Something in the Shadows (14 page)

Lou called out a “Come in, Captain,” and Plant put down a copy of
Look
magazine and lumbered towards Lou. He was a big man, wearing his official uniform complete with boots, and smoking a Cigarillo. Lou and he had known one another close to ten years; Plant’s daughter was Tony’s age. Up until this moment, other officers from the State Barracks had talked with Lou; this was Plant’s first appearance. He went through the usual amenities, then said abruptly, “Well, what have we got here, Lou?”

“As far as I know you have a missing person.”

“Yes. You never met Billy Duncan?”

“I don’t remember meeting him, Jack. I guess I did, though, a week ago tonight.”

“Alfred White says so, and T. W. Glover-Hadley says so, and a few others hanging around in Danboro. Then we got this report from The Washington Crossing Motel, near Trenton. You registered there as
Duncan
Tondley. Right?”

“Yes.”

“You want to tell me about that?”

“The ‘Duncan’ was probably because I met this fellow Duncan, and his name stuck. The ‘Tondley' — well, I suppose it’s
engraved
on my unconscious. I suppose I still feel guilty about it. I just put the two names together somehow.”

“You didn’t feel guilty about Duncan too, for some reason?”

“Jack, I don’t know. I don’t remember! I’m probably implicating myself all to hell with this kind of admission, but that’s the truth. I don’t remember meeting Duncan. I don’t remember fighting with him. I don’t remember signing his first name on the motel slip. I don’t remember ever seeing his car before Monday noon, and his photographs don’t ring any bells.”

“You were going at it pretty heavy, hmmm?”

“That’s right.”

“Any particular reason?”

“A drunk doesn’t need a reason, I guess.”

“I’m sorry about this, Lou, but it doesn’t look good for you.”

“Let me ask you the same question you asked me, Jack. What do you think we’ve got here?”

“Well, I don’t think it’s a missing person. I think it’s a dead person. Billy Duncan’s been missing five days now. He’s not in the woods, we’ve combed the woods, and he’s not anywhere else. I’d say we got homicide here, murder or manslaughter — your guess is as good as mine; at least I don’t
think
it’s any better than mine.”

“Homicide without a body, and I’m a suspect, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“What happens to me?”

“Oh, I could arrest you on suspicion of murder, but you wouldn’t be convicted without the body. What happens to you? I guess time will tell. The body will turn up; then time will tell.”

“I see.”

“Meanwhile, questions. Lots of questions.”

“Yes.”

“Are you busy tomorrow morning, for example?”

“Would it make any difference?”

“Oh, we’d fit it in with your schedule. It’s not that bad yet.
Mrs.
Duncan’s coming over tomorrow around noon. Could you be there then?”

“At the Barracks?”

“Yes.”

“All right, Jack.”

“We could be all wrong, Lou,” Captain Plant said getting up. He stubbed out his Cigarillo in Lou’s ashtray. “I’m not a heavy drinker myself. Maybe I drink a bottle of whisky over a period of two months. I don’t know anything about these blackouts. I
do
know if I were in your shoes, Lou, I’d put on my thinking cap. Try to remember something. Hell, I don’t think you’d hurt a fly, intentionally. I just don’t! But then again, Billy Duncan wasn’t a fly, and neither was Freddy Tondley. I’m sorry, but it looks lousy.”

“Tomorrow around noon,” Lou said.

During those five days, Joseph read “thrillers.” He bought them at the news-store in Doylestown, paperbacks which he read at the rate of five or six a day. Now that he was a murderer, it interested him to see how close an author could come to imagining how he felt, or to creating a murder scene in any way similar to last Monday’s scrimmage out behind the barn.

He was sorely disappointed. Like love scenes in novels, murder scenes in mysteries more than often portrayed the hero as slightly tipsy. Only in cases of murder for financial gain or through passion or husbands trying to exterminate their wives did the hero seem to go on his own power. Even in some of those, the murder scene was preceded by one of whisky-drinking.

Joseph began to think of these sodden villains as “outside men.” They were nice guys until they drank; and when they were not nice guys, they were at least passing as nice guys; but drink did it. Joseph thought of all the “outside men” pouring liquor down their throats into the mouths of little “inside men.” Then the insiders grew bigger and stronger and ultimately powerful enough to overtake their benefactors. They would emerge, murder, and shrink back inside; some to die there, some to stay docile and undemanding until the next heavy supply of kill-energy.

From there Joseph went to the possibility of “inside men.” Wasn’t that what he had always been? Holding himself back always? Varda had told him he kept his thoughts in “the big bottle,” never mind Maggie’s never-ending lectures on his over-control! He was an “inside man,” and by staying so inside of himself, he had forced himself out. Now, to force himself back in again, he must stay outside. Drink might do it, he thought, and when Maggie came home nights, Joseph began having three or four martinis before dinner. The first night — Monday — Maggie had said things between them were the way she had always dreamed they might be. Joseph had regaled Maggie with stories of the strange hill called the Hexenkopf, in Northampton County, ten miles north of Haycock Mountain. The name meant Witch’s Head, and the neighbourhood abounded with hexerei and stories of witches’ doings. Joseph told her about the short life span of trees on the Hexenkopf, and of the holes in the ground near the dying ones, said to have been “stung” by hoopsnakes, who rolled up and down the Hexenkopf. He told her of the fruits of the Hexenkopf, more bitter and strange tasting than the same fruits grown in Haycock or Buckwampum, and he told her of the strange lights on the old hill, the punky wood of old tree stumps glowing with phosphorescence. Joseph walked about while he told her these things, his cheeks burning with the warmth of the gin, his glass raised in his hand, his voice loud and confident; and Maggie actually laughed at the way he made some of the stories so spooky — and afterwards, when she was asleep, he smoked a cigarette in his study and read a poem from the Varda file, shed a tear and smiled and felt a tenderness towards life.

He liked being an “outside man.” He wished that all the other Josephs everywhere were just a little bit high, as he was. It wouldn’t do them any good to keep holding everything in that way; he wished there were some way he could tell them that.

The next morning he had a hangover. He did not get up to have breakfast with Maggie, and when he breakfasted by himself, he felt sullen. He thought of Billy Duncan’s ugly face and he was glad he had killed him. When Louis called shortly after one in the afternoon, and explained that it was a garage mechanic who had killed Ishmael, he thanked Louis very solemnly for the information and hung up without the predictable exchange of “I’m sorry I thought it was you” and “I can see how you would think it was me” and the rest of the apologies. He realized he could not even recall one of the little, lovely memories of the cat, which had been both a comfort and a pain to him in the days since the death of his pet. He felt nothing. Was that it? Once the “inside man” like Joseph lets go, an apathy is released with the violence. “I don’t care,” Joseph said aloud. His own voice sounded like a stranger’s.

That day he read the usual amount of “thrillers” and some of the greats who wrote about murder as well. The Greeks, and dreary, moralizing Shakespeare, then Eliot. Then he found “Fragment of an Agon,” and he could not stop rereading it. There were marvellous lines like:

In a way, he envied that murderer. A crime of passion, probably. Classic! Not low, like his. Not with a Billy Duncan for a victim! A Billy Duncan was not good enough for murder. He should have been run over by a bus, or drowned in the children’s section of some community centre pool, attempting “the crawl.”

Still, the poem was good; it said it best! Joseph walked about the house saying some of the poem’s lines aloud, changing “girl” to man in the verse, reciting it while he made another pot of coffee for his headache: “I knew a man once did a man in.”

Carrying the coffee over to the kitchen table, he paused to look in the mirror by the coat rack. His reflection was matter-of-fact as he recited:

That was right. We all have to do what we have to do.

Tuesday night he was gay with gin again.

He had this conversation with Maggie:

“What made you suddenly take up drinking, Joseph?”

“Oh, it was high time. High time!”

“Was it because of what I told you Monday night? About Louis Hart and the Tondley boy?”

“No, Maggie dear, it was just as I said. High time!”

“It
was
because of that. You feel guilty about giving Louis that book. Now it’s worse, because you know he didn’t even kill Ishmael.”

“Worse? You said yourself, last night, that things were fine between us. That things were the way you’d dreamed they’d be! Maggie, remember saying that last night?”

“Yes, yes, I remember. But things are serious for Louis, Joseph. You know that. I think you feel partially to blame, that’s the reason for this false euphoria.”

“Spinoza said: ‘He who would distinguish the true from the false must have an adequate idea of what is true and false.”

“Never mind Spinoza, Joseph, that’s your fourth martini you’re pouring.”

Joseph said, “We all gotta do what we gotta do.”

Later that night Maggie drove to the Harts. She suggested that Joseph come along. When he refused, she said she could understand his embarrassment, but he would have to face Lou Hart one day, he may as well get used to that idea. Joseph chuckled over that thought while he got out his paints. He was no longer interested in Louis Hart, not in the least bit interested in him. He knew exactly how stupid Billy Duncan’s car had been left in Louis’ driveway, the same way stupid Billy Duncan had wandered into Joseph’s yard, by accident. Duncan was a blundering buffoon, the sort who left his hat under a seat at the theatre and walked off without it, or forgot which dry cleaner had his best suit. Dumb! Dumb Billy Duncan, little Billy dumb Duncan, lost his car at the doctor’s house, lost his pheasant, his deer, his car, then his life — Joseph poured himself a little more gin and began to sketch the living room fireplace. Once, during college, he had played with the idea of being an artist. His sense of colour was excellent. Another student in his painting class had once mistaken one of Joseph’s oils for a Henner — so long ago, everything so long ago. His shoulders and arms were very tired and the sketch was affected as a result. His shoulders and arms had ached ever since he had made Billy Duncan’s grave. The fireplace looked like a huge mouth, open and waiting and insatiable. The mouth of the “inside man?” Across the page Joseph scribbled INSIDE OUT. He remembered an old silly poem by a woman with a silly name; what was her name? The poem was about the inner half of clouds being bright and shining — “I therefore…. I therefore….” Then he remembered:

By Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. Ha!

That’s what I’m doing, Joseph thought happily as he reached for his gin — wearing my clouds inside out.

Then Wednesday. Another hangover and the depressing announcement from Maggie that she was not going to work that day.

“You mean you’re going to desert Picks Cigarettes and Risestaver Coffee and Amos Fenton?” said Joseph.

Maggie was pulling on her red gondolier pants from Bonwit’s, while Joseph watched her from bed, feeling the same sullen way he had yesterday morning.

Maggie said, “You know, I don’t think I like your new personality.”

“Going to the Harts’ again? A little Hart-to-Hart talk again today?”

“Joseph!” Maggie said, “whether you realize it or not things are in a mess! Last night you were too sleepy to listen, but it seems now that Lou
did
know this Billy Duncan!”

Then she told him the whole story, and Joseph listened as though someone were reading a story to him; as though he were not involved in any of it.

Maggie finished by saying, “It’s crazy, but that’s the way it is! The police are actually suspicious of Lou! Jan’s so worried she’s cabled Tony to come home.”

“What has it all got to do with us, Maggie?” Joseph said.

“Oh my God, I wish you’d get analyzed!” Maggie shouted at him.

When she left the house Joseph wandered up to his study. He had been reading some more from the Varda file last night, had he? He leaned down and picked up a piece of yellowed paper from the floor where it had fallen. The poem “Dear” — he looked at it.

“Do I live at the fireplace of your eyes?”

He might just as well have chased around after Edgar Guest, he decided.

On his desk were his notes on hexerei, his paper on
sgraffito
ware and the dissertation on
gruttafoos.
He opened the drawer to the right and pushed all of it in there; then shut it. From the drawer on the left, he took out a paperback novel from a pile of them stacked there. It was a Dashiell Hammett; he had marked his place with one of Maggie’s hairpins. He sank into his comfortable chair and took up where he had left off: “God will see that there’s always a mug there for your gun or blackjack to sock, a belly for your foot….”

When Maggie came home near six that night, the martini pitcher was full, cooling in the refrigerator.

After his first drink, Joseph said, “I’m sorry about this morning. I was rude. I hope everything is all right at the Harts'! I really do!” And he meant it. He hoped everything was all right at the Amos Fentons', at the John Kennedys', at T. S. Eliots', at The Risestaver Coffee Corporation — everywhere, he hoped everything was all right. That afternoon in the
Bucks County Journal,
he had seen a picture of Billy Duncan’s widow. She was sitting on one of those old-fashioned davenports, the kind with claw feet and antimacassars, and there were half a dozen assorted children climbing over her and the couch. She wore a shabby flowerprint housedress and rimless glasses. Muriel. He hoped everything was all right with Muriel too.

“Everything is
not
all right at the Harts', Joseph! Please don’t pretend! You know very well what the situation is!”

“I guess I do. Better than anyone, really.”

“You see, you
do
feel responsible! Look, Billy Duncan’s fate — whatever it is — isn’t
your
fault.”

“Isn’t it, Maggie?” Joseph smiled. “More martini?”

“No, thank you. And I wish you’d cut it out! Oh, I know how you feel, Joseph. It was simply a series of unfortunate coincidences, that’s all.”

“Wear your clouds inside out, Maggie dear,” Joseph said.

“Lou doesn’t even remember being here Friday. We’ve agreed to keep quiet about it. It won’t help him.”

“Remember when I used to have blackouts? Remember that was why I stopped drinking?”

“That’s right. I thought of that today. Back on 94th Street you used to drink and go out and not remember where you were. I hope that’s not going to start all over.”

“No. Those were my salad days, Maggie. I was just a little out of control. But I soon brought myself to, didn’t I, dear? I got a good hold on myself!”

“Then why lose it?”

“I don’t have any reason for it any more, dear. Control implies there’s something you have to hold in check. Well, there isn’t any more.”

“What do you mean, Joseph?”

“I’m wearing my clouds inside out!”

Maggie got very angry. “Oh, stop it!” she shouted at him. “Stop it! Stop it!”

• • •

Before they went to bed that night she asked him very seriously if he would consent to an interview with her psychoanalyst. Just as seriously, Joseph said he would not. He felt bad that she cried herself to sleep. From his study, he could hear her in there sobbing. He wondered if Muriel Duncan was sobbing herself to sleep as well. Then he remembered that day he was driving along the canal and he had seen the tall, lone Boy Scout, lagging behind the other smaller boys, slumped over with the handkerchief in his hand, bawling. Why had it not occurred to him to stop and go up to the boy, to help him? What kind of a person had he been before all this happened to him! And he thought of that night with Varda on the day of the Wallace rally; and he wanted to cry out to her as though she were a God who could hear and grant forgiveness for the way he had been, and not a girl who had married someone else and now no longer knew or cared that he was sorry. So long ago. And he had never thanked the boy in his art class who had mistaken his oil painting for a Henner. He had never said to him, “How proud you’ve made me!”; not said anything to him. God!

He shut his eyes, wet with tears, and remembered again those beloved words: “… and my dear I love your soul — profound, sad, wise and exalted like a symphony …!”

“Lies!” he screamed, “Lies, Varda!”

He woke up the next day there in his study. It was ten minutes after eleven and Maggie was gone. Scotch-taped to the bathroom mirror was a note from her: