All Things Cease to Appear (2 page)

What’s wrong with your momma?

Momma
sick.

It’s hard when your momma’s sick, isn’t it?

She turned the cellophane package over, and a dusting of brown crumbs spilled out through her fingers.

Did anybody come to the house today?

Franny ignored him and crinkled the wrapper, occupied by the sound it made between her fingers.

Franny? The sheriff is talking to you.

She looked up at George.

Did Cole come?

She nodded.

Lawton said, Cole Hale?

He sits for us sometimes, George said.

Was it Cole? Are you sure?

Franny’s lower lip began to tremble and tears ran down her cheeks.

She just told you it was, George said. He picked her up, annoyed, and held her tightly. I think that’s enough questions for now.

Do you want to try this again, Franny? The woman held up the bag of quarters.

Franny blinked her wet eyes and wriggled out of his arms. I want to do it.

We’ll be fine. I’ve got a whole lot of change here. And we’ve got a TV in there.

They let him call his parents. He used a pay phone in the hall and called collect. His mother made him repeat the news. He stood there under the green lights with the words marching out.

They’re driving up, he told Lawton.

All right. We can go in here.

Lawton ushered him into a small room with tall black windows; he could see his reflection in the glass and noted his hunched posture, his wrinkled clothes. The room smelled of dirt and cigarettes and something else, maybe misery.

Take a seat, George, I’ll be right back.

He sat down at the table. With the door shut he felt cut off from everything, waiting there with his own reflection. He could hear the train clattering through town, slow and loud. He looked at the clock; it was just after seven.

The door opened, and Lawton backed into the room with two cups of coffee, a file pinched under his arm. Thought you could use some of this. He set the coffee down and tossed out some sugar packets. You take milk?

George shook his head. This is fine. Thanks.

The sheriff sat down, opened the file and took a sip of the hot coffee, holding the rim of the cup carefully between his fingers. He pulled a pair of bifocals out of his shirt pocket and wiped the lenses with a napkin, then held them up to the light and wiped them again and slipped them on. I want you to know how sorry I am about Catherine.

George only nodded.

The phone rang, and Lawton took the call and made some notes on his pad. George put his mind to just sitting there in the chair, resting one hand over the other in his lap. In a vague sort of reverie he thought of Rembrandt. Again, he looked at his reflection in the window and decided that, for someone in his situation, he didn’t look too bad. He pushed the hair off his forehead and sat back in the chair and glanced around the small room. The walls were gray, the color of gruel. At one time he had prided himself on his instinct for color. One summer, back in college, he’d interned at the Clark with Walt Jennings, a color specialist. He’d rented a house on the Knolls and had fallen in love with a girl who lived in the old Victorian across the street, although they’d never once spoken. All that summer she was reading
Ulysses,
and he remembered now how she’d come out on her terrace in her bikini and lie on the chaise. She’d read for five minutes, then lay the fat book on her stomach and lift her face to the sun.

Lawton hung up. We don’t get many robberies out there. Usually just bored teenagers looking for booze. You have any enemies, George?

None that I know of.

What about your wife?

No. Everyone loved my wife.

Somebody didn’t.

He thought of the girl, her sad, dark eyes. I don’t know anyone who would do this.

Lawton looked at him but said nothing, and a long minute passed.

I need to go soon. Franny needs her supper.

There’s lots of stuff in that machine.

George picked up the paper cup and could feel the heat in his fingers. The coffee was bitter and still hot enough to burn his tongue. Lawton took out a pack of Chesterfields. You want one of these?

Quit.

So did I. He lit a cigarette with a brass lighter, dragged on it deeply and blew out the smoke. You still over at the college?

George nodded.

What time you get home this afternoon?

Around five, a few minutes before.

Lawton made another note. So you pull up to your house, and then what?

George described how he’d parked in the garage and gone into the house. I knew something was wrong when I saw the glass. Then I went upstairs and found her. She was—he coughed. Just lying there in her nightgown. With that—he stopped. He couldn’t say it.

Lawton dropped the cigarette in his coffee cup and tossed it into the wastebasket. Let’s go back a minute. Walk me through the kitchen to the stairs—did you notice anything? Anything unusual?

Her pocketbook was sort of dumped out, her wallet. I don’t know what was in it. There were coins everywhere. They might’ve gotten some of it.

How much cash would she keep in her wallet?

It’s hard to say. Grocery money, not much more.

Not enough, likely. That’s what my wife tells me. But you know how women are. They never know what they have. He gazed at George over his bifocals.

Like I said, it was probably just grocery money.

All right. Then what?

I went upstairs. It was cold. There was a window open.

Did you shut it?

What?

The window.

No. No, I didn’t want to—

Touch anything? The sheriff looked at him.

Right, George said.

Then what?

Then I found her and she—

A sound erupted from his belly, a kind of guttural hiccup, and he let the words gush out like puke. She had that…thing in her head…and there was all…the blood.

He grabbed the wastebasket and retched into it while Lawton sat there and watched. Deputy Burke came in and took it away. It was one of those gray metal things they used in grammar schools.

You all right, George?

He was nothing close to all right. Burke came back into the room with another wastebasket and set it down. He stood there a minute looking at him, then went out again and shut the door.

What time did you leave the house this morning?

The question seemed impossible to answer. Six-thirty, he managed. He’d had an eight o’clock class. He could remember the sky, the thick clouds. The drive to work. The usual traffic. People in their cars behind fogged windows. My wife, he said. They were sleeping.

What time she usually get up?

I don’t know. I guess around seven.

Your wife work?

He shook his head. Not up here. She’d worked in the city.

What as?

She was a painter—she did murals, restoration.

Lawton made another note. What you all do last night?

Nothing, he said.

Nothing?

We had dinner and went to bed.

Any alcohol with dinner?

A little wine.

What time you go to bed?

George tried to think. I guess around eleven.

Let me ask you this. Your wife—she a heavy sleeper?

No. Not especially.

How ’bout your daughter? She sleep pretty good?

George shrugged. I guess.

Lawton shook his head and smiled. We had a heck of a time with ours. I don’t think even one of ’em slept through. Not the whole night. Then they’re up again at the crack of dawn. Lawton looked at him evenly, and a whole minute seemed to pass before he went on. Small kids can be rough on a marriage, he said. I don’t think people give themselves enough credit. But I think it’s harder on the women, don’t you?

George looked at him and waited.

Women got such a keen
sense,
don’t they? The tiniest little whimper and they’re
up.

His brain was beginning to hurt. The overhead lights, buzzing tubes of fluorescence. He tried to look the sheriff in the eye.

See, that’s the thing I can’t get my head around here, George. You go to work, right? Your wife’s sleeping, your daughter’s sleeping. The house is quiet. And sometime after that—that’s what you said, right?—when they’re still asleep, this incident occurs. You agree with that?

I don’t know what else to think.

Let’s assume this happened sometime after you left the house, after six-thirty and before your wife and daughter woke up—say, between seven and eight. Would that be fair? We do need to narrow this down.

All right.

So let’s say it’s around quarter to seven. This individual’s outside someplace, maybe he even sees you drive off. He finds the ax in your barn, right? He walks a hundred or so feet to the house and breaks in through the kitchen door. We don’t know why. Maybe a robbery, that’s possible, we don’t understand the motive yet, but that’s the setup, am I right?

George thought it through. He nodded.

By now it’s around seven. You’re still in your car, driving to work. You get to campus, park your car, go up to the office. Meanwhile, back at home, somebody’s murdering your wife? Lawton waited a minute. Do you accept that scenario, George?

What choice do I have?

That’s what you said, isn’t it? It’s what you told us.

George just looked at him.

Somebody broke that window. Somebody came up those stairs. Somebody came into your room. And your wife didn’t wake up?

So?

That doesn’t strike you as odd—a young mother like her?

She was sleeping, George said. The pain in his head sharpened. He feared it might make him blind.

Somebody brought an ax into your home, Lawton said, slowly rising from his chair. They carried it up the stairs. They entered your room. They stood over the bed, looking down at your dreaming wife. They raised the ax like this—he raised his arms over his head—then brought it down, and
bam!
He slammed his hand down on the table. One blow. That’s all it took.

George began to weep. Can’t you see? I’m sick over this. Can’t you see?

Just when he thought he’d secured Lawton’s sympathy, the sheriff walked out.

It occurred to him that he needed a lawyer.

—

WHAT THE SHERIFF PROMISED
would be a brief interview had turned into five hours. Lawton and Burke took turns asking him the same questions over and over again, hoping George would break down and confess to murdering his wife.

We’d like to interview your daughter, Burke said.

We’ve got people who know how to talk to kids in these sorts of situations, his partner added gently.

And get the answers they want, George thought. I don’t think so, he said.

Burke scoffed. She was in the house. She might’ve seen something. I’d think you’d want to know.

George didn’t like the look on his face. It’s not happening, he said. I won’t allow it.

The cops exchanged a look. Burke shook his head and got up and walked out. A moment later, the phone rang.

Yell-o, Lawton said a bit too happily. He listened and replaced the receiver. Your parents are here. Apparently, your daughter’s tired. He looked at George carefully. She wants to go home.

Yeah, George said. Me, too. And he meant those words with all his heart. But neither of them had a home now. That was over.

Your folks got you all a room at the Garden Inn.

He nodded with relief. He couldn’t imagine going back to that house tonight—or ever.

Lawton walked him out. In the anteroom, his parents were waiting on plastic chairs. At first glance, he hardly recognized them. They looked old. Franny was squatting on the floor, playing with a rubber stamp that declared
Official Business
across a piece of scrap paper.

She’s getting ink all over her hands, his mother said, displeased, her French accent more pronounced than usual. Frances, come up from that dirty floor.

She pulled Franny onto her lap. It was only then, with the child between them, that she looked at him directly.

Mother, he said, and bent to kiss her. Her face was cold. His father stood up, grim, and shook his hand. They looked at him; they would not look.

Daddy, Franny cried, reaching out, her little fingers straining, and he suddenly remembered who he was. He pulled her up into his arms, grateful for her affection, and when she clung to him it somehow gave him the strength to say good night to Lawton, to be a gentleman.

We’d like to see you here first thing in the morning, he said.

What for?

We need to finish this.

I don’t have much else to say, Travis.

You could think of something else. We’ll expect you at eight-thirty. If you want, I’ll send a patrol car around to pick you up.

That’s all right. I’ll be here.

They crossed the parking lot in silence and got into his father’s brown Mercedes, an older model that smelled of cigars. His mother had brought a bag for Franny, clementines and Lulu biscuits and a couple bottles of milk. Catherine had gotten her onto a cup, but she still took a bottle at night. Thinking about it now made his eyes water. He didn’t think he had the courage to raise her alone.

As they drove to the hotel, Franny fell asleep. No one spoke. He put her on his shoulder when they walked into the silent lobby and rode up in the elevator. His mother had arranged for two rooms. Why don’t you let Franny stay with us? she said. We’ll be right next door. I’m sure you need the rest.

No, he said. She’ll be with me.

His voice was cold, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Their faces bleached and cautious. Wanting to know. Wanting a reason this had happened
in their family.
The potential embarrassment. They wanted the facts. Intimate details that were nobody’s business. They couldn’t help being suspicious—he guessed it was only natural. Maybe he should even forgive them.

No. He hated them for it.

Suddenly his parents looked like strangers, refugees who’d been thrown together with him until whatever end awaited them all. They turned into their room and closed the door. Through the wall he could hear their muted conversation, though he couldn’t imagine what they were saying to each other. When he was a boy, his bedroom had been next to theirs, and they often talked late into the night. George would fall asleep trying to decipher the conversation. His father would sit on the bench at the end of the bed, pulling off his shoes and socks, while his mother sat up in her nightgown, her face greasy with wrinkle cream, the newspaper open on her lap. As parents they’d been strict, rigorous. His father, the disciplinarian, occasionally used his belt. George could remember the shame of it.