Lockwood’s carvings filled all the shelves on the far wall. His uncle always carved animals: squirrels, deer, field mice, alone and in groups. A standing six-inch chipmunk, a nut held gingerly in his front paws, cocked his head quizzically. They were exquisitely fashioned carvings with beveled edges that shone under a high lacquer finish.
Leaving the house, Brian walked across the back yard toward the barn. Years ago, through choice rather than any family dispute, Uncle Lockwood had moved his possessions into the barn’s tack room. He had installed a Franklin stove, a cot, and had neatly aligned his carving knives along a workbench under the northerly window.
Brian pushed the tack room door open to find his uncle sitting on a three-legged stool near the window. Lockwood’s gnarled hands gripped a nearly completed figure, as the knife, possessed of a life of its own, made sharp flicking cuts along the grain of the wood. The elderly man didn’t look up as the door creaked shut.
“Uncle Lockwood.” The knife flicks seemed to increase in intensity as the only reaction from the man hunched on the stool. “She’s gone.”
“Do you like it, Brian?” Lockwood placed the completed grouping on the workbench and switched on a hanging light. He observed his creation a moment, and then turned out the light and moved the two carvings slightly to place them in a shaft of sunlight that fell through the dusty window. “Much better in natural light. They didn’t like me carving in the hospital. Something about shavings in the ventilator shafts. I think it’s the best I’ve done.”
As Brian stepped closer to the figurines, he was awed by the anguish in the doe’s face as her body arched over a fallen fawn. The turn of the deer’s head reflected a mother’s torment over the fallen child. It was good—very good. “I think it is, too.”
“I think I’ll have it buried with her.” Lockwood took a fine brush from a rack and began to stir a lacquer mixture.
“Look at me, Lockwood.”
“It takes several coats and twelve hours to dry between each coat. I’ll just have enough time if the funeral’s in three days. That’s the usual thing, isn’t it?”
What a strange island of a person his uncle was. Barely eighteen “months younger than Mary, and yet always considered the youngest child by an indeterminate distance. He had been a withdrawn person since Brian’s earliest memories, one of those rare people able to fold within themselves in contentment. He had been unable to finish school beyond early grammar school, and had what Brian now recognized from his educational background as severe dyslexia. A condition which in those earlier days was diagnosed as retardation.
Brian had spent hundreds of hours with his uncle in this room. As the stove glowed red and wind chortled around the eaves, Brian would read while Lockwood carved. “Take care of your uncle,” she had said. He looked at his charge by the workbench, meticulously lacquering the carving.
“Did you put the pillow on her face?” he asked softly. His uncle continued his careful brushwork. “Did you kill her?” The brush paused as Lockwood gazed out the window toward the meadow. “Will you answer me?”
“Is that what happened? Martha didn’t tell me that.”
“You loved her enough to do it.”
“Mary didn’t ask me to.” Lockwood turned toward Brian, the shadows within the room obscuring his eyes. “I would have if she had asked me.”
“Why didn’t you call me? I should have been here weeks ago.” Lockwood picked up the brush and dipped it in the lacquer. “I’m talking to you.”
“I thought Martha would call. Everything got mixed up. You know I never remember things.”
“What’s Bellchamp?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“During the few minutes I was able to see her, she said she was sorry about Bellchamp.”
“Mary shouldn’t be sorry for anything.”
“Tell me what it means.”
“Bellchamp.” Lockwood’s voice was distant until he turned with a slight smile. “Bellchamp was a puppy dog you had when you were a real little fellow. Couldn’t have been more than four when someone gave you this floppy-eared dog. You sure liked that fellow. Then, one day you were playing in the front, and Mary backed the car over the pup. That’s what she meant, Brian. She was saying she was sorry for hurting your pet.”
It was the longest speech he had ever heard the man give, and yet Brian didn’t believe a word of it. Lockwood finished painting the first coat of lacquer and without a word left the room. Brian watched the hunched man cross the yard, slowly mount the steps and disappear inside the house. He sighed and followed.
Lockwood was whispering on the phone in the hallway, but he hung up quickly when Brian entered the kitchen.
“Who were you calling?”
“Food market. Got hamburger here.” He opened the refrigerator door.
“Fine,” Brian said as he sank into a kitchen chair. He wasn’t sure he was hungry, but couldn’t remember when he had last eaten. He watched Lockwood flip four hamburgers on the grill.
“Coffee?”
“Okay. I didn’t know the markets still delivered.”
“Old customers.”
Brian understood this to mean that, supermarkets or not, a few of the old amenities still existed for lifelong residents of Tallman. There were things to be attended to, but he would put them off until morning. Then he would have to face the funeral arrangements, seeing about his mother’s small estate and making some provisions for Lockwood. He doubted that his uncle had the inclination to keep up the house, so it would have to be put on the market. Perhaps he could locate a small building near a highway, where Lockwood could make and sell his carvings and live in the back. He couldn’t cope with all the decisions tonight—tomorrow.
Burnt hamburgers squeezed between stale bread were served as a car pulled in the drive. Both men paused expectantly as footsteps clattered on the porch. Gordon and Martha entered.
“Can’t leave an unfinished soldier,” Gordon said as he plunked the bourbon on the table.
Martha looked at the scorched meat and shook her head. “Like I expected.” She placed a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken before them. “I’m sorry, hon. I would have made it myself, but I didn’t have time after I left the hospital. The doctor and I stopped at that new place on the highway.”
“Thank you, Martha.”
Gordon located glasses and poured drinks. “Did you know that Martha hadn’t worked private duty in years until she heard Mary was in the hospital?”
“I did what I could. She was my oldest friend and would have done the same for me.”
“Can I talk to you a minute, Brian?” Gordon took him by the arm and steered him out to the porch. “I’ve thought about what you said at the hospital, and I wonder if Lockwood couldn’t have …”
“He says he didn’t.”
“Mary watched over him all these years. He’d do anything she asked.”
“There was something she wanted to say and never had a chance to complete.”
“She was a very methodical person who wanted to get her affairs in order and make arrangements about your uncle.”
“I promised I’d take care of him.”
“Then you’ll be staying?”
“Only until I get things worked out. I hate to even think it, but what about Martha?”
“Out of the question. She’s a registered nurse and your mother’s oldest friend. Good God, they grew up together!”
“All the more reason.”
“She wouldn’t have used a pillow. She has access to the drug cabinet, which would have been more humane. I want to know if you’re going to drop it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your choice. Let’s go inside and finish that drink.”
Martha was holding forth in the kitchen while Lockwood sat whittling at the far end of the table. “And except for those years during the war when Harry and I worked for the Colonel, I guess we saw each other every day, or at least talked on the phone. You remember that, don’t
you, Lockwood?” Lockwood nodded. “I remember the first day Mary came back to Tallman with you, Brian. You were a cute little fellow. When was that, Lockwood? Time does fly.”
“Late forties.”
“That’s right. Your granddaddy had just died. That’s when Mary came back and opened the antique store.”
“We had a Studebaker with a pointed nose,” Brian said. “I recall going with her to auctions in Vermont and New Hampshire.”
“I thought you were born here?” Gordon asked.
“Nope. Mother went off to work during the war and met my father. She didn’t come back for a couple of years. I was too young to remember much.”
Martha’s arm went around him. “We want to be with you tonight. We’re your family now. I know your daddy didn’t have any folks, so you think of us as your people.”
“Christ,” Gordon said. “Remember the time we threw snowballs at the windows of the old Baily place and the state troopers got us?”
As the evening progressed, stories of childhood and youth pushed aside the patterns of remorse until Brian found himself immersed in a warm glow of friendship. Mary’s presence seemed to join them as vivid memories of her past recreated her. Even Lockwood, still intent on his carving, smiled and nodded in agreement from time to time.
The inescapable groping hands lifted him and placed him in the cold place with narrow sides that restricted his breathing. For the first time, his mother was in the background in wraithlike form that swirled in the choking mist. He felt her near him, but reached to find her gone. He awoke with a stabbing cry.
Darkness enshrouded the bed under the eaves, but Brian could see morning sun splashed across the floor under the window. He paced the board floor in his bare feet until his breathing returned to normal.
The room of his youth had remained unchanged over the years and still held the treasures of the young. Books, rock posters, pennants and team photographs adorned the walls. The small portable typewriter he had used for years, until she had given him an electric model for college, still sat on the desk. He smiled as he ran his fingers lightly over the keys.
The slanting roof and narrow eaves enclosed the space until the room oppressed him. He dressed quickly in slacks and sport shirt and hurried downstairs, where the aroma of perking coffee filled the kitchen.
With a mug of coffee in one hand, he followed the sound of a woman’s humming to the antique store. Martha Rubinow, with a feather duster in one hand, a rag in the other, was cleaning the cluttered shelves.
“You must have slept here last night.”
“Early riser. It’s really up to you, Brian, but Harry and I know this auctioneer in Cromwell who does a marvelous job. You could send cards to all the dealers and hire this man to sell you out.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I’ll speak to the lawyer about it.”
“I had Lockwood take your mother’s clothing down to the Goodwill box behind the supermarket. I hope that’s all right?”
“Someone should get some use out of them. If there’s anything you want, Martha?” He waved around the room. “Please help yourself.”
“Thank you. There is a locket of your mother’s, not that it’s worth much, but it would be a memento for me to remember her.”
“Please, take it.”
She looked at him with concern. “There’s something you should do today, but if you’d rather not, I’d be glad to …”
“The arrangements.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll do it, and then I had better see the lawyer. Clinton Robinson still handle mother’s affairs?”
“Has for years.”
“Where’s Lockwood?”
“I know he’s back from taking the clothing. He’s probably cleaning out the rest of Mary’s things.”
Brian nodded, finished the coffee and went to his mother’s room. The closet door gaped open to reveal lines of empty coat hangers. Empty bureau drawers were pulled open in skewered steps. The photograph of his father was gone.
He crossed the backyard to the barn and slowly pushed the door to the tack room open. The room was empty. As he walked back toward the house, he smelled autumn in the air. He paused and turned. To the rear, behind the barn beyond the apple orchard, was a small ravine, the bed of an ancient river. A plume of smoke drifted skyward to be dispersed by a westerly breeze.
He walked through the orchard, stepped over a crumbling stone wall and stood on the rise above the shallow ravine.
Lockwood grasped a pitchfork in both hands as he stooped to turn the smoldering fire. The fire burned badly. Papers, books and scrapbooks smoldered darkly rather than burned freely. Lockwood picked up a can of gasoline and poured it over the smoldering mass. The fire blazed up for a few moments and then sank back in a smoky haze.
“What are you doing?”
As Lockwood whirled, the pitchfork angled upward, inches from Brian’s waist. Their eyes met, and his uncle’s cheek muscles worked in rapid spasms. The pitchfork wavered and then fell, impaling its prongs in the ground.
“I thought for a moment there that you were going to stick me. What are you burning? It looks like things from mother’s room.”
“Everything.” Lockwood pulled the pitchfork from the ground and turned to snaggle a burning item and move other things back and forth in a vain attempt to feed the fire.
At the rear of the burning rubble, Brian saw his father’s picture staring up at him as smoke curled the edges. He stepped into the ravine, grabbed the fork from Lockwood and flipped the picture away from the flames. He picked up the frame, felt his fingers burn, and held it by the edge with a handkerchief.
“My father’s picture, too?” he asked, and turned to find that Lockwood had left the ravine and was walking quickly through the orchard toward the house.
Chapter Three
The long, silent line terrified him. Brian walked down the thick carpeting of the center aisle, past the open lids where satin puffed upward. Midway down the display, he paused to shut a coffin lid and run his hand along the smooth surface.
“That’s an attractive model,” the soft voice behind him said. “An excellent mahogany that’s built to last. If you will allow me?” The funeral director opened the coffin and reached under the satin pillow to extract a discreet card carrying the figure $1200. “Serviceability without being ostentatious. I think Mary would have approved.”
Brian visualized her lying in the coffin in her best dress, hands folded primly with the cold, vacant composure of the dead. The image dissolved to be replaced with his own body stretched out in the confined space. Darkness would descend as the lid closed, and the dank smell would permeate the narrow box.
He stepped backward and stumbled against another coffin. His breath came in a choked sob.
“Are you all right, Mr. Maston?”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Faulkland. I think that one is just fine.” He turned and almost ran from the room.
The law offices of Clinton Robinson were located in a converted house behind the green, not far from the funeral home. A large white sign nailed to the clapboard wall announced:
CLINTON ROBINSON
ATTORNEY AT LAW
GROUND FLOOR
DUANE WILLIAMS
PODIATRIST
SECOND FLOOR
Until four years ago, Clinton Robinson had been one of Tallman’s most prestigious citizens. Three terms in the state legislature had led to the attorney generalship and eventual appointment to the state supreme court. The day after his wife died, however, Clinton had resigned from the bench and returned to town for a haphazard law practice.
Clinton’s feet knocked three file folders to the floor as he tilted back in an ancient swivel chair and forced his feet up onto the desk. His florid face was dominated by bushy eyebrows and a shock of white hair. He clasped his hands over a food-stained vest that covered a large stomach and looked at Brian with mild interest.
Law books, journals, legal documents and legal pads with scrawled notation
s were piled in complete disorder on every available surface.
“Have a seat.”
Brian picked up two heavy volumes of Patton on Real Property that occupied the seat of the chair before the desk.
“Throw them on the floor. Heard about your mother. Tragic. Mary and I were in high school together.”
“The services will be tomorrow at eleven.”
“I’ll be there. Wonderful woman, Mary. Wonderful. Now, what can I do for you?”
“I wanted to see what I should do about the estate. I assume I’m still executor. There’s bound to be items I should take care of before I leave.”
The swivel chair plunked forward as Clinton rummaged through folders and papers. “File’s here somewhere. Margaret!”
A birdlike woman peeked through the door. “Yes, Mr. Robinson?”
“The Maston file. Why can’t I find anything? If you wouldn’t keep moving things.”
“It’s in the vault, Mr. Robinson.”
“Get it. Get it. Be here in a moment, Brian. Wonderful woman, Margaret. Knows where everything is, invaluable, but wouldn’t tell her that, of course.”
“I am executor?”
“Oh, yes. Your mother named you when you turned twenty-five. Never changed it.”
The secretary reappeared carrying a folder, which she hesitatingly placed in Clinton’s hand. The attorney flipped it open, scowled at the pages for a few minutes, placed glasses on the tip of his nose, scowled some more and then looked up at Brian. “All here.” He flipped over a page. “Yes, pay the usual expenses.” He looked over the top edge of his glasses. “That means the funeral expenses and any other open items. Knowing Mary, there won’t be very many.” He looked back at the document. “A trust fund for Lockwood in the amount of fifty thousand dollars, to be administered by the bank. The principal to go to you on Lockwood’s death. Then the usual residual clause for the balance.”
“What does that mean?”
“All that’s left after the expenses and the trust goes to you or your heirs.”
Brian nodded. “There’s about twenty acres with the house, that must be worth something, and then there’s the inventory from the shop that we can auction. We ought to be able to cover Lockwood’s trust. I assume the estate will be below the taxable limit.”
The Laughing Man Page 3
