Maude Brown's Baby (12 page)

Jake gritted his teeth, but managed to control his temper.
“Reporter and photographer for the
Houston Chronicle
, sir. What happened here?”

The policeman hesitated,
then offered a tidbit.

“A guy saw someone
dumped in the fresh concrete Thursday night. Didn’t bother to let us know until yesterday.”

“Here
? Shit!”

“Yeah. And since then, more concrete has bee
n poured. Now the boss says he’s not going to bust up a week’s worth of work just because of what someone thinks they saw in the dark.”

Jake wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Color drained from his face.

“Hey fella, you sick?

“No, officer ...”

“You know somethin’ ‘
bout this?” The policemen turned slowly, suddenly interested. He squared his shoulders to Jake, who struggled to stay calm.

“No! I …
I just think it’s terrible. Buried in concrete. What a way to die! Are you sure that happened?”

The cop turned back toward the seawall.

“Naw, that’s what they’re arguing about. Foreman says the guy on the phone was probably drunk. The sergeant thinks so, too, because he answered the call. The whole thing could be a hoax.”

“Look, off-ee-sir,” someone
yelled, deliberately slurring the word.

Jake looked up
, following the policeman’s gaze. The foreman’s voice carried easily above the wind.

“This section of the wall
—from Sixth Street all the way to Fort San Jacinto—is a
federal
project,” he railed. “We’re already behind schedule because we can’t get enough men to work on it, and we’re not about to break up this concrete on the word of some drunk!”

Frenzied seagulls working the surf squawked in response. A young couple strolled by, more interested in each other than the birds or the argument raging high above them. Watching the couple gave Jake time to think. He turned back to the policeman.

“What did this guy, what’s his name, the drunk, say about the body?”

“Y
ou really a reporter?”

“Yes
, sir!” Jake pulled a thin notebook and pencil from a vest pocket and held them like an eager student, ready to record every word.

The policeman studied Jake, then looked around for guidance and found none.

“I don’t know …” he began. Jake didn’t respond. His gaze fell instead on the huge cement mixer. Only the pot was rotating, keeping the cement inside from sticking to its walls. The tumbling slurry made an angry growl, enhanced by the shape of the drum.

Annoyed, the officer’s eyes hardened on Jake.

“You look familiar, did you ever play … ”

“No, officer. No sir, I don’t think so. You must have me confused with someone else.”

After a skeptical pause, the policeman went on.

“Well, like I said, this drun
k called claiming there’s someone in the seawall. The sergeant didn’t believe him.”

Jake wrote the words “drunk” and “called Sunday” in his notebook. It galled him to be so polite, but he needed facts. He still hoped Elton was safe somewhere with his Galveston lady friend.

He had to be.

“Why did you come out if you didn’t believe the man on the phone?”

“Sarge said the drunk’s story got better as he told it,” the policeman laughed. “The call lasted maybe ten minutes because the guy was
so hard to understand. He refused to come in but swore that he saw someone dumped into the concrete.”

“What are the police doing?” Jake had to be careful, the big cop was growing impatient.

“What do you think? Sarge filed a report. Today we’re investigating.”

On cue, the foreman’s voice rose, but Jake didn’t look up.

“Do you mind if I take pictures, officer … ?”

“Bunsen. Officer Carrol
Bunsen. No reason not to, I suppose.” Bunsen shifted his weight from one foot to the other, hiked his uniform pants and sucked in his stomach.

“How about one of me?” Bunsen turned his head in profile, which only drew attention to his mangled nose.

Jake didn’t like wasting film, but he took a quick photograph.

“Thanks, officer Bunsen, you’ve been a big help.”

“Carrol Bunsen. Two Rs, one L.”

“Thanks again,” Jake said, making a show of correcting the spelling in his book.

Jake took more photographs of the derrick, the pile driver and the wooden crane. For the final shot, he positioned himself to make sure the background included the idle crew, and the rail cars filled with crushed granite, cement, pilings, reinforced steel and what the workers called “riprap,” the massive granite boulders used to line the base of the seawall.

He looked up at the last completed section. The call to the police station had to be a prank.

To save time, Jake hired a jitney. His prints would be ready soon, and he needed a break from walking. He dropped his bag on the rear seat of the open Ford and climbed in front next to the driver.

The
man hunched behind the wheel reminded Jake of his own father, a quiet, gentle soul that everyone pushed around. “A weakling with a kind heart,” people said.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“Murdoch’s.”

“Sure thing
.”

Jake judged the driver to be about his own age, perhaps a little more, yet he had the haggard look of someone with too much responsibility. A family man, Jake thought. No life for me.

“Were you living here during the storm three years ago?”

“I was, sir,” the driver said. He sat up straighter.

Jake realized the man wanted to talk. No one ever asked or cared what weak men thought. He saw it often enough as a boy, watching others ignore his dad.

“I guess all the effort to build the seawall and raise the land was worth it,” Jake said.

“You’re right about that.” The driver gla
nced over his shoulder at Jake. “Fewer people died, and we didn’t have as much flooding. Folks say the storm in ’15 was even stronger than the one in 1900.” He checked again to seeing if Jake was still listening.

“Wha
t did you do when it hit?”

“My wife was terrified, so we went to her sister’s house in Houston. When we came home, we didn’t find a drop of
water in our house. Lucky for us, with two little ones and another on the way.”

The driver
made a smooth U-turn in front of Murdoch’s Pier, stopping at the point where Tremont Street met Seawall Boulevard.

“Only a handful of tourists here now,” he offered, turning his head toward Jake and resting both wrists on the
top edge of the steering wheel. “But you should have seen it on Labor Day. That whole weekend, you could hardly move for all the bicycles and buggies and cars.”

Jake retrieved his camera bag and
handed the driver fifty cents—twice the normal fare—and told him to keep the change. “For your kids,” Jake said as he closed the door.

For
my dad, Jake thought as he walked away.

He bought a nickel
’s worth of peanuts from a vendor on the boardwalk, then waited for several buggies and a bicycle to pass. On any other visit to Galveston, he’d be wondering who to ask to dinner, but with Elton still missing, Jake was increasingly annoyed and worried.

He smiled. Well, last night had been all right. He shook his head. Elton would turn up. He had to. A shout from behind made him jump.

“Read all
about the World Series!” a boy in knickers yelled to people passing by. Jake turned. He bought Monday’s
Galveston Daily News
for a nickel and gave the young proprietor an extra nickel for himself.

“Thank you
!” said the newsboy, two fingers touching the bill of his cap. He pocketed the coins and grabbed another paper from his stack, raising it over his head. “World Series news from Fenway Park! Cubs on the defense! Babe Ruth pitching today for Boston!”

Jake tucked the paper under the flap of his camera bag and
began walking. A block up Tremont Street he boarded the trolley, found a seat and rested his arm on the open window as the car began to move. What to make of a drunken claim that there’s a body sealed forever inside the concrete seawall?

Elton?

Impossible.

The
trolley’s overhead wires flashed and popped each time they touched. Every few seconds, the powerful arc sent glowing specks of metal  floating through the air. Jake flinched when a particularly large one drifted through the window and landed on his sleeve.

Clara broke the silence first. “Not much to it,” she said, touching the photograph. “Just a woman staring at the camera. Is there anything about this one you can be certain about?”

Donald laid his upper arms flat on the table, hands together with his fingers interlaced. He leaned over until his chest rested on the edge of the table, his head turning slowly from one image to the next, analyzing each with a fresh eye.

“I think the picture of me, and the one with the man and the child were made by the same photographer, but this one of the woman was made by someone else.”

“Really! How could you possibly know?”

“It’s the photographer’s style,” he said. “See how the other two are so animated? In each of them, the subject is reacting to someone who is in the room, but not in the frame. I’m looking just to the right of the camera, and so is the man holding the girl.”

“I see,” Clara said, “but
…”

“M
y guess is that someone was leaning out from behind the camera, waiting for exactly the right moment. The photographer caught me just as I started to smile. In the shot of the little girl, they tripped the shutter when the child reached the highest point, right before the man lowered her again.”

“You seem so sure.”

“It’s how I would have taken the pictures myself. I can almost feel my hand on the shutter release, waiting and watching, maybe trying to get the sitter to react, but always waiting for the right moment. It’s the difference between simply recording an image and making a good picture.”

Donald edg
ed the photograph of the woman aside. “Whoever took the picture of me and this man with the little girl would not have been happy with such a boring result. They would have tried for something more candid.”

Clara smile
d at Donald’s certainty. “I never looked at photographs that way before. It’s as if the photographer is telling a story.”

“Exactly, Clara, exactly so.”

A thump on the arbor porch made them both jump. “Looks like I missed lunch.” Jake said, swinging open the screen door, but catching it before it slammed. He dropped his camera bag on the floor and took an empty chair beside it, sighing heavily as he sat.

“What’s all this?” he said, waving his free hand toward the open chest and pictures on the kitchen table.

“We found a new photograph of Donald,” Clara said.

“I’ve seen that one before,” Jake said, turning toward Donald. “You brought it from Houston?”

“No, that’s a duplicate of mine. See, there’s no writing on the bottom.”

Jake picked up the card. “Well, I’ll be damned. Where did
…”

“Later,” Donald said, glancing at Clara and slipping his glasses back on. “Did you get Elton’s prints?
”

“Yes, and I went to the seawall. I have some news.”

“About Elton?”

“I hope not
. Police were there, just where Elton was photographing last week. I talked to one of them. He said someone claims there’s a body in the cement.”

Clara gasped.
“Not Elton?”

Jake shook his head. “I don’t know. The police don’t know. A guy said he saw someone fall or get pushed in sometime Thursday night or early Friday morning. He didn’t telephone the police until yesterday. The sergeant who took the ca
ll said the man was slurring his words. The police figure he might have drinking for days. Anyway, he called the station to report it, but they didn’t really believe him.”

“But they checked anyway?” Clara said.

“That’s what they were doing when I got there. The foreman says he’s not about to break up eight hundred tons of concrete on the word of some drunk.”

Jake shifted in his chair and began digging through his camera bag. He put Monday’s newspaper on the table, and next to it an envelope with six fresh 8x10 prints. He paused, then spoke.

“Um, Clara, I was rude this morning.”

“Rude?” Clara said in mock surprise. She spread one hand across her chest in a fair imitation of Mary Pickford in
Poor Little Rich Girl
. Her eyes fluttered. “Why, Mr. Miller!”

“Make fun if you want, I deserve it.”
             

“You’re worried about Elton. I understand.” Clara stood, briefly resting a hand on Jake’s s
houlder. “You didn’t miss lunch. How about some soup and fresh bread?”