Well, right off he started protesting his innocence. “Norman, I didn’t kill her like they say. I wasn’t saving her for … It was an accident, Norman. You have to believe me. Tell them, Norman, tell them I didn’t do it. And you know I didn’t have anything to do with Dean Fessing. I don’t know what happened to him. I’m not a cannibal, Norman. I may be a slob and a glutton and a fornicator, but I’m not a cannibal. Please, Norman, you’ve got to help me.”
I tried to calm him down, but when I reached to touch his shoulder, the guard intervened. But Malachy Morin is, I’m afraid, beyond comfort. He went on, blubbering out his soul to me, his eyes wide, red, and bulging, his mouth scarcely in control, his jowls aquiver. “You heard what the DA said yesterday, Norman. They want to execute me, Norman. They want to electrocute me. They want to strap me in that chair and … Oh, Norman, you know I’ve been afraid of electricity all my life. Doreen will tell you. I even make her turn on the lights in the office, and when there’s a storm, I go down into the sub-subbasement. I’ve been treated for it, Norman. It’s in my medical record. And now, now, they want to shave my head and attach an electrode and make me sit in that chair and … Norman, Norman, help me!”
I did what I could. I told him to get hold of himself. I told him that the District Attorney wasn’t God and that there would be a trial, and that one had to have faith in the American criminal justice system. And he did eventually calm down, but only for a minute. He started in again, slowly, his distress building, his pathos naked on his face.
“They’re so cruel in here, Norman, I can’t tell you. The way they taunt me. One of the prisoners, a little runty guy, goes ‘zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZAP!’ every time I walk by his cell. And there was another one, a real wise guy, who called out, ‘Hey, Fatty, they won’t need to grease the chair when they fry you!’ And the guy in the next cell has a balloon that he chafes until there’s enough static electricity to make his hair stand on end. You can’t imagine it, Norman. I never appreciated civilization until I came in here. It’s like being in hell. And the guards are worse. Last night two of them pretended to be friendly. One was big and one was little and they stood outside my cell on their break. The big one told me I shouldn’t worry because he had been up to see the chair in Ellsbank and said I wouldn’t fit in it. Then the little one said they probably could squeeze me in but I shouldn’t worry because the chair had been rewired and has all kinds of safety features to make sure no one gets hurt and that the first jolt knocks you out. They were pulling my chain, Norman, and I didn’t even know it. Then the big one said his friend was right, that they give you about two thousand volts to stun you before they ‘cook’ you for a minute or two with four or five hundred volts and then hit you with another two thousand, just to make sure you’re done. He said it was like doing a steak, you know, searing it on both sides and cooking it slowly in the middle. They were awful, Norman, awful to me. I tried not to listen, but I couldn’t get away from them. The big one said to the little one, ‘Did you tell him about the pan?’ The little one said, ‘Oh, the pan.’ Then they acted like they shouldn’t have said anything. ‘What pan?’ I asked, ‘what pan?’ I was terrified, Norman. ‘Oh,’ the big one said, ‘the pan they put under the chair.’ Norman, I nearly pissed myself. ‘Why do they put a pan under the chair?’ I asked. The little one coughed, and just when I thought I couldn’t take it any longer, he said, ‘It’s to catch the juices.’ Then they both laughed. Oh, Norman, I’m in hell. I’m in hell. You’ve got to help me. I’ll never call you Bow Tie again, I promise. What happened with Elsa was an accident, Norman. I swear I didn’t lay a finger on her. We were consenting adults all the way.”
I have to confess I was relieved when the guard said our time was up. Morin said he was working on a “statement” with the lawyer he had and asked if I would read it over for him. I said I would and that I would also look for an attorney for him. And I told him not to worry about the electric chair, although I’m not sure I spoke with much conviction. I think I’ll also write a letter to the warden suggesting that he somehow be separated from the other prisoners. I mean, the conditions he describes do sound inhuman.
Speaking of inhuman, I found upon returning a document in my e-mail that I will allow you, gentle reader, to judge for yourself.
Dear Mr. de Ratour:
Dr. Drex and I would like to announce that we have finally done it! As the verified transmission below illustrates, through sheer randomness and given enough time, members of the species Pan trogodytes are capable of producing a coherent line from the recognized canon. What remains for us to work through are the mathematical extrapolations regarding the numbers of operators and keyboard hours it would take for, say, our group of 19 text-producing units to achieve all of the world’s great literature as compiled from standard reference works. Preliminary indications suggest that our group, working under the conditions pertaining to this ongoing effort, would take ten raised to the eleventh power hours to produce all the world’s great literature.
However, we have very strong indications that our writing group is capable of far more than this kind of random effort. And while the number crunching will proceed with this project, we look forward to a far more revolutionary development in the near future — nothing less, as we have intimated before, Mr. de Ratour, than genuine pongid literature. But for now, here is the entry I mentioned above, and we do look forward to further communications with you regarding press releases, press conferences, interviews, etc.
Respectfully,
F. Snyders
CODE X443SRG CHIMPRITE BCORN WW234
aoodnasaoanm dna a-a0dma dal e=mc
squired, ecidn woo woo woo Jesus
nama, wappedamdna slept
ammmmpussnamandwinedwindwhinedlippedamdana, maw
ewanked[apad aqoneandlasaidthe
bishopsamslappedq9ea88a amam schleppedpp amd
sweptamdnama, as poapam wept
MONDAY, JULY 20
There were some real fireworks at today’s meeting of the Oversight Committee, and I think Oliver Scrabbe has more than met his match in Thad Pilty. Constance Brattle didn’t help her own cause when she took a provocative tone right from the start, declaring that, given the arrest of Mr. Morin and other “ongoing conditions at the museum,” the committee would shortly extend the scope of its inquiry beyond the diorama of Paleolithic life. She then began to introduce Dean Scrabbe to the other members of the committee as someone who would be “instrumental in resolving the outstanding issues of the museum’s operations.”
Well, I don’t think I have ever seen Thad Pilty so angry. Barely controlling himself, his hands fisting and his jaw clenching, he glared right at Professor Brattle and Dean Scrabbe as he interrupted her: “Excuse me, Professor Brattle, excuse me, please. I find your last statement and the presence of Dean Scrabbe at this meeting totally unacceptable. My original agreement with the committee was that it would confine itself to suggestions regarding the form and content of the diorama itself. Unless Dean Scrabbe excuses himself and unless this committee keeps to the original agreement regarding its purview, I will have no choice but to withdraw from this and any future meetings with the committee.”
I nearly clapped. I took inordinate pleasure in watching the confusion into which Constance Brattle and her cohorts were thrown. Randall Athol and Ariel Dearth started to say something, but she silenced them both. However, speaking as though he were utterly in charge of the whole place, Dean Scrabbe told the room that there was no way in which the finances of the museum in general and the funding of the diorama in particular could avoid oversight. He charged that aspects of the management and policies of the museum bordered on the “criminally surreal,” and that he was going to take the whole matter directly to President Twill and before the Board of Regents. With that he gathered his papers and stalked from the room.
As you can imagine, it took a few minutes for the group to settle down. After a session of whispering with members of the committee, Professor Brattle announ
ced that they would proceed with the meeting as planned. Professor Pilty seemed reluctant but nodded and introduced Mr. Emmanuel Quinn, a representative of Humanation Syntectics, the company designing and manufacturing the models. Professor Brattle in her turn introduced the Reverend Farouk Karoom, a minister in the Islamic Baptist Temple of Zion. I was so taken by this gentleman’s haircut, which I can only describe as topiary, that I nearly missed her characterization of him as a person “instrumental in agendarizing [or is it “agenderizing”?] community priorities [and who has] made multiculturalism more than another buzzword.”
The Rev. Karoom starting right in malapropping — fittingly enough now that I think of it — biodrama for diorama. “I will insist,” he insisted, “that people of color be given positions of power and dignity in any biodrama planned for the Museum of Man.” Patiently, as though conducting a seminar, Professor Pilty told the minister that the people to be displayed in the diorama were Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Puzzled for a moment, the Rev. Karoom replied that “the sexual preferences of the models are besides the point.” It was Thad Pilty’s turn to be puzzled. Finally, he said, “I should explain, Reverend, that neanderthal is a designation that we give to primitive man —” (Professor Brattle: “And woman”). At which point Bertha Schanke, working on the Boston Kreme, remarked as to how she considered all men primitive. Mr. Onoyoko, after listening to the ongoing translation by Ms. Kushiro, turned in Ms. Schanke’s direction and smiled.
Professor Pilty waited for the room to quiet and then told the Rev. Karoom that the people to be depicted in the diorama were extinct. The Rev. Karoom nodded as though he understood and asked, “What does that have to do with minority representation in your biodrama?” Professor Pilty responded that they had considered making all the models dark skinned but thought that might be interpreted as racist in seeming to equate pronounced melanism with less derived morphologies. He went on to say that recent research on climate suggests that European Neanderthals were light skinned, perhaps even blond and blue eyed. Ms. Schanke interrupted him again, saying, “Why don’t you admit you don’t know and that the whole thing is a fantasy?”
Bobbing his amazing coiffure, the Rev. Karoom asked if the professor meant that there had been no “black Neanderthals.” Before Pilty could answer, the minister went on in declamatory tones he undoubtedly deploys from the pulpit: “You mean to tell us, Professor, that there were no black Neanderthals when I have read in the newspaper about the African Eve. Your own colleagues, Professor, are telling the world that the mother of us all was a sister.” When Professor Pilty started to explain about the European context, the Reverend cut him off. “You don’t get it, Professor.”
“What don’t I get?” Pilty asked, showing just a bit of exasperation.
The Rev. Karoom allowed a moment of silence before pronouncing with a dramatic flourish: “That black people invented white people.”
Well, that had Mr. Onoyoko mirthful again, and even Ms. Schanke joined in what was considered a good laugh at Thad Pilty’s expense. The situation didn’t improve much from there. Constance Brattle suggested that a compromise might be possible in that the models could be rendered in an intermediate shade, a kind of gray. Izzy Landes retorted that they would then look like they all came from New Jersey. Professor Athol opined that the problem with the diorama was its “Eurocentrism,” to which Izzy retorted that, like it or not, we all, even Mr. Onoyoko, are part of European culture. Professor Ariel Dearth demurred, pointing out that Israel might be the best setting for the diorama given that whole families of modern-looking Neanderthals had been found in caves there. Professor Pilty then explained at some length that we were using a European setting because it was the one we knew the most about, because that was where he and his team had conducted their research. Which did little to mollify anyone.
All the while the Rev. Karoom sat back, gratified, I think, by the ruckus he had stirred up. Things had begun to settle down when Mr. Quinn, answering a question put to him by Professor Brattle, said his company could make the models any color they wanted. They could, he said, facetiously I’m sure, even make them spotted if that was what they wanted. The Rev. Karoom took the possibility quite seriously. He asked Mr. Quinn if that would be “black spots on white or white spots on black.” Mr. Quinn replied that they could make them either way. But he suggested that a better solution to the problem of pigmentation would be to use stripes because, if they were done skillfully, it would be impossible to tell if they would be black stripes on white or white stripes on black. Rev. Karoom then asked Mr. Quinn if these would be broad stripes or narrow stripes. Mr. Quinn replied that his company could make them broad or narrow. He said they could even make them very narrow. He said they could make the models pin-striped, if that was what the committee wanted. In fact, he said, “We could give you a cross-hatched pattern, you know, a kind of plaid, or even a herringbone design, like a tweed.” It went on like that, with discussions of piebald patterns, polka dots, and the like until Mr. Onoyoko was laughing openly and Professor Pilty was sitting with his face in his hands. It is just possible, I am beginning to hope, that he will rethink the whole project.
The meeting did give me a chance to buttonhole Ariel Dearth and tell him that Malachy Morin was having difficulty finding any kind of competent legal counsel. I must say he seemed quite surprised and intrigued, even when I told him that the museum would in no manner support any kind of defense fund. While I have my reservations about Ariel Dearth and his motives, he certainly would be better than the counsel Morin has now. Everyone else seems to have utterly deserted the man, although I have heard Amanda Feeney has dropped by to see him. But I suspect she’s probably just looking for a story.
MONDAY, JULY 27
The nightmare continues.
Dean Scrabbe is missing, foul play is involved, from all appearances, and I am once again a suspect. Lieutenant Tracy came to my office this morning to inform me that the dean, after having spent part of the afternoon working at the museum, had not returned home yesterday. Very much a professional in his rugged trench coat, the lieutenant did not ask my permission to smoke but took out a cigarette, lit it, and began puffing. In a manner meant to intimate that I perhaps already knew what he was relating, he told me that the dean, after watching the first few innings of a baseball game on television, left his home to go to his office, the same one on the third floor that had been occupied by Dean Fessing. Scrabbe told his wife just before he left that he had come across some revealing anomalies in the finances of the museum and wanted to follow up on a hunch. When dinnertime came and went and he still hadn’t come home, Mrs. Scrabbe called the dean’s office and got a busy signal. At first she thought he was simply on the phone with a colleague, but finally she asked the phone company to check and found that the phone was off the hook. Alarmed, she called Wainscott security, who called the police.
The lieutenant paused as though to give me time to think it over. Then, his tone hard but not overtly hostile, he said, “The preliminary examination of his office indicates that a scuffle took place. His phone was knocked off the desk, and his computer looks damaged.”
I was horrified, naturally, and still am, but I tried to remain ostensibly calm. “Well,” I said, “this surely removes Malachy Morin as a suspect in Dean Fessing’s murder.”
The lieutenant remained noncommittal, and the ensuing silence was interrupted by the phone — reporters wanting to know if the Wainscott Cannibal had struck again. I informed the callers, with as much civility as I could muster under the circumstances, that I knew nothing about the dean’s disappearance, that the dean was employed by Wainscott University, and that they should therefore call the Wainscott News Office. Of course, the calls were immediately referred back to me, and I parried by giving callers the office and home telephone numbers of President Twill.
It was during this flurry of calls and countercalls that I became aware that I was again, as they say, a prime suspect. What, Lieutenant Tracy wanted to know, had I
been doing between the hours of three and seven Sunday afternoon? The notebook was out, and his tone bordered on the officious.
I told the officer that I had gone to de Vere Amphitheatre, which abuts the Marvell Gardens, to see a somewhat uneven production of Julius Caesar mounted by the Seaboard Summer Players.
“Was there anyone there who could vouch for your presence at the play?”
I thought for a moment. “I don’t remember speaking to anyone there, although I saw, from a distance, several people that I know.” I explained to him that this is not unusual, as many people connected with the university or the museum are away during the summer while a whole new crowd of summer students, tourists, and the like occupy much of Wainscott during July and August.
“When did the play finish?”
“About four-thirty.”
“What did you do then?”
“I dropped by my office to pick up my newly restrung racquet before heading to the Club for a game of doubles.”
“Who were the other players?”
“Let’s see.… There was Bill Littlefield, Professor Punn of the Slavic Department, and Joe Dzhugashvili. He’s Curator of the Armand Hammer Collection in the Frock.”
“Is that like the baking soda brand?” He was taking down everything.
I said no and spelled it out for him.
“Mr. de Ratour, did you noticed anything out of the ordinary when you came into the museum … after the play?”
“Yes,” I said. “I was in a hurry, but I couldn’t take the elevator, because someone had propped it open on a floor above, a practice expressly forbidden by the fire ordinances in force in the building. As a result I had to go up through the exhibits and a thin scattering of Sunday visitors that were drifting down to the exit since it was near closing time.”
The Murder in the Museum of Man Page 16