The Man from Primrose Lane; A Novel

13

Transcript of The Man from Primrose Lane; A Novel

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 112

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 212

Sarah Crichton Books

Farrar Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street New York 10011

Copyright copy 2012 by James Renner

All rights reserved

Distributed in Canada by DampM Publishers Inc

Printed in the United States of America

First edition 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Renner James 1978ndash

The man from Primrose Lane James Renner mdash 1st ed

p cm

ISBN 978-0-374-20095-4 (alk paper) I Title

PS3618E5769M36 2012

8136mdashdc23

2011034948

Designed by Abby Kagan

wwwfsgbookscom

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

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David Neff missed a lot of things about his wife but the thing he missed

the most was the way she used to sit on couches leaning against one

giant pillow her knees tucked up against her chest her legs trailing be-hind her as she watched a Lifetime movie or some ridiculous reality show

He pointed out to her once before she died that no man ever sits on a

couch like that that it was a uniquely feminine trait It was a little thing

that delighted him He loved the carefree way she moved her feet to the

rhythm of the lights on the screen When he 1047297nally went through her

things two months after she was in the ground hersquod found a photograph

of her as a child curled up on her parentsrsquo sofa in the exact manner he

remembered Hersquod stuck the photo to the refrigerator It was still there

next to the over-outlined caricature drawings of their four-year-old boy

Like most Thursday afternoons David was on the living room 1047298oor

in front of the couchmdashher couchmdashwith a bowl of SpaghettiOs in his

lap a bag of Kettle Chips to his right watching an episode of SpongeBob

SquarePants hersquod seen 1047297ve times but TiVorsquod anyway The boy Tanner

napped upstairs

David was a once-handsome man who had grown pudgy around

the edges His dark hair hung too long above his eyes a bit too gray for

thirty-four Three-day-old stubble shaded his double chin A dollop of

EPISODE ONE

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DAVID NEFF

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

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12 JAMES RENNER

dried ketchup was smeared across the front of his shirt evidence of the

barely won battle that had been Tannerrsquos lunch

The room around David appeared to be the remnants of a livable

space that had been torn apart by some sort of laundry- and toy-1047297lledIED Every other week Tannerrsquos great-aunt came by and picked the boyrsquos

clothes off the mantel lamps and ceiling fan laundered them and re-

turned them folded to the boyrsquos bedroom dresser She collected the

broken robots into dustbins sorted stuffed frogs and Legos into their as-

sorted tubs and replaced the batteries in the boyrsquos plastic-ball shooter

and tiny grand piano It only took them two days to get the room out of

order again David didnrsquot mind the mess And neither did Tanner

Because his wifersquos death had been ruled a suicide her insurance hadnot paid out and David had not been able to work a single day since But

he and the boy didnrsquot need the money Royalties from Davidrsquos 1047297rst

bookmdashThe Serial Killerrsquos Proteacutegeacutemdashhad climbed to the seven-1047297gure mark

a couple years ago and sales remained strong thanks in part to a Roll-

ing Stone article that had forever labeled him as ldquothe best true crime

writer since Truman Capoterdquo David no longer kept track of how much

he had in the bank but he knew it was more than hersquod ever imagined

making in his life After his wifersquos death and until just a moment from right now David

had resigned himself to the fact that The Serial Killerrsquos Proteacutegeacute would

also be his only book and that that was okay because Tanner was alive

and he could live out the remainder of his days keeping his boy safe and

comfortable and happy

But then there was a knock at the front door

David wasnrsquot expecting company Tannerrsquos aunt wasnrsquot due for a few

days He assumed it was a neighborhood kid pushing school bandndashsale

candy so he ignored it But then the knock came again too loud to be

anything but an adult

He walked to the door and peered through the porthole There was a

man on his doorstep A thin man with wire-rim glasses and a ring of hair

circling a bald dome

Paul

David winced He didnrsquot want to see Paul He didnrsquot want to talk to

Paul It was Paulrsquos fault that he wasnrsquot able to grieve the way he sometimes

felt he deservedmdashin a penniless gutter with other heartbroken souls

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

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THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 13

Paul Sheppard was his publisher the man who had read Davidrsquos pro-

posal for a book based on notes left behind by convicted killer Ronil

Brune and recognized a modicum of talent Before The Serial Killerrsquos

Proteacutegeacute Paul had been an exclusively local publisher the sort that shippedglossy copies of Cleveland Steelworker Memories and Clevelandrsquos Haunted

History to local indie bookstores Today he kept an of1047297ce in Manhattan

Reluctantly David opened the door

ldquoHersquos aliverdquo Paul shouted raising his arms in the air like Dr Fran-

kenstein

ldquoShhhh Yoursquoll wake the kidrdquo he said He motioned for Paul to

come in

ldquoSorryrdquo Stepping into the main room Paul shook his head andwhistled ldquoI saw this documentary on Discovery the other dayrdquo he said

ldquoIt was about this woman who lives in Manhattan and shersquos this ridicu-

lous pack rat and never throws anything away She had this path carved

out in clutter she could use to get to the bathroom and kitchenrdquo

ldquoYeahrdquo prodded David

ldquoYoursquore like this far away from becoming that womanrdquo he said ldquoHer

family had her committed you knowrdquo

ldquoThank God yoursquore not my family Paulrdquo he said smiling a littleldquoDonrsquot sit on thatrdquo He jumped to the recliner over which Paul was squat-

ting and batted away yesterdayrsquos Beacon Journal Underneath was a plastic

dish that had once held a microwavable Salisbury steak dinner David

tossed it to the far corner of the room where it landed next to a waste-

basket ldquoI wasnrsquot expecting companyrdquo

ldquoI left you twenty messages The only reason I knew you werenrsquot

dead is you keep depositing my checksrdquo

Paul sat on the chair as David collapsed on the sofa sending a mostly

empty biggie-sized soda tumbling to the 1047298oor ldquoIt is nice to see yourdquo

David said sincerely ldquoHowrsquos bizrdquo

ldquoYou knowrdquo said Paul making a seesaw gesture ldquoProteacutegeacute is still sell-

ing I think half the universities in the country are teaching it in their

journalism programs so that helps it move every semester I just signed

this new up-and-comer from Pittsburgh whose manuscript knocks me

outrdquo

ldquoItrsquos not a memoir is it Tell me itrsquos not another memoirrdquo

ldquoIn fact it is a memoir Itrsquos about an alcoholic steel smelter who went

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14 JAMES RENNER

to prison for grand theft and when he got out cleaned himself up by

slowly constructing a jet-powered semi truck in his garage It wouldnrsquot

kill you to blurb itrdquo

ldquoIs that why you came overrdquoldquoOf course notrdquo said Paul a thin smile playing at one corner of his

mouth From his sports jacket pocket the publisher pulled a bound gal-

ley of a book He tossed it to David who snatched it out of the air one-

handed

On the front was a grainy black-and-white picture of a grassy hill

soaked in summer heat Atop the hill sat a 1970s-era police cruiser its

driverrsquos-side door ajar Behind the car stretched a row of old-growth pine

trees gnarled branches like arthritic hands David knew this photo-graph Hersquod discovered it in fact tucked into a box labeled 983149983145983155983139983141983148983148983137-

983150983141983151983157983155 in the Press archives at Cleveland State It was a picture of a crime

scene an artifact of one of the many unsolved cases hersquod written about

before hersquod become completely obsessed with Ronil Brune The title of

the book was The Lesser Mysteries of Greater Cleveland At the bottom

was Davidrsquos name

ldquoWhatrsquos thisrdquo he asked

ldquoYour next bookrdquo said Paul ldquoThatrsquos just a mock-up but I wanted youto see it to feel the weight of it in your hands Itrsquos a good cover nordquo

ldquoItrsquos a great cover Paulrdquo he said ldquoOnly problem is I didnrsquot write

thisrdquo

ldquoYou did Itrsquos twelve of your best true crime articles from your Inde-

pendent days Beverly Jarosz Sam Sheppard Lisa Pruett I cleaned up

the language and moved things around a bit here and theremdashdonrsquot look

at me like that you were still learning dramatic narrative structure back

thenmdashand I put them all together into this little trade paperback Some-

thing for next summerrsquos beach crowd Irsquom thinking Something to tide

everyone over until the next David Neff bookrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot need the moneyrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot eitherrdquo

ldquoThen whyrdquo

Paul glanced around the room then back at David ldquoI think you

need something to remind you why you were ever a writer in the 1047297rst

placerdquo said Paul ldquoA little New England collegiate lecture tour Some

free publicity in the trades GroupiesrdquoldquoTrue crime groupies are mostly middle-aged women who look like

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

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THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 15

my high school home-ec teacherrdquo said David ldquoNobody wants to buy

a bunch of old stories Anyone who wanted to read them has read them

online alreadyrdquo

ldquoAhrdquo said Paul raising a 1047297nger ldquoTheyrsquore not all reprints Check outthe table of contentsrdquo

ldquo lsquoThe Curious Case of the Man from Primrose Lanersquo rdquo

ldquoYour next projectrdquo said Paul ldquoItrsquos the next mystery yoursquore going to

investigate the new piece wersquoll use to market the bookrdquo

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane Never heard of him Who is herdquo

ldquoGeez David Donrsquot you read the paper anymorerdquo Paul regarded

his friend silently for a moment studying his features perhaps to dis-

cern if there was any trace of the old David Neff in there someplaceldquoYou used to be the eternal optimistrdquo he said ldquoYou thought you could

solve all of these mysteries rememberrdquo

ldquoHowrsquod that work outrdquo

ldquoAre you fucking blind Look around you What paid for this house

These toys The Volkswagen in the garage Your four-year-old sonrsquos trust

fund You solved the Ronil Brune case The most fucked-up case any-

body ever heard ofrdquo

ldquoIrsquom just a dad nowrdquoldquoFour years is long enough to live in the dark You told me once that

you never felt better than when you were writing these articles and re-

searching these cases This is a new mystery to dive intordquo

ldquoA little ironic donrsquot you thinkrdquo asked David ldquoYou want to pull me

out of my depression by making me investigate some unsolved murderrdquo

ldquoTherersquos no dead kids in this one At least not murdered onesrdquo

ldquoThat you know ofrdquo

ldquoDo you want to hear about itrdquo

David rubbed his hands together distractedly Was he already feel-

ing a little rush His heart stutter-stepped in his chest His neck itched

Yes he remembered this well A jonesing a craving for something he

knew he shouldnrsquot accept He imagined it was the way his mother must

feel every time she saw a waiter pour a glass of wine in a restaurant

This was what almost ruined his marriage once upon a time ldquoYesrdquo he

whispered

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane was a recluse who lived on the west

side of Akron only about a mile from here off MerrimanrdquoldquoRight I know Primrose Wait Are you talking about the old man

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

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16 JAMES RENNER

who used to ramble down to the park in the middle of the summer

sometimes wearing mittensrdquo

ldquoI believe so yesrdquo

ldquoI saw him a few times after we moved here Strange dude Walkedlike he had somewhere important to go except I never saw him anywhere

except walking Never at the store or in line for Chinese takeout or stuff

like that Never made eye contact Gave me the heebie-jeebies I always

thought he looked a little like my Uncle Ira on a bender Hersquos dead I

take itrdquo

ldquoMurderedrdquo

ldquoHow could someone have a grudge against him if he didnrsquot know

anybody Was it a burglaryrdquoldquoDoesnrsquot look like it It seems personal Whoever did it hacked the

old manrsquos 1047297ngers off at the second knuckle and fed them into the blender

Sliced his palms to shreds Then he was dragged into the living room

and shot once in the stomach Killer left him there to die As much as

they can 1047297gure it took maybe a half hour for him to bleed out The old

man was forced to sit there and let it happenrdquo

ldquoHoly shit When was thisrdquo

Paul repositioned himself in the chair suddenly uncomfortable ldquoTheyfound the manrsquos body on June twenty-1047297rstrdquo he said ldquoJune twenty-1047297rst

2008rdquo

ldquoTwo days after Elizabethrdquo

Paul nodded again

ldquoNo wonder I didnrsquot hear about itrdquo David sighed loudly then shook

his head ldquoSuspectsrdquo

ldquoThe police are clueless and I mean that quite literallyrdquo

ldquoWhat was the guyrsquos real namerdquo

ldquoWellrdquo said Paul with a smile ldquothatrsquos where it gets interesting When

he purchased his house in 1969 he used the Social Security number of

a man named Joseph Howard King but that isnrsquot who he really wasrdquo

ldquoWhat do you meanrdquo

ldquoA year after they 1047297nd the body the police get a call from the bank

Turns out this guy had about seven hundred grand in a savings account

and another three and a half million in stocks and bonds Using the

name Joseph Howard King he invested heavily in technologymdash Apple

Google stuff like that But the bank canrsquot 1047297nd his next of kin right Sothey call the cops for help By then though the detectives have been

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

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THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 17

working the case for a year and they havenrsquot found this guyrsquos family

either A probate judge gets involved because of the money I mean some-

bodyrsquos going to collect a big paycheck as soon as they 1047297gure out who it

should go tordquoldquoThat moneyrsquos probably the motiverdquo said David ldquoFour million dol-

lars means four million reasons to kill him if yoursquore an heirrdquo

ldquoRight Except no family has come forward to claim it So this judge

appoints a man named Albert Beachum as executor of the estate Appar-

ently Beachumrsquos family had been running errands for the Man from

Primrose Lane for years He allows Beachum to draw money from the

account to relocate the guyrsquos remains from his pauperrsquos grave to a bigger

plot in Mount Peace Cemetery And when Beachum says lsquoScrew thepolice I want to hire a private eye to track this manrsquos family downrsquo the

judge says lsquoFinersquo and lets him pay for his own investigator The PI uses

Joseph Howard Kingrsquos Social Security number to get his birth certi1047297-

cate That has the guyrsquos parentsrsquo names and the name of the hospital

where he was born So the PI goes and pulls the records from the hospi-

tal in the years leading up to and following Kingrsquos birthrdquo

ldquoHe found Joseph Howard Kingrsquos siblingsrdquo

Paul touched his nose with one 1047297nger and pointed at David ldquoBingo Another kid named King with the same parents was born two years

earlier at the same hospital Itrsquos the guyrsquos sister Carol So the PIrsquos really

excited right Hersquos about to call this woman up and tell her she just hit

the lottery Except when he does Carol tells him that her brother Joe

has been dead since 1932 Died in a car crash in Bellefonte Pennsylvania

at the age of six The crash also killed Mom and Dad Carol was at home

with the babysitterrdquo

ldquoHe stole a dead kidrsquos ID and disappeared to Akron Ohiordquo said

David his eyes wide and slightly unfocused the look of a stoner in the

afterglow of a good hit ldquoYou know I bet he came from Bellefonte He

probably read about the accident in the paper and remembered it years

later when he needed to change his name for whatever reason What are

they going to do with the money nowrdquo

ldquoEveryone is 1047297ghting over it Carol wants it of course Figures since

this mystery man stole her brotherrsquos ID she has some right to it She has

a pretty big-time attorney working for her The Beachums seem like nice

people but theyrsquove got a hand in this too and have retained their ownlawyer On top of that you have the Summit County executive and the

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18 JAMES RENNER

mayor staking claim Law says if you canrsquot 1047297nd next of kin money goes

to the state but the city and county want a piece of it toordquo

ldquoAnd the policerdquo

ldquoThe police havenrsquot said peep And therersquos one more twist to thisjust to complicate the picturerdquo

ldquoOf course there isrdquo

ldquoAmong the old manrsquos very scant personal effects were a bunch of bat-

tered notebooksrdquo

David leaned forward ldquoAnd inside the notebooksrdquo

ldquoInside is the life story of a girl he apparently never met a record of

every softball game she played in every award of merit she won in school

every boyfriend every minor traf1047297c ticket All the details of her life werecollected in these notebooks in scrawled handwriting they can only as-

sume belongs to the Man from Primrose Lanerdquo

ldquoHe was a stalker huhrdquo

ldquoOf the highest degreerdquo

ldquoAnd this girl shersquos going after the money too I take itrdquo asked

David

Paul shook his head ldquoNope She couldnrsquot care less Which is a shame

because those notebooks are like love letters in places Obviously theold man cared a great deal for the girl sorry young woman in his own

twisted way He never names her as his bene1047297ciary but almost implies

well yoursquoll have to read the newspaper clippingsrdquo

David sat on the couch staring into the air above the television

Periodically he scratched at the stubble on his boyish face Eventually

his eyes settled on a picture of Tanner resting on the mantel The boy

was about two in the photograph his shaggy hair whipping about in the

wind pulling out over the ocean behind him

ldquoItrsquos a good storyrdquo he said at last

ldquoI knowrdquo

ldquoSounds like itrsquos been mostly reported thoughrdquo

Paul waved his hand in the air ldquoItrsquos been reported but it hasnrsquot been

written And therersquos still plenty mystery for you Who killed him who he

really was why he was stalking this girl rdquo

ldquoI appreciate what yoursquore trying to dordquo said David ldquoAnd if I was

ready to start writing again this would be about the perfect case But I

canrsquotrdquoldquoWhyrdquo

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THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

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20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 212

Sarah Crichton Books

Farrar Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street New York 10011

Copyright copy 2012 by James Renner

All rights reserved

Distributed in Canada by DampM Publishers Inc

Printed in the United States of America

First edition 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Renner James 1978ndash

The man from Primrose Lane James Renner mdash 1st ed

p cm

ISBN 978-0-374-20095-4 (alk paper) I Title

PS3618E5769M36 2012

8136mdashdc23

2011034948

Designed by Abby Kagan

wwwfsgbookscom

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 312

David Neff missed a lot of things about his wife but the thing he missed

the most was the way she used to sit on couches leaning against one

giant pillow her knees tucked up against her chest her legs trailing be-hind her as she watched a Lifetime movie or some ridiculous reality show

He pointed out to her once before she died that no man ever sits on a

couch like that that it was a uniquely feminine trait It was a little thing

that delighted him He loved the carefree way she moved her feet to the

rhythm of the lights on the screen When he 1047297nally went through her

things two months after she was in the ground hersquod found a photograph

of her as a child curled up on her parentsrsquo sofa in the exact manner he

remembered Hersquod stuck the photo to the refrigerator It was still there

next to the over-outlined caricature drawings of their four-year-old boy

Like most Thursday afternoons David was on the living room 1047298oor

in front of the couchmdashher couchmdashwith a bowl of SpaghettiOs in his

lap a bag of Kettle Chips to his right watching an episode of SpongeBob

SquarePants hersquod seen 1047297ve times but TiVorsquod anyway The boy Tanner

napped upstairs

David was a once-handsome man who had grown pudgy around

the edges His dark hair hung too long above his eyes a bit too gray for

thirty-four Three-day-old stubble shaded his double chin A dollop of

EPISODE ONE

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DAVID NEFF

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 412

12 JAMES RENNER

dried ketchup was smeared across the front of his shirt evidence of the

barely won battle that had been Tannerrsquos lunch

The room around David appeared to be the remnants of a livable

space that had been torn apart by some sort of laundry- and toy-1047297lledIED Every other week Tannerrsquos great-aunt came by and picked the boyrsquos

clothes off the mantel lamps and ceiling fan laundered them and re-

turned them folded to the boyrsquos bedroom dresser She collected the

broken robots into dustbins sorted stuffed frogs and Legos into their as-

sorted tubs and replaced the batteries in the boyrsquos plastic-ball shooter

and tiny grand piano It only took them two days to get the room out of

order again David didnrsquot mind the mess And neither did Tanner

Because his wifersquos death had been ruled a suicide her insurance hadnot paid out and David had not been able to work a single day since But

he and the boy didnrsquot need the money Royalties from Davidrsquos 1047297rst

bookmdashThe Serial Killerrsquos Proteacutegeacutemdashhad climbed to the seven-1047297gure mark

a couple years ago and sales remained strong thanks in part to a Roll-

ing Stone article that had forever labeled him as ldquothe best true crime

writer since Truman Capoterdquo David no longer kept track of how much

he had in the bank but he knew it was more than hersquod ever imagined

making in his life After his wifersquos death and until just a moment from right now David

had resigned himself to the fact that The Serial Killerrsquos Proteacutegeacute would

also be his only book and that that was okay because Tanner was alive

and he could live out the remainder of his days keeping his boy safe and

comfortable and happy

But then there was a knock at the front door

David wasnrsquot expecting company Tannerrsquos aunt wasnrsquot due for a few

days He assumed it was a neighborhood kid pushing school bandndashsale

candy so he ignored it But then the knock came again too loud to be

anything but an adult

He walked to the door and peered through the porthole There was a

man on his doorstep A thin man with wire-rim glasses and a ring of hair

circling a bald dome

Paul

David winced He didnrsquot want to see Paul He didnrsquot want to talk to

Paul It was Paulrsquos fault that he wasnrsquot able to grieve the way he sometimes

felt he deservedmdashin a penniless gutter with other heartbroken souls

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 512

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 13

Paul Sheppard was his publisher the man who had read Davidrsquos pro-

posal for a book based on notes left behind by convicted killer Ronil

Brune and recognized a modicum of talent Before The Serial Killerrsquos

Proteacutegeacute Paul had been an exclusively local publisher the sort that shippedglossy copies of Cleveland Steelworker Memories and Clevelandrsquos Haunted

History to local indie bookstores Today he kept an of1047297ce in Manhattan

Reluctantly David opened the door

ldquoHersquos aliverdquo Paul shouted raising his arms in the air like Dr Fran-

kenstein

ldquoShhhh Yoursquoll wake the kidrdquo he said He motioned for Paul to

come in

ldquoSorryrdquo Stepping into the main room Paul shook his head andwhistled ldquoI saw this documentary on Discovery the other dayrdquo he said

ldquoIt was about this woman who lives in Manhattan and shersquos this ridicu-

lous pack rat and never throws anything away She had this path carved

out in clutter she could use to get to the bathroom and kitchenrdquo

ldquoYeahrdquo prodded David

ldquoYoursquore like this far away from becoming that womanrdquo he said ldquoHer

family had her committed you knowrdquo

ldquoThank God yoursquore not my family Paulrdquo he said smiling a littleldquoDonrsquot sit on thatrdquo He jumped to the recliner over which Paul was squat-

ting and batted away yesterdayrsquos Beacon Journal Underneath was a plastic

dish that had once held a microwavable Salisbury steak dinner David

tossed it to the far corner of the room where it landed next to a waste-

basket ldquoI wasnrsquot expecting companyrdquo

ldquoI left you twenty messages The only reason I knew you werenrsquot

dead is you keep depositing my checksrdquo

Paul sat on the chair as David collapsed on the sofa sending a mostly

empty biggie-sized soda tumbling to the 1047298oor ldquoIt is nice to see yourdquo

David said sincerely ldquoHowrsquos bizrdquo

ldquoYou knowrdquo said Paul making a seesaw gesture ldquoProteacutegeacute is still sell-

ing I think half the universities in the country are teaching it in their

journalism programs so that helps it move every semester I just signed

this new up-and-comer from Pittsburgh whose manuscript knocks me

outrdquo

ldquoItrsquos not a memoir is it Tell me itrsquos not another memoirrdquo

ldquoIn fact it is a memoir Itrsquos about an alcoholic steel smelter who went

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 612

14 JAMES RENNER

to prison for grand theft and when he got out cleaned himself up by

slowly constructing a jet-powered semi truck in his garage It wouldnrsquot

kill you to blurb itrdquo

ldquoIs that why you came overrdquoldquoOf course notrdquo said Paul a thin smile playing at one corner of his

mouth From his sports jacket pocket the publisher pulled a bound gal-

ley of a book He tossed it to David who snatched it out of the air one-

handed

On the front was a grainy black-and-white picture of a grassy hill

soaked in summer heat Atop the hill sat a 1970s-era police cruiser its

driverrsquos-side door ajar Behind the car stretched a row of old-growth pine

trees gnarled branches like arthritic hands David knew this photo-graph Hersquod discovered it in fact tucked into a box labeled 983149983145983155983139983141983148983148983137-

983150983141983151983157983155 in the Press archives at Cleveland State It was a picture of a crime

scene an artifact of one of the many unsolved cases hersquod written about

before hersquod become completely obsessed with Ronil Brune The title of

the book was The Lesser Mysteries of Greater Cleveland At the bottom

was Davidrsquos name

ldquoWhatrsquos thisrdquo he asked

ldquoYour next bookrdquo said Paul ldquoThatrsquos just a mock-up but I wanted youto see it to feel the weight of it in your hands Itrsquos a good cover nordquo

ldquoItrsquos a great cover Paulrdquo he said ldquoOnly problem is I didnrsquot write

thisrdquo

ldquoYou did Itrsquos twelve of your best true crime articles from your Inde-

pendent days Beverly Jarosz Sam Sheppard Lisa Pruett I cleaned up

the language and moved things around a bit here and theremdashdonrsquot look

at me like that you were still learning dramatic narrative structure back

thenmdashand I put them all together into this little trade paperback Some-

thing for next summerrsquos beach crowd Irsquom thinking Something to tide

everyone over until the next David Neff bookrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot need the moneyrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot eitherrdquo

ldquoThen whyrdquo

Paul glanced around the room then back at David ldquoI think you

need something to remind you why you were ever a writer in the 1047297rst

placerdquo said Paul ldquoA little New England collegiate lecture tour Some

free publicity in the trades GroupiesrdquoldquoTrue crime groupies are mostly middle-aged women who look like

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 712

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 15

my high school home-ec teacherrdquo said David ldquoNobody wants to buy

a bunch of old stories Anyone who wanted to read them has read them

online alreadyrdquo

ldquoAhrdquo said Paul raising a 1047297nger ldquoTheyrsquore not all reprints Check outthe table of contentsrdquo

ldquo lsquoThe Curious Case of the Man from Primrose Lanersquo rdquo

ldquoYour next projectrdquo said Paul ldquoItrsquos the next mystery yoursquore going to

investigate the new piece wersquoll use to market the bookrdquo

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane Never heard of him Who is herdquo

ldquoGeez David Donrsquot you read the paper anymorerdquo Paul regarded

his friend silently for a moment studying his features perhaps to dis-

cern if there was any trace of the old David Neff in there someplaceldquoYou used to be the eternal optimistrdquo he said ldquoYou thought you could

solve all of these mysteries rememberrdquo

ldquoHowrsquod that work outrdquo

ldquoAre you fucking blind Look around you What paid for this house

These toys The Volkswagen in the garage Your four-year-old sonrsquos trust

fund You solved the Ronil Brune case The most fucked-up case any-

body ever heard ofrdquo

ldquoIrsquom just a dad nowrdquoldquoFour years is long enough to live in the dark You told me once that

you never felt better than when you were writing these articles and re-

searching these cases This is a new mystery to dive intordquo

ldquoA little ironic donrsquot you thinkrdquo asked David ldquoYou want to pull me

out of my depression by making me investigate some unsolved murderrdquo

ldquoTherersquos no dead kids in this one At least not murdered onesrdquo

ldquoThat you know ofrdquo

ldquoDo you want to hear about itrdquo

David rubbed his hands together distractedly Was he already feel-

ing a little rush His heart stutter-stepped in his chest His neck itched

Yes he remembered this well A jonesing a craving for something he

knew he shouldnrsquot accept He imagined it was the way his mother must

feel every time she saw a waiter pour a glass of wine in a restaurant

This was what almost ruined his marriage once upon a time ldquoYesrdquo he

whispered

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane was a recluse who lived on the west

side of Akron only about a mile from here off MerrimanrdquoldquoRight I know Primrose Wait Are you talking about the old man

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 812

16 JAMES RENNER

who used to ramble down to the park in the middle of the summer

sometimes wearing mittensrdquo

ldquoI believe so yesrdquo

ldquoI saw him a few times after we moved here Strange dude Walkedlike he had somewhere important to go except I never saw him anywhere

except walking Never at the store or in line for Chinese takeout or stuff

like that Never made eye contact Gave me the heebie-jeebies I always

thought he looked a little like my Uncle Ira on a bender Hersquos dead I

take itrdquo

ldquoMurderedrdquo

ldquoHow could someone have a grudge against him if he didnrsquot know

anybody Was it a burglaryrdquoldquoDoesnrsquot look like it It seems personal Whoever did it hacked the

old manrsquos 1047297ngers off at the second knuckle and fed them into the blender

Sliced his palms to shreds Then he was dragged into the living room

and shot once in the stomach Killer left him there to die As much as

they can 1047297gure it took maybe a half hour for him to bleed out The old

man was forced to sit there and let it happenrdquo

ldquoHoly shit When was thisrdquo

Paul repositioned himself in the chair suddenly uncomfortable ldquoTheyfound the manrsquos body on June twenty-1047297rstrdquo he said ldquoJune twenty-1047297rst

2008rdquo

ldquoTwo days after Elizabethrdquo

Paul nodded again

ldquoNo wonder I didnrsquot hear about itrdquo David sighed loudly then shook

his head ldquoSuspectsrdquo

ldquoThe police are clueless and I mean that quite literallyrdquo

ldquoWhat was the guyrsquos real namerdquo

ldquoWellrdquo said Paul with a smile ldquothatrsquos where it gets interesting When

he purchased his house in 1969 he used the Social Security number of

a man named Joseph Howard King but that isnrsquot who he really wasrdquo

ldquoWhat do you meanrdquo

ldquoA year after they 1047297nd the body the police get a call from the bank

Turns out this guy had about seven hundred grand in a savings account

and another three and a half million in stocks and bonds Using the

name Joseph Howard King he invested heavily in technologymdash Apple

Google stuff like that But the bank canrsquot 1047297nd his next of kin right Sothey call the cops for help By then though the detectives have been

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 912

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 17

working the case for a year and they havenrsquot found this guyrsquos family

either A probate judge gets involved because of the money I mean some-

bodyrsquos going to collect a big paycheck as soon as they 1047297gure out who it

should go tordquoldquoThat moneyrsquos probably the motiverdquo said David ldquoFour million dol-

lars means four million reasons to kill him if yoursquore an heirrdquo

ldquoRight Except no family has come forward to claim it So this judge

appoints a man named Albert Beachum as executor of the estate Appar-

ently Beachumrsquos family had been running errands for the Man from

Primrose Lane for years He allows Beachum to draw money from the

account to relocate the guyrsquos remains from his pauperrsquos grave to a bigger

plot in Mount Peace Cemetery And when Beachum says lsquoScrew thepolice I want to hire a private eye to track this manrsquos family downrsquo the

judge says lsquoFinersquo and lets him pay for his own investigator The PI uses

Joseph Howard Kingrsquos Social Security number to get his birth certi1047297-

cate That has the guyrsquos parentsrsquo names and the name of the hospital

where he was born So the PI goes and pulls the records from the hospi-

tal in the years leading up to and following Kingrsquos birthrdquo

ldquoHe found Joseph Howard Kingrsquos siblingsrdquo

Paul touched his nose with one 1047297nger and pointed at David ldquoBingo Another kid named King with the same parents was born two years

earlier at the same hospital Itrsquos the guyrsquos sister Carol So the PIrsquos really

excited right Hersquos about to call this woman up and tell her she just hit

the lottery Except when he does Carol tells him that her brother Joe

has been dead since 1932 Died in a car crash in Bellefonte Pennsylvania

at the age of six The crash also killed Mom and Dad Carol was at home

with the babysitterrdquo

ldquoHe stole a dead kidrsquos ID and disappeared to Akron Ohiordquo said

David his eyes wide and slightly unfocused the look of a stoner in the

afterglow of a good hit ldquoYou know I bet he came from Bellefonte He

probably read about the accident in the paper and remembered it years

later when he needed to change his name for whatever reason What are

they going to do with the money nowrdquo

ldquoEveryone is 1047297ghting over it Carol wants it of course Figures since

this mystery man stole her brotherrsquos ID she has some right to it She has

a pretty big-time attorney working for her The Beachums seem like nice

people but theyrsquove got a hand in this too and have retained their ownlawyer On top of that you have the Summit County executive and the

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1012

18 JAMES RENNER

mayor staking claim Law says if you canrsquot 1047297nd next of kin money goes

to the state but the city and county want a piece of it toordquo

ldquoAnd the policerdquo

ldquoThe police havenrsquot said peep And therersquos one more twist to thisjust to complicate the picturerdquo

ldquoOf course there isrdquo

ldquoAmong the old manrsquos very scant personal effects were a bunch of bat-

tered notebooksrdquo

David leaned forward ldquoAnd inside the notebooksrdquo

ldquoInside is the life story of a girl he apparently never met a record of

every softball game she played in every award of merit she won in school

every boyfriend every minor traf1047297c ticket All the details of her life werecollected in these notebooks in scrawled handwriting they can only as-

sume belongs to the Man from Primrose Lanerdquo

ldquoHe was a stalker huhrdquo

ldquoOf the highest degreerdquo

ldquoAnd this girl shersquos going after the money too I take itrdquo asked

David

Paul shook his head ldquoNope She couldnrsquot care less Which is a shame

because those notebooks are like love letters in places Obviously theold man cared a great deal for the girl sorry young woman in his own

twisted way He never names her as his bene1047297ciary but almost implies

well yoursquoll have to read the newspaper clippingsrdquo

David sat on the couch staring into the air above the television

Periodically he scratched at the stubble on his boyish face Eventually

his eyes settled on a picture of Tanner resting on the mantel The boy

was about two in the photograph his shaggy hair whipping about in the

wind pulling out over the ocean behind him

ldquoItrsquos a good storyrdquo he said at last

ldquoI knowrdquo

ldquoSounds like itrsquos been mostly reported thoughrdquo

Paul waved his hand in the air ldquoItrsquos been reported but it hasnrsquot been

written And therersquos still plenty mystery for you Who killed him who he

really was why he was stalking this girl rdquo

ldquoI appreciate what yoursquore trying to dordquo said David ldquoAnd if I was

ready to start writing again this would be about the perfect case But I

canrsquotrdquoldquoWhyrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1112

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 312

David Neff missed a lot of things about his wife but the thing he missed

the most was the way she used to sit on couches leaning against one

giant pillow her knees tucked up against her chest her legs trailing be-hind her as she watched a Lifetime movie or some ridiculous reality show

He pointed out to her once before she died that no man ever sits on a

couch like that that it was a uniquely feminine trait It was a little thing

that delighted him He loved the carefree way she moved her feet to the

rhythm of the lights on the screen When he 1047297nally went through her

things two months after she was in the ground hersquod found a photograph

of her as a child curled up on her parentsrsquo sofa in the exact manner he

remembered Hersquod stuck the photo to the refrigerator It was still there

next to the over-outlined caricature drawings of their four-year-old boy

Like most Thursday afternoons David was on the living room 1047298oor

in front of the couchmdashher couchmdashwith a bowl of SpaghettiOs in his

lap a bag of Kettle Chips to his right watching an episode of SpongeBob

SquarePants hersquod seen 1047297ve times but TiVorsquod anyway The boy Tanner

napped upstairs

David was a once-handsome man who had grown pudgy around

the edges His dark hair hung too long above his eyes a bit too gray for

thirty-four Three-day-old stubble shaded his double chin A dollop of

EPISODE ONE

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DAVID NEFF

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 412

12 JAMES RENNER

dried ketchup was smeared across the front of his shirt evidence of the

barely won battle that had been Tannerrsquos lunch

The room around David appeared to be the remnants of a livable

space that had been torn apart by some sort of laundry- and toy-1047297lledIED Every other week Tannerrsquos great-aunt came by and picked the boyrsquos

clothes off the mantel lamps and ceiling fan laundered them and re-

turned them folded to the boyrsquos bedroom dresser She collected the

broken robots into dustbins sorted stuffed frogs and Legos into their as-

sorted tubs and replaced the batteries in the boyrsquos plastic-ball shooter

and tiny grand piano It only took them two days to get the room out of

order again David didnrsquot mind the mess And neither did Tanner

Because his wifersquos death had been ruled a suicide her insurance hadnot paid out and David had not been able to work a single day since But

he and the boy didnrsquot need the money Royalties from Davidrsquos 1047297rst

bookmdashThe Serial Killerrsquos Proteacutegeacutemdashhad climbed to the seven-1047297gure mark

a couple years ago and sales remained strong thanks in part to a Roll-

ing Stone article that had forever labeled him as ldquothe best true crime

writer since Truman Capoterdquo David no longer kept track of how much

he had in the bank but he knew it was more than hersquod ever imagined

making in his life After his wifersquos death and until just a moment from right now David

had resigned himself to the fact that The Serial Killerrsquos Proteacutegeacute would

also be his only book and that that was okay because Tanner was alive

and he could live out the remainder of his days keeping his boy safe and

comfortable and happy

But then there was a knock at the front door

David wasnrsquot expecting company Tannerrsquos aunt wasnrsquot due for a few

days He assumed it was a neighborhood kid pushing school bandndashsale

candy so he ignored it But then the knock came again too loud to be

anything but an adult

He walked to the door and peered through the porthole There was a

man on his doorstep A thin man with wire-rim glasses and a ring of hair

circling a bald dome

Paul

David winced He didnrsquot want to see Paul He didnrsquot want to talk to

Paul It was Paulrsquos fault that he wasnrsquot able to grieve the way he sometimes

felt he deservedmdashin a penniless gutter with other heartbroken souls

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 512

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 13

Paul Sheppard was his publisher the man who had read Davidrsquos pro-

posal for a book based on notes left behind by convicted killer Ronil

Brune and recognized a modicum of talent Before The Serial Killerrsquos

Proteacutegeacute Paul had been an exclusively local publisher the sort that shippedglossy copies of Cleveland Steelworker Memories and Clevelandrsquos Haunted

History to local indie bookstores Today he kept an of1047297ce in Manhattan

Reluctantly David opened the door

ldquoHersquos aliverdquo Paul shouted raising his arms in the air like Dr Fran-

kenstein

ldquoShhhh Yoursquoll wake the kidrdquo he said He motioned for Paul to

come in

ldquoSorryrdquo Stepping into the main room Paul shook his head andwhistled ldquoI saw this documentary on Discovery the other dayrdquo he said

ldquoIt was about this woman who lives in Manhattan and shersquos this ridicu-

lous pack rat and never throws anything away She had this path carved

out in clutter she could use to get to the bathroom and kitchenrdquo

ldquoYeahrdquo prodded David

ldquoYoursquore like this far away from becoming that womanrdquo he said ldquoHer

family had her committed you knowrdquo

ldquoThank God yoursquore not my family Paulrdquo he said smiling a littleldquoDonrsquot sit on thatrdquo He jumped to the recliner over which Paul was squat-

ting and batted away yesterdayrsquos Beacon Journal Underneath was a plastic

dish that had once held a microwavable Salisbury steak dinner David

tossed it to the far corner of the room where it landed next to a waste-

basket ldquoI wasnrsquot expecting companyrdquo

ldquoI left you twenty messages The only reason I knew you werenrsquot

dead is you keep depositing my checksrdquo

Paul sat on the chair as David collapsed on the sofa sending a mostly

empty biggie-sized soda tumbling to the 1047298oor ldquoIt is nice to see yourdquo

David said sincerely ldquoHowrsquos bizrdquo

ldquoYou knowrdquo said Paul making a seesaw gesture ldquoProteacutegeacute is still sell-

ing I think half the universities in the country are teaching it in their

journalism programs so that helps it move every semester I just signed

this new up-and-comer from Pittsburgh whose manuscript knocks me

outrdquo

ldquoItrsquos not a memoir is it Tell me itrsquos not another memoirrdquo

ldquoIn fact it is a memoir Itrsquos about an alcoholic steel smelter who went

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 612

14 JAMES RENNER

to prison for grand theft and when he got out cleaned himself up by

slowly constructing a jet-powered semi truck in his garage It wouldnrsquot

kill you to blurb itrdquo

ldquoIs that why you came overrdquoldquoOf course notrdquo said Paul a thin smile playing at one corner of his

mouth From his sports jacket pocket the publisher pulled a bound gal-

ley of a book He tossed it to David who snatched it out of the air one-

handed

On the front was a grainy black-and-white picture of a grassy hill

soaked in summer heat Atop the hill sat a 1970s-era police cruiser its

driverrsquos-side door ajar Behind the car stretched a row of old-growth pine

trees gnarled branches like arthritic hands David knew this photo-graph Hersquod discovered it in fact tucked into a box labeled 983149983145983155983139983141983148983148983137-

983150983141983151983157983155 in the Press archives at Cleveland State It was a picture of a crime

scene an artifact of one of the many unsolved cases hersquod written about

before hersquod become completely obsessed with Ronil Brune The title of

the book was The Lesser Mysteries of Greater Cleveland At the bottom

was Davidrsquos name

ldquoWhatrsquos thisrdquo he asked

ldquoYour next bookrdquo said Paul ldquoThatrsquos just a mock-up but I wanted youto see it to feel the weight of it in your hands Itrsquos a good cover nordquo

ldquoItrsquos a great cover Paulrdquo he said ldquoOnly problem is I didnrsquot write

thisrdquo

ldquoYou did Itrsquos twelve of your best true crime articles from your Inde-

pendent days Beverly Jarosz Sam Sheppard Lisa Pruett I cleaned up

the language and moved things around a bit here and theremdashdonrsquot look

at me like that you were still learning dramatic narrative structure back

thenmdashand I put them all together into this little trade paperback Some-

thing for next summerrsquos beach crowd Irsquom thinking Something to tide

everyone over until the next David Neff bookrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot need the moneyrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot eitherrdquo

ldquoThen whyrdquo

Paul glanced around the room then back at David ldquoI think you

need something to remind you why you were ever a writer in the 1047297rst

placerdquo said Paul ldquoA little New England collegiate lecture tour Some

free publicity in the trades GroupiesrdquoldquoTrue crime groupies are mostly middle-aged women who look like

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 712

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 15

my high school home-ec teacherrdquo said David ldquoNobody wants to buy

a bunch of old stories Anyone who wanted to read them has read them

online alreadyrdquo

ldquoAhrdquo said Paul raising a 1047297nger ldquoTheyrsquore not all reprints Check outthe table of contentsrdquo

ldquo lsquoThe Curious Case of the Man from Primrose Lanersquo rdquo

ldquoYour next projectrdquo said Paul ldquoItrsquos the next mystery yoursquore going to

investigate the new piece wersquoll use to market the bookrdquo

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane Never heard of him Who is herdquo

ldquoGeez David Donrsquot you read the paper anymorerdquo Paul regarded

his friend silently for a moment studying his features perhaps to dis-

cern if there was any trace of the old David Neff in there someplaceldquoYou used to be the eternal optimistrdquo he said ldquoYou thought you could

solve all of these mysteries rememberrdquo

ldquoHowrsquod that work outrdquo

ldquoAre you fucking blind Look around you What paid for this house

These toys The Volkswagen in the garage Your four-year-old sonrsquos trust

fund You solved the Ronil Brune case The most fucked-up case any-

body ever heard ofrdquo

ldquoIrsquom just a dad nowrdquoldquoFour years is long enough to live in the dark You told me once that

you never felt better than when you were writing these articles and re-

searching these cases This is a new mystery to dive intordquo

ldquoA little ironic donrsquot you thinkrdquo asked David ldquoYou want to pull me

out of my depression by making me investigate some unsolved murderrdquo

ldquoTherersquos no dead kids in this one At least not murdered onesrdquo

ldquoThat you know ofrdquo

ldquoDo you want to hear about itrdquo

David rubbed his hands together distractedly Was he already feel-

ing a little rush His heart stutter-stepped in his chest His neck itched

Yes he remembered this well A jonesing a craving for something he

knew he shouldnrsquot accept He imagined it was the way his mother must

feel every time she saw a waiter pour a glass of wine in a restaurant

This was what almost ruined his marriage once upon a time ldquoYesrdquo he

whispered

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane was a recluse who lived on the west

side of Akron only about a mile from here off MerrimanrdquoldquoRight I know Primrose Wait Are you talking about the old man

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 812

16 JAMES RENNER

who used to ramble down to the park in the middle of the summer

sometimes wearing mittensrdquo

ldquoI believe so yesrdquo

ldquoI saw him a few times after we moved here Strange dude Walkedlike he had somewhere important to go except I never saw him anywhere

except walking Never at the store or in line for Chinese takeout or stuff

like that Never made eye contact Gave me the heebie-jeebies I always

thought he looked a little like my Uncle Ira on a bender Hersquos dead I

take itrdquo

ldquoMurderedrdquo

ldquoHow could someone have a grudge against him if he didnrsquot know

anybody Was it a burglaryrdquoldquoDoesnrsquot look like it It seems personal Whoever did it hacked the

old manrsquos 1047297ngers off at the second knuckle and fed them into the blender

Sliced his palms to shreds Then he was dragged into the living room

and shot once in the stomach Killer left him there to die As much as

they can 1047297gure it took maybe a half hour for him to bleed out The old

man was forced to sit there and let it happenrdquo

ldquoHoly shit When was thisrdquo

Paul repositioned himself in the chair suddenly uncomfortable ldquoTheyfound the manrsquos body on June twenty-1047297rstrdquo he said ldquoJune twenty-1047297rst

2008rdquo

ldquoTwo days after Elizabethrdquo

Paul nodded again

ldquoNo wonder I didnrsquot hear about itrdquo David sighed loudly then shook

his head ldquoSuspectsrdquo

ldquoThe police are clueless and I mean that quite literallyrdquo

ldquoWhat was the guyrsquos real namerdquo

ldquoWellrdquo said Paul with a smile ldquothatrsquos where it gets interesting When

he purchased his house in 1969 he used the Social Security number of

a man named Joseph Howard King but that isnrsquot who he really wasrdquo

ldquoWhat do you meanrdquo

ldquoA year after they 1047297nd the body the police get a call from the bank

Turns out this guy had about seven hundred grand in a savings account

and another three and a half million in stocks and bonds Using the

name Joseph Howard King he invested heavily in technologymdash Apple

Google stuff like that But the bank canrsquot 1047297nd his next of kin right Sothey call the cops for help By then though the detectives have been

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 912

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 17

working the case for a year and they havenrsquot found this guyrsquos family

either A probate judge gets involved because of the money I mean some-

bodyrsquos going to collect a big paycheck as soon as they 1047297gure out who it

should go tordquoldquoThat moneyrsquos probably the motiverdquo said David ldquoFour million dol-

lars means four million reasons to kill him if yoursquore an heirrdquo

ldquoRight Except no family has come forward to claim it So this judge

appoints a man named Albert Beachum as executor of the estate Appar-

ently Beachumrsquos family had been running errands for the Man from

Primrose Lane for years He allows Beachum to draw money from the

account to relocate the guyrsquos remains from his pauperrsquos grave to a bigger

plot in Mount Peace Cemetery And when Beachum says lsquoScrew thepolice I want to hire a private eye to track this manrsquos family downrsquo the

judge says lsquoFinersquo and lets him pay for his own investigator The PI uses

Joseph Howard Kingrsquos Social Security number to get his birth certi1047297-

cate That has the guyrsquos parentsrsquo names and the name of the hospital

where he was born So the PI goes and pulls the records from the hospi-

tal in the years leading up to and following Kingrsquos birthrdquo

ldquoHe found Joseph Howard Kingrsquos siblingsrdquo

Paul touched his nose with one 1047297nger and pointed at David ldquoBingo Another kid named King with the same parents was born two years

earlier at the same hospital Itrsquos the guyrsquos sister Carol So the PIrsquos really

excited right Hersquos about to call this woman up and tell her she just hit

the lottery Except when he does Carol tells him that her brother Joe

has been dead since 1932 Died in a car crash in Bellefonte Pennsylvania

at the age of six The crash also killed Mom and Dad Carol was at home

with the babysitterrdquo

ldquoHe stole a dead kidrsquos ID and disappeared to Akron Ohiordquo said

David his eyes wide and slightly unfocused the look of a stoner in the

afterglow of a good hit ldquoYou know I bet he came from Bellefonte He

probably read about the accident in the paper and remembered it years

later when he needed to change his name for whatever reason What are

they going to do with the money nowrdquo

ldquoEveryone is 1047297ghting over it Carol wants it of course Figures since

this mystery man stole her brotherrsquos ID she has some right to it She has

a pretty big-time attorney working for her The Beachums seem like nice

people but theyrsquove got a hand in this too and have retained their ownlawyer On top of that you have the Summit County executive and the

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1012

18 JAMES RENNER

mayor staking claim Law says if you canrsquot 1047297nd next of kin money goes

to the state but the city and county want a piece of it toordquo

ldquoAnd the policerdquo

ldquoThe police havenrsquot said peep And therersquos one more twist to thisjust to complicate the picturerdquo

ldquoOf course there isrdquo

ldquoAmong the old manrsquos very scant personal effects were a bunch of bat-

tered notebooksrdquo

David leaned forward ldquoAnd inside the notebooksrdquo

ldquoInside is the life story of a girl he apparently never met a record of

every softball game she played in every award of merit she won in school

every boyfriend every minor traf1047297c ticket All the details of her life werecollected in these notebooks in scrawled handwriting they can only as-

sume belongs to the Man from Primrose Lanerdquo

ldquoHe was a stalker huhrdquo

ldquoOf the highest degreerdquo

ldquoAnd this girl shersquos going after the money too I take itrdquo asked

David

Paul shook his head ldquoNope She couldnrsquot care less Which is a shame

because those notebooks are like love letters in places Obviously theold man cared a great deal for the girl sorry young woman in his own

twisted way He never names her as his bene1047297ciary but almost implies

well yoursquoll have to read the newspaper clippingsrdquo

David sat on the couch staring into the air above the television

Periodically he scratched at the stubble on his boyish face Eventually

his eyes settled on a picture of Tanner resting on the mantel The boy

was about two in the photograph his shaggy hair whipping about in the

wind pulling out over the ocean behind him

ldquoItrsquos a good storyrdquo he said at last

ldquoI knowrdquo

ldquoSounds like itrsquos been mostly reported thoughrdquo

Paul waved his hand in the air ldquoItrsquos been reported but it hasnrsquot been

written And therersquos still plenty mystery for you Who killed him who he

really was why he was stalking this girl rdquo

ldquoI appreciate what yoursquore trying to dordquo said David ldquoAnd if I was

ready to start writing again this would be about the perfect case But I

canrsquotrdquoldquoWhyrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1112

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 412

12 JAMES RENNER

dried ketchup was smeared across the front of his shirt evidence of the

barely won battle that had been Tannerrsquos lunch

The room around David appeared to be the remnants of a livable

space that had been torn apart by some sort of laundry- and toy-1047297lledIED Every other week Tannerrsquos great-aunt came by and picked the boyrsquos

clothes off the mantel lamps and ceiling fan laundered them and re-

turned them folded to the boyrsquos bedroom dresser She collected the

broken robots into dustbins sorted stuffed frogs and Legos into their as-

sorted tubs and replaced the batteries in the boyrsquos plastic-ball shooter

and tiny grand piano It only took them two days to get the room out of

order again David didnrsquot mind the mess And neither did Tanner

Because his wifersquos death had been ruled a suicide her insurance hadnot paid out and David had not been able to work a single day since But

he and the boy didnrsquot need the money Royalties from Davidrsquos 1047297rst

bookmdashThe Serial Killerrsquos Proteacutegeacutemdashhad climbed to the seven-1047297gure mark

a couple years ago and sales remained strong thanks in part to a Roll-

ing Stone article that had forever labeled him as ldquothe best true crime

writer since Truman Capoterdquo David no longer kept track of how much

he had in the bank but he knew it was more than hersquod ever imagined

making in his life After his wifersquos death and until just a moment from right now David

had resigned himself to the fact that The Serial Killerrsquos Proteacutegeacute would

also be his only book and that that was okay because Tanner was alive

and he could live out the remainder of his days keeping his boy safe and

comfortable and happy

But then there was a knock at the front door

David wasnrsquot expecting company Tannerrsquos aunt wasnrsquot due for a few

days He assumed it was a neighborhood kid pushing school bandndashsale

candy so he ignored it But then the knock came again too loud to be

anything but an adult

He walked to the door and peered through the porthole There was a

man on his doorstep A thin man with wire-rim glasses and a ring of hair

circling a bald dome

Paul

David winced He didnrsquot want to see Paul He didnrsquot want to talk to

Paul It was Paulrsquos fault that he wasnrsquot able to grieve the way he sometimes

felt he deservedmdashin a penniless gutter with other heartbroken souls

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 512

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 13

Paul Sheppard was his publisher the man who had read Davidrsquos pro-

posal for a book based on notes left behind by convicted killer Ronil

Brune and recognized a modicum of talent Before The Serial Killerrsquos

Proteacutegeacute Paul had been an exclusively local publisher the sort that shippedglossy copies of Cleveland Steelworker Memories and Clevelandrsquos Haunted

History to local indie bookstores Today he kept an of1047297ce in Manhattan

Reluctantly David opened the door

ldquoHersquos aliverdquo Paul shouted raising his arms in the air like Dr Fran-

kenstein

ldquoShhhh Yoursquoll wake the kidrdquo he said He motioned for Paul to

come in

ldquoSorryrdquo Stepping into the main room Paul shook his head andwhistled ldquoI saw this documentary on Discovery the other dayrdquo he said

ldquoIt was about this woman who lives in Manhattan and shersquos this ridicu-

lous pack rat and never throws anything away She had this path carved

out in clutter she could use to get to the bathroom and kitchenrdquo

ldquoYeahrdquo prodded David

ldquoYoursquore like this far away from becoming that womanrdquo he said ldquoHer

family had her committed you knowrdquo

ldquoThank God yoursquore not my family Paulrdquo he said smiling a littleldquoDonrsquot sit on thatrdquo He jumped to the recliner over which Paul was squat-

ting and batted away yesterdayrsquos Beacon Journal Underneath was a plastic

dish that had once held a microwavable Salisbury steak dinner David

tossed it to the far corner of the room where it landed next to a waste-

basket ldquoI wasnrsquot expecting companyrdquo

ldquoI left you twenty messages The only reason I knew you werenrsquot

dead is you keep depositing my checksrdquo

Paul sat on the chair as David collapsed on the sofa sending a mostly

empty biggie-sized soda tumbling to the 1047298oor ldquoIt is nice to see yourdquo

David said sincerely ldquoHowrsquos bizrdquo

ldquoYou knowrdquo said Paul making a seesaw gesture ldquoProteacutegeacute is still sell-

ing I think half the universities in the country are teaching it in their

journalism programs so that helps it move every semester I just signed

this new up-and-comer from Pittsburgh whose manuscript knocks me

outrdquo

ldquoItrsquos not a memoir is it Tell me itrsquos not another memoirrdquo

ldquoIn fact it is a memoir Itrsquos about an alcoholic steel smelter who went

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 612

14 JAMES RENNER

to prison for grand theft and when he got out cleaned himself up by

slowly constructing a jet-powered semi truck in his garage It wouldnrsquot

kill you to blurb itrdquo

ldquoIs that why you came overrdquoldquoOf course notrdquo said Paul a thin smile playing at one corner of his

mouth From his sports jacket pocket the publisher pulled a bound gal-

ley of a book He tossed it to David who snatched it out of the air one-

handed

On the front was a grainy black-and-white picture of a grassy hill

soaked in summer heat Atop the hill sat a 1970s-era police cruiser its

driverrsquos-side door ajar Behind the car stretched a row of old-growth pine

trees gnarled branches like arthritic hands David knew this photo-graph Hersquod discovered it in fact tucked into a box labeled 983149983145983155983139983141983148983148983137-

983150983141983151983157983155 in the Press archives at Cleveland State It was a picture of a crime

scene an artifact of one of the many unsolved cases hersquod written about

before hersquod become completely obsessed with Ronil Brune The title of

the book was The Lesser Mysteries of Greater Cleveland At the bottom

was Davidrsquos name

ldquoWhatrsquos thisrdquo he asked

ldquoYour next bookrdquo said Paul ldquoThatrsquos just a mock-up but I wanted youto see it to feel the weight of it in your hands Itrsquos a good cover nordquo

ldquoItrsquos a great cover Paulrdquo he said ldquoOnly problem is I didnrsquot write

thisrdquo

ldquoYou did Itrsquos twelve of your best true crime articles from your Inde-

pendent days Beverly Jarosz Sam Sheppard Lisa Pruett I cleaned up

the language and moved things around a bit here and theremdashdonrsquot look

at me like that you were still learning dramatic narrative structure back

thenmdashand I put them all together into this little trade paperback Some-

thing for next summerrsquos beach crowd Irsquom thinking Something to tide

everyone over until the next David Neff bookrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot need the moneyrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot eitherrdquo

ldquoThen whyrdquo

Paul glanced around the room then back at David ldquoI think you

need something to remind you why you were ever a writer in the 1047297rst

placerdquo said Paul ldquoA little New England collegiate lecture tour Some

free publicity in the trades GroupiesrdquoldquoTrue crime groupies are mostly middle-aged women who look like

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 712

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 15

my high school home-ec teacherrdquo said David ldquoNobody wants to buy

a bunch of old stories Anyone who wanted to read them has read them

online alreadyrdquo

ldquoAhrdquo said Paul raising a 1047297nger ldquoTheyrsquore not all reprints Check outthe table of contentsrdquo

ldquo lsquoThe Curious Case of the Man from Primrose Lanersquo rdquo

ldquoYour next projectrdquo said Paul ldquoItrsquos the next mystery yoursquore going to

investigate the new piece wersquoll use to market the bookrdquo

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane Never heard of him Who is herdquo

ldquoGeez David Donrsquot you read the paper anymorerdquo Paul regarded

his friend silently for a moment studying his features perhaps to dis-

cern if there was any trace of the old David Neff in there someplaceldquoYou used to be the eternal optimistrdquo he said ldquoYou thought you could

solve all of these mysteries rememberrdquo

ldquoHowrsquod that work outrdquo

ldquoAre you fucking blind Look around you What paid for this house

These toys The Volkswagen in the garage Your four-year-old sonrsquos trust

fund You solved the Ronil Brune case The most fucked-up case any-

body ever heard ofrdquo

ldquoIrsquom just a dad nowrdquoldquoFour years is long enough to live in the dark You told me once that

you never felt better than when you were writing these articles and re-

searching these cases This is a new mystery to dive intordquo

ldquoA little ironic donrsquot you thinkrdquo asked David ldquoYou want to pull me

out of my depression by making me investigate some unsolved murderrdquo

ldquoTherersquos no dead kids in this one At least not murdered onesrdquo

ldquoThat you know ofrdquo

ldquoDo you want to hear about itrdquo

David rubbed his hands together distractedly Was he already feel-

ing a little rush His heart stutter-stepped in his chest His neck itched

Yes he remembered this well A jonesing a craving for something he

knew he shouldnrsquot accept He imagined it was the way his mother must

feel every time she saw a waiter pour a glass of wine in a restaurant

This was what almost ruined his marriage once upon a time ldquoYesrdquo he

whispered

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane was a recluse who lived on the west

side of Akron only about a mile from here off MerrimanrdquoldquoRight I know Primrose Wait Are you talking about the old man

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 812

16 JAMES RENNER

who used to ramble down to the park in the middle of the summer

sometimes wearing mittensrdquo

ldquoI believe so yesrdquo

ldquoI saw him a few times after we moved here Strange dude Walkedlike he had somewhere important to go except I never saw him anywhere

except walking Never at the store or in line for Chinese takeout or stuff

like that Never made eye contact Gave me the heebie-jeebies I always

thought he looked a little like my Uncle Ira on a bender Hersquos dead I

take itrdquo

ldquoMurderedrdquo

ldquoHow could someone have a grudge against him if he didnrsquot know

anybody Was it a burglaryrdquoldquoDoesnrsquot look like it It seems personal Whoever did it hacked the

old manrsquos 1047297ngers off at the second knuckle and fed them into the blender

Sliced his palms to shreds Then he was dragged into the living room

and shot once in the stomach Killer left him there to die As much as

they can 1047297gure it took maybe a half hour for him to bleed out The old

man was forced to sit there and let it happenrdquo

ldquoHoly shit When was thisrdquo

Paul repositioned himself in the chair suddenly uncomfortable ldquoTheyfound the manrsquos body on June twenty-1047297rstrdquo he said ldquoJune twenty-1047297rst

2008rdquo

ldquoTwo days after Elizabethrdquo

Paul nodded again

ldquoNo wonder I didnrsquot hear about itrdquo David sighed loudly then shook

his head ldquoSuspectsrdquo

ldquoThe police are clueless and I mean that quite literallyrdquo

ldquoWhat was the guyrsquos real namerdquo

ldquoWellrdquo said Paul with a smile ldquothatrsquos where it gets interesting When

he purchased his house in 1969 he used the Social Security number of

a man named Joseph Howard King but that isnrsquot who he really wasrdquo

ldquoWhat do you meanrdquo

ldquoA year after they 1047297nd the body the police get a call from the bank

Turns out this guy had about seven hundred grand in a savings account

and another three and a half million in stocks and bonds Using the

name Joseph Howard King he invested heavily in technologymdash Apple

Google stuff like that But the bank canrsquot 1047297nd his next of kin right Sothey call the cops for help By then though the detectives have been

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 912

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 17

working the case for a year and they havenrsquot found this guyrsquos family

either A probate judge gets involved because of the money I mean some-

bodyrsquos going to collect a big paycheck as soon as they 1047297gure out who it

should go tordquoldquoThat moneyrsquos probably the motiverdquo said David ldquoFour million dol-

lars means four million reasons to kill him if yoursquore an heirrdquo

ldquoRight Except no family has come forward to claim it So this judge

appoints a man named Albert Beachum as executor of the estate Appar-

ently Beachumrsquos family had been running errands for the Man from

Primrose Lane for years He allows Beachum to draw money from the

account to relocate the guyrsquos remains from his pauperrsquos grave to a bigger

plot in Mount Peace Cemetery And when Beachum says lsquoScrew thepolice I want to hire a private eye to track this manrsquos family downrsquo the

judge says lsquoFinersquo and lets him pay for his own investigator The PI uses

Joseph Howard Kingrsquos Social Security number to get his birth certi1047297-

cate That has the guyrsquos parentsrsquo names and the name of the hospital

where he was born So the PI goes and pulls the records from the hospi-

tal in the years leading up to and following Kingrsquos birthrdquo

ldquoHe found Joseph Howard Kingrsquos siblingsrdquo

Paul touched his nose with one 1047297nger and pointed at David ldquoBingo Another kid named King with the same parents was born two years

earlier at the same hospital Itrsquos the guyrsquos sister Carol So the PIrsquos really

excited right Hersquos about to call this woman up and tell her she just hit

the lottery Except when he does Carol tells him that her brother Joe

has been dead since 1932 Died in a car crash in Bellefonte Pennsylvania

at the age of six The crash also killed Mom and Dad Carol was at home

with the babysitterrdquo

ldquoHe stole a dead kidrsquos ID and disappeared to Akron Ohiordquo said

David his eyes wide and slightly unfocused the look of a stoner in the

afterglow of a good hit ldquoYou know I bet he came from Bellefonte He

probably read about the accident in the paper and remembered it years

later when he needed to change his name for whatever reason What are

they going to do with the money nowrdquo

ldquoEveryone is 1047297ghting over it Carol wants it of course Figures since

this mystery man stole her brotherrsquos ID she has some right to it She has

a pretty big-time attorney working for her The Beachums seem like nice

people but theyrsquove got a hand in this too and have retained their ownlawyer On top of that you have the Summit County executive and the

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1012

18 JAMES RENNER

mayor staking claim Law says if you canrsquot 1047297nd next of kin money goes

to the state but the city and county want a piece of it toordquo

ldquoAnd the policerdquo

ldquoThe police havenrsquot said peep And therersquos one more twist to thisjust to complicate the picturerdquo

ldquoOf course there isrdquo

ldquoAmong the old manrsquos very scant personal effects were a bunch of bat-

tered notebooksrdquo

David leaned forward ldquoAnd inside the notebooksrdquo

ldquoInside is the life story of a girl he apparently never met a record of

every softball game she played in every award of merit she won in school

every boyfriend every minor traf1047297c ticket All the details of her life werecollected in these notebooks in scrawled handwriting they can only as-

sume belongs to the Man from Primrose Lanerdquo

ldquoHe was a stalker huhrdquo

ldquoOf the highest degreerdquo

ldquoAnd this girl shersquos going after the money too I take itrdquo asked

David

Paul shook his head ldquoNope She couldnrsquot care less Which is a shame

because those notebooks are like love letters in places Obviously theold man cared a great deal for the girl sorry young woman in his own

twisted way He never names her as his bene1047297ciary but almost implies

well yoursquoll have to read the newspaper clippingsrdquo

David sat on the couch staring into the air above the television

Periodically he scratched at the stubble on his boyish face Eventually

his eyes settled on a picture of Tanner resting on the mantel The boy

was about two in the photograph his shaggy hair whipping about in the

wind pulling out over the ocean behind him

ldquoItrsquos a good storyrdquo he said at last

ldquoI knowrdquo

ldquoSounds like itrsquos been mostly reported thoughrdquo

Paul waved his hand in the air ldquoItrsquos been reported but it hasnrsquot been

written And therersquos still plenty mystery for you Who killed him who he

really was why he was stalking this girl rdquo

ldquoI appreciate what yoursquore trying to dordquo said David ldquoAnd if I was

ready to start writing again this would be about the perfect case But I

canrsquotrdquoldquoWhyrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1112

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 512

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 13

Paul Sheppard was his publisher the man who had read Davidrsquos pro-

posal for a book based on notes left behind by convicted killer Ronil

Brune and recognized a modicum of talent Before The Serial Killerrsquos

Proteacutegeacute Paul had been an exclusively local publisher the sort that shippedglossy copies of Cleveland Steelworker Memories and Clevelandrsquos Haunted

History to local indie bookstores Today he kept an of1047297ce in Manhattan

Reluctantly David opened the door

ldquoHersquos aliverdquo Paul shouted raising his arms in the air like Dr Fran-

kenstein

ldquoShhhh Yoursquoll wake the kidrdquo he said He motioned for Paul to

come in

ldquoSorryrdquo Stepping into the main room Paul shook his head andwhistled ldquoI saw this documentary on Discovery the other dayrdquo he said

ldquoIt was about this woman who lives in Manhattan and shersquos this ridicu-

lous pack rat and never throws anything away She had this path carved

out in clutter she could use to get to the bathroom and kitchenrdquo

ldquoYeahrdquo prodded David

ldquoYoursquore like this far away from becoming that womanrdquo he said ldquoHer

family had her committed you knowrdquo

ldquoThank God yoursquore not my family Paulrdquo he said smiling a littleldquoDonrsquot sit on thatrdquo He jumped to the recliner over which Paul was squat-

ting and batted away yesterdayrsquos Beacon Journal Underneath was a plastic

dish that had once held a microwavable Salisbury steak dinner David

tossed it to the far corner of the room where it landed next to a waste-

basket ldquoI wasnrsquot expecting companyrdquo

ldquoI left you twenty messages The only reason I knew you werenrsquot

dead is you keep depositing my checksrdquo

Paul sat on the chair as David collapsed on the sofa sending a mostly

empty biggie-sized soda tumbling to the 1047298oor ldquoIt is nice to see yourdquo

David said sincerely ldquoHowrsquos bizrdquo

ldquoYou knowrdquo said Paul making a seesaw gesture ldquoProteacutegeacute is still sell-

ing I think half the universities in the country are teaching it in their

journalism programs so that helps it move every semester I just signed

this new up-and-comer from Pittsburgh whose manuscript knocks me

outrdquo

ldquoItrsquos not a memoir is it Tell me itrsquos not another memoirrdquo

ldquoIn fact it is a memoir Itrsquos about an alcoholic steel smelter who went

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 612

14 JAMES RENNER

to prison for grand theft and when he got out cleaned himself up by

slowly constructing a jet-powered semi truck in his garage It wouldnrsquot

kill you to blurb itrdquo

ldquoIs that why you came overrdquoldquoOf course notrdquo said Paul a thin smile playing at one corner of his

mouth From his sports jacket pocket the publisher pulled a bound gal-

ley of a book He tossed it to David who snatched it out of the air one-

handed

On the front was a grainy black-and-white picture of a grassy hill

soaked in summer heat Atop the hill sat a 1970s-era police cruiser its

driverrsquos-side door ajar Behind the car stretched a row of old-growth pine

trees gnarled branches like arthritic hands David knew this photo-graph Hersquod discovered it in fact tucked into a box labeled 983149983145983155983139983141983148983148983137-

983150983141983151983157983155 in the Press archives at Cleveland State It was a picture of a crime

scene an artifact of one of the many unsolved cases hersquod written about

before hersquod become completely obsessed with Ronil Brune The title of

the book was The Lesser Mysteries of Greater Cleveland At the bottom

was Davidrsquos name

ldquoWhatrsquos thisrdquo he asked

ldquoYour next bookrdquo said Paul ldquoThatrsquos just a mock-up but I wanted youto see it to feel the weight of it in your hands Itrsquos a good cover nordquo

ldquoItrsquos a great cover Paulrdquo he said ldquoOnly problem is I didnrsquot write

thisrdquo

ldquoYou did Itrsquos twelve of your best true crime articles from your Inde-

pendent days Beverly Jarosz Sam Sheppard Lisa Pruett I cleaned up

the language and moved things around a bit here and theremdashdonrsquot look

at me like that you were still learning dramatic narrative structure back

thenmdashand I put them all together into this little trade paperback Some-

thing for next summerrsquos beach crowd Irsquom thinking Something to tide

everyone over until the next David Neff bookrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot need the moneyrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot eitherrdquo

ldquoThen whyrdquo

Paul glanced around the room then back at David ldquoI think you

need something to remind you why you were ever a writer in the 1047297rst

placerdquo said Paul ldquoA little New England collegiate lecture tour Some

free publicity in the trades GroupiesrdquoldquoTrue crime groupies are mostly middle-aged women who look like

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 712

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 15

my high school home-ec teacherrdquo said David ldquoNobody wants to buy

a bunch of old stories Anyone who wanted to read them has read them

online alreadyrdquo

ldquoAhrdquo said Paul raising a 1047297nger ldquoTheyrsquore not all reprints Check outthe table of contentsrdquo

ldquo lsquoThe Curious Case of the Man from Primrose Lanersquo rdquo

ldquoYour next projectrdquo said Paul ldquoItrsquos the next mystery yoursquore going to

investigate the new piece wersquoll use to market the bookrdquo

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane Never heard of him Who is herdquo

ldquoGeez David Donrsquot you read the paper anymorerdquo Paul regarded

his friend silently for a moment studying his features perhaps to dis-

cern if there was any trace of the old David Neff in there someplaceldquoYou used to be the eternal optimistrdquo he said ldquoYou thought you could

solve all of these mysteries rememberrdquo

ldquoHowrsquod that work outrdquo

ldquoAre you fucking blind Look around you What paid for this house

These toys The Volkswagen in the garage Your four-year-old sonrsquos trust

fund You solved the Ronil Brune case The most fucked-up case any-

body ever heard ofrdquo

ldquoIrsquom just a dad nowrdquoldquoFour years is long enough to live in the dark You told me once that

you never felt better than when you were writing these articles and re-

searching these cases This is a new mystery to dive intordquo

ldquoA little ironic donrsquot you thinkrdquo asked David ldquoYou want to pull me

out of my depression by making me investigate some unsolved murderrdquo

ldquoTherersquos no dead kids in this one At least not murdered onesrdquo

ldquoThat you know ofrdquo

ldquoDo you want to hear about itrdquo

David rubbed his hands together distractedly Was he already feel-

ing a little rush His heart stutter-stepped in his chest His neck itched

Yes he remembered this well A jonesing a craving for something he

knew he shouldnrsquot accept He imagined it was the way his mother must

feel every time she saw a waiter pour a glass of wine in a restaurant

This was what almost ruined his marriage once upon a time ldquoYesrdquo he

whispered

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane was a recluse who lived on the west

side of Akron only about a mile from here off MerrimanrdquoldquoRight I know Primrose Wait Are you talking about the old man

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 812

16 JAMES RENNER

who used to ramble down to the park in the middle of the summer

sometimes wearing mittensrdquo

ldquoI believe so yesrdquo

ldquoI saw him a few times after we moved here Strange dude Walkedlike he had somewhere important to go except I never saw him anywhere

except walking Never at the store or in line for Chinese takeout or stuff

like that Never made eye contact Gave me the heebie-jeebies I always

thought he looked a little like my Uncle Ira on a bender Hersquos dead I

take itrdquo

ldquoMurderedrdquo

ldquoHow could someone have a grudge against him if he didnrsquot know

anybody Was it a burglaryrdquoldquoDoesnrsquot look like it It seems personal Whoever did it hacked the

old manrsquos 1047297ngers off at the second knuckle and fed them into the blender

Sliced his palms to shreds Then he was dragged into the living room

and shot once in the stomach Killer left him there to die As much as

they can 1047297gure it took maybe a half hour for him to bleed out The old

man was forced to sit there and let it happenrdquo

ldquoHoly shit When was thisrdquo

Paul repositioned himself in the chair suddenly uncomfortable ldquoTheyfound the manrsquos body on June twenty-1047297rstrdquo he said ldquoJune twenty-1047297rst

2008rdquo

ldquoTwo days after Elizabethrdquo

Paul nodded again

ldquoNo wonder I didnrsquot hear about itrdquo David sighed loudly then shook

his head ldquoSuspectsrdquo

ldquoThe police are clueless and I mean that quite literallyrdquo

ldquoWhat was the guyrsquos real namerdquo

ldquoWellrdquo said Paul with a smile ldquothatrsquos where it gets interesting When

he purchased his house in 1969 he used the Social Security number of

a man named Joseph Howard King but that isnrsquot who he really wasrdquo

ldquoWhat do you meanrdquo

ldquoA year after they 1047297nd the body the police get a call from the bank

Turns out this guy had about seven hundred grand in a savings account

and another three and a half million in stocks and bonds Using the

name Joseph Howard King he invested heavily in technologymdash Apple

Google stuff like that But the bank canrsquot 1047297nd his next of kin right Sothey call the cops for help By then though the detectives have been

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 912

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 17

working the case for a year and they havenrsquot found this guyrsquos family

either A probate judge gets involved because of the money I mean some-

bodyrsquos going to collect a big paycheck as soon as they 1047297gure out who it

should go tordquoldquoThat moneyrsquos probably the motiverdquo said David ldquoFour million dol-

lars means four million reasons to kill him if yoursquore an heirrdquo

ldquoRight Except no family has come forward to claim it So this judge

appoints a man named Albert Beachum as executor of the estate Appar-

ently Beachumrsquos family had been running errands for the Man from

Primrose Lane for years He allows Beachum to draw money from the

account to relocate the guyrsquos remains from his pauperrsquos grave to a bigger

plot in Mount Peace Cemetery And when Beachum says lsquoScrew thepolice I want to hire a private eye to track this manrsquos family downrsquo the

judge says lsquoFinersquo and lets him pay for his own investigator The PI uses

Joseph Howard Kingrsquos Social Security number to get his birth certi1047297-

cate That has the guyrsquos parentsrsquo names and the name of the hospital

where he was born So the PI goes and pulls the records from the hospi-

tal in the years leading up to and following Kingrsquos birthrdquo

ldquoHe found Joseph Howard Kingrsquos siblingsrdquo

Paul touched his nose with one 1047297nger and pointed at David ldquoBingo Another kid named King with the same parents was born two years

earlier at the same hospital Itrsquos the guyrsquos sister Carol So the PIrsquos really

excited right Hersquos about to call this woman up and tell her she just hit

the lottery Except when he does Carol tells him that her brother Joe

has been dead since 1932 Died in a car crash in Bellefonte Pennsylvania

at the age of six The crash also killed Mom and Dad Carol was at home

with the babysitterrdquo

ldquoHe stole a dead kidrsquos ID and disappeared to Akron Ohiordquo said

David his eyes wide and slightly unfocused the look of a stoner in the

afterglow of a good hit ldquoYou know I bet he came from Bellefonte He

probably read about the accident in the paper and remembered it years

later when he needed to change his name for whatever reason What are

they going to do with the money nowrdquo

ldquoEveryone is 1047297ghting over it Carol wants it of course Figures since

this mystery man stole her brotherrsquos ID she has some right to it She has

a pretty big-time attorney working for her The Beachums seem like nice

people but theyrsquove got a hand in this too and have retained their ownlawyer On top of that you have the Summit County executive and the

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1012

18 JAMES RENNER

mayor staking claim Law says if you canrsquot 1047297nd next of kin money goes

to the state but the city and county want a piece of it toordquo

ldquoAnd the policerdquo

ldquoThe police havenrsquot said peep And therersquos one more twist to thisjust to complicate the picturerdquo

ldquoOf course there isrdquo

ldquoAmong the old manrsquos very scant personal effects were a bunch of bat-

tered notebooksrdquo

David leaned forward ldquoAnd inside the notebooksrdquo

ldquoInside is the life story of a girl he apparently never met a record of

every softball game she played in every award of merit she won in school

every boyfriend every minor traf1047297c ticket All the details of her life werecollected in these notebooks in scrawled handwriting they can only as-

sume belongs to the Man from Primrose Lanerdquo

ldquoHe was a stalker huhrdquo

ldquoOf the highest degreerdquo

ldquoAnd this girl shersquos going after the money too I take itrdquo asked

David

Paul shook his head ldquoNope She couldnrsquot care less Which is a shame

because those notebooks are like love letters in places Obviously theold man cared a great deal for the girl sorry young woman in his own

twisted way He never names her as his bene1047297ciary but almost implies

well yoursquoll have to read the newspaper clippingsrdquo

David sat on the couch staring into the air above the television

Periodically he scratched at the stubble on his boyish face Eventually

his eyes settled on a picture of Tanner resting on the mantel The boy

was about two in the photograph his shaggy hair whipping about in the

wind pulling out over the ocean behind him

ldquoItrsquos a good storyrdquo he said at last

ldquoI knowrdquo

ldquoSounds like itrsquos been mostly reported thoughrdquo

Paul waved his hand in the air ldquoItrsquos been reported but it hasnrsquot been

written And therersquos still plenty mystery for you Who killed him who he

really was why he was stalking this girl rdquo

ldquoI appreciate what yoursquore trying to dordquo said David ldquoAnd if I was

ready to start writing again this would be about the perfect case But I

canrsquotrdquoldquoWhyrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1112

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 612

14 JAMES RENNER

to prison for grand theft and when he got out cleaned himself up by

slowly constructing a jet-powered semi truck in his garage It wouldnrsquot

kill you to blurb itrdquo

ldquoIs that why you came overrdquoldquoOf course notrdquo said Paul a thin smile playing at one corner of his

mouth From his sports jacket pocket the publisher pulled a bound gal-

ley of a book He tossed it to David who snatched it out of the air one-

handed

On the front was a grainy black-and-white picture of a grassy hill

soaked in summer heat Atop the hill sat a 1970s-era police cruiser its

driverrsquos-side door ajar Behind the car stretched a row of old-growth pine

trees gnarled branches like arthritic hands David knew this photo-graph Hersquod discovered it in fact tucked into a box labeled 983149983145983155983139983141983148983148983137-

983150983141983151983157983155 in the Press archives at Cleveland State It was a picture of a crime

scene an artifact of one of the many unsolved cases hersquod written about

before hersquod become completely obsessed with Ronil Brune The title of

the book was The Lesser Mysteries of Greater Cleveland At the bottom

was Davidrsquos name

ldquoWhatrsquos thisrdquo he asked

ldquoYour next bookrdquo said Paul ldquoThatrsquos just a mock-up but I wanted youto see it to feel the weight of it in your hands Itrsquos a good cover nordquo

ldquoItrsquos a great cover Paulrdquo he said ldquoOnly problem is I didnrsquot write

thisrdquo

ldquoYou did Itrsquos twelve of your best true crime articles from your Inde-

pendent days Beverly Jarosz Sam Sheppard Lisa Pruett I cleaned up

the language and moved things around a bit here and theremdashdonrsquot look

at me like that you were still learning dramatic narrative structure back

thenmdashand I put them all together into this little trade paperback Some-

thing for next summerrsquos beach crowd Irsquom thinking Something to tide

everyone over until the next David Neff bookrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot need the moneyrdquo

ldquoI donrsquot eitherrdquo

ldquoThen whyrdquo

Paul glanced around the room then back at David ldquoI think you

need something to remind you why you were ever a writer in the 1047297rst

placerdquo said Paul ldquoA little New England collegiate lecture tour Some

free publicity in the trades GroupiesrdquoldquoTrue crime groupies are mostly middle-aged women who look like

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 712

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 15

my high school home-ec teacherrdquo said David ldquoNobody wants to buy

a bunch of old stories Anyone who wanted to read them has read them

online alreadyrdquo

ldquoAhrdquo said Paul raising a 1047297nger ldquoTheyrsquore not all reprints Check outthe table of contentsrdquo

ldquo lsquoThe Curious Case of the Man from Primrose Lanersquo rdquo

ldquoYour next projectrdquo said Paul ldquoItrsquos the next mystery yoursquore going to

investigate the new piece wersquoll use to market the bookrdquo

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane Never heard of him Who is herdquo

ldquoGeez David Donrsquot you read the paper anymorerdquo Paul regarded

his friend silently for a moment studying his features perhaps to dis-

cern if there was any trace of the old David Neff in there someplaceldquoYou used to be the eternal optimistrdquo he said ldquoYou thought you could

solve all of these mysteries rememberrdquo

ldquoHowrsquod that work outrdquo

ldquoAre you fucking blind Look around you What paid for this house

These toys The Volkswagen in the garage Your four-year-old sonrsquos trust

fund You solved the Ronil Brune case The most fucked-up case any-

body ever heard ofrdquo

ldquoIrsquom just a dad nowrdquoldquoFour years is long enough to live in the dark You told me once that

you never felt better than when you were writing these articles and re-

searching these cases This is a new mystery to dive intordquo

ldquoA little ironic donrsquot you thinkrdquo asked David ldquoYou want to pull me

out of my depression by making me investigate some unsolved murderrdquo

ldquoTherersquos no dead kids in this one At least not murdered onesrdquo

ldquoThat you know ofrdquo

ldquoDo you want to hear about itrdquo

David rubbed his hands together distractedly Was he already feel-

ing a little rush His heart stutter-stepped in his chest His neck itched

Yes he remembered this well A jonesing a craving for something he

knew he shouldnrsquot accept He imagined it was the way his mother must

feel every time she saw a waiter pour a glass of wine in a restaurant

This was what almost ruined his marriage once upon a time ldquoYesrdquo he

whispered

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane was a recluse who lived on the west

side of Akron only about a mile from here off MerrimanrdquoldquoRight I know Primrose Wait Are you talking about the old man

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 812

16 JAMES RENNER

who used to ramble down to the park in the middle of the summer

sometimes wearing mittensrdquo

ldquoI believe so yesrdquo

ldquoI saw him a few times after we moved here Strange dude Walkedlike he had somewhere important to go except I never saw him anywhere

except walking Never at the store or in line for Chinese takeout or stuff

like that Never made eye contact Gave me the heebie-jeebies I always

thought he looked a little like my Uncle Ira on a bender Hersquos dead I

take itrdquo

ldquoMurderedrdquo

ldquoHow could someone have a grudge against him if he didnrsquot know

anybody Was it a burglaryrdquoldquoDoesnrsquot look like it It seems personal Whoever did it hacked the

old manrsquos 1047297ngers off at the second knuckle and fed them into the blender

Sliced his palms to shreds Then he was dragged into the living room

and shot once in the stomach Killer left him there to die As much as

they can 1047297gure it took maybe a half hour for him to bleed out The old

man was forced to sit there and let it happenrdquo

ldquoHoly shit When was thisrdquo

Paul repositioned himself in the chair suddenly uncomfortable ldquoTheyfound the manrsquos body on June twenty-1047297rstrdquo he said ldquoJune twenty-1047297rst

2008rdquo

ldquoTwo days after Elizabethrdquo

Paul nodded again

ldquoNo wonder I didnrsquot hear about itrdquo David sighed loudly then shook

his head ldquoSuspectsrdquo

ldquoThe police are clueless and I mean that quite literallyrdquo

ldquoWhat was the guyrsquos real namerdquo

ldquoWellrdquo said Paul with a smile ldquothatrsquos where it gets interesting When

he purchased his house in 1969 he used the Social Security number of

a man named Joseph Howard King but that isnrsquot who he really wasrdquo

ldquoWhat do you meanrdquo

ldquoA year after they 1047297nd the body the police get a call from the bank

Turns out this guy had about seven hundred grand in a savings account

and another three and a half million in stocks and bonds Using the

name Joseph Howard King he invested heavily in technologymdash Apple

Google stuff like that But the bank canrsquot 1047297nd his next of kin right Sothey call the cops for help By then though the detectives have been

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 912

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 17

working the case for a year and they havenrsquot found this guyrsquos family

either A probate judge gets involved because of the money I mean some-

bodyrsquos going to collect a big paycheck as soon as they 1047297gure out who it

should go tordquoldquoThat moneyrsquos probably the motiverdquo said David ldquoFour million dol-

lars means four million reasons to kill him if yoursquore an heirrdquo

ldquoRight Except no family has come forward to claim it So this judge

appoints a man named Albert Beachum as executor of the estate Appar-

ently Beachumrsquos family had been running errands for the Man from

Primrose Lane for years He allows Beachum to draw money from the

account to relocate the guyrsquos remains from his pauperrsquos grave to a bigger

plot in Mount Peace Cemetery And when Beachum says lsquoScrew thepolice I want to hire a private eye to track this manrsquos family downrsquo the

judge says lsquoFinersquo and lets him pay for his own investigator The PI uses

Joseph Howard Kingrsquos Social Security number to get his birth certi1047297-

cate That has the guyrsquos parentsrsquo names and the name of the hospital

where he was born So the PI goes and pulls the records from the hospi-

tal in the years leading up to and following Kingrsquos birthrdquo

ldquoHe found Joseph Howard Kingrsquos siblingsrdquo

Paul touched his nose with one 1047297nger and pointed at David ldquoBingo Another kid named King with the same parents was born two years

earlier at the same hospital Itrsquos the guyrsquos sister Carol So the PIrsquos really

excited right Hersquos about to call this woman up and tell her she just hit

the lottery Except when he does Carol tells him that her brother Joe

has been dead since 1932 Died in a car crash in Bellefonte Pennsylvania

at the age of six The crash also killed Mom and Dad Carol was at home

with the babysitterrdquo

ldquoHe stole a dead kidrsquos ID and disappeared to Akron Ohiordquo said

David his eyes wide and slightly unfocused the look of a stoner in the

afterglow of a good hit ldquoYou know I bet he came from Bellefonte He

probably read about the accident in the paper and remembered it years

later when he needed to change his name for whatever reason What are

they going to do with the money nowrdquo

ldquoEveryone is 1047297ghting over it Carol wants it of course Figures since

this mystery man stole her brotherrsquos ID she has some right to it She has

a pretty big-time attorney working for her The Beachums seem like nice

people but theyrsquove got a hand in this too and have retained their ownlawyer On top of that you have the Summit County executive and the

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1012

18 JAMES RENNER

mayor staking claim Law says if you canrsquot 1047297nd next of kin money goes

to the state but the city and county want a piece of it toordquo

ldquoAnd the policerdquo

ldquoThe police havenrsquot said peep And therersquos one more twist to thisjust to complicate the picturerdquo

ldquoOf course there isrdquo

ldquoAmong the old manrsquos very scant personal effects were a bunch of bat-

tered notebooksrdquo

David leaned forward ldquoAnd inside the notebooksrdquo

ldquoInside is the life story of a girl he apparently never met a record of

every softball game she played in every award of merit she won in school

every boyfriend every minor traf1047297c ticket All the details of her life werecollected in these notebooks in scrawled handwriting they can only as-

sume belongs to the Man from Primrose Lanerdquo

ldquoHe was a stalker huhrdquo

ldquoOf the highest degreerdquo

ldquoAnd this girl shersquos going after the money too I take itrdquo asked

David

Paul shook his head ldquoNope She couldnrsquot care less Which is a shame

because those notebooks are like love letters in places Obviously theold man cared a great deal for the girl sorry young woman in his own

twisted way He never names her as his bene1047297ciary but almost implies

well yoursquoll have to read the newspaper clippingsrdquo

David sat on the couch staring into the air above the television

Periodically he scratched at the stubble on his boyish face Eventually

his eyes settled on a picture of Tanner resting on the mantel The boy

was about two in the photograph his shaggy hair whipping about in the

wind pulling out over the ocean behind him

ldquoItrsquos a good storyrdquo he said at last

ldquoI knowrdquo

ldquoSounds like itrsquos been mostly reported thoughrdquo

Paul waved his hand in the air ldquoItrsquos been reported but it hasnrsquot been

written And therersquos still plenty mystery for you Who killed him who he

really was why he was stalking this girl rdquo

ldquoI appreciate what yoursquore trying to dordquo said David ldquoAnd if I was

ready to start writing again this would be about the perfect case But I

canrsquotrdquoldquoWhyrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1112

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 712

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 15

my high school home-ec teacherrdquo said David ldquoNobody wants to buy

a bunch of old stories Anyone who wanted to read them has read them

online alreadyrdquo

ldquoAhrdquo said Paul raising a 1047297nger ldquoTheyrsquore not all reprints Check outthe table of contentsrdquo

ldquo lsquoThe Curious Case of the Man from Primrose Lanersquo rdquo

ldquoYour next projectrdquo said Paul ldquoItrsquos the next mystery yoursquore going to

investigate the new piece wersquoll use to market the bookrdquo

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane Never heard of him Who is herdquo

ldquoGeez David Donrsquot you read the paper anymorerdquo Paul regarded

his friend silently for a moment studying his features perhaps to dis-

cern if there was any trace of the old David Neff in there someplaceldquoYou used to be the eternal optimistrdquo he said ldquoYou thought you could

solve all of these mysteries rememberrdquo

ldquoHowrsquod that work outrdquo

ldquoAre you fucking blind Look around you What paid for this house

These toys The Volkswagen in the garage Your four-year-old sonrsquos trust

fund You solved the Ronil Brune case The most fucked-up case any-

body ever heard ofrdquo

ldquoIrsquom just a dad nowrdquoldquoFour years is long enough to live in the dark You told me once that

you never felt better than when you were writing these articles and re-

searching these cases This is a new mystery to dive intordquo

ldquoA little ironic donrsquot you thinkrdquo asked David ldquoYou want to pull me

out of my depression by making me investigate some unsolved murderrdquo

ldquoTherersquos no dead kids in this one At least not murdered onesrdquo

ldquoThat you know ofrdquo

ldquoDo you want to hear about itrdquo

David rubbed his hands together distractedly Was he already feel-

ing a little rush His heart stutter-stepped in his chest His neck itched

Yes he remembered this well A jonesing a craving for something he

knew he shouldnrsquot accept He imagined it was the way his mother must

feel every time she saw a waiter pour a glass of wine in a restaurant

This was what almost ruined his marriage once upon a time ldquoYesrdquo he

whispered

ldquoThe Man from Primrose Lane was a recluse who lived on the west

side of Akron only about a mile from here off MerrimanrdquoldquoRight I know Primrose Wait Are you talking about the old man

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 812

16 JAMES RENNER

who used to ramble down to the park in the middle of the summer

sometimes wearing mittensrdquo

ldquoI believe so yesrdquo

ldquoI saw him a few times after we moved here Strange dude Walkedlike he had somewhere important to go except I never saw him anywhere

except walking Never at the store or in line for Chinese takeout or stuff

like that Never made eye contact Gave me the heebie-jeebies I always

thought he looked a little like my Uncle Ira on a bender Hersquos dead I

take itrdquo

ldquoMurderedrdquo

ldquoHow could someone have a grudge against him if he didnrsquot know

anybody Was it a burglaryrdquoldquoDoesnrsquot look like it It seems personal Whoever did it hacked the

old manrsquos 1047297ngers off at the second knuckle and fed them into the blender

Sliced his palms to shreds Then he was dragged into the living room

and shot once in the stomach Killer left him there to die As much as

they can 1047297gure it took maybe a half hour for him to bleed out The old

man was forced to sit there and let it happenrdquo

ldquoHoly shit When was thisrdquo

Paul repositioned himself in the chair suddenly uncomfortable ldquoTheyfound the manrsquos body on June twenty-1047297rstrdquo he said ldquoJune twenty-1047297rst

2008rdquo

ldquoTwo days after Elizabethrdquo

Paul nodded again

ldquoNo wonder I didnrsquot hear about itrdquo David sighed loudly then shook

his head ldquoSuspectsrdquo

ldquoThe police are clueless and I mean that quite literallyrdquo

ldquoWhat was the guyrsquos real namerdquo

ldquoWellrdquo said Paul with a smile ldquothatrsquos where it gets interesting When

he purchased his house in 1969 he used the Social Security number of

a man named Joseph Howard King but that isnrsquot who he really wasrdquo

ldquoWhat do you meanrdquo

ldquoA year after they 1047297nd the body the police get a call from the bank

Turns out this guy had about seven hundred grand in a savings account

and another three and a half million in stocks and bonds Using the

name Joseph Howard King he invested heavily in technologymdash Apple

Google stuff like that But the bank canrsquot 1047297nd his next of kin right Sothey call the cops for help By then though the detectives have been

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 912

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 17

working the case for a year and they havenrsquot found this guyrsquos family

either A probate judge gets involved because of the money I mean some-

bodyrsquos going to collect a big paycheck as soon as they 1047297gure out who it

should go tordquoldquoThat moneyrsquos probably the motiverdquo said David ldquoFour million dol-

lars means four million reasons to kill him if yoursquore an heirrdquo

ldquoRight Except no family has come forward to claim it So this judge

appoints a man named Albert Beachum as executor of the estate Appar-

ently Beachumrsquos family had been running errands for the Man from

Primrose Lane for years He allows Beachum to draw money from the

account to relocate the guyrsquos remains from his pauperrsquos grave to a bigger

plot in Mount Peace Cemetery And when Beachum says lsquoScrew thepolice I want to hire a private eye to track this manrsquos family downrsquo the

judge says lsquoFinersquo and lets him pay for his own investigator The PI uses

Joseph Howard Kingrsquos Social Security number to get his birth certi1047297-

cate That has the guyrsquos parentsrsquo names and the name of the hospital

where he was born So the PI goes and pulls the records from the hospi-

tal in the years leading up to and following Kingrsquos birthrdquo

ldquoHe found Joseph Howard Kingrsquos siblingsrdquo

Paul touched his nose with one 1047297nger and pointed at David ldquoBingo Another kid named King with the same parents was born two years

earlier at the same hospital Itrsquos the guyrsquos sister Carol So the PIrsquos really

excited right Hersquos about to call this woman up and tell her she just hit

the lottery Except when he does Carol tells him that her brother Joe

has been dead since 1932 Died in a car crash in Bellefonte Pennsylvania

at the age of six The crash also killed Mom and Dad Carol was at home

with the babysitterrdquo

ldquoHe stole a dead kidrsquos ID and disappeared to Akron Ohiordquo said

David his eyes wide and slightly unfocused the look of a stoner in the

afterglow of a good hit ldquoYou know I bet he came from Bellefonte He

probably read about the accident in the paper and remembered it years

later when he needed to change his name for whatever reason What are

they going to do with the money nowrdquo

ldquoEveryone is 1047297ghting over it Carol wants it of course Figures since

this mystery man stole her brotherrsquos ID she has some right to it She has

a pretty big-time attorney working for her The Beachums seem like nice

people but theyrsquove got a hand in this too and have retained their ownlawyer On top of that you have the Summit County executive and the

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1012

18 JAMES RENNER

mayor staking claim Law says if you canrsquot 1047297nd next of kin money goes

to the state but the city and county want a piece of it toordquo

ldquoAnd the policerdquo

ldquoThe police havenrsquot said peep And therersquos one more twist to thisjust to complicate the picturerdquo

ldquoOf course there isrdquo

ldquoAmong the old manrsquos very scant personal effects were a bunch of bat-

tered notebooksrdquo

David leaned forward ldquoAnd inside the notebooksrdquo

ldquoInside is the life story of a girl he apparently never met a record of

every softball game she played in every award of merit she won in school

every boyfriend every minor traf1047297c ticket All the details of her life werecollected in these notebooks in scrawled handwriting they can only as-

sume belongs to the Man from Primrose Lanerdquo

ldquoHe was a stalker huhrdquo

ldquoOf the highest degreerdquo

ldquoAnd this girl shersquos going after the money too I take itrdquo asked

David

Paul shook his head ldquoNope She couldnrsquot care less Which is a shame

because those notebooks are like love letters in places Obviously theold man cared a great deal for the girl sorry young woman in his own

twisted way He never names her as his bene1047297ciary but almost implies

well yoursquoll have to read the newspaper clippingsrdquo

David sat on the couch staring into the air above the television

Periodically he scratched at the stubble on his boyish face Eventually

his eyes settled on a picture of Tanner resting on the mantel The boy

was about two in the photograph his shaggy hair whipping about in the

wind pulling out over the ocean behind him

ldquoItrsquos a good storyrdquo he said at last

ldquoI knowrdquo

ldquoSounds like itrsquos been mostly reported thoughrdquo

Paul waved his hand in the air ldquoItrsquos been reported but it hasnrsquot been

written And therersquos still plenty mystery for you Who killed him who he

really was why he was stalking this girl rdquo

ldquoI appreciate what yoursquore trying to dordquo said David ldquoAnd if I was

ready to start writing again this would be about the perfect case But I

canrsquotrdquoldquoWhyrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1112

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 812

16 JAMES RENNER

who used to ramble down to the park in the middle of the summer

sometimes wearing mittensrdquo

ldquoI believe so yesrdquo

ldquoI saw him a few times after we moved here Strange dude Walkedlike he had somewhere important to go except I never saw him anywhere

except walking Never at the store or in line for Chinese takeout or stuff

like that Never made eye contact Gave me the heebie-jeebies I always

thought he looked a little like my Uncle Ira on a bender Hersquos dead I

take itrdquo

ldquoMurderedrdquo

ldquoHow could someone have a grudge against him if he didnrsquot know

anybody Was it a burglaryrdquoldquoDoesnrsquot look like it It seems personal Whoever did it hacked the

old manrsquos 1047297ngers off at the second knuckle and fed them into the blender

Sliced his palms to shreds Then he was dragged into the living room

and shot once in the stomach Killer left him there to die As much as

they can 1047297gure it took maybe a half hour for him to bleed out The old

man was forced to sit there and let it happenrdquo

ldquoHoly shit When was thisrdquo

Paul repositioned himself in the chair suddenly uncomfortable ldquoTheyfound the manrsquos body on June twenty-1047297rstrdquo he said ldquoJune twenty-1047297rst

2008rdquo

ldquoTwo days after Elizabethrdquo

Paul nodded again

ldquoNo wonder I didnrsquot hear about itrdquo David sighed loudly then shook

his head ldquoSuspectsrdquo

ldquoThe police are clueless and I mean that quite literallyrdquo

ldquoWhat was the guyrsquos real namerdquo

ldquoWellrdquo said Paul with a smile ldquothatrsquos where it gets interesting When

he purchased his house in 1969 he used the Social Security number of

a man named Joseph Howard King but that isnrsquot who he really wasrdquo

ldquoWhat do you meanrdquo

ldquoA year after they 1047297nd the body the police get a call from the bank

Turns out this guy had about seven hundred grand in a savings account

and another three and a half million in stocks and bonds Using the

name Joseph Howard King he invested heavily in technologymdash Apple

Google stuff like that But the bank canrsquot 1047297nd his next of kin right Sothey call the cops for help By then though the detectives have been

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 912

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 17

working the case for a year and they havenrsquot found this guyrsquos family

either A probate judge gets involved because of the money I mean some-

bodyrsquos going to collect a big paycheck as soon as they 1047297gure out who it

should go tordquoldquoThat moneyrsquos probably the motiverdquo said David ldquoFour million dol-

lars means four million reasons to kill him if yoursquore an heirrdquo

ldquoRight Except no family has come forward to claim it So this judge

appoints a man named Albert Beachum as executor of the estate Appar-

ently Beachumrsquos family had been running errands for the Man from

Primrose Lane for years He allows Beachum to draw money from the

account to relocate the guyrsquos remains from his pauperrsquos grave to a bigger

plot in Mount Peace Cemetery And when Beachum says lsquoScrew thepolice I want to hire a private eye to track this manrsquos family downrsquo the

judge says lsquoFinersquo and lets him pay for his own investigator The PI uses

Joseph Howard Kingrsquos Social Security number to get his birth certi1047297-

cate That has the guyrsquos parentsrsquo names and the name of the hospital

where he was born So the PI goes and pulls the records from the hospi-

tal in the years leading up to and following Kingrsquos birthrdquo

ldquoHe found Joseph Howard Kingrsquos siblingsrdquo

Paul touched his nose with one 1047297nger and pointed at David ldquoBingo Another kid named King with the same parents was born two years

earlier at the same hospital Itrsquos the guyrsquos sister Carol So the PIrsquos really

excited right Hersquos about to call this woman up and tell her she just hit

the lottery Except when he does Carol tells him that her brother Joe

has been dead since 1932 Died in a car crash in Bellefonte Pennsylvania

at the age of six The crash also killed Mom and Dad Carol was at home

with the babysitterrdquo

ldquoHe stole a dead kidrsquos ID and disappeared to Akron Ohiordquo said

David his eyes wide and slightly unfocused the look of a stoner in the

afterglow of a good hit ldquoYou know I bet he came from Bellefonte He

probably read about the accident in the paper and remembered it years

later when he needed to change his name for whatever reason What are

they going to do with the money nowrdquo

ldquoEveryone is 1047297ghting over it Carol wants it of course Figures since

this mystery man stole her brotherrsquos ID she has some right to it She has

a pretty big-time attorney working for her The Beachums seem like nice

people but theyrsquove got a hand in this too and have retained their ownlawyer On top of that you have the Summit County executive and the

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1012

18 JAMES RENNER

mayor staking claim Law says if you canrsquot 1047297nd next of kin money goes

to the state but the city and county want a piece of it toordquo

ldquoAnd the policerdquo

ldquoThe police havenrsquot said peep And therersquos one more twist to thisjust to complicate the picturerdquo

ldquoOf course there isrdquo

ldquoAmong the old manrsquos very scant personal effects were a bunch of bat-

tered notebooksrdquo

David leaned forward ldquoAnd inside the notebooksrdquo

ldquoInside is the life story of a girl he apparently never met a record of

every softball game she played in every award of merit she won in school

every boyfriend every minor traf1047297c ticket All the details of her life werecollected in these notebooks in scrawled handwriting they can only as-

sume belongs to the Man from Primrose Lanerdquo

ldquoHe was a stalker huhrdquo

ldquoOf the highest degreerdquo

ldquoAnd this girl shersquos going after the money too I take itrdquo asked

David

Paul shook his head ldquoNope She couldnrsquot care less Which is a shame

because those notebooks are like love letters in places Obviously theold man cared a great deal for the girl sorry young woman in his own

twisted way He never names her as his bene1047297ciary but almost implies

well yoursquoll have to read the newspaper clippingsrdquo

David sat on the couch staring into the air above the television

Periodically he scratched at the stubble on his boyish face Eventually

his eyes settled on a picture of Tanner resting on the mantel The boy

was about two in the photograph his shaggy hair whipping about in the

wind pulling out over the ocean behind him

ldquoItrsquos a good storyrdquo he said at last

ldquoI knowrdquo

ldquoSounds like itrsquos been mostly reported thoughrdquo

Paul waved his hand in the air ldquoItrsquos been reported but it hasnrsquot been

written And therersquos still plenty mystery for you Who killed him who he

really was why he was stalking this girl rdquo

ldquoI appreciate what yoursquore trying to dordquo said David ldquoAnd if I was

ready to start writing again this would be about the perfect case But I

canrsquotrdquoldquoWhyrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1112

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 912

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 17

working the case for a year and they havenrsquot found this guyrsquos family

either A probate judge gets involved because of the money I mean some-

bodyrsquos going to collect a big paycheck as soon as they 1047297gure out who it

should go tordquoldquoThat moneyrsquos probably the motiverdquo said David ldquoFour million dol-

lars means four million reasons to kill him if yoursquore an heirrdquo

ldquoRight Except no family has come forward to claim it So this judge

appoints a man named Albert Beachum as executor of the estate Appar-

ently Beachumrsquos family had been running errands for the Man from

Primrose Lane for years He allows Beachum to draw money from the

account to relocate the guyrsquos remains from his pauperrsquos grave to a bigger

plot in Mount Peace Cemetery And when Beachum says lsquoScrew thepolice I want to hire a private eye to track this manrsquos family downrsquo the

judge says lsquoFinersquo and lets him pay for his own investigator The PI uses

Joseph Howard Kingrsquos Social Security number to get his birth certi1047297-

cate That has the guyrsquos parentsrsquo names and the name of the hospital

where he was born So the PI goes and pulls the records from the hospi-

tal in the years leading up to and following Kingrsquos birthrdquo

ldquoHe found Joseph Howard Kingrsquos siblingsrdquo

Paul touched his nose with one 1047297nger and pointed at David ldquoBingo Another kid named King with the same parents was born two years

earlier at the same hospital Itrsquos the guyrsquos sister Carol So the PIrsquos really

excited right Hersquos about to call this woman up and tell her she just hit

the lottery Except when he does Carol tells him that her brother Joe

has been dead since 1932 Died in a car crash in Bellefonte Pennsylvania

at the age of six The crash also killed Mom and Dad Carol was at home

with the babysitterrdquo

ldquoHe stole a dead kidrsquos ID and disappeared to Akron Ohiordquo said

David his eyes wide and slightly unfocused the look of a stoner in the

afterglow of a good hit ldquoYou know I bet he came from Bellefonte He

probably read about the accident in the paper and remembered it years

later when he needed to change his name for whatever reason What are

they going to do with the money nowrdquo

ldquoEveryone is 1047297ghting over it Carol wants it of course Figures since

this mystery man stole her brotherrsquos ID she has some right to it She has

a pretty big-time attorney working for her The Beachums seem like nice

people but theyrsquove got a hand in this too and have retained their ownlawyer On top of that you have the Summit County executive and the

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1012

18 JAMES RENNER

mayor staking claim Law says if you canrsquot 1047297nd next of kin money goes

to the state but the city and county want a piece of it toordquo

ldquoAnd the policerdquo

ldquoThe police havenrsquot said peep And therersquos one more twist to thisjust to complicate the picturerdquo

ldquoOf course there isrdquo

ldquoAmong the old manrsquos very scant personal effects were a bunch of bat-

tered notebooksrdquo

David leaned forward ldquoAnd inside the notebooksrdquo

ldquoInside is the life story of a girl he apparently never met a record of

every softball game she played in every award of merit she won in school

every boyfriend every minor traf1047297c ticket All the details of her life werecollected in these notebooks in scrawled handwriting they can only as-

sume belongs to the Man from Primrose Lanerdquo

ldquoHe was a stalker huhrdquo

ldquoOf the highest degreerdquo

ldquoAnd this girl shersquos going after the money too I take itrdquo asked

David

Paul shook his head ldquoNope She couldnrsquot care less Which is a shame

because those notebooks are like love letters in places Obviously theold man cared a great deal for the girl sorry young woman in his own

twisted way He never names her as his bene1047297ciary but almost implies

well yoursquoll have to read the newspaper clippingsrdquo

David sat on the couch staring into the air above the television

Periodically he scratched at the stubble on his boyish face Eventually

his eyes settled on a picture of Tanner resting on the mantel The boy

was about two in the photograph his shaggy hair whipping about in the

wind pulling out over the ocean behind him

ldquoItrsquos a good storyrdquo he said at last

ldquoI knowrdquo

ldquoSounds like itrsquos been mostly reported thoughrdquo

Paul waved his hand in the air ldquoItrsquos been reported but it hasnrsquot been

written And therersquos still plenty mystery for you Who killed him who he

really was why he was stalking this girl rdquo

ldquoI appreciate what yoursquore trying to dordquo said David ldquoAnd if I was

ready to start writing again this would be about the perfect case But I

canrsquotrdquoldquoWhyrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1112

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1012

18 JAMES RENNER

mayor staking claim Law says if you canrsquot 1047297nd next of kin money goes

to the state but the city and county want a piece of it toordquo

ldquoAnd the policerdquo

ldquoThe police havenrsquot said peep And therersquos one more twist to thisjust to complicate the picturerdquo

ldquoOf course there isrdquo

ldquoAmong the old manrsquos very scant personal effects were a bunch of bat-

tered notebooksrdquo

David leaned forward ldquoAnd inside the notebooksrdquo

ldquoInside is the life story of a girl he apparently never met a record of

every softball game she played in every award of merit she won in school

every boyfriend every minor traf1047297c ticket All the details of her life werecollected in these notebooks in scrawled handwriting they can only as-

sume belongs to the Man from Primrose Lanerdquo

ldquoHe was a stalker huhrdquo

ldquoOf the highest degreerdquo

ldquoAnd this girl shersquos going after the money too I take itrdquo asked

David

Paul shook his head ldquoNope She couldnrsquot care less Which is a shame

because those notebooks are like love letters in places Obviously theold man cared a great deal for the girl sorry young woman in his own

twisted way He never names her as his bene1047297ciary but almost implies

well yoursquoll have to read the newspaper clippingsrdquo

David sat on the couch staring into the air above the television

Periodically he scratched at the stubble on his boyish face Eventually

his eyes settled on a picture of Tanner resting on the mantel The boy

was about two in the photograph his shaggy hair whipping about in the

wind pulling out over the ocean behind him

ldquoItrsquos a good storyrdquo he said at last

ldquoI knowrdquo

ldquoSounds like itrsquos been mostly reported thoughrdquo

Paul waved his hand in the air ldquoItrsquos been reported but it hasnrsquot been

written And therersquos still plenty mystery for you Who killed him who he

really was why he was stalking this girl rdquo

ldquoI appreciate what yoursquore trying to dordquo said David ldquoAnd if I was

ready to start writing again this would be about the perfect case But I

canrsquotrdquoldquoWhyrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1112

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1112

THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE 19

David stood up and motioned for Paul to follow ldquoStep into my of-

1047297cerdquo he said ldquoLet me buy you a drinkrdquo

Davidrsquos home was a sprawling high-ceilinged ranch built for an Akronhomeopathic doctor in 1954 The architect had deferred to the bachelor

doctorrsquos sense of style modernism with a hint of re1047297ned hillbilly Rock

gardens sat on either side of the 1047297replace used currently as rough ter-

rain for a phalanx of plastic army men advancing on the kitchen The

walls lining the long hallway leading off the living room were coated in

horse-hair paper soft to the touch but frayed near the bottom where the

previous tenantsrsquo cat had rubbed against it They passed Tannerrsquos room

quietly He lay snoozing in the middle of his bed his knobby knees tuckedunder him his butt pointed toward the skymdashit was the only way he could

sleep At the end of the hall through an oak door was the so-called East

Wing of the house

The East Wing was essentially two rooms connected by a wide

threshold David had converted the entire space into a workroom Book-

shelves lined the walls many 1047297lled beyond capacity paperbacks stacked

three rows deep Every so often the pattern of books was broken by Star

Wars 1047297gurines David used for bookends Han Solo kept a dog-earedcopy of The Dubliners from slipping aside Up front was a bar stocked

with Dewarrsquos some gin and a mostly empty bottle of Jameson a gift from

Paul The fulcrum of the two areas was occupied by a Tron arcade game

which sadly no longer worked properlymdashthe laser cars could not be

controlled and the contraption had a habit of shocking you whenever

you maneuvered your tanks At the far end of the East Wing was Davidrsquos

desk a monstrosity hersquod found at an estate sale a week after his book

broke The New York Times Top 15 Supposedly it had once belonged to

the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald David thought it might be cursed

The Edmund Fitzgerald was at the bottom of the lake His wife was

dead And he hadnrsquot written a single page since he had paid 1047297ve men to

lug it inside Mounted above the desk was the head of a brown bear a

curio that had come with the house

David lifted the front of the bar and stepped behind it He 1047297shed a

shot glass out of the cabinet above his head and set it down in front of his

publisher Into the shot glass went the rest of the Jameson

ldquoWherersquos yoursrdquo asked PaulldquoIf I drink Irsquoll lose my liverrdquo said David ldquoIrsquom up to a hundred and

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo

832019 The Man from Primrose Lane A Novel

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullthe-man-from-primrose-lane-a-novel 1212

20 JAMES RENNER

twenty milligrams of Rivertin a day They tell me that if I drink on that

even a little itrsquoll wreck my liver quick Hell of a side effect huhrdquo

Paul blinked behind his glass

ldquoAnd Irsquove discovered that to some extent it was my anxiety thatdrove my writing My paranoia And now I never feel anxiousrdquo David

shook his head ldquoIrsquove tried All that comes out is trite garbage I canrsquot

write an original simile to save my life Itrsquos like I dunno itrsquos like

Irsquom comfortably numb No more panic attacks no more night terrors

But no more stories either I canrsquot get to that place And even if I wanted

to come off it Irsquod have to do it in stages My shrink says it would take

months to wean myself off the drug So when I say I canrsquot I mean

physically I canrsquotrdquoPaul upended the whiskey into his mouth ldquoFuckrdquo he said

ldquoYeahrdquo

A long silence settled in After a while the sounds of a child stirring

could be heard drifting down the hallway squeaky springs under gentle

weight low grunts and snif1047298es Tanner would be awake soon

ldquoLookrdquo said Paul at last ldquoeverything happensmdashrdquo

ldquoStop right there Think about what yoursquore about to sayrdquo

ldquoTherersquos a reason to thingsrdquo Paul continued ldquoI mean it I donrsquot knowwhy you were attracted to that story that gave you PTSD But therersquos a

reason Gotta berdquo

ldquoYou canrsquot say stuff like that to a guy whose wife drove her car into

the side of a Dollar General at seventy miles an hourrdquo

ldquoThe only reason you didnrsquot join her was because you were on the

meds Am I rightrdquo

David ignored him ldquoThe universe is absurd People want to make

sense of it because wersquore hardwired to 1047297nd reason in the randomness

We look for patterns in the chaos See omens in coincidence We look at

the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like

animals call them constellations For some reason we want to give mean-

ing to the meaningless If you go looking for the number eighty-eight

yoursquoll see it everywheremdashthe number of keys on a piano the number of

counties in Ohiomdashbut it doesnrsquot mean anythingrdquo