by David Downie
“Right,” I said, smiling. “The cage was totally wrapped in wire and rusted shut, as I say. It was impossible to open it and check if the bones were real. Luckily lots of photos were taken, and we have a number of eyewitness reports from guests, and of course you have the bones, so everything should be easy to clarify.”
“Uh-huh.” He grunted skeptically and swiveled his head to spit into the bushes. We were approaching the motel. I could smell the coffee and said so, that it was late for me to drink coffee, but man, did it smell good. “Like that coffee, do you?” he asked. “Doesn’t look like you eat much pie, JP, you’re as skinny as you ever were.”
“Not my fault,” I said, “I have nothing to do with it. You can’t blame me for being skinny.”
Harvey chuckled and seemed to be mellowing now that he’d fired a few warning shots. “Blame you for lots of other things, but not for being Mr. Bones, wasn’t that it, or just Bone? Like I say, it’s all awfully suspicious, the bushy guy from New York with a throwaway cellphone shows up and parks in the lot for nearly two weeks.”
“It was ten days,” I cut in, “I asked at city hall.”
“Oh, I know you asked at city hall. So, you stay there for ten days doing what? Walking up and down the beach collecting shells, riding around town on your little folding bicycle, making barbecues and living it up with Bev? Maybe you’re looking for Maddie, maybe you’re fishing for salmon, what the hell? Then all of a sudden, there’s this cage and you and the cappuccino kid are cut up, and you aren’t from New York, you’re a judge who fell off the bench and came crawling home.” He paused and flicked the butt into the shrubbery. “Good thing the fake news people didn’t get ahold of it, that’s all I can say, JP.”
“Well,” I remarked, pausing and unconsciously mimicking his speech patterns, “I guess Beverley’s guests took lots of nice pictures and made some videos. I saw them earlier that day making videos on the property, by those ragged tarps with the flowering creeper growing out of the old crab pots and traps that look like they haven’t been touched in years. So, maybe their footage will come in handy at some point, to prove that cage wasn’t on Beverley’s property, it just could not have been.”
“Maybe,” he said and gave me a baleful look. We had reached the motel. “I’ll keep you posted,” he added, “the forensic people are checking on everything now, and they went through the shack and the garden and the motel, too, with that fine-toothed comb of theirs.” His smile revealed his dark, purplish gums and large yellowish tobacco-stained teeth. “Now, you wouldn’t mind if we did some checking in the RV, would you? Seeing that you’re absolutely innocent and eager to cooperate with law enforcement? Or do I have to go to the kangaroos and get a warrant?”
We stepped into the motel and Beverley and Tom fell silent. “Of course,” I said to Harvey, “come on over, I’ll make us some instant coffee and we can bring in the cinnamon rolls from the diner or get some of Beverley’s pie.”
Harvey grunted, took off his Stetson and found a perch at the small table. “Oh, so much to catch up on,” he said mockingly, taking a slug of coffee and helping himself to the cobbler on his plate. “Why, thank you, Bev. I think we’re going to have to put in a few more cameras along this stretch of the highway, maybe one real tall one overlooking your lot, too, just to make sure nothing like this happens again,” he added, digging in and grunting with pleasure. “Mm-mmm, man that is good.” He looked up again, a wicked smile contorting his face. “There’s so much to talk about, JP, this could take days or weeks or maybe even months or years. Not planning on leaving anytime soon, I hope? I want you to come and see our headquarters. We have a new jail with twice the room as the old one, and a new courthouse right next door, and a facility for illegals we’re going to send right out of the country. Come to lunch or come to dinner one night, Pegs will be thrilled to see you, and so will Gus and Clem and Pete, they’re still around. Clem’s the mayor for goodness’ sakes. Now that I think of it, we could throw a little pool party—we have an indoor-outdoor heated pool. Pete helped Gus install it. Did you know Pete Smithson married Sally, my little sister? That’s her son right there, Tom, my top deputy.”
“You don’t say,” I blurted out, trying to remember names and faces and failing across the board except for goofy Pete and pimply Sally, a roly-poly girl a few years younger than we were. I remembered her for more than one reason. “Your dad and I were great friends,” I told Tom, shaking his hand. “Say hi to Pete and your mom for me.”
“Yes, sir,” Tom said with a tone of deference that had been missing up to then. “I’ll do that this evening.”
“Pete owns the garage now,” Harvey remarked, “you remember the place, he worked there as a grease monkey back in the day.”
I nodded and made congratulatory noises, saying I’d clean forgotten his last name was Smithson.
“Sally has been known to play cards with us,” Beverley chipped in after an unnaturally long silence. “I detect a family resemblance,” she added wryly. “You show no allergy to cobbler.”
“No, ma’am,” Harvey and the Tom Cat said seemingly on cue, one after the other. Harvey laughed at this for some reason—a private joke. “So, you’ll be around if we need you?” he asked me again, swiveling his head and spraying crumbs on the table from his overfilled mouth.
I glanced at Tom, then Beverley, and forced a sheepish grin. “I have no reason to leave,” I answered, “and plenty of reasons to stay. Someone has to water all those cuttings we’ve made.” I paused for the comic effect, which was probably a mistake because Harvey’s expression went sour again. His bullshit detector could pick up irony a mile away. “Beverley, I’d love some of that cobbler,” I added in my most homespun voice, “Harvey says I need to fatten up.”
EIGHTEEN
We were lying in bed the next morning, holding each other and watching the dawn light come into the house from Five Mile Valley, when Maggie said, “Tell me about Amy.”
I felt a stab. But, after all, it was only fair and normal. She had told me a great deal about herself and I had said almost nothing. “Let’s see,” I began, buying time. “Except for her icicle toes, she was essentially your opposite, physically and temperamentally, though I’m sure you would have had a great deal in common and would’ve liked each other.”
“That’s not much of a description.”
“I’m getting there,” I said, trying but failing to keep things lighthearted. “This is the first time I’ve spoken of Amy to anyone.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Of course, how could I not?”
“Did you love her?”
“Of course, very much.”
Maggie sucked her bottom lip, then said, “I wanted to ask you, do you miss her the way you missed me, and do you love her the way you loved me, but the psychologist in me and the adult in me told me to rephrase my questions.”
“So you did, but now you’re asking them anyway?”
“That’s right, and it’s thanks to you, to you being here.”
“Honesty,” I began to say then stopped myself. “Actually, it turns out not always to be the best policy. That’s why we invented diplomacy, the art of honest or honorable dissimulation, as opposed to lying or the propounding of falsehoods.” I paused, feeling pompous and foolish. Was this the way I had spoken in court, or talked to my clients and students? “Amy was your height,” I began again. “You had that in common, about five foot seven. She had short, straight black hair that was as thick as the hair on a coconut, and in fact, I sometimes called her Coco, even though, as you know, I hate nicknames.”
Maggie nodded and shook her head in the patented, incomprehensible yes-no way that Taz had picked up. Then she said with false gravity, “Yes, you have always called me Madeleine, haven’t you, and I notice you’re calling Taz by his proper name, Alexander.”
“Mm,” I agreed, the irony striking me for the first time. “It’s strange, I hadn’t thought of that. And it never bothered me when you called me
JP. Do you think my hatred of nicknames is an adult phenomenon, some form of defensiveness, or a simple desire to be taken seriously?”
“Could be, what do you think?”
“I think you’re starting to analyze me, and you’re telling me I’m just an old, pretentious ass, or a stick in the mud.” I paused, hoping she would rescue me, but she didn’t. “Be that as it may,” I began again, “Amy had black hair and black almond eyes and a porcelain complexion, one of those tiny nonexistent noses and tiny ears and a tiny mouth and tiny hands and tiny feet. She looked like a china doll. I suppose that’s where the cliché originates, though in her case she was genetically half Japanese. She seemed much more Japanese than American in appearance. In character I suppose it was the other way around, though I hate to think in terms of identity politics, and I am not proud to admit that I have never been to Japan and couldn’t generalize if I wanted to.”
“She was outspoken, demanding, decisive?”
“That’s it, along those lines,” I agreed. “I’ve always liked strong women.” Pausing and eyeing her, I waited for Maggie to hit the bait but she resisted. “We met in court,” I added, “we were actually adversaries and she won the case, I don’t remember what it was about, something bureaucratic and innocuous by today’s standards. She said she’d take me out and buy me dinner as a token of peace. She knew she owed it to me, because by all rights she should have lost. My client was in the right and she knew it, but she argued her case more effectively than I and the jury was convinced.”
“That’s all it takes, isn’t it?”
“That’s all it takes,” I repeated, adding, “Amy brooked no nonsense as the expression goes. She was tough, feisty, even ferocious at times, a born trial lawyer. She stayed on that side of the bar until the end. Something in me pushed me to the other side, and then out of the courtroom. The adversarial element is wearing.”
“And you never wanted children?”
I took a deep breath and plunged in. “I’ve always thought the world had enough people in it, and I also thought, given my father, especially, but also my mother, who was pretty chilly as you’ll recall, that I wouldn’t make a great father.”
“That’s probably not true. You seem to be doing pretty well with Taz.”
“Well, he’s not my son. Don’t get me wrong. I like kids, and he’s your grandson, so how could I not like him?”
“What about Amy, how did she feel?”
Wincing involuntarily at the continued questioning, I answered as fairly as I thought possible. “I think she had similar feelings. Small family, difficult, spoiled, coldhearted intellectual parents who espoused liberalism but in daily life seemed to me to behave like princelings and were profoundly conservative when it came to protecting their status. She had a sister who produced two children, both of them self-absorbed, so Amy seemed to think that was enough.”
“And you still think the world would be better off without the human race?”
“Is that what I used to say?”
Maggie nodded. “I always tried to talk you around but . . .”
“But now you’re not sure?”
“You might feel different if you had children. You might be more optimistic or fatalistic. The world wasn’t perfect when we were born, either.”
We got up one after the other in a silence broken only by seagull cries and the thundering surf.
“JP, why did you come back?” She slipped in the question as she slipped on her dressing gown. “Tell me the truth. Were you looking for me?”
Again, I felt at a loss, largely because I was still not entirely sure why I had come back. “I was looking for you without looking for you,” I said, feeling inarticulate. “Because I never lost you, in a way. I was looking for a salmon, for the past, for my youth, for answers to questions, for a place to settle down, for all kinds of things, but most of all, for you.”
She eyed me and smiled that old saucy smile from our summer of love. “Aren’t you supposed to tell the truth and nothing but the truth?”
“That’s the whole truth, ma’am, except there’s more,” I said. “I had thirty years of suits and ties and pressed shirts,” I started. “Three decades of serious discourse, of impeccable, upstanding behavior and speech, of positioning papers and rulings and judgments and dissenting opinions and stays and moral indignation and righteous wrath and cocktail parties with donors and fund-raisers for the dubious guardians of our democratic institutions.”
“And you burned out,” she said, “you had a breakdown.”
Disagreeing vigorously, I said, “No, no, I didn’t burn out, I was burned out of house and home. I was broken down from the outside in, not the inside out. Maggie, let’s let it go. I want to fish and build campfires and walk on the beach. I want to be happy again. I want to figure out another way to live and contribute and help turn this ship of fools around.”
“How about finding your own well-being first?”
“Precisely,” I said, taking her in my arms, “Our well-being. There’s not much time left for us. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
This time, when I bent to lift her, my back did not give out. With the litheness of a teenager she wrapped her legs around mine and hooked her heels . . .
James stopped typing mid-sentence, startled by the appearance of two familiar silhouettes. Standing at the threshold dressed as if ready to go out, Maggie and Taz said everything was ready. Had James forgotten? “Forgotten what?” he asked, perplexed. Clicking the save icon, he shut the laptop and stood, removing his reading glasses.
“We’re going out for pizza and then doing some shopping,” Maggie said. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” James said, “I’ll come right along.”
Taz shouted excitedly as he ran down the stairs to the car, then ran halfway back up again like an overeager dog late for his walk. Maggie gave James a knowing look. “I’m glad you’re keeping a journal,” she said. “You always wanted to write.”
“Did I?”
Smiling indulgently, she said, “You were going to be an investigative reporter, so was I, and write novels on the side.”
James assented distractedly and said yes, now he remembered. That seemed to him another life, another person altogether.
Taz reappeared at the threshold, smartphone in hand, announcing he had already chosen his pizza and could order theirs online if they wanted. “That way they’ll be ready when we arrive,” he said brightly.
“And be stone cold,” said Maggie.
“Why not have the pizzas delivered by drone?” James asked. “The shopping, too. We could subside into the couch like pearls in an oyster and never leave the house.”
“Cool,” said Taz. “Let’s do that!”
NINETEEN
The longer I stay, the more I find myself slipping back into Carverville-speak. Improper word choice is bad enough. Even my cadences and pronunciation are changing. Telling half-truths and playacting does not sit well with my constitution, either. Telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is what this journal must continue to be about. I am a camera, but I am also deciding what to frame, when, and how. Is the subjective objective, or the objective subjective? I’m not sure. Have I been holding back? Yes, of course I have, but not knowingly. I may not realize, even now as I write this, what it is I’m not telling. But certainly, there is more to tell. If only I can resist the temptation to subside into the mindlessness of the Carverville sump.
Beverley, too, has been infected: Her father was a schoolteacher. She is capable of speaking excellent, unaccented, standard English, and speaking her mind truthfully with sincerity. But circumstances have transformed her into a consummate actress and fabulist.
So, I find it all the more surprising that neither Taz nor Maggie has adopted the prevailing rural twang, circumlocutions, wanton falsity, and depleted vocabulary, not to mention the gleeful vulgarity, of so many of the locals, the people who constitute “the base” of the current state of nongovernm
ent. What a psychologist or linguist might say about my state of mind right now I do not know, but I am determined to stop being folksy, mendacious, and facetious, before it becomes a habit.
The drawback with truthfulness and clarity is that I am trying to reintegrate into the community and lie low, if only to buy time, until we decide to stay or leave. The first thing locals notice is an earnest attitude and a persnickety out-of-town manner of speech. For instance, at the diner yesterday with Maggie, simply by speaking properly, without gesticulating or shouting and using slang or being jokey, we felt like fresh-off-the-boat immigrants or unwelcome refugees faced by scowling native sons and daughters. When Taz joined us, the needle on the hostility meter shot to the right. But that’s racism and prejudice, plain and simple. No matter, we are an autonomous, if unusual, threesome. As long as no one attempts to do us physical harm, we’ll be fine.
I never believed in conjuring tricks. Yet as I write this, a helicopter is hovering exactly at the level of the mansion, a hundred yards away, over the beach. The noise is deafening. I have stood up and stared back defiantly, and pulled down the roller blinds in case they are watching me. If they think this is a clever way to keep tabs on us they are delusional. Intimidation won’t work, either. I’m not sure who “they” are or what they want, but I’m determined to find out. Something tells me this is Clem’s ham-fisted way of saying he knows I’m here. There. You see? The chopper is gone now. Driven away by a roller blind and my unfriendly thoughts? I have raised the blind again and can see the wild, pounding surf.
It has been four days since Maggie and I were reunited, and five days since the cage incident, with no news from Harvey, and no visits by his deputies or the forensic squad, unless they came while I was away and let themselves into the RV. On at least two occasions, I failed to lock it. There is nothing to steal. The likelihood of any thieves venturing onto Beverley’s property these days is near nil—county workers have been there all day, every day, erecting new security cameras. But, as she has pointed out, what if someone wants to plant something? They wouldn’t be stealing, they would be leaving a poisoned, incriminating gift behind.