The Geographer's Library

Jon Fasman
it silently, without changing his expression or his stance, as though he had
neither control over nor interest in what his hand shook.
“Bert,” he replied flatly.
“Anything interesting here?”
“Just checking for signs of a robbery. So far nothing but a lot of junk.” He
looked back over his shoulder, and I leaned in to see a large room barely managing
to keep the forces of entropy at bay. In one corner was a dusty grand
piano on which sat stacks of books and papers. Across the room was a low
table strewn with overflowing ashtrays, plates smeared with ketchup (I hoped
it was ketchup) and scattered with old bones, and crusty bowls with spoons
sticking out. A mottled sofa completed the picture. Domesticity gone haywire,
home for the perpetually solitary. The house had a musty smell: a mixture
of cigarettes, grease, mildew, dust, and old man. “Don’t know how we’d
know if anyone took anything.”
“Can you tell me where you found him?”
Bert sighed and rolled his eyes, as if I had just asked him to wash the windows,
then pointed to the couch. “Over there. Lying down, sort of sprawled
out. Looked peaceful, though. My money’s on heart attack. Still, got the call
from the state, middle of the night, someone hadn’t heard from him or something.
Gotta check everything. Anyway, we’re getting ready to leave, though.
Right, Al?”
His forgettable and funereal-looking partner—Al, I supposed—trudged
down the stairs. “Guess so,” Al said in a voice so uninflected and quiet that it
seemed resigned to its ineffectuality even before the words left his mouth.
“You’re ready, we can go.”
“Yeah, let’s beat it. Nothing here for the papers, right?” Bert looked
darkly at me, then at his partner, who was standing with his back to us, facing
a huge clock against the far wall.
“Nothing yet,” said Al. “No way of knowing if anything’s missing, ’cause
I guess he lived alone, but nothing looks broken. He lived messy, but there’s
no law against that. But come take a look at this.” He was probably talking to
Bert, but I took it as an invitation all the same.
Al nodded toward the old grandfather clock. It had two golden pendulums
swinging down from the mahogany body, and its face was decorated
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