Trail of the Spellmans (9 page)

“I see,” he said. “But you like him?”

“Of course.”

“Did you like him right away or did it take a while?”

“It took a while,” I replied, suddenly feeling awkward having such an intimate discussion with a stranger.

“Sometimes it takes a while to like chess. Also playing it is more fun than reading about it.”

“That’s true about almost anything.”

“So, do you want to play?”

“You’ve got a chessboard on you?”

“Always.”

“Huh.”

“Just a friendly game.”

“What would make it an unfriendly game?”

“I don’t know; it’s just a saying.”

I checked my watch and the entrance to 111 Market. Twelve forty-five
P.M.

Mr. Slayter had told his wife that after his noon meeting he was likely to have lunch at a downtown restaurant. The man with the unfortunate tooth decay took my silence as acquiescence and promptly pulled a board and a jangling felt pouch out of his canvas bag. He took a seat next to me and began setting up his ivory army.

“Okay,” I said. “But if my friend shows up, I’ll have to run, even if we’re in the middle of the game.”

“Charles Black,” the man said. “My friends call me Charlie. But I always play white, so don’t let my name confuse you.”

“I should warn you, Mr. Black, I’m not very good at this.”

“Call me Charlie,” he said.

“Okay, Charlie.”

“What should I call you?”

“Jane.”

“That’s easy to remember.”

“I know,” I said. That’s why I picked it.

One hour later, Charlie had apparently broken all of his previous chess records by winning ten games in a row. In fact, one of those games,
Charlie explained,
²
was called a fool’s checkmate, a rare and laughably quick win that almost never happens, even when playing the most amateurish opponent. I congratulated Charlie for my impressive defeat and was saved from future humiliation when I saw Edward Slayter leaving the building. Mr. Slayter stood alone on the threshold of the skyscraper doors and scanned the area as if he were looking for a tail. In fact, he looked right at me and then moved on. Eventually he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and began walking up Montgomery Street.

“That’s my friend,” I said to Charlie as I got to my feet.

“That’s your friend?” Charlie said with a sprinkling of concern.

“Yes. I have to go,” I said, tossing my bag over my shoulder.

“But he didn’t wave or anything,” Charlie said, still with the concern.

“We’re the kind of friends who don’t wave,” I said.

“Oh. I see,” Charlie said politely.

“See you around,” I said. And then I waved.

Charlie waved back and smiled; I hoped he didn’t read too much into that wave.

Mr. Slayter’s next appointment was not lunch. If you’re thinking I have a scandalous tale to tell involving hookers, loan sharks, bookies, or even a mistress, let me set you straight. Mr. Slayter had a doctor’s appointment, plain and simple. This was easy to verify since he entered a building that required signing in at a security desk. I don’t often mention this fact, but terrorists have made some parts of my job quite a bit easier. I probably won’t mention that again.

Since I was to inform Mrs. Slayter if Edward deviated at all from his plans, I sent her a text message with the information gleaned from this remarkably dull surveillance. Ten minutes later Mrs. Slayter sent me a reply,
thanking me for my hard work and suggesting I conclude the surveillance for the day.

I returned to Spellman Investigations headquarters and was surprised to find a vacated office. Instead of taking advantage of the peace and quiet and catching up on work, I decided to head down to the basement and catch some Zs on the cot. I’d had yet another barn burner of a night with Gerty. She seemed to have taken a shine to the Philosopher’s Club. Frankly, I didn’t know how much longer I could keep up with her. Even I usually stay in on a Sunday night.

TRAPPED . . . AGAIN

S
ome people don’t learn lessons as quickly as others do. The Spellman basement has been home to a wild variety of punishments spanning close to three decades of my life. In my early youth, my parents would stage military-like interviews to find out the truth behind the finger paint on the walls or the sticky/sweet substance that now lived in the carpet. I suppose the methodology is the same whether you’re interrogating a war criminal or a second grader. Remove all forms of distraction, create an uncomfortable environment (dim lighting, rickety chairs), and starve the person of natural light—for a child, even five minutes works.

My point is that I’ve endured many uncomfortable situations in that room.

Then again, sometimes you need a nap and the room is as dark as a high-quality hotel room and people leave you alone in there and so you sleep and then you wake up and you overhear a conversation and you can’t leave the room until the relevant parties have finished the conversation and left the office, so they don’t know you’ve heard it. And the next thing you know, four hours have passed. When you do finally escape, you have to jump through the office window and you scratch your arm on the way out and you start to wonder if you’re getting too old for this sort of
thing. You think one of these days the urge that you’ve been tussling with your whole life—the need to get to the bottom of everything—will fade out. But it hasn’t yet and you wonder if maybe you need to take a more proactive approach and maybe you think it might be time to go back to the shrink. Then your train of thought is interrupted by Mr. Peabody next door, who has just witnessed your defenestration and is giving you that look he always does. You take your sleeve to the windowsill and pretend you’re dusting and then you walk along the side of the house to the front door and enter.

I found my father foraging in the refrigerator. My mother was planted on the couch, which provides a direct view of all activities in the kitchen. Dad once suggested a rearrangement of living room furniture and I eventually came to realize that it was so that any couch dwellers couldn’t keep up with kitchen activities. He went so far as to solicit the services of our gardener to help him move the couch. Gardener’s services were solicited again when my mother returned home, insisting that things remain in their rightful place. Mom’s not too obsessed with the location of household furniture (though she’s rearranged the office at least ten times in the past twenty years in an effort to improve work production), so I suspect she was onto him right away. Dad pouted the rest of the day.

I watched my father watch my mother out of the corner of his eye as he used the refrigerator door to block Mom’s view and grab a cookie off of a baking sheet on top of the stove. Dad slipped back into the office, where I followed him. “Not one word,” Dad said as he dug into the cookie. A quizzical expression flashed across his face as he consumed the baked good. “This is excellent,” Dad said. “Why is D so hit-and-miss with his baking?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” I replied, knowing the answer.

“That would be rude.”

“What’s new?” I asked. I asked that because after overhearing Mom and Dad’s conversation, I knew that something was new.

“Not much,” Dad replied.

“When I say ‘What’s new’ I’m not just referring to what might be new in your life, but more like is there something I should know?”

“I love you,” Dad said, eating his cookie.

“No, that’s not it,” I replied.

“When somebody tells you they love you, you should say ‘I love you’ back.”

“I love you, Dad. So, anything you want to tell me?”

“Um, I think you’re doing a good job.”

“Thanks, so nothing’s new?” I asked again, hoping my repetition would become tiresome enough to result in an answer.

“Since the last time you asked, I finished the cookie,” Dad said.

“If that’s how you want to play it,” I replied.

“What’s new with you, Isabel?” Dad asked.

“Nothing,” I replied. “Absolutely nothing.”

Two hours earlier

Now might be a good time to describe that conversation I overheard, which caused me to be trapped in the basement, followed by a window escape and an extremely unsuccessful Dad interrogation.

Footsteps and fuzzy voices overhead woke me from a fitful nap. I climbed the basement stairs but stopped short at the door. I didn’t want to interrupt the clearly private conversation between the unit. It went something like this.

MOM
: Do you have an ETA?

DAD
: Not yet. But soon.

MOM
: I still think it’s a bad idea.

DAD
: We have no other option.

MOM
: I understand.

DAD
: We’ll get through it.

MOM
: We’ll see.

DAD
: We’ve been through worse.

MOM
: You sure about that?

DAD
: I have it under control.

MOM
: Al, at some point you might have to make a choice.

DAD
: I know. And I’ll make the right one.

Believe me, I’ve tried direct questioning on many occasions; it’s never been a successful route for me to take. That conversation could have been about anything—financial difficulties, an issue with a client, or even marital problems. I hid in the basement because I didn’t want to tip off my parents, but I knew something was going on—something very serious indeed.

I left my father in the office to digest his illicit cookie and returned to the dining room, where I found D watching his afternoon soap (a habit that apparently started thirteen years ago in prison) and my mother indulging in her latest hobby.

“Mom, what are you doing?”

“Checking out some online dating sites,” she replied.

“That’s generally frowned upon when you’re married,” I said.

“For D,” Mom said, maintaining her gaze on the computer screen.

“He’ll never agree to it,” I said.

“Already has,” Mom smugly replied. Mom waited until she heard the blast of a commercial to directly interrupt D. “D, what’s the tallest woman you’d date?”

“Surprise me,” D replied, decidedly uninterested in the endeavor.

“Six-three?”

“Why not?”

Mom studied the candidate’s profile and shook her head. “Forget it. She’ll only date water signs.”

It seemed that intrigue was popping up like spring flowers that day. There was no good reason D would allow my mother to set him up on dates. Perhaps this was one mystery I could get to the bottom of. I plopped down on the couch and gazed at the TV screen. D’s soap never interested me much—there was way too much history to catch up on (and no appendix to help you out), but I feigned interest.

“So . . . um . . . did things work out between that guy with the awful tan—Blake, that was his name—and that woman with the eye patch?”

“Christina?”

“Is there more than one woman on the show with an eye patch?”

“No.”

“So, how are things with Blake and Christina?”

“Why the sudden interest?”

“Why the sudden suspicion?”

“You don’t care about my program,” D said. “Something else is on your mind.”

“Fair enough,” I replied. “But you can say that about anything. I mean, don’t you currently have something else on your mind besides your program?”

“Yes,” D said. “How I can get you to leave me in peace for just fifteen more minutes.”

“Done.”

I sat in silence and watched another orange-hued male and tangerine-shaded woman conspire in a murder plot against a wealthy heiress with vertigo. Apparently, the plan was to knock her down a flight of stairs, which would be plausible under the circumstances. D shushed me when I asked how they’d benefit from the crime. When the show finally ended, he explained that the orange man was married to the old lady with vertigo.

“That’s kind of gross, don’t you think?”

“Love is deaf, dumb, and blind.”

“And orange, apparently,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Why does everyone have a fake tan?” I asked the universe.

But D answered: “I long ago stopped trying to figure out half of the weird shit white people do to themselves. Any other questions I can fail to answer for you?”

“Yeah. Do you need some backup with my mom?”

“Excuse me?”

“The whole Internet dating thing,” I whispered. “Clearly, she’s manipulating you in some capacity. I can have her taken care of, if you know what I mean.”

“Is it so hard to believe I might want to go on a date after being in prison for fifteen years?”

“No, but handing over the reins to my mom is.”

“It’s a jungle out there. I’m just allowing her to clear away some of the brush.”

“So, how’s it been going?” I asked, trying to change the tenor of the conversation from interrogative to interested.

“I’ve met a number of nice ladies.”

“So, approximately how many nice ladies have you met?”

“I’ve been on four dates so far.”

“How many second dates?” I asked.

“None.”

“Interesting.”

“I haven’t met anyone special yet.”

“Is that code for ‘they were all crazy’?” I asked. “That’s what you get when you let my mother pick your dates. Now, if you gave me a shot at it . . .”

“I’m officially ending this conversation,” D said.
¹

“But I have some helpful suggestions.”

“And I have a job to do,” D said, returning to the office.

I followed my mother into the kitchen and was about to tackle another branch of the investigation when she gave me the slip with a question of her own.

“When were you going to tell me that Henry’s mother is in town?”

“After she left,” I replied.

“You weren’t planning on introducing us?”

“Not really.”

“Why? Are you ashamed of us?”

“Of course I am.”

“Very funny, Isabel. I invited Henry and Gertrude over for Sunday dinner. Any special requests?”