Cold Rain

Chapter 19

I got home from dekalb late Saturday afternoon. The horses were already in the barn. I walked down the hill and went across the road to the little house where Billy Wade lived. Wade was in a cheerful mood as usual. He got in a better mood after I handed him the money for taking care of Ahab and Jezebel.

‘Any problems?’ I asked. The giant shook his head.

‘You see that Mercury Marquis drive by?’

‘He came out every day!’ I reached for my wallet.

‘Naw, Dave. I’m funning you! He only came out one time!’

I handed Wade another twenty. ‘What did he do?’

‘It was after dark. I walked out to that service road way on out there. It was that Merc you was asking about, all right.’

‘You write down the license plate number?’

Wade seemed embarrassed. ‘I sure didn’t. You didn’t tell me to, did you?’ I told him it was my mistake. I said to go on. ‘Nothing more to tell. I went back to the house and watched. He drove away maybe an hour after that. Maybe an hour-and-a-half in all.’

‘Next time, you come up to the house and let me know while he’s still here. Can you do that?’

Wade slapped my shoulder. He told me not to worry.

The house was cold, and I nudged the thermostat up and surveyed the house for some evidence of a break-in. The windows and doors were all secure. My papers were all in place. Nothing had changed, but I had the feeling Buddy had been inside the house.

I glanced at the mail, flipped through the newspapers, then went to my office and checked my e-mail.

In the kitchen I noticed the light on the answering machine blinking. I pushed the button. Eight messages.

The first was a prof I knew in Sociology. He wanted to know if I had heard anything about Walt’s suicide.

I didn’t bothering listening to the rest. I went back to my office and got the papers out. I found the article in Saturday’s paper. Hardly more than a note in Regional News, actually, it reported that the bodies of Walter and Barbara Beery had been discovered at their residence Friday evening by their son Roger. The sheriff’s department was investigating the possibility of foul play.

I went online, hoping for more details, but there were no updates. I went back to the answering machine.

Six calls from different people at the university, two hang-ups. I started calling until I got what I wanted.

Randy Winston had the details. Walt had apparently visited Barbara on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. I said I knew about that. What happened? Nobody knew. At some point during the afternoon Walt had walked up behind Barbara and drove a carving knife into her back.

Walt had then hanged himself from a rafter in the garage.

I called the McBrides. Doc answered. He told me Molly was out for the evening. Did I want to talk to Lucy? I said no, but I needed to talk to Molly as soon as possible. Could he leave a message for her to call me the minute she got in? He could do that.

Because I didn’t want to break off too abruptly, I thanked Doc for calling Judge Hollis.

‘Glad I could help, David. I told Jimmy that wasn’t like you at all.’

‘No, sir, it wasn’t,’ I answered equably. ‘I usually land the first punch, and that’s the end of it.’

Doc McBride laughed as if I had made a joke.

Molly called me the following morning. ‘Sorry I missed your call,’ she told me when I answered, ‘but I thought if he’s going out I might as well too.’

The two hang-ups on the machine now made sense.

‘I went to DeKalb,’ I said.

‘You tell them about us?’

‘Molly,’ I said, ‘listen to me. I’ve got some bad news.’

Assoon as I told her about Walt and Barbara, Molly said she wanted to fly up for the funeral.

I didn’t have the details just then, so I hung up and started calling around again. By the time I got the information and called back, Molly had switched Lucy’s return flight. The two of them would be coming in that night. I said I would pick them up, but she told me not to bother. She had to rent a car anyway. Best just to get it at the airport, since she would be flying back the following Sunday. One week, I thought. One last chance.

The two of them got in late that evening. I had the master bedroom set up for Molly, and I took a little monk’s cell on the third floor with a view to the back one-forty.

We got Lucy off to school the next morning and settled ourselves down so we could go through the tragedy of Walt and Barbara. The Sunday and Monday papers filled in some of the gaps, but I had found no one who knew more than Randy Winston. The paper was now calling it a murder-suicide, but that was all we knew. There was a nice summation of Walt’s early career, however. It mentioned both of his books, The Origins of Chivalry and On Courtly Love, calling Courtly Love the definitive text in the field, even thirty years after its initial publication. There were several quotes included from various colleagues. The irony was even his most vitriolic detractors had sweet words for the man now. There were hints of course among these same people that the whole thing made sense. Words appeared in their remarks like stress, counselling, separation, difficulties. With a bit of imagination a reader could understand that Walt was a raging alcoholic with a bad marriage and troubles at work. Other than that it was a tasteful enough send off.

None of it, though, made sense to Molly or me. I suppose we knew Walt too well. Walt wasn’t a violent drunk. Walt could be a laughing drunk or a sad drunk, even a bashful drunk, but never a violent one. The closest I had ever seen him to rage was the time another scholar quoted him out of context. Walt had slapped his hand on the table, rattling his bottles, and announced that the Inquisition had not been an entirely bad idea.

Pick up a knife? The man couldn’t even carve a Thanksgiving turkey. I went through the last talk Walt and I had. Optimistic, I told Molly. ‘He told me Barbara had agreed to talk about reconciliation.’

‘That was it, then,’ Molly answered simply. ‘After they talked, she decided against it and Walt couldn’t handle it.’

I didn’t believe it, and told her so. It wasn’t in his character to do something like that.

‘I don’t think any of us knows anyone else the way we think we do,’ Molly answered. There was a note of bitterness in this, and I knew we weren’t talking about Walt anymore.

I was already prepping the largest room for paint in Lucy’s apartment when Molly joined me.

We had always worked without talking very much.

When we needed to say something, we spoke in a kind of shorthand. We had been doing things like this our entire marriage, and that morning was no different.

Over lunch, we talked about our other properties.

The apartment buildings were getting no lookers, I said. A couple of the renters had agreed to buy but wanted rent-to-own contracts. Molly swore sourly. If we wanted to wait thirty years we were better off keeping the property. I thought about making a pitch for keeping everything, including our marriage, but in the wastelands I had discovered the worst thing you can do is to try to close too soon, so I simply grumbled my agreement. To hell with them. If they wanted the property they could go to the bank. While we were on the subject of real estate I asked about Florida. Not as good as Doc had said, she answered, but there was money to be made, and Doc was ready to finance the venture if and when they found the right property. She was planning to stay in Florida then? I asked.

Still thinking about it. And me? I told her I had a decent chance of keeping my job if we could start deposing the university’s witnesses, but Gail needed five thousand before she went any further. ‘I told her I would ask you about signing off on that amount.’

‘I’ll drive into town this afternoon and take care of it,’ Molly said. ‘You can pay me back after the settlement.’

Molly’s aunt had left her a fairly substantial pool of cash. It would be easier, Molly said, for her to write Gail a check. If she needed more, she could contact Molly directly. ‘We can settle the debt later.’

‘If you stay in Florida, what about Lucy? Senior year and all.’

‘I told her she can move down with me in January and finish school in Ft. Meyers or stay with the Sloans and graduate here. It’s up to her.’

‘What do you think she’ll do?’

Molly smiled. ‘We drove out to a stable where she can keep Jezebel and Ahab. It was nice. The owner talked to her like he might be able to give her some work training a couple of racetrack Quarter horses for barrels, maybe teaching a class or two to kids. I think she was excited.’

I told Molly that was great. My tone said otherwise.

We had talked to Lucy about attending the funeral Tuesday, but it was scheduled for mid-after-noon. She had already missed three days of class the week before. She said if we didn’t mind she would go to the visitation and miss the funeral.

After a spiritless dinner hour Monday evening, the three of us headed into town in Molly’s rental. Walt and Barbara had made their arrangements a few years before, never dreaming they would be here together.

Certainly Roger was not capable of handling something of this magnitude. He was twenty-five years old with the emotional maturity of an adolescent. There were no brothers or sisters on either side of the marriage, though quite a few cousins on Barbara’s side showed up. It was apparently a tremendous imposi-tion for them that Walt should end up at the same funeral as Barbara, but that much was Roger’s call. I expect, as the lone beneficiary, Roger was counting his pennies. Five-point-five million, after all, just didn’t go as far as it used to. One ceremony, one hall, one preacher: murderer and victim side-by-side. What was the problem?

The funeral home was divided into two distinct camps since Barbara had long ago broken ties with the faculty. A few too many secrets kept from her, I believe. The result was members of our department pitched in on one side with Randy Winston in the lead, and Barbara’s clan, such as it was, on the other.

It was like a wedding where the ushers ask, ‘Bride or groom?’ and seat you accordingly.

I had volunteered to do whatever was needed, hoping at least I would be one of the pallbearers. Because Randy had not responded to my offer, I found him the moment we entered the funeral home. What did he want me to do? Randy told me it might be better for everyone concerned if I didn’t participate. I was irritated naturally, but I said I understood.

When Johnna Masterson walked in, I thought about pointing her out to Molly, but decided there was no advantage in showing her the department’s centrefold.

I did, however, try to approach her. I was anxious to know what Buddy Elder had told her and just why she had ended up making her complaint with Denise instead of separately. When Johnna saw me moving toward her, she walked over to Randy Winston.

Touching his arm, she whispered something. Randy’s eyes locked on me at once.

I made no second attempt.

A while later I engaged in a clammy handshake with Roger Beery. He offered a few incoherent grunts when I talked about his parents, but that was the extent of our conversation. I could not decide if he was in shock or just didn’t care. I didn’t want to judge the kid on the basis of tears or a lack of them. I had not cried at Tubs’s funeral. I recalled even that I had managed to laugh a few times with old friends. Lots of stories at that funeral, I can tell you. But Roger neither laughed nor wept. Someone quoted the newspaper to me. Roger had found the bodies. Could I imagine? I shook my head. No, I couldn’t, I said. I swallowed my impulse to observe that in my researches about murder I had learned the killer was often the person who discovered the murder victim.

After a while I gravitated toward people I didn’t know. I did quite well with these folks, especially when I got to talk about how Walt and Barbara had extended their friendship to Molly and me when I had first joined the faculty. I knew Barbara? That was always the question. My answer was always the same. A wonderful woman. This inspired remarks about Barbara’s sainthood. Having never cared for any of the saints other than Jude, I agreed heartily. She sure as hell was.

The funeral home offered a large reception area at the front door, but the majority of people stood in the chapel where the two open caskets offered a last look.

There was, finally, a small room for the family just off the chapel. In the thirty minutes or so I had been there, Roger had retreated to it a couple of times, coming back out after a minute or so. Smoking dope?

Taking swigs? I didn’t know, but I was curious. Three young women at different points had gone into that room. They stayed quite a bit longer than Roger, and since these girls looked a little ragged around the edges I began paying attention to the anteroom, wondering just what was going on in there. The last of them left the room when it was apparently empty and went over to Roger and said something. Roger reacted immediately, walking directly to the room. I followed him, stepping through the door only seconds behind him.

Denise Conway looked stricken at the sight of me.

A moment later, she scanned the room for an exit. By a happy coincidence I happened to be standing at the only one. ‘Denise,’ I said, as if finding her at Walt’s and Barbara’s funeral was only to be expected, ‘nice to see you again.’ Denise retreated behind Roger’s heavy shoulder without speaking. Actually, I think she swore.

Her lips moved at any rate. I turned my attention to Roger, who was glaring at me angrily. ‘I can see why you wanted to keep your love life secret, Roger.’

Roger told me to leave. His request was delivered a bit roughly, however, and to be contrary I didn’t move. ‘You might want to get a lawyer to explain to you what a deposition is, Denise. You’re first on my lawyer’s list to be deposed. You lie to her and you’re lying under oath.’

Roger spoke for Denise. ‘Go screw yourself, Dave.’

‘Did Denise happen to tell you what was going on with her and your old man, Roger?’

It probably wasn’t the nicest thing to say under the circumstances. Then again it’s not real nice listening to a creep tell you to go screw yourself. Roger came at me fast, slamming me into the wall. While I was recovering, he opened the door and shoved me into the chapel. I got my feet under me and turned around, but he was on me again, pushing me back into a small clutch of mourners. Roger was not particularly athletic, but he got his weight behind his arms and rattled my bones. Trying not to fall down, I stumbled back and hit an old woman. We went down together. Several people stepped between Roger and me, ending the attack. The old woman was shaken, but it seemed to be the only damage. By the time I stood up several more individuals had stepped between us. Stabbing his finger in my direction for emphasis, Roger shouted,

‘You’re not welcome here, Dave!’ To the men holding me he said, ‘Get him out of here. If he comes back, call the police!’

Denise stepped cautiously out of the anteroom. She looked at me fearfully. ‘It’s called perjury,’ I said to her. The men pushed me back angrily. ‘People go to jail when they commit perjury, Denise!’

Randy Winston materialized in front of me as the men physically escorted me to the front door. ‘Nice going, David. A real class act.’

Outside, the men let go of me. Including Randy, there were six of them. Their faces were tense, anxious.

They did not want trouble, but they were committed: I was not coming back inside. I knew each one of them. What’s more, they knew me. My sole pleasure at that moment was the fact that every one of them looked terrified when I feinted a charge at them.

I told Randy I needed my coat. He huddled with his fellow bouncers briefly, but before they could decide on how to handle the matter, Molly and Lucy came outside, my coat in Molly’s arms.

‘Ready to go, dear?’ she called to me cheerfully.

In the car, Lucy asked what had happened. Molly answered for me. ‘You’re stepfather just got eight-sixed from a funeral home.’

Lucy was quiet, afraid of a fight between us, I expect.

Finally, I laughed. ‘Walt would have loved it!’

While I still laughed, the tears came. Such is the nature of grief.

We went off separately when we got home.

In my room, looking out the lone window into the darkness of the pasture, I tried to understand my friendship with Walt Beery. I knew there had been a time when he had been very proper, very brilliant, very young.

We were all young once, I suppose, but with people you meet in their late middle age it’s hard to imagine sometimes just what they were like. With Walt, it was practically impossible. What I knew I had picked up in various places. Walt had never been one to dwell on the past. Partly, he didn’t remember it very well, and partly, as with a number of people in their early sixties, the past was a mixed bag of fresh pain and stale laughter.

According to other Olympians, including Dean Lintz, there had been a time when Walt rarely indulged in more than a single drink at faculty parties. In time it became two or three, then four or five. From the occasional happy hour at the faculty club, it started to be two or three nights a week at local bars, far from the observation of other university types. Then came his forays into campus bars. His classroom demeanour began to change, his interests to broaden.

There had been a serious affair with one of his grad students several years before I joined the faculty. I had heard about it from various sources. Walt himself referred to it as ‘problems with Barbara,’ but people who knew told me it was the real thing, the once-in-a-lifetime.

I never really understood how it had ended or how the marriage survived it. My impression was the student had taken the whole thing less seriously than Walt.

Her thesis finished, she moved on. Maybe that isn’t the way it was. I don’t know. I do know that Walt began a radical descent from that point forward. He had flings, one night stands, barroom and classroom flirtations. He drank every night. His classes were nominally rigorous, but there were too many hangovers, then too many classes conducted after long liquid lunches.

By the time I met him, Walt was a dangerous commodity at the university. Just being in his company could get an untenured professor in trouble. He was also brilliant and funny and passionate about literature and, at the beginning, I paid no heed to the warning looks and Machiavellian whispers. Only later, as I became ambitious, did I learn to keep my distance.

Such behaviour had seemed only sensible at the time.

Now, at the hour of my friend’s passing, it felt less than noble. Walt was a good soul, a great intellect, and certainly worth more than the limited friendship I had been willing to extend to him.

Or, as I told the black fields beyond my window that evening, ‘

…worth more than the whole damn bunch of us.’