Marcia Talley - A Quiet Death

‘What a pair!’ I said, referring to Zan and Lilith. ‘He’s denying and your mother’s not telling, but facts is facts is facts.’

‘Amen!’ Nick said, hoisting his glass. He raised it to his lips and emptied the remaining wine in one gulp, then slammed the glass down on the table. If there’d been a fireplace in the room, no doubt he would have dashed the glass against the hearth and shouted Prost!

But Nick was in no mood for celebrating. ‘Do you know what it’s like to be rejected? No father, an absentee mother, and a fossil of an uncle who squeezed every nickel until the buffalo pooped? Spending every Christmas with the families of friends because my mother was living…’ He whipped his glasses off and massaged his eyes. ‘Well, I’m not going there.’

I could only imagine. I came from a close-knit military family that moved, together, all over the world. Even when our father was deployed, we stayed in touch with cassette-tape recordings sent back and forth through the mail. It hadn’t seemed important when we lost the tapes in one of our many moves, but I would give anything to hear my late mother say ‘I love you’ again.

At that moment, Nick looked so lost and vulnerable that my own motherly instinct kicked in, big time. I pictured Lilith’s house as I had last seen it. Thanksgiving dinner hadn’t been prepared in that kitchen for a very long time, perhaps not since the early pilgrims.

‘Do me a favor, will you, Nick?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Let me take you to dinner downstairs. It’s an Indian restaurant. I’ve looked at the menu, and I think there’s a chicken vindaloo with my name on it.’ Holding my wine glass, I popped up from my chair and whisked his empty glass off the table. ‘Let me rinse these out.’

In the bathroom, I ran hot water into the glasses, swirled it around, then dumped it out, shaking off the excess drops over the sink. As I reached for a towel on the rack behind the toilet, I noticed scraps of paper on the floor. Neatnick that I am, I bent down for a closer look.

Each piece was a ragged one-half inch square. I scooped up a handful and examined them closely. ‘Waiting for’ was written on one scrap; ‘I dream’ on another; ‘Venice we’ on a third. I recognized the handwriting. It was Zan’s.

The scraps were from a photocopy, not an original letter, I noticed with relief. When I checked the trash can, I found thousands more bits which, had they been put together, would chronicle Zan’s love for a beautiful young woman named Lilith. Leaving our wine glasses sitting on the edge of the sink, I picked up the trash bin and took it out to Nick. ‘What’s this?’ I asked, practically waving the bin under his nose.

Nick smiled ruefully. ‘That’s what Hoffner and I had our little disagreement about.’

‘Photocopies of your mother’s letters?’

‘Yeah. Before the crash, he had the originals, but I felt uncomfortable about that, so he made copies. For security, he said. He gave me back the originals. That’s why I was carrying them that day.’

‘I’m puzzled. Why did Hoffner want the photocopies? They’re not his letters.’

‘Well, I hired him to find my father, so I guess he figured he needed copies of the letters in order to do his job.’

I shook the basket. It rustled like a cheerleader’s pompom on homecoming night. ‘Why did you tear the photocopies up? I’m assuming this is your work.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t need them. I know who my father is, and that’s all I wanted to know. Whether he’ll ever get around to acknowledging me or not doesn’t change that fact.’

‘You said there was a disagreement between you and Hoffner.’

‘Hoffner was pissed. He had some hare-brained idea that Chandler… Well, never mind.’

‘Please, Nick. Go ahead. I’m interested.’

Nick seemed to be gathering himself together. With the business end of his cane, he repositioned his footstool. Then, using both hands, he lifted his braced leg and rested it on top of the stool. That done, he leaned back, looking considerably more relaxed than when I first entered the room.

‘This is how it went down,’ he began. ‘Hoffner showed up to take me to physical therapy. He noticed that I’d taken the photocopies out of his briefcase and torn them to bits. He totally flipped out. Swore like a trucker – fuck this, screw that – then walked out, slamming the door behind him.

‘Want to know the truth?’ he continued.

Of course I did.

‘Hoffner ordered me to chill out. Said there was more money in bleeding Chandler than there was in the measly amount we might get out of the Metro settlement. He was planning to blackmail my father. Hoffner wouldn’t call it that, of course. He was always running on about manning up, taking responsibility for one’s youthful mistakes. That’s a good one! And this is my favorite: making it up to me financially, all those years of struggle without a father. Yada yada yada.’ Nick laughed out loud. ‘Hoffner’s a big-time bullshitter, once he gets going. Anyway, I told Hoffner that I didn’t need to be compensated for being deprived of a father in my formative years. I wrote Hoffner a check for what I owed him, and told him to fuck off, so he did.’

‘Where is Hoffner now?’ I asked, growing increasingly uneasy.

‘Do I look like somebody who gives a shit?’

Nick rose to his feet with difficulty, supporting himself on the cane, his hand clutching the brass knob, knuckles white, his arm trembling. ‘Come on, Hannah. Now that I’m up, didn’t you mention something about chicken tikka?’

‘Vindaloo.’

‘Whatever. Grab those wine glasses and let’s roll!’

The vindaloo was still burning its way though my small intestine when I got home around eight.

Paul uncurled from his spot on the sofa and rose to meet me. ‘So, I graded exams today. How was your day?’

I gave him a peck on the cheek, then dragged him down on the sofa to sit next to me. ‘It’s all coming together now, Paul. It was Hoffner who had Zan’s letters. Although I can’t prove it, I think he called Meredith, arranged to meet her somewhere, told her he wanted money to keep his mouth shut about Chandler’s love child, something went wrong and she died. Hoffner panicked and gave the letters back to Nick at the Library of Congress, figuring if he didn’t get caught with the letters, no problem.

‘Now I find out from Nick that he’d made photocopies of some of the letters. Hoffner had a fit when Nicholas destroyed them. Why?’

‘That’s easy, Hannah. Because he still needs them, that’s why.’

‘The only thing that makes sense is that Hoffner planned, or even still plans, to blackmail Chandler. Nick even suggested that in a not so subtle way.’

I was playing with a loose thread on Paul’s ragged sweater, the one he kept rescuing from the Goodwill bag, when something occurred to me. ‘I’m going to call Jud Wilson.’

‘Hannah, it’s too late.’

‘Right,’ I agreed. ‘And I don’t have his cell. I guess it can wait until tomorrow.’

Paul’s arm snaked around me. ‘Come here.’ He kissed me and said, ‘You taste like curry.’

‘Vindaloo,’ I said. ‘Extra spicy.’

‘Ooh, hot kisses.’

‘You should experience it from my side.’

The next morning, I called Jud, left a message saying it was important I talk to him. In five minutes, he returned the call.

‘Jud, did that guy on the LC tape, James Hoffner, ever show up at Lynx News?’

‘Not that I’m aware of. Why?’

‘Is there any way to reach Chandler, other than through you?’

‘Sure. If you have his private number. Or his cell.’

‘What if you didn’t have his private number? How would one reach him?’