Many of the items in Peter Franchette’s file box were redundant or immaterial, reflective of a collector’s impulse for completeness. Also evident was a preference for quantifiable data over human intelligence.
A surplus of lists, maps, photos of buildings, public records.
A scattering of interviews or any other narratives.
For all Franchette’s insistence that I needed to understand the personalities involved, he didn’t seem to want to get close to anyone.
Afraid of what he’d learn? Or was the act of collection itself the source of his pleasure? The unexpectedly wealthy can feel like undeserving impostors. Did Peter Franchette want to complicate a luxe existence, balance out his privilege? If so, resolution might be a letdown.
If so, he’d recruited the wrong person to help.
For the next several days, working while Charlotte napped or did tummy time, I sorted.
The Gene Franchette stack ran to four inches thick.
Beverly Franchette had thirty pages, all related to her death and burial.
Midcentury housewives didn’t have Facebook or Instagram to document their daily travails. Few would’ve considered domestic stress worth writing about. Whereas Gene conducted exotic science and lived to publish.
Even so, the disparity was striking.
A manila envelope contained snapshots and Polaroids spanning several decades. Lots of Gene. Bare-chested in too-short swim trunks. On a ladder, screwing in a plant hanger. At his desk, absorbed in writing. He had a large square head, his features all straight edges welded at efficient, ninety-degree angles. Like something that had come off an assembly line, individual components replaceable in case of damage.
A shot taken in old age transferred him to a suede La-Z-Boy, blanket on his lap, goat-horn tufts of white hair poking over the stems of steel eyeglasses. Bristling pocket protector. Long brownish smirk, as if he was delighted to inform you your fly was unzipped.
An unbreakable bastard.
Gene’s genes.
Far fewer pictures of Beverly. Every one had her ducking the camera or seeking shelter behind a blurry hand.
The incredible shrinking woman.
It must seem—I don’t know. Deficient. To be missing such basic facts.
Go to the source.
I called Gene Franchette’s home phone.
—
“WHAT.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Franchette, my name is Clay Edison—”
“Not interested.”
Click.
I hit REDIAL. “Mr. Franchette, I’m not selling anything.”
Click.
The third time he didn’t answer.
I sent Peter Franchette an email, asking him again to make the introduction, and turned to the recordings of his phone calls to his aunt.
Aunt Edie. It’s Peter Franchette.
Who?
Your nephew, Peter. Beverly’s son? Silence. We met a long time ago. Do you remember me?
I…I don’t have any.
I’d like to talk to you and ask you some questions. Do you feel up for that?
I don’t…What?
He tried to explain.
Her voice clogged with agitation, she said I didn’t have a baby.
Not you. My mother. Your sister. Her baby.
What?
A baby. Before me.
She wasn’t any good.
Did she tell you about the baby?
What do you want? I can’t do that.
He’d tried four more times with even less success.
I switched to the most detailed item on Beverly Franchette: her death certificate.
Born Beverly Rice, February 27, 1940, in Paramus, New Jersey, to father Samuel and mother Victoria. Died May 3, 2014, Presbyterian Hospital, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Cause of death: acute respiratory failure secondary to metastatic cancer of the lungs.
Blank space for OCCUPATION.
You never know what people will deem worth preserving. A pair of Paramus High School alums had taken it upon themselves to scan and upload yearbooks going back to 1952.
I scrolled through the graduating classes of 1958 and 1959. Girls in scoop necks and pearls. Boys in white dinner jackets and black bowties. A zippy paragraph noted each student’s accomplishments and aspirations.
No Beverly Rice.
Thinking she might’ve skipped a grade, I checked 1957.
Nothing.
On a whim I checked 1956.
There she was.
She hadn’t skipped a grade. She’d skipped two.
For her senior portrait, she’d plucked her eyebrows thin and high, gotten an Audrey Hepburn pixie cut. Heavy makeup. Stabs at sophistication, intended to erase the age gap between her and her classmates, they ended up having the opposite effect, exaggerating her large, child-like eyes. She had fixed her expression as women do when walking in rough areas or riding BART: a warning smile, gaze slid three degrees off center, denying eye contact while keeping you within her awareness.
Call her pretty at your own risk.
Beverly Eileen Rice. 295 Winders Road. French Club 2, 3; Library Council 2; Band 1, 2; Math Club 1, 2, 3, Vice President 4; Physics Club 1, Secretary 2, Vice President 3, President 4.
Everybody knows Baby Bev has a big brain! She plans to attend Brooklyn College and study the mysteries of the universe. Wherever she goes, she’ll be a success.
In the Math Club photo, she stood a head shorter than everyone else. One of two girls.
In the Physics Club photo, she posed front and center, befitting her presidency. The sole girl.
The City University of New York system maintained an online archive of yearbooks.
In 1960, aged twenty, Beverly Rice had graduated summa cum laude from Brooklyn College with a joint BA in applied mathematics and physics. By then, she’d grown her hair out and teased it into a bouffant. A Phi Beta Kappa inductee, she had served for two years as co-president of the Society of Physics Students and intended to pursue graduate studies.
The yearbook didn’t offer a portrait of said society, but I hazarded its membership as predominantly male.
Lots more to Beverly Franchette than being Peter’s mother and Gene’s wife.
I phoned the UC Berkeley Physics Department. The man who answered couldn’t tell me offhand whether they’d ever had a graduate student named Beverly Rice or Beverly Franchette. The computerized roster went back only to 1997.
He said, “The information is probably somewhere.” But I’m not looking for it.
I hung up and called my father-in-law.
“Clay, my boy.”
Paul Sandek and I first met when I took his class in social psychology. A former basketball player himself, he was a fixture at Cal home games, whooping encouragement from the bleachers while I ran the point. After a knee injury ended my hopes of going pro, he and Theresa became guiding lights to me, which made for a weird and lucky set of circumstances: Well before I fell in love with my wife, I adored her parents.
“Hey, Paul. How are you?”
“How am I? How are you.”
“Every day is a new opportunity for growth.”
“That is a fabulous attitude. Is the baby there? Can we FaceTime?”
“She’s asleep. She’ll be up in a little while.”
“Well then call me back in a little while.”
“Good to know I’m still a person worth talking to.”
“Why in the world would I want to talk to you? You’ve served your function, amigo.”
We caught up a bit. I sketched my conversation with Peter Franchette. “I’m wondering if anyone in the physics department might remember Gene or Beverly.”
“That’s a heck of a long time ago. Most everyone’s gone, I’d assume.”
“Could you ask around?”
“Sure. Don’t hold your breath.”
But I could tell that he was excited. He always got a kick out of playing detective.
Early Saturday evening, as Kat Davenport and I were returning to the bureau with a body, my cellphone buzzed in the cup holder, a familiar number flashing. I let it go, finished the intake, and headed out to the parking lot for the callback.
Paul said, “I have a name for you. Delia Moskowitz. Professor emerita.”
“How’d you track her down?”
“Be impressed, my boy.” He chuckled. “Not really. I have a friend in the physics department—Antonio Stokes, from the Old Fart Pickup Game? Speaking of which, everyone keeps asking me when you’ll be back.”
“In thirty years.”
“Oh, unkind, unkind…As I was saying, I asked Antonio, who asked a colleague, and so forth. Et voilà.”
“Terrific. And impressive. Thanks so much. So she taught at Cal?”
“She started off as a physicist, right around the period you’re interested in, but somehow ended up in history of science. I’ve got her email address. You can have it on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Bring me that baby.”
Dear Mr. Edison,
Thank you for your email. I read it with great interest. Yes, I remember Bev, and Gene, too. I’ll gladly answer any questions you may have. I go twice a week to the Faculty Club for lunch. They make a superlative turkey club. Wednesday’s soup is split pea. Perhaps you would care to join me?
Sincerely,
Delia Moskowitz
