Body Language (17 page)

Then somebody opens the door, and I see my cousin Mark for the first time. He’s very handsome, with wavy hair, and I can tell that Suzanne is jealous of all the attention he’s getting. He’s wearing tan pants, like soldiers wear, and they look really good on him. Everyone else is hugging him; I want to, but think I shouldn’t. Trying to think of something clever, I tell him, “We’ve got the same name.” He smiles and says, “How about that?” Then he musses my hair with his hand, and I really like the way his fingers feel on my head.

Later that afternoon, I’m in Joey’s room, and I’m getting bored with him, so I stroll out into the hall. Hearing music from Mark’s room, I look inside, and there’s my older cousin with his shirt off—he still has those nice tan pants on—unpacking a suitcase and sorting through his records. Seeing me, he says, “It’s their new album. You like the Beatles?”

So far, the dream is just a replay of everything that really happened. But then, things start to get different. When he asks me about the Beatles, I answer, “I like Mozart better.” And he tells me, “I’ll play some, if I can find it.”

He kneels on the floor, reaching for an album that has slipped behind the stereo. His backside is toward me, and I feel a little embarrassed, but I can’t take my eyes off him—those pants look so nice. And the creases of the cloth on the back of his legs make sort of an arrow, pointing right at his butt. I feel lost for a moment, like I don’t know where I am. Then I walk over to him and just, well…
touch
him.

“Hey,” says Mark, getting up fast, “what are you doing?”

I don’t know what to say because I really don’t
know
what I’m doing. Finally I tell him, “I just wanted to touch you.”

He laughs—not
at
me—he’s being nice. “Then touch me.”

And I do. I feel his belt buckle, and I put my arms around his waist and squeeze him against me. He starts looking at the ceiling with his mouth open, and he puts his hands in my hair again, and he pulls, and it sort of hurts but feels good anyway. He says, “I want to touch you, too, Mark.”

I was hoping he’d say that. So I take one of his hands and put it between my legs, and he sort of cups it, and I feel warm and hard there. He looks into my eyes and tells me how green they are, and I laugh because people are always making a big deal out of it. And I tell him, “Show me your cock. Fuck my mouth.”

I can’t
believe
I said that, but then I realize that I’m not a little kid anymore. I’m no longer nine, but about his age, eighteen. We’re the same height, same build, same name, same khaki pants. There’s sort of a twin-thing going on, and it heats up fast. We’re down on the floor, we’re into each other’s clothes, and we’re doing things to and for each other that feel like love. “Mark, oh, Mark,” we both whisper from the jumble of our bodies.

“Hey,” says Joey, popping into the room. But I can’t see him, and I don’t care—I’m busy with Mark. “Hey!” he repeats. “Wanna see the upstairs?”

Mark grabs my hair again, mussing and pulling, and I know I’m on the verge of orgasm. “Are you ready to come?” I ask him. He answers with a groan that sounds like pain. I reach to grab his hair, wanting to feel those beautiful, wavy locks twisted around my fingers, but my hands can’t find his head. My hands feel warm, my fingers are wet, and I know something is wrong. “Mark,” I ask, “are you ready?” But he doesn’t answer, and his whole body goes limp, and then I can
see
what’s wrong: His body has been mutilated, most of his head is missing, and there’s blood on my hands. “Mark!” I scream.

“
Hey!
” Joey screams louder. “
Wanna see the upstairs?
”

And I awoke.

It was Tuesday morning, still early, still dark, not quite dawn. I reached blindly to switch on my bedside lamp. Squinting against the assault of light, I examined my hands and determined that they were not bloody, that no one had been mutilated, that Joey was not standing in the doorway—that yes, it was only a dream. I breathed a heavy sigh, dried my brow with a swipe of my arm, and lay there thinking, booting my brain to full consciousness.

It was the first night I’d spent alone in my new bed—Neil had been with me those first seven or eight nights since move-in. The dream was an ugly kickoff to the reality of our “arrangement,” a planned separation that I myself had devised and sold to Neil against his every instinct. Once again I was faced with an omen that my future in Dumont was ill-fated. And once again I had to remind myself that I held no faith whatever in such irrational flights of mysticism. My future was in my own hands, not at the mercy of some supernatural portent. My future might yet be wrenched by chance, but it would not be doomed by destiny.

Secure in this knowledge, I dismissed the dream for what it was—the product of my churning subconscious combined with my shock at hearing Barret Logan’s ghastly revelations of the previous evening, as well as the general state of horniness that had been hounding me for several days. There would be three more nights without Neil, I counted. Masturbation might be fun—it would at least relieve the pressure—but my bout of self-analysis since waking had focused my mental energies in a less earthy sector of my brain, and I found that I’d simply lost interest in an overdue hand job.

Swinging my feet to the floor and sitting on the edge of the bed, I reviewed the day that lay ahead. My only appointment was later that morning, when Parker and I would visit the
Register.
Otherwise I was free to concentrate on desk work regarding my move and the takeover of the paper. In the back of my mind, of course, I would continually wrestle with the questions surrounding Suzanne’s murder—the who and the why. And, of course, there was still a thicket of legal issues to resolve concerning my inheritance and Thad. Perhaps I should try to spend some time with the boy that day.

Gray daylight now tinged the bedroom curtains, and I switched off the lamp. It was still too early to rouse the household with the racket of showering, so I decided to throw on some clothes, go down to my den, and see if the morning paper had arrived.

Padding downstairs in my stocking feet, crossing the entrance hall, I quietly unlatched the front door and cracked it open. A gush of cold air hit me, making me instantly more awake than coffee could. Coffee, I thought—that’s what I needed. But first the paper. I grabbed the
Register
and pulled it inside.

Taking it to the den, I spread it on the desk and switched on the reading lamp. The front page was, of course, covered with news of the murder investigation,
CORONER STUMPED
read the main headline. The story explained that the coroner had not yet filed a final report and that the murder weapon was still unknown. Investigators had therefore requested postponement of Suzanne’s funeral, which was now tentatively scheduled for next week, Monday, January third, location to be announced. Father Nicholas Winter, pastor of Saint Cecille parish, was preparing to file a court petition to have the body remanded to the church for burial, in an effort to block what he called “the sacrilegious plans of Miriam Westerman to inter this faithful daughter of Christ in unhallowed ground.” I stifled a laugh, taking delight, even at that early hour, in any form of ecclesiastical squabbling.

My reading was then interrupted by voices somewhere in the house. Curious, I went to the hall and listened. The voices—there were two of them—came from the kitchen. The tone made it clear that they were arguing, and though they tried to keep it quiet, tension was building. So I sneaked farther down the hall, closer to the kitchen, in order to hear better. From where I stood, I could smell coffee brewing. I could also discern that the voices belonged to Thad and Hazel.

“I was
there
that day, at your mother’s house,” Hazel told Thad. “We hadn’t had a nice visit in weeks, and I offered to fix lunch. I was in the kitchen when you two started yelling, and I heard every word of it.”

“It didn’t mean anything. She yelled at me a lot.”

“A mother’s
supposed
to yell at her kids when they act like you do.”

“I wasn’t acting up. I wanted to get a job.”

“
A
job
.” Harrumph. “Your
job’s
at school…”

“You sound like
her
now.”

Hazel plowed on, “Your
job’s
to get some decent grades. Your
job’s
to grow up and stop acting like…”

“I
am
grown up,” he insisted. “That was the whole point, in case you missed it. Are you deaf as well as blind?”

At that moment, I sincerely hoped that the next sound I’d hear would be the smack of her hand on his face.

“Owww!” he whined. (I smiled.) “I’m sorry, Hazel. But what I
mean
is, is that I just wanted to move out of the house and get an apartment—you know, with friends. And she was like, ‘You’re too young.’ And I’m like, ‘But my friends are older. They can handle it.’ And she’s like, ‘You can’t be unsupervised,’ or whatever. And I’m like, ‘
They’ll
look after me.’ So, of course, she’s like, ‘What about money?’ So I’m,
‘That’s
why I need to get a job—just part-time—it won’t hurt school.’ But she wouldn’t let me, so I asked for more allowance, and she laughed at me. And… And…”

“And,” Hazel picked up the narrative, “you
warned
her. You warned your own mother that if she didn’t stop treating you like a baby, she’d be
sorry.
You threatened to take matters into your own hands. ‘One way or another,’ you yelled at her, ‘I’m getting out of this frigging house.’”

“Oh, brother”—Thad smirked audibly—“I’d never say ‘frigging.’”

“Then you know good and well what you
did
say, and I won’t repeat that word.”

Thad challenged her, “So long as you were snooping on us, you know what happened next.”

“Indeed I do. She threatened you with boarding school.”

Hmm. Suzanne and I had been thinking along the same lines.

Hazel continued. “Not just any boarding school, mind you, but a good, strict military academy. The discipline would serve you well, young man.”

“I’d
never
go there. Never!”

“And that’s just what you told your mother. Exactly. Then you said”—Hazel choked on the words—“you said you’d kill her first.”

There was a long pause. I heard my heart pounding, fast. When Thad spoke, he seemed to be fighting back tears. “I’d never hurt Mom!” he blurted.

“Then why did you say such things, Thad?”

“I don’t
know.
We had a lot of fights lately. We both said lots of things we didn’t really mean.” He repeated, “But I’d never hurt Mom.”

I’d heard enough. Thad and Hazel’s argument had climaxed and was winding down. Retreating through the hallway to the foot of the stairs, I wondered, Is Thad sincere now about being incapable of hurting his mother? Or is he merely squirming? Was Suzanne’s dying word, “Thad,” in fact meant to name her killer? And what about Hazel? On the day of the murder, she did her best to paint Miriam Westerman in a suspicious light, so what was her motive in precipitating today’s quarrel with Thad? What game was she playing?

I needed time to weigh all of this. My more immediate need, however, was caffeine. So I crept up a few stairs, then bounded back down, calling, “Anybody up yet? Hazel? Coffee ready?”

Around eleven that morning, I took Parker over to the offices of the
Dumont Daily Register.
He had been there only once with me, briefly, on Christmas Eve day, and had not yet seen the operation running at full tilt. I found a parking spot on First Avenue within a block of the paper and, while backing my black Bavarian V-8 into the space, wondered when I could legitimately claim one of the prime spots in the executive lot behind the building. Walking toward the offices with Parker, I told him, “Barret Logan should write a textbook on publishing a well-run small-town daily. He’s not only managed to attract top talent, but he’s also reinvested the company’s profits in a continual modernization of its physical plant.”

“Sounds like the ideal setup,” said Parker. “I’m eager to be a part of it.”

Stepping through the glass doors into the vestibule, I noticed that our names had been displayed on the welcome board. A well-dressed receptionist (
CONSTANCE
said the plaque on the counter) greeted us warmly on sight. “Good morning, Mr. Manning. We’ve been expecting you.” I introduced Parker as the new managing editor, and she told us, “Mr. Logan said to send you right up.”

By now I had a sense of the building’s general layout. The editorial department was upstairs on the second floor, advertising on the ground floor, circulation below. The actual printing plant, along with its warehouse and loading docks, occupied a separate larger building behind the offices. I led Parker up to the editorial floor, telling him, “Welcome to your new domain.”

The newsroom was fully staffed at that hour, but I recognized the activity level as low—with a single morning edition, the
Register
’s next deadline would not hit until late afternoon. Phones rang sporadically, but it was not the din of breaking news. So I felt comfortable mingling with the staff a bit, introducing Parker, on our way to the executive offices.

Logan saw us coming and came out from behind his desk to greet us. If he had any misgivings about passing the torch after so many years, they were not the least evident. He spoke of “your office” (meaning mine), and I had to wonder if his sparky nonchalance would wane as the day of the actual takeover neared. In three weeks’ time, when he woke up retired, without a desk to report to, would he don the same dark three-piece suit (navy blue, with the faintest gray chalk stripes) that he wore that Tuesday morning? Or would he think, The hell with it, and lounge in a bathrobe till lunch?

Glee Savage turned an aisle and beelined toward us. “I
heard
you were in the building.” Big smile. Big red lips. “Good morning, gentlemen!”

As she had not yet met Parker, I introduced them, explaining that Parker, an experienced researcher, was interested in exploring the
Register
’s morgue.

Logan interjected, “I understand, Glee, that you’re pushing to resurrect that expose idea.” He wagged a finger.