Fourth Person No More

by John Gastineau

  “Naomi,” she said. “Naomi Crawford.”

  “The guy in the pants?”

  I did not think she had heard me. She would not take her eyes off Wood, who walked Naomi back down the drive and handed her off to the woman trooper. Akmed continued to tag along behind.

  “Why, Naomi’s husband,” my source said, as though any damned fool would know that.

  A lifetime of castrating hogs and pulling breached calves makes any number of older, farm women brusque, blunt, if they weren’t that way to begin with. I had the sense that she was that sort.

  She wheeled to see who was asking her stupid questions, but at the sight of a stranger, she started. She wore granny wire rims no bigger than quarters and had a puckered, little mouth.

  “William,” she said.

  I assumed curt was her default, but I was not about to hold it against her. Names are always the first step and sometimes the hardest. We were off to a fine start.

  Wood approached the clowns. They had hung back from Sheba’s moment in the spotlight, but now Wood was telling them it was their turn.

  The man looked at the woman for a moment, untangled himself from her grasp, and gave her a protective little shove backward as he stepped forward. At the back of the ambulance, he waved off Wood’s steadying hand. He put a fist on his hip and hung his head for a second. Then he bent primly at the waist, peered in, and straightened. After a moment, he nodded once and spoke to Wood. Together, they turned to the hearse, and the man repeated the process.

  Poteet, the undertaker, stood at the door of the hearse with them. Recognizing Poteet, the man spoke to him urgently. Throughout the conversation, he fingered Poteet’s lapel with one hand, and when he was done, he patted it smooth.

  Poteet took the man’s hand and held it a moment. Then he said something to Wood, who directed two lingering troopers to move one of the bags from the ambulance into the hearse with the other one.

  The man clown watched as though he might miss something before turning to the woman. He nodded once, pursed his lips, and cocked his head. As he returned to the woman’s arms, he wiped an eye with the heel of his hand.

  “They are?” I said to no one in particular, and no one answered.

  Sometimes you must prime the pump. I put an arm on a fencepost and said, “They have kids?”

  The question hung in the cool air, and I let time do the work for me. Finally, from the back, a man’s voice said, “Why?”

  “Why?” I said. “’Cause there were three kids dead in that trailer an hour ago.”

  “Dead? Dead how?”

  My source, the plump dandelion, was inclined to skepticism toward someone she did not know.

  “Who’re the people dressed like clowns?”

  The dandelion was dressed with flair but not expense in a black-and-neon-pink, warmup suit. I had her pegged as a Wal-Mart warrior, the first in line when the doors opened on Dollar Days. She knew a deal when she heard one.

  “Russells, I ‘spect,” she said. She eyed me as though I’d welsh if she wasn’t certain. “With that getup, it’s hard to tell.” She tapped her glasses. “From here,” she said quickly. “Bobbie and Ruth,” she added in a dollop of good faith.

  “The children appear to have been shot,” I said.

  In my younger, wetter days, I could not have abided the long silence it took for them to absorb that. I would’ve bullied them, peppered them with questions, turned this moment of vulnerability to my advantage. But maybe I’ve learned a thing or two. I waited and watched.

  The ones with children held them a little tighter. Others stole glances at each other and me. The rest stared into the middle distance and shook their heads. Then the questions began.

  “Shot how?”

  “Who did it?”

  “You in there?”

  “Where’s Lotty?”

  Consent is a delicate matter between a reporter and unsophisticated sources. Standing at the Press Club rail before both of us went under and bellowing like John McLaughlin, I had once attempted to persuade an only slightly appalled colleague it should be like lovers, unspoken need and implied response.

  Tonight, as the crowd pressed closer to the fence, I recognized it as something less romantic. One of their number had made her pact with the devil and not been struck down.

  Slowly, so I wouldn’t spook them, I reached back and pulled the narrow, spiral-bound notebook from my hip pocket. I said, “I’m Ambrose, Mirror-Press” because I try to be ethical and I wanted them to have no doubt about who I was or what I was doing. And when I had their attention and my pen poised, I asked quietly, “What are the children’s names?”

  They syncopated the facts, giving them up in blurts and rushes. They’d offer a fact, then pause to consider it, repeating and turning it like a puzzle piece that had to be examined to determine its place in the larger scheme of things. One fact would cause them to remember others, which tumbled out until the pile was big enough for them to consider more.

  “The Crawfords’ son is Timothy,” a younger woman said.

  “Timothy,” the dandelion echoed. “That’s right, they called him Tim.”

  “Nice boy, Timothy,” the younger woman said. “He plays baseball with my boys.”

  “My granddaughter’s on his team, too,” the dandelion said. “Plays outfield.” She paused. “Good boy, Tim.”

  “How old would he be?” I asked to move things along.

  “Ten?” the dandelion said. “Eleven?”

  “Ten,” the younger woman said. “Remember, Naomi threw that to-do for his birthday a couple of months ago.”

  The dandelion watched me write it all down.

  “How do you know it’s Tim?” she demanded, and a couple in the crowd said yeah.

  “I don’t.” I kept my attention on the dandelion, knowing the others would follow her lead. “After what you and I just saw, you think it’s anybody else?”

  The dandelion put her hand on my notebook as if to pull it away.

  “You’re not going to say we told you now.”

  Sometimes I would drink to douse a particularly unpredictable and virulent anger at how presumptuous people can be. The impulse to hit her and yank the notebook from her grasp licked up behind my eyes. Instead, I said carefully, “Have you given me your name?”

  “No.”

  “Then I can’t quote you, can I.” I gently pushed her hand away, and brought up a smile. “I’ll be checking all of this with the police.”

  Maybe it would’ve been easier for us all if the children had been brats or trailer trash, but I doubt it and they weren’t. The Russells’ children were Emily, age 11, and Kyle, age 9. Parents in the crowd whose children attended the same school gave me their grades. The boys played Little League and Biddy Basketball. The girl was a scholar and played the piano. All three belonged to the same 4-H Club. Nice, wholesome kids; no trouble that anyone was aware of.

  “What about the parents?”

  “What about them?”

  The mere question seemed to raise the dandelion’s ire.

  “Just some background,” I said. “What do they do? Do they live here?”

  The Russells farmed. William Crawford—“not Bill,” the dandelion said, “Naomi don’t like it”—worked at a factory in Indianapolis. He drove 80 miles every day because the money was better than anything he could find around here. Naomi was at home; she didn’t want to work. They lived on her parents’ place.

  “This isn’t it?” I said. Sometimes you ask when you know better, to confirm or clarify or turn the conversation.

  “No,” the dandelion said. “This here’s Lotty’s place.”

  “Lotty.”

  The response was in unison from four or five persons in the crowd. “Lotty Nusbaumer.”

  “And she is?”

  “She sits,” t
he dandelion said.

  “Sits,” I repeated in confusion. “Sits how?”

  The dandelion blew out air in exasperation, as though I was making fun.

  “Babysits. Done it for years. My guess is that’s probably why those kids were there. Lotty’s sat for half the people in this township,” the dandelion said, and the chorus agreed.

  “Anybody know where she is now?” I asked.

  “What’re you asking?” the dandelion said.

  Sometimes I’m thick. Death—murder especially—is a garden of black roses, the blossoms questions and doubt. So said the poet-philosopher Dill, on a night when we were both down and our cups well mingled.

  The friends and neighbors had been willing to talk about the children, but questions about the parents and Lotty raised their hackles. The children were dead and therefore innocent; of that much, they could be sure. But they didn’t know about the living: the parents or Lotty.

  If suspicion flowered in the unknown, my questions were loam. They only called attention to the blanks in the tale. Besides, reporters look only for the worst, or so I’ve been told.

  “I’m only asking ‘cause she’s not in that trailer.” I said.

  “So she’s not dead?” the younger woman asked with more hope than was merited.

  “All I know is she’s not in the house.”

  “Well,” said the dandelion, “where is she?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you. Where might she have gone? What’re the names of her closest neighbors?”

  We were back to names again, another fork in our dealings. And not just any names, but their names. Persons in the crowd hesitated, looking at each other and then over my shoulder.

  “Come on,” I said, “What’s the difference? I can look it up in the phone book, a plat book. Go knock on doors, if I have to.”

  A voice from behind me said, “I wouldn’t, Clay.”

  Who knew how long Wood had been standing there; he is, by nature, a quiet, reserved man. He was silhouetted against the flood lamps when he spoke, his hands in the patch pockets of his jump suit. I stepped back and around to move closer to him, and as he followed me into the light, I saw his face. The skin had gone slack and pouchy and his eyes were bloodshot, but the glints that appear in his eyes when he is angry flashed as he looked hard at me and then away.

  “Don’t trouble Lotty,” he said, looking back toward the trailer. “Or her neighbors. Not tonight.”

  Wood said it quietly, no threats or ultimatums but no room for doubt about what he wanted either. At that moment, I was merely a duty, like lifting prints, another aspect of the investigation he had to manage and control. I’d see about talking to Ms. Nusbaumer or her neighbors, tonight or whenever I damn well chose to, but there was no sense in arguing with Wood at that moment.

  “So the story is?” I said.

  If Wood’d had his way, he wouldn’t have told me a thing, at least not until he had an arrest, maybe a conviction, maybe a sentencing, or not at all. It’s nothing personal. He just wants to control the situation, not screw up.

  But Wood’s a pro, and he knows I, too, have job to do and I’m not going to go away and it’s better to tell me something than nothing. So in that foreign language that they must teach in cop speech class at the academy, Woodrow says the story is that he has three victims of apparent homicide: one white male juvenile, age 9, a second white male juvenile, age 10, and a white female juvenile, age 11. As if in a place like Austin County, black, Hispanic, or Asian juveniles are common victims of apparent homicides.

  “Woodrow, let’s save each other a little time here,” I said and rattled off what the gawkers told me about the kids and why they were at the home. “True?”

  He eyed me a long moment before agreeing.

  “And there was a fourth occupant of the trailer who survived?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that would be Lotty Nusbaumer, the homeowner, and apparently the person who was babysitting for the victims?

  As Woodrow continued to study me, his lips tightened.

  “How long’ve you been here, Clay?” he said.

  “I’ll take that for a yes. Where might she be?”

  “Who?”

  “Lotty Nusbaumer.”

  “Taken to the hospital.”

  “Which one?”

  “None of your business. Who else’ve you talked to since you got here, Clay?”

  “Wood. Man. If anybody knows I don’t discuss sources, it’s you. Is she going to make it?”

  “We think so.” He paused again and looked me over. “How do you know she’s hurt?”

  “You just said they took her to a hospital.”

  He shrugged and smiled ruefully. “So I did.”

  “She a suspect?”

  He thrust out his lower lip. “Doubtful.”

  “What’s that mean? Doubtful.”

  “It means we haven’t had a chance to talk to her at any length.”

  “How’d she survive?”

  “Who you going to tell?”

  “Damn near anyone’ll read or listen. You know me. What? You want it off the record?”

  Wood took his hand out of his pocket and rubbed his face hard, elbow out, as though he was washing it.

  “No comment,” he said.

  “Bullshit. It’s a ‘flash’?”

  A flash is fact that cops withhold from public release. If a suspect flashes the fact, the cops know they got the right guy.

  “Wood, we’ve had this discussion before. If you don’t tell me and I find out what it is, how’m I going to be able to decide whether to report it.”

  “What’s to decide? If you find out about it, you report it,” Wood said. “Whatever it is, Clay, I’m not telling you.”

  “Good.” Crandall appeared at our elbows. “Don’t tell him a damn thing.”

  “Counselor,” I said.

  Wood looked from Crandall to me, deciding what to do.

  “Clay, here, was asking me what we’ve got,” he said, leaving his gaze on me. “He’s asked me all sorts of questions. He’s asked me about the children and he’s asked me about Aunt Lotty.”

  “Aunt Lotty?” I said.

  “That’s what three generations of kids in this township have called her, related or not.” After thirty years as a cop, Wood knew a lot about a lot of people in Austin County. “But you know what, Potter? Clay here hasn’t asked me one question about how the victims were killed.”

  I started to feel a little sick to my stomach.

  “If you were listing them, Potter, where would you put that one on a reporter’s usual string of questions?” Wood said.

  “Probably second,” Crandall said.

  He reached through his pockets to find first a cigar and then his matches. He took a couple of matches to get the smelly root fired. He blew out a big cloud of blue smoke at me and raised his eyebrows.

  But I was comfortable with silence. I’d used it myself a time or two to encourage confession.

  “He doesn’t want to talk about when he got here or who he’s talked to,” Wood said. “And another thing.” He paused for effect. “He knew Aunt Lotty wasn’t in the trailer.”

  Now I knew how much Woodrow had heard when I questioned the gawkers. Crandall bit down on his cigar, made a face, then picked a piece off the end of his tongue, all the while looking at me with the affection he might feel for dog shit.

  “It would explain the extra set of footprints,” Crandall said. He looked me up and down. “The ones with the heavy tread,” he added and waited.

  It ran through my mind that maybe I’d left footprints in the dew or something. Or that maybe it was a bluff. So I said nothing.

  “Mr. Ambrose, do you know why I left a plump wife in a warm bed to stand here and look at dead children?” Crandall said.
<
br />   “Guidance to the cops, I imagine,” I said, playing it straight.

  “No, no,” Crandall said, “nothing nearly as altruistic as that.”

  He took the cigar from his mouth and used it to wave the notion away.

  “It’s really much simpler. You see, Mr. Ambrose, I fucking hate to lose. Hate it. So I worry. I worry that six months or a year from now, when I’m telling a jury about those dead children, some fucking defense attorney is going to interrupt me to tell that jury, my jury, something I don’t already know.”

  He put the cigar back in his mouth and bit down on it as he glared at me.

  “So, Mr. Ambrose, you tell me. Is that fucking defense lawyer going to tell my jury that some drunk asshole reporter broke the chain of evidence by walking around my crime scene?”

  “Give it a rest, Potter. I don’t disclose.”

  “And you’re not answering my question.” Crandall gave me one more appraising look before turning to Wood. “Throw his ass out.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “This is a public road. I can stand here all day if I want to.”

  “No, sir,” Crandall said, bellying up to me, sandwiching me against Wood, who did not move. “This a crime scene. And we have reason to believe you’re interfering with an investigation. If you haven’t done so already.”

  I started to say something about the public’s interest, but Crandall cut me off.

  “The public, Mr. Ambrose, is standing over there.”

  He pointed to the gawkers. A couple of troopers were now moving among them, asking for names and information, writing it down, and telling them to move on.

  Most were watching me, however, with intense interest and some amusement. Only a few looked away when I looked at them.

  Crandall said, “If it came down to giving you your goddamned story or using whatever means it takes to find and try the people who killed three children and shot an old woman . . . .”

  He spoke low, so he would not be overheard by the crowd.

  “That is, sir, if it came down to whether they’d rather see you do your job or me do mine, who do you fucking think they’d choose?”

  Crandall gave me a crick in the neck, crowding me and withering me with breath that reeked of cigar and sleep. I squeezed out from between him and Wood and rolled my head to get rid of it. There’ve been days when the issues Crandall raised played hell with my motivation, so I said, “I’m going to take your question as rhetorical.”