Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

“The papers are predicting four inches,” I said.

He nodded, as if it mattered. “The biography also says I was murdered. It didn’t say by whom.”

“It must have been burglars.”

“At least,” he said, “I’m warned. Maybe I should take a gun back with me.”

“Maybe.”

“What happens if I change it?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Well.” He took a deep breath and tried to smile. “Anyway, I thought you’d want to know I’m okay.” He snickered at that. His own joke.

I kept thinking about Helen. “Don’t go back at all,” I said. “With or without a gun.”

“I’m not sure that’s an option.”

“It sure as hell is.”

“At some point,” he said, “for one reason or another, I went home.” He was staring at the burgundy. He hadn’t touched the second glass. “My God, Dave, I’m scared. I’ve never thought of myself as a coward, but I’m afraid to face this.”

I just sat.

“It’s knowing the way of it,” he said. “That’s what tears my heart out.”

I got up and looked at the storm.

“Stay here for now,” I said. “There’s no hurry.”

He shook his head. “I just don’t think the decision’s in my hands.” For a long time, neither of us spoke. Finally, he seemed to make up his mind. “I’ve got a few places to go. People to talk to. Then, when I’ve done what I need to do, I’ll think about all this.”

“Good.”

He picked up the glass, drained it, wiped his lips, and drifted back against the sofa. “Let me ask you something: are they sure it’s me?”

“I understand the body was burned beyond recognition,” I said.

“There’s something to think about. It could be anyone. And even if it is me, it might be a Schrödinger situation. As long as no one knows for certain, it might not matter.”

“The police probably know. I assume they checked your dental records.”

His brows drew together. “I suppose they do that sort of thing automatically. Do me a favor, though, and make sure they have a proper identification.” He got up, wandered around the room, touching things, the books, the bust of Churchill, the P.C. He paused in front of the picture from the Beach Club. “I keep thinking how much it means to be alive. You know, Dave, I saw people out there today I haven’t seen in years.”

The room became very still.

He played with his glass. It was an expensive piece, chiseled, and he peered at its facets.

“I think you need to tell her,” I said gently.

His expression clouded. “I know.” He drew the words out. “I’ll talk to her. When the time is right.”

“Be careful,” I said. “She isn’t going to expect to see you.”

Friday, November 25. Mid-morning.

The critical question was whether we had in fact buried Adrian Shelborne, or whether there was a possibility of mistaken identity. We talked through the night. But neither of us knew anything about police procedure in such matters, so I said I would look into it.

I started with Jerry Shelborne, who could hardly have been less like his brother. There was a mild physical resemblance between the two, although Jerry had allowed the roast beef to pile up a little too much. He was a corporate lawyer in whose view Shel had shuffled aimlessly through life, puttering away with notions that had no reality in the everyday world in which real people live. Even his brother’s sudden wealth had not changed his opinion.

“I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” he’d told me that morning. “He was a decent man, had a lot of talent, but he never really made his life count for anything.” Jerry sat behind a polished teak desk, guarded by an India rubber plant leaning toward a sun-filled window. The furniture was dark-stained, leather-padded, highly polished. Plaques covered the walls, appreciations from civic groups, awards from major corporations, various licenses and testaments. Photos of his two children were prominently displayed on the desk, a boy in a Little League uniform, a girl nuzzling a horse. His wife, who had left him years earlier, was missing.

“Actually,” I said, “I thought he did pretty well.”

“I don’t mean money,” he said. (I hadn’t been thinking of money.) “But it seems to me a man has an obligation to live in his community. To make a contribution to it.” He leaned back expansively and thrust a satisfied finger into a vest pocket. “‘To whom much is given’,” he said, “‘much shall be expected.’“

“I suppose,” I said. “Anyway, I wanted to extend my sympathy.”

“Thank you.” Jerry rose, signaling that the interview was over.

We walked slowly toward the paneled door. “You know,” I said, “this experience has a little bit of deja vu about it.”

He squinted at me. He didn’t like me, and wasn’t going to be bothered concealing it. “How do you mean?” he asked.

“There was a language teacher at Princeton, where I got my doctorate. Same thing happened to him. He lived alone and one night a gas main let go and blew up the whole house. They buried him, and then found out it wasn’t him at all. He’d gone on an unannounced holiday to Vermont, and turned his place over to a friend. They didn’t realize until several days after the funeral when he came home. Unsettled everybody.”

Jerry shook his head, amused at the colossal stupidity loose in the world. “Unfortunately,” he said, “there’s not much chance of that here. They tell me the dental records were dead on.”

I probably shouldn’t have tried to see how Helen was doing, because my own emotions were still churning. But I called her from a drug store and she said yes, how about lunch? We met at an Applebee’s in the Garden Square Mall.

She looked worn out. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she showed a tendency to lose the thread of conversation. She and Shel had made no formal commitment, as far as I knew. But she had certainly believed they had a future together. Come what may. But Shel had been evasive. And there had been times when, discouraged that she got so little of his time, she’d opened up to me. I don’t know if anything in my life had been quite as painful as sitting with her, listening to her describe her frustration, watching the occasional tear roll down her cheek. She trusted me, absolutely.

“Are you all right?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “How about you?”

The talk was full of regrets, things not said, acts undone. The subject of the police suspicions came up, and we found it hard to subscribe to the burglar theory. “What kind of intruder,” I asked, “kills a sleeping man, and then sets his house on fire?”

She was as soft and vulnerable that day as I’ve ever seen her. Ironically, by all the laws of nature, Shel was dead. Was I still bound to keep my distance? And the truth was that Shel did not even care enough to ease her suffering. I wondered how she would react if she knew Shel was probably sitting in my kitchen at that moment, making a submarine sandwich.

I wanted to tell her. There was a possibility that, when she did find out, she would hold it against me . I also wanted to keep Shel dead. That was hard to admit to myself, but it was true. I wanted nothing more than a clear channel with Helen Suchenko. But when I watched her bite down the pain, when the sobs began, when she excused herself with a shaky voice and hurried back to the ladies’ room, I could stand it no more. “Helen,” I said, “are you free this afternoon?”

She sighed. “I wanted to go into the office today, but people get nervous around weepy physicians. Yes, I’m more or less free. But I’m not in the mood to go anywhere.”

“Can I persuade you to come out to my place?”