She bored of Harlowe’s king-of-the-hill way of life. His competitiveness was tiresome. His masterful control of people had magnetized her twenty-five years ago, sending chill bumps through her at the thoughts of how he would achieve whatever he sought…whatever she wished.
But he didn’t achieve enough, in her opinion. He pontificated about integrity, valiance, and sufferance. She never understood how he defended criminals on one hand and displayed benevolence on the other. He drove his firm like a rigid taskmaster, but empathized with his clients more than his employees…his partner included.
And Charleston loved him.
“Thanks for letting me know, Stevens.” Then, before twisting to find the cool spot on her pillow, she added, “Don’t forget to pack his lunch.”
He hesitated. “Ma’am?”
She nestled under the satin. “You heard me. Don’t forget to pack his lunch.”
• • •
Rising around nine, Lovie still languished at the breakfast table at ten, pushing cold eggs around her plate. Tucker seemed tentative when she had called, less eager than she’d hoped when she’d suggested that they capitalize on Harlowe’s impromptu boating junket. On the contrary, Harlowe’s absence had put pressure on her lover to stay in the office and douse fires.
She nudged the plate away a few inches and lifted her china cup, elbows on the table. She’d call him back once he’d had a chance to recognize the day’s potential, and let him know that she was showing up for lunch regardless of his agenda. The trick was what to wear to entice him to play hooky after she dined him at 82 Queen under that exquisite magnolia tree in the courtyard. This day had to be romantic. It just had to. She felt…naughty. And she sensed serious change in the air.
She smiled from behind her cup of coffee, smug in her future.
The doorbell rang, but she ignored it, knowing Stevens would answer.
He soon appeared in the arched entrance to the dining room. “Ma’am, two police officers are here to see you.”
Oh good heavens. She brushed her hand flamboyantly from her lap up to her chin then in the air with a scowl. “Stevens, look at me. I’m not dressed to take visitors. Tell them I need…”
“You need to give us a moment of your time, Mrs. Franklin,” said one of the officers, a female uniform appearing a half step behind Stevens. “We’re here on an urgent matter.” A male officer came into view behind the female.
“Then get on with it,” she said, lifting her cup again. “I suppose I should ask if you want coffee. Stevens?”
“No thanks,” said the male officer. He cleared his throat. “We’re sorry to inform you that your husband’s boat sank off the coast a couple of hours ago. The Coast Guard has commenced a search, but it’s early.” He watched her, waiting, the female officer moving a couple of steps forward.
Lovie’s cup clinked hitting the saucer. She pressed a hand to her chest. “And? You didn’t say you found him. Please…don’t tell me you’re informing me…” Her voice quivered, like that of any woman told she was potentially a widow.
While she’d wished Harlowe out of her life for months now, closer to years if she was honest with herself, the reality smacked her more than she expected.
The police watched her intently. “We don’t know much yet, Mrs. Franklin. Did he go alone?”
“What are you saying?” she asked with a breathy inhale.
“We’re saying nothing other than we need to know how many people to try and save,” said the female cop, less sympathetic.
“Oh,” Lovie replied softly. “I have no idea. He left before I rose today. He likes the water at dawn and sometimes he goes with his partner, business acquaintances, or hires someone at the marina.”
“He woke me at four and asked that I cancel his appointments for the day,” Stevens added.
The male officer turned to Stevens. “Are you the only other person here? Mrs. Franklin needs someone with her at a time like this.”
Like Tucker, she thought. This was too real. Too scary. Too much of everything. She wasn’t quite ready for this. “My daughter,” she said. “She’s sleeping upstairs.”
The female officer glanced instinctively at the glass mantle clock on the buffet.
“I know,” Lovie said. “It’s late. This is not at all like her, trust me. She’s a good child.” She let her lip tremble. “Oh my gosh, she’ll be devastated.” Her daughter would indeed be hurt, and a pang of motherhood punched Lovie’s heart.
“Why don’t you go get her,” suggested the female. “We’ll wait right here.”
Lovie stood, wrapping her silk robe around her, moving to avoid notice of the slight shake in her hands. “But of course.”
Climbing the steps, she clutched the mahogany railing, concern creeping in. Had she showed enough fright at the news? She settled herself, rolling her shoulders to put herself to right. At the moment, however, she had to be a mother to her child, regardless of how the day’s events shook out.
“Baby?” she called, knocking on the bedroom door. “Can I come in?” She took the handle, turned, and eased herself into the room. “Baby, I need to tell you something.”
An ivory-colored note lay on the made-up bed. Mom, I’m going on the boat with Daddy. See you this afternoon. Don’t hold dinner for me. Love, Miranda.
Lovie didn’t hear herself scream until Stevens and the cops reached her where she had collapsed upon the floor.
“Ma’am?” Stevens bent on one knee. “Please, ma’am, let me help you to the bed and bring you a glass of water.”
But she paid no attention to Stevens, because somewhere in the distance she listened to the male officer speaking to his chain of command. “Yes, sir. That’s right. At least two people on that boat. Father and daughter.”
Lovie fainted.
• • •
Aroused and taken downstairs, Lovie drifted into another dimension as she rocked herself on the sofa, nonresponsive even to Stevens. She couldn’t look at the man.
He had said Harlowe was going out. Why hadn’t he mentioned Miranda, too? Why hadn’t she asked? Why were the police still in her house?
Around 1 P.M., Tucker arrived, and it took all the strength left in Lovie not to get up and race to his arms. She let him trot across the wide span from the doorway to her settee and sit, drawing her to him. “Oh, Lovie. I’m sure they’ll find Harlowe and Miranda. They’re both excellent on the water.”
“Oh, Tucker,” she cried.
“Honey,” and he wrapped his arms around her, cuddling as she mumbled into his chest.
The female officer threw questions at Tucker. How was his relationship with his partner? Did he know Harlowe was going on the boat? Why not? How long had they been together at the firm? How were finances personally? With the firm?
The officers announced they’d be in touch, would probably return later that evening, and left.
Stevens continued fielding phone calls: under earlier advice from the uniforms not to answer questions from the media, under direction from Tucker not to answer questions from anyone, period. They were too well-known in the city, and feeding a gossip frenzy did the family no good…not to mention the firm.
At five, Stevens appeared with a tray containing a bottle of bourbon, a short pitcher of martinis, and a bowl of pearl onions. No ice bucket since he knew from many prior visits that Tucker liked his bourbon neat. Stevens normally poured, but Tucker waved him away.
“Miranda,” Lovie continued, her face drawn. “Oh God, how will I go on?”
Tucker brushed a tress that had fallen across her forehead. “Now, now, sweetheart. They’ll be found.”
Lovie downed her martini and burst out crying. Tucker tossed back his bourbon and refilled their glasses. Stevens manned the phones in the next room, the pocket doors closed to give his employer privacy.
Lovie coughed, unable to breathe deep. A tension built, climbing up her throat. “Tucker?” she whispered.
He choked a swallow, maybe a blockage, and loosened
his tie. Panic crossed his face.
They reached for each other: jerkily, clumsily. She released him, clawed her neck. He ripped open his shirt. Both gasped, unable to call for Stevens, searching desperately for answers in each other’s eyes.
• • •
“Mrs. Franklin sent me out of the room, asking she be left alone with Mr. McKinley. An hour later I found them…like this…I feel so responsible,” Stevens replied to the same male officer.
“Did you have any issues with the family?” the female officer asked.
With mouth agape, fright filled Stevens’ eyes. “Oh, my lord, no,” he said, tears welling. “I’d worked with them for seven years. They were excellent employers.” He sat on the living room ottoman, letting his body droop, settling his head in his hands. “I guess I’m unemployed.”
“Poor man,” another uniform said. “No telling what kind of crap he put up with from these rich bastards.”
Crap indeed. Studying the hand-woven Oriental rug while law enforcement swarmed the house, Stevens occasionally eyed the detective reading Lovie’s suicide note on the laptop, then relaxed when the suit seemed to take it at face value: the distraught wife killing herself, implicating the boyfriend she no longer had the gumption to run off with, the final guilt of losing her daughter.
Miranda’s loss saddened Stevens, though. Children always complicated matters, but his place was not to question the motives of the parents. They ordered. He followed through.
Stevens was amazed the first time a family used code in his presence. Trigger phrases giving directions without actually saying what needed to be said. His first mentor explained how sacrosanct they were. How, when spoken, a concierge feigned uncertainty, making the master or mistress repeat the command…to make sure.
Those in his profession learned early the language of the well-heeled. Devious bluebloods with no backbone to get their own hands dirty, using their butler to see to it that deeds were done, as if ordering roast duck for dinner.
Don’t forget to pack his lunch. Mrs. Franklin might not have touched the bomb, but she’d set up the whole deal such that all Stevens had to do was place a call to set the stage.
Don’t forget her five-o’clock cocktail. Stevens almost rolled his eyes. Like he’d never heard that one before.
MAILMAN
by Jonathan Stone
Through rain, snow, sleet, hail, gloom of night, fog of morning, and torpor of afternoon; through cutbacks, and Post Office closings, and diversity initiatives, and re-orgs, and a bureaucratic succession of Postmasters General; through truck breakdowns, and snow tire flats, and Post Office shootings and bombings, and the holiday rush; through the rise of FedEx and UPS with their swashbuckling gym-pumped young drivers swerving at high speed arrogantly around you; through the days, weeks, months, through time itself, George Waite has delivered the mail. Thirty-five years now. Through American invasions and wars, and famines and genocides, and tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanoes, George Waite’s red, white, and blue mail truck has lurched from mailbox to mailbox with the utter predictability of a brightly painted figure on a cuckoo clock.
And not only that—he’s delivered the mail for all these years to this same neighborhood. Well, the same, and different. The original, simple unprepossessing capes and ranches had now transformed into McMansions, some expanding gradually over the years, growing as if through a painful adolescence; others literally “scraped” from the face of the earth, and replaced with something grander and prouder, looming and spanking new. But he has delivered it with the same smile and wave to the neighbors watering their lawns, pushing their kids in strollers, heading out on or back from bike rides. The same exchange of pleasantries.
He knows these people, and they know him.
Hiya, George. How’s everything?
He’s actually—arguably—saved two of their lives. He watched Jimmy Swale—special needs/autistic—stroll right into the pond, and George jumped out of his truck, splashed into the water after him, pulled out the already flailing kid. His uniform was soaked. The pond turned out to be shallow, so did he really save him? And through his rear-view mirror, he saw eighty-year-old Mrs. Ostendorf, shuffling back from her mailbox to her house, suddenly grip her chest and drop her mail, and George sprinted from the truck, carried her into her house, called the ambulance (this was before cell phones), and she survived.
For both, George was thanked profusely. The neighborhood threw him an appreciation party. Just a half-hour or so—he couldn’t take more time than that from his route. John Tepper made a speech—“Honorary Member of the Neighborhood.” Gave him a plaque they’d had made. What a day.
Here was the unspoken little secret of being a mailman: he loved it. He loved the routine and the predictability. He loved how even today, despite the Internet and smart phones, people still looked forward to their mail. To the surprise and excitement of good news or bad.
The other unspoken little secret was that he knew their mail. By this time, George pretty much knew who was getting what. Who had which banks and which brokerage accounts (statements delivered monthly; most of them hadn’t switched to paperless yet). He knew where their kids and parents lived by the birthday cards and letters; he knew the good news and the bad news of the households by the obvious look of a condolence card or colorful birthday card envelopes. He knew the acceptance and rejection letters from colleges, even the paycheck stubs from which employers until paystubs largely stopped. He saw the legal-size documents which still went by mail for signatures—for real-estate closings, divorces, wills, life-altering events. He often knew what was in the packages he delivered by the size, and shape, and weight of the box—books, or DVDs, or specialty foods, or even what article of clothing it was from a given retailer: sweaters, or a coat, or slacks, or shoes. (He would also see the FedEx or UPS package waiting at the garage or at the front door, and could often tell what it was in the same way, and often would do the favor of bringing the box in for them if not already at the front door along with the rest of their mail.)
You couldn’t help knowing. You had to sort it all; you couldn’t help seeing who was getting what. In some lives, there was lots of mail. In some lives, there was very little.
He had seen many residents grow old with him, and you couldn’t help but note all the change, all the years, evident in their bodies and faces. He’d watched their kids grow. Tricycles, to training wheels, to sleek racing bikes, to reckless teenage driving as they passed his truck, and soon enough adopting the responsible waving and greeting they’d observed all their lives; addressing George with the same postures and cadences as their respective mothers and fathers, the stupefying power of genes.
New people moved into the neighborhood and old people moved out, and occasionally, of course, passed away. Wistful, inevitable, proof of life. An undertone of transition that the neighborhood yards and gardens and routines did their collective best to belie.
Then the Muscovitos moved in. And then, by god, there was change.
• • •
No one ever saw them. Any of them. Doorbell rung, casseroles and homemade cookies left on the front steps, no thank you notes or calls or acknowledgements.
“Seen the new neighbors, George?”
“No, you?”
Shake of head. Shrugs. But people are busy. The neighborhood has always had its absentees: dads who travel, couples in Florida or Georgia for half the year. Jim O’Brien, a trader in Asian currencies, went in to work at 3 A.M. You never saw him—until the weekends, when he lived in his yard, happily planting and trimming and mowing, waving his shears like a television neighbor, tossing a Nerf football with his kids.
George did see Alberto Muscovito’s shadow a couple of times, just inside his front door. His silhouette. Arms crossed. Like a criminal or convict interviewed on TV, not wanting to reveal his features or voice. Obviously waiting until George’s truck moved down the street, and then heading out quickly to get the mail—focused, not looking up, making no eye conta
ct with any part of the neighborhood.
• • •
First came the walls.
Stone walls; elaborate fencing. Nine feet high, three feet over code. Offhand grumbling to George from the neighbors getting their mail. (George was safe to grumble to, always merely passing through, always merely a visitor.) Construction vehicles, crews of Nicaraguan masons and laborers, issuing friendly uncomprehending shrugs when a neighbor wandered by and asked about the new owner. George caught wind of some neighborhood debate about filing formal complaints about the (possible) height violation. But it was the man’s own property, after all, and nobody wanted to spend on a legal battle, and it was an aesthetic judgment after all, so, grumbling, they let it go…
Little bits of gossip. The two Muscovito boys, nine and twelve, were in boarding school. Muscovito worked in financial services.
And George, you still haven’t seen them?
No, haven’t.
Pretty mysterious. And all this construction—pretty annoying.
Of course, George knew more than he was saying. He couldn’t share the information. Privacy of the U.S. mail, he’d taken an oath and respected it.
But right off, almost immediately, Alberto Muscovito had piles of mail—yet no personal mail at all. Envelopes addressed to both Muscovito’s P.O. address, and to this new house of theirs, so it was a little confusing for the postal system. From senders who obviously wanted to be very sure it got there—putting the P.O. box and the home address to be double certain.
Yes, piles of mail. Contracts from individuals and firms George had never heard of. Legal documents from a law firm in the Cayman Islands and from outfits in New Zealand and Malaysia and Micronesia. The Maldives. Mauritius. None of the conventional standardized brokerage and bank envelopes that the rest of the neighborhood got. And the numerous legal and financial documents required no signatures, George noticed, which would have necessitated his actually meeting Mr. Muscovito.
Killer Nashville Noir Page 8
