What made me think I could get anywhere working from the sidelines with a short to-do list?
Nothing. But since I’d generated the list, I might as well get started on it.
To-do lists, even when only mental, always gave me a false sense of accomplishment. It was my habit to congratulate myself on a job well done and treat myself to a break, as if I’d already started to carry out the action items.
That tendency was alive and well today. I gave myself a virtual pat on the back for straightening out all the threads of the past few days. Then I went to the kitchen, hoping Maddie was up and ready to distract me.
Maddie had started breakfast oatmeal for both of us. It didn’t seem that long ago that I’d put her in her high chair and blow on her cereal to cool it before putting the bowl in front of her. She’d had a sweet tooth then and showed it now as she set out the brown sugar and raisins to make the oatmeal slightly less healthy.
Like her mother, Maddie woke up bright, chipper, and ready to go, with not much transition between waking and sleeping. Richard was more like me in that he found it hard to let go of worries about the past and the future, making it difficult to fall asleep in the present.
“What’s the plan for today?” Maddie asked, collecting bowls from a shelf she couldn’t reach just a couple of months ago.
“What would you like to do?”
“I get to pick?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Really?” she asked, eyes wide, looking at me sideways as if she suspected a trick.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Can’t you think of anything?”
“Sure. But aren’t you going to try to get rid of me?”
I was relieved to see the makings of a grin as she scooped oatmeal from the pan into two bowls.
“Sweetheart, how can you say such a thing?”
She set the pan down and hugged me as we both shook with laughter.
Sadly, it had crossed my mind that leaving Maddie for an hour or so would give me a window to visit the factory today. But her delight and surprise at not being pawned off, albeit to very friendly people who loved her, caused me to scratch that idea. What I needed more than anything was the delightful company of my granddaughter.
I’d told Maddie about the damage to Susan’s room box, though I’d kept the circumstances of the accident to myself.
After breakfast, therefore, Maddie’s choice was to head for the crafts room to work on the mini construction scene.
“I remember this,” Maddie said. “Mrs. Giles made it a long time ago.”
Here was another reminder of the different time perspective of children. Susan had constructed the box only about three months ago. But that represented a large percentage of an eleven-year-old’s short life. It would tire me to do the math to calculate the percentage of my life three months or even a year came out to be, but it seemed like the blink of an eye.
“I love the hard hats and the little lunch box,” she said, as she did last summer. We assembled the materials we’d need: wood glue, brown paint in various shades, tape to repair the damage to the Rosie the Riveter poster. We considered adding a little something extra to the scene, like a tiny half-peeled banana Maddie had bought at a crafts fair, but decided the best thing would be to simply restore the box to its original glory.
I looked at the makeshift workbench. It needed a little glue to stabilize it. The less-than-perfect paint job wasn’t the result of the accident, but, apparently, Susan’s haste as she prepared it. I wondered if she’d notice if I touched it up a bit—a further sign of my inability to stop intruding myself into other people’s projects.
He did the mash. He did the monster mash.
A call on my cell phone sent Maddie into giggles. I realized that although she was the phone’s official programmer, she hadn’t heard the ring as often as I had.
“I can’t wait to hear the next tune you subject me to,” I told her, knowing she liked a challenge. I imagined a tune with turkey lyrics for November, though I couldn’t think of any.
The caller ID told me Henry was on the line, if there were indeed any physical lines involved in these days of cyberspace.
We chatted about how nice the impromptu dinner party had turned out and agreed to do it again at his house.
“So you can cook,” he said.
I liked his humor.
“What are you doing today?” I asked.
“Do you need me to take Maddie?”
I was chagrined at the growing public perception of me. “No, no. I really just wanted to know how you were going to spend your day.”
Maddie came up in front of me. “Is that Mr. Baker?”
I covered the mouthpiece, if it was still called a mouthpiece. “Yes, sweetheart.”
“I wouldn’t mind going over there.”
Once my whole to-do list was complete, I was going to have to take stock of my merit as a friend and as a grandmother.
Not surprising, Taylor accompanied Henry when he came to pick up Maddie. He’d insisted that my time was more valuable. I doubted it.
“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this again,” I whispered to him as the girls buckled themselves into the backseat of his SUV. Maddie’s backpack was laden with a tin of ginger cookies, a bag of crackers and peanut butter, and a six-pack of juice boxes. The least I could do.
“I know you have a lot going on,” Henry said to me.
“Still . . .”
“I’m a very patient man, Gerry. I’m confident that one of these days we’re going to leave Taylor and Maddie with someone else and go off by ourselves.”
I felt my face flush but recovered in time to say thank you (or did I say okay?). I nodded my head in the direction of the girls and added, “I hope we don’t wait until they have their own driver’s licenses.”
Who said that? I turned my back and walked away before Henry could see my red face.
I seldom had the occasion to visit the neighborhood at the southernmost edge of town, the site of a failed attempt to establish an airport in Lincoln Point. Now the area of about one square mile was the home of a number of industrial buildings, almost all of them one-story, gray stucco with blue or green trim. The last I heard, the twins’ business was the production of small airplane parts. I saw from the signage that many more types of industries than those concerned with aviation were represented here. I passed by Valley Plumbing, Point Pest Control, and a slew of acronyms that were probably computer-related.
The streets in the district were named after personalities and events in aviation history. Amelia Earhart Parkway, Wright Brothers Boulevard, and Beryl Markham Thruway were among the main thoroughfares. Maybe they’d taken their cue from the founding fathers of Lincoln Point, who’d done a similar thing in the center of town, naming all the streets and landmarks after people and places in Abraham Lincoln’s life.
I followed the map I’d printed out, turning from Apollo Court to Zeppelin Drive to Neil Armstrong Lane, ending at 3636 Hangar Way, the address of the Ferguson twins’ factory. Their low-lying building was multiwinged (so to speak), surrounded by a neat lawn and an extensive parking lot.
The sprinkler keeping the grass green provided the only sound I heard.
I parked and walked toward the large glass double-door entrance, trying to remember why I’d thought it was so important that I come here. I hadn’t even bothered to find out if any of the Fergusons would be working today. I’d noticed quite a few cars, trucks, and vans as I’d driven through the neighborhood, but I hadn’t seen a single person once I’d arrived in the district. Although Maddie had the day off from school, this Monday wasn’t a statewide vacation day. For all I knew, however, it was Chuck Yeager’s birthday and all airplane-related industry was on holiday.
My to-do list came to mind. This trip was the action item for number three—to make some headway in the murder investigation of Oliver Halbert. When I made the list this morning, I’d felt all would fall into place if I could simply get to the bottom o
f the relationships among the twins, the deceased Oliver Halbert, and the architect Ken Porter. I wished I’d thought out just how I was going to accomplish that.
I wondered which wing Ken had worked on during the first remodel of the plant. I looked for signs of a fire and a second remodel, but the outside of the building was as smooth as if it had been planned this way from the start.
There was still time to turn back. I could call Henry and have him take Maddie and Taylor and meet them at Rosie’s Books for the children’s reading program she held every Monday. Certainly that would be a better use of my time.
“Well, well, well. Look who made her way to the edge of town.”
Too late.
Sam Ferguson stood on the threshold of the entryway to E&E Parts, the Ferguson twins’ operation.
I nearly lost my balance though I was standing on a perfectly level walkway. I recovered in time to stammer, “Good morning, Sam. I heard you were out here some days.” I thought how dumb I must have sounded.
“Oh, yes, we still keep it all in the family,” Sam said, standing in front of me as if he’d also been caught off guard. The moment threw me back to my days at Abraham Lincoln High School when I’d approach a group of my students in the hallway and get the distinct impression that they’d been talking about me. I wondered if I’d caught Sam and the rest of the family talking about me. Maybe Eliot and Lillian had prepared everyone to be on the alert when I came around.
“I’d forgotten how windy it gets out here,” I said, since he’d gone silent after that brief comment. I brushed my hair from my eyes but stopped short of telling him how I didn’t usually wear my hair this long and was due for a cut.
“Something I can help you with?” Sam asked. Sam was wearing what I thought of as a scarecrow outfit—jeans belted high on his waist, a red plaid shirt, and work shoes. When he started to rock back and forth on his heels, the association with farmland was magnified. I remembered that Sam was originally from Georgia. Was that farm country? Not since fifth grade had I known all the states’ capitals and major imports and exports.
Sam was missing only a straw hat to complete the image. And a bullet hole in the head, to be up to the minute with the news. I brushed away the memory.
Who killed Oliver Halbert and left him on your porch, Sam? I wanted to ask.
I settled on, “I’m cleaning out some of my husband’s things, and I came across the paperwork for the remodel out here. It made me want to see his handiwork.”
Sam smiled. He’d never seemed to me as wily as his wife. If he saw through me now, he wasn’t going to let it bother him.
“Maybe you’d like a tour,” he said.
I took a breath. “I’d love one.”
Chapter 14
Sam couldn’t help himself as we walked around E&E Parts. He was clearly proud of the operation, one of the last of the family-run factories in the county, he told me, chattering on about how respected his boys’ business was in the industry. And was I aware that the boys were no longer renters in the complex but now owned the factory building.
“They must be very hard workers,” I said, feeling that’s what Sam was fishing for.
The work area behind the offices had the feel of an airplane hangar that had been partitioned off and stocked with machinery. I thought how Henry would have enjoyed the setting, an expanded version of his own workshop. (I thought about Henry a lot lately.)
The floor was littered with sawdust, wood chips, and metal filings, all of which left the place smelling strangely clean. I was glad I’d worn closed-toe shoes with nonslip soles as Sam led me around oversize shop equipment and pointed out lathes, grinders, and band saws, some of which had workers in overalls in front of them, and all of which looked ominous.
I was almost relieved to see a bag of golf clubs and an industrial-size bucket full of nonthreatening mops and brooms in one corner. A coat hanger on a nearby hook held a voluminous black dress and cape, which could well have been the costume Eliot carried down the stairs during my visit with his mother—Lillian’s costume. I had the uncharitable thought that what seemed to be a witch’s outfit was not inappropriate for her. The fact that the costume was hanging next to the brooms only added to the image. Bags and boxes around the cleaning supplies held what looked like crepe paper, pumpkins, and the makings of a straw man.
I pointed to the decorations. “I see you’re getting ready for your Halloween party.”
“Oh, yes. You should come and bring your adorable little granddaughter. The only requirement is that you bring a decoration.”
“I think I can manage that,” I said, though I had no intention of having Maddie deal with the Fergusons too soon. I didn’t want to remind her of the crime scene that had begun our Halloween season, though it was on the opposite end of town from the factory.
“It’s all in adapting,” Sam said, back on track with the factory tour. “We started out strictly manufacturing, and we were going like gangbusters, but that first remodel was wishful thinking. We’d expected to grow a lot more, but then times got tough.” Sam shook his head, remembering a low point, it seemed. “So we got creative and switched to brokering.”
Brokering was a financial term to me. “Brokering airplane parts?” I asked.
Sam nodded and we paused for a lesson. “Say you live in San Jose and you want a special part because you’re rebuilding a Cessna in your backyard. Well, I’ve been all over the country, going to shows and visiting dealers, and I know a guy in Idaho who has the right engine for you, and another guy in Florida who has the cylinder stud assembly you’re looking for, and so and so on. I’ll get you your parts, take a little handling fee, and you’re set to go.”
“You’re the middle man.”
Sam didn’t acknowledge the term but went on to the next phase.
“The Internet changed all that. Now everyone can just go online and find any part anywhere in the world, all by hisself.”
I smiled at the use of the possessive reflexive and Sam’s reversion to his native Georgia dialect. Over the years I’d become convinced that no one ever really loses his childhood accent. I didn’t need to be reminded of the times I slipped into the Bronx dialect: “huh” for “her” and “Pooall” for “Paul,” were among my most recent throwbacks.
“I guess the Internet has changed the way everyone does business,” I added, as if I had intimate knowledge of the phenomenon.
“Yep, so we went back to manufacturing, but it just wasn’t working. There’s not many able to make it that way in this country right now.”
“You seem pretty busy,” I said, noting a pile of pallets at a side door and boxes of unidentifiable (by me) parts everywhere. The assortment of gray shapes put me in mind of robots, some with arms and legs, some without. I thought I recognized one from an animated movie I once saw with Maddie.
“We’re busy all right. My boys are good. They rein-vented themselves one more time, and now we’re into repair and overhaul.” He pointed to a high shelf over a large workbench, about twice as long as Henry’s. (There it was again, a thought of Henry.) “We have radar equipment up there on the left, then brakes, airplane computer systems, landing gear, flight control panels.” I followed his finger. “The bubble over the pilot, the windshield. A company will send us ten parts that failed. So we troubleshoot and test one, figuring they’ve all failed for the same reason. Usually we’re right and then we fix all the rest.”
Sam spread his hands as if to say, that’s all there was to it. I waited for him to take me back to the navy radar systems on the left, the ones Eliot had allegedly worked on, on the day of Oliver’s murder, half expecting him to repeat the alibi Lillian had provided for her son.
“What do you do here, Sam?” I asked.
Sam waved his hands. “This and that. All-purpose shop work. I love machines. I grew up with them but I never had my own factory. My boys have done very, very well.”
Sam continued talking, possibly saying more about the radar systems. Or he may h
ave been inviting me to lunch. I couldn’t tell. I was too busy looking past him at a glassed-in conference room. At a large rectangular table sat the twins, Lillian Ferguson, and the two goons. Lillian, at the head of the table, faced us.
I gulped and shifted my large purse up from my shoulder to front and center on my chest. I did my best not to make eye contact, but as I turned away from the room, I sensed Lillian’s eyes on my back.
I felt a bit shaky, encountering Lynch and Crowley again with only a glass wall between us, and I thought sure Lillian would bolt from the meeting any minute and rush out to shut Sam up. I needed to get a few questions in before that happened.
“What a shame about the fire,” I said as Sam and I retraced our steps and walked back toward the front of the factory.
“Yup, it was a terrible setback for the boys. Terrible,” Sam said, with a shake of his head.
I wondered if he’d ever given a thought to the janitor and his family. I had no reason to think otherwise. For all I knew he’d made a generous donation to the Pattersons.
I wracked my brain trying to come up with a way to turn the conversation to the cause of the fire. I hit upon something brilliant.
“I’m trying to remember what was determined to be the cause of the fire?” I asked.
Maybe not brilliant, but it got Sam talking.
Sam bent over and picked up a handful of metal filings. “These are magnesium filings. They’re very combustible; they’re used in bombs, in fact. You can have all the regulation sprinklers in the world, but this stuff”—he made an elaborate frown, moving his long chin sideways and knitting his brow—“it’s deadly. If there’s a spark from the grinder, it could ignite the filings on the floor or down in the cabinet where they pile up.”
Monster in Miniature Page 16
