Follow the Dotted Line (25 page)

She had made real friends in Edinburgh: Sam’s in-laws, who were Scottish nationalists and spent Saturdays at the lawn bowling club; a young social worker from Belfast who introduced Andy to late-night kabobs and deep fried Mars bars; and a fiddle player from Aberdeen with a degree in math from St. Andrews who made his living writing equations for Ladbrokes, the British gambling consortium. She loved the politics and Georgian architecture and rowdy hen parties wandering up and down Princes Street. Mostly, though, she loved the golf and the Scottish golfer her daughter had the good sense to marry—because Graham was, above all else, a democrat and a gentlemen, and he never failed to take her with him when he went to the course.

Lil’s package of used boy clothing arrived near the end of the week, and Andy set it next to her large and, as yet, unpacked suitcase at the end of her bed. Her travel preparations had become so mechanical that she rarely got around to serious packing until the day before she left. Besides, since her return from the break-in at Tilda’s cabin, she had been preoccupied with ferreting out the phone number of anyone related to one of Tilda’s former life partners. After five days of highly creative and totally nonproductive Googling, Andy concluded the assignment might be above her pay grade. But on this Friday morning she was seized by a stroke of genius that would have put Nicola Tesla to shame. Digging out a copy of the defunct dogs-for-sale ad of husband number three, Gus Andropoulos, Andy entered ‘cocker spaniel puppies eagle pass texas’ into the search engine. The link popped up to the ten-year-old listing on Craigslist with its useless phone number. And right under it was a link to a website called The Del Rio Puppy Palace—Home of the Valley’s Canine Royalty. Del Rio, she could see from Google Maps, was just up the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass. If Gus-the-Third had actually been a dog breeder in the area, maybe he had known the folks at the home of canine royalty, Andy speculated. More importantly, maybe there was still somebody at the Puppy Palace who had known Gus.

His name, it turned out, was Billy Michaelides, and he was Gus’s second cousin once removed. A generation younger than Gus, Billy had bought puppies from ‘the old man’ on an ad hoc basis and had run into him occasionally at a few of those Big Fat Greek weddings.

“Did you know his last wife?” Andy asked.

“Last wife?”

“Tilda.”

“Only wife. Gus was never married in his life. Except at the end.”

“The end?”

“Just a year or two before he died,” explained Billy. “Kind of a curmudgeon. She was pretty hot, though. Surprised the hell out of everybody when he told us he got married.”

“They skipped the conventional nuptials?”

“Yup. He didn’t hang out with the rest of us much. He said they eloped.”

“Rest of us? You mean the family?”

“Right.”

The conversation was flowing like ice-melt now, coursing down from a remote glacier of information Andy never thought she’d find. Why in the hell hadn’t she written down the questions she wanted to ask?

“How’d he die?” Just keep winging it, she told herself.

“Damned if I know.”

“Oh,” said Andy.

“His sister in Ohio just got his ashes one day in the mail.”

Andy sat up in order to give her heart more room in which to pound. “No kidding,” she said. “Did you ever have the ashes tested?”

“What?” he grunted. “Why would we do that?”

Keep it on the straight and narrow, she chided herself, don’t wander off into the sinister. “No reason.”

“Why did you say you were interested in Gus?” Billy suddenly inquired, evidently trying to make up for the fact that he had neglected to ask until now.

“Well, I knew about his puppy business,” she stammered, dumbly. “We, ah, have a mutual acquaintance. In a Kevin-Bacon-sort-of-way. You know, degrees of separation.”

She stopped talking long enough to see if he had given up on trying to understand her convoluted connection.

“Un huh,” he hummed, having done just that.

“And I knew he died. But I didn’t know why. And, well, to be honest, I was just curious.”

“Okay,” he sighed. “So is there anything else?”

“Well, sure. If you don’t mind.” She decided she better get to what she really wanted to know before he hung up on her. “Tell me, Billy, just out of curiosity, did Gus own a house?” It was a completely inappropriate question for the circumstance, but she needed an address in order to see if Tilda had filed a grant deed and, with it, a death certificate.

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” he said, growing restless.

“What I mean is, because I’m just trying to understand the kind of man he was, did he leave anybody in the family a legacy? You know, like a house or—”

“No.” The man from the Puppy Palace sounded as if he’d sliced off the word with a razor. “His wife got the house. I assume she got everything.” The invisible blade in Billy Michaelides’s voice cut right through the phone line. “Why did you really call me?”

She was so close. All she wanted was an address. And now she was going to blow it. Time to wander off the beaten path and into the forest prime-evil.

“Billy,” she said, “I think there’s a chance Gus was murdered.”

“
What?
What’s this about? Are you a cop?” he demanded.

“No. I’m an investigator. And I need the address of the house Gus owned when he died.

“An investigator?”

“We have reason to believe Tilda Trivette may be a black widow.” She heard him inhale air and information in one gulp. “Do you know what a black widow is, Billy?”

“Man-eaters, right?” he said, with the reverence of a male entomologist.

“Right. Billy. Can you help me out here?”

Ten minutes later she was hanging up with the information she needed and without having explained precisely who she was. It was the kind of success that made customarily honest people want to take a shower; Andy couldn’t get into the bathroom fast enough.

Cleansed, head to soul, Andy emerged twenty minutes later to the command of her cell phone. She crossed her office loft and looked down on her desk to see that her youngest child was calling for the second time in a week. The oddity of it induced a hot flash.

“Ian?”

“Hi, Mom!” he said.

She actually blinked from the brightness in his voice. “Well, hi. How are you?”

“Good. I’m really good. I just called to tell you it went great!” The words practically glowed.

“Well, that’s wonderful,” she said, trying to match his uncharacteristic enthusiasm, while she recollected what might have turned out wonderful. The date! “You went out with the IRS agent?”

“Twice.”

“And you like her?”

“Lots. She can talk, you know. An easy talker. I love that because, you know, I’m not.”

“You’re a good talker, Ian.”

“No, Mom. I make a better listener.”

He already knew himself better than she did. “So it seems like a good match.”

“Hope so.”

“I do, too, honey.”

Determined not to fill in all the available silences, she waited.

“I, um, wanted to ask your advice again.”

More evidence that every time she kept her mouth shut, he opened his. “Sure,” she said.

“Annabelle, that’s her name, she tells such great stories, you know. Mostly about her family. They crack me up.”

“Right.”

“So I thought maybe I should tell a few about my family. You know?”

“Okay. That sounds like a good idea.”

“Anyway. I was just wondering. Do you mind . . . do you think it’s all right, if I tell her about Dad?”

“Dad?”

“You know. The ashes and the hex and Tilda.”

“You want to tell her about Tilda?”

“I mean, it’s a pretty good story, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I think we agreed on that,” she said, harkening back to their last conversation. “In fact, I vaguely remember you accusing me of living in a TV movie.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean anything bad by that.”

“I know.”

“Anyway, that’s kind of my point. I need a story, and this one is a real whopper, right?”

She had to smile at how the witch was weaseling her way into everything, including Ian’s love life. “Yup. One of the biggest whoppers ever.”

“That’s what I think, too,” he agreed, a splash of pride in his voice. “But I thought I should ask your permission first.”

It seemed like such an unnecessary request. The kind her other children would never bother making. “Why would you need my permission, honey?”

“Um, well,” he said, haltingly, “I guess because he’s our dad. And because you’re our mom and you once loved him. You know?”

She did know, actually; he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “It’s okay, Ian. Tell Annabelle the story. It is what it is. Tell her we can’t help ourselves.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“No, I don’t mind. Really.”

“Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m glad you haven’t given up on finding Dad. Even if this whole thing seems so bizarre.”

“No, I haven’t given up.”

“Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

“Right back at you, Ian.”

Witty Transgressions and Buried Futures

As personal statements, beards are among the most in-your-face declarations a man can make. They turn sweet countenances severe and often camouflage what would otherwise be thin-skinned weaknesses. Of all human hairs, Andy had long ago concluded that facial hair was the most symbolic. Revolutionaries wore beards. Reactionaries wore beards. Anarchists wore them, and so did artists. Not shaving could be as much a sign of disrespect as it could be a sign of true devotion. Whatever the meaning, whiskers always meant
something.
Even on Harley Davidson.

“Where are you off to?” Andy asked, as her bristling nephew passed through the dining room into the kitchen, touching base at the refrigerator, where he grabbed a cold soda and dropped it in his backpack before turning toward the front door.

“Chabad,” he answered.

“You know, you could try the reform Temple. They have a great youth program, I hear.”

“I’m not a youth,” he said, unconsciously scraping his fingers along the grain of the stubble foresting his lower cheeks.

“Itch much?” she asked.

“I’m going to Torah study,” he said, ignoring her tease and moving toward a quick exit. “And then I’m staying for the adult Hebrew class.” Harley reached for the door handle but then pulled back and turned to face her, struck by a grave inspiration. He put his fingers together, as if he were forming a steeple of wisdom. “Aunt Andy, why don’t you come with me?”

“Sorry?”

“I’d like you to come with me.”

“You would?”

“Why not? You’re retired, right? So you don’t really have anything to do anymore . . .”

Instinctively, she put up her hand to stem the flow of his predictably galling logic. “Stop right there,” she warned him.

He didn’t. Instead he just rounded the corner. “This could be a new spiritual beginning for you. Like it is for me. Be all you can be, Aunt Andy. Be part of the Hasidim!”

For the first time in her life as a writer, she truly grasped the meaning of ‘gobsmacked.’ “Did you make that up?!” she gagged.

He beamed, totally unrepentant. “It just came out of me.”

If social scientists ever wondered how long it took to run from one end of the theological spectrum to the other, Andy could now tell them. Just over five weeks, including brief stops for eating and sleeping. Even for the spectators, making change at this pace was exhausting.

“Harley,” she said, responding to his improvised proselytizing pitch, “I’m still a little hazy about how to be a good person. There’s no way I would ever be a good Jew. More importantly, it’s my understanding that orthodox women do not play golf. And as you well know, that’s a deal breaker for me.”

Harley danced around for a moment, trying to come up with a counterpunch.

Andy didn’t bother waiting. She went right for the upper cut. “I think it’s time we call your mother about all this,” she said.

He hadn’t seen it coming. “What?” he said, swaying slightly.

She swung again. “We need to call your mother about your conversion.”

He tried to redirect. “I’m not converting to anything,” he protested. “I am realizing my heritage.”

And again. “We need to call your mother.”

His creamy blues began to glisten, as he unconsciously drew his hands into his stomach. “I can’t.”

“Harley—”

“Please, Aunt Andy,” he said, pleading. “I’m not ready. I need time to assimilate.”

At least Judaism was increasing his vocabulary, Andy observed. “Maybe she does, too, Harley,” Andy pointed out. “This whole thing might go down easier if your sideburns aren’t in tresses by the time we Skype her.”

“She won’t get it.”

“Give her a chance.”

Andy sympathized with the fear in his gut, but his parents deserved to know what was going on. The phone call had to be made—for both of their sakes. Still, it didn’t have to be done today.

“Go to temple,” she said, dismissing him. “But we are definitely making a full disclosure before the high holy days.”

By four o’clock that afternoon, the light from the southern California sun was crawling slowly westward across the townhouse patio on its way over the mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Andy, who had taken to hanging some of her laundry out to dry across the back of her Adirondack chairs, collected an armful of heavy towels and glanced over the brick retaining wall separating her unit from the next, making sure none of her neighbors were watching. No one in Los Angeles hung washing out to dry, even though it was, unquestionably, the most suitable climate on earth for a clothesline. Homeowner associations, including her own, prohibited the behavior. If she were caught, the Board would slap her with a hefty fine.

As she gathered up a set of polka-dot pillowcases, Andy began fantasizing writing a sketch about a group of female eco-terrorists devoted to stringing illegal clotheslines across the barren backyards of suburban America. Moms by day, they would transform themselves into Pimpernels by night in order to save the planet. She was just working up a head of satirical steam, when she looked at her watch and realized she was might be late to meet Lorna. They had reservations to see a taping of
Real Time
with Bill Maher at seven, and she needed to get moving.