The Throat (42 page)

"My God,
the old guy's asleep," he said. "First you make us late, and then you
drag him out of bed, when he hardly even knows who he is."

"He
knows who he is," I said.

We got
into the car, and John tapped Alan's shoulder as I pulled away. "Alan?
Are you okay?"

"Are
you?" Alan asked.

John
jerked back his hand.

I
decided to take the Horatio Street bridge, and then remembered
something Dick Mueller had said to me.

"John,"
I said, "you didn't tell me that April was interested in local history."

"She did
a little research here and there. Nothing special."

"Wasn't
she especially interested in the Horatio Street bridge?"

"I don't
know anything about it."

The
glittering strips at the bottom of Alan's eyelids were closed. He was
breathing deeply and steadily.

"What
took you so long?"

"Alan
wanted to go to Flory Park."

"What
did he want to do in Flory Park?"

"April
used to go there."

"What
are you trying to tell me?" His voice was flat with anger.

"There's
a flat rock that overlooks a lake pool, and when April was in high
school, she used to sun herself there and dive into the pool."

He
relaxed. "Oh. That could be."

"Alan
wanted to see it once more."

"What
did he do? Moon around and think about April?"

"Something
like that."

He
grunted in a way that combined irritation and dismissal.

"John,"
I said, "even after we listened to Walter Dragonette talk about the
Horatio Street bridge, even after we went there, you didn't think that
April's interest in the bridge was worth bringing up?"

"I
didn't know much about it," he said.

"What?"
Alan muttered. "What was that about April?" He rubbed his eyes and sat
up straight, peering out to see where we were going.

John
groaned and turned away from us.

"We were
talking about some research April was doing," I said.

"Ah."

"Did she
ever talk to you about it?"

"April
talked to me about everything." He waited a moment. "I don't remember
the matter very well. It was about some bridge."

"Actually,
it was that bridge right ahead of us," John said. We were on Horatio
Street. A block before us stood the embankment of the Millhaven River
and the low walls of the bridge.

"Wasn't
there something about a
crime
?"

"It was
a crime, all right," John said.

I looked
at the Green Woman Taproom as we went past and, in the second before
the bridge walls cut it from view, saw a blue car drawn up onto the
cement slab beside the tavern. Two cardboard boxes stood next to the
car, and the trunk was open. Then we were rattling across the bridge.
The instant after that, I thought that the car had looked like the
Lexus that followed John Ransom to Shady Mount. I leaned forward and
tried to see it in the rear-view mirror, but the walls of the bridge
blocked my view.

"You're
hung up on that place. Like Walter Dragonette."

"Like
April," I said.

"April
had too much going on in her life to spend much time on local history."
He sounded bitter about it.

Long
before we got close to Armory Place, voices came blasting out of the
plaza. "Waterford must go! Vass must go! Waterford must go! Vass must
go!"

"Guess
the plea for unity didn't work," John said.

"You
turn right up here to get to the morgue," Alan said.

A ramp
led up to the entrance of the Millhaven County Morgue. When I pulled up
in front of the ramp, Paul Fontaine got out of an unmarked sedan and
waved me into a slot marked
FOR OFFICIAL VEHICLES
ONLY
.
He stood
slouching with his hands in the pockets of his baggy gray suit. We were
ten minutes late.

"I'm
sorry, it's my fault," I said.

"I'd
rather be here than Armory Place," Fontaine said. He took in Alan's
weariness. "Professor Brookner, you could sit it out in the waiting
room."

"No, I
don't think I could," Alan said.

"Then
let's get it over with." At the top of the ramp, Fontaine let us into
an entry with two plastic chairs on either side of a tall ashtray
crowded with butts. Beyond the next door, a blond young man with taped
glasses sat drumming a pencil on a battered desk. Wide acne scars
sandblasted the flesh under his chin.

"We're
all here now, Teddy," Fontaine said. "I'll take them back."

"Do the
thang," Teddy said.

Fontaine
gestured toward the interior of the building. Two rows of dusty
fluorescent tubes hung from the ceiling. The walls were painted the
flat dark green of military vehicles. "I'd better prepare you for what
you're going to see. There isn't much left of his face." He stopped in
front of the fourth door on the right side of the corridor and looked
at Alan. "You might find this disturbing."

"Don't
worry about me," Alan said.

Fontaine
opened the door into a small room without furniture or windows. Banks
of fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling. In the center of the room
a body covered with a clean white sheet lay on a wheeled table.

Fontaine
went to the far side of the body. "This is the man we found behind the
St. Alwyn Hotel." He folded back the sheet to the top of the man's
chest.

Alan
drew in a sharp breath. Most of the face had been sliced into strips of
flesh that looked like uncooked bacon. The teeth were disturbingly
healthy and intact beneath the shreds of skin. A cheekbone made a white
stripe beneath an empty eye socket. The lower lip dropped over the
chin. Long wounds separated the flesh of the neck; wider wounds on the
chest continued on beneath the sheet.

Fontaine
let us adjust to the spectacle on the table. "Does anything about this
man look familiar? I know it's not easy."

John
said, "Nobody could identify him—there isn't anything left."

"Professor
Brookner?"

"It
could be Grant." Alan took his eyes from the table and looked at John.
"Grant's hair was that light brown color."

"Alan,
this doesn't even look like hair."

"Are you
prepared to identify this man, Professor Brookner?"

Alan
looked back down at the body and shook his head. "I can't be positive."

Fontaine
waited to see if Alan had anything more to say. "Would it help you to
see his clothes?"

"I'd
like to see the clothing, yes."

Fontaine
folded the sheet back up over the body and walked past us toward the
door to the corridor.

Then we
stood in another tiny windowless room, in the same configuration as
before, Fontaine on the far side of a wheeled table, the three of us in
front of it. Rumpled, bloodstained clothes lay scattered across the
table.

"What we
have here is what the deceased was wearing on the night of his death. A
seersucker jacket with a label from Hatchett and Hatch, a green polo
shirt from Banana Republic, khaki pants from the Gap, Fruit of the Loom
briefs, brown cotton socks, cordovan shoes." Fontaine pointed at each
item in turn.

Alan
raised his eagle's face. "Seersucker jacket? Hatchett and Hatch? That
was mine. It's Grant." His face was colorless. "And he told me that he
was going to treat himself to some new clothes with the money I gave
him."

"You
gave money to Grant Hoffman?" John asked. "
Besides
the clothes?"

"Are you
sure this was your jacket?" Fontaine lifted the shredded, rusty-looking
jacket by its shoulders.

"I'm
sure, yes," Alan said. He stepped back from the table. "I gave it to
him last August—we were sorting out some clothes. He tried it on, and
it fit him." He pressed a hand to his mouth and stared at the ruined
jacket.

"You're
positive." Fontaine laid the jacket down on the table.

Alan
nodded.

"In that
case, sir, would you please look at the deceased once more?"

"He
already looked at the body," John said in a voice too loud for the
small room. "I don't see any point in subjecting my father-in-law to
this torture all over again."

"Sir,"
Fontaine said, speaking only to Alan, "you are certain that this was
the jacket you gave to Mr. Hoffman?"

"I wish
I weren't," Alan said.

John
exploded. "This man just lost his daughter! How can you think of
subjecting him to—"

"Enough,
John," Alan said. He looked ten years older than when he had hurled the
wreath into the lake.

"You two
gentlemen can wait in the hall," Fontaine said. He came around the
table and put his hand high on Alan's back, just below the nape of his
neck. This gentleness, his whole tone when dealing with Alan, surprised
me. "You can wait for us in the hall."

A
technician in a white T-shirt and white pants came through the
adjoining door and crossed to the table. Without looking at us, he
began folding the bloody clothes and placing them in transparent
evidence bags. John rolled his eyes, and we went into the hall.

"What a
setup," John said. He was spinning around and around in the hallway. I
leaned my back against a wall. Low voices came from inside the other
room.

At the
sound of footsteps, John stopped spinning. Paul Fontaine stayed inside
the room while Alan marched out.

"I'll be
in touch soon," Fontaine said.

Alan
walked down the hallway without speaking or looking back.

"Alan?"
John called.

He kept
on walking.

"It was
someone else, right?"

Alan
walked past Teddy and opened the door to the entry. "Tim, will you drop
me off?"

"Of
course," I said.

Alan
moved through the door and let it close behind him. "What the hell,"
John said. By the time we got into the entry, the outside door had
already closed behind Alan. When we got outside, he was on his way down
the ramp.

We
caught up with him on the ramp. John put his arm through Alan's, and
Alan shook him off.

"I'm
sorry you had to see that," John said.

"I want
to go home."

"Sure,"
John said. When we got to the car, he opened the door for the old man,
closed it behind him, and got into the backseat. I started the engine.
"At least that's over," John said.

"Is it?"
Alan asked.

I backed
out of the space and turned toward Armory Place. John leaned forward
and patted Alan's shoulder.

"You've
been great all day long," John said. "Is there anything I can do for
you now?"

"You
could stop talking," Alan said.

"It was
Grant Hoffman, wasn't it?" I asked.

"Oh,
God," John said.

"Of
course it was," Alan said.

I slowed
down as we drove past the Green Woman Taproom, but the blue car was
gone.

"Why
would anybody kill Grant Hoffman?" John asked.

No one
responded. We drove back to his house in a silence deepened rather than
broken by the sounds of the other cars and the slight breeze that blew
in through the open windows. At Ely Place John told me to come back
when I could and got out of the car. Then he paused for a second and
put his face up to the passenger window and looked past Alan at me. A
hard, transparent film covered his eyes like a shield. "Do you think I
should tell my parents about Grant?"

Alan did
not move.

"I'll
follow your lead," I said.

He said
he would leave the door unlocked for me and turned away.

When I
followed Alan inside his house, he went upstairs and sat on his bed and
held out his arms like a child so that I could remove his jacket.
"Shoes," he said, and I untied his shoes and slipped them off while he
fumbled with his necktie. He tried unbuttoning his shirt, but his
fingers couldn't manage it, and I undid the buttons for him.

He
cleared his throat with an explosive sound, and his huge, commanding
voice filled the room. "Was April as bad as Grant? I have to know."

It took
me a moment to understand what he meant. "Not at all. You saw her at
the funeral parlor."

He
sighed. "Ah. Yes."

I slid
the shirt down his arms and laid it on his bed.

"Poor
Grant."

I didn't
say anything. Alan undid his belt and stood up to push his trousers
down over his hips. He sat again on the bed, and I pulled the trousers
off his legs.

Dazed
and unfocused, he watched me pull a handkerchief, keys, and bills from
his trouser pockets and put them on his bedside table.

"Alan,
do you know why April was interested in the Horatio Street bridge?"

"It had
something to do with the Vuillard in their living room. You've seen it?"

I said
that I had.

"She
said one of the figures in the painting reminded her of a man she had
heard about. A policeman—some policeman who killed himself in the
fifties. She couldn't look at the painting without thinking about him.
She did some research on it—April was a great researcher, you know." He
wrenched the pillow beneath his head. "I need to get some sleep, Tim."

I went
to the bedroom door and said that I'd call him later that evening, if
he liked.

"Come
here tomorrow."

I think
he was asleep before I got down the stairs.

Ralph
and Marjorie Ransom, back in their black-and-silver running suits, sat
side by side on one of the couches.

"I agree
with John," Ralph said. "Thin stripes and puckered cotton, that's a
seersucker jacket. That's the
point
.
All seersucker jackets look alike.
Hatchett and Hatch probably unloaded ten thousand of the things."

By this
time I was coming into the living room, and Marjorie Ransom leaned
forward to look past her husband. "You saw that poor boy too, didn't
you, Tim? Did he look like John's student to you?"