20th Century Un-limited

by Felice Picano

  Officer Adkins noticed from balance receipt left by C.M. in his possession that the total balance for both of C.M.’s accounts was substantial–six figures.

  STATE of WISCONSIN

  District Attorney’s Office

  Government Center, Building C

  120 State Street

  Madison, WI 53711

  Wayne G. King, Assistant D.A.

  To: Detective-Sergeant Annabella Conklin

  Wisconsin State Police, Cold Case Department

  Eau Claire, WI 54701

  May 28th, 2001

  Re: Case #324-01

  Dear Det.-Sgt. Conklin,

  As per your request, enclosed find copies this office has on file, previously sent to us by Portage County Police, of M/P Neal P. Bartram’s ID viz.:

  1) His Illinois driver’s license

  2) His Northwestern University graduate student/faculty ID

  Note that both documents show Bartram to be five feet six and a half inches in height, with “light brown eyes.” On his DMV’s ID “blonde hair” is listed, while on the school ID it’s listed as “light brown” hair. The two photos xeroxed here confirm that coloring.

  He hardly sounds like the “Tall young gentleman, dark eyes, dark hair, pale skin,” of the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Department report. Also, the large sum of money involved now gives us another alibi for potential foul play against Bartram. Especially as the person stopped was trying to access the money and possessed the ATM code. It is, however, odd how cavalier he was about not getting it, although he might be a consummate actor, not wanting to throw further suspicion upon himself.

  Please look into those Chicago Union Bank accounts belonging to the M/P.

  Wayne G. King

  * * *

  CHICAGO UNION BANK

  24 South Wacker Drive

  Chicago, IL 60606

  Government Liaison Office

  Detective-Sergeant Annabella Conklin,

  Wisconsin State Police, Cold Case Department

  Eau Claire, WI 54701

  June 3rd, 2001

  Re: Your Case #324-0 — Our Acct: 2770979913

  Dear Detective-Sergeant Conklin,

  Confirming our telephone conversation of May 29, 2001. As I told you then, the account of your Missing Person, Neal P. Bartram, was accessed by a person or persons using his ATM number. In fact, right after Thanksgiving of last year—the date of your forwarded West Hollywood Police Report—$500.00 was withdrawn. But just before the end of the year, December 29, 2000, we received Wisconsin State’s notification of Bartram’s Missing Person status, and we immediately sealed his accounts.

  Until that date the account had been accessed as follows:

  Withdrawals:

  October 5, 2000 —$500.00 ATM, Madison, WI

  October 30, 2000 —$800.00 ATM, Reno, NV

  November 12, 2000 —$600.00 ATM, San Francisco, CA

  November 26, 2000 —$500.00 ATM, Los Angeles, CA

  Deposits:

  October 17, 2000 —$12,000.00 The Ingals Trust, Chicago IL

  December 18, 2000 —$250,000.00 Anders Escrow, Fair Oaks, IL

  Attempts to reach next of kin on Bartram’s 1994 application were returned, stamped “deceased” by the Post Officer of his hometown. They confirmed that his parents were killed in an airplane crash in April 1999, outside Missoula, Montana. The first deposit is a direct payment for his caretaking duties. Before this, Bartram received two checks for sixty-five thousand dollars each for each parent’s loss, as insurance payouts. The last deposit shown above was from the sale of the Bartram home, of which he was sole heir. This is an interest bearing account. We would appreciate any help your office can provide locating Mr. Bartram’s heir or heirs.

  Georgia Dimaggio-Wilkes

  STATE of ILLINOIS

  Bureau of Records

  Richard J. Daley Center

  400 East Adams

  Springfield, IL 62701

  Detective-Sergeant Annabella Conklin

  Wisconsin State Police, Cold Case Department

  Eau Claire, WI 54701

  June 8th, 2001

  Re: Your Case #324-01

  Our Case #98-230-2310

  Dear Detective-Sergeant Conklin,

  A codicil to the Last Will and Testament of Neal P. Bartram was received by this office on September 30, 2000, drawn up by Ralph J. Elysious, Atty at Law, 65 Station Avenue, Junction City, WI, on September 29th, 2000, and witnessed by two persons known to the decedent.

  In his codicil, Mr. Bartram asserts that he is of sound mind and body, and explains that he is revising his will of September 14, 1996, in light of the death of his parents, as well as in the partial receipt and expected full receipt of insurance monies pertaining to their death.

  He states that he continues to wish that his maternal cousins, Dean and Daryl St. Clair of Bellington, WA, receive monies—now in the amount of $20,000—apiece to be held in trust for them by the Chicago Union Bank until their 18th birthday. He leaves the “bulk of the estate to my dear friend,” Anthony Jackson Kirby of Milwaukee, WI, and Los Angeles, CA.

  Although this office is empowered to give over those monies once this will has been properly probated according to Illinois state law, we did not possess any exact address for Mr. Kirby until January 12th, 2001, when he phoned this office and provided one.

  I hope this answers your questions. A copy of this has been sent to Ms. Dimaggio-Wilkes of the Chicago Union Bank.

  Office Mgr. — Ruby Tobias

  * * *

  The Journals of Neal P. Bartram

  (parts handwritten in notebook/and otherwise transcribed to computer C-drive under Microsoft Documents: “What The…?”)

  June 2, 2000

  Had a start yesterday, which became a mystery. Don’t know what to make of it.

  Was on the big John Deere machine, which I finally figured out how to baby to stay working without it shutting itself off every five minutes. I was mowing the lawn on the south side of the house at Ingoldsby. It’s such a boring job, I’d brought my headphones and portable CD player, and was listening to REM when I happened to look up and saw two people standing on the deck, off what I thought might be the dining room.

  It was a bright sunny day—really hot again; close to 90°F—and there they were! Young man and young woman, dressed all in white, yet oddly. He was tall, and not really thin but broad one way slender the other, with a shock of dark brown hair and dark eyes. She had light brown hair or blond hair, was much shorter, with pale eyes, but I couldn’t really make them out due to the shadows. She wore a sort of flimsy sundress I guess you’d call it. Very thin material of some gauzy sort that caught and lifted with every breeze. She was slender—amazingly attractive in that outfit—her hair was short, and cut close around in back to her lower neck, yet kept long around the sides and front, and very curly. She was very pretty. I couldn’t stop staring. He was very pretty too, if you like guys.

  They looked as though they were talking intently about something. He leaned down to insist on something. She put a hand on his arm—he wore a white V-neck sweater (in this weather?) over a long-sleeved white shirt and pants of some thin material and white and brown wingtips. They looked like they belonged in a play, but were too far away for me to hear what they were saying. All of a sudden, he leaned down and kissed her lips. She didn’t pull back or anything, but she kept him from doing it a second time.

  I came to my senses and shouted at them, something like “Hey! You there! This is private property! What are you doing here?”

  They looked at me. He said something to her. She squinted at me and half smiled. They turned around and went inside the house.

  I shifted to neutral, engaged the brake, jumped off the mower, and ran to the house.

  The terrace was empty and the door they’d just gone in through was solidly locked. Looking inside I couldn’t see anyone or anything.

  I walked around toward the living room windows and entry and saw no one, only cove
red furniture inside, as usual. I doubled back and tried the windows, headed toward the kitchen and pantry. No one inside there either. Hopped on the Deere and zipped around to the bedroom wing and looked in there. No one. Every door of the house locked up as it usually is. Where did they go?

  Went back to mowing but I kept checking around. Didn’t see any strange cars or vehicles and I didn’t see the two again. Where did they come from? Where did they go?

  What the…?

  June 4, 2000

  Was cleaning my teeth last night before going to sleep. Had a long and pretty exhausting day, first clipping and trimming those bushes alongside the north side of the house at Ingoldsby, and then reading more of Morrison and Ledrick’s texts, taking more notes for my last few chapters, then going to town (!) for some food shopping. So I was good and ready for bed, there in the little bathroom, flossing away, when I heard music through that little pebbled glass window I’ve been leaving open for better circulation.

  It sounded like old jazz music, I don’t know, maybe Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, something like that. That kind of old instrumental sound, lots of winds and brass and a piano, instruments doubling up for solos.

  Tried to place where it could be coming from. There’s nothing in the south until you hit town some seven miles away. Nothing west until Junction City, some twenty miles away, nothing to the north and west except Ingoldsby.

  I finished flossing and was brushing when I had an idea: What if those kids I’d seen before had come back to the house to hang out and brought a boom-box with them?

  I was still wearing shorts and a T-shirt, so I put on sneakers and went out. Sure enough, once I was outside, the music sounded much more like it was coming from the house.

  This time I was smart enough to stop in the gate-house garage and pull out two big rings of keys for the house. Then I loped over the little rise over to the house.

  Ingoldsby was dark as soon I was in view of it, say a football field away, and it was silent too, but with a conscious kind of silence, as though someone could see me coming, although I don’t know how. I was wearing dark clothing and it was a clouded-over night.

  I ran quietly to the house. Totally dark. No one there. I used my keys to go into the dining room terrace door, then when that proved empty, through the pantry door, around and into that door to the bedroom off the swimming pool. Place was empty, dark, noiseless.

  I almost expected to hear the music start up again soon as I gotten back to the gate-house, but it didn’t.

  I am sure I heard that music. I am sure I saw that couple.

  June 5, 2000

  In town at Joe’s Pharmacy having lunch. He and I and that older guy, Dr. Rodman or whatever his name is, were shooting the breeze and I said something about hearing music at night, but not being able to find the source. Dead silence, then the both of them had a fast answer. Joe said on still nights out here on the plains you can hear sounds from twenty miles away. The doctor said it might have been someone’s car radio as they drove by, or parked to make out. That makes more sense to me.

  Was in the library a little later and that Miss Noonan, the librarian, the one who wears all that lilac scent on her that’s like dust and powder whenever she moves, kind of smothering you, she was being friendly and asked how I was liking living out “in the sticks” after the big city (i.e., Chicago). I told her about the music I’d heard. She too had an answer: said she read about it somewhere, how the mind makes up sounds in the quiet so it can be comforted, and not afraid. Yeah. Right, Miss Noonan!

  June 7, 2000

  I had no intention of keeping a journal until this stupid business at the house began, but now that I have, well, I guess I want to write about Bev Freneau, the postmistress (does that sound dirty or what). She’s about twenty-eight and not really my type (“What type?” Bobby G. would ask. “When you’re horny?”) and slender but not skinny and with really nice breasts, pointy, and nice hips, though her rear is a little flat for my taste, and long dark hair she’s keeping wrapped up high around her head in the heat wave we’re having and she is pure s.e.x. and she knows it and she knows I know it too. So I was surprised when she moved over from the counter to one of the “cafe tables” in the pharmacy lunch counter today and began talking to me. Those olive green eyes, and nice skin. I mean, she’s no kid, and I guess she thinks I am. Well, I was about to leave, was paying and Bev said she had to get back to the P.O. when Joe said, “Hey, Bev, maybe Neal here would wanta see that old movie.” Turned out they were planning to go to the multiplex up on Route 18 but she wanted to see a French film made during World War II, I think she said, playing one night only, and Joe wanted to see the new James Bond, and so I said sure, I’d go with her. So we have a date, I guess, for the weekend.

  Don’t want to make too much out of it, but even though I knew it would happen out here I find I am missing sex, especially as all the women in town (!) from twelve to a hundred look me over like they want to eat me alive, and with this heat, believe you me, I am giving them everything to look at short of public lewdness, but not a damn one of them except the little girls will even say hello. Oh, except Miss Noonan at the library who makes me sneeze. But it’s not like school where I had two or three women who’d drop by a week including Connie (with that mouth!) and it was so easy meeting women around the school when I had my bike.

  June 8, 2000

  Nothing happened. Sexually, I mean. We met at her place, the downstairs of a two-story house, not sure who lives upstairs, but whoever it was was looking after Bev’s son Josh, who’s going to be five next month. We drove to the movie, which was crowded on a Saturday night, with five theaters full. Didn’t see Joe Weyerhauser, but nearly everyone I’d ever seen in Fulton’s Point was at one or the other movie houses because they were milling about before and in the lobby getting popcorn and sodas.

  The movie we saw was set in Paris in the middle of the nineteenth century and it was, well, what can I say, it blew me away. Totally unexpectedly and at the end as Garance in her carriage was swept away from her actor lover by the ocean of celebrating crowds, it just broke my heart as though I were the guy himself, and when the lights came up I had tears all down my face and so did Bev. We weren’t alone either. It had been over three hours long and it just went by like nothing, like the wind, like life, I suppose.

  We strolled a bit—she’d taken my hand as we left the theater. On the other side of the huge parking lot were a few restaurants, including the Wen Young Chinese Food Outlet, so we went in there to eat, both being hungry by then, even though it was after eleven. Bev said this was the site of the original—they’re a chain—and we had a pretty good meal, so maybe I’ll try the take-out one in Fulton’s Point.

  She told me the movie we’d seen had been made during World War II in France and that after the war the female star, Arletty, whose connections with a certain Nazi officer had helped the film be made underground, was deemed a traitor and had her head shaved and all. Amazing, though, that it could be made in secret with all those extras in the movie and the sets and all. So we had plenty to talk about, me and Bev, and when we got to her place, she said they were showing another good one next week and maybe we could go. I said if it were half as good as this, sure, and she kissed me on the cheek real soft and went in.

  During dinner she told me about her husband and kid and all. She’s had a pretty hard life for someone so young. I was already shaken up by the movie and I told her she’d gotten a raw deal and deserved some happiness. I meant it. And she knew I meant it.

  June 9, 2000

  I said I’d seen people and heard music at Ingoldsby. Yesterday afternoon, the weather changed to cloudy and cool. The gate-house flat was still warm, so I wandered outside with my Ledrick and thought I’d hang out on the bedroom terrace where the pool is. Torrington at the Ingals Trust said I could fill up and use the pool as long as I kept it clean. I’ve been swimming there on and off, usually in the early a.m. And I’ve pulled one of the wooden chaise lounges out of s
torage in the big garage.

  So yesterday I mosey on down there in the afternoon, and what do I see? Three chaise lounges out and covered with pillows, as well as a matching low wood table, and there on the terrace, with the bedroom door open, were the guy and the girl I’d seen before. This time they were dressed a little differently. He was in one chaise, reading, and she was busily watering plants I’d never noticed before, three big geraniums on stands and a few hanging white petunias. Both wore old-fashioned retro sunglasses, almost round.

  The guy noticed me first and shouted, “He’s come back!” Not to her so much as to someone inside the bedroom. This other guy came out wearing a pair of strange-looking bathing trunks and a paisley bathrobe mostly open. Tall guy with lots of reddish brown hair, still wet from his swim, big pale blue eyes, big nose, big mouth, big smile. Introduced himself as Chester Ingals, and asked who I was.

  I told him I’d been hired for the summer to watch the place and keep the lawns and bushes trimmed. Introduced myself. Said I didn’t know anyone would be using the house.

  “We’re just down on a whim!” he admitted. “But it’s so hot in town we decided to stay a few days.” He introduced me to the girl, who is pert and pretty as I remember—did half a curtsey meeting me—name of Cecilia Nash, “My ward,” Chester said. The other guy was “Anthony Kirby, my best friend since childhood.”