Dead Guy's Stuff

by Sharon Fiffer

  "Why would we report blackmail? So everyone would know what we paid Gus not to tell?" Nellie had said, shaking her head, muttering about money wasted on fancy college educations for children who didn't seem to have the sense they were born with.

  "We have things under control, honey. You forget about it. Some of us did something stupid years ago, and we deserve to pay something for it," Don had said, somewhat kinder, but just as firm.

  "Your father's exact words, Mrs. Wheel?" Oh asked.

  "I think so. Under control, that's what he said. But he didn't mean anything ominous by that. My father couldn't…"

  "I was thinking about the 'some of us' part," said Oh. "Who are 'some'? What group would he put himself in?"

  "My dad's a joiner. He's an Elk and a Kiwani, I think." Jane realized she didn't even know what those groups meant or signified. "He has a golf league that operates out of the EZ Way Inn. And he sponsors bowling teams," Jane said. "Is that what you mean?"

  "Anything else? Did he have friends with whom he invested money? Did he own property with a group? Did your parents travel?" Oh asked.

  "Why? I mean they didn't, but why would that matter?" Jane asked.

  "Perhaps they were in a group and witnessed a crime; perhaps one person in the group made a mistake, and all agreed to keep the secret?" Oh said. "I'm just throwing these out and seeing if anything sticks, as my colleagues used to say."

  Jane had hesitated then. Oh had heard her breathe in sharply, but knew the breath was not coming out as quickly. She had remembered something. She had an idea.

  "Yes, Mrs. Wheel?"

  Then Oh had heard a sound that was one of the several banes of this modern existence. A click had sounded, meaning Mrs. Wheel had another call. She had asked him to hold, had come back on the line and begged him to forgive her, but she had to take it. Now he had to wait until she called back. He had to think about her little breathing noise and sit here and drink his tea, and most disturbing of all, he had to read his student's paper.

  * * *

  Jane hadn't wanted to cut off Detective Oh, especially since she had just remembered the conversation with her mother at the EZ Way as they looked at the Shangri-La stuff together. Nellie, who never reflected, never waxed nostalgic, never romanticized had been lost in the past as they sat at the bar together. A lot of people had been hurt, she had said. Some of their friends. What did she say had hurt them? But she felt she had to take this call.

  "Mary, how are you?"

  "I've been better, doll," Mary said. "The girls gave me your number. Hope you don't mind me calling you during work."

  Jane smiled. A business card with your cell phone number on it did wonders for your career. People assumed you had an office, an income, a professional life.

  Jane assured her that she wasn't interrupting a thing. Mary told her that she had talked to her granddaughter, and Susie would be interested in the photographs if Jane wouldn't mind. They'd be happy to reimburse her, give her whatever she had paid the house sale team.

  "I couldn't begin to tell you what they cost. They were just part of the room, so don't worry about money," Jane said. "I'm delighted to know that they'll be where they belong."

  "Part of the room?"

  "I bought everything in the room where the Shangri-La stuff was boxed up. All the barware and ashtrays and cards and euchre boards and cribbage boards and…"

  "The whole room?" Mary asked, interrupting Jane's inventory.

  "Yes."

  There was silence on Mary's end, and Jane debated with herself. Now was the time to bring up Bateman's finger. Mary was thinking hard. The silence was what thinking sounded like. Was she remembering that Bateman had left his finger in a jar, and Mary had packed it away in a box with the Shangri-La glassware?

  "How about the other rooms? Did you buy them, too?" Mary asked, sounding more amused than concerned.

  "No, I picked up a few things here and there, but when I saw the tavern stuff, I forgot about the rest of the house."

  "Why?"

  Jane had been waiting for that question. If Mary asked her directly, she knew she could tell her about the EZ Way Inn. As long as it wasn't Jane who brought it up— that she was the daughter of tavern owners— she could talk about it. She had been afraid, she realized, because Mary had lost her own daughter; and Jane would be a glaring reminder that while someone you loved died, someone else lived. She wanted to be friends with Mary, she wanted Mary to like her, not think of her as just another one of the scavengers who descended on a dead guy's stuff like flies on a dead guy. Jane wasn't sure why it made her more of a vulture to be a tavern owner's daughter, but somehow it did.

  "My parents own a place called the EZ Way Inn…" Jane began, then heard a click. She had another call, and she had always promised Nick that she'd pick up. No matter what. No matter if she was in the middle of a tug of war over a box of vintage linens, hand embroidered, signed and dated, even if she'd lose a box of canning jars that had one rare amber-tinted quarter pint under a sea of the ordinary green full pints. No matter what, she had promised her son, she would always answer the call-waiting. "Can you hang on a minute, Mary? I'll be right back."

  "Jane, it's an emergency, can you meet me at the shanties? We've got a doozy on our hands," Tim said, sounding high as a kite. Gus must have a boatload of good stuff under the garbage.

  "Hang on, I'll be right back," Jane said, clicking back to Mary, but she heard only silence. She had either disconnected her, or Mary had hung up.

  "Tim, I have to make a few calls before I…" Jane said. She could hear Tim singing when she came back on the line. She had to remind him not to make fun of her giddiness over a good sale. He was obviously over the moon.

  "What is it, Tim?" Jane asked.

  "Honey, I'm not sure I should care, but we have the whole history of Kankakee here. Newspapers and junk, but mostly photographs. You wouldn't believe. Group photos in big old wood frames, you know the kind you love. I'm guessing Gus bought a building that had a photographer's studio in it or something. And we got your Bakelite, baby. Boxes of unopened button cards, jewelry, drawer pulls, the works. Looks like the inventory from a dime store, circa1932. Right up your alley. This is the most unbelievable stash. I feel like Ali fucking Baba and I just open-sesameed the cave."

  Jane felt her heart race, her pulse pound, her hackles raise, her flesh creep, and all the other cliched but true visceral reactions to Tim's news. He— and she— because he was letting her in— had struck gold. They would be the first ones to see it all, to catalogue it, to price it, to sell it. Or to buy it? Could she do that? Or did the T & T Sales policy prevent her from buying the objects she was supposed to sell?

  "Do I get first dibs, Timmy?"

  "We'll cross that ethic when we come to it. Listen to this. I opened this wooden crate that was nailed shut and…"

  The phone clicked. Yes, she had said to Nick, even if I am reaching for a red, carved Bakelite bracelet, two inches wide, and if answering the phone means one of the damned book guys gets it instead, she had promised Nick, even then, I will answer my call-waiting.

  "Hang on, Tim," said Jane. "Hello?"

  "Yeah?"

  "You called me, Mom. You're supposed to say hello," said Jane.

  "Yeah, hello. Are you driving? Because I don't want you in a car and on the phone," said Nellie.

  "No, I'm not driving but I'm on the other line," said Jane. "Hang on."

  "Pull over," said Nellie.

  "I'm not driving. Hang on a minute," said Jane. "Tim, it's my mother. I'll be there as soon as I can."

  "Where are you?" asked Tim.

  "Parking lot of the Jewel. I stopped for some orange juice and decided to call Oh from here."

  "From the Jewel parking lot?" asked Tim, confused.

  "Instead of from my parents' house," said Jane.

  "Oh, yeah, I get it," said Tim. "Detective talk. Private."

  Jane clicked back to her mother who was talking to someone else, yelling at someone.<
br />
  "Mom, I'm back. Quit yelling at Dad," said Jane.

  "Dad's not here. Get off the lawn, you kids. There's a park down the block. Play ball there."

  "Mom, Halloween's coming up. You're going to get your windows soaped," Jane warned.

  "Yeah, let 'em try something like that. They got no business being in other people's…"

  "What did you call about, Mom?"

  "Your brother called," said Nellie.

  "Okay," said Jane.

  "From California."

  "Mom, speak up, there are cars next to me and I can't hear," said Jane.

  "Stop driving. I'm hanging up," said Nellie.

  "I'm parked in a parking lot!" Jane screamed. "There are cars around me. Moving cars. What did Michael say?"

  "He's coming home for Thanksgiving."

  "Okay," said Jane. "That's good."

  "So I didn't want you making any other plans."

  "Mom, I'm five minutes away at the Jewel," said Jane. "And it's September. Who would I make Thanksgiving plans with? The produce man?"

  "I told Michael I'd make sure… What's that noise?"

  "I've got another call," Jane said, grateful for the first time that call-waiting had been invented.

  "Janie, I've been thinking about this whole blackmail thing," Don said.

  "Hang on, Dad, let me get off my other call," Jane said. "Mom, I'll call you back."

  "… because I can't lift the damn pan," her mother was saying, and Jane realized her mother had been talking the whole time she had been answering the other call.

  "I'll call you back," Jane yelled into the phone.

  "… don't know who I'm paying, and I didn't like that brick business," her father was saying. Don hadn't stopped talking either while she was finishing up with Nellie.

  "Dad, wait. I didn't hear the first part. Will you tell… goddamn it," she screamed as she heard another click. "Daddy, I have another call and I have to get it because Nick made me promise…"

  "Jane?" It was Ollie. "I'm so sorry to bother you during work."

  "No problem at all, Ollie," Jane said, pleased that Ollie imagined her sitting behind a big desk instead of hunched over the steering wheel, trying to open a carton of orange juice.

  "Mary called me and asked if I'd drive her to your office to pick up the photographs, and I realized your card didn't have an address on it," Ollie said.

  "This is my cell phone. I work out of my car a lot," Jane said.

  "Out of your car?" Ollie asked.

  "On the road, you know, visiting clients and all. I'm in Kankakee right now, working on that Flea Market Show House I told you about," Jane said.

  "That's in Kankakee?"

  "Yes, where I'm from. Where I grew up," Jane said. "Didn't I tell you about doing the house?"

  "I don't believe you mentioned Kankakee."

  "Do you know it?"

  "Oh, yes. We've bowled there and visited and all. Used to play ball there. Sure, Mary's got…"

  Call-waiting clicked, and Jane banged her head on the steering wheel.

  "Please hang on, Ollie, I'll be right back on the line," said Jane, nearly weeping.

  "Hello, Jane, Tim gave me your number. This is Lilly."

  Jane asked Lilly to hang on but felt certain that Ollie wouldn't be there when she went back to her. She wasn't.

  "Yes, Lilly?" Jane said.

  "My brother, Bobby, said maybe we should talk to you. He heard from his friend at the police department that you went back to Duncan's and met with Munson," Lilly said, "that Munson was going back over the place."

  "Yes?" Jane was going to tell her that Munson still didn't think anyone murdered Gus, but she stopped herself. She had learned from Oh that if you don't say anything, someone will try to fill in the silence. She was trying hard not to be the someone.

  "I can explain why I was there," Lilly said. "And I didn't…"

  Jane heard a different kind of clicking than her own call-waiting.

  "Lilly? Is that your call-waiting? I'll hold," Jane said. The dead silence told her, however, that Lilly had not put her on hold. The screen on her cell phone confirmed it.

  "Call disconnected."

  15

  The three houses that Gus Duncan owned, the ones that locals called the shanties, were lined up, one, two, three on the 800 block of Linnet Street. All three of the houses were the same, small frame cottages with postage stamp– sized front porches. The pointy roof and symmetrical front windows made them look like the models for children's drawings. A pencil scribbling of smoke emerging from a chimney was all that was missing.

  Linnet Street was only four blocks long, a zigzag that broke up the monotony of the grid of streets just south of the EZ Way Inn. Jane had driven by the shanties almost every day of her Kankakee life: eyesores, piles of rubble, dumps. That's how most townspeople described them. Gus was clever though. He let the front lawns with their tangled vines and grasses get just so high, just weed clogged enough, littered with just enough car parts rusting in front to annoy, frighten, and horrify the other residents of Linnet Street. When the properties were just a rat hair away from the city being able to start condemnation procedures, Gus would call in a ragtag crew in a pickup truck and have them haul away just enough debris, have them mow the weeds just barely under what was acceptable, and then he'd park his enormous self on a folding chair on one of the front porches and dare anyone to show him written complaints from the neighbors.

  At the Jewel that morning, Jane had overheard a checker and her customer talking about how soon the shanties would be torn down. The implication was that a bulldozer had been parked down the block, gunning its motor for years, and now it could do its work.

  Jane parked in front of 801 Linnet Street, right behind Tim's Mustang. This was the farthest away from where Duncan had been living at 805. She stood outside her car, leaning back with arms folded, and looked at the three houses. She appreciated the way the town saw them. Rotted-out buildings, barely habitable, and then only by someone like Gus himself. A big storm would knock them to bits. Maybe even a gust of wind. Oh hell, you could huff and puff and blow them down.

  But still… Jane pictured them painted, with picket fences and rose bushes that would climb up the wrought-iron porch supports. A fiber mat in front of the door with a hand-hammered metal knocker, the lawn green and mowed, the sidewalk swept, a fruit tree in the front yard. Green shutters lidding the windows. She clapped her hands against her shoulders to wake herself up. She was one step away from scribbling in the wisp of smoke from the chimney.

  "I know, I know. You were thinking why couldn't you buy these up and fix them, and I could live in one and you could live in one, and…" Tim stopped. "Who would live in number three?" He stood inside the first house, behind the shredded screen in the front door.

  "Tim, where do you get these romantic notions?" Jane asked, all wide eyes and fluttering lashes.

  "Yeah, right. I saw you out there, redesigning and landscaping in your head. Your lips were moving, babe. It's your tell," Tim said.

  "What?" Jane asked. "I have a tell?"

  "When you want something, honey, your lips start moving, like you're reading a prayer book or saying a rosary. At an auction people probably think you're about to have a seizure when a box lot of McCoy flowerpots comes up."

  Jane had wondered if anything gave her away. She had noticed all the dealers, the other pickers give in to shakes and shudders and rapid blinking when they saw their oh-so-necessary object come into view. When Charley was looking at rocks and fossils and he started to click his tongue, she knew to start oohing and aahing. When Tim saw his heart's desire, he patted his wallet pocket.

  "What took you so long?" Tim asked, pulling her inside the house.

  It would have been darker and smellier and scarier, but Tim had already performed the big three. He'd opened all the windows. He'd sprayed industrial disinfectant into every sink and drain. And most importantly he'd set up four of the dozen metal work lamps he'd bought at
Home Depot and trained more wattage into the house than it had ever seen. Yes, it illuminated the filth, but somehow the dirt was less intimidating when you could see it— and what did or did not live in it. He handed her thin plastic gloves and a paper mask.

  "It's really not so bad. The basement is actually fairly organized. A million boxes, but stacked and marked and fairly dry. That's the amazing thing. Looks like the Kankakee River barely made it into these basements, which is almost impossible to believe. Are you listening to me, dearie?"

  Jane took out her cell phone and found a place to plug it in. Her battery had taken a beating in the last hour, and although she had tried to call back all the people whose calls she'd lost or cut short, no one was now available. She needed to talk to Oh, she needed to get back to Mary and Ollie, and she was most anxious about Lilly. She had tried to call her at home and at her tavern, but gotten no answers.

  "Is there a working phone here?"

  Tim shook his head and handed her his cell. He also checked his ever-present day planner and gave her a third number for Lilly.

  "Her boyfriend's? Her brother's? I don't know," said Tim. He had gotten lost counting out place settings of silver.