Touchy and Feely (Sissy Sawyer Mysteries) (18 page)

‘I don’t know. I’m just glad that I’m not his age, not these days. It seems like nothing’s sacred, any more.’

Trooper MacCormack rapped loose-knuckled on the door. ‘Detective Wintergreen? I think I may have something here. There was a mechanic called William Hain working at Middletown Auto Spares from September 4, 2002, until January 16, 2003. According to his personnel file, he was repeatedly warned for lateness and careless workmanship, and for generally having an attitude.

‘Mr Koslowski’s damaged van was collected from his premises in Meriden on January 13, 2003, and towed to Middletown. On January 15, William Hain entered into the company’s record books that it had been dismantled. The next morning he called in sick and that was the last that Middletown Auto Spares ever saw of him.’

‘The dates fit,’ said Doreen.

‘Yes,’ said Steve. ‘And William Hain sounds like the kind of guy who considers that the world owes him a favor. Do we have any other information on him?’

‘Only his personnel file. He gave his address as 7769 Lamentation Mountain Road, Middletown. His date of birth was May 12, 1974, and his social security number was 046-09-6521. When he first applied for a job at Middletown Auto Spares, he gave references from Green Peak Engineering and Kyle’s Auto Repair, both in Hamden.’

‘Right, then,’ said Steve. ‘Send somebody to Middletown Auto Spares, and let’s check those references, too. There may be somebody at one of those auto shops who knows William Hain, or remembers him. More than anything else, I want a description.’

He stood up and lifted his coat off the back of his chair. ‘Doreen—you and me can go to Lamentation Mountain.’

He was halfway down the stairs when his cellphone rang. ‘Wintergreen.’

‘Steve, hi, it’s Roger Prenderval, in Torrington.’

‘How’s it going, Roger? What can I do for you? I’m kind of tied up right now, with the Mitchelson case.’

‘I thought you ought to know that we picked up your boy.’

‘Alan? What do you mean, you picked him up?’

‘I’m sorry to tell you that we had to arrest him. Thought you’d rather know, before Helen.’

Steve stopped. Doreen stopped, too, but he waved his hand at her and said, ‘I’ll meet you in the parking lot.’

‘Trouble?’ asked Doreen.

‘Just give me a minute, OK?’

Trooper Prenderval said, gravely, ‘He’s been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault.’

‘Sexual assault? My Alan? Are you serious?’

‘I’m sorry, Steve. We had a call from a house in the Burntwood district. It seems like the owners returned home unexpectedly and caught Alan trying to climb out the kitchen window. Their daughter was upstairs naked in a state of shock and she claims that Alan was trying to force her to have sexual intercourse against her will.’

‘Do you believe that?’

‘I’m sorry, Steve, it doesn’t make any difference what I believe. The girl has made the complaint and her parents are howling for blood.’

Steve pressed his fingertips against his forehead. He was beginning to feel a headache coming on—one of those headaches that made his left eye blurry.

‘Are you still holding Alan now?’

‘We’ll be bringing him down to Litchfield in maybe twenty minutes. I thought you’d probably want to see him before we charge him.’

‘Who’s the girl? I wasn’t even aware that he
knew
any girls. Not that intimately, anyhow.’

‘Her name’s Kelly Kessner. Her parents are Richard and Davina Kessner.’

‘Kessner Realty?’

‘That’s them.’

‘God almighty.’

Steve had only met Richard Kessner two or three times, at charity functions. But he remembered him as being a loud, bullying man with a permanent tan and dyed, bouffant hair. The sort of man who always tried to crush your fingers when he shook your hand. He couldn’t remember Davina Kessner, though, and as far as he knew he had never met their daughter Kelly.

‘Is Alan there? Can I talk to him?’

‘Hold on, Steve. Let me ask him.’

‘Don’t
ask
him, Roger,
tell
him. I want to talk to him, OK?’

There was a lengthy pause. Through the window, Steve could see Doreen standing impatiently next to his car. He raised one finger to indicate that he wouldn’t be long.

‘Steve? It’s Roger. Alan says he doesn’t want to talk to you.’

‘I’m sorry, Roger. He
has
to.’

‘You want me to hold a gun to his head? He absolutely refused.’

‘I don’t believe this. What did he say?’

‘You want the exact words?’

Steve hesitated for a moment, and then said, ‘No, thanks, Roger. Just tell him I’ll be back in about an hour. And tell him not to worry. It sounds like the whole thing was some kind of stupid misunderstanding.’

‘OK, Steve. Talk to you later.’

 

F
or Feely, the afternoon passed like a dream, or a home movie of somebody else’s life.

Serenity microwaved a frozen chili that her mother had left for her, and the three of them sat cross-legged on the hearthrug in front of the fire and ate it with serving spoons, straight out of the big blue Tupperware bowl. Robert hadn’t been able to chop any more firewood so Feely had wedged one huge log into the fireplace, which was burning with a furious roar.

‘Are you kids happy?’ Robert asked them.

Serenity only licked her spoon and gave him a suggestive smile, but Feely said, ‘Absolutely—I’m happy.’

‘Then now’s the time to start worrying,’ said Robert. ‘And you know why? Because the happier you are, the worse it hurts when it all turns to shit. Which it inevitably will.’

He spoke very slowly, and very emphatically. He had not only drunk three-quarters of a bottle of Mr Bellow’s Maker’s Mark, but he had taken eight Tylenol tablets to dull the pain in his fingers. With Feely’s reluctant help, he had stuck his fingertips back on as accurately as he could, using BandAids and Scotch tape, but he still kept complaining that they were throbbing, and that they felt ‘loose.’

Feely felt full now, and weary, and he was finding it hard to stay alert. But he couldn’t take his eyes away from Serenity, sitting opposite him. Her hair was shining in the firelight, and her eyes sparkled, and the shadows fondled her breasts. He wished he could sit here for ever, just staring at her.

‘I don’t know . . .’ he said. ‘Fate’s been very benevolent, so far as I’m concerned.’

‘You think?’

‘Sure. Ever since I bought my ticket at the Port Authority, I really feel like somebody’s been taking care of me. Like in
Hercules
,
The Incredible Journeys
, you know, with the gods looking down from the clouds and making sure that I achieve my desideration.’

Robert gave a dismissive
pfff!
‘You really believe in gods? Let me tell you, kid, there are no gods left. Not one. Even before the birth of Christ the gods saw what men and women were turning into, and they bailed.’

‘Oh, I think you’re wrong,’ said Serenity. ‘I don’t think the gods have gone. I think they’re in hiding, that’s all, until we come to our senses. But they still keep an eye on us.’

‘Yeah—look at everything that’s happened to me,’ Feely agreed. ‘Meeting you, meeting Serenity. You can’t tell me the gods didn’t have something to do with it. Look at us here now, man, in front of the fire, don’t try to tell me that all three of us congregated here just by happenstance?’

‘You’re full of crap,’ said Robert. ‘The trouble with human beings is, we’re all still looking for signs. We need meaning in our lives! We need oracles, and predictions, to tell us what to do next! So we keep on looking for clues, or marks, and when we find them . . . poor pathetic souls that we are, we think that we’ve discovered the answer.’

He looked at Feely with unfocused eyes, and then at Serenity. ‘But I’ve discovered the real answer, children, and the real answer isn’t in signs, or riddles. The real answer is . . . transparent rulers.’

‘
What?
’ said Serenity.

‘Transparent rulers,’ Robert insisted. ‘Just like the gods, they’re invisible, but they still have the measure of us.’

‘There’s no answer to that,’ said Serenity.

‘Exactly,’ said Robert, ‘because it’s a universal truth.’ Then he said to Feely, ‘Get me another drink, will you, kid? I think my legs are permanently locked. No wonder the Japs lost the war. Once they sat down to eat they couldn’t get up again.’

Feely uncrossed his legs, took Robert’s glass, and went across to the drinks cabinet on the other side of the living room. As he passed the widescreen TV, he saw a small yellow house, with a TV reporter standing in the back yard. The caption along the bottom of the picture said NEWS 24: SNIPER KILLS CANAAN WOMAN.

‘Hey, Robert!’ he said. ‘Lookit—on the TV! Isn’t that the same house we passed by this morning, where that little girl was making a snowman?’

Robert swiveled around and squinted at the screen with one eye. ‘Yes, Feely, you’re right. That’s the very house. What about it?’

‘Looks like a woman got herself killed there, by a sniper.’

Robert looked up at him, with one eye still closed. ‘What are you trying to say to me, Feely? That I gave them the evil eye? Are you trying to suggest that it was
my
fault, that woman getting shot?’

‘Of course not. Why should I? I just think it seems kind of epiphenomenal, that you should say what a happy house that actual specific house was, and the very same day it’s visited by doom.’

Robert shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t have happened, if she’d owned a transparent ruler. She would have seen it coming. The snowman, too, poor bastard.’ He tried to turn back toward the fire, but he fell sideways onto the rug, with his legs still locked together. ‘God, I must be drunk.’

‘Why don’t we get you to bed?’ Serenity suggested.

‘My legs are stuck. Help me sort my legs out.’

Between them, Feely and Serenity disentangled his legs. ‘Come on,’ said Serenity. ‘You could use some sleep.’

‘I need another drink,’ said Robert. ‘If I have another drink, I’ll sober up.’

Serenity ignored him. ‘Come on, Feely, help me to get him upstairs.’

It took them almost five minutes to drag Robert up to the guest bedroom. He kept trying to turn around and go back downstairs again, and even when they got him to the top he decided to cling onto the banisters like a stubborn child.

‘I’m sober! I’ve sobered up! Listen to this: “Since inquiry is the beginning of philosophy, and wonder and uncertainty are the beginning of inquiry, it seems only natural that the greater part of what concerns the gods should be concealed in riddles.”’

‘You couldn’t say that unless you were drunk,’ said Serenity, prying his fingers free from the banister-rail.

‘What? You girls—you think you know everything! You think you control our lives! Nothing could be further from the spoof! You can’t do squat unless we allow you to! You can’t even menstruate unless we say so! Men are the sole arbiters of everything that walks, flies, sinks, shits, or swims!’

Eventually, Feely and Serenity managed to force Robert through the bedroom door, and push him onto the bed. Once he had collapsed back onto the pink-and-white quilt, he stopped struggling, and lay back with his eyes closed. ‘I think I need a little sheep,’ he slurred. ‘Feely, get me another drink, will you? Make it a large one. Not one of those goddamned . . . small ones.’

Serenity knelt down beside the bed and laid her hand on his forehead. ‘Get some rest, OK, Touchy? You’ve had a pretty bad day, one way and another.’

Robert opened his eyes again, and stared at her. ‘You’re not Elizabeth, are you? No, I thought not. Pity. You know what Elizabeth said to me? She said, “Whatever you want, Robbie, you just tell me what it is, and I’ll do it.” Now, how many women do you know who would say something like that? And mean it?’ He nodded, and kept on nodding. ‘And
mean
it? You see where I’m coming from? And
mean
it?’

His eyes closed, and he fell into a drugged and drunken sleep. He didn’t snore. In fact he didn’t even seem to be breathing, but Serenity laid her hand on his chest and said, ‘He’s OK . . . I can feel his heart beating.’

Feely surprised himself by feeling jealous. He wouldn’t have minded if Robert were dead.

 

T
hey left the bedroom and Serenity closed the door. ‘I think I’m going to my room now. I want to wash my hair and all. If you want to stay up and watch TV, fine.’

‘Hey, it’s not even nine o’clock yet. Don’t you maybe want another drink, and we can maybe converse some more?’

‘Actually, Feely, I’d like a little time on my own.’

‘Oh . . . OK.’

Serenity smiled at him and chucked him under the chin with her finger. ‘Don’t be disappointed. You look like you could use some sleep, too.’

Feely shrugged and looked around. ‘I just like this so much. Whatever Robert says, I feel happy here. I feel hygienic, and also warm, and not at all inclined to be mendacious.’

‘You’re something, you know that?’

‘Everybody is something.’

‘I know. But you’re
really
something.’

‘I don’t know. Robert says you have to do a cataclysmic deed if the world is going to pay you any attention.’

‘A cataclysmic deed? Like what?’

‘I don’t really know. But Robert says that when you do it, everybody has to go
ho-o-oly shit
!’

Serenity laughed. Then she took hold of his hands and kissed him on the lips, just lightly. ‘You know, sometimes I stare at my parents’ eyes real close up and I try to see if there’s anything inside them. My dad says “What the hell are you staring at?” and I say “I’m trying to see into your soul.” He thinks I’m cracked, but there’s a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and this woman says, “I feel there is an angel inside me . . . who I am constantly shocking.” I love that poem. But when I stare at my parents I think that what you see is all they are. No angel inside. No devil either. They’re like hollow people,
knock-knock
, they’re empty. I wonder if they were always like that, or if their real selves decided to escape one day, like you escaped, and went north.’