Blue Star Spencer
Walt was back from shopping by the time we returned from the cemetery. He was prepping a roast for the oven. I offered to help and he refused. I started to sit by the fire when Charlie stopped me with a question. “What are you gonna do?”
“I was going to sit.”
“How far is Scranton from here?”
“About thirty minutes.”
“We’ve got at least four hours before dinner, right?”
I saw where he was going with his questions and relented to his urgency. “I’ll put my coat back on. You’re going to drive, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll get started. Give me a minute to let Walt know.”
* * * *
We drove due north to the medium-sized city of Scranton. It was easily twice the size of Reading, but that meant it was still only about a tenth the size of Philadelphia. As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t even a real city, just a big suburban sprawl built around a half-assed city center. The area that passed for downtown was barely a dozen blocks long and three or four blocks wide. The rest was low to medium income housing. There was some industry nearby that provided jobs, a coke-works and an old steel mill, but as near as I could tell, the city had very little reason to exist.
I had Charlie stop at a service station just inside the city limits. I went into the little shack of a store and bought a roadmap. I also asked the attendant if he knew the area. He said he did. I asked about the address from the envelope in Judy’s bathroom, 1725 Prospect Avenue. He took his knit cap off to scratch his balding head. “Sounds like a Southside address.” He pointed toward the road that ran past the station. “This is Pittstown Avenue. It runs northwest of Southside. You need to go a few streets southeast. Prospect parallels Pittstown.”
“How about Lentz Place?”
He shook his head and pulled his cap back on. “I don’t know that one.”
I wondered how I would approach the addresses. I wanted to at least meet Judy’s mother. I didn’t think she’d know anything specific about her daughter’s death, but meeting her would help me understand where Judy came from. I didn’t know what I’d find at the other address. I wish I had something I could pretend to deliver.
The shop had a row of cold cases along the far wall; one was filled with soft drinks, a second with beer, and the last with frostbitten bunches of flowers. I bought two of the half-wilted bouquets and carried them out to the car. I filled out the card on one of the bunches for Judy’s mother. I wrote ‘to Aggie with Love.’
I tried to come up with something to write on the other card, but all I had was the last name of Spencer and the idea that there was a woman at the address. I had no idea if I would find a miss, ma’am, or mistress. I scrawled ‘all the best’ and hoped the sentiment would mean something to someone.
Before we left the gas station, I remembered that Judy’s mother was a lush, or at least I suspected she was. There was a liquor store across the street. I went over and bought a pint of decent rye. I hoped that would be my ticket into her home.
I gave Charlie directions to Prospect Avenue and coached him a little on the way over. “You stay in the car. If I can talk my way into either of the houses, I’ll invite you in. I’ll say I want to let you warm up. I’m a florist and you’re my assistant and you’re driving me home. I’m an old man and I don’t see very well. We’re making a couple deliveries on the way. When we get to these places, keep your eyes open. Look at everything and remember as much as you can. We don’t know what will be important.”
“What are we trying to do?”
I thought that was obvious. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when we were working together back home, we were trying to find whoever was causing trouble on the Krengel farm. We wanted to know who was doing it and why. What we’re doing here is different. We want to know why Judy…did what she did. How are we gonna find out with a couple bunches of flowers?”
We found Prospect Avenue and I had him pull over to the side. We sat in the idling car while I explained. “We may never find out exactly why Judy committed suicide. We can’t know what was in her mind and her heart the moment she did it. The only thing we can do is build a picture of who she was and what her situation was and try to infer the reason for her actions.”
“How can we do that?”
“We meet the people she knew, and we do our best to understand where she came from. We also find out what was in the letter she got. If we do those things, we should be able to understand what motivated her actions. It’s like I said earlier, people act according to a pattern. Judy killed herself because she felt trapped by circumstances and she saw no way out of an awful situation. She leapt through the only escape hatch that was available. If we can understand her circumstances, we’ll know why she felt she had to escape.”
“Makes sense.”
He gripped the steering wheel in his huge, rugged hands like he wanted to wring the plastic from it. Our talk unsettled him. He was dealing with the loss better than he had the day before, but it was obviously still fresh and raw in his mind. I guessed it was the first big catastrophe of his young life. He was only nineteen after all. His relative maturity made me forget how young he really was.
I realized as I watched him that he was a resource I hadn’t yet tapped. “After dinner, I want to sit down with a notebook. I want you to tell me everything you knew about your friend. We’ll write down the important stuff. That’ll help us build our picture.”
He nodded to the windshield.
“Can you do that?”
He nodded again. “Yeah, I’ll be alright. You need to know what I know to do what I want you to do. I’ll figure out how to get the words out.”
I pointed up the road. “Let’s get moving. I want to get home in time for dinner.”
* * * *
We cruised the blocks until we found the 1700s and counted the houses up toward our goal. The block was on a hill both ways. The street itself ran up and the car grumbled as it exerted extra effort to climb. The homes on the left side were built on top of small rises while the ones on the right were bult down the slope. The neighborhood was working class. The homes were reasonably well-kept, but small and cheaply built.
There was a mixture of narrow singles or wider doubles. All wore painted clapboard siding. There were a few chain link fences and gas lampposts but no other ornamentation. I didn’t see a single flowerbed. There were no driveways, but hardly any cars parked on the street. I wondered where they were. The neighborhood wasn’t one that could be navigated on foot.
Number 1725 was on the left side of the street. It was a wooden frame house that was built as a twin. The addresses were 1725 and 1727. I had Charlie park the wrong way to the curb and struggled out against the weight of the door.
I carried my flowers up the cement steps that spanned the sloped front yard and twisted the brass wingnut mechanism that rang the bell affixed to the inside of the door. The house was dark and looked empty. A military service banner hung in the front window. A single blue star was sewn to a white background over another red background. The family had a son in the military. The son was still alive. If he wasn’t, the star would have been gold.
I rang the bell a few times and pounded the door with my fist. No one answered. I didn’t expect an answer from inside the darkened house, but I hoped to make enough racket to get a neighbor interested in my knocking. My idea worked. The front door to 1727 flew open and a woman in a flower-print apron came out into the cold.
She was a medium-size matronly woman with one hand on her hip and the other around a wooden spoon. She spoke sharply like she didn’t suffer fools. “They ain’t home!”
I held up my flowers. “I’ve got a delivery. I hate to leave them because they’ll spoil in the cold.”
“Who’re they for?”
I made a feint of examining the card like I couldn’t remember what was written on it. “It just says ‘all the best.’ I didn’t get a first name, just Spencer and an address. This is 1725 Prospect, right?”
She nodded sharply and pointed her spoon. “You’ll have’ta bring ‘em back when they’re home.”
I peered at the flowers and shrugged. “I’ll have to make up a new bunch and try again tomorrow.”
She waved her spoon like she was wagging a finger at a naughty child. “They ain’t gonna be there tomorrow. Johnny’s down in the city. They got ‘em at the VA hospital, poor soul. Wounded or blown up or some such over in Vietnam. Silvia and Big John are down there seein’ to him. I dunno what fool would send flowers to the house. They oughta had ‘em sent to the VA.”
I shrugged again. “I can’t send flowers all the way to Philadelphia. I assume that’s where you mean.” I waited for an answer and she nodded sharply again. “I’ll telephone the party in the morning and see if they want to cancel the order.” I held the bouquet out. “Would you like them?”
“I ain’t buying no flowers.”
“No charge, dear lady. Take them with my compliments. You’ve been very helpful. It’d be a sin and a shame for the Spencers to come back to find a frozen, wilted bouquet on the doorstep. They might take it as an insult. A mistake like that is bad for business.”
She accepted the flowers and softened her tone. “Thanks, Mister. These’ll be some nice color in the kitchen. Winters are always so grey.”
“I quite agree, ma’am. I hope they’ll brighten your day.”
She waved her spoon again. “I gotta get back to my cooking.”
“Before you go, do you know Lentz Place? I’ve got one more delivery and I don’t know the street.”
She jerked her head further up the block. “Keep on for three blocks. Turn right on Cherry and go two more. Lentz is an alley. It’s kinda inside the block, you understand?”
I nodded that I understood. “Good day, dear lady, and thank you.”
She went in and closed the door. I took my time down the steep cement steps back to the car.
* * * *
I gave Charlie the directions I got from the neighbor and told him what I learned. He never heard the name Johnny Spencer, but said Judy had mentioned a boy from back home that she had an arrangement with. He wondered if it might be the same man.
“Anything’s possible. She must’ve known the family at least well enough for them to send a letter. It’s something we’ll have to pursue. I’ve got a friend who works at the VA. Maybe he can look into the Spencer kid’s case.”
“Do you know everyone?”
I chuckled at his question. “I’ve lived in the city my whole life, so while I don’t know everyone, I know a lot of people. I know the value of friends. When I meet good people, I like to stay in touch with them. The restaurant I owned with Walt made that easy. I could invite my friends for a meal anytime I wanted.
“Walt loves to entertain and cook, so we gathered a large circle of people around us. I don’t ask for much, and that means when I call, my friends are usually willing to help. I happen to know the VA because I’m a veteran and go there for my healthcare. Just because Philly is a lot bigger than Grass Range where you live, doesn’t mean the social circles of the city don’t work just like the ones in a small town. I bet your dad has dozens of people he could call for help or advice or whatever.”
He agreed. “He does. Dad likes to help people. He also treats everyone fairly. Everyone likes him. I remember when I was twelve, the engine in his combine threw a rod right in the middle of harvest. Bad weather was coming and he was worried he wouldn’t get it fixed in time to get the wheat in. No one close by had an engine. He called all over. He finally found one in Rapid City, South Dakota. That’s like an eight-hour drive. Him and Eddie took off and drove all night to get it, but like I said, the weather was coming and nothing was going to stop it. He was gonna hav’ta drive eight hours out, then eight hours back, then put the engine in and get it running. The whole rigamarole would have taken two or three days.
“The neighbors found out what he was up against and they pulled together. They worked through the night while dad was driving to combine their own fields, then they got to work on his. No one asked them; they just did it. A couple mechanics from the local repair shop also came to the house. They got the engine out of the combine and were all ready to stick the new one in. As soon as dad and Eddie pulled in the yard, they got to work on the new engine. They wouldn’t even let dad help. They made him go to bed because he was so exhausted, he could barely stand up. He got a few hours’ rest and by the time he got up and had his coffee, the combine was ready to go. He got right to work, and they got the wheat in just before the weather came.”
The story was so sweet it made me want to cry. I was turning into a sap in my old age. I recalled the way the people around Walt and me pitched in to help when Walt had his heart attack. Running a restaurant wasn’t the same as harvesting wheat, but the spirit of friendship was exactly the same. The story also proved my point. “Keep your friends close, Charlie. If you need help, let them help. People love to be of service to each other. Most of them do, anyway.”
He thumped the wheel with his fist. “I wish Judy would have let me help.”
“Me too.”
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