Rick Mofina - If Angels Fall

“Don’t we all Kate?”

Reed’s cell phone rang. He had to go.

Standing to leave, he asked Kate to put him in touchwith Keller again. He wanted to apologize. She would, only she did not have anumber or address for him. It was curious. Maybe she had taken his number downincorrectly, or there was a mix-up. Anyway, none of the others knew him or wherehe lived. And something strange had happened.

“He stopped coming to the sessions after you visitedthe group.”

“Really? It was because of me?”

“I don’t know. It could be a number of things. I mean,I don’t know much about him beyond his loss of his three children. And I amworried because the anniversary is coming up. I’ve been trying to find him. Ibelieve he gave me a phony number to protect his privacy. If I locate him, I’lllet him know you would like to see him again. I owe you.”

It was Molly Wilson who called Reed. She had triedfinding Keller’s wife, Joan Keller. Joan Webster, if she was using her maidenname. She checked the DMV, voters’ registration, everything she could think of.Nothing.

As for Keller, only a San Francisco post office boxand two other addresses surfaced from all their checking. One was for thebungalow that the Kellers’ rented for a couple of years in Oakland during thelate 1960’s. Wilson knocked on some doors, went through old directories, tryingto find old neighbors, see if Keller kept in touch with anybody. Nothing.

They were missing something obvious. What the hell wasit? Reed reflected, coming to the last address, their last hope for a lead: themansion on Russian Hill. He pushed opened the unlocked gate, entered the yard,and gazed at the house where Keller had lived with his wife and children twentyyears ago. Before their lives were destroyed.

No one answered the bell. Reed waited. Rang again. Heheard the clank of metal on stone and went around to the side, where a womanwas on her knees, tending a rosebush. Property records showed the owners wereLyndon and Eloise Bamford, who bought it from Carlos Allende, who bought itfrom Keller about a year after the tragedy. The robust woman appraising Reedappeared to be in her sixties. She had the attractive, intelligent face of alady who was not easily intimidated.

“May I help you?” She patted a trowel against a glovedhand.

“I’m looking for Eloise Bamford.”

“You found her. Who are you?”

“Tom Reed, a reporter with The San Francisco Star .”

“A reporter?” She stood and accepted his card.

“Sorry to interrupt you. I was hoping you could helpme.”

Sensing something behind him, Reed turned and faced anuneasy Doberman. “I have identification if you would care to see it?”

Eloise Bamford smiled.

“No, you look the part. Go away, Larry,” she orderedthe dog. “We’ll go to the back porch. I’ve just made lemonade.”

They sat in exquisite cane chairs and Reed admired theBamford’s backyard. It was a sloping garden, with an oasis of large trees, dellsof ferns, and fiery-red rhododendrons, pathways lined with rose-covered, stoneretaining walls.

Reed sipped pink lemonade and told Mrs. Bamford-whoinsisted on being called Eloise-about the bereavement group feature and hishunt for Keller. He did not reveal his fears about Keller, keeping his urgencyout of the conversation, hoping Eloise might jump in.

She didn’t.

As he continued, Reed was drawing the conclusion hehad hit another dead end. He showed Eloise the articles of Keller’s tragedy.She read them while he absorbed the garden’s tranquility.

“Yes, I remember the case and the Allendes.” She gavethe clippings back to him. “They were from Argentina. Sold the house to usafter a year. Couldn’t stand to live here anymore. Sad.”

“Why was that?”

“Too many ghosts.”

Reed nodded.

“Of course you know how Joan Keller died?”

She was dead? “I was trying to find out.”

“Suicide. Here. Not long after the children drowned.”

He had never found any stories about that, nor anobit.

“Joan Keller’s death was what led the Allendes tosell. They didn’t know the Kellers’ history until someone around here mentionedit. Mrs. Allendes couldn’t bear to stay in the house. They sold it. Moved backto Argentina. I think he was a diplomat.”

“The tragic history of the house didn’t bother you?”

“Not really.”

Eloise wanted to know why Reed would come to the houselooking for Keller when he hadn’t lived in it for such a long time.

“It’s because I can’t find him. I know it’s a longshot, but I thought you might have a current address for him. Do you know him?”

“Not at all.”

“I see.” Reed was at a loss. “I just thought cominghere might help me find him. After the story on the university’s research,Keller seemed to vanish.”

“Like a ghost himself.”

“I suppose.” Reed thanked her for her lemonade andtime.

“Why do you need to find him?”

“I need to talk to him about his tragedy. Thetwenty-year anniversary is coming up. The Star wanted a memorialfeature.”

“Mmmmm…” Eloise kept turning Reed’s card over.

“I’m curious,” Reed said.

“It’s part of your job.”

“How did Joan Keller die?”

Eloise sipped her lemonade and looked out at thegarden for a moment, watching a pair of swallows preening in the birdbath.

“She hung herself in the attic sometime after herchildren drowned. She was a tormented young woman.”

How would she know? Reed nodded. A sweet-scentedbreeze caressed them as Eloise tapped his card in her hand.

“Some of the family’s things are still up there.”

“Things?”

“In boxes. The Allendes never touched them. I don’tthink they ever used the attic. We just shoved the stuff into a corner,thinking somebody would claim it one day. We tried to locate Edward Kellerourselves years ago. No luck.”

Reed understood.

“Would you like to look at it? It might help you.”

The air in the attic was stifling.

Stained-glass octagonal windows filtered dusty beamsof light to a crumpled tarp in a dark corner. The floorboards creaked. Eloisestopped under an overhead joist bearing a faded “X”.

“The insurance people or police marked the spot whereshe tied the rope and stepped from a chair.”

Reed paused. He could have reached the beam if hewanted.

“And over here”-Eloise pulled back the tarp, stirringup a dust storm that made Reed sneeze-“is what Edward Keller abandoned. Allthis was theirs.”

It was a small warehouse of boxes, crates, andfurniture. Reed opened a trunk. A chill passed through him. It was filled withchildren’s toys. He found a valise filled with papers and sifted through them.Mostly bills and invoices for the house. Eloise went to a small desk, rummagedthrough a drawer, and pulled out a thick leather-bound book with yellowingedges. It smelled musty.

“This was her diary. You’ve never known such abjectsadness.”

Her handwriting was elegant, clear, from a fountainpen. He flipped the pages. The secrets of her life. It began on her sixteenthbirthday. Her small-town-girl disappointments and dreams. Her exciting firstmeeting with Edward Keller. “Deliciously handsome tycoon from San Francisco,”she wrote. “What a catch he would make!” Reed flipped to their marriage, thechildren. Joan’s concerns evolving into frustration and anger at how Edwardnever had time for the children, missing birthdays, holidays. The mansion was agilded cage. Their marriage was strained. Edward had become intoxicated with success.She begged him to make time for the children.

They needed more of their father, not more money.

Reed thought of Ann and Zach.

He flipped ahead to the tragedy, and was stunned byher final entry.