Stumps of Mystery: Stories from the End of an Era

Mack’s diner was packed, steeped in the aroma of an all-American breakfast: fried grease and hot coffee. All the regulars were there because they were always there; everyone else gravitated there because there was nowhere else to go to process Herman’s death. They passed the newspaper’s front page around. The news was unthinkable on so many levels. A local murdered in cold blood. Violence in their own back yard. Herman Hoffmeister gone forever.

  “They spelled my name wrong,” Trudy Lester complained as she delivered a plate of biscuits and gravy to Bill Pratt. “Damn paper.” It seemed like everyone was exceptionally hungry that morning, like they were trying to stuff their gaping hole of grief with food. Trudy thought it inconsiderate to the diner’s crew. They were more shocked and saddened than anyone, yet they all had to work twice as hard as usual. But really, what else were they going to do? Sit around and cry? A small clog of people waited at the door for a table. The mood seemed somber, yet people were talking.

  Pratt, a local insurance salesman and Woodhill City Council member, sat at the counter between Tom Ricci and Ellen Greenstein. He was especially annoyed that morning because his wife Dottie never cooked him breakfast since she’d started working. And she couldn’t get their lazy son out of bed that day—Jared claimed he was sick. And the dinner he’d attended the other night to influence the new economic development director had gone badly—they hadn’t hit it off at all. “Sad business,” he mumbled before digging into his breakfast, talking as much about himself as the murder.

  “How well did you know him?” Tom asked, stirring his granola around in his thick white bowl.

  “Herman?” He paused to drink some coffee. “I knew him all my life. We went to school together. Went to the same church too.”

  “He went to church?” Ellen stabbed at a plate of melon.

  Bill turned to look at her. “When we were kids. Hadn’t seen him there lately, of course.”

  “Why do you say ‘of course?’” asked Ellen.

  Bill didn’t answer. He continued eating his breakfast.

  “Maybe he meant that gay people don’t go to church,” offered Tom, who was not a big fan of Bill Pratt.

  “Or he meant his church doesn’t allow gay people.”

  They leaned forward and gave each other knowing looks. Bill tried to ignore them.

  “They’re saying it’s a hate crime,” Ellen continued.

  “Matthew Shepard all over again,” Tom replied.

  “I heard he was tortured too,” she said.

  “How long did you know him?” Bill asked, glaring at each. They leaned back on their stools and went back to their meals. God damned interlopers, he thought.

  Across the room, Mike Burke sat in a booth with his wife Kathy, their middle daughter Aimee, and Aimee’s baby Misty sleeping in a carseat next to her. Between bites of her Meatlover’s breakfast—fried eggs, bacon, sausage, Canadian bacon and ham—Kathy wept silently, off and on, her eyes and nose leaking like her bathroom faucet. Like many Woodhillians, she had known Herman forever. In high school, he certainly wasn’t part of her crowd. She’d liked him though because he was so funny. She remembered one time Herman convinced a substitute teacher that he was a foreign exchange student from Iceland, then started speaking fake-Icelandic. She would never forget that.

  The only person who couldn’t stand Herman back then was Bill Pratt, the asshole she went out with briefly before Mike. She watched him eating at the counter, his butt cheeks lapping off the stool, and wondered if he felt guilty for being so cruel to Herman. Oh yuck. How could she have ever gone out with him? Even though she had been only fifteen, what was she thinking? She shuddered and shook her head.

  “What?” he husband asked.

  “Pratt.” She pointed with her soggy tissue.

  “Grossing yourself out again?” Mike said. “He probably killed him. I heard Herman was going to run against him in the next City Council election.”

  “Herman would have would have beat him by a mile,” Kathy said, dabbing her eyes and stuffing bacon into her mouth.

  Aimee rolled her eyes. Her parents were so stupid. Herman had probably been in one of those internet scams where he was supposed to meet some hot young dude but instead got robbed and killed by a tweaker. She knew her meth-freak sister Lacey hung out up there. Thinking about Lacey made her sadder than did the old homo being dead. She missed Lacey, even though they used to fight so much. Aimee liked to wear Lacey’s clothes without asking, but now that she was gone, Aimee could use her left-behind things whenever she wanted. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying. It was so messed up that her parents never even talked about Lacey anymore; it was almost like she had never existed.

  Her baby gurgled next to her and she cursed Darryl. He had finally gotten out of the hospital after months of skin grafts following his Jackass wannabe stunt, and his lawsuit against MTV had been dismissed. He was currently broke, unemployed, drowning in hospital bills and seriously scarred. Plus he took no interest in Misty.

  Aimee was taking a GED class at Chemeketa. After breakfast, her mom would go to work at the Thriftway and her dad would drive her over there, then watch Misty for three hours. She hated the class but it was nice getting a break from the baby. And once she got her GED she could get a job somewhere better than BK or MickyD’s. Her sister Lacey had worked downtown at a beauty parlor before she got hooked on meth. Aimee hoped she would get a good job too, and she swore she wouldn’t screw it up like her older sister had.

  Lila knew she’d get through it—she did the last time. You wake up in the morning feeling normal for a few seconds. Then you remember. Then you think you won’t get through the day. But you do. And the next day and the next until 35 years has gone by. The biggest challenge would be all the people coming up to her, reaching their hands out to pat her arm, saying “I’m so sorry” and “such a shame” and “if there’s anything I can do.” What a load of crap. Nobody wanted to do anything for her. Last time, with Bobby, she could hide in the diner’s kitchen behind the line and do her work. This time, she couldn’t hide. The newspeople had camped out in front since the sheriff had announced the terrible news. All she could do was not answer the phone or the door.

  But when Matthew came calling, damned if old Bert didn’t shuffle all the way across the kitchen and living room to open the door. They both sort of fell into each other’s arms, Bert wailing like a stuck elephant and Matthew’s face all screwed up and tight. She retreated back into the kitchen and was considering hightailing it out the back to the shed when they appeared in the doorway. Matthew, normally perfectly groomed, had grayish-pink smudges beneath his wide-spaced eyes and his chin was covered with black stubble. His wrinkled flannel shirt was untucked over a pair of sweatpants. “Hello Lila,” he said gravely.

  “Matthew.” She nodded at him, then fidgeted with the coffeemaker. “Did they find out who did it?”

  Matthew shook his head. Lila knew the police had questioned him for quite some time but it didn’t look like he was going to mention it. Matthew didn’t want to talk about it because he was still furious. His partner of the last 13 years was brutally murdered two weeks before their wedding and the cops acted like a bunch of pricks. Insinuating that he did it. It was the worst day of his life, compounded by the humiliation of having to defend himself. And then he had to come over here to settle the arrangements with scary Lila, who on a good day despised him. Fuck, Herman, how could you?

  He helped Bert over to a chair, then sat next to him at the table. They both looked at Lila expectantly.

  She stood, caught in their glare like a deer out on the road. What in God’s name was she supposed to say? “What?” she asked.

  Bert slurred at her. “Service?” she asked. “We’ll have it at the church, just like with Bobby. I already called the Rossi Brothers.”

  Matthew shook his head. “No,” he said dully, “Herman would not have wanted
that. He wanted to be cremated. He wouldn’t have wanted a funeral, he would want a huge raging party with people drinking and dancing and wearing crazy clothes and laughing—“ his voice broke and he covered his eyes with his hand. Lila noticed, as always, how elegant it was, even trembling.

  She poured Matthew a cup of coffee and set it on the table. Then she sat across from him. She knew he was right but just couldn’t make herself agree. This was her decision, not his. It was Matthew’s fault Herman was dead. He was the one who made Herman gay. And if they hadn’t been so out there, flaunting their proclivities all over town, her son would still be alive. She pursed her lips and looked out the window. Did Matthew shoot her boy for some gay reason? Maybe they had disagreed on the wedding colors or what wine to serve.

  The melting snow was falling off the trees in icy clumps, hitting the roof with big thumps. Each time, Bert jumped. His startle reflex had been kicked into high gear by the stroke. As had his crying one. Since Roger had come with the news the day before, Bert felt like he had cried the proverbial river. When Bobby died, it was a shock but it wasn’t a surprise. He had been in Vietnam for Christ’s sake. But Herman. Not Herman. No. Bert still hoped the phone would ring with someone saying there had been a terrible mistake—but Lila refused to answer it. And there were minutes at a time when he forgot all together that Herman was dead. Then he’d remember and the pain would be fresh yet again.

  He kept wondering what it had been like for Herman at the end. Was he frightened or did he go without realizing what had happened? Was he alone? Was he afraid? Did he think of Bert?

  He sobbed, saliva running out of his slack mouth. He had eight years of unsaid things crashing against the inside of his brain. He hated his stroke, hated all the things he never got a chance to tell Herman because it was so damn hard to talk. Hated that Herman was gone forever. He howled. Matthew put his arm around him and held him close.

  Lila watched the two men across from her. Poor old Bert. Herman was everything to him—the gregarious fool Bert couldn’t be anymore. She suddenly knew, with a certainty that she had rarely experienced in her oddly unpredictable life, that this was going to kill Bert once and for all. And the diner would go out of business because there were no more Hoffmeisters left to run it. And then she’d truly be alone. Herman and Bert were the only people who loved her. Of course Matthew didn’t kill Herman. He’d never been anything but gentle. And she knew, though she was reluctant to acknowledge it, that Herman and Matthew adored each other. She hoped they’d find the guy who shot her son and find him quick.

  Matthew looked up at her and reached out his hand on the table. She gazed at his long slim fingers. Thought of them knitting the matching wool stocking caps with earflaps he had given her and Bert for Christmas. It was a thoughtful gift. He was a thoughtful man. It had always bothered Herman and Bert that she treated Matthew so frostily. She looked at her own hand, gnarled and spotted, covered with tiny silver and pink scars from grill burns and chopping cuts. All her life, she had cooked for other people, feeling so holier-than-thou like she was feeding the masses. But she felt a slap of shame when she realized she was acting as unchristian as Bill Pratt. She thought of just last Sunday at church when Pratt had turned around and said “peace be with you.” She had ignored his outstretched meathook and pretended she hadn’t heard him.

  Matthew’s hand trembled slightly and Herman’s mocking voice rang in her head: “Sheesh, Ma, have a heart.” No wonder Herman was dead. No wonder Bobby was dead. No wonder Bert had a stroke. No wonder she didn’t have a friend. God was punishing her.

  She looked at Matthew and poor old Bert, both of them barely hanging on, then reached out her hand and laid it on Matthew’s. “Why don’t we have a small family service at the church,” she said, “then a public memorial Herman style?”

  Matthew smiled sadly—it was like the sun coming out after 27 days of rain. Bert hooted his approval and burst into fresh tears. “I’ll take care of the first one,” she continued, raising her voice above Bert’s yowling, “you take care of the other.”

  Matthew nodded.

  “But he’s going to be buried up at the Pioneer Cemetery with all the other Hoffmeisters through the ages.” She frowned at him, daring him.

  “Agreed,” he said, “thank you, Lila. I know that wasn’t easy for you.”

  “Nothing about this is easy,” she replied.