My phone rang last Friday while I was reading about the “suicide” of that whistle-blowing Enron exec, dead from what police call a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, and all I could think was: How convenient. That will keep him from testifying. Was he disconsolate about the $35 mil greed-grab he made selling off his Enron stock before he quit? Or is he another Vince Foster? What a charade!
On the other end of the wire was a woman weeping. She was weeping so profusely, I was hard-pressed to determine her identity. Turns out it was an elderly neighbor, “Doris,” septuagenarian cancer survivor who dances in parades all over the city. We weren’t really close, Doris and I, but since she had the same Virgo birthday as my late mom, I hugged her whenever I’d see her pulling her shopping cart filled with day-old bread for the homeless shelter.
Disconsolate, Doris sobbed that Gabby, her red tiger cat had died Tuesday. Then, wracked by fits of spasmodic weeping, she blurted out that Bob, her ex-companion of 34 years, had also just died, senile, in a nursing home, after a fall. Seized by fresh waves of grief, Doris ranted and raved – how he’d be alive today, if only he had gotten the right doctors, on and on, an avalanche of emotion. Finally spent, agreeing he was better off at peace than suffering, Doris hung up.
I went to cash my paycheck.
As usual, the lines at the bank were oppressively long, but I could bypass the waiting, since I used their bank-within-a-bank for businesses, a small room with one teller. The same disturbing notice was posted on the door as last month: Dedicated to the memory of our beloved teller, “Carlotta,” who died January 4, 2002.
The room had become her shrine.
Carlotta was the reason I had continued patronizing this particular bank despite its various inconsistencies. Vibrant, cheerful, efficient, warm, friendly, kind and caring, she was superior to a thousand ATM machines. Her customers felt a personal connection to her. When I first found out about her death three days after it occurred in early January, I was incredulous since I had seen her alive, healthy and cheerful the week before Christmas.
Yes, Carlotta was gone. A teller supervisor had been brought in from a suburban branch. It took three people to do her job. “No one wanted to work in this room after she died so suddenly,” the woman told me at the time, “so we thought we’d give them a chance to get over the shock.”
Which led me to wonder what Carlotta had really died of – something horrible like anthrax? Was there more to the story?
For weeks a sadness about her death lingered in me but I wasn’t sure why. This past Friday when I went back to the bank to cash two checks, I asked another temporary teller, someone I was slightly familiar with, how Carlotta had died.
“Murder.”
I caught my breath. I was stunned. It took a moment for that to sink in – Carlotta was murdered! – before I was flooded with tears.
“Murder-suicide,” the woman added.
But, who? I asked, nearly speechless.
“Her husband.”
Was it a pact? I asked, although I couldn’t imagine that, since Carlotta had seemed so sturdy and health conscious, taking vitamins and herbs when necessary.
No pact. “He killed her, then himself. Carlotta had left the bank about 4:30 p.m. on that Friday, and at 8:30 p.m. a SWAT team was called in response to a woman’s screams. Did they have a fight? Who knows.”
Had her husband been ill? On medication?
“Heart condition. And he had a jealousy problem.”
Sadly, Carlotta had just three years until retirement. She was 62, the teller informed me, though she appeared 45. “At first, we just said she died, to protect her memory. But, really, her customers should know.”
In Carlotta’s honor, her bank co-workers took up a collection they’ll donate to an organization against women’s abuse. “If it prevents just one more woman from being hurt in a situation like this,” the teller said, “we will have accomplished something for Carlotta’s sake.” (If you or someone you know is being abused, please call this 24-hour national hotline, at 1-800-799-SAFE, for immediate assistance.)
I gave her a contribution, and left the bank shaken, unabashedly crying beneath my sunglasses for several blocks. After picking up some take-out at the Korean salad bar, I passed a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk. Out of sight for much of the past year, he had been known to local residents for beating his younger female companion, who seemed to have vanished. Once she had masterminded an audacious winter barbecue on the steps of the hoity-toity Academy of Music – late, lamented home to the Philadelphia Orchestra – grilling steaks she purchased at the corner supermarket with begging money.
Brandishing his Styrofoam cup, he greeted me profusely, as if I am a long-lost drinking buddy. His companion was still gone – thinking of Carlotta, I can’t help but wonder if this absent woman was murdered, too. On the sidewalk behind the scruffy fellow is his artificial limb, oddly convincing in a boot, a sock and a pants-leg, but grotesquely unhooked, protruding, ready to trip someone.
I nodded to him and kept moving, reminding myself I am in America at the beginning of a new century.
Let’s curb the kangaroo court of anonymous sources
Tim Graham