The Question of the Absentee Father Read online

  Copyright Information

  The Question of the Absentee Father: An Asperger’s Mystery © 2017 by E.J. Copperman and Jeff Cohen.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2017

  E-book ISBN: 9780738753058

  Book format by Cassie Kanzenbach

  Cover design by Ellen Lawson

  Cover illustrations by James Steinberg / Gerald & Cullen Rapp

  Editing by Nicole Nugent

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Copperman, E. J., author. | Cohen, Jeffrey, author.

  Title: The question of the absentee father : an Asperger’s mystery / E.J.

  Copperman, Jeff Cohen.

  Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Midnight Ink, [2017] |

  Series: An asperger’s mystery ; #4 | Description based on print version

  record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017012763 (print) | LCCN 2017022006 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780738753058 () | ISBN 9780738750798 (softcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Asperger’s syndrome—Patients—Fiction. | Missing

  persons—Investigation—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3603.O358 (ebook) | LCC PS3603.O358 Q43 2017 (print) |

  DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017012763

  Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

  Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

  Midnight Ink

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  2143 Wooddale Drive

  Woodbury, MN 55125

  www.midnightinkbooks.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  To the good people of the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, who have kept at least one of us alive.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s always difficult to split up the work when collaborating, especially when Cohen insists he does almost all the writing (no you don’t, Jeff!), but it’s not the authors who are the unsung heroes here. They’re sung plenty.

  Those whose names don’t appear on the cover do their jobs beautifully and deserve some credit for that. So thanks to the wonderful Terri Bischoff, who literally (and we mean that literally) made it possible for you to meet Samuel & Co. It’s always a joy to send the manuscript off to Terri because we know she enjoys seeing what the gang is up to this time. And occasionally she lets us write a book where nobody gets killed.

  Nicole Nugent, who oversees the editing of the book (by overseeing, we mean she does the editing of the book), turns what we write into something you can read without wondering what those two maniacs might be talking about. You’re invaluable, Nicole, and we appreciate it.

  Of course we are crazy about our agent, Josh Getzler, and all at HSG Agency, who see to it that we can afford to keep doing this for a living. Your enthusiasm and your sincere care for the work take you beyond the realm of “agent” and into the area of “friend,” and we can’t say enough about that.

  Thanks to Cassie Kanzenbach, who did the book format, to Ellen Lawson for the cover design (we are hopeless with cover ideas and always knocked out by the final artwork) and to James Steinberg/Gerald & Cullen Rapp for the illustrations on the cover. Thanks so much for making the books look good enough to interest a browser in a store. If they pick it up because it looks so good, that’s on you and we are very grateful.

  Reviewers who have been kind to us: You make a dreary day brighter. Reviewers who think we could do better: We can’t possibly say you’re wrong, and hope to improve with each try.

  To all readers, everywhere, who have ever read one of our books: You are the reason we do this. It ain’t easy to sit in a room and make something up out of thin air. The idea that there are those who actually get some enjoyment out of the final product is what keeps us going. You have our eternal thanks.

  —E.J. Copperman and Jeff Cohen

  July 2017

  one

  A letter arrived in the daily mail.

  It is not my custom to retrieve the mail from the box at the front door of the home I share with my mother because I work in my office at Questions Answered every day and am usually not home when the mail arrives. Mother most often brings it into the house, but it had been raining hard in the afternoon when the postal carrier had visited our home and Mother had not wanted to open the front door to get the mail. She does not like the rain to come into the house over the front door threshold.

  Knowing this, I had diverted from my usual path upon arriving home that evening. Typically I will walk to the back door and enter through the kitchen when my friend Mike the taxicab driver or (as tonight) my associate Ms. Washburn pulls the car into the driveway to drop me off. I own a driver’s license but I do not often drive a vehicle. My experiences in doing so have proven me too nervous a driver to be a reliable or safe one.

  It had stopped raining. Ms. Washburn waved to me as she backed her Kia Spectra out of the driveway. I decided to walk up the front steps and retrieve the mail.

  Inside the box, which is hung on the front wall of the house a few feet from the door, were two invoices, one from the utility provider and one from the bank holding mother’s only credit card. I pay cash for every purchase I make because I prefer not to owe anyone money and because I do not wish to have records made of my financial transactions without my consent or knowledge regarding the use of that information.

  There was also a letter, addressed to Mother, the address handwritten in a decipherable but careless scrawl. The envelope clearly held just one or two sheets of paper, given the weight. But considering the rules of style established for mailing items in the United States and most other countries, the envelope was missing a vital element.

  It bore no return address.

  Surely it was odd that the person who had gone to some lengths to send Mother a letter was taking a great risk in leaving off an address to which it could be returned in case of a Postal Service error or if Mother had chosen to change her place of residence. But whoever the correspondent was, he or she had made the choice consciously—there was no sign of a label having been removed or a stamp having not been pressed sufficiently to be legible. The envelope, other than the stamp and postma
rk, Mother’s name and address, was clean.

  This was an interesting curiosity but not a cause for great concern. I opened the front door and walked into the living room. Since the rain had ended I had not been called upon to use my umbrella, so I placed it carefully in the stand Mother had placed near the front door to prevent wet umbrellas dripping on the carpet.

  I found her in the kitchen and she seemed briefly startled to see me. “Oh, Samuel! I was expecting you to come in through the back,” she said, pointing at the kitchen door despite my understanding what she had meant.

  Walking in after hanging my jacket on a hook in the mudroom just to the side of the back door, I explained my reasoning and showed Mother the letter I’d found in the mailbox.

  She wiped her hands with a dishtowel. Clearly Mother had been cooking and probably just washed her hands in the sink. I had arrived at 5:55 p.m., as I almost always do, meaning dinner was thirty-five minutes away. I noted the oven was on and something was inside it.

  Mother took the letter from my hand. I placed the two invoices in a letter rack Mother keeps on a table next to the far counter. Then I turned back in her direction and was concerned with what I saw.

  She had paled considerably and was not breathing in, as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She sat down on a kitchen chair and placed the letter carefully in front of her on the kitchen table.

  “Oh my,” Mother breathed after she seemed to collect herself.

  “What is it?” I walked to her side to evaluate her condition. Mother was starting to get color back into her face and her breathing had become regular. “What is wrong?”

  “I was just surprised, that’s all,” Mother said. “I hadn’t been expecting a letter. Would you hand me the letter opener, please?”

  That was unusual in its own right. Mother rarely uses the stiletto-styled letter opener she keeps next to the rack on the table. She normally tears an envelope open using the nail on her index finger. There seemed to be something special about this particular piece of mail, but I could not yet determine what it was.

  I walked back to the table and retrieved the letter opener, which I handed to Mother. “Thank you, Samuel,” she said. I saw her carefully manipulate the blade underneath the back flap on the envelope and then open it slowly as if to best preserve the paper and prevent damage to the contents. I had never seen her take such care in opening mail in my life.

  “Do you know the handwriting on the envelope?” I asked. “Who do you think sent that letter?”

  “I don’t know.” She answered quickly, more so than she usually speaks. It was curious. In most people such a tone could indicate the speaker was lying, but this was Mother. She always tells me the truth.

  She extracted two pieces of paper, which appeared to be from a lined notebook similar to those students use to take class notes, from the envelope. Mother unfolded the two pages and smoothed them out on the table. Then she took a deep breath and began to read.

  I live with my mother because I consider her a good friend and because she understands me when most people do not. But under circumstances like these I consider it her right to be given privacy, so I stepped out of the kitchen and went upstairs to my apartment in the attic. I realized the letter Mother was reading clearly had some kind of significance for her. If I were absorbing that kind of information, I would want to be left alone.

  Of course, my instincts about people’s behavior are not always reliable. It was equally possible Mother would prefer me to be in the room while she read the letter. Because her response appeared to be emotionally, and not empirically, based, I could not assume my assessment was accurate. I considered calling Ms. Washburn to obtain her perspective but she was undoubtedly still driving. I do not phone people when I know them to be operating a vehicle because the statistics prove conclusively that such distractions lead to a higher incidence of collisions.

  I spent the next twenty minutes researching a question Ms. Washburn and I had been endeavoring to answer regarding a kitchen blender, two tomatoes, and an orangutan. The question was not especially difficult, but it required rather arcane information usually found in medical journals and it had been unusually time-consuming. I knew I would not answer it before dinner, but I could make some headway.

  Questions Answered is a business I opened based on Mother’s suggestion as a way to best utilize my talents for research. Mother had felt that instead of researching topics to satisfy my own curiosity, I could better monetize my ability and help others by accepting questions from clients. Mother had mentioned something about being a force of help for those with problems. I wasn’t sure about that part, but the fees I could charge—and Mother’s insistence that I get out of the attic for part of every weekday—were persuasive.

  I found an open storefront on Stelton Road in Piscataway, a very short drive and manageable walk (in good weather) from my home. The previous business, San Remo’s Pizzeria, had moved out more than a year before so the rental rate was fairly negotiable. Mother had handled the transaction, having been a legal secretary for many years after my father had left the family when I was very young.

  The business required little renovation, so I’d been up and running with a desk, a telephone, wireless Internet, and two chairs—one for me and one for my mother when she visited the office—for six months before Ms. Washburn had come in as a potential client and ended up assisting ably on the Question of the Missing Head. It had taken some time and a generous amount of persuasion on my part, but she had eventually agreed to stay on at the business and was now a trusted associate at Questions Answered.

  She had also recently kissed me, but that was another issue.

  Mother does not climb the stairs to my apartment. She has had knee issues and what doctors have told me was a heart “episode” in the past and does not want to test her legs or her cardiovascular system by climbing two flights of stairs. There was no need to call me to dinner, anyway. People like me whose behavior is consistent with a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome are often very good at being punctual. We prefer things to be ordered and predictable. Surprises are not welcome. So doing things at the same time every day is a comforting feature that I try to exercise whenever possible. Dinner, Mother knew, was at 6:30 every evening unless there were special circumstances. Tonight there were no such abnormalities.

  I walked downstairs to the kitchen precisely at dinnertime after having obtained one important piece of information—the shirt size of the average orangutan—related to the question at hand. Ms. Washburn would no doubt have put the question out of her mind until the next day’s open of business, a talent I sometimes wished I could emulate. But my mind does not shut down at my command; it continues to mull over a question whether I intend to do so or not.

  Mother was not in the kitchen when I arrived, which I had not expected. I checked the oven and saw it was still operating, so I took two potholders from the hook on the side cabinet and opened the oven door. Inside was a lasagna, which was clearly for Mother. On a lower shelf were a turkey leg and a baked potato, which were for me. I prefer foods that are separate and not placed together in layers.

  I took the two dishes out of the oven and placed them on trivets we keep on the counter next to the stove. I noticed the table was not set, so I took plates and utensils out of the proper cabinets and placed them on the table in the correct configurations. I was finding two drinking glasses in the second cabinet when Mother walked back into the kitchen.

  Her eyes had rings of red and were moist. Her hair was not disheveled but two locks were out of place and hanging over her forehead. She appeared to be biting her lips.

  I looked at her. “Would you like water or iced tea with dinner?” I asked.

  Mother closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled sharply. “Water.”

  “Fine,” I said. I filled the glasses with water from a pitcher kept in the refrigerator and put the pitcher onto the ta
ble. I cut a piece of the lasagna for Mother and put it on her plate, doing my best not to look at the cheese, meat, and pasta mingling. Then I served myself and sat down opposite Mother, who was sitting very still.

  “How was your day?” I asked, as I always do.

  “Samuel.” She stopped, reminded herself of something. “I have a question for you.”

  That was not a response to what I had asked so it took me a moment to process what she had said. “What is your question, Mother?”

  “Where is your father living now?”

  two

  I do not know much about my father.

  Reuben Hoenig left our family when I was four years old. Mother has told me little about him, but I suppose that is because I have not been interested in learning much. He was not involved in our lives and I have very little independent memory of him, so his absence was not something I felt deeply. It has been said that you can’t miss what you never had. My father is one of those things.

  On the rare occasions when the subject has been broached, Mother has defended Reuben Hoenig as a good but somewhat fragile man who had been presented with more in life than he was able to successfully manage. My suspicion is that I was the element he found most difficult to incorporate into his life. The divorce rate among parents whose children show behaviors that are classified as on the autism spectrum is quite high. However, a popular urban legend suggesting that 80 percent of couples whose children are considered to be “on the spectrum” divorce is a myth; the number is much lower than that.

  I had no opinion about Reuben Hoenig. I simply did not have enough reliable data to form one. Mother is a strong evaluator of personalities. I rely upon her often for assessments of those I meet or people involved in questions I have agreed to answer. But her judgment regarding Reuben Hoenig is not reliable strictly because it is certainly colored by emotion. She loved my father enough to marry him and have a child with him. The idea that she could be completely objective about him even in the context of his leaving is unrealistic.