Cloudland

by Joseph Olshan

  There was hesitation and I knew Matthew was probably feeling ashamed to require checking up on. “Okay, that’s fine,” he finally agreed.

  Wade and Paul returned home at two o’clock the following afternoon and called to alert me to their arrival. At four, the appointed time of my meeting with Matthew, I was sitting at my desk when an unfamiliar Volvo with Massachusetts plates pulled into the driveway. I felt a throbbing at the center of my forehead as I watched him climb out of the car and start strolling toward me. He didn’t see me peering out the window, and I was able to observe that he’d finally buzzed his hair short and now there were a few filigrees of premature gray at the temples. When he glanced up, I could see that his face had grown more lean, cheeks slightly sunken in, and he seemed to have lost a good deal of his muscularity. When he finally saw me, he waved and I met him at the door.

  By now the dogs were going mad barking at his arrival, swarming around his legs. Before greeting me, he reached down to give them reassuring pats and then spread his arms welcomingly wide and embraced me. He felt bonier and his scent was deeper, of the male body, slightly citrus, whereas he always used to have that wonderful young man’s odor of light sweat and laundry powder.

  I stood back from him. “You’ve lost so much weight.”

  “I know. And I feel smaller.”

  “Deliberate?”

  He frowned and oddly made a vestigial gesture to rake the nonexistent hair out of his eyes. “No, I got this lousy stomach condition. Probably from nerves. Took months to get over. I just couldn’t eat very much for a long time. Stomach was tied up in knots.” He raised his eyebrows. “As you can see, been having trouble gaining the weight back.”

  “Well, it makes you look more … mature. That and the flecks of gray.”

  He flicked himself at the temples. “I’m catching up to my elders. And only twenty-six.”

  “You poor old man,” I said, standing aside so that he could pass. The dogs had quickly stopped barking and were nuzzling his hands, obviously remembering him.

  “Still got Henry?” he asked, his own nickname for Henrietta.

  “She’s banging around. Under the kitchen table as we speak.”

  He walked in carefully ahead of me, his back straight. Strange to see the nape of his neck, as I’d been so used to his longer hair.

  At one point he turned around and looked at me questioningly, and I said with a familiarity that distressed me, “The kitchen, obviously.”

  “Got any beer?”

  “Do I know you?” I ribbed him.

  His soft, puzzled look, the result of our rapid-fire exchange, of our former intimacy, would always bring a certain feeling of equality; and despite the terrible rupture in our relationship, I supposed we’d still find ourselves making the motions of … intimates. I invited him to sit down at the kitchen table. The moment he did, Henrietta, who’d been lolling underneath, sprang to her feet with a snort and one pig-eyed look at Matthew before hurrying out of the room.

  “Nice reception,” he noted. “She’s got her business to attend to.”

  Sure enough, a moment later we heard her stream of urine pinging against the metal grate in the floor. He nodded. “Ah, some things don’t change.”

  “Nope.” I fetched a Magic Hat beer out of the refrigerator, opened it, and handed it to him.

  His hands were trembling from his old affliction. He saw me noticing them and gave a shrug as though to say, “I haven’t changed that much.” “Will you have one?”

  “I’m sticking to gin. Going to need it,” I said, fiddling with a plastic lock that dog-and-pig-proofed a lower cabinet for a bottle of Bombay Sapphire. I sat down opposite him, we looked at each other, and then I poured a clear rivulet of gin over some ice cubes. “I can’t believe I’m finally here with you,” he said nervously.

  I saluted him with my finger of gin as if to say, “Likewise.”

  He noticed Paul’s painting, stiffened, and sat straight. Then got up from the table and went to stand before it. Recognizing its authorship, he said, “Did he just give this to you?” I told him for my birthday back in June. “Very generous, considering its value.”

  I agreed.

  He turned to me, his face rapt, then reverted back to the painting. “That shadow behind the screen—” and then left off what he intended to say next. I wondered if he shared my theory on whom the shadow might actually represent. The atmosphere between us felt charged, and to dispel it I told him the painting was an homage to David’s famous portrait of Madame Récamier.

  Terribly anxious now, I began, “So, I know you just got back from Asia, but what … I mean, what will you do now?”

  He went back to the table, sat down, tilting his head back to swig his beer. He explained that, having been certified as an ESL instructor, he was now able to live in Boston and teach students culled from the large, mostly Asian immigrant community.

  “Did you just get tired of living over there?”

  “More lonely, I suppose.” He hesitated. “And then I had this … I guess I’d have to call it a bad affair over in Thailand.” He glanced at me, his eyes darting and hesitant.

  “Go ahead. It’s okay,” I said, hoping that there wouldn’t be some inner detonation of jealousy.

  “With an older woman,” he said quietly.

  “And?” I felt pinpricks in my face and neck, wondering what was coming.

  “Her husband found out. One of those buttoned-up British types. He actually confronted me one day at a local bar. Told me off and said that if I went near his wife again he’d have me … taken care of.”

  “Jesus, Matthew. Do you think he could have?”

  “Don’t know. It gets funny in different parts of the world. You can’t be sure. I didn’t want to take a chance so I left.”

  “Probably a wise idea … Have you had any communication with the woman since?” I felt compelled to ask.

  “No.” He looked at me wistfully. “It wasn’t love, Catherine. It was just a person who saw me and … she was the one who began it. Not like in our case. And I realized pretty soon that I was allowing myself to get into it because I was actually still … wanting you.”

  I was battling the raw feeling of jealousy when luckily the phone rang. It was Wade calling and I picked up. “We’re back,” he said in a singsong manner. This was a ruse, as he’d already called once to announce their return.

  I played along. “How did it go?”

  “It was wonderful. I’ll tell you more later.… Is he there?”

  “Yes … and everything should be fine.” I aimed for a tone that wouldn’t necessarily alert Matthew that Wade (of all people) was checking up on him. But that was fruitless; I saw Matthew’s face cramping with shame.

  “If I don’t hear from you in two hours I’m calling back.”

  “Okay, sounds good.”

  The moment I put down the phone it rang again, thankfully, I thought. This time I recognized Anthony’s wireless number. Excusing myself to Matthew, “Hi,” I said. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “When?”

  “All last night.”

  “I was with Marco until late. And then I just didn’t answer after I got home.”

  Which meant Fiona was spending the night with him, thought I. “So what news?”

  “Get this. No stab wounds. No strangle marks around her neck. They did, however, match the finger to the body and they say it got torn off rather than severed.”

  “How would that have happened?”

  “Bouncing around the river. Water-engorged tissue that softens.”

  I thought of the protagonist of The Widower’s Branch finding the dead foot of a badly decomposed murdered woman. “So I guess nothing to link this murder to the others.”

  “Not really.”

  “So maybe somebody entirely different.”

  “That’s what Marco thinks. That or the original guy is mixing it up now, finally.”

  “So what about the DNA sample they got from
the car?”

  “Nothing so far in terms of the national database.”

  “So where does that leave you?”

  “In a state of frustration. Unfortunately we’ve had everything secondhand due to Concord’s work. It was their boat that found her; the Connecticut River belongs to New Hampshire. Anyway, their preliminary says her body is bruised and mangled from passage over rocks and other detritus. Right now the only finding is drowning.”

  “So you mean, she … just went and submerged herself?”

  At these words Matthew turned to me, watchful.

  “Somebody could have pushed her in or forced her to get in. Probably with a gun or some other weapon. After coming all this way, looking for a job, it just wouldn’t make sense that she’d drown herself. The uncle alleges she left Maryland full of hope and cheer.”

  “I see. That’s really disturbing.”

  Anthony went on to say that the lack of cooperation and the rivalry between Vermont and New Hampshire had become even more polarizing. Marco was absolutely certain that his counterparts were harboring information and guarding their theories. “Marco says our chief coroner is better, younger than theirs.… I don’t know.”

  Remembering the day I found Angela Parker, and the complaint I’d overheard Prozzo make about the coroner in Burlington, I said, “From what I saw he and the Vermont coroner are a bit at odds, aren’t they?” I described how Prozzo ended up violating the protocol of waiting for the coroner to arrive and began his own investigation.

  “Marco claims he was able to examine Angela Parker without touching her. And the coroner cut him slack because the guy wasn’t reachable that day. My sense is that Marco respects the guy and the coroner respects him.”

  “Probably because they’re both from around New York,” I said snidely.

  “You sound a bit preoccupied,” Anthony pointed out. “Am I getting you at a bad time … playing with your chemistry set again?”

  “I am in the middle of something.”

  “Don’t tell me. You’re trying out a flask of cat piss in your garden to deter the deer.”

  I burst out laughing. “Actually, a friend of mine stopped by.”

  “Oh…”

  I had no intention of letting him know Matthew was now wandering around the living room, knuckling the neck of his beer, glancing at the spines of books on my shelves. Henrietta approached him and he ran his fingers in a long scratch along her side. She collapsed on the floor, rolled over, and he began rubbing her belly just the way she loved it and just how he always used to do it.

  Anthony went on, “There are a couple more things I want to run by you. Let’s catch up in the next day or so. I’ll be in and out a lot. I have to put in two heavy days at the hospital down in Springfield. I’ll try you again if you don’t reach me.”

  Once I put down the phone, Matthew, who’d been absorbed in reading titles on my bookshelf, turned to me. “Everything okay?”

  “That was my neighbor, Anthony Waite. You never met him.” I explained that Anthony was a psychiatrist working with the police on trying to solve the murders.

  “You sounded a bit impatient.”

  I squinted at him. “Did I?”

  He pivoted toward the bookshelf, as though purposely facing away from me. “Just my impression. But you always told me I was overly sensitive to your moods.”

  “Well, that was then. You’re probably a different person now.” I hope you are, anyway, I thought to myself.

  “Yes and no,” he said. Looking at him in profile, I could see how his face had colored with some emotion. Without even realizing it, I touched the divot on my neck that his fingernails had made. It occurred to me once again that perhaps I should have refused to let him visit without somebody else being there. Matthew, meanwhile, was slowly running his index finger over my long suite of Wilkie Collins.

  “Have you read much of him?” I asked.

  He turned to me, bemused. “After the way you went on about him in class?”

  “I try not to think about the fact that you were once my student.”

  He smiled in silent acknowledgment of this. “I feel like I still am your student. I’ve read all the books on the lists you gave us: A Sentimental Education, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The Leopard, The Way We Live Now. I’ve read all of Somerset Maugham’s short stories. I’ve been keeping a journal since class. And of course, Wilkie Collins.”

  I let a few moments pass. “Which Collins have you read?”

  “My first Collins was The Moonstone, which blew me away. Then No Name, which I almost liked even better. Then offbeat ones like Man and Wife, My Lady’s Money…” He squinted and thought for a moment. “Isn’t there one called Guilty River?”

  “Talk about obscure.” Ruminating for a bit, I then asked, “Ever hear of one called The Widower’s Branch?”

  With a look of bewilderment, he nodded his head and said plaintively, “Yeah, of course I have, you loaned it to me.”

  I shuddered inwardly. So he was one of the students who’d read it. “I did? I guess I don’t remember. Breck once told me I read so much that it’s affecting my memory.”

  “You appear pretty lucid to me.”

  “You can have a memory shot full of holes and still sound in compos mentis.”

  Matthew chuckled and said, “I’ll try and remember that.”

  “Speaking of my memory, when did you actually get back from Thailand, again?”

  “In April, right before I wrote to you.”

  “And you were there for how many years?”

  “Two.” He looked suspicious. “Why do you ask?”

  “I was just trying to figure something out.… So you read The Widower’s Branch right after we met?”

  “Early on, before I … earned my stripes.” I had to note he seemed totally relaxed. “One of the first times I came to your apartment in Burlington, I saw it on the bookshelf.” With his prompting now I began to recollect. “And you were reluctant to lend it to me. Because you said it was so rare.”

  “But I also lent it to other students.”

  Matthew looked surprised. “Not in my class.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Do you know why I asked to borrow it? Just so I could … hold on to something that was dear to you … like a book. Because in the beginning I was afraid—I was sure—that you’d change your mind about me and break things off.” He paused. “And if you didn’t want to see me again, you’d have to, at least once, to get the book back.”

  “Do you remember it at all?”

  He thought for a moment. “I do remember it because it was yours and especially then I wanted to remember it.… Isn’t there an outline that came after the text; it was for the rest of the novel?” He turned from the bookshelf and faced me. “Doesn’t this guy, round about my age, I guess, lose everything: job, connections, his beloved?”

  I nodded.

  Smiling weakly at me, he said, “The day you loaned it to me, I remember going home and starting it and thinking it was the perfect story for me at the time … for as long as it lasted.”

  “Why was it the perfect story?”

  “Because I was lonely and because I was scared. Even more so after we made love those first few times.”

  “Lonely?” I said. “Frightened? Wouldn’t you feel … I don’t know, hopeful? Delighted?”

  He shook his head. “You know I always obsessed about losing you because of the age difference, because of the fact that I’d been your student. I was always afraid you’d come to your senses and suddenly refuse to see me again.”

  “I guess I did, finally, didn’t I?” I found myself saying.

  Looking crestfallen, he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “After all this time do you think our relationship was a mistake?”

  I wondered if Matthew had drawn some kind of parallel between his life and the life of the down-and-out, jilted Wilkie Collins character. After all, I’d jilted him. At last I said,
“No.” I had a thought and took a moment to consider whether or not I wanted to share it with him. “Relationships are odd,” I said. “You don’t know how they come or even how they go. And suddenly they start failing and sometimes fail so quickly. They remind me of a recipe that I once got. Some far-flung North Dakota reader sent me instructions for a lovely cake that rose high into this beautiful shape. It almost looked like a golden hat, but then just like that it deflated into this miserable steaming curd.”

  “That’s a depressing image!” Matthew exclaimed.

  “But back to what I was saying before about the book … Here’s an interesting fact you may not remember. So the protagonist in the novel finds this dead woman next to a huge fallen tree. She has some printed religious material in her pocket. And the outline suggests that more dead women will be found in a similar way, next to downed trees, their pockets lined with liturgical writings.”

  Matthew held me in a quizzical gaze. “I confess I don’t remember that part. But why are you telling me this now?”

  As matter-of-factly as I could, I explained the similarity between the plot synopsis in the book and the manner in which a few but not all of the women in the Upper Valley had been slain.

  Matthew immediately sloughed it off. “Even with the printed matter found in women’s pockets, it sounds a bit general, doesn’t it, pinning this on an obscure book published a hundred and fifty years ago? Surely lots of religious fanatics become serial killers.”

  This reaction coincided with the opinion of Theresa, who, when I’d first e-mailed to ask her Victorian scholarly advice, felt that the detail of dead women found by fallen trees with, as she put it, “psalms in their pockets” could be argued as moot to the search for our killer. Beyond this, she claimed to be unaware of any widely publicized nineteenth-century murders on which Wilkie Collins might have modeled his final uncompleted fiction, but encouraged me to research it for myself. Which I did, to no avail. There was little written about The Widower’s Branch.