The Language Of Cannibals

CHAPTER THREE

My right wrist was much better in the morning, but my left arm throbbed painfully and was stiff as a board. A hot shower helped some, but I still couldn't lift my arm past shoulder height without pain shooting through the upper arm, shoulder, and across my back. I dressed, then checked the local phone directory and my illustrated Chamber of Commerce map of Cairn. The donated mansion housing the Community of Conciliation was about two and a half miles from the motel, on Pave Avenue, a main thoroughfare running north from the center of town. Judging from the pictures on the map, Pave Avenue was lined on both sides by very old houses and mansions; the road ended to the north in a Y, with one arm leading down to a small state park on the banks of the Hudson, and the second arm leading up to the abandoned stone quarry that had, according to a sidebar on the map, given Cairn its name.

Thinking that a walk might be therapeutic for my arm, I again left Beloved Too in the parking lot of the RestEasy Motel and headed down into town. Mistake. I'd gone less than a half mile when I started to limp; I'd bruised my right knee banging it on Gregory Trex's stone-hard head. I bought a container of coffee in an Irish delicatessen, of all things, then called a taxi for the relatively short ride out Pave Avenue.

The world headquarters of the Community of Conciliation announced itself with a wooden sign bearing its name in English, Spanish, French, and German. I hobbled up the long gravel driveway past three simple wooden grave markers, which a small sign identified as the gravesites of the founders of the pacifist organization, an American and two Swedes. I climbed the steps up onto the porch of the old Colonial-style mansion, announced my presence with an anchor-shaped brass door knocker that must have weighed twenty pounds.

Mary Tree herself answered the door. She was dressed in a paint-spattered man's work shirt that fell to her knees, worn jeans, and sneakers. She carried a large paintbrush in her left hand, and there were spots of cream-colored paint at the end of her nose and in the center of her forehead. Her waist-length, light blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail that cascaded down her neck like a gold and gray waterfall. Her sky-colored eyes mirrored warmth and not a little bemusement as she peered down at me over the rims of her glasses, which I could now see were bifocals. She abruptly broke into a grin that revealed even, white teeth and a dimple in her chin that nicely complemented her finely sculpted features.

"My hero," she intoned in a sexy voice that was as dulcet clear as her singing voice.

I grinned back, shrugged. "I really didn't have any choice but to ride to your rescue, Miss Tree, since I knew I was eventually going to have to report the incident to my brother."

"'Miss Tree' sounds like a character in a fairy tale. My name is Mary. And what does your brother have to do with what you did for me?"

"My brother, Garth, is the world's most ardent Mary Tree fan, and he's been madly in love with you for twenty years. He has all your albums and close to a half-dozen bootleg tapes of concerts that he paid a small fortune for; a framed poster of you, an advertisement for one of your concerts in the late sixties, hangs over the fireplace in his living room. If he ever found out that you were being pushed around and I hadn't tried to stop it, he might actually do me physical harm." I stuck out my hand. "My name is Robert Frederickson."

Mary Tree extended her right hand and enveloped mine in her long, powerful fingers. "Can't I call you Mongo? I understand all your friends call you that, and I hope we're going to be friends."

"I'd say we're already friends, and famous, beautiful folksingers are allowed to call me anything they like."

The woman released my hand, raised her fine eyebrows slightly. "Dr. Robert Frederickson, Mongo the Magnificent-the show business name you carried when you were a headliner with the Statler Brothers Circus; Circus Hall of Fame, criminology professor, now apparently retired, private investigator extraordinaire." She paused, then again favored me with one of her radiant smiles, at once worldly and oddly childlike. "Human being extraordinaire. Oh, I've heard and read about you, Mongo-and what I don't, or didn't, know, my brothers and sisters filled me in on. Thank you for what you did last night."

"You're very welcome."

"I'm so glad you stopped around to say hello."

"Mary, this isn't exactly a social visit."

Her smile faded slightly, and curiosity filmed her pale blue eyes. "How can we help you, Mongo?"

"I'd like to talk to you about a friend of mine who drowned near here after supposedly taking one of your members' canoes out for a joyride."

Mary Tree's smile faded completely, and the curiosity in her incredibly expressive eyes was replaced by sadness. "Michael was a friend of yours?"

"A good one. We went back a lot of years. Our paths first crossed on a case I was working on."

"Please come in, Mongo," she said quietly, moving aside, gently putting her right hand on my shoulder and ushering me into a marble foyer decorated with marble statues in various states of disrepair and cracked, antique paintings.

She led me out of the foyer, down a narrow corridor, then through a large archway into a huge chamber that looked as if it had once been a ballroom. The room, which smelled of fresh paint, was bare except for a couch and three folding chairs set against one wall. The couch was covered with a plastic tarpaulin, as was the floor beneath a wall that was partially covered with cream-colored paint that matched the samples on Mary Tree's brush and face. The entire east wall of the room consisted of a bank of windows that offered a breathtaking view over a neatly manicured lawn that sloped down to the river. She dropped her paintbrush into a coffee can filled with turpentine, then led me over to the couch. She stripped off the plastic cover and motioned for me to sit down.

"Everyone else in the house will very much want to meet you, Mongo," she continued quietly, "but I know you want to talk first. We'll have some privacy in here. Would you like some coffee?"

"I'd love some, but not if it's any trouble."

"It's not any trouble, Mongo; it's already been brewed." She smiled again, but her smile had become wistful. "I'll be right back."

She went out through the archway, and I gazed out the bank of windows. As the rising sun passed behind the luxuriant green crown of a large elm tree, I could see a floating dock at the shoreline and a small sailboat anchored about thirty yards out. There were a number of dinghies tied to the dock, and nearby was a boat rack containing two canoes and a kayak, each intricately decorated with what appeared to be American Indian symbols, each exuding the almost sensual, palpable beauty that only lovingly handcrafted objects possess. One space in the rack was empty, and I wondered if it had held the canoe Michael had supposedly been using when he drowned.

Mary returned five minutes later with a wooden tray on which were arrayed a thermos jug, two coffee mugs, packets of sugar and a carton of Half and Half, and a plateful of bran muffins. She set the tray down on the seat of one of the folding chairs, which she placed in front of the couch. She poured me a mug of coffee, then sat down next to me on the couch. I declined milk and sugar, but did take one of the bran muffins; it was succulent, still warm from the oven.

"Good," I said as I finished off my muffin. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Mongo," she replied, her tone matching her sad smile.

"Mary, I understand Michael was living here at the time of his death."

"Yes," she answered simply.

"How long had he been living here before he died?"

"About a week; six days, to be exact."

Exactly the length of time he would have been in Cairn from the starting date of his assignment. "How did he come to be living here?"

"We invited him."

"Did you know he was an FBI agent?"

"Uh-huh."

I drained off the coffee, which had a pleasant cinnamon aftertaste, then set the mug down on the floor. "Did you know he'd been sent here to Cairn specifically to spy on you people? Did you know he was supposed to tap your phones and monitor your mail?"

"Uh-huh," she replied in the same matter-of-fact tone as she picked up the thermos, then leaned over to refill my mug, which she handed to me. "He told us."

I almost spilled my coffee. "He told you?"

Mary held out the plate of bran muffins, and I absently shook my head. "What can I tell you, Mongo?" she said, a slight note of playfulness breaking through the sadness in her voice. "He decided he wanted to come over to work for the good guys for a change." She set the plate back down on the chair seat, then pointed to the half-painted wall to our right. "As a matter of fact, I'm now painting the section of wall he started. He liked to paint and fix things."

"You're saying Michael drove up here, knocked on your door, announced to whoever answered that he was Michael Burana, FBI agent, and that he was in town to spy on you?"

She leaned back on the couch, crossed her legs, and folded her large hands over her knees. "As a matter of fact," she said easily, "that's almost exactly what happened." She cocked her head, studying me, and obviously saw the consternation in my face. "Yeah, I know," she continued. "We were a little taken aback, too. Some of our people were more than a little taken aback; they were convinced it was a trick. But then, we figured that if it was a trick, it was a pretty good one. And who cared if he spied on us? It certainly wouldn't be anything new. We figured that the worst thing that could happen to us was that we'd get some work out of him while he was doing his spying. This place is really the ultimate white elephant, you know, a real bitch to maintain. But it wasn't a trick. Michael was sincere. He was going to wait until he got his next paycheck from the FBI, then submit his resignation and apply for his pension."

"Still, it wasn't as if he were coming into a houseful of strangers. You knew Michael."

Mary Tree shook her head. "Not before he showed up here."

"You told the police you were old friends."

This time her sad smile was tinged with a trace of bitterness, and she looked toward the ceiling in mock exasperation. "I was being facetious. I'm afraid the police aren't into my brand of humor."

"I'm sorry to report that I'm as dense as the police, Mary," I said carefully. "I don't get it either."

She looked at me, raised her palms, and shrugged broadly, as if the answer was obvious. "The FBI and a barefoot, pacifist folksinger of antiwar songs, a civil rights activist and war resister, Mongo? Old friends? Get it now? The FBI had been tapping my phones, monitoring my movements, opening my mail, planting phony stories in the press about me, and harassing my friends since I was seventeen years old and first walked onto a stage to sing one of Harry Peal's protest songs. In case you haven't noticed, this government takes a dim view of people who don't share its paranoid views of the world in general and communists in particular. All governments dislike citizens who protest, and different governments react in different ways. Over the years, this government has occasionally used the Gestapo and the KGB as role models for dealing with dissidents."

"Was Michael one of the agents who spied on you in the early days?"

"Yes-although I didn't know it at the time. He worked undercover then, and he told me that he traveled around the country, going to all my concerts and the protest rallies I was involved in." She paused, laughed lightly. "He told me he knew all my songs by heart."

"It sounds like the two of you got to know and like each other pretty well in the few days he was here."

"Yes. People can become good friends, or mortal enemies, in a lot less than six days."

"Indeed they can. Did you tell all this to the police?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"One thing didn't seem to have anything to do with the other. I answered their questions after they found Franz's canoe and traced it to here, but I didn't volunteer information. I saw no reason to tell the police anything unusual that might make it into the newspapers in addition to the stories that were already bound to appear. Michael had already had more than his share of bad publicity over that CIA defector thing-although I could never understand what all the fuss was about. I wish the whole damn Central Intelligence Agency would defect; the CIA and KGB deserve each other. With children starving and the planet virtually disintegrating under our feet, people still worry about the grown-up children who run our governments, and their children's games. I mean, who really gives a shit if a CIA agent defects to the Russians? The way this country has been run for the past forty years, the manner in which it's set its priorities, is enough to make you think the communists are really in charge, and constantly doing everything in their power to help us make fools of ourselves in the eyes of the world. Anyway, it seems Michael had come to share many of my views." She paused, perhaps again reacting to something she saw in my face. She bowed her head slightly, squinted at me over the tops of her bifocals. "You don't believe what I say about Michael, Mongo?"

I sipped at my coffee, which had gone cold. "Of course I believe you, Mary. I think Michael's change of heart had been coming on for a long time. I just never thought he would. ."

"Turn traitor?" Mary asked wryly.

"Quit the FBI. Did he tell you about his troubles with his boss?"

She shook her head. "Aside from what he told us in order to introduce himself, he didn't talk about the FBI. He just said his spying days were over."

"The head of the Bureau's counterintelligence unit is a man by the name of Edward J. Hendricks, who could be described as an unreconstructed cold warrior. He could care less about what's happened in Russia and Eastern Europe because he's a man who desperately needs his old, familiar enemies to give his life meaning. He's a man with a visceral hatred of communists-and of anybody he thinks sides with the communists. That covers a pretty broad spectrum of people."

"I'm familiar with the type," Mary said in the same wry tone.

"Oh, I'm sure you are. Hendricks fancies himself a super-patriot-but super-patriots of his sort would also have been, and were, super-patriots in Nazi Germany. He finds it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the country's critics and its enemies. Michael was probably pretty much like that in the early stages of his career; FBI recruits are chosen largely on the basis of ideology. As he told you, virtually all his assignments in the early part of his career involved surveillance of dissident groups, and there was a lot of illegal wiretapping and mail covers. Anyway, Michael mellowed, or got tired of it, whatever. He started arguing that the Bureau should stop wasting its time and manpower on peace groups, and should go after real spies as well as people in the violent right, like neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. This new attitude of Michael's didn't sit well with Hendricks, and their relationship deteriorated further, to say the least, when Michael became a kind of ombudsman and whistle-blower inside the Bureau regarding matters of racial discrimination in the hiring and promotion of agents. Then Michael's surveillance team blew the CIA defector thing, and Hendricks got his first real shot at Michael. First, Michael was demoted, and then Hendricks ordered him out here to do a spy number on you people. Hendricks knew Michael would hate the assignment; it was his way of getting revenge for all the grief Michael had been giving him."

"You're saying this Hendricks doesn't really believe that the Community of Conciliation is-oh, how I love this word- 'subversive'?"

"Oh, he thinks you're subversive, all right, and he really does seem to believe that people like you pose a greater real danger to this country than the Klan or the neo-Nazis. He'd like to see just about every peace and civil rights activist in this country thrown out, or placed in some kind of internment camp, until, as he puts it, 'this thing with Russia is really over, and they're buried.'"

"Is he serious?"

"I've never met the man. Michael described the conversation to me, and Michael swears he was dead serious. But the point is that Hendricks has plenty of zealots under him who would have whistled 'The Star-Spangled Banner' all the time they were spying on you. Hendricks sent Michael here to humiliate him."

"Fools," Mary said tersely. "Damn fools."

"Did Michael tell you he hated being near water?"

She thought about it as she reached out for another bran muffin; she hesitated, then brought her hand back to her lap. "Yes," she said at last. "But he didn't put it that strongly. He said he didn't much care for water. I told him it was no problem, that he didn't have to stay in Cairn. We have chapters, stations, all over the world. I told him that if he really wanted to work for our cause we could send him to live on the top of a mountain, in the middle of a jungle-wherever he liked."

"Didn't it strike you as odd that a man who didn't like water would go out canoeing on the Hudson River at one of its widest points?"

"Not at the time, no," she replied distantly, her brows knitting into a frown. "People have changes of mood, sometimes do things they wouldn't normally do. . Mongo, do you think somebody killed Michael?"

"I haven't said that. I'm just trying to get a picture of what happened. I talked to the chief of police, and now I'm talking to you. Did Michael tell anyone he was going canoeing?"

"No," she answered in the same distant tone. "Not that I'm aware of. He didn't tell me."

"What about the man who owned the canoe? I think you said his name was Franz?"

"Franz Bauer."

"Did he ask Bauer's permission to use his canoe?"

Mary Tree slowly shook her head. "No."

"Building a canoe by hand must take a long time and cost some money. Each of those canoes I see down by the river would mean a lot to the man who made them."

"Yes. Franz made all of them."

"Do the people here normally take out any of the boats whenever they feel like it?"

Again, she shook her head. "The dinghies, yes, and the sailboat belongs to all of us. But not the canoes or the kayak; they're special."

"Did anybody see Michael go out in the canoe?"

"No. It had to have been in the evening, after dark, because all of the canoes were there when I went in to supper."

"Did Michael come to supper?"

"No." Now her brows were knitted even tighter, and tight lines of tension had appeared around her mouth as she thought back and remembered. "We all just assumed. ."

"You assumed what, Mary?"

"There was a full moon Sunday night, and the river was very still. It can be very lovely and soothing out on the river at night when it's like that. Michael had seemed very distracted and tense after coming back from talking with Harry."

"Harry?"

"Harry Peal."

"Harry Peal lives around here?"

"About ten miles north of here. He has a house on a cliff overlooking the river."

"Did Michael tell you what he and Harry Peal talked about, or why he went to see him in the first place?"

The corners of her mouth drew back in a thin smile. "I know why Michael went up there. Harry was another of the FBI's 'old friends,' Mongo. Michael had spied on Harry, too." She paused, and her smile, while still tinged with sadness, grew broader. "At least, with Harry, Michael had himself a real, honest-to-goodness communist to deal with. Ex-communist, anyway. Michael said he wanted to pay his respects to the man who'd spent two terms in prison, first for refusing to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and then for telling Joseph McCarthy-on live television-to go fuck himself. Harry was leaving that evening for Hungary to accept some award as part of President Shannon's cultural exchange program with the Russians and the Eastern Bloc countries. But he agreed to see Michael in the afternoon; if you knew Harry, you'd know what a hoot it was for him to have an FBI agent coming to visit him by the front door, as it were. Michael thought it was a real hoot, too. He was really high when he left here-but not so high when he got back. He was moody, distracted. He was in and out the rest of the day, and I know he went into town at least twice. I asked him if anything was wrong, and he said something. ."

"What did he say, Mary?"

"Just one word: 'Unbelievable.' That's what he said. 'Unbelievable'; you know, like you say when you're just overwhelmed by something that's been said or done."

"He went into town twice?"

"Yes. I know, because he asked permission each time to use the pickup truck. He said he was in a hurry and didn't have the time to walk."

"He was in a hurry each time?"

"He said he was, yes."

"Do you know what he did in town or who he talked to either of those times?"

"No. Anyway, after we found out that he'd drowned, everyone here just assumed that he'd gone out canoeing to try to get rid of some tension."

"Uh-huh. Mary, is Harry Peal still out of the country?"

"As a matter of fact, I think he's scheduled to return sometime today."

"Can you get me an appointment to talk with him?"

She shrugged. "Sure. Harry's easy enough to see when he's around. I'll give him a chance to unpack and rest a little, and I'll call him later. I'm sure he'll be happy to talk with you."

I took a business card out of my wallet, wrote my unlisted apartment phone number and the number of the RestEasy Motel on the back, handed it to her. "After you speak to him, please give me a call. You should be able to reach me at one of these three numbers; if not, there's an answering service on the office phone."

Mary Tree's hand trembled slightly as she reached out and took the card. She suddenly looked very pale. "You do think somebody killed Michael, don't you?"

"Tell me about last night, Mary. What was that all about?"

Her knuckles were white where they were clasped around her right knee, and her jaw was clenched tightly. She seemed now to be looking past, or through, me, at some private haunt.

"Mary. .?"

"If Michael was killed," she said in a low, tense voice, "they did it."

"Who, Mary? The death squad?"

Mary Tree looked away, then abruptly stood and walked across the empty ballroom to the bank of windows at the east end, where she stood stiffly, her arms wrapped around her.

There was still some coffee left in the thermos jug. I poured it into her mug, took it over to her. She glanced down at me, then took the mug in a hand that was still trembling, nodded her thanks.

"Are you afraid, Mary?" I asked quietly.

"No," she replied simply.

"Then what's wrong?"

"I … I don't want to be like them."

"Like who, Mary?"

She set the mug down on a small window ledge, then turned to face me. "I don't want to be like all the terrible people who've made such a mess of this country, Mongo. I've been accused of so many terrible things. The HUAC, the McCarthy hearings. . Harry was a communist, and he made no bones about it, but he wouldn't name others he knew were communists. But so many people who weren't communists or subversive in any way had their lives destroyed just because of accusations. I don't want to be one of those people who just make accusations. Also, quite frankly, I don't want you to think I'm a fool or paranoid or both."

"Are you saying you don't really believe there's a death squad in Cairn?"

"I'm saying I don't have any proof."

"And yet, by holding up that sign, you were, in effect, accusing the Vietnam veterans."

"I know," she said in a voice so low I could hardly hear her. "I probably shouldn't have done that. I was just frustrated. Like I said, I don't want you to think I'm paranoid."

"Even paranoids have real enemies, Mary," I said with what I hoped was a disarming smile. I wanted to hear what she had to say. "What were you frustrated about?"

"You have to understand what's been happening in Cairn lately."

"Tell me."

"It used to be a pretty mellow place," she said, and shrugged. "It's always been an 'artsy' community, if you will-a refuge for artists, actors, and writers, and people who like to be around people like that. Cairn was inexpensive, easygoing. Then word got around in New York City that Cairn was a 'hot suburb.' All of a sudden we had an influx of yuppies, nouveaux riches, and all sorts of people who could never understand what Cairn is really all about. In my opinion, at least, these people began to destroy the very atmosphere that makes this town special."

"People like Elysius Culhane?"

"Yes," she said tersely, anger humming in her voice. She picked up her mug, stared down into its depths as she stirred the cold coffee with her finger, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. "For almost twenty years the Community of Conciliation has tried to reach out to veterans of all wars, and to fighting men everywhere. Some of these soldiers and veterans may hate us, but we don't hate them. They're not the enemy, just more victims, more casualties, of the disease called war. In fact, we've been trying to convince the Russians that they should allow us to set up similar programs there for their Afghan veterans, who are beginning to show the same kinds of severe, post-stress emotional disorders as our Vietnam vets. They don't think much of our setting up shop there."

"I hope that doesn't surprise you."

"Of course not. I never said our government had a monopoly on stupidity."

"What kind of programs are you talking about?"

"We had weekly fellowship meetings, and special counseling sessions led by volunteer therapists from around the county. We had good rapport with the vets, and I like to think we were doing some good for those men. Then Elysius Culhane moved here, and things began to change. I don't have to tell you he's a very powerful man-and he's a persuasive man, with a devil's tongue. He ingratiated himself with the veterans, primarily by throwing a lot of money around to sponsor events for them. Before long the fellowship meetings had to be canceled, because the veterans stopped coming. The same with the psychological and job counseling sessions. Culhane had convinced them that they were victims, all right-of, in his words, the left-wing politicians who used them as cannon fodder while they were selling out Vietnam to the communists. You know how that tune goes. He convinced them-or most of them-that it was unpatriotic to have anything to do with us, since we'd opposed the war. We oppose all wars. And Culhane hadn't been here more than a month before he got himself an emergency appointment as, of all things, a village trustee. There was a lot more money being spent in politics here, and before you knew it there were right-wing Republicans being elected to positions of power in all the riverfront communities that had once been considered liberal, like Cairn."

It was my turn to shrug. "Things like that happen in a democracy, Mary. It's the great American way."

"Yes, Mongo. But then people started to die."

"What people started to die? Political people? Leftists?"

She shook her head. "No, not yet." She paused, shuddered slightly. "Not unless Michael was a victim, which is what's so frightening. At first it was just a couple of drug dealers and then a vagrant who'd been accused of trying to molest some schoolchildren. All three men were shot in the back of the head."

"What makes you think these killings were the work of a death squad?"

"Because it was after the third death that the threats started coming, and the threats mentioned the execution-style killings."

"You've received threats?"

"Yes. The Community has, by letter and telephone. They say we're communists and deserve to be shot. And there's been repeated vandalism. A number of liberal organizations in the river communities have shut down because of the threats and vandalism. I wouldn't accuse Elysius Culhane of being behind it, because I don't think he's that stupid, but I certainly do accuse him of creating an atmosphere that supports that kind of vigilantism and terror. I've heard him defend and praise the

Salvadoran and Guatemalan death squads on a number of occasions."

"So have I, but right-wingers tend to talk like that. Have you reported these threats and the vandalism to the police?"

"Of course." "And?"

"Nothing's happened."

"Do you think the police are choosing to do nothing about it?"

"I'm saying they haven't caught anybody."

"Do you think Chief Mosely is covering up something?"

She hesitated, then shook her head. "No, I'm not saying that. But I don't have a lot of faith in his passion for pursuit of equal justice for all. Mosely is a lackey of Elysius Culhane. It was Culhane who convinced his fellow town officials that Mosely was the perfect candidate for our chief of police."

"How do you know that?"

"I have a friend who's a village trustee. It's no secret that Dan Mosely was Culhane's choice. It doesn't mean that Mosely would cover up a crime, but I say it does mean that he's very tuned in to Culhane's sensibilities; I just don't believe he'd go out of his way to ease the problems of individuals or groups Culhane disapproves of. He seems a decent enough man, but I'm sure he feels grateful to Culhane for plucking him out of the jungles of New York City and plunking him down here in Cairn, where he can walk out of his office after work and sail off into the sunset on his catamaran."

"I've been waiting for you to mention Gregory Trex. I would think he'd be a prime suspect for threats, vandalism, and membership on a death squad."

"Vandalism and threats, sure," she replied matter-of-factly. "I'm not sure he has enough brains to be on a death squad."

"You don't need a lot of brains to pull a trigger, Mary."

She merely shrugged. "You're right, of course. It's just that I find it hard to get all that mad at Gregory."

"Really?" I said, making no effort to hide my surprise at her reaction-or lack of it. "That's funny; I didn't have any trouble at all getting mad at him."

"I noticed," she said, and smiled. "But then, you didn't watch him grow up. I've been a member of the Community of

Conciliation and lived here in Cairn for more than twenty years. Gregory's very limited, you know. He's the perfect example of the dull little fat boy everybody laughed at and picked on, and who grew up to be town bully. He was in a class for the educable retarded in school here, and he spent a year in a psychiatric hospital after he once tried to kill himself. They put him on some medication when he was there, and he seemed to be a lot mellower when he got out. His father's one of the nicest men you'll ever want to meet, and he blames himself for what's happened to Gregory. I don't want to go into a lot of detail, but that family has seen more than its share of tragedy."

"A lot of families have seen more than their share of tragedy. It's not an excuse."

"I know. But it was Culhane who got Gregory all worked up again with this war and patriotism business. Jesus, it was Culhane who suggested to Gregory that the poor boy enlist in the Marines. Can you imagine? He spent a week bragging all over town about what he was going to do before he actually did it. He did manage to get a recruiter to sign him up, but he was back from boot camp in less than two weeks. His story was that he was too good for the Marines, that he was showing everyone else up. He was discharged on a medical, of course. My point is that Gregory Trex is a victim. The real enemy of Gregory, you, me, and all the other people in the world is a man like Elysius Culhane. Men like Culhane can't stand the thought of living in a peaceful world."

"It's usually the Gregory Trexes of the world you have to deal with, Mary, not the Elysius Culhanes."

"No," she said, shaking her head adamantly. "That's treating the symptoms, not the disease."

"Gregory Trex is a symptom that will kill you."

"The only way to stop being manipulated by men like Elysius Culhane is to refuse to deal with, to fight, their surrogates- people like Gregory. When enough people refuse to fight, then the fighting will simply stop."

"Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and the Community of Conciliation would have lasted about five minutes in Nazi Germany or Pol Pot's Cambodia. Pacifism can only work in a basically just society, where the majority of people are basically just. The problem, Mary, is that it takes only one Gregory Trex with a machine gun to wipe out droves of pacifists, and Trex wouldn't give it a second thought if he thought he could get away with it. What do you do about that?"

"Wait for him to run out of ammunition."

"You're joking, of course."

"I am not," she said evenly, drawing herself up slightly.

"He'll simply reload."

"Then we wait for the people who supply him with the ammunition to stop manufacturing it."

I had better things to do than debate pacifism with Mary Tree, and I didn't want our meeting to end on a sour note. I bowed slightly, extended my hand. "Thank you, Mary."

She took my hand in both of hers, smiled warmly. "I take it you don't think much of the pacifist philosophy."

"My philosophy is do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but keep a sharp lookout for the bad guys. There have always been bad guys, Mary, and there always will be. They'll roll right over you if you let them; first take everything you own and then take your life. If you're not prepared to fight and die for certain things, then you probably don't have much to live for."

"But you believe you also have to be prepared to kill for certain things."

"Yes."

"Then you're back to the danger of being manipulated by demagogues, cowards, bigots, and hypocrites like Elysius Culhane."

"No."

"Who tells the good guys from the bad guys?"

"I do."

"Only you?"

"Only me. Dying and killing are very personal things."

"Men should only, say, fight in wars they personally believe in, and refuse to fight in others?"

"Yep. And then accept the consequences of that decision if the government wants to throw you in jail, or even kill you. It's a hell of a lot better to die for what you believe in than to die-or kill-for something you don't believe in. Each individual must make his or her own decision."

"That makes you an anarchist."

"God, I hope Garth doesn't find out about it. He already has enough names to call me."

Mary Tree laughed lightly, then gripped me gently by the shoulders. "That reminds me of something I have to give you. Just wait here a minute."

I waited, kneading my sore left arm and gazing out the bank of windows at the river. She was back a few minutes later, looking slightly flushed. She was carrying a plastic shopping bag, which she handed to me. It felt heavy.

"This is just between you and me and your brother, Mongo," she said, her pale blue eyes bright with excitement and warmth. "I've been negotiating with a small record company in Los Angeles that wants to sign me to a new recording contract. These are copies of demo tapes I've been working on for the past year. They're not as clean as they should be, and a couple of rhythm tracks still have to be laid in, but, since you say your brother is such a fan of mine, I think he might enjoy listening to them. I've written a lot of the songs myself, which is a departure for me, but there are a number of new Harry Peal songs, and Dylan even gave me one. They're also doing some uncredited backup vocals. I've autographed the tape slipcases."

"Good grief, Mary," I said, hefting the plastic bag. "There must be enough music here for three or four albums. Talk about collectibles. I'll certainly enjoy listening to the tapes, but I'm going to be sure we're standing in Garth's apartment when I give these to him. He's going to lose control of his bodily functions when he hears what I've got here."

Mary Tree's smile grew even broader, warmer. "Also, I want you to bring him out for the day when this other business is behind you. We'll poke around the antique shops, have a picnic lunch up in the quarry, and maybe go sailing, if you'd like."

"I'd like. As for Garth, well, words cannot express."

"I've got everyone else lined up out in the foyer. They'd like to say hello. Okay with you?"

"Fine with me."

I followed her across the ballroom, stopped just before we reached the archway, and took her arm. She turned toward me, a puzzled expression on her face. "Mary," I continued quietly, "I don't want to frighten you, but I'd like you to be very careful for … a while. Until we get this matter of Michael's death cleared up, I want you to watch out for yourself. When you leave the house, even if it's just for a walk into town, always take somebody with you. Okay?"

She studied me for a few moments, and when she spoke her voice had grown slightly husky. "Mongo, you think Michael was murdered, don't you?"

"Yes," I said, feeling my stomach muscles flutter, "I do."

"You didn't seem so certain before."

"I got certain when you told me Michael had supposedly used the canoe without permission. There was a time when Michael loved boating and swimming, and I was willing to grant the possibility that he'd decided to celebrate the new life he was planning to start with you people by going back to doing the things he'd once enjoyed; if so, his being out in a canoe on the Hudson might be explainable. The river kicked up on him, he capsized and drowned."

"But now you don't believe that's what happened."

"No. What I'm not willing to grant is that he'd use somebody else's property-in this case a very special, handcrafted canoe- without asking permission. Michael was a gracious and rigorously courteous man, a stickler for respecting other people's privacy and property. He would never have taken that canoe without permission. I wasn't sure I wanted to tell you my suspicions, not only because I didn't want to frighten you but because somebody might think you know more than you do, and that could place you in danger. But then I realized that people are bound to find out that I've talked to you, and just that fact could be dangerous. That's why I want you to be careful. Yes, I believe Michael was murdered. Now the questions become who did it and why."