by Ben Sanders
They sat looking at each other for a few seconds. Marshall had a line forming, something about how being a family man demanded a different kind of selfishness – generosity in a personal sphere closing you down to the broader world – but he knew he couldn’t say it. Harry had a different kind of calculus to make, one that Marshall knew he’d probably never understand.
He went and sat outside the church for a while, watching the traffic go by on 155th Street, and then he started walking. Three blocks down Broadway, his phone rang. It was Hannah Vialoux.
‘Hey. Everything all right?’
‘They said it was you who found Lydia. Why didn’t you tell me? You just left?’
He had the answer right there in his mind, but he couldn’t say it, couldn’t tell her he felt a tension being back in the house, being around her. Like everything was set on edge by history. He said, ‘I’m trying to find who did it. That’s all.’
‘Esther Lopez says she saw one of them. She said she spoke to you, too.’
‘That’s right.’
‘They’ve been following him for weeks. I remember now. They’ve been following him probably for six weeks. The boys saw him being watched.’
‘What? What boys?’
‘No, Boynes. Boynes. Their daughter committed suicide. Ray looked into it, I think I told you earlier. He was at their house, and they saw that man watching, sitting in his car. I remembered, because of the description. Shiny hair, and that smile on his face. They said he just sat there, smiling.’
THIRTEEN
When he reached her street there were still a couple of patrol cars parked down the block outside Lydia’s. He saw Bruce Linney in his front courtyard, chaining his daughter’s bike to the fence. He went up the steps to the Vialoux place, and Hannah had the door open when he reached it.
‘Oh, God, you’re soaking …’
He stepped inside and let her take his coat off, her hands on his shoulders bringing back more memories. He heard someone on the stairs and glanced up, saw Ella’s feet disappearing to the second floor.
Hannah hung his coat on a hook. ‘They told me about Lydia. I can’t even … I can’t get my head around it. It’s weird, I’m almost calm. Like I can’t even fathom how bad it is, and I’ve just … like my brain’s given up on it. I don’t know. She’d always wave. Whenever I saw her, she’d always wave.’
He let that have a second, not sure how to commiserate with any meaning, other than to offer his silence. He said, ‘Come and tell me about this smiley man.’
They sat at the kitchen table.
‘I can’t remember what I told you. Did I tell you about the Boynes?’
‘Briefly. You said their daughter committed suicide.’
‘That’s right … it was just so sad. You seem to hear of it more and more, but Jennifer – their daughter, I mean – she’d seemed very normal, very happy, apparently …’ She shrugged. ‘Then one morning, she didn’t come down for breakfast. Ginny went up to check on her, she was … she’d hanged herself in the closet. Just … well.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Awful. Her parents, they said on her Facebook there’d been abusive messages, so they’d asked Ray to look into it, in case there was a note or something on her computer. He never found anything. But anyway, I’m rambling. The reason it came back, Ginny Boyne called this afternoon to say she’d heard what happened. She’s so nice, honestly. And I remembered Ray had been over at their place one evening – must’ve been six weeks ago. I think what happened, Martin had met him at the door, and he just happened to see this car pull up at the curb and then sit there, watching them. I don’t think Martin paid it any notice, but then apparently when he saw Ray out, the same car was still there, two guys up front just watching them. Martin’s not – I mean, Martin’s not the biggest guy, but Ginny said he went over and asked them what they were doing. And I remembered today, hearing the description from Esther, Martin said the guy looked him right in the eye, and smiled, and drove away.’
‘And how did you hear about it? Did Ray tell you?’
‘No, Ray didn’t say anything. Ginny Boyne, she called me the next day to check everything was all right. So nice, honestly. Not like she didn’t have her own worries.’
‘Did you ask Ray about it?’
‘Yes, I did. I think at first he didn’t even remember, but then he said they were just trying to serve a summons on him. I mean, it seemed pretty harmless. I guess I just forgot about it.’
‘Do you remember him going to court?’
She shook her head. ‘He might’ve not told me. He was talking to me less and less, but … you’d think if it had been a summons, why wouldn’t they do it as he was coming out of the Boynes’? They saw him go in, all they had to do was give it to him when he came out again.’
‘You never saw any little smiley guys?’
‘No. That’s what the police asked. I don’t remember seeing anyone like that. Or anyone else.’
Marshall said, ‘Do you have the Boynes’ number?’
He stood in the kitchen door watching her on the phone in the hallway, Hannah standing with her back to him, leaning on the wall, twisting her hair around a finger. He could see pretty clearly what had drawn him to her all those years ago. She still had it.
He looked at the floor to get his mind back on task, glanced back up as Hannah said, ‘Ginny, he’s here now, if that’s OK?’
She looked back at him across her shoulder, extending the handset. Their fingers brushed as he took it. Another small fact he had to work hard to ignore.
He put the phone to his ear, and Ginny Boyne said, ‘I’m not sure how much help I can be. I didn’t actually see it.’
A quiet voice, but matter-of-fact. Tiredness, blended with determination. He’d heard it before. Other voices, other miseries. The bereaved, learning to cope.
He said, ‘That’s fine. Of course. Is your husband available to speak?’
‘No, unfortunately. He’s in New Jersey on business. He won’t be home until late, I imagine. Generally he gets in about eleven on travel days.’
‘What about tomorrow?’
‘Yes, that’s fine. Are you with the police? Hannah said you’re an investigator.’
‘Ex-police. I’m a friend of Ray’s.’
The present tense grated, but he felt he had a greater duty to manners than accuracy.
He said, ‘Did you see the men who were watching Ray? I understand there were two of them in a car—’
‘No, I didn’t. I’m sorry, I wish I could be more help—’
‘Don’t apologize. I completely understand.’
‘Martin saw them, but I think I was inside at the time. It’s … well, you can probably appreciate, it’s been a horrible few weeks. We were so lucky to have Ray shine a little light onto everything. He was wonderful, really. Absolutely a blessing. If you get here before … no, tomorrow’s Saturday, isn’t it? We’ll be here all day. Just come when you’re ready.’
She gave him the address, and Marshall thanked her and ended the call. He dialed his neighbor, Vera Boykov.
‘This is Vera.’
‘This is Marshall.’
She lowered her voice: ‘This is Marshall.’
He said, ‘I won’t be home until late, so I won’t be able to feed Boris.’
‘Understood. But you are not Boris-feeder anyway, yes? Even if you are present. Food for him, this is non-imperative. So the challenge is as follows: how do I convey to you this is the case?’
‘Have a nice evening, Vera.’
He set the phone back on its wall cradle. Hannah was standing in the kitchen door, arms folded, watching him.
She said, ‘Something I was going to say earlier. Why did you tell Nevins about us?’
About us: the phrase had a resonance – the special resonance of precise meaning in a vague term.
He thought: here we go.
He waited a moment, making sure he could trust himself to say the right thing. ‘I couldn’t not tell him. I was there when Ray died. And
we worked together. There’s about zero chance they’d ignore the possibility I was involved. And I wouldn’t help things by not telling them about the affair.’
Affair.
She shifted her weight as he said it, one foot to the other, uncomfortable with the term. He had that urge again to tell her this was why he’d been wary coming back. Subtext seemed to color every interaction, like a secret lens augmenting his vision, showing the past in the present moment.
She said, ‘Yes, but how would it harm things? How were they ever going to know about it anyway? The only way they were going to know is if one of us said something.’ She shrugged. ‘I just find it funny, I don’t know why you thought you couldn’t trust me. I mean, why would I say anything? Why would I want to tell them I’d failed, and been unfaithful? There was nothing in it for me.’
He looked at the phone on the wall, like maybe it could take him back a few minutes to an easier conversation.
He said, ‘It had nothing to do with trust. All it had to do with …’
It was hard laying it out plain and innocent while she was studying him like that, alert for weaknesses in the claim.
He said, ‘Ray was dead, they were looking into it, I thought that probably meant they’d be looking into me.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought it was safest to be upfront.’
He knew it was just a re-phrasing of what he’d said first time around, and he worried they might end up stuck in some kind of loop. He recalled what Jordan Mora had said, how Vialoux had told Hannah that Jordan was male.
Some kind of odd dynamic.
He wondered what that meant, what the implications were, day to day.
She said, ‘I just didn’t quite understand the principle. I mean, you’re being upfront about that, but not about the tracker in his car? Maybe if we’re more consistent, I won’t need the worst parts of my life laid out for inspection by strangers.’
Worst parts.
Marshall thought that was probably calibrated for sting.
He said, ‘Look, I’m sorry. Maybe I should’ve thought about it more. It was one in the morning, and my friend was dead. My brain wasn’t working that well.’
He knew that was a stupid thing to say. His friend dead meant her husband dead. He didn’t need to be outlining the emotional toll.
But Hannah just looked at him quietly.
Then she said, ‘Stay for dinner. I’m doing meatballs.’
Ella didn’t come down. He and Hannah ate at the table, the third plate untouched, unremarked upon. Halfway through the meal, the phone in the hallway rang. Hannah got up and answered. It was all one-way traffic. He heard a yes, an OK, a thank you, and then she was back in the room with him.
She said, ‘Police are still short-staffed, apparently. They said there’ll be a car free about eleven.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘You don’t have to stay, I mean it.’
‘It’s no trouble.’
‘And feel free to have a shower, obviously. You still look wet. I’ll give you some of Ray’s clothes …’
‘No, it’s fine. I’ll head home when the night watch shows up.’
She nodded. ‘I didn’t mean … I shouldn’t have said what I said before.’
He would’ve preferred to forget it, rather than crawl back underneath for the sake of needless repairs.
‘Don’t worry. It’s fine.’
‘I appreciate everything you’ve done. It’s amazing.’
‘Don’t worry about it. He was my friend.’
She didn’t answer, and the conversation hit a lull. The clash and chime of the cutlery seemed to heighten the awkwardness.
She said, ‘It’s nice having company at dinner for a change.’
‘Yeah. I know what you mean.’
He wasn’t quite sure why he’d said that. He liked his solitude. In a way, he thought maybe it was essential, at least for someone like him. He was wired differently, that was pretty obvious. His undercover work and its requisite paranoia had made him rigidly particular in certain aspects of his life. And as far as he understood it, having a partner demanded some capitulation, now and again. That didn’t sound like him. His habits and his attitudes weren’t elastic, and he knew enough about relationships to recognize that aspect of himself as a potential major shortcoming. And he accepted that. He was happy with it. But why pretend otherwise?
He helped her clean up, and then she told him she was going to do some work, take her mind off everything. She said she was in front-end web development these days, what they called UX design.
‘UX?’
‘User experience. Making websites look nice, basically.’ She smiled. ‘Making cut-throat companies seem approachable.’
He nodded. He couldn’t help thinking maybe that was the perfect role for her. Putting a happy veneer on something that wasn’t what it should be.
‘I do a lot of it from home, which makes things easier. Especially under house arrest.’
She went upstairs, and Marshall was left alone on the ground floor.
He paced quietly, living room to kitchen and back again, thinking about what he should do next. From upstairs, he heard an argument that centered on Ella’s non-attendance at dinner. Something from the girl about how it felt a bit too soon to play happy-family. Marshall could understand that. He couldn’t fault it at all.
He made himself coffee and took it through to the living room, sat with the lights off, looking out at the street. Darkness setting in. The whole scene glossed by the recent rain. He sat quietly, sipping his coffee, thinking about what he’d do if the man in the mask appeared again at the window. Or what he’d do if someone tried to enter the house. Nice to sit there with his musings. A terrible kind of solace.
Ten o’clock now. He went around turning off downstairs lights and returned to the living room. Footsteps upstairs, and then switch-clicks: the filtered hallway glow made progressive concessions to shadow, and then the house was dark and quiet. He sat very still, willing something to reveal itself on the street.
Time dragging by in silence. A mobility scooter went past on the south sidewalk, the same one he’d seen earlier: Kurdish flag flying from the rear. The driver was wrapped in a hooded coat like an Arctic dog-sled rider. The only motion out there in the cold.
Another quiet stretch of nothing. Twenty minutes. Twenty-five. Then from upstairs, he heard a door tick against a latch. Feet on the stairs in a nimble patter, and then Ella went past the door to the hallway. She paused, and stepped back into view.
She said, ‘You’re here.’
‘Yeah. You heading out?’
‘Good guess.’
Marshall said, ‘Safer to stay in until this is all wrapped up.’
She looked at him, just a shape in the dark. ‘Thanks for the advice.’
Then she went out.
The door thumped shut as he called to her, and he heard her feet on the steps. Flat rhythm in descent on the wet concrete.
Safer to stay in. He could’ve put it in slightly firmer terms. He got up to follow, thinking he’d try Round Two at persuasion, and then a car edged into view at the curb. Bass music coming from inside, louder for a moment as Ella opened the rear door and climbed in, and then the car took off with a long and rising snarl of exhaust.
He turned from the window and saw light from upstairs, went into the hallway and saw Hannah on the landing.
He said, ‘Sorry, I should’ve argued harder.’
Descending now. ‘There’s no telling her what to do, I promise.’
She stayed on the bottom stair, eyes level with his. She was wearing a bathrobe, and she let it open. She was naked underneath it.
‘Hannah …’
She came toward him, laid her arms on his shoulders. ‘Come upstairs.’
Close enough he felt her breath on his mouth. Then her lips touching his, her body pushing against him. He laid his hands on her hips under the robe, skin smooth and bed-warm, pushed her away gently.
He said, ‘I don’t think
this is a good idea.’
Her hands slid off his shoulders. The shape of her stood facing him in the dark. She folded her arms, drawing the robe around her.
He said, ‘Sorry. I just don’t think it is.’
She backed up a step, above him now.
‘Maybe you better go, then.’
He had a feeling this was the best offer he’d ever turned down. But it was complicated. He didn’t think he had it in him to lay things out in a way that made sense to her.
He said, ‘It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just kind of complicated.’
She shook her head. ‘No it isn’t. You either want to, or you don’t. The door will lock behind you.’
He watched her walk away from him, up the stairs, and then he got his coat and went out.
FOURTEEN
He sat on her front steps in the dark, using a lot of willpower just to stay there and not ring her bell. The sensation of the moment still vivid and electric. More there to be had, if he’d only stand up and turn around.
Twenty minutes past eleven, a patrol car arrived and parked at the opposite curb. Marshall recognized the driver from last night. He gave the guy a wave and headed off toward Fourth Avenue.
It was just him and a couple of rats at the Forty-fifth Street Station. Platform rats, not down-on-the-track rats. They knew they were in charge at this time of night. They came up to him and stood twitching in silent and unrushed appraisal, and then carried on with their business. Marshall caught an N train up to Atlantic Avenue and then a Q all the way down to Brighton Beach, walked back north on Coney Island Avenue.
Thirty minutes past midnight and not a lot happening. Occasional traffic and the storefronts all dark and shut up. He saw a guy come out of a bar and head uptown, weaving and unstable, as if navigating some hidden slalom. Across the street, a homeless man reclined on the front steps of a dental practice, propped up on his elbows with his legs stretched, like catching sun on the beachfront a few blocks south.
Marshall walked up to Neptune Ave and went into the Minimart on the corner, opposite the bagel place. He poured himself coffee at the self-serve station, went over to the cashier and slid money through the window. The number of scuff marks on the Perspex suggested that not all patrons were this civil. The cashier’s attention was on a Spanish sitcom playing on a TV back there, and Marshall figured if you did want to rob the place, you could probably make decent progress before the guy noticed.