The Death of Perry Many Paws (22 page)

I ran to the store and bought the necessary supplies, grabbing a handful of candy bars to have on hand. I hate not having chocolate
around when I get a craving. I also picked up two turkey subs for Cam and me to have for lunch, my contribution to kitchen duty for the day. He did the preliminary dinner prep while I put away groceries and then we went our separate ways with our subs, him to the family room to watch football and me to the attic to continue my exploration of Franklin’s desk.

The mysterious caverns of the attic were less foreboding today. I’d been here recently and charted my route back to Franklin’s desk. I hoped that having stumbled upon his desk I was also in the vicinity of other items that might have belonged to him. I knew I could never get Claudia up here—“I don’t do stairs, dear,” she’d say, “especially two flights,” — but maybe I could find some things to bring down to show her that might jog her memory of Franklin’s teenage years and what precipitated his “going strange.”

I headed back to the desk and sat in the companion chair to eat my sub. What had I been thinking to bring food up here to this dusty, dingy place? I hadn’t seen any critters up here yet, but if they were nearby this sub was going to bring them out, and then I wouldn’t get anything done because I would run screaming back downstairs, never to return again. I hate rodents, love of Disney characters notwithstanding.

It was quiet and peaceful up here. I leaned back in the old swivel desk chair and looked around at the looming boxes and furniture surrounding me. How did they get all this stuff up here in the first place? Who had to carry it up those stairs, probably cursing all the way? Someone must have decided the furniture was out of style so it needed to be replaced but it was still serviceable so it couldn’t be thrown away. Now, if it were in decent shape, it could be valuable. We might have a treasure trove of antiques up here gathering dust.

Treasure. That reminded me of the photo of the five children and Claudia’s and Sybil’s memories of Franklin making treasure maps for the kids to follow. Then the vision of a teenage Cam and his friends
stealing ladies’ underpants and burying them flashed by. In the future would archeologists uncover that stash of underwear and build some imaginary religious rite around its discovery? I wondered where they were buried and if they were still there. Would Cam remember? I’d have to ask him, although not at dinner in front of his mother.

Did Claudia consider herself a good mother? Did she care? She wasn’t a very hands-on mother, more of a figurehead, like Queen Elizabeth. Removed and protected. She did her duties but preferred to delegate when she could. She was never in the battle of life; she stood on the sidelines and directed or else walked away and ignored the battle altogether. She was sad about Franklin’s death but didn’t seem to care why he had died or who had killed him. Everyone in Claudia’s life had enabled her to live sheltered and protected in her fairy-tale world. Why was that? In many ways she was like a woman in a bubble, like Glinda floating to earth in the
Wizard of Oz
. Not for the first time it occurred to me that I did not like my mother-in-law. And not just because she was my mother-in-law and thus could interfere uncomfortably in my life. I would not have liked her if she were my next door neighbor, my doctor, my yoga instructor or my Avon Lady. I was bonded to her for the rest of my life because even when she died she would still be Cam’s mother and he loved her. I suddenly felt like Marley’s ghost with Claudia adding to the links of the chain she had thrown around me when Cam and I married. Link by link it got heavier and heavier and I had to drag her around with me for eternity.

Sybil, on the other hand, would have been a fun mother-in-law. She had a bit of a past that she loved to hint at, although I didn’t think it was any more risqué than the fact that she’d had four husbands. She had done some acting so maybe had had a fling or two while she was in New York. She was overly dramatic but in an amusing way if you didn’t take her too seriously, which no one did. And she had a good heart. Luckily for me, Claudia and Sybil were inseparable so whenever I had
to see Claudia I could at least look forward to Sybil being there, too. Sybil was like the spoonful of sugar that helped the medicine go down.

I couldn’t remember how far I had gotten in exploring Franklin’s desk so I started at the top left and began to methodically open drawers and peer inside with my flashlight. I had brought gardening gloves but I was still reluctant to stick my hand in dark places and hope for the best. There was the usual debris of an abandoned desk, paper clips, scraps of blank paper, brittle rubber bands, a couple inch-long pencils, a few pennies and lots and lots of dust. Routine and boring. I pulled out my cell phone and called Cam.

“Yup?”

“Am I interrupting anything impor …”

“… wait. Wait. Come on. Come on. Come on. You got it. You got it. Shit! Wide right. How could he miss that? It was only 35 yards. I could have nailed that kick. I mean, look what they’re paying him …”

“Cam!”

“What? You wouldn’t believe what just happened. It was a thirty-five-yard field goal attempt, no wind, overcast, nothing but a straight kick and he missed it. Unbelievable!”

“Can you talk now or should I call back?” I asked. I didn’t really want to hear a play by play of the football game.

“It’s an Escalade commercial now, so go ahead.”

“Is it the red Escalade? I love that car.”

“No, it’s a black one. Why are we talking about this? Aren’t you in the attic? Are you OK?”

“I’m fine. I’m at Franklin’s desk and I can’t find anything. Since you’re a guy, I wondered where guys might hide stuff in their desks. Any thoughts?”

“If I had something hidden in my desk I would make sure I took it out before I moved my desk to the attic. You know, the black Escalade is pretty good looking …”

“Not as good as the red. If I’m buying an Escalade I’m getting the red one. OK. I just thought you might have some ideas about hiding places.”

“Sorry. If I think of something, I’ll call you,” he offered.

This would be easier if I knew what I was looking for. Maybe I should tackle some of the boxes. I’d shied away from those because they were so unappealing and I envisioned swarms of bats breaking free the minute I opened one. The boxes weren’t taped shut so I picked up an old hockey stick and, from a distance, used it to pry open the top of the closed box. Once I had it wedged open I stood on a chair and slapped at the side of the box, allowing anything that might be living inside to come running out. Luckily I had no takers so I got off the chair, put on my gardening gloves and took the lid completely off.

The box was full of holey sweaters and dead moths. I didn’t know if the sweaters were poison or if the moths had overeaten and died of the sin of gluttony. Either way, there wasn’t much to see. I used the hockey stick to flip the sweaters back and forth in case there was anything else in the box, but that was it. I had just finished stirring up box number four with my trusted hockey stick when the phone rang. The ringtone was Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” so I knew it was Cam.

“How are you doing up there?” he asked.

“Nothing so far,” I said, “except dead moths, lots of them.”

“Did you find any desk blotter or something like that?”

“No, why?”

“Because that’s where I would hide things. Under my blotter. If Franklin had an old blotter up there, that would be a good place to look.”

“OK. I’ll look. Thanks for thinking about it during the game. Are you yelling at the television even though there’s no one else there?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t have to if they played better. Love you. Bye.”

Commercial must be over. I scoured around for some kind of desk blotter but found nothing. It’s only in movies that someone finds a secret compartment in a desk or letters taped on the bottom of drawers. If there were a contest judging items of interest in proportion to attic size I would definitely be the loser. I was the wide right kicker of attic discoveries. Except no one was paying me a lot of money to be any better at it than I was.

“Come on, Franklin,” I said out loud, “give me a little help. There’s a fifteen-year- old boy who’s going to be in trouble if this isn’t resolved. You must feel for the poor kid. Think about yourself at fifteen and how your life changed for the worse. Give me a clue.” My voice sounded strange in the quiet of the attic. Franklin had never talked to me when he was alive so I wasn’t sure why he should bother now that he was dead, but I was getting desperate. If I were in the middle of a mystery novel, I might suddenly get an indescribable urge to open a drawer or look behind a dresser, maybe even open a box that was situated under a pile of junk, a box that was barely discernible but beckoning me to check inside. I looked around for a cobweb-encrusted chest that would squeal horribly when I pulled it open for the first time in fifty years. Maybe a flicker of light through a crusty window that would land on a cracked mirror and reflect onto a key hidden in the crevice between the floor boards. I patiently waited. Nothing.

“You’re really pissing me off, Franklin.” I slammed my soda can onto his desk and then quickly looked in case the impact had caused a secret drawer to burst open. Nothing happened. This is why some murders were never solved. There should be a law that in mystery novels only half the books could end with an arrest and a resolution to the crime. Too much reading had gotten my hopes up that if I just looked hard enough I would be able to solve this murder, save Ryan from jail, get Grace’s marriage back on track, resolve the parenting confusion for Bing and Syra and maybe bring Diane to her senses
regarding the allure of policemen. In addition, when my mother-in-law saw how smart and resourceful I was, she would suddenly break out of her cloistered little world and become a warm and fuzzy friend. Bing would come out of his house and join the rush of humanity on the streets of Birdsey Falls. Syra would be forever cured of cancer. I would lose fifteen—no twenty— pounds. The police would reward me with a red Escalade and a gas card. All of this could be mine if only I were a character in a book.

I started wandering around, pulling open dresser drawers (Surprise! Nothing!), opening armoires (ditto), poking at old mattresses (new dust), and mumbling vaguely obscene phrases regarding past generations of the Behrends family. The best thing I found was a beautiful old quilt, handmade and carefully folded with layers of paper protecting it from the dust but still allowing the fibers to breathe. It was heavy so I knew it must be huge, and I didn’t want to risk ruining it by opening it up in the middle of this dust jungle. It looked undamaged and I was thinking that it would look spectacular on the bed in the guest room. Even if there were some damage I could get it restored. It was a work of art and I wondered which Behrends had made it. Maybe Claudia would know. I decided that this was the best I was going to find today so I carefully carried it downstairs to show Cam and to get ready for the onslaught of Claudia at 4:30.

Dinner was delicious. If Cam and Bing joined forces they could have a very successful restaurant business. I mentioned this observation over coffee and dessert in the library, attempting to get the conversation directed to Syra and Bing. Claudia and Sybil had taken control of the conversation when they entered the front door and had been telling us tales of Ashland Belle residents for over an hour now. Ashland Belle was like the land of the lost: lost keys, lost teeth, lost
walkers, lost wigs and lost residents. They needed a good bloodhound there. They could keep him busy day and night.

“There has never been a Behrends who owned a restaurant or any other kind of commercial establishment. I don’t think it would suit Cam,” Claudia replied as if I were seriously suggesting Cam and Bing go into business together. I wanted to roll my eyes but Cam really hates it when I do that in front of his mother. Tonight Claudia was dressed in a soft rose-colored cashmere sweater and skirt set, real pearls and several large, precious stone rings. She is a small woman so the rings looked like boiled eggs jammed onto toothpicks. I was surprised she didn’t need Sybil to pick up her hands for her so she could reach for her coffee. Sybil was wearing some kind of shiny purple ensemble that defied description and seriously clashed with her now orange hair. Her jewelry was huge and abundant but obviously costume jewelry with lots of bright colors and various beads and stones and who knew what else pasted together.

“Besides, Bing could never own a restaurant because he won’t come out of his house,” Sybil added as she slapped another piece of carrot cake on her plate. “It’s some psychological thing about never wanting to leave the womb or something. I saw it on Oprah. Some people are just born strange.”

Now was my big chance. “I was over at Bing’s yesterday and we were discussing how his mother taught him to cook. He said his mother’s name was Mary …”

“Ridiculous. You misunderstood him,” Claudia regally stated as if that were the end of the conversation.

“No, I didn’t, Claudia. He very clearly said that his mother’s name was Mary and mentioned that it was a plain name. He also said her maiden name was Willard and that his father, who died when he was a baby and who was also Syra’s father, was named Fulton Foster.”

Claudia gave me an exasperated sigh and Sybil just looked at me with her head cocked, like Mycroft does when he hears a high-pitched sound.

“It seems odd that Bing would lie about it,” Cam said offering token support.

“He’s obviously lying or else ill-informed. Let’s not talk about those old days. It makes me too sad,” Claudia decreed. Surprisingly, Sybil continued.

“I think he has all the right names but he has them all mixed up. Claudia, remember Hetty’s
mother’s
name was Mary …”

“It doesn’t matter and is all so boring.”

“And I think Hetty’s father’s
first
name was Willard. Mary and Willard Foster. Yes, that’s it. And Hetty and Fulton …”

“Did you say Fulton?” I interrupted.

“Yes, Hetty’s brother was named Fulton. So see, Bing has all the family names right; he just has the relationships wrong. He’s not quite right you know,” Sybil explained.