Authors: Tom Savage

A Penny for the Hangman (32 page)

BOOK: A Penny for the Hangman

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“Well, for now, you can just charge him with violating the terms of his release and criminal trespassing.”

“Okay.” Brick scratched his head. “Umm, I gotta have his name if I’m gonna arrest him. Who is he, Gabby?”

For the first time that day, Gabriel Watkins actually smiled.

“Son,” he said, “get ready to have your picture taken.”

New York City

I was throwing clothes into a suitcase when the phone rang. It was the afternoon of Friday, March 13, 2009, and I was on my way to the airport for a flight to St. Thomas. I snatched up the phone, hoping against hope that it was one of the VIPD cops I’d been pestering since that morning, when the hotel confirmed that Karen hadn’t been seen there for three days.

It wasn’t the police.

“Hi, Jim, it’s me. I’m sorry it’s been so long, but I—Jim? Jim, what’s wrong?”

I must have cried out. The surge of relief that coursed through me when I heard her voice actually buckled my knees, causing me to sink heavily down onto the couch.

“Karen! Karen!”
The words came out of me as a strangled croak. I fumbled for something else to say, perhaps a coherent sentence, but all I could manage was another inane
“Karen!”

It took me a long time and several more phone calls from various locations to be caught up with all the details, but I got the gist of it from that first conversation. The next time I heard from her, Karen was high above the Atlantic—on her way to Denmark, of all places—and she was giving me instructions about the package she’d mailed to me from St. Thomas. She also told me that the man with her was Wulfgar Anderman. Her father.

The package arrived here a few days later, and it was soon followed by another phone call and this typically Karen email:

Hi Jim,
Greetings from Copenhagen! I know you’ve been here—you’ve been everywhere—but I enjoy being a tourist. This is where Daddy wanted to come when we fled St. Thomas. I’ve attached some pix of us at Tivoli and me at the Little Mermaid statue. The lady next to me is Rina Kendricks—
she’s the daughter of Hjordis Anderman’s best friend, Bridget Haller.
I met “Aunt Brid,” and she’s marvelous—88 and still going strong! She and Rina were understandably nervous about receiving Daddy, but he had a long talk with them, and they insisted on meeting me. Brid told me some wonderful stories about my grandmother and herself when they were girls. There aren’t any Andermans or Olands alive anymore, so that’s one hurdle he won’t have to jump. But these family friends have been kind to him. Rina even took us to see his mother’s house. I know it meant a lot to him. Nobody mentions his father the doctor, and that’s fine with him, too.
What a beautiful city! This morning I went into Sankt Ansgars Kirke to light a candle for Mom, and something weird happened on the way back from the church. There’s a supermarket near our hotel, so I stopped in there on the off chance they might have imported M&Ms here (they do!), and what do you suppose was playing on the sound system? “We Are the Night.” Ugh! I was glad that Daddy wasn’t there to hear it.
Daddy and I have decided to come home sometime after his birthday, August 4, so let’s plan on a September wedding, okay? I’ll call you again before we leave Denmark. If you’re serious about taking up the story I couldn’t bring myself to continue, go for it. It’s a good idea. Usually I’d say I can’t wait to read it, but in this case I think I can. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to read it.
BCNU L8R! XOXOXO! IU!
—Karen

Hangman Cay is technically British, but everyone involved was American, so England let the U.S. deal with Rodney Harper. There was no trial, just a plea hearing in St. Thomas. He was offered life without parole, and he took it. Gabriel Watkins and Officer Wall—now
Sergeant
Wall, if you please!—were the only witnesses. Karen and “Mr. Brown” were not called, nor Mrs. Graves. Lieutenant Faison read their statements, but he kept them out of it.

Wulf moved to New York; he lives near us in the Village. He gave his house in New Mexico to Jorge and Yolanda Velasquez. Their baby was a boy, and they named him Juan after their benefactor, Mr. Jonathan Brown. He also gave an undisclosed sum to Mrs. Graves, who’s back in North Carolina. She used her new fortune to buy a place with a garden. Roses and geraniums.

My parents adore Wulf, especially Dad. It seems the Pulitzer-winning future Nobel laureate is a secret fan of action-packed thrillers, and Jonathan Brown is one of his favorites. The fact that Jonathan Brown is really Wulfgar Anderman is even more appealing. Mom and Dad are forever throwing parties for him, to introduce him to Mom’s divorced or widowed girlfriends. Poor Wulf doesn’t stand a chance against all this good will. But he enjoys his new life, now that he’s with his daughter.

It seems appropriate that the one who began all this fifty years ago should have the last word. It is the final entry in the schoolbook journal, written the night before the original murders. He was fifteen years old—I have trouble remembering that whenever I read it. Here it is, anyway, and you can make of it what you want.

Me, I’m off to join my wife and her father for dinner.

—

Rodney Harper’s Diary

M
ARCH 12, 1959

Tomorrow, as evening falls on St. Thomas, the four people we hate most in the world and a negligible servant will die at our hands. Wulf will do it because my faithful friend can deny me nothing. He’s made me promise not to kill the maid, but he’ll soon see the wisdom of getting rid of her.
And I? Why am I doing it?
“What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and what I’ve willed, I’ll…do!”
Mrs. Gould would be so proud of me for remembering my Melville. I shall do this extraordinary thing because I am extraordinary!
I’ve read everything I can find about Lizzie Borden, and the poem they made up about her is the most attractive thing about her story. Well, I’ve saved everyone the trouble of making up a poem commemorating our audacity. I wrote it in English class last week, while Mrs. Gould was droning on about Anne Frank’s
The Diary of a Young Girl.
Here it is:
“The Cost of the Kill” by Rodney Harper
Sixpence for the mistress,
Fivepence for the queen,
Fourpence for the housemaid
Who keeps the kitchen clean,
Thruppence for the doctor,
Tuppence for the knave,
And a penny for the hangman
To send me to my grave.
That beats “forty whacks” any old day of the week! One day, many years hence, someone will find this notebook, and they’ll take this poem and give it to the world so everyone can see what clever fellows we were.
I know how people are. When it comes to celebrity, bad eclipses good ten times out of ten. The human race is in love with outlaws, and its thirst for violence is unquenchable. Nobody’s going to give a damn about dreary Anne Frank in a few years, but Lizzie Borden will be celebrated for a long, long while. And they’ll remember us forever.
FOREVER!
Rodney Harper
Hangman Cay
March 12, 1959

For Marcia

And in loving memory of Suzy and Mom

Acknowledg
ments

I’d like to thank my editor, Dana Isaacson, and everyone at Random House/Alibi who contributed to making this novel a reality. Dana’s advice and guidance were always excellent. I thank my copyeditor, Dianna Stirpe, for doing such a thorough job preparing the manuscript for publication.

My agent, Robin Rue, worked long and hard to find this book a home. I’m also indebted to her colleague at Writers House, Beth Miller, and the folks in the Writers House e-book department who made all my other titles available online, especially Julie Trelstad, Bakara Wintner, and Katie Zanecchia.

Beth Tindall of Cincinnati Media designed and activated a website/blog for me on very short notice, and the result is terrific. She’s an electronically challenged writer’s best friend.

My writing group supported me every step of the way. My thanks and love to Betsy Harding, S. J. Rozan, and the late Royal Huber. (We miss you, Royal.) And the Friday Night Club keeps me going: Sharon Bogart, Jennifer Jaffee, Tina (“T”) Meyerhoff, Kathy Pontillo, Larry Pontillo, S. J. Rozan (again!), and the “floating” Friday Nighters—John Douglas, Andrea Knutson, Skip Richards, and Ann Romeo. (Some of you will find your names hidden in the book!)

My family has recently become smaller. My sister Marcia and I really miss Mom and our sister Suzy. They instilled in me my love of reading, and they were always the first readers of everything I wrote.
A Penny for the Hangman
is my first work they never saw, but I wrote it for them, anyway. I write everything for them.

About the Author

T
OM
S
AVAGE
is the author of six previous novels and numerous short stories. His books have been published in fifteen countries, and his bestselling novel,
Valentine,
was made into a Warner Bros. film. Raised in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, he now lives in New York City, where he worked for many years at Murder Ink
^®, the world’s first mystery bookstore. Visit his website/blog at
tomsavageb
ooks.com
.