“Because,” said Detective Yancy, “William Selwyn is lying on a table in the Portland morgue.”
“He is?” I said, shocked.
“You saw him there yourself. It was William Selwyn’s body that washed up on Wolf’s Neck.”
“What happened to him?”
“How did he die?” said Detective Yancy. “We think he froze to death. There was a week in early November when the temperature at night didn’t get above the teens.”
“I remember it was cold.” I felt sorry for Bad Billy and felt that I’d somehow failed him.
“How did he get in the ocean?”
“His campsite was near the water. A combination of the tides and the recent flooding could have done it,” said Detective Yancy, “But the fact that he’s been dead since early November leaves us with a few nagging questions.”
“And what are those?”
“Who killed John Nelson?”
I listened carefully.
“We’re assuming it’s the same killer who murdered Malley Borden.”
“Didn’t he die in early October?” I asked. “Wasn’t that Bad Billy?”
“It seems unlikely. The wound to the neck. The fact that the victim is male.”
“But what about Travis? His killing seems more like a Mafia slaying, with the head and feet and all.”
“We don’t know the connection yet,” said Detective Yancy dramatically.
“We haven’t found his neck,” said Officer Brown.
“And you think it’s Arthur?”
“A bartender at Gritty’s saw you talking to Malley Borden the night he was killed.”
“I remember meeting a ‘Billy’ at Gritty McDuff’s. ‘Billy.’ He worked at L.L. Bean.”
“Malley worked at L.L. Bean. Maybe you heard his name wrong.”
“It does get loud at Gritty’s,” said Officer Brown.
“Are you taking this down?” asked Detective Yancy.
Officer Brown began scribbling in his notebook.
“Tell me more about Mr. Verhoven’s jealousy.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“We are serious,” said Detective Yancy.
“No, I refuse to believe it,” I said. I began to cry.
“If you’re covering for him,” said Detective Yancy, “now is the time to stop.”
“Oh what’s the use?” I cried out. “He went to New York. He didn’t tell me why.”
“Write this down,” ordered Detective Yancy.
“He said he was going to his brother’s in Connecticut first to get some money. I thought he’d held up a convenience store, or something like that. I had no idea...”
“Anything else?” said Detective Yancy.
“Yeah,” I said. “He said he was going to shave his head.”
30
I got up late, around eleven. I was back on the couch, having decided that my mother was welcome to my bed. Having her around was a trial for me, even though she spent most of the day sleeping, the rest strangely quiet as if she was waiting for something from me. I hadn’t brought up the subject of the bones again because I knew all I wanted to.
“How did you get out of the hospital?” I asked her.
“Through the front doors,” she said.
“I assumed as much. What about Dad?”
“He’ll make his peace with it.”
“How did you get past him?”
“The only way I could,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You want me to leave, don’t you?”
“You’re not well...”
“You’re the one who should leave. You’re the one who’s in trouble, yet you stay here day after day, in this little house. What are you waiting for? Arthur’s gone.”
After that unenlightening exchange, I’d had a monumental headache and wrestling with it and all the frightening images it conjured up left me wasted when it finally quit. I’d gone into Arthur’s van with a bottle of wine— to get away from her, I suppose— and spent an hour or so looking through the pictures and albums, CDs, blankets, busted drumsticks, paperbacks of Kerouac, Denis Johnson, Vonnegut. His sleeping bag was still in there, but Arthur’s scent was disappearing. I sat in the driver’s seat and started the engine, for a moment wondered what it would be like to drive off the end of the point, into the water. Kevin, who was sitting in the passenger seat, looked at me accusingly and I remembered that the tide was out, that all I’d accomplish was sinking the van into the mud. And what good was that?
I made a strong pot of coffee. It looked like another glorious day and I was feeling more than a little resentful of it, the winking flowers, the shivering leaves, the cormorants set up like sentries along the pylons at the bay’s entrance. The tide was in and I could hear children somewhere yelling to each other. It was Saturday, after all. I had just started to brush my teeth, which I was doing at the kitchen sink, looking up the driveway where a rabbit was squatting up on its furry haunches, when I saw the black Lexus SUV. The rabbit managed to scurry away in time, but it was too late for me, and I knew this deep in my bones. I set down my toothbrush, overcome by weariness, and, honestly, an element of relief.
A police car followed the SUV and the two vehicles pulled into the driveway. Kevin barked and ran to the door. I wondered who he thought was there. Maybe he could smell Officer Brown, who was raising his hand to the bell, who always patted Kevin when he came over. I doubt he was barking for my father, who had no use for dogs.
I went over to the door and waited for the bell to ring, which it did. I swung it open and saw Officer Brown, embarrassed as always, and my father, who was now completely gray-haired, but other than that, exactly the same. Officer Brown was in uniform, of course, and my father looked dressed for golf, which was as casual as he could manage.
“Hello, Katherine,” said my father.
“Hello, Dad,” I said. “I see you’ve contacted the police.”
“Actually,” said my father, “he approached me.”
“Really?” I looked over to Officer Brown and stepped back so they could enter the house.
“Mr. Shea was speeding. I pulled him over, then he said he was your father. He couldn’t find your house, so I thought I’d just bring him over. And I wanted to see how you were doing, Miss Shea.”
I smiled tightly. “I’m doing fine,” I said. I looked back at my father, who as usual, betrayed no emotion. “So what made you finally come visit me?”
“I received a phone call. Dr. Parkinson from the University of Arizona is anxious to track you down.”
“As are many people,” I said.
“Although they may not be aware of it,” my father added. He looked pointedly at Officer Brown, who was beginning to be very uncomfortable.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“Black,” said my father, which I already knew.
Officer Brown shook his head then stepping back, upset a lamp, which he quickly righted.
I brought my father his coffee and he nodded a polite thank-you.
“So, what made Barry contact you?”
“Barry?”
“Barry Buster Parkinson.”
“He still had our home phone number from when you were in college. He had it in his records. I don’t know why he needed your home phone number.”
“You don’t want to know,” I said. Barry and I had rendezvoused a couple of times over vacations. I remembered one rainy spring break weekend in his house on Martha’s Vineyard. “So the bones are new.”
“It seems your mother had an interesting hobby.”
“What was her hobby?” asked Officer Brown.
“Her hobby,” I said, staring my father down, “is Native American culture.”
“Certain cultures, not what most women go for.”
“And what do most women go for?” I asked my father.
“Maybe I should leave,” said Officer Brown.
“No,” said my father. “I want you here.”
Officer Brown was both confused and surprised by this. He crouched down and began scratching Kevin’s ears.
“My dog really likes you,” I said.
“Actually,” said Officer Brown, “he’s my dog. Someone stole him off my back porch three months ago.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry about that.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Officer Brown got up. “Can I use your bathroom?” he said.
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid not.”
“Why not?” asked my father.
“There’s a plumbing problem. The toilet’s backed up.”
“Maybe I could take a look at it for you,” said Officer Brown. He headed for the hallway.
“No. Don’t go down there. It’s all right. I’ll fix it later.”
“I don’t mind, really. I’m good at things like this.”
“No,” I said.
Officer Brown ignored me.
“No!” I shouted. “Don’t go in there!”
Officer Brown stopped and turned. He rested his hand on his gun holster. “Miss Shea, is Mr. Verhoven in the house?” He looked at me with such frankness and sympathy that I felt I had to be honest.
“Yes, he is.”
Officer Brown took his gun from his holster and walked slowly down the hallway.
“Katherine, this is not easy for me,” said my father.
I turned and looked him solidly in eyes. “She’s here too.”
My father looked up at me, not seeming to comprehend what I was saying. We watched each other in tense silence.
The bathroom door creaked open, then there was a moment followed by the thud of Officer Brown’s body hitting the floor. My father looked hesitantly at me, then went down the hallway. I followed a few steps behind. Officer Brown had passed out, his arm flung out to the right, the gun a few inches away on the floor. His shoes had blood on the soles. I saw my father peek into the bathroom, then pull back. He covered his face with his hands and looked away. He stayed frozen like that until I went to him and led him by the elbow back into the living room. I helped him to the chair and he sat down.
We sat in silence for maybe five minutes.
My father looked helpless then. I’d never seen him look like that. I always thought I’d wanted to see him like that, but I’d been wrong. I actually felt sorry for him.
“My neglect is criminal,” he said.
“You did your best,” I said, surprised by the tenderness in my voice.
“Katherine, what are you talking about?”
“There are worse fathers.”
He seemed surprised that this was an issue. “And worse husbands, no doubt,” he said. “I failed you and your mother.”
“She’s here,” I repeated. “Were you looking for her?”
“Looking for her?” My father’s eyebrow’s descended and he pulled his head up sharply. “Your mother’s dead, almost a year now.” I watched him closely. His face hardly moved. “I told that Italian construction worker, your boyfriend.” He looked rattled, more confused then scared, as if he suspected me of playing with him. “Petro.”
“Pietro,” I corrected him.
“I know he told you.”
“That’s right.”
It took me a minute to get up from my chair.
I went down the hall to the bedroom.
I looked in the mirror and saw with mild surprise that I was wearing the dogwood earrings. I was alone and the room was filled with a vacuum of silence, as if someone had been laughing riotously, hysterically, and suddenly stopped.
I packed a few things, without really thinking what they were. My mother was right. I had to escape while I still could.
When I came back to the living room, my father still had not moved.
“I’m leaving now,” I said.
My father looked up at me. “You can’t leave, Katherine. We’ll work something out. Everything will be all right.”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“You killed him in self-defense. He was a murderer anyway. The police will understand.”
“Arthur didn’t kill Travis,” I said. I imagined Arthur sawing off Travis’s feet and hands, Travis’s head.
My father blew his nose into his handkerchief and I could smell his sweat, I could smell Officer Brown’s deodorant, his toothpaste, his laundry detergent and soap from down the hall. Out in the back field I could smell where the deer had come close, then smelling me, taken off. And I knew that it would rain that night, just a little, although it was nowhere in the forecasts. I knew all of this, just as I knew that Arthur would come back after dumping the suitcase, even though he knew I was responsible. He came back because he wanted me to tell him that it wasn’t true. I don’t know why. Maybe he loved me.
“How did you become this way?” asked my father.
But my father’s ingenuousness failed to fool me. How could he claim not to understand my hunger, a hunger that was everywhere—in art, in literature, at the boundaries of our knowledge, in the dark jungles of our planet—the basic hunger in us all? Our civilization, the “America” that was a source of unending pride for him, was not based on the nurturing of the weak but on their calculated demise. He seemed to find my motivations a mystery, that I, because of my particular appetite, was the “other.” But here he was wrong. His need for control, for money, for power, was based on the foundation of a populace debilitated by the appetites of the strong. This was his history. My history. The history of the world. My father’s horror of me was not one of incomprehension, but fear.
Was I not him?
Were we not all cannibals dispensing with the defenseless, concerned only with our own survival?
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asked.
I considered this. I wanted to tell him that the fact that he didn’t eat people didn’t make him Mr. Wonderful, never had. That he’d never fooled my mother, nor me. But I felt sorry for him, strangely enough, so I kept this to myself.
“I’m going to be all right,” I said.
I did want to tell him that Boris was dead, for Ann’s sake. It would have been the generous thing to do, but also stupid. Generosity usually was. Ann would sell some large canvas in the next couple of months. She’d have to go out to the storage space in Williamsburg and by then Boris’s reek would be more than the cedar chest could handle. She might even figure it out on her own, the fire I’d lit that day to burn the manuscripts, the coincidence of his disappearance. Soon, no doubt, everyone would figure everything out, without my help.
“Dad,” I said. “I have to get going. Do you have any cash?”
“What?” he said.
“Do you have any cash?”
“Where are you going?”
I had decided to head to Canada, which was only six hours away. It was time to try my luck in a new country.
“Where are you going?” he repeated.
“I can’t tell you that,” I said.
My father looked suddenly old, tired beyond belief. His shoulders slumped and from where I was standing, looking down on his head, I could see that his hair had thinned and soon his scalp would be as visible as it had been when he was a baby. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He had a couple of hundred dollars in there, and some smaller bills. He looked at the money, than back at me. He said, “You know I loved your mother.”
“I know, Dad.”
“You know I would have done anything to save her.”
“I know that.” I went to squat by him and placed my hands on his knees. “Don’t worry. Everything will work out.”
My father looked up at me, utterly defeated, and handed over the cash. He said, “Somehow I think I will never see you again.”
31
The night of the big snowstorm my father managed to call home before the lines went dead.
“I need you to be a big girl,” my father said to me. I was ten years old. “I’m going to have to spend the night in a hotel in Bos
ton.” He gave me the phone number. “Now listen closely. You should get some wood, a lot, before it gets dark. There’s a good chance that you’ll lose power. You and your mother should sleep in the living room.”
“Yes, Dad,” I said.
“And most importantly, make sure she takes her medicine. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
My mother was napping on the couch. Her feet were pulled up under a wool blanket and her black hair spread over the pillow. Her skin was pale, translucent, and I could see her eyes twitching in a dream. Her lips pulled up for a moment over her teeth and her breathing quickened. For a moment I was stopped by her beauty. She looked like Snow White in her glass coffin, somehow alive but more dead. I had the pill and a glass of water for her to take it with. I’d stacked a pile of wood beside the fireplace but the power was still on, the house bright and humming with it.
“Mommy,” I said. And she woke up and smiled. “I have your medicine.”
She propped herself up on an elbow and took the pill. She looked at it. “These pills make me so sleepy,” she said. She leaned over to the potted palm and dug a small hole with her index finger into which she dropped the pill. She covered it over with soil then took the glass of water and poured into the pot. “Maybe it will grow into a big medicine tree,”she said. “This is our secret.”
Then she got up from the couch, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders like a shawl. My father never let her drink— he said it interacted badly with her pills—but she liked to drink and I remember her opening a bottle of wine. “What shall we do tonight?” she said. “Maybe there’s something inappropriate for you on TV.”
We started watching a movie, something I found quite dull—especially the bedroom scenes—but soon the power quit and I was saved.
“Now what?” she said.
“I’ll light a fire,” I replied.
We took the cushions off the couch and arranged some sort of pallet on the floor. I brought down comforters and pillows from upstairs. Outside, the wind howled and all the doors in our old house rattled in response. My mother and I sat on the cushions, warm and happy, staring into the fire. She was halfway through the bottle of wine.
“Katherine,” she said, placing her hand on my shoulder and then on my face and then on my hair, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
A Carnivore's Inquiry Page 29