Mystery

Tom found himself in the hall at the foot of the staircase without any memory of leaving the study. Soft intermittent wails and wordless, high-pitched imprecations came from the floor above. He looked into the wide living room and saw that everything in it was dead. All the furniture, the chairs and tables and the long couch, was dead furniture. “So she gave him the runaround,” he said. “So she tried to lie her way out of it.” His father’s voice rumbled. “It should have been a delightful summer,” Tom said. Upstairs, something crashed and broke. His feet walked him back into the study. He sat on the arm of his father’s recliner and looked at the smooth charcoal screen of the television for a time before realizing that it was switched off. His legs took him across the room, and his hand pushed the power button. In a row of men in sports jackets behind a long curved desk, Joe Ruddler grimaced violently toward the camera. Wide printing at the bottom of the screen announced ALL-ISLAND LIVE ACTION NEWS NEXT! A commercial for auto wax battered the air. Tom turned down the volume and moved to a wobbly rush-bottomed chair and waited.

“I hope you told ’em I’d call right back,” his father said.

Tom turned his head and saw his father standing just outside the doors. “The call was for me. It was Grand-Dad.”

A layer of cells died just below the surface of his father’s face.

“We had a long talk. Probably the longest talk I’ve ever had with him. On a one-to-one basis, I mean.”

Something happened to the dark pouches beneath his father’s eyes.

“Ralph Redwing came up. I’m going up north on your buddy’s plane the day after tomorrow. Grand-Dad sounded pleased with himself.”

His father’s eyes looked bruised—that was it. Not the pouches, the eyes themselves.

“I didn’t say anything about the wonderful visit and the five-dollar cigar. I didn’t tell him anything at all. How could I? I don’t exist.”

Victor placed his hands on the doorjamb and leaned the top half of his body into the room. A black curl of hair plastered itself to his forehead. Victor’s mouth opened, and the bruised look deepened in his eyes. “I’ll take care of you later.” He pushed himself back out of the room.

Brisk, bouncy theme music blared from the set, and a resonant voice announced: “It’s time for your All-island live action news team!”

Bulging cheeks and flaring eyes flashed on the screen for a moment, declaring that Joe Ruddler was prepared to savage words, sentences, and paragraphs between his square white teeth.

Then a blond man with an almost clerical look of concern on his regular features looked at Tom and said, “Tragic death of a local hero. After this.”

For thirty seconds, a shampoo commercial blew images of billowing hair at him.

The blond man looked at Tom again and said, “Today Mill Walk has lost a hero. Patrolman Roman Klink, one of two police officers wounded in the native quarter shootout that resulted in the death of suspected murderer Foxhall Edwardes, suffered fatal gunshot wounds in an armed robbery attempt at Mulroney’s Taproom late this afternoon. When Patrolman Klink, working a temporary part-time job at the Taproom while awaiting full recovery from his wounds, pulled his service revolver and attempted to halt the robbery, his assailants gunned him down. Patrolman Klink died instantly of a head wound. Three men were observed fleeing the area, and though no identifications were obtained, arrests are considered imminent.”

A fuzzy black and white Police Academy photograph of a wide-faced boy in a uniform cap appeared on the screen.

“A fifteen-year veteran of the Mill Walk police force, Patrolman Roman Klink was forty-two years old, and leaves a wife and one son.”

The blond man glanced down at his desk, then back at the camera and Tom. “In a related story, Officer Klink’s partner, Patrolman Michael Mendenhall, died today at Shady Mount Hospital of wounds suffered at the hands of Foxhall Edwardes in the Weasel Hollow shootout. Patrolman Mendenhall had been in a coma since the event, one of the most violent in Mill Walk’s history.

“Both officers will be buried with full police honors at Christ-church Cemetery at two o’clock on Sunday following a memorial service at St. Hilda’s Procathedral. Captain Fulton Bishop has announced that donations to the Police Welfare Fund will be gratefully accepted.”

He turned his profile to the camera and said, “A sad commentary, Joe.”

Joe Ruddler burst upwards out of a blue button-down shirt which had captured the tight knot of a yellow challis necktie. “TERRIBLE! OUTRAGEOUS! YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK? I’LL TELL YOU WHAT I THINK! SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT PUBLIC HANGINGS—”

Tom stood up and switched off the television.

“Hey, that was Joe Ruddler,” Victor said.

Tom turned around to see his father standing in the door frame. He had his hands in his pockets. “I like Joe Ruddier.”