sequel-6

THE SEQUEL

Chapter 6--Henry as Detective

      Henry's Plato reading group was breaking up, moving back to New York for The Tempest, beginning to fall behind, some reading hastily--some losing interest. It was important to Henry, for he was bringing back to memory works he'd known very well when he was in college, and this first year was just the beginning of a longer reading program he had in mind. He said he intended to pursue his quest in any case, "but I'll need a lot of help with all the reading."
     One or another of them read much of the Gorgias to him while they were in Japan, on the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, or propped on futons at a ryokan. But by then even Christine and Laura were beginning to lose their enthusiasm for what they called Socrates' "eternal questioning of the obvious." There were great things to come in the Republic, Henry told them--the story of Gyges' Ring, the Allegory of the Cave, the Myth or Er--to increase interest at the end of that year, but, back home, even that dialogue started to seem tedious to most of them in places.
     Shoko saw it as a commitment, and was planning to read the last pages of the Republic to Henry the last day of the year. But the others couldn't often get together to discuss it. Already things had become pretty irregular. But Henry saw his larger problem as holding readers for the late dialogues that following year. No matter what he said about their philosophical profundity, few in the group, glancing ahead to the Timaeus, the Parmenides, and the Theaetetus found them as appealing as they'd found the Meno, the Symposium, the Apology, or, finally, the Republic--including Shoko. She was still pleased to read to Henry, but preferred it to be something else, as these dialogues seemed to blend into one for her--and she also now had Hajime to think about.
      On the other hand, Charlie would have been quite willing to read Plato to Henry, but had gone East the day after Ben

was shot, and didn't see Henry for about a month. And, ready to abandon Plato, most of the rest of the group had indicated that they preferred to read other things that next year, to let each member choose a book in rotation, and discuss the last one chosen when they happened to get together.
     Laura chose Walden, which encouraged Shoko to choose the medieval Japanese work the Hojoki (My Ten-Foot Hut), which also affirmed the simple life of the mind and spirit--which she and Henry might live there at the lake--suggesting, from a traditional Buddhist point of view, how one could rise above the cares of the world in such a retreat. They looked forward to comparing the two. Even Henry was happy to hold the group together with their own reading interests--but still needed readers for Plato for that next year.
     Then--a godsend for Henry--a new reader appeared. One day, not long after work on The Tempest began, Laura and Christine happened to be back in California to meet with Lieutenant Carlson again on questions about Ben's death, and Thomas drove them up to the lake. He began talking to Henry as the women played with Hajime, and, seeing the book Shoko had been reading from, at the time Book VI of the Republic, offered to read to him for a while. Henry told him he might have trouble coming in in the middle of a philosophical text, but Thomas said, "I know this book pretty well." He had a nice deep, even voice, which pleased Henry, and when Henry asked questions about Socrates' conception of the philosopher, and the interpretation of the sun analogy, Thomas had definite opinions.
      "The Republic may be Plato's greatest dialogue," Henry remarked, "though I personally like the Symposium best."
     Thomas agreed. "That was the countess's favorite, too."
     When Henry said, "I'd like to work through all the late Platonic dialogues this next year, about 800 pages," Thomas seemed genuinely interested. "I read all of them in school. In

Germany. In German. And while I sometimes talked to the countess about Plato, it was seldom about those later dialogues. I know the Theaetetus is Plato's theory of knowledge, for example--his 'epistemology'--but that's about all I remember about it, and I have no opinion on how profound that theory is. So I'd like to read it again--and discuss it with you." From that day on Henry once again had an enthusiastic partner in reading Plato.
While Christine and the others were back in New York, and Grendel had moved back to the lake with Henry and his family, Thomas was again alone with Midnight at Shangri La, which was fine, but he arranged to come up to the lake on a regular basis to read to Henry. They spent as much time discussing as they did reading, so it was like the experience with Charlie for Henry, except that Thomas was coming from the past, Charlie from the future. They, too, liked to go out in the boat, where they might spend the afternoon debating a point--or Thomas might drive Henry on the winding mountain roads in the area in the Ferrari as they talked about Plato, and other things. At first, they discussed the Republic a lot, some times with Shoko. They particularly liked Charlie to join them when he began to return to California.
Charlie had also planned to read Plato to Henry when he could, but one day Henry asked him if he'd be willing to read Mishima to him instead, since Thomas was regularly reading Plato. Shoko didn’t care for Mishima either and Henry wanted to be able to talk to Jack about this author whose work he took so seriously. Charlie said he'd be happy to join him in that, too. They started with the Confessions of a Mask. Charlie was soon caught up in Mishima, and both made occasion to talk to Jack about him. So Henry, still the teacher, had negotiated with a range of readers so all of them had something they enjoyed reading and talking to him about.

     Henry and Shoko had discovered, in working with Jordan's journals, that he'd fancied himself a poet, which surprised Henry. He'd found that Charlie, too, had an interest in poetry and began to play poetry games with him--sometimes including Shoko--generating a limerick, or haiku, for example. He asked if Charlie might like to help edit Jordan's poetry, and gave him copies of the poems. When Charlie asked others in the company whether Jordan had ever published any of his poetry, they were surprised he'd written any. Charlie was puzzled by most of the poems, and wished he could discover some of Jordan's models, poets he might be imitating, to help him decide how good the poems were. He began to write a little poetry himself--as Henry promised to do.
     Jack had been reading Mishima since he first began reading Japanese literature with the countess at Shangri La, with Donald Keene's translation of Mishima's Five Modern Noh Plays. It was not only the plays themselves, but the countess's enthusiasm for Mishima after she and Shoko had met him in Japan and seen one of his Noh plays with him, that had attracted Jack so strongly that he'd soon read all the Mishima then available in translation.
     Then Jordan had seen Mishima's film, Rites of Love and Death, in New York, and was impressed by that that he began reading Mishima himself.   Jack had been in Japan when Mishima committed suicide, and was soon at work on his own Modern Noh play, based on Mishima's death--and continued to read Mishima's work as there was a flood of translation soon after his death. Jordan had agreed to do Jack's play in the summer of 1973, while Betty was in Europe, and had been a Mishima enthusiast from then on. Ben had played the Student, and Ralph, Saigo Takamori, so Jack got to know them all very well, and saw Ben's close relationship to Jordan, as they talked about the significance of Mishima and Morita committing seppuku together.

     Christine had told them that Jordan was reading both Spring Snow, the first novel in Mishima's final tetrology, and John Nathan's biography of Mishima as she drove the Ferrari coming out to California. Jordan was also interested in the novel Jack was doing a film version of, Forbidden Colors, set in the Tokyo homosexual underworld of the '50s--the novel Henry now particularly wanted Charlie to read to him.
     Though Henry was blind, this reading was at the center of his life, but he'd also begun to think of himself as having the temperament of a detective, and, after they'd met with Lieutenant Carlson there at the cabin, said to Shoko, "Why couldn't I solve this crime that has him baffled? I should know everyone likely to be involved--all those who came up here to the lake. And I know Brown, who discovered the body, very well--even what he looks like, or looked like ten years ago, talk to him on the phone, and there in his store, regularly, since ordering groceries is one of my chores. I don't think he'd have taken the gun, or thrown it into the lake. I'm sure he just delivered the groceries and reported what he found to the police. I would believe him absolutely.
     "I knew Ben, the victim, pretty well, too--though I never especially liked him. He was Jordan's favorite, and made too much of that. He was a good enough actor that Jordan liked to have him as a partner, on stage as well as in their private lives. For a time they went everywhere together."
     Shoko asked, "Who do you think the police suspect?"       "That's why I suggest this. Lieutenant Carlson indicated that Christine is the prime suspect, and I'm sure he's wrong about that. First the tire tracks showed the Ferrari had been up here after the rain. Then, the most damning evidence, that Christine was still in no condition to talk to anyone the next day, upset by something, and only after questioning admitted that she'd been up here to see Ben, and was frightened away

when he fired that gun. The lieutenant suspects an attempted rape, it seems, though he didn't pursue that with her.
      "'Then, that sandwich in the bedroom,' he said. 'How about that? Suppose Ben didn't have the gun at all, but, after their argument, she didn't leave right away. They fix sandwiches, she excuses herself to go to the bathroom, knows the gun is in that drawer, and happen to put her sandwich there when she gets the gun. Then she goes back and shoots Ben! Just like she did her mother and her boy friend the first time. How's that for a plot?'"
      "We know that gun was not in that drawer," Shoko said. "I thought it had been disposed of, had no idea that Jack had put it in his footlocker. Christine didn't know that either."
      "But the lieutenant said the police were sure someone was covering up on the sandwich. They'd left it there--just to see--and, sure enough, three days later it was gone. He thought Christine probably disposed of it."
     Shoko laughed. "Until I told him that Marjorie and I found that sandwich there when she and Laura and I were cleaning up the cabin. Christine didn't come back to the lake for several days. It was certainly a mystery to us, but we just threw it out, as part of the junk those boys had accumulated. Everything else was just as it had been in that drawer--which is my drawer! And there never had been a gun there."
     "Then I reminded him that Ben was still wearing the holster, and had been practicing with the gun, as Charlie said he knew he had--and liked to show off his quick draw. Carlson thought Ben might still have threatened her with the gun if he tried to rape her. He said a blood test showed that Ben was pretty drunk, so he'd have been at his most obnoxious. If drunk enough, Ben probably shot himself."
     "But twice? And once in the head?" Shoko asked. "Then how would he have gotten rid of the gun? And where was Christine all that time? Just calmly watching?"

     "No, running down the trail. There must have been two people here when she got here . . . at least two. I think that if Ben, and, probably, Arthur, were living here most of the time we were gone that might have been Arthur's sandwich."
     Shoko said, "Maybe. I could tell by the mess the place was in, particularly there in the bedroom, that two people had been living here. If they were looking for evidence on Ben's sex life, their lab should have been able to find it there."
      "And I'm pretty confident Ben wasn't planning to rape Christine, as the lieutenant probably knows." Henry laughed.
"The boys probably intended to clean up that room before we got back, but they thought they still had one more night."
      "Yes. I’m sure the second person was male . . . mostly from the bedroom. Not just because a woman wouldn't be likely to leave that kind of a mess, but also from things left in the bathroom. The sandwich did indicate that someone was eating in the bedroom while Christine was here--then put the sandwich in the drawer. The lieutenant must know that, too."
     "But, if so," said Henry, "was that person Arthur? And why would he be hiding?"
     "It's natural to hide if you're living together and don't want people to know. We all knew Ben was gay, but Arthur? My guess is that the person living with Ben--perhaps Arthur--not Christine, is more likely to be the one who shot Ben--if Ben didn't shoot himself. Then someone had to take the gun away. And what about those other cars?"
     "Even if that second person living here was Arthur, that doesn't mean he shot Ben, or was necessarily here that evening. The police in New York talked to him, and he denied being at the lake at all that week, said he'd been back in New York with Ben earlier, and they did fly back here, but he had his own apartment in town, and a date with a girl that night . . . all night. He said he flew back to New York the next morning--on the same plane with Charlie." 67

    "See . . . he didn't want to admit it. I can check on most of that, if you'd like," Shoko said. "Marjorie had told me she'd try to come tidy up the place when she knew we were going to get home, but said she'd dropped that plan when she discovered 'the boys' were still here. I'll ask what more she knows about what was going on here--who 'the boys' were."
     "Christine did admit she was here, and the lieutenant has been focusing on the Ferrari tire tracks that evening . . . clear enough for anyone to see down there by the road after a rain. We know Christine had loaned Ben the Ferrari while we were gone, since she knew he liked to drive Jordan's car. But there were no cars here when Brown delivered the groceries and found the body. I believe that, if Brown says so. But if Christine was here, and saw that gun, she'd have run all right. That could explain one set of tire tracks--but not the others."
     "But why come up here alone?" Shoko asked. "Most women wouldn't--though she does think of this as her home."
      "Probably to get the Ferrari. But then how'd she get up here? On the bus? She had nothing going with Ben, I'm sure. She was thankful that working with him so closely, first in New York, and then out here on the film, was over. I heard her say she especially disliked being kissed by him."
      "Laura said Ben called Christine that afternoon to come up to the lake to talk about The Tempest--as he told her. She and Jack had more or less decided they wanted Charlie as Ferdinand, but were thinking of Ben to play Caliban, in part for the diplomacy with the Players Company, and then that'd give Christine a relationship with him she could tolerate. She expected him to be pleased to play Caliban."
      "Jack says Ben was fascinated by the gun that had shot Betty and Jordan. So he probably did get it out after he moved into the cabin. He was driving the Ferrari, Jordan's car, was wearing Jack's gun, in its holster, here at the lake, and had purchased ammunition at Brown's store, so he could

engage in target practice," Henry said. "He was acting a heroic part. But Ben was unstable. And he has always had a drinking problem, as you know, especially between plays."
     "I don't know if I should tell you this, but Laura told us when she was helping clean the cabin that when Ben called Shangri La shortly after they got back from Japan, and asked Christine to come up here to meet him, she warned against it. Christine told her it would be all right, since she had good news for him, and wanted to get her car back. But she needed a ride, and, since Thomas wasn't there, asked Laura for Charlie's number and called him. She talked to him some about the trip to Japan, then asked if he'd give her a ride to the lake to get the Ferrari. Laura felt better about that. Charlie seemed surprised by the request, Christine said, but told her, 'All right . . . I'll pick you up in about half an hour.'"
      "So Charlie was up here, too." Henry shook his head.
      "That's what Laura remembers--that she saw Charlie pick Christine up, then bring her back later that evening--very upset.   But she didn't tell Jack. And the Ferrari was there the next morning--Thomas was washing it. Christine hasn't told Lieutenant Carlson about Charlie, just let him think she'd driven the Ferrari--her car. It was after they'd met with him at Shangri La that she told Laura what had happened here. She said there were already three cars here when they pulled into the parking area, the Ferrari and two others, so they wondered who else was here. She told Charlie just to stay in the car, she said, that she'd be back in ten minutes with the keys to the Ferrari. She'd just give Ben the good news about casting him as Caliban. Then Charlie could follow her to a restaurant she knew where they could have dinner."
      "Probably that place in San Bernardino," Henry said.
      "When she got to the cabin, she told Laura, Ben was alone and obviously drunk. But there were two glasses on the

table, and a half eaten sandwich. Ben immediately accused her and Jack of trying to freeze him out of 'his' acting company, saying, 'You've done one play with that company, while I've done two dozen. Jordan would have willed it to me--the company and that car. Your mother had no right!'
      "She’d told him that she'd call her dad who'd explain that he'd still be an important member of the company, and picked up the phone. Ben grabbed the phone line and jerked it from the wall. Then, before she could begin to tell him her 'good news,' he brushed his Western shirt back, revealing the gun, and pulled it out of its holster, saying, 'I should shoot you--then claim what's mine,' and shot the gun into the ceiling. This reminded Christine so strongly of when she'd first fired that gun in that room, she said, that she ran out of the cabin, screaming, back toward Charlie and the car."
      "So Charlie was here with her," Henry repeated.
      "That's what she told Laura. Laura said that if Arthur had been staying here with Ben, he knew that, when we got back from Japan, they'd all soon be moving back to New York--but he had, in effect, already done that."
      "He, too, no doubt wondered who would be running the Players Company," Henry said. "It probably seemed Christine had lost interest in him, after she came to see him as Ben's 'friend,' and perhaps heard echoes of stories he was telling about her."
      "When we were cleaning the bedroom Laura said she could imagine Arthur going in there when they saw Christine coming up the path, then hearing Ben threaten her, the shot fired, and Christine scream and run out of the cabin.
      "'Then he'd do what?' I asked.
      "'Christine said she heard another shot as she was running back to the car,' Laura said.   So Arthur may have shot Ben, or, more likely, as Arthur tried, in self defense, to take the gun Ben shot himself. Either way, after

Ben was dead, Arthur probably gathered up his things from the bedroom, and evidently the gun, and left."
     "That would take care of one car, but what about the other two? I've already talked to Brown. When he arrived with the groceries there were no cars down there. The door was standing wide open, and he saw Ben crumpled there in his own blood. He put the two sacks of groceries on the table and intended to call the police, but the phone was dead. He said he didn't see anyone else here, or the gun. He rushed back to his store to call the police."
       "Lieutenant Carlson picked Mr. Brown up on his way to the cabin, I understand, and immediately began asking questions . . . starting with any cars.   As they parked he said, 'No cars, but look at the fresh tire prints, after that rain. Those look like those Ferrari tires, but the rest are pretty common. I count three more sets--all fresh. Careful not to step on them. This guy should get new tires.'"
      "But by that time there'd also be the tire tracks from Brown's pickup and the police car," Henry said.
     "When we first got up here I looked at the tire tracks. There were too many for me to tell how many cars, and none very clear. Mr. Brown said that when the lieutenant first saw Ben, he said, 'If there are no cars here, how'd this guy get here? Someone must have brought him. Maybe in a Ferrari.' Meaning Christine, I suppose."
      "Brown said he'd seen the Ferrari here a lot last week, but there were no cars there as he brought the groceries." Henry thought for a minute. "That suggests Christine may have taken the Ferrari. I'd like you to check with those people in San Bernardino to see if she and Charlie ate there. Brown wanted to put the milk and things in the refrigerator, but the lieutenant told him, 'I'd rather you didn't. We want our lab people to look at everything. That bedroom's a mess. I can't I

believe a woman lives here, but there are women's things in the drawers, and bathroom--and baby's things.'
      "'Of course,' Brown said, 'the Gordons have a one-year- old, Hajime. I don't know the dead man's name, but know he's been staying here--has been driving that Ferrari, and   bought ammunition for a .38 from me.'
      "'Who called you about the groceries?'
      "'Laura did . . . Laura Curtis.'
       "As soon as they got the phone working the lieutenant, being careful about fingerprints, got the number from Brown and made the call to Laura at Shangri La, telling her what had happened."
      "Laura was able to identify Ben from the lieutenant's description," Shoko said. "'That's Ben Winston, the Romeo in our Romeo and Juliet.' Then she said, 'I'll wake Jack and we'll drive up there.'
      "'No, don't come up here yet,' he said. 'It might confuse the evidence. There are things our lab people need to examine. What I'd like you to do is intercept the Gordons, in fact. Keep them there at your home until we're done up here. It's a mess right now. Then we'll see that this place is cleaned up for them.'
      "'A friend said she'd come up there with her husband and tidy up after Ben and his friends left,' Laura said, 'so they'd have a clean house to come home to.'
      "'What's this friend's name . . . and her husband's? We'll want to talk to them.'
      "'Marjorie . . . and Joe . . . Salem.'"
      "I'd like to talk to them, too," Henry said. "We still have at least one car to account for."
      "I'm sure we can," Shoko said.
      "But I want to talk to Charlie first," Henry said. "I think he'll tell me what happened, particularly about the cars."
      "I'd hate to think he shot Ben," Shoko said.
      Henry shook his head. "I'd hate to think so, too."