Black House

"All of that never happened," he tells the coming day in a falsely patient voice. "I had a kind of preadolescent breakdown, brought on by stress. My mother thought she had cancer, she grabbed me, and we ran all the way to the East Coast. All the way to New Hampshire. She thought she was going back to the Great Happy Place to die. Turned out to be mostly vapors, some goddamn actress midlife crisis, but what does a kid know? I was stressed. I had dreams."

Jack sighs.

"I dreamed I saved my mother’s life."

The phone behind him rings, the sound shrill and broken in the shadowy room.

Jack Sawyer screams.

"I woke you up," Fred Marshall says, and Jack knows at once that this man has been up all night, sitting in his wifeless, sonless home. Looking at photo albums, perhaps, while the TV plays. Knowing he is rubbing salt into the wounds but unable to quit.

"No," Jack says, "actually I was — "

He stops. The phone’s beside the bed and there’s a pad beside the phone. There’s a note written on the pad. Jack must have written it, since he’s the only one here — ella-fucking-ment’ry, my dear Watson — but it isn’t in his handwriting. At some point in his dream, he wrote this note in his dead mother’s handwriting.

The Tower. The Beams. If the Beams are broken, Jacky-boy, if the Beams are broken and the Tower falls

There’s no more. There is only poor old Fred Marshall, who has discovered how quickly things can go bad in the sunniest midwestern life. Jack’s mouth has attempted to say a couple of things while his mind is occupied with this forgery from his subconscious, probably not very sensible things, but that doesn’t bother Fred; he simply goes droning along with none of the stops and drops that folks usually employ to indicate the ends of sentences or changes of thought. Fred is just getting it out, unloading, and even in his own distressed state Jack realizes that Fred Marshall of 16 Robin Hood Lane, that sweet little Cape Cod honey of a home, is nearing the edge of his endurance. If things don’t turn around for him soon, he won’t need to visit his wife in Ward D of French County Lutheran; they’ll be roommates.

And it is their proposed visit to Judy of which Fred is speaking, Jack realizes. He quits trying to interrupt and simply listens, frowning down at the note he has written to himself as he does so. Tower and Beams. What kind of beams? Sunbeams? Hornbeams? Raise high the roof beam, carpenters?

" — know I said I’d pick you up at nine but Dr. Spiegleman that’s her doctor up there Spiegleman his name is he said she had a very bad night with a lot of yelling and screaming and then trying to get up the wall-paper and eat it and maybe a seizure of some kind so they’re trying her on a new medication he might have said Pamizene or Patizone I didn’t write it down Spiegleman called me fifteen minutes ago I wonder if those guys ever sleep and said we should be able to see her around four he thinks she’ll be more stabilized by four and we could see her then so could I pick you up at three or maybe you have — "

"Three would be fine," Jack says quietly.

" — other stuff to do other plans I’d understand that but I could come by if you don’t it’s mostly that I don’t want to go alone — "

"I’ll be waiting for you," Jack said. "We’ll go in my pickup."

" — thought maybe I’d hear from Ty or from whoever snatched him like maybe a ransom demand but no one called only Spiegleman he’s my wife’s doctor up there at — "

"Fred, I’m going to find your boy."

Jack is appalled at this bald assurance, at the suicidal confidence he hears in his own voice, but it serves at least one purpose: bringing Fred’s flood of dead words to an end. There is blessed silence from the other end of the line.

At last, Fred speaks in a trembling whisper. "Oh, sir. If only I could believe that."

"I want you to try," Jack says. "And maybe we can find your wife’s mind while we’re at it."

Maybe both are in the same place, he thinks, but this he does not say.

Liquid sounds come from the other end of the line. Fred has begun to cry.

"Fred."

"Yes?"

"You’re coming to my place at three."

"Yes." A mighty sniff; a miserable cry that is mostly choked back. Jack has some comprehension of how empty Fred Marshall’s house must feel at this moment, and even that dim understanding is bad enough.

"My place in Norway Valley. Come past Roy’s Store, over Tamarack Creek — "

"I know where it is." A faint edge of impatience has crept into Fred’s voice. Jack is very glad to hear it.

"Good. I’ll see you."

"You bet." Jack hears a ghost of Fred’s salesman cheer, and it twists his heart.

"What time?"

"Th-three?" Then, with marginal assurance: "Three."

"That’s right. We’ll take my truck. Maybe have a bite of supper at Gertie’s Kitchen on our way back. Good-bye, Fred."

"Good-bye, sir. And thank you."

Jack hangs up the phone. Looks a moment longer at his memory’s reproduction of his mother’s handwriting and wonders what you’d call such a thing in cop-speak. Autoforgery? He snorts, then crumples the note up and starts getting dressed. He will drink a glass of juice, then go out walking for an hour or so. Blow all the bad dreams out of his head. And blow away the sound of Fred Marshall’s awful droning voice while he’s at it. Then, after a shower, he might or might not call Dale Gilbertson and ask if there have been any developments. If he’s really going to get involved in this, there’ll be a lot of paperwork to catch up on . . . he’ll want to reinterview the parents . . . take a look at the old folks’ home close to where the Marshall kid disappeared . . .