by Larry Watson
A fact I had long been in possession of also troubled me, and troubled me especially because I had no way of determining its importance. Did it mean anything that Raymond and Alma Stoddard and Monty Burnham all came from Wembley, North Dakota, a small town 150 miles northeast of Bismarck? I hesitated to make too much of it because my father and I were from Wembley as well. Both of us were born there, but our family moved to Bismarck when I was five years old. Was that common place of origin nothing more than coincidence, a detail that teases us with its suggestion of significance when it possesses none beyond itself?
Throughout the evening, neighbors knocked on our door, sometimes with casseroles and questions about whether they could be of any help. The Stoddards were closer, in physical distance and perhaps in friendship, to other neighbors, but these people came to our house. I flattered myself that my friendship with Gene had given us special status, but of course they were there because of my father. The news of Monty Burnham’s murder had been officially made public, but somehow the unofficial reports of my father’s involvement had gotten around as well.
And that no doubt was why the police and the press also visited our home that night. They wanted what the neighbors wanted, but the reporter from The Bismarck Tribune and the two detectives came right out and said they were seeking information and flipped open their notebooks.
My mother did her best to keep up with the number and variety of visitors. She brewed pots of coffee, she put out plates of cookies and cups of nuts, she emptied ashtrays, and she kept adjusting the thermostat to make up for the heat the house lost with the door so often open. Strangers crossed the threshold, lights burned that were seldom turned on, snowy shoes and galoshes melted puddles on carpets that were usually kept dry, yet my mother remained a model of smiling courtesy, equanimity, and efficiency. Which is to say that in crisis, she was who she always was.
My father, on the other hand, seemed utterly transformed by the day’s events. He was, in ordinary circumstances, sociable, if somewhat aloof, a calm, capable man who gave the impression of being in control of everything in his life from his gutters and eaves to his emotions. He was devoted to his family, his profession, and his community, and in return for his steadfastness, respect and admiration flowed his way.
But on that evening, my father seemed on the verge of tipping into rage. Scowling and tight-lipped, he answered questions posed to him with answers so terse I wondered if the police had cautioned him not to speak of what he had seen and heard at the Stoddard home. He tried to assist my mother with her duties as host, but his heart was plainly not in it. People barely put down their coffee cups before my father swept them up and carried them back to the kitchen. And on one occasion he was openly rude. When he walked into the living room and saw Pastor Lundgren speaking to Dolores Lemke, my father said to the minister, “Don’t you think you could do more good at the house down the street?” When he finally sent my sister and me to our rooms, it was with a command that made us seem no different from the curiosity seekers who had been in and out of the house all evening. “All right,” he said to us, “off to bed. Show’s over.”
Where had his anger come from? That question may have perturbed me more than any other. Granted, what he had confronted when he’d stepped into the Stoddard garage must have been shocking, disturbing, sickening. He knew both of the day’s dead men, although his relationship with the senator was little more than a superficial acquaintance. Those circumstances, however, should have left my father shaken, grief-stricken, bewildered (the emotion most in evidence that evening). But rage? Had it always been inside him, waiting for the tiniest crack to come bursting forth? Or did he know something that the sad, puzzled rest of us didn’t?
My bedroom was in the northwest corner of the house, the corner that took the brunt of the season’s arctic winds. Built in the city’s housing boom of the 1950s, our home was not especially well insulated, and during the coldest months, frost formed on the wall next to my bed. As I lay there thinking about what had happened in our city, our neighborhood, our block, I reached out and scraped my fingernails through the rime. Because the world’s calamities had come so close, our home no longer felt like a refuge, and its walls seemed as insubstantial as that thin layer of ice. Nowhere were we protected, and only fools believed otherwise.
I didn’t speak to or see Gene until the following evening when he and his mother came to our house for dinner. To say I was nervous about being in his presence would have been an understatement. Could I have come up with something appropriate to say to a friend whose father had just died? Perhaps. But to a friend whose father was a murderer and a suicide? Impossible. As it was, I reacted with something close to joy when my mother woke me that morning with the news that Gene wouldn’t be attending school that day. Today? I thought. He shouldn’t go back to school ever again. I might have pretended that a wish to save him from the stares, whispers, silences, and insults he would have to endure brought on that thought, but my own discomfort was my first concern.
Evening inevitably fell, however, and with the dark came Gene and his mother, treading carefully up the block as if the real alteration to life on Keogh Street was the dusting of snow that had fallen that day.
When I saw them approach, I grabbed the newspaper with the intention of hiding it and its “Senator Slain!” headline and the accompanying photograph of the capitol’s bloodstained marble floor. But as soon as I picked it up, I realized how futile it was to believe the surviving Stoddards could be spared anything. The Bismarck Tribune was delivered to their house, too. And what if it were not? Almost every newspaper in the land and many of its magazines were likely to carry stories about Monty Burnham’s assassination, and even if those media could be kept out of their home, the news could still enter through the airwaves. They would have to keep their television and radio turned off as well. And if they ventured outside their door, they would have to see themselves reflected in others’ eyes. Even if they remained behind the walls of their own home, they would still have to look at each other. They were Stoddards and forever after would carry the burden of that name. I was sixteen years old, and I hadn’t yet learned of time’s astonishing ability to diminish or erase almost anything, so it wasn’t long before the iron logic of hopelessness led me to the conclusion that the only relief from their circumstances would be to do with their lives what Raymond Stoddard had done with his. I gave up and put the paper back down on the coffee table. In the black-and-white photograph it was next to impossible to tell whether a swirl on the capitol floor was from blood or variegation in the stone.
And then they were in our home. Because we couldn’t do anything else, Gene and I said hi, and just like that a realization overturned all the morbid conclusions I had reached. Nothing needed to be kept from him. The television reporters could say the worst things imaginable about Raymond Stoddard, and the gossips could spread the most malicious rumors about the family. The newspapers could publish the most lurid photographs they could find. Gene had been inoculated against their pain. He would never be exposed to anything worse than what he had seen when he’d opened that door leading to the garage.
It was difficult to determine what physical toll the events had taken on Alma Stoddard because she had frequently looked weary and slightly frail. She and my mother were the same age and both were pretty women, but placing these brunettes side by side only emphasized my mother’s vitality. Mrs. Stoddard was pale and thin, while my mother was ruddy-cheeked and robust. Even in the best of times Mrs. Stoddard didn’t smile often, but when my mother helped her with her coat and in the process squeezed Mrs. Stoddard’s narrow shoulders, she gave my mother a quick small smile that carried a world’s worth of gratitude.
My father, mother, and Mrs. Stoddard ate at the dining room table, while Gene, my sister, and I were allowed to eat on TV trays in the living room. The arrangement worked well for me. Gene and I didn’t have to speak much—that night’s episode of My Three Sons did that work for us—and I was near
enough to the three adults that I could listen in on their conversations.
Through the meal and dessert and the clearing of dishes, through coffee and cigarettes, I waited in vain. Would no one ever speak about what had to be on everyone’s mind: Why would Raymond do such a thing? Instead the talk was of practical matters. The funeral would have to be in Bismarck. If Raymond had died under . . . other circumstances, the service could have been held in Wembley, and he would have been buried there, in the family plot next to the graves of his parents and a sister who had died in infancy. But Wembley was reserved for Monty Burnham. According to the newspaper’s biography, he was the hometown boy who’d made good—a three-sport letterman in high school, a decorated World War II veteran, a successful businessman (he owned Ford auto and John Deere farm implement dealerships), and a prominent Republican legislator. And martyr, though to what cause no one knew. His funeral would be a public occasion in Wembley, and his murderer would be welcome nowhere near the community, even in the local cemetery.
Of the three local funeral parlors, Mrs. Stoddard had picked Metzger’s—did my father and mother think she had made the right choice? I was looking into the kitchen as she asked the question, and she leaned across the table as if she were desperate to hear that in this matter she had chosen wisely.
My mother reached out and patted Mrs. Stoddard’s hand, while my father nodded sagely and said, “Sam Metzger is a good man. And if you don’t mind me putting in my two cents’ worth: Services sooner would be better than later.”
As if in relief, Mrs. Stoddard began to weep, and just at that moment Gene asked, “Can I get the homework for English and history? I’m going to school tomorrow.” Perhaps he asked just to stop me from staring at his crying mother. If so, his strategy worked. The two of us went to my bedroom and my schoolbooks.
While I copied down the assignments for Gene, he said, “Do you want a ride tomorrow morning? I’m going to have the car. In fact, from now on I’ll have the car a lot.”
He didn’t say this ruefully or ironically but expressionlessly, and my initial reaction was, My God, what a monstrously self-interested thing to say! Then, in the next beat, I reminded myself that none of the usual standards of human behavior applied to my friend.
“Sure,” I said. “Do you want to pick me up or should I come down?”
“I’ll pick you up. By the way, don’t try to call. My mom unplugged the phone.”
When we returned, Gene’s mother was still weeping. And confessing, if it’s possible to confess to ignorance.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Her sobs twisted her face. “He never said anything to me. Never.”
My mother was up out of her chair and standing behind Mrs. Stoddard, patting her back and comforting the sobbing woman as best she could. My father, meanwhile, remained seated, and his expression—stern, still on the edge of anger—made me wonder if it had been his questioning that had brought on Mrs. Stoddard’s state.
“You think you know someone,” Mrs. Stoddard said, “and then . . . then something like this happens. I’ve racked my brain . . . for an explanation. A clue. I’ve looked everywhere.”
Now I saw what might have been an additional emotion cross my father’s face. Was that skepticism? Did he know a place—a hidden area, a dark corner—where Mrs. Stoddard hadn’t looked?
“Don’t blame yourself,” my mother said. “Please, Alma. Don’t.”
My sister ran into the room, and at her entrance the three adults tried to give an impression of normalcy. My father reached for his cigarettes. My mother asked if anyone needed more coffee. Alma Stoddard sat up straight and wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands.
I turned away too, but Gene was right there, ready to answer the question I would never ask. “I don’t know why he did it either,” he said. He could not have been more straightforward and unapologetic in delivering that line if he were in Mr. Bollinger’s algebra class admitting that he could not solve an equation. Gene had never been a particularly effusive boy. Neither of us were, but growing up I had always envied his placidity. I might have affected the same demeanor (ours was an especially chilly Midwestern version of cool), but I knew I was faking it. Inwardly I was often nervous—about grades, girls, sports, the proper clothes, the correct companions. That night, however, as I confronted Gene’s eerie serenity, I felt myself permanently cured of some of my anxiety. I couldn’t imagine a life less enviable than his.
As if the real reason for coming to our house had been to make the announcement that Raymond Stoddard’s behavior mystified them as much as anyone, having discharged that duty, Gene and his mother soon left.
In their absence we were, of course, as bewildered as ever, and almost immediately after their departure, my father went to the telephone. “I’m calling Burt. Find out what they’re saying about this up there.”
My father and his younger brother, Burt, left Wembley for college—my father to the University of North Dakota and law school and Burt to the University of Minnesota and pharmacy school—and after graduation both returned to their hometown to start their careers. But while my father eventually moved on, Burt remained, working in the drugstore that their father owned. After my grandfather’s death, Burt took over the family business, and he continued to live alone in the house the boys grew up in.
My mother and I waited in the living room while the brothers talked. Their conversation lasted long enough that we knew something of substance was being discussed, and Burt was obviously doing most of the talking. My father sat at the kitchen table and smoked, nodding in understanding or affirmation, and only interrupting to inject an occasional question. When he hung up, he remained in the kitchen, untangling the twisted telephone cord. It was not in his nature to torment us deliberately, so I can only imagine he was wondering how he would convey the information he had gleaned from his brother.
When he finally came into the living room, he said, “Well, that was Burt.” He looked at me and then to my mother. I understood his hesitation. He wasn’t sure how much he should say in front of me.
“Go ahead,” my mother said. “He needs to hear. Gene is his friend.” With those words she conferred upon me a new status. Did I want it? I believed I did. It meant I would no longer have to eavesdrop or conjecture. But I also knew the time might come when I’d wish I could step back down in rank.
“Was Burt drunk, by the way?” my mother asked. She would never have asked that in my presence before, though her question merely acknowledged what was generally known about her brother-in-law.
“Not yet, but he’s getting there.”
My mother moved over on the sofa, inviting my father to join us. “So what did Burt have to say?”
My father sat down between us and for the first time that day loosened his tie. “Well, he said something that Alma didn’t see fit to mention.”
Once again, he cast a glance in my direction, but with nothing more than a hand touched lightly to his shoulder, my mother urged him on. My father cleared his throat and began. “It seems Alma and Senator Burnham used to go together. Were you aware of that?”
Shock crossed her face, and she pushed back against the sofa’s cushions. “When was this?”
“High school. Or thereabouts.”
“Oh. Well. Teenagers.” Her dismissive tone wounded me.
“I’m simply reporting what Burt said. Do you want to hear it or not?”
“Go ahead. But I’ll keep in mind where this is coming from, too.”
I knew what that meant, or thought I did. Uncle Burt was not an admirer of Monty Burnham or his politics. Burt was a Democrat, a fact that put him in the minority in conservative North Dakota (although we had just elected a Democratic governor), while Monty Burnham was not just a Republican but a leader in the party and someone who had often been talked about as a possible candidate for higher office: governor, United States representative, or senator. But as my father talked—that night, and in the days, weeks, months, and even years to come
—I learned of other reasons for Burt’s antipathy.
In most respects, however, Burt was a good source to consult. He was intelligent and observant, he had a good memory, and, unlike his older brother, he was not averse to gossip. Burt was a Wembley resident past and present, and he was from the same high school graduating class as Monty Burnham, Raymond Stoddard, and Alma Shumate. (Betty Donfils, Monty Burnham’s wife, now widow, graduated two years behind them.) My father, six or seven years older than these people, was never their peer, and he knew them as little more than the children of Wembley families and the younger siblings of friends. The Shumates were poor, and Alma grew up one of six children in what today would be known as a single-parent home. When she was a child, her father died in a farm accident; he fell into a grain silo and suffocated. The Stoddards, on the other hand, were comfortably middle class, thanks to Raymond’s father’s job with the Soo Line Railroad. My ancestors were among Wembley’s first settlers, and while they were a prominent, respected, and well-established family in the community, they never enjoyed the power or prosperity that the Burnhams had. Monty’s father served two terms as town mayor, and his uncle was state’s attorney. Over the years the Burnhams owned a real estate company, various downtown buildings, and the two successful dealerships that Monty eventually took over. “Generations of glad-handers and wheeler-dealers,” my father said, perhaps repeating his brother’s phrase. Neither brother would have been intending the remark as a compliment.
Monty Burnham and Raymond Stoddard were both World War II veterans, having served together in the Pacific theater. Senator Burnham left the military as a decorated Army tank commander. During the battle for one of the Mariana Islands, according to one of the obituaries, Monty Burnham “resolutely carried on even when his tank was cut off from the rest of the platoon and battalion, and by taking the fight to the Japanese, he carried the day for the Allied Forces.” Mr. Stoddard never rose above the rank of private, and as far as Burt knew, neither man came through the war with anything worse than Raymond’s case of malaria. (My father, also an officer, fought in Europe, while Uncle Burt was in the Navy but saw no combat.) After the war, Raymond Stoddard worked for a county agency in Wembley for a few years before he and Alma moved to Bismarck. Monty Burnham capitalized on his distinguished war record as well as his family name to rise to prominence in Wembley and eventually the state.