Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery (23 page)

“What happened?”

“It was 1962,” she said, jiggling ice, “and I was a Southern Baptist, and I
wasn’t
a modern Manhattan missy. And I couldn’t go through with it.”

“You came home and had your baby.”

Myna half laughed. “There was more to it than that. I came home, latched on to the lightest-skinned Negro bachelor in three counties, and made damn sure I had him hooked before I showed.”

“Did he know he wasn’t the father?”

“Bobby died in ’seventy-nine,” she said, avoiding the question, eyes cutting to her empty glass. “Maybe he wasn’t the smartest man, but he was a fine man, a railroad man. And do you know what, Mister Sax? Other than that one thing, I was a good wife to him.”

I didn’t see any Kleenex, so I stepped to the counter, tore a paper towel from a roll, and handed it to her as I sat. “Now Diana,” she said, nodding at the photo and blotting tears, “
she
figured things out.”

“How’d she manage that?”

“Smart and nosy,” she said, pushing off. It took her two tries to stand, and she fought for balance before starting toward her Manhattan-building area.

The dog whined just a little—he’d seen this routine, probably saw it every night. “You want me to let your dog out?” I said.

“How sweet. Sometimes I forget.”

I bet she did. I let the dog out, looked closely at the dual photos. “You said her name was Diana?”

“Diana Patience,” Myna said, taking small, precise steps to the sofa, fresh drink in hand.

“Smart as a whip, huh? I can see it in her eyes.”

“Yes, sir, she was,” Myna said. Her new drink was two-thirds as tall as the others. Moderation. “She got a partial academic scholarship to Clemson. Studied journalism and communications.”

“Those smarts made her wonder if your husband was really her father.”

Myna set slippered feet on the small oak coffee table and closed her eyes and said nothing for a while. Just when I figured she’d passed out, she smiled, eyes still closed. “Both of them wondered. She was born in a little house down the road, not in a hospital, and the midwife fudged the birth date a few months.” She opened her eyes. “I told Bobby it was so my family wouldn’t know she was conceived early, and I suppose that was partly true. But he knew something wasn’t right.”

“And went along with it?”

She nodded. “Bobby Marx wasn’t complicated and he wasn’t demanding. He knew something wasn’t right, but he behaved as if Diana was his to the day he died.”

Holy shit. Now
I
froze up. Finally I said, “Bobby
Marx
?” I rose to take a close look at the twin photos.

“Robert No Middle Name Marx,” Myna said, eyes closed.

Holy shit. Now I saw her in the high school graduation photo: Diana Patience Marx, aka Patty Marx.

“You say Diana was curious?” I said it loud to keep her awake. Myna’s drink had listed, her breaths had lengthened.

“Curious, yes.”
Curioush, yesh.
“Once she hit fourteen, that was her hobbyhorse. Oh, we had knock-down-drag-outs when Bobby was at work! She was persistent to a fault. ‘Show me this.’ ‘How about
this
?’ ‘And then there’s
this
.’” Myna laughed, slopping some Manhattan onto her lap. “I finally told her the summer before she went off to college that Bobby wasn’t her father. She cut me dead, said I was eight years too late. And I still wouldn’t say who
was
her father, and that just turned her persistent again. I think she studied journalism mostly so she could dig around and find her daddy.”

“Did she ever figure it out?”

“Course she did.”
Courshedid.
Myna raised an index finger. “Mister … sir, would you be a dear and bring over my trash can?”

As I stepped to the kitchen and grabbed a pale yellow plastic can with a white liner, I said, “What’s Diana doing now?”

But Myna left the index finger in the air, gesturing
wait a sec
. She nodded thanks for the trash can, pulled her feet from the coffee table, set the can on the floor in front of her, leaned forward, and vomited once into the trash. I turned my head.

When she was finished Myna took one more dainty sip of her drink, set it down, rose. “And with that,” she said, “it’s off to bed.”
Anwishatishoftabed
.

I said, “Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes. Toodle-oo, sir.”

“Miz Roper,” I said. “Where is your daughter now?”

She opened her bedroom door, swayed, waved a vague hand. “Up north somewhere,” she said. “Doesn’t come around much anymore, damn her.”

Her door clicked shut.

When I stepped from the trailer, the little dog was sitting not three feet away. I held the door open. He hesitated, then made a wide arc around me and went inside. As he passed I said, “Take good care of her, pal.” It seemed he wagged his tail, but I may have imagined that.

*   *   *

“How’s Ollie’s knee?”

“Coming along,” Josh said.

“Let me talk to him.”

“Nah, he’s upstairs.”

“So run the cell up to him.”

“Nah, he’s talking with his mom. You know how it goes.”

I was in the rented Focus, heading to the Charlotte airport. I’d spent the night in the Motel 6 near Hebron Crossroads. Got up at four, was making the long drive to Charlotte for the morning flight. The night before, I’d texted Randall and Trey that I had big news. Hadn’t wanted to say more in a text—the Patty Marx bombshell was too important.

I’d considered driving back to Myna Roper’s house this morning, catching her sober, and talking again. I wanted to know more about Diana-slash-Patty.

But that, plus a later flight, would have eaten up most of the day, and Charlene would be stuck babysitting Fred.

So northbound it was. I’d waited until six to call Josh and Ollie.

Josh was holding back. I didn’t like it. “I bumped into Ollie’s Montreal guy,” I said.

It grabbed him. “When? Where?”

“I’ll tell Ollie.”

“
Fuck
Ollie! Tell
me
!” Long pause. “I’m sorry. Cabin fever. Cooped up.”

I said nothing.

“It’s just that … Montreal is bad news,” Josh said. “It’d sure be nice to know what kind of threat he poses. Ollie’s mom is in the phone book, you know? I worry he’ll find us here.”

“I think I’ve got a plan for Montreal,” I said.

“What is it?”

“Have Ollie call,” I said. “Happy to share. With him.”

*   *   *

“Is it my imagination,” I said, “or did he gain ten pounds in a day?”

“Cereal, cold cuts, and cream soda,” Charlene said. “I had to run to Stop and Shop
twice
.”

Lunchtime, Shrewsbury. We stood on the deck watching Fred push Sophie on a creaky old swing set that should’ve been hauled away five years ago. Sophie was too big for the set, and Fred was pushing her past horizontal, saying things that made them both laugh.

“So everything’s okay?” I said, looking at Fred and Sophie. “No … accidents?”

“Nothing like that,” she said, setting paper plates on a table. “Open the umbrella, will you? This heat.”

“What’s he like? He talk much?”

“Ask him what he’s like, for crying out loud,” she said, popping open a bag of chips. “He’s
your
father.”

I said nothing.

Charlene looked at me, stepped to me, rubbed my arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not that simple, is it?” Then she put thumb and pinkie in her mouth and whistled loud enough to make my ears hurt.

Fred said, “Soup’s on!” He began to slow Sophie on the swing.

“He’s so good, so
normal,
that you forget sometimes,” Charlene said, leaning into me. “But then he just goes away. The thousand-yard stare comes into his eyes, and his mouth shakes, and he forgets where he is.”

We ate—sandwiches for me, Sophie, and Charlene, just a stack of cold cuts for Fred. When she finished Charlene stood, said she had to get to the office before they forgot what she looked like, kissed the top of Fred’s head, and left.

“You look good,” I said.

“I
feel
good,” he said.

“You want to hit a meeting?” I said, checking my watch. “Salvation Army has a one o’clock we can make.”

“
Fuck
that,” Fred said. “Got no time for AA sob sisters. You said you were gonna show me your place in Framingham. Pardon my French, missy.”

Sophie giggled.

“I look like a sob sister to you?” I said.

“Why, yes,” he said, winking at Sophie. “Yes you do, matter of fact. What color are your panties, sister?”

Sophie giggled some more, then looked at me and stopped. I felt bad for her. Her specialty was getting along with whoever was in the room. Right now she was whipsawed.

“It’s okay,” I said to her. “The man wants to pass on a meeting, that’s fine by me.” I turned to Fred. “So what do you want to do after we see the house?”

“Same thing every man wants to do, ’specially when it’s been a while,” he said. “I want to
drive
.”

*   *   *

An hour later, after I showed off the Framingham house to Fred, we sat three wide in the F-150. I drove, Fred hung an elbow out the passenger window, Sophie took the middle. “Where are we going?” she said.

“You’ll see,” I said, swinging onto Route 146 South. No way in hell was I going to let Fred drive on a public road. But a Barnburner owned a dairy farm in Sutton, fifteen miles southwest of Shrewsbury. He was a race fan, and for kicks he’d dug and graded a quarter-mile dirt oval in a far corner of his property. He had a couple of beat-to-shit former cop cars, and once in a while some of us headed out there for half-assed races, laughing like idiots the whole time.

I explained this to Sophie and Fred as we drove. Thinking about Myna Roper, her daughter, and Trey, I let my head go where it wanted to go.

Until Sophie pointed at a sign and said, “Ooooh, sounds ominous.”

The sign said:
PURGATORY CHASM STATE RESERVATION 1 MILE
.

Fred and I stared at each other. I hadn’t thought about the place in thirty years. Hadn’t
let
myself think about it. From Fred’s face, I guessed he felt the same.

Sophie picked up on the vibe, swiveled. “What?” she said. “What about it?”

“Nothing!” I said.

“Shut up!” Fred said at the same time.

We each patted her knee. I felt bad about yelling at her. I guessed Fred did, too.

The rest of the ride was quiet.

*   *   *

My Barnburner friend wasn’t around, but his foreman was. When I leaned in and told him I was going out back to drive around like a jackass for an hour, he gestured
be my guest
.

I killed the AC and switched to the recirc setting to keep dust out of the F-150’s interior, then bumped over dirt roads that were rutted enough to force a walking pace. I’d always liked the property. It had been an apple orchard until forty years ago, and even though most of the untended trees were dead or dying fast, the straight rows and regular spacing made me peaceful every time I drove through.

We were just starting to wish for the AC when we cleared a long rise and saw the dirt oval below us.

“Well I’ll be dipped in shit,” Fred said.

Sophie laughed and clapped her hands twice.

At only a quarter mile around, the homebuilt track had no straights to speak of—just a couple of arcs where the 180-degree turns opened up. The start/finish line was marked only by a pitchfork rammed into the dirt, and four or five feet behind that were a half dozen scrounged lawn chairs and tree stumps for spectating.

A few feet back of the chairs sat an old orange road grader—my buddy won it in a poker game—and a pair of ugly Chevy Caprices, the ones from the mid-nineties that looked like beached whales. They were old cop cars picked up on eBay. I never was a Chevy man, but I had to give those cars credit: We’d been doing our level best to kill them for three or four years now, and they just kept going.

I rolled the F-150 down the hill, took a hard right onto the track in the middle of turn one, and racked up easy laps while I explained the place to Sophie and Fred. At first I drove gently, but soon instinct took over. With its empty pickup bed, the truck had almost no weight over the rear wheels. No weight meant no traction, which meant it was easy to kick the back end out and drift through the turns.

After a few laps like this, Fred said, “
Now
you’re talkin’.”

I upped the pace, notched a few more laps, and treated myself to a rebel yell. I looked down at Sophie to see if she was enjoying it, too.