Return to Dust

by Andrew Lanh

  “What?”

  Charlie opened his eyes wide, then frowned. He waved at me as though I were a small child he wanted to shoo out of the way.

  “You are a cretin. Whatever happened to that much-touted oriental behavior of respect the young have for their elders?”

  I waited.

  “I’ll retire in a year or so. I will be free of a generation that includes you—the self-loving egotists of pleasure. And the academic youngsters bouncing to radio waves in their heads while their fingers text inanities via Twitter as I lecture on the Civil War.”

  I couldn’t let that pass. I leaned back against a table, put my weight on one foot. “There was a time when you didn’t distance yourself from the younger generation.”

  It was a cruel jab, said purposely. Charlie Safako may have become the disaffected, seedy professor, but the rumor-mongers insisted he still saw himself as the consummate lady’s man. A recurring tale on campus suggested that he’d fathered a child with a coed some thirty years back, when he was newly hired at the college. It had been squelched, as those things were in those days, but the rumor persisted, stayed with Charlie Safako like an old dog, and he always bristled under the tale. No one ever had any proof—certainly no thirty-year-old popped up in U.S. History I and screamed “Daddy, Daddy” like a scene out of a bodice romance—but the story made the rounds every so often. In fact, many undergraduates hero-worshipped him because of it. It gave the old man—famous for his risqué asides in class—a kind of rogue cachet.

  He pursed his lips but said nothing. He seemed relieved that I’d taken that low road—as though he could live with the old, dumb rumor. I saw the hint of a sardonic smile that disappeared quickly. He turned away.

  I repeated my question. “What are you hiding?”

  I waited and thought of one of the precepts of Buddhism: You must abstain from false speech. I waited.

  But he simply pointed to the door.

  People pointing at a door is one of the familiar signposts of the private eye. You learn to nod, smile at times—not this time, I’m afraid—and, well, leave.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I checked my voice mail when I got back home. The obit writer had left a brief message. He’d never been given the name of Joshua’s great niece. He sounded a little peeved. “Otherwise,” he added curtly, “it would have been in the piece.”

  I scribbled a note card and pinned it to the wall: Track down the niece.

  The phone rang. Gracie wanted to get an early dinner at Zeke’s Olde Tavern.

  Just as I closed my apartment door, I bumped into Ken Rodman, headed upstairs. “Hello,” I called to him.

  “Rick.” We shook hands.

  I didn’t know much about him. I did know that he’d separated from his wife and three kids in nearby Avon, was some sort of insurance adjuster or salesman, and had lived until his divorce was finalized in a dorm room at some religious retreat in Hartford.

  We stared at each other, neither moving. “You knew Marta Kowalski.”

  “Why?”

  He was dressed in polyester basketball shorts and a new sweatshirt, a gym bag slung over his shoulder. A tall man with long, gangly shoulders, he had a slight paunch that he scratched.

  “Well, I’m a private investigator, following a lead.”

  My out-of-the-blue question—I obviously take my interviews where I can—didn’t seem to faze him.

  “Yes, well, she cleaned my apartment twice.”

  “That’s it? You talk to her?”

  “Briefly. Frankly, she was too nosy. About my life. So I left.”

  “Ever see her again?”

  “No.” He rubbed his stomach again, looked at the stairway. “I was not gonna hire her again.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you—nosy. Too many questions.” A slight smile. “Like you.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “It’s nothing,” He was already headed upstairs, and disappeared from sight.

  Gracie stepped out of her apartment, stood at the foot of the stairs. She was frowning. “Odd one,” she whispered. “Secrets.”

  I grinned. “They’re not secrets if he tells them to you.”

  She smiled back. “Nobody’s allowed secrets in my building.”

  We headed to Zeke’s Olde Tavern where we had roast beef sandwiches on rye, with homemade potato salad. The place was quiet, with a couple of college kids playing video games or lost in their cell phones. I ordered her a white wine, but she held up her hand.

  “Make it a Bud,” she said to the waitress. “White wine, indeed.” She smirked. “I was a Rockette, baby. We always drink beer.”

  Jimmy Gadowicz strolled in, bellowing that he’d called my phone to say he was coming out of Hartford to visit, but it went to message. When I didn’t pick up, he knew I was somewhere in the neighborhood. The Tavern was the place everyone checked to find any of us.

  “I got my cell phone on me,” I told him. “That number.”

  He waved his hand at me. “Hey, I memorized one number for you. That’s enough.”

  Jimmy smiled at Gracie, and I noticed he’d marinated himself in some Walgreen’s cologne. Fruit flies could take extended vacations on his round cheeks.

  “What did you want?” I asked him.

  He ordered a Bud.

  “Nothing. Quiet night. Thought I’d check on you. The Case,” he stressed, capitalizing it. “The Case.” He chuckled.

  I smiled—Jimmy was one of the good guys.

  I sat back, my hands around a scotch and soda, nice and cold, and sighed. These were my good friends, and I was happy. Gracie and Jimmy. He grinned at Gracie, and she twinkled. Lord, I thought—romance in the age of Medicare.

  “What are you smiling at?” Jimmy asked.

  “I like being here with the two of you.”

  Jimmy looked at Gracie. “A lonely boy, this one.”

  “You do know I’m sitting here, right?”

  “That’s the point,” Jimmy smiled.

  Gracie grumbled. “We got to get him married.”

  “He should marry Liz again. A beautiful woman.”

  “A good-looking couple,” Gracie answered.

  “I like Liz.”

  Me: “So do I.” I grinned. “You both know that.”

  “He’s been seen around town with that Karen girl.”

  “A job,” I emphasized.

  “The Case.” Again, capitalized.

  “So how is the old case going?” From Gracie.

  “Fraud is a lot easier,” I said glumly. “It’s cut and dried.”

  Jimmy leaned into me. “Tell me the one thing that bothers you so far? Of them all, the one thing that doesn’t fit. Pick one thing—the burr under the saddle.”

  Gracie leaned in, too.

  I thought for a minute. The two of them, each with raised drinks, stared at me, expectant. “She fought with Joshua Jennings—and never made up. Something was definitely on her mind the day she died. Wilcox said she sounded panicky. She was headed to Richard Wilcox’s to tell him something.”

  Gracie spoke up. “Perhaps she made it there after all, told him something, and he had to kill her. He walked her home by the bridge and pushed her.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or,” Gracie went on, “that squirrelly nephew of hers might have acted out of drunkenness. You said…”

  “Or,” Jimmy interrupted, “Karen herself is afraid of something.”

  “C’mon, Jimmy. Then why hire an investigator? The case was closed.” Gracie blinked her eyes.

  “The obvious is wrong, the least expected is true, and…”

  “Spare me,” Gracie turned to Jimmy. “Is he spouting that Buddha bit again?”

  “…the insurance money,” Jimmy concluded. “Karen has to prove it was murder to colle
ct, even though she is the murderer.”

  I interrupted, smiling. “Excuse me, beloved duo. Whose case is this anyway?”

  “But you’re so young and—untutored.” From Gracie.

  “Ah, Gracie, my rock ’n’ roll friend.”

  I ordered another round of drinks for us.

  “You know what I also find alarming.” I sat back. “I’ve learned that Marta, admittedly an attractive woman for her age…”

  “—Of her age,” Gracie interposed, frowning.

  “Of her age. Sorry. I mean, she was a real flirt, vivacious. She liked the company of men. She had a way with men….”

  Gracie made a groaning sound.

  Jimmy grinned. “She probably flirted with me.”

  I jumped in. “You never met her, Jimmy.”

  “But if I had, she would have.”

  “Which,” said Gracie, “would be like flirting with a Disney character.”

  He made a face. “That makes no sense.”

  Gracie went on. “Men found her charming. People talked about her behind her back.”

  “The only person she never flirted with—is me. She was a little coy but…”

  Jimmy punched me in the arm. “He’s feeling insecure because a dead old lady never came on to him.”

  At that moment Ken Rodman walked into the bar, spotted us, and looked ready to flee. He caught me watching him, so he walked over, said hello, nodded at Jimmy. But he was jumpy. Of course, the three of us were perched there like the Spanish Inquisition. He stammered a quick I’ll-see-you-I-was-just-gonna-get-a-beer-but-it’s-really-too-late, didn’t wait for a response, and hurried away. We watched him stumble out. He was dressed in a muted flannel shirt and a buckled bomber jacket, black boots and jeans. Everything looked spanking new, as though he were rehearsing a new look for a new season during a new lifetime. It was a little sad to see those sharp store-bought creases and shiny military boots and careful, unblemished leather. A catalog photo come to life, something out of the winter Eddie Bauer mail-order brochure.

  Gracie laughed low and hard, purposely throaty. “We ruined that man’s plans for the evening.”

  “Which were?” Jimmy asked.

  “Being anywhere we three ain’t.”

  “But why?” I asked.

  Jimmy spoke. “Looks like he wants to be where nobody knows him.”

  “But why?” I repeated.

  “Some people are private.”

  “But why?” I said again, grinning.

  Gracie examined a broken nail. “I knew I shouldn’t have rented that third floor to him. I’m better at screening folks.”

  “You rented to Rick,” Jimmy told her.

  “He was too good-looking.”

  “Thanks. But Gracie, come on. The man is innocent until proven guilty.”

  “For God’s sake, Rick,” she laughed, “who the hell still believes that?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Two days later, a Saturday, I drove to Amherst, about an hour’s drive up the highway from Hartford. Marta supposedly had gone there to visit Joshua, at least once, and had been rebuffed—if I could believe Hattie’s description of a pale, stricken Marta freshly returned from her brief, futile trip. I wanted to find someone who’d talked with her—or seen her that day. I’d called Hattie back for any other memories, and over the phone she remembered that Marta’s visit took place after Labor Day. It was the weekend after the holiday, she remembered, because they’d gone away—“We went to Atlantic City for a quick breather”—and had just come back.

  “She ruined the whole long weekend,” Hattie said, “talking about Joshua moving away from us like that.”

  “Were you surprised she went to Amherst?”

  “Well, I didn’t know it till she got back.”

  “But why did she wait until September? After all, he’d moved the beginning of April.”

  Hattie said she had no idea, but then added, “Marta was angry all summer. She was downright mad at him. Then she got real down. She always expected him to apologize. Or forgive her.”

  “But that didn’t happen.”

  “No, it didn’t.”

  Hank came along for the ride. He’d called the night before, checking in. “Aunt Marie called Grandma—said you behaved yourself.”

  I smiled. “I am trainable.”

  A ripple of laughter. “I haven’t seen evidence of that.”

  When I told him I’d be heading to Amherst early in the morning, he invited himself along. I welcomed his company on the ride, a young man who’d listen and watch the people I talked with.

  “You need me there.” That made little sense, but I always liked his observations because they were intelligent. On the money.

  We arrived at mid-morning, parked my car in a lot across from Emily Dickinson’s ancestral home, and strolled up a busy Main Street, at the edge of Amherst College. I liked the place, a vibrant college town. Old New England stability mixing happily with breezy modern collegiate life. Two aging tie-dyed middle-aged radicals chatted with old friends in front of a Puritan church, a severe backdrop for the ponytailed spirits. A happy lesbian couple, arms linked, sipped sodas on sidewalk ice-cream chairs, oblivious of the November chill. Frantic Amherst students rushed across the green. UMass undergrads browsed in a video game store. Students with protest buttons, street corner advocates for world peace, a young man with a faded Free Tibet T-shirt. This was not Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street.

  “I used to come here with Liz,” I told Hank. “Here—and over to Northampton. Once or twice we came with Vinnie and Marcie. We’d browse the old bookstores, eat at a new Thai or Mexican restaurant, watch the people, maybe drive over to the Iron Horse Café to catch a concert—we listened to Jackson Browne once—and then back to Hartford. For us, it was civilization. New York City without the wino’s scowl and the freak’s anxious hard-on.”

  “For God’s sake!”

  I shrugged.

  So Hank and I were enjoying our easy, gentle stroll up and down Main Street, stopping at a coffee bar for strong espresso and a blueberry muffin. I smelled bittersweet incense and perfume—the intoxication of flowers for sale and the curious cloying scents that seemed obligatory in any college shop. I hadn’t been here in a while, a long while, and I was loving it. Hank’s head swung around, taking it all in.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Cool.”

  It was cool.

  We walked to the address the Farmington Boys’ Academy records office provided. The careful, discriminating Joshua had located what I considered an ideal retirement village on a narrow side street off Main Street—quiet, tree-sheltered, a series of tiny clapboard cottages and two-or-three-room apartment complexes, weaving lanes and English boxwood hedges, thick shielding maples, an oasis removed from the bustle of the street. Yet everything was in walking distance for an old man—town library, college bookstores, benches in the park, theater, street fairs, restaurants. An old professor’s paradise. Joshua would be at home here. Frankly, I’d be at home here, and joyous.

  I rapped on the door of the small white-clapboard administrative building, labeled as such by the discreet sign over the door. No one answered so we walked in. I heard humming from the back room.

  “Hello,” I yelled. Still no response.

  “Hello.” Louder this time.

  “Yep?” a voice responded. “I’ll be right out.”

  I smelled pungent coffee brewing back there, and warm yeasty bread. Finally a man appeared, youngish, in his twenties, with a scrubby beard, wide flaring nostrils in a wide pale face. Full lips. Gold loop earrings in both ears. He nodded at me, raising a wide hand that held a Boston Red Sox mug of steaming coffee. He looked as if he’d just fallen out of bed. His blue-denim work shirt was half out of his pants.

  “Help you?” He was smiling, and I saw
shiny even teeth with braces.

  I identified myself, showing him my laminated license with my picture on it, introduced Hank—who was staring at the coffee mug—and asked about Joshua Jennings.

  “Yeah, I heard he died.” He made his voice appropriately somber, running his tongue over his lips after a sip of the coffee.

  “Do you remember him here?”

  “Vaguely. I was new then. I’m a grad student at UMass in biotechnology, and this, well, pays some of the bills. We come and go—if you know what I mean. But him I remember.”

  “Were you here when he moved in?”

  “No. Just afterwards, I guess. Quiet man, friendly. A little creaky and remote, but most are like that. They’re either too talkative and in-your-business, or they hide away, like wounded animals.”

  “But you say you remember him?”

  A long pause. He ran his fingers around the rim of the cup. “Hey, you want coffee by the way? I’m being rude.”

  I shook my head no. Hank did the same.

  “I sort of remember him. One time he had these books and dropped them. I walked him back to his home. He never said thank you. His cottage was a rental unit in the back, near the lane just off Main Street and the park. A couple of times I saw him on Main Street, though, coming back from the library, arms loaded with books. A reader, he was. But he had trouble walking, stooped over and all. I think he used a cane. Now that it’s cold, they all hide indoors. Summer’s too short a season for the old folks. Once I nodded to him as he sat alone in a luncheonette, sipping tea and eating a sandwich. He looked old and tired. And, I guess, lonely.”

  “No visitors?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You don’t keep a log?”

  He laughed. “No, we don’t. This is not, you know, a group home or something. These people have money. Lots of money. We have medical staff on call, but most have private doctors and private nurses and…”

  “Could you check any records you have on him?”