I hit rewind. The tape spun backward for a long time. When it finally clicked to a stop, I pushed play again. There were a few seconds of silence, then a heavy clunk followed by raspy breathing I knew very well. Mr. Bowditch began to speak.
I said I was sure I could tell this story, but I was also sure no one would believe it. This is where your disbelief begins.
7
Did your father investigate me, Charlie? I bet he did, I know I would have if I’d been in his shoes. And I bet that given his job, he had the resources to do it. If so, he will have found out that someone named Adrian Bowditch—maybe my father, he would have thought, more likely my grandfather—bought the land this house stands on in 1920. It wasn’t either of them. It was me. I was born Adrian Howard Bowditch, in 1894. Which makes me just about a hundred and twenty years old. The house was finished in 1922. Or maybe it was 1923, I can’t remember for sure. And the shed, of course, we mustn’t forget the shed. That was built even before the house, and by my own hands.
The Howard Bowditch you know is a fellow who likes to keep himself and his dog… mustn’t forget Radar… to himself. But Adrian Bowditch, my supposed father, was quite the rover. 1 Sycamore Street here in Sentry’s Rest was his home base, but he was gone as much as he was here. I saw the changes in town every time I came back, like a series of snapshots. I found that fascinating, but also a bit disheartening. It seemed to me so much in America was going in the wrong direction, and still does, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there.
I came back for the last time as Adrian Bowditch in 1969. In 1972, at the age of seventy-eight, I hired a caretaker named John McKeen—excellent older fellow, reliable, you’ll find him in the town records if you choose to look—and went on my last trip, supposedly to Egypt. But that is not where I went, Charlie. Three years later, in 1975, I came back as my son, Howard Bowditch, age around forty. Howard supposedly lived most of his life up to then abroad with his mother, who was estranged from her husband. I always liked that detail. Estrangement is somehow more real than divorce or death. Also, it’s a wonderful word, full of flavor. After Adrian Bowditch supposedly died in Egypt, I took up residence at the family manse and decided to stay. There was no doubt about ownership; I had willed it to myself. Rich, wouldn’t you say?
Before I tell you the rest, I want you to stop the tape and go out to the shed. You can open it; you have my keys. At least I hope you do. There’s nothing in there that can hurt you, the boards are back in place with the blocks on top of them. Christ, how heavy they were! But take my gun, if you like. And take the flashlight, too, the one in the kitchen cupboard. There are lights in the shed, but you’ll still want the flashlight. You’ll know why. See what there is to see. The one you first heard will be mostly gone, maybe entirely, but the remains of the one I shot will still be there. Most of it, anyway. When you’ve had a shufti, as the Brits used to say, come back and listen to the rest. Do it now. Trust me, Charlie. I’m depending on you.
8
I pushed stop and for a moment just sat there. He was crazy, had to be, although he had never seemed crazy. He’d been lucid even at the end, when he called me and said he was having a heart attack. There was something in that shed, all right—or had been—that much was undeniable. I’d heard it, Radar had heard it, and Mr. Bowditch had gone out there and shot it. But a hundred and twenty years old? Hardly anyone lived that long, maybe one in ten million, and nobody came back at forty, impersonating his own son. Stuff like that only happened in stories of make-believe.
“Fairy tales,” I said, and I was so keyed up—so freaked out—that the sound of my own voice made me jump.
Trust me, Charlie. I’m depending on you.
I got up, feeling almost like I was outside myself. I don’t know how to describe it any better than that. I went upstairs, opened the safe, and got Mr. Bowditch’s .45. It was still in the holster, and the holster was still on the concho belt. I strapped it on and knotted the tie-downs above my knee. Doing that made the inside me feel absurd, like a little kid playing cowboy. The outside me was glad to have the weight of it, and knowing it was fully loaded.
The flashlight was a good one, a long-barreled job holding six D-cells. I clicked it on once to make sure it worked, then went out and crossed the back lawn to the shed. Have to mow this again soon, I thought. My heart was beating hard and fast. It wasn’t a particularly warm day, but I could feel sweat trickling down my cheeks and neck.
I got the keyring out of my pocket and dropped it. I bent down to get it and bumped my head on the shed door. I grabbed the ring and picked through the keys. One of them had a round head with the word Studebaker engraved on it in script. The ones that opened the front and back doors of the house I knew. Another was small, maybe for opening a lockbox, maybe even a bank safety deposit box. And there was a Yale key for the big silver Yale padlock on the shed door. I stuck it in the base of the lock, then pounded on the door with my fist.