Hall+of+Mirrors+(Mr.+Fischer)

= **Hall of Mirrors** =


 * Chapter 1**

It was a cold, rainy night when she stumbled into my office, the kind of night that sticks to your lungs like old gum sticks to your shoes or blood sticks to a corpse. Business had been slow for the past few months; hell, it had been dead. After I screwed up the Goldstone affair and my name was mud in all the local rap sheets, it’s not as if I expected John D. Rockefeller to come knocking at my door. I’d had to cut Vivian’s salary in half, and at this point she was virtually working for free, sticking with me more out of habit than as a true means of employment. She knew better than to hope for better days, and seeing her when I came in every morning was sort of an embarrassment. Not many bills to type up or letters to write. She’d done and re-done the files about four thousand times at this point, trying to give me the illusion that this wasn’t a dead-end shop and I wasn’t a washed up PI. But until I was clearer of the whole Goldstone screw-up, I was sunk.

Most likely, when the blond—Mrs. Yardley, as I’d later discover—came into the office, she came in unsteady, but since I was pretty unsteady myself, I hardly noticed. I’d ready the three dailies already and had already given up on the crossword puzzle, so I had moved on to my scheduled early evening appointment with my new best friend: a short bottle of scotch that was so raw that even the local winos turned it down. Me and Scotty had been palling it around for an hour or so, so tipsy wasn’t something that would really strike me. To a sailor on a sinking ship, it’s the landlubber who seems off balanced. Had I realized the problems in her gait I would have wasted less time and maybe gotten some of the answers I spent the next twelve months searching for.

The blond—Mrs. Yardley, Mrs. Harold Hannover Yardley of Malvern, Pennsylvania—was the type of broad I once used to chase, in my younger and more vibrant days, about a hundred years ago. You know the type: hair like an angel, eyes like a slot machine that’s just hit all cherries, body like one of Detroit’s finest, and legs that were good enough for a day’s worth of looking. That type. Dolled up in a way that say “money” but also “class,” but also “class that comes from money.” The type who would have no time for a jerk like me. The type that never had time for a jerk like me. She was perfectly made up: demure red lipstick, a touch of blush, and a faint smell of lavender that would linger in a guy’s dreams. But heck, I was already three shot glasses under, so perhaps I missed something. Come to think of it, I missed a lot.

Vivian let her into the office, but there wasn’t much need for formalities. Turns out that there wasn’t much time.

“Are you Mr. Slade?” she asked, in a voice that reminded me of the sound of a soft kitten who had smoked one too many cigarettes.

“Yup. Slade. Just like the chalkboard.” She ignored my crack, one I’d told a hundred times, always to an unappreciative audience. “What brings a little lady like you out on a cold night like this?”

“I haven’t time, Mr. Slade. I hear you’re a detective, that you find people….”

“Who told you that?” I cracked. I could certainly be a comedian when I wanted to be. Funny as a coffin with a week-old corpse.

“Never mind,” she continued. “Is it true that you find people?”

“Only if they’re lost,” I replied. Between her legs and her perfume, I was divided between whether I should ask her about her evening plans or ask her to marry me. I’d flip a coin to decide.

“It’s my husband. Mr. Yardley. Mr. Harold Hannover Yardley? Have you heard of him?”

Of course I had heard of Mr. H.H. Yardley, son of perhaps the richest man on the Main Line. “No,” I said. “Never heard of him.”

“Well, he’s lost, I mean missing, I mean….” She’d balled up her handkerchief, gripping it like she was afraid it would get up and walk away.

“Is it him who’s missing, or is it you who’s missing him?” I asked. The young H.H. was well known for his love of the ladies, and the ponies, and the tables, and the gun runners, and about any other vice that he could uncover with daddy’s old world money. “Missing is such a subjective term.”

She ignored me and my insinuations. “Can you find him? I need someone who can find him. He’s got to be found.”

Had I not been so taken by my own wit at this point—had I not been trying to play the working class stiff trying to score cheap points with the society dame—I might have noticed that her voice has become more fragile, more hesitant, more desperate.

“Listen,” she said. “I’ll pay you anything. Look, here’s a thousand dollars. I have more. Plenty more. Can you find him?”

Like rain in the desert. The ten Ben Franklins she place on my desk were enough to make me sit up and take notice. Hell, they were enough to make me take up going to church again. I rubbed my mouth and hoped I wasn’t drooling.

“It’s very important, you see,” she continued. “You must find him.”

“And why is that, Mrs. Yardley, if you don’t mind me asking.” I hadn’t grabbed the grand yet, not wanting to seem the greedy S.O.B. that I truly was. “What it Mr. Yardley doesn’t want to be found?”

“It’s not like that, it’s not like that at all,” she muttered. “I don’t have time for this kind of talk, Mr. Slade. Will you find him or won’t you?”

“It all depends, Mrs. Yardley. It all depends. Don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep. Let me ask you some questions first.” The usual. You know, the who, what, where, when, why I’d learned as a cub reporter at the Bulletin. Normal time wasting stuff that would get me nowhere but would make it seem like I had a game plan. Like I was a professional. Like I knew what I was doing.

I hadn’t noticed that she was now gripping the desk between us with a vice grip, propping up her slender body so that it wouldn’t melt onto the dusty floor. There were a lot of things I didn’t notice that I wish I had. While I was playing dime-novel detective. While I should have been getting some answers.

“OK, Mrs. Yardley, so let’s say I take your case and start looking for your husband. Where might you suggest I start this treasure hunt?”

“Oh, that’s easy, Mr. Slade. Start at our home, in Malvern. Do you know it? Drop by during the day and ask for Mr. Yardley. Mr. H.H. Yardley. Ask for my husband at the house.”

The dream was about to end right about now. I knew it. I knew that scotch on an empty stomach was a bad idea, and that that explained this senselessness that I’d just thought I witnessed. Just a dumb dream.

A dumb dream that was interrupted by a thud.

Vivian ran in when she heard the body hit the floor. “Mr. Slade! I think…I think she’s dead!”

So much for my dream.

So much for Mrs. Yardley.


 * Chapter 2**

Turns out that blood—even the blue blood of Mrs. H. H. Yardley—takes a long time to wash out of a cheap beige throw-rug, and that took up most of my afternoon, after the gents from Central were done with asking me about a million questions that I had no answer to. I decided not to mention the grand she’d given me or the request to find her missing husband. I figured I’d know soon enough whether I’d bring them in on that little piece of information. They had enough on their hands, as it was. Vivian, having been with me for as long as she has, was not shaken by events, though we both wondered how we’d not noticed that the Mrs. was on her last leg when she legged it into my presence. Last breath, too, it turned out. Shot twice through the lung, small caliber, but large enough to cause more damage than nature could repair on it’s own. The cops roughed me up quite a bit about the fact that I’d missed this small fact when she arrived at my office, but I played dumb and they eventually gave up.

“Well, that’s a new one,” Vivian muttered, breaking the silence left when the inquisitors departed. “A client who dies AFTER she pays her bill.”

Thank God for Vivian’s gallows humor. Probably save me from the gallows someday.

“Gotta lay off the booze,” I replied. “I might miss something.”

“I’ll say.” Vivian’s sarcasm was cutting but sympathetic. “What was she here for anyway? Usually gun shot victims don’t hire detectives to figure out who shot them.”

“Missing husband. Nothing about the shooting at all. Almost like it was a mere thorn in her paw. Boy, those society dames are tough these days.”

I thought about her demeanor for a while: calm, collected, focused, as if she was asking me to look for her missing coin collection, with no hint that her life was draining out of her from under her coat. Well dressed, clearly in no rush, seemingly like she planned to stick around for a while, not make a tragic exit seconds later. A new one for me to.

Vivian could tell that I wanted to be alone, so she tidied up, made enough shuffling sounds to make it clear that she was getting ready to go, wished me well, and made her way out of the office. I did want to be alone. It was near midnight at this point, and I had a lot to sort through. I hadn’t had a client in six months, and now I had a dead one. Certainly would cut down on the need for update meetings. Certainly would cut down on a lot of things, like clues.

There was something that she said before she slipped under my desk for the last time, something that hadn’t made sense at the time but that stuck with me now. Something about looking for her missing husband at her own home in Malvern. What was this? An elaborate game of hide-and-seek that had gone on for too long? Was the family mansion so big that H.H. had lost his way and forgotten to drop bread crumbs to lead him back to the sitting room? What the hell was she getting at?

I would have asked her, but I doubted that the morgue had visiting hours this time of night.


 * Chapter 3**

Malvern, Pennsylvania is the type of place the Great Gatsby would live if he had a large family. While it wasn’t a gated community, every single home was surrounded by a wrought-iron gate with spear-tipped points at the top, as if to keep out the Huns. Or the middle class. The manicured lawns were interrupted only by an occasional oak or holly, and even the squirrels seemed afraid to trespass on the hallowed grounds. It was a town where the men did not go to work; they simply earned interest. The town rolls read like a who’s who in the history of old money, and the Yardleys were no exception.

When I pulled into their circular driveway and up to the entranceway (“door” was far too pedestrian to describe such a portal), I expected to be greeted by Jeeves, but it must have been his day off. Somehow my Ford Taurus didn’t quite seem to fit in, and I wondered if the local police would come tow it away as littering. It was a week since Mrs. Yardley’s sudden “hello” and “goodbye” in my office, so I decided I have to risk it. This is where she told me I’d find her missing husband, so, as cockeyed as all of this seemed, I decided that this should be the first place I’d look. Why not?

The ivy that surrounded the doorway let it be known that the Yardleys weren’t new to the neighborhood, and the echo of the doorbell when I pushed it made it clear that this wasn’t a college dorm. I could hear footsteps approaching the door, hardly suggesting a hurried approach, and was greeted by a uniformed butler who seemed to be able to recognize the pittance in my bank account and my night school diploma all within the first glance.

“Yes?” he began. Chyron himself could hardly be less encouraging.

“I’m here to see Mr. Yardley. Any chance he might be able to make an appearance?” I tried not to sound like a cop, or an insurance salesman, or the IRS.

“Is Mr. Yardley expecting you?” he inquired. Of course, he knew that Mr. Yardley was not. No one in this house ever received anyone looking like me. Visitors were either family or tuxedo-clad party guests, I suspected, and I was clearly neither. The drawbridge was closed to people of my ilk.

“I think he’ll want to speak with me,” I tried. “It’s about his wife. Mrs. Yardley.” I waited. I assumed that even Jeeves here would have heard of Mrs. Yardley’s sudden demise.

“Ah, you mean the younger Mr. Yardley. The son.” I had forgotten that father and son inhabited the same domicile—that is, assuming that the son was no longer missing, contrary to the Mrs.'s claim.

“Yes, the son. I understand he’s been missing….”

“Missing, sir?” Our little game was starting to tire me, and I knew that this suit was not intended to share the family secrets with the likes of me.

“Right. Missing. His wife told me….”

“Who’s at the door, James?” came a voice from the foyer.

“I believe it’s for you, sir,” my friend James replied, standing to the side, but still blocking the entry way like the good dragon that he was. “An inquiry I believe.”

“Yes,” I replied, “an inquiry. I’m looking for Yardley. The younger. Any interest in helping out a stranger?”

The man who now came to the door was clearly of the pony set: tall, expensively cut blond hair, richly tan, shirt front open to reveal the chest of a sailor, muscular arms, soft hands, trim build. He looked to be about 35. A world traveler. A man of leisure. A man comfortable with the world. A man who wouldn’t be impressed with me.

“I’m Yardley,” he said. “I don’t recall that we’ve met before. Though you do look familiar. Do you work at the club?”

“With a club more than at it,” I retorted, trying to walk the fine line between witty and obnoxious. “No, sir; I don’t think our paths have crossed. I’m here on a tip from Mrs. Yardley….”

“You know Mrs. Yardley?”

“Knew.” Past tense.

“Knew?” He asked.

“I assumed you’d heard….”

“Heard what?”

“Hmmmm…perhaps we might start with introductions. The name’s Slade. P.I.. And you would be….”

“Why, Harry Yardley, of course. I assumed you know. Were you looking for my father?”

I wondered: did he know he was missing? Did he know that his wife had reported him missing? Did he know that his wife had paid me to find him? Did he know that I knew that his wife was dead?

“Actually, Mr. Yardley. I was looking for you.” I paused. Looking him over, trying to see if there was any reaction. There wasn’t. “Looks like I found you.”

“Indeed you did…Slade, right? But showing up at a man’s house makes it pretty likely that you’ll find him, does it not?”

“Does it?”

“I’m not sure I understand, detective.” That made two of us.

“Have you been away, sir?”

“Away?”

“Yes. Away.” I let this linger, hoping that perhaps I’d see something on his face, something to indicate that he’d know that I knew that she told me that…well, you get the picture. Nothing doing.

“See, I heard that you might have been away for some time. Far away. Perhaps out of contact. Ring a bell?”

“I’m sorry, detective. I’m not following you. Have you been trying to contact me?”

“Just following a lead.”

“Regarding…?”

“Can’t reveal my client’s business, sir. You understand that.”

“I suppose. Haven’t left home in quite some time, though. Not with father as sick as he is. The old man needs help managing affairs these days and has little trust in his own lawyer. Quite a drag, really. But you know how it is with family.”

I could only imagine. My family didn’t deal with lawyers, only bills. Different world.

“So you’re saying that you haven’t gone missing these past few weeks then, sir?”

“Missing? I’m not sure I catch your drift.”

“Just a rumor, I suppose. You know how people like to talk.”

“Do they?” He was starting to get irritated. People do sometime. Time to play my trump card.

“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Yardley. I won’t take up any more of your time. Oh…would you mind if I asked one or two questions of Mrs. Yardley? It won’t take but a minute or two.”

He suddenly seemed flustered. A hit! He looked more over more carefully now, and his posture shifted, indicating that he’d very much like to have the door resting between the two of us right now.

“I’m sorry, detective. But Mrs. Yardley is indisposed at the moment. Perhaps you could come back….”

“See, it’s rather important,” I interjected, not wanting to lose my chance. “She could help me clear up some important business and then I’ll never both you folks again. Just for a minute….”

“I don’t see how that’s possible….”

“How ‘bout just this once. Two questions.”

He was clearly getting irritated. I was enjoying his irritation. “As I said, this is not a good time. Perhaps….”

“Harry…who’s at the door?”

This new voice came from somewhere off to the left and startled both of us. It was a female voice, a young, female voice, one that reminded me of a voice I was sure I’d heard before. Yardley turned, still blocking the doorway, but shaken nonetheless.

“I told him you couldn’t come to the door, Suzanna. This is hardly the time….”

And now it was time for me to be the one who was shaken. For as the voice came closer, so did the face—along with the hair, the arms, the body, and those famous legs. All belonging to one, Suzanna Yardley, otherwise known as Mrs. Harold Hannover Yardley, otherwise known as “diseased.”


 * Chapter 4**

If my mouth had gaped open any further, I’d have been able to swallow a good portion of the Yardley fortune, and perhaps some of the neighbors’ as well. The woman now standing before me, this Suzanna Yardley in the flesh, was none other than the very same woman who had walked into my office only a week ago; the same woman who’d been removed in a body bag not a week ago. That woman was stone cold dead. No doubt about it. This one was vibrantly alive. No doubt about it. No doubt about it at all. No doubt about the fact that this was the very same woman.

“Evening, Mrs. Yardley.” How else does one begin a conversation with a corpse, or a ghost, or a beautiful woman. “Nice to see you again.”

“I’m sorry, have we met?”

So that’s the way it was going to be. “I believe so. Remember: late last week? My office? Your missing husband?”

“Missing husband? I don’t understand? I’m sure you are mistaken, Mr….”

“Slade. Like it said on the door when you came in to my office.”

“Office? I’m sure you’re mistaken. I rarely go out in the evening, and certainly not alone to some office, Mr. Slade. Perhaps you’re confusing me with someone else. People often do.”

“Do they?” I replied. “Do they?”

“Why, yes, they do.” Turning to her husband—was he her husband?—she continued, “Harry, what’s all this about?”

“I’m not all that sure myself, dear. Mr. Slade here was just asking for you, but I can’t for the life of me tell why.”

“And this is your wife, Mr. Yardley?” I was starting to sound like an idiot, but once it was clear that I was one, what was the point of turning back.

“Of course this is my wife! What kind of ridiculous question is that? I’m sorry, Mr. Slade, but it’s time for you to go.”

“I was just leaving,” I mumbled. “I was just…leaving.”

When the door closed, it closed firmly, re-establishing the wall between “us” and “them.” I’m not saying that I’ve got a steel-trap memory, but I do have a good mind for faces, and the faces of Mrs. Yardley and…Mrs. Yardley matched perfectly. Same hair, same nose, same exquisite eyes, same birthmark on the cheek. Same voice. Same air of wealth. Same perfume. The same dame who walked into my office, fell over dead after telling me about her missing husband, and then greeted me at her front door, very much alive, with this missing husband at her side. Houdini would like this one. Me? I could do without it. First I have a client; then a dead client; then a dead client who is alive and well. Never before was I paid a grand by a corpse that wasn’t dead to find someone who wasn’t missing. That was a new one for me.

I slowly backed my car out of the driveway and thus returned from Never-Never land back to the world from whence I came, a world where things made sense. Maybe I’d never met Mrs. Yardley before; maybe the grand was merely a figment of my overactive imagination and my under-active bank account. I drove around for a while, though the winding streets of Malvern, back onto the Expressway, right into the middle of rush hour traffic, giving me time to stew and then drown out my thoughts in static-y talk radio. Was I losing it? Was I ready for crossing guard duty? With the money I’d saved up over the years, I might get myself a bungalow on the Keys, a new fishing rod, a bathtub full of scotch, and watch the tide go in and out. What else was there to live for? Who needs non-dead corpses and non-missing husbands?

Problem was, when I returned to my office and popped open the wall safe, there was the grand, sitting up and staring at me like a Thanksgiving turkey. I was crazy, but not that crazy. Someone had come into the office and engaged my services last Thursday night, someone who looked a lot like the same someone I’d just finished visiting with. Someone had paid me a thou to find someone who was exactly where she told me he’d be. Someone. My client was dead, or alive; and my missing husband wasn’t missing. But I also had this money, and that meant I also had this obligation. What this obligation was, exactly, who the hell knows.

Perhaps that was the first mystery I had to solve.


 * Chapter 5**

The Shady Lady was not the type of bar you go to for a drink; it’s the type of bar you go to to get drunk. It was a place where you start drinking anytime past noon, and, with the frosted basement windows now covered with a generation of grime, it was always sunlight free. Perfect for the foul mood I had found myself in, trumped by forces I could not name. I was on my third Boilermaker, supplemented with a healthy meal of beer nuts and hard-boiled eggs from the counter. The Shady Lady didn’t take it’s name from the female clientele. Few of the female species ever dared to venture into this dump, and those who did were usually here to revive their drunk husbands and drag them home after a long evening. It was that kind of place. Me? I liked the company: a full beer, a shot glass, and a barkeep occasionally asking me if I was ready for another. My kind of company.

Some sax trio was playing on the juke box, playing something the sounded like a cross between a strangled goose and a garbage can rolling down the cellar stairs. Sometime between the hours of late and later, Stan Howard, my former partner from the Force, showed up for his usual liquid meal of choice. Stan was a great guy, as long as you didn’t have to spend any time with him or didn’t lend him money or didn’t have to do him a favor or didn’t have to let him sleep on your couch after he was kicked out by his wife for the third time or didn’t has to hear his sob story about being denied the promotion for the umpteenth time. That kind of guy. We rode together when I first came up with the PD, cruising the night checking out domestic disturbances and liquor store hold ups and junkies causing a problem for the local tourist traps around City Hall. Real intellectually demanding stuff. It was a hot day, and Stan was wearing the hot in his armpits and on his back, his white shirt virtually see-through in a troubling sort of way. I doubt that his wife was in much of a rush for him to return home. He sat down on the stool next to me, sharing his day’s odor with me. I was hoping for better company.

“Spade, long time no whatever.”

“Good to see you, Stan. In fact, a little too much of you I’m seeing right now.”

“Hot,” he replied. If we were in Hades, Stan would point out the elevated temperature.

“Hadn’t noticed.”

“Here for a drink?” he asked.

“Unless they suddenly arrive with that Fillet Mignon that I ordered several hours ago, I suppose I’ll have to settle for beverage. Can I buy you a beer?”

“Why not. Could use a wet whistle this time of night.” What he intended to do with that wet whistle I had no interest in knowing.

The ball game was on, and we watched that for an inning or two, being at a loss for intellectual conversation starters.

“Haven’t seen you around much,” he ventured.

“Nope.” The dull ball game was twice as interesting as conversation with Stan.

“Still hanging up your own shingle, doing your own work?”

“Yep.” If Stan was getting the hint, he showed no indication.

“Hear about all the excitement out at the Yardley Estate?”

Now I was interested. Sometimes you can sit in the right place for a thousand years and not a crumb of interest will come your way. It’s being in the wrong place that does it every time, and maybe this was my moment. “Yardley? As in H.H. and son? That Yardley?”

“Seems like they fired the butler or something. Someone who’d been with the family for a long, long time and the yokel didn’t take too kindly to it. Smashed up the Rolls, scared the crap out of the misses, put a nice dent in the front gate. Nothing beyond the insurance deductible, but enough to call in the locals to take the man away. Big action for a slow night.”

I remember that butler, and I had a hard time imagining him ever doing anything to spoil his cushy nest. A butler’s a big deal in places like this, someone who’s climbed the rungs of house staff. Wouldn’t give that up so easy, though who knows the ravages of drink and family secrets. I’m sure it will all make small town news, that is if the family doesn’t pay to hush it up first. Must have been the junior who did the firing, though, what with senior being laid up.

“You been up there?” I asked Stan.

“Not yet. Just heard in on the radio this evening. How much time we waste on the foibles of that type.” I didn’t know that Stan know a word like ‘foibles,” and no one would mistake him for “that type.” I let it ride.

“Like to take a look up there myself, just like the old cop days, when every squirrel in the attic needed to be thoroughly investigated. Those were the days.”

“I’m headed up there myself tomorrow to complete some paperwork for the insurance companies. Care to join me?”

I did. Not join Stan, but head up to the Hills of Malvern and visit my dear old friends, the Yardley’s, who I’m sure will be delighted to see me.


 * Chapter 6**

My return visit to Shangrila—otherwise known as the Yardley estate—brought a number of surprises. In the driveway directly in front of the house were piled a series of large, storage trunks, but hardly the type that the Mr. and Mrs. would use for a jaunt around the world or a trip to see grandma. These were workman’s trunks, beaten-up, over-stuffed things that bore no sign of wealth or leisure. Each one was carefully labeled with a name, and none of them were “Yardley.” I parked just shy of this collection and made my way around the trunks to the front door. It stood open.

“Anybody home?” I shouted to the empty front hall. “Anybody here?”

The man who rushed to the door was not someone I’d seen before. The congenial James’ replacement, perhaps? He certainly didn’t look at all like James, but I got the impression that the Yardley’s had traded down, not up. This man lacked the simple elegance that comes with your traditional butler. The Yardley’s apparently had decided to exchange elegance for brawn—ugly brawn. James the second wouldn’t be all that out of place as a bouncer in the Shady Lady; I wonder if the Yardley’s allowed him to touch the furniture.

“What you want,” the ogre replied. Perhaps the elocution lessons were to begin next month.

“I’m looking for James. Has he been shipped off to the wine cellar?”

“James no longer work here,” the keeper of the door replied.

“How…sudden,” I chortled. “You the new man about town?”

A phrase he was perhaps not familiar with—or at least his puzzled look suggested that.

“James has been let go, just like the rest of us,” came a reply from a trunk-totting servant—or rather, ex-servant—who had just emerged from the doorway. “Changing of the guard. Cleaning of the house. Choose your metaphor.”

“Pardon?”

“The mister gave us all our notice, all in one day. Two months severance.”

“How generous,” I replied.

“Two months, after 34 years of working here. No warning whatsoever? Generous? What am I supposed to do now? Given up my whole life for this family. No consideration at all. Raised the young one practically by myself. This is my repayment.”

“The old guy have a change of heart?”

“Old guy nothing; it was H.H. Junior that turned us all out. Hell, the old guy barely leaves his room these days; Junior runs the show. Some show.”

Nothing like a disgruntled employee to stir the cinders. I was betting that these sacked employees would be hitting the sack locally this evening, drowning their misery in ale and bitters. Mental note.

“Any chance that the lovely Mrs. and Mr. are around?”

“Ask Boris…or Kilroy…or Goliath over there,” he suggested. “Not that he knows anything from anything.”

I decided that asking the new doorman would probably get me thrown out the door, so I decided to risk his displeasure and venture in alone. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The goon was distracted—trying to remember his own name?—and so I slipped in without incident. Twelve steps in, and I bumped into the beloved employer himself, Mr. Yardley.

“What are you doing here, Mr….Slade, is it? To what do we owe this return visit.” We. Rich people always refer to themselves in the plural, as if their extra income qualifies them for an extra pronoun.

“Just a friendly visit. Seems like some big changes around here. Want to tell me about that?”

“Is it against the law to hire new staff, Mr. Slade?”

I’d got him on edge. “Should it be, Mr. Yardley?”

Well, that was meaningless. But clearly it flustered Yardley, but only for about a second. He didn’t fluster easily, that was clear. But this is what it’s like hunting for needles in haystacks. In fact, I didn’t even know that there was a needle to search for.

“Anything else I can do for you? If not, you’ll have to excuse me. We’re very busy around here today.” Again the “we.” I saw lots of activity, but I suspected that Mr. Yardley wasn’t the one breaking a sweat. Why would he fire the entire staff on one, single day? How much more suspicious could he possibly be?

Mr. Yardley retreated quickly, and I was left alone with me thoughts and my suspicions. In other words, with nothing. I’d been paid a thousand bucks and so far I’d found nothing. Not an especially good going rate. It would be time to shift to plan B, but I’d never had a plan A. So there I was.


 * Chapter 7**

The Broken Brew House wasn’t exactly the Shady Lady, but I suspect both bars had the same interior decorator and the same cleaning services. Calling this place a “dive” was a highly overstated compliment. The brown, paneled walls were covered with photos of the local high school sports heroes (all from at least twenty years ago), giving the place the ambiance of a finished basement, one where someone had long ago spilled a keg of beer and never bothered to clear it up. To save money, the owner chose to water down the local piss-water beer, but I didn’t get the sense that the visitors were connoisseurs. However, the place was close enough to the Yardley estates and cheap enough to be able to supply the needs of recently-unemployed servants, so I suspect that I could find a disgruntled wine steward or two tying one on. The one at the bar looked pliable.

“Down on your luck, sailor?” Not my best pick-up line, but it’s all I had.

“Screw off, pal. Find someone else to bother.” Not much of a conversationalist, I suppose. Perhaps he hadn’t come to the ‘Brew for intellectual stimulation. “Can’t you see I don’t want to be bothered?”

I ventured a guess. “Didn’t you use to work up at the Yardley place?”

“Ungrateful bastard!” Bingo.

“Yeah, that’s what I heard. All in one day, huh? Rich would shoot us all, if they could get away with it.”

“Sending us off to starve is much easier. Less to clean up afterwards.” Pause. “Tom,” he said, extending his hand.

“Frank,” I uttered back. No reason to give my real name. I didn’t think this would be a long-term relationship.

“Buy me one, will you?”

I did. And another. And a third. Living off the gratitude of others didn’t seem to be a problem for Frank, at least not tonight. It gave me a chance to loosen his tongue.

“Must have been hell working for that bastard Yardley. 24 years, you say? How could you stand it?”

“That’s the thing of all. The guy was great to work for. Paid me well, treated me with dignity, always a kind word, that’s what I don’t get.”

“What?”

“Guy goes on a trip, comes back, turns into a total monster. Hides out in his office, communicates only through the new butler he brought back with him, treats us all as if he hardly knew us…and then gives us the boot. What the hell?”

Now I knew that paying for this man’s libation was a worthy investment. I hadn’t heard about Mr. Yardley’s trip before, and perhaps this would explain the absence his wife had described to me in my office that night. Or that someone had described to me in the office, since his wife was…I didn’t know what to think. Retiring to his office? Breaks off communications? Only work through the new guy? The guy’s either Jekyll and Hyde or he’s go something to hide. Something BIG to hide. Why else fire all the staff?

Tom was a wealth of information, but nearly none of it useful. He’s been hired as a garden boy after he dropped out of school at 16, slowly made his way through the ranks, and finally to be promoted to a job title that seemed to indicate that he did nothing of importance on a regular basis but made sure that he wouldn’t get fired. He shared gossip about Old Mr. Yardley’s financial dealings with a variety of nefarious businessmen, his loud and destructive drinking bouts, and his indifference towards his son, who now runs the estate while the Old guy smokes his cigars, reads his conservative newspapers, and curses the developments of modernity—such as the telephone and the legal rights of women. He was old school, but school had long been out. He rarely left his perch atop the Yardley mansion, Tom reported, as he had his meals delivered there, along with his mail, his papers, and his weekly collection of medications from a doctor known in professional circles as a quack.

“When did the Mrs. die?” I ask, in an attempt to interrupt the endless roll of Tom’s history lesson.

“Not dead,” he replied. “Away. Asylum. Nutty as a loon, they used to say. When they spoke of her at all. Heard stories of her raving at night, week-long crying jags, even longer drinking fits. She was already locked up when I arrived there. Must have put her away when her daughter was a kid. Can’t say growing up without a mom did her much good, but perhaps growing up without a burden was a little better. The old man paid her little attention, and no one ever took her out to the hospital to see dear old mom. ‘Too disturbing for her young mind’ was the reason given. Sounds believable enough to me. Wouldn’t even let her out for her daughter’s wedding.”

At this point, Tom’s sorrows had been significantly drowned, making him no longer able to focus on much else other than his own bitterness. When he started to tell his own story, I excused myself to use the john and took the opportunity to use the exit. He’d given me a number of new straws to clutch at, straws that seemed to hold out no promise beyond a few more days of wild goose chasing. This was becoming my specialty, it seemed.


 * Chapter 8**

I was tempted to return to the Yardleys and quiz them on their employment practices, but I didn’t think I’d get very far. I doubted that Mr. Yardley’s character transformation was the subject of public discussion, so that wouldn’t get me very far, either. And while talking to other employees (excuse me: former employees) might get me more dirt, I wasn’t convinced that it would be very fruitful dirt. I needed another angle, and that might shed some light on what was what in this family.

I called Bernie Sanders, who’s firm had done some legal work for the Yardley’s many years back, but Bernie was uncharacteristically tight lipped. In fact, when I mentioned the Yardley name, he seemed eager to get me off the phone as quickly as possible. Strange. He was able to tell me that Yardley Junior had contacted the firm recently to revising the family trust in light of Mrs. Yardley Senior’s recent decline into near-senility. Hardly make sense to have a co-executor who couldn’t tell day from night, or, perhaps, knights from knaves. Bernie was pretty clammed up about this, too, that I was able to get from him the fact that old Mrs. Y was resting comfortably in Caring Arms Nursing home, the best pre-burial full-service monitoring that money could buy. I’d heard about Caring Arms before: the Plaza Hotel of old-age homes. Bernie wouldn’t tell me more about the actual changes to the trust, but his tone suggested to me that he, too, was suspicious but because of legal obligations, unwilling to stick his neck out and his nose in any further. Not good practice to bite the hand that feeds you, especially if that hand belongs to the senior partner’s closest friend. I thanked Bernie for his non-hint and decided to do the snooping that Bernie could not: Caring Arms, next stop.

Based on how well the lawn at Caring Arms was manicured, I wasn’t surprised when I entered the facility and discovered that these elderly and infirm were living in style. Lots of creature comforts, lots of privacy and first class amenities, lots of attentive young doctors and nurses, therapists and activity leaders to fill the patients’ days. Never a dull moment between arrival and death, I suppose. That might have been their motto. Fresh flowers everywhere; lots of light; soft music piped in; smiles all around. Makes a man wish he was losing all of his marbles just so he could qualify for this joint. Assuming he could pay for it, of course.

The receptionist at the front desk was new, and when I asked her about Mrs. Yardley she seemed unfamiliar with the name and had to check the roster. As the scanned the list with her little finger, she stopped suddenly at the Y’s and then retreated into the back office. This brought forth the older, more crotchety crone of a supervisor who asked me, in an accusatory way, whether I was “family.” “Not exactly,” I explained. Was Mrs. Yardley expecting me? They asked. “Not exactly.” This lead to a stern look and a flurry of phone calls, followed by a request that I wait in the dining hall until “arrangements could be made.” Fair enough. When in Rome….

The staff was going to have no luck finding Mrs. Yardley in her room because, since it was the lunch hour, she’s taken it upon herself to make her way to the dining hall, and her striking resemblance to her daughter made her easy for me to spot.

“Mrs. Yardley?” I began.

“Yes? Will you take my order?”

“Well, I don’t work here, but I’d be glad to help out….”

She smiled, and then she ordered what I suspected was her usual: tuna salad, apple sauce, and Sanka. Easy on the gums, I suppose. I hustled a try around the cafeteria and secured the requisite items, adding a cup of black coffee for myself. “Why, thank you, young man,” she gushed. “Thank you. It’s so troublesome waiting in those lines. I usually eat later and avoid this mob. But I’m starving, you see. The warm air does all kinds of things to my stomach, and I just couldn’t wait.”

I smiled back. My last several meals had been of the liquid variety. I hadn’t had a stomach for much these past few days.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Yardley. Quite a pleasure. I’ve wanted to speak with you for some time now,” I tried.

“Oh?”

“Yes. I’m quite an admirer of you and your family.”

“You know my family? Hmmmm….you do look vaguely familiar. You’re a friend of Harry, are you not, mister…?”

“Stilton, Ma’am. Yes, Harry and I go way back. Perhaps we met at the wedding?”

“Yes! What a wonderful wedding that was, don’t you think, Mr. Stilton? A wedding I’ll always remember. The weather was just perfect, and everyone was there, and my daughter’s dress was marvelous, don’t you think, Mr. Stilton?”

I played along. No skin off my teeth.

Suddenly, we were approached by three orderlies, clad in white medical outfits, all of whom seemed quite disturbed. “Mrs. Yardley? Mrs. Yardley? You’ll need to come with us, Mrs. Yardley?”

Both of us were taken aback. The swat team had caught us very much off guard and had drawn the attention of many of the other diners in the cafeteria, all of whom craned their necks to get a view.

“What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?” I inquired.

“I’ve hardly started my lunch. What could be the matter? Is something the matter?” Mrs. Yardley asked, very disoriented by the whole experience.

“Phone call for you, Mrs. Yardley. Very important. You’ll need to take it immediately. You can finish your lunch a little later. You need to go now. Right now.” Their insistence was disconcerting and downright rude, very out of place in this environment of calm. Mrs. Yardley was at a loss for words, and was nearly whisked away before having a chance to respond.

What the hell happened?

I regained my chair and stirred my coffee for a while, just to see what might developed. After thirty minutes had passed and no one had returned, I leaned over and asked a kindly old matron where I might find Mrs. Yardley’s room. With this information, I took the back stairs and approached her room from the rear. When I reached the room, the door was already open. In fact, not only was the door open, but the unit was almost entirely empty. Only a box spring and a box of nic-nacks remained.

“Mrs. Yardley?” I asked a young man who was hoisting the last box.

“Moved out.” In this hotel, for most visitors, “moved out” means “moved on,” which is the professional term for “deceased.”

And the lady didn’t even get to finish her lunch.

//**Chapter 9**

This case was drying up faster than a rain puddle in the desert, but it was also clear to me that I was on to something, that I’d touched a vein. Clearly there was some reason that the Yardley’s entire staff had been fired; clearly there was some reason that poor Mrs. Yardley had disappeared before I had a chance to talk with her. Coincidence is a long word for “clues” in my world. One of the few long words that I know. I spent a few hours trying to hound the staff of the Caring Arms into telling me what had happened to Mrs. Yardley and where she had disappeared to, but the stone walling was complete and I could get not information. Not even from the cleaning staff. It was as if she simply ceased to exist. I tried going through Bernie, just to see if a rigged-up kidnapping charge might at least get me a crumb or two, but since no one in the family would support this claim (or reveal her whereabouts to the likes of me), that was another zero. In a long string of zeroes. I did get a nice, threatening letter from Mr. Yardley, demanding that I desist from harassing his family. Good luck with that. “Harassment” is my middle name, despite what my mother might say.

Weeks passed. I returned to my normal routine of doing close to nothing on a very strict schedule. Vivian was becoming an expert at the crossword puzzles, having less and less to do each day. She’s found seven ways to reorganize my files and fifteen ways to file her nails. Why she stayed with me I’ll never understand. I devoted a good part of each day reading the dailies, mostly for info on the ponies (which I was too down on my luck and my back account to play), the sports, and the obits. And it was the obits that finally brought the Yardley case back to the surface. Because of who he once was, H.H. Yardley Sr. earned himself an entire paragraph of tiny print to announce his sudden death on the evening of the 30th. “Heart attack, after a long struggle with illness, at age 84,” the Evening Bulletin reported. “Survived by his son, H.H., Jr., and his daughter-in-law, who will inherit the family estate. Funeral will be private.” “Private” was my other middle name, so I decided to take up the invite.

I knew the old man would be buried at Fair Lawns cemetery since that’s where the family plot was located. Wouldn’t want the dead wondering too far from home. I arrived late so as to avoid getting thrown out early. Perhaps if the ceremony was in progress, the family would be too busy to bother with an intruder. The gathering was surprisingly small, given Yardley’s former fame and well-known wealth. Perhaps since the heirs had already been designated and no more money would be forthcoming, the hangers-on saw no reason to pay further tribute. Ah, friends.

I paid my respects to the out of town relatives, trying my best to avoid Mr. and Mrs. Yardley before I got a good sense of the lay of the land. The couple spent much of the ceremony whispering to each other, occasionally mumbling “amen” when they heard others do so. The priest was clearly annoyed, but he was being paid well enough not to say anything, so he didn’t. When Mr. Yardley looked up and saw me, he was clearly not glad to see that I’d come to pay my tributes. His brow furrowed and his conversation with the Mrs. suddenly became more intense, halted only by the occasional sushing of a cousin who was financially independent enough not to worry about offending the new master of the house. At the end of the ceremony, he quickly made his way over to where I was standing. I guess he wasn’t all that interested in comforting the other bereaved.

“This is a private affair, Slade; don’t you know that?” His grip on my arm was bruising.

“I’ve come to pay my respects, Mr. Yardley. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Like hell you are…!” He spit back at me.

“Surprising the old man would go so quickly, given that his ticker was never a problem before.” I had no clue about the old man’s health beyond what I’d read in the paper, but you can catch a fish if you don’t try fishing.

“What are you implying, Slade?”

“What are you inferring, Yardley?” I can be a real wit when I want to be.

He walked off in a huff, and as the party was wrapping up, I decided that it was time for me to leave the dead for the worms, too. But now I had a body, and nothing brings a case back to life than a dead body.


 * Chapter 10**

As any dog knows, if you find yourself barking up the wrong tree, try barking up another. Detectives sometimes take longer to learn this lesson. Since I was getting nowhere fast with the Yardley line of the family, I decided to do some looking into Mrs. Yardley’s side. Mrs. Yardley, nee Mulberry, came from what might be called the other side of the tracks, were the town able to even afford tracks. Her marriage to H.H. Jr. was scandalous in some circles, and some of the neighbors continue to shun them to this day. The future Mrs. Yardley—then Eunice Mulberry—attended West Philadelphia High School, never quite finishing, making use of the typing skills she learned in Home Ec. to find a job as a secretary in a series of small law firms, jobs she was only able to hold onto for four to six months before her breeding came out in the form of a lack of social graces in the office or, more commonly, a foul-language-laden tired in the coffee room. She was not one to tolerate a slight of any sort, and should we be crossed by no one, not even her boss. She met Harry while working as a temp (more permanent employment having been closed off to her due to her string of dismissals) at the bank where he came in frequently to check on his investments. The diamond-in-the-rough (or so he called her, when his father asked) caught his eye and then hooked his heart—and, some say, his wallet—and the two were married somewhere overseas when his parents refused to endorse the match. Like all who are new to money, Eunice spent freely and without much taste, a habit that Harry had to curtain, much to her annoyance. And little Miss Rags-to-Riches also completed her transformation by cutting herself off from her past, providing the Mulberry family with little more with a card at Christmas and a few hand-me-downs, when she remembered. She was no more popular amongst the Mulberrys of West Philadelphia than she was amongst the Yardleys of Malvern.

Much was written about the marriage in the// Main Line Times when it took place, as scandal always makes better news than the local school board meeting or the latest changes to the zoning laws, but, over time, the community moved on and Mrs. Yardley’s heritage was quickly forgotten. Locating the Mulberry family wasn’t an easy task, as the family had moved (sometimes to avoid eviction) several times in the past 15 years, though mostly they remained in the same, rundown neighborhood. Their phone had be disconnected, and the most recent move had occurred too recently for there to be any listing, so I had to rely on that most traditional of methods: word of mouth. More specifically, word of the bartender’s mouth. Perhaps not surprisingly, the number of bars per capita dramatically increases as the average family income falls, and this West Philadelphia community was no exception, requiring me to do some extra hoofing. About the fifth place I checked—a bar so dingy that it lacked even a name, though probably a legal liquor license, too—turned out to be the regular haunt of Robert Mulberry (known locally as Bobo), Eunice’s older brother. I caught up with him at about 3 PM. He was without a job but not without a drink. Actually, I got the sense that the drink he was now nursing was not his first of the afternoon. His sister’s death was a surprise to him, but, I suspect, so was the day’s date.

“You saying that Eunice is gone?” He asked me.

“No one told you?” I was surprised that, at the very least, the cops hadn’t come by to inform the family.

“Can’t say they did. Haven’t been home much lately, what with this sickness and all.” I hadn’t realized that the local bar also served as a recovery ward.

“Does you mother know?”

“Doubt it.” A man of few words.

“Why’s that?” I was quickly starting to tire of this man’s limited repartee.

“Been dead for 6 months now. No one left at home ‘cept auntie and the three little ones.” Modern families.

“Might your auntie be at home right now?”

“Might be.”

A big help he was. I paid for his drink and withdrew from this place before I ended up with some disease that penicillin couldn’t cure. It was clear that Bobo wasn’t going to be much use to me, nor I to him, and, to be quite frank, I didn’t have much hope for “auntie” either. Didn’t get the sense that the Mulberry family was into annual reunions.


 * Chapter 11**

Auntie (aka, Marlene Mulberry) lived in a run down apartment in a decrepit building on a dead end street. But she didn’t seem to know it. The doorbell was broken when I tried it, so I knocked…for a long time, before she came to check on my disturbance. Based on her appearance, I got the sense that she was expecting a gentleman caller, though the chances of one showing up were close to zero. But she didn’t seem to know that. She was dolled up in a dress that was three sizes too small and left little to the imagination. Her curves were that of a draftsmen, and her legs made me want to borrow them for the weekend. That kind of dame.

“Well, hello there, fella,” she began. From her greeting, I didn’t get the sense that it was going to be all that hard to get my foot in the door. Or the rest of my body, for that matter. The challenge was going to be getting OUT of her door, I suspected.

“The name’s Slade. Are you Eunice Mulberry’s sister?” I began.

“Marlene. Yes, that’s me. Charmed to make your acquaintance, Mr. Slade.” I’ll be she was. I’ll bet she wasn’t too picky.

“Mind if I ask you a few questions, ma’am?”

“Mind if I fix us a drink while you’re askin’?” My kind of gal.

She sashayed into a living room full of mismatched furniture with a swing of her hips that was clearly intended for my entertainment. I took it to mean, “follow me,” and so I did. I didn’t get the sense that mixology was her specialty, but her scotch was good enough, and I wasn’t really interested in wetting my whistle anyway. She handed me my drink and sat down next to me on the sofa—close enough for me to smell the perfume she doused herself with and the sour smell of her breath, letting me know that this was not her first drink of the day.

“Now, Mr. Slade. How can I help you?”

“I’m trying to find out about your sister, Eunice. Were the two of you close?”

“’Were?’ What are you implying, Mr. Slade?” She was stretching her body out like a cat begging to be pet.

“Have the police not contacted you, Mrs. Mulberry?”

“Please, Marlene, darling. Contacted me about what?”

“About your sister’s murder.”

At this point, she began laughing. Laughing hysterically, actually. Laughing as if I’d just told the best joke in the world.

“I think I’m missing the punch line, Marlene. Perhaps you can fill me in.”

“But how could my sister be dead, Mr. Slade. Why, I spoke with her just last night. That bitch was in rare form. I might wish her dead, but the tongue on that broad hardly sounds like she’s speaking from the grave.”

I paused. Just as I had spoken recently with the living Eunice Mulberry, not the dead Mrs. Yardley, so (I suppose) had she. Having Eunice both alive and dead was making this a complicated case, and a more complicated discussion.

“When did you say you spoke with her?”

“Last night, Mr. Slade. Around 9. I’d tied one on after a long day at work and decided to give sis a call, just for old time sake. Got that crazy husband of hers at first, but after a few choice words, I got him to put Eunice on. Can’t say there’s much love lost between the two of us. I’ve been hard up lately, what with the three brats to raise and no man to bring in the dough now that Bobo’s lost his job, and I was hoping to loosen her tight-wad fists a bit and get some dough-ray-me out of her. Nothin’ doing. Don’t know why I ever thought it might be otherwise, but after a few drinks I guess I get something sentimental.” Having had a few drinks in the past few hours, what I was seeing was hardly sentimentality. Seemed more like lecherousness. The look of a woman with an itch who needed a scratch. I wasn’t scratching tonight, though.

“Anything different about her, when you spoke with her last night, I mean?”

“I’ll say. That witch has always been heartless, but last night she was downright cold. And paranoid as a pickpocket. Started asking me all kinds of questions. ‘Had the police come by?’ ‘Was anyone asking about her?’ ‘Who’d visited the house lately?’ All kinds of other crap. She must’ve been drinkin’, too. Couldn’t remember hardly nothing at all.”

“What do you mean, Marlene? What couldn’t she remember?”

“That momma was gone, for example. And that I had the girls. And nothin’ about Bobo. And that I’d been laid up. Stuff like that. Like talking to a stranger. ‘Don’t be talkin’ to nobody,’ she kept sayin’. Who might I talk to, Mr. Slade. Who might…”

Suddenly, it hit her that who she might be talking to was, well, me. That’s who she might be talking to. She smiled, perhaps both at her realization and at the fact that she’d betrayed dear old sis. Lovely family, this one. “Yes…perhaps you were the one I ain’t sposed to talk to, Mr. Slade. What do you think of that? Maybe it was you all along. If that isn’t a hoot and a half.”

A hoot and a half, alright. A hoot and a half.

“I must just be the one you’re looking for, aren’t I, Mr. Slade.” She was cozying up to me now, like a snake to the sun. “Ain’t I the lucky one.”

I figured I had about a minute left to complete my business before this woman would be expecting another sort of business, one that I wasn’t especially interested in.

“Did Mrs. Yardley—Eunice—sound any different to you when you spoke with her on the phone last night?” I was fishing here, but it was worth a shot.

“Oh, no. Same old Eunice. I’d recognize that voice anywhere. Can’t get it out of my nightmares. Wanna hear about my nightmares, Mr. Slade? I’d just love to tell you about my nightmares.”

It was time to go. Quickly. “Some other time, Marlene. Some other time.”

“I think I’d like that, Mr. Slade.”

I’m sure she would. I’m sure I wouldn’t. I made my way to the door, leaving Marlene Mulberry to her nightmares, past, present and future.


 * Chapter 12**

So, Mr. H.H. Yardley, Jr., wasn’t acting like Mr. H.H. Yardley, Jr., and Mrs. Eunice Mulberry Yardley wasn’t acting like Mrs. Eunice Mulberry Yardley. Why was that? Everyone has a bad day, I suppose, or a bad week, or a bad month. But a husband and wife in tandem? Ah, the domestic lives of the rich and famous. I tried putting out some feelers, calling in some favors, checking in with the locals in the Malvern police, driving by the house now and then to see if…well, just to see. Nothing doing. Hardly to my surprise, Marlene Mulberry was becoming a regular on my answering machine, both at work and at home. I erased all of her messages, unplayed, after it was clear that she tended to liquor up before sitting down to dial. Vivian even stopped mentioning the calls to the office, often letting the phone ring when the regular 5:00 call came in. It was only crazy luck that I heard Marlene’s late night call at all—her very last call—when I accidentally hit “play” rather than “delete” one evening after work. It was clear that this was not a call that she had planned.

“Slade? Slade? Slade! Slade! Pick up, damnit!...Please! He’s come back, just like I told you he would! Why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you return any of my calls? He’s…here! He’s….”

All I could hear after that were the sounds of a struggle, and then a long, piercing scream, and then nothing. Dead. The end.

The message had come in several hours ago, so rushing over wouldn’t have done any good, but I felt I had to do it anyway. I arrived just in time to see the ME wheeling the body bag out of the apartment. He had canvassed the neighbors, but, surprise, no one had heard anything. Interesting how a woman’s shrieking can fail to rouse people from their TV shows and their own domestic routines. I flashed my badge and no one looked close enough to see that I was a PI, not a cop, so I was able to slip under the tape and have a look around the place.

At first, it seemed like it might have been a robbery, but closer inspection revealed values strewn, not taken: jewelry dumped on the floor; cash left in a handbag; candlesticks untouched. No, this was no ordinary B and E.

I moved to the back of the apartment, and here the damage was far more extensive. This was Marlene’s bedroom, the place where she stored the things she had no other place for: boxes and boxes of junk, all carefully arranged around the room. Marlene was a pack rat, but a well-organized pack rat, labeling each box, dating it, and storing it carefully in its proper place. For this reason, it was easy enough for me to see what was missing: a box from the photo albums section that would have been marked “1974,” and the small gap between 1975 and 1973 made it clear that this album had been carefully removed…for a reason I could only guess at. I considered letting the police know of my discovery, but I figured they’d only get in my way. Clearly it was important for whomever got to Marlene to have this album from 1974, 36 years ago. Family memories, and from this specific date. Marlene herself was only 33 years old, so this would have been before she was born. What might have happened three years before Marlene was born? What would have happened that someone might want to make un-happen?

I peered into the albums from 1975 and 1976, the years before Marlene was born. Now it was obvious to me. In both volumes, the clear focus of the family’s attention had been the arrival of their first child, a daughter who vaguely resembled Eunice Mulberry Yardley (at least as much as an infant can resemble a grown woman). And given the fact that 1975 began with a picture of Eunice at about 6 months, it was now clear to me that 1974 was the year of her birth.

But why would someone want to hide Mrs. Yardley’s baby pictures?

I slipped over to the 1973 volume to look for clues, but I couldn’t find much. Lots and lots of pictures of Eunice’s pregnant mother. Clearly the family felt the need to document every moment of the pregnancy. By the end of ’73, Mrs. Mulberry was a huge momma. Perhaps too many late-night quarts of ice cream—a habit I’ll bet she came to regret after Eunice was born and momma had to shed those pregnancy pounds. She was a large one alright.

But so what? Who would want pictures of a overweight pregnant woman from 1974? Figure that out, and I’d figure out the mystery.