Skull Session (25 page)

30

P
AUL, I'VE GOT SOME GOODIES here! Want to see?" Lia stood at the big table in the smoking room with papers spread out before her as Paul refilled and started the heater. The late-night call had set into motion all kinds of dire imaginings, which Paul could visualize with perfect clarity. The worst was an emergency with Mark. His hands responded to his growing anxiety all by themselves, ringing the bell, grabbing things out of the air. He'd have to call Janet as soon as the heater was up and running.

"Oh, this is juicy! Your cousin Royce was quite a young man. Look at this: juvenile court papers, complaint forms, suit settlement terms. All from the mid-sixties. Here's a letter stating reasons for his expulsion from Phillips Exeter Academy."

"I guess that's why Vivien needed someone in the family to do this—keep the dirty laundry out of public view."

"Can't blame her!"

The papers Paul picked up turned out to be complaint forms from 1965, signed by Raymond and Lois Clausen, with a Lewisboro address. They claimed that they'd caught Royce Hoffmann in the act of breaking windows at their house. The Clausens stated that Royce was doing it because they'd caught him before, looking into their windows late at night; they had told him not to come back or they'd call the police, and he'd resented their threats.

"A difficult kid," Paul said. "Royce would have been around fourteen then. What'd he get expelled from Phillips Exeter for?"

"You told me Royce liked guns, right? Apparently he threatened his roommate with a loaded World War II Luger. They also thought having live hand grenades in the dorms was a bit much."

"He was just ahead of his time. No kid would go to school with less, nowadays."

Lia laughed. "What I love is that Vivien wrote all these stirring letters in his defense—that he was just sorting things out his own way." She snorted. "That he was just a very bright boy who was having a difficult time expressing himself."

Paul looked over the other papers. In 1967 Royce and some friends had stolen a car and rolled it into the reservoir. The family of a local girl had taken out a restraining order on him to prevent him from harassing their daughter, for whom he had apparently conceived an infatuation. The ugliest details were mentioned in the terms of a settlement of a suit, brought by a family who claimed that Royce and a friend had killed their two St. Bernards by feeding them lumps of hamburger filled with razor-blade chips.

"The question I have," Lia said, "is did he grow out of it, or is he still searching for new and interesting modes of self-expression?"

Paul was just heading out to the kitchen to call Janet when a white van rolled into the driveway, and he went outside to greet the electrician. Stewart Cohen turned out to be a short, compact, middle- aged man, with dark, wiry hair and intelligent, nervous eyes. He wore new blue jeans and a baby-blue down jacket, and carried a slim steel box that served as both clipboard and briefcase. His helper, in his late teens, was tall and thin, wearing a hooded New York Knicks sweatshirt and garish, high-tech basketball shoes.

"I'm glad you could make it here on such short notice." Paul said.

"Hey, send me a check and I'll follow you anywhere." Cohen gestured at the headless statues in the garden. "Looks like the French Revolution all over again. Whole place looks like hell—what happened?"

"I keep waiting for someone to tell
me.
It's a lot worse inside". Cohen turned away and rolled open the van's door, speaking over his shoulder. "The strong silent type here is Kenny Wechsler, my assistant.

Also my sister's son and coincidentally my nephew."

"I heard it was some kind of cult came up here," Kenny said, "like one of those satanic cults. Used the place for rituals."

"Where'd you hear that?" Paul asked.

Kenny took a pair of battery-operated double spotlights from his uncle. "Friends, I guess," he said.

Paul led them through the kitchen door and into the main room, where he paused to let them absorb the scene. Kenny gawked openly, his weak mouth open, while Cohen drummed his fingers on his metal case.

"Holy shit," Cohen said at last.

Down in the furnace room, Cohen set up the spots and gave the circuit breakers and wiring tree a quick once-over. In the bright glare of the lights, with the distorted shadows of the three men moving over the broken machinery, the furnace room seemed hellish, Paul thought. All that was needed to complete the picture would be a fiery figure with horns and cloven hooves. He shook his head to clear the image, which he blamed on Kenny's remark.

"This is going to be a delightful job, I can see that," Cohen said, kicking at the rubble. "Three days at least, probably four or five."

Paul went back upstairs, intending to make the call to Janet, only to find Dempsey's old Buick station wagon pulling up at the terrace stairs. He talked with the old man briefly and gave him the floor plan he'd drawn, showing the locations of the broken windows. "A lot of them will need to be rebuilt and reglazed. Some will only need a few panes, and we can reuse the old mullion leading. I was thinking we'd clear an area of the floor in here and you could set up shop, take out the windows one at a time." Looking at Dempsey, the gray stubbled cheeks, yellowed eyes deep in whorls of wrinkles, Paul suddenly felt unsure how much he could ask of the old man. "If carrying them down's a problem," he finished, feeling suddenly awkward, "I'd be glad to—"

Dempsey's eyes caught his. "I think I can manage these, Paulie. Thanks." There was only a little reproach in his tone.

There was something uncomfortable between them, a guardedness. Not anything he wanted with Dempsey Corrigan. "How are you?" he asked. "Things okay?"

Dempsey clapped him on the shoulder, squeezed his muscle there with surprising strength. "Things are as okay as they can be for an old fart who's trying hard to outrun his regrets and not always succeeding."

"You've never struck me as a person with a lot of regrets."

"Yeah, well. I don't have many, but those I've got are extraordinarily fleet of foot." Dempsey grunted humorlessly. "Lemme get to work now. Where's a goddamned broom? I've got to clear some floor space. Can't be walking on this crap every step I take."

It was definitely not the time to hit Dempsey with the questions he'd been wanting to ask: whether he knew anything about Falcone, the Herculean gardener, or about the odd vault of a room off Vivien's bedroom, or about the KKK photos and the possibility of an earlier episode of vandalism. Let alone the trickier questions: What was it between Vivien and Aster? What was it between Vivien and Dempsey? What drove Ben over the edge?

Dempsey's dark mood added another question. Something was definitely amiss with the old man—what? Paul's abdomen convulsed and he gagged violently as the tic closed his throat.

31

W
ITH EVERYBODY FINALLY AT WORK, Paul went to the kitchen. He had just reached for the phone when it shrilled
w
at him. Adrenaline shot into his fingertips.
Don't let it be bad news
about Mark,
he prayed.
Let it be Vivien, or Becker's Heating. Or
anything routine and normal.
He snatched the receiver, cutting off another ring.

"Hello?" He could hear his own pulse in his ears.

"Hello," a man's voice said, "I am trying to reach Paul Skoglund."

There was a touch of an English accent, vaguely familiar.

"This is Paul. Who's this?"

"Well! Paulie!" the voice laughed. "This is your cousin Royce!"

Paul was so startled he couldn't speak for a moment. "We—we were just talking about you," he said at last.

"Speak of the devil, eh? It's been a long time, hasn't it? Do you have a minute, Paulie?"

"Sure, I've got a minute," Paul said cautiously. Hearing suspicion in his own voice, he continued: "I'm sorry, Royce. I'm—I just barely put the phone back on the wall. I wasn't expecting anyone to call."

"And I'll bet you weren't expecting it to be
me,
were you? I assure you, it's a surprise for me to encounter you at Highwood."

"How did you know I'd be here? I take it you talked to Vivien."

Royce chuckled. "No, actually—I had a most delightful conversation with
your
mother. Who gave me the unexpected news that you were in the neighborhood, so to speak."

"Where are you?"

"I am calling from Manhattan. I own an apartment here, although I seem to spend most of my time in Amsterdam and Hong Kong. Your mother tells me you've been living in Vermont?"

"Yes." A tic built and he barely turned it into a cough.

"And now you've come to the rescue. The old place is pretty bunged up, Aster says. How bad is it?"

"Like somebody picked the building up and shook it like a cocktail shaker. It's going to take a lot of work to put it back together."

Royce murmured encouragingly. "And I'm sure you're doing a terrific job. Actually, Paulie, it's rather fortuitous that you're only an hour away. Your mother was so extravagant in her praise of your skills that I thought I'd call. To see if you'd like to do some work for me as well."

"What kind of work?"

"In my apartment here. I'd like the woodwork restored, refinished, the walls painted. Rather mundane compared to the baronial scale of Highwood, I suppose, but I need someone who can do top-quality work. I plan to be returning to the U.S. to live and I'd like to have the place in good shape."

"I've been kind of moving away from the contracting end of things—"

"Yes, so Aster told me. You're an educator now. But an unemployed educator, apparently. I would of course pay top dollar. And this is a lovely old building, Park at Eighty-sixth. I'm certain you could easily generate more work in the area. With a good reference from me, of course."

It was the kind of opportunity that five years ago Paul would have jumped at—breaking into the lucrative New York market for fine renovation, maintaining a steady group of wealthy clients. But things were different now. If he ever really wanted a career as a teacher, he'd have to commit himself to it, not be deflected by every other possibility that came his way. On the other hand, it couldn't hurt to have a source of income while he looked for the right job. The scenario Royce suggested could be ideal.

"I was hoping you and I could get together," Royce went on. "Meet for lunch here in the city, chew the proverbial fat about old times, then head over to the apartment." He cleared his throat. "One little problem though. We'd have to have our rendezvous rather soon."

"How soon? I'm in the middle of a big job here."

"I have to be heading out of the country in a few days. I was hoping to have completed arrangements for the work before I left. Can you meet me today? It's ten now—what about lunch? My treat. Short notice, I admit."

"I can't. I've got a lot to do before the weather closes in. I've got subcontractors—"

"But old Dempsey's up there with you, right?"

Paul's hand flew to his jacket zipper. "Yes."

"Well, no one knows the old place better than Dempsey. Have him steer your people for a few hours. It's only an hour to the city, cousin. It'd be worth your while."

The drive down was okay, the MG's handling enjoyable, and he felt more or less up to meeting Royce. But once he parked and found himself without the prop of a red, vintage British car, he felt out of place in upper midtown Manhattan. Chic storefronts, sleek limousines, resplendent hotel facades and elaborately uniformed doormen, long-legged women draped in furs, men checking wristwatches that cost more than Paul made in a year: He'd made choices in his life, and none of them had led him to pursue the bright promises here, the money, the battle for status.

Then in the mirrored pillars of Le Cirque, he caught sight of his own reflection—a rangy, moderately handsome fellow, with a too-open face, unruly brown hair, an old tweed jacket, a stride that was at once too loose and too anxious, one hand playing crazily at his jacket buttons. As far as the people in the world of Manhattan were concerned, he might as well be wearing manure-caked boots, denim coveralls, and a straw hat.

The maitre d' led him to a table against the back wall, beneath a trompe l'oeil mural depicting a Louis XV parlor, absurdly occupied by monkeys in period dress.

Royce stood to shake his hand. "Cousin! I'll be damned. Paulie Skoglund."

"Hello, Royce."

They looked each other over. Royce was several inches taller than Paul and broad across the shoulders of his European-cut jacket. With his dark hair swept back, his deep tan, his tailored clothes, the smoothness of his movements, he registered initially as a handsome man. But his face failed him. He had kept the outstanding features of his childhood, the too-broad forehead and wide-set eyes, which made his nose seem too narrow and his chin too delicate. Royce's forehead was now horizontally seamed with a single, deep crease, as if he suffered not from the many smaller worries that etched most men's faces but just one, consuming obsession. The skin above his left eye was bunched, a faint swelling of scar pushing down the eyebrow at the corner.

"You're staring at my scar. Considered rude in some circles, but acceptable among family and forgivable considering I didn't own it last time you saw me."

"Sorry—it just seems that people and places from my past have been cropping up a lot lately."

Royce took his seat again, gesturing for Paul to do the same. "I'll spare you the embarrassment of asking. A car accident. I removed the windshield of my car by throwing myself through it, neatly taking the trim or molding or whatever you call it out with my forehead. Cut some nerves, leaving me with limited control of the left side of my face. Thus my charming, lopsided grin."

Royce probed Paul with his blue eyes, a subtle smile coming up his right cheek, anything but charming. He selected a roll from a linen-covered basket on the table, ripped it in half, buttered it. "Splendid way to begin a conversation. How about yourself? Any true gore stories before we eat?"

"Not yet," Paul said. "I find myself more or less intact."

"So far anyway, eh?" Royce laughed. He smiled as he tore into the roll with his teeth. With his butter knife, he gestured at the bread basket for Paul to join him, and Paul took a roll.

The pressure had been building since he'd set foot in the restaurant, and Paul felt it would be better to let the cat out of the bag: "Listen,

Royce, I've got a neurological problem. Sometimes I do odd things. I thought you should be forewarned."

"That's right—I vaguely remember." Royce looked at him, a new interest in his eyes. "Does this . . . condition . . . have a name?"

"Tourette's syndrome."

"Right. Oh, my. Well. Congrats—that's getting downright fashionable nowadays. Feel free to go blooie, if you must. I love a spectacle:"

He took another bite of his roll. "Funny thing, I just read in the in-flight magazine coming over that they think Mozart had Tourette's. You're in good company, anyway."

Paul buttered his roll, tasted it, found it excellent. Of course, Mozart. Would Mozart have composed if they'd had haloperidol back then? He allowed a tic to squeak out, a quick succession of jerks with his hand, ringing the bell.

"Fascinating," Royce said. "Well. Now that we've exchanged medical intimacies, I am absolutely dying to hear what it's hke at Highwood. I haven't clapped eyes on the place for twenty years, but I have very fond memories."

Paul gave him a summary, omitting the anomalies of the damage and any of the speculations he and Lia had come up with. As he spoke, he watched Royce's face. How much of his behavior was an act? At his most genuine, Royce had always seemed to be savoring some secret knowledge, preserving a disconcerting ambiguity.

"My, my," Royce said when Paul finished. "Well, hats off* to the culprit, for thoroughness at least. But you say the place is structurally intact? Walls still up, roof still on top, floor underneath?"

"Some of the interior walls have been broken open, but yes, it's structurally fine."

"And how exactly did
you
become involved? My dear mother simply called for a white knight, did she? Out of the blue?"

Paul reached for his glass. "More or less."

"And you simply dropped everything to come piece old Highwood together?"

"As I told you, I'm out of work. It was good timing for me." Before Royce could resume grilling him, Paul continued: "Speaking of Vivien calling, what prompted you to call Aster—out of the blue? None of us have heard from you in quite a while."

Royce's eyes moved away to scan the restaurant. He raised one finger, calling the waiter. "We should order. At this time of day, it might take a little while, and I wouldn't want to keep you from your work." He took a sip of water. "Why did I call Aster? Frankly, this is my first extended stay in New York for several years. By this I mean that I'm here for a week, the first time it's been more than twenty-four hours for I don't know how long. I'm planning to move back. It's all made me feel nostalgic. Of course I thought of the Skoglunds and I found I had Aster's number. We had an awfully nice chat. Odd, isn't it? How one's past can suddenly exert such persuasive power over one's emotions. As you so eloquently pointed out."

"I had no idea we were such a sentimental family," Paul said. "There seems to be an epidemic of it among us just now, doesn't there?" There was a way to deal with these Hoffmanns, he decided. Keep them a touch off-balance themselves. Play a bit of their own game, the feints and bluffs and little provocations, all with a veneer of decorum.

Royce raised his glass and smiled. With his toast, he seemed to acknowledge Paul as an equal. Or at least a respectable opponent.

Paul ordered a grilled swordfish fillet, Royce an oyster plate. The fingers of Paul's left hand explored the underside of the table, ritualistically touching the supports, finding each screw, making rhythms and drawing geometric constellations.

They talked some more about Highwood. At one point, recalling his weapon collection, Royce had to laugh. "I was a wretchedly morbid little bastard, wasn't I?"

"You mean you aren't anymore?"

"Oh yes, more so. It's just that I have more mature ways to express it now that I'm of age."

"Such as?"

"In a word, business. I can get a very satisfying sadistic thrill by sitting at tables with other like-minded individuals—major shareholders and CEOs—calculating ways to divest the unsuspecting masses, preferably in some other country, of their money or goods. There's enough intrigue and betrayal to make Machiavelli blush, because we all take great pleasure in being each other's allies one day and cutting each other's throats the next. And I can indulge my masochistic longings by joining some new committee or board and savoring the endless petty details, the tireless wrangling and infighting."

"Sounds terrific. What kind of businesses?" Royce was apparently narcissistic enough to enjoy talking about himself with little prompting.

"Oh, I own some percentage of various companies. Some I inherited, some I earned by my own perfidiousness. I employ myself at several and run errands on their behalf. The bulk of it is exporting consumer goods to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines. Also importing raw materials from those places. It's all quite humdrum. I hope I'm not a disappointment to you—in the face of the rather exotic possibilities that the situation at Highwood suggests."

"Speaking of which," Paul said, trying to keep Royce talking, "do you have any idea who might have vandalized the place?"

"Haven't the slightest."

"What did you mean by 'exotic possibilities,' then?"

Again Royce seemed pleased by Paul's assertiveness. "Why should you particularly care who did it?"

"I'm curious. And I'm nervous about being there if whoever did it comes back. I'd also hke to do what I can to make sure it doesn't happen again the minute I finish." Paul kept the question alive with his eyes.