An Exaggerated Murder: A Novel

by Josh Cook

  “Cohesive narrative test. Ready.”

  “I wish it were the cohesive narrative test. This is more a realm-of-thought test.”

  “Realm-of-thought test. Ready,” Max said.

  “From Joyce’s face, we both concluded he would be neither a destroyer of innocence and synonym for villainy, nor an upholder of justice with Agincourt for glory and the stake for zeal, and though, since most crime is committed by ordinary people stuck in situations they were not prepared to face, an absence of extreme character is usually no real limitation in an investigation, in this case, the extraordinariness of the crime strongly implies an extraordinary criminal. What is most troubling to me about the conjunction of this face and this crime is that, perhaps above all else, Joyce does not look like a person in charge, and whatever is happening, somebody needs to be in charge.

  “Disappearing maps from the Hall of Records requires a certain kind of effort, one that is not necessarily difficult, but is distinctly different from the kind of effort required to bribe a librarian, write a script, and replace substantive books with blank books, an effort also distinct from the kind of tedious, technical, and time-consuming effort needed to cull images from the Internet. And if you have the appropriate surname or know someone who does, manipulating Water Department policy might be easy, but it does require a different set of resources from what we have previously considered. There is nothing particularly challenging about incorporating a business if one knows how to do it or can pay a lawyer who does, and once incorporated there are simply no meaningful barriers preventing it from purchasing property, but, again, we have traveled into a different realm of skills and resources. Add to that the ability to conceal facts of identity from Lola and you get evidence of a powerful, efficient, well-organized effort.”

  “But … no mob,” Max said.

  “You, sir, are shoveling coal on my train of thought. We might still hold out hope that the effort in question is organized by the FBI, but everything you’ve discovered suggests the contrary. Another force is at work here.”

  “Big sum-up, boss?”

  Trike was quiet for a second. He shot up to sitting and shouted, “But Thomas More was Henry the Eighth!”

  Max waited for the translation to supply itself.

  It took a minute.

  “This is not an issue of an organizing entity, but an organizing principle,” Trike translated.

  “Need more, boss.”

  “The effort we have seen thus far has not been following a strict set of instructions laid out by a supreme executive, but an organizing principle. The underlings were not instructed to do specific things, but a specific type of thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “Remove or obscure the world of information around Joyce, no matter the implication and whether it has a connection to the crime or not.”

  “Because?”

  Trike slumped back to prone, like a thrown coat that caught the hook for a second.

  “Given how pointless the effort is, I don’t know.”

  “So?”

  “So, we’ll start the stakeout tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  Max pushed himself up from the chair and started to leave.

  “Just keep one thing in mind, Max.”

  “What?”

  “Taps on hospital doors are not apt to be tentative.”

  “What?”

  “Joyce is a tragic figure, but not tragic in ways that popular belief understands tragedy. We’ll have to listen for that tentative tap that should not be tentative.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  “I’ll meet you at the office for the stakeout. We start at eight p.m.”

  “See you then, boss.”

  THE FONT OF INTUITION

  One would not turn away from direct contact, certainly not with the nervousness that strong personalities will induce. Nor would one be compelled to maintain direct contact.

  Though eyes cannot communicate genre of thought, they can imply the vigor of thought. The brain behind these eyes looks to be exerting itself to remember if there is a new episode or a rerun of its favorite show on tonight. Perhaps the difficult decision of whether to stop for gas now or later.

  There is a relaxation of the muscles around a killer’s eyes as though a moral freedom has led to a distribution of unconscious relaxation. Joyce does not have that relaxation.

  Three-quarters open, looking slightly to the viewer’s right, displaying relaxed passivity. Not uncommon in those who have made enough money to not give a leaking shit about anything or anyone else on the planet.

  Fair guesses: Never pointed a gun at someone, never had a gun pointed at him, can ignore being looked down upon, enjoys charitable events where children open presents he paid for, assumes he is an outstanding parallel parker, chuckles with the phrase “big-boned,” wears reading glasses, ruefully indulged his mother’s whims, sweet tooth, never exercises, cares for but does not sculpt his eyebrows, tennis fan …

  Distortion of character caused by the isolation of consideration? Attention can both discover and generate data.

  Unfair guesses: Never punched or been punched, frets over balancing his checkbook if he hasn’t done it in a few days, only reads the stocks and the classifieds in his morning paper, orders the same thing every time at his favorite restaurants, obsesses over the thermostat, doesn’t understand why people keep pets, is one of the thoughtless millions whose favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird for the wrong reasons …

  Doesn’t roll his eyes much. Only compliment in this consideration.

  Not interested in the rewards that come from efforts demanding ample amounts of responsibility, as though he just wants to successfully follow directions and earn what he thinks is fair if he does so. Someone who wanted to get As in school, but didn’t really care about learning.

  Never thinks he can make the yellow light.

  Dabbled in bird-watching to impress a foreign bachelor.

  Probably afraid of dogs.

  Might be an excellent liar. There are always ways to tell, but it appears as though he can control at least a fair amount of the outward signs of dishonesty; primarily, he might be able to keep his eyes steady.

  Eyes about to say, “Oh well. Who wants to go to IHOP?”

  Laugh lines like he often doesn’t get the joke.

  Eyes for Rembrandt or Freud, a fleshiness like they had their own stomachs.

  •

  “There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.”

  “The eyes, like sentinels, occupy the highest place in the body.”

  “The eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul.”

  “The eyes have one language everywhere.”

  “A wanton eye is a messenger of an unchaste heart.”

  “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”

  “The eye speaks with an eloquence and truthfulness surpassing speech. It is the window out of which the winged thoughts often fly unwittingly. It is the tiny magic mirror on whose crystal surface the moods of feeling fitfully play, like the sunlight and shadow on a still stream.”

  “The eyes of the soul of the multitudes are unable to endure the vision of the divine.”

  “In a real estate man’s eye, the most expensive part of the city is where he has a house to sell.”

  “It is the eyes of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.”

  “Why has not man a microscopic eye? For the plain reason that man is not a fly.”

  “An animal will always look for a person’s intentions by looking them right in the eyes.”

  “One’s eyes are what one is, one’s mouth is what one becomes.”

  “For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.”

  “Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially th
e eyes.”

  “Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.”

  “Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.”

  Never been broken.

  Wide nostrils plus some indication of internal swelling. Maybe indication of manageable allergies after all.

  Background to the face unless you’re really looking at it.

  Obesity blends its slope into the cheeks.

  Like a diagonal line used in the composition of a painting; nose moves the eye away from it to other parts of the face.

  Seems like it would be a joy to punch. All that fat and cartilage. Like somebody stuffed a bunch of marshmallows into a little bag and taped it to his face. Enough give to keep your knuckles as safe as they can be while punching someone in the nose, but you’d still hear the satisfying sound of the break.

  If he weren’t so fat this nose would get him punched twice a year.

  Reads with the book/magazine held close to his face.

  •

  “A large nose is in fact the sign of an affable man, good, courteous, witty, liberal, courageous, such as I am.”

  “A thousand woodpeckers flew in through the window and settled themselves on Pinocchio’s nose.”

  “Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.”

  “He that has a great nose, thinks everybody is speaking of it.”

  “If you had a face like mine, you’d punch me right on the nose, and I’m just the fella to do it.”

  “My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.”

  Perceived kindliness comes directly from the chin. It is the shape of the chin that suggests joviality.

  Gesture free; never stroked, scratched, or cupped in thought or agitation. To him, just that point in the middle of his jaw.

  Chins only discussed when hyperbolic, and then almost always only in the context of the jaw in total, and then generally only when they complete a strong, square one.

  One cannot consider a fat man’s jaw. It is like thinking about a cow’s thighs.

  Fat since birth, a bodily state like the color of his eyes.

  Like the nose, never been struck with real purpose or emotion.

  Not Churchill. Not Taft either. Not even late Henry VIII. Almost George III if George were a little fatter and a little less inclined toward a beard. Functionary. It’s the chin of a functionary. Perfect for cradling a phone while taking a message.

  Will masquerade as Santa Claus before he dies, if he has not already and if nothing more dramatic gets in the way.

  “A dimple on the chin, the devil within.”

  Perhaps the cheeks contain the ambiguity one feels in the total face. Two shiny baseballs just sitting there, gleaming in a frantic and desperate commitment to the principles of mediocrity, a passionate obsession without the violence of either emotion, with putting two cars in the garage and two kids through good colleges.

  Tennis balls covered by slabs of bacon.

  Know 74 people with comparable cheeks and don’t give a fuck about a single one of them.

  I see the fat monk of medieval satire, the well-fed joviality mixed with manageable guilt mixed with more than a pinch of just-don’t-give-a-fuck. In a way, there was no greater villain, for the basics of villainy were coupled with a profound bastardizing of the fundamental moral system of the era.

  Space holders of the face. Why there are so few quotes about them.

  Cheeks like William Eustace, historian at the BM. Died of a heart attack, probably on his way home from a hard day’s work to tell his wife how much he loved her.

  A fat man married to a thin woman in a way that neither one noticed the disparity. If Joyce could ever marry.

  They imply a man who detests action.

  Smooth, wrinkle-free, implying a care for the skin and appearance that is diligent, but not indulgent. Unscented lotions only.

  •

  “Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks.”

  “One bites into the brass mouthpiece of his wooden cudgel, and the other blows his cheeks out on a French horn. Do you call that Art?”

  The first place one would look to avoid or break eye contact.

  Dishonest indicator of age; Joyce has the forehead of a man seven years younger.

  A life with eyebrows little raised and brow rarely furrowed. Little wonder, surprise, or consternation.

  Disregard knowledge of phrenology.

  Like so much the contours and visible textures imply an average life free of the problems that would keep a man awake for a week straight, but reasonably filled with the problems that would keep a man awake for a night. Rarely rubbed. Seldom slapped. Allowed to age lightly until it eventually dies.

  Beware the face kept free from gestures of the hands, because the hands must be doing something else.

  No breaking, plates, scars, or other evidence of urgent care.

  Reverse Richard III? Face so ordinary he had to be extraordinary.

  Of course, Richard III didn’t have Richard III syndrome. Reverse Marty McSorley. Yeah.

  Once spent the night resting on a slick yet sticky bar, in his youth, in New Orleans.

  •

  “High heels were invented by a woman who had been kissed on the forehead.”

  “If the best man’s faults were written on the forehead, he would draw his hat over his eyes.”

  “The Creator has not thought it proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.”

  HIS RIGHTEOUS SENTENCE

  Lola and Max stood by an open manhole. They double-checked the batteries in their headlamps. Went over their hand signals. Secured weapons. Put on gloves.

  Lola wore an old pair of wind pants over spandex, tucked into wellies, and an old long-sleeved T-shirt over a quick-dry running shirt. And her knife. Her hair was in a ponytail and her headlamp was on over a sweatband.

  Max wore wickaway hiking pants tucked into a pair of hunter-green waders. The pants had the right pocket cut out, to allow access to his gun, which was in a holster under the pants. He wore an old long-sleeved T-shirt and an undershirt. As sweat started to drip down his forehead and collect along the edge of the headlamp’s band, he wished he’d brought a sweatband as well. Max wondered if Lola learned the trick camping, or if it was just another one of those things she figured out, or somehow always knew.

  Lola spotted the bead of sweat, ran back to the car, and returned with an extra band from her bag.

  “Always prepared,” Max said.

  “Nah, just completely forgot I’d put one in when I packed last night. But if you ever go all Dr. Watson on us, make sure to write that I was prepared.”

  “Deal.”

  Lola descended first, landing lightly from the last rung of the ladder onto the moist masonry below. Max followed, folding his shoulders slightly to fit down the hole.

  Max pulled a street map out of his pocket. Using the streets above, they highlighted in blue an approximate route to the Joyce House. It wouldn’t be exact, but it would give them a sense of when to look for lefts and rights. Max took a yellow highlighter out of his pocket. Uncapped it and set it down on the map on their spot.

  “Left,” he said. “I’ll keep track … to scale.”

  Lola nodded. “Okay. And we’re looking for anything. Any suggestion Joyce went through here, or used the sewers at all. They’re hiding something, Max. You don’t make that much information go away for nothing.”

  Max nodded.

  After a few turns they reached an intersection that should have been almost directly below the Joyce House. Five tunnels met in a large higher-ceilinged room. There were dry gullies running down the middle of each tunnel. Along one wall, a rusted metal ladder led to an exit that had been paved over. Other than that, a big, boring concr
ete room. Just like every room and every tunnel in just about every active sewer system in the world; boring but for the occasional rat larger than one thought evolution allowed or object one assumed to be unflushable. People tend to make things interesting to people and when sewage flows through sewers people spend very little time in them. But sometimes the sewage is stopped. Changes in demographics, topography, other construction projects. Sewers dry up into limited-access tunnels. People find them. They get interesting.

  “We’ve already been a little lucky,” Lola said as they entered the intersection.

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t look like the Water Department uses this section anymore.”

  “True,” Max said.

  Max confirmed on the map that they were as close to beneath the Joyce House as they could definitively get.

  “Area sweep,” Lola said.

  They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, with their headlamps angled at the ground, then slowly moved their beams along the space in front of them and up the wall, all the way to the ceiling directly above them. Then Lola turned a degree to the right, Max to the left, and they repeated the gesture.

  At 168 degrees, Max illuminated a fading red arrow pointing to what had become his right.

  “Huh,” he said.

  Lola looked. “An arrow? Looks old.”

  “In this climate … age is difficult to determine,” Max said.