“Oh, no. David might be,” he said. “But Louisa and I are Messianic Jews.”
“You mean like Jews for Jesus?” As soon as I said it, I wished I could take it back, because I heard a big sigh and a deep breath.
“We’re not some hippie group. Our history goes back to 32 A.D., right after the Resurrection.”
How do I get out of this? I wondered.
“I’d love to learn more about Messianic Jews, and it so happens I’m going to be in your neighborhood Saturday afternoon and would love to come and visit for an hour or two.”
There was a pause and I worried he was trying to think of a polite way to tell me to leave them alone, but he said, “Saturday’s our Sabbath and we don’t work, but the afternoon is okay.”
* * *
I left Nashville for their farm on Saturday by 12:30 and thought I’d get there around 4:30 P.M., but they lived out in the “hollers” of Tennessee, and I got mixed up between his directions and the GPS, which sometimes does not work correctly in rural areas. It was after 5:30 P.M. and I was still wandering around asphalt roads that wound back and forth, up and down hills, like a roller-coaster ride going nowhere.
It was February and already starting to get dark, and all I could see around me were gnarled trees with twisted roots and low-hanging branches that blocked visibility. It felt like I’d wandered into Sleepy Hollow. I passed shacks with loose shingles and porches cluttered with old stoves and furniture. The yards had one rusting and abandoned car piled onto another.
For about forty minutes I thought I was lost, and I was really scared. It reminded me too much of the neighborhood where I grew up in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, of our house, which was a former summer cottage on cinder blocks with a pump we had to plug in each time we wanted water. We had plastic sheeting thumbtacked on the frail wooden frames as a sort of storm window insulation, which did not help much when it got twenty below zero. Our tiny cottage was not designed for arctic winters, and it had only one space heater in the small living room. Many a night all of us crowded around that source of heat all night long and never slept.
Where was I? In Deliverance country? If I disappeared, would anyone be able to find me? Thank goodness I had told my daughters where I was going and why, and I had sent myself an e-mail with their address and phone. Maybe Shannon was right, I thought as I continued down an overgrown dirt road that was wide enough for just one car. Since one of them did murder Vernie, why wouldn’t they want to eliminate anyone trying to find out the truth? I prayed they had no guns in the house, but that’s not the kind of question you ask on the phone to someone you’ve not seen in more than forty years. “Oh, before we hang up, can you tell me if you pack any heat?”
Darkness kept descending, and this only increased the sense of dread from the overhanging trees covering up the decaying mobile homes that all seemed to have a streak of yellow running down the sides. How could Suzanne, who had once lived in the most elegant home in Oregon, Wisconsin, be domiciling in what looked like an abandoned part of the South that had once survived on some type of mining or industry?
I thought about calling Louisa’s house to say I was lost, but remembered David had been evasive, and Louisa’s husband defensive, so thought it best not to risk any more bad interactions.
Suddenly I turned a corner and there was a small and well-kept white house with a barn out back. This was the correct address, but I checked again and pulled into the newly paved asphalt driveway and noticed a tiny one-room log cabin in the front yard. Two cars were in the driveway and they were a few years old with no signs of rust, not like the cars I had been seeing for the past hour. Looking again at the address and the mailbox on a wood post near the road, I thought this must be Louisa’s house.
I got out and tried to find the front door, because there seemed to be a lower level with a door as well, but I rang the bell on the upper door. No answer. I rang again, knocked several times. Then I went to the lower door and knocked some more. Maybe they didn’t hear me. I went to my car and dialed Louisa’s number and got the voice mail:
“Have a blessed day with your Lord Jesus Christ. Please leave a message. Beep.” I said I was there in the driveway and hung up. Then I called Shannon, who answered within half a ring. She was nervous, too. I told her they must have ditched me and asked if she had David’s number. Maybe they went to hide over at his place. I dialed, but it was no longer in service. Just as I was looking down to dial Shannon again so we could develop a new strategy, I heard a knocking on my car window and jumped so high, I hit my head on the car roof.
Standing outside the driver’s window was a woman who looked very tall, but I soon realized it was because she was standing and I was sitting. As I looked at her, the middle-aged face surrounded by red hair pulled back into a tight bun was smiling at me. She looked an awful lot like Suzanne had back in 1970.
“Dorothy? Is that you?”
I recognized Louisa’s eyes, but she was no longer the thin, carefree artist from 1969, the one with the long red hair she must have ironed to get so perfectly straight. She had gone to university for a couple of years in Madison, and I had been to several of her parties, which had abundant liquor and drugged-out friends philosophizing about the advantages of insects having six legs. Instead of tie-dye jeans and paisley T-shirts, she now wore an ankle-length skirt—and not the hippie kind she used to wear—a starched white blouse buttoned up to the neck and a crocheted vest. I wondered if I had stumbled into Big Love country, except I was in Tennessee and not Utah. Her smile was real, though, and my fear temporarily eased as I opened the car door.
“We weren’t sure what time you were coming and we took a nap and didn’t hear the phone ring. So sorry.”
“I got lost and it took me five hours to get here,” I said, trying to make the situation more easeful. Awkwardness hung in the air like thick coal dust. “It’s good to see you after all this time,” I said in a way that assumed she felt the same.
“We are just happy you are here,” she said so eagerly, and with such a radiant smile, I started to feel uneasy because of the real reason I had come.
Behind Louisa was a tall, stocky man with a full head of hair and a Duck Dynasty beard. That could not be David, I thought. And it wasn’t. Louisa told me it was her husband, Bobby, and we exchanged pleasantries as she led me into the house, through the lower level. We entered what I imagined was supposed to be a recreation room, a large wood-paneled space with an old couch, lounge chair, and assorted footstools and chairs, all covered with crocheted afghans of many colors. Scattered around the room on chairs were magazines, Bibles, many Bibles, and other prayer/study books. Louisa showed me Suzanne’s exercise equipment and explained how it had been used in the beginning when they’d moved there, but now lay untouched, as Suzanne had settled into the life of an invalid. An invalid? I’d have to find out more. My breathing was becoming heavier as I almost gasped for air, realizing the woman who confessed to murdering my uncle was just one room away.
I pulled out an old letter I had found from “Aunt Suzanne” back in 1981, in response to a birth announcement of my oldest daughter, Roxanne. She had written me about her doctoral work and the study she was doing on parents who kidnapped their children. Louisa read it carefully, but with no emotion. What was going on? I wondered. Was she surprised to see this letter from thirty years ago that gave so much information about her mother back then?
Walking upstairs, I noticed books and clothes on the stairway, not sure if these were on their way up or down. I was soon introduced to a young woman with a small build and beautiful brown hair pulled back in a bun. She wore a long blue dress and a white stiff apron, which went from her neck down to the edge of her skirt. She was the home health aide for Suzanne, who needed round-the-clock assistance.
Louisa came into the dining area, which was surrounded on two sides with wraparound windows. Then two—or was it three?—dogs were let in and jumped all over me with their paws dirty from all the mud outside. There go my new Spa
nx, I thought.
“Mother is ready to see you now,” Louisa said.
* * *
I hadn’t seen Suzanne in more than forty years, not since right after the murder. When my Uncle Vernie died, Suzanne got off on an insanity plea and spent eleven months in a mental hospital. No one on my side wanted to have anything to do with Suzanne, and they were not happy when I went to visit her, once, in the hospital. Because of their reaction I didn’t go to see her again, and over time I understood why they weren’t rushing to the finish line of the Forgiveness Game. Since there was no blood relationship with Sue, distancing ourselves from her was not too difficult.
Louisa continued, “She’s been looking forward to your visit,” and ushered me into a small room, perhaps ten by twelve, that was so crammed with furniture and knickknacks that there was hardly space to walk from the door to the stuffed chair and love seat in the opposite corner. In fact, it felt not much different from many New York City apartments, the whole of which might be the size of Suzanne’s bedroom.
A collapsed black wheelchair stood behind the door and a room divider was folded up near the single wooden bed, which seemed to have an adjustable mattress, or else just lots and lots of pillows. On the wall and on every flat surface (also covered with white lace doilies) were pictures of Suzanne and an older man, who I assumed was husband number five. One of the pictures on the wall, though, seemed to be of someone else, a different older man.
Who were these men? Naturally, there was no photo of Uncle Vernie anywhere. A few large books were piled on top of the mantel above the gas fireplace. I thought this room was likely designed to be a parlor, since there was no closet, but there was the fireplace, and it was right next to the living room, a large, separate room that had an outside entrance, as did the kitchen. Such a blueprint was not uncommon in houses built back in the late ’50s, as this one was.
Suzanne was sitting up on her pillows, her long blond hair, with hardly any gray, tied and hanging straight across her right breast. She had a pink robe presumably covering pajamas, and her legs were tucked under a chenille bedspread, though I noticed her shape hadn’t changed much. Still short and frail. Still had those green eyes with brown or violet specks.
As I entered the room, a small and wiry brown-and-white dog jumped all over me, until Suzanne told him to quiet down, at which point he jumped on the bed near her and snuggled next to her legs. I got as close as I could to her bed, as the room divider was on one side, and on the other was a large bedpan/potty contraption.
I leaned down to kiss her cheek. She didn’t seem to register any emotion, but I could feel her watching me. Maybe I was paranoid, but during this whole conversation, as well as the later ones, it was as if she were boring into my soul, to figure me out and to ask herself: Why is she really here?
We talked about the relatives. She knew my grandmother had died back in 1995 and also that my mother, Leone, and stepfather, Pete Evert, were gone, but she didn’t seem to know my brother had died in the 1980s. I asked about her youngest son, but she clearly did not want to talk about him, certainly not his suicide. We talked for a while about the grand old house in Oregon and how beautiful it was. Not much risk there, I thought.
Then I started asking her about Vern. What was it like being married to him? I tried to take what might be her point of view, saying I knew he’d had a temper—I was actually exaggerating for interview purposes—especially when he drank, which we all knew he did too much. During this conversation and the three subsequent ones, I spent fourteen hours talking with Suzanne and had to be careful what I said. My approach was to ask her questions, agree with her on opinions of Vernie or my family, and basically ingratiate myself. Having grown up in a family where speaking your mind could leave you bloodied and bruised, I had good training for this assignment.
I kept asking innocent questions about Vernie. All she kept saying were things about how she kept finding out husbands were boring and how she got tired of sending three husbands through school, so she decided to go to school herself. Suzanne was more than happy to talk about going back to college, getting asked to join Mensa, getting her master’s, doctorate, and law degrees. I asked her whether Vernie had been abusive, and she tried to change the subject, but I asked again. He burned cigarettes on my back while we were dancing, and I thought it was an ice cube, she said. As much as I pressed, she wouldn’t continue, but instead told me how her dissertation was a study of parental kidnapping, and that she had replicated a study that her stepdaughter, Alexandra, had done for her master’s degree. What I didn’t realize until much later was how this disjointed conversation was her style, and over time I started to remember how she had always been like that.
Since Louisa was in the room at that point, Suzanne had her get her dissertation off the mantel to show me. I oohed and aahed as I read through parts of it, as I read a few paragraphs that sounded interesting. She seemed pleased. When I asked about the pictures on display of the men, she told me several times what a “keeper” her fifth husband (Uncle Vernie had been number four) was. How did they meet? Evidently, the rabbi told them both they were meant for each other. Her mentioning the rabbi reminded me of her religious conversion, before her third marriage, way back when Louisa and David were little kids still going to the Presbyterian services, the same denomination in which Suzanne had her first wedding.
How was it she converted to Judaism? I asked. After all, she had grown up in the highly Christian communities of Mount Hope and Boscobel, Wisconsin, which might have never even seen a Jewish person. She just stared at me blankly. What was it that attracted you about the faith, about the teachings? She shrugged and said she couldn’t remember. When I told this to a friend whose father is Jewish and his mother not, he smiled and said, “I know what attracted her. It had to be money.” So I asked Suzanne, “Okay, so you became Jewish for husband number three, but why did you stay Jewish after the divorce? What was it about Judaism that was so essential to you?” Again no answer. Another friend, the cantor in his synagogue, thought it might be because she could then blame so much of what happened to her on being Jewish. I looked at Suzanne and asked again why she was so attracted to Judaism, but she just talked about how the rabbi had connected her with her last husband, the “keeper.”
During our exchange Louisa had entered the room and at the end of Suzanne’s story, Suzanne abruptly turned to Louisa and said, with no trace of sadness or apology, “There was a time I didn’t see you for seven years, wasn’t there? I didn’t even meet your husband until then.” She said these words so woodenly, and it seemed odd to me at the time. But it wasn’t until days later that I realized she was reciting almost verbatim from the letter she had written me in 1981, the letter I had given Louisa a couple of hours before. Evidently, Louisa had shown that old letter to her mother. Looking back, I saw it was all staged for me. Why would Suzanne have to remind Louisa, just then, that thirty years ago they hadn’t been together for a long time?
That’s when Suzanne’s son David came in the room. I knew his face, but he was now fifty pounds heavier with thinning gray hair. He had that same winning smile, which covered up a certain shyness, and he was dressed in jeans and a mottled brown T-shirt. He just kept staring at me, then came and hugged me and sat down on the love seat, apologizing for not coming sooner, but he had a lot of chores to do. I didn’t realize the context until much later when I learned more about his relationship with Louisa, but David spoke about the work he did like some beleaguered indentured servant, and I felt sorry for him being forced into so much labor. Maybe that was the point.
Suzanne and I continued talking, and I kept trying to engage her about Vernie, with absolutely no luck. Then David kept looking over at me and started asking me about Jesus and the Holy Spirit and sharing stories about how God had helped him. No one was talking to Suzanne right then. Suddenly she lifted herself up on her hands a few inches and yelled, to no one in particular, “I have to pee!” Like Pavlov’s dogs, David and Louisa got up. David
headed toward the door, and Louisa toward her mother, at the same time she called out for the aide, who scurried in quickly.
Louisa grabbed me and led me into a room across the hall that was filled with a computer and printer, some clothes racks, and assorted furniture all crammed together, and asked if I wanted to see her artwork. Even though I had seen Louisa many times in Wisconsin back in the 1960s, I don’t think I’d ever seen her watercolor and oil paintings, and they were amazingly lovely, in beautiful pastels and others with deep colors. It made me sad that her art career had been stalled by the murder. She had been a student at Pratt Institute in New York when “it” happened and she wanted to drop out, but her mother insisted she go back. Within two months she had a nervous breakdown and escaped to Alaska, the home of her birth father. Louisa didn’t finish her degree for a long time and never really got a chance to be a full-time artist.
In Alaska she started calling herself Louisa Elmira Chappington. At first, I thought this had to do with Louisa being an artist. Louisa Elmira Chappington sounded so much more romantic than Louisa Briggs, after all. But then I discovered that Suzanne had been born Elmira Brandon and that Louisa’s father and Suzanne’s first husband was L. Harry Chappington. “Louisa Briggs” was never a legal name, but one used to obfuscate Suzanne’s serial monogamy, with Briggs the last name of husband number two.
L. Harry married Suzanne in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1947, and after the divorce, he went north to Alaska. I found it interesting that Suzanne’s first husband—and her daughter—fled to the farthest and remotest place in the continental United States.
Out of the blue, Louisa mentioned that her mother had had a psychotic break “that night.” I noticed early on that no one in that family ever used the word “killed,” much less “murder.” It was like those writing exercises where they ask you to talk about an object or situation but never actually use that word. I asked her to elaborate.
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