The Blue Hour

by Richard Teleky

  “And she never tried…”

  “Just more cards.” Hedy spoke again, as if they were taking turns. “Then we told her that we’d get a restraining order, we’d talk to a lawyer. We couldn’t let her destroy our family.”

  While they talked, Sheila’s account of Guy’s confession never left my thoughts. This morning I’d promised myself to avoid dangerous topics but I wasn’t prepared for a story like this one.

  “It was a horrible time,” Nick said. “We’re old-fashioned, you know that. Guy was our son, our family. We had to protect him. That’s what…”

  “That’s what we believe,” Hedy added. “Marriage and the family. We want to be free to live our values. We don’t force them on anyone else.”

  They often finished each other’s sentences with such ease I half imagined them preparing for a visit: “You say this, I’ll say that.”

  “Just free,” she muttered, as if she never expected to feel that way again.

  “But no one’s stopping you,” I objected.

  “Don’t you believe in liberty?” Nick continued.

  We were shifting gear fast, a bad move.

  “You’ve asked me that before. It’s a question that sets you up as moral arbiter of the world – or at least this discussion – and it can’t be answered without…”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “If we’re going to talk seriously, we have to apply the same set of standards to both sides of the argument.”

  “Not if you think one side is completely wrong,” Hedy corrected me.

  “Look, there are things you value. Things that matter to you…”

  “Yes?” she asked.

  I should have quit there, but couldn’t. “Take your diet, for instance. You see it as moral. A moral choice. Okay, that’s fine, I respect you for it. But it’s not for everyone. Remember Hitler didn’t eat meat, and wouldn’t touch booze. He was a vegetarian, too, but a tyrant. Morality’s not so easy.”

  “What a rotten example!” Nick protested. “Plucking Hitler out of the air is a cheap trick.”

  “It’s true, though. Maybe he’s an extreme example, but you often take extreme positions.”

  They both glared at me, our friendship on the line.

  I’d better be the appeaser. “Look, forget about Hitler, okay? He’s not the point. Just my bad choice, sorry. But none of us has the corner on virtue.”

  We were talking past each other, as usual. This was no afternoon for antiquing, I wanted only an escape. People fell out with old friends and I saw this was happening to me. I’d known Hedy since we were fourteen and our bond was fast unraveling.

  “He’s forgotten,” Hedy said with a hard smile. I imagined her teeth were clenched.

  19

  Monday, June 11

  My visit with the Antons bothered me all weekend, like a festering sore. If friendship means you have to keep a list of subjects to avoid, if politics and religion and anything worth talking about are off limits, then the bond’s just a habit. An affectionate one, sure, but you may as well stay in your room by yourself.

  When I arrived at work, relieved to be back in my office, a message from Lieutenant Foley flashed on my answering machine. Would I please call him? It wasn’t urgent, he added. Just a few questions. He had a casual but efficient manner, like someone taking a delivery order for groceries.

  We finally spoke before lunch, and he asked if I knew anything about Sheila’s connection to Guy. Caught off guard, I must have hesitated, because he asked me to drop by the police station that afternoon. When I mentioned helping Mrs. Carney and Sheila with her mall inventory that evening, I could almost feel him push the receiver closer to his ear. “We’d better talk before that,” he said. Detective work, I was beginning to see, resembled archival work – you had the evidence at hand, and questions about it. You had to make sense of facts once you knew what they were.

  The Oberlin Police Department is located behind the municipal court building on South Main, a brisk five-minute walk from Gibson’s and a block from the Lorain County Coroner’s Office. At first you might miss its entrance unless you knew where you’re going.

  I’d once read that the police force has twenty-five full-time officers, but the space seemed too small for all of them at the same time. While waiting in the lobby I stood before two large vending machines filled with candy, chips, salted nuts and soft drinks. There was no place to sit so you couldn’t comfortably enjoy your junk food – that might, in fact, have been the point. Yet three teenage boys stood outside, by the entrance, munching on chips. This corner of the lobby could belong to any college campus.

  Lieutenant Foley soon joined me. A barrel-chested man in his early forties, with a recent buzz cut, he motioned me into a small windowless anteroom off the lobby. “Is this okay?” he asked in a gracious tone.

  “It’s fine,” I said, and sat across from him, knowing little about police procedures.

  “Are you a close friend of the Carney family?”

  “Not close, but more than a good acquaintance.” I wasn’t splitting hairs even if it sounded like that. A pad and pen had already been set on the table between us.

  “Does Ms. Carney tend to exaggerate?”

  “Sheila can be colorful, but I’ve never known her to lie. Are you thinking of her complaints about her ex-boyfriend?”

  “We could start there.”

  I told him what I knew, which amounted to very little.

  “We know she’s not lying,” he said softly, as if to reassure me.

  “And she isn’t trying to get even with Brad for leaving her. They were on-and-off for five years. Recently, mostly off.”

  “A habit,” he observed.

  “You could call it that.” Suddenly I felt on display. “I’ve never met Loretta.”

  He nodded. “We’re in touch with them. Had she known Guy Anton a long time?”

  Apparently the police weren’t concerned about Brad or Loretta, or that’s what he wanted me to think.

  “More than ten years.” I gave him the history. All of it.

  “And you believed Ms. Carney’s story?”

  I didn’t reply at once. I hadn’t meant to speak out.

  “About Guy Anton’s father?” he persisted.

  “I don’t like to. I warned her about false memories, but she was certain. She thought Guy might’ve kept a journal – his therapist had encouraged it – though I didn’t find one. Was it in his car? Or on his computer? Maybe I shouldn’t ask.”

  He smiled and shook his head. A noncommital response, or a denial? I was starting to second-guess the police. As yet he’d written nothing on his pad.

  “There’s one thing I just learned this weekend. I feel like I’m betraying a confidence, but Guy’s grandmother isn’t dead. He loved visiting her when he was a teenager but she’s not dead, like he thought.”

  Foley’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know where she is?”

  “No idea. And she married a second time so I’m not even sure of her name.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “The Antons told me. Nick did. Just the other day. His mother had e-mailed him after years of being estranged. She’d heard about Guy’s death.”

  “You get around,” Foley said, smiling. “A lot of people seem connected to you. You’re friends with Neil Breuler, too.”

  “He rents a room from an old friend, but you know that. Neil’s barely an acquaintance. I saw them together one night on Tappan Square. Guy and Neil. A couple days before Guy’s fall. And a few weeks ago he came to my office on campus, he wanted to know if Guy’s parents had heard about him. He was worried that his wife’s divorce lawyer might hear about his affair. I really don’t know what went on between them. Guy never told me.”

  Lieutenant Foley nodded again and scribbled something on the pad. A clever man, he’d known how to get me to talk.

  “Do you mind if I ask a few questions?”

  “Why not?” he said amiably, with half a chuckle,
yet his eyes were shrewd.

  “I can’t figure out…” I stopped to collect my thoughts. I was saying too much and drew back. “It’s pretty strange, talking like this about people I care for.”

  “You’ve done the right thing. We’re looking at all angles. We might need to call on you again. You have a good reputation at the college, I made a few queries.”

  Best ignore that remark.

  “If you hear anything unusual tonight…”

  “Of course,” I agreed, catching his drift. So, I had allied myself with the police – sort of. Yet I felt sullied by our meeting, and angry with myself. What kind of choice had I made?

  An hour later, when I arrived at the mall, a sign on the door asked dealers to leave their inventory reports at the main desk. Sheila and her mother hadn’t yet appeared, and I hoped nothing was wrong. I’d offered to take them to a restaurant afterward but Doris declined: “I don’t like restaurants. There are too many choices and the food’s usually a disappointment. Or it makes me sick.” All things considered, this struck me as a reasonable reply. On my way to Sheila’s booth, I kept an eye out for the Antons.

  “Hey, hey!” Claire Warren stood checking book titles against a pegboard. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

  The mall was busier than I’d anticipated, and when I mentioned this, Claire snorted, “The gawkers, they’re out for a thrill – people love a mystery. What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m helping with Sheila’s inventory.”

  “Good luck. I didn’t think Sheila would be up to that yet. She knows every particle of dust here. I was terrified to come by today.”

  “But nothing happened here. And you’re surrounded by people.”

  Claire laughed. “You don’t think people are terrifying?”

  “I never expected to hear you say anything like that.”

  “Then you underestimate me. I’d be glad to help out,” Claire said, “but there’s a reception tonight for a retiring dean, an old pal. There are days when I wonder if I should keep my booth. With internet everything’s on-line, and most business is out-of-state. I’m just nostalgic about the mall, I’ve been here so long I can’t give it up. But I don’t need to put my life at risk to sell a few old books.” She set down her pegboard. “Sheila and I, we’re not close. She’s a man’s woman, you know what I mean. But she works hard. My garden already misses her.”

  “I forgot she does your garden, too.”

  “I try to imagine what happened, but I can’t.”

  “What are the other dealers saying?”

  “No one knows what to think. Or who’s next…”

  Claire stopped in mid-sentence as Doris Carney headed down the aisle toward us. In her pink T-shirt, jeans and white baseball cap, she might have come from doing the laundry, but she’d dabbed herself with a sweet floral perfume as if for a night on the town. Claire immediately put her arms around Mrs. Carney and the two women commiserated while I scouted out Sheila’s booth.

  “I don’t think I can do an inventory tonight,” Doris sighed.

  Claire began to stroke her shoulder. “There’s no hurry,” she said.

  “I’m sorry to waste your time.”

  “Please don’t think that,” I said. “We’ll just have dinner. I’ve already made it.”

  In a few moments Sheila joined us, looking in better shape than I expected, although she carried an old wooden cane in her left hand.

  “We’re not working tonight,” Doris announced. “We’re just having dinner. We need a good time.”

  Sheila didn’t object, which surprised me, and, with a sullen expression, said, “Whatever.”

  When we arrived at my place, Doris said she was ready for a glass of wine. I’d set the dining-room table that morning, and dinner only needed heating up. The food doesn’t matter, but I remembered Doris’s dentures while shopping for it. Sheila carried her cane to the table and hung it on the back of her chair.

  “What happened to your cats?” I asked her, an easy beginning as we settled at the table.

  “One of my friends took them home for now,” Mrs. Carney said. “I already have three of my own. If you add one here and one there, soon you’re running a cat motel. I told Sheila to watch out or she’ll end up a crazy cat lady.”

  I knew from Sheila that Doris only liked Gallo Chablis, and filled her glass. She watched me carefully. “Don’t let me go beyond three glasses. I’m driving, and that’s my limit. I told Sheila to sell everything to another dealer. We could move to Florida. To the sun.”

  Sheila kept silent. That didn’t sound like a plan of hers.

  The police had allowed Sheila back into her house as soon as the hospital discharged her, as she’d insisted, although Lieutenant Foley didn’t strike me as someone easily intimidated.

  “I never expected anything like this to happen,” Mrs. Carney went on.

  We both turned to Sheila, who seemed lost in her own thoughts. Then I saw she wasn’t smoking. Sheila usually had a cigarette going, sometimes even while she ate.

  “Oh, we have our differences, and I can bug her, but that’s how it is. I’m not the easiest person to get along with. That’s why I prefer my cats.”

  “Like Sheila,” I said.

  “Truer words…” Mrs. Carney – I still had trouble thinking of her as Doris – looked down at her plate and picked up a fork. “I never eat cucumber,” she said, pushing some slices aside on her salad plate. “It doesn’t agree with me.”

  “That’s alright. I can’t eat raw green pepper.”

  She made an effort to smile. “Me neither.”

  “I eat them both,” Sheila said finally, rousing herself.

  When Sheila’s in a funk, she hates questions about it. Best keep on talking to her mother. “Did you hear anything more about Guy Anton from your friend? His landlady.”

  “She didn’t know the family, but Sheila calls them monsters.”

  “I’ve known his mother since the ninth grade.”

  “Well, Sheila calls a lot of people monsters. She’s always angry. Like me. And there’s a lot to be angry about out there. I tell myself it’s just politics but…”

  “Politics is us, Doris, that’s the trouble.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What happens, on all sides, that’s who we are.”

  Sheila focused on her salad with an intent expression that baffled me.

  “You don’t seem the angry type,” Doris said.

  “I keep it to myself.”

  “So, we’re all alike. You should have a cat,” she suggested.

  I laughed. “I don’t know about that.”

  “I’m serious. You’re missing something.”

  “We’re all missing something, don’t you think?”

  Now Sheila laughed too, but with a bitter edge.

  “Did you tell your mother about Guy?” I hoped this was a safe question.

  “She told me what his father had done. I’m a big girl but it makes me sick.”

  I resisted the impulse to defend Nick. Sometimes I hold on too long. Isn’t that what Theo called me – a dog with a bone?

  “He ought to be punished,” Sheila added. “The prick.”

  “But there’s no way to prove it,” I said. Sheila’s mood was getting to me. She seemed ready to lash out at someone.

  Mrs. Carney speared a piece of lettuce but didn’t bring it to her mouth. “It must’ve happened. Sheila has a strong sense of justice, you know that. When she was little I could never take her to the zoo – she couldn’t stand seeing animals in a cage.”

  I filled our wine glasses again. “That’s number two, Doris.” I sounded like a stern parent. “Do you want more wine?” I asked Sheila, and she held her glass out to me.

  “And it drove her crazy when a cat caught a bird – she couldn’t stand that,” Mrs. Carney added, smiling at her daughter.

  “That’s enough,” Sheila said. “Okay? That’s enough!”

  “Maybe that’s why you got invol
ved with Brad,” Mrs. Carney rambled on. “He was like a wounded animal.”

  What’s going on here? I wondered, and then it hit me. Sheila probably hadn’t heard from Brad since the shooting. He’d ignored her crisis.

  “But wounded animals sometimes attack,” I said.

  “She’s too good for him, she was always saving him. Eventually people resent that.”

  Sheila glowered at me and slumped over her plate.

  “Funny, Doris, but I’ve said that too.”

  20

  Thursday, June 14

  I didn’t expect to hear from Lieutenant Foley again soon, yet there was a phone message from him when I got to my office after a staff meeting. My dinner with Sheila and Mrs. Carney had yielded little to tell.

  “There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” the lieutenant said when we connected. “You wouldn’t by any chance be able to come by this morning?”

  I offered to walk over on my lunch hour.

  “We’ll be waiting,” he replied.

  After hanging up I regretted not going at once. It must be strange being a cop and seeing mostly the worst in people. Archival work at least can give you hope. But some days I think I live in a time that has run out of hope, a time that’s forgotten how to remember the past.

  Again, my wait in the lobby was brief, and Lieutenant Foley escorted me down a long corridor to a larger office than the anteroom where we’d last talked. It had a window, and an elderly woman sitting across from the desk. “I want to introduce you to Mrs. Roberts.”

  “Annie Roberts,” she said. “Just plain Annie.”

  “Nick Anton’s mother,” the lieutenant explained. “I told her about you, and she asked to meet you.”

  Hell, what was I in for?

  “I did,” she concurred. “The lieutenant’s very thoughtful.”

  Patches of scalp showed through her thin blondish white hair, and the powdery mask applied to her face needed refreshing. At first I saw no resemblance to Nick, only a frail old woman in a lime-green pantsuit. She wore more rings than I could bother to count.

  “I thought you might prefer meeting here,” he said. “In my office.”