Kissing the Beehive

by Jonathan Carroll

  "I'm a great admirer of your work, Mr. Bayer. A great admirer. In fact, if you don't mind, I would be very grateful if you would sign some of your books before you leave."

  When we went into his house it was like entering a small town library. There were books everywhere, and what was as interesting was the way they were cared for. It appeared every single one was covered with a transparent plastic jacket and they were all behind glass. The whole house was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves made out of some kind of rich dark wood I couldn't identify.

  "It's a bit overwhelming, isn't it? A hobby that turned into an obsession. I was a sickly boy and books were my only way out of the bedroom for a couple of years. Best friends I ever had.

  "Now, I have all of your books right over here –" He walked to a shelf and, bending down, carefully opened the glass door. There they were, all my little chickens, standing together in perfect condition.

  "I must admit I don't read a lot of fiction anymore. But yours has a wonderful snap to it."

  "That's very flattering. Thank you." I looked around the room at his thousands of books. "What do you usually read?"

  "Biography." He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, taking in the whole shebang. "Since retiring, my time has been spent studying other people's lives and how they muddled through. It's a contemptible occupation."

  I was surprised both by the word and the way he said it. "Why contemptible?"

  "When you are my age, you feel you have the right to indulge in whatever appeals to you. I don't think that it's wrong but it can be pathetic. Unfortunately, Mr. Bayer, I am one of those fools who reads about other's lives for solace because I made such a botch of my own. Although it's disgusting to take consolation in another's pain, it is reassuring to know that the great stumbled as badly as we did. Would you like something to drink?"

  What followed was one of the most engrossing afternoons I had spent in years. There are people who are as distinctive and delicious as a great meal. Edward Durant was one of those people. He had led an incredible life, but instead of showing it off as he had every right to do, he handed it over like a gift to be used whatever way you liked.

  He was seventy-three and dying. Somewhere in the middle of the afternoon he mentioned that but only as a point of reference. It didn't seem important to him, certainly not in light of the other things he wanted to say. His wife and son were dead. He had failed both of them and that was his greatest sadness. Until their deaths, he had been a successful, confident man.

  "Everything important is learned too late, Sam. The tragedy of being old is you can no longer apply what's taken you so long to learn. The thing scientists should work toward is a method that would allow us to skip to the end of our lives for a short while and then come back. There is no context in the now, only greed and emotion."

  He had gone to Swarthmore but dropped out to become a fighter pilot in Korea. At the end of the war he returned to college for his degree and ended up a Rhodes scholar. He just missed being an alternate on the Olympic boxing team. One of the greatest moments of his life was sparring two rounds with the welterweight champion of the world, Benny "Kid" Paret in Stillman's Gym. "How often are we allowed the privilege of having a master's full attention for six minutes? I argued cases in front of the Supreme Court, but it was nothing to seeing Paret's eyes size me up and then kick my ass."

  It took some time for us to get around to his son, but as in everything else, he was painfully candid. "I was a terrible father for all the reasons I mentioned. I was like a dishonest shoe salesman with Edward. You know, the kind who assures you the shoes you're trying on that are the wrong size will by some miracle fit beautifully as soon as you wear them around awhile. My son was always a serious, steadfast boy who didn't need any encouragement to do what was right. I was idiotic enough to think he still needed both discipline and guidance. Although it's not an excuse, you must remember this was in the fifties when all of us were so sure what we were doing was correct. Everything we needed to know was in books – Dr. Spock, David Riesman, Margaret Mead. The only thing we needed to do was connect the dots and we'd be home free."

  The doorbell rang. Durant was surprised. While he rose to answer it, I asked where the bathroom was. If it hadn't been rude, I would have stayed in there a long time. On the walls were framed letters from famous biographers – Boswell, Leon Edel, Henri Troyat. Intriguingly, the more recent ones were personal letters to Durant answering questions he'd apparently had about the biographers' subjects. Richard Ellmann's letter about James Joyce's favorite music was alone worth the price of admission.

  When I finally pulled myself away from the room, another surprise was waiting at the front door. Durant was standing there laughing with Carmen Pierce, the infamous defense attorney. She represented, among other flakes and dangerous beings, the Malda Vale religious sect. If only Veronica had been around they could have swapped stories and gossip.

  I was introduced to the flamboyant lawyer who seemed to be on television with one client or another every time I turned it on. We chatted awhile. I told her a friend of mine had been a member of the sect before they went on that notorious last airplane ride to oblivion.

  "I don't envy you, Mr. Bayer." She smiled.

  "Oh really? Why's that?"

  "Because the more I discover about the Malda Vale, the more dubious I am of its members, past and present."

  "But you're representing them!" I couldn't believe she was saying this out loud.

  "No, I'm representing an idea. Religious persecution is not permitted in this country. What the government did to the Malda Vale is illegal. I don't have to like them to represent them. That's part of the fun of being a lawyer.

  "Edward, I must go. Thank you so much for your help. Those articles were invaluable."

  She drove off in a ruby red Jaguar while the two of us watched until her car was out of sight.

  "Carmen is a great woman. I don't often agree with her methods, but her grasp of the law is phenomenal."

  "Are you helping her with something?"

  He put his hand on my shoulder and steered me back into the house. "No, not really. We've known each other for years. Now and again she calls up with a question and I do what I can. She lives just down the road in Nyack. Luckily when one retires, one's profession becomes a hobby and with that sudden shift of perspective, it can become interesting again."

  "Your son wanted to be a lawyer."

  "Not really. My son wanted to please me, which I selfishly encouraged. Another of the great mistakes of my life. He was a genuinely good poet, you know. Published two poems in The Transatlantic Review when he was twenty. An important magazine in its time! I'll find those poems and send them to you. They should be in your book. They'll show a side of him not many people knew about."

  "What did you think of Pauline?"

  He took a long time to answer. "She frightened me. She was one of the most erotic women I ever met. He called her Beehive and it was a perfect nickname. Always buzzing around, and you knew she could give you a hell of a sting! She made me admire my son more than ever. He had the courage to pursue and win this sizzling woman. Never, even when I was young and full of myself, would I have had the guts to go after someone like her. And she loved him! It was so plain. They were mad for each other."

  "Did you know they were married?" I expected the question to stop or at least make him pause, but he only nodded.

  "Yes Sam, I knew. You really have done your homework."

  Edward Jr. had told his father the last time they'd ever seen each other. He must have been planning his suicide for some time because in that last conversation he said everything that was on his mind and in his heart. The single thing he did not talk about was how the other inmates were abusing him. He looked different from in the past – thinner and grayer, but the old man thought it was because the boy hadn't adjusted to the bleak life in prison.

  "I had friends in the penal system. They assured me they would arrange it so Edward would be protecte
d. But a large prison is like a city. No one can be watched all the time. He was doing hard time. He was surrounded by bad men."

  "Do you think Gordon Cadmus ordered it?"

  "For years I did. I was convinced Cadmus was guilty of everything. I'm sure you know Pauline and he were lovers. She was still sleeping with him when she began going out with Edward. For years I wanted the explanation to be simple and there was one: Pauline was with Cadmus, then she left him for my son. When I was assigned to investigate Cadmus, he killed her because he was afraid she knew something about his affairs or simply because he was jealous. He found the perfect time to kill her and frame an innocent man. Edward was sent to jail for the crime, suffered terrible abuse, and committed suicide.

  "Cadmus Cadmus Cadmus. I was furious when they shot him. Banal little gangland killing, and you know what? He wasn't even the target. One of the other dinner guests was. I wanted him for myself. I wanted to take the law of the United States of America and shove it so far up his ass he would have had a second tongue. But then he was dead and there was nothing more I could do."

  "You don't think he killed Pauline?"

  "No, Sam, not anymore. For years I did, but not anymore. Not since last week." His voice was peaceful. Some part of his soul had come to the end of the line and was calm. A car drove by on the street outside. One of his dogs scratched at the screen door to be let in. Durant closed his eyes and didn't move. I got up and opened it. The pug waddled over to its master and, tensing down a couple of times, finally jumped onto his lap.

  "Who did kill her?"

  "I don't know, but he's contacted me." He gently lifted the dog off his lap and put it down next to him on the couch. It looked indignant but didn't move. Durant went to a desk in the corner of the room and picked up a manila envelope. He came back to the couch and handed it to me.

  "As you can see by the postmark, it was sent from Crane's View. Whoever it is likes his irony. Open it. All of the answers are inside."

  It was nothing special – one of those brown manila envelopes you buy by the dozen at any stationery store. Durant's address was typed out in a nondescript font, no return address at the top-left corner or on the back.

  "I had a friend dust it for fingerprints but of course there were none. This person knows what he's doing."

  I put the envelope down and looked at him. "From the look on your face I feel nervous opening it."

  "Better nervous than the way I felt when I took it out of the mailbox. I thought it was an advertisement so I opened it on the way back to the house. When I saw what was inside it felt like I had been punched in the heart. Go ahead, take a look."

  Inside were four photocopies of original newspaper articles, and a typed note. The articles described separate murders spanning the last thirty-four years. The first was a teenage girl in Eureka, Missouri. The second Pauline Ostrova. The third a waitress in Big Sur, California, and the fourth David Cadmus. The words on the note were typed in the middle of the page: "Hi Edward! I hear you're dying. Don't go before I tell you my stories. These are only some of them."

  "A serial murderer? That's what McCabe said in California!" I described the videotape of the Cadmus murder, the "Hi, Sam!" Post-it notes, other things, including the act of the female spider preserving sperm inside her body for eighteen months. Durant listened without interrupting. While I spoke, he pulled the dog. back onto his lap and scratched its head.

  When I was finished, he reached into a pocket and took out a pack of Gauloises cigarettes and an old Zippo lighter. The smell of summer in the room was quickly replaced by acrid cigarette smoke. He offered me one but I refused, remembering that smoking a Gauloise was like inhaling a volcano.

  "This is the only good thing about dying. I always loved smoking, but gave it up years ago with the provision that if I ever became very ill, I'd do it to my heart's content.

  "I wouldn't have believed it was possible if there hadn't been one other thing in that envelope, Sam. It convinced me." On the coffee table, among the magazines, ashtray and many books was a small silver pocketknife. Durant pointed to it and I picked it up. Nothing special – a silver knife with two blades and no gewgaws like a bottle opener or scissors. There was a long deep scratch down the length of it. In the middle was engraved the name Sparky. I remembered my father using a similar knife to scrape tobacco out of his pipe.

  "It belonged to my father. Sparky was his nickname. He gave it to me when I went to Korea. I gave it to Edward when he went away to college. It was a good-luck charm for the Durant men. I wanted him to have it. Edward remembered using it the day of the murder to carve Pauline's and his initials into a tree. Whoever does that anymore? Then he explained its history and gave it to her.

  "We talked about it when he was on trial. Despite all the terrible things happening, he became fixated on finding that knife. I looked everywhere and checked with the police, but it had disappeared. Killers often take souvenirs from the scenes of their crimes. When I was practicing, we were often able to convict people on the basis of the mementos we found in their homes.

  "It's quite remarkable. Practicing law all those years, I saw every kind of human aberration but never once, not once did I think Pauline's murder was only one of many. It never crossed my mind."

  All the crimes described in the photocopied articles were unsolved. Durant had used his considerable pull to find out as much as possible about each one. With the exception of David Cadmus, there were a great many similarities.

  I asked the same question I'd asked Frannie. "But why did he wait all this time? If he wanted to be known for these murders why didn't he advertise after he'd done them? The first girl was killed thirty-four years ago. Today she would be fifty!"

  Durant chuckled and clicked his lighter open and closed a few times. "You're asking a dying man that question, Sam. Believe me, your perspective changes when the Grim Reaper is on the horizon. Who knows why he's doing it? Maybe he's sick like me, or just sick and it's finally beginning to ooze out. Maybe he wants to be on television like every other celebrity murderer these days.

  "We spend so much time looking for patterns and reasons, understandable motives and grudges, but it's fruitless. Some things just are. and that irrationality terrifies us. We keep searching and saying, 'But there's got to be a reason!' Sorry, not always. Less and less frequently, if you look at the way the world is moving.

  "Take your natural disasters. Whenever a tornado or hurricane strikes, some church is destroyed with a hundred good people inside. There's no explanation for that, so what do we do? Assess the damage and say a hundred million dollars. Count two hundred and nine dead. Hooray for numbers! Something we can understand. They may not explain, but they do create an ordering that we need to bear it.

  "My son and daughter-in-law died because they had a fight one night and the wrong person was watching. Now he wants us to know he was there."

  The next week felt like I was on one never-ending plane ride. I spent three days in Big Sur, California, flew down to Los Angeles, then over to St. Louis, where I rented a car and drove to Eureka, Missouri.

  Durant had loaded me down with information. When I told McCabe his story, Frannie was ecstatic and went to work finding out more. I spent most of the time in the air reading their combined research.

  How many other people had this man killed? What had he been doing all the years in between? I kept picturing an old thin electrician in a nowhere town. Drinking beer at night in a dumpy bar and then going home in a haze to look at his souvenirs and clippings. I'd watched documentaries on television about mass murderers. They're often abused as children or the father abandons them when they're very young. Was this guy one of those? All of his victims had been hit on the head and then thrown into water where they drowned. No sexual abuse. Nothing of importance taken, other than a pocket knife here and who knows what else there. Did the killer keep these things in a box, a drawer, a special bag hidden in a closet? How did he know I was writing the book about Pauline?

  Th
at last question was answered when I arrived in Los Angeles. In between sniffing around the death of David Cadmus, I stopped at Book Soup with an hour to kill. Browsing the magazine racks outside, I picked up a recent People and riffled through it. I hadn't looked at one in a long time, basically because Cassandra's mother read it religiously. Every time I saw the magazine I was reminded of the pit viper who'd once been my wife.

  "I saw an article about you in there a couple of weeks ago."

  I turned around and Ann English, the store's beautiful manager, was smiling at me. We kissed cheeks and I asked what she was talking about.

  "You were in there, didn't you see?"

  "This is news to me, Ann."

  "I saved the article and put it up on the wall in the office. Come in, I'll show you."

  We went into the store and climbed the staircase to the offices. Ann walked to a wall behind her desk and pointed. The date at the bottom of the page was two months past. In a section of the magazine I didn't recognize entitled "What Are They Doing Now?" there it was – a large picture of me. I read that Sting was about to release a new album, Producer Eric Pleskow was working on a film about Chernobyl, and bestselling novelist Samuel Bayer was writing a non-fiction account of the murder of a girl in his boyhood hometown, Crane's View, New York.

  I swore loudly and then asked if I could use the telephone. In a few seconds there was the hale and hearty voice of my editor, Aurelio Parma.

  "Aurelio, you hamster dick, did you tell People about my new book?"

  "How are you, Sam? Nice to hear your voice. It's been a long time, not that I mind your not returning my calls. Sure I told them. It's great publicity. Tell your fans what you're up to. Notice you were the only writer mentioned in the column?"

  "I don't want to be mentioned! I didn't want anyone knowing about the book. You have no idea how you've complicated things."

  His voice jumped down the staircase to the cold and distant bottom. "I have a job to do. Part of it is keeping you in the public eye. If you don't want to tell me how the work is going, that's your choice. But I have to sell it when you're finished. This is how it's done. Don't be naive."