bad memories

by douglas sandler

  The undertaker’s thick face became fervent, “you hit it, mister. These mourners ain’t his friends.” He spat and lowered his voice to a confidential tone as he leaned closer to Miller. “Paul Allen wasn’t the kind to have friends. Young Albert Smith was the only one he was at all chummy with, and I got doubts about even that being anything, but a purely professional relationship, if you what I mean, Allen didn’t like this doctor Watson, the only doctor we had here in town, that I’ll betcha is the only reason why he set young Smith up in practice here.”

  “Oh! Allen set Smith up in practice did he?”

  “Yes, sir.” So that was it Miller had known Albert had a benefactor, but who he was had always been anonymously vague.

  The preacher’s voice carried, “blessed are the dead who die in the lord from henceforth, yea saith the spirit that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.”

  Miller looked toward the coffin; this was the end of life. When it was reached, there was no reprieve. Life could be broken off quickly? A friend murdered without reason or redress? Miller said, “This other doctor in town?”

  “Doc Watson old fuss and whiskers, he ain’t got no practice much, nobody would use him to spit at since Smith set up here. That’s why he took up this racket on being coroner.”

  Miller considered that, turned it over in his mind. There was a movement at the edge of the funeral party; a smoothly handsome man was stepping up to join the other pall bearers. “Lawyer Benny Godley,” the undertaker observed, “a sharp gimmick if there ever was one, he’s county district attorney.” Miller moved off, up the winding cemetery road, away from the funeral. He didn’t want to hear anymore facts now, he wanted to sift through the burdening items he already had in his mind. If Albert Smith hadn’t made out Allen’s death certificate, coroner Watson must have. Watson then should know the real story behind Allen’s death. But what could be his reason for concealing it? Was he involved in Albert’s death?

  Albert was Allen’s doctor. Yet Albert hadn’t attended Allen in death, and Albert’s own death had followed shortly after. Suddenly Miller turned back, the funeral service was over, and the procession cars were rolling away.

  He hurried toward the Allen mausoleum stepping over the floral offerings that had been left behind. Two men in plaster spattered overalls looked up from a mortar board, there was only an air vent in the structures rear wall, what light there was came from the entry door, and Miller’s figure blocked it now.

  One man, holding a trowel, was in the act of scooping up cement from the board, “Just a minute.” Miller said. “I think we’re going to have to postpone sealing this crypt.

  The man straightened, tightening the painter’s cap on his head. “It might be necessary to have another look at the body,” Miller said. “You just leave things as they are.”

  The man shook his head, I got no such orders, and who are you?”

  Miller said, “Does that make any difference? I’m telling you we may have to look at the body again. If we break open the crypt, you’ll just have to re-cement it.”

  The light in the mausoleum grew more shadowed. Miller turned and saw Benny Godley, the lawyer in the entrance to the marble walled room; his voice came crisp and snapping. “What’s this argument about? Who says you’re not to seal up what?”

  Miller studied the mustache balanced on the lawyer’s upper lip, the tinsel of grey at his temples. There was no sense of humor in this face. “I’m John Miller, a friend of Doctor Smith, who you probably know, died the day before yesterday. I understand you were Allen’s lawyer. I’m interested in how Mr. Allen died.”

  “How he died?” The lawyer asked.

  “Yes, you see I think it might shed some light on how my friend died.” Benny Godley shook his head, “I don’t see that Mr. Allen had anything to do with Doctor Smith’s death.” His face expressed an unyielding stand against anything that did not promise profit for himself.

  “I still don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about.

  “I am telling you who I am, I’m a friend of Doctor Smith’s and for a good reason I’m interested in how Mr. Allen died. I’d like to see his death certificate, and who signed it, and what was given as the cause of death, I may ask for a post mortem.”

  “A post mortem?” The lawyer said.

  “Yes, you see Doctor Smith murdered and I have good reason to believe Mr. Allen was murdered too.”

  Godley’s handsome face paled, “Why that’s preposterous!” He paced away, a gesture which in court might give him time to think or perhaps hide thoughts his face might make transparent. He swung back, “why that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s not so ridiculous, Mr. Godley, Allen was wealthy, and it’s a common thing, isn’t it, for a man to be killed for his money?” He said it without knowing if he himself believed it.

  Godley looked back at him with glassy eyes. “Look here sir,” He waved a finger, expelled his breath. “I warn you if you go looking for trouble anyway, none of Mr. Allen’s heirs have the slightest notion until after his death that they were going to be heirs, so there’s the answer to your theory.” Miller was silent.

  Godley turned to the workman, “go to work boys.” The workmen hesitated, their eyes still on Miller.

  “All right,” Miller said, “seal it up.” He turned past Godley. Out of the mausoleum, he strolled toward the exit gate.

  Chapter Six

  Leaving the cemetery, Miller hailed a taxi on the highway; he gave the Heinz Funeral Parlor as his destination. “What do you think of the dodgers?” launched the driver off; he wore a broken billed cap and a rumpled overcoat turning green at the collar.

  “They lost another one.” the taxi driver said. “I thought the baseball season was over.” Miller replied.

  “Ah, not the baseball, I’m talking about the football Jets, they sure got a sad outfit.” He whistled despairingly, wagged his head, “Green Bay that’s a team, I think they’ll take Chicago.”

  “I guess you get down to New York often to see them play?” Miller said.

  “Sure, I’m a Brooklyn boy, wadda yuh think, I’m from up here? The sticks? Naah!”

  “You don’t live here?” He wished the man would leave him alone. There were so many things he had to think about.

  “Sure I live here! I like it here, but I am not from here. I’m from Brooklyn that’s my home, who would want to be from here? It’s a dead place. What do you have here is trees!”

  He drove on in silent reflection, than he said wistfully, “But you know, I like it here, here I am somebody. Everybody knows me, in Brooklyn I’m a bum, in New York it’s the same thing, and everybody who ain’t anybody is a bum. Here I’m a bum, one of a kind I don’t even have another cabbie to fight with.”

  He braked to the curb, “you know,” he said, as Miller told him to wait, “sometimes I wish there was just one more cabbie in town.”

  Miller went inside the funeral parlor, a loud bell ringing to announce his arrival. The chunky wing collared undertaker he’d spoken to at the cemetery appeared from a backroom, “Say what are you doing here?”

  “I came to inquire about the disposition of Albert Smith’s body.” It sounded cold to say it that way, to speak so impersonally of Albert. The sound and meaning of the words hurt Miller.

  “Did you know him? Was he a friend of yours? The man wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, “well, his remains were claimed by his sister, she lives in Terre Haut, Indiana, she took him there.”

  Albert had often spoken of his sister Mary. She and Albert apparently had been as unlike as two people could be, they had never disliked one another. There had merely never been any community of interest, or thought, or feeling between them. Now death had reminded her of their relationship Mary would do the conventional older sister what was expected of her thing.

  “Doc Smith was a remarkable boy!” Volunteered the undertaker,” sure was sorry to see him go.

 
“Well, thanks for your information,” said Miller. He took the taxi to the other side of the railroad tracks, to the Allen mansion, he tipped the cabbie.

  “You’re a real gentleman.” The cabbie said, “Anytime you want a taxi, just call Moe at First Class Service Cab; the only taxi in Millersburg-on-the-Hudson!”

  Miller was aware suddenly of how little headway, he was making. He could only hang on, hoping for clarification; if events meanwhile proved too much for him, he might strike out wildly just to be acting, but anything was better than the melancholia of defeat. The second of the big black Packard funeral cars was just leaving the Allen’s front driveway; Miller didn’t bother with the doorbell. He pushed open the curtained front door and walked into the crystal chandeliered reception hall. From a room off to one side he heard the quick staccato ripple of voices.

  He found it to be a large sitting room, he had not seen before. He realized vaguely that he’d probably never see most of the mansion’s forty-four rooms. Each person in the sitting room looked up expectantly at his entrance, and then lapsed back into what they had been doing.

  Scar-faced little Jose Mendez was chewing on one of his crooked cigar’s, his striped blue suit tight at his waist, stood at a window viewing the Hudson. Angelia Parker birdlike moved aimlessly about the room throwing out smiles like wilted flowers.

  Captain Joseph Rodgers, head bowed sat wearily on a settee, his thin shoulders rising and falling with labored breathing. Paul Davis, one arm propped on the fireplace mantel, talked earnestly to Sally Daniels who seemed to be paying him only evasive attention.

  Miller crossed the somberly beamed room. The furnishings like the house he thought were of an era that was dead. The windows were hazed; the lights weak dust had become ingrained in the fiber and fabric of everything. When people died, they were buried but that was not true of things that had died.

  “Hello, my friend from the train.” Davis said rubbing a pouched eye, “so you’ve come to join the festivities?” Again Miller caught the strong aura of alcohol about him, “you’ve been festive already,” he remarked.

  Paul Davis grew suddenly serious, “you know I have to have a nip once in a while doctors orders. For my arthritis I get shoulder pains, and a slug’s the only thing that will do any good.”

  “We’re here for the reading of the will,” Sally explained. “Sure, we’re going to carve up the corpse,” Davis laughed and the laugh had a regional lilt. “What’ll you choose white meat or dark meat or maybe a nice thick juicy drumstick?” He paused to clear his throat and he grew more reflective, his mood changing as rapidly as sunlight on sea. “We all thought you were attorney Mendez when you came in, Miller. That’s why we all looked up so hungrily, say do I hear somebody coming now?”

  “Oh, I do hope it is Mr. Godley!” Angelia Parker minced forward hopefully.

  The powder was thick on her sagging face as flour on a rye bread’s bottom, rouge making high banners on her cheek. She turned self consciously to Miller and said with a little nervous laugh, “I tell you I’m frightened to death in this house, Mr. Miller, I’m scared as a hell.”

  Miller wondered what her life had been like; she had been beautiful once, as he knew from the photograph on Albert’s desk.

  “Staying in a dead man’s house doesn’t frighten me, you understand.” She prattled on. “But my room is right near that horrible menagerie; all night long I hear the cries of those poor monsters down there. You can never know when one might come slinking into your bed.”

  “You’re on the third floor, Angelia.” Davis said. “Nothing’s going to crawl that far to get into your bed.”

  Benny Godley, carrying a small case stopped into the room. Mendez turned from the window, Angelia Parker and Paul Davis moved forward. Godley’s dark scouting eyes shuttled quickly, intense, practical business like, he showed no recognition of Miller’s presence.

  The lawyer waited for attention. “As you know, we want all of the heirs here for the reading; unfortunately an accident has detained one of them, for possibly twenty-four hours. The reading of the will is not to be held until his arrival.”

  “Oh, come on Godley,” Davis objected. “What’s the point?”

  “Read the will now,” Mendez said gruffly, “and read it again tomorrow.”

  “Sorry.” Godley’s jaw muscles twitched, “if it was anybody but Alvin Rodgers, yes but Rodgers was Mr. Allen’s only friend; and it was probably enough of a blow for him to have missed the funeral.”

  Rodgers, the man next to Allen in the jungle picture was the man who at one time had come to Allendale with Allen. “Was Mr. Rodgers hurt in this accident?” Sally asked.

  “All I know is that he smashed up his car en route here.” Godley replied dryly. “He wires that he’ll be here as soon as he can make it, when he gets here, we’ll precede that’s all.” Godley turned and left the room, ending the argument. Sally Daniels walked toward her father on the settee, Miller followed her.

  The old seaman glimpsed Miller, “Hi there mate.” Miller stood behind the settee, “who is this Alvin Rodgers?” He asked.

  “It’s just like Godley said. He was Paul Allen’s best friend, both in South America and after they got back.”

  “I believe you did mention him.”

  “I may have spoken of him. Rodgers was probably the one honest man with us down there on the Aripuana. He was a scholarly fellow, sensitive impractical and unlucky and he had a big influence on Paul’s thoughts.”

  “I’ve seen his picture.” There seemed no point in mentioning that he had also seen Rodgers at Allendale. Rodgers nodded, “they met down in South America, and Rodgers had been in some kind of trouble with a girl back home. He had gone down there to forget. He laughed, “To tell the truth, I have more than a little suspicion that it was Rodgers who converted Paul to his Christian attitude toward those of us who had given him such a raking over.”

  “This Christian attitude, the zoo they were not part of the same pattern and where moreover did Davis’s visits to Allendale fit in? Had he gone there because of an interest in Albert Smith or an interest in the institution?” Rodgers said.

  “What’s the meaning of those name plates on the cages in the compound?” Miller asked. Daniels chuckled, “just one of Paul Allen’s quirks.”

  “But why put the names on the cages?” Miller persisted. Daniels looked at him keenly, “I told you, Paul Allen was religious.” He said slowly. “But he was no Baptist or Methodist. Paul found his faith in spiritualism, in the transmigration of souls; does that answer your question?”

  For a moment Miller could say nothing, the astonishing statement with all its implications must have time to sink in. He was startled out of his thoughts by a tap on his shoulder; it was Jose Mendez.

  “Mr. Miller,” whispered Mendez, “I would like to speak with you a moment.” He led Miller to the far side of the room, where he had been standing when Miller came in. He had the awkward manner of a man about to ask for a loan, he finally said, “Mr. Miller, are you a detective?”

  The question stunned Miller. “I’m here because a friend of mine died the other day.” He said. He was actually becoming hardened in speaking of Albert as dead. “No, I’m not a detective; I just want to know why my friend died as he did.”

  “Was Paul Allen your friend also?”

  “No, I’m talking about Albert Smith, did you know him? He was Allen’s doctor.” No it was not just the answer to Albert’s death he wanted nor was it curiosity or revenge, it was more than any of that. It was for the knowledge that he could take a problem in hand and master it. The South American’s eyes glinted beneath their ridge less brows. “Do you expect to find a killer here?” The fleshiness about his jaws made his face a round coffee colored moon. “I don’t know what to expect, I’ve been wrong too often to try prophesying.” Miller admitted.

  Mendez smiled awkwardly, as if he well recognized Miller’s feelings. “You know, I am a fatalist, a moral agnostic I have never wanted more than to live a
quiet life and to be left alone. I could have studied for the priesthood, but perhaps it is not so strange after all that my fate took me to a military academy.” Shrugging, he turned away, one leg pulling a little stiffly after the other, as if the weighted sword of a general still clanked at his side. Miller watched him go, thinking so this too is a lonely man! He suddenly felt depression setting like a fog.

  Miller went outside, he walked past the peel-poled wall of the zoo compound and found his way to the river; he walked along the river shore. It was growing dark when Sally Daniels found him sitting on a rock breaking a small stick between his fingers. “What’s the matter?” She asked, “Where have you been?” Her green eyes were troubled, the November wind twisted through the bright soft spun hair and left it in disorder.

  “There’s nothing wrong,” Miller said.

  “No, of course not.” She said it so casually with such easy agreement that it shocked him.

  “I expect people to quarrel with me, to argue with me.” He said bitterly. “I am like that.”

  She was frightened. “John, you are so strange!”

  “Huh! Strange! Am I strange?” He suddenly felt as he had that other night, standing with her near the sea lions pool. “Why are you afraid?” She had said. And suddenly he had not been as afraid as before.

  “I’ll go with you.” He had said.

  “I’ve been sitting here thinking of my wife; Julie is all right, I know I must have hurt her often, but she is not right for me, just as other things are not all right.”

  He hesitated. “I want you to understand, Sally.”

  “Yes, John.” She said. “I understand.” But she did not.

  “And I have been listening to things being said in my mind,” he went on hurriedly again, she looked frightened. “Is it strange if voices speak in your mind Sally? Is it strange to keep hearing things you can’t forget?” Again she had missed what he meant.

  “No, you don’t understand,” he said sadly. “I know I’m not normal, and I don’t mean it in the sense that nobody is normal.” He wondered what she would think if she knew the truth about him. That he had death on his conscience that he was, in his own eyes a murderer. “You’ve been sitting here brooding.” She scolded. “You haven’t had any dinner. I saw a place in town, a sort of tavern that looked nice.”