Last Night In Twisted River

to be singing, or perhaps reciting a poem, to his murdered father.

“She bu de,” Danny kept repeating in his dad’s ear. Neither the cook nor his son had ever known if Ah Gou and Xiao Dee’s translation of the Mandarin was essentially correct-that is, if she bu de literally meant “I can’t bear to let go”-but what did it matter, really? “I can’t bear to let go” was what the writer thought he was saying to his father, who’d kept his beloved son safe from the cowboy for nearly forty-seven years; that had been how long ago it was when they’d both left Twisted River.

Now, at last-now that the police were there-Danny began to cry. He just started to let go. An ambulance and two police cars were parked outside the house on Cluny Drive, their lights flashing. The first policemen to enter the cook’s bedroom were aware of the rudimentary story, as it had been reported over the phone: There’d been a break-in, and the armed intruder had shot and killed the famous writer’s father; Danny had then shot and killed the intruder. But surely there was more to the story than that, the young homicide detective was thinking. The detective had the utmost respect for Mr. Angel, and, under the circumstances, he wanted to give the writer all the time he needed to compose himself. Yet the damage done by that shotgun-repeatedly, and at such close range-was so excessive that the detective must have sensed that this break-in and murder, and the famous writer’s retaliation, had a substantial history.

“Mr. Angel?” the young homicide detective asked. “If you’re ready, sir, I wonder if you could tell me how this happened.”

What made Danny’s tears different was that he was crying the way a twelve-year-old would cry-as if Carl had somehow shot his dad their last night in Twisted River. Danny couldn’t speak, but he managed to point to something; it was in the vicinity of his father’s bedroom doorway.

The young detective misunderstood. “Yes, I know, you were standing there in the doorway when you shot,” the homicide policeman said. “At least, for the first shot. Then you came closer into the room, didn’t you?”

Danny was violently shaking his head. Another young policeman had noticed the eight-inch cast-iron skillet hanging just inside the doorway of the bedroom-an unusual spot for a frying pan-and he tapped the bottom of the skillet with his index finger.

“Yes!” Danny managed to say, between sobs.

“Bring that skillet over here,” the homicide detective said.

While he didn’t relinquish his hold on his father-Danny continued to cradle the cook’s head in his lap-he reached with his right hand for the eight-inch cast-iron skillet, and when his fingers closed around the handle, his crying calmed down. The young homicide detective waited; he could see there was no rushing this story.

Raising the skillet in his right hand, Danny then rested the heavy pan on the bed. “I’ll start with the eight-inch cast-iron skillet,” the writer finally began, as if he had a long story to tell-one he knew well.

V. COOS COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE, 2001

CHAPTER 14. KETCHUM’S LEFT HAND

KETCHUM HAD BEEN HUNTING BEAR. HE’D DRIVEN HIS truck to Wilsons Mills, Maine, and he and Hero had taken the Suzuki ATV back into New Hampshire -crossing the border about parallel to Half Mile Falls on the Dead Diamond River, where Ketchum bagged a big male black bear. His weapon of choice for bear was the short- barreled, lightweight rifle Danny’s friend Barrett had (years ago) preferred for deer: a Remington.30-06 Springfield, a carbine, what Ketchum called “my old-reliable, bolt-action sucker.” (The model had been discontinued in 1940.)

Ketchum had some difficulty bringing the bear back across the border, the all-terrain vehicle notwithstanding. “Let’s just say Hero had to walk a fair distance,” Ketchum would tell Danny. When Ketchum said “walk,” this probably meant that the dog had to run the whole way. But it was the first weekend of bear season when hounds were permitted; that fine animal was excited enough to not mind running after Ketchum’s ATV. Anyway, counting Ketchum and the dead bear, there’d been no room for Hero on the Suzuki.

“It might be dark on Monday before Hero and I get home,” Ketchum had warned Danny. There would be no locating the old logger over the long weekend; Danny didn’t even try. Ketchum had gradually accepted the telephone and the fax machine, but-at eighty-four-the former river driver would never own a cell phone. (Not that there were a lot of cell phones in the Great North Woods in ’01.)

Besides, Danny’s flight from Toronto had been delayed; by the time he’d landed in Boston and had rented the car, the leisurely cup of coffee he’d planned with Paul Polcari and Tony Molinari turned into a quick lunch. It would be early afternoon before Danny and Carmella Del Popolo left the North End. Of course the roads were in better shape than they’d been in 1954, when the cook and his twelve-year-old son had made that trip in the other direction, but northern New Hampshire was still “a fair distance” (as Ketchum would say) from the North End of Boston, and it was late afternoon when Danny and Carmella passed the Pontook Reservoir and followed the upper Androscoggin along Route 16 to Errol.

When they drove by the reservoir, Danny recognized Dummer Pond Road -from when it had been a haul road- but all he said to Carmella was: “We’ll be coming back here with Ketchum tomorrow.”

Carmella nodded; she just looked out the passenger-side window at the Androscoggin. Maybe ten miles later, she said: “That’s a powerful-looking river.” Danny was glad she wasn’t seeing the river in March or April; the Androscoggin was a torrent in mud season.

Ketchum had told Danny that September was the best time of year for them to come-for Carmella, especially. There was a good chance for fair weather, the nights were growing cooler, the bugs were gone, and it was too soon for snow. But as far north as Coos County, the leaves were turning color in late August. That second Monday in September, it already looked like fall, and there was a nip in the air by late afternoon.

Ketchum had been worried about Carmella’s mobility in the woods. “I can drive us most of the way, but it will entail a little walking to get to the right place on the riverbank,” Ketchum had said.

In his mind’s eye, Danny could see the place Ketchum meant-an elevated site, overlooking the basin above the river bend. What he couldn’t quite imagine was how different it would be-with the cookhouse entirely gone, and the town of Twisted River burned to the ground. But Dominic Baciagalupo hadn’t wanted his ashes scattered where the cookhouse was, or anywhere near the town; the cook had requested that his ashes be sunk in the river, in the basin where his not-really-a-cousin Rosie had slipped under the breaking ice. It was almost exactly the same spot where Angelu Del Popolo had gone under the logs. That, of course, was really why Carmella had come; those many years ago (thirty-four, if Danny was doing the math correctly), Ketchum had invited Carmella to Twisted River.

“If, one day, you ever want to see the place where your boy perished, I would be honored to show you,” was how Ketchum had put it to her. Carmella had so wanted to see the river basin where the accident happened, but not the logs; she knew the logs would be too much for her. Just the riverbank, where her dear Gamba and young Dan had stood and seen it happen-and maybe the exact spot in the water where her one- and-only Angelu hadn’t surfaced. Yes, she might one day want to see that, Carmella had thought.

“Thank you, Mr. Ketchum,” she’d said that day, when the logger and the cook were leaving Boston. “If you ever want to see me-” Carmella had started to say to Dominic.

“I know,” the cook had said to her, but he wouldn’t look at her.

Now, on the occasion of Danny bringing his father’s ashes to Twisted River, Ketchum had insisted that the writer bring Carmella, too. When Danny had first met Angel’s mom, the twelve-year-old had noted her big breasts, big hips, big smile-knowing that only Carmella’s smile had been bigger than Injun Jane’s. Now the writer knew that Carmella was at least as old as Ketchum, or a little older; she would have been in her mid-eighties, Danny guessed. Her hair had turned completely white-even her eyebrows were white, in striking contrast to her olive complexion and her apparently robust good health. Carmella was big all over, but she was still more feminine than Jane had ever been. And however happy she was with the new fella in her life-Paul Polcari and Tony Molinari continued to insist that she was-she’d held on to the Del Popolo name, perhaps out of respect for the fact that she had lost both