Caretakers (Tyler Cunningham)

by Sheffield, Jamie

  “Photographs and stories wanted about summer life on Upper Saranac Lake during the late 1950s.” The guy who had asked about my dog read off of my flyer, tearing the whole thing down and walking back towards the group he had been with before, picking up his coffee for a swig before continuing.

  “Shit. You wanna know about Dee Crocker.” Seven words. He said only seven words, but the effect was startling. All of the men in his circle sat up a bit straighter and took a look at me. A few of the younger ones looked back to him with questions in their eyes.

  “The girl that disappeared summer of ‘58. Tough for the family. Tough for everyone working on the lake, too,” he said, by way of explanation. There was some aggression or anger underlying the words that seemed to interest Barry and he began to circle closer.

  “Yes, I’m interested in Deirdre Crocker. Why? Do you know something that could help me?” I asked.

  “Help you what? Upset things between summer and winter people again? Not like you’re gonna find the girl. Not after all this time,” he replied.

  “I’m trying to find out what happened. Why is that a problem for you?” I asked, at which Barry grinned and limbered up his shoulders, as if anticipating a fight or something similar.

  “Tyler, you are a dumb ass. The old man was ten seconds from just sitting down and grumbling about you after you left. Now that you challenged him in front of his boys, he’s gotta take you on, or he loses,” Barry said.

  “Lose what?” I asked before remembering that I was facing a group of grumpy handymen, none of whom could see or hear Barry; it actually worked in my favor a bit … the old guy facing me paused a moment, trying to squeeze some relevant meaning out of what I had just said, apparently to him.

  “Wha? Huh? Yah, it’s a problem for me. Lots of things changed around the time the girl vanished. The way things worked around the lake, at the camps, it all changed. Took years, more, to get right again. Last thing we need is someone fucking around with things now. She’s dead. Been dead almost my whole life I reckon. Leave it alone. It’s a nice day, go take a ride in your fancy car.”

  My whole life I’ve been too emotionally flat for most people, it creeps them out when I don’t react to provocation; today though, I could feel something bubbling inside me, and then spilling out of my mouth before I could assess it. “I’m looking for information and photos from the summers at the end of the 1950s, and I’ll find them with or without the help of the green chino brigade. Once I get what I need, I’m going to find out what happened to Deirdre Crocker, and I’ll post a sign about that up here as well. Problems, old-timer?” I could feel a shake in my voice, as well as in my arms and legs, so I started moving, direction not important. I found myself in front of the bulletin-board again, so I avoided a silly about face by tacking up another of my fliers, a replacement for the one the old man had crumpled in his fist and dropped to the ground by his chair by the time I started back to the 993.

  “If anyone’s gonna do anything, it’ll be in the next three, two, one, you’re clear, Tyler,” Barry said, when I had passed through the cloud of men sitting quietly/awkwardly in the silent bubble of anger and resentment that we, the old man and I, had created in the circle of tree-stump stools by the bulletin-board at Donaldson’s.

  I felt stupid and hot and shaky as I drove away, back northwards and away from the parking lot. I don’t get mad or lose my temper or act stupidly/impulsively in the heat of the moment … my moments are generally very cool. That being said, I had done exactly that back at Donaldson’s, and it upset me. I don’t like change or the unknown in my world, and here was change and unknown within my person. Feeling a stranger’s reactions to stress was off-putting and scary, it made me question all of the stuff that I was happy to take for granted about myself.

  I felt the canoe rumble and shake a bit on the roof of the 993, and noted that I was cruising at 72 miles per hour; I dropped the speed to a more reasonable (and numerologically pleasing) 47 and continued until the right hand turnoff for Moss Rock Road. Moss Rock Road is a looping road that exists only to bring summer people out to their camps on Upper Saranac Lake, but to get them there, it must cross about 500 yards of State Forest Preserve; it was this land in which I was interested.

  I pulled the 993 over to the left hand side of the road, flashers on, and shut it down 100 yards from the first driveway on that side. Quickly untying the front and back lines, then the strap securing my Hornbeck canoe to the Porsche, I lifted the boat up and off the roof and jogged into the woods with it. I put the canoe down and then went back for the paddle and other gear I’d stowed in the car, hiding it all behind a fallen white pine about 30 feet into the woods (further than people were likely to look/wander). I ran back to ‘my’ car, rolled the sleeping pad up, stowed it and the straps in the backseat (such as it is in a Porsche) and drove back to Moss Rock Road to Route 30 again, turning right and driving back almost exactly a mile to the Crocker’s driveway, and down into Topsail.

  The Subaru was already (still?) gone from the parking lot (the trip that I had mentioned from Jones to Osgood ponds, I wondered?), and there were no other signs of life as I stepped out of Mike Crocker’s beloved car, and soaked in the peace and quiet, a welcome change after my busy morning. I made my way to the main lodge, certain of finding someone there, not caring too much who it was, as my needs were simple in this case. There was a bell hanging at the top of the stairs, outside of the great room, and I rang it to no discernible effect. After ringing again, then knocking on the doorframe, and finally calling out a decent ‘hello,’ I waited another minute before I walked into the room with the huge dining table, empty; there were a number of juice and hot beverage carafes on the table, glasses and mugs, along with a wood-handled silver bell. I poured myself a glass of cranberry juice, rang the bell, and waited.

  A young woman that Mrs. Crocker had referred to as ‘Sarah,’ who had been helping shuttle food and drinks and plates and bowls in and out during lunch yesterday, came out through the swinging door that led back to the kitchen and pantry and, eventually, to Mrs. Crocker’s suite. If she was surprised to see me sitting alone at the table, she didn’t show it; I’m pretty sure that no cook’s assistant or serving girl ever got a Christmas bonus for exhibiting surprise at what they saw while working for their wealthy employers.

  “Yes, Mr. Cunningham? Can I get you something from the kitchen?” she asked.

  “Thank you for offering, Sarah.” I was somewhat impressed that she remembered my name, but didn’t show it (I generally don’t show any emotions, except for those I’m trying to show, and I’m pretty bad at that). “I’ve already had breakfast. I was hoping to speak with Anthony, or Mr. Crocker, or Mrs. Crocker, if she’s up and receiving visitors.”

  “Were they expecting you?” she asked, starting to look/sound a little nervous now, at the potentially unwelcome person in the Topsail Main Lodge.

  “No, but it’s related to what we were talking about yesterday. Kitty’s daughter’s disappearance.” I had guessed that an unguarded sharing of Crocker family business would send her fleeing the room, and I was correct. I had a few minutes of uninterrupted quiet in that spectacular room, sharing it with nobody except for a slightly dusty moosehead whose left glass eye was canted a few degrees upwards. I admired the cool and solid and heavy feeling Stickley table briefly, standing up to get a feel for its heft (a useless exercise, I have no idea how much it weighed, only that it was more than I could move in the slightest). In a perfect world, I would have a table such as this to spread my research materials out on when working a case; but that would require expanding my offices into the next space, and Maurice, my landlord, would have to reinforce his building to support the furniture (even assuming a way could be found to get the table up there … maybe remove a wall?).

  “Tyler, what do you need?” Anthony strode into the room wearing a similar suit to the previous day’s, but a slightly flashier tie. His tone seemed to suggest annoyance at speaking to a minion who has overstepped
in some elementary manner.

  “Anthony. What do you do for Mrs. Crocker … for the Crocker family?” I countered.

  He was instantly flustered, and checked/adjusted his tie and heavy sterling cufflinks for a moment before getting his tone and stare back into place. “A variety of things, none of which I can discuss with you.”

  “Yup, you’re likely helping Kitty get her affairs in order, as she expects to die soon. You look too young to be handling all of the Crocker assets, so I would bet that you’re an entry-to-mid-level cog/wonk/stepinfetchit sent up as a favor to the family and Kitty by the senior partner, who actually does know them, and might have a vacation place over in Placid. Am I close?” His silence was answer enough. I could see/feel that I was being pointlessly/needlessly antagonistic with someone who might end up being a gatekeeper for vital information/resources at some point in my investigation. I was treating Anthony poorly for no reason beyond some excess stress bleeding off from the unpleasantness at Donaldson’s, combined with uncomfortable/ unpleasant feelings and associations from dealing with similar legal minions at earlier times in my life (most particularly in the days and weeks after the death of my parents, while settling their affairs).

  “I don’t need anything tricky … or bank-y. I need a few pictures of Deirdre Crocker that were taken as close to her abduction as possible, during the summer of 1958 if they have them. I would prefer to get at least one of each of the following: a close up full frontal shot of her face, a picture of her sitting, one standing, and a group shot with her and some friends/family; I assume that in most of those pictures she would be dressed in casual clothes, but if possible, I also need one of her in a bathing suit. Do you need to write this down?” I was being mean, but it wouldn’t kill him, or me (he was, after all, a wonk), and my assumption, based on similar interactions in the past was that he would strive to do what I wanted quickly and with precision, to show me up.

  “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Cunningham.”

  “Tyler’s fine, Anthony,” I said, aiming for faux-graciousness, but probably coming off as sincere … I stink at tonal inflection and manipulation, but refuse to give up trying. “Insofar as they are able, could you have them identify people that they recognize in the photos, and include that information on a separate sheet of paper?”

  “Will you be waiting, or should I have them sent, or bring them around, to your office in Saranac Lake?”

  “I’ll wait, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Mr. Crocker is in with Mrs. Crocker just now; we’ve been going over some of her ‘affairs,’ as you say, and they may be ready to take a break and focus on other things. I believe that she has a number of albums in her rooms. Would you like to wait here?”

  “All things being equal, I’d love to see the boathouse, although to be fair, I’m not sure that it will help me with what I’m doing for Kitty.” He winced each time I used the familiar name, which oddly evoked a desire to keep doing it (and I’m not normally one to play with my food … again, I blamed the old men at Donaldson’s and my past associations with other ‘Anthonies’).

  “Certainly … Tyler. I’ll look for you there, then.” He went back out through the kitchen, and I topped up my cranberry juice, and meandered down towards the boathouse, walking up the stairs that we had skipped in my previous tour.

  Within five seconds of walking in, the boathouse was my favorite feature of Camp Topsail (I momentarily wondered how long it would take them to notice my moving in, permanently). It was a single big room, 40 feet on a side, with windows on all sides, and comfy looking couches and reading chairs arranged so as to divide the space into a couple of ‘rooms’. There were bookshelves lining the walls, between each set of windows on the three sides not facing Upper Saranac Lake. The lakeside was all glass, from waist-height to the ceiling, with a set of French doors in the middle that opened on a porch with clumps of rockers and other chairs and a few low tables, with flower pots filled with flowering red geraniums along the railing. (I could picture Kitty Crocker sitting at one end in her rocker, watching Dee and her ‘beau’ enjoying some quiet time together on the dock). The door came in through the back right corner of the boathouse; there was a huge stone fireplace in the center of the back wall, and the back left corner was devoted to games; board games were on bookshelves and tables, and there was a bumper pool table. The room smelled of dust and old books and pipe smoke and caramel popcorn and old woodsmoke and fine bourbon (which, like pipe smoke, I don’t enjoy myself, but find the scents comforting and home-ifying). There was no bathroom or running water, but such a minor shortcoming could certainly be overlooked … at least by me.

  I scanned the bookshelves on my way around the room, selected a copy of “Canoeing the Adirondacks with Nessmuk,” pushed through the screen doors leading out onto the deck and dropped down into one of the rockers facing Green Island. There was a table waiting for my glass when I reached to put it down. I could hear the drone of motorboats and jet skis off to either side of me, but there was a clear view of water and mountains in front of me (Boot Bay, Ampersand, Scarface, and MacKenzie … with Whiteface and some others in the distance). A pair of loons was working the shallow water in close to shore, fishing and enjoying the summer, as I was. I’d read the book before, so opened to a random spot to begin reading, enjoying the feeling of this old camp around me while I read about Nessmuk, a flatlander who fit himself into the Adirondacks, not the other way around.

  A short while later, I could feel someone moving through the space behind me, trying to be quiet, but unable to avoid shifting the old building slightly with each step. I let them sneak up on me, and such was my serenity that ghost-Barry didn’t appear with me on the porch, squished into one of the chairs, to lecture me about sitting with my back to an entrance. My money was either on a caretaker I’d seen earlier, or Anthony, with the pictures. A few seconds before he pushed open the door, a breeze wafted the smells of cologne and collar starch and a bit of hospital, not cigarettes and combustion byproducts and deet, so I was able to ruin his surprise just before he delivered.

  “Hi, Anthony. Were they able to find what I needed?”

  “Yes, they were, and they hope that you’ll get these back to them after you’re done.”

  “Let me see what you’ve got,” I said, and dragged the table so that it would be more usefully in front of my chair, moving my now empty juice glass to the side.

  He laid down a pile of pictures, which I shuffled into the four basic groups that I had asked for: close-up, sitting, standing, and group. Being a consulting detective, I was able to deduce the common element/girl in each of the pictures, and selected a few from each pile that seemed to best represent her look/pose/poise/manner. As I had suspected, most pictures were mid-to-late 1950s casual, but I made a point of including a picture in fancy dress and one of her in a modest two-piece bathing suit (which probably seemed racy back then, and Barry’s voice in the back of my head categorized as boring). Anthony passed me a sheet of paper ripped from a yellow legal pad with description of where and when the pictures were taken (I had noted that some of the photos had this information neatly penciled on the back, some did not), and identifying some of the people in the pictures, by their clothing or location in the picture.

  “I assume that you have an iPhone5, Anthony, or some analogous high-end phone?” I asked.

  “Yes, I do. Why do you ask?”

  “Can you take the highest quality pictures possible of the pictures I’ve selected with your phone, and send them to my email address?” I asked, laying the pictures out on the table in the order that his notes had been taken, circling the ones I’d used. Anthony saw what I was doing and took the pictures in order, pausing between each one to tell me which .jpg number went with which description; we had finished inside a minute.

  “Thank you very much. I know this is not what you are paid to do, and I have no further need or wish to waste your time Anthony,” I said, handing the pictures back to him, and pocketing h
is notes (gleaned, I assumed from Mike and Kitty Crocker’s memories).

  “I was surprised at how many names they could come up with, given how long a time has passed since those days,” Anthony observed, with a friendlier tone in his voice than I’d noted before.

  “They’ve obsessed about that day, and everything that happened directly before it for decades; I bet they remember things from that night in better detail than what they had for lunch two days ago … it’s the way human brains work.”

  “She’s been decent, him too; more than they needed to. They’ve stretched my stay up here to give me some paid vacation time away from Manhattan. If you get stuck on something that I can help with, just ask.” He smiled, and I gave him my attempt at a mirroring shaping of facial muscles; it may have worked partially.

  “You’re from the city originally. They were talking about you last night a bit, that you weren’t born here.” It is amazing to me that I still hold membership in the club, just because I was born on the island of Manhattan (St. Lukes Hospital, so barely), but I do. “Why … how did you settle up here, doing this?”

  “Where were you on 9/11, Anthony?” I asked.

  “Stuyvesant. It was a messed up day; I walked home, took me hours.”

  “Me too … walked home, I mean. I was on my way to MOMA, when it happened. I walked home, and waited for my parents to call or email. They worked in the WTC, both of them, one in each of the towers.” I said this and tried one of my newer, wry and self-deprecating smiles, to show that I was explaining, not looking for pity.

  “Anyway, thank you for all of your help, Anthony. Here’s my card; it’s got my email address and a phone number, in case you or one of the Crockers needs to get in touch with me.” I stood up and got out of the chair, knees cracking, replaced the book in the proper place, brought my glass back up to the main lodge, and headed back out again … without ever having seen Mike or Kitty Crocker (it occurred to me that although they wanted my services, that actually seeing me might not be desirable/comfortable for either of them, for various reasons).