ford, son of a president father who had seemingly severed all visits with the boy after becoming president, a father who as Founding Father had established that “’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.” Dominick had copied that out in his quote book. “With any portion of the foreign world,” both diplomatic and personal? No one knew Washington. That seemed to be part of his pragmatic strength. Martha, in her letters, was certainly nasty to him. You could sense why he spent so much time away from Mount Vernon on campaigns. All the Stoic stuff and his quoting Cato—that was all a loner hiding behind a current pop philosophy. What was it like, being a slave and knowing the most famous man in the land was your father who had abandoned you? Washington’s favorite pastime was riding to hounds—he and his cadre of white male cohorts on big steeds chasing small animals through the woods of his vast estates.
It had started to snow again, and on the ride back to Charlie’s the MGA had skidded around like a toy on the slick roads. Dominick would have to give up that part of his fake façade. But then if they—the great They, whoever they were—had a new Lord Witherspoon to chase through the snowy metaphoric woods of foreign entanglements, his camouflage was now superfluous. There was still the matter of Atticus in custody, however, and that bothered him.
Chapter 19
On the morning that Benedict Arnold’s treasonous duplicity was discovered with the serendipitous capture of Captain Andre, Arnold was supposed to have breakfast with General Washington at West Point. He never made it, escaping instead to a British ship. Washington then offered to exchange Andre for Arnold, but the British refused, and Andre was hanged. How must Arnold have felt, to have another man hanged in his place?
The next morning Dominick caught the midmorning ferry as a walk-on. The weather had changed into what forecasters called a wintery mix, a confused combination of snow, sleet, and freezing rain. He drove his big car to the village, leaving the MGA in the garage. No dawdling this time when he got off the boat in New Jerusalem. With his trilby pulled down and the collar of his London Fog turned up, he headed straight for Ms. Arnold’s house. He would learn what Ms. Arnold and Lydia knew about Atticus.
Ms. Arnold answered the door. She didn’t recognize him at first in his latest manifestation. “Yes?” she said.
“Ms. Arnold, it’s me, Dominick. Sorry to bother you, but is Lydia here?”
“Well, if it isn’t the troublemaker himself. Here to cause more trouble?”
“Ms. Arnold, might I remind you who bailed you out of jail in Boston? Now, may I come in? It’s wet out here.”
“I suppose,” she said, stepping back and opening the door. “Just don’t drip on the carpet.”
While Dominick removed his wet coat and hat and scarf and hung them on the coat tree by the door, Ms. Arnold walked toward the back of the house, where a light was on in the kitchen. The rest of the house was dark and gloomy. There was the flicker and murmur of a TV set from the back parlor. As he followed Ms. Arnold to the kitchen a voice from the back parlor said, “Sistine Chapel.” It might have been Lydia’s voice; he couldn’t be sure.
In the kitchen Ms. Arnold was putting on a cardigan sweater. “You let all the heat out of the house,” she said. “What else are you going to do?”
“Lee Harvey Oswald,” the voice in the back parlor said.
“Look, Ms. Arnold, I have done nothing to harm you. I do not believe there is any reason for you to be hostile toward me.”
“Haley’s comet,” the voice said. It was a woman’s voice, but flat and emotionless like a voice-mail message recording.
“You’ve done nothing to harm me?” The sweater on, Ms. Arnold now folded her arms across her chest like a disciplinarian. “You caused federal agents to come to my house and subject me and poor Lydia to ridiculous questioning. You got that fool Atticus picked up and taken in. You totally disappeared, making us all look guilty of something.”
“The Sun King,” the voice said.
“No, wait,” Dominick said. “I did not do any of that. I had no control over any of that. So, find someone else to blame. What did the feds question you about?”
“Why, you, of course, or at least you as Lord Witherspoon.”
“And what did you tell them?”
“That that was just one of Lydia’s pet names for you, some sort of game you two played.”
“Jimmy Carter and Thomas Jefferson.”
“And what did Lydia tell them?”
“Lydia wouldn’t tell them anything, bless her. She just glared at them. She did tell one of them to ‘Go fish, Mr. Meriwether.’”
“A short guy?”
“Why, yes, short and unpleasant.”
“Did they come back?”
“No. Goodness, do you think they’ll come back again? Lydia hasn’t been the same since. Why, she didn’t even recognize Atticus when he came to get her.”
“The fifth commandment.”
“So Atticus is out?”
“Oh, yes. They released him after questioning.”
“And he’s home?”
“I guess so. He’s been by twice, but Lydia thinks this is her home now.”
“The Emaciation Proclamation.”
“And that is Lydia?”
“Yes, talking back to one of her TV quiz shows. She’s really quite good when it comes to history and art.”
“Can I talk with her?”
“No. She wouldn’t recognize you, and I think you have done enough damage already, don’t you? So, now that I have been subjected to yet another round of questioning, why don’t you just leave? Go find Atticus and get yourselves into even more trouble. Go on, get out. Avaunt.”
Dominick left. It was so comforting being around people who could use the archaic imperative. He caught the next ferry back and found Atticus at home. He was not well.
“I thought you’d be way south of the Mason-Dixon Line by now,” he said when Dominick came into the kitchen by the back door.
“I thought you were in jail. Are you alright?”
Atticus was hunched over in a kitchen chair in front of the open stove, with a blanket over his shoulders. He looked pale and ancient.
“Just a cold. All this running around has got me wore out.”
“Are you eating?”
“There’s not much here, and I’m not hungry. I can never remember: Is it starve a fever, feed a cold, or the other way around?”
It was cold in the house. Dominick kept his coat on. “How about some soup?”
“Sure, if you can find some. Lydia’s not here.”
“I know. I stopped by Ms. Arnold’s.”
“That witch.”
Dominick found a can of chicken noodle soup and put it in a saucepan to warm up. “Atticus, I’m worried about you, your condition and all. Maybe we should get you to a doctor or the ER or something.”
“What condition is that? My cold? Anyway, I don’t go to doctors.”
“No, I mean your other condition, you know, your cancer. Lydia told me about it. Are you in pain or anything? I mean, can I get you something besides a can of soup? Pain pills?”
”What in tarnation are you talking about, Dominick? The only condition I have besides this cold is a wife losing her marbles one at a time.”
“You mean you don’t have prostate cancer metastasizing and only a couple of months left to live?”
“No, for Christ’s sake, and how would I know if I did, seeing as I haven’t seen one of those overcharging quacks in years?” Atticus was stopped by a hacking cough. “Did Lydia tell you that?”
Dominick stirred the soup.
“I thought by now you would have figured out that Lydia sometimes confuses what she hopes for or fears with what is real.”
“She had me convinced you were in your final days. I couldn’t figure why she would lie about it.” Dominick poured the steaming soup into a bowl and put it on the table. “Come eat.”
Atticus came to the table and started eating his soup. “Well, you were right. They did come back. Those same two guys that were here before. It was after the storm, a couple of days after you left. They’d made the connection somehow between you and Lord Witherspoon. They were looking for you.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That you had left, and I didn’t know where to. That Lord Witherspoon was just sort of a joke name for you. That I didn’t know anything about you. That you were just an acquaintance, a friend of a friend, passing through. I didn’t lie.”
“And?”
“And they left. Then a couple of days ago they came back, not the ICE guys this time but two others, FBI. They took me in for questioning this time, a federal office over in New Jerusalem. But this time they weren’t interested in you. They wanted to know about someone named Jake Forrest or Reggie Fenwick, whom they claimed was in Bay Savers. All their questions were about Bay Savers.” Atticus pushed the bowl of soup away, half finished. “Too salty,” he said. “Get me a drink, would you?”
Dominick brought them both glasses with three fingers of scotch. Dusk was gathering. He turned on the light above the stove.
“They had photos of us on the Lucy Anne II, that day you and I went out on surveillance, taken from that helicopter I guess. Only in the photos it was me alright, but it wasn’t you. It was your body and clothes, but the face wasn’t yours. It was some clean-shaven guy with black hair and a big nose. They kept saying he was this Jake or Reggie guy and asking what we were doing out there. I kept telling them I didn’t know who that guy was but that I was out there with you that day. It was crazy. We kept going around in circles.”
Atticus looked a little bit better now, a bit less like a corpse. “Then they let me go, told me not to leave the state. Can they do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“They said I should get a lawyer because the grand jury would probably be charging me with at least lying to a federal agent. Shit, Dominick, I can’t afford a lawyer anymore. They just told me I could go. It was a good mile hike back to the ferry dock. Over here I went to my lawyer, but he said he doesn’t do federal felony cases. Agnes, his secretary, gave me a ride home.” Atticus coughed again.
“Atticus, this house is impossible. You are coming with me. I’m camping out over at Charlie and Brenda’s place. They have heat.”
“Figured you went there, leaving in the storm like that. How did they do that with the photographs?”
“Digital pictures. There is a computer program called Photoshop that lets them do things like that.”
“That’s not playing fair. Why would they do something like that?”
“Good question. Listen, let’s get the stuff you need and we’ll get out of here.”
Atticus protested, but Dominick would not take no for answer.
“How will Lydia get in touch with me?”
“We’ll come back here tomorrow and call her. Atticus, you know she’s not making much sense these days.”
“And the feds?”
“You’re not leaving the state, you’re just disappearing.”
Dominick nursed Atticus through the next several days. It was more like the flu than a cold—fevers and chills. Atticus stayed in bed, too weak to move. He probably would have frozen to death at Mt. Sinai. Dominick remembered a story he’d read about a corpse they found in Alaska, some guy in his house trailer in the woods, frozen stiff, sitting at his breakfast nook wrapped in a sleeping bag, looking out the window. Jack London stuff. The weather had taken an arctic snap, minus degrees at night.
It was three days before Dominick got out of the house again, on a multi-errand run to the village. Atticus was resting, breathing normally; the worst seemed to be over. At the library Dominick checked his e-mails—nothing from Angelica—and picked up the books he had ordered on interlibrary loans. One of them—a book about New England ships in the slave trade—had come from the library of the New Jerusalem Historical Society. “That’s special,” the librarian said as she checked it out. “Usually they don’t let their books out on interlibrary loan.” When Dominick opened the book an envelope fell out, addressed to him. It was from Starks.
“Dominick: I learned your full name from the FBI when they were here looking for you. Then I saw your name on the library loan request. I cooperated with the FBI at first, after Emma told me you were the Lord Witherspoon they were looking for. I thought it was the right thing to do. But then later, when the feds came out with a totally different Lord W., I realized something fishy was going on and I stopped cooperating. Now I feel badly about being a stool pigeon. Give me a call”—he gave several numbers—“so that I can apologize properly and we can try to figure out what is going on.” Signed John Starks.
The next day, Dominick fixed a light breakfast for a now cantankerous-when-awake Atticus and left for New Jerusalem, leaving stuff by Atticus’s bedside for him to snack and sip on. Dominick was tired of playing nurse. Atticus had taken to calling him Flo. At least he won’t freeze, Dominick thought as he left. He found John Starks at his museum. He was interested to hear what else Starks had found out about him from the FBI. He got there in time for lunch. Starks locked up the museum and they had lunch at a tiny sushi place Starks knew nearby.
“You got the book, I presume. We have duplicates of that volume, so I thought it safe to send it out,” Starks said over the too salty miso soup. “You’re still over on the island, then?”
“You are still tracking me down?”
“No, no. Wait, bad start. Let me start by apologizing and assuring you that my complicity with the authorities has ended. I should have known better, thought twice. I mean they were already following you around. They knew who you were—not Lord Witherspoon. But when Emma called looking for you and told me that you and the guy the feds were looking to question were one in the same, I . . . I fucked up. Your blonde tail had left her business card. I called her and told her I thought I knew where you would be for the next hour or so. Turned out they were looking for Emma, too, which sort of confirmed things, if you see what I mean.” Their main orders arrived.
“So, you called Emma and told her I would be at The Harp so that they could scoop us up together. Two friends with one stone.”
“Give me a break, I thought I was being a patriot. You gave them the slip anyway. I gather they missed you by ten minutes.”
“You never came?”
“They told me not to go. I think they were afraid I’d give it away or something.”
“You did anyway. You asked Emma a few too many questions.”
“Glad I did. No, they came back to me after they missed you and quizzed me some more. It was like suddenly I was a suspect, too.”
“They have become a bit desperate for suspects.”
“I did not appreciate the attention. There are certain aspects of my life style that I must, of necessity, keep off police and public radar.”
“I am understandably interested in what the feds told you about me,” Dominick said. “If you could flatter me with that information.” The maki was too sticky.
“The first time—your blonde in the ski jacket—she led me to understand that you yourself weren’t a person of interest, just someone they hoped would lead them to someone. She wanted to know if you’d met anyone at the museum. The second time, they wanted to know everything I knew about you, which is nothing and I told them less. I didn’t mention your black helicopters or interest in Darby Point. They wanted to know why I thought you were this Lord guy, and I told them that Emma had told me someone suspected you were, that’s all. At about this point I was beginning to feel like a total fool.”
