Daddy's Gone a Hunting (22 page)

She was getting too close. “I was never in the service,” Clyde said, then added, “I was what they used to call a conscientious objector when they had the draft back then.”

Joey Kelly.
Tell Mama how much I loved her
 . . . I never did visit his mother, Clyde thought. I couldn’t tell her that he was trying to hold his guts together when he said that. And his blood was soaking through me like I was dying, too . . .

“Shut up,” he snapped angrily at Shirley Mercer. “
Shut up
. And tell them to give me back my clothes. I’m out of here.”

Shirley drew back, afraid that he was about to strike her. “Clyde,” she protested, “you are going to leave now. I’m arranging for you to have your own room in a hotel that the city runs. You’ll have your medicine with you and you must remember to take it all. You’ll be warm and dry and will have food. You need that to get better.”

Be careful, Clyde warned himself. He knew he had been about to hit her. If I do that I’ll get arrested and I’ll be in one of those hellholes they call jail. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m real sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you. It’s not your fault. You’re a nice lady.”

He knew what the hotel would be like. A dump. A real dump. I’ll clear out as soon as she leaves me there, he thought. I’ll find another
place like my van where I can stay every night. Then his eyes widened. The television set on the wall behind the social worker was on. He saw some news guy showing the picture of him and Peggy and Skippy. They’ll blame everything on me, he thought. The explosion. The girl who came into the van that night.

Trying not to show his panic, he said, “I’ll be glad to go to the hotel with you. I figured it out. I can’t be on the streets anymore.”

“No, you can’t,” Shirley Mercer said firmly, even as she knew she was reading Clyde’s mind. We’ll go through the motions of getting him settled and then he’ll take off, she thought. I wonder what the truth is about his past, but my guess is we’ll never know. She stood up. “I’ll get someone to help you dress,” she said. “They’ve got some nice warm clothes for you.”

Behind her on the wall the news anchor was saying, “If anyone recognizes the family in this picture, please contact this number immediately. . . .”

49

F
orty-two-year-old Skip Hotchkiss owned five delicatessens in Irvington and Tarrytown, New York. Both towns were suburbs in Westchester County, located less than an hour’s drive from Manhattan. From the time he had been a child, he had often gone after school to the delicatessen on Staten Island where his mother had worked after his father disappeared.

The understanding owner, a kindly German immigrant, Hans Schaeffer, had made the young boy welcome. Skip had done his homework in the back office of the deli and, as he got older, he began to stock the shelves and make deliveries.

The homemade salads and cold cuts and apple strudel that the Schaeffers prepared were delicious and often Skip would sit with Mrs. Schaeffer as she did the cooking and baking. Soon he was helping her to make the food. He had plenty of friends at school and was an excellent student but he was never much for sports. The delicatessen was where he wanted to be.

At six o’clock, he and his mother would walk home together. She had never left the small house she had shared with his father. “Never think he abandoned us, Skip,” she would say. “He loved both of us so much but he came back from the war damaged and frightened. Something happened that I’m sure he never talked about, even
when the doctors tried to help him. Look at all the medals he earned in Vietnam. He paid a great price for them.”

“Too great a price?” Skip remembered asking.

He had never forgotten his mother’s wistful smile. “I guess it was.”

After high school, Skip went on a scholarship to Virginia Tech, where he enrolled in the culinary school. For two years after graduation, he worked as a sous-chef in a restaurant in New York. By then, old Mr. Schaeffer was ready to retire and he turned over the deli to Skip. He sold it to him without requiring a down payment, only a ten-year payout. “People tell me I’m crazy,” he said at that time. “I’m not crazy. I know you. You’ll have the whole thing paid off in five years.”

Which was exactly the way it turned out to be. At that point, Skip, married with two small sons, decided that he wanted to move to Westchester County. He sold the deli and opened the first new one in Irvington. Now, fifteen years later, he was a prosperous, well-liked member of the community. None of his four sons was named Clyde. He often thought that his father had nicknamed him Skip because he didn’t like the name, either.

His mother, Peggy, had remained on Staten Island. “All my friends are here,” she had told him. “It’s not that far so you’ll see plenty enough of me.” Now in her late sixties, she was an active volunteer in her parish and in local charities. Donald Scanlon, a widower and longtime neighbor who had been a New York City detective, would have given anything to marry Peggy but Skip knew it wouldn’t happen. Peggy had never stopped believing that her husband was still alive.

On Tuesday evening, Skip finished making the rounds of his stores and got home at quarter of six. With his four sons now ranging in age from ten to sixteen, he had never allowed his flourishing businesses to distract him from his roles as husband and father.
Sometimes you learn by lack of example, was the rueful thought that occasionally crossed his mind.

When he opened his front door, it was to hear his two middle sons in a heated argument. One look from him settled it quickly. “I suggest you both need a little time in your rooms to cool off,” he said, his voice level but unmistakably firm.

“But, Dad . . .” The protests ended and the boys went upstairs, heavy footsteps indicating their displeasure at the banishment. When they were gone, his wife, Lisa, sighed, “I don’t know how any woman raises kids alone.” She kissed him. “Welcome to the battlefield.”

“What was it about this time?”

“Ryan dropped Billy’s cell phone in the toilet.”

“By mistake, I hope,” Skip said quickly.

“Yes, I do believe that. And it even seems to be working okay now. Dinner will be ready in about an hour. Let’s have a glass of wine and watch the news.”

“Sounds good to me. What time are Jerry and Luke getting home?”

“The usual. Practice will be over pretty soon.”

As she walked ahead of him into the family room, Skip Hotchkiss reflected on what a lucky man he was. He and Lisa had met at Virginia Tech. There had never been anyone else for either one of them.

Like my mother felt about my father, was his unexpected thought as he poured the wine from the bar in the family room, touched Lisa’s glass with his, and settled down next to her on the sofa.

The CBS news was on. “Stunning new development in the explosion at the Connelly furniture complex that took one life and gravely injured Kate Connelly, the daughter of the owner,” Dana Tyler, the coanchor, was saying. “It has been learned that a homeless person had been living in a wrecked van on the property and
may have been there the night of the explosion. A picture found in the van may help the police to trace that person. Take a look at it now.”

Skip had only been mildly interested in the story, more concerned with the fact that his thirteen- and fourteen-year-old sons were always arguing about something. But then he inhaled sharply. “Oh my God,” he said. “Oh my God.”

“Skip, what is it?” Lisa’s voice was panicky.

“That picture. Look at it. Where have you seen it before?”

Lisa stared. “It’s the one your mother has on the mantel. Oh, Skip, is it possible that the homeless man is your father?”

50

O
n Tuesday morning, the cleanup process to remove the rubble of the Connelly complex began. After intensive investigation, the origin and cause of the explosion and the ensuing fire had been determined beyond any doubt. The gas line, which had been partially unscrewed, a clear sign of tampering, had sent gas flowing into the museum until it was ignited by an exposed wire in the Fontainebleau suite there.

The insurance investigators had found burned and broken claws that had once graced stately antique chairs and tables, as well as bits of material that had been woven three centuries ago. Some of the exhibits had been found as far as a block away in the driveways of warehouses. But now it was time to remove the shattered and potentially dangerous debris.

The forklifts were hauled in on carriers. Dumpsters were lowered from other trucks and placed in the area where the cleanup began. The workers started with the museum, which for years had housed the exquisite antique furniture that Dennis Francis Connelly had been so proud to copy. “It looks like a war zone,” Jose Fernandez, one of the young workers, commented to the supervisor. “Whoever set this off meant business.”

“It is a war zone,” the supervisor agreed. “And whoever set it off did mean business. We’ve got to watch out for sinkholes. I don’t want anybody to get hurt and I don’t want to lose any equipment here.”

All day, pausing only at noon for a lunch break, the large cleanup crew set about clearing the smoke-charred ruins and knocking over the broken stone walls that were now jagged and listing.

At five o’clock, as they were wrapping up, a sinkhole appeared in the pavement near the area where the vans had been parked. “No harm done,” the supervisor said. “Put some yellow tape around it in case some dope decides to come scavenger hunting here tonight.”

Grateful for the decision not to do any work on the sinkhole now, they quickly placed four stanchions around the crumbling pavement; bright orange-yellow tape, bearing the word
DANGER
, was looped from one to the other of them.

Sufficient unto the day,
Jose thought as, stretching to relieve his aching shoulders, he got behind the wheel of one of the trucks. With a master’s degree in ancient history, and more than one hundred thousand dollars in college loans, he had been grateful to get this job, promising himself that it was just a temporary tide-over until the economy got better. Raised in a housing project in Brooklyn by his parents, who were hardworking immigrants from Guatemala, he was fond of looking for a quotation that might fit the particular circumstance he was in.

Sufficient unto the day,
he reflected. What’s the rest of that one? I’ve got it, he thought as he turned on the engine.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Pleased with himself, Jose put his foot on the gas.

In the distance behind the departing trucks, the evening shadows had already begun to cover the figure that was almost fully concealed under the broken slabs of pavement. It was a skeletal form, still wearing a grimy, tarnished chain with the name
TRACEY
engraved on the medallion.

51

J
ustin Kramer spent a good part of both Monday and Tuesday thinking about Hannah Connelly.

He had been touched by Kate Connelly’s obvious concern for him when at the closing she had realized that he had been forced to sell the condo because he had lost his job. He had tried even then to assure her that it wasn’t that big a deal. Yes, he had enjoyed living there. No, he didn’t want to live beyond his means. Two thousand monthly maintenance on top of a mortgage payment wasn’t in his budget when he was unemployed.