Emily McMahon lived in a bungalow in the stolidly working-class section of Brookline, a virtual garden of Eden compared to the last Boston neighborhood I visited. Each house on the immaculate block was nearly identical to its neighbor, with the exception of different shades of paint or more imaginative lawn ornaments. I headed up the walk to the tidy brick residence, where five lonely tulips sprouted in a small patch of garden beneath the picture window, carrying a six-pack of Old City beer. It had cost me all of two dollars and sixty-eight cents, increasing my fondness for Emily McMahon and lessening my suspicions that the old gal might be a hustler.
My ring of the doorbell was answered promptly, telling me that either my arrival or that of the six-pack had been eagerly anticipated. The woman who stood before me was quite unlike the one I had pictured in my mind’s eye. Instead of a bloated dipsomaniac in stretch pants, she was a tiny bit of a thing with thinning silver hair, stooped at the shoulders from osteoporosis. Her print dress was faded and her blue cardigan threadbare at the elbows, but her withered cheeks glowed with a fresh dab of powdered rouge applied for the benefit of her visitor, I’m sure. Small eyes of an indistinguishable color peeked at me from behind a pair of heavy eyeglasses that gave her an owl-like appearance.
“Mrs. McMahon—” Before I could introduce myself she had the screen door open and was waving me over the threshold with surprising energy.
“It’s Emily, deah. Come in, come in.” She quickly relieved me of the six-pack. “Didn’t have any trouble finding the place, did you now?”
“Your directions were excellent,” I replied. I glanced around the small living room. The shopworn sofa and chairs were dressed with lace doilies and a plastic flower arrangement adorned the coffee table. At the far end of the room, an inexpensive bookshelf displayed photos and trinkets, and a crucifix hung over the light switch at the base of the stairs. Though the room was spotless, the smell of cooking lent it a slightly grimy feel. Emily invited me to take a seat on the sofa while she went into the kitchen. I did so, settling into a groove I suspected dated back to Mr. McMahon.
She returned with some saltine crackers on a china plate and two cut glass tumblers that I could only assume were reserved for special occasions. Apologizing for not having more to offer, she explained again that she hadn’t been to the store lately. Despite her knobby, arthritic-looking joints, she effortlessly opened two cans of the Old City and placed one on the coffee table in front of me along with one of the tumblers. I poured some of the amber liquid into my glass. It had an offensive smell not unlike that of a cheap cigar.
Mrs. McMahon filled her own glass and drank from it with a relish that belied her size and age.
“Ah, that’s good now, isn’t it?” she said. “Sometimes nothing’s finah in the world than a good cold beah.”
I nodded in agreement and forced a smile. We chatted politely for a while about the spring weather and Boston politics before my hostess actually brought up the reason for my visit.
“So you’re looking for Moira Kehoe, ah ya?”
“Yes. A man died in Chicago who may or may not have been her son. I’m hoping she can identify him, if she’s still alive.”
“And if you don’t mind my askin’, what’s your intahrest in it, deah?”
“He was my friend.”
“There wouldn’t be any money involved, would there?” She asked the question in a manner that told me she was suspicious of me.
“I’m afraid there isn’t even enough to cover his funeral expenses.”
“Aw, that’s a shame.” She fell silent and put a knobby finger to her lip as if she was sorting things out in her mind. I remained quiet and watched her. Then, as if she had finally justified what she was about to say, she began telling me about Daniel Kehoe’s mother. “Well, just like I said on the phone, Moira was my late husband’s first cousin. As I recall it, she came over from Ireland after her mothah died, that would be my Kevin’s mothah’s sistah. She was a beautiful young thing with thick black heyah and black eyes and skin like…oh…like creamery buttah.
“Kevin and me, we were already married at the time and out on our own, I think we’d already had Margaret Mary as a matter of fact, but anyhow, Moira stayed in Kevin’s family house along with Kevin’s folks and his six brothahs and sistahs. They let her sleep on the couch in the living room. Then she found a job. And it was a good one. A live-in situation up at the Baincock Mansion in the fancy section of town. Everybody agreed it was a great opportunity for a young girl like her, just off the boat and all, to work for such rich people, living in their home, eating their food. She even had a private room in the servants’ quartahs. To a gull like Moira that was more luxury than she’d ever seen in her life. She probably never had a bed to herself in Ireland much less a room. Her people were dirt poah, and everybody had to shayah.
“But the shame of it all, not a few months into the job she went and got herself in the family way,” Emily said, still appalled at the thought after so many years. “Poah girl managed to hide it for a while, but when it was discovered, she was thrown off the job. So was the fathah, one of the gardenahs at the place by-the-by. Patrick Kehoe—another one straight off the boat. He did right by her though. He married her, though Lord knows why they hadn’t gotten married before. Probably could have saved them both their positions.”
“And did they remain in Boston?” I asked.
“I’m getting there,” she said, letting me know in no uncertain terms that this was her story. She took a drink from the cut glass tumbler and followed it with a mild, closed-mouth belch. “Excuse me, deah. Constitution isn’t what it used to be. Anyhow, Moira and Patrick were poah as anything, neithah one working and Moira going to have a baby and all. I tell you, though, that Patrick was quite a scrappah with a tempah to match his red hayah. He fought in neighborhood bouts to make a few cents until he could find work. Still hadn’t found work when the baby came along, so Moira had to give birth at Mercy, the indigents’ hospital.
“Little Daniel was a tiny sickly thing from the very first, but, oh, that Moira loved him something fierce. None of us thought he’d make it, though. He was always coming up sick and needin’ doctahs they couldn’t afford. She would sit up all night with that baby, caring for him. But he was always needing medical care, and it got so they were constantly hitting up family for money.
“Then Patrick found a job with the T and things were all right for a while. They could get medicine for Danny and all. But Patrick had that terrible tempah and got himself into a fight with his supervisah and was fired. Now just about that time Daniel got the rheumatoid. This time we thought he was really going to die. But when Moira came to Kevin’s family for money again, they turned her down. They’d never gotten over the scandal of her pregnancy, after being so good to her and all, and well, there was always some whispering over whethah or not Patrick was really the fathah. And Kevin’s family wasn’t exactly rolling in money themselves. They had expenses of their own, and didn’t want to support a man who couldn’t hold down a job because of his tempah.
“Danny survived, but just barely, and Patrick, not taking too kindly to people second guessing his relationship with the baby, packed ’em all up and moved away. That was the last we evah heard of them. I haven’t seen hide nor heyah of Moira since the day they left and that was well ovah fifty years ago. They were both angry at the way they had been treated, how nobody came to their help. I guess that was their way of letting everybody know it.”
“Do you know where they moved to?” I asked nearly frantic, afraid I might have reached another dead end.
“Well, before they left, Moira did tell Kevin’s sistah Maureen that Patrick had heard of work in Rochestah, New York, with the transit authority there. I’d imagine that’s where they went though I couldn’t say for shuh.”
Emily finished her last sip of beer, savoring it fully. She looked at my still-full glass. “You don’t like beah?” she asked incredulously.
Fearful of harming the sacr
ed cow, I fibbed. “I do, but I’m afraid I have a bit of a sour stomach today and can’t drink much. My apologies if it seems ungracious.”
“You aren’t going to touch that?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Do you mind?” She gestured toward my glass and I handed it to her. She gave the rim a quick swipe with the sleeve of her cardigan, and took a healthy drink.
“And no one heard from the Kehoe family after that?” I asked, hoping to put the subject back on track.
“Nope, no one. To tell the truth, I used to think about them from time to time, especially with the little boy Daniel, so sickly and all. It wouldn’t have surprised me to heah he nevah made it to adulthood.”
I recalled how horribly discolored Ethan’s teeth were and wondered if that could have been a result of rheumatoid fever as a child. I took out my Valentine’s Day photo of Ethan and showed it to Mrs. McMahon.
“If he did make it to adulthood, could this possibly be him?”
She took it in her hand and stared at it long and hard through the thick glasses before looking back at me with a furrowed brow. “I couldn’t tell you for certain. You know he was just a baby and all. Maybe I see a little of Moira around the eyes. Moira had dark piecing eyes. But she was so terribly pretty, and this man…seems he was hiding behind the door when the good Lord was handin’ out looks.” She returned the photo to me. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you, deah.”
My frustration mounted as I put the picture back in my purse. My visit with Emily McMahon had been another dead end after all. Yes, she had verified that Daniel Kehoe had been born to Moira McMahon and Patrick Kehoe, but I already knew that. A copy of an old birth certificate told me that. And she had told me the story of his entry into this world. But it still brought me no further in knowing if he was the man who had been my friend.
With the purpose of my visit over, I thanked the elderly woman and stood to go. She took my arm in a surprisingly firm grip and walked me the few steps across the living room. When we reached the door, she continued to hold on as if she were reluctant to let me go.
“This has been such a treat,” she said with a full-dentured smile. “Thank you for the beah. My prescriptions run me so much, there nevah seems to be anything left over for luxuries.”
“You’re most welcome, Emily,” I replied, mortified that a three-dollar six-pack was outside her budget and that she considered it a luxury. And in another way I found myself deeply moved how sometimes the simplest things could bring joy. “I’ll let you know what I learn.”
Her grip remained firm. I was trying to politely extricate myself from her grasp without upsetting her when she said something that stopped me in my tracks. “You know, you’re not the first person to come around asking aftah Danny Kehoe.”
“I’m not?”
“No.” Her eyes grew wider beneath the glasses as she stared into mine. “It was a couple of years ago. There were three men who came in the space of a month asking after Danny just like you are now. They wanted to know if I knew where he was or leastwise, where they might find the family. The first man who came was a real gentleman. He had a disfigurement though, the poah fellow. Couldn’t seem to control his right arm. I liked him right from the start. Brought me two six-packs. Said Daniel had won a prize. Something of value, he said. I told him what I told you, that all I knew was the family might’ve gone to Rochester.
“Then two more men came about three weeks later. Young know-it-all kinds. Real fast talkers, if you know what I mean. They said they were from the government, but I didn’t believe them. Their clothes were too nice. I didn’t tell them a thing, not even about Rochester.”
“Have you heard from any of them since?” I asked.
“Not a peep.”
“That’s curious, isn’t it?” I said.
I left Emily McMahon waving at me from her doorway with four cans of beer in her refrigerator for company that night. As for me, the entire drive back was spent wondering who those men were and where they fit in the picture. If they had succeeded in their search for Daniel Kehoe maybe they’d have some answers for me.
Back at the hotel, I contemplated my next step. If I were to continue on my odyssey, the obvious thing would be to go to Rochester. But I must confess, aside from knowing that Rochester was in upstate New York, I had no idea where it was in relation to Boston. I called down to the concierge and requested a map of New York State. It arrived at my room so promptly, I tipped the young woman who brought it up a dollar.
Spreading the map out on the desk, I quickly located Rochester near Lake Ontario, hundreds of miles from Boston. That would mean a five-or six-hour drive in a rental car. Or another plane flight. And when I got to Rochester, what then? Another hotel room and another phone book? Ethan had never even mentioned Rochester in passing. I simply couldn’t see it as his home.
My enthusiasm was waning. I had already invested far too much of my time and limited funds in this inane quest, and to what end? Was it to appease my ego or my curiosity? In reality, did it make a difference who Ethan really was or how he would be remembered? To hell with what others thought of him or me, I decided. Ethan had been a good friend to me and I to him and that was that. I was going home and after the body was released, I was going pay whatever it cost to bury him and be finished with it.
I was tired of traveling. I was tired of phone books. And most of all, I was tired of old people.
My mind made up to return to Chicago on the morrow, I taxied to the historical North End of Boston to have some dinner. After meandering down the tight winding streets, I found the charming restaurant where Henry and I had dined on that last trip. It was near the Old North Church where Grandmother claimed one of her ancestors had lit the crucial lantern that warned the townspeople of the approaching British. I enjoyed my solitary meal there, lobster again—what else in Boston—and washed it down with a half bottle of Puligny-Montrachet. Having come to terms with my decision to give up, I returned to the hotel and was packing my things when the phone rang. I picked it up and was irritated upon hearing the sound of Sean’s voice.
“Are you sorry that I’m not there to turn down the bed?” he asked.
“Where are you?” I demanded somewhat brusquely. An eerie sense had come over me that he had followed me to Boston and was down in the lobby.
“I’m at home. Chill, Pauline. Why are you jumping down my fucking throat?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, less than honestly. “I’ve had a devil of a trip.”
“Have you learned anything about Ethan?”
“Nothing of any value,” I replied. Then my own words caused me stop. I flashed back to Emily McMahon telling me about her visitors. One of them told her Daniel had won a prize. Something of value. If this were true, and Ethan was Daniel, perhaps there was something of value to be retrieved—maybe even enough to bury him. Suddenly Chicago was not my destination in the morning after all.
“So are you going to stop banging your head against the wall and come home?” he asked.
“No. I’m afraid I’m going to bang it even harder. Tomorrow, I go to Rochester.”
My cat was going to hate me for this.
At the check-out counter the next morning, I nearly had a heart attack upon seeing the telephone charges incurred during my stay. They far and away exceeded the cost of the room and room service combined. The first credit card I tried to pay with was declined, so I used one of my other bloated cards and drove back to Logan where I returned the rental car.
Soon after charging yet another airline ticket, I was on a commuter to Rochester.
15
The Crotch
I’ll say it straight out, Rochester is an industrial and gritty city. If there are beautiful sections they are outlying, at least that’s where the people with all the money live, and from what I understand there is quite a bit of it around because of local industry. But the people with the money are smart and spend as little time in Rochester proper as possible—m
y goal the moment I arrived there. Not only did I find it depressing, it was one of the rare cities where I didn’t have a single connection.
Conscious of my mounting travel expenses, I took the complimentary airport shuttle to the downtown Hyatt. Sharing the van with me were three girls and a young man. The girls were members of a wedding party who couldn’t stop talking about the single status of the groom’s best man. The young man had jet black hair slicked back off his face like patent leather and wore a business suit. Our driver was a rotund, rather jovial man wearing a name tag that read ZEKE.
On the drive into downtown Rochester, Zeke enlightened us with enthralling tidbits about the city. We learned that the population was approximately a quarter of a million people, that it was New York’s third-largest city, and that it had earned the nickname “The Crotch,” because it straddled the Genessee River all the way to Lake Ontario.
By the time we crossed the slow-moving waters of the sulky river, I had basically tuned him out until he dropped a nugget that caused me to sit up and listen. He was talking about George Eastman and the little company he had started there, reminding us that Eastman Kodak’s headquarters remained in Rochester. I recalled Ethan’s claim that one of the Eastmans was his godfather, the same claim Connie Chan refuted in her article.
An indescribable otherworldly sensation crawled up my spine. Did that claim have its origins in this city?
I checked in, this time settling for a standard double, and went directly to my room, not bothering to unpack. I had no peers to visit, and besides, there was no way I intended on spending more than one night in anyplace nicknamed “The Crotch.” Plopping down on the bed with the phone book, I resumed my mission by turning to K for Kehoe. Thankfully, from both a patience and pocketbook standpoint, there were only a few listed. In the space of a half hour I had exhausted the entire supply and none of them had ever known a Patrick, Moira, or Daniel who had fled there from Boston.
Well Bred and Dead Page 15