by Ed Ifkovic
“Ilona!”
Nervously, she swung around, as though ready for flight. Finally, her back against the plate-glass window, she acknowledged me. “You seem to be everywhere, Edna.” For a moment her tongue stuck out, ran over her upper lip. “Like certain strains of bacteria.”
“Unfortunately some folks are immune to my contagion.”
“Ha!” A vaudeville laugh, artificial and arch.
“A moment of your time, Ilona?”
She breathed in. “That doesn’t auger well for my mental health. I’m on strict orders to avoid talking to you.”
“From Clorinda?”
“From Tobias. Well, really both.”
“And since when do you listen to either one?”
She leaned into me. “I may detest both and feel free to mock them—at least Clorinda, not Holy Tobias—but I know which side my bread is buttered on.”
“Maplewood has turned out to be a buttered-side-down kind of town.”
“Now you’re speaking in tongues.”
“I just saw Dak and Annika.”
That surprised her. “Annika? She’s betraying Clorinda’s strict orders? My, my, a rebel in the family.” Then she thought better of her words. “That gal is a wreck. Dak’s self-banishment is temporary. He’ll come home wagging his tail shortly. He always does. But Annika surprises me—she’s lost her energy, looks like a specter, and seems headed for a breakdown.”
“She knows now Dak’ll never marry her.”
“Which is why she’s cracking up. The awareness has settled in. Like a fatal and disfiguring disease. That beautiful phantom Nadine has the upper hand. A wanton Jezebel, I hear.” She took a step away. “Well, it’s been a pleasure…”
“Wait a second.” My most acrid tone, a leveler of the best of them—and she was not of that ilk. “Just a moment. I wanted to ask you about Clorinda’s husband, about Dak’s father.”
“Philip?”
“Yes. Dak only knows the mythology Clorinda shared with him. What do you remember?”
“Well, hardly anything. A wild Hollywood romance, not talked about because of Father, who was suitably horrified. Clorinda wrote brief gushy letters and sent a few snapshots. Philip was a good-looking man, although I remember little of it. He was wearing a New Year’s Eve party hat in one shot. Stupid grin on his face. Nice moustache, very villainous. I never met him. Clorinda got pregnant and gushed about that. I suspect they had to get married, if you know what I mean. She didn’t plan that—her career, you know. But that’s a taboo subject, let me tell you. Then the sad accident, accompanied by the clipping from the newspaper. The untimely death of a young unknown actor. When Dakota was born, Father insisted I raise him under his severe tutelage. You’ve heard that story. She went a little wild for a few years, then found Aimee Semple McPherson, the evangelist of all evangelists. The holiest of the holy. And the seeds of a new empire—heaven on earth—were sown.” She took another step. “End of story.” A cynical wave.
“Did you know he was married before? He divorced his wife and left behind a little girl—Dak’s half-sister.”
It was as though I slapped her in the face.
She choked on her words. “What did you say?”
“So you didn’t know?” I waited, watched her breathing in short, audible gasps.
“Clorinda never mentioned…” But she recovered immediately, her jaw set, her eyes unblinking. “Goddamn it! That Clorinda. I always knew she had a secret.”
“Why keep it a secret?”
“Hah! A divorce, a child.” Her grip on the pastry box tightened. “You know, one time a young girl came to services. She stayed afterwards and wanted to meet Clorinda. She approached me, told me her name. She had the same last name as Dakota. She was wondering about family connections, she said, because Clorinda uses her first married name—Roberts Tyler. Let’s hope she never marries again. She’d string another name after ‘Tyler.’ I wish I could remember. She was…Linda Roberts or Martha or something. I can’t recall. She didn’t claim to be related—after all, it’s not an uncommon last name—she just thought it…wonderful. Another ecstatic acolyte, I guess. But when I spoke to Clorinda she went white. ‘Tell her I’m busy,’ she insisted. Of course, hundreds want to meet the messenger of God. Now, well, I wonder.” A maniacal laugh. “So that was the deep dark secret she kept from Tobias.” She raised her voice. “I love it. Divorce, Hollywood-style. Miss Holier-than-Thou got herself a secret. And Dakota’s got a sister.”
“Dak seemed happy with the idea.”
“He’s a simple boy, that Dakota. He’s happy with a smile and a candy bar.”
I bristled. “Such dislike, Ilona.”
“How many times do I have to tell you that, Edna? I don’t like most people.”
“I don’t trust you,” I blurted out.
“Good judgment on your part.”
“I don’t know what you really think about people and things.”
“And that’s the way I like it.”
Now, deliberately, she elbowed her way past me, purposely brushing my arm.
But she looked back over her shoulder. “Just this morning, Clorinda, out of Tobias’ earshot, told me how much she despised me. It was a beautiful moment. Truly a sisterly spat that got raw and almost poetic. Shakespearean. ‘I hate you.’ To which I replied, ‘I hate you.’ ‘You’re a liar,’ she screamed. And I laughed. ‘I may be a lot of things, but a liar I’m not. Didn’t I just tell you that I hate you?’ She sputtered and said what she always falls back upon. Her malevolent God, that vindictive Being whose sport it is to toy with us, watch us grovel like silly ants. She yelled, ‘God smites the unbeliever!’ Very Spanish Inquisition. I loved it.”
“Good Lord.”
Ilona was so fiery, thrusting out the pastry box, stamping her feet. Passerby lingered a second, then fled.
Ilona spoke to her absent sister, “Oh, you’re wrong, dear sister of the diamond mines. Our lady of the three-carat ring. I’m indeed a believer. It’s just that I don’t believe in what you believe.”
With that, Ilona thrust her head back, a grande dame affectation, and sailed away. She stopped at the corner a block away and leaned against the plate-glass window of Perkin’s Stationery Store. From where I stood, still staring after her, I could hear the nasty ripple of her hysterical laughter.
***
George was waiting for me in the inn’s lounge, nursing a cup of coffee and reading the New York Times. Reluctantly, my eyes searched the headline. Something about a British bomber shot down. So many souls butchered. America was sending four thousand tanks to Britain. In London sirens pierced the dark nights. I looked up because George was saying something. “Do you ever come home to roost, dear Edna?”
“I just had a bizarre encounter with Ilona House. And one with Dak and Annika. And…”
“Edna, Frank says it’s time he spoke with you. He knows you’re in pursuit of a murderer. He also knows you think he’s part of the mix because he’s spotted you staring after him, watching, watching, judging. Your evil eye. Such scrutiny can make a man go mad. It’s a wonder that I, your collaborator on The Royal Family and Stage Door and Dinner at Eight—masterpieces all—gold mines, to be sure—have a modicum of sanity left. You do eviscerate a man, dear Edna.”
I groaned. “Someone has to do it, dear George.” A pause. “Your wife has other men on her mind.”
“Right for the jugular, Edna?” He bowed.
“Thank you. Now what about Frank?”
“I’ve invited him to dinner with us. He has something to tell you.”
“I hope it’s a confession.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. He refused to give me a clue. You, I gather, are the choice for shared confidences. Perhaps my kindness and all-around decency scare folks away.”
***
An hour later Frank picked u
s up in his car, a creaky old Ford, missing a fender and a hubcap, rusted doors, smelly seats. Like me, George had a fear of germs, so he tried to sit with his bottom elevated and his hands cradling his chest. The car also had an erratic horn that blared whenever Frank took a right turn. He kept apologizing, wending his way to a small restaurant in nearby South Orange, driving maneuvers that involved a series of out-of-the-way left turns, a route that was starting to drive George balmy. George despises automobiles, dreads bumpy rides, and gets nauseated when a driver exceeds a speed limit greater than that of a mildly trotting horse. I recalled—with a smile—George’s ashen face after Evan’s madcap spin with us in the backseat. By the time we arrived at Balboa’s, a rustic steak and chops eatery nestled under hemlocks and crisscrossing power lines, George was positively bilious. He spoke not a word for the short-circuit journey. A green pallor did not coordinate with his salmon-colored shirt and the bright red bow tie and white linen jacket. He looked like lime sherbet with a cherry garnish. I’d have to remind him of it during one of our future skirmishes.
Walking into the restaurant, George found his scratchy voice, out of Frank’s earshot as Frank struggled to lock a car that had a window that wouldn’t shut. “He’s probably going to kill us, you know.”
“He’s made a good start with that rodeo ride over here.”
“He bought the car off a farm boy going into the service. He confessed that he doesn’t have a driver’s license.”
“Wouldn’t you say that was obvious?”
But inside the knotty-pine paneled room, dimly lit with chianti bottles stuck with dripping red candles, Frank assumed a sober expression. “Miss Ferber, Dak has told me your concerns. And I admit I kept my distance from you on purpose. You’re probing a murder and…and I’m not sure I knew why you were doing that.”
George broke in. “She likes to tempt death.”
“But,” he went on, “I was afraid to get involved. You see, I came to Maplewood—well, to be a stage manager, yes—but, truthfully, I had other reasons.” He sucked in his breath and scratched his head. A heartbeat. “The murder of Evan Street got in the way of my reasons for being here. A distraction. I know that sounds callous and cold, but it kept me from…from…well, I feared it might make me look like a killer.”
“You’re doing a good job of making yourself suspect now, Frank,” George offered.
“Why? Really? Oh God, I didn’t think that. I’m a man of few words. I like the shadows. I do my job, behave.”
“Frank,” I interrupted, “your discussion of your taciturn character is welcome, I’m sure, though not to me, yet it doesn’t explain why I’m sitting here looking at unswept floors and unwashed tables. The food, I’d hazard a guess…”
“I didn’t want people to see us together.”
“What’s going on, Frank?” George asked quietly.
Frank withdrew a small envelope from his breast pocket. “This arrived late this afternoon when I wasn’t at the theater.” He pushed it across the table. George opened it, took out a tiny piece of paper, and clicked his tongue.
“What, George?”
He handed it to me. It was a note from Dak to Frank, scribbled as though in a fury, with blotchy ink and cross-outs. A couple lines in which Dak told Frank he wouldn’t be at work that afternoon. “Constable Biggers and the state police demand that I visit them in Newark. I believe I’m going to be taken in for murder.” Signed, dramatically, “Dak the Accused.”
Frank was shaking. “He came to see me but I wasn’t there.”
I looked at Frank. A palpable fear in his eyes, he reached out to take back the note, returning it to the envelope as though it were precious, an ancient scroll, coveted.
“They’re questioning him again.” My voice was flat, deadened. “I was afraid of this. Biggers seems dead-set on naming Dak the murderer because there’s no one else. It’s a horrible way to do business, that.”
George was watching Frank. “This really bothers you, Frank. You know, I’ve known you for years, though we are not very close, and you’ve struck me as a man who…hides away, and avoids getting close to folks…and yet…” His shoulders shrugged.
I finished for him. “And yet you’ve taken undue notice of Dak. A real concern. Dak—and Nadine, as well. And you’re making scenes on Maplewood Avenue.”
He smiled wistfully. “I’ve taken a liking to Nadine. She’s young and a little foolish as she stumbles into situations, but she’s good-hearted, decent. I know she looks like a…a vamp with that makeup—a little too Betty Boop for my taste—but I’m a old codger, and young folks, you know…”
I broke in. “Did you know she was Dak’s wife in California?”
“Not at first. But she told me early on. When he came looking for a job, I know it pleased her that I hired him.”
“He came to you for a job?” I asked.
A few hesitant syllables, then a sigh. “I’m lying. I saw him in town, so I struck up a conversation and offered him work. I confess—I followed him, purposely. I’d had dinner with Nadine, and she’d pointed him out. And he was eager to do anything to get away from the Assembly of God.”
“There’s something you’re not telling us.” I looked into his eyes, demanding the truth.
But George was speaking over my words. “Tell us about Evan Street.”
“I hated him. A blustery, arrogant ass, so taken with his own looks, strutting around, a peacock, sidling up to Nadine and whispering something so that she’d run away. I never would have hired him. I knew he got the job because of your wife”—he glared at George—“who had a college friend whose wayward son needed help…all right, all right. That’s the way it is sometimes in this business, hand washing hand—dirty though it might be, but then he showed up.”
“No one liked him?”
“How could you?”
“How did he act with Dak?”
“Well, Dak wasn’t around much during rehearsal time, only afternoons. And Evan was only there for a few days, really. But Dak would watch for Nadine, anxious, and, oddly, if Evan approached Nadine any time, Dak would suddenly appear, almost out of the bushes, so to speak, and step into the scene.”
I looked at George. “That’s not good for our side.”
“Evan kept insisting he was friends with Dak—and with this Gus fellow, a squirrelly guy who should never have been hired. I spoke to the head of the crew. It seems an electrician had just quit—and there was Gus. Convenient. I saw Evan brush off Gus one time, and Gus wasn’t happy. This sullen Nazi with his toolbox. Well, Dak would go off with the two of them, you know, having drinks in the lounge, driving around, that sort of thing. But he never looked happy. Like he had to do it. Like he was trying to get to the bottom of some question he had.”
“They had fights. I saw one shoving match.”
“Evan taunted Dak all the time. Dak’s a little weak, insecure—Christ, look at the horrible life he’s had. Raised by Ilona House, who once told me she hated children. She even told him that one day: ‘I never wanted a child, and here you are in my care.’ Imagine telling that to a little boy, already taken from his mother. A tyrant of a grandfather, brutal and cold. And when his mother got him back, Ilona played victim, like he was a precious gem taken from her. Clorinda and Ilona pulled at him.”
“Then the years on the road with Clorinda.”
“Yes, horrible, those years. Clorinda in a broken-down bus, gaining fame, yes, but living in flea-bitten flophouses, going to bed hungry.”
I was shaking my head. “Dak never found a home until he married Nadine.”
“And look where that got him. Clorinda swoops in and huffs and puffs and blows the house down.”
“But he came back to Maplewood,” George said.
“Where else could he go? Well, of course, that’s not true. Anywhere would have been better. I think he was looking for…for footing. Tracti
on. Find out what went wrong and then move on. You know, when he was around fourteen or fifteen, he got a little famous as a boy preacher. Crowds loved him, and he got a little intoxicated with it. That’s why he went to Hollywood, I think. He had a certain charm up there, Clorinda’s angelic, pretty boy, mouthing all these words about salvation and damnation and warriors for Jesus. But after he came back, lost, Clorinda put him into the arms of Annika, the store-bought bride.”
George was shaking his head. “And then everyone shows up here. Act two.”
Frank’s eyes got bright. “No, last act here. Maplewood. The final curtain. Evan, the dark protagonist of the tragedy.”
“But that’s where we hit a roadblock,” I announced.
“Evan was playing a game. Let me tell you something that still bothers me. Ilona and Evan.”
George and I exploded at the same moment. “What?”
“I don’t like Ilona. She’s a hard shell of a woman.”
“But you don’t really know her, do you?” I asked.
“Back up,” George insisted. “Evan and Ilona?”
“Hold on.” Frank held up his hand.
“Tell me,” I insisted.
“No, I don’t know her, but I met her briefly three or four years ago. I was hired to stage an Easter pageant in Princeton—a favor to a friend, some rich donor. No matter. It was a brief task, uneventful. But Ilona had been ‘volunteered’ by Tobias, I guess, to work with some church committee. Because of her last name—House—we all knew she was connected with the famous evangelist Clorinda Roberts Tyler at the Assembly of God. She was known as Clorinda House Roberts before she married Tobias. And, of course, we were told how important her contribution was. I mean Ilona was a terror, spiteful, nasty. Lord, she was so mean she fought with the young fella playing Christ, and, during a performance, he broke down in dreadful sobbing—which, sad to say, caused a ripple through the audience that made the performance memorable to this day. Christ weeping on the cross. Ironically, Ilona’s bitchiness probably brought many more souls back to Christ than Clorinda’s sermonizing.” He chuckled at that.
