Mom Meets Her Maker

by James Yaffe

  “I’ll take you out for dinner tomorrow night,” I said. “There’s a new Japanese steakhouse downtown. Rashomon’s.”

  “You haven’t got a date on Christmas Eve?”

  I looked her straight in the eye. “With you. That’s my date.”

  She made one of her humphing sounds, then she went tootling off to worship God, and I went home to watch a movie on TV.

  * * *

  The movie, naturally, had Christmas in it. At this time of year you can’t get anything on TV, at least not in our area, which isn’t Christmas-related. So this was that old one, which I saw when it first came out, about the little old man who works as a department store Santa Claus and starts thinking he’s the real thing.

  It’s a funny movie, but tonight it succeeded only in depressing me. I wasn’t in the mood for stories about aging, balding geezers who lose their marbles because their wives are dead and they’re all alone in the world. I know the people who made this movie had no such intention, but what it did to me tonight was fill me with wild sexual fantasies. I saw myself as Santa Claus coming down the chimney of some big-busted, passionately inclined female, not too young to be out of my reach by legal means but not too old to be unappetizing.

  I was toying with the idea of calling up Virginia Christenson. She was far from ideal, as my last date with her had amply proved. Let’s face it, she had the brain of a Barbie doll, and the personality to match, but there was a genuine bust there—

  Luckily, my phone rang.

  I just had time to say hello and identify myself, when I was interrupted by a low urgent voice, talking almost in a whisper. “Mrs. Swenson is my lawyer, isn’t she? So that means you’ve got to help me, don’t you?”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Roger Meyer. I want—”

  “Where are you, for God’s sake?”

  “I’m sorry, I just can’t tell you where I am. I know the police are looking for me, I want to give myself up.”

  “That’s smart of you. But if you don’t tell me where—”

  “I don’t want to get anybody else in trouble. I want to give myself up to you, to you and Mrs. Swenson. I want to go to the police station with the two of you. I don’t trust the police—they could shoot at me, and say they cornered me and I wasn’t giving myself up at all. They always do it in those old gangster pictures.”

  I decided it was no time to remind him that real life wasn’t an old movie. Besides, he almost had a point. It might very well slip the mind of our beloved DA, once he got into court, that the prisoner had surrendered voluntarily.

  “Okay, let’s set up a place to meet,” I said.

  “Tomorrow night,” he said. “It’s Christmas Eve, they’re having the big tree-lighting ceremony downtown. I’ll meet you there—nine o’clock.”

  “We could miss each other, the streets will be packed.”

  “I want to do it in a crowd. That way the police won’t try anything. You stand on the northeast corner of San Luis and Kit Carson, I’ll find you there.”

  “As long as you’re giving yourself up, why wait a whole day? We could meet tonight—”

  “It can’t be tonight,” he said. “It’s tomorrow night at nine, that’s how long it’s going to take me to get psyched up for this. Don’t argue with me—please—or I could get cold feet and change my mind.”

  “All right, tomorrow night at nine. Mrs. Swenson and I will both be there.”

  “And listen—I don’t think you should tell my parents about this. I know they must be worried, I’m really sorry about that. But it’s only a little while longer, and they’d never be able to keep it to themselves.”

  “All right, we won’t tell them.”

  I expected him to hang up now, but instead there was a pause. Then his tone of voice changed, suddenly he sounded a lot less urgent and anxious.

  “There’s something else I wanted to ask you about.”

  He stopped, and I guessed it was up to me to give him some encouragement. “Sure, anything at all.”

  “Well, once I get out of all this—if I do—I’ll be graduating in June, and I don’t want to go to grad school or anything. What I’m looking for is— Well, I want to start right out doing something practical, getting experience in the field. I mean, I think it’s time I stopped just reading about criminology and really got in there and— Well, do you think there’s a chance you’ll be looking for an assistant?”

  This one left me speechless for awhile. I’ve had dealings with a lot of accused killers through the years, but he was the first one that ever hit me for a job.

  “I know this isn’t exactly the perfect time to bring this up,” he pushed into my silence hastily. “I don’t expect an answer right away, I just want you to give it some thought, that’s all. Everybody says you’re short-handed in the public defender’s office, you’ve got more work than you can handle, so if there was someone to take the routine stuff off your hands, to do the ordinary drudgery and leave you free for— And in the meantime, I’d be watching you and learning how it’s really done. Well, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do for the next few years.”

  “Sure, I could use some help. But you have to understand how these things work. We’ve got a budget, from the City Council. There’s no money in it for assistant investigators.”

  My God, I thought, I’m talking to him as calmly and reasonably as if this conversation actually made sense!

  “You wouldn’t have to pay me a lot. I realize I’m completely inexperienced, I’d be more like an intern.”

  “We don’t have intern money either. The truth is, we’ve got zilch.”

  A long pause, and then I heard myself saying, “Mrs. Swenson has been thinking of going to the City Council this spring, when the new budgets are due, and asking for a line item to beef up my side of the operation.”

  “If she did that, do you think I’d have a chance?”

  “If the Council approved it. But don’t get your hopes up. The City Council in this town is well-known for its stinginess with money, especially when it isn’t for raising their own salaries. Also, the DA will probably recommend against it. His philosophy is, it’s okay to increase his budget because he’s out to take the criminals off the streets, but we’re out to put them back on again.”

  Another pause, and then he said, “Well, whatever happens, I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me. And—well, I guess I’ll be seeing you tomorrow night.”

  “Wait a minute. Can you tell me why you ran off like you did? And about the Reverend Candy’s murder—”

  “I didn’t do it,” he said. “That’s all I want to say right now. When I think about it, I just feel so awful— Well, I don’t want to go into it over the phone.”

  He hung up, and I thought for a moment what a nice kid he was. I became aware of the stiffness in my joints, the exhaustion filling my whole body, and I imagined what it might be like to have my own personal intern. An eager young mind that I’d be molding and forming. My apprentice, you could call him. Like Michelangelo or one of those old furniture-makers.

  And then I shook my head with exasperation. What kind of foolishness was this anyway? Making lovely plans for the future of a kid who was a fugitive from justice and could very well end up spending the rest of his life behind bars! Or worse.

  I got on the phone to Ann at her home, and told her about Roger’s offer to give himself up. I asked her if we had some legal obligation to report this to the district attorney.

  I knew what her answer would be. It was her considered opinion that we were completely within our rights in keeping Roger’s plans to ourselves. We were officers of the court. In a way, we were the police. Therefore, we were empowered to take fugitives into our custody.

  As for tipping off the DA ahead of time—where in the city code did it say that the right hand must always let the left hand know what it’s doing?

  I didn’t mention to Ann about Roger asking me for a job. To tell the truth, I wasn�
��t sure she’d believe it.

  Saturday, December 24

  I like to sleep late on weekend mornings. I like to sleep late every morning, and I definitely will as soon as I find out how to provide for my food, clothing, and shelter without working for a living. Until then, weekend mornings are the only chance I get to be a vegetable.

  So I can’t say I didn’t do some groaning and bitching when my alarm went off at eight on this particular Saturday morning, the day before Christmas. There was no way out of it though. I had to talk to the DA’s witness, the crazy old prophet Luke Abernathy, and the only way to be sure of finding him was to get down to his usual beat by nine, which was when he put on his first show of the day.

  I barely had time to slosh down my coffee and take a quick look at the front page of The Republican-American. The Candy murder was still being played up, with the DA dropping broad hints about a “secret witness” and the Chief of Police confiding to the world that “it was only a matter of time” before the fugitive killer would be caught and hauled off to jail.

  A lot of people were in the downtown area when I arrived. I got out of my car, and felt a definite nip in the air. But that black-and-blue bruise wasn’t in the sky anymore, dull gray was once more the general complexion of things. It looked as if we weren’t going to have a white Christmas.

  I went to the nearest corner where Abernathy usually made his rounds. No sign of him yet, so I lounged at a shop window—The British Tailor, Fine Clothes for Discriminating Men, the owner was on the board of the synagogue—and looked over the goods, preparing to wait for the mad prophet as long as it took.

  While I waited, frantic signs of Christmas swirled around me. There were more Santa Clauses on the streets than there had been two days ago. Last-minute shoppers, loaded down with bundles and harried expressions, hurried past me. Children clinging to the hands of grown-ups stared up at the giant Christmas tree which had been put in place overnight. To me it looked dark and dense and foreboding, like a gigantic thick-witted thug blocking everybody’s way.

  Then I spotted the Prophet. He was coming through the crowds on my side of the street, heading straight towards me. In his shrill slurred voice, so that you could make out only half the words, he was delivering his usual warning to the world. “Egg-Eaters beware! The Lord has his eye on you!”

  I moved forward and put myself in front of him. “I want to talk to you.”

  His red-blotched eyes widened.

  “It’s okay, you’re not in trouble, I’m not a cop.” I reached out for his arm, trying to make my grip gentle and unthreatening. “We can’t talk out here,” I said. “Did you have any breakfast yet? There’s a little place down the street, they give you a good cup of coffee.”

  I started to ease him in the right direction, and I could feel his resistance ebbing away. A low moaning noise was coming out of him now. Was this how animals sounded when they were being led to the slaughter?

  I reminded myself that he wasn’t the one in danger of being slaughtered. The Meyer kid was, and this ancient wreck was cooperating with the slaughterers.

  I got the old man into the coffee shop, the Java Hut. The terribly genteel hostess at the door gave us a look of mixed alarm and revulsion. She couldn’t refuse to seat us though. We’ve got anti-discrimination laws nowadays. Affirmative action for broken-down old bums.

  She led the Prophet and me to a booth, as far to the back of the place as possible, so that no prospective customer could see us through the window. I practically had to slide him into place and wondered if he’d be able to keep himself upright when I took the seat across the table from him.

  He managed this feat somehow. He blinked at me for awhile, and something closer to the light of consciousness began to appear in his eyes. “Whatsa big idea?”

  I told him who I was and that I wanted to ask him some questions about the Reverend Chuck Candy’s murder.

  “I don’t know about that. Who says I know about that?”

  “You’re the prosecution’s eyewitness, aren’t you? You saw the Meyer kid go in and out of Candy’s house.”

  “Who says so? Blasphemers! Told me nobody was going to know about me ’til the trial! They gave me their word! Fornicators!” He blinked a little more, and then produced a grin which almost had a touch of shrewdness in it. “You gonna buy me breakfast?”

  “Positively. What do you like on this menu? Maybe a couple of fried—” I stopped myself just in time.

  He didn’t seem to notice. “Breakfast was never my big meal of the day,” he said. “Whadda they got? They got doughnuts?”

  “All kinds.”

  “I’ll have a doughnut. A plain one, don’t want all that powdered sugar falling over my shirt, those stains don’t come out.”

  I took a look at his shirt and couldn’t imagine where he supposed there was room for any more stains. But I called the waitress over and ordered coffee and a plain doughnut for both of us.

  “Make that two doughnuts for me,” he said. Then he gave me a quick anxious glance out of the corner of his eye. “Is that okay, two doughnuts?”

  I told the waitress it was okay, and she went off.

  “So let’s have it,” I said. “You were standing across the street from Candy’s house yesterday afternoon—is that right?”

  “Damn right it’s right!” His fear seemed to have passed, and a kind of belligerence had moved into its place. “And don’t you tell me I’m a liar!”

  “Why should I tell you you’re a liar?”

  “He said you would. Fellow from the DA—little fellow with a lot of eyebrows. ‘They’ll tell you you’re a liar,’ he said, ‘but you don’t have to pay any attention to them. Nobody’s going to pay any attention to them.’”

  “You’re right. Everybody’ll be paying attention to you. That’s what I’m doing now, paying attention to you.”

  “Yeah. Thass right. Thass what you’re doing.” A big wobbly smile came over his face.

  “So give me something to keep up my interest,” I said. “What were you doing outside that house yesterday?”

  “Watching, whaddya think? Read about it in the papers. There’s going to be lots of lights, there’s going to be beautiful music, and cows, and baby Jesus. Like when I was a kiddie—like the Christmas tree at home. Said to myself, ‘Thass something I got to see. Haven’t seen something like that since I was a little kiddie, at home.’”

  He ground to a stop, and I saw the faintest speck of a tear inching out of his red eyes, slowly sliding down his cheek.

  “So when did you go to the house to look at all this?”

  “Soon as I read about it. In the paper. I’m a big reader of the papers. Pick them up in the trashcans, people leave them there for me. Paper said the lights’d be lighting up at five, so I got there at five. Stood there all night, ’til the lights went out. Lots of people there, lots of cars, but nobody stood there as long as me.”

  “It must’ve been pretty cold for you, standing in front of that house all those hours. Didn’t anybody invite you inside?”

  “Invite me?” He scratched his head. “Nobody invites me. Don’t get invited any more. Know a lot of people—everybody in town, I see them sooner or later, bringing them the Lord’s message—but nobody invites me. Years ago maybe, when Sally was around.”

  “Sally was your wife?”

  “Wife?” He shook his head, looking confused. “Whose wife? Who ever had any wife?”

  My instinct told me I’d better get away from this subject. “The paper said the lights were turned on at five,” I said. “But yesterday you were in front of that house earlier—by four o’clock at least—weren’t you?”

  “Was I?” He wrinkled up his forehead in thought. “Four, was it? Yeah, maybe so. Don’t have any watch, you know. Used to have a watch—what happened to it anyway? Wanted to get there early, so I’d see the lights turned on. Be sure I wouldn’t miss—” He gave a sigh, and a couple of tears began to form again. “Lights never did go on. Waited and wa
ited, ’til the cops came up to me. Nobody ever turned them on.”

  “And while you waited, what did you see exactly?”

  Again that little gleam of shrewdness came into his eyes. “What you wish I didn’t see, thass what I saw. Saw this kid. Tall kid. Very dark hair. Wearing glasses. He came down the street—”

  “From the house next door?”

  “Didn’t see that. Just saw him coming down the street. Went up the steps, went into the house—”

  “Who opened the front door for him?”

  “What?”

  “He must’ve rung the doorbell, somebody must’ve opened the door to let him in.”

  He shook his head hard. “Didn’t see that. Didn’t see anything like that. He just went in. I kept watching. Didn’t want to miss it when the lights went on. All of a sudden, door busts open, the kid comes out—he’s running this time, running real hard. He runs up the street—”

  “In the same direction he came from?”

  “Thass right.”

  “Did you see what he did next? Did he go into the house next door, did he get into a car, or what?”

  “Got into a car. Little car, old car. Drove away fast. Lot of screeching from the tires.”

  “How do you know it was Roger Meyer you saw? You’d never seen him before then, had you?”

  “Saw his picture afterwards. Cops showed me his picture. Same fellow exactly.”

  “Come on, it gets dark early these days, by four-thirty or so it’s dim already. So how could you recognize—”

  “Not that dim.” He grinned crookedly at me. “See—it’s what they told me. You’re going to say I’m a liar. They told me you would, and you did. But nobody’s going to pay attention.”

  “Did you see anybody else go into that house while you were standing across the street watching?”

  “Sure. Saw the woman.”

  My heart beat a little faster at this. “What woman?”