The Outhouse Gang

by Neil Plakcy

“You have to know that. You mean everything to me, Andy. When you were born, I looked at you, and I knew that I would turn the world upside down to save you from anything bad. But I felt the same way about Betsy, too, and you’re right, I couldn’t save her. I used to look at her in the hospital, with all those tubes going into her, and it would just tear my heart out because I couldn’t do anything to help her.”

  There was a long silence. “It was kind of neat, though,” Andrew said. “It was like something you see in the movies. Ray and Jeffie thought I was so cool. Can we do it again next year?”

  “I’m so glad nobody ever told me having kids would be this hard,” Tom said. He shook his head. “Yeah, I hope we’ll do it again next year.”

  Andrew opened his door. “And I still get the bike, right?” he asked. Tom nodded.

  “All right,” Andrew said, running off to the house. Tom stayed in the car for an extra minute, listening to the silence his son left behind.

  Sandy: 1977

  Sandy Lord was proud of his kids. Tommy, his eldest, who preferred now to be called Tom, was a first-year law student at Duke, where he was also learning to be a southern gentleman. When he came home he drank bourbon and argued elementary points of law with his father.

  Ellen was finishing up her freshman year at a small college in Connecticut, where she vacillated between concentrating on political science or boys. When she stuck to her books, she brought home A’s, and when she didn’t she attracted a retinue of star-struck teenagers who were in awe of her perfect complexion, her well-endowed breasts, and her ability, honed in years of debate competitions, to turn every phrase to her own advantage.

  They were both clearly their father’s children. Danny, who was 15, was another story. Sandy sometimes referred to him as the goblin child, the one monsters had left behind when they’d taken Sandy’s true third child. Where his brother and sister could argue with logic, Danny could only argue with passion. Unlike them, he was not a serious student, and his grades were only mediocre.

  He refused to become a boy scout because his father was the scoutmaster. He declined to help in his father’s campaign for town council. While his brother and sister welcomed the chance to accompany Dad to the office on weekends or school holidays, Danny preferred to remain at home, designing elaborately destructive wars for his collection of tin soldiers.

  There were frequent blow-ups between him and his father. One day during the late spring Sandy and Helene took Danny to a big discount store out on the highway to buy some new furniture for his room, which was still decorated with dinosaurs, giant pencils and bright primary colors.

  They went to the paint department first. “What color would you like?” Helene asked.

  “I want the walls to be black,” Danny said.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Sandy said. “You don’t want black walls.”

  “I do want black walls. And if I’m stupid, then you’re an asshole.”

  “What did you call me?”

  “Asshole.” Danny raised his voice. “Asshole. Asshole.”

  “You little bastard.” Sandy started toward Danny, who dodged him and ran toward the bedding department.

  Sandy took off after him, with Helene running a distant third, calling, “Please, please.”

  Sandy and Danny were dodging each other on opposite sides of a mattress display. “Sandy, please, you’ll give yourself a heart attack,” Helene said.

  A salesman in a gray suit with a paisley tie came over to the Lords. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Yeah, get me new parents,” Danny said.

  “We actually don’t need anything in this department,” Helene said to the salesman. “We’re just passing through on our way to window treatments.”

  “Maybe I can help you there,” the salesman said. “We have some very nice vertical blinds on sale this week.”

  “Daniel, you go with the salesman and see if you can find some blinds you like. Your father and I will be there in a minute.”

  She turned to Sandy as soon as Danny had trailed away after the salesman. “You egg him on. You ought to know better than that.”

  “How come he’s so rotten?” Sandy said. “He’s not my kid.”

  “Oh, no? Where do you think he gets that stubbornness from? Not my side of the family. We’re all very accommodating.”

  “Come on. He’s probably getting black window shades too.”

  * * *

  A few days later Sandy got a call from his old law school friend, Arthur Winston. He was in Philadelphia for a seminar, and wanted to come up to Stewart’s Crossing for a visit. Sandy arranged to pick him up at the train station that afternoon. The first thing Sandy noticed when Arthur got off the train was how much older he looked. He was wearing a dark suit, his hair was tinged with gray, and he looked tired and sad.

  He was quiet and preoccupied at dinner, not at all like the Artie he’d known in law school, who was quick-witted and dramatic, a frustrated actor who had transferred his desire to perform from the theater to the courtroom. Even late that night, sitting in Sandy’s study with cigars and snifters of amber-colored brandy, Artie wasn’t talking.

  “Is something wrong?” Sandy asked. “The kids all right?” Arthur had divorced his wife Jenna a few years before, but still saw his two daughters.

  “They’re fine,” Arthur said.

  “Well, is it the practice?”

  Sandy thought he saw Arthur stiffen, but Arthur said, “No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired. I was sitting in that seminar this afternoon and I thought of how close I was to you, and I thought I’d take a break and come out for a visit.”

  “I’m glad you did. And while you’re here, I want you to feel at home. If you need anything, just ask. I’ve got a law library at the office, in case you need to check anything. It’s nothing like what you’ve got in Pittsburgh, but it serves my purposes.”

  “I’m not going to think about work. I haven’t even told my secretary where I am.”

  The next morning, Arthur was asleep when Sandy left for the office. Notwithstanding his friend’s bad mood, he was happy to have him visit. And he was happier still that his two elder children were due home for the summer that weekend.

  Tom had a summer job with a big firm in Trenton that specialized in work with the state government. Sandy thought it would be good exposure for him to see what it was like in a sprawling, bureaucratic firm, after spending the last few summers working for his father.

  Ellen was taking her brother’s place. Sandy had been putting aside a lot of the more routine work in the office as well as the long-term research. He was hoping to give Ellen an exposure to the variety of work an attorney handled in a small-town practice.

  He was especially happy that his kids would all be home for his birthday, which was that Saturday. As he crept through middle age, he found the only reason to anticipate a birthday was the chance it gave him to be together with his family. And with luck, Arthur, one of his oldest friends, would be around to celebrate too.

  On Saturday afternoon, Ellen and Tom rendezvoused at the airport and rode the train to Stewart’s Crossing together. Helene arranged to pick them up so that Sandy and Artie could take a couple of poles up to the reservoir and try their hand at some early summer fishing.

  It was a slow, lazy afternoon. The sun was high in the sky, but there was a nice breeze coming off the water. They found a shady spot where they could cast into the shallows, sat back, and popped open a pair of beers. “When’s your flight back to Pittsburgh?” Sandy asked.

  Art shrugged. “I don’t have a reservation yet.”

  “There must be something the matter,” Sandy said. “I can’t believe they’re letting you out of the office for so long without wanting to know where you are.”

  “I’m a partner.”

  “Even partners have to report in. What’s up, Artie? Something is wrong. You haven’t been yourself since you got here.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, all right? Trust m
e, it’s for your own good.”

  “What do you mean?” Sandy said. “You’re my friend. How can it be for my own good not to care about what’s wrong with you?”

  “You could get in trouble. The less you know, the better.”

  “What is it, Jenna? Is she making things tough for you? Money worries? A tough case? What?”

  “I told you, stay out of it. If you don’t know anything, nobody can say you broke any laws.”

  Sandy sank back against the tree. “Oh, Jesus. You’re on the lam from something. You didn’t kill anybody, did you?”

  Art looked at him. “Give me a little credit. Not much, but a little.”

  “So how big we talking here? Are they looking for you yet?”

  “I spoke to my secretary Thursday afternoon,” he said. “She said the cops had come in and seized some files. I knew right away what was up.”

  “And you haven’t spoken to her since?”

  Art shook his head.

  “So you don’t actually know you’re in trouble.”

  “I’m in trouble. Look, Sandy, I don’t want to make things hard for you. If I tell you what’s up, and you don’t call the cops on me, they could get you for aiding and abetting.”

  “I know my law, Artie.” Sandy held up his hands. “All right, I won’t pry any more. But if you need to talk about it, you tell me, all right?”

  Artie nodded. “All right.”

  * * *

  The Lords and Arthur Winston went out to dinner that night, to celebrate Sandy’s birthday and Tom and Ellen’s return home from school. Tom proposed a toast, and Sandy was struck by how eloquent he was, how self-possessed. He doubted he had been that sure of himself after only a year of law school.

  Ellen was interested in corporate law, and kept trying to get Art to tell her some of his old war stories. Eventually she gave up and started pumping her father for details of what she’d be doing that summer.

  “You’ll do whatever he doesn’t want to,” Tom said. “He’ll send you on these errands, for things he doesn’t need, just so he can seem important and get you out of the office so he can take his afternoon nap.”

  “Afternoon nap,” Sandy sputtered. “How old do you think I am anyway!”

  “Forty-seven,” all three kids chorused.

  Sandy shook his head. “It’s terrible to have children.” He smiled at Helene across the table.

  Late that night, Sandy went down to the kitchen in his striped nightshirt and noticed the light on in the living room. Art was sitting on the floor by the coffee table, playing solitaire. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  Arthur shook his head. “I’m leaving in the morning.”

  “You don’t have to go.”

  “I do. Every day I stay here I’m putting your career on the line. If they catch you helping me, you could be disbarred. You could go to jail.”

  “Then at least tell me what I’m helping you do.”

  Art brought all the cards together. “We handle the trust for the Vandermeer estate.” He shuffled the cards carefully. “One of the big Pittsburgh steel families. About three dozen heirs who each get a check every quarter. Two years ago, when Jenna left me, I ran into some financial problems. So I dipped into the Vandermeer trust, figuring I’d pay the money back as soon as I could.”

  The room was quiet except for the soft rustle of the shuffling cards. “But it was so easy, and I covered my tracks well. I took some more money and salted it away, numbered offshore accounts, the whole nine yards. I thought nobody could trace me. But when I heard the cops had taken all the Vandermeer files, I knew the game was up. I came up here for some time to think about what to do.”

  “There’s only one thing to do,” Sandy said. “Confess. Give back what you can, take your punishment, and pay back the rest over time.”

  Art shook his head. “That’s what you would do. But you’re a good guy. A real straight arrow. You always have been, even as far back as law school.”

  “And you were too. You could be again.”

  “Do you know how I passed Torts?” Art said. “I snuck into Weidenbaum’s office and made a copy of the exam. I’ve done things you’d never have dreamed of, things that were so small to me I’ve forgotten about them.” He shook his head again. “No, I’m not going back. Besides, I’d be disbarred. And I’m too old to start washing dishes for a living.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I can’t tell you. Because I expect you to call the cops as soon as I’m gone, and what you don’t know you can’t tell them.”

  “I wouldn’t call the cops.”

  “You have to. Just give me a couple of hours to make my getaway. Then call the Pittsburgh police, tell them I was here, and that as soon as you found out what was up, you called. It’s the only way to protect yourself. And even then you’ll have a lot of explaining to do.”

  * * *

  Sandy couldn’t fall asleep. He tossed and turned until he dozed off around six in the morning. Helene did not wake him, and it was noon before the sound of the doorbell roused him.

  Sandy stood up, yawned, and stretched. He was in the bathroom washing his face when Helene came in behind him. “Sandy, there are some men downstairs who are asking about Art. And he’s gone.”

  He turned off the faucet and dried his face on the towel. “What kind of men?” he asked.

  “Men in suits. From the FBI.” She looked him in the eye. “What’s wrong?”

  Sandy shook his head. “You don’t know anything. Go downstairs, give them coffee or something, and I’ll be down as soon as I can throw some clothes on.”

  The two men from the FBI did not want coffee. They were sitting in the living room when Sandy came downstairs. After the introductions, the men came right to the point. They were looking for Arthur Winston, a suspect in an embezzlement case. Did Sandy know his whereabouts?

  “No.” He described Arthur’s visit, that he had seemed distressed. “Last night he finally broke down and told me. He said he took some money from a trust, and that he was afraid the police had found out.”

  “And what did you do, sir?” the first man asked.

  “I was mad at him first,” Sandy said. “He was making my family into accessories by being here. I told him he had to turn himself in. Make restitution, take his punishment.”

  “And how did Mr. Winston react?”

  “He didn’t want to. He told me he would leave, but he wouldn’t say where he was going.”

  “And you didn’t think to call the police, or the bureau?” the first man asked.

  Sandy nodded. “I did,” he said. “But I hoped that Arthur would think about it during the night, sleep on it, and that I could convince him to turn himself in this morning.”

  “And did you discuss things further this morning?”

  Sandy shook his head. “I overslept. I woke up when you rang the doorbell.”

  “Do you realize you’ve committed a federal offense, Mr. Lord?” the first agent said. “You could be disbarred and serve time in jail for aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

  “I’m an attorney. I’m well aware of the legal consequences of my actions.”

  “Sanford Lord, you are under arrest,” the agent said. He began to read Sandy his rights.

  Sandy put up his hand. “As an attorney, I am fully aware of the rights granted me by the U.S. Constitution. I waive the reading of them.”

  By this time Helene and the children had gathered at the door leading from the living room to the kitchen. Sandy turned to look at them. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This will all work out.” He turned back to the agents, and motioned them toward the door. “Gentlemen.”

  * * *

  Late that night, after an arraignment and a bail hearing, he was back in the living room, his family clustered around him. “You should have called the cops as soon as he told you he’d done something wrong,” Tom said. He was sitting on the sofa next to his sister, wearing a pink oxford-cloth button down shirt and khakis, what Sandy calle
d his “Southern lawyer clothes.”

  “He’s my friend, and I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Dumb,” Ellen said. She was wearing a blue tank top and shorts, and the pearls her parents had given her for her 16th birthday.

  “Second,” Sandy continued, ignoring her, “it was very late at night. I did not reasonably feel that I could reach the appropriate authorities at that hour. And third, I hoped that he would agree to surrender and that he would retain me to defend him. In that case, anything he said would become attorney client privilege and I would not be required to disclose it.”

  “But he didn’t retain you as his attorney, did he?” Tom asked.

  Sandy shook his head. “No, he did not.”

  “So there was no attorney client privilege,” Ellen said.

  “As an attorney I must treat every confession as if it was made to me by a potential client,” Sandy said.

  “Doesn’t wash, Dad,” Tom said.

  “I think you guys are full of shit,” Danny said. All eyes turned to him. In his concert t-shirt and torn jeans, he looked like he belonged to someone else’s family. “Whose side are you on, anyway? You know Dad wouldn’t do anything wrong.”

  Sandy was surprised by this shift of allegiance. He and Helene exchanged looks.

  “You don’t know anything, squirt,” Tom said.

  “You’re just a kid,” Ellen said.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Danny said. I don’t go to law school or college so that makes me dumb. I think you’re the ones who are dumb. You don’t even know your own father.”

  “Look, I’m flattered by your defense, Danny,” Sandy said. “I don’t think I did anything wrong. But you have to understand, your brother and your sister are reacting the way the court is going to react. It’s good practice for me to have to defend myself.”

  “Well, I think it stinks.”

  “Don’t worry, son, I’m not in any trouble.” Sandy stood up, yawned and stretched. “Now, I think it’s time you guys all hit the sack. I’m just going to do some work.”

  The family dispersed. Sandy went downstairs to his study, a small wood-paneled room next to the den, where he kept a desk and a few bookcases. He sat down in his padded leather chair, made a bridge of his hands, and thought. Artie was definitely in big trouble, and that trouble had rubbed off on Sandy. His conscience knew he had done nothing wrong, but his lawyer’s heart knew that wouldn’t stop the police from hounding him. There was enough circumstantial evidence to tie him to Artie, and that would be enough to hurt his practice, and his family, even if only for a short time. There were Tom and Ellen’s careers to consider, too. And he wondered about Danny; this business seemed to have awakened in him a level of feeling he was usually proficient at hiding.