Mystery: The Best of 2001

by Jon L. Breen

  We all stared at him. Even Ray looked shocked. Carol’s mouth was open. I think mine was too.

  Ray recovered first. “Who’d he murder?”

  “Don’t know, exactly,” Carl admitted reluctantly, “but I heard Dad say that Porchek was taking a real risk coming back for Christmas. Dad said somebody would see him and recognize him. Then all that stuff about the murder would get stirred up and be in the papers again.” Carl sat back, looking very satisfied. “I heard him say that.”

  “Well, who’d he murder?” Ray repeated.

  “I don’t know,” Carl said. “But I bet it was somebody important, like the mayor, or somebody.”

  I recovered. “That’s stupid. It’s all stupid. If he was a murderer, he wouldn’t come to visit on Christmas.”

  “Well, Dad said he shouldn’t come,” Carl said. “And Mom said . . .” He paused. “Mom said that we couldn’t stop him. She said we shouldn’t have let him go in the first place.”

  Carol piped up. “What’s that mean?”

  “Well,” Carl said, leaning forward again, “I think Porchek’s a mafia guy and . . .”

  “What’s a mafia guy?” Carol said.

  “A gangster, stupid,” Carl said. “I’ll bet Porchek did a hit and then left town.”

  “Why would he leave town?” Ray asked.

  “Because he hit the mayor or somebody big like that. He couldn’t stay in town after that. The whole family would have been in trouble.”

  I’d heard enough. “You’re crazy,” I said.

  “I am not. You’re just moony over a murderer,” Carl said.

  I dropped Silas Marner, jumped up, and leapt on Carl, banging his chest with my fists. He was so shocked he fell over.

  Ray pulled me off him. “You’re the crazy one,” he said, glancing over toward Larry who, thankfully, was busy slicing some luncheon meat.

  I struggled to get at Carl again. I hadn’t finished with him.

  “Stop it,” Ray said, holding me by the arms. “Or I’ll tell Mom.”

  That stopped me, but I could see that Ray was looking at me with newfound respect. “All right,” I said. “But you,” looking at Carl, “better not say anything about Mr. Porchek again.”

  Carl hadn’t yet recovered from his shock.

  “C’mon, Carol,” I said, looking scornfully at Carl, “we’ve got better things to do.”

  Carol rose.

  I looked down at Silas Marner lying at my feet. A big bubble rose from my stomach into my throat. I remembered Mom saying that we weren’t to talk about Mr. Porchek to anybody.

  When I got home, I threw up the potato chips and jujubees.

  I brooded about Carl’s story for weeks before Christmas. I considered talking to Ray about it, but I was afraid that Ray would just agree with Carl. So Ray and I avoided each other.

  Finally, a week before Christmas, helping Mom bake cookies, I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Mom,” I asked, “how come Aunt Catherine and Uncle Dick aren’t coming over for dinner this Christmas?”

  “Aunt Catherine isn’t feeling well.”

  It sounded a bit too pat for me. “Are they not coming because Mr. Porchek is?”

  Mother turned and looked at me. “What makes you think that, child?”

  I didn’t reply.

  Mother repeated her question, and I knew I wouldn’t get out of that kitchen until I gave her an answer. I debated various lies and evasions, but settled on the truth. “Something Carl said.”

  Mom put down the cookie cutter. This was serious. “What did he say?”

  I was in it now and there was no backing out. “He said Mr. Porchek . . .” I couldn’t get it out.

  “What?”

  “He said Mr. Porchek was a murderer.”

  Mother pulled in a deep breath. She went over to the dining table and gestured for me to join her.

  I expected her to tell me that Carl was a silly boy and that I shouldn’t pay any attention to him. She would vindicate Mr. Porchek.

  “Where did he hear that?” she said.

  I despaired. I felt like I’d been sent to the principal’s office. My teacher had told us that you would never mix up principle and principal if you remembered that the principal was your pal. But he wasn’t, not when you got sent to his office. I didn’t think Mother was a pal at that moment either.

  “He heard Aunt Catherine and Uncle Dick talking about it.”

  Mother nodded, as if she’d expected that would happen.

  “Is it true?” I asked.

  Mother put her fingers over her lips as if she were preventing something from slipping out. “You needn’t be afraid of Mr. Porchek,” she said finally. “Helen, sometimes people have to do certain things. It can’t be helped.”

  “Then he is a murderer,” I wailed.

  “Helen, do you know the difference between killing and murdering?”

  I shook my head. “Aren’t they the same?”

  “Do you remember when Father set the mouse traps in October and caught the mice?”

  I remembered it well. I’d named the little one “Tiny” and cried for an hour when Tiny got executed. Ray had scoffed. “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, Father didn’t want to kill the mice, but he had to. He had to protect us.”

  “From Tiny?” I said.

  Mother smiled. “Even Tiny could carry diseases. So Father had to do it, to protect you.”

  “So who was Mr. Porchek protecting?”

  Mother hesitated. “All of us,” she said finally.

  I thought about that. “Did he kill the mayor?”

  Mother’s eyes widened. “What in the world gave you that idea?”

  “Carl said so.”

  Mother smiled. “You mustn’t believe everything you hear from Carl. Remember, Carl does not know what happened. What happened happened years ago when Carl was small. Nor is there any reason for all of this to be raked up. Mr. Porchek is our honored guest. We must treat him as such, for he deserves to be honored.”

  That was enough for me. I figured Carl to be a jerk, but I didn’t tell Mother that. She would have objected.

  So Mr. Porchek came as our honored guest for another Christmas and he brought me a second king, this one Caspar, carrying his golden urn of frankincense for the child. I put Caspar on my dresser, wondering if there would be a third.

  Mr. Porchek was as gracious as he had been three years ago. He talked and laughed more this time, telling us all about the train ride from Chicago, where he was living, and all about the waves that battered the shore when winter winds roiled up Lake Michigan.

  But he still had an air of sadness and loneliness about him, and my heart still beat faster when he kissed my hand.

  Two winters later, I did a report on Silas Marner and got an A.

  There was a third king when I was twelve and Mr. Porchek was our honored guest again. He had aged; his hair was whiter and he put on glasses when he read the Christmas message I had written for him. But he seemed happier that Christmas, and I, having fallen in love with the neighbor’s son, who owned a spiffy new Mustang convertible, did not feel too betrayed when I learned that he was going to marry a widow with two children. Mother said he deserved happiness more than anyone she knew.

  Mr. Porchek did not come our to Wigilia again. Aunt Catherine, looking more and more frail, returned with Uncle Dick, who grew more and more terse. Each Christmas I sat across from him, watching him eat more and more horseradish, and liking him less and less. He, after all, was the one who had first revealed, however inadvertently, that Mr. Porchek was a murderer.

  Each year Mr. Porchek sent a little wooden card, like a thin piece of veneer, on which he had carved a scene: Lake Michigan with snow on its edge and the bright light of a star shining on its waters; a tall building with a Christmas tree in front of it; a lonely peasant gathering wood from a snowy field.

  I wondered if he was happy with his wife and adopted children. I asked Mother, and she said she thought he was. I
never asked her again about his tragedy and we never spoke of it.

  The years passed. I didn’t think much about Mr. Porchek anymore, except at Christmas when, faithfully, a little wooden scene would arrive. I would always write a thank-you note to the Chicago address. When I was older I thought of going to Chicago to visit Mr. Porchek, but somehow time escaped me, and I never went. I was busy with my life and the events of my childhood seemed insignificant and the old customs quaint but irrelevant. I did not see him again until the day of my Aunt Catherine’s wake.

  She had succumbed to congestive heart failure. As she had grown more and more ill, Uncle Dick had grown more and more withdrawn, devoting himself to taking care of her. At the wake, he looked small and lost. I didn’t dislike him anymore.

  Father had helped him with the funeral arrangements and the day of the wake, Mother and I were baking some dishes for Carl, Carol, and Uncle Dick so they would not have to worry about food after the funeral.

  “Mr. Porchek is coming,” Mother announced in the same solemn voice she had used twenty-two years ago.

  “I wondered if he would,” I said. “Aunt Catherine is his sister, after all.”

  “Indeed she is.”

  “Mother,” I asked, thinking about those Christmases with Mr. Porchek. “Why has he stayed away all these years?”

  “I suspect,” Mother answered, “that he found some happiness at last. He didn’t want to return to a place where . . .”

  She paused.

  “Where he had known tragedy?”

  Mother looked at me. “You never asked again.” It was a question.

  “No,” I said. “I guess I’d imagined and believed my own story about what happened.”

  Mother waited.

  “I imagined that he’d killed a real villain, someone who’d cheated poor widows or stole money from immigrants. Something from romantic literature.”

  Mother was silent for a moment. “You’re not far from right, Helen.”

  I put down the potato peeler and looked at Mother. It was my turn to wait silently.

  Mother was about to tell me the story when the back door opened and Father came in, shaking the rain from his hat. Mother fussed over him a bit for getting her clean floor, as well as his feet, wet.

  Father came over to sniff at our pot of stuffed cabbage. “For supper?” he asked.

  “For Dick and the kids,” Mother said, then relented before Father’s hangdog look. “But there’ll be plenty for you.”

  Father looked satisfied. He took a chair at the dining table and watched us.

  “Did you tell Dick that Martin was coming?” Mother asked.

  “I did,” Father said. “Dick said that it was too late.”

  “Too late for Aunt Catherine?” I asked.

  Father said nothing.

  I went to the dining room and took a seat across from Father. “Don’t you think it’s about time you told me the story of your brother?”

  Father looked at Mother, who nodded.

  “Perhaps it is, Helcia,” Father said, using the name Mr. Porchek had used and the name Father used when he wanted to express his love for me as his little girl. “Martin . . .” He stopped and looked at Mother.

  Mother came over and sat down. “I’ll tell her,” she said, “though she knows the heart of it. Martin killed a foreman in the mines,” she said. “You were not even a year old, and Carol had just been born. He was a terrible man. The foreman, I mean. He sent the men into dangerous parts of the mines. He made them mine much closer to the river than they should have. He fired men if they refused or complained. And he started fights with men. He was a big man, and they say he killed a man himself once.”

  “But Mr. Porchek is not a big man,” I protested. “How could he have killed this foreman? And why? Did the foreman attack him?”

  “That’s what the police believed happened,” Mother said. “You see, the men worked in teams in the mines, and Chester Maliak, that’s the foreman, complained that Martin and your Uncle Dick were afraid to begin loading the coal cars until all the dust settled from the explosive devices they used to blast out the coal.”

  “They were right to wait,” Father said. “That’s how the men got black lung. Lungs full of coal dust.”

  “And so this foreman attacked Mar . . . Mr. Porchek?” I said, incredulous.

  “This was the coal mines,” Father said quietly. “Even in the fifties things were bad in the mines.”

  “I know, I know,” I said. I’d had plenty of friends whose fathers sat in chairs coughing up black phlegm. I’d always been thankful that Father had not worked in the mines. “But why did the police think Mr. Porchek killed the foreman? Did anybody see the attack?”

  “No,” Mother said. “But the police suspected Martin because he admitted that while Uncle Dick had been preparing more explosives in the upper tunnel, he himself had been working in a part of the tunnel where Mr. Maliak was found.”

  “But,” I protested, “just because . . .”

  Father interrupted, putting his hand on mine. “The police found a lunch bucket in the tunnel not far from the body. Martin admitted that it was his. Of course, it was only normal to have his lunch bucket where he was working. But, then, in another tunnel, the police found the coal shovel Maliak had been struck with. It was one of Martin and Dick’s.” Father paused.

  “Was Mr. Porchek arrested?” I asked.

  “No,” Father said. “You see, no one could prove that Martin had been using that shovel. Anyone could have taken it in the morning. So there was no arrest.”

  “But then, why did he go away?” I asked, almost crying, twenty years of sensing injustice welling up from me.

  “For the family,” Father said. “He felt that everyone would forget sooner if he left.”

  “But why did you let him go?” I said to Father.

  Father flushed. He looked at me squarely. “He would not hear otherwise than to go. He had honor and pride. He did not want the children of the family to grow up under a shadow.”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry. I should have known that. I did know it. I mean . . .” I felt overwhelmed.

  Mother put a hand on my shoulder. “We must get ready for the wake,” she said. “We should be there when he comes to the funeral parlor.”

  I didn’t know if she meant Uncle Dick or Mr. Porchek. But I wanted to be there for Mr. Porchek. He was important to me again, more important than the lawsuits and negotiations.

  An hour later, we sat before Aunt Catherine’s coffin at Jendreski’s Funeral Home. Uncle Dick, sitting between Carol and Carl, was pale and forlorn. I felt sorry for him, but my deepest compassion went to Carl and Carol, and my fullest concern was for Mr. Porchek. Every time the door to the funeral parlor opened, I turned, anticipating his entry. I wanted to go to him, to tell him that I still had all his wondrous gifts.

  At seven, he entered.

  He shook hands with the funeral director and gave that slight bow of the head that always made him seem so much to belong to an older world and an older and more courteous time. He walked into the viewing room, and I stood up.

  He smiled and mouthed my name, “Helcia.” He had on a blue pin-striped suit with his usual vest and a light blue shirt that made his blue eyes even bluer. His hair was a thick silver-gray. He was stooped, but steady when he walked.

  I couldn’t move. I just stood there, as struck by the whole Old World romance of his being as I had been twenty-two years ago.

  He came over, lifted my hand, and kissed it.

  “Hello, Mr. Porchek,” I said.

  Mother heard and turned. He kissed her hand, then tilted his head, looking at the coffin. “Catherine,” he said, “Catherine.”

  Dad heard, came over, took Mr. Porchek by the arm, and guided him to the coffin. I followed and stood behind Dad and Mr. Porchek.

  Mr. Porchek blessed himself at the coffin, knelt, and prayed. Then, he rose and touched Aunt Catherine’s hand lightly. “Rest in peace,” I heard him say. Then h
e turned to Uncle Dick. He held out his hand. “It is all past now,” he said.

  Uncle Dick looked up and nodded. He took Mr. Porchek’s hand, held it for a moment, then released it.

  Dad led Mr. Porchek to a chair.

  I followed and sat on his right, letting Dad talk with his brother. But I was impatient and tense. I wanted my Mr. Porchek to myself. Finally, I cleared my throat several times. Mother, sitting in front of us, turned, looked at me, then told Dad that she wanted to talk to him in the outer room. I made a mental note to take her out to her favorite restaurant.

  Mr. Porchek and I talked for forty-five minutes. I told him that I still had his gifts. He told me how he had carved them. We talked about my career and my travels and his stepchildren and wife.

  Then I asked if I could come to visit. He urged it, smiling and nodding and, in a slanted script, wrote down his telephone number and his address.

  Someone put a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Dad. Concerned that his brother looked tired, Dad urged him to come home and rest from his journey, as the funeral the next day would probably prove taxing. Mr. Porchek agreed. He went up to the coffin again, talked to Carl and Carol, under my watchful eye, then gave something to Carol. I learned later that it was a picture of himself and Aunt Catherine as children. In the picture, he had an arm round his little sister and she was looking up at him with an unconditional worship I recognized immediately.

  The funeral went by in a blur of candles, prayers, hymns, and relatives, few of whom I paid any attention. I hovered over Mr. Porchek, seeing to it that he sat with the family, ate properly, and wore his coat at the windy gravesite.

  I did not wait many days after the funeral before I went to the library. I didn’t think that I would find anything, but I had to look. The librarian helped me dig out the yellowed issues of the Times Dispatch from twenty-eight years ago.

  I piled them on the table, pulled up my chair, and picked up the first one. FOREMAN KILLED. The first article gave a straightforward rendering of the events, with somewhat more colorful language than a newspaper would use today: Foreman Maliak succumbed at Mercy Hospital at six. His family had gathered round his deathbed for their final sorrowful goodbyes. Chester Maliak never regained consciousness from the dastardly and deadly blow that had been delivered to his head. His attacker remained unknown.