In the Night Season (28 page)

S
HAW WALKED INTO HIS APARTMENT
and felt for the first time as though he might cave in. All the nerves of his mind were jumping. He wanted a drink. The room was a mess—clothes strewn on every surface, newspapers, books and magazines piling up, dishes stacked in the small sink. He thought of Edward Bishop, living alone in that big old farmhouse. Bishop going through the last day of his life, putting music on, perhaps fussing in the kitchen or tidying up—being the only sound in his house—or looking at his deck of pornographic playing cards, the private little peccadillo of a lonely middle-aged man.

Shaw believed that he himself probably deserved to be alone. But these were thoughts that made for sleeplessness, or worse.

On his answering machine was a message, forwarded to him from the dispatcher at work, from Susan Jones requesting an exclusive interview with him in the morning, before he made his standard report to the gathered media about the latest development in the case: they had all got wind of the young man who tried to claim responsibility for the murder. Susan Jones wanted to know if Shaw could arrange for her to photograph Greg Cullen, or perhaps even speak to him. Would Cullen be indicted? She had it, on good author
ity, that Cullen knew who else was involved and had given names. In any case, she hoped Shaw would call her in the morning. There was also a rather terse communication from Mr. Lombard. Had it been the perpetrator of the Bishop murder who slaughtered his cattle? And while Mr. Lombard realized the relative insignificance of his cattle when put next to a murder, would there be any compensation for him if and when the guilty parties were brought in? He wished for better and more frequent information from the police about the progress of things.

Shaw turned the machine off and sat at the kitchen table drinking a big glass of ice water. He put the glass in the sink and began putting things away. But he lacked the will for it now. He dialed Eloise’s number, and she answered sleepily. “I’m sorry, I guess it’s pretty late,” he said.

“Not really,” she said. “You know me. I never go to bed early.”

He could think of nothing whatever to say. He was alone and didn’t want to be, and there wasn’t an answer for it.

“Dad went out somewhere. God, I don’t think he’s back yet.”

“Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Isn’t it a little late, and cold?”

“What time is it?”

“It’s almost eleven.”

She said nothing for a moment. “Aw, Jesus, Phil.”

“You want me to come over there?” Shaw asked.

She was silent.

“Well?”

“He walks down to the lake and sits and watches the moon. It’s so cold out. He did this last night and came back and couldn’t understand why I was upset.”

“I’ll be up there in a while,” he told her.

In the cabinet over the small sink was a bottle of blue curaçao that he had once used to make martinis back in the days when he and Carol were both drinking in the evenings, after Mary was in bed.

He wanted a drink very badly.

He went to the cabinet and brought out the bottle of curaçao and poured a little into a shot glass. He sat at the kitchen table and stared into its ocean-colored depths, turning the glass. Eleven years since the boy’s death. Eleven years and nine and a half hours.

He brought the glass to his lips, and the odor searched up through his nasal passages. It made him weak. He set the drink down and put his hands flat on either side of the glass. The blue martinis, a tablespoon of curaçao with equal parts vodka and gin, had been Carol’s special drink, at first. He had drunk mostly whiskeys—Irish, Scotch, and bourbon. The occasional Canadian, for its flavor of rye. He had been one of those drinkers who liked the taste of the various kinds of liquor. He had not had much taste for vodka or gin. Except putting them together with the curaçao. Only toward the end, when it had ceased to matter what he took—when he was seeking, always, and as quickly as possible, the effect.

As in the present circumstance.

He took hold of the glass again, then put it down without taking his hand from it. He waited. How long had it been since he had drunk anything? Two years, two months, three days, two hours. No. He went to the sink, poured it down the drain, closed the bottle, and put it back in the cabinet. Blue curaçao, no. He would not fall off the wagon with something Carol might use.

He went out into the cold. The night was clouded over. The faintest glow of the moon was visible in a thinness of cloud, almost directly above the line of trees bordering the apartment house. He drove into town to the county mental health clinic. As he crossed the asphalt lot, he had an image of himself asking someone, anyone in there, for help. He showed his badge to the young man sitting behind the desk and requested to see Greg Cullen. The young man had unhealthy-looking skin and long, stringy hair. “Visiting hours were over at nine o’clock, sir.”

Shaw showed his badge. “Would he be asleep?”

“I don’t think he is, no.”

“Well?”

The other seemed doubtful.

“You want to call the commonwealth attorney? This is not a visit, as in family calls, you see. If he’s awake, I need to talk to him.”

“All right.”

Greg Cullen was sitting on the bottom bunk in a small room with cinder-block walls and aluminum-framed windows. The top bunk was bare mattress. There were eyeglasses, a small stack of paper cups, and a plastic pitcher of water on the nightstand. This looked like any hospital room.

Cullen was apparently medicated, sitting vacantly with his hands folded on one thigh watching television—some cartoon sitcom. He was just a kid. Shaw looked into the dull eyes.

“Do you mind having a visitor?” the young attendant said.

Cullen stared. “No,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

The attendant left the room, and Shaw took the empty chair next to the bed. He said nothing for a moment.

Cullen watched television. When a commercial came on, he turned to Shaw. His eyes were almost colorless. “Well?” he said.

“I wanted to talk to you about Edward Bishop.”

“I killed him,” Cullen said.

“Tell me about it.”

“Nothing to tell.”

“I’d like to hear it anyway.”

“The other guy took what I had to say.”

“He did—you weren’t ever in the house.”

Cullen didn’t answer this.

“Son?”

“I killed him,” Cullen said.

“How?”

The cartoon show had come on again, and he watched it, his face blank, the stare of someone far away.

“Hey, buddy,” Shaw said. “Come on, give me something here.”

“What do you want?”

“I want the truth.”

The other’s eyes welled up. “I’ve been sitting here thinking about it. All day. I’ve been sitting here going over it in my mind.”

Shaw leaned forward. “Going over what?”

“I might as well have killed him.”

Shaw stood. “You’re the sender. The Virginia Front—all that.”

“I never thought anyone would get hurt.”

“You did it all alone.”

“I’m sorry.” Cullen started to weep. “I should be punished. I killed him.”

“You never got any closer to him than his mailbox,” Shaw said.

Cullen looked at him. “I don’t know how these others—the ones who called—” He halted, sniffling. “I don’t know.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t
know
,” Cullen said. “That’s the thing. It was just me. I was making the letters and going around putting them in the mailboxes. I didn’t tell anybody else. I know Mrs. Michaelson at the school, and I heard some of the teachers talking about her friend. I had been sending all the others—the other letters, and she—she was such an ice queen with me. That was all. I just wanted to scare them. I don’t know who these others are—but I started it all. I’m the one that got it started. I don’t even really feel that way—you know, about them. The blacks and the Jews and Catholics. I thought I could just use it to make them notice. It was just to make them notice—”

“What did you want them to notice, son?”

The other sobbed. “Me.”

Shaw took a tissue from the box of them on the bedside and handed it to him. Cullen wiped his whole face.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Shaw left him there and went out into the cold. There were bitter, needlelike crystals of ice in the air; the sky was disappearing fast behind a moving continent of thick clouds, a storm coming. On a summer day, you would look for lightning forking out of clouds like that. He got in his car, picked up his radio mike, then put it back. He would wait until he knew more.

On an impulse, he drove to Steel Run, past the Bishop farm, and stopped in the road across from the Michaelson house. There were lights on upstairs and down. He turned the engine off, got out, and stood leaning on the car door, listening. There was no hint of move
ment. It was possible that she needed to keep all the house lights burning. He wanted to go knock on her door, ask if he could come in and talk. A light in the upstairs went out. He kept watching. Nothing else moved or changed. The wind had lessened, momentarily, and even so the night seemed to be folding into ice. He watched the other windows wink out, one by one.

T
RAVIS WANTED HER TO KEEP AWAY
from the windows. She had gone through the rooms, turning the lights on, and he had followed. Irrationally—and she knew this—it seemed to her that she might get through this night if there were lights. But in the car, on the way here, she had remembered his overtures earlier in the day. Everything was in question now—and the fact that he had kept from Reuther what they had found frightened her all the more. Reuther still had Jason. She was beginning to believe that if they could find the chips, Travis would take them and leave her alone to deal with Reuther. Except that Travis’s brother was still back there. Perhaps Travis thought that if he could get the chips, he could bargain with Reuther. But why, then, had Reuther trusted him at all?

She had to stop thinking in these paranoiac circles.

Travis called to her from the master bedroom. “Come here.”

She stood still. She was in the hallway and had thought he was still behind her.

“Look at this,” he said.

She stepped to the doorway and saw that he was standing by the closet door, pushing it into the jamb and letting it come back open. It seemed to bend and then let go, opening slowly as if the slant of the
house were pulling it. He flicked the switch on the wall and nothing happened.

“That light in there hasn’t worked for years,” she told him.

He closed the door again and watched it come open. Then he reached up to the top of the frame and ran his hand along it, toward the top hinge. He brought his hand down. His fingers were black. “You don’t do much housework, do you?”

She did not respond.

He stepped into the space just inside the closet and moved the door, running his hands along the inside frame of it. “Lookie lookie, sugar cookie,” he said and ripped something, a small sandwich bag—sized strip of adhesive, to which was attached a tag and a key. He held it out to her. “What’s this?”

“I don’t know.”

He held the tag out. “Bryce Mountain Storage.”

“When we first moved here, we stored some things there.”

“You know what this is?” he said. He came toward her, brandishing it. “This is it. I’ll bet anything.”

She was silent.

He put the tag and the key in his shirt pocket. “Damn straight,” he said. Then he pushed past her, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her down the stairs into the living room. “You know this is it. He gouged out the damn frame and stuffed it in and taped it right where the hinge attaches.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “And even if it is, we still need the contract. Whatever he signed.”

“I got the key,” he said. “And the tag, with a number on it.”

“You’ll still need me. They won’t let you near the storage pallet, key or no key. You can’t just walk in there and use it. I’m Jack’s wife, remember?”

“You knew where they were all along, didn’t you?”

“No,” she said. “I didn’t.” She paused. “We used the place years ago to store furniture. We kept it there for a month—I haven’t been back there since. It isn’t a place that leapt to mind while I worried about my family being murdered by thugs for something I had no knowledge of.”

“You should’ve thought of it in the first minute. You might’ve saved all of us a whole lot of trouble.”

She made no answer to this.

“Yeah,” he said. “Well—we’ve got it. That’s the important thing. This is it, lady doll. This is salvation.”

Now he sat in the living room, his legs stretched out before him, watching television. There was about him the attitude of a man who believes he has the time to plan his course of action. He had clasped his hands behind his head. His foot agitated, a nervous tic. She sat on the other side of the room, out of the line of the television screen. It was a movie about detectives, and there were car chases. Shouts and gunfire. She had a woozy, sickening sense that this was her life now; this would only change with her death.

“Every one of these cop shows is a fucking cartoon,” he said bitterly.

She said, “What happens when we get the chips?”

He said, “Listen.”

She waited. The voices went on in the movie. Squealing brakes, more shouts, more shots. “I need to know,” she said.

He seemed not to have heard.

“My parents—my son. Me. Tell me.”

“Shut up, will you?”

“What will Reuther do?”

“Will you listen?”

She hesitated a moment, then stood. “I’m going into the kitchen.”

“Just remember where your boy is.”

The little saw blade in her shoe had formed a bad blister. It was hard to walk without limping. In the kitchen, she opened the cabinet and brought out a loaf of bread. She knew she should eat, though she felt no hunger at all. She buttered a slice and tried to chew it, but it wouldn’t go down. She washed her mouth out. Her foot was bleeding, she was sure of it now. She bent down and put a finger into her shoe, trying to move the little blade.

“Got a stone in your shoe?” He was in the doorway.

She straightened quickly. “No. An itch.”

“You limped.”

“No.”

“You ain’t had a bath today, huh.” Behind him, the TV still played. Music, now. Some commercial about stocks and investments.

“If the cartons—the chips—are at this storage place—” she began.

“We take them back to Reuther and Bags.”

“Then what?”

“I think me and Bags might have to deal with Reuther.”

She waited for him to continue.

“Bags fucked up bad with that business next door. There’s no doubt about it. He’s crazy as they come and getting worse all the time. And things’ve changed with Reuther. I’ve been noticing—I think he’s pretty much arrived at the conclusion that since he’s here now, he won’t need two partners once he knows where to get his hands on the merchandise. Anyway, that’s what I’d be thinking.”

“He won’t—” She stopped. She couldn’t say it. The terror went through the marrow of her bones.

“Well,” Travis said. “Let’s just put it this way. Bags kills stupid. You know? And Reuther—well, Reuther kills smart.”

She interrupted him. She couldn’t help herself, anger climbing up through the panic-stricken center of her. “And you, Travis. How do
you
kill?”

His expression was passive. He simply took her in. But when he spoke, there was an edge of regret in his voice. “To tell the truth, I’m a little worried about Reuther.”

She took a step away from him and felt the blade cutting the skin of her foot. The nerves of her legs shook, forking currents of shock into her hips and on up her spine. She put her hands on the counter.

“Tell me the truth,” he said, behind her. “Haven’t you come around to liking me just a little bit?”

This pure misreading of her, the unbelievable irrelevance of it, brought her close to a kind of insane hilarity: she almost
laughed in his face. “Please,” she said. “I’m sick. I’m going to be sick.”

“That’s what your boy said, and he slithered right out of the house.”

“I mean it.”

He hadn’t moved from where he was, standing there in the entrance of the room. He watched her.

“The one in Seattle—he’s—he’s—is he with Reuther?” she managed.

“Oh.” Travis smiled. “It looks like we’re all with Reuther.”

“You know what I mean, goddammit.”

“Rickerts was an army buddy of mine. And Jack’s. Remember? Don’t cuss like that.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

He sighed, but stayed where he was.

“What will he do?” she got out. “Your friend in Seattle.”

“He’ll do what I say, I think.”

She took a step toward him. “Will you tell him to leave my parents alone?”

He had stopped smiling. “Not now, I won’t. They’re my trump card.”

“You already have my cooperation,” she said. “I don’t care about anything else. I just want my boy safe. My family back. I’ll do anything.
Anything
. Do you understand me?”

He said, “Did you just have this thought?”

“Do you understand me?” she said.

He pondered this, staring. Then he nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “I do understand. But—well. There’s still Reuther to consider.”

“Oh, come
on
,” she said. “For Christ’s sake. You know what I’m talking about. Will I have your help?”

After a pause, he said, “This exchange is what I think it is?”

“Have you been listening to me?”

“We’re not just talking about the chips?” There was a lubricious leer on his face now.

“You’re as dense as your brother,” she said through a shiver. She was thinking that she would actually go through with it.

He was looking at her body. “We’ll have some fun,” he murmured. “Your call.”

She turned to the sink, ran the tap, and laved the cold water over her face. He waited in the doorway, with that look of unappeased appetite playing in his features.

When the telephone rang in the hall, she cried out and saw that he had jumped. The two of them moved to the telephone table, and he picked up the handset and gave it to her. She hesitated, said, “Yes?” And she heard the murmur of words rushing at her. “I’m with your parents and they’re safe. I gave them the gun. I never wanted anybody to get hurt.”

“Who is it?” Travis hissed, trying to get close enough to hear.

She took a step away, turning. “This is Nora Michaelson.”

Her mother’s voice came from the other end. “Nora?”

“Yes,” Nora said.

“It’s true, baby.”

Travis was trying gingerly, without sound, to pull the receiver from her ear, so he could listen. She gripped it tightly with both hands. “I can’t talk right now, officer.”

The connection was broken immediately.

She spoke into the dial tone. “I know, but it’s late. I don’t have anything else to tell you. Good-bye.”

Travis took hold of her neck from the back and pulled the handset from her. He put it to his ear. Then he hung it up and took hold of her arm above the elbow. “Who was that?”

“It was that detective,” she said. “He wanted to ask me some more questions.”

“You think I’m some kind of idiot?” Travis pulled her to him. “You asked me about how
I
killed? I’ll tell you. I kill
expedient
. You understand? Now who was that?”

“I just
said
who it was.”

“I might just kill you right now,” he said.

He was choking her. She felt her legs go, and he was holding her up. Her feet had left the floor. Then she was standing again.

He’d let go.

She gasped. “Oh, God—”

He dragged her along the hallway into the little downstairs bedroom with its clutter of hastily reassembled furniture, its shards of mattress stuffing. She did not try to resist and still it became a struggle; her knees hit the floor hard. The muscles of her upper arm, where he still gripped her, felt as if they might pull away from the bone. He let go. They were just inside the doorway of the room. Then he reached down and took her feet, pulled at the shoes, turned himself around, holding her foot tightly between his legs, and worked on her until he had pulled the shoe off and was holding the blade of the hacksaw, turning to wave it at her in a kind of demented triumph.

“Well,” he said. “What’s this? Hmm?” He was doing Reuther, imitating the accent, the mannerisms. “What have we here, hmm?”

“I don’t care,” she said, gasping through the pain. “I don’t care anymore. I don’t care. If you do anything to me, if you hurt me or let those pigs hurt my boy, I won’t help you.”

He shouted, “Just tell me who was on the fucking phone!”

“I told you who it was. Why don’t you believe me? You want me to make something up? It was my husband, back from the dead. He wanted to apologize for everything.”

Travis reached down and put his arm around her neck, holding the little blade to her face just at the chin. “You never called that guy ‘officer’ today. Why’d you do it this time?”

She couldn’t speak until he let go. When he did, she coughed for a few seconds, aware of him standing over her. “When all this is over,” she said, “maybe I’ll have some ideas about why my behavior was so fucking inconsistent. Jesus
Christ
.”

A few seconds later, she said, “I don’t give a fuck whether you believe me or not anymore.”

He stepped past her, out along the hall. “Give me your parents’ number again.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

She did so. He pushed the buttons angrily and waited.

“I won’t help you, if you don’t help me,” she said.

He waited for the connection to go through. He had turned partly away from her, though she understood that if she moved, he would see it out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t care,” she said to him.

“Well, we’ll just go back and get your little boy and we’ll see who doesn’t care.” He waited. She thought she heard him say “come on” under his breath.

“Please,” she said. She had put both hands to the floor, supporting herself. “Can’t you just leave me alone. If you leave me alone, and let my son go, I’ll help you get what you came for.”

He spoke into the line. “Let me speak to Ricky.” He waited a second. “This is somebody who wants to speak to Ricky, goddammit.” A moment later, he said, “Is everything all right there? What do you mean, what do I mean? I asked if everything is all right there. Oh, well great. I’m glad to hear the fucking rain stopped, Ricky. That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. Just remember it’s a murder rap if you fuck it up. Understand me? Keep that the fuck uppermost in your mind.”

He slammed the phone down. “Fuck,” he said. “Something’s fucked. I can feel it.”

She got to her feet. The saw blade had cut her—she was bleeding into her sock.

He came quickly to her and grasped her again by the already bruised, sore part of her upper arm. He pulled her into the living room and sat down on the sofa, forcing her to sit next to him. For a minute he flicked through the television channels madly. His action seemed to have no relation to anything. He turned the TV off. “Come on,” he said. “We’re gonna turn off the lights.”

She said, “I don’t think so.”

He smiled. A cold, fleeting gesture that involved no other part of his countenance—just the parted, thin lips, showing teeth. “You’ve got opinions now.”