Trail of the Spellmans (5 page)

“You know, D has never, in the entire time I’ve known him, asked me if I’ve smoked crack,” my mother said to me one early morning, during the footnoted coffee, making a point that I still can’t ascertain. What I can tell you is this: After thirty-some years of living with the manners equivalent of franks and beans, my mother developed a taste for champagne and caviar.

It was sometime after the Church Incident, as I would come to call it, although I know that it was no incident, that my mother changed. She quit swearing cold turkey. However, like a lifelong smoker, there was the occasional relapse, which would result in either the first syllable being halted abruptly, or a complete word or phrase followed by “pardon me.” Pre-Demetrius Mom thought nothing of peppering even the most mundane phrase with an F-word. “Pass the fucking casserole,” for example, was a phrase for which I’d need at least all twenty digits to count how many times I’ve heard it.

But those days were over now. “Please” and “thank you” replaced my mother’s most colorful language. It was like watching an unnaturally polite game of Mad Libs, as my mother cut out her instinctual language and glued in a more civil version. Live and let live, I say.
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However my mom wants to talk is her own business, but I take issue when she tries to foist her wishes on the rest of us.

My mom’s first etiquette lesson went something like this:

“Mom, pass me the stapler,” I said.

She replied by clearing her throat.

“You need a cough drop?”

“No.”

“Can I have the stapler?”

“Can I have the stapler . . .
what
?”

“Huh?”

“What do we say?”

“I don’t know. What do we say?”

“‘Please.’ ‘Can I have the stapler
please
.’”

“We don’t say that.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Fuck it. I’ll get it myself.”

Of course in the time it took to have that conversation, I could have amassed every stapler in the household. I made a mental note not to ask for anything within shot-putting distance in the future.

I saw my mother checking Demetrius out of the corner of her eye. He was speed-typing a surveillance report with his index fingers and not paying us any mind.

“Please watch your language in this household,” Mom said to me, her volume raised to be certain that Demetrius could hear, or Mr. Snodgrass next door.

“Mom, D was in prison for fifteen years; he’s heard worse. I bet he could teach you a few words.”

“This is a business establishment. We should maintain professional standards.”

“Since when?”

“Since a civilized human being started working here.”

“D, do you care if I swear?”

“Not unless you’re meeting my mama.”

“See?” I said, looking at my mama. “I promise when Mrs. Merriweather visits we’ll treat her like the queen of England.”

One would think that a man who just got out of prison would be rough around the edges, or worse, sharpened like a blade. But none of the ex-con
stereotypes suit D. Except one. He could never have his back to the door. (We had to do a lot of furniture rearranging during his first few weeks with us.) My point is, things changed when Merriweather moved into the Spellman household. He was now a member of the family, and he would come to recognize that came at a price.

Case in point: When I was in the process of investigating Demetrius’s wrongful conviction, I wore a T-shirt that read:

Justice 4
Merri-Weather.

I wore it fairly often—maybe a couple times a week—so I had extras made to avoid any laundry hassles. When D was sprung, I stopped wearing the shirts and they disappeared. Then they reappeared. On Rae, who has taken to wearing them whenever she comes to visit. This D finds particularly irksome since he is currently free and believes that justice eventually won out. Rae, however, made one minor adjustment to the shirt. She added dollar signs, framing the message. Her “message” to Merriweather being that justice will only be served after he files a colossal lawsuit and has a couple million bucks stashed away for a rainy day, or a mansion in Pacific Heights.

Their conversations usually follow a similar pattern.

D:
Rae, can you please stop wearing that shirt? It is a reminder of a time I wish to forget.

RAE
: I would like to respect your wishes, but I can’t.

D
: Why not?

RAE
: There is a statute of limitations on police misconduct lawsuits. I would hate to see you squander a chance to be a millionaire.

D
: I don’t want to be a millionaire.

RAE
: That’s just silly. Everyone does.

D
: I don’t want to have this discussion anymore.

RAE
: We’ll talk again next week.

While Rae is in school, her work schedule has been capped at ten hours a week; the parental unit wanted to make sure that her studies took priority. On the clock, her duties could range anywhere from client billing to surveillance. Since she has access to the main server from her laptop, sometimes I only see her on Friday afternoons for the weekly Spellman Investigations board meeting. This is when we discuss new cases, handle any in-house disputes, and allow Rae the floor for her myriad business improvement plans—Rae has always liked money, but a college business course took their relationship to the next level. In fact, my sister, once the most dedicated investigator in the family, now seems at times to be no more than a consultant. Although, an enthusiastic consultant to say the least. We used to have her stick her relentless business plans into a suggestion box, but when Rae discovered that I had been shredding its contents, my parents appeased her by giving her the floor for fifteen minutes every session. Once she’s said her piece, she loses interest in the meeting and kills the rest of the time texting and staring at her watch, punctuating each remaining minute with a loud, tired sigh.

THE GOPHER, THE EAGLE, THE TORTOISE, AND THE WEASEL

A
side from the common abridgement of “Izzy” from “Isabel,” I have never had an official nickname other than “That One,” which I heard most often during my adolescence. And I think it’s important to mention that I never wanted one. It’s also important to mention that in the Spellman household what I want has never been of much interest to the relevant parties.

It was late afternoon when my dad and Rae returned home from a daylong and rather tedious surveillance. My sister’s reward for eight hours of only Dad’s company was a hot-fudge sundae, of which they both partook. I suspect the dessert had a pharmaceutical effect on the brain chemistry of the duo, since their spirits were enhanced in a way that usually involves spirits. When they entered the house, Rae spotted my mother napping on the living room sofa.

“The Eagle is sleeping,” she whispered.

“Where is the Gopher?” Dad asked.

Unaware that I was the Gopher, I exited the kitchen and headed to the office, brushing past my kin as if they were invisible.

“The Gopher is on the move,” my father said in a conspiratorial whisper.

Dad and Rae followed me into the office and explained how they
spent their entire eight hours together: designating a nickname for each family member. When I quizzed the relevant parties for a bit longer, I discovered that Dad had napped for two of those hours while Rae studied. Another three were killed in active pursuit, which would trim superfluous talk. So, in all fairness, they only spent three hours coming up with sobriquets. Still, an unwise use of time. The time killer, as it turns out, was not in working out my nickname or Mom’s; it was duking it out over the nicknames for the two individuals in the car. Dad was baptized the Tortoise right off the bat and no matter how many times he tried to shake it off for something cooler, Rae applied another layer of Krazy Glue. Dad’s first Rae moniker was “the Tasmanian Devil,” but both agreed that it was ridiculous to give someone a nickname that took so much longer to say than the real thing. Finally he settled on “the Weasel,” which Rae refused to accept without a second opinion, which I promptly provided.

Rae scowled and said, “Whatever. I can think of worse things.”

A few lingering questions remained after their lengthy exposition.

“What about David?” I asked.

“We still can’t decide whether to nickname Old David or New David, so that one is on hold.”
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“What about Demetrius?”

“We all call him D, so we figured one nickname was enough,” Dad said.

“You’re the Gopher, in case you missed that part,” Rae said.

“No I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are. Do you want to know why you’re the Gopher?”

“No, thank you.”

“Because you like to dig and don’t care what pretty flowers you disturb as you tunnel through the dirt.”

“I don’t want a nickname.”

“That’s the thing about nicknames, you don’t get to decide.”

The telephone rang, ending this conversation at long last.

After a brief exchange, my father hung up the phone and turned to me.

“That was Walter,” he said.

“What is it this time?”

“He thinks he left the stove on again.”

I suppose there’s just one more case on the Spellman docket that I haven’t mentioned.

WALTER PERKINS

W
alter Perkins’s “case,” if you can call it that, was simple enough. During his intake meeting (in those glorious pre-code-phrase days), he explained that he needed a responsible person to check on his apartment now and again, when he was out of town. I suggested a neighbor or a friend might be more appropriate for the position and he explained that sometimes he needed someone to check on his apartment even when he was in town but indisposed. I asked him how often he thought these services would be required and he explained that it could be one time a month or weekly or daily, making a stab at sounding casual, but the crack in his voice gave him away.

At the first meeting, Perkins struck my mother as nervous and edgy, and his attempt to present the job as commonplace gave him a ticlike laugh, underscoring the lie. My mother told Mr. Perkins that she would check our schedule to see whether we could take the case. This wasn’t our typical investigative fare and something about the simplicity of the job didn’t sit right with Mom.

She then proceeded to engage in a rather lengthy investigation of our potential client—a habit we discourage, for cost-cutting purposes. Walter Perkins is a math professor, without any criminal records or civil suits in his wake. He was recently divorced, but the settlement appeared
amicable. Still, my mother’s suspicion spread like a bad rash.

Over the course of three days she made inquiries to be certain we weren’t getting saddled into cat-sitting, dog-sitting, botanical gardening, or checking in on a home that was not, in fact, Walter’s. When she had exhausted all of the most inconvenient possibilities, we took the case. Or, more specifically, I persuaded her to take the case. Times are rough; we can’t turn down easy work just because it isn’t in our usual repertoire. Walter made an unlikely request, but there wasn’t anything unethical about it. After Mom agreed to my demands, her only stipulation was that I handle all direct communications with Walter, who she said had the distinct whiff of a Scharfenberger.
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I couldn’t smell it, so I phoned my new client; we negotiated an hourly rate and he handed me the keys to his apartment.

In the two months we’d worked for Walter, I’d grown quite fond of him as a client, though I’d only met him once in person. Our interactions usually followed a similar chain of events:

Walter phones. He thinks he left the stove on. Or perhaps his apartment door is unlocked. Sometimes a window is ajar (he is on the fourth floor, so I’m not exactly sure what he’s worried about—flies?); sometimes the bathtub might be overflowing.
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Or an appliance is left plugged in. Or an errant sock accidentally fell from the laundry basket. Sometimes his fears are more catastrophic.

The apartment is burning, flooding, collapsing for no good reason. These fears abate when I visit Walter’s home and assure him nothing is amiss. In fact, the only time anything was ever amiss in Walter’s apartment was after I checked it for a gas leak and Walter noticed my footprints on the unblemished beige carpet when he returned home from work. This disturbance
was quickly remedied by my removing my shoes and combing the carpet upon departure, each visit.

As it turned out, Walter didn’t travel, but he was close to losing his job because of his abrupt departures from the campus, which sometimes took place midlecture, even midsentence. They apparently gave him the appearance of a convict making a run for it. Now all Walter had to do was make a quick call from his office or send a text message from behind the lectern.

It was 3:42 when I reached Walter’s apartment. After entering and checking the burners, I phoned him with the usual good news.

“All clear,” I said.

“Thank you,” Walter replied, sighing deeply, as if he had been holding his breath.

“Anything else?” I asked because there’s usually something else.

“Can you check and make sure that the bathroom sink is shut off?”

It’s possible to fake check when I’m speaking into a phone line and know, based on ample history, that the answer will be no, but I never humor Walter. I’m paid for the work and I do what is asked of me.

“All clear,” I said, securing the faucets, even though they were already secure.

Walter sighed again, thanked me, and ended the call. As I combed the carpet, backing into the front door, I noticed that the electric cord on his toaster was still plugged in. Among Walter’s plethora of fears, electrical fires rank third after sewage backups and water-line breaks. I unplugged the cord and gazed at the outlet with a surprising sense of unease. It was as if someone else were in the apartment with me. Surrounded by erratic behavior, I think I’ve found some comfort in Walter’s religious consistency. I resolved to keep this inconsistency to myself. If Walter thought he was slipping, his condition would only worsen. Once again I combed the carpet and departed, wiping the doorknob with a handkerchief on my way out.