by Neil Plakcy
Early twilight settled around me, birds chirping in the stand of sassafras out front, sounds of vintage Springsteen floating past from a neighbor’s stereo. The sights, smells and sounds of my childhood, constantly making connections between the boy I was and the man I had become. I had never imagined coming back to Stewart’s Crossing after college; back then, I wanted nothing more than to make a quick and permanent exit from the stultifying suburbs. Years in Manhattan of constant hurrying and a crush of humanity, when at times I’d been desperate to find bits of solitude in the middle of Central Park or along the Hudson River, had made me long for my quiet countrified hometown.
It wasn’t the same place, of course. When I was a kid, people had roots in town, all kinds of connections. My friend Mary Lou’s ex-aunt ran the local real estate office, and her name was on signs all over town. My mother had grown up next to the family that ran the butcher shop, my father belonged to the Masons with the owner of the hardware store. My classmates’ parents were doctors and lawyers with offices downtown, teachers at the elementary school or secretaries at Town Hall.
Now most of my neighbors in River Bend were from somewhere else, with only the shallowest roots in town. They commuted by car or train to Philadelphia or New York. They preferred the chain restaurants and big-box stores out on US 1 to the mom-and-pop places in the center of town.
I went to those big stores, too, of course; a high school friend of Rick’s and mine managed the electronics mega-store, and the mother of a girl I’d gone to elementary school with was still a cashier at Pathmark. I wondered about the little kids I saw trailing behind their parents at the mall, wearing princess dresses or karate robes or Boy Scout uniforms. Would they have the same sense of place I did? Or would their parents pick them up and move them every few years, following opportunity and the sense that there was always something better in the next town?
Would my life have been different if I’d never left Stewart’s Crossing – or at least, come back after college instead of moving to New York for graduate school? If I’d never met Mary, moved to California, suffered through her two miscarriages?
Even though my experiences had shaped me, I knew that down deep I was who I was. I’d been reading mystery novels and solving crossword puzzles since I was a kid, possessed by a desire I barely understood to search for clues, to see things others didn’t. My curiosity was tinged with ego and hubris, and I was sure that if I’d never become a computer hacker I’d have found some other way to get in trouble.
The chicken breasts sizzled and I flipped them over. My parole officer, Santiago Santos, had classified mine as an addictive personality, though I’d never had problems with alcohol, tobacco or drugs. Yeah, I did get a rush from snooping around in places I wasn’t supposed to be, but until I went to prison I’d never thought of it as an addiction. During the year I’d been incarcerated, I hadn’t missed hacking – I was too busy figuring out my new environment, learning the personalities of the other inmates and the guards, understanding how the system worked and how you could game it if you were clever enough.
My two-year parole was about to end, and I had a nine o’clock appointment Monday morning at the parole board office for my exit interview with Santos, who had been monitoring my conduct for the two years since I left the California state penal system.
As far as I knew, there wasn’t any way he could keep me on parole; the interview was just a formality. Santos had installed tracking software on my home computer – but after Caroline died I had discovered her laptop, and installed my hacking software on it so I could help Rick discover her killer. I kept that laptop hidden from everyone, and rationalized that whatever I did was in service of a greater good – digging around for clues in an identity theft scheme, hacking a website that featured stolen artifacts, and so on. After the intervention, I had given it to Rick to hold for me.
I finished grilling and carried the food in to Lili, who arranged the chicken strips artfully on top of the salad. As we sat down to eat, she said, “I keep thinking about that body. You expect to see that kind of thing when you’re in a battle zone – but not right in the middle of Stewart’s Crossing.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “And it seems such a violation to find a body there, in the Meeting House, when the Quakers are all about peace and non-violence.”
“Do you think you can find anything online about the shoe?”
I thought it was interesting that Lili suggested I go online, knowing what she did of my history. “No idea. But you know how it is – people post all kinds of stuff. I know there are sneaker collectors; I’m hoping one of them put up a picture of a shoe that matches the one we found. And I promise you I’ll only look in places that are open to the public.”
“I do trust you,” she said. “You know that, right?”
“I know. And I’m not saying I’ll never hack again – I’ve learned from my support group that I can’t make promises like that. But what I can promise you is that I won’t go behind your back. If I want to snoop around somewhere, I’ll talk to you, and we’ll make the decision together.”
Though Lili had no addictions that I knew of, she was familiar with the addictive personality – many of the journalists she’d worked with over the years were adrenaline junkies. “I can work with that,” she said.
I hoped that I could, too.
* * *
I woke before Lili Sunday morning and after I took Rochester for a long walk around River Bend, I prepared a brunch of chocolate-chip pancakes, bacon, and orange juice. Rochester sat on his haunches next to the stove, waiting for bacon bits.
Lili walked into the kitchen, sniffing the air. “What’s the special occasion?”
“That you’re here to make breakfast for.”
She sat down and I delivered a plate of pancakes with a side of bacon, the aroma of sizzling fat permeating the air and making Rochester nuts. The juice was already on the table, and she poured herself a glass as I sat down across from her with my plate. Rochester wouldn’t sit still, constantly nosing at us both for bits of bacon.
“Speaking of my being here,” Lili said.
I cut into my pancakes, elbowing the dog’s head away. “Which is my pleasure.”
“How would you feel about increasing that pleasure?”
I looked up to see her watching me. “In what way?”
“My lease is up at the end of October,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about whether I want to renew or not.”
“It’s a great apartment.” I fed a piece of bacon to Rochester, who wolfed it down, then I went back to my breakfast.
“Are you fully awake this morning?” Lili asked after a moment had passed. “I’m saying that I love you, and I want to spend more time with you. How would you feel if I moved in here when my lease is up?”
We had been dating for about six months by then. We spoke on the phone every day, sometimes more than once. We spent every weekend together, and the occasional weeknight. We said, “Love you,” to each other all the time, and I meant it when I said it. But were we ready to take the next step?
I looked at Lili and my mind was a blank. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I love you, but moving in together? I need to think about that.”
She stood up and pulled a plastic container from the kitchen cabinet. “I’ll take my breakfast to go,” she said. “You need some time to think, and I want to fiddle around with the pictures I took yesterday at the Harvest Festival.”
She leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Don’t think I’m angry, because I’m not. I know that I’ve dropped a bombshell on you and you need to process it. And if you want to keep going the way we have been for another year, that’s fine. I should have given you more notice, I know. But I’ve got my own baggage, and it took me a while to realize that this is what I want. You, and Rochester. Us.”
“I want that, too. Let me consult with my moral and spiritual advisor and I’ll have an answer for you.”
“Not Rick Stemper?”
I laughed. “Are you kidding? Rick’s more messed up about his divorce than I ever was about mine. I was talking about Rochester.”
She nodded. “Then I’m sure you’ll make the right decision. When I get home, I’ll email you the pictures I took of the shoe so you can go online with them.”
“Thanks. And I’ll think about moving in together.”
We kissed, and she went upstairs to get her bag. As I finished my breakfast, I thought about what it would mean to have Lili live with me. Would she worry every time I logged on to the computer? Take over Santiago Santos’s role to make sure I stayed on the straight and narrow?
My cell phone began playing the theme song from Hawaii Five-O, the ring tone I’d assigned to Rick. “Yo,” I answered.
“Yo-yo,” he said. “Listen, I’ve got to work today, thanks to you and your dog, and the guy who usually takes care of Rascal during the day isn’t around.”
A few months after I adopted Rochester, Rick had gone to the Bucks County Animal Shelter in Lahaska and picked up an Australian shepherd. Rascal was hyperactive, bred to herd cattle, a sixty-pound bundle of energy and wiry fur, slavering tongue, muscular legs, always ready to jump and lick.
Rick had quickly learned that leaving Rascal caged up all day meant he’d be wild at night, when Rick needed to wind down. So he’d found a retired guy in his neighborhood who did doggie day care. Rascal got to run around all day, herding the other dogs, and then he was a sweetheart in the evenings.
“I can’t leave him in his crate. Can I bring him over to you?”
I agreed and hung up. Rascal would keep Rochester occupied, so I could think about what Lili had suggested. I also wanted to get some computer work done, and though I knew that Lili trusted me, the habits I’d developed of keeping my online snooping a secret were hard to break.
6 – An Old Friend
After Lili left, the house was spookily quiet. I had the windows open, taking advantage of the last warm days, but there were no kids playing out on Sarajevo Court, no birds calling or crickets chirping. No lawns being mowed, cars being tuned, stereos blasting the latest hip-hop. Rochester lay on his side on the tile floor, his legs splayed out, not making a sound.
Was this what my life would be like without Lili? Did I want this kind of silence, or did I want the comfort of another human being? Was Rochester’s company no longer enough for me? I picked up his favorite blue ball, squeaked it a couple of times, and then tossed it across the room. He didn’t even lift his head. “Some retriever you are,” I grumbled.
I was antsy to get online and look for information on the sneaker, but I had to give Lili time to drive up to Leighville and send me her photos. I paced around the house, stopping in front of the china cabinet that had stood in my parents’ living room. My father had sold off most of the knickknacks my mother had collected so the cabinet was a lot emptier than it had been when I was growing up.
I opened the door and pulled out a glass perfume bottle, about three inches high, with a lacework of sterling overlay. When my parents were first married, my dad had worked as a kind of engineering temp, moving from job to job every few months. He tried to come home every weekend from wherever he was working, and he often brought my mother one of these bottles, scavenged from antique shops where he was living.
I figured it was his way of saying that he was still thinking about her even though they were apart. He called her his angel, and signed his cards to her “all my love always.” I’d thought I loved Mary that way, and it took me a long time to realize I never had. That we’d both settled for each other because that’s what people did. I determined when my marriage broke up that I wouldn’t do that again.
I knew that I loved Lili – but was I “in love” with her? What did that mean, anyway? In college and graduate school I’d read the poems that Elizabeth and Robert Browning wrote to each other, Shakespeare’s sonnets, W. H. Auden and Sara Teasdale. I’d fallen for books like Scott Spencer’s Endless Love and M. M. Kaye’s The Far Pavilions, about love so deep it bordered on (or was) obsession.
Did I feel that way about Lili? Did I even want to? Real life wasn’t a poem or a novel, and if I really did have the addictive personality Santos said I did, then an obsessive love was not a good thing.
I put back the perfume bottle and thought about Lili, how I felt when I was with her, when we were apart. She was the first person I thought of when something happened I wanted to share. When we were apart, sometimes I’d feel a physical longing to be near her. Everything we did together seemed more enjoyable because she was with me.
That was love, I decided. I didn’t need a poet to tell me.
I was relieved when I heard Rick pull up in front of the house, and I opened the front door and let Rochester out to run ahead of me. Rascal was in the back of the pickup, with his front paws on the side rail. He barked as I lowered the back gate, then he jumped down. He and Rochester began chasing each other in circles in the driveway.
“You find any ID for the body yesterday?” I asked Rick.
“Nope. Which makes this case a real bear.”
“Can’t you use dental records or DNA?” I asked.
“You have to have something to compare to. The ME guesses that it’s the body of an adolescent male Caucasian, based on his preliminary look at the bones, but we won’t know for sure until the final report. While I wait for the cause of death, and the age of the victim, I’ve got to pore over the crime scene reports for clues as to how long the body was there. That will give me a framework to check missing persons reports.”
I told him that Lili was going to email me photos of the sneaker. “I thought I’d look around online and see if I can narrow the time when the shoe was manufactured.”
“That would help. Thanks.”
He left, and I checked my email. Nothing from Lili. So I did some quick research on Converse sneakers and discovered that Chuck Taylor, also known as “Mr. Basketball,” was one of the first athlete-endorsers, and that Converse had begun making Chucks in 1923. The Chucks of the 50s, 60s and 70s were made of three-ply canvas and had a black or blue label on the heel. The words CONVERSE ALL-STARS were in caps at the top, with a five-pointed star in the center of the label, breaking through between “Converse” and “All.” The star also broke into the middle of Chuck’s signature. There was a copyright symbol under the star, and the words MADE IN USA were in tiny caps at the bottom.
I hoped that there had been some change in the logo that might narrow down when the blue sneaker at the Meeting House had been made. But without Lili’s photos I couldn’t do much more research.
To avoid staring at the screen obsessively checking for messages, I stood up and began tidying my bedroom. I made space on the bureau for Lili when she stayed over, and that meant I gathered my bills, junk mail and other paperwork into one pile.
A tie bar I had inherited from my father was on top of the pile. I remembered wearing it a few weeks before – it must have fallen somewhere, and Lili had discovered it. I carried it over to the old wooden jewelry box where I kept the bits and pieces he’d left me. And maybe because it had been on my mind the day before, I noticed the copper POW bracelet at the bottom of the box.
I picked it up and examined it. It was tarnished, but I couldn’t tell if that was from age or wear. The soldier’s name, rank, and date and location of disappearance were engraved on the metal.
C14S MARC DES ROCHERS
USAF 7-10-66 LAOS
I remembered Mr. Des Rochers, an engineer my dad called “Des,” and often commuted to work with. I’d been to his family’s house in Levittown a few times, especially when I got old enough to drive and wanted to use my dad’s car. I’d take him to Des’s house early in the morning and then pick him up there in the evening. But I’d never thought to ask about the fate of Des’s son.
That was easily remedied, I thought. I went back to the computer and entered his name. It was uncommon, so it came up easily. The results were both saddening and surp
rising. Over 1600 military personnel were still missing, over forty years after “Operation Homecoming” in the spring of 1973, when Vietnam returned American POWs. One hundred ninety four of them were members of the Air Force, lost over Laos.
Marc Des Rochers was among those still missing.
I sat back in my chair. I couldn’t imagine how his father must have felt, not knowing about his son’s fate. Had he died instantly? Lived for a while in pain and suffering? Been incarcerated in one of the prison camps?
I knew my father had been deeply hurt by my stint in prison. But at least he knew I was fed and had access to medical care, that at some point I would be released. Another quick search revealed that Des had passed away a few years before. His online obituary listed his son “Marc, missing in Laos since 1966.”
Beneath that was the line that broke my heart. “Until his death, Rene wore an MIA bracelet with Marc’s name on it, always hoping that his son would come home to him.”
I pushed my chair back quickly and stood up, startling Rochester, who had curled behind me, and Rascal, out in the hallway. “Come on guys, let’s go for a walk,” I said.
Both of them knew that magic word, and they raced down the stairs ahead of me, taking them two or three at a time, romping around the front door. I grabbed their leashes and we started out of River Bend. We kept going past the guard gate, and turned down Ferry Street toward town. After all the hubbub from the Harvest Festival the day before, Stewart’s Crossing was quiet and sleepy. Most of the businesses at that end of town were closed, and I let the dogs loose to run around the parking lot of the VFW Hall.
Rochester was bigger than Rascal, and his coat was in shades of gold compared to Rascal’s black and white. Rascal was by far more active, running in circles around Rochester trying to herd his friend. But Rochester darted in and grabbed the handle of Rascal’s leash in his mouth, ready to take the Aussie for a walk. That completely confused Rascal.
