No Tears for the Dead Man
By Carol Papenhausen

Chapter One

Forty minutes past quitting time and bookstore owner Wynn figured their guy for a no show. He opened his mouth to ask Dorrie Queenan if she was sure her brother was still inside when a tall gangly man emerged, jerked his head around the parking lot, and hurried back in. That’s our man, Wynn said to himself, gotta be him. Who else would look like someone put together with tongue depressors and a glue stick?

Only three cars sat in the parking lot of the big blue and white WPI building. He put his hands on the wheel to sneak another look at his watch, but this time Dorrie caught him.

“I’m sorry,” she said once again. “He doesn’t know you’re waiting.”

“No problem.” My idea, Wynn reminded himself. I offered to do this, so smile and shut up and watch the slow sinking of a huge red sun behind bare trees.

“Be dark soon,” he said. “Sun’s setting.” Good to keep her informed in case she planned to go blind in both eyes any time. “And please don’t tell me this happens every day. I don’t get out much.”

She reached over with long pale fingers and he felt a touch as light as a petal on his arm. “Poor baby. Stuck in that bookshop every day.”

Yes. And poor baby is hungry and tired and he wants to go home and if that damn door doesn’t open again soon–and there he was, only now he’d traveled five feet from the big glass door, a narrow-shouldered man in white shirt and dark slacks squinting into the sun, feet shuffling one way and then another before he pivoted as clumsily as a dancing bear and disappeared back into the building. Yep. Had to be Donnie.

“That’s him,” Dorrie said.

“I guessed.”

She smiled that wonderful smile that made him feel he’d known her forever, the smile that lit up her face like halogen bulbs on a wall of glass. As he watched, she stuck her legs straight out and leaned over to pull back on the toes of her running shoes. He drew in his breath as she wrapped her hands around an ankle and a calf that were all skin and muscle and bone. “I’m not anorexic,” she’d said. “I run.”

He looked at his watch again and closed his eyes. My idea. Remember that. Flat tire? No problem. Nice evening, nice drive, nice person. I’ll run you out there and take you home. She’d mentioned the OCD but they were only letters, nothing that would signal that the running out and the taking home might occur in separate weeks.

And why didn’t you know? You had clues—the book she was reading, for instance, and her comment that her brother had OCD. She told you that right away. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, she said, holding up the book written by a man ready to tell the world what it was like. Wynn wasn’t sure anyone in St. Clair, Wisconsin, was ready to hear about it, but the book was a freebie and you didn’t turn those down.

The book lay flat on her lap as she sat on the floor of his shop when he’d banged open the door, glared up at the jangling bell and told it to shut up. “Goddamn cows,” he’d said between clenched teeth, ignoring Franny as she pointed to the psychology and self-help section where a young blonde sat and smiled at him with a wonderful smile.

“Shut up,” he said again to the bell and marched over to the counter where he slammed down his notebook. “That idiot Swenson, that dumb Swede, he’s got his stupid cows all over the road. Damn cretins. You ever come around a curve and find six tons of sirloin drooling on your windshield?” And she’d laughed and he’d walked over and knelt to apologize. Now, two hours later, Dorrie was the one saying sorry.

“No, it isn’t right. You were so nice to offer and then I make you wait out here forever and you’re probably starving.”

“I did have pizza on my mind,” he said. “Think we have time to order one?”

“Oh, come on. He gets farther every time. Next time he’ll probably get in and we can take him home,” but he could tell she was saying words she knew weren’t true. And maybe the sun won’t set tonight either.

He twisted around to face her, his back against the door. “So tell me about him. I know almost nothing about OCD.” And I would love to keep it that way, honestly I would, but here I am and maybe I’ll learn something.

“I started to but you didn’t believe me. You’re not used to people like us. We’re goofy.”

“All of you? I thought it was just Donnie.” A grown man, thirty-seven, and he’s still her brother Donnie. Something wacky right there.

Dorrie reached up to re-wrap her blonde hair in a ruffle of pink. “He’s the worst. The rest of the Queenans are weird. He’s genuinely goofy.”

“That’s the scientific term, is it?”

“Might as well be.” She made a face. “If I ever mention OCD, people think I’m talking about bar codes.”

“Well, that’s close. OCR. Optical character something. And OCD was on the cover of that book.”

With a quick turn of her runner’s body, Dorrie waved at the glass door and the man who held it open like a rabbit ready to bolt back into its hole. “Donnie—we’re here.”

With a quick jerk of his arm, the man in the white shirt started toward the car, his thin hair lifting and blowing while his feet shuffled reluctantly in their direction. Suddenly he stopped and looked back, glanced at the car and began to weave from side to side.

“Come on, Donnie. We’re waiting,” Dorrie called. Donnie backed up and with a clumsy hop, he turned around and jogged over to the glass door.

“OCD,” Wynn said again. “As you were saying—“

“Was I? Cripes.” She swung back into the car and leaned against the headrest. “He’s got to check everything six times, that’s what I was saying. Or was going to. The copier, the computer, the microwave. I left my computer on, I know I did, and I don’t think the copier powered down. Somebody’s supposed to pull the plug on the microwave and it’s always me, nobody else cares. And so on.”

“Machines always?”

She nodded. “Mostly. Takes him forever to get his butt out of there.” With a click of her tongue, she rested her forehead on Wynn’s shoulder. “Now she tells me, huh?”

“You’re pretty nice about it. If he were my brother, I’d whack him,” he said cheerfully.

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“How do you know?” He grinned and reached up to rumple her hair. “All right, then I’d tie him up and put him in a box.”

She laughed and let her head sink into the headrest again, staring at the roof of his Volvo. “Maybe we should do that. Pretty big box, though. It would look like a coffin,” and she closed her eyes and shivered. “Goose on my grave,” she whispered and slid down another inch.

Weird brother. Old weird Donnie. Wynn let his head drop back as he brought up the memory of his sister calling to her friends, It’s just my weird brother, don’t pay any attention to him. Was that how Suzanne felt, her goofy brother, and there she was, her straight blonde hair long and glossy on her shoulders with the smile that sometimes went like a fist to your stomach, leaving his friends numb and speechless when she flew up to them like a winged goddess. Twenty-five years later and he recalled every moment. Oh god, surely he wasn’t Donnie, surely Suzanne never thought that.

Beside him Dorrie made a sound he couldn’t identify, a quick intake of breath and something like a cry. “I’ll go in and get him if he doesn’t get out here soon.”

“Will he come with you?”

“I don’t know.” She slid down in her seat until their heads were even. “I’m not sure I—it’s nice right now, but I’m glad I’ve got a sweater. Chilly up here.”

“April. Still winter. Do you want the heater on?”

“No. Thanks.”

“Because up here is only central Wisconsin, not Greenland. And while I’m at it, what’s so nice about this parking lot?”

“I thought if we waited long enough, we’d see the cows.”

“In an industrial park? Lady, I’m not the only one who needs to get out more.”

She laughed as she planted the soles of her shoes on the glove compartment. “Are they on the way home?”

“Hmmm. Where’s home again?”

“On Lac du Vert.”

“Right. The lake. No, the little cretins are on County K. Where I was this afternoon. As you heard.”

“I did.”

 “Everyone on Locust Street probably heard me. I was royally pissed.”

“I certainly heard you.”

“The world heard me. I can’t imagine why Franny puts up with me.”

“Your clerk?”

“My assistant, my bookkeeper, my confidante, my—what else? Moral arbiter, part-time mom—”

Then she was out of the car again, sprinting toward the man who trudged their way as if a firing squad awaited him. Old decisive Don. This time, Dorrie’s hand grasped his wrist and he let himself be dragged to the car door.

“Get in,” Dorrie commanded and he waffled for a moment before he stepped in and plopped on the back seat. Wynn reached for the ignition key, turned it and waited for someone to shut the doors.

“I have to check that printer again, it looks like the plug is loose,” Donnie said, crouched in the back seat, one hand clutching the door handle while his eyes blinked in four/four time. Like a turn signal, Wynn thought, over and over. His head moved from side to side as though watching for someone to jump out of the shadows.

Dorrie pressed her hands on his shoulders as if she were keeping a dirigible on the ground. “No, you don’t. Everything is fine. This is Wynn Duvall. He owns that neat little bookshop on Locust Street, next to the coffee shop downtown. And the drugstore. Remember?”

But Donnie paid no attention. “It’s the printer. And her, too, she’s still there and she’s going to tell again, I know she is.” His voice lamented to the air, pain and misery in every word. “And he’ll be there in a minute, that awful brother. They hate me.”

“Honey, come on. Let’s go, all right? Forget about them.” But he had already swiveled around to stare at the Blazer that pulled in off the highway, still rocking from side to side as it rounded corners on its way to the far side of the building.

“There he is, that’s him, I’ve got to go.” Wynn sat back, wondering if he always talked this way, speeding through sentences, running breathlessly through words as he moved his head from side to side like a pitcher with men on base.

“Donnie. Sit down,” Dorrie commanded and he bounced once, then twice, before he slid out, skidded on the gravel and pulled himself up.

“They’re going to tell Ed, I have to go back, something’s wrong and they’ll—” He stared around wildly. “I’ll only be a minute, it’s the new printer, it’s doing something funny.” Still muttering to the wind, he loped across the gravel, his words lost in the crunch of his footsteps.

Oh boy. Wynn exhaled, aware for the first time that he’d been holding his breath, keeping everyone calm. Don’t breathe and all’s well. Inhale and the world goes nuts.

“What was that all about?” he said.

“You don’t want to know.” But she told him anyway and he tried to make sense of a drama with too many people he didn’t know, too much hatred and despair. Because the OCD was only part of it—somebody and her brother hated him and he’d lose his job, they wanted him fired but he had to check the machines, something awful would happen if he didn’t.

Dorrie made it sound as though someone was torturing the poor schlep and maybe someone was. Donnie looked like a natural victim.

“He’s worse,” she said, staring at the front door of the building. “I’ve never seen him so bad. Usually it’s just, ‘Hang on, I’ve got to go back a second,’ but today—”

“How long has he been like this? Because that’s not just OCD. Or is it?”

“No. He sounds—he’s scared. Panicked. Damn it.”

“Can he work like that? What does he do?”

“He’s a tech writer. And believe it or not, he can still function. He keeps the OCD separate from the other stuff. Like in school he was fine unless someone messed up his locker or if he got started on his hamsters.”

“Those two he was talking about, a woman and her brother?”

“Geraldine. Good old Geraldine.” She tried a smile that faded as she bit her lip. “He gets his car back tomorrow so no one has to pick him up anymore.”

He reached for her hand and held it for a few seconds, the ridge of bones hard under her cold fingers. “So what are you doing up here? You don’t live here. Just Donnie and the folks, right?”

She propped her feet on the dash. “Donnie and the folks,” she agreed. “Want to guess why I don’t live here any more?”

One guess would do it, Wynn thought. She’d told him they were goofy. If the parents were anything like Donnie, who may or may not get into the car to be driven home—well, goofy wasn’t in it. Certifiable sprang to mind.

“How long are you staying?”

She pulled her legs onto the seat and placed them in a yoga stretch. “Two days. Until the race. Which I’m going to finish, even if I don’t win. Hard to imagine myself winning at my age.”

“Your age? Come on. You’re what, twenty-six? Twenty-seven?”

“Thirty-four.”

“No kidding. But I bet you run like twenty-six.”

“Thanks.” Elbows on her knees, her chin resting on her hands, she grinned, a huge jack-o’-lantern grin that curved across her narrow face.  “Now you’re going to tell me you’re only twenty-two.”

“Sure. Right. Plus eighteen. Or nineteen. Something like that.”

“Uh oh. Over the hill.”

He leaned over and pretended to punch her shoulder. “Tell me about the race, youngster. Because I can’t think of anything coming up.” He frowned as though crowds of people with muscular legs and $200 shoes loomed large in his life. He ran sometimes when he felt like it, around town or out at the lake, but to enter a race, thud along with dozens of men and women who had as much in common with him as dog groomers or Kewpie doll collectors—but then she was a runner.

“Oh, boy. The race.” She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself. “You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s called the Burkewood and it’s really neat.” Her eyes lit up as she turned to face him.

“Where is it?”

“In Deer Mountain Park, near Hudsonville.”

“I know that place. Northwest of here, on the way to La Crosse. But it’s not a park, it’s a state forest. Woods.”

“That’s why it’s such a great race. You run before they fix up the trails. It’s awesome, it really is. A hundred miles.”

He stared at her and whacked his ear with the flat of his hand. “Man, I’m losing it. I could have sworn you said a hundred miles.”

“I did. The fun run is sixty miles.”

Fun run? Sixty miles? No way, come on.

“Yes, really. You think I’m making it up. I’ll show you the web site. It’s incredibly neat. You have three days to finish.”

“And I thought Elvis fans were insane.” He squinted into the sun at the red Blazer that had driven past a few minutes ago and now inched out from the back of the building like a giant beetle. A red-haired woman in a shiny maroon blouse and black slacks pushed through the front door and stared at them, then quick stepped to the waiting Blazer. Wynn couldn’t see anyone through the smoked windows, and the big red box seemed to float out onto the road like a ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman on wheels, in the fiery glow of the sunset. Except for his Volvo, the front lot was deserted.

Dorrie chuckled. Her body came alive with energy, and he could feel her burning to do what she did best, run until the race was over, run until someone said stop, her gazelle-thin legs covering distance in exultant tribute to movement and speed.

“What about when it gets dark?”

“You keep running. You run all night.”

“You can’t do that,” he said. “You can’t run twenty four hours straight. Nobody can do that.”

She nodded, pulled the sweater off and sat up straight. “You have rests and people who bring you food and stuff. You’re not alone.” She opened her door and slid her legs out onto the parking lot, holding her arms over her head, lying back and touching him lightly with her pale delicate hands as she curved her long, lean runner’s body into an effortless arc. Another car from the back of the building crunched past them, and Dorrie stared up at Wynn and the building beyond him.

“Shouldn’t he be here by now?”

Wynn shrugged, then sat up. “I don’t know. I guess.” He’s your brother, you tell me. For a moment he was tripping with Alice, the Hatter, and those imperious and bloodthirsty queens. The Queenans, one checks everything fifty times, another runs all night through woods where trails disappeared under fallen logs and through thickets where briars grabbed and held you, ripping your clothes and your skin. He’d walked those trails in August, when trees were so thick and crowded that sunlight filtering through the leaves resembled the thin, silver gray twilight of a solar eclipse. Sluggish brooks crossed paths, changed them to slippery mud, and fallen trees choked the narrow trails. The Burkewood. A one hundred-mile race. Impossible.

Impressed in spite of himself, he leaned forward to study her upside down face glowing with excitement and wondered what it was like to be driven by a passion that made your eyes shine and your body come alive.

“When is it?”

“Friday. Nine o’clock.”

“And you run in the dark? Holy Christopher.” Then he held up his wrist to check his watch. “Speaking of dark—”

“I know. I’m going in, this is stupid.” She unfolded her limbs and rose, slamming the car door and stretching her arms over her head as her feet skimmed the path toward the white building, all stucco and glass, with the blue and white sign in front.

“Hang on. I’ll come along.” He tried to match her quick light steps, but knew he plodded like a rhino trailing an impala, stiff clumsy legs pumping while she skipped up the stairs. They strode down a long quiet hall with open doors and no sound but the thud of their feet.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said. “Where is everybody?”

She shook her head, pointing into empty offices as they walked along a hall without voices or movement, only vacant air with motes dancing on the last rays of sunlight. She veered right, into a small room, partitioned in two, peered in one side, then the other. “Not here.”

They drew together for a moment, and in the silence Wynn felt the eerie loneliness of two people in a space meant for dozens. “Now what?” he said quietly.

She tugged at his sleeve as she turned back and talked over her shoulder. “He comes back to check the machines, like copiers. Come on.” Two doors down, she stopped and stood in the doorway, listening to the hum of electricity coursing through a dozen cables that snaked across the floor and across long counters and down walls, lights glowing from screens and outlets.

“I thought he turned them off,” he said softly.

“He can’t. Most of them stay on all the time. He turns his off and he looks at these and checks the plugs and stuff.” She waved her hand around, taking in the room of complex machinery that hummed day and night, green displays glowing and blinking in an empty room.

Wynn stepped across the threshold. “Don?” he called, his voice barely audible above the hum of the machines.

“Donnie,” Dorrie whispered. “Everybody calls him Donnie.”

 Hey, I’ll call him His Majesty if that will pry him out of here and let us deliver him home. Louder now, he called out, “Donnie?” And a faint echo came back, bouncing off the tile and the steel and the plastic that lined the room. He looked around, then moved to his right, glancing to one side and then another.

The body was lying face down in back of the copier, only its black loafers visible from the center of the floor. For a moment, Wynn thought of a woodpecker, all in black and white except for his head that lay in a painted halo of blood pooled on the floor underneath him. A mat of hair and fresh blood on the side of his head almost hid a furrow like the cracked top of a soft-boiled egg.

As Wynn watched, frozen, Donnie’s left leg twitched once and was still. Wynn knew he was dead, had probably been dead even before his leg moved. He turned around to make sure Dorrie wouldn’t see her brother lying in bright red blood on the gray tile floor, his head twisted to one side and eyes wide open.

But she was right behind him and he wondered if she knew why he’d stopped, if he’d made some kind of noise and if she was following him because she didn’t want to be alone without someone living and breathing beside her. She started to scream, and then put her hand over her mouth.

“Donnie, oh my god, Donnie.” She dropped to her knees to look into his face, to talk to him, see him blink his eyes and tell her he was all right, he’d slipped but give him a minute and he’d be on his feet.

Wynn grabbed and held her with both arms as she struggled. “No, let me go, I’ve got to take care of him, we’ve got to help him.”

“Honey, we can’t help him.” He was almost positive that living people did not lie on the floor with their eyes open, unmoving, while blood seeped from their head. “We’re going to call an ambulance, come on, come with me, they’ll know what to do.” He talked to her, holding her tight, her body as thin and delicate in his arms as a sapling but strong as wire as she struggled with him to kneel beside her brother and restore the man who kept lying there dead on the bloody floor.