The Murder in the Museum of Man (30 page)

“What are you doing here?” I cut in coldly after I had extricated my bruised hand from his grasp.

“What do you mean, what am I doing here?” A brief shadow of suspicion darkened his visage as he blustered on. “My job, Norm, old buddy, my job. Stuff’s really piled up. Too bad, by the way, about old Scrabbe. But you know, I always knew that guy would come to a bad end. I mean, he was always trying to make things more complicated than they are.”

As he hulked there in the hallway, sweating in a seersucker suit, his presence still unbelievable to me, I said, “I mean, aren’t you supposed to be in jail?” almost adding, where you belong.

“Oh, that. Well, I’m out on bail, but that’s only a technicality.
Ari’s filed a motion to have the bail requirement rescinded. Hey, listen, we’re contending that it never should have been imposed. In fact, I never should have been arrested in the first place. The whole thing was an accident. Could have happened to anybody. But this guy Ari! Hey, Norm, you got to see this guy work. I mean, he’s got the judge eating right out of his hand. Think of it, Norm, ha ha, a few weeks ago I was worried about the chair and here I am now.”

“But surely you’ve been fired,” I countered, as an awful possibility occurred to me. We were just outside what was still, technically, his office, into which he motioned me with a conspiratorial gesture. I stepped inside the door but would not sit down as invited as that might have seemed to constitute a recognition of his right to be there.

The man stood behind his desk and drew himself up to his full, imposing height while giving me his most daunting managerial scowl. “What do you mean, I’ve been fired? No way, Norm, no way at all. On what grounds would they can me? Why would they even want to? Through thick and thin I’ve been holding this place together and you’re talking about my being canned because of a misunderstanding with the cops about something that happened to a little … I don’t know what you’re talking about, pal. I’ve gotten no indication from anyone about any of this. What have you heard? I mean, I’ve been getting my paycheck right through it all. You know that raise I put in for in April, well, that just kicked in and I got paid retroactive back to July first. In fact, Ari told me to check with that … with Marge Littlefield about having the museum pick up some of my legal costs.”

“Good God!” I said, too astonished for more.

“But it’s okay, Norm. Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll get the old team up and humming like the old days. In fact, Norm, I’ve been thinking of appointing you to the executive committee. I mean, you were there for me when some real shit was going
down, and I think it’s time we recognized your contribution. You know, over the years. You know, to the museum. But you’re going to have to play ball, Norm, I mean, like everyone else.”

I simply shook my head, turned, and left the room. Of course! No one, in all the confusion, had bothered to go through with a formal dismissal. That would have been Dr. Commer’s responsibility, but I keep forgetting the man is all but comatose. I will have to do something. But what? I fear that if Malachy Morin is allowed to remain on the premises, never mind being put back in charge, I will use my father’s gun for more than self-defense.

Dear, dear, dear. How do you sigh in words? For I am sad and sighing as I sit here. It’s not just Malachy Morin. Of late I have not been sleeping well. I have been brooding on the fate of the museum and what to do about Elsbeth’s letter. There are times when, moment by moment, I must resist the temptation to tender my resignation. How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world. I want to say fie on it. I want … I know not what. For it seems to me these murders will never be solved. And even if they are there will be more murders, murders till the end of time.

Enough of that. I received today another communication on my e-mail from Worried. I’m entering it here for the record and sent a copy to Lieutenant Tracy, for what that’s worth.

It is nearly five o’clock in the morning. I have been here since just before three composing my letter of acceptance to the Board of Governors. I awoke around two from the most horrendous nightmare of my life. Dean Scrabbe’s decapitated head, horribly disfigured, but human and weeping all the same, spoke to me through torn lips. “Avenge my death,” it intoned. “Avenge my
death,” the voice echoing in a dull boom as though out of eternity. When I tried to back away, it grasped me somehow, not with arms but with its violated ears, or something like ears. It pulled me down next to its horrible, suppurating mouth, and while thick amber tears flowed from its hideous, bloodied eyes, it wailed at me that I would be next unless I acted now. With a shout the neighbors might have heard, I sat bolt upright in the bed, and as I type this, my hands still shake.

I know it sounds corny. I know it sounds like something out of a novel, but the dream shook the scales from my eyes. I am not doing this lightly. I am not doing it out of ambition, although fear and horror can generate a sense of purpose akin to ambition. Who was it said that in nightmares begin responsibilities? Anyway, as I sat there in the darkness with these thoughts and myriad others whirling through my head, I asked myself who would act if I didn’t. It is not easy for me. I have had to admit something to myself, something personal and embarrassing. Ever since the meeting of the Board, a catered luncheon in the Twitchell Room as is traditional, I have been inwardly blustering and fuming at them for asking me to do their dirty work. I have been reaching high and low to find reasons to turn them down. And slowly, grudgingly, a humbling and horrifying possibility has been afflicting me: I am hesitant to take responsibility. I lack the courage. By courage I don’t mean a lack of fear, however noble fearlessness may be. Izzy Landes said it best: courage is doing something difficult or dangerous when you don’t want to do it. All my life I’ve been avoiding the difficult and the dangerous. I have denied it all along, of course.

But I realize now that I have been afraid of the world ever since Infra. I came back from North Africa like a wounded beast, crawled into this little niche, and here have licked my wounds ever since. Oh, when I think back to it! For months I couldn’t even leave Seaboard; I was so afraid something catastrophic
would befall me. I’ve scarcely been away from the museum for more than a week at a time since then. And each time, especially early on, the absence was a cruel torment of worry about whether everything was all right or not. Professor Calloway asked me twice more to go on digs with him, and twice I refused. And while I have kept up with the literature in a desultory way over the years and have even managed to build a small collection of my own, any real interest I once had in archaeology withered like a corpse in the desert.

Two years after I returned from Infra, I met Margery Littlefield, O’Donovan then, with hair like a flame and that marvelous laugh. She was still at Smith and spending the summer as an intern at the museum. I think she was attracted to me. She came by my office several times for information she could have gotten elsewhere. We had coffee a couple of times. But I lacked … I was so afraid. Of what I’m not sure. That if I reached out and tried to do something again the world would come crashing down on me and tear me limb from limb. Oh, I’ve put on a good show. But mostly I’ve kept low, hiding behind others, telling them with my little memos what they ought to do.

I can see now that Elsbeth broke more than my heart that summer; she broke my spirit. And all these years I have denied it and I can deny it no longer. But I don’t blame her. If we are not responsible for ourselves we responsible for nothing. Still, I fear that knowing all this is not going to liberate me from it. I am shaky. It takes courage to have courage.

Only now, if I don’t act, I may never get another chance. Not, mind you, that I don’t think the office of Recording Secretary is not an important one. Indeed, it’s a position I want to keep and have included it in the conditions I am setting forth to accept the position. You see, I am finally able to admit all this to myself because I have decided, regardless of the consequences, to take the position and act and thereby attempt to redeem, in some
small measure, what’s left of my life. If there is one metaphor Christianity has left us that is worth keeping, it is that of redemption, however circumscribed.

For a start, I must face some facts. Were it not for the awful scandal in which we find ourselves roiled and soiled, it is entirely possible that the university would have moved to effect a consolidation in a way that the Board of Governors, even if it were so inclined, would have been unable to resist. These dreadful events have provided the breathing space whereby a
modus vivendi
might just be possible that will leave the museum with at least some shreds of autonomy and honor. At the moment the university is putting as much distance as it can between itself and the museum. All calls regarding Deans Fessing and Scrabbe are still being directed to me, even though both of them were deans of Wainscott. Once things settle down, I presume the university will again try to sort matters out, provided, of course, that it can find another dean brave enough to try.

In any event, I have drafted a reply to the Board, setting out the conditions under which I will accede to their request to act as Administrative Director for the interim. Briefly, I have asked that funds be raised to endow the position of Recording Secretary; that this position remain intact regardless of any affiliation with Wainscott; that Malachy Morin’s executive committee be disbanded; and finally, that a committee, chaired by me, be formed to study the status of the Primate Pavilion and the possible transfer of the Genetics Lab to the university. And, of course, one of the first things I will do is fire Malachy Morin, although I didn’t mention that in my reply.

I concluded my letters to each of the board members by informing them that I am prepared to meet and discuss these terms at any time and would, in the meanwhile, without formal power, continue to monitor the operations of the museum to the best of my capabilities.

That is not all I have done. When I had finished, addressed, and stamped the envelopes, I sat for a while thinking about Elsbeth and the letter she had written to me. I still had not written back, and I was undecided what to say. I was of two minds. Part of me wanted to send her a brief, dismissive note the very courtesy of which would be a rebuke. The note, in short, would effect a final break, more for myself, of course, than for her. But another part of me wanted not merely to welcome her but to welcome her warmly, with an unselfish largesse that would signal, at the least, that all was forgiven and, more hopefully, that we might rekindle the old flame. Because this may be, I told myself, the last chance I will get to sit, however belatedly, at life’s feast. I am tired of sipping pale wine and cowering before oblivion. I want, while there is still time and chance, to drink of headier stuff and reel before the sun.

So, using a real pen with real ink, I have written, telling Elsbeth I would be delighted to meet her for lunch or dinner when she comes to Seaboard. I have told her that I will drive her out to the cottage by the lake and that if she happens to be here in December, I would love to take her to the Curatorial Ball, which, with my new powers, I will see held as before.