by Josh Cook
Trike capped the vodka bottle, pushed it to the middle of the table, folded his arms in front of him, put his head on them, and passed the fuck out.
THE MARY TUDOR AND WHAT HE DISCOVERED ABOUT GEORGE MULLINS
Detecting could be real shit, but there were consolations. Running from thugs was great cardio. Tracing the financial malfeasance of a professional embezzler made it easy to keep tabs on your accountant. And if you weren’t a fan of surprise parties, no one could throw one for you.
Lola consoled herself with how depressing The Butler’s radiating loneliness was by focusing on the work she would finally get done on the sweater she promised Janice for her birthday.
And as much as she didn’t want Trike to be right about knitters.
Lola had The Butler go over all the old details again, just to get him talking. She threw in quick questions about his work. Enough to make the conversation go, but not so much that he felt manipulated. She asked about his past. She asked about his family. She asked about his job. She asked about his great-aunt.
Then she got names out of him. Any names. Accountant. Real-estate agent. Relatives: Joyce’s and his own. The gardener. The cable-repair technician. The mail carrier. All to make him think about names. A composition just like everything else.
With the conversation flowing the way conversations were supposed to, she diverted it from the case to the Mary Tudor sweater in a frame on the wall. That thing was just killing her.
“The Mary Tudor,” The Butler said with a tone that hoped to convince her he’d almost forgotten it was there. “Just finished it last year, no, two years ago. And before you ask, let me make this perfectly clear. It was not worth it. At all. You try to tell yourself that something like this is an accomplishment and all the other stuff about hard work and all that, but let me tell you, it just sits on that wall, only a handful of people know it’s the most impressive thing in the whole house, and it’s not like you can put it on a résumé.”
“So why did you finish it, then? One of those you-started-it-so-you-might-as-well-finish-it projects?”
“Ha. No. I’ve never had a problem letting those projects go. Even projects as impressive as that. You probably won’t believe this, but—well, I suppose you’re going to pass all of this along to that detective.”
Lola shrugged. “My job is to find out everything I can. Wouldn’t mean much if I didn’t pass it on.”
“And what if you don’t believe what I tell you?”
“I give him the data. He sorts it out.”
The Butler sighed. He focused on his work for a moment. It was a hat with felt-lined earflaps. Which meant he finished the socks. In time to felt lining. Which meant either he didn’t really work or he didn’t really sleep. Lola noticed a receipt on the coffee table for $376 worth of yarn, dated the day before. It looked like The Butler was still getting paid.
The Butler stopped knitting and looked up. “My aunt—”
“The one who got you the job with Joyce?”
“No, that was my great-aunt. My aunt, my father’s sister. She was also a knitter, and she was, well, a bit slow. Charming woman. Lovely. Kind. Raised three kids and all that, but, well, a little slow, if you know what I mean. She wasn’t mentally disabled, but she wasn’t mentally abled either. I don’t know what got it into her head but she decided that she was going to knit a Mary Tudor. Her work was fine. I think I still have a scarf of hers somewhere around here, but, well, a Mary Tudor was just way out of her league. Way out.
“So, being the good nephew that I was, I offered to help, which ultimately meant undoing everything she’d done and doing it myself. God, there was nothing worse than getting home from work and seeing her there showing off another forty rows. I don’t know if she noticed or not that I had to fix everything, but she always said how proud she was and how much fun she was having with her knitter nephew.
“Well, it’s not hard to see the breast cancer at the end of this tunnel. She got it. She was a lovely human being, proud of a sweater she ultimately had nothing to do with, and then she died. What could I do? Not finish it. I considered it. I certainly did. But, then, whatever else you think about these things, it meant I’d have a Mary Tudor on my wall. And that is not nothing.”
“You’re right about that. I don’t have one on my wall.”
They turned back to their projects for a few minutes. Lola got to a casting-off point and restarted the conversation.
Lola had a choice. A rapport had been developed, but there was still distance. Distance Lola would not be able to bridge as long as the conversation occurred in the context of the case. She didn’t think The Butler had been scared into silence. He was lonely. And proud. And not about to pretend to himself that Lola would ever be his friend.
She had no legal way to compel him to share information, but she could convince him in ways that did not feel like convincing. He was also in crippling need of respect. She decided on a technique that demonstrated respect.
Lola cleared her throat. “Now, you’re intelligent, so I’m not going to bother trying to hide what I’m doing. You’d see through any techniques. So I’m just going to proceed directly to the next phase of the interview. I’m going to give you names. I’m not going to tell you what I want to hear about these names. I’m not going to tell you where the names came from. I’m not going to give you any context for these names. I just want you to tell me whatever you can about them. I will be noting your answers and observing your nonverbal reactions. You are welcome to lie to me in whatever way you believe necessary, but, if you haven’t realized it by now, I am very good at my job, and the truth will come out.”
As expected, the moment went cold. Lola waited.
“Well, if that’s the way it’s going to be, well, I am the sacrificial butler, but, before, I was just, do you have a knitting group? It’s just. It would be nice. I had one, for years, but, well, you know how these things are. It kinda petered out.”
“Counting Sheep runs a couple.”
“Do they?”
“I’m pretty sure there’s at least one on Thursdays. And I think there might even be a men-only one on Sundays. Ball-Busters or something. You have to ask Lucy about it. She handles that stuff. Margaret, I don’t think really likes, well, people.”
“Ah, yes. Margaret’s the only one who ever seems to be there when I am, but I’ll do that. Well, thanks. I guess that’s it.”
Lola gave a sharp professional nod and quickly started down the names of Trike’s sixth-grade classmates. The first two names registered no recognition. The third he knew, for unrelated reasons. There was a hint of potential in the fourth name. Lola followed it through five follow-up questions. In the end, inconclusive.
Lola posed a fifth name. Then received a text from Trike.
“Huh,” she said. She read it twice to be sure it said what it said.
She looked at The Butler. She squinted at The Butler. The text said what it said.
“Well, I guess that’s it then,” she said to The Butler. “Thank you for your time.”
She stood up with no more explanation and left The Butler to his project.
Max got the same text.
He was at the office researching the quote-unquote surrounding area. His shirtsleeves were rolled up. The text was the best news he’d heard in months. It meant he wouldn’t have to tell Trike what he’d discovered about George Mullins.
SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN
You give up the big stuff. That’s in the contract. True love. Nice house. Kids. Enough money for decent vegetables. Vacations. You’re ready for that.
They steal the little shit. The second halves of close games. Catching a movie. Going on a date. Having a sit on your porch.
The sleepless nights, the boozing, getting your face rearranged; we’re ready for all that. Shit, those aren’t consequences, they’re fringe benefits. We’ve got some sick little thing inside us that don’t feel right unless it’s being damaged. And roller coasters, horror movies,
and video games don’t count. We got something that needs our noses to be in it. That’s what we lined up for.
The little shit ain’t even in the fine print. Sitting down for your favorite meal at your favorite restaurant and getting told to hit the bricks because the guy you busted for running hookers is the owner’s brother. Getting told you can get your muffler fixed somewhere else and good luck finding somebody in this town you snitching bastard. Getting a speeding ticket once a month for three years because you were the one that sent a crooked cop up the river. Your best friend never talking to you again because you figured out, by accident, out loud, without meaning to say anything, his girl was banging a bartender, because that’s what your brain does, bring things out. A hundred more at least.
Telling yourself you’re just going to stay out of the fucking marital bedroom because that ain’t justice and that ain’t what it’s about and being loud about it because you’re proud and you’re young and you’re brilliant and you’ve got your ribs broke a couple times and kept swinging and then it’s a year since a paycheck and the bank that really owns your house tells you exactly what it thinks about the sanctity of the marital bed and it doesn’t hit until the first camera shutter clicks.
Thinking, you know, enough of this fucking shit, I’ve had enough of this fucking shit, I’m fucking done, and starting to pull together your fucking résumé so you can get a job without the bullets and the bullshit and you don’t have a single reference because you’ve worked for yourself for thirty years, and getting told a half-dozen times that it doesn’t matter how many criminals you caught, how many cases you solved, how brave the articles in the paper said you were ten years ago, if you don’t have prior retail experience.
It’s finally getting some fucker you’ve been chasing for six months, a sick bastard who’s been running whores and then carving them up and you’re not getting paid anymore because the cops gave up, because he’s just carving up whores, but you haven’t given up, because you can’t give up, because this bastard cannot be allowed to continue, because everything worth it in the world evaporates if you spy on wives while this bastard continues, and you’re standing in the rain outside his building and it looks lucky to be erect with most of its windows cracked, shutting the door to the worst car on the planet that you have to drive because you’d never take a real car to this neighborhood and you’re finally kicking that fucking door down with your gun out and no fucking backup and pretty sure most of your vital insides were going to take a bullet-sponsored trip outside and that shit-stain on humanity is slapping his wife while three kids, two boys and one girl, ages five, seven, and eight, are crying quietly in the corner by the rusted-out heater because they’ve learned what happens when they cry out loud and you can see the roaches and the grime in the gaps in the floorboards and the water damage on the ceiling and the cracks in the window and the rusted sink faucets in the bathroom you can see from the front fucking door and the first thing that goes through your head isn’t knowing you’re taking this bastard down, it’s knowing no one is going to make things right for the wife and kids and that even though they’ll finally be free of that crazy bastard, they won’t be free of his debts, they won’t be free of the back rent, they won’t be free of the bills, they won’t be free of the damage, and when the blood in my ears calmed down enough for me to hear what else was going on, my favorite Johnny Cash song was playing on the radio.
You know you’re going to get shot.
But never being able to listen to “Sunday Morning Coming Down” ever again. They steal that.
WHO THE FUCK IS THE QUEEN’S LOVER?
They finished the first bottle of champagne. When the reward money comes through, you can use adjectives like “first” to describe bottles of champagne. Trike took the bottle to the recycling bin and returned to the living room with beers for Lola, Max, and himself. He passed out the beers, cracked open his own, and sat down on the couch.
He sighed like the lush fields of wheat were a week from harvest. Max and Lola stared at him. He sighed again.
“I promised you not one half of one hour ago,” Trike said, “that upon completion of the first bottle of champagne, I would explain, with as much precision as possible, the events of Joyce’s disappearance. However, having reached the delineated point in our celebration, an honest appraisal of my state of mind, and abilities implied therein, reveals I am incapable of performing the task with the necessary gravitas. But fear not, friends, companions, fellow travelers, for I will not be idle while developing the required gravitas, but will begin the process of fulfilling my promise by laying an intellectual foundation through an informal and increasingly intoxicated corollary theory to my now world-famous, yes, in part, because of the manner of its conclusion, Purloined Letter Presentation.”
“Corollary theory?” Max asked.
“Indeed, an addendum, or perhaps an entirely new, though related, theory, if you will, that, though not necessarily extending the reach of the method of detection I previously explored, will add an intellectually satisfying and somewhat salacious level to our understanding of that foundational work of detective fiction, ‘The Purloined Letter.’ ”
Lola looked at Max. “Does this count?” she asked.
Max gave a terse nod.
“Good thing I have a full beer,” Lola said.
Trike did not miss the exchange. “Though a full beer is always preferable to an empty one, why, Lola the Lethal Leotard, is it a good thing, in this particular instance, to have a full beer?”
“Well, Trike the Terrifying Tutu, it’s best to start a drinking game with a full beer.”
Trike breathed deeply through his nose just to let everyone know he knew he was about to ask a terrible question. “What drinking game are we playing?”
Lola cleared her throat and boomed in her best game-show-announcer voice, “Trike Has a Theory.”
“Fantastic,” Trike said. “What are the rules?”
“Can’t tell you,” Max replied. “Now, please,” Max took a deep breath and shook the walls with his game-show-announcer voice, “Tell Us Your Theory.”
“Jesus, Max, you get a degree in that?” Lola asked.
“MBA,” Max responded.
What could Trike do? Not tell them his theory? If you believe that for a second you are dead inside. Dead. Inside.
Trike took a sip of his beer and started his theory. “The common understanding of ‘The Purloined Letter’ is that its central concern is observation, what people see and can’t see and why they can or can’t see what they can or can’t see. But when you consider why everything happens, you see that it is about something else entirely.”
Max and Lola took a sip.
“What was that for?” Trike asked.
“The ‘everybody is wrong’ sip,” Lola answered.
“Guaranteed sip,” Max added.
“Every drinking game needs a few,” Lola concluded.
What could Trike do? The logic was sound. He took the “everybody is wrong” sip and continued. “At its core, ‘The Purloined Letter’ has very little to do with observation and everything to do with relationships.”
Max leaned heavily forward, putting his elbows on his knees.
“Ha!” Lola shouted, and pointed. “Max has to drink.”
“Why does Max have to drink?”
“For expressing skepticism in the first movement of the theory,” Lola answered
“Without saying anything?” Trike asked.
“It’s Max,” Lola explained. “You have to calibrate for his preferred method of communication.”
“Tough game,” Max concluded, and then drank.
“Interesting,” Trike said, before continuing his theory. “Once you stop looking at looking at looking, you see a structure of relationships.” Sip. “Dupin and the Minister I discussed in the aforementioned presentation, but there’s also the Minister and the Queen, Dupin and the Prefect of Police, the Queen and the Prefect of Police, the King and the Queen, and, o
f course, the relationship without which the events do not happen, the Queen and her lover, the unidentified source of the conflict and focus of my corollary theory.”
Max and Lola took a sip. “Transition sip,” Lola explained.
Trike took his transition sip and continued, “I’ll spare the quotes, so if you have any quote-based sips, best to get them in now.” Max and Lola took three sips. Trike mirrored them. “It all comes down to one question: How did the Minister know the letter was from the Queen’s lover?”
Sip.
“Ah, the ‘key question’ sip. I think I’m beginning to pick up the rules. When the Minister enters the Queen’s boudoir, the dangerous letter has been set on her dresser is such a way that only the address is visible. From the handwriting on the address alone the Minister immediately knows the identity of the sender. The address presents two possibilities: either it is the seducer’s real name or it is a pseudonym. In a way, that answers the key question, but raises others at the same time. How could the Minister recognize the handwriting from such a small sample? And how did the Minister know that the owner of the handwriting is, in fact, the Queen’s lover?” Sip. “Both questions have the same answer: the Minister has some kind of relationship with the Queen’s lover.
“And there is enough evidence to make, at the very least, a tenuous conclusion about the nature of that relationship. Affairs were, and still are, a commonplace occurrence in all concentrations of power, so much so that many powerful institutions have developed systems and mores to manage extramarital affairs. Remember the story is set in France, which certainly had those systems and mores. But, given the level of power the Minister is able to exert through this letter, we know that this particular affair does not fall within the confines of the existing system. For some reason, it is destructively different, it is not generally known throughout the court, and it could, perhaps, imply there is something extraordinary about this particular lover. This means that not only did the Minister know the identity of the lover, but that the evidence suggests he had unique knowledge of the identity of the lover, which means, given that a minister would not be privy to the social states of the court itself, said knowledge would have to come from the lover himself.