6
It was a cold January afternoon in 2004 when the man known as Brightwell – if man he truly was – reappeared.
Harlan Vetters had always hated these winter months: they’d been bad enough when he was a young man with stamina and muscle tone and strong bones, but now he had significantly less of all three and had grown to dread the first fall of snow. His wife used to find it amusing when he began railing at the photographs in the winter catalogs that started turning up in their mailbox in August, or at the glossy store advertisements tucked inside the Maine Sunday Telegram as summer ended, all of them depicting happy, grinning people wearing warm clothing and holding snow shovels, as if three or four hard months of winter was just about the best damn thing that could be imagined, and even more fun than Disneyland.
‘Nobody in this state posed for those photos, I tell you that,’ he would say. ‘They ought to fill these things with pictures of some poor bastard up to his knees in snow trying to dig his truck out with a spoon.’
And Angeline would pat him on the shoulder and say, ‘Well, they wouldn’t sell too many sweaters that way, would they?’ and Harlan would mutter something in turn, and she’d kiss him on the crown of his head and leave him to his business, knowing that later she would find him in the garage, checking that the plow attachment for his truck was undamaged; that the flashlights worked, and there were batteries to spare; that the backup generator was in working order, and the woodshed was dry, and this before the first leaves had even begun to drop from the trees.
In the weeks that followed he would make a list of all that was needed, both food and equipment, and then he would set out early one morning to the big suppliers in Bangor or, if he felt like the ride, Portland, returning that same evening with tales of bad driving, and two-dollar cups of coffee, and donuts that weren’t as good as the ones Laurie Boden served at the Falls End Diner, don’t know why, after all how hard could it be to make a donut? She would help him to pack his purchases away, and there would always be hot chocolate mix, more than a whole town could ever drink in the longest winter imaginable, because he knew that she loved hot chocolate and he didn’t want her to be without.
And there would be some small treat for her at the bottom of the box, something that he had chosen himself in a boutique and not in one of the big department stores. It was the real reason why he drove so far, she knew, so that he could find her something that wasn’t available locally: a scarf, or a hat, or a small item of jewelry, with maybe a box of candy or cookies thrown in with it, and often a book, some big hardback novel that would keep her going for a week when the snow settled upon them. It amused and touched her to think of him in a fancy women’s clothing store, fingering varieties of silk and wool and interrogating the saleswoman on issues of quality and price, or browsing the aisles of a bookstore with his notebook open to a page filled with titles he had jotted down over the preceding months, a list of books that she had mentioned in passing, or novels about which he had read himself and thought she might like. She knew that he would have spent as much time, if not more, on choosing those gifts for her as he did on buying all of his winter supplies, and he would glow with delight at the pleasure she derived upon discovering what he had brought for her.
Because here was the thing: while her friends sometimes complained at their husbands’ absence of taste and their seeming inability to buy anything appropriate for Christmas or birthdays, Harlan always chose right. Even the smallest of his gifts spoke of the consideration he had given to their suitability, and, over their many years together, she came to understand that he thought of her a great deal, and she was always with him, and these small tokens were simply occasional physical expressions of her deep and abiding presence in his life.
So, on the day of the great expedition, she in turn would have a hot meal waiting for him, and a pie she had baked that day: peach or apple, not too sweet, the crust slightly burned, just the way he liked it. The two of them would eat, and talk, and later they’d make love, because he had never stopped loving her.
He loved her still, even though she no longer always knew who it was that loved her.
There was ice on the road that day, black and treacherous, and Harlan was forced to drive to the nursing home at a pace barely above walking, even for an old timer like himself. He experienced a profound sense of relief at the sight of the redbrick building looming against the pristine blue of the sky, the fairy lights still illuminated on the bushes and trees, the tracks of birds and small mammals crisscrossing the compacted snow. Lately, the imminence of his own mortality had begun to press upon him, and he had found himself taking more care than usual when driving. He did not wish to predecease his wife. Oh, he was certain that his daughter would care for her if that happened, because Marielle was a good girl, but he knew that, in her infrequent moments of clarity, his wife found some reassurance in the routine of his visits and he did not wish to add to her fears by his absence. He had to be careful, as much for her sake as for his own.
He stomped the snow from his boots before entering the reception area, and greeted Evelyn, the pretty young black nurse who worked the desk from Monday through Thursday, and every second Saturday. He knew all of their schedules by heart, and they in turn could set their watches by the times of his arrival and departure.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Vetters. How you doin’ today?’
‘Still fighting the good fight, Miss Evelyn,’ he replied, just as he always did. ‘Cold one, huh?’
‘The worst. Brrrr!’
Harlan sometimes wondered if black people felt the cold more than white people, but he was too polite to ask. He figured it was one of those questions that was destined to remain unanswered for him.
‘How’s the old girl?’
‘She had a troubled night, Mr Vetters,’ said Evelyn. ‘Clancy sat with her for a while and calmed her down, but she didn’t sleep much. Last time I checked she was napping, though, so that’s good.’
Clancy worked only nights. He was a huge man of indeterminate race with sunken eyes and a head that looked too small for his body. The first time Harlan had met Clancy he’d been coming out of the home in his civvies, and Harlan had briefly been in fear of his life. Clancy looked like an escapee from a maximum security jail, but as Harlan had got to know him he’d discovered an immeasurably gentle soul, a man of seemingly infinite patience with his elderly patients, even those who, like Harlan’s wife, were often scared of their own spouses and children. Clancy’s presence worked like a sedative, with fewer negative side effects.
‘Thanks for letting me know,’ said Harlan. ‘I’ll go through and see her now, if that’s okay.’
‘Sure, Mr Vetters. I’ll bring some hot tea and cookies in a while, if you and your wife would like that.’
‘I’m sure we’d like that just fine,’ said Harlan, and the young woman’s genuine solicitude caused a tickle in his throat, just as it always did whenever one of the staff showed some small kindness like this. He knew he was paying for their services, but he appreciated the fact that they went the extra yard. He’d heard horror stories about even the most expensive care facilities, but nobody here had ever given him the slightest cause for complaint.
He trotted down the warm hallway, aware of the pain in his joints and a dampness in his left shoe. The leather was coming away from the sole. He hadn’t noticed it before. A couple of stitches would see it repaired, though. He lived frugally, mostly out of habit but also to ensure that his wife could spend the rest of her days in this place. He hadn’t wasted a dime of the money from the plane, although the thought of it never failed to cause his stomach to tighten. Years later, he was still awaiting the hand upon his shoulder, or the knock on the door, and the voice of authority, flanked by uniforms, telling him that they wanted to talk to him about an airplane . . .
He seemed to be the only visitor that afternoon. He supposed that the state of the roads had kept a lot of people at home, and he passed patients napping, or watching TV, or simply staring out of the windows. There was no conversation. It had the silence of a cloister. There was a separate secure wing, accessed by a keypad beside the doors, for those who were more troubled than the rest, more likely to wander when they got confused or frightened. His wife had been there for a couple of years, but as the Parkinson’s got worse her capacity for roaming was reduced, and now she was not even able to leave her bed without assistance. In a way, he was happier that she was in the general area: the secure wing, for all its comforts, felt too much like a prison.
The door to his wife’s room was slightly ajar. He knocked gently upon it before entering, even though he had been told that she was sleeping. He was more conscious now than ever before of maintaining her privacy and her dignity. He knew the distress that a sudden invasion of her space could cause her, particularly if she was having one of her bad days when she failed to recognize him at all.
His wife’s eyes were closed when he entered, her face turned to the door. He noticed that the room was cold, which surprised him. They were very careful about ensuring that the patients did not get too cold in winter or too warm in summer. The main windows were kept locked and could only be opened with special keys, mostly to prevent the more disturbed patients from climbing out and injuring themselves, or running away. The smaller top windows could be opened slightly to let some air in, but Harlan could see that they were all sealed shut.
He stepped further into the room, and the door slammed behind him. It was only then that he smelled the man. When Harlan turned he was standing against the wall, smiling a dead smile, the swollen purple goiter at his throat like a huge blood blister waiting to burst.
‘Take a seat, Mr Vetters,’ he said. ‘It’s time we had a talk.’
It was strange, but now that the worst had happened, Harlan found he was not afraid. Even as he hoped that it might not be true, he had always known that someone would come, and sometimes, in those dark dreams, a man had appeared on the periphery of the pursuit, his profile deformed by his own obesity and a terrible growth that distorted his already bloated neck. This was the form that vengeance would take when it came.
But Harlan was not about to confess, not unless he was given no other option. He assumed the role that he had always determined he would play if this moment came: the innocent. He had practiced it well. He could not have said why, but he believed it was important that this man did not discover the location of the airplane in the Great North Woods, and not just because of the money that Harlan and Paul had taken. The ones who had come looking for it over the years – because, once he and Paul had come to understand their purpose, they grew better at spotting them, better at recognizing them from the tales told by bemused guides – bore no resemblance to one another: some, like Darina Flores, were beautiful and some, like this man, were profoundly ugly. Some looked like businessmen or schoolteachers, others like hunters and killers, but what they all had in common was a sense that they meant no good for God or man. If they wanted something from that plane (and Harlan had a fixed memory of those papers with their lists of names) then it was the duty of right-thinking men to ensure that they didn’t get it, or so Harlan and Paul told themselves in an effort to make some small recompense for their larceny.
But neither were they so naive as to believe that their theft of the money might be allowed to go unpunished, that, if they revealed what they knew of the plane’s location to Darina Flores or someone like her, the truth would be enough to buy them peace in their final years. Even the knowledge that the plane existed might be enough to damn them because they’d both examined that list, and some of those names were fused in Harlan’s brain. He could recite them, if he had to. Not many of them, but enough. Enough to see him dead.
Then again, if the man was here, it was probably because of the money. The money would have drawn him. Perhaps Harlan and Paul had not been as careful as they thought.
‘What are you doing in my wife’s room?’ he asked. ‘You’re not supposed to be here. It’s for family and friends only.’
The man wandered over to where Harlan’s wife lay, and stroked her face and hair. His fingertips trailed across her lips, then parted them obscenely. Angeline mumbled in her sleep, and tried to move her head. A pair of pale fingers entered her mouth, and Harlan saw the tendons flexing in the man’s hand.
‘I told you to sit down, Mr Vetters. If you don’t, I’ll tear out your wife’s tongue.’
Harlan sat.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘My name is Brightwell.’