by Joe Hart
“You’re a lunatic, you know that?” he said to the mirror as he closed his eyes in exasperation. “Seeing shit. Should call up the doc right now and get something—”
A sharp rapping from downstairs jerked his eyelids open, and he saw that his father stood behind him in the tub.
Lance cried out and turned, throwing a fist that connected with thin air. Nothing was there. No grinning face greeted him as he sank back onto the counter and stared at the space where moments before something had been.
The knocking came again from below, and Lance forced himself out of the bathroom like a man on a narrow ledge, never turning his back on the tub. His breath stuttered as he made his way down the stairs on legs that felt like taffy. He could see a figure in the window of the front door as he entered the foyer, and tried to compose himself the best he could as his heart beat against his ribs.
Mary smiled at him as he opened the door. The rain poured from the sky behind her, and her hair hung limp about her pretty face.
“Hi. What’s wrong?” she said, as she took in his pallid features and shaking hands.
Lance tried to breathe normally and felt a grimace pull at his mouth, as panic clung to his back and sank its talons into his lungs.
Mary blinked a few times, and then motioned him inside. “Let’s sit down.”
She led him to the kitchen and sat him in a chair near the counter. He fell into it, no longer able to stand, as she found a glass in the cupboard nearby and began to fill it with cold water. She handed it to him, and sat down across from him, worry etching lines in her brow. He drank and finished the water off in a few gulps. The rain drummed on the roof and distant thunder reverberated somewhere to the west.
“Tell me,” she said. The tone of her voice left no room for argument.
He slowly told her of his visit to John’s the night before after bolting in the middle of their date. The details came out in rough fashion, some of them getting jumbled along the way as he tried to recall everything the caretaker had told him about his grandparents and the subsequent guilt that the old man carried each day. He spoke of his visit to Riverside and the hollow woman who sat like a statue in her chair, only to move when she seemed sure that no one could hear her writing. He watched Mary’s eyes as he spoke the names. The wrinkling of her forehead told him all he needed to know. He ended with what he had seen in the upstairs bathroom, feeling with all his instincts that now she would leave. Any minute she would stand from her chair and tell him to stay away from her. But instead, she merely leaned back and threw a glance at the upstairs, as if trying to catch a glimpse of something that might have been eavesdropping. When she looked back at him, her eyes appraised him.
“You think I’m nuts,” he said, trying to read her expression.
A smile broke at the corners of her mouth. “Most definitely. We all are to some extent. I don’t think you’re any worse off than the rest of us.”
Lance frowned. “I see my dead father—twice, mind you—proceed to tell you about my screwed-up childhood, and then reveal the fact that I’m living, without knowing it, in the house my grandfather built, and you don’t think I’m crazier than a shithouse mouse?”
Mary just shook her head, looking at him. Lance leaned back in his chair.
“Maybe you’re the crazy one,” he said. Mary burst out laughing and playfully swatted at him from across the counter. Lance just rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
Mary reached across the distance between them and put a warm hand on his forearm. “Look, there’s obviously something going on here. You were just drawn to this place by chance? I don’t think so.” He remained silent, weighing whether he should tell her about his writer’s block or not. “Furthermore,” she continued, “you’re too logical and even-keeled to be crazy. I’ve seen insanity before, and you aren’t it.”
“You don’t know me.” The words came out harder than he had meant them to. He blinked and pursed his lips together, about to apologize.
“You’re right, I don’t. But last night on the beach you said things that made more sense to me than anything I’ve heard in a long time.”
He looked at her luminous green eyes in the gray light of the kitchen, as thunder rolled over their heads again. She held his gaze, searching his face and daring him to look away first. After a moment he did, feeling more of the wall inside him crumble.
“Then what do you think is happening to me?” he finally said.
“I don’t know.”
Lance shifted in his seat. “You know that name, though, don’t you? Rhinelander?” He watched her expression, and the same furrows again appeared on her forehead.
“Yes,” she said after a moment. “I do. But there’s someone else who knows a whole lot more.”
The historical society building could have been a lawyer’s office or even a trinket shop, as nondescript as it appeared. Its squat two-story shape blended in well with the rest of the block. A small sign over the single door gave away its identity, and Lance read it out loud as he pulled to a stop in an empty parking space.
“Lake County Historical Society.”
Mary unbuckled her seatbelt and grasped the door handle. “Harold’s been running it forever.”
“Forever’s a long time,” Lance said, half grinning at her.
Mary just rolled her eyes and stepped onto the street. The storm still hovered over them and the rain hadn’t let up. They ran to the doorway of the building and pushed their way inside.
The interior opened to the second floor in an airy manner that surprised Lance; the ceilings hanging above them were adorned with all manner of artifacts from the local area. Lance spied a model airplane almost three feet long, a large bone that could’ve only come from a dinosaur’s leg, and a mannequin floating like a specter wearing a hand-sewn dress, but missing its head, arms, and legs. The rest of the building held table upon table of photo albums, bookshelves pressed against the walls, and a few locked glass cases holding treasures too small for Lance to see clearly.
They had just begun to make their way between two tables when they heard a door close off to their left, and Harold’s small form wound its way toward them. Mary had called him as they drove into town and explained why they needed to meet him here. She left out the portions of the story that painted Lance in a portrait of insanity, and he had thanked her with his eyes as she spoke.
“Good to see you, Lance!” Harold exclaimed as he stepped up to them and grasped Lance’s hand in his own. “So sorry for last night. Not the best way to find out about your family tree, and to think you found the place without knowing. It’s just amazing.” The older man shook his head in disbelief and shrugged his thin shoulders in his large buttoned sweater.
“Thanks for meeting us here,” Lance said, as Harold led them farther into the building. “I’m guessing you’re not normally open on Sundays.”
Harold swatted his hand at the comment like it was a buzzing insect. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I wasn’t doing anything anyway, much to the chagrin of Josie. Happy to help you out.”
Harold opened a swinging door to a small kitchen. A narrow table had been set up with three chairs around it, and Lance could smell coffee brewing.
“Sit down and I’ll pour us a cup,” Harold said, as Lance and Mary pulled two of the chairs close to the table and sat.
After a moment, Harold returned holding a platter with three mugs of steaming coffee and a few tea cakes resting between them. The cakes looked like dried-up Ping-Pong balls. They sat for a while in silence, sipping the coffee and listening to the distant patter of the rain.
Harold motioned to the platter. “Help yourself.” Neither Lance nor Mary made a move for the cakes, and Harold sighed. “Yeah, they taste like shit. Josie makes them, so I bring them here to be polite. She thinks I love them.” Lance raised his eyebrows at Mary and she laughed into her hand. “So, what did you want to know, my boy? Mary mentioned you never knew your grandfather at all.”
Lance nodded. “My family
wasn’t very close and I grew up near the cities, so …” Lance trailed off.
Harold had his eyes shut with a knowing look on his face. “Say no more, my boy. Sounds very familiar. I came from a family that didn’t talk—they yelled. And with what happened up there at the house, who could blame your father for not telling you. I suppose he wanted to protect you from something hurtful like that.”
Lance couldn’t help but huff a cynical laugh. Harold looked at him, and then at Mary. Lance just shook his head, and the older man shrugged and sipped his coffee.
“Sorry, I’m guessing you didn’t know my father. I think if he knew it would’ve hurt me, he would’ve told me. Anyhow, I guess I’d like to know about Erwin’s murder. John filled me in on the earlier history, but he was a little vague with the details about what actually happened up there.”
Harold sipped at his coffee again and then set it on the table before crossing his bony arms over his slight chest.
“History is nasty business sometimes. The thing that people forget is that when something happens, it doesn’t just die and fade away. Not anymore. Maybe a few thousand years ago it would’ve, but not now. No, there are people like me who remember everything. That’s what I was made to do: collect, categorize, and remember when others can’t or won’t.” Harold looked out of a nearby window and watched the sheets of rain cascade into the alley behind the building, his eyes lost in thought.
Finally he looked back to Lance, and then dropped his eyes to the table. “Aaron Haff. I remember the day that he walked in here. Good-looking man. Dark hair, strong build. Couldn’t really tell his age. He moved like a young man, but when you got up close, you realized his eyes were old, like he’d been through more than his mind could handle and it pushed him past his years. Jocelyn was working here with me then. She was all of twenty-five, and God, was she pretty.” Harold paused and looked at Lance. He must have read the expression on the younger man’s face. “My daughter. I could see right away they were taken with each other. That Aaron, his whole demeanor changed when she walked out of the back.” Harold leaned forward and rapped his knuckles on the wood of the table. “But I could’ve swore it was sincere. As much as I didn’t know that man, he was polite and courteous in a way that disarmed you. Jocelyn showed him around that day, and the last thing I heard him ask her was if she’d like to get a drink with him.”
“John said that he asked questions about Erwin when he arrived. Was Jocelyn the one who told him what he wanted to know?” Lance asked.
Harold rubbed his arms through his sweater as if he were cold. “I’m afraid so. He rented a room at the hotel here in town and came in almost every day of the week. I overheard him asking Josie one afternoon if she knew what part of Germany the Metzgers had come from. No one really knew that, not around here anyway.” Harold swallowed and frowned, the memory darkening his eyes.
Lance leaned forward toward the older man. “What happened at the end of the week?”
Harold grimaced as if the coffee had turned sour. “He came in here that day. He was talking to Jocelyn in the front of the museum area, right by the door. I heard her say ‘Why?’ a little too loud for regular conversation, so I peeked around the edge of an exhibit we had set up near the back of the shop. That Aaron was holding her hands in front of him like a soldier about to go off to war. I could see she was crying, and I was about to step out and ask if everything was all right when he just let go of her and walked out the door. She watched him go through the window.
“It was raining like this that day. We heard the sirens around one in the afternoon. The cars blazed right through town and kept going. None of us had the foggiest about what was happening. It was only later when a neighbor of mine came in, whose brother was a sheriff’s deputy, that we found out. From what he said, Aaron drove right up to the house and parked outside. Walked up to the front door and kicked it in. Erwin and Annette were in the living room watching the lake, and Erwin came out to meet him just next to the stairs there. After that, it gets a little hazy, and all the sheriff had to go off of was the ballistics report. Apparently, Aaron made Erwin kneel down before him, put the gun to his head, and pulled the trigger. Annette saw the whole thing.”
Harold shook his head in dismay, his color paling. “As far as I know, she’s never spoken again. I asked Jocelyn what he’d asked her during that week, and she’d just said normal questions about the Metzgers: what their business was, who knew them in town, what they were like. When I asked her what he’d said to her that day before he left to go kill your grandfather, she got real quiet. I had to pester her a little, until she finally told me he’d just come to say goodbye and that he was sorry.”
“Sorry?” Lance asked.
“Yes. That he was sorry he’d met her when he did. At the time she didn’t know what to think. Afterwards, she slowly closed herself off. You see, a few people had seen them out together having a drink and, well, you know how small towns are.”
Lance nodded. Harold sipped his coffee again before he continued.
“She moved away a month after Erwin was killed, just up and gone one day. Didn’t call Josie or me until nearly a week later, and we worried ourselves sick while we waited. She just said she couldn’t live here after what happened, couldn’t stand to look people in the face. I told her it was nonsense, that she should come home, but she wouldn’t have it. She felt responsible on some level, telling Aaron what she did without knowing what he was planning. I think she felt so betrayed, also, that the thought of setting foot back here again was like tearing an old scar open.”
“If you gave me her number, do you think she would talk with me? I’d just like to know a little …” Lance trailed off as Mary’s hand squeezed his arm, and when he looked at her, her head shook from side to side.
“I’m sorry, but she passed away a little over a year after she left home,” Harold said, his voice breaking like dry kindling. “She fell asleep at the wheel of her car one night. We’d visited her a few times just before it happened. She finally told us where she’d gone—a little town in northern Iowa, just across the border. We had the funeral there too. We figured she wouldn’t have wanted to come home.” Tears leaked from the corners of Harold’s eyes; the sound that might have gone with them had dried up over the years. All that remained was the man’s memory of his daughter and the unavoidable grief that it brought.
“God, I’m so sorry,” Lance said, but Harold sniffled once and shook his head.
“It’s okay. I just loved her so much, it’s still hard to believe she’s been gone for over thirty years.”
The room fell silent in the wake of the older man’s words. The rain tapped against the window, asking to be let in, and receding thunder grumbled at the tossing waves of the lake.
After several minutes, Harold cleared his throat and took his glasses off to be polished repetitively by a practiced hand. “Mary said you wanted to know about something else too? Rhinelander, was it?”
Lance nodded, trying to shake off the guilt he felt for making the other man expound on his daughter’s death. “Yes. I heard someone say that he was a missing person?” Lance tried to sound casual, not wanting to delve into the details of his visit to Riverside.
“Gerald Rhinelander. Yes, that was a mystery.” Harold stood from his chair, motioning for them to follow.
They left their coffee on the table and walked after the older man as he zigged and zagged through the interconnecting paths of relics. Lance marveled at how quiet the building seemed. How still. Perhaps it was the passage of time suspended in increments everywhere he looked. The bottling of history all in one place instead of evenly spread out.
Harold came to a stop before a table with several leather-bound albums on its surface. He selected one from the rear of the table, a coat of dust layering its dark cover. He turned and flipped it open, squinting as he turned the stiff pages.
“Gerald Rhinelander was a young man who lived in this area back in the late sixties. Worked for your grandfa
ther’s shipping company, actually, now that I think about it. He disappeared on the eighth of October, 1968. He was supposed to meet his ex-wife for dinner that night but never showed. She reported him missing the next day when she went to his house and didn’t see his car or any sign of him. The police finally went into his place when he didn’t turn up after a few days. Nothing seemed out of place. Actually, his wallet was still there.”
Harold flipped another page and then nodded, turning the album so Lance and Mary could read the clipped, faded article plastered beneath the clear plastic that held it in place. Lance read the brief report, no more than a blurb about Gerald’s disappearance, and searched for something that he would recognize within the print. Nothing jumped out at him, and Mary shook her head too, reading his thoughts.
“So did they ever find anything? Any leads or reasons for the disappearance?” Mary asked, handing the album back to Harold, who closed it and set it back in its place on the table.
“No, not really. Apparently they interviewed a few of his fellow workers and his supervisor, but everything came up a dead end. Some people said suicide, but that didn’t ring true either. That was why it was such a mystery. Why would a young man, in the prime of his life, suddenly up and leave a decent job, his home, and an ex-wife that he was trying to rekindle a relationship with? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Why was he meeting his ex-wife? Were there children involved?” Lance asked.
“No, no children. From what I heard, he and his ex were merely trying to make amends. They had gotten married young and divorced young, but still lived in the same town. They were having dinner that night as a first date, so to speak.”
Lance frowned. Rhinelander didn’t seem to be anything other than a repeated name on his grandmother’s crossword. Perhaps she’d met him and he’d made an impression on her, since he had worked for his grandfather’s company. Maybe the name somehow seemed important to the torn rigging of her mind and she couldn’t get past the letters she wrote down each time she had pencil and paper.