“Morning, Lottie.”
“You have a problem, Connie.” I quickly told her about the aide’s thoughtless remarks. “I’m willing to make this an official complaint. I’ll sign anything you need me to sign.”
“Good. Most folks chicken out. This isn’t the first time her mouth has gotten her in trouble. She’s already received two verbal warnings, and one written. Yours is the last one in the chain I need to let her go.”
I asked for a piece of paper, wrote out a complaint and passed it to her.
“I’m intrigued that you got through to Mr. Swenson,” she said. “That’s wonderful.”
“Have other people tried?”
“Not when they should have. His first stroke came when he was in prison. It’s crucial to have rehabilitation right off the bat and he didn’t get it.”
***
On the way back to the office I kept thinking about the sound Herman had tried to make. The hopelessness of his condition. His family had been killed before there were Miranda laws in place. Everyone had assumed he had done it. He had not had a good lawyer. I remembered his reaction to the aide’s words. Not anger, not rage, but profound despair. Helplessness in the face of injustice.
My reaction to cruelty is to go for the jugular, despite the fact mine takes an incredibly civilized form. And I did people in all by myself. I didn’t ask others to do my dirty work for me. I hadn’t gone home and bawled over that aide’s remarks or written Connie an anonymous letter.
I got her fired like a Roman and a man.
Chapter Twenty-One
Back at the office, Josie called just as I opened the third anonymous letter. Sent from Michigan, with no return address, and no signature as usual.
“What’s up, Lottie?”
“What do you mean, what’s up?” I cradled the receiver between my cheek and my shoulder to free my hands. “Let me put you on speaker. I don’t want to mess up this envelope.” She tells me that forwarding my cell to my office landline so I can keep on multitasking is neurotic, but I think Josie is bossy as hell.
“You’re not making sense.”
I laughed at her wariness, punched the button, and replaced the receiver on the cradle.
“I got a call from Keith yesterday and he’s very worried about you.”
“You what?” I laid down the letter without reading it. “You tell me what’s up. Why would Keith call you without talking to me first? Directly. Like husbands are supposed to.”
“He didn’t know how to talk to you. That’s why. He told me about the new job. He’s afraid you’re working too hard and…”
“Let me guess. He doesn’t like the nature of my work. Is that it?”
“Yup, that’s basically it, kiddo. He’s afraid you’ll get…”
“Killed, maimed, or raped.”
“That’s about the size of it.” Josie said, “He didn’t want you to think he was trying to…”
“Control me. He thinks he should be a sensitive twenty-first century sort of guy instead of his true Arthurian self. He hates to tell me what to do, but he would love to tell me what to do.”
Josie laughed. “There now. I’m so glad I called. I’ll call him right back and let him know we had a little chat just like I promised and you understand perfectly. Any message you would like me to convey to him?”
“Yes. Please assure him this is basically a desk job I’ve taken on for Sam Abbot. Tell him I’ll leave the shoot ‘em up stuff to the big guys. Tell him that as my sister and my psychologist you think I’m doing splendidly.”
As she was speaking, I removed the letter from the envelope, then caught my breath.
“Lottie, are you still there?”
“Hold on a minute while I finish reading this.”
Some persons families are full of lies and conceal murders and blood. How far do you want us to go in telling our family story?
“I can’t believe this.”
“Lottie?”
“Sorry. I’m reading the strangest letter. It’s just now dawned on me something might be wrong with the sender.” I told her about the other two. The use of mail drops. The attempts to conceal the sender’s identity. Then I read her the one I had just received.
“How strange.”
“Isn’t it? Keith should worry more about me working here than working for Sam.”
If the sender was concealing something terrible, I needed to address the issue in my column. These stories shouldn’t be incriminating or obscene or humiliate family members. I would discuss libel, and cover territory I hadn’t considered before.
“Any luck on finding Zelda’s killer?”
Judy came, stood in the doorway and listened to my sister. Embarrassed that Josie had no way of knowing another person was hearing our conversation, I looked at Judy in apology, picked up the receiver and switched off the speaker.
“None. In fact, I’ve been very preoccupied with another murder.”
Aware of Judy’s disapproving glance, I quickly outlined the circumstances of the Swenson murder, then hung up.
Why should Judy be upset over my telling Josie about the Swensons? “So out with it. What’s bothering you?”
“Everything,” she said. “Mom’s death. Dad’s health. And you.”
“Me?”
“I don’t understand why you’re not spending more time trying to figure out who killed Mom. That was the whole idea of your taking the job with Sam.”
I started to tell her Fiona had an iron-clad alibi for that night, then stopped. I had not checked with Sam to see if this information needed to be kept private.
“Why are you so preoccupied with the Swenson murders? Everyone is talking about it. Margaret is furious with you.”
“Margaret? Why would she be mad?”
“She says you were hired to write these county history books, not run a murder investigation out of the historical society.”
“The books are right on schedule.”
“Tell that to her, not me. I want to know what you’re doing about Mom. You promised you would do your best, and you’ve spent hours and hours on something else.” She dissolved into tears.
“What’s happened, Judy?” Clearly, something had set her off.
“I got this call from Fiona last night. She wants to come over and collect all the Rubidoux’s things that Mom had stored.”
“She can’t do that.” I reached for Judy’s hand and squeezed it. “Under Kansas law, all your mother’s possession belong to your father. Unless there’s a will stating otherwise.”
“I told Fiona off, again. Said I’d have her arrested if she sets foot on the place. But I need to start going through all of Mom’s things, and just the thought of it hurts. I wish there was someone besides me. Dad can’t. I thought with me home he would start coping. But he’s not. Now I’m worried that Fiona will come sneaking around when I’m not there.”
Heartsick, I knew she was right. “I’m not going to let her,” I said. “Not because of what you suspect, Judy, but because Fiona has so little regard for other person’s feelings. What is thrown away, sold, or kept should be Max’s decision, not her’s. She would go through your place like Sherman through Atlanta. I have a hard time standing up to the woman. Max wouldn’t have a chance.”
“He’s not well, Lottie. I’m worried sick.”
“I would love to help you sort if you’ll have me.”
“That would be wonderful.”
“I know a little bit about antiques, rare books, vintage clothes. Things that might bring your father some money if he chooses to sell them.”
“Thanks. Again. You’ve done so much already.”
“I’ll come to your house tomorrow. We’ll get William or Margaret to fill in here.”
Again, I was able to work both sides of the streets. As Judy’s friend, and at her request, I would be able to examine anything and everything, but as a sheriff’s deputy I would have needed a search warrant and probable cause just to walk through the door. I was in an
ideal investigative position. This part-time Deputy Dogg jazz worked like a charm.
***
It rained the next morning. Rain on the plains was rarely Liza Doolittle gentle. It usually came with thunderstorms and ranged from fiercely throbbing to torrential. A rare treat, this steady, peaceful rain softened the outlines of buildings and blurred the blisters of peeling paint on the St. Johns’ house.
Judy answered the door on the first ring. “Is this a good day for attic work, or what?”
“Perfect. Do I smell bread?”
“Cinnamon rolls. I baked them myself. I’ve rounded up some boxes and markers and made a fresh pot of coffee. We should be able to carry everything upstairs in one trip.”
I steadied a stack under my chin and climbed the stairs, following Judy’s lead. She switched on the lights.
“Oh my,” I said, setting down my load. “Oh my.” Seeing a pile of Wonder Woman comics and a box of “little big” books, and an old Barbie, still in the cellophane windowed box, I knew at once the St. John’s attic was a gold mine.
There were racks of vintage clothes, old trunks galore, stacks of old books and magazines, two dressmaker’s dummies, old tables, lamps. There were stacks and stacks of picture frames. I saw five open boxes of dishes. We saw three boxes labeled “to be sorted.”
Judy and I looked at each other and laughed.
“I didn’t know it was this bad.”
“Judy, honey, it’s not bad. It’s good. Some of these things are worth a lot of money. But we’re going to do this right. Use proper techniques instead of running around yelling ‘Eureka’ like two crazed miners. It’s going to take more than one day. Weeks in fact. Whew!”
“Where do we start?”
“By putting everything in groups of like types before we open anything,” I said. “All the trunks together, all the boxes of old books together, all the old clothes together. Then we’ll begin the real work. I don’t want you to discard anything until I’ve looked at it first.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. In fact, you’re going to be getting a crash course in assessing historical artifacts. We mustn’t throw anything away that would bring your father some money. Nevertheless, I don’t want a professional appraiser in here until we go through everything first ourselves.”
It took us a couple of hours to do the preliminary grouping.
“This does make a little more sense,” Judy said. “Now, what?”
“Dishes, first,” I said. “They’re easier, for one thing. I’ll look at them for commercial value, then I want you to see if they have some sentimental value for your family.”
I opened the first box and held up three old white coffee mugs. “These mean anything to you?”
She shook her head.
“Garage sale then.”
Judy put them aside, then put some plates in the same place.
“Hold it. Those plates are depression glass. Worth at least $60.00 a piece. If I’m not mistaken, that little sugar bowl is Czechoslovakian glass. It will bring around $200.00.”
“Wow. I had no idea.”
“Most people don’t.” Then with growing wonder, I realized the box held over a thousand dollars worth of dishes.
After we finished with the glassware, cooking items, and old cutlery, we moved on to old newspapers and magazines.
“Judy, I don’t want to rush this process. You’ve got the general idea of how to go about this now. We must be careful. I’ll give you some reference books, and you can look up everything as you sort. Okay?”
She pushed her fist against her mouth, blinked back tears. “My dad. All this money. I’ll be able to get help for Daddy.”
“Why don’t you take a couple of weeks off. I’ll stay at the office. It will make William and Margaret happy to see me with my nose to the grindstone.”
“I don’t want to screw this up.”
“You won’t. I won’t let you. With a good reference book, you can do a great job. While I’m here today, we’ll move onto the trunks, because the information in there is harder to assess.”
Trunks take the most time, but I also knew they might contain things that were important to Zelda.
“We’ll start here,” I said, spying one trunk as less dusty than the others. I opened it with a feeling of reverence. I would be looking into another person’s life. It was indeed Zelda’s own personal trunk. A sectioned jewelry tray contained her high school class ring, her old sorority pin, and medals for various musical activities. Mostly vocal, I noticed.
I picked up a little enamel clown from an assortment of costume jewelry. “See this? It looks like pure D junk, but it’s a fine piece of early art deco. It’s a good example of things people pitch unaware.”
A faint scent of lavender wafted from dried flowers scattered in lace-edged linens. Packets of letters from Max rested beside gold frames cradling miniatures of ancient Rubidoux.
“Paper Direct®. This isn’t old,” Judy said removing a shallow box. “It comes from a computer company. They make supplies for laser printers.” She pulled off the lid. Inside were blank sheets of cheap white paper.
“Twenty pages here,” she said, quickly counting them. “Not a word on any of them. Why would Mom keep plain typing paper in this trunk?”
“Hard telling.”
“Lottie, look here.” Judy held a single piece of paper up toward the light. “Look. There’s that rose again. Reversed.”
I scrambled to my feet and stared at the paper. “You’re right.”
“There’s a connection with this rose and the story Mom wrote. I know there is.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Frustrated, Judy put the paper back in the box, and we turned our attention back to the trunk. I saw a pile of journals at the bottom and felt a rush of adrenaline. I opened one. “Clarissa Roubidoux. Judy, that’s your great grandmother. Her diary!” My hands trembled with excitement. “What a find!”
Eagerly, I removed them from the trunk. I glanced at another stack, which had been placed next to them, and looked inside. “These belonged to your grandmother, Melissa.” Quickly I checked to see if Zelda had kept journals and diaries also. She had.
My mind raced. In my head, I began writing articles based on the journals of three generations of Western Kansas women. Sociology. History. Women’s studies. And if Judy did this too, we were talking about four generations. The information would be priceless.
I sneezed, overwhelmed by the old dusty odor of decaying paper. A rectangle of faint light through a high window illuminated a hat stand holding a Victorian straw with a droopy mauve rose. Rain fell softly and our quiet voices echoed across the ancient collections.
Judy opened a baby book. “It’s mine,” she whispered. “Look at these pictures, just look. My hair, a little lock of my hair. And look what Mom wrote. See how happy she was.”
“Let me check her journal, Judy, for the same time period.” I looked through the old books. Zelda had dated them and used the same grey linen, maroon edged books throughout her life.
I would never withhold a journal or a diary from a family, but they can be a real can of worms. Descendents should read every word. Not just skim a couple of pages, decide their parents’ marriage was a sham, and good old mom was on the verge of leaving daddy most of the time. Or decide mother hated her life when she was simply premenstrual, and the dust was blowing that day.
I wanted to know if Zelda’s private journal matched the emotions depicted in her baby book. I located the entries clustered around Judy’s birth.
Judy reached to the bottom of the neat chronological stacks. I quickly calculated the dates.
“How wonderful. She started when she was in grade school,” I said. “Did you know this, Judy?”
“Yes. She always wanted me to keep a diary, too. I knew she did this, but I didn’t realize what having her diary would mean to me now.”
I skimmed over the early years but read enough to know that the twins had a troubl
ed relationship. Clearly, Zelda had struggled all her life to keep from being run over by her manipulative sister. I read through Zelda’s early housekeeping entries and then found more emotional ones.
“Fiona is pregnant. I would give anything, anything to have a baby. I know she and Edgar have had their troubles getting pregnant, too, but I might have known she would be the first. I wish it were me. I wish it were me.”
There was a long gap between entries, as though she was ashamed of what she would be writing if she were honest.
Then:
“I got to see him, hold him. They’ve named him Brian and Fiona is acting like the Queen Mother. I don’t care. I just want to be around him. Count his little fingers and toes. She isn’t nursing him, says it isn’t “modern” and she wants her baby to have the very best, so I get to give him his bottle. Sometimes I think if I hear her say, ‘Poor Zelda’ to Edgar one more time I’m going to throw up. Nothing is good enough for her or her little boy. Not the clothes I’ve made for him, not the presents other people bring him. She always finds a flaw. She even had him out of town in a swanky hospital. She said she wanted to be someplace with the latest equipment just in case something went wrong, but I think it’s because she doesn’t want anyone to see her naked with her legs spread and strapped to a delivery table and then have to see them on the street later.”
Seven years later:
“It’s finally, finally came to pass. Max and I are going to have a baby. Thank God in Heaven.”
Then:
“When I told Fiona our good news, she looked at me as though I had slapped her. Like she was jealous. Why couldn’t she just be happy for me? Just once? ”
Then:
“I did not know it was possible for a human being to be so sick.”
Then:
“The doctor says I might lose the baby. I’m too wretched to think about it or write about it. He says it will help if I stay calm, but how can I?”
Then:
“They’ve put me to bed. Total bed rest. Max called Fiona to see if she could help. She said she had many, many other obligations but would do what she could. Poor Max. He’s worn out from the store, from trying to help me.”
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