According to Their Deeds (19 page)

“Oh? Have other people been asking?”

“Too many.”

“I just have a simple question.”

“Sorry. I have exceeded the allotted number of answers on that subject. Try something else.”

“All right—another subject—what about the papers that were in the desk? That’s a different subject.”

“Barely, Charles. Just barely.”

“Where are those papers? I doubt they were still in the desk when it was sold.”

“How should I know? I didn’t check any drawers. I think the place called and asked if I wanted them and I said to send them to his boss at work.”

“John Borchard?”

“That’s the one. Since he wanted them, anyway.”

“Oh—he had asked for them?”

“He asked. It got real annoying, sort of like you. So I finally just told them to send him everything they found. Papers, paper clips, paper plates. Just send it all.”

“I suppose we should be careful what we ask for.”

“I never heard from him again so I guess it worked.”

“Thank you, Lucy.”

“Glad to help, Charles. Charles?”

“Yes?”

“I like it when I never hear from people again.”

“You do?”

“Don’t call back.”

“Mr. John Borchard called while you were on the phone,” Alice said at the door. “He said to tell you he really is planning to come by some time.”

“I like it when I hear from people again,” Charles said.

EVENING

They chose an aloof table far from the windows and outside light.

The confusion of smells assailed them: sweet caramel, bitter coffee, lemon, chocolate, salty meats, vegetables, thick cheeses, wood, hot sun-heated air and cold shadow, and people.

“There’s too much,” Charles said. “I don’t know how to sort it out.”

“Should you do something?” Dorothy asked.

“Dorothy, I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t know of
any
thing to do, or you don’t know
which
thing to do?”

“Which.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Or any.” They were silent, and their thoughts twined with the smells and sounds.

“But you have to do something,” Dorothy said.

“Yes. Now that I’m worried, officially. No more just following the wind, anyway. Tomorrow morning Frank Kelly will show me the report on Derek’s death.”

“We keep hearing that it was just a burglary.”

“The fifth in a series. Five different houses. It has to have been just an accidental tragedy. But it just couldn’t have been.”

“Do you think you’ll see something that everyone else has missed?”

“No. But it seemed like an opportunity not to miss.”

“I know it’s all confusing, Charles, but I think that in the end, you’re just going to have to give the papers to the police. There really isn’t any other way.”

“I keep hoping there is some other way. That’s what I’m looking for.” His fingers were drumming on the table, and he stopped them. Then he counted them off. “Six people. Karen Liu, John Borchard, Patrick White, and three more we don’t even know. I open the book, and there I have their terrible secrets. Their sins. Their sins that can pull them down and destroy them.” He looked at his open hands. “Am I being overly dramatic?”

“Not by too much. You could take it all to the police.”

“That is a decision itself.”

“But otherwise it’s your decision, Charles, and I don’t think it should be. Patrick White’s secret is already exposed. We don’t really know what it would mean to Karen Liu and John Borchard. We don’t know if the other three are even secrets, or what they are.”

“I think we can guess by the company they were keeping.”

“And don’t we have a responsibility to tell the police? They might be real crimes.”

“And people should get what they deserve,” Charles said. “The wages of sin is death.”

“But the gift of Charles Beale is everlasting life?”

“I don’t enjoy being in this position.”

“I know that. And I understand why you don’t feel free to give it up, either.”

“The problem, Dorothy, is that you’re right. I feel like I have godlike responsibility here, to deliver judgment that is true. It’s just that I don’t have wisdom, authority, omniscience or anything else. I’m not God.”

“What happens if you don’t do anything?”

“There will be some point where a decision is unavoidable. I just hope I can be ready when that comes.”

“Maybe God will have delivered his own judgment by then.”

Again they were silent, letting the coffee shop distract them.

“Did you enjoy your conversations with Derek?” Dorothy asked.

“Yes. They weren’t always comfortable. He liked to provoke me, and I would push back at him. But they were very thoughtful and stimulating.”

“Would I have liked him?”

“Only if he’d wanted you to.”

“Where does evil come from, Charles?”

“Derek! How in the world do you expect an answer to that?”

“What is evil, then?”

“Well, what is good?”

“What we accept it to be, Charles. And evil, also.”

“It’s all subjective, then?”

“More or less. We’re selfish over our possessions, so we call stealing ‘evil.’ You said, ‘How in the world?’ That’s all we have, just ‘in the world.’ What is there outside of ourselves that we can measure against?”

“No, Derek. I think there is an external standard.”

“Created by whom?”

“Let’s say, God.”

“Then why isn’t this standard universally accepted? We both know it isn’t, and it certainly isn’t well enforced.”

“If it were, Derek, I suppose there wouldn’t be room for evil.”

“Are we being circular, Charles?”

“Let’s say there is an objective moral standard, but that there is also free will to disregard it. Would that give us a definition of evil?”

“That sounds like evil is built in.”

“Or, Derek, what if the point of evil was to be an alternative to good?”

“What in the world do you mean, Charles? Why should there be any alternative to good?”

“So there could be something to forgive.”

TUESDAY

MORNING

In a turbulent river of air, Charles struggled upstream. Trees held sturdily to their soil and tightly to their leaves; but with so many leaves, the trees couldn’t mind every one, and a few were overlooked and carried away.

He caught the knob and steadied himself and then pulled.

One step over the threshold and everything changed. This air couldn’t be the same substance as the muscular atmosphere outside. One swirl had come in with him, but the still wrestled it to the ground and pinned it.

“Have we sold anything today, Alice?” Charles asked. Strange how the abundance of air outside had taken his breath away.

“A
Wind in the Willows
.”

“I should have known.” And up the stairs.

“Good morning, Mr. Beale,” Morgan said as he blew into the office.

“Good morning. Contrary winds out there. It took me a while to get through them.”

“Yes, sir. But less than ten years.”

“Ten years to get through the winds? They weren’t that strong.”

“Did you meet any monsters on the way?”

“Not many,” Charles said. “Give me another clue what we’re talking about.”

“Did you pass any police hurrying by?”

“Police hurrying. With their sirens, you mean?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We got it? The
Odyssey
?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good! Good for you, Morgan. Very good! . . . Well, maybe. How much was it?”

“Seventeen hundred forty.”

“So if I’d stayed at fifteen, we would have missed it. I can’t wait to see it.”

“Do you think it was really worth that much?”

“Maybe not. But I always hope! When will we get it?”

“I paid right away, and I asked the seller to send it overnight. We should have it tomorrow.”

“Very good, Morgan! So that will take away a little of the sting of losing the Melville. I’ll go down and pack up
Moby-Dick
.”

“Use a big box,” Morgan said.

“Hey, boss.”

“Oh. Good morning, Angelo.” Charles looked at his watch. “Are you ready to go?”

“I’m ready to take the book.”

“I’m sorry, I lost track of time. Let me wrap it.”

“What are you doing with that book, boss?”

“I was reading it.”

“What do you read all these books for?”

“I like to, Angelo.”

“For what in the dark?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It is less distracting. Or maybe I should say that it makes the book the only thing there is.”

“What do you read in these books?”

“Everything. Everything there is. And there is always something new.”

“In these books that are old?”

“Yes, especially. It is like being hungry and these are food. I am hungry to read these. And it is also like they are friends and I want to be with them and talk to them.”

“That is what the people say about the drugs.”

“It is a little like that. But these aren’t bad for you. And they’re legal.”

“I will read one sometime.”

“Yes, Angelo, please do. All right, here it is, all wrapped up. Do you have the receipt for them to sign?”

“I have that.”

“Angelo, be very nice to this man. This is a very special, very expensive book. I would go with you but I have another appointment. Try to make the man feel like it is a special book.”

“How do I make a man feel a way?”

“Treat the book very carefully. Hand it to him like you are handing him diamonds from that jewelry store. Act very grateful that he is buying it and say thank-you like you mean it. Look him right in the eye, but not to make him afraid. Make him feel that you are proud of him.
Be
proud and grateful that he is buying it. Do you feel like this book is precious?”

“It is lots of money.”

“Because it is worth it. It really is.”

“Okay, boss, but the man will feel the way he wants.”

“Do the best you can.”

The wind was just as wild across the Potomac, and clouds had joined it. Charles paddled undaunted through the canyon streets and the whitewater breezes.

He docked at the District of Columbia Police station’s grim landing and came ashore into its joyless lobby. But one smile greeted him.

“Hi! Mr. Beale! Morning. How are you doing?”

“Very well. Thank you, Mr. Kelly.”

“I already told them we were coming. I won’t even have to sneak you in.”

In plain sight, the two passed the gauntlet of desks and halls; Frank Kelly showed his FBI badge twice at strategic moments. It was a very busy building and there were many policepersons.

A criminal would not have felt welcome.

On the third floor they came finally to a large room of desks and file cabinets, and once more the magic badge was shown.

“Most of this stuff is online,” Mr. Kelly said. “But I don’t have a password. It’s easier to just drop in.”

A file folder was retrieved and they chose a desk to take it to. Frank Kelly opened it and flipped pages, selecting a few to pull out. Charles sat and waited.

“Okay. Here are the ones you want.”

He pushed a dozen papers across the desk.

“I may read them?” Charles said.

“Go ahead. Those you’re allowed to see. And I took out the gory stuff.”

“Thank you.”

He started. It was a mash; everything about a murder scene and the people involved, circling out layer by layer to the outer reaches of Derek’s life. There were interviews, narratives, forms, lists and descriptions.

Charles read for twenty minutes. Then he pushed the papers back across the desk.

“That’s enough,” he said.

“Not real great reading,” Mr. Kelly said. “That answer your questions?”

“I suppose. There were five burglaries in the neighborhood in three weeks and they were all the same. Someone broke a window and climbed in, moved through the house very quickly and took small, valuable objects, and was out in just a few minutes.”

“Those houses, they had plenty of small valuable objects.”

“And the power had been cut.”

“Right,” Mr. Kelly said. “Which was not easy. It had to be done at the electric meter because all the lines are either underground or inside.”

“Do most burglars know how to do that?”

“I don’t think so. So that sure sets it off from a regular break-in. It must have been someone good. But most burglars aren’t after antiques anyway.

“So usually the security company gets an alarm when the power goes out, but nothing happens at the house.” Frank was looking through the pages. “The company calls the owners, and the owner probably just tells them no problem, the power’s out. But the guy was gone in five minutes anyway, and it’s too late even if the police do get called.

“So. At 2:15 in the morning something cut off the power at the Bastien residence, which set off an alarm back at the surveillance desk. We have that from the alarm company. Derek Bastien had instructed them to not immediately notify the police, which is a normal instruction. They were supposed to call his cell phone for further instructions, and if he didn’t answer, then they would call the police.

“According to the alarm company, they did call and he answered. There was some kind of password he gave them to verify who he was. He told them to wait five minutes for him to call back and if he didn’t, to send the police. He didn’t call back.

“Apparently, he started looking around. He went into the office. The burglar must have heard him coming. By the angles, it looks like he was hiding behind the door when Bastien came in. He hit Bastien on the head with the marble statue, and that killed him. He probably never knew what hit him.”

“I hope not,” Charles said.

“Yeah, that’s the part I never liked.” Frank Kelly looked appropriately sad. “There’s the victim, knowing he was about to get hit or killed. That must be a rotten feeling.”

“It must be.”

“At least it wouldn’t last very long. Lots of blood on the desk, and lab analysis said it was all his.”

“Mr. Kelly, would they have taken the desk to a lab to do that analysis?”