The Spellmans Strike Again (34 page)

After we collected the items in a box and washed up, David and I sat in his living room, drinking bourbon (he let me have the good stuff) and mulling over possible explanations for his doorknob garden. I already had the answer, but I wanted to see whether David could figure it out on his own.

“If Mom and Dad knew that someone—and when I say ‘someone’ I mean one of their children—was stealing hardware from their house, why wouldn’t they try to get to the bottom of it?” he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, playing oblivious.

“Did they ever accuse you of anything?” David asked.

“They accuse me of things all the time. But no, not of this.”

“That means they knew it was Rae.”

“Yes, I’d have to agree,” I replied.
¹

“Because Rae knows something that they don’t want us to know,” David replied.

“That sounds about right.”

“Do you have any ideas?” David asked.

“I’m still working out the details,” I replied.
²

“Care to share?”

“Not yet.”

ETIQUETTE LESSON #157

You might have noticed that I spared you etiquette lessons one through one hundred and fifty-six. Since I wish I’d been spared those, I assumed you would feel the same way. Besides, these lessons spanned two decades. However, this particular etiquette lesson is accompanied by further details of the tale I’m telling you, so I provide it for you here.

I knocked on Henry Stone’s door around six or seven
P.M.
He answered as I expected him to.

“I need a favor,” I said. “A huge favor.”

Henry backed away from the door, silently agreeing to my entry.

“Of course you do. Why else would you drop by?”

“I drop by all the time for Rae extractions.”

“It’s been a while. Have you noticed?” Henry said.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t noticed, but it was true.

“She’s taking the bus now. Hasn’t asked anyone for a ride in two weeks.”

“That Fred is a miracle worker.”

I followed Henry into his kitchen, where he was doing something that resembled cooking. I’m not all that familiar with the activity, so I could only speculate.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Henry asked, picking up a large knife.

“What are you making?” I asked.

Henry put down the knife, turned to me, and provided a solid expression of basic annoyance. “Excuse me?” Henry said. The way he furrowed his brow in disbelief was very distracting and amusing and so I didn’t reply. “When someone invites you over for dinner,” Henry said, “you don’t ask what they’re making unless you are on a severely restricted diet. You especially don’t ask when you’ve already mentioned that you need a favor. Where did you learn your manners?” he asked.

“Take it up with my mother,” I replied. “I’m doing my best.”

A long silence followed while I waited to see whether my previous comment smoothed things over. It didn’t. So I had to do some more smoothing.

In my perky voice, which I don’t pull out all that often, I said, “I’d love to stay for dinner. Can I help with anything?”

Henry nodded his head in the direction of the cutting board.

“Can you dice that onion for me?”

“Yes,” I said, without any further back talk.

While Henry prepared the marinade for the tofu,
¹
I followed my orders. I could see Henry checking on me out of the corner of his eye as if he thought I was capable of destroying the entire meal through my one assignment.

“Where’d you learn to chop an onion like that?” Henry eventually asked, impressed.

“On television. Where I learn
everything
.”

Over a less-bland-than-expected meal, I finally got around to asking for my favor. It was big, so I didn’t know how Henry would handle it.

“Lieutenant Fishman refuses to return my calls. If he had good things to say about Harkey, he would have called me back just to get rid of me. I’ve left at least eight messages. He won’t talk to me because I’m not a cop. Do you think he’d talk to you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Henry replied, although he refused to make eye contact.

Cops stick together because when they’re on the job, trust is essential. But sometimes that means a good cop will keep quiet about a bad cop to avoid breaking a link in that network. Without evidence of Harkey’s mishandling of the case, there wasn’t much I could do for Demetrius.

And so I launched into a Merriweather speech, not unlike Rae’s previous Schmidt diatribe.

“Let me tell you about Demetrius Merriweather . . .”

By the time dinner and my Merriweather lecture were over, I’m fairly certain that Henry was moved by his story. I even did the dishes to seal the deal, even though I suspected Henry would rewash them later.

Before I departed, I said this: “I know you think this is still about Harkey, but it isn’t. It wouldn’t matter what dirty cop sent Merriweather to prison. I’d still want to help get him out. We have to do something.”

Henry nodded his head, but he said no more. He’d been quiet that night. Something was in the air, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

MRS. ENRIGHT REVEALED

On her one day off a week, Mrs. Enright drives her car to a parking lot and leaves it there overnight. To gain insight into her meager personal life, I had to resort to old-fashioned surveillance.

Saturday afternoon, Enright left the Winslow residence, drove three miles to a parking garage off of Van Ness, and then strolled a few blocks down to O’Farrell Street and entered a multiplex theater, where she remained most of the afternoon, on one ticket’s purchase. I know this because I watched the movies with her, in disguise. Mrs. Enright, shockingly, is partial to comedies. In fact, her sharp, stinging laugh distinguished itself from the mass of other guffaws. The pleasure she received from the mediocre escape made the mediocrity of it seem less so. How could a film be so terrible if it could transform a person within minutes? I studied Mrs. Enright as she exited the first theater and made her way to the concession counter. It appeared as if her body was inhabited by someone else. Her features remained the same, but the way they were arranged was utterly changed.

Enright replenished her soda at the concession counter and then indulged in a warm pretzel. She had clearly planned ahead, checking her watch, taking the escalator up two floors, and finding her next two-hour vacation. The second film was a bromantic comedy. If you are unfamiliar with the newest film genre since the mockumentary, it’s essentially a buddy film that emphasizes heterosexual man-love.
¹
Enright enjoyed the second film as much as the first. I skipped the third film when I learned it was about a talking dog, figuring that six-plus hours in a multiplex would be her limit. I went to a café until the film let out.

As I predicted, Enright’s movie marathon ended after the third feature. I watched her from a bus bench across the street as she exited the unusually ornate building. I picked up the tail as she began walking south down Van Ness. She turned left on Eddy Street and entered the Civic Center, where there’s a weekly farmer’s market. For an hour she tasted samples of fresh produce and purchased an assortment of locally grown items, and then, when her shopping was complete, she casually walked up to Jones Street and entered Mason Graves’s building.

I’m going to use the defense that I was distracted by other matters. For instance, being locked in a file room overnight, warring fake accents, disinterred doorknobs, and my new obsession with justice for Demetrius. My original instincts were correct; I simply didn’t follow through. Libby Graves, the real Mason’s mother, is the one and only Elizabeth Enright, housekeeper to Mr. Franklin Winslow. She was also a human being with unusual responsibilities who may or may not have participated in a carefully calculated con against an extremely wealthy man. Either way, she had to be dealt with. She was certainly in on Harvey’s con, but I had to find out the extent of her involvement and deal with her appropriately. If I went to the cops and they decided to press charges, she could go to prison. And if she went to prison, who would look out for her son?

I knocked on the real Mason Graves’s door. “Libby” opened it. The relaxed expression that a day of leisure had imparted vanished the moment she saw me. I felt like a cruel intruder, learning her secrets, taking her away from the few moments of her life that she could enjoy.

“I don’t want trouble,” I said. “But I know too much to let this thing go.”

Libby silently invited me into the kitchen, where Mason was eating milk and cookies. He waved a friendly hello. His mother started coffee brewing. Once our cups were in hand, we negotiated a deal that would keep Mason in sandwiches, Harvey off the streets, and Libby in her current employment. As it turns out, Enright is her maiden name, and she was committing no real crime beyond allowing her nephew to take on her son’s clean identity.

In case you’re curious, I didn’t tell my parents the whole story. They like to keep their cases out of the gray area. You serve the client and the client only. But I lived so many years of my life in that land where rules exist only to be broken that I still sympathize with those who can’t seem to follow them all, including the law breakers. I was one of them once. I guess, if you think about it, I still am. I know that a world of people ignoring absolutes could create a society that cannot function, but I am so sure of my ideals that I make this choice. If, one day, I notice the world slipping and feel that I am truly part of it, I’ll snap back in line. Until then, this is how I’m going to play the game.

The final phase of the Winslow story is almost complete. After a dozen interviews, Len found number thirteen, his lucky charm. The replacement to the temporary replacement for the man previously known as Mason Graves would be Arthur Hawkins. Hawkins has been a valet for forty years, since his midtwenties. His sole reference was the family of Gregory Normington, who employed Hawkins for forty years. Only the death of his employer could have ended their relationship. Since Mr. Hawkins was still in good health and all of his records checked out, Len finally agreed to leave his employment with Mr. Winslow. In turn, Christopher agreed to move to New York.

That’s not quite the end of that story. There will be a good-bye party to attend. But I’ll get to that. Later.

THE SUNDAY-NIGHT DINNER MASSACRE

If ever there was a dinner to turn you off dinners for good, the next time the Spellmans congregated was that kind of occasion. I shouldn’t even mention the food, since it was only a part of the peripheral nightmare, but it seems worth mentioning nonetheless. My father’s cholesterol and blood pressure had begun to creep up again, noted after his last doctor’s appointment. My mother, according to character, pulled out her health-nut whip and cracked down. The evening’s repast consisted of a faux meatloaf made primarily out of bulgur wheat, lentils, and oats. A side salad of beets and Swiss chard rounded out the meal.

When Rae came downstairs, she was wearing her
FREE SCHMIDT!
shirt. I was wearing
JUSTICE 4 MERRI-WEATHER.
�We’d each tried to get the unit to represent our respective causes, but since the last family meal the unit had agreed to remain mostly impartial, which meant Dad wore Merri-weather (because he had more bulk to carry the letters) and Mom wore Schmidt.

Rae circled the kitchen, crinkled her nose, and asked, “What’s for dinner?” But then she immediately retracted the question, went into the living room, and turned on the television.

When David and Maggie arrived, I pulled my brother aside and said, “I’m going to reveal everything over dinner. Just back me up.”

“How about you just tell me first?” David suggested.

“Nah. It’s more dramatic my way.”

I then grabbed the digital recorder from the office to ensure we had an archive of the evening’s proceedings. I think you’ll agree it was an event worth archiving.

When the meal was served and explained, because it required explaining, the mood of the table darkened. Please note that whenever anyone asked for the “meat” loaf, finger quotes were used.

[Partial transcript reads as follows:]

OLIVIA
: Anyone who feels like complaining about the meal should keep it to himself.

DAVID
: I have no interest in talking about the food.

RAE
: What’s there to say, really? I think in juvie I could get a tastier meal than this.

ISABEL
: You spent one night. You’re no expert.

OLIVIA
: You haven’t even tasted it yet.

RAE
: Most of what we taste is directly connected to our sense of smell. I can smell.

ISABEL
: Where’s Fred? I miss him already.

ALBERT
: We invited him, didn’t we?

RAE
: Yes, but I caught him on the way over and told him to save himself. He’s getting a slice at Village Pizzeria.

MAGGIE
: Oh my god. That sounds so good.

[The serving dishes are soberly passed around the table. A long silence ensues.]

ALBERT
: Does anyone have news they’d like to share?

ISABEL
: I think you do, Dad. And Mom.

[The unit exchanges eye contact.]

ALBERT
: Well, I’m sure something of interest happened this week.

OLIVIA
: I think Rae and Maggie have news to share about Schmidt.

RAE
: In two weeks Schmidt will be a free man. How are things working out between you and Merriweather?