A Matter of Time

by David Manuel

“Who in the blazes are you talking to?” his friend demanded.

  “Oh,” said Bartholomew, gesturing toward the bench, “that’s Noire.” There was no one there.

  “Um, maybe you’ve been up here a little too long.”

  Bartholomew smiled. “She must have been startled. I certainly was.”

  “She?”

  “A feral cat. We’re starting a relationship—at least one of us is.”

  “Oh,” Dan replied, not really understanding. “I walked up here, because, well, I really need to talk to you.”

  “Come on in,” said Bartholomew, holding open the door. He waved his friend to the Naugahyde chair and took the desk chair for himself.

  “I came after dark,” Dan explained, “but you weren’t here, so I walked over to the chapel. It was locked. I sat on the outside bench over there and waited. Then I heard you talking and realized you were back.”

  Bartholomew looked carefully at his friend’s face, and was startled a second time. “Dan, what is it? You look—”

  “However I look, it’s not as bad as I feel.” He told Bartholomew of his talk with Eric and subsequently with Inspector Cochrane.

  “So what’s the matter?”

  Dan had difficulty getting the words out. “This afternoon Eric did not come home from school. He’s still not home. He and I were going to meet his father’s plane, so he could tell his dad the whole thing—or as much of it as he could. Then he and I were going to go to the police station together. His dad’s driving around right now, looking for him.”

  “Where’s Ron?”

  “He went home this afternoon. Bunny called yesterday and said her mother was driving her crazy. They’d had a terrible fight, and now her mother wasn’t speaking to her. She begged Ron to come home and help. I didn’t go because I wanted to see this thing through with Eric.” He stared at the tile floor. “And now he’s missing.”

  His monk friend frowned. “If he was going to be a material witness, why didn’t they take him into protective custody? At the very least put a guard with him?”

  “Cochrane didn’t want to spook the perp, who would have no idea anyone had seen him.”

  Bartholomew looked at his friend. “And you blame yourself that he’s taken off. Because you’d persuaded him to talk.”

  Dan could not meet his gaze. The next words were little more than a whisper. “It’s worse than that. When Eric didn’t come home, Nan called the school. Apparently he never came back in after Noon Recess.”

  “Why is that so bad?”

  Dan buried his face in his hands and murmured, “He told me that Thursday was the day he picked up his drugs. During the Noon Recess.” He closed his eyes. “I should have urged Cochrane to put him under surveillance. And if he wouldn’t, I should have simply kept an eye on him myself, or insisted to Nan that he stay home from school.”

  “You think, whoever the supplier was, he abducted Eric?”

  Dan nodded. “It’s the only explanation. Eric wouldn’t tell me the name of the murderer, but they’ve got to be one and the same.” He finally looked up, his eyes red. “Bart, I’m so scared for that kid!”

  Bartholomew nodded, and they sat silent for a moment. Then the monk frowned. “There’s still no way this dealer could have known what Eric intended to do,” he mused. “Unless—the boy happened to let something slip that made him suspicious. I mean, if I were Eric, and I knew this guy had killed someone, I would have freaked out, just being in the same car with him—even if I wasn’t about to give him up.”

  The monk felt himself being drawn into the situation, but it seemed the right thing to do. “Have you told Cochrane?”

  “Of course. He was the first one we told.”

  “What’d he say?”

  Dan shook his head. “Same thing I would have: We’re doing all we can. But until we have a name, or at least a description, we’ve hardly anything to go on.” He paused, then added, “He did say he was going to pick up the boy Jones, as soon as he got home from school.”

  Bartholomew sighed and smiled. “In that case, they’ll have their description soon enough. And their culprit. And Eric.” He laughed. “Cheer up, Dan! This thing’s going to have a happy ending!”

  But Dan just shook his head. “I wish I could think so. My gut tells me otherwise.” He managed a wan smile. “I’m glad you’re here! I was going crazy out there on the bench, waiting! If you’d been much longer, I’d have freaked out, myself!”

  Bartholomew nodded—and inwardly shuddered to think how close he’d come to being a couple of hours longer.

  He took a deep breath. “First of all, you’ve got to stop blaming yourself. You did the right thing. I’m sure his parents don’t hold you responsible.”

  “No, they’ve both told me how grateful they are.”

  Looking at his friend’s haggard expression, Bartholomew realized that only time—and God—could ease his burden. “Look, Dan, get some sleep, or you’ll be a wreck in the morning. And of no use to Eric or Cochrane or anyone else.”

  Dan nodded and got up. “Glad you’re here,” he murmured again, as he went out into the night.

  32 witness

  The trouble was, having sent his friend back to Sandys House to get some badly needed sleep, Bartholomew couldn’t get to sleep himself. He lay on the rack, staring at the darkened ceiling, his eyes wide as saucers.

  That sometimes happened when he assumed the role of confessor. The penitent would be released from his burden, yet while Bartholomew instantly forgot the details, it sometimes seemed that the weight had been transferred from the shoulders of the absolved to the one pronouncing absolution.

  Bartholomew had seen Eric only the two times: In church, then briefly as he exited the bar at Sandys House. But he kept seeing him in his mind tonight. Finally he decided he would deal with it as he had on other nights when sleep eluded him. He would go for a walk.

  He got up, pulled on his navy blue sweats, his black walking shoes, and his new navy blue cap. As he was about to go out, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the kitchen window and smiled. Dark clothing from head to toe—if he were a Navy Seal, he wouldn’t be much more invisible.

  It was a moonless night, which made it difficult to keep to the footpath to the Railway Trail, through the first field and around the freshly plowed one. It would have been impossible, had he not done it practically every day and on more than a few sleepless nights.

  Once he reached the trail, he relaxed. While there were no streetlights (save one at the corner of the first crossroad, which was usually out), the trail was paved and smooth. So even though it was quite dark, particularly on moonless nights, he managed to stay in the middle by keeping track of the pitch-black foliage on either side. And certainly no one else would be out here.

  Father Francis had warned him not to go out on the trail in the middle of the night. With the drug situation deteriorating, there had been a spate of robberies in this vicinity, and even a murder here last year. Yet for some reason, Bartholomew had always felt safe—though, he smiled ruefully, he may have put undue stress on his guardian angel.

  He had walked perhaps a half mile west, into the cut through the limestone, when he became aware that he was not alone. He could not see anything. The cut, with its overhanging brush that shut out the faint starlight, was as black as the inside of a cave. Yet he was certain he had heard something, a sound he couldn’t identify.

  He stopped and listened. It was a sound that was not of nature. Man-made. Coming nearer.

  He flattened himself against the rocky wall of the cut. The sound was coming from the direction of Sound View Road, the first road to cross the trail after it came out of the cut. He strained to see something, anything.

  And then, just in from the road, the streetlight that was usually out sputtered briefly to life.

  In that frozen moment, he saw a man pushing a shopping cart along the trail into the cut. Something large and bulky was in the cart. The light sputtered out. Bartholomew felt
the brackish taste of fear rising in his throat. His breathing shallowed. He pressed his back against the rock as hard as he could and waited. And wished he could do something to still the pounding of his telltale heart.

  The man and the cart came closer. He, too, was navigating, as Bartholomew had a few moments before, by keeping to the middle of the slightly less dense shadow. When he came abreast of Bartholomew, he stopped.

  He’s listening, Bartholomew thought. He’s sensed something. He held his breath, wishing now that he’d forced himself to breathe more deeply.

  The man remained perfectly still, no more than ten feet from Bartholomew, whose lungs were desperately scavenging what oxygen molecules remained in them. And then, a moment before Bartholomew gasped for air, the cart started to roll again.

  Bartholomew waited for the man with the cart to emerge from the south end of the cut, before he followed. Filled with a profound sense of dread and foreboding, he nonetheless felt compelled to follow, to see this—whatever it was—through.

  In the starlight now, Bartholomew could see the man’s silhouette ahead, while he himself remained in the deeper shadow by the side of the trail. At a place where the trail ran by a steep gully thick with foliage, the man stopped. He looked back towards Bartholomew and waited a long time. Then from the cart he lifted the limp form of what looked to be a body, went over to the edge of the trail, and flung his burden down into the depths of the ravine.

  Pushing the now empty cart, he reversed direction and came back towards the cut—and Bartholomew, who again flattened himself against the rock wall. This time the cart-man passed by without stopping. Letting him get a few paces ahead, Bartholomew followed.

  Why? He demanded of himself. Why was he doing this? This was insane! He’d seen what he needed to see. He could bring the police back here. There was no point in doing any more!

  Everything in him wanted to run, get as far away from here as possible! Yet, if that was a body—Eric’s body (he forced himself to think it)—then he needed to see who this man was.

  So—he followed as closely as he dared. Just before Sound View Road, the man stopped. Bartholomew stopped. The man pushed the cart into the brush by the east side of the trail, as if some shopper had “borrowed” the cart to get her groceries home, then abandoned it here.

  Bartholomew was perhaps a dozen feet from him, when to his horror the streetlight chose that instant to sputter on. In that frozen moment, both men were transfixed.

  Then Bartholomew ran back into the cut, as if the Hounds of Hell were after him. But there was only one set of footfalls echoing off the walls of the cut. The cart-man had chosen not to follow him.

  Bartholomew had seen—and recognized—the face of the murderer.

  And the murderer had seen the face of the witness.

  33 our turn

  Still shaking when he reached the Quarry Cottage, Bartholomew was in turmoil. Thoughts, emotions, belief, perceptions—all crashed like roaring surf against the rocks of what he had just witnessed.

  He should call the police. His cell phone was on the desk. Picking it up, he discovered that he’d forgotten to charge it. He could walk down to the main house, wake them up, and ask to use their telephone—and unnecessarily alarm the entire household.

  He checked his watch: one o’clock in the morning. Plugging in the charger, which would have the phone usable soon enough, he sat down to pull himself together.

  And realized that he was angry with God.

  Snatching up his clipboard and pad he wrote:

  Why did you let it happen? Why did Eric—if that was Eric—have to die?

  It was not my will.

  Is that what you say when people ask you about the Holocaust?

  That was not my will, either.

  But isn’t that just a massive cop-out? I mean, you’re God! You can do anything you want!

  Not when it conflicts with man’s will.

  I don’t get it! You are love, but you let hatred triumph. Where’s the justice in that?

  My son, why did I create man?

  We’ve been through that: To be your companion, for time and eternity.

  Correct. For man to be that, I had to give him free will. He had to want to be with me. He had to choose to set aside his will for mine.

  You were taking quite a risk, weren’t you? What if no one wanted to do it your way? Put down their will for yours?

  Many didn’t. You have no idea how much it hurt when some, for whom I had great love, turned away. But once I had set the machinery in motion, I could not change the rules just because I did not like the way it was working out.

  Bartholomew smiled. You came close a few times. The Flood, the plagues, all those years of drought and famine.… But you do intervene, when we ask. Sometimes.

  It is always my will for you to ask. It is not always in accordance with my will for me to answer in the manner you have requested.

  Bartholomew was calmer now, but he still wanted answers.

  What about Eric? He was so young.…

  He was old enough to make choices. The day you saw him in the cathedral, he nearly chose me.

  Oh, God! I almost prayed for him at that moment. If I had, would it have—made a difference?

  Silence.

  Bartholomew shuddered. Earlier, he’d sensed he’d somehow assumed Dan’s burden for the boy. Now he knew it.

  I wish there were some way of rewinding the tape.

  The next time you have an impulse to pray for someone, do so.

  What should I do now?

  Call Dan.

  He checked the cell phone; it had built up a sufficient charge. On the desk he found the piece of paper with the number of Sandys House on it and made the call.

  The night manager sounded like he might have been catching a few winks himself. Bartholomew apologized for disturbing him, but said it was an emergency. A police emergency.

  In a few moments Dan’s groggy voice came on the line.

  He told Dan what he’d seen.

  “I’ll call Cochrane.”

  Half an hour later, Sergeant Tuttle collected him and took him and Dan, who was in back, to the Somerset police station, where the duty sergeant showed them into the situation room. On the wall was an enlarged map of Bermuda, with a red grease pencil arrow to the reef in Sandys Cove where the body had been found. Next to it were posted several lists—the snorkelers, the guests at Sandys House and the Red Lion, and suspected drug dealers. There was a profile of Vincennes, provided by Interpol, and a timetable of events—the last being the scheduled interview with Eric.

  Dan inspected Vincennes’ curriculum vitae. “A pretty rough customer,” he murmured.

  “Who seems to have met his match,” added Bartholomew.

  The Chief turned to him. “You know, you took quite a chance out there. What if he’d come after you?”

  “I had my feet in the running position,” the latter said, with an apologetic smile. “I felt it was worth it, to find out who killed Eric—if that was him.”

  Sergeant Tuttle came in and offered them coffee, which they gratefully accepted. “Have to be black, I’m afraid. Milk’s run out.”

  At that moment, Inspector Harry Cochrane arrived and went straight to the coffee maker, which was now empty. Opening the cupboard above it, he discovered that the coffee tin was also empty.

  “Sergeant,” he muttered, “do you suppose that in this entire establishment, there is one scrap of coffee left?”

  Tuttle shook his head. “The day shift will be bringing some, no doubt. Along with fresh milk.”

  “Have mine,” Bartholomew offered, extending the cup to him. “I haven’t touched it. Just waiting for it to cool down.”

  Cochrane looked at him and smiled. “Decent of you. I should insist you have it, but my craving insists I take you up on it. Halves?”

  “Put mine in the pot, too,” Dan offered. “I haven’t touched it, either.”

  Cochrane brightened. “Two-thirds of a cup is certainly bet
ter than none.” He turned to Bartholomew. “So you’re Chief Burke’s monk friend. Tell me what you saw. Long version, please. Let me decide what’s important and what isn’t.”

  Bartholomew gave him the long version.

  When he’d finished, Cochrane rubbed his eyes. “And you think the body—if it was a body—might be one of the boys we’re looking for?” He turned to Dan. “We went by to pick up Jonesy. He never came home from school.”

  Dan was stunned.

  “I don’t know for sure, Inspector,” said Bartholomew. “I’ve a feeling it might be.”

  “Well,” said the latter, getting up, “we’d best go and see. Sergeant Tuttle? Ask the duty sergeant if we might borrow his clerk, and bring the portable floodlights.”

  In a few minutes there were two patrol cars parked on the trail where Bartholomew had seen—whatever it was—thrown down the gully. Tuttle and Officer Ellis set up the floodlights on their tripod, but bright as they were, they could not penetrate the dense foliage below.

  “I’ll go down there, sir,” said Tuttle, before Cochrane could ask.

  Armed with high-powered flashlights, he and the clerk ducked under the old wooden railing and prepared to descend. Before he did, he glanced at Bartholomew and smiled. “This better not be someone’s old mattress.”

  From the trail, Cochrane, Dan, and Bartholomew watched the beams of the flashlights disappear in the underbrush, as the officers slowly made their way down. Before long, they could see only occasional brief flashes.

  Then the inspector’s hand-held two-way talker crackled. “It’s no mattress,” said the sergeant. “We’ll bring him up.”

  Bartholomew fought the urge to ask which boy it was, and looked over at Dan. His friend said nothing, but he could tell from his eyes; he was hoping it wasn’t Eric.

  It took them more than a few minutes to bring the body up to the trail. When they had, Bartholomew could see it wasn’t Eric. He looked at Dan. He had averted his gaze, a hand over his eyes.

  The eastern sky was starting to lighten when they got back to the station. At the inspector’s request, Sergeant Tuttle had taken the body to the hospital for an immediate autopsy. From the dilated pupils it looked like an overdose, probably heroin, but they had to be certain.