Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

he said, nodding thoughtfully to himself. “Suppose Warren was on to something. Suppose, for example, he was close to discovering clear proof of the fraudulence of the Mormons’ sacred texts.” He chuckled rather grimly.

“They must have found whatever it was, then,” Mickelsson said. “Anyway, I haven’t found it.”

“Mmm,” Lawler said, nodding, closing his eyes again. “The trouble with that is the fire up at the Thomas Sprague house. If I haven’t misunderstood you, that took place after the search of your house.”

“I don’t follow,” Mickelsson said.

Lawler remained motionless except that his arms went out to the sides in a gesture of something like impatience. “It may have been just a coincidence, that’s possible,” he said. “But first your house is searched, and then, it seems, this Thomas Sprague’s house is searched: searched so thoroughly—torn apart, as you say—that it had to be burned, presumably in the hope that the evidence of its having been torn apart would be destroyed. Or perhaps burned to hide evidence that the old woman had been murdered, as no doubt Sprague himself was murdered—possibly tortured first—before or afterward.”

Mickelsson shuddered.

Lawler too seemed uneasy, shifting restlessly, furtively scratching himself, as if mere thought might bring the murderers nearer. “What it suggests would seem to be this,” he said, grimacing, closing his eyes again. “They could find nothing here, when they searched your house, and it occurred to them that whatever it was they were looking for—whatever Professor Warren had been looking for, in his attempt to discredit the religion he’d turned against—might have been found by the Spragues who lived here before the doctor and given by them to the man who was supposed to be their heir, the man whose house burned.” He opened his eyes part way to judge Mickelsson’s reaction.

Mickelsson shook his head, thinking of the two humble Mormons who’d come to his house, then of the horde of gentle, horse-faced people he’d seen baptized in the river. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “It just doesn’t seem—”

Lawler tilted slightly forward. “Then why was Thomas Sprague’s house burned? Who cut his throat?”

Mickelsson started, his blood turning to ice. “Wait a minute!” he said. He stood up, needing to pace. “Michael Nugent was found with his throat cut.” He shot a look at Lawler. “Does anyone know it was suicide? Was there a note? I don’t think I heard of one.” His next words came more quickly, and he paced again, pushing his hands down into his pockets, the pipe in his right fist. “He was a friend of Professor Warren’s. If whoever killed Warren got the idea that Warren had talked with Nugent … And listen to this.” His strides became longer, more purposeful. “Nugent’s friend Randy was run into on his bike, almost killed.” He felt a tingling sensation, a faint dizziness like rising fear as he told Lawler about the black kids at the house where Randy Wilson lived, or had once lived. If Nugent had in fact been murdered, no wonder they hadn’t been eager to tell Mickelsson where he’d find Randy.

Suddenly Mickelsson stopped in his tracks, his stomach knotting, acid filling it as if poured from a bottle. He remembered the old car in his vision of the bicycle accident, the same well-kept old car he’d seen parked in front of Donnie’s the night he’d killed the fat man—the same car now parked in front of Mickelsson’s house. He stood perfectly still, heart slamming. That was why the fat man had been there in his apartment when it seemed he couldn’t be; it was another fat man he’d looked down on from Donnie’s window and seen getting out of the car that night—another fat man whom Warren, as his wife had heard him say on the phone, was afraid of. Mickelsson’s mind shied back and he looked again at Lawler, childlike in his black suit, his eyes closed to slits. There could be no doubt. He himself had told Lawler that Nugent was Warren’s friend. He himself, he saw in increasing horror, had guided Lawler to Randy Wilson.

His face, he knew, had gone ashen. Lawler studied him, then sighed and, with evident reluctance—the hands moving slowly, like an underwater movement—drew something from his pocket. It was Mickelsson’s watch, his gift to the boy in the hospital. Lawler dropped it gently on the glass-topped table and, in answer to the shocked question on Mickelsson’s face, just perceptibly nodded, like Brahman when he grants a request. Mickelsson looked at the shotgun beside the door, but too late. In his right hand, as if he’d had it there all along—no doubt he’d slipped it from under the handkerchief—Edward Lawler held a snub-nosed pistol.

“End of preliminary inquisition,” Lawler said gently, faintly smiling. “Yes, your surmise is correct. I am a Son of Dan.”

“You son of a bitch!” Mickelsson whispered. A blush shot up into his face and adrenaline made his brain crackle. His lips felt puffy. He almost rushed the man, indifferent to the toy-like gun, but confusion checked him, a bundle of stupid doubts and questions that stopped him more effectively than a bullet could have done. He doubted that all this was real: he’d had psychotic episodes, he occasionally saw ghosts; so perhaps in fact he was imagining all this, or twisting actuality signals into something surreal; fantastic gloss. He had other questions too, dozens, but one stood out: he could not remember for sure whether or not it was the case that a Son of Dan was what he’d thought at first, a member of the old assassination squad of the Mormons. It was a ridiculous question, he saw when his mind cleared—of course they were—but by then the confusion had stopped his initial impulse. If he were to rush Lawler now, he would have to do it by courage, and that was not so easy. As if on its own, independent of his will, his brain began to calculate odds, seek out the ways of cunning. He remembered the lesson