Obit

by Anne Emery

  “Come on in. Which one of you was I talking to on the phone?”

  “You were speaking to me, Mrs. Willman. I’m Monty Collins and this is Brennan Burke.”

  The room was indifferently furnished; the prize item seemed to be a huge faux-leather reclining chair set about four feet in front of a large television set. The carpet around the reclining chair was worn, and littered with crumbs. An overflowing ashtray teetered on one arm of the chair.

  “Come and sit down. I’m not sure I have the information you need. You may know more than I do,” she said. She perched on the seat of the recliner; Brennan and I sat in armchairs.

  “We know very little, Mrs. Willman. Brennan and I found out about this recently. But we’re determined to piece together certain events that occurred back then. The reason —”

  “Good. Because I was never able to piece it together myself. I finally gave up trying to find out why my husband died the way he did.”

  “Died,” Brennan repeated.

  “One minute we were here, a normal young family; the next minute he was gone. Arrested, put on trial, taken to that place. And murdered. It was a nightmare from beginning to end. I never knew what was going on. I still don’t.”

  Never got out of Attica. Murdered. Burke’s face had gone grey.

  “Why don’t you tell us what you remember,” I said.

  She took a deep breath and glanced towards the front door. “We were living over in Queens. Gerald, me and the babies. We didn’t have a lot to live on but we were doing fine. Gerry had a steady job in a printing company and there was room to move up. He never missed a day’s work. We were in a tiny flat, but we furnished it when we could, and it was cozy. Three years was the time limit we’d given ourselves there, then we would move on and up. Gerry —” her eyes darted to the door again “— was the sweetest guy you could imagine, a good husband to me, and he adored the kids. His dream was that the summer before Kathy started school, we would all go over to Ireland and see where his parents had come from. Somewhere in County Kerry. It sounded like a fine plan to me. I’m a mixed breed myself, never had any desire to go to any of the old countries my relatives escaped from. But for him it was different.” She rose from her chair. “Can I get you anything? A soda? Coffee?” We both shook our heads. “I’m going to have a cigarette. Anybody mind?”

  “It’s your house, Mrs. Willman,” Brennan said. “And I’m a smoker myself.”

  “Oh, would you like a cigarette? And call me Judy.” She reached to a side table and picked up a pack. She opened it and appeared to be counting the cigarettes.

  “Why don’t you have one of mine?” Brennan suggested quickly. He offered her his pack; she took one out and he lit it for her. He lit one up himself, and leaned back.

  “A few weeks before this all happened, maybe a month, I don’t know, Gerry started staying out late. He’d never done that before. He wasn’t drinking a lot, sometimes one or two drinks, sometimes nothing at all. I got worried and kept after him about it. He wouldn’t tell me why he was going out, but he told me it was nothing to worry about. What he meant was he wasn’t cheating on me with another woman.” She gave a snort of bitter laughter. “Like that’s the worst thing in the world. Husband arrested for robbery with violence, sent to Attica and killed? At least he didn’t have another girlfriend!” Her voice broke and she got up and walked out of the room. When she came back, she was wiping her eyes with a Kleenex.

  “When he was in prison I would visit him. Sometimes I’d bring the girls. It was horrible. The other prisoners were terrifying. And all through that time Gerry wouldn’t tell me what was going on. He didn’t let me attend the trial, and I couldn’t have anyway, with the kids and no money coming in. I know somebody got him into all that. He didn’t go from being a law-abiding citizen one day to a violent criminal the next day without someone setting him up.”

  We heard a key scratching around the lock in the front door. Judy flinched, then dabbed hurriedly at her eyes. She tucked the Kleenex into her sleeve and set her face in what she meant to be a pleasant, welcoming expression. “Hi, Garth!” she called out brightly, in a voice too loud for the small room.

  A large unkempt man in his sixties made a noisy entrance. A loud nasal snort sounded as if it would end in a gob of phlegm being expelled. “Who’s this?” He directed the question at his wife, and jerked a thumb at her two visitors.

  “Garth, we have company. This is Mr. Burke and Mr. Collins. They’ve come to —”

  He turned on us. “Whaddaya want?”

  Brennan looked as if what he wanted more than anything was to get up and tackle the man to the floor. He opened his mouth to reply, and I overrode whatever he was going to say. “Good afternoon, Mr. Willman. We’re here to ask for your wife’s assistance with —”

  “She can’t help you.”

  “Now, how would you know that, if —” That was Brennan.

  Again, I talked right past him. “She may not be able to. We haven’t had a chance to ask her yet. We just arrived.” I shot a glance at Judy, and she stayed silent. The husband eyed the long ash on the end of her filtered cigarette. “We were hoping that some information about her former husband, so many years ago, might provide —”

  “The jailbird! Forget about it. Gets her upset.”

  He parked himself on the arm of his wife’s chair. She immediately slid out of the seat, and he took her place. She sat on the arm and busied herself with her fingernails. The husband lifted a huge hand and scratched his unwashed hair. A cloud of dandruff fell from his head and landed on his shoulders. I caught Brennan staring at it as if it were the bodily manifestation of a mortal sin.

  “She has a lie-down at this time of day. Why don’t you go in for your rest now? I’ll answer their questions if they have any before they go.”

  I decided to shift the conversation onto another track. “Your children?” I looked to a pair of photos atop the television. One showed a wan-looking young woman with three squirming children seated on a rust and gold flowered couch. The other woman had done better for herself. She stood in the driveway of a double garage with an elaborately dressed little girl, an expensive car behind them, and palm trees in the yard.

  “Those are my girls, yes. Our girls I mean, of course. They’re Willmans now. That’s Sheena with the three kids, and Kathy with the one. Kathy’s down in Flor —”

  “Kathy forgot you’re alive,” Willman butted in. “When’s the last time you seen her? Seven years? She’s got it made down there, him with his Pontiac dealership and her with her country-club membership. Rollin’ in dough. But does she spread any of it around? Not up this way.”

  “And your other daughter? Does Sheena live in the area?” I asked.

  Judy said: “Yes, less than a mile away. Life hasn’t been easy for her, but she’s starting —”

  “She’s livin’ off taxpayers like me and you, that’s what she’s doin’. On welfare, the pack of them. Maybe the next boyfriend will get a job. Though why should he, with the welfare payin’ the shot?”

  I saw another photo display, on a table in a corner of the room. There were pictures of soldiers, along with medals, ribbons and other military paraphernalia. One of the photos was of Garth, in better days, standing with a young man in his late teens or early twenties. Both were in US Army uniforms. “Our son,” Judy said.

  “Private G.G. Willman,” Garth confirmed. “I pulled some strings and got him into my old Army unit. I should take Sheena over to the sergeants’ mess with me some night. See if she can meet a guy who’s willing to get off his ass to serve his country and bring home a steady pay packet.”

  The final photo that caught my eye was Garth and Judy’s wedding portrait. The date was emblazoned in gold script on the frame: May 7, 1955. Thirty-six years with Garth. Judy looked apprehensive even then.

  “Now have you found out everything you want to know?” he asked with belligerence. Then to his wife: “Go rest. You’re tired.”

  “I don’t mind
trying to help them, Garth. All they want to know is a bit of ancient history really.”

  “All this stuff from the past rattles her nerves, as you can see. So if you have all the information you came for, adios.”

  “No, we haven’t, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’m not sure Mrs. Willman can help us, Brennan. She didn’t seem to know anything about the few points we raised. We should be going.” I got up and he reluctantly followed my lead. “Thanks again, Mrs. Willman. Sorry to disturb you.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”

  The husband lumbered to his feet and corralled us to the door. Judy slipped quietly from the room. I started out the door, but Burke could not leave it at that. He turned to the glowering man and said in an undertone: “A word to the wise, Willman. Your wife has a tongue in her head and she can speak for herself. But just in case she’s too polite to mention it: go and have a wash. You’ll be doing her a kindness, and one that’s long overdue.” He turned on his heel and walked away. The slam of the door reverberated behind us.

  “Imagine putting up with the likes of that,” he fumed as we left the building. “And of course he’d arrive on the scene in the middle of the conversation.”

  “Whether we like it or not, she thinks she does have to put up with him. So we don’t want to make it any worse for her. And anyway, I suspect she doesn’t know anything more. Whatever started her former husband on his criminal course, she wasn’t privy to it.”

  “We can’t just leave it! She thinks Connors was murdered. We have to know what happened.”

  “We’re not going to find out today.”

  †

  We didn’t find out the next day, either. When I called her number, Garth Willman answered and hung up when he heard my voice. I tried again a few hours later and got Judy, but she whispered: “I don’t know. I never did.” The call ended with a soft click. I phoned Brennan to let him know that we wouldn’t learn anything more from Judy.

  “I’d like to know more about this Willman.”

  “Just because he has dirty hair doesn’t mean he’s a criminal.”

  “There’s something about him I don’t like.”

  “Yes, I was able to infer that with my sharp lawyerly mind.”

  “Well, one inference I’m trying desperately not to draw is that my father had something to do with the death of this young fellow in prison. To silence him. I can’t allow myself to think that.”

  “Brennan, we don’t know that.” Though it was hard to avoid the suspicion. I knew exactly how he felt.

  †

  It was Thursday. Maura and Normie announced their intention to spend the afternoon and evening shopping for gifts for Tommy Douglas and everyone else back home. Normie seemed to think that everybody, young or old, would be more than happy with something from F.A.O. Schwarz, the toy emporium. And she was probably right. I had a late lunch and settled down in front of the television to watch a movie. This was something I rarely did but I could never resist Dr. Strangelove.

  In the evening I drove to Queens to see what Brennan was up to. Turns out he had a plan, and he was dressed for the occasion, in faded jeans, a worn-out T-shirt with Italian writing on it, and a battered black leather jacket. He hadn’t shaved. “You’re just in time, Monty.” He grabbed the keys to his father’s car from a hook by the front door.

  “We’re going down-market?”

  “Possibly. I’ll fill you in on the way.” We got into the car, drove to Queens Boulevard and turned left. “Patrick counsels a group of ex-convicts. As you can imagine, the composition of the group varies from session to session. He remembered that one of the ex-cons was in Attica in the early fifties. This fellow is supposed to be attending therapy but he never shows up. Pat said he’d try to get the man into the office. But we’re not going to wait for that. I got a phone number from Pat, the number of a place where this man is a regular. I called, and he’s going to meet us there.”

  “As simple as that.”

  “Sure.”

  We pulled up at a one-and-a-half storey house with a tin awning. Yellow light glowed in the front window. It didn’t look like a rough place to me.

  “Come on.” He turned off the engine, and we got out and went up the walk. Brennan rang the bell, and an elderly man came to the door, wearing a beige cardigan over a shirt and tie. Ex-cons come in all guises.

  “Brennan, good to see you, lad! Step right in.”

  “Ed Gillespie, Monty Collins. My brother’s here, I understand.” We followed Ed into the living room where two tables of bridge were underway. All the players except Terry Burke were in their seventies. They did a double take at the sight of Brennan’s dressed-down ensemble.

  “Got stuck with an extra ticket to the fights, did you Brennan?” one man said.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I need to borrow this fellow,” he announced.

  Terry put on a little show of regret but he did not look overly disappointed to be called away from the bridge party. Ed said he would take Terry’s place. We said goodbye and trooped out to the car.

  “What’s going on, Bren?”

  “We need some extra muscle.”

  “I’m your man.”

  As we drove across the bridge to Manhattan and headed south, Brennan told his brother why we were going to a Lower East Side bar to meet an ex-convict named Earl. Someone leaned on his horn and gave Brennan the finger when he pulled into the only parking space near the dingy bar that was our destination. The place was just as dingy inside. We asked for Earl, only to be informed by the bartender, who looked as if he might have been inside an institution or two himself, that Earl was not there. He would probably be back. Or he’d phone in. Earl was a little “paranoid, man” and sometimes phoned to see if anybody was looking for him. We sat down, ordered beer and waited.

  When we had our drinks, Terry took off his sweater to reveal an eye-catching T-shirt. It showed an airline pilot in uniform and cap standing behind a jumbo jet; the jet was going up at a forty-five-degree angle from his body. Below it were the words: “Pilots get it up.” The shirt caught the attention of two women who were obviously from out of state. It wasn’t long before Terry was leaning over to their table, telling them he had been a pilot for years until the airline destroyed his career; they fired him because he intended to go public about something he had seen “up there.” There was a conspiracy among all the top airlines to silence him. When the women asked what he had seen, he raised his eyebrows and said: “Think about it.”

  I spoke quietly to Brennan: “Is he really a pilot?”

  “Yes, and he’s still employed. It’s all pub talk. Wait till he gets wound up; he’ll be at it half the night if Earl doesn’t show.”

  Earl didn’t show. But he called the bar, and Brennan asked the bartender to hand over the phone. Earl said he’d meet us at his place if there was something in it for him. So we drank up, paid up and went out to the car.

  “Where’s he meeting us?” Terry asked.

  “Some hole on Avenue D.”

  “Alphabet City! Lock your doors, boys.”

  We didn’t have far to drive before we found ourselves surrounded by abandoned buildings and stripped-down cars. The streets were populated by derelicts, some hovering by fires burning in oil drums on the corners. On every block there seemed to be a guy with a pit bull on a leash. We stopped at a crumbling tenement building, which had suffered a fire and was partly boarded up. I jumped when I saw a man with his face so close to the car window it steamed up with his breath. He said: “Smoke, dope, coke, smoke, dope, coke” over and over again until he finally lurched away.

  Brennan looked a little less cocky than usual, but he put a brave face on the situation. “You two stay in here with the doors locked and the engine running. Terry, get into the driver’s seat. I’ll take a quick look for our man.”

  “I thought you brought me along as an enforcer. So now what? You’re going alone?”

 
“You’re my little brother, Terry. Ma would never forgive me if —”

  “Fuck off.”

  “We’ll all go, Brennan,” I said.

  “Three of us together will spook the man. Stay here for now.” Terry gave an exasperated sigh, but got out of the back seat. Brennan vacated the driver’s seat, and his brother took his place. “If anything happens, take off and call the police.”

  “Yeah? What will be happening to you while we’re out looking for a working pay phone?”

  “I walk with God. Remember?” He laughed and strode towards the flophouse, opened the door, and stepped inside. We heard a cry of pain from an upper window, and Terry and I exchanged an uneasy glance.

  It wasn’t long before Brennan appeared in the doorway. He had a firm grip on the elbow of a man who must have been Earl; Brennan practically dragged the man to the car. He opened the back door, shoved Earl into the seat, and got in beside him. Terry and I turned to gawk at the captive.

  “Assholes,” was all he said to us.

  Earl looked about seventy, with deep lines in his face, but Brennan told us later he was closer to sixty. His hair was grey and combed straight back from a square face with a wide, prominent forehead and small, deep-set eyes. A tattoo was visible where his shirt opened at the neck, and he had familiar tats on his knuckles: “love” on one hand and “hate” on the other. He stank of sweat, smoke, dirty clothes and Christ only knew what else.

  “Get moving, Ter!” Brennan ordered, and Terry put the car in gear and peeled away from the curb. Brennan tried to persuade Earl to accompany us to a bar or restaurant for a decent meal but Earl did not respond.

  Terry offered a comment on our surroundings: “I hear this place is supposed to be the next trendy neighbourhood. Place to be for yuppies in the nineties.”

  “Cocksuckers.”

  We drove to a park beside the East River and stopped. We opened our windows a crack to admit some much-needed fresh air. Earl sat in silence, his leg jiggling non-stop. Brennan gave him a cigarette but he obviously needed something stronger.