She came back. "I'm very sorry-I do understand what you're saying, but-I just can't help you, Mr. Strachey. You said a friend of Billy's has been wounded. Could you tell me who that was?"
"Huey Brownlee. The attack might or might not have had anything to do with the Kleckner killing, but if the attacker is the same man, I've got to talk with Billy fast to figure out what that connection might be. See what I'm saying? Anyway, tell Billy that Brownlee wasn't badly hurt.
He's okay."
"Oh, thank God for that. You see-well, the fact is, Billy did not actually see who stabbed Steven Kleckner, and he has no idea who could have done it. So how could he possibly help you?
Please-try to understand-"
"You mean Billy wasn't there at the time? He'd gone out, or what?"
"He was-taking a shower."
"Taking a shower."
"Billy is quite fastidious in some ways."
That made sense. I wondered if he also carried an ashtray around with him.
I said, "And no one else was there when he-went into the bathroom?"
"No."
"Nor when he came out?"
"No. He says he thought he was going crazy. He couldn't understand how it had happened. The other man, Steven, had fallen asleep, and when Billy came out of the shower, at first he thought the man was still asleep. And then he saw the blood all over the man. He felt the man's pulse, even though he said he could see that the poor man was dead. Then Billy panicked and ran away.
He did notify the police, but he knew everyone would think he had done it, and Billy was absolutely terrified of being put in prison. Billy does not like to be locked up unjustly. It happened to him once before."
"I know," I said. "I'm sorry. Would you mind telling me where and when that happened?"
A pause. "Why do you want to know that?"
"Just checking all the angles," I lied. "Maybe Billy made an enemy there-some real psycho who'd track him down later and set him up as a murder suspect."
This sounded flaky, but it was the best I could come up with on no notice. In fact another much more logical notion was beginning to shape itself.
She said, "Mr. Strachey, I don't want to tell you how to run your business, but that sounds a bit off the wall to me. This happened ten years ago. I know about it because I was there. And believe me, Billy's only enemies were the lunatics in charge of the place. From what Margarita told me about you, I'd expect you to understand that."
They both must have been around sixteen when they'd gone in, under the age of consent. "Did your parents have you committed, too?" I asked. "For reasons of 'poor social adjustment?"
She said, "Yes. On account of our homosexuality. Our 'sickness.'"
I'd heard stories like Chris's and Billy's and had read of such atrocities in the gay literature.
Before Stonewall it was not all that uncommon and is still today not entirely unheard of. But I'd never known anyone it had happened to, and it amazed me that two people could come through it with their minds as cleansed of rage as Chris Porterfield's and Billy Blount's apparently were. If
'they were. I had yet to meet either Billy or Chris face to face.
I said, "What was the name of the place? I'd like to find out if it's still operating with the same medieval outlook."
I could have asked her directly what I had in mind, but I might have lost her-and driven her and Billy from the city where I now suspected they were hiding.
She said, "Sewickley Oaks. In New Baltimore. I doubt that it's changed."
"How long were you there?" I asked.
"Long enough," she said. "More than a year."
"Were you and Billy released at the same time?"
She hesitated, "Oh-yes. We were."
That was it. I had it. I'd find them.
"Look," she said, "I really can't talk to you anymore. I hope I've helped you somewhat, and Billy and I do want the murderer to be found. I know, it's horrible that someone like that is still there in Albany loose somewhere. It's just that- Billy understands so little of what happened. Even now he's quite confused about it. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
I said, "Yes and no. It'd still be better if I could sit down with Billy. For an hour, that's all."
"I–I'm sorry, Mr. Strachey. Good luck to you. I mean that. Maybe I'll see you in Albany."
"You realize the Albany police will be looking for you when you come back. You'll meet Sergeant Bowman, a man with his quirks of manner and viewpoint. You won't like him."
"I realize that."
"What will you tell him?"
"I'll lie. I've learned how to do that. Good-bye, Mr. Strachey."
She hung up.
Timmy had been up on one elbow listening to my end of the conversation. He said, "So?"
I slumped into the easy chair near the daybed where Timmy lay and recounted what Chris Porterfield had told me. Then I told him what I thought I'd learned.
"So, maybe you know now where Blount and Porterfield are," he said. "But not who the killer is.
Get moving, Strachey."
I said, "I'll take what I can get when I can get it. Like Blanche said, 'Tomorrow is another day.'"
"Scarlett said that. Blanche said-something else."
"'Here's looking at you, kid'?"
"Close enough. I'm tired. I'm going to sleep."
"I'll join you."
11
In the morning I went to the Albany public library and dug out the Times Unions for the late fall of 1970, a little over a year after Billy Blount and Chris Porterfield would have been committed to Sewickley Oaks. What I was looking for, or thought I was looking for, was not in the index, and I had to slide the microfilm around for thirty or forty issues until I found the short article in the Tuesday, November 24, edition.
ALBANY DUO ESCAPES MENTAL FACILITY
New Baltimore-Two teenage inmates at Sewickley Oaks, an exclusive private mental institution on Ridge Road, escaped from the medium-security section of the establishment late Sunday night. William Blount, 18, and Christine Porterfield, 18, whose families live in Albany, fled a residential building through a heating tunnel and are believed to have been driven away by unknown persons who apparently aided the two in other aspects of the escape.
According to the local police, a chain securing a door to the tunnel had been cut through from the tunnel side. Officials say the escape appeared to have been carefully planned and executed.
Blount and Porterfield were discovered missing Monday morning when they failed to show up for breakfast, and a search was undertaken. Later, an area resident told police he had been driving on Ridge Road just past midnight Sunday and saw five young people emerge from nearby woods and enter an older model Plymouth station wagon. Two of the five were bearded and "looked like hippies," the witness said.
Dr. Nelson Thurston, Sewickley Oaks administrator, described the escapees as "mentally troubled" but not dangerous.
State police are assisting in the search for the two.
I made notes on the article, then drove over to Billy Blount's apartment building on Madison. I wanted to check something I should have checked before. I waited around on the front stoop until the sidewalk was clear, then felt my way through the lock. I still had my lobster pick in hand when I arrived at the door to Blount's third-floor apartment, but I didn't need it. The door had been jimmied open, crudely, messily, as if with a crowbar.
I stepped inside and listened. There was no sound except that of the traffic down on Madison. I checked the rooms and found them as I'd left them on Friday.
I knelt by the low bookshelves and pulled out the hardback copy of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. Inside the front cover was a hand-written inscription: "Billy-This will explain some things-From your friend, Kurt Zinsser-December 15, 1970." I copied the words onto my pad.