The Necklace

by Matt Witten

  That sofa turned out to be the best place for her. She lay there all day for two days, hearing sounds from the diner and knowing she wasn’t all alone in the world, but she wouldn’t have to actually interact with people. Molly brought her tea and chocolate chip cookies, which was one of the few things she liked eating right now.

  Then on Friday evening, as she was listening to the dinner shift, one week after Amy was taken, there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Susan said, thinking it was Molly. But Agent Pappas walked in, followed by Danny. She sat up on the sofa.

  Her eyes darted back and forth between them. “What’s going on?”

  Danny sat down beside her. It was the closest they had been to each other in days. Susan had taken to sleeping in Amy’s room, both comforted and tortured by her smells.

  “Agent Pappas picked me up at the office,” Danny said. He had just gone in to work today for the first time. “He has something to show us.”

  Pappas brought over a folding chair and sat across from them. “I want to show you a picture of someone. Tell me if you recognize him.”

  He reached inside a pocket of his blue sport jacket and took out a photograph. A mugshot, Susan realized. It showed a man around forty years old with a flat face, thick lips, and surly eyes that glowered at the camera.

  Susan and Danny both stared at the man. Susan rubbed her head and thought hard, trying to place him. He did look a little familiar somehow, but maybe it was just wishful thinking. She said, “I don’t know.”

  Danny shook his head slowly. “I don’t recognize him.”

  Susan said, “Why are you asking about him?”

  “Let me show you another picture,” Pappas said.

  He pulled out another mugshot of the same man, in profile. Susan noticed a scar on his cheek just beneath his ragged sideburns. She didn’t recall seeing that scar before.

  Danny said, “I’m sorry, I’m just not …”

  Susan eyed the profile, blinking rapidly. It was so strange to think this random person she’d never met might be the man who had destroyed her life. “Is he the guy?”

  Pappas said, “We don’t know yet.”

  Danny said hopefully, “But you think he might be?”

  Suddenly something flashed in Susan’s mind. “Show me that first picture again,” she said.

  Pappas held it up, and this time it all came back to her: The morning of the murder. Susan and Amy getting in the Dodge Dart and riding off, passing the Homestead Motel on the corner. Out front, a man gets a toolbox out of his car. He looks up and eyes the Dodge Dart as it goes by. He has a flat, tired face—

  This face. Susan was sure of it. She leaned forward and pointed at the mugshot, excited. “That guy was staying at the Homestead Motel. He watched me and Amy drive off to school that morning.”

  Pappas raised his eyebrow. “That same morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s very helpful to know. You’re right, he was staying at the Homestead. We got his name from their register.”

  “Does he have an alibi?” Danny asked.

  “Not from two o’clock on.”

  Susan’s heart was pounding. She stared down at the mugshot. “Who is he?”

  “His name is Curt Jansen. He’s a drifter type, in and out of trouble.” Pappas tapped the mugshot. “This is from Philadelphia, three months ago. He was trying to steal coins from a parking meter. Last month his ex-girlfriend in Worcester, Massachusetts, took out a protection order against him.”

  Danny said, “I still don’t get why you think it’s him. I mean, besides that he doesn’t have an alibi.”

  Pappas set the mugshot down on the table next to the sofa. He leaned back, twining his fingers together, and said, “We went to see him at the motel today. He has scabs on his left hand that are consistent with a child-sized mouth, missing one tooth, biting down on it hard. We didn’t find any foreign blood in Amy’s mouth, but she may have swallowed it.”

  Oh God. Susan pictured it: His hands reach up to strangle Amy. She bites down so hard she draws blood …

  She grabbed the mugshot off the table and stared. So this is him. This is the piece of shit who did it. “Where is he?”

  “He’s in custody at the FBI office in Schenectady. I’m on my way down there.”

  Danny looked just as stunned as she was. “When did this guy come to the Homestead?” he asked.

  “Last Wednesday. His window faced out onto the backyard.”

  Danny said, “Right near our driveway. So he watched Amy playing basketball …”

  “Dancing on the porch …” Susan said.

  “And going to school every morning. He got obsessed by her.”

  “I’ll let you know what we find out,” Pappas said grimly, and stood up. “If he’s the one who did this to Amy …” His voice tightened. “… we’ll get him to talk.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  APRIL 21–23, TWENTY YEARS AGO

  SUSAN WAITED ALL that night and the next morning without getting any more news. Agent Pappas didn’t return her calls.

  Then, while she was at her customary station on Molly’s sofa, curled up in a ball and listening to the lunch rush through the walls, there was a knock she recognized from the day before. “Come in,” she said.

  Pappas walked in. Susan waited.

  He said, “Curt Jansen confessed.”

  She started to cry. She wasn’t sure why.

  Pappas found a napkin and handed it to her. Then he sat down on a folding chair and brought it close to the sofa.

  She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner,” he said. “It took us all night. We had to question him for about ten hours before he finally broke.”

  She steeled herself, not sure she wanted to hear the answer to this. “What did he say?”

  Pappas put his hands through his hair, clearly not relishing this part of his job. “I don’t know how to put it.”

  “Just tell me.”

  Pappas sighed and forced himself to get down to it. “He said he likes young girls. He claims he never did anything like this before, he always controlled himself. He would park across the street from elementary schools during recess or when school let out, and he’d get drunk and, you know, fantasize. So last Friday he was out there doing that, and he saw Amy, by herself, wearing the necklace. For some reason, he got stuck on that necklace. He says his mom used to abuse him. I got the feeling she wore a necklace when she was doing it, and that became part of his sickness.”

  Susan’s mouth hung open. Pappas’s words were so horrible she had trouble taking in what he was saying.

  “You don’t need to hear the rest of this.”

  Susan set her jaw, determined. “Tell me.”

  “It’s not important—”

  She needed to get this over with and know the truth once and for all. It couldn’t be any worse than what she imagined. She gripped his arm. “Tell me.”

  Pappas shook his head but continued. “He said his fantasies finally got the best of him. He drove up and told Amy he was supposed to pick her up. She said something about Grandma, and he said Grandma sent him. So she got in the car and he took her to Vermont. He’d been in that lean-to before and he’d had fantasies about bringing a girl there. So he did what he did, and I’m not going into the details. She fought back and bit him and tried to run away. He got mad and strangled her.”

  Susan sat there, in shock. She kept thinking how the necklace she and Amy made together had caused all this.

  Pappas said gently, “If you want, I can drive you home, or to your mom’s house—”

  Susan shut her eyes tight. She could picture it: the purple dolphin, the pink duck, the blue unicorn … “Where is it?”

  Pappas looked puzzled. “What?”

  “Where’s the necklace?”

  He said, “I don’t know. That’s the one thing he won’t say.”

  She hit her forehead with her knuckles. “It makes no sense! A fucking p
lastic necklace with ducks on it—that’s what made this guy horny?”

  He said, “It’s weird, I know. But guys get into all kinds of weird things.”

  For a brief moment, Susan couldn’t help wondering if Pappas was into weird things too. Then she thought about Danny. Sure, he had his quirky fantasies, but nothing even in the same galaxy as this.

  Pappas reached out and touched her lightly on her shoulder. “Listen, in every case there’s a couple loose ends we never fully understand. But we got the guy. Susan, it’s over.”

  And it was.

  Or so it seemed—for about twenty hours.

  Susan went home for dinner that night, another casserole, and shared it with Danny, Lenora, and Molly. They were all still grieving and weary, but relieved the killer had apparently been caught. In the middle of dinner, Lenora went to the bathroom and stayed there for about ten minutes. When she came back, she said, “Sorry, I smelled up your bathroom. I was constipated this whole week, but ever since that guy confessed, I’ve been crapping all day.”

  Lenora gave a little laugh. No doubt learning her boyfriend was not the man who raped and killed Amy made her feel a lot less guilty.

  But Susan still blamed her mom for not being at the school picking up Amy. And though she knew it was crazy, she blamed herself, too, for making the necklace that got Amy killed.

  The rational part of her knew the real blame didn’t lie with herself or her mom, it belonged to that monster Curt Jansen. Maybe one day she would get herself to fully believe that.

  Meanwhile, despite everything, she did feel a little better now, and so did Danny. That night, when Susan got into bed beside him, he was watching basketball on TV for the first time since Amy went missing. She rested her head on his shoulder and said, “Thank God they caught him.”

  Danny laughed. She stared at him and asked, “What’s funny?”

  He put his arm around her. “I’m sorry, honey, I’m just relieved the FBI will quit hassling me now. I know life will never be normal for us again, but at least …”

  His voice trailed off and he kissed her. She fell asleep in his arms, and that night she managed to sleep for five hours straight.

  The next morning she went to the refrigerator to get milk for her coffee. But then suddenly she stood there rooted to the spot. She looked at all the pictures of Lenora on the refrigerator door. God, I’ve been such a bitch to my mom, she thought.

  She grabbed a plate of chocolate chip cookies one of the church ladies had brought over, got in her car, and drove to Lenora’s trailer. She knocked on the door and her mom opened it, still wearing her pink nightgown.

  “Thought you might like some cookies for breakfast,” Susan said, thrusting them forward.

  Her mom’s lips quivered. Finally she was able to say, “Forget about the cookies, let’s have a drink.” For the first time in God knows how long, Susan actually laughed. She felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her.

  But five minutes later, while they were drinking coffee and kahlua, the phone rang. It was Danny.

  “Agent Pappas is here,” he said. “Curt Jansen just recanted his confession.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, PRESENT DAY

  TAMARACK REALTY TRIED hard to look upscale and mostly succeeded. There were leatherish sofas, low glass tables laden with art books, and framed photographs of the lakes and hills of western New York.

  Susan walked inside and took it all in. So this was where Danny worked now.

  She had the feeling he didn’t live in poverty like she did. Maybe she should have been a little more careful with that divorce mediation.

  Two attractive, impeccably made-up women in their late thirties, dressed in business suits, looked Susan over as she entered. She assumed they were realtors too. She recognized one of them, the perky redhead, from the picture in the store window.

  She knew exactly what they were thinking: this woman in her fifties with the old coat and beat-up suitcase is not the world’s most exciting real estate prospect. But the redhead did her professional best to summon enthusiasm. She gave Susan a smile and said, “Good afternoon, may I help you?”

  Susan took a quick breath and said, “Yes. I’m looking for Danny Lentigo.”

  “Of course. Do you have an appointment?”

  No, he didn’t answer my damn calls, she thought. She saw a row of private offices toward the rear. “Is he back there?”

  The redhead’s bright blue eyes got nervous, and Susan knew she’d guessed right. Leaving her suitcase behind so she could move faster, she headed toward the back.

  “Ma’am, excuse me,” the redhead said, following after her. “Ma’am!”

  Susan ignored her. She looked into one office and saw a woman behind the desk. She looked in a second office: empty. She looked in a third.

  There was Danny.

  He looked handsome and younger than fifty-seven, just like he did on that picture in the window. He was on his computer. She flashed back to him sitting at the computer in their house twenty years ago, with the dial-up internet that made that horrible noise when it connected.

  She stepped into his office. He heard her coming in and looked up. Seeing a stranger standing there, his face transformed in a split second into a realtor’s smile.

  A second later, he recognized her. His smile turned to shock and then dismay.

  But she kept up a brave front. “Hi, Danny.”

  “What are you doing here?” he said.

  Fuck, I’m such an idiot! Why did I come? I just upset him, he hates me. She wished she’d brushed her teeth before coming in.

  The redhead appeared at Danny’s door, ready to intervene.

  Well, now that Susan was here in his office, she had to go through with it. She said, “The Monster is getting executed in five days. Thought you’d want to know.”

  Danny’s jaw dropped. He waved off the bewildered redhead, then looked back at Susan.

  He said, “You could’ve emailed me.”

  She looked at him. What a jerk! she thought. Even if I do upset him, he has no right to treat me like this, does he? “I called four times. You didn’t pick up.”

  Danny leaned back in his chair. “So he’s getting executed.”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “How do they do it?”

  “Lethal injection.”

  Danny looked up at her. “They should fucking electrocute him.”

  Susan looked back at him and at last felt the connection she had craved. The connection she’d come here for.

  She and Danny were in this together. They always had been.

  “Can’t have everything,” she said.

  He nodded and scratched his neck. He looked like he didn’t know what to say.

  She sat down across the desk from him. “I’m going to the execution. It’s in North Dakota.”

  He looked impressed. “Long drive.”

  “I’m taking a bus.” Then she gathered her courage and asked, “You wanna come too?”

  He blinked at her.

  “I know we’ve grown apart, Danny, but I feel like this is something we should do together.” She paused. “Amy would want that.”

  “I don’t think my wife would like me spending a week with you.”

  From Danny’s profile on the Tamarack Realty website, Susan knew he was married, or at least had been. Now she knew his marriage was still ongoing. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Had she been hoping for something different?

  But the hell with all that. Only one thing mattered: Amy was their daughter. She said, “You can bring your wife along.”

  “I have two children now and I’m not bringing them.”

  She had been so focused on Danny, she hadn’t even noticed the photograph in the small silver frame at the edge of his desk. Now she picked it up.

  It showed Danny with his arm around his wife, a woman in her forties with shoulder-length blonde hair who looked, Susan recognized instantly, like a younger versio
n of herself back when she used to dye her hair blonde. It wasn’t just the woman’s hair. Her friendly, maybe slightly mousy smile was just like Susan’s years ago.

  That was disturbing enough. But even worse, there were two sweet-looking kids standing in front of Danny, a boy of about ten and a girl who was six or seven. Danny’s hand rested on the little girl’s shoulder.

  He really did move on. He has new children now, and he loves them.

  The girl was cute and gap-toothed and looked like Amy. Danny had replaced everything, except better, because he had a boy now too.

  A boy Susan should have had, except she miscarried.

  She said, “Nice-looking kids.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What are their names?”

  “David and Emily.”

  Emily. It sounded just like Amy. Danny had done all he possibly could to replace her. Susan put the photo down. A wave of fury swept through her. She wasn’t sure it was rational, but she didn’t care.

  “You shouldn’t have forgotten Amy.”

  “I didn’t forget her. I moved on.”

  Susan shook her head in disgust. “Yeah, you sure did.”

  Danny pouted his lips. It was an expression she’d forgotten, but the meaning came back to her now full force. He used to look like that when he was about to say something hurtful.

  “Susan, I couldn’t be with you after Amy died. The way you were, it was just too much for me. I couldn’t handle it.”

  She looked down. He was right. Her depression must’ve been really hard to deal with. He continued, “I thought you and me would both be better off if we tried to forget about our life together. That’s why I didn’t pick up when you called.”

  Despite all her shame about having driven him away, her anger returned. “That is such bullshit. We were married once. How could you not pick up?” Was he always this big of an asshole and I just didn’t notice?

  Danny shook his head, pissed, and his lips curled—another facial expression she was remembering now. Why had she felt a need to forget these things about him? He said, “’Cause I knew you’d give me shit about something.”