A Penny for the Hangman (14 page)

Karen studied the graceful capital
H
embroidered on the napkin in her lap, carefully forming her next question. Wulfgar Anderman was clearly reluctant to talk about his own parents, so she’d decided to try a roundabout approach.

“What do you remember about Mr. and Mrs. Harper?” she finally asked him.

He considered this, and Karen noted that Don Price was watching him closely from the other side of the table.

“The king and queen,” Anderman said at last. “They lived in splendor, surveying their domain from their pretty castle on the hill. Tobias Harper was ambitious, a human steamroller who used the fortune he’d made in local properties to buy up more properties. By 1959 he owned quite a lot of St. Thomas, but he wanted more. He wanted
better
. A better bank account, a better wife, a better son. His older son, Toby, was probably the closest the man ever came to satisfaction. He adored Toby, the great scholar and athlete, the scion who would carry on with Harper Real Estate into the future, begetting more heirs and keeping the glorious name of Harper at center stage.

“Rodney was a complete disappointment to his father. Worse than that—he was a nonentity. Even though it was clear that the younger son was brighter, more capable in every way, he still wasn’t the firstborn golden boy. Tobias had already lost his heart to Toby, and he ignored Rodney completely. I think if the man could have gracefully divorced his wife and sent her packing with Rodney in tow, he would gladly have done so. Then he could concentrate on the wonderful Toby and his second favorite obsession: other men’s wives. Have you ever noticed, Karen, that a certain type of successful man is constantly seducing married women? It feeds his ego, even as it humiliates his rivals. And for a man like Tobias Harper,
every
other man was his potential rival.” He drew in a deep breath and announced, “Tobias Harper was a pig.”

“And Mrs. Harper?” Karen asked.

Anderman shrugged, and a long sigh escaped his lips. “Ah, Queen Lucy—that was Roddy’s name for her. Queen Lucy was a different matter entirely. She had once been a proud young beauty on Beacon Hill, with her debutante balls and her literary salons and her nonstop palaver about her old Boston lineage. Her mother had been a well-known opera singer, which caused a
frisson
of scandal back in the day, but it was
good
scandal, as opposed to the
bad
kind, as she was always eager to point out. The way she told it, half her Lawson forebears were Founding Fathers!” He lowered his voice. “She was ridiculous. I think Tobias begrudged her all that famous blue blood. His own family was ordinary, practically working class, and he needed to feel superior to her, put her in her place. Maybe that explains all his other women.”

Karen nodded. “And the other women might explain her drinking problem.”

Their host waved a hand dismissively. “Who knows? The two of them shared three things: a craving for social position, love for their older son, and indifference to their younger one. And Lucinda must have sensed that Tobias would gladly replace her with a newer, sexier model. Some women know how to rise to that challenge, but she…” He gazed out at the darkness beyond the wall of glass. At last he whispered, “She wasn’t a very happy woman, was she?”

Karen noted a sense of wonder in his voice, as if this quite obvious fact were only now occurring to him.

Letter from Lucinda Harper to a psychiatrist in Massachusetts, three weeks before the murders

Tamarind

St. Thomas, VI

February 20, 1959

Dear Dr. Thurston,

I’m hoping you will remember me. We met at Jane Wallace’s house in Boston four years ago. I was up from the Islands for my mother’s funeral, and Jane was so kind as to give that dinner party for me, and you were seated beside me. You told me about your work at the Bergen Clinic in Cambridge and your specialty with very young patients. It is for this reason that I am writing to you.

I believe I mentioned my two sons in our conversation. My older boy, Toby, is at Harvard now and doing splendidly. He excels in his work, and he’s planning to study law. We’re very proud of him. But my other boy, Rodney, is a problem. He’s fifteen now, and his father and I are worried about him.

Rodney has always been a difficult child. He’s never made friends easily, and the other children at school tease him mercilessly. He is what I believe you would call antisocial. He’s arrogant and defensive, and he has a tendency toward cruelty with other children and with animals. I’m told he is brilliant—the result of his recent intelligence quotient test was astonishin
g—but, aside from an obsession with the game of chess and an unfortunate preoccupation with Hitler’s Germany, he doesn’t make any attempt to apply himself to his education. Indeed, he’s been held back one year in school already, and his teachers inform me that they will not allow him to remain there if his deportment doesn’t improve.

Will you agree to examine Rodney? I could bring him up to Boston in mid-June, when his term ends. I don’t know what being treated at your clinic would entail, but my husband has agreed to meet any and all necessary expenses. He loves our son as much as I do, and we want him to grow into a happy, well-adjusted man, but we don’t know how to help him. If you could only meet Rodney, talk with him, I’m sure you could give us an idea how best to proceed.

Let me know if this is feasible and if mid-June is a good time for you. And there is one other thing I should mention. While Rodney and I are there, I would like to consult you on another matter as well, a matter concerning myself. I fear I am becoming a dipsomaniac, and perhaps you could recommend a course of action for me. I have not discussed this part with my husband, so I rely on your discretion. I must improve myself if I am to look after my son.

Please help me, Dr. Thurston. I am quite desperate, and I have no friends on this island. I don’t know where else to turn. Rodney requires immediate treatment, and so do I. You are my best hope. I wait to hear from you at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Lucinda Lawson Harper

Jorge Velasquez was just sitting down to dinner with Yolanda and his father when his cell phone buzzed. Staring at the fried chicken on the table in front of him, he listened to Bill Cochran’s excited voice. He signaled to his pregnant wife and made a writing gesture in the air, and she went to find a pen and paper.

So, Mr. Brown had taken his advice. The man had asked him recently if he knew anyone in the area who dealt in firearms, and Jorge had told him about his old cellmate, Bill Cochran, and his shooting range a few miles down the highway. Mr. Brown had thanked him, but he had not elaborated on the subject, and it had not been mentioned again. Now, however, it was clear that Mr. Brown was in the market for a gun.

Jorge wrote down the information he was being given, silently cursing his jailhouse pal for not keeping up with the times. If Bill Cochran had a more modern phone out there at his desert gun shop, he could simply have texted Jorge the name and address. Then again, if Mr. Jonathan Brown had any means of communication whatsoever, Jorge wouldn’t need to relay this message to him in the first place. But Jorge didn’t mind the extra effort because he knew there’d be a payday in it for him. It was really to his advantage that the illegal gun seller and the reclusive writer chose to live their lives off the grid, and Jorge Velasquez always took advantage when he could. It was his credo, really, a matter of personal honor.

He got up from the table, patted his wife’s swelling belly, nodded to his father, and went out into the desert evening. The roads out here were fairly empty at this hour, and he sang along with Beyoncé as he drove. This was one of his enterprises: message boy and errand runner for Mr. Brown and other eccentric, rich Anglos who had chosen to make Taos and its environs their home. Artists, mostly, and a smattering of retirees who craved the warm, dry climate. Jorge was willing to bet they all had stories behind their decision to move here, and not all of those stories were strictly legitimate. There was a lot of money around here, much of it of questionable origin. That didn’t bother Jorge in the least. He’d learned at an early age not to ask a lot of questions.

Still, he couldn’t help wondering about Mr. Brown. There was a story there, no doubt about it, probably an interesting one. A bank robber, maybe, or one of those quiet types who’d killed his wife and her boyfriend. Jorge suspected Mr. Brown had done time. Having done time himself, he recognized the look, and the man’s stripped-down lifestyle suggested habits he had probably learned inside.

Jorge slowed as he passed the Tumbleweed, scanning its nearly empty parking lot for the familiar old Jeep, then drove on. Mr. Brown was obviously not dining at the moment, so he was probably at home.

He was. The dusty Jeep was under the carport beside the little adobe house, and dim lights glowed beyond the curtained windows. By the time Jorge got out of his car, he could see the tall, powerfully built figure silhouetted in the open doorway, waiting for him. Jorge forced a smile to his lips, as he always did in this man’s presence. He’d run with a gang when he was a teenager, and he’d come up against more than a few bad guys, but there was something about this lanky, white-haired
gringo
that made him nervous. After all the years they’d known each other, Jorge still wondered what it was. A sense of the dangerous, perhaps, the feeling that at any moment the man might suddenly become violent. Jorge had never seen or heard of such a thing happening, but it wouldn’t surprise him.

“Message for you,” Jorge called as he came up to the door.

“Thank you,” Mr. Brown said. He took the paper from Jorge, read it, nodded to himself, and slipped it into his pocket. He produced his wallet and counted out several bills.

Jorge glanced over the man’s shoulder at the interior of the cottage. There was an open shoulder bag crammed with clothes in the center of the floor near the couch, and a glass of beer and a paperback book on the coffee table. Jorge squinted to see the book’s title:
Crime and Punishment
by some dude with a very long name. He didn’t expect to be invited in; that almost never happened—maybe twice in all these years.

“Good book?” Jorge asked, pointing at the coffee table.

Mr. Brown followed his gaze and nodded. “It’s one of my favorites. Listen, Jorge, I’m going away for a while. Could you keep an eye on the house for me?”

“Sure,” Jorge said. “No prob. Is this a business trip?” He asked it innocently enough, as though he assumed it was some work having to do with the books Mr. Brown wrote, but he knew better. Yolanda had told him about the pay phone call from the Trading Post for a ticket to the Virgin Islands. And there was the note:
Ask for Lucky at The Lounge on Back Street. He has it. 1K. Cash only.
Hell, even an idiot could figure that out.
Lucky
—a cellblock tag if ever there was one…

Mr. Brown’s pale blue eyes regarded the desert and the distant highway. “I guess you could call it that,” he replied at last. He handed Jorge the bills and then did something he’d never done before: He grasped the younger man’s hand and shook it. “
Vaya con Dios,
Jorge.”

“And you,” Jorge replied, and he walked away. The sudden, warm handshake had surprised him—shocked him, really—but he was way too cool to let the man see that. He was almost to his car when he realized that he was holding five grand in his hand, and his laid-back attitude finally deserted him. He whirled around to confront the backlit silhouette in the doorway, holding up the money, his voice sharp with disbelief. “What the
hell
?”

He couldn’t see the older man’s face in the twilight, but he heard his quiet laugh.

“For the baby,” Mr. Brown said. Then he went inside the house, shutting the door behind him.

Jorge Velasquez jumped into his car and headed for home, wondering who was going to die. The money was clearly a payoff, to keep him quiet about the note he’d just delivered, and that could only mean that the gun would be used for something illegal. And there was something else, something Yolanda had told him before dinner tonight.

Mr. Brown had arrived at the Trading Post again late this afternoon, just before closing time, and used the pay phone. He was calling a magazine in New York City and several hotels in the Virgin Islands. Yolanda heard him asking Information for the numbers before he called them. From what Yolanda could overhear of his end of the conversations, he was not getting the answers he wanted. He was apparently trying to locate a woman but with no success. At the end of the last call, he slammed the receiver down and punched the wall beside the phone, muttering a curse. The sudden, violent action had surprised her. Then he’d given Yolanda a strained smile and stalked out to his car.

Mr. Brown was a mystery, and this totally uncharacte
ristic flurry of activity on his part involved a woman and a gun. He was clearly agitated about something. Jorge wondered what it was….