I tense up. “He was right.”
“James told me about your meeting,” Flaherty goes on. “He expressed himself forcefully, I gather.”
“A frank and honest exchange of ideas?” I respond bitingly. “Isn’t that how diplomats refer to a meeting when they disagree on everything?”
“I believe so.” He grinds his butt out on the sole of his boot, field-strips it, lets the wind carry the shreds away. “James can be blunt. But he isn’t what he appears to be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I don’t want to talk about that piece of shit, but Flaherty’s sucking me in. He’s an old hand, a pro who has one of those underplayed, persuasive manners that make you pay attention.
“Appearances can be deceiving, especially when you’re in a delicate position, as James is.”
“Our frank and honest exchange went beyond appearances. Way beyond.”
He nods. “I can understand your resentment at being dragged to his lair, so to speak, and being chastised. Like a trip to the principal’s office. Or in your case, an unpleasant meeting with the dean.” He stares at me with calculation under his hooded eyes.
He knows about my past. Not that it matters, but it’s disconcerting. Unless he heard it as gossip via old Mrs. Mortimer. That’s possible. I can’t ascribe every negative comment about me to sinister forces that are out to get me. Sometimes it’s mere coincidence. In this instance, though, I don’t think so.
“Chastisement doesn’t bother me, I’m used to it,” I tell him. “Roach threatened me. That puts it in a different category.”
“James was making a point. Sometimes one overstates to make a point.”
I stamp out my cigarette. The man is overstepping his welcome. “When people start turning up dead, that isn’t overstating a point. That’s murder. And I don’t appreciate that you’re bringing this up at my mother’s funeral.”
He steps back, holds his hands in the air. “I’m sorry. I meant no offense.” He pauses. “When you say ‘murder,’ who are you referring to? You’re not intimating you think your mother was murdered, are you?”
“I’m not intimating anything. All I know is, Roach’s bodyguard Wallace was killed under weird circumstances, then Roach threatens me, then my mother is found dead in my house . . . you connect the dots. And there’s other stuff, too.”
His brow furrows. “Such as?”
“Forget it.” I can’t deal with this now. “Thank you for being here for Mrs. Mortimer. As for Roach, he doesn’t need you or anyone standing in for him. He’s unwelcome under any and all circumstances. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”
He retreats into the house—I hear his boot heels echoing on the marble entryway.
I wonder if Roach put him up to this. I wouldn’t put it past the bastard.
It’s brutal out. I’m drained. I sit on the front steps. My mouth tastes like asbestos from the cigarette. I have every other vice, I don’t need that one. I sip my drink—the ice has melted, so it’s weak. A good thing, because I don’t want to lose control, like Sam did. I should get some food in my stomach.
In a little while. Right now, I want to sit here and let my mind go blank.
I don’t know how long I’m there alone. Five minutes, ten. I start to calm down. I should go inside and get another drink. It doesn’t have to be alcoholic, but I need to keep my bodily fluids replenished. People get dehydrated and their brains turn mushy. That’s what happened to Sam.
I feel a presence behind me. It’s Johanna, I don’t have to look to know. “Join me if you want,” I invite her without turning around.
She comes down the steps, stands a few paces beside me. “Maybe you need space.”
“I’ve had space.”
She sits down. “May I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“What was your brother talking about? Harvard, and Hustler magazine?”
Christ, Sam’s vitriolic tongue is going to haunt me all day. “Nothing. He was ranting. He was drunk, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Everyone noticed. I felt bad for him.”
“Don’t—he doesn’t deserve your sympathy.” I run the cold glass around the back of my neck. It doesn’t bring any relief. By way of explanation, I tell her, “He thinks I’m responsible for our mother’s death. He has to make somebody a scapegoat, so he lashed out at me. It’s nothing new.”
“But you weren’t. It was an accident.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m sorry.” She reaches over and touches my hand sympathetically, then withdraws. “I shouldn’t be intruding.”
She means well. Her presence reminds me of a question that’s been festering in my brain since she entered the church, and came to a head fifteen minutes ago. “How long have you known Ed Flaherty?”
She brushes some damp strands of hair off her face. “I barely know him at all. He’s my mother’s friend. Your neighbor James Roach introduced them. Mother’s sweet on him,” she says with a smile. “Ed told me he met you when you went sailing together, on Roach’s boat.” She looks at me. “Why do you ask?”
“Curiosity. People don’t usually come to funerals when they don’t know the deceased.”
“He asked to.”
“He asked?” That doesn’t square. “Your mother didn’t ask him?”
“No. He wanted to come.”
Roach put him up to it, I’m sure of that now. He used his relationship with Mrs. Mortimer as an excuse. And I thought he was an okay guy. I should have figured, him being a friend of Roach’s from way back.
She bites on a cuticle. “This might be the wrong question to ask now, but are you involved with someone?”
I turn to her. “Where’s this coming from?”
“The way your brother was talking. I know he’s drunk, but the way he said it. And my mother told me she’d heard you’d been seen with a woman who isn’t from around here.” A quick touch to my arm again, another quick pulling away. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. Especially today.”
I’m tired of dodging. It’s like trying to find your way out of a maze that has no exits. “Do you know a professor from Harvard named—don’t laugh—Maureen O’Hara?”
“Yes,” she says slowly, “I know Maureen.”
“An ornithologist?”
“She’s in the Biology Department. I don’t know her specialty. She could be, I guess. Is that who your brother was referring to?” she asks.
I nod. “I’ve been helping her out. Watching birds.”
“That’s . . . interesting.”
“Why?”
“When you told me you had to go out on some bird-watching trip, when I was here . . .” She hesitates. “That night, at your place? I thought about it later. I thought you were laying a line of bull on me. To get rid of me.”
I nod. “I was.”
“But then what about . . . ?”
“Helping out your friend?”
“Friend’s an overstatement.” There’s a tone of irritability in her voice. “We know each other. We don’t move in the same social circles.”
That’s unsettling to hear, but understandable. Maureen said they had some issues, serious enough for Maureen to duck out of something she knew was important to me; to both of us.
“She wanted to study birds of the region. She came up with my name.” I pause. “I thought she got it from you.”
Johanna shakes her head. “She didn’t hear about you from—” She stops.
“What?”
“I was at a party in Cambridge, shortly after I came back from here. I mentioned I’d been down, and had met this man . . .” Her face begins to redden. “This nice guy. Actually, I think the words I used were ‘sexy’ and ‘cool,’ or something equally silly. Maureen was there. It’s the only party I can recall being at in the past year where she was there, too. I didn’t talk to her about you, but she might have overheard. Did she say I told her about you?” she asks dubiously.
“More or le
ss,” I say offhandedly. It’s taking guts for her to open up to me like this. I admire that, but I wish she wasn’t, because I can’t reciprocate. “It was most likely the way you’ve described it.”
“I wouldn’t talk to Maureen O’Hara about my personal life,” she says, almost savagely. It’s as if she’s angry, hearing this.
“Why not?”
“I just wouldn’t. Certainly not about a man.”
Something weird is going on between her and Maureen. I wish now I had told Johanna not to come today. I stand up. I’m light-headed—for a second I sway on my feet. “I need to put some fluids in my system, get something to eat.”
Johanna is slumped over, her legs spread apart, feet splayed out on the steps. “I’m going to sit out here for a while by myself, if you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind? Stay here as long as you want.”
I go back inside. Whatever’s bugging her about Maureen, that’s her problem. She and Maureen can duke it out. I have more than enough problems of my own.
• • •
Mid-afternoon. The wake’s petering out. The last stragglers say their good-byes and leave. No one’s left except family. Dinah comes over to me where I’m sitting in our father’s favorite wing chair, nursing a ginger ale. I’m done drinking for the day. I’m going to take a few days off, give my liver a breather.
“Talk to your brother,” my sister implores me.
“About what?”
“We have to hang together, Fritz. It’s just us now.”
She takes me by the hand and leads me to the study, where Sam is lying on the couch, a wet dish towel covering his forehead. Emily hovers nearby, wringing her hands.
Sam struggles to sit up. “I made an ass of myself,” he proclaims hoarsely to the floor.
I’m not feeling charitable. “Not the first time.”
“Fritz.” Dinah gives me a big-sister look of reprimand.
Peace in the family. I can handle that, for a short time. “I’ve done my share of being the jerk, too,” I give him grudgingly.
“We’ll leave you two to figure this out,” Dinah says, casting a “let’s-go” eye at Emily.
The women depart. I sit down on the couch next to Sam.
“Why do you have such a hard-on against me?” I ask him. “What have I done to deserve it?”
He looks at me. His eyes are bloodshot, caked drool covers his lips. “You never appreciated what you had.”
“That’s harsh, isn’t it?”
He shakes his head. “You always got away with murder. Whatever you did, however you fucked up, they forgave you. You never paid any dues, Fritz. And you never said ‘I’m sorry.’”
“What was I supposed to be sorry for?”
“For not caring. No, that’s not it. For not caring about anyone except yourself.”
“Well, I care now. I care a lot now.”
He blows his nose, a big honk. “What’re you going to do?”
“About what?”
“About your house being burned down,” he says impatiently. “Where are you going to live, now that mother’s not around to support you anymore?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t given it a thought yet.”
“You’d better.” Unsteadily, he gets to his feet. “Because the life that was here, and everything that’s connected to it, is over.”
• • •
Everyone’s gone now. I’m alone, except for Louis and Mattie, who are finishing the cleanup. Then they, too, will leave for the rest of the day and night.
I think about what my brother accused me of, my never having paid any dues: I think I have. I’m paying them now. But I understand what he meant. For our family. I didn’t make a contribution. No family of my own, no children, no career security, so our mother wouldn’t worry about me. I’m rudderless, drifting wherever the stream takes me.
I go outside, aimlessly walk around, come back. This entire situation has been a classic case of what can happen when you do the right thing the wrong way. I got involved. No one wanted me to. Not Buster, not Maureen, not Roach. They all had their own reasons for wanting me to sit this out, but they did warn me, and I didn’t heed them. I’ve gotten involved for selfish reasons, yes, for the thrill of the unknown, the taste of possible danger; but regardless of that, what I have done is what was right, and moral: I was witness to a murder, and I didn’t feel the act should go unpunished—whatever that means. But by becoming an involved member of the human tribe, I brought my world down around my ears.
Don’t get involved—the modern mantra. I broke it, and now I’m paying more dearly than I could ever have imagined. My mother is dead and other people are dead. It’s fucked, this world.
You can dwell on the past but you can’t live in it, even if you want to. I don’t have a choice now—somehow, some way, I have to see this through to the end. I owe my mother nothing less.
• • •
My not-drinking pledge lasted how long? Two hours? I’m nursing a beer, a cold Sierra Nevada. I put beer in the sort-of-drinking category. I’m drinking just the one; at the most I’ll have one more.
The phone rings. I don’t want to answer it, I want to chill out, do nothing, think nothing. Tomorrow will come soon enough, then I’ll do something.
It doesn’t stop. The answering machine must have been turned off.
I get up from the comfy Adirondack chair and go inside. The air-conditioning is off, it’s hotter inside than outside. The air is heavy in here, the lingering essences of bodies, of drink, food, mourning.
I cradle the phone in my ear. “Hello?” I say, hoping it’s Maureen.
No such luck. “How you holding up, Fritz?” Fred asks solicitously.
I knew in my gut Maureen wouldn’t call this soon after leaving that note. Nevertheless, I’m disappointed. “I’m holding up.”
He hears the fatigue in my voice. “Is this an okay time to talk?”
“What do you want to talk about, Fred?”
“Let’s start with the gun that killed Wallace.”
“What about it?”
“It’s the same gun that killed the counselor. Small-bore gun, .22 caliber.”
Now I know why Lieutenant Ricketts asked me if I owned a .22. “How’d you find out about the gun without arousing your cousin’s suspicion?”
“I got him talking about the Wallace murder. He’s been in close touch with the P.G. police department. They’ve been comparing notes. I weaseled the info out of him without giving away that you and me are working on this.”
“Good man,” I praise him.
“There’s a second part. Marcus has been checking up on the counselor’s history, as part of his investigation. The counselor might not have been an innocent bystander in what happened to him. The getting-murdered part.”
“Like how?”
“It may be he was involved in illegal weapons trafficking in years past.”
“With Roach?”
“Marcus didn’t say, and I didn’t press him. Marcus is sharp as they come, but he’s a city cop. This is federal stuff, way higher than him.” He pauses. “What are you going to do about this, Fritz?”
I lean back. It’s a cloudy night, the stars are blanketed. My mind feels like it’s spinning out of control.
“I put my mother in the ground today, Fred. Tomorrow’s going to come soon enough. Then I’ll decide.”
My father owned an Old Town canoe. He bought it in Maine one summer while on a family vacation (family of four; I wasn’t born yet) and had it transported down here. He used to paddle it in the streams and rivers that flowed around and through our property when he was a younger man, before I was born. Sometimes my mother would go for an afternoon’s cruise with him. They’d glide along, champagne flutes in hand, like characters in an English country vignette from the Edwardian age.
When I came back to the family manse I hauled the old canoe down from its perch in the rafters of the old garage where it had been stored for decades, recaulked the
seams, made it seaworthy. I’ve only taken it out a few times, preferring the convenience and maneuverability of my little motorboat. Tonight, though, my mode of transportation has to be a craft that’s self-propelled, rather than by motor.
The charred remains of my shack loom quiescent in the dark cloudy night, silently chastising me. I stand in front of what used to be the front porch, staring at it. I shouldn’t be going where I’m going, but I have to. The birds, until recently my reason for being, are there. As importantly, this burnt-out hulk is a symbol of my life. I have to confront why it was burned down, and along with that, why my mother was killed.
I unstrap the canoe from the roof of my Jeep and carry it to the dock. The air is thickly perfumed with night-flower smells. I have a water bottle with me and some rolls of superfast black and white film in my camera, so I can get an image if there’s anything worth shooting.
Lowering the old boat into the green-black water, I climb in and push off. The current, flowing downstream slowly, does most of the work. I paddle easily, concentrating on where I’m going. There’s hardly any light; the moon, a few days past new, is obscured by the thick cloud cover, which I know from experience should last all night. The dimness makes the landscape hard to see, but that’s what I want—darkness, to conceal my movements. I can almost traverse these waterways blindfolded, so limited light is no problem for me. If the night was cloudless, I wouldn’t have the nerve to come down here. I sit low, keeping my head down to avoid accidentally bashing it on one of the low-hanging cypress branches that protrude into the center of the channel.
My little island is so thick with sleeping birds it’s almost impossible to walk without stepping on them. I pick my way carefully, wading through the shallow water that separates the two spits of land, making for the marshy area where Ollie and the sandhills are roosting. What majestic and glorious creatures they are! I recall Blake’s Songs of Experience: his rapturous evocation of the tiger could be applied equally to Ollie.
It’s very still. I squat on my haunches and stare at Ollie and his close cousins. From my roosting spot I can’t see where I tied up my boat.
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