The Traveller (32 page)

‘And what organization …’

‘City of Miami police.’

‘Ahh, right,’ he continued writing. ‘I’ve never been to

Miami. Always wanted to go, though. Palm trees, you know, sunshine and beaches. Warm all the time. It sounds nice. But I’ve never made it down there.’

‘Your brother has.’

‘Really? I don’t think so, but then, he’s hard to keep up with. And of course there’s always a lot of news down in Miami. Riots, boatlifts, refugees, all that sort of thing. So, I guess, maybe. And he’s been, well, sometimes it seems like he’s been everywhere. Globe-trotter is what they call it.’

‘He was there last year. In September for a football game.’ . - Ś

‘For a football game? You know, I don’t think he cares that much for sports …’

‘He was assigned to get a picture of a quarterback.’

‘Oh, you mean on business? Well, that sounds possible …’

Jeffers hesitated. He let his eyes wander about the office for a moment, gathering himself. He thought for a mQment that his performance was probably not fooling the detective at all. He looked over at her and saw that she had not moved, not even a muscle. She’s wrapped tight, he thought. Very tight. Instantly he wondered why. Most detectives want to schmooze, regardless of how tense the situation is. Concentrate on the question, he thought. He felt better; still wary, still in some undefined and vaporish danger, but better nonetheless.

‘But what has a football game got to do with …’

‘The homicide of a young woman. Susan Lewis.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Martin Jeffers said, but of course he knew he saw nothing. He wrote down the name and month on his pad. Then he continued:

‘You know, detective, you’re really getting way ahead of me. What could you possibly want with my brother?’

Revenge! screamed Mercedes Barren’s head, but she kept the word to herself. She took her own deep breath, sitting back in her chair and, before replying, she took out her

own notebook and her pen. I can play, she thought. And I will win.

“You’re quite right, doctor. I’m getting way ahead of

myself.’ She spoke in a carefully modulated tone, affecting

some boredom, trying to rein in her intensity. She even

managed a smallish smile and an offhand nod of the head.

‘I’m investigating a homicide that occurred last fall.

September eighth, to be exact. We have reason to believe

your brother may be a material witness. He might even

have photographs of the crime which could help us.’

She thought the use of the royal plural particularly effective. She was pleased with the way she’d phrased her response, especially the guess about photos. It would give the impression that Douglas Jeffers could help the police. Perhaps it would appeal to the brother’s sense of civic duty. If he had any. She watched the doctor’s face for any sign of knowledge or suspicion. He seemed to be weighing every word carefully, she realized. She cursed inwardly again. Try to hit his emotions, she thought. That will open him up. But before she had a chance to continue, he asked a question.

‘Well, I still don’t understand. Doug never mentioned anything like that to me. Perhaps you could explain a bit more?’ She didn’t.

‘You’re close to your brother?’

‘Well, all brothers are close to one degree or another, detective. You must have family and know that.’ A nonanswer, she thought. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ ‘Well, it’s been years since we had what I would call a real visit…”

Dr Harrison interrupted: ‘Marty, didn’t he come to visit just the other week?’

Jeffers wished he could glare at his friend to shut him

up, but realized how dangerous that would be. He was

trying as hard as possible to understand what the detective

was driving at. He trusted nothing she said, not the croco—

dile smile and sudden easy manner, knowing only with the

certitude that comes of a lifetime of fears that his brother was in some kind of trouble and he would be damned if he would add to it.

‘Why, that’s right, Jim, but he only stopped by for a quick lunch before heading off. It wasn’t much of a visit, and it was the first time in years that I’d seen him. Hardly seems to me that that’s what the detective is interested in.’

‘But he said where he was going?’ Detective Barren asked.

Martin Jeffers was filled with machine-gun memories of his brother’s cryptic description of his vacation plans. He hesitated, thinking: What did he say? What did he mean? Jeffers looked up and saw that the intensity had returned to the detective’s eyes.

‘Not that I recall,’ Jeffers replied quickly. He was instantly angry with himself for rushing the words out.

The room was briefly silent.

Mercedes Barren smiled. She didn’t believe this denial for a second.

There was another pause, then Jeffers added his own question: ‘Certainly, detective, you’ve been to his photo agency? Didn’t they provide you with the information you need? I know they try to keep close tabs on the whereabouts of all their staffers. Even when they’re tromping about in some jungle somewhere with some guerrilla army …’

‘They didn’t know …’ Detective Barren started, then stopped in mid-sentence. Idiot! she thought. Give out nothing! She bristled as she saw the murderer’s brother absorb the words. She tried to recoup: ‘They couldn’t be exact. But they suggested I contact you, which is why I’m here.’

She’s fishing, thought Martin Jeffers. But how much?

‘You know, detective, this is very confusing for me. You come in here asking to see my brother, whom I haven’t really had much contact with for .years, to question him about some unspecified crime. You don’t describe at all what the crime is, or what you think his knowledge about it might be. You imply that it’s important that you contact him right away, but without making an explanation why.

I just don’t know, detective. I don’t think we’ve gotten this

off on the right foot at all. Not at all. I mean, I want to

cooperate with the authorities as much as possible, but I just don’t understand.’

“I’m sorry, doctor. I can’t give out confidential information.’

That was lame and she knew it. She knew what his answer would be.

‘No? Well, I’m sorry, too.’

Stonewall me, stonewall you, he thought.

They stared at each other, once again in silence.

Detective Barren suddenly wanted to scream. She was

filled with pain. I’ve blown it, she thought. I’m close, and

I’ve blown it. He’s got a passport and money and a brother

that’s going to protect him without knowing what he’s done

and is going to tell him that someone’s looking for him and

he’ll be gone, just like that.

Martin Jeffers wanted to get out of the room as quickly as possible. Something is terribly wrong, he thought. He needed to sort it out, and yet realized instantly that he didn’t know enough even to begin a process of understanding. He realized then that he would need to talk to the detective and he wondered how to get into a dominant position, receiving information without imparting any. He thought of his friends, the psychoanalysts. They’d know, he thought. Get her on the couch and sit down behind her ‘head. He almost laughed.

‘Is something amusing?’ asked Detective Barren.

‘No, no, just an odd thought,’ replied Jeffers.

‘I could use a joke,’ she said bitterly. ‘Why not share it?’

‘I’m sorry,’ JefFers replied. ‘I didn’t mean to make light of…’

She interrupted. ‘Of course not.’

He could tell she didn’t believe him. At that moment JefFers looked directly at her eyes and realized that there was more at stake. He could not precisely say why he knew this. Perhaps it was the angle of her body, the tilt to her head, the intensity of her eyes. He was almost taken aback by the forcefulness she emanated.

This, he thought, is a dangerous woman.

She was filled with loathing at that moment. He knows something, she thought, something greater than simply where his brother is. He knows something about his brother that he won’t put words to. So he hides behind cleverness and all that phony psychiatric technique.

It will do him no good, she thought. None at all.

She saw Jeffers look down at his watch, then up at Dr Harrison. She knew right away what was coming.

‘Jim, I’ve got patients scheduled all afternoon …’

She spoke before the hospital administrator could.

- ‘When do you finish?’ ‘I’m off at five,’ he said.

‘Shall I meet you in your office or would you prefer to go to your home? Or a restaurant somewhere?’

She presented no other options.

‘Do you think it will take long?’ he asked.

She smiled, but felt no humor. He’s damn clever, she thought.

‘Well, that kind of depends on you.’

He smiled. Fencing, he thought. Thrust and parry.

‘I still don’t see how I can help, but why don’t you meet me in my office a little after five and we’ll see if we can’t straighten all this out quickly.’

‘I’ll be there.’

They both stood and shook hands.

‘Don’t be late,’ he said.

‘I never am,’ she replied.

Martin Jeffers closed the thick door tightly behind him and looked about his office, as if expecting to see something that would explain the tangle of feelings in which he was trapped. He felt as if he were on the edge of some moment of panic, about to do something irrational, flooded with visions of his brother. He thought: He has a streak of meanness, that I know. He remembered a neighborhood boy once, filled with taunting and obscenities, who always seemed to get under Doug’s skin. It would be a fair fight

- they were both about the same size - all the children on

the block agreed about that. But it hadn’t been. Doug had

tripped the boy in a moment, flipping his suddenly helpless

adversary onto his back like an upside-down turtle, and

proceeded to whale away with his fists at the screaming

boy. Jeffers had never seen rage like that, so potent, so

unbridled. A killer’s anger, he thought. Then he frowned:

Don’t be ridiculous. He’d rarely seen Doug lose control

aagain. Of course the druggist father had slapped Doug

hard, but that was to be expected. A beating for a beating.

He looked about him and thought: Don’t be a damn idiot. Don’t hypothesize. Don’t judge. Don’t guess.

Perhaps she was telling the truth: a material witness, that’s what she said.

He swiftly pictured the detective’s eyes. Not a chance, he thought.

He sat down heavily in his desk chair and swiveled it toward the window. He could see fragments of sunlight as they probed the stands of tall trees that marked the hospital grounds, throwing shadows and light on the well-kept lawns. It was supposed to look more like a campus, as if that would somehow hide the reality of the hospital. He watched as a man in the distance rode across a grassy area on a tractor-mower. For a moment he imagined he could smell the sweetness of new-mown grass. The nice thing about state mental hospitals, Jeffers said to himself, is that externally they are well maintained. It’s only inside that one sees the paint peeling, as if steamed away from the walls by unhappy madness. It is the same with people.

He turned away from the window and asked himself:

Whyare you so quick to believe the worst about your

brother? Then he answered the question unscientifically.

Because he scares me. He has always scared me. He has

always been wonderful and terrifying at the same time.

What has he done?

Jeffers shook the idea from his head. ‘All right,’ he said out loud. ‘All right. Let’s see what we can learn.’

He picked up the telephone and dialed the nurse attendants on three different floors. With each, he canceled the afternoon appointments of three patients, directing them to

go to each man and tell them that he was called away on urgent personal business. He wished he could come up with some better euphemism at short notice, realizing that rumors and suspicions would fly unchecked about the ward. He shrugged. Then he slipped out of his white hospital coat and seized his tan sportsjacket from a hook on the back of the door.

Martin Jeffers locked the door to his office and quickly-headed down a back flight of stairs toward the physician’s parking lot.

Detective Mercedes Barren switched the air conditioner in the rental car up to full blast and glanced at her watch. This is not a real surveillance, she thought with irritation. She eyed the front door of the hospital. And even if he did come out, what good would following him do? She answered her own question: You never know until you try. She waited, shifting uncomfortably, trying to get out of the sunlight that poured through the windshield of the car. She shifted her glance to the cars lined up in the physicians’ parking lot, which was clearly marked with a large sign. There wasn’t a Cadillac among the bunch, she realized, which said something about the difference between the private sector and public health.

She was not totally displeased with the way the initial meeting had gone. What she was mainly concerned about was that the murderer’s brother would panic and try to reach Douglas Jeffers immediately. But she guessed he would not. He would certainly wait until after the meeting they’d arranged. He would be coy and evasive, trying to probe her for information. He is the younger brother, she thought to herself. He’ll need to be more sure of himself before calling.

She closed her eyes and felt sweat form on her lips. The moist salty taste reminded her of easy summer days. She wondered how many times she and John Barren had driven within a few miles of Trenton Psychiatric Hospital. Often, she thought. It was odd to be so close to home. She remembered driving alongside the Delaware River as the hot sun

picked its way through the leafy overhanging branches, heading toward some game or party, lighthearted, surrounded by friends, curled under the expansive right wing of her boyfriend.

the pleasurable memory evaporated in the midday sun. I’m alone now, she thought.

If you need comforting, she said to herself, then do it yourself. She hardened her heart and set her face, staring out through the glare of the sun against the car windshield. Suddenly she stiffened.