The Sign of the Book (25 page)

I took in a sudden deep breath. “Oh, man.”

“Yeah. ‘Where are my kids?' And I had to tell her I didn't know, and she got real upset. I told her not to worry, I was sure they were okay. But even then I knew.”

“Lennie left them up there.”

He laughed. “That stupid bastard. He's so anxious to clear the case solo he forgets about the kids. Seals up the crime scene with them still inside it, gets all the way down here and never gives the kids a thought till she asks where they are.”

“Oh,
man,
” I said again.

“Yeah. Naturally I can't prove any of that last part. But what else do you think could've happened?”

“I think we'll find out. Will you testify to what you just told me?”

“The facts of it, sure. That's my civic duty.”

“We'll need your pictures too. A contact sheet would be nice for now.”

He thought about it for a moment and said, “It won't surprise you to know that I've already been called by the DA.”

I wasn't surprised: I would have been surprised if he hadn't.

“I don't think they'll be real anxious for me to be a witness.” He laughed again. “Lennie's gonna shit a screaming green worm when he finds out you talked to me.”

“Yeah, he is.” I looked at him and tried not to laugh. “Hugh, that's the least of what he'll shit.”

“I don't remember any of that,” Laura said.

“What exactly
do
you remember after the deputy arrived?”

She shook her head.

“It's just that your memory is so clear and specific until then,” Parley said.

“Yes, it is.”

“So what happened to you?”

“I don't know, I must've fainted.”

“Had you ever done that before?”

“Never. God, I've never fainted in my life. I don't believe in women who faint.”

“Then what—”

I put a hand on his knee. Laura had closed her eyes, as if she might faint here in the jail. But suddenly she said, “You're right, everything was crystal clear up to that point. As long as I was moving, as long as I had a purpose, I was fine. I didn't look at Bobby at all, I just did what I had to do. It was afterward, when I had called the sheriff's office, that's when I remember looking over at Bobby on the floor. What an awful sight, just…it was just, Jesus, horrible. He had no face. The whole back of his head…”

“Take your time, hon,” Parley said.

“I remember I had to hold on to something to keep my balance, even sitting down. I was sitting at the table and it was like this wave of nausea and—what's the word?—dizziness, vertigo, whatever you call it, came over me. I put my head down on the table and closed my eyes. I do remember that.”

“Where were the kids all this time?”

“I had sent them to their bedroom at the far side of the house. I told Jerry not to let them out, and not to come out himself, until I came back for them.”

“Did they know what had happened?”

“Jerry certainly did. I tried to keep it from the little ones.”

“So you laid your head down on the table. What's the next thing you remember?”

“Being in jail.”

“You don't remember the deputy arriving?”

“No. I think I had left the front door unlocked and I guess he just came on in.”

“You don't remember him knocking or calling out?”

“No.”

“You don't remember anything about what the deputy might've said to you, or what he might've done while he was there?”

She shook her head and shrugged.

“Nothing of the ride down?”

“I remember his smoke,” she said suddenly. “Oh, God, I'll never forget that. It was stifling in that car, and he smoked till I thought I was gonna throw up.”

“But you didn't?”

“Didn't what?”

“Puke in his car.”

She shook her head. “I don't know.”

“And that's all you remember?”

She nodded yes. Then she said, “I remember a voice, I guess it was his.”

“Do you remember what it said?”

“He called Jerry a…he called Jerry a
retard.
”

“I thought he didn't see Jerry.”

“I don't know. Must've been later, in the jail, when I asked where my kids were.”

“You remember anything else he might've said?”

“No. Just the voice in all that smoke.”

“Okay. So you were in jail, then what?”

“It was cold. I was wet and it was very cold. I thought all this must be a dream. But I remember someone giving me some blankets and a bathrobe.”

“Do you remember who it was?”

“Mr. Gilstrap,” she said after a moment. “He's a photographer. You remember, we were all on a committee together a few years ago.”

Parley made some notes. Again with that suddenness, Laura said, “I remember…”

“What?”

“I don't even know if this is real.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“It feels like a dream. But I remember a voice saying, ‘You might as well sign a confession right now, honey, it'll go easier on you if you do.'”

Again she closed her eyes. “‘You might as well tell old dad all about it.' I seem to remember somebody saying that. ‘C'mon, sweetie pie, write it down for daddy.'”

“But you don't remember who it was.”

“I couldn't say for sure. Couldn't tell whether he was my friend or my enemy. He was a sweet-talker one minute, angry the next.” She shook her head. “Does any of this matter now?”

“Yeah, it matters.” Parley made some notes. “What did the deputy finally have to say about your kids?”

“He came in later and said they were fine. Said I could see them, in fact. I had a few minutes with them right here in this room.”

“You say he came in later. How much later?”

“I have no idea. But it wasn't right away. I don't know. My whole sense of time that day was shot.”

“When you saw the kids, did you ask them where they'd been?”

“No. I was too anxious to calm them down for anything like that. I knew I must look a fright and I wanted them to know I was okay.”

He looked at me. “Janeway?”

I leaned over toward Laura. “Do you know anything about Jerry's birth parents?”

“No, nothing. Why is that important now?”

“I promised the caseworker I'd ask. No idea who they were?”

“No.”

“Do you have the name of the adoption agency?”

“Somewhere, I think. I haven't looked at any of those records in years.”

“What about the books? Did you ever hear any talk that maybe they weren't real?”

She looked puzzled at that and I said, “Like maybe the signatures were fakes?”

“No, I would have told you that. I didn't even know they were signed.” She watched Parley gather his notes. “Does this mean they're worthless?”

“It sure would knock 'em for a loop,” I said. “Without those signatures most of them are just used books.”

“Let's not worry about that yet,” Parley said. “Right now you just worry about remembering what happened. If you think of anything else, you call me pronto. Don't tell anybody else what we were talking about. Nobody, Laura. Not a word.”

Out in the parking lot, he said, “It really doesn't matter about the books anymore, does it? If we get our motion to suppress, they won't have a case. A lot depends on the only other witnesses in that house that day—the kids—and what if anything we can get from 'em.”

We called Erin that night. She was remarkably calm about the developments of the day. The news was good but we hadn't won yet. On her end her juvenile expert had interviewed the children several times. “It looks more and more like the little ones didn't see anything. And so far we've had no luck with Jerry, who may have seen everything.”

I could almost hear her thinking. “Cliff,” she said. “You were going to call that social worker back about Jerry.”

“I had good vibes from her. Like she had something to tell me but couldn't.”

“So call her. If she'll see you, come on back to Denver.”

I met Rosemary Brenner for the second time the next afternoon, at the main office of Denver Social Services. She was eating lunch at her desk: an apple and a banana.

“How's Jerry doing?” I said.

“Surprisingly well. Have you found out anything for me?”

“Laura doesn't know anything about his parents. What's happening on your end?”

“Quite a bit, actually. We've had a number of meetings since I saw you, and your name has come up several times. It may surprise you to hear this, you've tried so hard to put people off, but it seems you do still have one or two advocates in this town. I've even heard it mentioned in passing that you've got a certain code of honor.”

“Don't let that get around. It almost sounds like a certain strain of clap.”

She smiled and dropped her banana peel into the trash can. “I'm only saying I like what I've seen of you and I do tend to trust you. But you must know we have rules and procedures, and people who forget that soon find themselves standing in unemployment lines. I'm not quite ready to retire from here in disgrace.”

“I hear you.”

“I would like nothing better than to have this charge against Mrs. Marshall resolved, however it goes. But if you want me to help you, I need to know that this kid's life won't be turned into some circus.”

“At the same time—”

“He's a possible witness in your homicide case. I know.”

“Some of this is going to be out of our control, Rosemary. We'll all do the best we can do, but surely it's in that kid's best interest for us to clear this case.”

“I think we'd all agree with that. And there have been new developments. I was told I could show some of them to you, if you ask.” She smiled foxily. “Are you asking?”

“Sure.”

“We have an unusual situation here, something I've never encountered in all the years I've been doing this. On the one hand we have the interests of justice; on the other, the welfare of this child. That in itself isn't an unheard-of conflict, it's the way the pieces of it fit together this time that's unusual. The interests of the child may be vitally linked to the outcome of your case, but we don't yet know how, or what that outcome ought to be, at this point in time.”

“We think she's innocent.”

“I'm sure you do. If you're right, winning your case becomes urgent for both sides. Ideally, then, we'd like both sides to be served. But the child's interests have to be my top priority.”

“I understand that.”

“Let's make sure you do before we go any further. If I can get your word of honor that you'll try not to make a spectacle of this, I'll show you something that may enlighten you. At this point it's my call.”

I felt the warning bells in my head. “I don't know what you're asking me to do.”

She liked that: I hadn't just leaped at her with a rash promise, and I could see the approval on her face. She said, “Don't run right out and leak this to the press. It's all going to come out anyway, we know that. But I'm hoping maybe you can help us understand it better before that happens.”

“I won't give anything to the press. But what could I possibly—”

“Think about it a minute. We're still discovering things. It changes almost daily, sometimes by the hour.”

A moment passed. She said, “I'd do this if I were you.”

“Then I will.”

She leaned slightly over her desk and said, “Are you familiar with the term
savant
?”

“You mean like in idiot savant?”

She made a face. “That's an old expression, Janeway, well out of favor today. I would have hoped you'd know better.”

“Oh, Rosemary, I have
deep
pockets of ignorance. But I'm always open to enlightenment.”

She smiled. “Today we call them autistic savants.”

“Is that what Jerry is?”

I saw her hand tremble. “He may be far more than that.”

She leaned over the desk and said, “Did you see the movie
Rain Man
?”

“Sure. Great film.”

“Remember how the Dustin Hoffman character was?”

I remembered Hoffman talking incessantly, often to himself: how he could cite endless sports statistics and instantly do unbelievable square roots in his head, but could barely function in what we think of as a normal world. “That's one example of an autistic savant,” she said. “There aren't many of them in the world, and within that small group there are smaller groups, some so brilliant in their one field that they leave what we think of as normal minds in the dust. A mathematical savant may need help tying his shoelaces, but he can tell you in a second what day Christmas fell on in the year 1432. A musical savant can hear a classical piece one time and play it perfectly. Some of them have hundreds of scores in their heads and can do them flawlessly even years later. Just mention a name and out it comes.”

She opened her desk and took out what looked like a small, detailed pencil sketch. “Recognize that?”

“Sure. It's the room where Marshall was killed.” I held it up to the light. “This isn't a police sketch.”

“No,” she said, and again I felt the chills, the hair rising on my neck.

She took out another. “Ever seen that?”

“It's Marshall's study. That's his desk in the foreground, and behind the desk is the cabinet for his guns. There's the shotgun, leaning against the wall.”

“How about this?”

“The library across the hall from the room where the murder happened. Look at those
books,
the definitions are incredible. You can actually read some of the spines. If you know the books, you can picture the jackets from the little piece that's visible here.”

“Take a closer look.”

She handed me a large magnifying glass and I went straight to the books. What the glass revealed was nothing less than a photograph would show. This was better than a photo: it had detail beyond clarity, far past the ability of a camera except in perfect, extraordinary light with the best equipment and a master photographer. In the sketch the drapes were open: you couldn't see them, but a stream of sunlight poured in, hitting the floor in front of the bookcases and lighting up the corners of the room. My eyes went back to the books. The titles had been filled in with the steadiest hand, his pencils razor-sharp, his eye missing nothing even in recall. I saw a title,
America, Why I Love Her.
“That's the John Wayne book,” I said, and Rosemary leaned over to look. “Look at this,” I said, “he's even got a hint of the publisher's name at the bottom.” I touched it with my finger, careful not to smudge the delicate pencil markings as I pointed out the name, Simon & Schuster, at the bottom of the spine. “We wondered about that,” Rosemary said, “whether he got that kind of detail correct. But where would it have come from except from what he actually saw? I wouldn't imagine he has any idea what a Simon & Schuster is.”

“I held this book in my hands,” I said. “It's now in the sheriff's evidence room. This copy has a chip on the bottom edge of the jacket and he's even put that in.” I went on down the bookshelf and it was almost as if I had stepped back into that house.

“He put in pieces of publishers' names on many of them,” Rosemary said. “Harper & Row, Random House, Doubleday, on and on.”

“Yeah,” I said, “and all of them are right.”

I ventured an opinion. “It must've taken him days just to do this one.”

“Most of these sketches took less than an hour. The library took half a day.”

I didn't know what to say, an extremely rare occurrence.

She rustled through some papers. “Here's one that's different.”

Everything about it was shadowy, misty as in a dream: the room, the furniture, and even the brightly sunlit porch were indistinct. I could see a figure outside on the porch, but nothing, not even the sex of the subject, could be told. He, she, or it stood about five feet from the window, apparently trying to look in, but I couldn't be sure of that, either.

Rosemary said, “What do you make of that?”

“I don't know.”

“No idea who that might be?”

“No.”

“He was almost in a trancelike state when he made this. Later, when we tried to talk to him about it, he got upset.”

“Upset how?”

“Cringed on the floor. I don't have to tell you, we didn't show that to him again.”

A moment later she said, “I was wondering if this could be his way of getting at whatever happened.”

“I don't know. If you're thinking it's a literal interpretation, a few things don't work. The sunlight, for example. It rained the day Marshall was killed.”

She handed me another sheet: the same scene only darker. This time the porch was so shrouded that the figure was all but invisible, less than a shadow, present only by suggestion in the slightest human-sized darkening of the background. I stared at the two pictures. “What are the little pencil numbers at the top corner?”

“That's ours. That's how we kept track of what order they came out.”

“He did it in sunlight first.”

“Yes, in about twenty minutes. I wasn't there, but I hear he was totally absorbed. Finished it, then ripped it off the pad and threw it down on the floor and started the dark one immediately.”

“You didn't show him the dark one?”

“God no, not after the first reaction we had.”

“How'd you learn he could do this?”

“He was sitting quietly in the counselor's office and there was a magazine on the table. On the back cover was one of those
Draw Me
ads for an art school correspondence class. Suddenly he reached over and took up a yellow pad and drew the model. Then he put in the headline, in almost perfect block type, then he started on the text. We got him a sketchpad and some pencils, then an easel, then a
lot
of pencils and somebody to keep them sharp. He's been doing it nonstop ever since.”

“Have you talked to the DA about this?”

“Not yet. We'll have to, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

“A young woman from the district attorney's office made a few attempts to talk to him. We haven't seen much of her lately.”

I looked at number 54 in the upper corner. “I take it you've got more of these.”

“Dozens.”

“Could I see them?”

“They aren't all here, but sure, at some point. Here's another one.” She opened her drawer and handed me another sheet, numbered 85.

“That would be the twins,” I said. “Little Bob and Susan. Damn, their faces are so real.”

“Notice the loving looks he was able to put on them. You can almost see the affection he has for them. And I understand
that's
highly unusual. You don't often get feelings like this…usually it's just what he saw.”

The twins were sitting in a room that I hadn't seen: probably their bedroom at the house. Behind them were two bunk-style beds, and on the wall a picture, a mountain scene that Jerry had also rendered in detail, a picture within a picture. Beside it was a calendar with its days marked off and a clock showing that it was one o'clock in the afternoon. Light could be seen shining in from some window off to the left.

“He did another one like that,” she said.

I stared at the second picture. “It's not exactly alike.”

“The clock's different. It seems to be later the same afternoon. The twins are gone and the light's not as good.”

“And the picture's been moved on the wall.”

“A little, yes. A foot or so to the right. Maybe he's correcting something. That might be the whole reason for the second picture. He drew some of you.”

“Really?”

“Several, actually. In all of them you're in a wooded place at night. Maybe you'll see those at some point. For now—”

“I know where they came from and I know what I look like.”

“He seems to like you. Like the twins.”

“I helped him out of a little problem he was having.”

I knew she wouldn't be satisfied with that, so I told her what had happened in the woods that night. I told her about my subsequent run-in with the judge and my night in the Paradise hoosegow, and this was followed by a moment of near total silence. Slowly the sounds of life returned: someone talking in the hall, the ticking of the clock on her wall. We made eye contact again and something had changed between us.

“Did Jerry put words to any of these?”

“He can't write,” she said. “Here, I've got a couple more to show you. Do you recognize this man? He looks like a cop.”