The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine Page 7

  The conversation was short, but the upshot of it was that Edna agreed to see us. The woman directed us down the hall, first door to the right.

  Edna was older all right. Her hair was as white as a cloud and her skin was almost as pale. Her blue eyes seemed to have faded along with the rest of her.

  “Have a seat,” she said politely.

  We did.

  “You want to know about the history of Kute Kandy?” she prodded.

  “Well, sort of,” I said. “That’s part of it. Or, well . . .”

  Come on, Franny, I thought. Get a grip. Edna waited patiently.

  “We’re actually trying to find someone who lives here in Wimberly. A famous author of children’s books.”

  “Oh?”

  “His name is I. M. Fine. He writes the Chillers series.”

  “Yes?” Her steady gaze made me squirm.

  “Well, there is a connection with your company, actually. He wrote a book last year that featured Jelly Worms.”

  “Yes, I know about that.”

  “I guess you know that it started a fad. It was the in thing for kids to buy Jelly Worms for a while.”

  “I know,” she said. “We had trouble filling all the orders.”

  “And your stock went way up,” I said. “I know because my dad bought some.”

  “Yes, it did.” She gave us a little smile.

  “Well, anyway, he’s the guy we’re trying to find. We thought maybe since he put Jelly Worms in his story, he might have some connection with Mr. Bermann and the company. Maybe they are old friends or something.”

  Edna looked thoughtful, then shrugged her shoulders. “It’s possible,” she said. “Mr. Bermann has a lot of friends. He’s a very kind man.”

  “Could we ask him?” I suggested.

  “Oh,” she said. “I was referring to Mr. Bermann, Sr. He’s retired. He doesn’t live in Wimberly anymore. It’s his son who’s president of the company now.”

  “Do you think the writer might be a friend of Mr. Bermann, Jr.?”

  “Well, I doubt it. When we kept hearing about this book—this children’s book about Jelly Worms—he was as perplexed as everyone else. Honestly, I don’t think there’s any connection. Our products are quite popular. Anybody could put them in a book. It wouldn’t have to be a friend of Mr. Bermann.”

  “So you don’t know anything at all about I. M. Fine?” I asked desperately.

  “The author, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, no. The only Fine I ever knew in Wimberly was Irving Fine, but he’s been dead for many years.”

  “But you knew him—Irving Fine?”

  “Yes, I knew Irving, though not very well. He was older, not part of my crowd. And, well, he came to a rather tragic end.”

  “He was a spy,” I said. “That’s what the guy in the barbershop said.”

  Edna heaved a great sigh. “He was accused of being a spy,” she said. “That’s true. It was a terrible, shocking thing. No one could believe it of him. To tell you the truth, I always thought that if he hadn’t died when he did, if he’d had a fair trial, they would have found him innocent. But he didn’t, of course. I guess you heard about the auto accident.”

  We both nodded.

  “Well, anyway,” Edna said, “a few years ago, after the Russians threw the Communist government out, the old files from the Cold War days were opened to the public. Can you imagine? All those famous old spy cases—now we could find out with absolute surety who the real traitors were!”

  “And?”

  “Irving was innocent. It was another man in his department who had sold the information to the Russians. It was in the papers, at least around here, but I guess some folks didn’t see it—they still think of him as Wimberly’s most notorious citizen.”

  “That’s sad,” I said.

  “Yes,” Edna agreed. “It is.”

  “Is there anything else you remember about him?” Beamer asked. “Did he have a family?”

  “He was married, I know that much. He went to college in New York and he met his wife there.”

  “Did they have any kids?”

  “Honestly, I can’t tell you. I lost track of him when he went to New York. And like I said, he was quite a bit older than me.”

  “But he might have, don’t you think?”

  “Well, of course he might have.”

  “Is there anything else you remember? Anything at all?”

  “Just that he was brainy, quite the academic star. Got a Ph.D. in—I don’t remember exactly—physics, I think. Got a job teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. He was involved in some big government project. Very, very smart man.”

  “What about his wife? Did she stay in Wimberly after he died?”

  “I don’t remember anything about her, to tell you the truth—it was a long time ago. I would doubt it, though. Probably went back to her hometown. After something like that . . . who would want to stay?”

  “Anything else you can think of?” I asked hopefully.

  “No,” she said. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Well, thanks for talking to us,” I said, and got up to go.

  “Now wait a minute,” she said. “You haven’t told me why you’re so eager to find this writer.”

  I looked at Beamer, but he just gave one of those “Don’t ask me” shrugs.

  “Well, you see,” I said, plunging in, “there’s something about his books. They influence children like you wouldn’t believe. Like with the Jelly Worms.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Only after that book, things sort of took a weird turn. We don’t think he’s good for kids. We want to talk to him. Maybe he doesn’t really know he’s hurting people.”

  “Well, well,” she said. “Aren’t you amazing! I sure wish I could help you.”

  She walked us to the door, a look of fierce concentration on her face. Then she stopped for a minute and seemed lost in thought. “You might check the old newspapers,” she said. “See if you can find his obituary. It would have been around 1953, I think. The surviving family members would be listed. You could find out whether he had children or not. Maybe one of them is the writer you’re looking for.”

  “Oh, thanks,” I said. “That’s a great idea!”

  She stood there in the doorway, smiling, and watched us as we headed back down the hall. As we turned the corner, I looked back at her and she waved.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  15

  We had convinced the bus driver to drop us off at the candy factory that morning, since the bus route ran right past it. It hadn’t seemed all that far from town. But now that we had to walk back, it seemed really, really far. Plus, there were no sidewalks, only the shoulder of the highway, which was narrow and dusty, not to mention dangerous. We had to walk in single file most of the way, with cars whizzing past us like rockets.

  We reached town at last, a lot dustier and sweatier than when we’d started.

  “I need food,” Beamer said. “And something wet, with ice in it. And I want to sit down.”

  We were near the sub shop. It had all of those things. Plus, we had asked the waitress, Joanne, to ask around about I. M. Fine. It wouldn’t hurt to check. Maybe something had turned up.

  We went inside and took a booth. A waitress came over to take our order, but it wasn’t Joanne. We asked if she was there.

  “Yeah,” our waitress said. “You want me to send her over?”

  We said we just needed to ask Joanne a question. No hurry. Whenever she had a free minute. But in the meantime, could we please have two supersubs, some chips, and two Cokes? She said we could and went off to get them.

  “So how are we going to do this?” Beamer asked. “They’re not going to have old newspapers in the Wimberly library. So where do we go? Philadelphia? And then what? Read every single newspaper they published in 1953? And what if it’s not 1953? It might be 1952 or 1954. Like, we’re going to read nine hundred papers cover to c
over?”

  “On microfilm,” I said.

  “What?”

  “It’s bound to be on microfilm, don’t you think? That’s how they always do it in libraries. Newspapers would be too bulky to keep; plus, newsprint falls apart. We’ll have to read it on one of those little light-box dealies.”

  “Oh, great. That makes it even more fun.”

  “Maybe somebody at the library could help us. Like, say, the obituaries are always on the back page or something. Or maybe there’s some kind of an index.”

  “It’s going to take weeks, you know that?”

  “Or we might get lucky.”

  “Like we’ve been lucky so far?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Like that.”

  “Hi there, you two!” It was Joanne. Her hands were on her hips and she was smiling. “I was hoping you’d come back.”

  My heart leapt. “Really?” I said. “Did you find something out?”

  “Well, I think so. Mind if I sit down?”

  “Oh, yes—please!”

  We both jumped to our feet. Beamer grabbed a chair from a nearby table and swung it over for Joanne. She sat down and sighed with relief.

  “Feels good to get a load off,” she said.

  “I’ll bet,” Beamer said.

  “Well, okay—you two look like you’re about to bust a gasket, so calm down and I’ll tell you what I heard. I got it from my mother-in-law, and she’s a little confused sometimes, so you need to take it all with a grain of salt.”

  “All right, go ahead.”

  “Well, there was this guy who lived here some time ago; Irving Fine was his name. There was some kind of scandal about him. . . .”

  “Yeah, we know all about that,” Beamer interrupted. “They thought he was a spy.”

  “Really!” Joanne looked genuinely shocked. “Well, Mimi didn’t say what the scandal was about. A spy! Really?”

  “Yeah, except he wasn’t really—it was all a big mistake. Did Mimi say anything else?” I was praying it wasn’t going to be the same old story, third version.

  “Well, he died,” Joanne said kind of sweetly, as if she were breaking the news to near relatives.

  “Yeah, we heard that, too. Do you know anything about his family?”

  “Well, I was just getting to that,” she said, leaning forward conspiratorially. “Mimi says that one of that man’s kids lives up at the old Calloway place on Pleasant Hill Road. She feels sure the name is Fine, same as the father.”

  “No kidding,” I said, almost breathless with excitement.

  “That’s what Mimi said. Mildred Calloway was an aunt or something. She’s been gone for a good long time now. My mother-in-law used to know everybody’s business in this town—that’s how come I asked her. I mean, she knew everything! I suspect there are a few folks in town who are relieved her memory is starting to drift—if you know what I mean.”

  “She didn’t tell you the name? Of Irving Fine’s child?”

  “No, Mimi was more interested in talking about Irving Fine and how he scandalized the whole town. Refused to tell me what he’d done, though. I thought he’d run away with the preacher’s wife or something. Tell you the truth, I think Mimi couldn’t quite call it to mind.”

  Our waitress brought the subs. Joanne looked up and gave the waitress a big smile and a motherly pat on the arm.

  “I’m almost done, hon,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the waitress assured her. “We’re not busy.”

  “So anyway, that’s pretty much all I found out. I expect you could just hop on over there and ring the bell. Writers work at home most times, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. But we’ll need the address.”

  “Oh, gosh. I don’t have the number, but I can draw you a map. It won’t be hard to find.”

  She pulled a pen out of her apron and grabbed a napkin.

  “Okay, now you kids walking?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’ll be a bit of a hike. But what you want to do is head down Maple that way”—here she indicated the direction with her right hand—“then hang a left on Scenic Road.”

  She drew a curving line on the napkin and labeled it in block letters.

  “You’ll stay on Scenic for a good long way and it will curve around and start heading up the hill. Then you want to start looking for Pleasant Hill Road and you’ll go right.”

  She drew a little box to represent the Calloway house. She put an X in it.

  “The house is going to be on the left-hand side, about halfway up the road. There’s kind of a park across from it—nice trees and grass and all. The house is a gray Victorian type with frilly iron stuff along the roof. Needs a paint job.”

  “Does it look different from the other houses around there? So we don’t go to the wrong place. . . .”

  “It’s the only one that’s gray, I’m pretty sure. And it’s not as fixed up, if you know what I mean. My kids used to think it was haunted. See, Pleasant Hill is one of those neighborhoods that used to be really ritzy—like back in Mildred Calloway’s time—but then it sort of went downhill for a while. People with money wanted new houses, you know, with central heat and all. Then it came back in fashion again to have these antique houses and spruce them up. Very Martha Stewart, you know. Only not this one. I don’t think you can miss it.”

  “Wow—thank you so much,” I said. “You really have no idea—we’ve been dragging all over town for two days and we thought we were going to have to spend the rest of the summer reading old newspapers. And now we can just pop on up there. . . .”

  “Not ‘pop,’” Beamer said. “Trudge.”

  “Well, fine, we can just trudge on up there and get this thing over with.”

  Joanne heaved herself to her feet.

  “Well, I hope this doesn’t mean we won’t be seeing you again. I’ve kinda taken a shine to the both of you.”

  “We’ll come to visit,” I promised, though I knew we probably wouldn’t. Joanne was one of those people you meet, then never see again—but who stays in your memory forever.

  “You tell Jason to stay away from those I. M. Fine books,” I said. “Especially the next one.”

  “I’ll do that, hon.”

  16

  Joanne had been right. The old Calloway house stuck out like a sore thumb. All the other houses on the block were totally fixed up, with potted geraniums and old-fashioned porch swings and bright green shutters. And right in the middle of all that new paint and cuteness stood this dark, faded, shabby old house.

  I don’t want you to think this was one of your typical haunted houses, with shutters hanging off at an angle and broken windows and all. It wasn’t that bad. It just felt—I don’t know—sad.

  I turned to Beamer. “Are we ready for this?” I asked. “Do we know what we’re going to say?”

  “Well, not really. I mean, we can’t exactly plan it till we get a feel for the situation. Like if he’s angry or seems dangerous, then we need to take one approach. If he invites us in for milk and cookies, then that’s another story.”

  “I’d be more worried about the milk and cookies,” I said. “Isn’t that how child molesters work?”

  “You’re saying we shouldn’t go in the house? Even if he invites us in?”

  “Well, I don’t know. But I think we ought to talk about it now, before we go up there.”

  “Can’t we just play it by ear?” Beamer suggested.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, like if he turns out to be some muscular hulk that could overpower us, then we probably want to stay outside. Maybe just talk on the porch. But if he’s some wizened little old guy with a cane—well then, the two of us can probably handle him.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That makes sense.”

  “But how do we open this conversation? ‘Hi! We think you’re evil’?”

  “Yeah, that’s good.”

  “Franny . . .”

  “Sorry. Okay—how about t
his? We start out by apologizing for bothering him. I mean, he’s really gone out of his way to protect his privacy, so I don’t think he’s going to be all that happy when we come knocking on his door. So let’s say we’re very, very sorry to bother him and we know how busy he is—and then we can try a little flattery. You know, how he’s so famous and people must always be wanting his autograph. Like that.”

  “Right, at which point he slams the door.”

  “Fine, Beamer. Let’s hear your version.”

  “I say we hit him between the eyes. Like we’re the FBI. Tell him we know what he’s up to and we plan to make him stop. That we’ll be watching and if he ever does it again, we’ll tell the police. And I think we should say we left a note at home, to be opened in case we don’t come back, telling where we went and why. That way, he won’t kill us, thinking he can cover up his crime.”

  “Kill us! Beamer, you watch too much TV.”

  “I do not.”

  “Look, here’s what we should do. We’ll start out my way and end up your way. Only a little nicer. We’re not a SWAT team here, Beamer. We don’t want to look totally stupid.”

  “All right,” he said, throwing up his arms in exasperation. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The house sat high on the lot. To reach the front door, we walked up a sloping sidewalk with a few steps placed at intervals, then up more steps to the porch. From there, we could see out past the green space across the street to the town of Wimberly spread out below.

  Despite the great view, the house itself was pretty run-down—a lot worse than it looked from the street. The paint on the porch floor was peeling and the white trim was dirty and stained. There was a yellow sign nailed to the door frame: NO SOLICITORS, it said.

  Beamer rang the bell. We waited a full minute, but nobody came to the door.

  “Shouldn’t we knock?” I suggested. “Maybe the bell’s broken.”

  “Keep your shirt on,” he said. “I heard a dog barking.”

  We waited another minute. I was just about to knock, when I heard a shuffling sound on the other side of the door and the click of a dead bolt being turned. Then the door opened about six inches, held fast by a safety chain.