by Martha Carr
“Hey,” he said breathlessly, shoving the recorder at her as he dashed by, heading straight for the cookies.
“Hey, yourself,” said Wallis, still standing back a little, waiting for Ned to return from the mass of kids who were trying to grab a handful before all of the good ones, anything with chocolate, were gone.
“Where’s Dad?” asked Ned, balancing the cookies against his chest as he chewed on a mouthful. “You see any soda?” He looked around the room, his attention already gone.
“Being your parent is good self-esteem training,” said Wallis.
Ned turned back, amused. “Okay, I’ll give you a second, but only because it’s easier to pay up now, than later.”
“I’ll take it. I’m also hoping this early training is giving me a thick enough skin when you go away to college to not try and move in next to you.”
Ned arched his eyebrows and stuffed another cookie into his mouth.
“Dad would never let you,” he said, spraying out cookie crumbs.
“You’re awfully confident your Dad won’t be a problem when it comes to letting go. You might be surprised.”
“I don’t think that. I just know he’d miss you.”
Wallis smiled. “Good save, child of mine. Go get your soda. I’ll be over here. Did you see where Paul’s mom has gotten to?” she said, straightening a lock of dark hair on his forehead.
Ned ducked away from her hand and pointed toward the far wall. “She’s leaning over there,” he said.
Wallis looked in the direction Ned was pointing and saw Sharon glumly leaning against a wall not talking to anyone but trying to look happy about it.
“Fifteen minutes Ned, and then we’re out of here,” she said, tapping him hard on the shoulder so he’d know the game was back on and he was last. Wallis stepped back into the crowd of people, smiling hard as she watched Ned grow mildly frustrated trying to decide whether or not to go for the soda or follow her. He popped another cookie in his mouth and turned for the tables.
“Hey, Sharon,” said Wallis, taking up a space next to her and leaning back against the wall. “Did you get a cookie?”
“No, it looked a little dangerous and once the chocolate ones are gone there are only those bland round cookies. You two staying much longer?”
“Not too much. Been a long day, time to go home, find Norman, watch him make dinner.”
Sharon let out a short laugh. “You’re so lucky. Norman have a brother?”
“Yes, two, and they both appear to be very helpful, but they’re no Norman.”
“Even Norman-lite would be a good idea.”
“Can Paul come over and have dinner with us?” Ned and Paul had run up breathless and sweaty. A smudge of chocolate had appeared in the center of Ned’s shirt.
“You’ll still eat dinner?”
Ned drew his mouth up into a small look of frustration.
“Of course, don’t I always?” he said hurriedly. “Can he?” he said, looking first at Wallis and then at Sharon. Must be so hard to have to get so many people’s approval before you can do anything, thought Wallis.
“It’s okay with me, if…” she gestured toward Sharon.
“Sure,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll come by around eight to get him?”
Wallis knew Sharon didn’t like eating alone and was hinting at being included, and normally Wallis would have suggested it before Sharon even had a chance to wonder, but she needed to get Norman alone for awhile before dinner. Sharon was going to have to buck up her own chin tonight.
“Norman can drop him off and they can work on any homework together after dinner, right?” she said, giving Ned a look.
“Sure, sure, yeah, yeah,” said Ned, bobbing his head.
“Then you have a deal,” said Wallis.
“Great,” whispered Paul and the two boys were off, dodging in and out of the crowd, weaving their way back over to the table.
“I suppose I should have said something about no more cookies before I completely lost Paul,” said Sharon.
“Oh well, sometimes you have to eat dessert first.”
“Hey, Wallis. Hi, Sharon! Saw the article about David in the Times Dispatch this morning. Man, I hope you’re getting a piece of that!” said Rhonda Bridgeforth, the class mom. Every time Rhonda smiled her eyes grew larger until Wallis could clearly see white all the way around the brown irises. Made her look a little crazy. Wallis wondered if someday over a class project Rhonda might finally snap.
Sharon looked up nervously, glanced at Wallis, and mumbled, “Well, can’t be sure if it’s true. David’s been known to polish the apple a little.”
“What article?” said Wallis. She didn’t always get a chance to read the paper.
“Oh, you should have seen it. Nice big write-up in the business section how Whittaker Technologies just got the big Cardinal Group account for all of their software. Boy, that must be worth millions!” Rhonda looked breathless just thinking about all of that money.
Wallis’ face dropped into her best lawyer face with a stony expression of resolve. “I won’t charge you, Sharon. Just let me represent you,” she said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice.
“Wow, when a lawyer wants to take a case without the money then you know it’s time,” said Rhonda. Wallis ignored the dig, she was used to them.
“Okay, then,” said Sharon, not looking directly at either one of them. “Maybe you have a point.”
“Oh! Glad I could help,” said Rhonda, smiling, her eyes growing wild.
Just getting Sharon that far did make Wallis feel like there’d been some kind of victory.
Wallis piled the two boys into the car, stuffing their backpacks into the trunk amongst her files. She waited till a few of the cars closer to the curved driveway had a chance to pull out before she backed up and made a semi-circle in the grass, slowly going over the curb with each tire, back onto the pavement.
She’d felt pretty calm through the concert and short reception but now that she had a chance to think and knew she could finally find Norman the sense of urgency was returning and her stomach was tightening up all over again.
The boys chattered the whole way home occasionally wrestling in the back seat with their seat belts firmly in place, but still managing to get an occasional head-lock on each other.
“Five, four, three…” said Wallis, firmly, glancing at them in the rear view mirror. Ned knew that if she ever got to one privileges would start getting stripped away with ever-increasing speed. The two boys giggled and sat still for a moment.
Ned turned toward his window and let out a long breath, fogging up a small patch of glass. He took his fist and made the imprint of a baby foot, using his pinky to add the toes. Paul giggled and turned toward his window, fogging it up and drawing a scary face. Wallis knew it was only a matter of time before somehow this descended into bathroom humor. It always did.
Ned was the first to get there. No surprise, thought Wallis as she saw the word, poop, materialize on Ned’s window. The boys let out shrieks of laughter before Ned wiped it away with his sleeve, the boys glancing at Wallis in the rear view mirror with looks of shared conspiracy.
Wallis let it go. A little tasteless humor was usually in order when you’re a nine year old boy and fogging up the windows wasn’t trying to cut off each other’s air supply. They were almost home anyway.
She made herself get out of the car at a normal pace and reminded the boys to come get their backpacks out of the trunk. They each grabbed one and raced for the door, disappearing inside and Wallis guessed, straight up to Ned’s room and the computer.
She left her briefcase and purse just inside the door and called out for Norman.
“Norman? Norman?”
She knew he was home, the front door had been unlocked and the Jeep was blocking the entire bottom half of the driveway near the house, as usual.
“Hey,” said Norman, coming out of the kitchen. “What’s up? You forget where the kitchen is?”
&nbs
p; Wallis suddenly didn’t know what to say. She could hear the explanation in her head and realized she didn’t really know anything. Her anxieties were based on rumor or guesses and her own gut instinct.
“Wallis? What is it? Did something happen? Is it Harriet?”
“No, no,” said Wallis, quickly. Boy, what does my face look like, she thought, trying to take a deeper breath.
“Well, what? Is it…”
“No, no one’s dead, well, no one we really know anyway. I’m not sure what’s happened, but I need your help,” she said, pulling out the paper and holding it out for Norman.
“What’s this?”
“That man in the driveway this morning, he dropped it. He was a friend of Ray Billings…”
“The guy who died? I heard it on the news. Do you know him?”
“I was representing Lilly Billings. They were getting a divorce. She tracked me down in the Henrico courthouse. She said it couldn’t have been a suicide.”
“No one ever wants to believe it’s a suicide. What’s this?” said Norman, reading the page of names. “Hey we know some of these kids. What is this?” he asked again, his hand rising toward his head. Wallis watched as he gently tap, tapped the back of his head.
“I don’t really know. Stanley Woermer, the man in the driveway was Ray Billings’ best friend. He dropped it. It’s a list of some sort but I have no idea what it means or if it means anything. But Ray Billings thought I would, he told both his best friend and his wife to find me if anything happened to him, anything at all.”
“Why you?”
“I have no idea.”
“Considering you’ve dealt with your share of child abusers, why are you so scared over what seems circumstantial at best?”
“Good question. Call it a gut feeling. I can usually spot the liars and I’m having a hard time finding one, as much as I’d like to. The people who knew this man best don’t believe he took his own life.”
“You’re not usually a good one for conspiracies. If it’s really good old-fashioned murder, then the crime portion is over. If it’s suicide maybe the crime involving these kids is over,” said Norman, waving the list.
“I don’t know which one is better. What should I do?”
“Are you sure this is anything to really be worried about? I don’t know. Call the police? Call these parents?” Norman’s hand started to look for the back of his head again.
Wallis wasn’t used to Norman being at such a loss for ideas.
“No, no, not yet. I don’t know where the lines cross here. That man, Stanley, he was so afraid and he said not to call anyone, not the police, not even him. And I can’t imagine the conversation with any one of these parents. What would I be suggesting? No, first I need to find Stanley Woermer and ask him what this means,” she said, taking the paper out of Norman’s hand. “Find out why me.”
“Do you think this is the kind of conversations most happily married couples have?”
Wallis smiled at Norman, leaning in to his body, placing her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. “Love you,” she said.
“I’m well aware of that,” he said, kissing her shoulder.
Wallis didn’t sleep well that night. She kept snapping awake with a peculiar feeling that what was going on in her reality was only some continuation of a nightmare she’d had while asleep and the two sides were now bleeding into each other. She waited for her heart to finally move to a slower rhythm but then the small panic that began in her driveway crept back.
“Why me,” she whispered in the darkness. “And how do I find Stanley Woermer.” It was a prayer of sorts.
The next morning she got up feeling like she had an unjustified hangover. The early morning light hurt her eyes as she dragged herself out to get the morning paper.
“Aaggh, not again,” she muttered, when she spotted the familiar yellow plastic bag at the top of the driveway. “Is it so hard to toss it a little ways toward the house?”
As she got to the top of the driveway she could see the familiar purple door just down the next street. Several cars were parked outside and the driveway was full.
Wonder what that’s about, thought Wallis.
She bent down to pick up the paper hoping no other neighbor was about to come outside to get in their car and spot her in her pajamas, her hair still wild from tossing and turning. She’d still have to wave and yell a friendly hello and she wasn’t in the mood. She picked up the paper and felt something stiff inside of the bag.
Another ad, she thought. They’d become popular, sometimes even the plastic bag was decorated with information about a sale at the local hardware store. I suppose the paper has to figure out some way to make money with the few readers it has left, she thought.
She slid the piece of cardboard out of the bag and saw it was half of a dry cleaners insert. Written on one side was a message, ‘meet me at Book People on Granite Avenue at 10:30 this morning in the European Travel section. Tell people you’re going there and come up with a good reason. Don’t attract any attention. I’ll tell you what I know. Please come.’
It was signed, S. Woermer and the ‘please’ was underlined twice. The whole thing looked like it had been written in a hurry.
Well, at least that answers one big question, thought Wallis, her stomach tightening up, warning her of something unseen.
I seem to have found Stanley Woermer.
Chapter Twelve
Wallis found the bookstore easily. Granite Avenue was only four blocks long and as she neared the corner of Patterson Avenue she saw a large wooden sandwich-board sign propped up in front of a small two-story cottage that looked worn down around all of the edges. The sign was hand-painted in over-sized letters with the words, ‘Book People’ and an outline of an open book.
She pulled into the small gravel parking lot and looked around. There were only two other cars in the parking lot. An old blue Chevy wagon and a boxy yellow Volvo that had seen better days. She pulled up next to the Volvo and parked as close as she could to the tall faded wooden privacy fence that bordered the back. Stepping out of the car she dodged the variety of potholes in need of gravel.
The short cement walkway up to the front porch was lined by over-tall grass bending in to cover the path. At the edge of the walk was another old Chevy station wagon with the tail end backed up so it faced the sidewalk. The back gate of the carwas flipped up and cardboard boxes of used books were piled inside with the price scrawled on the outside of each box. The boxes had the name of an old moving company, Ownby’s, now defunct, on the side with the words, ‘Moving Families Since 1924’.
Wallis remembered Stanley’s admonishment in his note to come with a purpose and she stopped to look in the boxes, ducking her head under the open tail-gate. She didn’t really read much anymore unless it was a legal brief or a deposition but had loved to read novels before law school. Maybe there’s an old treasure in here, she thought.
The boxes were mostly filled with old school books from the 30’s and 40’s and had the names of children now retired or passed away written in the front with the name of their teacher and their grade. The handwriting was loopy and large and done with deliberate care. She peered into another box before turning for the wooden steps and heading into the store.
The bell over the door gave out a small tinkle as she entered. Don’t see that too often anymore, she thought. A small woman with short, curly salt and pepper hair was bent over a large wooden desk at the far end of the small room. An old brown cash register was perched on the top of the desk next to her. On her other side were tall piles of new children’s picture books.
The entire room was crammed with books. Small mismatched wooden dining tables were scattered in the space, covered in different colored table cloths and topped with stacks of books. Built-in book cases lined every wall that didn’t have a window and more books were propped up in the windows. Wallis had never seen anything like it. Ned would love this, she thought.
“Can
I help you?” said the woman, lifting her head to look up over half-glasses slid halfway down her nose. “Were you looking for something in particular?” she said, in heavily accented English. Wallis guessed she was probably European by birth.
“Do you have a travel section?” Wallis asked.
“What kind? To where?”
“Europe?”
“Sure, sure. Follow me,” said the woman quickly, pulling off her glasses and letting them dangle from a long black cord around her neck. She gestured to Wallis with her arm to follow her down a small, narrow hallway lined with bookcases that began just behind the large desk. Wallis hadn’t even noticed the passageway before.
“My name is Esther,” she said, rolling her r’s. “I own the place with my husband, Herman. If you need a book, ask me, I’ll know where it is. If we don’t have it, even if it’s out of date, I’ll find it. That’s our specialty.” Her voice rose and fell, ending on a high note.
Esther looked back at Wallis as they turned a sharp corner and headed down another narrow hallway that wound past small offshoots of rooms filled with books. She scanned Wallis up and down, making Wallis uncomfortable, while still walking through the odd angles of the halls, not bumping into anything. Occasionally her hand darted out and touched a book as if checking to make sure she was still navigating correctly, her steps never slowing.
“Have you ever been to Europe?” asked Esther, her head turning away from Wallis to face front, not waiting for an answer. Wallis wasn’t sure if she should answer. Esther turned back to her with raised eyebrows.
“No, no, I haven’t. Would like to, though.”
“Any place in particular?”
“No?” Wallis wasn’t a very good liar without a mapped-out strategy. It was something Norman was always pointing out that made her a very unique lawyer.
“Transylvania is beautiful. I know, I know,” she said waving her hand in the air, “I’ve heard all the jokes. Maybe that’s why it’s still beautiful. No one takes the place very seriously. The castles and the town are still very much like when I was a girl. No modern ugly apartment buildings, no tall cell phone towers.” Her face turned into a sneer as she glanced over her shoulder at Wallis. They turned at last into a small room on the far side of the house. Stanley Woermer was already there looking at a fat paperback book about the sights of Paris. He was dressed in dark blue nylon shorts with a blue and yellow windbreaker zipped up to his chin. Wallis tried not to look at him.