Mad Season (12 page)

Colm was careful. He didn’t ask what the boy was thinking about. He could imagine that. He remembered how it was with Ruth. He was more interested in what the boy had seen.

“What was I supposed to see?”

“A car? Two men? Anything different from the norm. It wasn’t the first time you’d taken Emily home, was it?”

“No.”

“Well then?”

The knuckles were white where the boy was gripping the fence. There was the same rigidity of spine he’d seen in the mother.

“Nothing,” Wilder said. “Nothing different.” He turned to Colm. “Emily would have seen something if there’d been anything. She was looking out the window. What did she tell you?”

“She only looked for a few minutes. Then her mother came in the room.”

“Oh. Well. I told you, there was nothing. I looked at the goddamn moon and then I left. Okay?”

The boy was irritated, he looked like he might cry. Colm was sure he’d seen something. Something or someone. Someone he didn’t want to tell on.

Unless—he hadn’t left that night, not for a long time anyway, till he’d accomplished what he came to do. Hadn’t his father cut off his allowance? Emily had told Ruth that. He might not have meant to hurt anyone. But if Lucien fought back, the blood would go to his head.

The chin was quivering slightly, the hands still gripping the fence, small for a boy’s hands. No, it was hard to imagine Wilder Unsworth beating on an old man and woman. Unless he was the one who stood by. Let the other do the work.

Whoever the other was. The one who’d killed Belle, and maybe poor Willy Beeman.

“I left my cap in your living room,” Colm said. “If you don’t mind I’ll go back in with you.”

“Sure.” Wilder’s hands were red and serrated where they’d held onto the fence.

“My mother’s sheep were Scottish Blackface,” Colm said. “Black noses and feet, real shaggy. I have a sweater made of the wool. Warmest one I own. Full of holes though now.”

“Mom’s knitting one for Christmas. If she can stand to cut off the wool.”

“Fleece.”

“Huh?”

“Fleece is what they call the wool. They shear it each spring. It’s a time-consuming process. I helped as a kid.”

The boy looked at him with some interest. The eyes were intelligent, the mouth was mobile, sensitive. There was the flicker of a smile. Then the mouth went dead again.

“We call it Mother’s folly,” he said, and led the way to the back door.

Carol Unsworth was at the window, examining a tiny break in the pane. She’d have stood there, watching the interrogation. She’d have seen how nervous her son was.

“Garth threw a softball,” she said. “I have to get a new pane of glass.”

“I hate to think how many windows I broke as a kid,” Colm said.

She smiled back, she seemed grateful. “It went all right?” She was looking at Wilder.

“What’d I have to tell him?” said Wilder, and strode through to the front of the house.

A second later he was back. “This your cap?” he said. He turned it over in his hands.

Colm had two dozen of them, all bought in Ireland. Different blends of tweed. Not to mention derbys, baseball caps, a green Rogers Rangers hat, though he felt foolish wearing it.

“You want it?” he said. “Hats are taking up my whole closet. My father complains.”

Wilder examined the cap. It was handmade tweed: autumn colors, brown and gold with a reddish cast.

“You’d give it away?” He looked suspicious.

“Honest.” Colm threw up his hands. “It’s not my favorite. I just grabbed one on my way out.”

Wilder hesitated, then stuck out his hand. “All right.” And clapping it on his head, he ran outdoors and disappeared into the garage.

“I can’t pay you?” said Carol Unsworth, looking embarrassed, and Colm said, “It was my gift.” Then, “I have to be going. Appointment with the police chief.”

She looked upset when he said that.

She showed him out the front, through the pastel living room, past the porcelain and fine bone china. It wasn’t until he was out on the front porch, by the stone sculpture of the falcon, that he realized what he’d seen.

Three books of raffle tickets from Catamount Furniture on the hall table. Who but a mother would indulge her son, buy up the tickets the kid hadn’t been able to sell?

* * * *

The guys had already begun the recess soccer when Vic went out. He’d been kept after by old Ronsard again, he wasn’t doing the arithmetic right. He hated arithmetic. He might even hate Mrs. Ronsard. She was so sweet—sweet as sour cream. Joe Piezzo was running after the ball, two other guys bumping into him, one of them Garth Unsworth. He kicked the ball away from Joe, it bounced out of bounds and hit Vic in the head. Everybody laughed. The girls laughed on the sidelines. One of them, Sue Ellen Brewer, grabbed the ball and ran with it and the guys tackled her, knocking her down. Her shirt hiked up out of her pants and they guffawed.

Vic was mad then. The guys never let any of the girls into the soccer game, though Sue Ellen was a faster runner than any of them. He went to help her up, though she was practically twice his size, and when she was standing again, the tears flying out of her eyes, her chin bleeding, the jeers began.

“Manure loves Sewer,” they chanted, “Vicky Manure loves Slimy Sewer.” The gibes swelled the schoolyard. Vic felt the shadows fall over him. A finger poked his arm, a foot stung the tender crease of his knee. He hit back at it.

“Shut up!” he screamed. “Shut up, you bastards.” He got coughing, his nose filled up. He couldn’t breathe, it was the asthma.

“Victor Willmarth, repeat that word and you’ll march straight up to the principal.” Mrs. Ronsard was mad, so mad her two chins were waggling. Vic saw the kids were glad, too, glad he was getting it from Ronsard.

“They knocked Sue Ellen down,” he told her, gasping out the words. “It was Unsworth and that gang. They’re after her and they’re after me. You never see that. You think they’re just perfect. You think everybody’s just perfect! Well, they’re liars. They steal. They stole my telescope.”

“Liar. Dirty little pigfucker. Dumb farmer boy. Cheap—”

“That’s enough!” Mrs. Ronsard screeched. “Get back inside, every one of you. You’ll stay after school, the whole class. We’ll have this out once and for all. No one talks like that in this school-yard.”

“I can’t stay,’ Vic said, getting his breath back. “I have to get back.”

“Don’t you backtalk me,” she yelled, she’d lost it now. “I’m your teacher. If I say stay, you stay.”

The kids poured back in the school. Sue Ellen walked close behind him. He could hear her raspy breathing in the back of his neck. She blew her nose practically in his ear, she had a cold.

“You wait,” a voice crooned. It was Marsh. “You’ll get it for that.” He knocked Vic in the elbow and walked on.

Sue Ellen caught up with him. As they entered the classroom her body squeezed against his and he pushed her back.

“Your father works in a sewer,” he said softly, and saw her give him a swift hurt look.

* * * *

At nine that evening the phone rang: Pete was right on time. If he made the weekly call he was fulfilling his fatherly dudes. “Emily?” she hollered. “It’s your father.”

Vic appeared at the head of the stairs. “She’s in the bathroom. Emily? It’s Dad. Hurry up! I need to get in there.”

The phone went on ringing. A little breathless, belly aching— she was about to get her period—Ruth picked it up.

“Oh, hi.” Pete’s voice sounded small, properly subdued.

There was a silence. Then, “How are you? How’s the farm going?” Voice getting stronger. “I was going to write, ask about the trees, suggest Tim make some kind of irrigation system. You can lose the whole thousand in a drought.”

“It rained last night,” she said.

“Oh. Good.”

Another silence. Where was Emily, for God’s sake!

“So how is everybody up there? The kids? Tim and Willy?”

Of course he didn’t know about Willy. “Willy’s dead. He drowned in the creek. Tim is distraught. We all are. We think it might be connected with—the other. We don’t know.”

She heard the long slow whistle of breath. Pete had been fond of Willy, he’d tease him, he was good with him. Pete was a natural with children—other people’s children. ‘Careful now,’ he’d say, ‘do it this way, that’s it, good, man.’ And Willy was literally puffed up, pleased with himself. Pete knew how to make people feel good about themselves. Other people, not his wife.

“Better keep the doors locked at night,” he said. She could picture him, furrowed brow, stiff upper lip: don’t let the emotion show. “Until it blows over. Bertha tells me ....”

“It won’t blow over.” He could annoy her so with a word. “Deaths don’t ‘blow over.’ They leave a hole that can’t be filled.” What was it about death that brought on the clichés?

His sigh made a hollow sound in the receiver. She knew he was annoyed, too. She was being prudish, precise again, like her mother; he used to say that in the early days of marriage. “Just like your mother,” he’d say, “down, woman.” A fist squeezed her bones, bore into her flesh with five fingers. He could say what he wanted, she couldn’t.

Then relented. At least he was thinking of the family, suggesting they lock the doors. He never used to believe in locked doors. Vermonters don’t lock their doors, he’d tell people from out of state. “Do you lock your door down there in New York?” she asked, trying to sound light. It was hard to talk to Pete without the tears pushing through.

He gave a half laugh. “Yeah, we do.” She noted the ‘we.’

Emily was coming downstairs with Vic. “You talk first,” she told the boy. “I need a soda.”

“Here’s Vic,” Ruth said, and added, in rapid succession: “We had the funeral this morning, Belle’s funeral. It was hard for everyone. Vic is still having trouble in school. I hope you’re having a good time in New York.”

It was cruel, the juxtaposition, she couldn’t help it. She went to the refrigerator and got out a beer. She heard Vic say, “Hello, Dad,” and then stand there, the phone held away from his ear. She could hear Pete from here, something about a movie he’d rented; he wanted Vic there to watch it with him. The boy’s thin, angular face was expressionless, feet splayed apart in the ripped sneakers he insisted on wearing, though he had a brand new pair in his closet.

Emily reappeared with a can of Pepsi, stood behind Vic, erect, her young face smooth, impassive, not looking at her mother. “I can’t come to New York, Dad, I just can’t,” Vic said into the receiver; and then “Here’s Emily,” and he ran upstairs.

Ruth took her beer into the living room and sank into the old maroon sofa. There would be no money now for a new slipcover. The room looked so ugly with its ancient wingback chairs, her mother’s narrow black rocker, the scratched bookcase, the blue carpet, worn to the nub in places. She put her head back and let the beer ease her belly. Emily could say the final good-bye. Emily was closer to Pete than Vic; Ruth didn’t want to hear the conversation. Sometimes Emily looked at Ruth as if it were Ruth that had made him go away—and maybe it was. She finished the beer in one long guzzle. And felt her stomach turn over.

Pete couldn’t take Vic away from her! He couldn’t—could he?

* * * *

Police Chief Roy Fallon seemed amused that Colm was involving himself in this “investigation.” “Maybe you’d consider coming on the force,” he said. “We might have an opening. One of our detectives, Wisnowski, thinking about retirement—after he solves this one, that is. Of course you’d need some, um . . .”

Colm, who’d lately been thinking of that very thing, was turned off by the offer. For one thing, he’d just seen Mert Downes walk past. He remembered Ruth’s distaste for the man, his officiousness. The way he’d lift one arrogant eyebrow when you said something, like it was all wrong. The way he wore his hair, combed over from the back to hide the bald spot. It seemed a metaphor for his whole self.

“Possibly,” he said. “Though I’ll need your official stamp again, in this, um, investigation.”

“And how did it go, then, at Catamount? Place has been around a long time. Employs a lot of people. They wouldn’t like it if—I mean, a raffle ticket. Well, we’ll fingerprint. You think?”

Roy Fallon had a way of not finishing sentences that left one’s head in a cloud. But Colm didn’t mind, really. The man was solid at bottom. For one thing, he’d admired Colm’s grandfather.

Colm told him about the fat man. “Fat Man, I call him for lack of a better name. You realize we have two murders now.”

“Well, the second is questionable,” said Fallon, lighting a cigar. “Do you mind? My father lived to be ninety. I don’t see why I should ...” He looked apologetic.

“It’s on your conscience,” Colm said. “My grandfather died at fifty. Of course he was helped along.”

“I’m aware.” Fallon nodded at the portrait over his head. Colm’s grandfather looked like he wanted to be someplace other than on the wall: in the street, or the saloon. He looked the quintessential Irishman: hat shoved back on the head, the sly grin. Maybe Colm resented that, the stereotype of the Irish drinker. At least the Hannas had been able to hold it, he prided himself on that. Three good drinks and still sober as an owl.

There was little progress to report on the detective sergeant’s work. Visitations to the local businesses—no one reporting an exchange of barn money. Interviews with Marie and Harold (Colm made a mental note to see them), with Tim and the Dufourses’ son who’d worked for Lucien. No real leads, though Tim wasn’t “out from under” yet, according to Fallon. No alibi there, for one thing. Some “iffy” stuff back in the sixties.

“I guess you made the most of it?” Fallon said. “At the Alibi?” He winked at the wall.

“What would be helpful,” Colm said, “is a check on the fat man, Smith. Is that his real name? Who he really is, was, where he comes from—anything you can find on him. Where he is now, of course.”

Fallon stuck a finger in his ear, ran it around, examined it. “We’re trying. Nothing yet. We’ve no proof of anything there, but you know, we’ll. . . We’re not used to murders around here. Domestic squabbles, rape or two at the college, petty thefts, you know. But murder? In Branbury, Vermont?”