“Charlie!” Amaryllis said. She recognized the name. “Where is he? I want to meet him.” There was such a wanting in her voice. “I don’t have anybody but Daddy.”
On Olva’s face converged a string of emotions I could not place. She appeared to want to say more to Amaryllis, but she merely shook her head, as if convincing herself to slow down whatever thoughts were in her mind.
My sister, not noticing Olva’s internal dispute, filled in the silence. “Olva and Samuel were half siblings,” Rosemarie clarified. “They shared Charlie as a father, but the fact is that we don’t know yet who Olva’s mother is.”
A laugh flew from my lips. “It’s a good thing you don’t know all the family secrets, Rosemarie. Otherwise, they would not be secrets.”
Rosemarie turned to Olva. “What does she mean?”
Before Olva had a chance to respond, a knock on the front door bit through the air. Amaryllis shot up from her chair and said merrily, “I’ll get it!”
We all cried “No!” at once, and the weight of the rebuff pressed the child back into her seat, where she drew her hands to her face and began sobbing. Marcus placed his hand gently on her back and then gathered her into his arms.
“I’m the one they are looking for,” Marcus said, beginning to lower Amaryllis back into her chair. The child locked her arms around his neck, holding him to the spot.
“I will do it,” Rosemarie said, pushing her chair back and throwing her napkin on her plate.
“Why do we have to answer it?” I asked.
“I will go with you,” Olva said.
I reluctantly followed the two of them toward the front of the house. The three of us stood in front of the door for a moment. I eyed my cane, propped next to the door. Rosemarie placed her hand on the doorknob and pulled the door open in one swift, confident movement. We greeted nothing but the porch light, harsh and moth-beaten, which blinded us to what lay beyond.
“Goddammit!” Rosemarie yelled, and she leaned her head through the doorway. “Rick! We know you’re there! You have no business here!”
Olva pulled Rosemarie back inside and locked the door. Noticing the windows in the living room, Olva drew the curtains. The darkness on the other side of the glass seemed alive and agitated, and I was grateful to have it concealed.
“I threatened him,” Olva said.
“He deserved it,” Rosemarie said.
Marcus moved into the room carrying Amaryllis. He deposited her on the sofa—our pale-gray Louis XV with silver leaf finish—and I saw that she carried with her a spoon mounded with Orange Supreme. She lay down on the sofa, sticking the spoon in her mouth at the same time, and a dollop of whipped cream fell onto the upholstery.
“Amaryllis! Look what you’re doing!” I cried.
“Leave the child alone,” Rosemarie snapped at me. “You are ludicrous to be fretting about a sofa at a time like this.”
“Your compassion is as fickle as you are, isn’t it?” I said to my sister. “You take up whatever crusade strikes you at the moment, and then you flit away when you’re not the center of it any longer.”
Rosemarie aimed her face at me. “At least I’m not the one who called Jolly to let her know where Marcus was.”
Air shot past Olva’s lips. Her hand moved to her throat, and she fidgeted with her collar. As she did, Mama’s double-sided cameo came into view on her neck. The coral and gold shone brightly against her skin, and I saw that the image of the goddess Athena faced outward. Olva followed my eyes, and when she saw what I was looking at, a dead smile rose to her lips. She reached around her neck and unclasped the necklace, thrusting it toward me. “Take it!” She looked at me with such intensity, I thought she might hand over her eyes. She laid the cameo in my palm. I glanced down. The god Ares was staring back at me.
“This cameo will be suitable for my inventory,” I said, casting around for anything to say. “It’s a good thing my memory has not yet faded. I can recall all the stories about our heirlooms.”
“You have kept your mind sharp, Judith,” Olva said coldly, as if I had kept it that way expressly to have something with which to poke people. “I’m heading to bed.” She glared at me. “You can draw your own bath.”
Windsor chair
Wooden spinning wheel
Mahogany secretary
R. S. Prussia vase
Pie safe—Grandmother DeLour’s
Butler’s tray (silver plated)
Amsterdam School copper mantel clock
Hamilton drafting table
Letter opener (cut glass)
Tiffany lamp (diameter 16˝; 21¾˝ height)—broken fixed
Victorian chaise longue
Octagonal Jacobean parlor table
Mahogany sewing cabinet
Westclox alarm clock (Big Ben model)
Hepplewhite side table
Watchmaker’s workbench
Edwardian neoclassical brass column candleholders (10˝ tall)
Abner Cutler rolltop desk (54˝ × 21˝ × 50˝)—damaged
Riding whip—Daddy Kratt’s
New York Times (Wednesday, October 30, 1929)
Peacock hat
Edwardian coral cameo (1½˝ × 1˝)
Highboy bureau
Butterfly tray
Cheval mirror
Glass rabbit
Persian Heriz rug
Revolving mahogany bookstand
Queen Anne chair (dusty rose)
Rococo cherub figurines
Noritake 175 Gold china
Art deco oyster plates
Silver cutlery
Waterford crystal pitcher
Crystal saltcellars
Louis XV sofa (silver leaf details)
Ten
I knew Charlie would wait patiently for my signal. He would be freezing in the shed behind the store, but I knew he would wait there. When I turned on the Tiffany lamp, he would head straight for Aunt Dee’s. I needed to keep him a step ahead of both the mob and my brother.
I was the last one remaining in the store. Through the windows, the evening wind shook the branches of an ancient oak, and a few snowflakes struggled through the air. Before I locked up, the mannequins with their pursed mouths watched me creep through the millinery shop to get to Charlie’s attic. I moved quietly toward the Tiffany lamp, and with the least fanfare I could muster, turned the three key switches. Light sang out of the bulbs. I stood looking, spellbound, until I remembered my duties.
Retracing my steps, I completed all the procedures for shutting down the store. Empty of people, the building had noises of its own: creaks and rattles and even a screech that sounded like a chair being pushed back from a desk. I stepped out into the cold to bolt and padlock the final door at the back of the store. I didn’t dare check on Charlie in the shed—perhaps he had already fled—but stole a glance up at the Tiffany lamp blazing in the attic window.
Just as I was about to withdraw my gaze, the light in the window extinguished. I froze, my breath drawing in sharply. I studied the shed in the distance, but it was too far to determine if Charlie was there or not. Perhaps he had gone. It seemed possible. Yet the thought nagged at my mind. I decided I would go back into the store and turn on the lamp again.
Steeling myself, I unlocked the back door and tiptoed through the darkened aisles of the first floor. As I made my way up two flights of stairs, the sky tipped into full darkness outside, and through one of the large windows on the third floor, the moon cast pools of light at my feet. I was moving rapidly, hoping to avoid whomever had turned off the light, and when I stepped into the millinery shop, I gasped as one of the mannequins, turned into a gruff giant by the strength of the moonlight, wheeled at me. I screamed.
“Judith!” The voice was irritated, full of horsehair. “Shut your mouth, girl.”
“Dadd
y Kratt!” I cried. “I thought I was the last one in the store. I had already locked up.”
“You left a light on.” I could tell he was studying me in the dark.
“Did I?”
“I see that Charlie fixed that lamp already.”
“Oh, I suppose he did.” My chest felt tight. I sipped air carefully through my mouth.
“And where is Charlie? He isn’t in the attic.”
I scrambled for something to say. My heart slammed against the front of my chest. I was taking too long to answer, and my father moved toward me.
“Well, he can’t be too far, can he?” Daddy Kratt said, his face approaching mine. His beard was close to me. A heat seemed to come off it, and its acrid odor stung my nose.
I had sent Charlie to the shed. Had that been a mistake?
“Help me lock up.”
“Yessir.”
Leaving, I cast one final glance back into the millinery shop. It took all my strength of mind not to cry out. Our eyes met. It was Charlie, standing behind the mannequins, just as Quincy had when I caught him spying. I heard Daddy Kratt’s footsteps moving down the stairs outside the shop.
“Charlie!” I whispered. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw the light go off,” he said, his voice barely above a breath. “I saw you go back inside the store. I was worried for you.”
What he had risked for me! “Stay here, Charlie,” I said. “After we lock up, I will come back and get you.”
Heart still jangling in my chest, my feet carried me out the door and down the third-floor flight of stairs. I heard Daddy Kratt’s leaden steps echoing in the store, but then I lost track of them. Suddenly, I heard footsteps above me. Either they were Charlie’s or Daddy Kratt had circled back around and ascended the side staircase.
A great commotion let loose: a crash and a cavalry of footsteps thundering in the wake of that noise. I leaped onto the stairs again, racing up to the millinery shop. I saw Charlie dart across the third floor. On his heels was Daddy Kratt. Charlie ran toward the elevator, which was broken. He would be cornered, unless he intended to barricade himself inside it.
When Charlie approached the elevator, he hurled open its front door, jumped inside, and crashed shut the grated sliding door. The front door closed before Daddy Kratt could reach it, and my sight line was such that I could see Charlie’s stricken face through the door’s round window. To my amazement, the elevator heaved into motion. Charlie had fixed it! His face drifted down until it disappeared.
Daddy Kratt stopped, assessing the situation, before turning on his heels and striding past me. As he did, he nodded his head to indicate I should follow him. He expected me to help.
He lumbered down the stairs, intending to be there when the elevator door reached its conclusion. He was betting on the first floor, but he couldn’t be sure. Between the third and second floors, the store swallowed the elevator from view. This occurred to Daddy Kratt, and once we reached the second floor, he whirled around and jabbed his finger toward the northeast corner, where the elevator might deposit Charlie. I was in charge of heading Charlie off there, and Daddy Kratt would continue down to the first floor.
As I waited in front of the elevator door, my arm sought the wall for steadiness, as if I’d stepped aboard a dinghy during a squall. A mechanical sound grinded cruelly. Would the elevator land in front of me? Even if Charlie wanted to redirect it back to the third floor, it would have to register a stop at either the first or second floors. If it stopped at the first, Daddy Kratt would apprehend Charlie. But what if it stopped at mine?
The elevator’s noises amplified, sharp noises buried in the walls, as if the machine were arguing with itself. Then Charlie’s face flashed through the small round window. I heard the sliding door clang open. It was only a beat of time, how long it takes for a moth to flap its homely wings once, but it was long enough for Charlie to lock eyes with me. His stricken face had been replaced with another expression. It was permission.
I looked up at the ceiling, where the beige paint was peeling, then down at my scuffed winter overshoes. I looked anywhere but at Charlie.
“Daddy Kratt!”
The force of my voice rocketed Charlie into motion. He flew past me, hesitated a moment on the landing, before deciding to head up the stairs to the third floor. When Daddy Kratt reached me, he was not alone. Flanking him were Mr. Burns and Mr. Aiken. At the sight of Mr. Aiken, I thought of Dovey. And where was Quincy? I hadn’t seen him since he had vowed to catch Charlie himself. Then I heard Shep Bramlett call out below us, asking for our whereabouts.
“Cover the first floor!” my father yelled back to him. He turned to me. “Which way did he go?”
I swallowed, pointing back into the recesses of the second floor, the opposite direction of Charlie’s flight path. Daddy Kratt nodded at me. Looking at Mr. Burns and Mr. Aiken, he said, “Just in case he sneaks back up, go to the third and fourth floors. Don’t forget the attic.” Then my father plunged toward the darkened aisles of merchandise—groceries, drugs, and feed—where I had directed him.
Suddenly, I was alone. Daddy Kratt had not given me a task, which filled me with apprehension. I decided, lacking further instruction, I would wait, which proved more agitating than participating in Charlie’s capture. The voices of the men ricocheted through the store.
I stepped to the closest window on the east side of the store and peered out. Snow blew nomadically through the air, refusing to land on the ground but instead taking refuge on spartan, sturdy limbs of the oak that grew alongside the store. I tried to focus on the tree, grounded amid the snow staggering around it, so that I wouldn’t hear the frenzied voices of Charlie’s pursuers.
As I studied the tree, the limb closest to the building began to shake. I gasped. It was Charlie, climbing onto the tree from a third-floor window. His bare hands found snow-laden anchor points, and he prudently made his way down the tree. From the base of its trunk, he sprinted northward, toward the train depot and out of sight.
I pressed my eyes shut. My palms were damp with fear. I wondered if escape would be possible for him.
* * *
The next morning, Daddy Kratt summoned Quincy and me to his office. The room smelled of soap and tobacco. Our father was reviewing the store’s main ledger when we arrived, and we stood just inside the door and waited for him to finish his work. The ledger was leather-bound and nearly large enough to swallow the desk. It was handsome and had cost a sum significant enough to warrant a line item in the ledger itself. Daddy Kratt’s head stooped over the page in front of him, his large square thumb tracking down a list. The ledger was so stately looking, with its gold-edged pages, that next to it, our father appeared underdressed. He lacked refinement next to something so dignified.
Daddy Kratt finally looked up. He sniffed loudly, reached into his vest pocket for a handkerchief—splotched with oil—and blew his nose. I worried about what would come next. I had been the last one to see Charlie, the last one within arm’s reach before he vanished. But our father shot his gaze toward Quincy.
“Boy!” Daddy Kratt said unceremoniously. “Where were you last night? You’re the one supposed to be everywhere and know everything.”
Quincy didn’t speak. He was struggling to keep emotion out of his face. I saw his frustration rising, but there was something else behind it, which was bringing color into his pale cheeks. Suddenly, his mouth opened, and a little breath escaped from it. It was a momentary lapse, and Quincy pulled his shoulders back and set his face to stone again. But in those few seconds, I saw that it was intense embarrassment. He had been with Dovey that night.
Daddy Kratt didn’t take his eyes off Quincy. “Wherever you were, you weren’t where you should’ve been. I’d say it’s your fault we didn’t catch him.”
Now it was my turn to conceal my emotions. What Daddy Kratt had said was unfair to Quincy, but relief f
looded my body, and I swayed on my feet. I dug my fingernails into my palms to bring myself around. Against all odds, Charlie had not been found in the night.
“I apologize, sir,” Quincy responded. It beleaguered my brother, I could tell, to be blamed for something he hadn’t been asked to handle in the first place. Quincy’s shoulders slumped; the weight of Daddy Kratt’s disappointment was profound. “I have a solution.”
“And what’s that?” Daddy Kratt asked. He was interested, if unconvinced.
“I will find him,” Quincy said simply.
Daddy Kratt spat into his handkerchief, as if ridding himself of the taste of his own mouth. “How’s it you’re going to succeed at something you already failed at?”
“Give me one more chance,” Quincy said.
Daddy Kratt paused before nodding his head slowly. I rocked on my heels; this was a rare concession from our father. He surprised us again by walking over to his gun case and reaching into his inner vest pocket to produce a key. I was certain my brother’s jaw was clenched like mine as Daddy Kratt opened the case and pulled out a shotgun.
Immediately, I could tell it was his Purdey shotgun (side-by-side barrel at 29 inches). The Purdey brand was an old and reputable gun manufacturer. It had origins in England, and I had once heard that Queen Victoria herself bought a pair of Purdey pistols when she was nineteen, which told me volumes about her understanding of self-reliance, even though she had people watching over her all hours of the day and night. Perhaps she thought the purchase wise because she had people watching over her all hours of the day and night. Having Quincy as a brother, I could understand that perspective.
Daddy Kratt held up the shotgun for us to admire. It was a handsome specimen with a body of steel and a lacquered oak handle, and it was among the first items he bought to reward himself when his cotton business began to take off.
Stepping forward, Daddy Kratt thrust the Purdey into the hands of his fourteen-year-old son.
Quincy accepted it with a look of terror and thrill.
The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt Page 16
