Darned if You Do (5 page)

“Well, how'm I gonna fix it when I'm laid up like I am?”

Valentina leaned closer and smiled. “They're gonna let me fix it for you.”

Tommy fell silent for a few seconds, staring back into her eyes. “I can't figure if that's good or bad.”

“Why, it's good, Tommy, it's real good! I'm family, right? I'll make sure not to harm you or your things.” Val smiled as sweetly as she could. “Like they say, A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”

And Tommy bought it, if grudgingly. “Well . . . Okay.”

“Good, that's a good cousin. Now you can just relax and get yourself healed. I'll go take a look at it and see what has to be done.”

“You come back here real soon—like once a day—you hear me? Tell me ever single thing you're doing out there. Don't throw nothin'—
nothin'
—away without askin' me first. I'm real serious about that.”

“I hear you. And I promise, I'll come over here to the hospital and tell you everything I'm doing. Okay?”

Val wasn't quite superstitious enough to cross her fingers behind her back. But she thought about it, hard.

V
ALENTINA
sat behind the wheel of her shabby little car, thinking. Tommy's house was in far, far worse condition than she'd anticipated, even after the description Ms. Christianson had given her.

Most noticeable, of course, was the junk. Every single room in the two-bedroom house, including the bathroom and the basement, was overloaded with stuff. None of the furniture in the living and dining room was even visible, much less usable, under the burden of things. Of stuff. Most of it, at first look, was without value—broken, rusty, torn, parts missing, you name it; it seemed as if every item had some problem or another.

But there were other problems that were not so obvious. There was a smell of mold, the kind that infests a house when there is water leaking inside the walls or under the floors. And there was visible mold on the wall tiles in the bathroom. When Valentina pressed a testing finger on a tile above the bathtub faucet, because it looked as if the grout was loose, the tile came off into her hand. Startled, she had dropped it and it broke into three pieces in the stained and dirty tub.

But perhaps the worst thing she saw was on the outside of the house, which she noticed when she stood alongside it. (
And why pink?
she wondered. Why on earth did Tommy think pink was a good color for a house?) The wall was crooked and bulging out near the bottom about halfway along, the bricks pushed just noticeably out of place. Not by a lot, but it was definitely crooked. When she looked down the other side, she saw more bricks pushed out a few inches, again near the bottom. That indicated a problem that probably couldn't be fixed with a little tuck-pointing. It was surprising that the house had not collapsed when the tree crashed into its roof.

Val put her head down on the steering wheel and closed her eyes. What was she going to tell Tommy? She had promised him she'd make his house livable again. She had promised Ms. Christianson, too. But this house had far, far,
far
more serious problems than she'd thought, well beyond her abilities. Maybe beyond anyone's abilities.

She started up the car. She was just too tired to think clearly about this. She would go back to her motel room and go to bed. Maybe tomorrow, after she'd caught up on her sleep, things wouldn't look so hopeless.

*   *   *

T
HE
next morning, over breakfast at Denny's, things still looked hopeless, but at least Valentina felt less dismayed. She had faced seemingly hopeless dilemmas before, and, somehow, she'd found her way through them. So there was probably a way through this one.

She got James Penberthy's office phone number from the telephone operator—there was still a directory service via phone, which was reassuring to a troglodyte like herself. He said he could see her today at eleven if she cared to come out to Excelsior.

She did.

Penberthy's one-man office was on Water Street, the main street of the little town. There was a long, narrow reception area—no receptionist—and the room he worked in featured old-fashioned wood paneling, with the usual bookshelves filled with tan and maroon bound volumes. A watercolor painting of ducks flying over a marsh was the only decorative touch.

Mr. Penberthy was a man of indeterminate age with light brown hair cut short and intelligent blue eyes. His smile was pleasant, his handshake firm. He wore a business suit of conservative gray wool and a light blue silk tie. He did not offer Valentina coffee but sat down behind his plain wooden desk and got right to business.

“You are related by blood to Mr. Riordan?” he asked.

“Yes, his father and my mother were brother and sister. They're both gone now. His mother and father divorced, and she moved away, abandoned Tommy when he was ten or eleven. Remarried, I think, but then she kind of disappeared. I don't know where she might be.” She paused to take a breath. “I'm Tommy's closest relative—in fact, as far as I know, I'm his only blood relative.”

“I see. That would make you his next of kin, as he has claimed.”

“That's right. My mother, his aunt, committed suicide nine years ago.”

“Oh, how sad,” said Mr. Penberthy, though he appeared more shocked than sorrowful. He looked at her as if to encourage her to go on.

“She thought she had cancer,” Valentina said. “I don't know where she got that idea. Almost certainly not from a doctor; she was always scared to go to a doctor, afraid of what he might find wrong with her. My dad had left her right after she had me, and all she ever told me about him was that he was like a rat abandoning a sinking ship. I never could figure out what she meant by that—” Valentina pressed her lips together in an effort to stop herself from talking some more. Surely Mr. Penberthy did not need to know all this about her family history!

He continued to look at her with interest, but she nevertheless stayed silent to see what he would say.

“What you're telling me is very helpful, I think it gives me some insight into Mr. Riordan's personality.”

Valentina shot him a hard look.
Was that some kind of slam?
she wondered.

But Penberthy continued, oblivious to her concerns. “Mr. Riordan is an interesting man, intelligent about some things and clever with his hands. He tells funny stories. I've enjoyed our conversations.”

“What does he do to keep himself busy?” Valentina asked. “Has he got some kind of job?”

“Not a regular job. He often volunteers for town projects, such as our annual fall festival, Apple Days, and our summer festival, Art in the Park. He works hard, though once he feels he's done enough, he will vanish from the scene, usually without notice. There is some . . . lack of follow-through in him, an inability to make long-term plans. I believe the current jargon would have it that he is ‘behaviorally challenged.'” He looked inquiringly at Valentina again.

She nodded. “He was an odd kid, and he grew into what my mother called a queer duck. But without a mean bone in his body.”

Penberthy nodded back. “Yes, that sums him up in my estimation, too.”

“So what are we going to do about him?” Valentina asked.

“I'm afraid the responsibility to solve this problem will fall primarily on you.”

“Tommy isn't going to appreciate my help, you know.”

Penberthy hesitated, then said with an apologetic smile, “I'm afraid we're counting on that. Those of us permanently responsible for him need to stay on his good side. By pushing off this difficult, but temporary, task onto you, we can stay in his good graces, and you can go home and get away from his wrath.”

“So it's okay with you that Tommy will hate me for the rest of his life?” There was a bitter tone in her voice.

“I don't think that will happen. He'll be angry with you for a while, but when he gets his house back, cleaned up and in good order, a house the city cannot condemn, it will occur to him that you did him a great big favor.”

Exasperated, Valentina threw her arms wide. “Have you seen that house?”

“No, he didn't allow me into the place. In fact, as far as I know, he didn't allow
anyone
into the place.”

“I'm not talking about the inside, which is a filthy and unsanitary pigsty,” Valentina said. “I'm talking about the outside. It's not just the mashed roof, either. The walls are crooked, bulging near the ground. That's probably caused by a serious problem with the foundation. Go over and have a look at it, Mr. Penberthy!”

He stared at her, his eyes at first startled, then sad. “I am ashamed to tell you that I have never gone to Mr. Riordan's house—have not so much as looked at it while passing by—or I might have noticed that it was getting into a very bad state. I'm glad that you came to see me and made me aware that things have gotten badly out of control.

“But we're moving at last in the right direction. With your help, we can get an honest assessment of the state of his house. Maybe it will even be possible to get it back in good order by making repairs.”

Reluctantly, Valentina reined in her temper. “Kassie Christianson—do you know her?”

“Not well, but I have long known she's Mr. Riordan's social worker. Last time I talked with her, she mentioned your name.”

“She says I should get an emergency conservatorship. She says then I would have the . . . the
authority
to go into Tommy's house and clean it out. But I don't want to make Tommy mad by throwing away some things he's really attached to—though I think he thinks he's attached to everything in the house.”

“How much does it matter to you, since eventually you will be returning to your home in Indiana?”

Valentina sighed. “Do you know he plans to sue his neighbor over that tree that fell on his house? He wants her to pay for fixing his roof. And he's not mad at her. I'm not sure what he'd do to me if I made him mad. So I really don't want to give him a legal reason to be mad at me.”

“If you get that conservatorship, there's no legal way he can stop you doing what needs to be done. And, let me tell you this: If Hennepin County condemns the house, it will be cleared out by county employees. They will be far less motivated to be careful with Mr. Riordan's possessions, and far more likely to enrage him by their actions. And he can tie things up in the courts for a long time. On the other hand, he will have no grounds to sue you. You can go back home with a clear conscience and no legal vulnerability.”

Valentina sat silent for a full minute. Then she said, “All right, tell me what I need to do.”

*   *   *

T
HIS
guy Penberthy wasn't a bad man, not really. He was just trying to get something fixed that never should have needed to be fixed in the first place, and it was partly his fault that things had come to such a pass. Valentina wasn't the sort of person who bad-mouthed people in the legal profession (or, for that matter, the police)—at least, not out loud—but she generally avoided them whenever possible. In her never humble opinion, they tended to be nosy and uppity.

However, Penberthy had kindly—and patiently—explained to her the path to an emergency conservatorship and said he would help her fill out the paperwork and represent her in court when she sought one. He was sure there would be no problem getting one but insisted they should begin the process as soon as possible.

So they spent half an hour filling out the form—which wasn't complicated—and Valentina gave him the name of the motel where she was staying so he could contact her when he'd made an appointment for the hearing. He'd expressed surprise that she didn't have a cell phone, to which she'd responded, “I never felt the need to have a leash on me.” To her surprise, that made him laugh.

Then he had given her some good advice. First, and right away, she should find out who Tommy's friends were in Excelsior and talk with them. Second, she should recruit—a cool word,
recruit
—a working party from among them. Third, as soon as the conservatorship was approved, she should go into the house and start sorting things into three piles: valuables (to be sold or kept), good but useless stuff (to be donated to charity), and worthless (to be thrown away). There was going to be a series of quarrels if Valentina were to ask Tommy about the disposition of valuable or good stuff, so Penberthy's advice, to present Tommy with a fait accompli on her way out of town, was probably sound. She smiled to herself in the car; he had been ready to define the term, and she surprised him by knowing what it meant.

Judging by her first trip into the house, Valentina thought that Penberthy might have given her a fourth piece of good advice: to rent a Dumpster to hold that third bunch of things.

But Mr. Penberthy hadn't told her how to connect with Tommy's friends in town. Perhaps, since he was such a good thinker, she would call him and ask. Meanwhile, it was lunchtime.

There were some nice upscale restaurants on Water Street, but her purse was slender and her tastes plebeian, so she drove a few blocks farther and found a bar-restaurant called the Barleywine. The hanging sign was artsy, a painted barrel with a bouquet of wheat—no, it must be barley—stuffed in it, but there was a simple neon sign in the window:
EAT
. That reminded Valentina of signs on cheap cafés from her youth, where the food was unhealthy but plentiful and comforting.

She found a parking space and went in.

All right, it wasn't as shaggy as she had thought it might be at first glance. The floor looked like real stone cut into uneven slabs, which she knew was more expensive to install than even-sized blocks, and the bar was beautiful carved wood. And, most curious of all, the wall behind the bar was made all of glass, through which she could see huge steel cylinders that reminded her of a factory. But the smell that permeated the space, besides beer, was of low-cost fried food.

The restaurant's three booths were constructed of old-fashioned dark wood, each with a tall pole fitted with brass coat hooks. Nice—or as the kids say, sweet!