Part 20 (1/2)

We sit at the edge of her rickety living room couch at her suggestion. ”The springs sometimes just up and bite your . . . bottom, so be careful.” Out of courtesy, she is watching her language.

She sits opposite us on the only chair in the room, a straight-back plain wooden one.

She leans forward. ”I gotta admit you got my interest piqued. Ya want something to drink? I got some c.o.kes and beers.”

Stanley answers for us. ”No, thank you. We don't want to take up too much of your time.”

She shrugs. ”Been laid off again. Time's a'plenty right now.”

”About your brother,” Stanley begins. ”We don't know whether or not we've come to the right place.”

”I'll let you know.”

He nods. ”Your brother, Johnny, died many years ago. Very young.”

”So far yer batting a thousand. The dummy went and left me alone. He was twenty and me nineteen. Never said where he was going, just told me he had to wander. I had no money. No support anywheres. He was all I had for a family.” Her eyes tear in memory. ”But what does that have to do with you? Don't tell me you're from some bank and you just found a life insurance policy that's been lost for nearly fifty years.”

I say gently, ”Sorry. No.”

Stanley continues. ”There is no easy way to say this, so I shall just say it. We come from Fort Lauderdale and we have just suffered through a hurricane. A building fell down and we found a skeleton underneath.” He pauses.

She shakes her head. ”Now you lost me. What has that to do with me?”

Stanley seems tired, so I speak. ”We think it was your brother.”

Lucy gets up and slaps her thighs, amused. ”Boy, are you in the wrong place. My Johnny is buried right here in the church cemetery, not five blocks away. And believe me, there's no doubt but that is his body in that there casket.”

Stanley starts to get up. ”Mrs. Sweeney, I'm sorry we bothered you for nothing.”

”Wait,” I say. ”Would you fill me in on what happened to him?”

Stanley has no idea why I'm asking. Frankly, neither do I. I'm going on pure instinct.

”I don't mind,” she says. ”I haven't thought of the poor lad in years.” ”I only found out later that he'd taken a job on a freighter that came all the way from Argentina. Guess he wanted to see the world.” She takes a photo off a chest of drawers and shows it to us. ”That was my brother. Tall, skinny, long drink of water, he was, with big dreams.”

Stanley and I exchange glances. We are both remembering that the foreman, Ed, described his worker as ”large, even heavy.” Definitely the wrong man. Out of politeness, we wait for Lucy to finish her story.

”Anyways,” she says, ”the kid always had bad luck. He wrote to tell me he was on that s.h.i.+p and I was so excited finally hearing from him. The day his s.h.i.+p pulls into port, not eight blocks away from where we're sitting, I wait and I wait and there's no Johnny. Later on, I find out he fell overboard.”

”Somebody see him fall?” I ask out of curiosity.

”No. The s.h.i.+pping company lied to me. They denied he fell from the s.h.i.+p. Insisted they signed him out that last day. But how could I believe a boy raised on the docks would just fall off of one? I knew something was screwy.” She hangs her head, sadly. ”He washed up on sh.o.r.e a month later.”

We sit a few minutes longer, but there's nothing left to say. Lucy shows us to the door. Stanley takes out his wallet and offers her some money for her time, what with her being laid off.

Lucy rears back, insulted. ”I don't take charity.” With that she slams the door on us.

Stanley and I walk to the nearest cab stand. ”Sorry I dragged you along on such a wild-goose chase.”

”That's all right. How often do I get to travel to these exotic places?”

”My pleasure.” He smiles and follows me across the street. ”So what now? Who is the dead man? Will we ever find out?”

31.

Dead End

A s we sit at our usual picnic table late that af s we sit at our usual picnic table late that af ternoon, I report to the girls about the trip to Tampa. Behind them I can see yet another dump truck dragging away one more load of wrecked furniture. After I give them all the details, I say, ”I guess he was the wrong Johnny Blake after all.”

I pause. My brain is trying to come up with something.

”What?” Evvie asks.

”Something that woman in Tampa said to me that I'm trying to remember.” I shrug; nothing's coming to mind. ”And yet, the body was washed up a month later. After being in the water so long, how could they have been sure it was Blake? I'm driving myself crazy.”

Evvie says, ”Unless Morrie's lab can come up with something from the bones, we may never find out who was buried there.”

”Speak of the devil,” Ida says as she points to Stanley walking toward them with Morrie in tow.

”Look who I found on my doorstep,” Stanley says.

”I just dropped by to see how your repairs are going.” Morrie gives the girls one of his delightful shy smiles. They eat it up. I can almost read their minds-they've got to find a girl for him.

”Going slow,” says Sophie looking at Bella, both thinking of Dora. ”Way too slow.”

”I do have a report for you. From the forensics lab.”

Ida says, ”We were just talking about that.”

The girls lean closer to Morrie to hear.

”My guys were so intrigued about having such an old skeleton on their table, they got right to work. Unfortunately I don't think it will help us find out who he is, but it tells us who he was not.”

Evvie comments, ”Sorry to hear that.”

Morrie continues. ”The bones tell us he was definitely male, approximately five foot seven inches tall. Probably between thirty and thirty-five years old.”