Tropic of Night

by Unknown

  “And was it hepatitis?”

  “It was not. The tests for hep A, B, and C were all negative. Her liver had shut down pretty good, but there was no what-d’y’-call-it, no pathogenic agent, not that they could find. No cancer either. I sat with her, sometimes all day long, and Josey did, too. My wife doesn’t much care for hospitals. And after a while she started in talking, not talking to me, mind you, just sort of babbling, sometimes in other languages, too. What I could make out of it, well …” Here he seemed to choose his words with some care. “It was all about magic, black magic, I guess, and a kind of war that they were fighting in this native tribe she was visiting, a guy named Oo-looney, she was on his side, against some people named Doo-rack and Mundeli and there were a lot of other funny names, but those came up most. And … well, there was one part where they, this guy Doo-rack sacrificed a pregnant woman, and ate parts of her and the baby, and Jane couldn’t stop it, and somehow, this sacrifice gave the bad guy some kind of power over her. And the good guy, Oo-looney, couldn’t help her for some reason. That’s a summary of what went on for the eighteen weeks she was more or less out of it. It didn’t make much sense to me then, and when Witt came back she seemed not to babble as much. And that’s also when she started to get better. The liver necrosis vanished, her color came back, and she started to put on weight.” He paused. “Of course, the part about the sacrifice … I remembered that when the thing happened with Mary.”

  “Did you tell the police about that at the time, sir?” asked Paz.

  “I did not. It was just one of a lot of details that she was babbling. By the time I thought of it, I mean, by the time the autopsy told us what was really done to Mary, Jane was gone, and why bring it up then?”

  “Just a moment, Mr. Doe,” said Barlow, breaking in, to Paz’s annoyance, “her husband didn’t come back from Africa with her?”

  “No, he was still out with the natives when she came back to Bamako. Apparently, it’s a very isolated village. Josey had people try to locate him, spent a good deal of money there, but they never did. Then he just walked into the hospital one day.”

  “And what was your daughter’s reaction to her husband?” Paz asked.

  “Well, as I say, she started to get better. I can tell you, I was glad to have some relief. But you mean on a personal level. I don’t know. I liked Witt, I always did. He’s funny, doesn’t take himself too seriously. A tremendously talented fellow, too, and Jane seemed to love him. That’s all I was interested in. My children both more or less decided what they were going to do with their lives with no help from me, I have to say. But there was … I won’t say something was wrong, maybe hollow, or missing, is the right word. I mean before. I hope this won’t sound narrow, but he hadn’t any faith. Well, that’s common enough nowadays, I mean the lack of actual religion, but most irreligious people set up something else they can believe in?their families, say, or the environment, or justice; or money, for that matter, that’s fairly popular, I believe. But Witt didn’t seem to have anything like that, and it was like he had no … bottom, and all the verbal fireworks seemed to me to be filling that hole. Anyway, when he got back from Africa, he seemed steadier, more sober. I thought maybe he had had an experience, some epiphany, to use an old-fashioned word, but he never said, and, of course, you can’t just ask a man. But I’ve gotten off the track?you wanted to know about Jane and Mary. I’m sorry, I don’t talk much about these things anymore.”

  “That’s all right, sir,” said Barlow, “you just take your time.”

  “They were not close, let me start by saying that. It would’ve been hard to pick sisters more different. Mary was close to her mother, Jane was my kid. Families often break out that way. Jane was like me, also, in that she kept it all pretty close, a private person, not demonstrative. Mary was, let’s say, operatic. Like her mother. When she was down, the whole house knew it, and when she was up, she lit the place like a floodlight. And, also, I guess you know, she was fantastically beautiful, from an early age, and she found that she could use that to get her way. She kind of ruled the roost, if you want to know.”

  “And Jane resented it?” asked Paz.

  Doe thought for a few moments. “You know, I can’t really say that she did. Maybe my stepson would know about that. He was sort of in the middle, and Jane and he were like that”?here he held the first two fingers of his right hand up, closely touching?”all while they were growing up. We sent the girls to different schools, though, because Jane kind of just faded into the wallpaper when Mary was around. But resentment? No. Jane was always trying to get closer to Mary, be a real sister. She was the one who tried to keep in touch, even when she was traveling. Letters and photos and all. I don’t think Mary ever wrote a letter in her life. But what you really want to know is, did Jane hate Mary enough to kill her? Was she jealous enough? And believe me, I’ve lain in bed all night running it through my mind. Did it happen that way? Could I have done something? Was it our fault, the way they were raised? I have to say that I don’t know. The Jane I knew, or thought I knew, I’d have no trouble saying, no, never. But … her profession, the places she’s been, the things she’s seen … maybe something was released from a dark place. We’ve all got those dark places. I guess you know that in your business better than I do.”

  “Do you think she killed herself?” asked Paz, hearing the brutality in his tone, not caring. “Was there a note?” Again, that long green look. Doe said, “The explosion had to be intentional. Jane was a careful sailor and Kite was a safe boat. I can’t think of another explanation for what happened.” The direct answer finessed; the man seemed practiced at such avoidances. He looked out over the descending lawn, the lonely unused pool, the boathouse, and the empty dock. The lowering sun found a break in the cloud it had paused behind and sent an oblique shaft across the scene, lighting it like a stage set in a play about the acme of domestic felicity. It was stunning enough to distract all three of them. Barlow said, “My, my!”

  Doe smiled at him. “Yes, it’s lovely this time of day, and this time of year. Sometimes I think it should be covered with ashes, all the buildings burned, so I could sit on it scraping myself with a potsherd. But,” he added after another sigh, “I expect God has spared me for some purpose. I keep listening.” There seemed nothing to say to that and so they sat for a while watching the shadows play. Then Doe got to his feet and said, “Well, would you like to take a look around? Show you the place, and where it happened and all?”

  “That would be real kind of you, sir,” said Barlow, and they followed him, first down to the dock and the boathouse, and they saw that the little apartment above it was fitted up as a studio, and learned that DeWitt Moore had used it as a study.

  “You don’t have a boat now?” Paz asked.

  “No,” said Doe curtly, and said something else in an undertone.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing,” said Doe. “Let’s get up to the house. I guess you’re not much interested in gardens and the like.”

  Nor was there much of interest, in a forensic sense, in the house. The library was a library, the living room a living room, the furnishings were what one would expect of a wealthy family with traditional tastes, who had absolutely no need to impress anyone. There were more religious pictures than might be the case in other stately homes, and one crucifix that was probably not just for decoration, Paz thought. He was surprised at the general shabbiness of things, quite different from the equipage of the Vargas family. The upstairs bedroom in which Mary Doe had died was stripped, the bare floor and oyster walls reflecting the afternoon light.

  They left by a side exit and went into the old barn. When Doe switched the lights on, Paz could not keep back a gasp. The cars were lined up in two rows, gleaming in heraldic colors and mirroring chrome, 1922 and 1948 Cadillacs, a 1927 Hupmobile, several Packards from various eras, a Cord, a classic Mustang, the 1956 Chevy Bel Aire ragtop? Detroit iron in all its glory.

  Paz had a thought. “Did you take one of
these cars the day of the murder?”

  “Why, yes, we did. That one.” Doe pointed to the 1948 Cadillac, a black convertible. “Why do you ask?”

  “This may sound strange, but I wonder if you’d indulge me. Could you take it out? Let the three of us go for a drive. Just up to the road and back. The reason is, it might jog something, in your memory, some observation about that day. It might be helpful.” Barlow gave his partner a sharp look, but Paz ignored it.

  “Sure,” said Doe, “I don’t see why not. I have to run them all up once a month or so anyway.”

  “Who was sitting where?” Paz asked. “I mean on the day?”

  “Witt was in the back, Dieter up front with me.”

  Paz climbed into the backseat and settled into the soft plush. Barlow got in the shotgun seat and Doe started the car and drove it out into the sun. Paz leaned forward. “Okay, Mr. Doe, say it’s that day now, what’s everyone doing? What’s going on?”

  Doe thought for a moment. “Well, let’s see: Dieter was fiddling with his camera, screwing a sun hood on his Hasselblad. It was a bright day. There’s an old darkroom in the house, hadn’t been used since my dad was a kid, and we were talking about setting it up again, so he could make prints while he was here. Things like that. And then … we started talking about Berlin, he’d just been there, about all the building they were doing, and how he’d like to take some pictures of the new construction. His family’s from around there. We talked about the baby, too, and when it would be old enough to travel and show it off to his family. And then we talked about family.”

  They had reached the end of the drive. “This far enough?” Doe’s voice sounded tired for the first time.

  Barlow said, “That’s fine, Mr. Doe. Sorry to trouble you.”

  Doe turned the car around and they drove back. Paz said, “Okay, now you’re coming back. What’s going on, now?”

  “We’re talking about the car show … no, that was before. Now we’re talking about, hm, American football, I think. It was football season and we were going to catch the second half of the Pitt—Navy game. I was explaining the rules to Dieter. We talked about the differences between that and soccer and what it said about the American and European characters.”

  “Did Witt have anything to add to the conversation?”

  A long pause. “I’d have to say no. Why do you ask?”

  “Do you recall anything he did during the trip, anything he said, any conversation you were in with him?”

  Doe did not respond immediately but steered the car to its slot in the barn and shut off the engine. They all got out. “Now that you mention it, I guess I can’t. He must have been quiet that day. But he often sank into quiet moods. He was a writer, and I guess they’re like that. We used to kid him about it, as a matter of fact. Are you trying to suggest that somehow he wasn’t in the car with us? Because if you are, that’s just nonsense. I’d take my oath on it, he was there all the time.”

  “But he didn’t do or say anything you remember, even though you remember a lot of what your other son-in-law did and said?”

  A darkness had appeared on Doe’s cheekbones. “Detective, I’m bereaved, but I’m not crazy!”

  Barlow said, “Nobody’s saying that, Mr. Doe. We’re just trying to get things straight.”

  Paz walked out of the barn. He heard Barlow talking to Doe quietly, settling him, being the good cop. This went on for a lot longer than Paz thought it should. He leaned against the Taurus, lit a cigar, checked his watch. The place was starting to get on his nerves. Paz was not normally an envious man. He thought himself as good as or better than most of the people with whom he came in daily contact; he did not lust after money or fame; he had (until recently) sufficient success with women. Now, however, as he looked around the estate, he felt himself unbearably oppressed by the deep roots it implied. Generations had called this home, portraits of ancestors still lined the stairway walls and hung over the numerous hearths, all portraits (and didn’t it show in their faces!) of securely racinated folk. God’s in His heaven, and the Does are in Sionnet, world without end. Not like Paz the mongrel bastard. Since envy is the one deadly sin that no American can ever admit to, he felt it instead as resentment and personal animus against Jack Doe. Doe was lying to protect his good name, lying to protect his daughter, assuming he was above the law, and what the hell was that goddamn cracker doing in there?

  In the Taurus, Paz ruffled through his briefcase for something to read, and remembered the envelope he had picked up as he left the PD. It was from Maria Salazar, he found, a manuscript in a binder, clipped to a note in beautiful looping handwriting, black on cream-colored heavy paper with an engraved address on top. No yellow Post-its for Dr. Salazar. The note said: “Dear Detective Paz: You will recall that we discussed a certain paper that referenced Tour de Montaille and various African cult practices and that this might be relevant to your investigations. With the death of yet another woman, I felt some urgency in bringing the attached to your attention. Unfortunately, as I understand it, the author is deceased, but if I can be of any assistance whatever, do not hesitate to call upon me.”

  He turned to the paper. His viscera contracted. It was entitled “Psychotropic Drug Use Among the Olo Sorcerers of Mali,” and its author was J. C. Doe. He read on. Although it was a scholarly paper, Dr. Doe used little jargon and eschewed the academic passive voice. It was pure observation, told from both the inside and the outside. She had herself taken a number of the substances the Olo sorcerers used, and described their effects in some detail. The most remarkable section was one in which she recounted how an Olo sorcerer made himself invisible to her in broad daylight.

  He was still reading some ten minutes later, when the goddamn cracker emerged blinking into the sun. He got into the car.

  “What’s that you’re reading, Jimmy?”

  “Oh, nothing much. A scientific paper. Guys in Africa making themselves invisible. Jane Doe wrote it.”

  “You don’t say? Well, right from the beginning I said you was going to be the expert on that end.”

  Paz tossed the paper into the backseat, gunned the engine, scattering gravel, swerving, as if something nasty was on his tail. Barlow gave him a sharp look. Paz said, “By the way, did you catch what he said down by the dock, when I asked him if he had a boat?”

  “Yeah, he said, ‘I’ll go to sea no more.’ “

  “I’ll go to sea no more? Why would he say that? The guy’s loaded. He could buy a boat, any boat he wanted.”

  “Why don’t you turn around and go ask him?” replied Barlow. “You might learn something.” This was one of the very many moments at which “Fuck you, Barlow!” was the only response that came to Paz’s mind, and since he couldn’t say it, he compressed his lips and said it a number of times in his head.

  Just before they got to the highway, Barlow said, “Well, if you sit anymore on what you been sitting on, you’re gonna have a heck of a sore fanny. Talk to your partner, son.”

  Paz wrenched the wheel hard over and stomped the brake, so that they turned into the access road of a small business park. He threw the lever into P and reached into the backseat for his briefcase, from which he withdrew the murder case files they had been given by Agent Robinette. He yanked from the folder the photograph he had spent so much time studying and thrust it at Barlow. “Nice picture,” said Barlow. “My daddy wouldn’t’ve liked it much, him being a big shot in the Florida Klan, but …”

  “Oh, darn it, Cletis, the guy’s in Miami! That’s our guy!”

  “You know this, do you?”

  “The guy was here when Mary Doe got it. He was in Miami when our two cases got theirs.”

  “You see him yourself?”

  “No, but I checked with the Grove Theater management. He was definitely in Miami during the time of, in both our cases. I went to his show myself, as a matter of fact, and people were giving me the eye, waving, like I was a celebrity. What murder suspect do we know who I seem to resemble? The guy w
ho killed Deandra Wallace, right? They thought I was him in the lobby. I didn’t think anything about it then, but now it makes sense. In this show of his, he wears white makeup, so there’s our white guy on a bike. Heck, I probably saw him on the stage when I went to his show the night Vargas was killed. He doesn’t drive?remember what Robinette said, how extremely unusual that was? He’s American, he’s personable, a good talker, also just like Robinette said. Okay, the clincher? He’s got the African witchcraft background, him and his wife. It’s all in that paper, unless she was lying to her fellow scientists. And his old lady’s probably still with him, she probably faked that suicide to take the heat off her husband. And your pal Doe is covering for her.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “You know that for a fact, huh?”

  “He’s an honest man.”

  “Yeah, right! What were you guys doing in there, taking a polygraph?”

  Barlow’s face hardened. “Jimmy, you’re a good cop, but you got a cop’s view of people. The man’s suffered and it’s made him stronger. It’s increased his faith. You don’t see that kind of faith much in the world today, and I never saw the beat of him, not personal like just now. I call myself a Christian, but I couldn’t tie that fella’s shoes. So he ain’t no conspirator, and being that he ain’t, how do you make it that your suspect did the crime if he was twenty miles or so away from the house all day? We used to call that an alibi.”