The Stolen Ones (14 page)

Of all the big box stores, Luther enjoyed Home Depot the most. He loved the massive main corridors, the wide aisles, the high shelves, the colors and textures – plumbing, electrical, lumber, paint, bath, doors and windows – each lane a dazzling assortment of items.

By far, Luther’s favorite section was tools. Over the years he had accumulated a wide variety of tools, a chest that would be the envy of not only the homeowner who indulged his significant other in the occasional home remodeling job, but even the serious and dedicated tradesman.

He parked the Toronado at the end of one of the aisles, leaving an empty space on either side. It was one of his foibles, one he had long ago resigned himself to bear. Today he wore a dark blue tradesman’s jumpsuit buttoned all the way to the neck, along with a Phillies ball cap. Over the left breast pocket was a white oval, with the name Preston embroidered in red thread.

Upon entering the store he was greeted by an orange-aproned Home Depot employee, a pretty Hispanic girl in her twenties.

Luther smiled, and nodded a greeting.

Today his needs were specific, although just by entering the store he was almost viscerally compelled to browse. But he could not. There was work to do.

Because the store did not provide handled shopping baskets, Luther picked up one of the bright orange buckets, then rethought it. He placed it back inside the others in the stack, returned to the lobby, and retrieved a shopping cart.

Ten minutes later he found himself in the aisle with the painter’s supplies, a section with which he was quite familiar. He found what he needed – a large, plastic painter’s drop cloth – then navigated over to the aisle that offered chains, rope and wire.

Five minutes later he steered his cart to one of the checkout lanes. While a lot of people were taking advantage of the self-serve checkout counters, Luther waited in a long line, behind a man with a dozen sheets of exterior plywood on a trolley.

Luther always paid cash.

He looked at the photograph of the man, the smiling picture he had found in a discarded pamphlet for the doctors’ conglomerate at which the man worked. His smile was engaging, bright and exceedingly white.

Before cleaning the bloodied gloves he had used on the old woman, Luther prepared a sandwich, then put away the new supplies.

As he stepped into the main corridor he sensed a presence behind him.

Rachel Anne Gray stood in the arched entryway to the kitchen, wondering if it was too late to buy a backhoe and level the house. She glanced at her watch. There was plenty of time. All she had to do was get up a good head of steam, take out one of the load-bearing walls, and:
voila
!

Instant rubble.

She assessed the fleapit of a kitchen in front of her, still aghast. Three of the cabinet doors were missing, ripped unceremoniously from their hinges. The vinyl flooring had on it a patina of rancid grease, topped with a layer of cat hair. The coffeemaker on the counter contained a few inches of what might have been coffee at one time, but was now dotted with small lily ponds of mold.

In the corner of the living room – which was piled high with dirty clothes, taped moving boxes, and used red Solo cups – was what looked like a small pile of dog shit.
Old
dog shit.

Rachel looked at her watch again. She now had ten minutes. If she was going to do something, she had to get moving.

She unzipped her leather tote bag and almost laughed at the sight of her roll of paper towels, Dustbuster and a can of Pledge. These were her side arms, and usually all she needed to do a quick cleanup of properties she had to show.

They would do her little good in this place.

She reached to the bottom of the bag and found the pair of rubber gloves she kept for emergencies, slipped them on. She then grabbed the roll of paper towels, and crossed the living room. As it turned out, there was more than one pile of dog shit. Some of it had begun to turn white. She took a deep breath, held it, gagged anyway. She tried again, and quickly scooped up the droppings. She all but ran back to the kitchen, opened the cabinet door under the sink.

Of
course
there was no garbage bag. Why would you need a garbage bag when you can just leave your garbage on the floor?

God
, she hated renters.

Rachel heard a car door slam out front. The only thing she hated more than renters were buyers who showed up early.

She put the dog crap in one of the drawers, snapped off the rubber gloves, stashed them in her tote bag, then sprinted to the front door and peered through the small window.

The worst. The couple, who were in their mid-fifties, were ambling up the walk – woman out front, man staring up at the gutters (falling off), the roof (missing shingles) and the tuck pointing around the second-floor windows (non-existent). He already had a scowl on his face.

What they didn’t know was that the exterior of the house was its best feature.

Smile, Rachel.
 

She opened the door, stepped through, onto the (slanted) porch.

‘Hi!’ she said. ‘You must be Mr and Mrs Gormley. I’m Rachel Gray, Perry–Hayes Realty.
So
nice to meet you.’

The woman stepped forward, extended her (limp fish) hand. They shook. The man grunted something unintelligible in Rachel’s direction, following it with: ‘When the hell were those photographs on your website taken?’

Rachel knew she was going to get this question. She’d heard it a lot. Many of the photos her company received were in the house’s earlier days, its best days, not unlike those head shots of fading B-actors on IMDb.

‘A few years ago, I think,’ Rachel said. ‘The house has been on the market for a while, which is why the seller is highly motivated.’

‘It looks a hell of a lot better online,’ the man mumbled. ‘If we knew it was this bad we would’ve stayed home.’

Rachel bit her tongue.

‘It needs a little work,’ she said, stepping to the side, ushering the couple in. Of course, saying this house needed a little work was like saying Joan Rivers once had a nip and tuck.

Rachel closed the door, realizing, not for the first time, that it was much better in situations like this to just stop talking. There was nothing here to sell.

‘Holy shit,’ the man said.

The shit’s in the kitchen drawer,
Rachel wanted to say. Then they could have a good laugh and move on down the road. Instead she said: ‘The house is one thousand square feet, three bedrooms, one bath. As you can see, the ceilings are high. Washer and dryer are included.’

‘Nine-eighty-eight,’ the man said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘It’s not a thousand square feet. It’s nine-eighty-eight. Says so right in your listing.’

Rachel just stared for a few seconds. ‘Yes, of course,’ she finally said. ‘My mistake. Let’s go upstairs.’

She led them up the steps, gazing straight ahead, hoping they would too. The carpeting on the stairs was filthy, cratered with cigarette burns. The hand rail was loose. Overhead were water stains from a leak that probably occurred during the Truman administration.

‘We have three bedrooms up here, including the master suite,’ Rachel said. ‘The other two bedrooms are a Jack and Jill.’

Rachel noticed that the woman had taken out a small package of flushable moist towelettes. She couldn’t really blame her.

Rachel put her hand on the doorknob to what was laughingly called the master suite, hoping it was at least presentable. She usually did a walk-through with new listings but she had not had time today.

She opened the door, and nearly jumped out of her skin. There, standing in front of her, wearing pajamas, was a ten-year-old boy.

Rachel stepped inside, quickly closed the door behind her.

‘Um, hi,’ Rachel said. ‘My name is Rachel? I’m with Perry–Hayes Realty?’

Why was she phrasing everything like the question? Maybe it was because this was the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, and this kid was supposed to be in school. Instead, it appeared, he was sleeping on a ratty mattress under a ratty blanket.

Although she had only been a Realtor for three years, she had seen quite a bit. She had once gotten fleas from a North Philly basement condo. This was a first.

‘Is your mom here?’

The boy rubbed his eyes. ‘No.’

‘Okay. What about your dad?’

The boy yawned. ‘Uh uh.’

‘So you’re all by yourself?’

He shook his head. ‘Just my sister.’

Jesus Christ
, Rachel thought.
There’s
another
one?

Before Rachel could say anything she heard a sound behind her. The door opened. Rachel turned to see an eight-year-old girl, also in pajamas, staring at her from the top of the steps.

Behind her stood the Gormleys, perhaps wondering if these kids came with the house. Maybe they did.

‘Hi,’ Rachel said to the girl. She almost introduced herself, but what the hell would be the point of that?

Before she could corral both kids into one of the bedrooms, Rachel saw Ed Gormley take out a digital camera and start snapping pictures. She wanted to believe he was taking pictures to show his contractor, so that he could get some ballpark estimates on rehabbing the property. This was not possible. In her heart of hearts she knew the only reason he was taking photographs was to show his buddies at the bar what had to be the worst, non-condemned property in Fishtown.

Non-condemned for the moment, Rachel amended.

She turned back to the boy. ‘Well, we’ll just go about our business. It was nice meeting you.’

Without a word, the boy walked down the hallway, pushed open the door to the bathroom. Leaving the door open he lifted the lid on the toilet, and proceeded to urinate. Loudly.

Rachel glanced heavenward, looking, hoping, for divine intervention. Maybe a lightning bolt to fry the kid and his sister. And one shot in the ass for Mr Gormley.

None was forthcoming.

Mercifully, the couple had proceeded down the stairs, into the basement. Rachel had not had the opportunity to visit the basement. She could only imagine. There was probably a foot of water.

Before she could descend the steps she caught a shadow to her left. It was the little girl. She was holding forth an opened flip phone.

‘It’s for you,’ the little girl said.

Rachel was stunned. ‘For me?’

The girl nodded.

Rachel took the phone from the girl. She put it to her ear hoping the phone was a little bit more hygienic than the rest of the house. ‘This is Rachel Gray.’

‘What are they taking pictures for?’

Rachel had no idea who she was talking to. It was a woman’s voice, but one with which she was not familiar. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Why are they taking pictures?’

It took a moment to realize what this woman was talking about. ‘Pictures of the house?’

The woman plowed ahead. ‘There are pictures on the motherfuckin’ internet. They don’t need to take no damn
pictures
.’

It suddenly hit her. This was not the owner of the property. This was the mother – such as it might have been – to these two kids. The reason the woman was asking about the pictures was not that she was worried, in any way, that it would hurt the sale of the house. After all, she was a renter. Why would she care? No, no. She was worried that these people, these strangers in her house, might be from children’s services and that they were documenting the less than desirable living conditions in this hovel.

Not to mention that her two kids were alone, unsupervised, in the middle of the day. Rachel wanted to mention it. She did not.

Instead, she shifted gears.

‘Ah, okay. I see what you’re saying. My clients are just taking a few snapshots of the interior to get an idea of some of the work that might need to be done if and when they purchase the property.’

‘They don’t need any more pictures,’ the woman said. ‘Tell them to look at the pictures on the internet. Put Charisse back on.’

Who the hell is Charisse?
Rachel thought.

Of course. Charisse was the little girl. She handed the phone back to her. As Rachel turned to continue down the steps she heard the little girl say ‘Uh huh’ about ten times.

Rachel took a deep breath at the bottom of the stairs, thinking about how she would begin to close. If she sold this one, she would rocket into the GPAR Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

In the end it didn’t matter.

The Gormleys were already on the front walk making their way to the car. Rachel could tell by their body language that they were gone for good.

Who could blame them?

Five minutes later, as Rachel walked to her car, she glanced at the window on the second floor. The little boy was watching her, his big empty eyes staring out like a caged puppy.

Leonard Pintar looked enough like his faxed photograph for a positive identification, but the intervening years had been hard, it seemed. He was of above average height, thin almost to the point of gaunt. Jessica pegged him at about six feet tall, 135 pounds.

When they stepped inside the Reading Terminal Market they noticed him right away.

He’s got his own style
, Sammy Gold had said.

This was an understatement.

Leonard Pintar wore a lavender French cuff shirt, gray work pants and black patent leather loafers – the kind with the gold chain across the upper. The chain was missing on his left foot. It had been replaced with string. His hair was fashioned in an old-school pompadour, and behind one ear was a non-filter cigarette.

Jessica got the man’s attention. ‘How you doing?’ she asked.

The man looked over. ‘I’m aces!’ He handed her a flyer. Jessica took it from him.

‘Are you Leonard Pintar?’ she asked.

‘The one and only. Except for my daddy. And his daddy. But I go by Lenny.’

‘Nice to meet you, Lenny.’ Jessica opened her ID wallet.

Lenny looked at the badge and ID. He balled a fist, shook it at the ceiling, then put his hands in his pockets. He took a deep breath, blew it out quickly. ‘Okay. I’m ready.’

‘You’re not in any trouble,’ Jessica said, not really sure if that was the truth or not. ‘We just need to ask you a few questions.’

‘No math, okay?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘No math questions. Or questions about chemicals.’

Jessica glanced at her partner. Byrne gave her a look she knew well, the one that said:
He’s
your
friend. You began the interview, you finish it.
Jessica looked back at Lenny, committed to seeing this through.

‘Understood,’ Jessica said. ‘May I ask where you live, Lenny?’

‘I live with Mrs Gilberto. Mrs Gilberto makes great Salisbury steak. You should come by.’

‘I love Salisbury steak,’ Jessica said. ‘Is this a group home?’

Lenny nodded.

‘Can you tell me how long you’ve lived there?’

‘Now, see, that’s math already.’

‘You’re right,’ Jessica said. ‘I forgot.’ She knew she could get this information from DHS. ‘Would you say it was a long time?’

‘Long time.’

‘And where did you live before that?’

Lenny again looked at the ceiling, this time doing a calculation of some sort. ‘I think I was up to Norristown then.’

Wow
, Jessica thought.
A straight answer. More or less.
Usually, her inclination would be to ask where the person lived in Norristown, a community about twenty-five miles northwest of Philadelphia in Montgomery County, the boyhood home of David Rittenhouse Porter, former governor of Pennsylvania.

But Jessica had the distinct feeling Lenny Pintar was talking about Norristown State Hospital. Norristown was a long-term adult psychiatric facility run by the Pennsylvania Department of Welfare.

‘Ah, okay,’ Jessica said. ‘You mean
Norristown
. Up there on Sterigere Street?’

Lenny’s face lit up. ‘Yeah! You been?’

It occurred to Jessica that he might be asking if she had been a patient at Norristown. Sometimes, as in this moment, she felt as if she might be a candidate. ‘I have a cousin who works there.’

Lenny snapped his fingers. ‘You must mean Margaret. You look just like her.’

‘I get that all the time,’ Jessica said. ‘What about before that? Where did you live before that?’

‘Easy peasy. The Big Place.’

Jessica waited for more. More was not forthcoming. ‘Does the Big Place have another name?’

Lenny smiled. ‘Don’t need one. That place was so big they had to bring in them machines.’

‘Machines?’

Lenny began to nod his head furiously. ‘Yeah.
Oh
, yeah. Every night, right after supper, they brought in them fog machines. Christ dipped in
chocolate
, they was big. Big as a damn dump truck.’

Jessica looked at Byrne. Byrne broke into a big smile. Lenny laughed, wagged a finger at him.

‘You knew I was messing with you, right?’ Lenny said. ‘Just then. She didn’t know, but you did. You knew.’

‘I knew,’ Byrne said.

‘You are good, buddy boy-o. Senior class. Full-page ad.’

‘The fog machines,’ Byrne said. ‘The Big Chief in
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
.’

Jessica figured Byrne said this more for her benefit than Lenny’s.

‘It’s an old nut house joke,’ Lenny added as an aside to Jessica. ‘All the nuts like that one. The ones who get it, anyway.’

‘A classic,’ Byrne said.

‘Score one for the big man. The Big
Chief
.’

Lenny put up a hand for a high-five. Not surprisingly, to Jessica, Byrne slapped a palm with the man. Byrne knew how and when to ease a conversation into an interrogation, and they weren’t quite there yet. The good news was that Lenny dropped his hand, and didn’t attempt to high-five Jessica. She wasn’t ready to touch him.

What the high-five
did
mean was that Byrne had just gotten the ball. It was his interview now.

‘The reason we’re here today is that we visited a place called Mr Gold Pawn over on Germantown,’ Byrne said. Are you familiar with that place, Lenny?’

‘Yeah. That place is beautiful.’

‘The man who runs the shop says you’ve come in there from time to time, is that correct?’

Lenny nodded.

Byrne reached into his pocket, took out the silver spoon they had taken from Joan Delacroix’s house. ‘I need to know about these spoons, Lenny.’

‘Yeah. Okay. The spoons. Knife. Fork. Spoon.’ He made drawing gestures in the air, perhaps aligning the utensils in his mind.

‘Are these from the Big Place?’ Byrne asked.

‘Oh yeah. One for everybody.’

‘You mean spoons just like this? With this stamp on the handle?’

Lenny squinted, looked at the spoon. ‘No, no, no. The ones we had was ones with something else on the handle. Those ones? The ones you got? Those was for company.’

Byrne looked at the man, waiting. Nothing. ‘What was written on the spoons you had, Lenny?’

‘Property of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,’ he said with grave import. ‘They shoulda stamped that on
us
. Back of the neck. Like the shirts at Walmart.’

‘And the spoons were the same?’

‘No. The ones we had was different steel. These was the good ones. Had silver in ’em. Most of these got swiped.’

‘Stolen by the patients?’

Lenny closed his eyes again. He remained silent.

‘We don’t care about anything that was taken from the Big Place,’ Byrne said.

Lenny opened his eyes. ‘Is the statue up?’

‘Yes,’ Byrne said. ‘Just last week, in fact. The
statue
of limitations is up. You’re in the clear.’

Lenny looked relieved. ‘I think more got stolen by the doctors,’ he said. ‘Lots of times the spoon part, the big part, was tore off.’

Byrne pointed to the bowl of the spoon. ‘You mean this part?’

‘Yeah. The old timers used to bend them until they broke. They said them handles was good to use as keys. Said if you jiggled ’em long enough some of the doors would open. I never did, though.’

‘Why not?’ Byrne asked.

Lenny shrugged. ‘Hell, the stuff on my side of the door was scary enough. No need to see what was on the outside.’

He leaned in, as if to share a secret, and whispered: ‘They say he
bit
’em off. The big part.’

‘Who bit them off?’

Lenny looked behind himself, over both Byrne’s and Jessica’s shoulders.

‘They called him Null,’ he said softly.

‘You mean like null?’ Byrne asked. ‘As in null and void?’

‘I never heard about nobody named Boyd.’

‘Okay,’ Byrne said. ‘So tell me about this guy Null.’

‘There was, how shall I say, rumors about him. Super
cilious
rumors.’

‘Of what nature were these rumors?’ Byrne asked.

Jessica almost smiled. Byrne was getting into Lenny’s rhythm. She’d never met anyone better than her partner when it came to this.

‘Well, they say, in the Big Place, Null would sneak around with a busted-off spoon. They say he could get in and out of your room.’

‘He would use it like a skeleton key.’

‘Ex
actly
, Big Chief. Lots of skeletons there. Especially in the closets.’

‘I see. And this Null, did he have a name?’

‘I don’t know anything about that. But everybody’s got a real name, I guess.’

‘True enough. How did you come to hear about this guy?’

Lenny looked at the floor for a few moments, then leaned forward and whispered: ‘They say he was a man who committed murder.’

For Jessica – and her partner, she was certain – all sound in the Reading Terminal Market ceased on that word.

‘He committed murder?’ Byrne asked.

‘Yeah. Of all those crazies up to the Big Place – and believe me, I met them all up close and personal, they all smelled like old vacuum cleaners – there weren’t too many who committed murder.’

‘Okay,’ Byrne said. ‘I understand.’

‘Most of us was, as they say, just a little bit behind on our mental rent. Or maybe it was all a dream. I’m not really sure. They were all about dreaming in the Big Place.’

‘Dreaming?’

Lenny made a zipping motion over his lips. ‘You’re gonna have to ask Leo about that.’

‘Who is Leo?’ Byrne asked.

‘
Leo
,’ he repeated, as if he were mentioning someone known worldwide, like Cher or Madonna.

‘Leo is his name. The man who wrote the big book. About dreams. You should talk to him. He talked to me but I don’t think my name is in it. I saw a copy once, at that big store by city hall. I looked in the back.’

‘The back? The back of the store?’

‘The back of the
book
. That long list of stuff. It’s alphabeticalized.’

‘The index.’

‘Right. No Leonard P. Pintar. My daddy was Leonard E. He wasn’t there either.’

‘Do you know Leo’s last name?’ Byrne asked.

Lenny buried his head in his hands. For a moment, Jessica thought he was about to start crying. After a long uncomfortable silence he looked up and said, simply: ‘No.’