Stamped Out

by Thayer, Terri

  April picked up her plate and went down the line, taking the smallest spoonfuls of the richest foods, a little bit of her favorites and a lot of the green salad she found at the far end. She knew she’d hurt her mother’s feelings by not letting her feed her. But she was tired of playing second fiddle to a dishpan.

  A wave of people came in from upstairs, at least four dozen people, all talking loudly. Softer, funeral voices abandoned, the talking grew louder, echoing as the hall filled.

  April moved over to a corner of the room, finding an empty spot where she could watch and listen.

  She saw a lot of almost familiar people. None she could put a name to, but recognizable just the same. Most people were dressed in black or navy. She smiled thinking about the last funeral she’d gone to in California. It wasn’t a funeral at all; it was a Wiccan crossing-over ceremony with everyone dressed in shades of red because that was the dead woman’s favorite color.

  She heard people talking about Frankie. Despite the police’s best efforts to keep the tentative identification a secret, the Aldenville grapevine was thriving. She heard Frankie’s name mentioned more than George’s. Thankfully, she didn’t hear her father’s name mentioned. His march into the police station had gone unnoticed.

  She dumped her empty plate in a green garbage can. Bonnie and Clive were talking to a group of Bonnie’s friends, mostly women from church.

  April walked the periphery of the room. She wanted to ask about Frankie. She saw Tammy and Lyle talking to Mike McCarty. She recognized Mary Lou and her daughter, who came in with an older man and younger man. The young man, Kit’s husband, steered her to a chair and went to get her some food. Mary Lou smiled at him indulgently, like she was one lucky mother-in-law.

  April crossed the room to the dessert table. She didn’t see Rocky or Piper. Their lives must not have intersected with George’s. He was not country club.

  These were the middle-class folks who made up much of Aldenville’s population. Who filled the churches and the ball fields, and the town pool in the summertime. Some held jobs in the light-industrial parks nearby or were the hairdressers, truck drivers and grocery-store clerks. Some, like Bonnie, worked at the club. None of the old money she’d seen on the golf course earlier. George was a decidedly solid citizen.

  Where was Mitch? She’d thought he would be here. He seemed genuinely upset yesterday morning when he’d heard about George’s death.

  What did he know about Frankie Imperiale? There had been something in his eyes on the golf course earlier when Suzi told them whom the body belonged to. He’d claimed to be older, and not part of the crowd that partied at the Castle, but she’d seen recognition on his face when Frankie’s name came up.

  He’d been a college student the summer Rocky graduated. Said he’d still been at school. Most colleges were finished, though, by the end of May. Wouldn’t he have been home for his sister’s graduation? What was he hiding? Maybe he’d bought the booze for some of the parties. Surely he’d had a fake ID from college. The drinking age was twenty-one, but he was a rich kid with the connections needed. If he had gotten caught providing liquor, he could have gotten into serious legal trouble. Yost had hinted he’d busted someone that night. Maybe it was Mitch.

  It was possible Frankie had just died from an overdose, drugs or alcohol. But she’d seen the large dent in his head. He’d been dumped in the fireplace. And maybe shot.

  April was greeted by an elderly bald man. He rubbed the top of his head with glee. “Remember me?”

  April nodded. “You were at the Castle yesterday. Curly, right?”

  Curly’s eyes glittered. “I saw Yost take your father in earlier. A tapestry of justice,” he sputtered. Saliva gathered in the corner of his mouth, and he wiped it clean with a shaky hand.

  “A . . . ?” April started to ask, then realized he meant to say “travesty.” He must watch America’s Most Wanted a lot.

  “I live on Main Street,” Curly explained. “Across from the police station.”

  Clive appeared at April’s elbow, startling her with his sudden presence. “The police have your father? Does Bonnie know?” he asked, his voice shrill, his eyes big and wide. April couldn’t help but remember how on his old TV show, his eyes would bug out whenever there was a new revelation.

  April shook her head. She looked up. Her mother was working her way around the room, gathering up dirty paper plates. “Well, I wanted to tell her when I got here, but she was too busy,” she said. “Besides, they’re just questioning him.”

  With a scowl, Clive left them. April watched as he drew Bonnie away from the garbage can. Bonnie’s eyes flicked to April as Clive told her about Ed, then away as though April couldn’t be trusted. April felt very alone. She knew her mother didn’t have room in her life for Ed, but she felt as if she was the one being rejected.

  April knew there was only one way she could help her father.

  She turned to the bald man. “My dad’ll be okay, Curly. Did you know the dead man, Frankie?”

  “Sure, I watched him grow up. His mother lived on Main Street, too, next to the post office. She was a domestic.

  Cleaned the bank and some of the offices around town. He was just a kid when he first started working for your dad. Of course, he wasn’t very old when he left town, either.”

  But he hadn’t left town. Instead, he’d been killed. “You were at the Castle job back then, right? Did Frankie get along with everyone?”

  Curly shrugged. “I don’t know.” His eyes unfocused. “I’ll tell you who didn’t like him. George.”

  That got her attention. “George? Why not?”

  She lost his. His gaze grew distant. “Such a shame about George. He’d been so down, so depressed about going into the nursing home. But Tuesday we had lunch, me and Mo and him, like we always did, at the diner. He and Mo’d been over to the Castle site and George was just as happy as could be. Said he had found the answers to all his problems.”

  April wanted to get the conversation back to Frankie. Hearing about old men’s fears of nursing homes wasn’t what she was after.

  An arm snaked around Curly’s shoulders. Lyle’s sharp jaw came into view. “So where are the sidewalk supervisors headed next? Don’t tell me. That sewer replacement job in Butler, am I right? I can’t compete with the heavy equipment.”

  Curly smiled sheepishly.

  “Nothing like digging up a street to get all the boys out,” Lyle told April. “They’re convinced they can help things along, if the Ditch Witch gets stuck.”

  Curly’s eyes lit up and his head began to wobble dangerously again. “Have you seen the new one? It goes like a mother—”

  “Yeah, Curly, I’ve seen it,” Lyle interrupted. He gave Curly a smile and glanced at April. He was holding a red Solo paper cup. April could smell the liquor in it. She hadn’t seen a bar, but there must be one somewhere. She looked for Tammy, expecting her to join her husband, but April didn’t see her. April remembered some folks thought she’d been responsible for his death at the nursing home.

  “Tammy not here?” she asked Lyle.

  He shook his head, saying unconvincingly, “Migraine.”

  Curly said, “I was just telling Miss Buchert here how happy George was on Tuesday.”

  “George was?” Lyle said, his smile fading. His eyes searched Curly’s.

  “Sure, he came back from the job site, just as happy as a kid.”

  “I think he was excited that he was going to see something blow up. That George liked a big bang as much as anybody,” Lyle said with a wink.

  Curly laughed lasciviously. “That he did.”

  April said, “Well, you must know, Lyle. You saw him Tuesday, didn’t you? The day before the explosion?”

  Lyle shook his head as if searching his memory. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I thought my dad said you were there, doing something with the dynamite.”

  Lyle disagreed. “I wasn’t there.” His eyes got misty. “I didn’t see George a
t all before he died, sadly. The last I saw him was on the Donnybrook job the week before.”

  “Oh, that was a good one,” Curly said. “With the big backhoe.” He rubbed his hands together in glee. April looked at Lyle, who shrugged and smiled.

  “These old guys got to get their kicks somehow,” Lyle said. “The bigger the equipment, the bigger the thrill.”

  April laughed. Curly enjoyed being teased by Lyle, that much was clear.

  And he gave as good as he got. “You get yours blowing stuff up. At this stage, all I can do is watch.”

  Curly looked off in the distance. The line at the buffet was three deep, and people were sitting in chairs lined up in rows, scarfing down potato salad and Jell-O. The business of burying a friend was an appetite-building one. Several men were passing a flask. In the room, the women and the men were in separate groups, the women arguing over the amount of sugar in the coleslaw and the men disagreeing about how much rain had been forecast.

  Lyle leaned into April, keeping his voice low. His features were oversized, like his hands. He said, “By the way, I dropped off some invoices at the barn earlier.”

  April looked at him in surprise. “You were in the barn?”

  “Well, yeah. That’s the way your father and I work. He likes stuff put right on his desk. In the special place.”

  She laughed. That did sound like her dad. She’d have to talk to him. That system had to change now that she was living there. She couldn’t have strange men dropping in without notice.

  “Okay, I’ll make sure he gets them. I’d like to talk to you about the Castle job and what you remember about Frankie Imperiale.”

  “That’s a shame, ain’t it? They sure it’s him?”

  April shrugged. “It’s not official.”

  “There are only a few dentists in Aldenville,” Curly said. “They just got lucky that he’d had his dental work done here.”

  April nodded. That was true. Many people went into Wilkes-Barre for their doctor’s appointments. Someone like Frankie, with a hardscrabble upbringing, was lucky to have had any dental work done.

  “How well did you know Frankie?” April asked.

  “I barely remember working with him,” Lyle said. “That would have been way back, at the first Castle job. He was an apprentice.”

  Yet Ed didn’t remember him. April tried to think of something else to ask him.

  Lyle looked at the diminishing line at the buffet table. “I’m going to get some food. Do you want something?” he asked her politely.

  “Thanks, I already ate.”

  April tried to spot the other elderly man she’d seen with Curly at the Castle yesterday. “Where’s Mo?” she asked.

  “Not here.” Curly leaned in and whispered. His breath was stale and smelled like old socks. “He couldn’t take it. He lives at that damned nursing home. He had a bad afternoon, and they gave him something to sleep. “He was agitated.”

  Tammy wasn’t the only one who couldn’t face a funeral.

  “Can you get me some cookies? I need to rest my dogs a bit.” Curly headed to a line of chairs set up under the high windows.

  As she approached the dessert table, April heard the Buchert Construction name and slowed near a group of mourners that were gathered around the cookies. They were talking about Frankie. She inched closer, picking up a small paper plate. She put a pizzelle on her plate. She vacillated between cream puffs and snickerdoodles. Did Curly have to worry about trans fat? She decided it was too late for him. He might as well enjoy the turtle brownies. She made her choices slowly so she could listen.

  A bosomy woman clucked, “Poor Rita Imperiale. All those years. Never knowing where her son was. Thinking he’d abandoned her.”

  “He was always trouble,” said an elderly woman with a face the color and texture of a well-used paper grocery bag.

  The first woman leaned into the group. April strained to hear. “Her only child. She never told anyone who his father was.”

  The group of women resorted to murmurs, and April backed off, now putting cookies randomly on Curly’s plate. She’d left home, too, left her mother alone. She’d always been in touch with her parents, though. Still, there had been long stretches of time during college and when she was getting her career off the ground that the phone calls home had been scarce. She looked over at her mom, now walking with Clive, introducing him to the priest, and wondered if she had needed more from April.

  April dropped off the plate of cookies with Curly and then searched out Lyle. She found him eating at a banquet table, and sat down in the empty chair next to him.

  “Do you think Yost has it in for my dad? Some kind of personal vendetta?”

  Lyle looked thoughtful, his mouth moving as he chewed potato salad. “He’s always after us to have the proper permits, making sure our tools are locked up every night. I don’t think he checks up on every contractor like he does us.”

  “Did you? Have the right permits for the Castle?”

  Lyle’s eyes flashed with anger. “You heard me. I talked to the borough yesterday morning. The code enforcement officer said I was cleared.”

  “Okay, okay,” April said. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.”

  Lyle shook his head. “Used to be a man’s word was good enough. When George was the code enforcement officer, Yost and George were tight as thieves. There would have been no questions.”

  All she’d done was make Lyle mad at her. April excused herself.

  April mingled, listening to conversations that ranged from the deer population to road construction and back again. Frankie and George, the dead men, seemed to have been forgotten.

  Why was Frankie so forgettable? She wanted to know what Frankie Imperiale looked like. The men her father hired back then often came to their house in the mornings for Bonnie’s sticky buns and coffee. Maybe she’d remember him if she saw his face. She might remember who his friends were.

  According to Curly, he was a local boy. If that was the case, she knew right where to look. She made her way through the crowd and past the kitchen, using the back hall that led to Deana’s place.

  April turned into Mark’s study. Just as she’d remembered, every high school yearbook for the past twenty years was lined up at the bottom of the bookshelves. He had the remainder, dating back to when Mr. Hudock started high school, in storage.

  She counted back on her fingers. Rocky’s graduation party was held June 13, 1993. Frankie would have been a few years out of school by then, working for her dad. She pulled down the 1990 yearbook and thumbed through. She started in the senior section and scanned the color pictures of boys and girls, with the hairstyles and clothes as anachronistic as if they’d been photographed a hundred years ago.

  Nothing in 1990. She pulled down 1991.

  Hancock, Huddleston, Imperiale. There was Frankie’s name, but next to it was only gray splotch. No photo available. Darn. She tapped her teeth with her fingernail. He had to be somewhere in the yearbook. Maybe he’d been involved in sports. April looked through the team photos with no results. Nothing in clubs. Maybe he’d been voted class clown. Or most likely to end up dead in a Castle ruin. Nothing. Frankie hadn’t been the extracurricular type.

  She did see a picture of a cheerleading Tammy, smiling, lithe and beautiful, without the worry lines that were now such a prominent feature of her face. Her high, pert ponytail was a bright yellow. It looked so unlike the mousy bob she currently wore. April felt like a voyeur. It was obscene, seeing this pretty girl with such hope and promise, before life dealt her its nasty blows. She wondered what kinds of events had led Tammy to the frown lines and gray hair.

  Flipping further through the pages, April saw a familiar face. A group of students were standing around an old car. The teacher was Mo. She read the caption. “The twenty-five-year-old Valiant was completely restored in Automotive Shop by Joe Keener, Barney Zimmerman and Frank Imperiale. The project was underwritten by Weber Insurance.”

  She pulled
the book closer. Frankie’s face was tiny, and she couldn’t make out his features. According to the caption, he was the one with the grin and the mullet. But the more important thing was that Mo and George had known Frankie. She’d find out more from Mo.

  It looked as if a trip to the nursing home was in her future. She swallowed a bit of guilt about using poor George that way, but she needed to get her dad out of Yost’s jail.

  The door to the study opened. Deana stuck her head in. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine why the light was on in here. Mark’s downstairs with George’s family.”

  April pointed to the pile of yearbooks. “I see you’ve kept up your father’s tradition.”