A Thief in the House of Memory

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  Dec’s jaw dropped. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I mean.” His father’s eyebrows bunched together gravely. Then he returned to his work station, picked up his paintbrush and started in on another soldier.

  “Actually, I don’t know what you mean.”

  His father glanced at him sharply. “Birdie and I really wish you’d reconsider about seeing a therapist.”

  This was too much. “I suggest we go on a family vacation and suddenly I’m nuts?”

  “Clearly you have been traumatized.”

  “Dad, I’m fine.”

  “So you say.”

  “It’s under control. Stop worrying. You’ve got enough on your mind as it is.”

  His father regarded him carefully. “Meaning?”

  “D-Day,” said Dec.

  His father frowned and looked down at the mass of squaddies still needing to be painted into life. “I wish this was all I had to fret about.”

  Dec made an attempt to cross the chasm. “Are you worried about the inquest?”

  His father nodded. “I don’t like all this attention.”

  “I know,” said Dec. “But it might be kind of cool.”

  His father looked at him incredulously. “You think so?”

  “Sure. I’m looking forward to it.”

  His father’s frown deepened. “You don’t really expect you’re going to be attending it, do you?”

  Dec was taken aback. “I found the body,” he said. “I knew who the guy was. Of course I’m going.”

  “Forget it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’ve spoken to the coroner, Declan. He is in total agreement.”

  “But — ”

  “No buts, Son. There is no reason for you to be put through such an experience. Besides which, you cannot afford to miss school right before final exams. This thing could drag on for days.”

  Dec folded his arms tightly across his chest to keep from punching the wall. “Dad, I could write my exams with my eyes shut.”

  His father was unmoved. “The coroner will send his constable out to the house to talk to you. That’s all they need.”

  “But, Dad — ”

  “Enough! Do you understand? I don’t want to hear another word.” His voice was calm, but his eyes behind the magnifying lenses were huge and blazing. There was a nerve throbbing in his jaw. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

  Dec shook his head in disbelief. He turned, picked up his backpack and headed for the door.

  “Work,” he muttered scornfully.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Declan.”

  Dec stopped and turned. His father folded his big hands before him on the bench. “I serve on the library board and the museum board. I contribute time and money to a number of charities and I am a director of Steeple Enterprises. None of that is very impressive to you, I’m sure, but it is my way of doing my part and it keeps me busy enough. It is my choice. In time you will make your own choices. You’ll go off gallivanting all over the world. You’ll go to the best university there is, all expenses paid. You are a very lucky boy, Declan Steeple, and I’d thank you not to forget it.”

  Dec dropped his head and turned to leave. But his father was not finished.

  “You came in here asking about your mother,” he said. “This little display of yours — this acting out — reminds me of her. It’s just the way she was when she didn’t get her way.”

  Dec stared, not quite able to believe what he was hearing.

  His father frowned. “I sincerely hope this is not a foretaste of things to come.”

  If the House Fits

  VIVIEN WORE a robin’s-egg-blue burka to school.

  “How do you know it’s her?” asked Ezra. She was walking down the hall looking like a little blue pup tent. “She doesn’t have any legs, any arms, any head.”

  Dec shrugged. “It’s something in the way she moves.”

  Ezra stared at him, then at Vivien and then back at Dec. “Suddenly you’ve got X-ray vision?”

  Dec smiled. “I wish.”

  She was at their usual table at lunch. There was a little rectangular screen where her eyes were. Dec could see them buzzing green.

  “You look very spring-like,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  He paused with a French fry halfway to his mouth. Vivien was not eating. “Does that eye-hole thing open up?” he asked. She shook her head. “Too bad. I could, you know, slip you a fry or something.”

  “I’m good,” she said. “I can do without lunch for one day. I mean, all over the world people go without food.”

  Dec’s fry suddenly tasted cold and mealy. “So is that what this is all about?” he asked. “A protest?”

  “Not so much,” she said. “I just wanted to see what it felt like. Experience it, you know?”

  “And?”

  “Well, it’s pretty warm. But it’s kind of nice in a way.

  Private, I mean. Like wearing your own little house.”

  “Oh. That’s cool.”

  “Like a hermit crab. Once you outgrow your house, you just slide on out of it and find a new one.”

  Dec found himself thinking about a house you could abandon when it got too small. A disposable house. And that led him to consider how big a place could be and yet still be too small. His shoulders slumped.

  Vivien leaned closer. “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  What could he say? That he felt like a hermit crab that had grown too big too fast?

  “There’s this contest I want to enter,” he said after a bit. “It’s called ‘The Shape of Things to Come.’ You have to design a house of the future.”

  “Cool.”

  “Yeah, it’s cool. Except my mind’s been kind of occupied lately.”

  Vivien laughed. “That’s perfect.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Well, I don’t know. A person occupies a house, right? So if your mind is occupied then at least you’re on the right track.” Her voice trailed off, as if the idea wasn’t quite baked yet.

  What surprised Dec was that he did almost understand what she was talking about. The mind as a house. He liked the idea. And then he thought how if his mind was a house, it was a haunted house these days.

  When he looked at Vivien again he got the idea that something was going on under the burka.

  “You’ve got your journal in there,” he said. “Is that allowed?”

  Her eyes made contact with his and even through the netting he could see that she was smiling.

  “I never leave home without it,” she said. She wrote for another moment and then paused again. “You know when you get an idea that you can’t put into words?”

  He nodded vaguely.

  “Well, isn’t it ironic that those are exactly the ideas you have to put into words?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That is ironic.”

  She smiled and then her eyes dropped and he could tell by the movements under the burka that she was writing. The pale blue cloth bunched and stretched, bunched and stretched. Suddenly he found himself wondering what she was wearing under that thing.

  She looked up and, as if she was reading his mind, she said, “About what you’d expect.”

  On the Courthouse Steps

  DEC AND EZRA sat on the curb across from the courthouse. The westering sun turned the sandstone façade blindingly white and glinted off the polished brass handles of the doors.

  The boys wore matching looks of giddy admiration. They were staring at a muscle car parked at the foot of the courthouse steps. It was sprung high, with fat tires and magnesium hubcaps. A Plymouth Duster, something from the seventies as far as they could tell. There was a warning sticker on the bumper: You toucha da car, I breaka yo face. There was a vanity license plate, too: The Hood.

  “They don’t make ’em like that any more,” said Dec.

  “Which is a
good thing,” said Ezra. “What would you call that colour?”

  “Crayon Sunset,” Dec said. He was thinking about Sunny mushing crayons into her colouring book until it was stiff with wax.

  Ezra leaned against his backpack and crossed his arms thoughtfully. “I think I’d call it Puke de Moutarde!”

  Dec nodded. “And such a nice contrast to Dad’s car,” he added, pointing at Bernard Steeple’s brand-new Buick parked behind the yellow monstrosity. It was silver grey. No vanity plates. No bumper stickers.

  “A Rendezvous,” said Ezra. “How many does that make now:”

  “Eight,” said Dec. “The man could afford a Mustang, a BMW — a Hummer. But it’s always a Buick.”

  “And he drives it three years then gets a new one?”

  “Like clockwork.”

  “Awesome,” said Ezra.

  “Twisted,” said Dec.

  “But talk about product loyalty.”

  Dec leaned forward, his skinny elbows resting on his knees. His hair fell over his Roy Orbison shades that gave nothing away.

  “How goes the battle?” asked Ezra, his voice pitched just right: not too inquisitive, not too concerned.

  “Which battle?” grumped Dec. “Operation Overlord is going fine. “Dad’s Waffen SS troops arrived yesterday, from some company in Texas, if you can believe it.”

  “Jus’ waitin’ on da beach called Luv,” Ezra sang tunelessly, as he dug out a half-filled water bottle from his backpack. He took a swig and handed it to Dec.

  Dec declined. He glanced at his watch. It was five o’clock on the third day of the inquest.

  “What’s going on in there?” he said. “I thought all they had to do was rule out foul play.”

  Ezra shrugged. “The circumstances are pretty bizarre.”

  “You can say that again.” Dec picked up a small stone from the pavement and shook it nervously in his fist. “It was supposed to be open and shut,” he said. “There must be some doubt.”

  “Did he fall or was he pushed?” said Ezra with movietrailer drama in his voice.

  “What if he was murdered?” said Dec.

  “By who, Plato? Can’t you just see the headlines in the Expositor? ‘Philosopher found guilty of homicide twenty-four hundred years after his death!’“He chuckled, guzzled the remains of his water and put the empty bottle back in his pack.

  Dec didn’t laugh. He took his small stone and started scratching the pavement between his feet, a ragged spiral in the hot asphalt. Then he noticed the small, dark stain of blood on his jeans, from when he had cut himself trying to dig out Denny Runyon. He stopped drawing.

  “Maybe Plato did do it,” he said.

  Ezra stared at him, an eager grin on his face.

  “I’m serious,” said Dec.

  “Well, if he did,” said Ezra, “he must have really been using his head. Get it?” He paused. “The correct response, Dec, is ha-ha.”

  Dec nodded without looking up. “I get it. It’s just that I can’t help thinking about what Sunny said, about the bust being on the hall table. If it was there, then how did it end up on the floor? It was nowhere near the bookshelf. Other stuff didn’t fall over.”

  “I’ll bite,” said Ezra. “Why was it on the floor?”

  Dec glanced sideways. “Tell me if this sounds too farfetched,” he said. “Let’s say somebody else is already in the house. He hears the back door get smashed in.”

  “He?”

  “Let me finish. He tries to leave but by the time he reaches the vestibule, Runyon is already in the hall. So he waits — this other guy. He’s scared. He doesn’t know what to do. The vestibule door is open just a little. He sees Runyon. But he also sees the bust of Plato. It’s just inside the door, within easy reach. It’s bronze, right? It’s heavy, but not too heavy, if you’re strong. And the neck is a perfect handle if your hand is big enough.”

  Ezra groaned.

  “No,” said Dec. “It’s true. I tried it.”

  Ezra’s lively face became very still.

  The grin faded a little. “Go on,” he said.

  “The guy in the vestibule feels trapped. What if the burglar decides to leave by the front door? What if he has a gun? He sees his chance. He steps through the open vestibule door. The carpet is thick, he makes no sound. He grabs Plato by the neck and whack! He clocks Runyon.”

  Ezra nodded very slowly. Then he pushed the tiny glasses higher on the bridge of his nose as if trying to get Dec in focus.

  “And the bookcase falls over out of sympathy?” he asks.

  Dec turned back to his drawing, pressing hard on the etching stone. The line spiraled outwards, a wobbly galaxy.

  “He rigs it to cover his tracks.” He glanced up nervously and then down again. “You see, he didn’t mean to hit the guy so hard. He panics. Makes it look like an accident. Because you can’t say you acted out of self-defense when you crack someone over the back of the head, can you?”

  Dec glanced over. Ezra was staring straight ahead, his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek. Then he took a deep breath and shuffled closer to Dec. He stretched his long arm around Dec’s shoulders.

  “Cut it out,” said Dec shrugging him off.

  Ezra put his hands together in his lap. There was a difficult smile on his face, like the kind of smile you hold for someone fumbling to take a picture.

  “What’s this all about, Dec?”

  “Okay, so it’s crazy,” said Dec. “It just helps to explain some stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  Dec threw his etching stone across the street. It skittered under the chassis of the fierce yellow car. “Things are totally nuts at home,” he said. “My dad is acting so weird.”

  “A guy dies in his house. How’s he supposed to act?”

  “It’s not that. He looks guilty, somehow. This is my clock work dad we’re talking about. He’s suddenly got this shifty look in his eye. And he and Birdie are hiding something from me. I’m not imagining it. There is something most seriously up.”

  Ezra didn’t speak right away. Dec waited, not sure what he wanted to hear. It all sounded ridiculous now that it was outside his head. But at least it was some kind of explanation.

  Ezra made a fist with his left hand and tapped Dec affectionately on the knee. “So you’re saying that your dad might have accidentally killed Denny Runyon?” he said. There was no sarcasm in his voice.

  Dec folded his arms. “He was up that night, you know.”

  “I thought he was in his shop.”

  “He was, at three o’clock. But he could have been up at the house before that.”

  “Right,” said Ezra. “Oh, darn. I left my tape measure up at the big scary mansion on the hill. I guess I’ll just head up there in the pitch black to get it.’“

  “He goes up there all the time.”

  “I know, I know. But you’ve got to admit this sounds like the plot of a B-movie.”

  “Okay,” said Dec. “I hear you. I asked you if it sounded farfetched. Obviously it does, so forget it.”

  But he knew he couldn’t forget it himself, no matter how unbelievable it seemed.

  “If it were anyone but your dad,” said Ezra. “I mean, he strikes me as more of a Mr. Rogers kind of guy.”

  “You got to watch out for the quiet ones,” Dec muttered.

  He wished he could tell Ezra about Lindy, what she’d said about his dad. But Ezra was looking at him way too sympathetically.

  “I met Runyon, Ezra,” he said, in one last futile attempt to get across his sense of unrest. “Runyon was cool. He may have been a thief but he was not dumb. I saw the list of the stuff they found in his bag; it was choice. What would he want with a stupid bust, which is worth a couple of hundred dollars, max?”

  Ezra took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

  “His car was parked a kilometre away,” said Dec more urgently than he meant to. “Why take a heavy piece of crap like that if he has to walk a kilometre through the
bush?”

  Ezra put his glasses back on and stared at Dec candidly for a long moment.

  “Here’s what I think,” he said. “They really should have let you go to the inquest. Because you’ve got way too big an imagination to be left on your own with this.”

  Dec managed a small smile. They punched fists together once, twice, three times. Then Ezra suddenly turned, craning his neck, distracted by something.

  “Enemy plane at twelve o’clock,” he said.

  Dec followed his gaze to the courthouse. A hulk of a man had just stepped out of the doorway. He was in his thirties, as bald as a bowling ball, but with a razor-thin beard accentuating the line of his fat jaw.

  He stood at the top of the stairs. He was wearing a sports jacket, but he took it off and slowly rolled up his shirt sleeves.

  “Get a load of the forearms,” whispered Dec. “Popeye does Ladybank.”

  “Not Popeye,” said Ezra. “Think of the plates. The Hood.

  Any bets the Duster belongs to Clarence Mahood?”

  “Runyon’s boyhood friend,” said Dec. “Nice work, Sherlock.”

  Mahood pulled a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket. He looked steamed about something.

  The courthouse doors opened again and Bernard Steeple stepped out, holding the door for Birdie. She was in spike heels, holding on tightly to Bernard’s arm with one hand, shielding her eyes from the sun with the other. Bernard’s face was grave. They headed diagonally down the steps towards the Rendezvous, but Mahood must have said something because they stopped and looked back his way. He was pointing his finger, pointing it at Bernard, and he was mad.

  Bernard turned away and started down the steps again. But Birdie suddenly pulled her arm free and dashed back up the steps, her heels flapping. She went straight at the hulking man and pushed him hard in the chest. She was yelling, but Dec couldn’t hear a word over the traffic. Patiently, Bernard collected Birdie, avoiding Mahood’s eyes. Holding her around the waist, he led her away. She was flushed with anger. Her elaborate pile of coffee-coloured hair had come undone. Bernard talked quietly to her, leading her towards the car. Mahood called after them, shaking his fist, until they were in the car.