Alice sighed and folded her arms across her chest. “It doesn’t matter, Sam,” she said. “It really doesn’t. Let’s just go back in there and talk about the book, ok? We don’t need to argue about this.”
Sam nodded but as Alice tried to pass him he took her gently by the elbow. She stopped but didn’t look at him.
“Listen,” he said. “I know what you said about focusing on your marriage and I would never have tried to change that. I just wouldn’t, Al. I didn’t hire him. Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I know you’re going to try to make it work with Ed and I respect that. I won’t call or try to talk to you again. But I just—with all this stuff going on, with Mrs. Atlee dying and—it just puts everything in a different light. I mean, I’m going to quit my job. Can you believe it? I’m giving notice tomorrow.”
“Why?” Alice asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, I hate it, if that’s what you mean. I guess that’s a good enough reason. I guess I’ve finally had enough.”
“Well, you can’t stay at something you hate forever,” Alice said.
“But anyway,” he said, sniffing. “That’s all,” he said. “That’s all. I just wanted to tell you, I didn’t hire that guy.”
He gave her a quick hug.
“See you,” he said.
She nodded.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hammond
McParland sipped from his bottle, closed his eyes, and let his head droop. A second sip and he lay on the bed.
Look at that, he thought. Through the window he could see ghosts flitting green and white, purple and blue, rushing into the church and out again, standing on the corner, looking around. A maroon woman in an ankle-length coat with her hands in a fur muff sat by a homeless man, who looked up, saw nothing, and curled back into his ball of wool coats and filth.
Well, McParland thought. That’s one way to go about it—make a big show of caring. It’s all the same to me; I did what I did then and I am doing what I do now. But no one was paying him now. He’d had extra years, he knew, from the Pottsville trials, from the moment of Lawler’s death, of Gowen’s death, to his own—the ceiling of a wood-paneled private car on the 20th-Century Limited fading into darkness from the focus of his last instant. Enough extra years to outlive his own daughter. Who wanted them. A tiny crack opened in his soul and he felt like crying.
He lay back on the bed. In any case, this trip to Boston had been interesting, and if, after all, he moved on, that—well, of course, who wouldn’t want that. But all these souls running in and out of the church, waiting, hoping, warming homeless people they not only would not have gone near in life, they never had even in death until they heard that Peter was coming.
Bleach. I was paid.
You killed. And you still think it was right.
Do I? I don’t know. I testified because the situation required it. They were scum. You killed without even hating.
Hate? I can’t remember. It was a hard job. In any event, hatred wouldn’t make it right.
And what of your testimony, the other men who got hung.
The tearing pain began in his stomach and he moaned. He shook violently and with great difficulty made it to the table and lit a cigarette. He couldn’t see; it was like staring into the sun. Each cell, each cycle, burning. The cigarette helped a little.
He lay down again and thought of walking through Ernest Pinchbeck’s woods the night before: The wide field with a thin crust of moonlit snow giving way to the underbrush and bare trees. He imagined it stripped, covered with concrete, a squat office park with windows like sunglasses in its place. That was Gowen’s plan and he intended to have his way whether Peter showed or not.
Would Peter show? Would the rumors be true this time, the angel descending from the ceiling with beating wings—
Yes, well. McParland would show, McParland for sure. Before he’d done it for pay and now to save himself; God and the Devil were only measurements in his relentless pursuit of his own good. Be that as it may. Be that as it may. It was time to save somebody and if it turned out to be himself, well, all to the good. He wouldn’t count on it.
He swung his feet to the floor and pulled on his jacket and overcoat.
Outside, he stroked his moustache and pulled his hat low. The day was bright and cold; the sky ached, the pavement cracked, the red bricks in the old buildings moaned. He stepped into King’s Chapel and took a pew in front, bowing his head.
I am not here to pray, he thought. If He knows thoughts, then He knows mine well enough to judge. Today I will find South, and God help us all. It was funny, who was on his mind now: Gowen, slumped in his wing-back chair in the hotel in Washington; Gowen, holding a glass, his hair hanging over his forehead.
McParland raised his head. A purple woman in a stiff dress with a high collar swept past, hovered, turned, and drifted to a pew in the back. An elderly man with a hanging lower lip and gray hair stopped at his pew.
“Are you McParland?” he asked, his lip shining. “Can you help me?”
Misty colors and dim outlines of people gathered around the pew.
“Please,” a heavy man whose narrow necktie stretched over his broad belly said.
McParland stood up. “Excuse me,” he said.
“Please,” the heavy man repeated.
“I don’t know why you ask me this,” McParland said to them all.
He left the church and started up the street, his left hand clenched in his pocket, his right clenched on the bone handle of his cane.
South was in a low armchair by the French windows in his room at the Beacon Club, looking out at the snowy Common, watching the steam on the breath of people on the plowed walkways. Beside him a fire burned low in the fireplace. What a beautiful day, he thought. He thought of the front hall of his house, of Hammond helping him into an overcoat.
You must forgive him, a thought came, as if from someone else.
South sat up straight as if waking. Never, he thought. I can never do that. If I have to dangle forever, I can never do that. How can I forgive someone who never admitted what he did, never felt sorry, and—somewhere, sometime, died happy?
He took a cigarette from the end table and smoked, his hand shaking. With all the unrest going on, with Peter arriving—when? Soon?—to help a lucky few move on, there was still no sign of Hammond. He must have died happily at some point, or dangled only briefly at worst. How was that fair? The murderer in peace.
South flipped his cigarette into the fire and pulled on his sport coat. He took his overcoat from the closet and was standing at the window, one sleeve on, when he saw a squat man walking with a cane turn up the path to the club entrance. South frowned and sat on the edge of the chair. His chest felt cold. He stood to one side of the window and peered out. The man had a green color about him and a mist of iron and pure white: the guilt and resolve of an informant, a seeker. Did he look familiar?
Where will you go if you are not just in the eyes of the Lord, he thought, a fragment of his father drifting to him: warm spring, crowded street, itchy wool linens, his father’s hand tightly holding his.
Oh Lord, South thought. Have I not served You faithfully and labored to overcome my vices?
He pulled on the other sleeve of his overcoat, put on his hat, and exited the room quickly. Whoever that man was—whatever brought him to the Beacon Club, there was no point in staying to find out. Oh God, this is unfair, South thought. You cannot send this man to me, to me, I have worked too hard. How can You, at this point?
He walked along the carpeted hallway to the back stairs.
How do you know he’s here for you, he wondered, answering himself as he started down the narrow, wooden stairs: No good could come from waiting to find out.
The stairs ended in a pantry off the kitchen. South stood still, looking—nothing but scrubbed counters, frying pans and pots suspended from the ceiling on small hooks. The black stove cold, quiet. His shoe clicked on the linoleum floor
and he froze for a moment before hurrying on, the loud noise of his shoes be damned. In a dark hallway he paused to listen: a door clicking somewhere, listen: a maid humming in the parlor, listen: a faucet turned, water rushing through pipes above, listen: a car honking.
He hurried through the ballroom, his shoes clicking again, and broke into a jog in the hallway beyond. In the main parlor he looked right—no one—and passed the front desk with a quick nod. He gained the door and in three long strides was down the steps, looking back at the front of the club.
Probably over-reacting, he thought. But these sorts are always around at times like this, people who work for others and who always have. The black wrought iron fence along the Common hung for an instant before him.
“South,” a voice said, low and even.
McParland, his slate eyes intent between hat and mustache, was in front of him. Close enough to touch.
“Out of my way,” South said. “I have nothing to say to you.” He lowered his head as if to brush past.
“But I have something to say to you,” McParland said quietly.
“No,” South said. Their faces nearly touched. “You have nothing to say to me, Mr….”
McParland smiled. All these rich people were the same: pull up, act haughty, make it seem like you owe them something for talking to them.
“Wait,” South said, shivering. “I do know you.” His eyes narrowed. “Yes, back in the world—I remember you.”
“McParland,” McParland said.
“Yes, McParland. The great detective. My God. You look exactly the same.”
“You don’t,” McParland said.
“In any event,” South said. “You were following me then and you follow me now. My brothers thought I killed my father, but I have always rather believed that you did, whether he was paying you or not. Now get out of my way.” He flashed red eyes, started to move, and felt a hand on his arm.
McParland smiled. Some people, he thought. “South,” he said.
“Excuse me,” South said, his voice hollow, his eyes flashing green in the bright cold. “Take your hand off me this instant.”
“South,” McParland said. “South. Hammond is alive.”
South looked at McParland closely. Rage stiffened his chest and arms and shook him. “No,” he said.
“Yes,” McParland said. “Alive.”
“No.” South doubled over.
“Let’s go inside,” McParland said, holding South up.
“No,” South said. He closed his eyes; his chest burned around his windpipe. He looked to the sky and saw it, clear and blue, but dark ripples of red and black spread fast from the center, covering everything.
McParland helped South up the path to the club door.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Alice
Alice sat on the couch, holding Jenny in her lap. Eddie was lying in front of the TV, playing a video game. Ed was late. Alice went in the kitchen and slid the chicken out of the oven. It was overcooked and would be too dry. She heard the front door open and Ed calling to the kids.
“Hey,” he said, standing by the door. He loosened his tie. His cheeks were red, his hair mussed.
“Hey,” she said. “The chicken’s gonna be dry. It’s almost eight. Where you been?” She felt the heat of the stove, her dirty clothes, the steam of the day’s cleaning.
“I just got hung up at work,” he said. “I know it’s a bad time. I just—you’ve got to understand, I’m going through this, too, and it’s not as if work eases up to give me time, you know?” He opened the fridge and leaned in.
“We’re about to eat,” Alice said, putting out the rice and peas. After everything, he couldn’t even look at her for ten seconds.
“Hey, kids, supper,” Ed called.
“You need to leave,” she said.
“Alice, come on, don’t do this now,” he said. “I know you’ve got—we’ve got—stuff to work out, but don’t say things like that.”
“You need to leave,” she said again.
“What about the kids?” he said. “Right before Christmas?”
She turned the oven off and put the chicken on the table. “We should talk about Christmas.”
Jenny walked in and took her seat at the table.
“So that’s it?” Ed asked Alice. “We can’t talk about this? Ever?”
Alice turned so her daughter wouldn’t see her face and shook her head. “We can talk about it, Eddie,” she said.
“Go get your brother,” Ed said to Jenny, who was looking back and forth between her parents. “Now,” he said. “Go.”
“I’ll take everything,” Ed said, his voice hoarse and low. “You won’t have a goddamn thing that I worked for, Alice. You’re not even going to be able to buy Christmas presents. What’re you gonna do, clean more houses?”
“Do whatever you want,” Alice said. “If you wanna make it ugly, you’re going to. I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Me make it ugly? Me? Look, Alice, I fucked up, and I fucked up badly, I know I did. But this is our family. Don’t you make it ugly.”
Alice shrugged.
“You won’t have a dime,” Ed said. “Not a dime. Do you get that? What’re you gonna do? What are you gonna do, Al?”
“Don’t yell in front of the kids,” she said.
“Come on, Al,” Ed called after her. “Don’t be like this.
She climbed the stairs slowly. She took a duffel bag from the shelf in the closet and started filling it with Ed’s clothes.
“Alice,” Ed said, coming into the room and kneeling by her. The bedside lamp cast shadows on his forehead. “I’m sorry, Al. But just think about what you’re doing. Just think about it.”
She wanted to explain that all her feeling was gone except for guilt and disappointment.
“Come on, Alice,” Ed said. He picked at a spot of chipped paint in the doorway.
Alice zipped the duffel bag closed and wiped her eyes. She’d have to tell the kids something now.
“We could still do Christmas here, that’s probably a good idea,” she said.
Ed nodded.
“All right,” Alice said, standing up. She handed him the duffel bag.
When Alice got downstairs, Eddie was standing in the middle of the living room. Jenny was beside him, her face contorted.
“Are you getting a divorce?” Eddie asked.
“No,” Alice said reflexively.
“Yeah you are,” Eddie said.
A few days later Alice was sitting in a coffee shop, staring out at a bright day. She sipped her coffee, and looked over at the pastries in the display counter. But every time she tried to eat she felt sick, so she ordered another coffee.
Ed came along the sidewalk and stuck his face up to the window, blocking the sun with one hand to see in, his eyes squinting in his broad face. The door swung open and there he was, his button-down shirt untucked and hanging over his dirty khaki pants. He had on an old red parka Alice had given him for Christmas years ago.
“Hi,” he said, leaning over to kiss her cheek.
She nodded. She was going to pull away but decided not to move at all.
“How are you?” he asked, taking off his parka and settling into a chair that was too small for him.
“Fine,” Alice said. She felt how tight her jaw was.
Ed looked around. “I need coffee,” he said.
“You gotta go up,” Alice said, resisting an urge to do it for him.
“Need anything?” he asked. He stood up and went to the counter.
This is not your fault, Alice told herself. She watched Ed order coffee and a cinnamon roll. She noticed his pants hung too low and sagged in the seat. He was wearing old sneakers that looked squashed under his weight.
He came back to the table and sat down. He sipped his coffee and took a bite of his roll.
“Can I come to dinner tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“You gotta let me come back, Alice,” he said. “Honest to God.
”
Alice sipped her coffee. She shouldn’t have agreed to this meeting.
They stared at their cups. The sun stared through the window.
Divorce, Alice thought. Was she there already?
Ed sipped his coffee and poked at his roll. “I know we got a lot to work on,” he said. “I want to do it.”
“Are you kidding? Are you fucking kidding?”
An old woman at the next table looked at them.
“You make it seem like it’s all my fault,” Alice said, lowering her voice.
“You’re the one who wants a divorce,” he said. He drank more coffee.
“I’m going,” Alice said. “I’ve got clients today.” She stood up.
“Come on, Alice, let me come to dinner tonight. Please?”
“I’ll see,” she said
“Ok,” Ed said. “Call me.”
Alice stared at the exhaust pouring from the car in front of her. She thought of when Sam had been in the minivan, listening to her say she had to focus on her marriage. How utterly naïve something you said so recently could seem. Time was ice.
She pulled into a gas station and as her van filled she called Sam.
“Hello,” Sam answered.
“Hi,” Alice said.
“Alice?” Sam said. “Hey.”
“I just saw Ed. He moved out the other day. I just saw him.”
“Are you ok?”
“I have kids, Sam. I have two kids.”
“Yeah.”
“What did you say?” Alice asked. “Someone honked.”
“Nothing,” Sam said. “I’m really sorry.”
“No, no, it’s ok,” she said. “How are you? How’s Mrs. Atlee?”
“Oh, she’s—not good.”
“I’m so sorry,” Alice said.
“Where are you?” Sam asked.
“A gas station. I just wanted to say hi.”
“Thanks,” Sam said quietly.
“Hi,” Alice said.
They were silent for a minute. Cars rushed by behind Alice and one with a radio playing pulled into the gas station.
THE GHOST DETECTIVE: Boston Page 27