House of Ghosts (6 page)

Joe’s rapping on the indoor/outdoor carpet with the five-iron was no match for the sound blasting from a fifty inch projection television. “Old man!” Joe yelled.

John hit the joystick control with his left hand, spinning the chair around. A gauze strip, tied around his right hand to the wheelchair’s seatbelt, prevented the arm from dangling into the wheel. The right side of the ex-cop’s face was permanently in a frown. With vision in only his left eye, John took a moment to focus on the face in the doorway. “You look like shit,” he paused, lowering the volume with a remote Velcroed to the side of the wheelchair. “What the fuck have you done to yourself?” He stuck out his left hand.

Joe took his hand. “Too much time on my hands gives me the munchies. What’s the score?”

“They’re getting creamed. 27-3 Eagles. It’s the same tune year after year. They can’t throw the ball. Will I live to see the day that a pass is completed for more than ten yards?” As John spoke, saliva dribbled across his chin. Using a dishtowel tucked between his thighs, he wiped his mouth.

Joe put the six pack on the end table. “I haven’t been over…”

“Save it,” John interrupted. “You’ve got stuff, I’ve got stuff. Do me a favor and open a bottle of that heavenly creation.”

Joe twisted the tops off of two bottles, handing one to John. The room was hot from the still potent fall sun. Joe removed his windbreaker and sat on the wicker loveseat. “Preston Swedge,” Joe said.

“I read in the paper the old shithead croaked a couple of weeks ago.” John struggled to hold the beer bottle in his left hand racked with arthritis. He turned the wheelchair to face the television. “You got a cigarette? Brunhilda went out. She watches me like a hawk.”

“Helen’s not going to be happy.” Joe removed two Marlboros from his pack, lit both with his lighter, and handed one to John.

“I’ll blame the smell on you,” John laughed, taking a puff. “What about Swedge?”

Joe stretched out on the loveseat and propped his right leg on the armrest. “The obituary in the
Ledger
omitted the detail that the deceased had turned into a maggot farm. He was found sitting in his kitchen ten days after he met his maker.”

The Eagles recovered a Giant fumble, returning it for a touchdown. “Bastards!” John yelled. He took a long sip from the beer bottle. “People die and aren’t missed all the time. If I didn’t have Helen, the same could happen to me.” He took a puff on the cigarette, choked on the smoke and had trouble catching his breath. He put the cigarette in the glass of water.

Joe tapped his cigarette on the edge of the water glass. “I found this at Swedge’s estate sale.” He removed the 2x2 photo of Paul Rothstein from the breast pocket in his golf shirt.

“Can’t see a fucking thing without my glasses,” John said, grabbing a pair of readers on the end table. He took the photo, turning the wheelchair so the light from the windows came over his shoulder. “Handsome fella. Flyboy.”

“Turn it over,” Joe said.

“Paul Rothstein!” John gasped. “I thought his ranting and raving about a guy named Rothstein was nothing but him being a lunatic.”

Joe finished his Guinness and lit another cigarette. “I have Preston’s passport. Did you know what he did for a living?”

“Something with oil,” John said with a far away look. “It was in the obit.”

Joe grabbed the arm of the wheelchair and turned John to him. “He worked for the State Department.”

“People leave government jobs. They got to do something.” John turned the wheelchair back to the television. “

“Other papers I found lead me to believe he was on a secret mission during the war, and I think Paul Rothstein was involved.” Joe said, leaning on the five-iron.

John finished his bottle. “A long time ago, I told you if you wanted to be a detective, you had to think like a detective. Find out if Paul Rothstein is alive, and if he isn’t, find out when, how and the circumstances of his death. If you figure it out, come back and tell me why Swedge acted like an ass for forty years.”

ROSA ARRIVED EARLY, banging through the door at 10:00. She had been working upstairs for forty-five minutes before pushing a vacuum into the den. “I got to take Ricardo to the doctor,” she said, holding a plastic bucket containing a selection of cleaning products. “If I no finish everything, I’ll do it on Friday.”

Joe didn’t ask why—Ricardo had been a hypochondriac since Rosa was a nanny for Emily. “Not a problem,” he replied, not looking away from the computer screen.

“I found this on the side of the bed.” A gold bracelet dangled from her hand.

Joe turned to Rosa. The bracelet belonged to Alenia. “I’m sleeping upstairs again. You should be proud of me.” He took the bracelet and placed it into the change pocket of his Levis.

Rosa sniffed the air. “This room stinks.” She opened one of the windows. Removing a can of air freshener from the bucket, she attempted to mask the tobacco smell with a heavy dose of lilac scented spray. “You got school today?” she asked, dumping the coffee can ashtray into the bag.

Joe scratched the stubble on his chin, silently cursing himself for signing up for
Geopolitical Systems
. Maybe the booze, beer, and assorted prescriptions for his pain and depression had affected his brain. Maybe he couldn’t keep up with kids half his age. Maybe he just didn’t care. What difference would it make, if at the age of fifty-two he got his master’s degree in history? “Yeah.”

The half page on the LCD screen of Joe’s computer was testimony to his inability to concentrate and his ability to waste time.
Word
could check spelling, syntax, and grammar but couldn’t finish the research paper. The drop date for getting out of
Geopolitical Systems
without penalty was the next day. He had to make a decision and didn’t have the luxury of waiting till Friday to talk things over with Dr. Headcase. Quitting
anything
didn’t exist in the Henderson family’s psyche—until now.

Rosa picked three crushed beer cans from a wastepaper basket beside the desk, placing them into the bag. She reached for a can on the desk.

“Leave it,” Joe ordered. “It’s part of my breakfast.” He nibbled on a piece of buttered rye toast and took a swig from the bottom of the warm can of beer opened in the middle of night. “I ran out of coffee.”

Rosa attached a brush to the end of the vacuum’s hose. “These books are so dusty.”

“Do me a favor and clean another room. I’m trying to get this done,” Joe said, rocking back in his father’s chair. The research paper wasn’t the only source of his angst. On the corner of the desk, next to the photo taken at his police academy graduation, was a book written about the Holocaust. If his interpretation of the carbon paper dated May 1944 was correct, 300,000 Hungarian Jews were on their way to the gas chamber at Auschwitz the same year that the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force began operations from bases in Italy. A single five hundred pound bomb dropped from the belly of a B-17 could’ve put the killing machine out of operation.

Perhaps he was naïve to think the millions shoved into the crematoria would’ve lived if the Allies acted. But, the country he thought to be the champion of freedom did
nothing
.

Rosa unplugged the vacuum, picked up the bucket and garbage bag, and moved into the dining room. “
Mio Dio!
What is this?”

“Don’t touch anything on the table. I spent most of last night organizing it,” Joe shouted.

“Mr. Swedge makes my skin itch,” Rosa said.

The door bell rang. “Be a good girl and answer the door,” Joe asked.

Rosa mumbled something Joe couldn’t quite make out as she went to the front of the house. Roxy raced down the steps. “You, stay!” Rosa said as she opened the door. The dog circled back to the base of the steps. “Joe, there’s a
woman
who wants to see you.”

Joe slipped on his sneakers and grabbed the five-iron suspended on the edge of the desk. Slowly, he rose from the chair barely able to put weight on his right leg that was stiff from sitting for three hours. He hobbled through the dining room. Pausing in the hall, Joe tucked his T-shirt into his Levis.

Watching from the kitchen, Rosa said, “Give her the bracelet.”

“It’s manners to invite a person in,” Joe needled as he pat his pocket and gave her the thumbs up. Looking through the glass sidelight, he was surprised to see Ruth Ritchie standing on the landing. Ruth had exchanged the lime green pantsuit for a demure black dress. Her hair, out of the bun, was shoulder length. A pearl
necklace replaced the gold cross. She had lost the tough momma look and twenty years.

Joe checked Roxy who sat at the base of the stairs, then opened the door. Ruth held out three books bundled by twine. “These were found in the master bedroom study. Since you took his papers, I thought you might be interested. If you’re not, throw them in the garbage. I’m finished across the street.” The roar of a winch echoed across the street as the garbage dumpster was hauled onto the flatbed of a truck dispatched by the disposal company.

Joe took the bundle, visualizing the converted dressing area. “The bookshelves were empty except for the yearbook.”

“One of my employees lost the backing from an earring. She found it stuck between two floor boards,” Ruth said, straightening her pearls. “When she used the blade of a pocket knife to pry the backing out, one of the boards moved. A lot of the older houses have spots where owners kept jewelry and valuables. Thinking that she was onto the greatest find since gold was discovered in California, she pried up the board to reveal a compartment below.”

Before he could say a word, Ruth turned on her heels and walked down the steps to a new Cadillac Seville parked in the driveway.

Joe watched her drive away. He knew he had been in the presence of a female Barnum who played to her audience of bargain hunters. Ruth convinced the skeptics that they had in their hands a “find” and get them to pay a premium for the right to take it home.

Joe flipped the door closed with his left foot. Rosa never moved from the kitchen doorway. “Different girlfriend,” Joe said. He carried the new found bounty to the dinette table in the kitchen.

Rosa turned her attention to dishes Joe left in the sink. “You’re going crazy.”

“That’s what all the ladies tell me.” He rotated the bundle under the light of the Tiffany fixture. It wasn’t twine like he used to bundle newspapers for recycling, but a rough thistle his mother employed to stake tomato plants in her Brooklyn vegetable garden. From a butcher block cube kept near the stove, Joe removed a steak knife and cut the cord. Two of the books were bound in the same cordovan leather as Preston’s passport cover. The third bore a black and green flecked cardboard cover of a basic composition book used in grammar school.

Joe sat at the table, flipping through the pages of all three. Yellowed and faded, the pages had worked away from the bindings. Sections had been removed. The three volumes were diaries. The leather covered journals were written with a stylish flair in comparison to the composition book where the letters were small, tight and printed. The time frames were the same. The two authors were living parallel lives.

Rosa finished washing out the sink and squeezed out the sponge before placing it in a porcelain dish on the window ledge. “I’m going. See you Friday,” she said. “You forget about school?”

Joe opened one of the leather covered diaries. “Grab me a beer. I’ve got reading to do.”

AT ONE O’CLOCK, A BLACK PACKARD touring sedan turned off of U.S. Route 1, following the road signs to Princeton. Driving time from New York City to the sleepy New Jersey town was almost two and one half-hours, excluding a stop at a roadside stand for a cold drink. The dog days of August continued July’s oppressive humidity. Preston Swedge, accompanied by his parents Herbert and Bernice, were arriving at the “family” university to become the third generation to enter as a freshman. This was to be his foundation for assuming a leadership position in the higher social strata of New York.

Tracing its roots back to the founders of the island of Manhattan, the Swedges were descendants of Dutch traders, as were their hated rivals, the Roosevelts. In the 1890s, Grandfather Percival Swedge had an unbridled, jealous, and losing competition with Theodore Roosevelt when Teddy was the New York City Police Commissioner. Herbert continued the rivalry with Franklin. He was an ardent crusader against the New Deal, contesting any program that could threaten the family brokerage and international consulting business. Preston was expected to take his place in the war between Republicans and Democrats, between conservatives and liberals.

Normally the chauffeur would have been at the wheel, but Herbert wanted to bring his son, who he viewed like any other investment, to the place he truly loved without interference from an outsider. His fondest memories were found on Nassau Street. The Packard turned into the drive near the Central Admissions Building. Herbert and Bernice got out of the car, but Preston remained motionless in the still air of the back seat. His starched long sleeved white shirt was laden with sweat, causing the deep brown leather seat back to adhere like barnacles to a boat.

Herbert attempted to cajole his son from the car; a scene that had played before in Connecticut when Preston was delivered to boarding school. Preston
suffered through anxiety attacks and would escape into a trance-like state when stressed.

Arriving in Connecticut a shy and self-deprecating boy, Preston left as an adult sure of himself. Four years at the prep school Choate had transformed him in both mind and body. Preston learned to enjoy the challenge of the athletic field, and the new found release increased in proportion to his rapid growth. By graduation, Preston was six-two. He had assumed the captaincy of the football team, leading his brethren to a prep school championship. The study of philosophy and history became passions of the budding academic. However, beneath this success story, was an ever-present force tugging on Preston’s psyche. He learned to suppress his fears for the majority of the day, but the nights were a different matter. His roommates routinely needed to wake him from nightmares.