The Skeleton Box (38 page)

“Because she’d talked to Bev—to that woman doing the history with Whistler?”

Mom looked as if she might cry again. “Louise came to me to apologize. She was a basket case. But I didn’t care. She said she hadn’t given the lady much. She so wanted my forgiveness. But I would not give it. All I could think about was my fear.”

“It’s all right, Mom.”

“No, it’s not. Never. I never should have done that to my friends. It’s just—I was alone. I wanted someone else to know, just in case.”

“In case that bastard Reilly did something.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“I don’t—no. I do know. Because I didn’t want that life.”

“What life?”

“I didn’t want to be the girl who helped bury a murdered nun, who helped a murderer and the terrible men who hid him. I didn’t want to be the girl who cheated on her boyfriend. I just wanted to be Bea, Gus’s mom, and live in the yellow house on the lake, like Rudy and I had always planned.”

The shadow of a smile crossed her face.

“We used to go fishing,” she said. “Do you remember throwing your pole in the lake?”

It was a casting pole with a button on the reel that let the line out when you flung the pole forward. I was four or five years old. I hit the button but didn’t hang on to the pole. My dad was about to jump in
after it until Mom grabbed him and they fell over laughing in the rowboat.

“Yes,” I said. “Pretty stupid.”

“I was happy, Gussy. That’s all I wanted.”

A happy family. I thought of my next-door neighbor, Oke Anderson, sitting down to dinner with his family. I took one of Mom’s hands.

“And you hoped the rest would go away,” I said.

“I could’ve just drawn Reilly the map. But when he said it was ‘no longer a matter for men,’ I just . . . I decided I wasn’t going to tell him anything. I’m not sure why. But I didn’t like what he said, or the way he said it.”

We sat there for a while, Mom’s hand in mine.

“So,” I finally said, “what happened the other night? Can you remember?”

She sighed. “I remember this. I remember sitting at the dining room table that morning and Phyllis telling me I was imagining things.”

“You were worried about the burglar not taking anything.”

“Turns out I wasn’t paranoid.”

A noise awoke Mom in her bed that night. She wondered if maybe she’d been dreaming. She’d been dreaming a lot lately. In her dreams, she could remember what she’d had for breakfast and where she’d left her handbag.

She drifted back to sleep. She didn’t know how much later, maybe an hour, maybe ten seconds, she heard a thump. She thought it came from the bathroom. Had Phyllis come over tonight? “Phyllis?” she called out. There was no answer. She thought she must have been mistaken about Phyllis being there. She went back to sleep.

She woke again later, needing to use the bathroom. She tried to push the bathroom door open but it stopped against something. She walked around to the door at the other end of the bathroom. Phyllis was sprawled across the Me Sweet Ho rug, unmoving, her eyes closed. Blood
had splattered on the rug and pooled on the floor around her head. Her cell phone lay on the floor.

“Was she alive?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean you don’t think so?”

“No. She wasn’t alive.”

“How long had she been lying there?”

“I have no way of knowing. I was asleep.”

“So you called nine-one-one?”

“When I saw her lying there, I knew I was right to be afraid. I knew they’d come looking.”

Whistler hadn’t expected to find anyone there. After he slid into the bathroom and Mrs. B saw him, he must have panicked. When he’d panicked in the past, he’d put his fist through computer screens. The pinkie ring must have made the gash above Mrs. B’s eye. That’s why Dingus demanded it, I thought.

“And you called?” I said.

“Phyllis was dead, but I called. I had to hurry.”

She went back to her room. She dug the lockbox containing the piece of map, her rosary, and the newspaper clipping out of the back of the closet. She threw her boots on and ran through the big yard, across the road, and up the hill to Dad’s garage. She put the lockbox in the trunk of the Bonneville, neglecting to close the lid tightly, and stood there for a few seconds, willing herself to remember. Then she ran back to her house.

“You panicked,” I said. “And you lost your boot.”

“I couldn’t stop. I could hear a siren. I had to get back. The next morning, I saw the one boot at the back door and couldn’t remember what had happened to the other.”

“But you remembered where the lockbox was.”

“Yes.”

“And you called nine-one-one before you went up to the garage?”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“Just making sure you remember correctly. That’s a hike to get back before—”

“I know, Gussy. That’s how I lost my boot.”

She let go of my hand and stood and walked back to the transom. I followed, stopping a few feet behind her.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said.

“Why?”

“I might as well have killed Phyllis with my own hands.”

“No. Let it go, Mom. There was nothing—”

“Stop.” She spun to face me, her eyes filling with tears. “Stop telling me everything I did was all right. I made choices. Now my best friends are gone.”

“It wasn’t just your—”

“Stop, goddammit.” Her voice echoed through the church. “You know the truth now. All right? I told you the truth. Everyone knows the truth. Are you all happy now? Are you free? Has the truth set you free, Gus?”

I stepped close and wrapped my arms around her. I whispered into her ear, “I’m glad you told me the truth.” I held her longer and tighter than I had in years.

She sighed as she loosed my embrace. “I’m glad you’re glad,” she said. “Now can you take me home, please? I can’t stay in this place any longer.”

I dropped her at her house. Someone had plowed her driveway. I thought maybe I ought to stay awhile, but she told me she wanted to be alone. After all she’d gotten through for so long, I figured she’d get through this, too.

The last story for the final print edition of the
Pilot
went from my computer screen to the printing plant five minutes before deadline.

“Good-bye,” I said.

I supposed somebody in Traverse City would plant a “Note to Readers” on the front page telling them Media North was ceasing publication of the
Pilot.
The note would thank subscribers for their loyalty and vow that coverage of their “region,” never mind their county or their town, would continue unabated, because nobody was more devoted to the news than Media North.

There were no speeches or tributes or weeping staffers standing around with undone ties and dangling press passes. There was just me and the reek of toner and the buzzing of the lamps.

The single story I wrote concerned Judge Gallagher binding both Breck and Whistler over for trial. Of course, I couldn’t report what happened in the judge’s chambers. But I did plan to tell Darlene what Mom told me about her long-ago meeting with Reilly.

After sending the story, I dialed into the
Pilot
voice mail system, in case there was a message I wanted or, more likely, one I didn’t want my bosses to hear. There were fifty-six messages in all. One by one I deleted them after listening to a few seconds of each, until I came to message twenty-two.

“Anyone checking on those whackaroonies at the Christian camp?” the muffled male voice said. “They’re all agitated with the county. Maybe they’re just messing with us, and now they made a big damn mistake.”

Something about it bothered me. I played it again. The voice was muffled enough that it seemed to be intentional. In the background, I heard a clicking sound. I figured out how to turn up the volume and played it again. And then once more.

I knew that clicking: Whistler’s ring on his steering wheel. And then I thought, Holy shit, I’ll bet it was him, not D’Alessio, who tipped the cops that Tatch didn’t show up for that hockey game. Whistler had heard me talk about it at the hospital that night. D’Alessio probably hadn’t given it another thought.

I saved message twenty-two and made a mental note to tell Darlene about that, too.

Once I’d deleted the other messages, I packed up my Tigers beer stein, a few pens, a legal pad, a stapler, a box of paper clips, and a package of printer paper. I went up front and gathered up Mrs. B’s photographs.

I snapped the lights off at twenty-six minutes past five. I was almost out the door when I remembered my keyboard. I’d written hundreds of stories on it and liked the feel of the keys. I went back and unplugged it and tucked it under my arm.

Seven hours later, I had to bring it back, because I had one more story to write. It was too late for the paper but I posted it online before I headed over to the celebration at Enright’s.

UPSET! RATS SINK PIPEFITTERS, GO TO MICHIGAN STATE FINAL

By A. J. Carpenter
Pilot
Staff Correspondent

In a triple-overtime thriller that ranks with the biggest upsets in Michigan hockey history, the Hungry River Rats of Starvation Lake beat the Pipefitters of Trenton, 2–1, to advance to Saturday’s state championship final.

Goaltender Dougie Baker stopped a play-off record 71 shots in a performance River Rats Coach Dick Popovich called “absolutely stunning.” Highlights included a diving glove save on a breakaway by Pipefitter star Bobby Hofmeister with 18 seconds remaining in the second overtime.

The victory marked the first time the River Rats (23–6–2) had ever beaten the Pipefitters (27–3–1). The teams came into the game ranked #7 and #2 in the state, respectively.

The Rats’ other star was on the ice for less than ten seconds. Team scoring leader Matthew “Tex” Dobrick wasn’t expected to play due to a severe ankle sprain.

But Dobrick showed up in uniform, skated in the team’s pregame warm-up, and appeared at center ice for the opening face-off before retiring to the bench, in obvious pain, for the rest of the game.

“Tough kid,” said Pipefitters Coach Ron Wallman. “We came into the building figuring he was a scratch, and seeing him out there messed with our heads.”

A packed Starvation Lake Arena exploded nearly four minutes into the third overtime when Ethan Banonis banged in a rebound for the win.

“It’s a great moment for a great town,” Popovich said. “But we still have work to do.”

The Rats will play for the state title in their home rink at 5 p.m. Saturday against the top-ranked Austin Painters (28–0–3), who beat Fife Electric, 6–3, in the earlier semifinal.

The Rats have played for the state title only once before. In 1981, they lost to the Pipefitters, 2–1, on a questionable overtime score allowed by goaltender Augustus Carpenter.

T
he sky was flawless blue outside the barred window behind Luke Whistler’s head.

It was a morning in July. Whistler sat across from me with his manacled hands folded atop the metal table, his white hair trimmed to a crew cut, his pinkie naked of his ring. His black Toronado was parked outside in the impound lot of the Pine County Jail.

“Enjoying your stay, Luke?” I said.

He’d been refusing my requests to speak with him since his trial in May. On this morning, one hour before he was to appear in court for his sentencing, Darlene had rousted him from his jail cell and brought him to the interview room where I was waiting.

“Piss off, junior,” he said. “You’re a minor-leaguer and that’s all you’ll ever be.”

“And your journalism career has ended badly, as predicted,” I said. “What happened to your ring? The cops hock it?”

At trial it had come out that Bitsy Whistler, before departing Starvation Lake for the last time, had swiped a ciborium from the sacristy at St. Valentine’s. After she died, Whistler had it melted down and made into the ring.

“These cops are fuckups,” Whistler said. “You watch—I’m getting off on appeal. I didn’t kill anyone. Yeah, I panicked, but I didn’t hit anybody hard enough to kill them. She had a heart attack. I couldn’t help that.”

The jury had convicted Whistler of manslaughter. Dingus had wanted a charge of second-degree murder, but Eileen Martin didn’t think she could make it stick. Except for a fingerprint Whistler could have left the night he had dinner at Mom’s, there was no physical evidence that he’d actually been in the house. Whistler had learned well from the burglar he’d followed on that aborted
Free Press
story.

With a little help from me, Darlene dug up evidence suggesting Whistler had motive. There were canceled checks written to Whistler’s mother by Nilus until just before his death, and then by various people at Eagan, MacDonald & Browne until Bitsy died.

“That’s not what the jury said, is it, Luke?” I said. “If it was a heart attack, why’d you go to such lengths to point the finger elsewhere—the message on the voice mail, making me think I was discovering stuff about Nilus when you knew about it all along? Huh? Why didn’t you just come clean?”

“I had a story to get.”

“That reminds me. I know how you knew about your mother killing the nun—”

“Nilus killed the nun.”

“Right. I know how you knew she was buried under the church, but how did you know about Nilus moving her?”

Whistler shrugged. “He made a few visits to see my mother downstate. You can read all about it in my book.”

The
Detroit Times,
under the byline of M. Joan McCarthy, had reported that at least two New York publishers had expressed interest in a Lucas B. Whistler memoir. It infuriated me, but what could I do? People wanted to read that sort of stuff, so other people published it. It wasn’t all that different from how I’d made my living.

Now, though, sitting within reach of the man who had killed a woman I loved who was the mother of another woman I loved, I recalled Poppy’s advice to Tex. With one hard, unexpected right, I could shatter Whistler’s nose, break his jaw, watch him suffer, if only until Darlene came in and dragged me away.