Rohn Federbush - Sally Bianco 03 - The Recorder's Way (5 page)

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“What’s going to be right, ever again?” Max struggled to get control of his face. His emotions were bouncing off the ceiling, caving in his chest. God help me? He hadn’t prayed in earnest since he left the desert in Iraq.

The day before when
they found Anita Brent wasn’t home, Max had dropped Helen off at her home in Burns Park before he headed for his studio apartment. Next to the north-facing windows, Maybell was painting a yellow barn on a huge canvass. He couldn’t help smiling at the silly lopsided thing.

She returned his grin. Max wondered why Anita’s husband fixated on his wife’s teeth.
Maybell’s couldn’t be any whiter than the wife of the strange bloke. “How lucky was I to convince you to take a key to the place last month? Would you believe I think it’s nice to have a woman around?”

Maybell
wiped off a spot of yellow paint from her palm. Her bracelets jangled enticingly. “I thought we might hit the sheets again.”

“
Do you mean hit the deck?” Max was in no hurry. “Don’t sailors say ‘hit the deck?’” Maybe she’d fix a potpie for supper again. Not only was she a blonde doll, she cooked.

“I thought you were in the army.”
Maybell had a way of sidling up to him leaving Max without any defenses.

After
Maybell had worn him out and served him a cup of soup in bed, she let him know her big news. “I passed the pregnancy test this morning.”

Max sat up too quickly. Tomato soup spilled on the sheets. Maybe the news
made his hand shake. He placed the offending cup on the bedside table, then pulled her down next to him. But, Maybell sat up and swung her knees over the edge of the bed. She wiggled her green painted toenails. Max wrapped his arms around her small waist to steady himself. He nudged his head into her lap. She ran her fingers through his curls and looked down at his upturned face. So, he asked, “Now we have to move up our wedding date?”

“I thought you knew.” When she cradled his ears, her bracelets
clanked.

“Knew what?” Max asked, wanting to nuzzle her breasts again.

“I’m already married.”

Max
moved his head to the pillow at the head of the bed. No rings, repeated over and over in his awe-struck brain. Maybell snuggled beside him. Max tried to calm down, rationalize the effects of this new reality. She was temporarily married. “Divorces don’t take long, do they?” Something was terribly wrong here. Evil, disloyal thoughts tempted him. “Why don’t you wear rings? Didn’t you say your hands swelled?”

“A lie.” She nodded, as the truth swept over him.

“The baby?” Max didn’t recognize his voice. He felt as if he’d been punched out. The feeling was similar to shocks of noise and blasts from shells falling too close. He rubbed his stinging eyes from Iraq’s thrown sand.

“The baby,”
Maybell was saying, “needs a good home. My husband can provide everything.” She smiled again, licking her glistening teeth. “He’ll think it’s his. You don’t want to make trouble.”

Max placed his hands over his head, pushing them hard against the wall
. He had never struck a woman in his life. Not like his father. “Didn’t you know I loved you?” He heard the pitiful whine in his voice. Max remembered the client, Mr. Brent, with the diamond stud in his red tie. Mr. Brent’s voice pleaded in that same sickening, unmanly pitch.

“That’s what makes it so nice.”
Maybell knelt astride him. “I’ll be raising our love child.”

Max’s
mind couldn’t take it all in. His crowning glory, the beautiful lover he intended to make a permanent joy in his life, tricked him into fathering a child for another man. She used him the way he used women. She didn’t care if the rest of his life was ruined. She got what she wanted: a child and all the money she needed from her husband. Max couldn’t recall what color Mr. Brent said his wife’s hair was. “Anita?” he asked.

“Yes,” she responded from somewhere near his hip.

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At the firm,
Helen moved quietly to stand behind Max’s desk chair. She stroked his hair. “Maybell?” She watched the six-foot-five, iron man who only yesterday adhered to romantic principles, dissolve into a broken-hearted boy.

“Gone
?” Max asked, with despair in his tone. A surge of anger or pride straightened his spine. “Gone, with my child in her belly?”

Helen felt her knees give way. Max swung the chair around in time to catch her from falling. He embraced her, drew her to his lap.
Helen kissed the side of his cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

Max
briskly pushed her to a standing position. “What did
you
do? Can’t you see, I’m the idiot?”

“She’s wrong to use you.”

“Sound like any jerk you knew in the past?”

“But you’ve changed.” Helen wanted to keep alive the sweet,
openhearted man who only yesterday made her sound cynical in comparison to his dreams.

“
Can people really change?” Max pounded the arms of his chair with his fists.

Helen retreated to the business side of his desk. She dropped into the nearest client chair. “Emotions are so exhausting.”

Max nodded agreement. They sat together quietly, not speaking, somehow in tune with each other. “Will you tell me I’ll get over her?” He didn’t sound convinced. “Should I have known when I thought I smelled her perfume in the office, that first day? Do we need to return Mr. Brent’s money?” Helen tilted her head to question the connection. “You think I’m much of a detective? Didn’t her husband describe her teeth, eyes, tears, that she wanted a baby? Did I want to remain blind to everything? Can’t you see Maybell’s first name is Anita, the last is Brent?”

“
Maybell drove a Mercedes.” Too much information lacked time to process in Helen’s brain. “Isn’t Brent the Honda dealer?”

“I guess a Honda wasn’t good enough for
the likes of her?”

“Oh, Max.” An explosion of contradictions rocked Helen’s brain. “If you return the money, won’t he suspect something’s wrong?”

“Should I wait until Brent calls off the investigation?” Max ran his fingers through his dark curls. “Would I be telling the whole truth by waiting?”

“What about your child?”

“How can I interfere when she asked me not to cause trouble?”

Helen wanted to hold his giant head against her, make
the whole problem disappear. “You love her enough to give up your parental rights?”

“
Didn’t God ask as much of Abraham?” Max lowered his head into his hands.

Helen moved around the desk
again to rub Max’s hunched shoulders. “God stayed Abraham’s hand, Max. Pray about it. You could ask for a blood test after the child is born.” She wanted to fix everything for Max, but Helen knew asking for God’s will was a better idea. She did not want Max to waste time focusing on resentments against Maybell -- Anita. Helen stopped touching Max. Her inexperience and confusion about her own feelings and plans for him made her ill equipped to discuss Anita’s wickedness. She returned to the client chair on the safe side of Max’s desk. “We should get started on Sally’s case.”

Max sighed. “
Do you think I’m acting like a wimp?”

Helen embraced him with her words. “Any woman would be proud to own that much emotion from a man.”

“Love?” Max pronounced the word stoically, as if the question was carved on a moldy gravestone.

All Helen could offer him was Sally’s new case. “
Mrs. Bianco will wonder why we haven’t pinned down any information by now. She should be popping in the door any minute.”

“A darkness that was felt…ashes turned to boils…”

The Egyptian Plagues

First Wednesday in May
, 2008

The Firm

As Helen approached the front door of The Firm, she was surprised at her eagerness to talk about her half-brother. He had been too upset about Anita for her to mention her concerns. Once inside however, she sought out her father instead of climbing the stairs to her partner’s office. Andrew was busily scrolling through computer screens when Helen arrived. His back was to the entrance. Helen thought he’d heard her open the door; but when she touched his shoulder, she startled him.

He hit
the minimize button for the screen. “Helen. Are you early?”

“What are you researching?”
She kissed the side of her father’s cheek.

Helen biological father would remain unknown to her. Except for the act of producing a half-brother, George Clemmons Senior barely affected her life. Andrew had shared each hour of her life. He was there for each childish trauma and triumphant. Andrew fathered her, nourished the gene pool the original sperm donor provided. Helen thanked the Lord for Andrew, her mother’s champion, her dear father.

“Sally Bianco’s past.” Andrew answered his daughter. “Thought I might find something to explain where she is. Her fourth husband was shot dead in front of her during an arson investigation in St. Charles, Illinois.”

“
That’s her hometown. Captain Tedler gave Max and me details on three of Mrs. Bianco’s cases when we asked for an employment reference. Two were arsons.” After tucking her briefcase next to her computer desk, Helen poured herself a cup of coffee. “I met with George Clemmons. We’re both blondes.”

“Not surprising.
” Andrew limped over to the coffee pot for a refill. “Could any of the perpetrators in Sally’s cases be released, to do her harm?”

“I
remember one woman died in the fire she’d set. The man who shot her husband wasn’t the arsonist, just crazy.” Helen sipped the hot liquid. No odor accompanied the stale coffee. “A professor was killed by his common-law wife, who then died of a pill overdose. Their henchman is still in jail. A wife-beater killed his first wife. He’s still in jail in Missouri.” Helen careful watched Andrew’s reaction when she asked, “What did you and Mother agree I should do about George?”

“We think
we should invite him to dinner.” Andrew gave her a rare smile. “Maybe with Max? Now that Julia is convinced everyone knows about George, she seems relieved. Did she tell you she ordered a second-hand player piano? Needs it to entertain people when they come over. Been shopping for clothes. You’re not going to believe it, she asked me to put the dishes in the dishwasher after you’d gone to bed.”

“Mother?”

“She filled two boxes with her old clothes for Purple Heart. Bought two weeks worth of nightgowns. Says she’s tired of doing laundry every week. The truth about your birth did her no harm. Far from it. She’s acting like a new bride, learning to spread her wings.”

“Not to fly away?”

Andrew shook his head. “To claim her own beauty.”

Helen hugged hi
s shoulders. “You love her.”

“More every day.
But I think you should pick-up after yourself now, make your own bed -- that sort of thing.”

Thinking about
the prospect of two strangers descending on her previously shy mother, Helen automatically made a fresh pot of coffee without firing one synapse for the process. “I’ll go up and ask Max, then call George.” After pouring two cups of coffee, she addressed her father’s back. “Maybe Mother is looking forward to associating more with people. The truth didn’t kill her, or us?”

Andrew swung his chair away from the computer
before sitting down with his fresh cup of coffee. “If I’d known your mother was carrying you, I
still
would have asked her to marry me. George’s grandmother refused to allow his father’s marriage to Julia. It doesn’t matter now. We’re all civilized adults, Helen. Don’t worry so much. Your mother has always owned a gracious heart.”

“I’m glad she found you.” Helen thought she might cry at the thought of never having had Andrew in her life. “No girl could ask for a more loving father.”

“You’re my best girl. Nothing’s changed, except the Lord has seen fit to hand you a grown brother. You might need one to help you handle Max.”

“I think you’ll like George.”

“Hey, he’s part of you and your mother, isn’t he?”

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Upstairs, Max bestowed his best smile on the gift of coffee
from Helen and accepted the invitation to dinner. “Do you think George will let me share him? I never enjoyed being an only child, did you?”

Helen felt rooted to the spot after she handed Max his coffee cup. If
anything, she wanted to move closer. She realized for the first time Max never uttered a complete sentence. All his words were coached in tentative questions. “You want to share my brother?”

“Weren’t you taught to go halves with the neighbor kids?” He punched her shoulder.

Helen could smell the soap he used from where she was standing. As easily as she had kissed her father she bent closer to kiss his cheek. But Max slipped his hand around her neck and drew her head down for a real kiss. She felt unwilling to move away from his lips, but blinked and took a step back.

“You don’t kiss like a sister.”

Helen slapped at his shoulder. “I believe I have just heard the first unqualified statement you ever made.”

“Do you think it will be my last?”

She laughed at the ornery twinkle in his eyes.

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Max
studied Helen’s elliptical path. She wore a soft blue sweater which complemented her coloring better than her red suit. Her slim body seemed tense, her hands clenched and unclenched. “What else is going on?” He rose and walked over to her. He stretched out his arms for a brotherly embrace. “We took on more than we could chew, asking for the whole truth from the universe, didn’t we?”

Helen melted into his chest
. “Sally Bianco was right. We should only invade people’s privacy when a crime has been committed.”

He touched her
soft hair and patted her back, as if to burp any hurt away. She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. She seemed frightened, trembling. It seemed so natural. Max kissed her teary face.

Helen pushed him away. “
Sally Bianco could be dead?”

“No. Sorry. I mean,
kisses just happen, don’t they?” Helen stood there wiping her mouth, brown eyes dilating. Neither of them noticed Andrew Costello turn away from the open office door. Max searched for a safe subject. “Should we listen to Sally’s message again? Could we have missed anything?”

Max heard
Helen sigh as she followed him down the stairs to the computer room. Max did not want to analyze what had just happened. They needed to find Sally Bianco before delving into their feelings about each other…whatever they might be. “Andrew?” Max called too urgently. “Do you want to listen to Sally’s message again?”

“Sure,”
Andrew didn’t look directly at either partner as he restarted the messages. “Helen, write down the phone number on the ID screen.”

Max listened to the excitement in
Sally’s voice, as Helen wrote down the number. “I’ve found a case. St. Anthony’s Hospital allowed three patients to die in 1990. See you tomorrow afternoon, about two. We need to find records of the deaths.”

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Sure enough, when they
started to play back Mrs. Bianco’s message, a phone number appeared on the small identity screen. After hitting the speakerphone button, Helen dialed the number. “St. Anthony’s Retreat Center. Please dial one for the main reception desk.”

Helen hung up. “She could have been at an AA retreat.”

Max ran his fingers through his thick hair. “Don’t AA people like to stay anonymous? They won’t be able to tell us if she attended, will they?”

“
Monday and this is already Wednesday.” Helen pulled at her sweater’s hem. “The convent in Adrian is run by Dominican nuns. The nuns will take our inquiry more seriously, if a male descends on them.”

Max smiled halfheartedly. “Well, I proved I’m a man, haven’t I?”

Helen’s father gave her a questioning look. Helen had no intention of commenting on the subject of fathering children. “Dad, while we are gone find someone at the police department to issue a warrant for St. Anthony’s Hospital records.”

As Helen
put on her coat to leave, Max called, “Helen?”

She stopped, then turned around with her prepared let’s-go-get-‘
em smile firmly in place.

“Is the convent connected to the hospital?”
Max was pulling on his curls.

“We
’ll find out, won’t we?” She realized she was mimicking Max’s mode of communication. He certainly filled a room. She couldn’t help wondering how tall his children might be.

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Trip
Ann Arbor to Adrian

Max barely remembered which roads
led to the Adrian convent. He briefly considered finding a new apartment on the way and drove to the east side of town before heading south. Helen asked him where he was going. “Without Maybell, my studio on First Street doesn’t seem habitable.” He could engage a mover to pack up his belongings. In the meantime, he’d live in a motel and shop for changes of clothing at Briarwood Mall.

“Your lifestyle doesn’t match the families in the enclaves of condominiums and gated communities on the outskirts of
Ann Arbor.”

Max nodded in agreement. He noticed Helen emphasized the word
families
. If they became a family, married, and had maybe five children, then they would fit into the newer affluent housing settlements. But for now thoughts of downtown Ann Arbor’s busy pedestrian nightlife, with the sidewalk restaurant trade and street musicians swiftly negated thoughts of relocating. Home meant living near main campus with young people, summer festivals with street fairs, antique car shows, concerts, live theatre, movies. The non-stop cultural life of Ann Arbor was only blocks away from his apartment.

Helen asked, “Are you going to
allow Maybell, Anita, to ruin your bachelor pad?”

Max grunted. “
Of course, if I’d demanded to be married before being with her, nothing would have happened. No baby harvest while she was married to another man.”

He remembered an aunt, his mother’s sister, who helped him retain his sanity after
his parents’ violent deaths. “Aunt Rose Emery,” Max said. He had lost touch with her after he joined the army to serve in Iraq.

“Where is your aunt?”
Helen asked.

“
When I was thirteen, my father committed suicide after killing my mother in a jealous rage. My aunt comforted me. I remember smelling her freshness, a baby-powder odor clung to her mourning dress. She said she could help.”

Helen didn’t comment.

“At that promise, I broke down, sobbed like a three-year-old.” Max kept his eyes on the road. “Aunt Rose let me weep. Finally, she patted my back and told me, ‘If you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, he will take away all your pain.’”

“
I didn’t believe anyone could stop the raging feelings clenching my guts.” Max looked over at Helen. “I remember hanging my head. It w as hopeless.”

‘
What do you have to lose?’ She asked me and handed me her open Bible, saying, ‘Read aloud Verse 16 of John’s Third Chapter.’”

I blinked
through tears to read the words of Jesus, which were printed in red ink.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

“You memorized the verse,” Helen said.

“Aunt Rose asked me if I wanted to believe.” Max kept his eyes on the traffic. “I remember asking her how. She tugged on my curls and told me she knew I trusted her. ‘I’m not going to put bad food in front of you when you come to live with me and belief in our Savior will do you no harm. Try to accept the Lord into your heart.’”

“
Words sprang from my grief, ‘Lord, help me accept you as my Savior.’” Helen touched his arm. Max continued, “I remember Aunt Rose wept, while a feeling without end, as far as the ocean’s reach, filled me with a warmth and unexplainable peace. ‘Wow,’ I said as I reached for Aunt Rose’s hand out of thankfulness.”

Suddenly
to Max, the reality of a child in his future, his child, didn’t feel like a disaster. “Now part of me is going to walk on the same earth I’m treading.” He tried to shoot down his growing elation as he viewed freshly tilled earth on past both sides of the Mustang’s windows. “The weather isn’t warm enough to put the convertible top down.”