“Jake Gibb. How are you?”
The man looked bothered but took my hand. He rolled his eyes as we gripped.
“Herbert Sumner,” he said. “I’m that thing’s father.” He pointed a crooked index finger with a dirty nail at my firm’s client, the supposedly haunted Henry Sumner. Since I’m a mid-westerner, hobbled by mid-western manners, I smiled in response and said nice to meet you and moved on.
The gentlemen sitting next to him was more Henry Sumner’s age. His sixty-five years made him at least thirty years younger than the first man. He beat me to the handshake.
“Ross Reinhart,” he said. “Henry and I were business partners once upon a time.” I looked back to Henry Sumner who I would have described—if he wasn’t a grown man drawing a Social Security check—as pouting and petulant.
The third man was already standing when I got to him. He had about ten years on my thirty-four but had a full head a hair that was cut in a youngish but out-of-date style.
“Rick Sumner,” he said. “I’m the son… and grandson,” he said nodding to the ancient man two chairs down. Our shared youth—at least compared to the wall of wrinkles that was sitting around the room—and his actually treating me like a human made me like him automatically.
Uninvited, I took a seat in a leather upholstered club chair wedged into a corner lined with bookcases. The leather squeaked, creaked and groaned. When I looked up all eyes except for Mr. Sumner’s were on me.
“Did I interrupt something?” I asked. “I can leave.”
“No,” said Henry Sumner in almost a shout. “You stay but throw them out,” he said waving a finger at his three guests.
“I’m an investment advisor not a bouncer, Mr. Sumner.”
Mr. Sumner started up with another shout but was cut off by his son.
“We were just having an intervention of sorts, Mr. Gibb. My father… My father is a difficult man and part of the difficulty is he can’t see how difficult he is.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. It squeaked.
“My father says he’s haunted. He wants to move to escape ghosts. But the only thing that haunts him is guilt. Regrets maybe, but most assuredly guilt.”
“I’ve no guilt,” Mr. Sumner chimed in. “Regrets, either.”
His son sighed and looked down. The look on his face was of defeat. This was a conversation that had the feel of having been going for years.
“If you’ve no guilt then you’re a sociopath,” the elder Mr. Sumner said. He was trying to project his voice, but it creaked and cracked.
“Let me tell you about my son, Mr. Gibb… this client of yours,” he said. The old man’s voice was warming up. “The only regret in my life is not aborting him as soon as I knew he was in his mother’s belly. We had the option. His mother was not supposed to even conceive. She had....” He paused over a long dead-to-modern-culture sense of decorum when speaking of a woman personally. “She had internal issues. It made intimacy… ” he groped for a polite word. “Uncomfortable,” he finally said. “The doctors told us that she would never be able to have a child.”
A cast of sentiment fell over the elder Sumner’s eyes.
“She was a beautiful woman. A broad face always eager to smile. Beautiful, thick hair. A figure that made the wimpiest of men feel manly. And she laughed at my jokes.”
“And Ma had a large trust fund,” Henry Sumner piped in.
“Yes, she had a large trust fund. Women with large trust funds can be lovely none-the-less.”
The old man went on.
“Even though it was uncomfortable for her, she accommodated my needs. I was a young man still with a young man’s energy, you see. She was a good woman. Then one day I came home and she put my hand on her stomach and smiled at me and I knew. But I didn’t smile. I remembered what the doctor said. We went to him the next day and the doc suggested we end the pregnancy… that the delivery might kill them both. She would have none of it. She had faith everything would be all right. She told me so. She so wanted a child and a son in particular. She so wanted one. Me? I would have been happy to adopt. I’d already talked to the orphanage out in Campbell County. There were plenty of deserving children needing a home, but I couldn’t say no to her. So we decided to keep the child and I spoiled her for those nine months that I thought might be our last nine months together. She beamed every day of it—even through the hard, painful times. But if I had to do all over again—knowing what this son of mine would become—I would have urged her to abort and adopt.”
“You made her unhappy,” Henry Sumner piped up again.
“No. No, I didn’t. Especially not then.” The old man’s voice had become strong. “Now, shut up!”
Spittle launched out of the old man’s mouth and sprayed his shirt and pants.
“I worried and I fretted and when the day came they both survived,” he said. “She had been hurt, but the doctor said she’d be okay. And she loved her new son so much, and for a few years, I did too.”
“A few months later I went to her, but her uncomfortableness during intimacy had, by then, become unbearable pain. We didn’t speak of it, but I stopped trying. It was too much for her and after a couple of years I found relief elsewhere. We never discussed it, but there was an unspoken understanding between us. Unspoken but understood just the same.
“I built my business and she kept our home and raised this, this son. What was it Booth Tarkington wrote? He belonged, as most American children do, to the mother’s family. His mother spoiled him and her family treated him as a prince. He was the only grandson. That ruined him. It made him into a selfish, mean child who became a selfish, mean man. That or he was just born evil.”
I interrupted. “Maybe I should head home,” I said.
“You’re going nowhere,” said Henry Sumner. I gave him a look to adjust his attitude. He gave a nervous look to the other three men and made the necessary adjustment. “Stay. Please?” he asked me.
I sat back down.
“Now here’s the thing, Mr. Gibb,” said the old man. “Here’s the day that ruined my life and destroyed my wife’s—his mother’s. Somehow this creature learned of his mother’s and my understanding. He hired a private detective. A private detective who took pictures. Pictures of me with a perfectly nice woman who I cared for deeply. Her husband had similar problems and had turned to the bottle. The detective took pictures of this perfectly nice woman and me having dinner at The L&N Steakhouse. Pictures of us sharing an ice cream on Fountain Square. And pictures from a room on the seventh floor of one hotel into the room on the seventh floor of another hotel. Pictures of me and this perfectly respectability woman being intimate.”
“He was twenty-one, mind you. Twenty-one and hiring detectives to follow his father.”
“You were cheating on Ma.”
“We had an understanding,” the old man said. “And you didn’t just tell her about it. You showed the pictures to your mother. Pictures. You didn’t leave her with the soft knowledge a wife has, but you rubbed her nose in the hard evidence. Then you showed her father and her brothers and their lawyers.”
The old man was in a rage but was held to the chair by his age. His nostrils were flaring and what chest he still had was heaving.
“They pressured her into divorcing me, Mr. Gibb. We had made happiness out of our lot. Maybe she could have overcome seeing the pictures. I doubt it. Maybe. But not the pressure her father put on her. Or the pressure her brothers put on her. And definitely not the pressure our son put on her.”
“And you were out. Out of the family. Out of the trust fund,” Henry Sumner shouted at his father.
“Yes, I was out. I was out of a marriage that I treasured while you became the sole beneficiary of your mother’s trust fund.”
I looked to Henry Sumner glaring at his father. On hearing those last words, I swear that he sat back into his paisley, wingback armchair with an expression of smug satisfaction. I was stunned into silence.
Then there was a fai
nt laugh. It was Mr. Reinhart.
“I guess I shouldn’t complain too much then. All he did was steal my business. Or at least my half of the business.”
“You were bad at business,” Mr. Sumner said.
“No,” Mr. Reinhart said. “I was bad at picking business partners.”
Mr. Reinhart then turned to me. “Mr. Gibb, you work with Mr. Carmichael. You trust him?”
“I don’t work with Mr. Carmichael,” I said. “I work for him.”
“But you trust him?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Implicitly?”
I gave it a moments thought then nodded yes.
“I did too. I trusted this man,” he said pointing to Henry Sumner. “We were in that building out on the Double A highway, together six days a week, twelve hours a day for twenty years. Extruded plastics. I was the engineer and could build anything clients wanted. I ran that shop floor. I helped our customers. I trusted him to do the bookkeeping and the accounting but mostly the sales. We made good money. We were building something wonderful.
“Something wonderful,” he repeated. “And then it all went to hell.
“I knew something was wrong early one week. My partner here didn’t show up on Monday and I couldn’t get a hold of him. Then Tuesday I got to work and all kinds of files were gone. Then on Wednesday there were padlocks on the building and a sheriff looking for taxes and a bank representative looking for a mortgage payoff and seventeen employees holding bad paychecks.
“My partner over there—the good businessman—had set up this complicated structure. He’d fudged the books, he’d skimped and cheated and protected himself quite well. When the whole house of cards fell he was walled off behind shell companies or dummy corporations or whatever it is they’re called.
“Twenty year’s work gone in a matter of days.
“I tried to dig myself out of it. But the debts were too big and I was too tired by then. I drank too much. My wife had to quit her clubs and then she had to get a job and we had to downsize. My daughter had to quit Brown and enroll in at U.C.”
That last tidbit struck a little too close to home. I was wanting to thump my client along with the other three men.
“I guess my family wasn’t as strong as I thought it was. My wife finally threw in the towel. My daughter’s soft, pretty face became hard as she saw all her friends back east move on with the help of rich daddies, and she was working for some grimy little shop to pay off student loans. My son—he was sixteen at the time—he got pulled from the City Day School and tossed into a swamp of a public school. He never seemed to recover from that.”
“See,” Mr. Sumner interjected suddenly. “You just said it. Your family wasn’t as strong as you thought it was. Don’t lay all this on me.”
“You struck the match, Henry. You started the fire. You overstressed us and we collapsed. Maybe we shouldn’t have, but maybe we wouldn’t have without your help.”
I noticed my throat was dry and my nerves were fraying. A bottle of Pappy Van Winkle was giving me the come hither look, but from what I was hearing about Mr. Sumner, he seemed the type to drink the Pappy himself and fill the empty with Ancient Age. No matter. Even Ancient Age would be all right tonight. I was about to reach for the bottle when Henry Sumner started up.
“So what’s your gripe,” he said to his son.
“You know my gripe.”
“Your mother?”
“Your wife.”
“I never beat her.”
“Is that a brag?”
“She had it okay.”
“She was a sensitive woman, Dad. Nervous. She wasn’t strong. Instead of caring for and supporting her, you used it against her. You were worse than hateful to her. You were indifferent. You nurtured that kernel of doubt she held that she was worthless. You watered it by coming home smelling of your whores. You fertilized it with neglect. You saw her wither and I swear to god you enjoyed watching it.”
“Maybe it was you leaving her,” Mr. Sumner said. “Ever thought of that?”
“I didn’t leave her. I went to college.”
“Yeah, you left her and then she did that thing.”
The son brushed a piece of lint off his Dockers and turned to me.
In a low voice he said, “My freshman year at U.K.....my mother took her life in the upstairs bathroom.”
“My father did the same my junior year,” I admitted.
Through a glance we shared a mutual sympathy.
“How’d you survive?” he asked me.
“Survive?”
“Yeah, the depression. The loss.”
I shrugged. “It was rough,” I told him, “but my family wasn’t close. It was more an inconvenience.”
“My mother and I were close,” he said. His eyes were watering. “I was—am—too much like her.”
“Yeah, he was a mama’s boy,” his father snarled. A flash of anger crossed Rick’s eyes. I saw the pupils rage black. “That’s why he did that thing.” He laughed then said, “I’m going to go take a leak.”
I didn’t ask what thing. I watched Mr. Sumner leave the parlor, round the corner and heard his footfalls on carpeted stairs.
“If you’ll excuse me I have to make a call,” I said to the three gentlemen. The son looked on the verge of tears while the business partner seemed to smolder with anger. Sumner’s father looked asleep. I hoped asleep.
I went outside onto the front stoop. I should have grabbed my coat. The air had passed from chilly to frigid. I glanced at my watch. Ten thirty in the p.m. I dialed up Mr. Carmichael. It went right to voicemail. Getting a signal through the granite of the Museum was near impossible, I knew.
I left a message.
“Mr. Carmichael, it’s ten thirty and no ghosts have been spotted. Mr. Sumner is here with his family, such as it is. His father, son and an old business partner. Things have gotten personal and I think I’ve overstayed my welcome. I’m going to make sure Mr. Sumner feels okay and call it a night. No need to stay until the chimes of midnight. I hope that’s okay.”
I clicked my phone shut and grabbed a few gulps of the fresh air. It must be a neighborhood of old people, I thought. Up and down the street the houses were dark. Not a light or a flicker of a TV through the windows. The chill got to me, so—tense as it was—I stepped back into the warmth of the house.
I closed the door and turned and Mr. Sumner was rounding the stairs on his way back to the parlor. He was taking short, marching steps.
“Let’s get these assholes out of my house,” he said.
A vicious little man, I thought.
I followed him into the parlor.
“Okay, you three. Out! Get out or Mr. Gibb here will throw you out.”
“I’m not throwing anyone out, Mr. Sumner. You want them out then call the police.”
“No. We’re throwing them out,” he said. He looked at his son. “Boy, your mother was weak and bad in bed. Ross, you were a horrible business man, but your wife was good in bed. I bet you didn’t know I knew that.” He gave a laugh. “Dad, you were just plain weak.”
The three men stood as Mr. Sumner shouted at them. Even the octogenarian’s face went fierce. For some reason I’ll never know, I put myself between Mr. Sumner and the three men.
From behind I heard the old man whisper, “It’s time to settle up.”
“Mr. Sumner,” I started to say, but then my mind went foggy. I felt myself lifted. I sensed I was floating on my feet just above the carpet. I left the parlor and rounded the corner to the front door. I saw the closet door open and I was pushed in. The door closed behind me. I feel back and the slamming door struck me on the crown of my head. I crumpled to the ground. There was a quarter inch of space between the door and the floor. A quarter inch of dim light shown through. I felt the blood swirl in my head and I tried to right myself. My body wouldn’t follow orders and I was tangled in fallen coats. As a great aching blackness cobwebbed itself across my mind, I saw a green light creep in under the door a
long the hardwood floor. It was the color of spilled absinthe on a cherry bar. I was out.
The cobweb was falling from my mind. I heard the front door open. I felt cool air rush in under the closet door. It slapped me awake. Then footsteps. The footsteps paced slowly past the closet door and down the hall. I heard them return and fall against the rug in the parlor
I swore loudly. Mr. Carmichael’s ‘client service’ be damned I was going to hurt somebody.
“Let me out of here,” I screamed. “Now you motherfuckers!”
The steps approached the closet and the door opened. I looked up into the face of Prescott Carmichael.
“My god,” he said. “Let me help you up.”
“No. Let me sit for a moment. Let me get some air.”
He stood back. After a few gulps I looked up at him.
“What time is it?” I asked. “Why are you here? Who got me? I’m going to kill him.”
“Sit back,” he said. Mr. Carmichael spoke his words softly, but they come across as orders. I sat back. I was worried by the look on his face. It was worry or fear. I‘m not sure which. I’d never seen the man worried or be fearful.
“I got your message,” he said flatly. “The one from ten thirty. About you calling it a night and heading home. The message about Mr. Sumner being with his family.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s why I came over here.”
“Yeah. Thanks,” I said. I put my hand to the top of my head. A spot of blood was on my fingers.
“I came as fast as I could.”
This was getting old, I thought. “Yeah. Like I said, thanks.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You came over here. Client service. What’s to understand? Who shoved me into this closet?”
“Stay down,” he said. “You said Mr. Sumner’s father was here.”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. He called him dad. His father told a pretty good story about Mr. Sumner ruining his life.”
“And his business partner, Reinhart? And his son, Rick?”
I used the wall to climb to my feet. Mr. Carmichael can be frustrating. When the frustration is balanced against the rather large salary I score off him, he wins. But tonight the six figures on my W-2 held little weight.
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