Read A Penny for the Hangman Online
Authors: Tom Savage
A Penny for the Hangman (5 page)
Karen suppressed a shudder, thinking of her own phantom, but managed to smile. “By Rodney and Wulf?”
Mrs. MacArthur shrugged. “Perhaps. Or perhaps it is the dead who are still here, watching us. Hjordis Anderman—y
ou’re sitting exactly where she was killed.”
Karen blinked. In spite of herself, she quickly stood up from the rattan chair, nearly overturning it.
“Well, it isn’t the same
chair,
” Mrs. MacArthur said, laughing. “All this is new, of course. And inside, the house is completely different. Bunk beds, mostly. If we get any bigger, we’re going to need another place. But tell me, Ms. Tyler, why are you really here? In St. Thomas, I mean. There’s already so much that’s been written about the case.”
Karen thought about it for a moment before deciding to tell the truth and see where it would lead.
“I was invited here,” she said carefully, “by a man I’ve never met. He wants to discuss the case. He says he has new information about it. In fact, he told me to say hello to
you,
Mrs. MacArthur, and I’m wondering if you know who he is. I think he might be one of them, Rodney or Wulf.” She watched the woman’s eyes as she added, “Is he?”
Mrs. MacArthur shook her head in bewilderment. “He told you to say hello to
me
? How strange! I don’t know who that could be, but I don’t think it could be one of those boys.”
“Why not?” Karen asked.
Mrs. MacArthur laughed again. “Because I’ve never met either of them. How could I? I’ve lived here in St. Thomas all my life.”
Karen nodded. “You’re referring to the judge’s ruling when he sentenced Harper and Anderman.”
Mrs. MacArthur nodded. “Exactly. The court’s terms were very clear. I don’t know where those boys are now, or even if they’re still alive. Does anyone? Even so, I doubt the man who contacted you is one of them. They’re not allowed here.”
With that, she rose and led Karen inside to show her around the house. This once-gracious home was now an institution, and it looked like one. Whatever ghosts still clung to the veranda or crouched among the tamarind trees outside, they no longer penetrated the walls and shuttered windows of the house itself. Even as Karen stood in the center of what had once been Rodney Harper’s bedroom, gazing around at the delightful clutter of four young male occupants, she felt no vibrations, no residue of the former tenants and their terrible history. She thanked Mrs. MacArthur, made a generous donation with her
Visions
magazine employee credit card, and went back outside, grinning in anticipation of Sally Cohen’s probable reaction when she saw that particular item on Karen’s next expense report.
The Whiffle Ball game was breaking up as she headed for the parking lot, and the overheated players swarmed past her on their way indoors. She smiled at them, inwardly marveling at the contrast, the positive energy that had replaced the shadows. These beautiful children were just what this place needed. Still, all the way back to the hotel Karen thought about Mrs. MacArthur’s final words on the subject of Harper and Anderman.
“They’re not allowed here.”
From the decision of the Hon. Lincoln Sinclair,
People v. Harper and Anderman,
St. Thomas Municipal Court, Thursday, April 16, 1959
“…to be taken to separate places of incarceration in the mainland United States as expediently as arrangements can be made. They shall be monitored regularly by the authorities of those institutions, who will determine their paroles or releases. Furthermore, I hereby order one condition to be enforced upon their release, at such time as is deemed fit: that Rodney Harper and Wulfgar Anderman shall never return to the United States Virgin Islands in their lifetimes. Failure to comply with this will result in their immediate arrest….”
Molly knew Mr. Huxley wasn’t supposed to be here, which is why she was here instead. She didn’t care for all the extra work in this heat, but she was too frightened of her husband’s friend to say anything about it. She didn’t like Mr. Huxley, but she knew better than to complain. Molly would be glad when she was off these islands, back in the States.
She trudged through the supermarket in the Red Hook section of St. Thomas, wearily pushing the cart along the aisles. The tiny native boatman, a silent phantom known as Gabby, followed behind her. He’d help her carry the bags to the boat for the trip back to the house. He hadn’t spoken to her once since they’d left the boat. Not that she was surprised—nobody ever spoke to Molly except her husband, and he never had anything pleasant to say. She may have lost her looks and gained a few pounds in the long years back in the States, waiting for her husband’s release, and her once-red hair was now a dull gray, but Molly would give anything for a kind word.
She pulled the crumpled grocery list from the pocket of her faded sundress and consulted it. Enough for three days, he’d said. He’d been very specific about that, and he was her husband’s friend and her employer, so she hadn’t said a word. Not that she ever did; the man terrified her. So, all she knew was that there’d be a guest in the house for three days.
A guest. A young woman—that’s all Molly’s husband would tell her. Some sort of journalist. Molly hardly thought the woman would be a romantic conquest, because Mr. Huxley was apparently uninterested in such things. She’d wondered why a journalist would want to see him, but she’d been careful not to ask her husband about it. She didn’t want to make him mad. And she wouldn’t ask the young woman when she arrived, either. Her husband had warned her, in no uncertain terms, that she was not to speak to the woman. She was to remain silent at all times. So, she’d dutifully made up the guest bedroom and set out towels and soap in the bathroom. She cleaned and cooked and served and kept her mouth shut; that was her glamorous new job.
Well, it was better than other jobs she’d had in her day. She’d been a motel chambermaid, a supermarket checker, and a cleaning woman back in the States, so this tropical housekeeping stint was an improvement. No snow, at least—the stateside winters could be brutal for a woman on the far side of fifty who couldn’t afford to heat the rented rooms and trailers that had been her homes. Her son, her only child, had run away fifteen years ago, just after his sixteenth birthday. She hadn’t heard from him since, but she’d heard from others that he was now doing time for armed robbery, and the news hadn’t surprised her. Like father, like son…
Molly scanned her shopping list, scratching at a mosquito bite on her plump shoulder under the sundress. Gabby waited patiently behind her. God, he could get on her nerves! But her husband and her employer found the boatman useful, so she mustn’t say anything about that, either. Eggs—she’d forgotten to get eggs. She grabbed two cartons, added them to the top of the pile, and trudged to the checkout.
The groceries filled eight bags and were expensive, twice as expensive as back home in the States. She pulled from her pocket the wad of cash she’d been given. The native girl behind the register frowned at the bills, as well she might. Molly knew from her own experience that credit was a lot easier for the checker when counting out at the end of a shift. But Mr. Huxley wouldn’t entrust his credit cards to her, so cash it was.
“Sorry,” she mumbled to the girl, who shrugged and made change. Then Molly hoisted four of the overstuffed plastic bags and left the rest for Gabby. Gabby—what a name! Some sort of in-joke, obviously—the man never spoke if he could possibly avoid it. Without a word, he picked up the remaining bags and trailed her out of the supermarket.
After the chill of the air-conditioned store, the intense heat struck Molly like a blow. Before they’d made it across the parking lot, her back was throbbing and sweat was pouring down her body. Even so, she quickened her pace. She must get the meat, milk, and ice cream into the boat’s refrigerator. She knew how her husband would react if the groceries were spoiled.
God, she hated the heat! And the mosquitoes. And the long boat rides back and forth. She hated the house where she worked, especially the cramped downstairs rooms near the kitchen, where she and her husband lived. Most of all, she hated her employer—well, she didn’t hate him so much as fear him. In her life, Molly had learned to spot evil a mile away in a snowstorm.
A snowstorm. Fat chance of that!
She shook the perspiration from her face and squinted in the glare of the sun as she hurried toward Gabby’s boat.
The restaurant wasn’t difficult to find. Mafolie Hotel was a charming guesthouse dramatically perched above the harbor city of Charlotte Amalie, halfway up Signal Hill, the highest mountain in the center of the island. The last rays of another glorious sunset streaked across the sky as Karen maneuvered the rental car through grueling traffic and up the hill. She found a roadside parking space farther up the hill and backtracked on foot to the hotel. A long stone staircase led down from the road to the lobby.
She spotted her dinner date right away. There was only one lone elderly African American man on the crowded dining terrace when she came down the stairs. He sat at a table for two beside the railing at the outer edge of the wooden deck, which was dramatically suspended over the cliff, seven hundred feet above the city. Lieutenant Faison would be in his midseventies now, she knew. He was dressed in a lightweight gray suit and tie, his white hair gleaming above his handsome, deeply lined face. As she was shown to the table, she noted the cane that rested against his chair. With a smile and an audible grunt, the old man began to rise to his feet.
“Please don’t get up, Lieutenant Faison,” Karen said as she slipped into the chair across from him, facing the harbor view. “I’m Karen Tyler. Thank you for agreeing to speak to me on such short notice—and for suggesting such a lovely place for dinner.”
He smiled and settled back in his seat. “Welcome to the Virgin Islands, Ms. Tyler. I thought you’d like Mafolie. The food is excellent, and the view is one of the best on the island. Some parts of St. Thomas are still as pretty as they always were.” He noticed her glancing at his cane, then over toward the entrance. She was wondering how he’d managed the steps, and he read her thoughts. “My son deposited me here, and I sent him away. He’ll be back for me after dinner. Now that my wife is gone, I live with him and his wife. I realize that you are my hostess, but may I order for us? You must have a frozen piña colada to start, and the surf and turf is justifiably famous. I know just the right wine to go with it.”
“Absolutely,” Karen said, smiling.
His eyes twinkled as he took in her little black dress and carefully upswept hair. She was glad she’d dressed up. There was something wonderfully formal, even old-fashioned, about him. She suspected that the son and his wife adored him, and she was instinctively beginning to as well. Still, Karen was certain Lieutenant Faison was not all twinkle and grin; despite his charm, she sensed that very little got by him.
Faison leaned forward and said, “But you are not here for the steak and lobster. Your phone call yesterday aroused my curiosity. I know you want to talk about my book, but you suggested that you are here in St. Thomas for a specific purpose. Are you allowed to tell me what it is?”
She told him without hesitation. As the waiter brought their drinks, Karen sketched in everything she knew so far. The old man listened patiently, his remarkable eyes never leaving her face. When she was finished, he smiled.
“First,” he said, “you must call me Josh—no more of this ‘Lieutenant Faison’ business, and I hate Joshua; it sounds like the Bible. I retired from the force thirty years ago, after this happened.” He indicated the cane leaning against his chair, and she realized his limp was not an infirmity of age but an injury in the line of duty. “And I shall call you Karen. But tell me, Karen, why do you assume your mysterious caller is one of those two boys? Rodney Harper was released in 1992, and he went to live with his brother in Boston. The brother died in a car accident about ten years ago, and Rodney disappeared—out west somewhere, or so I heard. Wulf Anderman has been out of sight for a long time, ever since his release in—When was it?”
“1981,” Karen supplied.
“Yes,” he said, nodding, “not long before my book came out. He tried to prevent that, you know. He’d just gotten out of prison, and he actually went to New York and hired a lawyer to stop Random House from publishing the book. Fortunately for me, the court decided his case had no merit. But then he vanished—don’t ask me where. After my book became a bestseller, the press was looking all over for him. They wanted his version of things, but no one could find him. He’s dead, for all we know. No, I think your informant must be someone else, especially if he’s here in St. Thomas. Rodney and Wulf would both know better than to show their faces here. They’d be arrested.” He leaned forward again, his eyes shining in the glow of the sunset over the city beyond the railing. “But I will tell you this for free: If it
is
one of those two, don’t believe a word he says. Get away from him as soon as possible, and call my son—he currently has my old job.”
Karen sipped her piña colada. “I don’t plan on being alone with the man. I’ll have a photographer with me, and I’m only going to ask a few—”
“No,” Faison said, cutting her off with quiet force. “No, Karen, please listen to me. Fifty years ago, they were children and I was merely an eager young sergeant, but I learned one thing in my career, and it is this: People don’t change. Any cop in the world can tell you that. We keep locking up the same perps, over and over. The prevailing theory of the medical community has it that an individual’s basic personality is set for life by the age of twelve, and those two boys were well set on their particular path, I don’t care
how
young they were.”
Now Karen leaned forward. The two of them would be an odd sight to the other diners, their heads close together above the candle in the center, their expressions tense, whispering like conspirators.
“ ‘Set on their particular path,’ ” she repeated. “And what path was that, Josh?”
The old man considered this for a moment. Then he leaned back in his chair, gazed out at the view, and began to speak.
From
Virgin Cop: My Life with the VIPD
by Joshua L. Faison (Random House, 1982)
The term most widely used to describe the relationship in question is the French phrase “folie à deux.” This occurs when two individuals form a symbiotic bond, a mutually nurturing arrangement that, ironically, removes all individuality. The subjects begin to think of themselves as one unit.
That is the general term, but I was aware from the outset that the dynamic between the two boys was quite different. It was classic Freudian dominant/s
Rodney and Wulfgar were remanded into the custody of the territory, under the protection of Governor James Merwin. There were no adults left to claim them. Rodney’s brother, Toby Harper, was nineteen, officially underage in 1959, and no Harper relatives in Boston or Andermans in Denmark seemed inclined to make an appearance on the island. When contacted, they all denied responsibility for the boys.
In the days after their arrest, I was present at all the interviews. Lieutenant Broward was under orders to keep the boys separate during the examinations. Broward did all the talking, and I wrote everything down. There was also a court-appointed social worker present, a pretty young St. Thomian woman named Hannah Vernon. Each boy in his turn remained silent, unresponsive to the lieutenant’s questions. Rodney Harper maintained a relaxed sense of boredom, a smirking demeanor, which told me, more than any words he might have uttered, that he felt himself superior to us. Wulfgar Anderman, in contrast to his idol, was rigid and pale, indicating that he was not at all sure of himself or his future.
This was 1959, pre-Miranda, and the boys were interviewed without counsel. Miss Vernon was always with them whenever they were outside their cells, and the officers treated them well. We were all natives, and I was aware of a strain, a racial barrier, as I always was on the rare occasions when white suspects were detained in Fort Christian. And these particular suspects, these confessed murderers, were children.
We knew that if we were ever to obtain any real information from either boy, it would be from Wulfgar Anderman, but, try as he might, Lieutenant Broward failed to elicit any reaction from him save one. This single statement occurred in our last meeting alone with him. As Broward rose to leave the interview room, he asked the boy, “Do you have any idea what could happen to you now?” Wulfgar looked away from us for a long moment, evidently considering the question. Then, just when I thought he would not respond at all, he murmured, “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. It’s over.”
“ ‘It’s over,’ ” Karen repeated. “I wonder what he could have meant by that.”
The meal had been cleared, and dessert was brought to them. Faison—Josh—had insisted that she try the chocolate cake, and it was every bit as delicious as advertised. Karen was feeling contented as she sipped her coffee, contented and relaxed. It was the first time in her forty-eight hours on the island that her sense of anxiety had temporarily abated. Her companion was assessing her last remark, and now he addressed it.
“It’s hard to say what he meant, really—he never spoke of it again, according to my wife. Wulf Anderman rarely spoke at all. The trial came soon after that, and the whole thing was over quickly. There were no more interviews.”
Karen leaned forward. “Your
wife
?”
Joshua Faison grinned and sipped his coffee before replying, clearly relishing this little detail of his story. “Oh yes. I see you didn’t read all of my book, just the early part that covered the Harper/Anderman business; otherwise, you’d know this. My late wife was Hannah Vernon, the social worker I mentioned. We met on that case. She was so lovely and so protective of those two boys—not that she got much response from them, but she treated them kindly, in spite of everything. That’s the thing I first noticed about her, her kindness. She was a remarkable woman. I wish you could have met her; she would have liked you.”
Karen smiled. “So, something good came of it after all.”
The old man nodded, remembering. “For me, yes. But not for those boys. They were tried and convicted, and they spent many years in prison. The press and the public made them into a freak show, and their legend lives on, even now. But I’ve never known if that was really fair to one of them….”
