by Mark Lisac
First, the tires hit the resistance of the shallow windrow of snow at the shoulder. Devereaux kept a hard grip on the wheel and tried to keep going straight. He intended to turn back toward the road once he was past the truck. The car slid toward the ditch, hit a culvert as he jerked the wheel back, and flipped.
Devereaux saw the world turning upside down. He saw it all as if in slow motion, hearing the scrape of metal on the side as he waited for the final impact and the end of this intrusion of the unexpected so that he could resume his normal life.
The car half-flew, half-slid far enough to reach a fencepost that crashed through the corner of the windshield, catching the doorpost hard enough to spin the car a quarter-turn to a stop. The post grazed Devereaux’s skull hard enough to knock him groggy and start a quick seep of blood.
He hung in an oppressive welter of airbags. His seatbelt kept him securely in place. One arm was jammed against the door. The other flopped freely but Devereaux could do little with it except paw against the airbag pushing on his face. He felt too tired to move anyway.
He was vaguely aware of time passing and wondered why no one from the truck was banging on his vehicle and asking if he was able to talk. He felt the frigid air seeping in past the broken windshield as something else seemed to seep out of his head. He realized the engine had stopped and he would not be getting more heat from the blower or the car seat.
He began to wonder if he would die out here on a lonely back road. Only months ago he had started a life representing “the people.” Now there were no people around.
He was surprised to find himself thinking of Angela and whispering, “Angie, Angie.” He would have guessed he would have been more likely to whisper “Louise” or “Terri.”
He wondered what he had done in his life to end up like this. He wondered what he had done in his life, period. He wondered who they would list as his parents in his obituary.
He wondered what an ordinary life with Angie would have been like. He knew he had never wanted and never would want an ordinary life, and that sliding into sentiment was a danger sign.
But that was not the last thing he thought. He felt himself slipping into slumber and nearly laughing as an old memory surfaced and recited with him: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
Then he did fall asleep.
* * *
On Friday morning the ambulance, tow truck, and police cruiser arrived. The paramedic saw a red icicle protruding from Devereaux’s skull and fought off the thought that it made him look like a unicorn.
The tow-truck driver tried not to look too much at the inside of the car as he worked to get it free and loaded for removal.
The two police officers saw signs of a typical rollover on a country road — yet another one. They did not spot any unusual tracks in the hardpack on the road itself. There had been enough emergency vehicles across the area by then to obscure any that might have been there. They did see fairly fresh prints from a deer just up the road and speculated that might have caused a driver coming fast over the crest of the shallow hill to panic and swerve off the road. When they checked the dead man’s wallet they recognized Devereaux’s name and knew they would have to call the communications office.
The accident led the noontime newscasts. The coffee shops in Barnsdale and the immediate area buzzed with suppressed excitement and familiar sentiments — “so young... just terrible”— along with the occasional crack about one less politician.
All the comments came from a certain distance. No one in the region really knew Devereaux. They knew only that he was an entertaining speaker, a comfortable person to shake hands with, someone who would look you in the eye with dewy sincerity, and a believer in the right ideas.
The same lack of closeness presented minor problems the following week when the government tried to deal with Devereaux’s death. His parents had died when he was in his teens and he had no siblings. A handful of cousins had apparently never played much of a role in his life. He had never married and his girlfriends were not eager to step up in public, whatever sadness they may have felt. His former colleagues at two marketing firms remembered him as a great party companion but as a somewhat elusive office presence with ambitions that seemed to outstrip making big sales. If he had ever written a will, no one knew about it.
The services ended up being handled by the Western Wildcat Party. A ceremony was also held in the legislature.
Gerald Ryan handled the task of writing a nicely balanced statement from the premier, expressing appropriate shock and sorrow, largely avoiding sympathy because there was no real family with which to sympathize, conceding that the death was a loss for provincial politics but not going so far as to suggest that Devereaux could have risen any further or become a bigger presence.
He was cremated and his ashes stored at the Barnsdale cemetery. His life was thus reduced to the smallest possible residue in an out-of-the-way location.
13
THEY HAD AGREED TO MEET AT THE OUTLOOK NEAR ASHER’S condo. The air was raw and getting colder as the sun fell toward the wide river valley. Angela had said she didn’t mind; she wanted fresh air and had brought a thick coat and hat.
Asher arrived a few minutes early and saw her walk toward him. She smiled at him but looked uncertain and worn.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he replied. They didn’t kiss.
“You must enjoy living here,” she said. “It’s a terrific view.”
“I like to walk here. It gives you a sense of how the city is an island in what’s still a wild land, even if a lot of it’s fenced off or scarred one way or another. How was your day?”
“I learned a lot about tests,” she said. “Have you heard about Devereaux?”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s all over the news.”
“Do you believe in coincidences, Harry?”
“They happen sometimes.”
“And sometimes people win money buying lottery tickets.”
“A rollover on a country road is a funny way to try to kill someone. I’m not sure how anyone could make that happen, let alone be sure of the result.”
“I’m sure he’s dead. I’m sure someone’s happy that he is.”
“Angela...”
She was wearing contact lenses because her glasses would have frosted over in the frigid air. He could see redness around her lids.
“You’ve been crying.”
“Yes, Harry, I’ve been crying.”
“Let’s go up to my place and get warm. You need a place to rest.”
“I’ll get plenty of rest later. No, I don’t want to see your place. You have no reason to want to get used to me being there. I haven’t told you things. I’m not even sure whether I trust you, how much I trust you. We can go to that coffee shop a block back if you want. Later. I think I want to tell you some things. Then you can decide whether you still want to talk to me.”
Asher felt his stomach tighten. He had failed to keep his professional distance. Now he was probably going to pay a price for that. He thought his mistake was worth her company and hoped the price would not be too high. “Shoot.”
“You know that Orion Devereaux and I were together for a couple of months in college. He... he was not interested in making any kind of commitment. I wasn’t willing to make any commitment to him. We agreed to split up but still be friends. We didn’t see much of each other after that, so I don’t know that we stayed friends. We didn’t see each other at all after that year, until he showed up in Barnsdale to talk people into voting for him.” She hesitated less than a second before going on. “So I never
told him that I got pregnant.”
She looked away from the valley and toward Asher.
“When I talk to the girls in sex ed I think I sound convincing. Not that they are easily convinced about anything they don’t want to believe at that age. I had an abortion. There were complications. That’s why John and I never had children. I can’t.”
Asher could think of nothing useful to say and let her talk.
“John knew I couldn’t have children and accepted it. He had some idea that Orion and I had known each other but never linked the two things. He was suspicious about whether there was still something between Orion and me, though. There wasn’t, but I ran into him on Railway Avenue one day and we talked for a minute or two, mostly about his political plans. I don’t know whether someone told John they had seen Orion and me together. At that point, he may not have needed extra reasons to be suspicious, but if he heard about our talking it wouldn’t have helped.”
She looked out over the valley as she went on. “All that gave him extra motivation to be diligent when he looked into Orion’s background. He pursued that like a good accountant. I don’t know where he went or who he talked to or what he found aside from what I told you the first time you came to Barnsdale. But... oh, God, I don’t know if I can trust you, Harry. And I like you enough that I don’t want to leave you hanging, or wandering without warning into dangerous places if something happens to me.”
“Nothing will happen to you, Angela. I’ll see to it. Pulling cheap stunts isn’t the way people lead up to hurting someone. Not if they’re serious. Even if something deliberate did happen to Devereaux, no one in his right mind would arrange an accident to someone else in the same community. You have your brother. If you’re really worried... you can come up here and stay with me. I have a spare room.”
She looked at him. “You can’t protect me, Harry. Not every minute, not against everything. And you wouldn’t want me here.” She was shivering now. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid to tell you too much and I’m afraid of not telling you and I’m afraid of dying.”
He put his arms around her and she quieted down. She pulled a tissue out of her coat pocket and wiped her nose. Then she turned back to the river and went on. He opened his mouth in disbelief as she talked but he didn’t interrupt because she seemed to be forcing out the words, trying to tell him what she knew and believing she could do it only if she didn’t stop.
“Maybe it doesn’t matter who I trust now. Or maybe trust is all I have. John did tell me more than what I told you. He said he couldn’t absolutely prove it, but he was sure beyond reasonable doubt.
“He said he thought Orion Devereaux was George Manchester’s son.
“I asked him where he had gotten a crackpot theory like that. I couldn’t figure out at first why he would even tell me something like that, until I realized he probably thought it was one way he could drive a wedge between me and Orion. There was no need to create one but John probably thought there was.
“That was why he talked a few times about Mary’s little lamb. Orion was the little lamb. Mary was his mother’s name, I suppose. He never outright said so but the way he said the name, it sounded like it.
“After he had me persuaded, I began to worry more and more. A lot of people think Manchester has been an upright churchgoer all his life. He’s gone to church every Sunday and told everyone else to go but he always had a morally blank side to him. Everyone who ever stood in his way got run over. Oh... I... did I just say that?” A nervous laugh escaped her.
“I meant — a lot of people have said it over the years, but it’s not been acceptable to believe it. He did not just defeat people he thought were his enemies. He beat them down. Some he destroyed. I don’t mean killing or anything like that. I mean they found their careers and reputations permanently damaged.
“I couldn’t believe an old man long out of politics would go after John, but I didn’t know. It didn’t occur to me that Victor Turlock might have found out and had a violent reaction. I think that’s what happened. His whole life was built on being Manchester’s follower. An illegitimate child may not seem so bad to a lot of people these days. But the Parson lived in a different world. A story like that would have been shocking. It would have made him a travesty. If the Parson’s reputation were destroyed — not just destroyed, he would have become a laughingstock — then what would Turlock have left?
“He may even have been infuriated to find out that the person he most believed in had feet of clay. That shouldn’t have surprised him considering his own feet of clay. Maybe he thought that someone like Manchester was different. All I know is he must have been terribly angry to do something like that. Now I think he was not alone. Too many bad things have been happening. Someone else must be terribly angry, too. John is dead. The person they still have left to be angry with is me.
“And now I’m putting you in jeopardy. If we spend too much time together, someone may conclude that I’ve told you things. They’re more likely to suspect that my brother knows. I’ve never told him. He’s still in danger. More than you. But I’m the first target.”
Asher had been watching her in profile. He was studying the emotions on her face and at the same time trying to assess the possibilities and assemble the logical questions to ask about such a wild claim. He did not dismiss it because it was a plausible explanation for the one fact he could be sure of: that John Apson was dead at the hands of an enraged Victor Turlock.
“You knew Devereaux when you were both students,” he said. “Young people talk about their parents and where they came from. What do you remember?”
“That was one of the stranger things about him. He was very much alone. Both his parents had died... he said both his parents had died when he was in his teens. I think that must have been true because he never hid that he was from Davison. It’s a small town. It would have been too easy for anyone to go back there and check. He didn’t seem to have any close relatives. An uncle and aunt or two, some cousins he rarely or never saw. He had some money inherited from his parents besides what he’d earned working a few years after high school. Not a fortune, but enough to be comfortable by student standards. He didn’t try to hide any of that and live mysteriously, but he didn’t talk very much about any of it.”
She looked tired and was still shivering intermittently. Asher tried to narrow down his rapidly growing list of questions.
“Do you recall him ever saying anything that seemed to question whether those were his true parents? Especially after he came to Barnsdale?”
“No, nothing like that. I told you, we chatted for only a minute or two on the street.” She gave him a short, sharp look.
“Angela, I have a lot to figure out. More importantly, I have to estimate how much danger you may be in. I don’t think anyone would realistically try to hurt you. Someone may try to scare you. Or work a combination — scare you and bribe you. One question is really important. How did you know your husband had found something? Was it all hearsay or did he have anything on paper?”
“No,” she said, “no paper.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t find something written down somewhere. He spent months working on this. It wouldn’t have taken him that long if he had just found someone willing to talk.”
“I think you can forget that, Harry.” She sounded businesslike now. “It occurred to me he might have hidden something away. There was nothing about Orion in the office safe. John had two safe deposit boxes. I opened both after he died. There were only business papers and his passport, things like that. I suppose he could have pried up a floorboard in our old house, but it’s been sold. I don’t think you could talk the new owners into letting you tear it apart. Besides, John wouldn’t have tackled anything like that. It w
as all I could do to persuade him to keep a screwdriver and pair of pliers handy for small repairs.”
“Was Mary the only name you heard him use?”
“Yes. And only in that phrase, Mary’s little lamb.”
“Do you have any reason to think he might have contacted or tried to contact Manchester?”
“No. He could have. I don’t know. He spent a lot of time away from home when I was still there. I don’t know much about what he did afterward.”
“Phone records? Did you see any of his bills after he died?”
“Yes. John kept detailed records of anything to do with finances. I glanced through some of his bills. There was nothing unusual. But he always made a lot of calls. I don’t know what may have been significant. What I mean is, I didn’t see any records of calls that looked unusual. He was a careful man. He may not have used the phone if he could help it. Or he may have arranged for another one that couldn’t be tied to him. For that matter, there are still a couple of pay phones in Barnsdale. One of the privileges of being a little behind the times.”
“Then there’s nothing on paper tied to Devereaux or Manchester? No notebooks? No photocopies? Nothing?”
She turned and looked him in the eye. “There’s nothing connected to Devereaux or Manchester. No notebooks, no photocopies, no astrology charts. I’m tired, Harry. I need to get some sleep. It’s a long drive home tomorrow.”
“We’re going to skip that coffee, then?”
“That’s the last thing I need.”
“Please, let me give you a ride back to your hotel.”
“All right. Thank you.”
They walked back to the condo and he took his car out of the underground garage.
They said little during the few minutes’ drive. The winter road surface muffled the tires’ normal hum, accentuating the silence.
When they reached the hotel he said, “I’d like to see you again, Angela. Soon.”