Flame Out (5 page)

“What?”

Dave gripped her hand in his. “Aunt Natalya, Mom's dead.”

“Oh, my poor boys.” She pulled her hand from Dave, covering her mouth. “After all these years.” She composed herself quickly, pushing Dave toward the couch. “Sit down. I will make you tea.” Refusing to listen to protests, she pulled herself through the living room, heavy step followed by a light one, stopping briefly in front of me.

“June, so kind you are to be with David.”

“Lyons isn't here for me,
teta
,” Dave said. “She's here to investigate Mom's murder.”

Natalya frowned. “Now is time for the family to comfort each other. Not for police.”

“
Teta
, you never think it is time for the police, but getting this solved fast? I would get comfort from that,” Dave said.

“And opening old wounds? Do it fast and quick,” Lucas said.

Natalya continued through to the kitchen, and I heard the sound of water running followed by a kettle slamming down on a stove. I decided to pick up where I'd left off, worried Aunt Natalya might shut down this questioning as being disrespectful of the dead.

I spoke low and quick. “So she was off booze?”

“Yeah,” Dave said. “For about a year.”

“Don't kid yourself,” Lucas said. “Dad got pissed at me when he found a bunch of bottles in the basement, accused me of bringing booze into the house. That was all her, and I told Dad. He watched her like a hawk after that, dropping her off at work and picking her up, but she had her ways, slipping away while he worked.”

“So she
was
drinking,” I confirmed.

“And doing drugs. Enough dealers worked at the plant. I got my pot there, and cocaine was king back then. She
loved
cocaine.”

“Where'd she get the money, though?” Dave said. “Dad took her paycheck.”

“She could always scrape together cash for what she cared about,” Lucas said. “I bet some new boyfriend bought it for her.”

I could see Dave getting angry, slowly but surely. Natalya saved the day, carrying in a tray loaded with a whole almond cake that looked like it weighed more than Natalya, plates, and small cups of tea, the scent spicy and sweet. The china cups were ivory, birds painted in gold and blood-red enamel darting along the edge.

“Beautiful,” I said, admiring the cup while Natalya handed out pieces of cake.

“One unbroken thing I smuggled out of Ukraine, my mother's teacups. Even my hip”—she tapped her flank twice—“the Soviets smashed that to pieces.”

Lucas raised a cup to her. “You outsmarted the Red Army and the Nazis.”

I offered her my seat. She declined, taking a straight-back chair. I asked her about Vera.

“She was troubled, our Vera. She was born in safety here, but she was raised by people like me, fighting for every meal, every breath. Ukraine was hard place. Stalin starved us, shipping grain from our beautiful breadbasket over Black Sea, to pretend he was a big man, a world leader. I lived because Stalin's force, his secret police, missed one sunflower, growing not in field but next to my home, hidden behind a post.”

I thought of the sunflowers that lined Natalya's garden and realized they were for more than show.

“Every day, Mother gave me seeds from sunflower, a handful at sunrise and sunset. Between Stalin and Hitler, I spent my childhood dreaming of wheat, of food.” Natalya got a faraway look in her eye before refocusing hard on me. “It is no way to live, and makes people desperate, like feral cats. That was Vera's family. That's where she came from.”

“How long were she and Dave and Lucas's father—”

“Taras,” Dave said. He was perched on the edge of the couch, and I didn't know if he wanted to be asking the questions or answering them.

“Yes, Taras. How long were they married?”

“Nineteen sixty . . .” Natalya shook her head. “Vera was no more than fifteen, pregnant with Lucas.”

“Sixty-seven,” Lucas said. “Knocked up and unmarried.”

“Taras made it right. In that time, we Ukrainians got married earlier. Exquisite girl like that, it was almost worse than being crippled.” She touched her hip. “This world gave her little, but she had beauty, and men, they wanted to use it up. Except for my brother. Marrying Taras was best thing she ever did.”

“Were you and Taras close?”

“Taras was born when I was fourteen years of age. My three sisters starved, and my two brothers were stolen by Black Raven, Stalin's police force, Stalin's
thugs
, who came at night, grabbing people from their beds, never to be seen alive again. Taras was child of sorrow, born months after father was conscripted into Red Army to be slaughtered on fields of Poland. Mother died before Taras's first birthday, and he became my baby. I promised her I would do anything to save Taras. I did.” She straightened her neck, imperial. “He and I escaped, following behind the Red Army and slipping into the American side before the Russians locked everything down.”

“You got the Medveds out too, don't forget,” Dave said. “I don't know how you did it.”

“There is a saying, ‘A hungry wolf is stronger than a satisfied dog.' I was wolf, but Taras, even starving and cold, he never lost sweetness or gentleness.”

Dave smiled. “Dad liked to be nice to weaker things. Small animals, hurt birds.”

“But Vera couldn't take kindness,” Natalya said. “It is common. When everyone's fighting over scraps of bread, you believe others' kindness come with strings, that you will be tricked in trusting. Taras confounded her.”

“Dad never gave up on her,” Dave said.

“Except the last time,” Lucas said. “He always told us she'd come
back, that only death would keep mom away. That time, he didn't say it.” Lucas put the tea down and picked up his rum and coke again. “Me, I knew she'd stay lost if she found a boyfriend with a never-ending supply of cocaine and vodka.”

“Stop—” Dave said.

“She was a whore.”

“You never . . .” Natalya's voice shook and she stood up, “use that word to talk about your mother in my presence again.”

Lucas mumbled a barely audible apology. It was enough for Natalya. She returned to her seat.

“I'm sorry for outburst,” she said. “Continue now, June.”

Dave nodded, and I asked my next question. “Did you notice anything different about that last time she disappeared?”

Natalya hesitated. “After Vera stole my car . . . it went quiet. Usually we heard something, calls from her in middle of night, demanding money. Or police, holding her in cell, forcing us to take her back, not that Taras would have ever turned her away from his door.”

I asked if they had any pictures of Vera.

“No. None,” Lucas said. “I made sure of it. I never wanted to see her again.”

“I do,” Natalya said. She walked over to the bookcase that was topped with several framed pictures. Lucas with Tara grinned out from the first. In the second, Dave wore a cap and gown at his high school graduation, proudly flanked by his brother and father. The third was a woman pushing a young boy on a swing. Looking closely, I realized it was Luisa and Teddy Lawler. Dad had said Natalya took Luisa's death hard, but I was surprised to see their photo lined up next to family.

Natalya pulled out an album from a lower shelf. She flipped past black-and-white pictures from the forties and fifties, a young Natalya holding a toddler in her lap and an early picture of the house, the backyard overflowing with squash and apple trees. Suddenly, there was a burst of color. The sixties. She pointed to a photo.

“Wedding day,” she said.

Color photography was wasted on Vera. She wore a white minidress, made even shorter by her protruding belly. Teased black hair spilled down her shoulders and framed her pale face, her eyes were lined black, and her lips, painted a nude tone, were set in a harsh line. Next to her was Dave's father, Taras, a man who could be Dave's twin if Dave grew a truly monumental mustache. Behind him stood Natalya, wearing a green plaid suit and a boxy hat. She looked grim, but then she didn't appear to smile in any photos I had ever seen of her.

“Who's that?” I asked, indicating the other person in the picture. A huge man, tall and well fed, his girth hidden under an expensively tailored suit. His hair was Brylcreemed away from his face, and his fleshy grin hid his eyes.

“Maxim,” Natalya said. I brought the album close, staring. It was Judge Medved. Growing up I'd met him a few times, usually when my Dad dragged me to some political picnic. He'd always play umpire in the pick-up softball games, his voice booming, filling a baseball diamond.

Natalya continued through the album, and I saw pictures of Dave and Lucas, sometimes with their mother and father, more often with their father alone. There was one of Vera wearing coveralls, scowling, leaving the Sleep-Tite factory with a grinning Lucas, followed by a photo of a large group at a picnic table, toasting the camera with mugs of beer. Natalya gave me the names of these potential witnesses and told me whether they were living or dead. Most were dead.

“Natalya,” I asked, “Do you remember the night Vera disappeared?”

“What Taras and others told me only.” She leaned close. “You want me to tell you who killed her, yes?”

Between the picture on the bookcase and her testimony at Bernie Lawler's trial, I was pretty sure how she was going to answer, and I was right.

“Bernie Lawler,” she said. “He abused and controlled women,
destroying Luisa, a lovely angel. There is no doubt for me that Bernie killed Vera as well.”

“June,” Dave said. He was slumped on the couch, drained. “June, I don't want to hijack the interview, but would you mind if we talked about the funeral?”

“What funeral?” Lucas said. “There's not going to be any memorial. No one liked her enough.”

“There's people,” Dave said.

“What people? Because I didn't see anyone real worked up when she left. No one cared.”

“I cared,” Dave said.

“You were a stupid kid.”

“I'm not a stupid kid now, and I want a memorial.”

“Well, we're not doing it. There's no place to bury her. Dad's plot is with Aunt Natalya, and there's not an empty spot.”

“So we disinter him—”

“No.”

“Your mother will have memorial,” Natalya said. Lucas protested, but she shushed him. “And husbands and wives, they must be buried together. I will buy plot just for me.”

I flipped my notebook closed. It was great to be on the inside of this family, watching them negotiate over burial space, giving me a sense of what price they'd put on Vera Batko's life. However, they needed time alone to figure this out.

I stood. “Dave, will you be OK if I take the car?”

“No, no,” Dave said. “I'm going with you.” Natalya protested but Dave went to her, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “I'll be here early tomorrow. We have a memorial to plan. Right,
teta
?”

“Don't be alone,” she said.

“There's June,” Dave said. Natalya gripped his sleeve, and he calmed her, even as he disentangled his hand. “My family's you, Lucas, and Tara. And June. I'll be fine.”

“SEE THAT BILLBOARD?”

We'd just crossed the bridge back into town, when Dave pointed up the hill to a billboard advertising the services of a personal injury lawyer. “When Luisa and Teddy Lawler disappeared, Bernie Lawler bought that billboard, offering a $100,000 reward. And the posters! Taped up on every surface, from store windows to streetlights, and when they got dirty, someone came and replaced them.”

I didn't tell Dave my mother had organized that poster campaign, enlisting people on the town's Christmas committee to hang posters instead of garlands.

“Now I can appreciate what they were trying to do, but the twelve-year-old me, he was pissed off! Because here was this woman, and she got all this attention, everyone searching for her. And my mom had been gone almost six months at that point, and no one gave a shit. So I went down to the police station, and your dad helped me file a missing person report. He gave me and Mom attention. He wrote down all of the information on his pad, and then recorded all the information on a missing person report, typing out what she was wearing, the color of her purse, how tall.” He ran his hand up and down the leg of his wool pants, tracing the weave. “The ring she wore.”

“It's a wonder you aren't still sitting there,” I said. “My father wasn't the fastest typist.”

“Wite-out was smeared across your dad's hand because he kept correcting mistakes while the page was still in the typewriter, but he was patient and treated me seriously, and for the first time I thought, ‘What about being a cop?'”

My dad inspired two law enforcement careers, mine and Dave's. I wondered if he had any idea.

“The disappointing part,” Dave continued, “was that after I filed the report, I expected the posters, the news coverage, everything, and instead . . . silence.” He paused. “But your dad went around and
interviewed everyone. Once he heard more about my mom, he laid off, figured the hoopla would hurt me more.” Dave sat forward in his seat. “Hey, hey . . . stop here.”

I pulled to the curb in front of Gergan's liquor store. “It's after nine.”

“What's a couple of minutes between friends?”

He got out of the car and rapped on the window. Sparky Gergan came to the door, opening up when he saw Dave. Dave talked rapidly. Sparky disappeared and reappeared with a brown paper bag.

Dave climbed back into the car, breathing heavily.

I pulled away. “Did you just suborn breaking the liquor laws of the State of New York?”

“Nope. I explained the situation to Sparky, and he kindly offered to donate a couple bottles of Stoli for my mother's memorial. I figured scamming liquor's the tribute my mother most deserved.” He paused. “I also told him I'd be by in a few days to buy a bunch.”