The First Horseman

by John Case

  Rhinebeck Couple Sues

  Cult for Son’s Remains

  According to the articles, the Bergmans were outraged by what they felt was a perfunctory investigation of their son’s death. ‘Everyone seems to just take these people’s word for it,’ the father said. ‘Except me. I’m not satisfied. I’m not at all satisfied! And I won’t shut up about it.’ The paper ran a photo of the couple’s son, a handsome young man who had ‘dropped out of SUNY New Paltz in his senior year to join the Temple of Light.’ Finally, the story noted that the Bergmans had hired a private detective to investigate the matter. They had also engaged an attorney and were pressuring the Dutchess County district attorney to investigate the Lake Placid-based ‘church.’

  Obviously, the Bergmans were the ones he needed to talk to. Then he turned to the last story in the pile.

  MYSTERY TORSO LINKED TO RHINEBECK WOMAN ALBANY – A torso found in the Adirondack wilderness last week may be that of Rhinebeck resident Martha Bergman, who disappeared with her husband, Harold, nearly six months ago.

  Police confirmed reports that the torso is that of a woman of approximately Mrs. Bergman’s age and weight.

  Dutchess Country officials cautioned that while distinguishing marks on the body were consistent with those found on a dermatological ‘mole map’ obtained from the Bergmans’ medical records, deterioration of the body made positive identification impossible.

  ‘Without the head or the hands, it’s very difficult to make a positive identification,’ Dutchess Country police spokeswoman Marilyn Savarese said. ‘Obviously, we can’t make dental or fingerprint comparisons. We are proceeding, however, with DNA testing, using materials recovered from the Bergmans’ residence.’ The results of the tests will not be known for several weeks.

  Mrs. Bergman and her husband, Harold, mysteriously disappeared in November. Authorities say they are baffled by the case, particularly since the Bergman residence showed no signs of foul play.

  The Bergmans are said to have been depressed by the recent death of their son, a votary of the Temple of Light.

  A ruminative grunt rumbled in his throat.

  It was at once the sound of realization and a warning to himself – a whispered mixture of Eureka and uh-oh.

  Now that things were beginning to make sense, he regretted his bull-in-the-china-shop way of investigating things. He should have been more patient. The mortician’s voice came back to him: It was ‘Daly,’ right?

  Indeed, it was. And would you like my address? Or should I just shoot myself? You can cut off my head when I’m dead – whatever’s convenient for you!

  He made the sound again, a little louder, and a little longer. Mmmnnnn.

  It was a curious sound when you listened to it: a sort of moo. But a worried moo.

  He couldn’t prove anything, really, but he thought he knew what had happened. For whatever reason, the Temple of Light had gone after the bodies at Kopervik, and faked an accident at sea. The miners’ bodies were then put in body bags and tagged with the names of the drowned crewmen – who were still aboard the ship, in hiding, or . . . dead. Unless they’d never been aboard in the first place. Enter the mortician, Bell . . .

  The ruse worked fine until the Bergmans began to press for an investigation. Everyone seems to take these people’s word for it. Except me! Indeed. A certificate of death hadn’t been enough for Harry Bergman. He’d wanted an autopsy.

  And it seemed as if he’d found a sympathetic ear in the DA’s office – when Bergman disappeared.

  Frank searched through the printout for the Times-Journal stories.

  What was the reporter’s name? Over beck. He was the only one who’d written more than a single article.

  He called directory assistance in the 914 area code, and found an E. Overbeck just across the Hudson, in a town called Port Ewen. He dialed the number.

  A little girl answered on the second ring. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is Eric there?’

  ‘One sec! Oh! May I say who’s calling?’

  ‘Frank Daly.’

  There was a clunk as she put the receiver down, and he heard her walking away from the telephone, her voice receding. ‘Daddy! Daddy! Telephone call!’

  Frank could hear the end of the exchange between the two as they came back within range. ‘I don’t know,’ the little girl said petulantly. ‘Ask him your own self.’

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Eric Overbeck?’

  ‘Yes?’ Tentative.

  ‘This is Frank Daly. I’m a reporter with the Post?’ (Well, sort of. It sounded so much more impressive than I’m on leave from the Post.)

  ‘Oh, yeah, sure! How can I help you?’

  Frank could hear it in the man’s voice. He was impressed. Nice to know the paper still had éclat. ‘Well, I don’t know, really. I’m working on a piece that connects with some of your stories. I guess I was hoping to pick your brain.’

  ‘You’re talking about the power plant, right?’ His voice was excited. Happy, even.

  ‘Well, no,’ Frank replied. ‘No, I was actually calling about the Bergmans. You wrote a couple of stories –’

  ‘Yeah.’

  One hundred eighty degrees.

  Overbeck’s voice was no longer that of an eager reporter anxious to get his name in the Post. It was more like someone’s who’d just received a subpoena to testify against Hezbollah. ‘Look,’ Overbeck said, ‘I’d like to help you, but I’m pretty busy right now.’

  ‘It’ll only take a minute.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I really don’t have the time.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Don’t try to convince me,’ Overbeck said. ‘I just don’t need the aggravation, okay? The paper I work for has a circulation of two thousand. We get sued by the Temple, and I’m out of a job. It’s that simple.’

  ‘Did the Temple threaten to sue you?’

  ‘I’m not getting into this.’

  ‘Did they threaten –’

  ‘I gotta go,’ Overbeck said.

  And then he was gone.

  Frank tried to call him back, but the line was busy. And it stayed busy in a way that made it clear the phone was off the hook.

  He went into the kitchen and found a bottle of Negra Modelo in the refrigerator. Returning to the living room, he called Annie and filled her in on what he’d done and heard and imagined.

  ‘So you think they killed her,’ she said. It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure they did.’ There was a long silence on the line. ‘Why don’t I come over?’ he asked. The line remained quiet.

  ‘Maybe not tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m still a little woozy. Maybe tomorrow.’

  They stayed on the line together, not talking.

  Finally, she asked, ‘What next?’

  He shrugged. Literally. Then he laughed at himself, because she couldn’t see it. ‘I’ve got a couple of calls in. The D.A. in Dutchess County. A P.I. in Poughkeepsie.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A private investigator. He worked for the Bergmans. His name’s Kramer. Martin Kramer.’ He paused. ‘And the other thing is . . . my father’s sick, so –’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘I’m probably gonna have to see him.’

  The next afternoon, he stood in the lobby of St. Mary’s Hospital waiting to make eye contact with a human being. The security guard’s mind seemed to be on Pluto; various orderlies and nurses rushed in and out without looking at him. The admissions clerk, who under the dreary fluorescent lighting looked as if she ought to be admitted herself, finally completed her lengthy telephone call and looked up at him.

  ‘May I help you?’

  ‘I’m counting on it,’ he said, with a warmth that brought a smile to her face. He explained that his father was on the intensive care ward, and that he himself had just come in from out of town. ‘I’d like to see him. See how he’s doing.’ She made a phone call and, with a smile, sent him up to the nurses’ station.

 
The hospital corridors reminded him of his mother, and the memory intensified when the nurse directed him to a waiting room at the end of the hall. There were two other people in the room – a fiftyish blonde wearing bright pink sweatpants and a sweatshirt with spangles that spelled: Atlantic $ity!

  The other person was a tired-looking man, dressed in greasy overalls. On his chest was an elliptical blue ring and, inside it, the man’s name: RAYMOND. Their heads snapped up when Frank came through the door, and he saw the apprehension flash across their faces, then fade to relief. One look at him and they knew he wasn’t delivering any kind of news, good or bad.

  It was the same room he’d sat in when his mother was dying, fourteen years before.

  And the feeling was the same. The air was dense with dread and hope, while canned laughter pulsed from the television set on the wall. Together, the three of them watched without seeing, lost within themselves.

  Finally, a nurse came in.

  ‘Here for Mr. Daly?’

  For the first time, Frank realized that the woman in the pink pants was somehow connected to his father, because they both stood up at the same time, surprising each other. For a moment they regarded one another warily, then turned to the nurse.

  ‘The doctor will be here in a moment,’ she said, ‘but I wanted you to know that the arrhythmia has been stabilized.’ A little pat on the woman’s arm, and a buck-up smile. ‘He’s doing good.’ At this the woman grabbed Frank’s hand and squeezed it so fiercely that it hurt.

  ‘I’m Daphne,’ she said, and then revealed that she was his father’s wife.

  ‘Well,’ Frank said, nonplussed. ‘I’m Frankie.’

  ‘Oh.’ She frowned, then recovered, touching his sleeve. ‘Are you okay?’

  He wondered if the frown had to do with the way he looked, or with his identity. There wasn’t any way to tell, so he said, ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just getting over the flu.’

  ‘It’s going around,’ she supposed.

  There wasn’t much to say, and both of thern were relieved when the doctor came in to say that ‘Francis’ seemed to be getting better, but that he was nevertheless a very sick man. ‘He hasn’t taken care of himself,’ the doctor said. ‘But even so, he’s strong as an ox. Maybe this will be a lesson to him. We can hope.’

  He would only allow one of them in to see him at a time, and Frank deferred at once to Daphne. But she refused. ‘It’s been a long time for you,’ she said. ‘I think it’s better that you go in.’

  ‘No, that’s okay –’

  She turned her back on him and picked up a dog-eared copy of People. ‘It’s none of my business,’ she said, ‘but I think it’s time you saw him.’ Then she sat down, and he had no recourse but to go in.

  And so he did.

  The Old Man was lying on his back, with his face to the ceiling. There were tubes coming out of his nose, and a catheter lead trailing from under his nightgown. There was an IV in his left arm, and a thick stubble on his cheeks. His eyes were dark, and his breath came in wheezes.

  Jeez, Frank thought.

  He found a chair and pulled it up next to the bed. The minutes passed. Though his father’s eyes were open, he couldn’t be sure if the Old Man was actually conscious. There was no emotion on his face, and his eyes were like glass. Then his head lolled to the side and the Old Man’s eyes locked with Frank’s.

  ‘Hi,’ Frank said.

  The Old Man blinked.

  They sat together like this for what seemed like a long time. It was clear the Old Man couldn’t speak, and just as clear that Frank himself didn’t know what to say. Finally, he reached out and took his father’s hand in his own. He was surprised at how rough it was, but he knew he shouldn’t have been: after all these years in the boiler room, the Old Man’s hands were like asbestos gloves. Holding the hand in both of his own, he gave it a gentle squeeze and heard himself speak for the two of them: ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m just sorry there was so much . . . unhappiness.’

  The Old Man blinked for the second time. Then his hand tightened in the grasp of his son and he pulled the young man closer. His head tilted in what was meant to be a shrug, and a what can ya do? smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

  For a moment Frank could have sworn there were tears in the Old Man’s eyes, but then it occurred to him it was the other way around. Like a mountain getting to its feet, his heart surged in his chest, and for a moment it felt as if he’d swallowed a razor blade.

  The Old Man looked away, and soon it was all right again. They sat together for a long time, hand in hand, saying nothing, holding on. Frank’s childhood flickered across the backs of his eyelids, and he saw his mother, and the boiler room, the schoolyard, the grocery, the garden, the football field – Christ!

  And then the Old Man wheezed and chuffed, and then he was gone.

  Daphne invited him to stay at the house – ‘You can have your own bed, your dad would never let me touch it’ – but Frank declined, saying he’d already paid for his room at the Red Roof Inn. Still, there was no avoiding the wake, which turned out to be a kind of open house for cheerful mourners. Arriving at what he still thought of as ‘home,’ Frank was saddened to find the garden gone to seed, the roses unpruned, last year’s flowers left on their stalks. Stepping inside, he saw immediately that Daphne had worked her magic on the living room, where an almond-eyed waif gazed tearfully at the projection TV and leather BarcaLounger.

  This inauspicious beginning soon gave way to something else, however, when his father’s friends invited him to join them for a drink in the kitchen.

  ‘Pull up a chair, Frankie!’

  ‘I hope you aren’t payin’ for the casket, son! Didja ever see such a thing?’

  ‘I’m tellin’ ya, Frankie, I thought it was the QE-2!’

  ‘Get young Frank a beer – he looks a little green around the gills!’

  ‘Every bell and whistle,’ someone said. ‘A mahogany Lexus – your father would have loved it!’

  ‘Sit down, Frankie – fachrissake, you’re makin’ me tired. Did you see him there? Lying in state like J. Edgar fuckin’ Hoover –’

  And Uncle Sid: ‘I’m not sure it was him! He never looked so good!’

  ‘The man’s right! Since when did your father have rosy cheeks?’

  ‘Never,’ Frank said.

  ‘Not to mention a shave!’

  And so it went, with the women standing in the living room, talking respectfully among themselves, while the conversation ebbed and flowed in the kitchen. A yarn spun out, a burst of laughter, hands slapping the table. Another round of drinks. Another story, more laughter. The women looking in from time to time, appearing stern, or rolling their eyes, bemused.

  He stayed till ten P.M., and by then he’d learned more about the Old Man than he’d ever known before. Listening to his father’s friends, he began to understand, for the first time, how someone might have loved this deeply flawed man. And loving him, might even have forgiven him.

  The next morning, he rode beside the bawling Daphne in the cortege to Holy Cross Cemetery. There, Father Morales said a few words. Frank threw a handful of dirt on the casket. And it was time to go home.

  But you have to look through his things,’ Daphne said. ‘There might be something you’ll want – I mean, you know, to keep.’

  It seemed easier to ride back with her to the house than to argue with her, and so he did.

  ‘It’s in the bedroom,’ she said. ‘There isn’t a lot. He wasn’t much for collecting things.’

  Frank went into the bedroom, where the Old Man’s clothes had been gathered into a pile and laid neatly on the bed. There were a couple of tired sport jackets, half a dozen pairs of slacks on wire hangers, two boxes of dress shirts, fresh from the cleaners, and a dark blue overcoat. Uncomfortable with what he was doing, Frank tried on the overcoat, and was surprised to find that it was tight in the shoulders. He’d always thought of his father as a bigger man. But apparently not.

  He put t
he overcoat back on the bed and went over to the dresser. Pulling open the drawers one by one, he found the usual things – T-shirts and underwear, socks and polo shirts, a couple of sweaters and sweatshirts. There was an old Timex on top of the dresser, lying next to a battered wallet.

  Feeling like a burglar, he opened the wallet and looked inside. There was twelve dollars in cash, a driver’s license, Visa and Exxon cards, insurance information, and an ATM card. His union card was there as well. And tucked away in the back, where Daphne would be unlikely to see it, was a black and white photo of Frank’s mother.

  He took the picture out and put it in his own wallet, then glanced around for the last time. There was nothing else.

  ‘I’ve got to get back to work,’ he said.

  ‘Of course, but –’

  ‘Let me know if there’s anything . . . you know, just anything I can do.’

  ‘But isn’t there anything you want to take back?’ she asked.

  Frank shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. You should probably give it to Goodwill.’ He was standing beside the door.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to take the books,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be right to just throw them away.’

  ‘What books?’ he asked.

  She left the room, and returned a moment later with three oversized scrapbooks – the kind that people use to keep photographs. Each of them was bound in fake burgundy leather with a double gold line embossed a quarter inch from the edge. She handed them to him and, curious, he opened the top one.

  On the first page was his first byline, a long piece in the Alliance about Orthodox Jews proselytizing among the émigrés in Brighton Beach. Deeper in the scrapbook were the stories that he’d done for the Village Voice, and then the first byline he’d ever gotten at the Post. It sat atop a carefully scissored, yellowing rectangle of newsprint held in place by strips of transparent tape. To the right of the story was the date, written in blue ballpoint:

  July 16, 1992

  Frank was dumbfounded. Among the three books, there must have been hundreds of articles – indeed, every article he’d ever written. He looked at Daphne, who gave him a hapless shrug. ‘How?’ he asked.