Stuart Woods: Palindrome

"All right," Dr. Blaylock said. The sheriff had alit from his helicopter and was striding toward the house. They all stood in the disused dentist's office, and Dr. Blaylock had switched on the light box. He took an envelope from his pocket and arranged some radiograph films on the box; then he produced a set of Polaroid photographs. "I've been through all the dental records and X rays; I began by eliminating the women and children and older men. There weren't that many more records to search." He paused. "I've found films that match the teeth of the skeleton we found in the Light-Horse Harry Lee grave."

"Who was he?" Germaine said. "If he had his teeth worked on here, I must have known him."

"He didn't have his teeth worked on, except on one occasion," Blaylock said. The professor was starting to look uncomfortable.

"So," the sheriff said.

"I've got a very good match, here," Blaylock said, holding up the Polaroids next to the film on the light box. "Looks the same to me," the sheriff said. "What's his name?"

"I don't know that, yet," Blaylock said.

"Wasn't his name on the dental records?" the sheriff asked.

"I'm afraid there were two names on these records," said Blaylock. "There was no indication which X rays belonged to which person." He held up a file folder.

"The Drummond twins," the sheriff read aloud. There was absolute silence in the room while everyone absorbed this news.

"I'm missing your point, Dr. Blaylock," Germaine said finally. "My point is, the skeleton in the Light-Horse Harry Lee grave is one of the Drummond twins, either Hamish or Keir."

Liz suddenly felt as if she had been struck in the chest with a heavy object. She wanted to run from the room.

"But that's clearly impossible," Germaine said reasonably. "You've met Hamish, and Keir is here on the island, too; I've seen him, and so has Liz. The records have obviously been mixed up in some way.

"No," Dr. Blaylock said, "there's no mix-up. Neither of these boys ever had so much as a filling in his head. The only dental work they ever had, apart from an occasional cleaning, was when they were sixteen; they both had their lower wisdom teeth removed on the same day. That's when these films were taken." When Germaine still did not seem to grasp what he was saying, the professor spoke again. "My point is that one of the twins is lying over there in that shed. Or at least, his remains are."

Germaine stared disbelievingly at Blaylock, but did not seem to be able to speak.

"Are you saying," the sheriff said, "that one of those boys murdered the other one and has been pretending to be his brother?"

"No, I'm not saying that. I have no idea how or when that boy was killed. But," he said, "it's my guess that Buck Moses can tell us."

"I think you're right," Liz said.

"Why do you think Buck knows?" Germaine managed to ask.

"Buck stole the toolboxes from the professor's camp," Liz said. "I saw them at his house. He must have done it because he didn't want the Light-Horse Harry grave disturbed."

"I think that's exactly right," Blaylock said. "I think Buck buried the boy in that grave on the day he was killed."

Germaine sank heavily into a chair. Liz held on to a table, trying to gain some control over her emotions.

"Germaine," she said at last, "when was the last time you saw the twins together?"

"I remember exactly," Germaine said. "It was the day they left to go off to college, in September of-let's see, the twins are thirty-seven, and they were eighteen then-nineteen seventy. Buck Moses took them to Fernandina in Grandpapa's launch." She rubbed her temples with her fingers. "Hamish arrived at Princeton, I remember, but Keir didn't. We didn't hear from him until Christmas, when we got a letter from New York, Grandpapa and I nearly went crazy waiting to hear from him. Grandpapa had private detectives looking for him."

Dr. Blaylock turned to James Moses, who had been listening in silence. "James, has your grandfather ever said anything to you about this?"

"No, sir," James said. He looked as stunned as Germaine and Liz.

"Well, I think you'd better go and get him and bring him to Dungeness," Blaylock said.

Buck Moses sat in Angus Drummond's study, his hat in his lap, and wiped his face with a bandanna. "Them boys loved each other like nothin' I ever seen," he said, "until that girl come to the island."

"I remember," Germaine said. "Gilly something-I can't remember her last name. Her mother brought her down here from New York for the month of August that year."

"They loved that girl," Buck said, "both of them. They loved her to death. I never saw 'em like that, 'cept that one time."

"What happened, Buck?" Germaine asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"I come here to Dungeness to get 'em, to carry ' em to Fernandina, to get a taxi to the airport. They was havin' breakfast."

"I remember," Germaine said. "We said good-bye to them, Grandpapa and I. They didn't want to change into suits."

"That's right. They was wearing them jeans, and they said they's gonna change on the boat. Well, I got 'em on the boat, and they started arguing something' awful, 'bout that pretty girl, the way boys do, and they had a fight. I stop the boat, but I couldn't do nothin' with 'em, I just couldn't. They was rasslin' around, and they fell down, and one of them boys didn't move no more. They was blood on the back of his head, where he done hit it on a bronze cleat." Buck closed his eyes. "They was brains on that cleat."

"Which one hit his head, Buck?" Germaine asked, leaning close to the old man.

"I swear to God, I don't know. I didn't never know. I put the other boy off at Fernandina and tole him to go to school and keep his mouth shut, and I was gon' take care of his brother."

"And he went off, just like that?"

"He in a daze, like. He just do what I tole him to do.

I put him in the taxi and sent him off. Next time I see him, he was home at Christmas. He was Hamish." Buck wiped his face again with the bandanna, and tears rolled down his ebony cheeks. "Next time I see him was the next summer, and he was Keir. He done got to be both those boys."

"And what did you do with the other boy when you left Fernandina?" the sheriff asked.

"I brung the boat up through the marsh to the graveyard, and I put him in ol' Harry's grave, and I said my prayers over him. Then I come back to the dock at Dungeness and didn't say nothin' to nobody, never again, 'bout that day, 'till this minute. I never even said nothin' to Hamish and Keir-whichever he was. He act like it never happen, and so did I. We never said nothin' again 'bout it."

Nobody in the room said anything for a long time; then the sheriff stood up. "Germaine," he said, "this is no business of mine; I've got no interest in what's happened here. There's no crime, as far as I'm concerned, only an accident-involuntary manslaughter at worst, and the statute of limitations ran ut on that years ago. I'm not about to arrest somebody as old as Buck for covering up a death, twenty years ago. It's history, and family history, at that, and I'll leave you to do what you will about it." He flicked dust off his Stetson. "I'll bid you all good-bye, and I'm going to forget this day just as fast as I can. Germaine, I'm real sorry about Mr. Drummond." He left the room and the house. Moments later, the helicopter departed from the front lawn.

"Buck," Germaine said to the weeping old man, "I don't know if you did the right thing, but I know you didn't do wrong. You've got nothing to feel bad about. I want to thank you for letting me have my brothers for all these years."

James stood up. "Come on, Granddaddy, I'll take you home." The two departed, and Dr. Blaylock stood up.

"I'm going to tell my students that I didn't find any matching records. I'm going to tell myself that, too." He handed the X-ray film of the twins to Germaine. "Here, you get rid of these." He left the house, and the two women were alone in the study.