by M. M. Mayle
He again cracks open the wardrobe door and again encounters a vision. The same man and boy he saw before are now landed on the attic floor. There they are, not that far away, planted on the oriental rug of the mockup stage set with their backs to the tall mirror backdrops and their faces to him and the double row of gilt banquet chairs standing in between. There they are, big as life, come to life as Hoople Walking Crow Jakeway and Anthony Arthur Christian Elliot. Unmistakable, they are, and talking in an animated fashion.
He strains to listen and catches very little. He watches their actions as reflected in the mirrors, concludes that they’re arguing and the bedraggled Anthony apparition is losing. Colin steps out of the wardrobe when the Jakeway figure grabs Anthony in a chokehold from behind and displays a knife in a threatening way.
“Let the lad go!” Colin cries, his cracked voice poor competition for the wind noise. “It’s me you want, motherfucker.” His voice fractures on the epithet, but he has made himself heard, as shown by Anthony’s reaction to his sudden presence.
“See! I told you!” Anthony squeals at his captor. “Didn’t I tell you at the start my dad would—”
Jakeway clamps a hand over Anthony’s mouth and rather gapes at Colin as though he can’t quite believe his eyes, either. His moment of doubt is just that, though—a moment—and his recovery is swift. With his other hand he presses the knife blade against Anthony’s throat.
“Yeah. It’s you I want. You and that lawyerwoman of yours,” Jakeway calls out, far more calm and clear-spoken than expected. “But I’m not lettin’ the boy go. I want him to hear direct from your mouth why I’m rightful to make you pay. I want him to hear your confession firsthand and understand—”
“Confession?” Colin snarls. “You wanna hear my confession? What are you, some sort of fucked-up priest along with everything else? You gonna be administering the last rites as well?”
Jakeway twists his mouth into a distorted grin and at the same time presses the blade harder against Anthony’s neck, where a thin trickle of blood appears.
Whilst fast assembling his thoughts, estimating what all he’s expected to confess to, Colin focuses on the mirrors rather than the knife blade and finds himself staring at another image he didn’t expect to see. Didn’t want to see. But it’s as undeniable as the flesh and blood figures a short distance away.
There, in the lower corner of the nearest mirror, is Laurel’s reflection. She’s evidently crept up the attic stairs unheard in all the commotion, and stopped on the same step where he once watched, unseen, as a far lovelier drama played out.
Just her head is revealed—just enough to startle him into fleeting recall of the bathroom encounter a few hours ago, and more than enough to expose her to dire threat should either Jakeway or Anthony happen to face the other way.
Towards making dead certain they don’t, Colin advances on the pair. Only one row of chairs separates them now; he clears his raw throat for all the good it does.
“C’mon, spit it out.” Jakeway anticipates him. “I’ve waited long enough. I know to the minute when you did away with Audrey. It was in the truck you stole with her inside. It was when she let on that she’d come back to Michigan, to me and a life without all the eviltry of fame and fortune to drag her down and make her do unworthy things that—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Colin roars, tortured throat be damned. “You want me to tell it, then let me tell it. My way.” He continues in a good imitation of the strong voice heard during the period of weirdness spent on the office floor. In the interest of holding their undivided attention, he moves closer to Jakeway and the squelched Anthony
“Was in the stolen truck, as you say, but that’s where all similarity ends. She never said a bloody word about renouncing the evils she was beset with. She had no problem with having been dragged down, seein’ that she did most of the dragging. And she sure as shit never said a word about you or a life without the fame and fortune she so craved. I cannot begin to imagine how the hell you came up with that particular bit.
“What she did have a lot to say about was the baby she’d just dropped—a baby she said most likely wasn’t mine. And didn’t she think that was rather the grand joke, as was the fact of her having hooked it on smack and sold it to the highest bidder even before it was born. Made her porn adventure look like a kiddie cartoon, it did. So when all this news came screaming out of her that day in the hijacked truck, when she commenced beating on me with her fists as well as her words, you better believe I had done with her. Didn’t I just reach over and choke the bleedin’ life out of her!” His emergency voice is shaking now. “There, that what you had in mind?” He somehow manages not to stumble over the words. “Is that the shit you’ve been waitin’ to hear?”
Colin checks first for Laurel’s reaction. Does she understand what he’s doing? What he’s done? Is she okay with it?
She’s unreadable at the moment. And so is Jakeway. Anthony, however, has gone goggle-eyed and that can be blamed on the knife held to his throat.
The knife hasn’t moved a whisker since it drew blood. Which could mean the confession wasn’t detailed enough and the condemnation of Aurora wasn’t harsh enough or the blade would be pointed at him. Thrust at him. Plunged into him.
Without consulting Laurel’s reflection again, Colin takes another step forward, draws even with the front row of chairs. “This score you’re hell-bent on settling . . . I think you should know the cunt made a far bigger fool of me than you,” he says, his voice breaking now of passion. “Me she cuckolded, humiliated, cheated, betrayed, tricked every which way, and all in full media glare. You—according to reliable sources—you she only laughed at and mocked, and only in an offhand way.”
“Filth!” Jakeway bellows. “Lies!” He stabs air with the knife. “That’s made up!” He maintains a suffocating hold on Anthony and drags him closer to the lineup of chairs where Colin is holding his ground.
“You’re makin’ stuff up the same way the lawyerwoman did on the TV,” Jakeway rants. “And that lawyerwoman wife of yours is no better’n you. Fine one she is to talk about high-mindedness after what she set down in that little diary-book of hers. You think I couldn’t figure out from her writings and the valuables she kept in the secret hiding place under the floorboards what went on with that granny she hated and despised? You think . . . you think I don’t know . . . you think I don’t know about . . . the . . . the . . . them-there . . . hundreds of ’em . . .” Jakeway goes incoherent with his raving, cuts more air with the knife, and tightens his grip on Anthony.
“You don’t know anything!” Laurel shouts from the stairwell and emerges head and shoulders into the attic. “And you’re not getting a second chance at me!” she fairly howls and keeps coming till she’s all the way emerged and possessed of Jakeway’s full raging attention.
The distraction is sufficient for Colin to loft one of the gilt banquet chairs, the only weapon at hand. But before he can complete the swing, the sounds he anticipated earlier produce a distraction that shifts all attention to another life-and-death matter.
As expected, the skylight is toast. It’s coming apart before their very eyes—directly above their unprotected heads. In great huge deadly pieces.
The lofted chair becomes shield as Colin lunges for Anthony. Then it’s Jakeway who becomes shield as he rather crouches over the boy before taking a direct hit from a piece of ironwork that topples both floor mirrors. Flying guillotines of glass originate from above as well as from the mirrors; a rain of assorted debris continues for what seems like minutes—an agony of uncertainty when he can’t be sure he’s not the only survivor.
Actual rain pours in to the extent he can’t distinguish between water and the blood soaking the oriental carpet where Anthony was last seen; actual minutes pass before Laurel, miraculously unharmed, approaches the drenched carpet.
Tentative at first, she prods at the wreckage there with the toe of her shoe. Then, more determined, she looks to him for help and toget
her they slide an empty mirror frame out of the way and go to work on the heaviest piece of debris. With much effort they wrest it aside to reveal Jakeway’s lifeless body; with even greater effort they roll his body aside to reveal Anthony’s body, facedown and motionless.
— SIXTY-ONE —
Late morning, October 16, 1987
Nate, with Sam Earle’s input, selects the undercroft of the studio as the logical holding area for the corpses. The stone vault seldom exceeds six or seven degrees Celsius for having once been part of the dairying operation. The only other possibility—walk-in refrigeration units serving the mansion—is too repugnant to consider.
Until the roads are cleared of the scores and scores of trees mowed down by what’s already being called the storm of the century, there’s no summoning the medical examiner and the meat wagon or even a private hearse to remove victims of what Nate will forever refer to as the ordeal of the century, hurricane-like conditions notwithstanding. Trickling in via two-way radio, updates from the authorities indicate it may be days before main thoroughfares are cleared and weeks before secondary roads are again passable. They’re saying local phone service may not be restored before the end of the month, two weeks away.
That’s not hard to believe when a casual look at the immediate surroundings reveals a drooping cobweb of downed utility wires and the flattened remains of a good-sized support trailer plastered against the side of the roofless garage, with another reportedly lodged in one of the few solitary trees left standing, the specimen copper beech out by the helicopter landing pad. All things considered, it’s a fucking wonder they didn’t suffer more casualties—of a different kind—especially on the retreat from the search area as the storm intensified.
He trudges back to the main house, picks his way through windrows of debris left by the storm. Smoke curls in the distance from the smoldering wreckage of the oast houses and adjoining barn. Hard to believe even a kerosene-fueled fire could have prevailed against unrelenting rain, but with hundred mph winds working as bellows, the fire won out.
A preliminary report by one of the groundskeepers says all that’s left of the oast complex are the stone foundations and the heat-distorted remains of derelict farm machinery that was stored in the barn. Which means the carefully undisturbed evidence left there—the handful of rooster feathers, the dog’s pelt and charred carcass, the diary presumed to be Laurel’s, the photo wallet known to be Colin’s—was destroyed as well. Not that any of it matters now that fate has functioned as judge, jury, and executioner.
As he nears the mansion, resident workmen are visible on the roof of the main section, covering the gaping hole left by the collapsed skylight, lowering rubble either blown there or manufactured there when several chimneys went down. At the mansion he pauses to marvel that the exposed window wall of the great hall is somehow unscathed, whereas much of the sheltered glass within the arcade suffered direct hits. He necessarily crunches through those shattered remains to reach the door leading to the kitchen.
Amanda watches his approach through the two surviving panes of glass in that door. As he draws closer, she questions with her eyes if he followed through with the preparations for placing the bodies in temporary storage. He nods just perceptibly and leaves it at that. This is no time to raise another argument about what to do with Jakeway’s mutilated body until it can be handed over to the proper authorities. Securing the near-severed head to the broken body with bandages torn from an old sheet was done with the least amount of dignity possible. And shrouding the result in plain ordinary plastic garbage bags was the next best thing to pitching it onto the compost heap or staking it out for wildlife to further defile.
But the other corpse, although wrapped and bagged in similar fashion, was treated with dignity approaching tenderness. From the moment it was found at daybreak until it was brought to the porte-cochère and identified as Brownell Yates III, it was never accorded less than full respect. Even by the strangers who found it.
Nate’s stomach roils as it did when they summoned him to make that identification. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” he mutters under his breath as he did earlier when forced to view yet another example of Jakeway’s vicious handiwork. He’s still muttering when he enters the house, still carrying on—albeit unintelligibly—about the terrible injustice dealt Brownie just as the writer was on the upswing with everything to live for.
Without asking for a translation of his mutterings, Amanda lays a consoling hand on his arm and lets him know Anthony is awake and able to talk.
Anthony. That’s it. Focus on Anthony and the miracle of his survival. Count on Anthony to fill in the gaps left by Jakeway’s abrupt demise.
Nate avoids the crowd in the kitchen—the new command center—and heads for the central staircase. Amanda catches up after excusing herself from further duty. There’s nothing much left for her to do now that Jakeway is history and Anthony and Brownie have been accounted for. And not much she can do until the roads are reopened and phone service is restored.
On the second floor they approach the open door of the master suite with understandable trepidation. The last time they saw Anthony they thought he was dead in his father’s arms. Whatever shape he’s in now is bound to be an improvement over the way he appeared when carried from the attic past stunned responders drawn there by the thunderous collapse of the skylight.
Amanda raps on the doorframe before they enter this comparative oasis of calm and normalcy. All the drapes are open, revealing intact glazing throughout. Simon is playing quietly with his endless supply of Legos in the bay of the oriel window. Serenity personified, Laurel is seated on the nearby sofa with a cat on her lap; she pats the space beside her, beckons Amanda to join her there.
Anthony and Colin are seated at a table in front of the fireplace where they’re laying waste to grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Both are speckled with superficial nicks and cuts; both are a little drawn and hollow-eyed. But according to the onsite medic who examined them minutes after Anthony was recovered, neither warranted hospitalization.
His mouth full, Colin gestures for Nate to have a seat and dig in. Nate moves to comply. The nursery food does hold more appeal than anything else shoved at him during the harrowing night and heartbreaking morning. Maybe a few swallows of soup and a triangle of sandwich; maybe he can keep that much down. God knows he’d better try or he’ll be subjected to force-feeding at Amanda’s behest.
In the act of trying, while ladling a scant serving of soup from the tureen and preparing to take a seat at the table, he feels a tug on his sleeve. Anthony peers up at him, hope alive in his expression.
“Did Toby come home yet? Do you know? Have you seen him? Have you? Huh? Have you? Have you? Huh? Huh?” the child pesters in blissful ignorance.
Nate drops the ladle and nearly overturns the chair. He pinches the bridge of his nose to no avail and blinks in rapid succession without being able to hold back the combination of grief and relief manifesting as tears. Mumbling a few words about having forgotten something, he flees the scene.
In the corridor, struggling for control, he senses a presence he assumes is Amanda. But it’s Laurel’s hand that offers a wad of Kleenex and leads him to the neighboring suite where she sits him down on a narrow bed, drops down beside him and fills him in to the extent she can.
“You’re saying Anthony remembers none of it,” Nate responds at the conclusion of the pieced-together narrative.
“Apparently not. But that’s based on what he hasn’t said. We haven’t questioned him about . . . about any specifics and if I have anything to say about it, we never will. I’d rather that his memory of the ordeal remains buried. Dredging it up won’t accomplish anything. Not really. Not at this juncture.”
For some reason her mildly expressed opinion comes across as harsh condemnation of the weeks and months of dredging that were a large part of Colin’s treatment at Denver’s Fortescu Clinic. But that’s not a fair comparison; there’s no “like father, like son” th
ing going on here. Anthony, whatever horrors he was forced to witness, has not withdrawn altogether; he’s only hiding from the worst elements and his input is unnecessary to any healing process or carrying out of justice.
“I’m guessing he simply couldn’t process any more.” Laurel jars him from his rumination. “Especially after being made party to Brownie’s slaughter,” she goes on as though having read his mind.
“Do you really think he saw that carried out?”
“I don’t see how he couldn’t have. I can’t imagine Jakeway spared him in any way. Didn’t you say you found Anthony’s soccer cap near Toby’s remains? Nothing says he wasn’t made to witness that slaughter, you know.”
“But he just asked . . . oh, I get it, he’s blank from the time he sneaked away to look for the dog until he came to in Colin’s arms,” he says.
“Appears so.”
“So if he was given details, if Jakeway bragged about how he got into the estate, say, or how he got into the country, or if he talked about his demented obsession with Aurora, we may never know.”
“There was never any guarantee Jakeway would talk if taken alive,” Laurel responds.
“True.”
“And there’s no guarantee Anthony has blocked this out for all time, but I, for one, hope he has. As I said before, revisiting what he saw and heard would serve no purpose that I can think of.”
She continues speaking in this vein, convincingly, as though imparting privileged information, and with a conviction that brooks no argument. Not that he was contemplating one.
“Yes, there is a lot we don’t know,” she says as though he had raised an objection. “There will always be a lot we don’t know for certain,” she says as though she’s had more than a couple of hours to think this over. “Perhaps we don’t need to know . . . everything.” She looks away for a moment, smoothes the bed covering, repositions several of the stuffed toys inhabiting the pillow end of the bed. “Perhaps we’re not supposed to know everything,” she says to the toys.