Trip Wire (9 page)

Wilton said a fair amount of drinking had been going on in the house ever since he could remember. I figured his mother must be dulling her pain with alcohol. I ran to her, reached down to help the maid help the mistress. But there was no telltale liquor breath.

I heard the word
no
spoken simply and with absolute finality.

Oscar Mobley, who had thundered that word, was suddenly at the bottom of the staircase. He was considerably shorter than his wife, but in his severe dark suit he cast a long shadow. His voice carried the same kind of spooky authority that I sometimes heard in Uncle Woody’s. But if you met Woody’s eyes when he was riled, the fire there could scorch you. Not so with Mr. Mobley. His eyes were cold glass. The name of a film Owen once took me to popped into my head.
Day of Wrath.
Mr. Mobley had
Day of Wrath
eyes.

I backed away while he drew his wife to her feet and then led her off.

The woman in brown showed me into a wonderful room with a fireplace and burnt-orange leather seating. Across the room was a massive console with a Grundig hi-fi setup. Hundreds of LPs filled the built-in shelving at knee level. Leontyne Price, Beethoven, and Duke Ellington seemed to be more than fairly represented. No music in the room now, of course. But no other sounds either, not anywhere in the house. No sound, no lights burning, but a faint and dimly familiar odor. White tulips in a giant urn, but they had no scent. Oh, yes, now I had it. That faint smell was furniture polish—butcher’s wax.

Mr. Mobley had to be just as devastated and inconsolable as his wife. He had his own way of showing it. No clumsiness in him. Deliberate movements. A curt nod and a slight bow to me. Funny—the first time, he made his entrance with the word
no.
This time, he said “Yes?”

He had wasted no words. But when I told him who I was, his vocabulary expanded quickly enough. I said his eyes were cold. Make that glacial . . . arctic . . . polar.

“I see,” Oscar Mobley said. “You’re one of the doping morons he chose to throw his life away on.”

The loathing in his voice brought to mind an incident I hadn’t thought about in years. The first time I was allowed to ride the el all on my own, I promptly got lost, found myself way the hell out around Western Avenue. Two white girls were giving me filthy looks, laughing at me behind their hands. One of them kept glancing at me and then holding her nose as if she smelled something foul.

I guess I had about the same reaction to those bitches that I had now. Hurt, trembling humiliation turning bit by bit into impotent rage. Wanting to strike out but also wanting to crawl into a hole.

I cleared my throat. “Wilton didn’t throw his life anywhere, Mr. Mobley. His life was taken from him.”

“You have the audacity to be impertinent with me? At a time like this.”

I needed to measure my words, remain respectful. I knew that. Even if he was making no sense and looked as if he wanted to rip my throat out.

“I think you’re misinterpreting. I only meant that the police think whoever did this had some reason for targeting Wilton. It wasn’t a matter of how he lived, or where or with whom. I think so, too. Oh, never mind that now. I only wanted to tell you how sorry I am. And I thought I might be some help to you at the service.”

“
Service?
You’re not coming to any service.”

“I can’t come? But why?”

“You will be no part of it. Stay up north with those other hooligans.”

My God. So my last image of Wilt would be that bloody torso lashed to a chair. Boy, that hurt me so much, I nearly bent double.

“Okay,” I said. “Forget about the funeral. But don’t you at least want to hear how much we all thought of Wilt?”

“I don’t want to hear a goddamn thing. What are you going to tell me about? How much marijuana you smoked at those degenerate parties he was throwing? Your criminal enterprises? I know everything I need to know about all of you. You think justice will come at the point of a gun. You’d rather act the fool than put your shoulder to the wheel. You want to tear down everything we built with our blood and tears.”

Blood and tears. Where was all the purple rhetoric coming from? His manner was flipping from heel-clicking hussar to country preacher. The guy must’ve been waiting a long time for somebody to dump all this on.

My temper was rising like a doughnut in hot oil. “Mr. Mobley, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, the hell you don’t. You lazy, raggedy—living up north with the worst kind of decadent white do-nothings. You people have got no decency in you, no more morals than a farm animal. God knows what kind of place you’re from.”

Okay. I’d had it.

“I’m from a place where I was taught to have some basic kindness and manners.”

“That much is clear,” Hope Mobley spoke as she stepped into the room. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Please have a seat.”

Mobley turned on her, furious at her invitation, but she just shook her head at him. “What you’re doing won’t help, Oscar. Go someplace. Go upstairs.”

He bellowed at her, “He wasn’t welcome in this house. Now, why in hell should I have to entertain one of them?”

She shook her head again. “Go on up,” she said mildly. “Go upstairs and hide your face. You’ll be all right.”

She waited with her eyes lowered until he left the room.

Wilt sometimes referred to his father as a pompous shit. I had no trouble seeing why. But that didn’t keep me from pitying the rigid, heartbroken man.

“Will you—I’m sorry, what was your name?” Hope asked.

“Cassandra.”

“Will you excuse me, Cassandra, if I don’t offer you refreshments?”

“Of course I will.”

“Yes, you seem like a nicely raised child. I thought you could understand.”

“Yes, ma’am, I can.”

The old fantasy had me charming the pants off the Mobleys, making peace between them and Wilt. I’d make out a case for our choices: Yes, we wanted out from under their supervision and their set of morals; yes, we were impatient with the high-cost education they were underwriting; yes, we liked the idea of a handpicked family rather than a biologically determined one. But none of that meant we dishonored their generation and all its sacrifices—blood and tears, if you must. Oh, I was going to be wildly articulate, and I was going to be Exhibit A, Wilt’s lovely little friend, a nicely raised child.

“I know I’m intruding, Mrs. Mobley. All I wanted to do was bring my condolences.”

No wonder I mumbled those lines. I was lying. In part, anyway. I did want to show sympathy, but I was also looking for information. I hoped she had enough left to give it to me.

She repeated my word. “Condolences.” It had the ring of a melancholy musical piece, something by Scott Joplin.

“Can you stand to hear me out?” I asked. “And then I’ll go.”

“What is it?”

“Your husband talked about wild parties and criminals. Like Wilt was doing something wrong and should have expected to get hurt. What does your husband know that I don’t?”

“What does it matter anymore?”

“It matters. I can see you being so hurt that you can’t think about that now. But it matters to me.”

She looked at me closely, maybe seeing me for the first time. “Did you know the girl he was living with?”

“Mia. Yes.”

She faltered, and I rushed in. “She was a good person. He was happy with her. Believe me.”

“Well, that’s something, at least. All right. I’ll tell you what Oscar was ranting about, if it will do any good. My father had a home in Kent, Michigan,” she said. “It’s on the lake. We used to spend summers there. When he died, he left the property to me. We don’t get up there very often, not for the last few years. We pay a man in the town to look in on the place from time to time. My husband received a call from him a while ago. He had noticed cars parked on the property from time to time. It looked as though someone was using the place regularly, and he wanted to know if he should continue to go in and check the pipes.

“Of course, we had no idea what he was talking about. We thought at first the house was being burglarized. But Oscar questioned Wilton and got him to admit he was the one who’d been using the place. He’d been bringing friends up for—well, I could imagine what for. I take it you weren’t one of the guests.”

“Definitely not,” I said. Nor was anybody I knew.

“Oscar was furious. Wilton promised him he wouldn’t do it again. But when Oscar made a trip out there to check up on him, he found evidence Wilton lied to us. It was obvious the place was still being used. Oscar went off the deep end. He told Wilton if he ever went there again without our permission he’d have him arrested.”

“That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”

“I said he found ‘evidence,’ because that is the word Oscar used. But he didn’t just mean dirty dishes and the leavings of a few marijuana cigarettes.”

“What else did he find?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t discuss it with me. But he and Wilton fought like wild animals about it. I thought it would blow over like the other trouble between them in the past.”

“What trouble was that? Selling grass to his high school buddy?”

“Yes. Oscar had to extricate him. But this thing with my father’s place was altogether different. I just know that my husband had been talking wild the last two weeks, saying things I didn’t understand.”

“Like what?”

“That he’d pulled our son back from the edge for the last time. That Wilton’s behavior was jeopardizing his law practice and his reputation. He even said if Wilton didn’t change his ways, he’d—”

I supplied the words. “He’d kill him.”

“That’s right. Kill him. He said it the way every parent on earth has ever said those words. Except now . . . well, now he’s left with all that on his heart. You saw for yourself what it’s done to him. And me.”

“You have no idea what they were arguing about? What Mr. Mobley found in the house?”

“No. He won’t tell me.”

I knew how much chance there was of his telling me.

“Anything else you can think of? Old fights with people? Anyone ever threaten him? Any chance his death was connected to your husband’s affairs, or even yours?”

“No, none of those things.”

“Is your husband pushing the police to find out who killed Wilt?”

“Yes, Oscar is trying to throw his weight around. Another way to assuage his conscience. I doubt that he’s frightening anyone, though. He’s defeated. It took this to defeat him.”

“Your husband’s not used to being defeated, I imagine.”

Her mouth pulled suddenly to one side. “No,” she said, “he isn’t.”

Oh, man. All the things Wilt had told me about the unhappiness in this house—they couldn’t have been even half the story.

Hope saw me to the door a moment later.

“One more thing,” I said. “Well, actually two. Did Wilton have a friend named Alvin? Or has your husband mentioned that name?”

“No. Who is he?”

“I’m not sure. The last thing is, it looks like we’ll all be moving out soon. I’ll have Wilt’s things sent to you if you want.”

“That’s very nice of you. I’d like to give you something, too, to remember him by. I have some very sweet old photos. But I don’t think Oscar would like that.”

“It’s not important.”

It didn’t feel right to have that phrase hanging in the air between us. I didn’t want that to be the last thing I said to her. I wanted to tell her I needed no snapshots of him, my life would be over before I forgot Wilton. But while I was trying to figure out some beautiful way to say it, the door closed behind me.

Looking closely at the dense, ice-laden moss on the facade of the house, I could see there were tiny Christmas tree lights intertwined with the greenery. But of course, they were dimmed now.

I walked back to the car. When I didn’t get in immediately, Sim looked out at me, waiting, but said nothing.

I was thinking about the quiet little town of Kent. One of those posh villages, like Martha’s Vineyard, where moneyed blacks had established an enclave in the early part of the century, the houses passed down from one generation to the next.

Evidence. Whatever it was that Oscar Mobley found at the house, it had sent him into a real tailspin. And as for the so-called friends Wilton had been partying with up there—who were they? He’d surely never invited anyone from the commune, not even Mia. I wasn’t just feeling left out, though; I was feeling betrayed. Here was another secret he hadn’t let me in on.

Tough. I had to get past that. I said I was willing to face the truth no matter what came out. If I hadn’t meant it before, I did now.

Jack Klaus had intimated that Wilton may have burned a drug connection. I didn’t buy it. But I knew who might have done something like that: Barry Mayhew.

Oscar Mobley found out there were some funky dishes and funky doings at the house in Kent. But maybe the people up there weren’t partying. Maybe they were cooking up something else.
Better living through chemistry.
That was a slogan my little generation had taken to heart. Find an isolated spot and put a couple of talented chemistry students to work. There was a fortune to be had. That sounded like a possibility, too. Once again, I smelled Barry. Maybe he had been the one member of the commune to be asked up to Kent.

I opened the car door. Not the rear door, the passenger side in front. Sim asked no questions except, “Where to?”

3

The winter sun caromed off the deluxe apartment buildings along Lake Shore Drive. Not to get too sappy about it, Lake Michigan can be pretty damn thrilling sometimes. But the majestic expanse of it is no watery womb. Stretching on forever, frozen blue, it looks ungiving, fatal.

“The lake’s amazing, isn’t it?” I said. “Do you ever just sit and stare at it?”

“Naw.”

I was looking at the water. Sim was looking at the road.

“You know Skip’s Tavern, on Indiana?” I asked as we cruised past the 25th Street exit.

“Uh-huh.”

“How about having a drink with me at Skip’s?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Because of Woody, you mean. He lets you take a break sometimes, doesn’t he?”