The Necklace

by Matt Witten

  “Sure.”

  “Well, if you get a chance to talk to Curt Jansen, please give him my hate.”

  “Will do,” Susan said.

  She finally got off the phone. She wanted to get into bed, but there was one more call she had to make. To the only other person besides Robert that she trusted.

  She dialed the number and almost immediately Kyra came on the line, like she’d been waiting for this call. “What’s up?” she said.

  “Agent Pappas is on board.”

  “Fuck yes! I knew you could do it.”

  “We’re supposed to hear from the lab around noon.”

  “And they’re planning to kill the guy at five thirty, right?”

  “Right, so that should give us enough time.”

  “Damn. You’re like a superhero, you know that?”

  Susan laughed. “Thanks, Kyra.”

  Just then Robert opened the door from the bathroom and came back in. He was wearing blue flannel pajamas. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a man in pajamas. He had a little pot belly, but it wasn’t too bad—

  Kyra broke in. “Promise you’ll tell me as soon as you hear.”

  “You got it, Kyra.”

  “Okay, cool. Break a leg.”

  “Thanks.”

  Susan hung up the phone. Robert was shutting the window curtains. “Who was that, your crime partner?” he asked.

  “I’ll never tell.”

  “You know, you guys are lucky Danny didn’t kill you.”

  “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. I sure as hell wanted to.”

  “He deserved it.”

  She looked up at him from the bed. “So you really think he did it?”

  He pursed his lips. “If I had to bet, I’d say yeah.”

  Susan felt the darkness descend on her again. She said, “It always comes down to the same thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “How could I not have known?” She opened them again. “How did I not know?”

  Robert sat down on the bed beside her. He said softly, “What Danny did to Amy … It’s not your fault.”

  She wasn’t so sure she believed him. She bowed her head in pain.

  He said, “Look, I’m supposed to be a hotshot FBI agent, but he fooled me too, just like he fooled you. Now we’re doing everything we can to stop him. That’s all that matters.”

  Susan found herself fighting back tears. She felt so terrible, but she also felt the warmth of this man’s body through his pajamas. It was bewildering.

  Then Robert put his arm around her, and everything inside her froze solid.

  She looked over at him. His face was so close. His whole body was so close.

  She said haltingly, “I’m not really up for anything.”

  Robert’s face reddened with confusion and embarrassment. Instantly she was pretty sure she’d misjudged his intentions, and she got embarrassed herself.

  He moved his arm away and stood up, giving her a forced smile. “Just being friendly, ma’am. I’m not up for anything either.”

  “I’m sorry, I thought—”

  “It’s all good.” He got into the other bed.

  She said, “I’m not used to men touching me just to be friendly. Danny never used to do that.”

  As soon as she said it, she felt pathetic. Why was she being so open with this man?

  And it wasn’t really true that Danny never touched her. She remembered how he used to comfort her after Amy went missing.

  But maybe that was just to hide the truth about what he’d done.

  “Good night,” Robert said from the other bed as he pulled up the blanket.

  “Good night,” Susan said, still embarrassed. He turned off the light, and she lay in bed and looked at the dark ceiling.

  She felt stupid that she had never made love with anybody in her whole life besides Danny. For so many years now, she’d hardly ever even touched a man, aside from handshakes or bodies accidentally brushing against each other. What had she missed?

  She had loved being the object of Danny’s desire. She enjoyed the feeling of him on top of her, his urgency increasing until he exploded.

  But she had never really felt that same explosion herself. Not when she was with him anyway. She only felt it when she took care of herself, which she used to do when she was a teenager but less frequently after she got married. She felt like she was cheating on Danny when she did it.

  After Danny left, when men got interested in her, she had been flattered but never really went for it. She put it down to just being older, or not being built that way anymore, or still grieving for her old life.

  But now, after everything she had learned and remembered during these past few days, she wondered if her inability to feel attracted to men had a different cause.

  Maybe Danny had been a psychopath and on some level she knew it. So she was just too scared to trust any man at all.

  She listened to Robert’s breathing. It was so strange, the two of them together but in separate beds, listening to each other. Then his breathing changed and she sensed he was asleep.

  Lying there, she tried to quiet her thoughts. She badly needed a good night’s sleep herself. She hadn’t had one for a week, and tomorrow she’d need every last bit of strength.

  But images kept running through her head, ruthless and unstoppable:

  Lisa offering half of her sandwich.

  A photograph Susan saw on the internet once, of a man strapped down in the execution chamber about to die.

  Danny playing basketball with Amy and lifting her high.

  Having sex with Danny and looking up at him.

  Thinking about Danny, her heart started thumping so badly she worried she might be having a heart attack. Then, out of nowhere, she had an image of Robert. Sitting beside her on the bed, putting his arm around her …

  She focused on the feeling of Robert’s arm and his reassuring tone of voice, and she started to calm down. Her breathing slowed.

  Eventually, she found herself in an apple orchard, on an autumn morning. The trees were full of red and yellow leaves and the apples were fat and luscious. Then she saw Amy through the trees.

  Amy running toward her, laughing, holding up a shiny red apple with a big crease in the middle, like two apples joined together. “Mommy, look!” she calls. “Doesn’t this look like a heart?”

  Susan smiles and holds her arms open wide for her daughter.

  Amy runs closer. Still laughing, but coming slower now, slower … Her body jerks. Her joyful smile twists and turns creepy. She pitches forward and drops the apple. It bursts open, spilling thick liquid the color of blood. The redness covers her terrified face and neck—

  Susan woke up and jerked upright in bed, gasping.

  “Fuck,” she said, and was taken aback to realize she’d said it out loud. She listened; Robert was still asleep, his breathing unchanged.

  She was so jealous. She felt like she’d never get back to sleep. How am I gonna make it through tonight alone?

  Then she stood up. She walked over to Robert’s bed and looked down at him. Am I really going to do this?

  It was a single bed, but he was lying on the other side of it. That made it easier for her. She gently lowered herself onto the bed and, lying on her side, put her head on his chest.

  She immediately felt incredibly self-conscious. Oh God, what if he pushes me away?

  She felt a change in his breathing and sensed he was awake now. She was terrified.

  He shifted his body a little. Then she felt his arm come around her shoulder and hold her.

  Her fear left her, and before she knew it, within seconds maybe, she was asleep.

  The next morning, they were both still lying in that same position when a loud, harsh ring from the hotel phone woke them up.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, PRESENT DAY

  THE FIRST THING Susan noticed was that loud ringing. T
he second thing she noticed was, there was some kind of weight on top of her.

  She panicked and lifted herself up. To get leverage, she pushed down on something that confused her at first—but then she realized it was Robert’s leg. “Sorry!” she said, scuttling backwards off the bed. The weight on top of her had been Robert’s arm. Now she remembered everything that had happened last night, and how she’d wound up in bed with this man.

  Robert grunted “Good morning,” looking only barely awake.

  “I’m sorry,” Susan repeated as the phone rang again. Robert sat up in bed and looked at her. She touched her hair, flustered. Maybe he thought she was way too aggressive, coming into his bed last night. But he must understand she hadn’t wanted sex, just comfort—

  The phone rang again. It was sitting on the bedside table. Could the DNA results be in already?!

  Robert picked it up. “Yeah,” he said in a deep morning voice.

  Susan stepped close to him so she could hear too. Oh God, was she being overaggressive again? Well, screw it, she had to hear this.

  “Is this Robert Pappas?” a man’s voice said.

  “Who’s calling, please?” Robert said.

  Through the phone, Susan heard the commotion of other voices. The man said, “This is Zack Dietz from KMOT-TV. Actually, I’m looking for Susan Lentigo. I understand she’s with you.”

  Who told him, the desk clerk? Susan thought. Or maybe somebody else in the lobby saw them go upstairs. Great. Her day of media had just begun.

  Then it hit her: Would the reporters say on TV that she and Robert were sharing a room? They did that nowadays, didn’t they—they put in every possible piece of gossip. What would people think?

  Hell, her mom would be thrilled. Despite everything, Susan smiled.

  Robert said, “I don’t know where she is.”

  The man—Zack Dietz—said, “What is her response to Lisa Jansen’s allegations?”

  Susan’s smile faded. Oh shit, how do I deal with this?

  “What allegations?” Robert said.

  “Come on down to the lobby and find out,” Dietz said. “She’s holding a little press conference.”

  Robert hung up the phone. Susan grabbed the TV remote control. “What channel is KMOT?”

  “Don’t know.”

  When the TV came on it was a different station, but it didn’t matter. They were showing Lisa Jansen too. She was standing by the fake fireplace in the middle of the hotel lobby, talking to reporters. A chyron at the bottom of the screen said: NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT CONDEMNED MAN’S GUILT.

  Lisa’s curly hair framed her freshly made-up cheeks, and Susan thought her angry passion made her beautiful. She held her arms wide as she declared, “Amy Lentigo’s own mother now believes Curt may be innocent. If you don’t believe me, ask her.”

  Susan said to Robert, “What do we do? Do we tell them the truth?”

  On TV, Lisa said, “Maybe she’ll have the guts to admit it. Or you can ask Agent Pappas.”

  Robert said, “We could, but there’ll be a serious shitstorm—”

  Somebody knocked on their hotel room door. It hadn’t taken the reporters long to find them.

  Robert said, “No comment.”

  A man in the hallway called, “Agent Pappas!”

  “No comment!”

  The man knocked louder. “This is Director Williams. Open up!”

  Susan froze. The DNA results must be in!

  Robert got up and opened the door.

  Williams entered, carrying a manila folder. Susan tried to read his face, but it looked blank, with empty eyes, like he was staying expressionless on purpose.

  He took a good long look at Susan, here in Robert’s hotel room. Then he turned back to Robert. “Nice pajamas,” he said.

  Robert said, “What’s going on?”

  Williams tapped the folder against the palm of his hand. “I wanted to give you these results in person, so there’d be no mistake.”

  Susan thought, Please God, please God, then realized she was praying her ex-husband would be proven a child killer.

  Williams reached into his folder and pulled out a two-page, stapled report. He handed it to Robert wordlessly.

  Susan came and stood next to Robert, reading over his shoulder. But there were so many words she didn’t know: “histological,” “RNA,” “nucleotides.” She glanced at Robert and tried to read what he was feeling as he studied the report.

  Williams said, “Mr. Pappas, in case you’ve gotten a little rusty on your forensics, the necklace you gave me has no DNA that matches Amy Lentigo’s DNA.”

  Susan’s heart sank. She stood there with her mouth open, devastated.

  Robert said, “What about these samples that have insufficient markers? That could be cross-contamination. You need to run a statistical—”

  “We did. Thanks to your brilliant blackmail maneuver yesterday, I made sure the lab gave it the gold-star treatment. There’s no match.”

  Susan thought, But I know that was Amy’s necklace! I know it!

  Somehow, even though the DNA results had come up empty, she was even more positive than ever now that Danny had raped and killed Amy. It was like the results had made clear to her, once and for all, what she truly believed in her heart.

  And what she believed was: Danny did it. That sonufabitch did it. These FBI agents must have missed something.

  She asked, “Did you check every single crevice?”

  “We did.”

  She looked to Robert for support, but he just frowned down at the report, obviously not seeing anything there he liked.

  Susan was desperate. “He must have washed the DNA off the necklace! Danny’s not stupid. I’m sure he studied all the CSI books to figure out what he had to do!”

  Williams folded his arms. “Ms. Lentigo—”

  “There must be some other way to prove it was Amy’s necklace! I know it was hers!”

  Williams took another piece of paper out of his folder. This one didn’t have any complex words on it, or any words at all. It had nothing but a big, blown-up photograph of the pink duck bead that Susan remembered so well. It was the very first bead she and Amy had bought that day at Soave Faire in Glens Falls.

  Except the photo didn’t show the top side of the duck, it showed the underside. There was a logo there that Susan had never noticed before: a tiny, darker pink capital “A” with a double hoop around it.

  Williams said, “We ran this logo through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database. It was trademarked by the Adirondack Bead Company in 2014. Before then, this logo did not exist. Which means this bead did not exist.”

  Susan stared down at the paper, stunned. 2014?

  Williams said, “Your daughter was killed in 2001. So there is absolutely no way she ever wore this necklace. Understood?”

  She was numb, still staring at the paper. Danny is innocent?

  He’s actually innocent?

  She looked at Robert. He was eyeing the logo too and seemed to be feeling the same way she did.

  Williams said, “This ridiculous exercise in futility has cost the Bureau eight thousand dollars, and now we have a huge public relations mess with the killer’s sister that needs to be cleaned up. Mr. Pappas, if you were still an active agent, I’d suspend you.” He pointed a disdainful finger at Susan. “You were unduly influenced by your closeness with this woman. Why didn’t you tell me you were sleeping with her?”

  Susan’s cheeks burned. She was relieved that at least she had worn her clothes to bed. She couldn’t imagine confronting Williams in her nightgown right now.

  Actually she couldn’t confront him, period. She had to get out of here. She moved swiftly to the hotel room door, where she had left her boots, and put them on as fast as she could.

  “Where are you going?”

  Susan didn’t know, so she didn’t answer, just threw on her coat. Williams said, “Hey,” and grabbed her arm.

  “Get off me,” she snapped, wrenching her arm away a
nd reaching for the doorknob. But Williams, with his sturdy six-foot-two frame, blocked her way.

  “Watch yourself,” Robert told Williams.

  Williams ignored Robert. He told Susan, “You need to go downstairs and tell the media you have total faith Curt Jansen is the killer. You owe it to your daughter to do that. And not just her. You owe it to everybody in the FBI and elsewhere who worked so hard to get justice for Amy.” He gestured toward Robert. “Including this man here who you dragged into your insane conspiracy theory.”

  Susan looked at Robert. He must hate her now. She felt so terrible about what she’d put him through, and all for nothing.

  Danny, innocent? Is that possible?!

  She felt short of breath. If she stayed in this room with Williams and Robert for one more second, she would pass out. “Get out of my way,” she told Williams.

  “No. Not until you—”

  She shoved him, hard, and knocked him back just enough that she was able to open the door and make it through. She started running.

  From the hotel room, Robert called, “Susan! Where are you going?”

  She ran down the hall to an exit sign. Shit, that was the elevators; she needed stairs. She kept running.

  Behind her, she could hear Williams, and maybe Robert too, chasing her. They were getting closer. Williams yelled, “Stop! What are you gonna tell them?”

  She found the stairs and ran down, getting a sharp pain in her right knee. She heard the men behind her, coming fast, maybe one landing above her. Robert was calling, “Susan, wait!” and Williams was shouting, “Stop right now!”

  She made it to the first floor and burst through the stairwell door. She slammed it open with such force it banged against a wall. Meanwhile Williams shouted, “Don’t be fucking stupid!”

  The racket made everybody in the lobby turn toward them. Thirty feet away, by the fireplace, Lisa was still holding forth to about twenty newspaper and TV reporters and cameramen.

  Lisa pointed at Susan. “That’s her! That’s Susan Lentigo!”

  Susan stopped short. All the media people started coming at her. Behind her, she heard Robert and Williams. What the hell should she do?

  She ran. Ignoring the pain in her leg, she raced through the lobby.

  Reporters, cameramen, and anchorpeople got in her way, thrusting video equipment and their own bodies at her. Their questions ratatatted like machine-gun blasts: “Ms. Lentigo, do you agree with Curt Jansen’s sister!” “Do you still believe Jansen killed your daughter?” “Do you support the execution?”