She stopped clucking and smiled. Naomi and Alfred had told us they would ask her this question on several occasions, and she’d refuse to answer every time. And with a few more questions to go, I did not want to risk being tossed out by this overprotective nurse. I unfolded the police sketch of Ed and handed it to her.
“Ed.” She tipped her head to one side and frowned. “He’s dead.” She stroked his pencil mustache.
“Who was Ed getting money from every month?”
“Money?” Trudy pressed her hands against her cheeks. Trudy dropped her hands and held them palm side up. She shrugged. “No money.”
“I think it’s time to wrap this up,” the nurse said.
I took hold of Trudy’s hand and squeezed it gently. “One last question, okay?” Trudy nodded. “Who took you to the hospital after Ed died?”
Trudy turned away from me and glanced down at her bed. She released my hand, lifted her finger and pointed to the newspaper clipping of Rachel Roth. “Martha.”
23
Monday, November 19, 2018
THE AROMA of fresh coffee was worse than the alarm clock. You couldn’t just hit snooze. Unable to resist its siren call, I tossed the blanket aside and dragged my ass out of bed. I had come home late the night before and knew Ray was downstairs, patiently waiting to chat about what Dad and I learned during this trip. I reported dribs and drabs through text messages and hasty phone calls, but he was itching to add his two cents and further explore theories, motives, and whatnot.
Before heading downstairs, I scrolled through the emails that had landed in my inbox overnight. Bed Bath and Beyond coupons, Groupon coupons, CVS coupons, Banana Republic coupons. Petco coupons. Coupons I never remembered to use when I actually bought something. One real email—from Dr. Blanchard—arrived at seven o’clock this morning. It was addressed to both me and Dad, but there was no response from Dad, so he probably hadn’t seen it yet (or he hit “Reply” instead of “Reply All” and his response went to Dr. Blanchard and not me). Yesterday Dad emailed Dr. Blanchard a picture of Rachel Roth hoping she could confirm that Rachel was, indeed, “Martha.” The doctor came through with a definitive “yes!” Nice to have corroboration when your star witness’s brain was riddled with plaque. I forwarded Dr. Blanchard’s email to Dad to let him know I’d seen this and to call me later.
“Hey, sleeping beauty.” Ray poured coffee into a black mug and set it down on the table. “Thought you might be in need of this.”
“I got an email from Dr. Blanchard this morning. She confirmed that Martha Stuart is Rachel Roth.”
“What do you make of that? Why would Rachel be checking Trudy into a hospital under a false name . . . unless she had something to hide?”
“I know. The whole thing is crazy. But it sure is reason to head down to Florida again and have a come-to-Jesus chat with Rachel and Stanley. Dad no longer has to convince me that they’re up to their eyeballs in this. I mean, what in the hell was Rachel doing in Massachusetts so soon after Ed’s murder? If I had to guess, making sure Trudy doesn’t talk. But what was she trying to hide—Trudy's pregnancy, the extortion scheme, or Ed’s murder? Are these three things even related?”
“Can we change the subject for a sec?” Ray took a sip of his coffee. “Marty got ahold of the guy who owns the company that cleared the pallets out of the warehouse. He’s out of town until Sunday—spending Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania. He told Marty he’s welcome to come down to his office next week and look at the work order. The guys on the job would be listed.”
“Nothing against Marty, but I sure wish you were lead on this.”
“Eldridge doesn’t want even the slightest whiff of conflict of interest associated with this case. You know that."
The doorbell rang and Ray and I simultaneously turned our heads toward the door.
“Expecting someone?” Ray asked.
“Oh shit. Totally forgot. I told Natalie I’d watch the kids so she can do some grocery shopping.” I downed the ounce of lukewarm coffee left in my mug, secured the child locks on the cabinets, and psyched myself up for a morning of Sesame Street and peekaboo.
CHARLIE AND Harry were napping when Natalie returned to pick them up.
“Let’s not disturb them,” she whispered. “Besides, I’m dying to hear about your trip.” Natalie listened attentively, nodding here and there, as though I were one of her patients working through a psychological problem. Tell me more. How does that make you feel?
“Who do you think is the father of Trudy’s twins?”
Before I could answer, Natalie put her finger up to her lips and cocked her ear toward the stairs.
“Well, I guess that’s my cue to head home and get them fed. You can tell me the rest on Thursday. Come early, if you want. I could use some help with the desserts.”
Natalie and I had the kind of relationship I wished I’d had with my mother. Sure, she was always an easygoing kid, which definitely helped when it came to single parenting. As a teenager, she was rarely moody or angry. And if she got upset or found herself in a funk, it didn’t last particularly long. Definitely a glass-half-full person. She liked school. She was decent in sports. She had a coterie of nice friends with, as far as I could tell, minimal drama among them. Unlike most of her peers’ parents, who had their children later in life, I was only thirty when she hit puberty—my own teenage years still fairly fresh in my mind. Perhaps that made it easier to be more empathetic to the growing pains of adolescence. Many a night felt like a teenage sleepover. Nail painting. Face masking. Hair straightening. Record playing. She confided things I would never have told my mother: who she was crushing on, who tried pot, who smoked cigarettes. The older she got, the less she shared, but she trusted me enough to come to me if she needed my advice or perspective. My desire to be the mom my own mom wasn’t loomed over nearly every decision I made, every piece of advice I doled out. The funny thing was, she looked exactly like my mother. Everyone who saw the newspaper photo of my mother winning the Miss Monticello pageant was blown away by the resemblance.
I helped Natalie strap the boys into their car seats. They would turn one on Thursday. Which fell on Thanksgiving this year. Every year, Natalie insisted we go around the table and proclaim what we were thankful for. Let’s see: I was shot. (But I survived.) I was under investigation for shooting an unarmed teenager and there was a civil suit pending. (But he might have had a gun.) And I was running around chasing the ghosts of 1978. (But I had reconnected with Lori.) It was one hell of year. But there were two little things I was very grateful for—even when one of them suddenly bopped me in the head with his teething ring.
Trudy
“Trudy, this is Belinda Mann, your new nurse,” Dr. Meadows said. “She’s from New York, just like you.”
“Why Trudy, it’s so nice to meet you,” Belinda drawled.
She’s not from New York, Trudy thought. Not with that accent. She sounded like that grandma on The Beverly Hillbillies. She sounded like that woman from . . . from . . . that place.
“Are you here for the babies?”
“The babies?” Belinda glanced over at Dr. Meadows, who nodded. “What about the babies?”
“You said I had a gift to give.” Trudy turned away, toward the window. The sunlight was streaming in between the slats. Trudy stared until it hurt her eyes, so she squeezed them tight. “You said you’d take care of everything. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Dr. Meadows whispered into Belinda’s ear.
“Yes Trudy, I’ll take care of everything.”
“Ed said this is our little secret. You won’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Don’t worry Trudy. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
So many secrets. A person can’t live with all these secrets. “Ed promised me that after we give them away, I’d get better. The pain would go away.” But the pain seemed locked inside—taken root, unwilling to budge. Like when you pull an ugly weed—it was impossible to get the last little bit of the thing. It finds a
way to live again.
24
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
FELICIA Stapleton placed two chocolate-frosted cupcakes on the edge of her desk. “Your last session,” she said, nudging one of the cupcakes in my direction.
I leaned forward and picked it up. Felicia’s farewell cupcakes were well known in the precinct. Homemade, never bought. Her bulging waistline was evidence of the hundreds of cupcakes she had served her patients—and herself. I peeled away the crinkly foil wrapper and took a bite. Although many look forward to this day, the final day of post-shooting protocol psych sessions, they would be lying if they didn’t admit it was also to snag one of these glorious cupcakes.
“Y’know Susan, some people don’t take these sessions as seriously as you have. I got the feeling you actually enjoyed coming here. Am I reading that right?”
I took a second bite before answering. “I went to a therapist when I moved back up here. I was trying to come to terms with my relationship with my mother. I blamed her for a lot of my shortcomings, which wasn’t doing me any good. There was no real breakthrough, but airing my insecurities was somewhat cathartic. So I was pretty skeptical coming here. But, I have to say, by our third session I started to see the value in talking with you about the shooting, working through the guilt, learning how not to beat up on myself by second-guessing my actions. I think I might even miss our little get-togethers.”
“We can meet again, if you like. I can arrange it with Chief Eldridge as a once-in-a-while check-in.”
“Is that permissible now that I’ve had a farewell cupcake?”
“Only if you vomit it back up.” She chuckled at her joke. “I’m curious, Susan . . . why did you move back up here? In our earlier sessions, you expressed this desire to get far, far away from here, yet here you are.”
The question caught me a little off guard. It really didn’t sound like the kind of question your shrink would ask to wrap up a therapy session. This was one that opened a new vein in an old mine—could keep us busy for months on end. When I first moved back, I used my father’s heart attack as an excuse (when anyone asked). But there was more to it than that.
“It was a mix of things. My dad’s heart attack was the main reason. But I had been thinking about it for about a year before that. I wanted to do more with my life than scout locations for movies. And, on some level, I was homesick.” I took another bite of the cupcake—actually, a stall for time as I thought how best to explain the relationship with my mother without getting in the weeds. “I also wanted to repair the relationship with my mother and felt the only way to do that, and do it for real, was to be in her orbit again. At first, the two of us really tried to find a way forward, but we eventually fell back into our old patterns of bickering . . . especially when she drank. She just had a way of making me feel small. It was almost as though she took pleasure in pointing out my imperfections. In your line of work I think you call it an inferiority complex.”
“Could be, if it’s a defensive need to overcome her own feelings of inferiority. Her jabs at you might be a way for her to gain some control over her life. Some people belittle others in order to feel good about themselves.”
“Yeah. I think that might apply to her. I tend to avoid confrontation, and so I started to minimize my interactions with her. Let’s just say we tolerate each other these days. Would I like us to be closer? Sure. But until she stops drinking, I’m pretty sure that ain’t gonna happen.”
“What did she think about you becoming a police officer?”
“She actually encouraged it. Which surprised me, since I always got the feeling she was not keen on my dad’s line of work. It’s one of the few times she supported me. Follow your dream, she had said. She even went so far to tell me that I’d make an outstanding officer.”
“And your dad? What did he think?”
“At first, he tried to dissuade me. But he came around. He knows it can be as rewarding as it is frustrating. He was beaming like the North Star on the day I graduated the police academy.”
“Do you ever regret moving back up here?”
“Natalie really likes living in this area. So, there’s that. And I get to see the twins whenever I want. I love my little house near the lake. I met Ray and fell in love. None of these things would have happened if I’d stayed in the city or moved somewhere else. So, no, no big regrets.” I held up my cupcake. “And if I never came back here, I wouldn’t have known the pleasure of your cupcakes.”
After finishing our cupcakes, we pivoted back to the Barnes case and my on-again, off-again feelings of guilt. The seesaw in my head bouncing from I had no choice to I should have held my fire. (“This is all normal,” Felicia explained at our first session.) My thoughts on the matter were still unresolved. I was hoping that if and when the Glock turned up, I’d be able to put it to rest.
25
Monday, November 26, 2018
“STAY PUT,” Marty said. “If Eldridge gets wind that the two of you even came here with me, well . . .” He got out of the car without finishing the sentence. He didn’t need to.
I watched Marty enter the one-story brick building to meet with the owner of the company who oversaw the removal of the pallets from the warehouse. It was pretty mild for a late November morning. I rolled down the rear window next to me and tilted my face toward the sun. I didn’t get to sunbathe in Florida, so this would have to do.
Marty exited the building holding a piece of yellow paper. He folded it down the center and tucked into his jacket.
“Got the names,” he said when he opened the car door.
“And?” Ray asked.
“You know I can’t talk to you about this. I’ll drop you guys off at the station and then run this down.”
With a couple of cops out on vacation this week, Eldridge needed me at the station this morning. Which was fine by me. Anything to keep my mind off the Barnes gun scavenger hunt. The Trudy and Ed investigation was at a standstill. We had no new witnesses to interview, so our best chance of a breakthrough in the case lay with Rachel. Maybe we could even get something out of Stanley. With news that Rachel had been in Trudy’s orbit as recently as 2008, we were itching to get in front of her before she got wind of what we’d found out. Dad was already looking into Florida flights and hotels. I wanted to head south right away, but he had a couple of billiards tournaments he wasn’t willing to miss so he proposed we fly down on December 2.
Rachel’s actions in 2008 certainly were suspicious, but it was quite possible she merely had been helping Trudy through a rough patch and didn’t want anyone to know. I thought about telling Meryl about our decision to see Rachel, but I figured it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission this time around. Perhaps, as a courtesy, we would simply interrogate Rachel a bit more gently than we would otherwise.
No sooner had I settled at my desk than I eyed Eldridge headed in my direction. I braced for news about the gun.
“We got him, Susan. We got Lenny,” he said, punching the air with a closed fist. “Cops picked him up in Philadelphia. He’ll be back here tomorrow morning for questioning.”
It took me a second to register this news. My head was still mulling the Barnes case over and what Marty was up to. “Am I stuck behind the glass?”
“Afraid so. The line of questioning is going to focus on Renee Carter, and that’s Ray’s and Marty’s territory. If it turns out the Carter case is intertwined with the Solomon case, we’ll sort it out later.”
I texted Ray to let him know about Lenny. He responded: I know. I texted Dad. He texted me back the same exact reply: I know. Okay, Eldridge told Ray before me. But my father? What the hell?
MARTY HIGHTAILED it to Eldridge’s office. He shot me a thumbs-up as he passed my desk. Man, I hated being left in the dark. First the Lenny news. Now this. I got it. I was not an idiot. But this was my livelihood at stake, for fuck’s sake. Normally, Sally would be dragging me out for a coffee right about now, but she was one of the two cops on vacation�
��a mini-getaway to Cancun—and wouldn’t be back until Thursday. I glanced toward Eldridge’s office, probably my twentieth glimpse since Marty had walked in there.
Eldridge’s door opened and he stuck his head out. He summoned me in.
“We got the gun,” Eldridge said, closing the door behind me.
“You made me sit out there this whole time knowing that? What the fuck, guys?”
“Easy there, Susan. We want our t’s crossed and our i’s dotted. I’m not even sure you should be privy to this. So, actually, I’m doing you a favor here.”
“So what’s the story—who had it?”
“I interviewed the two guys operating the forklifts and the guy loading the pallets onto the flatbed,” Marty said. “As your boyfriend would say, one of the forklift drivers folded like a cheap suit. He claims to have found it under one of the pallets and decided to keep it for himself.”
“Did he know what went down there?”
“Claimed he had no idea there had been a shooting in the warehouse. He figured finders, keepers.”
“We can only make an assumption as to what happened that night,” Eldridge said. “But I would venture to guess that, in the chaos, Wayne kicked Calvin’s gun toward the stack of pallets hoping it would slide underneath. And it did. He must have thought he hit the jackpot when no gun was found. All he and the others had to do was stick to their story about Calvin not having a gun, and no one could prove otherwise.” Eldridge paused. “Until now.”
“I’m heading up to the prison now to tell Wayne the jig is up,” Marty said.
“Can I—”
“Go back to your desk, Detective Ford,” Eldridge said sternly. His tone softened and a rare smile escaped. “I want you as far away from this as possible. Let Marty put the final nail in this coffin.”
The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon Page 18