Back to Wando Passo

by David Payne

  “But, Harlan, it was his last wish….”

  “I don’t know that,” he answers, brushing his hands. “I don’t know that at all. The last wish he expressed in my hearing was, in fact, the opposite. Had you not interfered…But, no, I don’t intend to fight. We’ve fought enough. I think we can agree, at least, on that.”

  “Can you not think of Jarry and Paloma, though?”

  “Paloma may do as she pleases.”

  “And Jarry? What of him? Put yourself in his position, Harlan—what if it were you?”

  “But it was me, Addie,” he replies with a pathetic note. “It is. It has been all my life. This is where it stops. There comes a time when you must cease to put your faith in others’ help and act to help yourself.” The paper now is ash. He smears it underneath his boot and grinds it down into the blackened brick. “This will never leave this room.”

  She maintains a grim silence.

  “I must have your promise.”

  “I don’t know if I can give you that.”

  “You will, though, Addie,” he informs her, with a cold assurance she finds threatening. “You certainly will if Jarry’s feelings are of concern to you. This is better for him, too.”

  “How?” she answers. “Better how?”

  “If it were you,” he says, “which would be the bitterer—to stay and work in accordance with your father’s wish to keep you safe, or to feel compelled to it by a brother whom you hate?”

  She frowns and makes no answer.

  “Come now, Addie,” he says, gaining confidence, “we may disagree, but it’s beneath you, when you know I’m right, to withhold an answer out of pique.”

  “Perhaps,” she says, “but you’re wrong upon the larger point.”

  “That is your opinion. Think what you will. I can’t help what you think. But keep your thinking to yourself. I won’t have this raised with Jarry or Paloma—do you understand me? This is my family, Addie, mine—my father, my property, my slaves. These matters go back forty years and more, and you’ve not yet been here three whole days. I am master now, and your husband, too. A week ago today, in church, you made a vow not just to love and honor me, but also to obey. If you intend to keep it, I must have your word.”

  “All right, Harlan,” she says, mortified by the whole conversation and capitulating to escape. “All right, then, all right.”

  “I have it?”

  “Did you not just hear me say you do?”

  “Very well, then. Good,” he says, and now he risks a smile. “Come, Addie, we’ve had rough sailing for a day or two, but we’ve come through. Let’s not mar our last few hours. You get dressed and speak to Paloma about your notion while I see if they’re ready for us at the cemetery.” He bends to kiss her mouth, but Addie gives a cheek instead.

  After he leaves, she dresses briskly and sits down at the dressing table. She looks for the black hair in Harlan’s mother’s brush, but it’s gone, and Addie, angry at Harlan, but still angrier at her own concession, wonders if it was ever there at all. Falling into contemplation of her frowning face, she becomes aware she’s waiting for something. Since opening her eyes, she has been waiting half consciously, half in fear, for the voice to speak. It hasn’t, though; nor does it now. This is a blessing, though. Maybe now, she thinks, life, real life, suspended for these last two days, can recommence. Yes, decides Addie, as she sets in brushing vigorously—brushing quite furiously, in fact—the silence of the voice is a relief.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Well, correct me if I’m wrong, gentlemen,” said Ransom, pacing, pacing furiously before the partners desk, “but you don’t need a degree in forensic pathology to tell that Yorrick out there with the BB in his brain has been in the ground a hell of a long time.”

  He nodded to the window and the excavation site beyond, where the remains were being photographed and bagged.

  “Well, you are wrong,” said Sneeden, the ME, “so I will correct you. Once a body’s been in the ground a certain time, Mr. Hill, the bones oxidize, they turn this sort of dingy ivory-yellow, and it’s virtually impossible to tell with the naked eye—at least, for me, and I’ve been doing this twenty-five years—whether they’ve been there one year or a hundred.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  Ransom, now, came to a stop. “So what are you implying?”

  Floating his question, he looked from Sneeden to Sergeant Thomason, who stood holding his doffed cap, watching Ran with soulful, put-upon, clinically dispassionate, unblinkingly observant eyes, like a poor boy on his first trip to the circus, studying the pacing tiger in its cage.

  “I mean, based on your years of experience,” Ran continued, getting a fresh wind, “tracking criminal masterminds and so forth, do I strike you—and please be honest, don’t hold back for fear of hurting my feelings—as the sort of guy who goes around murdering people for kicks, depositing their remains in shallow graves around his property like a hound dog burying bones? Is that the kind of face I have?”

  “Hard to tell what’s in a person’s heart by looking in their face, Mr. Hill. Awful hard,” said Thomason. “Take that fella Ted Bundy, now…. Personally, you strike me as a nice-enough sort—a bit excitable, maybe, a little sarcastic on occasion….”

  “And from sarcasm it’s a short, slippery downhill slope to mass murder, right?” said Ran. “I’m sure that’s on page one of the police procedural handbook.”

  Giving the marked-up page of “Nemo’s Submarine” a quarter turn, Sneeden scanned it briefly, sending Ran to Defcon 6, then walked to the window, pulled back the curtain, and appeared to begin triangulating their position relative to the site. “Why are you so touchy, Mr. Hill?” he said, turning back. “That would be my question.”

  “That would be your question,” said Ran, “why I’m so touchy? Why I’m touchy, Mr. Sneeden—”

  “Dr. Sneeden.”

  “Dr. Sneeden, is because two dead bodies just turned up on our property, and I seem to be under interrogation, and I’m asking if you think I have anything to do with those bodies being here, and you aren’t saying no. I’m a sensitive guy, Dr. Sneeden, an artist, and I find that implication very hurtful, very wounding—see me tearing up? It also gets my back up just a weensy bit.”

  “Perfectly natural, Mr. Hill, perfectly natural,” said Thomason. “I’d feel the same way in your place. Anybody would.”

  “Has anyone accused you of anything?” said Sneeden. “Has one single word been said to that effect?”

  “Oh, wait,” said Ran, “I get it now. The sergeant here’s the good cop. You’re the bad. Correct?”

  “I’m the county medical examiner, Mr. Hill,” said Sneeden. “I don’t know who these people are, what happened to them, how long they’ve been buried there, whether they died of foul play, natural cause, or what….”

  “Well, Yorrick has birdshot rattling in his brainpan,” Ransom said, “so for starters, I’d rule out natural cause.”

  “Could have been a hunting accident, a soldier killed at war, suicide—there’s a dozen reasons I can think of shy of murder why people end up getting shot.”

  “Can you think of a dozen reasons why they end up in unmarked three-foot graves?”

  Sneeden’s jaw took a prognathous jut.

  “He’s onto something there, Doc,” said Thomason. “You’re on my wavelength now, Mr. Hill. There’s a story here, and it don’t look to be a good one, but the truth is, we don’t know what the story is, and it’s our job to find out. That’s all we’re trying to do here, and the reason we’re asking you is because they turned up on your property. It don’t go no fu’ther than that. Any information or assistance you can give us in a helpful spirit, we’d most appreciate.”

  “Well, I know who they are,” said Ran. “Would that qualify as helpful information?”

  The officers both blinked.

  “I seem to have your attention now,” said Ran, making a transparently insincere effort to conceal his glee. “They�
��re Harlan and Adelaide DeLay, gentlemen, my wife’s great-great something-something grandparents. That’s Adelaide right there.” He pointed to the portrait.

  “What makes you think it’s them?” asked Thomason.

  “He came back from the war in 1865, showed up in downtown Powatan, started here on foot, and neither he nor Adelaide was ever seen again. They’ve been missing in action for, what, a hundred and forty years, give or take? As chance or fate would have it, I heard the story of their disappearance for the first time yesterday, not long after I…” Found the pot, he was about to say, but the voice said, I wouldn’t go into that if I were you, and Ran, for once, agreed. “So who else is it going to be?”

  “Well, he’s right on one thing,” Sneeden said to Thomason. “The second set’s a woman.”

  “The second set of what?” asked Ran.

  “Remains,” the sergeant said.

  “How did she die?”

  “We’ll have to wait for the state ME to weigh in on that, Mr. Hill,” Sneeden answered. “I did note a shattered rib on her left side, which would also be consistent with a gunshot.”

  “They’ll do osteometrics and carbon dating up there in Columbia, Mr. Hill,” said Thomason, “which should tell us if them dates check out. What’s your theory anyhow? Somebody murdered ’em?”

  Ran shrugged. “I’d put my money on a murder-suicide.”

  “Shot her, then killed himself?”

  “Or maybe she shot him,” Ran said.

  “Usually works the other way,” said Sneeden. “Nine times out of ten.”

  “Hey, let’s not be sexist,” Ransom said. “This is the twenty-first century, as people keep reminding me.”

  “What you figuring for motive?”

  “Maybe he was too sarcastic for her tastes.” Ran gave his watch an aggressive glance. “And on that note, gentlemen, I’ve given you all I have, both fact and speculation. Now, unless you plan to arrest me and put me on the chain gang breaking rocks, I have someplace I need to be.”

  “You ain’t going out of town, are you, Mr. Hill?” asked Thomason. “Reason I ask is just in case we think of any fu’ther questions.”

  “I’m going to pick up my kids at preschool in Powatan. Do you want me to surrender my passport?”

  “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Hill,” said Sneeden drily.

  “Then I’ll let you show yourselves out. I believe you know the way.”

  “B’lieve I do,” said Thomason, and smoothing down his comb-over, he reapplied his hat.

  “Bastards,” Ran said as soon as they had left. “Rat bastards!”

  And he’d known, hadn’t he? He’d known! That morning things were simply going too damn well. The universe, apparently, had gotten wind: Ransom Hill, for once, was on the verge of happiness; he’d actually had sex with his wife! Call in the Doom Patrol! Let the Harpies shit some droppings in his Frosted Flakes! Let’s restore some freaking order, for the love of Mike, before this poor loser starts thinking he’s actually entitled to a break….

  Feeling a little sorry for ourselves? the voice piped up.

  “Fuck you, too!” Ran shouted, loudly, in the empty room. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on! Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  Yours, of course. But, really, Ransom, what’s the big deal? You know you’re innocent, right?

  “Hell, yes, I’m innocent! I’m innocent as hell!”

  All this happened a long time ago.

  “Way to hell and gone back when!”

  The story—whatever it is—has nothing to do with you, correct?

  “Damn straight!”

  So why are you so hot and bothered?

  “Hey,” said Ransom, “I’m not sure I like where you’re going with this.”

  All I’m saying is, Sneeden makes a certain point. From the way you’re acting, you’d almost think this touched a nerve.

  “Bullshit!” said Ran. “Bullshit! I have no such nerve. This is me, for Chrissakes—me! I’m a freaking pacifist. I dodged the draft, or would have, if it hadn’t ended three months before I became eligible. Hell, I was once a vegetarian—for thirteen years, I didn’t even break an egg!”

  Oy, don’t remind me.

  “Who are you, the Joker? This is serious business.”

  You’re right, it is. Which is why it seems a little strange that you didn’t give them everything.

  “What do you mean? I gave them everything except a pint of blood.”

  How about the gun?

  Stopping in the middle of the room, Ran glanced toward the vacant hooks above the door where the Purdey had formerly hung. “What do you me—Oh, wait. Wait, I get it. If that’s the murder weapon, maybe they could…”

  Match it to the shot?

  “Right, right. Excellent. Good thinking. That never dawned on me.”

  It didn’t?

  “Absolutely not.”

  Oh, sorry, then. My mistake. I thought there was an instant there….

  “What instant? There was no instant.”

  You know, when you were pacing back and forth maniacally, waving your arms, protesting your innocence, expressing your righteous indignation that the officers might consider you—you, of all people, the son of Melvin Hill—capable of violence…I thought there was a fleeting moment when you thought, What if it’s the Purdey? but didn’t say it.

  “Well, you’re wrong. You’re wrong as hell. I don’t recall any such thought.”

  Yes, well it was very subtle, very easy to forget….

  “Hey,” said Ransom, “hey, screw you! Actually, if you want to get technical, what I remember thinking was, How can I give them the gun when I don’t know where the fucker is?”

  You don’t know?

  “Hell, no, I don’t know! Do you?”

  Hmm, the voice said, in a musing tone. Nope, sorry. Nothing comes to mind.

  “All right, wiseass, want me to show you? I’ll find the thing and turn it in.”

  You do that, Ran.

  “You think I won’t? Just watch me. I’ll prove it to your faithless, sorry ass.”

  And, with that, he stalked off down the hallway with that slapping sole.

  “Me!” he muttered. “Me!” indignantly. Exiting into the yard, he slammed the door so hard he almost broke the hinge.

  TWENTY-NINE

  There is a pungent smell of herbs, the sound of dripping water, then the louder sound of something being wrung—a cloth or sponge—into a basin or a pail.

  Addie follows these into the formal parlor to the right of the curved stairs and finds Paloma silently washing the deceased. Percival is laid out on a door the carpenters have set on sawhorses. Except for a cloth across his loins, he’s naked, and his body is almost shocking in its whiteness, shocking and impressive in its size and strength, above all in its seeming youth. Except for the unnatural pallor and a deflated slackness in the lower belly, he does not look old. Addie thinks about Achilles on his shield, she thinks about a painting of the Deposition she once saw. Lifting one slack arm—which seems to condescend to its manipulation with tender indifference—Paloma swabs it with a sponge, moving from the shoulder to the wrist. She washes each finger individually and turns and does the palm, stroking from the heel toward the fingertip. And as she works, the water drips onto the cooling board and onto towels on the floor.

  The scene is as intimate as that between two aged lovers in the bath, a husband and a wife. As quietly as possible, Addie starts to leave, but a floorboard creaks.

  “What is it, niña?” Paloma’s voice is calm and self-possessed, but her face, when Addie turns, is terrible, a mask of bitter, angry grief. She isn’t crying now, but her eyes are red and sunken and her cheeks are streaked.

  “I’m sorry, Paloma. It’s nothing. We’ll speak of it another time.”

  The old woman makes no answer. She stands, in a brown study, staring into space.

  In Addie, a pang of sympathy vies against an urge to flee. “Paloma, can I help you?”

  �
��No, you cannot help me. What is it you think to do?”

  Addie hesitates, but it is brief. Crossing to Paloma now, she gently wrests the sponge away and leads her toward a chair. “Come,” she says. “Come, and rest yourself a bit.”

  “He must be washed and dressed.”

  “I know. I know he must. But you sit here and tell me what to do.”

  The old woman neither consents nor actively resists. Sitting in the rocker, she takes a white candle from the stand and holds it at arm’s length, widening her eyes. To Addie’s distress, Paloma strikes a match and starts to light the bottom.

  “Can I do that for you?”

  “No.”

  “But, Paloma, you’re lighting the wrong end.”

  “I’m lighting what I mean to light,” she says. “If you want to help me, do this other the same way. Scrape the wick up with your nail. There, like that. Now, place them to either side of him, and, niña, when you wash him, wash downward, to his feet, not up. Up is to draw. Down, to take away.”

  Disturbed by these instructions, Addie nonetheless complies and doesn’t ask. The coolness of the body is unnerving and the way the flesh, when touched, retains the impress and does not spring back. What unnerves her even more is that Percival, at close quarters, does not seem dead. His eyes are closed exactly as they were when she first saw him on the chaise, as though that moment were premonitory of this. His expression, though, suggests a suffering no longer calmly borne. He looks like someone ill from poisoning or drink, who’s closed his eyes to take a miserable rest but cannot sleep.

  “Paloma, if I haven’t said so, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “No, you haven’t said so. But I thank you. You, too, have had a blow.”

  Addie looks up now, and Paloma simply holds her stare, her old eyes fearsome, not with enmity, but with long experience of life.

  “How are you, niña?”

  “It’s in the past, Paloma,” Addie says. “How can I blame them for what they didn’t know?”