Pick Your Poison

10

Once Willis left, I headed to Galveston, now very late for my lunch appointment with Steven. We had planned to meet and talk about the renovation. When I turned onto P Street an hour later, I saw an exterminator’s vehicle parked in the driveway. Steven was paying the uniformed man, and when the truck left, I pulled the Camry in.

After I slid from behind the wheel, Steven said, “You were supposed to be here at eleven-thirty.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel, climbed the porch steps, and stomped into the house.

“Sheesh. Just what I want to do. Spend the afternoon with an alligator with chapped lips,” I mumbled, following him.

Once inside, I saw he’d been hard at work. The scent of pine welcomed me when I entered, and the ceiling fan in the parlor was spinning furiously. The wooden shades were all open, revealing gleaming windows.

Steven was in the kitchen watching a few roaches squirm in the throes of chemical death on the tile floor.

“Looks like a different place. I’m impressed,” I said, nodding in appreciation.

My reaction seemed to soften him up a little, because he almost smiled. “I paid the cleaning crew a hundred and the exterminator fifty. My treat. But where in hell have you been?”

“Sorry, but I had a few visitors this morning.”

Steven pointed to a spray bottle on the counter. “While I remember, the bug man left extra juice in case a few critters need an extra push to roach heaven.”

“There’s always some who hang on. Have you eaten yet?” I asked.

“No, and I’m pretty darn hungry. Let’s head for the beach and the shrimp. These chemicals may be odorless, but I don’t like to hang around right after the exterminator has done his business. Stuff is pretty potent.”

“How did you know I was craving seafood?” I said as we walked out through the back door.

Stan’s Shrimp Shack, a tiny restaurant off Seawall Boulevard, had few customers, so we had our choice of tables. We sat in the corner farthest from the bar. Between mouthfuls of crab salad, I filled Steven in on what I had learned about Ben after the funeral yesterday and how I hoped to find answers.

“So you talked the county mountie out of his paperwork, huh?” He peeled a shrimp and dunked it in hot sauce. “I knew you couldn’t keep your pretty nose out of this mystery.”

“Hey, I can do what I want with my pretty nose.”

“And how I love it when you remind me. Let’s talk about the house. That’s what I’m doing in Galveston, right?”

“I know the place is in bad shape,” I said.

We spent the next thirty or forty minutes discussing the needed renovations, and by the time he finished, I wondered if we might be better off tearing the place down and starting over.

Steven, who could still read my mind as well as ever, said, “And don’t even think about razing the Victorian. I contacted the city, and the house is more than a hundred years old. You don’t tear down hundred-year-old houses in Galveston without dealing with reams of paperwork and getting multiple stamps of approval.”

“Okay. But this sounds like a huge undertaking. Can you handle this project alone?” I asked.

“No way. But I will get the house in good enough shape to last through hurricane season. Fix the roof, replace windows, that kind of stuff. Meanwhile, I’ve arranged to have a more experienced renovator come by and take a look.”

I nodded. “You’ve impressed me twice in one day, Steven. Sounds like I hired the right man. But we haven’t discussed your fee.”

He stiffened. “I don’t want your money. I got enough when we divorced.”

“That’s not what you told the judge.”

“Hey, I was knee-walking, spit-slinging drunk the day we finalized. You can’t hold me to anything I said back then.”

“Okay. Maybe that’s so. But I’m still paying you for your work. I want this to be a professional relationship.”

“You don’t want to owe me? Is that it?” He sat back, arms folded across his chest.

How did he always manage to turn things around? I took a deep breath. “If you want, I’ll have Willis work with you about payment. That way you and I can stay clear of touchy issues like money.”

He said nothing for several seconds; then his face relaxed in a smile. “Good idea.”

I smiled back, relieved. If Steven stayed sober and if we both controlled our tempers, this renovation might actually be fun.

We went back to the Victorian after lunch, and he showed me where we needed the most urgent repairs, pointed out the phone he’d had installed, and then went upstairs to work on a leaky toilet. Meanwhile, I returned to the vandalized room. Maybe I could find bank records that would lead me to the mysterious safe-deposit box. But after an hour of searching, I settled for the next-best option—canceled checks. Since Daddy must have paid for the box’s rental somehow, and since he used checks for everything, maybe I could find the name of the bank that way.

I was placing rubber-banded stacks of paper in a box when Steven appeared in the door, wrench in hand. “I need a few plumbing supplies. Can I get you anything while I’m out? A Coke or something?”

“No, I’m on my way home. You can carry this box to my car, though.”

He set down his wrench, came over, and picked up the box. “What’s in here? Bricks?”

“Three decades of canceled checks.” I explained about the safe-deposit box and my plan to find out where the box was hiding.

“Good thing Charlie saved everything,” Steven said snidely, heading for the stairs. “He’s providing for your entertainment even after he’s gone.”

I chose not to answer back, but all the way home I kept wondering why Steven had to ruin what had almost been a pleasant afternoon.

When I arrived back in Houston, Kate had left a note saying she was at Terry’s place. Time for a chore I had been putting off. I told Ruth I would gather whatever belongings Ben had left in the garage apartment once the police removed the crime scene tape, which they had done while I was at the funeral. I went outside, found a cardboard box in the garage, then climbed the stairs.

The air-conditioning had been turned down to sixty degrees, probably by the cops, and they left the ceiling fan running, too. Goose bumps rose on my bare arms, and I immediately reset the thermostat.

The apartment we furnished consisted of only two rooms—a living area with a small kitchenette, and a bedroom. The chenille couch cushions lay on the floor, and the cabinets below the sink and microwave stood ajar. I found a crocheted afghan by the recliner that I didn’t recognize and folded the blanket into the box. After a brief search of the room, which yielded only a coffee mug and several Handyman magazines, I went to the bedroom.

I stopped after stepping inside, a lump in my throat. A quilt similar to those Ruth had shown me up at her place, ones she made by hand, had been pulled off the bed, and a worn Bible rested on the end table. Pillowcases and sheets had been tossed in the corner, and the mattress was off center on the box springs. Every dresser drawer stood open, their contents removed. Ben’s meager wardrobe—work clothes, Levi’s, cotton shirts, and underwear—lay in a crumpled pile in the closet. All the pockets in his trousers were turned out.

I sat on the floor and packed up his clothes, feeling sad and also a little angry at how the police had discarded his belongings. I then folded the quilt and remade the bed before turning to the Bible. For some reason, I didn’t want to even touch the book. Bibles seemed such private things.

Feeling like I was somehow betraying Ben, I opened to the first page. What I saw made me blink hard and swallow that tennis ball in my throat. The inscription read, To Ben from Connie. All my love. July 24, 1971.

Connie? Not his beloved Cloris? Was this the Connie mentioned in the newspaper article? The one who had disappeared? Seemed a logical conclusion. So what happened to Connie? And why would an article about her be packed away with Cloris’s belongings?

I quickly boxed up Ben’s things and hurried back to the house, anxious to research the newspaper article. I took the clipping into Daddy’s study and booted up the computer. The byline in the Marysville Sentinel clipping belonged to a Larry Kryshevski. The small newspaper did have a web site, but the archives went back only a year. I called the phone number provided on the site, but the young woman who answered had never heard of the author. Heck, the article was probably written before she was born.

With so much time having passed, the writer seemed like my best bet to learn more than what meager facts were provided in the article, so I plugged Larry K’s name into a search engine. It seemed he was a syndicated freelancer, and I found pages and pages of Web articles from newspapers all over the country. And I also found his mother’s obituary, which offered the name of his hometown. Finding his phone number was as easy as catching fish with dynamite.

After I dialed, he answered with, “Kryshevski here. I don’t want any.”

“I’m not a telemarketer,” I said quickly. “I’m calling about a story you wrote years ago.”

“Years ago I might remember; just don’t ask me about anything I wrote yesterday.” His raspy, gruff voice sounded like he was a smoker.

“My name is Abby Rose, and the article in question concerned a teenager’s disappearance. Very brief story in the Marysville Sentinel. I’m hoping you know more than what appeared in the paper.”

“Hold on a second.” He didn’t bother to cover the receiver when he started yelling at whoever was in the room with him. “Can you tell I’m on the phone? Or have you added deaf and blind to the hypochondria list?”

I heard a female respond, but couldn’t make out what she said. Larry answered her with, “Now I understand why you sneeze all the time. To remove the dust from your brain.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, Ms. Rose. Continue.”

“The teenager’s name was Connie Kramer,” I said, hoping to end this conversation quickly. Larry K wasn’t exactly my kind of guy.

“Yeah. Connie. She disappeared.”

“So you do recall the story?”

“The kid, more than the story. In places like Marysville you get to know people.”

“And what do you remember about her?”

“Hold on again,” he said, then barked, “Chicken again? Are you hoping to put enough salmonella in my system to kill me, Phyllis?”

Sounded like a decent plan to me, I thought.

This time the woman’s response was audible. “Kryshevski, you’re living proof there are more horse’s butts than horses. Eat your dinner and shut up.”

It seemed she didn’t need anyone’s help to handle this jerk.

Larry said, “I’m having a conversation with someone far more interesting than a fucking chicken. She wants to know about something I wrote, which of course would never interest you.”

“Uh, maybe I should call you back later?” I said.

“No. Me and the chicken will go in the other room—if that’s okay with you, Phyllis?”

Another muffled response that I was glad I couldn’t understand.

“Women,” said Larry K, and then I heard a door squeal shut. “Okay. Blessed privacy. Now why are you asking about Connie Kramer?”

“I was cleaning out an attic after a friend died and found the article. Looks like it came from one of those ‘police beat’ sections,” I said. “The last line is what caught my interest. You wrote, ‘Foul play is not suspected.’ ”

“Ah, yes,” said Larry K with a laugh. “Snuck that past the night editor and got in trouble with the big boss when he read the copy.”

“Why would that get you in trouble?” I asked.

“Back then,” he answered, sounding like he had a mouthful of food, “you weren’t supposed to confuse gossip with the news. See, I was ahead of the times.”

“And do you remember the gossip?”

“Depends on why you’re asking. Dispensing information is my bread and butter, and it sounds like you want me to work for free.”

“How much?” I said, stifling my irritation and hoping there really was salmonella in his chicken.

“You tell me why this is important to you and we can work something out. If it’s a good enough story, it won’t cost you a dime. My newspapers will pay me.”

No use shooting myself in the foot just because I didn’t like the man. What harm could it do to tell him the truth? So I began with Ben’s murder and ended with finding the inscription in the Bible.

“Hmm. Interesting,” he said when I was finished. “Maybe we can work together on this. You say you found sketchbooks?”

“Yes, but I’m more interested in—”

“And you have a photograph of this woman, Cloris?”

“I do.”

“Can you scan one of the drawings and the photo and send it to me, along with a signed commitment that I get first shot at doing a piece on this?”

“Okay, sure,” I said. Obviously the guy knew something, and I wanted what he had. He gave me his fax number and I hung up.

Thirty minutes later I had him back on the line.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Larry explained. “Kid ran off because someone knocked her up. And in Marysville, seventeen-year-old unwed mothers were about as welcome as piss in a punch bowl.”

“And they never found her?”

“Not that I heard. Anyway, when you mentioned the sketchbooks, I remembered something else about Connie. She’d won this little art contest sponsored by our paper. I was one of the judges. She was good.”

“Are you saying Connie and Cloris are the same person?”

“That’s her in the picture you faxed. That’s Connie.

And that sure as hell is her artwork.”

I didn’t speak for a few seconds, wondering how this might connect to Cloris-a.k.a.-Connie’s murder.

As if he’d read my mind, Larry K said, “When and if you find out what exactly happened to that girl, you remember we have an agreement, Ms. Rose.” He was all business now. No attitude, no sarcasm. In fact, he sounded downright excited. And I was, too.

I hung up, thinking how everything I’d learned so far seemed to lead to a bigger mystery. Ruth had never mentioned any baby born to Cloris and Ben, in fact, I clearly remembered Sheriff Nemec saying there were no children, no other relatives period.

Okay. So maybe the man’s name that Cloris had written in the sketchbook and on her calendar would shed some light on why she felt compelled to flee town and change her identity. I turned my attention to Samuel Feldman and plugged him into the same search engine I’d used to find Larry K. Ten pages of hits popped up. Not bad. Could have been a thousand. And I soon discovered a number of these hits showed one particular Samuel Feldman lived in Galveston. After scrolling through all the pages, I could find no other Texas connection. So I visited the yellow pages on-line and typed in Feldman’s name. When a number carrying a Galveston area code popped up, I dialed and was greeted by an answering machine.

“You have reached Parental Advocates,” said a soft, professional-sounding female voice. “Our business hours are nine A.M. to five P.M. Tuesday through Saturday. If you would like to leave a message, please do so at the tone.”

I hung up, wondering if I had the right number. But when I tried several other on-line phone books, the same number appeared. So was Parental Advocates Feldman’s business?

The message said they were open tomorrow, and I decided I’d pay a visit. Who knows? Maybe I’d get lucky and come face-to-face with someone from Cloris’s past.