War at Home: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 17

  Those were the words Barry had used the day before.

  “Should this mean something to me?” I asked.

  “Probably not. I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t think it was important.” Malcolm rested his slice of pizza on his right leg, and reached for his can of root beer. “Remember that stupid SDS convention?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “That’s where the document was. I told you everybody at the convention was fighting? They’d split into factions. One was the National Organizers, the other was the Progressive Labor people. They fought, then it looked like the Progressive Labor people were going to win, and they didn’t want a lot of black involvement, which they called militant, which might not have been wrong, since I seemed to be the only person of color there who wasn’t a Panther.”

  I froze. “You didn’t tell me that the Panthers were there.”

  “Because it wasn’t really important. It was just a lot of stupid speeches, and then these National Organizers wrote this paper about how important it was to be militant, and how they wanted to bring down the government, and how they wanted to revolutionize the United States, and how the only way to take on the Establishment was through violence, and all that crap. I thought it was really stupid, especially when a bunch of them stayed up all night and wrote their thoughts down in this mimeographed document they expected everybody to read.”

  “How did that reach New Haven so quickly?” I asked.

  “The split was already here. That’s the point. This was just the first time the splits were visible nationally, at least so far as I can tell.” He set his root beer down.

  Jimmy leaned forward, grabbed it, and took a sip.

  “Hey!” Malcolm said.

  “I’m out,” Jimmy said.

  “Next time, ask first, Jim. Don’t presume,” I said absently.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Anyway,” Malcolm said, “at the convention, everyone started calling the militants the Weathermen and the Progressive Labor people, and everyone else who didn’t like want to bomb the entire planet, the Running Dogs. And the names kinda stuck.”

  A chill ran down my back. “Do you actually think Daniel’s joined the militants?”

  “That’s what it sounds like, right? And they might not have called themselves Weathermen until this week. Maybe they don’t even call themselves that. Maybe everyone else does. I mean, that’s all anyone talked about on campus this week, right, Jim? The bust-up of the SDS.”

  “I thought it was some rock group.” Jimmy picked the anchovies off his pizza and tossed them onto the concrete playground.

  Malcolm watched him for a moment, then sighed. “All I’m saying is that if Daniel’s actually using guns and buying drugs and making bombs, why’re we looking for him?”

  “What if he’s not?” I asked quietly. “If I talked to anyone about you last summer, they would have told me you had been in a gang all fall, that you were a lost cause, and that I should give up.”

  Malcolm flushed. “This is different.”

  “Is it?” I asked. “You were with that gang because they gave you a place to sleep. You hadn’t gotten completely co-opted. You were too smart for that.”

  “But Daniel’s always been political,” Malcolm said. “Even you said you could hardly talk to him last summer. He was clearly SDS then. He’s involved now.”

  Malcolm was probably right. I knew that. I also knew that I wanted to believe, for Grace, that Daniel had flirted with the violent faction of the SDS and moved on.

  If he hadn’t, I wasn’t sure what I would do.

  “What if he is a Weatherman?” Malcolm obviously wasn’t willing to let this go “What’ll you tell Grace then?”

  “He’ll say there’s nothing you can do and that sometimes you have to take care of yourself and hope he’ll grow out of it, right, Smoke?” Jimmy had plucked an entire lump of cheese off his pizza. The cheese dripped tomato sauce onto the merry-go-round.

  Malcolm stared at Jim as if he’d never seen him before, but I recognized those words. I didn’t know how many times I’d said them to him about his brother Joe. Joe had been dealing drugs, lost in a gang, and willing to let his little brother go instead of cleaning up his own act.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s probably what I’ll tell her.”

  But that wasn’t all I would do. If Daniel was involved in something illegal, something that could hurt innocent people, I would have to go after him — or make sure someone else did.

  “We got to be real careful here, Bill,” Malcolm said. “These guys, they’re on some whacked-out mission to save the world, and they don’t care who they hurt. This isn’t the place for Jimmy.”

  “It doesn’t sound like the place for any of us,” I said. “But if my information is right, all we have to do is find that barn. Daniel will probably be there, I can check him out for myself, and then we can leave. Will that work for you?”

  Malcolm unfolded himself and pushed off the merry-go-round, sending it on a slow spin. He walked to the edge of the concrete. As the merry-go-round came back toward him, his gaze caught mine.

  “You know,” he said, “sometimes it just gets me. Daniel gets the scholarship, Daniel gets the good family, Daniel gets all the opportunities, and what does he do? He tries to blow up the fucking world. Me, I got to fight for every goddamn crumb. I finally get a break and what do I get? Drafted. It’s not fucking fair.”

  He walked off into the park. Jimmy stuck out a foot and stopped the merry-go-round from spinning. “We got to go after him, Smoke.”

  I shook my head. “What do we say? He’s right. He would have taken everything Daniel got, used it, and made even more of himself. It’s not fair, and lying to him and telling him it’ll be all better isn’t going to comfort him.”

  Jimmy glared at me, then jumped off the merry-go-round. He ran after Malcolm, catching up to him near the swings. Malcolm kept walking, and Jimmy remained at his side, like a determined little brother.

  I dug my feet into the concrete holding the merry-go-round in place. Was that what I had set up? Another brother for Jimmy to look up to and then be abandoned by him? I hadn’t meant it. All I’d meant to do was bring Malcolm along so that we could find a better place to live.

  New Haven certainly wasn’t it. And, as Malcolm pointed out to me, neither was Philadelphia or Cleveland. Nor, I noticed from yesterday’s paper, was Kokomo, Indiana, where another riot had broken out in the black community, or Omaha, or Cairo, Illinois. All filled with violence, and rioting, and the deaths of countless innocent people.

  The entire summer seemed like it was going to rage forward. And there was little I could do to stop it.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  We decided that I would care for Jimmy the next morning, while Malcolm went back to Yale to see if he could find the local SDS chapter. He figured he might be able to sweet-talk them into telling him where the Barn was.

  Jimmy seemed excited by the prospect of having me around all day. Since it was Sunday, he asked if we could go to church. Apparently he had promised Althea he’d keep up with his religious work.

  I didn’t want to sit in some stuffy New England church, rising and singing with inhibited white people who had no idea how to properly conduct a church service. But Jimmy pressured me and, after we had dropped Malcolm at the gates of Yale, we ended up on Dixwell, in the United Church of Christ, whose bulletin said that this church was the descendent of the first black church in New Haven.

  After church, Jimmy and I returned to the motel to change out of our Sunday best. I took a minute to use the phone, trying the phone numbers that Grace gave me one more time. Still no answer at any of those, but when I called René Whickam, I was startled to hear someone pick up the phone.

  I asked for Professor Whickam.

  “This is he,” a deep, slightly accented male voice said.

  “Professor Whickam,” I said, “my name is Bill Grimshaw and I’m an investigator from Chicago. I’m work
ing for Grace Kirkland, Daniel Kirkland’s mother. She hasn’t heard from him in more than six months, and she’s worried. I’ve been asking around, and I understand he spent some time with your daughter, and that there was an incident. I was wondering if I could speak to you about it.”

  Whickam was silent for so long after I spoke that I began to wonder if he had hung up. Then he said, “Where are you?”

  “I’m in New Haven,” I said. “I’m staying near the Yale Bowl.”

  “Let me come to you,” he said, and no amount of argument would change his mind.

  Jimmy wasn’t happy with me. He had planned an entire day of sightseeing New Haven places that could only be reached by car and spending time doing “things” that he wouldn’t describe.

  I told him that we’d be able to start as soon as the professor left. Even if the professor gave us tips as to where Daniel might be, I wasn’t about to follow up on them with Jimmy at my side.

  Professor Whickam arrived about a half hour after we spoke on the phone. He drove a brand-new Ford station wagon that he kept so clean it looked like it was never used. I watched him get out of the car. He was a bald, lanky man who wore loose-fitting white cotton clothes that made him seem vaguely counterculture.

  As he scanned the rooms looking for mine, I opened the door. “Professor Whickam?”

  He seemed surprised at my appearance. His gaze ran up and down my khakis and short-sleeved shirt. Jimmy peered out next to me, startling Whickam further.

  “I’m Bill Grimshaw,” I said. “This is my son, Jim.”

  Whickam came closer, extended his hand, and introduced himself, although it wasn’t necessary. His accent was very faint but noticeable. I couldn’t quite tell its origin, but the softened consonants led me to believe he was either from Europe or from one of the Caribbean islands.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I thought you were some kind of professional investigator. I did not realize that you were a family man.”

  “Professional investigators can be family men,” I said with a smile. “Until I got here, I actually thought this would be an easy search. I had hoped to have a bit of a vacation with Jim after we found Daniel, but it’s not proving that easy.”

  “I do understand.” Whickam stood awkwardly in the doorway. The warmth of the early afternoon floated in on the breeze.

  “Come on in,” I said, indicating the chair beside the table.

  Whickam sat. Jimmy crawled onto his bed and leaned back, closing his eyes like we had discussed. I figured it might be easier for Whickam to talk if he thought Jimmy was dozing.

  I took the chair across from Whickam. I told him a modified version of my search for Daniel, leaving out some of the more graphic details, but not sparing the Yale administrators in any way. Then I told him that I had tracked Daniel through a series of apartments, with one left to check.

  “Where is it?” Whickam asked. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I wish I knew,” I said. “It’s a place called the Barn.”

  He blinked. “I have never heard of this place.”

  “Neither have most people. I’m tracking it down now.” I leaned back. I hadn’t told him that I knew Rhondelle was missing. “A number of people told me that Daniel and Rhondelle were an item. I was wondering if you knew where she was. I figure if I can find her, she might lead me to Daniel.”

  Whickam ran a hand across his mouth. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to tell me about his missing daughter.

  “I have not seen Rhondelle since Christmas,” he said. “She left just after the break, telling me she was headed back to Vassar, but she never arrived. In fact, she hadn’t even registered for the semester. I didn’t discover this for weeks, and by then I had no way to find her. I have been looking. I have hired a private detective in Poughkeepsie who charges a small fortune and tells me nothing. My wife has gone to every fair and festival within a two-day radius. She looks through the crowds of young people, hoping to see Rhondelle. I spend my own vacation time searching. But I cannot find her.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

  He raised his chin. “She is our only child, and we are frightened for her. She has not been the same since that incident this fall.”

  “I had heard that it was nothing more than threats.”

  “Perhaps to people who were not there.” Whickam glanced at Jimmy, then back at me, apparently satisfied that Jim wasn’t paying attention. Still, Whickam lowered his voice. “Rhondelle would not talk to me about it. The one time we did speak of it, she demanded that I quit my job at the fascist university. That is what she called it. Just last summer, she hoped to be transferred here. Those boys damaged her somehow, but no one will tell me exactly how. Even Danny, he says to me, ‘Professor, I took care of it, you need not worry.’ As if a father cannot help but worry.”

  He twisted his hands together. I tried not to look at them, long and thin and manicured.

  “How well did you know Daniel?” I asked.

  “How well does any father know his daughter’s boyfriend? I had seen him at school. He was in my first-year French seminars, very driven, quite focused. He learned quickly and never seemed out of line — at least, not until his second year. There is such anger in him, Mr. Grimshaw. I fear for my daughter if she is with him.”

  “Do you think he’d harm her?”

  Whickam folded his hands together, almost as if he were offering up a prayer. “The police, they say he nearly ripped that boy apart.”

  “That boy hurt your daughter,” I said.

  “Yes, I probably would have attacked him as well. But it takes a particular kind of man to so damage another, does it not?”

  It did. A man who felt a very deep rage and had finally found an outlet for it. But I saw that rage differently than Whickam did. From what I had heard, Daniel had suffered humiliations at Yale he had never faced before. I suspected the attack on Rhondelle — particularly by legacy students and rich kids — had finally broken Daniel.

  “I am concerned,” Whickam was saying. “No one has told me the entire story, so I do not know if that young man’s injuries are justified or if they are some kind of overreaction on Daniel’s part.”

  “How did Rhondelle act around Daniel afterwards?”

  Whickam waved a hand, then shook his head. “My daughter, she is in love with him. To her, he can do no wrong.”

  “Did you search for her here in New Haven?”

  “She went to Vassar,” he said.

  “So that’s a no?” I asked. “You haven’t looked here in New Haven.”

  “If she were in New Haven, why wouldn’t she come home? We made flyers. We even put an announcement in the paper. Why wouldn’t she come forward?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. Rhondelle had never been my focus. But I had some difficult things to say to her father now.

  “In the last few days, I’ve encountered a number of people who said that Rhondelle and Daniel were together and living in various apartments in New Haven.”

  “I would have seen her.”

  “She probably knew how to avoid you,” I said.

  “Why do you insist on telling me that my daughter would not come home?” he asked.

  “I’m wondering if there was another incident over Christmas, perhaps a break within the family, maybe even a fight over Daniel.”

  Whickam shook his head. “Daniel was always well behaved in our home, although my wife asked him not to discuss politics. His attitudes offended her.”

  “But not you?”

  Whickam gave me a small smile. “I grew up in Paris. People there, they argue about all things. It is a form of entertainment.”

  “You’re French, then?” I asked.

  “I am American, born to American parents, raised in France because my parents believed in equality. They could not receive it here, so they joined the expatriate community. They will never come back.”

  “But you’re here.”

  He nodded, extended his arms, and
looked around. “I am here, a college professor at an Ivy League school. Well respected, well treated, things my parents did not have and could not have.”

  “I’ve run into discrimination in New Haven,” I said.

  “I am not saying it does not exist,” Whickam said. “But here it is more of a class issue than a race issue.”

  “That’s not what the black students say. I understand they formed their own group to protect their rights.”

  “To expand their rights,” Whickam said. “They do not realize they are a part of the international community, that they must learn about all culture, white and black and any other color you might designate.”

  That sounded like a canned speech. I wondered if he had given it to Daniel. “Has Rhondelle lived here her whole life?”

  “She has spent most summers with her grandparents in Paris,” he said. “But she was born at Yale-New Haven Hospital. She is truly a local girl. That is why I have trouble believing that no one would come to me if they had seen her in town.”

  “Let me give you the addresses,” I said. “The second is in the Hill. You probably don’t want to go to either alone. But the first is in a neighborhood not far from Yale. Check it out. Then we can talk.”

  I wrote down the addresses and the few names I had learned. I slid the slip of paper toward him. He studied it for a moment, then folded it and put it in his pocket.

  “Did your private detective look for her here?” I asked.

  “He did work by phone,” Whickam said. “He wanted to come, but I assured him she couldn’t be here. I would have seen her.”

  He put extra emphasis on those last five words. He was wedded to his denial.

  “Would you mind bringing me a picture of Rhondelle?” I asked. “Maybe I was mistaking her for someone else.”

  He smiled, then nodded once, a courtly gesture. “I shall bring several. I have one of her with Daniel from the holidays that I might part with. Perhaps that will help as well.”

  Whickam touched the folded slip of paper in his pocket. “Do you believe that my daughter is here with Daniel?”