A Penny for the Hangman

by Tom Savage

  He smiled at her. “I think the reporter in you is politely asking if I have any—companion. The answer is no, Karen. I was in love only once in my life, but it didn’t work out well, so I’m alone. A bachelor. It—it suits me.”

  Karen wondered about this great love he’d mentioned, but it didn’t seem like the right moment to ask him about it. Instead, she said, “What about Rodney Harper? Do you know if he ever married or…” She trailed off, unsure how to continue.

  Wulf Anderman surprised her by laughing again. “Oh my! Intimacies for breakfast. I have no idea what Rodney has been up to—well, since Boston, anyway.”

  “Boston?” Karen reached down to activate the recorder on the chair next to her, reaching for a slice of toast at the same moment to mask her action.

  His eyes twinkled again, and he settled back in his chair. “Yes, that’s where he went when he was released, in—when was it?—1992. Yes, eleven years after I got out. His brother, Toby, was there, in their mother’s family manse. Everyone else on both sides was dead by then, and Toby had inherited everything. Roddy went there from North Carolina—I guess he didn’t have anywhere else to go. And Toby took him in. Funny, when you think about it—this was the same brother who hadn’t even bothered to leave the ivied walls of Harvard when we were on trial. At the time, he told reporters he’d washed his hands of Roddy. He had his parents’ bodies shipped to Boston, and he and the rest of the Harpers and the Lawsons buried them up there. He never visited Roddy, not once in the thirty-three years of his incarceration, and he never answered Roddy’s letters. But Roddy went to Boston when he got out of Raleigh.

  “They lived together in the Lawson house for six years, just the two of them, until an accident in 1998. Toby never married—he apparently blamed us for that; he said women wouldn’t go near him when they found out he was the brother of Rodney Harper. He was a drunk and a drug addict, just like their mother. Roddy took care of him, from what I hear. But one day he forgot to hide the car keys, and Toby wrapped his Lexus around a tree. Died instantly—and you know what? He had a will, newly drawn up, leaving every nickel of the Harper fortune to Roddy. I guess blood really is thicker than water.”

  “I didn’t think convicted felons could benefit from their crimes,” Karen said.

  He was meticulously buttering a slice of toast. “That’s a recent law. Besides, Roddy wasn’t inheriting from his victims. Toby Harper could do as he liked.”

  “Yes, but don’t you find that odd? I mean, Rodney killed their parents. Why would Toby leave him everything?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe Toby forgave him.”

  Karen shook her head in disbelief. “Or maybe Roddy—I mean, Rodney—kept his alcoholic drug addict brother well-oiled until he could trick him into signing a new will. You said it was newly written—maybe it nullified an earlier one. Hell, knowing Rodney, he might even have tampered with the car!”

  He stared across the table at her. “ ‘Knowing Rodney’? But, my dear, you don’t know Rodney.”

  Karen stared right back. “No, I don’t, but you do.”

  He shrugged again. “Yes, I do—or, rather, I did. And you may be right. But I can’t speak for him. He disappeared from Boston after his brother died, and heaven knows where he is now. Let’s get back to St. Thomas.”

  He seemed flustered, as though speaking of Rodney Harper and his fate in Boston made him uneasy. Karen had a brief memory of last night, the weeping and the music, her speculation that the two boys might actually have been lovers. Maybe Rodney was the great romance he’d mentioned. That would explain a few things. She wondered who had told Wulf about Boston. He hadn’t been there himself, or so he said. Were he and Rodney in touch with each other?

  Mrs. Graves came in with the omelets. While she served them, Karen looked over at her host, who stared down at his plate. His face was flushed, and his hands were trembling. Anger. Why would he be so angry? She had no idea. She decided to wait before questioning him further about Rodney Harper.

  “Okay,” she said to him now, “let’s get back to St. Thomas. Where do you want to start, Wulf?”

  Crash! She was startled by the loud clatter of the silver tray as it fell from Mrs. Graves’s hands and landed on the table. The tray was empty, so no real harm was done. The woman snatched it up, murmured an apology, and scurried out of the room. Wulf Anderman watched her go, then turned back to Karen.

  “You must forgive Mrs. Graves,” he said. “She’s high-strung.” He grinned again, a Cheshire cat expression that made his eyes twinkle all the more. “Mr.—um, Mr. Price seemed like a perfectly nice chap, but frankly, I was glad when he left last night. I was hoping to get you alone so we could watch the film that brought you here in the first place, just you and I.”

  “You—you have a copy of Bad Boys?” Karen glanced around the dining room. “Here? How on earth did you manage to—?”

  He waved a hand in dismissal. “Oh, that would be telling. Let’s tackle these excellent omelets while they’re still warm, and then we’ll repair to the living room.” Another rumble of thunder reached them. “It’s the perfect day to stay indoors, and we might as well make the best of it, yes?”

  After a moment of surprised silence, Karen nodded.

  —

  “The Night Is Forever” (continued)

  Underage murderers were hardly a new phenomenon in 1959. Young killers had frequently become nine-day wonders, in America and elsewhere. Two cases, in particular, had engendered publicity to rival the Harper/Anderman frenzy.

  Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were underage—19 and 18, respectively—when they committed their famous “perfect crime” in Chicago in 1924, the murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks. The trial made history when the defense attorney, the great Clarence Darrow, convinced the judge to spare them. They received a sentence of life plus 99 years.

  Outside America, five years before Harper/Anderman, there was the Parker/Hulme case in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 1954, Pauline Parker, 16, and Juliet Hulme, 15, were tried and convicted for the bludgeoning murder of Parker’s mother. The girls served approximately five years in separate prisons before being released at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

  Both of these cases have been immortalized in books, plays, films, and popular folklore. So it has been with Harper and Anderman, who—according to a tasteless but enduring adolescent joke—became romantic outlaws by realizing the secret fantasy of teenagers the world over. At harp/and.com, a website devoted to all things Harper/Anderman, the discussion forum’s general opinion is summed up by a participant known as slasherboy666: “Hey, they offed their folks—how kooool is that? LOL!!”

  —

  Molly was having trouble breathing. That had been a nasty shock! Even so, dropping that tray was inexcusable; she knew she always had to be careful. And little shocks were nothing new with a husband like Carl and an employer like—him.

  Now there was the girl to worry about. What on earth were they planning, those two? Molly could tell that the girl had no idea she was being set up for something. The old man had clearly lied to her.

  But why? When Molly thought about it, it was such a silly lie. So ridiculous. But it was obviously not ridiculous to him. Whatever he was up to, Carl was in on it. Oh dear, what could she do? What should she do?

  Well, she should calm down, for one thing. They were eating breakfast now—she’d taken such care with the omelets; just the way he liked them—and then they were going into the living room to watch something on TV. He’d want another pot of coffee for that, Molly guessed, and she reached for the paper filters. It wasn’t enough to follow his orders; predicting his orders was the best way to go with him. And with her husband, too. She only wished she could figure out what they were doing, what they had in mind for this perfectly nice young woman.

  Calm down and make the coffee, she instructed herself. Wait and watch and listen. And if it comes down to it, find some way to warn the girl…

  —

  “The Night Is
Forever” (continued)

  The first book about the crime, Death in Paradise by S. J. Harding, was published in 1961, and it became a bestseller. Four other books on the case have been published since then, and it is routinely mentioned in scholarly works providing overviews of child criminals.

  In 1965, Hollie Knutson’s play, Tropical Storm, opened on Broadway. The courtroom drama ran for 936 performances and garnered several prizes, including two Tony Awards. It was filmed in 1968 by director Larry Jaffee, and the movie was a hit. The play is constantly revived in summer stock and community theater.

  Jamie Huber’s 1978 novel, Blood Brothers, was a sensational fictional version of the crime with all the names changed, and in 1982 it was made into a top-rated ABC TV miniseries. More recently, 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, and PBS’s Frontline have covered the incident.

  David Chan’s new movie, Bad Boys, is being touted as the biggest film event of the season. Early reviews are comparing it—perhaps inevitably—to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope and Richard Fleischer’s Compulsion, two fictional interpretations of the Leopold/Loeb case, as well as Peter Jackson’s 1994 masterpiece, Heavenly Creatures, which tells the Parker/Hulme story. Critics are predicting that Bad Boys will be a favorite in this year’s awards races, and the film’s haunting theme song, “We Are the Night,” is a number-one hit.

  —

  The end credits were rolling on the widescreen TV beneath Rodney Harper’s painting, and a popular male vocalist was growling the lyric: “We wait in the shadows / Feeling the power / That’s growing inside us / This is the hour! / The night is forever / And we are the night.”

  “I could live quite happily without that song,” Wulf Anderman observed.

  Karen laughed, glad for the feeling of release it provided. Watching this film with one of its principal subjects sitting beside her had been disconcerting. She hadn’t been prepared for it. She’d spent much of the time glancing surreptitiously over at the original of the boy onscreen, trying to gauge his reactions to what he was seeing and hearing.

  He was an enigma. Throughout the movie, she couldn’t really see much response at all. He sat erect on the couch, hands in lap, occasionally sipping his coffee. Once, during the mayhem on the night of the murders, he tensed and leaned forward, staring at the action onscreen, drinking in every detail. When the bloodbath was over, his body relaxed again. Other than that, he maintained a detached demeanor. True, he’d seen the film before, but he might as well have been watching The Sound of Music, for all his emotional response to it.

  “That song is all we’ve been hearing in New York for weeks now,” she said, “and the movie hasn’t even opened yet. I heard it playing in the hotel yesterday. If you go anywhere away from this island, brace yourself.”

  He shrugged and reached for the TV’s remote on the coffee table. “Another good reason to stay home.”

  Karen laughed again. He was being a good sport about it, all things considered. This was the man who had tried to stop Josh Faison’s book, and Faison had stuck to the facts. This film was speculation, with stylized dream sequences and imagined conversations. The boys were portrayed as dark angels, enjoying every minute of the horror. The song at the end echoed this impression. And there was an implied intimacy between them—smoldering glances and caressing hands and one tense moment, just before the murders, when they very nearly kissed.

  Wulf clicked the remote and stopped the film, cutting the singer off in mid note. “I suppose you’ll be wanting my official opinion for the interview.”

  “Well, yes,” Karen said.

  He sighed and sank back on the couch. “It’s very good. Of course, there’s not a word of truth in it, but it’s excellent.”

  Karen checked that her recorder was on. “Not a word of truth? They got everything right, as far as I can tell—”

  “Well, okay,” he conceded. “A lot of those things happened, but not the way the film presents them. Not exactly. All those scenes of the two of us plotting and planning, that’s sheer invention. And that business at the end, the night itself, is pure melodrama, clearly intended to shock. I only wish it weren’t so well made. As it stands, everyone is going to think it’s gospel.”

  Karen shrugged. “It’s only a movie, Wulf, and not even the first one on the subject. Tropical Storm was a play and a movie, and there was that miniseries based on that novel, Blood Brothers. You lived through them. This too shall pass.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I suppose. But it feels different now, being out in the world and knowing everyone is seeing this.” He waved toward the dark TV.

  “What are you going to do about it?” Karen asked.

  “Nothing. Not a thing. I learned long ago not to fight city hall. The courts sided with Faison, and all these other things, these books and plays and movies—even this one—are freedom of expression. Artistic license. Constitutional rights. They can impose and invade to their hearts’ content.”

  “What do you suppose Rodney will think of the movie?” Karen asked.

  Wulf rolled his eyes and sighed. “My dear, he’ll revel in it. He’ll simply love it. Anything that immortalizes us is fine with him. That’s one thing the movie got right—he was the mastermind. It was all his idea, and he talked me into it. I wanted to get rid of my father. Roddy wanted to be famous.”

  “Well, he is,” Karen said.

  “Yes,” Wulf agreed. “He is. We both are.”

  Karen watched him as he divided his attention between the dark television set and the painting on the wall above it. She followed his gaze, taking in the portrait once more. So young and energetic he’d been, in those days before that terrible night. She noted again the sharp difference between the powerful child and the old man with the cane, a difference that was more than merely the passage of time. Rodney Harper’s brush had captured him, frozen him in a moment of carefree happiness, before—

  She stared at the picture, wondering. Before?

  “When you first came here to Hangman Cay,” she said, “did you already know what you were going to do at Tamarind?”

  “No,” he said. “At least I don’t think so….”

  He leaned forward, picking up the coffee pitcher and replenishing their cups. Karen studied him, his Big Game Hunter garb—his khaki bush jacket and trousers and brown boots—struck by the fact that there was something vaguely military about the fashion choice. She was reminded of the scene in Bad Boys when Rodney Harper wore similar attire for his Halloween impersonation of Hitler. She couldn’t help wondering if this man was consciously emulating his long-ago confederate.

  “It’s odd, what we remember and what we manage to forget,” he said at last, settling back on the couch once more. “I just watched that film, that so-called reenactment, and I couldn’t remember a single moment of it. I remember being small, and Christmases, and a bit of school, and then…then I was in prison. I remember the fort, the cells where they kept us, and all those native men asking questions over and over. And Miss Vernon, the social worker.” He shook his head. “But I don’t remember what I knew or didn’t know at any given time.”

  Karen rose and went to stand before the painting, gazing up at it, her back to him, so he couldn’t see the expression on her face. She carefully phrased her next words, keeping an even tone to mask her anger. “When you called me a few weeks ago, you said you wanted to tell your story. The truth behind the lies—those were your exact words. You’ve been generous with your time and your hospitality, but you haven’t really told me anything, and I’m wondering why I’m here.”

  There was silence in the room behind her. She didn’t hear him rise from the couch or move across the room, but she suddenly felt the warm solidity of a hand grasping her right shoulder and his breath on her neck.

  “Please don’t turn around,” he murmured. “I don’t think I can say this if you’re looking at me. I asked you here because I wanted to see you, to meet you. I wanted you to see that I am not the monster the world thinks I am. You see, your mother lied to you.
I told her to lie to you. I didn’t die in a car accident.”

  Karen stood very still, gazing up at the portrait of the beautiful boy on the beach. He was standing too close, much too close. His voice came out of the void behind her, riveting her to the spot. She felt the hand on her shoulder and the soft exhalations of his breath, smelled the faint scent of expensive aftershave, aware of the tingling numbness creeping slowly up her spine. She couldn’t move; she couldn’t think. Spellbound, she could only listen.

  —

  “The Night Is Forever” (continued)

  In 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, juvenile offenders were involved in at least 1,043 murders in America, approximately ten percent of all murders that year. If Rodney Harper and Wulfgar Anderman were proud of their dubious achievement, they would be disheartened to learn that today’s world would view it as a commonplace.

  —

  Ann Montague smiled across the airline ticket counter at the tall, rangy, older guy with white hair, a mustache, and amazing blue eyes. A definite cowboy, if his clothes were any indication. He was in jeans, boots, a gray work shirt, and a faded denim jacket that had seen a lot of action. Sexy as hell, no matter his age. Kind of like Clint Eastwood, now that she thought of it. She opened his ticket folder: a first class fare to St. Thomas, so he was probably rich.

  “Welcome to Miami, Mr. Brown,” she said in her warmest come-hither tone. “I see you’ve just arrived from Dallas, and Santa Fe before that. Is Santa Fe—um—home?”

  “It was,” Clint-Eastwood-with-a-mustache said, not really looking at her. He kept glancing at his watch.

  Ann sighed. Not much chance with this one, she decided, despite his lack of a wedding ring—the first thing she looked for on attractive men these days, whatever their ages. She’d been divorced for two years, and John, her son-of-a-bitch ex, had just celebrated his first anniversary in South Beach with his trophy sixteen-year-old, Brandi or Bambi or whatever her bleached-blond, big-breasted name-that-ends-with-an-i was. Ann wondered if her ex’s defection was the true cause of her sudden man madness. But First Class Clint here was a catch by any standard, and his first name was—could it be?—Jonathan. Just like her son-of-a-bitch ex, only polite. Better-looking, too.