Michael Malone

by Dingley Falls

The police assumed some joyriders took his bike, drove it around, and then pitched it into the Rampage. Perhaps. That's a fairly long walk from the Haigs' back into town. Isn't it?"

  Henry shrugged, his eyes intent on the lengthening cigarette ash.

  "Well, but you've probably done a lot more walking than I have.

  Did you walk out there when you went to look for Chin Lam?"

  "Took my truck." Henry's eyes were fixed on the ash.

  "Ah. Funny, I didn't notice a truck here by the trailer last night.

  Well, I've been told I'm not very observant. I was thinking that if you had walked home, you would have undoubtedly passed Barnum on his way to the house. And then, you see, you could have cleared up whether he was on foot or on the cycle. So. That's one thing that bothers me. And, I don't know, a couple of other things. One is that Mrs. Haig says she phoned for the ambulance. I think that shows remarkable presence of mind for someone in the condition she was in. But I chanced to locate on the phone this morning the operator who took that call, and oddly enough she thought the voice was that of a man. Of course, she admitted she easily could be mistaken."

  Neither spoke for a while. The ash fell into Henry's palm. Finally he jerked his head toward the couch. "Look. Sit down. No reason to stand." With a nod the lawyer sat on the couch, his arm touching the bright silk pillow. "Okay," Henry told him, his voice low. "Let's say it goes down this way. What happens next? She don't have to stand trial, does she? I mean if Barnum killed her husband. Okay, look, say she took back what she told you, any way to keep this rape shit out of it, if, say, she wasn't the one that, you know?"

  "No, I don't know. But no. There's no way not to have the assault brought out in testimony, it's already part of the statement, on medical record. That's the whole point. Her assault is the crime that precipitated the deaths. Isn't it? Maynard?"

  "Yeah. Sure. But why drag it up?"

  "You mean to save her embarrassment?"

  "So what happens? I mean, she says the scumbag raped her and she blew him away before he blew her away. So she has to stand trial, or what? I mean, I'd say the creep got justice, man."

  Abernathy found his pipe. "Yes. I realize you think so. I disagree.

  Private execution is not justice. It's revenge."

  "Private, public. What's the difference besides twelve guys do it instead of one, and the TV cameras are there to watch them fry you?"

  Abernathy reached into his jacket pocket and took out the .45 service revolver. "What if I judged you as you judged him?"

  Henry stared back at him. "Go ahead."

  "I couldn't."

  "Yeah. We're different. I do all the shit work." He reached over, took the gun, and set it on the table beside the dragon. "If she sticks to this, would the fucks take her to trial? Is that what you mean, testify?"

  "No. It won't go to trial. As presented, it's clearly self-defense. A woman trying to stop a rapist who is shooting at her husband, a police officer. No. No grand jury would indict her. It won't go beyond the coroner's inquest. But even at the inquest she will have to testify under oath."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning, as her attorney, I've naturally advised Mrs. Haig that perjury is a crime. Of course, as a believing Catholic, she would already consider it a sin, wouldn't she?"

  "Come on, Abernathy!" Anger climbed through frustration in Henry's eyes. "What are you getting at?"

  "Just letting you know a bit about Mrs. Haig. You don't know her well, I understand, though Chin Lam asked her for help when Haig had you jailed. That bothers you, doesn't it? You don't want any help, and you don't want Chin Lam to want any, except, of course, yours.

  But you don't want to be indebted, do you? I certainly can't blame you. I never had the courage either; I mean, to let myself feel connected." Abernathy pulled the silk pillow up onto his knee and felt the threaded design. "Well, but what am I getting at? I don't know Mrs. Haig that well myself, to be honest. For example, this morning I posed to her the hypothetical situation that you had come to her defense and that therefore she felt indebted to you, so much so that in order to protect you she was prepared to lie in order to assume responsibility for what happened out there."

  Henry, both feet in a rapid, nervous tap, watched Abernathy furiously.

  "I posed to her, what if you had actually arrived during the assault. That you had been the one who struggled with Barnum and shot him, after he had already killed Haig. Or that it was you Haig fired at (one bullet hitting your arm), and that you shot back in self-defense, after Haig had killed Barnum. Private speculations. I posed the possibility that Mrs. Haig feared that if you (husband of the young woman to whom she feels such a commitment), if you came to trial, circumstances might lead to your unjust punishment. She told me no. She told me that she took no responsibility that was not hers, and that the truth was that Limus Barnum was responsible for her husband's death and that she had shot Limus Barnum." Abernathy set aside the pillow and stood. "Well, you see, I don't know her well.

  I would have thought it would be impossible, psychologically, for a woman like Mrs. Haig to, in your phrase, blow a man away with a gun like that, not merely once, but three times. Or that she would protect a man who had killed her husband."

  "People do what they got to do."

  "Yes. That's exactly what Mrs. Haig told me."

  "What?"

  "We are all capable of anything. It's just that our lives are stuffed inside so much padding that most of us never have to find it out."

  "I guess." Henry stood also.

  "All right, Maynard. For now, let it go at that." The lawyer picked up the wedding photograph, looked at it, then took the ivory ball in his hand. Inside the ball a world had been marvelously carved.

  He turned it as he spoke. "A detective will come to interview you.

  Be civil. You drove to Mrs. Haig's at Mrs. MacDermott's suggestion.

  I'll assume you tried to call her first but found the line continually busy. You asked for your wife, left, drove back, saw no one. Period."

  He set the ball back on the tabletop and, with Henry behind him, walked out of the trailer past the small garden patch, still muddy from the long rain.

  "Look," said the younger man. "What are you doing all this for?"

  "I don't know, Maynard. I haven't decided."

  "Well, what's it going to cost me? What if it's too much? Let's get clear."

  "I don't know that either. But I can think of two things to start with. That, of course, you'll stick around for your hearing on the Treeca assault. And the other is to point out that Chin Lam genuinely appears to enjoy working with Pru Lattice, and that it means a lot to that really very kind, and rather lonely, woman to have your wife's friendship. I'd just point out that your trying to protect Chin Lam from life—"

  Henry banged his fist into the side of the trailer. "Forget it, man!

  If I owe you, you own me. Listen, you could start here and lay any kind of trip on me you felt like. How 'bout I do some supposing now!

  How 'bout this? How 'bout you're so pissed because you weren't the one that blew Haig and Barnum away? How 'bout this supposing?

  You're glad the dudes got wasted! Not just the scum either, but her old man! But you're gonna blackmail me, man? I'm gonna owe you?

  Forget it!"

  Flushed pink, Abernathy nodded. "That's right, Henry. You'll have to be indebted. Just like everybody else. Just like me. And you'll have to trust me, won't you?"

  "How do you know so much anyhow? What makes you so sure what happened out there?"

  "Oh, I don't know. A million things could have happened. For one, you and Mrs. Haig might have arranged the whole thing in order to murder her husband. Or you might have assaulted her yourself and intimidated her so she won't confess it. You might have killed both men in cold blood and started the fire to cover up the evidence."

  "Oh, fuck you. You know that didn't happen."

  "No, I don't. I just have to trust you, don't I?"

  Wi
th a snort, Henry walked toward the trailer, then turned back at the cinder-block step. "Hey. Abernathy. Suppose I told you I didn't have anything to do with what happened out there? Just like the lady said. I came and I went."

  The lawyer took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  "Then I suppose I'd tell you to make very certain that no one ever investigated the death of your German shepherd and that no one ever located the grave and that no one ever noticed that the bullet in his body came from a gun belonging to Limus Barnum. Naturally, these are only suppositions. The bullet may have passed through his body. Though it's a bit more distance to travel through than the outer flesh of an arm, isn't it?"

  One boot up on the makeshift stoop, his tall, rangy body a sharp line against the metal silver of the trailer, Maynard Henry looked across at Abernathy, and then his uneven features smoothed into that sudden, strange, sweet, and painfully innocent smile. "Hey, man.

  You tell the lady, well, something. Okay?"

  Abernathy nodded.

  Then Maynard Henry raised his index finger like a gun, tipped it in salute against the edge of his brow, and went back inside his mobile home.

  chapter 61

  Chilly in the gray gloom, Luke waited while each of the three men, silent and static on the grass, tapped the white balls into the cup (Marco overshooting twice), and then Arthur Abernathy replaced the jaunty flag numbered 18.

  "Mr. Ransom? I'm sorry to bother you, but they told me you'd be finishing up here. Could I talk to you a second?"

  The other two men stopped behind him as Ernest Ransom, polishing the head of his putter with a chamois cloth, answered, "Of course."

  "My name's Luke Packer. My sister Susan works for Mr. Abernathy there."

  Behind Ransom's back, Arthur nodded a confirmation.

  Luke nodded at Carl Marco as well. "The thing is, Miss Dingley told me she gave you a roll of film. As a matter of fact, it was mine, and if it's no trouble I'd like to get it back. She's gotten pretty sick, I guess, so I didn't want to bother her with it and so I came out here."

  "Go ahead, you two, I'll catch up." Ransom waved his companions on. Obediently they headed toward the clubhouse, hunchbacked under their heavy bags. The banker frowned, then smiled at the lanky young man whose hair was, he thought, still slightly too long for propriety, but not as bad as it could have been (he thought with a shudder of Sidney Blossom a few years ago). "Now. Luke? Yes, Luke. I'm sorry, I do recall now that Ramona handed me a roll of film or something recently with some cockamamie tale attached to it."

  "It was true."

  "Naturally with real problems like the fire on my mind, I'm not sure I remember what she said about it." He returned the putter to the soft leather bag, slung the bag onto his broad, cashmered shoulder, and walked past Luke, adding, "At any rate, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I threw it out."

  Stunned, Luke didn't move until Ransom was almost at the Club steps; then he ran after him. "Mr. Ransom! Just a second. You see, I took some pictures on that roll. They were mine. There's, well, there was a kind of hidden compound out on your land, and Miss Dingley didn't think you knew about it, and it must have gotten burned up last night, but it doesn't make sense because nobody's mentioned it since the fire, so I really want to get those pictures developed! Mr. Ransom?"

  At the doors the banker paused, his smile patient. "Wish I could help you. I'm sorry, Luke, I hadn't realized the film belonged to you.

  Ramona gave it to me. She's an old woman, and pretty sick now, as you know. Once in a while she gets carried away with some silly ideas; you know how women can get." He widened the smile briefly.

  "I just didn't take her seriously. You understand."

  "Don't you care if they put stuff up on your land?"

  Ransom allowed mild impatience to tighten his voice. "I don't know who 'they' are supposed to be, or what you mean by 'stuff.' Now Luke, don't get involved in things that don't concern you and in business matters that you couldn't possibly be expected to appreciate."

  "But that roll of film was my private property!"

  The banker's smile twitched, but stayed in place. He reached into his back pocket for his wallet. "Yes, I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do about it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm in sort of a hurry.

  Here. This should replace the cost of the film." He handed Luke a $5 bill.

  The boy followed him into the lobby, but Ransom disappeared by a door to the locker room marked MEMBERS ONLY.

  In the empty club bar, Luke found his father, the bartender, by the color television switching channels from a motorcycle race to a baseball game to a karate match. "What are you doing here?

  Something the matter, Luke?" Jerry Packer turned off the set and returned behind the bar, where he began polishing glasses. Luke was embarrassed for his father, for the not unusual mix of shame and pride that made Jerry Packer not want his family to see him at work, or those he worked for to see him with his family. "Something wrong?" meant "Why else are you here?"

  "No. Had to see somebody about some pictures. Just thought I'd say hi."

  The father was caught between the wish to have Luke gone and the desire to do something for him. He said, "You eaten? I could go to the kitchen, get you a nice club sandwich."

  "Sounds great." Luke stood by the entrance where he could see the locker room door.

  "Well, probably you oughta get back though, Mr. Hayes'll be waiting though, huh?"

  "No, not really. Well, you know, if you don't want to bother the kitchen, Dad, I mean, you know, I'm not really that hungry."

  "I'll get you the sandwich."

  When Jerry Packer returned to the bar, he was dismayed to see his son in an apparent argument with a member, not merely a member but one of the overseers. Ernest Ransom, a piece of money in his hand, looked flushed and annoyed, a look the bartender had never seen on his face. He wondered if Luke could be doing something so horrible as soliciting (what? magazines? charitable contributions?) in the Dingley Club. But then Ransom was saying, "Bothering an ill woman is going to do you no good and possibly do her harm. Now I don't know how I can impress this on you, but the film is gone. Any installation that may or may not have been there would be perfectly legitimate and none of your affair, and this whole thing is ridiculous.

  I'll have to ask you to stop bothering me."

  Packer hurried over. "Something the matter? Anything wrong, Mr. Ransom?"

  Ransom stuffed the $5 bill back into the pocket of his kelly-green cotton slacks. "No, no. Everything's fine, Jerry. Scotch and soda, please."

  Luke, crimson-faced, left the room. His father, still holding the plate with the huge club sandwich on it, did not call him back.

  chapter 62

  Peter Dingley, the Puritan father of Elijah the founder, had fled England to escape religious persecution at the hands of Thomas Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. Elijah was no Puritan, and as if to make of his only son a testament saying so, he named him Thomas Laud Dingley. And so began that generational battle waged down three centuries of Dingley firstborn males, a battle in which rebellion against the father continued a familial (and national) tradition of theological revolt. For if the father were High Church, the son was sure to be Low, or Higher still (a few, in fact, vaulting up into Catholicism, a few slipping off the ladder of faith entirely). Thus, Thomas Laud, in spite of his name, was very Low, and his son, Timothy, consequently, very High, and he it was who had ordered from England in 1740 not only the organ (the cost of whose annual upkeep was higher than Jonathan Fields's salary), but the rosewood confessional that still stood in its somber niche at the rear of St. Andrew's (High) Episcopal Church. There, for an hour on Saturday, Father Highwick kept up the old-fashioned tradition of private confession, cheerfully absolving the half-dozen elderly lady sinners who brought him their meager culpabilities, spiced with town gossip, week after week.

  Now Prudence Lattice, in tears, amazed him. To her old sins of staying, in her view, too slothful, too envious, too full of se
lf-pity, still unable to stop depending on medication to stave off depression, still unable to give up her silly dreams or her gothic romances, still terrified of her death, and now of poor Ro Dingley's, too—along with all these sins, which he promptly forgave her—she was now torn between her awful desire to see a man arrested for murder so that his wife would come live with her, and her awful desire to stay loyal to Winslow Abernathy even though Winslow appeared to be trying to hush up the bloody crimes of this awful man, Maynard Henry, by telling her it was just his dog he'd killed! And why kill Night? So shocked was the rector (who had missed everything while away in Manhattan), so shocked and so eager to hear her story, that he leaned around his side of the ornate booth, popped his head through her velvet curtain, and exclaimed, "Pru! Good gosh! Poor thing!

  Now start again and don't leave anything out! Now don't judge Winslow, whatever you do. I'm sure it's all for the best. And let's not judge this horrible killer either. I admit it sounds grim. Shot two men, a woman, and a German shepherd? Oh, not a woman! Pru! I don't know what to say, but let's remember, judge not, cast not the first stone. Oh, yes, sorry, Jonathan! Shhh! Pru, they're practicing for tomorrow, just beautiful! So we'll have tea, oops, stupid chair out in the middle of nowhere!" He called a loud apology up the long aisle to the nave. "Yes, sorry, Jonathan, stupid chair!"

  Contrapuntal to Pru Lattice's secular tale came sacred melodies from the Alexander Hamilton Academy Choir rehearsing the "Gloria" from Ralph Vaughan Williams's Mass in G Minor. Close to setting, the sun had finally shown itself. Dusky yellow light came slanting through the western window's triptych of Christ risen and crowned in heaven.

  The schoolboys, aged ten to sixteen, squirmed in their stalls like piebald colts, some in blazers, some in sweatshirts, some in windbreakers stamped A.H.A., some in striped polo shirts, none motionless, until Jonathan Fields, medieval in the skirted cassock, clapped his hands over his head. Charlie Hayes stepped forward with a smaller boy beside him. They began again. In a back pew, Walter Saar heard the harmonious sound with astonishment, whole like the sweet, unending note of a seraph's trumpet heralding some quiet, eternal triumph. All those adolescent faces uplifted (those "in" mingling with those "out," no cliques but those of pitch), all those voices the headmaster knew from experience to be infinitely capable of lies, boasts, bigotry, curses, hypocrisy, hate, sniveling cowardice, and smug stupidity, all tuned to that key, together in the perfection that is music's alone, and that Saar in his rasher moments told himself was a more intense pleasure than sex. His boys (his gobbling, stuttering, hee-hawing, farting, cacophonous boys) were making that faultless sound.