The Widow's Son

by Thomas Shawver

  He pronounced this in such an understated manner that you might have thought he was describing the opening of a hot dog stand after spraining his wrist.

  “My God, that’s wonderful, Dennis,” Josie gushed.

  “Thank you, but Biomech Solutions is still a long way from showing a profit.”

  “Given time, I have no doubt you’ll succeed.”

  “Time is something I don’t have in abundance, Josie.”

  Stifling a cough, he turned his head away from us and struggled to catch his breath.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, once the color returned to his face. “I’m prone to getting blood clots. Sometimes one floats from what’s left of my legs to lodge in a lung. Only a matter of time before one breaks away to my heart or brain.”

  He was matter-of-fact about it.

  After lunch Josie gave Dietz a hug then headed into the store. This time he let me follow him to his van. Before rolling onto the lift, he stopped. “Thanks for being a friend to Emery and Natalie, Bevan. Do right by them. They deserve a normal life.”

  “I will,” I promised. Then I shook his hand. “Semper Fidelis, Marine.”

  “And to you, Brother.”

  Chapter 20

  That afternoon I left Claire with Josie at the bookstore and dropped by the hospital to check on Emery’s progress.

  Natalie wasn’t there. She’d gone to a meeting with the director of the annual Bloomsday play. Scheduled for June sixteenth, this two-hour dramatization of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses featured some of the best actors in the city and had become the major fund-raiser for the Celtic Center. This was to be its twentieth anniversary; it couldn’t be canceled.

  A couple sat outside the doors of the ICU as Jeopardy! blared on a TV in a corner. There was no question that the man was Emery’s father—over sixty, about six feet, and stout with the same upturned nose and close-set eyes. The left hinge of his glasses was wrapped in electrical tape. A mechanical pencil hung below a tuft of gray chest hair showing through the neck V of his polo shirt.

  The woman was a few years younger than the man, and slim, with gentle eyes in a long, horselike face. She sat upright in the plastic chair with an air of calm not usually found in the confines of an intensive care waiting room.

  After signing the visitors’ chart, I introduced myself.

  “Are you Emery’s parents?”

  The man got to his feet and extended a hand.

  “Claude Stagg,” he told me. “This is my wife, Marjorie.”

  Mrs. Stagg dipped her head politely.

  “Are you a friend of our son?” she asked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” I replied. “He and Natalie Phelan are customers of my bookshop.”

  The gray drab room got even drabber.

  “You’re the fellow who lost our family’s book!” the man said sharply.

  “That’s one way of putting it. I intend to make it up to him.”

  Claude Stagg grunted and returned to his chair.

  “I suppose that’s what Em gets for trying to sell it,” he groused to his wife. “There were plenty enough Staggs he could’ve let have it.”

  “But few enough willing to pay,” she retorted brusquely. “It was Emery’s to do with as he pleased.”

  “Lamar should have known better than to give it to the boy.”

  “There were lots of things Lamar should have known better about,” she snapped.

  I sat down in a yellow plastic chair opposite them. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  There was a dead pause as Mr. Stagg looked at his wife. She tilted her head in a sort of shrug, then clicked the mute button on the TV remote.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “The doc says Em’ll be out for another hour before they try to wake him for us.”

  “Were you aware of what Lamar was running up at his camp in Grand Lake?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “That’s an odd question coming from a book man.”

  “I’m trying to get to the bottom of things, Mr. Stagg. There’s a person’s life at stake.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said, then sighed heavily. “All we knew was that my brother was teaching Emery and the others outdoor ways. They were all getting a bit spoiled in their hometowns. Our boy came back a real good fisherman and much more confident. We were glad for that.”

  I paused when a nurse entered the waiting room to log in at the counter. She seemed vaguely familiar, but she disappeared down the hallway before I could get a better look. I edged my chair closer to the couple.

  “There was more than hunting and fishing being taught there,” I said. “Emery told me what he and his cousins had gone through during those summers. Those boys were being indoctrinated to commit a horrible act of revenge.”

  The Staggs seemed genuinely perplexed.

  “Natalie Phelan, your son’s fiancée, is the last living descendant of Governor Thomas Ford. The plan was originally for Porter Grint to kill her in order to atone for her ancestor’s role in the assassination of Joseph Smith, Jr.”

  Marjorie Stagg slipped her blue-veined hand onto her husband’s. In a half-whisper, she said to her husband, “I told you something was amiss that last year when Emery came back from Colorado! He’d gone into his shell like when he was little, except he wasn’t our nice, unassuming boy anymore. I was almost afraid of him.”

  “I’m well aware of the blood atonement myth,” Mr. Stagg said to me while patting his wife’s hand, “but that’s all it is—a myth. I don’t say I abide by much of what Lamar does or believes, but he’s not a criminal. He’d never do anything like that.”

  Marjorie pulled her hand away from him. “You say our son told you this?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And it’s been confirmed by Dennis Dietz. Porter Grint, Denny, and your son underwent a form of brainwashing at Lamar’s lodge. They had been programmed to kill Natalie in order to satisfy a pact made over a century and a half ago by a group of Danites that included Alonzo Stagg.”

  “I find that hard to swallow,” Claude Stagg insisted, but his voice faltered. “Lamar acted like he liked the lady when she and her girl came to Regina’s funeral.”

  He edged toward me. “And Dennis agrees with this cockamamie tale?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s already given his statement to the police.”

  The older man sighed. “The Prophet proclaimed that a murderer should not be hanged, but rather have his head cut off so his blood could spill on the ground for an offering to God. That was for a capital crime, however, not out of vengeance. If my brother appointed Porter to be the first to carry this out, when was it to happen?”

  “Shortly after Natalie turned twenty-one. But Grint was sent to prison before he could act on it.”

  “Port always was a troublesome one,” Marjorie said. “I used to say his limitations were limitless. He gave my sister and brother-in-law plenty of headaches growing up, but I never figured he was capable of murder.”

  “Be that as it may,” her husband said, “he killed that man in Rock Springs. Doesn’t matter that he claimed self-defense.”

  He turned back to me.

  “I can see Port being capable of this, but not Dennis. And certainly not my son.”

  “Nonetheless,” I insisted, “the obligation fell to Dietz until he was crippled and it was Emery’s turn. He’s admitted it, sir.”

  Mrs. Stagg hung her head. “Emery seemed lost for so long. He stopped visiting us. Quit going to temple. I never understood why he moved to the Midwest. It’s not like he was happy in California, but…Does he really love this Phelan woman?”

  “Yes, and I can assure you that she loves him as well. Like Dennis, I believe Emery emerged from this nightmare a much stronger person.”

  “Then the only one to worry about,” Stagg said, “is Porter Grint. Anyone know where he’s got to?”

  “Don’t be a fool, Claude. Where else would he be, but here?”

  Hearing the gentle woman declare this made it seem all the more m
enacing. Suddenly, we heard a series of agitated cries beyond the locked door of the ICU.

  Then nothing. The silence filled the waiting room like mud.

  Seconds later we heard footsteps and the door swung open. A doctor stood there, wild-eyed and with blood on his green scrubs.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Stagg,” he said. “You’d better come with me.”

  I jumped to my feet but was helpless to do anything as pandemonium reigned beyond the closed door of the ICU. Within minutes, hospital security guards rushed in, soon followed by three local police officers who were immediately guided past the door by the desk nurse. I phoned Natalie’s cell phone only to get her voice mail.

  Another ten minutes passed before the nurse I’d noticed signing in earlier appeared behind the desk. Now I knew why she’d looked familiar: She was Arihi Tuitama, the daughter of my rugby friend Joe. I went up to the counter where she was reviewing the visitors’ sheet.

  “Arihi, what’s going on?”

  She looked up, irritated by the interruption until she recognized me.

  “We had an intruder,” she said. “Dr. Misner was making his rounds when he found a man wearing a balaclava hovering over the patient. The doctor shouted at him and the guy slammed him to the floor and shot out the door. He headed down a staircase before anyone could get to him.”

  “How’s the doctor?”

  “He’ll be fine, thank God. A few cuts and bruises, but nothing else. I don’t think Mr. Stagg was even aware of what happened. He’s been comatose much of the time.” She checked her watch. “Now, excuse me. I must get downstairs to make a report to my supervisor.”

  I followed her into the main corridor. “Who else signed in today?” I asked as she waited for the elevator to arrive.

  “Stagg’s parents and four other people besides you. We have no idea how he snuck in.”

  “Officially?”

  “For the record, yes. I hope nobody loses their job over this, but, unofficially, a janitor left the emergency exit ajar.”

  The elevator door opened and she stepped in. “I hear you played a match with my dad Saturday.”

  “Somebody had to remind him how the game is played.”

  She smiled, said something about the virus of rugby and old thoroughbreds gone lame, and then the door closed.

  I returned to the waiting room where a female police officer had just finished taking a statement from the receptionist. After giving my account, including a brief summary of the Porter Grint connection, I asked if the police had an identification of the intruder.

  “Naw,” she said. “Dr. Misner couldn’t see much. The attacker’s head was covered by a balaclava.”

  After phoning Josie to tell her the news, I rushed to the Celtic Center.

  Natalie and a dozen actors sat on metal folding chairs in a circle listening to Erin Starker, the director for the Bloomsday play. As in past years, most were Equity professionals, but the younger roles of Stephen Dedalus, Buck Mulligan, and the lame temptress Gerty MacDowell were filled by talented amateurs drawn from local colleges.

  “As most of you know,” Erin was saying, “Ulysses is the epic novel of a young medical student and a middle-aged ad salesman who encounter each other in Dublin on June 16, 1904. They are wanderers—one in search of a father, the other a son…”

  Natalie got up when she saw me motioning for her to join me at the back of the Center.

  “What is it?” she demanded, as I led her into the boardroom.

  “An intruder broke in to Emery’s room.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “Don’t worry, no one was hurt. I doubt Emery even knew what happened. The man fled when Dr. Misner surprised him.”

  “Did they get a description?”

  I shook my head.

  She looked out to the center of the main room where the actors were talking among themselves.

  “His parents are with him,” I said. “There’s no need for you to rush back. I’ll stick around to take you to my house when you’ve finished here. Forget staying at the motel.”

  She was about to say it was unnecessary, but changed her mind when she saw there was no way I’d let her leave alone.

  Chapter 21

  Who’s that big sumbitch the woman’s talkin’ to now? I seen him and some dark-haired piece with Denny in that Frog restaurant earlier. I’d best keep an eye on him.

  The next few days passed with no sightings of Grint. The good news was that Emery had begun to show signs of recovery and was removed from the ICU at the end of the week. He still suffered from headaches, slight memory loss, and occasional bouts of violent nausea. The head injury had also restricted blood flow to the part of his brain that controls speech, causing his words to come out garbled. The doctor assured us that he could understand everything being said to him, but, because of the aphasia, Doctor Misner said it might be weeks before Emery could communicate verbally or in writing. Even a simple nod of the head might mean the opposite of what he intended.

  His improvement, however, meant Natalie felt comfortable spending more time preparing for the upcoming Bloomsday festivities. Security, always strong at Union Station, was beefed up to add additional support for her. It didn’t hurt that the central office was next to the Celtic Center.

  We settled into a routine, with Claire helping at the shop after school and coming home with us in the evenings when Natalie went to visit Emery at the hospital.

  The more we got to know the girl, the more we began to appreciate just how bright and sweet she could be when not experiencing one of her “episodes.” Sometimes she would retreat within herself and her face would take on the same glowing expression as Emery’s when he contemplated some mechanical problem or abstract equation.

  Josie suspected that both were high-functioning autistics. In Emery’s case it was his single-minded interest in engineering and math, while Claire could become totally absorbed by stories about the paranormal. I could see now that faeries, banshees, and goblins were as real to her as Newton’s theory of universal gravitation was to Emery. The child definitely had this thing about owls, and would slip outside to converse with them no matter what time of night.

  At Riverrun she began spending more time in the section that featured folk customs and the supernatural. Alone in the stacks, she would sing softly in that clear, ethereal voice, and Josie and I would stop whatever task we were doing to listen. I suspect that, like me, the girl was prone to hearing voices. Nothing to be concerned about, I figured, as long as she didn’t believe, like some modern-day Joan of Arc, that she could turn visions into reality.

  Claire was also an easy houseguest, the rare kid who actually volunteered to help with the dishes and laundry. Nonetheless, despite everyone’s efforts to be accommodating, my two-bedroom bungalow was beginning to feel as cramped as an industrial feedlot. To make things worse, the always-volatile Natalie was more highly strung than Josie and I had ever seen her. In those few hours when she wasn’t at the hospital or the Celtic Center, she quarreled constantly with her daughter.

  Her anxiety was understandable, considering that a murderous stalker was lurking about while her fiancé struggled to live, but it was stretching everyone’s nerves to the breaking point. Josie’s attempts to intervene in the temperamental outbursts only fueled the conflict as Natalie became increasingly jealous of her influence. As for me, I couldn’t even seek solace at The Peanut or Fitzpatrick’s Galway Pub without incurring the wrath of both women.

  Matters weren’t helped by the enormous pressure Natalie was under to pull off a successful Bloomsday. It was the Center’s major fund-raiser and Liam O’Halloran’s ludicrous manner of death in front of forty horrified children and adults created a serious image problem for the non-profit. A cell phone video of the poor man’s last performance in his Hound of Ulster costume had been taken by one of the older kids and gone viral on the Internet. It was taken down by a mortified parent, but the damage was done—the Celtic Center had become the laughingstock of the town.r />
  While almost everyone claims to have green blood on St. Patrick’s Day, promoting and honoring the great Irish artists, writers, and playwrights was never easy. But over the years, the Center’s imaginative and often raucous rendering of Joyce’s work had managed to entertain thousands of Kansas Citians who previously thought of Ulysses—if they’d even heard of it—as the greatest novel no one ever read.

  Because this was the twentieth anniversary of the event, Natalie had hoped the local public television affiliate would broadcast it. But the station, along with donors who had supported the Center for years, was no longer returning her telephone calls.

  Natalie responded as only she could by texting anyone with an O or Mac in their surnames, cold-calling former corporate sponsors, and personally begging priests and the myriad Hibernian societies to not forsake the city’s only Irish cultural institution.

  And so it went for days.

  There was no question of the Phelans’ returning to the house on Troost. The landlord, a regular at The Peanut, sympathized with her situation once I explained it. On June twelfth he let Natalie out of the lease and I leased an apartment for her under my name in Roeland Park, a modest but pleasant suburb on the Kansas side of the line.

  There were two other positive developments. Although Emery’s injury didn’t dispel my obligation to him to make up for the loss of the Book of Mormon, Natalie agreed it was better that I have more time to get decent offers for my stock rather than seek a quick loan from Edward Worth’s bank. Secondly, the manager of Kansas City Public Television called Natalie that same afternoon, June twelfth, reinstating the station’s promise to broadcast the Bloomsday play. Things were starting to look downright promising for all concerned.

  Josie and I held a farewell barbeque for the Phelans on our patio that night. Looking back on it, I wonder if Porter Grint was watching us even then.

  Chapter 22

  Early in the morning on Saturday, the sixteenth of June, the Celtic Center’s celebration of Bloomsday kicked off under cornflower-blue skies when dozens of cyclists dressed in early twentieth-century Dublin tweeds pedaled their antique messenger bikes through the downtown streets.