by Ed Ifkovic
“And then there are your people.”
A pause. “Yep, my people. The Polish farmers who moved off the boats at Ellis Island and scrimped and saved and broke their backs bringing the old decrepit farms back from the dead. Sometimes a little too aggressive, maybe. Sometimes not sensitive to the old-timers. Maybe. But it’s their names you see on the mailboxes now. Men and women in the fields. And children. Two cultures, old Protestant and new Catholic. When I was studying at the University in Storrs, I had a sociology prof who called it—I’m paraphrasing here, Ferb—the redundant American clash of cultures, one group that’s been a little too sophisticated, the Anglo-Saxon, while the other a primitive people out of medieval times, the Slavs out of the Carpathian Mountains. Sort of resented that depiction, myself, speaking as a primitive.”
“But Stanley and Eben seem to loathe each other, separate from this clash of cultures.”
“Marriage between groups can do that to some.”
“But the murder of Martha seems to bring out the worst in both of them.”
“They probably can’t help themselves. It’s an opportunity to gouge the other.”
“Just because Eben’s daughter married Stanley’s son?”
I could hear him suck in his breath. “That’s the tip of the iceberg. They hated each other long before that. The marriage was bad enough, but when it fell apart—Stanley’s son was a real cad, a violent drunk, a wife-beater—it made matters worse, ‘cause he left her to fend for herself. Tough on everybody. The mothers are dead, and the fathers are bitter, unyielding bastards, pardon my language, Ferb. But there’s a fifteen-year-old-or-so boy a few towns over who’s half Polish and half Yankee, and may never know either of his grandfathers.”
“That’s a tragedy.”
“Fact of life, Ferb. Leastwise in this district. I can list you a dozen stories of marriages between Poles and Yankees where families stopped talking. Or began feuding, short of murder. One in which a Yankee boy turned Catholic and his mother died of heart failure, convinced the America she knew had gone the way of all flesh, so to speak.”
“But I wonder if it’s connected to murder,” I mused out loud.
“Probably not.” He paused. “But at this point, who knows?”
“I can’t see it either.”
“That’s what we’ll find out, I hope.”
“You’re very optimistic.”
“It’s in my Polish blood,” he said, laughing. “That, and a deep-seated dark fatalism out of Eastern Europe that believes disaster will always be at hand. It’s a wonder I can walk a straight line sometimes.”
But I was still thinking of the feud. “Julia must be a torn woman.” I spoke freely, knowing Julia had left for the day.
“Well, I talked to her yesterday, and she’s remarkably level-headed. Had nothing to offer on the murder, but we did get on the subject of her family. Fatalistic I guess is the word to describe her, too. Neither man talks to her, and she wanders through the yard every day, past her father’s house, to catch the town bus on River Road. She says she keeps her head down, but there’s lots of awkward moments here with Eben and Stanley.”
“And,” I added, “I can tell you she’s a marvelous cook. If she ever wants to move to Manhattan, I’ll hire her in a second. The Upper East Side will never be the same. What she can do with a cut of beef . . .”
“I’ll be there at four. Ferb.”
Stopped cold, a little sheepish, I babbled, “Stas, I don’t know whether you know, but I’m writing a novel about the Polish invasion of Connecticut, the clash with the old Yankees, the mingling of worlds.”
“Well, these days that’s the only story in town. Least it was before the murder. Though from my viewpoint ‘invasion’ is sort of a, well, militaristic word.”
I debated going on. His comment gave me pause, this young man challenging my vocabulary. Even Burton Roscoe of the Herald said he’d genuflect in homage to my vocabulary. Well. “I stand corrected, Stas. But it’s a wonderful story, if I can pull if off. It’s, well, America. I’m thinking of calling the novel American Beauty.”
A chuckle, echoing over the telephone line. “Nice,” he remarked. “I like it.” And then he said the title in Polish, emphasizing the words. “Dziedzictwo Amerykanskie.” His words were melodic, almost lyrical, the gritty masculine American voice suddenly mouthing an exquisite hymn to language. At that moment, his voice faraway, it was as though he became another person, some tow-haired Polish boy striding a tobacco field with hoe and swagger.
“Why,” I said, a little out of breath, “that’s lovely, Stas.”
“It’s just loose translation, Ferb.”
CHAPTER NINE
Trooper Wolniak and I walked across the back gardens, following the broken flagstone path that led to the tenant house. A weather-beaten structure, this tenant house, some bungalow from the last century, perhaps three rooms with a central chimney, a shabby mud room off the kitchen, and narrow, low-hung windows. It looked uncared-for in the fading afternoon sun, which glinted off the dirt-crusted glass. The house seemed tired and abused, a shed perhaps, a place to store farm implements, firewood, the detritus of a working farm. Instead, it obviously housed the irascible Eben Travers, handyman extraordinaire, and, approaching the house, I noticed smoke from the chimney. In the chilly afternoon Eben chose to light a fire. One window, obviously in a parlor, showed a small lit lamp.
When Trooper Wolniak knocked, a dog inside yelped and seemed to rush the door, pawing and scratching. Standing behind the trooper, I surveyed the yard, my eyes resting on a makeshift root cellar nearby, slabs of thick gray board, rotted and twisted. Close by was a bank of firewood, maybe a dozen cords, with a worn axe imbedded in a tree stump. I smelled burnt oak coming from within, a tantalizingly welcome smell. But the man who answered the door, grumbling, dressed in a stained, ripped woolen undershirt, with suspenders hanging loose over baggy trousers, a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, was not so welcome a sight.
“You said you’d be here at four,” he snarled. “My timepiece”—he glanced at a tin pocket watch cupped in his right palm—”says four-fifteen.”
Trooper Wolniak apologized but did not sound contrite. I just glowered.
“And why is Miss Ferber standing behind you?” He stared past the imposing trooper. “Looking like an angry schoolmarm.”
“A few hours back in a childhood classroom would not be without merit for you, Mr. Travers,” I began, but Wolniak held up his hand.
“May we come in, Mr. Travers?”
“I got a choice, Trooper Wolniak?”
I started, so laced with poison was the Yankee’s sarcastic enunciation of Stas’s surname. Stretched out, deliberate, the conscious naming of something so odious, like a pesky rodent, that the mere utterance causes you to shudder. But Wolniak just smiled, tipped his hat, and walked by the old man.
We sat in the tiny parlor, a stifling room, filled with stale tobacco smoke and what I believed was moldy food or rotting paper. A sickening odor, almost cloyingly sweet while at the same time dank and unpleasant. Good God, I thought. How did this man abide such—such squalor? But I could smell something cooking in the kitchen, behind a closed door—something sugary, sweet, with cinnamon. Mouth-watering, perhaps, but it lost the battle with the noxious odors of the parlor.
I looked around. The furniture in the room, obviously stray, vagrant pieces discarded from the Inn at some time in the past, was threadbare and sagging. I chose a hardback chair, vaguely Windsor in style, which wobbled precariously as I lowered myself onto it. Trooper Wolniak, with the confidence and indifference of an athletic young man, settled into a deep olive-green armchair, and, to my tickled delight, sank so low he was nearly level to the dirt-splattered floor. His long legs buckled, his knees thrust up parallel to his head, and he had to execute a strained and vocal exit, finally choosing another hard-backed chair. He caught my eye and smiled.
“I’ve asked Miss Ferber here to accompany me on these interviews
.” He stopped, deliberate. A period to his sentence. No reason given, I noted. I was impressed, pleased. Just a statement of fact. Eben simply nodded.
“Can we get this over with?” Eben asked. “What do you wanna know?”
Wolniak cleared his throat. “What can you tell us about the murder?”
Eben waited, sucked in his breath, staring from me to Wolniak. I noticed a thin haze of perspiration collecting above his brow, and I wondered why he was nervous.
“T’aint much to tell, fact is.”
“Just tell us.”
Eben looked at him, seemed ready to say something, but stopped.
“When did you see Martha last?” Wolniak asked.
“Well,” Eben began, stretching out the word, “let me think. Nailed a loose shelf after noon or so. She was there. We talked and she give me a slice of apple pie . . .”
I was intrigued. “Mr. Travers, was your daughter Julia there?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I’m curious. I know the two of you don’t speak . . .”
He grinned that awful toothless grin. “I see where you’re headed, I guess. My Julia makes a mean apple pie. Sure, she was upstairs, I guess, but avoided me. I avoid her. Always. But I see no harm in savoring her pie. I ain’t a fool.”
I nodded. Julia’s apple pie was luscious, in a word. “It’s one of the better pies I’ve tasted,” I volunteered now. “Flaky, light brown crust, crisp Macintosh apples turned delicately in cinnamon and nutmeg, the bubbly aromatic brown sauce oozing out of the crust . . .”
Eyes wide, Stas cut in. “Could we discuss dessert later, Ferb?” He shook his head. “Mr. Travers, when exactly was the last time you saw Martha?”
“That was it,” he said. “After the apple pie.” He smiled at me. “I was back here and tended to my own chores.”
“You didn’t return to the Inn that afternoon?”
“Nah. No reason.”
“Did you walk the grounds though?”
“Just outside my own door, tending to my own woodpile. I harvested some late green tomatoes.”
I broke in. “We heard that you were seen walking past the Inn and Miss Wright’s home, between them, headed to the front. The state forest perhaps. Late afternoon.”
Eben, up to then so rigid in his seat, suddenly exploded, pounding his fist on a rickety end table, sending some newspapers—The Connecticut Valley Gazette, I noted, grimly—to the floor. “It’s a darn lie!” he explained, adding, “And I know the source of it.”
“Mr. Travers . . .”
“That evil Polack,” he thundered. “Stanley Lupinski.”
“Mr. Travers, were you by the house late that afternoon, close to twilight?” Wolniak asked.
“He has it in for me, you know. A man with a heart black as coal.”
“Be that as it may, Mr. Travers . . .”
Still furious. “And just what did that man say? I suppose he saw me picking up that brick everyone is talking about and attacking that defenseless woman, right?” He stopped, out of breath, but he seemed ready to explode again, sitting at the edge of his chair, drumming his tobacco-stained fingertips on the table.
“All I’m asking is your whereabouts,” Stas went on, patiently. I was comforted by his serene, methodical demeanor, his evenness. Given my impatience with fools and nincompoops, I was ready to hurl a few chosen barbs at the recalcitrant man.
“I believe,” Eben said through his teeth, “that I was in front of the Inn earlier in the afternoon, a little past noon.”
“Doing what?” Stas asked.
Eben looked surprised. “Doing what?” he echoed. “My job, sir. My job. I’m a handyman for the Inn, though Miss Carlotta often thinks that involves being her slave. ‘Hang this picture this way, Eben. No, this way. Do you need eyeglasses, Eben? Hang this picture this way.’ So the fact of the matter is, sir—and ma’am”—he glanced at me, without humor—“I don’t recall the time exactly. If I’d known I’d have to account for all my activities I’d-a checked the position of the sun with the temperamental workings of my own pocket watch.”
“Did you see anything or anybody near the Wright house—at any point that afternoon?”
“No’m.”
“You sure?”
“I believe that’s what I said.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“Any activity on the front road?” I probed.
“Maybe a hay wagon. This time of year a couple farms a few miles up, beyond this valley, past the Hemlock Ridge, come through here. Don’t pay them no mind though.”
“No cars?
“Can’t recall none. Leastwise when I was there. Early on.”
“Where did you go? Did you walk up the road?”
“No’m. Hauled some dead fallen tree limbs outta the front yard. Across the road and into the woods, into the state forest there. Come down day that hurricane we had a month back or so.”
Stas continued, “You did not see Martha carrying Miss Wright’s supper across the lawns around five-thirty or six?”
“No’m.”
“Were you in your own yard then? Outside?”
“Mebbe. Don’t know. I was in and out of the house. My house.”
“You seem to keep an eye on the goings on at the Inn, Mr. Travers,” I noted.
“What does that mean?”
“I mean, you’re responsible for the upkeep there, true? So you keep a vigilant eye on the place.”
“I glance on it now and then.”
“But you saw Stanley in his yard?” I asked.
That stopped him, and he watched me carefully. I wondered if he’d implicate Stanley, the way his enemy implicated him.
“Yeah, Stanley’s always around. But not Martha. I swear. I just assumed Miss Carlotta was the one taking over the meal. That’s the way it always was. Not always, mind you, but when she could.”
“But Carlotta was away,” I commented. “In town. With me. Then headed out of town.”
That seemed to confuse Eben. He faltered, started to say something, then stopped.
“What?” From Stas.
“Nothing.”
“No, not nothing,” Stas said, pushing. He leaned forward, stared into Eben’s face. “For a second you seemed unsure of something. You started to say . . .”
“Nothing,” Eben said, emphatic. “I like to mind my own damn business. I don’t tell tales.”
“You don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” Stas said.
“But you felt comfortable telling me that Carlotta threatened Martha’s life,” I interjected.
“I shouldn’t of done that.”
“But you did,” Stas said.
“Carlotta was away,” I repeated. “Right? So Martha had to deliver the meal. What did you see? Did you see Martha?”
“I told you no,” he said, but his voice was weak.
“Why won’t you tell us?” Stas asked.
“Ain’t got nothing to tell.”
I was impatient. “I don’t believe you, Mr. Travers. You don’t want to get involved, but you know something.”
Stas continued, his voice hard and sure. “Sooner or later, you’ll have to tell us.”
A long silence. Eben looked at the kitchen. The door was closed. I suddenly focused on the thick, sweet smell emanating from the small room, set off the parlor. I thought of Julia’s apple pie, burning. Eben stood, looked confused. “Christ Almighty, forgot my apple sauce. I’m boiling them apples in a pot. Don’t want them to burn.” He rushed through the kitchen door, and I could hear him cursing loudly as he obviously lifted a heavy pot off a woodstove. I heard the banging of cast-iron pot against an enamel counter. More curses. He was gone a long time, and when he returned, he looked unhappy. “Burnt that batch. Too much blathering with the two of you.” He looked back at the kitchen through the door, left open. “Every autumn it’s my ritual. My mama’s recipe, that apple sauce. A man can live on it for a whole winter of hibernating.”
I was about to ask what mad
e it so special, but I feared Stas would frown on that turn of conversation.
“Mr. Travers,” Stas said warily.
Eben sat back and sighed. “I don’t know what I seen, truth to tell. I’m a little hesitant now.”
“Just tell us what you think you saw.”
“I don’t know if I seen anything.”
“What do you think you saw?”
He rolled his tongue over his lips, looked back to the kitchen as though he could find escape there. “Well, I was chopping wood near twilight, but going in and out of the home, and I glanced to the Inn, not because I heard a noise but I sort of check in on things. And I see someone in the kitchen window, just a face for a second, staring out, then disappearing. At the time I paid it no mind . . .”
“Who was it?” I asked, hurriedly. Stas glared at me.
“Can’t be sure. Faraway like that. But I just assumed it was Miss Carlotta.”
I jumped. “But Carlotta wasn’t home.”
A long pause. “So you tell me.” He bit his lip. “That’s why I was so surprised when learned Martha brung the supper over to Miss Wright’s. I just assumed Miss Carlotta did, her being home and all.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Martha? Or Julia?”
Another long pause. “Julia’d left by then. Seen her walking the path along the side to River Road to get the bus.”
“What time?”
“Still light out. Fading a little, mebbe.”
I spoke up again. “You sure it was Carlotta?”
“No, but looked awful liked her. You know, a flash in the window.”
Stas asked, “And then?”
“Well, I went back to work, but a minute or so later I glanced back and there was a woman stepped out the back door, just stepped out, standing there, then stepped back in. No matter.”
“The same woman?” I asked.
“Didn’t pay it no mind, but it looked like Miss Carlotta. At least I thought it was. Daylight fading, twilight, you know. Happened so fast, a split second. I assumed it was Miss Carlotta, ‘cause I assumed it was her in the window.”