Skull Session

by Daniel Hecht

  "What happened when you guys went out to the shop?" Lia asked. "Did you talk to Dempsey about—?"

  "Yeah. He says there are some letters he wrote to Vivien that he'd like to find."

  Lia made a little noise in her throat. "Letters of a compromising sort, I take it. So Dempsey and Vivien had an affair."

  Paul just looked at her, barely able to make out her silhouette in the blackness.

  "I suspected as much, from the way he's been acting about this. All that melancholy, anxiety, his falling out with Vivien—"

  "Well, that all blew right past me. Anyway, he requested that we avoid reading the letters if and when we come across them. He said he thought we should respect Vivien's privacy more too, not read any letters."

  "Well, I'm not reading anything much, really. I certainly scan each page to see where it should be filed. It's a very fine line. Anyway, how'll we ever figure anything out? Besides, now the cat's out of the bag, right?"

  Paul went to the dark kitchen to call Vivien, leaving Lia in the warmth of the smoking room, sorting papers. He shoved aside some rubble and sat on the counter, blowing steam into air as still and cold as a meat locker. Leaning forward from his seat, he could see the rectangle of bright light around the smoking room door, suspended in the cavernous darkness of the big room. A series of irresistible tics pulled the right side of his face into a snarl, and he waited for them to subside before shining the flashlight on the phone and dialing Vivien's number.

  "Oh, Paulie," Vivien said. "Are you calling from Highwood?"

  "I am. We just got back from dinner, and I thought I should check in." He brought her up on their activities to date.

  "I'm glad you have matters so well in hand," she said when he finished. "I have been worried about . . . everything." There was a reedy, tired sound in her voice, almost a wistful quality. "Recently, I find myself feeling quite ambivalent, Paulie. There's a part of me that misses the place, that looks back fondly and wants to protect all the things I left behind. As I told you, they're the only proof I have that I've ever been young, or married, or a mother." She sighed, then went on. "The other half of me, frankly, is relieved to be out of the lonely castle on the hill, and only too eager to shed the accumulated detritus, the confining shell of my old life."

  "Yes, I sense that ambivalence," Paul said carefully.

  "And what about your own existential quest? No sign of Rimbaud's disease, I hope? I've wondered if it's contagious."

  "No," he said. "No Rimbaud's disease."

  "What about the ghosts? I'm curious as to how being at Highwood has affected you."

  "I haven't encountered any ghosts, but, frankly, it's not always a lot of fun here. Working here seems to dredge up more of the past than I'm sure I want to deal with all at once."

  "Now you know, to some small degree, how I would feel were I to return. Have you found any more of your father's letters?"

  "No. Just a newspaper article about his death. It mentioned that he was upset over family problems. I wondered what those might have been."

  "You will have to ask Aster, won't you. Of course, I can understand that you might have some reticence to do so."

  "Then why'd he do it? Why'd he jump? Why did he leave his family?"

  She seemed to consider how to answer him. "Your father was a complex man," she said cryptically. Then her arc of emotion abruptly changed, and her voice became acid again. "Why indeed do men do such things? Ben 'went.'Just as my husband 'went'—in a different way, but just as decisively. In fact, this is something I spoke about with your lovely-sounding wife earlier today."

  "About what?"

  "About the difficulties a woman encounters when her husband has chosen to 'go.'"

  What she was saying didn't make sense. "Wait—you talked to Lia about this?"

  "Lia? Oh, heavens, nolfanet. I had a lovely talk with her today. I'm sorry—I should have said your ex-wife, shouldn't I? But once you've had a child with someone, how could you ever really be ex anything? Of course, that may be a sentiment your generation is incapable of feeling."

  Paul felt tumbled off balance. Calling Janet—during ten years of marriage, he wasn't sure he'd ever so much as mentioned Vivien to her.

  "Why did you want to talk to Janet?"

  "Why indeed would I do that? I didn't. She called me." Vivien's voice hardened further. "It seems she wanted to know some details about your employment at Highwood. Such as how long you were likely to remain employed and how much you were getting paid. It sounded as though you two were not on the best of terms at the moment. If I were you, Paulie, I would consider looking into legal advice. You know what I'm talking about."

  Paul felt his breath go out of him. Child custody. Janet's making calls could only mean she was planning something ugly.

  He realized he hadn't said anything for some time when Vivien spoke again. "Are you there, Paulie?"

  "I'm here."

  "Oh, good. One never knows, at Highwood—so often the lines go down."

  Paul slid off the counter and began to pace at the end of the telephone cord, his boots crunching on the broken china littering the floor. He remembered what he'd learned about dealing with Vivien and Royce: fight back. Slip the punch, counter hard. "Vivien, I'd like to keep Mark, and my marriage situation, and any existential problems you think I have, out of our discussions. I'm here to do a job. That's all."

  "Calm down," Vivien said, a note of command in her voice. "Do you feel I'm being intrusive? How do you think I feel—my whole life spread out for you and your little girlfriend and who knows how many others to paw through? You have no doubt seen many things I would just as soon keep private. I rather enjoy the idea that we're a little more even now. I never solicited any contact with your wife—your ex—and frankly, I'd just as soon not be drawn into your tawdry affairs. You can spare me your righteous indignation."

  He wondered how she would react if he told her he'd seen Royce, if he told her what Royce had said about her, but he restrained himself. It was one thing learning to spar with these Hoffmanns; it was another thing entirely to become one of them.

  Suddenly the light changed in the kitchen, and Paul turned to see Lia at the open smoking room door, light spilling from behind her and silhouetting the sweet woman-shape of her body. She made jabbering motions with her hands, then stepped back inside.

  "Vivien, I'd like to get going now. It's after midnight here."

  "I'd much prefer we didn't end this conversation on such a sour note, nephew."

  "Wouldn't that be nice."

  "I had so hoped we could chat about something more pleasant. Our neurological hobby, for example. I've decided I have a problem with my glucocortinoids. They're the chemicals you manufacture to cope with stress or crisis. But too much in your bloodstream can be bad for you—high blood pressure and so on."

  "Vivien, I'd love to talk with you about this, but it'll have to be some other time."

  "You should look into glucocortinoids, Paulie. They're very interesting."

  "I'll do that." The heat of Paul's anger had given way to a chill, and he wanted only to get back into the warm room with Lia.

  "Yes, do. Sometimes these things run in families." Suddenly she burst into full-throated laughter, startling him. She gained control over herself with difficulty. "Good night, nephew," she said, and hung up.

  After midnight, too late to call Janet. No sense in making her angrier than she already was. It would have to wait until morning. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, then crossed the main hall to the smoking room. Lia sat in one of the wing chairs, eyes shut, hands crossed in her lap.

  "I thought you'd never finish," she said, not opening her eyes.

  "Yeah. Well. She seemed to want to yak at me. I'm sorry. Find anything interesting in here?" They unconsciously tended to speak in low voices in here, he realized, as if not wanting to attract attention to their presence in the empty house.

  "I didn't do much. Got too tired." Lia yawned. "Same stuff I've been lo
oking at all day—old bills, newspaper clippings, how-to pamphlets on raising bonsai. Oh, and medical papers. Apparently Vivien liked to correspond with doctors."

  "Tell me about it," Paul said dryly.

  They brought the lantern with them through the wrecked house, Paul uncomfortably aware of how its hiss deafened him. The harsh white light threw monstrous shadows on the walls as they crossed the main room. It was a relief to get into the simplicity of the carriage house, to dowse the noisy lantern and light a candle.

  They undressed and got into the sleeping bags. Paul had just snuffed the candle when the telephone in the lodge began ringing. He groaned, Lia got up on one elbow. They listened to the ringing, on and on, in the darkness. It rang forty-three times.

  Part 2

  Suddenly amid the sadness, spiritual darkness, and depression, his brain seemed to catch fire . . . and with an extraordinary momentum his vital forces were strained to the utmost all at once. His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments which flashed by like lightning.

  Reflecting about that moment afterwards . . . he arrived at last at the paradoxical conclusion: "What if it is a disease?. . . What does it matter that it is an abnormal tension, if the result. . . gives a feeling, undivined and undreamt of till then, of completeness, proportion, reconciliation, and an ecstatic and prayerful fusion in the highest synthesis of life?

  FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

  35

  PRISCILLA STOOD IN THE DARK driveway, looking up at the lodge's windows, thinking: How'd I get into this? This was nuts, it was the second of November and too cold to be going anywhere on a fucking motorcycle. The whole idea was insane, even with Eddy's planning: how they'd make the first trip on his motorcycle, which could get around the junked car, and which they could park out of sight in the woods when they went inside to scope out the lodge. They'd go through the place and select the stuff they were going to take and pile it in the woods down near the road, under a tarp. It would take them several trips, carrying stuff down the driveway in the dark, but the next day they'd need only a minute to stop Eddy's station wagon, throw the stuff in, drive away. Nobody would see them. Eddy in his Mr. Slick mode had explained how foolproof his scheme was, how easy, how safe. He'd heard about the abandoned housefrom his kid brother, who had a friend in high school over here. Some richperson had just gone away and left everything inside, and the place was wide open for anyone with the brains to see what an opportunity it was. Eddy prided himself on being a guy who recognized opportunity when it knocked.

  Priscilla felt her arms getting tired, and she put down the laundry bag full of valuable things they'd culled from the wreckage. There hadn't been that much after all, because the place was so badly vandalized, and few things were left unbroken. The damage level was sicko, even Eddy had been taken aback when they'd first gone inside, scared but trying to hide it.

  What was Eddy doing? One last thing I wanna get, "he'd said, and then disappeared back into the house. Now he was taking his time, and she could hear the bumps and thumps of him tossing things around inside. What was he looking for? It was getting colder out here, the motorcycleride back to Waterbury would be killer. Plus the looming darkness of the big house, so crazy wrecked-up inside, had begun to scare her. This was the last time she'd do anything even remotely crooked with Eddy. In fact, face it, it was time to ask herself whether Eddy was a good emotional investment. His Mr. Slick facade had worn thin, and the real poverty of what was beneath had begun to show through: a guy whose ambition had already topped out at being a convenience-store clerk and small-time hood running little scams like this. This was nuts. The whole relationship was nuts.

  A little wind had come up, stirring the trees and bushes, spooking her. i(Eddy, goddamn it, come on!" she called quietly.

  It was strange to realize so suddenly that she was done with Eddy. It was so unexpected, yet the realization had been therefor months. You could live on two levels at once, living one reality outside you and another in your mind and heart, and not even noticing there was a discrepancy between them until something happened to wake you up—some event that scared you or challenged you enough.

  On one level she told herself they were okay together, went along with his personas of Mr. Slick and Little Boy Vulnerable. But inside, she yearned to be with a man who loved her, who she could really love, she had even played a movie in her head of going to her mother with someone and saying, (
  The problem was she'd always forget that movie as daily life made its demands and offered its little problems and pleasures. Fervently, she vowed that when they got back from this stupid trip she'd do two things: One, she'd start the complicated process of disengaging from Eddy, trying not to hurt him but not being deflected either. And two, most important, she would never again forget the important things inside her, she would notice and honor them and be one person and not two or three who hardly even knew each other.

  A shape moved in the doorway as apiece of darkness detached itself from the black rectangle and took humanform on the terrace. Atfirstshe felt relief: Now they could start down and get the hell out of here. Then she realized it wasn't Eddy.

  For a moment the shape stood in one place, just outside the door. But it wasn't motionless, she realized. In the poor light she couldn't see well, but the person seemed to be vibrating or rippling,every part moving, dancing in place, pulsating, palpitating. It was the most horrible thing she had ever seen. With a jerk the oval shape of the person's face turned toward her and saw her and she knew where she'd seen that kind of movement before: her cat, hunting, tracking a bird's movement with that almost mechanical tuntch of its head.

  Then the person twitched again, moving in a blink and stopping between her and the driveway down. A strange rhythmic noise came from the shape, and it seemed to exude a current of warm air, thick with a sharp, plastic smell. For a second Priscilla stood paralyzed by fascination and terror. Then it darted straight at her, and she turned without thinking and began to run the only way open to her, back into the deep black woods behind the house.

  36

  "MR. SKOGLUND? I ’M MORGAN FORD . I'm an investigator with the Bureau of Criminal Investigation of the New York State Police. I'd like to talk with you for a few minutes, if you don't mind." Mo held out his badge.

  The driveway had proven to be much steeper and longer than Mo had expected. As he followed its curves up, he realized that it would be hard to find a more likely spot for teenagers looking for a love nest or a place to cut loose in any number of ways.

  At the door, a gangly kid wearing enormous basketball shoes had led him inside through a crazed junk heap that had once been a kitchen, and on into a room the size of a movie theater, where Mo stopped, stunned. It was, as Rizal had said, as if a bomb had gone off. Yet in some ways it was more appalling. A bomb was indiscriminate, creating a simple circular pattern of destruction with its locus at the point of detonation and progressively less damage farther away from the center. This was different. This damage was everywhere, and clearly it had all been done by deliberate acts—twisting, rending, smashing, ripping, throwing.

  "You guys are something," Skoglund said. He was about Mo's age, dressed in jeans, work boots, and a lumberjack shirt. He raised both his hands and seemed to slap himself in the face, keeping a baleful gaze on Mo. "You going to play Rizal's game? Let me see a search warrant, Detective. I've cut you guys all the slack you get. Show me the warrant or get off the premises."

  Mo was unprepared for the man's hostility. "I don't have a warrant. I'm just here to ask—"

  "Then get out. Now," Skoglund said. "Fdrfe/" He choked back a cough and slapped his face again, mustache then eyebrows, two quick pats with each hand.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Mo saw an old man coming toward him from the center of the big room. He took a step backward and turned fractionally so he could keep an eye on both men. "There's a misunderstanding, Mr. Skoglund. I h
oped you might be able to help me locate some missing teenagers. I think some of them may have come up here, and we might find some indication of it in the house. Although I can see it's going to be harder than I thought."

  A woman with red-blond hair appeared in the doorway next to Skoglund, putting her hand on his arm. "At least let him tell us what he wants, Paul. Why don't you come in, Detective—the cold's getting in with the door open. It's okay, Dempsey." Behind Mo, the old man stopped and waited.

  Skoglund stepped back grudgingly, and Mo went through the door. Except for the kerosene heater and a row of file boxes, and the shattered mirror over the fireplace, the room was more or less normal.

  "Thanks," Mo said. "Look, I hate to bother you—I'm sure you've got plenty to keep you busy." When they continued to look at him expressionlessly, he smiled awkwardly. "Sorry, supposed to be a joke. In any case, there seems to be some confusion here. It sounds like Trooper Pdzal has been by?"

  "Rizal was up here hassling me a few days ago. I called in to complain about his first visit. I haven't decided what I'm going to do about today's crap. If I were really under suspicion, he wouldn't have come up here to warn me. Which says to me he's just harassing us. The only question I have is why."

  "Slow down, please. Suspicion for—?"

  "Today he was back, telling me I'm a prime suspect in some drug selling. He implied he'd trump up drug-dealing charges on me if he felt like it."

  Uniform troopers did sometimes run legwork for BCI Narco investigations. Conceivably Rizal was assisting some investigation connected with Highwood. It should be easy enough to check.

  "I don't know anything about it," Mo said. "As I said, I'm looking into something else. I'm not accusing you, I'm asking for your assistance. In fact, I'm—" He hesitated, then plugged ahead: "This is a pretty unofficial visit. That's because this is what my supervisor considers a longshot lead. We disagree on that."