Little Bird of Heaven (15 page)

In a rush of words Jacky DeLucca spoke, so agitated she seemed almost to have forgotten me. And now she wiped her smudged eyes and stared at me. “‘Krista’—‘Krissie’—you said—you said—you are his daughter—Eddy Diehl, I mean—yes? It must be a sign, you’re here—you came here, to see me—”

Quickly I said that I had to leave. The florid-faced woman with the dyed-beet hair frizzed about her head was exhausting to me as if she’d sucked all the oxygen out of the air between us.

“No, sweetie—wait! Not just yet.”

Jacky heaved herself to her feet, teetering. She smiled a sweet-goofy-lopsided smile at me as if about to swoop over me and kiss me but with panicked dexterity I eluded her. The man’s flannel shirt gaped open, Jacky’s enormous milky-white blue-veined left breast nearly swung free
like an extra appendage, alarming to see at close range. I did not want Jacky to hug me, to feel those big breasts like foam rubber. “Krissie, stay still. You’re the sweetest kid, you are polite and you
listen
. There is somebody coming today—I think—he might be here at any time—you could help me, Krissie, you could tell him ‘Jacky is not here right now,’ you could tell him ‘Jacky is staying with her sister now, in Port Oriskany.’ Can you do that for me, Krissie? Sweetie? He won’t try to come inside, he’ll just be at the back door here, if he sees you inside, what you can tell him is you are my niece—and your mother is upstairs—can you do this for me, Krissie? Please!—for Zoe’s sake, too.”

I was frightened, the urgency in Jacky’s voice. So all this time she’d been waiting for someone—that was why she’d wanted me with her—her hot damp skin beaded with oily sweat, her pleading eyes. The smell of rum was powerful, heady. I wanted to flee Jacky yet at the same time had an urge to press into her arms, press into the foam-rubber body. I stammered again that I had to leave, my mother would miss me and worry about where I’d gone. “Thank you for the hot chocolate, it was delicious,” I said, “—and the cookies!—the cookies were delicious. Good-bye.” Running for the door as in clumsy haste, surprisingly agile once she was able to get to her feet, Jacky tried to embrace me. “Krissie! Just a little hug, sweetie! We’re friends now, aren’t we? Sure.” At the door Jacky managed to grab hold of my arm, my skinny upper arm, I had not been quick enough. Her fingers were strong as a man’s fingers, I thought. I did not try to wrest away, I knew she would hurt me, in the flesh of my skinny upper arm there would be the imprint of Jacky DeLucca’s fingers. With a loud laugh—a sad, reproachful laugh—Jacky kissed the top of my head, and released me.

“Promise you’ll come back to see me, Krissie? Your friend Jacky DeLucca.”

Somehow, I promised
yes.

In the alley, half-running. And then running! Through mud puddles where black-feathered birds had been splashing and bathing, along the alley littered with trash, in the fresh damp air of spring where even tossed-out garbage rotting underfoot smelled good.

“K
RISTA?
What is that stain on your sweater?”

Guiltily I looked down—was it a hot chocolate stain? Or a smear—a smudge—from something greasy in Jacky DeLucca’s kitchen? Something like a dirty flower, my mother pointed at with a look of disgust.

“I hope it isn’t blood. Did you cut yourself somehow?”

“No! I—”

“It looks like blood. Oh, Krista! I can’t trust you, old as you are. Come here.”

Forcibly my mother led me to the kitchen sink where she dabbed frantically at the front of my sweater with a wetted towel, fussing and scolding. I saw how the part in her hair was crooked, how there were gray hairs especially near her scalp, nothing like Jacky DeLucca’s dark-dyed glamour-hair. And Mom’s smell—a harsh prim Dutch Cleanser-smell—was nothing like Jacky DeLucca’s. In these weeks following my father’s moving out of our house and the disruption of our lives my mother often behaved unpredictably with Ben and me, flaring up in anger and disgust, weeping over our flaws, or, unaccountably, clutching at us as if we were precious to her, and vulnerable. “Well—I guess it isn’t blood, it’s coming out. At least you didn’t hurt yourself, Krista, wherever you were all afternoon.” With exasperated tenderness my mother hugged me—stooped over me, and hugged me—lightly kissed the top of my head—in the very place that Jacky DeLucca had kissed me, less than an hour before—and for a long moment held me tight in her tremulous arms.

Friends now aren’t we Krissie.

Promise you’ll come back to see me, Krissie. Your friend Jacky DeLucca.

“E
DWARD
D
IEHL?
We need to speak with you.”

These grim-uttered words that would change my father’s life forever.

The ruin of my father’s life that was a wholly ordinary American-male life of its time and place, indistinguishable in its externals from how many hundreds of thousands of other American-male lives, none of us who loved him would have wished to think.

The time was early: 7:15 A.M. The morning of February 13, 1983.

The place, a terribly public place: Eddy Diehl’s office at Sparta Construction, 991 Reservoir Street, Sparta.

God had spared him Sunday, at least.

He’d known, certainly. He had known that Sparta police would come looking for him. As soon as he’d heard the news about Zoe, he’d known.

Such stunning news—awful news—such a shock to Eddy Diehl he hadn’t been able to comprehend it fully, at first. Like a drunk man, staggering. A drunk man hit over the head with a sledgehammer.

Zoe is dead? But—when? Why?

Repeating as if it were a riddle
Zoe is dead! Zoe is—dead!

No, he could not comprehend it. He had to have a drink, two drinks—he could not have functioned otherwise.

Driving along the Black River. Driving reckless as a blind man. The driver’s window was partway lowered despite the cold, freezing wind whipping at his tear-streaked face he’d somehow needed, to shock him into comprehension.

A part of his brain had been stunned but another, shrewder part of his brain understood that since Eddy Diehl had been “involved with” Zoe Kruller, and others had known of it, for it was impossible that others should not know of it despite the lovers’ attempts at secrecy, homicide detectives would want to question him; but he couldn’t know when.

If he’d been able to think a little more clearly, he might have gone voluntarily to the police. This would have established Eddy Diehl’s wish to aid in the police investigation and this would have suggested Eddy Diehl’s innocence.

This would have suggested Eddy Diehl’s shock and grief, at the loss of Zoe Kruller.

But Zoe was a married woman, or had been; and Eddy Diehl was a married man. Eddy had a young son, a younger daughter. He felt such sympathy for his wife, commingled with guilt like the taste of something rotted and poisonous in his mouth, oh how Lucille would be humiliated!—shamed! Lucille would never survive this, the public nature of her husband’s betrayal.

For Eddy Diehl did feel, yes he’d betrayed his wife. His family. He was an adulterous man, he’d had other sexual liaisons with other women, of a more ephemeral nature, some of them single-occasion incidents, it was not the fact of
adultery
that distressed him but the fact that others would know, and Lucille would be exposed, broken.

And his children: Ben, Krista. He had not wanted to leave Lucille to live with Zoe Kruller though he’d been in love with Zoe Kruller, he hadn’t been able to think of leaving his children. He was an adulterer, a heavy drinker, a
hard man
as others saw him disapprovingly or admiringly, but in his deepest self he was a
father,
he took
fatherhood
seriously as his own father had taken it, a sacred trust, an inviolable bond. Thinking when the call came and he’d hung up the phone at early midday of that Sunday she’d been found by her son Aaron
God spare me just today, then tomorrow will be…

If he was spared being taken into police custody on Sunday, at his home on the Huron Pike Road, in the presence of his wife and children,
then he would come willingly with police on Monday morning. Though he wasn’t a believer in God yet in his desperation he seemed to believe this bargain. As in Vietnam in times of terror he’d postulated similar bargains with the far-away and improbable Father-God he had ceased to take seriously as an adolescent.

On the door of his small office at Sparta Construction was a plaque of some synthetic substance meant to suggest walnut: E
DWARD
D
IEHL,
M
ANAGER.
How proud Lucille had been of this promotion, this office, the plaque, frequently at first she’d visited him in his office, she’d brought the children, it had been an occasion.
This is Daddy’s office, this is Daddy’s desk. See, this is Daddy’s name on the door….

This pride, Eddy Diehl would surrender. If he had but the Sunday of Zoe Kruller’s actual death to remain a free man.

“I can never forgive him. Letting me find out the way he did.
That
was betrayal.”

Of the many bitter accusations my mother would make against my father one was that, though evidently he’d learned about Zoe’s death by one-thirty of that Sunday afternoon, he left the house without telling her.

Abruptly and with no explanation he walked out of the house without saying where he was going or when he’d be back though he’d had to have known that “Edward Diehl” was sure to be involved in the police investigation.

And so, through most of that day we hadn’t known. My mother, Ben, me. We had no idea of how news of Zoe Kruller’s murder was spreading through Sparta swift as wildfire in some quarters, before even local radio and TV bulletins began to be broadcast; a network of friends, relatives, former high school classmates of Zoe and Delray, telephoning one another with the astonishing news. Not
A woman murdered on West Ferry Street but Zoe Kruller murdered in that place she’d been living away from her family.

And in tones of shock tinctured with reproach
The life Zoe had been living, something like this was bound to happen….

By late Sunday afternoon it was beginning to be known that Delray
Kruller, the “estranged” husband, had been brought to Sparta PD headquarters to be questioned about his wife’s death and by Sunday night it was beginning to be said that Delray had “confessed’ to the murder.

Not to the murder, but to “hurting” Zoe.

This would not be reported in the media except as a rumor and would turn out to be false. But Eddy Diehl believed it, at the time. He’d reacted with shock, fury, guilt—if Delray had killed Zoe, it was because of
him.

Delray! That son of a bitch he’d had to be drunk…

The shit he’d been taking from her God damn fucker…

Now he’s fucked, what’d he think this would solve…

Eddy Diehl had had to leave the house, he’d been so upset. Taking with him in the Jeep a six-pack of Molson’s ale. He’d given his wife the impression that something had gone wrong at one of the home construction sites, his boss was calling on him to check it out, it was like Paul Cassano to call Eddy Diehl at such times—“emergencies”—and if Eddy didn’t get back in time for Sunday dinner, Lucille would understand.

Lucille wouldn’t like it, but Lucille would understand.

For in construction, something is always
hitting a snag.
More than one thing at a time can be
hitting a snag.
Especially when the electricians have begun to be involved, when the building is nearing completion. Plumbers, roofers, electricians. The more men involved, the more likelihood of problems. Lucille had grown resigned to this, to a degree. She was wary of her husband’s mood, his temper when his boss Cassano called him on weekends, she didn’t question his having to leave the house on short notice as she did not question—usually—where he’d gone after visiting the work site, and why he’d stayed away so late. Sometimes, Eddy had drinks with clients, going out for a few drinks was “business” and wholly justified, even Sundays. As the night before—that Saturday night, before Zoe’s death early Sunday morning—Eddy Diehl had been out, he’d returned around midnight it was claimed, stumbling upstairs to bed.

With who, can’t remember.

Just some guys. Different places.

Go back to sleep, Lucille. Where I’ve been is my own God-damned business.

“How can I forgive him! He hadn’t the courage to tell me. He let me discover it for myself, the big headlines in the paper, Zoe’s picture all over, ‘male visitors’…”

My father had the idea that Zoe Kruller had been killed at around midnight but in fact, as the Herkimer County medical examiner was to determine, Zoe had died sometime between 1 A.M. and 4 A.M. early Sunday morning. It was difficult to estimate a more precise time of death since a window had been left open in the dead woman’s bedroom and her body had been partly frozen. In his benumbed and despairing state Eddy Diehl would endure Sunday. Driving the Jeep along the river without knowing where he was going, or why—turning abruptly onto blacktop roads leading into the countryside, north into the foothills of the Adirondacks following such roads blindly and with an air of desperation until he realized that no, this was not what he wanted, here was a false direction, pavement disintegrating into gravel, and gravel disintegrating into rutted frozen mud. He was drinking as he drove—six cans of Molson’s ale—feeling then an acute need to stop at one or another of those country taverns where in twilit interiors not unlike lighted caves men sat at bars and drank, talked together, or did not wish to talk, staring at TV sports through the long bleak winter day.

“Diehl? Hey.”

At the County Line Tavern, Deke Jones he’d known since high school tending bar and staring at Eddy Diehl who’d had to know—hadn’t he?—that Delray Kruller had confessed to killing his wife Zoe?—the men talked together in low urgent tones as Deke poured Eddy a drink and with a shaking hand Eddy lifted the glass to his mouth and drank. It was known—others in the County Line, at the bar, who knew Eddy Diehl would know this, and might have been talking of it before he’d come into the bar—from his edgy agitated state Eddy Diehl assumed this, that others were observing him, knew of him and Zoe and the likelihood that, if Delray had killed Zoe, it was the consequence of an action that had begun with Eddy Diehl. “Jesus, Eddy! Some shitty news.” Deke poured the grieving man another shot of Jim Beam.

He drank. At the County Line, and at the Riverview Inn, and at the Grotto in East Sparta. He drank without becoming drunk nor even, he was sure, mildly intoxicated, distracted; he could not drink enough to stop his thoughts
This can’t have happened! Fuck Zoe this is some damn trick of hers. Don’t believe this, this is bullshit.

In this way Sunday passed. A turbulent dream of such vivid wakefulness Eddy Diehl might have believed that he himself had died. His stubbled jaws ached with the strain of all that he wanted to protest but could not. There was a ringing in his ears and he’d been sweating inside his clothes and winded like a horse that has been whipped and made to run nearly to death. His lungs ached, his sides heaved. He was running/ stumbling through a snowy parking lot, to the Jeep. His breath was steaming, a trickle of sweat like blood ran down his face from his left temple. Maybe Zoe was in the Jeep: curled up in the passenger’s seat her stockinged feet beneath her, small warm squirmy little feet he’d loved to hold in his hands, tickle the soles of those feet with his big deft thumbs
Ohhh Eddy don’t that drives me crazy oh oh oh! Ed-dy!
shuddering as if he’d made her come with just stroking her feet, unless she was only teasing, touching her warm moist tongue to the tip of his tongue, breathing her fumy breath into his mouth except: the cab of the Jeep was empty, no one in the passenger’s seat, Zoe Kruller hadn’t been in Eddy Diehl’s Jeep since December, when they’d broken up.

Through that long Sunday he had not eaten. It wasn’t that he had no appetite for food nor that food would have nauseated him but that he had no thought for food at all. He was heedless that Lucille might be waiting for him back at the house, expecting him to return and eat an evening meal with his family. Thinking of Zoe, he could not think of anyone else. He thought
Next news I hear, Zoe will be O.K. And Delray arrested for beating on her. That’s all. That’s not so bad. I can live with that.

Wakened by his footsteps on the stairs. Two nights in succession: Saturday, Sunday. Only in retrospect would I know what these nights were. What these nights meant.
It’s Daddy. He’s home. Now I am safe, I can sleep.

A child’s sense of time is airy, insubstantial. A child can be convinced
that something that has happened has happened at a certain time, and not another time, though the child has in fact
lived through that time and is a witness to that time.
A child will believe what he/she is told if he/she is told in the right way and by the right adult.

Now you know there are things that happen inside a house and inside a family that are secret and must never be revealed to anyone outside the family d’you know this, Krista?—yes. You know.

So my mother would caution me. Putting her forefinger to my lips to press them shut.

It was a confused time!—like dead leaves blowing in a windstorm, swirling and crazy-seeming so you wanted to shut your eyes, shut your ears and scream
Go away!

A confused time, and a child’s memory is not to be trusted because no child thinks in terms of calendar days, dates. No child thinks in terms of years. No child thinks in logical terms
before, after.
In causal terms
This, following this. This, a consequence of this.
A child may think
This is here, now. This is what is happening, now.

That Sunday night when my father returned home late—must’ve been after 11 P.M. when the house was darkened except for a light in the kitchen above the stove and the back porch light which my mother had left on for my father’s return, unthinkable at that time it would have been for my mother not to leave a porch light on for my father’s return—she was lying in bed uneasy—anxious—not yet distraught for she hadn’t seen the local TV news—the “breaking news” of a Sparta woman’s murder in the early morning of that Sunday and none of the Bauers had called her for what could have been the pretext for such a call?—an assumption that Lucille would understand what the connection was between Zoe Kruller and herself?—no one would have dared. Even those female relatives of my mother’s for whom the task of delivering upsetting news would have been pleasurable had not dared, this was too cruel a matter.