The Auctioneer

The author acknowledges with thanks the grant from the Radcliffe Institute, which helped make the writing of this book possible.

TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER

1

The fire rose in a perfect cone as if suspended by the wisp of smoke that ascended in a straight line to the high spring sky. Mim and John dragged whole dry saplings from the brush pile by the stone wall and heaved them into the flames, stepping back quickly as the dead leaves caught with a hiss.

Four-year-old Hildie heard the truck coming even before the old sheep dog did. She scampered to the edge of the road and waited impatiently. It was Gore’s truck, moving fast, rutting deeply in the mud and throwing up a spray on either side. John and Mim converged behind Hildie, each taking stock of what might be wrong to bring the police chief out to the last farm on the road.

Bob Gore swung himself out and hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. He shifted from foot to foot for a moment as if his great belly were seeking a point of equilibrium. Gore had a taste for two things—trouble and gossip. By either route, he could talk away an afternoon without half trying. John glanced over his shoulder at the fire.

“Good day for burnin’,” Gore said.

“Plenty of snow in the woods still, case it’s that brings you round,” John said, knowing full well it wasn’t. “Figure to get my burnin’ done before I have to mess with permits.”

“Hell no,” Gore said. “When was I ever one to go lookin for trouble?” He grinned at the Moores.

They stood before him soberly. The father, his frame rounded like a stone by thirty years of routine, looked up at the policeman with a steady, slightly skeptical gaze, while the mother, whom the years of marriage and outdoor work had left straighter than ever, stared with blue eyes as clear and curious as those of the child leaning against her legs.

Gore cupped his hands around a match. “Thing is,” he said, inhaling on a cigarette, “we’re havin’ an auction. A policemans benefit.”

John dug his hands deep into the front pockets of his overalls and hunched his shoulders. “But you’re our only cop, Bobby,” he said. “You already got yourself a swanky cruiser, and you don’t fancy your uniform. What do you need an auction for?

“Deputies,” Gore said.

“Deputies!” repeated John.

Gore shrugged. “People ain’t satisfied the way they used to be. What with the break-in up to the ledge, and then Rouse’s woods on fire, and the holdup at Linden’s... Gore looked across at the splintered reflection of the fire in the pond. Course its the murder on the Fawkes place last spring that done it.

Hildie, impatient, began to dance to and fro, pulling on Mim’s arm until Mim began to sway to the child’s rhythm.

“Only murder Harlowe’s had in a hundred years,” John said. “And that by an outsider for sure. So’s that other stuff, most like.”

“Still, times are changin’,” Gore said. “Murder right smack in the center of town? Such a fine old home too. There was people after me all along to stop Amelia rentin’ rooms. Then, when she went and got herself strangled...”

“No way to stop her,” soothed Mim. “Not when old Adeline Fayette’s been takin’ in tourists these twenty years.”

“Guess if young Nick Fawkes couldn’t steady Amelia down, weren’t much point to other folks gettin’ their ears boxed,” John said.

“Maybe she needed the money,” Mim said, running a hand thoughtfully through her short curls. “Left like that with the two kids...”

“Who’s to say?” Gore said. He shifted his weight. “The troopers don’t lift a finger. ‘Lots of unsolved crimes,’ they tell you. But everyone watches too much television. They get to expectin’ me to scurry round searin’ up clues. Every poor slob with a job to do’s supposed to be some hotshot detective. Well, I got news—”

“If everybody in town was a deputy, there’d still be trouble,” John said. He eyed his tidy white farmhouse. “And we got our fair share of peace in Harlowe too.”

“Not like we used to,” Gore said. “It’s gettin’ worse. And not just here. You know that Perly Dunsmore that finally bought the Fawkes place? Well, he’s an auctioneer. Been to half the cities in the world. And he says it’s gettin’ worse all over. Every place growin’ and fillin’ up with strangers. Look at Powlton. Doubled in five years.”

“What?” John said. “From four hundred to eight hundred? That’s just on account of that trailer park.”

“Come on, Johnny,” Gore said. “Can’t hurt to have a deputy or two. He grinned. “At least it’d be somebody to share the blame. And if we raise the money at auction, it’ll be no skin off your teeth. We won’t even touch the town budget.”

John examined Gore. “Ain’t like you to be dreamin’ up changes, Bobby,” he said. “Now that new fellow—”

“A policeman’s benefit’s a smart idea. That’s the main thing,” Gore said, pausing to pitch his cigarette toward the fire. “And I recall you gave the firemen an old plow last year.”

John chuckled. “Worth about three and a half cents,” he said. “Some Sunday farmer paid twelve bucks for it. Must be plannin’ to go west in a covered wagon.”

“That’s the kind of thing,” Gore said, spitting a speck of tobacco to one side.

“How about the old wheels?” Mim asked.

John nodded. “Must be five or six of them.”

“Someone can make chandeliers out of them,” Mim informed Gore, her face merry. “Or paint them blue and plant them at the bottom of their driveway for the snowplow to knock over.”

Gore leaned back on his heels, his jowly face reverting to its usual slackness. “Swell,” he said.

The wheels were in the woodshed. John and Gore took two apiece and carried them to the truck. Mim ran past them laughing, chasing the last wheel which was rolling down the front lawn like a hoop. Gore opened up the tailgate of his truck and lifted the wheels in, one after another. “Thanks,” he said, giving the top wheel an affectionate pat. “I’ll lay odds these’ll bring ten bucks once this new auctioneer gets goin’.”

Mim and Hildie stared past Gore at a carton full of chipped dishes, a badly cracked pine worktable, and an oversized easy chair leaking stuffing from one arm.

“Why’s he takin’ away our wheels?” Hildie asked as he drove away.

“Auctioneer’s goin’ to sell them,” John said.

“Why?” Hildie asked.

John knit his brows and shrugged.

“For money, love,” Mim said. “But it’s nothin’ to do with the likes of us. Nothin’ at all.”

It was mud season. In the woods there was still a fair snow cover, though it was receding in dark circles from the trees as the trunks warmed in the lengthening days. But Moore’s pasture, which turned a steep face to the southeast, was already bare except for sparkling heaps here and there where drifts had been, and the meadow at the bottom where snow lingered near the stream. The soggy ground, matted with the roots of last year’s hay, gave like a sponge underfoot. The sun drew the moisture from woods and field and stream and pond, and set it loose in the air. But the sky remained deep and dry and blue. It was the time of year when mittens and caps and indoor heat seem stale. A thousand outdoor chores crop up and country people feel groundswells of new strength.

On Thursday afternoon, when Gore came again, John and Mim were halfway up the pasture where it leveled out a bit, deciding where to put the patch of Hubbard squash they planned on for a cash crop that year, where to set the corn, where to plant the shell beans and potatoes. Hildie squatted at the edge of last year’s potato patch, pushing her hands into the icy mud and watching the impressions fill with water. Only Ma, too stiff with arthritis for the out-of-doors, could bear to remain in the dry front room by the wood stove watching television. She hardly quickened to the weather any more, except to comment on what she saw through the front window. Besides, she would no more miss her programs than let pass the rare scraps of gossip that came her way.

When Gore got out of his truck, the Moores waved and started down the hill, Hildie and Lassie trotting ahead.

“What’s he after now?” John muttered.

“Got to tell you how his blessed auction went.” Mim laughed. “He should of been the town crier instead of the town cop.”

Ma had heard the truck too and was rapping on the window, beckoning furiously, her image faded to gray by the weathered plastic tacked over the glass for insulation.

Inside, the house was faintly pungent with woodsmoke. Over the years the stoves had deposited a crust of dull black on the ceilings and sifted soot into the crevices between the scrubbed floorboards. It was a house that had been lived in for generations by the same family, and treasures from various eras cluttered every surface. Even on top of the television set, a kerosene lamp with a fluted base and a tall etched chimney jostled wax flowers under a dusty dome, three Hummel figurines, and a plastic replica of the Statue of Liberty. There was a light rhythm of clocks ticking against each other—the cuckoo clock, the eight-day clock with columbine painted on the glass, and the grandfather clock in the hall. The various chimes and the chirp of the cuckoo were no longer synchronized, and the house was filled with random sounds the Moores barely heard, a counterpoint to the birdsong that filtered in from outside.

In the front room, Ma sat bolt upright in the precise center of a bright slipcovered couch. She seemed to have shrunk since her clothes were put on. The collar of her flannel bathrobe stood out like a monk’s cowl around her drawn neck, and her fuzzy pink bedroom slippers seemed four sizes larger than the feet that held them so carefully side by side on the bleached floor. She seemed more like a child than a grandmother.

Gore stood, enormous and grinning, in the center of the room, dwarfing his surroundings. Ma held out her hands to him with the force of a command until he took his own hands out of his pockets and leaned over to grasp hers. “How are you, Mrs. Moore? he asked.

“Not so good,” sighed Ma. “I ain’t got the go I used to.” Her weary voice contrasted with her small hazel eyes—sharp as a bobcat’s—watching Bob Gore from under her tangle of gray hair.

Hildie sprang onto the couch and curled up against Ma. Without taking her eyes off Gore, Ma reached out a knobby hand and, with a few pats, straightened Hildie around until she quieted down and folded her hands in her lap.

Mim perched on the edge of a straight chair near the door and John took the piano bench.

“And you, Bobby,” Ma was saying. “What’s new? Anything you can hope to tell us in less than a day or two?

“Perly Dunsmore’s what’s new, Mrs. Moore,” Gore said, settling his broad self comfortably in the rocking chair. “He’s the newest thing Harlowe’s seen in years.” He beamed, as if the auctioneer were a glistening new possession, a special find, a bargain worthy of the envy of any neighbor who knew value when he saw it.

“Who?” Ma said, raising her brows. “You mean that crazy fool moved into the Fawkes place all by hisself?”

Gore lit a cigarette, located a flowerpot by his left elbow to flick the ashes into, and seemed to expand just slightly. He took a breath.

“Don’t wear us plumb out now, Bobby,’ Ma said, but her voice was no longer weary.

“Good turnout?” John asked.

“Wonderful,” Gore said, taking a deep breath. “It was one absolutely wonderful auction.” He chuckled. You wouldn’t believe how that Perly Dunsmore gets the most for everything. What an auctioneer! I never saw nothin’ to beat it. He gets up there on that bandstand and I don’t know him, hardly. He’s like one of them fish can puff itself up to four times its ordinary size. Sharp as a whip, he is. And what a talker! Makes me seem like the silent type.”

“They talk different,” John said, “these city dudes. They drink crankcase oil for breakfast.”

“Oh, but Perly’s a New Hampshire boy,” Gore said. “From Elvira, up to the Canadian border. Ain’t much we can tell him about the country.”

“Thought he was some big-deal consultant,” John said. “That’s what Arthur Stinson says. And he ought to know after all the time he spent paintin’ and scrapin’ that place.”

“Well, Perly ain’t ordinary,” Gore said. “Fact, there’s a man could do any damn thing he set his mind to. But he growed up on a New Hampshire farm like all the rest of us. It’s just that he lit out when he weren’t much more than a chicken. Made his way everywhere you can think of. Mexico, Alaska, Vegas, Venezuela. All over. And all over America too. Once in a while he’d run an auction, I guess, but most of the time he was some kind of consultant that tells people how to manage their land. He just kept wanderin’. Must of thought he’d find somethin’ better.”

Ma snorted.

“Seems like he didn’t, ma’am,” Gore said. “Because here he is, ready to settle right back where he started from. Fact, that’s how he knew about the Fawkes place. He stayed there once about a year back, when Amelia was rentin’ out rooms. And he was smart enough to see Harlowe’s as good a place as any.”

“They say the Fawkes place was quite a bargain,” John said. “Still, he’s a bit on the odd side, you ask me,” Mim said. “Movin’ into that big house all alone with just that dog. Specially after all this time no one’d even cut the grass.”

“Guess murders in the night don’t mean nothin’ to him,” Ma said.