Shilo, Part 1

SHILO

Shilo, when I was young, I used to call your name; When no one else would come, Shilo, you always came...

~ Neil Diamond

***

I met Melvin Wicks for the first time at my sister’s funeral. I remember how he came up to me after the ceremony and without a word, touched my face with his hand. I was so startled I didn’t know what to say. He looked at me for a long moment out of his pale, watery blue eyes. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “you are her brother.” Then he turned and walked out the church, leaving me totally dumb-founded.

I asked my mother who he was, but she told me she didn’t know. One of Constance’s friends, most likely, she thought. I asked around a little more, but nobody there could tell me who he was. Strange, I thought, but then I thought no more about it. Strange things happen all the time, and you just have to deal with them. Besides, I was too busy accepting condolences to waste another thought on such an irrelevant incident. Funny thing, I didn’t think of it at the time, although now it haunts my nightmares, but almost everyone there was a stranger to me and I won’t pretend that I didn’t find all of them a little queer in their own ways. Yet of them all, only one, only Melvin Wicks, whose name I did not know at the time, only he struck me in particular. Something about him, even then, left me with a cold feeling in my heart and I distinctly remember shivering when, later in the day, I recalled his pale, watery eyes.

After the ceremony at the church, we drove out to the cemetery for the committal. As I was walking with my mother down the steep steps of the church towards the black car that awaited us below (the casket had already been sent on ahead), I heard Annie Calloway, one of my late sister’s dearest friends, whisper to her companion in that obnoxiously loud whisper of hers, “And so I walked in, and there she was, lying just like that on the floor, in an awful pool of blood...” I hurried my mother along, so she would not hear.

The committal was a smaller service, meant only for the family and the closest friends. Miss Calloway was there, and so was Constance’s boyfriend, a young fellow named Alan Brooks. From the looks of him, he was utterly crushed. I think he cried more than Mom.

While the pastor muttered the prayers and we all bowed our heads in reverence, I could not help taking a quick glance around. And I saw to my surprise that our little company of mourners was not alone. Towards the back of the cemetery, but still within earshot of the pastor’s prayers, stood a silent stranger in a thick black coat. He stood with his head bowed, and clearly considered himself among the mourners. I recognized in him a man I had seen at the church service. He had been silent there as well, I seemed to recall; he had just shaken my hand and my mother’s, and then left without a word. From the look on my mother’s face at the time, I gathered that although he was not a total stranger to her, she could not quite remember where she had seen him last, nor in what circumstances. But these thoughts flashed through my mind, as it were, unconsciously. I looked away, and bowed my head.

The committal ended, and I turned away from the grave, leading my mother by the arm. Alan came over to us. I could see that he wanted to help, to say something meaningful and comforting, but no words came to his lips. His voice was choked with the tears. I laid a hand on his shoulder. He looked away, trying in vain to control himself. I could feel his whole body shaking with sobs beneath my hand.

At that moment, there was a whisper in my ear. Startled, I turned to see the stranger in the black coat standing before me. “Excuse me,” he was saying, “but you are Mr. Henry? I would like a word with you.”

“Sorry,” I said, “but I’ve got to take my mother home. Maybe some other time, Mr.—um?”

The stranger did not deign to reply to my question, but simply repeated what he had said before. “I would like to talk to you, Mr. Henry.” And he flashed a badge.

“Um, alright,” I said warily, “uh, Alan, would you mind taking Mom home?”

Alan, who seemed to have fully grasped the situation, took my mother’s arm. “Of course,” he said, smiling weakly. “Mrs. Henry, will you come with me?” I think I caught a flash of recognition on his face when he looked at the stranger.

My mother nodded mutely. I don’t think she really understood what was going on, but she realized I had to go with this strange man. I could tell from her face that she still could not remember who this man was nor where she had seen him before. “Don’t worry, Mom,” I said, “I’ll only be a minute. I’ll see you at home.” Alan led her away.

The cop, as I now saw that he was, had put his badge away. “Sorry about that,” he mumbled. “Hope she won’t worry or anything...”

“That’s alright,” I said. “What can I do for you, Officer?”

“I’d just like to ask you a couple of questions – just procedure, you know—”

“But I thought the investigation was over, case closed,” I interrupted. “I mean, you’re talking about my sister, right?”

“That’s right,” said the detective – the name on his badge read Lieutenant Frank MacArthur. “And yes, you’re right, the investigation’s basically over. Just tying up a few loose ends, you know. Wondered if you might be able to help me, eh?”

“Well, sure, I guess so,” I said, “though I’m not sure I’ll be much help. I only got here two days ago, and I don’t really know anything about it, except for what I’ve been told. But—say, have you talked to Anne Calloway? She might be able to give you something. She’s the one who found her, you know—”

“Yes, we’ve already gotten a statement from Miss Calloway,” the detective said stiffly. “We do, after all, know how to do our jobs, Mr. Henry.” Then he added with a bitter note in his voice, “We’re not all such idiots as you make us out to be in your books.”

I flushed, but before I could say anything, Lieutenant MacArthur asked, “Were you and your sister close? That is, if you don’t mind me asking?”

I shrugged. “Not particularly. No use in sugar-coating it, I guess, but we got along, if that’s what you mean.”

“Hmm,” said MacArthur, making a note of something in the little notebook he produced from his coat pocket. “And did she ever talk to you about being scared of someone? Had she ever been threatened?”

“Threatened?” I was surprised. “Why, no, of course not! Who’d want to threaten Constance? Where’d you get an idea like that?”

“Her boyfriend, Alan Brooks, told us she mentioned a fellow named Wicks once or twice, Melvin Wicks. That name mean anything to you?”

“Nothing,” I said, growing concerned. “But what is this? Was Constance being threatened? Alan never told me anything about this!”

“It probably didn’t seem important to him. And he was right. We’ve looked into this Melvin Wicks. He’s clean.”

“What do you mean, clean? What’s wrong?”

Detective Lieutenant MacArthur had a bad habit of not answering your questions, and instead asking his own. “I wonder, will you come with me?”

“Where?”

“To your sister’s apartment.”

I shuddered involuntarily. MacArthur noticed. “So you haven’t been there yet?” he asked.

“No, no I haven’t,” I said. “Like I told you, I only got here two days ago. I haven’t had a chance to look around yet. I’ve been with my mother.” And then I added for no reason, “I – I’m from New York, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” said Lieutenant MacArthur, and there was something in the way he said it that make my heart skip a beat.

We walked in silence down to his car, and I wondered how I had missed it on the way to the committal. It was your average blue squad car, and the officer who got out of the front seat was your average blue-suited policeman. He went around the car without a word, and opened the back door for me.

“I – I guess I couldn’t sit in the front, could I?” I asked awkwardly. But I saw clearly from the expression on MacArthur’s face that that was not an option. With a shrug, I got into the back seat.

“You’ve been in a police car before, have you?” MacArthur asked.

“Uh, yeah,” I admitted. “I – uh, I was kind of a stupid teenager.”

Something resembling a smile flashed over MacArthur’s features, but he did not say anything more. It was a long, silent car ride over to my sister’s apartment.

The apartment complex in which my late sister had lived was a nice little place in a good part of town. MacArthur and I went in, leaving the other policeman in the car. The lobby was a small, neat room with a couple of big armchairs in the far corner. MacArthur walked up to the front desk and threw his badge down on the counter. This, however, seemed a pretty useless gesture, because the ugly woman behind the desk clearly knew who he was already. She had gotten the cardkey to my sister’s apartment the moment she’d seen him walk in. “Here you are, Lieutenant,” she said, giving him the key, without him saying a word. MacArthur nodded his thanks and motioned me to follow him to the elevator.

It was clear from everything – the manner of the woman at the desk, the certainty with which the Lieutenant chose the correct floor, the familiar way in which he looked about the corridor, how he unhesitatingly stopped in from of one door and pressed the cardkey up to the lock – that MacArthur had been here many times before. The lock flashed its green light and clicked. Turning the handle, MacArthur swung the door open and led me into the room.

My sister’s apartment was nicely furnished and was composed of several small rooms – a main room with a thick rug, a couch, a coffee table, a few chairs, a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchenette. But MacArthur did not give me much time to look around. We were in the main living room, and he made a gesture with his arms. “This is where it happened.”

I nodded. “Yes, I – I mean, I heard all about it. A horrible accident. Sometimes it’s hard to believe things like this actually happen.”

“Yes...” said MacArthur. Something in how he said it made me look at him. He felt my eyes upon him and he straightened up. “Well,” he said, “I just thought it might be a good idea to show you, that’s all.” But I was not such a fool, and he knew it – that clearly was not all.

“According to Miss Calloway,” MacArthur began musingly, “the door was unlocked. Nothing unusual about that...your sister almost always left the door open when she was at home. Makes sense – it’s a safe little neighborhood. Small apartment, too, everybody knows everybody. So she kept the door unlocked. Although...not recently. Recently, according to Mr. Brooks and Miss Calloway, recently she had been locking her doors. Neither of them know why...Brooks asked her once, but she just shrugged it off...You didn’t know anything about that, did you, Mr. Henry?”

“No,” I said, a little bewildered. “But I don’t really—”

“Miss Calloway walks in, so she tells us,” MacArthur continued, as it were absentmindedly – just as though he were talking to himself, though of course I knew he wasn’t. “And that’s when she sees your sister lying there—I assume you’ve heard the story?”

“Yes, yes,” I said, “Annie – I mean Miss Calloway has told me.” And more than once, I added to myself.

“But you don’t mind hearing it again, do you?” MacArthur asked. “See, sometimes it helps me to put things together if I talk them through out loud. You understand, don’t you?”

“No,” I cried, “I don’t understand! What’s there to ‘put together’? It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

“Yes...” said MacArthur again, and in that moment I understood.

“What!” I couldn’t contain myself. “You don’t think—are you seriously considering—I mean, it wasn’t murder!” But this exclamation was more of a question.

“She had tripped, you see,” said MacArthur, as usual ignoring my question, “your sister, I mean, tripped on the carpet – here, you see?”

And he knelt down and folded back a corner of the carpet. “It was like this,” he explained, “when we arrived.”

He rose slowly to his feet and stepped over to a short, stout bookshelf that stood against the wall. “And then she hit her head on this,” and he tapped the pointed corner of the bookshelf.

I felt my face contort in horror – a strange feeling.

“Yes,” said the lieutenant in his absentminded way, “I have spent a lot of time with this bookshelf. This corner really is quite sharp, especially in you were to fall on it...Matches the wound perfectly...You recognize this bookshelf? No, no, I don’t suppose you do. How could you? She’d only bought it a couple of weeks ago at a garage sale.” He tapped the top with his knuckles. “Hear that? Solid oak. Guess how much she paid for it? Eh? Ten bucks! Ten bucks for a solid oak bookshelf...guess it did cost her more in the end...It’s the right height too, did I mention that? And the right distance away from the carpet...yes...Still,” he straightened up again, but his voice was still musing, “still, it’s a horrible tragedy, and accidents do happen like this...yes, they do...and accidents are made of coincidences...there are just so many coincidences—”

“But it still is possible,” I intervened.

“Possible? Oh, yes, it’s possible. Very few things are actually impossible...for example, it’s also possible that it wasn’t an accident.”

I stared at him in horror, waiting for him to pronounce the sentence I knew he was thinking of. But he turned away from me and continued on, “Miss Calloway did like a good girl and screamed bloody murder. That drew a dozen other people or more, and one of them called the police. We were here in ten minutes, but of course there was nothing the medics could do. She had died almost immediately—almost immediately!” he repeated with sudden feeling. “That should be a comfort, eh? Hardly any pain! She just hit her head and then blacked out and then died within two minutes. Died from head trauma, said the medics, head trauma not blood loss! That should be a comfort!”

“Lieutenant,” I started to say, but he went on, almost in a fury now.

“And so the case will be closed. She just tripped on the rug and hit her head so hard on the corner of the bookshelf that she died right there and then. An accident. A horrible, tragic accident!”

Then suddenly he calmed down and began speaking again in his absentminded, casual tone of voice. “Miss Calloway found your sister at 3:00 in the afternoon. She’d been dead for about three hours. That same day, three hours before, Mrs. Greene, the lady downstairs, went out to lunch. She had gotten no one to replace her. For thirty or forty minutes, then, the lobby was completely empty. There is a security camera, but it has been out of order for a week. Why bother having it fixed? Such a nice, safe neighborhood...” I detected something bitter coming into his voice again, but he calmed down immediately and continued on in the same tone, “The keys, of course, are kept locked up in their drawer, but Mrs. Greene had left the key to that drawer hanging on a hook behind the counter. And again, why not? Such a nice neighborhood...And, of course, she could have simply let him in herself...”

He paused a moment, and I was almost going to say something, but he started up once more, “Nobody heard anything. Of course, nobody was listening, and the walls are good and thick. Huh! Well, case closed, I guess. An accident!”

We stood there together in that silent room, with that horrible word hanging unspoken – unspeakable – over us. A clock on the wall ticked away the seconds. Finally, I had to break the silence, it was so oppressive, and I said, “And so what about this guy, uh, Melvin Wicks? You—you think he...um?”

MacArthur understood. “I did, but not anymore. Certain things have come to light. He – he could not have done it.”

“He has an alibi?” I said.

MacArthur did not reply at once. “You could say so,” he said at last.

Everything that had just been revealed to me seemed so horrifying, so fantastic, that for a long moment I could not get my thoughts in order. Figments of my imagination paraded themselves before me: the undefined figure of the mysterious Melvin Wicks, the rumpled carpet, the blood on the bookshelf, Annie’s loud whispering, the flash of a badge, the gleaming green light, the unlocked door, the pale, watery eyes...

“So what happens now?” I finally asked.

“Now I go back to headquarters and officially close the case,” said MacArthur.

“What!” I exclaimed, “but—but, I—”

“Thank for your time and cooperation,” said the detective. “I’ll drive you home.”

“So, you’re giving up!” I cried. “Just like that, it’s all over! You’re going to let a murderer free, while my sister lies dead in a grave and my mother can’t stop crying over her! That’s it, huh!”

MacArthur turned back to me slowly. Everything about him was the same – he was cold, casual, emotionless. But I could see in his eyes that he was doing everything in his power to keep his self-control. The muscle in his left cheek twitched violently and his teeth were gritted in rage. He stared at me from out of his hard, almost hateful, eyes, and I almost think he would have liked to punch me in that moment. It was a full half-a-minute before he ventured to speak, and even then the quiver of emotion in his voice was painfully obvious – to him as well as to me.

“Mr. Henry,” he said, “all I have said to you is that I believed in another possibility besides that of an accident. I based this belief on the evidence before me. Personally, I would much rather believe that it was an accident, but to me the evidence seemed to speak otherwise. If it was not an accident, then it was murder, possibly premeditated. But who would want to kill your sister? You asked the question yourself. There is only person, one suspect, of whom we know that your sister was afraid. Brooks told us, and so did this” – and he drew from his big coat pocket a little leatherbound book – “this, your sister’s diary. I took the liberty of reading it. Three times she mentions how she is scared of a man named Melvin Wicks. But Melvin Wicks did not kill her. And so – and so it was an accident.”

He paused and then said, “I was hoping, Mr. Henry, that you could tell me about anyone else who might have had something against your sister. But there is no one. Believe me, Mr. Henry, I have been very thorough. You were the last loose end. But now everything is tied up. It was, officially, an accident.”

“That’s what you say, Lieutenant,” I finally spoke up, “but what do you really believe?”

MacArthur did not answer me. He walked to the door. With his hand on the doorknob, he turned around and said to me, “Mr. Henry, I’m afraid all those mystery novels of yours have gone to your head. You’re a romantic, you want a final dénouement, a nice, neat, logical who’s-done-it explanation. But, Mr. Henry, you’re not going to get one.”

He opened the door, and I followed him sulkily out to his car. Our dear friend Officer Blue opened the back door for me again, and again with a sigh I got into the backseat. I gave them my mother’s address and we drove to her house in silence. Pulling up to the curb, Officer Blue got out of the car and went round to open my door. I got out, not bothering to say another word to these irritatingly casual cops, but then I heard MacArthur’s voice calling to me from behind. I turned around. MacArthur had his window rolled down. He motioned to me and I came up to him.

“Here,” he said, handing me my sister’s leather-bound diary. “I don’t need it anymore. It’s yours.”

I took it, and the squad car drove away.

Suddenly, I was mad. I rushed into the house and almost crashed into the living room. My mother was sitting in her rocking chair alone. She had not changed after the funeral, and still wore her black dress while she sat and knitted something. Poor Mother, the thought flashed subconsciously through my mind, she’ll never knit anything for her grandchildren. There were only us three kids, Constance, Rudy, and I – and now Constance was dead and Rudy...well, nobody knew where Rudy was – and I, well, I wasn’t much for romancing. Once upon a time, maybe...If Constance had lived, she and Alan could have...I knew from Alan that he had already bought the ring...Oh, well, there was no use in thinking about what might have been.

My mother looked up, startled, as I came crashing into the living room. My face must have been a crazy mask of fury, because for a moment I swear she didn’t recognize me. She just sat there in terror, staring at me, thinking I don’t know what terrible things. But the moment passed as quickly as it had come, and she smiled her weak sad smile at me. “Oh, Eric,” she said, “so you’re back.”

I did not even return her greeting. My mind was still so obsessed with horror and anger that I could only think of one thing. “Where’s Alan?” I almost yelled. “Where is he? Is he still here?”

The look on my poor mother’s face was very scared and very confused. “Alan? N-no, he left a while ago. He – he just dropped me off and came in for a minute or two, and then—What’s wrong, Eric?”

I did not even answer her – I guess I was feeling a bit like MacArthur just then – and I rushed out of the living room and out the door onto the sidewalk. I had Alan on the phone in a second. “Eric?” he asked, “what’s up?” His voice was the same as it had been at the funeral – crushed, miserable, tired. Hearing his voice, I could almost see the tears that were in his eyes. Immediately, I calmed down.

“Alan,” I said, “I need to talk to you. Now.”

“Now?” Alan’s voice broke. “Um, alright, I’ll come over, then. I – uh, I’m at home now. Does—does it have to be now?”

I relented. The fury was gone. “No,” I said, “no, you’re right, not now. Can I see you tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow? Sure – um, you want me to come over?”

“No, no, let’s meet at K’s for lunch? That good with you?”

“Sure, Eric, sure. I’ll be there.”

I hung up and walked slowly back into the house. My mother was standing at the door, staring at me with that frightened, confused look still in her eyes. I bent down and kissed her cheek. “Sorry, Mom,” I said, “I—it was nothing.”

“Was—was that Alan you were talking to?”

“Yes.”

“What did you want with him, Eric?”

“It was nothing,” I repeated.

“Eric,” she looked me straight in the face and I tried to avoid her eyes, “Eric, what did that policeman want?”

“Nothing,” I said lamely.

“Nothing?”

“He wanted to ask me a couple of questions about Constance. He—he just needed to know a few more things before he could wrap things up. It’s all over now.”

“What did he want to know?” my mother would not give up.

“Oh, I don’t know!”

“What did he ask you, Eric?”

“I don’t know! Things about Constance. If she and I were close, stuff like that. It’s meaningless, really. He’s just got to ask these questions – it’s his job.”

“It certainly took a long time,” my mother observed.

“Yes,” I said, “well, he took m—yes, it did.”

My mother saw that I wasn’t going to say anymore, so she didn’t pry. I kissed her again, led her back to her armchair in the living room, sat by her for a while talking about this and that while she started knitting again. Finally, I got up. “You alright, Mom?” I asked. “There’s just a couple of things I need to do—I’m going to my room, if you’re OK.”

My mother nodded, and I went up the stairs to the guest room where I was saying. I had the diary in my coat pocket, and as soon as the door was locked behind me, I sat down at the little desk that stood in one corner of my room, lit the lamp, and began to read.

I did not know my sister had kept a diary. But there were a lot of things about my sister that I did not know. I hadn’t known about Alan until less than eight months ago, and they’d been going steady for almost a year and a half by that time. It was my mother who told me, too, not Constance. Constance had always had a way of keeping her life private, even from her family. That was the reason why she had lived alone in an apartment on the other side of town, instead of with my mother. When my mother told me about Alan, it was obvious that she had only just heard about it herself.

MacArthur was right when he said that my sister had mentioned Melvin Wicks three times. But it was not true that she had expressed her terror of him each of those three times. The first mention of Melvin Wicks was a seemingly insignificant comment buried in the midst of a long paragraph. Previously, I had believed that I was the only one of the family to have inherited the “novelist gene” from my grandfather. Now I saw that I was mistaken. Constance’s style was almost eerily similar to mine. So was her handwriting – an almost illegible cursive. Although almost every page in the diary had been used, I had no trouble in finding the passages that related to Melvin Wicks. MacArthur had clearly reread the entries over and over again, because the diary naturally opened to those three places. Constance’s first mention of Mr. Wicks went like this:

I met a very funny man today. His name was Melvin Wicks, or so he told me. Isn’t that a strange name? I’ve always thought the name Melvin was funny, and I don’t know what to think about a last name like Wicks! Anyway, he comes up to me just as I was getting off from work, and then proceeds to introduce himself. He was ridiculously awkward – I wasn’t sure if he was nervous or whether he was always like that. He said he had seen me around (he didn’t say where) and wanted to make my acquaintance. I didn’t know what to say, so I just said it was very nice to have met him and I hoped we’d meet again. What a funny, funny man!...

The passage went on for another page or so, but nothing more was said about Melvin Wicks. This entry was dated six months ago, March 24, 2025. Clearly, at this time my sister was not in the least afraid of Mr. Wicks. She considered him an oddity or an idiot, nothing more, and her meeting him as a comical coincidence, hardly worth mentioning except with a smirk on your lips.

Her opinion of him was much the same in her second entry. It was dated only a month ago, August 17. She wrote:

First of all, I met that funny man, Melvin Wicks, again today. It has been almost five months, I think, since I saw him that first time. I hadn’t seen him since then. Actually, I’d forgotten about him altogether. When I saw him today, at first I didn’t recognize him. I mean, I did recognize him (you don’t forget a face like that!), but I could not for the life of me remember who he was. But the moment he started talking, I remembered alright and I was amused to see him again. He really is such a very funny man. There is something not quite right with his head, if you know what I mean. I can’t remember what he said to me exactly, but it was all very strange, all very funny, and it really was the most I could do to keep from bursting out laughing. I do hope I see him again! Secondly...

And she went off into something else. So far everything seemed casual and normal. That Melvin Wicks was a strange man was obvious, but that he was dangerous? Or that he was something to be terrified of? There seemed to be nothing of that kind at all. And then I read the final entry. It was, in fact, the last thing written down in the diary, most likely the last thing my sister had ever written. It ran like this:

September 22 – Dear Diary, I saw Melvin Wicks again today. I am very frightened. I know he has been stalking me. I saw him today looking at me from around a corner in the parking garage. That was this morning. After work I went to Walmart, and I saw him again there. There was something in his eyes – something wrong. I can’t explain it. Anyway, he started coming towards me in the parking lot, and I lost my head and started to run towards my car. I could not let him catch me. He started running after me, but he gave up almost immediately. He must have realized that that wouldn’t have looked too good. But as I got in my car, I saw him staring at me, I saw that same awful look in his eyes. I’m seeing Alan tonight, and I’ve decided that I’m going to tell him about Wicks. Probably I’m just overreacting, I’m sure that’s what Alan will tell me. But still, there’s this fear – I keep looking over my shoulder, thinking maybe I’ll see those pale, watery eyes staring back at me. It makes me shiver to think about it. I don’t understand how I’m writing so calmly. I can hear my heart beating inside me. Whatever, I’ve got to calm down, get over it. I’m sure it’s nothing. I didn’t think I was prone to childish hallucinations, but maybe that’s exactly what this is. Oh, I can’t wait to talk to Alan. Only an hour, but how long of an hour! How long!...

I sat back in my chair and thought for a long while. Such a sudden change – I wondered if maybe something more had happened, something Constance had not written in her diary. But then again, maybe not. Maybe it was just as she said, a look in his eyes...how had she described them? Pale and watery...? Could it be? Could that man at the funeral have been Melvin Wicks? If he had killed her, then he wouldn’t have been at her funeral, would he? I was very, very confused.

It was my mother’s sudden knock on the door that startled me out of my revery. I guess I hadn’t heard her come up the stairs. “Supper’s ready!” she said through the door, having tried it and found it locked. “What are you doing in there, Eric?”

“I was – um – writing,” I said, “and reading a bit, too.” I closed the diary with a slam, and hurriedly put it into one of the drawers of my desk. I got up and started for the door, but then, thinking better of it, I went back, took the diary out of the drawer, and went and hid it under my pillow. Maybe it’s a childish superstition of mine, but I have always felt that things are safer when under one’s pillow. I suppose I wasn’t thinking too straight at the time, though, because I never stopped to ask myself, just what was I keeping my sister’s diary safe from?

The next day I met Alan Brooks at K’s. It is a nice little place where you can get a mediocre beer and a pretty good burger. Alan had already secured a small table in the corner when I arrived. He was looking better than yesterday, but not much. His smile was still weak and pathetic as he silently motioned for me to take a seat. I sat down, and we wasted a little time in the formal, “How are you?’s” A pretty waitress came up to take our orders. We ordered and she took our menus and went away with one of those fake, professional smiles on her lips. Our drinks came first, and then our food, but still we sat in an awkward, expectant silence. Alan leaned over the table, staring at me with something like fear in his eyes. I leaned back in my seat, trying to seem calm and collective, and I took a sip of my beer. I knew it was my job to start, but for some reason the words would not come to me. Finally, I pulled myself together and sat up, slamming my beer down with more force than I had meant to.

“Listen, Alan,” I said, searching for words, “there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Alan did not say anything, just looked back at me expectantly with that weak, pathetic smile of his on his face and a deep void in his eyes.

“Alan,” I said, “did Constance ever mention a man named Melvin Wicks?”

I thought I saw a shudder run through his body. The weak smile faded for a moment and would only return after a minute’s struggle. “You know,” Alan said absentmindedly, “the cops asked me the same thing...”

“Alan,” I said, trying to keep the urgency out of my voice, “Alan, I – I think this might be important. Try to remember, did she ever mention him?”

Alan nodded weakly. “Yes,” he said, “she did – once, I mean, maybe twice. What I mean to say is, she only mentioned it one occasion, on the night, the last night...” he broke off and could not continue for a moment. Curious as I was, bursting at the seams with curiosity really, I let him take his time. He pulled himself together at last and continued, “It was just on that last night, but she mentioned him more than once throughout the evening. Once at the beginning, once at the end, I think. She – she seemed awkward about it, I don’t know, maybe scared. She said, I don’t remember exactly, something about seeing him at the store. She had convinced herself that he was stalking her, I don’t remember—”

“You don’t remember!” I said, suddenly angry.

Alan looked fearful. “I – I’m sorry, Eric, I—” Suddenly he stopped, and a shadow – darker than the one that had masked his face ever since the tragedy – slowly spread over his pathetic features. “Eric,” he said, and his voice was suddenly stern, hard, almost commanding, “why is everybody asking about this? Why did the police ask me about this, this Wicks guy? What does he have to do with anything? Tell me, Eric!” He was suddenly in a frenzy, his dead eyes flashed, and his face was flushed fury. I had never seen him like this, but I suddenly realized why my sister had fallen in love with this man. That was a question I had long pondered over. From what I had seen of Alan, and that was admittedly little, I had not detected in him any real character, any strength at all. He was nice enough, but he had always seemed somehow pathetic to me, even before my sister’s death. I had come to the conclusion that my sister had not really loved this man, but simply enjoyed playing the princess with this nice but weak man. Now I saw my mistake. Across from me sat a new Alan, a man I had never seen before, a living fury of passion, and all my misconceptions faded like the smoky shadows they were. I saw in that moment, too, that it would be useless to lie to him. He would have to know it all.

“Alan,” I said slowly, “you saw my sister’s apartment – I mean, after the...”

“Yes,” he answered impatiently.

“Well, um, I don’t really know how to say this, but I don’t think – I mean, the police – oh, I don’t know!”

“Come out and say it!” Alan demanded.

“I’ve just been thinking, Alan – maybe it wasn’t an accident.”

Alan’s face was hard, his eyes were cold. I was horrified at his transformation. There was not a shred, not an inkling of weakness in him. “What do you mean?” he said slowly, and the chill in his voice made me shiver.

“I was there with MacArthur yesterday,” I said, “He – he didn’t think it was an accident. He said, well, he thought it was—” I could not bring myself to say the word.

“Murder,” Alan said it. I nodded.

“And the police suspect Wicks?” he continued.

Again, I nodded.

“But officially, they called it an accident?”

“It wasn’t official until yesterday. They wanted to have my opinion.”

“And you opinion is—?”

I nodded once more.

“And MacArthur?” Alan wanted to know.

“It’s hard to read him,” I said, “but I don’t think he believes in an accident. Still, there’s no proof. And I guess they’ve already talked to Wicks. MacArthur said he couldn’t have done it.”

“I agree with him,” said Alan.

“What?”

“I’ve talked with Wicks myself.”

“You have!” I was astonished.

“Now listen,” Alan began to explain, “I never for a moment suspected him of murder. In fact, I visited him before the—tragedy. It was on the morning of Constance’s death. Constance had been worried about him, I remember now, but I’m not sure what she said exactly. Anyway, I had promised to look into it for her. It wasn’t hard to track him down. I’ve got a friend who’s a private investigator. He got me Wicks’s address and I went to his place. I talked to him a little, asked him to stay away from your sister. He’s a small, pathetic man. He – no, he could not have committed murder. I don’t think he even realized what he was doing in regards to Constance. He’s just a lonely, stupid man, who saw a pretty girl—”

I could not believe my ears. “And you didn’t tell any of this to the police?” I cried.

“Of course I did!” Alan looked almost offended. “I told them just what I’m telling you. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that they suspected that poor little guy of murder!”

“Alan,” I said, “I want to see him.”

Alan hesitated, and that weak, pathetic smile of his – which was, I now saw, nothing but the mask of a great intelligence – spread across his features again. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Eric,” he said, “you know – sometimes you do lose your temper...”

That blasted Alan! We’d hardly been acquainted for a couple of months, and already he knew my chief hidden fault. He was right, but so what! So I did lose my temper sometimes – sometimes even got in trouble because of it – but I kept it under control most of the time. Why, I hadn’t flown completely off the lid in two years! Why did he think that this mysterious Melvin Wicks, whoever he was, would be able to break my self-control so easily. I persisted stubbornly. “I want to see him.”

Alan saw that it was useless to argue, so he shrugged his shoulders, smiling that fake smile of his – I found it irritatingly fake now, and I wondered if Constance had been irritated by it too. “Mind if I finish my lunch first?” he asked, timidly.

I gulped down my beer and bolted down my burger, but Alan, although he did not eat slowly by any means, was in no particular hurry to finish up. I waited impatiently until he was done and then we got into our cars and I followed him to the apartment complex in which our mysterious Melvin Wicks made his abode. Alan knew where he was going – I learned later that he very rarely forgot a place once he had been there – and he pulled up in front of a big, ugly building. He found a parking spot immediately, but I had to drive around a bit before I found one. I was visibly annoyed when I came up to Alan after having parked my car two blocks away.

Alan seemed not to notice. “Look,” he told me, “this Wicks guy, when I said he was stupid, I really meant it. He’s, um, not all there, if you know what I mean...”

I knew what he meant. “Gotcha,” I nodded.

We went into the apartment complex. Alan obviously knew where he was going. There was nobody at the front desk (although I could hear somebody fumbling around in the back room), but Alan didn’t waste a second and started up the stairs right away. I followed him, but we were only half way up when a voice called to us. Looking down, we saw a pudgy fellow coming out of the back room up to the front desk.

“Don’t think I know you,” he said with a smile. “Visitin’ somebody?”

“Yeah,” Alan started a couple steps down, then came to a stop. “You know if Melvin Wicks is here?”

“Don’t know why he wouldn’t be. Ha, the man doesn’t work three days a week! Though...I don’t know, I haven’t been around very much today...Could be he snuck out without my knowin’.”

“Well,” said Alan, “I guess we’ll just take a look.”

It was an old place, that apartment complex that Melvin Wicks deigned to call his home, just like something out of those old detective movies. I didn’t know places like this still existed. In my quick glance around the lobby, I noticed random pots and pans in the corners, clearly set there to catch the water from the leaky roof. I saw that the furniture had once been good, but it was now more than fifty years out of style and looked totally out of place, not least because the walls had just been painted a vibrant puke-green. There was no elevator, although the building reached to three stories, and the wooden staircase were very old. The stairs swayed slightly under our joint weight and creaked uproariously, although some well-meaning soul had recently replaced some of the oldest boards.

Wicks’s apartment was on the top floor, number 303. Alan stopped in front of the door and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again, harder this time. When again there was no answer, Alan turned to me with a shrug. “I guess he’s not home.”

What made me do it, I guess I’ll never know, but I suddenly reached out and grabbed the doorknob. It turned under my hand, the hinges shrieked, and the door opened an inch or two. I grinned at Alan. “You said it yourself, Mr. Brooks, ‘I guess we’ll just take a look around.’”

I pushed open the door and stepped into the apartment. Alan hesitated only an instant behind me, and then he too stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

The apartment in which we found ourselves was not a large one. Stepping through the door, we saw an extremely small living room, with an old love-seat, a couple side-tables strewn with random pieces of junk, a TV, and not much else. There was a carpet on the ground, but the floor was ancient hardwood. The whole place could have used a good sweep. Standing in the middle of this dingy living room, I could see the whole apartment. To the left was a kitchenette, equipped with a couple cupboards, a small counter, and no table, straight in front of me was the bedroom with its door cracked open, and to the right was the bathroom. That, to the best of my knowledge, was the whole place.

Alan came up beside me. “So,” he said, and then he paused. “What you thinking about doing?” he said at last.

I shrugged. “Let’s take a look around. You try the kitchen.”

As Alan searched the kitchen (I heard the opening and closing of cupboards and drawers), I looked more closely around the living room. There really wasn’t much more to see. Alan called to me from the kitchen. “Eric?”

“Yeah,” I straightened up, “you got something?”

“No, I was just wondering...what are we looking for anyway?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I muttered, “Something...” I glanced through some crumbled papers on one of the side-tables. Nothing much there either. A grocery receipt, a little addition scribbled on a scrap of paper. On the other side-table there was a big glass ash-tray with gilded edges. In it were the stubs of two or three cigarettes. It was only then that I noticed whole room smelled very faintly of cigarette smoke – Wicks’s landlord must not have cared very much. It struck me at the time, but I have no idea why, and I dismissed the thought almost immediately. There was also a small antique clock on the side-table, probably the most expensive thing Wicks owned. I glanced at my watch to check the clock. The old thing kept time perfectly.

Alan came out into the living room again. “Nothing in the kitchen. Eric, I really don’t know what we’re doing.”

“Nothing here either,” I said, ignoring his last comment.

“Alright,” said Alan, “so there’s nothing. What were you expecting to find anyway? A smoking gun? Or a bloody knife? I told you already, this guy’s clean. You’re letting your imagination get away with you. Things aren’t really the way they are in those mystery books of yours.”

Funny, hadn’t MacArthur said something just like that?

But oh, I was stubborn! “Come on, Alan,” I said. “I want to have a look in his room.”

“In his bedroom?” exclaimed Alan.

“What?” I smirked. “Is the bedroom all of a sudden off limits now? You didn’t complain when we broke into this guy’s apartment in the first place, did you?”

Well, that shut Alan right up, but I could tell he still wasn’t too comfortable with the whole situation. I swung the bedroom door all the way open, but as Alan came up behind me, I turned to him and said, “Mind checking the bathroom first?” Alan shrugged and went across to the bathroom.

In the bedroom it was very dark – the shades were drawn over the small window – and when I flicked on the light-switch nothing happened. Well, that really pissed me off! I’ll admit that I wasn’t about to judge Mr. Wicks too harshly for his style of living. After all, I was a bachelor myself, I knew it wasn’t all that easy to keep things clean, and nobody ever accused me of being tidy either. But the fact that he hadn’t even bothered to change his burnt out lightbulb – for some reason that really hit home.

I stepped across the room and drew up the shades. That gave us some light, but not much. I saw the form of a low, narrow bed in one corner, together with a bedstand. There was a very small bookshelf beside the door and a closet in the far left-hand wall. Otherwise, the bedroom was just as bare as the rest of the house. I looked all around, trying to think where to start, where I would hide...Of course, under his pillow! I leapt at the thought, literally, and attacked the small bed, throwing off the pillow and pulling back the sheets. But there was nothing.

“What on earth are you doing?” I heard Alan exclaim, and I blushed crimson. Stupid, just so stupid!

“Well,” I said awkwardly, straightening up, “nothing in the bathroom? Good! Well, how about you look on the bookshelf and I’ll—”

“Well, first of all, you better put his bed back together,” said Alan, “or else he might start getting ideas! Or were you thinking of sending him a message, or something?”

I started to say something, but then I stopped short. For the first time I realized the possibility that Melvin Wicks might just come back home at any moment. I didn’t know what we would do if that happened. “We’d better be quick,” I said, but I didn’t need to have said it, because it was clear from his face that Alan had been thinking the same thing.

Hurriedly, I threw the covers and pillows back onto the bed. There was no need to straighten them out or tuck them in – Melvin had left them a perfect mess himself. Then I rushed to open the closet. But I had just swung it open when Alan gave a cry behind me. I turned swiftly and saw Alan kneeling beside the bookshelf, holding a book in his hands.

“What is it?” I whispered. For some reason I suddenly felt the need to whisper.

“Eric,” Alan’s voice was a whisper too, and I could see, even in the bad lighting, that his hands were shaking slightly. “Eric...”

I came over and saw that what I had at first taken as a book was really nothing of the sort. It was a picture in a picture-frame, and the picture was of my sister, Constance Henry.

“Eric...” Alan tried to speak again, but again words failed him. And now I saw that his face was very pale in contrast with the darkness around us.

“Where did he get this?” I hissed in a whisper. “Alan, where did he get this!”

“It—this was on the bookshelf that...I knew there was something...I knew it!”

I glanced around frantically. How much time did we have? I had no idea, no way of knowing how long we had been there, or more importantly, how long until Melvin Wicks, this mysterious stranger, how long till he returned? I grabbed Alan by the shoulders and shook him violently.

“Alan,” I hissed, “Alan, snap out of it! What’s going on? Do you know how he got this picture?”

Alan shook his head, but it was still a moment or two before the words came to his lips. “I – I know this picture, this photo, I...I took it—”

“You took it?” I was astounded. “You took this picture?”

“Yes, I – I’ve got the same one at home, I know it’s the same. But...no, no, it’s impossible!”

“What’s impossible, Alan, what? Come on, we don’t have time for this!”

Alan took a deep breath, and I realized that he had just been on the verge of tears. “This picture,” he said slowly, searching for the words, “this picture was on Constance’ bookshelf—”

“The one—?” I could not finish the sentence.

Alan nodded. He couldn’t bear to say the words either. He swallowed hard, and then continued, “I – I remember now, I remember feeling like there was something missing...MacArthur brought me up to the room the day it happened...I knew there was something missing! I knew it!”

“Alan,” I said after a pause, “Alan, how did it get here?”

He did not answer me.

“Alan! How did it get here!”

“I don’t know!” He almost shrieked. “I don’t know...”

Alan fell silent and bent over the photograph. I thought I saw the sparkle of a tear in the gloom. The silence was oppressive, but for a good long moment I did not have the strength to break it. But Melvin Wicks was coming. We had to finish what we’d started.

I knelt down beside Alan and examined the bookshelf. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I thought that since this was where Alan had found Constance’ photo – well, maybe there was something else hidden here as well. I was glancing hurriedly over the book-titles when I suddenly stopped short and gasped. Immediately, Alan’s head popped up. I saw that his eyes were stained with tears.

“What is it, Eric?”

I didn’t answer, just picked up a book and handed it to Alan. He read the title aloud, “The Mystery of the Disappearing Woman.” He looked up at me without comprehension. I just stared back at him. And then I saw, through the eerie darkness of that room, a light of realization come into his eyes. He gaped back down at the book, his mouth hanging open, his eyes bulging. Slowly, with my hand now trembling as much as Alan’s, I lifted the front cover. To my sister Constance. And with my own hand, in sharpie, was written a little extra note, Love you, sis!

Alan looked up at me, his face drawn and his eyes dark. All I could do was nod.

“You...you gave this to her?” Alan managed to ask at last. Again I nodded, and the bedroom was as silent as a graveyard once again.

And then, through the deathly quiet, came the sound of the antique clock ticking, and I realized we didn’t have a moment to lose. I sprang up and flung the closet door wide. I glanced round quickly, but there was nothing to catch my eye, and we didn’t have time to hang around. I slammed the closet shut and started for the door. “Come on, Alan!”

Alan struggled to his feet. I don’t think he fully realized, with the same sense of urgency that I did, that we had to go. But as he got up, I saw that he still had Constance’ picture in his hand. “Alan,” I whispered, gently, “Alan, you can’t take that.”

He looked at me, and I will never forget the utter despair in his eyes. “Alan,” I said again, and I took the picture. I felt his hand stiffen for an instant, but then he let go, and turning away, he left the room. I put the picture back and hurried out after him, leaving the door slightly ajar, just as we had found it.

And then we were out the door and into the hallway. We rushed down the creaking stairs and nearly fell flat into the lobby. The fat man at the desk looked up with his business-smile on his pudgy lips, but we rushed right past him and out the door. In the doorway, we nearly bulled another man over, but we just muttered our apologies and didn’t even bother to say Good Afternoon. Only, the moment we were in the street, Alan suddenly seized me by the shoulder. His grip, tight as a vice, bit painfully into my arm.

“What is it?” I hissed, still not brave enough to speak above a whisper.

“That man,” Alan gasped, “don’t you know? That man was Melvin Wicks!”

Melvin Wicks! I turned as fast as I could, but the door was just closing after him, and I only saw the back of his tawny head. As the door fell shut, I seemed to catch the words. “Oh, Mr. Wicks, there were some guys who wanted to see you. No, no, they just left, no, I’m sorry, you just missed them...”

I only realized it later – obviously, at the time neither Alan nor I was in a fit state to think rationally – but we should have just turned around then and there and gone back in to meet Mr. Wicks. After all, hadn’t we come for that very reason? But on the other hand, we had found what we had meant to find, and maybe then there wasn’t any real reason to see Melvin Wicks. Whatever the case, we didn’t stop to think, but just kept walking right along until we came to Alan’s car. Here we both stopped and Alan caught me by the arm again. His face was still pale, though his hands had stopped their trembling. “What do we do now?

Well, that was just the question, wasn’t it!

“Look, Alan,” I said, “I really think you should just go home now. You aren’t doing too good, I can see that—”

“But what are you going to do?”

“Look, Alan, I know you don’t want to miss out on anything, but you really should go home. You’re not fit to do anything right now, you know that. See, you’re shaking again!” It was true. Alan’s hand had begun to tremble once more.

But Alan persisted stubbornly. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go to the police,” I said, “but I don’t want you to come. It’s like I said, you’re in no condition to go anywhere or do anything. I was an idiot to tell you about this in the first place, to drag you into all of this. You can’t take it, not now, not without Constance...”

He was going to say something, I know, going to argue with me, but as soon as I mentioned her name, it was as if even the will to live vanished from Alan Brooks. He nodded his head, and his eyes took on their old dead look. He knew I was right, he knew he wasn’t up for the challenge. What he didn’t know, and what I wasn’t about to tell him, was that I wasn’t up for it either.

I said good-bye to Alan and walked over the couple blocks to where I had parked my car. I got in, put the key into the ignition, but I did not start it. For a moment I just sat there motionless, trying to pull myself together. Then I reached into my coat-pocket and pulled out The Disappearing Lady. No, I had not been as strong as Alan...For a long time I looked at that book, gazing at the cover. It showed a young woman with her hands bound tight in front of her and a noose around her neck. Then I flipped open the cover and reread the dedication. I don’t know for sure, but I think it was almost ten minutes before I finally put down the book and drove away.

I drove straight to the police station, but that was on the other side of town, so I had plenty of time to think about just how stupid I had been. I, I who made my living writing about people making fatal mistakes, I had just made such a mistake. Moreover, I had made it knowingly and willingly. I had taken what was clearly one of the dearest treasures of Melvin Wicks. I kept comforting myself with the thought that maybe he wouldn’t miss it, but each time I did that I couldn’t help but hate myself more. Wouldn’t miss it? Of course he would miss it! This maniac had murdered my sister out of obsession and stolen her photo and one of her books as mementos of his crime. What else would such a passionate maniac think about but the two articles that reminded him of her! And now I had been stupid enough to steal one of those very mementos, one of those things that probably meant more to him than his own life. Would he miss it? Ha!

When I got to the police station, I went right up to the front desk and asked for Lieutenant MacArthur. The receptionist was a little hesitant, asking whether I was expected, told me that the lieutenant was very busy, much too busy, but at that moment MacArthur himself came out and greeted me with a handshake. The receptionist, a very pretty, but unpleasantly stupid blonde, blushed red with blood, but I just flashed her a smile and turned again to MacArthur.

The lieutenant was just leaving, so he asked if it wouldn’t be inconvenient for me if we walked while we talked. And I was quick to oblige. I figured that the less official this was the better. So we walked out of the station towards the parking garage across the street, after saying good-bye to the, um, well-meaning receptionist. I assumed that I was the one who should start the conversation, but we’d hardly walked out the front doors when MacArthur started talking. Only he didn’t talk about my sister or the case or anything like that. He talked about the weather. “Looks like it might rain,” he said, pointing out the big, black clouds I had failed to notice on the way over. “Well, I guess we could use the rain.”

I was so surprised that I didn’t know what to say, so MacArthur just kept on talking. “You know, there are some people who like gloomy days like this. I can’t understand it. I’d much rather have the sun always shining, wouldn’t you? Life’s so gloomy by itself...”

“Lieutenant,” I said sharply, “you know I didn’t come here to talk about the weather.”

“Yes,” he said, “but I’m not quite sure what you do want to talk about.”

MacArthur had turned to face me, but since we were now standing right under the shadow of the parking garage, I couldn’t make out his features very well.

“Look,” I said, and I showed him my novel. “Do you know what this is?”

“It would appear,” said MacArthur (very smugly, I thought), “that it is a cheap mystery thriller written by none other than” – and here he leaned over very dramatically to read the title – “than our dear friend Mr. Eric Henry himself!”

He looked up at me and I saw the gleam of his smile in the shadows, but it was not a nice smile.

“And do you know,” I continued angrily, “where I might have found this particular copy?”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know,” MacArthur said with that infuriating smile of his, “but if I had to guess, I’d say you stole it from the apartment of a certain Melvin Wicks.”

I was completely dumbfounded, and MacArthur didn’t even give me a chance to collet my thoughts. And meanwhile his entire physiognomy had been completely transformed. His face was a twisted mask of anger.

“Just how stupid do you think we are, Mr. Henry!” he fairly exploded. “Did you actually think we didn’t know about this book? Haven’t you ever heard of a search-warrant? I know you have, you make mention of it enough in those rotten books of yours! You and your stupid books! I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it, but now I can’t help but believe it! You actually think that we’re morons; you actually think that the only one who can solve a mystery is an amateur sleuth like the ones in your books. And don’t you dare deny it, Mr. Henry, I know your game. Don’t think I don’t! You want to live what you write, don’t you.? You want to solve a murder that the police can’t crack themselves. Well, listen to me, and listen good, because apparently the first time I told you, you weren’t listening at all. There are no ‘mysteries’ in real life, no who-done-it solutions! When I say it’s an accident, then it’s an accident. Period.”

I was taken aback by this fiery onslaught, I’ll admit it, but I was angry too. And I wasn’t about to let some copper push me around like that. “So you knew about this book, did you? Then I suppose you know about my sister’s picture too, huh?”

MacArthur nodded, “We do.”

“But you still want to tell me he didn’t do it!” I was just about ready to explode myself. “You still want to tell me it’s an accident! How does he explain this book away, huh? Or my sister’s picture? I suppose you asked him about that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, we did,” said MacArthur. His voice was now a deadly calm. “And Mr. Wicks had a very simple answer. A very good answer, I might add.”

“And what was this very good, very simple answer?”

“Your sister gave them to him.”

I find it hard to explain just how astounded, just how infuriated I was in that moment.

“Constance gave them to him? He said that? And—and you actually believed him!”

MacArthur looked very hard at me. He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Why not? Why shouldn’t we believe him?”

“Because – because, well, because it’s unbelievable, that’s why!”

“How is it unbelievable?”

I was getting flustered. “Well, how is it believable then?”

MacArthur shrugged. “I don’t think it’s that hard to believe. This man was stalking your sister – that much we know for certain. Isn’t it believable that Constance simply gave him a trinket or two, something to remember her by, just so he’d stop following her?”

I was just about to say something when the thought occurred to me, What if he’s right? And then I shut my stupid mouth. Because I had to admit it, MacArthur’s solution was believable. Why shouldn’t Constance do something like that? It seemed rational enough. And then I started thinking that MacArthur might be right about some other things. In particular, was MacArthur right about me? Was my sole motive for my investigation, or at least my main motive, simply that I wanted to “live what I wrote”? God knows that I never entertained such a thought, at least not consciously. But what if...what if unconsciously – deep down, I mean – I had actually considered myself something of an amateur detective. And maybe, maybe I really had wanted to prove MacArthur wrong, although it was MacArthur himself, I suddenly remembered, who had first sowed the seeds of doubt in my mind.

And it was that thought, as far as I can figure, that sparked another remembrance of MacArthur’s words.

“But didn’t you say, Lieutenant, that Wicks had some sort of an alibi anyway?”

MacArthur hesitated a moment. “I don’t think I actually said he had an alibi. But you’re right that I did mention something along those lines...If by alibi you mean he can tell you exactly where he was on September 23 between noon and three o’clock in the afternoon, then he has nothing of the kind. But if you mean that we can prove without a doubt that he could not have committed the crime, if crime there was, then he certainly has an alibi. “

“What do you mean, MacArthur, he could not have committed the crime – if there was a crime?”

“I mean he was literally, mentally incapable of committing it.”

“Mentally?”

MacArthur hesitated again and glanced around. He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, “this is not the place to talk about this. Would you mind if we went back to my office?”

“Whatever you want,” I said.

The dumb, blonde receptionist was very surprised to see us again. I concluded from her expression that MacArthur rarely, if ever, returned after he had said good-bye. But he flashed her a smile and said that she should send him Danny as soon as she could, and then we left her to her astonishment and went into his office.

This was a neat, clean, white cubicle, with a desk, a few filing cabinets, and a couple chairs. MacArthur sat down heavily and motioned for me to take a seat myself. He leaned back in his chair but did not speak right away. A minute, then two passed. I could hear the tick-tocking of a clock behind me, but for some reason I did not dare turn around to look at it. I tapped my fingers on my knee, and then glanced back at MacArthur. “Well?” I asked at last.

MacArthur held up a finger. “Just wait,” he said, “wait till Danny gets here.”

And so we waited. It was another two minutes before there was a knock on the door, and then Danny walked in. He was a short, stout man with broad shoulders, black eyes and black hair, and a no-nonsense sort of look on his face. He stood at attention, waiting for his superior to speak first. I got the feeling that this Danny fellow was a pretty quiet type, one of those who follow orders and don’t ask questions.

“Danny,” MacArthur said, “get me the Constance Henry file.”

Danny’s stoic features were visibly strained. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. “Sir,” he said awkwardly, as if he were not used to talking much, “that case is closed.”

MacArthur smiled stiffly. “Yes, I know. Go get it anyway.”

Danny’s stoic features returned. He nodded, left the cubicle, and returned in half a minute with a file in his hand. This he set down on MacArthur’s desk, and at a nod from his superior, he disappeared again, shutting the door behind him.

MacArthur meanwhile was slowly fingering through the file. He found what he was looking for – a thin folder – and he half took it out of the file. He glanced up at me. “You understand, Mr. Henry,” he said, “that this is all extremely confidential?”

“Of course.”

He nodded and handed me the folder. “Read it,” he said, and he leaned back in his chair once more.

I opened the file – my hands trembling a little, I think – and this is what I read:

CASE FILE 1302: Interrogation #2

Melvin Wicks to be interrogated in relation to the death of Constance Henry

Interrogating Officer: Daniel O’Neil

O’Neil: Name?

Wicks: Melvin Wicks.

O’Neil: Date of Birth?

Wicks: July 30, 1991.

O’Neil: Occupation?

Wicks: I work at Joey’s Hardware store down town.

O’Neil: Did you know Constance Henry?

Wicks: Yes, yes, I did.

O’Neil: What was your relationship with Miss Henry?

Wicks: I – I loved her.

O’N: You loved her? Was she aware of your love? Did she love you back?

W: I – I think so...No, no, I know so, officer. I know she loved me back!

O’N: Were you aware that she was dating another man?

W: Yes...yes, I was...

O’N: And yet you still say she loved you? Did she ever say she loved you?

W: N-no, she never said anything, but...but I don’t think she ever needed to say anything. We just sort of felt the same thing. Does that make sense?

O’N: Were you aware that she only mentioned you on one occasion to anyone she knew? She told her boyfriend that she was scared of you.

W: I – I don’t think she did. Mr. Brooks – he is her boyfriend, isn’t he? – he came one day and told me the same thing, that Constance was afraid of me and that I should stay away from her. But I didn’t believe him. I still don’t believe him.

O’N: When did this meeting occur?

W: It was yesterday morning.

O’N: The morning of Miss Henry’s death?

Wicks: Yes.

O’N: Mr. Wicks, how did you meet Miss Henry?

W: I saw her walking out from the store where she worked.

O’N: And do you remember when this was?

W: Yes, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, either. It was April 18.

O’N: Of this year?

W: It was 2024.

O’N: 202—But that was more than a year ago! According to Miss Henry’s diary she only met you in March of this year! You mean to tell me that you stalked this woman for a whole year before you finally mustered enough courage to go up and talk to her!

W: I did follow her, yes. You—you see, I was scared that maybe – maybe she wouldn’t—Oh, I don’t know!...But after a while, I – I started to get the feeling that she knew—

O’N: She knew?

W: She knew that I was following her, and—and she liked it.

O’N: And yet it still took you a year to talk to her!

W: I – I wanted to! I really wanted to! But Shilo said I shouldn’t! Shilo...well, Shilo never liked her very much.

O’N: Who is Shilo?

W: Shilo is my best friend.

O’N: Was he with you while you were stalking Miss Henry?

W: I – I wasn’t...but no, no he wasn’t with me, not always. Only – only sometimes.

O’N: Where can we find Shilo?

W: I – I don’t know.

O’N: Don’t you know where he lives?

W: No.

O’N: He’s your best friend and you don’t know where he lives? Is it in the city at least?

W: I think so.

O’N: You think so? What’s his last name, then?

W: I don’t know that he has a last name.

O’N: How old is he?

W: Look, I shouldn’t have mentioned him. He – he doesn’t like to get involved—

O’N: Well, like it or not, he’s involved now! You say Shilo didn’t like Miss Henry?

W: I – I know what you’re thinking, sir, I’m not as stupid as you think!

O’N: I don’t think you’re stupid, Mr. Wicks, I just want to know about Shilo.

W: Well, you won’t hear a thing out of me! I won’t let you hurt Shilo! I love Shilo, he’s my best friend!

O’N: Mr. Wicks, I—

W: I love Shilo!

O’N: More than Constance Henry?

W: I love him, I won’t let you hurt him.

END OF INTERROGATION #2

I looked up at MacArthur. “And then?” I asked.

MacArthur reached over and took the folder. He replaced it in the file. Then he looked back at me. “Well?” I said.

He shrugged. “We couldn’t get anything else out of him. We tried two more interrogations, using a different cop each time. It didn’t do any good...In the last one, we got a description, but not much.” He glanced down at the file and read, “Male; Caucasian; around thirty years old; average height; eye color: blue; hair color: black.” MacArthur shut the file. “And that’s it.”

“So who is he?” I was getting impatient again. “Who is Shilo?”

“Well, that’s the thing, Mr. Henry,” MacArthur shifted in his seat. “You see – and I don’t really know how to say this – but this Shilo, he doesn’t exist.”

“He what?”

“He doesn’t exist.”

I was silent for a good long moment, trying to pull myself together. Finally I said, “You mean you can’t find him?”

“No,” said MacArthur, “I mean he doesn’t exist. We checked everything—that’s really the only reason this case took as long as it did, not that it took very long. We were trying to track down Shilo. We checked every record at our disposal, and let me assure you, Mr. Henry, that is a lot of records. Government census, IRS, you name it. We even checked up overseas. Nothing.”

“And so Melvin Wicks—?” I queried.

“Certifiably insane,” said MacArthur, “and I mean literally. We brought in a psychiatric expert in addition to our own psychiatrists. Melvin Wicks was diagnosed with a unique case of insanity. I have it right here.” He handed me a very official-looking sheet of paper. I glanced through it, but my mind was somewhere else entirely.

“But why,” I couldn’t understand it, “why did Wicks make this guy up?”

MacArthur shrugged again. “Apparently he didn’t just make him up. According to the doctors, Shilo is a hyper-developed imagination, or something like that, I can’t remember exactly. What that means, as far as I can understand, is that Wicks had invented and believed in Shilo years ago, possibly as far back as his childhood. Shilo is, um, an imaginary friend, if you will.”

“But – but—Fine! So Wicks is insane! That doesn’t prove that he’s not a murder. Just the opposite I should think. Shilo’s irrelevant in that case.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said MacArthur, “but the more we questioned him, the less he seemed to be capable of murder. There are certain types, you know...Anyway, we finally asked our expert about it and he confirmed our belief with fact. According to him – and this is a PhD talking, not me, Mr. Henry – Melvin Wicks is literally incapable of murder.”

“Incapable?”

MacArthur nodded slowly. “He has a sort of mental wall that keeps him from doing anything like that. He can contemplate murder, commit every sin there is in his heart, but when it comes to the actual shedding of blood, well, he simply can’t do it. That’s what I meant when I said he had a sort of alibi. Diminished capacity is the legal term for it.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

MacArthur smirked. “Google it.”

“No, I mean, I don’t believe Wicks is incapable of murder. What if he killed my sister in a fit of anger? What if he just pushed her, pushed her harder than he intended, lost control of himself, and she hit her head on the bookshelf. That’s murder, isn’t it?”

MacArthur sighed. “You’re really grasping at straws, aren’t you, Mr. Henry. Well, I’ll tell you this much. There were no signs of a struggle, but that, of course, does not disprove anything. It does mean, however, that the attack would have to be sudden, completely unexpected, and that your sister – who was not a particularly weak woman, you will remember – would have had to be overcome in a second. The attacker, then, would have to be – if nothing else – a pretty strong fella, and one subject to sudden bursts of uncontrollable anger. And that does not sound like Melvin Wicks. I’ll add, just for grins, what the doctors told me: that Melvin Wicks, being exposed to so much blood, would have instantly gone into a psycho-somatic shock lasting at least three hours.”

“Oh, great, so now he faints at the sight of blood! And you say Shilo doesn’t exist, huh? What about Wicks?

“You’re really striking out today, aren’t you, Mr. Henry? But this isn’t my opinion; these are the facts. If you don’t like ’em, why don’t you go ask the doctor about it?”

“I’ll do that! What’s this expert’s name?”

“Me and my stupid...!” I heard MacArthur grumble to himself. Out loud he said, “Fine, Henry, fine! I’ll give you the name, although I doubt he’ll see you. He’s Francis Euler, works at the Charleston Mental Institute.”

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“In Charleston,” MacArthur smirked.

“This isn’t any time for jokes, Lieutenant!”

I got the address without any further trouble, and MacArthur walked me to the door. We walked by the blonde receptionist again, but she looked away with a blush.

“Well, thanks,” I said to the lieutenant as I shook his hand.

“Say,” MacArthur said as I lay my hand on the door, “I’ve been thinking, Mr. Henry, about something you said. You were in the back of a police car before? What’d you do?”

“I told you, Lieutenant, I was a pretty stupid teenager.”

“Yeah, but what was it exactly?”

I gritted my teeth. “I beat the snot out of a security guard. He, um, he tried to stop me from stealing a Hershey bar.”

I can still see that darn MacArthur chuckling whenever I close my eyes.

To be continued...