Sinister Heights (6 page)

“Yeah, but don't blame the principal. In my work I don't get to diagram many sentences. Is it all right if we take this inside? I'm getting a sunburn.”

“I can see.”

I touched my skinned cheek. “No, I got that last night. A cop bit me.”

Her dark eyes considered, but she let it loose. “I still don't know what this is about.”

“It's about your inheritance. I'm working for Leland Stutch's widow.”

Now came the fierce glow, but only for a second. She got out of the way and I stepped over the threshold.

A brown and tan miniature chow about the size of a lunchbox braced itself against a square of linoleum and coughed at me. Its ears were perfect triangles and its shaggy tail curled up over its back like a scorpion's. It sounded like a lawn mower that wouldn't start.

“Moo-goo, don't!” Carla Witowski snapped. The dog ignored her. “He's very protective. I don't get many visitors.”

“What's wrong with his bark?”

“I had his vocal cords surgically altered. The neighbors kept complaining.”

“You should've had theirs altered.”

“Are you a dog lover, Mr. Walker?”

“My father gave me a lab when I was ten. He's on a farm somewhere, my mother told me. The lab got run over.”

She leaned down carefully and scratched the pooch behind the thick ruff at the base of its neck. It stopped coughing and waggled its curly tail. “I don't talk for Moo-goo, or dress him up like Santa at Christmastime. I didn't even name him Moo-goo; he came with that. I'd probably have opted for something ridiculous, like Spot. When you're alone it's just good to know there's another heart beating in the house.”

“You have a daughter.”

“I have a daughter.” It was a confirmation, not a concession. “I think you'll find the armchair more comfortable than the sofa. Men generally do. Would you like something to drink? I'm afraid all I have is juice.”

“Thanks, I'm full of coffee.”

The living room was small but cheerily lit through a window with spread curtains in front of which stood a cherrywood half-table with a bowl of flowers on a scarf. It had a sculptured carpet—brown and tan to match the dog, a practical choice—a seventeen-inch TV on a rolling stand, a straight-backed chair upholstered in stiff-looking fabric, and a skirted sofa and easy chair covered with nubby brown cloth with gold threads glittering in it, a set. There was a fake cuckoo clock on the wall opposite the window, family pictures in different-sized frames on a decorative shelf, and a dog bed in the corner shaped like Moses' reed basket. There were more dog hairs in a hollow on the sofa's center cushion than there were in the bed. It was a tasteful room; a little dowdy, but pleasant to spend time in.

I took the easy chair while she lowered herself into the one with the straight back. Years of standing in front of blackboards are murder on the lumbar. The dog scampered over and tried to climb up onto her lap, but she brushed it away. It sneezed indignantly, swung its rear end on her, and pattered over to the sofa, where it braced itself to leap. Its mistress snapped her fingers—the crack was worthy of a .22 pistol—and the dog thought better of the plan and went over and hopped into the basket-bed and curled up without the circling that usually precedes that business. In Mrs. Witowski's classroom, iron discipline had been served up between the first and second predicates.

“I wasn't aware Stutch left a widow,” she said.

“It wasn't a secret,” I said. “Just quiet. I gather the ceremony was civil and probably out of town. Also he had more money to spend on keeping his name out of the news than most movie stars spend getting theirs in. And no one squawked when the will was read.”

“I wasn't invited to that.” A nerve jumped in her cheek. It might have been a back spasm.

“Mrs. Stutch is aware of that. She realizes the extent of the injury that was done to your mother and you, long before she met and married Mr. Stutch. It's too late for your mother, but she wants to make it up to you and Constance. Constance, that's your daughter's name, right? Constance Glendowning?”

She let that branch wave in the air. “My mother died alone in her house in Redford. When the pain in her head got so bad she couldn't stand it, she called me instead of 911, because she didn't think she could afford the ambulance. I made the call, but she was gone before it got there. I arrived five minutes later. The paramedics said they couldn't have saved her even if they'd been on the spot when the artery exploded. They're supposed to say that. It might have comforted me if I'd heard it in a waiting room at Detroit General instead of my mother's kitchen. Can Mrs. Stutch make up for that?”

Her voice didn't rise or shake or give any other indication that she was doing anything but reciting the
i
before
e
rule. She sat with her chin lifted and her back pressed tight against the back of the chair, her hands resting on her thighs.

“Here's a thought.” I leaned forward. “They cremated Stutch and buried his ashes in Centerline, where he started out way back when they burned cowflop for fuel. I'll dig him up for you and you can spit in the urn. Then you and Mrs. Stutch can talk.”

“I know it's not her fault. Do you know that man sent my mother money until I was eighteen, which is as long as the court would have required if she'd won her case? Sometimes I feel I'd think better of him if he'd never sent a dime. Since he didn't have to anyway, why did he stop when the law would have told him he could?”

“I don't try to think like rich people, Mrs. Witowski. I might spend the money I've been saving for braces.”

“The question was rhetorical. He used the money as a cold compress on his conscience, what there was of it; then as soon as he felt better he took it away. Meanwhile in the eyes of the world my mother was a gold-digging slut.”

I couldn't do anything with that, so I hung one knee over the other and channeled Father O'Malley. The dog was asleep on its bed, snoring louder than it barked. It had heard all this before.

Carla Willard Witowski shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Leland Stutch looked out at me. If her mother had just taken her to court and let her look at the judge, the case would have gone to the jury. “Do you realize, Mr. Walker, that if I'd been born forty years earlier—about the time my father turned twenty-five—I would not have been permitted to teach school in the state of Michigan? My bastardy might have polluted the entire seventh grade.”

I made a note on my brain to look up
bastardy
when I got home. I'd never heard it used before, but being an English teacher and a bastard both she seemed to have the provenance. I said, “So hooray for the twenty-first century. You don't need a crank to start a new automobile built in the Stutch plant either. When can you meet with Mrs. Stutch?”

She worked her hands on her thighs. It wasn't quite a rubbing motion. “Exactly how much money are we discussing, Mr. Walker?”

“That's what the meeting's about. Is Thursday good?” I didn't know if Thursday was good for Rayellen Stutch. If it wasn't they could work it out. I wanted to be somewhere else than in that pleasant room with those eyes, down on the docks where all you had to stare down were belly guns and rats the size of chimpanzees.

“Who else will be there? Her lawyers?”

“Not if you don't want them. You may want a lawyer there yourself. A witness anyhow. People sometimes forget things they said without someone to remind them, preferably with a writ. Your daughter's invited too, of course. Mrs. Stutch wants to take care of all the heirs. I'm looking for her, too, to deliver the same message. Do you have her current address? I couldn't find a listing.”

She lifted her right hand to stroke her left upper arm, as if it tingled. I wondered if she had a weak heart. The leg of her slacks where she'd been gripping her thigh was a crush of wrinkles.

“I'm not sure.” She stopped the stroking, but left the hand on her arm. “We haven't had contact in more than a year. The last I knew she was living in Toledo. She may still be, if that animal she married hasn't killed her. My daughter made an unhappy match, Mr. Walker, just like her mother. Perhaps your client's late husband acted in my mother's best interest after all, when he refused to make an honest woman of her.”

CHAPTER
SIX

I looked at the dog asleep on its bed, for no other reason than the thought that staring too long into Carla Witowski's eyes might give me cataracts. The dog's legs twitched and now and then a little whimper made its whiskers ripple. Somewhere it was chasing rabbits and barking in a deep
basso profundo
.

“I liked David Glendowning when Constance introduced him to me,” Mrs. Witowski said. “He was a rough cob, but I've been around those most of my life. You don't have to dig back more than a generation in this town to find a blue collar in every family. He drove a truck for a cartage firm in Toledo, a solid occupation and decent pay. He was running for shop steward then. Wanted to make the union his career, so he had ambition, and he watched his manners around me. They seemed to be in love. I didn't see any reason to meddle beyond that.

“The wedding took place in Toledo, a small affair in a Methodist chapel. My ex-husband and I were on our best behavior, which means he didn't try to feel up the maid of honor and I didn't throw any crystal at him at the reception. We even posed for pictures. If you knew what our marriage came to be, which you won't because it isn't any of your business, you'd know what a minor miracle that was.”

None of this was any of my business, but I didn't stop her. You never know what might come out of an open window.

“You're still a young man, Mr. Walker, but you look as if you've taken your share of dings. I'll tell you a number of things that happened once the Glendownings began married life, and you can tell me what you think they mean. They spent their honeymoon in a resort on Lake Erie. She called me twice during that week. When they got back home she called me every day, at first, then once every few days. By the end of the first month I was hearing from her once a week. The calls got shorter, then farther apart. By their six-week anniversary I was calling her. These calls usually ended in quarrels about unimportant things. Sometimes she'd complain about David's behavior—he'd taken to leaving her alone most evenings while he drank with his trucker friends in some bar or at their houses, and it got so he wouldn't spend even an hour with her after coming back from a week on the road before he went out drinking again—but when I agreed he was treating her atrociously, she'd turn square around and defend him, accuse me of interfering. That was when we spoke. Often the phone would ring and ring and nobody would pick up. One time David answered, said Constance wasn't home, and hung up before I could ask when he expected her back. I'm sure as I am of anything that she was home. Where would she go? All her friends were here, and I'd hear from them now and then asking how Constance was, because they couldn't get through to her, they said.

“The next time I got hold of her I asked her about it. There was a pause before she said David had told her about the call, but she'd been preoccupied and forgot to return it. She said she'd gone out to get a few things. I may not be Mother of anyone's Year, Mr. Walker, but I know when my child is lying to me. She knew nothing about that call until I told her. Does this pattern suggest anything to you?”

“There's always the possibility he forgot to tell her. Husbands do that.”

“If it were as innocent as that, she wouldn't have felt the need to lie. I asked you a question.”

“It sounds like the M.O. of the textbook wife abuser: Isolate her from friends and family, turn her against them, make her dependent on him, and treat her like pocket lint until there's nothing left of her self-respect.
Dear Abby
runs a checklist twice a year, like the
Cosmo
quiz. If you score high, you lose.”

She colored a little when I mentioned
Dear Abby
. “I eventually fell back on the hackneyed device of clipping out that very column and sending it to her anonymously. I might as well have included my return address. The last time we spoke, she threw it in my face and said I was trying to drive a wedge between her and her husband. I thought it was interesting that she could charge me with David's crime, but I didn't get the chance to say so. She said that until I felt like apologizing to her and David for my hatefulness, she didn't want to hear from me. As I said, that was more than a year ago. I haven't felt like apologizing in the meantime.

“The worst part is I haven't seen my grandson since he was an infant. They were always too busy to come up and visit, or little Matthew was sick. They used variations on the same excuses when I suggested visiting them. Matthew would be three now. Quite a little man.” She lifted her chin, daring me to find any moisture in those dark eyes. The tear ducts might have dried up and blown away.

I got out my notebook and added the name
Matthew Glendowning
to the list of Leland Stutch's heirs. It was getting to be a cottage industry.

I said, “If you'll give me Constance's most recent address and telephone number, I'll get out of your hair.”

She gave them to me without getting up to consult anything. “Thank you,” she added.

“For?”

“For not saying you're sorry. That would be just a little more than I could take.”

“You were wrong about me before, Mrs. Witowski. I'm not still a young man. I've got ten years left to call myself middle-aged and I don't plan to spend them feeling sorry for relative strangers. For what it's worth, I hope you and your daughter work things out. I don't guess it's worth much.” I put away the Stutch family tree and rose. “Thanks for seeing me. Mrs. Stutch will be calling you.”