When the Past Came Calling Read online

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, unless otherwise indicated.

  Copyright © 2014 Larry S. Kaplan

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1497478596

  ISBN 13: 9781497478596

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906067

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

  North Charleston, South Carolina

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: A PHONE CALL

  Chapter 2: THE PARTY

  Chapter 3: UNCLE BERT AND HIS YARMULKE

  Chapter 4: UNDER A WILLOW TREE

  Chapter 5: THE DOWNPOUR

  Chapter 6: A BAFFLING ENCOUNTER

  Chapter 7: LUNCH WITH MICHAEL

  Chapter 8: A FUNERAL AT SHALOM GARDENS

  Chapter 9: AN FBI AGENT SHOWS UP

  Chapter 10: A REQUEST

  Chapter 11: A RETURN TO THE TOWERS

  Chapter 12: BACKSTAGE

  Chapter 13: THE LETTER FROM LENA

  Chapter 14: A STRANGE RECURRENCE

  Chapter 15: THE PLOT THICKENS

  Chapter 16: A BRAINSTORM

  Chapter 17: A NEW PLAN

  Chapter 18: FINDING A LOOK-ALIKE

  Chapter 19: GETTING PERMISSION

  Chapter 20: THE ENCOUNTER

  Chapter 21: INHERITED MEMORIES

  Chapter 22: INHERITED HATRED

  Chapter 23: THE PROPOSAL

  Chapter 24: ANOTHER UNTOWARD DEATH

  Chapter 25: PLANNING MY TRIP

  Chapter 26: BENNY’S MANIFESTO: PART 1

  Chapter 27: BENNY’S MANIFESTO: PART 1, CONTINUED

  Chapter 28: BENNY’S MANIFESTO: PART 2

  Chapter 29: BENNY’S MANIFESTO: PART 3

  Chapter 30: BENNY’S MANIFESTO: PART 4

  Chapter 31: PARANOIA

  Chapter 32: PARONOIA VINDICATED

  Chapter 33: A REVELATION

  Chapter 34: AN UNEXPECTED REUNION

  Chapter 35: MORE REVELATIONS

  Chapter 36: MEXICO CITY

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD: SEPARATING FACT FROM FICTION

  Chapter 1

  April 10, 1989

  An unexpected phone call from my former high school debate partner suddenly wrested me from a midafternoon funk. Michael Eisenberg—or “Mikie,” as we called him way back when—was generally considered the most successful member of our graduating class, a “boy wonder,” according to the press.

  Two years earlier, at the age of thirty-seven, he’d been appointed the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, heading up a department of over seventy lawyers dedicated to eradicating corruption, even if it meant the crooked politicians and dishonest businessmen they pursued served their time in federal prisons with fancier amenities than most three-star hotels.

  I’m an attorney too but way below Mikie on anybody’s pecking order. I handle personal injury cases in a law firm founded by my uncle Bert. Although my uncle and I get the occasional big-name case, my bread and butter is the “slip and fall”—accidents where our clients have unceremoniously taken a header, usually due to their own clumsiness, but on property owned by very well-insured companies.

  The call came on the first warm day of spring in 1989. I had eaten a burrito bigger than my head for lunch and was sleepwalking through a review of one of our blundering clients’ medical records when our receptionist, Miss Jordan, buzzed me on the intercom.

  “Well, aren’t you the important one,” she remarked archly. “US Attorney Michael Eisenberg is on the line.”

  Hmmm. I wondered if using his title meant he was calling me in his official capacity. I doubted it. It was highly unlikely that our legal worlds would ever overlap. Using his “US Attorney” appellation on Miss Jordan was just his way of rubbing in the fact that he had attained a much loftier professional status than the debate partner who had sometimes outscored him on the judges’ ballots.

  “US Attorney Eisenberg?” I said when I picked up the phone, as if puzzled about receiving a call from such an illustrious individual. In fact, I was just playing my role in the long-running game between us. We talked rather often—at least several times a year—usually about the fortunes or misfortunes of our former classmates.

  “So, David—how goes it?”

  “Well enough, Michael. My uncle now permits me to carry my own briefcase as well as his.”

  “Very funny. I saw you won a jury verdict against Commonwealth Edison a few months ago—a case involving an accidental electrocution, right? I meant to call and congratulate you.”

  “Yeah, well you can hold the applause. They’re appealing over some hearsay statements we managed to get into evidence, so we may never see a dime of it. Anyway, Michael, to what do I owe this honor?”

  “Oh, nothing major; it’s just that I’ve recently been in touch with our friend Benny.”

  Benny Friedman was a former classmate of ours who’d been my best friend from second grade on—until we had a falling out in high school. Benny was a certifiable genius, but in our junior year his father’s sudden death had unhinged him. He nearly didn’t finish high school, and after he did he bounced around a number of community colleges without getting a degree. Last I heard he had finally landed at a school in Guadalajara, Mexico. Although I had lost contact with him, Michael still kept in touch.

  “Is he still fixated on the Kennedy assassination?”

  “You got it.”

  “What, does he have some new suspect he wants you to pursue?”

  “Well, it’s a little more sinister this time. Now he believes that the people he’s been tracking down are onto him. He’s asking about our witness protection program.”

  “Oh, brother,” I muttered. “You have to feel sorry for the guy.”

  “He’s certainly not the only lunatic out there,” Michael noted with an uncharacteristically sympathetic tone, “but when it’s someone you know, and someone who was so ridiculously brilliant, it’s pretty hard to handle.”

  “Is there anything you think I can do? I haven’t spoken with Benny in ages.”

  “Naw. I just wanted to give you a heads-up…and hey—change of subject,” Michael said. “Remember that girl you knew—the one who lived in the huge mansion across the street from Benny’s house in the Towers?”

  My former debate partner could not have stopped my breathing any more effectively had he hit me in the chest with a sledgehammer. I could not respond.

  “David, you there?” he asked, almost sounding worried.

  I recovered but not valiantly. I replied with a voice several shades weaker than moments earlier. “The Montgomery girl?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. You were infatuated with her that one summer, when you had your rock and roll band going.”

  That “one summer” would have been the summer of 1966, when I was a sixteen-year-old guitar player and singer for the forgettable band named the Timekeepers.

  “Why on earth are you bringing her up?” I asked. “That was more than twenty years ago. And besides, you were the one who claimed she didn’t even exist.”

  “Oh, come on. We all had our doubts. I mean none of us ever saw her except you. And the way you described her. It was hard for us to imagine—”

  “That someone like her could have been interested in someone like me?” I finished for him. “I know. But it turned out she wasn’t interested in me after all, so there was no big mystery in the end.”

  “Well, listen. Something has come up that might involve Philip Montgomery, the girl’s father. I thought you might remember something about the family—in fact, anything at all that might help us to find him.�
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  “Michael, you must be kidding. I only met the girl that one night—the night of the party for Benny’s dad.”

  “You always say, ‘that one night.’ But you talked about it for the rest of the summer. Maybe we doubted her existence, but for someone you knew for only one night, you were certainly smitten.”

  Michael had no idea. “Smitten” was putting it mildly. I had been obsessed with Mary Montgomery. Even twenty-three years later, with countless notches on my bachelor belt, I had never really gotten over her. All because of what had happened in a single night.

  “So after all this time, something has come up regarding her father?” I tried to stay focused on the present to quell the wild beating of my heart her memory induced.

  “We think so.”

  “But they moved away a long time ago, not long after I met her.”

  “That’s right,” Michael affirmed, “and Montgomery’s trail has gone cold ever since.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I responded. “The family was a secretive bunch. I remember Benny told me that no one ever came out of their house. Not even to take out the garbage or get the newspaper.”

  “Yeah, well, I was hoping that given what a stalker you are, and considering your feelings for their daughter, maybe you had tried to keep track of her after they moved away. It might give us something to start with.”

  “Honest, Michael, I couldn’t tell you if she’s living or dead. I haven’t heard a thing about her or that Truce of God church of theirs since they moved away.”

  “You knew about that?” he asked, sounding surprised.

  “What—Truce of God?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was one of the first things she told me about herself,” I explained. “It was her—and her family’s—religion. It might have been a cult, for all I know. It was such a strange name that it always stayed with me. She told me her father was the church’s leader.”

  “See, David, you do remember more than you realize.”

  “Well, most of my indelible memories—unfortunately—are the ones associated with the what-might-have-beens of my life. But you wouldn’t know about that, Michael, because your what-might-have-beens have actually come true.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that. Anyway, let’s meet for lunch one day when you’re free so I can pick your brain to see what else might be lurking in those deep recesses. You always did have the best memory of anyone I know.”

  “Michael, I’m the one who’s always free, and you’re the one who’s always not free,” I replied, ignoring the compliment but secretly pleased.

  “I’m free tomorrow. Say, Berghoff’s at noon?”

  “I can do that,” I said, surprised that the US Attorney’s schedule was so fluid. In fact, I felt more than a little honored to be asked to lunch by my distinguished former debate partner. “I’ll see you there.”

  After I hung up the phone, I tried to resume my review of Sophie Klosterberg’s medical records, but I was too distracted. Michael’s call had triggered an onslaught of memories that obliterated all other thought. The image of a raven-haired teenaged princess invaded my consciousness and conquered it without resistance. There was now little chance of a productive afternoon. I had no choice but to let myself be overwhelmed by memory and emotion, returning me to a time when the whisper of my name by a voice more ethereal than real caused me to believe—for at least one brief moment in time—that my life was destined to be extraordinary.

  Chapter 2

  July 23, 1966

  In the 1960s Lincolnwood, Illinois, was really two villages in one. The unpretentious section of the smallish Chicago suburb was situated on the east side of the Edens Expressway, laid out on a gridlike series of streets. The houses were of modest size, fitted onto square quarter-acre lots. The glitzier section, known as Lincolnwood Towers, was located on the west side of the expressway. Its rambling, bucolic roads meandered in and out of forested coves, showcasing opulent mansions sprawled over acres of landscaped greenery.

  The difference between the two Lincolnwoods was not limited to the quality of the housing. While the east side had attracted a great migration of Jewish families from Chicago’s west side in the 1950s, no Jews lived in the Towers. In fact, I grew up believing there was some unwritten law banning them from there. Who knows? Maybe it was written. When my family made its annual trek through the Towers’ neighborhood at Christmastime to view the dazzling holiday decorations, I felt like an intruder—an illegal alien who might be stopped by the police at any moment and threatened with arrest if I didn’t leave immediately.

  The summer before my junior year of high school, Benny Friedman’s family did the unthinkable and moved from the east side of Lincolnwood into the Towers. I was certain they had covered up the fact that they were Jewish. Among my friends and their parents, the reactions to the move were mixed. Some lauded it, believing it was about time a Jewish family broke the exclusionary “rule,” and this would show the goyim that they didn’t have a monopoly on the more desirable part of town. Others, however, scoffed at the audacity of the Friedmans and speculated on their motives—whether they did it just to impress people.

  Benny’s dad was an electrical engineer for a company that made aircraft components. And since we never thought of them as a wealthy family until they moved to the Towers, many of my friends’ parents—mine included—wondered how an engineer could afford a home in such an expensive neighborhood. Not surprisingly, it was a major improvement over the Friedmans’ former dwelling; but still, it paled by comparison with some of the grander residences there.

  It sat on a broad cul-de-sac—Longmeadow Circle—that it shared with only one other house, an impressive edifice that put me in mind of a medieval castle. It was truly something special, with its brick and stucco exterior studded with more turrets than the Tower of London. Most of the windows were so small they were better suited for shooting arrows at your enemy than for letting light in. The structure was set back from the road by a long brick-paved driveway, and its anterior portion was nestled up against a wooded grove that wrapped around to the back of Benny’s house and beyond. I wondered how it could be that only one family lived there.

  Saturday, July 23, 1966, promised to be a special day. It was the fortieth birthday of Benny’s dad, and the Friedmans had hired my band, the Timekeepers, for the occasion. The birthday party would be our first actual gig. We were a relatively new group who had formed four months earlier to audition for the Niles West High School talent show. Although we failed to pass muster, we decided to keep the group going anyway—after convincing ourselves that we should have been chosen, and that with better amplifiers, we could be pretty damn good.

  Now that we had the new amps, I was especially excited about having this opportunity for our debut performance—and getting paid too. Since the party was outdoors and the backyard patio would be our stage, I was also enthused at the idea of playing in such close proximity to the fortress across the street. I figured that whoever lived there had to be rich. Benny still hadn’t met his neighbors, but I was hoping that once the music started up, they might be drawn outside to listen. Who knew? Given their obvious wealth, maybe they had connections to the entertainment industry.

  That Saturday morning dawned hot and humid in tranquil Lincolnwood. I borrowed my mom’s ’59 Chevy Bel Air to make the five-minute drive to Benny’s, arriving about three o’clock so I could help Benny and his parents set up for the party. The festivities weren’t scheduled to begin until seven, but I brought along my Gibson electric guitar and Fender amp to save myself an extra trip later on.

  When I pulled up, June, Benny’s mom, was in the front yard, tying helium-filled balloons emblazoned with the number 40 to their mailbox. I’d always called her June since the second grade, when Benny and I had become best friends. She was a beautiful, exotic-looking woman, with elliptical brown eyes and high cheekbones. I wondered, as I looked at her, how Benny had turned out to be so ordinary looking.

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sp; I lumbered out of the car carrying my equipment, and when she saw me, she let out a loud hoot in the direction of the house. “Benny, David’s here,” she called. “Come and help him with his equipment.”

  She was just finishing with the balloons as I approached. Wiping the perspiration from her forehead, she said, “I hope the weather isn’t going to be a problem. After all this work, it would really be a shame if the heat keeps anyone away.”

  Suddenly Benny came bounding out from behind the house. He was about five feet nine and a little portly. I noticed his nipples jiggling through the cotton T-shirt as he ran. My best friend seemed to have missed out on the adolescent dose of testosterone that had slimmed down the bodies of most of our male contemporaries, me included. He was a little bit girly and somewhat immature for his age in other ways. His voice retained the same high pitch it had the first day I met him; and when he spoke, he always gestured with his arms and hands—a lot—like he was conducting a symphony orchestra.

  “This is going to be a great night,” he announced excitedly. “I can’t wait to hear what you guys sound like out in the open—and with the new amps.”

  Benny had become the de facto manager of our rock band. He’d witnessed our failed audition for the school talent show and berated us for the imbalance in our sound, claiming that the instruments had drowned out our vocals. He’d show up for our rehearsals at the house of our drummer, Craig Goldstein, and ultimately made himself responsible for the seamless operation of our emerging sound system, with its regalia of wires, amps, and input jacks. Benny may not have inherited his mother’s exceptional good looks, but he clearly possessed his father’s flair for electronics.

  As we headed toward the back of the house, Benny carried my amp, while I still held on to my guitar. There his father, Steve, the birthday boy, was three rungs up on a stepladder, stringing lights among the overhanging tree branches that bordered the yard. He noticed my arrival as Benny and I were unloading the equipment onto the patio.

  “Hi, David,” he shouted, almost losing his balance when he glanced over at us. “It seems like today will be a hot one.”