Old Lady Robinson
As he clicked off, Sarah looked at him, the concern in her face painfully obvious.
“What is it?” she asked.
“That was Faciane,” he replied. “They got the toxicology results back from Mom and Dad. No alcohol in their systems,” he said.
“Then what’s wrong Steven?” she asked him.
“Well, in addition to having just about every anti-depressant and barbiturate known to mankind in her system. Mom also tested positive for traces of sodium pentothal. Faciane swore me to secrecy, he wasn’t supposed to tell me.”
“Sodium pentothal as in truth serum?” Sarah asked. “Is it even traceable? Considering who uses that stuff, you wouldn’t think it would be.”
“Apparently it is,” Steven said.
“I don’t like this,” Sarah said. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t have a clue,” he replied, which was true. “But I think it’s time to take a ride.”
Together, using the rental car, they drove first past Lester’s house. His truck was parked there and the crime scene tape was gone. Except for the newspapers in the driveway, everything about the home looked normal.
Still, Steven cautiously kept one eye on the rear-view mirror, to make sure there was no one following him. As a precaution, he drove the car around the corner, to the next block and pulled the rental into a vacant house that had a for sale sign posted in the yard.
He stifled a nervous cough as he knocked on the door of the house next door to Lester’s, Old Lady Robinson’s house.
“Maybe she’s not here,” he said, afraid, and wanting nothing more than for him and Sarah to just leave.
“Shh, wait, I think I heard something move inside,” she said.
Old Lady Robinson’s small home and yard were tidy and seemed to be well kept, like the other houses on the block.
After a long wait, the door finally creaked open, still held by a chain, and Old Lady Robinson’s face greeted theirs.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Miss Robinson,” Steven said, suddenly unsure of what he would say.
“Who’s asking,” she said, almost scolding him.
“My name is Steven and this is my wife Sarah,” he said, catching a surprised smile of approval from Sarah’s lips. “I was a friend of your neighbor, Lester.”
“I don’t know no Lester,” she blurted out. “I’m just an old woman. Leave me alone. I don’t know nothing.”
She moved as if to close the door, but Sarah chimed in, “Miss Robinson, I’m Sarah. I saw you at Lester’s services. We need to talk to you. It might be important.”
Robinson scrutinized the two for a moment and a dim light of recognition danced across her face.
“I did see you there,” she admitted. “But with another man.”
Steven merely replied, “That was my brother. I was out of town and couldn’t accompany my wife, so he went in my place.”
“I see,” the old woman replied. “You ain’t the police are you?”
“No maam, ” Sarah said.
“I was friends with Lester,” Steven said. “Briefly, but we were friends.”
“You ain’t with the government are you?” she asked them. “They been crawling all over the place here too, been knocking on my door, bugging me,” she continued.
“Just friends,” Steven said, noticing as the woman peered out over and past his shoulder.
The door closed, the chain rustled and the door swung open.
“Get in here then,” she said. “I don’t want no one seeing you in here talking with me.”
Stepping into Old Lady Robinson’s home was like crossing a threshold into another world. The home was small and ill lit, but it was relatively neat. In fact, there was no clutter at all. Steven half expected to see piles of little boy’s clothing and a cauldron boiling on the stove.
All the kids say she boils little boys alive and eats their meet from the bone.
That was ridiculous though, Steven thought. Kids were cruel.
“Come on back, follow me on through here,” the woman said, leading them through the living room and into the kitchen.
It’s just one little old lady, Steven mused to himself. If she tries anything, Sarah and I can easily take her. But there was no such confrontation. In fact, Robinson led them to some small chairs at the kitchen table and asked them to please sit.
“I don’t get a lot of company,” she told them. “Would you two like some iced tea or something.”
“As long as it’s not poisoned,” Steven said low, under his breath. Sarah jabbed him in the side.
“We’d love some tea. Miss Robinson,” Sarah said with a smile, actually getting up to help her fill the glasses with ice cubes.
They took their tea and all sat down at the table.
The first thing Steven noticed was that Miss Robinson was not wearing the raggedy clothes he was so accustomed to seeing her in. Instead, she wore a pair of jeans and a loose-fitting Budweiser t-shirt. His eyes fell to the corner of the kitchen, near the stove, and he saw her old gnarled stick.
Her gaze fell on Steven, who was looking at the stick.
“That’s my walking stick,” she said, with a hint of a smile in her eyes. “I also use it to club naughty little boys with before I bring them home to boil and eat them.”
She said this with a straight face, totally deadpan, carefully gauging Steven’s reaction. Neither he or Sarah had a reply for this, and after a few uncomfortable seconds Old Lady Robinson broke into a hearty laugh.
“You,” she said, pointing a crooked finger at Steven. “You from here. You know all them old stories.”
Steven nodded, not sure what to say next.
“Bet you believe all of them too,” she said, still smiling. “Hell, I don’t even eat meat, much less little boys. I just eat my vegetables. That’s how I’ve stayed so healthy. I haven’t been sick a single day of my life.”
“That’s a relief,” Steven said. “When you’re a kid, you hear stories.”
“Oh there’s all kinds of stories about me,” she said. “The scarier the better, because it means people leave me alone. That’s all right by me. Just fine in fact,” she added for emphasis. “But I have the feeling you’re not here to talk about me.”
“No,” Steven said. “It’s about Lester Bradshaw.”
“What about him?” she asked. “He’s been dead since 1971, or 72, I forget which one. But you already know that don’t you.”
Steven coughed and shook his head and said, “But the funeral the other night. No.
Honestly I don’t know much right now.”
“I can explain everything for you,” she began as she took a sip of her tea. “That’s if you have time for a story.”
Sarah and Steven nodded and she began.
The man Steven knew to be Lester Bradshaw, was not, in fact, Lester Bradshaw. “The man you met, the man who just died, his name was Paul. Paul came to town bout the same time I did,” she told them. “He didn’t have a dime in his pocket when he came to town. We’d gotten hit pretty hard by a hurricane round here, I think it was Betsy. So when Paul came to town he quickly met up with Mr. Bradshaw. They became like father and son. Paul had some problems. He’d been off to fight in the war, in Vietnam,” Miss Robinson said, taking a long pause, as if she were suddenly remembering something else.
But she continued.
“Lester senior had been in the war himself, in World War II, so he understood what all those people who were protesting the war back then didn’t understand. He understood how horrible it had been on those boys, boys just like Paul. After the hurricane had hit, Paul helped old Mr. Bradshaw rebuild almost his whole house. He was going to will it to Paul, but there was some problem with the papers or something.
“Mr. Bradshaw was an odd bird though sometimes. As he got older he got really afraid of dying. It’s natural, I guess when you get up there in age. Unless you’re witch like me and can live forever.”
Miss Robinson found this hilarious, and laughed out loud again as Steven seemed to squirm in his seat.
Satisfied, she continued.
“Well Lester Senior didn’t want to be buried in no cemetery,” she said. “He had a fear of it. I used to tell him, “Lester, it ain’t gonna make no difference no ways after your dead,” but he wouldn’t listen to reason. His last wish was to be buried in his back yard. So, when the old man died, that’s what Paul did. He respected the man’s wishes. I didn’t think it was a good idea myself, but it was already done.
“Nobody even cared or knew about it. Lester Sr. didn’t have no family, just like Paul. They was like two peas in a pod in that respect. That’s probably why they got along so good. So when Lester Senior died, I guess you could say Paul took his identity.
It wasn’t a big deal back then like it is today. In fact folks used to do it a lot back
then. Paul’s been my neighbor ever since. I couldn’t ask for a better neighbor.”
“So you mean Mr. Bradshaw, senior, is buried right in that back yard?” Steven asked.
“Right under the crepe myrtle tree over there,” she said, pointing out of her rear window. “They never marked the grave, just in case somebody got wise to it. He’s down there though.”
“What about Paul?” Steven asked, with a mix of revulsion and fascination.
“That’s a different story,” she replied. “And I guess the reason you’re here.”
Steven nodded.
“I talked to him right after he walked up to the store to call you the day he died,” she said.
“You know about me,” Steven asked.
“Not really, just that he was trying to get a message to you, trying to tell you some things,” she said. “He didn’t tell me what it was about. He said he would, but that he wanted to make sure of some things first. He also said he was going to be leaving
because he was afraid someone was trying to kill him.
“Did he say who?” Steven asked.
“All he told me was that it was someone he thought he knew from the war,” she
replied. “He also told me they’d make it look like an accident…or a suicide, which is what
police have been saying.”
“Have you talked to the police?” Sarah asked her.
“Hell no,” the woman replied. “One thing I don’t do and that’s talk to police. They
came knocking on my door, but I told’em to go way, that I hadn’t seen anything.”
“Did you see anything?” Steven asked her.
“Nope, but I heard the gunshots,” she said. “I was sitting here in my kitchen making vegetable soup when the shots went off.”
“Shots?” Steven asked.
“That’s what I said,” she replied. “How can a man who killed himself fire more than one shot? You know what I think? I think he was trying to shoot whoever was after him. That’s what I think.”
“Did you see anybody leave?” Steven asked her.
“I looked in the back and front and never did see anyone leave that house,” she said. “I can see both doors from my window. There wasn’t any cars out front. I can’t explain it, another reason I wouldn’t talk to the police.”
Six shots, Steven mused. That was the “logistical” problem the cops had. But it was still ruled as a suicide.
Remembering his conversation with Faciane, regarding the sodium pentothal, Steven asked, “Did you say there were government men here too?”
“There’s been a ton of people going in and out of that house night and day since it happened,” she said. “One night they were hauling things out and putting them into vans. I guess they from the government. They all drove government cars. They wasn’t local. Two men knocked on my door one afternoon. Said they were with the Department of Justice. I told them I didn’t care if they were from Mars, that of they didn’t have a warrant they had to get off my property or I’d call the cops on them.”
Steven and Sarah sat in silence as they processed all that Old Lady Robinson had told them.
“Well, I guess on that note, we’ll be going too,” Steven said. “I don’t want to keep you any longer than I have.”
“Hold on, just hold on,” she said as she rose from her seat. “I’ve got something here for you,” she added as she ambled out of the room, favoring her left hip.
Steven and Sarah looked at each other incredulously until she returned carrying a large bulging manila envelope.
She sat back down and slid the envelope towards Steven.
“Paul asked me to make sure you got this,” she finally said slowly, her hands shaky from age, and probably nervousness. “I reckon some of his papers are in there, his dog tags too. I only jiggled it a little. I swear I didn’t open it though.”
“Thank you,” Steven said. “Thank you very much.”
“Aren’t you going to open it?” she asked him. “It isn’t nice to keep an old lady like me in suspense. It might not be good for my heart.”
Steven glanced over at Sarah, who nodded gently as if to say, “it won’t hurt anything.”
Steven slowly pried the envelope open and retrieved its contents. Indeed there was a set of dog tags, barely legible, that read, Pfc. Paul Hilliard. There was also a small set of papers, Paul’s identification, which included a Missouri Driver’s license, a birth certificate and a Social Security card. There was also an old newspaper clipping from Paul’s hometown newspaper in Missouri.
Steven quickly skimmed it and realized it was an obituary. It was Paul’s obituary, which dated back to 1968. Steven’s stomach felt queasy with sickness as he slid it over for Sarah to read.
“His whole family back in Missouri thought he was dead,” Steven said, disgusted. “Our own military wrote him off as dead.”
Old Lady Robinson nodded and said, “He always was kind of tore up about that. Used to say he’d give anything just to call someone, anyone from his family to tell them he was alive. He said he couldn’t though, that it was too dangerous. And look what it got him. He’s dead anyway.”
A lump was forming hard and solid in Steven’s throat as he then removed another
newspaper clipping- this one a copy of the Pulitzer prize series he’d written.
The next item, though, was what caught him off guard the most. It was an old black and white photo of a group of young soldiers, all of them baby-faced, dressed in fatigues brandishing their M-16’s and knives, posing proudly, as if nothing could ever stop them…like they had the world….the enemy…Charlie..by the balls…They looked like they thought they would live forever. The baby-faced killers….
Steven’s heart pounded as he scanned the faces in the photo in front of him. He’d
known these men. This revelation came to him as slow and driving like a funeral procession. He didn’t know their names and he quickly flipped the photo over to see if there were names printed on the back- but there wasn’t.
Sarah took his hand in hers as he flipped the photo back over. No. He didn’t remember any of their names. Not yet at least. Among those faces, from the fifteen to twenty faces looking back at him, was his own face, from another life.
Steven set the photo down and pulled out one last article from the envelope. It was a handwritten note from Lester, known in a former life as Pfc Paul Hilliard.
It read:
Steven,
By this point, you know probably know my name is Paul and I’m either dead or sipping Coronas down in Venezuela; hopefully the latter, but regrettably, probably the former. I’m sorry for the cloak and dagger routine, but it was necessary. I hope all of this helps you to sort things out.
Whether you remember it or not, you were there with us and you did fight bravely by my side. For this I will always be grateful. In a way, you should try to think of it as a blessing to not have to remember. I’m not sure how you crossed over, from that life into the one you have now.
I watched you die. And of all the horrible things I ever saw, or took part in during the war myself, it was your death I dreamt about. It was your death that I saw over and over in my dreams. It was your death that seemed to me the biggest waste.
Our killers are still at large. I say our killers because after that day outside Phan Luc, they effectively killed me too. Sure I still lived and breathed but I spent the rest of my life running and hiding, always looking over my shoulder.
And now, they seem to have finally found me. But they won’t take me without a fight. As far as you, I am still not sure if they know you’ve returned. They suspect, I think,
but they don’t know. In any case I would use extreme caution and if they do show themselves to you-I’ve waited damn near 20 years to tell you this…
If they show themselves, terminate, with extreme prejudice. You gotta love the ole military lingo bud, it’s like a language unto itself.
PS. - If I do make it out of this alive, I’ll be sure to find you and we’ll have drinks on the
beach..
Sincerely,
Pfc. Paul Hilliard
Steven was careful not to let Miss Robinson see the letter from Paul. She raised an eyebrow at him and he just murmured, “It’s private. I’m sorry.”
She nodded though and said, “That’s all right. I imagine you two better get going now before the Justice folks come back poking around next door.”
Steven and Sarah nodded and allowed her to lead them out of her house.
“What are you thinking?” Sarah asked him as they quickly walked around the corner, back to their parked car.
“I think we need to leave today,” he said, as they approached the rental car, staring at the vacant house where it was parked. “There’s a man in that house right now. The curtain just moved. Don’t look in that direction. Just get into the car and lets drive.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, being careful not to look at the house.
“I’m sure,” Steven said. “He had a radio in his hand.”
They climbed into the car, and Steven eased out of the driveway as if he were completely oblivious.
