Love Lies Bleeding (17 page)

“I just mean she seems super nice. I like her. She’s not like that jerk Mom’s going out with. I could totally see myself having a slumber party with her or something.”

“You don’t say,” Frank said, taking note of Shannon’s enthusiasm.

“Yeah, she’s cool. I thought so even when she was at the café. I was a lot younger then, but…” She smiled a reassuring smile. “She’s okay, Dad.”

“Well, I’ll tell her you said so.”

“We could, like, give each other a pedicure or something. I’ll bet she’s even into cool music, not that fuddy-duddy stuff you listen to.”

“Neil Young is classic. She is also a fan of the fuddy-duddy.”

“Bo-ring…” she said, rolling her eyes.

“But I happen to know she also likes The Clash. That hip enough for you?”

“Cool.” A smile tickled the corners of her mouth.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ithaca, New York
August 1916

S
tephen LaBarr was in a marvelous mood as he guided his town car down Green Street, headed for the house on Stewart. It would be a surprise visit, but he didn’t think the Morgans would mind, since he’d just returned from New York City on the evening train. He’d finished registering for his classes and had a specific purpose for his visit.

He couldn’t wait to see the girl of his dreams. He had been thinking of her all day, along with the ten-karat diamond ring in his pocket. He planned on presenting it to her at some point during this visit. Not yet, of course, but he hoped that during this week-long break, he could find the perfect opportunity to speak to Mr. Morgan, obtain his blessing, and then present Libbie with the ring, knowing she would accept.

He always enjoyed returning to Ithaca after having been away, even for a short time. Some of his favorite buildings—like City Hall and Clinton House, the Cornell Public Library, and the Ithaca Hotel—greeted him. What a beautiful place it was. He could never tire of coming home to his city on the lake.

As he turned onto Aurora Street, he saw an attractive woman walking ahead of him. Delighted, he realized it was his bride-to-be. What a pretty picture she made. A deep navy skirt just skimmed her ankles, and her long, light blue chemise accentuated the curves beneath. Her hat sat at a perfect angle on her head, the silk hyacinths and lilies adorning it transforming it into a work of art. Just as he was about to call her name though, she was joined by a young man, and they walked together for a block or so before getting into a plain Model T nearby. Stephen was confused. Who was this chap? He dressed like someone living in the gutter. An almost threadbare shirt and a newsboy cap topped wool trousers, cheap suspenders, and plain leather work boots. But even past the man’s cheap garb, he could see that the fellow was good-looking. Very common, of course, but possessed of a dark, almost delicate handsomeness, he admitted to himself. He also seemed to have a sense of humor, since she was laughing at something he said.

Flabbergasted and hurt, he decided to follow the pair to see what it was they were doing. Perhaps he’d misread. Perhaps this boy was just a school chum she was fond of. Stephen needed to know if the ring he carried in his pocket was a worthless bauble or if it would be adorning her finger before long. He reconsidered, thinking they might be headed to the library or to the nickelodeon, at worst. But as it got darker and he watched the car leave central Ithaca, his hands fidgeted more than usual on the steering wheel.

The jalopy headed to the southwest, following the pockmarked road out of town and into the country. God knew where they were going. Stephen didn’t like the look of this at all. The ruts in the road were giving him a headache, but he kept up the pace. He hoped he was far enough back that his scrutiny would not be noticed.

The flivver left the main road past the stone quarry at the entrance to Buttermilk Falls, its body bouncing haphazardly over the dirt path. It jerked to a stop at a spot overlooking the falls that was drenched in moonlight, and he could see the occupants reach for each other. Stephen pulled the town car to a stop behind a tree several hundred yards away. Later, he would never be able to decide whether he was fortunate that the moon was full and silvery that night, or if it was something he wished he had never glimpsed, as it would be etched into his brain for the rest of his life. He exited the car and found a large oak he could stand behind. He could see every move they made, but they were too involved in what they were doing to pay any attention to him.

Sneaking up on the car in the blackness, he saw the dark-haired man who’d met Libbie running his hands through her hair and kissing her with abandon. He caressed her beautiful body, fondling her through the fabric. And then, he pulled the blouse aside to allow better access. Stephen saw the reflection of moonlight off her pale skin before the man lowered his head. He heard every moan and gasp of her delight. This continued for endless minutes as the man ravished first one breast and then another. One part of Stephen wanted to cover his ears rather than hearing her kittenish cries, but another part of him felt a strange arousal, watching her with another man.

As the man rose up and unfastened his trousers, Stephen saw her eyelids lower. She gazed at him with outright lust, beckoning him like a common harlot. Stephen had seen such tantalizing looks from a female only once before, and that was at the sporting house he sometimes frequented in Brooklyn. The man complied with her unspoken request, shedding his trousers and beginning to labor above her. She urged the man on to greater and greater heights. For what seemed like an eternity, the flivver bounced and squeaked as the couple indulged their baser instincts. At long last, both of their wails crescendoed to a peak and stopped.

Stephen held his head in his hands as he felt the lump in his throat grow. Where before there had been naïve adoration, now there was hate and disgust. Of course he had wondered if she had other suitors, but he had never imagined anything like this. If she would give herself to a common laborer like the one he had just seen, she would take on all comers. Stephen could never imagine marrying her now. She might be an adventuress in the bedroom, offering him pleasures no other woman could conceive of, but what of her behavior in the future? Would he come home to find her in bed with half the state legislature? He could never tell anyone what he had just seen.

Her parents might find out about her bawdy habits. In fact, it would give him a perverse pleasure if they did. But it could never be from him. He would have to find an excuse for not marrying Libbie. He would have to meet a beautiful debutante in Manhattan. He would have to move into a big city firm to avoid shaming his father by not taking over the practice. But he could not marry Libbie Morgan or even stay here, where he would have to gaze upon this Jezebel any longer. Feeling sorrow and rage churn up his insides, Stephen turned to go back to his car. Hearing the laughter of his intended echoing from behind him felt like being stabbed over and over again. He scraped his palm as he grabbed the trunk of a tree and vomited his late lunch into the nearby weeds. Then, trying to be as quiet as possible, he cranked up the touring car and beat a hasty exit from the grove.

New York State Police, Troop C Barracks, Ithaca, New York
July 1986

Chuck Keith poked his head into Frank’s office.

“Hey, Frank, you’re never gonna believe this.”

Frank looked up from his notes on a recent murder-suicide in Varna. “Hey, Chuck. What is it?”

“Bob Marshall over at IPD just called me. I think we may wanna go take a look at what they found. They just pulled it out of the lake.”

“What is it?”

“Bob says it looks like what’s left of an old Model T.”

They piled into the Crown Vic and headed across town to the city impound lot.

On a flatbed truck driven by Eddie Worley, the mechanic at Wilseyville Auto Repair, sat the rusted-out hulk of a very ancient automobile. From his place behind the wheel, Eddie summoned up his substantial bulk and hopped down from the cab with an agility Frank found surprising for someone of his size. He reminded Frank of a basketball hitting the court. Eddie wore grease-stained, king-size denim overalls with one shoulder buckle undone. One jaw worked a soggy hunk of Copenhagen as he watched the police conferring over the new find.

The old wreck oozed muddy fluid out of its various cavities, and the ripe smell of lake water, decay, and rust clung to it. The top of the cab was gone. The lower portion of it was all that remained. The wheels were a mass of pointed spokes covered in mud and sediment. The bacteria and minerals in the water had eaten the wood on the rims away. The engine block sat in a crumpled mass, along with the front of the superstructure. Even with so much of the vehicle missing, the muddy grill and headlights were compacted against the engine block and still resembled a face, albeit a deformed, comical one. It grinned quizzically at them. The colder northern temperatures of the water had worked well to preserve it.

“Wow…” Frank said, impressed. “Who found this?” He circled what was left of the car, wondering what its story was.

“Couple of kids decided to scuba dive up near Myers Point and went a little deeper than some of the others have. Could have just been left by a drunk years ago, but then I remembered that case you were working on—the bones we found up at Buttermilk. I’m not presuming they could be related, but you never know, right?” Chuck asked.

“Yeah, we never know what might turn up,” Frank said, thinking of Mrs. LaBarr’s recollection of Libbie and Tom getting amorous in a car near the falls.

After aiming a clump of tobacco at a nearby signpost, his prodigious middle shaking with the effort, Eddie said, “From the style of headlights and the radiator on there, I’d say yer lookin’ at what’s left of a nineteen-eleven Model T touring car. Yer basic Tin Lizzie. No bells and whistles on this fella. Just plain vanilla.”

Frank turned to Eddie, curious that the mechanic he’d used for years had a side he knew nothing about.

“Eddie, you know about antique cars too?”

He shrugged. “I’ve done a little puttering here and there. My dad was in an old Model T club down in Brooktondale years ago before we moved up here. He had a Model A, I think it were. A nineteen twenty-eight. Nice one it was.” He cocked his head, gimme cap sliding to one side.

“Anything else you can tell us about it, Eddie?” Frank asked, examining what was left of the old seat support.

Eddie did a survey, walking around the wreck as he scratched his chin. “Well, this right here is where the gas lamps fit on. You can see the mounting for the one on that side, but this one’s long gone. This baby had metal panels over a wooden frame. See, a lot of this area right here, the part that’s collapsed?” He pointed to the area around the dashboard. “That was made of wood, so everything supported by it kinda caved in on itself.”

He pointed again as he indicated each component.

“Here’s what’s left of the engine. Open valve. Cast iron exhaust manifold. Then you got yer three-pedal standard transmission, with the brake lever operating yer clutch and rear brakes.” He spit another wad toward the signpost, then had one of the local patrolmen sign for the tow.

“Where ya want it, fellas?”

The local patrolmen on duty had to think a minute. They’d had a Civic and a Taurus towed into the garage the day before and had to consider if there was enough room.

“I think it’ll fit in down there,” Patrolman Powell said. “Put it in next to that Caddy in the corner, Eddie. Anderson, can you give him a hand?”

Anderson nodded and strode toward the garage to direct Eddie into a spot where they had adequate room for the remains of the old jalopy.

Eddie rubbed a muscled paw over his graying beard and said, “You know, if you need to find out anything on this fella, you can get the number off the engine block and contact Ford in Detroit.”

“That’s a great idea, Eddie. Thanks.”

Eddie used the special hoist attached to his truck to bring the flivver down with a watery thump. Within moments, she was the center of attention among all the personnel on duty.

He couldn’t explain it, but Frank felt drawn to the car and looked over the chassis to see if anything remained to identify it other than the engine block ID number. Taking a flashlight to it, he found two pieces of metal lying on what remained of the floor. Examining them, he determined that they looked like the handle and scoop of a shovel. He had no explanation. Playing the beam over the nooks and crannies of the base of the car, he saw a glint from a crevice in what remained of the floorboard. Something wedged into the tiny space sparkled, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Hey, Chuck, hand me that screwdriver over there, willya?”

Chuck hurried over to the wall, where a variety of auto repair tools hung on a pegboard rack. He grabbed the driver and handed it to Frank. Using the small blade, Frank jimmied it into the crevice to pry up the shiny object. When it pulled away into his hand, he was looking at a beautiful gold signet ring. And a glimmer of recognition hit him.

Ithaca, New York
July 1986

As usual, his mother was propped up in bed. Her complexion was wan beneath the fluorescents, but she lit up when she saw him enter the room, reaching her arms out to him. He took her hand as he approached the bed.

“Hi, Mom. I know this is a bad time. We fished an old Model T out of the lake yesterday. This was in it.”

Frank pulled the ring out of his front pocket and set it down on the rolling utility table that stretched over the top of her bed. She sat there a minute, then picked it up and looked at the insignia.

“The Morgan crest,” she whispered.

As she stared at the ring, her eyes filled to overflowing, and the tears fell unbidden down her face. She stretched out her hand, and there on her right ring finger was the same pattern engraved in gold. Just as Frank had suspected, the ring had been Libbie’s. So her unceremonious death had probably happened in a car that had ended up in Cayuga Lake.