The Church of Dead Girls (41 page)

The driver opened the door and got out. Slowly he lifted a rifle from the rack above the back of the seat. All his actions were unhurried. He left the truck's door open and its lights on. The snowflakes in the high beams looked immense. Sheila couldn't see the man's face; the snow was too thick. She called back into the bar. “Hey, Bud, there's a guy with a rifle. Call the police!” Then Sheila hurried into the street, rubbing her arms with her hands against the cold.

Donald Malloy ran across Main Street toward City Hall and the Civil War monument, where the bronze soldier stood at attention with his musket and bayonet. On the obelisk were the names of men from Aurelius who had fought in the war. Bronze stars marked the names of those who had died. The snow seemed to spiral around the monument.

Donald paused by the monument to catch his breath. That was when the man from the pickup truck raised the rifle to his shoulder. The rifle shot, muffled by the snow, made a dull crack. Donald staggered, started to fall, then caught himself against the leg of the bronze soldier. He turned toward the man who had shot him. He took a step forward and started to speak. The man with the rifle kept it against his shoulder, as if preparing to shoot again. Donald stopped and stood motionless. Then he shook his head, more to clear it than in disagreement.

He stood by the monument with the snow swirling around him. His head seemed to sink into his shoulders, making him thick and rectangular in his big overcoat. “Coffin-shaped,” said Sheila. Then he turned away and began to walk down the sidewalk. He didn't walk straight. The man with the rifle at his shoulder sighted down the barrel. He could have blown Donald's head off, but he didn't fire. Instead, he lowered the rifle slowly and began walking after him down the street. Sheila followed behind.

Donald stumbled a few feet and then fell to his knees. He threw away his pistol and it skittered through the snow. He leaned forward on his knees with his forehead in the snow. He stayed that way for a moment. Then, without haste, he felt through his pockets and withdrew a key. He fit it into the attaché case. The latches popped up with a little shiver of light. Opening the case, he took out what first looked to Sheila to be a square piece of metal. Light glittered on its surface. Sheila saw it was a cleaver. Donald raised the cleaver over his shoulder. His left hand and forearm were flat on the snowy sidewalk. He held the cleaver high over his head. Four cars came to a halt by the monument, including a police car. Abruptly, Donald brought the cleaver down hard on his wrist. His whole body arched and his head bent back so he stared straight upward. His yellow boots kicked up. Blood spilled across the snow. Slowly, he raised the cleaver again and swung it down on his wrist. Then he brought it down a third time. Sheila screamed. Donald's hand tumbled away into the snow. A high arc of blood spewed from his wrist, turning the snow red. Donald staggered to his feet, dropping the cleaver.

“Malloy!” someone shouted.

Donald didn't seem to hear him. Gently, he picked up the severed hand, wiped the snow from it against his overcoat and set the hand in the attaché case. He closed the lid. Sheila could hear the latch click. Blood kept gushing from his wrist into the snow. Donald straightened up and took a step away from the men who were now getting out of their cars. His arm with the missing hand swung at his side, spraying blood. The men began to move toward him. Donald took another step. Then he stopped, swayed slightly, looked up at the white flakes cutting across the streetlight, and fell forward onto his face as red drops scattered in half a circle, making an arc in the fresh snow.

The men in the street hurried forward but Dr. Malloy was first. He approached the attaché case and flipped open the lid with the barrel of the rifle. Four hands lay on a cushion fastened down by elastic. A fifth hand, Donald's hand, lay across them. Except for Donald's hand, they hardly looked human. Their fingers were curled as if trying to clutch something, a ball or a breath of air. The oldest hand was dark brown and skeletal, its skin like leather. Its fingernails were painted a dull red. The most recent hand still had some flesh color. It seemed like a child's hand. The other two were gnarled and dry: monkey hands. The skin at the wrists was scalloped and puckered. Donald's hand was bright pink and looked absurdly healthy in comparison. It lay across the others like a soft tuber. Blood oozed from its stump onto the red velvet.

Allen Malloy stared down at the hands as the other men joined him.

“What is it?” said Sheila Murphy. “What is it?” She pushed forward so she could see.

“Dr. Malloy,” said someone coming through the men. It was Captain Percy.

The doctor turned, wiping the snow from his face. He seemed surprised to see other people. He handed Percy the rifle.

T
his is how
they looked: three dead girls propped up in three straight chairs. The fourteen-year-old sat in the middle. She was taller than the others by half a head. The two thirteen-year-olds sat on either side of her. Across the chest of each girl was an X of rope leading over her shoulders, down around her waist, and fastened in the back. All three girls were barefoot and their ankles were tied to the legs of their chairs.

Donald Malloy had sealed off the attic, removing the door and molding and fitting a piece of sheetrock over the opening. Then he had wallpapered the wall so no one could tell from the second-floor hall that a door had been there. The wallpaper was light blue with small bouquets of dark-blue flowers. Around the bouquets were chains of yellow buttercups making a diagonal pattern like chicken wire.

It was Dr. Malloy who found the trapdoor in the closet when he had come earlier in the evening, and he was the first one into the attic. Then he kicked out the sheetrock so the police could climb the stairs, kicked it hard in his anger so the pieces flew into the hall. After that he had gone looking for Donald.

Chuck Hawley took the photographs of the attic for the police department. He says he doesn't have to see the pictures again to know what they show. He says he sees it all the time anyway: three dead girls propped up in three straight chairs.

In Lincoln Park a monument was put up to the girls. It was dedicated in the spring. A square piece of obsidian, ten feet high and three feet thick, with the girls' names and dates printed on each of the four sides. When it was dedicated, half the town went and I went as well. Bernie Kowalski made a speech. Father Murphy of Saint Mary's Church spoke, too, quite a long speech that people had trouble following. Nothing the two of them said made anything better. They spoke of the horror we had gone through but they didn't make anything better. The parents of the dead girls were given the chance to speak, though they chose not to. Ralph Shiller said he was glad it was all over, but he didn't want to speak in front of a crowd. Paul Leimbach was there, walking with a cane. Mike Shiller was there with some of his friends from the post office, the same group who had smashed up Leimbach's house. You would think that they might have acted guilty, but they didn't. To my mind they still looked angry, as if their anger was something that was now part of them and couldn't go away. Karla's father was some fellow in California who had never even seen his daughter. Even so, he came all that distance. My colleague Lou Hendricks said he was the luckiest of the parents, but many thought that was too cynical.

Aaron McNeal wasn't there. He had left town by that time. Franklin came with Sadie and Paula, with Franklin standing in the middle, surreptitiously holding the hand of each. He looked very handsome in a dark tweed suit. Paula wore a dark dress and her black hair shone. It was April but quite warm, and there were daffodils. Ryan Tavich was there with Franklin but he, too, would be leaving shortly. Eventually he settled someplace out West.

For some people there were too many memories, too many things they wanted to forget. It made it difficult to stay in Aurelius. Dr. Malloy and his family would move back to Rochester. The fact that Allen had shot his brother was, for our town, too big a piece of information: to shoot your own brother in the back with a rifle. And Franklin had told people how Donald had accused Allen, as if Dr. Malloy, and not Donald, had killed the girls. For some people the whole thing was still a mystery. They looked at Dr. Malloy with mistrust. How could he be a doctor under those conditions? Even Paul Leimbach was talked about. And the fact that Mike Shiller had wrecked Leimbach's house—some people defended it. They said that Mike had done the right thing at the time. There were many arguments about this, even harsh words. The suspicion didn't just go away. It just slipped back to wherever it hid. I had the feeling it would stay with us always, as if we would never be able to look at one another again except through its filter, a colored lens of suspicion. That is why Bernie Kowalski's words about putting it all behind us were such a lie. And that big black stone, as if it were pushing down upon the suspicion, keeping it underground—but it didn't work like that.

Consider Ryan's leaving town. I think of Ryan as trying to cut a thread, trying to forget Janice, trying to forget the dead girls. He had been shot in the shoulder. Now when he moves that shoulder, he'll always remember us. He can't put Aurelius behind him. It's inside him wherever he goes. And Aaron too. His mother's grave is here and his sister is here. Whenever he sits and glances from a window and lets his mind wander, won't he soon be thinking of Aurelius? Even if he hates it? All these people who are trying to make their lives go forward, won't these memories tug at them? And Franklin, when he wakes in the night, won't he hear Donald's reedy voice in the dark telling him once again about filth? I am sure it has happened. I am sure he turns to Paula in the night and holds on.

For me, at least, work is a better remedy. It's something I can trust: a daily schedule, repeated actions that I imagine benefit the common good. I teach more. I have my hobbies. I spend more time with my students. At times it seems that I think of them as sexual creatures more often than I did in the past. Not that I would touch them. But I consider Donald talking to Franklin in the woods. If you could look to the bottom of a human being, what desires would you find? And what desires are concealed beneath my white shirt and bow tie, my civilized veneer?

Donald Malloy had lived with his desires a long time. Who knew how he struggled? He must have seen them in his face every time he looked in a mirror. Later we learned that when he lived in Buffalo he had touched a girl in his pharmacy. He had taken the girl's hand and rubbed it against his genitals. She told her parents and they confronted him. He begged them not to make it public. He promised the girl's parents he would see a doctor. He said he would leave the area. He begged them not to ruin his career. Nobody knew about it, not even Donald's brother. The girl's parents kept quiet until the news of his death appeared in the papers. How many other girls had he touched? What awful sweetness did he discover in these experiences? And when he killed Janice McNeal, what sort of sweetness did he find there?

How that sweetness must have sung to him and how insistent it must have grown as it led him to take more chances. Is it possible that voice exists in all of us but in most it is quiet? When I help a tenth grader with his biology assignment and I feel the heat of his body beside mine, the heat of his cheek, don't I hear a sweetness calling to me? Of course, I do nothing. I move away or send the boy back to his desk, but sometimes I have fantasies. In my dreams I do things that I shouldn't. But I am a good man. I have a respected position. I would never do anything wicked. But isn't my fear one of the reasons I live alone? What do you do with your fear? And do you dream?

I think of my neighbors. I see men looking at young girls on the street. Or I see how the young high school athletes are observed by both men and women. What desires do these people push down inside them? Is it good to pretend we don't have such feelings?

And the place where Donald worshipped cleanliness. Surely I am not the only one to think of him up in his attic—his church. Don't others wonder what it felt like to give in to desires like his?

The three girls were buried at the beginning of Thanksgiving week. Their families had decided to join together to hold a single observance at Saint Mary's Church. Identical coffins stood at the front of the church, and of course the church was packed. TV and newspaper people came from all over. Franklin said it was a zoo. And a mob of people went to Homeland Cemetery as well. There were no speeches and the funeral was kept as simple as possible. The mountain of flowers at the church was later taken to the hospital and to a home for the elderly. I'm sure many were stuffed in garbage bags and thrown away.

Houari Chihani had his service too. There were many such tributes at the end. They existed for the living, of course, for what could the dead care about such things? Aaron and Harriet arranged for Chihani's service in early December. They held it in the Unitarian Church, thinking, I expect, that that church would have been the least objectionable to Chihani. Indeed, the room was scarcely more than a social hall. All the members of Inquiries into the Right attended. The students paid for a plaque to be put up in the corridor in the history department at Aurelius College. It gave Chihani's name and dates and the word
Teacher.
That was all. After a while, I am sure that people had no idea of its significance.

Donald Malloy was buried in Homeland Cemetery. His stone was hardly a foot across and very low to the ground. It had his name—D. Malloy—and his dates. Some people didn't want him buried in Homeland, as if the presence of his body might corrupt their own well-loved dead. I know there were questions raised in the city council meeting. But by then Donald had been buried and to dig up the body and put it elsewhere would have caused unwelcome publicity.

Dr. Malloy, Ryan Tavich, and Captain Percy went to Donald's funeral. They were the only ones. Of course, Dr. Malloy kept it as secret as possible. Ryan arranged it with Ralph Belmont, the funeral director, with whom he played basketball on Thursday evenings, or used to play. The vast majority of people didn't know about the funeral until it was over. And Dr. Malloy had delayed it until December, until after the three girls had been buried, a rainy day with sleet in the afternoon. Nobody wanted the television trucks to reappear. We had had enough of being famous. Not that there wasn't a little mystery about the funeral. A little puzzle. Malloy's body had been kept at Belmont's Funeral Home. Everybody knew it was there. The body had been prepared and Donald's severed hand lay at his side. The closed coffin was in a cooler, though that probably isn't the right name. But it had a big chrome door like a refrigerator that you might find in a large restaurant.

During the first week of December when it came time for Donald's funeral, Ralph Belmont opened the coffin and saw that the hand was gone. At first he thought he might have made a mistake and he looked through the coffin, but the hand wasn't there. Then he realized somebody had stolen it. He told Ryan—after all, they were friends—but he didn't tell Dr. Malloy and hoped that he wouldn't wish to see his brother's body. But Allen had no desire to see his brother's face again. And he probably only went to the funeral out of a sense of duty. But that's not true. He wanted to see Donald put in the ground and covered with six feet of dirt, in a corner of Homeland far from the three girls. He wanted to see his brother covered up and forgotten.

Ryan tried to find out what had happened to the hand but he was circumspect. He was afraid to have it generally known that the hand had been stolen. He knew there would be some people who would say that the hand had not been stolen. They would say it had escaped, crept away, using its fingers as little feet. People believe all sorts of foolish things. So Ryan asked a few questions, and when he still couldn't learn the whereabouts of the hand, he decided to keep silent. Oddly enough, Madame Respighi, before leaving Aurelius, claimed that Donald had been buried without his hand, though no one believed her. She claimed to see Donald's hand floating in a jar next to other jars. People laughed at her. But she had faith in her visions, or whatever they were. She ignored her critics, shrugged her shoulders, and took the bus to Utica or maybe Syracuse.

Certainly it was no trouble for someone to steal the hand. The back of the funeral home wasn't locked, nor was the cooler. Ralph Belmont was always with Franklin and Ryan on Thursday evenings, although they didn't play basketball again until Ryan's shoulder got better. The lid of Donald's coffin hadn't been screwed in place. Belmont's wife was far on the other side of the house, and what would a person steal from a funeral home anyway?

Donald's face in death was as expressionless as a fat knee. His fine hair was stuck in place. He didn't appear to be sleeping. He didn't appear to be waiting. His body was simply a husk, a shell. All the bad thoughts were gone. His church of dead girls had been erased from his brain. I had only to lift the coffin lid, take the hand, put it into a plastic bag, then lower the lid again. Of course, I had a flashlight.

My collection of biological specimens is now above my desk: my pickled punks. The frogs, the rat, the snake, the eyeballs of cows, the fetal pig, the human fetus with its eyes closed. I don't show them to my classes anymore. They keep me company in a gloomy way. I wonder what the cow eyeballs ever saw and what the history of the human fetus might have been. Donald Malloy's left hand is now among them, turning slightly darker in its jar of formaldehyde. It's in the center, in the place of honor between the fetal pig and the human fetus. For me it's a reminder of what is always there, of the longings that lie within people, the longings we hide within ourselves. I look up at Donald's hand swimming in its liquid. I think of it as my private teacher. My own academy. It instructs me. By now the right hand and Donald's body have rotted away, but the left hand is safe. Though the wrist is ragged, the veins and arteries, the tendons and muscles are all visible, and the bone, of course. Sometimes I'm sorry I can't show it to my classes; it makes everything so clear. I try to think what those fingers felt and I scare myself: the necks of the three girls, their tenderness.

Donald Malloy was very particular about his hands. I recall their pinkness when he waited on me at his pharmacy, the neatly pared cuticles, the buffed nails. At times he even wore clear nail polish. Now the fingers point downward, the wrist points up toward the top of the jar. Not many hairs on the back; a few dozen short red ones. The fingers are curled, the knuckles are thick and swollen in the liquid. The thumb extends outward as if planning its own departure. The wrist bone shines. And the nails, how carefully they had been trimmed.