Unaccounted For Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  UNACCOUNTED FOR

  By Nan Willard Cappo

  Unaccounted For

  Copyright 2011 Nan Willard Cappo

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Tadmar Press

  Cover design by Steven Peterson

  Kindle Edition

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  the hard work of this author.

  For Dirk,

  and for Ellen and Mark

  …he that stands or walks on slippery ground needs nothing but his own weight to throw him down.

  ——Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

  Chapter 1

  January

  The doorknob turned too easily beneath his hand. Milo Shoemaker frowned.

  He’d locked this door himself. This morning, after everyone had gotten in the car for the ride to church, he’d pulled the cold knob of his front door toward him and heard it catch. Hadn’t he?

  He held his breath and stepped from the icy air into the warmth of the entry hall. He strained to hear, but nothing disturbed the familiar silence of the house. He looked to his right. In the living room, throw pillows lay on the floor near a still-wet man’s shoeprint, clear as a calling card on the pale carpet. A trace of stale cigarette smoke hung in the air. Yet they’d left the house immaculate this morning, in case people came back here after the wake. And none of his family smoked.

  His mother came up the shoveled walk unwrapping her muffler, and behind her the twins’ chatter drowned out the more subdued voices of their cousins.

  Milo trod a careful path through the living room. At his father’s desk in the far corner a mini tornado of bills and receipts littered the floor. File drawers stood open. Bare spaces where the computer and printer had stood that morning seemed to mock him. His father’s day planner, brand-new for the new year, lay open under a wheel of the chair, its blank pages crumpled.

  Behind him Gloria Shoemaker exclaimed. His aunt came in, too, and the twins’ hard-soled dress shoes clattered across the tiled entry as they rushed to see. The numb politeness Milo had practiced all day morphed into rage.

  “The bastards! It’s not enough a guy is dead? They have to rob his house during the funeral?” He pounded a fist against the desk hutch and books toppled to the floor. He kicked one.

  “Milo, stop.” Aunt Grace’s small hand pressed his shoulder in warning. “You’re upsetting your mother.”

  “I’m upsetting her! I didn’t rob—” But Milo stopped. His mother had dropped onto the couch as though her legs had given out. “Sorry.”

  From the den came the twins’ gleeful cries as they reported fresh discoveries. Jenny appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, one pigtail unraveling over the collar of her good coat. “The TV is gone!” she announced.

  “So’s the microwave!” Joey said, not to be outdone, and they raced away looking for more news to report. At five they found any break in routine exciting, even a robbery in their own house. Aunt Grace corralled her two teenage daughters and sent them to watch the twins.

  “Mother of God,” Gloria Shoemaker said faintly. “Do you believe it?”

  “Do we have a choice?” Milo sat down beside her. All week, since the police found the car, people had been telling him how well his mother was “holding up.” Yes, she was, as long as there were small white pills left in the bottle. He could use one himself right now.

  Uncle Paulie bustled in, stamping his feet and rubbing his plump hands against the cold. He stopped short at the sight of their faces. “What’s wrong?”

  Milo waved a hand at the pillows, the scattered papers.

  Uncle Paulie’s ruddy face grew a shade darker as he took it in. “Sweet Jesus, you’ve been robbed!” He bolted for the kitchen and returned with a meat cleaver in one hand and a butcher knife in the other. “Take this,” he said, and pushed the cleaver at Milo. “I’ll check the bedrooms.” Brandishing the knife, he headed up the stairs.

  From the living room they listened to his footsteps creak along the upstairs hall. Milo realized he should have kept everyone in the driveway until he knew no intruders were hiding inside. It hadn’t occurred to him. He had to start acting like the man of the house.

  A giggle escaped Aunt Grace. “Milo, what are you supposed to do with that?”

  Milo looked at the meat cleaver on his lap. He tested the heft of it and an answering grin appeared on his own face. “Nail anyone under the couch, I guess. Don’t make any sudden moves.”

  They laughed, but his mother just stared down at her gloved hands clasped together.

  Closet doors banged upstairs, but after a few minutes Uncle Paulie came back down in disappointment. “Doesn’t look like they even went up there.” His full black mustache quivered with importance. “Well, let’s get on with it. The police know their way here, that’s for sure.”

  “No police.” Gloria’s voice rang out.

  Milo exchanged glances with his aunt and uncle. “Mom, why not? They might find the bums who did this. Might even get our stuff back.”

  How smart could the robbers be, really, to steal an ancient TV, an outdated computer? If they had any brains they were pitching everything in a Dumpster right now, cursing each other for not robbing a fancier house. Even the Valeene police could handle this crew.

  “Glory, Milo’s right, I really think the police should check this out.” Paulie said this with some diffidence. Gloria was feisty. Milo suspected his uncle blessed his lucky stars he’d married the milder sister. Even if she was sedated, you didn’t want to cross Gloria Shoemaker.

  His aunt sat down on his mother’s other side and patted her arm.

  “No police. You hear me, Milo?” Gloria’s voice was steady as she held out her hand. On the palm of her black leather glove rested a matchbook. “They dropped this.”

  Milo took it. The cover was white and glossy and imprinted with magenta script. The Motor City Casino & Hotel, in Detroit. “Mom, this can’t be—we’d have known if he was back to that.”

  “Would we?” The bleak look in her dark-shadowed eyes unnerved him more than tears. “Paulie, pour us a drink? If they didn’t steal the liquor.”

  Aunt Grace took the matchbook from Milo while her husband found a bottle of brandy. He poured each of the women a glass, shrugged, then gave one to Milo.

  At seventeen Milo had had beers before, but this day called for hard liquor. He tossed it back and straightaway choked. Aunt Grace smothered her laughter.

  “Mr. Farnon talked to me today a
t the lunch,” Gloria said. “He’s going to tell the insurance people Tim was on company business.” Her mouth twisted in irony—the quarry where they’d found Tim Shoemaker’s car was nowhere near the Wolverine Motors plant, or their house. “They pay double for accidental death if the insured was at work. He just wanted me to know.”

  “Oh, Glory, that’s wonderful!” Aunt Grace reached over and rubbed Milo’s short hair. “Now maybe this boy can eat next year in college.”

  “But they don’t pay at all if it’s suicide,” her sister continued.

  A sudden stillness fell over the room. From the den they could hear Joey yell, “That’s cheating!”

  “It wasn’t suicide,” Milo said. “The police went all over that. There was no note, no reason—if Farnon’s trying to insinuate—”

  “He’s not trying anything. I know what he meant, and he knew I did. He was putting me on my guard.” His mother grew frustrated at their obtuseness. “Don’t you see? If the police come poking around, if they report that robbers dropped matches from a casino, the insurance people might see it, and they’ll investigate to save paying the claim, and….” She appealed to her brother-in-law. “Tim’s dead, Paulie. And we need that money. No police.”

  Milo rose. He wandered over to the ransacked desk and began to pick up the books he’d knocked down. Behind him the adults argued in low, urgent voices. The pills had worn off, Milo could tell. He left them to it.

  He started to replace a dust jacket before realizing it was not the right one. The jacket said Mergers & Acquisitions: Building Values in Private Companies. But the book it covered was a new copy of Corporate Accounting Fraud 101: Techniques and Strategies.

  Hunh. He reached for Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision Making. Its paper cover was worn and dog-eared, but underneath was a stiff, shiny copy of Accounting Irregularities in Privately Held Corporations.

  Useful stuff. A good accountant would need to know how to detect irregularities. Tim Shoemaker had been a very good accountant.

  Milo checked the rest of the titles on the floor and the shelf and found one more impostor. A cover from an old dictionary concealed a glossy hardback, Financial FlimFlam: Finding Fraud in Accounting Statements. On the far end of the desk hutch three well-used books huddled together as though embarrassed at their nakedness.

  The back of Milo’s neck tingled.

  He put the books, mismatched covers and all, back on the hutch. As he slid the last one in he patted it as though saying good-bye.

  “Okay, Mom.” He’d interrupted; the adults stopped arguing and looked at him. He managed an unhappy smile which no one returned. “The man of the house agrees with the woman of the house. No police.”

  That night after the relatives left (Uncle Paulie offered to sleep on the couch if Gloria felt nervous; she didn’t), Milo hustled the twins up to bed. He skipped their baths and told them it was a funeral rule. Baths the night before, no baths on the day. They liked this more than the other funeral rule—no story, just a book on CD, lights out. Like Milo, they had their father’s coloring, and now two pairs of blue-gray eyes glared at this injustice. They were still protesting when he closed their door.

  He found his mother in the den. The TV shelf was empty, but otherwise the room looked as lived-in as ever. Headless dolls and toy truck parts dotted the furniture—Joey and Jenny were into disassembling. At the table, the ledger of visitors from the funeral home and a towering stack of sympathy cards had been pushed to one side. Gloria Shoemaker scribbled in a notebook. Beside her was a heavily highlighted book called Make Money and Have Fun Writing for Children. Milo had mixed feelings at this sight. He was glad to see her focused on a normal task. On the other hand, her stories were terrible. She’d once rhymed “lion” with “sighin’,” and even the twins were sick of talking animals.

  “Hey, Mom. Come here a minute?”

  “Hang on, let me just…there.” She put down her pen. “I’m making them badgers this time,” she said, as though he might try to dissuade her. “What’s up?”

  He motioned for her to follow him down the hall.

  Gloria Shoemaker’s shiny dark hair and smooth olive skin kept her youthful looking, and people were always surprised to hear she had a son as old as Milo. But as she stared at the books and dust jackets he had laid out on the kitchen table, she seemed to age before his eyes. He noticed silver strands among the black waves, and new lines etched between her mouth and nose.

  She touched the new, expensive books. He saw their titles register, saw her dark eyes snap. “So what? He was an accountant. He had accounting books.”

  Milo didn’t answer.

  “What are you thinking?” she demanded.

  “What it means.”

  “I just told you. It doesn’t mean—”

  “You’re the one who wouldn’t call the police. If he was gambling, where was he getting the money?”

  She sank into a chair. The fight in her voice was replaced by pleading. “Milo, listen. Gambling is one thing. It’s a weakness, a…a sickness. These books, what you’re implying—that’s something else. That’s a choice. Your father was not a thief, and you know it. Tim was too…he was—” Her voice cracked. “I thought I knew what he was,” she said, and she sounded as young as Jenny.

  Her shoulder under his hand was tense as a taut wire. “Mom…”

  “You know what I told him?” she said. “After that first time? If he ever gambled again, I would leave him. And take the children.”

  Milo swallowed. He hated this. “What are you saying, that he killed himself? Because he owed gamblers money?”

  “We’ll never know, will we?” she said bitterly. “I know he believed me. And here’s something else I know. I have three children to raise. I don’t have the luxury of drowning myself.”

  Milo massaged her shoulders until some of the tension left them. “Dad wouldn’t have killed himself,” he said. “He sure as hell wouldn’t drown himself, that’s a stupid way. He could swim! And anyway, he’d have left us a note.”

  “You think?” She didn’t sound bitter anymore. Just tired. “A note would have ruined any accident theory. You’re right, he wasn’t stupid. He’d have known all about the insurance.” She stood up and pressed her face into his shoulder. “I’m not saying he didn’t love us, Milo T.” That was his father’s pet name for him. Milo blinked hard. “I’m saying…I don’t know. I don’t know, and I don’t want to.”

  She swept up the books on fraud. Milo followed as she marched them out to the garage and hurled them into the rubber trash can, one shuddering thud after the other.

  Later, when he heard the shower running upstairs, he went to the garage and retrieved them. He wiped them clean of coffee grounds and stacked them tenderly in a neat pile. His father hadn’t left a note. But he had left these. Milo would find out why.

  ***

  Chapter 2

  February—March

  Milo had always been obliging. Helpful. But in the weeks following the funeral, he didn’t “help” with chores anymore; he owned them. If he didn’t do them they didn’t get done. He supposed his mother was doing her part—barely. He tried to make allowances for her. She had gone right back to work teaching middle school. But she was grading student papers without reading them. That was new. Not making the beds. Napping a lot. True, she didn’t sleep much at night. He didn’t sleep much either and he heard her walking around. On weekends she didn’t even shower, and while the twins watched cartoons she wrote stories about badgers and budgies and God knew what else. Milo didn’t call this holding up well.

  And Joey and Jenny! Hard to remember he used to like the little buggers. Why did nature even allow twins? One baby was the norm and there was a reason for that. Two were more than twice the work and left you so rushed you forgot half the time what you were doing. All winter, after he dropped them at the all-day kindergarten, he had to gun the engine to make his own classes before first bell. Forget about morning runs with his best friend Zaf
fer. Forget about breakfast. He peed in the shower now to save time. He’d seen a woman on TV one night with octuplets—that she claimed to have wanted—and Milo had known at once she must be insane.

  If he thought he’d get thanks from his siblings for keeping their familiar routine on track, he could think again.

  “I don’t want cereal. Daddy made me cinnamon toast.” Joey delivered this news one morning as though suffering yet another unsatisfactory servant. His round black glasses and his stubborn chin made him into a miniature Tim. Though their father, Milo thought with an ache, had saved that implacable face for bigger offenses, like war crimes.

  “No, he didn’t.” But Milo made the cinnamon toast. He forgot to cut off the crusts, however, and Joey was not appeased.

  It turned out his father had been good at things Milo had never thought about. When an ice dam made the roof leak into the kitchen, Milo was determined to unblock it himself. But the ladder slipped and sent him plunging into a snowdrift that saved him from snapping his neck. He stood up, soaked and cold and bruised all over, hating his life, hating his father.

  He was a kid, for Chrissake! He wasn’t anyone’s parent! He’d had nothing to do with his dad dying, and he shouldn’t have to put his own life on hold because of it. It sucked to realize he now resented his mother and the twins when he used to like them just fine. Didn’t they notice that he hurt, too? He wished Tim’s death had been someone’s fault, so he would have someone to blame.

  As it was he could only blame God for a piece of truly shit luck. God got an earful.

  In late February Milo was dozing over calculus on the couch after school when a sports highlights program came on the new TV. He jerked awake in time to see the Steelers’ Santonio Holmes catch an impossible pass from Ben Roethlisberger, clinching what in collective male Shoemaker opinion had been the best Super Bowl ever. “Dad! Come see this!” he yelled.