"But you have to know something. Everybody knows things about their grandparents. Think! There has to be something." She was becoming agitated. When I didn't respond, she calmed down.
"Sorry," she said. "It's just that family history is important to me. I think everyone should research their roots. What was your grandfather like as a kid? What were his parents like. What was it like living in New York at that time?"
She had slipped. I never said anything about where my family was from. I only ever mentioned Boston and western Mass. New York never came up. I decided not to call her on it.
I don't know if she knew she had slipped or whether she was just acknowledging to herself that I was a dead-end street, but the energy immediately went out of the conversation. I tried to make some suggestions about her apartment hunting, but she brushed them off. She said she had to go—she had an appointment to see a place—and she was gone. It was the shortest date in recorded history—forty-five minutes at best, and ten of those were spent waiting for our food.
Despite the disturbing feeling that she knew a lot more than she was telling me, I would have eventually blown it off and forgotten about it, except that the police showed up at my door early the next morning asking me if I knew an Isobel Worth. Her body had been recovered a few hours earlier.
She had been murdered.
Chapter 2
In the movies, when the hero is questioned by the police, he always holds something back. Not me. Maybe that's why I never considered myself a hero. Nope, I spilled my guts. I would have given them my mother's secret recipe for carrot cake if they'd asked. Maybe it's because the police are a lot more intimidating in person than they are in the movies. They were polite, but I also knew that until I could prove otherwise, I was their primary suspect.
I buzzed them up to my apartment and offered them the couch. They preferred to stand. After they established that I was, in fact, Delmore Honeycutt, and explained why they were there, they started right in with the questions. I was nervous, but hopefully they were used to that and didn't think it suggested guilt on my part.
"How did you know Isobel Worth?"
"Well, until right now, I never knew her last name. We met on an online dating site initially and met in person for the first time yesterday at Au Bon Pain in Copley Place, but it was for less than an hour."
"Why so short?"
"Frankly, she was kind of weird." So I told them the whole story of her prying me for information about my grandfather, then becoming agitated and leaving. "I figured it would be the last I would ever see of her." I realized what I had just said and flushed. "I … I guess I was right. How was she murdered?"
"She was stabbed in an alley. Whoever did it made no attempt to make it look like a robbery. She still had her wallet. So why do you think she was so interested in your grandfather?"
"I have absolutely no idea. He died soon after my father was born. I can't say I've ever really given him any thought. He was just kind of a footnote in our family history. But she was definitely looking for some information. To be honest, I think she actually knew more about my grandfather than I did and was hoping I could fill in the blanks."
"The blanks for what?"
"Beats me."
"So what did you do after your meeting?"
"I finished my sandwich—that's how little time we were together—picked up a few things at Whole Foods, then went home. I just hung out for the rest of the day."
Then it finally dawned on me to ask the question. "How did you know that I knew her?"
"In her pocket was a paper with your name, address, phone number and email address. It also listed a one o'clock lunch with you."
"Wait a minute. It had my address and everything?"
The cop nodded.
"Did it have my full name?"
"It did."
"Then this is really weird."
"Why is that?"
"Because one of the first things she asked me was what Del was short for. Why would she ask me that if she already knew?" Then something else popped into my head. "Was she even from Chicago?"
"Was that what she told you?"
"Yeah. She was from Chicago, but was moving to Boston for a nursing job at Mass General."
"Her license gives an address in New York, but she did have a boarding pass from a plane originating in Chicago." He wrote something down. "We can check on the Mass General job."
My head was swimming and the interrogation ended soon after that. I think they realized I was harmless. They told me that someone else might be around to ask me questions, but for now they were done.
I tried to calm down, with little success. I thought about giving my mother a call, but wasn't really sure what I would say. I usually refrained from mentioning my father to her. I wandered aimlessly through my apartment for the next hour, and must have opened the fridge a half dozen times looking for who-knows-what. I had absolutely no idea what was going on and what to do. That dilemma was solved when my phone rang. It was the alarm company that serviced my father's house. I had kept the alarm in place until I had time to do something about the house. They told me that the burglar alarm had gone off and they had dispatched the police to the scene. I told them that I would get in my car now, but that I wouldn't be there for close to two hours, and asked them to give the police my number.
I grabbed my wallet, keys, and jacket, and headed out the door. If it turned out to be a break-in, it wasn't random. I knew it had something to do with Izzy. What the hell was going on here? Was it really related somehow to my grandfather? The man had been dead for seventy years. We were a couple of generations past that. What could possibly have come to light now? What did Izzy know that I didn't?
Being a Sunday, the traffic was light in the city, and I made good time getting to the Mass Pike. Usually I took Route 2 when I went to visit my mother—and previously my father—in Northampton. It was a more scenic route. But today speed was on my mind, and Route 2 was going to be a slow road. It was a sunny day in the middle of Columbus Day weekend, and the traffic would be crawling with all the leaf-peepers on the road. The colors were spectacular this year—not always the case—and people were feeling the oncoming winter. The perfect conditions for clogged back roads in New England.
The Northampton police called soon after I got on the highway to let me know that, in fact, someone had tried to break in, but was scared off by the piercing scream of the alarm. The police had done a quick walk-through to determine that the house was empty, and had stationed a car outside. When I arrived, an officer would go in with me and we could determine if anything was missing.
I felt totally unprepared for this. The truth was, I was 38 years old, but had never really lived. I had no passions—well, other than baseball, which can be a pretty solitary interest. I'd always been one of those invisible people. If I was a character in a movie, I'd be the first one eaten by the shark. I had worked at my current job for ten years and was good at my work. I handled the customers well and, as far as I could determine, my staff all liked me. I possessed a decent amount of common sense and problem-solving skills—a necessity of my job. But somehow, being confronted with this problem had left me feeling extremely inadequate.
Maybe it was time to search through my father's things and see if there was a clue to what this was about. I didn't even know if he had any of my grandfather's belongings. Where would I start?
I got to my father's house in record time and introduced myself to the officer, who escorted me through the rooms. I never ceased to be amazed at how sparse his home was. The image of college professors is one of clutter—piles of books and papers untouched for years—absent-minded scholars more interested in theory than real life. My father was the opposite. Not a thing out of place in the entire house. That often baffled me when I was younger, but he once told me that when he reached a certain stature in his job, he no longer brought work home with him, unless, of course, you count his grade-related trysts.
I could tell pretty q
uickly that nothing had been touched, so I thanked the officer for waiting around, and then called a friend from childhood who still lived in the area and was a carpenter. I could tell he wasn't happy about it, but he agreed to come over a bit later in the afternoon and fix the broken back door.
Now what? I wasn't overly close to my father, but I still felt his loss as I wandered through the house. Lack of closeness didn't mean lack of love. We had established our relationship and were comfortable with it.
I knew that I was going to have to clean out the house at some point and put it on the market, but I wasn't looking forward to it. It had nothing to do with sentiment. More like inertia. The house was paid for and selling it would bring me in a few hundred thousand dollars. With no siblings to share it with, I'd be in pretty good shape financially. I would offer to share it with my mother, but I knew she would turn me down. She wanted nothing to do with him even in death. Besides, shrewd investing of the alimony payments over the years had left her quite comfortable. I'd get to the cleaning out stage at some point.
In the meantime, I had a mission. I climbed the steps to the attic. As expected, it was immaculate. There were plenty of boxes, but each was clearly labeled, so I started my search. Clearly labeled or not, not one box had anything written on it that referred to my grandfather. My friend Steve showed up as I was finishing my search, and I set him to work on the back door. I went back up to the attic, took another quick look around and almost called it quits.
As I was about to head back downstairs, a thought entered my brain. What child doesn't have some remembrance of his parents? Some memento of his childhood? There had to be something there. So I set to work opening each box and pawing through it.
I was a third of the way through when Steve called from the bottom of the stairs. He had finished the job. I thanked him profusely and told him to make sure he added the weekend premium to the bill when he sent it to me. I had no doubt he would.
I went back to my boxes. I looked at my watch and saw that it was already three o'clock, so I called my mother and told her I would stop by for dinner. I just explained that I was going through some of dad's things. It was the truth. I just failed to tell her why.
I got back to work, and an hour later hit pay dirt. It was in a box labeled "old dishes," and there were, in fact, some dishes on top. I almost put it aside, then decided to give it a second look. Underneath three dishes was a rectangular package sealed in cardboard, with yellowed tape around the edges. It was so tightly sealed, despite its age, I decided not to open it right then. The real reason was that it had started to get dark and I was beginning to get a little spooked. All of a sudden I wanted to get out of there.
Remembering, however, that someone had tried to break in, maybe looking for this very package, I decided that they might also be watching the house. So I packed a few volumes of an old encyclopedia set under the top plates and brought the box downstairs. I left the house carrying the box labeled "Old Dishes." Between the box and my stomach though, was the taped package, with my jacket thrown over my arms, concealing the package.
To an observer, I was just carrying a box to my car. Once in the car, I set the box on top of the passenger seat and surreptitiously wedged the taped package under my seat. It was unseen and not easily pulled out. While I was at my mother's, if they chose to break into my car, the alarm would go off, scaring them. They would grab the box on the seat and take off. In some ways I wish I hadn't told my mother I was coming for dinner. On the other hand, I had a certain curiosity about the break-in at the house. Was it related to Izzy? If they tried to burglarize my car I would have my answer. I could live with a broken window to find out. I would have liked to have taken the book into the house with me, but if anyone was watching, it would be obvious that I was carrying something. No, I was taking a chance leaving it in the car, but I was pretty sure it was safe wedged under the seat.
This was all new territory for me, but there was something exciting about it. I had never been in danger before. Maybe I wasn't now, but it felt like it. The thought of going back in to my boring job the next day—yes, it was a holiday, just not for me—was suddenly distasteful.
I pulled up to my mother's house and she came out to meet me. My mother was a good-looking woman of sixty-eight. Full of energy, she devoted herself full-time to numerous charities as a volunteer. She always had a great outlook on life, and I could count on her to cheer me up when I was down.
"So what made you suddenly decide to go through your father's things?" she asked without a preamble and giving me a hug.
"Oh, have I got a story for you," I answered.
"Well, come inside," she said. "I made chicken." She stopped and looked at me. "Something's different," she said. She studied my face. "You're excited about something. You're never excited about anything. I like it. It's a good look for you." She smiled and took my arm as we went into the house.
Over dinner I told her the story, leaving nothing out.
"That's dreadful about the woman," she finally said.
"So did dad ever say anything about his father?"
"Not anything that you don't already know. And I can't believe he knew some secret about him that he didn't tell anyone."
As expected, my car alarm started screeching. I jumped up from the table and ran to the door.
"Be careful, Del. You don't know what these people are capable of."
Actually, I did. But I wasn't listening. I ran out the door in time to see a man in a hooded sweatshirt jump into the passenger side of a late model pickup carrying the box from the front seat.
I flicked the alarm off from my key fob and approached the car. The passenger window was broken, as I figured it would be. I opened the door and pretended to brush away glass, quickly checking under the driver's seat. The package was still there.
It was real. My life and Izzy's life—and death—were intertwined. There was a deep dark secret in my family's past, and I wanted to find out what it was.
Chapter 3
My mother suggested that I open the package with her, but as curious as I knew she was, I wanted to get it far away from her. It had probably been a mistake to involve my mother at all. She wasn't scared, but I could tell that she understood my reasons for heading home.
While I duct-taped some plastic over my broken window, she put together the leftovers for me, as she always did—even though I ate quite well, it was never good enough for her—and I hastily kissed her goodbye and was on my way home.
Again, I decided to take the Mass Pike, this time for safety sake. There were portions of Route 2 that could be a bit lonely, whereas the Mass Pike was a major highway with almost no chance that "they," whoever they were, could get to me. Once I got home it was going to be a different story. I lived in East Boston, not the safest place in the world to begin with. If Izzy knew where I lived, chances were that they did too. Would they be waiting for me?
The drive was uneventful, but I pulled up in front of my house warily scouting the street around me. Satisfied that I could safely make it to the front door, I grabbed the package from under my seat and the bag of food, locked my car—not that it would do much good with a missing window—opened my front door, and stepped into the safety of my house.
I lived on the third floor of an old triple-decker, in a neighborhood that seemed to be slowly getting its act together. Surveys indicated that crime had been declining there for a couple of years. All well and good, but if I was being targeted specifically, I think that fell outside the parameters of any surveys. I decided that I should warn my neighbors not to blindly buzz anyone in. Not that I had to worry. For completely different reasons, neither one of them would be likely to do so.
Mo—short for Molly—lived in the first floor apartment. I wasn't concerned about her. A radical lesbian in her mid-thirties, she was a third– or fourth-degree black belt something-or-other—in some martial art I had never heard of—who worked out constantly and could probably snap me in half in a millisecond. Rum
or had it that she had suffered some traumatic abuse at the hands of a guy many years before. That didn't cause her to become a lesbian, just a radical one. For some reason though, she liked me—much to my relief.
Seymour lived on the second floor and was a recluse. He left his apartment as little as possible. He wasn't agoraphobic. He just didn't like people. He was six-foot-four and couldn't have weighed more than 160 pounds. He was older—probably hovering around fifty—and was a general sourpuss. But again, somehow I made it on his short-list of people he could tolerate. He ate pizza for almost every meal. No exaggeration. And he wasn't fussy. He switched off between deliveries and frozen pizza, and quite often made it from scratch. I would have hated to see what his insides looked like.
Seymour ran an eBay business from home. He had some sort of knack for buying items on eBay and then reselling them at an enormous profit. I once asked him how he did it, and he replied that it all had to do with the description. He looked for items that were described poorly, and as such, didn't sell for much. When he was done writing his own listing of the same item, it sounded like he was selling the Queen's jewels. He didn't write anything that was untrue or misleading, he just had a way with words. He would never indiscriminately unlock the front door if the buzzer went off, but since he was always getting deliveries from UPS, the mail carrier, or from countless pizza delivery guys, I would definitely have to warn him.
It was late, so I would call them both from work in the morning. I climbed the three flights and inspected the outside of my door before unlocking it. It looked fine. I also had a fire escape off my kitchen, but I really wasn't too worried since, as with my father's house, I had an alarm system in place. Since I hadn't heard from the alarm company, I could be reasonably sure everything was fine.
It was. I turned on my hall light, locked the door behind me, reset the alarm, and quickly went around the house shutting blinds and pulling curtains closed. Only then did I feel comfortable turning on other lights. I put the food in the fridge and took off my jacket, anxious to open the package.
All Lies Page 2