The Man from Primrose Lane: A Novel

by James Renner

  Twenty-two-year-olds, David? Really?

  UPDATE: Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot! “Katy” is Katy Keenan, the same Katy who was the focus of the Man from Primrose Lane’s secret obsession. She’s also married engaged to Rhodes Lumber heir apparent Ralph Rhodes. Ouch! What a social climber. Looks like Neff has met a kindred soul.

  UPDATE 2: Holy twist, Batman! The Beacon Journal just revealed that Neff is suspect #1 in the “attempted” murder of MFPL. As they say on Drudge, label this “developing.”

  By early evening, David was home with Tanner. There was another card from Cindy in the door. She had written We should really talk! on the back. Cindy had also left a voice mail on his machine. There were messages from Phil McIntyre at the Beacon and Damian Gomez at the Plain Dealer, as well. He figured it wouldn’t be long before one of the television stations came knocking.

  They ate a quick supper—mac ’n’ cheese and hot dogs. Afterward, Tanner escaped to the living room to watch Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! while David cleaned up. As he reached for the refrigerator door to put the leftovers away, he noticed the picture of Elizabeth as a child, rolled up on the couch, hanging on the side, and stopped abruptly.

  He’d felt grief over Elizabeth’s death, as much grief as the Rivertin would allow. What he felt building inside him now, at the sight of his wife for the first time since kicking the drug, was something new. It was a cascading of madness, as if a great gate inside himself had opened and the stored sadness of several years was rushing out to overwhelm his senses.

  He felt the loss of her, the missingness of having her nearby, the aloneness she left behind.

  Elizabeth, he thought. Why did you have to go away? Why couldn’t you stay with me? With us?

  It was impossible to tell, later, if the last brain storm was triggered by all this new emotion, or vice versa. It enveloped David before he recognized it for what it was. One moment he was standing in the kitchen, staring at Elizabeth’s photograph and the next …

  * * *

  … he was jogging next to her, through the zigzagging dirt paths that wound between giant boulders inside Nelson Ledges Park—a place she had liked to go when she was training for a marathon.

  “Keep up, old man,” she said.

  “Wait,” he heard himself say. “Just a minute. I need to catch my breath.”

  “Can’t!” she called, pulling ahead of him. “I have to keep pace.”

  He watched her disappear behind a thirty-foot-tall rock left behind by a glacier ten thousand years ago. He smelled her sweat in the breeze and he came to a rough stop and bent over, gasping for air.

  She’s gone, he thought.

  But then she was back, jogging in place, with a hand on his back. He stood up again and she paused momentarily to kiss him gently. Inside his memory, David felt his heart break.

  “Just a little farther, David,” she said, a crooked smile full of teeth. “I love you. But you have to keep up. Come on!”

  She pulled his arm and they were jogging again. But as they turned the corner David …

  * * *

  … came back to himself, more easily than with previous flashbacks. In fact, he was still standing, still holding a Tupperware container of macaroni. He felt better, though he remained keenly aware of Elizabeth’s absence for the rest of the night.

  In order to stave off further attacks, he decided to keep himself busy. There were things he could do to get at more information about the Man from Primrose Lane. At the top of that list was one task he shouldn’t put off any longer. He bundled up the boy and a few minutes later they were heading down Merriman in the yellow Bug. The journey, this time, was less than a mile. They parked in front of a modest Colonial and David helped his son out of the car and led him up the brick driveway. For once, Tanner didn’t ask questions. He just held his father’s hand tight.

  Albert Beachum arrived at the door before David knocked, the overwhelming fragrance of freshly baked cookies drifting around him. He was a very tall man, at least six-five, with a scraggly red beard in need of a trim. His face was stretched and gaunt, the face of a man who had worked out-of-doors his entire life and had enjoyed every minute of it.

  “Hello?” Albert asked.

  “Mr. Beachum, my name is David Neff. This is my son and partner, Tanner Neff. Our newly formed realty company would very much like to make you an offer on the house on Primrose Lane.”

  “And a cookie, please,” added Tanner, in a businesslike tone.

  Albert laughed. “Come in, then.”

  * * *

  “I know you didn’t kill him,” said Albert, setting a plate of cookies on the coffee table in front of Tanner and David. His wife, “Keek,” a reformed Hells Angel, sat in a chair across from them. She didn’t seem so sure.

  “Thanks,” said David. “I didn’t. So I guess that makes two of us.”

  “I called the police after I saw your name in the paper and told them that. They were not interested in what I had to say.”

  Tanner held up a cookie the size of his head and contemplated where to begin. As he did so, he scooted closer to his father.

  “What did you have to say?”

  “As I’m sure you know, my family has looked after Joe King, or the Man from Primrose Lane, if you want, since at least the late seventies.”

  “I didn’t know it went back quite that far.”

  “At least. At least that far. You see, no one really remembers anymore how my family got dragged into this. We kept it so secret, even from each other, until he died, and the Beachum who first had the job is now dead.”

  “I see.”

  “I inherited the job of getting things for Mr. King when I was fourteen. Used to walk down to the grocery store and back for him or have someone drive me into Chapel Hill for his stranger requests. On very rare occasions, he instructed me to drive him places. Bellefonte, for instance. Overall, it was pretty uneventful…”

  “Except for one time.”

  Albert nodded. “Except for one time. This was the fall of 1989. End of October sometime. Not yet Halloween. A Friday. I come to his house like normal, a bag of groceries in my bike basket. I go to set the bag down and pick up my money—he paid me in cash, in envelopes, always a little too much—but then I hear all this noise inside. Stuff being thrown against the wall or onto the floor. Sounded like the old man was fighting someone in there. I try the door. It’s unlocked. I run inside. And there he is destroying the place. He’s throwing all his books onto the floor. He had a TV then, and it was on the floor, busted. He fucking annihilated a chair. Guy was pissed. ‘What happened?’ I say. He’s so scared that someone is in his house, he jumps and it takes him a second to figure out it’s me. But then he calms down, real quick. He says, ‘Albert, you can’t come back for a while.’ ‘Why not?’ I say. ‘Because I fucked it all up.’”

  “What did he mean?” asked David.

  Albert shrugged. “Hell if I know. Something important. I asked him but all he said was, ‘Albert, it’s not safe here right now. I’ve made a very dangerous man very angry with me,’ he said, ‘and I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me. You have to stay away.’

  “Then he goes to a drawer in the corner and fishes out a wad of money. Over five hundred dollars. ‘Here,’ he says, pushing it at me with his mittens. ‘Keep this. Consider this your severance. I may not need you again. But if I do, I’ll write to you and ask you to come. It’s very important you and your family stay away from here until I contact you. Do you understand?’ I told him I did. He thanked me. And then he did something really out of character. The old man hugged me.

  “Five months later, I get a letter in the mail. Two sentences: Safe to return. See you Friday, if you are still interested. Obviously, that episode had something to do with his murder. Cops told me memory is too unreliable to be trusted. Whatever, man. We never saw your wife over there. Me or my brother Billy. No one was ever over there except the old man.” Albert’s eyes wandered away from David’s and found a space in the cor
ner of the room. “If it’s true that they found her fingerprints inside, then someone must have planted them. You need me to testify to it, I will. I don’t care.”

  “Thanks.”

  For the first time, Albert’s wife spoke up. “You said you wanted to buy the house?” she asked.

  “Yes. As executor of the estate, Albert, it’s in your power to sell the home as long as all parties with a claim agree to it. I would pay into an escrow account set up by the court—my attorney can arrange all this, free of charge, of course—and those funds would accrue interest while you wait for the judge to make his ruling. It’s an old house, not likely to fetch much on the open market. I checked online. Its assessed value is a hundred and twelve thousand. I’d be willing to pay twice that. Then at least all you’d be fighting for is money and not property. Might make things easier.”

  “What if we want to keep the house?” asked Keek.

  “Honey, shush.”

  “Well, Albert, it’s obviously worth a lot to this man.”

  David sighed. “All I can tell you is my interest in the house is less about money than it is about covering all my bases. I need to find the guy who shot the old man. Maybe there’s something in there that will help me out.”

  “We’ve been all through there,” she said. “Nothing but a bunch of old books and dirty clothes and about ten thousand mittens.”

  “Well, you never know,” he replied. “I’d also be willing to have my lawyer look at your claim to the estate and see if he can’t move things along in your favor.”

  Suddenly the old biker seemed more attentive. “We could use a good lawyer, Albert.”

  “You know I don’t care about the money,” Albert said. “But we have no use for the house, either. I think I can get everyone on board for this. One thing everyone can agree on is the more money, the better.” He shot a glance at his wife.

  “Great. I’ll have the guy who handles my accounts call you in the morning. His name is Bashien. He’s going to create a realty business with me and my son as primary stockholders and silent partners. For reasons you can understand, I need to keep my name off this transaction as much as possible. And I know, from your work for Joe King, or whoever he was, that you will keep my involvement in confidence. This is probably the last time we’ll meet. In fact, all communication from this point on will come from McGuffin Properties Limited, and as far as you know, some guy named Bashien is in charge of the operation.”

  Albert laughed.

  “What?” asked David.

  “Nothin’,” he said, shaking his head. “Just sounds like something he’d have said. How does my family keep getting involved with people like you guys? No offense.”

  “Luck, I guess.”

  “Mr. Neff, I don’t think luck’s got anything to do with it.”

  One thing troubled David as he led Tanner back to the car—Beachum’s expression when he’d said the only person he’d seen at the house was the old man. The avoidance. He was hiding a piece of information. David knew this as if it had been written in a caption over the man’s head. The question was whether or not it was an important piece of information or just some random memory he wished to keep private. Some part of the man was still protecting the Man from Primrose Lane’s legacy. But Beachum also seemed invested in finding the man who’d shot his employer. Whatever the secret was, David believed it had nothing to do with his investigation. He had to trust the man. Confronting him with such suspicions would likely bring a quick end to their relationship, and at the moment their relationship was more important.

  * * *

  “Boss?”

  David could hear the primal thump-thump of loud music diminish as Jason stepped away from whatever dance club he was cruising to take his call. “I need some information.”

  “That’s why you pay me the big bucks.”

  “It’s probably nothing, but I can’t root around after this guy myself without making certain people angry with me.”

  “I’ll be conspicuous.”

  “Inconspicuous.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “You remember that redhead? The one from Facebook?”

  Jason laughed. “You getting some strange? Good for you, man. About goddamn time. You, what, want me to look into the boyfriend or whatever?”

  “No. I want you to do some digging on her father. I don’t know anything about him. He wouldn’t talk to the cops about the Man from Primrose Lane business. So it’s a loose thread.”

  “I’ll tie it up. Give me a couple days.”

  * * *

  Sleep eluded him.

  Had Elizabeth really known the Man from Primrose Lane? Was there an innocent explanation for the fingerprint? Was he a victim of happenstance or was someone trying to frame him? Why was he attracted to the same women targeted by Elaine’s abductor? Why did his life intersect with the dead man’s in tenuous ways? Were they even intersections or was he inventing a pattern that wasn’t there, making constellations from random stars?

  Was it possible Riley Trimble was behind all this? A paranoid thought. Riley didn’t resemble the description of the man who kidnapped Elaine or the man who had gone after Katy—the man in the Members Only jacket had been well dressed and put-together, Riley was always a mess. And, while Riley was technically a free man, he was far from free. But it was not entirely outside the realm of possibility, was it?

  Certainly Trimble had motive for revenge.

  EPISODE TEN

  THE HOUSE ON PRIMROSE LANE

  “I’ll be lucky if we get a hung jury at this point,” said Russo, pacing around the conference room adjacent to Siegel’s court, hands on his hips. After a relentless attack by Synenberger, the judge had called a short recess so that David could collect himself. The jury had not looked at him as they exited the courtroom. “We went over this. We went over and over and over this. You knew how to dodge his questions. What happened in there?”

  “I’m tired of spinning everything,” David said. “If we just explain how it is, the jury will see I’m not trying to hide anything.”

  “The jury thinks you’re a nutcase. I would if I were on the jury. Everything you testified to”—Russo raised his hands in fists and opened them—“gone! Poof. Over.”

  “There are other witnesses who—”

  “You were the case, David!” said Russo. “You were the case. Remember that when we lose.” The assistant prosecutor marched out of the room.

  David sat there for a moment, feeling rotten and corrupted and poisonous. He searched within himself, a quick journey into his inner psyche, to determine if he’d done the wrong thing. But his soul was still. He could live with his decision to tell the whole truth, even if it did kill the case.

  He stepped into the hallway. It was a short recess, so Elizabeth and his father had remained in the courtroom. Cindy Nottingham had not.

  “Alone at last,” she said demurely.

  “I don’t have anything for you, Cindy.”

  “If you don’t feed the media, it will eat you, you know.”

  “Then go ahead and eat me, Cindy.”

  “Nice.”

  “What would you have done in my place?” he asked her. She knew what he meant.

  “I would have come to me.”

  “I didn’t have that choice. Andy walked …

  * * *

  … over to David’s cubicle in the writers’ den. It was after eight and outside the Warehouse District was aglow and bumping, Cleveland’s last bit of social equity. The editor had spent much of the day sleeping off a migraine. The rest of the staff had already gone home.

  “Whatcha readin’, Davey?” Andy asked.

  David held up several pages of double-spaced manuscript. “Cindy’s story,” he said. “I took it off the shared folder. I like to read the covers before they hit the streets.”

  “That’s a good habit,” said Andy. “I used to do that. So, whaddya think?”

  “It’s good. She made the whole family dy
nasty thing work without bogging the reader down in all the legal details.”

  “That’s the third draft. Lot of heavy lifting all the way up to deadline. It’s been a rough edit.”

  “Well, it’s working now. Especially how she uses the device of telling the story through the eyes of the maid.”

  “You like that?”

  David nodded.

  Andy picked up on a subtlety of expression. “What?”

  “No. Nothing. I like it.”

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing. I just suggested to Cindy that that might be a way out of the hole she’d dug herself. That if she had some outside observer, it might read better.”

  Andy’s expression didn’t change. But David watched the color drain out of his editor’s face. Finally, he exhaled one long, “That fucking bitch!”

  David was so surprised, he jumped. “What?”

  “You told her to find a maid to use as an observer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then she finds a maid she’d never interviewed before, just like that?”

  David started to see where he was going. “That’s not what I was trying to say.”

  “I know,” said Andy. But he was already punching numbers into his cell phone. “Cindy?” he said. “Cindy, where are your notes on this family thing?” Andy turned to her desk, a scaled-down version of a garbage dump. “Where?” he shouted. He rummaged under a sweater. He tossed an empty iced tea container against the wall so hard the plastic dented. Finally, he came up with a stack of notes. “Where’s your interview with the maid?” A pause. “Why is it at home if everything else is here?” A longer pause. “Don’t you fuckin’ lie to me, Cindy, not after everything I’ve done for you.” Pause. “Just tell me … you know what … you fucking know what … tell me, Cindy.” Pause. “Do I need to spike the story before it goes out tomorrow?” Pause. “God-fucking-damn it! Goddamn it! You stupid bitch! You have any idea? Any idea what could have happened? You’re lucky David figured it out. We’re lucky. You stay the fuck away from me if you know what’s good. Send someone for your stuff. You have a day before I throw it all out. Yes, you’re fucking fired!” Click.