The Dells (2 page)

Shoe's parents were sitting at the kitchen table. Shoe's father sat with his back to the door, reading a fat large-print paperback. He wore hearing aids behind both ears. Shoe's mother had a pair of lightweight headphones clamped to her head and was listening to something on a portable CD player while she snapped green beans with her fingers. Neither heard Shoe and the two police officers as they entered the kitchen.

“Dad,” Shoe said, gently touching his father's shoulder.

Howard Schumacher turned with a start. “Jesus Christ, son,” he said, without rancour. “Are you trying to give me a goddamned heart attack?” Howard Schumacher touched his wife's hand. “Mother.” Vera Schumacher took off her headphones and raised her head. Her eyes were sharp and clear but unfocused; damage to the occipital region of her brain as a result of a fall eight years before had rendered her almost completely blind. “Joe's here,” her husband said. “And some policemen.” He stood. Shoe's mother slid her fingers over the controls of the CD player and pressed the stop button.

Howard Schumacher was not quite as tall as Shoe. Lean and rangy, he was still straight despite his eighty-four years. His hair, thick and in need of a trim, was startlingly white and he hadn't shaved recently. Sticking out a big, knobbly hand to Shoe, he said, “Hello, son.”

“Hello, Dad,” Shoe said, shaking his father's hand. The old man's grip was strong.

“Joe?” Shoe's mother said, turning toward the sound of his voice, reaching out to him from her chair.

“Yes, Mum,” Shoe said, taking his mother's hand and bending to kiss her pale, lined cheek. Her flesh was soft and warm against his lips. She smelled of lavender soap and talcum powder.

“Dad,” Shoe said, “the police would like to ask you and Mum some questions.”

“Sorry for the intrusion,” Constable Smith said. “Did either of you notice anything unusual going on in the woods behind your house last night, or someone in your yard, say between ten in the evening and two in the morning?”

“You'll have to speak up, son,” Shoe's father said. “My hearing aids aren't doing much good these days. What was that again?”

Constable Smith repeated the question, speaking clearly and slowly and loudly.

Shoe's father shook his head. “We were both in bed by ten. Weren't we, Mother?” Vera Schumacher nodded. “What's this all about, officer?”

Constable Smith repeated what he'd told Shoe.

“Oh, goodness,” Shoe's mother said. “I hope it wasn't someone we know.”

“Have you identified the victim?” Shoe asked.

Constable Smith looked at his partner, who was younger, probably not much older than Shoe had been when he'd joined the Toronto police. His name tag read “P. Pappas.” He was sweating even more profusely than his partner. Consulting his notebook, he said, “His name was Marvin Cartwright.”

“Oh, dear,” Shoe's mother said.

“Eh? What was that?” Shoe's father said.

“He said, ‘Marvin Cartwright,' dear.”

“Marvin?”

“Do you know him?” Constable Smith asked.

“He used to live in the neighbourhood,” Shoe's father said. “Four doors down. But he hasn't lived here for thirty-five years. Must be in his seventies now. I'll be damned,” he added. “Marvin the Martian.”

“Howard,” his wife scolded.

“I think the detectives are going to want to talk to you,” Constable Smith said. He unclipped the radio microphone from his shoulder tab and spoke into it.

Constable Pappas went outside to wait for the detectives, leaving Constable Smith in the kitchen with Shoe and his parents. The police officer tried unsuccessfully to make himself inconspicuous during Shoe's reunion with his parents.

“How you doin', son?” Howard Schumacher asked. “How's work?”

“I'm fine, Dad,” Shoe replied. “Work's fine too. Thanks.”

“Sorry t'hear about your friend.”

“Thank you.”

“How was your flight, dear?” Vera Schumacher asked.

“Uneventful,” Shoe replied.

“Today, that's a good thing,” his father said.

“Is that Rachel's car in the driveway?” Shoe asked.

Shoe's father nodded. “She's out
jogging
,” he said. “Gotta be nuts, in this heat, especially with the pollution in the air.”

Constable Smith grunted softly in agreement.

“Would you like something, son?” Shoe's father asked. “Coffee? All we've got is instant, I'm afraid.”

“I brought my own,” Shoe said, taking a vacuum bag of dark roast coffee and a box of cone filters from his carry-on. He took a six-cup Braun automatic coffee maker out of the back of the cupboard over the fridge. It probably hadn't been used since his previous visit. He inserted a paper cone filter into the basket, then broke the seal on the bag of coffee, and scooped coffee into the filter.

“That smells good,” Howard Schumacher said. “Maybe I'll have a cup after all.”

“And be up all night,” his wife said.

“Half a cup then. With lots of milk.”

“Would you like some coffee while you wait for the detectives?” Shoe asked Constable Smith.

“No, thank you,” the officer said.

Shoe added another scoop of coffee to the filter, then filled the reservoir, and turned the coffee maker on. He took a carton of milk from the fridge, poured some into a mug, and placed the mug into the microwave, but did not start it.

“Do you have any idea what Mr. Cartwright was doing out there in the woods at night?” Constable Smith asked.

“He spent a lot of time in those woods when he lived here,” Shoe's father said. “He was a birdwatcher. Don't guess he was watching birds at night, though.”

“Any idea why he came back to the neighbourhood after so long?”

“Nope,” Shoe's father said. “Sorry.”

“Howard, maybe he came for the homecoming festival,” Shoe's mother said.

“I forgot about that,” Shoe's father said. “We've had a neighbourhood Sunday-in-the-park every August civic
holiday weekend for thirty years,” he explained to the constable. “Before that we all got together in someone's backyard. This year they're having a homecoming festival for people who used to live here. Our daughter is on the organizing committee. I suppose she could tell you if Mr. Cartwright was on the list of people who registered.”

The front doorbell rang, the classic ding-dong of the old “Avon calling” cosmetics commercials.

“That'll be the detectives,” Constable Smith said.

Shoe went to the front door. A man and a woman stood on the steps, Constable Pappas behind them. The detectives both wore dark glasses, and suit jackets despite the heat and humidity. The man was in his thirties, doughy and overweight and beginning to lose his hair. He smelled of cigarettes. The woman was older, in her early forties, slightly taller than her companion, slim and long-legged. Her cropped dark hair had a reddish hue in the sunshine. Shoe had the feeling he knew her, but that didn't seem likely. Perhaps she reminded him of someone he'd once known.

“I'm Detective Sergeant Hannah Lewis,” she said, showing Shoe her badge.

She put her badge away, then took off her dark glasses. She had the sharpest cheekbones Shoe had ever seen, which gave her a slightly fox-like appearance, but it was when he saw her eyes, oblique and a deep violet, that he knew who she was, and when he had last seen her. Her name hadn't been Lewis then. It had been Mackie.

“This is Detective Constable Paul Timmons,” she said. Her violet eyes connected with Shoe's and held them for a moment. “Are you Mr. Schumacher?” she asked.

“One of them,” Shoe replied. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed that she didn't appear to recognize him. “Come in.”

The detectives followed him into the kitchen. Lewis nodded to Constable Smith. To Shoe and his parents, she
said, “Would you mind waiting in here for a minute while I talk to the officers?” Without waiting for an answer, she went into the living room. Constable Smith followed. While Lewis and the uniformed officers conferred in low voices, and Timmons stood silently in the doorway, Shoe pressed the start button on the microwave and heated the milk for his father's coffee. He heard the front door open and close as Lewis came back into the kitchen.

Shoe poured his father's coffee, then held up the pot. Lewis shook her head. Her partner said, “No, thanks.” Shoe filled a mug for himself.

“What can you tell us about Marvin Cartwright?” Lewis asked, addressing Shoe and his parents.

“What was that, miss?” Shoe's father said, turning his head. “You'll have to speak up.”

“Sorry,” Lewis said. She repeated the question while Howard Schumacher carefully sipped his coffee.

“Not much,” Shoe's father said. “He moved away thirty-five years ago, after his mother died. No idea where to. Lived where the Tans live now. They've lived there for fifteen years or so. Before the Tans it was the Gagliardis and before them it was the Bronsteins. He bought the house new, around the same time we did, when the street was a dead end and there were farm fields where the junior high school is now. Joe found an Indian arrowhead. And a musket ball. Remember, Joe? Anyway, you wouldn't know the place. The woods haven't changed much, I guess, except they're a bit wilder now. City's let the park go to hell, if you ask me, especially along the creek.”

“How long have you lived here?” Lewis asked.

“Just a few months shy of fifty years,” Shoe's father said.

“That means Marvin Cartwright was your neighbour for fifteen years,” Lewis said. “You must've come to know him pretty well in that time.”

“You'd think so, wouldn't you? But he pretty much kept himself to himself, as they say. Not that he wasn't friendly, mind you. He just didn't mix much. He was a bit different. The odd man out, you might say. He wasn't married, for one thing, and he didn't have a nine-to-five job like everyone else in the neighbourhood. Not sure what he did for a living, actually, but if he worked, it was at home. Or maybe he just looked after his mother full-time. She was an invalid. Bedridden. A truck would deliver oxygen once a month or so, and every so often an ambulance would come, take her away to the hospital, I suppose, and bring her back a few days later. Only time anyone ever saw her was when they were moving her back and forth from the ambulance. Kids called him Marvin the Martian. You know? After the old cartoon character? Some of the older boys used to play practical jokes on him.”

“What sort of jokes?” Lewis asked.

“Kid stuff mostly. Leaving flaming paper bags of dog poop on his front porch and ringing the doorbell, hoping he'd stomp out the flames. Letting the air out of his car tires. Wrapping his shrubs in toilet paper. Not Joe, though,” Shoe's father added, smiling at Shoe. “You used to do yard work for him, didn't you?”

Shoe shook his head. “That was Hal,” he said.

“Did you know him?” Lewis asked.

“Not really,” Shoe replied. He'd been fifteen the summer Marvin Cartwright had moved away. He remembered a sturdy, sun-browned man, always friendly, but who didn't smile much. To Shoe, Cartwright had had an aura of mystery about him, but that had likely been a product of his standoffishness and a teenager's active imagination. Shoe had never spoken to him that he could recall, except to say hello. He hadn't played jokes on him, as Hal had, until he'd grown out of it, not long before Cartwright had moved away.

“The littler kids liked him,” Howard Schumacher said.

Lewis raised her eyebrows.

“The city used to set up an outdoor skating rink in the park behind the houses across the street. In the summer there was a baseball diamond and playground. The entrance to the park was across from Marvin's house. In the winter he'd invite kids in for hot chocolate. In the summer he'd make them lemonade. For a while he used to go all out for Halloween, too, decorating his lawn with gravestones and plastic skeletons and such, but the older kids kept tearing it up, so he eventually stopped even giving out treats.”

Lewis looked up from her notebook at the sound of the back door. A moment later, Shoe's sister, Rachel, came up the stairs into the kitchen. She was wearing shorts and an athletic top darkened with perspiration. She had a tiny white MP3 player clipped to the waistband of her shorts, the earbuds hanging around her neck on fine, white wires.

“Hey, Joe,” she said brightly. “I smell coffee — ” She saw Lewis and Timmons. “Oops, sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt.”

Shoe introduced Detective Sergeant Lewis and Detective Constable Timmons. Rachel's expression darkened as Timmons's eyes moved quickly up and down her body. Her shorts and damp top clung like a second skin.

“What's happened?” she said.

“We're investigating the death of a man named Marvin Cartwright,” Sergeant Lewis said.

“Marvin … ” Rachel blinked and for a moment she was far away. She blinked again as she returned to the present. “My god. I haven't thought of him in years.” Her eyes narrowed. “How did he die? I mean, you wouldn't be investigating his death if he'd died of natural causes, would you?”

“Sometime late last night or early this morning he was beaten to death in the wooded area behind your parents' house.”

“Beaten to death? By whom?”

“That's what we're investigating,” Lewis said.

“Yes, of course.” She shivered. “Would you mind if I got dressed? I'm getting chilled. The air conditioning is set too high again,” she added, in a disapproving tone of voice.

“We just have a couple of questions … ”

“Which I'll gladly answer after I've changed.” Without waiting for a reply, Rachel turned and strode down the hall toward the bedrooms.