Death in Reel Time (11 page)

“You had to be there, I guess,” I said.

“Yeah,” Tony said, “I suppose that was a high-tech yuck back then. When we were studying these we called them Triple P films—pranks, pets, and Popsicles.”

“There's Uncle Riley,” Olivia said excitedly, leaning toward the television. “Ah, look at him, so straight and tall and young.”

“And Aunt Celestine,” Beth said. “She was so pretty when she was young.”

“She was beautiful when she was old, too,” Olivia said. “Just more on the inside than the outside.”

Esme leaned over close to me and murmured, “Uh-uh, Celestine did
not
like that comment.”

The couple moved toward the camera and struck a pose, Riley with his arm around his wife's shoulders. They looked at one another and the affection between them was unmistakable.

“They were quite a team,” Olivia said, obviously lost in her own thoughts. “Whatever life threw at them they faced together.”

The camera panned slowly to catch another couple and we all gasped. There in sepia-toned live action stood
Johnny Hargett, his arm around the tiny waist of his new wife, Renny. She smiled shyly and looked up at him, but he was focused on the camera, his chest swelled, his grin cocky.

Renny reached up to adjust a little hat that shielded her eyes against the sun and Johnny grabbed her arm and pulled her in tighter against him. She smiled, but as the camera lingered she rubbed at her arm and her smile faded. Johnny took a watch from his vest pocket and swung it by the fob in an arc. When it came to rest in his palm, he pushed the latch to open the watch cover, looked at it, grinned at the camera, then returned the watch to his pocket.

Beth made a strangled noise, then got up from the couch, knocking a stack of magazines from the coffee table as she fled the room.

“Oh no, what was I thinking?” Olivia said. “She doesn't need to be watching happy couples right now.”

“Should you go after her?” Tony asked, pushing the pause button.

“No,” Olivia said with a heavy sigh. “Let her be. She'll let me know if she wants me. She needs to deal with this in her own way.”

We watched the rest of the movie, with dogged determination now, the banter squelched. There were no more sightings of Olivia's kin, though she did recognize a few more townspeople.

We went in to get Olivia started on the scrapbooks and I kept expecting Beth to join us after she'd regained her composure. But an hour went by and no Beth. Finally Tony came in, shuffling his weight from foot to foot.

“I'm not sure what I should do,” he said. “We're supposed to go film a segment with Charlie Martin this afternoon, but I think Beth must be sleeping or something.”

“Let me go check, Tony,” Olivia said, jumping at the excuse.

“I'd just cancel,” Tony said to Esme and me after Olivia had left the room. “But if I don't get this done today it's going to set me behind by at least another week. I'm already off schedule because of, well, you know, everything that's happened.”

“Do you have a deadline?” Esme asked.

“Self-imposed,” Tony said, with an anxious glimpse toward the doorway. “I want to enter it into a couple of documentary festivals.”

Olivia came back in and gave Tony a sorrowful look. “Tony, she's not feeling well. She said to tell you she knows she's letting you down and she feels terrible about it, but she just can't do it today.”

“I could pinch-hit for her if you'd like me to,” I said. “Not to toot my own horn, but I'm a pretty good interviewer.”

“Oh good,” Olivia said. “Yes, you go on with Tony and tell Charlie I've got some flower bulbs for him to put in for me when he gets a chance. 'Course, that's just an excuse to get him to come to supper. If I have a little job for him he'll come; otherwise he'd never get out to be with people. That's got to be lonely for him.” She glanced toward the stairs again. “People aren't meant to be alone.”

A
S WE WERE LEAVING THE
house a wind off the lake put one of Olivia's kinetic lawn sculptures in play, spinning a top wheel that caused the metal bits suspended from it to strike a bottom plate shaped like a clamshell.

“Man, I love that thing,” Tony said. “It's like wind chimes on steroids. And that sound is like nothing I've ever heard. It's not a
clang
and it's not a
bong.
You can't call it a peal or a toll. What
would
you call it?”

“An Oliviation!” Esme said.

“That's great,” Tony said. “Mind if I use it?”

“You're welcome to it, but I'll expect a cut of your royalties,” Esme said.

Tony laughed, but when Esme didn't smile back a worried look crossed his face.

“She's yanking your chain, Tony,” I told him.

“You enjoyed that, didn't you?” he said to Esme, more an accusation than a question.

“Immensely,” she admitted.

Tony stopped and hoisted his camera bag, adjusting the strap on his shoulder. He shielded his eyes against the late afternoon sun, and his eyes focused on the metal sculpture again. “You know,” he said, glumly, “I was having a great time with this project until Blaine up and got himself killed. I set out to make a positive film about this great small town where everyone gets along and people look out for one another and then,
bam,
one of its citizens gets murdered. Doesn't really fit the theme. And even this,” he said, pointing to Olivia's sculpture. “It's great, and I know how she loves it, but when I interviewed her about her sculptures yesterday it seemed to make her sad. I don't get it.”

“She's worried about Beth,” Esme said. “And she's probably wondering if she'll ever be able to do anything like this again.”

“Oh man, I never thought of it like that,” Tony said, slapping his forehead. “I shouldn't have asked her about it right now.”

“I'm sure it's fine,” I said. “These are things she faces every day. It may be even harder for Olivia than for most women in her situation. She was an incredibly strong woman, used to doing very active things.”

“She's still strong,” Esme said. “She exercised to keep herself in shape all during her treatments, much as she was able anyway. Woman can still lift and carry with the best of 'em. She's just got no staying power. That's what's got her frustrated. She knows she can't do this”—Esme motioned toward the
oliviating
sculpture—“until she can stay with it for more than a few minutes. But I believe she'll get back there. She's a determined woman.”

Tony looked toward the driveway. “Uh-oh, I forgot. Beth
usually drives when she goes with me. I've only got my motorcycle, but I've got an extra helmet.”

“No, sir, that won't do,” Esme said, before I'd had a chance to answer.

I hadn't relished the idea of hanging on to Tony as I choked on car exhaust and the October wind tried to strip the skin from my face, but I put up a protest just so Esme didn't get the idea she could boss me around. Which, of course, she could and did on a regular basis.

We took my car, dropping Esme home along the way. Tony gave me the directions to Charlie Martin's place. It was what is known euphemistically in Morningside as a garden apartment, which meant it was tiny. I knew the place. The five units had been carved out of a fifties-era motor lodge. One of my college friends had stayed there for a summer while she worked in the pro shop at the country club.

As we drove, Tony brought me up to speed on what they'd done in the earlier interviews and what he was looking to get today.

“We've had three sessions with him, and I feel like we're just this close to something really good,” Tony said, holding his finger and thumb a couple of millimeters apart. “Then he goes back into his shell. He's a sharp old dude, and I mean that in the most respectful way. He's seen a lot in nearly a century on planet earth. Be a shame not to capture his take on some of it for posterity.”

“When does he freeze up?” I asked, wondering what subject matter I'd need to tiptoe around.

“Questions about when he was young lock him up sometimes, but the stuff about the war always shuts him
down if you're not really careful about how you get into it,” Tony said. “Though it's kinda hard to know if that's him or Beth. She gets all edgy when they're on that subject. She's never wanted him to know about her grandfather and the big family scandal about him running away to avoid having to go. Like it would matter. It's weird. She never even knew him.”

“Sins of the fathers, or grandfathers,” I said. “You'd be surprised how deep family guilt can go. How 'bout you, Tony? Tell me about your family.”

“Not a whole lot to tell,” he said. “Never had a dad in the picture. My mom did her best, but she struggled. She didn't have much education and she was young when she had me. I know she loved me and that counted for a whole lot, but I also grew up knowing everything could fall down around our ears at any given second. We moved around a lot and then she got sick. She didn't go to the doctor right away, 'cause we didn't have health insurance. She was working nights as a checker at a mini-mart. The old woman who lived upstairs looked after me. Her name was Mrs. Collier. She tried, too, but she was an old, tired woman trying to look after a young, spunky kid. It got harder and harder for me to be in that apartment; it smelled like old lady lotion and disappointment. I slept on the couch in her living room and she slept like the dead, so I started sneaking out at night and just wandering around.”

“And then?” I prodded.

“Mom died and I went into the system,” Tony said, his voice matter-of-fact.

“I'm sorry, Tony,” I said. “I lost my mother when I was
in high school, but I was lucky. I still had my dad, for a few more years anyway. How old were you?”

“Just going into my freshman year,” he said.

“So you were in foster homes after that?”

“Yep. I went through a few before I got lucky, too, and ended up in a good one.”

“Here in Morningside?”

“Yep. The Robertsons.”

“I know the Robertsons,” I said. “How is it I never knew you?”

Tony shrugged. “I heard people talk about you, but you were away at college. Grad school, maybe?”

“Knowing Michelle and Eric Robertson, I don't think I have to ask if they were kind to you.”

“They were,” Tony said. “They
are.
I still see them a lot. They care about me and I care about them, but it's not the same as blood family.”

“Blood family's not always a lovefest,” I said. “But I know what you mean.”

“I gave Michelle and Eric a lot of trouble,” Tony said. “That's my biggest regret. I wish I could go back and do it over. But I was lost when I went to live with them. And if it hadn't been for them and for Beth I'd have gone under. She saved me. Wish I could do the same for her.”

“Does Beth need saving?” I asked.

Tony hesitated and I took my eyes off the road just long enough to glimpse his pained expression.

“She might.”

*  *  *

Charlie Martin didn't even try to hide his disappointment that I'd come in Beth's stead. But as we talked I came to understand why people found him interesting. He had the air of someone who'd seen about everything there was to see and none of it surprised him, upset him, disappointed him—or pleased him.

When he learned what I do for a living he pursed his lips and hunched a shoulder. “Needn't waste time on me,” he said. “I never had much family to begin with and such as it was, they're all gone now.”

“Where were you born, Mr. Martin?” I asked. “Are you a North Carolina native?”

Charlie gave me an appraising glance. “What's that got to do with the price of eggs?”

“Nothing,” I said, taken aback by his response. “I was just wondering. You don't have much of a southern accent.”

“I was born in North Carolina, near a little settlement town called Murdock, in 1918. Born there, half raised up there. But after my folks died I hit the road. That was a long time ago and I've been here and there and everywhere since, so I probably talk a little bit like everybody I've ever been around. Even picked up a little German and French back during the war, but I've forgot most of that.”

“Murdock is pretty near Crawford. Did you know any of Olivia's people? The Hargetts?”

“Never knew anybody by that name,” Charlie said. “Beth asked me that already. Like I say, I was gone from there when I was just a kid.”

Nineteen eighteen made Charlie Martin ninety-four years old. He was remarkably spry and his mental faculties seemed sharp.

In my job I strive to put the events of an individual's life in the context of the times, and it's become an automatic response for me over the years. The mention of a date triggers a list, and sometimes a sort of dreamy period ambience in my head.

“Nineteen eighteen,” I said, musing. “Lots of brutal battles. World War One ended, only to have Russians start up a civil war. A flu pandemic killed millions. Gandhi advocated for poor farmers, the Great Train Wreck in Tennessee killed a bunch of people, the Red Sox won the World Series, Houdini performed his vanishing elephant act, and Charlie Chaplin was onscreen as the Tramp in
A Dog's Life,
costarring a little dog named Scraps.”

“Sounds about right,” Charlie said, “but I was born so far out in the backwoods, not much of that would have been known about by my people.”

“Did you have siblings?” I asked, and Tony gave me a look that let me know I needed to move things along.

“It was just me,” Charlie said. “Guess that makes me the stump of my family tree. When I go the line goes.”

“Any cousins?” I asked, and earned another exasperated look from Tony.