Window of Guilt

by Spallone, Jennie

  “What’d it say?” asked Carmen.

  “I love you.”

  “Original.”

  “Ugh! Hang on.” Maggie squeezed more sanitizer onto a tissue.

  “Detective Hanson been sitting at your desk again?”

  “What, now you can see through the telephone?”

  Carmen’s raspy chuckle echoed through the receiver.

  “Anyway, I’m thinking Arnold attempts to deliver the note and discovers the silhouette of Laurie and a male counselor engaging in what teenagers engage in.”

  “How did he know the girl inside the cabin was Laurie?” asked Carmen.

  “It’s her cabin. You sound as mentally challenged as Helga’s grandson.”

  “Beckermann never mentioned she has a grandson,” said Carmen.

  “Arnold set fire to a bush outside Laurie’s cabin. Figured the couple would vamoose.”

  “He succeed?” asked Carmen.

  “Oh, they got out all right. Fire was never pinned on Arnold.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “No witnesses,” said Maggie. “Beckermann told the police her grandson had been home with her the whole evening. Hey, got another call. Good luck.”

  *

  1214 W. Lawrence. Mitzy leaped out of the passenger side of the Crown Victoria.

  “I told you to wait in the car,” said Detective O’Connor.

  Mitzy pulled the hood of her black jogging suit up over her head. “Arrest me later. I’m going in.” She had to find out if Shakia’s TG was the same guy who croaked on Laurie’s lawn.

  Used condoms and a rancid urine smell greeted Mitzy and Maggie as they thrust open the door leading into the twelve-flat apartment building.

  Maggie tossed her a pair of black nylon gloves. “Put these one.”

  “Aye, aye, captain,” said Mitzy, stretching her fingers through the holes.

  The detective eyed her coldly. “This isn’t investigative reporting of local politicians. You could be putting your life at risk.”

  “You once rescued me from a gun-slinging postman,” Mitzy said soberly. “I’m not worried.”

  “Stay close behind me,” the detective said gruffly.

  Mitzy followed Maggie into the dilapidated apartment building. She watched as the detective ran her index finger down a double row of broken mailboxes. Only a handful broadcast their occupants’ names.

  The outer lobby doorknob opened without protest as they softly swept into the building and climbed the three flights of tattered stairs. A heavy drumbeat from an upstairs apartment permeated the halls as they wound their way past scarred doors and wall graffiti.

  The detective stopped in front of apartment 3D. “This is it.”

  A teenage boy, his eyes glassy, slung past them and down the circular stairway.

  Maggie rapped on the door. Konai West boomed from the apartment next door. Only silence emanated from 3D. She rapped louder. “Todd Gray? Police.”

  The door to an apartment at the end of the hall swung open and a young woman sporting a black eye stuck her head out. “Knock it off,” she shouted, “I’m trying to sleep.”

  “Music not loud enough for her,” joked Mitzy.

  Maggie knifed a finger across her lips. She pulled a credit card from her wallet, then thrust her hands into another pair of clear nylon gloves and wedged the plastic card between the teeth of the lock.

  Ten seconds later, they were inside the studio apartment.

  “Mr. Gray?” Mitzy called. “I’m a friend of Shakia’s landlord.” Maggie shushed her with a wave of her hand as she ventured further into the apartment, Mitzy close behind.

  A blood-curdling drumbeat emanating from down the hallway intensified the eerie silence that engulfed the pitch-black apartment.

  Mitzy attempted to flick on the hallway switch but the lightbulb was out. Her foot stepped into something squishy. “Ach!” She held her breath. Silence greeted her exclamation.

  Then Maggie was on the phone. “Civilian down.”

  Mitzy darted down the winding staircase, and out to the car. Pee ran down her legs.

  *

  “What the hell am I, a pelican?” Ryan muttered.

  “It takes awhile to get used to these postures,” said Laurie.

  “Yoga is your opportunity to go deep within and rest your mind from a whirl of thoughts and worries,” the petite yoga instructor told the class as she re-clasped her ponytail holder. “Same pose on the left side.” Ryan lunged into the second posture. He rubbed his thighs, wincing. All those months of working out at the gym and his body was still stiff as the emery board he used to buff his nails.

  “Takes awhile for your body to get used to it,” Laurie said under her breath.

  A bearded young man shot them a dirty look. Now there’s a guy who cared nothing about personal hygiene, thought Ryan.

  Ryan glanced at the wall clock as he performed the lunging pose. Thirty more minutes to go. Some warrior he was, already yearning for lunch and a nap.

  “Good. Mountain pose.”

  Everybody stood like statues now, their eyes closed. Ryan had to hand it to his wife: Laurie never gave up. First the sukkah-building disaster: Norman had to be called in to complete the job. Then a romantic afternoon at Sybaris: Thanks to his stupid heart meds, Ryan had fallen asleep before he and Laurie hit the hot tub. And now her newest brainstorm: yoga. This togetherness soufflé had all the makings of a second Hurricane Katrina. But if it would save their marriage, what the hell?

  “Left foot slightly behind right foot, both legs straight,” Uma instructed. “Lean forward on your right leg, allowing your left foot to come up as far as is comfortable. Lean forward, arms out to the side, lifting your left leg as high as comfortable.”

  “I love this posture,” whispered Laurie, leaning forward until both her chest and leg were parallel to the floor. “Feels like I’m a bird flying over the earth.”

  Ryan leaned forward too far and promptly lost his footing. “Great,” he hissed from the mat. Embarrassed, he glanced around the room to see if anyone had noticed. Nary a smirk or stare.

  “Lean forward on your right leg, left leg and left arm behind you and parallel to the mat, right arm close to your right eye and parallel to the mat,” directed the yoga instructor.

  Pushing his body to a standing position, Ryan attempted to copy the instructor’s posture. Wait a minute. She was stepping forward on her left leg, not her right.

  “Flawless performance is not required,” the instructor reminded the class. “Intention is what counts. Take a break at any time.”

  Ryan eased his body down to the mat and adopted an Indian style posture, his eyes closed. He might be a failure at yoga, but he was improving in meditation. After Frankie had confided that slow, abdominal breathing freed him from his own stress, Ryan allowed himself the freedom of disappearing inward for five minutes, three times a week. Not that he’d shared his mental health practice with his wife. A guy was entitled to sequester himself every now and then without explanation. Was Todd Gray sequestered in Australia while he awaited a heart transplant or had he already died?

  Ryan closed his right nostril with his right thumb and breathed in deeply, then slowly let it out. Today he would finally do the right thing. Fill out the complaint form on Great Harvest and fax it off to the Department of Insurance.

  Removing his thumb from the closed right nostril, he pressed his right fourth finger onto the left nostril and breathed in deeply. His mind was at peace.

  23

  Laurie clutched her peacoat against the wind as she and Mitzy traversed Navy Pier. “What happened after the paramedics wheeled TG away?”

  “I convinced Maggie to drop me off at the hospital. Then I hung out in the waiting room with his mother and brother,” said Mitzy, her floor-length wool coat trailing after her.

  “Okay.”

  “Mrs. Gray was glad to have someone to talk to,” Mitzy said defensively. “Seems Todd was born with a heart murmur. He’d been on antidepr
essants since Shakia broke off their relationship. Doctors told mom there were traces of antidepressants and cocaine in his blood. Forty minutes after the paramedics brought him to the hospital, he suffered a fatal stroke.”

  “At least Shakia will no longer be plagued by that loser,” said Laurie.

  “You are one heartless bitch, know that?” said Mitzy.

  “Ryan tells me that all the time.” Laurie maneuvered them through the congested hallway that flanked the stained glass gallery.

  Mitzy paused at a stained glass abstract sporting varied hues of red and purple. “Listen, I’ve pledged to be honest with you from here on out.”

  Laurie stopped to admire a red and orange sunset, its colored lights bouncing off the ceiling. “You can always level with me.”

  “On our trek home from Urbana, Ryan confessed that he discovered TG’s body lying on the front lawn of your summer home when he got back from the lake.”

  “What?” The chattering voices in the outside art gallery had floated out of hearing range.

  “Not wanting to frighten you, he ran back to the pier for his cell phone. By the time he got back, the body had disappeared.”

  “Ryan manipulated me,” Laurie said, her voice dazed. Her mother had warned her against getting involved with “the little twerp.” Laurie always went for the underdog. Ryan wasn’t handsome, but he was adorable in a baby face sort of way. He dressed sharp, and was a great kisser. That he could carry on an intelligent conversation was an added bonus. Most important, he’d been totally into her. Obviously that was no longer the case.

  “Ryan suspected his former claimant had come up to the summer home to seek revenge,” said Mitzy. “He was visibly relieved when Todd Gray’s father and sister mentioned TG had moved to Australia to be put on a waiting list for a heart transplant. Insurance is way more lenient in that country.”

  “So this was the family whose health care claim he rejected,” Laurie said bitterly.

  “A U of I student named Susie Gray went up to Oconomowoc to claim the body found on Beckermann’s driveway,” said Mitzy. “Susie Gray was TG’s sister. It wasn’t a match.”

  “Lucky for her.”

  “Don’t be too hard on Ryan.”

  “I won’t let him get hard on me, either,” retorted Laurie.

  Mitzy’s face turned red. “Um, I wasn’t referring to that.”

  “I was,” Laurie said, traipsing up the wide tiled stairs bordered by Edy’s ice cream shop.

  Mitzy hurried after her. “Where we going?”

  “Chicago Shakespeare Theater.”

  Laurie stopped at the box office. “One ticket for the Saturday night performance of Hamlet, please. Can’t believe he found the dead body and didn’t tell me,” she said to the ticket taker. His jaw dropped. “Just a character in a book she’s reading,” Mitzy assured him over her shoulder as she trailed Laurie down the marble hallway. “You bought a single ticket. Aren’t you taking Ryan?”

  Laurie pretended not to hear. “So neither the veterinarian Todd Gray nor Shakia’s TG dropped dead on my property.”

  “Glad you’re not mad at me for keeping this from you.”

  “‘Betrayed’ is a more accurate description of how I feel,” she said as she sauntered into the underground parking lot.

  “You were studying for your exam,” Mitzy said defensively. “Didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Now you’re overreacting.”

  “Oh really? I specifically asked you to be my eyes and ears.”

  “Because you didn’t have the chutzpah to trail your husband yourself,” Mitzy yelled as she attempted to open the passenger side of Laurie’s car.

  Laurie grabbed her arm. “Step away from the car.”

  “Don’t be a dork.”

  Laurie jumped into the driver’s side and switched on the ignition. The click of the automatic door locks echoed through the garage. “Have a fun train ride home, traitor!” she called through the closed windows.

  Laurie furiously sped up the ramp and paid her parking fee. She’d asked for honesty. Now she didn’t know what to do with it. The wooden wing lifted and Laurie pulled out into the street. She decided to pay a visit to the one person who could spell it all out for her.

  “If you wish

  To strengthen a lie,

  Mix

  A little truth in with it.”

  Zohar

  24

  Laurie swatted her hair from her eyes as she knelt to scoop Rocky’s freshly dropped excrement from the sidewalk. “Stay,” she called out to the wiggly dynamo tugging at his leash. A strong wind knocked the Baggie from her hand. She extracted a second plastic bag from her pocket and shoveled the small mound into it. Then she knotted the top of the bag so she wouldn’t have to breathe the pungent odor. Rocky tugged at the lead and they started their one-mile trek home.

  Lately, Ryan had ceased accompanying her and Rocky on these walks. The yoga classes, online classes and Sukkot building project had backfired. Now let her suggest a ballroom dance class or a play audition at the local park district and he turned on his heel and headed out the door. Given his secretive behavior coupled with his disinterest in the activities she so adored, their relationship was doomed.

  She wanted to call Mitzy and lay the load on her, but she was embarrassed about abandoning her in the parking garage. Just do it, she told herself. Laurie yanked Rocky’s leash to her side, then extracted her cell phone from her coat pocket and punched in the familiar speed dial number, then loudspeaker.

  A terse voice greeted her. “Yes?”

  Laurie took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. What you said was just really difficult to hear.”

  “Thanks for sharing. Gotta go.”

  “You’re not making this easy,” sniffled Laurie. She gathered the squirming dog under one arm.

  “I only got ten minutes to finish eating before the bell rings.”

  “If Ryan quit Great Harvest, how come he was allowed to Cobra out of his health insurance and receive unemployment?” Laurie blurted.

  “Are you really that eager to catch your husband in a lie?” Mitzy asked softly. Laurie pulled a dog biscuit from her pocket and fed it to the little dog. “I just want the old, fun-loving Ryan back. Since he left the company, there’s this barbed wire fence between us.”

  “You insist on molding Ryan into a duplicate of yourself.”

  “It’s depressing to live with someone who’s so negative,” said Laurie, rubbing her face against the white ball of fur.

  “My advice to you, talk it through with your husband.”

  “I need to talk this out with someone else first.”

  “Yeah, well good luck with that,” said Mitzy. “I gotta get back to class.” Click.

  *

  Laurie watched as seven young adults moved assembly line through the Lutheran group home kitchen, grabbing bagged lunches from their shift supervisor and then slamming out the back screen door to the group home parking lot. “Everybody got a car ride or bike?” asked Sandy Schaeffer, pushing the screen door open, clipboard in hand. She grinned at the unanimous response.

  “You help them prepare their lunches?” asked Laurie.

  “Only if they ask,” said Sandy. She loaded used cereal bowls and utensils into the dishwasher. “Same choices every day. Peanut butter and jelly, cold meat, or cheese.”

  “I noticed each person clears his or her own place setting.”

  “Group A folks just need a helping hand every now and then.”

  “Does Arnold Beckermann fall into that category?”

  The supervisor nodded as she poured their coffee, then slipped into a yellow vinyl chair. “He’s a real sweetie, that one,” she gushed. “I can’t imagine why you need to interview him.”

  “Camp Briarwood is having a staff reunion,” Laurie lied. “I just need to ask Arnold a few questions.” She could have waited until he visited his grandmother, but she needed answers now. Besides, Helga would question the
reason for her visit.

  “When I get his approval, I’ll put him in touch with you,” the supervisor said politely.

  Laurie sensed the woman’s ambivalence. “His grandmother knows about my visit.”

  Sandy leaned across the table. “Mrs. Beckermann didn’t place him here, you know,” she said in a conspiratorial tone.

  “Place him here?”

  “Parents petition the court to place their developmentally disabled young adult here. The majority of residents accepted into group homes exhibit severe medical conditions, lack verbal skills, and require total personal care.”

  Goosebumps ran up Laurie’s spine. “Does Arnold share those same living quarters?”

  The shift supervisor shook her head. “Arnold’s in the group who just came through the kitchen. Group A consists of our most independent population of eighteen- to forty-year-old residents. They’re able to exit the home without prompts, and staff need not be awake at night. We’re talking people who function up to the eighth grade level.”

  “How did Arnold wind up here?” she asked.

  “We only have seven group homes in Wisconsin. It can be years before their name comes up on the waiting list. But in an emergency situation, an individual’s name goes straight to the top of the list, no matter his or her financial ability to private pay.”

  “Arnold’s enrollment was an emergency situation?” Laurie asked. Sandy nodded. “Arnold’s parents were killed in a boating accident when he was nineteen. Mrs. Beckermann was next of kin.”

  Laurie remembered the horrifying event. The summer of her junior year at Bradley University, the political science major had convinced her parents to let her do an internship for Al Gore in Washington, D.C. She’d been in the midst of designing campaign brochures when her father had phoned. Trauma and tests are inextricably woven into the fabric of my life, mused Laurie. “Why didn’t Helga get automatic custody?” she asked.

  “Helga was in her early seventies when Arnold’s parents died. In addition, she had a history of physical abuse.”