It was clear that Katie liked Fifi. He made the two of us smile. She got teary-eyed when Fifi told her father he was like a son to him. She had asked me if I thought that meant Fifi really accepted Doc’s connection with Joe. I shrugged to play it safe. She no longer referred to Joe as the pervert.
We were minding our own business, just playing croquet close to the main house, when we saw Doc and Joe go by. Despite ourselves, we went to sit outside the sitting room window where the phone was located.
The phone rang. Doc took the call on the first ring. The tension was palpable even through the window. We couldn’t make out much just from hearing Doc’s end of the conversation, but afterwards he recounted the whole call to Joe. According to Dr. McGuilvry, Bud said that his father identified the ring as Butch’s and named the key players by their family names: Roger Brown, Billy Collins, Wolfgang Holthaus, Peter Shattuck, and Kevin Coe.
We heard Doc settling in in the wicker rocker as he continued to fill Joe in.
“Yeah, according to Bud’s uncle, Roger had been detained several times by the cops.”
“And they never had enough evidence? Seems fishy,” Joe said.
“The whole thing is. Not only that, earlier charges of sodomy, abuse, and endangerment of a minor were expunged from his record. Then, he really picked on the wrong kid. Apparently the child of someone influential. Anyway, that’s what the judge said.”
“Yeah?” Joe sounded impatient.
“But nothing. Not a word. No mention of Roger in the system.”
“C’mon, Ron. What do you mean, nothing?”
“Beats me. Bud said his uncle seemed to be fudging but finally admitted that the Feds got involved.”
“Well, it’s got to be that the Feds told him to forget everything to do with this case,” Joe said.
“Right. Bud did say that files disappeared. There wasn’t even anything to verify the little his uncle had told him.”
Through the window, we saw Joe pacing the length of the sitting room. He scratched his forehead, rubbed his chin, and let out a sigh, saying, “Now we have the Witness Protection program?”
“So whose kid was important enough? That doesn’t work, unless—”
“The Feds wanted the person whose kid he abused more than they wanted Roger.”
Doc was on his feet: the two reflections in the wavy windowpanes of Doc and Joe became one. Hugs and slaps on the back and belly laughs soon turned to “Holy shit! It’s a big name gangster.”
Katie’s eyes lit up, but the question she was eager to have answered dealt with Witness Protection and not queer love.
Chapter Thirty-four
FAMILY REUNION
After an uneventful evening, Katie and I slept undisturbed by kittens, tickling, or any temptation on my part. I had washed and thrown myself under the covers, faking sleep, when Katie crawled in. I was becoming a skilled hugger of the edge of the bed.
Late morning, Joe found Ron, who was lounging in an Adirondack chair on the grassy knoll overlooking Owl Lake with a Sylvester-grin on his face. Needless to say, Katie and I were in hot pursuit. We felt a bit magnetized to Joe and the doctor’s new relationship. It drew each of us differently. Katie was obsessed with understanding more about her father. I knew they held answers to more than one question. One I still had to work out. The big one about Katie and me.
“Heck, you seem chipper,” said Joe. “There’s my father coming towards you with a big grin on his face. Wait a minute, what’s going on?”
“As I’ve always told you, your father loves you,” said Ron.
“Oh, and now you love him?”
“Like a son!” Ron smoothed back his hair in what seemed to be a new gesture.
Fifi greeted both Joe and Ron with much affection, embracing each of them. Joe and the doctor seemed to be flirting, teasing each other about being brothers. Fifi saw that they were playing, and laughed a big, Sicilian guffaw.
I felt Katie shift her weight on the side of me. I turned towards her and caught her smiling a bit when Fifi laughed.
“They’re like two little boys teasing each other in front of Daddy,” she whispered to me in a chiding sort of way.
Doc informed Fifi of his phone call regarding Roger, and all that he had learned. Chiefly, that Roger was a child molester. Joe said he would start searching police and print archives through his reporter connections. Fifi insisted that he had other connections who could crash through dead-ends, even barriers set up by the Feds. Fifi said it sounded like a mob thing, that maybe this pervert also had info on a big Mafioso.
I stole another glance at Katie. Here was that word pervert again. I wondered if she saw the difference between Roger and Joe and her dad. They were not perverts, and I had to have the courage to argue this point with her. For now, she seemed caught up in the FBI story.
“Do you know something? Does this ring a bell?” Doc asked Fifi.
“I just say if the hurt kid’s papa is in the family, the papa get all of his boys after this monster Roger. That was the way.”
“So the Feds?” said Ron.
“Maybe, Roger, he sing, how you say, he rats on everyone, if he had something on someone to sell out, and then the Feds, they take good care of him. Some place nice with a new name, new suit, new face, if necessary,” said Fifi.
“So, he’s dead or he’s dead as Roger Brown,” said Katie’s dad.
“I’d say dead as Roger Brown,” Joe said.
They agreed that Fifi should enlist his gumbas in search of this important mobster whose son had been abused by Roger.
After Fifi’s departure, accented with Italian words and warm embraces, Joe said to Ron, “Well, you two are chummy.”
“He knows everything and gives us his blessing,” said Ron, grinning.
“Yes?” Joe was also smirking.
“We’ve got some figuring out to do. Suffice it to say, he has accepted me and you.”
“And you? Have you accepted us?” said Joe.
“I do care. First I have to unravel my life, not just the life of Butch and Roger.”
“You’ll get to my chapter this time? Or, will it be a closed book again?” asked Joe.
“I promise you. You are in my life and will continue to be. I have to do what’s right by everyone. Especially you.” Ron leaned over to run his hand through Joe’s hair.
“I believe you,” said Joe, pressing into Ron’s touch.
“Ti voglio bene. I love you!” said Ron, obviously practicing the little Italian he knew.
They walked off arm in arm.
Katie immediately turned to me and said, “We could find something that belonged to Roger. See if you can pick up anything about his new identity.”
I agreed, but I was hesitant about something else. I searched Katie’s face and body language for some clue as to what she was feeling. Doc had said some alarming things in that conversation, like he wanted to unravel his life.
“Katie?” I said, waiting for a reaction.
She merely shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“They’re not the perverts, Katie.” I softened my look and held my breath. Nothing.
After Katie’s lack of response, I let it go again. We were on our feet, beginning to walk up the hill away from the beach.
“Do we have anything that belongs to Roger?” Katie asked me again.
“Let’s see. The knife. No. The notes? No. The shirt…the shirt!”
“Right, where is the shirt?” she asked.
We rummaged through her father’s drawers to find it. We sat looking at it, passing it back and forth until Katie found it: an old camper’s label, R.B. Pretty worn, still visible.
After a couple of hours, Doc came back to the cabin with Fifi in tow. I told him I wanted to put the shirt on to see if I could feel anything.
“I need to do this, even though it does make my skin crawl.” I was halfway into the shirt, half-buttoned in the wrong holes. As the shirt came in contact with my skin, I started to feel strange.
“I fe
el dirty,” I said. “I think I’m going to upchuck. Watch out!” I said, running out of the cabin. Everyone followed, wanting to help, but I just stood there with my mouth hanging open and dry.
“What is it?” said Doc.
“I…I don’t know. Those were someone else’s words. I didn’t think them or anything, it just came out,” I said. “Something—or someone—was starting to take over in me.”
“Chuck, it’s gooda name?” Fifi pulled on Doc’s sleeve.
“No, Fifi. Upchuck is slang for vomit.”
“But, I say Chuck, he’s a gooda name,” insisted Fifi.
As they spoke, I was still fighting sickness. I knew it was important to keep the shirt on. I breathed deeply and cleared my mind.
“You know, I think so, too,” I said, joining Doc’s and Mr. Gallo’s conversation.
“Anything else?” asked Doc.
“Maybe, steak or roast or meat?” questioned Fifi. “Did the voice make you say these words, too?”
“Stop! Everyone,” I said. “It really feels slimy, like bad meat. Mr. Gallo, did you say meat?”
“Yes,” said Fifi, “I make a little joke, maybe yes, maybe no.”
“Maybe no joke, Mr. Gallo,” I said. “Maybe it’s really supposed to mean meat.”
Fifi grew quite interested in the shirt. He said he would take it to Italy, that he knew a woman, a witch, who could feel an article of clothing and tell things about its owner.
“Are you all right? Pina, can you hear me? You’re here with me, Dr. McGuilvry.”
“Get me out. Let me out. I’ll claw my way out of this hole.” I was leaving, but not from my dream, yet.
“Fifi, help me stand her up and shake her. Pina, you’re here with us outside my cabin,” said Doc, grabbing me under the arms.
“Free?” I said, slowly looking around.
I was half-awake, however awake enough to see Fifi and to sense an old current flowing between us. Ancient, like the cave dwellers and the Normans were to Sicily. Old like the scent of garlic on my grandma’s breath as she jiggled me on her foot and blew gentle kisses that magically flew over the language barrier. Fifi was conveying something more than grandfatherly caring.
I started to come back to awareness. “I think I’m okay.” I looked down at my hands. “But why am I so dirty?”
Katie snapped back, “Because you were clawing in the dirt to escape. Let’s get out of here. Dad, can we just go sit somewhere calm? Please!”
Katie was already standing. I couldn’t quite read her face—nor was I in the right frame of mind.
Chapter Thirty-five
RESEARCH
After a short snooze on Katie’s bed, tucked in the crook of her arm, I woke up smiling. I was still dressed in my own somewhat soiled tennis shirt and madras shorts. Katie startled upon seeing her dad peek his head in.
“No more!” she screamed, but Doc just wanted to let us know he was finally going to the library with Joe, and that Fifi was actually on his way to Sicily to consult with the psychics.
As he was walking away, I heard Doc say he would be back before too long to receive a call from Bud. Katie and I would have to be ready to get to the phone.
Katie didn’t say much as we walked over to play a game of croquet next to the main house. When I tried to stop her from tripping over loose rocks by the croquet post, she shrugged away from me. I asked if the humidity was getting to her too, but she merely grunted. I wondered if this was a good time to be eavesdropping.
We were ready to take up our post by the window when we saw Doc and Joe, walking side-by-side. We were in position and ready to glean any useful information that might leak through the porous calking of the window by the phone.
The phone call started, and Katie and I leaned in close. Most of what Bud was relating to Doc must have been old news, because Doc seemed to be impatient to get on with the call. Then, I could hear Doc shifting his sizeable weight and muffling some of the words that followed. Katie shot up from her crouched position and caught a glimpse of Joe kind of doing a dance around Ron, attempting to pull the receiver away.
“I think Joe and I are going to have to go to libraries in Portland. Maybe Boston,” said Doc to Bud. “Catherine?…She’s not doing well again. Kind of drifting. She spends her days staring at the hills on the other side of the lake, talking about when she was a girl on the porch at Star Island.”
With that, Doc ended the conversation, claiming he was needed elsewhere.
I realized Katie was crouched over on her side and crying. I tried to hold her and tell her it would be okay, but she twisted away from me. We needed to go, but she refused to leave. I was afraid she would burst into the house and force her father to tell her what was going on with her mother.
Doc was still talking to Joe. “She looked at me the other day and made me promise I’d leave her at Star Island. Some mumble jumble about going ‘with the tides’ and ‘following the stars.’ I scheduled neurological and psychological tests in Portland for her next Friday.”
Doc cleared his throat. We heard him put his bulk into the wingback chair and saw Joe’s shadow merge into his. Katie and I sprung up and saw Joe massaging Doc’s shoulders.
Katie couldn’t be stopped. When she saw them in that close embrace, she bolted.
I heard the screen door clack shut, Doc’s strange cough, and Katie’s shrill voice yelling, “Tell me!”
At Katie’s loud introduction, Joe sprang away from Doc. This left Dr. McGuilvry wide open to Katie’s pummeling fists. He wrapped his arms around her, trapping her hands against him, and buried his head in her hair. Joe passed away from the window, and again I heard the dry clack of the screen door.
Doc spoke softly. “Honey, look at me. I don’t blame you for being angry. I do have to talk to you. Your mom’s not well.”
Katie barked out, “So? I know that. But Joe?”
“Wait, everything in due time. Your mom told me she just wants to go away to Star Island and just ‘dream,’ she says. The doctors have to do special tests to see what’s really going on. They may recommend total rest,” Doc said.
“Maybe she’s going crazy because of you and Joe. Dad, are you…are you homosexual?”
“Oh, Katie…” Doc paused. I heard that cough again and Katie’s renewed sobs.
“It’s a long story, and I don’t want to lie to you,” Doc said, then paused for a few seconds. “Your mom’s disorder doesn’t have anything to do with Joe, nor does he play a role in your mom’s wish to go away. I love your mom, Katie. I always have.”
“But you love Joe more,” Katie snapped.
“I don’t know if you can understand this, but it just happened. Years ago. I do love Joe, like a brother. Like a partner with whom I share a great many things. I don’t quite understand it myself, but I won’t lie to you any more…or to myself.”
“What’s going to happen?” Katie said.
“I don’t really know. I love you, you know that? And you do come first.”
Katie pushed away from her father, looking as if she were about to vomit.
“I’m out of here,” she screamed as she bolted.
When I heard Katie slam the screen door, I jumped to my feet and tried to catch up with her.
Turning back to look at me, her face contorted as she screamed, “I hate him. Just leave me alone, all of you.”
Doc followed Katie. He stopped short when he saw me attempting to hold her. His hair looked more like Einstein’s than Don Everly’s, and his shirtfront and face were drenched.
I raised my eyes to him and attempted a smile. “Sorry.”
Dr. McGuilvry lowered his eyes and sighed. Once he had pulled everything back inside, he told me he and Joe would be leaving for a few days. He would call often to keep us up-to-date on new details.
“Do you know what’s going on, Pina?” Doc asked.
“Yes,” I confessed.
He suggested Katie and I get pizza from town tonight so we wouldn’t have to go to the dining ro
om. Doc hugged me.
I held on tight. “I don’t think you’re a bad guy.”
“Watch the mail.” He changed the subject gruffly. “Fifi Gallo may send postcards from Italy. You two should read them.”
Chapter Thirty-six
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FROM BEYOND
Carrying the pizza in one hand, I knocked gently on Katie’s door. She looked up from under the comforter and eyed the pizza box greedily. I think that was the best reception I could have hoped for.
I said, “I’m sorry.”
She mumbled, “I don’t want to talk.”
With that, she started singing “Tall Paul.” We both really hated that song, but it did change the topic.
I agreed to play a cutthroat game of Monopoly or Clue, which couldn’t have been too challenging since we both fell asleep sprawled over Boardwalk and Free Parking.
We spent the next two days lounging and swimming, not putting too much into words. We weren’t touching as much either. I had tried to put my arms around Katie once and my hand almost froze from the cold shoulder she gave me. We chatted a bit with Katie’s mom, if hazy, monosyllabic words count as conversation.
On the third day, we received a letter from Fifi, marked “importante.” He sent it from Sperlinga in Sicily where he met with a “strega,” a seer.
He wrote that she had handled the shirt and said, “Old blood, old meat.” Then she repeated herself, “meat.”
Fifi wrote out an exact phrase that the strega had said to him, cio che cerca e carne. He said we must listen to what the Italian sounded like phonetically: cho kay chair ka kar nay. Joe would be able to pronounce it in Italian, according to Fifi. The phrase meant, “You’re looking for meat.”
Katie seemed mildly interested. She spent her time looking at old family pictures and reminiscing about her father taking her to the park and pushing her higher and higher on the swings. Sometimes, she said, he would bring her to his office and let her play Nurse.
I tried to tell her none of that was gone. He was still that same Doc.
“Yeah, but I’m no longer that little girl,” she said.
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