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Authors: Gwynne Forster

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BOOK: When the Sun Goes Down
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She sat with her back to the brick wall. Mirna never seemed comfortable on that balcony. It amused him that she behaved as if it could fall at any time. “I just got a call from Frieda, Mr. G.” At that, his antenna went up. “She act like somebody shot her out of a cannon. I didn’t understand one word she say. I think maybe she coming down with something. I told her to come by here and let me have a look at her. I hope you don’t mind.”
The words had hardly left her mouth when the doorbell rang. “That must be her now,” Mirna said.
He finished the mug of cider more quickly than he ordinarily would have. To his mind, cider was something you sipped.
“What’s come over you?” he heard Mirna ask Frieda, and waited for the answer.
“Girl, you don’t know what happened.”
“That’s right, I don’t,” Mirna said with a note of exasperation in her voice. “But you’ll tell me. I hope you ain’t as sick as you sound.”
“Sick? I never been so happy in my whole life. Mr. Farrell and Miss Shirley got me a job with that cruise line, and they paying me money. We speaking real money.”
Gunther bounded out of his chair and headed toward the sound of their voices.
“Are you saying you got the job?” he asked, looking hard at Frieda.
“Yes, indeed. I tell you I practically flew back here with my own wings. Mr. Farrell, they treated me like I was somebody special. That hotel was da bomb, somebody met me at the airport, and this long black limousine took me back there. It was real special. Dr. Larsen wants me to work in the clinic in Orlando for six months to get used to the way they do things, and then he’ll assign me to a ship. He also said that if I take some courses at the University of Central Florida College of Nursing, the cruise line will pay for that. I am sitting on top of the world. I am going right out of my head.”
She looked at Gunther. “I’m ... I’m sorry, but I think I’m going to cry, and I never cry. Never,” she said as tears cascaded down her cheeks. “That man said I’m gon’ get forty-five thousand dollars a year to start with, plus my expenses, health insurance, paid vacation, Christmas bonus, and an IRA account. I’m finally gon’ be able to buy me a little piece of property. I signed the contract. Is that contract legal, Mr. Farrell?”
Her happiness enveloped him. He didn’t know when he’d felt so good about a thing that happened to someone other than him. “If both of you signed it,” he said, “it will stand in any court.”
Frieda pulled out a chair from the dining room table, sat down, lowered her head, and covered her face with her hands. “I just can’t believe it, but I sure am grateful.” She looked at Gunther. “Y’all never gon’ be sorry you got me that job, ’cause I’m gon’ do my very best every single day, and that’s the truth.”
He walked over and patted her lightly on the shoulder. “I know that, Frieda. That’s why I recommended you. I’m just as happy about this as you are. Shirley should be back this evening, and I’ll let her know you got the job.”
He made his way up the stairs. First Cory Benjamin and now Frieda saw their ship come in, and he figured that it was about to happen for Shirley. He thought about Edgar. Nobody could make him believe that their father’s spiteful treatment of his will hadn’t exacerbated Edgar’s failings as a man. Leon Farrell had never given his children what he could and should have, neither materially nor in respect to parental guidance. And, in death, he had simply laughed at them and invited them to tear each other apart. It wouldn’t happen. He’d see to that.
 
Frieda remained where Gunther left her, almost too overwhelmed to collect her thoughts. “You want some tea or some coffee?” Mirna asked Frieda. “When you supposed to go to Orlando? You got to get yourself together, girl.”
“I forgot all about putting something in my stomach. I’d love a cup of coffee. I’m gon’ clear out of the dump on Franklin Street. The cruise line will send somebody to pack and ship my things. I’m gon’ leave that stuff in storage and rent a furnished place till I see how things are going. I gotta call Coreen and tell her I’m gon’ be down in Florida. We promised to stay in touch.”
“You don’t have to justify it to me. Your mother
ought
to know where you are.”
“You been a good friend, Mirna, but please don’t push me about Coreen. I’m inching along as best I can with her, and if you were in my shoes, you’d understand that.”
Mirna held her hands up, palms out. “All right. That’s what I get for not minding my business. Here’s some baked ham and some good old buttermilk biscuits. I just made ’em.”
Frieda made a sandwich and savored it. “This sure is good. I must have been starving. You just did a good deed.” She finished two sandwiches. “I hate to eat and run, but I gotta start packing my personal things. I ain’t gon’ let those men pack my makeup, toiletries, and underwear. These three biscuits going with me. Thanks. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I’ll send up a prayer for you. This is what you been working for, and I know you’ll make the best of it.”
Frieda walked into her apartment, closed the door, sat down, and dialed Coreen’s home phone number. “How are you, Coreen?” There! She’d finally called her by her first name.
“Frieda! It’s wonderful to hear from you. I’m up and about and doing just fine. How are things with you?”
“Great. That’s why I called you.” She told Coreen about her new job and how she got it. She raved on about it, not noticing Coreen’s silence. “Am I making tracks or am I?”
“Oh, yes,” Coreen said. “You’re a wonderful nurse, and you’ll do a good job. I’m so happy for you, and I’m really glad you’ll have a chance to work toward your RN.”
“You know, I was just gon’ take some courses. You don’t know how glad I am that I called you about this. Lord, this is just too much! Maybe I’ll get to see you before I move to Orlando. I’m sure gon’ try. Give my best to your husband, Eric, and Glen. I’ll send you my new phone numbers soon as I get them. Bye for now.”
Frieda hung up, swung around, and hugged herself. She was going to have a job where people respected her, and she was going to college. If Coreen hadn’t mentioned working on her RN, she wouldn’t have taken full advantage of that opportunity. Something good always came out of the talks with Coreen. She’d have to consider that when she had more time. Right now, she had to get ready for the movers.
She threw up her hands. “I haven’t even told my boss at the hospital. I gotta keep those irons in the fire, ’cause I don’t know if I’ll need to go back there. Never burn all your bridges.” After writing a thank-you note to Shirley, she began sorting out her clothes and personal items. “Thank the Lord, I never was one to buy a lot of things I don’t need. This is easier than I thought it was gon’ be.”
Suddenly, she grabbed a chair and sat down.
Something was not right. Coreen didn’t seem half as excited about her new job as Gunther had been. As much as they’d discussed Frieda’s yearning for better working conditions. . . Perhaps Coreen had been having a bad day and didn’t want to spoil Frieda’s joy by mentioning it. That had to be the reason. What else could explain it?
 
“Just my luck,” Shirley said to herself when the door opened just as she turned the key in the lock. “Hi, Gunther. Don’t tell me Mirna’s cooking chicken and dumplings.”
“That could be it. Good to see you, Carson. How was Broadway?”
“Great. How’s it going? The two shows we saw lived up to their notices. I highly recommend a weekend theater trip, provided you have all of your reservations and tickets before you leave here. I expect the snow’s thick up there by now.”
“We had some flakes here yesterday. You’re welcome to stay for dinner if that suits you. I dare not issue you a genuine invitation, lest Shirley gets her back up.”
“If Mirna’s cooking chicken and dumplings, Shirley can get her back up all she wants to, but I accept your kind invitation.”
Gunther went to the kitchen and came back with a grin spread across his face. He looked at Carson and spoke as if the two of them were alone. “Mirna told me to tell you that nobody makes chicken and dumplings like she does, and that tonight, she’s outdone herself. Come on in.”
“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” Gunther said to Shirley, but with his tone and demeanor, he included Carson as a rightful recipient of his news. He told them about Frieda, and that she was getting ready to move to Orlando and that he’d hired Cory Benjamin full-time. “Both of these incidents have given me a great feeling. Let’s have a drink. Carson, I know you don’t drink when you’re driving, but how about a glass of wine. It isn’t often that my spirit soars like this.”
“I’ll take a vodka comet with lots of ice,” Carson said. “I feel you, man. From what you’ve said, it seems that both of them not only needed a break but also deserved it. You helped, and you have to feel great. Now, if we could only work a miracle with your brother.”
“He phoned me this morning,” Shirley said. “He’s got a two-week job at the Charcoal Club in Philadelphia beginning tomorrow night. He was on his way to Philly when he called me.”
“What happened to his job at the Charcoal Club in Baltimore?” Gunther asked.
“That’s an East Coast chain. He said the Philadelphia club is the parent club and that the manager sent for him. He’ll be playing solo.”
“Let’s hope he keeps that job for at least the next two weeks,” Carson said. “By that time, I ought to have this cleared up, and it can’t happen soon enough for me.”
Chapter Twelve
As Carson was about to leave Shirley, she asked him, “Don’t you want me to go with you to the house to look for the will? I’m not leaving for Fort Lauderdale until the day after tomorrow.”
That was precisely what he had not wanted to hear. “Sweetheart, I’ve given myself a deadline to find that will, and you would be a distraction that I don’t need. I’ll call you after I get home.”
She seemed somewhat taken aback, but he couldn’t help it; he had to maintain his integrity to the extent possible. He rubbed her nose with the tip of his index finger. “This job has taken me three or four times as long as I had anticipated, but I don’t quit until I finish. So bear with me, will you?”
She reached up and kissed him on the mouth. “Okay. I won’t interfere with your work. See you this evening.”
He’d have a talk with her about that. He respected her right to work on a job that took her from her home station for weeks at a time, so she had to grant him the right to do his job as he saw fit. He winked at her, turned, and headed for the elevator.
As was his habit, he called Shirley shortly after he got home. “This past weekend may have signaled a change in my life. It won’t be easy in the future; it won’t be easy to have days pass without being with you. I still love you.”
“And I still love you,” she said. “When I’m away from you, I miss you, Carson, but this time, I expect to be miserable.”
“We’ll work it out, sweetheart. We don’t have a choice.” And they didn’t, he realized after he hung up, because he couldn’t do his kind of work solely on cruise ships.
The next morning, he awakened early, feeling refreshed and ready to work. Like an itch in need of scratching, he could hardly wait to get to that house and resume his search. He parked in the garage, entered the house, closed the door behind him, and locked it. Then he secured that and the other two ground-level doors with their chains and headed up the stairs to Leon Farrell’s office/den.
With one press of the button, the panel slid open, and his adrenaline began to pump. Carson knew little about fine art beyond what he’d learned browsing in museums in the United States and abroad. He’d had to learn how to spot certain fake sculptures and wooden artifacts. He pulled up a chair, sat on it, and began to examine the Chinese porcelain vases on the bottom shelf. He’d bet that all seven of them were of considerable value and that unless the two blue and white vases were copies, they might date back several centuries. If they were truly valuable, they would be listed in the will. He handled them carefully. Unfortunately, none of the seven contained the will.
Neither did a leather box containing Catherine’s high school and college memorabilia, as well as letters from her parents, who hadn’t wanted her to marry the man who had become their son-in-law. Leon Farrell had worshiped a woman who was his social better. Had he driven himself to become his wife’s social equal? And had his in-laws cared that he became very rich? From the letters in his hand, Carson doubted it.
At about two o’clock, Carson looked at the many items still to be examined, found a shopping bag, and put a dozen of the larger plastic robots in it. He locked the house and took the robots to the police laboratory in Baltimore.
“I need some lab work, Miles,” he said to the sergeant. “I want to know if these things are hollow, and whether they can be closed to look as if they’ve never been tampered with.”
“No sweat. We can do that in half an hour. Somebody hiding stuff in robots?”
Carson didn’t move a muscle in his face. Miles was a good friend, but he didn’t want a conversation about those robots. “All things are possible, man. You know me; I turn every dime sideways.”
“Don’t I! That’s what makes you the best detective anywhere around here.”
He followed the sergeant, a man who had been his squad-car partner when he joined the police force years earlier. Not only did X-rays fail to show a will in any of them, but the procedure proved that if they had been taken apart, it would have been almost impossible to reassemble them anywhere but in the factory that made them. Disappointed and dispirited, he drove back to the Farrell house, put the robots where he found them, and went home. Nothing,
nada,
zip for a day’s work. He considered taking a shower, heating a slice of pizza, drinking a can of beer, and going to bed.
That could have been understandable, when I was eighteen,
he said to himself,
but accepting defeat doesn’t cut it these days.
As he dialed Shirley’s cell phone number, he remembered that he had a date with her.
Wake up, man. You were about to lay an egg of colossal proportions.
“Hi,” he said. “I won’t be good company tonight, Shirley, but I want to see you.”
“Hi, hon. I gather you didn’t have any success today. I know just the tonic for you. Come over here. I’ll put on my favorite movie, and we can have pizza, beer, and a lot of laughs. Gunther’s out tonight, so I told Mirna not to cook and sent her home early. It’s a riotously funny movie. You’ll love it.”
“Okay, I’ll bring ice cream.” It did not occur to him to question his elevated mood as he dressed. He bought a quart of black walnut ice cream and a six-pack of pilsner beer and arrived at Gunther’s apartment within the hour.
He put as much enthusiasm as he could in his greeting, but he hastened to tell her that the kiss belied his feelings. “What will we be watching?” he asked her.
“
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming
. It’s a cold-war movie. If you don’t laugh, I’ll know that you need urgent medical care.” She looked at him then, seeming to scrutinize him. “You are down, aren’t you? I’m sorry, darling.” She opened her arms, and he walked into them, immersing himself in the healing love that she offered.
“You will find it, Carson. If it exists, you will find it. I am as certain of that as I am of my name.”
This time, his hug reflected his true feelings for her. “You’re what I need, Shirley,” he said, took her hand, and walked with her to the kitchen. They heated the pizza, opened the beer, and ate in the kitchen.
Later, when the movie ended, he got up and held out his hand. “I’d better leave now. I have to appear in court at nine tomorrow morning as an expert witness for the state, and that means being in Baltimore by eight-thirty. Walk me to the door, and don’t lay it on too thick.” The last thing he wanted was the embarrassment of having Gunther Farrell find him in bed with his sister.
“Give me three rings when you get home,” she said. “I’ll call you tomorrow evening from Fort Lauderdale. Good luck tomorrow morning.”
He wrapped her to him, more tightly than was wise, he realized, when he felt the stirring in his loins. Her kiss sent him a message that he didn’t need right then. “Get there safely,” he whispered, and left while he had the will to do so. As soon as he walked into his apartment, he phoned her and waited until she answered.
“I still love you,” he said. “Good night.”
“And I still love you.”
 
With his testimony behind him, Carson returned to the work that occupied most of his thoughts. As usual, he parked in the garage, locked and secured all of the ground-floor doors after entering the house, and headed straight for Leon Farrell’s secret closet. He told himself to search shelf by shelf, and then search for a hideaway place within that closet. He had already searched the top shelf, so he began with the second.
He nearly fell backward when his hand slid under what seemed to be a plastic envelope beneath a man’s woolen scarf. He grabbed the envelope, rushed to Leon’s desk, and sat there. Folded inside of an old newspaper, he found a document the heading of which read, “Last Will and Testament.” He closed his eyes and took deep breaths for several minutes. At long last!
But almost as soon as he began reading, his spirits sank. He had before him a copy of Catherine Farrell’s mother’s will. Flipping pages, he saw a bequest, recognized its implications, and sprang from the chair. Shirley’s maternal grandmother had left her a hundred thousand dollars, which she was to receive on her eighteenth birthday. If Shirley had been given that money, he doubted that she would have struggled through Morgan State on fellowships and whatever part-time jobs she could get. He noted that the will was probated eleven months after Catherine’s death.
“The more I learn about Leon Farrell, the less I like him. Well, I’m not rocking this boat,” he said aloud. “Riggs can handle it.” A quick perusal of the newspaper revealed a detailed obituary for Shirley’s grandmother. He poured coffee from the thermos he’d brought along and drank it as thoughts of possible hiding places for a will occupied his mind. He began searching the next shelf item by item until it occurred to him that before he handled the tissue-fine embroidered linen handkerchiefs on that shelf, he’d better put on the latex gloves he’d brought along.
He answered his cell phone after several rings. “Montgomery speaking.”
“This is Gunther. You’ve probably checked this, but I wondered if Father had more than one lawyer or if he’d filed that will anyplace. Just a thought.”
“Thanks, Gunther. I can’t exclude the possibility that he had more than one lawyer, because he was certainly capable of that, but I can say he didn’t file his will in this state.”
“Just a thought. Shirley thinks you’re being asked to do too much. I want you to know that I don’t hold you to that contract.”
“Thanks, man, but I’m holding myself to it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. See you soon.”
I’ll finish this next shelf,
he said to himself,
and then I’m getting out of here. This place is depressing.
On the fourth shelf sat nine wooden robots, eight of which were painted different colors. One unpainted robot that was larger than the others stood before him like a challenge. Did he dare dismantle Leon Farrell’s masterpieces? He noted that Leon had signed and dated each, until he looked under the belly of the big, unpainted donkey, which had neither a date nor a signature. Carson surmised that Leon hadn’t finished that robot. After examining it, he went back to the second shelf and retrieved the sketches of robot construction that Leon had stored there. The diagram of a donkey showed that that robot had been constructed as if it were of two halves. But how were the parts joined?
He spread out a newspaper, put the donkey on it, and began to examine it. Not that he expected it to contain the will; storing it in the robot that stood out from the others in several ways would have been too obvious. But its construction would tell him whether he’d waste time examining the other wooden robots. Carson turned the feet slowly so as not to damage them. He moved the joints and the tail.
This guy turned in a clever job,
he said to himself.
But how the heck did he put these two halves together, since the head seemed to have been carved from a single piece of ...
“I’ve got it!” he yelled aloud. He unscrewed the donkey’s head and stared at the inside of the body. He put the robot down and drank the remainder of the coffee from the thermos. Icy, sleetlike darts seemed to attack his arms and legs, and he rubbed his arms as if trying to warm them.
Thinking that he wanted so badly to find that will that he’d lost perspective and was seeing a mirage, he grabbed his leather jacket, went outside, and ran as fast as he could. Oblivious to the dark, overcast sky, the icy wind bruising his face and the sticks, leaves, and other debris swirling around his feet and legs, he ran for three long blocks before turning and running back to the house. Winded, he released a satisfying expletive and told himself,
Go back in there and face it, man. If that’s not the will, you’ll find it somewhere else.
After locking and securing the house, he went back to Leon’s office and picked up the headless donkey robot, took it to the desk, and sat down. Slowly, with his thumb and forefinger, he eased the sheaves of paper from the belly of the donkey and unfolded The Last Will and Testament of Leon Farrell. His last tear had dropped from his eyes at the grave of his mother seven years earlier. Shaken, he said a prayer of thanks and wiped his eyes. Then, for fear that the papers in his hands could be one of Leon’s tricks, he turned to the last page, saw Donald Riggs’s signature as one witness, and laughed aloud.
He’d done it! It had taken him half a year, but he had finally found Leon Farrell’s will.
I’d better make a couple of copies of this thing,
he said to himself.
At this point, it’s as valuable as my stocks. I wonder what mischief Leon’s done with this will.
He turned to the second page and began reading. Suddenly, the air swooshed out of him. He leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes, and told himself to breathe. After reading all terms of the will, he screwed on the donkey’s head and put it back in its place on the fourth shelf. Then he slid the wall panel in place, and with the will secure in a zipped-up pocket inside his leather jacket, he turned out the lights, walked down the stairs, and locked the door behind him. If luck was on his side, he’d been in that dreary place for the last time. The few choice words he spat out didn’t begin to express his concern. The Farrell siblings were in for one hair-raising shock.
 
While Carson fretted over the terms of Leon Farrell’s will, Gunther sat with Medford and Cory, checking the distributor’s receipts from
Pipper,
the video game that featured Cory on stilts and that had become Gunther’s second best-seller. “I want to continue designing handheld electronic games,” Gunther said, “because I think that’s what I do best, but I can see that
Pipper
is going to be a bigger hit. I’m in something of a dilemma about this.”
BOOK: When the Sun Goes Down
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