Torch Song (7 page)

“Where's the cabin? When did this start?”

“Benson's Landing, in Vermont. I met him years ago. You think that's so awful, that I have a man, a boyfriend?”

She flushed angrily. “Well, that's how it is. Now just go away and leave me alone!”

“I think it's perfectly normal,” Constance said. “The only strange thing is why you don't get together on a more permanent basis. A few days a month isn't much.”

“I can't!” Marla cried. “I can't take Nathan out of the state! You think Vermont would pay for his operations? For a therapist for him? Hah! And Scott can't just leave his job. He has tenure! He can't just walk away from it.”

“Does Breckinridge use the cabin when you're not there?” Charlie asked.

She shook her head. “Maybe in the summer.”

“Did you tell Pete about him?”

She shrugged and muttered, “Yeah. I knew he'd understand how it's been with me, and he did. He said I needed a little attention, a little fun, but then he blew, after he got out.”

She opened the door behind her and tilted her head, listening. “Look, I told you all I'm going to say. Now leave me alone. I won't talk to you anymore. If you come back, I'll call the police or something.” She laughed bitterly. “That's a joke, isn't it? Me call the police on you!” She opened the door farther and stepped inside, closed it softly behind her.

Back at the car, Constance asked if he wanted her to drive and he said yes. Marla was hoarse because she had been up all night reading to the boy, he was thinking. Roy had said she did that, read to him for hours at a time when she claimed he was upset. Roy said there was no way to tell if he was upset or not, or even if he could hear what she was reading, but she thought it helped him through bad times. He said each meal took two hours, and she chattered away all the time she was spooning baby food into his mouth and wiping off most of it when it dribbled down his chin. She chattered, he had said, even while she was changing his diapers.

Charlie slumped in his seat and gazed ahead and saw nothing of the scenery they passed, nothing of the traffic that Constance navigated through. They didn't talk now. She always knew when not to talk.

At home, they ignored the cats and listened to the answering machine messages; Charlie instantly forgot what the messages were. If any had been important, he would have noticed, he thought, and sat down to call Breckinridge. When he hung up, he said, “Tomorrow. He'll meet us at the cabin at three. He gave me directions.” He looked at her. “I feel prickly.”

“Me, too.” It had been too easy, she thought then. Why had Marla told them anything? She could have slammed the door.

“She got orders from Pete,” Charlie said softly.

“We turn left at the sign for Benson's Landing,” he said the next afternoon, watching for the sign. He suddenly thought of the distances out west, drive two days and not leave Texas, ten hours to get across Oregon, a lifetime to travel from southern to northern California. All the distances in the northeast were child's play comparatively. The drive from home up here to Benson's Landing had been only two and a half hours. He saw the sign, two miles to Benson's Landing, turned left, and checked the odometer. One mile and turn left again, then watch for Breckinridge's sign.

There was more snow up here than they had seen all day, and now they could see the lake, with pale patches of ice against dark water. His next turn was onto a gravel driveway that wound through pine trees to a gray cabin. The lake was a short walk through the woods. The air smelled good.

“We're so early,” Constance said. It was 2:30.

“I figured he'd probably get here before three,” Charlie said. “Give us time to look things over before he shows up.”

They had both worn boots, not knowing what to expect in this area, but the drive was clear of snow, as was a walkway bordered with pale, round rocks that led to the cabin door. The structure was of unpainted cedar that had weathered to a nice silver gray. Patches of thick pine-needle carpeting showed through the snow, melting its way to the light. Constance went to a window and peered in; the shade was drawn halfway down. Kitchen, with a gas stove, scant cabinets… She wrinkled her nose. And a dead mouse. Two dead mice. She drew back just as Charlie yanked her arm, jerked her away from the house and into the snow, where she staggered to get her balance. He kept his hand tightly on her arm and pulled her farther away.

At that moment, another car crunched on the gravel drive, and they turned, to see a Land Rover come to a stop and a short heavyset man get out.

“Breckinridge,” he said. “You're early.” He was carrying keys and walked quickly toward the house.

“Don't go near it!” Charlie called. “Stay back.”

“What?” Breckinridge paused. “What's that?”

“Gas,” Charlie said. “Stay back.” He stopped and picked up a large rock and heaved it at a window. Almost instantly, the smell of gas was in the air. “Where's the main?” he demanded.

Breckinridge looked stunned. “You broke the window!”

“Where's the goddamn gas main?”

He pointed to the side of the cabin and Charlie strode off in that direction. Constance and Breckinridge followed. “I need a wrench,” Charlie snapped.

Constance ran back to their car and opened the trunk. There were always some tools there. She found a wrench and hurried back with it. Charlie turned off the gas. He glanced around the back of the cabin, but the snow was too deep for any rocks to show. Silently, he went back to the front and lifted another rock.

“For God's sake, you don't have to do that,” Breckinridge cried. “Just open the door.” He started to go to the cabin door and Charlie caught his arm.

“Don't even think of touching that door,” he said darkly, and pointed. A narrow strip of metal was visible at the bottom of the door. Breckinridge backed away; he looked confused.

Charlie broke another window, took a rock around back, and broke a window there. The smell of gas was sickening all around the cabin. They went to stand by the cars.

“What are we going to do?” Breckinridge asked helplessly.

“Wait a while and then open the back door. Is there a key for it?” He took the key from Breckinridge's fingers.

“
He
did this! My God, he tried to kill me!”

Charlie grunted, thinking of the unbroken snow at the back of the house, some of it drifted up over the doorsill. If that door had been opened, booby-trapped, the snow would have been disturbed, he decided, and went around to unlock the door. First he examined the frame, the single step, the door itself, and finally he inserted the key and turned it. A light wind was blowing, would be blowing through the house, he knew, and a lot of gas had already been released, replaced with fresh air. Enough ventilation? He decided it was, and he pushed the door open and quickly stepped back as a cloud of poisonous air rushed out.

He waited ten minutes before he entered the cabin through the back door. It stank of gas, and would for quite some time, but it was no longer a primed bomb. He stopped to examine the front door: solid wood, like the back door, with weather stripping, a good tight threshold, and a narrow strip of metal nailed to the door on the inside, bent to fit under it. Inside the door, a metal plate was like a deadly welcome mat. It would have done nicely, he decided, and opened the door carefully, using a handkerchief, watching for a spark. If one came, he missed it, but he felt certain that it had sparked, and if the door had opened an hour ago, the house would have gone up in a gas explosion.

Constance had followed him in through the back door and now took his hand without a word. Breckinridge approached cautiously. He was pasty-faced.

“Keep your hands in your pockets,” Charlie told him. He squeezed Constance's hand and released it. “You'll have to go to the nearest phone, in Benson's Landing, I guess, and call Bruce Wymouth over in Albany. I don't know anyone in the FBI in Vermont Tell him what we found here, why we came—checking out a tip that Pete might have holed up in the cabin—and tell him that we haven't called in the locals yet.”

After she left, Charlie pushed open the doors to the bathroom and bedroom, both empty. Bedding was in a jumble on the bed; Breckinridge looked away in embarrassment. “Let's go sit in your car and wait,” Charlie said. “Smell's giving me a headache.”

Breckinridge led the way, his head bowed, hands deep in his pockets. At the car, he said, “I won't say anything until the FBI gets here.”

Charlie shrugged. “Suit yourself.” They got in the Land Rover, where Charlie slumped down in the passenger seat and gazed at the cabin broodingly.

After a short silence, Breckinridge said, “She's so pretty.” Charlie made a noise, and Breckinridge went on. “She's only thirty. All the trouble she's had and only thirty now. I'm forty-two,” he added. “She's the first girlfriend I ever had… real girlfriend.” Then, haltingly, fragmenting it, jumping around in time, he told it all.

She had been coming to Bennington for a couple of years before he met her. One of his students had made a necklace and earrings and wanted to put a price tag of a thousand dollars on the set; Marla had said six hundred, and they came to his gallery for an opinion. He did appraisals, he said. He had said two hundred. Two months later, Marla had dropped in to tell him she had gotten six hundred, and they had gone out for coffee. He mentioned the cabin a month or so later, and they had met here, and she had stayed all night… He trailed off.

She hung around his gallery for a few hours and the artists brought their pieces to her, he said a few seconds later. He always came out first, fixed things up, bought wine, things for dinner, made a fire, then she came. He was sure no one suspected that he was letting her use the cabin, that he met her there.

“She's so paranoid,” he said unhappily. “She's afraid someone will accuse her of being an improper mother or something and take Nathan away from her. I tried to talk her out of the notion, but that's what she believes. So I had her for a few evenings a month, and those were the happiest times of my life.”

“You've broken up?” Charlie asked when the silence continued this time.

He nodded. “Not altogether, but… I asked her to marry me. I told her I'd pay for a hospital, that she didn't have to worry about that. I said she could move up here, we'd get a house… . She walked out and I didn't see her for three months. Then I went down there, to her place. She was furious that I showed up, but she let me in, and I saw Nathan. She didn't have a minute for me all afternoon, through the night, and the next morning she made me leave. She read to him nearly all night,” he mumbled. “All night. I could hear her voice outside his door. I begged her to start coming back the way she used to, and finally she said she'd spend a night in the cabin, and that's what it's been like for a year now. But I'd be' happy to have her one night a year, if that's all I can have.”

Charlie probed a little, and Breckinridge obliged with answers. Then Charlie asked, “What did she say when she called this time?”

“I knew about Pete,” he said. “She said you thought she knew where he was, that you were making Nathan miserable, making her miserable, and she had to tell you about us, make you believe her. I told her to tell you.” For a moment he looked defiant. “I don't care who knows. I never tried to keep it a secret I would have danced in the streets if she had let me talk about it. I want to marry her,” he said miserably. “I haven't seen her since January! We had that blizzard in February; she couldn't get here. I call and leave messages; she doesn't even have time to talk to me.”

They both turned to look when a car pulled into the driveway. Constance was back. She got out of the Volvo, carrying a cardboard tray with three styrofoam containers.

“Coffee,” she said. “We may have a little wait.” She sat in the backseat and they drank the coffee. In twenty minutes, a car pulled in, then a second one. They went out to meet the feds.

Six men emerged from the two cars; five of them were nameless, and they went straight to the cabin and entered, carrying little satchels, cases of various sorts. They looked like a flock of doctors making a house call on a head of state. The sixth man introduced himself. “Robert Chelsky,” he said. He looked as if he belonged out on a whaler, as if he had spent most of his years at sea, where the salt spray and wind had chiseled his face down to the bare essentials and colored him red. He took their statements, made notes, and then snapped his notebook shut.

“We'll know more what to ask after we've gone over the cabin,” he said with a heavy New England accent. He studied Charlie. “Eisenbeis has been out for over a year. Took you a while to get interested in tracking him down.”

“I've been out of touch,” Charlie said. “Just found out recently.”

“Um, All right. Mr. Breckinridge, I reckon you'll want to stay and cover up those windows. Maybe we can turn on some heat in the cabin and talk a little. Mr., Mrs. Meiklejohn, if you want to leave, there's no reason not to. Long drive back down to your place. Appreciate it if you keep this quiet for now.”

“Trust me; we will keep it very quiet,” Charlie said gravely. He shook Breckinridge's hand, pitying the wretched man even more than he had before. He suspected that Chelsky would find out when he lost his first baby tooth before this night was over.

In the car, Constance asked, “Do you think he knows about the ATF investigation?”

“Probably not.”

“Will the FBI tell Pulaski about this?”

He laughed. “Does the dog tell the cat?” He patted her leg. “Want to make a note of some dates before I forget them?” They both knew he would forget nothing of what Breckinridge had said, but she got out her notebook and he filled her in.

She studied the dates thoughtfully. “He proposed in September of 1991. December twelfth, Pete showed up at her house. On December twentieth, Breckinridge showed up. She agreed to resume their relationship on her terms and has had access to his cabin ever since. You don't think Pete's been there all that time, do you? With Breckinridge there one night a month, too?”