by Mark Zubro
“Sure.”
Avery left. Scott stayed to help with the crowd, and I went back to the office.
TWENTY-TWO
Wednesday 4:25 P.M.
I was there about twenty minutes when the office door crashed open. Veronica grabbed the rebound and slammed it shut. She leaned against it, shut her eyes, and breathed deeply. Her voice started as a whisper and rose to near a shriek, “I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. I hate every bone in their bodies. I hate the air they breathe.”
I hastened to the door and took her hand. I opened the door quickly and looked up and down the hall. If anyone had heard, they weren’t putting in an appearance.
I helped her to a seat then asked, “What’s wrong? Did the Grums do something?”
She shuddered, drew deep breaths. Finally calm enough, she said, “If those people pray at me one more time, I swear.” She got up and paced the length of the room, slapped at the grizzly, and turned to face me. “We walked into the funeral home, and right in the entryway, the first thing they wanted us to do is pray. When the funeral director met us, we had to say a prayer with him.”
She sat and rubbed her hands across her face for a moment then looked at me. “I’ve never gone to a funeral home to make arrangements for a funeral. I’ve never even thought about it. It was a good thing mom and dad were there.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “When we arrived, the dragon lady was already there. After praying, she began to decree and declare what was going to happen for the funeral. It was awful.” Her voice began to rise. “And Edgar’s father. He was with his odious wife. He told me I didn’t have a choice. I had to have the funeral their way.”
I held her close. I never understood this whole shtick about “my-funeral-is-better-than-your-funeral.” And is somebody taking attendance at funerals? The stupidest question I’ve ever heard is, “How would you like it if no one came to your funeral?” Well, I suppose I wouldn’t care much. I’d be dead. And so the living are supposed to count up the mourners? Whoever has the most mourners, wins? Wins what?
“What did they want?” I asked.
“They wanted this god awful extravaganza. They wanted a Christian rock band. They wanted singing groups. They wanted praise Jesus songs mixed with eulogies by every relative they have.”
I asked, “I know eulogies, but how does this praise Jesus stuff work?”
She said, “The preacher gives a combination sermon eulogy then someone sings a song. Next somebody gets up and does another eulogy. Then another song. I don’t want to hear all that shit.”
“How long does this song/eulogy extravaganza last?”
“Hours.”
“Really?”
“Really. I went to one of Edgar’s uncle’s funerals. In this gargantuan mega-church they had huge screens, stadium size screens, immense flat screen things, hooked up to computers. They showed pictures, every picture in his life, huge twenty-foot pictures of a dead person, rotating from screen to screen, interrupted by songs from groups, some live on stage, some taped, but all shown on those damn screens. They sang endlessly.”
“Funeral dirges?”
“No, praise songs to god.”
“Huh?”
“As in, every other word was praise and all the other words were Jesus.”
“That’s it?”
“There might have been other stuff. It was numbing after about ten seconds. It was awful. Maybe it comforted the afflicted. Maybe it pleased the Dragon Lady and the Dictator.” Her body twitched and shuddered. “Thankfully mom and dad were there today.”
“What did they do?”
“Dad looked at the old bitch and her despicable husband and said, ‘if that’s what Veronica wants, fine. We are going to do what she wants. This is a hard time for all of us, for you and your family, but we will do what Veronica says. I’m sure we all want to do what is best for Veronica and the children. Don’t you agree?’”
I knew well my dad’s trick of ending an oration on our errant behavior with a question that suggested you would be unreasonable to disagree with his last statement. It was a trick I’d most often heard from Margaret Thatcher, a politician my dad would be loath to be identified with.
Veronica said, “Mom chimed in right away. You know how she can be. She said, ‘You’re absolutely right dear. I’m sure no one could disagree’. The Grums could have overwhelmed me at a time like this, but mom and dad put an end to their nonsense, and mom and dad didn’t scream, or shout, or carry on, nothing at all like the Grums.” She drew a deep breath, reached for a tissue from the box on the coffee table, dabbed at her eyes. “Thank god for mom and dad.”
“They can be wonderful. It all worked out?”
“It’s going to be a simple ceremony, the way I wanted it.”
“Did she have the dog with her?”
“Yes.”
“I feel sorry for it.”
She managed a grim smile.
I said, “What I don’t get is how they can just barge into the funeral home. You can’t just co-opt someone else’s funeral. How did they think they were going to get away with that?”
“They know the funeral home director, family connections, political connections. It’s this damn county and who knows who. The Grums just tried to take over. They led him to believe they were in charge of the funeral. The first five minutes were pure hell. I was in shock. I’m still in shock. Numb. Daddy was a treasure. Thank god that’s over with so I don’t have to talk about it or think about it.”
Dad was the quietest of all of us, but it did no good to cross him for all his mildness.
I said, “Good for mom and dad. I talked to Azure Grum earlier.”
“She’s the best of them. Drinks a little much, but in this family, I can’t blame her.”
“She mentioned Mary Mallon used to date Edgar.”
“Mallon is dangerous. She’d date a corpse if it would help her career. She knew the Grums had money and power. It was just a way for an in when she was younger. But she married a Ducharmé. She may be vile, but she has the instincts to go where the most cash is.” She crushed the tissue and wedged it between the paws of a dead beaver on the coffee table.
“Did Edgar ever talk about Mallon?”
“Maybe a long time ago. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“I checked on the kids before I came in here. I kept it together in front of them. I don’t want to think. I want to keep moving. Am I broke? Am I indebted to the goddamn Grums?”
“This is preliminary. We still have a lot of boxes to go through.” I went over all the financial records we’d found so far. Showed how I’d set it up on a spread sheet on the computer. I increased the font size and then printed it out when she didn’t seem to understand. By printing it out, she could hold it in her hand. This seemed to help her.
I asked her the same questions I’d asked Scott earlier. “Where did he get the deposits to his accounts if he had such lousy jobs?”
I showed her the bank statements.
“I don’t know.”
“If they were electronically deposited, there’d have been records. If he was depositing them with cash, why and where was he dealing in that much currency?”
“I never saw that much cash.”
I found her lack of knowledge appalling, but I kept my mouth shut.
When we finished she said, “I’m not broke?”
“Far from it.”
“I get the house?”
“For sure.”
“And I can get money? Yes, I know you told me this stuff, Tom, but I’m just saying it again to reassure myself. I’m going to have to learn so much. And taxes are due next week.”
“He’s got an accountant listed here. Or if you want a different one, you can probably find one who could file an extension. You could call the one Scott and I use or find one locally. If you want, I can call ours and make an introduction, get you started.”
“Yes, please do.”
She slumped against the back of the chair, sighed,
and said, “Thank you. Thank you. I could never have done this financial stuff.”
I said, “Scott helped.” I didn’t say, sure you could have, you’re tough, you’re smart, sometimes you just have to deal with crap.
“He’s a dear. You have such a good marriage.”
“You never complained about Edgar.”
“I did the best I could.”
I let it drop. “Among the stuff we found were books on building guns. Did he go about armed?”
“As far as I know, he only carried a weapon when he went hunting although he loved the new concealed weapon law here in the state.”
TWENTY-THREE
Wednesday 5:15 P.M.
The rest of the afternoon was a swirl of activity. No cops and none of the major Grum players put in an appearance. Maybe the funeral home fracas had stopped them. Friends of Veronica’s and relatives of ours appeared along with minor politicians of all sorts, Republicans and Democrats, state reps, state senators, county board members, library board members. Many of them seemed to expect Charles and/or Beulah Grum to be present. Many said, be sure to convey our condolences to the Grums. I hope most of them were sincere. I hoped my cynical interpretation of their presence was untrue, “make sure the Grums know I was here to get my suck-up points.”
About six I wandered into the kitchen. Someone had ordered buckets of chicken from a local place, and these were set out with the tons of stuff that had been brought in during the day. Scott and the kids were not in evidence. Around sunset I went to look for them.
TWENTY-FOUR
Wednesday 7:00 P.M.
I found Scott and the kids in the backyard. Floodlights illumined the darkening scene. Clutching a tattered stuffed panda, Patricia sat on a swing. Her brother Gerald gently pushed her. I saw David, the oldest, swoop to the top of the skate board ramp, twist, and swoop back down. Then Scott swooped upward and did a flip and landed smoothly. Scott and David wore helmets, knee pads, and elbow pads.
I walked to the edge of the mini-skateboard park. It looked sort of like a swimming pool but with more curved sides and extensions of curving cement above ground as well.
David had a look of intense concentration. Scott was trying to explain a trick to David and suggesting he take several smaller steps first in learning to do what Scott just did.
I was going to suggest that if Scott’s doctor knew what he was doing, or if the team knew how many clauses in his contract he’d just violated, he’d be in huge trouble. He wasn’t that far removed from his surgery, and he was certainly risking doing harm to his rehab, or reinjuring himself.
Then again, I was not his mother, but his lover.
David was thirteen. On the cusp of serious criminal delinquency. He’d caused trouble in school since first grade.
Veronica and Edgar always rushed to his defense. It was the school’s fault. It was the teacher’s fault. It was the other kid’s fault. Every time, somebody, anybody else, started it.
In third grade he’d almost been expelled. You don’t get almost expelled in third grade unless you are perceived as a serious danger to others.
Every bone in my teacher’s body screamed out that this kid was in serious trouble. He would graduate into an uncontrollable teenagehood unless there was some kind of serious intervention. Teams of therapists would be called for.
One of the oddest things was that with me he nearly always was a fawning suckup, eager to be as touchy huggy as about a four-year-old. I knew I didn’t have the capacity to help him.
In public he was a hellion. The stories in the family were infamous. When he was eight, the family was out at a restaurant. The kid was whiny, crawly, clingy, the kind of behavior that might be normal in a two year old who hadn’t had enough sleep. At that restaurant Edgar grabbed him by the arm and dragged him outside. Each of them were screaming and flailing at each other, arms flying, legs kicking, fingers pinching and gouging, the two of them in a ghastly familial wrestling match as they stumbled out the door. I thought both of them needed serious help.
Once I’d tried to gently steer my sister into a more realistic mode with her kid, but I got instant defensiveness and let it go.
I talked to my parents about the whole thing. Mom said she’d talked to Veronica a number of times about David. Mom’s a peacemaker of extraordinary dimensions. Veronica had rebuffed her, defended her kid, her own behavior, and her husband’s.
Scott, for some reason, was able to work his magic with this one as well. It might have gone back to when David was little, and we were baby-sitting and the kid woke up in the middle of the night with some kind of fluish/stomach problem. Scott knew exactly what to do. A little warm Coke, singing him some soothing songs in the middle of the night in a darkened room, and the kid slept peacefully through the rest of night.
I stood at the edge of the skateboard ramps. I said, “That was pretty spectacular.” Pause. How do you tell someone who is actually getting along with a totally recalcitrant child to stop it. I said, “That’s not dangerous?”
David said, “It was cool.”
Scott said, “It’s getting late, and we should probably be getting ready for dinner. Your mom is probably concerned with how you’re doing.”
They were standing at the bottom of the biggest declivity. Their skateboards were turned on one end as they leaned against them. Scott must have borrowed one of David’s. Patricia and Gerald came to join me in spectating.
“Will you teach me more, Uncle Scott?” David asked.
“Only if your mom says it’s safe.”
“Awww.”
“You know I won’t go against what your mom says.”
“I know.” But the kid didn’t sound as petulant as usual. How does Scott do that?
They climbed out. Gerald asked, “Can I carry that, Uncle Scott?” He gave the skateboard to Gerald.
Gerald took it in one hand and held out the other. Scott took it, and they held hands as they began to walk. Patricia rushed to Scott’s other side. He stopped, reached down, and pulled her up with his left arm, his non-pitching arm. The three of them walked toward the house.
Gerald was the quietest of Veronica’s kids. He always seemed to be watching, hoping for a nod of approval, or a kind word.
David climbed out of the skateboard track trough and looked up at me. He said, “My dad built this skateboard park for me.”
I said, “That was good of him.”
David said, “He built it, but Uncle Scott just spent more time out here with me this afternoon than my dad did in three years.” He brushed dirt off his long sleeve sweatshirt. He said, “I wish Uncle Scott was my dad.” He hefted his skateboard and walked to the house.
It was a heart-stoppingly affectionate thing to say, or maybe a heart-wrenchingly awful comment about what a shit his dad was, or a sad kid trying to cope with his loss in any way he could.
TWENTY-FIVE
Wednesday 8:00 P.M.
After we grabbed something to eat, Scott and I got back to work on the files. We still had stacks of boxes left to go. Nothing I’d found since my meeting with Veronica gave me reason to worry about her financial situation, safe so far.
When we were alone in the room, the first thing I said was, “I’m glad you were able to help David with all the skateboard stuff, but I worry when you do tricks like you did.”
He said, “It was kind of dumb. There’s no need for extra worry at a time like this. I made a bad decision. Yes, I know I was breaking seventeen different clauses in my contract.”
“I wasn’t going to report you to the contract police.”
“I know.” He came over to me and took me in his arms. “But you worry about me, and I appreciate it. It’s not like I’m sacrificing our living standard for a reckless moment.”
“I know.”
“But you’re annoyed.”
I said, “I try to be less rigid about holding to guidelines that make no sense.” This was in reference to what I called ‘mom rules’. These were the dictums dru
mmed into us by our mothers when we were kids that in retrospect as adults, seem kind of nuts.
“And you’ve gotten better at it.”
“And I didn’t say anything.”
It was his turn to say, “I know. And I promise not to do it again.”
“Thank you.”
We embraced. He is so nice to come home to. And his arms are always home.
Enid Achtenberg walked in about nine. Veronica was with the kids putting them to bed. The last few well wishers were helping clean up – with Mom and Darryl, in the kitchen, with Dad and Lionel in the living room. The distantly related Grums who were in attendance had been among the first to leave.
Enid met with us in Crippled Critter Central. Scott and I sat in separate chairs behind the desk. Enid sat in front of it. We had boxes neatly labeled and organized alphabetically by company all along the floor. Every paper in each was filed by date with the most recent on top.
She began, “I found out a few things. I’ve got to talk to Veronica when she’s done with the kids. How is she holding up?”
“Keeping busy. It’s been crazy all day.”
Achtenberg pointed to the no-longer mess. “You guys have been busy.”
“Not even half done.”
I showed her the further Trust documents we’d found and the insurance papers. She knew which pages to go to in the Trust that were the most important.
She held a stack of papers out to us. “This is the Grum Family Trust which is different from the Trust documents we looked over earlier. This one is fairly clear.”
“How so?”
“When Mr. and Mrs. Grum die, and if Edgar has predeceased them, the money does not go to Veronica, but to her kids.”
“Is that normal?” Scott asked.
She shrugged. “I’ve seen lots of different things.” She shuffled to the important sections. “This is the most recent.” She read through two pages. “It’s pretty ordinary. There are a few odd things that go back to the family upon his death.”
“I know,” I said. “The grizzly goes back to the Grums.”