Ordinary Grace (20 page)

I didn’t know why my brother stuttered; I just knew he always had. The therapists who worked with him were nice folks, patient and encouraging. Jake told me he liked them. So far as I could tell in all the years they’d worked with him they hadn’t made much progress. He still stuttered when he was nervous or angry and just the thought of having to say something in a public way flustered him no end. Teachers seldom called on him in class because waiting out his halting answers was torture for everyone, Jake included. He always sat in the back of a classroom. Usually his therapy was scheduled for early afternoon and my mother would pick him up at lunch and he wouldn’t go back to school that day. He told me it was the one good thing that came of being a stutterer.

If you weren’t around Jake all the time you would have had trouble gauging him. I know that he gave some people the creeps because of the way he held to silence and watched things. Maybe because he was content to observe he often took the measure of a situation and of people much more accurately than others might have. At night in our room I’d be going on and on about a circumstance we’d both been a part of and Jake would listen to me from his bed and when I was finished he’d ask me a question or make a simple statement that had the effect of pointing out something I’d missed in the dynamics of the situation but Jake had not.

Normally my mother took Jake to his speech therapy but the Monday after Ariel died she didn’t. That morning, she’d left us. She had simply stood up at the breakfast table after I asked for some orange juice and had announced she couldn’t stand another minute in that goddamn house and she was going to Emil Brandt’s. She’d stormed out and the screen door had slammed behind her and she’d stomped across the yard heading toward the railroad crossing on Tyler Street while my father stood at the kitchen window watching her go.

Frank, I’d guess everything. He’d left the kitchen and walked upstairs. Jake, who’d been trying to make a sentence with his Alph-bits cereal,
stirred the letters back into incoherence and said, She’s mad at Dad. What did he do?
Nothing. But he’s God.
God? Dad? That’s crazy.
I mean for her he’s God. Jake said this as if it should have been
obvious then went back to making his sentence.
I didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about, but I’ve
thought about it since and I believe I understand. My mother couldn’t
rail directly at God and so she railed instead at my father. Once again
Jake had seen and understood something I hadn’t.
My father returned to the kitchen and Jake asked listlessly, Do I
have to go to Mankato today?
This seemed to catch my father by surprise. He thought it over
then said, Yes. I’ll take you.
So I was home alone that afternoon when the sheriff showed up
looking for Dad. He knocked at the front screen door. A Twins game
was on the radio and I was slumped on the living room sofa dividing
my time between the game and one of Jake’s comic books. The sheriff was dressed in his khaki uniform. He took off his hat which was
something folks did respectfully when my parents came to the door
but no one had ever done it for me. It made me nervous. Is your father home, Frank? I tried the church, he said, but no one
answered.
No, sir. He’s in Mankato with my brother.
He nodded and looked past me into the dark at my back. I wondered if he thought I wasn’t telling the truth or if it was just something
he’d become used to doing as part of his job.
Will you do me a favor, son? Will you have him call me when he
gets back? It’s important.
My mother’s at Emil Brandt’s house, I told him. If you want to
talk to her.
I think I’d rather discuss this with your father. You won’t forget? No, sir. I’ll remember.
He turned and put his hat on and took a couple of steps and
paused and turned back. You mind coming out here a minute, Frank?
A couple of things I’d like to ask you.
I joined him on the porch wondering what answers I had that he
could possibly want.
Let’s sit down, he suggested.
We sat together on the top step and looked out at the yard and
the church on the other side of the street and beyond that the grain
elevators mute beside the tracks. Everything was quiet in the Flats.
The sheriff was not a tall man and sitting we were not that different in
height. He spun his hat in his hands, fingering the sweatband inside. Your sister, she was pretty sweet on the Brandt boy, is that right?
The Brandt boy?
I thought. Karl Brandt had always seemed to me
mature and sophisticated. Yet here was the sheriff calling him boy just
as others called me.
I thought about Ariel and Karl and how well they seemed to get
on. I thought about all they did together. I thought about the nights
Ariel sneaked from the house in the dark hours and slipped back just
before dawn. But I also thought about the question I’d posed to Karl
Brandt the day Jake and I had ridden in his fast little car: Are you
going to marry my sister? And I thought about how he’d backed away. I finally said, They had a complicated relationship.
Which was something I’d heard once in a movie.
Complicated how?
She liked him a lot but I think he didn’t like her as much. Why do you say that?
He wouldn’t marry her.
The sheriff stopped turning his hat in his hands and his face swung
slowly toward me. She wanted him to?
She was supposed to go to Juilliard in a couple of months, which
was what she always wanted to do, but lately she was different. I got
the feeling she wanted to stay here with Karl.
But the Brandt boy’s going off to St. Olaf.
Yes, sir. I guess he is.
With his mouth closed he made a sound that stayed mostly in his
throat and then he went back to spinning the hat in his hands. What do you think of him, Frank?
Again I thought about the car ride and what had struck me as his
refusal to marry Ariel but instead of replying I simply shrugged. You notice anything different about your sister lately? Yeah. She was sad for no reason. And mad sometimes too. Did she say why?
No.
Do you think it might have been because of Karl?
Maybe. She really loved him.
I said that last part not because I knew it to be true but because it
felt true. Or felt to me as if it should have been true.
She spent a lot of time with Karl?
A lot.
Did you ever see them argue?
I made a good show of thinking hard although I knew the answer
immediately. No, I said.
Which didn’t seem to be the answer he wanted.
Once, I said quickly, Ariel came back from a date pretty mad. At Karl?
I guess. I mean, he was the guy she was on the date with. Recently?
A couple of weeks ago.
Did she talk to you, Frank? Maybe tell you things she wouldn’t tell
your folks?
We were very close, I said trying to sound mature.
What did she tell you?
I realized suddenly that I’d made a trap for myself, suggesting a situation that wasn’t exactly true, and the sheriff was expecting something
from me I didn’t know how to give, confidences Ariel might have shared. She went out at night sometimes, I said in a panic. After everybody
was asleep. And she didn’t come back until almost morning. Out? With Karl Brandt?
I think so.
She sneaked out?
Yes.
You knew? Did you tell your parents?
This was getting worse by the moment.
I didn’t want to rat on her, I said, realizing even as the words tumbled
out that it was probably not a great way to phrase what I meant because
it sounded very James Cagney and I was feeling very
Public Enemy
. The sheriff looked at me a long time and although I couldn’t read
his expression clearly I was afraid that what was there was complete
disapproval.
I mean, I stumbled on, she was grown up and all.
Grown up? In what ways?
I don’t know. Big. An adult. Me, I’m just a kid.
I said this hoping like crazy that being just a kid would get me
off the hook. Whatever the hook was. I didn’t know for sure. What I
understood clearly was that I was in way over my head.
Grown up, the sheriff repeated sadly. That she was, Frank. He rose
slowly from the step and settled his hat on his head. Don’t forget to
tell your father to call me, you hear?
I won’t, I said.
All right, then.
He descended the stairs and went to his car which was parked
in the gravel drive in front of our garage and he backed out and disappeared up Tyler Street and just after that a train came rumbling
through and I sat on the steps while the porch boards shook and the
engine whistle screamed and I realized I was shaking too and it had
nothing to do with the passage of the train.
* * *

I stayed on the porch watching for the Packard and in the late afternoon I spotted it bumping over the tracks. As soon as my father had parked, Jake leaped out the passenger side and sprinted toward the house and ran past me and inside. I heard the hammer of his feet on the stairs then I heard the bathroom door on the second floor slam shut. Jake had a notoriously small bladder. My father came more slowly.

His eyes had been on the old porch steps as he mounted but now he looked up. What did he want?
He didn’t say exactly. He just asked me some questions and then he said you should call him when you got back.
What kinds of questions?
About Ariel and Karl.
Karl?
Yeah. He was pretty interested in Karl.
Thank you, Frank, he said and went inside.
I went in too and flopped on the living room sofa and picked up the comic book I’d been reading when the sheriff came. I was near enough the phone stand at the bottom of the stairs that I could hear my father’s end of the conversation.
It’s Nathan Drum. My son told me you stopped by.
I heard the toilet flush on the second floor and water ran through the pipe in the wall.
I see. My father said this heavily and I could tell it wasn’t good. I could meet you in my church office in a few minutes, if that’s convenient.
Upstairs the bathroom door opened and Jake clomped into the hallway.
Fine. I’ll be waiting for you.
My father put the receiver down.
I asked, What did he want?
The room was dark. Even though my mother hadn’t been home all day I’d left the drapes pulled shut. My father stood outlined in the rectangle of sunlight in the front doorway. His back was to me and I couldn’t see his face.
The autopsy’s finished, Frank. He wants to talk to me about it.
Is it bad?
I don’t know. Your mother, have you seen her?
No, sir.
I’ll be across the street if she calls.
He left the house and I followed to the screen door and watched him walk toward the church. Halfway there he stopped and stood dead still in the middle of the street. He seemed lost and I was afraid that if a car came by he would be hit because he wouldn’t even know it was coming. I pushed open the door thinking I should call to him but he pulled himself together and continued on.
Jake galloped down the stairs and sidled up beside me.
We got milk shakes, he said. Dad and me. At the Dairy Queen in Mankato.
I knew he was baiting me but I had other things on my mind. I didn’t even bother to reply.
He asked, Where’s Dad?
I nodded toward the church and said, He’s waiting for the sheriff to come back.
I stepped out onto the porch.
Jake came too, glued to me, and said, The sheriff was here? What did he want?
Mostly to see Dad. But he asked me some questions about Karl and Ariel.
What kind of questions?
It doesn’t matter.
I spoke to Jake curtly in a way meant to cut off his probing because something else had captured my attention. In the aftermath of Ariel’s death I often found myself noticing some unusual convergence of natural circumstance that I took as a sign. Not necessarily from God but clearly from forces beyond my own constricted understanding. The night before, I’d observed two shooting stars whose paths crossed in the sky to the east and I knew it meant something extraordinary but what I couldn’t say. And after my father and Jake had left for Mankato as I listened to the Twins game on the radio I’d heard, during a few moments of transmission static, a voice speak from a different broadcast source and I thought I made out two words, though not clearly:
The answer
. The answer to what? I wondered at the time.
Now as I stood on the porch I saw that the sun was behind the church steeple and the steeple shadow had fallen across the street and was pointing directly at me like a long proscriptive finger.
Frank, are you okay?
The sheriff ’s car came down Tyler and swung onto Third and pulled into the church lot. The sheriff got out and walked to the front door of the sanctuary and went inside.
Jake tugged on my arm. Frank!
I pulled loose from his grip and started quickly down the porch steps.
Where are you going?
I said, Nowhere.
In an instant he was at my side. I didn’t want to argue so I let him come. I raced to the church’s side door that opened onto the basement stairs. Gus’s motorcycle had been gone all day and as I descended into the cool under the church I knew he wouldn’t be there to stop me. I went to the disconnected furnace duct that ran up to my father’s office and pulled out the rags meant to block the flow of sound. Jake watched and his eyes told me he considered it an enormous transgression.
Frank,
he whispered.
I shot him a look that shut him up.
There was a knock on my father’s office door and the boards above us squeaked as he crossed to greet his visitor.
Thank you for coming, he said.
Could we sit down, Mr. Drum?
Of course.
They walked to my father’s desk and chairs scraped.
My father asked, What did the medical examiner find?
The sheriff said, He confirmed van der Waal’s initial assessment. Your daughter sustained a head trauma from an elongated instrument, maybe something like a tire iron, but the actual cause of death was drowning. There was water in her lungs, silty like you’d find in the Minnesota River. But there’s something else. Mr. Drum, your daughter wasn’t the only one killed.
I don’t understand.
I wish to God I could keep this from becoming public but this is a small town and sooner or later everyone’s going to know, so I wanted you to know first. Ariel was pregnant when she died.
There was no sound from above, nothing down the duct at all, but beside me Jake sucked in an astonished breath and I grabbed him and clapped my hand over his mouth to ensure his silence.
Did you know, Mr. Drum?
I had no idea, Dad said and I could hear his astonishment.
The medical examiner estimated that Ariel was five or six weeks along in her pregnancy.
A baby, my father said. Dear God, what a tragedy.
I’m truly sorry, Mr. Drum. And I’m sorry but there are some questions I have to ask you.
A painful silence followed then my father said, All right.
How long had your daughter been seeing Karl Brandt?
They’d been dating about a year.
Did you believe they might get married?
Married? No. They both had other plans.
This afternoon your son told me that Ariel had changed her mind about going away.
She was just nervous about leaving home, I think.
Do you still think that? In light of what the medical examiner found?
I don’t know.
Your son also told me that Ariel sometimes sneaked out at night and didn’t come back until almost morning.
I can’t believe that’s true.
It’s what he told me. If it was true, any idea where she might have gone?
No.
Is it possible she was sneaking out to be with the Brandt boy?
I suppose it’s possible. Why are you so interested in Karl?
Well, it’s like this, Mr. Drum. All along I’ve pretty much figured that Warren Redstone or Morris Engdahl was responsible for what happened to your daughter. Now I’ve looked at Redstone’s past and although the man isn’t any stranger to jails he has nothing violent on his record. And those items Officer Doyle found in Redstone’s little camp on the river, they were none of them worth anything and exactly the kinds of items you might find dropped somewhere along the railroad tracks or a riverbank or in an alley. So I don’t have a real strong feeling at this point about him being responsible for Ariel’s death. And first thing this morning, I went out to Sioux Falls to have a talk with Morris Engdahl and Judy Kleinschmidt.They’re sticking to their story about being in Mueller’s barn together the night your daughter went missing. Aside from the minor altercation with your son, I don’t really have any reason to suspect Engdahl, except he’s the kind of kid who always seems to be shaking hands with trouble. The Mann Act charge’ll let me hold him and pump him good, so maybe we’ll get something out of him yet.
My father said, But you think because Ariel’s pregnant and she and Karl have been dating that it’s more likely Karl had something to do with her death?
Look, Mr. Drum, this is the first homicide investigation I’ve ever conducted. Things like this don’t happen in Sioux County. Right now, I’m just asking questions and trying to find someplace to go with my thinking.
I can’t imagine Karl would ever harm Ariel.
Did you know they had a huge argument the day before she went missing?
No.
I talked to some of Ariel’s friends who witnessed it. Anger on both sides, apparently. They couldn’t tell me what it was about. Can you?
I haven’t the slightest idea.
Maybe about a baby, a child that would complicate both their lives enormously?
I don’t know, Sheriff.
Your son told me that Ariel was a lot more fond of Karl than Karl was of her.
I don’t know how he would know that.
Would your wife?
My father didn’t answer right away. I glanced at Jake and even in the dark I could see that his face was flushed and he gripped the furnace duct as if it was a horse that might gallop away.
I’ll talk to her, my father finally said.
I came to you first, Mr. Drum. Now I have to talk to Karl Brandt. And then I’d like to talk to your wife, after you’ve told her what I’ve told you, of course. Will she be here later?
I’ll make certain she is.
Thank you.
A chair scraped and a moment later another and the floorboards gave noisily under the weight of the men as they left and above us there was no sound and in the basement there was only a kind of stunned silence until Jake stuttered astonished and angry, K-K-K-Karl.