by Doug Burgess
What if it’s all one story?
Wait, what? I think I must be falling asleep, because it suddenly seems absurdly simple: Emma, Marcus, her money, his yacht, and poor old Wally sailing between them like the ferryman on the River Styx. All one story. Yes, of course it is. Because this is Little Compton, and nothing ever happens here. If everything is happening at once, it must all be connected. I don’t know whether this is genius or delirium tremens. What would Hercule Poirot do? Think logically, little gray cells. Start at the beginning. What happened first? Marcus Rhinegold arrived in the harbor.
No, that’s not right. First Emma Godfrey fell in love and had a child, Arabella. Start with that. She left the child and came back. Teddy Johnson wrote to her but never returned. She grew old. She died. And Marcus Rhinegold, alias Kevin Wales, came to Little Compton. Again, not quite right. Marcus came before she died—in fact, just before. At her funeral he stood too close to the grave. Which would make sense if he was in some way…
Oh. I guess it was genius, after all. Évidement!
Now I’ve got the phone in my hands, and I’m frantically dialing. It rings and rings and rings. No one is picking up at Irene’s. I call Aunt Constance. Ring, ring, ring, nothing. The shop, same thing. I can feel a panic attack coming on. It’s after eleven; where the hell are they? My fevered mind instantly conjures up all kinds of scenarios: a car flipped over in a ditch; Aunt Irene lying broken and twisted at the bottom of her stairs; a sudden, sharp pain in Constance’s right arm that travels to her heart. Stop it. They’re old; they’re probably asleep in bed. There’s only one number left for me to call. “This is Chief Bill Dyer,” his voicemail informs me. “I am unable to answer my phone at the moment. Please leave a message.”
“Billy? It’s David. Look, I’m sorry to call so late, and I don’t want to get you in trouble with Debbie…”
“David?” Billy’s voice breaks in, hoarse and concerned.
“Oh, damn,” I whisper under my breath. “Hey, I’m really sorry to bother you, but I think I might have come up with something. Something important. The two crimes are connected. Well, that is, Marcus’s disappearance may be connected to Emma’s will, which isn’t exactly a crime, but you were right, she was definitely murdered…”
“Huh? What? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
I realize I’m gabbling into the phone. Deep breath, start again. “Billy,” I say slowly, “Marcus Rhinegold was Kevin Wales. Wales. And Emma Godfrey had a daughter named Arabella Johnson. Get it: Johnson and Wales.”
A long pause. “Debbie’s in the other room,” Billy informs me. “And I gotta get up at five tomorrow. Whatever this is, can this wait?”
Probably, but it’s too late now. “I think Arabella had a son, and I think it was Marcus. Billy, what if Marcus Rhinegold is Emma’s grandson?”
I can hear Debbie in the background. “It’s her, isn’t it?” No, Debbie. It’s a him now. But then Billy’s voice comes down the wire, interested. “That would be something, all right. Got any proof?”
“Just the two names. And Mr. Perkins thinks Arabella had a child in 1982, which would be just about Marcus’s age. The child was born in Bensonhurst, Irene said, and Marcus himself told me that’s where his orphanage was. It would explain everything. Why would a man on the run from the mob come to Little Compton? It never made sense. But if he had a rich, old Grandma who could be ushered into the next world…”
“But we still don’t have any proof he was her grandson,” Billy objects. “And even if he were, how did he know about her will? Or her fortune? There’s too many loose ends there.”
“Sure,” I agree. “But look at it like this. Let’s say he did know. And his money was running out. So he comes to Little Compton, makes a big splash as Marcus Rhinegold, waits for her to peg out. But she’s a tough old lady. Could last another ten years. So…a fortunate accident.”
I can hear him writing. Suddenly he stops. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he tells me.
“Which part?”
“Any of it. If he came here to cash in on her death, he’d have to reveal himself after the funeral. Which would instantly make her death look very suspicious.”
“He might have killed her, got scared, and taken off,” I offer. “That would explain why he vanished.”
“Without the fortune but with his skin? Yeah, I suppose it’s possible. Still pretty thin, though.”
I know he’s right, but the idea is too good to give up. “Can you just check to see if he’s her grandson? There’s gotta be a DNA test for that.”
He thinks for a minute. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that. We got some of his hair off a hairbrush in the wife’s car. That should be enough.”
“You’ll do what? What are you gonna do? Are you seeing that THING again?”
“I gotta go,” Billy says abruptly and hangs up.
I’m wired now. The “thing” goes into the kitchen to make some eggs. The Hired Help is now amusing itself by swinging the overhead light gently back and forth.
“If you get the chance,” I say to it, “would you mind asking Aunt Emma if she was murdered?”
The light abruptly goes still. It’s an answer, but I’m not sure to what.
Chapter Ten
The excitement of discovering a body and a missing heir on the same day is not the sort that can be sustained for long. Laws of equilibrium require any such event be followed by a long period of torpor. On Thursday, my EBT card arrives, a reminder that I am not, after all, a budding detective, but an unemployed adjunct professor living on the charity of the state of Rhode Island. I celebrate by taking Grandma out for hot dogs and clam cakes. We get home in time to watch Jimmy Fallon, whom Grandma loves because she thinks he’s Red Skelton.
On Saturday I coax the ancient red Corolla across the Mount Hope Bridge into Providence, watch a Meryl Streep movie at the mall, and wander around downtown for a few hours. It hasn’t changed much; it never does. For a few drunken years in the nineties, Providence was going to be the next Cape Cod. They flooded the Water Street ditch and turned it into a Venetian canal, complete with flickering torches and gondoliers. Some big chain bought the old Masonic lodge on Park and reopened it as a boutique hotel. The mayor launched his own line of spaghetti sauce. Then the economy tanked, the hotels left, and the mayor went to jail for racketeering. The city is like a bud that just barely opened before frost set in. Now half the buildings stand empty, and the carefully restored facades along Weybosset Street have begun to chip and flake. The canal looks like an abandoned amusement park ride. A couple of shrouded gondolas rock dismally at the sidings.
This is all making me feel my age. I used to find it funny when Grandma and her friends got hopelessly snarled on the name of some restaurant or department store that had been out of business for thirty years. Now I know how they felt. To remember is to call the thing back into life, however falsely, however fleetingly. They agonized over Tilden Thurber and Roscoe’s Deli because if they didn’t, if they allowed those places to disappear into history, it would be as if that part of themselves was gone too. Staring at blank stretch of windows on Westminster Avenue I say to myself, That’s where the old Providence Savings and Loan used to be, and the thought makes me indescribably sad.
The phone buzzes in my pocket. “You were right,” Billy tells me without preamble. “The DNA checks out. Marcus was Emma Godfrey’s grandson.”
“Jesus.”
“That’s not all. As soon as we told the FBI, they turned right round and said they already knew. Typical. We have to give them whatever we find, but they don’t give us shit. Anyway, it turns out Marcus hired a private detective agency in Somerville to find his long-lost granny. That was over a year ago. They found her, and one month later Marcus arrived in Little Compton.”
“I wonder how he even knew to look for her?”
“Dunno. Maybe his mother said something before she d
ied? He told you the truth about that orphanage, by the way. FBI confirmed that too. But he was only there for a couple years.” He pauses for a moment. “Nice work.”
I laugh. “Thanks, Billy. Does this mean I get to be your deputy?”
He coughs elaborately. “Anyway, you should also know that RIPD reopened Emma Godfrey’s death. They’re looking at it as a homicide now.”
“With Marcus as chief suspect?”
“Sure. He’s not just a missing person anymore. He’s a fugitive.”
I feel a brief tang of pity, and then wonder at my own mixed-up emotions. Do I actually feel sorry for the man that might have killed Aunt Emma? What a strange world this is becoming. “Thanks for telling me, Billy. I really appreciate it. I hope I didn’t cause too much trouble with you and Debbie.”
There’s a long silence. “It’s okay,” he says finally and hangs up.
My next call is to New England Wrecking and Salvage. Aunt Constance answers the phone with a gruff bark, like I’ve interrupted her lunch. “I just talked to Billy,” I tell her. “He says—”
“I know,” she snaps. “Marcus was her grandson. Whoop-dee-frigging-doo.”
“How did you know?” I gasp.
“You’re not the only one with friends down at the station. Can’t say I’m surprised, though.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Never made sense, him coming to Little Compton. And I saw the resemblance right away. Irene did too.”
“Damn,” I whisper. “So you knew?”
“Of course not. Don’t be stupid. We just thought he looked kinda familiar. Never put the two together; why would we? For all we knew, Emma never had kids, much less grandkids.”
“Do you think he ever talked to Emma?”
“I’m sure he didn’t.” Constance was positive. “She would’ve told us. And even so, I could have known just by looking at her that something was up. My guess is he didn’t want to reveal himself till after she croaked.”
“So you think he might have…hurried her along?”
The phone whistles with static for about half a minute. “Could be,” she admits finally. “But I still think they’re turning up a mare’s nest with that one. If he bashed her head in, why would he take off before he could collect the inheritance?”
Another voice chimes in from the background. Constance puts her hand over the receiver, but I can hear her say irritably, “Irene, what the hell are you bothering me with that for? Ask him yourself.” More inaudible twittering, of a more determined nature. Finally Constance comes back on the line. “Irene wants to know if you’ve had lunch,” she repeats in a flat tone.
I chuckle and assure her I have. Sustained chatter now. “Oh, for God’s sake… She wants to know what you ate.”
“Tuna sandwich.” Feeling this might not be adequate, I add, “With chips and a Coke.”
“Oh. Okay. We’ll bring dinner over tonight.” And she rings off without another word.
I can’t help but smile. Was it just moments ago I was lamenting how everything was slipping away? Providence may be a ghost of what it was, and Little Compton may be rife with homicide, but when it comes to the Laughing Sarahs, some things never change.
* * *
The days are shorter now; the sun makes a brief pass over the harbor and is gone before I’ve picked up the mail. One Monday morning, it seems unusually bright, and I look outside to find the yard covered with a glittering frost. The Karabandis drape their sign in colored lights, put out a tray of handmade ornaments, and play Bing Crosby for the few New Yorkers that drop by. The air is tanged with wood smoke and burning leaves. Brickley’s Ice Cream is shuttered, and the guardrails come down at South Shore Beach. Tiverton High plays Chariho for the Third Division football championship; Bulgarmarsh Road is lined with tailgaters in bright orange sweaters with “Go Tigers” banners flapping in the breeze. They lose, 37–0. One by one, the big houses along the coast go dark, their owners fleeing south, and Pastor Paige looks out dismally to a shrunken congregation. “Oh, ye few, but faithful.” The first real snowfall comes a week before Thanksgiving. Little Compton contracts into herself, sheds tourists and summer boarders like so many frivolous leaves, until only the bare branches remain. I am one of those branches.
Like the seasons, I am changing. Yesterday I looked in the mirror and found two dandelion-fluffs of hair springing up on my shoulders. I don’t know whether to be grateful or repulsed. Most people, if they think about it at all, assume that the process of altering gender has a definite beginning and end. It doesn’t. It has a beginning. The world saw me as a woman six years ago. But as for becoming a man, that is a process that doesn’t ever really seem to stop. I’ve lost the curve of my hips but kept the delicate fingers and toes. My face has gone from being a masculine woman’s to a feminine man’s—which is something, I guess.
Now it’s Thanksgiving, and the Laughing Sarahs are coming over. The day dawns cold and clear, with a light chop on the waves. Macy’s parade is on in the kitchen, but like most things it’s not what it used to be. When did they replace marching bands with boy bands?
If I were looking for signs of temps perdus, they’re not hard to find. This was always Grandma’s day. She’d be up long before the rest of us, vacuuming the living room and setting out bowls of nuts, dried fruit, and hard candy. By eleven the Sarahs began to arrive, placing their covered dishes on the big oak table in the dining room. Each was an institution unto itself. Taking pride of place was Aunt Emma’s famous Fried Rice with Vienna Sausages, loyally flanked by Aunt Irene’s Clam Stuffies in Garlic Sauce. Aunt Constance brought fruit salad and a tub of rainbow sherbet. She doesn’t cook.
Of all my memories of that day, year after year, Grandma is never out of the frame. She is always fixing someone a drink, wiping down the counters, swapping a joke with the Aunts, telling Grandpa to turn down the damn television. Grandma was not the floury hands kind of old lady. She didn’t pinch cheeks or bake cookies. She wore polyester slacks and a green eyeshade when she played bridge. She listened to Miles Davis on the hi-fi. But Thanksgiving was different. That day, she could have leapt intact from one of the Rockwell plates above the draining board. That day, everything—the house, the food, the Aunts, even Grandpa—moved in orbit around the fixed, immovable center that was Maggie Hazard.
The last was three years ago. It was memorable for a number of reasons, none of them good. Irene’s husband, Phil, was at the end of a long fight with lung cancer: a flesh-colored skeleton sitting in Grandpa’s old chair, staring off into space. I shuddered as I walked by him. He looked just like Grandpa. That was also the year Grandma burned the turkey, forgot to turn on the gas under the beans, and snapped at anyone that tried to help. And it was the day I came out to my father—not at the dinner table, nothing so tacky, but in the living room with Uncle Phil drooling in the corner.
Dad didn’t understand at first. “What do you mean, you’re a man? No, you’re not.” Then, once he grasped the idea, he chased me out into the yard and broke a chair leg across my shoulders.
Last year, I spent Thanksgiving at the college, tucked into a corner of the refectory with a turkey leg and a pile of instant potatoes.
It’s my turn now. I feel like a stand-in on an unfamiliar stage, vacuuming the rug and putting out the nuts in the same little green bowls Grandma always used. At eight, I slide the bird into the oven and prep the vegetables, my hands working through a silent mime of what I remember from watching her. Irene and Constance arrive just after breakfast. They lay their offerings on the dining room table. With everything on it, it still looks bare. Irene goes up to dress Grandma, and Constance switches on the game—for old times’ sake, I suppose. The old house creaks and complains. With just the four of us, it could be any day, any meal. Grandma stares indifferently at the candied yams, orange-peel carrots, and of course Irene’s clams and Constance’s fruit salad. None of us can think of
a single thing to say. The radiator burps and whistles. I feel like we are at a Shinto shrine, offering up a feast for the dead.
“We should say grace,” Irene murmurs.
“Go ahead,” Constance tells her.
We eat in silence. The television is still on in the other room, playing to an empty sofa. “Jesus,” Grandma says finally, swallowing a mouthful of bread, “somebody tell a joke.”
Irene chuckles softly. “I know,” she says. “Let’s get out the tape recorder again.”
It seems a safe idea. We are clearly not very good at living in the present; the past, dusty but comforting, will have to do. The recorder is brought out and we sit around it like a Ouija Board. “What should we talk about?” Aunt Constance asks.
“Get Maggie to tell a story,” Irene offers.
“You heard all my stories. Can’t remember ’em anyway.”
“I have an idea,” I tell them. The recorder light goes green. “Grandma, tell me more about Emma.”
“We already told you about that,” Constance cuts in, frowning.
“I want to hear it from her, though. She was her best friend. Grandma, did Emma ever tell you about her daughter? Arabella? Do you remember when she left Little Compton after Teddy went to war?”
Aunt Irene bleats, “I really don’t think—”
But Grandma looks at me blankly. “What are you talking about? Teddy who?”
“Teddy Johnson. Emma’s beau.”
She shakes her head. “Teddy never went to war.”
“This is a waste of time,” Constance interjects again. “Talk about something else, for chrissake. Tell the Robie gold story again.”
“I’ve heard that story enough,” Irene snaps unexpectedly. “If you hadn’t gotten the whole bar stirred up—”
“I never thought the damn fools would—”
“What else did you expect? That greedy Mrs. Wally—”