We wandered the empty docks, hoping Bogdan’s houseboat would show itself. I thought I might remember it from a newspaper photo. We were sure it’d be shabby and not moored with the swankier boats. At the end of a long floating dock, we stopped. Before us was a box on rusty pontoons. Its decaying wood siding was slimy and marred with mold. Its small deck was in disarray: a few overturned chairs, thick rope in a messy knot, a cluster of rusty fishing gaffs, and other trash. Maybe the aftermath of a police search. It had a large sliding door, slightly ajar, and on the starboard side, there were a few fogged-over portholes. A rickety ladder led to the roof, which served as a secondary deck. A single folding chair was still up there, overlooking the river. I took a step forward and noticed a magazine stuck to the damp boards of the lower deck, its few dry pages flapping in the breeze. The photo of a smiling face fluttered by—Shirley Temple.
I called out: “Anybody home?”
No reply.
No one was in sight, so I collapsed my umbrella and hopped on board. The boat shifted with my weight and clanged gently against the pylons. Philippa followed me. The sliding door had been pried open. The odor of stale beer and sour rags hit me as we entered. Yellow light from the dock lamps shined through bent, half-raised venetian blinds on the port side. In the dull glow, the furnishings were shapeless, shadowy creatures lying in wait. My pulse surged, and Philippa grabbed my upper arm and squeezed it. I dug a lighter out of my sweater’s pocket and flipped it on with my thumb. The room flared to life.
It was obvious that the police had rummaged through the boat, which I would guess hadn’t been particularly tidy to begin with. Candy wrappers and beer bottles and food cartons lay on almost every surface. Dirty plates and glasses had been tossed in the sink of the small galley, and all of its cabinets were unlatched and spilling their contents. I separated myself from Philippa’s grip. “I don’t know what we’re looking for,” I said, “but let’s nose around.”
After a few minutes of searching, I opened the small icebox under the counter and gagged. The stench of spoiled cheese or milk billowed out. Philippa tucked her nose in the crook of her arm. As I was about to shut the door, she saw writing on the greasy brown parcel paper wrapped around the offending food. I bent down and used my thumb and forefinger to extract it from the shelf. I held up my lighter, and Philippa came closer, her elbow still raised across her face like The Shadow. It was difficult to make out, but it had Bogdan’s name and address on it, as well as postage and a postmark dated five days ago.
“Who mails cheese?” Philippa said, her voice muffled.
“I don’t think that’s what was originally in this,” I said, “and it has no return address.” I shoved it back into the icebox and closed the door.
In the backroom, we discovered a narrow bed, stripped of its sheets, and a small beat-up dresser with its drawers open, revealing a tangle of clothes. Beside it was a guitar with broken strings, propped up on end, and a pile of crinkled sheet music. Behind the headboard, the infamous Shirley Temple collage bloomed like a perverse flower. Bogdan had pieced together faded and stained fan photos, magazine shots, ad campaigns, and movie flyers—Curly Top, Bright Eyes, Heidi, Dimples—with thick layers of yellowing tape. Little Shirley was everywhere, beaming out, her face flickering in the flame from the lighter.
“Dimples? Really?” I muttered with disgust.
Above his stained pillow, at the origin point of the Shirley explosion, was another photo. It was a blurry picture of a lean teenage boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, sitting on a bench in a stone-paved public square of some sort, somewhere foreign, perhaps the Ukraine. He was wearing suspenders and a duckbill cap. His eyes were knowing, but wrong somehow, like they belonged to an older man. Beside him, in the crook of his arm, was a pretty blond girl of six or seven in a sackcloth dress. Both were smiling. “Is that him as a boy?” I said. “And his sister?”
I carefully peeled the photo from the wall to avoid ripping the fragile paper. On the back, it said, “Адриан и Анна, 1918.” I took a summer course at Edith’s insistence a year ago—“We’ll be dealing a lot with the Soviets soon, so you should be prepared, my dear!”—but I didn’t retain much. “Анна” was most likely Anna. Bogdan’s first name was Adrian, and the girl in the photo must be the sister who was murdered, Anna, or, in the diminutive, Anka. Philippa, ever prepared, wielded her notepad and pen. She wrote down the inscription, and I fixed the photo back in place.
Standing back from the Shirley Temple collage with all those perky kiss-blowing Shirleys staring at me, I couldn’t decide what it meant: Was it a disgusting pervert’s fantasy or a grieving brother’s tribute to his dead sister? Whatever it was, it was alarming.
Footsteps were approaching. I snapped my lighter closed. We crept to the front room and saw a pair of legs pass by on the pier. I held my breath.
“Let’s go,” I said, exhaling. “We have one more stop.”
Outside, it was dark, and fat raindrops were pelting the Potomac, sending a shimmer across the black water. I shielded us with the umbrella, and we made our way to the dock master’s office beside the main gate. A light was on. I tapped on the door.
A voice said, “Yep, come in.”
The cramped office was decorated with grimy paintings of ships and seascapes, and stale cigar smoke floated in the air. A man with a wiry yellowed beard and a murky expression regarded us from behind his desk, which was strewn with papers, ledgers, maps, and other nautical bric-a-brac. He was wearing a dirty captain’s cap, a placard on his desk said, “Capt. Gabriel Lamb,” and behind him, crooked on the wall, hung a pinup calendar. I immediately didn’t like him. “Are you the dock master?” I said.
“That’s right. Who’s asking?”
“Friends of Cleveland Closs,” I said.
“That right? I’m sorry about that business.” He shook his head. “I kinda liked Bogdan. In a way, he was the dock’s mascot. You just never know about people.” His expression darkened. “Why are you two down here?”
“Are you the one who found the yearbook?” I asked, not buying Captain Lamb’s breeziness.
“How do you know about that?”
“You took it from Mr. Bogdan’s trash,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Correct.”
“Why were you rifling through his garbage?”
Philippa shifted next to me, clutching her elbows. Clearly, my questions were making her nervous, but I couldn’t stop. In for a penny!
“Why do you care?” he asked.
“Is that something dock masters usually do? Go through the garbage?”
“Get out of here.” He waved us away.
“Were you looking for something?”
He stood. He was tall, at least six-foot-two, and he had a distended gut that strained his soiled shirt and pushed his buttons out, which seemed like they might pop off at any moment. “The damn thing had Adrian’s fingerprints all over it.”
“You’re lying,” I said, stepping toward him, emboldened.
“Get out!” he said, throwing daggers with his eyes. “Now!”
I glared back at him and said, “Let’s go.”
The wind was whipping across the marina, dragging sheets of water with it. I fussed with the umbrella, which kept buckling in the gusts, and Philippa pulled her coat around her. In the slip closest to the office was a motorboat called The Crawdad Express.
“What’s a crawdad?” Philippa said.
“It’s a crayfish.”
“A crustacean, right?”
My instinct kicked in: “Didn’t Cleve say something to you about a boat?”
“He said he liked going out on the Potomac in the boat,” she said.
“A specific boat? Like his family owns a boat?”
“His mother also mentioned it.”
I really wanted to go home. I was shivering, and my shoes were soaked through. But this detail nagged me. Down the steps from us, a deckhand was furiously trying to cover a motorboat with a tarp. Most likely, it
was his legs we’d seen before. “Wait here,” I said.
“Really?” Philippa said, wiping the rain from her cheeks.
Ignoring her, I descended to the dock again, struggling to hold on to the umbrella. The Potomac gurgled and frothed against the pylons.
“Excuse me,” I said.
The man looked up. His face was streaked with water, his peacoat was drenched, and his scarf was a soggy snake around his neck. He was only a little older than us, maybe in his early twenties. “This isn’t the best time,” he said, stating the obvious.
“Could you tell me where the Closses’ boat is?”
“Whose?”
“The Closses’.”
“It’s in slip…” He caught himself. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t give that information out. Sorry, I need to cover two more boats before the storm gets worse.” He began to turn away.
“Wait.”
He gave me a withering look, and I smiled at him sweetly and batted my eyelashes as best I could in the rain. “I was just wondering if you’ve seen anything unusual going on around here?”
“You mean, besides you asking me questions?” He smirked.
“Forget it,” I said, waved my hand, and turned away.
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you if you let me buy you a cup of coffee after my shift.”
“Tell me first,” I said, rolling my eyes on the inside.
He hesitated, and I looked up at the rain impatiently. “The houseboat over there—” he nodded toward Bogdan’s boat—“it’s like a revolving door. First the police, then these guys in suits, looking like they just stepped out of a James Cagney movie. Whatever that chump did, lots of folks are interested. That’s all I have.”
“Thanks,” I said, winked at him, and walked away.
“Hey, where should I meet you?” he called after me.
“Have a nice life,” I said.
I learned two things: Someone else was interested in Bogdan, and the Closses moored their boat at the same marina. There weren’t many marinas in town. I doubted that it was a coincidence. But what did that mean? Did it connect Bogdan to Cleve’s death? Then, like that, it clicked. I knew why the yearbook was significant, and it wasn’t for the reasons the police thought.
I grabbed Philippa’s hand and said, “I’m hungry. Let’s drop by the Closses’ for milk and cookies.”
PHILIPPA, NOVEMBER 2, 1948
The bell made a tinny, distant sound, and anxiety rolled through me. In the streetcar, we’d run through the major questions we wanted to ask. Judy had her proverbial guns out, twirling them, ready to take aim, but I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t even sure this was the best approach.
The door squeaked open, and Elaine Closs craned toward us, clutching its edge. Her moist green eyes peered out from her pasty face, blinking and roving over us. Her long eyelashes had trapped crumbs of mascara like a spiderweb does gnats. “Hello,” she said, slurring a bit. “And who are you?” A button midway down on her housedress had been neglected, revealing a slice of pale flesh as she leaned toward us. She was clearly doped up.
“We’ve met before,” Judy said. “We’re Cleve’s friends from school.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, smiling dreamily at me. “His English classmates.” She nodded at Judy. “You—Did the jam come out of your blouse?”
She was confused.
“Moira’s goddamn cookies,” Elaine said and giggled a little.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s as good as new. Right, Judy?”
“Well, I’m glad,” Elaine said, giving her free hand a little flutter.
A man’s voice from behind her called out: “Who’s there, Elaine?” His tone was terse and impatient.
“You should go,” Elaine said, grabbing the door and beginning to close it. Her eyes shimmered in the light from the entryway sconces. So green, like jadeite stones.
“Who is this?” the man said, emerging out of the shadowy hall. He was tall, broad-shouldered, in his early forties, and handsome, but in a hard, sculpted way. He had dusty blond hair, neatly parted and slicked across his scalp, and a prominent chin like Robert Mitchum’s. I recognized him from his photo; he was Cleve’s dad, but of course, much older than in the photo.
He took Elaine by the wrist and guided her away from the door, supporting her with his other arm. It was a calculated, expert gesture, as if he were her doctor, and she his patient. When he returned, he said, “What can I do for you?” and smiled, his teeth flashing full and bright.
“We’re Philippa and Judy,” I said. “Friends of Cleve’s.”
His tanned face had a polished sheen, which was striking even as it hovered between puzzlement and concern. “Ah, yes, my mother told me about you,” he said, straining to be upbeat. His starched collar was unbuttoned, and his necktie, forest green with little red shamrocks, hung loosely around his thick, ropy neck.
“We’d like to talk to you about Cleve, if you don’t mind,” I said, trying to be careful with my words. We didn’t want to rush him with questions, or he’d slam the door in our faces.
His square brow creased. It seemed like he was trying to read us and craft his responses accordingly. It made me uncomfortable. “Come in,” he said at last.
I smiled politely, and we entered. The hall was hot and dry. The warm air from the furnace rushed across my ankles. We shrugged off our damp coats, which Cleve’s mother, who had wandered close again, took from us and hung on the coat rack beside the door. She drifted back down the passageway, running her hand over the textured wallpaper, tracing its pineapple design with a roaming finger. I thought of the quotation she’d said to me: “Love is a thing ever filled with anxious fear.” Was she describing herself or someone else? I wasn’t sure.
Mr. Closs stepped back and gestured for us to go ahead of him. As I passed him, I caught a whiff of his cologne, but it wasn’t until I was in the parlor that its distinctive metallic odor registered in my soggy brain: “Oh my God, it’s him!” I thought. “The gray ghost! Miss Martins’s attacker!” I didn’t know what to do: Should I scream? Should I run? Or should I accuse him? Or should I stay calm? My heart was galloping. Thump, thump, thump. Sweat beaded on my forehead and my breath shallowed. But I couldn’t fall apart, not now. We still needed the information that we’d come for.
He motioned for us to sit on the sofa, the dreary landscape hanging above us like our own little black cloud. He positioned himself across from us in a wingback chair. Looming nearby, the grandfather clock counted out the weak pulse of the house—or was it my heartbeat? As discreetly as possible, I wiped the sweat from my forehead. The radio babbled in the background, first a commercial jingle and then some jazz standard. Mr. Closs leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, revealing his muscular forearms. He asked us a question, some pleasantry, but I only grasped that he was speaking, not what he said. I was speechless. But Judy answered him. He smiled and said something else.
I scanned his face as if it would reveal some answer for why he’d hurt Miss Martins. Or why he’d chase us across town. Did he want to hurt us? Rape us? Kill us? My curiosity was battling with my fear, but not winning. Crowded with sprays of lilies and clusters of white roses, the parlor was suffocating; the condolence bouquets were cloying, even mocking. This man was dangerous. We were in his parlor because he wanted something from us. He wanted to know if we could identify him, if we knew he was our pursuer or a rapist or even a killer.
“He liked going out on the boat,” Judy said. “He told us about all those Sundays on the Potomac and the Anacostia.” She was embellishing, using small talk to break down his defenses, but she didn’t know who he really was.
He offered us a gleaming smile, but his eyes were too still, too fixed. He was a bad actor. “Look, girls,” he said in a crisp tone. “Why are you here? It’s not to discuss Cleveland’s nautical interests.”
I glanced at Judy, who read my distress, her eyes like tiny black mirrors.
“You’re right,” Judy said in a strange, bright voice. “We
wanted to tell you about something we figured out. You see, Adrian Bogdan didn’t kill Cleve.”
“Don’t say?” he asked with amusement.
She regarded him, then spoke slowly: “The yearbook—that damning piece of evidence—is worthless. It’s a fraud.” His eyes opened wide. So did mine. “Bogdan didn’t steal it. It was mailed to him. We have the parcel paper it was wrapped in.” A lie. We’d left the smelly paper wrapped around that nasty piece of spoiled cheese. “He received it, opened it, and being the sad and confused man he is, he threw it out, thinking it was a cruel joke or maybe even a threat. Someone instructed and probably paid the dock master to dig through the trash, find it, and turn him in. Like that, you have an incriminating yearbook covered with Bogdan’s fingerprints. It’s smart because it’s simple. Except that Capt. Lamb Chop is a bad liar. I mean, who decides to rummage through garbage on a whim?”
As she launched her theory at him, his face shifted from incredulous to smug to somber. His liquid blue irises seemed to drain out and pool between them. His lips moved like he might confess, like the weight of his misdeeds was just too much, and he needed to get it all off his chest—but instead, he beamed: “Wow!” He slapped his knee. “What a story! Sounds solid. Have you shared it with the police?” He was making fun of us.
“Of course,” she said, her confidence unfaltering. “That’s where we came from.” She was ensuring our safety, and I was thankful.
“Who’d you talk to?”
Judy blinked. “Leo Paulson.”
I had no idea who Leo Paulson was, but his name made Mr. Closs flinch.
A contemporary jazz tune with whiny alto sax and plinking piano intruded on their little battle of wills. Elaine, the source of the shift in volume, swayed across the room in a frantic and clumsy dance. In her left hand, she held a small circular needlepoint, stabbed through with a needle. As her arms swung around, a thread trailed behind her like a wisp of cobweb. “Don’t you just love it?” she gasped. “The bird is the best. Tweet, tweet.” As Elaine flapped her arms doing “the bird”—whatever that was—I caught a glimpse of the needlepoint, but all I saw was a red-orange shape. Was it “the bird”? I couldn’t tell, but what was clear was that Elaine was out of it, even more than before. If Mr. Closs had viciously attacked Miss Martins, he may have hurt Elaine, too. Was she drugged to keep her quiet? That would explain her behavior.
The Savage Kind Page 19