Chapter 12 – The Letter
At dawn, Miranda sat in her front porch rocker and sipped her coffee as usual. She ignored the daily crossword puzzle. The other Magnolia Street ladies chatted together, but Miranda did not join in.
She stared at nothing, preoccupied with the confusing images in her mind: Shep and Pietro strolling arm-in-arm; Shep teasing her as she hid under a plant; Annabelle bleating about homosexuals; Shep lifting Miranda off the ground for a kiss.
Shep carrying a pink-flowered purse.
Shep landing a second kiss.
Shep’s mother referring to his “disability,” but not to his sexual orientation.
A third kiss.
A muscular, shirtless man jogging away from her front gate.
Miranda shook her head to sling her thoughts in a new direction. Why was she fixated on this man who was obviously unavailable, unsuitable, unfathomable, and, well, late. Where was he? He should be turning the corner by now. She stood and began walking to the front gate for a better view of the road.
“Thar she blows!” shouted Martha, looking through her binoculars. The Magnolia Street ladies leaned forward and focused on the object of their mutual obsession. Shep and Dave jogged toward them.
A change had occurred in the jogging procedure since the Day of the Snake, as it was called in Magnolia Street annals. Since that day, Shep and Dave ran along the right-hand road shoulder, no longer the left. It was a trade-off: chance another left-side rattler or give up the safety of facing oncoming traffic. Yet a third consideration clinched the left-right decision: Miranda’s front gate was on the right-hand side of the road.
In fact, Miranda’s house was the first house on Magnolia Street, for Shep and Dave. The other Magnolia Street ladies had come to expect that the muscle man and wonder dog would pause to exchange greetings with Miranda before resuming their run with shouts of greeting for each subsequent front porch they would pass.
The Magnolia Street ladies might have been surprised, amazed, delighted, or jealous if they had known how different Miranda’s daily salutation was from their own.
“Good morning, Miz Martha! Good morning, Miz Bernice! Good morning, Miz Wyneen! Good morning, Miz Charlotte!” Shep always boomed, and waved toward each lady in turn.
Those venerable ladies did not hear the soft words Shep spoke to Miranda every morning, because Miranda left her porch and waited for the duo at her front gate.
The first time he said it, the morning after the Day of the Snake, Miranda was stunned to silence. Every day thereafter he said it.
“Good morning, Bean. Will you marry me?”
And every day, Miranda would answer, “Good morning, Mr. Krausse. No, but thank you for asking.” Then she would add, “Good morning, Dave.”
Dave would “whuff” and lick her fingers where they rested atop her low iron gate.
….
One morning, Miranda put aside her confusion, anxiety, misgivings, and daydreams, and waited faithfully at the gate while dawn eased upward from the unseen horizon to the moss-hung treetops.
Shep and Dave stopped at her gate.
She had come to realize Dave stopped them there. Shep might have guessed approximately where she stood, but he navigated by sound and scent. Dave could see exactly where she was. Dave’s cues were so subtle, and Shepard’s response so automatic, it was no wonder she at first had not discerned that Shep was blind.
Shep’s fingers ran lightly across the curled iron of the gate, found Miranda’s hand resting there, and took it in his own. He smiled. She could see in his reflective sunglasses that she was smiling, too.
“Good morning, Bean,” he said.
“Good morning, Mr. Krausse.”
“‘Mister Krausse’ was my late father. Could you not call me Shepard, or even Shep?”
“I could call you Shepard, if that is your wish,” she answered, with Librarian Formality.
“It is my dearest wish,” he replied. “And by the way, will you marry me?”
“No ... Shepard ... but thank you very much for asking. May I ask you something?”
“Bean, you can ask me anything your beautiful heart desires.”
She spun the question a dozen ways in her mind, trying to make it less awkward than it was doomed to be. To his credit, he waited with serene patience, stroking her hand with his thumb all the while.
Miranda took the plunge, spewing the words in a rush: “Are you Do you—Annabelle-said-you’re-gay.”
She waited.
He waited.
Dave looked from one to the other. Dave waited.
Shep finally asked, “Is that a question?”
Miranda sighed. “Uh-huh.”
He thought. Then he asked, “What exactly is the question?”
“Should I believe Annabelle?”
“Almost never, I think.”
“About you. Or, about you and your … friend who comes with you to the library. Should I believe Annabelle about ... that?”
“Ah, Pietro,” he said. “As to ‘that,’ it only matters that Annabelle believes it and that she, therefore, has given up the chase where Pietro and I are concerned.”
“I knew it!” Miranda exulted. “But, you know she tells everyone. She could ruin your reputation.”
“My brave little Castor Bean,” he crooned, “with you as my defending champion, I fear neither the Annabelle dragon nor lurking serpents nor any other evil foe.”
“Whuff!” said Dave.
“We gotta go,” Shep said as if taking a cue from the dog—which, of course, he was. “Sure you won’t marry me?”
“Not today. Thanks.”
“Be seeing ya, then,” he said.
Before they resumed their run, Dave licked Miranda’s fingers as always. And then Shepard pressed a warm, three-second kiss on her lips. It was the first time he had kissed her since Snake Day. He kissed even better than she remembered.
Minutes later, when Miranda had returned to her kitchen to refill her coffee cup, she realized that she had never told him of his mother’s visit.
It was Saturday, and Miranda had planned to use her free day to clean out at least one of Aunt Phyllis’ closets. She replayed that morning’s surprise kiss in her mind while washing the breakfast dishes. Then she dug out the trash bags, tied a scarf over her hair (spider precaution), and pulled out the first cardboard file box inside the hall closet door.
The box was labeled “Audubon Society.” Documents crammed into the box testified that Phyllis Ogilvy had been active in the birding group for many, many years.
Miranda sifted quickly through the papers so as not to discard any documents that should be retained for legal reasons. Her neighbor, Martha Cleary, was an Audubon member. Miranda could give Martha any papers that should be preserved by the organization in its own files.
For half the morning, papers migrated from the box to one of three piles: “trash,” “keep,” and “give to Martha.” Really, there were only two piles. Nothing ended up in the “keep” spot. Annual bird counts and monthly newsletter archives went to Martha. Phyllis’ notes to herself went to trash. Likewise the dozens of newspaper clippings covering three decades.
Miranda was stuffing the discardables into garbage bags when a handful of papers escaped and scattered across the floor. As she crawled over the papers, a familiar name leapt out at her. She picked up the document. Thin, translucent onionskin paper. Black letters in old-fashioned pica type. A manual typewriter. A date only a few weeks ago. A personal letter from Aunt Phyllis. To “Hermione Montgomery Krausse.”
“She must’ve been ticked,” murmured Miranda to herself. “Phyllis left out the hyphen.”
Miranda began reading the letter. Within five seconds the Audubon Society files were forgotten. Miranda slipped into her by-the-door flip-flops, took the letter, and went out the back door. For the first time since moving in, Miranda was going to breach the dividing hedge and knock on the Krausse kitchen door.
Shepard turned off
the shower and stepped out onto the plush bathroom rug. Dave stayed in the shower stall and enthusiastically shook himself dry. Shepard flicked a fluffy thick bath sheet from a wall hook. Pounding sounded in the distance. Dave stood and whined. Shepard waited, towel poised.
More pounding. The sound of the door opening. A soprano calling, “Shepard? Dave?”
“Whoopf!” said Dave and bounded happily toward the voice.
Miranda was standing in the half-open kitchen door when she was suddenly surrounded by excited, wet, gigantic dog.
“Hey, Dave,” she said, and giggled as she tried to pet the rapidly circling canine.
“Bean?” said Shepard from the hallway.
Miranda looked up just as he stepped into the kitchen wearing only a towel. “Oh, my stars and garters!” Miranda cried. She spun 180 degrees and covered her eyes with one hand. “Oh, gee whiz gosh golly holy moley!”
“Hey, lady, watch your language! Dave’s only seven!”
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t—I just barged in—the door was unlocked and I never thought—I’m so sorry!” She was trying to be polite, but in truth she did not regret seeing the blond giant au naturel, or nearly so. That sublime golden image was permanently burned into her retinas. Without his sunglasses, his eyes were the ancient blue of glacier ice – which paradoxically warmed her down to her toes.
“Is there an emergency? What’s happening?” asked Shepard.
“Whuff?” asked Dave.
“No. No, no emergency. I wanted to show you something,” she said, still facing away from him.
He laughed. “Okay, but in the interest of not showing you something, I’m gonna go put some clothes on. You just have a seat, make yourself at home, visit with Dave. Won’t be a minute. Okay?”
Miranda nodded. Then, when Shep didn’t respond, she remembered. “Okay,” she said. She heard him move off down the hallway. The bedroom door snicked closed.
She shut the half-open kitchen door and turned to face the room. Dave sat directly in front of her, watching her and – yeah, he was definitely—smiling.
“Oh, get your mind out of the gutter,” she said.
“Whuff,” said Dave.
….
Ten minutes later Miranda and Shepard were sitting at the kitchen table. Shepard wore close-fitting old jeans and a tee shirt that accentuated his broad shoulders, six-pack abs, and melon-size biceps. He was still toweling his hair.
When Miranda could force herself beyond simply appreciating the view from across the table, she explained that she had found something strange among Phyllis’ personal papers. “But before I tell you what I found, I need to tell you something else.”
“Fire away,” Shepard said, draping the towel about his neck. He began combing the tangles from his hair. Miranda was mesmerized by the white-gold mane that ended between his shoulder blades. Her eyes followed the comb as it stroked again and again through the silky strands. “Bean?”
“Oh! Sorry. Distracted.” She gave her head a clearing shake. “Your mother came to see me a few days ago.”
He froze. “My m—? Are you sure it was my mother?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Tall lady? Nose in the air? Queen-of-England gloves? Chauffeur?”
“Exactly.”
He put down his comb and gathered the hair into a ponytail, which he secured with an elastic band he’d worn on his wrist. “Well, dog my cats,” he murmured. “Were you scared?”
“What?” She was genuinely surprised.
“Hermione can be pretty scary,” Shep commented.
“Whuff,” agreed Dave.
Miranda smiled at their concern. “I was impressed, that’s for sure! But I wasn’t afraid. It was nice to get to know her.”
“Nice?”
“Okay, maybe not really ‘nice,’ but it was ... interesting,” Miranda said. “See, at the time, I was thinking you and Pietro were a, uh, couple, y’know?”
“Annabelle’s gay theory.”
“Right. So, I was confused when your mother sort of told me not to, uh, set my cap for you.”
Shep grinned. “Your cap?”
“She was telling me not to plan on marrying you. That I’m not, uh, the right type I guess?”
“And you were wondering why my own mother apparently didn’t know I was gay.” Shep was smiling.
“I thought maybe you were, uh, in the closet where your parents are concerned.”
“But now you know better,” he said.
“Yes. Now I know,” she agreed.
“And what did you say?”
“What did I say? About what?”
“About marrying me. What did you say?” Shepard asked.
“Oh. That.” Miranda hesitated. “I think I said something like ‘I’ve not yet encountered the man I plan to marry,’ or words to that effect.”
Shepard shook his head in mock distress. “Beeeeean! Bean-Bean-Bean-Bean-Beeeean! What have you done?”
“Pardon?”
He parodied disappointment in the extreme. “You lied to my sainted mother!”
“I did nothing of the kind!” Miranda was insulted. “How dare you impugn my integrity!?”
In his most soothing tones, he explained: “You most certainly have encountered your future marital partner, Castor Bean. He is me.”
“Stop your teasing!” She punched his huge arm and laughed. “He is not you, or you are not he. Whatever. In fact, Dave and I may elope the moment your back is turned.”
“Whuff!” agreed Dave.
“Et tu, Dave?” Shepard intoned.
“Can I tell you what I came for now?” asked Miranda. She shook the onionskin document brought from Phyllis’ Audubon carton. Shepard reacted to the crackle of the paper.
“What is it?”
“It’s a letter Aunt Phyllis wrote ... to your mother!”
“And that’s strange because...?
“Your mother acted like she had never been in that house before. Like she never knew my aunt.”
Shepard thought. His index finger tapped the tabletop four times before he answered, “I doubt my mother has ever been inside Phyllis’ house, come to think of it. They were not what I would describe as ‘close.’ But they definitely knew each other. Since they were kids, I expect.
“After all, Phyllis was the girl-next-door to my father during his entire childhood. Hermione went to an expensive private school—the Montgomerys always did—but Phyllis and my dad went to public school together all the way through high school.”
Miranda took a moment to assimilate the information. “Then, it’s more strange than I thought!”
“Why? They were acquainted their whole lives. Nothing strange about a friend writing a letter to another friend,” Shepard said.
“But the letter reads like they hadn’t been speaking to each other for a very long time, Shep. Phyllis even apologizes for breaking their silence. Like she wasn’t supposed to contact your parents ... ever. And vice versa. Is that how it was between them?” Miranda asked.
Shep was quiet. Remembering. He nodded and said, “It could’ve been that way. My dad brought me to see my grandparents often, and I always spent time with Phyllis. But my mother almost never came to Minokee. And after they were married, neither of my parents ever went over to Phyllis’ house.
“I was a child. I was happy visiting my friend Phyllis. I guess I wasn’t conscious of bad blood between Phyllis and my parents. My grandparents loved her.”
The kitchen clock clicked off ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty seconds while Miranda and Shepard sorted through their separate thoughts. Finally, Shep rose from the table. “How about a glass of sweet tea? Then you can read me that letter.”
Minutes later, over iced sweet tea, Miranda read to Shep and Dave the carbon copy of Phyllis Ogilvy’s recent letter to Hermione Montgomery-without-the-darn-hyphen-Krausse. It was dated six weeks earlier — or two weeks before Phyllis Ogilvy died.
“Dear Hermie,” it began.
“
If you have opened this envelope rather than tossing it out, I am already obliged to you. Please forgive me for violating our pledge of silence. I assure you I do not break my vow without good cause. Not for my sake, but for the sake of those whom both you and I have loved, please continue reading until the end.
“Although I will mark the envelope ‘personal and confidential,’ the reality is that your personal assistant or corresponding secretary may, in fact, open and read such letters for you as a matter of course. For that reason, I will identify all parties by childhood names only you and I will remember. The need for such secrecy will shortly become obvious.
“Quite by accident, while conducting an Audubon Society field survey of Wood Stork nesting sites, I photographed two rats. Or perhaps weasels. I had hiked deep into the Little Cypress National Forest that surrounds Minokee. There at the end of an old logging road were two parked cars. Iggy was the driver of one. The other man you would readily recognize from numerous newspaper photos published of late.
“The man has been widely suspected of criminal activity. The key word to describe it would be the same as your least favorite part of a game of bridge.
“Iggy has stated publicly and often that he does not know this man and has never had business dealings with him. I regret to say that I have several very clear photographs showing an exchange of envelopes between the two men. If their relationship were to become known, both men could end up in prison.
“The one person in the whole world to whom Iggy might listen, Hermie, is you. Can you not persuade Iggy to step forward, denounce the scandalous actions of this man, make restitution to those whose businesses have been harmed by those actions, and publicly apologize? How much better for Iggy to be the heroic figure who stands for justice and truth — rather than to deny his crimes until confronted with damning and incontrovertible evidence!
“I know that Iggy could lose his present job, and he almost certainly would not receive the big promotion everyone expects for him in the near future. But he could receive a shorter prison term, gain public sympathy, and take pride in having done the right thing. He will never be able to hold his head up again if these pictures are made public.
“You may say Iggy is an adult and should reap what he has sown. And this is true. But stop a moment and consider someone else whose future could be ruined. Think about Speedy. True, he has not yet begun to pursue the future I know you wish for him. But that future awaits him. It needs only for him to decide the time is right, and he will begin a meteoric rise to levels of power and success about which one can only dream.
“I wish I did not have this horrible responsibility. But the evidence fell to me, and I am committed to doing the right thing. I will wait until the first of the month — that is three weeks from now. If by that time Iggy has not come forward on his own, I will deliver the evidence to the State Attorney. I would not stand by and see Speedy’s life destroyed, nor, I think, can you.
“I do not wish to sully anyone’s good name. I do not wish to see Iggy arrested and tried like a common gangster. You are my last, best hope of resolving the situation as positively as possible.
“Thank you for perusing what has been hard to write and must be incredibly difficult to read. I will say nothing of this to anyone else. I resume our pledge of silence. You will never hear from me again.
“Sincerely,
“Phil.”
Miranda folded the letter and waited for Shepard’s reaction.
“Wow,” he breathed.
“Yeah, wow,” said Miranda. “She said she would go public in three weeks. But two weeks later, she died.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know what she was talking about? Who these people are?”
“I don’t know anybody called ‘Iggy,’ but I do know Speedy,” Shepard said. “Phyllis used to compare me to the cartoon boy in an old television commercial—big eyes, big smile, lots of yellow hair. She called me ‘Speedy Alka-Seltzer’ for years.”
Miranda was silent, turning the letter over and over in her hands. Shepard absently stroked Dave’s head and neck.
“Do you think Iggy is a gangster?” Miranda asked, barely audibly.
“Dunno,” Shep said.
“Shepard...” Miranda couldn’t force the question from her throat.
“You wanna know if I think Hermione told Iggy about Phyllis and the pictures.”
“Not just that,” Miranda said. “If this Iggy guy really is a gangster, ... well, ... do you think he had Aunt Phyllis killed?”
“I don’t know. But the timing would be about right, wouldn’t it.”
“But she had a heart attack, right?” Miranda whispered.
“Do you want to have the body exhumed for an autopsy? Maybe it wasn’t a heart attack. Lots of things can be made to look like a heart attack – especially if the authorities have been…influenced…to see it that way.”
Miranda shook her head. She was thinking he had not put on his sunglasses after his shower.
“Miranda?” said Shepard softly, finding her hand on the table and covering it with his own.
“What?”
“Autopsy?”
“Oh!” Miranda shook off her wayward thoughts. “No, sorry. Aunt Phyllis was cremated. That’s why we had a ‘memorial service’ rather than a ‘funeral.’” She used her fingers to form quotation marks in the air, then made a wry face and flapped her hands before dropping them to her lap. Trite gestures – any gestures – were wasted on those blue eyes.
Shepard stood purposefully. Dave jumped to his feet and moved immediately to his master’s side, ready to go.
“What are you going to do?” asked Miranda.
“First,” he said, “I’m going to call my mother.”
Miranda excused herself to return to her closet-cleaning chore — and to give Shepard privacy in which to talk to his mother. As she let herself out the Krausse kitchen door, Shep was punching Hermione’s number into the phone.