A Firing Offense

ELEVEN




MARSHA PICKED UP and responded in her usual cheerful manner when I phoned her from my apartment.

“Nutty Nathan’s,” she nearly sang.

“Hi, Marsha. It’s Nick.”

“Nicky! Where are you?”

“Home. Taking the day off.”

“That’s nice,” she said.

“Marsha, I need a favor.”

“Sure, Nicky.”

“Go to service dispatch and borrow their Hanes Directory, you know, the ‘crisscross.’”

“Okay.”

“Now write down this name.” I spelled Shultz for her. “In P.G. County, locate all the Shultzes for me who live on streets that end with the word wood, like Dogwood Terrace or Edgewood Road. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s it.”

“Okay, Nicky. Want me to call you back?”

“Please. You’ve got my number?”

“Yup. I won’t be long,” she promised, and hung up.

I pulled the metro phone books from the hall closet and laid them out on my desk. There were about forty total listings for the last name of Lazarus, and I began calling.

It was early afternoon and many people weren’t in, though I left messages on their machines. Those that were home generally muttered the “wrong number” response and hung up quickly; a couple of elderly folks were eager to talk, but these too were not the homes of Kim Lazarus.

Two hours later I dialed the final listing and received the same treatment. I called Marsha back.

“It’s Nick, Marsha.”

“I’ve been trying to get you for over an hour,” she scolded.

“What have you got?”

“I found a Joseph Shultz on Briarwood Terrace in Oxen Hill,” she said. “And there’s a Thomas and Maureen Shultz on Inglewood in Riverdale.”

“Give me both phone numbers and the addresses.” She read me the information. “I owe you lunch, Marsha. Thanks a million.”


WHEN I DIALED THE second number and asked for Eddie, Maureen Shultz told me he wasn’t in. I identified myself as DeGarcey from the Washington Times and explained the sympathetic portrait of Eddie and his friends that I was struggling to finish on deadline. Could I come over to the Shultz residence to get those last few details? Sure, she said.

I drove north over the district line into Maryland, then made a right on 410, which wound, primarily as East–West Highway, through Takoma Park, Chillum, Hyattsville, and Riverdale. Inglewood was on my detail map. It was a street of Cape Cods with large, treeless front lawns. A row of oaks ran down the government strip the length of the street.

Judging by the number of nonrecreational pickups parked in the driveways, this part of the neighborhood was largely blue-collar and middle-income at best. But the properties and houses had been functionally kept with that quiet pride peculiar to the working class.

I knocked on the door of the address Marsha had given me and a heavy-hipped woman answered. Her worn housedress and graying, closely cropped hair made her appear older than I would have guessed from her phone voice. She let me into a house that was visibly free of dirt but smelled of dogs. One of them, an old setter, moved his eyes and nothing else as I passed with his mistress into the kitchen.

I sat at a table that had a marbleized formica top. She made instant coffee while I looked around the room. The appliances were avocado green and the refrigerator had no kickplate.

Maureen Shultz was an outwardly pleasant woman with whom it was fairly comfortable to sit and share coffee and conversation. But she seemed to get more anxious as we talked. Soon it became clear that she was interviewing me, and had apparently agreed to my visit for that purpose. She was worried about her son.

“When was the last time you saw him?” she asked.

“About two weeks ago,” I lied. “He was with an attractive woman and a younger boy.”

“An attractive woman,” she sniffed. “I suppose she was, on the outside.” She took a sip of coffee, visibly embarrassed by her display of judgement or jealousy. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t know much about her. It was just a feeling I had.”

“I got the feeling they didn’t belong together, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“He brought her over here once. Eddie’s friends were always welcome here. But you’re right. She might not have come from money, but she had done some high living. Eddie hadn’t, not yet.”

“What gave you that impression?”

“Small things,” she said, sipping her coffee. “She was older, for one, and the etiquette she used at dinner. She commented on my china, which isn’t actually very good at all. But the point is, Eddie wouldn’t know china from paper plates.”

“What about her background?”

“She never said, exactly. Neither did Eddie. She had a slight Southern accent that became more pronounced as her guard began to drop, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes.”

“She mentioned that she had a little college and worked in stores and restaurants before she moved up here. She said that she liked to go to the seashore back home.”

All of that information was meaningless. Kim Lazarus could have been from any coastal state south of the Mason-Dixon line.

“I talked to John Heidel today,” I said, dropping a name that perked her up a bit. “I got the impression he might know more about the girl, but he wasn’t eager to talk.”

“He knew the girl too,” she said vaguely, straightening her posture and wringing her hands.

“What do you think about the crowd Eddie and John were in, the group they call the skinheads?”

“Eddie and John went to high school together. Grades wise, they weren’t the brightest boys. I know they drank beer, raced their cars a little too fast. But that’s all a part of growing up. What they do now, that’s a phase too.”

“Mrs. Shultz, you must be aware of the allegations against their group. The violence against minorities.”

“Yes,” she said bitterly. “I’ve read the articles. And I’m not blind to the ways of my son. His father put that hatred into him. He’s an insecure man, and it passes from the father to the son. But Eddie wouldn’t beat up anybody if there wasn’t a reason.”

“I’d like to explore his side of things. But I need to talk to him again to do it.”

“How can I help you?”

“You’ve known John Heidel for quite a long time. Give him a call and see if he has any idea where they were headed. I’ll be at this number.” I handed her the number to my answering machine that I had written on my pad.

She began walking me to the front door but stopped in the living room to take a framed photograph off the fireplace mantel. She faced it towards me.

“That’s Eddie’s high school picture. He looks an awful lot better with all that hair. It’s funny,” she chuckled. “At the time, I gave him hell about it being too long.”

I could see why they called the boy Redman. His hair, long in the picture in some sort of shag, was bright orange, as were his eyebrows and the hopelessly weak mustache above his thin lips. Eddie’s eyes were narrow and rather cruel, a trait I found completely absent in his mother.

“Talk to John and give me a call later,” I said.

She nodded. I hurried to the door and turned to say good-bye. I watched her replace Eddie’s picture on the mantel, feeling vaguely intrusive as I saw her lightly run her finger around the edge of the frame.

Sitting in my car in front of the Shultz residence, I found myself watching a young mother a few houses down who was watching her child crawl upon a white blanket that had been spread upon the lawn.

I studied them until the mother noticed me and appeared to become uncomfortable at my presence. I cranked the ignition, and the engine turned over with some reluctance. Then I pulled off Inglewood and headed west on the highway, towards the office headquarters of Nutty Nathan’s.