“What’s that?”
“That’s the town. Your town!”
Pepperville it was. I was delighted. No other class had come up with that, and more importantly, naming the town meant acceptance of the idea.
Of course, we had to thread through detailed questions about the assignment, specifics of length, deadline, format, and acceptable types. Extra credit for two poems? What would become of these? What if you had never noticed anybody, ever? Did you still have to write about a person? Couldn’t it be a dog? Or trees?
They would all become Constitutional scholars some day, thanks to my class where they’d learned to examine any cluster of words with a microscope, in search of loopholes and possible exemptions.
While I answered their questions on automatic pilot, I stacked up the Richard Cory compositions they’d handed in, and flipped through them. Not that I could tell much by a two-second peek, but I could see that they’d at least mastered the required format and had used a computer so that I wouldn’t have to unscramble impossible handwriting. They all seemed adequate on that point—except one, which I pulled out of the pack.
By the time the bell rang, I thought they not only understood the weeks ahead, but accepted the idea. As they left the class, I tapped Jonesy on the shoulder, and as unobtrusively as I could, asked if he’d stay a minute.
“I’ve got—”
“I’ll write you a note,” I said, and I showed him his troubling composition. “What happened? Did you hand in an early draft by mistake?” I showed him what I’d received, half a page that ended midsentence with, “Perhaps he was in over his head with no way out. So he looked so, so what? Appearances can be”
He said nothing. I waited. Finally, he shook his head. “That’s all I could write. I tried. That’s all you can ask of anybody.” He held his mouth tight with anger.
I waited a second, took a breath, and spoke softly. “You could have finished the sentence. Put a period in there. Or better still, you could have said why you felt unable to write the composition.”
He looked as if he might stay silent forever, as if everything he’d ever imagined having to say had dried up with that unfinished sentence.
“You’ve been a decent student up till now. You’re interesting. I like your opinions, your ideas. Why stopper them now?”
“Because it’s bull—it’s stupid! It isn’t real and it makes it all pretty. A poem! What good is that?”
“It was only a prompt. A way to get you thinking. A way to get you to express yourself, to think something through. It wasn’t about Richard Cory, it was about you.”
“Me? Why me? That man had everything and he offs himself. There isn’t one word about real problems or pressures, so what are you saying—I have it worse and if he killed himself—”
“Of course not! I didn’t mean it that way. I meant the poem was about giving you a springboard so you could express yourself. It’s a famous poem, and the composition was a way for you to express your ideas about it, about whatever it prompted—even this anger you seem to be feeling about what he did, given his privilege. Writing an essay, practicing being able to express yourself—that’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. It’s so you’ll be heard, will know how to be heard. So you won’t be unknown the way he was. Letting your ideas—your personality—be known.”
“Why me? What do you mean it’s about me?”
I took a deep breath. “‘You’ meaning everybody. Mankind. Womankind. And you know that, Jonesy. Why are you twisting my words and intentions around?”
He stared at me without any emotion I could decipher.
“Am I not making sense?” I finally asked.
“If you mean do I understand what you’re saying, I do. But you don’t get it. I don’t have anything to do with some stupid made-up person. He’s not me! Besides, why do we have to keep talking about suicide and death? Why is that all you and the poets want to talk about?”
Phoebe. He’d been at Phoebe’s memorial service, a memorial for a suicide. Had it upset him that much, derailed him this way? Maybe it was hard for him to express sorrow over the self-inflicted death of a woman he’d have considered ancient. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I hadn’t realized that Phoebe Ennis’s suicide troubled you so much. I should have been more sensitive.”
“Why bring her up? What are you trying to say? Just say it!”
I couldn’t say anything. I was trying to listen through the static of his emotions to hear what he was actually saying. He was obviously going through a hard, defiant time, as witness the essay and his general touchiness. “Jonesy,” I said softly as the bell rang for the next period. “I’m not pulling anything over on you. I don’t have a secret agenda. If you’ll think about all this, I’m sure you’ll see that the poem is in the anthology, and the phone call was not about you, and—”
“I need that note,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m late. The excuse note.”
I wrote it out, intrigued that he worried about getting in trouble for entering class late, but seemed unconcerned about handing me the bare shadow of a composition in which he hadn’t even bothered to complete a sentence.
I wanted to write this and the telephone episode off to adolescent hormones, but I wasn’t sure. I’d told him that contacting his father had nothing to do with him, and it had been the truth. But now, given his reaction to that and to an innocuous poem and assignment, I really did want to ask his father about him.
Did that make me a liar?
Nineteen
* * *
* * *
Jesse Farmer returned my call within a half hour, but I was teaching and had the phone off. I didn’t get to check messages till after school, by which time I had two messages, his and one from Sasha, who wanted to be updated, perhaps over dinner tonight.
His message suggested that he could either come to school the next day, or we could talk on the phone, or meet at his store—which he couldn’t leave this particular day because staff was out sick. He said he’d be there all day, and if that was my option, I should simply stop by.
I phoned Mackenzie and left a message about dinner on his cell phone, asking him to leave a message on mine as to whether it was a go. Pizza sounded good to me. Then I spent a moment wondering how we all had functioned when we didn’t have instant access to one another this way. Looking at the logistics of the day, and after checking the senior Farmer’s address, I opted to visit him in his store. It was on my way home, on the edge of where the Colonial residential area of Society Hill eases into what was the Colonial commercial area of Old City where I live. It was also close to the pizzeria.
I realized that while I was now more interested in talking to Jesse Farmer about his son than about his own relationship with Phoebe, I still hoped for information—a name, a plan, a destination, an annoyance—that Phoebe had shared with him and that might lead somewhere. I wasn’t counting on it, however.
The address he’d left on his message matched Jonesy’s home address on the school files. He apparently lived above his store. I found it easily on Chestnut Street. It was within shouting distance of City Tavern, where having a mug of beer feels like a virtuous dip into history, knowing that the recipe was devised by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. I thought briefly about inviting him to join me in a drink there, then remembered that we were meeting at the store because he couldn’t leave it today.
Before I went in, I paused to admire the window display: an elegantly set table with small corner spotlights that made twisted silver candelabra gleam, heavily cut crystal goblets glint rainbow colors, silver settings glow, and the translucent porcelain radiate light. It was the sort of setting and ambience I doubt I will ever attain in my life. I wasn’t sure I’d even want to, but the option would have been pleasant.
On a thick Oriental rug beneath the table, a life-sized china spaniel sat, looking upwards, and on a delicate gilded easel beside the table was a still life of roses such as I have never seen, looking as if they�
��d been flung onto a rumpled piece of pale yellow silk.
It was not instantly clear what category of objects was for sale. The name of his store, written in gold script, was Extraordinaire! Okay. A little pretentious, but descriptive. Anything that was special belonged here. The name seemed familiar, and I wondered how, or why, since I did not normally haunt “special” shops of this sort. Then I remembered: It had been on a card among Phoebe’s refrigerator memorabilia.
The inside was as elegantly arranged as the window had been, and had none of the clutter I associate with consignment or antiques stores. Instead of a haphazard piling around, there were small mock-room arrangements, sofas and chairs gathered around coffee tables, the furniture accessorized with other extraordinary objects.
“Mr. Farmer?” I said to the man sitting behind a small desk.
He smiled and stood as I introduced myself, then pointed at a set of wing chairs that flanked a round table. “Might as well use them. They’re comfortable and as nobody is exactly banging down the doors today, we should be able to talk in comfort. Is my son giving you trouble? I’ve been worrying about him. Mitch has been strained, I can tell, since I—we—since the divorce. Splitting time between us, shuttling back and forth, it’s been a rough adjustment.”
“It’s difficult for everyone,” I said. “But children do adjust.”
“Guess you see a lot of it at that school.”
I nodded. He was taking comfort from my platitudes, and I didn’t know what else to say. His son wasn’t giving me concern, precisely, though the unfinished essay and his non-explanation of it did concern me. But listening to his father protecting him, worrying about him, I was less and less inclined to present him as any sort of problem. The kid was going through a horrible time, and if his temper was frayed, it was understandable. Why make a few misunderstandings into something they were not, possibly escalate the tension and definitely increase his father’s worries?
“Actually,” I said after I’d settled into the leather-upholstered chair, “thanks for the heads up about what’s going on at home. He does seem more tense than usual, but it’s understandable, and not a problem. In fact, I didn’t come here because of him. I wanted to talk with you about Phoebe Ennis.”
“Really?” He blinked and frowned, and sat back, more deeply buried in his armchair. I could almost see him relocating me, pulling me from the predictable storage in his brain, and holding me, dangling, until he knew where to file me. “And why would that be?”
I had to refine my usual “investigating” riff, given that I was this man’s son’s teacher, so I explained about having a second job, and needing to follow up on some work we were doing for a legal firm.
“You’re a part-time investigator?” He was a nice-looking man, his face deeply lined both with the frown I kept seeing between his eyes, and deep laugh lines. I had the sense he hadn’t been using those laugh lines too often of late.
“I’m more of a clerical worker in an investigation firm. But it happens that in this case, I knew Phoebe Ennis years ago.” I explained the connection. “I thought you, as someone who knew her socially, might be able to help us out.”
“Socially? Where did you get that idea? You think I dated her?”
“You didn’t?”
He shook his head. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you were there with Jonesy—sorry, I didn’t mean to use his nickname.”
He shook his head and smiled. “He’s been called that since first grade. Farmer Jones. Nothing wrong with it, and don’t worry. Go on.”
“You were at her memorial service last Sunday, and you aren’t in her address book, where I’d think she’d put an old friend, and…no matter. I’m embarrassed I leaped to conclusions and was obviously wrong. May I ask, then, what the connection was?”
He smiled, and stayed in the deep shadow of the chair. “Business.”
“She was a customer?” Her house did not in any way resemble this store’s elegant window, or the small and pleasant arrangements inside. But there had been that business card.
The slight frown again creased the skin between his eyes. “She was a client. She, ah, died before she consigned anything to the store—if, in fact, that’s what she would have opted to do. We never got that far.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not clear on the distinction between client and customer.”
“She didn’t buy things from me. She hired me to come out to her house in New Jersey and appraise a few things. I liked the woman, but not in a romantic manner. I liked her spirit and optimism. I’d been going through something less than an optimistic spell.”
That seemed as much as he was willing to offer. “Was it just that one visit, then?” I asked.
“No. She wanted to talk more about options and certain issues pertaining to the appraisal, and we had dinner together—a business dinner. I phoned her after I’d done some research for her, and couldn’t find her. I left a few messages, and then, reading the paper, I saw a small news article about her death being ruled a suicide. I was shocked, to put it mildly.”
“Do I infer, then, that your dinner was close to the day she died?”
“From what I understand, it was the night before. I can’t completely explain why I was so personally devastated by the news of her death, as I barely knew her. But when you’re with someone twenty-four hours before they take their life, you have to think you missed some signal, some call for help or alert that might have saved her.”
“But you didn’t get any sense of depression or despair.”
He shook his head. “I’ve replayed every word of the conversation many times, but it was all directed into the future. She wanted to get onto Antiques Roadshow, for heaven’s sake. She thought I might know somebody who’d get her on it. She was wrong, but that isn’t a suicidal-sounding woman, is it? There were other things we discussed as well, and they all involved the future. Why have all those questions about what to do next if you’re going to erase any chance of it?”
I shook my head. “During the conversation, did she mention anybody else, or any annoyances, problems? Worries? Issues in the life of a widow?”
“Like I said, I couldn’t find a single reason to think she was planning to kill herself. In fact, given that you’re here, I’m wondering if she actually did.”
I could feel how forced my close-lipped smile must look.
“You can’t say, is that it?”
“I can say that nothing has been completely resolved.”
He looked pensive, shaking his head, the worried frown in place again. “The implications are horrifying.”
“Yes. There was a second death—definitely a murder—at the house this week, which was horrible itself, and casts further doubt on Phoebe’s death.”
He bit at his bottom lip and shook his head even more vigorously, negating it, refusing to allow such raw ugliness into this beautiful retreat.
“Obviously,” I said, “it makes one think that there was something—or more than one something—in that house that somebody wanted.” We had another brief quiet period. I finally decided that if he wasn’t going to take the bait, I’d push it farther in front of him. “Phoebe always talked about her ‘treasures,’ but nobody thought she actually had any. They were precious to her, yes, but that’s where it ended. Her house is so cluttered, and I’d think it was mostly kitsch.”
Jesse Farmer sat, his lips closed, looking at me as if he were meditating with his eyes open and had no need, might never have a need, to speak.
“Did she have things of value?” I finally asked.
Now he leaned forward. “This may sound as if I’m being self-important, but I’m not going to answer that without some sort of police authority on your part. I realize I’m not a priest or psychiatrist, and that appraisals are not life-and-death issues, and you must know that this is particularly difficult saying to my son’s English teacher, who I know is completely trustworthy. But you’re sitting here wearing a different metaphoric
al hat, and so it’s to that status, which is, you must admit, somewhat vague, that I have to say I do not divulge that information. I will not, except to those who come with warrants proving their purpose, and to legitimate heirs, and only then with proof. This has been my policy for years, since I opened the shop. It will come as no shock to hear that people use that kind of information for less than benign purposes. Look, you yourself hinted that two women might now have died because of something that seemed valuable to them. Something somebody else wanted.
“Nothing but trouble happens whether people think they have things of value that are actually worthless, or vice versa. So forgive me, but I can’t give you the information you want.”
He did not look about to bend, and I understood his reservation and thanked him for his time. “One last question,” I said. “Did anybody, including Phoebe, know what the appraised value of the objects was?”
The frown reappeared, and he seemed to need to consider the question. Or perhaps he was simply tired of fending me off. Finally, he shook his head. “Only me. We never got to that third meeting. That’s what I had been phoning her about the day I found out she was dead.”
Brick wall time again. If nobody else knew, then it didn’t matter what Phoebe actually had. I was thinking in circles, and creating my own maze. I had to find a way out to where the explanation of her death lay.
I thanked him again, and made my way through a lot of treasures in transition, from one proud owner to the next. A lot of stories were in this long peaceful room, and I wondered where Phoebe’s fit into it.
Mackenzie was reading when I reached the pizzeria.
“Napoleon?” I said when I saw the writing on the spine.
“You’re behaving like a teacher, upset I’m not doing my assigned homework.” It was true, and it wasn’t flattering, but he said it with a wink.
“I’m sorry. I only—”
“I know,” he said. “Guilty as charged. I’m always complaining about not having time to do my regular reading for school, plus everything else. But you know you got me interested in the man, and now I’m close to the end—the poor guy’s off in exile, and the party’s over for him. I figured you might be delayed, and I’m kind of fascinated by this whole thing. People chop up their king and toss him out, screaming liberty, equality, fraternity—and wind up with an emperor. How does that happen? What in us leads to that criminal excess and then…” He smiled. “See? It is indeed related to my official course of study.”
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