Deadly Anniversaries

by Marcia Muller

  Except in one station in San Francisco the file clerk was not a grizzled old veteran. He was a misfit rookie by the name of Walter Kleb. He wasn’t much more than a kid at the time. He was shy and awkward and strange in his mannerisms. He didn’t stutter or stammer but sometimes he would need to try out a whole sentence in his head, maybe even to rehearse it on his lips, before he could speak it out loud. He was considered odd. Retarded for sure. A screw loose. Nuts, psycho, spastic, crazy, loony, schizo, freak. In 1954 there was no better vocabulary for such things. He struggled through the academy. He was hopeless in most ways, but his paper grades were sky-high. Never been seen before. No one could figure out how to get rid of him. Eventually he was assigned to duty.

  He showed up wearing an overstarched uniform too big in the neck. He was an embarrassment. He made it to the file room in record time. No long previous career. No shooting or beating. But he was happy in the basement. He was alone most of the time. With nothing to do except read and learn and alphabetize and arrange in date order. Occasionally people came to see him, and they were politer than most, and kinder, because they wanted something. Either to return a file, or take one out, maybe without anyone knowing, or to find something that had been accidently lost, or to lose something that had been inadvertently found.

  What none of them did was ask database questions. Why would they? How could a retard rookie who had only been there five minutes know anything? Which was a shame, Kleb thought, because he did know things. The reading and the learning were producing results. True, he had no network of guys who knew guys. That strength was certainly deficient. He wasn’t a boy who could call up a grizzled old veteran a precinct away and gossip for twenty minutes on the phone. Or ask a favor. Or do one. He wasn’t that boy at all. But he was a boy who made lists and liked connections and enjoyed anomalies. He felt they should have asked him questions. Of course he never spoke up first. Well, except for once. Late in January. And look what happened after that.

  A detective named Cleary came down and asked for a file nearly a year old. Kleb knew it. He had read it. It was an unsolved homicide. Thought likely to be political. Conceivably at the secret agent level. There were certain interesting factors.

  Kleb asked, “Has there been a break in the case?”

  Cleary looked like he had been slapped. At first Kleb thought not slapped as in insulted, but just astonished, that the retard spoke, and showed awareness, and asked a question. Then he realized no, slapped as in rudely jerked from one train of thought to another. Cleary’s mind had been somewhere else. Not thinking about breaks in the old case. The only other reason for getting the file was therefore a new case. With similarities, possibly.

  In the end Cleary took the file and walked away without a word. Kleb was forced to reconstruct its contents in his head. Homicide by gunshot, apparently at very long range. The victim was an immigrant from the Soviet Union. He was thought to be either a reformed communist gunned down as a punishment by an actual communist, or the reform was fake and he was really a sleeper agent, taken care of by a shadowy outfit with a deniable office close to the inner ring of the Pentagon. In 1954 either theory was entirely plausible.

  As always at lunch Kleb sat alone, but that day one table closer to the crowd, to better hear what they were saying. The new case was a baffler. A Soviet immigrant, shot with a rifle from far away. No one knew why. Probably a spy. Then someone said no, State Department back channels were reporting no sensitivity. Therefore no spies involved. Just regular folk, doing whatever regular folk do, with deer rifles in Golden Gate Park.

  Kleb went back to the basement, and back inside his head. He read the first file all over again. He checked every detail. He weighed every aspect. The date of the crime, January 31, 1953, exactly 361 days earlier, the location, also Golden Gate Park, a lonely time of day, few potential witnesses, zero actual witnesses. Bullet fragments suggested a medium caliber high-velocity rifle round. A disturbed patch of dirt behind a tree five hundred yards away was thought to be where it was fired from.

  Cleary came back again early in the afternoon.

  “You asked me a question,” he said.

  Kleb nodded, but didn’t speak.

  Cleary said, “You knew it was an unsolved case.”

  Again Kleb nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “You read the file.”

  “Yes,” Kleb said.

  “You read all the files.”

  “Yes,” Kleb said again.

  “We got anything else like this?”

  A database question.

  His first.

  “No,” Kleb said.

  “Pity.”

  “But the two cases are very like each other.”

  “Why I hoped there might be a third.”

  Kleb said, “I think the five-hundred-yard range is important.”

  “You a detective now?”

  “No, but I notice patterns. There have been many gunshot homicides in the park. Almost all of them have been close range. Easier to walk right up to someone on a twisty path. Long-distance rifle fire is a large anomaly. It would suggest a strong preference. Or familiarity. Or possibly training. Maybe that’s the only way he knows how to do it.”

  “You think he’s ex-military?”

  “I think it’s likely.”

  “So do I, Einstein. Between World War Two and Korea, half the population is ex-military. That would cover everyone from a hobo living under a bridge to the hot boys working for the back offices in the Pentagon. The President of the United States is ex-military. Ex-military gets us precisely nowhere. Keep thinking, genius. That’s what you’re good at.”

  “Is there a connection between the victims?”

  “Other than being commies?” Cleary said.

  “Were they?”

  “They claimed not to be. They spoke out from time to time. They had nothing else in common. They had never met and as far as we can tell never knew about each other.”

  “That’s how it would look, if they were spies.”

  “Exactly,” Cleary said.

  “Also how it would look if they weren’t.”

  “Therefore this line of inquiry gets us precisely nowhere, either. Keep thinking, brainbox.”

  “How would you describe being a Soviet immigrant and a reformed communist?”

  “How would I describe it?” Cleary said. “Smart.”

  “But difficult,” Kleb said. “Don’t you think? You would have to work at it. Frequent reaffirmations would be expected. As you said, they spoke out from time to time. They must have achieved a small degree of local notoriety.”

  “Does this matter?”

  “I wondered how the shooter identified them as Russians from five hundred yards.”

  “Maybe being Russians was a coincidence. Maybe they were just walkers in the park. Targets of convenience.”

  “Not a well-represented national origin here. The odds are against it. But it’s certainly possible. Although I feel somehow it shouldn’t be. It’s almost a philosophical inquiry.”

  “What is?”

  Kleb tested a sentence in his head, and then on his lips. Out loud he said, “There’s a second issue that might or might not be a coincidence. Is it too big of a coincidence that two other things might or might not be coincidences also? Or do all three things reinforce each other and make the implication more likely to be true than false? It’s an existential question.”

  “Speak English, loony boy.”

  “I think the dates might be important. They might explain the Russians. Or not, of course, if it’s all just one big coincidence. Then my theory collapses like a house of cards.”

  “What dates?”

  “The dates of the shootings. January 31st, 1953, and today, which is January 27th, 1954.”

  “What do they have in common?”

  Kleb tested
another sentence in his head, and on his lips. It was a long sentence. It felt okay. Out loud he said, “I think you should look for a German national in his thirties. Almost certainly a local resident. Almost certainly an ex–prisoner of war, detained back in Kansas or Iowa or somewhere. Almost certainly an infantryman, likely a sniper. Almost certainly married a local girl and stayed here. But he never gave up the faith. He never stopped believing. Certain things upset him. Like January 31st, 1953.”

  “Why would it?”

  “It was the tenth anniversary of the Germans’ final surrender at Stalingrad. January 31st, 1943. Their first defeat. Catastrophic. It was the beginning of the end. Our believer wanted to strike back. He found a Red in the neighborhood. Maybe he had heard him speak at the Legion hall. He shot him in the park.”

  “The date could be a total coincidence.”

  “Then today would have to be, too. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Does the fact that the dates could be significant together mean they must be?”

  “What’s today?”

  “The tenth anniversary of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad. Another catastrophic retreat for the Germans. Another huge symbolic failure. Stalin, Lenin. Their cities survived. Our believer didn’t like it.”

  “How many more anniversaries are coming up?”

  “Thick and fast now,” Kleb said. “It was Armageddon from this point onward. The fall of Berlin comes on the second of May next year.”

  Cleary was quiet a long moment.

  Then he winked.

  He said, “You keep thinking, smart boy. That’s what you’re good at.”

  Then he walked away.

  Late the next day Kleb heard Cleary had ordered a sudden change of direction for the investigation, which paid off almost right away. They made an arrest almost immediately. A German national, aged thirty-four, a local resident, an ex–prisoner of war who had been held in Kansas, previously a sniper with an elite division, now married to a Kansas woman and living in California. Cleary got a medal and a commendation and his name in the paper. Never once did he mention Kleb’s help. Even to Kleb himself. Which turned out to be representative. Kleb worked forty-six years in that basement, shy, awkward, strange in his mannerisms, largely ignored, largely avoided, and by his own objective count provided material assistance in forty-seven separate cases. An average of more than one a year, just. He was never thanked and never recognized. He retired without gifts or speeches or a party, but nevertheless it was a happy day for him, because it was the anniversary of the moon landing, which meant, same day, different year, it was also the anniversary of the first vehicle on Mars. Which was the kind of connection he liked.

  * * *

  THE REPLACEMENT

  BY MARGARET MARON

  I shouldn’t be here, you know. Not just moving through the house to gather up dirty forks and napkins or to pick melted candles out of cake icing that had read Happy 18th, Matthew!, but here here, as in simply existing.

  It’s after midnight and the party’s pretty much over now. The high school friends who came to celebrate and say goodbye before we all split for college next week left almost an hour ago. The only ones still here are longtime friends of my sister.

  My older sister.

  Eighteen and a half years older, to be exact.

  Our mother was forty-seven when she gave birth to me, and no, I was not one of those accidental change of life babies. Nothing in their control was ever accidental with either of my high-achieving parents. Within three years of their marriage, they had produced the one son and one daughter they’d agreed on. With that out of the way, they could concentrate on their other goals: a law degree for her and the H. G. Jones Chair in Medieval Studies right here in Chapel Hill for him. Dad’s doctoral thesis was on fifth-century Christianity, which he turned into a historical novel that made the New York Times bestseller list.

  Mom specialized in personal injury suits and litigated obscene amounts of money for her clients. By the time I was born, just knowing she was the plaintiff’s attorney was enough to make most insurance companies settle instead of going to trial. I’m told that other attorneys often continued their own cases so they could crowd into the courtroom to hear her closing arguments to the jury.

  I hope I haven’t made my parents sound like cold workaholics who left their children to the care of others. Yes, there was a nanny until Calder and Jessica started nursery school, and a full-time housekeeper, too, but Dad was there for dinner every night unless he was on a book tour and Mom was usually home in time to read them a bedtime story and tuck them in. Teaching at the university in those early years let Dad devote his summers to family camping trips and once Mom’s career was firmly established, she would take a week off to join them. Jess turned into Dad’s best research assistant and even began critiquing his manuscripts by the time she was sixteen. Calder, eleven months older, often drove Mom to court houses and client meetings. During those summer drives, he became a sounding board for some of her closing arguments.

  To hear Jess and Dad tell it, they were the perfect family. A mutual adoration society.

  Golden.

  Then Calder was killed by a hit-and-run driver the summer before he was to enter college. Eighteen. My age.

  The police were all over the case, but after a month, there were no leads. Prominent attorney, bestselling author, a huge reward for any information pointing to their son’s killer?

  Nothing.

  Nada.

  * * *

  He was last seen leaving a popular comedy club near the campus where he occasionally took the stage on open mike night. Someone saw him get into the passenger side of a car parked down the block, but hadn’t paid much attention and couldn’t give any details as to the make or model, although it was thought that the driver was a woman. His body was found on a deserted road a few miles from town out near the lake. He had been drinking and his blood alcohol was such that the police theorized that he might have staggered out in front of a car. My mother was convinced he’d been taken out there and deliberately run over.

  “Calder was no saint,” Jess told me, “and I’m sure there were guys who resented his good looks, his smarts, the life he was meant to have, but you don’t kill somebody just because he might have an edge on you.”

  “Girlfriends?” I asked when I was fourteen and old enough to be curious.

  “By the dozen,” Jess said. “But he kept it light, made it clear from the get-go that law school came first.”

  “But was there really no one special?” I asked on our long flight to Paris this past spring. Jess was going over to accept a literary prize in Dad’s name from the French Academy and I was on spring break. Jess never wants to talk about the circumstances that led to my birth, but cars and planes loosen her up a little.

  “We all hoped Christa would be the one,” she told me.

  “Really?”

  I’ve known Christa James from infancy. A reporter for the local CBS affiliate, she’s been one of Jess’s closest female friends since grade school when her family moved here from Quebec. She has a bunch of Emmys, as well as a Pulitzer for her series on corruption in the state treasurer’s office a few years back. Thirty-seven now, she’s a beautiful woman. Still unmarried, though, and no relationships that have lasted.

  “Because of Calder?” I asked when we were well out over the Atlantic.

  Jess shrugged, put the buds back in her ears and closed her eyes to listen to a lecture she’d recorded on her phone.

  I had a recording of my own that I’d found on a shelf in Dad’s office the week before and copied onto my own phone. I must have listened to it a dozen times since then. It’s from one of Calder’s appearances at the comedy club. On it, his voice is warm and his pacing is good.

  “She was a cheerleader at the local high school, as firm and juicy as a vine-ripened tomato, but she was saving it for Jes
us, y’know?”

  Okay, so it was a little raunchy and it ended with the girl going, “Yes! Oh Jesus! Yes! YES!” I’m sure you can fill in the middle. It got snickers throughout and a big round of applause at the end.

  So he had Dad’s talent for imaginative narrative and Mom’s courtroom flair for drama, and maybe he would even have wound up on the Supreme Court as one of his teachers predicted. We’ll never know though, will we? As for Jess, her book on early Christian cults didn’t top the bestseller lists, but it did okay because she gave those ascetic desert saints enough humanity that even hedonists of our own time could connect.

  Much as I loved our mother, I can’t help feeling that maybe it’s just as well that she’ll never know I’m not golden like Calder, nor scholarly like Jess. That I’m not worth the sacrifice. Law and literature both leave me cold, and the thought of spending my life in a classroom or courtroom is a total no-go. I like math, though, and I’m pretty good with my hands so Dad’s getting resigned to the idea that I may wind up in something physical like construction.

  He was grief-stricken by Calder’s death, but Mom refused to accept it. Even though she was already so far into menopause that she had quit taking her birth control pills, she began hormone treatments that kick-started her ovaries. I was born eighteen months after they buried Calder.

  I must have been a disappointment from the beginning. I was colicky, I wasn’t cute, I wasn’t toilet trained till almost three, and I couldn’t read till I was five. But I was a boy and as long as I wasn’t too cold or hungry, I could sit quietly for long stretches of time. My earliest memory is of Calder’s grave, even though I didn’t know what it was at the time. I sit bundled up on a gray winter’s day and listen while my mother talks in a low voice. The icy wind stings my eyes, but I don’t cry because I am trying to understand her words.