A Penny for the Hangman

by Tom Savage

  She walked to the archway that led out into the main hall, trying to recall the layout of the ground floor from their guided tour this afternoon. Oh yes. The living room was directly ahead of her, across the wide hall, beyond the staircase. That meant the kitchen was this way, around the corner to her right, and there was a bathroom door next to the kitchen door. Here it was.

  As she arrived at the downstairs powder room, she could hear muffled voices from beyond the swinging door to the kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Graves seemed to be having an argument. Karen couldn’t make out what the woman was saying, but suddenly her husband cried, “Be still and mind your own business, woman!” Karen heard those words clearly, then footsteps approaching the swinging door, and she slipped into the powder room and shut the door. The footsteps clomped by outside, then faded away.

  She moved to the sink and turned on the cold water, bending down to scoop up handfuls of it and splash it on her cheeks and neck. The water produced a near-electrical effect on her hot, flushed skin, and a chill coursed through her body, revivifying her and clearing her clouded mind. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, thinking, What on earth is wrong with me?

  The sudden dizziness, the sense of disorientation, had overcome her at the table for no apparent reason. They’d finished the main course, and Mr. Anderman had been talking about the night of the murders and about the Harper family, and he’d said something about coffee and dessert, and then…

  And then what?

  Karen studied her face in the mirror. Her eyes seemed to be alert, and her newly tanned skin was unblemished. Her makeup and hair were remarkably intact, considering the ocean trip and the persistent heat in the islands. She looked fine, as far as she could see. She was in a well-appointed, air-conditioned house on a beautiful isle not far from Tortola, and she’d just been served a sumptuous meal. That must be it, she thought. A heavy meal and talk of murder and mayhem. And too much red wine. Her odd sense of disorientation would pass.

  The woman in the mirror smiled back at her, reassuring her, and she breathed deeply, sorting her notes in her mind. She’d already solved one mystery surrounding the Harper/Anderman case: where Rodney thought he was going that night, when he’d jumped into the water from the speedboat at the beach below Tamarind and begun swimming out into the ocean. He was coming here, of course, to Hangman Cay. How he thought he was going to swim some twenty miles was something only Rodney Harper, wherever he was, could possibly answer. Now she was working on a second mystery, no less provocative than the first. The machete and knives had belonged to the foreman, Mr.—she had to think a moment—Mr. Vance. She was building a theory, an idea of Rodney Harper’s long-range plan for the night of March 13, 1959….

  But now she must rejoin the others or they’d worry about her. She turned off the water and dried her hands on the soft white towel in a wall ring beside the sink. “Guest towels”—she could almost hear her mother’s voice, admonishing young Karen never to use the pretty soaps and hand towels in the powder room near the front door of the apartment on West End Avenue. Smiling at the memory, and at her own folly in succumbing to rich food and wine in a tropical climate, she went out of the bathroom and down the hall for coffee and dessert.

  —

  From the testimony of Tobias Harper’s construction foreman, Henry Vance, in People v. Harper and Anderman, St. Thomas Municipal Court, Tuesday, April 14, 1959

  VANCE: I come by the house in my pickup at eight-thirty, just like I was told.

  PROSECUTOR: Told by whom, Mr. Vance?

  VANCE: By Mr. Harper.

  PROSECUTOR: When did Mr. Harper tell you to come to his house that night?

  VANCE: Well, sir, it weren’t Mr. Harper hisself that tell me. It were the boy.

  PROSECUTOR: Which boy, Mr. Vance?

  VANCE (pointing to defendant HARPER): Young Rodney. He come by my house down by Sugar Estate and tell me his daddy want me by Tamarind at eight-thirty Friday night.

  PROSECUTOR: Did Rodney Harper tell you why his father wanted to see you at his home?

  VANCE: Well, sir, he say something about a raise.

  PROSECUTOR: A raise in your salary?

  VANCE: Yes, sir.

  PROSECUTOR: And what did you think of that?

  VANCE: Well, I be surprised, sir. Mr. Harper and me never seen eye to eye much. Everybody know that. He were always tight with the payroll, and we argue about it in front of the men. We nearly come to fists a few times. I never expect he offer me more money. I thought maybe that be the message he tell the boy to tell me, and he really be planning something else.

  PROSECUTOR: Something else?

  VANCE: Yes, sir, something else. I thought maybe he be fixing to fire me.

  PROSECUTOR: So, when you arrived that night, you were expecting to be fired?

  VANCE: I didn’t rightly know. But I go like the boy tell me, and I get there at eight-thirty, and that’s when I find—

  PROSECUTOR: Yes, thank you, we know what you found. Mr. Vance, when did Rodney Harper deliver this message to you?

  VANCE: Let’s see…Thursday, the day before. Yes, it were the day before it, in the afternoon, the same afternoon I find tools was missing from the back of my truck.

  PROSECUTOR: You were missing some tools the day before the murders?

  VANCE: Yes, sir, my machete and a couple of knives.

  PROSECUTOR (going to evidence table and lifting exhibits A-1, A-2, and A-3): Are these the tools that were missing from your truck?

  VANCE: Yes, sir, those be them.

  PROSECUTOR (holding up exhibits D-1 and D-2): These two messages were found in Mr. Harper’s desk drawer at Tamarind on the morning after the murders. They are handwritten, in capital letters, on plain white paper, and they implicitly threaten Mr. Harper and his family. Mr. Vance, did you write these messages?

  VANCE: No, sir. I ain’t much of a one for writing. And if I has something to say to a man, I says it to he face. I never write no messages.

  PROSECUTOR: Thank you, Mr. Vance. No more questions for this witness.

  —

  As soon as Karen had excused herself from the dining room, Wulf Anderman turned to Sid and said, “We don’t have much time, and I have something to say to you, Mr. Don Price—or, rather, Mr. Sidney Singleton.”

  Sid stared at the man. The words were so unexpected that, for a moment, he wasn’t at all certain he’d heard them. But the disdainful expression in the cold blue eyes across the table convinced him otherwise. Even so, he managed to stammer, “What? What are you talking abo—”

  “Please! Drop it, Mr. Singleton; there isn’t any time. Don’t bother to look so shocked. Just listen, and listen well. I have tolerated your uninvited arrival here today for Miss Tyler’s sake—I suppose having a large man with her reassured her, made her feel more comfortable in meeting me—but that’s over now. As you and she can both plainly gather, I mean her no harm. And I have much to tell her, but not in your presence. I know precisely who you are and what you’re up to, and it isn’t going to work. You are not going to publish any of what you’ve heard here today. If you so much as attempt to do so, you will seriously regret it. In the meantime, you and I will both remain silent about all this. You have masqueraded as Don Price from the Virgin Islands Daily News, and now you shall play that absurd role to the end.

  “When Miss Tyler rejoins us, we shall have dessert and coffee, and then Mr. Graves will escort you down to the jetty. You will return to St. Thomas, and you will send the photographs you took today to Miss Tyler’s magazine. I suggest you use another name to publish them, as the real Mr. Don Price will not be amused by your amateurish snaps bearing his signature in a major national publication. Unless, of course, you wish to face a lawsuit and possibly imprisonment as a result of your little charade. I’m sure the Daily News and Visions magazine will gladly oblige you. And your lady friend, Miss Gwen Levene, will lose her employment at the magazine, to say nothing of Miss Tyler’s friendship. No, I suggest you remain silent about the whole e
nterprise.

  “Miss Tyler will be my guest here tonight, and tomorrow she and I will continue the interview. But now you will eat your dessert, drink your coffee, make your excuses, and leave with Mr. Graves. Otherwise, I shall tell Miss Tyler exactly who you are and what you’re doing here the moment she returns to this room. And, believe me, you’ll have more to fear from her than from me.” He leaned forward, pinning Sid with his merciless gaze. “Your call, Mr. Singleton. Are you going to leave without a scene?”

  Sid lowered his gaze from those accusing eyes. After a moment of breathless embarrassment, he nodded.

  “Good,” Anderman murmured. “We’ll say no more about it.”

  At that moment, Karen came back into the room, and the two men rose to their feet. Sid smiled at her, hoping his hot, flushed cheeks had lost their bright redness. Apparently so: Karen didn’t notice anything amiss. She smiled as Anderman held her chair, and they resumed their seats. Mrs. Graves arrived with the dessert tray, and Sid concentrated on looking as comfortable and alert as before.

  Oh well, it didn’t matter, not really. For him, the jig was up. He’d underestimated the kindly older man; there was nothing kindly about him. Sid studied the man as Mrs. Graves served dishes of baba au rhum. This man had known everything, all along. Damn!

  Sid slumped back in his chair, resigning himself to his fate, and he suddenly felt very tired. Across the table from him, Karen Tyler raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn.

  —

  From the testimony of Territorial District Coroner Clive Girard in People v. Harper and Anderman, St. Thomas Municipal Court, Wednesday, April 15, 1959

  DR. GIRARD: The substance in all five bodies was secobarbital. It had been administered in the martinis the two couples were served on the veranda, and Bernice Watkins had ingested a similar amount, presumably in the kitchen. I found enough of the drug in their systems to induce unconsciousness, even paralysis. I have determined that all five victims were unconscious, or nearly so, when the fatal blows were struck.

  —

  Coffee was served in the living room. Karen, Anderman, and Don Price rose together from the table and made their way across the entrance hall to the big room dominated by the painting of Wulf Anderman as a teenager. Their host indicated that she and Don Price should sit on the long couch near the chess table, and he took the armchair across the coffee table from them. The silver service was already there, with three delicate china cups on saucers. Karen didn’t sit down right away. As Anderman poured coffee, she wandered over to the bookshelves and studied the titles.

  It didn’t surprise her that two shelves were crammed with books about chess. Old leather-bound volumes and oversize modern paperbacks displayed a Who’s Who gallery, from Damiano to Allgaier to Alekhine, to recent books on strategy by various masters of the game. Karen knew little of chess, she could barely play it, but she recognized the names. She paused at one slim volume squeezed in among the others, reaching up and slowly drawing it out. It was an old pamphlet of a brief treatise on the game, but what interested her about it was the author’s name: Thomas H. Huxley. Of course, she thought. T. H. Huxley, the name on the flower basket at the hotel. She was vaguely familiar with Huxley from philosophy courses at NYU, but she hadn’t realized his chess connection. Wulf Anderman clearly admired him, which would explain his choice of the name to mask his true identity.

  Karen smiled down at the book in her hands, then quickly replaced the volume and glanced over the remaining shelves. Philosophy and science texts, including the Durants’ The Story of Philosophy and works on the ancient Greeks, Nietzsche, Freud, and Jung, along with titles by T. H. Huxley and his great friend Charles Darwin. Crime stories: Sherlock Holmes, a lot of Christie and Sayers and Chandler, and—incongruously, she thought—all the thrillers of a recent writer named Jonathan Brown, who was also a favorite of hers. Then there were several Dickens titles, Jane Austen, Moby-Dick, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Diary of a Young Girl, and—she smiled—a copy of Brave New World by T. H. Huxley’s famous grandson, Aldous. And, of course, the complete works of Shakespeare. Except for the new Jonathan Brown books, it was the standard collection of a well-educated 1950s schoolboy who seemed to be frozen in time without advancing to adulthood. Two words came to her: arrested development.

  One final shelf surprised her. There, on the bottom in the corner, well beneath eye level, was a group of books on true crime, including what looked to be all the major works on the Harper/Anderman case. Other titles involved Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, Leopold and Loeb, and more modern names: Bundy, Dahmer, Zodiac. A volume of Famous British Murder Trials stood beside a fat spine labeled A History of Violence: The World’s Most Notorious Murderers. She knew without looking that there would certainly be a chapter in that weighty tome on the events in St. Thomas in 1959….

  “Your coffee’s getting cold, Karen,” Anderman called from the room behind her. She turned around, smiling, went over to sit beside Don Price on the couch, and looked into the eyes of one of the world’s most notorious murderers.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, reaching for her cup on the table. “I was just admiring your library.”

  Anderman glanced at the shelves and shrugged. “Yes, well, Mr. Price says that he must be back in St. Thomas for work tomorrow morning, so Gabby’s boat is on its way. You, on the other hand, must have many more questions for me, and there is much I wish to relate to you for your article. You must stay the night, and tomorrow we can proceed at our leisure. Gabby can come back for you at your convenience. It’s getting late, and I must say I’m rather tired. When you are my age, you’ll learn that long days of energetic activity are no longer an option, so gather ye rosebuds, as they say. We’ll finish our coffee, and then I’m afraid I must retire. Mrs. Graves will show you to the guest room and see to your comfort.”

  Karen had been wondering about the interview, which seemed to be proceeding slowly, and she hadn’t wanted to arrange another visit. Staying over would solve the problem, and in the morning she and Anderman could get down to real business without the distraction of the photographer. She sensed that the older man would be more forthcoming if it was just the two of them, and that was fine with her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’d like that. But I promised to call my partner in New York tonight, and my cell phone doesn’t work here. May I use your telephone?”

  “Of course.”

  She excused herself and went out into the main hall. The ancient rotary phone was on a table against a wall, under a gilt-framed mirror, with a chair beside it. She sat and raised the heavy receiver to her ear, reaching out to dial. She stopped, listening: nothing. No dial tone, no sound of any kind. She pressed the button several times. Still nothing. The line was dead. She lowered the instrument and stood, pausing a moment as another wave of dizziness suffused her. She returned to the living room.

  “It doesn’t seem to be working,” she told Anderman.

  “Oh dear,” he breathed. “It isn’t always reliable, especially at night. I apologize.”

  “No matter,” she assured him. “I’ll call him tomorrow, when I get back to St. Thomas.” Now she turned to Don Price. “Thank you for everything. I’ll call you at the Daily News before I go back to New York.”

  The photographer gave a sudden start when she spoke to him. He appeared to have been nearly dozing on the couch. He glanced over at their host, then back at her.

  “Um, let me give you my cell number,” he said quickly. “It’ll be easier than going through the switchboard at the paper.”

  Karen handed him her notepad, and he stared down at it a moment, blinking as though he was trying to rouse himself. With apparent effort, he scribbled the number and handed it back to her. At that moment, Mr. Graves arrived in the archway.

  “The boat will be here in a few minutes,” he said.

  Everyone rose, and Anderman shook hands with Don Price. “I look forward to seeing your pictures with the article.”

 
“Yes,” Don said, and then he turned to Karen and shook her hand. “Nice meeting you. We’ll—we’ll talk when you get back to St. Thomas, okay?”

  “Sure,” she said, smiling.

  Don Price followed Mr. Graves out across the hall to the front door, and they were gone. As if on cue, Mrs. Graves materialized. Anderman took Karen’s arm, and the two of them followed the older woman up the stairs. When they arrived at the top, he placed his hands on Karen’s arms and leaned forward, studying her face.

  “Sleep well, Karen,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re here at last. I’ll see you in the morning.” Then he executed a small, formal bow and limped away to his bedroom.

  “Good night,” she called after him before following the housekeeper to the other end of the gallery. Mrs. Graves led her into the guest room, switching on the overhead light and the lamp beside the bed.

  “Here you are, miss,” she murmured in her soft Southern accent. “Will you be needing anything else tonight?”

  “No, thanks. I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted—I wonder if it’s the sea air. This place is not like New York.”

  “It could be the air. I’m still getting used to it myself, miss. It’s not like Charlotte, either. It’s very quiet here.”

  “Yes, it is. Well, good night, Mrs. Graves.”

  With a nod, the older woman left the room, shutting the door behind her. As soon as she was gone, Karen reached for her purse. She pulled out her cell phone and tried it, but all she got was the no signal message. She dropped it on the bedside table and went over to the window, pulled aside the curtain, and gazed out into the night. After a moment she began to make out shapes—palm trees and the edge of the hill—and the lighter dark of the water beyond. The moon was still concealed behind clouds. A storm was coming, that much was plain.