“I feel bad for the poor man,” she’d say. “The men should go first. Did you ever see a man try to care for himself?”
Together, his father and he crossed Nash Street and strode up the walk. Sam dug in his pocket and extracted a small white envelope. He shook a key from it. Unlocking the door, he eased it open, stepping soft over the threshold.
Sam bent to pick up mail strewn on the floor from the mail slot. They stood together in a neat foyer, with an old, polished entry table in front of them. A small pile of mail rested on the table next to a dish with several small rings of keys. Some of the pieces of mail had little white notepaper clipped to them. These Sam kept on top of the pile as he added the mail from the floor.
Dylan followed a step behind as they entered a well-appointed sitting room on their left. A dark wingbacked chair and matching footstool sat catty-corner to a stuffed sofa, both kneeing up to an ash coffee table. The room had the look of a doctor’s waiting room without the magazines. There were no pictures on the walls, except for an oil of a fruit bowl above the sofa.
Dylan turned to watch his father, who glanced briefly at the furnishings and then moved a slow eye across the walls and ceiling. Sam eyed the carpet under the coffee table, and the wood floors, critically. He also stepped to the window, unlatched it, and lifted it. It gave a brief resistance, as if it had not been opened in some time.
Sam and Dylan moved through the house room by room. Sam spent some time in the kitchen, turning the stove and oven on and off, and opening and examining the icebox. He also checked the walls, doors, and windows as he went, and occasionally made a note on the little envelope, with the stub of a pencil from his shirt pocket.
Upstairs, they glanced into Mr. Thompson’s bedroom, and a smaller bedroom that was nearly empty. Everything was spotless.
“It probably needs a fresh coat of paint, though the walls are in good shape. A little plastering in the hallway upstairs. You ever have occasion to paint? Or should I assume based on your model planes that you don’t have much experience?”
Dylan turned to see his father grinning at him.
“Well, Nana had James and me try to paint her porch last summer. But somehow…” his voice trailed off.
“So that’s your work?” Sam grinned again. “If you want, I can show you some of how it gets done, and there may even be a little money to pay you.”
“That would be fine.” Dylan followed Sam down the second-floor hall. “Nana ended up finishing the porch, but I don’t think she knew more than James about painting. And James couldn’t tell one end of the brush from the other.”
Sam flipped on a light switch and leaned into a shadowed room at the back of the upstairs hall. The brick chimney jutted out into the small space and the room was barely bigger than the bathroom downstairs. It must have served as an office, dominated by an old desk with a rolling chair tucked into the leg well. A dark four-drawer filing cabinet stood next to the desk. Sam turned to go, then reconsidered and stepped into the room.
“I feel like an intruder, but I guess we’ll have to decide what to do with all this.” Sam drew open the top drawer of the filing cabinet.
“I guess Mr. Thompson trusted you to do right by it.” Dylan flipped open a dusty thin cardboard box on a low table by the door. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in years.
“Watch your way with Elmore’s things,” Sam reproached, then sighed. “I guess it won’t matter a lot. I still can’t fathom what provoked him.”
A glint caught Dylan’s attention. “Hey! Look at this!”
He stepped back to show Sam the cluttered display of medals, pinned to a velvet backing. Sam stepped over and fingered one of the larger medals, attached to red, white, and blue ribbon.
“The Bronze Star. These must all be from Double U Double U Two,” said Sam. “Mr. Thompson would have been too old for Korea.”
“What’s the Bronze Star?”
“It says here, on the back: ‘for Heroic or Meritorious Achievement.’ I remember him mentioning being in France once, during the war.” Sam set the medal back in the box.
“How come he never marched at Memorial Day? I thought all the old soldiers are in the parade.” Dylan ran his fingers over another ribbon, attached to a heart-shaped pendant. “Say, do you think this is from a girl?”
His father picked up the medal gently. “This is the Purple Heart. See George Washington there? It’s for soldiers who are wounded or killed in battle. I wonder that’s what his limp came from.”
Sam turned back to the open filing cabinet and Dylan pulled the chair out slowly. He had never seen a chair on wheels before. He sat down slow and gasped when it started to turn.
Sam grinned. “It won’t bite you. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Swivel chair. They are pretty common in offices of big executive types.” Dylan spun the chair a little, surprised at how quiet and smooth it was.
“Hmm. Tax forms for the last few years. Copies of the bills. Well, what is this?”
Dylan looked up at the change in Sam’s tone. “What did you find?”
“It’s a file with your brother’s name,” Sam’s voice was puzzlement and wonder.
“What would Mr. Thompson want with a file on James? What’s in it?”
Sam drew the folder out slow, then stopped, and eased it back so it was only halfway out. The folder was thick and worn. Sam cocked his head to examine the contents as he riffled what looked like old newspaper clippings, attached to note paper.
“Um, it’s not James. It’s your brother David. Looks like the articles that they put in the Daily Times back then. But why would…?” Dylan studied Sam’s face as his voice trailed off. Sam drew the folder out, glanced at Dylan, and laid the file open on top of the cabinet.
“He made notes. I wonder why. Says here, ‘Check when Godfrey Winter left town.’ Godfrey was my shift mate down at the plant when I was laid off. He got moved to nights, but then he had to leave out of Salisbury to go be with his folks. Nice enough fella—”
They both turned at the sound of Nana’s voice, calling from downstairs.
“Sam! You had better come now. It’s James!”
Dylan emerged from Mr. Thompson’s house just ahead of his dad. Nana stood on the porch, her apron front splotched where she’d wiped her hands hurriedly. Sam started to speak, then saw the Crane Ridge Township police car idling in front of their house. Two uniformed police stood talking at the front of the car. A shadowy figure was hunched in the back seat. Dylan guessed it was James.
Dylan started down the sidewalk.
“Child, why don’t you give me a quick tour around Mr. Thompson’s kitchen? We’ll see if there’s anything we want for a keepsake.”
Dylan looked at Nana, puzzled.
“There might be something we want to remember Elmore by. He was good to us,” she said, her eyes fixed on the scene across the street.
Dylan glanced again at the police car. He reckoned he would