Beneath the Weight of Sadness

by Gerald L. Dodge

  But neither of us moved.

  “And I’ll tell you something else, Ethan. When we were at that service, the memorial service, when Carly came up to me and I held her in my arms and pressed her against me, I could feel Truman. I knew she knew it, too, because she giggled, or nearly did. I told her to drink wine because in a situation like that one I would’ve told Truman to do the same thing—drink wine—and I told Carly, and you know what she did?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “She almost laughed. And of course the obvious question would be to ask why she would almost laugh at such a somber occasion as that. Anyone would ask that same question, but she knew I knew the answer, and why I wasn’t the least bit mortified by that almost reckless moment.”

  I stopped again. Ethan was still in the same position.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What what?” I said.

  “What did you know?”

  “I knew she knew that’s what I’d have said to Truman at an occasion like that. I would’ve whispered in his ear and said, ‘Drink wine.’ Don’t you listen to a fucking word I say, Ethan?” I felt like slapping him once more, but I didn’t. “And Carly knew that and that’s why she almost laughed.”

  He shook his head slowly and looked down at his slippered feet. I knew he didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t unusual, though. He often didn’t choose to speak or was reluctant to speak or didn’t have a clue how he should respond. I patted him on the shoulder and I think he flinched slightly.

  “And so you see how plausible it is, Ethan, that our son was just in his room, checking things out, as he might’ve said had he been a ‘normal’ kid, and then disappeared again.”

  “Look, Amy. I’m not going to argue that. I won’t. But you can’t call people on the phone and then accuse them of murdering Truman. You’ll get locked up.”

  “And wouldn’t that be convenient for you? Just wouldn’t it?”

  “That’s why there are police, Amy.”

  “Really? And what’ve they done? That detective comes to our home the day after Truman is gone and invades our privacy—MY privacy. They’ve done nothing but that.”

  “It takes time, Amy. No one is going to come forward and confess, I doubt.”

  “Whose side are you on, Ethan? Why haven’t they done more? I’ll bet you if Truman wasn’t gay, they’d have someone in custody by now.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. With all the press I think they want to solve this as soon as possible.”

  I put my hand up in the air to stop him. “I’m not going to say any more. I know what I heard before. I know what goes on in this town. I know what people think; who did what. I also know that, if it comes to it, I’ll find who hurt our son. If it comes to that.”

  I walked around him and started down the stairs to pour a glass of wine. I had to hold the banister, I felt so light, so airy. Ethan made me feel that way. I knew, as I descended the steps, that if he’d wanted to, he could’ve lifted me straight up in the air. And as I reached the bottom it occurred to me that Truman had returned to leave a clue; to tell us who was responsible. But I wasn’t about to say anything to Ethan. Not just yet, anyway.

  Detective Parachuk

  Eleven days after Truman’s death

  I was born at the Persia Medical Center, and I was raised in Persia. I’ve lived here nearly my whole life. I always thought of Persia as a quaint town, but then I was raised in a part of the town where people lived relatively quaint lives. The part of the town I’m from has people who go to work daily, and on weekends and holidays celebrate their time off. Persia is an old town, so the original families who settled here have seen some dramatic changes.

  The first was when very wealthy folks from New York City discovered Persia and built large summer estates on the hills northwest of town. The land surrounding this town is pretty spectacular, with its soft hills and small, rapid-flowing river, which even to this day is almost postcard perfect. I guess it’s what originally brought all those wealthy folks out this way—peaceful and scenic escapes from the bustle of that big city.

  The second change occurred in the ’60s. People in the more densely populated areas to our east got skittish about bussing and riots and began to move west, and that’s when all the developments happened. The wealthy turned their noses up at this new exodus and began to move out. People like the Engroffs—who arrived much later and purchased one of the last remaining estates of its kind—bought up some of the manses, and others, contractors, split them up, actually tearing down the original mansions to build new houses. I still shake my head at that folly, but I guess everyone needs to make money somehow.

  I think the town lost some of its shine when the developments started and the divisions became more rigid. And that’s the interesting part about what occurred, because some of the people who moved into town and the outskirts in the second influx were attracted to the mentality of the original settlers of Persia. Most of the newcomers were educated, and we’d always prided ourselves on our advanced ideas about the education of our children and their aspirations. We cling to tradition, I guess you could say, but not at the expense of progress. Originally, Persia was conservative, Presbyterian and prosperous. And so some of the people in the second diaspora—I know these kinds of words because I was a poli-sci major at Penn State—who moved from the towns closer to New York found us charming and akin to their own ideology, their own way of thinking. They liked who we were and wanted to acculturate rather than segregate.

  And I guess there isn’t a better example of that than Rich Beck. He came to this town and it was as if he were climbing into the same bed with the same sheets and blanket he’d been sleeping in all his life. He joined the local Elks club, the volunteer fire department, the Presbyterian Church, the Persia Country Club. In Frank’s, the local barbershop—now with two hair stylists for men who need slightly more attention paid to their appearance, and Rich Beck is certainly one of them—it was not unusual to see Rich there on a Saturday morning with his son, Tommy, in tow, cracking jokes and laughing as if he’d been in that four-chair, window-front shop his entire life. You would have to say he’s a denizen of the town. Everyone likes him. Everyone wants to be in his milieu; they’re sucked in by his garrulous charisma.

  I guess, because I’m a native, I’ve always been slightly aloof with him. I still don’t trust outsiders, no matter how well they’ve indoctrinated themselves into Persia. I suppose that’s what it’s always been. So when he phoned me to complain about the call his wife received from Mrs. Engroff, I was not very sympathetic.

  “Did you call her husband, Mr. Beck?” I asked, looking at the calendar and internally feeling the time tick away until I was forced, by John Riddle and the town council, to hand over the reins to the state police. I knew it was coming soon.

  “Rich,” he said. “No, Nelson, I didn’t. I don’t want to make a big deal about it, but I can’t have Debra upset like she was after the call. I mean, I’m completely…”

  “You need to call him. He’s a reasonable man even in the most unreasonable of times. I could see that when I spoke with him.”

  “I think it’s your job…”

  “It’s my job if you’re going to make a formal complaint. Is that what this call is about?”

  “No, Nelson, of course not. At least not at this time. No.”

  I could visualize him as he spoke. A big man with just the beginnings of girth around the middle, with a full head of black hair and sharp blue eyes most people are attracted to. Always shoes with a high shine, and the one time I went pheasant hunting with him and my good friend, Bobby Howell, it looked as if his Carhartt and orange vest had been pressed.

  “But I’m glad you called. There’s another matter I wanted to talk to you about.”

  I could see him grinning on the other end. He probably thought I wanted to join the country club and needed an in. His kind worked that way: “Wash my back…”

  “Sure, anything. As long as I don’t have to call you again a
bout the Engroff lady…”

  I ignored his caveat. “I need to speak to your son, Tommy, about an unrelated matter.”

  There was a long silence. I imagined him wearing wing-tip shoes and cuffed Brooks Brother’s pants, creased, tailored, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a Frank’s haircut by one of Frank’s “stylists.”

  “What’s it about?” This time his voice had shifted from jovial to I’m-upper-management-and-I-don’t-take-shit-from-peons.

  “It’s about an incident that took place this summer I was just made aware of.”

  I knew he was running this summer through his head: vacation with the family, baseball camp, football camp, maybe a week with the Rodenbaughs at their house down at Ventura. Nothing, zilch, that he could think of.

  “Tommy was pretty busy this summer, mostly controlled and chaperoned.”

  “This had to do with a fight. No charges have been pressed, yet.” I put that in to give him the idea that it was an option. “We can talk with a lawyer, or I can come out there and just sit down with him and get his side of the story.”

  “Give me some specifics, Nelson.”

  “I’d rather not, Mr. Beck. I’m fine if you want to bring him down here with you or a lawyer or whatever. I think he’d be more relaxed at your place, is the only reason I suggested that. I don’t think it amounts to much, really.”

  “Jesus Christ, Nelson, it’s Rich.” I could hear his breathing. I waited. “Well, when could you come out? I want to at least be here.”

  “I can come now if that’s good.”

  “Well, Tommy’s not here right now. How about tomorrow after school?”

  “So, around six? I know Tommy has baseball.”

  “Six is good. Sure you can’t bring it all out on the table now?”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at six. And if you don’t have success with Ethan Engroff, let me know.”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice losing all of its usual slap-on-the-back friendliness. He hung up the phone.

  I’d played baseball, and so I went to the Beck house with a bias, I have to admit. I’d followed the kid’s athletic accomplishments through high school and he was the best ball player the school had ever turned out. I’d gotten a full ride to Penn State, but I’d only stayed a year. I wasn’t going beyond the college ranks anyway. Second-string short stop. Maybe if I’d stayed I’d have played my senior year. I’ll never know. But this kid could go all the way to the pros. On my days off, I’d gone to a few of the games, mostly, I guess, because it brought back memories of my own days at Persia High, being in love with Wendy, playing good ball, sitting in Mr. Franweis’s class in English.

  I also wanted to see the kid play. He pitched, but I saw his real talent was when he played in the field. He was fast and had an incredible arm and he could hit the ball. He had everything, and he seemed modest. In the papers he attributed a lot of his success to the team and his coach, even though his talent was clearly one of the main reasons the team went to the state finals. Yes, the team was good, but he always seemed to hit in the clutch and make the plays in the field that kept them in games and, often, won games for them. His coach, Cliff Peterson, my own coach when I had played, had a different view, not unlike my own. He said they were a different team when they had Tommy Beck on the field. He wasn’t everything, but he sure was key to winning for that team.

  But the suspicion I felt toward him was really something different, despite his incredible talent on the field, and it had to do with Carly Rodenbaugh. I knew what it was like to be a star athlete and have a girl in love with me. I knew it was possible Carly had changed her feelings toward Tommy, but I knew how he felt, the incredible power and optimism he had when he knew Carly was his girlfriend. And yes, things had shifted since I was a kid—nowadays girlfriends were more nebulous as a concept—but I remember how I’d performed on the field knowing Wendy was in the stands watching me. I knew what it felt like to walk the halls of the school with the nicest-looking girl next to me.

  And Carly is beautiful. She might not even know it, but probably she does. She was certainly calm enough when I questioned her at George’s and I imagine that had something to do with a self-confidence derived at least partially from her beauty. I couldn’t help but be reminded of my own infatuation with Wendy when I was Tommy’s age. I thought about that a lot when I drove to the Beck house on Thursday evening.

  I’d forgotten they had a daughter, Samantha, and she answered the door. She had black hair and blue eyes and a big smile with perfectly straight white teeth. She wore her hair back and looked to have a tan—from a tanning salon? Spring vacation?

  “Are you the detective?” she asked, her smile never leaving her face.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m Detective Parachuk. I’m here to see your…is Tom your brother?”

  “Tommy,” she corrected me.

  She held the door open and I walked into a spacious foyer and the aroma of some moist and warm dinner either being prepared or already eaten. I suspected the former.

  “I came to see your brother.” I already knew she knew that, but I didn’t know what else to say to a young girl—unless she was being interrogated. I wondered if her father had put her up to answering the door. I wouldn’t be surprised.

  “Tommy’s in the game room. I think my mom’s there too. MOM!” she yelled.

  But without waiting for a response she motioned for me to follow her. She had an athletic walk, and I couldn’t remember if I’d read about her in the papers also. I made a mental note to check. We went through a hallway with one opening leading to a large, gleaming kitchen and another to a room with a large wall-size TV, Judge Judy blaring from its speakers. No one was in the room.

  The hallway was wide and the walls were decorated with framed photographs of the kids and parents and vacations. We finally reached the end of a hallway and to the left a large arched doorway, where the first thing I saw, in the middle of the room, was a pool table. Beyond that was a well-stocked bar with stools. The room was dimly lit. To the left of the bar were French doors, which led outside to a lighted pool area, the pool still covered from the winter months. To the left of that was a black leather sofa and in the middle of that sat Tommy Beck. He was throwing and catching a tennis ball.

  When he saw me, he put the ball between two of the cushions and stood. He was tall and rather thin, short black hair. He looked like a ballplayer rather than a wrestler, though I know he was a state champion at that sport, too. His eyes were the feature most people were probably first attracted to. They were steely and shockingly blue. He put out his hand.

  “Detective Parachuk?”

  “Yes,” I said. I took his hand and shook it. His grip was surprisingly weak. I hadn’t expected that. Maybe kids aren’t taught to give a firm handshake these days, although that seemed counter to his father’s nature.

  “My father said you were coming. You had a few questions to ask me.”

  He didn’t seem nervous as he flashed me a smile like his sister’s. She stood next to me and her brother looked at her with what could only be interpreted as disdain.

  “Thanks, Sam,” Tommy said, severely.

  She looked at me and I gave her a smile. “Thanks. It was nice meeting you.”

  She smiled brightly once again and I was struck by how much brother and sister looked alike. “Daddy said he’d try and make it, but he was in the middle of a meeting.”

  “Yeah,” Tommy said, and I remembered how my conversation had ended with his father the day before. Yeah. She turned and waved to me, and then she looked at Tommy, smiled and left.

  “Please sit down, sir,” he said as he took a corner of the leather couch. It creaked as he sat.

  “Did your father want us to wait until he arrived?”

  He brushed back his hair. “No, not really. I mean, he said he’d be here, but sometimes he gets delayed.”

  “Is your mother here?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know what help she’d be.”r />
  I smiled at the idea that help was needed. I just knew it’d be better if there was an adult in the room.

  “Would you call her in, Tommy?”

  “Tom,” he said quickly. “I actually like to be called Tom.”

  He stood again. He was wearing pajama bottoms for pants—a phenomenon I probably would never get used to—and a Persia High Baseball T-shirt printed in the school’s blue and gold. He had on a pair of slippers worn down on the heel. He went to the entrance and yelled for his mother. He waited a few moments and then disappeared from the room. I heard them in the hallway, talking, Tommy’s voice sounding like a frustrated teenager’s, his mother’s low and inaudible. Both of them came into the room. I walked to Mrs. Beck and extended my hand.

  “I’m Detective Parachuk, Mrs. Beck. Your husband wanted to be here, but Tomm…Tom said he was delayed. I thought it would be better if one of his parents was in the room.”

  She shook my hand as she said, “Yes, I don’t really know what this is about. Rich said something about a fight Tommy was in this summer. Seems to me it’s a little late to be concerned about something like that now…almost a year later.”

  Both the mother and son sat down. She was an attractive woman. Dark hair, with a nice figure. An elegant face with a long, classic neck. She wore her hair back like her daughter. Her hands worked at each other as I interviewed her son. I don’t think they stopped once.

  “I’m here primarily, Tom, because of an incident that happened last summer. A fight between you and a kid named Steve Brown. Did such an incident occur?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said without hesitation.

  I wondered if his father had drilled him about calling me sir. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t necessary, but I didn’t want to distract him from the issue.