Gibbon's Decline and Fall

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Wasn’t me broke it. Was already broke.”

  Carolyn shook her head. “No. It wasn’t broken at ten o’clock when I locked it before I went to bed.”

  “Dogs always sleep in here?” asked Whitfield, all too casually.

  Hal’s head came up, and he stared at the deputy.

  “These dogs do,” Carolyn said, feigning indifference. “Other dogs sleep other places. Then there’s the hired men. And parts of this building are covered by alarms.”

  She turned to see Hal’s eyebrows raised, his lips twisting slightly. Much of what she had just said was invention. Invention now, she conceded, but not for long.

  They hauled the young man out and away. The sheriff’s car threw gravel against the patio wall as it departed, rocketing off down the drive with more speed than sense.

  “You didn’t like the guy with Fredo?” Hal asked softly. “Didn’t trust him?”

  “Did you?”

  “Not really. He was a little too interested in our arrangements, wasn’t he? Did you get the impression he knew the prisoner?”

  “He couldn’t have been less curious about him. That might mean something, in my humble opinion.”

  “So? What was he doing here? Is this what Helen warned you about?”

  She pondered the question. “I think not. Josh—the guard out at the prison—says Jagger has a dirty-work guy, an ex-Green Beret, ex-one thing and another. Guy named Martin. Somebody like that’d be too slick to get caught like this.”

  She braced the kitchen door with a high-backed chair; then she and Hal made the rounds of the house, checking the other locks and leaving all inside doors open for the convenience of the nervous dogs, who were exploring every corner and closet. They ended up in the study, where she took the unsigned copy from the bin, scribbled the date and Fredo’s name on it, then switched it for the one he had signed. The signed one came out of its envelope and went into her wallet. The one she had just faked went back between the books.

  “Bait?” asked Hal, eyebrows raised.

  “Well, if Fredo mentions I’ve got a signed copy of the map, somebody might come looking for it.”

  “You recognize the hand?”

  “I think I do, yes. I’d guess Swinter.”

  “Now, how in hell would you recognize his writing?”

  “It was a lawyers’ meeting, Hal, years ago. Swinter had a new toy, one of those conference screens you can write on, then it duplicates whatever’s on the screen in letter-size copies. He was passing his scribbles out to all and sundry.…”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Not entirely, no. Not until I pull the old file. It’s down at Jerry’s office.” Jerry was her former partner.

  “What do you think the greasy kid was up to?”

  “God knows. Murder? Theft? Exploration? I don’t think he sort of dropped in accidentally. He came here intentionally.”

  “But not sent by Jagger?”

  Carolyn considered the matter. “No. This was a dumb stunt. I’ll stick with my first guess. Emmet Swinter. Or … Vince Harmston might have been dumb enough to do it.”

  “Emmet Swinter’s about as bright as your average roping calf.”

  Which was true; the man’s natural sense had been warped by a lifetime of evasion. Carolyn shook her head, telling herself to watch it. Her own could be warped, too, by too much generalized suspicion. Easy. Careful.

  “I wish we knew,” Hal murmured. “When can you lay your hands on the handwriting samples?”

  “Tomorrow. If Mary hasn’t cleaned out the files, I know right where they are.”

  First thing in the morning, however, they would see about improving security measures for the farm. Speaking of which, the prowler certainly hadn’t walked the twenty-five miles from town. Which might mean someone had brought him.…

  Someone who was not in custody and might come back. She didn’t mention the thought to Hal.

  At Jake Jagger’s house the phone rang very early in the morning. Jake snapped awake and reached for it.

  “Young guy just got brought in,” said a familiar voice very softly. “Broke into somebody’s house. Somebody named Shepherd. Sheriff’s office brought him in. Gottim down here, and he says call Swinter. Tried. Can’t get him.”

  Alertness. “I understand.”

  “Don’t suppose you look forward to havin’ him up for arraignment on Monday.”

  Anger, coldly controlled. “Since I’m very busy, that would probably be accurate.”

  “What I figured.” The line went dead.

  From the doorway Helen’s voice asked, “Is something the matter?”

  He turned and regarded her in silence. She quailed visibly, slowly backing away.

  He said in a measured voice, without a trace of emotion, “I should have thought you would have learned by now not to ask questions about my business. I should have thought whatever else you are incapable of understanding, you would understand that.”

  “I do understand. It’s just … so late. I thought it might be about the children.”

  He sighed, a much-put-upon but patient man. “The children are no longer your concern.”

  “I’m their mother, Jake.…”

  He merely stared at her. “Why, so you are,” he said at last. “How thoughtful of you to remind me.”

  “I worry about them,” she cried.

  He shook his head at her. “I’ve told you your worry is misplaced. Scott is no longer your concern; he is at the Alliance Redoubt, attending the Institute. He’s doing well. Emily is no longer your concern; she is at the training center. She has recently been promoted into a select class, and from now on she will have no problems. You may rely on that, Helen. The girls in her group have no problems at all.”

  She stifled the complaint rising in her throat, swallowed the sob, made herself ask calmly, “Jake, why? What have I ever done that you treat me like this?”

  It was a moment before he answered, almost surprised, “I do it because … you women … my mother …” He turned and spat, his face working, something writhing in his belly, escaped from his iron control. Awed, she witnessed his struggle, quailing again when he turned in her direction once more.

  He spoke slowly, almost gently. “You ask why? That’s what I wanted to know. How could someone like me have something like that for a mother?” He turned away, lips twisting. “I’m a logical man. I don’t just ask questions; I find answers. I read books. I learned about women, about all that filth in your minds, and your stinking bodies. All that blood and ooze, like a swamp!” The last few words spewed out, followed by a little cloud of expelled saliva.

  She shrank back, away from him.

  He wiped his lips. “Do you have any idea what men could be if women didn’t drag us down? If we didn’t have you hanging on us and weakening us? The Alliance is learning how to deal with women, Helen. The Alliance has had people studying the matter for decades, people from all over the world. We have found the best way. When we take over, oh, the world will be a very different place!”

  He was still staring in her direction, but he didn’t see her. He was seeing something else, hypnotized in some vision of a future she could not conceive. He turned his back and walked away from her, as though he had forgotten she was there.

  She slipped out, closing the door behind her.

  He came to himself in his bathroom, staring at his own image, eyes wide and wondering. The woman had forgotten who he was. Whose son and protégé he was! He should go in there and show her who he was, what he was. He should do it to her, just to prove who and what he was. Cry, struggle though she would, stupid and weak and rotten …

  But … then … it was a lot of trouble for nothing. He disliked the feel, the smell. He preferred to relieve his occasional impulses in the shower, where all was clean, clean water, clean soap, everything washed away, leaving nothing. There were more important things to think about just now. He should save his energy, husband it. He would take care of her in some other way.r />
  He went back into his room and lay down on his bed, pulling the covers up, straightening them precisely, a fraction of an inch below his chin, putting his hands at his sides, closing his eyes. Now that his son’s future was determined, now that the girl had been chosen, he could not think of any reason to keep Helen.

  And he certainly didn’t need that stupid bastard Swinter. He’d told the man to find out about the Crespin woman through channels, from the FBI, not to send some damned stupid kid out to reconnoiter when nobody needed go near the place! He, Jagger, had already taken care of that. What an idiotic thing for Swinter to do! If he was dumb enough to have done that, what other stupidity might he have committed? If Webster found out about this …

  If Webster found out about this, Jagger might not be one of the finalists. In fact, he’d be lucky to be a survivor.

  Despite what Webster had said, Swinter would have to be taken care of! It would have to be an accident. Like his mother. Like his foster father. Like Helen’s parents. Or maybe suicide, like Helen’s sister, Greta. But he’d have to make sure there were no witnesses at all, so Webster wouldn’t know.

  There in the comfortable drowsiness, on the boundary of sleep, he forgot that there had been no witnesses before, but, still, Webster seemed to have known.

  Outside Jagger’s room Helen stood for a long moment silent and motionless, her face white and sticky, terror and grief in equal measure. Dear God, how do you allow such monsters to exist? Dear God, help me put this horror to rest!

  She did not return to her room. Instead she went down the long hall and across the living room to the room Jagger used, though infrequently, as a study. He preferred his office downtown for work, or his game room for relaxation, but he used this desk occasionally to make calls, and he kept some papers here. She opened the drawers in his desk quietly, one by one, also the pull-out writing surfaces, then turned over the blotter to look at the bottom. She found nothing written on any of them. The middle drawer had a few envelopes, some stamps. The file drawer was almost empty, only a few household papers and insurance policies. A folder with the plans of the house, copiously annotated. In the bottom drawer she found a book with blank pages, its cover worn and scuffed, Jake’s name printed in a childish hand inside the front cover. The pages bore carefully printed lists of names. Men’s names. She recognized some of them as onetime giants in politics or commerce, since fallen into death or disrepute. The first lists were quite long, extending over more than one page. Further on, the lists became shorter, and then shorter yet. The further she went, the more mature the handwriting became. The last page with writing on it bore one name only: L. S. Webster. The date below was October 31, 1985. After that, only blank pages.

  Jake would have been thirty-five in eighty-five. Ten thirty-one eighty-five. It was the last entry in the book and the only dated one. As though that date had been a culmination. He had said something to her once about Webster. Something about the first time he’d met Webster. He’d been over thirty when that had happened.

  Maybe it didn’t mean a thing. And then again, maybe it did. She stood in the hallway once more, listening. Nothing. He was asleep.

  She got the rubber gloves from under the kitchen sink, then slipped out of the house, walking around the edges of the driveway so her feet would crunch no gravel, slipping silently into the garage. There was a flashlight on the shelf, one Jake kept there. It served to light the door to his game room, and there was a keypad, just as Carolyn had thought there might be.

  Ten. Thirty-one. Eighty-five. Nothing. She reversed the order and did it again. Fifty-eight, thirteen, ought one. Nothing. She started to turn away, then tried once more, doing it English style. Day, month, and year. Thirty-one, ten, eighty-five. The light above the door blinked, and the door itself slid open.

  She went in, using the flashlight, the smell hitting her in the face, a deep, musty smell. Eyes watched her from the darkness. She almost dropped the flashlight before remembering the heads, the mounted heads. She’d seen them when he’d brought them from the taxidermists. She knew about the big freezer. The butcher table. The sink. Everything clean and neat. One thing you could say for Jake, he was fanatically clean. He was always taking showers and changing his shirt, always spraying disinfectant. He never left anything out of place. He washed his hands three times an hour. He always lined things up, always put things away. No loose ends for Jake.

  A file cabinet stood in one corner, not even locked. She pulled the drawer open gently, ran the light along the folders inside, then the next drawer. People’s names. Tape recordings in some of them, pictures in some of them. Rombauer was in the third drawer. A videotape, and pictures, black-and-white, glossies; Rombauer, naked under his shirttails, legs bare except for black socks and shoes. The boys were entirely nude. Dared she take all the pictures? There were dozens. No. If Jake looked, he’d see they were missing. Take the tape and some of the pictures. Put another tape deck from one of the other folders in the Rombauer folder, pick a dusty folder, a yellowed one, one he wouldn’t be looking at. That way, if he just looked casually, he wouldn’t know anything was missing.

  She found such a file at the back of the second drawer. It bore the name of a man dead for five years, and it contained a videotape. The label was loose at one edge. She pulled it off and replaced it with the one from the Rombauer tape. Excellent, she whispered to herself, feeling a little surge of vengeful joy where she had felt only fear for as long as she could remember. Thirteen years. That’s how long. Married to Jake Jagger for thirteen years. Lucky thirteen. Emily was twelve. Scott was ten and a half.

  The relabeled tape went into the Rombauer folder. The Rombauer tape went into the deep pocket of her robe. Then the pictures:

  Carolyn had said Hispanic boys, so she went through them carefully, focusing on faces instead of on what they were doing. There were lots of Hispanic boys, but in some shots Rombauer was younger looking, in others he was wrinkled and gray-haired. Those were the most recent ones; those were the ones she took, noticing that someone had penciled names on the backs of the photos. The participants were identified. Jake had written their names, tying up loose ends.

  There were envelopes and stamps in the house. She’d do that tomorrow. They didn’t have a rural mailbox; Jake picked up their mail in town; but the neighbors half a mile down the road had a rural box, just across the road from the phone box she sometimes used. One could slip a letter in there. Or one could even wait beside that mailbox tomorrow morning and hand the postman the envelope.

  One way or another. She slipped out of the room, closed the door softly behind her, saw the light go out. She had left no fingerprints. She even remembered to leave the flashlight where she’d found it.

  When he went to work tomorrow, she would finish the job.

  On Saturday, Agnes and Sister Honore Philip went over the books, preparing for the archbishop’s return.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Mother Agnes confessed. “We have to find a way to give him what he wants.” She went to the window, clutching her hands together to prevent her wringing them.

  “Yesterday I thought you’d calmed down,” murmured Sister Honore.

  “I had, a little. Then last night I had this terrible dream about him … the archbishop,” she confessed. “In the dream he’s already built the wall across our enclosure, this long, high stone wall, and the wall is full of these tiny, tiny cells, and he’s put one of us in each of them, and he’s leading me down the wall toward the last tiny little cell, and that one’s mine!”

  Sister Honore was shocked at the words, but more so at the tone of voice. “Reverend Mother!”

  Aggie shuddered. “Oh, I know I sound hysterical. In the dream I was so scared that I woke up with my heart pounding, so frightened I couldn’t remember who I was. I sat there for the longest time, trying to find myself, and then I heard Sister Mary John coughing and I woke up. I’m being too proud! I know it. I should be able to relinquish more easily, but his idea of taking over the
oyster farm makes no sense! The archdiocese won’t make a dime out of the fisheries, not if they pay qualified people! And if they hire unqualified people, they won’t have any business inside of a year.”

  Sister Honore Philip looked up from her columns of figures, her sensible face giving nothing away, but her eyes all too knowing. “Maybe the money is the least of it.”

  Aggie turned toward her, eyebrows lifted. “You think he has some other reason?”

  “Is it impossible that he wants us to feel more humble?” asked Sister Honore, her eyes down. “I’ve noticed that some of our … advisers feel that women become … hard when they succeed at anything but motherhood, or cooking. Breeding or feeding, as Sister Oleg says. I’m sure that’s the main reason for the ban on birth control. Women are kept humble by children. And by the poor. How can we achieve sainthood without the poor?”

  Aggie bit her lip and summoned patience. Sister Honore rarely lectured her, but when she did …!

  This morning Sister Honore went on with her sermon: “There is money we can spare. The girls’ scholarship fund.”

  Agnes spoke to the window glass. “That would be terribly hard to give up. Some of our girls are bright. They need to be able to go to college. They need the same chance I had. When I was in university, several of the DFC were there on scholarship. Faye. And Sophy, and Bettiann.”

  “Your club is having its meeting sometime soon, isn’t it? Will you be going?” The tone was faintly accusative.

  Aggie equivocated. “This time. I didn’t go last year because of the election, and we didn’t meet in 1998, when one of our members … when Sophy …”

  Sister Honore closed the book unobtrusively, leaning forward. Mother Agnes was not often this open to conversation, but she needed to be talked to. Father Girard had spoken to Sister Honore, suggesting that Reverend Mother needed talking to. “You used to speak of her often, Reverend Mother. What was she like?”

  Agnes stared blindly, eyes focused on some inward vision. “She was the most mysteriously beautiful person I’ve ever known, but when we were together, she seemed the most simple and … present.”