by Ed Helenski
It was with great sadness that I learned of Eustice Hurley’s passing. He was a fixture in the town, as immortal as the cobblestones that run under Main Street or the trees that line the hill behind Burdock. From time beyond remembering he was here, and now he is gone. I was fortunate to spend some time with Eustice just before he died, and shared that with you. We shall all mourn his passing.
Thomas Tharon
Chapter 12
I feel as if everything has been on hold for a long while. It has really only been a couple of weeks, since Sioban was found. There were so many things going on before all this happened, and they all seemed so urgent, yet they were swept away by events completely unplanned.
The truth of the matter is the most life-changing thing to have occurred is not what might be obvious. It wasn’t the death of the girl, or of Eustice Hurley, or even of my father. It wasn’t death at all. It was falling in love. Mags has entered my life and my heart so unexpectedly, and so completely, that I feel like a different person, someone who is completely estranged from my own history. I had thought I knew what was in my heart, had thought that I was happy alone, but that belief has been shattered as completely as a wineglass thrown into the fire.
In just a short time I have gone from assuming I would be on my own, to not knowing how I could possibly exist without this woman. She has shared my life at one of its most vulnerable times and she has shared my bed each night. Falling asleep with my arms about her, her arms about me, makes me wonder how I ever slept before. It is as if a page has been turned, and suddenly I realize I can read, and what I thought was reading before was just looking at the pictures.
I guess it is pretty obvious I am swept away. But despite that, there are things that needed to be addressed. I needed to see Meg right away and find out what is going on with her investigation. I know it sounds silly to call what a twelve-year-old is doing an investigation, but I can’t think of another way to put it. Every time I think about what she found out, and think that my being wrapped up in personal matters has delayed doing anything about it, well, it just makes me sick. It horrifies me to think it might have happened again, might still be happening. I know that is taking more responsibility than is my due, but it is how I feel.
I also needed to talk to Reggie, and see what I can find out. It seems like the business with Sioban might not be finished yet. Mags steered me right on that one.
Finally, I needed to get to my dad’s house and start going through things. Cora said she would take care of it till I had time, and make sure the house is kept up, but that is not reasonable. And she deserves something from Dad. I will have to think about what that should be.
I talked to Meg on Tuesday afternoon. She had dropped her copy off sometime last week, it is all a kind of distant memory to me, but she stopped in to see if it was ok, and also to see if I was ok. She is a sweet kid in her way.
“The story is just fine Meg. I think lots of people these days are looking for dietary choices, it’s only fair that the school start thinking about providing them.”
“Thanks, Mr. Tharon. I’m glad it’s good. I, uh, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your dad.” She looked awkward; but then again you don’t have to be twelve to not know what to say about death.
“Thank you Meg. It was a real shock. But life goes on. And we have a responsibility to the living. I’m sorry I left you hanging so long, but tell me, have you made any progress on the other matter?”
She sighed and sat down. For a few moments she didn’t speak. I finally realized she was on the verge of tears. Her breath, when she did speak, came in gasps. I got up, meaning to come around and comfort her, but something in her posture told me to keep my distance.
“I can’t find out what we need to know. Not for sure. I tried talking to Dennis. He’s the one that wrote that stuff. He acted like I was crazy. He told me he didn’t know what I was talking about. He said if I dared say anything like that to anyone, anything nasty like that about him, that he would get me. “ She paused to get herself under control. Her words were coming faster and faster. I could resist no longer and went to her, put my arm around her. She stiffened, then gave in to the tears, burying her face in my chest.
When the sobbing had subsided a little she spoke again. “I talked to Mike again. He won’t talk to me anymore. He says I was only kissing him cause I was some kind of sicko who wants him to make up nasty things. I really do LIKE him, Mr. Tharon, he just is so scared and confused.” I looked at her, wondering how someone so young got so smart.
“So, he won’t tell you any more?” I asked her, as she stared back at me with her big brown eyes brimming with tears.
“No. I’m pretty sure I know what went on, but he won’t say for sure. And we can’t very well accuse someone if we aren’t sure.”
“Well, what do you think? Proof aside.”
“Well, when he told me a little more, Mike said ‘sometimes he comes into my room at night.’ I figured it must be someone in the house, who else could go into his room at night? I wished that part was on tape but the tape had run out.” This brought on a fresh bout of tears. “I’m so stupid”
I turned her head to look at me. “Meg, you are not stupid. You have done a remarkable job. More than any grownup could have. Tell me the rest. Who is there in the house you think it could be?” I hated where this was heading. Pedophiles are bad enough, but incestuous ones are the worst.
“His dad,” she said simply, and once it was out she seemed to relax a little. She had passed on her burden to an adult. Now it would be easier for her. And harder for me.
“Who are these boys? What are their names? I have to do something about this.”
She hesitated a moment, then spewed them out as if they were a bad tasting bit of food. “Dennis Laney and Mike Schwartz”.
Mike Schwartz. Mike Schwartz. Bobby’s son. My God. Could it be possible?
“Are you ok?” Meg asked me. “You look white as a ghost.”
I moved away and sat down. “Yeah, I guess so. Mike Schwartz. Are you sure Meg? Bobby Schwartz has been my friend since we were little.” Even as I said it I thought back to those days. When I would visit Bobby at his house. His old man had been a little creepy to be sure, always wanting to hang out with us. And Bobby had hated him, that was for sure. He used to tell me all the ways he had planned to kill him. Had there been more than just adolescent angst there? Had Bobby had a REAL reason?
“What are you going to do?” Meg asked me, wide eyed at my shock.
“Damned if I know, Meg. Damned if I know.”
We left it at that. I had to think about this. I didn’t know this Dennis boy, but his story made me think that perhaps Bobby was involved there too. If it was him. Damn. I already had him convicted. Are we that willing to think the worst of our friends? The truth was I didn’t know Bobby all that well, at least not for a long time. If this were true, perhaps not ever. But the man in Dennis’ story was a fireman and Bobby was a fireman, in charge of that fair, in fact. And his own son was another victim. It was too much to be coincidence.
I didn’t know Reggie all that well, but thought I had no choice but to trust him. I put off seeing him though, and let Tuesday and Wednesday pass before hunting him down. I was simply reluctant to face the fact that Bobby might be behind this. On Tuesday night I did tell Mags about it. We were in bed, holding each other in the dark. We had made love and suddenly it came out. All about it. The whole thing. She cried a little, which surprised me, although it shouldn’t have.
“Those poor, poor boys. You really think it might be Bobby? He is so nice with the kids. He has come and done fire safety things at the schools, I’ve seen him do it, and he really gets the kids involved. It makes me nauseous to think that it was something else.”
I told her my newfound suspicions about Bobby’s dad. “It seems possible when I think back. You know, back then kids never even thought of such a thing, and the grownups sure never told us about it. We were kept in the dark back then.�
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Mags shook her head. “If that’s true; it’s so awful. He is just another victim. This thing is such a cycle. It’s horrible. You going to tell Reggie what you think?”
“I think I have to. I have to trust someone. I don’t want to ruin Bobby’s life if this isn’t true. And I don’t want to put Meg in a bad spot. But the boys have to come first. They are the ones being…hurt.”
Mags didn’t say anything more. She held me, and kissed me. And soon, we made love again. She seems to know just the medicine for melancholy.
Thursday I went down to the municipal building around nine hoping to find Reggie, but he was not in. I left a message with Cindy Borougham to have him call me. Maggie was back to work, filling in for a history teacher in Clearfield, and had asked me to pick up some things at the grocery store. I went over to the Paul Bunyan.
I got milk, eggs, and a couple of chicken breasts, as well as a variety of spices and staples Mags said were essential to cooking. She was spending pretty much every evening and night at my place, so I figured she had better get what she wanted. It occurred to me that pretty soon we would be asking the question “Why have two houses?” That scared me a little. Or maybe it was that I THOUGHT it should scare me a little. A gut reaction I had developed over the years. It was considered chic to fear commitment. In reality I got a kind of nice feeling at the idea of sharing.
When I got to the checkout I found myself being stared at by the cashier. It was Vera Carrone. She and her husband Juan lived over on Vine. He worked at the gravel pit. They ended up in The Corners after working in North East on the grape farms. Everyone said they were dirty Mexicans who would steal your wallet and your children. I didn’t quite believe that. For one thing, they didn’t sound like Mexicans. Their accent was more exotic, more Caribbean. Secondly, they both worked hard, their house was one of the most kept up on Vine, and they already had children, Juan and Julina. Locals suffered from the innate fear of foreigners that small towns have.
Her black eyes were fixed on me as she rang up each item, as they always seemed to be. There was something in them, some depth I was drawn to. She bagged the groceries and I paid her. She seemed about to speak, then looked away.
“You are Vera Carrone, aren’t you?” I asked her, trying to draw her out. I was tired of just being stared at. She nodded. “I’m Tom Tharon, I run the new paper” I offered her my hand. She reached out very tentatively. When our fingers touched she made a little noise and her eyes got very wide.
She muttered something indistinct and then spoke in a lilting Spanish “el chorrea un poco eso comienza la inundación” though I didn’t understand at the time. Then she spoke softly to me, in that strange singsong voice that called up palms and surf to my mind. “Mister Sir. I am , uh, espantado por lo que veo,…I is worry for you. You do things that you don’t know what it is you are in.” She reached into her pocket and came up with a slip of paper. Handing it to me she glanced around. “You come, tonight, after it is dark. You come, I tell you things.” And with that the look was gone and she was smiling at the next customer, a woman I didn’t know who began to unload her cart. Putting the paper in my pocket I picked up my bags and left.
By the time I got back to my house I wished I had taken my car. Four bags of groceries, including some heavy items, were too much for me to carry all the way across town. Across town was all of three blocks. I needed to get into shape and that was the truth. After putting things away I went down to the office to get some work done.
All afternoon I tried to get some bookkeeping done to little avail. My mind was awash with an excess of baggage. That, and every time I started to tally things up it became apparent I was still losing money. Better not to know. And so I kept going back, thinking of Bobby Schwartz and his son, of the awful possibility that such a thing could be true. Of Sioban and what might have happened to her. Of all the death. At one point I had given up on the books for the tenth time and got up to make some coffee. It was then that I remembered the slip of paper Vera had given me.
I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it. I saw it was a sort of business card, albeit homemade. It said “Mamma Vera, Spirit Advisor” and had her address. Under that it said “Palms, leaves, signs” and below that “los males de ojo, los ratos, y conjures”. It was a little bit different from the ad she had run the first week of the paper. Curious, I went to the back where the boxes of my books were waiting along with the other collected ones for the library. Somewhere I had a English-Spanish dictionary.
When I found it, I brought it and my coffee back to the desk and tried to find out what the phrase meant. Los males was the bad, but when I found ojo ,I saw it meant eye. The bad of the eye? Bad eyes? Evil. Evil eyes. The evil eye. That made sense. Los ratos was not as good. It seemed to mean while or the while I suppose. Hmmm. Por los ratos. I knew I had heard that phrase. For a while. As in sit down for a while. Sit for a spell. I couldn’t make sense of that one. The last was y conjures. That was easy to guess. Conjure. The dictionary said it meant you conspire, but I had a feeling conjure was on the money. It looked like Vera Carrone was some sort of witchy woman, not just a hocum fortune teller. And she wanted to see me. What had she said when she shook my hand? Something like el Korea. That couldn’t be right. And then at the end comienza de inundacion. I couldn’t find the first part but the rest seemed to mean the start of the flood. That was odd. She wanted me to come see her. Maybe I would.
My thoughts were interrupted by Meg coming in. She wanted to know if I had talked to Reggie yet. I told her I hadn’t. She seemed a little deflated, like she was hoping it would all be over with. On a whim I tried to take her mind off of the situation and asked her about Vera Carrone.
“Oh, she’s the voodoo lady that works at the store. The kids are all scared of her. One of the boys was telling stories how if you go into her yard she comes out and says she will give you the evil eye. I think it’s pretty funny. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, no reason, just curiosity. I’ll let you know when I’ve talked to Reggie.”
She looked at me steadily. “I am a better reporter than that Mr. Tharon. But if you don’t want to tell me why you are asking about Mrs. Carrone that’s fine.” She smiled at me and skipped out. She was a mighty strange mix of twelve and twenty.
I was getting ready to leave for the day when Reggie called. It was nearly five-thirty, Mags was in Clearfield; she wouldn’t be back home till nearly six, and would come over to my place then. She already knew how to get in (turns out there is a key along the top of the widow frame). Before I could even tell Reggie what I wanted to see him about he dropped another bombshell. Jason Hurley had killed himself. It wasn’t entirely clear yet, but it seemed that the supposed money Eustice had squirreled away didn’t exist. Reggie said he would be tied up most of the night, but would come see me the next day.
When I got home there was a message on the machine from Mags. One of the teachers in Clearfield had had a baby. It was an old friend of hers and she was going to go to the hospital and see it, then stay over with a girlfriend. She would see me tomorrow. My heart sank. Then, at the end of the message she said “I love you, Tom. More than you can imagine.” Her voice dropped to a whisper; “Being away tonight is going to be SO hard. But I hope you will be making it up to me tomorrow night. IN spades.” This was followed by some kissing sounds, then the beep. I felt a bit better. She seemed to miss me almost as much as I missed her. How had I existed without this feeling, this sensation of being desired and needed, of being an integral part of someone? I had no idea.
I made a simple supper of beans and franks (Mags would be clucking her tongue at that one) and then thought that I might as well have a little adventure. Getting my coat I headed out the door and up the hill towards Vine. I was going to see the voodoo lady.
Walking along the dark streets in the cold night air I had an odd feeling. The closer I got to Vine the more anxious I became, until the hairs on my arms were standing on end . I have always prided myself on bei
ng hardheaded, practical, not prone to flights of fancy, just the facts ma’am. But now what I was feeling was unmistakable. There was a sense of the inevitable. A sense of something out there in the dark, rushing towards me, on a collision course. It’s like the feeling you have when you are driving down a country road, and you realize someone is coming towards you, a car without headlights, and before you ever see it you have already slowed down. A different sensation from, say, knowing where your furniture is in the dark. More like being somewhere unfamiliar and dark, and suddenly stopping, just inches from some obstacle. That’s not quite right either, but I am fumbling here. It’s not that the feeling was unclear, but rather that my description of it falls short.
I was about to round the corner onto French, but realized that I would be going right past Bobby Schwartz’s house. I decided to go past the Paul Bunyan and the School, and pick up the other end of Vine. It is a sort of loop; Vine intersects with French and with Main despite them running in perpendicular directions.
I was passing the duplex where Chuck Peters lived, a run down house with a rusted Mustang in front. No doubt Chuck worked on it in his spare time from the garage. When he wasn’t working on the women. I went past several other apartments, or more accurately houses turned into apartments. I didn't know who lived in any of them. Well, the one at the curve I did, the mailbox said Williams. I assumed it was the home of Shawnte, the sometimes clerk and sometimes lady of the evening. It was a fact of life that such open secrets existed. And right around the bend sat the Carrone’s.