Grave Designs

by Michael A. Kahn

  2:15 a.m., Thursday

  I flipped through the rest of the personals. Nothing else. I shuddered, thinking back on Springer’s strange booklet.

  I turned back to the personals message for Canaan. Addison-N?

  I walked to the back door. A procrastinating recycler, I had months and months and months of old Readers, Tribunes, and New Yorkers stacked on my landing. I started with the three-foot pile of Readers, opening each issue to the personals section. Then I turned to the Tribunes, scanning the personals in the classified advertisements section. By the time I was finished my eyes were smarting and my fingers were black with newsprint. Newspapers were strewn all over the back landing.

  I had found two other Canaan messages from the past two weeks, and none before that. One was in last week’s Reader:

  Canaan 4: Washington

  1:30 a.m., Monday

  and the other was in a Tribune from eleven days back:

  Canaan 6: Jefferson

  3 a.m., Saturday

  I was in bed and almost asleep when the Canaan personals became clear. “My God,” I mumbled as I sat up in bed.

  “Washington, Jefferson, Addison,” I recited out loud. Of course. They were all el stops. Each message had an el stop, a time, and a day. Addison-N. The Addison stop, north platform. Two-fifteen a.m., Thursday. Tonight was Wednesday night. I checked the digital clock radio. It was no longer Wednesday. It was 1:04 a.m., Thursday.

  Was something going to happen on the northbound platform at the Addison el station in one hour and eleven minutes?

  I rolled on my side, facing the clock radio. I watched the digital numbers blink to 1:06, 1:07, 1:08. I thought it over. It was too late to call anyone. And who could I call, anyway. Paul? Not yet. Maybe never. Benny? Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not his case, anyway. 1:10. 1:11. You aren’t going to pass this one up, are you? Just because it’s the middle of the night and you don’t have anyone to go with you? But I do, I told myself. I sat up and stared at Ozzie. 1:13. 1:14.

  “Come on, Ozzie,” I finally said, pulling back the sheet and getting out of bed. “We’re going for a train ride.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I pulled on a pair of baggy, paint-stained jeans and an old sweatshirt. Rummaging through my dresser drawer for a suitably drab scarf, I found a perfect one (beige with aquamarine flowers), and tied it snugly over my hair. Then I put on my torn high-top basketball shoes and laced them up. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. A real Mata Hari. I put an old pair of sunglasses in the back pocket of my jeans and stuffed four ten-dollar bills and three one-dollar bills into one of the front pockets—enough for subway fare and, if necessary, a long cab ride.

  “Let’s go, Ozzie,” I said.

  I stopped in the kitchen and took Ozzie’s leash off the hook in the pantry. He was already at the front door, wagging his tail. I patted him on the head. “You’re a seeing-eye dog tonight, big guy.”

  We walked down the empty streets to the Morse el station. The door was propped open to ease the heat. We stopped in the shadows near the door. I fastened the leash on Ozzie and wound the leash around my hand until it was just about eighteen inches long. I slipped on the sunglasses. We could pass if no one looked closely. My heart was pounding.

  An unshaven man in a rumpled raincoat lumbered past us.

  I waited outside the station until he was a half block away, and then I took a deep breath. “Okay, Ozzie,” I whispered. “Let’s pretend we know what we’re doing.”

  I walked slowly into the station and up to the ticket booth. A bearded young man was sitting in the booth, bent over what looked like an electronics textbook. I slid a dollar bill into the slot. He looked up and smiled. I kept my face blank. He leaned forward and saw Ozzie.

  “Uh, would you care for a transfer, ma’am?” He spoke loudly and slowly.

  “No, thank you.” My voice sounded two octaves above normal.

  “Here is your change, ma’am.”

  I slid my hand down the glass to the slot and picked up the dime.

  “Are you going south or north?” he asked.

  “South.”

  “Go up the stairs. They are about twenty feet ahead of you. The southbound train is to your left when you reach the top of the stairs.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Come on, Ozzie.”

  We squeezed through the turnstile and walked slowly to the stairs. I held Ozzie close to my side with the leash as we went up the stairs to the platform. Fortunately, it was empty. I slid the glasses down low on my nose and we waited. It was 1:33 a.m. At 1:35 I almost turned back. I could feel a drop of sweat trickle down my back.

  At 1:30 a southbound train rumbled into the station. Using my hands, I found the door to the first car and stepped in, keeping Ozzie close. Tentatively, slowly, I walked to the front of the car. There were four people in the car: an old man in a tattered shirt and baggy pants mumbling in his sleep; a middle-aged chunky Latino, four rows ahead of the old man, staring blankly out the window; and the two black teenagers, two rows ahead of the Latino, laughing and shoving each other.

  The teenagers turned to stare at Ozzie and then at me as we passed by. I sat down on the front seat next to the motorman’s enclosed compartment, pretending to stare into space. I pressed my hands against my knees to keep them from shaking.

  The doors rattled shut and the train lurched forward into the darkness. The train rocked and creaked as it rounded the gentle bend south of Morse and picked up speed. I was facing the front window of the train. An oasis of light became visible in the darkness down the wide band of tracks. The lights grew brighter and gradually resolved into the Loyola station. I turned my head slightly, keeping my face blank. Three people got on: an old man with the jagged walk and unfocused gaze of a mental retardate; a young black dude in an orange jumpsuit; and his woman, teetering on spike heels. The dude wore sunglasses, too, and was carrying a portable stereo the size and shape of a communications satellite. The two of them—the dude and his woman—sat down near the back and soon the car was reverberating with reggae music.

  A man with a gray lunch box boarded at Granville. The dude and his woman got off at Lawrence. At the Wilson Station a swaying drunk on the opposite side of the platform was urinating onto the tracks. He lurched forward, almost toppling over the edge as the train pulled out. One of the black teenagers ran to an open window facing the platform and shouted, “Watch out, fool!” His friend burst into laughter, and they slapped each other five.

  The train squealed around the curve at Sheridan/Irving Park and pulled into the Addison Station. Holding Ozzie against my side, I groped down the aisle. When we stepped out onto the empty platform, it was 2:03 a.m. I waited until the train pulled out of the station. Raising my sunglasses, I quickly walked down the stairs with Ozzie, across the screened cat-walk, and up the stairs to the northbound platform. It was empty too.

  I looked down the snarl of train tracks converging in the distance on the Belmont station. No train. Across the el tracks at Addison the gray outline of Wrigley Field loomed above the southbound platform.

  What was I doing here? I’m a lawyer, not a detective. I should leave mysteries to Paul.

  A CTA bus rumbled along Addison Street below the platform, its air brakes hissing. A police siren wailed in the night—the noise grew louder and louder and then suddenly shut off. The eerie silence was broken by the rasp of heavy footsteps coming up the metal stairs. I turned toward the noise, trying to keep my face blank. I pulled Ozzie closer.

  A dark-haired man had reached the top stair. He was wearing khaki workpants and a black T-shirt. He paused, looking at Ozzie and then at me, and stepped out onto the platform. He took up his position about ten yards north of where I was standing. He was a large man with shiny black hair slicked straight back.

  We stood there in silence. My sweatshirt was soaked through with perspiration. Ozzie had turned toward t
he man, his leash taut. Ozzie looked at me and then back at the stranger. I stared straight ahead and the man peered south down the tracks. He had his hands in his pockets and was going up and down on his toes.

  I caught the headlights in my peripheral vision before I actually heard the approaching train. As the train slowed, the man walked down the platform toward the front door. Then it happened, so quickly I almost missed it. The train doors opened, the man reached inside, and someone handed him a large manila envelope. The man turned in my direction, holding the envelope, and walked quickly back down the platform to the stairs.

  I took two steps toward the train door, as if I were boarding, and then backed away as the man disappeared down the stairs. I waited until the train began moving out of the station, and then I pulled off my glasses. “Come on, Ozzie.”

  We ran down the stairs and pushed through the turnstile. The man was sitting in a gray Ford station wagon parked in front of the el station. I leaned against the wall, keeping Ozzie close. I was panting. The man was reading something from the manila envelope in the light of the street lamps. Then he started the engine and pulled away.

  I ran out in the street. The station wagon was heading east toward Lake Shore Drive. There was a Yellow Cab parked beneath a street lamp, its engine idling. I jumped in with Ozzie.

  “Follow that car!” I said, pointing to the station wagon that was now two blocks away.

  The cabbie chuckled as he gunned the engine. “Lady, I’ve been waiting twenty years for someone to say those words. Hang on.”

  ***

  We caught up with the station wagon at the Irving Park entrance to Lake Shore Drive and followed him up the northbound ramp onto the drive.

  “Your boyfriend?” the cabbie asked, studying my outfit in the rearview mirror.

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “Follow that car,” he repeated, grinning. He was about fifty years old—short, balding, and chubby. The nails on his stubby fingers were bitten to the quick. His name and photograph were on the license over the meter: Louis M. Farina.

  “I once had Red Buttons in this cab,” he said, removing an unlit, chewed cigar from his mouth. “A regular guy, that Buttons.” He swung the cab into the far left lane following the station wagon.

  We followed the station wagon to the end of Lake Shore Drive, where it turned right and sped down Sheridan Road through the canyon of high-rise apartment buildings. It turned onto Devon Avenue and then right onto Western Avenue. We followed the station wagon north on Western and pulled in behind it at the stoplight at Western and Pratt avenues. The huge hot dog on top of Flukey’s was dark. The streets were empty. The light turned green and the station wagon pulled ahead on Western. He put on his turn signal as he passed Morse and then turned left at Lunt.

  “Give him room,” I said as we drove past Indian Boundary Park. “I don’t want to spook him.”

  “Gotcha,” the cabbie said. He turned off his headlights.

  The station wagon turned right, drove along the boundary of the park, and then turned right again into the dead-end street behind the park.

  “Don’t turn,” I said. “Let’s wait right here.”

  We sat at the corner and watched the station wagon ease into a parking spot at the end of the street across from the park.

  “Wait here for me,” I said, opening the door.

  “You sure you want to go out there alone?”

  “I won’t be alone.” My heart was pounding. “C’mon, Oz.”

  Indian Boundary Park is one of Chicago’s nicer small parks. It has tennis courts, a playground, a big sprinkler, a duck pond, and a mini-zoo that includes goats, rabbits, ducks, geese, two long-legged wolves, a raccoon, and two black bears. I had taken Katie and Ben there a few times this summer. The kids would feed the goats, go on the playground, go under the big sprinkler in their underwear, and end their day at the Baskin-Robbins up the street.

  I jogged down the sidewalk past the tennis courts and the backs of the animal cages; Ozzie kept pace at my side. Slowing to a walk at the green chain-link fence enclosing the wolf run, I cut down the path between the wolves’ cages and the fenced-in goat and bunny area.

  The light inside the station wagon blinked on as the man opened the car door. I crouched by the goats to watch. The man walked around the far side of the goat yard toward the deserted playground, which was illuminated by a single lamppost. I crept closer and stopped against a tree. Ozzie growled at the animal scent.

  The man walked past the swings and the jungle gym to the large Cinderella pumpkin carriage, which glowed orange in the dim light. The same carriage I had helped Katie and Ben climb on dozens of times on Sunday afternoons. He stopped in front of the carriage. I ducked back behind the tree as he slowly looked around in all directions.

  When I peered around again, he was reaching into the carriage. He pulled out what looked like a grocery bag and walked quickly back to the station wagon. Opening the back door of the station wagon, he set the bag down on the floor and closed the door. Then he got in, started the engine, and clicked on the headlights.

  By that time I was sprinting back along the path in front of the animal cages. I didn’t want him to spot us on the sidewalk. One of the bears scrambled to his feet as we passed his cage.

  Ozzie and I reached the edge of the park just as the station wagon pulled around the corner. I ducked behind the bushes, pulling Ozzie down, until the station wagon passed, and then we ran across the street to the cab. Farina had turned his cab around while he waited for me.

  “Good thinking,” I said as I hopped into the backseat.

  Farina started the cab and we were off down the street in pursuit. “I figured he’d have to come back this way,” he said. “I slumped down when he came by. He didn’t see nothing, lady.”

  We followed the station wagon back to Devon. He turned left on Devon and headed back toward the lake. Ozzie had his head out the window, panting in the humid breeze.

  “You ain’t with the CIA, are you?” Farina asked.

  “No, nothing like that. Let’s give him a lot of room,” I said. “I don’t want him to think he’s being followed.”

  The station wagon got back on Lake Shore Drive heading south. We followed the station wagon downtown. It turned off the drive and headed into the underground parking garage of Shore Drive Tower, where I had been with Cindi that morning.

  I shoveled a few ten-dollar bills at Farina, and then Ozzie and I hurried down the ramp to the door of the garage. I pushed the button on the wall and the garage door slid up and open with a grinding clatter.

  We found the station wagon one level down, parked in one of the visitors’ slots. It was empty and locked. The grocery bag was gone. We walked back up to the main level of the garage, and I tried the steel door into the building. Locked. There was a push-button combination security lock over the doorknob, like the dial panel on a push-button telephone. I tried a few random sets of numbers. Nothing.

  “Damn,” I muttered.

  We walked back down to the station wagon and I stared at the license plate, memorizing the number. Maybe he lived at Shore Drive Tower.

  I sat down with my back against one of the concrete columns, three rows away from the station wagon, screened from view by a Lincoln Continental. Ozzie rested his head on my lap. We’d wait and see if our quarry came back down.

  About an hour later one of the building security guards woke me up. I staggered to my feet. The station wagon was still there.

  “You’ll have to move on, lady. You and your dog.”

  I couldn’t think of a good explanation to offer as to why he had found me asleep in the garage at 4:30 a.m., or, moreover, why he should let me stay down there with my dog. Given my outfit—baggy jeans, sweatshirt, basketball shoes, and scarf—I doubt he would have believed me, anyway.

  “C’mon, Ozzie,” I said, and we left.


  Chapter Seventeen

  “Enjoy the book?” Paul Mason asked. We were both having pancakes and coffee at the Main Street Cafe in Evanston. It was 8:15, Thursday morning. I needed the coffee. Preferably intravenously.

  “Is it true?”

  Paul shrugged. “Probably only the dull parts. There was a Canaan, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1679. Its minister was Winthrop Marvell. And it did die out at the end of the seventeenth century, like dozens of other Massachusetts villages. The rest of the story, however, has never been confirmed. Most historians treat Springer’s booklet as pure fabrication.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Paul was wearing a dark blue Polo shirt and faded olive army pants. I had on a soft cotton blouse and a pleated skirt.

  “Because I graduated from Barrett College in 1976,” he said. “As I told you, if you attended Barrett College between 1950 and 1980, chances are you either took Henry Abbott’s course in Colonial American history or attended his lecture on Canaan, which was the high point of his course. He gave it in Plimpton Chapel, and hundreds of students used to sit in each year.”

  “What was the Canaan lecture?”

  “It was about the dangers of relying on secondary sources. Ambrose Springer’s booklet is a secondary source, which means it’s an interpretation or description of primary sources—diaries, letters, and the like. The point of Henry Abbott’s lecture was that you couldn’t write history by relying on secondary sources.”

  Paul smiled. “A basic lesson for beginning historians,” he continued, “but not exactly a titillating topic for a general audience. But Henry Abbott wasn’t a typical professor of history, if there is such an animal. He was an enormous, vigorous man, with thick bushy eyebrows and a walrus mustache. His Canaan lecture was mesmerizing. He presented it as a mystery story, with himself cast as the detective. Abbott started by telling Springer’s version of the Canaan lottery, including that little Colonel Shaw twist at the end—the suggestion of a lottery surviving through the centuries, operating in secret, controlling the destinies of millions of Americans. Marvelous fodder for college students.”