The Memory of Eva Ryker

by Donald Stanwood

  “Jan, what happened to MacKendrick and Burke?”

  She sat on the bed. “MacKendrick is dead, Norman.”

  I swallowed hard. “And Burke?”

  “He’s in Intensive Care. Burke’s been burned very badly.” She fumbled for the words. “They’ve had to … cut … I mean both his legs are gone. And his right arm.”

  Her teeth chattered in a strange little titter. “Doctors can do wonders these days. Burke can be fed through tubes, with the latest machines to suck the waste away. Why, he could live for years.”

  Slowly I let air hiss through my teeth. “I want to see him.”

  “Later, Norman. When you’re stronger.”

  I painfully pulled the sheet snug under my chin. “Did the police recover any remains of the copter?”

  “That’s what I understand. A Captain Lincoln cornered me here this morning. He wants you to appear at the inquest on the crash as soon as possible.”

  Police inquest. I felt a tightening in my throat. Of course, I wouldn’t be on trial this time, not in any sense, but the very words hit me like an ancient curse.

  Jan read my mind. “Captain Lincoln promised me everything would be kept low-key.”

  “A pious hope, my dear. Unfortunately, the whole story has the making of a press circus.”

  Silence. Her hand kept stroking my hair.

  “Something’s on your mind, Janice. Are you going to come out with it, or do I have to play guessing games?”

  “Oh, Norman, don’t …”

  “Right now you’re planning strategy once I leave this place. If you had your druthers, I would hand my resignation to Geoffrey and retire to a cottage by the seashore, writing Harlequin Romances until age ninety-five.”

  Jan laughed grudgingly. “You’re making the last part up. Romance was never your strong suit.”

  “We’d collaborate.”

  “No, Norman.” She patted my shoulder. “We’ll have to thrash this out, but not here and not now. At the proper time and place I’m prepared to pull my hair, scream, and throw dishes. You will set your jaw and gird your loins and nothing will change.” A lingering kiss before she stood. “In the meantime, get some sleep.”

  OTTAWA (UPI) After an exhaustive investigation spanning two weeks, the inquiry into the loss of the Halifax Air Charter Company’s Bell helicopter, which killed one man and injured two, adjourned today, no closer to a verdict than when the inquest began.

  “We were faced with conflicting evidence,” explained Chief Investigation Officer Glenn Lincoln, “which seemed, and still seems, very inconclusive. The Board of Inquiry simply didn’t have enough material on which to base a satisfactory verdict.”

  The helicopter was returning to Halifax after visiting William Ryker’s research ship, Savonarola, on what was described as a “journalistic mission” by Geoffrey Proctor, Chairman of the Board of Proctor-World Publishing. Mr. Proctor was the employer of both Norman Hall and Burke Sheffield, who were injured in the crash.

  The board heard today from Hall, who related how a fire broke out on board the copter, engulfing the cockpit in seconds.

  “The details are all very jumbled,” he stated, “but the fire was definitely sudden, almost explosive.”

  Hall went on to testify that the position of pilot Ralph MacKendrick may have cost him his life.

  “Both MacKendrick and Mr. Sheffield were sitting in the front seats, directly behind the controls. Since the fire seems to have started under the instruments, they had very little time to escape.”

  Only scattered pieces of the helicopter have been found by recovery teams. No evidence was found as to the cause of the explosion.

  Simon Harriman, representative of the Bell Corporation, testified before the board that no design fault in the copter could conceivably cause an explosion such as Hall described.

  “Things such as fuel lines and electrical circuits are protected by insulators. I don’t see any way for this particular explosion to be considered an accident.”

  However, police investigation can find no direct indication of sabotage.

  “Lack of facts puts the whole inquest at an impasse,” said Chief Investigator Lincoln.

  Ralph MacKendrick is survived by his wife and son. Burke Sheffield is under continual intensive care at Victoria General Hospital.

  I spent the next two months in Halifax, stitching together the scattered pieces of my life.

  With Dr. Malle’s encouragement I was able to sit up in bed by early March. Another two weeks of sitz baths, bouts in an oxygen tent, and lube jobs with tannic jelly passed before the bandages came off for good.

  All the doctors and nurses kept telling me how fortunate I was not to have facial burns. Much of my body hair had been scorched away and the freshly-healed skin resembled a shiny sugar-coated glaze. I tried flexing my biceps. It was like bending a sausage.

  Weeks passed before I could walk normally. But I couldn’t just sit and vegetate. Time was running out on the Titanic story.

  On March 10, I swallowed my pride and called Geoffrey. In the end we compromised. I gave and he took. I coughed up the article by the end of the week. Fast and breezy and a piece of shit. In return, he agreed to announce that it was only the first part of a forthcoming serial to conclude in World by Christmas.

  Jan jet-shuttled between Paris and the hospital, bringing our background notes. With papers stacked high on all sides of the bed, I sat my portable on my lap and typed for two days straight. A rehashed sinking, culled from other books. An emasculated account of my meeting with Eva and her daddy. Although haunted by half facts and half hunches, I wrote nothing about the Kleins. The Marianas trip served as capper, with a P.S. plugging the next promised installment. You—the reader—ain’t heard nothin’ yet!

  I chucked the pages into an envelope, licked the flap shut, and passed it to the night-duty nurse to mail. Sagging back against my pillow, I turned off the table lamp and watched snowflakes bounce off the window, lit by the blue glow of the night-light.

  I had a sudden desire to get roaring drunk. Anything to blunt this fall into my personal black pit.

  I spent the night thinking of that story on its airmail way to Geoffrey’s desk. A god-awful work compared with what it could have been. But what could I have done? Wrapped and mummified in the hospital, I’d been helpless. An act of God …

  I remembered Ryker’s words aboard the Savonarola, thought about the sabotage rumors, and felt sick with apprehension.

  By sunrise I’d worked out a tentative battle plan for my followup article. Check out the identity of the man tailing Burke on the Savonarola. Talk again with Eva. Badger the Australian police about new leads on the McFarland murder. Interview other Titanic survivors who stayed in cabins close to the Rykers or Kleins.

  It was a formidable checklist. Once escaping from this damn place, I would once again be an all-around nuisance to a great many people. That thought cheered me considerably.

  Those last weeks at Victoria General became a teeth-gritting prison stretch. Malle and his crew filled my morning hours with treadmills, barbells, endless Jacuzzis, and pummeling masseurs.

  In the afternoon came visitors. Most were pleasant, some tiresome, and a few very painful. Geoffrey arrived with bundles of advance World copies bearing my bastardized story. A masterpiece, he said. The editorial board couldn’t wait for Part Two. Keep up the good work.

  My parents flew in from Honolulu, followed shortly thereafter by Ron, away from USC for Easter. And, most astonishingly, my ex-wife. She wept demurely, squeezed my hand, told me to take care, and ran from the room. To my surprise, I found myself oddly moved.

  I saved the worst for last. The night before my release I limped up to Intensive Care to see Burke. He had asked for me. The whole experience was something I’d rather not discuss.

  Finally, on April 24, I held Jan’s hand in my left and a walking stick in my right as Nurse Rhoades wheeled me down the front steps of the hospital to our waiting car. Pure foolishness, of co
urse, since I could walk fine. Steadily if not gracefully. But regulations were sacrosanct, and outgoing patients must never leave under their own power.

  Jan’s rented ’62 Impala waited curbside at the bottom of the steps. She got the door as the nurse locked the chair’s wheels and eased me upright.

  “Any problems, Mr. Hall? Just let me know.”

  I promised, while she and Jan exchanged brave parting words. Then we were off.

  Jan fiddled with knobs and got the heater roaring. “Well, how does the outside look?”

  I peered through wiper streaks at the slush and traffic. “A godsend. I feel freshly hatched and ready to tackle the world.”

  “A terrifying image, Norman.” She turned right onto Con-naught Avenue.

  “Where in the world are you taking me?”

  “Something I ran across a few days ago.”

  She wouldn’t elaborate as we made a left onto Chishom Avenue, skirting the edges of what at first seemed to be a handsome city park. The Chevy swerved and braked in front of a brick signpost. I rubbed frost off the window with my coat sleeve and appraised a blue-tarnished plaque.

  City of Halifax

  FAIRVIEW

  Lawn

  CEMETERY 1893

  “I find this in poor taste, Janice.”

  “Please don’t be angry.” She eased the car forward onto the snow-slippery driveway. “Just sit tight.”

  The road cut straight between columns of shivering elms. Beyond the trees, tombstones jutted out of the snow like petrified toadstools.

  A white paint-chipped sign hugged the right side of the road. I squinted at the black letters as we pulled over and stopped.

  TITANIC

  “My God, Jan, what have you got us into?”

  “Bear with me, Norman.” She coached me from the car and led the way toward the deserted graveyard.

  Most of the markers curved up the gentle slope in unassuming rows resembling immense granite dentures. A mere handful of marble stones stood above the crowd. Jan brushed ice off the chistled words of one monolith.

  IN LOVING MEMORY OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON

  BELOVED HUSBAND OF ANN ELIZABETH HARRISON

  WHO LOST HIS LIFE IN THE TITANIC DISASTER

  APRIL 15, 1912

  ‘IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN DEATH’

  I huddled within my coat to fend off the chills. I smelled the old dreaded scent. I’d come across it on the ocean floor. And in the closet at the Moana Hotel. After twenty years, I still couldn’t wash it away.

  “Nearly two hundred of them,” Jan explained. “Picked up two weeks after the sinking by a Halifax cable ship, the Mackay-Bennett. Some, like this man, were identified. Others not.” She turned over her shoulder and watched a lonely tanker chugging out of Halifax harbor. “Quite a spot, isn’t it?”

  We walked past row after row of faceless headstones, LOST ON THE R.M.S. TITANIC APRIL 15, 1912. R.I.P. I had an uneasy vision of buried corpses wakened by our footsteps, whispering among themselves. Complete nonsense, of course, but even so …

  A Plymouth sedan nosed in back of our parked car. The woman driver locked it up and moseyed our way. She kept her distance, inspecting the gravestones.

  Minutes passed and we wove between rows like shoppers in a Christmas tree lot, drawing steadily closer to the woman. She still hadn’t acknowledged our presence. A pause at each stone and then she moved on. Jan and I found ourselves imitating her pattern. I began to feel like a pawn in some elaborate board game.

  An approaching freight train howled on the other side of the fence. The woman paid it no mind. The next row would take her by us.

  Warning bells rang at the Chishom Avenue intersection as the freight roared by, shaking the cemetery fence. The ground under my feet trembled as the wheels rolled over gaps in the rails. Under the cover of the noise I examined the woman more closely. Horsey and fiftyish, with a doughy face marked by years of good living. The type who would accompany her husband on hunting trips, bagging two ducks to his one.

  The freight hooted mournfully to silence. She was coming our way.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Morning.” She didn’t look up. “You folks come here often?”

  “No.” Jan held onto my arm. “We’re from out of town.”

  “You’re lucky. It not being crowded, I mean. This poor place has been a tourist trap ever since the Titanic business cropped up. Nothing but that old fool Ryker on the news. It’s no wonder the locals shudder at the thought of a Titanic graveyard right in the heart of town.”

  I tapped the headstone with my shoe. “The residents don’t look capable of much mischief.”

  “Not quite true.” She crooked a finger. “Come with me.”

  We followed her to a plot tucked in a far corner, where the fence ran along Windsor Street. The headstone had a tiny brass plate on its base. The woman pulled a handkerchief from her purse and wiped off some of the tarnish. We bent closer.

  GEORGIA BETH FERRELL

  1880–1912

  IN APPRECIATION FOR SERVICE BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY

  ABOARD THE R.M.S. TITANIC APRIL 14, 1912

  R.I.P.

  W.A.R.

  “Notice the date.” She underlined it with a forefinger. “One day earlier than all the others. The ship sank early in the morning of the fifteenth. I sometimes wonder what she did on the fourteenth to rate such approval.”

  I stood erect. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Ruth Masterson.” She shook my hand. Her eyes were canny and alert like a wise old eagle. “I’ve been following since you left the hospital.”

  “I’m afraid …”

  “No, we never met. But you know my husband, by reputation at least.” She led Jan and me by the arm. “I can explain better in the car. Harold is very anxious to talk to you. But we thought it safer if I was the one who picked you up.”

  “Harold …?”

  “That’s right. He’s got an old movie at home. And you’re invited to a private screening.”

  17

  April 24, 1962

  We agreed to follow Ruth Masterson’s Plymouth to the apartment, where her husband waited. The path took us downtown, across the Angus MacDonald Bridge into Dartmouth, and finally to a low stucco triplex near Little Albro Lake.

  She waited out front while we parked on the street, then led the way to the back apartment. A record player blasted behind the closed curtains of the front unit. Vaughn Meader’s uncanny impersonation of JFK, followed by shrill canned laughter.

  “College kids,” Mrs. Masterson explained. “They raise quite a racket, but you learn to live with it.”

  The back unit had a closed and abandoned look, but it came to life when she tapped the front door.

  “Who is it?” asked a muffled voice from within.

  “It’s me, Halley.”

  Chains rattled and the door opened into stuffy darkness. Mrs. Masterson made introductions and I peered through the gloom to see the man shaking my hand.

  Harold Masterson had shrunk since his appearance on television, when he was pink and flushed by success. The chubby face had turned pale gray and his eyes were wide and dazed, like a near-sighted man who has lost his glasses.

  “I’m so pleased to meet you. Both of you.” He finally released his grip and pointed to the couch. “Please sit down.”

  Sunlight seeping through the dark green drapes filled the living room with an aquarium glow. Masterson stood over us, rubbing his palms together.

  “Now! Just make yourself at home. Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He settled into a lumpy chair, then smiled uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, but I’m rather anxious about this whole thing. Once you see that film, my head is on a chopping block. I want your word that you’ll wait at least five days before making the contents public.”

  “That seems fair.”

  “Good, good.” Masterson exhaled deeply. “You see, I need time to get out of the coun
try.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s Ryker. The man’s ruthless. He’ll …” Masterson blotted his forehead with a shirt sleeve. “Maybe I should start from scratch.” He coiled both hands together. “Last year I was working at the New York office of Brubaker, Hutchison and Adler. One of the top execs in charge of the Savannah-Co account. As it turns out, William Ryker dabbles in oil. He’s a major stockholder. He drafted me last November to work on the salvage project. The job’s title was ‘Executive Director,’ but Mike Rogers and the technical boys did most of the directing. I was hired as a high-powered PR man. Not ego-building, perhaps, but most lucrative.

  “We kept the lid on all the news until the Marianas and Neptune located the Titanic and began retrieving relics. Then a controlled trickle to the networks and wire services. Absolutely routine. I never heard a ripple from Ryker in Veyrier.

  “The Neptune discovered the film on January twenty-first. Everyone on my staff knew it was a terrific find. I personally took a plane to New York to deliver it to the DeLuxe labs. Their technicians took fantastic care of the original neg when they made the dupes.”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “How many people saw the movie?”

  “At the lab? Three that I know of. Security was pretty tight. My orders.” He laughed grimly. “And, as it turned out, my undoing. Fewer men for Ryker to smother under all his money.”

  “Bribes, I suppose.”

  “And threats. An iron-fisted sugar daddy. Ryker’s found the combination most effective.” Harold crossed his legs and fidgeted into a new position. “In any case, after viewing the film, I held a press conference explaining the movie and promising release prints within two days. We flew a copy to Ryker that night.”

  Masterson swallowed bitterly. “Twenty-four hours later I got a long-distance call from Veyrier. Ryker had seen the film as well as my press conference.”

  He laughed, staring at the smudged ceiling. “I can still hear his voice. ‘You’re through, Masterson. Your pay’ll be sent through the mail. Get out of my life. And if you say one word about this,’ he said, ‘I’ll kill you.’”

  Jan said, “Maybe he was just blowing off steam.”