Ask the Right Question Page 5

  I approached her end of the counter as she approached mine.

  “Yeah? Whan can I do for ya?”

  “I hate to be troublesome,” I lied, “but a woman who used to go to this college has applied to my company for a job and we still haven’t gotten her transcripts from you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She peered; she pursed her mouth; she shrugged. “What’s the name and the class?”

  “She never graduated, but she started in 1949. The name is Fleur Graham.”

  From the counter she went to some filing cabinets and surprisingly quickly she returned with the academic record of Fleur Graham.

  I glanced over it. It gave little information. Name; home address; campus address (same); the name of her high school; her birth date; and the list of the courses she had taken in her one and only year. The grades were all recorded as “inc” for incomplete. A fine record. I had one like that once, the first semester of my sophomore year of the first time I went to college.

  “Is there any way I can find out if any of her teachers are still teaching here?”

  “Gee. We ain’t got records of the teachers of the courses she took, mister. Teachers come and teachers go.”

  “Well. Can I have a copy of this transcript, then?”

  “Yeah, sure.” She took it and made a Xerox copy. “That’ll be a dime.”

  Which I paid her, and left.

  The transcript was not entirely helpful, but it had served to cut out any possibility of the one thing I had been hoping for from Butler. Friends of Fleur’s from her nursing days. The lady had lived at home, not in the residential halls. The best I could do now would be to try to contact all the other girls who started Butler Nursing College in 1949 and ask them if they happened to remember anything about a quiet girl called Fleur who might have been in some of their classes. Not a very efficient process. Not to waste time on now.

  From the Nursing College I went back to center campus and parked. I had about an hour and a half before I was due at Mrs. Forebush’s so I decided to take it over a leisurely lunch. I looked around for a university cafeteria. It’s easy enough to eat in ostensibly private dining halls if they are large. You just walk in frowning. That makes it seem as if you belong there because you know what the food is going to be like.

  The food was not good, but at least there was not a lot of it. I dawdled over coffee and eavesdropped on nearby conversations as best I could.

  Then a couple of tootsies came over and tried to make friends. We talked for fully twenty minutes about how hard our courses were. Mine won. Nursing can be very hard on “an older fella.” They were very sympathetic and were a bit surprised when, at a quarter of two, I took my leave.

  7

  At 2:05 I pulled up in front of 413 East Fiftieth Street. It was a barn-red house, frame with barn-red trim. A small, heavily planted garden filled the small front yard. A driveway led behind the house from Fiftieth Street on the left, and an alley ran beside it on the right.

  My fist was raised to knock when the door opened.

  “Come in, come in,” said the trim white-haired lady with a yellow carnation in her hair. Florence Forebush.

  I came in and was led into what they used to call a drawing room. It was frilly, Victorian and full of violet-brown upholstery with white lace trim. Two chairs and a couch were horseshoed in front of a large marble fireplace which bore a mantel loaded with pictures. Some of them I recognized. Three, the different ages of Estes Graham. A woman next to him. The print and frame looked old. It was Irene Olian Graham, I was sure. Next to her the uniformed figure of Leander Crystal. On the end the most familiar face. My client’s.

  I apologized for being late.

  “It’s a little early yet for tea, Mr. Samson,” said Mrs. Forebush after we had seated ourselves in the matching chairs and faced each other across a slate coffee table. Her decorum contrasted with a social omission on her mantel. No Fleur.

  “You’ll have to remind me what it was you wanted again. About Estes?”

  “That’s right. Mrs. Forebush. I’m trying to get together some information about Estes Graham and his family.”

  “For the paper, I believe you said? About Estes’ last years?”

  What was I supposed to have reminded her of again? She had repeated everything I had told her. I was getting the distinct impression that I was being conned, not conning. But maybe I was just touchy. “I hope so, yes.”

  She studied me quizzically. “I trust you won’t mind me saying this so directly, but you look a little old not to be sure when you are doing something.”

  Challenged again. “I hope not to make that your problem. I just understood you knew Estes Graham in his later years.”

  She shrugged. “Oh, I’m happy enough to talk about Estes. Nothing I can say will matter to him now.”

  Was she really telling me that she didn’t believe the whole story?

  “I worked for Estes Graham from my twenty-first birthday until the day he died. I saw that man go through more than a dozen lesser men together could take.” Light seemed to come from her eyes; rather than from the window. She was happy enough to talk about Estes Graham.

  “I understand he married Irene Olian.”

  “In 1916. The quietest, most angelic little girl you ever saw. He worshiped her. He mostly died himself when she was taken in 1937.”

  “There were four children?”

  “Three boys dead in the war, and a girl, Fleur. Young man, as far as I’m concerned, there is more story in Estes Graham than there will ever be in one man again. Things aren’t the same for a real man nowadays. But his last years, they were such a change. Now why do you want to hear about that?” She looked me straight in the eye. But she out-eyed me, three to two. The yellow carnation watching dispassionately down from above.

  I said, “That’s the part of the story I’m supposed to cover for the article.”

  Her snort covered what would have been my choking on my own feeble words.

  “Goodness gracious. A man your age ‘hoping’ to do a story and now it’s not even all your story.” She snorted again, with no apologies. I had the distinct impression I was not smart enough to dabble in private eying. Maybe I should stick to writing crossword puzzles.

  She brought me up short again. “Young man, you aren’t doing anything that might hurt the child, are you?”

  I knew she meant Eloise.

  “No, Mrs. Forebush. I am trying to help her. It was she who gave me your name.”

  “Eloise,” she mused. She sat back in her chair, the body equivalent of clearing her throat. “All right. You must think I can tell you things you need to know. I’ll do my best.”

  “Thank you,” I said, infinitely grateful.

  She looked at her watch. “Still, you must get on with it. I don’t want to miss my movie.”

  “It shouldn’t take that long, Mrs. Forebush. I need to know about Fleur Crystal.”

  “Dreadful child. On the surface so meek and mild, but underneath she’s just a little conniver. I guess it was the war that really did it, losing all three boys, and so soon after Irene. She spent every minute of her life trying to make her father love her.”

  “And he didn’t?”

  “Just the minimum. A little mouse like her. He liked women to have some style. Fleur always whined.” Then she added quietly, “Irene had style. It didn’t have to be brash.”

  “Fleur was devoted to him?”

  “Utterly.”

  “But not so much as not to get married.”

  “That was as much to please her father as anything, you know. But he’s nice, that Mr. Crystal. I fail to see what he saw in her.”

  “If not woman, maybe money?”

  “Oh, no. He’s just not that way. Do you know that the day after Estes died Mr. Crystal came straight to me, gave me this house, and started sending me money every month? He didn’t need to do that. I told him that Estes made arrangements for me before he died, but Mr. Crystal still keeps sending me living
money. He told me to keep the other for savings. So I’ve fixed the place up. Took out all the tall shrubs that were here when I came. Put in plants of my own.

  “But I’m getting off the track. My two best subjects are my house and the old days. You’ll have to guide me to the material that you want.”

  “You were talking about Fleur marrying Leander Crystal.”

  “Yes. He was a friend of Joshua’s, you know. Baby Joshua’s. They knew each other in the war and Mr. Crystal came to us after it was all over and told us about it. It was so sad.”

  “What was, Mrs. Forebush?”

  “The way poor Joshie died. I mean after the real war was all over. He died in France when a truck exploded. Mr. Crystal was there and heard his last words, love to his father, and his brothers and his sister and to me. It makes me teary even now, to think of it. I cried for days then. We all did. He didn’t even know that his brothers were dead.”

  Spontaneously we paused in silence. So much more meaningful than any routine pledge can be.

  “But I must say, Mr. Crystal took to little Fleur from the beginning. He tried to help Estes put a little purpose in her. I think he was as responsible as anyone for getting Fleur to try nursing. Did you know she studied nursing?”

  I nodded. She continued.

  “But of course she just wasn’t up to self-discipline. They got married at the end of a summer, 1949 it was.”

  “How did the marriage seem to affect her?”

  “She was better for a while. Gayer. After the marriage it took Fleur some time to realize that Estes was really looking to her for grandchildren. She thought that when she and Mr. Crystal were married, her father would just come around to her. It didn’t work out that way. It made her real nervous about having children. She went to doctors and finally Mr. Crystal took her to Europe. He thought it might be good for them. And when they got back she was pregnant, sure enough, with Eloise. Made Estes real happy. He didn’t believe a marriage was approved by God until there were children. I really think he would have liked Eloise.”

  “How is she, Mr. Samson? I haven’t seen her in quite a while.”

  “I think she is fine, Mrs. Forebush. A real young lady. But I must ask you a frank question, about Eloise’s mother.”

  “OK. Shoot.”

  “Is there any chance in your mind that she could be unfaithful?”

  Mrs. Forebush tried hard to fathom the significance of the question, and then fell back on her resolve to help. “Well, I haven’t talked to the girl for years. I can’t say what she might be capable of.”

  “I don’t mean now, Mrs. Forebush. I mean then. Those first years of marriage, through the time of Estes Graham’s death.”

  Her answer was absolute by human measure. “Not a chance in a million.”

  That had been the big question, so we rapidly prepared for my departure.

  She said, “I really don’t know what this is all about, Mr. Samson. One loses one’s faculties. But you will tell Eloise to come and see me. I think that’d be better than my going to see her right now.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “And you, Mr. Samson. You must come again and tell me exactly what is going on.”

  It was not a request. It was a threat. “I shall, Mrs. Forebush.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Samson. Now, good-bye.”

  I walked slowly down the walk to my car. She was an unusual lady. Vibrant and on top of things. I liked her, and although I had come into her house telling lies, I believed that she liked me.

  I sat for a few minutes in the car making notes on what she had told me. Most immediately relevant was her exclusion of any chance that Fleur had had an extramarital love life. Especially considering the facts.

  While I sat I happened to look up and catch the eye of an old man sitting on the porch of the house across the alley from Mrs. Forebush’s. It made me nervous. I couldn’t tell if he knew I was looking at him or not. How do you tell whether somebody is seeing what is in front of him?

  I started the car, and just before easing the stick into first I made half a wave. He made no response at all. But on the other hand my gesture was not definitive enough to prove anything one way or the other.

  For all he knew I could have been failing to catch a mosquito.

  He didn’t move for as long as I saw him.

  I headed in the general direction of home. But as I hadn’t finished my notes I stopped at a drugstore for some coffee.

  Once inside and working I remembered I had not eaten much of my lunch. That made me feel peckish.

  And after I ordered meat replica on a bun I got into a conversation with the grill man about whether the Pacers could do it again. They had played their first game of the season while I was jollying last night. They’d had their own jollies at half time. A bomb scare had emptied the Coliseum. But no boom and the Pacers had proceeded to lower the boom on Kentucky.

  It was about four fifteen before I got started again, back to the office.

  8

  When I got back to the office, I had a surprise waiting for me in her chair. Eloise Crystal, client. My outside office door has no lock, except for a bolt when I’m inside. It’s one of the ways my slumlord tries to get me to move to the suite next door. I just keep the room to my inner life secured and try to leave nothing of value in the office. It’s more friendly that way. Clients have a place to rest their beleaguered bones when they show up and their ever-workin’ PI ain’t home.

  She smiled as I came in. For some reason that touched me. You get so little that is personal, human in this business. Either you are serving legal papers to unsuspecting merchants or your client is trying to get you to seduce his wife so he can charge adultery. Her smile made me feel good.

  “I didn’t know whether I should come today,” she said. “You didn’t say.”

  “I guess I forgot. It’s nice to see you. I hope it wasn’t trouble.”

  “The only thing was that I didn’t know whether you were coming back or not. It’s nearly five. I have to go at five.”

  By this time I was sitting on my side of the desk feeling rather relaxed. Inappropriately so, perhaps, but it was the first conversation I’d had all day with someone I was not trying to con.

  “How do you get around?” I asked. “By bus all the time?”

  “Oh, no. Sometimes by cab. Sometimes I even walk.”

  I smiled a little embarrassedly. I was making small talk, but had implicitly been attacking her age again. In this city kids who are really sixteen have drivers’ licenses. It wasn’t her fault she’d paid me to find out her real age.

  I think she realized what I was thinking. She said, “Is it important?”

  I said, “No.”

  “Well, I know something about you too. I know that you’ve only been in Indianapolis for seven years and that you’re not crooked.”

  “Oh?”

  “I called the Better Business Bureau. They haven’t had any complaints on you.”

  I grinned.

  “I called before I came the first time. I picked your name out of the yellow pages because all you had in it was your name. Nothing about ‘marital investigations’ or stuff like that. Then I called to find out if you were crooked.”

  Before me was a girl who could get blood out of her environmental father.

  “Maybe I’m just too small to specialize, and so crooked that I pay them off.” I tried to look crooked.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” She smiled again. We smiled at each other. I began to get uncomfortable. I am not accustomed to confidence freely offered. It made me realize that I had not been very aggressive about getting information that would be of use to her. I mean, how much use was the knowledge that her mother got incompletes in nursing school?

  For the moment I bore the guilt of the ungrateful employee.

  I decided to give her a chance to assuage my sensitivities.

  “I don’t have a lot I can tell you today,” I said.

  She didn’t assuage. �
�Haven’t you at least checked my blood typings yet?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Only indirectly.”

  She continued nipping at my heels. Hound and hare. “But isn’t that the first thing you have to do? To make sure that I’m not, well, that I’m not just crazy or something.”

  To make sure that I was not just the kid’s equivalent of a hypochondriac’s doctor.

  “It’s not all that easy a thing to check,” I said.

  “Didn’t you see Dr. Fishman?”

  “He wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “But he’s so nice!” Maybe to rich girls. “Why didn’t he talk to you?”

  “He said nothing he knows is any of my business. I could hardly tell him what my real business is.”

  “I guess not,” she said. “Still …”

  I knew she was disappointed. She had realized that little things could stop me. That I would take no for an answer.

  I was a little disappointed myself.

  For self-protection I said, “You can’t expect this to go fast. It’s a difficult problem.” It sounded flimsy even to me.

  “I know,” she said. “It’s just that I’ve been thinking so much. It’s just that I’d hoped—” She paused because we both knew what she’d hoped. Forty-eight-hour service. “Can you tell me what you have done?”

  “I talked to your biology teacher, to the registrar of the Butler Nursing College, and to Mrs. Forebush. I think I have a better idea of what your mother and your grandfather are like. Were like.”

  “I never knew him.”

  “I know. His time ended before yours began.”

  “My mother still thinks about him a lot. Sometimes she accidentally calls Leander Daddy. A mistake like, you know? Leander hates it.”

  “Does it bother you?” Not the world’s least ambiguous question, but a proper grunt to keep her talking.

  “I’m sort of used to it. To her. When she isn’t unhappy we get along OK. When I was little we used to play out where she used to play with her brothers. But since she had the miscarriage she’s been miserable and when she’s unhappy it’s awful. She thinks she’s dying, and it’s too bad because she was so happy while she was pregnant.”