Black Evening

"I told you I won't listen to you insult my father! Bribes? Why, my father never – "

"Sure," you say. "A pillar of the community. Just like everybody else."

"Get out!"

"Right. As soon as you tell me one more thing. June Engle. Is she still alive? Is she still here in town?"

"I never heard of her," Chief Kitrick growls.

"Right."

Chief Kitrick glares from the open door to his office. You get in your car, drive up the bumpy street, make a U-turn, and pass him. The chief glares harder. In your rearview mirror, you see his diminishing angry profile. You reduce speed and steer toward the left as if taking the upward jolting road out of town. But with a cautious glance toward the chief, you see him stride in nervous victory along the sidewalk. You see him open the door to the bar, and the moment you're out of sight around the corner, you stop.

The clouds are darker, thicker, lower. The wind increases, keening. Sporadic raindrops speckle your windshield. You step from the car, button your jacket, and squint through the biting wind toward the broken skeleton of the pier. The old man you met two days ago no longer slumps on his rickety chair, but just before you turned the corner, movement on your right – through a dusty window in a shack near the pier – attracted your attention. You approach the shack, the door to which faces the seething ocean, but you don't have a chance to knock before the wobbly door creaks open. The old man, wearing a frayed rumpled sweater, cocks his head, frowning, a home-made cigarette dangling from his lips.

You reach for your wallet. "I spoke to you the other day, remember?"

"Yep."

You take a hundred-dollar bill from your wallet. The old man's bloodshot eyes widen. Beyond him, on a table in the shack, you notice a half-dozen empty beer bottles. "Want to earn some quick easy money?"

"Depends."

"June Engle."

"So?"

"Ever heard of her?"

"Yep."

"Is she still alive?"

"Yep."

"Here in town?"

"Yep."

"Where can I find her?"

"This time of day?"

What the old man tells you makes your hand shake when you hand him the money. Shivering but not from the wind, you return to your car. You make sure to take an indirect route to where the old man sent you, lest the chief glance out the tavern window and see you driving past.

"At the synagogue," the old man told you. "Or what used to be the… Ain't that what they call it? A synagogue?"

The sporadic raindrops become a drizzle. A chilling dampness permeates the car, despite its blasting heater. At the far end of town, above the beach, you come to a dismal, single-story, flat-roofed structure. The redwood walls are cracked and warped. The windows are covered with peeling plywood. Waist-high weeds surround it. Heart pounding, you step from the car, ignore the wind that whips drizzle against you, and frown at a narrow path through the weeds that takes you to the front door. A slab of plywood, the door hangs by one hinge and almost falls as you enter.

You face a small vestibule. Sand has drifted in. An animal has made a nest in a corner. Cobwebs hang from the ceiling. The pungent odor of mold attacks your nostrils. Hebraic letters on a wall are so faded that you can't read them. But mostly what you notice is the path through the sand and dust on the floor toward the entrance to the temple.

The peak of your skull feels naked. Instinctively you look around in search of a yarmulke. But after so many years, there aren't any. Removing a handkerchief from your pocket, you place it on your head, open the door to the temple, and find yourself paralyzed, astonished by what you see.

The temple – or what used to be the temple – is barren of furniture. The back wall has an alcove where a curtain once concealed the torah. Before the alcove, an old woman kneels, her withered hips on her bony knees, a handkerchief tied around her head. She murmurs, hands fidgeting as if she holds something before her.

At last you're able to move. Inching forward, pausing beside her, you see the surprising incongruous object she clutches: a rosary. Tears trickle down her cheeks. As close as you are, you still have to strain to distinguish what she murmurs.

"… deliver us from evil. Amen."

"June Engle?"

She doesn't respond, just keeps fingering the beads and praying. "Hail, Mary… blessed is the fruit of thy womb…"

"June, my name is Jacob Weinberg."

"Pray for us si

"June, I want to talk to you about Dr. Adams. About the clinic."

The old woman's fingers tighten on the rosary. Slowly she turns and blinks up through tear-brimmed eyes. "The clinic?"

"Yes. And about the Gunthers. About the nursery."

"God help me. God help them." She wavers, her face pale.

"Come on, June, you'll faint if you kneel much longer. I'll help you up." You touch her appallingly fleshless arms and gently raise her to her feet. She wobbles. You hold her husk of a body against you. "The nursery. Is that why you're here, June? You're doing penance?"

"Thirty pieces of silver."

"Yes." Your voice echoes eerily. "I think I understand. Dr. Adams and the Gunthers made a lot of money. Did you make a lot of money, June? Did they pay you well?"

"Thirty pieces of silver."

"Tell me about the nursery, June. I promise you'll feel better."

"Ivy, rose, heather, iris."

You cringe, suspecting that she's gone insane. She seems to think that "the nursery" refers to a plant nursery. But she knows better. She knows that the nursery had nothing to do with plants but instead with babies from unmarried pregnant women. Or at least she ought to know unless the consequence of age and what seems to be guilt has affected her mind and her memory. She appears to be free-associating.

"Violet, lily, daisy, fern," she babbles.

Your chest cramps as you realize that those words make perfect sense in the context of… They might be… "Are those names, June? You're telling me that the women in the nursery called themselves after plants and flowers?"

"Orval Gunther chose them. Anonymous." June weeps. "Nobody would know who they really were. They could hide their shame, protect their identities."

"But how did they learn about the nursery?"

"Advertisements." June's shriveled knuckles paw at her eyes. "In big-city newspapers. The personal columns."

"Advertisements? But that was taking an awful risk. The police might have suspected."

"No. Not Orval. He never took risks. He was clever. So clever. All he promised was a rest home for unmarried pregnant women. 'Feel alone?' the ad read. 'Need a caring, trained staff to help you give birth in strictest privacy? No questions asked. We guarantee to relieve your insecurity. Let us help you with your burden.' Sweet Lord, those women understood what the ad was really about. They came here by the hundreds."

June trembles against you. Her tears soak through your jacket, as chilling as the wind-driven rain that trickles through the roof.

"Did those women get any money for the babies they gave to strangers?"

"Get? The opposite. They paid!" June stiffens, her feeble arms gaming amazing strength as she pushes from your grasp. "Orval, that son of a… He charged them room and board! Five hundred dollars!"

Her knees sag.

You grasp her. "Five hundred? And the couples who took the babies? How much did the Gunthers get from them?"

"Sometimes as high as ten thousand dollars."

The arms with which you hold her shake. Ten thousand dollars? During the Depression? Hundreds of pregnant women? Dr. Adams, Jr. hadn't exaggerated. The Gunthers had earned a fortune.