“Nope,” said Lula.
They all watched Nick come out the kitchen door and walk over to Fuzzy. He patted his arm, then took it gently in his two hands and led him back to the kitchen, talking softly all the way. Jane could hear him promising some great chocolate chip cookies.
“Night was bright enough for me to see a man out there, and I sure didn’t expect anybody else but Fuzzy to be there. It was where he always went to, you know, relieve himself. Didn’t expect Jane to be up watching. I’ve got some pills and I was going to do it, you know, shoot him, then go in the house and take the pills and in the morning we’d both be gone.” Lula looked at Charley and Jane. “I am sorry because of your boy. I didn’t want to do that with him here, but I had no choice and you two seemed like you’d handle things as good as anybody. I couldn’t wait; I couldn’t take a chance.” Lula took a breath. “Didn’t want your boy to be scarred for life. I never thought there’d be somebody else’s boy out there.” She looked at them as if she hoped they had something for her. “Who could have known that?”
“Your kids, Lula?” Don said. “They would have helped you. Nellie and I would have helped.”
“Who’s Dr. Paulson?” asked Jane. The antidepressants in the medicine cabinet were prescribed by a Dr. Paulson, not by Fuzzy’s doctor. “What kind of doctor have you been going to, Lula?”
“That’s right, Jane,” said Lula. She smiled and nodded at Nellie. “She is good at snooping around and figuring things out,” and then Lula turned back to Jane. “I’ve got cancer and there’s nothing to be done. If they had found it earlier, maybe. I could have had the chemo, but now it wouldn’t help enough. Not for long enough. And I’d be too sick to take care of Fuzzy. I was running out of time as it was.”
Oh had come up on the porch and whispered something to Munson, who nodded.
“Jack Sullivan’s going to be fine.”
“Of course he is,” said Lula. “I didn’t want to kill him.”
Dempsey and Hoover had approached the porch, but had hung back, not knowing exactly what they were going to have to admit. Hoover was holding the cardboard box Jane had seen him take from Roger Groveland’s garage.
“What do you have there?” asked Munson.
Hoover opened his mouth, but found nothing to say.
Dempsey, however, welcomed the question. Clearly, it was the one he wanted to be asked. Raising one arm for effect, he practically shouted in his best Prof. Harold Hill baritone, “Eureka! We have found more bones on Fuzzy Neilson’s land.”
Hoover dropped the box and ran back into the cornfield.
It was a truly amazing feat of garage-sale magic. Up and down Rosewood and Wildwood, Tanner and Cannon, Yates and Hawkins—from the east to the west and the north to the south, in every street and every alley, people came out of their houses, sat at folding tables large and small, and sold their stuff. There were those who brought out two tea towels and an old frying pan, just to say they participated, and there were those who decided to empty out their house to see who liked their stuff and what they could get for it.
Some folks saw it as a chance to start over, begin fresh. Others claimed it was time that they got out of the house and met their neighbors. The busing system worked, and those who drove in from Chicago and other surrounding communities and parked on the outskirts of Kankakee were whisked into town and provided with maps and complimentary shopping bags. Snack carts drove around the neighborhoods doing a brisk business. Private cars were strongly discouraged and severely limited as to where they could be driven or parked. The streets were empty except for the buses, strollers, browsers, and shoppers, and the kids who were riding their bikes with their parents’ blessings all over town.
Jane and Charley and Nick had driven down a day early, parked the car at Don and Nellie’s, and taken the buses into every corner of Kankakee. Charley had actually found some amazing mineral specimens at the home of a former University of Illinois professor who had retired and taken over his deceased parents’ home. Nick had found enough baseball cards and soccer paraphernalia to last him a lifetime. His real find had been an old German erector set. It was huge and he and Charley couldn’t wait to start a project with it. Jane was puzzled that she hadn’t found anything. It worried her that she could barely feign interest in the tables, in the boxes of books and vanity cases full of costume jewelry. The Pyrex bowls and the mason jars full of buttons were not calling out her name. In two days she hadn’t found one thing to buy.
Jane watched the crowds of people shiny-eyed and expectant, all hoping to find exactly what they wanted as soon as they saw whatever that was. She found herself envying them. Even Bruce Oh, walking slightly behind Claire, who was carrying a Vuitton tote bag and a list of addresses where she had to return to pick up furniture, was carrying his own HOME OF THE TWIN GAZEBOS shopping bag. When she asked him, he showed her a tie. It was purple with tiny gold skyscrapers on it.
“I knew it would make Claire happy if I replaced the one I ruined that day on the farm,” he said. Then he whispered to her, “You are too tired to hear this now, but you did a wonderful job on this case.”
“We have one more thing,” said Jane. “I promised Munson.”
Hoover and Dempsey were participating in the garage sale. Dempsey had met Roger Groveland at some business seminar and Groveland had offered to help launch Hometown USA in Kankakee just before he had his fatal heart attack. Groveland’s niece, when she rented the house to Dempsey and Hoover, had told them they could have anything they wanted in the garage. Jane had been sure they would be going to jail for something, but no one had come up with exactly the right formula to send them there. Jane kept trying to accuse them of fraud or intent to commit fraud, but it was a tricky proposition.
Fuzzy had told everyone he planted rocks and arrowheads on his property, so no one could accuse Dempsey and Hoover of trying to trick the Neilsons by salting their land with phony artifacts. The box of bones that Hoover had dropped before he ran into the arms of Bostick at the farm were old animal bones. Jane was sure it was the box that she had seen Hoover put in the car in Groveland’s garage, but she couldn’t swear to it, and besides, who cared? That duck-billed dinosaur listed on the receipt she had found was going to turn up somewhere, but it hadn’t yet. Hoover admitted to being in the outhouse the night of the shooting. He claimed that he and Johnny Sullivan had done a little too much drinking and Johnny had gotten all sentimental and weepy about his cat, Otto. He made Hoover park on the side of the road, and they walked the corn path in. Johnny came up to the shed and scooped up Otto and headed back to the path while Hoover was in the outhouse. When Hoover came out and saw the commotion, he ran back through the field to the highway. He had no idea then that anyone had been shot.
The mighty plans for Hometown USA? No money had changed hands. Were Dempsey and Hoover planning a swindle of mammoth proportions? Or were Joe Dempsey and Michael Hoover the Don Quixote and Sancho Panza that Kankakee needed to raise itself from the ashes? Munson told Jane that he wasn’t even sure he had enough to get them to leave town. Roger Groveland had collected all the information on property owners and seniors who might be tapped for investments. Johnny Sullivan, using the name Roger Groveland, made the phony call reporting the historic find on Neilson’s farm. Apparently, Johnny had lifted the blazer from the garage and found that wearing it gave him access to people when he asked questions about their property. He never identified himself as a Realtor, but people assumed he was and confided plans to sell or not sell. Told him how they felt about the airport. Henry Bennett from K3 Realty told Munson, when questioned, that there were a lot of older people who didn’t want the airport coming to town, but loved the idea of Hometown USA. People who had said they’d never sell, ever, were flocking to these informational meetings held by Dempsey and Hoover. Johnny Sullivan was a silent partner.
“Pretty damn sneaky,” Munson had said to Jane, “using a dead man’s name badge to make people believe you’re something you’re not.”
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Jane agreed. Did he have much of a rapport with uniformed officers who stopped people for traffic violations?
“I’ve got to get them out of town before they leave with somebody’s money,” said Munson.
That was when she promised Munson that she and Oh would take care of it.
Dempsey and Hoover hadn’t had a crowd at their garage. Groveland’s belongings had been pretty picked over and they looked it. No effort had been made to spruce up the merchandise.
“When are you planning on leaving town?” Jane asked, stepping up to their card table.
“We’re staying for a while. Business is going to be booming here. Tim Lowry has given Kankakee hope, optimism,” said Dempsey. “This is a town ready for something good to happen.”
Bruce Oh handed Jane a letter, which she held in front of her as she spoke. Oh then took out a small digital camera and asked if they minded being photographed and they smiled broadly and shook their heads. It seemed to amuse them that this Japanese detective, or whatever he was, wanted to photograph them at the world’s largest garage sale.
“Going to send this back home to your family?” asked Hoover.
Jane thought Oh smiled.
“I have no idea if you are legitimate, gentlemen, or even if you are who you say you are,” said Jane. “If you can convince the citizens of Kankakee that their town needs to be the next Disney World and,” she paused, “you deliver the next Disney World, I applaud you.”
Dempsey and Hoover both nodded, still smiling and posing.
“And if you are who you say you are and your business is on the up and up, this letter I am mailing today will have no effect,” she said, holding it up but out of reach. “It is addressed to Judy Iacuzzi, whom I have been in contact with, and it gives your names, Kankakee addresses, business cards, all the contact numbers on your stationery.”
“And I will e-mail your current photographs,” said Oh.
Hoover groaned, but Joe Dempsey continued smiling, opening his eyes even wider than usual.
“If this makes no sense to you, great,” said Jane. “But if you ever used the name Dempsey Josephson, Ms. Iacuzzi is very anxious to talk over old times.”
When Jane’s path intersected with Tim’s later that day, he hugged her, and without one trace of cynicism told her the garage sale was everything he’d thought it could be.
“People are talking to each other and happy…. I can’t remember the last time Kankakee was this alive,” said Tim.
“That’s from The Music Man, right? Marian the librarian says that’s what the town is like because of Harold Hill and the excitement he brought to town,” said Jane.
“If I’m Marian, who’s Harold?”
“You, honey. You’re the whole damn band,” said Jane.
Tim told Jane it would all be perfect if he got 100 percent participation by the end of the two weekends. Jane assured him he would. Everywhere she went, people were talking about how great it would be to make the Guinness Book of World Records.
“There’s one holdout I’m worried about. Would you give it a try?”
Jane was exhausted from the whole month. She had helped Lula hire someone to take care of Fuzzy. Lula had been allowed to stay at home until the arraignment—she would be charged with manslaughter and everyone assured her she would not have to go to jail. But Jane knew that it didn’t matter what happened at a trial, if there ever was a trial. Lula was declining. Hospice had been called. Dr. Paulson, the oncologist, said Lula wouldn’t live more than a month or two. Fuzzy barely knew her now. When Lula saw that was true, that Fuzzy was going, almost gone, she was ready to let go herself. It was if she had been holding her breath for so long, keeping the illness at bay. As soon as she exhaled, the cancer, poised and ready, reined in for all those months, just thundered through her body.
William Neilson had been here, gone home, and was coming back next week to spend time with his mother. Mary Lee had arrived a week ago to stay until it was over. Lula’s children, after the shock and the anger and inevitable questions and unsatisfactory answers, had, to Jane’s relief, finally embraced their mother and told her they loved her and would be there for her and do whatever was necessary for their father. It was all the permission she needed to let her body begin to slide away.
When Jane told her what she’d learned about Johnny Sullivan, how he had drunkenly come over with Hoover to steal Otto’s bones and plant something else for Charley to find—all to make them think their land was tied up by the government so they’d sign the agreement with Hometown—Lula had just shaken her head. She said she was too tired to think much about it.
“It was Johnny who reported Otto’s bones—I mean he didn’t know they were Otto’s, but he knew they weren’t anything significant. He had a friend of his ask to buy the topsoil. He and Roger Groveland were working with Dempsey and Hoover. They were working to get the airport sited here and by then, they’d have the option on your land and they’d resell it and …”
Jane had stopped talking when she realized that Lula was asleep.
Now Tim was asking her to do him just this one little favor, to talk to the last woman in Kankakee who refused his pleading, who would not succumb to his charm.
“I am on my knees,” said Tim, standing with his hands on her shoulders. “Metaphorically, of course. Please won’t you try to talk to her?”
Jane wanted to plead exhaustion. She had earned the right. But Tim had worked too hard and was too close to being completely happy. Maybe a successful mission was just what she needed to get back her own energy. Maybe she would find exactly what she was looking for when she got this stubborn holdout to open her door. Maybe Jane would begin to want something again.
But Nellie was adamant. “I’ve got nothing I want to sell. I don’t keep stuff I don’t want,” said Nellie. “You know that.”
Every time Jane had come home to one of her mother’s cleaning binges, things had disappeared. Her stuffed animals. Her Nancy Drew books. Her paint-by-number pictures. Her rock collection. Her plastic gumball machine charms.
Yes, Jane knew it. That’s why she didn’t have her childhood toys or school papers or scrapbooks or … Jane stopped. She had been through this before. They had plowed that ground and uncovered way too many bones. Jane herself was ready to declare a moratorium. Stop the excavation. Declare it a sacred site. Bury it.
It hadn’t stopped with childhood. One college vacation, her precisely ripped and fringed bell-bottoms, the ones that fit her perfectly, disappeared. Nellie had acted like she didn’t even know what Jane was talking about.
“I haven’t seen any jeans like that,” said Nellie, “but if I did, I probably would throw them away. Sounds like hobo clothes.”
The most irritating part was that Nellie would never own up to getting rid of any of it. She’d say the room looked better without whatever it was Jane was crying for, and then she’d buy her something new to replace the tattered stuffed animal or offer a new outfit to replace the jeans. Jane always refused at first, but eventually came around to the new item and then hated herself for being bought off. It was one of Bartender Nellie’s double-whammy doses of neurosis. A cocktail mixed of two parts abandonment and deprivation to one part self-loathing. Shake over cold-as-cracked-ice-lack-of-emotional-support and strain into a shaky relationship.
Oh yes, Jane was ready to bury it.
“Mom, you must have some old pans or dishes in the basement you don’t want? Cauldrons? Brooms?” she muttered under her breath. “For Tim’s sake.”
On Sunday, the last day of the sale, Don stepped in.
He had some worn decks of cards and euchre scoreboards. Some glasses from the tavern. He told her to bring up the boxes from the basement and do whatever she wanted with them. She could set up a table and sell it all.
“Don’t buy the junk yourself,” Don said, patting her shoulder. “And don’t tell your mother.”
Don and Nellie were leaving for the EZ Way Inn. Nellie had made soup every day o
f the sale and sold it out. Don said business was almost as good as when Roper was still there. Everybody in town was already lobbying Tim to make this an annual event.
Charley and Tim were catching a bus to the neighborhood set up as “book city.” The four-block area promised everything from vintage Archie and Veronica comic books to Shakespeare. They knew Jane planned to put out a few things so Tim could document the 100-percent participation. Nick had set up a card table, and Charley had offered her a cup of coffee from the pot Nellie had left for her.
“I haven’t bought anything, Charley,” said Jane.
Charley didn’t answer right away. He opened one of Nellie’s immaculate drawers, revealing the compartment that held spoons, that would always hold spoons, and most important, would only hold spoons. Beware errant fork, loner knife, lest you end up in a compartment where you do not belong, are not wanted. Nellie would take it as a personal blow if someone ever wantonly messed up her silverware drawer. Charley looked at his wife. He placed a fork in with the spoons and closed the drawer.
“Need any help carrying Don’s stuff up here? Before I leave with Nick?”
Jane shook her head and allowed him to hold her, to wrap her up in his arms. She said she wanted to want something. Well … there was Charley. She smiled into his jacket.
“Are you crying?”
“No,” said Jane. “I’m ready to go home, though.”
“Yes, tonight, dear one. Now get a table set up for an hour or so and let somebody take a picture so we’ve done our duty for Tim. Then,” he said, holding her out at arm’s length, “I am taking you home.”
Jane nodded.
“And Nick and I are going to make you look at all of our stuff, each and every little thing that we found.”
Jane got out the glasses and decks of cards that Don had packed away. She set them on the front porch and went back downstairs for a final check. Was there anything else her father had to sell? The basement was eerily clean. When Don and Nellie had moved into this house, Jane was a senior in high school. She had never really formed an attachment here, but she remembered liking the idea of having a finished basement. “Finished,” of course, was a relative term. The previous owners left their “party room” furniture, which consisted of a large, round Formica table with uncomfortable metal chairs and two couches that were so characterless that no one could call them vintage. They were just old sofas that Jane couldn’t imagine anyone ever buying new.
Buried Stuff Page 25
