The Hunting Wind: An Alex McKnight Mystery (11 page)

“Stop yelling!” she said. “I’m not deaf!”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Can I get you gentleman something to drink?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“We have beer in the refrigerator!” Mrs. Meisner said.

“No, that’s all right,” I said.

“We’re out of beer!” Mr. Meisner said. “I was going to offer them coffee!”

“Men don’t drink coffee!” Mrs. Meisner said. “Give them beer!”

“Really, we’re fine,” I said.

“Of course men drink coffee!” Mr. Meisner said. “I drink coffee every damned day! Will you turn the television off already!”

“I’m sure they’d prefer beer!” Mrs. Meisner said.

“We don’t have any beer!”

“Please,” I said. “We don’t want to trouble you folks. We just wanted to ask you about Leverette Street.”

“We used to live there!” Mr. Meisner said. “Here, sit down already! You’re making me nervous standing around! Muriel, turn off the television!”

We sat down on the couch. Mr. Meisner sat in the chair next to Mrs. Meisner’s wheelchair.

“Mr. and Mrs. Meisner,” I said. “You were living on Leverette Street in 1971, right?”

“Yes,” Mr. Meisner said. His voice dropped down a couple notches in volume now that he was sitting down. “We bought that house in 1934, if you can believe it. Right after we got married.” He reached over and took his wife’s hand. “We raised four sons there. Here, you want to see pictures?”

For the next few minutes, we went through all four of the sons, their wives, the seven grandchildren, and the eleven great-grandchildren.

“That old house got to be too much for us,” Mr. Meisner said when we were done looking at the pictures. “We had to sell it and move here.”

“You are so full of crap,” Mrs. Meisner said.

“Muriel, please, we have company here.”

“I hate this place,” she said. “Peach Tree Senior Community? There’s not a peach tree within a hundred miles of this place. And please, senior community? Why don’t they just call it a nursing home?”

“It’s not a nursing home, Muriel. It’s ‘assisted living.’ Would you rather I be back there at the house, mowing the lawn? Shoveling the snow?”

“You pay a kid to mow the lawn! And shovel the snow!”

“The ice used to freeze in the gutters, remember? I’d have to get up there and chop it out in the springtime!”

“Alex’s partner just fell off the roof doing that,” Randy said. “He broke both his ankles.”

“Do you see?” Mr. Meisner said. “Do you see what happens? Do you want that to be me, falling off the roof and breaking both my ankles?”

“Mr. Meisner,” I said, “Mrs. Meisner. Do you happen to remember a family that lived down the street from you? The Valeskas?”

“Valeskas?” Mr. Meisner said. “Muriel, do you remember the Valeskas?”

“They lived over the Kowalskis. They rented the upstairs, I mean.”

“The Kowalskis,” Mrs. Meisner said. “We know the Kowalskis.”

“Mickey Kowalski,” Mr. Meisner said. “And his wife, Martha. We still get Christmas cards from them.”

“I think he’s sick, isn’t he?”

“Who, Mickey Kowalski? He’s not sick.”

“I think he’s sick.”

“He’s not sick. Don’t listen to my wife.”

“How about the Valeskas?” I said. “The people who rented the upstairs. Do you remember them?”

“I don’t remember the Valeskas,” Mr. Meisner said. “Muriel, do you remember the Valeskas?”

“Valeska, Valeska, Valeska,” she said. “No, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“She was a spiritual reader,” Randy said. “A fortune-teller.”

That hit them like a bolt of lightning. “The fortune-teller!” Mrs. Meisner said. “Oh my God, Fred! The fortune-teller!”

“Yes! Yes!” Mr. Meisner said. “And that family. What was their name?”

“It was Valeska,” I said. “You remember the family?”

“Oh good heavens, yes,” Mrs. Meisner said. “My, what a time that was. With that family down the street. And that sign she put out on the sidewalk! You remember, with the big hand?”

“Yes! The hand!” Mr. Meisner said. “Mickey rented the upstairs to those people. I think they were only there for nine months, maybe ten months. And then they were gone! Just like that! Mickey, he thought they were Gypsies or something.”

“But they paid their rent,” Mrs. Meisner said. “I remember Martha telling me that. And they kept the place clean.”

“Ah, but they were the strangest people,” Mr. Meisner said. “The husband—what was his first name?”

Here it comes, I thought. This is why we’re here. Randy and I were both hanging on their words now.

“It was an interesting name,” she said. “Something exotic.”

“The whole family was exotic. What were their names? There were four of them.”

“The man’s name was . . .” she said.

We held our breath.

“Gregor!” she said. “That was his name! I remember wondering what happened to the
y
at the end!”

“Yes, Gregor,” Mr. Meisner said. “And the woman was . . . Oh Lord, what was her name?”

“Arabella,” she said. “I remember it. It’s such a nice name, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. I looked at Randy. He was lost in his own world, now that he had those names to think about.

“They had one boy and one girl,” Mr. Meisner said. “The boy’s name was . . .”

“Leopold,” Randy said. “His name was Leopold, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Meisner said. “That was his name. He was a tough-looking little guy, wasn’t he?”

“Ha! I remember now!” Mr. Meisner said. “He painted that room for us, remember, Muriel? That’s what he and his father did—they were painters!”

“That’s right!” Randy said. “I should have remembered that!”

“They were good, too. They did a good job on the room. Anyway, when they were done, I said something like ‘Thank you, Leo!’ And he said to me—what did he say? He said, ‘My name is Leopold! My name is not Leo! Leo is a name for American men who drink beer and sit on their front porches in their undershirts.’ Lord, how did I remember that?”

“He was a strange one all right,” Mrs. Meisner said. “Ah, but the daughter . . .”

“Maria,” Randy said. He said it in a way that stopped them. Both of them.

“Yes, Maria,” Mrs. Meisner said. “She was such a beautiful girl.”

“I’m looking for her,” Randy said. “That’s why we’re here.”

They both just nodded. Apparently, it didn’t seem like a crazy idea to them. Of course, they had both seen Maria. So maybe that was enough of an explanation. Or maybe when you live that long, nothing seems crazy anymore.

“Do you have any idea where they might have gone?” I said. “After they left the Kowalskis’ house?”

“No,” Mr. Meisner said. “They just disappeared. They left the last month’s rent under Mickey’s door, and just vanished.”

“Well, we have the names now,” I said. “That could mean a lot. And wait a minute—didn’t you say that the Kowalskis still send you Christmas cards?”

“Mickey and Martha,” he said. “Yes, every year. We don’t ever talk or anything, but every Christmas we get a card.”

“I tell you, he’s real sick,” she said. “I heard that somewhere.”

“Nonsense, Muriel!”

“Would you happen to have their address, then?” I said.

“Oh, sure,” he said. “We send them a card every year, too. It would be kinda rude not to, don’t you think?”

“Could I trouble you for that address perhaps?” I said.

“Yes, of course,” he said. It took him a little while, but he got up off the chair. “You’ll have to excuse me. I turn ninety-two next month.”

“How long have you been married?” Randy said.

He looked down at his wife. He touched her hair. “Seventy years.”

“We’ll get a divorce someday,” she said. “We’re waiting for the children to die.”

“Ha! I love that one,” he said. “All right, now where did you put those addresses!”

“They’re in the box,” she said.

“I know they’re in the box! Where’s the box?”

“It’s where it always is! In the bedroom, on the dresser!”

“No, that’s where
you
always put it! Oh, never mind. I’ll find it myself!” He disappeared into the bedroom.

“I can’t tell you how much we appreciate this, Mrs. Meisner,” Randy said.

“It’s nice to have the company,” she said. “I haven’t thought about the old neighborhood in a long time.”

“I found it!” Mr. Meisner called from the next room. “Right where I put it!”

Mrs. Meisner gave us a smile and a shake of her head.

“Here it is,” he said as he shuffled back into the room. “They moved to Arizona. Can you believe it? All the way out there with the desert and the cactuses. Let’s see, Kowalski . . .” He looked through the index cards in the box. “Here, Mickey and Martha Kowalski. In Tucson.”

I took the card from him and copied down the address. There was no phone number, but I figured we could look that up.

We stayed for another thirty minutes, listening to more stories about the old neighborhood and how wonderful or horrible this new place was, depending on who was talking. Mr. Meisner stood up to shake our hands as we left. We both bent over Mrs. Meisner in her wheelchair and gave her a hug and a kiss. We promised we’d come back and visit them again someday.

On our way back to the motel, Randy kept looking at the Arizona address I had written down for the Kowalskis, even though he could not read it unless we were passing under a streetlamp. Even though he probably already had it memorized.

“We’re almost there, aren’t we?” he said. “This is them. The people who rented the upstairs to the Valeskas.”

“They may not be much help,” I said. “You heard what the Meisners said about the way the Valeskas left. They probably have no idea where they went.”

“I know,” he said. “But it’ll be good to talk to them anyway. They might help me remember something else. So much is coming back to me now. Like the fact that they were housepainters. It’s like a fuzzy picture that’s coming back into focus, you know what I mean?”

“A picture of the way things were in 1971,” I said. “You can’t forget that, Randy.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “I hear what you’re saying.”

When we were back in our motel room, I sat on one bed, Randy on the other. I called information in Tucson and got the number for the Kowalskis. Before I could dial it, Randy took the phone from me.

“Let me do this one,” he said.

“It’s all yours.”

“What time is it, about nine o’clock? So in Arizona, it’s seven o’clock? No problem.”

He dialed the number, waited for a couple rings, and then said, “Hello! I’m looking for a Mr. Michael Kowalski! Or Mickey, I guess they call him!” He was wearing his killer smile, which doesn’t work so well over the phone. The smile disappeared, and before he could say another word, he was looking at the phone like it had just stung him in the ear.

“They hung up,” he said. “They told me that Mickey was dead and then they hung up.”

“I guess Mrs. Meisner was right,” I said. “Mickey
was
sick.”

“What am I going to do now?”

“Call them back and apologize?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” he said. He dialed the number again. “Oh please, please, ma’am, I’m very sorry. Please, ma’am, don’t hang up. I’m so sorry to hear of your loss and I’m sorry to disturb you. I just spent a couple hours with the Meisners up here in Michigan. They were very good friends with, um—I’m sorry, am I speaking to Mrs. Kowalski? . . . Their daughter. Oh, I see. If I could apologize one more time, ma’am. The Meisners had no idea about . . . Yes, in Michigan. With the Meisners. They used to live down the block, on Leverette Street. . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . And they told me to give your parents a call, and . . . Oh, your mother is there? That would be, um . . .”

He looked at me with panic in his eyes.

“Martha,” I said.

“Martha,” he said. “Martha Kowalski. Yes, we were all just talking about . . . Yes . . . Oh yes, please. If there’s any way I can just speak to her for a moment . . . Oh God bless you. Thank you. . . .”

I listened to his end of the conversation with Martha Kowalski. It started out pretty simple, with the Meisners and the old neighborhood and Randy telling her how sorry he was to hear of the loss of her husband. When he got around to the Valeskas, a cloud came over his face. “Are you sure about that, ma’am?” he said at least three times. When he was done, he thanked her and then just sat there on the edge of the bed, looking at me.

“What happened?” I said.

“She remembers them very well,” he said. “It was just like the Meisners said. They stayed there for nine
months, and then in the middle of the tenth month, they disappeared.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“She said that Valeska wasn’t their real name. It was Valenescu.”

“Valenescu?”

“That’s what she said. That’s the name that was on their checks. She said she remembers Maria’s mother using ‘Madame Valeska’ on the sign because it wasn’t such a hard name for Americans.”

“Okay,” I said. “That kind of makes sense.”

“It does,” he said. “It makes sense. And this explains why we couldn’t find her before. Or her parents and her brother. We didn’t have the right name.”

“Randy, this kind of tells you something, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t even know her real name.”

“Yeah?”

“You spent one week with her, almost thirty years ago, and you didn’t even know her real name.”

“Ten days,” he said. He picked up the Detroit phone book. “I don’t see any Valenescus in here. What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but Randy—”

“Wait!” he said. The cloud was gone. “Let’s call Leon!”

I let out a long breath, and then I called Leon. I gave him the new name. Maria Valenescu. Her parents, Gregor and Arabella.

“That’s fantastic work!” Leon said. “Now try and tell me you’re not a real private investigator!”

“It wasn’t that hard, Leon.”

“I’ll run these names right now,” he said. “You guys must be psyched down there! We’re getting closer!”

“I’m not so sure,” I said, looking at Randy.

“What’s the matter?”

“Let me take him to dinner and buy him a slinky,” I said. “I need to talk to him.”

“What’s a slinky, Alex?”

“It’s vodka and root beer, Leon. Don’t ask me to explain.” I said good night and hung up the phone.