Pulse

by Edna Buchanan

  She remained silent for a long moment. “He talked about maybe one of those gambling ships. But I was against that and I think he decided that way too. Then there was a wholesale flower import business he looked into, but it was all speculation, nothing concrete. He hadn’t made up his mind yet.”

  “Is there any other place that you know of where he could have stashed money or records?”

  “Maybe his safety deposit box.”

  “Why didn’t you mention that before? Have you inventoried the box since his death?”

  She shook her head. “Couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

  “You have the key?”

  They were still searching for it when Billy burst in from school.

  “I know I’ve seen it since—”

  “Are you gonna be my new dad?” Billy demanded, watching suspiciously from a kitchen stool as they hunted through cabinets and rifled drawers.

  Frank and Rory stared at each other.

  “Nah, Billy. I’m already somebody’s dad. I’m just here to help your mom.”

  “Well, Mom, who is gonna take me to the Youth Fair?”

  “We’ll worry about that when the time comes. I’m sure you’ll get to go,” Rory said.

  The boy went back to his milk and oatmeal cookies.

  “Billy,” Frank asked, “have you seen a little key that belonged to your dad?”

  “In a tiny red envelope,” Rory said. “Had a number inside the flap.”

  He shrugged, head down.

  “Billy? Billy, you answer me, out loud.”

  The boy scrambled down from the stool and dashed for the back door, his mother hot on his heels.

  “Billy, you come back here!”

  He slammed out as she ran after him.

  Frank followed them to the door.

  “He’s all right,” Rory said, exasperated. “He’s climbing up into his tree house. Probably to sulk. He’s been overreacting.” She returned and leaned against the kitchen counter. “The day before it happened, Daniel scolded him for some dumb little thing he did. Billy asked me last night if his daddy died because he was naughty and upset him.”

  “He thinks he’s to blame.”

  “I need to work with him, get him into a little grief therapy maybe, just to get through this.”

  “You’re right,” he said, “a little therapy couldn’t hurt.”

  “Guess we could all use some help,” Rory said.

  True, Frank thought as he drove home. He decided to please Kathleen and attend a group session or two. It would make her happy.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kathleen looked harried.

  Three-year-old Charlie whimpered for his mother.

  Giselle, five, had discarded her shoes and socks, and Randy, age nine, seemed intent on playing smash and grab with her Lalique crystal collectibles.

  “Why would Sue Ann unload her grandchildren on us for the night?” Kathleen complained bitterly. “She knows this is not a good time for us.”

  “What better time? It was my idea.” Frank hung up his jacket. “I gave them the theater tickets and said we’d babysit. I thought you’d love having nice little kids around for a change. I know I do.”

  He had intended no sarcasm but saw her react. They had not discussed Shandi yet, or the fact that she seemed to be flying free despite being grounded.

  Randy and Giselle clambered all over Frank, while little Charlie remained shy and reserved. A sensitive, curly-haired tot, he was blonder than his older siblings, with huge, serious eyes fringed by impossibly thick lashes.

  “Come on, gang.” Frank had hoped Casey and Shandi would be home to enjoy and help with the children, but his daughters were nowhere in sight.

  They played elevator.

  He lifted little Giselle by her rigid elbows. “Second floor!” Higher. “Third floor!” Even higher. “Fourth floor!”

  “Basement!” He swooped her back down.

  Then Randy. “Second floor! Whoops, maintenance failure. Attention: This elevator is malfunctioning!” He jiggled the boy in midair, as all three youngsters screamed with glee.

  “What is all this noise?” Kathleen emerged from the kitchen. “Frank, you shouldn’t be lifting the children. Why don’t you all go outside to play until dinner?”

  “Care to join us?” he called after her.

  “I have some letters to write.” His eyes followed as she went upstairs. Then he turned back to the expectant children.

  “Okay, gang. How about an environmental trek?”

  “Yes, yes,” they chorused. They had no idea what it was, but wanted it desperately. He could relate to that. He’d felt twinges of wistful nostalgia lately, as though mourning a lost love. But he had no lost love. Kathleen had been and was his one and only.

  They tiptoed into the kitchen, past Lourdes, who pretended not to see them.

  Charlie clung to Frank, thrilled, as they staged a commando raid on the bread box, stuffing dinner rolls into plastic grocery sacks, even swiping a few fresh shrimp intended for dinner, then escaped onto the terrace with their loot. Theyskirted the tiled planters overflowing with flowering shrubs, and filed out onto the dock.

  “Fishies!” Charlie shrieked, pointing into the water. They rolled bread into tiny balls to feed the needlefish darting around the pilings. Screeching seagulls descended hungrily, raucously demanding their supplies. Stouthearted Randy never flinched as one of the pushy panhandlers swooped down and snatch bread right out of his hand. When the supplies were gone, Frank hauled up a rope that trailed into the water for show and tell about its encrusted barnacles, gunk and sea life.

  Then they were off, around the north side of the house, where snails were dining on the spathiphyllum. The children watched the tiny mollusks retreat into their spiral shells.

  “You know what snails like to drink?”

  The children shouted out, “Kool-Aid!” and “Coca-Cola!” then giggled to hear that snails are beer drinkers. Giselle won the coconut-counting contest, and as they exited the gate, they all squawked back at a scolding flock of wild green parakeets.

  From the bridge, Frank held Charlie up to see the huge cruise ships, the Ecstasy, the Seaward and the Celebration, in port, and the mirrored skyscraper where his office had once occupied the entire seventeenth floor. The sun was falling fast in a glorious blaze of fire.

  Dusk settled as they circled the far side of the island. The water darkened and night sounds began. Frank felt content. If only he could relive his daughters’ childhood years and enjoy more time with them. It’s not too late, he thought hopefully. Kathleen was right about family priorities. Perhaps Rory’s problems were better left in the hands of Dayton, an excellent accountant. His imagination might stop runningaway with him if he kept Daniel Alexander and his widow at a safer distance. He might even get a good night’s sleep.

  He inhaled the sweetly scented evening air as they meandered along, Giselle’s small hand warm in his. Charlie on his left, Randy marching ahead, waving a twig he had picked up. Frank wanted to rush back to the house, to tell Kathleen to stop worrying, that it was over. He would call Dayton in the morning. Charlie began to lag behind. Frank turned in the growing darkness.

  “Come on, son.”

  The tot peered anxiously over his shoulder, then hurried to catch up, short legs churning. Again he glanced back. Frank saw nothing but thick hedges, branches heavy with sea grapes and the lush upper limbs of huge orchid trees embracing like lovers overhead, shadowing the pavement below. Frank took the boy’s hand and they strolled on. Charlie on one side, Giselle on the other. The boy began to balk.

  “What’s the matter, Charlie?”

  “Let’s go home.” The child stared behind them again.

  “You all worn-out?”

  “No,” he piped up plaintively. “I don’t wike him.”

  “Who?”

  “The man.”

  “What man?” Frank strained to see into the darkness. Night had fallen amazingly fast. “There’s no man bac
k there.”

  The other two turned and stared as well. “Nobody’s there,” Randy said mockingly. “Charlie’s afraid of the dark,” he chanted. “Charlie’s afraid of the dark.”

  “Am not!” Charlie picked up his pace. “It’s the man. I don’t wike him.”

  “Why not?” Frank felt a chill. “We have good neighbors.”

  “He’s fawowing us. He’s mad,” Charlie said, “wif blood on ‘im.”

  “I think we’re late for dinner,” Frank said, “and I’m really hungry. How about you?”

  When they arrived home he was carrying Charlie, and the others were nearly running.

  “There was a monster!” Giselle cried, as they burst into the welcoming light and warmth of the house. Warm fragrant aromas from the kitchen mingled with good music from the sound system.

  “A man,” Charlie somberly corrected.

  Kathleen looked accusingly at Frank, as though he had deliberately frightened the children.

  “Charlie saw a shadow.” The casual sound of his voice belied the dryness in his mouth, his faded appetite.

  “A man,” the tot insisted stubbornly.

  Kathleen called after him as Frank started up the stairs to wash for dinner. “You should check your answering machine, sweetheart. When I passed your study earlier, I heard someone leaving a message.”

  He paused. He always left his study door closed. Nothing appeared to be disturbed inside. But he was certain she had been in there.

  Rory’s breezy greeting was his only message.

  “Guess what I’ve got,” she said playfully. “Billy came stragglin’ in here when it started gettin’ dark. I sneaked out while he was watchin’ TV, and climbed into his tree house with a flashlight. Had to be quite a sight for the neighbors. Musta thought I finally lost it.” She giggled at that, like a teenager. “Anyhow, I found an old cookie tin where the little termite had stashed a whole buncha stuff that belonged to his daddy. Swizzle sticks from the restaurant, some snapshots, stubs from Marlins games, key chains, a tie tack, aaannnnnd”—she stretched the word into two long sylla-bles—“an itsy bitsy, teeny weeny key in a little red envelope. Lemme tell ya.” Her voice dropped to a confidential tone. “Comin’ down that tree in the dark was a damn sight trickier than climbin’ up. Jist thought you’d like the latest inflight info. ‘Bye.”

  He smiled. Then punched the play button again, stepped out into the hallway and closed the door. He had had extrathick, exterior-quality steel-cored doors installed upstairs years ago, when they renovated. He could not hear a thing from the hallway. He played the message a third time, assessing how it had sounded to Kathleen. He had no doubt that she had listened to it. The message was perfectly innocent. He sighed, hoping she had not imbued it with some negative spin. Neither had ever snooped on the other, as far as he knew. He had never lied to his wife. They had always been truthful and trusting. This was his fault, certainly not Rory’s. But whatever Kathleen thought, he realized he had received more than one message this evening.

  “Hey champion, this is Frank,” he told Billy, who answered the phone. “Tell your mom I’ll see her in the morning.”

  He scarcely slept. The children in the guest room did not disturb him; neither did Shandi, arriving home late from God knew where, nor Casey’s TV blaring too loud and too late in her room. It was something else. When he closed his eyes beside his slumbering wife, he sensed they were not alone in the room.

  When Frank stepped into the hall tying his bathrobe and intending to steal downstairs alone at dawn, a small face appeared around the guest room door.

  “You sleep well, good buddy?” He held Charlie’s hand on the stairs.

  “The man kep’ walking up and down. You hear ‘im?” the boy asked solemnly, then looked up at Frank. “Can we watch cartoons?”

  Frank dug out the waffle iron and cooked breakfast for the second morning that week. Randy and Giselle, even Casey, joined them, eager to demonstrate the “old-timey” dance steps learned for her first cotillion. Giselle and Charlie were fascinated. Randy snickered.

  Frank watched and remembered dancing, holding his youngest daughter in his arms, when she was still in diapers, at some event that seemed not so long ago. When she was four or five, they had danced at a wedding, her patent leather Mary Janes planted square atop his polished dress shoes. Her next dance partner would be some pubescent boy with raging hormones. Where had the years gone?

  He took Kathleen coffee in bed, asked when the support group met again, promised he would be there, then mentioned an early appointment.

  “Is it about that call from last night?” she asked too casually.

  “Yes,” he said. “Everything’s under control downstairs. Sue Ann will come for the children soon. Casey is with them now and Lourdes will be in shortly.” He suggested she sleep in.

  “Not on your life.” She swung her pale legs off the bed. “Those little terrors are running around loose in my house. And if they go out, the little one will probably wind up facedown in the pool. Somebody’s got to watch them.”

  “I could never do this alone,” Rory said as they drove to the bank. “You have no idea how much your moral support means to me. I’m just sorry to be such a bother.”

  “No bother,” Frank assured her, several times.

  More sophisticated-looking than he had ever seen her, she wore a blue, businesslike dress, her hair pushed up and back, but was visibly nervous, twisting her long graceful fingers.

  He felt eager, as though participating in a treasure hunt. He knew it was a long shot, but if Rory was lucky, the box could be stuffed with cash. It would not be rational for a businessman like Alexander to cash in his excellent investments and simply park the money. But who knows, Frank thought, suicide is not rational either.

  They boarded the elevator to the safety deposit department in the Sunshine State Bank building. Rory filled out the access ticket and initialed his signature as Frank signed for admittance as well. She and the attendant disappeared into the vault, then emerged, with the attendant carrying a narrow steel box. The size, about two feet long and five inches wide, was a bad sign. Frank had hoped for something larger and tightly packed to the brim with high-denomination bills. The attendant ushered them into a carpeted cubicle with two chairs, placed the box on a built-in desktop and left. The door’s automatic lock clicked loudly behind her.

  They sat next to each other and eyed the box.

  “Shall we?”

  She nodded, chewing her lower lip.

  “Hang in.” He patted her hand. “Nothing’s going to jump out. There’s nothing we can’t handle.”

  “You do it,” she whispered.

  He lifted the lid. No cash in sight. He spread the contents, mostly documents and manila envelopes, out on the desk.

  Birth certificates for all three family members. Their passports. The marriage certificate for Aurora Lee St. Jean and Daniel Paul Alexander. The warranty deed on their house,along with the closing statements and title insurance. The wills were there, each naming the other sole beneficiary. A bank envelope containing eight silver dollars. A small sack of dimes and quarters minted when the U.S. government still used silver. Outdated incorporation papers from the restaurant partnership. Commemorative postage stamps that Alexander must have collected as a high-school boy. Laminated copies of Billy’s birth notice and the obituary of Daniel’s father. Eight fifty-dollar savings bonds belonging to Billy.

  “Birthday presents from his grandma in Olive Grove,” Rory murmured.

  Two Indian-head pennies, a buffalo nickel and a 1938 Walking Liberty half-dollar. A pair of delicate amethyst earrings in a small velvet box.

  “Daniel’s mother gave ‘em to me.” Rory touched one gently. “They were her mother’s. Figured there’d be hell to pay if I ever lost ‘em. So I kep’ ‘em in here.”

  Where the hell is the money? he thought, frustrated.

  Rory leaned across him to peer into the empty box. “That’s funny.” Puzzled, she riffled thro
ugh the mound of papers and envelopes. “Where is it?” She sounded as agitated as Frank felt.

  “What?”

  “Daniel’s pocket watch.”

  He frowned. They were looking for cash, receipts, bankbooks, not a watch.

  “Antique. Solid gold. His great-granddaddy’s. He was an adventurer, a hero, also named Daniel. When he was twenty-one he joined the gold rush in the Yukon territory. He rescued three people from a boat that capsized on the Klondike River. One of the men he rescued was the only son and heir of John D. Rockefeller. It was the father who gave Daniel Alexander the watch. Both men’s initials, the date, 1897,and Gratitude Is Greater than Gold, are engraved on the back. It was passed down to Daniel’s granddaddy, to his daddy and then to him on their twenty-first birthdays. It’s family tradition.”

  “Sure you don’t have it at Twin Palms?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I looked for it after … Figured it was in here.” She pawed again through the mound of documents.

  “Maybe he left it somewhere to be repaired. Any unexplained receipts among his personal effects?”

  She shook her head. “He was always so careful with it. It belongs to Billy now.” She looked tearful. “It’s tradition among the men of the family. Daniel’s mama finds out it’s gone, she’ll rip me from here to hell and back.”

  “How valuable is it?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t know in dollars, but to the family, it’s priceless, irreplaceable.”

  He wondered if the timepiece vanished with some sticky-fingered cop, rescue worker, or ambulance attendant in the confusion after the shooting. He had heard of such things happening. Or had Alexander liquidated it along with everything else? The history of the watch would command a much better price for it.

  “It’ll probably turn up,” he said briskly. This was no time to obsess over a pocket watch, even a family heirloom. “We have more important problems to face.”