Skull Session (40 page)

51

"I
SHOULD HAVE KNOWN I wouldn't be able to carry it off," Dempsey said. "I thought it was for your own good. I thought I'd spare you that disillusionment, or whatever you want to call it."

Paul had considered ways to catch Dempsey in the act as he searched through papers, but as it turned out no subterfuge was necessary. Sorting the next box of papers, he found what he needed to put it together—Dempsey's sneaking around, his inability to meet Paul's eyes.

"How long were Ben and Vivien having an affair?"

Dempsey shrugged. "Maybe a year? I was never sure when it started."

"How'd it end?"

"Your father jumped off a goddamned cliff, that's how." Dempsey turned a circle on the rug. "Actually, I don't know. Things he told me, toward the end, it sounded like he was beginning to want out of it but didn't know how. I think he was afraid she'd tell your mother. After Hoffmann, Vivien had this thing about rejection. She was dying for company, for closeness. Everything she did, it was . . . larger than life. Big appetites, big hungers, big hurts. Big grudges. I have no doubt she could do something lousy to Ben if he blew her off."

"What about Aster?
Did
Vivien tell her? Did Ben? Is that why the two sisters split apart after he died?"

"I don't know. And you can't ask your mother, can you? Lose-lose situation. If she knows, you revive the humiliation and anger. And if it's news to her—"

A complicated tic twisted Paul's head on his neck and caused his hand to grip and turn an invisible doorknob. The motor tics were changing, he noted, less frequent but more severe, complex, and prolonged.

In frustration he swatted the sheaf of letters he'd found, some of them clearly referring to trysts Ben and Vivien had managed to conceal from everybody. Probably Dempsey was telling the truth when he said Ben had wanted to call if off. In one of the later letters, Ben talked about Vivien's "yearning for companionship." "You must face the fact that to know another human being, in the way that you so hunger for, may not be possible. I doubt that I am capable of offering you that kind and degree of companionship." Ben went on about loneliness: "The lot of all human beings, ultimately . . . take solace in our uniqueness. . . try to cherish our splendid solitude." It could easily be the preparatory rhetoric for a parting of the ways.

"You have to put it in perspective," Dempsey said. "Here's somebody Ben is really close to, and she's dying of loneliness. Waiting for her ex-husband to come back to her for twelve years or so while her youth was fading. Not to sound like Zorba the Greek, but here's a beautiful woman, going to waste. I meant that about the chivalry stuff, and your father was a perfect candidate for the white-knight syndrome. It probably started out of sympathy, or compassion—"

"Spare me, huh?" Paul said.

"I mean it."

"Dempsey, do me a favor."

"I'll try."

Paul slammed his fist on the table, and the old fighter startled. "No! I want you to do better than
try\
I want you, Dempsey Corrigan, never to lie to me again. If you want to honor Ben, or me, or yourself, then you've got to tell me how it really was."

"Probably that's right, yeah."

"I want to know if there's anything else you're not telling me.

Anything else you know about this house or this mess."

"Like what?"

"Like, did you do this?"

"What, to get myself some furniture repair work? Hey, I'm poor, but I'm not that desperate."

"Why do you think Ben killed himself?"

"You're acting like you've got me up against the ropes, like you can throw anything at me you want. Watch out, Paulie. The guy on the ropes may have a surprise punch waiting for you." Paul had never seen Dempsey angry. It was intimidating. "You think I haven't searched my soul, wondering why? This man was like a brother to me. Maybe if Vivien told Aster, as I said. Only a couple of other possibilities occur to me."

"Such as?"

"You really want it, don't you?" The old man turned away again, flung up his hands. "I was afraid of something else you might find in his letters. Maybe you still will, so I'll throw it out now. It could be maybe he was feeling bad about his son—his beautiful, brilliant son, with all the neurological problems. Who'd started this new drug therapy that helped his symptoms but shut him down, turned off the music, killed the spark.

I didn't want you to run across something like that." Dempsey watched Paul's face as he took it, a gut punch. "You asked me for it, damn it," he said softly.

Dempsey had confirmed the lurking fear, the ever-present guilt:
He
did it because of me. I let him down.
Of course. It would explain a lot: the thousand odd looks from Aster, her unwillingness to talk about it. Kay's insistence on leaving the past behind. Paul felt like he couldn't breathe.

"I'm not saying that's what happened," Dempsey said. "I'm saying that might be what somebody'd think—"

"What was the other possibility?"

"That he didn't in fact commit suicide." Dempsey's face was working, and he was starting to sweat. With jerky movements, he unbuttoned his heavy wool shirt. "People
saw
Ben jump off—observant, conscientious people. I met them, I believe them. Fine. But I
knewBcn,
and I know suicide wasn't his style, or his mood."

They were quiet for a moment. Like two fighters, wearying in the late rounds, Paul thought. And yet he felt better. You had to trust somebody. You could trust Dempsey.

"Another question," Paul said after a time. "What do you know about the room upstairs? The one off Vivien's bedroom?"

"I built it. That's how I got to know Vivien in the first place. Your mother recommended me. This would have been around 1950, some where in there. I closed off the windows, reinforced the walls—four inches of additional insulation, interior walls and ceiling sheathed in quarter-inch steel plate, then paneled in two-inch oak. I poured a three-inch, reinforced concrete floor, covered it with the maple that you see now."

"A lot of work. What for?"

"A vault. She had furs, clothes that cost a fortune, jewels, artworks, antiques. It made sense to me they'd want a vault, out here in the sticks. They were in the habit of traveling a lot."

"Why the recessed light fixtures on the ceiling? Why the steel grid over them?
Inside
the vault?"

"Never occurred to me to wonder. She'd had some architect draw up the plan. I just followed the blueprint. What's this got to do with anything?"

"One last question. Did you ever see or hear anything that suggested Vivien had another son besides Royce?"

Dempsey looked at him strangely. "This is nuts."

"Please, just think about it. Think back."

Dempsey rubbed his grizzled chin, stared off into space. He shook his head. "I'd have to say no. It was a long time ago." The old man looked weary, and Paul felt a pang of sympathy: This wasn't easy for him, either. "A long time ago," Dempsey repeated sadly.

They stood around for another minute. Then Dempsey went to the door and outside, and Paul followed. The sun had come out and though it was a cool day the dark slate of the terrace gave off some of the heat it had soaked up, a comfortable warmth. They sat on the steps, surveying the driveway, their two cars, the wrecked garden, the sky.

Dempsey fished in his shirt, pulled out a package of chewing gum, offered a stick to Paul, peeled one for himself.

Paul unwrapped it slowly, the images coming unbidden:
the man's
arching back, the woman's jerking movements, the triangle of pubic hair. Ben and
Vivien? The brutal aspect of sex, its mindless, animal movements, inexplicable
and horrifying to a six-year-old. The intuitive understanding of upheaval in the
family.
Maybe. Possibly.

"Vivien and Ben," Paul said, fitting pieces together. "That's why you stopped working for her?"

Dempsey peeled another stick of gum, flicked the balled-up foil into the drive. "Not that it was any more her fault than Ben's. I just. . . after Ben's death, I couldn't look at her. I don't know. The thought that maybe she'd threatened to talk to Aster. Added the straw that broke the camel's back." A dark spark pulsed in his eye. "Couldn't stand to look at her."

Good point, Paul thought. How would it be, talking to Vivien the next time? She must have known he'd find these letters. She had been manipulating him. What else did she have planned?

One thing for certain, though, Paul realized in another leap of understanding—his neurological state was changing. For both better and worse. Every time he found the disturbing memory, he was slipping into a shallow doze, some sort of hypnogogic state. A lot like Mark's trance, the one that preceded his seizures. A lot like Paul's own early problems.

"I still say you're nuts about her having another kid," Dempsey growled.

"How can you be so sure?"

Dempsey chuckled grimly, sucked his teeth. "Self-restraint, you could safely say, was never Royce's forte. No kid could have survived long with him as a brother."

Very good point, Paul thought.

52

L
IA YANKED THE CAR TO the shoulder and they looked up at the broken walls of rock and scrub on their right. On their left, just as Paul remembered it, the Hudson took a wide bend; on the west bank, the towering palisade fell dramatically into slate-colored water. It was a glorious day, sun mixed with a few clouds, and at Lia's insistence, they'd started out on a drive "just to get a break from Highwood." She'd driven them along Highway 35 to Peekskill, where they stopped for gas, ate an early lunch at a diner. He should have guessed what she was doing when she headed north, up 9D along the river. It was the first time Paul had been back to Break Neck since he'd climbed it with Ben, that summer before Ben's suicide.

"This is a shitty idea," Paul said. He was in a black mood after Dempsey's revelations. Everything seemed devalued, tawdry, seamy, cheap. "I don't have time for an outing. I've got my old bitch aunt coming in seven days and I'm behind schedule on the fucking job. And you know what else? I've had it up to here with your controlled-risk, face-your-fear shit."

Lia's certainty didn't waver. "That's not what this is about, Paul. This is my gift to you. Now come with me or I'll go up by myself and you'll have to worry about me, won't you?"

She got out of the car and began walking back toward the trail head, above the old water station. Paul swore, then got out and followed her.

He'd talked late into the night with Lia, telling her about Ben's letters to Vivien, about his showdown with Dempsey. Ben and Vivien, Dempsey's comment about Royce, his speculation about reasons for Ben's suicide.

Lia had listened raptly throughout, absolutely unmoving. "You really think, you really believe for one moment, that
you
could have been the reason Ben jumped?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Paul was in the blackest funk he could remember. "Whenever Mark starts to get worse, I can believe a father would want to. Not a fuck of a lot I can do about it now in any case, is there?"

Lia had looked at him hard then, the arch of eyebrows telling him her wheels were turning.

Now they were on the steep trail at the base of Break Neck. The Hudson opened below as they climbed, its slate-blue curves disappearing in the distance, colossal cliffs rising on the other side. Above and ahead of him, Lia picked her way wisely. She seemed to be enjoying herself. Paul just felt angry. No, sad. No, scared—but not of the height, exactly. The height was just there, available if Death needed it.

Death lived here. After fifteen minutes, Lia paused at a level out-thrust boulder, turned to face out over the valley. "This
is gorgeous,"
she said. Already she'd tied her windbreaker around her waist, and her breasts pushed up against her sweater as she threw back her shoulders. "God, it's beautiful. We're lucky to have such a fine day."

"Yeah."

Lia sat and patted the rock next to her. "I've got a couple of candy bars. Want one? Keep your blood sugar up."

Paul sat. "My blood sugar's fine."

"Well, I'm going to have half of one." She unwrapped a bar of chocolate and broke off several sections. Then she opened up a small map. "I found this at the gas station. Trail map of Break Neck."

"Terrific. Exploit the place. Put up hotdog stands. Thank God we're here out of season." In fact, they were the only ones on the cliff. It
was
past the season—most climbers preferred warmer weather. There could be ice in tricky spots. Paul's body was warm from exertion, but his hands were cold, fingers stiff and red from the breeze that rose up against the highlands.

"Have you noticed something about yourself recently? Your Tourette's, I mean. You don't seem to have as many tics."

"Yeah."

"And yet you've been cutting back on medication. And you've been under a lot of stress, which should exacerbate symptoms."

"Periods of full or partial remission are not unknown. Symptoms often abate as you get older. Maybe it's fading out." Right now he felt resentment toward her. He wasn't going to confide that as of this morning he'd stopped haloperidol completely.

Lia nibbled her chocolate thoughtfully, then wrapped the remainder and put it in her pocket. "Paul, do you know, can you remember, where your father jumped?"

"The Chute," he answered without thinking. The memory surprised him. He hadn't known he knew. "What is this little exercise you've got planned, Lia?"

"You've got to trust somebody, Paul," she said. One quick bolt from her eye. "The way you do that is, you start close to home. With yourself. You've got to trust yourself. After that, you move on to the people closest to you." She continued up the trail.

Paul gave her a head start, then reluctantly followed. The climb got harder and steeper. Behind them the huge valley of the Hudson gaped, the sky opened up. The slope rose more and more steeply until they were climbing, using all fours now as much as walking. Sparking silver in the bright sun, a commuter train inched along the line of tracks, a millipede lost in the vastness of river and rock. South, where the river widened after the landbreak, a tug pushed a pair of barges, cutting a neat V in the water. Farther up, the edge cut closer to the trail. On their right, they looked down on a valley that angled up from the river, a mix of steep, forested slopes and jumbled rock. The big empty mass of air seemed to exert a pull, a spacious vacuum wanting to be filled.

"I think this is the Chute," Paul said dully.

"It tops off just above," Lia said, pointing. The steep walls of the cliff culminated in a shelf fifty feet above them. Beyond the shelf, the slope softened, the narrowed chute ended. Paul remembered Ben, urging him along:
"C'mon, Lazybones, just a little farther. It gets easier after that little
plateau."

"Let's just go up there," Lia insisted. "Then we can head back down if you want."

The trail wound away from the steep precipice, zigging and zagging among boulders and sculpted rock faces. Then they came out of the last switchback and onto the shelf, a nearly level patch of solid rock the size of a large hving room. The view was breathtaking.

"What do you want here, Lia? Goddamn it, this isn't fun for me."

Lia had gone to the edge, the very top of the famous Chute. She peered over, then jerked back, got down on all fours and crawled to the edge. "Wow! Come look, Paul. Christ! Scary as hell."

Paul crawled to her side and felt a lurch of vertigo. Immediately below them, a sheer gash dropped almost straight to the floor of the valley. Far down at the base of the cliff was a jumble of boulders and fallen tree trunks. It wasn't perfectly vertical—you'd probably bounce at least twice before you hit. This was just right for Ben, the perfect ending: beautiful, dramatic, final.

"Okay," Paul said, pulling back from the edge. "Can we go back down now?"

"No."

"What do you want from me, Lia? Good Jesus." He lay with his cheek against the stone, still feeling the whispered tug of the chasm. He sensed the heat of tears at the corners of his eyes.

"Jump off, Paul. I want you to jump the fuck off. You're so goddamned depressed about Ben, about Mark, about yourself. Jump off. Finish it. Do it with dignity."

"Fuck you."

Lia sat up, tugged Paul upright by his shirt. She manhandled him back from the edge to the undercut wall, thirty feet from the edge.
A good
running start,
Paul thought.

"Go ahead," Lia said. Her face was hard, her skin pale in the cold.

Paul shook free ofher grip, squared his shoulders, looked at the short, easy run in front of him, the blue-hazed abyss beyond pulhng him, the tangle of barbed wire and broken glass inside him.
fump, Paul
Lia stood back.

After a few moments, he took her hand and they sat down side by side in the little shelter of the overhang.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Do we always have to do things the hard way?"

"Sometimes the hard way is the only way."

"Okay. So he didn't kill himself because of me." He hadn't had a conscious thought, but it had percolated up. "The logic's not right. I know because I have Mark. Sometimes I despair he'll ever be okay—talk about the dark night of the soul, yeah, it could make you jump offa cliff. But if it's my concern for his future that gives me the pain, then I couldn't . . . do something like that . . . to him. Because if anything would hurt him, wreck his future, that would. See?"

"Yes."

Paul sat, feeling the sun-warmed rock against his back, the gentle heat of Lia's thigh along his own.

"Which is why you contrived this whole scenario. Your gift to me."

"Yeah."

He gave it some space so she'd know he meant it: "Thanks," he told her. He sat for another moment, safely back from whatever edge he'd been near. "How'd you know I wouldn't do it?"

"At first I was sure you wouldn't. Down below. Once we got up here, I wasn't sure at all. But I couldn't appear to give you any wiggle room. I'm very glad I was right."

They headed down the switchbacks below the top of the Chute and paused again at the turn below the shelf.

"Leaving one to wonder, still," Paul said, "why he did do it."

Lia gazed upward.
"If
he did. Because if this was where those other people saw him jump, the ones in the newspaper article, they couldn't see everything. And this had to be the spot—you can't see the shelf from the trail below or above this point. They'd see him at the edge, then backing out of view, then rushing off the edge.

They wouldn't see whether he really got a running start. Or whether there was someone else on the shelf, back against the overhang."

Paul could picture it: Ben at the edge, looking down. He backs up. He'd be out of view from below by the time he was two paces back from the edge. What then? Somebody gives him a powerful shove? Who?

An idea clicked into his head. What had Royce meant when he'd alluded to Ben's photograph?
Who do you think he was, Paulie? Ever
wonder what made him
. . . It had clearly been a provocation. Maybe Royce knew about Ben and Vivien. A sociopathic kid, deeply angry at what he perceives as Vivien's betrayal of his father, Erik Hoffmann. That and Oedipal jealousy. He knows Ben likes to go to Break Neck, so one day he follows him—

But what then? In 1965 Royce would have been only fifteen. And Ben wouldn't be taken by surprise, he was strong and fit, he'd fight. Even pushed, he'd be struggling for balance, flailing, something that would have been evident to the Melchers and the rest of the witnesses. Assuming, that is, he didn't want to go over.

"Leaving one to wonder," Paul said again.