Evil Breeding

enthusiastically forward, I convinced him to indulge me. Now that I finally had my bearings, I quickly found the little footpath that ran parallel to the shore of the tiny lake on the miniature hillside above the family vaults. The passing of clouds brightened the sky a shade or two, so I didn’t need to grope my way, but moved swiftly until the roofs of the squat crypts were below me and, below them, the water. I could hear movement. There was a soft splash. Someone was mumbling. Jocelyn? Yes. She repeated a series of syllables. The pills had thickened her voice. She seemed to be saying the same thing over and over, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I heard whispers. One had a tone of impatience. I was too far away to understand the words.
    In frustration, I dropped to my hands and knees and began to creep slowly downhill. I shortened Rowdy’s leash and gripped it tightly in my hand. I must not raise my hindquarters and lower my shoulders, I reminded myself; in the universal body language of dogs, the “play bow” is an invitation to start leaping and tearing around. To my relief, Rowdy seemed content to join me in a game of silent stealth. The short distance we covered put me close enough to hear the phrase that Jocelyn was now uttering again and again in a drugged, yet weirdly insistent, voice.
    “Brother and sister, brother and sister, brother and sister,” she mumbled. Her tone changed to one of surprise. “Brother and sister! Brother and sister! Christina, my Christina!”
    “Gerhard, for Christ’s sake,” B. Robert grumbled, “hurry up! Your orders are clear! Get her head underwater and hold it there! Is that too complicated? First, get her head underwater. Then hold it there! And no marks!”
    I could now see B. Robert Motherway’s tall figure pace back and forth on what seemed to be a gravel path in front of the Gardner vault. Between the path and the water was a large, low, rectangular object I couldn’t identify, a tomb, perhaps, or dignified housing for equipment that pumped water to the artificial lake. Or aired out the crypts? Anyway, Jocelyn was stretched out on it. Facing the lake, Gerhard sat on it in the pose of The Thinker. Suddenly, he exclaimed at almost normal volume, “It’s concrete! I could smash her head against it!”
    “Brother and sister,” Jocelyn muttered compulsively, “brother and sister.”
    “Shut up!” Motherway quietly ordered her. “Oh, for Christ’s sake! Why is it impossible to get people to obey orders! It is a terrible thing,” he added, obviously to himself, “to lose the strength of manhood. It is a terrible thing to grow old.” Again issuing orders, he strutted toward the two figures, pointed a menacing hand, and said, “We have planned all this in detail and at length! Hold her head underwater! Do it now, you moron! Overcome with guilt and remorse, she washes off the stain of murder! Hurry! This should have been over in minutes! You had her in the water! Take her there again! Take her there now!”
    “Here lie the remains,” Gerhard announced in the tone of a museum guide, “of a public benefactress, a beautiful woman who suffered the slings and arrowroots of outraged—” His voice broke off. My mouth must have been hanging open. Arrowroots? Wasn’t arrowroot a thickener used in cooking? A type of bland cookie?
    In any case, the outraged one was Motherway. “Enough crazy talk! Enough!”
    “Mama!” Gerhard cried. “Mama! Your little Jackie is here! Your little Jackie has come back! He has come with presents! You like pretty things, don’t you, Mama? All the pretty swastikas on your little house? Your pretty little boy? Your beautiful pictures? Mama, your little Jackie has come back to make sacrifices for you. Mama? Mama?”
    Jackie? Isabella Stewart Gardner was Mrs. Jack Gardner. For short, she was Mrs. Jack. Jackie: her only child, the son who died in infancy. Gardner! Gerhard! This Gerhard had not the slightest trace of a German accent; in fact, from his vowels, I’d have guessed that he grew up in one of the suburbs south of Boston or on the South Shore. I felt suddenly certain that he’d taken the name himself, picked it because it reminded him of Gardner.
    As I watched, Jocelyn unexpectedly sat up. “Brother and sister,” she repeated.
    Motherway abruptly lost patience. I saw him reach into his pocket and produce what must have been the handgun he’d had in the car. He stepped stiffly to Gerhard. “Pick her up, take her