“I’m sure,” I said too harshly. I was gripping the receiver so hard that my hand hurt.
He stopped. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
I was supposed to say no offense taken, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. “You asked her why she wanted Smokey Dalton to have the money?”
“She never did answer. I remember that as clearly as I remember the words she used when she screamed at me. No matter how much money she had, she wasn’t a lady, Mr. Hayworth.”
Interesting.
“I got the sense it was personal. She wanted this Dalton to have the money, and she was going to give it to him, no matter what I said.”
“I got that.” I couldn’t make myself sound polite. It was all I could do not to tell him I was “this Dalton.”
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you any more.”
“You narrowed my search,” I said. “I appreciate that. If you think of anything else, let me know.”
And then I hung up, unable to stomach the obsequiousness that I had just displayed. I wanted to call him back, berate him for his attitudes, let him know that it was me he had been talking to. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I might still need information from him.
I paced the office, trying to let the anger dissipate before Laura arrived. When she did, still wearing her rabbit fur, I didn’t even greet her.
“Were your parents in Washington, D.C., at any time during the war?”
She smiled at me. “Good morning to you too, Smokey. I had a nice weekend. Thank you for asking. I spent most of it on the phone, but I did find some time to visit the river and the Pink Palace Museum. I even got a cab driver to take me past Graceland, but Elvis didn’t appear to be home.”
That stopped me. “Sorry,” I said. “I just got off the phone with that idiot Chicago detective who wrote the report. He isn’t the guy you hired to find me, is he?”
Her eyes widened and the smile left her face. “No.”
“Good.”
“You didn’t tell him who you were, did you?”
“Of course I did,” I snapped. “And he said, ‘Boy, didn’t know your people understood how telephones operated.’”
She flushed. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” My outburst upset me. I was so furious at Levy that I could barely control myself. “You didn’t deserve that.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and pulled her coat close.
“I told him I was a detective here in Memphis and he told me that your mother provided him with my name and location during World War II. That’s why I accosted you when you came in. There might be a D.C. tie.”
My voice had softened. I was leaning too close to her, but she didn’t seem to mind. She looked up at me. “I don’t remember them traveling.”
“Not even your father? On business?”
She shook her head. Her grip on the coat relaxed. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
I looked at the piles behind us. “Well,” I said. “If it’s anywhere, then, it’ll be in the receipts.”
“I guess.”
“Take off your coat,” I said. “This is going to take us a long time.”
It did. We spent the next two days going through her parents’ files. We started with the financial records.
The ledger system dated back to 1944. Mostly it was maintained in Mr. Hathaway’s cramped handwriting, although Mrs. Hathaway’s flowing script covered an occasional entry. In the forties, their income was relatively small, and the things they spent money on logical: clothing, rent, food. An occasional entry would mark the purchase of a toy for Laura and at those she would stop and smile. Apparently she remembered most of them.
I cross-referenced the ledger with the check stubs and found that everything matched. Most purchases were made in Chicago, although they did spend a week in the summer of 1947 in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. That got me thinking of mob connections again, since Lake Geneva was well known of as a resort community for Chicago mobsters. But that didn’t exclude regular folk from using the resorts either. Still, I made a mental note and kept up my work.
I saw no reference to Washington, D.C. The only family trip we could find was the one to Lake Geneva. But there were no calendars in these files. If someone else paid for the trip, we would have no way of knowing about it.
Laura soon grew tired of this tight examination of her parents’ finances. Once we confirmed that there were no records of a D.C. trip, she didn’t know what I was looking for, but she felt that I was wasting time. I wasn’t. Something didn’t add up, and I couldn’t tell what it was, not from the information in front of me.
It wasn’t until I had gone through five years of ledgers that I realized what was missing. Earl Hathaway had never recorded the source of his income.
I reached this discovery in the middle of Wednesday afternoon. I was sitting at my desk, the check stubs in front of me, the ledger open. Laura was compiling the receipts from the earlier years—if you had come in on us, you would have thought we were a married couple going over our taxes—and looking exasperated.
“How exactly did your father make his money?”
“Investments,” she said without looking up.
“I know that.” I leaned across the pages. “I discovered that much on my own. But the initial money, the money that made that first investment, the money that was the down payment on this large fortune you’re sitting on, where did that come from?”
She raised her head, a frown creasing her middle brow. She had a streak of dirt on the side of her face that was threatening to become permanent. Apparently she touched that spot quite often, and newsprint and dirt from the old papers rubbed off there.
“What do you mean?”
“Did he inherit it from his father? Did he work a series of menial jobs, let you all live in poverty, while he put money in the right schemes? Did he run booze for the mob in the thirties? How did he get money to invest?”
She had clearly never asked that question before. She was looking at me as if I were speaking Greek.
“Did he say anything?” I asked. “Most people have stories of their origins. Most people are proud that they’ve turned ten dollars into eight million.”
“He never said anything.” Her voice was flat.
“I noticed no mention of anything in his obituary either. Your mother didn’t write it up.”
“No,” she said. “He never said anything.”
“And did your mother?”
“No.”
“Did he inherit the money from your grandparents?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice cracked midway through the sentence. The emotion hidden in that small sound made me shudder. Despite her protests, she probably wasn’t ready to learn what she was going to learn about her parents. Whatever it was.
“Well, it had to come from somewhere,” I said, more to myself than to her. “You might want to pay real close attention to those papers from that period. Maybe there’s a clue in there.”
She nodded and bent her head quickly, as if going to work would ease the distress she was feeling. I returned to the ledger work, knowing I would have to go deeper than this if I wanted to solve the mysteries left by Earl Hathaway.
ELEVEN
FRIDAY MORNING, I arrived at my office to find a piece of paper with my name on it taped to the door. I took the paper off carefully and unfolded it.
The words were cut out of the newspaper and taped haphazardly onto the page and formed a single sentence.
Keep to yourself if you don’t want to end up like Mom and Dad.
My mouth went dry. My hands shook and I nearly dropped the paper. But I made myself hold it until I took it inside.
I had learned in the army how to stay calm even when I didn’t want to be. I shoved the feelings back and carried the note to my desk. I didn’t have a lot of time before Laura arrived and I didn’t want her to see this.
I turned on the metal desk lamp and looked at the paper. No prints
on the tape that held the words in place. No bits of dust or hair either. The words were taken from the Press-Scimitar and the Commercial-Appeal. I recognized the typefaces.
Slowly I sat down. Then I opened my desk drawer and removed my fingerprint kit. Carefully, I dusted the page for prints and wasn’t surprised when I failed to find any.
Only then did I look at the words again.
Mom and Dad. No one in Memphis knew about my parents, that I’d grown up without them. I had learned, as a boy, not to talk about Atlanta, and so I never did. Someone had found out and someone was using them to threaten me.
The note wasn’t very instructive, the threat vague. I had no idea which of my activities I was being warned away from.
I took the note and slipped it into a manila envelope. I put the envelope in my top desk drawer and locked it. I didn’t want Laura to come on it by mistake.
Laura. I had tried to keep as far away from her as I could, even though we had been working side by side all week. Sometimes she brought food in, and sometimes I went out and bought us some, but we never went to a restaurant again. It seemed to be an unspoken agreement. The incident at the Little Hot House had made us both uncomfortable.
Just like she was making me uncomfortable. I liked the way she sat cross-legged on my floor, the way newspaper ink smudged her face. I liked her meticulous handwriting and her dainty movements. I even liked watching her manicured fingers sift through the detritus of her parents’ lives.
The work had been detailed and was gaining us little. I learned, as we dug through them, that the Hathaways’ money grew exponentially over time. I did find stock sheets, and balance reports, real estate holdings—many in the lucrative Lake Shore drive area—and other indications of growing wealth. That made sense to me. It would have bothered me more if I hadn’t found anything like that.
I glanced at the door. Laura wasn’t due for a while, and rather than accost her as I had done on Monday morning, I had to calm myself. I didn’t want to tell her about the note. I wanted everything to seem fine.
I sat down in my usual spot and double-checked Laura’s work on the early years. She hadn’t found anything, and I didn’t either. No indications of payments made. No salary stubs. No dividend papers.
Nothing.
There should have been something.
It was clear from the ledgers that Mrs. Hathaway was in charge of the household, and she handled it alone until 1949, when they hired their first housekeeper. The housekeeper’s salary appeared in the ledgers as well, and then so did other household employees—gardeners, handy men, a maid or two—as time went on. The Hathaways moved from a downtown address to a house in the suburbs. Judging from the upkeep and maintenance records the place was big.
But I didn’t learn much more than that, and even that was unusual. I should have learned a lot from those financial records. People’s lives are diagrammed by their finances. In bad years, there are overdue notices and in some cases foreclosures, lawsuits, and bankruptcies. In good years, there are increased purchases: larger homes, better furniture, luxury items. And in great years there should be more money than a person knows what to do with—surplus cash, strange investments, luxury purchases never used and often forgotten.
By the time Laura arrived, my mind was completely on the records and the search. The little wave of adrenaline brought on by the note had faded. She didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.
She sat across from me and picked up the pile she had left the night before. She had taken to wearing blue jeans and dark sweaters, which didn’t show the dirt as much. Her hair fell across her face as she worked, and I longed to push it back for her.
I made myself focus on the work. It wasn’t until I reached 1958’s ledger that I realized something else was missing:
The tax returns.
When I mentioned them to Laura, she said, “The accountant handled all that.”
“I thought the financial records were to come from him.”
“They did,” she said, “but not the corporate records.”
I almost hit myself in the forehead with the heel of my hand. I had always dealt with black clients, and never had I dealt with anyone of this level of wealth. Well-off clients, yes. Doctors, lawyers, educators, people who had made small fortunes investing in oil or business machines or real estate. But never people with large fortunes, people who had so many assets to hide that they had to create corporations as a tax dodge.
“Can we get those records?”
She shook her head. “I already asked. The corporation is now being run by a board of directors. Daddy never thought a woman should have to do such things.”
“And your money?”
“Comes from my parents’ personal holdings and a salary from the corporation.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Always suspicious, Henry would have said. And he was right.
“What happens if your board of directors runs the company to the ground?” I asked.
A small flush built in her cheeks. I liked that trait of hers. It made her emotions quite difficult to hide. “I’m going to be all right.”
“You’ve thought of that then.”
She nodded tiredly.
“And what are you going to do about it?”
“There’s nothing I can do,” she said. “My parents’ will is tight.”
“Couldn’t you talk to your mother?”
She shook her head. “My mother wasn’t the problem. She was bound by my father’s will. The board took over after he died.”
I set down the papers I was holding. “What kind of corporation is this? What kind of business does it run?”
“Real estate holdings, some construction, a lot of it in the suburbs—the outside edges of the city that are really getting built up now. There’s a lot of money to be made, and we’re making it.” She sounded bitter.
“But you control none of it.”
She nodded. “And I even have a degree in business.”
“Your father wouldn’t have known that.”
“But he knew I was interested. He didn’t want me anywhere near it. He said, ‘We wanted you to have the best life, baby girl. You don’t have to work for a thing.’”
I put my hand on a stack of ledgers. “When did your father incorporate?”
She blinked, frowned, turned her head aside. “I was twelve, thirteen? Somewhere in there. Nineteen fifty-one or fifty-two.”
The ledgers reflected none of it. That was strange.
“Your father was the CEO?”
“Yes.”
“How did he get paid?”
“A check, I guess.”
A missing check. The Hathaways’ financial affairs were very interesting. I nodded toward the empty boxes now stacked neatly inside each other on the left side of my office. “And you’re sure these are all the financial records?”
“These are the only records I know of,” she said.
“Call the accountant, then,” I said. “We’re still missing a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Payroll records. Copies of tax returns. And perhaps a thousand other things. See if you can convince the corporation to release some of its documents to aid in our investigation.”
“They won’t,” she said. “I already asked.”
“Ask again.”
“What do you think you’ll find?”
“There should have been clues to your family in here. There are none. I find that very strange.” I picked up the ledger I was working on and glanced at it. “You know, we also lack correspondence. Didn’t your parents write letters?”
“That’s what secretaries are for,” Laura said with a smile.
“Not even your mother? No cards, no gifts, no long letters to friends?”
She shook her head. “Mother’s friends all lived in Chicago. There was no reason to send letters.”
“Give me the name of your father’s personal secretary. There are bound to be carbons.”
“All right,” I said. “Have them sent down.”
“If I can.”
“You will,” I said.
“You sound so certain.”
I smiled. “If you can’t, then I’ll have to get involved.”
“You can get them when I can’t?”
“Yes,” I said. The means wouldn’t be legal. They’d require lies I didn’t want to tell, impersonations I didn’t want to make. I’d do it, though, to get the records.
She took a deep breath and wiped her hands on her knees. The idea of me trying to get the records bothered her.
“I’ll get them,” she said.
“Good,” I said, and returned to my work. Or I tried to. But I found myself staring at numbers, wondering what else I was missing. Maybe my investigation was too traditional. Maybe it wasn’t traditional enough. Maybe the Hathaways weren’t hiding anything more than most rich people did, and I was too inexperienced to see it.
By afternoon, I was getting frustrated. I was about to say something when someone ran through the hallway. I stiffened, remembering the note. My gun was at home. I was casual about it. I hadn’t had much need for it since the service.
Laura looked up at me and my unease spread to her. She started to say something. I put my finger to my lips. There was a shadow in front of my door. Then someone knocked.
Laura jumped. I stood, and as I did, the door opened.
Jimmy peered in, and saw Laura.
I said, “Jimmy!” not wanting a repeat of the week before, but he ignored me and pulled the door closed. I could hear him run through the hallway again. I pulled open the door, and ran after him.
He was halfway down the stairs before I was able to reach him. “Jimmy! Stop!”
He turned, paused for a moment, and grabbed the handrail.
“You wanted to see me,” I said, hurrying down the steps.
He shook his head. “Ain’t nothing.”
“It’s something. Now come where we can talk.”
“You got one of them city people in your office.” He meant one of the city government workers. I didn’t know how he pegged Laura for one of them, except that she was white.
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