John Finn

by Vincent McCaffrey

  “Why did Des run away the first time?”

  I see the quick uncomfortable smile again. She says, “We argued, probably. We argued constantly. She loved Charlie. She always blamed me because he was out on the boat by himself that day. She was too young when it happened, to understand. But it was his boat. He had bought it even though we couldn’t afford it.”

  Now it was me who was uncomfortable. This did not seem to be what I wanted.

  “On the phone you said you worried that it was something worse—that she had not simply run away this time.”

  And there it was. Right across her cheeks and in the clinch of her jaw. Her eyes did not carry the fierceness I had once seen with Des, but the streak of anger was visible nonetheless.

  “Over the years—” She halts to rephrase her words. “We had too little contact through the years, but all of it offered a picture I didn’t like. I don’t want to hurt you, but you’ve come looking for information. This is what I know. She got involved with things she shouldn’t have. There were drugs in her high school. She was a good student, but she managed to get suspended more than once. . . A few years ago, I asked her if she was ever going to get married. She said, ‘no.’ Quick. Just as simple as that.” Mrs. Arnold pauses with the uneasy smile I had seen earlier. Then she says, “Detective Wise called this morning and said you were on your way. He told me you were in love with Des and you felt compelled to find out what had happened to her. I can empathize with that, but—” She takes a long breath. It’s clear she doesn’t want to be talking about any of this. Her hands refolded in her lap. “I was still living in California when she was working in San Francisco. She had a different boyfriend every week then. She even kept her things in my garage because she was moving around so much. Now and again, she’d find a ride and show up at odd hours to get something. Often, I would meet the boy she was with. Never the same one twice.”

  She looks at me for my reaction to the hard facts. I tried not to look like a sap. I realize that this woman has not been flirting with me at all. She has been embarrassed for me. I was the stupid man again.

  I say, “That was then. Just after law school. Des was pretty young.”

  Betty Arnold shakes her head at me once more. “Des. Desiree. Such an odd name. I wonder where she picked it up. . . You know, I was barely twenty years old when I started nursing her. I was feeding and grooming six horses every morning and giving riding lessons every afternoon. I was mending the messes that Charlie made and keeping the light bill paid. Charlie only bought that damned boat to get away from me, you understand. And Maggie knows that.”

  So, it comes down to one question.

  “Why do you think her disappearance this time is different?”

  She sits back and looks toward a patch of sun that fell on the floor near our feet.

  “I don’t know. I can’t really know. But she has changed over the years. I think I spoke to her once last year. All year. May 15th. She always called to ask how I was on May 15th. Very polite. But that was the day her father died.”

  I felt a chill on my spine that had nothing to do with temperature.

  I asked, “You said she called you in September?”

  She nodded, “Not much more than a month ago.”

  “Why did she call then?”

  Mrs. Arnold squinted at me, as if the thought hurt.

  “I don’t know. It was out of the blue. I don’t know.”

  “Did she sound okay to you?”

  “She was upset, I think. I thought she'd been drinking. But then she laughed at that. She said things were fine. Things were good. But she didn’t say why.”

  I wasn’t up to probing any further into that dark corner. I had no thought worth expressing. I searched for another direction.

  “Why do you think she changed her name?”

  “Perhaps because ‘Maggie’ was what her father called her. Margaret was his mother’s name. My mother’s name was Anne.”

  That was understandable. I wonder aloud, “Who is Judy?”

  Mrs. Arnold was shocked upright by that. She hadn’t expected the question, but even more, she’s clearly disturbed by the fact that I know that name.

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “It’s another name Des used.”

  “When?”

  “Recently.”

  She straightened uncomfortably in her chair. Her ankles had been crossed and they come undone. Her hands, folded in her lap, in a clinch.

  “It was her sister’s name.”

  “I thought she was an only child.”

  Mrs. Arnold closes her eyes as she speaks. “She was, except, for a year or so. . . Fifteen months. When Maggie was about six, we had another daughter. Judy. She died in her crib. Shortly after that, Charlie fell in the ocean. It was the worst year of my life.”

  But there is no tear in her eye at that. I see anger in the clinch of her jaw.

  Later, I’m standing alone in the cold on the top deck of the ferry back to New London and thinking about the fact that only a month ago I’d been with Desiree out on Boston Harbor. She was wearing my cap with the brim turned over one ear to keep the wind from blowing hair into her eyes. A good day. An Indian summer day. A great day.

  Today, the sun is low over the dark brim of Connecticut. The cold of the wind cuts through to my scalp. I have forgotten my cap on the couch.

  16. Mr. Chekhov

  It seems to me that if a novel isn’t about a man and a woman, then it ought to be about why it’s not about a man and a woman. I’ve come to this conclusion rather slowly over the years.

  Still, even if it’s true, the thought irritates me. It’s a little too pat. Wasn’t this just the kind of thing Chekhov liked to say?

  Appropriately, this was what played in my mind as I drove up Interstate 93 toward Lebanon, New Hampshire on Tuesday. I was trying to come to an understanding of the character I had created for eighteenth century Loyalist, Izaak Andrews, without insinuating my own experience into the situation—no, that’s too strong. Insinuation is fine. You have to write what you know. What I did not want was for the situation in my own life to blind my understanding of what might have happened to Izaak. He was becoming a much more sympathetic character than I had originally imagined him to be.

  He had lost so much for his beliefs. His home. His country. And he had lost a daughter.

  I gave up the morning hours when I normally write so that I could drive to New Hampshire, but I couldn’t help myself from thinking it all through one more time. Sibelius was in the CD player and Chekhov was on my brain. Kind of a win-lose situation. I’d rather be thinking about Kipling or Twain, but they seldom explored the dynamic between men and women. Yeats, perhaps. Yeats was good at asking such questions, but he never had any answers. Maybe that’s why he stuck to poetry. It seemed to me there was no way for me to write a novel about the murder of Mary Andrews without understanding the relationship with her father Izaak, and, as much as I preferred their company, Mr. Twain and Mr. Kipling were not about to offer me any secrets. Maybe Mr. Trollope. But more likely I needed Mr. Chekhov.

  I had called Gary Apple the day before. With Thanksgiving coming I figured to get this trip out of the way as soon as possible. The message on his answering machine sounded like it was about worn out. You could tell it was one of the old tape models. At least I had warned him I was coming.

  He called back about ten minutes later.

  “John?”

  “Hello, Gary.”

  “John. Is that you? Sonavabitch! How are you?”

  “Okay. You?”

  “Never better. Great. Really great. I’m happy for the first time in my life, John. You should try it at least once before you die. Happy is good.”

  “I hear you. You sound pretty good.”

  There was a brief silence then where we both were thinking how to proceed. I had already bet my money on the fact that he had guessed my purpose and was going to make me tell him.

  I guessed wrong. He went righ
t at it. “So what made you call right out of the blue?”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “Zoe.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Zoe, John. If you want to talk about the price of rice in Canton, I’m your man, John. You know I like to talk to you. But not about Zoe.”

  So then it was a matter of my approach. He would be ahead of me the whole way, so there was no point in being discreet or indirect.

  “That’s not like you, Gary. You were always the one for plain truth. I’ve thought about calling you before, you know, but I have a suspicion you’ve never thought once about calling me. It was you that walked away more than ten years ago, Gary. I haven’t heard from you since. What’s up with that?”

  I wondered what he was thinking then. He speaks quickly and seldom hesitates. He hesitated again.

  Then he said, “It’s a new life, John. I have a new life. I just cut the ropes. That’s all. I cut all of them at one time because I knew it was the only way. And it worked.”

  I told him, “Well, I guess you should’ve left the country, Gary. New Hampshire isn’t far enough.”

  “I’m not trying to hide, John. Zoe knows where I am. I’m close enough so the kids could visit if they wanted to. That was the plan. They seldom do. Todd was up a couple of times. Sally never bothered. What do you think’s up with that? Heh? You think dear Zoe might be responsible for that?”

  I answered the question as best I could.

  “I don’t think so. I think the kids feel betrayed. I’ve talked to Sally. You hurt her pretty bad.”

  That got a silent break. He had to give that more than the easy dismissal.

  “I think of her. I’ve called. She won’t come to the phone anymore, so I stopped.”

  I remind him, “She says she wrote you.”

  “Once. One letter. I wrote her back.”

  “I saw your letter, Gary.”

  He jumped on the words, “What’s that all about? Why are you looking at my private letters?”

  “Because Sally showed it to me. She came around to my place one evening and talked to me. She’s a good kid.”

  That was something he did not know, and it caught him off-guard.

  “Sally? By herself? She’s only sixteen. What did she come about? Is she having a problem with Zoe?”

  “She wanted to talk about you.”

  He was still off balance.

  “I should call her.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Why. I’m her father. I have a right to call.”

  I drew the picture. “After ten years, that may be a little shaky. Why don’t you write her a letter that’s longer than a paragraph? 33 words. She’d counted them. She’d written the number in the margin like a teacher’s mark.”

  Gary is naturally pugnacious. He enjoys the fight. In college he was on the wrestling team for several years before he was dropped because he too often broke the rules to gain advantage. This was true in most of his dealings. You had to like him for his other qualities.

  He said, “Look. John. This is none of your business.”

  I said, “How do you figure that?”

  “I don’t want you interfering in this.”

  “Gary. Sally came to me. She needed someone to talk to. But you know, in her heart, she was hoping that I’d talk to you. She’s looking for some way to get through to you. And now I have this.” I was sitting at the table in my room when he called back. The papers were right there in an envelope in front of me. “Zoe gave me some papers she wants me to give you. She didn’t want to embarrass you by having a local Sheriff do it. You have to give her credit for that. I thought I’d drive up there tomorrow and get it done.”

  He was answering loudly before I had finished.

  “A subpoena! A fucking subpoena! You want to drive up here and serve me with papers? What? You’re working for the Court now, John?”

  “No. As a favor for Zoe.”

  There was no hesitation then. “Is that why Sally came to talk with you? Are you hanging around Zoe now? Is that it? You got lonely after Mary Ellen dumped you and you’re humping Zoe?”

  I kept my own voice on the level. It was an effort.

  “That’s not fair, Gary. You said you were happy for the first time in your life. That was not the remark of a happy man.”

  “Well?”

  I could see how it might matter to his interpretation of things. Perhaps he deserved an answer.

  “No. She’s a friend, Gary. I met Zoe the day after I met you. Remember? You called it ‘the greatest double-date in history.’ Just because you walked away, doesn’t mean the rest of the world stops.”

  He took a breath on that. His voice dropped. “Sorry. . . I’m sorry. . . That was stupid. You’re right. Beneath this happy shell is the same old Gary. . . But at least I prefer the shell.”

  Gary Apple was a pre-med student at B.U. when I met him. Despite discovering Chekhov in high school, and showing a considerable talent in several high school plays, he’d decided to become a doctor, just like his dad. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I suppose. Gary is a deeply compassionate fellow, but doctoring was not to be. And money didn’t interest him. His own dad had made that possible.

  He had married Zoe on an impulse. I guess it takes two impulses. But in his case, I think he just wanted to be taken seriously. Zoe takes everything seriously. Even the weather. And his father wouldn’t talk to him when he turned his back on medical school. All that became one of the keys to our friendship. We would talk about our fathers. We would talk about our wives. We could talk about the dynamics of the human condition. Naturally, Chekhov had a lot more to say about fathers, and women and wives than Kipling, so Gary did most of the talking. He always liked Chekhov.

  It was in pre-med that Gary got into research on mental disorders and brain functioning, and from there he had drifted into computer science. He got his Ph.D. at M.I.T in three years. He’s that smart. For his thesis he wrote a software program that duplicated specific brain functions and helped enable doctors to identify where a patient’s brain was misfiring.

  At that point he took a teaching job at M.I.T. Zoe was pregnant and settling down was the responsible thing to do. That was the late 1990’s.

  ​Our friendship was also based on an in common disrespect for authority in the beginning. I didn’t like Chekhov then and he didn’t like Kipling, so literature didn’t play much of a part. But I liked to give him my stories to read. He read quickly, and he was never kind. I needed that. And for his own reasons, he was always willing to read them. I didn’t question my good fortune. A keen-eyed critic is hard to find.

  ​As it happened, Mary Ellen and Zoe got along even better than we did. We used to see each other every week back then. I had been the best man at their wedding. It was like having an extended family. Our daughter Matty used to sleep over at their house. Sally would sleep over at ours. His boy Todd and my Sarah didn’t get along quite as well, but I think I’m happy about that. That boy has had his problems too.

  ​Gary lives up a mountain road now, on land that faces southwest to a turn in the Connecticut River, overlooking neat rectangular fields. The river is dark at the center and gray with ice at the edges. The umber lines of fencing and uncut weeds edged the borders of the fields through a blank white tablet of recent snow. The Vermont highlands across, darkened with leafless trees, walled the river at the far side. It’s a sweet spot. There was no name on the mailbox at the gate. Just the number. The gate was closed, and I had to get out to open it.

  ​About 200 yards of icy gravel got me beyond a row of cedars and there was the house and Gary too, as well as a yellow Labrador retriever, standing outside waiting for me.

  ​It’s a modified log cabin with the difference being that it has two narrow floors running along the edge of a steep rise. I could tell that every window in the place had a view of the valley.

  A smaller pick-up, a bright red Ford Ranger, was parked a
longside Gary’s old Suburban. That was the same beast he was riding when I last saw him. I figured the newer truck looked like it might belong to someone else.

  He was smiling, at least. He took off his glove to shake my hand.

  “Time for coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  “Eggs? I’ve got fresh eggs. I’ve got sausage made by a fellow down the road. Milly bakes all our bread. Best bread I ever had.”

  I was nodding at his every word. I said, “Milly?”

  He smiled.

  “I can’t live alone, John. You know me. I’m not that kind of animal.”

  At that moment I had what is often called these days ‘an epiphany.’ Something greater than the parts of a simple realization. A discovery, perhaps. I think I understood something. This often happens to me in conjunction with food. Or beer.

  The kitchen was located at one end of the narrow house with windows on three sides. It has a twelve-foot ceiling, and a round metal chimney at the center growing up from a wide copper hood. That one room was about three or four times the size of my whole apartment. I sat at a trestle table by the largest window on the river side and watched him cook.

  He says, “I had my oatmeal this morning about six. We’ll call this lunch.”

  He seemed to be pleased at the chance to cook up the meal. He asked me about my kids as his hands played across a gas griddle. I’ve seen him do this often enough in the past, over a grill in the back yard of the house in Newton during family get-togethers. My Matty and his Sally are still buddies, even though they live miles apart. They even went to the same summer camp. But these days it’s reduced to constant texting.

  I stepped badly with my first question, “Where’s your wife?”

  With her truck outside, I assumed she’d be there. I was assuming too much, of course.

  He did not even look up from his work at the stove.

  “We’re not married, John. We’re like . . . what? Private contractors? Milly is the daughter of an old hippie down in Claremont. She got tired of waking up with a buzz every morning from ambient smoke and left home when she was sixteen. She was working weekends at a diner in Littleton back when I was looking for this place. She sold me my chickens about a month after I set my trailer up on the ridge behind here.” He pointed out the window at the far side, up a rising field—snow whitened, and stubbled with the remains of a corn crop. “Then she decided to stick around to collect the eggs. We get along. But she thought she’d leave us alone given the subject matter. She does what she wants.”