Passion Play

by W. Edward Blain

  “Why wouldn’t you kiss Mrs. Warden?”

  Greg didn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry I brought it up,” said Thomas.

  “It’s her husband,” Greg said. “He scares me.”

  Thomas was surprised. “Mr. Warden? He’s really nice.”

  “I know he is,” said Greg. “But he’s got that mark on his face. I can’t kiss a lady who’s been kissing him. It’s like it’s contagious.”

  They walked on a little farther.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Thomas.

  “I know it doesn’t make sense,” Greg said. “It just is. That’s just the way I am.”

  It was starting to snow, though no flakes stuck to the ground yet. The boys were fifty yards from the light and warmth of Bradley Hall when a figure jumped suddenly in front of them from behind a tree. It was someone dressed in a hooded ski jacket. A ski mask covered his face, and the thick gloves he wore made his hands look huge. The person shrieked a loud death yell and surprised them so badly that they joined in the shriek, like dogs hearing a siren. Then they recognized the figure as Richard, who was leaning against the tree and laughing helplessly.

  Thomas had to admit it was pretty funny. His older sister, Barbara, used to scare him when they were little, and he would do the same thing to his younger brother, Jeff. He thought it was strange that something as bad as fear could be so entertaining as long as there really wasn’t anything to be afraid of.

  “How’d you like dinner tonight?” asked Richard.

  They repeated their complaints.

  “Yes, I’m afraid I didn’t think things through when I pulled the old plug this afternoon,” said Richard. “I should have realized that we’d all be paying the price in medical bills.”

  “You’re the one who caused the power shortage?” Thomas said.

  Richard explained that he had returned to the basement of Stringfellow Hall to search for Greg’s tunnel.

  “I couldn’t find it anywhere,” he said. “I think the place is sealed off, if it ever existed in the first place. But I did find the breaker panels for the building. Just push a few buttons and instant blackout.”

  “What for?” Thomas asked. Despite the dim light, he could see Richard’s eyes roll behind the ski mask.

  “Inconvenience,” said Richard. “Variety. Self-amusement. All of the above. I didn’t realize you were running for councilman now.”

  “It seems pretty stupid to be out here by yourself,” said Thomas.

  “Oh, Dad, please let me stay out for just a few more minutes.”

  Thomas said they had to get to play practice.

  “Farnham’s not there,” said Richard. “I just saw him leave the building before you came along.”

  “Farnham?” said Thomas. “Are you sure?”

  Richard said it was either Farnham or O. J. Simpson sprinting to catch a plane.

  “He’ll be back,” said Thomas. He was tired of Richard. Thomas and Greg walked on to Bradley Hall.

  Inside the building it was quiet and bright. Thomas didn’t know whether to believe Richard or not about Mr. Farnham’s absence. Richard was getting strange these last few days; he seemed to be doing everything but growing up.

  “Damn,” said Greg. “I left my book up in the dining hall.”

  “We have time to go back,” said Thomas. “It’s still only five minutes to 7:00.”

  “Don’t bother,” said Greg. “I can run.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Look at Richard. Nobody around here’s going to be messing with us.”

  It was fine with Thomas to wait. Bradley Hall was warm, and furthermore, Mrs. Warden was around somewhere. He unzipped his jacket and removed his hat as he turned to the right to enter the auditorium. He wanted to see whether Mrs. Warden was still practicing her lines, and he thought he might get a chance to watch her for a minute before she noticed him.

  The houselights were out when he entered the auditorium, but the stage lights were still up, as if there were an actual performance in progress. From the doorway he saw Mrs. Warden lying on the bed, and he jumped. He felt his heart pound and his insides lurch, and then he laughed. She was lying on the bed like a real corpse, her head lolling back over the front of the mattress so that her face was upside down from Thomas’s view in the audience. Her eyes were open and seemed to be staring directly at him, and the very tip of her tongue was poking out of the side of her mouth. Her arms were splayed out toward him, palms down. After Thomas recognized her, he realized that she must have turned down the houselights so that the effect on the stage would be more dramatic.

  “You got me,” he called to her. He walked up toward the stage.

  She made no reply.

  “How do you keep your eyes open like that without blinking?” he said again.

  She still did not answer.

  Thomas arrived at the apron of the stage and stopped. He saw and understood and reacted all at once. She was only ten feet away. By now he could see the red bruises on her neck, could see that her body was lying on its stomach, could see that her head had been twisted around to a place it never belonged. He started to tremble and to shriek as he stared into her glazed eyes.

  Desdemona was dead.

  SCENE 12

  She was dead, and she was never coming back. He had been ready for her death, but it was not supposed to come for at least twenty years.

  Warden sat in his favorite wing chair in Horace and Kathleen Somerville’s living room in the Homestead. It was almost like reality. But it wasn’t real, because everyone kept telling him how sorry they were that Cynthia was dead, and he knew that could not be true. When Cynthia died, then chaos would come again; this was a perfectly ordinary gathering of people he knew: friends of his, and a few strangers, too, members of the police department, but that was all right, Kathleen Somerville was here serving coffee, and Horace was sitting nearby. And Dr. Lane the headmaster was here, as was that new biology teacher, Kemper Carella.

  There was one of his advisees, too, Thomas Boatwright, sitting on the couch next to Felix Grayson, Felix the disciplinarian who wore his Paul Bunyan boots and his Ernest Hemingway sweater and listened as Thomas wept and talked to him quietly. Why was Thomas Boatwright crying? Oh, yes, now he remembered, it was because Cynthia was dead.

  Every time he said it to himself, Warden felt it sink in like a cold blade. He was numb, but he knew enough to realize that he was numb, and he also knew that very soon the horribly poisonous news of his wife’s death, the news that had reached his brain some time ago but had not yet trickled down to his heart, was going to register with him fully. And then, he supposed, he would break down.

  For now, though, it was a curious experience. He could carry on a perfectly rational conversation with Horace Somerville, and at the same time he could be completely oblivious to what either of them was saying. He could hear again and again that Cynthia was dead, that Cynthia had, in fact, been murdered right here on the campus, and yet he could look up each time the door opened and expect to see her walk in. It was like being in a play; he had a set of speeches to deliver, but they were not really his words, and he concentrated more on the activities around him than on the words of the script he seemed to be following. None of it was real, but he could sense with growing dread that it was becoming real, that very soon he would say it, say that Cynthia was . . . dead and that he would believe it.

  The news of her death had caught up with him half an hour ago. He had been out walking on the campus composing a poem when he had been interrupted by the noise of sirens and the flash of blue lights.

  Dr. Lane had been angry about the sirens and the lights. Across the room Lane talked with Kathleen Somerville, and he voiced the same complaint he had expressed to anyone who would listen for the past hour.

  “I told them specifically not to advertise their presence,” he said. “I told them we did not need lots of noise and excitement on this campus.” Kathleen sympathetically shook her head and issue
d little hums now and then to indicate she was listening.

  The noise from the police cars had attracted to Bradley Hall what appeared to be everyone on the campus, a couple of hundred boys anyway, some of them silly enough to come out in the cold without coats and hats. Warden had walked down among them, and they had known somehow to let him through. They had greeted him in sympathy, some of them even reaching out to touch his arm or to pat him on the shoulder, as he walked to the door of the building where the police stood. How had they known? The phenomenon of rumor had always amazed him on this campus. Something would happen, and then instantly every student would simply know, would have the facts and the details, and would gladly explain them to an ignorant adult. Someone was always being a teacher.

  They had taken him inside and had shown him her body. That was the worst part, the part that he did not want to remember. But had he not seen her lying dead earlier? Of course, that was just the play, the rehearsal of the part she had been playing. This other was true, outrageous, premature, horrible . . . death.

  He trembled. Cynthia was dead. And what of the man who had killed her? When were they going to find him? And why did it already smell like a funeral in here?

  Kathleen had lighted an incense stick.

  “I hope the smell doesn’t irritate anyone,” she said. “We’re just having a little odor problem in the basement.”

  The incense reminded Warden of church. He had not been to church for years.

  “More coffee? Ben?” It was Horace Somerville. He was reaching out for Warden’s cup. Warden handed it to him obediently, thanked him, smiled.

  The investigator, Carol Scott, was an attractive woman who was kind and businesslike simultaneously. They had met each other last Saturday night, and Warden astonished himself by remembering that she wore exactly the same clothes—a gray woolen suit, black nylons, and low-heeled shoes.

  “Mr. Warden?” she said. She approached his chair and demurely squatted so that she could look him in the eye. “Are you ready for a few more questions?”

  He responded with one of his own. “Have you found Angus yet?”

  “No,” she said. “We are searching every building on this campus. It will take some time.”

  “May I speak to him when you find him? I want to ask him why.”

  She stood and asked for a chair, which Horace provided. “No one has seen Angus Farrier since your wife saw him last Saturday night,” she said after she was seated in the ladder-backed chair. “I’m having a hard time believing that a man could live on a campus as busy as this one without being spotted by somebody.”

  Warden asked her what she was suggesting.

  “I’m suggesting that we may want to test a few other options,” said Carol Scott. “It’s perfectly possible that Angus Farrier was hiding in the building during the rehearsal and killed your wife. People like this have their own crazy reasons for doing what they do. He could have thought of her as a witness who needed to be eliminated. Or maybe he had an obsession. We’ll ask him when we find him. But right now, we’d like to compare your story with Mr. Carella’s.” She waved Kemper Carella over. Horace Somerville pulled up another chair. This was like a cocktail party, Warden thought. We’re all going to discuss Updike’s latest novel.

  Carella was nervous, trembling, and fidgeting as he joined the group. He wore one of those pullover sweatshirts with a hood, and to Warden he looked as young as Thomas Boatwright, who was still sitting across the room on the couch. The boy had been the one to find her. That had been bad. Warden felt pity for Boatwright, who was rubbing away each tear as it appeared on his cheek and was trying to breathe evenly. The boy had found her, but he had not been the last one to see her alive. That had been Angus, of course, hadn’t it?

  “Mr. Carella,” said Carol Scott. “You were in Bradley Hall shortly before Cynthia Warden died.”

  “That’s right,” said Carella. “About 6:30, like I told you.”

  “Why?”

  “To deliver a message from her husband.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Warden. “I got an idea for a poem while I was watching the rehearsal, so I left. I had to work it out then, while it was hitting me. I don’t know where I walked, but I do recall now running into you—we were there on the sidewalk down from the library, weren’t we?—and asking you please to deliver a message to Cynthia, to tell her that I would be writing and wouldn’t be going to dinner.”

  Carol Scott wanted to know why he hadn’t told his wife himself.

  “I wasn’t exactly aware of leaving,” he said. “And after I had, I didn’t want to interrupt my train of thought.” It was a poem about a dying child. He could see a little girl step on a poisonous snake when she was in the woods with her father. He saw it from the father’s point of view.

  “Who was there for the rehearsal, Mr. Warden?”

  Warden closed his eyes to picture the participants. She had asked him this question before. “Dan Farnham, the director. Cynthia. Four of the boys. Pat McPhee was there for a while.”

  Carol Scott checked her notes as he spoke. “Where did you go on this walk, Mr. Warden?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Did you go back to the theater building?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Warden.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” said Carol Scott politely.

  Warden said he did not know how to explain the creative process, how it was like going into a trance, like entering a different dimension. It was like going into anesthesia. Literally like losing one’s mind.

  “I was thinking,” he said. “I was not aware of time or place when I left the auditorium. I became aware when I encountered Mr. Carella here, and he asked me how Cynthia was.”

  He felt like a fool. He was not even able to produce a draft of the poem to show the police that he had been working; there had been no time for writing it down. He could tell them only what he had already told them, had already said to this polite but very persistent woman from the police department who had interviewed him at length in Horace Somerville’s private study.

  She had taken him just thirty minutes ago back to the paneled study with the brass desk lamp and had asked him the same questions again and again.

  “Mr. Warden, your wife was ill, was she not?” she had said.

  “She had multiple sclerosis, yes.” It had hurt to fall into the past tense.

  “Did that upset you?”

  “Of course it did,” Warden had said. “We were both devastated.”

  “Did you hate the idea of seeing your wife suffer?” Carol Scott had asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you want to help her end her pain?”

  Warden had known what he was saying. “Yes,” he had said.

  “Mr. Warden, did you kill your wife?” Carol Scott had said.

  Warden had not answered.

  “Mr. Warden?”

  “I thought about it,” he had said.

  “A mercy killing?”

  “Yes,” he had said.

  “Because you loved her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you do it, Mr. Warden?”

  He had shaken his head. “No,” he had said. “I could never do that.”

  She had watched him and listened to him and asked him about his trip to New York at Thanksgiving and his schedule for working out in the gym and his acquaintance with Robert Staines. But she had finally said okay and had returned him to the living room. “That will be all,” she had said.

  But it was not all. She was back now with Kemper Carella and she was starting in again with more questions.

  Carol Scott turned and asked Carella whether Cynthia was alive when he got to the theater.

  “Of course she was alive,” said Carella. He sat in a wooden chair to Warden’s right. “She was there practicing her lines. She laughed when I told her about Ben, and she said something like, ‘He’ll be all right,’ or ‘He’ll be fine.’”

  “Was anyone else i
n the building?”

  “Not that I could see,” Carella said. “It was just Cynthia and me.” His eyes jumped from face to face.

  “Did you see Mr. Warden return to the theater?” asked Carol Scott.

  “No.”

  “Did you like Cynthia Warden?”

  “Not especially,” said Carella. He waved his hands as if to cancel the answer, to erase it in the air. “I mean, I liked her all right, but I didn’t have a thing for her the way some people did.”

  “Who were those people, Mr. Carella?”

  “A lot of the boys did,” he said. “And everybody knew Dan Farnham was going crazy over her.”

  “But not you?” asked Carol Scott.

  “No.”

  “You don’t like women?” she asked.

  “I didn’t say that,” said Carella. “I like women just fine.”

  “Yes,” said Carol Scott. “Your friend in New York finally told the truth about how you spent your latest Sunday afternoon there.”

  Carella’s face turned pale. “That has nothing to do with this,” he said.

  “What does a woman charge you for services like that?” said Carol Scott.

  “That has nothing to do with this,” Carella said. “Nothing at all. What are you trying to do?”

  Carol Scott did not pause.

  “Did you see Daniel Farnham at the theater this afternoon?”

  “No.”

  “What time did you leave?”

  “I was there only a couple of minutes. It must have been 6:30, 6:35.”

  “And you saw no one besides Cynthia Warden.”

  “No.”

  “So nobody can confirm these times.”

  “Yes,” said Carella. “Patrick McPhee. I talked with him on the telephone while I was there.”

  “Why did you telephone Mr. McPhee?”

  “I didn’t,” said Carella. “He telephoned me. Or rather he called backstage. He said he was at the gym and was looking for Farnham, and thought maybe Farnham had come back to the theater.”

  Thomas Boatwright spoke up from his seat on the couch.

  “Mr. Farnham did come back to the auditorium,” he said.

  “Richard Blackburn saw him come running out the front door right before Greg and I got there.”