The Accidental Pallbearer (9 page)

Before he moved back east, their bi-monthly visitations were occasions of pain beyond his ability to describe. Followed by bone-numbing exhaustion. He’d drive down the 405 from the San Fernando Valley on Saturday morning, a two hour journey to Laguna Beach under good conditions, arrive at 9:00
A.M.
to pick them up, only to find Rosalind and Emily hiding deep in closets, under long coats, crying in terror of their daddy’s arrival. Or he’d arrive and be met by Nancy in the driveway, who’d tell him their little playmates had asked them over for the day and wouldn’t he like to let them have their fun rather than?… If he objected, and knowing he didn’t have a pot to piss in, she’d say, “Take me to court,
you selfish prick.” Nancy had gotten him, as she’d promised, through the kids. From the beginning.

He wanted her dead. Had actually come close to making a phone call to someone he knew was connected, but it was the kids, not Nancy, who were dead, and now he wondered why he shouldn’t also be dead. Kill Nancy. Kill yourself. And the miserable little family escapes to a better place, together again at last.

After he’d return them on Sunday afternoons, he’d knock back a few stiff drinks and go to bed, no later than 7:00
P.M.
, to sleep through without a stir, until seven the next morning. He came to fear visitation weekends. He felt better on the weekends when he wasn’t scheduled to see them. After almost ten years of this, as he scraped by on adjunct positions at various community colleges, and unable to write a word of his book on Melville, he made the decision to return to Utica.

Blessedly, the cases of Jed Kinter and Michael C defer thoughts of his children – thoughts that cling, nevertheless, to the cliff edges of his consciousness. And now, since lunch at the Q Shack, the thought of Catherine Cruz was claiming the center, driving out everything else. A thought so vivid it seemed that she herself lived in his mind. A future. A renewal in his life’s last phase. A path to sobriety. But she, who he barely knew, was in Troy, and he was in Utica, and he had pressing business to attend to, so much the better to distract him from her absence and all else he needed to be distracted from.

He opens his notebook to the Kinter entry. Why, indeed, had he come to Utica, of all places, fifteen years ago, to lead
a so-called normal life? He suddenly decides to straighten out? Get a real job? Marries? Has a child? Was Rintrona right in speculating that Kinter’s nose wasn’t clean and beneath the child and spousal abuse lay something worse, if anything could be worse than what Eliot had witnessed on the train? Fifteen years ago Kinter had moved from Providence, and the bosom of a notorious crime family, to take up residence at 403 Chestnut Street. A short street, he sees from his much-consulted map of Utica – a few blocks from Oneida Square, on the south side of town, in a neighborhood where Utica’s classic ethnic minorities of old – the Italians, the Poles, the Lebanese, east and west Utica primarily – had not penetrated – a quiet neighborhood of small, well-kept one-family dwellings, solidly middle class, in contrast to the two- and three-family structures of east and west Utica, which housed the working class and the lower end of the middle class, neighborhoods not so quiet – noisy, where people gathered on street corners and porches to smoke, argue, gossip, pontificate on the insults of life, and above all to compare notes on the progress in summertime of their backyard gardens – the tomatoes, the lettuce, the cucumbers, the pole beans and the grape vines, where the robins conducted their relentless thievery and shitting and Eliot Conte’s best childhood memories had their origin, when he had lingered alone in his father’s garden. His notes show that the owner of 403 Chestnut, who lived there fifteen years ago, still does. Sidley McPherson.

He knocks and introduces himself, handing over his card, to a male in his mid-twenties, Sidley McPherson, but clearly not the McPherson he was hoping to question about
a former tenant. Young Sidley, seeing his puzzlement, “Junior. You were expecting my father, who passed away six years ago.”

“I’m sorry. It was important for me to speak to, uh, perhaps … may I ask if your mother is still alive?”

“You can ask.”

“Is your mother alive?”

“She’s alive alright.”

“May I speak with –”

“At work. Utica College. Department of English executive secretary for years.”

“May I ask another question, Sidley?”

“Yeah. Come in.” He does not offer Conte a seat, though he himself sits in one of the living room’s four soft leather chairs, circa 1975.

“Your home, from my limited perspective, is charming and cozy and –”

“Small. It’s small.”

“I can’t help wondering where you’d put a tenant.”

“Is that what you came here to investigate? A tenant? We don’t have tenants anymore, but in the good old days they rented out a sexy little apartment above the garage, which is where I live, if you’re interested.”

Conte turns to the door, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

“My cooperation? What is this? Some kind of criminal inquiry? What did the old lady do?”

“As far as I know, Sidley, nothing at all.”

“As far as you know?”

He smiles a small smile and leaves.

Eliot Conte had twice taught at the college as an adjunct in continuing education ten years ago – a course in nineteenth-century American fiction. When he walks into Janice McPherson’s office,

“Why, Mr. Conte! How nice to see you!”

“You too, Janice.”

“You remembered me after all this time!”

“Yes,” he lies. “Actually I went to your home and Sidley sent me over. Didn’t realize you were still working here.”

“How are you, Mr. Conte?”

“Pretty well. You?”

“Just fine, thank you. To what do I owe this delightful surprise?”

“Strictly business, and I’m afraid it has nothing to do with Hawthorne and Melville.”

“Oh? Would it be detective work?”

“I’m afraid I’m here in a professional capacity and need to ask you to keep our conversation in strictest confidence, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Janice feels the thrill of adventure. When did she last? Perhaps she’ll help this impressive man pursue a criminal investigation? Be his affectionate sidekick – he looks to her like he could use some affection.

“I fear that I’m interrupting your work, Janice –”

“Not at all. Please come in and sit down.”

“Good. I’d like to jog your memory about a tenant you took in fifteen years ago, who stayed with you for eight years, I believe. Jed Kinter.”

“Really? Why, he was so quiet. No trouble at all, but I suppose those are the people – what has he done?”

“As far as I know, nothing at all. I’m interested, if you can remember, in the impression he made on you.”

“Well, quiet, as I stated. No trouble. Nothing interesting, shall we say, Mr. Conte. Nothing impressive to make an impression.” She resists a wink on “interesting.” She finds herself suddenly witty and attractive. “He was taking night classes over at Mohawk Valley Community, they must have been journalism classes, because he got that job at the paper. No, that’s not right. Come to think of it, he had that job at the paper when he moved in.”

“Did you ask for a reference?”

“He gave us a name in Providence, Rhode Island. Please sit, Mr. Conte! A phone number, which I called. A man with an Italian name, I can’t remember it, and a cold voice, I remember that, who said that Jed was a serious person, a man of honor, who could be trusted. That was good enough for me. He seemed nice enough and we needed the money at the time because my husband – oh, I won’t speak ill of him.”

“Did he have visitors?

“I don’t think any except for one, not long after he moved in. I’m sure of the time frame.”

“Why is that, Janice?”

“Jed moved in August first in that record heat wave, you recall that, I’m sure. You don’t!? Over a hundred degrees every day for sixteen days and the old folks without A/C dropping like flies. How could anyone forget, unless you didn’t live around here then?”

“I lived here, but at the time I was in Austria, for the Salzburg Festival. I heard about the terrible heat upon my return around the first of September.”

Conte remembers something else about that record hot August. While in Austria, he’d missed the biggest moment in Utica history since George Washington stopped through. Jed Kinter, with his Philadelphia-Providence pedigree, a serious man of honor, the voice had told Janice, was in Utica when the infamous action went down.

“A whole month in Austria listening to the sound of music! The hills are alive and whatnot! How nice for you!”

“It was sublime, Janice.”

“What did you enjoy most?”

“They did lots of Mozart and Strauss, which I like well enough, but that production of
Don Carlo
–”

“Verdi’s
Don Carlo
?”

“The very, Janice, but if you wouldn’t mind, could we get back to that visitor? Forgive my officiousness.”

“Of course! Let’s follow the scent, Detective! I’ll tell you why this visitor was unforgettable. Here it was, one hundred and eight degrees, and he comes out of Jed’s apartment dressed in a black suit! That’s mentally strange, if you ask me. Did he think, the fool! that black would ward off the sun and heat and humidity? I can see him like it was yesterday.”

“Can you describe him?”

“That’s easy! I see him in contrast to Jed, who I recall as slight, short and with a very fair complexion, and nice looking in a risky way, whereas this man dressed in black was taller, he had a moustache and heavy black hair, thick, you know, and sort of … he had high hair.”

“Italian hair? Is that the idea?”

“You could say that, although your Italian hair is a lot nicer and I’d even say it was – well, Jed, his hair was almost
blond and quite fine. No body to it. A woman notices a thing like that. This man had a swarthy complexion and was broader in the shoulders and I’d say a couple of inches taller. My husband’s height. White dress shirt, black tie, black shoes. Dark glasses.”

“He was leaving?”

“Yes.

“Morning? Afternoon?”

“Morning, I’m sure of it because I’d just finished watering the poor flower garden when he came out.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“I said good morning, but he said nothing in reply. No manners, Detective.”

“Did you see him arrive?”

“No.”

“Did he come back?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You never saw him again?”

“Never again.”

“Did you notice the car he drove off in?”

“No. It’s hard to park on Chestnut. Jed had to park on the street, for instance, but not necessarily in front of the house, unless he was lucky.”

“Other visitors over the years he lived with you?”

“As I believe I said, I never saw anyone in the eight years. No women, if that’s on your mind. He paid the rent. He was clean. He even raked the yard one autumn when my husband’s back went out, which he did without us asking, of course. My husband’s back went out a lot, believe me. Not to mention the headaches at bedtime. Jed was the best tenant I
ever had. You know what I mean? He paid the rent and it was like he wasn’t even there. You can’t beat that.”

“I hear you, Janice.”

“A cup of coffee?”

“I’d love one.”

They drink coffee and gossip about the epic intradepartmental feud between Brown and Nathan. When he takes his leave, he gives her his card and says, “You’ve been very helpful, Janice. If you think of anything at all, no matter how –”

“Oh, I watch all those detective shows! I’ll call you immediately, no matter how trivial it may seem! And if you, Detective Conte, can think of something that I might do to assist your inquiry, will you feel free to call me?”

“You can count on it, Janice.”

She goes to the door with him. Gives him quite a hug – her body not angled back as women will do, with men other than spouses and lovers, but up close, tight against him.

Conte pulls out of the college’s Visitor Parking lot – heads home – anxious, overwhelmed. Until 3:00
A.M.
Saturday morning, when he’d been awoken by the call from Laguna Beach, his work had been undemanding – rarely was there ever more than one case on his schedule in any given two-week period. Sometimes none at all. Now, in three days’ time, first his children, then Jed Kinter, then Michael C, and pressure, heavy pressure from the Robinsons – then the call from Joan Whittier. And since lunch with Catherine Cruz in Troy, his stomach has suffered an invasion of butterflies.

He makes dinner. A small salad, a grilled cheese sandwich, glass of cold seltzer. (Head over heels: guaranteed weight loss.) His private motto: I can juggle one ball at a time, but only with difficulty.

Kinter’s criminal past, as such, is not his major concern. It is the fear that Antonio was not wrong to suggest that his intervention might shove Kinter, his manhood in question, over the edge. Conte feels responsible for the safety of the woman and child. (The flawed but noble Conte.) He wants to do something (but what?) to neutralize Kinter, somehow put him out of play – ram the fear of Our Lord et cetera,
so that, what? So that Kinter would forever after become a good father and husband? As if that could be assured, short of killing the man. Who killed his girls? He had a thought, but was on the wrong side of the country to do anything about it. On a whim of overheated speculation fly out to California and kill Ralph Norwald? Assuming it was Norwald. Assuming he could kill anybody, even his daughters’ killer.

Conte is a tribalist of southern Italian background for whom loyalty to one’s family and friends trumps morality and (goes without saying) the law. He needs to be loyal to Antonio Robinson, all the more so because he had not been loyal to his father. Or to Nancy, Rosalind, and Emily. Never mind the disaster of the marriage. Or the self-absolving rationalization that the kids would be psychologically injured growing up in a loveless house. That they would be better off. If he hadn’t left Nancy, wouldn’t the kids still be alive? He’ll help Antonio in his trouble, whatever it is, he doesn’t need to know, but help how? He has no idea what he intended when he told Robinson that he would neutralize Michael C “with prejudice.” He hadn’t used, because he understood the meaning of the CIA euphemism, “terminate with extreme prejudice.” Conte feels certain that he is not capable of killing.