S is for Silence

11

Chet Cramer Chevrolet was located on Main Street in Cromwell, three acres of shiny cars, fifteen capacious service bays, and a two-story showroom with floor-to-ceiling plateglass windows. Inside, at ground level, there were six small glass-fronted offices, each outfitted with a desk, a computer, a run of file cabinets, two chairs for customers, and prominent displays of family photographs and sales awards. One cubicle was currently occupied by a heavyset salesman in earnest conversation with a couple whose body language suggested they were not as eager to do business as he had hoped.

I didn’t see a reception desk, but I spotted a sign with an arrow pointing to the parts department. I walked down a short hallway, passing the restrooms and a lounge with comfortable chairs, where two people sat reading magazines. Doughnuts were available and a vending machine dispensed tea, hot chocolate, coffee, cappuccino, and lattes without charge. I found the cashier and told her I had an appointment with Mr. Cramer. She took my name and rang his office to tell him I was there.

While I waited, I wandered back to the showroom floor, moving from a Corvette convertible to a Caprice station wagon. The best-looking car was an IROC Z Camaro convertible, bright red with a tan interior. The top was down and the leather seats were soft. Try tailing someone in a car that slick. I turned to find Mr. Cramer standing with his hands in his pockets, admiring the car as I did. I knew from counting on my fingers that he was in his early eighties. I could see he’d been handsome in his youth, and I sensed, like an aura, the volume of air he must have displaced before he shrank from age. His suit was a size that a young boy might wear. He said, “What kind of car you drive?”

“1974 VW.”

“I’d make you a pitch, but you look like a woman knows her own mind.”

“I’d like to think so,” I said.

“You’re here about Mrs. Sullivan.”

“I am.”

“Let’s go on up to my office. People see I’m down here, I never get a moment’s peace.”

I followed him across the showroom floor and up the stairs. When we reached his office, he opened the door and stepped aside to let me in. The room was plain-a straight-legged wooden desk, a couch, three chairs, and white walls on which he’d mounted numerous black-and-white photographs of himself with various local bigwigs. The Cromwell Chamber of Commerce had given him a citation for community service. The furniture might well have been the set he started business with. “Did you graduate from college?” he asked as he rounded his desk and took a seat.

I sat down across from him, putting my shoulder bag on the floor at my feet. “Hardly. I had two semesters of junior college, but I don’t think that counts.”

“Better than I did. My father dug ditches for a living and never saved a dime. My senior year in high school, he was killed in an auto accident. It’d been raining for a week, highway was slick as glass, and he went off a bridge. I was the oldest of four boys and I had to go to work. One thing my dad taught me was never do manual labor. He hated his job. He said, ‘Son, if you want to make money, find a job where you have to shower before you go to work instead of when you get home.’ He maintained there was always someone for hire when it came to the dirty work, and I’ve followed that to this day.”

“How’d you end up selling cars?”

“Desperation. Everything turned out fine in the end, but it didn’t look so promising at first. The only fellow who’d hire me was George Blickenstaff, owner of the local Ford dealership. He was an old family friend and I guess he took pity on me. I started selling Fords when I was nineteen years old. That was 1925. I didn’t much care for it, but at least I wasn’t working with my hands. Turns out I had a knack for sales. Four years later, the stock market crashed.”

“That must have put a dent in the business.”

“Some areas, yes, but not as much out here. We were always small potatoes and we didn’t take the same hit the bigger dealers did. By the time the Depression came along, I was doing pretty well, at least compared to what a lot of other folks endured. By then, I’d turned into Blickenstaff’s star salesman. You’d have thought it was something I was born to do. Of course, I was full of myself and thought I deserved a dealership of my own.”

“Is that when you bought this place?”

“Took me years. Problem was, every time I had money in the bank, something came along that took the wind right out of my sails. I put my brothers through college and just about had my mother’s house paid off when she got sick. The hospital bill alone was enough to wipe me out. Factor in the funeral expenses and the headstone and I was flat broke. I didn’t marry till I was thirty-two years old and that set me back again because suddenly I was saddled with a family.”

“But you did persevere,” I said.

“Oh, I did better than that. By 1939, I could see what was coming. The minute Germany invaded Poland, I talked old man Blickenstaff into stockpiling tires, car parts, and gasoline. He didn’t want to listen, but I knew it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. U.S. involvement was a given. Any fool could see that-except him, of course. I knew when the time came, rationing would be inevitable, and we couldn’t afford to be caught short. He argued the point, but I knew I was right and I never let up. My instincts were dead on. Once the war started, there wasn’t another dealer in the area who’d had the same foresight. Guys were coming out of the woodwork, begging for gasoline, begging for tires, which was music to my ears. I told ‘em I was happy to be of help as long as sufficient cash changed hands. The point was delivering product and service to the customer, and if Chet Cramer could make a buck in the process, then what’s wrong with that? Blickenstaff didn’t have the stomach for it. He lost a son in the war and he thought it was morally reprehensible-that was the phrase he used, ‘morally reprehensible’-to profit when all those boys had sacrificed their lives. In truth, he was tired and it was time he stepped aside.”

“You bought the dealership from him?”

“No ma’am. I bought the Chevrolet franchise and drove that old geezer into the ground: 1945 he closed his doors and I picked up his dealership for pennies on the dollar. May sound cold, but it’s a simple fact of life: You can’t accomplish anything unless you’re willing to act. Make a plan. Take a risk. That’s how you get what you want.”

“What about your brothers? Did any of them come into the business with you?”

“This is mine. I don’t share. I did enough for them and now they’re on their own.” He shifted in his chair, leaning forward on his desk. “Anyway, you didn’t come here to talk about me. You want to know about Violet Sullivan.”

“I do, but I’m also curious about the car. Can we start with that?”

He made a dismissive gesture. “Foley had no business buying that car. He ought to’ve been ashamed of himself. The Sullivans didn’t have a pot to piss in-I hope you’ll forgive the language.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” I said.

“Violet got it in her head she had to have that car, and Foley knew better than to stand in her way. I wasn’t about to turn away a sale, so I cut him a deal.”

“Which was what?”

“I took his truck in trade, for whatever that was worth. Purely a courtesy on my part, but I made one thing clear: The first time he missed a payment, I’d repossess. No excuses, no slow pays, and not one penny short. I didn’t care what the law said, that car was coming back.”

“Given his history, you were taking quite a chance.”

“Oh, I never thought he’d do it. I fully expected to have the car on the lot again within three months and then I’d take it for myself.”

“I thought Winston Smith made the sale.”

“He’s the one Violet dealt with up front. He was a pipsqueak, all of twenty years old. Woman like Violet, she’s always going to find a way to get what she wants. She comes waltzing in here when I’m off the lot and she starts working on him. I’d’ve put a stop to it if I’d seen what was going on. First thing you know she talks him into letting her take that Bel Air on a test drive-alone. I’m serious. Without him in the car. He never should have agreed, but he’s so busy trying to impress her, he doesn’t know what hit him. When she finally shows up again, she’s put two hundred and fifty-seven miles on a brand-new car. I fired him on the spot and then called Foley and told him to get his butt in. He finally came around Friday morning and I completed the deal-approved the loan and handled all the paperwork.”

“I still don’t understand why you sold it to him. From what I’ve heard, his finances were a mess.”

“I have no use for Foley; man doesn’t have a brain in his head. I felt sorry for Violet. I thought she deserved something nice for putting up with him, fool that she was.”

“What was in it for you?”

His smile was sheepish. “Hey, even an old dog like me can do a good turn now and then. Everybody thinks I’m a hard-ass, but I can be generous when it suits. Of course that might’ve been the last time I ever did a good deed. When that car went missing, I was sick to death. Foley did pay it off. I have to give him that.”

“So you weren’t out anything?”

“Not one red cent.”

“Violet didn’t tell you how she managed to put two hundred and fifty-seven miles on the odometer?”

“No, but I can make a pretty good guess. That’s the day she showed up at a Santa Teresa bank and emptied her safe deposit box. I figured it out afterward, because the distance was about right-hundred and twenty-five miles each way. She said the day was gorgeous and she couldn’t resist. At the time, I was under the impression she drove north along the coast, but she never said as much.”

“If she wanted to drive to Santa Teresa, why not take Foley’s truck?”

“That thing was on its last legs. No surprise she’d prefer to tool around in a fancy car like mine. Maybe she was planning to sweet-talk the bank manager into making her a loan.”

“Did she give any indication she intended to leave town?”

“Never said a word. Not that she had any reason to confide in me. I barely knew the woman. So what was in her safe deposit box? I never heard.”

“Foley thinks it was cash from an insurance settlement. Fifty thou sand is the number I’ve heard. In addition to that, her brother says he lent her two thousand dollars on Wednesday of that week.”

“Calvin Wilcox. Now there’s a piece of work.”

“As in what?”

“Those two were always at each other’s throats. He assumed the full care of their parents and Violet wouldn’t lift a hand. He didn’t give a damn if she disappeared or not. I’m sure it cheered him no end that when his mother died, all the money came to him. If his sister had been around, he’d have had to split it with her.”

I felt my attention narrow like a cat’s at the sound of a little mousie scratching in the wall. “Money?”

“Oh, yes. It was a sizeable estate. Roscoe Wilcox made a fortune perfecting phosphorescent paint. Got a patent on some new, improved formula, or so I’ve heard. Every time you see a paint job that glows, it’s money in the bank-or Calvin’s pocket in this case.”

“How well do you know him?”

“We’re both members of the same country club and the same association of local businessmen. He built that company from scratch, which I’ve always admired, but the fellow himself? I got my doubts about him. Maybe it’s just that he and that wife of his have never cared for me.”

“What happened to Winston Smith? I’d like to talk to him if you know where he is.”

“That’s easy. The week after I fired him, I took him back and he’s worked for me ever since. It’s like I told him: You don’t want to act in haste. What seems tragic in the moment can sometimes turn out to be the best thing in the world.”

“Meaning what?”

“He ended up married to my daughter and now they have those three gorgeous girls. He’s a very lucky man.”