Can’t Never Tell

by Unknown

  “Which of course built the tip—the crowd—for the next show. A’course it was all done with mirrors and a monkey suit.”

  “Those were the days,” said E.Z. “Everybody wants to protect the freaks now. That’s what they called themselves, you know. Can’t put them on display, it’s not kind. What I want to know is what kind of life does a kid with flippers for feet and claws for hands have these days? Or some kid with no arms or legs at all? I ask you. Least as carnies, they had family. People who treated them like they’uz real people. They could earn their own keep. Where are they now? Hidden away somewhere, living on the dole, without knowing there’s others like ’em. Sad, if you ask me.”

  “Now, E.Z., they have ways to fix stuff now so they don’t have those problems, and maybe some of them don’t want to be freaks, they want to be normal.”

  “Hmph. Show me normal next time you spot it. I’d pay to see that. I liked a world where freaks could find a home with their own. That was a kinder place, you better believe it. Some a’those families some of them came out of, makes you ask who the normal ones were.”

  Pinner glanced at me to see how their well-worn argument was sitting with me.

  E.Z. didn’t care how it sat with me, but he was the one who changed the subject. “Is old man Letts going to cut us any break on the nut?”

  “Our rent for the space,” Pinner explained. “Folks are interested. We’ll open shortly.”

  “Sure hope that’s soon enough. Usually like to make the nut by the end of the first weekend, for a longer run like this,” said E.Z. “Get that put behind us and earn us something to eat.”

  “We like to earn it by the first weekend,” said Pinner, “but usually don’t.” Her tone hinted that she was the realist.

  He just shook his head with the routine melancholy I’ve seen on an apple farmer’s face any time somebody asks about the weather or the crop. No matter how good it is, it’s always bad.

  “Thanks to Avery, we’ll make the nut,” she said. “The crowds outside are fair, especially for a Sunday.”

  “Hope it holds,” he said with cultivated gloom.

  “Why’s it called the nut?” I asked.

  “Always heard it’s because the show owner used to take a nut off’a the wagon’s wheel so an operator couldn’t take a roll before he’d paid off the owner at the end of a gig.”

  “Avery here stopped by offering to return part of our money,” said Pinner.

  E.Z. turned from the silent TV screen where cars in a NASCAR race ran on a continuous loop. His right eyebrow raised in a suspicious question.

  “I got to thinking,” said Pinner, “about what we talked about?”

  The question, asked in their secret married shorthand, hung in the air until he offered a relenting shrug and a half-nod, still looking at me.

  “Why’re you giving our money back?” The question in his voice carried a load of skepticism.

  “Because I didn’t earn it.”

  Both his eyebrows shot up. To a man who’d made a living liberating money by scaring people into running from a gorilla suit, that must sound as unbelievable as a real gorilla girl.

  “We were thinking . . .” Pinner paused, waiting for him to respond.

  We stared at each other, E.Z. sitting in front of his silent stock-car race, Pinner and me standing surrounded by the kitchen cabinet photo gallery.

  E.Z. finally spoke. “Would you be willing to do a bit more work for us?”

  I didn’t answer right away.

  “We got to find out who that poor fella was,” Pinner said. “Get him proper buried. Nobody ought to be dumped in a pauper’s grave.”

  “We’ve been talking it over. That man might have family that’s been missing him,” said E.Z.

  “It ain’t right,” said Pinner.

  “Uh, sure,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.” Shamanique came to mind immediately. A few months ago, Edna Lynch, a private investigator who had proven both invaluable and intractable in a couple of cases, had hauled her young cousin by the ear into my office, frustrated with us both: with me because I wasn’t businesslike enough to hire someone to answer my phone and with Shamanique because of her bad choices in boyfriends and a minor brush with the law.

  Edna figured that putting the two of us together would solve a world of ills. Surprisingly enough, it had worked. Shamanique was a bulldog when she needed to track somebody down. She would probably call upon the same arcane skills to find a mummy’s family that she used to track down dead–beat dads.

  “You told me who sold it to you.” I fished in my pants pocket and came out with my ticket stub and a pen.

  “Con Plotnick.”

  She spelled it while I wrote in tiny letters on the ticket.

  “Any idea where Mr. Plotnick might have family?”

  They exchanged questioning glances. “We knew Con in Gibtown,” said E.Z. “He didn’t have any family there. You remember him talking about where he came from?”

  “Nope.” Pinner wore a thoughtful frown, but it apparently wasn’t conjuring up any remembered connections.

  “You mentioned Gibtown before. You live there when you aren’t on the road.”

  E.Z. nodded. “One of these days, we’ll retire there. When we build our poke.”

  Pinner nodded. “When he gets too old to climb the stairs into this trailer,” she said. “That’s when we park for good. Until then, he’s looking for the next mark. Don’t kid yourself, old man.”

  He shook his head but with a wry grin of agreement.

  “Let us know what it costs,” said Pinner. “We’ll pay you up front, if you want.”

  Her tone carried no irony, no hint that I was their next “mark.”

  “Let me see what will be involved. If it’s very complicated or we hit a quick roadblock, I’ll let you know.”

  Their satisfied looks said the deal was sealed. I bid them both good night. I didn’t mention the autopsy again or the need to reassure the sheriff—or, more particularly, to reassure Adrienne Campbell—that the Plinys had nothing to do with the strangely dressed man’s demise. We could cross that bridge tomorrow, if it needed to be crossed.

  Monday Morning

  I went downstairs to the office earlier than usual, anxious to get started unraveling some tangled knots.

  The message light was blinking. Rog Reimann had called late last night, according to the message machine, and he wanted me to call him back if it wasn’t convenient for him to drop by at nine o’clock. Presumptuous of him, but not inconvenient. I glanced at my watch and decided I’d have to delay breakfast. I wouldn’t have time to make it to Maylene’s and get back by nine. This meeting should be interesting—and painful.

  I didn’t expect to find Rudy Mellin in his office this early, but I called anyway and left an innocuous message: “Hi. Just checking in.” No need to tell him what I wanted to know. He knew.

  My next call was to Shamanique. I doubted she’d be out of bed, on a vacation day, but I was wrong.

  “You mind doing some work this week?”

  “Nope. I’m at Auntie Edna’s working as we speak.”

  “I imagine you could work this one like a skip trace, but I don’t know. You’re the expert. I need to find where the guy in the horror house came from, who his next-of-kin is, that sort of thing.”

  “The cops know what killed him?”

  “Not yet, at least as far as I know. The autopsy should be complete today. I’ll let you know when I hear anything.”

  That was two autopsies I hoped to hear about from Rudy. What a sobering thought, even though the mummy in the trailer didn’t carry the same pang for me as wondering what they’d learned about Rinda Reimann. Still, the autopsy results marked two definite, final acts for two lives. Not exactly how I’d expected to fill my summer holiday.

  I paused for a moment after I hung up the phone. Should I wait to find out how the mummy man had died before sending Shamanique on his trail? After all, we had no idea what had happened, how he�
��d earned his slot in the show.

  I almost reached for the phone to tell Shamanique to hold off, then decided that was silly. Shamanique did her searches on a computer, safely tucked away in Dacus. She’d be the first to warn me if she found her questions stirring up any trouble. That girl can sniff trouble out from a distance—and then, according to her aunt, get herself into it. No worries there, though. Messing with dead guys wasn’t her kind of trouble. She liked them very much alive.

  Rog Reimann showed up at my office fifteen minutes early. That was not surprising. People are often anxious about visits to lawyers—or doctors or dentists—and want to get it over with. What was surprising was that he wasn’t the first one through the door. Eden Rand, her orange hair, and her diaphanous clothes swirled through the doorway, unmistakably creating the draft that drew Rog along in its wake.

  “Avery, it’s so good to see you. We can’t thank you enough for making time for us.”

  I’m sure my surprise registered on my face. I wasn’t trying to hide it, but Eden was either unaware or unconcerned. My surprise at Eden’s presence was a mild reaction compared to Rog’s air of befuddlement.

  “Come in.” I led them from the cavernous entry hall into my front office, where Shamanique would normally be working at what would be a receptionist’s desk, if I ever had clients stacked up waiting to see me.

  I stopped beside Shamanique’s desk and turned, my hand on the corner of the massive antique oak top, blocking the way to my inner sanctum.

  “I told Rog he simply had no choice,” Eden said. “He had to shake himself out of his lethargy, he has business to attend to.” Eden hadn’t taken a breath since they had come through the front door.

  She linked her arm protectively through his. She may have tried to comb his hair before they arrived, but, if so, she hadn’t been any more successful with his than she was with her own. His gray hair stood in greasy spikes, and he wore the same faded expression and what may have been the same pale, slightly wrinkled cotton shirt he’d worn Friday at the picnic. The only thing moving him from one place to another seemed to be his place in Eden Rand’s powerful undertow.

  The gaze she rested on his face saw nothing out of place, not his crookedly shaved whiskers or his sallow, sagging skin. Her attention wasn’t what I would expect from a concerned colleague or even a family friend. It went beyond mere affection to unalloyed adoration.

  I’d observed a few funeral home husband-hunters, lonely women who circled around newly available widowers, offering comfort and casseroles. Was that Eden’s story? She was, given her tenure at the university, at least a moderately successful academic. She didn’t fit the gold-digger stereotype, that was certain.

  “Do you want to wait here?” I asked her. “Or we can call you if you’d like to go down the street for some coffee?”

  I don’t drink coffee, and I wasn’t really interested in encouraging her with hospitality. If Rog Reimann needed a lawyer, he’d have to make that choice on his own. I’d prefer he not be influenced by Eden’s presence, which, given the persistence of her attentions, might be forceful enough to emanate through the heavy pocket doors into my inner office.

  “Oh.” Eden looked surprised. “I—I’ll wait here.” She reluctantly slipped her arm from Rog’s but didn’t relinquish her gaze so easily. She studied his face with concern. “Can you talk to Avery?”

  He blinked. Was he sedated? He had appeared much the same when I met him on Friday. Maybe this was his normal absentminded professor routine, compounded with less sleep and more preoccupation than usual. Maybe Eden was just being a good friend because he really did need a keeper.

  “Okay.” Eden looked around the front office as if she was being temporarily confined. She choose a well-worn leather club chair in the front window and settled her skirts about her, her oversized striped canvas bag at her feet.

  “Mr. Reimann.” I ushered him ahead of me and slid the doors shut without another glance at Eden.

  Rog Reimann didn’t act capable of choosing his own seat, so I indicated one of the two wing chairs in the alcove facing the side porch. The sunlight made it a bright haven in the morning, welcome in the cavernous, dim room.

  Rog registered none of the details. He sank into the chair, his gaze fixed on me like a retriever awaiting his handler’s signal.

  “Mr. Reimann, I’m so sorry about Rinda. I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you.”

  His nod was almost imperceptible, but the sunlight caught the tears welling in his eyes.

  “I understand Ms. Rand thinks you need to waste no time pursuing your interests.” Why was I talking like a funeral director offering a preplanning discount? Maybe because Reimann looked fragile, unable to deal directly with anything that made his wife’s death real. This visit was premature, to say the least.

  “Doctor,” he said. His first word since he’d arrived.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s Dr. Rand,” he said.

  “Oh. Dr. Rand.” I paused. At least I knew he could speak. “What did you need help with, Dr. Reimann?” I realized I’d failed to use his title as well.

  He stared at the bookcases lining the back wall, several feet from my chair.

  “Insurance,” he said finally. “Eden says I need to do something to collect the—insurance.”

  The tears threatened to collect and fall.

  “And something about the will, the estate. I don’t know about these things.”

  He looked like a sad shadow of a man, rumpled and slightly dirty. Did Eden Rand just like scruffy middle-aged puppies, or did Rog Reimann offer charms I couldn’t see buried beneath his grief?

  Rather than tell him to come back when he was off tranquilizers and could shower and shave by himself, I decided now was a good time to make use of the “counselor” part of my job description, albeit the skills I had learned from hospice training in a church basement, not in law school. Given Eden’s sense of urgency, I couldn’t very well tell him to come back when he was farther along in his grief process.

  “Tell me about Rinda.” I leaned toward him, my gaze fixed on his face.

  He blinked. His expression brightened a watt. “I love her very much. We were very happy together.”

  “I’m sure you were. How long were you married?”

  “Over two years.”

  “Oh, my. You were newlyweds.” Odd to think of Rog as a blushing bridegroom.

  He stared at the floor.

  “Where did you meet?”

  “In St. Louis. We both worked there. She was the department secretary. We’d both been married before.”

  “Mm-hm.” I offered an encouraging murmur. He needed to tell his story any way he wanted. Just letting someone talk about a loved one was often the kindest gift.

  “One of those things, you know. I’d married too young, then we’d stayed together out of habit. Thought that was the way it was for everyone, you know, before I met Rinda. I certainly hadn’t gone looking for love, but there she was. I was just swept away.”

  He sat for a moment, lost in a memory of unplanned passion.

  “Then my wife died.”

  Whoa, back up. “Your first wife died?” I struggled to keep my voice even, my tone calm.

  “A car accident. She was killed.” His face crumpled in a remembered pain, even though he recited it in monotone.

  “Rinda was already getting a divorce. We’ve been together ever since.” I noticed he left out what happened to Rinda’s husband and any children caught in the changing tide.

  “When was the accident?”

  His gaze rose to study the ceiling as he thought. “This is July? Wow. Three years almost exactly. July Fourth. Some guy had spent the afternoon at a party. He hit her.”

  “This was in St. Louis?”

  “Webster Grove. Just outside St. Louis. Not far from our house.”

  I jotted notes on the legal pad balanced on the arm of my chair. Shamanique’s vacation was about to be further interrupted with an
other research request.

  “The accident really—threw me. I didn’t know what to do. If it hadn’t been for Rinda . . .”

  More tears brimmed and one slid down his cheek. He bit his lower lip as he stared at the floor. He didn’t look up to see how I was taking his display of grief. By all evidence, it was genuine.

  “When did you and Rinda marry?”

  “Just before Christmas that year. Didn’t see any real reason to wait.”

  Some often-dormant Calvinist part of me thought propriety and respect might make good reasons, but if you’re already fooling around on your first wife when she dies, who’s going to look askance at an abbreviated mourning period?

  “When did you move to Dacus?”

  “Seneca, actually. Last spring was two years. I got a teaching job at the university because Rinda really wanted to come home.”

  “Home?” I knew the story, but he needed to tell it.

  “Yeah. Rinda grew up in Camden County. Her folks are still here, and she has family and friends here.”

  He didn’t catch himself and move her to the past tense.

  “I’m so sorry, Dr. Reimann. I know this is hard. Wouldn’t you rather wait until after the funeral?”

  He looked confused.

  “To attend to the other—matters?”

  His almost-invisible sandy eyebrows met in a bewildered frown. “No.” He shook his head, looking more like he was trying to clear away the clouds than refuting anything. “Eden said I needed to take care of this . . .”

  He looked around my office as if realizing for the first time that Eden Rand hadn’t joined us.

  “Dr. Reimann, it might be best to wait—”

  “No,” he said without force. From the pocket of his rumpled short-sleeved buttoned-down shirt, he pulled a long envelope. I hadn’t noticed it sticking out of his shirt pocket because it fit so seamlessly with his faded disarray.

  He offered the envelope to me.

  Inside was a summary sheet of contact information. Someone in the Reimann household paid attention to details. The list had bank accounts, insurance policies, everything I could imagine needing in the event a loved one passed on.