Falls the Shadow Read online

  “Henry’s looking after the house,” said the heavy woman, “which is like letting a fat swine run free in your garden.”

  “Henry’s a big guy?”

  “Oh, he’s hurly-burly, he is.”

  “And he’s trouble, is that it?”

  “Double trouble. All them Dent boys were.”

  “Including Seamus?” I said.

  The woman with the red hair lit another cigarette. “The worst of the three, you ask me,” she said.

  I looked at Beth, raised an eyebrow.

  “Him and his friends,” said the third woman. “They were like a pack of wolves.”

  “Who, the Dent boys?” said Beth.

  “No, Seamus and his two friends, the second Harbaugh boy, Wayne, and then Kylie.”

  “Seamus, Wayne, and Kylie,” I said. “The terrible trio. What kind of things did they do? Pranks and stuff? Light bags of dog poop on fire and then ring the doorbells?”

  “That the kind of stuff you did as a boy?” asked the red-haired woman.

  “I just did that yesterday in Chestnut Hill.”

  “Aren’t you something wicked.”

  “They were just bad, those kids,” said the nervous woman sitting above the other two. “Sneaking places, stealing, sex and drugs. Even when they were young, they were trouble. But the drugs, well, you know, that just ruins you.” She spoke like she remembered what she was talking about, like she wouldn’t mind a drink to forget.

  “The police had them in their sights, I suppose,” I said. “Always coming around.”

  “Not till the end. Them kids was too smart to get caught, even when everyone knew it was them.”

  “And Seamus was the ringleader,” I said.

  “No,” said the red-haired woman with the cigarette. “It was Kylie.”

  “Any idea where we could find her, this Kylie?”

  “None,” said the woman. “She’s gone.”

  Again there was that thing in her voice, like a bitter lozenge that had been stuck in her throat for a decade. I looked closely at the woman, she looked away. “You’re Kylie’s mother, aren’t you?” I said. “I can tell just by the way you speak about her with so much affection.”

  “We have history.”

  “And you have no idea where she is?”

  “Don’t care neither. But I can tell you this, mister, wherever she is, she’s on her back.”

  “Sweet. Member of the PTA, were you?”

  “Who’d you say you was?”

  “I don’t think I did.”

  “Why are you so interested in Seamus?” said the heavy woman.

  “It’s my profession to be interested. I’m a lawyer, that means I’m greedy and I’m nosy.”

  “Then you’d fit right in around here,” she said, and the three of them laughed.

  “How about that Wayne you mentioned? Is he still around?”

  “He works at the church,” said the third woman.

  “What is he, the priest?”

  “The janitor.”

  “I suppose you have to start somewhere. You mentioned that the police didn’t come around until the end. What did you mean, the end?”

  “After Seamus was killed,” said Kylie’s mom. “A detective come around to talk to Betty. I think his name was same as the fat guy on that old TV show.”

  “Detective Gleason?”

  “Right. He told Betty they had found the guy who did it.”

  “Was there a trial?”

  “Wouldn’t have been much use, seeing as the one who did it ended up with a bullet through the head.”

  “About time the cops did something for this neighborhood,” said the heavy woman, laughing, and the other two joined in.

  That was enough for me. Good, sweet neighborhood ladies laughing about a bullet in the head. If I ever spent my life sitting on a stoop, spilling gossip to the passersby, you might as well save the bullet for me.

  I thought about what they had said, turned to look at the empty Dent house once again. “She go away much, this Betty Dent? Always traveling?”

  “Nope,” said the heavy one. “Barely left this street the whole of her life.”

  “So how’d she get to California? She drive?”

  “Flew. I drove her to the airport myself.”

  “When?”

  “Just a day or two ago.”

  “She say how she got a ticket?”

  “Said she just got it.”

  “Nice for her.” I took out three cards from my wallet, passed them out. “My name is Victor Carl. Anything you can remember about Seamus, about the things he did or any troubles he had with the police, especially that, I’d appreciate hearing from you.”

  “Don’t hold your breath on that one neither,” said Kylie’s mom.

  We could hear their cackling as we walked away.

  “Why do I feel,” I said, “like I just walked out of a scene from Macbeth?”

  10

  “How long do you suppose they’ve been sitting on that stoop?” said Beth as we drove through the narrow streets of Fishtown.

  “From the dawn of time,” I said. “They’ve buried kings, presidents, husbands, Seamus Dent. And they’ll bury us if we give them half a chance and half a bullet.”

  “It took us, what, about thirty seconds to pry the Seamus Dent story from them?”

  “If that. Another twenty minutes we would have had the sexual history of the entire block, and the parish priest, too.”

  “So why didn’t Whitney Robinson come down here and ask those same ladies about Seamus Dent before François’s trial?”

  “Good question,” I said. “Whit was a sharp lawyer and knew what he was doing. Maybe he did come down, learned what he could, and decided it wasn’t reliable or admissible.”

  “But he didn’t tell you about it.”

  “No, he did not. So that’s one puzzle we need to figure out. And I sure would like to know who sent Betty Dent a plane ticket to California right after we took the case. That’s the church over there.”

  We parked on Gaul Street, just across from the church, a Romanesque stone structure with the requisite stained-glass window showing Jesus first carrying the cross and then nailed to it. On our side of the street was the school and a shrine to Our Lady of Knock. I was about to make a crack to Beth about the name and then stopped, because the shrine was beautiful and heartfelt and I’d heard enough jokes for the morning.

  The church inside was tinted with the blues and reds from the stained-glass window. Heavy columns ran down both sides of the interior, leading to a lovely painted altar. The pews were burnished wood, the confessionals were not too ornate, the wood beneath the flickering candles was spattered with wax, and there was that solemn hush that always follows you into an empty church.

  A woman was in the front, straightening the altar. She watched us as we entered, watched as we walked up the aisle toward her. She was older, with curly white hair, a long skirt, and sneakers.

  “Can I help you?” she said.

  “We’re looking for Wayne Harbaugh,” said Beth.

  She tilted her head and looked us up and down for a moment, gave me an extra eyeful, like she knew my type, and then asked us to wait.

  “I always feel weird in a Catholic church,” I told Beth as we sat side by side in the front pew. “Like I’m infiltrating behind enemy lines.”

  “It’s just a church.”

  “To you maybe, yes, raised as you were in the warm embrace of Christianity. But to me, I’m always wondering when I’ll be identified as a Jew and beaten about the head and shoulders until I run out screaming.”

  “The Inquisition ended”—she checked her watch—“something like five hundred years ago.”

  “Still,” I said, “it’s been known to happen.”

  “What do you think, Victor, people look at you and only see a Jew?”

  “I swear that lady was giving me the eye.”

  “She’s a nun, she gives everyone the eye.”

&nbs
p; “Don’t they have to wear those habits?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Is that fair? How can we tell who’s who?”

  “For your information, then,” she said, standing and indicating a ruddy-faced man coming into the chapel, his collar turned around, “that is a priest.”

  “Yes, hello. Welcome to the Holy Name. I’m Father Kenneth. And what, pray tell, can we do for you today?”

  Father Kenneth was short and solid and energetic, with a ready smile that put you immediately at ease. He didn’t look at me like I was an infiltrator, he looked at me like I was a friend waiting to do his parish some great good.

  “We understand a man named Wayne Harbaugh works here,” said Beth.

  “Yes, that’s true. Wayne is an employee.”

  “We were hoping we could have just a few words with him.”

  “Is there a problem of some sort?”

  “Is he here today?” said Beth rather curtly.

  “Yes, he is,” said the priest, still smiling. “He is currently at work in the school.” He paused for emphasis, widened his smile. “With the children, you see. Has Wayne done something wrong?”

  “No, not at all,” I said, giving Beth a warning look. There was no need to come on like, well, like cops. Maybe she did have more of the cop in her than I had imagined. I introduced Beth and myself, gave the priest a card.

  “So you’re lawyers,” said Father Kenneth. “It’s never a good sign, is it, when a lawyer steps through your door?”

  “I could have news of a huge bequest left to Wayne in a will.”

  “But you don’t, do you, Mr. Carl?”

  “No. We just want to ask him a few questions about an old friend of his.”

  “And who is the friend, may I ask?”

  “Seamus Dent.”

  The father nodded, pressed his thin lips together. “Poor Seamus. He was baptized here, along with his brothers. He was actually a sweet boy, if you got to know him. You should have heard him play the guitar. Magic. What happened to him was a tragedy.”

  “You mean his murder?”

  “Yes, and before that, too. His problems. The way his life veered off track. Although it looked as though things were coming around just before he died.”

  I glanced at Beth, puzzled. “How so?”

  “He looked to be clean, Mr. Carl. He was the one who brought Wayne here and convinced me to give him this job. Seamus had rededicated his life, he told me, for the good of the world. A bit ambitious, but we all need ambition. So for him to lapse like he did, and then be murdered like he was, made it doubly tragic.”

  “Could we talk to Wayne about Seamus?” said Beth.

  The father pressed his hands together, pressed his forefingers into his lips, considered. “Why are you interested in Seamus?”

  “We represent a man who was convicted of murder, partly on Seamus’s testimony,” she said. “We’re investigating every aspect of the case, and that means we need to learn as much about the witnesses as we can.”

  “This man you represent, is he currently in jail?”

  “With a life sentence,” said Beth.

  “Of course, yes, I see now the cause of your concern. That’s why you are such an adamant young woman. Okay, Ms. Derringer, I’ll have Wayne brought around. Do you think he ought to have a lawyer of his own present?”

  “That really won’t be necessary,” I said. “We just want to talk about Seamus. To get a sense of him. Wayne is not personally involved at all.”

  “You won’t mind, though, of course, Mr. Carl, if I sit in just to be sure.”

  “Do you know anything about the law, Father?”

  He winked. “Everything I know about the law I learned from Matlock.”

  “Funny,” I said, “same with me.” I glanced at Beth and then shrugged. “Be our guest, Father.”

  He brought us into a dark, book-lined room off to the side of the altar. A series of robes hung on hooks along one wall, a semicircle of leather-upholstered chairs was set up in front of a small desk against another. He bade us sit, made a call, then sat behind the desk and stared at us. He leaned forward slightly and opened his mouth as if to say something, as if to start some sort of conversation, and then gave a shrug. What was there to say, after all? We waited quietly until the door opened.

  The man who came in was painfully thin, with dark, sunken eyes and a scraggly beard. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a blue baseball cap. When he saw Beth and me, in our suits, sitting with Father Kenneth, he took off his baseball cap and clutched it with both hands, tucking his jaw in to his shoulder at the same time. He looked like a boxer on shaky legs, awaiting the knockout blow.

  “Wayne,” said Father Kenneth, “these people are lawyers and want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I didn’t do nothing.”

  “We know that, son. Why don’t you close the door behind you and take a seat.”

  Wayne Harbaugh glanced uneasily at us before shutting the door and sitting on the edge of one of the chairs, still clutching his hat.

  “Wayne,” said the father, “they want to know about Seamus.”

  “What about him?”

  “He testified at the trial of a man accused of murdering his wife,” I said. “Do you remember that?”

  Wayne looked even more uneasy, if that was possible. “Yeah,” he said. “I remember. He told me about it.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Just that lawyers made him nervous.”

  “Like we make you nervous?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I wonder, Wayne, if you could just tell us a little about Seamus. Was he basically honest, dishonest? Did he tell the truth most of the time?”

  “Go ahead, Wayne,” said Father Kenneth. “Tell Mr. Carl if Seamus told the truth most of the time.”

  “I suppose he did,” said Wayne, “but not when it counted.”

  I sat forward, glanced at Beth, who looked back with wide eyes.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “When it counted most, he was the biggest liar there ever was.”

  “Wayne?” said Father Kenneth. “He was your friend, son. Your oldest friend.”

  “But he said we was in it together, and that was a lie, wasn’t it, Father Ken? He betrayed you, didn’t he, by getting back in it? And he betrayed me just the same.”

  “Why don’t you tell us about it, Wayne?” I said.

  “From when?”

  “From the start,” I said.

  He looked at Father Kenneth, who stared at him closely for a moment and then nodded.

  “Then I’ll have to talk about her,” said Wayne.

  “Go ahead, son,” said the father.

  Wayne closed his eyes and paused for a moment, and when his voice came out, it was stronger now, younger. “Because it was really about her, all about her,” he said. “Everything was always all about Kylie.”

  And then he told his story, hesitant at first, later less so, as if there was some compulsion to get it off his soul. As he sat in the vestry, with Father Kenneth nodding, it flowed out almost like a confession. And to tell you the truth, I wasn’t surprised to hear Kylie’s name arise like a specter to haunt the dramatic twists and turns of Wayne Harbaugh’s story. I had heard what the witches on the stoop said of her, I had met her mother. I didn’t yet know the role she would play, Kylie, sweet Kylie, but I sensed from the start that whatever had happened to Wayne and Seamus, she was in the middle of it.

  But there was someone else involved in the story, too, haunting the edges, shaping the outcome like a demented director with his clapboard and megaphone. I didn’t yet recognize him there. How could I? My first meeting with him was still in the future. But there he was. Look close as the tale unfolds. Do you see him? Do you see Bob?

  11

  His earliest memories were of the three of them, running through the streets, the alleyways, playing hand games during church, rock paper scissors, the slap of Seamus’s two fingers
on his wrist during the homilies, the feel of Kylie’s whisper in his ear as she plotted some daring piece of mischief. His mother surely suckled him, his father surely beat him, his sisters surely teased him and tickled him till he cried, but his family was something he suffered through until he could be with his friends. It was Seamus, Kylie, and Wayne, the three of them, always and forever, the trio at the heart of his life.

  And he remembered, too, when they first discovered the old textile plant on the other side of the railroad tracks, in the shadow of the highway. As second-graders, they found that the plywood on one low window was shattered enough to climb through, and they spun around on the filthy factory floor, spinning in freedom with their arms stretched wide, until they were dizzy and collapsed laughing.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” said Kylie. “This will be ours.”

  “Our secret fort,” said Wayne.

  And Seamus nodded, and Kylie laughed, and so they laid claim to the dank old place, and it became more home to them than their homes. Clubhouse, playground, sanctuary. The fort. The roof had collapsed, letting in, along with the pigeons, sufficient daylight so they could see comfortably during the day and allowing the smoke from their fires to rise out at night. And this is where they went, the three of them, Seamus, Kylie, and Wayne, to laugh, to play games, to tell stories, to smoke cigarettes when they were older, to drink beer and blow dope when they were older still.

  Wayne was the wiry one, the funny one, quick with the joke or the rib. Seamus was bigger, yet meeker, less physical, more sensitive. Ashamed of his teeth, he would never smile, and with the dark beneath his eyes, he always appeared on the verge of tears. Kylie was the spark, pretty and slight. With her dark hair and darker eyes, she was the one with the ideas, the one who could make things happen, a girl full of fun and guile, able to look like the sweetest, most innocent thing on the outside while full of troubling schemes on the inside. And she liked to steal, shivered at the thrill.

  She was the one who started them on shoplifting at the corner store, getting Wayne and Seamus to divert the old storekeeper while she stuffed cupcakes and candy down her skirt. And she was the one who started them on stealing bicycles from any kids who happened to leave them lying around unlocked. There were a dozen bicycles, useless and rusting, their tires flat, their bars covered in pigeon dung, leaning against the walls of the fort, a futuristic sculpture of decay. And she was the one who convinced Seamus to stand like a ladder before the open windows of empty houses so she and Wayne could slip in at night or during the shank of the afternoon to grab anything they found lying around. That’s how Seamus got the guitar he played incessantly back at the fort, how Wayne got the leather jacket that was way too big for him, how Kylie got hold of her first pack of cigarettes, swiping a whole carton from a kitchen on Palmer Street.