The Final Act

by Joy Fielding

  “They think we know something about Julia,” her husband explained.

  “But you already talked to them.”

  “Apparently some calls were made from this house . . .”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The police have a tap on my phone,” Cindy said, her voice cold, her sympathy spent. “Apparently it’s not unusual in cases like this for the victim’s family to receive crank calls,” she continued, bracing herself for Faith’s heated denials.

  Instead she heard, “You think Julia’s the victim here?”

  “What?” asked Cindy, rising quickly to her feet.

  “What?” echoed Ryan, his hands dropping to his sides.

  “Trust me,” Faith continued, tugging at the bottom of her pajama top, pulling it up and away from her leaking breasts. “Julia’s no sweet, innocent little victim.”

  “Faith,” Ryan began warily. “I don’t think you should say anything else.”

  “Yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like me to be the good little girl, the quiet little mouse, the perfect little wifey who stays home and cooks and cleans and looks after your demon seed, all the while smiling and looking happy, never saying a word about the fact that her husband is busy screwing everything that moves.”

  “Faith, please. . .”

  “What? You think I don’t know? You think I don’t know about Brooke, about Ellen, about Marcy?” She paused briefly. “About Julia?”

  “What about Julia?” Cindy asked quietly, almost reluctant to interrupt, to interfere with the violent flow of words.

  Faith abruptly shifted her focus from Ryan to Cindy. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, knowing how special you think your precious Julia is, but your little girl was just one of the crowd. Wasn’t she, Ryan? Pick a number—the line forms to the right.”

  “Faith,” her husband warned. “Enough.”

  “Enough? Are you kidding? What’s ever been enough for you?”

  “Look. You’re upset. You’re exhausted. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying you’re a lying, cheating piece of shit who sleeps with his clients’ wives, his partner’s daughter, and his neighbor’s pride and joy. Except there’s not a whole lot to be proud of, is there, Cindy? Trust me on this: Julia’s no innocent little victim. She wasn’t lured into the backseat of a stranger’s car by a piece of candy. She was sleeping with a married man, and in my book, she deserves whatever happened to her.”

  “Faith,” Cindy urged, trying desperately to maintain control, “if you know where Julia is . . .”

  “Have you checked the Yellow Pages under ‘Whores’?”

  Ryan’s hand suddenly sliced through the air, came down hard across his wife’s cheek. “Shut up, Faith! Just shut up!”

  Faith staggered back, grabbed the side of her face. “I will not shut up,” she screamed. “I am not a silent partner in this relationship, and I will not be quiet any longer.”

  “If you have any idea, any idea at all, what happened to Julia . . .” Cindy pleaded.

  Faith squinted at Cindy as if she were staring directly into the sun. “You think I had something to do with your daughter’s disappearance?”

  “Did you?”

  Faith emitted a low, guttural sound, halfway between a scoff and a snarl, then sank to the living room sofa. Above their heads, a baby began to cry. “Well, what do you know? Another quarter heard from. What took you so long?” she hollered at the ceiling.

  “Did you have anything to do with Julia’s disappearance?” Cindy pressed, aware that Ryan was staring at his wife with equal intensity.

  Faith caught the question in her husband’s eyes and made another sound, this one more moan than defiance. “You think I actually did something to your golden girl?” she asked, ignoring Cindy, directing the question at Ryan. “Tell me, when was I supposed to have done this? In between breast-feeding and changing diapers? Between putting your son down to sleep and trying to get some sleep myself? How about between blow-jobs?”

  “Faith, for God’s sake. . .”

  “I didn’t touch your precious Julia,” Faith told Cindy. “I have absolutely no idea where she is or what happened to her.” She lowered her head into her hands, spoke through slightly parted fingers. “Yes, I made those calls. Don’t ask me why. You’ve always been so nice to me. My friend. My only friend.” She lifted her legs off the floor and curled into a fetal position on the couch, her arms wrapping around her head, as if seeking to protect herself from further blows. “Oh God, would somebody please get that damn baby to stop screaming.”

  “How long were you involved with my daughter?” Cindy asked Ryan, her voice low, her eyes locked on his wife.

  “Cindy. . .”

  “Please don’t insult me by continuing to deny it.” She turned slowly in his direction.

  Ryan nodded. “Two months. Maybe a bit more.”

  “Why did you lie?”

  “What else was I supposed to do? Tell me, Cindy. What was I supposed to do?”

  “You were supposed to tell the truth.”

  “And what good would that have done? What good does knowing about my relationship with Julia do anyone? Is it going to help find her?”

  “I don’t know. Is it?”

  “Honestly, Cindy. If I thought for one minute that telling the police about my affair with Julia would have helped find her, I would have done it. I was just trying to protect her.”

  “Protect her? The only person you’ve been trying to protect in this whole mess is yourself.”

  “I don’t know where Julia is,” Ryan said again. “Yes, I lied about my involvement with her, and yes, I’m a no-good piece of shit who cheats on his wife. But do you have any idea what it’s like being married to someone who’s constantly depressed, who acts as if she’s the only woman in the world who ever gave birth, who looks at her own son as if he’s some infectious disease? So yes, I tend to respond favorably when a beautiful woman looks at me with adoration instead of contempt. But that only means I’m human. It doesn’t mean I had anything to do with Julia’s disappearance. Please, Cindy, you have to believe me. I would never hurt Julia.”

  “Do you love my daughter?” Cindy asked, hearing the police car pull into the driveway, the sound of car doors slamming.

  Ryan looked away, said nothing.

  Of all times not to lie, Cindy thought. “You really are a jerk,” she told him, listening as heavy footsteps bounded up the outside steps, and impatient hands pounded on the front door.

  *

  IT WAS ALMOST nine o’clock that night when the police finally phoned Cindy to say they’d concluded their questioning of the Sellicks, first at their home, then at the police station, and ultimately decided to release them.

  “What do you mean, you released them?”

  “We have nothing to hold them on,” Detective Gill explained.

  “What do you mean, you have nothing?” How many times did she start sentences these days with the phrase, what do you mean? “Ryan Sellick admitted he lied about his affair with Julia. His wife admitted calling my house.”

  “Yes, and we questioned them for more than four hours. That’s all they admitted.”

  “Four hours? My daughter’s been missing for two weeks!”

  “Mrs. Carver,” Detective Gill interrupted gently. “Of course we will continue to investigate all angles here, but Ryan Sellick’s alibi checks out, and it’s highly unlikely that Faith Sellick could have been involved in Julia’s disappearance. Think of it logically. It means she would have had to follow Julia to her audition, wait for her, ambush her. . .”

  “She wouldn’t have had to ambush her,” Cindy protested, knowing she was grasping at straws. “All she’d have to do was pretend to be in the area shopping, and then casually offer Julia a lift. . .”

  “And the baby?”

  “Maybe she left him at home. Maybe he was in the backseat. Maybe she used him
to lure Julia into the car.” Like offering a child a piece of candy, Cindy thought, recalling Faith’s own words. There was a second’s silence. Cindy could almost feel Detective Gill shrug. “Are you going to get a search warrant?”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “What do you mean, it won’t be necessary? Why not?”

  “The Sellicks have already given us their permission to search their cars and premises.”

  “They have? What does that mean?”

  “It means we’re unlikely to find anything.”

  “And that’s what you think?” Why was she asking him that? It was obviously what he thought.

  “I think we have to wait and see if forensics can come up with any real evidence linking the Sellicks to your daughter.”

  “And if they can’t? Can’t you arrest them anyway?”

  “We need evidence to arrest people, Mrs. Carver,” Detective Gill reminded her patiently. “We could charge Mrs. Sellick with making those crank calls, but I’m not sure there’s any point to that, given her delicate emotional state.”

  Cindy took a deep breath, swallowed the scream that was building in her throat. Elvis, lying on the kitchen floor, rolled to his feet and ambled over to where she was sitting, then laid his chin in her lap. Cindy found herself smiling in spite of her distress, and patted the top of his head appreciatively. “What about Sean Banack?”

  “His alibis have pretty much checked out.”

  “Pretty much?”

  “It seems unlikely he was involved in Julia’s disappearance.”

  “What about Michael Kinsolving? Duncan Rossi? Any of Julia’s friends?”

  “So far, nothing.”

  “So you’re no farther ahead than you were two weeks ago. In fact, if anything, you’re farther behind.” Hadn’t she read somewhere that the longer a case dragged on, the colder its trail became? “What exactly are you people doing to find my daughter, Detective?”

  “Our job, Mrs. Carver,” the detective said simply. “And you’re not making things any easier for us by barging into people’s homes and interfering with our investigation.”

  “I didn’t barge into the Sellicks’ house. I was asked to come over.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “So I’m just supposed to sit back and do nothing?”

  “That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”

  “I don’t think I can do that.”

  “You have no choice here, Mrs. Carver.”

  Cindy clenched her fists in her lap, swallowed another scream. Elvis immediately poked his wet nose into the palm of her hand, demanding to be stroked. Cindy absently obliged, replaying Detective Gill’s words in her mind—You have no choice here—and wondering how many major events in her life had been decided without her approval. There was no such thing as choice, she was thinking. It was an illusion, a comforting yet basically specious concept that human beings had developed in order to fool themselves into believing they had some control over their lives.

  Control—another illusion.

  “Mrs. Carver,” Detective Gill was saying. “Did you understand what I just said?”

  “I understand, Detective Gill. I’m not an idiot.”

  “Then please stop acting like one,” he said, a sudden sharpness cutting through his soft Jamaican lilt. “You could end up sabotaging this whole investigation,” he continued, softening. “Or worse. You could get hurt. And what good would that do anyone?”

  “You’re right.” Cindy looked around the kitchen, thinking that if she didn’t get off this phone, get out of this house, she would go insane. “I’m sorry, Detective. It won’t happen again.”

  “We’ll keep in touch.”

  “Thank you.” Cindy hung up the phone and jumped to her feet, Elvis leaping to attention beside her. “We have to get out of here,” Cindy told the dog, who promptly dragged his leash to the front door, understanding her intent, if not her words.

  Seconds later, the two were running down the street toward Avenue Road.

  *

  THEY RAN DOWN the steep slope between Edmund and Cottingham. Even after nine o’clock at night, Avenue Road was still busy. Three lanes of traffic moved steadily in each direction, and pedestrians ambled along both sides of the street—joggers, people walking their dogs, couples out for an evening stroll. Such a nice night after all. Still warm. Summer hanging on, more stubborn than usual.

  A few more months and this hill would be as treacherous as a mountain of ice. Cindy remembered winters when this stretch of road became almost unnavigable, when cars on the ascent stalled and faltered, their wheels spinning aimlessly before succumbing to the pull of gravity and sliding back down the hill, colliding with other automobiles powerless to get out of the way, causing traffic tie-ups all the way to Queen’s Park.

  Cindy passed an elderly couple strolling hand in hand, the wife using the handrail that ran along the side of the street to help her manage the incline, then scooted past a jogger in bright orange shorts and the latest in running shoes. What was she doing? she asked herself. She wasn’t a jogger, let alone a long-distance runner, yet here she was running much too fast down a steep hill, wearing jeans that were way too tight and sandals that offered no support at all, a rambunctious and unpredictable terrier at her feet. She’d be stiff as a board in the morning, she thought, and laughed out loud, the sound scraping at the darkness, like a pick through ice. Oh well. At least that would keep her from barging into people’s homes and offices, from interfering with the police investigation. Hah, she thought, and laughed again.

  At the bottom of the hill, she turned right, running along Cottingham, glancing at the semidetached brownstones that lined both sides of the wide street, wondering what mayhem was being unleashed behind thin venetian blinds and antique lace curtains. She slowed her pace as she drew near two young women who were talking beside a low, white picket fence. Both were blond. Neither was Julia.

  “What’s your favorite film so far?” one was asking the other.

  “It’s between The Magdelene Sisters and L’Homme du Train. They were awesome.”

  “Am I wrong, but is the quality of films better this year?”

  Cindy resumed her former pace, passing the two young women, then turning left, then left again, and running briskly down Rathnelly, a quirky little avenue whose even quirkier inhabitants had once declared their street a republic. She turned left again, Elvis beside her, somehow knowing not to stop, to keep running, to keep turning left, then right, then left again, then right, watching one familiar street blur into another. Cindy kept on going, hoping to disappear, to lose herself in the welcoming darkness.

  She ran beside the railway tracks along Dupont, past the tiny Tarragon Theater on Bridgeman, where she’d once had a subscription, past majestic old Casa Loma, where Meg had held her wedding reception, then across the bridge at Spadina, back up to St. Clair, and finally back down Poplar Plains to Balmoral.

  She reached the corner in time to see Ryan and Faith Sellick pulling into their driveway, climbing out of their car, and carrying their infant son up the front steps, before disappearing inside their home.

  Home, she thought, coming to an abrupt halt.

  All her running, and where had it gotten her? Back where she started.

  She couldn’t get lost if she tried.

  *

  AT JUST AFTER two o’clock in the morning, Cindy’s phone rang.

  “Is this Cindy Carver?” a voice asked, jolting her awake.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Officer Medavoy from Fifty-third Division. We have your daughter, Mrs. Carver,” the officer began.

  He was still speaking as Cindy threw down the phone and raced for the door.

  THIRTY

  THE Fifty-third Division of the Metropolitan Police Department is a vine-covered, redbrick building with a dramatic glass atrium over its entranceway, located on the southwest corner of Eglinton and Duplex, across from the Eglinton subway station. Ci
ndy pulled her car into the narrow lot at the rear of the building, parking it between two black-and-white police cars, and running along Duplex to the front of the three-story structure. Her legs were cramping as she reached the glass double doors, and she stopped to rub behind one knee, taking several deep breaths in an effort to calm herself down.

  They’d found Julia. She was alive.

  “I’m Cindy Carver,” she announced as she burst through the front door and threw herself at the long counter that cut across the middle of the large, high ceilinged room. “Where’s my daughter?”

  A dark-haired woman with a wide forehead and a long, pinched nose was sitting at one of four desks behind the counter. She immediately jumped to her feet, glancing anxiously over one shoulder, before returning wary eyes to Cindy. “I’m sorry?” she began, absently smoothing the creases of her police uniform.

  “My daughter, Julia Carver. Someone called me. Officer Medavak. . .”

  “Medavoy,” the policewoman corrected.

  “Where is he?”

  “I’ll see if I can find him.”

  Cindy nodded, her eyes quickly scanning the bulletin board to her left, crowded with pictures of missing children, as the policewoman shuffled slowly toward a door at the back of the room. Cindy had to bite down on her tongue to keep from yelling, Move!

  The officer suddenly stopped, turned back to Cindy. “I’m sorry. Your name again?”

  “Cindy Carver.” What’s the matter with her? Cindy thought. Doesn’t she know who I am? Doesn’t she read the papers? Hasn’t she seen Julia’s photograph plastered across the front pages for weeks now? Although there’d been no pictures of her for several days, not since the police arrested Sally Hanson’s boyfriend for her murder and eliminated the likelihood of a serial killer on the loose. Was it possible Julia had already been forgotten? That Tom had been right—out of sight, out of mind?

  “Tom,” she thought, saying his name out loud. Was he here? Had anyone thought to phone him?

  Certainly she hadn’t, she realized guiltily, although she hadn’t been thinking too clearly when the police officer called. It had been all she could do to remember to put on some clothes before tearing out the door. She looked down at her black V-neck sweatshirt, hoped it was clean, that she didn’t smell. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done any laundry. Not since her sister left, she thought, thinking she should call Leigh, tell her the good news. And her mother. She should phone her. And Tom. Somebody should phone Tom.