by Alter, Judy
To my surprise, Tom called a few days later. “Kelly, about Sonny Adams. We had to let him go. He was skimming off the top of the rents.”
When I thanked him, I said I had another question. “Who owns North Side Properties?
“I told you. It’s my investment company.”
When I told Mike about it, he said, “Kelly, you go from suspicion to conviction in one big leap. It doesn’t work that way.”
We put it all behind us for the holiday.
Claire’s house had indeed been remodeled for entertaining by my ex-husband Tim who considered it a showcase for real estate in the area. A huge state-of-the-art kitchen, now several years old, still offered the latest in appliances and conveniences. It was a large, spacious room, easy to gather in. The girls perched comfortably on stools at the island, seats they remembered from childhood. And we gathered in the kitchen for wine—Claire had gotten sparkling cider for the girls and Anthony’s sons. The dining area in the house was simply one end of the living room. Claire’s long table sat ten, and Mike brought our folding table, which easily seated the overflow. The girls insisted on seats at the picnic table with Anthony’s sons, Megan and Liz. The rest of the “grown-ups” sat at Claire’s table, although I suspect Joe and Theresa were surprised at being considered adults. Claire had fixed a cider-glazed turkey with lager gravy she found in a magazine somewhere—not Bon Appétit, she claimed—and a lemony-mushroom stuffing, along with a side dish of roasted Brussels sprouts. Keisha brought sweet potato pie and her mom brought chocolate meringue and apple. My mom brought our family cranberry relish—the raw kind with apples and oranges all ground up—and Otto, who managed to find the seat next to Mom, raved about it. Anthony contributed a couple of good bottles of chardonnay, and we all had a feast.
The kids liked being at their own table because no one said brightly to them, “So, how’s school?” At the adult table, talk started with politics—we turned out to be mostly liberals except for Otto who, oddly enough, supported big business. I thought Otto would be for the little guy. Maybe it was an Old World notion he brought from his past. From politics, we moved on to the threatened development on Magnolia but Otto looked almost apoplectic, and I changed the subject to a discussion of the new restaurants springing up in the neighborhood. Ellerbe had recently been chosen as one of the top ten new restaurants in the nation by Bon Appétit—no small feat. Magnolia Avenue was fast becoming the place to go. Our neighborhood was on the upswing.
Cleanup went fairly easily with everyone helping, including Anthony’s sons, Stefan and Emil, and the girls, who cleared the table. Claire loaded the dishwasher, Mike washed, and I perched on a stool to dry the serving pieces. Claire, of course, owned several lovely sterling dishes.
Before we were through, Brandon Waggoner arrived from his family dinner to pick Megan up for a late date. He met with a formidable welcoming committee but handled himself well in such a situation, shaking hands, talking easily with kids and adults alike. He and Megan left amidst a shower of “Have fun” and “Be careful.”
“Every time she leaves, I say a small prayer,” Claire said to me. “I’ve discovered how fragile happiness can be.”
I hugged her. We’d both learned a lot in the last couple of years.
After many thanks and exclamations of appreciation, we all began to leave. I think Mom was a bit put out that Keisha and José took Otto home, but Otto bowed gallantly over her hand and said, “I’ll look forward to our next meeting.” I got the feeling the time and place of that meeting was already set and wondered if it was time for a talk with Mom.
Later, Mike said, “Kelly, you’re not her parent. You can’t quiz her about a relationship with a man.”
Well, darn, maybe she’ll tell me on her own.
We were cuddled comfortably on the couch, reliving the evening, talking about how nice it was to have everyone together.
Quietly, Mike asked, “Did you see the green Nova pull away when we left Claire’s? Bella’s not gone…or maybe it was Ben. Kelly, be oh so careful.”
His news put a big black cloud over what had been a lovely evening. I pulled closer to him and said, “I will.”
I’d put Bella and Tom Lattimore out of my mind and now it seemed as if their shadows were sitting in the room with us.
Chapter Fourteen
Mom called early the next morning, her voice so high-pitched and hysterical I could hardly understand her. My first thought, of course, was that Bella threatened her. “Mom, slow down. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she yelled, “but Otto has been beaten.”
“Beaten?” I know I sounded like a dummy. “Who beat him?”
“I don’t know!”
I stifled the urge to tell her to use her inside voice. She was screaming at me, and I could tell she was crying.
“Mom, slow down, and tell me the whole story. No, wait. I’m giving the phone to Mike. I’ll go to the other phone.”
I handed Mike the bedroom phone and set off to locate the living room remote, wherever it might be. Fortunately, I found it on the coffee table. When I picked it up, Mike was speaking in comforting tones.
“Nana, tell me slowly how you know about this. Take a deep breath.”
He was so good. I could hear her breathe, and her tone was lower when she came back on. “Otto called me about three this morning. When Keisha dropped him off, he went inside and found his store had been trashed. Clocks thrown around—no telling the damage. He says he stormed and threatened and began to try to right things. But about midnight, two men forced their way in his back door. Yes, he had it locked, but I suppose it wasn’t very strong or secure.”
“Did he say what they looked like, how they spoke?”
“They had Halloween masks on and didn’t say much, except to warn him to sell his store. They beat him with a pistol—what do you call that?”
“Pistol-whipped,” Mike supplied.
“Yes, that’s what the police told him. Then they knocked him down, kicked him in the ribs and head, and left, with a threat to remember what they told him.”
“He called the police?” Mike asked.
Mom took a deep breath. “Yes, and they took him to JPS and had him checked. He’s got a bandaged broken rib, a badly bruised arm, and his face is a mess.”
“Mom,” I asked, “where are you?”
“With Otto. He called from the hospital, and I went to get him.”
Swell. My mother was at JPS in the wee hours of the morning, when I’d have been terrified to go there.
“I went out and got him some breakfast this morning, but I think I’ll take him home with me for a couple days, so I can feed him some proper food and see that he heals. Kelly, I know that sounds improper, but believe me, it’s not. Otto and I are great companions…but he could never take your father’s place. I’m over that now.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, though this was no time for relief. “Whatever you say, Mom. I trust your judgment.” Okay, my fingers were crossed.
“What about the store?” Mike asked.
“The police boarded up the back door, but it’s still a mess. Otto can’t begin to clean it up now. And he shouldn’t. That’s the least important thing.”
“The most important,” Mike said, “is to find out who did this and why. It may be Monday before I can work on that, this being a holiday. I’ll call Conroy though.”
“Thanks,” Mom said. “I don’t know what I expect you all to do, but I just had to tell you.”
“Of course, Mom. I’d have been upset if you didn’t. Keep us posted.”
“I guess I’ll make a casserole,” I said to Mike after we hung up.
“Hold on, Kelly. I think your mom really wants to do the cooking here. I have an idea, though I won’t be much help.”
I listened to him and began calling—Joe and Theresa, Anthony, Claire, Keisha. We formed a work crew. We would start right after lunch and optimistically thought we could clean up the shop by suppertime.
Mike and I took the girls and went to Mom’s to check on Otto, tell him how sorry we were, and get the key to his store. We were there longer than I expected.
Otto was a mess, to put it bluntly. A black eye, bruises and scratches on his face, forehead and arms. We couldn’t see the bandaged rib, of course, but I could tell from the way he held himself that he was in pain.
Mom, on the other hand, was in her element. She had propped Otto up in an easy chair, his feet on the hassock, an afghan covering his legs, a cup of tea—a real china cup, not a mug—beside him.
“Your mother, she treats me like an invalid.” He gave Mom a fond smile.
Platonic? I wouldn’t bet on it.
“I told her,” he said, “I have to be up and clean my store. It will have to be closed today, but I want to open as usual Monday. Show them I am not afraid.”
When I told him our cleaning plan, he was reluctant. “I appreciate it,” he said. “But you would not know which parts go with which clocks. I can sort it out later.”
I assured him we would carefully label small parts and put them with the clock by which we found them, as best we could. It wouldn’t be foolproof, but we’d try. “It would take you weeks to clean this up. We can do it in a day.”
He clasped his hand to his head and then winced—he’d hit a bruise. “Ouch, you’re right. I am so grateful. I will treat you all to dinner at In and Out.”
I smiled. “No need, Otto. We care about you and we’re glad to do this.”
We assembled at the store’s back door just after one o’clock. The front, with broken windows, was boarded up—Mike said the police probably did that. Anthony excused himself from the general clean up and started measuring the windows for repair. “Need a new front door. I’ll go to Old Home Supply after I measure.” He phoned the glass company with measurements for the front windows and set off to get a door.
The rest of the store at first glance was a hopeless mess. Wonderful antique clocks were thrown on the floor, swept off the counter, smashed. I didn’t see how any could be saved, but that would be Otto’s decision. He knew what to do. I didn’t. All I knew was to begin to clean. We picked up all the large parts we could find, keeping clusters together. Since Mike couldn’t clean, he labeled. Otto had a huge supply of those brown envelopes that are half-letter size, and we put what seemed to be related parts into an envelope and used masking tape to attach the envelope to the clock to which they seemed to belong. We made mistakes, I’m sure.
Mike also carefully pulled broken glass out of clock faces and put it in brown paper sacks we’d brought. We’d wrap it in layers of newspaper before putting it in a trash bag then in a recycling cart—didn’t want sanitary employees hurt doing their job.
Sitting for a long time was hard for Mike, even with the pillow he carried at all times. Just as at the substation, he got up to walk around, but each time he did we all yelled at him to avoid glass here and watch where he was stepping there, until he muttered, “You’d think I was a clumsy ox.”
I just looked at him. He knew he wasn’t the world’s most graceful or best-balanced person these days.
We swept—and swept—and swept some more. Keisha and Theresa took over cleaning the shelves that lined the small shop, using damp paper towels to get the tiny fragments of glass. Claire worked on straightening Otto’s living quarters, where the devastation was not as bad but still had to be put to order. She and her girls righted furniture, tsked over the couch that had been attacked with a knife.
“Tomorrow,” Claire announced, “I’m doing the garage sale routine and refurbishing these rooms.”
Otto’s bed hadn’t been savaged, so Claire stripped the bed clothing and put it aside to wash at home. She straightened and washed his few dishes—just in case, she said—and held up a bent hot plate in disgust. “Another item for my garage sale adventure. He needs a toaster oven too.” Clearly, Claire was planning on setting Otto up for a long-term stay in these quarters.
With everyone working efficiently, I left to walk the block and check on the other tenants. Tanya was horrified and a bit scared.
“Someone came to see me, but he was polite and just talked. Offered me a lot of money and help in finding a new location. I said I’d think about it.”
I pushed the quizzing further and found she was describing Tom Lattimore. Maybe his technique was to try the “I’ll buy you out” approach first and get rough if the person refused, as Otto had done. Well, Otto had carried it one step beyond—he threatened.
The sushi restaurant was not yet open though I thought by three o’clock someone surely must be there. My pounding on the door brought a man in a toque who said he didn’t know anything about it and I’d have to talk to the owner. When I asked who that was and where I could find him, he shrugged and said to come back for supper. A quick look at the menu in the window—and the prices—convinced me I wouldn’t be doing that.
I got sort of the same non-response all along the street—the taqueria owner said he didn’t want trouble and it wasn’t worth it to him to stay if somebody threatened to trash his equipment and beat him up. He was nervous, and I could tell he was making plans to move on. Taquerias are apparently fairly portable.
As I walked back to Otto’s shop, I was close to exploding with anger. How could Tom Lattimore threaten people, even send goons to destroy property and beat the shop owner? I definitely felt a confrontation with him coming on.
By the end of that day, Anthony had installed a new door—I asked for the bill from Old Home Supply—and said the glass people would install the windows the next day. The shop was in as good an order as it could be until Otto had a chance to work on it. Some of the clocks were beyond repair—we all knew that. Some, Anthony said, could be fixed with the right wood—he seemed anxious to be able to use his fine woodworking skills, a contrast to his daily carpentry. I didn’t really have a project for him now, so I would be glad if he found another outlet for his energy and skills.
We called it a day about six and most of us trooped to the Grill for supper. Em announced, “Work is hard, and I’m tired. I need pancakes.” The Grill serves wonderful pancakes for breakfast but not at supper. Still, Peter accommodated her request, and she got her short stack, with bacon. I had the new Caesar salad with scallops and loved it.
We were home in bed by nine, though I did call Mom and tell her we would take Otto back to his place on Sunday. By then we hoped to have it stocked with food, livable, and the shop part in the best shape we could get it.
“Oh, Kelly, I wanted to take Otto to church Sunday morning. He’s not much of a churchgoer—raised Catholic and all—but he said he’d go.”
“Does he have church clothes?” I asked.
Her reply was sanctimonious. “The Lord does not care what you wear to church on Sundays. It’s your soul he’s concerned about.”
My mother always cared how I looked on Sunday morning, ever since I could remember. What had happened to Cynthia O’Connell?
By Saturday late afternoon, Otto’s shop was a new place—in fact, so new I was afraid he wouldn’t like it. His living quarters were much warmer and more welcoming, less like a collection of Goodwill furniture. Claire had put in a brightly striped loveseat featuring brown and turquoise and a turquoise overstuffed chair with matching ottoman and throw pillows of beige, brown and gold thrown about. A small coffee table held Otto’s collection of clock magazines, and a bookshelf mounted on the wall held his treasured book collection, which the vandals had not touched—probably they weren’t readers and didn’t realize how valuable those were to Otto. Claire completed the renovation with a small end table and a tasteful table lamp, eliminating the need for what had long been a bare bulb ceiling fixture. In his trips to Old Home Supply, Anthony had picked up a decorative globe to dignify that bare bulb.
“Hmmm,” Clare mused, “all he needs are pictures. I’ll have to talk to him about that.”
The adjacent area, which Otto used as a kitchen/bedroom had cupboards loaded wi
th coffee, dry cereal, a few easily heated canned goods—we wouldn’t eat canned pasta but after all his eating out, Otto might enjoy it. Keisha had been judicious in her selection of staples. The under-the-counter refrigerator held fresh milk, orange juice, fruit, lettuce, and cheese. A new hot plate and chrome toaster oven sat next to each other on the counter, and for an extra touch Claire had picked up a bargain bundle of bright kitchen towels.
“We really ought to paint these rooms….”
“Claire, we’ve got enough to do.”
Theresa, the girls and I had stocked the shelves with clocks in various stages of disrepair, carefully placing the labeled parts next to them. Anthony had gotten the glass company to put in new windows on Saturday without charging overtime. All in all, if you first walked in and didn’t look closely, you’d think nothing had happened. Of course, a second glance would reveal the broken clocks but Otto would have to fix them. I could hear him in my mind now ranting about the barbarians who broke the clocks but enjoying exercising his own skill at fixing them.
We all gathered back at our house and sent Joe and José, who was off today and tomorrow, for carryout from the Grill and more beer. Claire ran home to get bottles to supplement the wine I had on hand. When she hurried back, clutching four bottles of wine, I reflected on how she had changed from the Claire I first knew who was always impeccably dressed in a matching outfit. This Claire’s hair was escaping from her ponytail to form becoming tendrils around her face. Her makeup had mostly faded off, and her once-crisp striped shirt was wrinkled and dirty. She had frequently wiped her dirty hands on her jeans, and they too bore stains.
