by J. D. Griffo
“I guess I am sort of a big fish in a little pond now,” he admitted. “I’ve been given the lofty, though largely ceremonial, title of town historian.”
“Then you’re just the man who can help me!”
Sitting in a folding chair in his cramped office, Alberta explained that she was trying to find out a bit of information on the new company she had just started to work for. All she had to do was mention the name of the firm and Sloan started spouting random bits of information about Wasserman & Speicher that she had never heard of. She tried to write notes, but found that she couldn’t keep up with Sloan’s excited monologue. She also found it a bit hard to focus on his words and not his appearance.
He was clearly not Italian, and so he, like Marion, was different than most of the men she had known all her life. He was at least six feet, probably a few inches taller, and even though he was definitely in his sixties, his tight-fitting dress shirt showed off his muscular chest and arms and that he had the body of a much younger man. Most of his hair was still dark brown, although there was quite a bit of gray on the temples, and his features were long and pointy instead of round and blunt like the rest of the men in her family. Taken individually, Sloan’s nose, ears, and chin looked birdlike, but together they somehow appeared strong. When she caught a glimpse of his profile she silently remarked that he looked just like a matinee idol from the golden age of the movies. She had just launched into a daydream that featured Sloan as a bare-chested swashbuckler and her as his scantily clad mistress when she heard him start talking about Memory Lake.
“What a second,” she interrupted. “What did you say?”
“Memory Lake isn’t a real lake, it’s manmade.”
The lake Alberta stared at every morning, every night, and the occasional afternoon was a fake. How could that be?
“It was created by the original owners of Wasserman & Speicher when they came over from Germany,” Sloan explained. “They turned what was previously flat, barren land into a beautiful crystal blue lake several miles wide. I found out so many details about the company, but most of it was cut out of my articles during the editing process. Wyck, he’s the editor, he didn’t think it was . . . forgive the expression . . . sexy enough to be included. I know I found some old blueprints during my research, but I can’t remember where I put them. I’ll see if I can find them, though, they’re really fascinating.”
Try as she might, Alberta couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that a lake could be built where beforehand there was no water. Sloan wasn’t an engineer, so he couldn’t shed any light onto how Memory Lake was built, but he was able to offer more insight as to why.
“Helga, the matriarch, wanted to be reminded of where she grew up . . . in Konstanz . . . on the shores of Lake Constance,” Sloan added.
“But I thought his family lived in Hoboken, New Jersey,” Alberta said, careful not to mention that it was her hometown as well.
“They did,” Sloan confirmed. “But the story goes that the family was going to build the company there until they took a vacation here and Helga fell in love with the area. There was more than enough land to buy and build the lake she wanted, and rumor has it that Helga was an incredibly strong-willed and wealthy woman, some might even say overbearing, so from everything I uncovered it looks like whatever Helga wanted, Helga got. Just look at what happened to your boss.”
“Marion?”
Sloan nodded his head several times. “Helga wanted her only son to live the American Dream, and considering what a big deal he’s become, I’d say she succeeded.”
Alberta didn’t quite understand what this information meant or even if it would make any difference in their investigation, but she was certain that it felt good to make a new friend. And the way that Sloan smiled when Alberta thanked him for his help, it was obvious that he felt the same way.
While walking to her car, however, Alberta’s thoughts strayed to the man she reluctantly considered her old friend. But was that who Marion really was? She hardly remembered him from her youth and she hardly knew him now. And everything she thought she knew about him had just changed after learning about the origins of Wasserman & Speicher and Helga’s role in its creation. All this new information gave Alberta more insight into the type of man Marion really was.
Across town Jinx sat in the driver’s seat of her Chevy Cruze and had a similar thought. The man Marion appeared to be on the outside was quite different from the person who lurked within. Regardless of how accomplished, successful, and rich Marion might be, at his core he was the quintessential mama’s boy. As the Italians would say, he was a complete mammone.
It made both women question what else he might be hiding.
CHAPTER 18
Calme acque sono profonde.
A wise Italian once said that when the world becomes too difficult to deal with, the best way to escape is with food. That person never tasted one of Jinx’s recipes.
“Gesù, Maria, e Giuseppe!” Alberta exclaimed. “Who taught you how to cook down there in Florida? A prison chef?”
“Gram! It isn’t that bad and you know it.”
Pushing her plate away from her, Helen shook her head. “This has about as much flavor as a Eucharist without any of the hope.”
“Lovey, I thought you said this was risotto?” Alberta asked.
“It is,” Jinx swore. “Except I made it with couscous.”
Downing a glass of citrus-flavored vodka, Helen said, “That’s like making a hamburger with tofu. It might look like a hamburger, but it tastes like crap. Just like this.”
Taking a bite of her own concoction, Jinx chewed slowly and thought she knew how to solve the problem of her culinary failure. “It just needs a few more spices.”
“You could use every spice imaginable and it wouldn’t help,” Alberta said. “Face it, lovey, you’re a terrible cook.”
Jinx laughed and hugged Alberta, “You say the sweetest things to me, Gram.”
Hugging Jinx back even harder, Alberta replied, “If you can’t speak honestly with your family, you might as well get rid of your voice.”
“In the meantime, get rid of this fake-soto thing,” Helen said, “Because the smell is starting to give me a headache.”
Jinx grabbed their plates, removed them from the kitchen table, and started to bend over to place a plate on the floor in front of Lola, who was patiently waiting for her next meal.
“Don’t you dare serve that schifezza to my Lola!” Alberta proclaimed, rescuing her pride and joy from a meal she’d definitely regret. “You think I’m going to feed my baby something I wouldn’t eat?”
Jinx rolled her eyes dramatically, “A thousand pardons, Queen Lola. I bet Aunt Joyce will like it—she loves to try new things.”
Helen refilled her glass with more citrus vodka and remarked, “She might try to be on time for once.”
Just then the back door burst open and brought with it the wind and rain from the evening storm as well as a drenched Joyce. “Oh my God! It’s like the two of you are psychically linked or something!” Jinx shouted.
“Helen, prepare to eat your words,” Joyce announced.
“Fine with me,” she said. “They can’t possibly be worse than what Jinx just tried to serve us.”
While Helen remained seated waiting to find out why she had to eat her words, Alberta let Lola jump out of her arms and ran to get a clean towel so Joyce could dry her face and hands. Jinx took her aunt’s wet raincoat and hat and hung them on the hall tree next to the front door. Joyce sat across from Helen at the table and took her wet galoshes off and placed them on the bench underneath her still-dripping coat.
“It’s really coming down out there,” Joyce said, rubbing the fresh towel over her face. “And with the wind off the lake there’s a bit of a chill in the air.”
“I’ll make some tea to warm you up,” Alberta said.
“That would be perfect.”
“How about some risotto, Aunt Joyce?”
Helen c
aught Joyce’s eye as she shook her head slowly from side to side.
“Thank you, Jinx, but I’m too excited to show you what I found,” Joyce said. “And prove to Miss Helen once and for all that pursuing my art is a worthwhile endeavor.”
The women watched quietly as Joyce took a plastic tube out of her bag and unscrewed the top. She then turned the tube upside down and pulled out a large rolled-up poster that was over two feet long. Tossing the tube back into her bag, she proceeded to unfurl the poster, but it was so big and took up almost the entire circumference of the table, that Helen had to pick up her glass and the vodka bottle or else risk them being spilled.
To make the poster lie flat, Alberta and Jinx held down two of the corners with their fingers while Helen placed the vodka bottle on the third. Ever inquisitive, Lola hopped onto the table, plopped down on the fourth corner, and purred triumphantly.
“Okay, Lola, this time you can stay on the table,” Alberta said. “But don’t make it a habit.”
They were all gathered on one side of the table behind Joyce and saw that they were looking at a dark and very grainy supersized photo of Memory Lake.
“You call this art?” Helen asked.
“No, I call this a clue,” Joyce replied.
She explained that while she was developing the film from her overnight, automated photo shoot a few weeks ago that captured shots of Memory Lake in the middle of the night, she noticed something strange. Most of the photos were exactly the same landscape just with different lighting thanks to the shifting position of the moon and then, of course, the appearance of the early morning sun. But in a few of the photos from the northernmost part of the lake, there was an odd blur, like a shadow, first in the lake, then on the banks of the shore, and then once again in the lake itself.
“So, I blew up the photos to see if I could make out what the shadow was and voilà!” Joyce pointed to the enlarged photo on the table, her finger underneath the indisputable figure of a person standing on the banks of the lake. “Do you see it?”
“Yes!” Jinx squealed. “What’s a man doing there in the middle of the night?”
“Are you sure it isn’t a bear?” Helen asked, skeptical as ever.
“Have you ever seen a bear carry an attaché case?” Joyce asked.
“Helen does have a point, Joyce, the photo’s so dark it looks like he’s completely black,” Alberta said.
Joyce described that after she blew up the rest of the photos they provided a timeline and showed that the man appeared on the surface of the lake, standing next to it carrying the briefcase, then a few minutes later reappeared still holding the case, only to enter the lake again and disappear.
“Almost like he’s deep-sea diving?” Jinx asked.
“Exactly!” Joyce hollered. “Which explains why he looks like he’s completely dressed in black. He’s wearing a wet suit.”
“But why would you go deep-sea diving with a briefcase?” Alberta asked.
“To make some kind of business transaction,” Joyce stated.
“I’ve heard of paying off people under the table,” Helen said, “But under the water? That’s ridiculous.”
“Not if your business transaction is illegal,” Joyce replied.
The teakettle started to whistle, so Alberta left her place at the table to turn off the flame on the stove and pour four cups of tea. Now that the show-and-tell portion of the evening was over, Joyce rolled up the enlarged photo, much to Lola’s displeasure, and returned it to its case. Jinx grabbed some lemon wedges and milk from the fridge and placed them all on the table along with the sugar container from the counter. Helen cut up the loaf of Entenmann’s lemon pound cake in two-inch slices, and using napkins as plates, the women helped themselves to dessert while Joyce continued to explain her theory.
“Remember the e-mails I printed out from Marion’s computer when we snuck into his office?” she asked. “One of the men Marion was e-mailing, a guy named Johnny Kaplan, who is somehow related to the mayor, is now in jail for tax fraud.”
“That’s the guy Calhoun exposed!” Jinx exclaimed.
“Who?” the three other women asked.
“He’s the investigative reporter at the paper who gets all the juicy stories. Boy, is he going to be shocked when I scoop him on this.”
“We don’t have a scoop yet, but we’re getting close,” Joyce advised.
She continued to explain that three of the other men that Marion was e-mailing, none of whom lived in the area, had been indicted on drug-smuggling charges. It doesn’t appear that the mayor’s distant relative was involved in any sort of illegal drug activity, but since the details of the crimes were being kept quiet and the investigation was ongoing, allegations might arise at some point. The only reason Joyce found out as much as she did was because she was still in touch with many of her former business contacts.
“It’s always smart to maintain professional relationships even after you retire,” Joyce declared. “And to top it off, a VP who used to work for me bought one of my paintings for two hundred bucks.”
“That’s amazing!” Alberta shouted.
“Congrats, Aunt Joyce!”
“That’s all you got?” Helen barked.
“I told you, Hel, it isn’t about the money,” Joyce stated. “But it is about you eating your words and admitting that my painting is worth the time and energy I put into it. Look how much we found out thanks to my artistic process.”
Helen sipped her tea slowly and placed the cup on the table. Before she spoke, however, she removed her eyeglasses to clean them with the apron of the tablecloth. When she put her glasses back on she finally spoke. “I’ll admit that your hobby has proven to be a valuable diversion for you, but it’s also distracted us from the real issue here.”
“Which is?” Alberta asked.
“Do I have to spell out ‘drug smuggling’ for you people?” Helen shouted. “If Marion was e-mailing these men who’ve been convicted of selling drugs, don’t you think it’s possible that he’s involved as well?”
Alberta looked at Jinx, who looked at Joyce, who looked back at Alberta. “I hadn’t thought of that,” Alberta admitted.
“I know you haven’t!” Helen yelled. “Because you’re all too busy congratulating Joyce on selling some ugly paint-by-numbers of your precious lake that you haven’t been listening to what’s important.”
“Aunt Helen’s right. Marion could be the man in the photo, so maybe he was doing a drug deal.”
“I don’t have any business experience in the field, but from what I’ve read, dealing drugs isn’t an easy occupation,” Joyce said. “Why make it harder by swimming in a lake?”
“What if the lake really isn’t a lake?” Alberta announced.
While the women were jabbering about Alberta’s riddle, she was on the phone calling the library, expecting to be greeted by a voice recording. She was delighted to hear Sloan’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Sloan, it’s me, Alberta.”
“Alberta, how nice to hear from you.”
“I didn’t think anyone would still be there at this time of night.”
“We stay open late on Tuesdays, so I guess you can say this is my lucky day. Or, more precisely, my lucky night.”
“Well I’m hoping you can make it my lucky night. Sloan, did you ever find those blueprints you told me about?”
Sloan was grinning so boyishly he was thankful Alberta couldn’t see his face. “I have them right here, as a matter of fact. I was going to call you in the morning to see if you’d like to come in to take a look at them.”
“How about right now?”
“Now? Oh, well . . . the, um, the library’s about to close in five minutes.”
“Then come over to my place, 22 Memory Lake Road.”
Alberta placed the phone back on its cradle on the wall and turned around to see all three women staring at her, smiling like three Cheshire cats after finding the inhabitants of their favorite mouse hole holding
an extended family reunion.
“Was that Sloan McLelland, Gram?”
“You know him?” Alberta asked as nonchalantly as possible.
“Kind of... I met him once or twice at the Herald,” Jinx answered.
“He’s the town historian,” Joyce said.
“The very cute town historian,” Jinx added.
“Oh, Madon!” Alberta cried. “You’re too much, Jinx.”
Suddenly flustered, Alberta felt her cheeks grow hot. She started rearranging the canisters on the kitchen counter and then proceeded to tidy up the kitchen table, which didn’t need tidying, just to busy herself.
“Well, I’ll be,” Helen drawled like a Southern Italian belle and poured some citrus vodka into her teacup. “Had I known we’d be acceptin’ gentleman callers tonight, I would’ve made an appointment to get my hair washed and set.”
A half hour later, Sloan was sitting at the kitchen table drying his wet face with a towel and being stared at by all four women. He was, of course, surprised to see that Alberta wasn’t alone, but since Tranquility was a small town, he found himself surrounded by familiar faces. He remembered meeting Jinx at the Herald and knew Joyce from serving on various town committees together, but didn’t realize she was a relation.
“I’m the black sheep of the family,” Joyce joked.
“You are not, Joyce!” Alberta remarked. “You’re just what we call Black Italian.”
“Which is kind of like Black Irish,” Joyce added, turning her head so her long gold earrings shimmied. “But with bling instead of a brogue.”
“And who’s this lovely creature?” Sloan asked as Lola weaved in and out of his legs before scooping her up in his arms and rubbing her underneath the chin. Lola let out an indecent purr that left no room for doubt that she enjoyed being in Sloan’s presence as much as the others.
“That’s Lola,” Alberta replied.