The Murder in the Museum of Man (26 page)

Well, I’m not sure what to make of this document. It sounds plausible enough in not sparing us the awful details. On the other hand, I know Mr. Morin to be capable of imaginative mendacities, and the threat of the electric chair is a real one. And the circumstantial evidence for the charge of murder and cannibalism (I mean, keeping that poor girl in the freezer) is certainly strong. I will, in any event, pass a copy of this document on to Ariel Dearth. With the disappearance of Scrabbe, there appears to be considerable commercial potential for anyone even peripherally
connected to the case. Malachy Morin, in short, might now be able to afford Mr. Dearth’s services.

On an entirely different subject, as I have leafed back through these unofficial entries, I found them to be a bit more autobiographical than I intended. Not that I object to autobiography as such. I simply wouldn’t want these diaristic leavings to sound like contemporary fiction. So much of what is offered these days is consciously and self-consciously about what are called “relationships,” a horrible hybrid of a word that sounds like it comes from a manual on pathology. It all stems, I suppose, from what might be called the therapeutic ethos. What I certainly don’t want these entries to sound like, what I cannot abide myself, are accounts by faculty members about what goes on in their institutions, especially dreary accounts of the petty politics involved.

Not that it makes much difference what I include or exclude. I can’t imagine anyone besides myself or a future historian of the MOM reading this account.

I feel like a juggler who has gotten one or two too many balls going in the air. I have heard from Dexter McFarquar. It appears a tentative date has been set for the Board to meet. His response, as usual, was most gracious, but he hinted at reaching “an accommodation” with the university. I suppose I should expect that.

I did receive what may be some good news. Ariel Dearth gave a press conference Friday announcing that he will undertake the legal defense of Malachy Morin on a
pro bono publico
basis. In practice that means he will charge only three hundred and fifty
dollars an hour for his time. More important, from now on I will have all calls concerning the Morin case referred to Mr. Dearth’s office at the Law School, which, apparently, he runs like a regular law office. Dearth called asking me to coordinate any of the museum’s public relations efforts with the strategy he and his “team” will develop over the next few weeks. I told him I would take the matter under advisement. You have to be careful with lawyers. The next thing you know I will be listed as codefendant.

But there are still some grace notes left in life. The Reverend Lopes dropped in this morning, making a pastoral visit, both bringing and seeking comfort, or at least advice. He offered quite generously to conduct a prayer service at the museum if I thought it would help the staff cope with Dean Scrabbe’s disappearance. I am ashamed now to admit that I discouraged it, that I dissembled with vague remarks my real objection: to have the Wainscott Minister presiding at a service in the MOM might be seen as a legitimization of the university’s claim to the museum. We passed over the matter quickly. He said he was in fact stumped as to what to do for the larger community. “I can’t, Norman,” he said, holding the cup of tea I had brought him from the cafeteria, “hold a memorial service when the poor man is simply missing. He could show up any day, the victim of amnesia or a bizarre kidnapping.” He went on to say that Scrabbe’s disappearance raised for him a more fundamental theological problem: “To disappear like that, Norman, makes us all seem, well, ephemeral.”

I quaffed my coffee. “Alfie,” I said, “it is only our mortal form that is ephemeral; and I am more and more convinced of that every day.” I went on to suggest that he hold a vigil service in Swift Chapel for the whole community. That, I said, would acknowledge the dean’s disappearance, signal the hope of his eventual return, and constitute, in retrospect and in the eventuality that the dean’s fate never comes to light, a kind of standby memorial service.

Alfie replied that he and his staff had considered doing just that. The problem, he said, is that given the nature of vigils — their being acts of faith and hope — they are easier to initiate than to terminate, especially when the object of their observance remains unresolved, as might happen in this case. He confessed to me that he was deeply disheartened by what was happening to the museum, to the university, and to the city. “When these things happen, Norman,” he said, picking up his straw boater and preparing to leave, “it takes some time to restore our faith in the possibility that we are transcendent beings.”

He left me feeling small that I had caviled about his holding a prayer service at the MOM. It is summertime, after all, and there’s really no one around to notice. And Alfie is such a benign presence. Indeed, I felt uplifted all morning by his visitation. I was brought back to reality by the presence of a police officer at the main entrance. We now have a member of Seaboard’s finest stationed at the door twenty-four hours a day, although what good that will do is beyond me. It certainly has done nothing to dispel the sense of doom that pervades this beautiful old place.

My own investigation, at the expense of my historical research, I must say, has continued apace. I have decided to enlist old Mort in getting behind the Green Door. I have a feeling I will find the Skull, the missing archives, and God only knows what else there. I have called over to the Wainscott Personnel Office to have sent to me the CV’s of several — I won’t call them “suspects” so much as individuals on whom I am starting dossiers. “Human Resources” at Wainscott helps us keep employee records, especially for the lab, the pavilion, and professors with joint appointments.

I am also starting to take more seriously the communications I have been receiving from the lab. Upon my arrival this morning I found another communication from Worried:

Of course, Worried may only be some disgruntled lab technician or a graduate student playing a sophomoric prank, as graduate students are wont to do. I would show these communications to Lieutenant Tracy, but they hardly constitute real evidence. He says they get crank calls all the time down at headquarters. My real worry, frankly, is the press. Even if there is a small sliver of truth in these allegations, the
Bugle
would blow it out of all proportion. The story or some mangled version of it would get into the national and international press, and we’ve had enough of that what with the cannibalizing of Dean Fessing and now Dean Scrabbe’s disappearance and Malachy Morin’s involvement in the death of Elsa Pringle. Speaking of which, Marge told me yesterday when I saw her at the Club that Morin and Amanda Feeney have become something of “an item,” even though he’s still in jail. Wonders never cease.

What I should do, of course, is confront Professor Gottling with these accusations. There’s no one else left, not even Scrabbe, who didn’t have any official authority in the first place. If Gottling is involved in anything remotely like the experiments Worried accuses him of, a Board of Inquiry will have to be convened. The Rules of Governance allow for that, of course, given “just cause on the part of any museum principal or employee.” It’s all so tiresome and complicated. I am sorely tempted at times to take early retirement. I could retreat to my own study at home and dwell on the beautiful past. I won’t, of course. It would be the coward’s way out. And there comes a time, sometimes more than once, when a man has to stand and face things even when he’s not sure what it is he’s facing.

And it’s more than that. I have something of a small confession to make. At times, especially in the summer, when the days are long and I have this old place all to myself, I wander down through the galleries, very nearly inhaling the light from the setting sun that fires the skylight above with scarlets and amethysts, tinting the
glass on the cases with paler hues, especially up on the fifth floor. I linger there over the terra-cotta figurines, miniatures of Attic perfection, one of which, a full-bodied Aphrodite in clinging, diaphanous gown, reminds me of the Elsbeth of my youth. Or, for the thousandth time, I stop by the case of netsuke, never failing an inner smile at the contorted antics of Ashinaga and Tenaga rendered in elongated detail in one inch of ivory. I grow nearly breathless under the sway of a wonderful, eerie sensation: this place, where the beauty of the past is gathered and venerated, is the
afterlife;
this temple to man’s propensity to create beauty is where our spirits go to dwell, and I fervently believe that if only one particle of one’s being could survive and persist here, it would be enough.

My hands are unsteady as I type this entry. I may just have solved this whole bloody business! This afternoon the Wainscott Personnel Office faxed me several of the CV’s I had asked for. I was puzzled to find two CV’s, one for Francis Snyders and one for Franz Snyders, identical except for their present employment. Perhaps he had more than one job. The former is listed as working at the pavilion and the latter in the creative writing program in the Wainscott English Department. But when I read the attached stick-on note, I felt that bristling that comes with the pulse of adrenaline. The note simply stated they couldn’t decide which of the twins I meant so they were sending me both CV’s. Twins! I called over there at once to ascertain if the twins were identical. I was bumped up the line to someone with sufficient authority to inform me that she couldn’t say for sure if they were identical but it certainly looked that way judging from their file
photos, the ones they use on their identity cards. Identical twins! If one of them doesn’t have an alibi, then neither does! I also learned that the brothers were owners and operators of a restaurant in Boston called something like Dri (P? B?) rat … sten — something German, I think, but I couldn’t make out the name because of a typographical distortion in the transmission. So they would know about cooking!