Snake Eyes

  Knowing too, to his shame, and horror, that others must be having the identical thought.

  “What a terrible, terrible thing!”

  “What a tragedy!”

  “Poor Julia!—to die like that!”

  “And her grandchildren were planning a birthday party for her, the very next day!”

  “Whoever did it—what a beast!”

  The First Congregational Church of Mount Orion, to which Julia Sutter had belonged for fifty-two years, was packed with mourners at her funeral service. The atmosphere was hushed, appalled; there was a good deal of weeping; even Gina O’Meara, who had not known Julia very well, surprised Michael by dabbing at her eyes several times during the ceremony. Gina claimed to have felt a “daughterly affinity” with the older woman—the first Michael had heard of this sentiment, though he did not doubt its sincerity.

  Though shocked and sickened by the crime, and very sorry for Julia Sutter, Michael O’Meara did not feel so personally threatened by it as Gina and other women in Mount Orion seemed to feel. He understood that they were responding less to the actual death than to the brutality of the attack leading to the death: multiple stab wounds to nearly every part of the body, a crushed skull and larynx. The murderer had used both a blunt weapon (one of Julia’s pewter candlestick holders) and a butcher knife (from Julia’s kitchen), both left behind in the basement, covered in blood; but yielding no fingerprints. Police did not release the information, yet it was generally known that poor Julia’s body had been so hacked and lacerated that one of her breasts was attached to her chest by only a flap of skin. The murderer, who must have been crazed, or on drugs, even took time to splatter and smear blood on one of the basement walls!—unfortunately without leaving finger- or handprints.

  Had he been trying to write something, or indicate something?—or was it simply madness, slinging about his victim’s blood?

  A madman, Michael thought. But a madman with an agenda.

  “Poor, dear Julia!—what a way for her, of all people, to die! I can’t bear to think of it,” Gina said, shuddering. “Don’t talk about it, please, Michael. Unless to tell me the murderer has been found. The monster …”

  Gina set down her drink and pressed her hands against her ears in a naive childlike gesture.

  Michael stroked her thin shoulder, and her ashy-pale hair that felt, to his touch, surprisingly brittle, dry. He said gently, “Honey, it’s possible that Julia died at once. Whoever did it—might have killed her, at once.” His words sounded weak, unconvincing. His mouth was so dry, that must be to blame.

  Gina was squinting up at him as if wanting to believe him, but then she spoke ironically, and shrugged off his touch. “Some comfort!” she laughed. “I hope I can expect as much!”

  Naturally, Michael O’Meara was not the only resident of Mount Orion to have thought at once of Lee Roy Sears, when Julia Sutter’s death became known: many others, knowing of the dispute at the Dumont Center, had made the connection immediately and had notified police. As it turned out, however, Lee Roy Sears had an alibi—provided, to Mount Orion’s amazement, by Valeria Darrell.

  He could not have killed poor Julia, Valeria said, because he had been with her.

  In fact, Lee Roy Sears had been with Valeria Darrell, both insisted, on November 14, 15, 16, at Valeria’s cottage (which was in fact a spacious split-level house) in Cape May, New Jersey, on the ocean. The house was isolated, but there was evidence, indisputable evidence, that the two were together on the night of November 15, for it was that night, at precisely 10:40 P.M., that Lee Roy Sears had driven Valeria, in Valeria’s black Porsche, to the emergency wing of the Cape May General Hospital, for treatment of “minor facial injuries”—a fractured nose and lacerations suffered, Valeria said, when she’d fallen from the steep wooden stairs leading from her cottage down to the beach. The medical report noted a mild degree of intoxication.

  Hospital records showed that Valeria had been in the emergency room for only forty-five minutes. It was her—and Lee Roy Sears’s—claim that, during this time, he was waiting for her outside, in the car; when she left, she simply walked out, to join him. No one at the hospital could swear to having seen Lee Roy Sears after 10:45, and there were conflicting opinions about whether, in fact, he had actually been seen at the time. (The emergency room reception was very busy at that time of night.)

  Michael could not help but calculate: it is approximately two hundred fifty miles from Cape May to Mount Orion, on the Garden State Parkway; a four-hour drive. Julia Sutter had died in the late morning of November 16.

  Michael could not help but think, though the thought sickened him, Sears could have done it.

  But, how unlikely!—that, granted Lee Roy Sears had been in Cape May at all, he would have driven back to Mount Orion that night, for the sole purpose of killing an elderly woman. Certainly, he denied it. And Valeria Darrell, most adamantly, in the eyes of Mount Orion most shamelessly, denied it.

  Lee Roy was questioned by police, however. But not detained. For what evidence was there linking him to the crime?—to even the vicinity of the crime? After police released him, he spoke with Michael O’Meara on the phone, upset, tearful, “Fuckers!—trying to blame me!—persecuting me!—I wouldn’t hurt no old lady, not even her!—damn her!—calling me ‘obscene’!—’cause I’m an ex-con, huh?—’cause I ain’t lily-white, huh?—fuckers!” Lee Roy spoke in this vein for some minutes, breathing hard, and Michael, deeply moved, simply let him talk. He was relieved to have heard from Lee Roy, with whom he hadn’t spoken in two or three weeks, for, now that Lee Roy had his own studio, of sorts, in a loft in a former warehouse in North Putnam, and was no longer associated with the Dumont Center, Michael saw him less frequently; though he continued to think of him almost constantly.

  Even when Michael wasn’t thinking of Lee Roy Sears, he was thinking of him. Somehow, it had to do with the dryness in his mouth.

  Lee Roy talked, incensed, indignant, and finally said, as if he had been leading up to this question, somewhat timorously, yet, as it came out, belligerently, “You believe me, Mr. O’Meara, don’t you?”

  The question hung in the air for a brief moment.

  Then Michael said, almost explosively, “My God, Lee Roy!—do you have to ask? And please, I’ve told you, call me ‘Michael.’”

  (He did not tell Gina, he would not have wished to tell Gina, that, so constant was his worry about Lee Roy Sears now, coupled with his more reasonable worry about the Peverol suit, he had gotten in the habit of taking Liloprane nearly every day, sometimes twice a day. A temporary measure, a mere expediency—but, to his annoyance, his mouth was dry.)

  Despite Michael O’Meara’s efforts on his behalf, with both Clyde Somerset and Julia Sutter, Lee Roy Sears was no longer “artist-in-residence” at the Dumont Center.

  As Clyde said several times, it wasn’t just the obscene art—“I can’t, and I won’t, have anyone that volatile on my staff.”

  Yet, at Michael’s suggestion, the severance terms were not ungenerous: though Lee Roy had taught the art-therapy class for only six weeks of the fall semester, he would receive his full stipend, through December. He was allowed to keep any and all art supplies with which he’d been working. More importantly—and this, Michael O’Meara had insisted upon, with lawyerly sagacity—the exact reasons for his dismissal were not to be aired. The issue was to be, publicly, a disagreement over aesthetic principles.

  What is “art,” and what is “pornography”; how do we define the “obscene”; is an institution like the Dumont Center to be guided by “community standards”; and what, in fact, are “community standards”?

  For weeks, the Mount Orion Courier published columns of passionate letters from readers, under the headlines PRO and CON: the PRO readers stoutly defended the right of the artist to determine “art,” and the CON readers stoutly defended the right of the community to determine “obscenity.” The Courier tried to maintain an editorial equanimity, for Mount Orion was, oddly, both
a conservative community and a liberal community, depending upon the specificity of issues. The editor requested an interview with Lee Roy Sears to balance an interview with Clyde Somerset, but, following Michael O’Meara’s advice, Lee Roy declined.

  It would be wiser, more prudent, Michael said, for Lee Roy to simply withdraw, with dignity—“Since, after all, they’re fulfilling the financial terms of your arrangement.”

  Lee Roy shrugged and didn’t disagree. Since that outburst of his at the Center, he was unusually taciturn; sober. He’d confessed to Michael that he must have blacked out, since he could remember smashing the clay figures only vaguely: as if he’d watched someone else smash them, in a bad dream.

  Michael said, “I wouldn’t tell anyone else that, Lee Roy. Mr. Sigman, for instance. He might not understand.”

  Lee Roy laughed mirthlessly. “Like, shit, I’m gonna tell anybody anything!—except you.”

  When Lee Roy’s art-therapy class was canceled by the Center, his students were given the prerogative of switching into other, more conventional art classes there; but their questions regarding their former instructor were not answered. The official statement was, Mr. Sears was no longer on the staff.

  Ned Fiske demanded to know, from Clyde Somerset, if Lee Roy had had a breakdown, or if he’d been sent back to prison. Clyde said, diplomatically, “He hasn’t been sent back to prison.”

  To Michael O’Meara, Clyde said, “Don’t you think that man should have a psychiatric evaluation?” Michael said, “He has. He will. It’s part of his parole regimen.” Was this true? Michael had no idea, really. The thought had simply flown into his head. “He’s under medication, too.” Clyde said, “Something like Lithium?”

  Michael said, “Something like Lithium.”

  Fortunately for Michael, it had not been necessary for him to drive to Putnam, to see H. Sigman in person. He’d talked with the parole officer on the phone one day, and the conversation had gone unexpectedly well.

  Michael told H. Sigman, who’d heard of the incident from Clyde Somerset, that Lee Roy had been dismissed because of the complaint of an elderly woman who was a benefactor of the Center. If the woman had not been a wealthy benefactor, Clyde Somerset would never have dismissed him.

  “It’s politics, then?” H. Sigman asked shrewdly.

  “It’s politics,” Michael said.

  “Something about nekkid ladies—‘sculptors’?”

  “‘Sculptures,’” Michael said. “The old woman was just shocked, seeing nude figures. You know—nudes. Common subjects for art.”

  “I know. I know they’re common.” H. Sigman spoke quickly, enthusiastically. It was clear that a call from Michael O’Meara was a special event in his day, and he did not mean to take it lightly. “In the old days—I mean, ancient Greeks, Romans—they did nekkid statues all the time. That was the style.”

  “That’s right,” Michael said, pleased. “It’s the style now.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. Lee Roy Sears is in that tradition.”

  “Lee Roy Sears is in that tradition.”

  “He told me, he was almost crying, they hadn’t given him much of a chance there. Poor bastard.”

  Michael was nodding, as if H. Sigman, or Lee Roy Sears, could see him. He said, “That’s so. But they’ll regret it.”

  Michael O’Meara had visited Julia Sutter, on the Sunday following the Friday of Lee Roy Sears’s outburst: he believed that, could he persuade her to withdraw her complaint, Clyde Somerset would reinstate Lee Roy. “She isn’t a vindictive person—a woman of her age, and class. A Christian woman.”

  Had he spoken aloud?—a low, contemplative murmur, harmonious with the sound of the fine-tuned engine and the soothing thrum thrum thrum of the blood pulsing through his veins.

  “A bad habit: talking aloud. So stop.”

  Michael O’Meara had never been one to talk to himself, even when he was indisputably alone.

  For how can one be certain, that one is indisputably alone?

  He’d telephoned Julia, and, hospitable as she was, she immediately invited him to tea—“That most civilized of customs.”

  Michael would have preferred a drink, but he was grateful to be invited, entering the house on Linwood Avenue with a young man’s sense of deference, courtesy. Neither he nor Gina had ever seen the inside of the Sutter house, which was a well-known Mount Orion landmark, an early eighteenth-century house to which additions had been built over a period of many years. The outside boasted a historical marker; it was local legend that George Washington had in fact spent some time in this house, preparatory to his battle in the Great Swamp. In an old cemetery close by, a number of American soldiers of the Revolution lay buried with their Hessian enemies, all killed in the battle of Mount Orion, 1780. Julia Sutter alluded to such events as if they were not remote and of a time hardly contiguous with our own; in her household of meticulously preserved antique furnishings, in her elegant if rather dark drawing room with its tall narrow windows, faded velvet drapes, Currier and Ives engravings, these episodes did not seem in fact remote.

  Michael O’Meara had frequently wondered, during the past few years when Gina had become actively involved in Mount Orion organizations—how is it, the preservation of historical things, old landmarks, old furniture, local lore, seems to have fallen into the province of women?—well-to-do philanthropic ladies, like Julia Sutter? Don’t these good ladies know that history is mainly battles among men, and battles among men are mainly carnage? What are the good ladies celebrating?

  Julia Sutter seated her visitor in a hard-cushioned Federal chair beside an unlit, just slightly drafty fireplace, and seated herself, wrapped in a black knitted shawl, on a settee facing him; she served him, almost immediately, Earl Gray tea so strong it left a scrim of bitterness in his mouth, and rock-hard, very sweet “biscuits” out of a Harrods tin, which shattered into crumbs when he bit into one. “Thank you!” Michael was saying repeatedly, and, “Delicious!” and “No, I don’t think I’ll have more!”

  He was uneasy, maybe a bit anxious; he saw on the mantel, beside a pair of heavy, handsome pewter candlesticks and a vase of dried and dusty wildflowers, an antique clock with a beautifully carved cabinet, its pendulum swinging slowly, somehow ponderously, and its ornate hands at 12 and 7: and he could not think, for a moment, what time it actually was—7:00 A.M. or P.M.; or 12:35 A.M. or P.M.

  Elsewhere in the room, antique clocks were ticking, occasionally chiming the hour, the half-hour, the quarter-hour. Each of the clocks told its own time—seemed to inhabit, quaintly, and stubbornly, its own time. Michael glanced covertly at his watch and saw that it was 4:45: his time. Strapped tightly to his wrist.

  Elderly Mrs. Sutter regarded her young visitor with grave, gray, bemused eyes. She was a handsome woman, if a bit thin-lipped; with a cap of white hair, white eyebrows and -lashes; sharp cheekbones; an air both imperial and kindly. She had powdered her face for the occasion and was wearing an odd, yet attractive, outfit—a crimson Tartan-plaid dress that fitted her frame loosely, and youthful high-heeled shoes. Over her shoulders the black net of the shawl lay cozily. Julia Sutter was an heiress and the widow of a man many times a millionaire. Her voice was unexpectedly loud, like that of a judge speaking to an entire courtroom. “Young man, you appear—you won’t think me rude?—a bit distracted.”

  Michael smiled. “I don’t think so, Mrs. Sutter. I—”

  “Please call me Julia.”

  “—I don’t think so, Julia. I know why I’m here. I’d like to—”

  “Yes, yes, I know, I know why you’re here,” Julia Sutter said, as if sympathetically. “You’re here to defend that vile, loathsome, disgusting man, that ‘Seals’—‘Sears’—and his utterly filthy ‘art,’ and it won’t do, young man, it won’t do.”

  As Michael opened his mouth to speak, Mrs. Sutter said another time, still sympathetically, “It won’t do.”

  Michael stared at the woman, dismayed. A china cup trembled in his fingers.
r />   “But, Mrs. Sutter—”

  “I’ve told Clyde, and he is totally in agreement—the Dumont Center must preserve standards. Mount Orion has always been a community of standards. So don’t hand me that persiflage, young man, of ‘the freedom of the artist.’ I don’t buy it! Your artist-friend’s freedom ends where my freedom begins, and his freedom to commit filthy, unspeakable pornographic ‘art’ ends where my pocketbook begins! You know that—now, don’t interrupt!—this is my house!—and I know that, and he knows that, now. And, as I’ve said, Clyde is totally in agreement.” Mrs. Sutter drew her shawl more tightly about her shoulders. In a different tone of voice she said, “Clyde and Susanne—they’re so very nice, don’t you think?”

  Michael stared, blinking. He might have been struck on the head—yet he managed to smile, if weakly. He said, “Yes, they are. I—”

  “And your wife—is it Jean?—Gina?”

  “Gina—”

  “That pretty girl with the lovely hair—my color, once. It is natural?”

  “Natural—what?”

  “—very close friends, are you, of Mr. Schatten?—that bright young—is it attorney?—developer? I see you so often together, it must be very nice.”

  Michael tried to think. Schatten? Dwight Schatten?—a Mount Orion man of young middle age, with a reputation for being a very sharp lawyer. But Schatten was not in the O’Mearas’ circle, and neither Michael nor Gina knew him well. Michael didn’t even know if he was still married.

  Michael cleared his throat and said, cautiously, “Mrs. Sutter, I think—”

  “‘Julia’—please! You make me feel old as the hills!”

  “—if you knew Lee Roy Sears better, you—”

  “Lord forbid!” Mrs. Sutter laughed.

  “—would be sympathetic, I think, with—his situation. He has had many disadvantages—”

  “So have we all, but we don’t go around committing obscenities, do we!”

  “—he was in Vietnam, and he—”

  “He was in prison, I know that.”