Mr. X

 •126

 •More rats, along with several cockroach nations, scuttled into hiding when he switched on the overhead bulb. In the back half of the room, ecstatic flies congregated over coalesced, shining foothills of green jelly divided by trails leading to the bathroom, the sink, and the back door. The bathroom door stood open far enough to let me know that I never wanted to see it when the light was on.

    Like a clearing in a forest, a rectangular section of the table at the left of the kitchen stood apart from the mess rising up around it. At the center of the clearing, a black, gold-trimmed fountain pen lay parallel to the edge of a bound journal similar to those in which Toby Kraft had entered his fictional accounts. Above the rubble at the far end of the table hung a photograph in a silver frame. Crayons and a golden marker had overlaid the image within the frame: the photograph had been taken out and deliberately altered before being replaced. I moved up through the chaos surrounding Captain Mullan and myself; I stood in front of the table and took in what my father had done to a formal portrait of the Hatches.

    Hand-drawn knives and arrows bristled like quills from Carpenter and Ellen Hatch. Their eyes had been inked out, and vampire smiles erased their mouths. Swirls of black crayon eradicated small Cobden Hatch. A golden crown broadcast vibrating rays from the head of young Cordwainer, and a golden heart flamed at the center of his chest.

    'You noticed that picture,' Mullan said.

    It was what Earl Sawyer had shoved into a drawer on Buxton Place; it was what Edward Rinehart had ordered Toby Kraft to steal from his family's house on Mansion Row.

    'Tell me the name of the kid wearing the crown.'

    'Earl Sawyer,' I said. 'Edward Rinehart.'

    'Congratulations, Mr. Dunstan. Your father and Stewart's father were brothers, which makes you and Stewart first cousins.'

    “I guess Earl wasn't too fond of his family,' I said.

    'Pull that chair out,' Mullan said. 'Swing it around and sit down.'

    I pulled out the chair in front of the table and sat down.

    'Here we are, Mr. Dunstan,' Mullan said. 'You and me. Lieutenant Rowley is working the phone, shoring up his walls, doing his best to bribe or threaten himself above flood level, but Rowley can't touch what we do in this room. Do you understand that?'

    'What docs Rowley know about Earl Sawyer?'

    Another wintry smile. 'He knows that Earl has been going around murdering people for the past thirty years. The exciting little twist that Earl Sawyer happens to be long-lost Cordwainer Hatch has not yet come to his attention.'

    'And are we supposed to hide that?'

    'We can't keep that from coming out. I don't give a damn if itdoes. All I want to do is hold the publicity to a minimum and walk away with my reputation and my pension intact. Reporters are going to pile in from all over the country. I'll have to dodge microphones every time I walk out of Headquarters. I can handle that.'

    'So why are we here?' I asked him.

    “If you're willing to help me see what's going on, maybe we can salvage something out of this mess. Do you trust me, Mr. Dunstan?'

    “I can't answer that,' I said.

    'All right. Nothing you say to me is on the record. That is a promise. Do you want to keep talking?'

    'Let's see how it goes,' I said.

    'There may be hope after all.' Mullan gazed at the mutilated photograph behind me. 'You weren't surprised to hear that the boy in that picture was Cordwainer Hatch.'

    “I learned that Cordwainer Hatch was my father about twelve hours ago.' I told him I had dropped into Hugh Coventry's office and heard about the disappearance of the Hatch photographs. I gave him a vague reason for suspecting Nettie and described finding the file in her bedroom. 'As soon as I looked at them, I knew Cordwainer was my father.'

    “I take it that Cordwainer is dead.'

    I did not answer.

    'What I want to do is going to be a lot easier if I don't have to set up a manhunt for Cordwainer Hatch while his nephew is on trial. I think something happened today—a showdown—and because you're still here, he probably isn't. Say something to me.'

    I said nothing.

    'This is between you and me, Mr. Dunstan. If you tell me you killed him with your own hands, I wouldn't consider bringing charges against you.'

    'Cordwainer Hatch is dead.'

    'You could do us both some good by telling me where to find his body.'

    'Nobody is ever going to find his body.'

    Mullan regarded me utterly without judgment. 'Two years from now, some guy on a backhoe, or a kid out walking in the woods, is not going to come upon his remains. The next time the river floods, his body is not going to wash up ona sandbar.'

    'Nothing like that will ever happen. It's your turn to trust me.'

    'Did you kill him?'

    'Are you wearing a wire?'

    He smiled.

    'You'd have to say he killed himself.'

    'Let me ask you a question completely from left field. Did any of these missing photographs, including the ones of your family, have anything to do with that?'

    “Is there something you're not telling me, Captain?'

    “I'll be a little more explicit. When Stewart Hatch accused you of attacking him with a knife, he also said that he suspected you of having broken into his house for the purpose of retrieving some photographs he had mistakenly removed from the library. I don't give a damn if you went into Stewart's house and took back something that belonged to your family. I want to know if you showed those pictures to Cordwainer Hatch.'

    The alarms ringing throughout my nervous system were getting louder. 'Why would I?'

    Mullan took a moment to answer, and when he did, it took me another moment to understand what he was telling me. 'When I was a boy, my mother once pointed out Howard Dunstan to me on the street. He was an old man, but he didn't look tame, like most old guys. In fact, he scared me. My mother said, 'When I was a girl, Howard Dunstan could make you feel like the first day of spring just by smiling at you.' I gather that he had the same effect on a lot of women.'

    I stared at Mullan in forthright awe complicated only by my shock. He knew everything—he knew everything hecould know. Ever since we had been left alone in my room at the Brazen Head, Mullan had been leading me toward the point I had been trying to conceal. 'You're too good for this town,' I said.

    'They don't have stories like this in Cape Girardeau. The minute Stewart Hatch laid eyes on you, he tried to get you arrested or run out of town. But he never had any idea whoEarl was, did he?'

    'Hethought Cordwainer was dead.'

    'And Cordwainer didn't know, either. But I have an idea of what he thought he was. Turn around and open that journal, or whatever you call it. He had beautiful penmanship, I'll say that for him.'

    I swung around and put my hands on the journal. My fingers turned a thick wad of pages, and I readI, too, have had my judases, the first of them one Clothhead Spelvin, whose betrayal I answered with a summary visit to his jail cell.

    Further down the page, Cordwainer Hatch's calligraphic handwriting declared,In a weathered manner, I am still handsome, if I say so myself.