Return to Dust

by Andrew Lanh

  “He became her only obsession. Can you remember anything else?”

  “No. I can’t.”

  “What did you say when she asked you to bury her?”

  “I was silent. After all, she was tipsy. And I knew that she visited her husband’s grave all the time—placed flowers there.” He shook his head. “I sort of resented her request that I be in charge of her burial. But what does one say to that? Of course? Can you bury me? Probably alongside Joshua’s body. The poet all over again—I died for beauty but was scarce adjusted in the tomb when one who died for truth was laid in an adjoining room. A paraphrase, of course.” He snickered. “I still remember.”

  “I doubt if we’re talking about truth and beauty here.”

  “How crass!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The apology of the unrepentant.”

  “So she said those words and headed to your place but never got there. She kills herself at the bridge.”

  I was talking but Richard was not looking at me. Something had happened. I was sure of it. His eyes closed tight, his lips quivered, I thought he would pass out. I was ready to call a nurse when he opened his eyes, and what I saw there was raw fright. He raised a slender hand to his temple, supporting his head, and closed his eyes again.

  “What is it? You okay?”

  He nodded.

  “You want a nurse?”

  “No, no.”

  I waited.

  “I remembered something I said.”

  “To Marta?”

  He mumbled, “I realized some awful truth. My own words. I told her—‘No, no, no. Stop this nonsense.’ I didn’t listen to her. I was the one who murdered her. Yes, me. My words.”

  “Tell me.”

  He shook his head. “Why? It’s over. I murdered her. My silly, happy mouth killed her.”

  “Tell me.”

  But he was shaking his head, closing me out. “I take the blame. I am the one who murdered her. I killed her.”

  I kept probing him but the conversation was over. His head rested against his chest. I stood up to leave, though he didn’t look up. Something had happened and I hadn’t a clue. In these few minutes he remembered words he spoke that—what? Words that led not to the suicide that he had believed in, demanded I believe in, but, instead, to the one thing he absolutely refused to accept—murder. His words: I was the one who murdered her. He didn’t say—my words drove her to suicide. Of course, I realized, he could be assuming blame for not understanding something, and called himself her murderer. That was possible. But I left with the words echoing in my head: I was the one who murdered her.

  Chapter Thirty

  Back at home, replaying the conversation with Wilcox, I came up with nothing. I’d wait a day, then get back to him. He held part of the answer to the endgame I now had to maneuver. I checked my pegboard looking for loose ends to follow up on. I phoned Liz at her office. Her secretary had to call her out of a meeting.

  “Let me guess. You need a favor.”

  “Of course.”

  I could hear laughter in her voice. Someone was speaking loudly near her, and I could sense her turning away from the shouted voice. Hers was a frantic, busy office.

  I briefly mentioned Wilcox’s comments, but she had no ideas.

  “But that’s not why I’m calling you. I had a thought.”

  I filled her in on Davey, the chance sighting with Ken, Ken’s visit, the aborted confrontation with Davey himself. “Something happened with Marta, and I think it had to do with the law. How else would she know about him? He was so circumspect.”

  “I think the word you mean here is repressed.”

  “That, too. But something had to bring it into the open.”

  “But I checked the police reports on all the names you gave me. Nothing turned up on Davey, at least not locally.”

  “It would be local.”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s it. No arrest, no charges, no convictions. It doesn’t mean nothing happened. This is a small town. Ask around. Cops on the beat. You know how these things get squelched. See what you can dig up from your side of things? I’d appreciate it. Okay?”

  “Will do.”

  “But diplomatically. Quietly.”

  “The only way.”

  “I don’t want him hurt any more.”

  “I understand.”

  “Thanks, Liz.”

  “You owe me.”

  “You always say that.”

  “And you never pay off.” Laughter in her voice.

  “That’s why we split up.”

  “How quaint. Split up. Like we’re Archie and Veronica in a malt shop.”

  “I wasn’t around then. I wasn’t in America. I was an idea in the mind of Buddha.”

  “I’m always around. Always.” She was laughing as she hung up the phone.

  ***

  She called me back within the hour. “We got lucky, babe.”

  “How so?”

  “Our little Davey is not the Christian camper he poses as.”

  “Arrested?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I knew it.” I hit the table with my fist.

  “I rechecked files. Nothing. As I suspected. But I ran it by a couple of the cops I’m friendly with. At first nothing, but then one of them called me back. He remembered something from a few years ago. He used to work as a rent-a-cop security guard before he joined the force. He was covering West Farms Mall. It seems a drunken Davey put his hands on some teenage boy, and the kid erupted, hit him, called the cops. Real messy.”

  “No arrest?”

  “That’s where it gets murky. Johnny—he’s the cop—says nothing happened. He remembers the name because it was the first arrest he’d been a part of. He remembers because Davey started talking wildly about Jesus…and perdition.”

  “Damn it.”

  “Nothing came of it. Somebody knew somebody.”

  “Marta.”

  “My guess, too. Maybe that’s how she knew—that’s why she was so hard on him.”

  “And that’s why she knocked him out of the will—and her life. The favored nephew consigned to auntie’s purgatory.”

  I was making notes, trying to type with one hand into the laptop. It was coming out like hieroglyphics.

  “She did a number on him, I guess,” Liz said.

  “That’s why she confronted him on Joshua’s lawn. Tried to get Joshua to throw him off the property. Joshua wouldn’t, so she turned on Joshua.”

  “Poor guy. Needed counseling, not cover-up.”

  “Well, he hated her, and it ruined her friendship with Joshua.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “I got to talk to Karen about this first. She’s not happy with me going at Davey.”

  But suddenly I thought of Richard Wilcox: I am the one who murdered her.

  I thanked her. Suddenly, as an afterthought, feeling a little bit lonely, I asked her if she wanted to come with me to Peter and Selena’s cocktail party. Then we’d go to the college art show opening together. I’d treat her to a late supper in Hartford. She was quiet for a while.

  When she spoke, her voice was thin, uncomfortable. “Is this a date?”

  “Old friends?” The wrong thing to say.

  “No,” her voice a whisper, “I don’t think so.”

  “I didn’t mean it a bad way.” I wanted to see her. “Come on.”

  She sighed. “If you pick me up and act like you are excited to be with me.”

  “I promise.” A pause. “I won’t have to act, Liz.”

  “I won’t hold you to that promise. You’d have to break it. You have weak character.”

  “Not weak—undemonstrative.”

  “You’re a shy boy.”

&n
bsp; “You know it.”

  She laughed a long time, enjoying this. “How distorted is the mirror we carry in our heads.”

  Smiling to myself, I thanked her again.

  ***

  When I called Karen, she told me I couldn’t stop over.

  “No, it’s impossible.” Her voice was metallic. “What do you want?”

  The abruptness startled me. We were being strangers now? I was never ready for her volatile mood shifts, dark-laced. They bothered me.

  “I’ve got something to discuss with you. Something has come up, and I’d like to see you face-to-face.”

  “No,” she said, flat out. “No.”

  I hesitated.

  “Tell me now. I’m paying you.”

  As quietly as possible, I filled her in about Davey, providing her with the skimpy details of his hushed-up sexual assault. I suggested that Aunt Marta was the instrument behind the dismissal of charges—for a housekeeper she obviously wielded considerable influence in various quarters in the old town—and that drunken incident was the reason for her banishing her favored nephew Davey.

  She interrupted me. “I talked to Davey yesterday.”

  “About what?”

  “I called him. I’m a little tired of being estranged from him. Of being his enemy. I have one relative left. He’s my brother.”

  “How was he?”

  “Surprised, I think, and friendly.”

  That was not the word I would have used for Davey these past few days. “Did he say anything about the case?”

  “We didn’t talk about the case.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “I told you”—her voice strident, clipped—”it was nothing. A sister calling her brother. We are allowed to talk, you know. Marta wanted us apart because she hated him. We have to rebuild.”

  Rebuild. I thought of fire sales, of houses of cards crashing onto a table.

  “Did he sound bothered?”

  “I told you—he was friendly. We’re going to have lunch or dinner. I’m gonna give him some money. Share it. I feel guilty.”

  “Wait a bit,” I broke in. “Hold off for a while. We don’t know Davey’s role in Marta’s death, if any. Maybe nothing, but I have to see it through. I have to be blunt with you. Marta terrorized him. He’s got this mixed-up confusion about sex and religion and…”

  “He’s not like that.”

  I sat back, overwhelmed with fatigue. Repression was the operative word in the Corcoran family.

  “Karen…”

  “Rick, I’m going to call him and ask him about that arrest. I never heard about it. This is ridiculous. Wouldn’t I have heard of it? He’ll tell me the truth now.”

  “Karen, that’s not a good idea.”

  “And I’m his only living relative.”

  “Karen, let me come over for a while. Just to talk. Okay? I think we need to get some balance here. Davey is a wild card.”

  “I know what happens when you come over.”

  “Just to talk.”

  “No, I’ve seen men like you before. There’s too much hunger in your eyes.”

  Inadvertently I glanced at a nearby mirror, caught my glance, looked into my tired eyes, the lazy slant that came from my Vietnamese mother, the bluish tint that came from my father. Liz’s words—how distorted is the mirror. I was still staring into those eyes when I heard the click of the receiver on the other end. Exhausted, I closed my eyes. Lightning flashes in the darkness, humming in my ears. I knew it was time for a nap.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The next day started out quiet, quiet. I spent most of the morning going through a computer print-out I’d gotten from an old cop buddy on the NYPD. An incomplete listing of Mary Powells in Manhattan. “There are thirty-four on the list, but that’s probably not half of them,” he told me. “These are culled from business indexes and street registers from a couple years back.”

  I didn’t know what I hoped to accomplish. After all, I’d already spoken with the Mary Powell whose number I’d got in Clinton. That’s the Mary Powell I had to deal with. But that seemed all wrong. So I asked for this new list.

  It was something to go on. Most women in New York, especially single, do not list themselves by first name in directories. M. Powell was the most I could hope for. So my buddy’s list was much better than nothing. I dialed. And dialed. Dead end. Disconnected numbers. Hang ups. Suspicious husbands. Suspicious Mary Powells. It was a stupid game, I told myself, but it came with the territory. Machines everywhere—after all, it was a weekday. And unanswered long ringing. The friendly Mary Powells were mostly old women, hidden away in fourth-floor walkups. Of course, they wanted to talk. I lingered a little, but eventually I had to break off. They always sounded disappointed.

  I’d learned nothing from the morning.

  Hank phoned, complained about my line being tied up. My cell phone went to voice immediately. He wanted to make certain I remembered his mother’s invitation to supper. I’d been checking notes in my laptop, momentarily distracted, so he read my hesitation as ambivalence.

  “You gotta come.”

  “I told you I would.”

  “Dad won’t…”

  I broke in. “Hank, enough. Your father and I have signed a peace treaty, brokered by your grandma.”

  “People at peace still go to war.”

  “Not when they’re eating Happy Pancake.”

  He sighed. “Food is the answer.”

  “To almost everything, no?”

  “Don’t be late, Rick. Sometimes you float along, gape at the landscape like you just toppled off a turnip truck.”

  “Another wonderful food maligned by cliché.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I grabbed a coat and drove to Hank’s home. He greeted me at the door, his arms cradling the Criminal Justice text he’d used in my course.

  “You checking some fine point of police procedure?” I asked.

  “Naw,” he said.

  “No one reads these books twice.” I pointed to the oversized textbook.

  He grinned. “I’m reading it for the first time.”

  I quoted Buddha to him. “‘Honest work—it’s a great fortune.’”

  He grunted.

  He was dressed in baggy sweat pants, a faded, stained Tar Heels jersey, and was barefoot. His shaved head gleamed underneath the overhead light. I rubbed it. “Buddha.”

  “You’re early. No one’s home yet.” He walked to the refrigerator. “Mom told me to ask if you wanted coffee.” He laughed. “She thinks I lack social skills.”

  “Ah, where to begin…”

  We sat with coffee—his instant version, dreadful—at the kitchen table, and I filled him in on the latest events, particularly Davey’s secret life.

  “I’m surprised that got by me,” he noted.

  “And why is that?”

  “You see, I’m a different generation. We don’t have sexual secrets, so I wasn’t thinking in that direction.”

  “I wish your generation would keep some of its secrets—well, secret.”

  “We only try to hide our intelligence.”

  “How well I know that. You were my student.”

  I sat back, relaxed. “But I still don’t know anything that relates back to Marta. It’s like a spider’s web. I keep learning new stories—like Davey knowing Joshua. I’m convinced Joshua is at the heart of this—somehow. What does that mean?”

  The kitchen door opened, the sound of his mother and grandmother laughing at something. Hank jumped up to take a paper bag from his mother. Grandma smiled at me, but spoke to someone behind her.

  Stepping into the kitchen, bundled up against the November cold, Aunt Marie did not look surprised to see me. We bowed to each other. Willie Do’s wife
.

  Hank stammered, “Aunt Marie, I didn’t know you were here.” Hank threw a sidelong glance my way, confusion in his eyes.

  His mother said in a soft voice, “You don’t know everything, Tan.”

  “But…” He faltered.

  Aunt Marie was watching me closely—something was going on here, I felt. She was in that kitchen—as was I—for a reason.

  The women slipped off coats, hung by Hank’s mother on a rack by the door. The whole time Aunt Marie watched me, nervous, stiff.

  “You boys go into the living room,” his mother said, slipping into Vietnamese, her hands making shooing gestures. “We need to make the Happy Pancakes.”

  Grandma stood near the table and pointed at Hank. “You give him sewage to drink.” She kissed the top of my head. She took my instant coffee, and Hank’s, and poured them down the sink drain, and proceeded to make me a cup of real Vietnamese coffee, a potent brew rich with condensed milk and powerful beans. The glass was hot to the touch. I could have hugged her.

  “I know you like it extra sweet,” she told me.

  Hank grinned at her. “You spoil him, Grandma.”

  She looked at Hank with love. “Such a pretty boy better find a wife who cannot see that his looks are his only talent.”

  Hank grinned. “Thanks, Grandma.”

  She looked at her daughter. “Real coffee, then exile in the living room.”

  Aunt Marie smiled but didn’t move.

  “So,” Grandma said to me, sitting down so close our sleeves touched. She pointed at Hank, referring to him by his Vietnamese name. “Tan tells me that you are looking into a murder.”

  “Well…”

  “Grandma, I’m working closely with him.”

  “He tells me he’s—essential.”

  “He is that. And more.”

  “Where do you look for this murderer?” she asked me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You and Tan, you spend your lives looking in books for murderers.” She pointed to the thick volume that Hank had rested on the kitchen table.

  “Well, not really. I’m interviewing people and…”

  “Books are conclusions days later.” She nodded her head slowly.

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled, her face getting wrinkled and gleeful. “Buddha is a book with pages you’ve already read.”