Mad Season Page 9

  She didn’t understand. Found? She felt guilty that she was half relieved. That it wasn’t Emily, who was out with Wilder. Or Vic. Or Sharon and the baby. Oh, God...

  And then that swimming sensation in her head. Willy? “What was he doing in the creek? He can’t swim. Tim never could teach him to swim. He knows enough to stay away from there. Unless he had something besides O’Doul’s. That bartender knows better! Willy always obeys. He won’t go near the creek unless—”

  “He wasn’t trying to swim, Ruth,” Colm said, his voice gritty as dust. “He was dropped in there. He could have had a seizure before—or after, I don’t know. He was epileptic, right? He’d gone after a number on a license plate, the bartender said. Why send him when the boy couldn’t read? But we don’t have the license plate.”

  The end of the story staggered past her ear. Something about a license plate, a strange man, Willy drowning. She stared into Colm’s eyes. They were bright with sun.

  He was still talking. He was still gripping her hand.

  Chapter Seven

  They buried Belle in the small Revolutionary cemetery behind the farm. Lucien gave the plot to the town when he bought the place, but he still maintained it in his unorthodox way. “There are only two French names in there,” Ruth told Colm, “but he puts flowers on the graves every July fourteenth—Bastille Day, you know. One of the families is still around, but they let Lucien do it.”

  They were standing by the new-dug grave: Lucien, Marie in black pants and brown suede jacket, her shy gaunt husband Harold, and little Michelle, who was diving after grasshoppers. Even now the husband was running after the girl, it gave him something to do, she supposed; he seemed ill at ease with this funeral, with Ruth and Colm, with Pete’s sister, who as Ruth feared, was full of comments.

  “These Catholic funerals,” Bertha said, hitching up her panty hose. And then, trying to shield Vic again, her vision: “It’s no place for a child. If Pete were here—”

  “But he’s not,” Ruth said, and heard a sound like a hiss, in return. Was literal religion the snake in the garden? Maybe so. The way some saw life, anyway.

  “You’ll be sorry,” Bertha warned. “I had a telegram from Pete. The Lord—” But when Colm moved closer to Ruth, Bertha quieted. Her cheeks turned apple pink.

  Conscious that her elbows were touching Colm’s sleeve, Ruth moved a step back toward Bertha, eyed a contingent from the Home Dem that Belle had avoided. They stood there in drab dark dresses, eyes cast down on the budding crabgrass like they’d put down their own roots. They were carrying out their duty, the folded hands said; patience stuck out in the knucklebones.

  It was a warm April day, the cedar tree that shaded one corner of the burial ground bore fresh willowy sprouts; an early robin was digging in last year’s crushed leaves. The world: in bloom at the graveside. And Lucien, left behind, leaning forward as the coffin was lowered. He looked dazed, like a small boy in school for the first time, awkward in a blue suit that had shrunk in the legs. They’d let him out of the hospital only this morning, he was to report back tonight—though Lucien said no: Belle was home now, he’d stay till they put him under, too.

  His lips moved with Father Benoit’s prayer. When the priest was done Marie handed her father a flower to drop on the coffin. He stood there, staring at it, till she tapped him on the arm, and he took a tottering step and tossed the flower on the casket. Michelle picked up the flower her mother had thrown and held it up triumphantly. Marie nudged Harold, but his flower missed the casket, and Marie scooped it up, with a frown. A pair of female cousins looked on shyly, in sturdy shoes and dark rayon dresses. The Home Dem straightened their shoulders to a woman. Bertha had an enigmatic smile on her lips, like she knew where Belle was heading, and it wasn’t heaven, not for Indians. Ruth’s heel caught in a hole as she shifted position; Colm steadied her elbow.

  Colm’s eyes were shifting—looking for something? Relatives, friends? No one was sacrosanct. She’d drowned in his questions.

  Drowned—there was that, too. With Belle’s burial she’d almost forgot poor Willy. Tim was too distraught to come, he was collecting Willy’s things, making burial plans. There was no money for that, it would come out of Tim’s pocket. She’d help; she could sell one of the calves.

  At last it was over, Marie and Harold supporting Lucien back over the uneven grass, Father Benoit stooping down to the granddaughter, hoisting her onto his shoulders. He seemed a jolly sort: short, pug-nosed, a smile bubbling on the lips. Pete’s sister would disapprove of the smile. But Bertha was talking with the women, one of them likely in her church: animated now, hands describing something—her vision, maybe?

  Belle had never said, but Ruth knew: Belle wanted freedom of thought, choice above all else, in her life. Choice! What was life without it?

  Now Ruth and Colm were the only ones left at graveside. Ruth stepped forward, she had her own prayer. “Go with the spirits,” she told Belle, the Indian words rising out of something she’d read about the Crees. The Crees thought one was descended from the trees, returned to the trees, to the earth, to nature. Ruth liked that.

  “Go with nature,” she said and, kneeling down, laid a switch of cedar on the coffin top. Colm didn’t try to break her silence, just put a hand on her elbow. They walked back together across the pasture that was planted with winter wheat, past the gray weathered barn, the unpainted silo. Past the rusted machinery that Lucien would make run until, like himself, it wore out and was dragged off.

  They moved in silence up to the back porch of the house where the blood stains hadn’t wholly washed away from Lucien’s crawl to the road; into the kitchen where the women were unpacking plates of cookies and small sandwiches and a jug of lemonade onto the white metal table. They were good women. Even Bertha meant well, didn’t she? She’d had her disappointments in life—Colm, for one. She was offering him lemonade, practically dancing on his toes, her cheeks pink balloons. Colm flashed a distress signal, and Ruth swallowed a smile.

  If Pete were here he’d insist on beer. Well, he might have come up from New York, he didn’t live on the moon! But he wasn’t here, and it was a relief, really. His weekly call to the kids was due tonight. She might have to talk to him herself, about that broker, for one thing. About Bertha’s visions. They were getting on her nerves.

  Why was it she resented, more than ever, speaking to him?

  * * * *

  Tim was holding up a shirt of Willy’s. He was giving the clothes to the group home, he told Colm. Tears crowded the crevices of his craggy face, dampened his beard. “Jesus,” he kept saying, “Jesus. What in hell’s goin’ on here, Hanna?”

  It was the fourth time he’d said that, it was nothing Colm could answer. “We don’t know why,” Colm said, “but we think we know who. It has to be the fat man in the bar, the one who handed over the smelly money. But no one can identify him, or the car. Only Willy knew that.”

  And died for it, he thought.

  “He was smart,” Tim said. “Smarter than people realized, see? It takes time, that’s all, to get rid of the bad stuff inside. He had more smarts than anyone knew.”

  “I know.”

  What else could one say? It was a lousy business, this. Colm wanted to punch out the wall! But it was Tim’s wall, and covered with posters: views of the Grand Canyon, the Taj Mahal, David Bowie in concert. Colm had some old 45s at home of Bowie.

  “We’ll find this guy,” Colm said, feeling the hornet in his chest. “Somehow. We got his description from the bartender. We’ll get the guy.” Or guys—he had to be connected with someone else, didn’t he? There were two men that night?

  “It won’t bring Willy back.”

  “No. Or Belle.”

  The murders had to be connected, he felt sure of that. Willy had found out something the murderer wanted to hide. Or murderers. Yes, he had to keep thinking, double.

  “Look, if you hear anything, anything that can help us. Maybe talk to the bartender yourself. He might remember some
thing more. Sometimes people do.” He handed Tim his business card.

  Tim stuck it in a pants pocket. “Willy can’t swim,” he said, like Willy were still alive. “I never could teach him to swim. He’s afraid of water. He wouldn’t’ve gone in it himself.”

  Even if he could swim, Colm thought, he wouldn’t have had a chance. He must have been half unconscious before he was thrown—or pushed in, maybe. The embankment behind the Alibi was steep. A snowball would roll on into the creek. And there were the seizures. The police were calling it accidental for want of evidence. It was impossible to determine the exact manner of death from drowning, he knew that from his father. Epileptic seizure or not, the drowning victim had to breathe, take in more and more water until respiration stopped.

  Drowning was a slow, agonizing death—he didn’t tell Tim that. The water was cold, Willy’s body already in advanced rigor mortis when they found it floating, full of gas. The question remained:

  Was Willy dead before he hit the water? There were abrasions on the head, odd red marks on the abdomen. But some might have come from sand and weeds. A drowned body was usually face-down, the face and limbs dragging on the bottom.

  The police had found only a child’s boxing glove on the water-front, a couple of Pepsi bottles—wet, nothing they could get fingerprints from.

  “You might like to keep this,” said Colm, picking up a snapshot of Willy and his rabbit from the floor.

  Tim took it and turned his face away.

  * * * *

  “Wilder gets home around three-thirty,” Carol Unsworth said when Colm asked for the boy. Her voice was stiff, her lips set in a thin lavender line. “I don’t let him take the car to school. He goes on the school bus like the rest.”

  The implication was that he wasn’t like the rest but that she wanted him to be. Colm sat down in the only hardback chair he could find. He’d wanted Ruth with him, but she’d already been here, she said—enough. Besides, it was a delicate matter, speaking to Emily’s boyfriend. It took an objective listener. The woman served tea, then sat opposite in a yellow chair. The whole room was yellow, it was like sitting in the middle of a squeezed lemon. She perched on the edge, like she was ready to spring. What had her son to do with a murder?

  “He’s a good boy,” she said. “We’ve had trouble with the older one, I suppose you know that. I told Ruth Willmarth. He got in with the wrong crowd. His father and I tried, but what can you do? It’s like the sixties: don’t trust anyone over thirty. I was never a part of that. Do you have children, Mr. Hanna?”

  “Colm,” he said, “my name is Colm. No, I’m not married.” He left it at that. There was always that twinge of guilt when women asked. Like he’d somehow shirked responsibility or was to be pitied. He straightened his glasses, his shoulders. His father complained of his posture.

  But he wasn’t here for small talk. There’d been two murders. Wilder had left the Willmarths’ the night of the first. Colm wanted to speak to him—alone. He made that clear.

  The door opened and Wilder came in, a green book sack on his back. He was a tall, good-looking boy, the kind you’d place above suspicion because he looked like the all-American kid, down to his green-and-white Proctor Academy Soccer T-shirt. He narrowed his eyes at Colm. Then, as they were introduced, the look changed to a forced smile.

  Carol Unsworth was politic, she retired to the kitchen. Still, the boy seemed nervous, kept glancing in that direction. Colm suggested a walk.

  “A walk?” The boy frowned.

  “Out back maybe. I see you have sheep.”

  “They’re mother’s.” The tone was deprecatory.

  “My mother kept sheep too. It was a long time ago.”

  The boy nodded, he didn’t look very interested. But he got up and went to the back door. The mother was peering into a cupboard. From the rigid way she stood, Colm knew she was aware of them. The boy never glanced at her, led Colm out back to the sheep pen. A dozen sheep were lolling about: they turned in unison to stare at Colm. He felt, well, sheepish.

  The boy was waiting.

  Colm got to the point. “You were with Emily Willmarth that night. I thought you might have seen something.”

  The boy shrugged, spread his hands. Stared ahead, slightly beyond the sheep, like he’d pretend they weren’t there.

  “Emily said you didn’t leave at once, that you sat in the car. There was a full moon.”

  This time he’d connected. Wilder turned his head: a blaze of eyes. A little miffed maybe that Emily had told his secrets.

  “Maybe I did,” he said. “Maybe I looked at the moon.”

  “Sure. Any guy would—with or without his girl.”

  Wilder’s cheeks pinkened. Maybe he didn’t like a middle-aged man, a bachelor, “understanding” him. But he said nothing.

  “This would have been just before midnight. That you got to the car, I mean. When did you leave?”

  The cheeks deepened to red. “I don’t know. I didn’t look at my watch. Maybe ten minutes later. Fifteen. Twenty. I don’t know. I was thinking, that’s all.”

  Colm was careful. He didn’t ask what the boy was thinking about. He could imagine that. He remembered how it was with Ruth. He was more interested in what the boy had seen.

  “What was I supposed to see?”

  “A car? Two men? Anything different from the norm. It wasn’t the first time you’d taken Emily home, was it?”

  “No.”

  “Well then?”

  The knuckles were white where the boy was gripping the fence. There was the same rigidity of spine he’d seen in the mother.

  “Nothing,” Wilder said. “Nothing different.” He turned to Colm. “Emily would have seen something if there’d been anything. She was looking out the window. What did she tell you?”

  “She only looked for a few minutes. Then her mother came in the room.”

  “Oh. Well. I told you, there was nothing. I looked at the goddamn moon and then I left. Okay?”

  The boy was irritated, he looked like he might cry. Colm was sure he’d seen something. Something or someone. Someone he didn’t want to tell on.

  Unless—he hadn’t left that night, not for a long time anyway, till he’d accomplished what he came to do. Hadn’t his father cut off his allowance? Emily had told Ruth that. He might not have meant to hurt anyone. But if Lucien fought back, the blood would go to his head.

  The chin was quivering slightly, the hands still gripping the fence, small for a boy’s hands. No, it was hard to imagine Wilder Unsworth beating on an old man and woman. Unless he was the one who stood by. Let the other do the work.

  Whoever the other was. The one who’d killed Belle, and maybe poor Willy Beeman.

  “I left my cap in your living room,” Colm said. “If you don’t mind I’ll go back in with you.”

  “Sure.” Wilder’s hands were red and serrated where they’d held onto the fence.

  “My mother’s sheep were Scottish Blackface,” Colm said. “Black noses and feet, real shaggy. I have a sweater made of the wool. Warmest one I own. Full of holes though now.”

  “Mom’s knitting one for Christmas. If she can stand to cut off the wool.”

  “Fleece.”

  “Huh?”

  “Fleece is what they call the wool. They shear it each spring. It’s a time-consuming process. I helped as a kid.”

  The boy looked at him with some interest. The eyes were intelligent, the mouth was mobile, sensitive. There was the flicker of a smile. Then the mouth went dead again.

  “We call it Mother’s folly,” he said, and led the way to the back door.

  Carol Unsworth was at the window, examining a tiny break in the pane. She’d have stood there, watching the interrogation. She’d have seen how nervous her son was.

  “Garth threw a softball,” she said. “I have to get a new pane of glass.”

  “I hate to think how many windows I broke as a kid,” Colm said.

  She smiled back, she seemed grateful. “It went
all right?” She was looking at Wilder.

  “What’d I have to tell him?” said Wilder, and strode through to the front of the house.

  A second later he was back. “This your cap?” he said. He turned it over in his hands.

  Colm had two dozen of them, all bought in Ireland. Different blends of tweed. Not to mention derbys, baseball caps, a green Rogers Rangers hat, though he felt foolish wearing it.

  “You want it?” he said. “Hats are taking up my whole closet. My father complains.”

  Wilder examined the cap. It was handmade tweed: autumn colors, brown and gold with a reddish cast.

  “You’d give it away?” He looked suspicious.

  “Honest.” Colm threw up his hands. “It’s not my favorite. I just grabbed one on my way out.”

  Wilder hesitated, then stuck out his hand. “All right.” And clapping it on his head, he ran outdoors and disappeared into the garage.

  “I can’t pay you?” said Carol Unsworth, looking embarrassed, and Colm said, “It was my gift.” Then, “I have to be going. Appointment with the police chief.”

  She looked upset when he said that.

  She showed him out the front, through the pastel living room, past the porcelain and fine bone china. It wasn’t until he was out on the front porch, by the stone sculpture of the falcon, that he realized what he’d seen.

  Three books of raffle tickets from Catamount Furniture on the hall table. Who but a mother would indulge her son, buy up the tickets the kid hadn’t been able to sell?

  * * * *

  The guys had already begun the recess soccer when Vic went out. He’d been kept after by old Ronsard again, he wasn’t doing the arithmetic right. He hated arithmetic. He might even hate Mrs. Ronsard. She was so sweet—sweet as sour cream. Joe Piezzo was running after the ball, two other guys bumping into him, one of them Garth Unsworth. He kicked the ball away from Joe, it bounced out of bounds and hit Vic in the head. Everybody laughed. The girls laughed on the sidelines. One of them, Sue Ellen Brewer, grabbed the ball and ran with it and the guys tackled her, knocking her down. Her shirt hiked up out of her pants and they guffawed.