John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

Clumly shrugged. “They tie your hands,” he said feebly. “You get what you can on the man and you take it into court—” He concentrated. Someone was whispering behind him. He mopped his brow and pushed the handkerchief back in his pocket. “We’re going through a period of transition,” he said very seriously, as if addressing a visitor at the jail, or making one of those service club speeches Mayor Mullen kept getting him into. “Twenty years ago everything was different. Times are changing. Everybody moving around these days, that’s part of it. Too many strange faces. It used to be when a crime was committed in a town like Batavia … person-to-person operation in the old days. It takes a lot more policemen now, a lot of high-price machinery, a lab no town like this can afford, and even then a lot of times you can’t nail ’em. Old-fashioned rules for admitting evidence. And then the politicians get into it, with their talk about the Productive Time Factor and Public Relations, not to mention the relatives they want to give jobs … and yet all the citizens, the newspapers expect …”

Hubbard patted his shoulder. “Well, we know we’re in good hands with you, Chief. Excuse me.” He turned to say hello to the man behind him. The other brother had vanished. Clumly backed away. Albert Hubbard’s widow was standing alone by the casket, and Clumly went to her cautiously. As he touched her elbow he realized he’d forgotten her name.

“I was sorry to hear,” Clumly said. “He looks very natural.” He considered. “I guess we all go sometime,” he said.

The veiled face turned toward him. He couldn’t see her features behind the black netting, couldn’t know for sure that it was Mrs. Hubbard and not some dangerous stranger. He felt like a man being spied on through a mirror.

“The flowers are beautiful,” he said. “He looks very natural.”

After a long time the old woman said, “Yes.” He felt violent relief. The organ music started, and Clumly looked down at the corpse. The mouth was sealed forever with mortician’s paint.

“He’ll be missed,” Chief Clumly said. He began to weep, and Mrs. Hubbard took his hand.

It wasn’t until after the prayer at the cemetery that he saw Ben Hodge again. He and Vanessa were standing by the fieldstone gateposts, listening from there. The gravel cemetery drive would have been hard going for Vanessa, with those bad knees. When Clumly went up to them, Hodge said, “You still got my boys down there?”

“Slater boys? The Indians? They’re there all right. We been expecting you to come down and post bail for ’em.”

“Not me. I’ve done all I can for those boys. You can ship ’em away to Elmira, it’s the only course left.” He smiled unhappily.

“Blooey!” Vanessa said. “We quit.”

“Listen here,” Hodge said. He tapped Clumly’s chest gently, as if absent-mindedly, the way his father the Congressman used to tap a neighbor’s chest when he wanted his vote. “Those boys have had homes. Good homes. I don’t mean just ours, which may or may not be what you’d call good. They got forty dollars a month spending money when they were at our place, and for dang little work, too. And the place they were before, over there in Byron, that woman had the patience of a saint. You wonder what gets into them.”

“You heard what the younger one said to the social worker,” Vanessa said. “She asked him what he wanted to be and he said — he’s honest, you’ll have to say that! — he said, ‘I just want to hang around.’” Vanessa laughed, mp, mp! slapping Ben Hodge’s shoulder. She was old, but when she laughed she was pretty for a moment. Bill Churchill was passing them, leaving the cemetery, and when he nodded hello she drew him into the group and told him the same story she’d just told Clumly, in the same words, and laughed, and slapped Hodge’s shoulder.

“Honest!” Hodge said, “why you know what that little monkey did? The County got him a room at the Y, right after he’d decided he was fed up with us, and they gave him fifty dollars for it. For some reason they can’t pay the rent direct — I don’t know what the technicality is. Anyway, he spent twenty-five dollars on clothes and lost the rest of it shooting craps, and you know what that boy did? He went back to the County and told them exactly what had happened and asked for more.”

They all laughed except Bill Churchill, who was outraged. “Welfare!” he said. “It’s sucking the blood out of this country! How many people are there, I wonder, that all they want is just to ‘hang around’? They can do it, too. That’s what burns me. ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme!’” He was still jabbing at Hodge’s chest. Hodge reached out with his own, gentler tap, like a man absent-mindedly keeping time to music on Bill Churchill’s tie. “It’s a complicated thing, though, isn’t it.”

“Faw!” Churchill said.

Vanessa said, “What bothers me is the fact that those boys will buy a new shirt every day, but they’ll never shell out for socks and underwear.” She turned to Clumly and smiled. “They’ll buy shocks— blooey! — ” She batted away the mistake with both hands. “They’ll buy shirts, but do you think they’ll buy socks?”

Clumly shook his head.

“No!” she said, pleased with him for being alert. “Shocks,” she said. “That’s a good one.” She laughed. “Hmpf.”

Clumly laughed too and Hodge smiled sociably. Churchill excused himself and hurried down the road toward where his car was parked. Clumly and the Hodges watched people leave, most of them people Fred Clumly had never seen before, relatives from far-off places, perhaps, or friends of the family who’d moved away from Batavia years ago. The sight of so many strangers was for Clumly faintly distressing. “Times change,” he said aloud, accidentally.

“Well, yes and no,” Hodge said.

The Hodges started down the driveway, and Clumly went along beside them, mopping his forehead and the back of his neck. “You heard about our bearded fellow?” he said. “The one we’ve got locked up for defacing public property.”

Hodge looked puzzled, then lighted up. “The one that wrote love on the Thruway? He’s still in jail?”

“Yessir,” Clumly said. “Order of the court. He’ll be transferred over to the Veterans’ Hospital as soon as it’s convenient, for a mental check-up, you know. Meanwhile, he’s with us.” He glanced over his shoulder and leaned toward Hodge. “Between you and me, it’s understood that we’ll question him a little, from time to time, see if we can’t find out what he’s really up to.”

“Ah,” Hodge said.

It sounded noncommittal, merely polite, weighted with some reservation, and again Clumly felt on the spot. “Oh, I know, it looks like just another prank to a complete outsider. But there may be one or two aspects of this case you’re not aware of.” He gave Hodge a meaningful look.

“Hmm,” Hodge said. They’d come to the Hodge truck, an old hay-green Chevy pick-up, and Hodge went around to Vanessa’s side to help boost her in. Clumly followed.

“Oops!” Vanessa said. But Hodge caught her and lifted again, and after a moment she was sitting at ease, fanning herself and panting, saying “Hoo!” Even with the windows open (the key was in the ignition, too, he noticed) it would be hot as an oven in the cab of that track. When Vanessa’s door was shut, Hodge turned, found Clumly at his back, and shook his hand. “Keep up the good work,” Hodge said. “Give ’em heck.”

“I’ll do that,” Clumly said. He followed Hodge around to his side. Hodge shook hands with him again, then opened his door and climbed in. “Hot,” he said, closing the door.