by Chris Knopf
“I’m his lawyer,” I said. “That’s why he called me over. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to talk to me, but somebody has to defend Mr. Raffini. At least you know me. You know I’m a fair person.”
“Don’t know that anymore, Jackie. Not a big fan of lawyers. Papa called ’em bloodsuckers.”
Great, I thought. Nice to hear.
“Maybe not every single solitary lawyer is sucking blood, Paulina. Some suck wind.”
Her iron face eased a bit. Without even thinking about it, I’d tapped into the basic source of my goodwill with the Swaitkowskis and their kin: my sense of humor—not necessarily the same as theirs, but on a similar frequency.
“Well, I don’t know what I can tell you, Jackie. I haven’t kept very close tabs on Tad, except what I’d read in the papers.”
“You knew I was there the other night. And that I was representing Franco Raffini. That’s pretty intimate knowledge,” I said lightly, to make it sound more like a compliment than an accusation. Which is how she took it.
“I have my ways,” she said.
“Can’t we talk a little bit? What can it hurt?”
She stepped away from the door, still reluctant, but letting me in.
I looked around her living room and was glad to see Paulina’s approach to interior decor had held firm. For those who think taste and style are entirely subjective, arbitrary judgments, with no absolute right or wrong, I offer Paulina Swaitkowski.
You don’t see a lot of shag rugs anymore, so you probably won’t remember they often came in a blended array of colors no one wants to ever see again—avocado green, fluorescent orange, mustard gold. Paulina had the entire apartment thus carpeted, which probably served one good purpose—distracting you from the hideous furniture. Could I call it Southern Italian American/Bollywood/’60s Disco a-Go-Go/fifteenth-century baroque chic? That would be the most descriptive, but no one would believe me.
“Place looks great, Paulina. You always did have a flair.”
“It’s an instinct, Jackie. You can’t teach it.”
She sat in an overstuffed, wood-framed monstrosity of indistinct origin, leaving me to the long, padded bench beneath the Clock. The Clock was mostly brass, and the face itself was only about a foot in diameter, though it represented, I think, the sun, from which radiated long, brass spikes that more than tripled the total circumference. I’d never sat on the bench for fear it would somehow fall off the wall and I’d be impaled by one of the spikes. And now, there I was.
“Still struggling with the hair, I see,” said Paulina.
This is the sort of thing Paulina always felt entitled to say, even with subjects more or less off-limits to my own family. Personally, I’d grown comfortable with (resigned to) that giant reddish-blond ball of fuzz that God had blessed me with in lieu of normal hair. I wanted to tell her that at least the color was the one I was born with, unlike some others in the room.
“Had you been seeing much of Uncle Tad in the last few years?” I asked.
“No,” she said, without hesitation. “Truth be told, I haven’t spoken to him since Papa died and he couldn’t even trouble himself to come to the funeral. I heard he said, ‘What’s the point of missin’ the game just to fuss over some dumb bastard who’s dead anyway?’ Isn’t that terrible?”
I had to agree it was. Though it sounded like Tad.
“What about before that? I’m just trying to get an idea of what his life was like.”
“You know as well as I. His life was”—she paused for emphasis—“crazy.” She scowled, at her brother for being the way he was and at me for asking the question. “What he did to the family,” she added, “it’s inexcusable.”
“I know he did a lot, but what do you mean exactly?”
“Well,” she said, rolling her eyes around the room as if his manifold offenses were among the banal homilies etched on the plates and painted pieces of wood she’d hung on the walls, “destroying that property with his bulldozers and shovel things, and piling it up with junk. And then actually fighting with the neighbors when they rightfully complained. He made sure that everybody knew what they all thought about us anyway: stupid, primitive Polacks.” Then she added another pejorative referring to a specific minority who might have come into unexpected money, which was too ugly to repeat.
“And then he goes over to Poland and buys himself his own private whore,” she said, leaving the end of the sentence suspended so I could fill in the blanks with the worst possible conclusion.
It was a side of Paulina I knew existed but rarely saw. Though not for nothing, she was Tad Buczek’s sister.
“So he had a few enemies,” I said.
“A few? I think you could divide up the town in two groups: the people who hated him and the rest who thought he was just a jerk.”
“What about the people who worked for him?”
She sat back in her chair, suddenly reticent. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
“I know Franco’s pretty new, but what about Freddy and his wife—what’s her name again?”
She looked defiant. “You know perfectly well who she is.”
“I do?”
Now she looked both defiant and annoyed. “Don’t try your lawyerly tricks on me, young lady. In the eyes of God, I’m still your mother-in-law.”
I was honestly baffled. I hoped it showed.
“I’m sorry, Paulina. I’m not trying to be dense here. I don’t think I ever met her. I just knew Freddy’s wife looked after the house while Freddy worked on the property. That they went back to the potato days.”
Her face softened down to the merely hard-edged. “I guess you wouldn’t have seen her at family gatherings. She never came. Felt ashamed, is what I think.”
“Why ashamed? Not around our family.”
“Her family, too,” said Paulina. “You really don’t know. She’s your Peter’s aunt. Papa’s sister. Aunt Saline.”
* * *
I spent the rest of the day attending to my other, nearly neglected, clients. Making enough progress to be technically beyond reproach from everything but my conscience. The next morning the Hamptons were back in the freeze locker. It was five below when I woke up and so cold in the apartment I thought my furnace had failed on me. When I jumped online to find a furnace-repair person, I checked the weather report. Then I turned up the thermostat and hot air flowed through the registers. It was almost disappointing to learn that the furnace was fine and it was the world that was malfunctioning.
I got back in bed after going through these shenanigans, now wearing a down vest over my flannel pajamas and, lying flat on my back, I tried to figure out what I was going to do next. The allure of coffee loomed large, but I forced myself to contemplate more ambitious stuff.
One of the games I play with myself is, What would you least like to do right now? I play this because it’s often the one thing I ought to do. It was no different this time. The next thing I had to do was pay a call on Zina Buczek, even though I didn’t feel like it.
I tried to interpret this reluctance, and couldn’t, so quickly stopped trying. It didn’t matter, because while lying there in bed, I’d already made up my mind that this was the only reasonable course of action.
* * *
At least the sun was out. With a vengeance. How could it be so cold when the world was so bright? I wore a new set of insulated hunting boots that arrived in the mail the day before from L.L.Bean, along with a pair of flannel-lined blue jeans. The steamy clouds generated by my breath looked for all the world like cigarette smoke, a habit I’d almost credibly begun to overcome. So now I could just pretend!
The Volvo turned over unenthusiastically, the engine running as though not all the cylinders were completely in the game. So I let it sit and warm up for a while as I sat huddled in multiple layers of fleece, down, and canvas, feeling fairly miserable.
Traffic on Montauk Highway moved sluggishly, as if everyone felt a little fragile, as if we might shatter if struck
by hard objects. The blasting sun was mostly behind me as I headed west, which was a blessing. The announcer on the radio said not to expect much change in the temperature over the next few days, when it would warm up, but likely snow again. If we got more than three inches, we’d break the all-time Long Island record. Good for us.
The plow crews had been honing their skills since the last big storm, and Montauk Highway was now reasonably opened up. The rain had done its part as well in shrinking the mounds and now, with the deep freeze, had encased the world in a glittering crystal glaze.
Once I turned up toward the Seven Ponds area, the effectiveness of the road crews faltered. There were really only one and a half lanes, so each oncoming vehicle presented an opportunity for negotiation. The general ground rules called for the one closest to a driveway or some other indent to pull over and wait. Unless it was a big truck, in which case, size dominated. On a different day, this would have been cause for confrontation, but I was in a malleable mood, subdued by the unforgiving elements.
I eventually reached the Buczek place, guided by the tops of Tad’s larger metal sculptures, which were easily seen from some distance shooting above the treetops. The long driveway was only roughly cleared, the most serious effort handled by Dayna Red several days before. I had to stay inside a pair of tracks that barely accommodated the Volvo’s wheelbase, sliding a little at the hairpin turn but making it all the way to the house with no further incident.
I found a convenient slot to park the car, and after shutting off the engine, rummaged around in the pile on the passenger seat for a pen and my little spiral-bound notebook. When I found it and went to open the door, there was a guy standing there looking in my driver’s-side window. I yelped, then rolled down the window.
“Sorry for yelping,” I said. “You startled me.”
He had a round face with cheekbones so plump they seemed to squeeze his eyes into narrow slits. Tufts of gray hair squirted out from a baseball hat. Mets. Not a good sign.
“What can I do for you?” he asked in a hoarse, high-pitched voice.
“Is Mrs. Buczek home? I need to talk to her.”
“What’s it about?”
“I’d rather discuss it with Mrs. Buczek. Is she here?”
I started to open the door and smiled politely until he stepped out of the way.
“Are you Freddy?” I asked, guessing it was Saline’s husband, though I barely remembered him.
His slitty eyes narrowed, but he put out his hand. “Fred Lumsden.”
I felt like I was shaking an inflated version of the human hand.
“Jackie Swaitkowski. I’m Franco’s attorney.”
“So I heard. You was Tad’s niece?”
“By marriage. To the late Pete.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. Pete was a fun’un.”
“He was indeed. So about Zina, I’m assuming she’s in the house.”
“Couldn’t tell you. Hardly ever talks to me. Saline oughtta know. Don’t know where she is, either.”
And what, in fact, do you know? I thought uncharitably.
“Okay, thanks,” I said, and crunched over the icy snow to the front door of the house and rang the doorbell.
I waited awhile, but finally the door opened, although just a crack.
“Yes?”
I knew it was Zina by the accent, though I couldn’t see her.
“This is Jackie Swaitkowski, Tad’s niece.” I thought I’d open with that. “And Franco’s defense attorney. Could I talk to you for a few minutes?”
“Talk about what?”
“You were Tad’s wife. Anything you have to say is important.”
“That’s what you think. You weren’t married to Tad.”
“Can I come in?” I asked. “It’s very important.” There was a long pause and the door started to creep closed. “I’m a fair person, Zina. I only want to get at the truth. For everyone’s sake.”
Not an entirely true statement, but it could still turn out that way. The door started to open again, though still no sight of Zina.
“I need to change into something more decent,” she said. “Wait there.”
Then she closed the door and I got to stand there for ten minutes thinking I’d just been given the bum’s rush. I was about to ring the doorbell again when the door swung open.
It was Zina in a burgundy fleece outfit—nominally workout gear, though more the decorative variety. There were elastic bands at the wrists, waist, and ankles, and the zipperless top fit with little capacity to spare. The most striking feature was the neckline, which took a steep plunge, leaving much of Zina’s boobs on display. Though they were seemingly unsupported, I strongly suspected some superstructure was cleverly concealed under the fleece. I hoped so, for my own self-esteem.
On her feet were black slipper socks made of knit wool with black canvas on the soles, which made a scraping sound as she led me from the foyer into the living-room area.
I wondered what the hell she’d changed out of. A corset, heels, and thigh-highs?
She slid into the corner of a sofa with her feet up, supported by the sofa arm. I’d seen similar poses in high-end fashion magazines. I plopped straight down on the opposite couch, leaning slightly forward with both feet on the ground.
“Should I be calling my lawyer?” she asked. “I’ve already spoken to the police. Twice. I don’t know what is expected of me in this country.”
“You can if you want,” I said. “Nothing you tell me is legally binding. It’s just a conversation.”
She found that amusing. “Nothing’s just a conversation, Jackie. In America or anywhere else.”
“We have a thing over here called a deposition, where they come to your house and you have to swear an oath that you’re telling the truth, just like you would in court. That’s not what I’m here for. I just feel like I should get your take on things. You know Franco, and Tad was your husband. What do you think happened?”
She looked down at her hands, not her fingernails exactly, since it wasn’t preening. It was stalling for time.
She looked up and locked onto my eyes. “I don’t know what happened, and that’s the truth. I’ll swear an oath to it.”
I broke free of the stare and looked down at my empty notebook page.
“So tell me what you do know about the night he died,” I said.
“There’s nothing to tell. Franco called to say he was worried about the roof on the woodshed. I tell Tad, who don’t want to deal with this and would rather watch basketball game. But then he curses and tells me he better go shovel snow off the roof. He takes the phone and tells Franco to meet him at the shed. Then he leave. An hour later, I’m wondering what’s happening, so I call Tad’s mobile, but he doesn’t answer. Neither does Franco. Next thing I know, you people are telling me Tad is dead.”
“Can you think of anyone who might have been angry at Tad, who might have wished him harm?”
This was also amusing.
“You’re kidding, right? Everybody wish Tad harm. Even some of his own family.” She looked at me pointedly.
“But no one person or persons who stand out, who might actually be mad enough to commit this crime.”
She shook her head slowly, contemplatively.
“I don’t know that many people here. Tad hardly ever take me anywhere. Do you think he would go around and introduce me to his enemies?”
Good point, I thought.
“So how’d you guys meet?” I asked, trying to sound like we were just hanging together at a cocktail party.
She cast her eyes back toward her hands.
“The Internet,” she said, turning the r into a trill. “Polish-American chat room. Probably disgust you.”
She smoothed the tops of her fleece pants as if they needed smoothing.
“Not at all. Why should it? Everyone likes to chat with people from the same background.”
She relaxed into the sofa as if her body had given off a sigh. I’d said the right thing.
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“It’s lonely when there’s so many people all around and none of them you like talking to. Tad was easy to talk to. On the Internet. His Polish not so good, but my English better. I like the artistic conversation. I wanted to be an artist. Not so good as Tad, but I’m young yet. I could learn.”
Even with a more confining definition of art than what prevails today, Tad’s crazy sculpture clearly fit the criteria. Just because they were objects of controversy didn’t mean they weren’t legitimate artistic expressions. It was Tad’s brutish, hulking ways that probably caused people, including me, to assume it was all just belligerent lunacy.
“It must have been tough to live with an artist,” I said. “I’ve read biographies of people like Picasso and Gauguin. Bastards all.”
She telegraphed a blend of ruefulness and resentment, although I might have overinterpreted her meager body language.
“It was harder after the marriage. Tad was not so much around anymore. Business, he said. I understand business. My father was a businessman in Kraków. Not see him too much either. But when he come home, it was Christmas and birthday all in one. With Tad, it was sports on television and dirty clothes. That’s okay. People are different. You want something to eat? To drink? I can call for it.”
I hate to let people put themselves out for me in these situations, yet I always do, the lurking need always overpowering the social inhibition.
“Coffee?” I asked.
Zina got up from the couch and walked out of the room through a dark passageway. Abruptly alone, I took the time to look around, noting the heavy furniture, earthy colors, and dismal art on the walls. The windows were large, however, giving a nice view of the ice-lacquered snow gripping the landscape beyond.
Zina came back in short order, walking into the room with a languid saunter more appropriate to the catwalk or casting studio.
“It’s coming soon, with some snacks,” she said. “You’d think I’d ordered up the moon.”
“I appreciate it.”
“It’s nothing for me. I just have to ask Saline. I don’t have to lift a finger. Like I’m not able to? It’s what Tad wanted. He had Saline here long before me. Didn’t matter if I didn’t want another person doing my work for me. But it’s not too bad. You get used to it. Stupid thing to complain about, yes?”
