21
On Friday morning, a clerk at the medical examiner’s office was set to release the body of Gus Schmidt to Charley Walters, the funeral director whom Lottie had chosen to handle the arrangements. “If it’s any comfort for the widow,” the clerk said, “death was instantaneous when the staircase collapsed. He never felt the burns on his hands when he was dragged outside.”
Gus’s body was to be taken to the funeral parlor for one day of visitation that afternoon, and then cremated the next day.
The clerk, a slightly built thirty-something lab technician, was new on the job and loving the excitement that frequently accompanied it. He had voraciously devoured the story of the explosion that had destroyed the Connelly complex and pondered the reason why Gus Schmidt and Kate Connelly had been there in the predawn hour just as the fire started. Knowing he had no business asking the question, his curiosity still got the better of him. “Did you hear why Schmidt and the daughter were there?”
Recognizing a fellow gossip, Walters replied, “Nobody’s said anything. But everyone knows Gus Schmidt never got over being fired.”
“A couple of fire marshals were here yesterday to pick up his clothes. When they have a suspicious fire, the first thing they do is gather the clothes of any victims for evidence.”
“Whenever we have a funeral with a fire involved, there’s always an investigation,” Walters said. “Some of them are caused by acts of God, like lightning. Some of them are accidents, like kids playing with matches. We had one where a three-year-old did that. He ran outside but his grandmother ended up dying of smoke inhalation looking for him. Or you get someone who can’t sell a house or a business property and the insurance looks good to them. Rumor is that Connelly’s business was on the way downhill.”
Walters realized that he was talking out of turn and that it would be prudent to sign the necessary papers to obtain the release of the body of Gus Schmidt and be on his way.
22
After a sleepless night, Lottie Schmidt dozed briefly in the early hours on Friday morning. The last time she looked at the clock it had been 4:05, just the time that Gus had left only yesterday. Gus had never been a demonstrative man. He had bent over and kissed her good-bye. Did he have a premonition that he would never come back home? she wondered.
That was the last thought she had before she mercifully drifted off. Later she was awakened by the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. For one hopeful moment she thought it was Gus there, but then she realized that of course it was Gretchen, who had arrived from Minneapolis late the afternoon before.
Lottie sighed and with a weary gesture sat up in bed. She fumbled for her ten-year-old robe and then stuffed her feet into her slippers. The robe had been a Christmas present from Gus. He’d bought it at Victoria’s Secret. Lottie remembered thinking that when she saw the package she hoped that Gus hadn’t wasted his money on silly skimpy nightgowns that she’d never wear. Instead she had found inside the wrapping a pretty blue-patterned robe with a satin exterior and cozy warm lining. And it was washable.
They didn’t make those robes anymore, but as soon as the weather turned cold she trotted this one out and loved to slip into it first thing in the morning. Both she and Gus were early risers, never later than seven thirty. Gus usually was up ahead of her and had the coffee ready when she came down.
He’d have the papers collected, too, and they’d eat in contented silence. Lottie always got to read the Post first. Gus liked the News. They both had orange juice and cereal with a banana because the doctor had said it was the best way to start the day.
But there wouldn’t be any coffee waiting for her today. And she’d have to go out to the end of the driveway to pick up the newspapers. The guy who delivered them wouldn’t come down and leave them at the side door, because he didn’t like to back out onto the street.
The shower was still running when Lottie passed the bathroom. Gus would have had a fit that Gretchen’s using up so much hot water, she thought. He always hated waste.
As she walked down the stairs, she tried to push back her worry that Gretchen would be tempted to show neighbors and friends pictures of her expensive house in Minnesota during the viewing for Gus. People who know us would wonder how Gretchen could afford such a lavish place. Divorced and childless, after working for the telephone company for years, Gretchen had become a masseuse. And a good one, Lottie thought loyally. Even if she didn’t make a lot of money, she had a nice circle of friends out there. She’s active in the Presbyterian Church. But she doesn’t think. She’s a talker. All she needed to say was . . .
Lottie did not finish the thought. Instead she went into the kitchen, started the coffeepot, and opened the door.
At least it wasn’t raining. She walked down to the edge of the driveway and, bending slowly to keep her balance, picked up the three newspapers, the Post, the News, and the Long Island Daily, and carried them back to the house.
Inside she took off the protective wrappings and then unrolled them. All three had pictures on the front page of the Connelly fire. With trembling fingers she opened the Post to page three. There was a picture of Gus under the headline FIRE VICTIM A DISGRUNTLED EX-EMPLOYEE OF CONNELLY FINE ANTIQUE REPRODUCTIONS.
23
“It’s not for nothing you have red hair” was the oft-repeated comment of Jessica’s father, Steve, in her growing years. At twenty-one Steve Carlson had graduated from the police academy in New York and spent the next thirty years rising through the ranks until he retired as a captain. He had married his high school sweetheart, Annie, and when it became obvious that the large family they had planned was not to happen, he made his only offspring, Jessica, his companion at sports events.
As close as he and Annie were, his wife vastly preferred reading a book to sitting out in the hot or cold and watching any kind of game.
At age two Jessica had been on Steve’s shoulders at Yankee Stadium in the summer and Giants Stadium in the fall. She had been a star soccer goalie in school and was a fiercely competitive tennis player.
Her decision to go into law had thrilled her parents, although when she chose to become a criminal defense attorney, her father was less than pleased. “Ninety percent of the ones who are indicted are guilty as sin,” was his comment. Her answer: “What about the other ten percent and what about extenuating circumstances?”
Jessie had worked for two years as a public defender in criminal court in Manhattan, then accepted a job offer from a growing firm specializing in criminal defense practice.
On Friday morning Jessie went into the office of her boss, Margaret Kane, a former federal prosecutor, and told her that she had taken on the job of defending Kate Connelly against a potential criminal charge of arson. “It may not stop there,” she told Kane. “The way I see it, they may try to say Kate was an accessory to Gus Schmidt’s death.”
Margaret Kane listened to the details of the case. “Go ahead,” she said. “Send the family the usual contract and retainer fee.” Then she added dryly, “The presumption of innocence sounds like a stretch in this case, Jess. But see what you can do for your friend.”
24
Clyde Hotchkiss had been living on the streets of various cities since the mid-1970s. A decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, he had come home to Staten Island with a hero’s welcome but was haunted by his wartime experience. There were memories he could talk about to the VA hospital psychiatrist, and the one he could never discuss, even though it was vivid in his mind—the night in Vietnam when he and Joey Kelly, the youngest kid in their platoon, huddled together, caught in a barrage of enemy artillery fire.
Joey had always talked about his mother, how close they were, how his father had died when he was a baby. Clyde and Joey were shoulder to shoulder trying to crawl toward a clump of trees that offered some shelter when Joey was hit.
Clyde had put his arms around him as Joey, holding together his own guts, whispered, “Tell Mama how much I love her,” and started to cry, “Mama . .
. Mama . . . Mama.” Then, his blood soaking through Clyde’s uniform, Joey had died in Clyde’s arms.
Clyde had married his high school sweetheart, Peggy, “the beauteous Margaret Monica Farley,” as the local Staten Island paper reported. They had a good laugh over that one. Sometimes when Clyde called to tell her he’d be late from work, he would say, “Am I having the privilege of speaking to the beauteous Margaret Monica Farley?”
Always instinctively good at any construction task, he had gotten a job with a local builder and quickly became his right-hand man.
Three years later Clyde Jr. was born, and they promptly nicknamed him Skippy.
Clyde loved his wife and son with a deep, abiding love, but the baby’s crying brought back memories of Joey, especially the one he had tried his hardest to leave in the past.
He began to drink, a cocktail with Peggy after a hard day’s work, wine at dinner, wine after dinner. When Peggy expressed concern, he began to skillfully find places to hide the wine. When he became short-tempered, she begged him to go for help. “It’s the war hitting you again,” she told him. “Clyde, you need to go to the VA hospital and talk about it to the doctor.”
But it was when Skippy began teething and would wake them up in the middle of the night, screaming, “Mama . . . Mama . . . Mama,” that Clyde knew he could never belong to a normal life, that he needed to be alone.
One night when Peggy and the baby were away on a pre-Christmas visit to her mother and father in Delray Beach, Florida, where, happy to retire early, they had relocated, Clyde knew it was over. He had drunk a bottle of good red wine, then put on his flannel shirt, winter jeans, and his thick boots. He had stuffed his insulated gloves into the pocket of his warm denim jacket and written a note. “My beauteous Margaret Monica, my little guy, Skippy. I’m sorry. I love you so much but I can’t handle this life. All the money in our savings is for you and our Skippy. But please don’t spend it on looking for me.”
Clyde did not sign the note. But he took his always polished medals out of the breakfront in the dining room and laid them on the table. Then he remembered to take the framed picture of him and Peggy and Skippy and put it in the knapsack that already was filled with a couple of bottles of wine.
He made sure the front door was locked on their small ranch house on Staten Island and began his forty-year walk to nowhere . . .
Now sixty-eight years old, nearly bald under his skullcap, his gait unsteady from an old fall down subway stairs that had cracked his hip bone, his face unshaven unless he happened to find a used razor in a garbage can, Clyde lived his solitary life.
He spent his days panhandling on the streets, just enough to keep a steady supply of drink. First he went to Philly and managed to survive for several years there, even picking up a few regular handyman gigs for pocket money. But eventually he began to grow wary when the vagrants he holed up with at night started to become too friendly. So he set out for Baltimore and spent some years there, too. Finally one day he just got the urge to head back up to the city. By this time decades had slipped away.
When he finally came back to New York, he wandered around the five boroughs but had a few regular routines. He frequently had a meal at the St. Francis of Assisi breadline, and came to know other shelters where he could get food in any of the boroughs. The only one he avoided was Staten Island, even though his guess was that Peggy had long ago taken Skippy to Florida to be with her parents.
Clyde’s rod and his staff were those bottles of wine that dulled pain and warmed his aging body on the many cold nights that he spent outdoors escaping the unwanted caring of the volunteers who tried to save him from the blustery winds of winter. He had always been ingenious at squatting in church cemeteries or shuttered buildings no matter what city he called home, and now he sought shelter in abandoned subway stations or between cars in parking lots after the attendant had locked up for the night.
Over the years he had developed a hair-trigger temper. Once when he was in Philadelphia he had swung at a cop who tried to force him into a shelter and had almost spent the night in jail. He agreed to go to the shelter, but he didn’t want that to happen ever again. So many people. So much talk.
Clyde’s new life began in the Connelly complex a little more than two years ago. He had gotten on the subway with his shopping cart at about eleven o’clock one night, rode back and forth until he woke up, then got off the subway at the nearest station. It was in Long Island City. Clyde vaguely remembered that he had been in that area before and there were old warehouses, some vacant, some under construction. His sense of direction, one of the few acute senses he still possessed, kicked in, and he had dragged his cart until he happened upon the Connelly complex, the landscaped jewel in the midst of its grimy neighbors.
The few lights he saw led up the driveway to the buildings. Clyde had walked cautiously around the perimeter of the property, not wanting to be caught by any security cameras. He did not go near the buildings. Probably some sleepy watchman on duty, he figured. But then at the back of the property, past where he guessed cars were parked during the day, he came upon a large enclosure that reminded him of the carport he once had at home on Staten Island. Only a lot bigger. Lots and lots bigger, he whispered quietly to himself.
One by one he counted the vans there. Three big ones, the size you could move everything you owned in. Two maybe half that size. One by one he tested the handles. All of them were locked.
Then he saw it. The very last one. The night was overcast but there was enough for him to see that this one had been in a crash. The hood was crumpled, the side door jammed, the windshield shattered, the tires flat.
But it wouldn’t be too bad to sleep under it, and then get out in the morning before anybody showed up. Then Clyde had an inspiration. Try the big back doors. He was getting really cold and the cart was heavy. When he turned the latch that connected those doors they swung open. The sound they made was like a welcome to him.
He fished his pencil flashlight out from his grimy pocket, pointed its beam, then gave off a grunt of joy. The walls and floor of the back of the van were covered with heavy cotton padding. Clyde climbed in, lifted his cart, dragged it inside, then pulled the doors closed.
He sniffed and was glad when a stale smell filled his nostrils. It told him that no one had bothered to open those doors for a long time. Trembling with anticipation, Clyde fished out of his cart the newspapers that were his mattress and the odds and ends and rags that served as his blanket. He had not been so comfortable in years. Totally secure in the knowledge that he was alone, he sucked on his bottle of wine and fell asleep.
No matter how late it was when he found a place to squat, his internal clock always woke him at 6 A.M. He shoved his newspapers and rags into his cart, buttoned up his coat, and opened the back doors. In a few minutes he was blocks away, just another homeless man shuffling along on his endless trip to nowhere.
That night he was back in the van again and after that it became his nocturnal retreat.
Sometimes Clyde heard one of the vans pull out and figured it was on a delivery to a faraway place. Sometimes he could even hear the murmur of voices, but he quickly realized that they were no danger to him.
And always he left by six o’clock with all his belongings, leaving no trace of himself behind, except for the newspapers that had begun to pile up.
Only one bad thing had happened in the two years before the morning explosion that had sent him scurrying away barely in time to escape the police and the fire trucks. That was the night early on when that girl had followed him from the subway and wouldn’t leave him alone and got into the van before he had closed the door. She had been a college kid and told him she just wanted to talk to him. He had spread out his newspapers and covered himself with his blanket and closed his eyes. But she wouldn’t stop talking. And he couldn’t suck his wine bottle in peace. He remembered that he had sat up and punched her in the face.
But then what happened? He didn’t know. He’d had a l
ot of wine, so he fell asleep fast, and she was gone when he woke up. So she must have been all right. Or did she start yelling? Did I put her in the cart and push her away? No. I don’t think so. But anyway she was gone.
He didn’t come back to the van for days, but when he did it was all right. She mustn’t have told anyone about it, he decided.
But then the explosion happened and he had had to rush out of the van before the fire trucks came and try to get everything in his cart, but he worried he had missed some of his belongings.
I’ll miss my secret space, Clyde thought sadly. When I was there I felt so safe that I never dreamed about Joey.
He knew enough not to go near the burned-out complex the following day, because in a newspaper he fished out of the garbage can in Brooklyn he read that some old guy who had worked at the plant and the daughter of the owner were there when it happened and were suspected of setting the fire. Funny he never heard them that night. But now there’d be cops all over the place.
He probably could never go back to his van. Even when he realized on Friday that somehow, in his rush to get out, he had lost the picture of Peggy and Skippy and him. He just shrugged. He almost never looked at the picture anymore, so what was the difference? He could hardly remember his family. If only he could forget Joey, too.
25
Terrified to miss a call from Dr. Patel, Hannah had slept with her cell phone on at its highest volume. Her exhaustion was so great that she slept deeply. When she woke at seven on Friday morning she had called the hospital. The nurse in intensive care had told her that Kate had had a quiet night.