Philly Stakes (16 page)

Alice gasped. “Of course not! Those people he brought in—all those people, they weren’t the kind that I’d—of course not! Why would I—why would you ask?”

Mackenzie smiled, rather sheepishly. “I don’t know. Your husband seems to have known him. Called him ‘Jacob,’ in fact.”

“Alexander knew everybody. He was famous. Important. I wasn’t.”

Mackenzie seemed satisfied. Then, looking as if the idea had just this second come to him, as if it were indeed still coming in dribs and drabs, he leaned forward and spoke, slowly. “I’m wonderin’, is it possible, do you think, that maybe somebody wanted to hide him?”

“The man in the toolshed?” Alice said. “Why? Why there? From whom?”

Mackenzie shrugged in apparent bewilderment. But his shoulder movement jogged my brain, and I could see from Alice’s face that it had the same effect on her. I wish I knew how he manages to turn slouching and relaxing into prods.

Because who else would the man need to be hidden from but Alice, Laura or Peter? Who else was there? I tried working on why.

That they would recognize him seemed obvious, but necessary to say.

Laura had already remembered him with no particular emotional response. And Peter would have seen him as well, while waiting tables. And so had Alexander, definitely. So the man wasn’t being hidden from him.

He had to be hidden from Alice.

My brain ached. I was close to my capacity for mulling, but I pushed on, trying to be logical.

Who’d hidden the old man? Not the person who’d killed Clausen, because why not leave his body where it could burn up along with Santa? Where, indeed, it could have been assumed to be Clausen’s killer.

Mackenzie stretched, long legs way out on Alma’s polished floors, eyes half-closed. He was deep into his poor-Southern-boy act, forcing us to think our way through to the conclusions he had long since reached.

If it wasn’t Clausen’s killer, who was left but Clausen himself?

Alice snuffled and sighed raggedly. Why would Clausen fear that pathetic, sniveling, unhappy, drunken woman? Must have come downstairs after the party. Come to, wanted something. Maybe stumbling, falling, giving notice. Scaring Clausen, because Alice knew the old man. Even drunk.

All of this took seconds, as if the various components and half-ideas had been accumulating all day, waiting for one good shake to fall into place.

Laura stood up. “Excuse me, please,” she said.

“She’s calling him again. That boyfriend,” Alma said as soon as Laura had left. “On the phone with him every single minute he’s not here in person. Something upsets her, pleases her, frightens her—anything, doesn’t matter. Jumps up and calls.” She tapped her finger on the chrome arm of her chair. “Isn’t right. A girl needs to hold on to her dignity.”

Alice whimpered.

“It’s hitting her, finally,” Alma whispered. “She’s been in shock until now.”

Alice had been in shock for years. I wasn’t sure she could come out of it all on her own, or if the process wouldn’t require long-term and careful monitoring.

Laura came back. Shortest teenage conversation on record, I thought. Her aunt said as much.

“He’s not there.” There had been a further dwindling of self. She hugged her arms close, as if to protect the little that was left.

“Maybe he’s on the way here, then.” Alma’s voice was unexpectedly comforting and considerate.

Laura shook her head. “He’s away. In Pittsburgh, with his grandmother. Until school starts.” She looked at Mackenzie. “His mother said the police gave permission.”

“And he didn’t have the decency to tell you?” Alma was a pretty good all-purpose protector.

“Maybe he couldn’t.” Laura’s eyes glinted too much, and she blinked, hard. “She—his mother—said I tricked him into confessing just because he was once in trouble, that…I used him, I was bad, and…” She shuddered and stopped, rubbing a hand across her eyes.

“I’m sure he tried to call and that he doesn’t agree with his mother for a minute.” I couldn’t bear the sight of that undersized child holding off a world that offered not one comfortable corner. With Peter gone, what did she have?

“She wouldn’t even tell me his grandmother’s name.”

Before we left, I tried to make it clear to Laura, without insulting either her mother or aunt, that I was ready to do what I could to help. I promised to call, asked her to call whenever she needed me, day or night. I told her that I was leaving for Florida Wednesday morning, but I’d be available until then. I didn’t know what else to do or say. I handed her her gift, aware that a book of poetry was a pretty feeble amulet.

* * *

Our original agenda had called for gift opening on Christmas Eve. It sounded romantic and adult, gifting and sipping brandy by the fire, spending the long night in search of inspired ways to say thank you.

But we didn’t feel festive, so we postponed celebrations until morning. As if a night’s sleep would drive the goblins away.

And then there we were, on Merry Christmas itself, surrounded by open packages, and for the twentieth time, Mackenzie asked me if I remembered anything else.

“You mean since the last time you asked? Or the time before that?” I smiled to soften my words, and poured more hot chocolate. It was Christmas, after all. Absolute last chance to get into the spirit of the season.

“Guess Alice’s shrink wouldn’t like for her to identify a corpse today,” he said, ignoring the steaming mug I put in front of him. “It bein’ Christmas and all.”

“She said she didn’t know any Jacob,” I reminded him.

“Sure, and that’s why somebody dragged the old man all the way out back.”

I tried not to hear. I looked around the room, and was pleased by the tableau. Macavity, not interested in his new catnip-stuffed mouse, was nonetheless ecstatic, creeping through the jungle of gift wrap, pouncing on ribbons and shredding tissue paper. The fire crackled, my tiny tree sparkled in the window, and our lavish-but-noncommittal offerings lay about. Mackenzie was wearing the blue-blue sweater. As hoped, it did indeed stoke the flame in his eyes so that looking at him—at least when he wasn’t speculating about the frozen man—was potentially hazardous to my health.

I was wearing the zanily striped knee socks he’d given me, although not the matching mittens or scarf. And not the lush sweater. Oh, mine was green, to bring out the copper in my hair, he said. Neither of us grinned, let alone snickered, let alone intimated that we had both gone through the same lengthy and nervous deliberations, or that we completely understood the small print accompanying our gifts.

Instead, Mackenzie said something about great minds going in the same direction and I didn’t ask what direction that was.

“Mandy?” he said now.

“Ah, yes. I remember that he was there, that he called Clausen ‘Alexander,’ which means nothing because everybody who watches old movies on TV knows his name, and he tapped him on the shoulder with the duck-head end of his cane when he didn’t respond. And by the way, I was wondering, is it possible that your Christian name is Christian?”

Mackenzie ran his palm, almost unconsciously, over the soft blue covering his chest. If he would just get off the case, shut up, I would be happy to do the same. “It is possible, but not so,” he said. “And Clausen looked surprised, but appeared to recognize him?”

I had to stop watching his hands and ask him to repeat himself, and then all I did was sigh, conveying, I hoped, my ennui.

I refilled my own cup with chocolate and popped marshmallows on top with almost no caloric anxiety, which was my only visible sign of holiday spirit.

“Who else d’you think was there?” It was hard to understand him, his mild drawl was muffled as he stood next to the tree, sipping chocolate, facing the quiet street through frost-etched panes. Unintelligible but picturesque, but then, he almost always was.

I kept quiet. With no encouragement, surely he’d stop this gruesome chitchat.

“Because a lame old man didn’t kill Clausen, start that fire, then levitate outside.”

I joined him at the window, although with the tree and the small size of the room, we had to be very close. Which wasn’t much of a problem.

“I have brain fatigue, Mackenzie. I’m on vacation.” It was cold and gray outside. We had a fire and each other and no obligations. What were we doing talking his shop? I touched his blue back and thought of the freezing, fog-colored days ahead, of all the hot chocolate we could drink behind frosted windows. And I willed myself into his consciousness, willed him to feel the magnetic pull. Lifted my hand to his silver-sprinkled curls and let the current of my feelings rush through my fingers, into his skull. And there I implanted specifics. There’s no time to waste, I telegraphed into his brain. We have to be together, and since you can’t go home again, let’s not. Don’t go to Florida and I won’t go to New Orleans. Mandy, I don’t want to leave you. I pressed gently but firmly.

“Damn, but I don’t want to leave,” he said. I gasped, dropped my hands and felt dizzy with my powers.

“—just when the Clausen thing gets interestin’.”

After I bandaged my psyche, I wondered if Mackenzie and I would last into the new year.

* * *

“So,” he said over lunch. “What are you doin’ tomorrow?”

Of course, if he cared what filled my social calendar, he could have filled it himself. He was in such a rush to escape, he was leaving the night before I did. Even if he said that was the only available flight. “Countless things,” I said. “Have to buy sun block and find an airplane book and water the plants and board Macavity.” All of which required, at the outside, one of the day’s twenty-four hours. “And other stuff,” I added lamely.

“And that lady? Those old people? Your good deed?”

I wanted him to have forgotten about that. I myself was waffling again. “Oh, I don’t know. They’re all the way out in the Northeast, and it’s right in the middle of the day. Really inconvenient.”

I stood up to clear the lunch dishes, but Mackenzie, demonstrating one of his many endearing traits, took over. He’s the only male I’ve known who doesn’t even leave the pots to soak. “I wonder if my mother really promised her I’d be there with cannoli, or if anybody would even notice if I didn’t show up.” I put away the place mats.

Mackenzie didn’t answer. He washed and whistled. Now that he’d broached the subject, he was leaving me to find my own honorable path. I stood at a moral crossroads, debating between “I forgot, Ma,” and “Sorry, I couldn’t make it, Jenny,” and my favorite, the path marked “Least Resistance.”

He used the water spray on a pot and muttered. “Damn, I’m gettin’ this all wet.” He stopped the water, wiped his hands and pushed away the wicker basket that usually sat next to the sink. “Don’t you ever read or get rid of your mail?” The basket overflowed with envelopes, the large one from Silverwood on top.

“I read the good stuff, but that’s full of junk and messages from the Beatrice Pepper Sexual Clipping Society.”

“Sounds like something I’d rip right open.”

“You’d be disappointed. The last article was called, ‘Do We Need Bodily Secretions to Have Fun?’”

But I went through the old mail anyway. The form letters went into the trash as I pondered my need to open them before discarding them. And finally I reopened the manila envelope from the Tuesday people and contemplated Mining Silver, all fifteen duplicated and stapled pages of type and awkward illustrations. If indeed I went to the creative writing class’s celebration, it would be nice to read their work first.

“This month’s theme” the cover announced, was “I Can Never Forget,” and despite myself, as soon as I opened it up, I was hooked.

The first memoir was a man’s account of the Depression, of losing his business and home, yet hanging on and riding it through. I skipped around, looking for my former pupils, and I found one by Victor, a brief and humorous memory of playing hookey to go fishing sixty-five years ago. The next two were heartbreaking, one about living in Germany before World War II, and one, by sweet and cheerful Jenny of all people, about losing her child.

I read out loud as I went along. “You see why I liked teaching there?” I said. “There’s so much vigor and enthusiasm.” I wondered, not for the first time, how I could transfer some of this delight into my Philly Prep students, and realized, not for the first time, that I couldn’t. It was both too late and too soon for them to have any real sense of the wonder of ordinary life.

Another one, by Sarah, one of my Christmas cookie bakers, began, “All I ever knew how to do just right was cook and eat, and I’ll tell you about the best meal of my life.” And she did. And it was delicious reading.

And then I saw Minna White’s. I half expected it to be about cannoli remembered, but it wasn’t. “Want me to keep reading to you?” Mackenzie had finished at the sink and was settled in the suede chair with a fresh cup of coffee. “By all means,” he said.

“It’s called ‘Virtue Rewarded: An Un-Fairy Tale.’ Doesn’t seem to be the assigned topic, but there’s one rebel in every class, I guess.” I cleared my throat.

Once upon a time there lived a man who worked at the Royal Stables, tending the finest horses in the land. He and his wife and son were good, hardworking people and they were happy.

But sometimes, when she read her boy a fairy tale, his wife wished that something not so ordinary would happen. That there were a special test her family could pass, like heroes did. Her husband shared the wish.

One day the King became ill and needed someone to oversee his stables. The man thought it would be him, that that would be his special challenge, but a newcomer was chosen and rewarded with extra gold and praise. In fact, the King called him “my son” and it became his name.

After a while, the horses did not look well, or they disappeared altogether, and the stable hands—except for “Myson”—were not paid for many weeks. The man was told the horses were grazing in new fields. He didn’t believe it and said so to his fellow-worker and friend, Etienne. Etienne said not to worry. But then, Etienne never worried. He cared for little beyond his own finery, especially a richly embroidered cloak he wore to and from the stable.