A Thief in the House of Memory (7 page)

“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.

“What was that all about?” murmured Ezra.

Dec stared at him, his eyes filled with foreboding.

“I
'm almost afraid to find out,” he said.

B
UT HE WAST'T
about to find out anything.

“Clarence Mahood is a slug,” said Birdie.

“You know him?”

She turned to Dec in the back seat of the Rendezvous, one pencil-thin painted-on eyebrow raised. “It's a small town, kiddo. I've known Clare since kindergarten.”

Dec was suddenly struck by the implication of what Birdie had said. “So you knew Runyon, too!”

“Never said I didn't.”

But that wasn't the point. She had never said she did! Dec was too flabbergasted to speak.

“It's no big deal,” she said. “It has nothing to do with anything.”

“If it's no big deal, why did you keep it a secret?”

“Pipe down. It was
not
a secret. Like I said, it's a small town.”

Bernard cleared his throat. “To tell you the truth, Dec, we
tried not to talk about the incident at all, for Sunny's sake, especially. And for you as well.”

“Thanks a lot. But I'm not six, okay?”

His father sighed and shook his head. “Please, Dec,” he said. “It has been a very long day. What is it you want to know?”

Dec made eye contact with his father in the rearview mirror. “I want to know what happened in there.”

Bernard sighed again. “It's nothing, really. Just an endlessly detailed account of what everybody already knows.”

“Mostly legal mumbo jumbo,” said Birdie.

“And it'll be over soon,” said Bernard. “Probably tomorrow.”

Dec stared at the back of his father's head, unable to believe what they were doing to him — the two of them, together.

“It's been three days,” he said. “How long can you talk about a guy falling over?”

His father glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “A man died, Declan. Show a little respect.”

“A smart man,” said Declan, “doing a really stupid thing.”

Birdie laughed. “Smart. I like that.”

“I just meant he wasn't dumb enough to waste his time stealing a piece of junk like the Plato bust.”

Bernard held up his hand. “Excuse me, Son, but that bust is not a piece of junk. To a common burglar it might easily have seemed more valuable than it was.”

Dec stared out the window. “Common burglar,” he muttered. “Runyon sure didn't seem common to me.”

The comment was met with stony silence, but Dec turned to see a glance pass between Birdie and his father. Then Birdie turned again, a long-suffering look in her eye. “As your dad said, it's been a real tiring day. How ‘bout you just give it a rest, okay?”

Dec crossed his arms. “Sure,” he said. “For now.”

Again he met his father's reflected gaze. “When there's something to tell you, we'll tell you,” he said. But his eyes said something else. His eyes said, What has come over you? His eyes said, Why all this acting out? His eyes said, I hope this is not a foretaste of things to come.

O
N THE FOURTH DAY
, as Bernard Steeple had predicted, the inquest came to an end with the coroner finding no cause to consider Runyon's death as suspicious. The case was closed without so much as a single line in the
Ladybank Expositor
. Things settled down at home. Camelot breathed again, but to Declan Steeple, nothing seemed the same any more.

The rains came. April showers a month late. Dec stopped looking for excuses to go to the big house. He just went. She wasn't always there. Sometimes he saw her outside the mansion but never far from it, as if she were a moon held in a tight orbit by its gravity.

She liked to surprise him. Shock the wits out of him. She would jump out and then disappear, giggling like a little girl.

One time they had a tea party in the dining room with real bone china and imaginary scones. He asked her why Daddy said scone so that it rhymed with gone and she said scone so that it rhymed with stone.

“We say lots of things different, your dad and me,” she
said. “He likes to say, ‘You'll never grow up, Lindy Polk.' And I like to say, ‘Bernard Steeple, you're growed up enough for
both
of us.'“

Another time she wanted to bowl in the drawing room, using Encyclopaedia Britannicas for pins and a bowling ball she had dug up from who knew where.