Past Due

Chapter 51

A GREAT RUSSIAN writer once wrote that happy families are all alike, while each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Like all oft-quoted lines from bona fide geniuses, it remains a truism beyond question – and yet from the moment I first read that famous first line I had my doubts. Raised, as I was, in an unhappy family that shattered apart before I was out of the single digits, I always believed the exotic and differentiated lives were lived on the other side of the dividing line between happy and not. The happy families I knew seemed to burst with possibilities; the permutations of their varied interests and eccentricities, the diversity of their achievements, the myriad of strange traditions and customs culled from their everyday happiness seemed unending. The life of our unhappy family was stunted and dark by comparison and the families of other kids in similarly unhappy situations had that same dark and stunted quality. The spur for the unhappiness might well have been vastly different in each case, but there seemed inevitably to be alcohol and bitterness about the past somewhere in the equation and it all combined into a palpable atmosphere of failure. You could sense it the moment you walked in the door. It made your scalp tingle.

I found myself on familiar terrain in the Greeley house on Moraine Street in Brockton, Massachusetts. The glorious stone houses on Moraine, north of West Elm, were still standing as described by Eddie Dean, but the Greeleys no longer lived way up there. They had moved to a section of Moraine south of West Elm, a less prosperous section crowded with sagging old Capes and dark little cottages desperately needing their sidings painted and their lawns mowed. Something fierce and unyielding as time itself had batted the Greeleys down to the lower rungs of Brockton ’s class ladder.

“Nothing was ever good enough for my baby,” croaked Mrs. Greeley in her harsh smoker’s voice, sitting back on her couch, legs crossed, arms crossed, lit cigarette pointing up, its smoke rising mercilessly to the ceiling.

How is one to take such a line? Nothing was ever good enough for my baby because he was the light of my life, the seed of my soul, my very heart? Or, nothing was ever good enough for my baby because he was a greedy little bastard who always wanted more more more? It seemed Mrs. Greeley had intended to say the former, but her posture, the rasp of her voice, the upward curl of her upper lip betrayed her.

“Nothing was ever good enough for my baby,” said Mrs. Greeley and I felt her resentment like a twitch in my back.

What was it that got to me, because being in the Greeley house surely got to me. Was it the fine furnishings with sags in the seats and grease stains on the armrests, with rings like trophies on the wooden surfaces, furnishings that bespoke with utter clarity of a fall from grace? Was it the fine layer of dust over everything that declared the Greeleys had given up even the appearance of trying? Or was it the woman sitting across from me with arms crossed and legs crossed, wishing we would just stop talking about her missing son and go away so she could have another drink? Oh yes, I could sense it in her, the crushing need for a drink, a need that was no doubt far more her lifelong companion than her husband. It was in the way she held her head so carefully, as if at the wrong angle it might slip off, the way her eyes slid from left to right, the way she made my scalp tingle. I could read the signs, my mother had taught me well.

“I did everything I could for him,” said Mrs. Greeley. She was a tall, thin woman, dressed in slacks and a silk shirt. She had a face like a desiccated apple and her voice had a Katharine Hepburn shake to it. The cigarette was held in front of her so that the smoke acted as a gauzy shield. “I tried so hard. And for him to just disappear like he did, it broke my heart.” She took a moment to draw a bit more nicotine from her cigarette and to dwell a bit longer in her past. Her face twisted for a moment into a cast of pure bitterness, and then she brightened falsely. “Do either of you have children?”

“Not yet,” I said, shaking my head.

“And you, such a lovely young girl. Are you married?”

“No,” said Kimberly.

“Heavens, what are you waiting for? But then you won’t yet understand about children. They can be so hard to handle when they need so much. Tommy didn’t just want, he needed, if you understand.”

“Tell us about his childhood,” I said. “Was it a happy one?”

“Oh my, yes. As happy as it could be, considering. Mr. Greeley suffered along with most of the town at the economic downturn. We had to sacrifice more than you could imagine to send Tommy to Cardinal Spellman. We gave up the club, then the house. When we moved here, I was in tears, but Mr. Greeley simply said, ‘Shut up, it’s still Moraine.’ But Cardinal Spellman was a fine school, far better than Brockton High with its element. You said you were a lawyer, Mr. Carl?”

“That’s right.”

“Tommy was studying to be a lawyer. At the University of Pennsylvania. Is that where you went?”

“I didn’t get in there.”

“How sad for you. But only the best for Tommy, we used to say. Tommy would have ended on the Supreme Court, or in the Senate, he had that way about him. I suppose such promise is always more difficult to handle, but I did what I could with him. Made my sacrifices.”

The word “sacrifices” was said softly, but still it screeched in my ears. I pictured little Tommy Greeley sitting on his living room floor, watching his mother, her grip tight on her glass, as she berated him over and again about all her sacrifices.

“Did he have many friends?” I asked.

“Oh my, yes. He was very popular at Cardinal Spellman. And that friend of his at Penn, Jackson somebody, with the Polish name. They were very close. Jackson. Never Jack. But we didn’t meet too many of his college friends. He was forever visiting with their families on holidays. We hoped, always, that he would come home but I understood. The invitations were just so inviting. And there was the girlfriend.”

“Sylvia Steinberg?”

“That’s it, yes. Steinberg. For that he went to the Ivy League?”

I swallowed and let that pass.

“How about here, in Brockton,” said Kimberly. “Anyone he chilled with when home for a visit?”

“Chilled, like in a freezer?”

“Anyone here he kept in touch with,” I said.

“Jimmy Sullivan. That’s one friendship I tried to break up when they were still in middle school.”

“Why?”

“Oh, the Sullivan boy might have been quite the little celebrity – I think that was what attracted Tommy to him in the first place – but he was always in and out of trouble and he loved nothing better than dragging Tommy along with him.”

“Is he still around.”

“He works at a sub shop on the north side, I think. Which just goes to show, doesn’t it?” She gave me the address.

I glanced at Kimberly and then said, “What about Eddie Dean?”

“Who?”

“A friend of Tommy’s when they were young?”

“I don’t recognize that name. But it’s so hard to keep them all straight.”

“It would have been when they were still just tykes,” said Kimberly.

“There was a little blond boy he played with, a sweet boy, quiet, followed Tommy around like a puppy, but he moved. To California, I think. You said you had some news about my son?”

“Yes,” I said. “I wanted you to know that the police have reopened the investigation into Tommy’s disappearance. I received information of a confidential nature that has caused them to take another look.”

Her face startled smooth. “Can you tell me what you learned?”

“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “It is privileged.”

“He’s my son.”

“I know that Mrs. Greeley and I’m sorry. But anything you can add might be very helpful to the reopened investigation.”

“I told the police what I knew then, which was very little. Just that he hadn’t called in so long and wasn’t answering his phone. He was very busy in Philadelphia, didn’t have much time for us. But I understood, a mother understands these things. Law school was very trying. He was working so hard. It took all his time and concentration to be at the top of his class.”

“Who told you he was at the top of his class?”

“Tommy did, of course. Tommy was always at the top of his class.”

“Okay,” I said. “And you knew nothing about any business ventures he was in?”

“Not really, but he was doing quite well. He always had a nice car, nice clothes. He said he had made money in something to do with publishing.”

“Do you have any idea what happened to your son, Mrs. Greeley?”

“Of course I do. He died,” she said. “What else could have happened? He’s dead. My son is dead. Dead.” Her voice drifted off as she said the last word, and as her voice drifted so did her gaze, toward the small dining area. “Mr. Greeley went down there looking for him. Didn’t find a sign one way or another, but twenty years of nothing is proof enough.”

“I suppose so,” I said. “So after his disappearance you never heard from him in any way?”

“No,” she said. “Never.” But even as she said it her eyes slid again toward the dining area. It was a small dingy alcove, overwhelmed by a dark table, high-backed chairs, a large dark sideboard with a china hutch above it. The hutch doors were ornately carved, with glass panels to show off the dishes. But there weren’t dishes in there, there was something else I couldn’t quite make out.

“Is Mr. Greeley around, we’d like to talk to him too?”

“He’s at the golf course.” Her nose twitched. “The city course. Every day,” she said with a hard smile.

“Is he a good golfer?” said Kimberly, with a bounce of solicitous excitement in her voice.

“No,” she said.

“You don’t happen to have a picture of Tommy, do you?” I said. “Something we could take with us?”

“I might,” she said, smashing out her cigarette and standing unsteadily. “In the other room. I’ll be right back.”

As soon as she left, I stood and meandered over to the dining area, right to that china hutch. I took a quick look around and then opened the doors.

“My God,” I said softly.

There were bottles, the shelves were filled with them, a score of bottles, all clear, all still sealed, all filled with their magic elixir. Gin. Gordon’s Gin. Same brand, stockpiled over the years, you could tell from the varied rates of yellowing on the seals. So much alcohol. Saved up for a rainy day, no doubt. Wouldn’t want to go an hour without. I bet there were bottles stashed all over that house, in the kitchen cabinets, beneath the sink in the bathroom, under the bed, because you never know. And as we talked about Tommy, his mother couldn’t keep her eyes from those bottles, waiting for us to leave so she could slit open a seal, unscrew a top, pour herself a stiff dose of amnesia. It was all too pathetic to bear.

When Mrs. Greeley returned with a photograph, I was again sitting beside Kimberly.

“This is from his college graduation,” she said as she handed it to us. “I expect it will do.”

Tommy Greeley, as his mother surely wanted to remember him, handsome and tall in his graduation robe, a mop of black hair falling from his mortarboard and almost cutting off his eyes. And a smirk that was particularly fulsome. There was an insinuation in that smirk, that this was just the beginning. It wasn’t the kind of smile a politician gives, a false, toothy, trustworthy smile, it was something else. Look what I scored, it said, his smirk, look what I pulled off. Aren’t I something, a geeky Irish boy from the wrong side of Moraine, with a brutal father and bitter drunk of a mother, graduating from Penn, off to Penn Law School, with a million-dollar business on the side? Aren’t I the damnedest thing?

“It’s fine,” I said, standing, anxious to be gone from that house, that woman. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Greeley. We’ll be back in touch if there is any more news.”

“Can I ask something?” said Kimberly.

Mrs. Greeley said, “Of course you can, dear, such a pretty girl. Such lovely skin. I had lovely skin as a girl too. But then you get old and you dry out. Think of an orange squeezed of all its juice. That’s what a husband and a child will do to you. You’ll see, my pretty. So, dear, ask your question.”

“Now think first, before you answer, because this is, like, not a true-false, okay? If your son was an animal, which animal would he be?”

I sighed loudly. “Kimberly,” I said.

“I saw it on TV.”

“I’m sorry for the disturbance, Mrs. Greeley. Thank you for your time. Let’s go, Kimberly.” I was in the process of leading her out of the house when Mrs. Greeley spoke.

“He would be a polar bear, dear.”

“Excuse me?” said Kimberly.

“He would be a polar bear,” said Mrs. Greeley, “because he was always hungry and he roared when he wasn’t happy and he could be very very cold.”