A Widow's Curse

by Phillip DePoy

  Hek’s telling of the story had the sound of a well-worn bit of gossip.

  “Never spoke of it again.” June piped up in confirmation. She began to pour the coffee.

  That was all I was going to get.

  “You were right,” Andrews whispered. “They do know everything.”

  “What?” Hek’s hearing wasn’t what it used to be. “What’d that boy say?”

  “He asked me why you won’t tell me these things unless there’s a life-or-death crisis.” I sat back.

  “No,” June said gently, handing Hek his coffee. “He said Fever was right.”

  “About what?” Hek’s voice had become angular.

  “Obviously, these three items are the things we saw evidence of in Taylor’s office—the coin, the painting, and the thing.”

  “Taylor?” Hek’s coffee cup had stopped halfway to his mouth.

  June had also frozen on her way to fetch more cups.

  “Over in Pine City.” I shot Andrews a quick glance. “Do you know him?”

  “He’s no good.” Hek had spoken. “Anything you found in his office is tainted. He’s a liar and a thief. Don’t go near him again.”

  Rarely had I heard Hek string together so many negative sentiments about another human being.

  “Too late,” Andrews chimed in before I could stop him. “We went there, found out about Conner’s trust for young Fever Devilin, and in the meantime learned that Taylor is, in fact, a liar. We got a phone call from Shultz—”

  “But if we could stick to the subject,” I interrupted. “What do you make of Conner’s strange behavior?”

  I wanted to know what Hek had to say about lawyer Taylor, but I simply wanted to know about Conner more.

  Collecting folk information is sometimes like sifting through sand to find one tiny diamond. I may be looking for a specific diamond, but the informant doesn’t know what I’m looking for, may not even know that it’s there in the first place. So I often have to guide the sifting process.

  This same technique, I had found, could work almost as well in any situation when a group of people were sitting around a kitchen table just chatting, but I wanted to know something more particular. Always direct the conversation back to the point. I generally did it with more finesse when I was speaking with strangers, but with Hek and June, I could use a degree of shorthand that they understood.

  “Conner was a strange man, by any accounting.” Hek sipped. “Your dad never understood him.”

  “Conner’s wife never understood him.” June poured more coffee, her back to us. “Poor Adele.”

  Adele, Conner’s wife, had been driven mad because when Conner died, his last request was to be buried with several reminiscences of Molly, the woman he’d loved in Ireland—long dead—instead of anything remotely having to do with Adele.

  “But I can tell you this,” Hek began softly.

  Here it comes, I thought to myself. Everything in Hek’s demeanor revealed that he was about to tell a secret.

  “Conner loved his family more than anyone knew.” Hek looked up at me. “He set you up pretty good, when you were barely more than a sprite—didn’t hardly even know you. He helped your mom and dad, and I’m not supposed to ever tell you that. And he gave a good deal of his time to the church.”

  “Your church?” I couldn’t believe it.

  “He never came to service.” Hek smiled. “But he helped me put up the new building.”

  Hek’s new building, nearing fifty years old, was a white wooden square with a roof in the middle of the woods. Tall pines and giant rhododendrons surrounded it, and various members of Hek’s strange congregation had added bits and pieces to it. It was a kind of church that filled a certain kind of person’s spirit without ever discussing theology, rarely mentioning the tenets of any religion despite long, perfectly remembered Bible quotations.

  When the time would come for Hek to die, the work of his church would be done. The congregation would drift to other churches and the building would return, in time, back to the earth. At Easter, a near-perfect circle of red rhododendrons would bloom enough to please the spirits of everyone who had ever known Hezekiah Cotage.

  That would be his legacy.

  “Everything Conner did in his last years,” Hek said, rousing me from reverie, “was done for the family. Best to keep that in mind.”

  “It was almost an obsession.” June set a cup of steaming coffee in front of Andrews.

  “Look,” Andrews said, nodding a thanks to June, “far be it from me to suggest something useful, but I wonder if we shouldn’t try to find out who bought the painting from your father. Maybe they have some sort of useful information, and maybe they don’t. But wouldn’t you at least like to see the portrait of the face that launched your little ship?”

  He stared directly into my pupils.

  I understood.

  Andrews had come up with an idea that he didn’t want to talk about in front of Hek and June, for some reason.

  “In fact, I would like to see that portrait,” I answered, “now that I realize how seminal it has been to my path. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find a bill of sale in the shambles that Taylor called ‘my files,’ and I’m not really going back to his office, so I don’t know how we’ll find out who bought the thing.”

  Andrews and I both turned to Hek and June at the same moment.

  “Unless the two of you know,” I said softly.

  Hek returned his gaze to the tabletop. June concentrated on her coffeepot.

  “We don’t like to say,” Hek said softly.

  “It was a private matter,” June agreed, not looking at me.

  Andrews almost rose out of his seat, but I shook my head quickly. The fact that they had said anything at all only meant they wanted coaxing.

  “Of course the details would remain my father’s business,” I said calmly. “But you can understand my curiosity—to see the picture that sent me to college, changed my life so profoundly. Surely you see that. I would be concerned only with the name of the person who bought it. Nothing else.”

  This was a ploy occasionally used to good effect: let them know that they could still keep secrets, even imagined ones, while helping out the troubled boy.

  June looked over at Hek.

  “That would be all right.” She held onto the coffeepot but did nothing with it.

  Hek nodded once.

  “It was a rich man your dad knew from the show.” Hek sighed. “They say he was sweet on your mother.”

  June fumbled with her coffee cup.

  “Name of Spivey.” Hek scratched his left cheek.

  “Duncan L. Spivey.” June whispered the name as if it were a hex.

  They would say no more.

  And I knew it was best not to dwell on what stories might exist behind that name in combination with the misbegotten details of my mother’s escapades. I’d dug up enough of those particular dead bodies to last me a lifetime.

  Fourteen

  The ride back to my house was more silent than the trip to Hek and June’s had been. I knew Andrews was working something out in his mind, something about Hek and June, I thought. I left him alone to do the work. I did my best to concentrate on the road, the starless night, watching for possums or raccoons that might cross the road—anything to keep myself from thinking about my mother.

  The arrival in my front yard was dismal. Nothing more had happened, but it was tremendously depressing to me to see my broken window, the squad car, and—for some reason—all the lights on.

  I gunned the truck engine before I turned it off, vaguely thinking that the noise would ward off further evil action or scare away any lingering menace.

  Andrews sighed heavily getting out of the truck.

  “How many Duncan L. Spiveys could there be in Atlanta?” He trudged up the stairs behind me.

  “I’m hoping there’s only one.” I didn’t see how I could face the conversation I’d have to produce in order to get information I wanted out of
Mr. Spivey. I certainly dreaded doing it more than once.

  I pushed on my front door and it clattered open.

  “I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was until I sat in June’s hot kitchen. Really made me sleepy. And that coffee. It’s caramel-colored water. Is there any caffeine in it?” Andrews rubbed his eyes.

  “No.” I stood just inside the doorway, trying to decide what to do.

  “Aren’t you sleepy?” Andrews yawned.

  “I didn’t even notice how hot it was at Hek and June’s, I’m so used to it, but I know they keep their house twenty degrees warmer than I keep mine.”

  “At least.” He sniffed. “Look. I’ve been thinking.”

  “I thought I heard machine noises coming from your head.”

  “When I suggested going to have a look at Lady Barnsley’s portrait,” he went on, ignoring me, “I realized we’d have to go into Atlanta. That involves the Atlanta police, potentially. What’s the guy’s name?”

  “Detective Huyne.”

  “Right. I’m not prepared to mess about with him. I was thinking I could call some people in Atlanta and they could have a look at the portrait, snap a digital pic, send it to me by e-mail, and Bob’s your uncle.”

  “Bob’s your uncle?” I glared at him. “What century are we in? Do people actually ever say that anymore?”

  “I just did.” He folded his arms. “But it was said ironically.”

  “Oh. Was it ironic.” I hadn’t so much asked a question as made an accusation. “And P.S.: I’m not remotely afraid of Detective Huyne. I don’t want to see a digital picture of the painting that changed my life; I want to see the real thing. And lastly, I’m not sleepy. I’m thinking about driving to Atlanta now.”

  His shoulders sank.

  “Christ.” He shook his head. “You really are in your existential period.”

  “Why do you say that, exactly?”

  He numbered off his thoughts on his fingers.

  “Don’t care about the law, have to experience it for yourself, and apparently something of a death wish—all foibles of the late, great Jean-Paul Sartre.”

  “I’m not certain you understand the existential ethos.”

  “I’m not certain I wouldn’t rather kick your ass right now than argue about the existential ethos.”

  “Well.” I arched my brow very deliberately. “You could certainly try.”

  “I play rugby. You do research. I’d kill you.” He yawned. “Though I’m too tired to kill you tonight. Besides, you don’t even know if this Spivey still has the painting. He bought it some thirty years ago, right?”

  “He could tell us where it is if he doesn’t have it.”

  “How will you get in touch with him.?”

  “I’ll call him on the telephone. Damn, why are you vexing me? You don’t think he has a phone?”

  “You’re going off—as I believe the expression is—half-cocked. There may well be more than one Duncan Spivey, for example.”

  “I’ll call them all.”

  “Why don’t you call them now? From here?”

  “Because if I call from your place in Atlanta, it won’t be a long-distance charge, and when I find him, I can go right over instead of having to say ‘Great, be there in three hours.’ Immediacy is important.”

  “My place?”

  “Where else in Atlanta would we go?”

  “My place?” he repeated, jaw jutted.

  “You could sleep in the truck.” I pulled my keys back out of my pocket and jangled them in front of him, mock-hypnotically. “Sleep. Truck.”

  “You really are an immensely troubled soul.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “You’re just going to leave your house open to the elements? What are you going to do when Melissa comes tomorrow morning to collect her squad car and sees that you’re gone? What are you going to say to Skid? To say nothing, no kidding, of this Detective Huyne, who already thinks you’re the killer.”

  “In reverse order: Huyne won’t think I’m the killer once he hears about the bat-wielding psychopath with the expensive shoes; Skid will be mad, but he’ll understand because he knows who I am; Melissa will shake her head and smile, which is a trademark gesture of her great spirit; and at the moment, I don’t care what else happens to this house. How much worse could it get than having a dead body where I sit to read, where I eat, sometimes, in front of the television, where my friends—”

  “All right.” He nodded once. “You drive. I’ll sleep.”

  Without another word, he headed for the door.

  The trip from Blue Mountain to Atlanta usually takes two and a half hours during the day, even though it’s all downhill. But I discovered that when you’re traveling after midnight, it’s a much quicker trip.

  Everything happens faster after midnight.

  Careening down a mountain road with only your own headlights to guide you, the moon hiding behind black clouds, can be a liberating experience. For a span of time, all I thought about was keeping the truck on the road, trying not to kill Andrews or myself—twisting the wheel, squealing the tires, defying inertia.

  But eventually, the winding asphalt leveled off, straightened out, and I was on an expressway, surrounded by other late-night drivers. Then the hollow energies of insomnia flourished, kicking at my nervous system, prompting my brain to think about things I really didn’t want to.

  What lay ahead of me was a tête-à-tête with a man who’d had an affair with my mother. That in itself was, alas, not unique. I’d spoken with many men over the years in Blue Mountain with whom my mother had dallied. What made this Spivey unusual was that he had paid an enormous amount of money to my father for a painting that might not have been worth it. At two o’clock in the morning, I fancied he’d done it out of guilt. But what would make a man like that have a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of guilt?

  Andrews lived in a very nice faux English cottage close to the university. Built in 1937 out of cratered old brick and salvaged wood, it was solid, lovely, and, under the current owner, ill-cared for.

  The paint on the upper half-timbered gables was peeling; the cement walkway and steps leading to the front door were cracked and mossy. The yard was a disaster: all chickweed and wild violets.

  Still, inside it was cozy. The living room presented a fine fireplace with built-in bookshelves on either side of the mantel, and the dining room was large and filled with light in the morning.

  It actually had three bedrooms, but for Andrews there was one bedroom, one office, and one room where everything that confused him lived. The junk room held an assortment of Christmas gifts, unwanted furniture, boxes yet unpacked from his move many years before.

  It was still the middle of the night when I pulled into the driveway.

  “What?” Andrews jumped forward with a start.

  “You’re home, that’s what.” I turned off the ignition.

  We sat in the truck a moment, too tired to move.

  “That was quick,” he said finally.

  “You slept the entire way.”

  “Hope you didn’t.” He opened his door. “Come on. You can get a couple hours’ sleep before you begin your campaign of harassment.”

  He yawned, fished in his pocket for his keys, and stumbled toward the front door.

  I got out of the truck and started to follow.

  “Lock your truck,” he said wearily, not bothering to look back. “This is a good neighborhood, but you should still lock your truck.”

  I did. He opened the front door.

  “Well, it was a short, piss-poor vacation for me.” He flipped on the porch light. “And now I’m home.”

  “I’ll just stretch out on the sofa for an hour or two.” I lumbered past him into the living room. “Until morning.”

  “Right.” He yawned again. “I think I’ll have a bit of a crash myself.”

  He disappeared almost immediately into his bedroom.

  I found myself on the sofa before I completely realized that I was in a m
ental twilight. I saw two hooded figures standing guard at the front door, but they turned out, on startled further examination, to be a coat rack and an umbrella stand. Certain proof of my deep need for sleep.

  I laid back, hoping I would sleep without dreaming.

  Before my second breath, I was wrapped in silent ink black oblivion. Possible proof of the existence of God.

  I awoke with a start, stabbed by a golden spear of sunlight. For the merest instant, I had no idea where I was. Two blinks reminded me I was in Atlanta; the third brought down the crushing realization that I would not have espresso to drink.

  I sat up on Andrews’s sofa. His living room was relatively free of clutter. A vase of dried flowers—the only kind, surely, he could tend—helped to sophisticate the mantel between two well-burned candlesticks. The flowers were miniature ruby roses; the candles were white as snow. I studied their composition, trying to gather my thoughts enough to stand.

  To my great surprise, Andrews appeared in the hallway

  “I’m up!” he announced to no one in particular. “Inferior coffee and strange toast are on the way.”

  Not daring to imagine what “strange toast” might entail, I somehow managed to achieve a standing posture and stagger toward the kitchen, where I knew the telephone and phone books would be.

  I could hear Andrews running water in his bathroom, splashing it on his face, groaning. It seemed the perfect music for the morning’s moment.

  His kitchen was a tiny affair riddled with Sears appliances and cold Formica countertops. There was a small breakfast bar that made the room seem even smaller, at which he had placed two bar stools—stools actually stolen from a bar. I sat precariously on the one next to the phone and rummaged through the wreckage of papers, take-out menus, and jotted notes before I found the Atlanta residential phone book.

  The print was so small, and my eyes so unawake, that it was nearly impossible to read the pages in the dim light of the kitchen. I leaned out to flip on the overhead globe and nearly fell off the stool.

  “I hate your kitchen,” I called out to Andrews.

  “I know.”

  The light helped enough for me to find the Spivey pages. Certain Spiveys in Atlanta were moneyed. One had given what was perhaps the most acoustically perfect concert hall in the south to Clayton State University just south of the city. There was also a Lake Spivey. I assumed that our Duncan Spivey was one of these.