Animal Appetite

Carey’s dissertation was dated eighteen years ago. The connection: As my scabbed hands and knees reminded me, among the odds and ends found in and on Jack Andrews’s desk eighteen years ago, after his murder, had been that tantalizing slip of paper that bore the title And One Fought Back. A privately printed book. A dissertation. Both about Hannah Duston. Jack’s interest in her. Randall’s.
    With photographic recall, I could see the heading of
    Jack’s obituary: JOHN W. ANDREWS, PUBLISHER. His profession: publisher. In pursuing his lives, public and private, open and secret, I’d viewed Damned Yankee Press mainly as the scene of his murder. In tracking down his wife, his lover, his dog, and his children, legitimate and otherwise, I’d treated the Damned Yankee guides as Jack’s excuse to make business-as-pleasure trips to bookstores in towns and cities where and when there just so happened to be dog shows. Jack’s profession, however, had been more than a cover for his hidden life in dogs. John W. Andrews, publisher, had also published books: the guides, of course, and books of regional interest, books like the ones still stacked everywhere at the press, including, for instance, a book about Lizzie Borden. It had even briefly crossed my mind that Jack might have thought about reissuing And One Fought Back.
    The phone rang. Before Leah had a chance to say more than a few words, I said, “Hang on!” Returning with the photocopy of the privately printed book, I asked, “Leah, do you have that dissertation right there with you?”
    “Yes. You want me to copy it?”
    “Yes. No. I want you to read me parts of it. Do you have a lot of change with you? Never mind. Give me the number, and I’ll call you right back.” I hung up and dialed. When Leah answered, I said, “First, would you open to the beginning? Does it say who his thesis advisor was? Or the members of his committee?”
    “Uh, yes. Oh, you know who it was? Carey’s advisor was George Foley. That makes sense. Colonial historian.”
    “I know. Leah, flip through, would you? See if you can find the section where he actually describes what Hannah did. Somewhere, there’s got to be a... No! I just thought of something better. See if you can find where he talks about Timothy Dwight. Dwight was the president of Yale. He wrote a book called Travels in New England and New York. He discusses Hannah. And Thomas. Is there an index?”
    “No, of course not.”
    Rapidly leafing through my photocopy of Lewis Clark’s obscure book, I came to a chapter called “In Every View Honorable: The Conduct of Thomas Duston.”
    “Leah,” I commanded, “look in the table of contents. There is one, isn’t there?”
    “Of course. Hang on. Here we are.”
    “Does there happen to be chapter called anything like ‘In Every View Honorable’?”
    “Yes,” she said. “ ‘In Every View Honorable: The Conduct of Thomas Duston.’ ”
    “Turn to it. Read me the beginning.”
    “Uh, here we go. ‘Beneath the pointing finger of Hannah Duston on the Haverhill statue, a relief depicts Thomas Duston on horseback, his gun aimed at an Indian, his children —’ ”
    I interrupted her. “ '—his children clustered behind. The inscription reads: HER HUSBAND’S DEFENSE OF THEIR CHILDREN. ’ ”
    “How did you...?”
    “Because I’m reading the same words.”
    Together, we cross-checked other sections. Some passages in Carey’s dissertation were obviously his own. We found references in the dissertation that didn’t appear in Lewis Clark’s book. Many phrases, sentences, and paragraphs from And One Fought Back had, however, been rewritten, paraphrased, or lifted in their entirety.
    Leah was aghast. “He plagiarized it? Well, when Harvard finds out—”
    I did tell you, didn’t I, that in the eyes of Harvard, nearly all serious crimes are, in one way or another, abuses of the printed word? And in Cambridge, the eyes of Harvard are the eyes of God.
    “Leah, would they really... What do you call it? Expunge him? After all this time?”
    “I think so. At a minimum, they’d strip him of his degree.”
    Dr. Randall Carey: the name in the phone book, the name on that shabby mailbox, the name by the doorbell. Doctor no more. The back window of my kitchen gave me a view of Kevin’s driveway. It was dark out now, and his mother had put on the outside lights. Her car was in its usual spot. Kevin still wasn’t home.
    “Look,” I told Leah. “This is really