5 From the Grounds Up

by Sandra Balzo

  As I faced the front door of the depot, to the left were the railroad tracks. To the right and across a gravel driveway was a florist shop, now closed for the evening.

  On the opposite side of the street was PartyPeople, which looked like a caterer. Penn and Ink--maybe a studio or an artists' supply shop--next to them. Tucked in closest to the tracks and directly across from the depot, was a storefront advertising piano lessons.

  An eclectic collection of small businesses. We'd fit right in. Sarah, Amy and me. Should Caron change her mind and commit, Uncommon Grounds would be about as eclectic as you could get.

  As Sarah finally bested the lock and went to swing open the door, I snuck a glance around the corner to the track side of the building. Four angled parking spots and beyond them at the back of the building, a big lot that looked like it had recently been cleared.

  'What's going in behind the depot?' I asked as I followed Sarah into the building.

  'Parking.' Sarah slipped the big key back into her jacket pocket. 'People need somewhere to leave their cars before they take the train downtown to work.'

  'Of course,' I said absently, trying to get my head around nearly unlimited parking provided to us and to our customers for the magic word: 'free'.

  Later, I would count the parking spaces and multiply that by the cost of a latte. The number would be inflated, but hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

  Right now, though, I was eager to go over the interior layout of the depot itself. In front of me were three ticket windows. Happily the previous businesses had left them untouched, probably willing to forgo extra space for the charm the counter provided.

  The three clocks I'd glimpsed from outside were labeled: 'Seattle', 'Brookhills' and 'New York City'. The Brookhills entry in the center was clean though hanging a little askew, like someone had just finished polishing it. The time, best as I could tell, seemed right--a quarter to eight. In contrast, the bracketing Seattle and New York clocks looked forgotten. To my eye, they read ten after ten and six o'clock, but given the dusky light inside the station and the sheen of dust that covered their faces, ten minutes to two and twelve-thirty were also possibilities. Whatever, they were wrong and would have to be fixed if . . .

  'Wait a second,' I said, turning to Sarah who was busy looking for a light switch. 'Did you say people needed to park their cars so they could go to work in downtown Milwaukee?'

  'Of course. What do you think they're going to do? Walk? Even if they lived a block away, they'd take their car. This is Brookhills, not Manhattan.'

  I still didn't understand. 'But this line runs between Seattle and Chicago and stops in Milwaukee and Minneapolis.'

  I knew this because Eric sometimes took Amtrak home from school in Minnesota and I would pick him up at the Milwaukee stop. There were only two trains each day--one heading west at eight fifteen a.m., and one east at eight fifteen p.m. 'Why would anyone take a long-distance train to work just fifteen miles away?'

  Light finally dawned, even as the setting sun squeezed through the windows.

  I squinted at Sarah. 'Are you telling me this will be a commuter train?'

  Over the years, there had been talk of a train running between the western outskirts and the business district of Milwaukee. I was even vaguely aware that a vote had been scheduled. What I didn't know, having been pre-occupied with my own problems the prior couple of weeks, was how that vote had gone.

  Now I grabbed Sarah, who was grinning at me, and shook her. 'People will be coming through here to take the train to work in Milwaukee?'

  'And home again. Every morning and afternoon, weekdays anyway,' Sarah confirmed. 'Sort of comes with the territory.'

  I didn't rise to the bait because I was too busy imagining hundreds of riders carrying to-go cups emblazoned with 'Uncommon Grounds', humming their sleep-muzzied way into Milwaukee each a.m. and their work-befuddled way back home every p.m. We'd have to add staff in the morning so we could get them in and out quickly. Efficient, friendly service--that was the key.

  'Did you hear me?' Sarah was looking disappointed that I hadn't reacted the way she expected. But then she wasn't acting the way I was accustomed to either. Since when had Sarah needed positive reinforcement?

  Her expression changed. 'Wait a second. You're already planning the store in your head.' At that moment, Sarah knew she had me hooked.

  So why pretend otherwise? 'You bet I am.'

  I led her to the ticket counter. 'We'll serve from all three windows, though one should be an express line. That way, straight coffee-drinkers don't have to wait behind triple-nonfat-no-foam-latte types.'

  'We'll bill it as the "UG Express",' Sarah said, warming to the subject. 'Like a train.'

  'I love it. And how about railroad-themed drinks, like Chattanooga Chai Tea?'

  'Cute,' Sarah said, 'if we were in Chattanooga. Or if Chai Tea sounded anything like "Choo-choo".'

  She was frowning at the crooked Brookhills clock. Sarah might not concern herself with fashion--the baggy trousers and jacket not an aberration, but a wardrobe constant. However, she did demand symmetry in her real estate. In fact, the Victorian house she owned was a showplace. How she managed to keep it that way with two teenagers--the children of a dead friend to whom Sarah proved an even better friend--in the house, I didn't know.

  Unable to straighten out the 'Brookhills' clock by telekinesis, she moved over and shifted it so '12' was back on top.

  'You'll forgive me if I take a little locomotive license,' I said, before Ms Perfect could start cleaning the other two timepieces. 'We're brainstorming. No fair poking fun, though we should be taking notes.'

  'Good idea.'

  I looked around. 'Do you see any paper?'

  Sarah's answer was trampled by the sound of a door being swung open. Hard.

  I turned to see a man of about eighty, white beard and close-cropped hair, standing in the doorway. He didn't look happy. 'This is private property. Who let you in?'

  Sarah stepped around me. 'Who let you out?'

  The old man peered at Sarah. 'Identify yourself.'

  'It's me,' she said, moving closer.

  'Not so "itsy",' he said gruffly. 'You're fat. Who are you?'

  Sarah looked affronted. She had put on a few pounds after quitting the cigarettes and then tennis. Smoking she'd participated in for thirty years. Tennis, thirty days. Food, a lifetime.

  'I didn't say "itsy", you deaf old fart,' she growled. 'I said, "It's me." Sarah.'

  She turned my way. 'This is Kornell Eisvogel. He was married to Auntie Vi. In addition to not hearing well, he's blind as a bat and mean as a snake.'

  'Snakes aren't mean. Just misunderstood.' I stuck my hand out to the old man. 'I'm Maggy Thorsen. It's nice to meet you.'

  Eisvogel ignored my gesture. In fairness, though, I wasn't sure he saw it through his cataract-clouded eyes.

  Instead, he pointed a bony finger at Sarah. 'You're Vi's brother Roger's girl.'

  'Once upon a time. My father has been dead for more than ten years.'

  Eisvogel didn't seem to care. 'What are you doing here?'

  'I asked you first. You know you're not supposed to drive at night. Ronny will hide your car.'

  'That son of mine don't know jack-shit. Still can't even close a door.'

  'Are you on that again, Kornell?' Sarah snapped. 'Ronny was five at the time. Leave him alone.'

  I didn't see the big deal. Even at nearly twenty, my Eric left doors open, including the one shielding the refrigerator. All of that paled in comparison to the time he traced the television image of Barney the Purple Dinosaur on the screen with a Sharpie. When they say 'permanent marker', they're not kidding.

  'Damn right he was five.' Spittle flew from Eisvogel's lips. 'Old enough to know better. His brother was only three, rest his poor baby soul.'

  'Ronny's brother?' I asked.

  Eisvogel didn't answer, but Sarah leaned in. 'It was before Vi and Kornell got together, but I guess the three-year-old wandered out of the house
and into the street after a ball.'

  The old man swiped at tears. 'My Tommy, gone. His brother was supposed to be taking care of him.'

  'Not Ronny's fault,' Sarah said in a tone that indicated they'd had this conversation before. 'You just want to blame him because you were the one who should have been watching both boys.'

  Ouch. Eisvogel looked like he'd been punched. 'Ronny knew damn well not to go out,' he said, lashing back. 'They was supposed to be taking naps.'

  I could understand why Eisvogel would want to hold someone else responsible for the tragedy. Knowing that it was your fault a child died had to be devastating. But to blame another, slightly older son? Inconceivable.

  'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' Sarah was saying, holding up her hands. 'I've heard it all before, Kornell. Now don't you think it's time to leave?'

  'I'll leave when I damn well please. Besides,' Eisvogel gestured toward the clocks, 'it ain't sundown yet. The sun sets at seven minutes past eight tonight. I keep that middle one there set just right.'

  So it had been Sarah's uncle who cleaned her clock.

  Sarah didn't seem to appreciate the gesture. 'If you get caught driving at night, you'll lose your license. For good this time.'

  I turned. Three minutes to eight o'clock on the Brookhills clock. The hands on the other two hadn't budged. Judging by the old man and the ancient Buick I could see parked on the street, he'd best get rolling.

  'The sun is getting pretty low out there.' I pointed out the windows. 'Do you need a ride home?'

  'Hey, now, who are you?' Eisvogel said, like he'd just noticed me. 'You ain't looking to buy this place, are you?' As he spoke he moved menacingly toward me.

  I reflexively took a step back and then held my ground. He was eighty, mostly blind and deaf. I should be able to take him.

  But he confronted Sarah instead. 'You know you can't sell this place. Your aunt left everything to me before the accident.'

  'The "accident"?' Sarah asked. 'You mean the one you caused?'

  She turned to me. 'Vi was getting out of the car. She still had hold of the door handle when this idiot pulled away. The fall broke her hip.'

  'Tweren't my fault,' Eisvogel protested. 'Vi was too slow.'

  'Vi was ninety-two.'

  'What I get for marrying an older woman,' he said, some pride creeping back into his voice. 'Can't help it if I've always had a thing for bobcats.' One rheumy eye winked at me.

  ‘I think you mean “cougars”’.

  'Don't encourage him.' Sarah turned on Eisvogel. 'I told you yesterday. The station was Vi's and my father's. His half came to me when he died. Her half reverted to me when she died.'

  'Right,' the old man said, 'because you're common.'

  Sarah rolled her eyes. 'My father and Vi were "tenants in common". That means that each of them owned a half-interest that they could will to their survivors. My father gave his half to me.'

  Eisvogel poked himself in the chest with his thumb. 'And I'm Vi's survivor.'

  Sarah looked like she'd love the chance to abandon him on a desert island. 'Kornell, just before you and Vi were married, she and I changed our title to "joint tenancy".'

  Eisvogel started to interrupt, but Sarah held up her hand. 'Meaning that if either Vi or I died, that half would go to the other of us.'

  Trying to help, I said, 'To keep the property in the family.'

  'I'm family,' Eisvogel protested. 'And don't forget about Ronny.'

  'Ronny is your son, not Vi's.'

  'Your aunt loved Ronny.' Now the old man placed a hand over his heart. 'The woman was a saint to that boy. I haven't had the brass to break this to him.'

  'You haven't told Ronny that Vi's dead?' I asked.

  'Don't be stupid. What he don't know is about this place and the miscarriage of justice.'

  'I like Ronny,' Sarah said, 'and I know Vi and he were close. But Ronny isn't a Kingston.'

  'Kingston, Schmingston.' Eisvogel snuck me a leering look, but it was Sarah he advanced toward. 'This isn't going to stand up in court, you'll see. Your aunt wasn't in her right mind.'

  'Who would be, Kornell, married to you?' Sarah had moved, too, close enough to bite him.

  'You watch your mouth now.' He raised his hand, as if to slap her.

  I wedged myself between the two of them and pointed toward the working clock. 'It's eight, Mr. Eisvogel. If you leave now, you might be home before dark. If a train doesn't come and back up traffic.' I added the last to light a figurative fire under him.

  He glared first at me, then at the clock and, finally, at Sarah.

  Then Eisvogel pulled a worn key case from his pocket. 'If I leave at eight-oh-three, I'll be at Brookhills Manor at eight-oh-six. The sun goes down at eight-oh-seven. Durn train doesn't come through until eight fifteen. By then, I'll be sitting home in my underwear, drinking schnapps.'

  Well, that was good. The 'Manor' part, not the image of the old man, in his cups while in his drawers.

  Brookhills Senior Manor was just two blocks away--why had he even bothered to drive? Then again, like Sarah had said, this was Brookhills. No one walked.

  Since the Buick was already pointed in the right direction, once Eisvogel got up and over the tracks, he could practically coast down Junction Road, across Poplar Creek Drive and roll to a stop in the parking lot of the senior home.

  With luck, the shriveled warlock wouldn't encounter anyone on the way or in the parking lot. The seniors who lived at the Manor, including my friend Henry Wested, were hopefully tucked in for the evening.

  With maddening meticulousness, Eisvogel folded open his leather key case and tucked in a skeleton key that was a duplicate of the one Sarah had. He went to snap the dog-eared case closed, but remembered to shake out the Buick key first.

  Then he turned to look at the clock.

  As if on cue, the minute hand on the Brookhills' clock moved one tick to the right. Three minutes after the hour. Seattle and New York stood pat.

  When I turned back, Eisvogel was gone, leaving Sarah alone, silhouetted against the big side window.

  'Wow. Your uncle is a loony.' I had to use my hand to shield my eyes from the fast-sinking sun. Outside, the Buick started with a hiccupping growl.

  'Kornell's not my uncle, he's my aunt's husband. And she's dead. That means he's nothing to me.'

  If I hadn't seen him raise his hand to Sarah, it would have seemed a cruel way to talk about the old lech. 'Did he ever hit—'

  A spitting of gravel by tires signaled Eisvogel's departure, followed by a rumble. I waited for the noise to subside so I could continue, but instead it seemed to grow.

  A whistle sounded in the distance, low and steady at first and then more shrill and even frantic as it neared. The fingers-down-the-blackboard screech of air-brakes. Finally, a sickening thud and the prolonged, wrenching scream of metal on metal.

  The eight fifteen Seattle to Chicago--by way of Minot, North Dakota; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Brookhills, Wisconsin --was ahead of schedule.

  Chapter Four

  The clocks on the wall shook. Hell, everything shook.

  Sarah and I looked at each other and then made for the door.

  The train had managed to stop, but not until only its last car was even with the station. We ran alongside to reach the front, even as passengers slid open their windows in an attempt to find out what had happened. Or, maybe, give themselves an emergency escape route.

  'What's going on?' one man asked. Drops of blood trickled down his brows and cheeks from a bright red gash on his forehead, presumably from hitting the seat in front of him when the train braked abruptly.

  'Did we hit something?' from a woman, eyeglasses bent at the bridge of her nose.

  'A deer, probably,' another man ventured.

  'Could be they're rutting,' a fourth voice contributed.

  Rutting season, that time of year when sex-crazed bucks run blindly into cars and their doe counterparts temporarily abandon fawns in favor of a roll in the hay, is in autumn. Before I cou
ld point that out, a loud command from inside the train drew the passengers back in like so many turtle heads. Probably the conductor, making sure they weren't decapitated.

  As we rounded the locomotive, the setting sun nearly blinded us. I shaded my eyes again.

  The old Buick stood next to the tracks, its tires shredded and rims bent. The car apparently had been T-boned and carried down the tracks by the engine before some law of physics shrugged it aside onto the gravel right of way. You could still tell the mangled hulk had been an automobile, but barely.

  The engineer and conductor were climbing down off the train, followed by a guy in a white chef's outfit. Sirens were already sounding around us. Equipment from probably half a dozen municipalities would show up. But they couldn't be much help to Sarah's step-uncle.

  Kornell Eisvogel's upper torso was draped over the sill of the Buick's driver's window, his head turned sideways, cataract-cloudy eyes wide open. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth to the ground below.

  I looked at Sarah. I'd seen more than my share of bodies--one or two of with her. Still, none of the corpses had been family, at least according to my friend's narrow definition of same.

  Sarah's face was white and her substantial jaw was trembling. I put my hand on one shoulder. 'We should move away.'

  She just stared. A tear pooled in her right eye and then escaped down her cheek. Sarah swiped at it furiously with a fist. 'I hated the old shit.'

  'I know,' I said softly. 'It's OK.'

  And we moved away.

  I was right about the six municipalities, give or take a few. The Brookhills police and fire rescue responded first, followed closely by the Brookhills County Sheriff's Department. That wasn't necessarily good news, since I knew the Brookhills County Sheriff. Knew, in the biblical sense--finally, hallelujah and thank the Lord. It had taken us long enough to get to that point, though life, and the more than occasional violent death, often still got in the way.

  Jake Pavlik was not in the first county cruiser that responded. Nor even the second. Third, though, was the charm. I guessed it was his car, not because it differed from the other responding units in design, but rather because, while its red and blue lights were flashing, the sirens weren't blaring.