glasses off and scratched his head. “But I guess explosions are the things you’re not supposed to remember.”
“Once you told somebody that it wasn’t the blast that got you.”
He held out the decanter, refilled our glasses and poured another one for himself. “Did I?”
“Good wine,” I said.
The watery quality had left his eyes and he watched me sharply. “You know, son, you got something of old Cam in you. He was a spooky character too. Sometimes he reminded me of a snake, other times he was all cat, smart and deadly as they come. The others, there’s no part of Cam in them at all.”
“I’m the only direct relative he had.” Then I added, “Or rather, indirect. Nobody rang bells when I was born.”
“Guess not,” Cramer chuckled. “Cam, he didn’t like to be bucked.”
“About the explosion.”
“See? Just like Cam. Wouldn’t leave a thing alone.” He tasted his wine again, rolling it around his tongue. “The explosion,” he mused finally. “Must have been a little after midnight. I was working on a heat problem we had with an aluminum alloy. I thought I heard a noise and went to turn around. That’s when I got cracked on the head. Next thing I know I was in the hospital.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get killed.”
“Beats me how I dragged myself out of there. They found me near the front door later, but I sure don’t remember getting there.”
“You said you saw Al’s car around earlier.’
“Well now, it could have been or it couldn’t have been. About ten minutes earlier I went down to the supply.room to pick up some solder. I thought I heard a car pull up and when I looked out there was a two-tone sedan something like Al had. He’d come down once in a while to go over the books and I didn’t think anything about it. Hell, it was his place, wasn’t it?”
“In a sense.”
“So I got my solder and went back to work.”
“That’s all?”
Cramer just nodded, but his fingers pulled at his moustache thoughtfully.
“What could have blown up?”
“I was waiting for that,” he said. “Nothing, I’d say, but I’m not a chemical engineer. Maybe those acids could have caused it.”
“Somebody theorized about an attempted robbery.”
“That’s right. The explosion was against the wall where the safe was.”
“Anything worth stealing?”
He gave me another one of those vague shrugs. “Depends on how badly you need four hundred dollars in petty cash and a lot of old papers. Used to be that old safe was never even locked. For a while we used it for storage. The only reason it was there was because the lab was part of the original office before Cam built the new wing. Any cash or other valuables were in the vault over there.”
“And Cousin Al was in the clear again.”
“I take it you don’t like that boy.”
“He’s a meathead.”
“You can say that again,” Cramer agreed. “Yeah, he was clear. He was with Dennison all night. Anyway, I shouldn’t’ve shot my mouth off. That car could have belonged to anyone. It wasn’t like his big Caddie or that little foreign job he generally drove. Couple of guys at the plant even had one like it.”
“But you still think it was his,” I stated.
“Son, when an old man gets an idea stuck in his head it’s pretty hard to dislodge, even if it’s wrong. Age is funny that way.”
“Sure.”
“Incidentally, mind telling me why you’re so interested in ancient history?”
“Curiosity,” I said.
“It killed the cat.”
“If you were right, it could kill Alfred boy too.”
“And you’d like that?”
“Why not? He tried to kill me once.”
Sharon put her glass down and looked over at me. “You must be aging too. You won’t let ideas get away either.”
Stanley Cramer let out a big smile and scratched his head again. “If I were you, I’d get ideas about the pretty little lady here and let the past stay buried.”
“You may be right,” I told him. “Let’s go, pretty little lady.”
It was old and musty, animals from the field had left their litter around and nested in the stuffing from some of the chairs. Moonlight through the cracked windows ran down the silky strands of cobwebs, giving the place a fuzzy appearance.
She had asked to see it again, and this time she wanted to go in. A pair of old hurricane lamps she dug out of a cabinet were the only light, the glow soft and feeble, but enough to reflect the wetness under her eyes as she touched pieces of tattered furniture.
Her old house was too far away from town to have been vandalized by kids or used by tramps, too remote and weed hidden to be a sex pad for lovers. Twice a bat flapped past and little scratching noises came from the woodwork.
“We always had mice,” she said. “I wouldn’t let Dad trap them. He didn’t know it, but I used to leave scraps of food on the floor in the kitchen so they could eat.”
I let her talk, listening to her ramble on about days in pigtails and pinafores or her father pulling her along on a sled. Finally she stopped at the foot of the stairs, hesitated a moment, then started up. There were three rooms at the top. The door to the smallest one was open and a foot-treadle sewing machine and a spindleback chair were waiting for another seamstress.
Sharon opened the middle door, the lamp outstretched in her hand. “My father and mother’s room,” she said. I edged up close to her and looked inside. Wind and rain from a broken pane had discolored the mattress and blown the covers across the room. The veneer tops of both dressers had warped off, the mirrors discolored, barely reflecting our images.
She closed the door gently and went to the last one on the end. It didn’t open at first, then I twisted the knob, put my shoulder against the edge of it and leaned inward. It creaked open, then stuck halfway and we had to slip in one at a time.
The window was intact, and with the door wedged so tightly shut little dirt had had a chance to collect. A quilted spread still covered the bed, a few empty makeup jars and a stack of movie magazines were on one end of the bureau, a rocker leaned quietly in a corner next to an old rolltop desk and a pair of shoes were on the closet floor under a few items of outgrown clothing. She had pasted up all her hero pictures, snipped from papers and books, interspersing them with school photos and pennants stenciled with the trademarks of various vacation spots.
“And you lived here,” I stated.
Sharon walked over and put the lamp down on the dresser. “My own little sanctuary. I loved this room.”
“You never really closed down the house, did you?”
“I couldn’t. I just took what I needed and walked away. I never thought I’d come back here. Too many memories, Dog. I started out fresh.”
“You don’t wipe out memories, kid.”
That oddball look came back in her face and disappeared almost as fast. “Yes, I know.” She was looking at me in the dresser mirror, then her eyes went to one side and she picked a small photo out of the frame, smiled at it and dropped it in her pocket.
“Dog ...” Her fingers were doing things with the buttons of her jacket, popping them open one by one. “Can we stay here tonight? Together?”
“You’re mixing me up in your daydreams, kid.”
