A Brilliant Death

by Yocum, Robin

  Through the darkness I could see him choking back laughter. “Okay, forget what I said, the coaches might remember that one.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “Well, I thought you’d like to know that I had a little chat with Big Frank tonight.”

  “About?”

  “My mom.”

  “Ka-ching. That’s interesting. What prompted you to do that?”

  “Actually, I blundered into it. I got home from the bakery, made a sandwich, and turned on the TV, and the afternoon movie was Titanic, with Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck. So I’m watching it and Big Frank comes in and sits down, and it’s right at the end of the movie where the ship’s going down and people are drowning all over the place, and Big Frank says, ‘God, drowning would be an awful way to go.’ It was out of his mouth before he realized what he had said. I told him, ‘You know, Mom drowned, and you’ve never really talked to me about that. I’d really like to know more about her.’”

  “Nice transition. What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Your mother was a baldracca.’ He said it with this guttural Italian accent, just like my Grandpa Baron used to talk when he got pissed off about something.”

  “So what’s a baldracca?”

  “I don’t know, but since he spat it out like a fly had flown into his mouth, it certainly can’t be good. I asked him what it meant and he just looked away. If I had to bet, it’s probably Italian for whore. But he didn’t leave. He just got this look of resignation on his face, like he was tired, and said, ‘What do you want to know?’”

  “That opened the door.”

  “Yes and no. You’ve got to know how to work Big Frank. You’ve got to pick your shots. Ask him one question, be very specific, and hope you don’t cross that line in the sand that will cause Mount Baron to blow sky high.”

  “How do you know where the line is?”

  “That’s always the challenge with Big Frank. The line changes from day to day, depending on his mood.”

  “What did you ask him?”

  “I said I wanted to know what she was like. What was her favorite food? What did she smell like? How did they decide to name me Travis? Did she want me to be a doctor or join the Navy, or what? What kind of movies did she like? I wanted to know anything like that.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. I don’t think he was trying to be evasive, or that he didn’t remember. I don’t think he ever knew. He said, ‘Hell, boy, I don’t know,’” Travis said, dropping his voice several octaves to imitate Big Frank. “‘It’s been a long goddamn time. Movies. She liked movies. Don’t everybody?’ I think it was probably a little embarrassing that he didn’t know anything. I said, ‘Dad, what color were her eyes?’ He thought about it for a moment and finally said, ‘Beats the hell outta me.’”

  “Green,” I said.

  “Right, but he had no clue. He was telling me about getting discharged from the Navy and moving back to Brilliant. Now, mind you, he remembers driving his 1947 Mercury convertible back to Brilliant . . .” He reverted to his Big Frank voice: “‘The Merc, what a helluva car, I bought it off a guy in my unit who couldn’t keep up with the payments. That was one sweetheart of a ride, I’ll tell you that; had a three-fifty in it, damn, it was so sweet. I wish I still had that puppy.’ And he can tell you that How High the Moon and The World Is Waiting for the Sunshine by Les Paul and Mary Ford were the big songs on the radio during the trip. He probably remembers the odometer reading from every oil change he’s ever had, but he can’t remember the color of my mom’s eyes. Doesn’t that strike you as weird?”

  “To be real honest with you, Trav, a lot of things about Big Frank strike me as weird.”

  A coal train rolled past, making the windows behind us vibrate in their panes. Its horn blasted as it neared the Penn Street crossing, echoing off the hills.

  I asked, “What did he remember about the night she died?”

  “He said he left Brilliant on a Thursday morning for Arkansas to take some coiled steel to a processing plant near Fayetteville. When he got there, there was a message for him to call home. When he does, my grandma Baron tells him that my mother was out on the river in the boat and drove it into a barge and they couldn’t find her. He said he was thinking there’s no way, because she hated the boat and she hated the water. He said he thought maybe someone kidnapped her and made her go out on the river. He drove all the way back. That’s when he found out that she and some guy were seen jumping off the boat. He said the boat didn’t have any running lights on and it drifted into a barge full of iron ore. It was like a bulldozer hitting a storage shed and the boat ended up in a million pieces.”

  “Did you ask him if he knew who the guy was?”

  “Yeah. He said he didn’t know and didn’t care. He called the guy a coward who saved himself and let my mom drown so their affair wouldn’t be known.”

  “Did you ask him about the homicide investigation?”

  Travis nodded. “He said there was nothing to it. He said it was just Tornik trying to add to his scrapbook. ‘Tornik being Tornik,’ is how he described it.”

  “Did you tell him that we talked to Tornik and he said your grandfather Virdon had called because he suspected Big Frank of murdering your mother?”

  “No, I do place some value on my life.”

  I smiled. “He was pretty forthcoming.”

  “Yeah, I know, he was actually pretty congenial.” Travis looked at me and frowned. “You know, I almost hate it when that happens. Big Frank’s more suited to acting like a complete bastard. When he acts like a human being it makes me think there’s something wrong in the cosmos. You know, like the world’s spinning off its axis.” I laughed. “Okay,” Travis continued, “here’s the best part. I asked him if he thought Mom drowned because she got pulled down in the undertow of the barge. And, he said, it wouldn’t have mattered because she couldn’t swim. He told me that twice, like he was really trying to emphasize it. He said, ‘Your mom couldn’t swim a lick.’”

  I nodded. “So, consequently, once she hit the water that night, she didn’t have a chance.”

  “According to Big Frank.”

  “That makes sense to me,” I said. “They couldn’t get the boat away from the barge and she panicked and jumped, even though she couldn’t swim. So why is that the best part?”

  “Turn on the porch light for a second; I want to show you something.” I got up, my lower back aching from the pounding I had taken earlier in the evening, opened the screen door, and reached around the corner, flipping on the overhead light. Travis had a folded piece of paper in his hand, which was covering a metallic object. “This was in that cardboard box we found in the attic. I thought it was neat to have, but I never realized its true significance until this afternoon.” He handed it to me. The metallic object was a gold medal hanging from a faded blue ribbon. The front was a tarnished relief of Lady Victory. On the back was inscribed:

  First Place

  1946

  Princess Anne County

  Swimming & Diving Championships

  200-yard freestyle

  “It’s a medal she won from a swimming competition when she was fifteen years old.”

  I inspected it for several seconds and passed it back. “Maybe it’s not even hers.”

  “It’s hers. Inside that box was a purple velvet bag with a drawstring, like the kind whiskey bottles come in, and it was completely full of swimming medals—dozens of ’em. The scrapbook had a couple of newspaper articles about her and swimming. Look at the paper.”

  I carefully unfolded the paper, which was yellow at the corners and along the creases. It was a Red Cross Senior Life Saving Certificate. Written in fountain pen on the line below the words Presented To was the name, Amanda Virdon.

  “So not only could she swim, but she was a hell of a swimmer,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Travis said. “She was a lifeguard and a champion swimmer. So why did Big Frank make a point to tell me she couldn
’t swim?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Hey, mister,” Travis yelled.

  The man slowed his run across the rain-pelted gravel lot. “What?” the man called back, never stopping his movement toward the protection of the cement block building in the corner of the lot.

  “Is Chase Tornik inside?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to Chase Tornik.”

  “Why?”

  Loud enough for me to hear, Travis said, “None of your business, asshole.” Then he yelled, “It’s personal.”

  Through the rain and the only window in the front of the cement block building on the far side of the lot, we watched as the man walked across the illuminated lobby and pointed toward us with a thumb. Chase Tornik walked out of an office and appeared to squint into the night. Slowly, he pulled on a raincoat and a ball cap, lit a cigarette, and exited the building. Tornik hunched against the wind and rain as he crossed the gravel lot of the Ohio Valley Cement and Masonry Company. Through the darkness and rain, Tornik strained to see the outline of Travis and me standing beyond the seven-foot chain-link fence with barbed wire that ran along Smithfield Street. As he neared the fence, Tornik said, “Harvey said some smart-ass kid wanted to see me. I figured it had to be you.”

  “You don’t know any other smart-ass kids?” Travis asked.

  “I don’t know any other kids, period,” he said.

  Travis was wearing a thin windbreaker. His hair was plastered to his head and he was shivering in rain the size of shooting marbles that were hitting like BBs. The wind blew across Travis’s face, sending droplets cascading in rapid succession from his chin and nose. I had grabbed my hooded football raincoat out of the trunk of my car, which was insulated and covered me from my head to below my knees. I felt sorry for Travis, but not so sorry that I would consider giving up my comfort. After all, he was the one dragging me up here for another go-around with Tornik. We had gone to his house and found it empty. The older woman who lived in the other half of the duplex told us that we would find him at the cement factory, where he worked as a security guard.

  “I thought you’d be back sooner,” Tornik said.

  “I’ve been busy. I need to know some things.”

  “You picked a beautiful night.” Tornik motioned us to the main gate, which he opened by pushing a button near an empty guard booth. We followed him into the block building and back to an office in the far corner. Tornik pulled off his raincoat and ground out the nub of the cigarette, adding to the growing mound in the ashtray on his desk. A rim of cold ash encircled the ashtray, the residue of Tornik’s misdirected flicks. He lit up another and extended a hand holding the pack. “Smoke?” We both shook our heads. “Don’t start. My voice didn’t always sound like a cement mixer.”

  “Why don’t you quit?” I asked.

  He looked at me, inhaled deep, and began talking as the smoke escaped from his mouth. “After I got out of prison, I met this woman, Lucy Bannister, who was a social worker at the halfway house. Nice girl, good Christian. She’d been divorced twice. She had a severe character flaw; she was attracted to men she thought she could cure of a lifetime of bad habits, which probably explains why she was attracted to me. We had been going out a couple of weeks when she started badgering me to quit smoking. I wouldn’t quit. Finally, I said, ‘Lucy, on the day I got to prison, just after I got out of the van and into the indoctrination area, this big, black bubba walked up to me, leaned up in my face and said, “I’ve always wanted to fuck me a cop.” And that night, he did. And the next night, and the next night, and the next night. So do you think I’m concerned about a little thing like lung cancer?’” I felt myself shake as a wave of cold chills started in my spine and exploded through my entire body. “Don’t smoke and don’t go to prison. That’s my advice.”

  He turned his attention to Travis. “Now, what do you want to talk about?”

  “You said my mother’s death was suspicious. You said some things just didn’t add up, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  Travis looked hard into Tornik’s eyes. “Who killed her?”

  “I don’t know. If I knew I . . .”

  “Who do you think killed her?” Travis asked, cutting Tornik off in mid-sentence.

  He dragged hard on his cigarette and for a brief moment looked away. “Look, kid, just because someone starts a murder investigation doesn’t mean you automatically have a suspect. I know your grandfather suspected your father, but that doesn’t mean he did it. Like I said, it’s been a long time and I don’t really remember if I had someone in mind.”

  “Mr. Tornik, I may be only sixteen, but I’m no idiot. I know if you had a suspect, you’d remember who it was. I want to know. I’m desperate to know. Was it my dad? If so, the least you could do . . .” I put a hand on Travis’s arm, cutting him off as his voice began to climb. His left forearm felt like knotted steel, and his right foot went into overdrive, the heel bouncing off the floor in rapid succession. A wave of crimson was racing up his neck.

  I said, “Mr. Tornik, when we started poking around we were just trying to find out about his mom, you know, what kind of person was she, stuff like that. But now, we’ve got more questions than we do answers, and that’s mostly because of the story we found that says you were investigating her death as a homicide. We know someone still visits her . . .” I stopped, not sure if Travis wanted that bit of information revealed.

  He nodded. “Someone still visits the memorial they have to her at the cemetery—to this day still puts flowers on her grave. Who does that after all these years? Somebody with a guilty conscience? We don’t know. We’re just looking for some answers.”

  Tornik took a final hit off the cigarette and this time dropped the stub in a Styrofoam cup half-filled with coffee. It fizzled out. “Who do you think is putting the flowers on the memorial?” he asked.

  “Like Mitchell said, someone who is having trouble living with their guilt,” Travis offered.

  He shook his head. “Not a chance. People’s consciences don’t bother them for that long. A guilty conscience lasts about forty-eight hours, not sixteen years. It’s someone who cared about her.”

  “Who?” Travis asked.

  “Guys, like I told you the last time, it’s been a long damn time. I don’t remember all the details. And if I told you who I thought it was, you’d go out and do something stupid.”

  “We wouldn’t. I swear,” Travis said.

  “Uh-huh. You’d be on his front porch tonight.”

  Of course, Tornik was right. Travis looked at Tornik, anger and frustration building on his face, blotches of red consuming his cheeks and ears. “You don’t know who it might be, or you’re just not going to tell me?”

  “Both. I’m not sure, and for that reason, I’m not going to tell you. I won’t speculate so you can disrupt someone’s life.”

  “My dad said whoever she was with let her drown so everybody wouldn’t find out that they were having an affair.”

  “Your dad is guessing. Besides, if that is what happened, there’s no law against letting someone die. It’s cowardly, but not illegal.”

  “Goddammit, tell me what you know,” Travis said, his torso leaning toward Tornik. “She’s on a boat, she jumps off, and the guy lets her drown. You say that’s not a crime, but still you start a homicide investigation! Jesus Christ, what kind of mind game are you playing with me? Just tell me what you know, what you suspect. Anything. Don’t you see that nothing here makes sense to me?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  Travis squeezed the arm rests until his knuckles went white and looked like a miniature ridge of snow-capped mountains. “My dad was right. You were in it for your own glory.”

  Tornik’s brows arched. “Really? That’s what your old man told you, huh?”

  “He said it was an accident, plain and simple. My mom was a tramp. She was out screwin’ her boyfriend and got herself killed. He said it wasn’t murder; it was
just stupidity.”

  “You believe what you want to believe, son, but your mom was not a tramp.”

  “Oh, you remember that much, huh? You were trying to set my dad up to take a fall, weren’t you? This was getting a lot of attention in the papers and you wanted a piece of it, didn’t you? Wasn’t that the plan, to send him to prison like those other guys you tried to railroad?”

  Tornik stood, came out from behind his desk, took a calming breath, and said, “It’s time for you to leave.”

  I stood. Travis crossed his arms and remained seated. “You sonofabitch,” Travis said.

  Tornik snatched him up by the collar of his windbreaker and in one surprisingly quick move, twisted him out of the chair and threw him toward the door. I was moving behind Travis and herded him out of the building.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place, huh, superstar?” Travis yelled back as we left the block building. “Why didn’t you just tell me that you were standing on my mom’s body so the spotlight would shine on you a little brighter?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The remainder of our junior year passed without further progress on Project Amanda. Tornik wouldn’t talk. The mystery man was no longer putting flowers on the memorial. Travis had again systematically covered the town trying unsuccessfully to find a match for the lone shoe. There seemed to be little else we could do.

  In early June of 1970, we hosted Steubenville in an American Legion doubleheader. I pitched the first game and got clobbered 9–2. If that wasn’t bad enough, my cousin, Johnny Earl, hit two home runs and a double off of me. He chuckled as he rounded the bases after the first home run, and I tried to hit him in the ribs with the first pitch the next time he came up. He just stepped back, let it pass, then hit the next pitch into the elementary school playground. It scalded me that we shared the same DNA, and I hadn’t hit two home runs all summer. Johnny could be a knucklehead, but he could crush a baseball.

  We came back and won the nightcap 4–3, which brought me some measure of satisfaction. After the game, Johnny left with his sweaty arm draped over the shoulder of Dena Marie Conchek, one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. He winked as he passed by our dugout. There was no justice in the world, I thought. Travis couldn’t find out what happened to his mother, and my cousin Johnny was dating Dena Marie Conchek.