Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Once we were in the parking lot, Bernie led me to a Volkswagen Jetta.
It was a couple of years old, dark blue with a camel interior.
There was six inches of snow still on the roof, which meant he didn’t have a garage to put the car into.
There was a dent in the front fender, and when I opened the door the interior was filled with junk mail, bags from fast-food places (indicating he did some traveling, as there were no franchises in Wyandot County) and empty plastic water bottles.
I thought he might apologize for the state of the car, but as soon as the doors were shut, he asked, “What did he ask about Melanie?”
“Uh, well, he asked if she might have a motive other than the lawsuit.”
“And you said…”
“I said, I didn’t think so.”
“What else?”
“Mostly I said she didn’t kill Bobbie LaCross. Because I don’t think she did.”
I noted that Bernie didn’t rush to agree with me. “Did he ask about anyone else? Anyone he might consider a suspect?”
“He saw me at trivia. He asked about the people I was sitting with. Patty Gauthier and Brian Belcher.”
“Patty’s my aunt. My mother’s sister.”
“So, she probably isn’t the killer.”
“I didn’t say that,” he said with a shrug. “She could be, who knows. Who else did he ask about?”
“Bobbie’s son, Hal Buckwald.”
“Interesting.”
“Can I ask a question? You represented Bobbie LaCross. Isn’t this a conflict of interest?”
“My father represented Bobbie. He and I don’t communicate.”
“Ah… a Chinese wall,” I said, knowingly. I’d picked up the term from L.A. Law or The Practice or Ally McBeal. I couldn’t remember which. It referred to a situation where members of the same firm represented opposing parties.
Bernie looked confused, and said, “I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s where you don’t communicate with your father about cases that might have a conflict—”
“You misunderstood. I don’t communicate with my father. Full stop.”
“But it’s Schaub then put on their boots and coats in silence. I looked at my grandmother and pulled a questioning face, which she ignored. As soon as they were out the door, I asked, “What was that about?”
“I called Bev right after you left, right after seven this morning.” Her tone was filled with disgust. “They came right over.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“They. They were together.”
“Right. So they were having—” I was about to say breakfast when I realized.
They were together. Okay, I should have picked up on that.
It was a major gaydar malfunction. Not that my gaydar was particularly attuned to lesbians, but still, I should have—of course, they were friends of my Nana Cole, which meant queerness was not even a possibility.
And they were old. What were they doing having sex?
With anybody? Oh god, don’t even think about it.
I stopped cleaning the baby. Really, she didn’t seem to mind being sticky and this was kind of important.
As reasonably as possible, I said, “You know that has nothing to do with you, don’t you?”
“Of course it has to do with me. They told me. Why did they have to tell me?”
“You said you figured it out.”
“They could have lied. That’s what friends do for each other.”
“Nana, you matter to them. God knows why.” Her eyes flashed at me. I decided to plunge forward. “If you don’t know then you don’t really know them. Is that what you want?”
“People should be what they’re supposed to be.”
“Who decides what they’re supposed to be?”
“God.”
“And you know what God wants?”
“I go to church. I read my Bible.”
“And what if the minister’s wrong? What if you misunderstand the Bible? It’s certainly contradictory.”
B minus, Comparative Religion 34. Proud of that. I even went to most of the classes.
“I know what’s true in my heart,” Nana Cole said.
“Yeah, well, what if what’s in your heart is meanness and hatred? Is that what God wants?”
“They’re going to hell. You’re going to hell. Is that really what you want? Would you really give up eternity for… acceptance?” She said acceptance like it was a dirty word.
“I’ve seen what Christians are like. If heaven’s full of them, then I don’t want to go.”
I mean, seriously, an eternity with people shaming each other over impure thoughts versus disco inferno 24/7? It seemed an easy decision to me.
With a grimace, Nana Cole stood up from the table. Her cane was right there at the ready. I watched as she hobbled down the hallway to the living room, cane in one hand, the other bracing her against the wall. She looked frail, easily broken. I realized we’d grown up in very different worlds.
She’d been welcomed into the world and given the prescribed roles of wife and mother; both seemed to have fit her well.
I grew up in a world that did not welcome me.
In fact, all too often it encouraged me not to exist at all.
Somehow, my struggling to find a place, and now Bev and Barbara doing the same, somehow that threatened Nana Cole.
It didn’t change her position in the world, but somehow she felt it did.
God, I needed a thirty milligram OxyContin.
Two would be better. Unfortunately, I was going to have to settle for an Ativan.
I finished cleaning up the baby, wiped down the high chair, and then took Emerald upstairs.
I changed her diaper—it was overdue—and put her into the crib, hoping she’d take a long nap.
My grandmother hadn’t asked me anything about being arrested or how I got un-arrested.
I guess that just showed how upset she was.
Selfishly, I wondered what we were going to do without Bev and Barbara.
Together, and separately, but mostly together, they’d been doing a lot of childcare.
I watched my sister as she lay in the crib.
Yeah, she was going to drift off soon. I tried to resist the temptation to make faces at her and failed completely.
I could have spent the time making those notes Bernie wanted but… well, screw that.
When Jan arrived, I popped an Ativan, said hello, put on my winter gear, and left the house. I wanted to talk to Hal Buckwald, but I had no idea where he lived. My Nana Cole probably knew, but the atmosphere in that kitchen had turned arctic and I’d just wanted to get out of there.
Speaking of arctic, the moment I walked out the back door I was slapped in the face by the frigid air.
It had to be well below ten degrees. That made up my mind.
I took the Escalade. The plow had come through again and dumped almost of a foot of snow at the end of the driveway.
For the SUV, driving through it wasn’t a problem. Like driving over a dead body.
Anyway, I figured the best way to find Hal would be to ask his cousin Buford. I’d pretty much figured out where the Campbell—compound? complex? nuclear test site?—was located, so I pointed myself in that direction and about fifteen minutes later I was at Buford’s door.
As I stood there waiting for him to come to the door, I noticed that the wind had blown away some snow and there was what looked like a green plaid blanket beneath the snow. What was that about? I wondered just as he opened the door.
“Hi. Me again.”
This time, he cracked it open a little wider. I took that to mean we were becoming friends. He wore stained long underwear and had a bad case of bedhead. I found myself saying, “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“I wasn’t asleep. I’ve been awake since 1993.”
Couldn’t possibly be true, but I got the point.
“Well, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m looking for Hal Buckwald. Bobbie’s son. I thought you might know where he lives.
Without another word, he wove an arm out the door, pointing at the mobile home in the back of the lot, the one with no siding, then closed the door. Okay, well, that was an answer.
I picked my way out to the trailer using other people’s footsteps. As nearly as I could tell, no one had shoveled a path to the trailer. There were multiple sets of footsteps through the recent snow leading to and from its front door.
I banged on the storm door. A few moments later, Hal opened the door. He, too, was wearing long underwear. He did have a pair of jeans covering the bottom part, which I appreciated.
“Hi, we haven’t met, I’m Henry Milch. I’m wondering if I could ask a few questions about your mother?”
“Are you with the newspaper?”
“No, no I’m not. You know it’s awfully cold out here, I wonder if I could come inside—”
“No, you can’t.”
I suppose that was a blessing. From what I could see the interior of the mobile home looked like a picked-over yard sale, and there was a disturbing smell wafting out. Then again… frostbite.
“I’ve heard you didn’t get on with your mother. Is that true?”
“Nobody got on with my mother. Not for long. Is there a reward? Is that why you’re nosing around?”
“When was the last time you spoke to her?”
“About a year ago. If you get a reward, I want part of it.”
“There’s no reward. Don’t you care who killed your mother?”
“Not really.”
That brought me to a halt. I mean, if someone killed my mother, I’d want to know who it was. Finally, I asked, “What’s the deal with this… property? Why are you all living on it?”
He looked me up and down, seeming to decide whether he wanted to answer.
“So, my great-great grandfather Malcolm Campbell, Scottish, got a land grant for a hundred and sixty acres. He was going to be a farmer, but he wasn’t great at it.
Ended up selling off most of the trees for lumber.
He died and left the land to his two sons.
They weren’t much better at farming, and ended up selling off a lot of the land during the Depression.
By the time my grandfather and his two cousins inherited the land there wasn’t much left. Just four and a half acres.”
“How many people own this property now?”
“Five cousins.”
“So, you’ve been living on the same piece of property as your mom. How did you not speak to her for a whole year?”
“Easier than you think. She was always trying to borrow money. I finally told her to fuck off. She did.”
“What did she want to borrow money for?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Doctor visit. Blinski.”
That did not need explaining. What did need explaining was why she thought her son would have any money to loan her. He certainly didn’t look like he had any.
He went on, “By the time I told her to fuck off she owed me about twelve hundred dollars. I knew I’d never see it again.”
“The night your mother died, did you see anyone on the property?”
“I already talked to a deputy. They know I didn’t see anything.” I thought he’d finished, but then he went on. “Two of my cousins live in the other singlewide. I was over there with them most of the night.”
“What were you doing?”
“Terminator.”
“Watching the movie?”
“No, the game.” Then he said, “I’ll be back” in a bad imitation for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Austrian accent.
“What time did you get back here?”
“Four, five.”
He could have easily killed his mother and then driven over and dumped her body at Three Friends well before the sun came up.
“What kind of car do you drive?”
“I didn’t kill my mother. If I was going to kill her, I’d have done it a long, long time ago.”
Then he shut the door in my face.