Help for the Haunted(90)

“Nothing, actually. He just finished his beer and said he wanted to walk back to his apartment, since it wasn’t far. We weren’t ever big on hugging, so he shook my hand. I remember standing outside in the parking lot, watching him go. I didn’t see or hear from him again for almost ten years, when Rose was born. I showed up to see her in the hospital, bringing the first of those horses from the track as a peace offering. But it was never the same between your dad and me. The truth was, it hadn’t been since we were kids.”

I glanced across the avenue. If Heekin had noticed us, he gave no sign. We had come all that way, but none of what I’d learned put me any closer to the answer I needed most. “That night last winter,” I said to Howie, “I mean, the night they died, where were you?”

He looked to Lloyd, who stood quietly beside us on the sidewalk still, before turning back to me. “I’ve told you before, Sylvie. I was home in my apartment in Tampa. I’d lost another job and was drowning my sorrows in booze the way I used to do. I didn’t come out of it for a few days.”

As he spoke, I thought of my mother teaching me how to sense what was inside a person. And though I didn’t really believe I had any of her gift, I did believe that Howie was telling the truth.

“Sylvie!” Heekin had noticed us at last and rolled down his window. I called back that I’d just be another minute. And then I told my uncle I really did need to go.

This time, Howie didn’t try to keep me there any longer. Instead, he told me he was glad, after all, that I’d come to Philly. He also said he never planned to go along with Rose’s request for long. “That’s why I kept telling you we’d see each other down the road. Once I got the place up and running, and started making money, I planned to revisit—well, let’s call it the terms of my agreement with your sister. Even if she’s resistant to the idea, I want to help you. I want to be a part of your lives.”

I stared down at his arms, noticing a tiny horseshoe among the playing cards. My uncle reached out and pulled me close, tighter than before, in a final hug. He spoke into my ear, choosing the good one by chance, and telling me to call anytime, that Rose wouldn’t have to know. When he let go, I said good-bye to him and to Lloyd too, before crossing the avenue.

I expected Heekin to begin grilling me the moment I climbed into his cramped car. The thought of explaining all I’d learned before thinking it through myself felt daunting, and so I was grateful when the most he said was that I must be hungry, and to help myself to the sandwich and chips he had bought for me. I did just that, fishing lunch from the bag while the car’s engine sputtered to life. As we chugged away from the curb and moved down the street I watched Howie and Lloyd grow smaller and smaller in the side-view mirror, standing beneath the drooping marquee with its crooked letters until they were gone.

[page]It wasn’t until we were on the highway south, sandwich and chips demolished, that Heekin spoke. He told me that even though it was just three o’clock, I probably felt tired after the long day. He said we could talk about whatever went on inside the theater when I was ready, same went for the unfinished stories he had begun telling on the drive up about his involvement in my parents’ lives. I did feel tired—drained by it all, in fact—so my only answer was to nod and lean my head against the window. It felt as though only a short while passed before we were rolling down the off-ramp of the highway then winding our way through the narrow streets of Dundalk. That’s when Heekin broke the silence at last, saying, “While I was waiting for you outside the theater, I thought of something.”

I looked away from the window at him. Those weedy gray strands of his hair caught the fading sunlight, the unusual hills and valleys of his face. “What’s that?”

“Earlier, you mentioned you never wanted to forget certain things. It made me remember the tapes from my interviews with your parents. Their voices are on them. The police made me turn over the cassettes, but you should ask the detective for them, so you can have those pieces of your parents at least.”

By then, we had reached Butter Lane. Heekin stopped in the exact spot where I’d met him that morning. I told him I would inquire about the tapes, and then he gave me his business card with his home number written on the back in case I needed to reach him. I thanked him and pushed open the door. The question I’d started to ask him back at the preserve had been niggling at my mind ever since, and it made me stop. “Were you and my mother—” I paused, finding it hard still, to say the rest of what I wanted to know.

“In love?” Heekin said, doing the job for me.

I nodded.

“No, Sylvie. I would have wanted something more between us. But she was loyal to your father and to you girls too. I’d be lying if her rejection didn’t fuel some part of my motivation in refusing to change certain details in my book.” He stopped and let out a sigh that seemed weighted with regret. “Anyway, speaking of my book, whatever more you need to know can be answered in the pages you’ve been avoiding. Maybe it’s best if you discover it there. It might not be tomorrow or next week or next year. But I’m guessing at some point, you’ll be ready.”

Even as he said those things, I knew the time had come. When I was alone in the house again, I needed to dig that book out of the police bag in Rose’s closet and finish it at last. There seemed no point in telling Heekin that, however, so I just thanked him again and got out of the car. Daylight had begun to slip away, so he flicked on his headlights to help me see as I headed down the lane. When I reached the house, I listened as his VW bug stalled out before he started the engine again and sped off down the main road.