Indian Summer

by Ed Ifkovic

  “You think Jason Fargo is part of this?” Millicent asked. She still held a copy of The Gazette, which she used to punctuate her comments, drumming it on her leg.

  “I can’t say, but he seems to have been part of Martha and Carlotta’s lives then, disappeared, and now suddenly he’s back again. Supposedly, he’s helping Carlotta with her memoirs but maybe he was wooing the excessively amorous Martha. Less attention to her apple pie than to her lustful eye.”

  Stas laughed. “Funny, Ferb. So he needs more looking into. What about Nathan Brosnan?”

  “Hard to get a reading on that one. Again, the connection with New York, dropping out, and then, suddenly, his reappearance. Both men back in town around the time Martha is murdered.” I shrugged my shoulders. “New York gave me just gossip, but George told me he’d ask around. Men in speakeasies blab a lot, I gather. Only women tell the truth.”

  Stas grinned. “No gossip from women?” He looked from me to Millicent.

  I smiled. “We’re wisdom givers, Stas. It’s time you knew that.”

  Millicent added, “Especially if the wisdom is juicy and thrilling.”

  “Well,” Stas began, “I think you’re on to something here, Ferb. The husbands, I mean. Nathan Brosnan, who’s hard to pin down. I had another look-see at his world, talked to him again, but, better, found a curious witness.” He breathed in. “First time around, Brosnan was a little fuzzy on time of day he met Carlotta, his own whereabouts.”

  Millicent interrupted. “I thought all men carried timepieces?”

  Stas looked at her. “Doesn’t mean we like to look at them, ma’am. We’re wearing them for show.” He sighed. “Anyway, supposedly Carlotta showed up at his office in Greenfield, according to them both, between five-thirty and six. But I found a witness—a young lawyer who was closing up shop in the same building as Brosnan—who distinctly recalls seeing Carlotta arriving much later—well after dark. And she seemed frantic. He recognized her as Carlotta Small but more so because of her behavior. Brosnan’s office was locked, and she paced back and forth in front, really agitated, looking near tears. He thought he’d ask her if she needed help, but something about her kept him back—anger, nervousness, impatience, a combination of things that said: stay away. He said he locked up around six or so, and she was still waiting.”

  “Where was Brosnan?” Millicent, impatient.

  “That’s the big question,” Wolniak said. “Seems he was out of the office. The lawyer said that as he was driving out of the lot Brosnan was just pulling in. Now Brosnan told me, first time around, he was in his office that afternoon and met Carlotta when she arrived.”

  “So he lied,” I said, nodding.

  “Seems like it. And Carlotta herself never mentioned him not being there and that she arrived later than she said.”

  I defended Carlotta. “Well, she did state she was at the Inn just after five, even later, and it takes more than a half-hour to get to Greenfield.”

  Stas bit his lip. “A half hour if you’re lost.”

  “So you looked at Brosnan again?”

  “Of course. And the story changed. This time I pressed him about the meeting with Carlotta. The why of her hasty visit.”

  “This I can’t wait to hear,” Millicent breathed in, leaning forward in her rocker, her eyes bright.

  Stas continued. “Brosnan said he’d been calling Carlotta for months, even showed up at the Inn a couple times, but she wasn’t here. So he wrote that letter that got Carlotta to visit him. It seems he was at a speakeasy in Bridgeport”—Stas grimaced—“since Prohibition, it’s the real big industry in town—where he met Jason Fargo, another regular, a man he’s bumped into over the years. The two men shared ‘Carlotta stories,’ as he termed them. The ‘Carlotta Small Ex-Husbands Club,’ he called it. But Jason was in the sauce that night and confessed to Brosnan that Carlotta was writing her memoirs and, in talking with Jason, remarked that Brosnan had been involved with underworld money—gangster dealings—out of Mulberry Street back ten years or so. Out of Mercato’s Clam House. Carlotta thought it would be a rich bit of information in her life story—Al Capone, Eliot Ness, you know. So he was worried, now that he is no longer involved in New York ‘financial circles,’ as he termed it, and is a respectable, struggling businessman in Connecticut. Since losing his job he relies on a low salary as the town’s zoning inspector. He’s afraid of publicity. Said he’d been trying to contact Carlotta, scared of the notoriety, scared of her memoirs. Hence the note.”

  “But what made her bolt like that?” I wondered out loud. “If she ignored him before.”

  “He told me he threatened her.”

  “My word!” Millicent exclaimed.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Well, it seems—and this is where Brosnan gets murky in the retelling—back some time ago he met Carlotta one night, and they’d gone on a drunk. Carlotta, I gather, likes to indulge. And she got intoxicated, so much so that she revealed something scandalous to Brosnan, something he’d never heard before. But she was drunk. So was he. So now, as a last resort, he threatened her with exposure if she mentioned him in her book, which sent her flying out to his office.”

  “Why wasn’t he there?”

  “He claimed he misunderstood the time she was coming. So he left, rattled that she was confronting him, and drove around the countryside. Just driving, he said.”

  “What did Carlotta tell him?” I asked, holding my breath.

  “That’s the tricky part. Brosnan says he told her he’d use this scandal against her if she mentioned his Mafia deals in her book. He told me he couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said, because he, too, was plastered. But he bluffed her, he said. She kept begging him for silence. He mentioned her memoirs. And she agreed to omit mention of his dealings.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I insisted. “He’s making that part up. She must have told him something specific, and he threw it back into her face. It’s baloney that he couldn’t remember, that he bluffed her. They talked about it.”

  “I agree, but Brosnan says no. And that’s all I could get out of him.”

  Millicent looked perplexed, “But Carlotta claimed all her stories would be in her book. So this was something she is choosing to leave out?”

  “If Brosnan is telling us the truth,” Wolniak said. “Maybe he’s telling the truth. He bluffed her. She was so drunk . . .”

  “No,” I said, forcefully, “Carlotta must have told him some dark secret.”

  “He said it was typical Broadway gossip. New York chatter. When I pushed him, he kept saying it was something she did when drunk.”

  “Something crucial.”

  “I wonder,” Millicent added, “if Jason Fargo knows.”

  “My question is where was Brosnan when he was supposed to be in his office?” Stas wondered

  I spoke up. “Carlotta being late I can understand. She’s already confessed to lying about her return to the Inn. But what’s with Brosnan?” I tapped my fingers on the side table, anxious. “You know, I’m convinced more than ever that the husbands are connected to Martha’s murder. Somehow.”

  “Again, I ask: Jason or Nathan?” From Millicent.

  I shrugged.

  “Maybe,” Stas said, “the secret lies with the first husband. In the suicide.”

  “Are you saying it might not have been a suicide?” Millicent asked

  “No, that’s supposedly well documented. I read the reports. He locked the roof door behind him, left a note.”

  “Dead men tell tales,” Millicent commented.

  “Maybe so,” I noted. “But I’m wondering how much Jason knows about the suicide.”

  “He was there waiting to marry Carlotta within the year,” Millicent added.

  There was a knock on the door, and Eben appeared, carrying mail for Millicent. She thanked him. “I get three letters a month and Eben or Carlotta kindly pick them up at the post office.” But Eben stood there, letter in hand. “Yes?” Millicent asked.
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  “And one for Miss Ferber.” He held out a long white envelope. “I knew you was here. Thought you’d want it.”

  “My, my, mash notes from the provinces.” I reached for the letter. Eben bowed and backed out of the room.

  The penmanship on the outside of the envelope was childlike, a scrawl: “Miss Edna Ferber, Sugar Maple Inn, Rawley’s Depot, Connecticut,” alternating black letters with lower-case scribble. I tore it open, with Stas and Millicent watching me. Inside, I perused the slim contents, then read aloud: “Ferber—nobody likes people who nose around other peoples business. Mind your own business. Or trouble comes your way.” It was signed with a flourish: “The citizens of Rawley’s Depot.” I twisted my mouth. “A missing apostrophe. Unforgivable.”

  Stas took the note from me, stared at it, frowned. “Let me take this, Ferb.”

  “Well, what’s this all about?” I shook my head. “A threat?”

  Stas glanced at it again. “Frankly, I don’t think it’s the murderer trying to keep you off the case. Probably some disgruntled soul who’s a little possessive of his town, who doesn’t like strangers.”

  I nodded. “Well, there’s something juvenile about it, really. Childish. A pouter. A bully.”

  Millicent interrupted, triumphant. “It was written by my ne’er-dowell nephew, Johnny Marks.”

  “What?” From Stas.

  She spoke, her voice clear and determined. “It’s obvious. His anger is toward Edna, not the investigation. And, to tell you the truth, it sounds like something Johnny would do, a cowardly act. He was here yesterday, in fact, complaining about being shut out of the investigation. He kept saying that line, in fact—‘She should mind her own business.’” She pointed. “Echoes in this dumb note.”

  Stas fumed. “Captain Smith has met with him, thinks he’s a powder keg, some local hick sheriff type. Sorry, Miss Wright. I know he’s your kin. Captain told me to ignore him, let him buzz around the story like a fly on a carcass, but don’t tell him anything. Be diplomatic. Give him some information, confide unimportant stuff. He’s not happy.”

  Millicent smiled. “Edna, ignore the note. He’s a colossal fool.”

  But I was not happy: It was bad enough the population of Oklahoma was rallying against me for my depiction of that fledgling state. Now Johnny Marks’s vitriolic note—if, indeed, he was the author—did not augur well for the reception of American Beauty in the old parlors of Connecticut. One more state of the union that would view me askance.

  “I’ll talk to him,” Stas said.

  “No.” I touched him on the sleeve, “I’ll talk to him if I see him. I’ve been known to wither lesser forms of male life.”

  I ate dinner alone that night. Carlotta, returned from her long day with Peter, hid in her bedroom, claiming a migraine, so I munched on cold roast, buttered bread, and a glass of red wine. Sitting in the kitchen, bored, I heard a slight rapping on the back door, turned to see Henry Fenwick, hat in hand, peering through the window.

  I let him in. “Is Carlotta here?” he asked.

  “She’s not feeling well. She’s in her room.”

  Henry looked indecisive, looking back to the doorway, debating whether to leave.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  Henry took off the leather coat, draped it over a counter, and slipped into a kitchen chair, opposite me. He stared around the kitchen, as though seeing it for the first time. He sighed. I stared into those dark penetrating eyes—something about them: not cunning, nothing so malevolent, but wariness; distance, eyes so darting they belonged on a bumbling child facing a hickory-stick toting mother.

  “What is it, Henry?”

  He looked at his palms, clamped them together. “I came to see Carlotta to apologize . . . for that . . . that episode at my house. Carlotta, well, she caught us off guard. So late at night. I wanted to help, but Peggy is a little . . . actually, she’s a lot concerned with my image. I’m sorry for the things she said. She doesn’t mean them. We’re all friends, you know. From grammar school. The three of us, Martha as well, though she was older. Family, really. Even though our lives took us in different directions, she to New York and, you know, Broadway lights and pictures in rotogravures, and me into local, rather tedious and mundane politics. Well, we love each other. And I want to help her.”

  “But you won’t,” I said, brusquely.

  He sighed. “I can’t. Peggy . . .”

  “Peggy.” I made the name into an accusation. “Peggy says no.”

  A hurried voice. “And I agree with her. There is such a thing as public image. Think of political scandals. Grant. Cleveland. Harding. Teapot Dome, you know.”

  “I didn’t know you were thinking of a run for president.” My tone was biting.

  He grinned. “Well, hardly. But you never know.” He shook his head. “Carlotta always said she’d get me the New York City vote.”

  “No one on Broadway votes Republican, except the money men,” I assured him.

  He looked startled. “Really?”

  “I hazard a guess.”

  He stood up. He looked toward the hallway, into the silent house. “Tell Carlotta I’ll come by tomorrow. I hope she’s forgiven me.” He reached for his leather coat, his hand lovingly stroking the fur collar before putting it on. It was a stage gesture, I thought, narcissistic, really—and very annoying.

  “I think she has other things on her mind than a minor spat with old friends.”

  He blinked rapidly. “She thinks I have more power than I really do.”

  “I’ll give her the message, Henry. Don’t worry. I’ll let her know just how powerless you really are.”

  Late at night I sat in the parlor for hours, a Joseph Hergesheimer novel in my lap, my mind wandering. Alone, I found myself thinking about Indian walls, those fallen-down stone fences that lined Connecticut farm acres, rocks from the miserable soil, generations past, boundaries that disappeared into deep woods where wilderness had returned, taking back the soil from the early pioneers. Carlotta called them Indian walls because local myth claimed that the Indians had built them. Not true, I knew. The early farmers, clearing the land, had dragged the stone from the fields. So, I thought, maybe a title for my novel: Indian Walls. Maybe. But no: I remembered how Stas had pronounced American Beauty in Polish. I smiled. Perfect.

  Carlotta surprised me, entering the room like a slow-moving shadow, and rousing me.

  “I’m sorry, Edna. I just had to get away. Hide away. I’m not good at this.”

  She dropped into an armchair, wrapped her arms around her chest, momentarily closing her eyes. She wobbled a little. Did she keep a bottle in her bedroom, stashed away in a chifforobe? A secret stash? Hidden under lace and tulle. Wine stains on the sheets of her scandalous manuscript?

  For a while, aimless, we talked of nothing, I about New York—“Aleck and George said to tell you good cheer, chin up”—and Carlotta about her drifting day, spent with her son in Hartford. “Peter understands my moods, sometimes. So he just drove and drove, up to Hartford where I said hello to an old cousin, and then back, just drove and drove. Most of the time in silence.”

  But, intent, I steered the desultory conversation back to the investigation, even though I saw Carlotta wince, unhappy, not a topic she relished, obviously. “Trooper Wolniak,” I began, “talked to Nathan Brosnan again, Carlotta. The time sequence is off.” Carlotta stared, out of focus, not paying attention. I told her what Stas had said. “Why didn’t he—or you—say he wasn’t at the office when you arrived?”

  She looked confused. “But I don’t think it matters. Just typical of Nathan to keep me waiting.” But then her eyes got wide. “You don’t think that he killed Martha, do you?”

  I didn’t answer for a few minutes, watching Carlotta come to grips with the idea. But Carlotta shook her head: no, impossible.

  “I know about the Mafia business,” I told her. “For your book. But what I don’t know is how he blackmailed you.” I watched Carlotta close her eyes. “Yes, b
lackmailed you, really. What did you tell him that one night—what scandalous tidbit—that he could use against you so that you wouldn’t mention his underworld deals in your book?”

  Carlotta waited a long time, looked toward the cabinet where, I knew, the bottles of wine smuggled from Canada and out of a Danbury speakeasy were stored, waiting. “I don’t remember telling him anything scandalous.”

  “I don’t believe you, Carlotta. Why would you back down?”

  “Because Nathan’s underworld dealings are so boring.”

  “But what did he say you said . . . that night?”

  “He just insinuated, Edna. Just said I’d blabbed too much, and if need he’d tell everyone. He’d make up a sexual indiscretion. Something that would get me into trouble. Something, well, illegal, something immoral. So I backed off. I couldn’t remember what he was talking about. It wasn’t worth it to fight with him. It’s too much to deal with.” She sat back, rubbed her temples, fussed with her hair.

  “Are you telling me the truth?”

  Carlotta stared across the short space. “Edna, look at me. I drink too much. I know that. I tell everyone everything. The same tired stories of my life on and off the stage. Don’t you think if I had additional juicy stories I’d have let them slip out before now?”

  I bit my lip. “Well, according to Brosnan, you obviously did. To him.”

  “But wouldn’t I tell everyone? You know I’m a sloppy raconteur who craves an audience. I’m my own best topic.”

  “So you’re not going to talk about Nathan in your book?”

  Carlotta stood up, approached a sideboard, then turned to face me. At that moment I was startled to see Carlotta’s transformed face: shattered, pale, a woman covered with decay. “Edna,” she stammered, coming back to the table. “There is no book.”

  “What?”

  “There is no book. It’s another lie.”

  “For God’s sake, Carlotta. Tell me.”

  Carlotta sat down, trembled, and looked me in the eye. She stared to sob. “It was Jason, a while back, who came up with the idea. Write your memoirs. Be famous again. Again. He’d be agent, he’d sell rights to Hollywood, and he’d get my name out there. And so I agreed. Everyone loves my stories, Edna. You know. I tell them at your parties. But, though I agreed, I couldn’t write a word. I lied to Jason, and I think he sensed it finally—that’s when he said he’d help me recall things.” She smiled. “But he also wanted his name treated gently, let me tell you. Anyway, Edna, I don’t remember anything, other than those few stories I tell over and over again. I . . . I’ve forgotten.”