Body Language

by Michael Craft

  I recognized the passenger as soon as she stepped out onto the parkway. A gust of wind caught her cape and furled it over her head, making a further mess of her ratted gray hair—she looked like a wayward witch making a clumsy landing from Oz. It was none other than Miriam Westerman, founder and leader of Fem-Snach. Attempting to unruffle the cape, she clattered a giant primitive necklace that weighed heavily upon her flat bodice.

  Then the other door opened and the driver stepped onto the street. The sun gleamed blue on his jet-black hair, which was surely dyed, worn in an outdated pompadour. When the pesky breeze got hold of it, he looked like a poodle in a suit. This was Harley Kaiser, Dumont County’s distinguished district attorney. While closing the car door, he tried to finger-comb his hair, but without success—now he looked like a poodle with a Mohawk.

  Admittedly, my vision of these two characters was tainted by prejudice.

  Miriam was the woman who had tried to steal custody of Thad from me. She was the woman who had instigated a hate-mail campaign against me when I first moved to Dumont, branding my homosexuality an “abomination against Mother Nature”—never mind her own past flirtations with lesbianism, which was just dandy in her book, since it didn’t involve men. She was the woman I had bodily thrown from my home one evening when she invaded a family gathering and spat epithets at me, including the rather clever “penis cultist.” And she was the woman who sought to violate the civil liberties of an entire community because pornography, in her view, was tantamount to “violence against women.” Miriam Westerman openly hated me. In the face of such irrational animosity, I could only return the sentiment.

  Kaiser was a different matter. As an elected official, he was instinctively sensitive to public opinion, accountable to every voter, or at least to fifty-one percent of them. Further, he was smart enough to recognize that he stood nothing to gain by antagonizing the publisher of the local paper. So he at least made an attempt to behave cordially to me, in spite of our polar disagreement regarding the enforcement of obscenity standards. As far as he was concerned, I had no grasp of political reality. As far as I was concerned, he’d landed on the wrong side of the issue, period, and I marveled at his lack of principle in selling out the First Amendment for the sake of some presumed political advantage. My friend Roxanne Exner had hit the nail on the head in her succinct appraisal of the district attorney: Harley Kaiser was a hot dog.

  I had previously called Kaiser and Miriam “strange bedfellows” in their alliance to rid Dumont of porn. Now, watching them from my car, I found their pairing all the more unlikely. What were they up to? Why here? Why now?

  They were doubtless asking themselves the same questions about me. Standing at the curb, they spoke over their shoulders to each other, glancing at my car, which anyone in town would recognize. So I let them continue wondering for a few moments, hoping that my presence would unsettle them. Behind tinted windows, I wrote a few last notes, then capped my pen, returning it with the pad to my jacket.

  Opening the door, I got out of the car, donning a pair of sunglasses (the autumnal slant of midmorning light was not especially bothersome—in fact, I enjoyed it—but I figured the dark glasses might make me a tad more menacing). Pretending to notice them just then, I called to the opposite curb, “Miriam, Harley—what a pleasant surprise.” It was a good act, but in light of our past run-ins, they could guess I was lying.

  Kaiser crossed to meet me in the middle of the street, extending his hand to shake mine. “Morning, Mark. Didn’t know you harbored an interest in dollhouses.” The remark could have been intended to question my masculinity, but his tone seemed innocuous enough—he was just inept at small talk. If his words carried a hidden message, he was really trying to ask, What are you doing here?

  Strolling with him back to the curb, I bulled, “Wherever there’s news, there am I.”

  Miriam had made no move to acknowledge me, so arriving where she stood on the parkway, I dispensed with further pleasantries and asked her bluntly, “What are you doing here?”

  “One might ask you the same,” she snapped back with a defiant stomp of one foot, but the gesture lost its punch—her clog merely mashed the turf.

  “Actually,” said Kaiser, attempting to keep things civil, “we’ve come to see Carrol Cantrell. He’s a distinguished visitor to the city, and we both wanted to wish him welcome.” He smiled, as if that explained everything, wrapping it up.

  “What a coincidence,” I fibbed. “I was just on my way to see him myself. We’re working up a feature.” It would be Glee’s story, of course, but for the moment, there was no harm in letting Kaiser think I was there on assignment. I found it unlikely that both he and Miriam were inclined to roll out the welcome mat for the king of miniatures as a simple matter of civic courtesy. Still, I had no theory that would better explain their visit. If I stuck with them, their motive might become plain to me. Brightly I suggested, “Let’s all pop in on him.”

  Miriam and Kaiser exchanged an uncertain glance; in my presence they did not feel free to discuss my proposed intrusion. Miriam looked vexed, Kaiser wary. He hawed before relenting, “Sure, why not? Do you think he’s at the shop?”

  “Actually, no.” I waved my arm up the street—“I drove from that direction and got a pretty good look at the mob. Carrol Cantrell is at least six foot four, so I’d have noticed if he were there. I think our best bet is the coach house.”

  Kaiser and Miriam were aware of Carrol’s lodging arrangements, but neither of them knew the lay of Grace Lord’s property, so my presence proved helpful in that I could guide them. The three of us walked in silence as I led them up the driveway beside the house, our feet crunching the gravel. Watching the DA and the feminist as they trudged toward the coach house for purposes not known to me, I found it difficult to imagine that they had grown up with Doug Pierce—their lives had taken such radically different directions.

  Out on the street, with all the activity surrounding setup of the convention, there’d been a sense of merry confusion. But here, in the shadow of the house, all was still—save for us, save for the rustle of a bird somewhere in the soaring limbs of old trees. The bright day had taken on an eerie quality, and I instinctively removed my dark glasses, pocketing them. Our lack of conversation, prompted by nothing more sinister than distaste for each other, now seemed to radiate an active malice borne of tight-lipped silence.

  I broke this lull by asking Miriam, “Did you get your school up and running?”

  Without breaking stride, she turned to tell me, “You know very well that I did. Your own paper reported it—barely. It is news, you know. Wisconsin’s—probably the nation’s—first holistic, paganic New Age day school. Ariel would benefit from our curriculum and from our all-organic diet.”

  This last comment was made purely to nettle me. Ariel was the name Miriam and her Fem-Snachers had given to Thad, claiming him as a child of the Society. I reminded her, “The boy’s mother named him Thad.”

  She was revving up for a diatribe when Kaiser shushed her, saying, “Not now, Miriam. We have other fish to fry.”

  So then—they were indeed paying this visit for some planned purpose. Trying to fathom what fish they meant to fry, I let our conversation lapse again.

  Reaching the two-story garage at the end of the driveway, I led them around to the side of the building, where the stairs rose to the covered porch of the coach house. Climbing the first few of the green-painted treads, I looked out upon the vast, shade-dappled lawn. In a flash, I saw the same serene scene that had been captured in the framed photo of Grace’s nephew, Ward Lord, whipping a Frisbee to his dog. The memory (which was not a direct recollection, but merely a visual impression of a years-old occurrence, preserved in a snapshot) gave me a perturbing sense of déjà vu, raising a mind-loop question: Did the scene there before me truly resemble the scene I recalled, or was my memory being rewritten by what I now saw? It was impossible to draw the distinction—even the trees looked the same to me, which I knew, intellec
tually if not in my gut, to be impossible. Continuing up the stairs, I searched for some small detail, any overlooked clue, that would prove a discrepancy between past and present. And I saw it. While making a turn at the landing, I noticed, tucked under a tree near the far end of the lawn, a garden ornament, a small stone obelisk that I had not seen before, either in the photo or in life. Though I should have been relieved by this discovery—it ratified my grip on reality—the effect of the obelisk was anything but heartening. No, the limestone monolith looked for all the world like a grave marker. This, combined with the uneasy stillness (even that morning’s gusty wind had now died, as if holding its breath), created a mood of intense foreboding, and I suddenly dreaded what I might find at the top of the stairs.

  Carrol Cantrell’s scream shattered the silence, nipping my thoughts, confirming my fears—or so I assumed. Miriam, Kaiser, and I froze, unsure, in that first instant, how to react. During this moment of suspended animation, Miriam lost her footing. One of her lumpish clogs slipped from the tread where she stood, knocking a potted geranium over the edge. Just as it hit ground, the crash was drowned out by another shriek from Carrol’s quarters.

  Through the screen door, we realized, he was talking on the phone, now howling breathlessly—the waning aftermath of his explosive look-at-me laughter. I chided myself for indulging in morbid premonitions, inspired by a harmless garden accessory, and reminded myself that the success of my career stemmed in part from a ruthless objectivity that allowed no faith in superstition. Glad to be in touch again with the here and now, I focused my attention on Carrol’s phone call. “Gawd, she’s a fright!” he dished with abandon between gulps of air. “A total, fucking ditz!” Then he yelped with delight at whatever was said on the phone.

  Miriam and Kaiser exchanged a disgusted look, rolling their eyes in disapproval. In truth, I didn’t much approve of Carrol’s performance either. His words, though, were not meant for our ears. He had no idea an audience was now on his porch, and if we were to let him continue unaware, we’d be guilty of eavesdropping, one-upping his bad manners.

  So I approached the door, preparing to rap on it. Just prior to my knock, we heard one last comment, delivered in a far more sober tone: “What about the Miller standard?”

  Caught unprepared for this question and confused by its meaning, I paused before knocking, mulling Carrol’s words. Was he talking about… beer? Surely not. Was he referring to the work of some noted miniatures artisan named Miller? Possibly. Glancing back toward Miriam and Kaiser, I noted that Miriam seemed oblivious to Carrol’s question. She was squatting to adjust her clog, which was quite a sight—she looked as if she were being eaten by her cape. Kaiser, on the other hand, seemed focused and intent, as if he understood Carrol’s reference to the “Miller standard.” Was it a legal term? I just didn’t know.

  So I knocked, calling inside, “Carrol? Anybody home?” There was no point in telling him we’d been hanging on his every word.

  He approached the door from the shadows behind the screen, wearing a long silk bathrobe, carrying a cell phone. “Company’s here,” he said into it. “Gotta go, love. Later.” And he snapped it shut.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I told him lamely through the screen.

  Recognizing me, he swung the door wide. “Mark, hon!” Then, squinting into the sunlight, he saw the others. “Oh?” His hair was a mess, and he hadn’t shaven yet. It was late morning—I figured his daily rhythms were still on California time.

  “I was in the neighborhood,” I explained, “so I thought I’d drop by, and—of all people—I ran into a couple of friends who’d had the same idea.” There was a moment’s pause. It was clear he did not appreciate the disturbance, so I forged ahead with introductions, telling him, “First, this is Miriam Westerman, founder of a local feminist organization that has just opened a New Age day school.”

  Pocketing his phone, he cinched his robe tighter and reached to shake her hand from where he stood in the doorway. After an exchange of strained pleasantries, he asked, “Are you…a collector?”

  She looked at him blankly. “Collector of what?”

  As if addressing an idiot (I was enjoying this), he said, “Miniatures, of course.”

  She laughed awkwardly. “Oh—no—not really.” And she said nothing more, offering no explanation for her presence.

  Understandably, Carrol now seemed more baffled than annoyed. Assuming he would be equally confused by the appearance of his other visitor, I told Carrol, “And this is Harley Kaiser, district attorney for Dumont County.”

  “Really?” Contrary to what I expected, Carrol’s tone carried no ring of surprise, but rather a note of recognition, as if he’d somehow been expecting Kaiser to appear at his door. It was apparent that the two had never met, but Carrol seemed fully aware of who Kaiser was. Shaking hands, he peered intently at Kaiser, as if attaching a face to a name. If my theory was correct that Sheriff Pierce and Carrol had been sleeping together, had Pierce told Carrol about the DA? Such a conversation didn’t strike me as probable pillow talk.

  In a tone that was instantly more gracious, Carrol continued, “How rude of me—leaving you all standing outdoors. Do come in.” He stepped aside, admitting us. “But I warn you: the place is a fright. I haven’t quite gotten settled yet.” That was an understatement.

  The space itself was charming. Grace Lord’s coach house was essentially one big room under the barn-roof gables. Dormer windows fetched treetop views from both sides, framed by those lacy tiebacks I’d seen from the ground. At one end was a bathroom with a small closet and galley kitchen nearby, but most of the quarters was open space that served as living room, dining room, and bedroom. The furnishings all had a tasteful “country” feel, upholstered in cheery chintzes and crisp ginghams. The wide, painted floorboards creaked underfoot, muffled by a scattering of colorful rag rugs. The overall effect of the room was comfortable and tidy.

  While the room’s new tenant may have been comfortable there, he was anything but tidy. For starters, the contents of his luggage could not begin to fit inside the tiny closet, so clothes were hung wherever he could hook their hangers—from rafters, curtain rods, and doorknobs. The luggage itself gaped open from the seats of chairs, containing a variety of items still unpacked—shoes, stacks of magazines, little corrugated boxes, a hair dryer, and a prodigious array of toiletries and cosmetics.

  This sense of disarray went beyond the obvious problem that Carrol had brought too much stuff. He’d had two days to get settled, and instead of making the best of a cramped situation, he’d created a shambles. Knotted bedclothes spilled from the king-size mattress to the floor. Damp towels hung from chair backs or lay wadded where they’d fallen. Magazines and file folders overflowed a diminutive writing desk. The dining table had been forced into duty as additional work space, where Carrol’s laptop was open and running, a document displayed upon its glowing screen. Surrounding the computer, amid fanned-out piles of paperwork, were some of the little corrugated boxes, opened, containing pieces of miniature furniture—gorgeous tiny desks and curios and upholstered chairs, all incredibly detailed. Were these in fact examples of Bruno Hérisson’s artistry?

  Also near the computer were some of the magazines Carrol had unpacked, and I now noticed that the common theme of these publications was not dollhouses, but beefcake. Unfolded centerspreads displayed horny muscle-guys getting it on together. The unexpected sight of their oiled bodies sucked me, momentarily, into their frozen, glossy, four-color frenzy.

  I was not the only one to notice the orgy on the table. Kaiser and Miriam, engaged in some pointless chatter with Carrol, had moved into the room and now stood within a foot of the table, both of them staring down at it, preoccupied by what they saw there. I got the impression that Kaiser had never before seen such explicit depictions of male couplings—his wide-eyed reaction seemed more amazed than aghast. Miriam, however, wrinkled her face in open disgust, which rather surprised me—her objection to pornography, after all, was that i
t constitutes “violence against women,” and believe me, there were no women being violated on the dining-room table that morning.

  I was also surprised by Carrol’s nonchalance. There he was, blithely grousing about the “wretched wet weather” he’d left in California, seemingly oblivious to the fact that these two strangers were gawking at material that most people would hide somewhere. He made no move to tuck away the magazines or to steer his visitors from the table. Instead, he gabbed on while leaning to peck at his computer, shutting it down. With a bleep, the screen went dark.

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  About the Author

  Michael Craft is the author of more than a dozen novels and three stage plays. He is best known as the author of the popular Mark Manning series, set in the Midwest, as well as the Claire Gray series, which takes place in Palm Springs, California. Three of Craft’s novels have been honored as national finalists for Lambda Literary Awards. His latest mystery novel, The MacGuffin, features a new protagonist, architect Cooper Brant.

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