“Hi, Faith.”
“She’s named after Faith Hill, the country music star.”
I know nothing about country singers, though Jack tells me Marty’s Celina is an ardent fan. “Crystal, I’m mainly here about the furniture. But I also understand Steven Damelin knew my late aunt.”
“Late? Everybody’s ‘late.’ Way too late, that’s what I think.” She sounds like Doris but harder. “Cops too.”
“The Lawrence police?”
“No, Boston. Two of them. A million questions.”
“Devaney and Maglia?”
“The dark one had clear nail polish.”
“That’s Maglia. They can be tough.”
Faith feeds Barney a slobbery Fig Newton. “About this furniture, is it leather?”
“No. It’s upholstered fabric and wood. Was Steven a close relative?”
“He was my brother.”
“Your brother.” Shocking. “And so Doris is—”
“My mother. Our mother.”
Not the grandmother. I’ve skipped a generation. I now see a family resemblance at the jawline, except Crystal has an overbite. No orthodontist for her. At the sink, a faucet drips. “I tried to talk to Doris,” I say, “but your father, if it’s your father—?”
“Slammed the door, right?” I nod. “That’s Charlie. He’s pissed because he couldn’t slam the door on the cops. Did Stevie have a recliner? I could sure use a nice La-Z-Boy. What about his sofa?”
“We’ll get to that, Crystal. When did you last see your brother?”
“Three years ago. You gonna tell me about the furniture, or what?”
“Your brother died in my house. I need to know a few things. This is strictly personal.”
She leans closer. “When you’re the landlady and he’s the tenant, then it’s not personal.”
“Crystal, Steven’s apartment is directly over my own. My security is an issue. Which makes it very personal.”
She bites a cuticle and scowls. “So ask your questions.”
The faucet is a drumbeat. I remind myself this woman has just lost her brother. Even if they weren’t close, she’s probably reeling from the murder. “I want the same thing as the police—to find out who’d harm Steven.”
“No idea. Like we told the cops, Steve was long gone. Horrible he’s dead like that, but we lost him years back.” She wipes cookie from the baby’s mouth. Crystal, I now see, is pregnant, I’d guess five months. There’s no sign of a man around.
“Did you recently talk to Steven on the phone?”
“No.”
“Or visit him in Boston?”
Side to side, her hair whips her cheeks. “No.”
“And your parents?”
“Them neither.”
“As far as you know.”
“As far as I—hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe your father gets a fare to Boston from time to time. Doesn’t he drive a taxi?”
“Runs old ladies to the senior center and drunks home from bars.” But she blinks a little too fast. “I mean, if he ever saw Stevie—which don’t get me wrong, I don’t think so—he didn’t never tell me or Doris.”
Crystal says no more but has opened the possibility, however slight, that Charlie Damelin might have picked up Steven at curbside on Barlow Square as Trudy Pfaeltz said hi. A soap theme plays. All My Children?
“So you saw Steven three years ago. A family visit?”
“Three years ago last May. Doris was sick and needed a home aide, and Stevie helped us out with arrangements. I mean, if you call that a visit. Which I don’t. Stevie didn’t even stay at the house. He got a room in North Andover at a country inn. Him and his friend. The whole city of Lawrence wasn’t good enough.”
“He came with a friend?”
“Alex somebody.”
“A girlfriend?”
Her sharp laugh startles the baby. “Try again.”
“Alex is male?” She brushes back Faith’s hair and nods. “Do you remember Alex’s last name?”
“So you can give him some of the furniture?”
“Crystal, Steven’s things are for your family. If you’d just try to recall the last name?”
“He’s some kind of dancer. Ballet, whatever. It was a first-name basis. They stayed two nights… no, three, because the old man tried to convince Stevie about a Hummer.”
“A Hummer?”
“For a hearse. The cab business isn’t great. The old man thinks he’d do good with a Hummer to rent for funerals. He wanted Stevie to go in with him. They had a big fight. The old Damelinski temper…”
“Damelinski?”
“It’s Polish, or Lithuanian. The whole family came from the old country and worked in the mills a hundred years ago. Lawrence was a big mill town. They were spinners and spoolers and weavers. All the women worked in the mills. The men too. It’s all gone. There’s no jobs to speak of. Raytheon laid everybody off, now I’m part-time in a parking garage. The Hummer hearse idea, I thought Charlie had something. Stevie turned him down flat.”
“And that’s the last time you saw your brother?”
“Last time. Now, how about that furniture? You got a list?” The faucet drips on. Crystal reaches for a box of Newport Lights.
Is this what I’ve come to Lawrence for? To learn that Steven Damelin had a dancer boyfriend three years ago and did not spend one night in the family home where he grew up, or even inside the city limits? And to find out that Steven was a working-class kid who somehow reinvented himself, a bootstrap boy who fled his family?
No, it’s doubtful that he did the whole Horatio Alger thing all by himself. Somebody groomed Steven. Who? “A few more questions, Crystal. Steven mentioned a deal with my aunt. He worked for a Boston company, but let me ask this: when you were kids, did your brother think up different get-rich schemes?”
“He shoveled walks in the winter. We did a Kool-Aid stand in summer. What do you want to know this stuff for? You sound like a cop.”
“Not me.”
“Or a school counselor. I hated school.” But Faith wails, and Crystal leaps to fill a bottle with Hawaiian Punch. The baby grabs and sucks. Crystal slowly sits back down. “You ought to talk to the Voglers.”
“And who are the Voglers?”
“Too good for us, too high up for the Damelins. For the Damelinskis.”
“Who are they?”
“You’re giving me Steve’s furniture, right? All of it?”
“That’s why I’m here. First the Voglers.”
“Kidnappers.”
“Kidnappers?” It’s a jolt.
“That’s what I call the whole bunch. Oh, the Voglers didn’t just grab my brother off the street. People like that operate different.” She lights a Newport while Faith sucks her sticky hand. But the mood has shifted. Something’s on Crystal’s mind. “This goes back. Way back.” She inhales. “You probably did good in school.”
“I did okay.”
“None of my teachers knew I existed. Biggest part I ever got in a school play was a carrot in Peter Rabbit. My costume was an orange garbage bag with armholes.” She exhales sideways. “Little Stevie, now, he’s Robin Hood. Doris sewed him a velvet costume by hand. Little tiny stitches, beautiful if you like all that. My brother, the little star.”
“That’s tough on a brother and sister.” Stop, Reggie. Forget the amateur therapy. “Tell me about the Voglers.”
She lays the cigarette in an ashtray, wets one finger, tamps Fig Newton crumbs on the table, licks them. “This third-grade volunteer lady fell in love with him—no, not what you’re thinking. I mean… special attention. He was real small and, everybody thought, cute as a button. All of a sudden, Stevie gets horseback riding lessons on Saturdays. You know how a kid loves to ride a horse? Me, I get a carnival ride and the pony’s half dead. Stevie’s the… what’s that word, starts with an e?”
“Equestrian?”
“They got him boots and a velvet hard hat.”
“They? You mean the Voglers?”
“My brother was pals with their precious Andrew. He got in tight with the whole bunch, Drew and the little princess of a sister, Dani. It’s Dani with an i. They rode their horses and won ribbons. Yellow and green, shiny satin ribbons. Myself, I won a pair of goldfish at bingo. Saturdays I watched cartoons. The closest I got to a horse is this shirt Steve left when he came to help with Doris and blew up at the old man. Ralph Lauren Polo, that’s my horse.”
“And Steven stayed in contact with the Voglers?”
She flicks the ash. The faucet beats time. “Comes high school, surprise! Stevie the Star wasn’t going to the regional high. Not him. The Voglers got him into Alden Academy.” She says the name in a nasal exaggeration, Awl-den.
I recognize the name. We considered it for Jack the year Marty got furious about the science fair awards. “It’s near here, isn’t it?”
“In New Hampshire. The kids live there. And precious Stevie got scholarships and went with his buddy, Andrew. That’s when he got, like, too good for the rest of us. That’s when Doris finally got clued in. I mean, my mother was for all this stuff. Couldn’t get enough. She’d scrape mud and horse crap off Stevie’s riding boots and shine them like she was making out with the boots.”
She flicks the ash again. “I’d Vaseline my Mary Janes, ten minutes and you’re done. Doris, she’d spend hours. Her Stevie was the prince. It was Voglers this and Voglers that. They paid for his braces. They took him skiing. Not here in New England. Our snow isn’t good enough. They all go out West where it’s soft if you land on your ass. Some place with a B.”
“Breckenridge.” Crystal glares as if I’m a double agent. I say nothing about the Baynes family ski vacations. “Crystal, where do the Voglers live?”
“Outside Boston someplace. Stevie went there most weekends.”
“And your father? What did Charlie think about all this?”
“Charlie Damelin never turns down something free. You see the backyard?”
“No.”
“There’s a carload of scrap glass somebody gave him for nothing. And old pipes. It’s like a junkyard. Always was. My old man called the Voglers a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He thought my brother’s luck could rub off. When he got smart, it was way too late. The Voglers—to be polite, you could say they sort of adopted Stevie. Truth is, they stole him. Those people had their own son. Why take somebody else’s?” In this moment, Crystal’s gaze turns mournful. The quiet moment hangs.
“And that’s how Steven… dropped out of your family?”
“He went to the same college as Andrew. Scholarships right and left. They have a business. That’s who Steve worked for in the summer. And then after college.”
“Corsair Financial?”
“I guess.” She nods again. “In Boston.”
“It must have been difficult.”
“Diff-i-cult?” She says it in the Alden Academy voice. “Stevie could put on a real show for everybody. My brother was the actor. There was a part of him they didn’t see.”
“What part?”
Crystal looks at me, bites her lip, takes two quick puffs, perhaps to gauge what she’s willing to “pay” me in exchange for the furniture. I lean forward, eager to hear it all.
But just then the baby fusses, and Crystal jumps up, goes to the fridge, pours a refill, then sits in silence.
I try to recover the moment. “Crystal, it could help if I knew anything… unusual about Steven.”
But she kisses Faith, smooths her hair, hands her a ring of plastic keys. “She’s teething. Molars.”
“Poor baby.”
“And she’s gonna be a star. She’s gonna get her chance.” Faith gnaws a blue key and gurgles. “How about the furniture now?”
“About Steve, you were saying—?”
“Lady, you got enough. You want a pint of my blood too? Or a quart?”
With pen and pad, I start a list of the chairs and tables and lamps, everything Stark and I hauled downstairs yesterday, except for the Lava lamp. And what about the green whiskey bottle? It was Jo’s, now it’s mine. Though maybe Steven swiped it from home. “Crystal,” I say, “Steven gave my aunt an old bottle from your family household.”
“That ugly old thing? Doris wondered where it disappeared to.”
“Steven gave it to my aunt. Is it a Damelin family heirloom?”
She snorts. “It goes back to the Damelinski times. Amazing it’s not busted. My grandma used to tell about a neighborhood called the Plains. You know that line about the fruited plains when you sing ‘America the Beautiful’ in school? We thought it meant the old mill neighborhood here in Lawrence. All I know is, they lived on Brook Street near the Spicket River. The bottle is from back then. We fooled around with it when we were kids.”
“Are there family stories connected to it?”
“Something about a big strike.” She shrugs. “We don’t want it back, if that’s what you’re getting at. Good riddance.”
“One last thing, Crystal. Do you remember the town where the Voglers live?”
“How should I know? I never went there. I never even met them. They came in a big white Jaguar with black windows. They never got out. You couldn’t see their faces. But I’ll tell you one thing…” Crystal starts to sniff, wipes her nose. “Stevie told me once… he was home watching TV and said he never really fit in with them. That’s what he said. All that skiing and horse riding, he never felt like he fit.” Her eyes mix greed and resentment. “Hey, you gonna send a U-Haul with the furniture, or what?”
“I’ll let you know. One more thing. Did Steven swim?”
She squints. “You mean when he was a kid? In summer?”
“In water with a heavy current? Did he dive off logs?”
“Mostly in a public pool. Once a summer or so, the old man took us to Hampton Beach.”
“Any logs there?”
“It’s an ocean beach. It’s got fried clams and sand.”
“How about creeks? Or rivers?”
“There was a pond with a float. I got a bad splinter. We were real little. I think a storm wrecked it. That was a long time ago. Why, what’s this about?”
“Just wondered.”
“Yeah, whatever.” She shrugs, scrapes wet cookie from Barney’s mouth, and spreads fingers across her stomach. “This one’s gonna be a real kicker. And my Faith here, she’s gonna have dance lessons and go on TV. She is.”
We rise. I get her phone number. “There will probably be a memorial service for Steven. You and your parents might want to come.”
“Don’t bet on it.” Her hard dry laugh startles the baby. I rise and say good-bye. Outside, the October air hits hard. What did I expect, the name of Steven’s killer? Or that syrupy moment they call closure? At curbside, Stark stands against my car like a sentinel and reaches to open my door. I get out my key to signal I’m the driver, I’m the one in charge.
Chapter Seventeen
There’s no Alex or Alec or Alexander on the Web pages of the Boston Ballet or the Fresh Pond Ballet or Jose Mateo’s Ballet Company. Each of their phones answers with a machine recording.
I want to know whether Charlie Damelin’s anger was turned in murderous rage on the estranged son who refused to finance a Hummer. And whether the Damelins understood their son was gay. And about the Voglers. And Luis.
I’m also desperate for input about the blood markings on my door, which is why I’m back in the Beetle by 5:30 p.m. heading south on I-95 toward Providence in open defiance of Maglia’s order. It’s Reggie-in-revolt when I cross the state line and am welcomed by a big sign for the Ocean State, Rhode Island, and proceed to my Molly’s basement apartment in a colonial clapboard, a house chopped into a rabbit warren for students—talk about landlord profiteering. She answers the door in black pants and cut-way-down-to-here tank, her warm smile a mile wide, dark eyes twinkling and clear. When we hug, I feel her heartbeat, which takes me back to the very beginning. I hold on tight, a
nd for a moment, so does my daughter.
We part laughing. Her raspberry hair looks like scissored shingles. As for the frog tattoo on her ankle, tiny though it is … I’m thrilled to see her.
“Mom, let’s go eat. I’m starved.” She slips on a jacket.
“It’s cold, Mol. Don’t you want to zip up?”
“You mean I should cover up, your R-rated daughter. Jeez, some things never change, do they?”
That defensive tone. Will I ever learn? Molly directs us to an Indian restaurant with sitar music and rush-bottom chairs at a wobbly table with a guttering candle. Somehow Indian food always looks like a brownout, and I can’t quite cope with the menu names. “Curry,” I say to the fine-featured waiter, “not too hot.” Molly orders as if it’s all as familiar as a Happy Meal. Which I suppose it is. The breads are excellent.
“Yum,” I say.
“Yum.” Then, “Mom, tell me, how are you?”
It’s a role-reversal moment, with Molly as the parental daughter. I try a hot puffy bread. “I’m doing fine. The police are great. They patrol night and day in unmarked cars.”
“Do they have suspects?”
“Molly, as helpful as they are, the police don’t tell me. Nor should they. But they’re working very hard, and they have their leads. I’m confident. I really am.”
“Are you working with them?”
“As a psychic? Not just yet. I’m doing some other work. In fact, I need your input after our dinner.”
It’s served, muddy lumps of vegetables with a nice creamy white yogurt. The tandoori bread is lovely. Molly compliments my ensemble. “That violet top is, like, forefront.”
“Let’s say I’ve got a… personal shopper.”
“And how about the postcard guy? Any more Sphinxes?”
“Not lately.”
“I thought he was hot for you, Mom. What’s his name?”
“Knox. Knox Baker.”
“So when’s the hot date?”
“No idea, dear.” Believe me, it’s downright weird when your daughter asks about the maternal love life. “We’re acquaintances, Molly, and he travels a good deal. I have a collection of cards… Kuwait, Bahrain.”
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