by P. L. Gaus
“She usually goes out to the mansion with Sonny Favor,” Wendy explained.
Will began picking up the mess in the room. Wendy lay casually back on the sofa to light a smoke.
Caroline decided not to mention the murder of Juliet Favor. “I’ve only come for some of Martha’s things.”
“That’s her room,” Wendy said, jabbing her cigarette toward the second bedroom door.
“Thanks,” Caroline said.
“Don’t mention it,” Wendy said, obviously annoyed. “Sit down, Will!” she complained. “Mrs. Branden isn’t here to run an inspection.”
“No, indeed,” Caroline said. She picked her way across the room and turned the knob on the door to Martha’s bedroom. Before she opened the door, she turned back to face Will Bradenton. Wendy had moved to the window, where she dropped the blinds with a clatter.
“I’ve heard mention of your name several times at my house, Mr. Bradenton. Regent’s Scholarship, right?”
Will nodded from his position kneeling beside the coffee table. He stood up slowly with several beer cans.
“You’re writing your senior thesis, and my husband is, I think, your Second Reader.”
“Right,” Bradenton said cautiously.
Caroline nodded, paused as if giving that careful thought, and went into Martha’s room.
When she turned on the lights, Caroline found a room as ordered and tidy as the front room was a shambles. The aroma of tobacco and stale booze was replaced by a cool and fresh, pungent citrus smell. The bed was made, and the dresser top was polished. The closet doors were closed, and the floor had been vacuumed to trace a star pattern in the carpet. In addition to the bed and dresser, there was a computer on a small brown desk, a tattered recliner, a floor lamp, and a wastebasket. Surrounding these sparse accommodations, there were, on all the walls, covering every available space from floor to ceiling, both black-and-white and color photographs of Amish scenes.
Caroline turned slowly in the middle of the room and studied the pictures. Many of the shots were of buggies traveling away from the lens. A good twenty photos featured horses, mostly Belgian draft horses, and in several of these, small children were at the reins. On the wall over Martha’s bed, the photos worked on Caroline’s memory to create a curious unease, until she realized they were of places and people she had once known, though not happily. The house and the barns were clearly the ones she remembered from Martha’s adolescence, but they had aged rather badly, falling into shameful disrepair, as if time had been a cruel partner with justice. Of the photographs in this group of people, most had been taken surreptitiously, and faces were uncharacteristically prominent, as if Martha had purposefully violated the subjects’ privacy. Caroline moved about the room and studied other photos of people, and in all these other cases, the lens had been employed to avoid faces and personalities, more in keeping with Amish prohibitions. But the photographs beside her bed would have been considered profane because the individualities had been so uncompromisingly captured there. Here, Caroline thought, given her history with these people, it made sense that Martha would invade and demean, though it was alarming that Martha would have gone back to that part of Holmes County at all.
A cascade of unpleasent memories spilled over Caroline as she stood alone in the room. There could be no sensible reason for Martha to have gone back. And since she had gone back, the motivation to do so, or the perverse allure, must have been strong. After all it had taken to wrestle her free from that repressive society, and after the dramatic conversion to the Mennonite faith her father and mother had made, it seemed senseless for Martha to have risked the encounter that going back would surely produce. And the struggle there had been a long one, Martha’s muteness starting in the first grade. Evelyn Carson had taken years to bring Martha out of the wordlessness, about when Martha’s son had been born.
With growing unease, Caroline’s eyes ran over the faces Martha had captured on film. The older people had changed little in the intervening years. The children she could only guess. But one fellow, though changed, seemed recognizable to her. A man in his twenties, beardless, and apparently happy to have sat for the photo. With a renewed sense of purpose born of disquiet, she turned her attention to the closet.
Into an empty travel bag, she put several dresses, two pairs of jeans, a sweater, and an extra pair of string-tie shoes. At the dresser, she got out black hose, underpants and bras, and two long-sleeved blouses. She put the bag on the bed and stepped back to the closet. Reaching up to the shelves overhead, she took down a heavy camera bag, and carried that to the bed, too. From the photos beside Martha’s bed, Caroline took down the picture of the handsome Amish man in his twenties, smiling clean-shaven from the seat of a hack.
In the bathroom, she found a plastic bucket of toiletries, and this she also carried out to the bed. On going through the contents, she found the box for an Early Pregnancy Test kit. Back in the bathroom, she found a used pregnancy tester in the wastebasket, and her stomach hollowed out like a sinkhole.
14
Saturday, November 2 8:58 A.M.
“I THOUGHT you and Martha were seeing each other,” Branden said to Sonny.
When it was apparent that Sonny was not going to respond, Branden said, “Sit up, Sonny. I’m talking to you.”
Sonny pulled himself up to sit on the edge of his bed and leaned over with his elbows on his knees. After a minute on the edge of the bed, he straightened his back, looked up at his professor, and said, “Posture.”
Branden didn’t comment.
“My mother is always correcting my posture,” Sonny explained.
Branden nodded slowly. “Your mother called me several times this semester,” he said.
“It’s the way she said things, mostly,” Sonny said. “If just once she could have said she was proud of me.”
“Some people just don’t show it much, Sonny.”
“It makes me nervous being in the same house with her. Always has, even before this. Couldn’t really tell you why. Is that normal? I don’t think that’s normal, Dr. Branden. She wanted me to go to Harvard business school.”
“Let’s get you through college first, Sonny. Each semester has its own beginning and its own end. So that’s all you have to worry about. Do this semester now, and let the other ones come along, in their own time.”
“I’m getting a D in chemistry, Dr. Branden. I’ve got a test on Monday, and I haven’t cracked a book.”
“I think, under the circumstances, we’ll talk to your professor about that. You’re in the 11:00 class?”
“Right.”
“So that’s Professor Pomeroy.”
“He’s a stickler. Won’t give anybody a break.”
“We can try to postpone your exam.”
“Sally had him, too. Got an A in chemistry. She even worked in the lab for him one semester. She’s who ought to go to Harvard. Don’t know what I want to do. Never have.”
“You’re not necessarily supposed to know that yet, Sonny.”
“A lot of kids know exactly what they want to do.”
“That’s not you, Sonny. We both know that.”
“I’m supposed to run the family businesses.”
“Maybe you will. Surely you have plenty of money.”
“She’s got it set up so that if I don’t accomplish certain things, I’ll only get an allowance. Mr. DiSalvo had it all in his computer last night.”
“Do you want to do those things?”
“I don’t believe she ever thought I could.”
“That’s your mother talking, Sonny, not you.”
“She’s probably right, considering how many times she’s had to bail me out.”
“But you’re in college now, Sonny. Make something of that while you can.”
“She told me they had to admit me because she’s on the board.”
“The point is you are here now, and you can decide for yourself what to do with your life.”
“She’s got it
all laid out. If I don’t ‘measure up,’ as she puts it, I’m down to an allowance of . . . She’s dead, Dr. Branden.”
“Yes.”
“It was going to be $4,000 a month, until I was thirty.”
“That should be enough for anyone.”
“But, eventually, I’ll get it all, if I do it her way.”
“Do you have any idea how much that will be?”
“It’s about $100 million that I know of. The same amount—the other half of a total of $200 million—goes for Sally, but she gets hers outright.”
“And what do you have to do for your half?”
“You know. Schools. Run the business. Businesses. And stay single until I’m twenty-seven.”
“You never did answer my question about Martha.”
“Mom doesn’t want me seeing her anymore.”
“But that’s the thing, now, Sonny. Your decisions have got to be your own, from now on.”
“You sound like my sister.”
“Martha’s very special to me and my wife, Sonny.”
“She’s told me you gave her one of your scholarships.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
Sonny shrugged.
“You know she’s a few years older than you,” Branden said
“Yeah, but she’s just a sophomore.”
“There’s still an age difference, Sonny.”
“Doesn’t seem to bother her.”
“Like I said, I expect you to treat her well.”
“Last night changes everything. You said that, right?”
“Was she out here with you, Sonny?”
“At first.”
“And then what?”
“She had to leave.”
“She borrowed your car?”
“Yeah, I told them that earlier.”
“Just so we all know that you let her take it.”
“Anybody will tell you that.”
“Good. Now, why did she have to leave early?”
“Mom didn’t get much of a chance to know her.”
“Are you making excuses for something your mother did, again?”
“She and Martha had words.”
“What about?”
“Me, I think.”
“You weren’t there?”
“Mom sent me out of the room.”
“Then how do you know that’s why Martha left early?”
“She told me it’d be no use for her to stay. No use for us to stay together.”
“After they talked?”
“Yes. Martha was crying.”
“So you let her drive home alone? What kind of a stunt was that?”
“I was expected to stay for dinner.”
“You should have done something for her. Sonny, if you’ve hurt that girl!”
“I didn’t know what to do.”
Branden drew in a long, calming breath. “Did you see her again, Sonny? Maybe sometime later?”
“No.”
“Did she come back out here with your car?”
“No. Like I said, Mother didn’t like her much. Mom can be pretty harsh sometimes.”
An understatement, Branden thought. He wondered about a boy of eighteen who still hadn’t seen his mother for who she was. A kid who a week ago had told his professor he might marry Martha Lehman. Then, the conversation had been about finishing school. Holding off. Caught up in love, Sonny had been very close to chucking it all for Martha.
Was it the $100 million that had turned that all around? Or was it the abiding tragedy, in Sonny Favor’s life, of a dead mother’s ill-considered and often-stated opinions? “What about Martha?” Branden asked.
“I don’t know, Dr. Branden. Maybe we’re no good for each other. I’ve got to think about Mom, now.”
Branden held his peace with difficulty.
“When do you think they’re going to clean Mom up?” Sonny asked. “They shouldn’t leave her looking like that.”
15
Saturday, November 2 9:15 A.M.
THE PROFESSOR found Robertson talking with Deputy Stan Armbruster in the pantry adjacent to the kitchen. Armbruster, in uniform, held open a notebook, and was reading from it as Branden walked up. “First officer on the scene was Sergeant Niell,” Armbruster told Robertson.
Robertson turned and asked Branden, “What’d you get from Junior, Mike?”
“Nothing, really. He’s been here all night, and he let his girlfriend take his car home early last night.”
“Don’t you think he’s a bit too cool, under the circumstances?” Robertson said.
“Sonny has emotional problems in relationships, Bruce. Trouble forming attachments,” Branden said. “He’s flown back to New York to see his psychologist a couple of times this semester.”
“I just think he should be sadder about his mother,” Robertson said.
“He wants her cleaned up, mostly. But that’s Sonny. He hasn’t dealt with the fact that she really is dead.”
“Pretty hard to miss,” Robertson said.
“Oh, he knows she’s dead. He just hasn’t let it register at an emotional level. Maybe never will, if his psychologist is right.”
“But you said he has a girlfriend.”
“He does. At least, I think he does. Sonny can seem normal to just about anyone, and even carry on a love affair, if I’m reading him right. But all the attachments in his life are weak, somehow. If something in a relationship turns sour, he’ll pull back from the whole thing. Kind of a ‘cut and run’ defense against betrayal.”
“You his shrink or something, Mike?”
“More like his confessor. But I’ve talked a lot with his psychologist,” Branden said. “His mother had the guy call me the first week of classes. It’s all about his childhood. I don’t think she knew the psychologist would tell me so much about Sonny’s relationship with her, but she’s the hub of a very complicated wheel, and Sonny is spinning somewhere out on the rim.”
“Go figure,” Robertson said.
“I think you may want to talk with his girlfriend,” Branden said, tentatively.
Robertson waited a beat, eyeing the professor.
“She’s my teaching assistant in Sonny’s Freshman Readings seminar.”
Robertson raised an eyebrow.
Branden pointed to Armbruster’s notebook and asked, “People in the dining room?”
Robertson looked at Branden pensively. “That’s all you’re going to give us on the girlfriend?”
“I’ll bring her down Monday, after classes.”
“What’s her name?”
Branden hesitated. “Martha Lehman.”
“Mike!”
“I know! I know. As far as I can tell, she’s just his girlfriend.”
“You should have told me this sooner, Mike.” To his deputy, Robertson said, “Write that name down, Stan. I’ll want to see her ASAP.”
“After classes, Monday, Bruce,” Branden held firm.
Robertson ran his palm back and forth over his short gray hair. “You’re not telling me everything, Mike.”
“She’s probably more unsettled by Favor’s murder than Sonny is right now,” Branden said.
“How would she know about Favor’s murder this early in the morning?”
“Everyone on campus must know by now,” Branden offered.
Robertson’s puffy cheeks reddened, and his neck bulged under his collar, signs Branden recognized that the ponderous sheriff didn’t like what he was hearing. Signs that, although Robertson might let the topic drop for now, he’d not likely have forgotten that, years ago, Branden hadn’t been altogether forthcoming on the troubles that a mute Amish child had overcome. Back then, the sheriff’s explosive personality had rankled enough hearts in Martha’s Old Order Amish sect to have nearly shut down Branden’s investigation for Evelyn Carson into what she thought must be a case of child molestation. Pastor Caleb Troyer, lifelong friend to both Branden and Robertson, had convinced the family of the need to move, and had guided
the father to enough of an appreciation of the scriptures that they had converted to the Mennonite faith, at the cost of being shunned by their Amish brothers and sisters. But until he knew more, despite his long friendship with the sheriff, or even because he knew Robertson so well, Branden held back and said only, “After classes Monday, Bruce. That would be best.”
Robertson’s eyes searched Branden’s. Eventually he said, simply, “OK, Monday.”
“Right,” Branden said.
“I presume you’ll still help with our dining room guests?”
“Sure.”
“No small children to protect, there?”
“Give it a rest, Bruce.”
Smiling, Robertson said, “You’re a study, Doc,” and winked at Armbruster.
Branden noted the change in demeanor and wondered what traps Robertson had laid in his mind.
“OK. Let’s move on,” the sheriff ordered. “What do you say, Stan? Who all’s in there?”
Armbruster stalled, absorbed in the exchange he had just witnessed.
“The dining room, Stan. You’ve got a list for us?” Robertson prompted.
“Right,” Armbruster said and flipped pages in his notebook. “First, there’s the president, Mr. Arne Laughton.”
“How long has he been here?”
“He got here early, Sheriff. About 7:30 or 7:35.”
“He’s been here all morning?” Branden asked.
Robertson rubbed again at the top of his head, and Armbruster said, “Yes.”
“Others came out, and then left,” Armbruster said. “A William Blake Coffee, for instance.”
“Dean of the Faculty,” Branden said. “He didn’t stay long?”
“In and out at the front door, according to Sergeant Niell,” Armbruster said. “The same for a Phillips Royce. In and out about 7:45.”
“How about the ones who’ve stayed put?” Robertson asked.
“Niell sent them around to the back door, and I took them to the dining room.”
“Their names, Stan?”
“A Professor Dick Pomeroy, Coach Rebecca Willhite, and then Dr. Royce came back, about fifteen minutes ago.”
“When did Pomeroy and Willhite get here?” Robertson asked.