“I put it in a few years ago in case I ever felt I needed someone around all the time,” she explained. “Ellie, it’s comfortable, it’s quiet, and I’ll be a good neighbor, not a nuisance who runs in and out.”
“You were always a good neighbor.” It was a great solution, and perhaps the only drawback was that it meant driving past our old house on a regular basis. I assumed that eventually repetition would dull the instant flash of pain that hit me now as I passed that acre of property.
“God’s Little Acre.” Mother had laughingly called it that. She was thrilled to have so much property and was determined to cultivate a garden that would be one of the highlights on the Oldham Garden Club spring tour.
I checked out of the Inn, moved into Mrs. Hilmer’s guest apartment, and on Wednesday flew back to Atlanta, arriving in the office at quarter of six in the evening. I knew there was no chance that Pete would have gone home. He was married to the job.
He looked up, saw me, grinned briefly, and said, “Let’s talk over a plate of spaghetti.”
“What about those ten pounds you’re trying to lose?”
“I’ve decided not to think about them for the next couple of hours.”
Pete has an intensity about him that sends electric jolts into the people around him. He went with the News, a privately owned daily, right out of graduate school, and within two years he was managing editor. By the time he was twenty-eight he was wearing two hats, editor in chief and publisher, and the “dying Daily,” as it had been labeled, suddenly had a new lease on life.
Hiring an investigative crime reporter was one of his ideas to rev up circulation, and getting the job six years ago was a stroke of luck for me. I had just been taken on as a cub reporter. When the guy Pete wanted for the position backed out at the last minute, I was told to fill in, but only until a permanent replacement was found. Then one day, without comment, Pete stopped looking for that replacement. I had the job.
Napoli’s is truly the kind of neighborhood restaurant you find all over Italy. Pete ordered a bottle of Chianti and grabbed a chunk of the warm bread that had been deposited on our table. My thoughts went back to the semester I had spent in Rome during my college years. It was one of the few genuinely happy periods of my adult life.
My mother was trying to get on the wagon and was doing reasonably well. She visited me there during my spring break, and we had a wonderful time together. We explored Rome and spent a week in Florence and the hill towns of Tuscany. We capped that off with a visit to Venice. Mother was such a pretty woman, and on that trip, when she was smiling, she looked like her old self. By unspoken agreement the names of Andrea and my father never crossed our lips.
I’m glad I have that memory of her.
The wine came, was approved by Pete, and uncorked. I took a sip of it and plunged into what I had to say. “I’ve been doing a lot of homework. The whitewash job on Westerfield has every possibility of succeeding. Jake Bern is a good writer. He’s already done an article on the case that will be coming out next month in Vanity Fair.”
Pete reached for another piece of warm bread. “What can you do about it?”
“I am writing a book that will come out in the spring, the same week Bern’s is published.” I told him about my call to Maggie Reynolds. Pete had met her at the book party she threw for me in Atlanta. “Maggie is doing it, and she’ll put me on the fast track for publication. But in the meantime I’ve got to counteract Bern’s articles and the Westerfield family’s press releases.”
Pete waited. That was another thing about him—he didn’t rush to reassure. And he didn’t fill in dead spots in the conversation.
“Pete, I’m fully aware that a series of articles about a crime committed twenty-two years ago in Westchester County, New York, might not be of great interest to a readership in Georgia, and anyhow, I don’t think it’s the right place to publish them. The Westerfield family is identified with New York.”
“Agreed. So what do you propose to do?”
“Take a leave of absence if you can give it to me. Or if that isn’t feasible, quit, write the book, and take my chances after it’s finished.”
The waiter came to the table. We both ordered cannelloni and a green salad. Pete hemmed and hawed for a minute, but then decided on Gorgonzola dressing.
“Ellie, I’ll hold your job open for you as long as it’s in my power to do it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I may not be around much longer myself. I’ve had a couple of interesting offers that I’m considering.”
I was shocked. “But the News is your baby.”
“We’re getting too big for the competition. There’s real talk of our being bought out for big bucks. The family is interested. This generation doesn’t give a damn about the paper; it’s only about the revenue.”
“Where are you thinking of going?”
“The L. A. Times is probably going to make an offer. The other possibility is Houston.”
“Which would you prefer?”
“Until there’s an offer on the plate, I’m not wasting my time making choices that may not exist.”
Pete didn’t wait for me to comment before he went on.
“Ellie, I’ve been doing a little research of my own on your case. The Westerfields are getting good at criminal defense strategy. They have an impressive team of lawyers just waiting to get a chance to earn a fortune. They have that Nebels guy, and, weasel that he is, some people are going to believe his story. Do what you have to, but please, if Westerfield goes to trial and gets acquitted, swear to yourself that you’ll walk away from it.”
He looked directly at me. “Ellie, I can tell that you’re thinking, ‘Not a chance.’ I wish I could make you understand that no matter what books you and Bern write, some people are going to go to their graves believing that Westerfield got a bum deal, while others will still be convinced that he’s guilty.”
Pete meant his advice kindly, but that night as I packed the things I needed for an extended stay in Oldham, I realized that even he had the feeling that, guilty or innocent, Rob Westerfield had served his time, that people would think whatever they wanted about the merits of the case, and that it was time for me to drop it.
Nothing wrong with righteous wrath, I thought. Except when it hangs around too long.
I drove back to Oldham, and the following week Rob Westerfield’s parole hearing was held. As expected, the parole was granted, and it was announced that he would be released on October 31.
Halloween, I thought. How appropriate. The night that demons walk the earth.
16
PAULIE STROEBEL WAS behind the counter when I opened the door of the delicatessen, setting off the jingling of the bell attached to it.
My vague memory of him was centered at the old service station where he’d worked years ago. He would pump gas into the tank of our car and then spray and polish the windshield until it gleamed. I remember my mother saying, “What a nice boy Paulie is,” a sentiment that was never again uttered after he came under suspicion in Andrea’s death.
I believe my memory of his physical appearance was partially—or perhaps even solely—based on the pictures of him I saw in the newspapers my mother had kept, newspapers that reported every detail of Andrea’s murder and the trial. There is nothing that piques the reading public’s interest more than having the handsome son of a wealthy and socially prominent family as the defendant in the murder of a lovely young teenager.
Of course, there were pictures accompanying the text: Andrea’s body being carried out of the garagehideout; her casket being carried out of the church; my mother, her hands clasped, her face contorted with grief; my father, his expression agonized; myself, small and lost; Paulie Stroebel, bewildered and nervous; Rob Westerfield, arrogant, handsome, and sneering; Will Nebels, with an inappropriate ingratiating smile.
Photographers hell-bent on capturing raw human emotion had a field day.
Mother had never told me that she had
this collection of newspapers or the transcript of the trial. After her death I was shocked to learn that the bulky suitcase which accompanied us in all our moves was actually a Pandora’s box of misery. I suspect now that when drink sent Mother into depressed reverie, she may have opened that suitcase and relived her private crucifixion.
I knew Paulie and Mrs. Stroebel must have heard that I was in town. When he looked up and saw me, he was startled, but then his expression became guarded. I inhaled the wonderful mingled aroma of ham and beef and condiments that seems to be indigenous to fine German delicatessens, and we stood there and took each other’s measure.
Paulie’s stolid body was more appropriate on a mature man than it had been on the teenager in the newspaper photographs. His pudgy cheeks had thinned out, and the expression in his eyes no longer had the bewildered look of twenty-three years ago. It was a few minutes before six o’clock, closing time, and as I had hoped, there were no last-minute customers waiting to be served.
“Paulie, I’m Ellie Cavanaugh.” I walked over to him and extended my hand across the counter. He took it, his grasp firm, even uncomfortably strong.
“I heard you were back. Will Nebels is lying. I wasn’t in the garage that night.” His voice was a hurt protest.
“I know you weren’t.”
“It’s not fair for him to say that.”
The door that separated the kitchen from the front of the store opened, and Mrs. Stroebel came out. I had the immediate impression that she was always alert for even a hint that something wasn’t going smoothly with her son.
She had aged, of course, and was no longer the apple-cheeked woman I remembered. Her body was thinner now. Her hair was gray, with only a hint of the daffodil shade I recalled, and she walked with a slight limp. When she saw me, she said, “Ellie?” and when I nodded, her concerned expression lightened into a welcoming smile. She hurried around the counter to embrace me.
After I testified in court, Mrs. Stroebel had come up to me, taken both my hands in hers, and, close to tears, thanked me. The defense attorney had tried to get me to say that Andrea was afraid of Paulie, and I guess on the stand I got pretty definite. “I didn’t say Andrea was afraid of Paulie ’cause she wasn’t. She was afraid Paulie would tell Daddy that she sometimes met Rob in the hideout.”
“It is so good to see you, Ellie. You’re a young lady now, and I’m an old lady,” Mrs. Stroebel told me as her lips brushed my cheek. The accent of her native land flowed like honey through her words.
“No, you’re not,” I protested. The warmth of her welcome, like the warmth of Mrs. Hilmer’s greeting, was a dart of light flashing through the unshakable sadness that accompanies my every waking moment. It is a sense of coming home to people who care about me. Here in their presence, even after all this time, I am not a stranger and I am not alone.
“Put the ‘Closed’ sign on the door, Paulie,” Mrs. Stroebel said briskly. “Ellie, you will come home and have dinner with us, won’t you?”
“I’d love to.”
I followed them in my car. They lived about a mile away in one of the older sections of town. The houses were all late-nineteenth-century and relatively small. But they looked cozy and well kept, and I could imagine generations of families sitting on those front porches in the summertime.
The Stroebels’ dog, a yellow Lab, greeted our arrival enthusiastically, and Paulie immediately got his leash and took him for a walk.
Their home was just what I’d expected—inviting, immaculate, and comfortable. I vetoed Mrs. Stroebel’s suggestion that I sit in one of the overstuffed chairs in the living room and watch the news on television while she prepared dinner in the kitchen. Instead, I followed her there and sat on a stool at the counter, watching her work, offering to help, but confident she’d decline.
“A simple meal,” she warned. “I made a beef stew yesterday. I always serve it the second day. Better that way. Much tastier.”
Her hands worked swiftly, preparing the last-minute vegetables to add to the stew, rolling dough for biscuits, breaking greens for a salad. I sat quietly, suspecting she wanted to get the dinner on track and then would talk.
I was right.
It was about fifteen minutes later when, with a nod of satisfaction, she said, “Good. Now before Paulie gets back, you must tell me. Can the Westerfields do this? After twenty-two years, can they try again to make my son a killer?”
“They can try, but they won’t succeed.”
Mrs. Stroebel’s shoulders slumped. “Ellie, Paulie has come such a long way. You know when he was a boy, it was so hard for him. He’s not a student. There is a kind of knowledge that is not for him. His father and I always worried so much. Paulie is such a sweet, good person. In school he was so lonely except when he played football. It was the only time he felt he was liked.”
It was obviously hard for her to continue. “Paulie was on the second team, so he didn’t play much. But then one day they put him in the game, and the other team scored and then—I don’t understand all about these games; if his father were alive, he could tell you—Paulie at the last minute got the ball and made a touchdown that won the game.
“Your sister was in the band, the prettiest one of all, as I remember. She was the one who grabbed a megaphone and rushed out onto the field. Paulie told me about it over and over—the cheer Andrea led for him.”
Mrs. Stroebel paused, cocked her head as though listening, and then, in a low but exuberant voice, sang: “We’ll cheer for Paulie Stroebel, the best of them all. He’s merry, he’s jolly, we love him by golly, we’ll cheer for Paulie Stroebel, the best of them all.”
Her eyes glistened as she said, “Ellie, that was the most wonderful moment of Paulie’s life. You can’t know what it was for him after Andrea died and the Westerfields tried to blame him. I believe he would have died to save her. Our doctor was worried that he might do something to himself. When you are a little different, a little slower, it is very easy to become depressed.
“He’s been doing so well in the last few years. More and more he makes the decisions in the store. You know what I mean. Like last year he decided we should put in some tables and hire a girl to serve. Just a simple breakfast, then sandwiches in the afternoon. It’s been very popular.”
“I noticed the tables.”
“Paulie will never have it easy. He will always have to work harder than anyone else. He will be okay unless—”
“Unless people actively start to point at him again and wonder if he’s the one who should have been in prison for twenty-two years,” I said, interrupting.
She nodded. “Yes. That’s what I mean.”
We heard the front door open. Paulie’s footsteps and the Lab’s short bark announced their arrival.
Paulie came into the kitchen. “It’s not fair of that man to say I hurt Andrea,” he said, then abruptly went upstairs.
“It is beginning to consume him again,” Mrs. Stroebel said flatly.
17
THE DAY AFTER I saw the Stroebels I tried to reach Marcus Longo, the detective who had investigated Andrea’s murder. The answering machine picked up, and I left a message explaining who I was and gave my cell phone number. For a few days I heard nothing.
I was terribly disappointed. After seeing how strongly Longo had expressed himself on television about Rob Westerfield’s guilt, I’d thought he’d leap to the phone to get back to me. I’d just about given up on him when, on October 30, my cell phone rang. When I answered, a quiet voice asked, “Ellie, is your hair still the color of sand with sunbeams running through it?”
“Hello, Mr. Longo.”
“I just got back from Colorado, which is why you haven’t heard from me,” he said. “Our first grandchild arrived Tuesday. My wife is still out there. Can you have dinner with me tonight?”
“I’d love to.” I told him I was staying in Mrs. Hilmer’s guest apartment.
“I know where Mrs. Hilmer lives.”
There was the slightest pause as we bot
h thought that of course he did—it’s just down the road from our old house.
“I’ll pick you up at seven, Ellie.”
I was watching for his car and hurried downstairs when it pulled off the road and onto the long driveway. The driveway forks, and the garage with the guest apartment is at the end on the right side. At one time it had been a stable, and it is actually a distance from the house. I didn’t want him to take the wrong turn.
There are some people in this world with whom we feel immediately comfortable. That was the way it was with Marcus Longo as soon as I slid into the passenger seat.
“I’ve thought a lot about you over the years,” he said as he made a U-turn. “Have you been to Cold Spring since you’ve been back?”
“I drove through it one afternoon, but I didn’t get out of the car. I remember being there when I was a kid. My mother was always browsing around antique shops.”
“Well, it still has those, but now it also has some good restaurants.”
Oldham is the northernmost town bordering the Hudson River in Westchester County. Cold Spring on the Hudson is just over the line in Putnam County, directly across the Hudson from West Point. It is a particularly beautiful town with a Main Street that has the look and feel of the nineteenth century.
I did have strong memories of being there with my mother. In fact, over the years she would sometimes talk about Cold Spring.
“Remember how on Saturday afternoons we would drive down Main Street and stop in all those little antique shops? I was training you girls to have an eye for lovely things. Was that so bad?”
The reminiscences usually began over her second or third scotch. By the time I was ten, I was watering the bottle of Dewar’s in the hope of slowing her down. It never really seemed to help.
Longo had made a reservation at Cathryn’s, an intimate Tuscan-style grill in a courtyard off Main Street. There, at a corner table, we took each other’s measure. Oddly, in person he looked older than he did on television. There were furrows around his eyes and mouth, and even though his body was broad, he did not seem physically strong. I wondered if he had been ill.