The Unspeakable (19 page)

“I do?”

“Take Nick Holland. You gave him a second chance. A job.”

“Not back to that again.”

“Why would he say it, Marbury?”

“Ask him, I don't know.”

“Well, you better come up with an answer soon.”

I was getting angry. Marbury was fighting every attempt for me to help him, as though he were invincible, immune to the physics of the world. Every action had an opposite reaction, except that he didn't believe that.

I said, “The Bishop has offered you a job. I'd consider it. No, I'd take it. Best case, he censures you. Worst, he censures you and feeds you to the press. Ever witness a feeding frenzy before? You will. You're on the menu.”

My chest hurt and I was having difficulty breathing. I was that angry. But Marbury just smiled.

“That's your call, Peter.”

“I'm trying to save you.”

“The only one that can save me is God. You know that.”

Suddenly I felt like I was fourteen again.

I was at Scout camp in Minnesota when it happened. My best friend was a kid named Kenner and we hung out together after school and in school as well. He liked to fish and ride motorcycles but his parents were strict, too strict to let him ride. But my brother had one, an old German bike, and Kenner would come over and ride it around our farm and we quickly became friends. Scouts cemented that bond, and the summer camp that we had to endure every year, except for the year that it finally split us apart.

We had to take a class from a scoutmaster named Laslow who taught outdoor survival skills. Mostly about making it in the woods with only a handful of matches and surviving on grubs and plants.
But he also taught other skills that he considered more useful than just living in the woods. They were useful in the world. At least, he said that.

A short man with a great, thick protruding skull, Laslow was part drill sergeant, part survivalist, even before such a thing became popular. He was always talking about nuclear war for reasons that none of us, at that time at least, could discern. All that desolation. But Laslow stressed the importance of self-reliance and he did his best to make us good models of it. He made us sleep out alone in the woods at night. He made us take long hikes through dense brush and marsh with heavy packs. He made us swim and canoe long distances. And when we couldn't do it anymore, he made us start again. But his main enjoyment, as far as I remember, was his teaching the art of self-defense. Mostly he taught boxing, which he loved, pitting friend against friend, enemy against enemy, just to see what would happen. To see who would win.

Laslow would stop us in some clearing and gather the troop together in a wide circle, boys exhausted and sweaty from the day's hike, and pass out the boxing gloves. He had a whole pack full of them. Beaten things with misshapen thumbs, no padding, and ties stitched together with white shoelaces. After we were all equipped, Laslow would walk around, his bad eye squinting out the evening's prey. Usually he picked the two strongest bullies, almost starting the next war right there when they actually squared off. For Laslow knew, rightly, I believe, that part of being number one and two thugs, as with global superpowers, was that no one knew exactly who was the strongest, and they never fought, both having so much to lose. But in Laslow's world it was different. He loved to watch the boys rough it up, their budding manhood bruised, a full-fledged war would ensue with the spoils and the reputation going to the victor.

Having enjoyed that, both Kenner and I knew Laslow's tricks. When he finished with the toughs, he then zeroed in on other kids. Mostly friends. He almost always missed us, on purpose it seemed,
picking on just about everyone else. Then finally, near the end of our training that summer, just when Kenner and I were convinced that we had successfully escaped, I heard my name. Then Paul Kenner's.

We were next in the ring.

Now standing in a circle of howling boys with your best friend isn't something I would wish on anyone. Especially at fourteen, but good training for real life I guess. Kenner and I tapped together our gloves, as we had no other choice, and took our places. Me on one side, Kenner on the opposite. Laslow rang a bell and we closed in, jabbing kind of halfheartedly. We danced around for a few minutes, barely punching, careful not to mix it up until I heard Laslow's voice screaming in my ear.

“What are you, girls? I said box!”

We tried to make a show of it, Kenner and I, while not actually injuring one another. But Laslow, smart old fox that he was, knew that. And he started to get more involved with his refereeing, pushing us together, even getting the other boys in the circle to cheer and goad us on. Then it happened. I was jabbing to the face when I caught Kenner hard in the eye. It wasn't on purpose, but he didn't know that.

Laslow crowed, “Come on, Kenner. Fight back.”

Kenner jumped off the ground, where he had landed in all the excitement and he came after me, his fists up and flying. I had to defend myself or get killed.

“Guard up, Whitmore. I said up!”

“It is up!”

“Higher!”

Just then Kenner hit me with an uppercut, right into my stomach. I fell to one knee, thinking for a moment that I was going to throw up, but I didn't. I just got mad.

Laslow loved it, you could tell by his expression. He was grinning, his eyes cranked up wide and hungry. The other kids loved
it too, for they knew what was at stake, a friendship built over the years, piece by piece.

Kenner countered my punches with a right that landed. I spun for a second yet somehow I recovered. But my dignity never did. I was incensed now, so angry that I could hardly even think. I came up like a bull at full speed. Two fast punches wobbled him, dropping his guard. Another punch drew blood from his nose. Then a last one stunned him. Kenner turned once and fell hard to the dirt, whimpering and crying like a baby.

We were never friends again after that.

I told Marbury this story partially because I felt that it was happening all over again but also because I remembered it, and I still felt bad. He listened patiently before commenting.

“Did you apologize?”

“I tried to. But Kenner was humiliated. I showed him up.”

Kenner never even spoke to me after that. And the next year he was gone, transferred to another school. I changed everything with that punch and our friendship with it.

“I betrayed his trust.”

“You just got into a fight, Peter. It didn't warp the guy.”

“But he changed after that.”

“He was probably changing before. Only you didn't see it.”

Marbury was right. Kenner was beginning, even at that tender age, to rebel against his parents' authority. He started smoking cigarettes on the sly and other things too, but I just attributed that to kid stuff.

“Do you think so?” I asked.

“Sure. It happened to me.”

Marbury said that he was changing in Wheelersburg but nobody could see it. He couldn't even see it, though in retrospect it was obvious.

“That was my problem. Thinking I could leave there intact.”

Marbury explained that the snow had finally stopped the next day, though it was hard to tell. Outside the wind howled, picking up drifts and moving them around from one place to another. He said that it looked like pictures of the desert in a storm, only colder. And he began to wonder if he would ever leave.

He kept on wondering that when the power went out.

It started with a dull buzz throughout the building. Marbury said that he could see the power lines swaying outside and he thought for an instant that he saw something else, a bright orange flicker or sudden power surge. Then only blackness. The town went dark and everything with it.

Voices rose several decibels. In the hallways, where special emergency lights were supposed to go on, only about half did. There were malfunctions everywhere, including the main generator designed to protect this from happening, and people were running around scared.

Marbury ran into Abigail.

“We lost the generator. They're working on it but—”

“What about Helen?”

“No power, no life support. We're running on prayers, Father.”

Marbury went into the darkness looking for Helen's room. An emergency light was on down the hall and he made it there by following the beam, only to find Barris sitting with a match burning in his hand. His shadow flickered against the wall, long and eerie.

“What the hell's happening?”

“It's the wind. Everything's knocked out,” said Marbury.

He bent down and listened to Helen. She was breathing strongly.

“I already checked her. She's a fighter.”

Barris dropped the match and stomped on it with his foot. It was dark for a good moment before he lit another one.

Marbury said, “They'll fix it.”

“Idiots. More like they'll kill us first. Find Lucy.”

“What can she do?”

“Are you blind, padre? She can do anything. Look at my Helen.”

“She's only a child, Barris.”

“To you maybe. But I know better.”

“What do you know?”

“She's not your ordinary kid. Hell, I'll admit it. I didn't want her. I'm too old for children and I told Helen that. But she isn't just any child, said Helen, you'll see. Damned if I didn't. Even as a baby Lucy was different. She had me running around like a pig hiding from New Year's dinner. Walked at nine months, she did. I'm seventy-two, padre. Too old to baby-sit anymore. I'm all used up.”

Marbury said, “Maybe you're using her instead. Broken bones, cuts. Something isn't right here, Jacob.”

“Don't blame that on me.”

“I've seen her file. It's as thick as my finger.”

“She gets hurt. What can I say?”

“Other people might not agree with your assessment.”

“What others?”

“Child welfare. They might see a pattern.”

“Damned if I don't hear a threat.”

“Take it any way you want. I'll call them, Jacob.”

Darkness again. But Barris sounded nervous.

He said, “I swear I don't beat kids. On the Good Book, I don't.”

“Then how do you explain the injuries?” asked Marbury.

“Try the man upstairs. He's your culprit.”

Barris found another match and lit it. Light flickering.

He said, “Lucy saw a kid biking once. He fell off and busted himself up real good. Hell, I can't explain it. All I know is that she gets busted up too. But the other kid gets better. I don't know why or how it works.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Man, it's the Gospel. People get healed. Just look at my Helen.”

Barris reached out and touched her at that moment, by instinct, as if to affirm Helen's life for himself. But even in the dark Marbury could feel his reaction. Agony. And then a gasp.

“Sweet Jesus!”

“What is it?” cried Marbury.

“She isn't breathing, Father. My Helen, she isn't breathing.”

Chapter 8

I
left Marbury in his office working on his sermon for Easter Sunday and hopefully thinking about everything that we had talked about and more, even considering his options. Not that he had many.

My day was ending with Louise Howser, the bookkeeper at Marbury's shelter, and what she knew about the missing money. I met her over tea in her home, a comfortable old house on Summit Avenue, not far from my office. Her story was an interesting one. She married late in life to her husband, Alfred, now dead, who had long since separated himself from the family's old railroad money and struck out on his own. But he wasn't very successful. Several of his businesses had failed and the only one left, a small tax preparation service, was hanging on, in part, only from the talent of the head bookkeeper, Louise Howser. Alfred wanted to sell the business completely but Louise talked him out of it. She explained to him how the business could be even more profitable if he would expand, especially if he would provide other services that she felt clients were looking for. Financial and estate planning being only two of the examples.

Alfred thought about it and having no other means to support himself, did as Louise suggested. He opened more offices. And he advertised. From tax and accounting work to all facets of money
management, including discounted brokerage services, which at that time was virtually unheard of. Eventually the two married, but not before a small chain was built, which Alfred sold, just two years before his death, to one of the big firms in New York who took the idea nationally.

Louise, despite not having to work, still loved to keep books, which she did on a part-time basis for the shelter. It was her way of giving something back but also keeping in touch with the one thing that she loved most in life. Numbers.

She said, “Of course I saw him with money.”

“How much? If you had to estimate the amounts.”

“No idea. Father always had checks with him. He was asking everyone in town for money, you know. He flashed around that nonprofit status like a sheriff his badge.”

“Did you ever see him with cash?”

“He had a cash box, if that's what you're asking.”

“Who reconciled it?”

“He did. It was petty cash. A few hundred here and there.”

“But you had receipts?”

“We aren't IBM. Besides, if he needed something, I trusted him.”

“Even after the shortage came up?” I asked.

“Well, I blamed myself mostly. My eyes aren't what they used to be. Oh dear, you're not implying—”

I just looked at her.

“—Father was one of the most honest souls I've ever met.”

“But you're missing over twelve thousand dollars.”

“Yes.”

“And you admit that he had access to cash.”

“Not twelve thousand dollars' worth.”

“It all adds up, Mrs. Howser.”