The Church of Dead Girls (26 page)

In the middle of all this Ralph Shiller sat like a stone at his kitchen table while his wife, Helen, wept in the bedroom. Their station wagon, parked in the driveway, was slowly getting covered with snow. A police officer at the house took all the telephone calls and the two boys, Bobby and Henry, sat together on the couch in the living room, though Bobby had fallen asleep. Ralph Shiller's younger brother, Mike, who worked for the post office, was also there. He kept asking Chuck Hawley, “Do you think she'll turn up? Of course she'll turn up. Right?” And Chuck would nod and try not to say anything.

They waited for the phone to ring or for someone to come and say their ordeal was over. All of them kept thinking of what might have happened, just as the Malloys had done, and each scenario was more awful than the one before it. And couldn't there be a more benign scenario in which Meg would suddenly run through the door, happy and safe? But that was hardly likely.

Around five-thirty in the morning Ryan drove to Aaron's apartment. He worried that he should have sent an officer to Aaron's earlier, but assigning a man to find Aaron seemed the same as calling him a suspect. He also worried that too much time had elapsed and if Aaron had something to conceal he would have successfully concealed it. But none of these worries turned out to matter because when Ryan got to the apartment he found that Aaron wasn't there. The new snow told him, moreover, that Aaron hadn't been home all night. There were brown stains on Aaron's door. Sniffing, Ryan realized they were somebody's idea of a Halloween prank. And he even thought that somebody might be Hark Powers.

Ryan knew that Aaron had several girlfriends but he didn't know whom he was seeing at the moment. He wondered if
girlfriend
was still the right term. Indeed, Ryan feared that Aaron was not with any woman but was off on some darker purpose connected to Meg Shiller. And was this darker purpose linked to the IIR or something that Aaron was involved in by himself?

From Aaron's, Ryan drove to Harriet Malcomb's apartment. He knocked on the door but there was no answer. Next he drove to Jesse and Shannon's. It seemed they weren't home either. Because of the commotion surrounding Meg's disappearance, Ryan had only the sketchiest memory that there had been some fuss earlier in the evening concerning Hark Powers. So when he drove to Leon Stahl's apartment, he was not thinking of Hark at all. He was still trying to track down Aaron.

Leon was asleep and didn't want to open the door until Ryan ordered him to and showed his identification. Leon wore striped baby-blue pajamas so big that Ryan was reminded of a tent. With the door open, Leon filled the whole frame. Around nine o'clock the previous evening Leon had called the police to complain about Hark, but nothing had happened. First Leon was indignant that the police hadn't come hurrying over; now he was annoyed that Ryan had showed up at six in the morning.

“Couldn't this have waited until later?” he said. “I have a chemistry quiz today.” There was a whine in his voice.

“I'm looking for Aaron,” said Ryan. “Have you seen him?”

“Of course not.”

“What about Shannon and Jesse?”

“I talked to them last night but I haven't seen them either. Is this about Hark Powers?”

“Why should it be?”

So Leon explained how Hark and his friends had come to his apartment and tried to make him open the door. And he said that they had gone to Barry's house as well.

When he left Leon's apartment, Ryan drove over to Chihani's house. It was still snowing. Though he remembered that somebody had mentioned Chihani earlier, Ryan couldn't recall the context. But he figured that if Hark had visited the other IIR members he might also have paid a visit to Chihani.

Ryan pulled up in front of Chihani's house just at the moment when Irving Powell was trying to drag his chocolate Lab away from Chihani's corpse.

Ryan got out of his car.

“Bad dog,” Powell kept saying. “Bad dog.”

Ryan saw the smashed Citroën. He hurried toward Powell. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“There's a man lying here in the snow,” said Powell. “His eyes are open.”

The chocolate Lab had a beret in its mouth and shook it back and forth. This distracted Ryan and it took him a moment to realize that the man in the snow was Houari Chihani and that he was dead.

I
n any text there is both overt and covert material that accesses different cognitive levels within a reader. That is one of those statements highly regarded in the teachers' conferences that I avoid. But I use it here to suggest that my own gayness will come as no surprise. Until now it has not been part of the story in the same way that I'm not part of the story. At the beginning I saw myself as only a pair of eyes. Even a window—yes, I was the window through which my story passed. Probably more than a hundred gay men live in Aurelius, ranging from the rather flighty, like Jaime Rose, to the serious—men who bear no resemblance to the clichéd idea of what a gay man should be. There is no meeting place or organization, no discussion group or social hour, but these men tend to know one another. A few are married, some have male companions, the majority are single since small towns like Aurelius tend to be unsympathetic to the gay experience. For that reason, most of these men are circumspect. Indeed, quite a few have left Aurelius, as I did myself, though I came back. I also know two local men who have died of AIDS as well as a young hemophiliac boy. And I know several others who have tested HIV-positive since this scourge has spread itself into even the smallest of localities.

I am also familiar with men who are comfortable with their gayness and celebrate it, though that has not been my experience, perhaps because I chose to return to a small town or perhaps because of my own disinclination to call attention to myself. I never talk about my homosexuality and, in truth, I have had few partners. I find the whole business rather depressing. Not that I wish to be heterosexual—a less attractive option—but human sexual experience seems designed to lead to humiliation. Celibacy for me has always stood forth as the unattainable ideal. I have no religious calling, but at times I have envied the scholar monk in his cell.

And the alternative to celibacy? The young men I find attractive are not attracted to me, meaning that my gay life is limited to men in their late thirties, forties, or even older. I have a friend in San Francisco who mentioned in a letter that the bars where men of my age congregate are called “wrinkle rooms.” One wrinkled man seeking to embrace another. Surely celibacy is better. But of course I have sexual yearnings and I feel temptation. I have never touched Barry Sanders, but there are times in the night when I have thought how pleasant it might be. Even Jaime Rose. I feel I run from degradation yet yearn to embrace it. But what is degradation? Isn't it a definition that derives from the straight world? And I envy those gay men—are they really the majority?—who seem happy with their gayness.

In my years in Aurelius I have had lovers come to my house on only three occasions and I was nervous the entire time. Perhaps I am more cautious than most, but I have preferred to meet my friends in other places. Even when I am with them and engaged in sex, part of me yearns for celibacy. And I know this is wrong. I know I should accept my sexuality, but the thought of the mocking looks of my students fills me with horror. Of course, many suspect—after all, I am a single man—but they have no proof. Sadly, it is suspicion that is my subject here.

I doubt that any of the gay men in Aurelius felt fortunate because of the existence of Inquiries into the Right, but for anyone slightly out of the ordinary, the IIR served as a buffer. People have a need to believe that bad things are done by bad people. And what is bad? Isn't this defined as anything outside the common good, which is further defined as whatever the majority see as good? Why must the villain wear a black hat? Because if he didn't, how would we know he was the villain?

It was first thought that Sharon Malloy was abducted by someone outside of Aurelius. Once this became doubted, an increasing number of people looked toward Houari Chihani and Inquiries into the Right. The IIR preached the need for disorder, and here was the height of disorder. Chihani could also be placed at the scene of the disappearance. In addition, he was a foreigner with a peculiar look about him; he wore a beret and his skin was a little darker than average. Not everyone thought he was guilty, but it was felt to be convenient if he were guilty. When Meg Shiller disappeared, however, people began to look farther afield to whatever was aberrant or idiosyncratic.

I know this because I felt it myself. My unmarried condition made people suspicious. It was also known that Sadie visited me and that I knew her friends. Meg Shiller must have walked by my house moments before she vanished. Though I talked to the police, I was never treated as a suspect. The idea was absurd. But many people looked at me differently and I was talked about at school. It excited the students that the biology teacher might be a sex murderer. But others were looked at as well: gay men, gay women, the eccentric, the reclusive, the retarded. And I looked at my neighbors differently—these people who thought I might be guilty, had I believed them my friends? And I had known them all my life.

Bob Moreno, the haberdasher on Main Street, had been little Bobby Moreno who sat in front of me from first through sixth grade. When he married, I went to his wedding. At least six of his seven children had been my students. And now he thought I might be a criminal. When I went into his shop to buy a few undershirts, he stared at me as if he had never seen me before.

It must be said that in the few days after Meg Shiller's disappearance there was general hysteria. One member of the city council, George Rossi, wanted to pass a resolution calling upon the state police to search every house in town. Rossi said they could begin with his house right away. When other members protested, Rossi had the audacity to suggest they had something to hide. It wasn't until some months later that he apologized.

Many people were questioned by the police as to their whereabouts on Halloween, including several gay men. Jaime Rose was taken to the police station and spent an hour with a state police sergeant. Though he was released, the fact that he had been questioned became generally known. I should say that in his entire life Jaime Rose had never even received a parking ticket. People put pressure on Cookie Evans to dismiss him, and eight women said they would stop patronizing Make Waves if Jaime kept working there. Cookie refused to be intimidated or to treat Jaime any differently. A few people admired Cookie for this, but there was no doubt that she lost customers.

Among the people who were questioned were Dr. Malloy and his brother, Donald, as well as their brother-in-law, Paul Leimbach. Even Ralph Shiller and his brother Mike were asked to account for their whereabouts at the time of Sharon Malloy's disappearance the previous month. Of course, they all had satisfactory alibis.

I happened to run into my cousin at the bank and let him know that I found it excessive that the victims' fathers should be harassed by the police.

Chuck was rather dismissive. “Statistically it's almost always the family.” Then he softened a little. “Yeah, I felt bad about it too.”

I suppose he meant that the police couldn't afford to overlook any possibility, but it upset people that the Malloys or Shillers might be suspected.

Once again FBI agents were seen going into City Hall. Ryan said that Captain Percy especially blamed himself for Meg's disappearance: if he had done everything to find Sharon, Meg would still be safe. It was something he kept repeating. And some people suggested that the two disappearances were unrelated. Perhaps Meg had been abducted by someone else or hadn't been abducted at all. This seemed unlikely, but, as Ryan told Franklin, the possibility had to be explored.

The Friends of Sharon Malloy were revitalized by Meg's disappearance. This is not to say they were pleased that it took place, but the search for Sharon had increasingly reached a dead end. Meg's disappearance gave it new life. Within hours, at least fifty of the Friends were hunting between the houses on Van Buren, somewhat to the irritation of Captain Percy, who said that their presence interfered with the dogs that had been brought from Utica and that the Friends would confuse or obliterate the trail.

By the next morning, November 1, the storefront rented by the Friends of Sharon Malloy was crowded with volunteers. And they were more eager to pursue an investigative role. Late in the morning several members, including Donald Malloy, went to the house of Houari Chihani, meaning to talk to him. They had no idea that he was dead until they arrived and found the police. One wonders what they would have done had Chihani been alive. But possibly one can have some idea considering what happened to Harry Martini, the principal of Knox Consolidated. In mentioning this, I get ahead of myself, but it is more pertinent here than later on. I should say it was absolutely trivial and had nothing to do with the disappearances, but it gives the mood of the group and of the town as a whole.

Harry Martini had been married to his wife, Florence, for twenty-five years. It was a marriage best described as frosty, and if Harry had had the courage he would have divorced his wife. But he was nervous about the school board and the general opinion of the town, though I don't believe a divorce would have jeopardized his position. Harry and his wife had two children. The older, Sally, worked for Kodak in Rochester; the younger, Harold Junior, was a student at Alfred University. Not a very bright boy but well-meaning. Though Harry and his wife lived together, they had separate bedrooms and spent little time in each other's company. From what I gather, most of the resentment was on Florence's side. Harry had an important position that kept him busy, while his wife, though she had a graduate degree in history, worked part-time at Letter Perfect, an office-supply store on Jefferson Street. She was also active in the Friends of Sharon Malloy and in the Presbyterian church. She was about forty-five, a tall woman with a slight moustache and gray hair.

What happened was quite simple. Early on Halloween Harry left the house, saying he had to go over some papers with Frank Armstrong, the assistant principal. Because of her connection with the Friends of Sharon Malloy, Florence Martini heard about Meg's disappearance early, around eleven o'clock. She immediately called Frank's house to speak to her husband and learned from Frank's wife that Harry had not been there all evening. When Harry returned home an hour later, his wife asked where he had been. He said he had been at Frank Armstrong's, and Florence accused him of lying. I can almost see Harry's expression when she told him this, a sort of superior pout that I have observed many times. Florence demanded to know where Harry had been and Harry refused to tell her. The next morning at the Friends of Sharon Malloy, Florence confessed that her husband had been gone the previous evening and that he refused to say where he had been.

This may have been disingenuous. Several people claimed that Florence knew perfectly well where her Harry had been and that she arranged the whole scene in order to embarrass him. In any case, she told Paul Leimbach and Donald Malloy that her husband had been missing the previous evening and that he had been acting strangely ever since Sharon had disappeared.

Instead of contacting the police, Donald and two other members of the group drove to the school to talk to Harry. I saw them arrive around eleven but I thought nothing of it, nor did anyone else, for that matter. They were in his office with the door shut. Apparently Harry refused to tell them where he had been the previous evening. Then they asked him where he had been when Sharon disappeared. As I have said, Donald Malloy is a large man, quite stout, and he leaned across Harry's desk in a threatening manner. All this I heard later. As it turned out, Harry had also been absent on the day that Sharon disappeared. Supposedly he had been at a conference in Utica.

I saw Harry later that day and I must say that he looked very drawn and pale. There was to be a faculty meeting that afternoon but Harry canceled it. I believe he left early.

When I got to school Thursday morning, I felt certain that Harry wouldn't show up. But I was wrong. It was typical of him that he never did what he should do and too often did what he shouldn't. This was true of him even as a child. He quite bullied the community with his overinflated spelling abilities and his tiresome questions at the bank and the supermarket. Who cared if he could spell
pachyderm
? In any case, Harry went into his office and locked the door, telling Mrs. Miller that he didn't want to see anyone or to receive any calls. That was at eight-thirty.

At ten-thirty Peter Marcos, the young lieutenant who had been brought down as Captain Percy's assistant, arrived at the school with three other men. In Albany Marcos was often assigned to the governor and he had not yet decided whether Aurelius was a step up or a step down, so he was eager to do well. Certainly he wanted it to be a step up. Ten minutes later he took Harry away.

It was a habit of Harry's—more of a trademark—to wear a flower in his lapel, usually a carnation. During the break between classes after Harry's departure, the carnation was found in the main hall. It was kicked around for a while, then little Tommy Onetti retrieved it and tried to sell it. He couldn't find a buyer so he ended up wearing it himself for the rest of the day, a slightly bent and soiled pink carnation.

Mrs. Miller said Harry was weeping when he was taken away and at least ten other people told me the same thing. By lunchtime everybody knew that the police had arrested Harry and that he had been in tears, while several claimed he had been in handcuffs, which was false, and several others said he had admitted to abducting Sharon Malloy and Meg Shiller.

Of course, Harry had done nothing of the kind. Ryan Tavich told Franklin what happened:

“Martini was brought in here bawling his eyes out. Marcos took him in to Captain Percy. I went as well. Before Percy could ask him a question, Martini began blabbing this complicated story about some woman he'd met in Utica and how she'd driven down and was staying at Gillian's Motel. He said how she loved him, how she understood him, and how his whole life was ruined. It was hard to make head or tail of it. I've got to say that Percy was patient. Anyway, it was clear what Martini was doing all evening—balling some lady teacher from Utica. I'll bet ten bucks his wife knew exactly what was going on, knew it even when she called Armstrong on Halloween.”