“He’s in the back of the closet, Ms. Prescott,” Elmo informed her. “He doesn’t want to come out!” (The letters were always masculine.)
“Well, that’s why I brought my friend Marlon!” she answered herself, eyes blazing in excitement. We could tell that something about this ritual thrilled her too.
“Okay, Elmo, you ready for me to go fishing?” my father asked Elmo, with a big, slow wink at Ms. Prescott. She blushed again.
“You bet, Marlon!”
“Okay, here I go!” He made an elaborate gesture of casting his line into the closet. For a moment it looked like he hooked something, and he frowned in exaggerated concentration. But then he reeled in the line again. “That’s one slippery letter!” he informed us. He cast again. Again, it looked like a sure thing, and he even strained dramatically, pretending to pull on something. But no. “Got away again!” Marlon wiped his brow. “Jeez, maybe I should just give up. What do you guys think—should I call it a day?”
“Nononononono!” we screamed in delight.
“Okay, okay. One more try.” He leaned back and cast his reel into the closet another time. For one breathless second, we thought he’d missed again, and the suspense was killing us. But then the line went tight, and Marlon was pulling, and the plushy, oversized letter Q emerged from the closet. Marlon reeled it in and grabbed it firmly. In his hands, the letter looked as though it were squirming, trying to escape. “I got him!” he said. Then the letter lurched away from him, making a break for it, before it careened back around and smashed into his torso. Marlon looked for all the world as though he had stepped on a banana peel as his feet went out from under him, and he fell to the ground in a slapstick parody. We giggled uproariously. Marlon had kept his grip on the rebellious letter, though, and he sprang back upright athletically, putting the letter Q in a headlock. When he smiled over at Ms. Prescott, she looked back at him with an expression of worship.
I laugh to myself now, remembering this episode. No other parent came close to Marlon’s performance; he won, hands down. Zelda and I enjoyed a brief moment of celebrity, refracted off our father. It was the sort of performance that so thoroughly demonstrated what a perfect dad he could be, how incandescently enchanting he was with us kids. And he was, I guess. He just couldn’t really have relationships with adults or teenagers, and he fled before we fully understood that.
—
It takes me all of thirty seconds to figure out what Zelda wants me to do next. She has finally tossed me an easy one, one that has all the clues and hints I need. Nadine is staring around wide-eyed, and when I set the laptop down, she again pushes play on the YouTube clip. I can hear the audio as I head for the closet. Zelda couldn’t possibly have planned for me to watch it on the big screen in this room, but it is a very nice touch.
I slide open the door to Marlon’s walk-in closet, which Nadine has still not really claimed. There’s a pair of Marlon’s boots in the corner, and an old winter coat of his that he never bothered to take to sunny California. Typical of him to decide that because he didn’t immediately need it, he didn’t have to do anything about it. It has hung in this closet for more than ten years. Nadine has hung a few of her own coats on the rack, and there are some old boxes filled with photos and other remnants of our family life. This closet is a mausoleum, the Antipovas pre-divorce. I stand on tippy-toe to reach what Zelda has left me.
My father’s old fishing box is elegant and timeworn. He found it in an antiques store during one of our autumn vacations as we drove through coppery leaves up in the Adirondacks. It has big buckles and a treasure trove of compartments, which Marlon diligently filled with expensive flies and other fishing accessories that I can’t identify. I imagine he can’t either. His fascination with fishing was mercifully brief, and he’d barely finished assembling this elaborate collection of accoutrements before abandoning the hobby. Whenever anyone asked why he gave up fishing, he’d answer with a grin and a wink: “Too dry.”
I flip open the clasps and stare at the rows of flies, wondering if one of them has been left by Zelda. But in the larger compartment, I find an envelope labeled “P (for Policy).” I pull the folded sheets of paper from the envelope and find myself looking at life insurance documents for Zelda, Nadine, and myself. I scan the opaque language. I don’t know what any of these terms mean, and everything is embedded in such bizarre legalese that I can’t tell if we owe them money or if it’s the other way around. But I’m willing to bet that Zelda has done her homework. I remain crouched in the closet for a few moments longer, inhaling the musty scents of old clothes and papers, before standing up and turning off the light. I take the envelope with me.
Nadine is rewatching the Sesame Street clip with a rapt expression, mumbling, “I remember this, I remember this.” I give her a kiss on the cheek and push the laptop closer to her. Let her watch Sesame Street on YouTube all night. I head downstairs to discover that Marlon has returned from the lake. His eyes look bloodshot, and he seems out of breath. He is standing in the kitchen, drinking lemonade directly from the container.
“Hey, Dad. You know anything about life insurance?” I ask.
He looks startled. “Not really, no. Why?”
“Well, we seem to have some.” I slap the envelope down on the kitchen island. “Not sure quite what to make of it.”
“Where did you find this?” he asks, flipping through the pages.
“Mom’s room.”
“Hmm. This is…Look, I’ll have to look into this. I don’t know if this complicates things. The police might want to know about it.”
“Why?”
“Well, these policies are pretty new. Just over a year old. And with Zelda’s…I mean, any time a sizable life insurance policy appears in a murder investigation…” He suddenly laughs. “I have no idea what I’m talking about. I watch too much TV. But it seems to me that this is what they’re talking about when they go looking for motive.”
“Motive? Motive for what?” Opal calls from the living room.
“Nothing, Mom,” Marlon responds. Then he lowers his voice: “Let’s not tell her about this. She’s upset enough.”
I nod, agreeing to the conspiracy. “But if the cops think the insurance policy is motive, it will only implicate me and Mom,” I point out, suddenly a little nervous. Is that what Zelda has in mind?
“True, though it will look much stranger if you don’t disclose it. In any case, I’ll call these people in the morning, see if I can make heads or tails of it. You okay, Little A?”
“I don’t know why everyone keeps asking me that.”
“I just worry, that’s all.”
I wave him away. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“It has. How about I tuck Nadine in for you?” he offers.