The Sandler Inquiry

by Noel Hynd

  "Occasionally," she answered brightly.

  "I went to the Gaspe in Quebec for a summer. Fabulous land- and seascapes up there. You should see it sometime. Breathtaking' ' "I should" he agreed, though his breath had been taken often enough recently to last far into the future.

  Her smile vanished.

  "I don't think I could do a seascape again for a while though" she said.

  He asked why, as she knew he would.

  "I'd become involved with the water," she said.

  "I'd see the man we just buried He looked away. So much for changing the subject. The boat docked with a sudden grinding of the engines and a resonant thud.

  Moments later they drove from the ferry and picked up the route northward to the bridge to the mainland.

  They drove for the entire day, stopping only for a meal late in the afternoon. In the evening they crossed from New Jersey into Pennsylvania. By nine o'clock that night they were in the town of Barnstable, where they checked into a motel which featured Magic Fingers, loud televisions in every room, and every other drearily functional detail expected of such places. In spite of it all, or perhaps because of it, they were asleep by midnight.

  The light sliced across the motel room, crossing the bed where Thomas's head was. He felt the moonlight on his eyes.

  At first, in his sleep, he held a forearm across his face. But the light disturbed his rest. He found the brightness an intrusion, one which he could not immediately avoid. Blinking, his eyes opened.

  He was aware of movement in the room.

  For a moment he lay there in stark fear. He would not move.

  He focused his eyes on a mirror. Then he could see. The room was easily bright enough for him to see the figure of a nude woman moving before the dresser.

  Gently he rolled over. He was now aware that he was alone in the bed.

  He kept his eyelids close together so that they'd appear closed.

  He watched her. She was doing something which she did not want him to see. She stood there completely naked, facing him, watching to make sure that he was still asleep.

  He didn't move.

  Quickly she dressed. She grabbed her coat silently from a closet.

  But instead of immediately leaving, she returned to the dresser.

  There she began picking through the coins he'd taken from his pockets before going to bed. She was putting together a handful of change.

  Carefully she took the key from the top of the dresser. She looked back at him to assure herself that he still slept. She reached the door.

  His instinct was to sit up quickly and demand to know where she was going. He glanced at a bedside clock. It was three A.M. He said nothing. She disappeared out the door.

  Immediately he sat up and pulled on his clothing. He was just lunging for his coat when he heard her footsteps outside his window.

  He edged close to the curtain and looked out.

  He saw her.

  Leslie was in the parking lot in front of the motel. She was trotting quickly toward the center of the lot. He couldn't see what was attracting her there. Then he realized. She was going to the telephone booth.

  He watched her. She glanced around as she entered the booth. She looked carefully back toward the motel. She saw no one. She put two coins into the pay telephone.

  He could see that she was not speaking. She was waiting for her coins to get her a dial tone. But something was wrong.

  He watched her press the coin return and repeat the process of dropping coins. Then she struck the telephone with the flat of her hand. A second time she hit it. She pressed the coin return and tried a third time. The telephone was out of order. It wouldn't work for her.

  Disgustedly she stepped out of the booth. She looked in all directions, obviously realizing that the only telephone nearby was out of order. She was only about fifty feet away from him. He could see the expression of displeasure on her face, an expression of anger that he'd never seen on her before. She began to walk back to the motel.

  He quickly pulled off his clothes and dived back into the bed. He resumed the same sleeping position he'd been in before she left.

  Seconds later, the door quietly opened.

  She undressed quickly, laying each article of clothing exactly where it had been. Then she stood in the middle of the room, naked again, now with the moonlight cutting a ribbon of white across her.

  She climbed back onto the bed, a bare knee first. She started to ease beneath the covers.

  He sprang up, surprising her so that she began a slight scream.

  He grabbed her shoulders with both arms and pushed her back down onto the mattress. An image flashed into his mind as he saw the scar across her throat: the image of the Italian youth who'd tried to kill her.

  He lay on top of her, pinning her down playfully and trapping her between himself and the mattress.

  He began to laugh, showing her that everything was all right.

  "Did I scare you?" he asked.

  "Half to death' she said, her British intonation sounding particularly indignant.

  "What's wrong? Restless?"

  "I couldn't sleep" "No?" He gently' slid off her and sat up, propping a pillow against his back. She sat up with him, the sheet falling away from her and resting across her lap.

  "I went out" she said.

  "For some air. I took some change from your dresser," she said.

  "The air is free," he offered.

  "Of course," she said.

  "I was looking for a soft-drink machine. I was thirsty, too" "Find it?" he asked.

  "Yes she said.

  He smiled, watching her closely and seeing that she was perfectly at home with a lie.

  "I guess customs are different here from in England," he said.

  "Sorry?" she asked, cocking her head slightly and not knowing what he meant. He studied her carefully in the soft indirect light. He could see all of her, from the delicate features of her face to where the sheet lay motionless and slightly rumpled across her lap.

  "Customs?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "Over here, people don't normally get sodas out of telephone booths."

  There was a moment's awkward pause, as if she'd been slapped suddenly, not expecting it at all. Then her mouth flew open, not in defensiveness, it seemed, but in resentment.

  "Why, you spy," she charged.

  "You sneak!"

  "Me? It wasn't me who was skulking around in the dark."

  "Might just as well have been" she ranted indignantly. She folded her arms across her breasts so that he could see them no longer. She pulled up the sheet and held it to her.

  "You're a wicked, distrustful man she declared.

  "I know this trick," he said.

  "You learn it in the first year of law school. Put your opponent on the defensive. Don't try it with me."

  She looked away from him in disgust.

  "Tell me who you telephoned " "No one" she said, abandoning her initial tactic and now playing the hurt little girl.

  "The booth was out of order."

  "I could see that much. Who'd you try to call?"

  She reached to him and took his hand. His hand resisted slightly, indicating to her that he wanted the truth, not affection, not at that I moment, anyway. Her face appeared confused, as if torn between two confessions, neither attractive. Then she spoke to him with feeling, the same sincere voice that she'd first used to lure him into her case weeks earlier.

  "The truth will hurt you, I suspect' "Not as much as the goon on the boat wanted to hurt me, I hope."

  Her voice was quiet, appearing to come from the heart as much as from the scarred throat.

  "No," she agreed with a weak smile.

  "Not that much " She paused and then gave it to him, as if to thrust a dagger quickly to get it over with.

  "I already have a lover," she said.

  The bluntness of it took him aback. He could not find words. She could.

  "In point of fact' she said slow
ly,

  "I was living with a man in Montreal. Before I came down to see you.

  When this is over I plan to go back to him. I love him."

  He sensed a certain deflation within his chest, a sensation of hopes tumbling. He knew he had no right to her, no claim, other than a professional and theoretically dispassionate one. She too, like Andrea, like his ex-wife, was another man's woman. He had no right to expect otherwise.

  "I've been thinking of him;' she said.

  "Each time I've been in bed with you… Shall I go on?"

  "Why not?"

  "Each time I've been in bed with you, I've thought of him. At least part of the time. I wanted to hear his voice" she said, still holding his hand.

  "Even if only for a few minutes. That's where I was. That's who I tried to call." She watched her words sinking in and watched his expression, which he tried to maintain without change.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  "Sorry? Why?"

  "I thought you might be hurt" she explained.

  "Most men like to think they're the only ones."

  "I suppose they do," he allowed, the sullenness in his spirit carefully disguised.

  "Some men. I won't make that mistake. As long as we understand each other."

  "I think we do," she said. She kissed him affectionately, not as a lover might, but as a good friend would. She was very tired, she explained further. She settled down onto her half of the twin beds and pulled the covers closely around her body. She slept.

  He understood. He knew what she'd been trying to tell him and he accepted it, her story, at its face value. It fit perfectly into place.

  Women like her were always taken, or so it seemed. He eased into his half of the sleeping accommodations.

  He wanted to turn to her. He wanted to ask more about the other man.

  Thomas disliked him, having never met him, and wanted to know about him, perhaps to be able to find a chink in the man's armor, a character weakness which she'd never noticed.

  He lay there in thought, feeling very lonesome, feeling quite left out from something he wished to share. He wanted to wake her and join her on her side. But now, because he'd asked about the telephone call, he couldn't. He wondered why he couldn't have kept his suspicions to himself. At least for one more night.

  They checked out of the motel and drove across Barnstable, passing through a strip-mining area and then by a coal-processing plant.

  They easily found the white split-level home, surrounded by bare trees, which had the name J. GROVER on the mailbox before it.

  When Thomas pulled his car to a stop at the curb before the house, he noticed a long blue car already parked in the driveway. A young girl, school aged and appearing to be about ten, played on the front walk.

  Thomas turned off the ignition of his car.

  "Coming with me?" he asked Leslie.

  "If you want me to" she answered.

  "You don't have to."

  She pondered it for a moment.

  "Tom," she said, 'it's upsetting to me." at is?"

  "To have to look at this man. An associate of my father's." She hesitated.

  "I know I come across as pretty cold-blooded sometimes, but other times … well, I am human, you know."

  "Apparently."

  "Is it acceptable if I wait here?" she asked.

  "I don't mind he said.

  She smiled with a certain sheepishness, as if embarrassed over revealing a weakness. She leaned to him quickly and kissed him on the cheek.

  "Thanks" she said.

  "I do appreciate it' He pushed her away slightly.

  "No big show of affection here" said Thomas. He was looking at the door to the Grover house. A man was leaving. Thomas studied him closely.

  It was a tall erect man with a briefcase, a man in a gray suit covered by an open topcoat. He gave a stark smile to the young girl on the flagstone path and the girl responded perfunctorily, without emotion.

  The man walked toward the blue Pontiac.

  Thomas stepped from his own car and called to the other man, calling him by Grovees name. Thomas studied the other man intently as he called. Thomas was ignored.

  "Do you want my father, mister?" a small female voice asked. The young girl couldn't understand why the visitor had mistaken someone else for her father. She was quick to correct the error.

  Then she led Thomas to her front door and into the house, calling for her father as she turned and saw the second arrival, the woman, sitting in Daniels's car.

  Thomas heard a man's deep voice saying,

  "Yes, sir?" He turned to see the portly stationery-store owner emerging from a swinging door which led from the kitchen.

  "Hello" said Thomas mildly.

  "You're Jonathan Grover?"

  "I am" said Grover cautiously. A woman in an apron emerged from the kitchen behind him. Elaine Grover stood behind her husband.

  "My name is Thomas Daniels' he said, and getting no response he added after a moment,

  "My father was William Ward Daniels."

  Grover looked at him blankly, then broke suddenly into a broad smile.

  'I'll be God damned! Of course' Grover said.

  "You look just like him. Same face, same hair. Remarkable. Same profession, Mr. Daniels?"

  "Similar."

  "I see" answered Grover with a trifle of hesitation.

  "Well, then, I don't know what brings you here, but if you'd like to step in for some coffee, we'll chat" Thomas followed, leaving Leslie in the car behind him, completely out of his view.

  Chapter 25

  Thomas Daniels found himself seated at a long walnut dining room table. Why a family of three would have such a large table, at which eight could comfortably fit, was a small transient mystery to Thomas. Grover moved to the other end of the table, walking with a slight waddle, and wedged his suet-laden frame into a captain's chair.

  He folded his arms before him on the table and, by his presence and his very corpulence, seemed to be a man who'd spent many happy hours in that location.

  Elaine Grover served them coffee. And a cinnamon cake. Grover took two ample pieces and Elaine offered the rest to their guest.

  Thomas declined with a smile.

  "No, no, I insist," said Grover, his mouth full and speaking with a voice muffled by pastry.

  "It's excellent."

  Elaine hadn't moved the cake from where she held it for Thomas.

  Thomas, reassessing his decision, took the smallest piece offered.

  Grover took another piece as it passed by him again and was working on that third piece when he began to speak.

  "Damned good, isn't it?" he said.

  Trying to be sociable, Thomas agreed.

  "I'll get you another piece before you leave" Grover said.

  "Elaine will wrap it up. You can take it with you." His lips smacked as he spoke, punctuating his sentences.

  Grover continued for several minutes, dipping into a monologue on his wife's baking.

  "Married, Daniels?" he asked, not waiting for an answer.

  "Marry a woman who can cook. A wife's got two jobs to do. Cooking's the other one." He continued, moving on to the comparative merits of the bakeries of lower Manhattan.

  "The French think they're the bakers," he postulated between gulps of coffee.

  "French don't know crap about pastry. Show me a great baker and I'll show you an Italian He allowed himself a satisfied smile. Thomas returned it. Grover was no fool. He'd just admitted who he was, his origins around Mulberry Street.

  "How's the city?" he asked.

  "I never go there no more ' "It's still there" said Thomas.

  "It's a great town," Grover said, as if reminiscing.

  "But it's a young man's town, don't you think? I had myself some times there."

  He looked over his shoulder to the door to the kitchen. As if on cue, Elaine reappeared with coffee and more cake. Thomas received more without asking.

  When Mrs. Grover disappeared ag
ain, Thomas spoke, put at ease somewhat by the large man's informality.

  "I was afraid I'd have difficulty with you' he said.

  "You wouldn't want to admit, you know, who.

  "Who I am?, "Yes Grover stretched his expansive shoulders.

  "What's there to deny?

  I don't shoot my mouth off around this town. But you? You're your father's son. Why would I lie to you? You probably knew more about me than I do myself," he chomped.

  "I doubt it' Thomas conceded.

  "I'll tell you something' said Grover, leaning forward slightly as if to share a secret.

  "I don't say

  "I'm sorry' for nothing I ever done.

  Nothing" Behind the conspiratorial smile were hard eyes.

  "The neighborhood where I grew up was a cesspool of robbing and stealing and knifing. I done what I did to get out of it."

  "I'm sure you did," said Thomas, anxious to strike a point of agreement. And equally anxious to move on to more pressing matters.

  "I'll bet you would have done the same' ' Thomas shrugged, without indication either way.

  "You wouldn't have?"

  "I don't know. I wasn't in your situation. A man never knows what he'll do in a situation until he's in it." A good response, Daniels congratulated himself. He was certain now that the cagey Grover was trying to manipulate the conversation.

  "Good point' allowed Grover. He nodded in thought.

  "Your Dad used to say something similar. What was it?"

  "I'm not sure' "Have some more cake" he said with a rising laugh.

  "How many times do you live?"

  "That's hard to say."

  "Excuse me?" 'Some people manage to lead two lives," Thomas suggested.

  "Yourself, for example. Take that as a compliment." Grover nodded gratefully.

  "Maybe some other people, too."

  "You're losing me" said Grover curtly, the wide grin gone.

  "Really? It concerns you. Indirectly."

  "I'm surprised that there's still anything that could concern me he said, obvious annoyance beneath his flat tone of voice. He was licking his fingers, making soft smacking sounds, then with slight nervousness working on a thumbnail with his teeth.

  "It's nothing for you to be worried about," said Thomas.

  "It affects a client of mine."

  "Oh" said Grover, shaking his head weakly and speaking louder, 'but I do worry. I worry about everything. You know, under normal circumstances I'd tell you absolutely nothing. I'd want you to prove who you are ' "I could if you wish."