Two Days Gone Page 9

  At the sink, Huston avoided the mirror until the soapy water he had rubbed over his face had been rinsed off. Then he raised his head, allowed himself to look. His face was more familiar than he expected. Maybe he was still Thomas Huston after all. A three-day beard, bits of hair sticking up here and there. But he knew that face. The eyes were tired, face drawn, but that was not the face of a beast, was it?

  Next he scrubbed his hands clean, picked the dirt from beneath his fingernails. Then he scrubbed himself again with a damp paper towel, as far down the neck as he could reach without getting his shirt wet. He dried himself, finger combed his hair, rinsed his mouth out, scrubbed a finger over his teeth, and rinsed again.

  Out in the store, he shopped carefully, tried to think ahead. Protein, nutrients. Be smart so you don’t have to do this again. A loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter. A can of cashews, four small bags of beef jerky. When he opened the cooler to reach for a gallon of orange juice, the tin of cashews clattered to the floor. He sank to his knees, gathered it in, and cradled everything against his chest.

  “Here you go,” the cashier said, startling him. The boy had come up behind him and stood there smiling now, holding out a small plastic basket.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Huston said. He dropped the items into the basket, took the basket from the boy’s hand. “Car food,” he told him.

  “Where you headed?”

  “Toronto,” said Huston. “Started out from Texas two days ago.” He stood facing the cooler, kept his head turned to the side as if he were searching for another item.

  “That’s what? Fifteen hundred miles at least. You drive straight through?”

  “We stopped at a rest area a couple times for a little sleep, but yeah, mostly straight through.”

  The boy nodded and stood there waiting, apparently eager for conversation.

  Huston turned his back to the boy, faced the shelves stocked with chips and crackers, little boxes of overpriced cookies. “My wife drove Jamie over to Mickey D’s for a Happy Meal. Which makes me the designated shopper.”

  “You finding everything you need?”

  “I was hoping for something healthy, you know? Kind of hard to find in a convenience store.”

  “At the end of the aisle there’s some apples and bananas.”

  “No kidding?” said Huston, turning away.

  The bananas were three for a dollar, the Fuji apples seventy-five cents each. Huston chose three of each, then crossed to the counter. “How much for one of these pizzas?”

  “The whole thing? Nine ninety-five. Two dollars extra for pepperoni.”

  “Skip the pepperoni,” Huston said. He set the basket on the counter. “Tell you what. If you want to start ringing me up, I’ll grab one or two more things real quick.”

  “Will do,” the boy said.

  Huston felt strange again, a character in a story. A character pretending to be a corpse pretending to be normal when in fact the world had ended, the bomb had gone off, all was devastation. What else did this corpse need to keep the show going a while longer? A toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. A pair of mirrored sunglasses. A black ball cap with a yellow P embroidered on it. He placed these on the counter with the other items, watched the digital display adding up the prices. He could feel his reflection looming in the convex mirror suspended from the ceiling, could feel the probing eye of the security camera.

  The cashier said, “Sixty-eight fifty-six.”

  Huston withdrew three twenties and a ten from his wallet, then dropped the change back inside. Twenty-four dollars and a few coins left, he told himself. The sum assets of your life. He picked up both plastic shopping bags and the jug of orange juice with his left hand, the pizza box with his right.

  “You going to drive through to Toronto tonight?” the boy asked.

  “That’s the plan.” He started for the door.

  “Well…have a good one.”

  “You too.”

  Already the night felt several degrees cooler. Where to now? he wondered. He tore the tag off the ball cap, bent a curve into the bill, placed the hat on his head. The McDonald’s was several blocks to his left so he headed in that direction just in case the cashier was watching. After a block, he turned back toward the woods. Think! he told himself. You know where you are. Think of a place to go for the night.

  Twenty yards into the woods, he could wait no longer. He sat behind a tall pin oak, pulled the pizza box onto his lap. He ate quickly, two slices in little more than a minute, a long swallow of orange juice, with little recognition of the flavors. Then he forced himself to slow down. Unfortunately, that allowed the memories to start again—Tommy at his last birthday party, stuffing his face at Pizza Hut, letting long streamers of cheese dangle from his mouth…

  Huston squeezed shut his eyes, drove the happy images away. Gone, gone, all was gone.

  “‘Whose woods these are,’” Huston mumbled aloud and focused his thoughts, tried to fill his mind’s eye with the words themselves. “‘I think I know. His house is in the village though…’”

  Nineteen

  DeMarco awoke to the gray emptiness of dawn. The house was empty and the world was empty and all he had to fill it with was another day’s work. This day and the next day and the next day and the next. For a while, he did not care about any of it, did not want to face another parade of slow hours, but as always, after staring at the dull light in the window for a couple minutes, he told himself to get his sorry ass out of bed. “Do somebody some good today,” he said.

  A few minutes later, coffee was dripping into the decanter. Then he was in the shower and the water was steaming the glass. Then he dried himself and wiped the fog off the mirror, and just like that, the routine took hold as always, the mechanics of living, step one, step two, step three, and the wind-up man was moving again.

  On his desk at the barracks, he found another CD from Trooper Carmichael. The trooper had managed to unlock all of Huston’s password-protected and deleted files. DeMarco inserted the disk and opened the file marked Deleted. The file contained drafts of several letters of recommendation for former students, each letter distinguished by a kind but insistent honesty.

  I have no doubts that when Matthew manages to impose a discipline on his capacious imagination, he will produce some truly outstanding work…

  I have encountered no student writer with a more impressive technical mastery of the craft. Certainly someday Andrea will have acquired the life experience necessary to give depth to her work. Until then, her keen editorial eye will make her an asset in any graduate writing program…

  A file marked Home included drafts of homework assignments written by Alyssa and Thomas Jr. and critiqued by their father. These too displayed Huston’s delicacy and tact. He managed, for example, to remonstrate his daughter for her reliance on clichés and words such as cute and sweet while praising her sense of pacing and narrative structure. He underlined numerous misspelled words on his son’s paper and wrote in the text: Spell-check, Tommy! You’re being lazy. But he also wrote I love this description! A beautiful phrase. And Very clever!

  Huston’s Misc Notes file revealed another aspect of his character, and these random thoughts intrigued DeMarco:

  for essay about fathers and sons: Sometimes I think that the lucky boys, the lucky men, are the ones who grew up despising their fathers.

  story about obit writer: It’s all in the obituary, trust me. Easy to read between the lines once you get the hang of it. Easy to tell if he was a brotherly man, a joiner, a glad-hander and friend to all, or maybe a loner, curmudgeonly and mean, a small-spirited recluse not even his family is going to miss.

  short story, possible title “Dry Wood”: A couple goes into the wilderness for a weekend in an attempt to get their passion (fire) back. But their planning is bad; it’s late in the season; an icy rain catches them off guard. As they search for dry wo
od to build a fire, they blame each other more and more for their predicament, bring up old wounds, until the fire of rage causes the woman to attack her husband…

  essay: Close to death, closer to life.

  essay: I don’t mind a little poetry now and then but I have no time for poets.

  No time for poets? DeMarco wondered. Referring to Denton? He made a mental note to probe the poet a bit, poke around for soft spots and old bruises. Then he returned to the Misc Notes file, read through three more pages of brief glimpses into the writer’s mind. Something about the rhythm of Huston’s prose seemed to match DeMarco’s rhythm. He found himself thinking that he and Huston were tuned to the same frequency.

  “Difference is,” DeMarco said aloud, “you’ve got talent and I’ve got sleep deprivation.”

  The file labeled Office Emails contained more messages between Huston and Denton. All but one series were concerned with departmental matters. Carmichael had listed these in chronological order beginning with one from Denton. The emails made DeMarco lean forward in his chair.

  Turns out C’s “writer-in-residence” position cost him $300/week! Available to anybody! No duties, no application process. There are as many as 20 “artists-in-residence” at any given time. It’s little more than a hotel that caters to wannabes. B

  Bob—Keeps digging his own grave, doesn’t he? However, he never claimed it as a sinecure or award, did he? Do you still have a copy of the faculty newsletter? Tom

  “…spent the month of July as writer-in-residence at the James Bryce Carwell Institute in Palo Alto…” The writer-in-residence! Subtle but misrepresentative nonetheless. The devious bastard. B

  Bob—Okay, another nail in the coffin. Share it with the committee next week and let’s see how they take it. Tom

  Will be more effective coming from you, don’t you think? My credentials are legit too but admittedly obscure. Better to have the condemnation come from the king rather than from a mere princeling, eh? B

  DeMarco leaned back in his chair. C for Conescu, he told himself. He read the emails again. It seemed clear that professors Denton and Huston were intent on exposing Conescu as a fraud, a poseur. The emails also suggested that Denton was leading the attack but attempting to position Huston as point man.

  “Very interesting,” DeMarco said.

  He went online then to access the English Department’s telephone number, punched it in, and spoke with the secretary. When he asked if Denton was expected in that day, she pulled his schedule. “Monday, Wednesday, Friday, he teaches from two to two fifty, then from three to three fifty. Office hours on Monday and Friday but none today.”

  “How about his home address? You have that?”

  There was a pause, then a timid response. “I know you’re the police but…I’m not sure I’m allowed to give that out.”

  “No problem,” DeMarco told her. “Wouldn’t want to get you in dutch.”

  Next, he telephoned the county courthouse, asked Cheryl in the Recorder of Deeds office to search the database for Robert Denton. Two minutes later, he wrote the address on his notepad: 619 Locust Drive, Greenwood Valley.

  Greenwood Valley was an eighties subdivision of sprawling ranch and mock-Tudor homes. DeMarco calculated that Denton would need ten minutes to get from his home to campus, maybe more if he ran any errands on the way or stopped for a cappuccino. In any case, he probably wouldn’t leave the house before one in the afternoon. It was now only 10:47.

  “Plenty of time for me to ruin his day,” DeMarco said.

  Twenty

  Robert Denton’s house in Greenwood Valley was a vinyl and brick split-level on a quarter-acre lot of grass that probably hadn’t seen a mower blade since mid-August. The mulch beds were overrun with creepers gone wild, the flower beds full of leaves. DeMarco arrived in an unmarked silver Impala from the motor pool, parked half a block from the poet’s house, then approached by foot.

  The curtains were all drawn in the front of Denton’s house. At the first-floor entryway, DeMarco pressed the doorbell three times. With the two-note chirp echoing throughout the house, he crossed briskly to the corner, then hurried along the side of the house until he could see the rear entrance. A door thudded inside. Footsteps scurried. A rush of muted voices. A minute or two later, the back door opened and the waifish girl DeMarco had seen in Campbell Hall outside the poet’s office exited the house at a canter. She crossed the rear yard and hurried through a narrow opening in the privet hedge.

  DeMarco returned to the front door and again thumbed down the doorbell.

  Finally the door swung open. A barefoot and rumpled-looking Denton, wearing a blue-and-green-striped bathrobe and holding a mug of coffee in one hand, a thick literature anthology in the other, blinked at him.

  “Morning,” DeMarco said and smiled through the screen door. “I’m Sergeant Ryan DeMarco with the state police. And you are Robert Denton?”

  “That’s right,” Denton said. He stood very still. DeMarco thought that except for the poet’s deer-in-headlights look, except for the bare feet, bare legs, and bathrobe, he might be posing for a yearbook photo.

  “I was wondering if you would have a few minutes to talk with me about your colleague, Professor Huston?”

  Denton remained motionless for two more blinks. Then suddenly he became animated. “Oh sure, absolutely. Come on upstairs.” He turned from the door and spoke quickly as he mounted the stairs. “Just let me jump into some clothes real quick. I’ve been working on today’s lesson plans. I’ll meet you in the living room, top of the stairs.”

  DeMarco pulled the door shut behind him. He said, “I haven’t gotten around yet to taking my screens down either.”

  At the top of the stairs, Denton paused long enough to look back down. “Screens?” he said. Then, “Ah, the storm doors. Right. I hadn’t even noticed.”

  “Those lost BTUs add up fast.”

  “One of these weekends,” the poet said. “Come on up. I’ll just be a second.”

  The stairs opened directly onto the living room, a room that would have been full of sunlight had the horizontal blinds across the wide picture window been open. DeMarco stood at the top of the stairs and let his eyes adjust. A brown leather sofa. A bookcase full of books. Indentations in the beige carpet where another piece of furniture had long stood against the side wall, where now, in the corner, was nothing but an acoustic guitar on a metal stand. A piano? DeMarco thought. The mantel over the fireplace was empty, the grate full of old ashes. All around the room were other indentations in the carpet, bare nails stuck in the walls. Entertainment hutch, DeMarco thought. Recliner. Coffee table. Matching end tables. Pictures there and there and there. The only sign of inhabitance was last Sunday’s newspaper spread out on the floor in front of the sofa.

  Wearing beltless blue jeans and a loose, blue-striped white Oxford shirt, cuffs unbuttoned, tail hanging out, Denton returned from his bedroom. “Please, sit down, Officer. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  DeMarco smiled. “Looks like you’ve been cleaned out here.”

  “Ex-wife,” said Denton. “Estranged wife actually. But at least she left me a place to sit, right?” He motioned toward the sofa. “Please, have a seat. I’ll grab a chair for myself.”

  He retrieved a low barstool from beside the kitchen counter, positioned it just inside the living room, sat with his bare feet on the top rung. Then he noticed how awkwardly DeMarco was sitting, his feet spread wide to avoid the newspaper.

  Denton hopped down off the barstool. “Christ, I’m sorry,” he said and scooped up the newspapers, tossed them into an empty corner. “I live like a fucking bachelor, you know? Can’t seem to bring myself to get this place organized.”

  “You and your wife trying to work things out?” DeMarco asked.

  “Who the fuck knows? I mean, she wants us to date, you know? So we date. But all she ever wants to do is to haul out
all the old baggage. Sorta makes me wonder why we even try.”

  DeMarco nodded, said nothing.

  Denton grinned. “I do miss the piano though. And she doesn’t even play! She just took it to piss me off.”

  DeMarco smiled and said nothing. He already knew that Denton was uncomfortable with silences.

  “Anyway, about Tom,” Denton said. “I mean what a fucking shock. The whole university is reeling over it. You guys have any idea where he is? Why he’d do such a thing?”

  DeMarco said, “I stopped by your office the other day but you weren’t in yet. I talked to a student who was there waiting for you. Thin. Pretty. Strawberry-blond hair?”

  “Heather Ramsey,” Denton said. He waited but couldn’t tolerate the pause for long. “Good student. Very bright.” He shuffled his bare feet on the barstool’s rung. “So uh…I guess you wanted to ask me some things about Tom?”

  “I’m just hoping to figure him out,” DeMarco said. “Get a feeling for who he is.”

  “He’s my fucking hero,” said Denton. “I mean not now, not after what he did, but… He was my sanctuary, I’ll tell you that. I don’t know how I’m going to survive without him around anymore.”

  “Your sanctuary.”

  “Yeah, it’s like… I guess you have to know what academia is really like. Inside the ivy tower, you know? It’s filled with pettiness like you wouldn’t believe. Fucking careerists who care more about office space than ideas. Anal, dysthymic…completely dysfunctional outside of the classroom, you know?”

  “Except for Thomas Huston.”

  “We are the only published writers in the department, did you know that? In an English department of seventeen people. Two creative writers. It’s fucking pathetic.”

  “There’s a Professor…Conescu?” DeMarco said.