My Life Before Me

by Norah McClintock

  “Because he had no authority?” I asked. “Because it was out of his jurisdiction?”

  “That wasn’t it. He could have done whatever he wanted and asked forgiveness afterward. He wouldn’t have had trouble getting it either. No, the problem was that he hadn’t bargained on Jane.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The story is that after Lorne threatened her, Jane took him aside for a brief conversation. Apparently, she did most of the talking. When she was finished, Lorne walked out of the place. I don’t think he ever went back. I’m not even sure he kept the place on the patrol route.”

  “What did she say to him?”

  “That is the question, isn’t it? As far as I know, there are only two people who know the answer—Jane and Lorne. And neither one of them, to my knowledge, ever revealed the content of that particular conversation.”

  “What do you think she said?”

  “My guess—she probably told him that if he ever wanted to see her again, he’d better back off and let her have her fun. She came down again the next summer, and that was it. She never came back again. Maybe Lorne went up to Connecticut to visit her. If he did, he never told me about it. And, as I already told you, she didn’t invite her father to her wedding.”

  “Does she know he’s in a nursing home?”

  “I expect so. She still has a few friends down here. But she’s never visited him, to my knowledge. Neither has Lorne’s granddaughter. My guess is she’d be about your age. I know for a fact that Jane told Roger Whiteside—he’s a lawyer, does a lot of wills and estates work—that she doesn’t care what’s in his will; she has no interest in anything that belongs to her father. His house was sold. Most of his stuff was either auctioned off or given away. The money’s just sitting in a bank account somewhere. He’s got a hunting cabin in the woods. Nice piece of lake-side property. She’ll probably sell that too, if she hasn’t already, and the proceeds will go into the same bank account. Roger has to keep his own counsel. But his wife overheard a conversation between Jane and Roger. Says she couldn’t help overhearing it—it was more of a shouting match, really. Jane told Roger that when the time comes, she’s going to give what’s left of her father’s estate to the NAACP. You heard of them?”

  They were in the newspaper a lot. They were a civil rights organization—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

  “She said that would be sure to make him turn over in his grave, and she liked the idea of that.” He shook his head. “No, sir. If you ask me, he never should have let Sally take that girl. It just turned her against him.”

  I sipped the rest of my iced tea and wondered. Finally I asked, “Did you know Ellie Chisholm?”

  The question seemed to hit him like a stray ball from left field.

  “You mean John Chisholm’s daughter?”

  I nodded.

  “What about her?”

  “What do you know about her?”

  Mr. Standish’s eyes narrowed. “You ask a lot of questions, and I have no idea where some of them come from. What do you know about Ellie Chisholm?”

  “I know she liked to go to the same roadhouse as Jane Beale.”

  “So you already heard about the place.”

  “I know that she went to a private school too. Were she and Jane friends?”

  “They probably knew each other. But they didn’t go to the same school. Ellie stayed in state. What does Ellie have to do with this?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

  He shook his head. “Well, if you want to know anything about her, I’m afraid you’ll have to ask someone else. But good luck. John Chisholm is an important man around here. He employs a lot of people. He’s friendly enough, but he doesn’t like to get overly familiar with people. He also likes to keep his private life to himself.”

  “I heard Ellie was awfully young when she died. Was she sick?”

  “I heard it was an accident. I think she was away at school at the time. More than that, I don’t know.”

  It didn’t surprise me. There seemed to be a lot of secrets in this town. It reminded me of Hope. On the one hand, most people knew most other people by sight and probably also knew where they worked, if they were married or had kids, if they spent too much time at the local beer hall or the bingo, how well or poorly they dressed their kids. On the other hand, people were guarded, especially about what went on in their own homes. That was their business and no one else’s. At least, that’s what they strove for. No one wanted to live in a glass house. No one wanted their whole life on display for others to comment on or gossip about. People wanted to feel that they could be themselves once they closed their front doors. They wanted to be able to give in to their secret desires and longings, no matter how sad or pathetic or shameful others might judge those to be.

  I finished my drink and started to slide out of the booth.

  Mr. Standish laid a hand over mine to stop me.

  “I think it’s time for you to go back where you came from, young lady. I don’t think this is a good place for you.”

  He was deadly serious. Was he warning me? Was he threatening me? What exactly was going on? For sure it had something to do with Thomas Jefferson. That’s what had brought me down here. It’s what had gotten me into trouble with that mob. It may have been behind the fire. I was definitely getting the message that people—some people anyway—didn’t want me looking into Mr. Jefferson’s past. It made me more determined to find out what was going on.

  Maggie had left me a note. She was covering a council meeting in a nearby town and then had to attend a birthday party for a woman who was turning 102. She wouldn’t be back until suppertime. There was no one in the house, no guests other than Arthur, and I wasn’t sure about him because I hadn’t seen him in two days.

  I went downstairs to the morgue. This time I made a beeline for the file cabinets and looked up Chisholm. There were two files. One was as fat as a New York City phone book—or, at least, how I imagined a New York City phone book would look. It was a file on John Chisholm. The second was slender—Chisholm, Ellie. The only thing inside that one was an obituary, written out by hand. Ellie Chisholm had been nineteen when she died suddenly. It listed her accomplishments—head of her class all through school, member of her school basketball team, an excellent gymnast, cello player, member of her school yearbook committee, member of the debate club, editor of her school newspaper. A girl of many accomplishments. But there was no mention of how she died. No mention, even, of the accident that Mr. Standish said took her life.

  Maybe that meant something, and maybe it didn’t. I had nothing that tied Ellie Chisholm to Patrice LaSalle. She had flirted with him—all the girls had, according to Anne Morrison. Also according to Anne, Ellie had stopped going to the Rooster about the same time Patrice did. That could mean something, or it could mean nothing at all.

  But suppose it meant something.

  Suppose Ellie and Mr. LaSalle—Patrice—had stopped going to the Rooster at the same time because they wanted to be alone with each other. It was possible. But then, when you theorize without the benefit of any firm facts, almost anything is possible. The trick is finding out if it really happened. It was frustrating to think that Ellie Chisholm had known Patrice LaSalle better than most people but that it was impossible to ask her about him.

  Unless…

  Maybe she had confided in someone at home.

  Maybe she had confided in her father.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I GO TO THE BIG HOUSE

  IT WASN’T HARD to find out where John Chisholm lived. It was a lot harder to actually get there. And it took a lot longer than I would have wished—forty-eight minutes on Maggie’s bicycle, to be exact—because Mr. Chisholm lived on a large farm outside of town. It had a red barn just like in a picture book, three silos, and a pickup in the driveway. East of the barn, separated from the barnyard by a tight row of mature poplars, was a large square, white-clapboard house with a
red wraparound veranda and red gingerbread trim, its gabled windows gleaming in the afternoon sun, its lawn evenly mowed, its flower beds thick with blossoms. But the place looked deserted. The only person in sight was a man on a tractor at the far end of a field. He’d been made so small by distance that he looked like a toy man on a toy tractor. Was he Mr. Chisholm?

  I climbed the verandah steps and rang the doorbell. A black woman in a cotton dress and a crisp white apron asked me for my name and my business and told me to wait. I stood on the porch and looked around until she returned to inform me that Mr. Chisholm would see me. We walked through a cool marble-floored front hall, past a massive living room with rugged, overstuffed furniture, mostly in leather, past a billiards room with a bar at one end and plenty of chairs for spectators, past what looked like a den or an office, through a sun-filled kitchen and out onto the back verandah, where a silver-haired man in khaki pants and a short-sleeved white shirt was sitting with his newspaper and a glass of what looked like lemonade. He turned expectantly when the door to the verandah opened and inspected me with unconcealed curiosity when he saw me. But, like a gentleman, he got to his feet and put a smile on his face.

  “Miss Andrews, is it?” He extended his hand. “John Chisholm. Please sit and tell me what I can do for you.” To the woman: “Alice, please get some lemonade for Miss Andrews. She looks parched.”

  A glass of frosty lemonade sounded like heaven. Even on a bike, the trip from town had been hot and dusty. The woman was back only seconds later with a glass that clinked with ice. I drank as much as I could get away with in polite company without appearing greedy. I hated to set down the glass unfinished, but Mrs. Hazelton had drilled certain ladylike practices into us. Never start eating before the host or hostess. Take small bites. Don’t slurp your soup or drink it directly from the bowl. Don’t gulp your milk (or lemonade). The whole time, Mr. Chisholm waited patiently and watched me with a bland face. But his eyes never left me, even when he reached for the silver cigarette case, buffed to a blinding finish, sitting on the small table between us. He took out a cigarette and lit it with a tabletop silver-and-crystal lighter, the kind that people display proudly on a shelf or end table. His white shirt and crisp pants were spotless. His cream-and-tan shoes were buffed and mark-free. His hair was swept back from his forehead. His clean-shaven face was smooth and pinkish. And the house! The house stretched to either side of me and looked out over a freshly manicured lawn. At its farthest extremes were magnificent shade trees that must have been planted at least a century ago.

  “It’s about your daughter,” I said. There was a slight tremor in my voice. His wealth and standing in the community were intimidating.

  “That much I gathered from Alice,” he said. “But why are you interested in her? You didn’t know her, and she passed a long time ago.” He said it pleasantly, and if he looked perplexed, well, I understood.

  “I’m doing some research.”

  “On that murder, the one involving the colored serviceman. I know.” So he had heard about me. “But that doesn’t explain why you want to ask about my daughter.”

  He set down his cigarette, pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his eyes.

  “Excuse me.” He didn’t offer to explain, but he didn’t have to. Not only had a stranger turned up uninvited at his house, but that stranger—me—was asking about a painful past. He had already been a widower when his daughter died. Because of that, I felt I owed him an explanation.

  But what could I say? Where should I start? The part about why I was writing the story? The part about me being an orphan? The part about Mrs. Hazelton and her envelopes? And what if Ellie Chisholm had been like Anne Tyler? What if she’d sneaked down to the Rooster and her father never suspected? What if, after mourning her for so long, imagining her in all her perfection, I told him something that marred that picture? How much would he hurt then?

  Mr. Chisholm gazed out over his magnificent lawn.

  “She was a quiet girl,” he said. “Like her mother. Sweet too. Always considerate of others. I sent her away to a school with the nuns. To keep her safe.”

  His eyes seemed fixed on a point in the distance, as if it were the exact location of the piece of history he was telling me now.

  “It was the same school her mother went to. It’s not far from here, but far enough that she stayed there most weekends and engaged in wholesome activities, unlike so many youngsters around here at the time. I was going to send her to Switzerland, to a finishing school, but that didn’t happen.”

  He turned to look at me.

  “I’ve wondered many times over the years if I shouldn’t have kept her at home. Family tradition is well and good, but at the end of the day, all it meant is that I hardly ever saw her. My most enduring memories of her are as a little girl, before she left for school. It wasn’t until after she died that I realized I’d never gotten to know her as the fine young lady she was becoming.”

  “I’m sorry.” I really was. I thought of leaving it at that. You bet I did. How do you ask a man if his sainted daughter, his nun-reared darling, associated with the victim of the first and last murder case in decades? Believe it or not, that’s when Nellie flashed into my mind. I thought about all the things she had done, all the questions she had asked, all the people she had tracked down and interviewed, all with one purpose: to get the story.

  I drew in a deep breath. “Sir, do you know if your daughter was friendly with a man named LaSalle?”

  “LaSalle?” He shook his head. “The only LaSalle I know—and even then I can’t say that I knew the man—was the fellow they found in the river. The one who was murdered. I can’t remember his given name.”

  “It was Patrice. He’s the person I mean.”

  Mr. Chisholm frowned. “My Ellie had nothing to do with him. She would never have had anything to do with a murder victim.” He made it sound as if the victim were every bit as reprehensible as the killer.

  “She never mentioned his name?”

  “Not that I recall. Certainly not.”

  I took another sip of lemonade to be polite and then stood up.

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you, sir.”

  “Is that it?” His voice rose in surprise. “Is that all you wanted to know?” Suddenly he was on his feet, towering over me. His pink cheeks had turned red. “Who are you doing this research for? Who’s paying you? Why are you asking about my daughter?”

  “I just—” I just what? Liked sticking my nose into other people’s business and stirring up painful memories?

  “My daughter died tragically young.” He stepped a half pace closer to me, crowding me, but I couldn’t make myself step back. “I spent a lifetime building a business so that I could give her everything she needed. She wanted for nothing, and I intended to keep it that way. Then she died. She’d just turned nineteen. She was a child. My baby girl.”

  Every reflex I had was telling me to leave, immediately, that I never should have come here and upset this man. But I was overawed by the size and opulence of his home. Should I go back the way I had come, through the house? Or would that get me into more trouble? Should I flee across the lawn? I couldn’t tell for sure, but a garage seemed to be blocking one side, and flower beds the other.

  Mr. Chisholm settled the matter. He picked up a bell; it looked like a schoolteacher’s bell, the kind that Mrs. Hazelton rang to assemble us, except it was silver. He shook it and, like a genie in a puff of smoke, Alice appeared.

  “Please see Miss Andrews out,” Mr. Chisholm said.

  Alice looked disapprovingly at me. It was clear that I had upset her employer. I wanted to apologize to Mr. Chisholm, but I couldn’t find words that seemed adequate for the job. I fell into step beside Alice. She marched me through the kitchen, down the hall and to the big front door. I thought about explaining to her what had happened. But suddenly we were at the door. Alice held it open for me, her stance making it clear that she was in a hurry to close it again.

  T
he ride back to town seemed longer and hotter than the ride to Mr. Chisholm’s farm, and I berated myself for not drinking all of the lemonade before leaving. I couldn’t help but wonder how the others from the Home were doing. Had any of them followed their clues to a living, breathing parent? Had any of them had a joyous reunion? Did they like what they’d found out? Were they glad they’d looked? Even if they were, that didn’t mean that I would be. And what good did it do to think about that anyway? Take off your orphan hat, I told myself, and put on Nellie Bly’s bonnet. Think, Cady. What are the facts as you know them?

  I had more questions than answers.

  All files relating to the arrest and prosecution of Thomas Jefferson were missing. By all files, I meant all the newspaper files and all the police files, except for the photos that were delivered to me at Maggie’s house. I couldn’t prove it, but the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that it was the cleaning woman from the sheriff’s office who had brought them. But where had she found them if all the files were destroyed in the flood back in 1949?

  Then there were the photos themselves. They suggested a different story from the one I had been told. They made it clear that Mr. LaSalle’s body wasn’t anchored to the pulley with rope. It was attached by cable. Cable doesn’t rot or get nibbled by fish or fray to the point of breaking as a result of rubbing against rocks in a river. Whoever put that cable around Patrice LaSalle before they dumped him into the river wanted him to stay hidden in the depths, not float to the surface. The other thing about the cable: I didn’t see how it could have been broken, not the way it looked. The photos showed a neat cut, not a ragged break. Someone must have cut that cable. But who? And why? And why did everyone insist that the body had been held in place by rope?

  What about the confession? The only person who had supposedly heard it was Sheriff Beale. And even though the sheriff couldn’t produce a signed confession in court and, more important, even though Mr. Jefferson insisted he had never confessed, the judge allowed the sheriff’s testimony about it to be admitted as evidence against Mr. Jefferson. Maybe Mr. Jefferson’s lawyer had done his best to present his case, but from what Daniel had told me, it didn’t sound like it. If I could have read the trial transcript, I would have known exactly what had been said and by whom. But the transcript, like everything else, was missing. Without it, I had no way of knowing how impartial—or not—the trial had been.