Body Language (37 page)

Leering, Parker sat proudly on the edge of the desk. He asked me, “You just don’t get it, do you? You have no idea what kind of power a beautiful woman can have over a man—a
straight
man, a
real
man. And believe me, Suzanne had that power. Victim, indeed! She got exactly what she wanted on that Christmas morning as a girl. I did, too,” he gloated, instinctively rubbing his crotch, which now displayed a hefty lump. “It was the most rapturous fuck of my life. And it would never be that good again.”

Then his eyes flashed toward me with another recollection. “That whore in ’Nam cried rape, just as poor little ‘abused’ Suzie had. That whore in ’Nam paid the price for her lies; now it was Suzie’s turn. And she never knew what hit her—she never figured out that the ‘gay’ editor from Milwaukee shared her intense interest in those baby books.”

He tapped the stack of three albums on the desk. “
These
baby books.” He fixed me in his stare. “I couldn’t let her have these, Mark. Obviously, I can’t let
you
have them either.”

Then, with one deft move, he sidestepped to the banister and yanked a king-thing from its newel post, wielding it in the air, gripping the dowel with white fingers. I moved to wrest it from him, but a kick to my shin sent me sprawling. He straddled me, pinning my shoulder with one of his feet, practicing a golf swing with the finial, taking aim at my head. Sneering, he asked, “Any last words, fag?”

“Doug?” I said. “I hope to God you’re there.”

Doug Pierce said, “Freeze, Parker.”

Parker didn’t even turn to see Sheriff Pierce emerge from the shadows of a bookcase at the far side of the room. Instead, he spat on my face. “You
son
of a bitch.” And the artichoke finial began arcing toward my ear.

The single shot caught Parker in the hip, sufficient to throw off his balance and ruin his swing. Still, I barely managed to roll out of harm’s way when he dropped the king-thing, which crashed next to me on the floor. Then Parker himself dropped, falling on top of me, bleeding. Snarling some unintelligible epithet, he tried to grab me by the neck. But Pierce had rushed forward, and before I was able to scramble to my feet, Parker’s hands were cuffed behind his back, with Pierce’s knee planted between his shoulders.

Pierce looked up at me as I stood, telling me, “Glad you found time to make that one quick phone call.”

“And
you
thought it wouldn’t work.” I looked myself over, checking for blood. My khakis were in bad shape, but Parker’s were worse—they had a hole in them.

Pierce stood, hoisting Parker to his feet. Parker whined and complained, bleeding (the rug was probably a goner, as well as the pants), while Pierce told me, “Jeez, Mark, that groping business got a little steamy. I don’t mind telling you, I was starting to sweat.”

I laughed. “Anything for a story, Doug.
Anything
for a story.”

M
Y NEW LIFE SEEMS
bogged by funerals, peppered by the last rites of passage into some vast unknown. The mourners who surround me are watching the spectacle of grief played out at the altar. With a numb sense of detachment, they mime the prescribed motions and mouth psalms about sheep, lost in their memories, as I am lost in mine.

The priest drones through the script of his fill-in-the-blanks sermon, eulogizing “our brother Joseph, an allegiant child of the church.” Though Father Nicholas Winter was prepared to fight in court for the right to bury Suzanne Quatrain from Saint Cecille’s, he had taken a distinctly different view of her brother Joey’s funeral. The wealthy and powerful Suzanne, remember, had fluffed off the church at sixteen, sneaking out of state for an abortion, while Joey had remained steadfast in his faith till his death this week at forty-three. The problem, of course, was that Joey had confessed to murdering Suzanne. And a more serious wrinkle, at least in the eyes of the good Father Nick, was that Joey had taken his own life, blackening his soul with a mortal sin that sent him straight to hell, case closed. Compounding the priest’s dilemma was the historical fact that the Quatrain family had practically built this parish—in fact, they did finance the most recent addition to Saint Cecille School, and he prayed nightly that young Thad Quatrain would one day be inclined to carry on the family tradition. So accommodations had to be made. Meeting with Thad and me on Thursday, the day after Joey’s death, Father Winter condescended to take on the unsavory duties of officiating at Joey’s funeral, but insisted that the service was to be quick and simple—“No choir, no public spectacle, just get him buried, and get it over.”

I really didn’t care, but I knew that Joey would have, and I was appalled at the priest’s arrogant behavior in the presence of Thad. It was a stupid move politically—the kid would surely remember this incident in future years when the priest or his successor came begging for loot—but an even more offensive aspect of the priest’s pompous air of infallibility was that it
hurt
Thad. The boy truly loved his uncle Joey, looking past his simplemindedness and focusing on his kindness and affection, thinking of him as a friend and a peer. The last thing Thad needed to hear was that his uncle had committed two truly unforgivable sins, but that’s exactly what the priest told us that day.

Now, of course, Father Winter views Joey’s passing in a different light entirely. Word has spread quickly since Parker’s arrest this morning, and everyone understands that Joey did not bludgeon his now-sainted sister, that, in fact, they were both victims of their evil older brother, who was thought, till today, to have been heaven-sent some thirty years ago. Ah, the fickle ebb of eternal rewards—easy come, easy go.

If the priest is at all confused by this turn of events, he doesn’t show it. To the contrary, he seems positively giddy that the man whom he eulogizes was murdered—a tragic though passive demise thoroughly acceptable to God, while suicide is not. “This gentle soul was a gift to our community,” Father Winter preaches, “inspiring us with the childlike quality of his faith. Clearly, he was put on this earth to walk among us as an example to all mankind. Let us rejoice in our knowledge that…” To hear him gush and babble, you’d think it was Christmas.

I recognize, though, that some of the man’s words carry the ring of truth. Joey
was
a good person, and I do mourn his passing. During these few weeks since my move to Dumont, I came to know Joey quite well, and I wish I could know him better still. I’ll miss him.

When I first came to this town, during my visit as a boy, it was Joey who glommed on to me and claimed me as his friend. In fact, I saw too much of Joey during that visit, prompting me to seek refuge upstairs on Prairie Street, where I honed my early skills as a writer.

I hardly saw Suzanne at all during that trip, and, as adults, we spent only an hour or so in each other’s company on Christmas Day. Now I’m executor of her vast estate, preparing for a custody battle so that I might serve as father to her son.

As for my oldest cousin, Mark, I didn’t see much of him during that long-ago visit, but his impact on my life was immeasurable. For starters, we shared the same name, and our namesake was the same man, my father. But my shared history with Mark Quatrain truly began the moment I met him, when he mussed my hair and aroused within me boyish confusions that would later flower into adult passions. He has lived in my memory, adorned my dreams. And three hours ago, he brought our shared history to a close when he tried to kill me.

Father Winter preaches on, cribbing many of the same sentiments he used to bury Suzanne twelve days ago. Those words, however, are the only similarity between her funeral and Joey’s. According to the priest’s plan, there is no choir today, no public spectacle—this is a far cry from the royal send-off accorded Suzanne, a stripped-down service for her younger, half-wit brother who supposedly died in shame and sin. When the priest learned the truth, only an hour remained before the unpublicized service was to begin, and it was too late to change plans. So, although Joey’s casket rests in the center aisle on the same spot where his sister’s body had lain, the pews this afternoon are nearly empty, and the priest’s words echo to fill the void.

Again I have taken the second pew, flanked today by Neil and Roxanne. The last few years have seen many changes for the three of us, but the greatest of these is surely the life that Neil and I have begun together, and I can never forget that we have Roxanne to thank for introducing us. Without comment, I stretch my arm around her shoulder, pulling her close, sharing the warmth of her fur coat.

Neil sits quietly on my other side, listening without reacting to the sermon. Obligingly, without complaining, he has returned to Dumont for the fourth—or is it fifth?—consecutive weekend. I’m way overdue to visit him at the loft in Chicago, and I told him as we drove to church today that I would begin living up to the “arrangement” without fail next week. “But, Mark,” he said, “that’s your first week on the job at the
Register
, and you just lost your managing editor. How can you possibly get away? Don’t come to Chicago—I’ll be back.” And that’s typical of how he’s put his own life on hold while I’ve tried to get settled here. He’s the man I love. Without comment, I stretch an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close. He, Roxanne, and I snuggle patiently in the cold air of the cavernous church, waiting for the sermon to end.

Ahead of us, Hazel, Thad, and Miriam Westerman are seated in the front pew. Thad is in the middle, in front of me, and he sniffles at the priest’s words. The loss of both his mother and his uncle has finally caught up with him, and I hope he has learned that he needn’t repress sentiment in the name of manliness. He’s learned a lot since I met him three weeks ago, and so have I. It’s uncertain whether Neil and I can claim the right to build a family with Thad—that’s an issue for the courts to decide—but I have learned, to my utter amazement, that the idea is appealing to all three of us, and the thought of taking responsibility for the boy has shaken my own view of how the next few years may differ from the last.

Miriam Westerman couldn’t care less about Joey’s passing, but she’s happy to flaunt her temporary custody of Thad by perching next to “Ariel” in the front pew, as family. Though she’ll have a tough time battling Roxanne in court over this issue, she hasn’t let that uncertainty stand in the way of plans for her Fem-Snach school, mistakenly endowed by Suzanne’s forgotten trust fund. Miriam has already transferred the endowment into a building account, and the groundbreaking is scheduled for next week, in spite of the impossibly cold weather.

That same cold weather has finally nudged Hazel toward a decision that’s been too long delayed. Before we left the house this afternoon, she told me that she would be moving somewhere warm. She’s sixty-seven, with failing eyesight, financially secure due to the generosity of Suzanne’s will. Except for Thad, the Quatrain family is gone—there’s nothing to keep her in Dumont any longer, and there’s certainly no reason to endure these winters. She’s out of here.

Across the aisle, on the other side of Joey’s coffin, the first few pews are peopled as before with a group of Quatro executives. Behind them are a few city and county officials, including the sheriff, Douglas Pierce. I haven’t been able to decide whether Pierce is gay. He’s been more than accommodating, and he’s spoken several times of our future friendship, but his reticence to reveal details of his private life has made it impossible for me to get close to the man. I’m content to know him at arm’s length, of course—he’s dedicated to his profession and will be an important contact for me at the newspaper—but I sense that there’s more to the man, and I wonder if he’ll ever feel ready to tell me about it.

A few other people are scattered about the church—acquaintances of Joey, no doubt, or perhaps curious locals, lured by the still-fresh news that both Suzanne and Joey were murdered by their “brother from the grave.” What a headline! Chances are, tomorrow’s big front-page Sunday feature detailing my takeover of the
Register
will be seriously eclipsed by this morning’s unmasking of Parker Trent. And with good reason. This story has it all—deceit, greed, secrets, and lust. Not to mention murder.

Tempted to make a few notes, undoing my snuggle of Roxanne and Neil, I reach beneath my topcoat and remove from my pocket the wonderful old pen I carry everywhere, even here. Rolling the Montblanc in my fingers like a fine cigar, I remove the cap and examine the gold band beneath the nib. Engraved there in tiny letters is the name
MARK MANNING
, barely legible through the years of wear. Pulling a notepad from my coat, I flip it open and poise my pen, searching for the first words of a story that wants to be told. But my mind is focused on the pen itself, and, once again, one last memory-flash invades my return to Dumont.

I recall one afternoon shortly after my college graduation, a year or so after my mother died. I had recently interviewed with the
Chicago Journal
, hoping to land my first reporter’s job, but not daring to hope that the
Journal
would actually take me on. To my astonishment, they did, and I would begin my career there in several weeks.

That afternoon, a small package arrived for me in the mail, and I saw from the return address that it had been sent from Dumont by my uncle Edwin. I had met the man only twice—during my boyhood visit, then much later at my mother’s funeral—and I would never see him again. The oblong package was about the shape of a wristwatch, which seemed a good guess for a graduation present, so I opened it greedily, hoping to replace the battered watch that had seen me through high school as well as college.

But instead of a watch, the package contained a fountain pen, an old one. The note with it read:

Dear Mark,

Your mother used to say that we Quatrains must have ink in our blood—there have been so many printers in our family. Now I’ve learned that you have just been hired by the
Chicago Journal.
You won’t be printing, but you’ll be writing, and I’m gratified to know that there’s ink in your blood, too.

A writer needs a pen, and a great writer needs a great pen. I have treasured this one for years, and I want you to have it. If you look closely at the engraving near the nib, you will see that it belonged to your father.

If you ever have the inclination to visit Dumont again, I’d like to introduce you to my good friend Barret Logan, founder and publisher of our local paper—a pretty good one, by all reports. Who knows? If things don’t work out for you at the
Journal,
I might be able to pull some strings and find you something at the
Dumont Daily Register.
(Just kidding, of course.)

Best of luck, Mark, and congratulations!

Love,

Uncle Edwin