Final Notice (22 page)

When I said, yes, she looked confused and said, "How very odd."

"It has that effect on most people."

"It does?" she said and then she laughed, or tittered, with the tuneless precision of an alarm clock. "I see. You were making a joke. I must be slow today. Friday's are a slow day for me."

I had the feeling that most days were slow days for Andrea Gibson, who had all the makings of an incompetent. Her type was familiar enough. A superannuated librarian or grammar teacher who'd lost her nerve, she'd been shuffled upstairs to serve out her last years before retirement. And beyond prescribing an occasional aspirin or administering a dose of MMPT, her sole advice to the dozens of students who passed daily through that neat little office was to "have a good day." She did not inspire me with confidence. But as it turned out, I was not being at all fair to Miss Andrea Gibson.

"You came to talk about Haskell Lord?" she said in that bemused voice.

I said I had.

And she said, "That doesn't surprise me. He had a very unfortunate childhood."

I told her that I knew about as much as I needed to know about Hack's background and that I was more concerned with how he related to his brother.

"Oh, but the two are connected," she said with a round, unappeasable smile.

I could see that she was going to give me her view of the matter whether I wanted her to or not, so I put a polite look on my face and asked her to explain again how Hack's selfish, implacable mother and his polite, idealistic brother had turned a troubled boy into a killer. And she did. But with an interesting twist.

"Do you know what a scapegoat is, Mr. Stoner?" she said with innocent pedantry. "Joseph Addison wrote an interesting essay about it three hundred years ago. Of course, we figure that we know a great deal more about the mind now than Addison did at the beginning of the eighteenth century. And in some ways we do. When I took my degree in psychology, psychoanalysis was all the rage. Since then there's been a revolution in psychotherapy -a pharmacological revolution. And what we were taught to think of as quirks of the libido are being proved to be prodigies of chemistry. Sometimes I think that science isn't getting more precise, just smaller. More minute. If you can see the difference." She looked up suddenly and said, "Do you think I'm odd?"

I blushed and said, "A little."

"Well, I am," she said with that tuneless laugh. "My students know it. You can't fool them. They're attuned to deceptions. They have to be to deal with those creatures we call parents. I was born three hundred years behind the times, because, you see, I think Addison and the moral philosophers were right. There are chemistries and chemistries. And where the heart is concerned, it's human chemistry that counts. Don't you agree?"

"I think I do," I said.

"A good answer," she said. "Now, lest you think I'm a total fool, allow me to explain what I meant. In families like Haskell Lord's -indeed, in many so-called 'normal' families, as well- relationships have become so weighted down with guilts and anxieties that the 'healthy' expression of emotions -a phrase that, I confess, I've never entirely understood- is grossly inhibited. When a parent dies or goes to prison or loses his job or divorces, the whole family suffers the trauma. Everyone shares in the blame. Ideally, that guilt would be expiated through open discussion, through work and recreation and, above all, through love. The great panacea. Truly the only commonplace that I never deplore. But when love itself becomes sick, as it has in the Lord family, then that vital sympathy is cut off. Since the trauma will not go away on its own, the family has to find another way to exorcise its individual and collective guilts. Which brings us back to Mr. Addison and the theory of scapegoats. You're familiar, of course, with the notion of a `black sbeep'?"

I told her that I'd heard the phrase once or twice, and she smiled.

"Some families create them," she said, "the way other families celebrate achievements. A scapegoat or a black sheep isn't merely a person, it's a piece of machinery, a psychical pump through which the whole family, even the scapegoat himself, channels its guilts and aggressions -all of those feelings that, through lack of love, they can't safely express to each other or to themselves. Black sheep are very necessary things. Why in some families, they are all that hold a group of virtual strangers together. Indeed, there are many instances of families collapsing -nervous breakdowns, divorces, sudden acts of violence- after a so-called black sheep mends his or her way and reforms."

"And you're saying that the Lord family is an example of your scapegoat theory?" I said.

"But, of course. A perfect example. I don't know why the mother decided to make Haskell the black sheep, instead of Jacob. Haskell was the eldest and the more overtly violent of the two. And potentially the most dangerous. But both brothers have severe personality disorders. And while I've never interviewed her, I'd be willing to bet that the mother is the most disturbed of the three."

"You know what Hack has done?" I said to her.

She nodded. "I've done a great deal of thinking about the Lord family since yesterday. Understand, I'm not trying to excuse Haskell. All of my tests showed marked sociopathic; tendencies in the boy. What used to be called misanthropy coupled with homicidal urges. He is certainly a very disturbed and very dangerous young man. All I'm really saying is what is obvious to anyone -nobody goes crazy all by himself. From what I've observed, the whole family is a little mad."

I'd been dead wrong about Andrea Gibson. She was anything thing but the passed-over incompetent that I thought she was, although she clearly wanted to encourage an eccentric impres sion perhaps because it made it easier to communicate with those creatures known as children. And with glib detectives too. I asked her with genuine interest whether she thought Jake was capable of shielding his brother in spite of what Hack had done, whether that would fit her "black sheep" theory. And she, pursed her round lips and thought it out.

"It's hard to say," she said after a moment. "Jacob's relationship with his brother is intriguing -I mean, of course, from a professional point of view. From all appearances, the two them were inseparable friends. And yet I know from talkin to Haskell that he resented his brother's constant attention. Nor was it ever clear to me whether Jacob's friendship was entirely, unambivalent. He certainly had a passionate attachment to his brother. But I think he was more than a little angry at Haskell too, for allowing himself to be so thoroughly victimized by their mother. I sense a cold rage beneath that fulsome politeness of his. And to answer your question, yes, I think it's possible, that Jacob would protect his older brother."

"Even though Haskell has murdered two women?"

"Perhaps because of that, Mr. Stoner," she said without blinking an eye. "Haskell was the black sheep, remember? And Jacob has had a great deal of practice blaming and excusing, his brother for all that's gone wrong in both of their lives. He may not be able to function without that crutch."

"I hope you're right," I said. "Because right now Jacob is all I've got to go on."

"In a way," she said, "I hope I'm not."

"Why?"

"Because I'd like to see one of those benighted souls come out of this whole," Andrea Gibson said. "You might do me a favor, Mr. Stoner."

"I'll try."

"If you do find Haskell, as you must, try to keep Jacob away from the... what should I call it?" she said heavily. "Don't let him see his brother die, Mr. Stoner. That's what I mean."

I told her again that I'd try.
 

LIKE BENSON Howell, Andrea Gibson had left me with a good deal to think about -none of it pleasant. It was time, I decided, for a meeting of the minds. When I got back to the library at two, I plucked Kate Davis off her second-floor perch and I her down to Ringold's office, where she and I had a chat. Ringold himself had been called downtown to talk with what Miss Moselle called the "big boys," so we had his spare little office to ourselves. Or, at least, I thought we had. There really wasn't any way to tell what kind of bugs or peepholes the little old ladies might have planted in the room. Anyway, we spoke as if we were speaking for an audience. And what we talk about was how to deal with Jacob Lord.

"I don't think I believe it, Harry," Kate said when I'd finished telling her what Miss Gibson had told me. "He seem so forthright to me. Defensive, of course. Who wouldn't under the same circumstances. But not at all the kind of person who would deliberately mislead us."

I fiddled with one of Ringold's number two pencils. If looked as if he'd been gnawing on it with chagrin. There were toothmarks on the eraser. "I agree that he doesn't seem to be the type. But he hasn't been entirely forthright, as you put it, with us. He lied about not having seen Hack in years. He lied about what Hack was doing up at Withrow. He didn't tell me that Hack was a speed freak when he sent me off on that pleasant little jaunt to Norris Reaves's barn. Which almost got me killed, if you remember."

"But that doesn't mean he's hiding Hack somewhere."

"I'm not saying that he is. Only that he might know where Hack is holed-up." I dropped the pencil in the tray and said, "Kate, he's been following his brother around most of his life for whatever the reasons. It doesn't seem probable that he'd stop now. And the truth is, we don't have anything else to go on."

Kate stared glumly at the desk. "This is my fault, damn it, for not digging up a clue to his next victim."

I laughed at her. Which was a mistake.

Her face turned an angry shade of red and for a moment I thought she was going to sock me. "You really don't think I can cut the mustard, do you, Harry," she said indignantly.

"If you want to have a fight, Kate, go ahead. But you're fighting with yourself."

"No, damn it, I'm fighting with you. You're a chauvinist. Not an outrageous chauvinist -you've got too good a heart for that. But a chauvinist, nevertheless. And I'm getting tired of being put on the back burner everytime you think it's for the best. I don't want somebody deciding what's good for me. I want to make my own decisions and I don't want to be laughed at for doing it."

There was no sense in explaining to her that I wasn't laughing at her powers of will or of mind. And any attempt to justify myself by pointing out that I knew more about the detective business than she did would have been scorned as a rationalization. Besides, that wasn't the reason I was being protective. There's a helluva fine line between chauvinism and what she had called "good-heartedness," although, I suppose, it's a line that's always going to have to be redrawn between two strongwilled adults who happen to be in love.

So I did the safe thing and the sane one. I apologized. She looked abashed, as if that was the last thing on earth she'd cxpected me to say, and sat back sullenly on her chair.

"Apology accepted," she said after a time. "Anyway it was a stupid thing for me to say. Dropping me off at the library a couple of hours ago didn't do much for my ego, you know."

I knew. And I also knew that we'd just missed having an explosive argument that could have sent us both storming off in a rage. I was a little proud of us.

"Now what are we going to do about Jacob?" I asked her.

"I guess we could follow him," she said.

"Yeah, but he knows who we are. And he also knows that the police are watching his house. If he is shielding his brother, he's going to be very careful about any contact with Hack. Besides, following him could be a very long process. And there's no need to point out how important it is to get our hands on Haskell before he kills again."

"We could get a search warrant from your friend George. DeVries. Maybe there's something in the house or in Hack's room that could lead us to him."

"It's a good thought," I said. "Only the cops already paid the Lord house a visit yesterday and didn't turn up a thing. What we have to do is give Jake an urgent reason to get in touch with Hack. An unimpeachable reason. Something that.. will send him straight to his brother."

"If he really does know where he's hiding," Kate said without much conviction. "And besides, if he's gone to so much trouble to protect Haskell, what would make him bolt and run?"

It was a damn good question.

Al Foster had a few laconic suggestions to make when we gathered in his tiny office at three-thirty that afternoon. And, George DeVries, who'd finally managed to convince Walker. Parsons that it would be a good idea to cash in on Haskell before the end of the month, had a few brutal ideas of his own. But it wasn't until half-past four, when Cal Levy came down from Harrison to join our strategy session, that we got our first real break.

We'd been discussing the merits of tailing Jake with plain-clothesmen, and tempers were getting hot. The office was so small that we were almost sitting on top of each other. And it had begun to rain around four, so it was humid as well as cramped in the tiny room. Then George had gotten huffy when Kate had violently disagreed with his plan to drag Jake into Station X and beat the truth out of him. And all hell broke loose. It was a typical DeVrie's suggestion, vicious and expedient. But Kate didn't know much about George or about police procedures. And the fact that he'd been calling her "little lady" since the moment we'd stepped through the door hadn't helped either.

"We're not even sure that he knows where Hack is!" she finally exploded. "This isn't a police state where you can just pull anybody you want in off the street and torture them into telling you what you want to hear."