Breaking Point

by Jon Demartino

  "Iris said there is a similar one?" I made it a question.

  "Oh yes. The newspaper man was there and everything. It was the Kiwanis Club's award picnic and our Charlie even made a little speech. Some of the other boys from the home were in the picture, too, but our Charlie was the award winner that summer. I have the picture that was in the paper, but it's not as nice as the other one. Our neighbor, Mr. Belder, worked for the newspaper and he brought us the original photograph as a keepsake. Did you find it mixed in with Charlie's belongings?"

  I assured her that I hadn't found the picture yet and asked if she would mail me the newspaper version so I could see it.

  "Oh my, no. I couldn't take a chance that something would happen to that one and then what would I do? No, I'm afraid not. I just couldn't."

  I tried to explain "faxing" to her and then to her husband, but neither would trust the process to keep their picture intact. If I ever wanted to see it, I would probably have to fly out to Everly, California.

  A little while later, as I was eating my dinner, I remembered that I'd never returned Maxine's phone call of the night before. After washing down the last bite of Jif on white with a Coke, I got her on the first ring.

  "Hey, Max, How are you?'

  "Oh, Hi Rudy." She sounded less than enthusiastic. "I thought it was going to be Talmadge. He's supposed to call me back to let me know when he'll be home for dinner."

  "What did you cook, Max?" Food had always been an excellent topic when I needed to divert my sister's attention. It worked its magic once again.

  "Oh, I saw an eggplant parmesan recipe on the Cooking Channel, where they used hot sausage with the eggplant and I wanted to try it. I made a few changes, though, and added caramelized garlic pieces instead of green pepper. That pepper is too overpowering in a recipe like this. Do you want to come down and try some?"

  "Oh, man, I wish I'd known about that earlier. I just ate, and the peanut butter is still on my teeth."

  "Rudy! You are impossible. Why would you eat that junk when you know you're always welcome here?"

  She was right. I'd always been as welcome in Maxine's home as I would have been in our parents', if they'd been alive. At the moment, though, I was afraid of what I might say or do to my brother-in-law if I had to sit at the same table with him.

  "Tell you what, Max; I'll come down tomorrow if you save me a piece of that eggplant stuff. I have to run up to West Fork in the morning, so how about if I come down around one o'clock and we'll have lunch together?"

  "Rudy, do you know something you need to tell me about Talmadge? Is that why you're coming?"

  "No, Sis. Really. I just wanted to spend a little time with you. Now that I'm just a couple of miles away, I plan to take advantage of it and stop in for lunch as often as I can. Besides, you made me hungry for that eggplant thing. So do you want me or not?"

  She did, indeed, want me to drop in. As a matter of fact, the idea seemed to change her mood from depressed to eager.

  "Now, Rudy, do you remember that mission I told you about where they collect clothing and things for the underprivileged? Well, I was going to stop over there tomorrow, and I have a bunch of really heavy boxes and bags of things to donate so maybe you could carry them to the car for me and ride along while I drop them off. Then you could carry them inside for me, too."

  I said that I had no recollection of ever discussing a mission with her. I realized, of course, that the donations had nothing to do with Maxine's own mission, which was probably to introduce me to some woman she'd decided was just perfect for her little brother. I said as much to her.

  "Well, Rudy, you have got to realize that it's time to move on with your life and get over that Caroline Bennett. You've wasted way too much time beating on that dead horse now and maybe, just maybe, your sister really does know what's best for you." She paused for a second before her final slam-dunk. "I admit that there is a woman I'd like you to meet."

  I groaned into the phone.

  "Stop that, now, Rudy. This is a really nice woman and it happens that she volunteers at the mission on every other Friday, so this may or may not be the week that she's there. We'll just leave that to fate and see what happens."

  The chances of my sister leaving this meeting to fate were about the same as my chances of being drafted by the Steelers, maybe worse. She'd probably be on the phone to this civic-minded creature from the black lagoon as soon as we hung up. The only saving grace to the entire episode was that it would keep her mind off her wandering husband for a while. I was so bad, as a result of what I knew about that louse that I agreed to accompany her to the mission after our lunch the following day.

  "I'll just tell you one thing, though, Sis," I said sternly. "I'll meet your mystery woman...but I will not marry her."

  We bantered a little more and ended the conversation on a pleasant note. One thing I was sure of, at lunchtime on a Friday, I wouldn't run into my brother-in-law at his home. And maybe it was time I let my sister introduce me to someone for a change. She probably had a list of potential wives for me that was a mile long and she couldn't do much worse than I had done on my own, could she?

  I didn't have anything pressing to do, so this seemed like a good time to take a stroll down to the police station and see if Officer Felton was on duty. I'd met Bill Felton a few months earlier when I was getting all my permits and licensing papers in order. He was a young policeman and one of the first group of officers hired by the city of Oak Grove this past year. Prior to that, the County Sheriff's Department had provided law enforcement to the small town. There were only five officers in the new police department, so there was a decent chance that Bill would be manning the station this evening while one of the other four was on patrol.

  The police department was housed in the first floor of a vacant warehouse three blocks west of me, on Pine Street. A new stoop, framed from treated lumber had been attached to the crumbling concrete beneath the front door but the peeling paint hadn't been scraped from the old window frames and the rotting wood was showing through. I forced the warped door open and stepped inside.

  Bill was in the chair behind his desk and greeted me with a handshake and a smile.

  "How's business? Are you picking up some clients?"

  I nodded. "That's why I'm here. I was wondering if you were in on the case where a guy fell into the conduit over by the dam last April. Name was Wilson."

  Bill sat back and put his feet up on the desk. "Yeah, I took the original call and got there about the same time the State Police and ambulance did. What's your interest in it?"

  "Probably just a routine guilty wife case. She wants to make sure he didn't kill himself and asked me to check all the information. You know, just the usual regrets after the guy is gone. I read the article that she'd saved from the paper but thought it couldn't hurt to hear it firsthand."

  "Well, we found his car parked in the lot right below the dam, where the water's released. The keys were still in it but the motor was shut off. There were a bunch of crushed out cigarette butts on the ground, both beside the car and over near the fence. Some matched the brand that we found in his car, but a few were different. Who knows how long any of them had been there? No signs of a struggle. No marks on the body that were inconsistent with a fall and being knocked around in the water all night. State boys took over from there. I heard later they'd estimated his alcohol at around point two."

  "Suicide?"

  "Maybe, but we can't be sure. He was drunk and depressed and maybe was just thinking about jumping and accidentally fell in. That rushing water can make some people dizzy just looking at it. His lungs were full of water, so he was definitely alive when he went in. It seemed kinder to just call it an accident, all in all."

  "What about the letter he'd been writing to his wife?"

  Bill folded his hands to form a steeple and pressed them flat together before flexing his fingers again to open the steeple. He continued to do these hand push-ups as he talked.

  "Ther
e was a letter at his apartment, but she had a whole bunch of almost identical ones that he'd written and mailed to her. Those hadn't resulted in a suicide, so why would this one? Personally, I think he was just crying in his beer, trying to get her to take him back. He was drunk and feeling sorry for himself that night and probably was playing at the suicide thing. You know, looking at the water and thinking how she'd feel if he really did it, stuff like that. Then he lost his balance and fell in. That's what I think happened."

  "You're probably right. Who found him?"

  A couple of guys fishing around the Tailwater West Area, maybe three hundred yards or so downstream. The body was caught on some rocks and undergrowth and they saw it rolling around under the surface. I'll bet they haven't been fishing out there since."

  "Can't blame them. What was the estimated time of death?

  "Between ten P.M. and two in the morning," he said, "if I remember right."

  I nodded. "By the way, you didn't find any black-and-white photos in the car did you?"

  "No. Why?"

  "Nothing big. His parents called the widow and are missing an old picture they think he took the last time he visited them. She doesn't have it either, so I thought maybe it was picked up as part of the crime scene. Kind of a long shot, though."

  "Sorry, no photographs at the scene. Did you look through the stuff from his place?"

  I said I was in the process of doing that and thanked him for his time. As I got up to leave, I couldn't resist commenting on the decrepit building he was working in.

  "Oh, we're getting a new place next spring. Over near you, on Main. There's a couple of store fronts that are coming down and the police department and city offices are going to be built. I'll be glad to get out of this rat hole. It used to be a grain warehouse and no matter what the exterminator says, I can still hear rats the size of Pit Bulls running around upstairs at night."

  I walked back home with the wind at my back and a mental image of thirty pound rats zooming around above Bill's head.

  Now that I had all the information I was likely to find about the night Charlie died, I decided to look back through the boxes that held his things and see if the missing photograph was there. It sounded like it may have been the one that Charlie took to Matt Barr to get a negative made. I didn't know what to make of it, but if Charlie had had a negative made, there was a reason. So where was the eight by ten now and where were the negatives? I dragged the cartons and his leather case over near the couch and pulled everything back out and laid it in stacks on the footlocker.

  He had six full sets of underwear plus three extra tee shirts, eighteen pair of socks, two belts, a brown and a black, seven sweat shirts, all navy blue, twelve long sleeved dress shirts and another dozen short sleeved ones, all still in the laundry wrappers. There was five dollars and thirty seven cents in loose change.

  It took a long while to go through each catalog and magazine, page by page, making sure the missing black and white photo wasn't in any of them. I turned the wallet inside out and checked every crevice that could conceal a negative or a folded photograph. I turned up nothing but the usual insurance cards and lint. The leather covers on both his sales and personal address books had no hidden items stuffed inside either. I was running out of options and might have to fly out to California to have a look at the newspaper photo after all.

  Tomorrow was Friday and I had a nine o'clock appointment to see Mayor Petrick in West Fork. On Monday, Matt Barr would be back at work at Hawkeye Lens and Scopes. Maybe I'd be able to jog something loose about that photo he'd used to make a negative. In between maybe I could figure out a way to approach Frank Goodwin at his store in Keokuk, without having to first immobilize him with a tranquilizer dart.

  Keokuk was also where I'd seen Talmadge and his blonde friend on Wednesday night. Maybe I could drop two birds with the same stone for once. I felt like I was running out of time. I still hadn't gotten up the nerve to speak with Caroline and I had a feeling I'd better do that before Woody arrived on Wednesday. He wasn't one to sit and ponder the alternatives for very long.

  I fell asleep quickly that night and was surprised to awaken refreshed and well rested. I had a lot of ground to cover in the next few days and I was ready to get at it.

  Chapter 9

  The mayor's office was in a four story brick building along the Cedar River in West Fork. The town, several times larger than Oak Grove, was located about fifty miles northwest of us, in Benton County. I pressed four in the elevator and was quietly whisked up to the office, which seemed to comprise the entire top floor of the building. Most of the area was surrounded by windows, and light came in from all sides of the large room. There was a natural oak desk to my right where the receptionist sat and a matching door at the back of the room with the word "Mayor" stenciled in black about halfway down.

  To my left was a long table set in the middle of an empty area, piled high with what appeared to be the red, white, and blue of campaign materials.

  Seated at the oak desk was a strawberry-blonde haired lady who looked about ten years older than I was, fifty maybe, but very attractive. I was glad I'd left my parka in the car and was wearing my soft corduroy sports jacket. The tan color went well with my beige chinos and pale blue shirt. Her voice sounded even nicer in person than it had over the telephone on Wednesday. The wooden placard on her desk identified her as Ms. Anne Gable. The matching clock read 9:01 AM. She smiled at me as I exited the small elevator and approached her desk.

  "Good morning, Mr. Murdock." It made me feel good to be addressed by name, as if she remembered me. The fact that she had my name written in her office datebook didn't dampen my pleasure at all. I managed to sneak a glance down at her left hand, an old habit and we all know how long-lived those are. I quickly noted that no ring was in evidence there.

  "Wow, this is a beautiful place. Was it always the mayor's office?"

  "Yes." Her smile was dazzling in the sun swept space. "As a matter of fact, the mayor had it built and donated it to the city. The first two floors are for public use. There are meeting rooms and a recreation center for the senior citizens on the first level. The entire second floor is dedicated to single mothers, with classroom settings where they earn their G.E.D., as well as learn parenting skills. Plus there's a free daycare where they can leave their babies while they work." I was impressed and said as much. "Mayor Petrick is very involved in the community," his secretary added. "And he loves children." I asked about the third floor and was told that it housed the city offices.

  "And the mayor had this place built?" I kept my thoughts to myself, but I wondered how many votes that would have drummed up when they blasted it across a campaign poster.

  ""Well," she said with that smile again, "he's quite a man." MS Gable advised me to have a seat and the mayor would be right with me.

  Near the desk, three tan leather sofas were arranged in a horseshoe shape that defined the waiting area. Soft music was drifting into the room from somewhere above my head. The speakers were hidden too well for my professional talents to detect. I took a seat and leafed through a periodical from one of the end tables. It was called "West Fork, Iowa, Ready for the Future." The pages were thick and glossy, with an abundance of brightly colored photographs of scenes around West Fork. I browsed through a brief history of the town and noted that Petrick had been mayor here for three years.

  He was also the owner and developer of Happy Kids Crayons, which the magazine touted as the brightest colored, non-toxic, washable, unbreakable, crayon ever made. Kids supposedly loved them and could probably add twenty points to their SAT's by using them in the first three school years. I made up that last part, but the implication was there in the testimonials. The folks of West Fork seemed to love both the crayons and the factory that sat across the Cedar River and employed a hundred and thirty seven potential voters. Happy Kids Crayons was the name of the manufacturing plant, too. It was in the older section of town known as Westport. From the map in the article, I figured t
hat I should be able to see the factory from one of the windows behind me. My stroll would take me over near the campaign items and I was curious about those, too.

  A pile of bright red posters was set neatly on the left end of the long table. Bumper stickers, lapel pins, ball point pens and other small items overflowed from shoe boxes in the center of the table, while at the far end, envelopes and address labels covered the surface. I stood over the stack of posters and looked down at the one on top. An oversized picture of a man, who had to be Donald Petrick, covered most of the space on the sign. His name was printed in white, in big block letters beneath his image, which was the only clue I had needed to identify him. Under his name, smaller letters spelled out the words, "Family Values, Ethics, and Trust." Above Petrick's head, printed over an image of the American flag, was "FOR STATE REPRESENTATIVE...SECOND DISTRICT."

  "When's the election?" I called over to Ms. Gable.

  Her smile lit up the already bright room. "The Primaries will be in the spring, of course. The mayor is so excited about running. And of course, we all think he would be a wonderful representative for us. Don't forget to...Oh, never mind." She interrupted herself. "You did say you are from Oak Grove, right? That's in the First District. I guess I can't collar you to vote for Mayor Petrick for the Legislature, can I?" She laughed.

  "You could," I answered, smiling. I was thinking that Ms. Gable could probably prod me into a lot of things. "I could write him in on my ticket. Probably wouldn't really help the cause, though, would it?" I was still toting the magazine in one hand and started to move past the table toward the window. I heard a muted buzz and MS Gable's voice chirped sweetly behind me.