To Play the Fool Page 7
“I would, yes. Have you had lunch?”
How the man could think of food with the stench of the autopsy still in his nose…
“No. You’re going for a sandwich? Bring one for the good brother, too. He didn’t eat much of his breakfast.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I’ve changed.” He hung up. In the months since she’d been on active homicide duty, Kate had forgotten Al’s almost ritual cleansing after witnessing an autopsy. The smell was pervasive and tenacious, clinging to hair and clothes, and after the first couple of times she, too, had made a point of taking along a change of clothes and some lemon-scented shampoo.
Kate went back to Erasmus. He was sitting where she’d left him, the small green book open in his left hand, his right arm tucked up against his chest, with the fist curled into the line of his jaw. It was a peculiar position, and Kate stood studying him for a moment until it came to her: That was how he had stood on the seminary lawn, with the right side of his body wrapped around the tall staff. Except now there was no staff inside the fist.
“What’s that you’re reading?” she asked. He closed it and held it out to her.
Apostolic Fathers
I
Translated by Kirsopp Lake
She opened it curiously. The first thing she noticed was that it was a library book, property of the Graduate Theological Union Library. It was divided up into chapters titled “Clement,” “Ignatius to Polycarp,” “The Didache.” In the text of the book, the left-hand page was in Greek, which Kate recognized but could not read, with the right-hand page its English translation. Erasmus, she thought, had been reading the left side of the book. Kate read a few lines, which had to do with repenting, salvation, seeking God, and fleeing evil, then closed the book and let it fall open again, something she’d once seen Hawkin do, although she supposed it wouldn’t mean much in a library book. She read aloud: “ ‘Wherefore, brethren, let us forsake our sojourning in this world, and do the will of him who called us.’ ” She let the pages flip and sort themselves out, finding: “ ‘Let us also be imitators of those who went about “in the skins of goats and sheep.” ’ Yes, I’ve seen a few of those downtown lately.” She let the book fall shut and handed it back to him. “It’s going to be about half an hour before we can get started. Sorry about that. Do you want something to drink? Coffee? A toilet?” At her last word, he stood up with an air of expectation. She escorted him down the hall, brought him back, and left him at the desk with his Apostolic Fathers while she retreated to Hawkin’s office, keeping one eye on Erasmus.
It was closer to forty-five minutes before Hawkin arrived—his hair still damp—smelling faintly of lemons and strongly of onions from the pair of white bags he dropped on her desk.
“I didn’t know if your religious fanatic was a vegetarian, so I got him cheese.” Kate waited while Al dug the sandwiches out and handed her one, then she picked up a packet of french fries and a can of Coke and took them to Erasmus.
“Just another ten minutes,” she told him. “There’s cheese and avocado in that; hope that’s all right.”
“My mouth shall show forth thy praise,” he replied gravely.
“Er…you’re welcome.”
She went back and found Hawkin halfway through his sandwich.
“What are you grinning at?” he said somewhat indistinctly.
“I’ve dealt with nuts before,” she told him, “but nobody quite like Erasmus. Is this that chicken salad with the almonds and orange things? Great.” The french fries were thick and crisp, and for several minutes the only noises to come from Hawkin’s desk were the sounds of food being inhaled.
“So,” said Hawkin eventually, “tell me about our friend down the hall.”
“Well, he’s going to be an interesting interview. He speaks only in quotations—the Bible, Shakespeare, that kind of thing—so of course there’re a lot a direct questions he can’t answer.”
“Is he coherent?”
“Yes, in a roundabout sort of way. There’s usually a kind of key idea in his quote that answers whatever question you’ve asked, but sometimes you have to dig for it. He usually hesitates before he speaks, to think about what he’s going to say, I guess. Some questions he just doesn’t answer at all; others, he answers with body language or facial expressions. When he really wants you to understand, though, he just keeps at it until he’s sure you’ve got whatever it is he’s driving at.”
“Interview by inference,” Hawkin grumbled. “How the hell can we transcribe a whole session filled with shrugs and eloquent silences?”
“It might not be so bad. The problem is interpreting the meaning of his words. For example, it looks like he’s confessed to John’s murder, but I may have misunderstood him.”
“Explain.”
Kate told him what had happened in the restaurant. “And Dean Gardner agreed that to have Erasmus using the words of a biblical murderer could be taken as an admission of guilt. So I read him his rights and brought him here.” Kate decided it wasn’t necessary to mention the little scene outside.
Hawkin shook his head and then began to laugh. “As you say, it’s nice to have a variety of nuts to choose from.” He drained his Coke and swept the rubbish into the wastepaper basket. “Let’s go see what sense we can shake loose from the holy man.”
Eight
…A camaraderie actually founded on courtesy.
At home, sitting at the dinner table, Kate asked a question.
“Do you know anything about fools?”
Lee finished chewing her mouthful of lasagna and swallowed.
“It’s not a clinically recognized category of mental illness, if that’s what you’re asking. Far too widespread.”
“Not this kind of fool. This one thinks of himself as some kind of prophet, spouting the Bible.”
“You mean a Fool?” Lee said in surprise, her emphasis placing a capital letter on it. “As in Holy Fool?”
“As in,” Kate agreed.
“How on earth did you find one of those?”
“He’s connected with that cremation in the park. Seems to be a sort of friend or maybe spiritual leader, if that isn’t too farfetched, to the street people in the area.”
“That would make sense, I suppose.”
“So what do you know about fools?”
Kate watched Lee take another forkful while she thought.
“Not an awful lot, off the top of my head. It’s a Jungian archetype, of course, a way of counteracting the tendency of social and religious groups to become concretized. The Trickster is a combination of subtle wisdom and profound stupidity, a person both divine and animalistic.” She pinched off another square of lasagna with the edge of her fork, ate it. “Many of the most influential reforms, certainly in religious history, have been made by people who fit the description of fools. St. Francis, for example, was a classic fool: He was the son of a wealthy family, who suddenly decided it wasn’t enough, so he gave it all away and went to live on the streets, preaching simplicity. Let’s see. In the Middle Ages, the court fool was the only one who could speak the truth to the king. Clowns are a degenerated form of fool. Charlie Chaplin used traces of Trickster behavior. I don’t know, Kate, I’d have to do some research on it.” She chewed for a while longer, on the food and on the idea. “You know, I vaguely remember this guy at a conference, years and years ago, in the Berkeley days maybe, who presented himself as a fool. A very deliberate and self-conscious evocation of the archetypal figure—it must have been a Jungian conference, come to think of it, one of those weekend things sponsored by UC Extension or the Jung Institute.”
“Do you remember anything about him?”
“Not really. Tall fellow, had a beard, I think. White. Him, I mean, not the beard—he was young, not more than about thirty.”
“You’re sure about the age?”
“Kate, love, this was—what, fifteen years ago? All I remember is that he was taller than I was, hairy but neat, wearing motley and carrying this skin
ny little cane with an ugly carving on it, and trying hard to project an aura of wisdom and self-confidence, although I think at the time I was not impressed. I picture him as uncomfortable, and I think I wondered if he felt silly. Memory is too unreliable to be sure, but I’m fairly sure if he’d been much older I would have been even more struck by his lack of self-assurance. I take it your fool is too old.”
“He is. I’d say he’s a very healthy seventy, seventy-five.”
“No, I don’t think the man I remember could have been anywhere near fifty. Is there no way of finding out who he is?”
“We’re making inquiries, but so far everything’s negative. Nobody knows where he came from; he was not carrying any ID. He won’t tell us anything.”
“He doesn’t talk?”
“Oh, he talks. Just doesn’t always make sense. He speaks in phrases taken from someplace—the Bible, Shakespeare, things like that.”
“Everything he says?”
“So far as I can see. I don’t know, of course; I’m just a Catholic, and everyone knows Catholics don’t read their Bible. But I’ve been told that.” She explained about Dean Philip Gardner and the Graduate Theological Union. “He says they’re quotes, and I’ll take his word for it. They’re definitely not straight speech.”
“How strange.”
“You’d say that isn’t standard behavior for a fool?”
“I don’t know that there is such a thing as standard behavior among fools,” replied Lee, “rules of behavior being almost a contradiction in terms. Still, I wouldn’t have thought that speaking only in quotations was completely consistent with being a fool. In fact, I’d have said fools would be the last people to constrict themselves in that way. Spontaneity would be their hallmark, clever wordplay, and a definite, um, suppleness in mind and body. Two things that I possess not, at the moment. I’d have to make a deliberate effort and research the topic before I could give you more than a superficial idea, I’m afraid.”
“It’s not superficial, and you’re doing fine. It’s very helpful, especially knowing there was a fool in the woodwork ten or fifteen years ago, even if it’s a different man. Would you like to look into it for me, see if you can find out who he was, or maybe find someone like him?”
“For you, or for the department?”
“I suppose it would be for me. I doubt they’d pay you a consultancy fee, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It isn’t that. I’m just…I don’t know.”
“What is it, sweetheart?” Kate could see that Lee was troubled but couldn’t understand why.
“Oh nothing. No, I guess it is something,” said the therapist. “I just don’t know how I feel about getting involved in another case.”
“Oh God, then don’t, hon.” She took Lee’s hand from the table, kissed it, held it tightly. “I don’t want you to touch any of my cases; I don’t want them to touch you. The question of who fools are or were is of no earthly importance; I can’t imagine it has the slightest relevance to the case. This man who calls himself Brother Erasmus, he interests me, that’s all. I don’t know what to make of him and I was curious about what you might know.” She did not add, And I thought it might interest you, give you a project that was challenging but not strenuous. Think again, Kate. The last and only time Lee had been involved with one of her lover’s cases, she’d ended up with a bullet tearing through two of her vertebrae and a multiple murderer dead on her living room floor, ten feet from where they were now sitting. A lack of enthusiasm for future involvement was not only understandable, it was to be encouraged.
“It was a bad idea, hon. Forget it.” She gave Lee’s hand a squeeze and let it go, but Lee did not immediately resume her meal, and Kate kicked herself for her stupidity.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Lee said slowly. “When I said I don’t know how I feel about it, I meant just that: I don’t know. I think I’m expecting to feel apprehension, but I honestly don’t know if I am. If anything, there’s an absence of emotional overtones, just a vague interest, intellectual almost. Perhaps the apprehension is so strong that I’m blocking it. There’s a degree—What are you laughing at?”
Kate wasn’t laughing, but she was grinning widely. “God, you sound like a therapist, Lee.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “I am a therapist.”
“I know,” Kate said, loving her, loving the surge of affection and exasperation and normality that had hit her, and then she really was laughing, and Lee with her. When it had washed on, Lee picked up her fork again and continued where they had left off.
“If it’s just for you, I’d be happy to see what I can do. Jon has the modem up and running; this would be a good exercise in learning how to use it in research.”
“If you want to, if you have the time, I’d appreciate it. But I want it kept on a purely theoretical level. If you find someone, I don’t want you talking to them, even through the computer. I don’t want your identity out there at all. The last thing we want is the press standing in our petunias and looking in our windows, and the case is colorful enough already without you getting involved.”
“Actually, I think Jon dug out the petunias and put in some sweet peas, but I agree. Newspaper reporters know how to use computer nets better than I do. Now, tell me more about this fool of yours.”
Dinner progressed with the story of Erasmus, told as entertainment, with the dark moment of the cremation and the possible confession downplayed and the conversation in the parking lot behind the Hall of Justice omitted altogether.
Jon came into the kitchen just as Kate was putting on the coffee. He raised his eyebrows at the plates in the sink.
“Aren’t you a clever girl, then?” he murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“She hasn’t eaten that much in a month,” he said, and then in a normal volume added, “Well, toodles, ducks, I’ll be seein’ ya. Dr. Samson has his beeper on, so buzz me if you have to go out. Arrivederci, Leo,” he called.
“Have a good time, Jon,” she called from the living room, and the door opened and shut behind him.
Kate loaded the dishwasher, put the leftovers in the refrigerator, and took the coffee back into the living room. The television was on and Lee was on the sofa, slightly flushed from the effort of clambering from the wheelchair. Kate stood and looked down at her, smiling.
“You look gorgeous,” she said.
“Tamara came today and gave me a cut and a shampoo. You should let her do yours; she’s pretty good.”
“It’s not your hair. It’s you.”
“Poor Kate, going blind from all the paperwork. Come and sit down for a while. There’s an old Maggie Smith movie on Channel Nine.” Lee had a thing for Maggie Smith.
“The chair’s a better place if you’re going to watch TV. You’ll get a stiff neck sitting here.”
“I thought maybe if I sat here I could tempt you away from your paperwork. Then I can lean on you and I won’t get a stiff neck.”
Kate put both cups on the table and obediently inserted herself behind Lee, who leaned into the circle of her left arm. The movie had just started. They drank their coffee. Kate began to find the warm smell of Lee’s curly yellow hair distracting.
“Did your mother pronounce it dahl-ya or day-li-ya?” asked Lee suddenly.
“What?”
’Those hideous flowers,” said Lee, gesturing at the screen with her cup. “English people tend to use three syllables, but I always thought there were two. I should check in the dictionary,” said the scholar.
“Do you want me to go get it for you?” asked Kate, her face buried in Lee’s hair. Her left hand, having migrated from the back of the sofa, was pressed flat against Lee’s stomach, her forefinger bent and gently circling the rim of one of Lee’s buttons.
“Not just now.” Lee slowly finished her coffee. Kate’s was going cold. “Don’t you love it, a woman with bright red hair wearing that color of red? Only Maggie Smith could pull it off.”
They never did see the end of the movie.
Murder cases not solved within two or three days tend to drag on into weeks, and this was no exception. The fourth and fifth days passed without any startling revelations. Kate and Al Hawkin had agreed that Brother Erasmus was not likely to run, so after Thursday’s fruitless question-and-statement session he was handed back his staff and allowed to walk back out into the city of Saint Francis. Kate, rather to her surprise, found herself making a detour from a Sunday morning shopping trip to drive slowly through Golden Gate Park, where eventually she came across Erasmus, dressed like a tramp and walking along the road in the midst of a group of street people. The raggle-taggle congregation might have been from another world compared to the group of his admirers in Berkeley, except for one thing: on these faces was an identical look, a blend of pleasure, awe, and love.
Hawkin saw him once, too, although his sighting was accidental, when he passed Erasmus on his way home from work one afternoon. Erasmus was not wearing his cassock then, either, but a pair of jeans and a multicolored wool jacket. He was sitting in the winter sun on a low brick wall, reading a small green book and eating an ice cream cone.
The millstones of justice continued to grind. Their John Doe’s lab work showed no signs of alcohol, drugs, or even nicotine and indicated that his last meal had been a large piece of beefsteak, green beans, and baked potatoes at least six hours before his death. Death had been due to a blow with a blunt object to the right side of the skull, which, judging from the angle, had been delivered by a right-handed person standing behind the victim as he sat on the stump a few feet from where Harry and Luis had found his body. Death had been by no means instantaneous, although unconsciousness would have been.
John had bled slowly, both internally and onto the ground, for as much as an hour before his heart stopped.
There was one other piece of possible evidence, which Hawkin interpreted as sinister, though Kate privately reserved judgment; twenty feet from the body, at the foot of a tree, had been found a lone cigarette stub that had been pinched off, not ground out. Oddly, though, the drift of ashes on the ground around the tree was considerably more than could be made from one cigarette. The crime scene investigator estimated that five to eight cigarettes could have produced that quantity of ash. There was another, smaller pile of ash just in front of the stump. In three places at the site were found boot prints, none of them complete, but together an indication that a pair of size nine men’s heeled boots, not cowboy boots but similar, had been there within a day of the time John had died.