by John Gardner
Mickelsson moved toward him, glad to get away from the too earnest blond one. “Let me give you some coffee,” he said. “You must be half frozen yourselves.”
“I’m sorry,” the dark-haired one said, raising his hand, “we’re not allowed, that is, we don’t—”
“Yes of course. Hot milk, then,” Mickelsson said.
The dark-haired one tucked down the corners of his mouth, uncertain, and Mickelsson glanced at the blond, who looked interested, though he didn’t dare say it. Mickelsson remembered something else he’d heard in Utah, that it was a common occurrence, when the Saints found a backslider or apostate, for the faithful to beat that person bloody. “When I came here to Utah,” Mickelsson’s friend had said, with a bemused look, “I thought the Mormons were sort of like the Shakers or something. Brother, I had no idea! They kill each other all the time, one sect against another!” It did not seem likely, even if such things were true in Utah, that the Mormons of Susquehanna County were at all like that. Certainly such horrors had nothing to do with these two.
“Hot milk,” Mickelsson said, reminding himself. “It won’t take a minute.” He hurried into the kitchen from the entryway, switching on the light as he passed the door. It flickered, then stayed on, suddenly bathing the room with the cold glare of an ice-house. The two young Mormons looked at each other, each checking to see whether the other one approved. In the bright light they looked remarkably drab, almost as if the whole thing were a joke of some kind, two characters dressed up for a play by Samuel Beckett. Where the dark-haired one had stood there was a puddle on the linoleum. Mickelsson quickly looked away from it, lest he embarrass them. “What a terrible thing,” he said, opening the refrigerator door to look for milk. He found it not there but on the counter, where he’d left it hours ago. The kitchen was cold, though; the milk would be all right. He said, to praise them, make them feel at home, “If you people hadn’t found him, he could have lain there till spring thaw.”
The dark-haired one shook his head, eyes narrowed to chinks. They both stood squinting for several seconds, their heads forward, their hands in their pockets. They made him think of two lean country dogs. Mickelsson poured milk into a pot and set it on the burner. At the far end of the house he heard movement, no doubt the cat. He glanced at the clock on the stove: 9 p.m.
“I couldn’t believe it,” the dark-haired one said. He put his hand over his mouth, his thumbtip and fingertips moving up and down, his close-together eyes staring at nothing. “There was this hand sticking out of the snow. I walked right past it, and then I knew I’d really seen it.” He shook his head.
Steam was rising from the pot of milk. Mickelsson stirred it with a wooden spoon and turned the heat down. “Up there in the cupboard,” he said, pointing, “there are big yellow mugs.” He felt something and looked down. The cat was rubbing against his leg. “Take it easy. All in good time,” Mickelsson said.
The blond went to the cupboard, walking very carefully as if afraid he might slip, and got down the mugs. Now the light in the entry-hall changed, blue flashes like shocks. The police car was outside.
“Take them with you,” Mickelsson said, pouring. He handed a mug to the dark-haired boy, then another to the blond, who was looking over his shoulder down the hallway, worried. “It’s all right,” Mickelsson said, “the mugs are old and cheap. Go ahead, they’re yours.” He moved toward the door and just after the first knock came he opened it. A sheriff’s deputy stood, pot-bellied, hands on hips, silhouetted in profile against the blue-flashing lights. He was no one Mickelsson had ever seen before.
“Professor Mickelsson?” he asked. In one gloved hand he had a long black flashlight, solid as a club.
“Come in,” Mickelsson said. “I gave them a cup of hot milk and they haven’t figured out quite what to do with it yet.” He smiled. “They’ll be right with you.”
“That’s OK,” the man said, and grinned, then sucked at his lower lip, a gesture apparently habitual.
The two Saints were drinking quickly, probably scalding themselves, eager to be off with the policeman, not make a bad impression, but also eager not to carry away the mugs. The cat stood waiting with his back raised.
“It’s OK,” the policeman said to them, grinning, showing his teeth, then sucking at his lower lip again.
They put the mugs down, empty. “You got here quick,” the dark-haired one said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He gave a jerky nod to Mickelsson and drifted toward the door.
When they were gone, Mickelsson again poured milk for the cat, mixed in dry catfood, then slowly washed the pot in which he’d heated the milk for the Mormons. He moved the Brillo pad around and around long after the pot was clean. At last he realized what was bothering him. It was that look, the night of the fire up at Spragues’, on Owen Thomas’s face. Was it just that they couldn’t find the old man’s body—or had he seen something?
5
Mid-morning, Saturday. Bitterly cold again. Mickelsson registered it like a man moving toward some important, foreknown event.
Owen Thomas’s reserve seemed more than ordinary shyness. He smiled to himself, his gray eyes as evasive as a rabbit’s, and seemed to mull over Mickelsson’s question, turning it over and over again like a hundred-dollar bill found in a clock. While he thought about his answer his small, elegant hands measured out lengths of chain he was cutting for a customer, a young man in a quilted orange down jacket. He had longish, matching orange hair. The store was overwarm, as it always was on cold days. There were a number of customers, most of them probably just looking, fleeing the cold. The customer buying chain had small, bright blue eyes like a baby’s, and seemed to listen for Thomas’s answer as eagerly as did Mickelsson. He was stocky, powerful, as innocent as a hen.
“Well,” Thomas said, “the place was quite a mess, I can tell you that. It was pretty much burned down to nothing when we axed our way in, but you could see how bad it had been.”
“Yes,” Mickelsson said, unsatisfied, “I was up there once. Junk from one end of the house to the other.” He kept his face turned partly away.
Thomas nodded, then squeezed the handles of the chain-cutter. The chain-links parted without a sound and the lower length of chain fell to the floor and nestled. “That’s true, but it’s not what I meant,” he said at last. “I mean the livingroom walls were all torn up. It looked like a bomb had gone off there or something”—he smiled, glanced at Mickelsson—“or maybe somebody’d started tearing the house down.”
“The walls—?” The young man leaned around, trying to see Thomas’s eyes.
“All torn up, plaster all over the floor,” Thomas said. He seemed reluctant to speak further.
“Jesus,” the young man said, then held out both arms to take the chain as he would yarn. Thomas lifted it toward him and hung it over his arms loop by loop. “What’s this country comin to?” the young man asked. He looked, full of concern, at Mickelsson, as if he might know.
“You’re sure of this?” Mickelsson asked. “Couldn’t it just be that things caved in during the fire?”
Owen Thomas shrugged, noncommittal, as if to say “That’s not how it looked to me,” but he said nothing.
The young man’s face tightened; then he said what he was thinking: “Gol darn motorcycle gangs.”
“You think so?” Mickelsson asked.
“They’re everywhere. Rip up your place worse’n a tornado.”
“Surely not in the winter, though. It was all snow and ice.”
“Snowmobiles, then. It’s all the same,” the young man said. “My wife’s folks went away one time, week-end at Elk Mountain, and they came home and, by heck, you just wouldn’t believe it. Place tore all upside and down. And as if that weren’t enough, they blew up the little bridge on the road in front! Dynamite! Everybody knows about ’em. Heck, they brag about it! They’ll steal your overcoat and wear it right downtown, big as life, or they’ll tear up your place just for the fun of it. They’re nuts!”
“W
ell,” Thomas said, negotiating.
The young man stood holding the chain, face reddening, eyes growing brighter. “They’re just nuts, that’s all you can figure. They all gaht good jobs. Those machines they drive, they don’t come cheap—you know? They work in their drugstores or banks or wherever, and then the weekend comes—”
“Who?” Mickelsson broke in to ask. When the young man looked blank, he asked again, “Who? I keep hearing that everybody knows who they are, but who are they?”
The young man looked down at the chain.
Mickelsson leaned toward him, speaking gently. “Do you mean Tim Booker and his friends?” He glanced at Owen Thomas, but Owen was looking away.
“I don’t say it’s Tim,” the young man said, pouting, disliking pressure. “People like that, that’s all. Maybe just people too smahrt for Seskehenna. Bored, I mean. They just do things, f’no reason.” He shook his head. “Seems like a lot of people do that. Makes you sick.” He looked sternly at the chain, maybe thinking of all he had to get to yet today—chores, frozen waterlines—and abruptly turned to head up the aisle. Mickelsson watched him go, then turned back, part way, to Owen Thomas.
Before Mickelsson could speak, Thomas said. “It wasn’t Tim. I don’t say he’s perfect, but I can tell you it wasn’t him. Some people will tell you that now and again Tim and his friends will get drunk and break into some house, somebody from New Jersey, or undermine some back lane so the first lovers that drive in there, the car’s suddenly sunk to the windows. I’ve heard such things said. But don’t you believe it. It’s those kids from up in New York State that do that. They’re crazy up there—anybody will tell you. I’ve had truck drivers tell me they hate to pass through, up there. The law’s crazy, the citizens are crazy. … You should see the salesmen a storekeeper up there has to deal with!” He rubbed his nose, looking down, as if saddened that an influence so pernicious should lie so close. “Anyway, I know Tim. He wouldn’t do anybody damage, not even a stranger. That house up there, it was like a bomb went off in it. Plaster everywhere it shouldn’t be. It was like what the old-timers say witches used to do when they decided it was time to really fix somebody’s goose. They’d set their minds on it—focus the curse like sunlight through a reading-glass—”
“Is that what you think happened?” Mickelsson asked.
Thomas shook his head. “It’s a mystery, that’s all,” he said. He smiled, tentative, and looked toward Mickelsson. “Old Sprague was a witch. I guess you knew that? Or thought he was. Thought he could fly, thought he could cast spells …”
“Must not have been much money in it,” Mickelsson said, and grinned.
“Never is. Mostly all it does is make the rest of the witches your enemies.”
Mickelsson said nothing, thinking about it, uncertain whether Thomas was serious or joking.
“Anyway,” Thomas said, “somehow another somebody made a devil of a mess up there.” He smiled and moved his eyes away again, preparing to mosey down the aisle.
Mickelsson said, “Tell me this, though. What do they mean when they say everybody knows who did it? They said it about the murder of the fat man, too.”
“Depends on who said it,” Thomas suggested, one eyebrow raised.
“Tinklepaugh, Tim …”
Thomas pushed his hands into his trousers pockets and looked at the floor for a minute. “Well,” he said at last, “it’s hard to tell.”
It was clear that he was being less than forthright. “Come on,” Mickelsson said. “I’m a good customer.” He gave Thomas his intense grin. “I’m a stranger, I admit, but I throw myself into it. I saved that old house. I care as much about Susquehanna as anybody else does, you know that.”
Thomas stared at the floor, quiet as a statue. At last he said, “I suppose some of ’em when they say it they mean they think it was you.”
“They think—” Mickelsson began. His tongue was suddenly thick, and his heart was beating fast. No doubt he was blushing. “They think I killed the fat man?” Quickly, no doubt showing his fluster, he added, “They think I tore up my own house?”
Thomas shrugged, gently. It was clear that he was sorry to have this conversation—clear that in fact he liked Mickelsson and was not speaking for himself, had been forced into the position of speaking for the town. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess when you’re really a townsman you’ll forgive it for its foolishness.” He was unable to meet Mickelsson’s eyes. “Every town’s got its ways,” he said. “Susquehanna’s no different. There’s a lot of good here. People are friendlier here than most places. Maybe it’s because they’re all so poor here, I don’t know. But it’s a good place, that way.”
As if hardly aware that he was doing it, Thomas picked up a bolt from one of the trays on the counter and moved it to the tray it belonged in. “On the other hand,” he said, “Susquehanna’s got its faults. I guess we’re a little hard on strangers, one thing.” He looked at the trays. “I guess there’s a certain amount of superstition. And I guess when you come right down to it, law and order aren’t exactly the -same in Susquehanna as in, well, most places. You can get away with a lot here if Cobb and Tinklepaugh know you, or if the town likes you—which comes to pretty much the same thing. It’s not so much the laws on the books that people care about, in Susquehanna. That fat man, for instance. I guess they knew pretty well who he was, and what he was. It wasn’t that people knew him—nobody knew him, come down to it. But he was never trouble. You take those boys that come down off the mountain and park their pickups across from Milly’s. I guess you’ve seen it. They get out of their trucks and walk out into the middle of the street and open up their flies and take a piss, arms thrown out like they were dying on the cross. I guess most places you’d throw a man in jail for a thing like that.” Thomas blushed, smiling, still looking down, doubtful that Mickelsson would understand. “But what harm is it? When they’re finished they button up and walk on in to Milly’s and have their drinks, play their three or four games of pool, maybe locate some girlfriend. …”
Mickelsson asked softly, conscious of a certain professorial stiffness, “Do you think I’m the one that tore up my own house?” His smile, he knew, was a grotesque wince.
“No,” Thomas said, and gave a headshake.
Still more righteously, Mickelsson asked, “Do you think I killed the fat man?”
The evasion in Thomas’s eyes was instantaneous and brief, though his answer was casual. “If you say you didn’t, I believe you.”
Mickelsson blushed violently and knew that his guilt was revealed. He thought of saying, with wonderful indignation, “Well, I didn’t!” But he said nothing. Owen Thomas showed only discomfiture.
Mickelsson would have no idea, later, how much time passed between his implicit confession and Owen Thomas’s next words. “Well,” Thomas said, “I guess it’s not likely we’ll ever find out who killed the fat man. I’ll tell you my own theory.” He glanced shyly at Mickelsson, then away. “I don’t think anybody killed him. I think he just died. The only real evidence they’ve got at all is that the door was broken down. But what if he just couldn’t find his key? Left it inside, say? Say he broke down his own door, and the excitement of it brought on a heart attack.”
Mickelsson gazed thoughtfully, still blushing, at Thomas’s chest. If he were an ancient Greek, he might have felt that some alien spirit had entered into him; at any rate, it did not seem himself that said, “But the room was torn up.”
“He died of an attack of angina pectoris, that’s what they say,” Thomas said. “From what I hear, a man can thrash around for twenty, thirty minutes with that. A man the size he was could’ve torn up a factory.”
Mickelsson said, feeling light, not himself, “But he had a gun in his hand. Why that?”
“Who knows?” Thomas said. “With angina pectoris your blood stops moving. Maybe he was seeing visions, having a nightmare. Maybe he was trying to shoot himself.”
Mickelsson could think of nothing to say.
At last Mickelsson said, “What about the money? He’s supposed to have been a bank robber. That’s what Tinklepaugh says.”
“Maybe he spent it all years ago. Maybe he buried it.”
It crossed Mickelsson’s mind that the theory was not Thomas’s. Was it Tinklepaugh’s, then? Bill Cobb’s? The work of the state police?
“Strange business,” he said.
He bought a pair of pliers to explain his having come.
In the Jeep he pressed his palms into the steeringwheel and thought about the elaborate theory they’d made up to let him off. Why? The only answer he could think of was a stupid one: that they liked him and wanted to protect him, as if he were one of their own. The only alternatives he could think of were almost equally queer: that the death of the fat man was of no importance to the town; that they wanted eventually to pin the thing on somebody else.
When he glanced into the rear-view mirror, he noticed two things at once. The first was that the troll-doll was no longer there. He wasn’t sorry to have given it to Lepatofsky’s daughter, but he missed it: at the edge of his mind he’d felt that it was in some way lucky. The second thing he noticed was that the car behind him was dark green, unornamented. It had a large radio antenna. Anyone would have guessed at once that it was some kind of police car. According to diSapio-as-in-sap-but-don’t-count-on-it, it was not an I.R.S. car. In the car there were two people, but because of the clean-lined reflection on the windshield he could make out nothing of what the two might look like. Mickelsson made a U-turn and nosed toward his house. When he reached his own driveway he stopped and sat thinking for a moment. Not quite to his surprise, the dark green car came up behind him, after a while; but the car did not slow, the two occupants did not look at him. It moved on, as if on important business, up the mountain.
A little after noon Mickelsson got visitors. The world outside was bright and glittering, warmish now, a day that at any other time of his life would have drawn him out of his house. It was not even now that he resisted the fresh-laundered whiteness of the world, the clean smell in the air; he simply failed to notice, half-heartedly reading, replaying in his mind his conversation this morning with Owen Thomas. He couldn’t tell whether he was mainly frightened or mainly relieved to learn that the town thought him a murderer. He was troubled, that much he knew, and weak as a kitten, a weakness that went right to the bone marrow. Building toward something. Sometimes he would sit for an hour without moving a muscle, then suddenly get up and move around restlessly, reading as he walked, sometimes almost falling, unreached by the brightness coming in like a cry at every window.