Dead Man's Image

by Curry, Edna

  He looked around, noting the expensive appliances and hardwood cabinets and decor. No shortage of money, here.

  Contritely he asked, “You're not worried about your husband finding out anymore?” He pulled out a chair and sat at the polished oak table, suddenly uncomfortable. What was he doing here?

  Casting him a wary glance, she said, “Hal is at the factory. He never comes home before six except on Wednesdays when he plays golf at the country club. We can talk for a while.” She set the mug of coffee in front of him and settled into a chair across the table.

  “Nice place you have here.”

  She ignored his comment. “Why did you come?”

  “Why did you pay for 'my' funeral, after ignoring my existence for thirty-five years?”

  She swallowed and looked away. For a long moment, she was silent and he was afraid she wasn't going to answer. Finally she said, “I had to do what was right. He had to have a decent Christian burial.”

  So, it had been her religious upbringing. The old guilt complex.

  “Did you know where I was all along?” Pain edged his voice at that awful possibility. Had she been within reach all these years and just not wanted to see him?

  “No!” Her wide brown eyes met his, seeming to plead for understanding. “They said the records were sealed. I didn't know what they'd named you or where you were. Not until I saw your picture in the paper. Then I was sure….”

  He frowned. “If you haven't seen me since I was born, how can you be sure I'm your son?”

  “The resemblance is there. You have my eyes, your father's features. I have no doubts.” Her eyes were on his face, and her voice was positive. “I must correct the name on the tombstone. How do I do that? I don't even know his full name.”

  “Don't worry about it. Sheriff Ben has the correct information. He's going to straighten it out. After all, he was the one who announced the incorrect name in the first place.”

  “Oh, good. That's a relief. Does John have a family?”

  “Yes. His parents live in Arizona. They're on a cruise somewhere right now.”

  “Tell me about yourself,” she urged softly. “I've missed so much….”

  He squirmed under her scrutiny and sipped his coffee to hide his unease. He'd grown up without the niceties she had. Despite his college education, he was only a rough and ready trucker. On the other hand, he had his own trucking business now, didn't he? Still, his tongue felt tied in knots.

  He wanted to turn the tables, to tell her he was the one who'd missed so much…. He could have grown up in this house, surrounded by luxury and ease, instead of working his way through college and struggling to start his own trucking business and pay for his rig.

  But he didn't. Instead he began to tell her the highlights of those years.

  “I was adopted by Fred and Carol Menns and raised in White Bear Lake. They weren't rich, but we were comfortable. I was happy.” Well, as happy as most children, anyway.

  “Oh! You were that close? That's only an hour away. Why, we might have run into each other shopping at a Twin Cities mall or something.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Did the Menns' adopt other children? Or were you an only child?”

  “No other children. My parents both died in a plane crash when I was a freshman in college.”

  Consternation deepened the worry lines on her pale face. “Oh. I'm sorry. How awful that must have been for you. So, that's why no one claimed the body. There wasn't much of an obituary in the paper.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe they couldn't find any family to write an obituary. I have no other close relatives, just distant cousins, on the West Coast somewhere.”

  “Were you able to finish college? I mean….”

  He raised an eyebrow and drank more coffee. “You mean, was there enough money after my parents died? No, there wasn't. Their life insurance barely covered their funerals. Their lawyer helped me sell their house to pay their debts. Dad loved us, but he wasn't the best money manager in the world. I finished college by taking out loans, and working part time, like lots of kids do.”

  “'Where there's a will there's a way.' I'm proud of you for being mature enough to do that.”

  Resentment surged in him and he didn't answer. She had no right to feel pride in anything he'd done. She'd given her rights away along with her babies.

  To cover the sudden silence, she got up to refill their cups. Then, almost as though wanting to hand him a peace offering, she filled a plate with chocolate chip cookies from an antique pig cookie jar on the counter and set it in front of him. How did she know he loved chocolate chip cookies?

  She sat back down and bit into a cookie. “Go on. What do you do now? For work, I mean?”

  He relented and took a cookie. “I'm a long-haul trucker.”

  “Really? That sounds interesting. Where do you go?”

  He glanced at her quickly to see if she was being facetious. The expression on her face was interested, curious. “You name it, I've been there,” he said.

  “I wonder what it would be like to see all those different cities.” Her voice sounded envious, soft with longing.

  His mouth twisted in a wry grin. “Believe me, I don't see the best areas of town. Factory loading docks and truck-stops are more likely to be on my route.”

  She sent him a quick glance and a little smile. “Oh, I know, the reality is never like the fantasy. But still….”

  “Don't you and Hal travel?”

  “Not much. He's pretty tied down at the factory. Or thinks he is, anyway. He says we'll travel when we retire.” She looked away. “If he ever does.”

  “Why don't you go alone?”

  She looked horrified. “Oh, I couldn't. It wouldn't be proper. I mean, women just don't….” Her voice trailed off.

  He shrugged, finished off the cookie and took another. “These are good cookies.”

  “Thanks, I enjoy baking.”

  “You could travel with an organized tour group.”

  “Hal wouldn't think it was what his wife should do. This is a small town, you know, and people would talk.”

  So, proprieties ruled her life. No doubt he and John had been the improper “accidents” of her youth. Although he'd told Ben he didn't care, suddenly he did want to know the details surrounding his birth.

  “You had John and me before you married Hal?”

  She flushed, then said softly, “Yes. I suppose you have a right to know the whole sordid story.” Haltingly, she told him the details she'd confessed to Pastor Bob.

  Paul listened, sipping his coffee in silence. The sad tale was not much different than what he'd imagined, yet it hurt to know the truth. Still, he knew that, given the circumstances of time and place, she'd had little choice in the matter. Knowing that she hadn't wanted to give them up gave him a warm feeling of satisfaction, of having been wanted, even though she couldn't follow through on it.

  With a long sigh, she ended, “Except for the pastor, I've told no one in all these years.”

  “You didn't have other children?”

  Shaking her head, she put up an unsteady hand and smoothed back a wisp of straying hair. “No,” she said, her voice low and unsteady. “We tried, but Hal and I never had any children.”

  “I'm sorry.” And oddly, he really was. He no longer felt angry toward her, her obvious pain and regret had washed it away.

  “When did you learn about John? Did you two know about each other?”

  “No,” he said, regret making his voice sound gruff. He explained about hiring Lacey and how they'd gone to see the body at the morgue, and realized it had to be his twin's. Then he told her how they'd tracked John down following the lead of the woman in the bar who had mistaken him for his brother.

  Finally she looked at her watch, and said, “You must go. Hal will be home soon.”

  He stood, suddenly feeling awkward again. “Thanks for seeing me. Will I see you again?”

  “No!” Panic filled her voice and she stoo
d and grabbed his hand, looking earnestly into his face. “I'd love to keep in touch, but I just can't take that chance. It would be too dangerous. Hal is so strait-laced. He'd divorce me if he ever found out about you. Please, promise me….”

  “Of course. I don't want to disrupt your life. It's goodbye, then.”

  “Thank you, Paul. Goodbye.”

  He turned away from the tears in her eyes and quickly walked back to his car. He shouldn't have come.

  Chapter 11

  On his way home, Paul decided he didn't feel like cooking supper for himself, so he stopped at the Flame in Landers for a sandwich.

  The Flame was the local meeting place for coffee and gossip. A dozen guys in working clothes were lounging around the coffee shop section of the restaurant. Paul took a stool at the counter and picked up a newspaper off the stack lying next to the cash register.

  The waitress on duty looked at him curiously when she took his order. When she returned with his food, he was deep into reading the paper and only grunted a ‘thank you.’

  But when she didn't leave, he glanced up at her. He didn't recall meeting her before and wondered what she could want with him. He wasn't in the mood for flirting.

  Noticing she had his attention, she asked, “Do you know a big fat guy, about six-two? Forty-ish, wears a black leather jacket and has a crew-cut?”

  Paul frowned. “I guess a couple of guys I know would loosely fit that description, uh, Kerry,” he said, reading her nametag. “Why?”

  “Oh.” Kerry sounded disappointed. She wiped her hands on her bright red apron and chewed her lip.

  “Why do you ask?”

  Kerry shrugged. “He was in here asking about you last night.”

  Paul looked up curiously. “Really? What did he want to know?”

  “Stuff like where you lived and so on. Weird,” she said, her gaze on her notepad as she wrote up his bill. “I thought he looked like a tourist, you know we get a lot of bikers here who are just cruising around, but those weren't the usual tourist-type questions. Maybe he lives around here and was just curious, since the body that looked like you was found near here.”

  “Maybe.” Or maybe it was the guy who ran us off the road. Or the guy who ransacked my apartment. What the hell was he after? I don't have anything of much value.

  Kerry made a doubtful face. “Anyway, I thought I'd better tell you about it.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  She gave him a conspiratorial smile. “I told him I didn't know, but he could ask at the sheriff's office. I figured if he was up to no good, he wouldn't ask there.”

  He laughed at her down-to-earth logic. “Great. Thanks, Kerry.”

  “No problem.” With another shrug, she dashed off to wait on another customer.

  Paul ate his sandwich thoughtfully. The man Kerry had described could have been Hank, one of his East Coast drivers who was in the Twin Cities this week, according to his girl friend. Though Hank didn't usually wear a black leather jacket, he could have bought one. Maybe Hank had stopped by for a bed for the night.

  He'd given each of his male drivers a key to his apartment and told them they were welcome to stay there when they were in the area even if he was out on the road. Maybe Hank had been trying to reach him, but had lost his cell phone number or something. He'd better stop by his apartment to see if Hank had been there while he'd been out seeing Nora.

  Paul jumped when a beeper sounded close beside him. A tall young man rose from a nearby booth, threw his napkin onto his half-empty plate and ran for the door, calling over his shoulder, “I'll get the bill later, Kerry!”

  Comments buzzed throughout the coffee shop.

  “What's happening?”

  “He must be a fireman.”

  A few minutes later, a police siren wailed and another siren echoed across the bridge. The restaurant sat in the corner of the block. The intersection was just outside the floor to ceiling windows facing the street so they had a ringside seat to the action playing out in front of them.

  Paul spun on his stool to watch a police car race down the hill towards them.

  Traffic pulled off to the side of the highway and stopped for the emergency vehicles. The police car made a fast turn into Interstate Park, ignoring the red light. An ambulance followed closely, siren screaming. Soon another siren announced the arrival of the local white fire-rescue truck. It followed the path the others had taken into the park.

  Several customers got up from their booths. They moved closer to the picture windows so they could look across the highway into the entrance of the park where the emergency vehicles had disappeared.

  “I wonder what's going on?” someone asked.

  An older guy laughed ruefully and said, “Some climber probably fell off a cliff again. Happens a couple times a year.” He ignored the gawkers at the window, forked up more mashed potatoes and gravy and told the waitress, “Good beef special today, Kerry.”

  When nothing more happened, the gawkers returned to their food. “We'll hear about it soon enough,” someone commented. “We always do.”

  Paul finished his sandwich and drove back to Canton. There was no indication in his apartment that Hank had been there. He spent an hour cleaning up the mess the burglar had left, then turned his attention back to running his business.

  He made several more unsuccessful phone calls, then decided to see what Lacey had learned. As he drove to her house near Landers, the sun was setting, leaving a gorgeous array of colors in the western sky.

  ***

  After having lunch with Marion, Lacey had gone to check on her car.

  As she turned to leave, she remembered she had a Twin Cities map in her glove box and would need it if she went back into town.

  She went back to her damaged car to get it and saw the zippered notebook Paul had taken from John's apartment. He'd taken the picture albums the night of their accident, but he must have missed this.

  She took the notebook also, then drove back to her house on the lake, wanting nothing but some hot tea and a chance to put her feet up.

  Home at last, she stepped inside and stopped cold, her heart beginning to pound. Someone had been there while she'd been out. Drawers were dumped out, furniture cushions thrown out. Was the intruder still here?

  Swearing under her breath at the mess, she drew her gun and cautiously went through her house room by room, but found no one. Each room showed evidence of a search, an opened drawer, the dumped out contents of boxes lying on the floor, books out of a bookcase, or an open closet door. Had it been the same person who'd been in Paul's apartment? What had he wanted? At first look, nothing seemed to be missing. Then she spotted her miniature lithograph copy of “The Lone Wolf” on the floor of her bedroom. Putting her gun back into her purse, she picked it up and saw that it was badly damaged. Tears streamed down her face. It had been a special gift from Uncle Henry.

  Angrily, she picked up the phone and called the sheriff's office to report the intruder. This guy needed to be stopped.

  Deputy Tom answered and took down the information, repeating it in a bored tone. “We probably won't get at it until tomorrow, Lacey. We're very busy today. Okay?”

  “Sure, Tom.” She hung up, angry at Tom's 'What did it matter?' attitude. She knew most burglars were never caught. But she'd do her best to catch this one.

  She went down the stairs to her office and stared at the license hanging on the wall. It read, Lacey Summers, Private Investigator. She'd been so proud when she'd finally gotten that license four years ago, and thought her future was secure.

  But getting cases hadn't been easy. If Uncle Henry Schmidt hadn't left her this house on Long Lake free and clear of debt, she probably would have gone back to work for that Twin Cities firm before the end of that first year.

  Her finances were still touch and go most of the time. Just a few days ago, before Paul had called, she'd been feeling desperate. She'd been sure that if she didn't get another case soon, she wouldn't be able to pay the ut
ility bills to keep this office open. Or buy some groceries. The refrigerator in her kitchen upstairs had been almost empty.

  Now she had two clients, and was sure someone wanted to kill off either Paul or her. Or maybe both of them? What a life.

  She got up, walked to the window and stared out over the peaceful lake, thinking. Dark green evergreens almost hid the homes and cabins around it. A breeze was sending little waves rippling across the blue lake toward her where they lapped against the sandy shore. Her little fishing boat bounced against her dock in the sunshine, seeming to call to her.

  She wished she could take the rest of the day off and go fishing. A meal of walleye would taste great. She'd only been out a couple of times since fishing season opened two weeks ago on Mother's Day weekend, and hadn't even started up the grill yet this year.

  Turning back to her desk, she realized the message light was blinking on her answering machine. She punched the play button and heard a message from Hal Munson demanding an immediate return call.

  With a resigned sigh, she sat down at her desk and punched in his number. “What's up, Mr. Munson?”

  “Did you learn anything about my wife yet?”

  I know a whole lot, but I'm not ready to tell you about it yet. Not 'til I know where you fit into all of this. “I'm working on it.”

  “Humph. Well, I did.”

  She sat up straighter, her fingers tightening on the telephone receiver. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I got a call from my gardener at work today. Nora had a young male visitor at our house. He was driving a blue Cavalier and stayed for a couple of hours.”

  A call from his gardener? Yikes, the man has his help spying everywhere. Swallowing, she said, “Yeah? Did you get a license number? Any description?”

  “Damn right I did. I want to know who the hell that guy is, pronto.” His anger echoed through the phone line.

  “I'll do my best. Let me get a pen and then give me the details.” His heavy breathing warned her of his impatience. Trying to hurry, she opened her desk and found a pen and pad. “Okay, shoot.”