God in Concord

by Jane Langton

  Homer said good-bye and called Murchison at once. As he waited for the park manager to answer the phone, he pictured the two-story suburban house that was the manager’s home and office, there beyond the Walden Pond parking lot. In Homer’s opinion the house was as painfully out of keeping with Thoreau’s Walden Pond as the landfill and the trailer park. “Hello,” he said. “Mr. Murchison?”

  Guy Murchison was affable and eager to talk about the fire. “Oh, my God, it was a damn good thing those people were away. The thing must have gone up in seconds. All those mobile homes, they’ve got a fire door in the bedroom, but sometimes it happens so fast, if they’d been there they might not have got out alive.”

  “Mr. Murchison, I understand you have keys to all the mobile homes. Can you tell me if anyone might have borrowed their key without your knowledge?”

  “Wait a sec. All the keys are on a board in the hall. I’ll take a look.” In a moment he was back. “Yup, it’s still there. Of course somebody might have taken it and brought it back again without my knowing it. Not very likely, I’d say.”

  “Can you tell me who’s been in your office lately?”

  “Are you kidding? It’s summertime. Everybody and his brother’s at the beach. We got emergencies, lost kids, stray dogs, drunks, cars won’t start, fistfights, people want to park when the lot is full and won’t take no for an answer. You name it, we got it.”

  “I mean somebody from Pond View. Has anyone from the trailer park been in your office recently?”

  “Oh, well, let me see. Julian was here, Julian Snow. He had to sign a paper because his old rental agreement was in his wife’s name. Mrs. Mooney and Eugene Beaver, they were here to help me get in touch with the relatives of Shirley Mills.”

  “That’s all?”

  “It’s all I remember. But, hell, why would anybody want to burn down the Ryans’ place? Oh, I can see the Ryans doing it themselves, to collect the insurance. Especially Mrs. Ryan, because she didn’t want to stay up here, she wanted to move south. But they were decent people. They’d never do a thing like that. Mrs. Ryan was a timid soul anyhow—too timid to start a fire, for sure.”

  Homer thanked Guy Murchison, hung up, and went out on the front porch with his wife to watch the dainty fluttering silhouette of a bat, gathering up the flying bugs of evening.

  There was a roll of thunder. By the time they went to bed it was raining hard.

  30

  How enduring are our bodies, after all!

  Journal, February 3, 1859

  Julian Snow was having a hard time waking up. He kept telling himself that something was wrong. He tried to pull himself to a sitting position, but then he fell back on the pillow and sank into a stupor. At last he forced himself to open his eyes and crawl out of bed.

  There was an overpowering smell of gas.

  The windows! He must open the windows. Last night he had closed them against the driving rain. Thunder was still rumbling, and there were flashes of lightning.

  The first window was stuck and wouldn’t open. Staggering a little, coughing, Julian tried the next one, but the crank was missing.

  By this time he was struggling for breath. He couldn’t stand up. Crawling on hands and knees, he made his way to the emergency door on the other side of the bedroom. There was something in the way, Alice’s dressing table. Alice had insisted on pushing it right up against the door.

  By now the stench of fumes was overwhelming. Julian pulled himself up beside the dressing table and leaned on it for a moment, his chest bursting. Then he took hold and tugged at it with all his failing strength, trying to pull it far enough so that he could squeeze behind it and open the door a crack. By the time he had hauled it far enough his breath was gone. Julian fainted and lay still beside the closed door. But then a thunderclap woke him, and he was able to reach up, turn the handle, open the door, and put his head out into the rain.

  For a while he knelt with water running down his face, filling his lungs with the moist fragrance of woodland, the fresh mud-smelling air of Goose Pond in the hollow below.

  Before long he felt better. His head cleared. He got to his feet and hurried into the corridor. There was no time to lose. Something was leaking, either the gas-fired water heater or the gas stove. If the mixture of gas from the stove and the oxygen in the air got too rich, the pilot light would set off an explosion.

  With trembling hands Julian tested all the knobs on the stove. Then he went to the water heater and knelt to turn off the valve connecting it to the propane tank outside.

  What if he had not waked up? Sooner or later, sometime before morning, there would have been a fiery conflagration and he would have been burned alive.

  Alarmed, Julian stood up and went to get a flashlight so that he could look for the leak. Leaning over the stove, he aimed the flashlight behind it. Then he transferred his attention to the water heater. Kneeling on the floor, he poked the flashlight behind the big white tank.

  Yes, there it was, a round black hole an eighth of an inch across, right next to the soldered joint.

  Funny, you’d think it would be the joint itself where the solder would give way, to let out a pinhole stream of gas.

  Getting up off his knees, Julian went to the bedside table for his glasses. Putting them on, he knelt again and aimed the flashlight at the small round hole.

  After staring at it a moment, he rose shakily to his feet.

  The hole had been drilled. The edges were silver, bright in the feeble illumination of the flashlight. Under the pipe lay a scattering of metal shavings spun off by the drill.

  Someone was trying to kill him.

  31

  I did not think so bright a day

  Would issue in so dark a night.…

  Journal, November 7, 1840

  “Mr. Kelly? This is Julian Snow. I hope you’ve got time to talk to me.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Snow. As a matter of fact, I want to talk to you, too. What if I came over this afternoon after lunch? Are you working today?”

  “I’m working this morning. I get off about two o’clock.”

  “Perfect. I’ll be at your place at two-thirty.”

  Julian hung up and sat looking at the phone. He wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing, talking to Homer Kelly. Oh, the guy seemed sympathetic enough. But probably he’d listen to Julian’s story about last night and then go away and forget all about it, just like the police. Well, what the hell, what could anybody do, anyhow? Nobody could put hired bodyguards all over Pond View. If somebody was determined to kill Julian Snow, they’d do it sooner or later.

  The trouble was, Julian wasn’t ready. Last month it might not have mattered so much. He’d been feeling fairly desperate last month. But now, it was funny the way life was opening up. It seemed good to be alive. And he couldn’t deny that the last sentence of Charlotte’s letter filled him with a curious excitement.

  The gristly maleness that had been holding Julian upright for so many years was softening. The steel plates he had erected to shield himself from his wife’s excesses were coming down. Every day Julian unbolted another section of sheet iron.

  It was time to go to work. Julian made himself a bag lunch, filled a thermos with ice water, and walked next door to the landfill. He stopped at the ticket house beside the place where incoming trucks were weighed and said good morning to Bill Sawyer. Eddie Tanner was already at work in the crawl dozer, running up the hill with his big bucket full of sewage sludge.

  It was another hot day. The air was heavy with humidity. Julian climbed into the cab of the Trashmaster, sat down on the worn sheepskin of the bucket seat, took his sunglasses out of his pocket, and waved at Eddie Tanner.

  Below him yesterday’s trash lay mounded, partly exposed by the rain of last night, which had washed away much of the covering layer of dirt. Reaching out his bare brown arm, Julian turned the key, pulled the horizontal lever that raised the blade, stepped on the throttle, and shifted into first gear.

  At once he kne
w something was wrong. The turbocharger began to scream. It was revving too fast. The machine lunged forward. It was out of control, plunging downhill.

  Julian grasped the emergency lever for the air shutoff, and it came off in his hand. He put his foot on the brake, and nothing happened. He pulled the emergency, and it flopped back and forth. The spiked wheels of the eighteen-ton machine wallowed downhill, and the engine roared. Steering was impossible. Julian’s heart was in his mouth. Off to one side he caught a glimpse of Eddie Tanner shouting at him with his mouth open, but Julian couldn’t hear. Christ, he was going over the edge into the soft fill.

  Wrenching at the articulating lever, he tried to keep the two halves of the machine from cocking into an angle that would tip the whole thing sideways. With a bone-jarring wham, the front end dropped six feet. Julian lurched from side to side as the grinding engine gunned through the loose dirt where rocks rose up like boulders in white water. With crash after jarring crash, the machine butted into them and slithered sideways. By a miracle it reached the hard bottom of the landfill without buckling and rolling over, but it still careened wildly out of control. Directly in its way the ticket house loomed up, and Julian saw Bill Sawyer’s white face as he dove out the door just in time. In an instant the house was reduced to splinters, crushed beneath the spiked rollers. Now the runaway machine rammed up the driveway. Julian howled out the window at the approaching cars, and they veered left and right, backing up insanely, trying to get out of his way. But now the front end of the machine was yawing sideways, dropping off the road, charging up the steep slope of the cliff below Route 126. As it barged upward at a frightening angle, Julian saw the chance he had been waiting for. Grasping the blade lever, he jerked on it with all his strength, raising the plow as high as it would go, then let it fall. At once it dug itself into the hillside and shuddered there, burying itself deeper and deeper down. The turbo-charger was still screaming, the engine was still roaring at four thousand revolutions per minute, the hundred and fifty thousand dollars the town of Concord had paid for the machine was burning up with the engine, but Julian had brought it to a dead stop.

  Exhausted, he hung his head and waited for his pounding heart to quiet down. When he looked up again, he saw Bill Sawyer running toward him with his eyes bugging out of his head. Some of the householders whose cars had been threatened were running up, too, wanting to know what the hell. Eddie Tanner leaped up into the cab, shouting, “Jesus!” and supported Julian while his shaky legs fumbled for the metal step.

  It took only a few minutes more for the engine to seize up. The whole thing suddenly exploded. Pieces of metal rocketed into the air and the side plates blew off.

  Eddie and Julian stood beside the machine they had handled day after day, year after year, and watched it die.

  32

  While these things are being done, beauty stands

  veiled and music is a screeching lie.

  “A Plea for Captain John Brown”

  “It was no accident,” Julian told Homer Kelly. “Somebody put sand in the oil line that goes to the bearings. And that’s not all. They disconnected the air shutoff and cut the brake lines with a pair of tin snips and used bolt cutters on the emergency.”

  “Good God.” Homer stared at Julian’s ashen face. For a moment he was too appalled to say anything more. He got up from the table in Julian’s kitchen and put his hand on Julian’s shoulder. “Listen here,” he said, “have you had any lunch?”

  Julian shook his head and looked down at the table.

  “Low blood sugar,” said Homer. He opened Julian’s refrigerator and poked around inside. “There’s some baloney in here. Have you got any bread?”

  Wordlessly Julian pointed at the bread box, then found his voice. “There’s something else. It’s what I called you about this morning. Something happened last night.” In a flat monotone he told Homer about the leaking gas and the drilled hole in the pipe.

  Once again Homer was staggered. “Show me,” he said.

  He was almost too big to wedge himself down on all fours in the narrow hallway and get his head into the closet housing the water heater. But by looking out of the corner of his eye as Julian aimed the flashlight, he was able to see the bright silver of the drilled hole and the scattering of metal shavings.

  “Right,” he said, backing out, heaving himself to his feet, and barking his head on the door frame. “It’s odd the way somebody has a fondness for fuel lines.”

  Silently they went back to the kitchen and sat down. Homer looked at Julian gravely. “It isn’t just you, it’s the whole park. Somebody’s going after everybody in the park.” He picked up the untouched sandwich on Julian’s plate and handed it to him. “Come on, eat up. And tell me about the fire in the Ryans’ trailer. Did you see anybody go in there after Mr. and Mrs. Ryan left for Florida?”

  “No, but I wasn’t exactly standing watch. You’ll have to ask the others.”

  “Well, come on.”

  They started up the driveway, and at once they came upon Honey Mooney. She was working with a sponge and a bucket of water, cleaning the aluminum siding of her mobile home.

  “No,” said Honey, “I didn’t see anybody go in there. But all their neighbors were hanging around. Porter McAdoo was doing something to his car, Charlotte Harris was working in her garden. Both of them live right across the driveway from Dot and Scottie’s place. They could have nipped over when the rest of us were indoors.” Honey gestured with her sponge at an old man sleeping on a lawn chair across the way and whispered to Julian, “Eugene was outside, too, just lying there like that. Maybe he was just pretending to be asleep.” Honey stared at Eugene Beaver and frowned. “You’d think he’d do something about his lawn.”

  Homer sauntered over to speak to Eugene, followed by Julian. “Oh, Mr. Beaver,” said Homer loudly, bending over to look at him. “I’m sorry to wake you up.”

  Eugene Beaver jerked awake and looked up at Homer in confusion.

  “Mr. Beaver,” began Homer, but he was interrupted by a shout.

  He turned to see a portly man running toward them, waving his arms. “It’s Charlotte! Christ, she’s been electrocuted!”

  Julian was off like a shot. Homer lumbered after him, following Pete Harris, who was whining and flapping his hands.

  By the time Homer and Pete were jammed together in the doorway, Julian was down on his knees in the Harrises’ kitchen, trying to resuscitate Charlotte, who lay on her back on the floor.

  “It was the iron cord,” whimpered Pete. “It’s not my fault. I don’t know shit about electricity.” Pete mopped his perspiring face and stared at Homer with bulging eyes. “She was ironing, right? And all of a sudden it goes zap, and there’s this blue light, and there she is on the floor. Christ!”

  “Look,” said Homer, “call the emergency police number and ask them to send an ambulance.” He dropped to his knees beside Julian. “Let me help.”

  Julian shifted to one side, and soon the two of them were working together, Julian breathing air into Charlotte’s lungs, Homer applying pressure to her breastbone.

  “Christ,” moaned Pete again, struggling past them to the phone, stumbling over the fallen ironing board.

  But it was all right. By the time the ambulance came screaming into Pond View, Charlotte’s eyelids were fluttering. She was coughing and trying to sit up.

  “There now,” said Julian, “it’s all right now.” He smiled at her and allowed himself to stroke her cheek just once, and then he and Homer stood up and backed out of the way. Homer could feel Julian’s arm tremble against his own.

  The two young guys from the police ambulance knelt beside Charlotte and listened to her heartbeat. They tested her blood pressure and murmured questions.

  Charlotte responded weakly, shaking her head as they lifted her onto the sofa. “She’ll be okay now,” said one of the medical technicians, nodding at Julian and Homer. “That was quick work. Good for you.”

  Julian looked grimly at Pete. �
��Show me the iron.”

  Pete fumbled under the ironing board and brought up the electric iron, its cord dangling. “It’s never done that before,” he said defensively. “Looks brand new, right?”

  Homer picked up the cord. “Here’s the trouble spot,” he said, putting his finger on a frayed blackened place.

  “Well, don’t use it again,” said one of the men from the ambulance, looking solemnly at Pete.

  “No way.”

  “Maybe she ought to see a doctor. You got a doctor?”

  “Well, naturally we got a doctor.” Pete sounded miffed. “Dr. Stefano. We all use Dr. Stefano, everybody here at Pond View.”

  Walking back down the driveway with Homer, Julian was choking with anger. “It’s like my gas leak. Somebody shaved off the plastic sheathing of that iron cord. Pete Harris! Pete did it, I’ll bet.”

  “You mean he wanted to kill his own wife?” Homer shook his head in disbelief. “And you, he wanted to kill you, too?”

  “Well, maybe he heard about the letter.” Julian gave Homer an embarrassed glance. “You know.” They sat down in a couple of Julian’s lawn chairs and gazed thoughtfully at the tangled shrubbery around Goose Pond.

  “Look here,” said Homer, “I’ve been thinking about people’s ages. I understand Norman Peck and Madeline Raymond had genuine heart conditions. They were both in their eighties, and they probably died of natural causes. But your wife and Shirley Mills were younger, isn’t that so’”

  “Alice was fifty-nine. Shirley was only fifty-two. She had a stroke, everybody said, but she was perfectly healthy before.”

  “What about you and Charlotte, how old are you two?”

  “I’m sixty. Charlotte, I guess she’s about fifty-five, fifty-six.”

  “What about all the rest?”

  Julian spread out his fingers and counted. “Stu LaDue, he’s eighty-five. Eugene Beaver, I think he’s the oldest now. He’s over ninety. Porter McAdoo is about sixty-three, I think. Pete Harris must be about Charlotte’s age. Honey Mooney, she’s the youngest. She’s only in her late forties. Her husband was much older. He died last year.”