Something in the Shadows (12 page)

At the man’s voice, he looked up, startled.

“What’re you digging, a trench?” the man laughed.

“What are you doing here?” said Joseph.

“I knocked on your door and when there wasn’t any answer, I heard you singing, so I come back here.” The man was red in the face and perspiring. He took a handkerchief from his pants and wiped at his brow. “My deer’s heavier’n I figured. I hauled him to the edge of the field there. Figure I can back my car down. That’s what I come back to ask you.”

“Maybe I can help you bring it closer,” said Joseph. “Up near here.” He was trying to plan it all in his head. Now that the man had seen the beginnings of the deer’s grave, it would not be so easy. Still, he could say he saw four or five boys tramp through the yard. When the man spoke again, Joseph began to feel better about it. The man said he thought he ought to find a place where he could grab a beer and a sandwich, since it was lunch time. Would it be all right if he left the deer for a longer time? Joseph agreed. It would make everything more feasible.

Then Joseph and the man began walking towards the edge of the field. The man was thanking Joseph for helping him; thanking him between huffs and puffs, so badly winded he was. When the man said, “There’s my baby!” Joseph saw the deer. The dead eyes of the animal were staring up at him in the same frozen way
why?
of Ishmael; the mouth of the animal was cut, and the side of his face crushed in.

“Nobody gonna frame this baby over his fireplace,” said the man. “I had to stun him. Telling you, he was a toughie! Legs kicking all over the place, and full of shot already. You can lift him from that end, if you don’t mind.”

Joseph knelt by the animal. He had his back turned on the hunter. He felt tears start to sting his eyes.

“Okay, now, can you lift him?”

Mechanically, Joseph grabbed the ropes. He began to move. The dead animal was heavy. He wondered at the fact the man had managed with him, even the short distance he had brought him from the woods. What makes a man want this dead, battered trophy that badly? Ugly Billy Duncan, the deer he had killed and beaten still more beautiful than ugly Billy Duncan, more beautiful than any thought ugly Billy Duncan would ever have, than any thing ugly Billy Duncan would ever make, than any part of ugly Billy Duncan who called the beauty his now. His!

They set the deer down by the barn.

“Wooooo, eee! That was a job!” said the man. He threw a coil of rope on the deer’s body and took out his handkerchief again to wipe his face.

• • •

Joseph stared down at the deer. The deer’s eyes fixed his.
Why?
Joseph looked at the rope. With the rope he could tie the deer behind the barn door under the burlap, just in case the man insisted on looking in the barn. He picked up the rope. The man was looking at one of Joseph’s signs on the barn’s side, under the POSTED sign. He was walking up to it now, his lips moving while he read it.

He turned, grinning. “Who wrote the poem? You?”

“Walter de la Mare wrote it,” Joseph said.

“S’pretty good!”

Joseph stared at him. “What?”

“I said I like the poem. I don’t like poems usually, you know? I like this one. ‘Hi, handsome hunting man! Fire your little gun!’ I don’t know. It’s got a certain rhythm, yah know?” Slowly, Joseph realized the man did not understand the poem. He watched him while he read it through again, heard him repeat: “ ‘… peep again, creep again, leap again, eat or drink or sleep again — oh, what fun!’ Yeah,” he said, turning back to face Joseph again, “it’s good!”

Joseph said, “You don’t know what it means, do you?”

“It’s about hunting. What do you mean, what it means?” He laughed, showing his row of corn. “I mean, it’s obvious, ain’t it?”

“Why do you think it’s under a posted sign?” said Joseph.

“I suppose you’re some kind of joker. Hell, I don’t know. I leave the philosophy to my wife.”

“You shouldn’t,” Joseph said. “Not this philosophy. It isn’t for your wife. And I’m not a joker. I’m serious about that sign.”

“The poem?” The man looked at him, a guarded expression on his face now. He was beginning to wonder about Joseph and it showed.

Joseph said, “What’s good about an animal never leaping again, or sleeping, or eating? What’s good about that?”

“We all gotta die some day,” the man said. “I mean, well, the poem’s like a rhyme. It’s got a rhyme. I like it, that’s all. Am I supposed to hate it? I like it!”

“You’re stupid!” Joseph said. “You’re stupid,
Billy!”

“Hey now, just don’t get wise, Mister. I mean, just don’t!”

But Joseph could not stop himself now. He began walking towards the man slowly. “Stupid!” he was saying. “Too stupid to do anything but kill things more beautiful than one fracture of a second of your ugly life! Stupid! Stupid!”

Then the man took a swing at him, knocking Joseph back against the barn. Joseph felt his head throb with the pain of the impact. It was the first time in his life he had been hit by anyone but his father; the first time in his adult life that he had ever been hit by anyone. He looked at the man, and the man was shaking his head as though he were sorry for what he had done. Then the man walked towards him. “I shouldn’t ah lost my temper like that. I don’t like being called stupid, Mister,” he was saying as he came towards Joseph. “I guess you got a right to your own opinions about me, coming here on your place a stranger, but I don’t like anyone calling me — ”

“Stupid!” Joseph finished the sentence for him. With a strength completely unknown to himself, Joseph had managed to catch the rope in his hand over the man’s head. Now he was simply pulling. Pulling and waiting to see if Billy Duncan would ask
why?
too.

All the cards were on the table.

The table was a side one in the back of Michael’s Pub. Maggie usually ate at Rattazzi’s down the street, having switched from here to there a few years ago along with the rest of her crowd, but today Maggie wanted to lunch with Janice uninterrupted by the usual back-and-forth greetings. Driving in from Bucks County with Janice she had planned it this way — a few martinis to loosen the tongue, then spill!

“No,” Janice Hart said, “I just can’t imagine Lou purposely killing a cat. I’m not saying he didn’t do it, Mag. I’m simply admitting there’s a lot about Lou I don’t understand.”

“That Tondley business must have been awful for him!”

“Awful!”

“Then Joseph buying that goddamned book! If Lou had only looked inside! He couldn’t have — else he would have known it was our cat he killed then. You see, Janice, he
couldn’t
have known it was our cat he killed that night.”

“A Sunday night, Hmmmm?”

“Yes.”

“I wish I could remember which Sunday. Our days are all alike to me. Sunday — Sunday — A few weeks back.”

“The whole thing’s so goddamned ironical! Lou thinking Joseph knew that Tondley boy. Dear God! Look, let’s have another drink”

“You see, Maggie,” Janice said when the third whisky sour was put before her, “Lou’s not easy to figure out. He thinks he’s very uncomplicated, but he’s just the opposite. He sets out to be a simple country doctor like his father, but you can fool some of the people only some of the time, and Lou didn’t fool anybody. He wasn’t simple and he wasn’t country. Here comes the shirts from Brooks Brothers in the mail. Here come the cases and cases of seven-dollar Scotch. Since when does a country doctor read Leonard Lyons’ column and grab the theatre section of the Sunday Times the first thing the paper gets in the house? Then, there’s the place we live in. Dud Clymer was a wealthy man, Maggie. You know, red hunting coats and off to get the fox with other people in red hunting coats, that sort of thing. Since I can remember, it was Lou’s dream to own the Clymer place. Well, we own it now!
And
a Mercedes Benz — and we owe 5,000 dollars and we’re going to owe a hell of a lot more before Lou’s done.”

“Did he ever want to be anything but a doctor?”

“Never. There you are. You explain it.”

“Well, he’s compensating for something, Jan. I mean, that’s what it is — compensation. Now, if he started all this
after
the Tondley business, I might understand it, but if he’s always been this way — ”

“Always. Only
after
Freddy Tondley died, he started living in the past. We could go into the back-number magazine business tomorrow!”

“I just don’t get it!” Maggie said. “There’s a lot of pent-up hostility there, that’s easy enough. I mean, the Tondley thing, and going after cats, and — ”

Janice Hart said, “Maggie, in all fairness to Lou, I have to say I don’t think he went after your cat. I just can’t believe it wasn’t an accident.”

“You saw him kick your dog, with your own eyes, Janice.”

“Yes — -yes, I saw that. Honestly, though, he’s never done anything like that before this.”

“And the Tondley thing,” Maggie said. She paused a moment, being careful to put it the right way, “that
could
have been an unconscious hostility. Now, wait a minute, I’m not saying that Lou consciously wanted such a result, but he may have — ”

Janice interrupted her. “Maggie, Lou was drunk when the call came. That’s all. He didn’t get the call and
then
start drinking. He was already so drunk he didn’t even know he was taking the call.”

“Ah!” Maggie said, “but he
did
know. Somewhere in his consciousness he knew enough to get in that car and head towards the Tondleys'! Look, Janny, I don’t want to hurt you. God knows!”

“I know you don’t.”

“I just think you’ve got a bigger problem on your hands than you know.”

“Yes. Yes, I can see that.”

“You’d better get him to a doctor,” Maggie said. “I’m saying this for your own good, Jan. I mean, for your good
and
Lou’s.”

“An analyst, hmmm. Oh, Mag, he’d just blow up if I suggested that.”

“I’d risk it, believe me! Sometimes I think Joseph could use a little psychoanalyzing himself. The trouble is, Joseph doesn’t want help. Lou is crying for it, Jan. That’s what all the drinking means. He’s begging for help. But Joseph — well, I’m afraid Joseph is just an out-and-out eccentric! He never was like anyone else and he never will be, that’s all!”

“But you love him anyway, hmmm?”

“Joseph needs me, Jan. Pure and simple. Oh,
he
doesn’t think so, but believe me, honey, that man needs me! I have to be needed! It’s what makes me tick! I’m needed at A. & F. too. That’s why I’m good, because A. & F. needs me.”

“Lord!” Janice said, “Joseph must just hate us!”

“Not
you,
honey. Lou! That cat was like Joseph’s child. You know, I used to be jealous of that cat? Jealous!”

“Is there anything we could do to make it up to him? Another cat, maybe? I know Lou will want to do something. I just know he doesn’t even remember killing the cat, Maggie.”

“Honey, all Lou needs to do is apologize to Joseph. Joseph really has a soft spot. He’ll melt,” Maggie snapped her fingers, “like that!”

“Lou will be sick about it. I mean that, Maggie.”

“If he tells Joseph that, the whole thing will blow over. You know, Jan, in some ways they’re very much alike.”

“Except Joseph doesn’t drink.”

“No, well, he has other ways of compensating for his disappointments.”

“But not bad ways.”

“Not really. Nutty ways. The cat, for one thing. Joseph has his little world he lives in, just like Lou. The difference is, Joseph has control over his little world, and Lou doesn’t. That’s why I don’t worry about Joseph.”

“And you say Lou was really violent at your place Saturday morning”

“Not
really
violent. Now that I know the whole story, I can appreciate his mood. He’s just suffering from a guilty conscience because of that Tondley boy.”

“You don’t really think Lou has unconscious hostility, do you, Maggie?”

“Honey, don’t make it sound like a contagious disease. We all have it in varying degrees.”

“I wish I could understand things the way you do, Maggie.”

Maggie said, “Psychoanalysis gives you a sixth sense, Janny; that’s all there is to it. Before I was analysed, I was married to a drinker. Nothing now and then about
his
drunks, either. He was preserved in alcohol. Never had a hangover in his life, for the simple reason he never sobered up. Well,
he
needed me too. Until he died at age thirty-three.”

“I’m sorry, Mag. I had no idea you were married before.”

“Oh yes, poor old Larry had problems. Big ones! He was a twin. Try living with a twin some time! His brother was a big-deal scholar, always scrounging around England to discover who wrote Shakespeare’s plays and what was the origin of the Picts. Larry could barely grasp Longfellow.” Maggie said, “Come on, let’s have one more drink,” and she signalled to the waiter. “So Larry drank, because dear old Luther was winning all the ribbons! I went through hell, Jan! Hell! Joseph may be an odd animal, but at least he’s a tame one. It’s the untamed ones you have to beware of, Janny.”

“Like Lou?”

Maggie nodded. “I’m afraid so, honey.”

Well,
someone
had to sound the alarm before it was too late.

As a finishing touch, Joseph turned the hunter’s head so that his face was looking into the face of the deer beside him. It was strange that the animal’s eyes seemed to be inquiring for an answer to the fatal injury, and the man’s eyes demanded an answer to the fatal insult. It was as though the deer knew all along there would be an ending, and asked only why it was now and what had justified it — but the man seemed unable to fathom the fact his ending was possible. Between them was the gun. Now all that was left to do was cover over Billy Duncan and his deer.

Afterwards, Joseph spent hours piling leaves on top the dirt, then moving the woodpile from the side of the barn to the back, covering the leaves and the dirt with tall, neat stacks of logs. Maggie had often remarked that the wind swept across their property from the south. In the winter, it would cause huge drifts. The woodpile was better protected from the wind behind the barn; tomorrow Joseph would erect a small shelter over it. That night at dinner he would tell Maggie he had finally found a way to shelter their wood supply, and that he was working on it. Maggie would only half-hear, the way she always took in trivia, but if anything should come up in the future (what could?) the moving of the woodpile would not be at all suspect.

All the while Joseph was working on the woodpile, the classic quotations about murder ran through his head. Most of them had been copied from Chaucer’s original statement in
The Canterbury Tales:
“Mordre wol out, certeyn, it wol nat faille.”

Cervantes simply lifted it for
Don Quixote:
“Murder will out.”

Then there was John Webster’s
Dutchess of Malfi
with: “Murder shrieks out.”

Then
Hamlet:
“Murder, though it has no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ.”

Joseph thought of four or five more versions, ending up with the more watered-down ones which simply promised,
Merchant-of-Venice
style: “Murder cannot be hid long.”

He was calm while he mused over this and carefully stacked the logs, and when his memory had exhausted all the quotations, he fell to speculating about other murderers. Did they feel as he did now? Not hysterical, not numb either, but matter-of-fact. Literature had no answer to that question. Murderers were not writing literature, after all; they were murdering. A man who wrote a book could only imagine how a murderer might feel. Joseph had read scenes in mystery books where the murderer plunged a knife in a body over and over in some sort of crazy frenzy. What did the author know? Perhaps the murderer had plunged the knife in, noticed quite objectively how the blood trickled to the left, then plunged the knife in so as to make the next spurt of blood connect with the blood trickling from the left. Make a sort of pattern. Watch it a while, then another plunge, a new shape to the pattern. Couldn’t it be that way just as well? Was it a violent thing, the feeling of murdering, or was it a graceful amusement? Murderers were not all cut from the same cloth, were they? Were they all mad, and was Joseph mad right now, carrying logs to cover the grave of a man and a deer, wondering if he were mad?

Joseph could not remember anything about the actual performance of the murder. It was a typical disaster reaction. He had read once in a study of disaster that the greater the incident, the less one perceived about it. A man could go to his death remembering another man slapping his face, but he would very likely not be able at all to remember being blown out of his apartment by an explosion in the boiler room.

Neither could Joseph remember why he had murdered Billy Duncan. He was ugly and stupid and he had brought a slain deer onto Joseph’s property with Joseph’s permission; was that a reason? Meaningless — the whole thing. How could he react to something absolutely meaningless? The answer was, he could not. He was perspiring, but he was doing hard work, and his heart was quieter than it often felt nights when he was reading alone in his study, and actually heard the beat. Fear? What did he have to be afraid of? He had murdered the man in an absolutely isolated spot where he could not possibly be observed. He had no connection with the man, other than the theft of the man’s pheasant last Friday, and he had told no one — not even Maggie — about that. Guilt? No, why should there be any? The man meant nothing to him. Whoever it was waiting at home for Billy Duncan would surely feel nothing but relief at the eventual knowledge he would not be returning. Joseph only had to remember the pockmarks and the row of corn to believe that. He had probably done some poor woman a tremendous favour. She would collect Billy’s insurance and go on about the business of life, and better luck next time, Joseph thought. Even murder could not blight Billy Duncan’s supposed end. One would either guess he was the victim of a shooting accident, or that he was one of these peculiar missing people, who seemed to just disappear into thin air. Like Judge Crater, or the West Point cadet — one of those. Years from now Joseph might well pick up a newspaper and see a “What happened to Billy Duncan?” article some hack might put together from old news clips, for a cheque to buy groceries.

The pity, to Joseph’s way of thinking that Monday afternoon, was that he had never set his cap for this accomplishment: the perfect murder. Here it was, what some poor fellows exhausted all their energy trying to do, and Joseph had done it without a second’s planning.

It was ironical, wasn’t it, that three days ago about this time Joseph was carrying around a book called
The Unknown Marderer?
Now, he
was
the unknown murderer! Joseph gave a little chuckle. He felt gay. He felt very, very gay!

He woke up at ten minutes to six, in the dark of the bedroom. His sleep had been irregular, the fitful sort when one is too warm, too tired, and too preoccupied with wide-awake worries. The constant ringing of the phone had bothered it (the phone-answering service was usually careless, so that there were often eight and nine rings) and from downstairs there was the intermittent sound of Stilt’s nervous-and-lonely howling. He was dressed in his clothes; he had not even bothered to remove his shoes. He was atop the chintz spread, with the lemon-shaded comforter pulled over him. Unshaven, and the sick-making taste of whisky and cigarettes in his mouth.

When he turned on the light, he saw Janice’s note to him, on the floor. He had crumpled it up and tossed it there some time around noon, when he had arrived home. Now he bent over and straightened it out and reread it: “I am going to New York for the day with Maggie Meaker. Dr. Ingram called. So did many patients of course, in person and via phone. Stilt has been fed.”