Читать книгу Yet Untitled - Welby Thomas Cox Jr. - Страница 4

The auto accident took his life in a way. Thad Hamilton survived… but he was never the same person; the accident had a multidimensional impact on Hamilton. It changed forever all that Thad had been taught, what he knew to be the truth and the goals and ambitions of a wealthy man well into his prime. The accident itself was only a catalytic converter for what Hamilton knew he must do. Something corny…a change of life event… all that he knew and felt told him that he should not be here in this life among the normals… but, should instead be chasing fly balls or Sarah in the Sky…whatever it is that they do in the Minors. In all his life, he had never truly believed that there was anything more to life than what it is that we have been dealt…and then it is left to the survival of the fittest to cut and slash your way to the top. In the end… a few friends gather and comment on how good you look…: (what a wonderful life you had… hoping you had sufficient insurance and estate for the family you’ve left behind… and, then the visitors leave you to the eternal function of pushing up grass on some hillside spot). That’s all there is to it…or so Hamilton had thought.

What began on that beautiful September morning would manifest itself in a major way thirteen years later to the very day, and Hamilton’s new found zeal, patience and humanistic dedication to the words of D.T. Patel…to make a difference… would play a role in changing the world as well!

Thad’s recuperation from his physical problems went fairly well. His recovery, except for soft tissue damage, took less than a month. After a week in the hospital, it was discovered that a kidney stone had been dislodged by the accident, causing blood to appear in the urine. Strange, Hamilton thought, that you could have a malady resting inside an organ for years and then an ever so slight adjustment could wreck such havoc. The pain from the newly discovered stone was short lived after Hamilton was connected to fluids intravenously. The stone apparently was passed… as did the pain, and after other test, CAT scans and x-ray Thad was sent home to recover from leg and knee trauma, broken elbows and severally bruised and broken ribs.

But then Eleanor, his wife of eighteen years noticed that Thad began telling outright fabrications over the most mundane questions. She watched him. Told him meaningless stories of the lives and asked innocent questions about his background to which he almost always made up a story she knew not to be true. When she was puzzled by the fabrication, Hamilton would only smile and say, “Sarah in the Sky. I don’t know why!”

Eleanor called Thad’s physician and related these perplexing experiences.

“We had the best man in the head injury business look at the CAT Scan, perhaps he missed something. Let’s get him in as soon as possible for another look,” Dr. Kara said.

Arrangements were made to get Thad back in to see Dr. Horton, a neurosurgeon. After speaking with Thad and Eleanor and revisiting the CAT scan he suggested that a new round of tests should be made and sent Thad to St. Joseph’s Hospital for another series. With the work-ups completed, Thad was told to go on home and the physician would call as soon as the outcome was analyzed.

The next day, Dr. Kara called and related the test results to Eleanor. He had suffered a severe head wound and was suffering from Post-Concussion Syndrome, a consequence of head trauma and sever bruising of the brain. The condition caused major reactions and swings in response to questions Thad would have dispatched easily prior to the accident. Dr. Horton and Dr. Kara both agreed that the malady would be remedied in time, and, that the thought process would be restored, they could hazard nothing more than a WAG, short in the engineering business Thad knew so well as, Wild Ass Guess. When would the head injury go away and the function of processing information once again be normal for Thad? That day would never come for him…instead of bemoaning the negative, Hamilton was retrospect…becoming far less apprehensive toward direction and adopting as his new life’s credo the words of Robert F. Kennedy… “Some people see things as they are, and wonder why…but I dream of things that never were…and ask…why not?”

Of course, the family was concerned and alarmed over the condition. Thad imagined that if the neighborhood children knew of his condition…they would have been certain to treat him in much the same way as Bo Radley, the challenged hero who lived next door to Scout in “To Kill a Mockingbird”. They would hang out to get a glimpse of the weirdo liar who lived at Shawnee Parkway. The house… the big old Italian Revival in stucco and tiled roof sitting across the parkway from the 700-acre park which he had purchased after his divorce from his first wife…Joanne, Mio’s mother! It was a beautiful place with a lovely veranda running across the front of the house and around one side. It had a carriage house connected off the other side and a beautiful garden courtyard complete with Italian statues of David, Neptune and Diana on pedestals as well as a lovely fountain in the corner with three cupids spilling cooling water into a recirculating pond. Thad had decided on the acquisition because it was convenient to the branch bank where he worked and, it served as the office for his Children’s Cosmapolis, a business he had started, as a side venture, and a place for his young daughter, Mio, as well as the hope that the venture might lead Hamilton to full time opportunity outside the bank someday.

He could utilize the carriage house as an office/studio apartment and there was a lovely little bedroom with a view for Mio when she was visiting. Thad was able to arrange a great mortgage with no cash at closing through the bank where he worked.

But the main reason for the purchase was the mood, which took Thad back to Italy where he had studied for a semester. Sitting there, at certain angles, he was again in the courtyard at Pistoria, having an espresso and watching with joy, the locals go about the morning routines as though he was part of the bench.

“Ah Aldo, Heh Antonio!”

Words moved Hamilton, especially Italian and this morning reminded him of those he had read which had been translated by a little known poet, “It must be morning there is crystal all around and everywhere the kind of optics which imbue the spirit and the mind with a special freshness, that’s above all genuine but I can always find comfort here in the early hours of waking, knowing that you are waiting, knowing that you will come running with eyes still moist from wanting. And even though I can’t touch you now, I can’t kiss your lips, I can, hold your mind!”

So lovely, that compelling feeling which drives a man and a woman, in any language… when they first learn to love. And now the morning sun had burned off the fog, which hung over the Tuscan valley moments before, like an old quilt historically chronicling the past and steadfastly holding on to the present. Thad knew this experience evoked something deep inside which gave him the sense of being a part of history, there when Hannibal marched through the countryside on his way to defeating Flaminio in 217 B.C., there, no more than 40 kilometers from Vinci, the birthplace of Leonardo. Thad fell in love with the light, as had DaVinci and all the other masters before and since, God given and inspired, how could no one paint he thought, or write? The light on the valley with the green sweep of the Apennines, as the forested slopes angled toward the valley, vineyards and olive orchards began, and the landscape of the artist and the poet meshing the mellow stone farmhouses dating to 500 A.D., their terra-cota roves solidifying each farm to the land. There was no dating this scene in Thad’s mind, a picture as complete and infinite as antiquity. Looking out, looking into the soul that is Italy! North, south, east and west was the essence and allure of the whole country.

Thad knew and felt the spirit, after several visits. He had been to the boot at Sicily, to the watery reaches of the Veneto, those revealing extremes of this country where he had taken Eleanor and they fell in love in Firenze, staying at the Kraft Hotel they were able to visit all the special sites, rest in the afternoon in the custom of the Italians and then dine at any one of the great restaurante where wonderful wine, crostini with chopped fresh tomatoes, a dish of potatoes, porcini mushrooms, big shrimp, mazzancolle followed by cicoria, maybe a mixed salad, always steaming and too much food. And in Verona, the Basilicata and Marche regions, Bellagio, Asola, Bologna, and more and more with the castle towns around Lago Trasimeno which could be seen from the hillside. It was all about the love affair that he had with his wife; she too felt the connection to history and to Thad. They were of a single mind and though she knew of his sorted romantic past she was secure that she knew his spirit and felt that his search was over. And she intended to see to it that he would have no need to search another!

This was the reason he loved the house. Whenever he was there somehow, he was transported back to the little villages in Italy, and it was his piece de resistance’. The main house was a three-story construction with access from the courtyard to two lower level studio apartments generally occupied by students from the medical school. It had been elegantly restored and tastefully converted from a single-family home into six apartments. The main floor with its magnificent stairwell and foyer formed the entrance to the first floor apartment that had a formal living room, dining room/study, bedroom with working fireplaces in all. A bath and small kitchen led out to a screened porch and into the gardened veranda. The second floor contained two large one-bedroom apartments, one of those in the rear of the house had a lovely screened in porch overlooking the garden. The third floor was an artist dream suite, a garret style studio complete with quasi-castle turrets, permitting the light to stream through in different shades as the time of day dictated. The windows contained leaded gothic panes creating the surreal effect of the Santa Maria Basilica in Florence, Italy but the light was that of Indianapolis, Indiana!

It was a great old house, which would have cost a couple of million to build in 1988, but in 1967 the house was on the block at a fire sale price of $ 95,000. Of course Thad had the bank inspectors look the house over carefully including structural, foundation, walls, leaks, had the plumbing inspected and the roof, to his delight was very expensive terra cota, no more than five years old and good for another forty years according to the roofer. The income from the apartments was more than sufficient to meet the debt service on a twenty-year loan at 5-½%, and the appraisal came in at $ 20,000.00 over the sales price. The carriage house wasn’t included in the income, so there was another bonus, free rent for the business and a place to live. It was a deal made in heaven.

At the closing, when the attorney asked if there were any other questions, Thad asked to no one in particular, “Why are you treating me so well on this deal?” There was no answer, but a look on each face which gave certainty to the calm before the storm.

They all laughed nervously, as if to say no one wants to go there, but no one would hazard a guess as to his good fortune. The owner of record, the estate of a deceased single man named Dennis Mattingly was represented in his absence, by a real estate agent, a small wiry woman who chain-smoked and coughed throughout the closing to the discomfort and dismay of the others. But Thad treated her with respect, at a distance, and as they left the closing they walked out together to the parking lot.

“Tragic matter,” she said. Thad looked quizzically at her

“Mrs. Toddy, poor thing”

“I’m sorry,” Thad said, “I do not recognize the name.”

“Elderly lady, lives in the basement of the house which you just purchased, has been there now all these years, watched them come and go. You know, wouldn’t harm a fly!”

Thad noticed a hint of the Gaelic in her voice which he tried to emulate…a habit many fall into when confronted by a different dialect.

“Supposin you’ll be letting her go on now?”

“I’m so sorry, Mam. I do not know of this lady, nor why I should change her status!”

“Sir, she lives in your new house. Mrs. Toddy is the cleaning lady and, she sort of watches over the place, you know as caretaker when you are away. But now, I don’t know, she witnessed the…” she paused. “Well sir she saw the argument in the courtyard and witnessed the murder of Mr. Mattingly in his study!”

In the car Thad sat wondering about the conversation, now he knew why the house was on the market at such a bargain. The fact that a homicide had occurred would have put most people off. The fear that the house was somehow demented and to be shared by the slain previous owner who now walked the halls in the evening, scratching his balls… and searching for his head. None of that would have bothered Thad even if he had known beforehand but he was somewhat concerned about the old lady. Was she still there? Was the killer stalking the house waiting for her return and the opportunity to close her mouth just as permanently as the killer had done with Dennis! Hamilton decided to head home but remembered that he was downtown and… near the police station, a look at the file would not hurt anything and it would be best to know the facts. It was his right he thought, and to see if there was any mention of Mrs. Toddy or others involved in the case. Moreover, he thought he should speak with the police now in order to determine if his new possession was going to be impacted by the comings and goings of the police and other forensic and fingerprint experts.

After explaining to the Duty Officer about his acquisition and displaying his closing documents, Thad was shown to a small room to wait for a detective who showed up momentarily to Thad’s delight.

“Detective Ellioto”, the woman said, handing Thad her card.

“So you are the new owner of the Shawnee Parkway property, the Mattingly house?” she asked.

“Yes Mam” Thad replied, “Fresh from the closing where I discovered that I had just purchased Wuthering Heights or the house where Anthony Perkins and his mother reside,” he smiled, noticing that she wasn’t so amused by the comment!

“Murder leaves an impression Mr. Hamilton… no one or anything is ever the same… after they are touched by it; perhaps, that is the reason most people avoid… shall I say properties… with a past, and why you no doubt got a great deal,” she said softly.

“It wasn’t my intent to be so callus…just thought the moment required a small bit of levity…” Hamilton said.

“And I thought it was a great deal as the agent took me through the house, of course she never bother to inform me of the murder. May have thought I knew! The house checked out from a soundness standpoint and it met all my family needs but, I’m wondering now that there may be some lingering police requirement and I am concerned about the old lady, my tenants, and my daughter who will visit, often, I hope!”

“Mrs. Toddy?” the Detective said. “The sweetest old Irish lady. The fight and the murder frightened the poor thing out of her wits, saw the entire event!”

“So I am told.” Thad looked intently at the Detective, “Doesn’t that put her at risk, and by virtue of her proximity to my other tenants, them as well?”

The Detective was impressed that Hamilton had not mentioned himself as one of the at risk individuals.

“There is certainly reason to be careful, Mr. Hamilton but in so far as Mrs. Toddy is concerned, we believe that she is in a place where she is safe and the other party involved in this gruesome business will soon be located! But, you may want to rethink your daughter visiting for a while,” she said looking up at him, “Until we catch the murderer!”

“I sure admire your confidence,” Thad said eyeing the shoulder holster, which was now visible along ample breast as Detective Allioto shifted in her chair. Big gun… he thought, for such a small lady.

“So does that mean that Mrs. Toddy will not be returning to Shawnee Parkway?” He continued.

“Certainly not until we catch the killer, and, in the meantime I’ve been directed by the department to move in to the Toddy space, if that will be alright with you… you know as the landlord?” she inquired.

“Will you be cleaning the halls?” He laughed!