Mickelsson's Ghosts (92 page)

“What the Devil—?” Mickelsson said. He closed the door part way.

They were the same two Mormons who had visited him before, but he saw at once that they weren't here this time on missionary work.

“Professor, we'd like to use your telephone if we could,” the dark-haired one said very softly, obsequious, bending toward him, almost bowing.

Mickelsson stood holding the door against them, looking them up and down. Their faces were as blank as the faces of lizards. “Has something happened? What time is it?”

The blond one poked his head toward him, nose bulbous, eyes slightly widened, “We found a body,” he said. “Up there on the mountain.” He pointed, first toward the road, then, correcting himself, straight up through Mickelsson's rafters into the woods beyond. “Your place was the quickest to get to, so we came down crosslots.” Mickelsson noticed only now that both of them were snowy to the waist.

Needlessly, Mickelsson said, “He's dead?”

The blond one nodded, and the dark-haired one took a step toward the door, reminding Mickelsson that they needed to use the phone. Mickelsson stepped back “Right through there,” he said, pointing. “It's on the wall in the kitchen.”

The dark-haired one nodded, grim, unctuous, rubbing his hands, and moved past, bent forward, the collar of his black coat up over his bright red earlobes. As usual neither of the Mormons wore hats or gloves, but tonight they had galoshes. The blond one came in too, and Mickelsson pulled the door shut behind him.

“Where'd you find him?” he asked. “What happened?”

“It's the old man called Sprague,” the blond one said. “The crazy one, you know what I mean? One that's house burned down?” He leaned a little closer to Mickelsson, as if to tell him a secret. “We found him in the snowbank—part of his arm was sticking out. I guess the snowplow must've moved him. He's real banged up.”

Mickelsson stared.

The young man nodded. “I guess the old woman must've been up there alone the night the house burned.”

Mickelsson, still staring, brought out, “That must be right.”

In the kitchen the dark-haired one was talking on the phone now, standing in only the dim gray light from the range. A board creaked at the top of the stairs, and Mickelsson looked up. The two old ghosts were standing there, looking down, hooked forward. Mickelsson shuddered and glanced at the blond young man beside him. He was taller and heavier than Mickelsson had realized. His round, steel-rimmed glasses were steamy. “Evening,” the young man said, nodding in the direction of the ghosts. They ignored him.

The dark-haired Mormon was saying into the phone, “We're up at Professor Mickelsson's. … Yes, certainly … We'll wait right here.”

Mickelsson asked the blond one, “What were you doing out on the road so late?”

“We always put in good long days,” the boy said. He spoke earnestly, his hands in his coatpockets. His face floated closer, not more than ten inches from Mickelsson's, turned up because of Mickelsson's height. He could feel the ghosts bending nearer to listen. Urgently, as if it were extremely important that Mickelsson understand, as if he were justifying all his kind, the boy said, “Sometimes we put in fifteen, sixteen hours.” He searched Mickelsson's eyes.

“That's a lot,” Mickelsson said. “Listen, if you're not careful—”

Now the dark-haired one was hanging up the phone and turning to them. “The police are on their way,” he said.

Mickelsson moved toward him, glad to get away from the too earnest blond one. “Let me give you some coffee,” he said. “You must be half frozen yourselves.”

“I'm sorry,” the dark-haired one said, raising his hand, “we're not allowed, that is, we don't—”

“Yes of course. Hot milk, then,” Mickelsson said.

The dark-haired one tucked down the corners of his mouth, uncertain, and Mickelsson glanced at the blond, who looked interested, though he didn't dare say it. Mickelsson remembered something else he'd heard in Utah, that it was a common occurrence, when the Saints found a backslider or apostate, for the faithful to beat that person bloody. “When I came here to Utah,” Mickelsson's friend had said, with a bemused look, “I thought the Mormons were sort of like the Shakers or something. Brother, I had no idea! They kill each other all the time, one sect against another!” It did not seem likely, even if such things were true in Utah, that the Mormons of Susquehanna County were at all like that. Certainly such horrors had nothing to do with these two.

“Hot milk,” Mickelsson said, reminding himself. “It won't take a minute.” He hurried into the kitchen from the entryway, switching on the light as he passed the door. It flickered, then stayed on, suddenly bathing the room with the cold glare of an ice-house. The two young Mormons looked at each other, each checking to see whether the other one approved. In the bright light they looked remarkably drab, almost as if the whole thing were a joke of some kind, two characters dressed up for a play by Samuel Beckett. Where the dark-haired one had stood there was a puddle on the linoleum. Mickelsson quickly looked away from it, lest he embarrass them. “What a terrible thing,” he said, opening the refrigerator door to look for milk. He found it not there but on the counter, where he'd left it hours ago. The kitchen was cold, though; the milk would be all right. He said, to praise them, make them feel at home, “If you people hadn't found him, he could have lain there till spring thaw.”

The dark-haired one shook his head, eyes narrowed to chinks. They both stood squinting for several seconds, their heads forward, their hands in their pockets. They made him think of two lean country dogs. Mickelsson poured milk into a pot and set it on the burner. At the far end of the house he heard movement, no doubt the cat. He glanced at the clock on the stove: 9 p.m.

“I couldn't believe it,” the dark-haired one said. He put his hand over his mouth, his thumbtip and fingertips moving up and down, his close-together eyes staring at nothing. “There was this hand sticking out of the snow. I walked right past it, and then I knew I'd really seen it.” He shook his head.

Steam was rising from the pot of milk. Mickelsson stirred it with a wooden spoon and turned the heat down. “Up there in the cupboard,” he said, pointing, “there are big yellow mugs.” He felt something and looked down. The cat was rubbing against his leg. “Take it easy. All in good time,” Mickelsson said.

The blond went to the cupboard, walking very carefully as if afraid he might slip, and got down the mugs. Now the light in the entry-hall changed, blue flashes like shocks. The police car was outside.

“Take them with you,” Mickelsson said, pouring. He handed a mug to the dark-haired boy, then another to the blond, who was looking over his shoulder down the hallway, worried. “It's all right,” Mickelsson said, “the mugs are old and cheap. Go ahead, they're yours.” He moved toward the door and just after the first knock came he opened it. A sheriff's deputy stood, pot-bellied, hands on hips, silhouetted in profile against the blue-flashing lights. He was no one Mickelsson had ever seen before.

“Professor Mickelsson?” he asked. In one gloved hand he had a long black flashlight, solid as a club.

“Come in,” Mickelsson said. “I gave them a cup of hot milk and they haven't figured out quite what to do with it yet.” He smiled. “They'll be right with you.”

“That's OK,” the man said, and grinned, then sucked at his lower lip, a gesture apparently habitual.

The two Saints were drinking quickly, probably scalding themselves, eager to be off with the policeman, not make a bad impression, but also eager not to carry away the mugs. The cat stood waiting with his back raised.

“It's OK,” the policeman said to them, grinning, showing his teeth, then sucking at his lower lip again.

They put the mugs down, empty. “You got here quick,” the dark-haired one said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He gave a jerky nod to Mickelsson and drifted toward the door.

When they were gone, Mickelsson again poured milk for the cat, mixed in dry catfood, then slowly washed the pot in which he'd heated the milk for the Mormons. He moved the Brillo pad around and around long after the pot was clean. At last he realized what was bothering him. It was that look, the night of the fire up at Spragues', on Owen Thomas's face. Was it just that they couldn't find the old man's body—or had he seen something?

5

Mid-morning, Saturday. Bitterly cold again. Mickelsson registered it like a man moving toward some important, foreknown event.

Owen Thomas's reserve seemed more than ordinary shyness. He smiled to himself, his gray eyes as evasive as a rabbit's, and seemed to mull over Mickelsson's question, turning it over and over again like a hundred-dollar bill found in a clock. While he thought about his answer his small, elegant hands measured out lengths of chain he was cutting for a customer, a young man in a quilted orange down jacket. He had longish, matching orange hair. The store was overwarm, as it always was on cold days. There were a number of customers, most of them probably just looking, fleeing the cold. The customer buying chain had small, bright blue eyes like a baby's, and seemed to listen for Thomas's answer as eagerly as did Mickelsson. He was stocky, powerful, as innocent as a hen.

“Well,” Thomas said, “the place was quite a mess, I can tell you that. It was pretty much burned down to nothing when we axed our way in, but you could see how bad it had been.”

“Yes,” Mickelsson said, unsatisfied, “I was up there once. Junk from one end of the house to the other.” He kept his face turned partly away.

Thomas nodded, then squeezed the handles of the chain-cutter. The chain-links parted without a sound and the lower length of chain fell to the floor and nestled. “That's true, but it's not what I meant,” he said at last. “I mean the livingroom walls were all torn up. It looked like a bomb had gone off there or something”—he smiled, glanced at Mickelsson—“or maybe somebody'd started tearing the house down.”

“The walls—?” The young man leaned around, trying to see Thomas's eyes.

“All torn up, plaster all over the floor,” Thomas said. He seemed reluctant to speak further.

“Jesus,” the young man said, then held out both arms to take the chain as he would yarn. Thomas lifted it toward him and hung it over his arms loop by loop. “What's this country comin to?” the young man asked. He looked, full of concern, at Mickelsson, as if he might know.

“You're sure of this?” Mickelsson asked. “Couldn't it just be that things caved in during the fire?”

Owen Thomas shrugged, noncommittal, as if to say “That's not how it looked to me,” but he said nothing.

The young man's face tightened; then he said what he was thinking: “Gol darn motorcycle gangs.”

“You think so?” Mickelsson asked.

“They're everywhere. Rip up your place worse'n a tornado.”

“Surely not in the winter, though. It was all snow and ice.”

“Snowmobiles, then. It's all the same,” the young man said. “My wife's folks went away one time, week-end at Elk Mountain, and they came home and, by heck, you just wouldn't believe it. Place tore all upside and down. And as if that weren't enough, they blew up the little bridge on the road in front! Dynamite! Everybody knows about 'em. Heck, they brag about it! They'll steal your overcoat and wear it right downtown, big as life, or they'll tear up your place just for the fun of it. They're nuts!”

“Well,” Thomas said, negotiating.

The young man stood holding the chain, face reddening, eyes growing brighter. “They're just nuts, that's all you can figure. They all gaht good jobs. Those machines they drive, they don't come cheap—you know? They work in their drugstores or banks or wherever, and then the weekend comes—”

“Who?” Mickelsson broke in to ask. When the young man looked blank, he asked again, “Who? I keep hearing that everybody knows who they are, but who are they?”

The young man looked down at the chain.

Mickelsson leaned toward him, speaking gently. “Do you mean Tim Booker and his friends?” He glanced at Owen Thomas, but Owen was looking away.

“I don't say it's Tim,” the young man said, pouting, disliking pressure. “People
like
that, that's all. Maybe just people too smahrt for Seskehenna. Bored, I mean. They just do things, f'no reason.” He shook his head. “Seems like a lot of people do that. Makes you sick.” He looked sternly at the chain, maybe thinking of all he had to get to yet today—chores, frozen waterlines—and abruptly turned to head up the aisle. Mickelsson watched him go, then turned back, part way, to Owen Thomas.

Before Mickelsson could speak, Thomas said. “It wasn't Tim. I don't say he's perfect, but I can tell you it wasn't him. Some people will tell you that now and again Tim and his friends will get drunk and break into some house, somebody from New Jersey, or undermine some back lane so the first lovers that drive in there, the car's suddenly sunk to the windows. I've heard such things said. But don't you believe it. It's those kids from up in New York State that do that. They're crazy up there—anybody will tell you. I've had truck drivers tell me they hate to pass through, up there. The law's crazy, the citizens are crazy. … You should see the salesmen a storekeeper up there has to deal with!” He rubbed his nose, looking down, as if saddened that an influence so pernicious should lie so close. “Anyway, I know Tim. He wouldn't do anybody damage, not even a stranger. That house up there, it was like a bomb went off in it. Plaster everywhere it shouldn't be. It was like what the old-timers say witches used to do when they decided it was time to really fix somebody's goose. They'd set their minds on it—focus the curse like sunlight through a reading-glass—”