I remembered his excitement on seeing that vintage on their wine list. “That’s a shame,” I said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t available to console you.”
Julius cocked an eyebrow. “Sarcasm, Archie? Another new development for you, although I’m not sure I like it.”
The cab driver was shaking his head. I could see him in the rearview mirror frowning severely. He muttered again in Russian about the crazies he got stuck with. I translated his comments to Julius. He didn’t bother to respond.
The cab driver pulled up to Emma Brewer’s address. Julius paid him and exited the cab. He stood silently on the sidewalk, his eyes narrowing as he examined the house. It didn’t look like something that would be worth close to a million dollars. According to the town records — at least what was in their database — the house was a three-bedroom Colonial built on a nine thousand square foot lot. The brown exterior paint had long since faded and was peeling away from the shutters. Aside from a new paint job, there was other obvious maintenance work that needed to be done and the small front yard was in disarray, mostly crabgrass and weeds. Julius waited until I told him it was precisely eleven o’clock before he started towards the house. A BMW parked in front of the house was registered to Norma Brewer, so it was no surprise when she and her sister Helen greeted us at the door. Norma stood stiffly, as if she had back problems, and her sister looked as lifeless as she had the day before. Norma spoke first, thanking Julius for coming, and then holding out her hand to him. Julius stated that it was nothing personal but he never shook hands. I had mentioned that to her when she first booked the appointment, but I guess it had slipped her mind. Ostensibly, Julius’s reason for it was that he saw no reason to expose himself unnecessarily to viral diseases, although I think it was more that he didn’t like physical contact with strangers who weren’t exceptionally beautiful young women, since he had no problem shaking hands and doing far more with women of that nature — at least from what I could tell before he invariably placed me in his sock drawer. Norma awkwardly withdrew her hand and told Julius that her mother was in the kitchen.
“She’s not having a good day,” she said flatly, a fragility aging her face and making her look even more gaunt. She looked past Julius. “Your assistant, Archie, he’s not here again today? That’s a shame. I was so looking forward to meeting him. He sounded charming over the phone.”
If I’d had lips I would’ve kissed her. I made a list of how I would use that later to torment Julius.
Julius smiled thinly at her. “I’m sorry, but Archie has been detained — court-ordered community service, so unfortunately he can only be here with us in spirit.”
“Community service? What did the man do?”
“Sordid business, I’d rather not go into it. Please lead the way to your mother.”
“Thanks for sullying my reputation,” I said to him. Julius winked so that only I could see it.
One of the hallway walls was lined with framed family photos, mostly chronicling Norma and her two siblings from childhood to their young-adult years; a few included the parents. I had previously located photos of all of them, Norma’s father from the newspaper obituary and the others from driver’s-license photos that were on record at the Department of Motor Vehicles. I was able to identify them in their family photos using different physical characteristics, such as the shape of their faces, moles, and other distinguishing marks. There were half a dozen photos of Helen in her twenties with a man I didn’t recognize. Several were wedding pictures, so I assumed he was Helen’s husband. He appeared to be in his early twenties also and, like Julius, had dark hair and similar features to current male Hollywood movie stars frequently described in magazines as heartthrobs. Also like Julius, he had an athletic build and was roughly the same height and weight as Julius. Julius noted the photos from the corner of his eye without once breaking stride.
Norma led Julius to a small kitchen with Formica countertops and yellow-painted pine cabinets that looked like it had last been remodeled forty years ago. I matched the cabinets to a catalog and noted that they were manufactured in 1964. Sitting alone at a table was our client’s mother, Emma Brewer. She was fifty-seven in the last photo I found of her, now she was eighty-three, and she looked as if she had lost half her body weight. She couldn’t have weighed much more than eighty pounds. Her hair in the photo was turning gray, now it was white. She looked like some gnarled piece of papier-maché. Her hands were mostly blue veins and bone and were wrapped tightly around a cup of coffee as she stared blindly at the wall in front of her. She became aware that we had entered the room and, as she turned and caught sight of Julius, her face crumbled. She got out of her chair and nearly fell over as she backed away, her hands coming up to her face. She looked as if she was trying to scream, but no noise came out. I matched her expression to one of an actress in a photo I had found from a horror-movie database, and realized her expression was one of fear.
Norma stood frozen watching this, her own face showing dread. Helen moved quickly to her mother and took hold of her. Emma turned to her, confused, and asked in a whisper, “Norma?”
“No, Ma, I’m Helen. Norma is standing over there. The man next to her is a friend. His name is Julius Katz. He’s here to ask you some questions.”
Emma Brewer continued to stare at Julius and Norma. Then it was as if all the life bled out of her face and there was nothing there. At that point she let Helen take her back to her chair. Helen tried to ask her if she wanted to lie in bed instead, but Emma didn’t answer her. Instead she took hold of her coffee cup again and stared blindly straight ahead.
Norma came back to life then. Her eyes glaring, she asked Julius if it was really necessary for him to question her mother. Julius reluctantly shook his head, realizing he had no choice but to do some work on this case. “Is she always like this?” he asked.
“No, not always. Some days she’s almost functional. But as I told you before, she’s having a bad day.”
“Has your brother seen her like this?”
“Yes.”
Julius’s facial muscles hardened as he once again studied the mother. “Your brother must be a fool if he thinks he can get away with this,” he said.
“My brother is desperate.” Norma peered from the corner of her eyes at her sister and mother. Lowering her voice, she suggested that they continue the conversation outside the house. “I don’t want my mother hearing what I’m about to say. It would upset her if she were able to make sense of it.”
Julius agreed. Norma told her sister that they were going outside and asked if she’d join them. Helen declined, telling her that she was going to keep their mother company. Norma stood silent for a moment before leaving the room. Julius followed her. As they walked past the framed family photos lining the hallway wall, Julius stopped in front of one of Helen’s wedding pictures and asked Norma about the man in it.
“That was Helen’s husband, Thomas Arden.”
“From comments you made yesterday, I take it that he’s no longer married to your sister.”
For a while Norma stared hard at the photo, her mouth moving as if she were chewing gum. It seemed a struggle for her to pull away and face Julius.
“Technically, they could very well still be married,” she said in a low, hushed voice. “Twelve years ago he abandoned his family, running off to God knows where and leaving Helen alone to take care of three young children. I don’t believe Helen has ever heard from him. I have no idea whether she ever divorced him in absentia — it’s a sore subject, but I don’t believe she has ever taken that step, so in all likelihood, my sister is still married to him.”