From Away

by David Carkeet

  “What’s the customary tip, Sparky?”

  “Hmm. Lemme think. Rural drop of a solitary fare from a public transportation venue? I’d be lyin’ if I said it was less than forty percent.”

  “You’d be lying if you said anything.”

  “Huh?”

  Denny handed him a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. “I just wanted to be able to assign a dollar value to my punishment.”

  “Huh?”

  Denny got out of the car, but he leaned back in. “Homer’s an old friend. Why would you do that to an old friend?”

  “You’re right, you’re right. Sorry, big fella. Thirty-five percent tops. I said forty because it’d be easier for you to figure. Lemme give you some back.” Sparky unfolded the bill. Denny slammed the door and began walking up the hill. He heard a high-pitched voice, rendered puny by the closed windows of the car: “You only give me a twenty!” More words flowed, but they grew fainter with every step Denny took, and Sparky finally drove off to his next rendezvous with destiny.

  Up ahead, all was dark, save for the porch light that Homer had left on for him. The main thing on Denny’s mind right now was how Sparky had gotten the drop on Lance. As he slopped up the driveway, he went through the events of that morning at Sparky’s—the elusive Marge, Nick and Lance searching for her in the woods, Lance’s solitary vigil by Marge’s body while Nick phoned for help, the arrival of reinforcements, Lance’s emergence from the woods. Lance had then gone into the house to use the phone, and Sparky had followed him in. Denny knew this because Sparky had fetched the pistol and the dog and had come out ahead of Lance. What could have happened in the house?

  He remembered that Lance, when he had emerged from the woods, had asked Sparky for a newspaper. He remembered it because it was odd. What could be in the daily paper that would have bearing on the body he had been sitting beside—and praying beside? He prayed on one knee, so said Nick. But both of his knees had been smudged with snow. Did he switch knees because one got tired? Or did he do something else that required him to kneel on both knees? Did he examine Marge’s body? He wasn’t a forensics expert—Nick said he had summoned forensics experts. Did Lance search her? Did he go through her pockets?

  Feeling something like a hard smack against his forehead, Denny hurried the rest of the way to the house. Once inside, he was at Homer’s computer within seconds, dialing up. He clicked his way to the state lottery web site, which he had last visited after his phone call with Dr. Ike. He now found that there was indeed a toll-free number that one could call to learn the winning numbers of recent drawings. Lance would have known about Marge’s winning lottery ticket from his interviews with people like Dr. Ike. With Marge’s ticket in his hand, Lance could have called the toll-free number, and Sparky could have overheard the call. Sparky knew that Marge had won something. On that fateful night, when she had seen him at the hotel, she had said to him, “I’m a winner!” Sparky, whose middle name was Enterprise, put the two together, and he got the drop on Lance.

  Denny would know for sure that Lance had purloined Marge’s ticket if Lance’s name appeared on any of the lists of lottery winners. Denny searched through the various contests. One award leaped out for its size—a little over 67,000 dollars. Next to it was not the name of Lance Londo, but rather the name of a useful stand-in for him—a woman with a body-mass index similar to the detective’s, on whom no suspicion would have fallen when she claimed the winnings. No doubt about it: she knew how to enter into liaisons of direct benefit to her.

  TWENTY-THREE

  WHEAT TOAST, COTTAGE CHEESE, AND TWO SOFT-BOILED EGGS. These were mere props on his plate in case Sarah waltzed in. He had already downed his greasy breakfast in private. All of his real dining would be secretive now, in light of Sarah’s suspicion and Homer’s diabetes, which he could no longer ignore. He couldn’t be as brash as he wanted to be. He couldn’t be Denny, not even a little bit.

  On his figurative plate were so many bubbling casseroles that it was hard to keep track of them. Pencilled on the realtor’s card on his desk was “10:00 A.M.”—Homer’s reminder of the scheduled walk-through. Denny hoped Sarah showed up by then. He would inform her of the plan to sell the farm in the presence of the agent, who would serve as a human heat shield. The flames were likely to be especially hot since she now had funds to take her concerts “to the next level,” as she said far too often. Considering where she had gotten the 45K, she wasn’t quite the grant-writing genius he had taken her for, was she? He would have liked to think that Lance had bought his way into Sarah’s bed, but the seed money was probably an aphrodisiac for both of them.

  Lance’s initiative—that crucial moment on his knees in the snow, when he had lifted the lottery ticket from Marge—had shifted Denny’s classification of him from wienie to criminal. Lance had certainly committed a crime of some kind—theft, if not from Marge then from her estate, and tampering with evidence. Denny could imagine the rationalizations Lance produced, perhaps whispering them into Sarah’s ear between nibbles: the ticket would have been buried with Marge or thrown away if he hadn’t found it, Marge would have just spent it on booze, we’re spending it on culture, you’re very bony—is this what it means to “jump someone’s bones”? The last was out of character, Denny knew. It was hard to keep himself from intruding.

  Filling his plate to overflowing was the question of what Sarah did after her flashlight excursion. Denny’s reconstruction, based on his last phone call with Nick: (1) Sarah takes the news to Lance that she is certain Denny is an imposter; (2) Lance, poised to brief Nick and to bring his prime suspect, Homer, in for questioning, is stunned, for Sarah’s news means that Lance’s Jekyll and Hyde theory is a stinker; (3) Lance cancels his meeting with Nick to digest this development. But what then?

  Meanwhile, Denny had not been idle. He knew that he needed to remove the cornerstone of Sarah’s theory, namely that he had a foreskin and Homer didn’t. Working under the assumption that if a notion can be conceived of by the human imagination then it will exist on the Internet, he searched for one that had struck him, and he found it immediately, along with an associated product. He then opened a new email account under a fictitious name, and, after logging in to it, sent an email to Sarah promoting the product and linking to its purveyor. Then, using the password that Homer had brilliantly given him, he went to Sarah’s email, discovered his just-sent message in her Spam box, where he knew it would land, and moved it into her In box, where it sat right on top, its subject line bound to grab her attention: “Foreskin Restorer.” If she opened the email—how could she not, that morsel of flesh looming so large in her life right now?—she would find a picture of a small silver cup attached to a stem, rather like a tiny toilet plunger. With it a circumcised man with time on his hands could coax excess penile skin forward over the head of his penis. Denny could see her jaw drop. He could read her thought: was this yet another bizarre path Homer had taken over the past three years? In addition to becoming an obnoxious, groping, lazy, flabby, incompetent, fast-talking, nose-picking glutton, had Homer reversed his circumcision? She would rush to Lance for an urgent and ridiculous tête-à-tête.

  The sound of boots stomping on the front porch floor made Denny jump in his seat. He hadn’t heard a car drive up. He looked around for anything that might incriminate him as not-Homer: breakfast, check; clothes, check; reading material—agh! He stuffed the O-gauge equipment catalogue under his ass. The front door opened without a knock. In the kitchen booth, well out of view, he leaned forward and listened. Lance was speaking.

  “. . . the place to ourselves.”

  “Yeah,” said Sarah.

  Denny almost called out a zany, high-pitched Hewwo! just to annoy them, but that was not-Homer. He scooped up a spoonful of cottage cheese as the front door closed.

  Sarah said, “I’m going to take a shower. God, I hope I never have to do that again.”

  “I doubt that you will.” A grim chuckle.

  “Maybe once more. I’d like to p
ut Prescott in Prescott.”

  “I could use some coffee,” said Lance.

  “Let me show you where the good stuff is.” Footsteps came through the dining room toward the kitchen. “It’s going to be hard to find. The dipshit never—” Sarah’s speech and body came to an abrupt halt when she saw the dipshit sitting in the kitchen booth. She stopped walking so suddenly that Lance banged into her from behind. She gasped and a hand went to her mouth. She stared at Denny, eyes wide. “Oh, my God,” she said softly.

  Denny, though puzzled, opted for silence. He would let them lead. He plopped another dollop of cottage cheese into his mouth and tongued the curds around as he looked at the duo. Lance stared over Sarah’s shoulder with his head cocked slightly, his eyes not wide like hers, but narrow. He stood so close to her that they formed a two-headed beast.

  “When—” Sarah said. She cleared her throat. “When did you get back?”

  Denny, frowning, thought and pretended to think at the same time. Did she know he had been away yesterday? Even if she did, was it odd that he was back? Why was she so surprised, or dismayed, or whatever she was?

  Lance suddenly and strangely took charge. He stepped past Sarah, actually shoving her aside, and thrust a hand out to Denny. “Sarah’s told me a lot about you, Homer. Glad to meet you. Lance Londo.”

  What bizarre kind of game was this? Was it called “Let’s Start All Over”? Denny swallowed his mouthful of cottage cheese and took Lance’s hand, giving him a dead fish just because he knew it would irritate him. That was Denny, too, he realized. He could not not be Denny. And it was the Denny in him that made him scrunch up his face and say, “What the hell kind of name is Londo anyway?”

  Sarah was screaming before Denny reached the end of his sentence. She quickly backpedaled all the way into the dining room and banged into a chair. She turned and ran off. Denny heard the front door open, then her footsteps on the porch. He and Lance were engaged in an indifferent stare-off as they monitored Sarah’s movements. Her car door closed. Then came another scream, muffled by distance and closed windows. The car started and drove off.

  This left Lance in charge of the social niceties. “Fuck!” he said. “Fuck!” Then, with a glare at Denny, “You fuck!” He spun away and hurried out the front door.

  Denny went to the window. Sarah had stopped her car at the bottom of the driveway as if she knew Lance would follow, which he did, and fast. He got in on the passenger side, but the car didn’t move. Denny saw a wild hand gesture from Sarah, then another. Lance got out, walked around the car, and tried to enter on the driver’s side, but he seemed to have to force Sarah to scoot over. He finally got in and closed the door. The car sped down the road.

  Denny had never had such a dramatic impact. Repellent personality indeed—one sentence had sent them fleeing. His first thought—and his last thought, his only thought—was that because that sentence contained Lance’s full name, it must be crucial to some shenanigan, probably the lottery, even though they had used Sarah’s name to claim the prize. Denny could not stop thinking about the lottery—about Lance on his knees, filching that ticket from Marge’s half-chewed body. He had actually caught Lance in a crime! But he couldn’t complete the connection between that act and their behavior just now.

  He cleaned up from breakfast, went upstairs, and took a shower. When he came back downstairs, a phone message was waiting for him. Lance or Sarah, apologizing for their rude exit? He pressed Play.

  “Homer.” Pause. “You know who this is. You said you would deliver the horn by 10:00 last night. That is now exactly twelve hours ago. I’ve counted every one of the hours as they’ve passed. I demand satisfaction. I am prepared to take action. And soon!”

  Warren Boren cut such a pathetic figure, with his three years of impotent ultimatums. It was laughable, but Denny didn’t laugh. Instead, he wondered why Homer hadn’t gotten the horn to him, especially since Homer had been so mortified by what he had felt was a professional lapse on his part.

  Denny called Homer’s cell phone. He was glad to have an excuse to talk to him again, but he just got Homer’s greeting. He left a message for him to call back. He thought a moment, then went to Homer’s computer and searched for musical repair shops in St. Johnsbury. He found two. He called the first one, posing as Warren Boren, and when he asked if Homer Dumpling had come by for his French horn, the owner said yes he had and what a horn it was and the French horn posed a peculiar challenge for the “musical tinker,” which he liked to call himself, because after all, when you stopped and thought about it, that was what he was, and Denny hung up on him.

  Denny frowned and gazed out the window for a bit, then called the Vermont State Police to ask if any accidents had occurred yesterday between St. Johnsbury and Montpelier. He identified the car he was concerned about—a beige 1961 Rambler Classic.

  The woman at the other end was silent for a moment. “Is that Homer Dumpling’s car?”

  Denny inhaled sharply. “Was Homer in an accident? Is he all right?”

  “No, no. There was no accident. I just recognized the car. Why are you asking about it?”

  Denny hung up on her. He wondered if Homer had decided to spend one more night in the area and then return Warren’s horn to him in the morning. Could he be at his camp on that lake? He went upstairs to see if Homer had left a note of explanation. He found nothing, which didn’t surprise him. After all, Sarah might see it, and why would Homer write a note to Homer? All Denny found on the desk was the thick file of documents related to the sale of the house. The agent’s card was stapled to the front of the folder.

  Out of ideas, Denny phoned the agent to see where he was, since he was past due. The agent—excited, all but panting at the size of the prospective commission—said the appointment was for 2 o’clock. Yesterday evening he had left a message rescheduling it on Homer’s machine at home. Hadn’t he gotten it? Denny said that Sarah must have picked it up and deleted it—an improvised lie that, as he thought about it, could actually be true if Sarah had come back early from her barbershop quartet affair. The agent said he would be happy to discuss any questions he might have about the listing over the phone right now, and Denny hung up on him.

  If Sarah heard that message, how would she have taken it? As he thought about this, he heard the roar of a car coming up the driveway. He hurried to the front window at the end of the upstairs hall. It was Sarah and Lance, with Sarah back behind the wheel. She must have mastered whatever feelings she had.

  Her return caused Denny to review the events of the morning in rapid sequence—her scream when he had spoken, Lance’s greeting him as if for the first time, Warren Boren’s phone call, the agent’s report of the phone message.

  “Homer,” he said softly. He cried out in anguish.

  Then he cried out in fear.

  He bolted down the stairs and ran to the back door. He made for the workshop, running along the rear fence of the dog pen. The two dogs, having been drawn to the front fence by the approach of Sarah’s car, now turned and seemed to rejoice at the sight of The Provider moving with such unwonted speed, and they dashed to the back fence. Lance must have noticed the dogs’ shift of attention, because he was suddenly at the front fence, yelling for Denny to stop. Denny kept running.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot,” Lance called out.

  No one had ever said that to Denny before. He was stimulated, but not in a good way. Lance indeed had a pistol trained on him. He stopped.

  Sarah clambered down the rear steps of the house. “Kill the fucker!” she yelled to Lance. She hurried to the woodpile and grabbed a split log. She ran toward Denny, wound up, and threw the log at his head, but he dodged it. He wanted to run from her, but he was compromised by Lance’s order. He looked back across the dog pen to Lance, almost for sympathy. Lance was no longer there.

  Denny took off, running away from the pen and deep into the rear of the property. He would have to cross a long field before the land dipped protectively into the woods. Sarah had g
one to the woodpile for another log, and she was coming after him. She tossed the log aside and began to close the distance. Now Lance yelled from the back porch, and Denny slowed and looked back. The gun was aimed at him again, so he stopped. Lance yelled at the charging Sarah to stay out of the way.

  “He made me do it!” she screamed, and then she was upon him.

  Denny had a vague expectation, unsupported by experience, that he would be able to hold her at bay with his sheer bulk, so he was surprised to find himself on the ground. She poked one of his eyes and raked his flesh. Denny covered his head with his arms, and then he heard Lance’s voice as he pulled Sarah off him.

  Sarah stomped around Denny’s huddled body and waved her arms, almost dancing. “Kill him!” she yelled. “Kill him!”

  “I can’t kill him,” Lance yelled.

  “What do you mean you can’t kill him?”

  “We’d have to move him for one thing,” Lance said. “Look at him. Do you want to move him? You want to dig a hole for him right here?”

  Denny rolled onto his hands and knees and struggled to his feet. With his good eye he saw Sarah lunge at him, but she stopped short of attacking him. “He made me kill my Homer!” She spit at his feet and staggered back to the house.

  “Don’t move,” Lance said to Denny. He hurried after Sarah and caught up with her near the back porch, making her stop. They talked. All the while, Lance kept glancing at Denny, who was busy taking stock of his condition. Blurry vision was returning to the eye she had poked, though it watered freely, almost gushing down his face. As he watched them talk, all he could think of was her question, “What do you mean you can’t kill him?” She had asked it as if it were perfectly reasonable. He was clearly outmatched. His Foreskin Restorer ploy was looking pretty feeble right now.

  Sarah hurried into the house. With his gun, Lance signaled to Denny to come closer. When he did, Lance waved him ahead and followed. “Upstairs,” Lance said. As the two of them passed through the kitchen, Denny could hear Sarah opening and closing drawers in Homer’s bedroom overhead. They climbed the stairs.