SPOILER ALERT: THS IS THE LAST CHAPTER.
For Effen, it’s good to be home. Good … but disquieting. He never did learn what happened to Tom. Must have gone bawling to Brut. Hard to imagine the authorities or the Guard not spotting him. Not with that torn face.
He goes from room to room. The door to the bath is open. The white throw rug, which he labored to keep so clean, has been replaced by one that’s delicate peach.
Farrell, behind him, wraps her arms around him in a light, loving shawl. “Who else was here that day?”
Uh-oh. “Why do you ask?”
“It wasn’t your blood. You had only one cut that would leave that sort of mess. We saw you do it. Outside. On the lawn of an empty house.”
“Was there anything else here?”
“Broken glass. On the floor.”
Effen looks in the proper direction.
“And something really bizarre. Downstairs. In the wash machine.”
The soiled sheets. Damn.
Effen holds his breath.
“Jeans mixed in with cream-colored flannel sheets. You’ve been doing laundry long enough to know you can’t throw jeans in with whites or light colors.”
Effen relaxes. The color returns to his cheeks.
Farrell gives him a little squeeze. Her eyes dance. Nothing’s sacred, anyway. “You thought I was going to say something about the state of everything in the machine after I found them two days later, didn’t you.”
Heat bursts beneath Effen’s collar. “That bad?”
“You almost had a new washer.”
Why is she pursuing this now? Why not two months ago, when the police and the doctors thought he was overdosing on something illicit?
“I figured you’d talk when you were ready,” she says, as if sensing his questions. “Besides, it wasn’t the kind of thing to be hashed out in a place where everybody wants to know your business. There was too much to sort out: my trip to the airport, the marks on your arm, the mess on the floor, the fact that you’ve been a client of Bruton’s for years, yet he never came near you all the while you were in the hospital. And what about the phone hanging off the hook? The county traced a 911 call to this address. Who made that call, France? And why”
When he was in the hospital, he thought his refusal to talk was reasonable. Now, however, he recognizes his reticence for what it truly was: madness.
He opens his arms to Farrell. They latch on to each other, pressing into each other so tightly they can feel each other’s heart beat.
“That night everyone fled Mount Can’t,” Effen says into her hair. “You asked me about notifying the medical examiner. You were right. We should have called the prosecutor, too. We didn’t. For this reason: nobody died.”
Farrell says nothing. Effen feels her bunching his blazer in her fist.
He tells her everything, from Bruton’s inception of the plan to what happened at The House after she left for the funeral. He never meant to hide anything from her. He wanted so very badly to tell her, so many times.
“I thought the sight of all those people making a brainless rush to safety was the most horrifying thing I’d seen in my life. It tore my heart to see you get sick over it. I wanted to tell you that night. I wanted to tell you the morning they told me Gustie and the girls were dead. I couldn’t. I couldn’t expect you to believe it. It was beyond reason. It was beyond imagination. It was beyond anything I could expect a rational person to understand. God knows, it’s beyond anything I deserve to survive.”
“Then why did you go along with it?”
“Tom and Brut thought we couldn’t be prosecuted. The state had created the notion of a volcano in the park in the first place. How could we be prosecuted for showing the powers that be a mirror image of themselves? If only we knew how deeply the mirror was cracked!”
There’s only one thing Effen can do now: go to the county prosecutor. When the dust settles, the charges against Tom and Bruton read like a table of contents for a criminal law refresher: abduction, assault (and battery), attempted murder, conspiracy, fraud, reckless endangerment, and terrorism. Johnson and Birdsall are cited for conspiracy, fraud and terrorism. Elizabeth is charged as an accessory to Farrell’s abduction.
The interstate search for Tom and Johnson and Birdsall proves fruitless until the first week in July, when they’re traced to a farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It’s clear the place has been abandoned for quite some time. The animals, all sheep, are close to death from neglect.
Effen himself is charged with conspiracy and aiding and abetting, plus other crimes associated with the abuse of his profession. His part in the ruse may have been small, but it was rife with motive: revenge for the seizing of his livestock and his eviction from the farm. He has no stomach for either the ordeal of a criminal trial or the publicity that’s an inherent part of sensational proceedings. He pleads no contest in exchange for probation, community service a suspended jail sentence. His license to practice mortuary science and to operate a funeral home in the state of New Jersey is revoked. The revocation is worse than the conviction. He has no idea how he’ll make a living. The images of going homeless and hungry pile high. So this was the humiliation Gustie foretold for herself and the girls.
He begs Farrell to leave him and save herself from his disgrace. She reminds him that she herself hasn’t been able to work in the field she had known so well. If she could survive, so could he. Instead of leaving him, she takes him in her arms, willing her warmth and touch to shield him like the pinions of God in a psalm she’d read so long ago.
They wed in a quiet little civil ceremony with Matt and Ben as the only guests and witnesses. With the business closed, they’ll go to live with Effen’s parents in Virginia. Before they move, however, they ready The House for sale by making small repairs and giving it a fresh coat of paint
Effen is an old hand at painting interiors. Nothing to it, especially if you start early on a sunny morning and it’s not too warm outside.
Shortly before lunch, he realizes he hasn’t bought enough ceiling white. Since he’s liberally christened with paint from hair to docksiders, Farrell volunteers to make the required appearance at the local hardware store. It’s only a few blocks away on Main Street. No need for the car. She scampers down the stairs, house keys jingling.
Effen is at the bathroom sink, trying to flay the paint off his hands when he hears footsteps across the floor.
“That was fast! Forget something?”
“To say goodbye.”
Effen catches sight of the intruder in the mirror over the sink. The color vanishes from his own, plate-eyed face.
The visitor is a scruffy specimen in torn jeans, sweatshirt and baseball cap. He has long, matted auburn hair, and an auburn beard trimmed in the Elizabethan style. A scar runs from his forehead over his left eye down to the center of his crusty, sunburned cheek. He comes no closer than where he stands in the kitchen.
The cap is removed. The smile is twisted. “And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you tidings of great joy.’”
The summer heat doesn’t stop Effen’s hands from icing.
Weary, Tom settles into a chair and slaps the cap on the table. He says nothing. He does nothing, except sit and look at Effen, who keeps his distance, sickened by the sight and scent of a person who hasn’t bathed in weeks.
At last Tom asks for a glass of water. Effen obliges. Tom downs the drink without stopping for breath, then asks Effen to call the local police.
The officer in charge huddles over the speaker-phone with Markham and Wilton and three other patrolmen. All are immobilized by Effen’s unflustered advice that Tom Von Aldo is sitting at his kitchen table.
“Only Von Aldo? Nobody else?”
“Only me.”
“Put him on.”
The blast that rocks the phone’s sensitive components is unmistakable. The officers are out the door before they’re told to go.
A figure sits on the front steps of The House, clasped hands to chin, denim shirt opened over a paint-spattered tee. He’s staring at the street. A small bottle of cola waits nearby, full and unopened.
He doesn’t seem particularly interested in the cruiser that hums to a halt in the driveway, lights on but siren off.
The officer, a youngster, seems edgy. “Where’s the trouble?”
The figure on the step holds his pose. Ick. A rookie. “Top of the stairs.” The voice is nearly inaudible.
Markham and Wilton leave their cruisers running in the street. Wilson stops traffic. Markham and two other officers head for the steps, assailing The Owner with questions.
In the same quietly bewildered tones, Effen suggests, “Better see to your rookie. It’s not too pretty up there.”
Markham winces. “In the head?”
“Yeah.”
A little crowd has gathered on the walk. Markham urges Effen to come inside and tell him what happened.
Effen shakes his head. He’s waiting for Farrell. He doesn’t want her to see the commotion without seeing him.
Never mind the mess upstairs. The Owner doesn’t look too good himself. Markham asks him if he’s got anything to take for his nerves.
“I’m concerned for my wife,” he says, then deliberately walks through the crowd.
Farrell looks up from the book of wallcoverings, surprised by the closeness of the person next to her and the arm around her shoulders.
It grieves Effen to tell her about Tom. But the news can wait a moment. He takes in the scent of her hair, her enthusiasm for the wallpaper, the friendly activity of locals going about the innocuous business of house care.
It’s good to be alive …
A visit with Effen’s parents in Richmond becomes a major relocation when the state returns the horselets and his parents urge him to start a new farm nearby.
The House goes up for sale. Effen helps Matt and Ben find work with colleagues.
The Concordes return in late September, nearly six months after locals thought they’d been banished by lawmakers fearing more civil unrest.
Once again the earth shakes and windows rattle.
The House’s terracotta gargoyle takes another tumble to the lawn.
Matt and Ben stop cleaning the near-empty building and rush outside.
Neighbors run out, too.
Fat, grayish flakes lazily settle on everything in sight.
Snow? In September?
Matt detects the sulfurous scent of a struck match.
The Owner, lighting a cigarette?
No. The Owner is in Virginia.
Neighbors smell it, too.
Their noses turn toward the source.
The sky.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Chapter 38
Bruton surfaces at the hospital in the morning. Apparently he was between The House and Fair Mantle Village the day of Farrell’s alleged abduction. He doesn’t deny giving Farrell the trip to Oxford. It was, he says, an old man’s way of thanking a younger woman for leaving her home and family to help the Village in its time of crisis. She’s very lucky he was able to talk his wife into not pressing charges.
As for Francis Hume? “He was disintegrating before my eyes. But, since it’s against the law to hospitalize competent people against their will, I had to let his condition play out. It did, he was found – in time, thank God – and that’s all there is to it.”
Effen has no desire or inclination to tell the police what happened at The House or why he tried to dispatch himself. He says little, even to Farrell. His withdrawal and the likelihood he’ll once again try to part company with the earth earns him a transfer to the part of the hospital that staff and visitors enter by way of a coded door.
He’s still not about to talk. He needs to not talk.
There is no explanation, no rationalization, no justification for everything that has happened. There are only scraps of suppositions and regrets that could never be proved or reversed.
Gustie knew Tom hadn’t died on Mount Can’t. Effen told her the truth before the plan was carried out – and before he hid that same truth from Farrell and the rest of the Mount Can’t staff that last evening in the village office. Tom was supposed to hold a press conference in Trenton the day after the “deaths” to explain how he meant to make the state see the terror its “volcano” wrought upon the innocent population.
But Gustie was of no mind to attempt to understand what Tom was trying to do. Fury crowded her logic. Rather than shout, lest the sound carry through the cottage’s thin walls and into the houses fewer than twenty feet away on either side, she rasped into his face.
“What is wrong with you? What will happen to the people you don’t warn? What will happen to the families who think they’ve lost sons and fathers? What will happen to the girls and me when the police catch up with you and you’re convicted as frauds? How will that help us? How will we live?”
“That’s the point,” he said, determined to keep calm. “Nothing will happen to you. Nothing should happen, because nobody is going to die. Tom’s not leaving you.”
“It’s not about the money! It’s about the humiliation. How do we live with the humiliation you’re all about to bring on us? How do the girls go to school knowing their classmates and teachers are snickering at them behind their backs? How can you yourself continue in your profession knowing people will always associate you with your role in Tom’s plans? You’re finished, Francis. We’re all finished.”
Effen can’t remember when the blows began. All he knows is that Gustie wasn’t listening to him. She responded only to the torment of the sickening, uncertain future she was designing for herself and the girls. She wasn’t slapping his face, though. Mad as she was, she must have realized that marks could show. She was slapping the side of his head, pounding his shoulders, punching the ribs still aching with the effects of the brawl with the troopers who had evicted him from the farm. He couldn’t strike back, if only to defend himself, not to hurt her. He would never strike her. He absorbed the blows, knowing he deserved her outrage. They were coming so quickly he didn’t realize he was holding his breath, girding himself against the pain. His sight faded. It seemed the floor tipped. He reached out to steady himself on something. The nearest something was Gustie. She shook him off. He dropped on all fours.
She was looking down at him, her face deformed by revulsion ... fear ... horror. Was it revulsion at him for what he had done or revulsion for what she was doing to him?
He remembers being amused by a sudden association. “To think I told you … because I didn’t want you … to be upset …”
She let him struggle to his feet by himself, and followed him to the door, and locked the door behind him. She could not have signaled contempt with greater clarity than if she spat on him.
Perhaps, in their own way, they all ended up spitting on each other.
Tom and Bruton had expected the panic held in check since the hearing would suppurate. Though Tom had once predicted just such a flight to Farrell, he couldn’t appreciate its intensity until he saw it for himself. In the end, though, he was too afraid to surface. Face the public, and he and Johnson and Birdsall would be charged with anything from making terroristic threats to conspiracy. So he thought best to wait. Reason would prevail. It didn’t. The town emptied. Gustie killed herself and the girls. Suddenly it was too late for reason. Johnson and Birdsall scrambled to a hunting lodge near Gettysburg. Tom hid in The House, seeking refuge in the cellar whenever anyone appeared.
Effen knows now he should have told Farrell everything. He thought that by not telling her, he was doing what was best at that time. He hopes Farrell will leave him, He would love her more if she saw him for the monster he is and for having the sense to protect herself from him.
But Farrell gives no sign of leaving. She’s with him every day, for as long as visiting hours last. She owes him. She never should have gone to the funeral. She should have realized Effen was taking the loss of his family too well. She thought he was just being Effen; he was shored up by the same unfathomable philosophy that gave him the strength to go about his profession. Apparently there was more to the miracle and mystery of Francis Hume than she imagined.
After a while, she realizes that trying to figure out what happened is useless. What happened, happened. All the reasoning in the world can’t account for it or reverse the effects. She’s got to go forward. Effen’s got to go forward. She swaddles her wits and her heart with the same quiet courage he so unknowingly taught her and gets on with the business of living, hoping he’ll come along for the ride.
Every day, she goes to him with teddy bears, books, clothes, and gossip from Matt and Ben. It’s a tough assignment. He isn’t fun to be with. The stuff they give him puts him in a walking stupor and makes him sick to his stomach. Either he can’t grasp what she’s saying or lunch is bubbling out of him, usually without warning.
He’d rather not see her. But whenever he tries telling her to go away, something hard stops up his throat and his cheeks become glossed by glistening, translucent sheets. He doesn’t know he’s crying until she hands him a tissue oir wipes away the tears herself. He apologizes, saying he’s “such a mess.”
Eventually he notices she glows with a serenity and sense of purpose he’s never before seen in her. There’s a new tenderness, too. Her presence becomes a heady blend of kindness and consolation and yes, even a little silliness when, like an imaginative child, she makes the bears “talk: to him and dance with each other. When she’s there, he has to be with her. When she’s at The House, he longs to be with her. She’s everything he can’t be. He can’t see she’s everything he’s inspired her to become.
One day, he’s Effen again. He knows he’ll never be able to walk the earth not remembering what happened to Gustie and the girls, but the mind-twisting anguish is gone. His interest in the world returns. Farrell, who’s never found the letter he left her that bizarre night, knows he’s ready to be released back to society when he counts how many days he’s been confined and estimates how high his medical insurance will skyrocket.
Effen returns to The House in early spring. It’s a warm, hazy afternoon, tinted bright, new-leaf green by the blooming sycamores. The hyacinths in the backyard have sprouted. The grass is growing. Robins are building a nest deep amid the rhododendrons that surround the porch.
Matt and Ben are hosting two viewings. As always, the Monteverdi Vespers are soft and unobtrusive in the background. Effen and Farrell mean to sneak up the back stairs, but Effen can’t resist a little side trip through the kitchen to peek into the hallway.
It’s a full house. Ben stands sentry between the parlors, hands loosely clasped behind his back, appearing serious and attentive.
Effen clucks at Ben the way he used to cluck at the horselets to get their attention.
Ben whips in the direction of the sound, then chases The Owner into the kitchen, where he smothers him with a hug and calls him a sonofabitch for throwing him out of character. Next it’s Harry, who wondered why Ben hightailed down the hallway. After that, it’s Matt, who wondered why Harry was hurrying toward the kitchen. Vince follows Matt, and Effen is sucked into a hearty, hugging and shoulder-clapping reunion better suited to a tavern than a funeral home.
As for Francis Hume? “He was disintegrating before my eyes. But, since it’s against the law to hospitalize competent people against their will, I had to let his condition play out. It did, he was found – in time, thank God – and that’s all there is to it.”
Effen has no desire or inclination to tell the police what happened at The House or why he tried to dispatch himself. He says little, even to Farrell. His withdrawal and the likelihood he’ll once again try to part company with the earth earns him a transfer to the part of the hospital that staff and visitors enter by way of a coded door.
He’s still not about to talk. He needs to not talk.
There is no explanation, no rationalization, no justification for everything that has happened. There are only scraps of suppositions and regrets that could never be proved or reversed.
Gustie knew Tom hadn’t died on Mount Can’t. Effen told her the truth before the plan was carried out – and before he hid that same truth from Farrell and the rest of the Mount Can’t staff that last evening in the village office. Tom was supposed to hold a press conference in Trenton the day after the “deaths” to explain how he meant to make the state see the terror its “volcano” wrought upon the innocent population.
But Gustie was of no mind to attempt to understand what Tom was trying to do. Fury crowded her logic. Rather than shout, lest the sound carry through the cottage’s thin walls and into the houses fewer than twenty feet away on either side, she rasped into his face.
“What is wrong with you? What will happen to the people you don’t warn? What will happen to the families who think they’ve lost sons and fathers? What will happen to the girls and me when the police catch up with you and you’re convicted as frauds? How will that help us? How will we live?”
“That’s the point,” he said, determined to keep calm. “Nothing will happen to you. Nothing should happen, because nobody is going to die. Tom’s not leaving you.”
“It’s not about the money! It’s about the humiliation. How do we live with the humiliation you’re all about to bring on us? How do the girls go to school knowing their classmates and teachers are snickering at them behind their backs? How can you yourself continue in your profession knowing people will always associate you with your role in Tom’s plans? You’re finished, Francis. We’re all finished.”
Effen can’t remember when the blows began. All he knows is that Gustie wasn’t listening to him. She responded only to the torment of the sickening, uncertain future she was designing for herself and the girls. She wasn’t slapping his face, though. Mad as she was, she must have realized that marks could show. She was slapping the side of his head, pounding his shoulders, punching the ribs still aching with the effects of the brawl with the troopers who had evicted him from the farm. He couldn’t strike back, if only to defend himself, not to hurt her. He would never strike her. He absorbed the blows, knowing he deserved her outrage. They were coming so quickly he didn’t realize he was holding his breath, girding himself against the pain. His sight faded. It seemed the floor tipped. He reached out to steady himself on something. The nearest something was Gustie. She shook him off. He dropped on all fours.
She was looking down at him, her face deformed by revulsion ... fear ... horror. Was it revulsion at him for what he had done or revulsion for what she was doing to him?
He remembers being amused by a sudden association. “To think I told you … because I didn’t want you … to be upset …”
She let him struggle to his feet by himself, and followed him to the door, and locked the door behind him. She could not have signaled contempt with greater clarity than if she spat on him.
Perhaps, in their own way, they all ended up spitting on each other.
Tom and Bruton had expected the panic held in check since the hearing would suppurate. Though Tom had once predicted just such a flight to Farrell, he couldn’t appreciate its intensity until he saw it for himself. In the end, though, he was too afraid to surface. Face the public, and he and Johnson and Birdsall would be charged with anything from making terroristic threats to conspiracy. So he thought best to wait. Reason would prevail. It didn’t. The town emptied. Gustie killed herself and the girls. Suddenly it was too late for reason. Johnson and Birdsall scrambled to a hunting lodge near Gettysburg. Tom hid in The House, seeking refuge in the cellar whenever anyone appeared.
Effen knows now he should have told Farrell everything. He thought that by not telling her, he was doing what was best at that time. He hopes Farrell will leave him, He would love her more if she saw him for the monster he is and for having the sense to protect herself from him.
But Farrell gives no sign of leaving. She’s with him every day, for as long as visiting hours last. She owes him. She never should have gone to the funeral. She should have realized Effen was taking the loss of his family too well. She thought he was just being Effen; he was shored up by the same unfathomable philosophy that gave him the strength to go about his profession. Apparently there was more to the miracle and mystery of Francis Hume than she imagined.
After a while, she realizes that trying to figure out what happened is useless. What happened, happened. All the reasoning in the world can’t account for it or reverse the effects. She’s got to go forward. Effen’s got to go forward. She swaddles her wits and her heart with the same quiet courage he so unknowingly taught her and gets on with the business of living, hoping he’ll come along for the ride.
Every day, she goes to him with teddy bears, books, clothes, and gossip from Matt and Ben. It’s a tough assignment. He isn’t fun to be with. The stuff they give him puts him in a walking stupor and makes him sick to his stomach. Either he can’t grasp what she’s saying or lunch is bubbling out of him, usually without warning.
He’d rather not see her. But whenever he tries telling her to go away, something hard stops up his throat and his cheeks become glossed by glistening, translucent sheets. He doesn’t know he’s crying until she hands him a tissue oir wipes away the tears herself. He apologizes, saying he’s “such a mess.”
Eventually he notices she glows with a serenity and sense of purpose he’s never before seen in her. There’s a new tenderness, too. Her presence becomes a heady blend of kindness and consolation and yes, even a little silliness when, like an imaginative child, she makes the bears “talk: to him and dance with each other. When she’s there, he has to be with her. When she’s at The House, he longs to be with her. She’s everything he can’t be. He can’t see she’s everything he’s inspired her to become.
One day, he’s Effen again. He knows he’ll never be able to walk the earth not remembering what happened to Gustie and the girls, but the mind-twisting anguish is gone. His interest in the world returns. Farrell, who’s never found the letter he left her that bizarre night, knows he’s ready to be released back to society when he counts how many days he’s been confined and estimates how high his medical insurance will skyrocket.
Effen returns to The House in early spring. It’s a warm, hazy afternoon, tinted bright, new-leaf green by the blooming sycamores. The hyacinths in the backyard have sprouted. The grass is growing. Robins are building a nest deep amid the rhododendrons that surround the porch.
Matt and Ben are hosting two viewings. As always, the Monteverdi Vespers are soft and unobtrusive in the background. Effen and Farrell mean to sneak up the back stairs, but Effen can’t resist a little side trip through the kitchen to peek into the hallway.
It’s a full house. Ben stands sentry between the parlors, hands loosely clasped behind his back, appearing serious and attentive.
Effen clucks at Ben the way he used to cluck at the horselets to get their attention.
Ben whips in the direction of the sound, then chases The Owner into the kitchen, where he smothers him with a hug and calls him a sonofabitch for throwing him out of character. Next it’s Harry, who wondered why Ben hightailed down the hallway. After that, it’s Matt, who wondered why Harry was hurrying toward the kitchen. Vince follows Matt, and Effen is sucked into a hearty, hugging and shoulder-clapping reunion better suited to a tavern than a funeral home.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Chapter 37
Farrell and the officers aren’t in the emergency waiting room for five minutes before a woman in a bloodied lab coat comes looking for whomever is with the gentleman who was just brought in.
Markham waves. A pen and a metal clipboard are shoved in Farrell’s hands.
“We need you to sign this.”
Farrell sees the words on the paper, but she’s too spent to understand what she’s reading.
“It’s a consent form for surgery. We need to stop the bleeding. Don’t you want to sign it?”
The signature emerges in a wavy scrawl worthy of a ninety-year-old in bad shape.
The woman hurries to the double doors across the room, speaking in flight. “Wow, he knew where to cut to get the best flow. What is he, a doctor?”
Farrell’s in no mood to shout the answer.
At that moment, a man sporting scrubs and a nearly impenetrable foreign accent asks her if Effen is allergic to any drugs. She doesn’t think so. The man wants to know what he’s been using.
Markham intervenes. “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Farrell bites. “He doesn’t ‘use’ anything. Look, Todd, you can go back to that house and search until the cow jumps over the moon. You’re not going to find anything. Believe me. I’ve known him for three years, and I’ve been with him twenty-four hours a day for the past few days. There is nothing in that house.”
“He's using something; he's got needle marks up his forearm. Maybe he doesn’t keep it in the house.”
In a weeping huff, Farrell crashes into a chair. “Oh, go back and get your search warrant. Have the run of the house while nobody’s there.” She’s too tired and stressed to fight nature. The tears pour.
The foreigner, whose origin is utterly indeterminable, taps her on the shoulder. “Don’t cry. We’ll sew him up and give him some blood. He’ll be okay. Understand me? Good. Not everybody does.” The man waits until he’s on the other side of the room before shouting, “He knew where to cut good. What is he, a doctor?”
Farrell slaps her head as the man recedes behind the doors.
Markham proposes getting something hot for everyone to drink and goes in search of the coffeeshop.
Wilton pulls a chair close to Farrell, who’s graduated to blowing her nose in the handkerchief that one of Brandon’s staff gave her at Gustie’s funeral. “You know, I am seriously tempted to tell the next person who asks that Mr. Hume taxiderms people for a living.”
Farrell is beyond humoring. “He’s not an addict, Mike. He wouldn’t even take painkillers when he needed them.”
“Yeah, but was that before or after he lost his wife and kids? I don’t want to sound like a pessimist, but there’s no way on earth that he can be the same person you knew. Not now. Not after what’s happened to his family.”
“Why can’t you stop speculating?”
“Well, maybe it’s a good thing we were speculating. Who knows what would have happened if we didn’t go back there? You know what I mean? He could be dead on the street. Or someone, maybe you, could have found his body in the morning. You don’t know. It really was better this way.”
Farrell fingers the handkerchief, too aware that people on the far side of the room are watching and listening. She resents their curiosity. She also understands it. She came into the emergency room accompanied by two police officers. They’ve been speaking about a crime. Blood steaks their darkly colored outerwear like shadows of bare branches on the earth.
Wilton lowers his voice. “Look, Farrell, I remember you from when you worked for the newspaper. You know we’re human. We know that not everyone who runs afoul of the law is a hard-core miscreant. There are extenuating circumstances, as any lawyer can tell you. If we nab Mr. Hume for something he shouldn’t have, it’s for his own good. Sure, the judge will give him the sentence required by law. But I’ll bet my badge that the honorable won’t turn a blind eye to what’s been going on in his life. He’ll suspend the sentence and put him on probation with a condition to get help. It’s too bad he had to learn he needed help the hard way.”
Farrell’s stare is fearless. “Mike, you sound like you want me to do something.”
Wilton shrugs. “I don’t deny it would help everyone if you talked to him. Find out what the stuff is. Where he got it from. He might be able to work out a nice deal with the prosecutor. And, as I said, I’m sure the judge will show mercy. He’s a tough cookie, but he’s not without compassion. I know. I’ve seen him in action So have you.”
It sounds reasonable. Farrell says she’ll do what she can. She can’t imagine life without Effen, but at the moment she feels sorry for herself. She considers how awful it is that she’s walked into such a monstrous problem. She has a vision of getting a cab, retrieving her car from the Fair Mantle Village parking lot and driving home to Mercer County, never to look back.
She’s not the only person aware of her unhappy position. When Effen comes to his senses and sees her curled up on the chair beside his bed, he remembers where he is and how he got there. He has no doubt that Farrell is burdened with trouble that shouldn’t be hers. He expects her to leave him. He wouldn’t blame her if she does.
A little groan escapes his hazy disgust. The noise rouses Farrell into unfolding herself and going to his side. Sleepy, she rests her arms on the railing. She’s got dark circles under her eyes. Her eyes themselves … DaVinci eyes: big, dark and lashless. Wasn’t she wearing makeup the last time he saw her? How long ago was that? Yesterday? Two days ago? Last week?
“Hey, Owner, ça va?”
Owner? Matt and Ben call him The Owner, not Farrell. And since when did she start throwing French at him?
A truth drifts through him: She’s looking at me as though she doesn’t know me, and she doesn’t like what she sees.
“If you have a problem, forget it; nobody wants to be bothered with you.” Isn’t that what she said over dinner that night? She should go away and spare herself his misery.
Effen hears a brief, metallic noise close by. A strange male voice says, “Here, let me.” There’s a second sound as the railing comes down. Soft, light fingers brush tears from his eyelashes. Farrell creaks, “France, don’t.” She kisses his hair, his eyes, his cheek. She’s crying, too. The sound eases him back down to sleep.
Wilton drives Farrell to The House.
Her suitcases are at the back door. She can’t tell if they were put there by Elizabeth or by the peripatetic Bruton. Wilton carries them up to the flat, then asks Farrell to examine their contents to make sure nothing’s missing. Everything’s there, even her flutes and yesterday’s socks and underpinnings.
Wilton whistles low. “Wow, that lady couldn’t do you the courtesy of a laundry? She really wanted you out.”
Farrell thanks him for his help, then, in a move she thinks he’s been waiting for, offers to give him a tour of the flat and The House. He declines but says he won’t mind waiting while she looks around. She finds nothing. Wilton asks her to call him if she finds anything anywhere in The House. She promises she will.
Once Wilton leaves, she cries herself to sleep on the sleigh bed, too wasted to notice the specks of dried blood on the otherwise dignified, white flannel sheets.
Markham waves. A pen and a metal clipboard are shoved in Farrell’s hands.
“We need you to sign this.”
Farrell sees the words on the paper, but she’s too spent to understand what she’s reading.
“It’s a consent form for surgery. We need to stop the bleeding. Don’t you want to sign it?”
The signature emerges in a wavy scrawl worthy of a ninety-year-old in bad shape.
The woman hurries to the double doors across the room, speaking in flight. “Wow, he knew where to cut to get the best flow. What is he, a doctor?”
Farrell’s in no mood to shout the answer.
At that moment, a man sporting scrubs and a nearly impenetrable foreign accent asks her if Effen is allergic to any drugs. She doesn’t think so. The man wants to know what he’s been using.
Markham intervenes. “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Farrell bites. “He doesn’t ‘use’ anything. Look, Todd, you can go back to that house and search until the cow jumps over the moon. You’re not going to find anything. Believe me. I’ve known him for three years, and I’ve been with him twenty-four hours a day for the past few days. There is nothing in that house.”
“He's using something; he's got needle marks up his forearm. Maybe he doesn’t keep it in the house.”
In a weeping huff, Farrell crashes into a chair. “Oh, go back and get your search warrant. Have the run of the house while nobody’s there.” She’s too tired and stressed to fight nature. The tears pour.
The foreigner, whose origin is utterly indeterminable, taps her on the shoulder. “Don’t cry. We’ll sew him up and give him some blood. He’ll be okay. Understand me? Good. Not everybody does.” The man waits until he’s on the other side of the room before shouting, “He knew where to cut good. What is he, a doctor?”
Farrell slaps her head as the man recedes behind the doors.
Markham proposes getting something hot for everyone to drink and goes in search of the coffeeshop.
Wilton pulls a chair close to Farrell, who’s graduated to blowing her nose in the handkerchief that one of Brandon’s staff gave her at Gustie’s funeral. “You know, I am seriously tempted to tell the next person who asks that Mr. Hume taxiderms people for a living.”
Farrell is beyond humoring. “He’s not an addict, Mike. He wouldn’t even take painkillers when he needed them.”
“Yeah, but was that before or after he lost his wife and kids? I don’t want to sound like a pessimist, but there’s no way on earth that he can be the same person you knew. Not now. Not after what’s happened to his family.”
“Why can’t you stop speculating?”
“Well, maybe it’s a good thing we were speculating. Who knows what would have happened if we didn’t go back there? You know what I mean? He could be dead on the street. Or someone, maybe you, could have found his body in the morning. You don’t know. It really was better this way.”
Farrell fingers the handkerchief, too aware that people on the far side of the room are watching and listening. She resents their curiosity. She also understands it. She came into the emergency room accompanied by two police officers. They’ve been speaking about a crime. Blood steaks their darkly colored outerwear like shadows of bare branches on the earth.
Wilton lowers his voice. “Look, Farrell, I remember you from when you worked for the newspaper. You know we’re human. We know that not everyone who runs afoul of the law is a hard-core miscreant. There are extenuating circumstances, as any lawyer can tell you. If we nab Mr. Hume for something he shouldn’t have, it’s for his own good. Sure, the judge will give him the sentence required by law. But I’ll bet my badge that the honorable won’t turn a blind eye to what’s been going on in his life. He’ll suspend the sentence and put him on probation with a condition to get help. It’s too bad he had to learn he needed help the hard way.”
Farrell’s stare is fearless. “Mike, you sound like you want me to do something.”
Wilton shrugs. “I don’t deny it would help everyone if you talked to him. Find out what the stuff is. Where he got it from. He might be able to work out a nice deal with the prosecutor. And, as I said, I’m sure the judge will show mercy. He’s a tough cookie, but he’s not without compassion. I know. I’ve seen him in action So have you.”
It sounds reasonable. Farrell says she’ll do what she can. She can’t imagine life without Effen, but at the moment she feels sorry for herself. She considers how awful it is that she’s walked into such a monstrous problem. She has a vision of getting a cab, retrieving her car from the Fair Mantle Village parking lot and driving home to Mercer County, never to look back.
She’s not the only person aware of her unhappy position. When Effen comes to his senses and sees her curled up on the chair beside his bed, he remembers where he is and how he got there. He has no doubt that Farrell is burdened with trouble that shouldn’t be hers. He expects her to leave him. He wouldn’t blame her if she does.
A little groan escapes his hazy disgust. The noise rouses Farrell into unfolding herself and going to his side. Sleepy, she rests her arms on the railing. She’s got dark circles under her eyes. Her eyes themselves … DaVinci eyes: big, dark and lashless. Wasn’t she wearing makeup the last time he saw her? How long ago was that? Yesterday? Two days ago? Last week?
“Hey, Owner, ça va?”
Owner? Matt and Ben call him The Owner, not Farrell. And since when did she start throwing French at him?
A truth drifts through him: She’s looking at me as though she doesn’t know me, and she doesn’t like what she sees.
“If you have a problem, forget it; nobody wants to be bothered with you.” Isn’t that what she said over dinner that night? She should go away and spare herself his misery.
Effen hears a brief, metallic noise close by. A strange male voice says, “Here, let me.” There’s a second sound as the railing comes down. Soft, light fingers brush tears from his eyelashes. Farrell creaks, “France, don’t.” She kisses his hair, his eyes, his cheek. She’s crying, too. The sound eases him back down to sleep.
Wilton drives Farrell to The House.
Her suitcases are at the back door. She can’t tell if they were put there by Elizabeth or by the peripatetic Bruton. Wilton carries them up to the flat, then asks Farrell to examine their contents to make sure nothing’s missing. Everything’s there, even her flutes and yesterday’s socks and underpinnings.
Wilton whistles low. “Wow, that lady couldn’t do you the courtesy of a laundry? She really wanted you out.”
Farrell thanks him for his help, then, in a move she thinks he’s been waiting for, offers to give him a tour of the flat and The House. He declines but says he won’t mind waiting while she looks around. She finds nothing. Wilton asks her to call him if she finds anything anywhere in The House. She promises she will.
Once Wilton leaves, she cries herself to sleep on the sleigh bed, too wasted to notice the specks of dried blood on the otherwise dignified, white flannel sheets.
Chapter 36
Two of Todd’s Fair Mantle colleagues are driving Farrell and Elizabeth back from Newark.
It’s a weird situation. The Port Authority police suspect Farrell was indeed brought to the airport against her will, but they aren’t sure about Elizabeth’s role. Brut was unfindable, and so vehemently did Elizabeth refuse to talk without an attorney that she decided not to press charges against Farrell for the tackling. The two women sit on the cruiser’s hard, rear seat, separated by a garrulous detective who can’t speak of anything but Mount Can’t.
The grandfather clock in the foyer strikes midnight.
Tom takes Effen by the front of the blazer and pulls him up from the sleigh bed. He’s going to turn in. Effen should do the same. “Only this time, go to the john, for Christ’s sake. You hear me?”
Effen falls into Tom’s front, not asleep, but so relaxed that he drones a little snore. Were the police really here? Or was that a dream, too? It must have been a dream. If it were for real, he’d have done something to get away while the officer was here. Safety in numbers, as Tom always says.
Tom shakes him into becoming aware of the surroundings and tells him to go to the bathroom.
Effen rouses sufficiently to take himself to the prescribed destination and pay homage to nature. After washing his hands, he lets the water run.
Tom knocks on the door. “You all right?”
“Brushing my teeth.”
Effen picks up the glass, takes a deep breath and makes a quick Sign of the Cross.
Elizabeth storms into the police station. “I want to call my lawyer.”
“Mrs. Bruton, it’s midnight! Aren’t you concerned about the whereabouts of your husband?”
“I want my lawyer. I’m not saying another word until my lawyer is standing here beside me.”
The sergeant holds up his hands. “Whoa, Mrs. Bruton! Nobody’s under arrest.”
“I know, I want to make sure you nab the right person.”
She’s allowed to make her call from the sergeant’s desk.
Farrell’s position worsens. Her things are still at the Bruton house. Without Elizabeth’s cooperation, there’s no way she can retrieve them. And sleeping there is definitely out of the question. She needs help. She calls Effen again. Still no answer.
“He could be asleep,” the sergeant says. “But don’t worry. Markham saw him. Everything was fine.”
The sergeant promises to have somebody call Effen for her. She has to stay at the police station a little longer, anyway. A detective needs to take a statement about her detoured day.
Halfway through her statement, the detective is handed a note. Farrell won’t be reunited with Mr. Hume as quickly as everyone thought.
Farrell is losing her tolerance for strife. The tears rise. “You told me everything was all right. Markham saw him.”
“That’s the problem. Markham did see him.”
The sound of glass shattering on the tiles is closely followed by the sound of heavy weight falling against the door.
The door can’t open as quickly as Tom needs it to open. He knows what’s in the way. He manages to push both the door and Effen’s body into the room. It’s a full-size bath, big enough for the thick, white porcelain pedestal sink and a tub with claw feet. There’s plenty of room for two grown men.
Tom sees the glass but, so far, no blood. Effen’s landed on his side. There’s no blood around him or on his face. Tom feels the pulse in his neck. Christ, it’s fast. But that’s that shit for you. Makes your pulse race while it slows your heart. Should he call Brut?
Tom doesn’t see the shard of glass that slices his forehead and sends blood streaming into his eyes. He doesn’t see the knee that meets his groin as he leaps up, grabbing his face in a rage. He crumples to the floor.
Doing what Farrell so playfully demonstrated on the snowman, Effen stomps Tom into a still, silent lump, then lurches for the phone on the kitchen wall. Hoping that someone is out there, he hits 911 and leaves the phone off the hook. If the dispatchers are as good as the county says, the call will be traced. Police will arrive before Tom recovers.
He prays he’s out of The House by the time Tom recovers. He doesn’t know how he’s going to make it. The attack took too much out of him. He stumbles down the stairs, hugging the bannister to keep from falling. The exit from the back door is a tumble that leaves crawling halfway down the drive before he can get his legs under him. Once up, he pitches headlong into the street.
He wants to go to the police. He can’t. The station is at the south end of town. He would have to go through the town green, past Bruton’s house.
Bruton mustn’t see him. Bruton mustn’t know what happened.
Staggering in a labored trot, Effen crosses North Main Street, then heads east. He’s got to stay in the street. He’s got to stay in the light. He’s got to stay where someone other than Tom or Bruton will see him …
The sergeant knows what the statute says about people in possession of controlled dangerous substances, but he doesn’t want to leave the department open to accusations of illegal search, with or without a warrant.
Markham argues he’s got probable cause to go into The House without a warrant. “The light was blazing, and, I tell you, the guy’s eyes were bigger than a cat’s in the middle of the night. And he was slurring his speech. And the way I found out was inadvertent, just as the statue requires. I was told to go and see if anything was wrong, right? I went, and I just happened to see the way he was. I’m sure it’s enough to let me go in.”
The sergeant hedges. Is there really enough to support Markham’s suspicions? Can’t tell. They’ve got to call the municipal prosecutor.
Markham tries a last defense. “Look at it this way: if he was parked on the street, just sitting in a car, and you went up to him to see if everything was okay, and he was looked the way I described him, would you let him go, knowing he could drive away and maybe get into an accident? Or would you make him get out of the car and put him through the third degree?”
“The street is a public place,” the sergeant argues. “Besides, you let him go already. If you thought narcotics were involved, why didn’t you do something when you saw him?”
Yeah. Good question. What’s a good answer? He didn’t think of it until he was in a restaurant? That would make him look incompetent. He’s been on the force for less than a year. Can he afford to look incompetent?
Markham backs down. On the way out to his car, he’s stopped by Wilton, who thinks he’s discovered the answer to Markham’s prayers.
He nods toward Farrell, who is on the detective’s phone. She still can’t reach Effen. She can’t imagine why, and she can’t accept the detective’s explanation. Francis Hume doesn’t waste himself on that kind of recreation.
To the officers, there’s only one way to find out.
To Farrell, there’s only one way to make them see the truth.
All three cluster around the bell at The House’s back door. No answer. Wilton isn’t surprised. “He probably too far gone to hear it.”
Suspecting the worst, Markham tells Farrell to wait in his cruiser.
Farrell is not to be dissuaded. “Go in alone, and you’re in without a warrant. Come in with me, and you come in as guests.”
Markham tries the door. No sense in making a scene; the thing’s unlocked. Farrell heads straight for the flat.
The door is wide open. The lights are on. There’s no response to the knock on the door or the calling of Effen’s name. The kitchen is empty. So are the parlor, bedroom, dining room.
There’s glass and blood on the bathroom floor.
Markham answers his radio. The county intercepted a 911 call from that address. What’s going on?
Markham describes the scene. And, oh yes, the kitchen phone is hanging down the wall.
Wilton hurries after Farrell, who’s hallway down the stairs.
Markham takes one last look around. “And I thought a volcano in my yard was the damnedest thing I ever had to deal with …”
The streets are wet with runoff from the thawing snow. The air is warm, humid, full of spring. But for all the snow still on the ground, it really could be spring.
Effen doesn’t know how far he’s gone or how long he’s been trying to run. It could be a hundred yards; it could be a hundred feet. He isn’t moving as quickly as he’d like. And he’s all over the place: street, sidewalk, yards, driveways. Anyone who sees him must think he’s drunk, if not under the influence of something illicit. He hasn’t seen one policeman or National Guardsman. He looks to the darkened homes for signs of life. Should he find refuge in a garden? Should he burrow in the darkness of a backyard?
The way the air is coming out of him, he could be throwing up. He tries to catch his breath. A car veers around the corner.
Tom.
A second car approaches from behind.
Brut.
Yes, they would come after him.
He’s got to hide. In a yard.
He totters to the nearest lawn, then falls to his knees, unable to go farther. There’s nowhere to go, anyway. The cars are on either side of him.
He can’t run. He can’t go back.
He takes the piece of glass from his pocket. He knows anatomy as well as Brut. He opens his wrist so the blood runs like water from a tap. As he makes the cut, he ears a woman call his Christian name.
Augusta?
He’s hit from the side. Somebody says they can’t wait for medics. He’s loaded more than placed in a vehicle. Whatever he’s in, it takes off with a kick.
Someone is holding him. Not a woman. Not a girl.
Anne?
Dying’s not so bad, after all.
It’s a weird situation. The Port Authority police suspect Farrell was indeed brought to the airport against her will, but they aren’t sure about Elizabeth’s role. Brut was unfindable, and so vehemently did Elizabeth refuse to talk without an attorney that she decided not to press charges against Farrell for the tackling. The two women sit on the cruiser’s hard, rear seat, separated by a garrulous detective who can’t speak of anything but Mount Can’t.
The grandfather clock in the foyer strikes midnight.
Tom takes Effen by the front of the blazer and pulls him up from the sleigh bed. He’s going to turn in. Effen should do the same. “Only this time, go to the john, for Christ’s sake. You hear me?”
Effen falls into Tom’s front, not asleep, but so relaxed that he drones a little snore. Were the police really here? Or was that a dream, too? It must have been a dream. If it were for real, he’d have done something to get away while the officer was here. Safety in numbers, as Tom always says.
Tom shakes him into becoming aware of the surroundings and tells him to go to the bathroom.
Effen rouses sufficiently to take himself to the prescribed destination and pay homage to nature. After washing his hands, he lets the water run.
Tom knocks on the door. “You all right?”
“Brushing my teeth.”
Effen picks up the glass, takes a deep breath and makes a quick Sign of the Cross.
Elizabeth storms into the police station. “I want to call my lawyer.”
“Mrs. Bruton, it’s midnight! Aren’t you concerned about the whereabouts of your husband?”
“I want my lawyer. I’m not saying another word until my lawyer is standing here beside me.”
The sergeant holds up his hands. “Whoa, Mrs. Bruton! Nobody’s under arrest.”
“I know, I want to make sure you nab the right person.”
She’s allowed to make her call from the sergeant’s desk.
Farrell’s position worsens. Her things are still at the Bruton house. Without Elizabeth’s cooperation, there’s no way she can retrieve them. And sleeping there is definitely out of the question. She needs help. She calls Effen again. Still no answer.
“He could be asleep,” the sergeant says. “But don’t worry. Markham saw him. Everything was fine.”
The sergeant promises to have somebody call Effen for her. She has to stay at the police station a little longer, anyway. A detective needs to take a statement about her detoured day.
Halfway through her statement, the detective is handed a note. Farrell won’t be reunited with Mr. Hume as quickly as everyone thought.
Farrell is losing her tolerance for strife. The tears rise. “You told me everything was all right. Markham saw him.”
“That’s the problem. Markham did see him.”
The sound of glass shattering on the tiles is closely followed by the sound of heavy weight falling against the door.
The door can’t open as quickly as Tom needs it to open. He knows what’s in the way. He manages to push both the door and Effen’s body into the room. It’s a full-size bath, big enough for the thick, white porcelain pedestal sink and a tub with claw feet. There’s plenty of room for two grown men.
Tom sees the glass but, so far, no blood. Effen’s landed on his side. There’s no blood around him or on his face. Tom feels the pulse in his neck. Christ, it’s fast. But that’s that shit for you. Makes your pulse race while it slows your heart. Should he call Brut?
Tom doesn’t see the shard of glass that slices his forehead and sends blood streaming into his eyes. He doesn’t see the knee that meets his groin as he leaps up, grabbing his face in a rage. He crumples to the floor.
Doing what Farrell so playfully demonstrated on the snowman, Effen stomps Tom into a still, silent lump, then lurches for the phone on the kitchen wall. Hoping that someone is out there, he hits 911 and leaves the phone off the hook. If the dispatchers are as good as the county says, the call will be traced. Police will arrive before Tom recovers.
He prays he’s out of The House by the time Tom recovers. He doesn’t know how he’s going to make it. The attack took too much out of him. He stumbles down the stairs, hugging the bannister to keep from falling. The exit from the back door is a tumble that leaves crawling halfway down the drive before he can get his legs under him. Once up, he pitches headlong into the street.
He wants to go to the police. He can’t. The station is at the south end of town. He would have to go through the town green, past Bruton’s house.
Bruton mustn’t see him. Bruton mustn’t know what happened.
Staggering in a labored trot, Effen crosses North Main Street, then heads east. He’s got to stay in the street. He’s got to stay in the light. He’s got to stay where someone other than Tom or Bruton will see him …
The sergeant knows what the statute says about people in possession of controlled dangerous substances, but he doesn’t want to leave the department open to accusations of illegal search, with or without a warrant.
Markham argues he’s got probable cause to go into The House without a warrant. “The light was blazing, and, I tell you, the guy’s eyes were bigger than a cat’s in the middle of the night. And he was slurring his speech. And the way I found out was inadvertent, just as the statue requires. I was told to go and see if anything was wrong, right? I went, and I just happened to see the way he was. I’m sure it’s enough to let me go in.”
The sergeant hedges. Is there really enough to support Markham’s suspicions? Can’t tell. They’ve got to call the municipal prosecutor.
Markham tries a last defense. “Look at it this way: if he was parked on the street, just sitting in a car, and you went up to him to see if everything was okay, and he was looked the way I described him, would you let him go, knowing he could drive away and maybe get into an accident? Or would you make him get out of the car and put him through the third degree?”
“The street is a public place,” the sergeant argues. “Besides, you let him go already. If you thought narcotics were involved, why didn’t you do something when you saw him?”
Yeah. Good question. What’s a good answer? He didn’t think of it until he was in a restaurant? That would make him look incompetent. He’s been on the force for less than a year. Can he afford to look incompetent?
Markham backs down. On the way out to his car, he’s stopped by Wilton, who thinks he’s discovered the answer to Markham’s prayers.
He nods toward Farrell, who is on the detective’s phone. She still can’t reach Effen. She can’t imagine why, and she can’t accept the detective’s explanation. Francis Hume doesn’t waste himself on that kind of recreation.
To the officers, there’s only one way to find out.
To Farrell, there’s only one way to make them see the truth.
All three cluster around the bell at The House’s back door. No answer. Wilton isn’t surprised. “He probably too far gone to hear it.”
Suspecting the worst, Markham tells Farrell to wait in his cruiser.
Farrell is not to be dissuaded. “Go in alone, and you’re in without a warrant. Come in with me, and you come in as guests.”
Markham tries the door. No sense in making a scene; the thing’s unlocked. Farrell heads straight for the flat.
The door is wide open. The lights are on. There’s no response to the knock on the door or the calling of Effen’s name. The kitchen is empty. So are the parlor, bedroom, dining room.
There’s glass and blood on the bathroom floor.
Markham answers his radio. The county intercepted a 911 call from that address. What’s going on?
Markham describes the scene. And, oh yes, the kitchen phone is hanging down the wall.
Wilton hurries after Farrell, who’s hallway down the stairs.
Markham takes one last look around. “And I thought a volcano in my yard was the damnedest thing I ever had to deal with …”
The streets are wet with runoff from the thawing snow. The air is warm, humid, full of spring. But for all the snow still on the ground, it really could be spring.
Effen doesn’t know how far he’s gone or how long he’s been trying to run. It could be a hundred yards; it could be a hundred feet. He isn’t moving as quickly as he’d like. And he’s all over the place: street, sidewalk, yards, driveways. Anyone who sees him must think he’s drunk, if not under the influence of something illicit. He hasn’t seen one policeman or National Guardsman. He looks to the darkened homes for signs of life. Should he find refuge in a garden? Should he burrow in the darkness of a backyard?
The way the air is coming out of him, he could be throwing up. He tries to catch his breath. A car veers around the corner.
Tom.
A second car approaches from behind.
Brut.
Yes, they would come after him.
He’s got to hide. In a yard.
He totters to the nearest lawn, then falls to his knees, unable to go farther. There’s nowhere to go, anyway. The cars are on either side of him.
He can’t run. He can’t go back.
He takes the piece of glass from his pocket. He knows anatomy as well as Brut. He opens his wrist so the blood runs like water from a tap. As he makes the cut, he ears a woman call his Christian name.
Augusta?
He’s hit from the side. Somebody says they can’t wait for medics. He’s loaded more than placed in a vehicle. Whatever he’s in, it takes off with a kick.
Someone is holding him. Not a woman. Not a girl.
Anne?
Dying’s not so bad, after all.
Chapter 35
The Port Authority police are baffled. Farrell says she was kidnapped; Elizabeth says Farrell tried to mug her. It’s true that Farrell has no money, but it’s glaringly apparent that she really did not ask to be brought to the airport. She has no desire to go abroad, she didn’t drive here on her own, and she’s deathly afraid to fly.
The officers’ gut feeling that Farrell is telling the truth deepens when they can’t reach Bruton to confirm her story. The answering service doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t answer his beeper, and Elizabeth refuses to cooperate, saying her rights have been violated.
The police are reluctant to let their warring women go until they find Brut. Farrell asks to make a phone call. Her friend, and closest person she has to family, doesn’t know where she is. They let her use the pay phone near the dispatcher. A patrolman escorts her to the phone and waits by her side, lest she run off.
Effen doesn’t answer.
Odd. When Francis doesn’t answer, the calls go to Matt. If not Matt, then Ben. If not Ben, then the answering service. This evening there is … no one.
She calls the Fair Mantle Police. Since she doesn’t call 911, the dispatcher assumes it’s not an emergency and puts her on hold. The time runs out. So does her change.
The patrolman has a bored look. “No luck, huh. Try again later.”
She’d rather not believe later won’t be too late.
She follows the officer back inside, picks up a major daily left on a plastic chair. There’s a story about Fair Mantle on page three. It’s obviously a recap of what’s been going on. The funeral for Gustie and her daughters is previewed in the story. So are the names of the victims.
She shows the officers the story. Are they aware of what’s been going on in Fair Mantle? They say they are. She points out the paragraphs about the deaths, explaining in detail her connection to the victims and their father, and how Effen was prevented from going to the funeral. Now the phone is neglected. Wouldn’t they worry if somebody they knew and loved went through what Effen’s been going through, and then suddenly disappeared?
Her hosts don’t believe he’s “disappeared.” People have to be unreachable and in unknown circumstances for twenty-four hours before they’re considered “missing.” Since twenty-four hours haven’t passed, the police offer reasonable explanations: Effen forgot to forward the calls. He’s with Gustie’s family. He’s with a friend.
Elizabeth suggests he’s out drinking with her husband.
The officers express interest. Mrs. Bruton remembered where they can find her husband?
She concedes she was being flippant.
Close to tears, Farrell begs the police to let her call the Fair Mantle police and ask somebody to stop at The House to make sure everything is all right. The Fair Mantle police could even verify everything she’s told them about Effen and his family.
The lieutenant reaches for the phone, He’s just as anxious as anybody to find out what’s going on.
If he’s lucky, the whole mess will fall under Fair Mantle’s jurisdiction.
Tom hears a car in the drive.
Brut?
Impossible to see from so high up.
He creeps down to the second floor landing, sees something he never expected: The Law.
He shivers. Now what? Hide? Lie low? No. If nobody answers, the cop will think something’s wrong and find a way in.
He holds his breath. The officer shines his flashlight in the garage window.
The Cabriolet. Shit.
Tom drags Effen off the table, shakes him till his eyes open. “All right, you little weasel, fuck up and I’ll break your neck, understand?”
The officer looks in the ground-floor windows. No use. All is dark inside. He rings the front bell; waits. Rings the bell again; waits. Tries the door. It’s locked. Looks in the windows again. Goes around to the back door; rings the bell. No answer.
But the back door is open. In steps the officer.
“Anybody home?”
No answer.
“Mr. Hume?”
The officer shivers. Ooh-hoo, only one thing worse than a funeral parlor with a full house: an empty funeral parlor.
He turns on the kitchen light, than makes his way through the hallway, past the office and into the parlors, switching on lights wherever he goes.
Nobody. Or no body. Heh heh.
Better try the second floor.
At that moment the chandelier in the main stairway comes alive bright as the noonday sun.
Effen is on the landing in front of the flat. His manner is courteous but restrained. “Something wrong, officer?”
Grinning broadly, the patrolman continues his ascent. “Not now! A lady’s been trying to call you. She asked us to see if you were okay.”
“Sorry. I was taking a nap.”
The officer, a tall, fit young man, is short of breath by the time he reaches Effen on the landing. “Wow. Quite a climb. Reminds me of Big Round Top.”
“What?”
“Big Round Top. At Gettysburg. You know, the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the Civil war? Ever been to Gettysburg, Mr. Hume?”
“No.”
“Well, if you ever get there and go up Big Round Top, you’ll think of these stairs. Guaranteed.”
“I’ll remember that.”
The officer looks at Effen. “Everything okay?”
“As you see.”
“Right. Well, sorry to disturb you. Hope you understand.”
“Of course.”
The officer returns to whence he came. But he’s not gone yet. “You really should keep that back door locked,” he calls from down in the foyer. “We’ve got our eyes peeled, but we can’t be everywhere, ya know?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
The officer radios that Mr. Hume is where he belongs and all appears to be well.
Next stop: Bertie’s restaurant.
Bertie didn’t close shop when half the town vacated after the last tremor. She stayed open. People still had to eat somewhere if they didn’t feel like cooking for themselves.
Tonight the patrons are mostly state troopers and National Guardsmen and local police.
Effen’s visitor crashes into a booth. Agnes gives him a menu, fills the cup with regular coffee. “How’s it going, Todd?”
“Boring.”
The waitress winks. “Don’t worry. The volcano will fix that.”
Agnes has been serving Todd late lunch since he joined the force ten months ago. He can’t get over how much she reminds him of a cartoon piglet. She’s got two pink balls for cheeks, a broad, turned-up nose, and two little piggy eyes that have black pinpoints for pupils.
How awful for her. She’s such a nice lady.
He idly stirs the coffee, gazes past his reflection in the window into the night.
Suddenly he’s running out the door, hat in hand, yelling for Agnes to hold the omelet.
He lands on the driver’s seat and picks up his car’s radio at the same time.
“Hey, Sarge, I think I need a warrant.”
The officers’ gut feeling that Farrell is telling the truth deepens when they can’t reach Bruton to confirm her story. The answering service doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t answer his beeper, and Elizabeth refuses to cooperate, saying her rights have been violated.
The police are reluctant to let their warring women go until they find Brut. Farrell asks to make a phone call. Her friend, and closest person she has to family, doesn’t know where she is. They let her use the pay phone near the dispatcher. A patrolman escorts her to the phone and waits by her side, lest she run off.
Effen doesn’t answer.
Odd. When Francis doesn’t answer, the calls go to Matt. If not Matt, then Ben. If not Ben, then the answering service. This evening there is … no one.
She calls the Fair Mantle Police. Since she doesn’t call 911, the dispatcher assumes it’s not an emergency and puts her on hold. The time runs out. So does her change.
The patrolman has a bored look. “No luck, huh. Try again later.”
She’d rather not believe later won’t be too late.
She follows the officer back inside, picks up a major daily left on a plastic chair. There’s a story about Fair Mantle on page three. It’s obviously a recap of what’s been going on. The funeral for Gustie and her daughters is previewed in the story. So are the names of the victims.
She shows the officers the story. Are they aware of what’s been going on in Fair Mantle? They say they are. She points out the paragraphs about the deaths, explaining in detail her connection to the victims and their father, and how Effen was prevented from going to the funeral. Now the phone is neglected. Wouldn’t they worry if somebody they knew and loved went through what Effen’s been going through, and then suddenly disappeared?
Her hosts don’t believe he’s “disappeared.” People have to be unreachable and in unknown circumstances for twenty-four hours before they’re considered “missing.” Since twenty-four hours haven’t passed, the police offer reasonable explanations: Effen forgot to forward the calls. He’s with Gustie’s family. He’s with a friend.
Elizabeth suggests he’s out drinking with her husband.
The officers express interest. Mrs. Bruton remembered where they can find her husband?
She concedes she was being flippant.
Close to tears, Farrell begs the police to let her call the Fair Mantle police and ask somebody to stop at The House to make sure everything is all right. The Fair Mantle police could even verify everything she’s told them about Effen and his family.
The lieutenant reaches for the phone, He’s just as anxious as anybody to find out what’s going on.
If he’s lucky, the whole mess will fall under Fair Mantle’s jurisdiction.
Tom hears a car in the drive.
Brut?
Impossible to see from so high up.
He creeps down to the second floor landing, sees something he never expected: The Law.
He shivers. Now what? Hide? Lie low? No. If nobody answers, the cop will think something’s wrong and find a way in.
He holds his breath. The officer shines his flashlight in the garage window.
The Cabriolet. Shit.
Tom drags Effen off the table, shakes him till his eyes open. “All right, you little weasel, fuck up and I’ll break your neck, understand?”
The officer looks in the ground-floor windows. No use. All is dark inside. He rings the front bell; waits. Rings the bell again; waits. Tries the door. It’s locked. Looks in the windows again. Goes around to the back door; rings the bell. No answer.
But the back door is open. In steps the officer.
“Anybody home?”
No answer.
“Mr. Hume?”
The officer shivers. Ooh-hoo, only one thing worse than a funeral parlor with a full house: an empty funeral parlor.
He turns on the kitchen light, than makes his way through the hallway, past the office and into the parlors, switching on lights wherever he goes.
Nobody. Or no body. Heh heh.
Better try the second floor.
At that moment the chandelier in the main stairway comes alive bright as the noonday sun.
Effen is on the landing in front of the flat. His manner is courteous but restrained. “Something wrong, officer?”
Grinning broadly, the patrolman continues his ascent. “Not now! A lady’s been trying to call you. She asked us to see if you were okay.”
“Sorry. I was taking a nap.”
The officer, a tall, fit young man, is short of breath by the time he reaches Effen on the landing. “Wow. Quite a climb. Reminds me of Big Round Top.”
“What?”
“Big Round Top. At Gettysburg. You know, the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the Civil war? Ever been to Gettysburg, Mr. Hume?”
“No.”
“Well, if you ever get there and go up Big Round Top, you’ll think of these stairs. Guaranteed.”
“I’ll remember that.”
The officer looks at Effen. “Everything okay?”
“As you see.”
“Right. Well, sorry to disturb you. Hope you understand.”
“Of course.”
The officer returns to whence he came. But he’s not gone yet. “You really should keep that back door locked,” he calls from down in the foyer. “We’ve got our eyes peeled, but we can’t be everywhere, ya know?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
The officer radios that Mr. Hume is where he belongs and all appears to be well.
Next stop: Bertie’s restaurant.
Bertie didn’t close shop when half the town vacated after the last tremor. She stayed open. People still had to eat somewhere if they didn’t feel like cooking for themselves.
Tonight the patrons are mostly state troopers and National Guardsmen and local police.
Effen’s visitor crashes into a booth. Agnes gives him a menu, fills the cup with regular coffee. “How’s it going, Todd?”
“Boring.”
The waitress winks. “Don’t worry. The volcano will fix that.”
Agnes has been serving Todd late lunch since he joined the force ten months ago. He can’t get over how much she reminds him of a cartoon piglet. She’s got two pink balls for cheeks, a broad, turned-up nose, and two little piggy eyes that have black pinpoints for pupils.
How awful for her. She’s such a nice lady.
He idly stirs the coffee, gazes past his reflection in the window into the night.
Suddenly he’s running out the door, hat in hand, yelling for Agnes to hold the omelet.
He lands on the driver’s seat and picks up his car’s radio at the same time.
“Hey, Sarge, I think I need a warrant.”
Chapter 34
Effen isn’t entirely unaware of what’s going on. He knows the changing times of the day. He knows Tom is there. So is Brut. Whenever he starts to wake up, he’s given another helping of whatever Tom put into him the first time. The giddiness becomes nausea. Sometimes he’s hungry; sometimes he’s sick to his stomach. He thinks he retches. He’s certain he wets the bed.
He doesn’t care. He’s tired of life and the surprises of life and the never-ending duties of life. It’s good not to deal with them any more. His life is over.
He’ll never see Farrell again. Pity. Did he really make love to her? Did she really say she wanted to have his child? Did he really try to give her one? Farrell Schmidt? God, no. Farrell Schmidt would never suffer the indignity of begetting. It must have been one of those dreams we take for reality, yet know they aren’t real even as we dream them.
He shall miss Farrell. She’s unlike any woman he’s known, from mother to cousin to Gustie and business associates. She lacks arrogance. Vanity. Self-absorption. The tragedy of her life lay not in losing her home or her work or her last caring relative, but in her blindness. She couldn’t see her own worth. She couldn’t see the love of life and laughter that flowed through those great brown eyes and transformed that thin, childlike face into a DaVinci Madonna at a time when she more than anyone could have prospered most from the sight. She couldn’t see that beauty has nothing to do with big hair or structure or voluptuousness. It’s honesty, the capacity for friendship, the will to love, the ability to rejoice in the goodness of the world even in the midst of horror.
And beauty is the ability to carry on, no matter how badly that horror beats you down.
Will she miss him?
When she learns what has happened, will she be ashamed of him?
Will she be ashamed of herself for having loved him?
Is he ashamed of himself? For what? For Gustie? The girls? Everything?
He tries to push himself up, succeeds in falling against the wall. Contact with the plaster suggests that whoever pulled the jeans off him when he anointed the bed didn’t bother to put anything in their place, including shorts. Lovely. Now he’s got to waste time and strength dressing himself.
It’s evening. Tom is eating a sandwich over Fair Mantle’s weekly newspaper. He doesn’t hear anything from Effen’s room. Motion in the corner of his eye sends him jumping from the chair.
Effen steadies himself against the door frame. His syes are sunken and his color is off, but he’s fully dressed – jeans, blazer, hikers.
Tom is alarmed. He’s never known anyone who could or even wanted to fight that stuff. “How do you feel?”
The words come out with forced precision. “How do you think?”
Tom pushes the teapot toward him. “Maybe you should eat something.”
“Why? What did you load me up with?”
Tom looks at the paper. “You don’t need to know.”
Couldn’t be Valium, that’s for sure. Farrell had a Valium drip when she had her tooth out. Said it was the best dental experience of her life. Gave her a real rush. Put her in a terrific mood for three days.
Effen is decidedly not in a good mood. The only rush he feels is a wave of nausea. His head is heavy. The stuff is trying to drag him back to sleep.
Tom tells him to sit down before he falls down.
“Can’t. I’ve got to go downstairs. I’ve got to do the books.”
Tom snorts. “Forget it. You’ll never make it down the stairs. Besides, we don’t want lights down there.”
“This is a business. It should be lighted. It should appear that someone is here, else it could be looted. There are chemicals, you know.”
Tom admits The Owner has a point, but he doesn’t like the thought of him on the stairs. “Stay here, I’ll get the ledger.”
“There are a few books. Accounts receivable. Accounts payable. Cash disbursements. They’re in the lower left drawer of my desk.”
“So many books?”
“That’s why it’s called doing the books. Can’t keep everything in one journal. Need to keep track of clients, supplies, disbursements. Everything.”
“Right.” Tom never understood accounting.
Effen opens the books Tom brings him. His eyes acquire the fuzz of incomprehension seen on frustrated translators. He needs invoices. Tom refuses to go in search of the things. “Your damned business will have to wait.”
No, not the damned business. Everything.
Effen leans on the table, rests his head on his arms. He hasn’t read Tennyson’s The Lotus Eaters since college, but he remembers the blank verse as if he just turned the page: How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream with half-clos’d eyes, never to seem falling asleep in a half dream. Death is the end of life. Ah, why must life all labor be? There is no joy but calm. Give us long rest, or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.”
He doesn’t care. He’s tired of life and the surprises of life and the never-ending duties of life. It’s good not to deal with them any more. His life is over.
He’ll never see Farrell again. Pity. Did he really make love to her? Did she really say she wanted to have his child? Did he really try to give her one? Farrell Schmidt? God, no. Farrell Schmidt would never suffer the indignity of begetting. It must have been one of those dreams we take for reality, yet know they aren’t real even as we dream them.
He shall miss Farrell. She’s unlike any woman he’s known, from mother to cousin to Gustie and business associates. She lacks arrogance. Vanity. Self-absorption. The tragedy of her life lay not in losing her home or her work or her last caring relative, but in her blindness. She couldn’t see her own worth. She couldn’t see the love of life and laughter that flowed through those great brown eyes and transformed that thin, childlike face into a DaVinci Madonna at a time when she more than anyone could have prospered most from the sight. She couldn’t see that beauty has nothing to do with big hair or structure or voluptuousness. It’s honesty, the capacity for friendship, the will to love, the ability to rejoice in the goodness of the world even in the midst of horror.
And beauty is the ability to carry on, no matter how badly that horror beats you down.
Will she miss him?
When she learns what has happened, will she be ashamed of him?
Will she be ashamed of herself for having loved him?
Is he ashamed of himself? For what? For Gustie? The girls? Everything?
He tries to push himself up, succeeds in falling against the wall. Contact with the plaster suggests that whoever pulled the jeans off him when he anointed the bed didn’t bother to put anything in their place, including shorts. Lovely. Now he’s got to waste time and strength dressing himself.
It’s evening. Tom is eating a sandwich over Fair Mantle’s weekly newspaper. He doesn’t hear anything from Effen’s room. Motion in the corner of his eye sends him jumping from the chair.
Effen steadies himself against the door frame. His syes are sunken and his color is off, but he’s fully dressed – jeans, blazer, hikers.
Tom is alarmed. He’s never known anyone who could or even wanted to fight that stuff. “How do you feel?”
The words come out with forced precision. “How do you think?”
Tom pushes the teapot toward him. “Maybe you should eat something.”
“Why? What did you load me up with?”
Tom looks at the paper. “You don’t need to know.”
Couldn’t be Valium, that’s for sure. Farrell had a Valium drip when she had her tooth out. Said it was the best dental experience of her life. Gave her a real rush. Put her in a terrific mood for three days.
Effen is decidedly not in a good mood. The only rush he feels is a wave of nausea. His head is heavy. The stuff is trying to drag him back to sleep.
Tom tells him to sit down before he falls down.
“Can’t. I’ve got to go downstairs. I’ve got to do the books.”
Tom snorts. “Forget it. You’ll never make it down the stairs. Besides, we don’t want lights down there.”
“This is a business. It should be lighted. It should appear that someone is here, else it could be looted. There are chemicals, you know.”
Tom admits The Owner has a point, but he doesn’t like the thought of him on the stairs. “Stay here, I’ll get the ledger.”
“There are a few books. Accounts receivable. Accounts payable. Cash disbursements. They’re in the lower left drawer of my desk.”
“So many books?”
“That’s why it’s called doing the books. Can’t keep everything in one journal. Need to keep track of clients, supplies, disbursements. Everything.”
“Right.” Tom never understood accounting.
Effen opens the books Tom brings him. His eyes acquire the fuzz of incomprehension seen on frustrated translators. He needs invoices. Tom refuses to go in search of the things. “Your damned business will have to wait.”
No, not the damned business. Everything.
Effen leans on the table, rests his head on his arms. He hasn’t read Tennyson’s The Lotus Eaters since college, but he remembers the blank verse as if he just turned the page: How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream with half-clos’d eyes, never to seem falling asleep in a half dream. Death is the end of life. Ah, why must life all labor be? There is no joy but calm. Give us long rest, or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.”
Chapter 33
Bruton takes Farrell into a side chapel during Communion. “Trenton’s calling. The collections have to be moved. Now.”
She protests. “I’m a little busy?”
“We’re all busy.” He looks around, drops his voice to a whisper. “The volcano doesn’t care, and the volcano won’t wait for us to do what we want to do.”
Farrell promises to meet him at Fair Mantle Village. She’s got to stop at The House for a moment.
Brut takes her arm. “Farrell, please. We haven’t got time. If you stop at The House, you’ll stay at The House. Let me deal with Francis. The Guard is waiting.”
Farrell says she’ll go to Fair Mantle Village right away if Brut calls Effen right away. He agrees. He calls The House as he holds the passenger door open for Farrell.
The Guard is indeed waiting. This time the state means business. Transports are positioned in front of each Village building. There’ll be none of the lumbering around with the two solitary trucks used during the first evacuation.
Around four-thirty Brut ushers Farrell out of the visitors center. He’s called a car to bring her home to South Windsor, where she’ll be safe.
A man opens the back door of a dark Lincoln sedan parked on the path in front of the visitors center. Farrell holds back. Brut guesses the cause of her reluctance. “Don’t worry, we’ll get Francis down to you as soon as he makes arrangements for his business.” He gives Farrell a fatherly pat on the cheek. “I’ve always had your interests at heart, Farr. You’ll see.”
The driver says they’ll go down a local state highway, take another highway to the Garden State Parkway, and then get on the Turnpike.
Farrell would rather take the back route down Routes 202 and 206, but the driver’s way is quicker. She’s got to call Effen as soon as she steps in her door.
The driver is a pleasant, chatty professional, Farrell isn’t in the mood for conversation, but she figures it’s better than brooding.
They’re off the Parkway north of Newark earlier than Farrell expected. Suddenly they’re on the ramp to Newark International Airport.
Farrell leans on the driver’s seat. “What happened? Was somebody tailgating you, that you had to get off here?”
The man beams. “This is the only way to get to the British Airways terminal.”
British Airways? “Do you have somebody else to bring my way?”
“Haha, the doc thought you’d be surprised. See the armrest in the center of the seat back there? Pull it up.”
A packet of paperwork for travel arrangements is squished into the rectangular space beneath the lid. “Check it out! You’ve got two weeks at special guest quarters at Oxford University. There’s some kind of music seminar going on. You’ll see. It’s all there.”
So it is. Farrell’s surprise doesn’t stop her from wondering if Effen will join her on the plane. But reason kicks her fantasy out of the way. Effen’s wife and daughters are being buried. There is no way on earth that he belongs on a vacation trip to Oxford. No, Francis Hume can’t be included in this outing. Nor should she.
Elizabeth hugs Farrell inside the terminal door. “Darling! Isn’t my husband a gem? He promised me he’d make up for the vacation we missed last year. I never thought it would happen like this!”
Reason digs in. Farrell has no money or luggage. Her passport is in her bag only because she needed it as proof of citizenship when Brut hired her three weeks ago.
But money, luggage and passport are nothing. She’s not going to England.
She waves to a policeman.
Elizabeth runs.
Farrell, fit after walking around hilly Fair Mantle Village, catches up with her and brings Elizabeth down the way she toppled Effen.
A crowd gathers. Police intervene. A wailing Elizabeth wants Farrell arrested for assault.
The officers separate the two women and bring them in two different directions.
Elizabeth sobs in a whiny falsetto. “I’m so humiliated.”
Farrell shows none of the fear or feigned bravado that can consume targets of arrest. She looks the patrolman in the eye.
“This may sound odd, officer, but I think I’ve just been kidnapped.”
She protests. “I’m a little busy?”
“We’re all busy.” He looks around, drops his voice to a whisper. “The volcano doesn’t care, and the volcano won’t wait for us to do what we want to do.”
Farrell promises to meet him at Fair Mantle Village. She’s got to stop at The House for a moment.
Brut takes her arm. “Farrell, please. We haven’t got time. If you stop at The House, you’ll stay at The House. Let me deal with Francis. The Guard is waiting.”
Farrell says she’ll go to Fair Mantle Village right away if Brut calls Effen right away. He agrees. He calls The House as he holds the passenger door open for Farrell.
The Guard is indeed waiting. This time the state means business. Transports are positioned in front of each Village building. There’ll be none of the lumbering around with the two solitary trucks used during the first evacuation.
Around four-thirty Brut ushers Farrell out of the visitors center. He’s called a car to bring her home to South Windsor, where she’ll be safe.
A man opens the back door of a dark Lincoln sedan parked on the path in front of the visitors center. Farrell holds back. Brut guesses the cause of her reluctance. “Don’t worry, we’ll get Francis down to you as soon as he makes arrangements for his business.” He gives Farrell a fatherly pat on the cheek. “I’ve always had your interests at heart, Farr. You’ll see.”
The driver says they’ll go down a local state highway, take another highway to the Garden State Parkway, and then get on the Turnpike.
Farrell would rather take the back route down Routes 202 and 206, but the driver’s way is quicker. She’s got to call Effen as soon as she steps in her door.
The driver is a pleasant, chatty professional, Farrell isn’t in the mood for conversation, but she figures it’s better than brooding.
They’re off the Parkway north of Newark earlier than Farrell expected. Suddenly they’re on the ramp to Newark International Airport.
Farrell leans on the driver’s seat. “What happened? Was somebody tailgating you, that you had to get off here?”
The man beams. “This is the only way to get to the British Airways terminal.”
British Airways? “Do you have somebody else to bring my way?”
“Haha, the doc thought you’d be surprised. See the armrest in the center of the seat back there? Pull it up.”
A packet of paperwork for travel arrangements is squished into the rectangular space beneath the lid. “Check it out! You’ve got two weeks at special guest quarters at Oxford University. There’s some kind of music seminar going on. You’ll see. It’s all there.”
So it is. Farrell’s surprise doesn’t stop her from wondering if Effen will join her on the plane. But reason kicks her fantasy out of the way. Effen’s wife and daughters are being buried. There is no way on earth that he belongs on a vacation trip to Oxford. No, Francis Hume can’t be included in this outing. Nor should she.
Elizabeth hugs Farrell inside the terminal door. “Darling! Isn’t my husband a gem? He promised me he’d make up for the vacation we missed last year. I never thought it would happen like this!”
Reason digs in. Farrell has no money or luggage. Her passport is in her bag only because she needed it as proof of citizenship when Brut hired her three weeks ago.
But money, luggage and passport are nothing. She’s not going to England.
She waves to a policeman.
Elizabeth runs.
Farrell, fit after walking around hilly Fair Mantle Village, catches up with her and brings Elizabeth down the way she toppled Effen.
A crowd gathers. Police intervene. A wailing Elizabeth wants Farrell arrested for assault.
The officers separate the two women and bring them in two different directions.
Elizabeth sobs in a whiny falsetto. “I’m so humiliated.”
Farrell shows none of the fear or feigned bravado that can consume targets of arrest. She looks the patrolman in the eye.
“This may sound odd, officer, but I think I’ve just been kidnapped.”
Chapter 32
Effen refers Gustie’s family to a colleague in a neighboring town. The obsequies turn into morbid entertainment as the media obsesses over the mystery of the mother who would kill herself and her children. The deaths are a big story within a bigger story, and everybody wants to tell the biggest story.
Effen can’t leave The House, lest he be consumed by journalists. Brendan, the colleague, arranges a private visit past midnight, after deadline for the local papers, but it’s no use. Reporters are posted outside Brendan’s establishment around the clock. Farrell suggests asking the police for an escort to get Effen inside. The proposal is doused by the knowledge that nothing will stop the Fourth Estate from shouting questions and shooting photographs. The man whose calling in life has been to help others say goodbye to their loved ones can’t say goodbye to his own.
So Effen remains in The House, four floors above the ground, beyond the reach of ordinary daily doings. Matt and Ben run the business. They and Harry and Vince and other staffers stop by with words of comfort or to see how The Owner is doing. Harry’s wife cooks a pot roast dinner. The parts and parcels are delivered in a couple of roasting pans, wrapped in aluminum foil. Effen thanks Harry and his wife, who he’s always called Mrs. Harry, but he later tells Farrell he can’t understand why someone would want to do that sort of thing for him. He can just as easily call the market in town and ask Dave to deliver an order.
Farrell knows he’s not ungrateful. He’s a giver, unacquainted with being on the receiving end of humanity’s softer side. The enormity of that giving flowers in the night, when the visitors have gone and The House is closed and silent. Farrell can’t open herself wider or hold him in deeper, and she can’t stop herself from crying out as her body responds to what he’s doing to her. It’s not a matter of ecstasy for the sake of ecstasy. She’s never before known or appreciated why women wanted to have children with their particular men. Now she does know; she wants to give Effen a child, to somehow make up for what he’s lost. What he leaves in her has got to settle and grow. The thought of the process is as tactile and exciting as the process itself. The kiss of cool air between her legs as he leaves her is enough to prime her for more.
Come morning, Effen encourages Farrell to go to the funeral. She doesn’t want to leave him, but considers that, with Matt and Ben on the premises, she knows he won’t be alone. “Say a few prayers for me, too,” he says, adding an embrace that recalls the fervor of the last hour before dawn.
The scene at St. Mark’s, a little Romanesque church, is the mass enactment of grotesque diversion that Farrell’s feared. People who left Fair Mantle days before have returned, either to sincerely pay their respects or to be part of the event, The girls’ classmates cry into their parents’ coats. The press lurks inside and out, looking for willing interviewees, searching out the best angle for shooting pictures of the three white caskets.
Farrell sits at the end of a pew on a side aisle near the back of the church. Brendan, a dignified man in his sixties, asks her to give F.N. his regards; he’ll try to stop by later in the day. She wishes she could sit closer to Brendan and his staff. The Brutons haven’t showed, at least not yet. She would appreciate being able to sit with someone she knew when she first lived in Fair Mantle.
Father Alph is in white vestments and the choir sings hymns of eternal life and resurrection, but Gustie’s family is still in black and her mother and a lot of the congregation sob throughout Mass. Father Alph, she knows, has prepared a eulogy and has officiated at countless funerals during his career of thirty-some years. Still, upon ascending the pulpit he appears stricken. He can’t seem to open his mouth. When he manages to speak, his message of innocence and the promise of forgiveness emerges on a voice that cracks early and often. In a revelation that has reporters scratching furiously in their notebooks, he says that Gustie had left behind a written message saying only “Luke 23:34,” the line, in the Gospel of Luke, in which Christ on the Cross says of his executioners, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” “Augusta did indeed not know what she was doing. God alone knows why. And God alone will see that she is released from the torment drove her to act in the ultimate denial of hope.”
Farrell is as unable to control her tears as she was unable to control herself in bed. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of grief, she covers her face with her hands and surrenders to the sorrow, anger, angst and adoration that’s percolated within her since news of the deaths. The arm around her shoulders and the offer, in the voice of an unknown male, of a handkerchief are a kindness that make her cry harder. She wants to stay for Gustie and the girls, but she wants to leave. And she doesn’t want Effen to see what a mess she’s become. He might fall apart. She can’t let him suffer more than he’s been suffering.
Farrell doesn’t know that Effen has given the staff the day off. Contrary to what he’s told her, he is alone in The House.
He meant what he said when he told her to say a few prayers for him.
He’s known for several days that there really is one last thing he can do for his wife and daughters. A last something. Then everything will be finished.
The house is quiet now, and cold. He explains all in a letter to Farrell, then hides the letter amid the music on the harpsichord.
He silently rebuffed as cowardice the painkillers Bruton gave him after the incident at the farm. Now he twists off the child-resistant cap, fills a glass with water and downs the pills one after the other.
He’s seized from behind. His mouth is forced open. Something hard slips past his teeth and rams the back of his throat. The items he thought he just consigned to the innermost regions of his anatomy return to daylight on an explosive surge that doubles him over and keeps him heaving even after there’s nothing left to send up. He feels torn through the middle. The floor rocks. Tom Von Aldo’s yelling at him to stay awake. He’s draped over something hard. The impact knocks the wind out of him. A torrent of icy water pelts the back of his head and neck. He tries to get away, but he’s held fast. He screams.
Tom endures the resistance another moment, then turns off the tap, hauls Effen out of the sink and sits him at the table. Water streams from Effen’s hair; his collar and sweater are soaked. Panting for breath, he leans forward, rests his head on his arms. Tom pulls him back, asking him how he feels.
Effen would rather deal with another visitor: Bruton lounges against the refrigerator, an expression of deep interest on his colorless face. “Thought we’d better keep an eye on you.”
Effen doesn’t care. “Get out of my house.”
“My boy, we’re all in this together.”
“Not Gustie and the girls.”
Effen tries to stand. Tom pushes him down. “Shit, France, be reasonable. We know it’s gone too far. Don’t bring it any farther.”
“Don’t you understand what has happened here? It’s not suicide. It’s murder.”
Brut is cool. “That’s right, Gustie killed the girls. We didn’t make her do it. As for her suicide? Who knew she would do such a thing? Who knew anybody would go out of their mind over what was really little more than a dispute among scientists?”
Effen rips into Tom. “You should have known. You lived with her. How did you think she’d react, with joy?”
“I know only what she showed me. She didn’t speak of deep things. She was a surface creature. A loving companion and a good mother, yes, but a being totally unable to venture into the profundities of life. In brief – and I mean no disrespect for the dead – she was a whore, a classic, golden-hearted whore, like something out of a Victorian novel.”
The assessment, so crude and without remorse, stuns Effen. Wide-eyed, looking as lost as he feels, he says he wants to change into something dry. He lets Tom help him from the chair. “A whore?”
Tom reels from the blow to his jaw. Safe in his room, Effen locks the door and snatches the phone from the nightstand. He means to call the county prosecutor. In his haste, he misdials.
Tom kicks in the door. “France, will you think!”
Tom’s calling Effen by the friendly diminutive, but there’s nothing endearing in his attitude. If anything, he looks bigger and stronger than ever. He twists the phone from Effen’s hand and shoves him onto the sleigh bed. “Francis! Think! We’re all in this together. We all stay of one mind and there’ll be no trouble.”
“Leave him alone,” Bruton orders. “He’s overwrought. So are you.”
Tom backs off. Effen sits up against the wall, which, he discovers too late, is not a position to be in when someone’s approaching you with a loaded syringe.
Less than an hour ago, Effen was readyto take his life. Now his insides loosen with fear. He inches up the headboard.
Bruton rolls his eyes. “Christ Almighty, Francis, this is not something out of the cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It’ll calm you down.”
“The way I feel, you’re gonna need an elephant gun—“
Effen bolts.
You don’t muck out a stable day after day without developing some muscle and stamina. As Tom should have learned that last day at the farm, Effen has a lot more substance than meets the eye. Tom snares him in the parlor, but his lust for freedom turns his savaged escape into a scrap worthy of the schoolyard. In the end, chairs and lamps are upended, and Effen is being dragged out from under the kitchen table. The metal legs screech along the floor as he holds on. His hair is in his eyes; his sweater, shirt and tee are far north of his waist; his jeans are unsnapped and heading south.
This is definitely not Francis Hume’s style. Not when he was a kid; not when he was in college, and most certainly not now. What to do? Go down fighting, making himself look ridiculous? Or go down with a scrap of dignity, even if that dignity is hanging from him like a severed limb hanging to a torso by a fleshy thread?
Effen goes limp. They want to control him? Fine. They can scrape him off the floor.
Tom’s not sure what’s happened. “France?”
Effen says nothing. He just lies there, eyes closed, chest heaving, ready to cough from the fust on the floor.
Tom drags him into clear space, rolls him onto his back. His arm flops against the linoleum. “Francis?” The voice is distressed.
Effen swallows hard, trying not to flinch as hot, sweaty fingers tickle his neck, feeling for a pulse. Hot, sweaty fingers open his eyelids.
Tom’s lips part. What’s he going to say?
Bruton is pushing the syringe, a tourniquet and a couple of packaged antiseptic swabs into his hands, muttering something about arthritis in his knees acting up. “Must be the weather. Or the aggravation.”
Effen says nothing as Tom finds the vein in his forearm and empties the syringe. He just looks at Tom. There are no questions. No accusation. No emotion.
Tom has seen that look before. It’s the same look that Anne used to give Gustie. Unnerved, he asks Bruton for a Band-Aid.
The need for so small an item in so absurd a situation strikes Effen as one of the funniest thing’s he’s ever heard. “A Band-Aid?” he breathes, half-giggling.
Tom, who isn’t laughing, applies the item, then, with Bruton’s help, pulls the unsteady Effen to his feet. They can’t fool around, he’s saying; they’ve got only a few minutes.
A few minutes? A few minutes for what?
Effen feels as if he’s stepped into a bottomless hole. He’s falling fast and far, and he’s sure he’s going to splatter whenever he hits the floor, but he can’t stop giggling. He has something to say to Bruton. Something so obvious yet so clever, he’s ashamed he’s never thought to say it before now.
“Et tu, Brut?”
Bruton has no idea that the abuse of his name comes from Effen’s memory of a student performance of Julius Caesar, when a smart-ass classmate deliberately said “Et tu brute” instead of the proper Latin form of the assassin Brutus’s name, Bru-TAY.
He scowls and stands aside as Effen collapses, engulfed by the drug.
Effen can’t leave The House, lest he be consumed by journalists. Brendan, the colleague, arranges a private visit past midnight, after deadline for the local papers, but it’s no use. Reporters are posted outside Brendan’s establishment around the clock. Farrell suggests asking the police for an escort to get Effen inside. The proposal is doused by the knowledge that nothing will stop the Fourth Estate from shouting questions and shooting photographs. The man whose calling in life has been to help others say goodbye to their loved ones can’t say goodbye to his own.
So Effen remains in The House, four floors above the ground, beyond the reach of ordinary daily doings. Matt and Ben run the business. They and Harry and Vince and other staffers stop by with words of comfort or to see how The Owner is doing. Harry’s wife cooks a pot roast dinner. The parts and parcels are delivered in a couple of roasting pans, wrapped in aluminum foil. Effen thanks Harry and his wife, who he’s always called Mrs. Harry, but he later tells Farrell he can’t understand why someone would want to do that sort of thing for him. He can just as easily call the market in town and ask Dave to deliver an order.
Farrell knows he’s not ungrateful. He’s a giver, unacquainted with being on the receiving end of humanity’s softer side. The enormity of that giving flowers in the night, when the visitors have gone and The House is closed and silent. Farrell can’t open herself wider or hold him in deeper, and she can’t stop herself from crying out as her body responds to what he’s doing to her. It’s not a matter of ecstasy for the sake of ecstasy. She’s never before known or appreciated why women wanted to have children with their particular men. Now she does know; she wants to give Effen a child, to somehow make up for what he’s lost. What he leaves in her has got to settle and grow. The thought of the process is as tactile and exciting as the process itself. The kiss of cool air between her legs as he leaves her is enough to prime her for more.
Come morning, Effen encourages Farrell to go to the funeral. She doesn’t want to leave him, but considers that, with Matt and Ben on the premises, she knows he won’t be alone. “Say a few prayers for me, too,” he says, adding an embrace that recalls the fervor of the last hour before dawn.
The scene at St. Mark’s, a little Romanesque church, is the mass enactment of grotesque diversion that Farrell’s feared. People who left Fair Mantle days before have returned, either to sincerely pay their respects or to be part of the event, The girls’ classmates cry into their parents’ coats. The press lurks inside and out, looking for willing interviewees, searching out the best angle for shooting pictures of the three white caskets.
Farrell sits at the end of a pew on a side aisle near the back of the church. Brendan, a dignified man in his sixties, asks her to give F.N. his regards; he’ll try to stop by later in the day. She wishes she could sit closer to Brendan and his staff. The Brutons haven’t showed, at least not yet. She would appreciate being able to sit with someone she knew when she first lived in Fair Mantle.
Father Alph is in white vestments and the choir sings hymns of eternal life and resurrection, but Gustie’s family is still in black and her mother and a lot of the congregation sob throughout Mass. Father Alph, she knows, has prepared a eulogy and has officiated at countless funerals during his career of thirty-some years. Still, upon ascending the pulpit he appears stricken. He can’t seem to open his mouth. When he manages to speak, his message of innocence and the promise of forgiveness emerges on a voice that cracks early and often. In a revelation that has reporters scratching furiously in their notebooks, he says that Gustie had left behind a written message saying only “Luke 23:34,” the line, in the Gospel of Luke, in which Christ on the Cross says of his executioners, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” “Augusta did indeed not know what she was doing. God alone knows why. And God alone will see that she is released from the torment drove her to act in the ultimate denial of hope.”
Farrell is as unable to control her tears as she was unable to control herself in bed. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of grief, she covers her face with her hands and surrenders to the sorrow, anger, angst and adoration that’s percolated within her since news of the deaths. The arm around her shoulders and the offer, in the voice of an unknown male, of a handkerchief are a kindness that make her cry harder. She wants to stay for Gustie and the girls, but she wants to leave. And she doesn’t want Effen to see what a mess she’s become. He might fall apart. She can’t let him suffer more than he’s been suffering.
Farrell doesn’t know that Effen has given the staff the day off. Contrary to what he’s told her, he is alone in The House.
He meant what he said when he told her to say a few prayers for him.
He’s known for several days that there really is one last thing he can do for his wife and daughters. A last something. Then everything will be finished.
The house is quiet now, and cold. He explains all in a letter to Farrell, then hides the letter amid the music on the harpsichord.
He silently rebuffed as cowardice the painkillers Bruton gave him after the incident at the farm. Now he twists off the child-resistant cap, fills a glass with water and downs the pills one after the other.
He’s seized from behind. His mouth is forced open. Something hard slips past his teeth and rams the back of his throat. The items he thought he just consigned to the innermost regions of his anatomy return to daylight on an explosive surge that doubles him over and keeps him heaving even after there’s nothing left to send up. He feels torn through the middle. The floor rocks. Tom Von Aldo’s yelling at him to stay awake. He’s draped over something hard. The impact knocks the wind out of him. A torrent of icy water pelts the back of his head and neck. He tries to get away, but he’s held fast. He screams.
Tom endures the resistance another moment, then turns off the tap, hauls Effen out of the sink and sits him at the table. Water streams from Effen’s hair; his collar and sweater are soaked. Panting for breath, he leans forward, rests his head on his arms. Tom pulls him back, asking him how he feels.
Effen would rather deal with another visitor: Bruton lounges against the refrigerator, an expression of deep interest on his colorless face. “Thought we’d better keep an eye on you.”
Effen doesn’t care. “Get out of my house.”
“My boy, we’re all in this together.”
“Not Gustie and the girls.”
Effen tries to stand. Tom pushes him down. “Shit, France, be reasonable. We know it’s gone too far. Don’t bring it any farther.”
“Don’t you understand what has happened here? It’s not suicide. It’s murder.”
Brut is cool. “That’s right, Gustie killed the girls. We didn’t make her do it. As for her suicide? Who knew she would do such a thing? Who knew anybody would go out of their mind over what was really little more than a dispute among scientists?”
Effen rips into Tom. “You should have known. You lived with her. How did you think she’d react, with joy?”
“I know only what she showed me. She didn’t speak of deep things. She was a surface creature. A loving companion and a good mother, yes, but a being totally unable to venture into the profundities of life. In brief – and I mean no disrespect for the dead – she was a whore, a classic, golden-hearted whore, like something out of a Victorian novel.”
The assessment, so crude and without remorse, stuns Effen. Wide-eyed, looking as lost as he feels, he says he wants to change into something dry. He lets Tom help him from the chair. “A whore?”
Tom reels from the blow to his jaw. Safe in his room, Effen locks the door and snatches the phone from the nightstand. He means to call the county prosecutor. In his haste, he misdials.
Tom kicks in the door. “France, will you think!”
Tom’s calling Effen by the friendly diminutive, but there’s nothing endearing in his attitude. If anything, he looks bigger and stronger than ever. He twists the phone from Effen’s hand and shoves him onto the sleigh bed. “Francis! Think! We’re all in this together. We all stay of one mind and there’ll be no trouble.”
“Leave him alone,” Bruton orders. “He’s overwrought. So are you.”
Tom backs off. Effen sits up against the wall, which, he discovers too late, is not a position to be in when someone’s approaching you with a loaded syringe.
Less than an hour ago, Effen was readyto take his life. Now his insides loosen with fear. He inches up the headboard.
Bruton rolls his eyes. “Christ Almighty, Francis, this is not something out of the cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It’ll calm you down.”
“The way I feel, you’re gonna need an elephant gun—“
Effen bolts.
You don’t muck out a stable day after day without developing some muscle and stamina. As Tom should have learned that last day at the farm, Effen has a lot more substance than meets the eye. Tom snares him in the parlor, but his lust for freedom turns his savaged escape into a scrap worthy of the schoolyard. In the end, chairs and lamps are upended, and Effen is being dragged out from under the kitchen table. The metal legs screech along the floor as he holds on. His hair is in his eyes; his sweater, shirt and tee are far north of his waist; his jeans are unsnapped and heading south.
This is definitely not Francis Hume’s style. Not when he was a kid; not when he was in college, and most certainly not now. What to do? Go down fighting, making himself look ridiculous? Or go down with a scrap of dignity, even if that dignity is hanging from him like a severed limb hanging to a torso by a fleshy thread?
Effen goes limp. They want to control him? Fine. They can scrape him off the floor.
Tom’s not sure what’s happened. “France?”
Effen says nothing. He just lies there, eyes closed, chest heaving, ready to cough from the fust on the floor.
Tom drags him into clear space, rolls him onto his back. His arm flops against the linoleum. “Francis?” The voice is distressed.
Effen swallows hard, trying not to flinch as hot, sweaty fingers tickle his neck, feeling for a pulse. Hot, sweaty fingers open his eyelids.
Tom’s lips part. What’s he going to say?
Bruton is pushing the syringe, a tourniquet and a couple of packaged antiseptic swabs into his hands, muttering something about arthritis in his knees acting up. “Must be the weather. Or the aggravation.”
Effen says nothing as Tom finds the vein in his forearm and empties the syringe. He just looks at Tom. There are no questions. No accusation. No emotion.
Tom has seen that look before. It’s the same look that Anne used to give Gustie. Unnerved, he asks Bruton for a Band-Aid.
The need for so small an item in so absurd a situation strikes Effen as one of the funniest thing’s he’s ever heard. “A Band-Aid?” he breathes, half-giggling.
Tom, who isn’t laughing, applies the item, then, with Bruton’s help, pulls the unsteady Effen to his feet. They can’t fool around, he’s saying; they’ve got only a few minutes.
A few minutes? A few minutes for what?
Effen feels as if he’s stepped into a bottomless hole. He’s falling fast and far, and he’s sure he’s going to splatter whenever he hits the floor, but he can’t stop giggling. He has something to say to Bruton. Something so obvious yet so clever, he’s ashamed he’s never thought to say it before now.
“Et tu, Brut?”
Bruton has no idea that the abuse of his name comes from Effen’s memory of a student performance of Julius Caesar, when a smart-ass classmate deliberately said “Et tu brute” instead of the proper Latin form of the assassin Brutus’s name, Bru-TAY.
He scowls and stands aside as Effen collapses, engulfed by the drug.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Chapter 31
The following morning begins with services for Mr. Wells, who succumbed to old age, not any manifestation of Mount Can’t. Ben fields a phone call just as mourners start arriving shortly before ten. A woman is asking for Effen. Ben says it’s not Gustie. Could it be Farrell? Effen takes the call in his office.
Matt, who worked his way through school at a local supermarket, hears a distant noise that reminds him of a sack of potatoes flumping down on the floor. The sound is familiar, so Matt thinks nothing of it until Ben mentions it’s time to find The Owner, and Matt walks into the office to find The Owner in a senseless heap on the floor. The telephone receiver dangles over the side of the desk, banging against the sleek mahogany.
One of Effen’s House rules is “Be discreet.” If someone gets sick, don’t make a fuss; just do what has to be done. Blasting protocol, Matt shouts for help, then slams the receiver back in place. The phone rings. Matt grabs it. “What!”
A policewoman on is on the line. She says she didn’t like the way her conversation with Mr. Hume ended.
Ben races into the office as Matt dives out, hand to mouth. The receiver rocks on the desk. Perplexed, Ben looks from Effen to the phone. He hears the tinny voice and gingerly picks up the receiver. “Hello?” His voice is high and trembly. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve got two guys here who just keeled over from it.”
The woman tells him not to panic; an officer is on the way.
An officer?
By now the rest of the staff have caught the drift that things are out of the ordinary. Harry, an older man who worked for Effen’s uncle, sees Effen on the floor and goes into first aid mode.
Vince, another House “original,” asks Ben what happened.
Ben lowers the phone in a trance. “Man, I can tell this is one job we’re not gonna do …”
Farrell is playing with Jack in the kitchen when Effen calls. He’s sorry to bother her, but will she please come to The House right away. “We have a little emergency. I would really appreciate your help.”
An emergency? Now who? Mount Cant’ers? Matt? Ben? Old Harry?
She can’t bear to ask, but she guesses the emergency is bad news. Effen shouldn’t be home. He should be at the Wells funeral.
The sense of the unexpected peaks when The Owner opens the door. He’s wearing his funeral suit, but the tie is loose, the vest and collar are open, and the pallor of his face nearly matches the white of his shirt.
He doesn’t answer Farrell’s intense “What is it?” right away. He brings her to his office. The tea service is on the desk. Can things be that bad if he’s made tea?
“What is it?” she tries again.
He takes her coat, motions her to the sofa. “Have a seat.” His manner is Effen-courteous, but his appearance reminds Farrell that making sure someone is seated before imparting news does note bode well.
“Francis, what happened.” The words form an order to answer, not a question.
He reaches for the sugar bowl. “Two sugars and lots of cream, yes?” He places everything in the cup, then adds the Earl Grey. “I was wondering if you’d help out with a few notices.”
“Gustie called out?”
“Sit. Please.”
She does as he requests. Her heart’s in her ears. She doesn’t know if she’s going to go into cardiac arrest or throw up. “For heaven’s sake, Francis, just tell me what’s going on.”
He stirs the tea, but it seems to Farrell that he’s not seeing what he’s doing, and that he doesn’t know what to say. His reticence is making her feel more ill. She wants to shake the tidings out of him. When he finally speaks, he does so in the detached yet baffled meanderings of a Shakespearean character in a soliloquy.
“I know people who are the parents of teenagers. They tell me that one of the worst things about being the parents of teens is all the worrying over things they never imagined they’d worry about: Will their kids get in with the wrong crowd at school Will they start using drugs. Will they get into accidents with friends who’ve just begun to drive. Will they play a sport that leaves them paralyzed or worse. Will they go out to a party and never return. Gustie …” Farrell waits for the rest of the sentence to follow Gustie’s name. All she hears is the delicate chink of the spoon against the cup. The tea will be cold by the time she drinks it—if she ever feels like drinking it.
“Gustie,” Effen continues, “will never be one of those parents. She’s dead. So are the girls.”
Now Farrell doesn’t know what to say. Expressions of grief and horror seem trite and inadequate. She sits, barely breathing, stewing in a blend of disbelief and fascination, as she remembers Anne hugging Effen when he saved her from police custody the night of the hearing. For a moment, he was the hero every little girl dreams about but never finds in real life.
“We need to send notices to the newspapers,” he’s saying.
Farrell replies without thinking. “No, don’t trouble yourself. Let the funeral parlor take care of it.”
“The House is the funeral parlor.”
Farrell presses her hands to her mouth, determined not to become ill at the notion of Francis Hume practicing his profession on his own wife and daughters.
“How can I ask anyone else to do it?” he says in a tone that suggests he’s too aware of Farrell’s thoughts. “How can I possibly explain what this woman has done?”
For the first time, Farrell realizes she doesn’t know what led to the deaths but surmises the cause was unnatural. “What woman? Are you talking about Gustie? Why? What has she done?”
“A stupid thing, really. She ran the car in the garage. On purpose. The police found a note."
Effen's font of rhetoric appears to have dried. The emotional source, however, has not. Cup and saucer burst against the wall. The teapot, spoons, a decanter, and a cachepot with a philodendron follow. Each impact takes chunks out of the striped wallpaper. The philodendron slides to the floor, leaving a soily trail.
The barrage sends Farrell shrinking into the sofa cushions. The Francis Hume she knows can’t raise his voice to call across the hallway, let alone in anger. But this is more than anger. It’s the gross, mindless rage Ben Franklin called “that momentary madness.”
Farrell has had occasion to toss a few items herself. She knows there’s no sense in trying to reason with Effen. He needs physical persuasion. Recalling that long-ago lesson in self-defense, she finds her center of gravity, then brings him down with a carefully placed trip. She hangs on, hoping to break his fall, then pushes him on his back. She’s half kneeling: one knee’s on the floor, the other’s over the area below his belt, lest he need more preventative action.
Restraint may not be necessary. He doesn’t seem to know what hit. The look on his face suggests he’s thinking, “What am I doing down here?” and “What are you doing to me?” all at the same time.
Farrell keeps him down until she’s certain he’s all right. As she helps him up, he notices the marks on the wall. “I pitched baseball in high school.” He nods to a gouge near the sconce. “That must be the curveball. It always got away from me.” The observation is limp.
Swaddled in sudden, eerie tranquility, Effen kneels and starts collecting shattered glass and crockery. “At least the fax machine is unscathed.”
Farrell crouches beside him. “France, you can’t do it. It’s too much. Never mind what you’ve got to do. That’s bad enough. Think of what you’ll have to contend with: the grandparents, the schoolmates, the media. Especially the media! The facts of the case would attract the press under ordinary circumstances. But this is Mount Can’t. And Gustie was closely connected to Tom. I would be surprised if the media starts banging on your door as early as this afternoon. It all depends on how quickly word spreads, and on how quickly the prosecutor’s office releases the details.”
Now Effen’s collecting the delicate shrapnel with the same solemnity that Matt and Ben granted the snowman. “It’s all right, Farr. I want to do it. It’s the last thing I’ll ever be able to do for them.”
“You can’t. You’ll never get over it.”
“I’ll never get over if it I don’t do it.”
“Don’t do this to yourself! Please. You’ll be here alone at night.”
“I won’t be alone if they’re here.”
Farrell groans. Effen asks her not to be silly. “It’ll be no different from the old days, when people were waked in their homes. The family didn’t spend the night with neighbors just because Mom or Dad or little Betty was having an eternal nap in the living room.”
The telephone rings. Will Effen answer?
He shuffles toward the desk on his knees, then stops, and mutely beseeches Farrell.
It’s a reporter. Farrell refers the man to the prosecutor’s office. “They’re not going to give you a minute’s peace,” she tells Effen upon hanging up. The phone rings again. “They’ll parade in here with their notebooks and their lights and their tape recorders and they’ll strip the privacy away from every single person in this house, dead and alive.”
The phone continues to ring.
“But it’s the last thing I can do for them.”
“You said you’d never get over it if you didn’t do it. Are you sure you’ll be able to get over if it you do? Do it, and you’ll have the press latching on to the image of a husband and father burying his family in a way sane people can’t begin to imagine.”
“Farrell, it is the last thing—“
She bends over him, frames his face with her hands. “It’s the bravest, sweetest thing you can do. But not doing it should be the last thing you can do for them. Don’t send them off knowing you’re the one who helped turn their tragedy into a freak show. Say goodbye knowing you weren’t the one who wouldn’t let them rest in peace.”
Funny, what emotion can do to a body. First Effen was tossing housewares at the wall. Now he’s tired. Tuckered out, as Uncle Ed used to say. The trash in his hand is as heavy as the iron doorstop. He lets them drop to the floor, then circles Fsarrell’s waist as if hugging his pillow and rests the side of his head in the area between the first and second buttons of her blazer. The blazer hangs open. The tweedy edge lightly scratches his face, but the sweater beneath is soft (a mohair blend?).
Amn Farrell is warm. She smells of roses and jasmine and wool.He’s certain the perfume is Joy, but he wonders what kind of soap she uses. Crabtree and Evelyn? Caswell Massey? Plain old Ivory or something natural and trendy? And does she like long, hot baths? Or does she prefer a shower?
The telephone’s still ringing. Farrell doesn’t answer. She holds Effen, thoughtfully runs her hand through his hair. “What’ll it be, F.N.?”
The long, deep sigh denotes surrender. She’s right. It’s best to live knowing he’s not to blame for not letting Gustie and the girls rest in peace.
If only he can say it and mean it …
Matt, who worked his way through school at a local supermarket, hears a distant noise that reminds him of a sack of potatoes flumping down on the floor. The sound is familiar, so Matt thinks nothing of it until Ben mentions it’s time to find The Owner, and Matt walks into the office to find The Owner in a senseless heap on the floor. The telephone receiver dangles over the side of the desk, banging against the sleek mahogany.
One of Effen’s House rules is “Be discreet.” If someone gets sick, don’t make a fuss; just do what has to be done. Blasting protocol, Matt shouts for help, then slams the receiver back in place. The phone rings. Matt grabs it. “What!”
A policewoman on is on the line. She says she didn’t like the way her conversation with Mr. Hume ended.
Ben races into the office as Matt dives out, hand to mouth. The receiver rocks on the desk. Perplexed, Ben looks from Effen to the phone. He hears the tinny voice and gingerly picks up the receiver. “Hello?” His voice is high and trembly. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve got two guys here who just keeled over from it.”
The woman tells him not to panic; an officer is on the way.
An officer?
By now the rest of the staff have caught the drift that things are out of the ordinary. Harry, an older man who worked for Effen’s uncle, sees Effen on the floor and goes into first aid mode.
Vince, another House “original,” asks Ben what happened.
Ben lowers the phone in a trance. “Man, I can tell this is one job we’re not gonna do …”
Farrell is playing with Jack in the kitchen when Effen calls. He’s sorry to bother her, but will she please come to The House right away. “We have a little emergency. I would really appreciate your help.”
An emergency? Now who? Mount Cant’ers? Matt? Ben? Old Harry?
She can’t bear to ask, but she guesses the emergency is bad news. Effen shouldn’t be home. He should be at the Wells funeral.
The sense of the unexpected peaks when The Owner opens the door. He’s wearing his funeral suit, but the tie is loose, the vest and collar are open, and the pallor of his face nearly matches the white of his shirt.
He doesn’t answer Farrell’s intense “What is it?” right away. He brings her to his office. The tea service is on the desk. Can things be that bad if he’s made tea?
“What is it?” she tries again.
He takes her coat, motions her to the sofa. “Have a seat.” His manner is Effen-courteous, but his appearance reminds Farrell that making sure someone is seated before imparting news does note bode well.
“Francis, what happened.” The words form an order to answer, not a question.
He reaches for the sugar bowl. “Two sugars and lots of cream, yes?” He places everything in the cup, then adds the Earl Grey. “I was wondering if you’d help out with a few notices.”
“Gustie called out?”
“Sit. Please.”
She does as he requests. Her heart’s in her ears. She doesn’t know if she’s going to go into cardiac arrest or throw up. “For heaven’s sake, Francis, just tell me what’s going on.”
He stirs the tea, but it seems to Farrell that he’s not seeing what he’s doing, and that he doesn’t know what to say. His reticence is making her feel more ill. She wants to shake the tidings out of him. When he finally speaks, he does so in the detached yet baffled meanderings of a Shakespearean character in a soliloquy.
“I know people who are the parents of teenagers. They tell me that one of the worst things about being the parents of teens is all the worrying over things they never imagined they’d worry about: Will their kids get in with the wrong crowd at school Will they start using drugs. Will they get into accidents with friends who’ve just begun to drive. Will they play a sport that leaves them paralyzed or worse. Will they go out to a party and never return. Gustie …” Farrell waits for the rest of the sentence to follow Gustie’s name. All she hears is the delicate chink of the spoon against the cup. The tea will be cold by the time she drinks it—if she ever feels like drinking it.
“Gustie,” Effen continues, “will never be one of those parents. She’s dead. So are the girls.”
Now Farrell doesn’t know what to say. Expressions of grief and horror seem trite and inadequate. She sits, barely breathing, stewing in a blend of disbelief and fascination, as she remembers Anne hugging Effen when he saved her from police custody the night of the hearing. For a moment, he was the hero every little girl dreams about but never finds in real life.
“We need to send notices to the newspapers,” he’s saying.
Farrell replies without thinking. “No, don’t trouble yourself. Let the funeral parlor take care of it.”
“The House is the funeral parlor.”
Farrell presses her hands to her mouth, determined not to become ill at the notion of Francis Hume practicing his profession on his own wife and daughters.
“How can I ask anyone else to do it?” he says in a tone that suggests he’s too aware of Farrell’s thoughts. “How can I possibly explain what this woman has done?”
For the first time, Farrell realizes she doesn’t know what led to the deaths but surmises the cause was unnatural. “What woman? Are you talking about Gustie? Why? What has she done?”
“A stupid thing, really. She ran the car in the garage. On purpose. The police found a note."
Effen's font of rhetoric appears to have dried. The emotional source, however, has not. Cup and saucer burst against the wall. The teapot, spoons, a decanter, and a cachepot with a philodendron follow. Each impact takes chunks out of the striped wallpaper. The philodendron slides to the floor, leaving a soily trail.
The barrage sends Farrell shrinking into the sofa cushions. The Francis Hume she knows can’t raise his voice to call across the hallway, let alone in anger. But this is more than anger. It’s the gross, mindless rage Ben Franklin called “that momentary madness.”
Farrell has had occasion to toss a few items herself. She knows there’s no sense in trying to reason with Effen. He needs physical persuasion. Recalling that long-ago lesson in self-defense, she finds her center of gravity, then brings him down with a carefully placed trip. She hangs on, hoping to break his fall, then pushes him on his back. She’s half kneeling: one knee’s on the floor, the other’s over the area below his belt, lest he need more preventative action.
Restraint may not be necessary. He doesn’t seem to know what hit. The look on his face suggests he’s thinking, “What am I doing down here?” and “What are you doing to me?” all at the same time.
Farrell keeps him down until she’s certain he’s all right. As she helps him up, he notices the marks on the wall. “I pitched baseball in high school.” He nods to a gouge near the sconce. “That must be the curveball. It always got away from me.” The observation is limp.
Swaddled in sudden, eerie tranquility, Effen kneels and starts collecting shattered glass and crockery. “At least the fax machine is unscathed.”
Farrell crouches beside him. “France, you can’t do it. It’s too much. Never mind what you’ve got to do. That’s bad enough. Think of what you’ll have to contend with: the grandparents, the schoolmates, the media. Especially the media! The facts of the case would attract the press under ordinary circumstances. But this is Mount Can’t. And Gustie was closely connected to Tom. I would be surprised if the media starts banging on your door as early as this afternoon. It all depends on how quickly word spreads, and on how quickly the prosecutor’s office releases the details.”
Now Effen’s collecting the delicate shrapnel with the same solemnity that Matt and Ben granted the snowman. “It’s all right, Farr. I want to do it. It’s the last thing I’ll ever be able to do for them.”
“You can’t. You’ll never get over it.”
“I’ll never get over if it I don’t do it.”
“Don’t do this to yourself! Please. You’ll be here alone at night.”
“I won’t be alone if they’re here.”
Farrell groans. Effen asks her not to be silly. “It’ll be no different from the old days, when people were waked in their homes. The family didn’t spend the night with neighbors just because Mom or Dad or little Betty was having an eternal nap in the living room.”
The telephone rings. Will Effen answer?
He shuffles toward the desk on his knees, then stops, and mutely beseeches Farrell.
It’s a reporter. Farrell refers the man to the prosecutor’s office. “They’re not going to give you a minute’s peace,” she tells Effen upon hanging up. The phone rings again. “They’ll parade in here with their notebooks and their lights and their tape recorders and they’ll strip the privacy away from every single person in this house, dead and alive.”
The phone continues to ring.
“But it’s the last thing I can do for them.”
“You said you’d never get over it if you didn’t do it. Are you sure you’ll be able to get over if it you do? Do it, and you’ll have the press latching on to the image of a husband and father burying his family in a way sane people can’t begin to imagine.”
“Farrell, it is the last thing—“
She bends over him, frames his face with her hands. “It’s the bravest, sweetest thing you can do. But not doing it should be the last thing you can do for them. Don’t send them off knowing you’re the one who helped turn their tragedy into a freak show. Say goodbye knowing you weren’t the one who wouldn’t let them rest in peace.”
Funny, what emotion can do to a body. First Effen was tossing housewares at the wall. Now he’s tired. Tuckered out, as Uncle Ed used to say. The trash in his hand is as heavy as the iron doorstop. He lets them drop to the floor, then circles Fsarrell’s waist as if hugging his pillow and rests the side of his head in the area between the first and second buttons of her blazer. The blazer hangs open. The tweedy edge lightly scratches his face, but the sweater beneath is soft (a mohair blend?).
Amn Farrell is warm. She smells of roses and jasmine and wool.He’s certain the perfume is Joy, but he wonders what kind of soap she uses. Crabtree and Evelyn? Caswell Massey? Plain old Ivory or something natural and trendy? And does she like long, hot baths? Or does she prefer a shower?
The telephone’s still ringing. Farrell doesn’t answer. She holds Effen, thoughtfully runs her hand through his hair. “What’ll it be, F.N.?”
The long, deep sigh denotes surrender. She’s right. It’s best to live knowing he’s not to blame for not letting Gustie and the girls rest in peace.
If only he can say it and mean it …
Friday, March 4, 2011
Chapter 30
Tom Von Aldo does not go to The House.
Not long after leaving Bruton at the lake, he's killed by sulfuric gas in the region north of the glen, along with Johnson and Birdsall,who had been leading tourists on “volcano outings” – hikes around the woodland in search of volcanic activity. Of course there was no volcanic activity. The point of the outings was to show there was no volcano. The small fee charged for the sarcastic diversions benefited Fair Mantle Village’s educational programs.
The outings took place in a three-square-mile area around the glen. Johnson and Birdsall, who had resigned from the parks service, wanted to widen the area to five square miles. Before they could bring tourists into the area, they first had to explore it themselves. They asked Tom along so he would be among the first to see whatever they happened to find.
They didn’t return. It was past twilight when the Mount Cant’ers realized something was terribly wrong.
Unwritten Mount Can’t policy dictates keeping bad incidents quiet and keeping victims away from the Guard and the media. Accordingly, the bodies are taken from the site by pickup truck and transferred to private hearses on a secluded drive at the old reservoir three miles up the road.
Farrell is at the visitors center, waiting for Bruton to return from the site, when in walks Effen, his overcoat unsuccessfully hiding jeans and blazer. Matt and Ben and Harry are on their way to the reservoir Effen has already spoken to Gustie. He didn’t know that she was surrounded by Mount Cant’ers. The girls are with her parents.
“How are things here?”
Farrell can’t say. “The Villagers are shaken up, that’s for sure. But Brut doesn’t want gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts. We have to keep quiet. Can’t alarm the Guard.
”
“Are you alarmed?”
“I’m wondering it if wasn’t methane, a natural swamp gas found in wooded areas. There weren’t any tremors before it happened.”
“Sulfuric gas needn’t be released by tremors. Previous activity like what we had the other morning could have left fissures. The gas could vent through the fissures.”
“All right, now I’m alarmed.” The lines around her mouth tighten. Her face pales.
Effen strokes her cheek with the back of his hand. His smile is disturbed. “I was going to ask you to be there while I told Gustie. It would have been good to have some womanly support. For me, not for Gustie! Thank goodness, I’m not a policeman. I’d die before I made a living bearing sad tidings.”
Farrell’s never known him to be nervous, but he’s nervous tonight. She hears it in his voice. His hand is shaking worse than when he lit the cigarette during the hearing. “How did you, not the medical examiner, end up with everyone?”
The answer is frail. “The way I usually end up with everyone: a phone call. You know, you don’t need the examiner all the time. Only for suspicious deaths. These deaths weren’t suspicious.”
“But they were unnatural and unattended. And they were on state property.”
“Does it matter?”
Farrell hesitates. “I know you know your business, and I know Brut is well acquainted with procedure. I also appreciate why the Mount Cant’ers would want to do everything in their power to disasters under wraps. But this is sulfuric gas. It killed those guys. The authorities should know what’s happened here.”
“The authorities will know. In time. But right now, Tom and Johnson and Birdsall have to be moved without stirring up the press. And without stirring up the people. Think of what the people will say, Farr! They’ll say Tom was wrong and the state was right; there really is a volcano forming up here. Can’t you imagine what’s going to happen when people believe the thing is real?”
She doesn’t have to wait long. Vehicles are bumping down the lane in a frenzied escape from the park.
Farrell and Effen stand in the doorway, catching the draft of the retreat. They anticipate being trapped at the village for a few hours.
Farrell feels the flesh on her temples crawl up toward the crown of her head. It’s as if every hair is standing on end. The sound of all those heavy motors and bouncing steel bodies doesn’t help. She doesn’t deny it’s a good time to be seventy miles away. She moves away from the door.
Effen reaches out to her. “Are you all right?”
She nods, at the same time runs for the ladies room, where she heaves air. She’s not thrilled about throwing up, but it’s better to retch nerves, not lunch.
When she’s finished, Effen, who ran in after her, takes her in his arms and clutches her as though shielding her from a world ready to explode in their faces.
By midnight, the National Guard reclaims Mount Can’t, putting it off limits to the public. No one can return, not even the staff of Fair Mantle Village. The collections will be moved at a later date.
As word of the deaths spreads, so does panic. A mob descends on Borough Hall, demanding to know why the state didn’t evacuate everybody as soon as the volcano had been discovered.
Elected officials and pastors plead for calm. Medical experts say it’s likely the deaths were caused by methane, not sulfur. It doesn’t matter. Nothing works. Terrified residents take their children out of school, pack of belongings and flee town. Some board up windows in the hope of warding off looters in their absence. People intent on staying are also intent on preserving their property at any cost: proprietors of hunting stores in neighboring towns report record sales of rifles and sidearms.
The exodus jams the road out of town. State troopers direct traffic while local police keep an eye out for looters. National Guard Military Police roll into town to help keep away the curious, mostly by setting up checkpoints and coughing along in open-top Jeeps.
Though the town is closed, the state doesn’t order an evacuation. Residents and business people can come and go as they please.
Within twenty-four hours the town has lost nearly two-thirds of its population. Panic has been replaced by a hush Effen likens to the stillness of a person unable to leap from the railroad tracks before the train hits.
Services for Tom and Johnson and Birdsall have yet to be arranged.
Effen goes to see Gustie at the cottage she shared with Tom. The girls are still with her parents. Though it’s afternoon, she’s in nightgown and robe. She’s been crying, Her nose is red; her face is puffy. Her eyes are now dry and glazed. It seems to Effen that it takes her a moment to recognize him. Unnerved, Effen offers to return. He thinks she’s going to shut the door in his face. He follows her stare to the envelope in his hand, an unaddressed business envelope with the name and address of The House on the back flap. “I wish I could give you as much every week. It’s not as easy as it used to be, now that the horselets are gone.” He holds out the envelope.
Gustie doesn’t seem to notice that she’s still holding open the door and Effen’s standing at the threshold. Why won’t she let him in? Should he ask to come in? Should he just go in?
She steps back as he edges between her and the doorframe. She doesn’t stop him from closing the door. Can she guess what he’s going to say? “I really think you and the girls shouldn’t stay around here. I’d like you to go to my parents in Virginia.”
The news has no effect on Gustie, whose muteness reminds Effen of that day in his office. “If you’re not going to speak to me, why did you answer the door?”
The cottage is cold. It would be. The door was open. Or has she set the thermostat low to conserve the heating bill?
“At least it’s warmer in Virginia. And my parents would love to see you and the girls. I spoke to them this morning.”
She stares. At him.
“If you don’t bring the girls to Virginia, I’ll bring them myself. They can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”
“What’s not safe.” Effen senses derision in what she says, which is a flat-toned statement, not a question. “I remember the cat you had in your frat house. The thing had been crying at your door all day. You and the guys had local animal control trap it and take it away, then you adopted it when nobody claimed it. You brought it back to the pound when you saw it had worms.”
What’s this got to do with getting out of Fair Mantle? “As I recall, we were all peeved at the vet for releasing the animal in that condition. We didn’t trust her to remedy the situation. Besides, that’s ancient history. Nothing to do with what’s happening here.”
“You laughed when you told me the story.”
“I might have laughed. I was only nineteen. And I was living with a horde that covered the pizza with the stuff you drain from spaghetti sauce instead of the sauce. They’d thrown out the real sauce, remember? They didn’t act out of malice They meant well. They weren’t chefs, that’s all.”
“The business with the cat was wrong, and the pizza sauce was wrong. You knew better both times, yet you didn’t try to make your friends see what they were doing.”
“They weren’t my friends. They were associates. You don’t understand much about the business world, Gust. You’ve got to make alliances. Life is a never-ending exercise in politics. Sometimes you compromise. Sometimes war breaks out. Now please go to Virginia before something worse than war erupts here.”
“Will you join us there?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“As soon as I’m certain that Matt and Ben can handle things on their own.”
“They’ve already had practice.”
Is she pressuring him to go with her? He wants to assure her with a kiss. He decides she might think he’s manipulating her. Perhaps he is. He places the envelope in her hands. “Go. I’ll catch up with you.”
Effen leaves Gustie confident he’s done everything he can to convince her to leave Fair Mantle. He doesn’t see how long she stays where he’s left her. When she does choose to act, she showers, changes, and says a rosary which she puts in her pocket. She calls her parents and asks them to bring the girls home; she’d like to bring them to a private memorial service the rangers have organized for that evening.
Gustie says nothing about going to Virginia. She doesn’t want her parents to be hurt by her decision to take away the girls. She won’t even kiss her parents goodbye, lest she cause them more distress – and incite their suspicion.
She tells the girls they’re going to Nana’s farm in Virginia. The car’s already packed. All they’ve got to do is go.
She buckles them into the back seat and shivers as she starts the car. “Brrr, it’s cold! Mommy’s going to warm up the car before we leave, okay?”
The girls don’t see Mommy placing an envelope on the seat beside her.
The garage door is still closed.
They don’t see that, either.
Not long after leaving Bruton at the lake, he's killed by sulfuric gas in the region north of the glen, along with Johnson and Birdsall,who had been leading tourists on “volcano outings” – hikes around the woodland in search of volcanic activity. Of course there was no volcanic activity. The point of the outings was to show there was no volcano. The small fee charged for the sarcastic diversions benefited Fair Mantle Village’s educational programs.
The outings took place in a three-square-mile area around the glen. Johnson and Birdsall, who had resigned from the parks service, wanted to widen the area to five square miles. Before they could bring tourists into the area, they first had to explore it themselves. They asked Tom along so he would be among the first to see whatever they happened to find.
They didn’t return. It was past twilight when the Mount Cant’ers realized something was terribly wrong.
Unwritten Mount Can’t policy dictates keeping bad incidents quiet and keeping victims away from the Guard and the media. Accordingly, the bodies are taken from the site by pickup truck and transferred to private hearses on a secluded drive at the old reservoir three miles up the road.
Farrell is at the visitors center, waiting for Bruton to return from the site, when in walks Effen, his overcoat unsuccessfully hiding jeans and blazer. Matt and Ben and Harry are on their way to the reservoir Effen has already spoken to Gustie. He didn’t know that she was surrounded by Mount Cant’ers. The girls are with her parents.
“How are things here?”
Farrell can’t say. “The Villagers are shaken up, that’s for sure. But Brut doesn’t want gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts. We have to keep quiet. Can’t alarm the Guard.
”
“Are you alarmed?”
“I’m wondering it if wasn’t methane, a natural swamp gas found in wooded areas. There weren’t any tremors before it happened.”
“Sulfuric gas needn’t be released by tremors. Previous activity like what we had the other morning could have left fissures. The gas could vent through the fissures.”
“All right, now I’m alarmed.” The lines around her mouth tighten. Her face pales.
Effen strokes her cheek with the back of his hand. His smile is disturbed. “I was going to ask you to be there while I told Gustie. It would have been good to have some womanly support. For me, not for Gustie! Thank goodness, I’m not a policeman. I’d die before I made a living bearing sad tidings.”
Farrell’s never known him to be nervous, but he’s nervous tonight. She hears it in his voice. His hand is shaking worse than when he lit the cigarette during the hearing. “How did you, not the medical examiner, end up with everyone?”
The answer is frail. “The way I usually end up with everyone: a phone call. You know, you don’t need the examiner all the time. Only for suspicious deaths. These deaths weren’t suspicious.”
“But they were unnatural and unattended. And they were on state property.”
“Does it matter?”
Farrell hesitates. “I know you know your business, and I know Brut is well acquainted with procedure. I also appreciate why the Mount Cant’ers would want to do everything in their power to disasters under wraps. But this is sulfuric gas. It killed those guys. The authorities should know what’s happened here.”
“The authorities will know. In time. But right now, Tom and Johnson and Birdsall have to be moved without stirring up the press. And without stirring up the people. Think of what the people will say, Farr! They’ll say Tom was wrong and the state was right; there really is a volcano forming up here. Can’t you imagine what’s going to happen when people believe the thing is real?”
She doesn’t have to wait long. Vehicles are bumping down the lane in a frenzied escape from the park.
Farrell and Effen stand in the doorway, catching the draft of the retreat. They anticipate being trapped at the village for a few hours.
Farrell feels the flesh on her temples crawl up toward the crown of her head. It’s as if every hair is standing on end. The sound of all those heavy motors and bouncing steel bodies doesn’t help. She doesn’t deny it’s a good time to be seventy miles away. She moves away from the door.
Effen reaches out to her. “Are you all right?”
She nods, at the same time runs for the ladies room, where she heaves air. She’s not thrilled about throwing up, but it’s better to retch nerves, not lunch.
When she’s finished, Effen, who ran in after her, takes her in his arms and clutches her as though shielding her from a world ready to explode in their faces.
By midnight, the National Guard reclaims Mount Can’t, putting it off limits to the public. No one can return, not even the staff of Fair Mantle Village. The collections will be moved at a later date.
As word of the deaths spreads, so does panic. A mob descends on Borough Hall, demanding to know why the state didn’t evacuate everybody as soon as the volcano had been discovered.
Elected officials and pastors plead for calm. Medical experts say it’s likely the deaths were caused by methane, not sulfur. It doesn’t matter. Nothing works. Terrified residents take their children out of school, pack of belongings and flee town. Some board up windows in the hope of warding off looters in their absence. People intent on staying are also intent on preserving their property at any cost: proprietors of hunting stores in neighboring towns report record sales of rifles and sidearms.
The exodus jams the road out of town. State troopers direct traffic while local police keep an eye out for looters. National Guard Military Police roll into town to help keep away the curious, mostly by setting up checkpoints and coughing along in open-top Jeeps.
Though the town is closed, the state doesn’t order an evacuation. Residents and business people can come and go as they please.
Within twenty-four hours the town has lost nearly two-thirds of its population. Panic has been replaced by a hush Effen likens to the stillness of a person unable to leap from the railroad tracks before the train hits.
Services for Tom and Johnson and Birdsall have yet to be arranged.
Effen goes to see Gustie at the cottage she shared with Tom. The girls are still with her parents. Though it’s afternoon, she’s in nightgown and robe. She’s been crying, Her nose is red; her face is puffy. Her eyes are now dry and glazed. It seems to Effen that it takes her a moment to recognize him. Unnerved, Effen offers to return. He thinks she’s going to shut the door in his face. He follows her stare to the envelope in his hand, an unaddressed business envelope with the name and address of The House on the back flap. “I wish I could give you as much every week. It’s not as easy as it used to be, now that the horselets are gone.” He holds out the envelope.
Gustie doesn’t seem to notice that she’s still holding open the door and Effen’s standing at the threshold. Why won’t she let him in? Should he ask to come in? Should he just go in?
She steps back as he edges between her and the doorframe. She doesn’t stop him from closing the door. Can she guess what he’s going to say? “I really think you and the girls shouldn’t stay around here. I’d like you to go to my parents in Virginia.”
The news has no effect on Gustie, whose muteness reminds Effen of that day in his office. “If you’re not going to speak to me, why did you answer the door?”
The cottage is cold. It would be. The door was open. Or has she set the thermostat low to conserve the heating bill?
“At least it’s warmer in Virginia. And my parents would love to see you and the girls. I spoke to them this morning.”
She stares. At him.
“If you don’t bring the girls to Virginia, I’ll bring them myself. They can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”
“What’s not safe.” Effen senses derision in what she says, which is a flat-toned statement, not a question. “I remember the cat you had in your frat house. The thing had been crying at your door all day. You and the guys had local animal control trap it and take it away, then you adopted it when nobody claimed it. You brought it back to the pound when you saw it had worms.”
What’s this got to do with getting out of Fair Mantle? “As I recall, we were all peeved at the vet for releasing the animal in that condition. We didn’t trust her to remedy the situation. Besides, that’s ancient history. Nothing to do with what’s happening here.”
“You laughed when you told me the story.”
“I might have laughed. I was only nineteen. And I was living with a horde that covered the pizza with the stuff you drain from spaghetti sauce instead of the sauce. They’d thrown out the real sauce, remember? They didn’t act out of malice They meant well. They weren’t chefs, that’s all.”
“The business with the cat was wrong, and the pizza sauce was wrong. You knew better both times, yet you didn’t try to make your friends see what they were doing.”
“They weren’t my friends. They were associates. You don’t understand much about the business world, Gust. You’ve got to make alliances. Life is a never-ending exercise in politics. Sometimes you compromise. Sometimes war breaks out. Now please go to Virginia before something worse than war erupts here.”
“Will you join us there?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“As soon as I’m certain that Matt and Ben can handle things on their own.”
“They’ve already had practice.”
Is she pressuring him to go with her? He wants to assure her with a kiss. He decides she might think he’s manipulating her. Perhaps he is. He places the envelope in her hands. “Go. I’ll catch up with you.”
Effen leaves Gustie confident he’s done everything he can to convince her to leave Fair Mantle. He doesn’t see how long she stays where he’s left her. When she does choose to act, she showers, changes, and says a rosary which she puts in her pocket. She calls her parents and asks them to bring the girls home; she’d like to bring them to a private memorial service the rangers have organized for that evening.
Gustie says nothing about going to Virginia. She doesn’t want her parents to be hurt by her decision to take away the girls. She won’t even kiss her parents goodbye, lest she cause them more distress – and incite their suspicion.
She tells the girls they’re going to Nana’s farm in Virginia. The car’s already packed. All they’ve got to do is go.
She buckles them into the back seat and shivers as she starts the car. “Brrr, it’s cold! Mommy’s going to warm up the car before we leave, okay?”
The girls don’t see Mommy placing an envelope on the seat beside her.
The garage door is still closed.
They don’t see that, either.
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