First Avenue

by Lowen Clausen

  She looked at the floor and shook her head. “Everything’s gone,” she said to herself.

  Sam waited quietly for her to raise her head again.

  “About eight or nine months ago,” she continued, “Ben brought Alberta to the house—to introduce her, I suppose. Although I didn’t know it, she must have been pregnant at the time. He seemed fond of her and she was very nice. But I refused to take it seriously. I don’t believe I rejected her, I simply chose not to take her seriously. You see, Ben had many friends who did not stay long. He just couldn’t stick with anything.

  “A few months after that, he came to the house and demanded the money that my husband had left in a trust for him. He was to receive only a modest stipend until he was thirty. He thought he was being treated like a child, that we were deciding what was best for him, rather than letting him make his own decisions. I suppose he was right, but on the other hand, he did act like a child. I wanted him to act responsibly.” Her voice became infused with anger and frustration. “I told him to get a job, to take control of his life instead of waiting for money that he had no part in making. It would have been better if he had gotten no money at all, if he had to work to eat. He might have focused himself a little better then.

  “I could have accepted Alberta,” Mrs. Abbott continued, “but he had to take the first steps. He had to grow up, show he was responsible, and do something with his life. We could never get further than that.” She stopped as she suddenly realized she was not arguing with her son again. “We will never get any further than that. It was my fault, too. We never understand these things, do we?”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Georgia said, filling in the space after her question. “You did everything you could.”

  “Perhaps. I’m not looking for sympathy, Georgia. I want Officer Wright to know everything he needs to know so that we can find out what happened. I am Ben’s mother, but I am also this poor child’s grandmother. I wish to know the truth, no matter what it is.”

  “That’s what we all want,” Sam said, at last finding a subject to talk about. “Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez, too.”

  “Of course.”

  Georgia gave him a sharp, disapproving look that told him it was not necessary to bring up other sufferers.

  “If possible, I would like to help at the funeral tomorrow,” Mrs. Abbott said. “I wonder if you know how I can reach the Sanchez family?”

  “I doubt they have much money, Mrs. Abbott, but they have quite a lot of pride.”

  “I’m not talking about money, Officer Wright. I’m talking about helping.”

  “I understand,” he said, and perhaps he was beginning to understand. “I’ll get their phone number for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is Alberta their only child?” Mrs. Abbott asked. “I don’t know why, but I have a feeling she is.”

  “Yes.”

  “Just like Ben. And both lost.”

  Mildred Abbott stared at the big windows behind him, but he doubted she saw anything through them. More quickly than he expected, she looked at him again. “Do you have any questions you would like to ask about my son, Officer Wright?” she asked.

  “Did your son ever talk about a man named Pierre Bernard?”

  “Who is he?” Georgia asked.

  “He owns the Donut Shop downtown at First and Pike,” Sam explained. “Alberta worked there.”

  “Yes, Ben did talk to me about him a few times. Not recently, however. He seemed quite impressed with the man. He told me Mr. Bernard tried to look after the young people who drifted around the streets downtown. Some of them made his coffee shop a sort of home away from home. That’s how Ben put it. I know he gave Mr. Bernard some money to help with these children.”

  “How much money?”

  “At least two thousand dollars. Ben asked me for the money, and I gave it to him. I can imagine now what you may think of that. I know Ben took some of the young people out on his boat. I hope he did something worthwhile with that money.”

  Sam let her hope as she wished.

  “Was that why your newspaper did the story about the Donut Shop?”

  “I wouldn’t call it my newspaper,” she said. “I’m simply one of the shareholders. I did mention Mr. Bernard to Gordon, Gordon Monroe, our editor-in-chief, at a fund-raising event some time ago, and as I remember, the paper wrote a story about him after that. I do not interfere with the operation of the paper, but I suppose it’s fair to say that Gordon assigned a reporter to take a look at Mr. Bernard after our conversation.”

  “The reporter didn’t look very hard.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true or not. I hope not. I take it you don’t think very highly of Mr. Bernard?”

  “He’s a dangerous man, Mrs. Abbott. I don’t know how your son got mixed up with him, but it wasn’t a good idea.”

  Sam asked a few more questions, but Pierre was the main question he wanted answered. When Mrs. Abbott left the room to find the girl, Diane, Sam reached for the little coffee cup and took a sip.

  “Coffee isn’t very good,” he said.

  “Mildred made it. I’m sure she would like your opinion on that, too.”

  Sam could not help smiling. It was not his social skill that brought him into such fine homes and company.

  He saw a young girl standing at the door. Her face was white as though she had seen frightening things or seldom saw sunshine. She held her hands in front of her. Georgia did not see her at first, and the girl seemed even more uncertain about social propriety than Sam.

  “Here, Diane,” Georgia said, rising quickly from her chair. She took the girl by the arm and encouraged her to sit in the chair Mildred Abbott had used. “This is Officer Wright.”

  Georgia spoke softly and gestured toward Sam in such a delicate way that he wondered if the girl would crumble with any display of harshness. She was extremely thin.

  “How are you, Diane?” He tried to speak normally, but found that his voice was also softer.

  “Okay,” she said.

  The girl might have been anywhere between fifteen and twenty years old, or else she was part of all those years.

  “Diane, this is the officer who is trying to find out what happened to Alberta and her baby. He won’t write anything down or put anything into a report unless we say it’s okay. Isn’t that correct, Officer Wright?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want to know?” the girl asked.

  “Why don’t we start with Alberta,” Sam said. “When did you meet her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was it a month ago? Six months? A year?”

  “A year maybe.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  “I don’t know. I just got to know her, that’s all.”

  “Were you friends?”

  “I guess so,” Diane said. “I used to take care of the baby when she went to work. Ben dropped her when she started showing a lot. He said the baby wasn’t his. Except, he knew it was. Do you want me to tell you about that night he drowned?”

  “Sure.”

  She began talking with the urgency of someone who had a story to tell and could think of nothing else. He watched her eyes reveal her fear. There were four of them on the boat, she said. Two guys besides Ben—”boys,” he translated for himself. They were out on Lake Washington and going around and around in big circles. Ben sniffed cocaine and drank vodka straight from a bottle. “Shooter” kept laughing at him. Ben got so high that he couldn’t steer the boat, and Jack, the other boy, took over. They were crazy. She became cold and sick and went into the cabin after she started throwing up. Then she heard them yelling. Ben was in the water.

  “I ran up to the deck, but I couldn’t see him,” she said. “He was in the water, and it was so dark. I screamed and screamed, but Ben didn’t answer. It was so dark. We couldn’t see him.”

  “How did Ben get into the water?” Sam asked.

  “He got crazy. Jack said he got crazy.”r />
  “You said he was crazy before you went into the cabin. What happened?”

  The girl’s hands gripped the side of her chair as though hanging on to the boat. She looked at Georgia, the person who was supposed to help her, but Georgia did not help.

  “Shooter said he jumped.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see it.”

  “You told the officers who came that night that Ben fell overboard accidentally. Now you say he jumped.”

  “I know. I was scared. That’s what they told me to say.”

  Sam wondered how long Ben had lasted in the water—drunk, stoned, shoes and clothes acting like an anchor. Fifteen minutes, twenty? He was glad Mildred Abbott was not there, but perhaps she had heard the story already in perfect detail. Imperfect detail. It was always imperfect.

  “How do I find Shooter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  “I only know him by Shooter.”

  “How about Jack? Where can I find him?”

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  “Around the Donut Shop?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Her voice became higher with each denial. He was certain she knew some of the answers. He looked at Georgia, but she was not going to help him any more than she had helped the girl.

  “And Alberta? You said she was your friend. You took care of her baby. Where can I find her?”

  “I don’t know,” the girl said again. “I thought she had gone back home. I didn’t know the baby was still there.” The girl’s voice had begun the last sentence in strangled sounds as though hands had gripped her throat, but she screamed the last words clearly.

  Georgia jumped from her chair and grabbed the girl’s hands. “It’s all right, Diane. It’s all right.”

  Georgia looked at Sam. No more questions, she said through the intense look in her eyes. There are many questions, he wanted to reply. Georgia lifted Diane from the chair and escorted her out of the room, leaving Sam alone. “I didn’t know about the baby,” he heard the girl scream one last time from the hallway. Those words were becoming an anthem for all of them.

  He got up from the chair and walked over to one of the tall windows. He saw a round cement pond with a fountain squirting water into the air. Around the pond the grass had turned brown. There were many brown spots in the yard.

  He had not expected the girl to react that way. It wasn’t a fake outburst to avoid more questions. He imagined Georgia would not be pleased or impressed with his tact. It was a mess any way he looked at it.

  He heard Georgia’s footsteps in the hall, saw her in the doorway, and watched her walk over to the window beside him.

  “She’s with Mildred. She’ll be okay soon.”

  “You should have let me bring Markowitz.”

  “No. She’ll be all right. She wouldn’t have said anything if Detective Markowitz had come.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “I am. She seems to know you somehow. I could tell when I told her your name.”

  “I’ve never seen her before. Could have, I guess, but I usually remember people. She knows a lot more than she told me. Did she tell you anything else?”

  “No. I think you heard everything important she told me—even more. This was the first I heard about her taking care of Alberta’s baby.”

  “Why is this girl here?” he asked.

  “Where else could she be?” Georgia asked.

  “I don’t know, but this doesn’t look like a shelter for street kids. What’s the deal, Georgia?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “I see. And Ben Abbott is again the noble father?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “So now what?” he asked. “Is she just going to stay here and hide? She needs to tell us the truth.”

  “You need her to tell the truth,” Georgia said. “I don’t think any of us knows yet what she needs. She’s scared to death.”

  “She should be. I’ve got to bring Markowitz in on this.”

  “Not yet. Diane thinks they will come after her if they find out she is talking to the police.”

  “So put her someplace. That baby is dead. Alberta, too, most likely.”

  “I know. Just give me a day or two with Diane and Mildred. You can’t imagine how hard this is on them. Just a few days. It will be better if the girl decides on her own.”

  “A few days. But talk to the girl. No matter what you say, I think she should tell us everything.”

  “I think so, too.”

  Georgia was so close to him that the freckles under her right eye stood out like small flags draped over her cheekbones.

  “I’m sorry if I didn’t handle this very well,” he said.

  “You did just fine.” Her voice was gentle—not a voice that came often between them. They were more likely to tease or joke with each other. “I wish you would have told me about this.”

  It was the second time she had said those words.

  “Too late now. Besides, you can’t tell the opposing lawyer all your secrets.” His voice held instinctively to the one he knew.

  “I wasn’t the lawyer then.”

  They had stood like this often—reluctant to touch because someone might see them—balancing their faces with lies. Her face was not balanced.

  “I know,” he said. “Show me the way out of here, will you?”

  Chapter 15

  Katherine wished they wouldn’t have to stop, but Sam turned his car into the dirt driveway from the country road and parked beside the last car in a row of cars and old pickups.

  “It might not be so bad,” he said.

  At the church Mr. Sanchez insisted they come to the house. Everyone was coming to the house, he said. They should follow the cars.

  They had followed the cars on a dusty road away from town. Neither of them had said anything, but Katherine felt as if she were already out of place in the sad procession. They should have sat in the back of the church and slipped away when the service was over.

  What had been the purpose for coming anyway? She had come because Sam asked her, but neither the priest’s words, nor the songs, nor the recited prayers could fill the empty space in the church. What could any of them remember about a child none of them knew? The service was strange and foreign to her, and she could not feel any part of it.

  She and Sam walked toward a giant tree where people had gathered, but then she saw they were only men—mostly old men in old suits, smoking cigarettes and looking at the ground. Women were carrying plates from the house to a table that was off to the side. The table came from the house, or from some other place, but it didn’t belong outside. Katherine walked over to the table while Sam entered the company of men who surrounded Sanchez.

  “You must be Officer Murphy,” said a tall woman who stood off by herself. “I’m Georgia Winthrop.”

  “Oh yes. You and Sam are neighbors,” Katherine said.

  From the expression on the tall woman’s face, Katherine felt she had already said something wrong.

  “I came with Mildred Abbott,” Georgia said. “Sam probably told you about her son.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mildred speaks excellent Spanish. She’s in the kitchen with Mrs. Sanchez. I took Spanish in high school, but I can’t remember any of it.”

  “Neither can I.”

  Katherine had the feeling that she and Georgia Winthrop were standing apart—the only white people in the yard. It made her uncomfortable. Sam was there, she reminded herself. Then she reminded herself that it did not matter. It did matter.

  “Sam tells me the two of you work the same car.”

  “Yes, different shifts.”

  “That’s right. You work that horrible night shift. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “It’s not so bad when you get used to it,” Katherine said. She didn’t wish to talk about the night shift to this lady. “I gu
ess I’ll go in the house and help with the food. That seems to be our job.”

  Katherine walked past the men standing close to the tree. It was a magnificent tree, and its branches reached powerfully in all directions. A swing hung from one special branch that ran parallel to the ground. The supporting ropes looked worn and frayed, and she doubted they could be trusted anymore. Below the swing there was a depression in the ground where young feet had once kicked and dragged and scraped away the dirt. It was now covered with grass.

  From the swing she could see the country—a brown field of dry grass, green apple trees on the hill, blue, blue sky to the west above the hazy outline of mountains. Beautiful, she thought. Why are we so eager to leave? She realized she had included herself among the young girls like Alberta—the swingers of those swings.

  She saw the concern expressed through Sam’s eyes. He would have come to her then, but she was on her way into the kitchen. She smiled that she was all right, turned away from the men and from the hills, and climbed the porch steps into the house.

  She heard the fast friendly voices of the women. She could not understand the words, but the meaning was simple enough. Mrs. Sanchez and Mildred Abbott sat side by side at the kitchen table slicing red and green bell peppers into thin delicate strips. There were women on each side of them, assisting in the slicing, making certain the two seated women had peppers before them. All heads were bowed in work, eyes downcast and separated from contact. They were linked by their voices. They had experienced voices and knew what to say.

  Katherine went to the kitchen sink and rinsed her hands as she would in the kitchen on the farm. A woman appeared at her side. She smiled, spoke words. Katherine returned the smile. The woman pointed to a bottle of dish soap and gestured with her hands. “Soap,” she said. Katherine squirted soap into her hands and washed them beneath the faucet. The kind woman gave her a towel to dry her hands.

  “What can I do to help?” Katherine asked.

  “Come with me,” the woman said.

  When Katherine was brought to the table of work, some of the voices began to speak English. It didn’t seem to matter. The work went on. Her companion gave her lettuce to chop and pointed to the onion cutters at the counter beside the sink.