Body Language

by Michael Craft

  Wide-eyed with curiosity, Thad asked bluntly, “Who is it, Sheriff Pierce?”

  Pierce shook his head. “Can’t say yet.” He smiled. “Improper procedure.”

  Thad nodded, mummed. Then his face brightened again. “Can you at least tell us—was the weapon really the king-thing?”

  “Oh, yes, definitely,” said Pierce. “The tests were conclusive.”

  Joey was tapping his plate again with his fork, but Hazel reappeared from the kitchen for more dishes, taking his.

  Rising, I asked, “Can you imagine?” Moving to the fireplace, I lifted from the mantel the finial that had been brought downstairs by Roxanne, displaying it to the others in the room. “What could drive a person to such utter brutality?” I hefted the club. The mere feel of it in my hand sent a shiver through me—I couldn’t fathom the thought process that could compel a human being to smash the heavy wooden artichoke into another human’s skull.

  Parker was kneeling next to me at the hearth, stoking the fire. He looked up, telling me, “There are only a handful of classic motives for murder—greed and revenge topping the list. Take your pick.”

  Greed or revenge, I thought. Did either motive apply to Joey?

  His fork and plate now missing, Joey smashed his hand on the table. “I said before, that’s enough. Suzie’s dead. I’m sick of hearing about it. If everybody doesn’t stop talking about her, I’ll… I’ll… do something, and this time, I’ll die!”

  Pierce seemed taken aback by his statement, but the rest of us were merely exasperated by this ploy. Hazel lugged another pile of dishes toward the kitchen, turning to tell Joey, “You behave now.” Thad got up and moved behind his uncle, preparing to administer the surefire tickle remedy. Parker stood in front of the fire, brushing grime from his hands while calmly admonishing Joey, “No more threats about turning blue.” As for me, something was now troubling me, something in the back of my mind, and, pondering this, I said nothing. Besides, I had seen these scenes of Joey’s before, and there was little I could add. So I continued to study the king-thing, taking an experimental swipe at an imagined victim on the floor, grimacing at the gross ruthlessness of the act.

  Suddenly Joey recoiled from the table with horror, pointing toward the fireplace. “HEY!” he cried. “It was you all along, Mark! You killed Suzie!”

  I didn’t think my brandishing of the king-thing had been sufficiently dramatic to inspire such a wild reaction, but then, I hadn’t seen it through Joey’s eyes. Did he really think I had killed his sister? Or was he gaming, making audacious accusations in hopes of deflecting suspicion from himself? Was he that clever?

  We all huddled around him trying to calm him down. Thad told him, “Mark wouldn’t do that, Uncle Joey. I’m sure. I know I said those horrible things on Christmas, but I was wrong.” Pierce assured him, “We have no reason whatever to suspect Mark of this crime.” Hazel said, “I’ve got a nice cake for dessert—you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Joey?” Parker offered, “Let me take him up to his old bedroom. He might find that soothing. He could rest for a while.” And again, I could think of nothing to add to this overlapping litany of mollification, so I said nothing.

  Joey’s glance darted from face to face as the others spoke to him, about him, through him. Unable to sort their words, he was numbed by a confusion that verged on panic. Noting this, Pierce said to me, “I think Parker’s right—maybe Joey should lie down for a while.” He checked his watch. “There’s no hurry.”

  The others seemed momentarily puzzled by this comment, but I understood what Pierce meant—he had made up his mind that Joey was to be arrested that night, and he wanted him to be in a calmer state of mind when he was taken away. I nodded my agreement to Pierce. “Parker,” I said, “would you like some help?”

  He shook his head. “Joey and I are old friends now, aren’t we? Let’s go upstairs, maybe look at some of your old toys. And if you feel like it, you can have a little snooze on your old bed. Sometimes that’s nice after a big dinner.”

  Rather than taking comfort from Parker’s soothing words, Joey now appeared frightened—as if he understood what the sheriff had in store for him. Trembling, he offered no resistance when Parker grasped his forearm, saying, “Come on, Joey. Let’s go up to your room.” They left together, Joey glancing back at us over his shoulder. Then they disappeared into the front hall, and we heard them slowly mount the stairs.

  Hazel, Thad, Pierce, and I breathed a common sigh of relief, but Hazel and Thad mistakenly believed that the evening’s high emotions were now solidly behind them. I thought it only fair to prepare them for what lay ahead, so I suggested that we all sit down around the table.

  I told them, “Sheriff Pierce didn’t just ‘happen’ to drop by tonight,” then continued to explain that Joey was to be arrested for Suzanne’s murder.

  Hazel reacted, predictably, with sobs, but acknowledged, “He’s been acting so mean and spiteful every time we mention dear Suzie’s name, I was starting to fear that he’d done something terrible.”

  Thad asked Pierce, “Will it help Uncle Joey any that he’s… not quite right? I mean, don’t they go easier on sick people?” Thad rubbed his eyes, and I wondered if he was hiding a tear.

  Pierce nodded. “Joey’s handicap will certainly be a factor in how his case is handled. The district attorney wants a conviction very badly, but I’m sure he’ll be satisfied with a lenient sentence—probably some sort of protective custody.” We discussed the sequence of events that would likely follow, leading up to Joey’s trial. Now and then we paused to comment on the sadness of the situation.

  A few minutes later, Parker returned to the dining room. Responding to our collective gaze, he smiled, telling us, “He should be fine.”

  I asked, “What happened?”

  Parker joined us at the table. “We sat on his bed and talked for a while. I did my best to explain that Mark would never have harmed Suzanne. He seemed convinced. Then I got him to lie down. He was calm, so I left. He’ll be fine.”

  Thad told him, “Sheriff Pierce is going to arrest Joey later.”

  Parker gave a sorry shrug. “I figured. It was starting to add up.”

  There was a lull in the conversation. Pierce said, “I hate to be a bother, but I never did get that coffee—and I could use it.”

  We all agreed that coffee would be good, and Hazel flew into action, embarrassed by the lapse in her service. “I might as well bring out dessert, too,” she said while going into the kitchen.

  Thad said, “I’ll give her a hand,” leaving through the portal into the front hall.

  Laughing, I called after him, “The kitchen’s back here.”

  He paused to explain, “Bathroom first.”

  Still seated at the table, Pierce and I discussed the whole situation while Parker got up and stirred the fire again—by now it was little more than embers. Perhaps ten minutes later, Thad brought the coffee service in from the kitchen, followed by Hazel, who carried a big fancy layer cake.

  In that moment, I was swept over again by the eerie sense of déjà vu that had hung over me since my move to Dumont. Hazel was now thirty-three years older, but she was the same woman, carrying the same cake into the same dining room where I’d sat with the Quatrain family on Christmas Day during my boyhood visit.

  We were all talking about lots of stuff—Christmas (naturally), Suzanne’s latest crush (boring), my older cousin Mark’s first semester of college (very interesting). Then Hazel popped in from the kitchen with this big frosted cake. You’d have thought it was someone’s birthday. She asked, “Everybody having dessert? How about you, Mark?”

  “Sure!” my cousin and I answered together, and everyone laughed at the confusion. Trying to add to the fun, I said, “It’s a good thing my dad’s not here. His name was Mark, too.”

  Joey thought I was hilarious, laughing all the harder. “That would be a mix-up.”

  But no one else laughed, and the table got quiet.

  Hazel now set a simi
lar cake on the same table. “Everybody having dessert?”

  “Sure,” Parker and I answered together, but without much enthusiasm.

  Pierce hesitated. “I’m tempted. But just coffee, please.”

  Thad didn’t even need to answer—of course he wanted cake. So Hazel cut the first slice for him, an oversize wedge with sticky buttercream frosting that stretched from the plate like hot mozzarella.

  “Half that,” I told her.

  When we were all served and ready to begin, Hazel set down her fork, telling us, “This has always been Joey’s favorite dessert. He calls it ‘birthday cake without candles.’ It would be a shame for him to miss it, especially tonight. Maybe he’d like to join the party again.” She rose from the table. “I’ll go up and talk to him. But please, start without us.” And she left the dining room, headed upstairs.

  Needing no further prompting, Thad tore into the gooey layers of devil’s food. Pausing to breathe, he told Pierce, “You really ought to have some, Sheriff. No one makes cake like Hazel.”

  Parker agreed, “You can’t buy a cake like this.”

  I told them, “I’ll never forget the first time she served—”

  Hazel’s screams interrupted this commentary, and the three of us bolted from the table, rushing upstairs.

  “My God! Oh, Joey, dear God!” she wailed from the doorway to his bedroom.

  We rushed past her and into the cluttered room—Hazel had been there sorting and boxing things most of the day, but the floor was still piled with junk, the desk stacked with everything from shoes and toy cars to notebooks and an old microscope. And there on the bed, atop the same old plaid bedspread that I could recall so vividly from my boyhood visit, lay Joey, face up in a pool of light from his desk lamp. He was dead. And he was blue.

  I gasped at the sight, freezing where I stood. Thad huddled with Hazel, trying to comfort both her and himself. Parker and Pierce approached the body, circling the bed, scratching their chins, dismayed but curious.

  Scrunched in Joey’s hands was a folded piece of paper, which Pierce carefully removed. Opening it, he scanned the page, shook his head. Then he slowly read it to us: “‘I’m sorry, everybody. I’m sorry, Suzanne. I’m sorry, God. Money is good, but it makes people do bad things. I was wrong to kill my sister. I’ve gone to be with her, to tell her I apologize. I hope you can all forgive me. Love—’” Pierce extended the note to me, telling all, “It’s signed in his hand, ‘Joey.’”

  Hazel ran howling from the room as I stepped to the bed and took the note from Pierce. I told anyone, “I saw him pass out once as a kid, and I’ve heard his threats since, but I didn’t think it was actually possible to…”

  “There’s your proof,” said Pierce, pointing to the note.

  I held it under the desk lamp, read it, studied it. Sure enough, the childish message was typed on Joey’s old Smith-Corona, its letters half black, half red.

  Parker stood over the bed, hands on hips, shaking his head, looking down at Joey. “Christ,” he muttered, “we should have seen this coming.”

  Pierce pulled out his notepad, clicked his ballpoint. “It’s an open-and-shut suicide.”

  And it wrapped up the mystery of Suzanne Quatrain’s murder.

  PART FOUR

  Three Hours Ago

  TODAY IS SATURDAY, the fifteenth of January, three days after Joey’s death. His funeral is scheduled to begin at one this afternoon.

  Three hours prior to it, around ten in the morning, I sat in the third-floor great room of the house on Prairie Street. The upstairs apartment had been built for my father at a time when he never dreamed that he would one day marry and sire a son, at a time when he was my uncle Edwin’s lover. The upstairs apartment had awed me with its stately, masculine beauty when I was a boy of nine, at a time when I never dreamed that I would one day own the house and reclaim those lofty quarters as my private domain. The upstairs apartment had served as an abandoned play space for the three Quatrain children, at a time when Suzanne never dreamed that she would one day be raped there by her own brother—she certainly never dreamed that, years later, the attic great room would also be the site of her own grisly death.

  I sat there on the long leather sofa under the roof’s central peak, mulling the room’s history and the bizarre role it had played in my life. For the first time in weeks, my thoughts were clear and I felt no anxiety, content that a deadly mystery had been solved.

  The house was quiet. Both Neil and Roxanne had returned to Dumont for the weekend, but they were each busy with other matters away from the house. Parker planned to put in a couple of hours’ work at the Register before the funeral. And Hazel was resting up for the afternoon’s ordeal, tucked away in her quarters downstairs behind the kitchen.

  Earlier in the morning, she had rapped quietly at the doorway to the den, where I sat at the partners desk, once shared by my uncle and my father. Entering from the front hall with something tucked under her arm, she told me, “I’ve nearly finished clearing out the extra bedrooms, Mr. Manning. Goodwill will send the truck back for a last load on Monday.”

  I laughed softly. “You’ve really thrown yourself into that project, Hazel. It wasn’t all that urgent, but I do appreciate your efficiency.”

  “It kept my mind busy,” she assured me. “The whole business with Joey was just so… terrible—I’ve hated to think about it. I was glad to have something to fill my time.” She paused, wiping a single tear from behind her glasses. “Anyway,” she told me, composing herself, “the effort paid off. Just this morning, I found the three children’s baby books, left behind by the Tawkins.” Proudly, she took them from under her arm and presented them to me, placing them squarely on my desk.

  The top album was that of the oldest Quatrain child, Mark. Overcoming a moment’s apprehension, I flipped it open and found the typical hospital footprints, a lock of hair, his first words, early report cards, school pictures. His childhood photos left little doubt that he would grow into the strikingly handsome eighteen-year-old I met as a boy. Another picture, a high-school track-team photo, showed him in silky shorts and singlet—a frozen moment capturing the same evocative body language that he strutted in life, when he awoke obscure passions within me that I would not comprehend till decades later. Turning back to the front of the book, I felt his lock of infant’s hair between my fingers. At long last, I touched him—or rather, I touched his relic, a remnant of the golden child who grew into a monster, a murdering rapist who would slay and be slain. In the den, beneath the desk, my groin burned as I became aroused. Dismayed by my reaction, I closed the book, setting it aside.

  The next volume was Suzanne’s, the last Joey’s, each as lovingly compiled as Mark’s, but neither having the same effect on me.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Hazel talked while I studied the albums, “but I’ve already taken the liberty of looking through them. I wanted to have a little visit with the past—happier times, you know—but sad to say, the memories were just too painful. Who’d think? All three Quatrain children, all dead, each a tragic end.” She was well into her sniffles again.

  I looked up at her. “Thank you for finding them, Hazel. I’ll hold on to them for a while. Someday, they should probably go to Thad.”

  “My thoughts exactly, Mr. Manning. When I began to search in earnest for the books on Wednesday, I had assumed they would go to Joey…” More tears.

  It was a bitter irony indeed. Not only was Joey now dead, but these were the very books that Suzanne had been looking for in the loft when Joey clubbed her. Why, though, were they so important to her? Were they important to Joey as well? Or was the timing of the murder a mere coincidence? It didn’t make sense.

  I told Hazel, “You’ve been through a lot lately—we all have. The funeral’s not till one. Why don’t you get some rest? You’ll feel better.”

  She mustered a smile. “Thank you. I’d like that.” She began to leave the room.

  “Oh, Hazel?” I thought of something I’d been m
eaning to ask.

  She turned in the doorway. “Yes, sir?”

  “I realize that you’ve been moving things around upstairs in order to, well… dig through everything. But I was up there last night looking for Joey’s old typewriter, and I couldn’t find it. Do you recall where you put it?”

  The color drained from her face. “Good heavens, Mr. Manning, I had no idea. Was it—is it valuable?”

  “I doubt it,” I answered with a laugh. “No, I was just curious about something. Thought I’d have another look at it.” I could tell from the pallor of her face that my curiosity was moot. Saving her the agony of explaining, I said, “It’s all right if you threw it out, though—I told you to use your own judgment.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Manning. I just assumed it was worthless. It was trucked away with the first load of junk on Wednesday.”

  “That’s perfectly all right,” I assured her. “It wasn’t important. Now go get some rest.” Flapping my hands, I shooed her from the room, and she retreated down the hall toward the kitchen.

  Setting the stack of baby books to one side of my desk, I rearranged the papers I’d been working on before Hazel’s arrival. Uncapping my pen, I crossed another item off the checklist I’d prepared for Monday’s transition at the Register. Two days from now, I’d be sitting at Barret Logan’s desk, and…

  Wednesday? Not possible, I thought. I’d seen the Goodwill truck haul away that first load of junk on Wednesday afternoon. That same night, Joey died, using the typewriter to write his suicide note. Certainly, Hazel was mistaken—the typewriter had to have been in the house on Wednesday night.

  I rose from the desk and crossed to the door, intending to dash down the hall, fetch Hazel, and question her on this point. Stopping in the doorway, though, I had another thought, walked back to my desk, and fished the little brass key from the ashtray of paper clips. Unlocking the door to the credenza, I slid out the box of dossiers and plopped it on the floor.