by Liz Bradbury
“Yes... no... oh gosh DARN it, Maggie. This is worse than my own cooking. How did I ever get into this fix?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Huh?”
“Was that something you want me to answer? Because it’s pretty simple. You’ve lost communication with the person you love best on earth and you’re torn between wanting to get it back and finding out something you’d really rather not confront.”
There was a long pause. Finally Lois responded with, “I know it’s not trendy, but I still like men. I really do love him, Maggie, with all my heart and soul. But I can’t go on with things this way. I have to know. So go ahead; ask him. When are you going to do it?”
“I have time today.”
“Oh, gosh da... Well, OK, I’ll just hold my breath until I hear back from you. But don’t tell me anything that will make me upset.”
I sighed inwardly. “Is he home now?”
“No, he’s running around doing errands. But he’ll be at our apartment building remodeling one of the second floor units by about 11:30 a.m. It’s at 1012 Washington near 10th.”
“Lois, I may not be able to get back to you right away. So really don’t hold your breath, OK? Give me a few days.”
I had several more hours to work so I took out the three possible photos that might identify the man killed in the graveyard and did a series of searches to find more information on their names. Among other things, I tried Zaba and Nexis, scanned the public voter roles, went through literally hundreds of possible Facebook pages, and ran through public arrest records. After several hours and a dozen search engines, nothing came up. Their names were either too common or they just hadn’t created an electronic trail since they’d left high school. It’s sometimes hard to imagine, but there are some people who just aren’t on the grid.
Ultimately I did some other office work, chatted with Nora for a moment, and at about noon I grabbed my coat and bag and walked the short two blocks to 1012 Washington. It had snowed in the night, not enough to coat the sidewalks, but the lawns in the Mews park were dusted with white. The sun was out and the air was clean and crisp. The day was much brighter than the task I was on for Lois Henshaw.
The apartment house the Henshaws owned was not just a converted single family home. This building, just a block down the street from Farrel and Jessie’s, had obviously been built as some kind of commercial and multi-family dwelling in the 1930s. It was triple the width of all the other buildings on the block. The deco style tiles framing the door, the cut glass transom, and the marble front steps had been kept up nicely over the last eighty years. The building had a dentist’s office and a CPA’s office on the ground floor. Eight apartments, four on each floor, were in the two upstairs stories.
The apartments were accessed by a central entrance. Each key-locked mailbox had a doorbell button underneath. Number 2’s box had no name-tag.
I turned to look back at the southeast corner of the Mews that was directly in front of the building. The trees lining the central walkway were leafless. Their twiggy branches looked like a spiky line drawing against the blue sky. There was an open section of ivy-covered yard that surrounded a military statue of none other than Merganser Hunterdon in his crisp Civil War general’s uniform.
The Carbondales’ book said Merganser had reached the rank of general in his twenties and that he was one of the youngest generals of the period. I’d been surprised to find out there’d been a thousand generals in that war. I briefly wondered what Merganser had done to get his commission. Some brilliant battle tactic, some heroic act of bravery? It hadn’t said in the book. Merganser’s likeness wasn’t dashing and young though. It seemed old and tired, and the “unfortunate” quality of his features was more than apparent. I wondered if Victoria had created this sculpture too.
The statue faced west with its back toward the small houses on 10th street where Amanda Knightbridge and Gabriel Carbondale lived. I had a perfect view of the historic house from here. Fen House was where Evangeline had lived, and then after her death, where Victoria Willomere Snow had lived for the rest of her life. I imagined how the row would have looked in the 1870s when Evangeline and her family had had to move in. There would have been no park in front of the little houses then; they had been built for the lowest of workers. It must have been very embarrassing for Evangeline’s mother, who was a descendent of three of Fenchester’s most affluent families, to be living in a tiny home with stables as her front yard. As Amanda had suggested, the smell must have been awful.
How did Victoria Snow fit into all this? In her journal, she was on her way to rescue Evangeline from poverty with the help of Charlotte Cushman’s directed commission. But history indicated that when Evangeline died, she was still engaged to Hunterdon and that he mourned for her for the rest of his life. Maybe Evangeline wasn’t a “sister of the heart” after all. Maybe Evangeline needed more support than the comfort Victoria’s single commission could buy. After all, Hunterdon was the richest man in the State.
These days the little row homes on 10th street were really quite charming. I wondered when the yew trees that flanked each front door had been planted. By 1900 the Mews Park had been fully installed and was probably quite a community showpiece, as it is now. Victoria had lived there then. She must have liked looking out on it, as much as Suzanne Carbondale had in the years she’d lived in Fen House. I paused and looked up at the front windows of the Henshaw’s apartment house. I had a flash of enlightenment.
A tenant swung open the outer door and came down the steps. I took this opportunity to duck into the lobby without ringing. I went up the stairs and found number two, which was the front apartment on the left. While there’s never a good excuse for rudeness, when I’m on a case I find that conventional manners can get in the way of sleuthing. The door was unlocked, so I walked in without knocking.
It was a nice apartment. Large, light, and empty of furniture. There was a small kitchen to the right, with room for a tiny table. To the left were two bedrooms and a 1930s tiled bathroom.
Samson Henshaw sat on a metal folding chair looking out one of the deep-silled windows. There was a folded tarp, a full plastic garbage bag, a sealed paint can, and some painting tools on the floor. There were several Brews on the Mews paper cups on the sill. The room looked like it had been recently painted. I sniffed; it smelled fresh and clean.
Henshaw spun around in surprise. He stood up and took two steps away from the chair as though he’d been caught peeping through a bathroom window. Maybe he had, but probably not.
“Maggie! How’d you get in?”
“Door was unlocked,” I said as I made my way to the window to see what he was looking at.
Things clicked in place in my mind. Six weeks, the view, what Lois had said, what the other investigators had found. I looked into the garbage bag. It was filled with empty coffee cups and food containers.
I turned slowly and said to Samson Henshaw, “What are you doing here, Samson?”
“I just finished painting.”
“Funny, there’s no smell of paint in here at all. So, you’re waiting for her to come back? Suzanne Carbondale?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do.” I sat down on the broad windowsill and looked back out the window. “Samson, this is a stupid place for surveillance. You can’t even see the back door. Do you stand out there sometimes too?”
“Not so much, now that it’s cold,” Samson admitted. He deflated and plunked back into the folding chair.
“Were you in love with her?”
“Still am,” Henshaw admitted.
“Have you seen her since she left Gabe?”
“What? No, I haven’t seen her since right before she left town. That’s when she told me she was going to leave Gabe. We’d been talking for weeks before that though. We’d talk about her work and about the house I wanted to build on speculation. The economy’s rotten, but she made me feel like I could
pull it off. She was working on a manuscript. We’d talk over coffee, usually at Brews. Sometimes take a walk.” The floodgates in Samson Henshaw tore off their hinges and he spent the next two hours telling the entire story of his obsession with Suzanne Carbondale. Most of it had to do with his own life. I listened patiently.
When he stopped, I asked, “How intimate was this?”
“You mean, were we sleeping together? Well, no. I hadn’t really thought about her that way. But when she told me they were going to break up, suddenly I just realized that I loved her, and then she left town before I had a chance to tell her. She wrote that book about Fenchester with Gabe and really Suzanne did almost all of the work. Gabe’s really an asshole, you know? What a phony.”
“What’s her new manuscript about? Did she say?”
“I guess kind of a sequel to the book they’d done together, but it was all written by her this time. She was really excited about it. Maggie, when she told me she was going to leave Gabe, suddenly the path was clear, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean, but your path isn’t clear. Did you forget you’re married to Lois?”
At least Samson had the good grace to blush.
He said, “Lois is a good person and I loved her; I still love her. It would be unfair to pretend I didn’t, but Suzanne was different. So different. She completed me. It was a whirlwind and we were riding it.”
“But you never really told Suzanne you felt this way? Or did you?”
“No,” he said forlornly. “She cared about me though; she said so. When she told me that, I couldn’t think about anything else. I figured we could go away together and life would be perfect. As soon as she’s back I’ll tell her and we’ll be all set.”
“Samson, don’t you think you’re kind of putting all your eggs into a basket you don’t even own?” I asked gently. I knew Suzanne Carbondale was the type of woman who sincerely cared about everyone. She was always a very nice person who developed close friendships precisely because she did care. But it didn’t mean she was in love with everyone.
He whirled on me and his voice became sharp. “No, that’s not the way it is. I know that when she comes back we can just talk for a while and then it will be her and me together.”
The plan seemed like a house of cards to me. After all, Suzanne left without even telling him. “Do you hear from her? Phone? Email? Anything?”
He calmed down a little and replied, “I texted her and she said she’d spoken with her publisher and was going out of the country for some research. She didn’t know when she’d be back, but that when she did she’d be in touch.”
“That’s what it said exactly?”
“Well, no, not exactly. Here, I have it.”
Samson showed me the text he’d received from Suzanne after she’d left. It said, < Talked w pub. Going mexico - research. Back soon. Will call u then. >
“That’s the only message you’ve had from her?” I asked.
“I’ve left a bunch of messages and texts, but she probably doesn’t have a good signal in Mexico.
I knew that Jessie had gotten some texts from Suzanne from Mexico, which indicated Suzanne could get a connection at least part of the time. This relationship between Samson and Suzanne seemed to be mostly in his mind. But mentioning that to him, wasn’t going to make him see the situation any more clearly.
“Samson, Lois is really concerned about you. Have you even thought about her?”
“I don’t want to hurt her.”
“You are hurting her every day by not talking honestly with her.”
“I don’t know what to do. I guess I’ll just confess everything to Lois and move out. Hey, maybe I could hire you to find Suzanne?”
“Samson, when Suzanne comes back to the United States, what if she doesn’t share your feelings?”
Samson looked like I’d thrown a bucket of water on him. He kind of woke up for a moment and gasped, but then he flickered back into his unrealistic world. He mumbled, “She said she cares about me.”
“How long do you plan to wait for Suzanne? How long are you going to leave Lois in the dark?”
“I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”
“I think you should be honest.”
“To Lois?”
“I was thinking more about being honest to yourself. Once you’re able to do that, then you need to talk to Lois.”
Chapter 12
Samson had promised he’d talk to Lois in a day or two, and I’d figured that it would be in Lois’s best interest if I let Samson talk to her, rather than telling her about Suzanne myself.
When I left Samson it was late lunchtime. I could go home for a dull nosh in my own kitchen or I could snag some fresh guacamole at La Casa Mexicana on 11th Street. Tortillas won out and I was on my way to molé.
La Mexicana Grill was bustling with a late lunch crowd. Mariana Estevez, the owner and family matriarch, was hard at work serving afternoon customers. She barely had a chance to wave to me as she sped by with a big tray. I not only got a little snack for myself, but I arranged for two large orders of fajitas to be delivered to the loft at dinnertime. We’d all be working on the drywall by then and would need the fuel.
Rafael told me at the cash register he’d call when he was about to bring the food over.
*******
It was nearly 3 p.m. when I got back to my office. In the parking lot in front of the building was Farrel’s full-sized van, two cars I didn’t recognize, and Kathryn’s little Mini Cooper.
I wanted to add a few quick notes to the Lois Henshaw file about my conversation with Samson. Maybe I should just get in touch with Suzanne Carbondale and ask her if she had any feelings for Samson. If she said “No,” I’d let him know that the grass wasn’t greener on the other side. He was living a fantasy, and Lois was the reality. I had a feeling that if Samson didn’t choose reality soon, he was going to have to move into that apartment with no furniture in order to have a place to live.
Nora was at her new desk working on some kind of billing list that looked very dull. She perked up when I came in.
“What have you been doing since I saw you last? Catching criminals? Thinking up drag names?
“Confidential things,” I smiled.
“Discretion is still the better part of valor.”
“Is Sara here?”
“In her office but...” Nora noted the flashing light on Sara’s extension. “She’s on the phone. Do you need to speak to her?”
“No, I was just wondering. Did Kathryn come by?”
“Dr. Anthony?” Nora’s voice dropped to a whisper and picked up two degrees of brogue. “She was by a wee bit ago. Very dressed up she was, said she’d have to change her clothes tae work wit Farrel an some mates muckin’ about upstairs and that it was faer chanking up there. I ken you’ll both be stowed oot the rest o’ the night. She wha swatchin for your ta come home.”
“Why are you talking like we’re in a pub in Glasgow?”
“Am I?”
“Aye,” I smiled.
“Well, em, I get a bit flustered, sometimes.”
“Kind of have a wee crush on her?”
“Just sussed that out, did ya? But dinna fas yersel.” Nora cleared her throat and laughed, stepping it down. “She seems to bring that out in some people.”
“Aye,” I said.
*******
“Lift it all the way to the ceiling. Push hard!” called Farrel, as I and one of her crew levered a horizontal sheet of drywall to the top of the wall frame. Farrel used her drill with the automatic screw-feed to tack the sheet into place. Then she and another crew member rapidly applied a line of screws to each edge, firmly attaching the whole sheet to the wall studs.
“Just three more sheets and we’ll be done with this wall and we can take a dinner break,” said Farrel.
Farrel and the crew had come in early and Kathryn had joined them. Three of the walls were just about done, but the last one, the one that had to fit arou
nd the open second floor, would take the longest. Kathryn, Jessie, and the other half of the young people in the crew were measuring and marking the irregular pieces that would go on that side.
I helped hold up the last two sheets, as Farrel and the others finished with the screws. When we were done, La Casa Mexicana called with the ETA on dinner.
“Rafael llegará en diez minutos,” said Mariana.
Everyone was happy to hear that and went to wash hands and dusty faces in the top floor bathroom.
Kathryn came down with me to the loft to set the long dining table with plates.
“You don’t realize how cold it is up there while you’re working. Oh! I’m covered with dust!” said Kathryn, stretching her arms over her head and yawning. She looked at her watch. “Just a few hours ago it was a skeleton and now it’s a room!”
She slipped her arms around me and gave me a dusty kiss and a hug that mixed joy with satisfaction. Her smile was so genuine I felt it too.
“Thank you for letting me do this!”
“We earned the money for it together. It’s working out well, isn’t it?” I asked.
“It’s... it’s very exciting,” Kathryn nodded.
“Kind of a turn-on for you?”
“Well yes, as a matter of fact,” she said in a low voice.
Jessie came down the big spiral staircase into the loft to help get drinks ready. She’d already set pitchers of iced tea in the fridge. We pulled some extra chairs around the table. We needed enough for the seven women and three men.
Farrel is always insistent that everyone dress safely for hard work. Long sleeves, long pants, hard hats if there’s any overhead work. Respirators for toxic dust. Hearing protection if there’s noise. Goggles. She’d even made Kathryn buy steel-toed shoes. Everyone in the room was wearing work boots and either denim overalls or jeans and flannel shirts. It looked like a cross between an Oshkosh commercial and an ad for the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.
“Is there going to be anything for me to eat?” I heard one of Farrel’s former students whisper.