Ask the Right Question (3 page)

My speculations flickered and were blown out by the same breath that uttered the word “conceivably.”

Replaced by more practical thoughts. What would one do to get a lead?

Check friends of the mother to get an idea of what sort of woman she is, and was. What sort of things she did, where she went, the important periods in her life. And what she was doing about seventeen years ago.

Replaced by more practical thoughts yet. The whole business would rest on the validity of Eloise's blood test reports.

But how do you check a family's blood types? Send a nurse to the house to collect blood before breakfast?

I went back to my crossword puzzle.

Half an hour later, having reminded myself of the hundred dollars resting in the generous confines of my wallet, I decided to give Eloise the tentative benefit of the doubt. The benefit of a little simple background work, since I didn't exactly have a whole lot else to do. Maybe by tomorrow if I was really sure I knew exactly what it was that she wanted me to do and why she wanted it done, maybe tomorrow if I could reassure myself about those blood tests, maybe tomorrow I would take the case, formally.

Tonight, tentative, I hit the phone to Maude Simmons, the Sunday editor of the Indianapolis
Star
. I dialed her private line there, the one she uses for her private business.

“Simmons.”

I identified myself.

“Berrtie! How the hell are you?” Rolling the
r
: I hate that. She knows it.

“I'm down at police headquarters. They're holding me for assaulting an editrix. I need somebody to keep the other prisoners from picking on me.”

“Oh,” she said. “That's nice. Pity I haven't time. Can I help you with something else?”

“Yeah. A little information.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“On some people named Crystal.”

“The rich Crystals? Leander and Fleur Graham?” She was ahead of me already.

“I guess so, if they have a daughter named Eloise and live on Jefferson Boulevard.”

“That's them. How deep and when?”

“How about whatever you know off the top of your head and now?”

“Poor Berrtie. Don't you ever get real jobs?” She paused. I thought she was waiting for me to answer that. I ignored the silence. I make my own bed and I lie in it.

But instead she said, “You wouldn't believe it.”

“What?”

“The pneumatic tube contraption here just presented me with today's livestock report. Did you know that calves closed unchanged in Chicago? Eight hundred thousand dollars for a tube system and it brings me the livestock report. It's enough to make you cry.”

We gave it a few moments' silence. Maude hates wastes of money.

“You got your notebook?”

“I have it.”

“Well, first off they're rich. I mean real millions, plural, rich. I can find out how rich if you want.”

“No, thanks, little fella, not just now. What are they like?”

“Well, pretty quiet.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning no current gossip pertaining to behavior the
Star
would consider immoral. And no past gossip that I remember. Is it a divorce gig? If so you're in pretty big money.”

I was ashamed to tell her that I was on the verge of being hired by the kid. “No divorce. Not sure what this is going to be yet.”

“Poor Berrrtie.”

“Tell me something interesting. Anything.”

Well, I remember stories about Fleur's old man. That was Estes Graham, and that's where the money came from by the way. He died '53 or '54, but for years he gave big birthday bashes, and everyone in town would turn out for them. The only problem was that there wasn't a drop of anything alcoholic at them. There's a guy still on the paper who went to one, I think it was in '50. He took his own hip flask. Old Estes Graham spotted it and he got his son-in-law, that would be Leander Crystal, he got Crystal to toss this guy out personally. But that's about the only thing I have offhand. I can tell you that the Crystals, both of them, live very quiet lives. None of the usual society, charity stuff most folks with their kind of cash get roped into.”

“That's it?”

“That's all I have off the top of my head. I can put my staff on it and give you a lot more detail. We have quite a research organization, if you can give us a little help on whatever it is you really want.”

“I'm afraid that for the moment I'll have to leave it at that. How much?”

“Oh, just a token. Whatever you think is fair. Generous, but fair.”

We hung up.

I went to my living-room desk and got an envelope. I thought about putting a dime in it, but for the future's sake I decided not to fun around. I wrote out a check for five dollars and sent it to Miss Simmons, care of the Indianapolis
Star
.

Maude is quite a gal. Ancient, profane, hard-drinking and avaricious. She's also a boon to the thirty or so private-detective offices in Indianapolis. From her nerve center as Sunday features editor at the
Star
her real business is supplying news to private parties. The stuff that's not fit to print: personal backgrounds, credit information, household secrets. She has a network of people with ears and talents. And she makes money with it. Not usually from two-bitters like me, though I've done some real business with her too. She says the police have used her services; I am not accustomed to disbelieve.

I left my notebook at the phone table, but my mind was just not on the crossword wavelength. I wished it were Thursday, instead of Wednesday. Not so much because I would know better where I stood with Eloise
et al
., but because the Pacers would be playing. First game of the season as defending champs of the American Basketball Association. I am a basketball fan and the Pacers' radio broadcasts come in very handy for passing the long winter nights. Sometimes, when I am lucky and the sports photographers are indisposed, I get a call to take some basketball pics. I develop black and white in my office closet, and apart from spot free-lancing, the camera stuff helps in the PI work too. Bits of a life can dovetail.

I tried to put aside my thoughts of Crystals. But there weren't too many concrete thoughts to put aside. From what Maude had given me it seemed that Fleur was a quiet one. And therefore, perhaps, dangerous?

And Eloise? A girl-woman. Adolescence makes for a biologically based dual personality. Perhaps the real question was: Which half was the one that wanted to hire me? And how much chance there was that the blood typings turned out to be exactly as advertised. But mine was not to weep and wonder. I could wait until the morrow.

I set aside my crossword puzzle for the last time and wrote a letter to my daughter. I told her about some rabbits and bears I talked to recently. Very nice, unsymbolic rabbits and bears who got along well and slapped their knees after they told jokes. My daughter is nine now. Maybe a little old to talk to rabbits and bears. Fathers can't be expected to know everything.

Taking the book I'd used in the afternoon, I went to bed.

3

I woke up about eight and made myself a cheese omelet. It was a poor imitation of the ones my ex-wife used to make but one makes sacrifices to preserve integrity.

I thought about how to pass the day. Not real thought; I'd already decided to put in a little time on Miss Crystal against the chance I took her offer of employment. It's not that I had anything more notable to do.

I did decide to do it easy and with a little class. No stress and no strain. I gathered my notebook and writing instrument and went out for a leisurely stroll. West down Ohio Street to Pennsylvania Avenue. Then North up Pennsylvania. The route took me through Indianapolis's ideological heartland. Within oblique sight of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the Circle. On a clear day you can see for blocks from the top. Past the post office and Federal Building, the
Star-News
Building, and the YWCA. Past the World War Memorial, a graveled city block with and obelisk in the middle and cannons on the corners. Past the National Headquarters of the American Legion.

And finally to St. Clair Street. Where I entered, at long last, the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library.

I spent a lot of time there as a kid. It was cool even in the summers and it was quiet. And of all those books, each one representing hundreds of hours of work, some had even worked for me.

But I hadn't come at nine o'clock to be first in line for the latest worst seller. I headed immediately for the microfilm files of the Arts Division on the second floor.

There are six microfilm viewers on the south wall of the Arts Division. But at that time in the morning there wasn't much demand for them, so I got one of the two at the right, next to the microfilm cabinets. Without having to walk very far I could examine all the microfilm I cared to.

I looked over the scant notes I had from Eloise and Maude. I decided first to find the marriage of Fleur and Leander Crystal.

It was twenty or so years ago. I started with the
Star
for January of 1949, fitted it into the viewer and started cranking. I checked each day's social page in a leisurely elegant manner, stopping elsewhere only to sample the heady world of 1949 sports.

In the February 13 issue I found an unexpected bonus. A story of the annual birthday party for Estes Graham. One of the man's wild teetotal wingdings. “… well catered and handled with the restraint and decorum we have come to expect from Estes Graham.…” It read like, a small-town theater review: the ushers and the props mistress did real good.

On February 12, 1949, Estes Graham had become seventy-eight years old.

I cranked on. A regular little butterfly I was, flitting from social page to social page.

At 10:35 (June 3, 1949) I found the announcement of the wedding: “Fleur Olian Graham to Wed.”

Not a large story. No picture. But it was specific. The wedding would take place September 6. The lucky man was Leander Crystal of Ames, Iowa. The reception would be held in Estes Graham's home on North Meridian Street.

What more sensible than to jump immediately and see if the wedding had gone off as scheduled?

September 7, 1949. “Graham Heiress Weds.”

There was a picture this time. That was good. In my heart I like pictures best.

They were coming out of church. Fleur and Leander Crystal, standing with Estes Graham.

Fleur was at her new husband's right. She grinned furiously. An attractive girl, hair that photographed dark. Face a little round. But with careful, articulated lips, in black and white, her best feature. I studied the picture. I thought I would probably be able to recognize her.

Leander was about Fleur's height. He stood stiffly beside her in his Army uniform. I was surprised he was only a sergeant, but the uniform bore medals and it fit him well. His most striking physical characteristic was his virtually complete baldness.

Estes was in his turn at Fleur's right. Leaning on a cane, head slightly stooped. The three heads drew a level line. He was old, and had been for all of Fleur's life, if the picture did not lie. He wore a tux with very long tails.

The story with the photo included an extensive description of the wedding and reception, as well as biographies and plans.

The biographies provided the following.

Fleur was nineteen. She was graduated in 1946 from Tudor Hall, which was a private girls' school in Indianapolis. She had done some volunteer hospital work as a high school student late in the war and she had continued the volunteer work afterward. She had attended the Butler University College of Nursing for a year, but was interrupting her studies to marry.

Crystal, at twenty-nine, had just graduated
cum laude
from Butler University's Business College. He had served in Europe and had been awarded a Silver Cross and a Purple Heart. Presumably he came to Indianapolis to study on the GI Bill. Nothing was stated about his career plans. Perhaps with Estes Graham and a business degree, that was understood.

The couple would spend the night in Estes' house and then leave for a month-long honeymoon in Florida.

By the time I finished making my notes, it was nearly eleven o'clock and time for decision. Break for an early lunch, or go on and try to find another chunk of information?

A rare burst of ambition took hold of me. I decided to stay.

From the wedding I cranked on. The first mention of familiar names was on October 18. It was in the caption of a picture of Leander and Fleur getting off a plane. The bride and bridegroom at Weir Cook Airport returning from the Florida honeymoon. Both smiling this time, no doubt from memories of the Miami sun and the Miami moon. I liked this picture. It made me feel better about the bond between Leander and his apparently errant wife. Newly wed can be a happy time.

As I cranked my way to the end of the year it occurred to me that there was a slightly more efficient way to go about things. There were three more events of significance to the family that I knew existed: Eloise's conception, Eloise's birth, and the death of Estes Graham.

If Eloise was sixteen now, then her birth took place in 1954 or the end of '53. The conception nine months earlier. And Graham had died, according to Maude, in '53 or '54.

The whole thing came to me in a flash! At the annual birthday party of 1953, some crude reporter had gotten Fleur drunk on illicit hooch, and then had knocked her up. Leander had been occupied elsewhere at the time, and Fleur was too ashamed to tell him or her father that she had been drinking. Later when she found she was pregnant, nobody knew that the father wasn't Leander, until Eloise had stumbled on it. End of case. Reporters can be such bounders!

I took a look at the social pages of February 13, 1954, in search of a birthday party.

There was nothing. Presumably no party. Estes either dead or sick. Or for reasons I did not know, uninclined to celebrate his eighty-third.